Female sociopath are excel in false accusations, including rape accusations. They are born actresses and have no empathy, so
framing their victim is just an easy game for them
In a fiery speech announcing her decision, Collins ripped unsupported claims by Avenatti's
client, Julie Swetnick, that Kavanaugh facilitated a Cosby-esque "gang rape" operation while in
high school.
Some of the allegations levied against Judge Kavanaugh illustrate why the presumption of
innocence is so important . I am thinking in particular not of the allegations raised by
Professor Ford, but of the allegation that, when he was a teenager, Judge Kavanaugh drugged
multiple girls and used their weakened state to facilitate gang rape .
This outlandish allegation was put forth without any credible supporting evidence and
simply parroted public statements of others . That such an allegation can find its way into
the Supreme Court confirmation process is a stark reminder about why the presumption of
innocence is so ingrained in our American consciousness. -Sen. Susan Collins
I didn't really care much about the stuff alleged to have been done by Kavanaugh
thirty-five years ago. Arguing with a close family friend I stated that there was nothing
I found more tiresome than the old lawyers tactic of springing something on you at the last
possible minute, leaving a steaming pile of turds in the middle of your desk, and then
expecting to be taken seriously. Decorum? Rules of debate? How about the laws of
discovery, sharing info amongst colleagues?
Just because this was not a criminal trial is no reason to throw out the rules for policy
making, the nomination process, which both sides have adhered to in the past. People were
comparing this to the Anita Hill fiasco during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
Delay, interrupt, stall, maximum media exposure. Never any evidence or criminal charges to
point to.
In criminal trials there is the process of discovery by which the admission of
evidence at the last minute is strongly ill advised, and can result in it being tossed out.
Sen. Feinstein would be aware of all the rules and procedures, but she feels above it
all.
Hey Avenatti! If you and your client had any idea of what the truth is no one would every
have heard of her or of you. Don't give us this ******** that you were just representing your
client. If you had a brain you would have known she was FOS from the get go, and if you were
honest you never would have represented her. So what is it? Are you just stupid or are you
dishonest, or both?
People who make salacious claims unconfirmed or outright denied by their own named
"witnesses" tend to get sued for defamation. And the lawyers they rode in on.
Michael Avenatti is not a nice man at all. He was a factor in making the accusations seem
like a circus. No one takes him seriously as he slinks around the gutters.
Avenatti is the scapegoat. The Ford story was already fast breaking down, and the secret
polygraph and the secret therapist notes and her ex-boyfriend should have made more noise in
the Senate.
They embraced this puke and revelled in his garbage accusations. Now they need a
scapegoat, and he's it. God forbid Feinstein get raked over the coals for screwing this thing
up. The was a political hit, and everyone knew it. But the GOP are so spineless that a
high-school-drunken-grope-fest brought them to their knees. Fortunately, the Dems stayed true
to form and blew themselves up.
What I do not understand is how could they be so stupid as to endorse the Avenatti slime
factory in the first place? TONE DEAF.
Avenatti needs to be disbarred. To file a complaint for his breach of professional
responsibility, suborning perjury, and engaging in acts of moral turpitude:
If enough complaints are filed with the CA state bar, he may get disbarred.
Attorneys ALREADY have a really bad rep. Part of professional responsibility is to uphold
the integrity of the legal profession. The ONLY thing Avenatti did was to make every attorney
look like a complete shyster sleazeball, which given I just took the bar exam and will
probably become an attorney soon, I find immensely offensive.
The Demonrats used false sexual allegations against Roy Moore coupled with ballot box
cheating (their typical mode) to win a senate seat in conservative Alabama. So, since their
main national platform of open borders is so repugnant to any normal taxpaying voter, this is
their only strategy. They simply got caught. All the allegations against both Kavanaugh and
Moore were fabricated and the proof is the Soros' paid lawyers who represented them all. And
Feinstein and Schumer conspired in this farce. And independent voters know it!
They're just pissed they got caught in their fraud and this energized the R. base which
will lead to a red wave in a few weeks. And just think of the political commercial
possibilities for any Demonrat senator hoping to prevail if they vote against Kavanaugh. I
expect the final confirmation vote won't as close as the vote for cloture for this
reason.
Be careful, Roy Moore was a different story. There was evidence including him saying he
liked to date high school age girls as a 30 year old along with multiple other people who
remembered what was alleged. Not just Democrat operatives. Morals were not that different
then than now. Was he guilty of a crime no, could reasonable people still dislike his morals
sure. I grew up close to that era and thought the college age kids hanging around HS girls
was nasty. Moore verified as a 30 year old he liked them young.
Ford 0 corroborating evidence. By lumping in Moore with Kavanaugh you are giving credence
to believe the victim because all you are following the "patriarchy" of believing the accused
regardless of evidence.
The Democrats have a long history of making last minute sexual misconduct allegations
against their political opponents, always without any evidence or corroboration. And sexual
misconduct allegations that pale in comparison to what a lot of Democrats have been alleged
to do (rape allegations against Clinton, Kennedy having an affair that left a woman dead,
John Conyers for settling sexual harassment allegations with taxpayer money, Hillary for
trashing victims, or consider Weinstein and other famous/rich Democrat donors or newsmen).
I'd bet most of these allegations against Republicans were simply made up for political
purposes because they were plausible, couldn't be disproven, and couldn't be proven. Ford's
allegations fit the pattern.
The charges are always last minute, to deny the accused an opportunity to defend
themselves. Kavanaugh provided an excellent defense that would be good court room drama in a
movie, when no one in the GOP was willing to defend him, and too afraid of being accused of
not believing a victim and attacking them.
What's really going on are the Democrats in charge, are looking to deflect the attention
from what they did, to Avanetti because Avanetti did the same, except the charges of his
client, weren't believable, even though they couln't be proven or disproven. They don't want
to take the blame, for what voters might do in the midterms.
One thing's for sure, you don't see Democrats calling for indicting and prosecuting false
accusers. They're teaching people to bear false witness for their personal purposes.
avenatti gave the diversion, the clutter, the political sideshow so that all charges could
be swept away and completely fake and uncorroborated. there was no provable basis for the
ford charges, but the crazy swetnick stories simplified brooming the whole thing.
we can only hope that avenatti will be back in 2020, to run for president, and to come
marching with his parade of **** stars and "wronged" women who spend all their time
performing in strip clubs.
"... The USA hegemony is based on ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. And BTW both Russia and China are neoliberal countries. That's probably why President Putin calls the USA administration "partners," despite clearly anti-Russian policies of all US administrations since 1991. ..."
"... One fascinating fact that escapes my understanding is why the USA elite wasted colossal advantage it got after the collapse of the USSR in just 25 years or so. I always thought that the USA elite is the most shrewd out of all countries. ..."
"... May be because they were brainwashed by neocon "intellectuals." I understand that most neocons are simply lobbyists of MIC, and MIC has huge political influence, but still neocon doctrine is so primitive that no civilized elite can take it seriously. ..."
"... I also understand Eisenhower hypocritical laments that "train with MIC left the station" and that the situation can't be reversed (lament disguised as a "warning"; let's remember that it was Eisenhower who appointed Allen Dulles to head the CIA. ..."
>US hegemony is imposed militarily, both covertly and overtly, throughout the world. It is maintained through the petrodollar,
corporate power, and the Federal Reserve Bank and its overseas counterparts
All true, but the key element is missing. The USA hegemony is based on ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. And BTW both
Russia and China are neoliberal countries. That's probably why President Putin calls the USA administration "partners," despite
clearly anti-Russian policies of all US administrations since 1991.
Ability to use military is important but secondary. Without fifth column of national elites which support neoliberalism that
would be impossible, or at least more difficult to use. Like it was when the USSR existed (Vietnam, Cuba, etc). The USSR has had
pretty powerful military, which was in some narrow areas competitive, or even superior to the USA, but when the ideology of Bolshevism
collapsed, the elite changed sides and adopted a neoliberal ideology. This betrayal led to the collapse of the USSR and all its
mighty military and the vast KGB apparatus proved to be useless.
In this sense, the article is weak, and some comments are of a higher level than the article itself in the level of understanding
of the situation (Simon in London at December 21, 2018, at 9:23 am one example; longevity of neoliberalism partially is connected
to the fact that so far there is no clear alternative to it and without the crisis similar to Great Depression adoption of New
Deal style measures is impossible )
It is really sad that the understanding that the destiny of the USA is now tied to the destiny of neoliberalism (much like
the USSR and Bolshevism) is foreign for many.
So it might well be that the main danger for the US neoliberal empire now is not China or Russia, but the end of cheap oil,
which might facilitate the collapse of neoliberalism as a social system based on wasteful use on commodities (and first of all
oil)
One fascinating fact that escapes my understanding is why the USA elite wasted colossal advantage it got after the collapse
of the USSR in just 25 years or so. I always thought that the USA elite is the most shrewd out of all countries.
May be because they were brainwashed by neocon "intellectuals." I understand that most neocons are simply lobbyists of MIC,
and MIC has huge political influence, but still neocon doctrine is so primitive that no civilized elite can take it seriously.
I also understand Eisenhower hypocritical laments that "train with MIC left the station" and that the situation can't be reversed
(lament disguised as a "warning"; let's remember that it was Eisenhower who appointed Allen Dulles to head the CIA.
A fresh story at Bloomberg, which includes new analysis, shows the ugly student debt picture is getting uglier. The driver is
that higher education costs keep rising, often in excess of the likely wages for graduates. The article's grim conclusion: "The next
generation of graduates will include more borrowers who may never be able to repay."
Student debt is now the second biggest type of consumer debt in the US. At $1.5 trillion, is is second only to the mortgage market,
and is also bigger than the subprime market before the crisis, which was generally pegged at $1.3 trillion. 1 Bloomberg
also points out that unlike other categories of personal debt, student debt balances has shown consistent, or one might say persistent,
growth since the crisis.
From the article:
Student loans are being issued at unprecedented rates as more American students
pursue higher education . But the
cost of
tuition at both private and public institutions is touching
all-time
highs , while interest rates on student loans are also rising. Students are spending more time
working instead of studying . (Some 85 percent of current students now work
paid jobs while enrolled.) Experts and analysts worry that the next generation of graduates could default on their loans at
even higher rates than in the immediate wake of the financial crisis.
The last sentence is alarming. As graduates of the class of 2009 like UserFriendly can attest, the job market was desperate. And
for the next few years, the unemployment rate of new college graduates was higher than that of recent high school graduates. One
of the corollaries of that is that more college graduates than before were taking work that didn't require a college degree; this
is still a significant trend today. And on top of that, studies have found that early career earnings have a significant impact on
lifetime earnings. While there are always exceptions, generally speaking, pay levels key off one's earlier compensation, so starting
out at a lower income level is likely to crimp future compensation.
And on top of that, interest costs are rising. The rate for direct undergraduate loans is 5% and for graduate and professional
schools, 6.6%. So student debt costs will also go up even before factoring in inflating school costs. So the ugly picture of delinquencies
and defaults is destined to get worse.
Students attending for-profit universities and community colleges represented almost half of all borrowers leaving school and
beginning to repay loans in 2011. They also accounted for 70 percent of all defaults. As a result, delinquencies skyrocketed in
the 2011-12 academic year, reaching 11.73 percent.
Today, the student loan delinquency rate remains almost as high, which Scott-Clayton attributes to social and institutional
factors, rather than average debt levels. "Delinquency is at crisis levels for borrowers, particularly for borrowers of color,
borrowers who have gone to a for-profit and borrowers who didn't ultimately obtain a degree," she said, highlighting that each
cohort is more likely to miss repayments on their loans than other public and private college students.
Those most at risk of delinquency tend to be, counterintuitively, those who've incurred smaller amounts of debt, explained
Kali McFadden, senior research analyst at LendingTree. Graduates who leave school with six-figure degrees that are valued in the
marketplace -- such as post-graduate law or medical degrees -- usually see a good return on their investment.
I'm a little leery of cheerful generalizations like "big ticket borrowers for professional degrees do better." "Better" may still
not be that good. Recall that law school and in the last year, business school enrollments have fallen because candidates question
whether the hard costs and loss of income while in school will pay off. And there are some degrees, like veterinary medicine, that
are so pricey it's hard to see how they could possibly make economic sense.
What is distressing about this ugly picture is the lack of effective activism by the victims. I am sure some are trying, but in
addition to the burden of being so overwhelmed by the debt burden as to lack the time and energy to do anything beyond cope, is the
fact that being in debt is stigmatized in our society, and borrowers may not want to deal with condescension and criticism. Another
obstacle to organizing is that most of the victims are lower income and/or from minority groups, which means Team Dem can ignore
them on the usual assumption that they have nowhere else to go. It is also harder to create an effective coalition across disparate
economic, geographic, and age groups
But the experience of the post-Civil War South says things could get a lot worse. From Matt Stoller in 2010:
A lot of people forget that
having debt you can't pay
back really sucks. Debt is not just a credit instrument, it is an instrument of political and economic control.
It's actually baked into our culture. The phrase 'the man', as in 'fight the man', referred originally to creditors. 'The man'
in the 19th century stood for 'furnishing man', the merchant that sold 19th century sharecroppers and Southern farmers their supplies
for the year, usually on credit. Farmers, often illiterate and certainly unable to understand the arrangements into which they
were entering, were charged interest rates of 80-100 percent a year, with a lien places on their crops. When approaching a furnishing
agent, who could grant them credit for seeds, equipment, even food itself, a farmer would meekly look down nervously as his debts
were marked down in a notebook. At the end of a year, due to deflation and usury, farmers usually owed more than they started
the year owing. Their land was often forfeit, and eventually most of them became tenant farmers.
They were in hock to the man, and eventually became slaves to him. This structure, of sharecropping and usury, held together
by political violence, continued into the 1960s in some areas of the South. As late as the 1960s, Kennedy would see rural poverty
in Arkansas and pronounce it 'shocking'. These were the fruits of usury, a society built on unsustainable debt peonage.
Sanders has made an issue of student debt, but politicians who want big bucks from financiers and members of the higher education
complex pointedly ignore this issue. As we've pointed out, top bankruptcy scholar Elizabeth Warren won't even endorse a basic reform,
that of making student debt dischargable in bankruptcy. So it may take student debtors becoming a bigger percentage of voters for
this issue to get the political traction it warrants.
______
1 Higher estimates typically included near subprime mortgages then called "Alt A".
There are many, many passages in this obscure old book called The Bible speaking of usury as a grave sin. So many it is actually
one of the most clear and condemned sins in the entire book. Maybe we could see if any of our Congress persons have ever heard
of it? They could learn something from it regarding this topic.
That said, it's passages on gender equality and family structures are pretty outdated and abhorrent so I wouldn't want them to
get any bad ideas from this book on those subjects.
Indeed, all of the old "Iron Age religions" (Judaism, Early Christianity, and Islam) explicitly denounce usury.
The great irony of the Deep South in te USA is that they've been frequently banning Sharia law, even when Sharia law is one
of the few types of law in the world which explicitly bans charging interest.
It is always intriguing how many politicians are so eager to endorse a literalist fealty to the social structures of the bible
but ignore, or even vehemently rail against, the more balanced social restrictions on things like usury or the old idea of a debt
jubilee. But then Jesus himself railed (physically) against embedding money in religion and now we have "entrepreneurial churches"
who preach a "doctrine of prosperity" so I guess times have changed.
I graduated 10 years ago and the most frustrating part was everyone telling me it would be alright and ignoring thw whole you
never recover thing. I am still unable to find worthwhile employment and probably never will be able to.
You really can't listen to many of us over 40.. we really lived in complete my different conditions. When I got out of college
in the 90's they were basically hiring everyone with a pulse in tech. From what I have seen from recent graduates it's getting
easier, as I am seeing a lot more intershops turn into job offers. But for the generation that you are part of, it's an economic
hole that may never be recovered from simply because you were born at the wrong time.
Looking at that graph, notice how the only debt that is backstopped completely by the federal government is growing the fastest.
The no default on student loans rules have to be rescinded.
Extrapolating from these trends, then in a few years the only young people that would be able to afford higher education in
the United States would the the children of the ten per cent – plus a smattering of scholarships to talented individuals found
worthy of supporting. It follows then that as these educated people entered the workforce, that over time that the people that
would be running the country would be children of the elite in a sort of inbred system. It sounds a lot like 19th century class-based
Britain that if you ask me.
As for the country itself it would be disastrous. Going by present population levels, it would mean that instead of recruiting
the leaders and thinkers of the country from the present population of 325 million, that at most you would be recruiting them
from a base level of about 30-40 million. It is to be hoped that these people are not from the shallow end of the gene pool. You
can forget about any idea of an even-handed meritocracy and America would be competing against countries that might employ the
idea of a full meritocracy in the recruitment of their leaders. I wonder how that might work out.
"America would be competing against countries that might employ the idea of a full meritocracy in the recruitment of their
leaders. I wonder how that might work out"
Would the performance of U. S. men in international soccer competition be a similar situation?
The concept of student debt as it exists today would be repulsive to our Founders. Not just for the larger issue of our country
being on the trajectory of becoming an economic aristocracy, but specifically because the Federal government is profiting tremendously
from this crushing usury being applied to majority and the least among us.
Our Founders had no problem with the conquest and seizure of Native Americans land, and they fully respected the rights and claims
of other European countries to do the same. One of their strongest repudiations of the aristocracy was the expansion of private
property rights beyond what was known under any monarchy on the planet to that point in history. In the pre-industrial world the
vast majority of people lived in an agrarian society and economy. Owning land secured you with your livelihood, your living, and
much of your resources; it fully supported most families.
For its founding and for generation after generation the United States government gave land to countless men for military service,
government service, homesteds, etc. Expansions by the Louisiana Purchase and war and treaties with other European nations, quickly
resulting in making these lands available for settlement to our citizens and to immigrants.
The point is that for well over 100 years the government provided to its citizens a huge amount of what our citizens needed
to live their lifetimes through these grants of land. These land grants were then passed from generation to generation and formed
the economic foundations for millions of people, their children and their next generations.
Our Government did this.
The United States ceased to be a predominantly agrarian country in the mid 20th century. But they did not stop aiding our people
and their economic needs. Our government (Federal and states) did continue to provide to our population through public education
(very affordable college), the GI Bill that served millions with income, housing and educational benefits, Social Security, Medicare,
etc.
Since our country's very founding our government has recognized the benefit and need to facilitate the support of its citizens.
The American economy became the greatest on earth because of our land conquest heritage and our collective investments as a nation.
No one did it all on their own, and no one pretended they did.
Reagan killed this legacy. Reagan claimed that our nations success and our heritage was built on our history of rugged individualism
and that our government was the obstacle to returning to these roots. It was a lie; nothing could have been further from the truth.
Student debt, as it exists to day, is crippling the economic futures of the millions who have accrued this debt and the millions
to come, year after year, who will do the same. The student is debt is robbing our nation of the economic activity that historically
matriculated out from those passing from college to the world. That has come almost to an end. Worse yet, our government has positioned
itself to also profit off this debt, and to prevent the indebted from escaping this type of debt through the legal means available
for virtually all other forms of debt.
Our student debt is un-American. It is a cancer on our economy. It exists for the vast short term profit of the few at the
expense of our nations future.
I hope people keep in mind it was the Democrats, specifically Joe Biden, who made student debt even more crippling and heartless
by changing the bankruptcy laws so that creditors can garnish your Social Security benefits (assuming Mitch McConnell doesn't
gut them first).
Republicans are open about what they hope to accomplish, you have to clear the verbal BS that clouds what Democrats are after,
but at the end of the day they are both about enslavement and debt bondage over unwashed masses.
I'm sure it's often the parents that end up paying the debt, as my sister is doing. Parents have deep pockets and are desperate
to help their loved ones get a good start in life.
In my sister's case, they sent their girls to private high school, where they spent the money that could have paid for college.
Not a smart decision. But they love their children and really wanted to do give them the best.
Now the girls are struggling to make a living and my sister cannot afford to retire.
There are so many feedback loops, multipliers, and perverse incentives driving forward this bubble (and its calamitous social
and cultural effects) that it's hard to know where to begin.
As Goldman Sachs
have pointed
out , student-loan-based securities are increasingly "attractive" investments for speculators:
Although the "bubble" is getting bigger, it's not a risk to overall financial stability, Goldman's Marty Young and Lotfi
Karoui said in a recent note. In fact, there's one segment of the market that's emerging as an attractive investment.
It's the $190 billion of outstanding [student] loans that are held within asset-backed securities (ABS) refinanced by private
lenders such as SoFi.
With these securities, lenders pool loans that have similar risk profiles and sell them as instruments in the public markets.
Investors profit as graduates pay back their principal and interest.
So the more student debt there is, and the higher the interest rates are, the better, from that perspective.
It's undeniable, too, that high student loan burdens mean graduates are slower to form households and will probably have fewer
children than they would otherwise. Their diminished spending power, meanwhile, adds to the ongoing erosion of the "real economy,"
in favour of the financial one. Student loans therefore disrupt the basic means of social reproduction. The resulting declines
in fertility then demand high rates of immigration to compensate. A fact cheered on, inevitably, by the open borders crowd (a
substantial number of whom, oddly or not, seem to work in or for universities).
So we see yet another instance in which "right" neoliberalism and "left" identitarianism go hand in hand–forming, indeed, two
heads of the same beast. Student loans have enabled the enormous inflation in tuition costs that have plagued the Anglosphere
over the last couple of decades. This fees income feeds the academic beast (or at least its administrators and senior managers),
while driving the one economic and social crisis (mass migration and the resulting populist backlash) that "left neoliberals,"
centrists, and Clinton/Progress types appear to care about. It's a self-licking ice cream of catastrophic size and reach.
One specific example: hospital chaplains are facing a big retirement crisis. And yet the job requires (to be hoard certified):
an undergraduate degree & then a Master's of Divinity degree, plus a year-long residency. For a job that pays around $60,000 to
$70,000. At least one school, Princeton, funds almost all of their divinity students. But I don't think it's the norm. And then
you throw in the fact that such person ideally would be emotionally & spiritually mature, with enough life experience to meet
with a wide range of people, who are often facing financial hardship due to being sick (as well as existential concerns). I don't
even know how to begin reframing the job or the qualifications or the salary to fit America in 2020. There are a lot of other
angles, such as: what about well-qualified people who can't afford seminary? I know there needs to be a way to screen-out and
screen-in the best people (who won't proselytize), but is a Master's degree the right hurdle? But, I must say, the need for access
to interfaith Spiritual Care is only increasing, as times get tougher & other hospital staff (RNs) don't have time to sit and
listen. People are in pain, not only in their bodies. One thought leader in the field has speculated that the job will just go
away due to lack of advocacy & inability to evolve into a profit center.
It would be interesting to see that student loan debt chart superimposed over %adjuncts and number of administrators. Its pretty
easy to guess what that would look like, but seeing that would be decisive.
I think a little delineation is in order. I've been an adjunct professor and believe the increasing use of adjuncts at universities
has been very beneficial overall -- in terms of the quality of education students are getting. Unfortunately, as we know, that's
not why universities are hiring so many more adjuncts; they're being hired because schools can get away with paying them abysmally.
The situation is so embarrassing that, at the university where I was teaching five years ago, the full-time faculty passed
a resolution asking the administration to give the entire projected increase in teaching salaries entirely to the adjuncts, an
amazing act of selflessness.
The relevance to our discussion here, of course, is the insupportable increase in the annual cost of attending college even
as the schools radically reduce their overall expenditures on faculty salaries.
So how long before this leads to a mass "We Won't Pay" movement? I'm stuck on the dumb treadmill myself, but I wouldn't begrudge
an entire generation for just saying no. Sure, they can garnish wages and the like, but if 30 million people simultaneously say
'eff this', it's more than just a wrench in the works it's drastic enough to force action.
Why DO they keep paying? The debts are always bought by debt collectors who don't even have COPIES promissory notes. Let them
sue you and show up for the hearing and demand proof. They can still ruin your "credit" but if student loans haven't taught you
to eschew credit nothing will. If EVERYONE "walked away" what could they do?
Unfortunately that is never going to happen. This society has been trained to worship at the altar of the FICO score, and most
job seekers cannot afford to have a low score. Said score will be examined and potentially held against you when pursuing employment.
Also, employers frown upon employees who do not pay their bills and then have their wages garnished – at least the smaller
emlpoyers do. This creates extra work for the employer and makes the employee suspect, as in irresponsible.
This problem was created by the political class and is going to require a political solution, i.e. legislation to assist the
student loan borrower or a debt jubilee. Unfortunately, there's too much money being made off the student borrower – even if the
practice is killing the host. And the "I got mine" crowd will not allow a jubilee even if it is for the greater good of society.
Lastly, student loan borrowers coming from a different era (who have paid off their loans) will begrudge the forgiving of the
loans and consider them undeserved. In this case, perhaps the best resolution is to give everyone money toward their student loans
– whether they are currently paid or unpaid.
I cannot jeopardize my employment by joining in a "eff this" movement as much as I would like to. Instead, I will continue
on this treadmill called life, pay my bills and hope to escape as unscathed as possible.
I work for a company that contracts with department of Ed to get student loan borrowers out if default and back into the hands
of loan servicers. The amount of money sloshing around is stunning. I'm sure they've got well paid lobbyists telling legislators
that people will be unemployed if student loans are reformed. I owe well over six figures so the irony is not lost on me. Hiring
one half of the working class to debt collect from the other.
Who pays for diploma-mill educations, and why? I have always assumed that people attended cash-n-carry schools because they
did not qualify aptitude/grade-wise for entrance to a state school, OR a 3rd party like DOD or VA was footing the tab. Both assumptions
appear to be supported by data. Given the far-above-average drop/flunkout rate of diploma mills. I know from my military career
that enlisted members sign up for courses (local or online) at diploma mills to get extra points toward promotions – at Navy expense.
Personally, I would not pay to send my dog to such institutions to learn how to sit up and beg.
One thing is certain, collich kidz do not appear to spend nearly as much time researching where they go to $chool as they do
buying the car they drive.
Jumping into the conversation a little late, but my alma mater recently embarked on a major rethink of the college business
model, and cut tuition from around 50k to around 30k. We even got
a writeup from Frank Bruni
for it .
College officials (I'm relatively active as a fundraiser for my class) describe it as a shift to a "philanthropy model" of
funding. Which worries me for lots of reasons. But at least it's a conversation-starter.
It's also very much a school that is not for people looking to buy a future income flow, but rather an education.
"... This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Kesslyn Runs , by Charles Featherstone; NoDev NoOps NoIT , by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State , by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com ; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc. ; Zen Cash ; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom ; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott ; and LibertyStickers.com . ..."
"... To me, it is not so much the lies that major media organizations may broadcast, but the enormous amount of news of major importance that the networks censor that is doing the greatest harm. ..."
Journalist Justin Elliott comes on the show to talk about casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has become one of President Trump's
biggest donors. Although Trump derided him early in his campaign, the two have formed a close partnership with Adelson providing
tens of millions in funding so long as Trump continues the correct policies with respect to Israel, Palestine, and Iran. Elliott
and others have also speculated that Trump is trying to get Adelson approval to open a casino in Japan, helping him to expand his
gambling empire in Asia.
"Adelson expresses support for ZOA efforts to depose McMaster" (
Times of
Israel )
Justin Elliott is a reporter for ProPublica . He
has produced stories for The New York Times and National Public Radio, and his reporting with NPR on the Red Cross' troubled post-earthquake
reconstruction efforts in Haiti won a 2015 Investigative Reporters and Editors award. Follow him on Twitter
@JustinElliott .
Whether Adelson or some other plutocrat, American politics is awash in money, and it this money is crippling our democracy. I
don't think that I have heard this topic discussed on any news program, and I don't expect to. To me, it is not so much the
lies that major media organizations may broadcast, but the enormous amount of news of major importance that the networks censor
that is doing the greatest harm.
Americans never get to see what they need to know. Keeping the peasants ignorant is the current mass media program, and they
are doing a great job of it.
Lambert here: There's no way I'm opening up comments for a post about gold, and be very
careful not to go crazy over in Links, either. Plus I don't care about shiny substances.
However, Wolf's thinking on asset correlation in the "Everything Bubble" is interesting, which
is why I'm cross-posting this.
Since October 1, the S&P 500 index has plunged 19.6%, to 2,351 as of Monday's fiasco.
Over the same period, the price of gold has risen 7.3% to $1,271/oz. Over this short period,
gold was an effective diversification.
For the year so far, the S&P 500 index is down 12.1%, gold is down 1.6%. For the past
two years, the S&P 500, despite the huge volatility, is up 4.2%, and gold, also with some
volatility, is up 9.7%. Moving in the same direction over these time frames, gold has been
somewhat less effective as diversification, than it has been over the past three months. But as
the chart below shows, its moves were not in lockstep with the S&P 500, and thus gold has
helped counter-balance the erratic gyrations of the S&P 500 with its own erratic but
different gyrations. Diversification can be messy:
There are many reasons to trade or own gold. But here I focus on gold as diversification to
the Everything Bubble and particularly to stocks – and how that panned out over the
longer term.
Nearly all asset classes have risen in parallel for nine years since the onset of global QE,
zero-interest-rate policy, and negative-interest-rate policy: Stocks, bonds, leveraged loans,
commercial real estate, residential real estate, art, classic cars, emerging market bonds,
emerging market stocks . We call it the Everything Bubble. And now they're headed down
together.
Diversification is not possible among asset classes that move together. If for nine years
all asset classes in your holdings rose together, no matter how good this feels, you're not
diversified.
Effective diversification means that some assets rise as others fall. But in the Everything
Bubble, most asset classes rose together. And "well-diversified" investors were diversified
only in their imagination, as they're now finding out as nearly all asset classes have been
falling in parallel.
Effective diversification comes with some costs, and it's not risk free, but it provides
some stability and lowers the overall risk of your holdings.
Cash always provides diversification in the sense of stability in addition to providing
liquidity. But from 2009 through 2016, the return on cash – such as short-term Treasury
bills, FDIC-insured CDs, or FDIC-insured high-yield savings accounts – has been near zero
even as inflation ate away at its purchasing power.
But since interest rates started rising, cash generates better returns. This year, the yield
on short-term Treasury bills, FDIC-insured CDs, or FDIC-insured high-yield savings accounts has
beaten most other assets classes (to find those CDs and savings accounts, you need to shop
around). They now yield between 2% and 3%. And when these instruments are held to maturity,
there is no risk to the principal since they're redeemed at face value.
Gold doesn't offer a yield. And its price changes constantly. So the only return obtained
from gold would be derived from an increase in price. And as long as that price moves in the
opposite direction over the longer term from stock-market indices, gold provides effective
diversification to stocks – even if it hurts, such as when stocks surge and gold plunges,
which is what happened from late 2011 through 2016.
Over the long term, gold and the S&P 500 have moved in lockstep some of the time, and
diverged much of the time. This chart goes back to 1995 (both gold in $/oz and the S&P 500
index on the same axis; click to enlarge):
And when asset classes have risen together like this, it becomes very difficult to achieve
diversification going forward – because now they're at risk of all going down
together.
My thoughts at the time were somewhat speculative since the S&P 500 was still surging.
The chart I provided at the time was the long-term chart above, but it lacked the near-20%
plunge of the S&P 500 since October 1 that the current chart shows. So in this instance,
over those three months since then, gold has turned out to be a very effective diversification
to stocks.
But the risk with gold remains: there is no guarantee that gold can't also plunge, right
along with the S&P 500. This is a real risk, and diversification might sound good, but when
push comes to shove in a sell-off, it might not work. Nevertheless, given the difficulties of
finding effective diversification in the Everything Bubble, other than cash, gold has shown it
could do the job over the past three months – which largely mirrors its performance as
diversification during the 2000-2002 crash and most of the 2008-2009 crash.
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and
author, with extensive international work experience.
Originally published at Wolf Street .
By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they
should be enlightening us
... ... ...
I ask because, while considering the frenzy
of consumerism that rises beyond its usual planet-trashing levels at this time of year, I
recently stumbled across a paper that astonished
me . It was written by academics at public universities in the Netherlands and the US.
Their purpose seemed to me starkly at odds with the public interest. They sought to identify
"the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to
counter or avoid such resistance".
Among the "neutralising" techniques it highlighted were "disguising the persuasive intent of
the message"; distracting our attention by using confusing phrases that make it harder to focus
on the advertiser's intentions; and "using cognitive depletion as a tactic for reducing
consumers' ability to contest messages". This means hitting us with enough advertisements to
exhaust our mental resources, breaking down our capacity to think.
Intrigued, I started looking for other academic papers on the same theme, and found an
entire literature. There were articles on every imaginable aspect of resistance, and helpful
tips on overcoming it. For example, I came across a paper that counsels advertisers on how to
rebuild public trust when the celebrity they work with gets into trouble. Rather than dumping
this lucrative asset, the researchers advised that the best means to enhance "the authentic
persuasive appeal of a celebrity endorser" whose standing has slipped is to get them to display
"a Duchenne smile", otherwise known as "a genuine smile". It precisely anatomised such smiles,
showed how to spot them, and discussed the "construction" of sincerity and "genuineness": a
magnificent exercise in inauthentic authenticity.
Another paper considered how
to persuade sceptical people to accept a company's corporate social responsibility claims,
especially when these claims conflict with the company's overall objectives. (An obvious
example is ExxonMobil's attempts to convince people that it is environmentally responsible,
because it is researching algal fuels that could one day reduce CO2 – even as it
continues to
pump millions of barrels of fossil oil a day ). I hoped the paper would recommend that the
best means of persuading people is for a company to change its practices. Instead, the authors'
research showed how images and statements could be cleverly combined to "minimise stakeholder
scepticism".
A further
paper discussed advertisements that work by stimulating
Fomo – fear of missing out . It noted that such ads work through "controlled
motivation", which is "anathema to wellbeing". Fomo ads, the paper explained, tend to cause
significant discomfort to those who notice them. It then went on to show how an improved
understanding of people's responses "provides the opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of
Fomo as a purchase trigger". One tactic it proposed is to keep stimulating the fear of missing
out, during and after the decision to buy. This, it suggested, will make people more
susceptible to further ads on the same lines.
Yes, I know: I work in an industry that receives most of its income from advertising, so I
am complicit in this too. But so are we all. Advertising – with its destructive
impacts on the living planet, our peace of mind and our free will – sits at the heart of
our growth-based economy. This gives us all the more reason to challenge it. Among the places
in which the challenge should begin are universities, and the academic societies that are
supposed to set and uphold ethical standards. If they cannot swim against the currents of
constructed desire and constructed thought, who can?
Which suckers will invest in companies with no profits? This is really repetition of Dotcom
era in tech.
Notable quotes:
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street ..."
"... Nasdaq down 24% already. Renaissance IPO ETF down 31%. But Uber and other unicorns are planning record IPOs in 2019, à la dotcom-crash-debut in 2000. ..."
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and
author, with extensive international work experience.
Originally published at Wolf Street
Nasdaq down 24% already. Renaissance IPO ETF down 31%. But Uber and other unicorns are
planning record IPOs in 2019, à la dotcom-crash-debut in 2000.
The IPO hype machine has produced some very successful companies and a lot of spectacular
wealth transfers from the hapless public to early investors selling their shares. Here are two
of the standouts that I covered:
Snap [SNAP] , purveyor of the
Snapchat app and must-have sunglasses with a built-in camera: Shares peaked at $29 on the
second day after its IPO, given it a market capitalization of $32 billion. Shares closed on
Friday at $4.96 and this morning trade at $5.24, down 82% from day two of trading.
Blue Apron [APRN] , the
cream of the crop of about 150 VC-funded meal-kit startups founded over the past five years,
was valued at $2 billion during its last round of funding in June 2015 when it was one of the
most hyped unicorns that would change the world. Then enthusiasm began to sag. By the time the
IPO approached, the IPO price was cut from a range of $15-$17 a share to $10 a share. Shares
closed on Friday at $0.68 and are trading this morning at $0.71, down 93% from its IPO
price.
But not all IPOs are "tech" companies – though there's nothing "tech" about a meal-kit
maker other than the least important part, the app. The Renaissance IPO ETF
[IPO] holds the shares of companies across the board that went public over the past two years.
After two years, the companies are removed from the ETF. Its top five holdings are in real
estate, insurance products, music streaming, and cable TV, so not exactly pushing the
boundaries of tech invention.
These five IPOs haven't done all that badly, compared to the wholesale destruction of Blue
Apron, though they all have dropped sharply from their recent peaks (prices as of this
morning):
Vici Properties [VICI], a casino property company, at $18.02, is down 22% from its
peak in January 2018 shortly after the IPO. Athene Holding [ATH] – a "retirement services
company that issues, reinsures and acquires retirement savings products" – at $38.36, has
dropped 29% since September, 2018. Invitation Homes [INVH], Blackstone's buy-to-rent creature
that acquired over 48,000 single-family homes out of foreclosure at the end of the housing
bust, at $19.40, is down 18% from its peak in September. Spotify [SPOT], the music streaming
service, at $107.46, has plunged 46% from its peak on July 26. It went public in April. Altice
USA [ATUS], a cable TV operator, at $15.37, is down 39% from the peak on the day after its IPO
in July 2017.
Overall, the Renaissance IPO ETF has plunged 31% from its peak in June 2018 (data via
Investing.com):
The Nasdaq itself has dropped 24% from its all-time peak at the end of August.
It is in this new reality that some of the biggest startups and some of the biggest
money-losers in the startup circus are trying to unload the shares to the public in 2019 before
the "window" closes. The enormous hype about these IPOs has already started, with bankers
funneling this hype to the Wall Street
Journal , which breathlessly reported on the big numbers to be transferred from the public
to the selling insiders and the companies. The hyped numbers are truly huge.
The biggest candidates that are that are now being hyped for an IPO in 2019 are:
Uber , with a current "valuation" of $76-billion, could go for an IPO in early 2019 that
would value it at "as much as $120 billion," the WSJ reported, based on the hype the bankers
are now spreading to maximize their bonuses. Not all shares would be sold in the IPO, so the
proceeds in this scenario could reach "as much as $25 billion."
Palantir (data mining), with a current valuation of $20 billion, could see an IPO valuation
of $41 billion, according to the WSJ's "people familiar with its plans," who also cautioned
that these plans remained in flux, and that, according to the WSJ, "investment bankers often
exaggerate projected IPO values to win business."
Lyft , with a current valuation of $15 billion, is also looking for an IPO in early 2019, at
"more than $15 billion."
Then there is a gaggle of other big startups that could also head for the IPO window in
2019, according to the WSJ's "people familiar with the matter," but apparently haven't decided
on the timing yet. They include:
The all-time high that "tech" IPOs combined raised in a single year was $44.5 billion. If
these tech IPOs come to pass in 2019, and if these valuations can be pulled off, with Uber
alone hoping to raise $25 billion, the 2000-record would be broken by a large amount.
That would make sense: The year 2000 was when the dotcom bubble began to collapse
catastrophically, and everyone tried to get their heroes out the IPO window before it would
close for years to come. The Nasdaq, where these IPOs were concentrated, would eventually crash
78% from its peak in March 2000, with catastrophic consequences for those who'd bought the
hype.
The WSJ muses about this new generation of record-setting IPOs and Wall Street bankers' hype
machine:
For average investors, it could mean they finally will be able to bet on companies like
Uber that have become part of their everyday lives but have been out of reach, even as their
estimated values ballooned.
When all IPOs are included, and not just "tech" IPOs, 2018 was a banner year, with $54
billion raised. This includes 47 tech companies that raised only about $18 billion – a
far cry from the $44.5 billion that tech IPOs raised in 2000. But 2019 is going to fix this
shortcoming, assuming that the hype works and that the public is buying.
The WSJ, citing Dealogic, pointed out that tech IPOs this year on average soared 28% on the
first day of trading. No word about what happened afterwards. But the Renaissance IPO ETF is
down 31% so far this year. Reality starts after the first few days of trading.
Tech companies that had already gone public raised an additional $21 billion in 2018 by
selling more shares to the public in follow-on offerings, the most for follow-on offerings
since 2000.
Then, the WSJ tucked this reality-infested warning into its last paragraph:
In another sign of exuberance, investors are overlooking lofty valuations and measly -- or
zero -- profits to have a shot at outsized returns. In the first three quarters of the year,
four-fifths of all U.S.-listed IPOs were of companies that lost money in the 12 prior months
. That is the highest proportion on record.
So the last three months of 2018 plus 2019 and perhaps years to come are shaping up to be,
by the looks of it, a similarly glorious period for tech stocks, IPOs, and the Nasdaq as the
period from March 2000 till late 2002.
So, the bastard waited until his last day on the job to do a little fake media
pay-per-view kiss-and-tell. He couldn't be mensch enough to give his boss a professional
courtesy of telling him to take this job and shove it, he just succumbed to the siren's call
of money and spilled the beans to the fake media first before anyone in the Administration
had a chance to tell him how dangerous and detrimental to the interests of American people
his words would become (anyone taking bets that the kiss-and-tell New York Times bestseller
memoir is in the works?). Such is the psycho-profile of an average Pentagon brass. No
vertebratae there -- just mollusks, tapeworms, snails and amoebas. Throw the money at them,
and watch them grovel. Everything is for sale: service record, decorations, rank, faux
military and political expertise, integrity, character, valor, heroism, cavalier and valiant
battlefield engagement, self-sacrifice, loyalty to the nation...their family...their
kids...their asses...everything@!. If it has a rank, it is casually sold on an open market.
The winning bidder takes all.
Yes, General, Donald Trump is a deeply flawed human being. To his credit, though. we have
been duly forwarned. He never - ever - claimed that he was a saint and cautioned us against
turning him into a Mao Zedong-like personality cu;t. We knew all along that we were electing
a profoundly imperfect person, and the reason why we elected him nonetheless is that the
honesty of his admission was so refreshing that it outweighed all other considerations and
was too brilliantly confessional to ignore. When was the last time you heard Hillary Clinton
focus on her shortcomings, ethical lapses, judgment failures and mental syncopes instead a
litany of her glorious accomplishments/?
Now, I have a question for you, General: what kind of ball-less, dickless and brainless
asswipe devoid of any moral scurples and personal values serves his "unfit-for-the-job "
(sic) and dangerous-to-the-country Supreme Commander for two consecutive years without
uttering a word of criticism and dissent and then, after being fired, unleashes a torrent of
hysterical fury and not even minimally credible accusations? In my mother tongue there is a
phrase for characters like you: worthless piece of ****. And you can quote me on it, Sir.
PresidentTrump , 24 minutes ago
good riddance kelly
veritas semper vinces , 37 minutes ago
"What difference does it make, at this point?" who is the president? To paraphrase a Soros
supported ex candidate, who is still not in jail.
As Ms. No a stutely observed a few days ago : there was a petition to investigate Soros ,
signed by more than the necessary number for the White House to respond, and this 1 year
ago.
And the Donald ignored it, braking the law this way.
Does this count as more or less evidence he is fighting the swamp, trumptards?
Together with the fact Sheldon Adelson , the zionist financed his campaign and Wilbur
Ross, Rothschild's man bailed him out of his bankruptcies.
Wilbur Ross , who is now his Commerce Secretary.
Can trumptards put 2+2 together ?
Conscious Reviver , 40 minutes ago
Kelly is just more senior management in the crime syndicate known by the acronym USG. What
about the oath he swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic?
If he was a true soldier and patriot, he would have arrested the criminals, hiding in broad
daylight, who did 9/11.
As it is, he's just another toady. Good riddance to bad trash.
youshallnotkill , 2 hours ago
These kind of threads always make me wonder how many of the commenters here are paid to
**** on our US military.
Hans-Zandvliet , 1 hour ago
No need to pay people for shitting on the US military. Even marine corps general Smedly
Butler (most decorated marine in US history) wrote it himself ("War is a Racket" [1935]),
saying: "[while serving as a marine] I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle-man for
Big Bussiness, for Wall St and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
capitalism."
Nothing much has changed since then in the US army, or has it?
11b40 , 46 minutes ago
Only gotten worse since eliminating the draft and getting a mercenary army.
Baron von Bud , 2 hours ago
These military generals portray themselves as selfless victims of Trump. These are the
same clueless idiots that couldn't or wouldn't grow a spine and tell Obama or Bush they were
destroying America with senseless wars. Trump may be a loose cannon but he has great
instincts. These generals make me want to puke. Starched uniforms and a high tipped hat but
no brain for good policy underneath and behind all those little medals. Good riddance. Trump
needs to dump these guys and John Bolton.
terrific , 2 hours ago
The title to this story is a lie. Just because the NYT reported that Kelly told two
anonymous sources that Trump is not up to the role of President, doesn't mean that Kelly
actually said it. I'm actually surprised that a news site like ZH would use that title for a
story, when the story was never even sourced, much less corroborated.
Celotex , 2 hours ago
He'll go to Boeing and will be pulling down eight figures annually.
Moribundus , 2 hours ago
„Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." -- Dwight D.
Eisenhower
" Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine,
fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single
fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new
homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life
to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any
true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Is there no other way the world may live?"
GoldRulesPaperDrools , 2 hours ago
That's because this county hasn't fought a REAL war in decades, and by a REAL war I mean
one where you can honestly expect if you go and you're in combat you're got no more than an
even chance to come back. Military service has become another gubmint job where you wear a
uniform and play with expensive hardware paid for by the taxpayer while doing some neocon's
bidding overseas.
Moribundus , 2 hours ago
The best amerikan soldier was Smedley Butler.
The best amerikan war is Vietnam war.
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent
most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and
especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought
light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make
Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to
it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al
Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I
operated on three continents.
Russia is not as desperate for higher oil prices as is Saudi Arabia. There are a few reasons
for this. One of the key reasons is that the Russian currency is flexible, so it weakens when
oil prices fall. That cushions the blow during a downturn, allowing Russian oil companies to
pay expenses in weaker rubles while still taking in U.S. dollars for oil sales. Second, tax
payments for Russian oil companies are structured in such a way that their tax burden is
lighter with lower oil prices.
Saudi Arabia needs oil prices at roughly $84 per barrel for its
budget to breakeven.
... ... ...
Igor Sechin, the head of Russia's state-owned Rosneft, said that oil prices "should have
stabilized, because everyone was supposed to be scared" by the enormous OPEC+ production cuts.
"But nobody was scared," he said, according to Bloomberg. He blamed the Federal Reserve's rate
tightening for injecting volatility into the oil market, because traders have sold off
speculative positions in the face of higher interest rates.
...
Novak
offered the market some assurances that the OPEC+ coalition would step in to stabilize the
market if the situation deteriorates, suggesting that OPEC+ has the ability to call an
extraordinary meeting. He
told reporters on Thursday that the market still faces a lot of unknowns. "All these
uncertainties, which are now on the market: how China will behave, how India will behave...
trade wars and unpredictability on the part of the U.S. administration... those are defining
factors for price volatility," Novak said.
Nevertheless, Novak predicted the 1.2 mb/d cuts announced in Vienna would be sufficient.
Some analysts echo Novak's sentiment that, despite the current panic in the market, the cuts
should be sufficient. "We are looking at oil prices heading towards $70 to $80 quite a recovery
in 2019. That's really predicated on the thought that first of all, OPEC still is here. And I
think that the market is underestimating that they are going to cut supply by 1.2 mb/d,"
Dominic Schnider of UBS Wealth Management told CNBC
. "And demand looks healthy so we might find ourselves into 2019 in a situation where the
market is actually tight."
High-frequency traders and quantitative funds are destabilizing the market by amplifying the
moves both up and down. In other words they do increase volatility and as such as undesirable
participants in the stock market. After stock market was converted into casino in 80th there is
not way back without decimating them.
Now it is difficult or even impossible to tell whether the drop is a sign of coming bear
market or is just a blip caused by high frequency traders. Looks like this is sign of bear
market because high frequency traders dampen investment sentiment by increaseing uncertaity. So
they, in this own way, accerate bear market occurrence, cousing it even when condition are not
completly ripe for it and profits are not affects (and thus GDP -- recession metric is GDP
which of caurse is a very questionable metric but we have what we have; U6 unemployment metric
is probably a better metric but it is lagging indicator; I think U6 above 10% is a definite
sign of the recession)
But job market right now deteriorating very quickly. Most firms stopped hiring around
September-Octover timeframe.
Investors have time to reflect on history, now that stocks have avoided a fourth straight
down week via the biggest one-day rally since 2009. After coming within a few points of a
bear market on Wednesday, the damage in the S&P 500 stands at 15 percent since Sept.
20.
... ... ...
A fair amount of complaining has gone on in recent months about the role of high-frequency
traders and quantitative funds in the drubbing that reached its peak around Christmas.
Perhaps. Those groups are big, and in the search for villains, they make easy targets.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is among the people who have made the connection.
Overinvestment in stocks of retires is very common under neoliberalism.
There are several factors here: one is greed cultivated by neoliberal MSM, the second is
insufficient retirement funds (gambling with retirement savings) and the last and not least is
lack of mathematical skills an inability to use Excel for viewing their portfolio and making
informed decisions.
Notable quotes:
"... At the end of 2016, 69 percent of investors in their 60s had at least 40 percent of their 401(k) portfolio invested in stocks, up from 65 percent in 2007, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington. ..."
"... 19 percent had more than 80 percent of their 401(k) invested in stocks in 2016 ..."
"... "We had lousy forecasts in 2008. The housing market was in a tailspin," said 76-year-old John Bauer, who worked for McDonnell Douglas and Boeing Co for 36 years in St. Louis. "Today, employment is way up. The housing market is steady and corporations are flush." ..."
BOSTON (Reuters) - Nancy Farrington, a retiree who turns 75 next month, admits to being in a
constant state of anxiety over the biggest December stock market rout since Herbert Hoover was
president.
"I have not looked at my numbers. I'm afraid to do it," said Farrington, who recently moved
to Charleston, South Carolina, from Boston. "We've been conditioned to stand pat and not panic.
I sure hope my advisers are doing the same."
Retirees are worrying about their nest eggs as this month's sell-off rounds out the worst
year for stocks in a decade, and some fear they are headed for a day of reckoning like the 2008
market meltdown or dot-com crash of the early 2000s.
Retirees have less time to recover from bad investment moves than younger workers. If they
or their advisers panic and sell during a brief downturn, they may lock in a more meager
retirement. But their portfolio could be even more at risk if they hold on too long in a
prolonged decline.
"I have no way of riding it out if that happens," said Farrington. "I can feel the anxiety
in my stomach all the time."
While many industrialized countries still have generous safety nets for retirees, pensions
for U.S. private-sector workers largely have been supplanted by 401(k) accounts and other
private saving plans. That means millions of older Americans are effectively their own pension
managers.
Workers in countries like Belgium, Canada, Germany, France and Italy receive, on average,
about 65 percent of their income replaced by mandatory pensions. In the Netherlands the ratio
of benefits to lifetime average earnings is abut 97 percent, according to a 2017 Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development report.
The OECD says the comparable U.S. replacement rate from Social Security benefits is about 50
percent.
U.S. retirees had watched their private accounts mushroom during a bull stock market that
began in early 2009. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates near zero for years,
enticing retirees deeper into stocks than previous generations as investments like certificates
of deposit, government bonds and money-market funds generated paltry income.
At the end of 2016, 69 percent of investors in their 60s had at least 40 percent of their
401(k) portfolio invested in stocks, up from 65 percent in 2007, according to the Employee
Benefit Research Institute in Washington.
Still, fewer have gone all in on stocks in recent years. Just 19 percent had more than 80
percent of their 401(k) invested in stocks in 2016, down from 30 percent at year-end 2007,
according to nonprofit research group EBRI.
"Nothing has gone wrong, but it seems the market is trying to figure out what could go
wrong," said Brooke McMurray, a 69-year-old New York retiree who says she became a financial
news junkie after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
"Unlike before, I now know what I own and I constantly read up on my companies," she
said.
The three major U.S. stock indexes have tumbled about 10 percent this month, weighed by
investor worries including U.S.-China trade tensions, a cooling economy and rising interest
rates, and are on track for their worst December since 1931.
The S&P 500 is headed for its worst annual performance since 2008, when Wall Street
buckled during the subprime mortgage crisis. But some are not quite ready to draw
comparisons.
"We had lousy forecasts in 2008. The housing market was in a tailspin," said 76-year-old
John Bauer, who worked for McDonnell Douglas and Boeing Co for 36 years in St. Louis. "Today,
employment is way up. The housing market is steady and corporations are flush."
Still, Bauer said he is uneasy about White House leadership. He and several other retirees
referenced U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's recent calls to top bankers, which did more
to rattle than assure markets. U.S. stocks tumbled more than 2 percent the day before the
Christmas holiday.
Nevertheless, Bauer is prepared to ride out any market turmoil without making dramatic moves
to his retirement portfolio. "When it's up, I watch it. When it's down, I don't," he said. And there are some factors helping take the sting out of the market rout, said Larry Glazer,
managing partner of Boston-based Mayflower Advisors LLC.
The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index plunged to its lowest level
since March 2009, down from 71.5 in June to just 63.8 in the first of two readings in July, as
a faltering economy, weakening labor market, and the ongoing debate over the debt ceiling and
spending cuts sapped the confidence of Americans.
Interestingly, the last time the mood of the consumer was this sour, the S&P500 stock
index was below 800, more than 42 percent below its current level.
Though the July drop pales in comparison to the 10 point plunge in March (just as gasoline
prices were beginning to soar) and the 12.7 point free-fall in October 2008, it was one of the
biggest monthly declines in the last decade. The current conditions index fell from 82.0 in
June to 76.3 in July and the expectations index dropped nine points, from 64.8 to 55.8.
Unlike earlier in the year, rising inflation expectations played no role in the overall
decline as the one-year outlook for consumer prices fell from 3.8 percent to 3.4 percent and
the five year inflation forecast dipped from 3.0 percent to 2.8 percent.
MUST READS
S&P warns of US rating downgrade – BBC
Europe's banks brace for health test failures – Reuters
Stress Tests Compromised by Greek Non-Default – Bloomberg
Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels – Telegraph
Worried About Debt Limit? The Bond Market Isn't – Baum, Bloomberg
If U.S. defaults on debt: How to protect your investments – USA Today
Bernanke Damps Bond Buying Prospects Amid Criticism – Bloomberg
Yes, You Really Can Cut Your Way to Prosperity – The American
Minnesota Ends Its Budget Crisis, at Heavy Cost – Time
Getting to Crazy – Krugman, NY Times
Curbing systemic inflation – China Daily
When we reported last week that Imran Awan and his wife had been indicted by a grand jury on
4 counts, including bank fraud and making false statements related to some home equity loans,
we also noted that those charges could simply be placeholders for further developments yet to
come. Now, according to a new report from the
Daily Caller , the more interesting component of the FBI's investigation could be tied to
precisely why New York Democrat Representative Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to
simply write-off $120,000 in missing electronics tied to the Awans.
A chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to sign
away a $120,000 missing electronics problem on behalf of two former IT aides now suspected of
stealing equipment from Congress, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned. Clarke's
chief of staff at the time effectively dismissed the loss and prevented it from coming up in
future audits by signing a form removing the missing equipment from a House-wide tracking
system after one of the Awan brothers alerted the office the equipment was gone. The
Pakistani-born brothers are now at the center of an FBI investigation over their IT work with
dozens of Congressional offices.
The $120,000 figure amounts to about a tenth of the office's annual budget, or enough to
hire four legislative assistants to handle the concerns of constituents in her New York
district. Yet when one of the brothers alerted the office to the massive loss, the chief of
staff signed a form that quietly reconciled the missing equipment in the office budget, the
official told TheDCNF. Abid Awan remained employed by the office for months after the loss of
the equipment was flagged.
If true, of course this new information would seem to support previously reported rumors
that the Awans orchestrated a long-running fraud scheme in which their office would purchase
equipment in a way that avoided tracking by central House-wide administrators and then sell
that equipment for a personal gain while simultaneously defrauding taxpayers of $1,000's of
dollars.
Meanwhile, according to the Daily Caller, CDW Government could have been in on the
scheme.
They're suspected of working with an employee of CDW Government Inc. -- one of the Hill's
largest technology providers -- to alter invoices in order to avoid tracking. The result
would be that no one outside the office would notice if the equipment disappeared, and
investigators think the goal of the scheme was to remove and sell the equipment outside of
Congress.
CDW spokeswoman Kelly Caraher told TheDCNF the company is cooperating with investigators,
and has assurance from prosecutors its employees are not targets of the investigation. "CDW
and its employees have cooperated fully with investigators and will continue to do so,"
Caraher said. "The prosecutors directing this investigation have informed CDW and its
coworkers that they are not subjects or targets of the investigation."
Not surprisingly, Clarke's office apparently felt no need whatsoever to report the $120,000
worth of missing IT equipment to the authorities... it's just taxpayer money afterall...
According to the official who talked to TheDCNF, Clarke's chief of staff did not alert
authorities to the huge sum of missing money when it was brought to the attention of the
office around February of 2016. A request to sign away that much lost equipment would have
been "way outside any realm of normalcy," the official said, but the office did not bring it
to the attention of authorities until months later when House administrators told the office
they were reviewing finances connected to the Awans.
The administrators informed the office that September they were independently looking into
discrepancies surrounding the Awans, including a review of finances connected to the brothers
in all the congressional offices that employed them. The House administrators asked Clarke's
then-chief of staff, Wendy Anderson, whether she had noticed any anomalies, and at that time
she alerted them to the $120,000 write-off, the official told TheDCNF.
Of course, the missing $120,000 covers only Clarke's office. As we've noted before, Imran
and his relatives worked for more than 40 current House members when they were banned from the
House network in February, and have together worked for dozens more in past years so who know
just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes.
Also makes you wonder what else Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Awans might be hiding.
Certainly the decision by Wasserman-Shultz to keep Awan on her taxpayer funded payroll, right
up until he was arrested by the FBI while trying to flee the country, is looking increasingly
fishy with each passing day.
The 911 protection swamp is deep, and profiteers and drug, human traffic, NGO, Body part,
war mongers runs deep.
Please stop calling it building 7 It was the Solomon building.. While you are at it look
at the 1991 Solomon bond scandal which gave the Citi Clinton Mafia all power.... Oh yea
Bush/Clinton cabal did get Saudis to buy Citi stocks and GE plastics. Swampy enough?
120k write off ! You are kidding me?
south40_dreams , 1 year ago
Blackmail was where the real money was at
pissantra , 1 year ago
The real problem here is being completely ignored -- and that is this: the Awan bros were
likely spies (with Wasserman either forced to allow them to spy or the spymaster selling
intel to Pakistan). This would mean that 21+ congress-critters have been completely
compromised. THIS is important NOW, after Trumps Afghan speech -- if he plans to lean on
Pakistan with an "either you stop helping the Taliban or we will destroy you (economically
and/or physically) along with them...."--- these compromised congress-critters will defund
Trumps war.
Freddie , 3 weeks ago
No. Pakistan is the smokescreen. Wasserscum, like Scott Israel, are dual shitizens. This
is, as is Broward County, a MO$$$$ad op. Broward County for vote theft, fraud, attorney
killings, false flags, etc. I would guess a lot more in Congress are owned.
Just watched Congress during Bibi and even ko$$her Porschenko addressing Congrez-zio. They
jump up like circus trained animals to give standing ovations for every word.
Awans and Wasserscum will get passes. George Webb on youtube appears to be doing good work
but it is probably another smoke screen because George has said he is a zioni$$t.
Ban KKiller , 1 year ago
Gee Michelle....you used the Pakistanis for your IT work? What, you like filthy muslims?
Guess so.... When will you confess that you have NO IDEA where your confidential information is? Michelle Lynn Lujan Grisham is an American lawyer and politician who is the U.S.
Representative for New Mexico's 1st congressional district, serving since 2013.
mtanimal , 1 year ago
I didn't know espionage and extortion were tax deductible. Who's her accountant?
Cardinal Fang , 1 year ago
I regret that we may never know the extent of the duplicity of our government with this
ISI stooge.
pc_babe , 1 year ago
with Jeff Session at the helm, you can rest assured you never will
Loanman26 , 1 year ago
My spidy senses are flaring. It was the Russians who stole the equipment. It was comrade Sergei Awan
Blazing in BC , 1 year ago
To whoever is "in charge"....THE STENCH IS UNBEARABLE
runnymede , 1 year ago
Institutionalized unaccountability is what makes the systemic corruption function. As long
as Wasserman's brother is in charge of D.C. prosecutions, nothing will happen. He is the
gatekeeper, which is why DWS, the DNC and the Clinton Crime Machine have not only acted with
impunity, but with extreme contempt. They know they are untouchable. Honest prosecution would
expose D.C. itself as the professional criminal operation that it is, including most Repubs.
There will never be allowed a real look into the rabbit hole, George Webb's outstanding
efforts notwithstanding.
One of We , 1 year ago
President Not Hillary needs to lock some bitches up and expose the Clinton Crime Family
Foundation. Definitely lowering the bar from my lofty hopes but I'd be happy with a partial
roto rootering of the swamp if that's all he has to show for his term.
SRV , 1 year ago
The Awans were working for DWS and The Crook... this fruad is the tip of the
iceberg...
How about doping Blackberry's for 80 House Dems to sync with servers around the Capital
(remember DWS threatening the Capital Police Chief with "consequences" if he didn't give her
back her laptop found in a Capitol Hill building. The Awans were selling the access to most
of the secrets in congress since 2004... this was a spy ring (he has serious ties to
Pakistani ISI).
JiminyCrickets , 1 year ago
As long as Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Brother Steven Wasserman is running the Seth Rich
murder investigation this wont go any where.
gregga777 , 1 year ago
Unfortunately, the Anglo-Zionist FAKE NEWS Media won't cover this story, especially the
links to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. It's anti-Semitic to discuss her criminality or to
criticize her in any other way.
JiminyCrickets , 1 year ago
George Webb's detailed 300+ day investigation indicates the Awans were shipping stolen
high end cars to foreign diplomats and depleted uranium weapons using DNC Diplomatic
Containers.
no surprise that demonRat politicians throughout all legislatures have been guilty of
defrauding the tax payer for decades - in much the same way that demonRat politicians
directly legislate for welfare benefits, free insurance and tax cuts for their family and
friends - at the expense of tax payers - and who also extract tax payer funds via the gravy
train of internships, federal grants etc for their family and friends.
this is how libtard demonRat politicians infect the swamp and then infest it with their
filth and cronyism.
aided and abetted by the MSM.
if only iy was just the demonRats, there might be a chance - however, corrupt republicRats
have been just as guilty.
one day, all this will be out in the open and perhaps demonRat and republicRat voters will
see how they have been voting for corruption all these years.
are we there yet , 1 year ago
Because you are one of the little people.
NoPension , 1 year ago
We are below " little people". We are irrelevant. Just keep paying, slave. Someone correct
me if I'm wrong..... This country was founded on the principle that the individual had
sovereign rights, imbued from God...and was the vessel of ultimate power. Today...these
illegally elected ( it's almost ALL proven a fraud) cocksuckers go in broke and come out the
other end multimillionaires with legal immunity from anything, up to and including murder.
It's high time to water the ******* tree.
"
Nation
states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty
",
according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes
to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.
No this wasn't something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel
told
attendants
at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won't seek re-election
in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands
down.
"
In
an orderly fashion of course,
" Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear
for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have
listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:
"
There
were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are
representing The People
".
"
[But]
the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German]
people
," she stressed.
Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic,
saying "
That
is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations
".
Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day
speech that "
patriotism
is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason
."
The French president's words were deeply unpopular with the French population and his approval rating nosedived even
further after the comments.
Macron, whose lack of leadership is proving unable to deal with growing protests in France, told the Bundestag that
France and Germany should be at the center of the emerging New World Order.
"
The
Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace"
.
"
Europe
must be stronger and win more sovereignty
," he went on to demand, just like Merkel, that
EU
member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels
over "
foreign
affairs, migration, and development
" as well as giving "
an
increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources".
Although he is certainly a giant, Knuth will never be able to complete this monograph - the
technology developed too quickly. Three volumes came out in 1963-1968 and then there was a lull.
January 10, he will be 81. At this age it is difficult to work in the field of mathematics and
system programming. So we will probably never see the complete fourth volume.
This inability to
finish the work he devoted a large part of hi life is definitely a tragedy. The key problem here is
that now it is simply impossible to cover the whole area of system programming and
related algorithms for one person. But the first three volumes played tremendous positive role
for sure.
Also he was distracted for several years to create TeX. He needed to create a non-profit and
complete this work by attracting the best minds from the outside. But he is by nature a loner,
as many great scientists are, and prefer to work this way.
His other mistake is due to the fact that MIX - his emulator was too far from the IBM S/360, which became the standard de-facto
in mid-60th. He then realized that this was a blunder and replaced MIX with more modem emulator MIXX, but it was
"too little, too late" and it took time and effort. So the first three volumes and fragments of the fourth is all
that we have now and probably forever.
Not all volumes fared equally well with time. The third volume suffered most IMHO and as of 2019 is partially obsolete. Also it was
written by him in some haste and some parts of it are are far from clearly written ( it was based on earlier
lectures of Floyd, so it was oriented of single CPU computers only. Now when multiprocessor
machines, huge amount of RAM and SSD hard drives are the norm, the situation is very different from late 60th. It requires different sorting
algorithms (the importance of mergesort increased, importance of quicksort decreased). He also got too carried away with sorting random numbers and establishing upper bound and
average
run time. The real data is almost never random and typically contain sorted fragments. For example, he overestimated the
importance of quicksort and thus pushed the discipline in the wrong direction.
Notable quotes:
"... These days, it is 'coding', which is more like 'code-spraying'. Throw code at a problem until it kind of works, then fix the bugs in the post-release, or the next update. ..."
"... AI is a joke. None of the current 'AI' actually is. It is just another new buzz-word to throw around to people that do not understand it at all. ..."
"... One good teacher makes all the difference in life. More than one is a rare blessing. ..."
With more than one million copies in print, "The Art of Computer Programming " is the Bible
of its field. "Like an actual bible, it is long and comprehensive; no other book is as
comprehensive," said Peter Norvig, a director of research at Google. After 652 pages, volume
one closes with a blurb on the back cover from Bill Gates: "You should definitely send me a
résumé if you can read the whole thing."
The volume opens with an excerpt from " McCall's Cookbook ":
Here is your book, the one your thousands of letters have asked us to publish. It has
taken us years to do, checking and rechecking countless recipes to bring you only the best,
only the interesting, only the perfect.
Inside are algorithms, the recipes that feed the digital age -- although, as Dr. Knuth likes
to point out, algorithms can also be found on Babylonian tablets from 3,800 years ago. He is an
esteemed algorithmist; his name is attached to some of the field's most important specimens,
such as the Knuth-Morris-Pratt string-searching algorithm. Devised in 1970, it finds all
occurrences of a given word or pattern of letters in a text -- for instance, when you hit
Command+F to search for a keyword in a document.
... ... ...
During summer vacations, Dr. Knuth made more money than professors earned in a year by
writing compilers. A compiler is like a translator, converting a high-level programming
language (resembling algebra) to a lower-level one (sometimes arcane binary) and, ideally,
improving it in the process. In computer science, "optimization" is truly an art, and this is
articulated in another Knuthian proverb: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
Eventually Dr. Knuth became a compiler himself, inadvertently founding a new field that he
came to call the "analysis of algorithms." A publisher hired him to write a book about
compilers, but it evolved into a book collecting everything he knew about how to write for
computers -- a book about algorithms.
... ... ...
When Dr. Knuth started out, he intended to write a single work. Soon after, computer science
underwent its Big Bang, so he reimagined and recast the project in seven volumes. Now he metes
out sub-volumes, called fascicles. The next installation, "Volume 4, Fascicle 5," covering,
among other things, "backtracking" and "dancing links," was meant to be published in time for
Christmas. It is delayed until next April because he keeps finding more and more irresistible
problems that he wants to present.
In order to optimize his chances of getting to the end, Dr. Knuth has long guarded his time.
He retired at 55, restricted his public engagements and quit email (officially, at least).
Andrei Broder recalled that time management was his professor's defining characteristic even in
the early 1980s.
Dr. Knuth typically held student appointments on Friday mornings, until he started spending
his nights in the lab of John McCarthy, a founder of artificial intelligence, to get access to
the computers when they were free. Horrified by what his beloved book looked like on the page
with the advent of digital publishing, Dr. Knuth had gone on a mission to create the TeX
computer typesetting system, which remains the gold standard for all forms of scientific
communication and publication. Some consider it Dr. Knuth's greatest contribution to the world,
and the greatest contribution to typography since Gutenberg.
This decade-long detour took place back in the age when computers were shared among users
and ran faster at night while most humans slept. So Dr. Knuth switched day into night, shifted
his schedule by 12 hours and mapped his student appointments to Fridays from 8 p.m. to
midnight. Dr. Broder recalled, "When I told my girlfriend that we can't do anything Friday
night because Friday night at 10 I have to meet with my adviser, she thought, 'This is
something that is so stupid it must be true.'"
... ... ...
Lucky, then, Dr. Knuth keeps at it. He figures it will take another 25 years to finish "The
Art of Computer Programming," although that time frame has been a constant since about 1980.
Might the algorithm-writing algorithms get their own chapter, or maybe a page in the epilogue?
"Definitely not," said Dr. Knuth.
"I am worried that algorithms are getting too prominent in the world," he added. "It started
out that computer scientists were worried nobody was listening to us. Now I'm worried that too
many people are listening."
Thanks Siobhan for your vivid portrait of my friend and mentor. When I came to Stanford as
an undergrad in 1973 I asked who in the math dept was interested in puzzles. They pointed me
to the computer science dept, where I met Knuth and we hit it off immediately. Not only a
great thinker and writer, but as you so well described, always present and warm in person. He
was also one of the best teachers I've ever had -- clear, funny, and interested in every
student (his elegant policy was each student can only speak twice in class during a period,
to give everyone a chance to participate, and he made a point of remembering everyone's
names). Some thoughts from Knuth I carry with me: finding the right name for a project is
half the work (not literally true, but he labored hard on finding the right names for TeX,
Metafont, etc.), always do your best work, half of why the field of computer science exists
is because it is a way for mathematically minded people who like to build things can meet
each other, and the observation that when the computer science dept began at Stanford one of
the standard interview questions was "what instrument do you play" -- there was a deep
connection between music and computer science, and indeed the dept had multiple string
quartets. But in recent decades that has changed entirely. If you do a book on Knuth (he
deserves it), please be in touch.
I remember when programming was art. I remember when programming was programming. These
days, it is 'coding', which is more like 'code-spraying'. Throw code at a problem until it
kind of works, then fix the bugs in the post-release, or the next update.
AI is a joke. None
of the current 'AI' actually is. It is just another new buzz-word to throw around to people
that do not understand it at all. We should be in a golden age of computing. Instead, we are
cutting all corners to get something out as fast as possible. The technology exists to do far
more. It is the human element that fails us.
My particular field of interest has always been compiler writing and have been long
awaiting Knuth's volume on that subject. I would just like to point out that among Kunth's
many accomplishments is the invention of LR parsers, which are widely used for writing
programming language compilers.
Yes, \TeX, and its derivative, \LaTeX{} contributed greatly to being able to create
elegant documents. It is also available for the web in the form MathJax, and it's about time
the New York Times supported MathJax. Many times I want one of my New York Times comments to
include math, but there's no way to do so! It comes up equivalent to:
$e^{i\pi}+1$.
I read it at the time, because what I really wanted to read was volume 7, Compilers. As I
understood it at the time, Professor Knuth wrote it in order to make enough money to build an
organ. That apparantly happened by 3:Knuth, Searching and Sorting. The most impressive part
is the mathemathics in Semi-numerical (2:Knuth). A lot of those problems are research
projects over the literature of the last 400 years of mathematics.
I own the three volume "Art of Computer Programming", the hardbound boxed set. Luxurious.
I don't look at it very often thanks to time constraints, given my workload. But your article
motivated me to at least pick it up and carry it from my reserve library to a spot closer to
my main desk so I can at least grab Volume 1 and try to read some of it when the mood
strikes. I had forgotten just how heavy it is, intellectual content aside. It must weigh more
than 25 pounds.
I too used my copies of The Art of Computer Programming to guide me in several projects in
my career, across a variety of topic areas. Now that I'm living in Silicon Valley, I enjoy
seeing Knuth at events at the Computer History Museum (where he was a 1998 Fellow Award
winner), and at Stanford. Another facet of his teaching is the annual Christmas Lecture, in
which he presents something of recent (or not-so-recent) interest. The 2018 lecture is
available online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cR9zDlvP88
One of the most special treats for first year Ph.D. students in the Stanford University
Computer Science Department was to take the Computer Problem-Solving class with Don Knuth. It
was small and intimate, and we sat around a table for our meetings. Knuth started the
semester by giving us an extremely challenging, previously unsolved problem. We then formed
teams of 2 or 3. Each week, each team would report progress (or lack thereof), and Knuth, in
the most supportive way, would assess our problem-solving approach and make suggestions for
how to improve it. To have a master thinker giving one feedback on how to think better was a
rare and extraordinary experience, from which I am still benefiting! Knuth ended the semester
(after we had all solved the problem) by having us over to his house for food, drink, and
tales from his life. . . And for those like me with a musical interest, he let us play the
magnificent pipe organ that was at the center of his music room. Thank you Professor Knuth,
for giving me one of the most profound educational experiences I've ever had, with such
encouragement and humor!
I learned about Dr. Knuth as a graduate student in the early 70s from one of my professors
and made the financial sacrifice (graduate student assistantships were not lucrative) to buy
the first and then the second volume of the Art of Computer Programming. Later, at Bell Labs,
when I was a bit richer, I bought the third volume. I have those books still and have used
them for reference for years. Thank you Dr, Knuth. Art, indeed!
@Trerra In the good old days, before Computer Science, anyone could take the Programming
Aptitude Test. Pass it and companies would train you. Although there were many mathematicians
and scientists, some of the best programmers turned out to be music majors. English, Social
Sciences, and History majors were represented as well as scientists and mathematicians. It
was a wonderful atmosphere to work in . When I started to look for a job as a programmer, I
took Prudential Life Insurance's version of the Aptitude Test. After the test, the
interviewer was all bent out of shape because my verbal score was higher than my math score;
I was a physics major. Luckily they didn't hire me and I got a job with IBM.
In summary, "May the force be with you" means: Did you read Donald Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming"? Excellent, we loved this article. We will share it with many young
developers we know.
Dr. Knuth is a great Computer Scientist. Around 25 years ago, I met Dr. Knuth in a small
gathering a day before he was awarded a honorary Doctorate in a university. This is my
approximate recollection of a conversation. I said-- " Dr. Knuth, you have dedicated your
book to a computer (one with which he had spent a lot of time, perhaps a predecessor to
PDP-11). Isn't it unusual?". He said-- "Well, I love my wife as much as anyone." He then
turned to his wife and said --"Don't you think so?". It would be nice if scientists with the
gift of such great minds tried to address some problems of ordinary people, e.g. a model of
economy where everyone can get a job and health insurance, say, like Dr. Paul Krugman.
I was in a training program for women in computer systems at CUNY graduate center, and
they used his obtuse book. It was one of the reasons I dropped out. He used a fantasy
language to describe his algorithms in his book that one could not test on computers. I
already had work experience as a programmer with algorithms and I know how valuable real
languages are. I might as well have read Animal Farm. It might have been different if he was
the instructor.
Don Knuth's work has been a curious thread weaving in and out of my life. I was first
introduced to Knuth and his The Art of Computer Programming back in 1973, when I was tasked
with understanding a section of the then-only-two-volume Book well enough to give a lecture
explaining it to my college algorithms class. But when I first met him in 1981 at Stanford,
he was all-in on thinking about typography and this new-fangled system of his called TeX.
Skip a quarter century. One day in 2009, I foolishly decided kind of on a whim to rewrite TeX
from scratch (in my copious spare time), as a simple C library, so that its typesetting
algorithms could be put to use in other software such as electronic eBook's with high-quality
math typesetting and interactive pictures. I asked Knuth for advice. He warned me, prepare
yourself, it's going to consume five years of your life. I didn't believe him, so I set off
and tried anyway. As usual, he was right.
I have signed copied of "Fundamental Algorithms" in my library, which I treasure. Knuth
was a fine teacher, and is truly a brilliant and inspiring individual. He taught during the
same period as Vint Cerf, another wonderful teacher with a great sense of humor who is truly
a "father of the internet". One good teacher makes all the difference in life. More than
one is a rare blessing.
I am a biologist, specifically a geneticist. I became interested in LaTeX typesetting
early in my career and have been either called pompous or vilified by people at all levels
for wanting to use. One of my PhD advisors famously told me to forget LaTeX because it was a
thing of the past. I have now forgotten him completely. I still use LaTeX almost every day in
my work even though I don't generally typeset with equations or algorithms. My students
always get trained in using proper typesetting. Unfortunately, the publishing industry has
all but largely given up on TeX. Very few journals in my field accept TeX manuscripts, and
most of them convert to word before feeding text to their publishing software. Whatever
people might argue against TeX, the beauty and elegance of a property typeset document is
unparalleled. Long live LaTeX
A few years ago Severo Ornstein (who, incidentally, did the hardware design for the first
router, in 1969), and his wife Laura, hosted a concert in their home in the hills above Palo
Alto. During a break a friend and I were chatting when a man came over and *asked* if he
could chat with us (a high honor, indeed). His name was Don. After a few minutes I grew
suspicious and asked "What's your last name?" Friendly, modest, brilliant; a nice addition to
our little chat.
When I was a physics undergraduate (at Trinity in Hartford), I was hired to re-write
professor's papers into TeX. Seeing the beauty of TeX, I wrote a program that re-wrote my lab
reports (including graphs!) into TeX. My lab instructors were amazed! How did I do it? I
never told them. But I just recognized that Knuth was a genius and rode his coat-tails, as I
have continued to do for the last 30 years!
A famous quote from Knuth: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it
correct, not tried it." Anyone who has ever programmed a computer will feel the truth of this
in their bones.
'Trickle down effect' - the favourite buzzword of neoliberal supporters. I'd like to see
trickle down effect tried at the local pub on the taps by the local mp. Imagine what would
happen. Definitely doesn't pass the pub test.
Although he is certainly a giant, Knuth will never be able to complete this monograph - the
technology developed too quickly. Three volumes came out in 1963-1968 and then there was a lull.
January 10, he will be 81. At this age it is difficult to work in the field of mathematics and
system programming. So we will probably never see the complete fourth volume.
This inability to
finish the work he devoted a large part of hi life is definitely a tragedy. The key problem here is
that now it is simply impossible to cover the whole area of system programming and
related algorithms for one person. But the first three volumes played tremendous positive role
for sure.
Also he was distracted for several years to create TeX. He needed to create a non-profit and
complete this work by attracting the best minds from the outside. But he is by nature a loner,
as many great scientists are, and prefer to work this way.
His other mistake is due to the fact that MIX - his emulator was too far from the IBM S/360, which became the standard de-facto
in mid-60th. He then realized that this was a blunder and replaced MIX with more modem emulator MIXX, but it was
"too little, too late" and it took time and effort. So the first three volumes and fragments of the fourth is all
that we have now and probably forever.
Not all volumes fared equally well with time. The third volume suffered most IMHO and as of 2019 is partially obsolete. Also it was
written by him in some haste and some parts of it are are far from clearly written ( it was based on earlier
lectures of Floyd, so it was oriented of single CPU computers only. Now when multiprocessor
machines, huge amount of RAM and SSD hard drives are the norm, the situation is very different from late 60th. It requires different sorting
algorithms (the importance of mergesort increased, importance of quicksort decreased). He also got too carried away with sorting random numbers and establishing upper bound and
average
run time. The real data is almost never random and typically contain sorted fragments. For example, he overestimated the
importance of quicksort and thus pushed the discipline in the wrong direction.
Notable quotes:
"... These days, it is 'coding', which is more like 'code-spraying'. Throw code at a problem until it kind of works, then fix the bugs in the post-release, or the next update. ..."
"... AI is a joke. None of the current 'AI' actually is. It is just another new buzz-word to throw around to people that do not understand it at all. ..."
"... One good teacher makes all the difference in life. More than one is a rare blessing. ..."
With more than one million copies in print, "The Art of Computer Programming " is the Bible
of its field. "Like an actual bible, it is long and comprehensive; no other book is as
comprehensive," said Peter Norvig, a director of research at Google. After 652 pages, volume
one closes with a blurb on the back cover from Bill Gates: "You should definitely send me a
résumé if you can read the whole thing."
The volume opens with an excerpt from " McCall's Cookbook ":
Here is your book, the one your thousands of letters have asked us to publish. It has
taken us years to do, checking and rechecking countless recipes to bring you only the best,
only the interesting, only the perfect.
Inside are algorithms, the recipes that feed the digital age -- although, as Dr. Knuth likes
to point out, algorithms can also be found on Babylonian tablets from 3,800 years ago. He is an
esteemed algorithmist; his name is attached to some of the field's most important specimens,
such as the Knuth-Morris-Pratt string-searching algorithm. Devised in 1970, it finds all
occurrences of a given word or pattern of letters in a text -- for instance, when you hit
Command+F to search for a keyword in a document.
... ... ...
During summer vacations, Dr. Knuth made more money than professors earned in a year by
writing compilers. A compiler is like a translator, converting a high-level programming
language (resembling algebra) to a lower-level one (sometimes arcane binary) and, ideally,
improving it in the process. In computer science, "optimization" is truly an art, and this is
articulated in another Knuthian proverb: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
Eventually Dr. Knuth became a compiler himself, inadvertently founding a new field that he
came to call the "analysis of algorithms." A publisher hired him to write a book about
compilers, but it evolved into a book collecting everything he knew about how to write for
computers -- a book about algorithms.
... ... ...
When Dr. Knuth started out, he intended to write a single work. Soon after, computer science
underwent its Big Bang, so he reimagined and recast the project in seven volumes. Now he metes
out sub-volumes, called fascicles. The next installation, "Volume 4, Fascicle 5," covering,
among other things, "backtracking" and "dancing links," was meant to be published in time for
Christmas. It is delayed until next April because he keeps finding more and more irresistible
problems that he wants to present.
In order to optimize his chances of getting to the end, Dr. Knuth has long guarded his time.
He retired at 55, restricted his public engagements and quit email (officially, at least).
Andrei Broder recalled that time management was his professor's defining characteristic even in
the early 1980s.
Dr. Knuth typically held student appointments on Friday mornings, until he started spending
his nights in the lab of John McCarthy, a founder of artificial intelligence, to get access to
the computers when they were free. Horrified by what his beloved book looked like on the page
with the advent of digital publishing, Dr. Knuth had gone on a mission to create the TeX
computer typesetting system, which remains the gold standard for all forms of scientific
communication and publication. Some consider it Dr. Knuth's greatest contribution to the world,
and the greatest contribution to typography since Gutenberg.
This decade-long detour took place back in the age when computers were shared among users
and ran faster at night while most humans slept. So Dr. Knuth switched day into night, shifted
his schedule by 12 hours and mapped his student appointments to Fridays from 8 p.m. to
midnight. Dr. Broder recalled, "When I told my girlfriend that we can't do anything Friday
night because Friday night at 10 I have to meet with my adviser, she thought, 'This is
something that is so stupid it must be true.'"
... ... ...
Lucky, then, Dr. Knuth keeps at it. He figures it will take another 25 years to finish "The
Art of Computer Programming," although that time frame has been a constant since about 1980.
Might the algorithm-writing algorithms get their own chapter, or maybe a page in the epilogue?
"Definitely not," said Dr. Knuth.
"I am worried that algorithms are getting too prominent in the world," he added. "It started
out that computer scientists were worried nobody was listening to us. Now I'm worried that too
many people are listening."
Thanks Siobhan for your vivid portrait of my friend and mentor. When I came to Stanford as
an undergrad in 1973 I asked who in the math dept was interested in puzzles. They pointed me
to the computer science dept, where I met Knuth and we hit it off immediately. Not only a
great thinker and writer, but as you so well described, always present and warm in person. He
was also one of the best teachers I've ever had -- clear, funny, and interested in every
student (his elegant policy was each student can only speak twice in class during a period,
to give everyone a chance to participate, and he made a point of remembering everyone's
names). Some thoughts from Knuth I carry with me: finding the right name for a project is
half the work (not literally true, but he labored hard on finding the right names for TeX,
Metafont, etc.), always do your best work, half of why the field of computer science exists
is because it is a way for mathematically minded people who like to build things can meet
each other, and the observation that when the computer science dept began at Stanford one of
the standard interview questions was "what instrument do you play" -- there was a deep
connection between music and computer science, and indeed the dept had multiple string
quartets. But in recent decades that has changed entirely. If you do a book on Knuth (he
deserves it), please be in touch.
I remember when programming was art. I remember when programming was programming. These
days, it is 'coding', which is more like 'code-spraying'. Throw code at a problem until it
kind of works, then fix the bugs in the post-release, or the next update.
AI is a joke. None
of the current 'AI' actually is. It is just another new buzz-word to throw around to people
that do not understand it at all. We should be in a golden age of computing. Instead, we are
cutting all corners to get something out as fast as possible. The technology exists to do far
more. It is the human element that fails us.
My particular field of interest has always been compiler writing and have been long
awaiting Knuth's volume on that subject. I would just like to point out that among Kunth's
many accomplishments is the invention of LR parsers, which are widely used for writing
programming language compilers.
Yes, \TeX, and its derivative, \LaTeX{} contributed greatly to being able to create
elegant documents. It is also available for the web in the form MathJax, and it's about time
the New York Times supported MathJax. Many times I want one of my New York Times comments to
include math, but there's no way to do so! It comes up equivalent to:
$e^{i\pi}+1$.
I read it at the time, because what I really wanted to read was volume 7, Compilers. As I
understood it at the time, Professor Knuth wrote it in order to make enough money to build an
organ. That apparantly happened by 3:Knuth, Searching and Sorting. The most impressive part
is the mathemathics in Semi-numerical (2:Knuth). A lot of those problems are research
projects over the literature of the last 400 years of mathematics.
I own the three volume "Art of Computer Programming", the hardbound boxed set. Luxurious.
I don't look at it very often thanks to time constraints, given my workload. But your article
motivated me to at least pick it up and carry it from my reserve library to a spot closer to
my main desk so I can at least grab Volume 1 and try to read some of it when the mood
strikes. I had forgotten just how heavy it is, intellectual content aside. It must weigh more
than 25 pounds.
I too used my copies of The Art of Computer Programming to guide me in several projects in
my career, across a variety of topic areas. Now that I'm living in Silicon Valley, I enjoy
seeing Knuth at events at the Computer History Museum (where he was a 1998 Fellow Award
winner), and at Stanford. Another facet of his teaching is the annual Christmas Lecture, in
which he presents something of recent (or not-so-recent) interest. The 2018 lecture is
available online - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cR9zDlvP88
One of the most special treats for first year Ph.D. students in the Stanford University
Computer Science Department was to take the Computer Problem-Solving class with Don Knuth. It
was small and intimate, and we sat around a table for our meetings. Knuth started the
semester by giving us an extremely challenging, previously unsolved problem. We then formed
teams of 2 or 3. Each week, each team would report progress (or lack thereof), and Knuth, in
the most supportive way, would assess our problem-solving approach and make suggestions for
how to improve it. To have a master thinker giving one feedback on how to think better was a
rare and extraordinary experience, from which I am still benefiting! Knuth ended the semester
(after we had all solved the problem) by having us over to his house for food, drink, and
tales from his life. . . And for those like me with a musical interest, he let us play the
magnificent pipe organ that was at the center of his music room. Thank you Professor Knuth,
for giving me one of the most profound educational experiences I've ever had, with such
encouragement and humor!
I learned about Dr. Knuth as a graduate student in the early 70s from one of my professors
and made the financial sacrifice (graduate student assistantships were not lucrative) to buy
the first and then the second volume of the Art of Computer Programming. Later, at Bell Labs,
when I was a bit richer, I bought the third volume. I have those books still and have used
them for reference for years. Thank you Dr, Knuth. Art, indeed!
@Trerra In the good old days, before Computer Science, anyone could take the Programming
Aptitude Test. Pass it and companies would train you. Although there were many mathematicians
and scientists, some of the best programmers turned out to be music majors. English, Social
Sciences, and History majors were represented as well as scientists and mathematicians. It
was a wonderful atmosphere to work in . When I started to look for a job as a programmer, I
took Prudential Life Insurance's version of the Aptitude Test. After the test, the
interviewer was all bent out of shape because my verbal score was higher than my math score;
I was a physics major. Luckily they didn't hire me and I got a job with IBM.
In summary, "May the force be with you" means: Did you read Donald Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming"? Excellent, we loved this article. We will share it with many young
developers we know.
Dr. Knuth is a great Computer Scientist. Around 25 years ago, I met Dr. Knuth in a small
gathering a day before he was awarded a honorary Doctorate in a university. This is my
approximate recollection of a conversation. I said-- " Dr. Knuth, you have dedicated your
book to a computer (one with which he had spent a lot of time, perhaps a predecessor to
PDP-11). Isn't it unusual?". He said-- "Well, I love my wife as much as anyone." He then
turned to his wife and said --"Don't you think so?". It would be nice if scientists with the
gift of such great minds tried to address some problems of ordinary people, e.g. a model of
economy where everyone can get a job and health insurance, say, like Dr. Paul Krugman.
I was in a training program for women in computer systems at CUNY graduate center, and
they used his obtuse book. It was one of the reasons I dropped out. He used a fantasy
language to describe his algorithms in his book that one could not test on computers. I
already had work experience as a programmer with algorithms and I know how valuable real
languages are. I might as well have read Animal Farm. It might have been different if he was
the instructor.
Don Knuth's work has been a curious thread weaving in and out of my life. I was first
introduced to Knuth and his The Art of Computer Programming back in 1973, when I was tasked
with understanding a section of the then-only-two-volume Book well enough to give a lecture
explaining it to my college algorithms class. But when I first met him in 1981 at Stanford,
he was all-in on thinking about typography and this new-fangled system of his called TeX.
Skip a quarter century. One day in 2009, I foolishly decided kind of on a whim to rewrite TeX
from scratch (in my copious spare time), as a simple C library, so that its typesetting
algorithms could be put to use in other software such as electronic eBook's with high-quality
math typesetting and interactive pictures. I asked Knuth for advice. He warned me, prepare
yourself, it's going to consume five years of your life. I didn't believe him, so I set off
and tried anyway. As usual, he was right.
I have signed copied of "Fundamental Algorithms" in my library, which I treasure. Knuth
was a fine teacher, and is truly a brilliant and inspiring individual. He taught during the
same period as Vint Cerf, another wonderful teacher with a great sense of humor who is truly
a "father of the internet". One good teacher makes all the difference in life. More than
one is a rare blessing.
I am a biologist, specifically a geneticist. I became interested in LaTeX typesetting
early in my career and have been either called pompous or vilified by people at all levels
for wanting to use. One of my PhD advisors famously told me to forget LaTeX because it was a
thing of the past. I have now forgotten him completely. I still use LaTeX almost every day in
my work even though I don't generally typeset with equations or algorithms. My students
always get trained in using proper typesetting. Unfortunately, the publishing industry has
all but largely given up on TeX. Very few journals in my field accept TeX manuscripts, and
most of them convert to word before feeding text to their publishing software. Whatever
people might argue against TeX, the beauty and elegance of a property typeset document is
unparalleled. Long live LaTeX
A few years ago Severo Ornstein (who, incidentally, did the hardware design for the first
router, in 1969), and his wife Laura, hosted a concert in their home in the hills above Palo
Alto. During a break a friend and I were chatting when a man came over and *asked* if he
could chat with us (a high honor, indeed). His name was Don. After a few minutes I grew
suspicious and asked "What's your last name?" Friendly, modest, brilliant; a nice addition to
our little chat.
When I was a physics undergraduate (at Trinity in Hartford), I was hired to re-write
professor's papers into TeX. Seeing the beauty of TeX, I wrote a program that re-wrote my lab
reports (including graphs!) into TeX. My lab instructors were amazed! How did I do it? I
never told them. But I just recognized that Knuth was a genius and rode his coat-tails, as I
have continued to do for the last 30 years!
A famous quote from Knuth: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it
correct, not tried it." Anyone who has ever programmed a computer will feel the truth of this
in their bones.
After the US government elicited outrage from the Chinese due to its attempts to convince
its allies to bar the use of equipment made by telecoms supplier Huawei, President Trump is
apparently weighing whether to take another dramatic antagonistic step that could further
complicate trade negotiations less than two weeks before a US delegation is slated to head to
Beijing.
According to
Reuters , the White House is reportedly considering an executive order that would ban US
companies from using equipment made by Huawei and ZTE, claiming that both companies work "at
the behest of the US government" and that their equipment could be used to spy on US citizens.
The order would invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to order the Department
of Commerce to prohibit the purchase of equipment from telecoms manufacturers that could
threaten national security. Though it wouldn't explicitly name Huawei or ZTE, the ban would
arise from Commerce's interpretation. The IEEA allows the president the authority to regulate
commerce in the face of a national emergency. Back in August, Congress passed and Trump signed
a bill banning the use of ZTE and Huawei equipment by the US government and government
contractors. The executive order has reportedly been under consideration for eight months,
since around the time that the US nearly blocked US companies from selling parts to ZTE, which
sparked a mini-diplomatic crisis, which
ended with a deal allowing ZTE to survive, but pay a large fine.
The feud between the US and Huawei has obviously been escalating in recent months as the US
has embarked on an
"extraordinary influence campaign" to convince its allies to ban equipment made by both
companies, and the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada has also blossomed into a
diplomatic crisis of sorts.
But the real reason issuing a ban on both companies' equipment is seen as a priority is
because Huawei's lead in the race to build 5G technology is making its products more appealing
to global telecoms providers. Rural telecoms providers in the US - those with fewer than
100,000 subscribers - are particularly reliant on equipment made by both companies. They've
expressed concerns that a ban would require them to rip out and scrap their equipment at an
immense cost.
Rural operators in the United States are among the biggest customers of Huawei and ZTE,
and fear the executive order would also require them to rip out existing Chinese-made
equipment without compensation. Industry officials are divided on whether the administration
could legally compel operators to do that.
While the big U.S. wireless companies have cut ties with Huawei in particular, small rural
carriers have relied on Huawei and ZTE switches and other equipment because they tend to be
less expensive.
The company is so central to small carriers that William Levy, vice president for sales of
Huawei Tech USA, is on the board of directors of the Rural Wireless Association.
The RWA represents carriers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers. It estimates that 25
percent of its members had Huawei or ZTE equipment in their networks, it said in a filing to
the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month.
As Sputnik
pointed out, the news of the possible ban followed questions from Defense Secretary Gavin
Williamson, who expressed serious concerns over the involvement of Huawei in Britain's 5G
network, suggesting that Beijing sometimes acted "in a malign way." But even if it loses access
to the US market, Huawei's global expansion and its leadership in the 5G space are expected to
continue to bolster profits and growth. Currently, Huawei sells equipment in 170 countries.
According to a statement from the company's rotating chairman, the company's full-year sales
are expected to increase 21% to $108.5 billion this year. The company has signed 26 contracts
globally to supply 5G equipment for commercial use, leaving it well ahead of its US rivals.
"... Of course, I was just trying to make a point that wells drilled in 2015 that had seen 3 years of weak (and one year of average) oil prices were going to be total losers that would not payout within any reasonable time horizon, if at all. ..."
"... To continue, there is no mention in these numbers of how much land costs. I seem to recall many Permian players paying $15-60K per acre. So a two mile DSU would cost $19.2 million to $76.8 million. I just ignored land costs completely. Further, each of these companies has interest expense. One can go to the 10K's and 10Q's to see how much that is costing each per BOE. I just ignored interest expense too. ..."
"... I do argue until we see some well payout data (hard data, not power point variety) from these companies, we should assume the wells generally do not payout within 36 months, or even 60 months. ..."
"... I was just trying to remind people of the numbers. I think most of the investing public has figured it out, based on where these companies are trading since oil dumped again. ..."
So to keep everyone happy, here are some averages for the all wells EFS, Bakken and Permian.
Decided to exclude Niobrara, oil numbers are much lower.
2015 Q3 36 months of production: 162,635 BO most recent monthly rate 58.6 BOPD
2016 Q3 24 months of production: 169,078 BO most recent monthly rate 103.5 BOPD
2017 Q3 12 months of production: 136,850 BO most recent monthly rate 213.1 BOPD
For 2015 162,635 x .80 x $45 = $5,854,860
7% severance $409,840
$5 per BO LOE $650,540
$2 per BO G & A $260,216
Net = $4,534,264
I lowered the costs some to make the economics more favorable from the standpoint of those
who love the sub $2 gasoline. Might be ok to look at 10K and 10Q if anyone would like to plug
in different cost estimates.
The 2016 wells described above are at $4,713,894 per well after 24 months.
The 2017 wells described above are at $3,815,378 per well after 12 months.
Of course, I was just trying to make a point that wells drilled in 2015 that had seen
3 years of weak (and one year of average) oil prices were going to be total losers that would
not payout within any reasonable time horizon, if at all.
To continue, there is no mention in these numbers of how much land costs. I seem to
recall many Permian players paying $15-60K per acre. So a two mile DSU would cost $19.2
million to $76.8 million. I just ignored land costs completely. Further, each of these
companies has interest expense. One can go to the 10K's and 10Q's to see how much that is
costing each per BOE. I just ignored interest expense too.
These wells are a lousy investment at $50 WTI. Only gets worse as the oil price sinks.
I think this all started because maybe GuyM was actually giving some credence to EOG
guidance. I don't blame GuyM, or anyone else, for believing what the companies say.
I do argue until we see some well payout data (hard data, not power point variety)
from these companies, we should assume the wells generally do not payout within 36 months, or
even 60 months.
I do agree, wells have residual value after 36 and 60 months. I also agree that much
higher oil prices make this business a money maker. Finally, I agree the wells have improved
every year, although it is looking like 2016 might have been the high water mark, with later
wells not moving the needle much higher.
Time for me to exit for awhile. I was just trying to remind people of the numbers. I
think most of the investing public has figured it out, based on where these companies are
trading since oil dumped again.
Good analysis, and thanks, again. No amount of increased productivity could make them
profitable at $45, especially not $37, or $16. The clock is ticking. Yeah, EOG has gone from
over $120 to $87.
Now investors will be super cautious that that will have depressing effect.
Notable quotes:
"... There are huge losses, we don't see that are happening now in the derivative market, besides the stock markets. There was something like 384 trillion just in interest rate bets in derivatives, that half are losing right now. ..."
"... Each crash is different. This one is just a slow meltdown. ..."
"... The stock market, and now especially derivatives, are nothing other than a gigantic Las Vegas casino. Elves in the market strive to maintain that there is a relation, but in the end, it doesn't pan out. ..."
Of course. But traditionally, crashes take from cash/growth after a period of time. Nine
months to a year, and growth in GDP precedes bull markets by the same. It's not a fritzing
law, but it's logical, and normal. Has been since I started following it in the 60's.
Last crash was different, in that the GDP growth declined before the crash, due to
housing. But, if the crash persists, my bet would be a lack of cash, eventually, to support
growth.
There are huge losses, we don't see that are happening now in the derivative market,
besides the stock markets. There was something like 384 trillion just in interest rate bets
in derivatives, that half are losing right now.
This is no traditional crash. FED can stop hiking interest rates and market might pause an
consolidate before going lower but lower they go. Until FED stops allowing it's balance sheet
to shrink, down is the direction for markets. Back when QE was full blown stuff like gov.
shutdown and trade wars were the very thing that made markets go higher because it meant more
QE for longer.
There is nothing organic about the recovery of markets since 2008-2009. All assets and
markets are mispriced. Price discovery wasn't allowed to happen after 2008-2009. Truth is
true price discovery won't be allowed to happen this time either.
Fed is manufacturing a market crash so they can do the next round of QE. Fact is QE works
but you can't end it and you sure as hell can't reverse it. QE creates the illusion that
everything is fine. There is a credibility issue if you can't ever end QE though. That's
where the Fed finds itself now.
Your right. Each crash is different. This one is just a slow meltdown.
And, since I have been following it, there has never been anything organic about market
growth, it's always BS. There was nothing organic about the first big market crash in the
early part of last century, it was purely speculative. The tulip crash, before established
markets was speculative.
Growth in GDP and markets are two separate animals. Although, as the previous crash
proves, GDP decline can affect the market, as well as market crashes affecting GDP.
The stock market, and now especially derivatives, are nothing other than a gigantic
Las Vegas casino. Elves in the market strive to maintain that there is a relation, but in the
end, it doesn't pan out.
Well the Dow has had its largest monthly loss ever recorded this December unless market
recovers some of that between now and the end of the year. Slow meltdown maybe not. It's
currently at about -4,200 which tops the largest monthly drop during 2008-2009 by about 1,000
points.
Just further to drop than the previous ones. Half would be about 10k more points. But, there
is nothing magical about half, it could stop well before that.
The analysis of the drop is still being speculated. The ones that make sense, so far, is that
there was a lot of market fear (tariffs, ad nauseum). Sell offs happened, snow balling into
covering margin calls. If so, that is a normal scenario, but I think the Fed raising interest
rates, and continuing to unravel QE is also a major, if not the major reason. There are a
bunch of other reasons that don't make a lot of sense. One blaming oil price. I think that is
yet to come, but not this time.
Unwinding of FED's balance sheet is also on autopilot. They don't have to have a Fed meeting
to vote on it like a rate hike. Much easier to deflect the blame elsewhere for the resulting
market decline.
-4,200 which tops the largest monthly drop during 2008-2009 by about 1,000 points.
Hey, it it's the precentage drop that counts. What was the largest monthly
percentage drop in the 2008-2009 crash? I would wager it was far greater than the percentage
drop this December.
This article is about the huge 1,175 one day drop last February, but the point still
holds.
The Dow's 4.6% loss on Monday was the worst since August 2011. But it didn't even crack
the top-20 of all-time losses. It was just the 25th worst loss since 1960.
The Dow's biggest one-day percentage loss was the 22.6% Black Monday crash on Oct. 19,
1987. In point terms, that was "only" 508 points. In second place, the Dow crashed 12.8% on
Oct. 28, 1929.
Looks like the biggest percentage drop for a month was Feb 2009, at around 21%. Eclipsing
this month. But, it had also been going down for a long time. What was this month, around
16%? But, it's just started,
Seems the break even is pretty low, as EIA has predicted about a million bpd increase out of
shale in 2019 It doesn't matter whether you
provide storage or increase the number of refineries, shale production is relatively dead at
these prices. The prices just need to stay ridiculously low for awhile to stop the EIA and
IEA from producing more imaginary oil, and face reality. Yeah, that would affect my wells,
but I would hope for a better price, later.
Less than $17 a barrel? Bakken is done for awhile. And there is NOBODY in the Permian
breaking even at $34. Remember what happened in 2015? Yeah, production dropped by over a
million barrels. These prices are as bad as 2015, and we have a bigger drop potential. Those
pipeline builders gotta be really worried. But, they should be anyway. How are you going to
keep the pipeline flowing if you can't take what's in there out, because there is nowhere to
put it? How many mentally challenged people are working in the Permian?
The amazing part is, this time there is no glut, at all. Inventories will drop, but just
let it happen. We have to forever eradicate the Permian and shale production will save the
world song. It's a thousand times more irritating than listening to Bing Crosby's white
Christmas on January1st. There ain't no fritzing Santa Clause, EIA!
Seems like a lot of year end liquidation of oil futures perhaps. That's the only explanation
I've got for how oil is this low. Probably will bounce back to the low 50's WTI by late
January. It will be interesting to see December through February US production data to see
what effect this price dive has done.
Two thoughts, immediately. The price is such now, that if it stays anywhere close to that for
awhile, completions won't be as expected, and there won't be enough oil to fill them. The
second is, that if the E&Ps had the right price, and did produce, there is probably not
enough shipping until late 2020 or 2021 to handle 2.5 million bpd extra. No place to store
it, and refineries can't use high API. Unless, I am missing something. Pipelines can't make
much money because a pipeline is filled, it has to be flowing.
Maybe not zero, but could be a lot more. It's reacting to the stock market, now. Dow down 15%
and still going. This is no simple correction, as that stops at around 10%, usually. Been a
long, long time since the last bear market, and is past due. Everything dives, until they
come to grips that commodities are a different animal. That may take months, or longer
depending on how bad it gets. Who knows, each bear market has a different generation, and
it's always new to them.
Especially this one, as it has been so long. New ball game.
I think it was EN who posted how rate hikes can cause this on a historical basis. Based on
that chart, we could be in a significant bear market. Bubbles are going to pop. Not sure what
the derivative markets are looking like, but they can't be healthy. The derivative markets
are many times bigger than the regular stock markets. Think Lehman Brothers, and margin call.
Lehman didn't fail over bad home loans, they failed over the derivatives of home loans. This
time, it won't be housing, but something will give. They made a big effort to control the
banks after the last fiasco in 2008, but made NO effort in regulating derivatives. Brilliant.
Some of the weaker oil companies may be in trouble. JMO.
Right on the move from 18,000 to 27,000 in the Dow was just hot air as we are seeing now.
Investors realize there isn't a fed put and are freaking out, how far will it sink before
Powell and company call off the dogs and say no more rate hikes and stop quantitative
tightening..cause it's on "autopilot" according to them. All I want is 4% on an 18 month CD,
fat chance now.
In other words, if you have to sell those paper barrels for margin calls, and there is too
few to buy, because they are selling, also; then price goes down, because there are too many
paper barrels, and not enough buyers. Probably, the original paper sellers lose their butt,
and have to sell something to cover their margins. Everyone now is paying homage to the
margin god. Because, there was never any real money to cause the stock market to soar like an
eagle.
Which reverses itself later, because when it is time to sell new paper barrels, less are
sold, enabling the price to go up (if anyone has any money left). Everyone else is busy
ducking Guido, because the value of what they had left in their portfolio was not enough to
cover margin. Er, I think
Anyway, that's Guy's course negative 101, on the current status of oil prices.
Of course. But traditionally, crashes take from cash/growth after a period of time. Nine
months to a year, and growth in GDP precedes bull markets by the same. It's not a fritzing
law, but it's logical, and normal. Has been since I started following it in the 60's. Last
crash was different, in that the GDP growth declined before the crash, due to housing. But,
if the crash persists, my bet would be a lack of cash, eventually, to support growth. There
are huge losses, we don't see that are happening now in the derivative market, besides the
stock markets. There was something like 384 trillion just in interest rate bets in
derivatives,that half are losing right now.
This is no traditional crash. FED can stop hiking interest rates and market might pause an
consolidate before going lower but lower they go. Until FED stops allowing it's balance sheet
to shrink, down is the direction for markets. Back when QE was full blown stuff like gov.
shutdown and trade wars were the very thing that made markets go higher because it meant more
QE for longer.
There is nothing organic about the recovery of markets since 2008-2009. All assets and
markets are mispriced. Price discovery wasn't allowed to happen after 2008-2009. Truth is
true price discovery won't be allowed to happen this time either.
Fed is manufacturing a market crash so they can do the next round of QE. Fact is QE works
but you can't end it and you sure as hell can't reverse it. QE creates the illusion that
everything is fine. There is a credibility issue if you can't ever end QE though. That's
where the Fed finds itself now.
Your right. Each crash is different. This one is just a slow meltdown. And, since I have been
following it, there has never been anything organic about market growth, it's always BS.
There was nothing organic about the first big market crash in the early part of last century,
it was purely speculative. The tulip crash, before established markets was speculative.
Growth in GDP and markets are two separate animals. Although, as the previous crash proves,
GDP decline can affect the market, as well as market crashes affecting GDP.
The stock market, and now especially derivatives, are nothing other than a gigantic Las
Vegas casino. Elves in the market strive to maintain that there is a relation, but in the
end, it doesn't pan out.
Well the Dow has had its largest monthly loss ever recorded this December unless market
recovers some of that between now and the end of the year. Slow meltdown maybe not. It's
currently at about -4,200 which tops the largest monthly drop during 2008-2009 by about 1,000
points.
Just further to drop than the previous ones. Half would be about 10k more points. But, there
is nothing magical about half, it could stop well before that.
The analysis of the drop is still being speculated. The ones that make sense, so far, is that
there was a lot of market fear (tariffs, ad nauseum). Sell offs happened, snow balling into
covering margin calls. If so, that is a normal scenario, but I think the Fed raising interest
rates, and continuing to unravel QE is also a major, if not the major reason. There are a
bunch of other reasons that don't make a lot of sense. One blaming oil price. I think that is
yet to come, but not this time.
Unwinding of FED's balance sheet is also on autopilot. They don't have to have a Fed meeting
to vote on it like a rate hike. Much easier to deflect the blame elsewhere for the resulting
market decline.
-4,200 which tops the largest monthly drop during 2008-2009 by about 1,000 points.
Hey, it it's the precentage drop that counts. What was the largest monthly
percentage drop in the 2008-2009 crash? I would wager it was far greater than the percentage
drop this December.
This article is about the huge 1,175 one day drop last February, but the point still
holds.
The Dow's 4.6% loss on Monday was the worst since August 2011. But it didn't even crack
the top-20 of all-time losses. It was just the 25th worst loss since 1960.
The Dow's biggest one-day percentage loss was the 22.6% Black Monday crash on Oct. 19,
1987. In point terms, that was "only" 508 points. In second place, the Dow crashed 12.8% on
Oct. 28, 1929.
Looks like the biggest percentage drop for a month was Feb 2009, at around 21%. Eclipsing
this month. But, it had also been going down for a long time. What was this month, around
16%? But, it's just started,
So markets look down 14ish% YTD. Still 4 days to worsen that or better that.
You know, there is no law of the universe that says markets can't be down more than 10%
this year, and next year, and the next, and the next for 10 years or so. Never done that
before? So what? Never printed 25% of GDP before. Never API 40.6 WTI before. After 10 yrs,
scarce oil, scarce life.
You have that right. The world is full of surprises.
And, I do not see QE, again. Different folks in the Fed. So, banks will lose big time on
easy money, and getting more is not going to be easy like last time. Over the past two years,
I have been getting endless calls and letters wanting to loan me money. Bet that slows
down.
And, because bear markets have a tendency to stick around for a few years, oil supply may
put a blanket on improvement. So it could be possible for continued decline, rather than a
rebound. Or, one real big final decline. No end to the possibilities.
One, I really see as a possibility, is another export ban. Think about it. Gasoline prices
go up due to a shortage. We could be in a recession with stagflation. The public, and the
illiterate congress would not be able to comprehend API. We are just exporting oil, when gas
prices are high. In a way, they would be right. Think how that would affect 2.5 million bpd
pipeline expansions, and extra shipping improvements.
Or, we could elect another flawed icon for President-Elon. Who would promise a Tesla for
every family, or a free trip to Mars.
Think in terms of the big SWFs. It is they that seek action.
As for quoting indices vs their histories, this sounds like a good thing. Just be sure
that you quote an index that has the same companies in it as it did historically. The Dow
with Apple will be difficult data to find for 1960. But you can find GE in it for then.
Ever notice they don't add a company that is failing? And never remove one that is doing
well? Similarly we should only quote WTI 39.6 API price. Difficult data to find.
Compare with "That's set to worsen in the new year, experts told CNBC on Monday, pointing to
risks including the Federal Reserve likely raising interest rates further and mounting concerns
about a global economic slowdown." The problem iether expecting rally or expecting further
downturn is that stock prices are so detached from reality that everything is possible.
Wall Street will see a "relief rally" in stocks that would offer a better selling
opportunity for investors, technical analyst Katie Stockton says.
The rally would last for several weeks and would be up to 8 percent higher than where
the markets closed on Friday, she says.
I still had some things I didn't talk about in Sunday's Trump Derangement
International , about how the European press have found out that they, like the US MSM, can
get lots of viewers and readers simply by publishing negative stories about Donald Trump. The
US president is an attention magnet, as long as you only write things about him designed to
make him look bad.
The Guardian is only too happy to comply. They ran a whole series of articles on Sunday to
do juts that: try to make Trump look bad. Note that the Guardian editorial team that okayed the
articles is the same as the one that allowed
the fake Assange/Manafort one , so their credibility is already shot to pieces. It's the
magic triangle of today's media profits: spout non-stop allegations against Russia, Trump and
Julian Assange, and link them when and where you can. It doesn't matter if what you say is true
or not.
Anyway, all the following is from the Guardian, all on December 23. First off, Adam Gabbatt
in New York, who has painstakingly researched how Trump's businesses, like Trump Tower and the
Trump store, don't appear to have sufficiently (as per him) switched from Happy Holidays to
Merry Christmas. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud. A smash hit there Adam, bring out the
handcuffs.
During Donald Trump's presidential campaign he talked often about his determination to win
one particular war. A war that had been raging for years, he said. Specifically: the war on
Christmas. But despite Trump's repeated claims that "people are saying Merry Christmas again"
instead of the more inclusive "happy holidays", there are several places where the Christmas
greeting is absent: Trump's own businesses.
The Trump Store, for example. Instead of a Christmas gift guide – which surely would
be more in keeping with the president's stated desire for the phrase to be used – the
store offers a holiday gift guide. "Shop our Holiday Gift Guide and find the perfect present
for the enthusiast on your list," the online store urges. "Carefully curated to celebrate the
most wonderful time of year with truly unique gifts found only at Trump Store. Add a bow on
top with our custom gift wrapping. Happy Holiday's!"
The use of the phrase "Happy Holiday's" [sic] in Trump marketing would seem particularly
egregious. The long-standing "War-on-Christmas" complaint from the political right is that
stores use the phrase "Happy Holidays", rather than specifically mentioning the Christian
celebration. It is offered as both an example of political correctness gone mad, and as an
effort to erase Christianity from the US.
It's just, I think that if Trump had personally interfered to make sure there were Merry
Christmas messages all around, you would have remarked that as president, he's not allowed to
be personally involved in his businesses. But yeah, you know, just to keep the negativity
going, it works, no matter how fluffy and hollow.
Second, still on December 23, is Tom McCarthy for the Guardian in New York, who talks about
Robert Mueller's phenomenal successes. Mueller charged 34 people so far. In a case that
involves "this complexity which has international implications, aspects relying on the
intelligence community, complicated cyber components". It really says that.
And yes, that's how many people view this. What do they care that Mueller's original mandate
was to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and 'Russians', and that he has not proven
any collusion at all so far, not even with 34 people charged? What do they care? It looks like
Trump is guilty of something, anything, after all, and that's all the circus wants.
One measure of special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutorial success in 2018 is the list
of former top Donald Trump aides brought to justice: Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, a jury
convicted Paul Manafort, a judge berated Michael Flynn. Another measure is the tally of new
defendants that Mueller's team charged (34), the number of new guilty pleas he netted (five)
and the amount of money he clawed back through tax fraud cases ($48m).
Yet another measure might judge Mueller's pace compared with previous independent
prosecutors. "I would refer to it as a lightning pace," said Barb McQuade, a University of
Michigan law professor and former US attorney. "In a case of this complexity which has
international implications, aspects relying on the intelligence community, complicated cyber
components – to indict that many people that quickly is really impressive work."
But there's perhaps a more powerful way to measure Mueller's progress in his investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and links between Moscow and the Trump
campaign; that's by noticing how the targets of his investigation have changed their postures
over the course of 2018, from defiance to docility – or in the case of Trump himself,
from defiance to extreme, hyperventilating defiance.
In reality, you would be at least as correct if you would claim that Robert Mueller's
investigation has been an abject failure. Not one iota of collusion has been proven after 20
months and $20 million in funds have been used. And any serious investigation of Washington's
culture of fixers and lobbyists would land at least 34 people who have committed acts that
border on or over illegality. And in a matter of weeks, for a few hundred bucks.
Third, still on December 23, is Julian Borger in Washington, who's been elected to convey
the image of chaos. Trump Unleashed, says our modern day Shakespeare. With Jim Mad Dog Mattis
characterized as ".. the last independently minded, globally respected, major figure left in
the administration".. . Again, it really says that.
Because woe the man who tries to bring US troops home, or even promises to do so a few days
before Christmas. For pulling out America's finest, Donald Trump is being portrayed as
something eerily close to the antichrist. That truly is the world on its head. Bringing troops
home to their families equals chaos.
Look, guys, if Trump has been guilty of criminal behavior, the US justice system should be
able to find that out and convict him for it. But that's not what this is about anymore. A
million articles have been written, like these ones in the Guardian, with the sole intention,
evidence being scarce to non-existent, of smearing him to the extent that people see every
subsequent article in the light of a man having previously been smeared.
The US stumbled into the holiday season with a sense of unravelling, as a large chunk of
the federal government ground to a halt, the stock market crashed and the last independently
minded, globally respected, major figure left in the administration announced he could no
longer work with the president. The defense secretary, James Mattis, handed in his
resignation on Thursday, over Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull US troops out of
Syria.
On Saturday another senior official joined the White House exodus. Brett McGurk, the
special envoy for the global coalition to defeat Isis and the US official closest to
America's Kurdish allies in the region, was reported to have handed in his resignation on
Friday. That night, senators flew back to Washington from as far away as Hawaii for emergency
talks aimed at finding a compromise on Trump's demand for nearly $6bn for a wall on the
southern border, a campaign promise which has become an obsession.
Now look at the next headline, December 23, Graeme Wearden, Guardian, and ask yourself if
it's really Trump saying he doesn't agree with the rate hikes that fuels the fears, or whether
it's the hikes themselves. And also ask yourself: when Trump and Mnuchin both deny reports of
Trump firing Powell, why do journalists keep saying the opposite? Because they want to fuel
some fears?
From where I'm sitting, it looks perfectly logical that Trump says he doesn't think Powell's
decisions are good for the US economy. And it doesn't matter which one of the two turns out to
be right: Trump isn't the only person who disagrees with the Fed hikes.
The main suspect for 2019 market turmoil is the inevitable fallout from the Fed's QE under
Bernanke and Yellen. And there is something to be said for Powell trying to normalize rates,
but there's no doubt that may hasten, if not cause, turmoil. Blaming it on Trump not agreeing
with Jay Powell is pretty much as left field as it gets.
Over the weekend, a flurry of reports claimed Donald Trump had discussed the possibility
of firing the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. Such an unprecedented move would
trigger further instability in the markets, which have already had their worst year since the
2008 crisis. US officials scrambled to deny Trump had suggested ousting Powell, who was
appointed by the president barely a year ago.
The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, tweeted that he had spoken to the president, who
insisted he "never suggested firing" Powell, and did not believe he had the right to do this
. However, Trump also declared – via Mnuchin – that he "totally disagrees" with
the Fed's "absolutely terrible" policy of raising interest rates and unwinding its
bond-buying stimulus programme, piling further pressure on the US's independent central
bank.
And now, in the only article in the Guardian series that's December 24, not 23, by Victoria
Bekiempis and agencies, the plunging numbers in the stock markets are Trump's fault, too.
Top Democrats have accused Donald Trump of "plunging the country into chaos" as top
officials met to discuss a growing rout in stock markets caused in part by the president's
persistent attacks on the Federal Reserve and a government shutdown. "It's Christmas Eve and
President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," the two top Democrats in Congress, House
speaker nominee Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, wrote in a joint
statement on Monday. "The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war
on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the Secretary of Defense."
Trump criticized the Federal Reserve on Monday, describing it as the "only problem" for
the US economy, even as top officials convened the "plunge protection team" forged after the
1987 crash to discuss the growing rout in stock markets. The crisis call on Monday between US
financial regulators and the US treasury department failed to assure markets, and stocks fell
again amid concern about slowing economic growth, the continuing government shutdown, and
reports that Trump had discussed firing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
The last one is from one Jonathan Jones, again December 23, again for the Guardian. And it
takes the top award in the narrative building contest.
Again, the Guardian editorial team that okayed this article is still the same as the one
that allowed the fake Assange/Manafort one, an editorial team that sees no problem in making
things up in order to smear people. To portray Trump, Assange and anyone who's had the
misfortune of being born in Russia as suspicious if not outright criminal.
But look at what Jones has to say, and what Guardian editor-in-chief Kathy Viner and her ilk
allowed and pressured him to say. He wants to have a say in how Trump should dress (seasonal
knitwear), he evokes the image of Nazi architect Albert Speer for no reason at all, and then
it's a matter of mere inches until you arrive at Trump as a king, an emperor, an inner
tyrant.
"He's in a tuxedo!", Like that's a bad thing for Christmas. "She's in white!". Oh dear, call
the pope. If both Trumps would have put on Christmas sweaters in front of a fire, the writer
would have found something negative in that.
The absence of intimacy in the Trumps' official Christmas portrait freezes the heart. Can
it be that hard to create a cosy image of the presidential couple, perhaps in front of a
roaring hearth, maybe in seasonal knitwear? Or is this quasi-dictatorial image exactly what
the president wants to project? Look on my Christmas trees, ye mighty, and despair! If so, it
fuels suspicions that it is only the checks and balances of a 230-year-old constitution that
are keeping America from the darkest of political fates. You couldn't create a creepier
Yuletide scene if you tried. Multiple Christmas trees are currently a status symbol for the
wealthy, but this picture shows the risks.
Instead of a homely symbol of midwinter cheer, these disciplined arboreal ranks with their
uniform decorations are arrayed like massed soldiers or colossal columns designed by Albert
Speer. The setting is the Cross Hall in the White House and, while the incumbent president
cannot be held responsible for its architecture, why heighten its severity with such rigid,
heartless seasonal trappings? Everything here communicates cold, empty magnificence. Tree
lights that are as frigid as icicles are mirrored in a cold polished floor. Equally frosty
illuminations are projected on the ceiling. Instead of twinkling fairy magic, this lifeless
lighting creates a sterile, inhuman atmosphere.
You can't imagine kids playing among these trees or any conceivable fun being had by
anyone. It suggests the micromanaged, corporate Christmas of a Citizen Kane who has long
since lost touch with the ordinary, warm pleasures of real life. In the centre of this
disturbing piece of conceptual art stand Donald and Melania Trump. He's in a tuxedo, she's
wearing white – and not a woolly hat in sight. Their formal smartness adds to the
emotional numbness of the scene. Trump's shark-like grin has nothing generous or friendly
about it. He seems to want to show off his beautiful wife and his fantastic home rather than
any of the cuddly holiday spirit a conventional politician might strive to share at this
time.
It begs a question: how can a man who so glaringly lacks anything like a common touch be
such a successful "populist"? What can a midwestern voter find in this image to connect with?
Perhaps that's the point. After more than two centuries of democracy, Trump is offering the
US people a king, or emperor. In this picture, he gives full vent to his inner tyrant. If
this portrait contains any truth about the state of America and the world, may Santa help us
all.
I realize that you may be tired of the whole story. I realize you may have been caught in
the anti-Trump narrative. And I am by no means a Trump fan. But I will keep on dragging you
back to this. Because the discussion should not be based on a handful of media moguls not
liking Trump. It should not be based on innuendo and smear. If Trump is to be convicted, it
must be on evidence.
And there is no such evidence. Robert Mueller has charged 34 people, but none with what his
mandate was based on, none with Russia collusion. This means that the American political
system, and democracy itself, is under severe threat by the very media that are supposed to be
its gate keepers.
None of this is about Trump, or about whether you like him or not, or even if he's a shady
character or not. Instead, it's about the influence the media have on how our opinions and
ideas about people and events are being shaped on a daily basis.
And once you acknowledge that your opinions of Trump, Putin et al, even without any proof of
a connection between them, are actively being molded by the press you expect to inform you
about the truth behind what goes on, you will have to acknowledge, too, that you are a captive
of forces that use your gullibility to make a profit off you.
If our media need to make up things all the time about who's guilty of what, because our
justice systems are incapable of that, then we have a problem so enormous we may not be able to
overcome it in our present settings.
Alternatively, if we trust our justice systems to deliver true justice, we don't need a
hundred articles a day to tell us how Trump or Putin are such terrible threats to our world.
Our judges will tell us, not our journalists or media who are only in it for a profit.
I can say: "let's start off 2019 trying to leave prejudice behind", and as much as that is
needed and you may agree with me, it's no use if you don't realize to what extent your views of
the world have been shaped by prejudice.
I see people reacting to the star writer at Der Spiegel who wrote a lot about Trump, being
exposed as a fraud. I also see people trying to defend Julian Assange from the Guardian article
about his alleged meetings with Paul Manafort, that was an obvious big fat lie (the truth is
Manafort talked to Ecuador to help them 'sell' Assange to the US).
But reacting to the very obvious stuff is not enough . The echo chamber distorts the truth
about Trump every single day, and at least six times on Sunda y, as this essay of mine shows.
It's just that after two years of this going on 24/7, it is perceived as the normal.
Everyone makes money dumping on the Donald, it's a proven success formula, so why would the
Guardian and Der Spiegel stay behind? They'd only hurt their own bottom line.
It has nothing to do with journalism, though, or news. It's smear and dirt, the business
model of the National Enquirer. That's how far our once truthful media have fallen.
All these journalists are influenced and manipulated by 'Australian-American Leadership
Dialogue', 'Atlantikbrücke', Open Society Foundation money etc. Wars boost the NYSE
because many weapons manufacturers are listed there.
If the journalists weren't manipulated all 2018 compilations would not have omitted the
World Cup in Russia.
That'd be like astronomers saying that although Hellenic astrology is pseudoscientific nonsense they can probably do business
with Ptolemaic or Hindu astrology. Other scientists would laugh and call astronomy the dismal physics. Isn't it about time economists
like yourself just told the knuckle dragging ideologues - of whatever colour and salinity - to fuck off?
One interesting argument against bond rates rising further is that will be tremendous hit for
the USA budget as they need to pay interest of their debt. So it might be that there is just one
hike on the road from now.
Hasenstab described his market outlook during an interview with
the Financial Times .
"October was not a fluke," Hasenstab said. "There is a lot of entrenched interest rate
risk in all financial markets right now."
But even if raising interest rates leads to some discomfort in the short term, the Fed
should keep hiking, because "it's the right thing to do."
"I don't know what they will do, but I know what they should do, and that is to keep
raising rates," he said. "It is better to have these periodic downturns than procrastinating
and have to move even more aggressively later on."
Hasenstab's $35 billion Templeton Global Bond Fund is up 1.6% on the year, compared with a
2.2% loss for the global bond market , thanks to aggressive bets against the euro and US
equities. Judging by Hasenstab's outlook, if his view proves correct, those trades should
continue to generate profits during the new year.
A bond manager predicting rates will rise .... that´s a rarity in this business.
Looks like he is trying to tell the truth. But I don't trust politicians and neocons and Wall
Street guys. They will do everything to keep rates down. They will even start a war or sell
their mother, if that keeps rates down.
"...Templeton Global Bond Fund is up 1.6% on the year, compared with a 2.2% loss for
the global bond market, thanks to aggressive bets against the euro and US equities."
I was under the impression a bond fund invested in bonds? Stupid me! So I guess its not
really a bond fund - its just a fund.
Oh man, open up the holdings of any actively managed bond funds- MBS, CLOs, Loans, junk,
paper without ANY ratings. Very difficult to find a pure non-leveraged avtively managed bond
fund to hedge equities. You're better off building a ladder out of Treasuries and AAA
corporates yourself - and then holding till maturity.
A great many investors are about to be hit with huge margin calls and flushed out of this
market.
Imagine the shock this morning of a fictitious couple named Joe and Jill Average that are
nearing retirement with a net worth last month of around 250 thousand dollars as they check
to see how they are doing after hearing "murmurs" the market has slipped. With three-quarters
of it in the market, they will be horrified to find that the mere pullback of stocks in
recent weeks has ripped away over 50 thousand dollars or 20% of their wealth.
Few people watch their investments daily but rather chose to peek at them every now and
then. This is the main reason a lot more Americans are not waking up today sick to their
stomach and in near panic from the devastation markets have wrecked upon their savings as
trillions of dollars have vanished into a big black hole. The article below argues this does
not make for a Merry Christmas!
Neoclassical economics makes you thing the markets are something they are not.
The 1920's sucker that believed in free markets – "Everything is getting better
and better look at the stock market"
The 1920's neoclassical economist that believed in free markets - "Stocks have reached
what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher 1929. It was obviously a
stable equilibrium.
What had gone wrong?
Henry Simons and Irving Fisher supported the Chicago Plan to take away the bankers ability
to create money, so that free market valuations could have some meaning.
The real world and free market, neoclassical economics would then tie up.
Henry Simons was actually at the University of Chicago (free market headquarters), but
they had forgotten about his work in a few decades.
What is real wealth?
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised
inflating asset prices doesn't create real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track
real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth
and therefore does not add to GDP.
The real wealth in the economy is measured by GDP.
Inflated asset prices aren't real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it
did in 1929 and 2008.
Free and modestly regulated markets are good, no arguments there. The time for free
markets in interest rates, was before Nixon signed the Venganza contract. Now, it'd be
counterproductive, not with $22 Trillion in direct liabilities, and multiples in indirect
ones. If you're championing interest rates free markets under this condition, you're
suspicious.
How do you repay $22 Trillion under a free market determined 32% rate of interest, how? If
you default, the destabilization would be unimaginable. The governments can simply not be
allowed to keep piling on unproductive debt, not at all. If folks are bawling like newborns
at 2.7% rates, then what'd happen at conservative market rates of 6% and above, what
exactly?
Find out again, why the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States was founded, it'd open
your eyes to human depravity...
S&P still comfortably above anything 'real', and yet all this talk about the Fed's
unwavering resolve. And housing crisis 2.0 hasn't even rounded 2nd base.
The stock market's recent correction has been more abrupt than you'd expect if the market
were in the early stages of a major decline.
I say that because one of the hallmarks of a major market top is that the bear market than
ensues is relatively mild at the beginning, only building up a head of steam over several
months. Corrections, in contrast, tend to be far sharper and more precipitous.
Consider the losses incurred by the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the first three months
of all bear markets of the last 80 years. (I used the bear-market calendar maintained by Ned
Davis Research.) I focused on this three-month window since that is the length of time since
the stock market registered its all-time high in late September. As you can see from this
chart, its average loss over these three-month periods was "just" 9.0%.
The Guardian is the best newspaper with 4,049,000 daily readers, they are owned by
non-profit foundation and they are free to write whatever they are pleased but their contents
is verified 100% so you are free not to like it but you have to accept it as a facts.
Given the many factors driving shares up or down on any day or week, it's hard to make sense of what's
happening on Wall Street.
Based on my many years of experience teaching and writing about
financial markets and frauds
, I
believe the best way to understand what's happening on Wall Street – and puncture its mystique – is to imagine it
as a used car dealership.
Stock markets 101
Stock exchanges are places where people trade ownership in corporations by buying and selling shares.
Partial ownership of a company comes with benefits, such as a cut of future profits and rising stock prices.
But there are risks and costs as well. Share price can fall, reducing the value of one's wealth; even worse,
businesses can go under, reducing the value of ownership to zero.
About half the population
owns at least some stocks, mostly in their 401(k)s. But, except for the richest 10 percent of Americans, stock
holdings are usually on the smaller side.
Stock exchanges play an important economic role by helping companies finance new investments. When a large
company wants to expand, it goes to an exchange like the NYSE and offers investors a stake in its business through
what is known as an initial public offering. That's exactly what ride-hailing services
Lyft and Uber plan to do
at some
point in 2019.
Everyone
at the New York Stock Exchange is trying to make sense of what's happening.
Reuters/Brendan McDermid
Selling used cars
However, this is not what stock trading is mainly about. Virtually all the
$80 trillion or so
in daily trading on the NYSE
and other exchanges around the world involves someone who already owns shares of a company selling them to
somebody else. In other words, it is very much like a used car dealership.
Used car dealers buy old automobiles and resell them. Similarly, stock markets are places where someone sells
their ownership in a company to a dealer, who then finds someone else to buy it. That is it. Ownership of a
company changes hands, with the exchange serving as the middleman.
These exchanges have benefits. They enable us sell things quickly. When I want to get rid of my car, it is more
convenient to have a used car dealer serve as an intermediary than for me to sell it myself. Because it is easy to
sell my car every few years, I may purchase a new one more frequently, which increases consumer spending and
strengthens the economy.
Selling lemons
But there are also negatives to stock markets.
As used car buyers know, it is
easy to end up with a
lemon
. Most people don't know the specifics of a particular used car. Its past and even its present condition
is often a total mystery.
And car dealers
have
incentives
to hide flaws in what they're selling – and thus deceive potential buyers. Revealing flaws in the
car will likely lose them sales and commissions.
Similarly, investors typically don't know much about a particular company. Such knowledge requires doing a lot
of homework about the company – its past history, its senior executives and its future plans – as well as knowing
how to read financial statements. This is much harder than homework on a specific car that you are thinking about
buying.
And just as car dealers can make a lemon look good for a test drive, companies can
cook their books
or drive up their stock
price to make themselves look good.
Furthermore, the stock market can help turn companies into lemons. Wall Street's focus on short-term stock
price gains means that it
cares more
about what will generate a quick buck rather than what will support long-term growth and
profitability. Consequently, companies end up focusing more on doing whatever drives up the value of its shares at
the expense of producing quality products efficiently, worker training and customer satisfaction.
In
the old days, there used to be a lot more paper on the floor of the NYSE.
AP Photo
Making sense of the slump
So what does this all mean for the current market slump?
One important lesson is that Wall Street is not the economy. If stocks go up or down, this doesn't mean that
the economy has necessarily improved or worsened. It only means that "pieces of paper" being bought and sold have
changed in value. Some people get richer, others poorer.
However, sharp stock market declines can have a real world impact, such as when a "bubble" collapses. That's
what happened in 2008 and what happened in October 1929, when a
stock market crash
caused by
a bursting bubble led to an 80 percent drop in stock prices. That market swoon helped spawn the Great Depression,
which saw an average of 15 percent unemployment for an entire decade, soup lines throughout the country and a 30
percent decline in economic activity and average incomes.
In other words,
when bubbles burst
, the economic damage can be substantial. People become poorer and spend less. Corporate
profits plummet, causing stocks to fall even further. People become skeptical of the stock market and won't lend
money to firms that want to expand their operations. A downward spiral can quickly deepen and become
self-reinforcing.
The bottom line: While you shouldn't panic about Wall Street's current woes, there are still reasons to pay
attention to the economy and stock market. And, most important of all, if you're an investor, do your homework and
steer clear of lemons.
The S&P crashed below its bear market level of 2352.7 - the lowest since April 2017 -
ending the longest bull market in history. This is the worst December for the S&P 500 since
The Great Depression
Volatility on Wall Street has led shares worldwide on a wild ride in recent months,
resulting in a number of stock markets dipping into bear territory -- typically defined as
20 percent or more off a recent peak.
That's set to worsen in the new year, experts told CNBC on Monday, pointing to risks
including the Federal Reserve likely raising interest rates further and mounting concerns
about a global economic slowdown.
"I think the worst is yet to come next year, we're still in the first half of a global
equity bear market with more to come next year," said Mark Jolley, global strategist at CCB
International Securities. Volatility on Wall Street has led shares worldwide on a wild ride
in recent months, resulting in a number of stock markets dipping into bear territory --
typically defined as 20 percent or more off a recent peak.
That's set to worsen in the new year, experts told CNBC on Monday, pointing to risks
including the Federal Reserve likely raising interest rates further and mounting concerns
about a global economic slowdown.
"I think the worst is yet to come next year, we're still in the first half of a global
equity bear market with more to come next year," said Mark Jolley, global strategist at CCB
International Securities.
A decade after the subprime bubble burst, a new one seems to be taking its place – a
phenomenon aptly characterized by Ricardo Caballero, Emmanuel Farhi, and Pierre-Olivier
Gourinchas as "
Financial 'Whac-a-Mole .'" A world economy geared toward increasing the supply of
financial assets has hooked us into a global game of waiting for the next bubble to
emerge somewhere.
Like the synchronous boom in residential housing prior to 2007 across several advanced
markets, CLOs have also gained in popularity in Europe. Higher investor appetite for European
CLOs has predictably led to a
surge in issuance (up almost 40% in 2018). Japanese banks, desperately seeking higher
yields, have swelled the ranks of buyers. The networks for financial contagion, should things
turn ugly, are already in place.
The artificial bull market is officially over, with the SPX officially entering bear market
today. BTFD is dead. Worst single day drop ahead of Christmas since 1918! As the first bear
market in years hits the most artificial stock market in history...
... ... ...
Trump is right, the Fed is the problem, but not for raising rates. Trump and
the MSM media are saying the Fed is making a policy mistake by raising rates as the economy
slows, and more importantly because the stock market is selling off. The current FF rate is
sitting between 2.25 and 2.5%, which historically is still low and accomodative. But Trump
should have stuck to his campaign version of the Fed, when he called out the Fed for the bubble
in stocks, and for keeping rates to low which led to what he called a "big fat ugly bubble."
After his election, he embraced the stock market, and now he owns it.
The Fed is the problem because they cut rates to Zero and held it there for 7 years. The Fed
is the problem for helping orchestrate the bailouts. The Fed is the problem because they did
multiple rounds of QE which did NOTHING for the middle class and the average Americans, instead
it made the rich richer and created the largest wealth inequality. The Fed is the problem
because they waited too long to begin raising rates, which helped create the largest asset
bubbles the world had ever seen.
And on CNBC, as the market has been selling off nonstop, they have the audacity to ask 'why
the relentless selling'?! As the market rallied 342% over the last 10 years, not once did they
ever ask why the relentless buying. Not once were they or anyone else worried about the
repercussions. They were cheerleading the entire time. Not once did anyone mention that the
Fed's reckless policies led to a dangerous rally in stocks and across multiple asset classes.
People thought the party would and could never end.
So as the market is only down -20%, today former Hollywood movie director turned Treasury
Secretary sent the markets into deeper selling as he made headlines for calling Bank CEO's and
consulting with the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) about the market conditions and liquidity. We
haven't even seen panic in the markets yet, and we are consulting bank ceo's and the PPT??? But
once again, the old conspiracy theory of the existence of the PPT became a fact.
Mnuchin confirmed their existence. Now all of a sudden we are seeing "recession fears"
headlines all over the place, but a few months ago when stocks were at records you never heard
the "r" word. Yet they love to say the stock market is not the economy. The longest artificial
bull market is officially over. Now we will see just how bad it will get. We are only down
-20%, and it is a long way down if this is only the start.
They herded folks into gambling ventures, while piling them high with alcohol (debt), just
like in Vegas. We're tempted to just give up, and let the chips fall wherever. Some folks
think recalibration comes without unpleasantness. Making America Great Again, requires
sacrifice, work, and determination but if folks would rather sacrifice their children to the
Moloch of a levitated market, perhaps we're interacting with the wrong people and ought just
quit.
It's depressing that folks claim they wanna go to heaven, but keep looking longingly at
hell...
I stayed out of this abomination of a market once I made the money back I lost in 2008.
Never again, I said to myself. The Fed herds people into stocks, houses, whatever they think
they can pump and dump. Why doesn't Trump shut them down?
If the goal of the OPEC+ cuts was to boost oil prices, then the deal is clearly failing.
OPEC+ is scrambling to figure out a way to rescue oil prices from another deep downturn. WTI is
now down into the mid-$40s and Brent into the mid-$50s, both a 15-month low. U.S. shale
continues to soar, even if shale producers themselves are now
facing financial trouble with prices so low. Oil traders are clearly skeptical that OPEC+
is either willing or capable of balancing the oil market.
OPEC+ thought they secured a strong deal in Vienna in early December, but more needs to be
done, it seems. OPEC's Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo wrote a letter to the cartel's
members, arguing that they need to increase the cuts. Initially, the OPEC+ coalition suggested
that producers should lower output by 2.5 percent, but Barkindo said that the cuts need to be
more like 3 percent in order to reach the overall 1.2 million-barrel-per-day reduction.
More importantly, the group needs to detail how much each country should be producing. "In
the interests of openness and transparency, and to support market sentiment and confidence, it
is vital to make these production adjustments publicly available," Barkindo told members in the
letter, according to
Reuters . By specifying exactly how much each country will reduce, the thinking seems to
be, it will go a long way to assuaging market anxiety about the group's seriousness.
Still, the plunge in oil prices this month is evidence that traders are not convinced.
The view is "that the U.S. will continue to grow like gangbusters regardless of price and
overwhelm any OPEC action," Helima Croft, the chief commodities strategist at Canadian broker
RBC, told
the Wall Street Journal .
"Unless there is a real geopolitical blowup, it could take time for these cuts to really
shift sentiment."
While cuts from producers like Saudi Arabia will help take supply off of the market, OPEC
might help erase the surplus in another unintended way. Bloomberg
raises the possibility that low oil prices could increase turmoil in some OPEC member
states . The price meltdown between 2014 and 2016 led to, or at least exacerbated, outages in
Libya, Venezuela and Nigeria. The same could happen again.
Just about all OPEC members need much higher oil prices in order to balance their books.
Saudi Arabia
needs roughly $88 per barrel for its budget to breakeven. Libya needs $114. Nigeria needs
$127. Venezuela needs a whopping $216. Only Kuwait -- at $48 per barrel -- can balance its
books at prevailing prices. Brent is trading in the mid-$50s right now.
How unlikely did it seem (pre-Khashoggi) that the Syrian situation would take the turns
we're now starting to witness?
Totally under the radar during the holiday newscycle.....major news story!
▪Saudi Arabia Agrees to Finance Rebuilding of Syria - Trump▪
US President Donald Trump said in a statement on Monday that Saudi Arabia has agreed to
pay for the reconstruction of Syria rather than the United States financing the
reconstruction of that country.
>>> "Saudi Arabia has now agreed to spend the necessary money needed to help
rebuild Syria, instead of the United States. See? Isn't it nice when immensely wealthy
countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the U.S., that is 5000
miles away. Thanks to Saudi A! " Trump said via Twitter.<<<
Trump has welcomed Riyadh's decision, adding that it is "nice when immensely wealthy
countries help rebuild their neighbors rather than a Great Country, the US, that is 5000
miles away."
The US president's comment comes after, on Wednesday, he announced that the United States
would withdraw its roughly 2,000 troops from Syria since the Daesh* terror group had been
defeated. However, the White House later clarified the decision does not mean the US-led
international coalition's fight against the Daesh has ended.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the US Congress who have supported US military
engagement and intervention throughout the world have criticized Trump's decision, saying
that a US troop withdrawal from Syria will lead to the reemergence of the Daesh and aid
Russia, Turkey and Iran fulfilling their interests in the region.
The longest and most ridiculous bull market. I once saw an epitaph on a tombstone that
read "I told you I was sick". I want mine to say "I told you to sell at Dow 26,000".
This wasn't a bull market, it was a levitated market.
In other news, we heard the Saudis have committed to help in rebuilding Syria and if true,
then we say to the Saudis, find redemption within your reach. And while we're at that, what
plans are in place for Yemen, the Kashoggi family, and the Saudi next generations, beyond
financial subsidies.
Concisely, what's the human development plan, devoid of white elephants, that cogently
integrates Saudi Arabia into the 21st century. A plan that can be coherently backed by the
globe, shorn of repression and terror cultivation?
Repentance, Restitution, and Recalibration, the three R's of a new leaf...
The Saudis wont do ****, they will send a few dozen Indians and maybe 100 Pakis (someone
has to manage the pakis you know). They will Spackle over the noticeable bullet holes, duct
take the plumbing back together and if they are lucky they may even free up a few Filipino
maids from slavery to clean the bathrooms that ISIS fucked up due to squatting on the seats
of the toilets and shooting the *** washer water all over the place.
Other than that, Saudis dont do **** all for themselves.
The market and RSI where overheated. Just correcting and cooling of RSI. Reading ZH would
make you believe the end of the world was here. Smart money been in cash since august.
They'll be buying these heavenly discounted companies soon. Especially oil equipment and
services who are now below 2008 lows.
You could be right? But I remember doing some DOW studies going back to DOW inception, and
it was always a very ominous signal when markets crashed in late December.
President Donald Trump has put a number of burning issues back on the agenda.
These include the widening income gap in the United States, the unintended and unexpected
consequences of outsourcing, and the disequilibrium created by signing trade agreements with
countries with different labor laws and environmental, health and safety standards.
In foreign policy, Trump has managed to pass on an important message: don't take
American heavy lifting for granted!
More importantly, Trump has persuaded millions of
Americans excluded or self-excluded from the political arena to end their isolation and demand a
meaningful place in collective decision-making.
Thus, for the time being at least, air-brushing Trump out of the picture is a
forlorn task.
(Image source: Ryan Johnson/City of North Charleston/Wikimedia Commons)
As the American political elite head for Christmas holidays,
the buzz in Washington
circles is that 2019 will start with fresh attempts at curtailing the Trump presidency or, failing
that, preventing Donald Trump's re-election in 2020.
Amateurs of the conspiracy theory may
suggest that the whole thing may be a trap set by the Trump camp to keep the president's opponents
chained to a strategy doomed to failure.
By devoting almost all of their energies to attacking Trump personally and praying that the
Mueller probe may open the way for impeachment,
the president's opponents, starting with
the Democrat Party leadership, have shut down debate about key issues of economic, social and
foreign policy -- issues that matter to the broader public.
Reducing all politics to a
simple "Get Trump!' slogan makes them a one-trick pony that may amuse people for a while but is
unlikely to go very far.
Despite sensational daily headlines furnished by the Mueller soap opera,
there is little
chance of the impeachment strategy to get anywhere close to success.
And even if the
pro-impeachment lobby succeeds in triggering the process, it is unlikely that this would lead to
Trump's removal from office. In fact, out of the 45 men who have served as President of the United
States only two, Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton, faced formal impeachment procedures, but neither
was driven out of office.
Two others, Richard Nixon and John Tyler, came close to being impeached but managed not to face
the music in the end.
Nixon resigned and Tyler dodged by not seeking re-electi
on.
With impeachment unlikely, Trump's opponents may be looking for other ways of terminating his
tenure at the White House. One way is to exert so much psychological pressure that he decides to
regain his tranquility by resigning. However, apart from Nixon's special case, the resignation has
never been a feature of the American presidential history.
In any case, Trump looks like the last man on earth to opt for the humiliation of entering
history as a quitter.
A third way to get rid of Trump is to persuade the Republican Party
not to nominate him for a second term
. At first glance that may look like a credible
option if only because the main body of the Republican Party has never warmed up to Trump.
In fact, calling Trump a Republican president may be more of a verbal conceit than an accurate
depiction of reality. In the mid-term elections in November, some Republican senators and
congressmen insisted that Trump should stay away from their campaigns. Some who did lose their
seats may have regretted their decision, as Trump proved to be in command of his own support base
beyond the Republican Party.
The anti-Trump section of the US media is desperate to find at least one Republican
figure capable of challenging the incumbent president in the coming nomination contest. So far,
however, none
of the putative knights-in-shining-armor fielded by the anti-Trump media has
succeeded in making an impression.
In any event,
there are only five cases in which an incumbent president failed to win
re-nomination by his party
. Of these, four were men who had inherited the presidency after
the death of the president.
One was the already mentioned -- John Tyler, who became president in 1841 after the death of
President William Henry Harrison. Another was Millard Fillmore, who entered the White House after
the death of President Zachary Taylor.
The third on the list was the already mentioned Andrew Jackson, who not only failed to secure
re-nomination but also narrowly escaped impeachment. The fourth was Chester Arthur, who took over
after the assassination of President James Garfield. He was ditched when he launched an anti-graft
campaign that alienated many within his own party.
Only one sitting president who had won the first term failed to secure re-nomination by his
party. He was Franklin Pierce, whose demise came in exceptional circumstances created by the
division over the issue of slavery as the nation moved towards the War of Secession. Today, none of
those conditions obtains in the United States and the Republican Party, and the possibility of a
palace revolt against the incumbent seems remote.
Some of Trump's opponents publicly pray
that he might forswear a second term because of poor health. Although he has entered his
eight-decade, however, Trump shows no signs of physical fatigue let alone serious illness leading
to possible incapacitation.
During the mid-term elections, this septuagenarian was capable
of flying from one end of the continent to the other in a single day to address half a dozen public
meetings.
That political power may act as an aphrodisiac and doping agent has been known at least since
the time of the great Xerxes, whose only regret was that, in 100 years, none in his million-man
army would be alive. There is no doubt that Trump thrives on power and, despite the extra kilos he
has gained in the past two years, still sees himself as a long-distance runner.
The mistake
that Trump's opponents made from the start, and some still continue to make, is to underestimate
him and dismiss his appeal to wide segments of society as an aberration.
Trump has, however, managed to question the political agenda by
questioning the
so-called Washington Consensus that led to globalization with all its benefits and drawbacks.
In his unorthodox manner, Trump has put a number of burning issues back on the agenda.
These include the widening income gap in the United States, the unintended and unexpected
consequences of outsourcing, and the disequilibrium created by signing trade agreements with
countries with different labor laws and environmental, health and safety standards. In foreign
policy, Trump has managed to pass on an important message: don't take American heavy lifting for
granted!
More importantly, Trump has persuaded millions of Americans excluded or
self-excluded from the political arena to end their isolation and demand a meaningful place in
collective decision-making.
Thus, for the time being at least, air-brushing Trump out of
the picture is a forlorn task.
Tags
Politics
Since
I last wrote about the bipartisan shrieking, hysterical reaction to Trump's planned
military withdrawal from Syria the other day, it hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse. I'm
having a hard time even picking out individual bits of the collective freakout from the
political/media class to point at, because doing so would diminish the frenetic white noise of
the paranoid, conspiratorial, fearmongering establishment reaction to the possibility of a few
thousands troops being pulled back from a territory they were illegally occupying .
Endless war and military expansionism has become so normalized in establishment thought that
even a slight scale-down is treated as something abnormal and shocking. The talking heads of
the corporate state media had been almost entirely ignoring the buildup of US troops in Syria
and the operations they've been carrying out there, but as soon as the possibility of those
troops leaving emerged, all the alarm bells started ringing. Endless war was considered so
normal that nobody ever talked about it, then Trump tweeted he's bringing the troops home, and
now every armchair liberal in America who had no idea what a Kurd was until five minutes ago is
suddenly an expert on Erdoğan and the YPG. Lindsey Graham, who has never met an
unaccountable US military occupation he didn't like, is now suddenly cheerleading for
congressional oversight: not for sending troops into wars, but for pulling them out.
"I would urge my colleagues in the Senate and the House, call people from the
administration and explain this policy," Graham recently told
reporters on Capitol Hill. "This is the role of the Congress, to make administrations
explain their policy, not in a tweet, but before Congress answering questions."
"It is imperative Congress hold hearings on withdrawal decision in Syria --
and potentially Afghanistan -- to understand implications to our
national security," Graham tweeted today .
In an even marginally sane world, the fact that a nation's armed forces are engaged in daily
military violence would be cause for shock and alarm, and pulling those forces out of that
situation would be viewed as a return to normalcy. Instead we are seeing the exact opposite. In
an even marginally sane world, congressional oversight would be required to send the US
military to invade countries and commit acts of war, because that act, not withdrawing them, is
what's abnormal. Instead we are seeing the exact opposite.
A hypothetical space alien observing our civilization for the first time would conclude that
we are insane, and that hypothetical space alien would be absolutely correct. Have some Reese's
Pieces, hypothetical space alien.
It is absolutely bat shit crazy that we feel normal about the most powerful military force
in the history of civilization running around the world invading and occupying and bombing and
killing, yet are made to feel weird about the possibility of any part of that ending . It is
absolutely bat shit crazy that endless war is normalized while the possibility of peace and
respecting national sovereignty to any extent is aggressively abnormalized. In a sane world the
exact opposite would be true, but in our world this self-evident fact has been obscured. In a
sane world anyone who tried to convince you that war is normal would be rejected and shunned,
but in our world those people make six million dollars a year reading from a teleprompter on
MSNBC.
How did this happen to us? How did we get so crazy and confused?
I sometimes hear the analogy of sleepwalking used; people are sleepwalking through life, so
they believe the things the TV tells them to believe, and this turns them into a bunch of
mindless zombies marching to the beat of CIA/CNN narratives and consenting to unlimited
military bloodbaths around the world. I don't think this is necessarily a useful way of
thinking about our situation and our fellow citizens. I think a much more useful way of looking
at our plight is to retrace our steps and think about how everyone got to where they're at as
individuals.
We come into this world screaming and clueless, and it doesn't generally get much better
from there. We look around and we see a bunch of grownups moving confidently around us, and
they sure look like they know what's going on. So we listen real attentively to what they're
telling us about our world and how it works, not realizing that they're just repeating the same
things grownups told them when they were little, and not realizing that if any of those
grownups were really honest with themselves they're just moving learned concepts around inside
a headspace that's just as clueless about life's big questions as the day it was born.
And that's just early childhood. Once you move out of that and start learning about
politics, philosophy, religion etc as you get bigger, you run into a whole bunch of clever
faces who've figured out how to use your cluelessness about life to their advantage. You
stumble toward adulthood without knowing what's going on, and then confident-sounding people
show up and say "Oh hey I know what's going on. Follow me." And before you know it you're
donating ten percent of your income to some church, addicted to drugs, in an abusive
relationship, building your life around ideas from old books which were promoted by dead kings
to the advantage of the powerful, or getting your information about the world from Fox
News.
For most people life is like stumbling around in a dark room you have no idea how you got
into, without even knowing what you're looking for. Then as you're reaching around in the
darkness your hand is grasped by someone else's hand, and it says in a confident-sounding
voice, "I know where to go. Come with me." The owner of the other hand doesn't know any more
about the room than you do really, they just know how to feign confidence. And it just so
happens that most of those hands in the darkness are actually leading you in the service of the
powerful.
That's all mainstream narratives are: hands reaching out in the darkness of a confusing
world, speaking in confident-sounding voices and guiding you in a direction which benefits the
powerful. The largest voices belong to the rich and the powerful, which means those are the
hands you're most likely to encounter when stumbling around in the darkness. You go to school
which is designed to indoctrinate you into mainstream narratives, you consume media which is
designed to do the same, and most people find themselves led from hand to hand in this way all
the way to the grave.
That's really all everyone's doing here, reaching out in the darkness of a confusing world
and trying to find our way to the truth. It's messy as hell and there are so many
confident-sounding voices calling out to us giving us false directions about where to go, and
lots of people get lost to the grabbing hands of power-serving narratives. But the more of us
who learn to see through the dominant narratives and discover the underlying truths, the more
hands there are to guide others away from the interests of the powerful and toward a sane
society. A society in which people abhor war and embrace peace, in which people collaborate
with each other and their environment, in which people overcome the challenges facing our
species and create a beautiful world together.
People aren't sleepwalking, they are being duped . Duped into insanity in a confusing,
abrasive world where it's hard enough just to get your legs underneath you and figure out which
way's up, let alone come to a conscious truth-based understanding of what's really going on in
the world. But the people doing the duping are having a hard time holding onto everyone's hand,
and
their grip is slipping . We'll find our way out of this dark room yet.
Has anyone noticed that Rachel Maddow with her sooo patronizing, sooo objectionally smug
manner, implying that anyone who likes Trump is laughably pathetic, well – she keeps on
doing this and oddly (and effectively) generates a lot of support for Trump and what he's
doing. Her absolutely foul manner is perfectly crafted to turn folks against her and what she
espouses. You go girl!
It seems to me that, objectively, there are about three basic reasons for Endless War in
the Middle East.
One, to insure the security of the Israeli state. Two, to insure the free flow of cheap ME
petroleum to our 'trading partners' around the world who burn it to make cheap **** and ship
it across sealanes kept open by the U.S. Navy to Walmart and Amazon for resale (on credit!)
to the sheeple. Three, to finance the multi-billion dollar arms-building American MIC.
Purposes One, Two and Three mutually reinforce each other. You don't have to agree with all
Purposes as long as you agree with one of them. Proponents of Purpose One find allies among
the proponents of Purposes Two and Three. And vice versa. And, in a 'virtuous' (or is it
vicious?) circle, all at the top get very rich. The ultra-wealthy supporters of Israel, the
globalists, the corporatists, the militarists and their financiers and media mouthpieces.
Essentially all the new money in the Billionaire Class.
And who is opposed to this little arrangement? A few libertarians, and realists, and some
historians? A few folks on 'conservative' (but not neocon) websites? A few deplorables who
are actually thinking about their own best interests? A few people morally offended by the
notion of living in an 'exceptional' country which sponsors deadly perpetual war? A few
people who think its crazy to go half way around the world to kill people engaged in a
conflict which is critical to their daily lives but theoretical to us? A few men and women
who have seen combat and know the bloody truth? A few people who would prefer to re-invest in
the United States and repair the damage done to this country over the last forty years?
When you think about it the deck is definitely stacked in favor of Endless War. And what
Trump did on Thursday is again rather extraordinary.
He has announced his order to withdraw US troops from Syria.
His Defense Secretary James Mattis has resigned. There are rumors National Security
Adviser John Bolton may go too. (Please take
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with you!)
He announced a start to withdrawing from Afghanistan.
He now says he will veto a government funding bill unless he gets $5 billion for his
Wall, and as of 12:01 AM Washington time December 22 the federal government is officially
under partial shutdown.
All of this should be taken with a big grain of salt. While this week's assertiveness
perhaps provides further proof that Trump's impulses are right, it doesn't mean he can
implement them.
Senator Lindsey Graham is demanding
hearings on how to block the Syria pullout . Congress hardly ever quibbles with a
president's putting troops into a country, where the Legislative Branch has legitimate
Constitutional power. But if a president under his absolute command authority wants to pull
them out – even someplace where they're deployed illegally, as in Syria – well hold
on just a minute!
This will be a critical time for the Trump presidency. (And if God is really on his side, he
soon might get
another Supreme Court pick .) If he can get the machinery of the Executive Branch to
implement his decision to withdraw from Syria, and if he can pick a replacement to General
Mattis who actually agrees with Trump's views, we might start getting the America First policy
Trump ran on in 2016.
Mattis himself said in his resignation letter, "Because you have the right to have a
Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these [i.e., support for
so-called "allies"] and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my
position."
Right on, Mad Dog! In fact Trump should have had someone "better aligned" with him in that
capacity from the get-go. It is now imperative that he picks someone who agrees with his core
positions, starting with withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan, and reducing confrontation with
Russia.
Former Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel complains that "our government is not a one-man show." Well, the "government"
isn't, but the Executive Branch is. Article II,
Section 1 : "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of
America." Him. The President. Nobody else. Period.
Already the drumbeat to saddle Trump with another Swamp critter at the Pentagon is starting:
"Several possible replacements for Mattis this week trashed the president's decision to pull
out of Syria. Retired Gen. Jack Keane called the move a "strategic mistake" on Twitter.
Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) signed a letter demanding
Trump reconsider the decision and warning that the withdrawal bolsters Iran and Russia." If
Trump even considers any of the above as Mattis's replacement, he'll be in worse shape than he
has been for the past two years.
On the other hand, if Trump does pick someone who agrees with him about Syria and
Afghanistan, never mind
getting along with Russia , can he get that person confirmed by the Senate? One possibility
would be to nominate someone like Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney specifically
to run the Pentagon bureaucracy and get control of costs, while explicitly deferring
operational decisions to the Commander in Chief in consultation with the Service Chiefs.
Right now on Syria Trump is facing pushback from virtually the whole Deep State
establishment, Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as the media from Fox News , to NPR ,
to MSNBC . Terror has again gripped the establishment that the Trump who was elected president
in 2016 might actually start implementing what he promised. It is imperative that he pick
someone for the Pentagon (and frankly, clear out the rest of his national security team) and
appoint people he can trust and whose views comport with his own. Just lopping off a few heads
won't suffice – he needs a full housecleaning.
In the meantime in Syria, watch for another "Assad poison gas attack against his own
people." The last time Trump said we'd be
leaving Syria "very soon " was on March 29 of this year. Barely a week later, on April 7,
came a supposed chemical incident in Douma, immediately hyped as a government attack on
civilians
but soon apparent as likely staged . Trump, though, dutifully took the bait, tweeting that
Assad was an "animal." Putin, Russia, and Iran were "responsible" for "many dead, including
women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack" – "Big price to pay." He then for the
second time launched cruise missiles against Syrian targets. A
confrontation loomed in the eastern Med that could to have led to war with Russia. Now, in
light of Trump's restated determination to get out,
is MI6 already ginning up their White Helmet assets for a repeat ?
Trump's claim that the US has completed its only mission, to defeat ISIS, is being compared
to George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner following defeat of Iraq's army and the
beginning of the occupation (and, as it turned out, the beginning of the real war). But if it
helps get us out, who cares if Trump wants to take credit? Whatever his
terrible, horrible, no good, very bad national security team told him, the US presence in
Syria was never about ISIS. We are there as Uncle Sam's Rent-an-Army for the Israelis and
Saudis to block Iranian influence and especially an overland route between Syria and Iran (the
so-called
"Shiite land bridge" to the Mediterranean ).
For US forces the war against ISIS was always a sideshow, mainly carried on by the Syrians
and Russians and proportioned about like the war against the Wehrmacht: about 20% "us," about
80% "them." The remaining pocket ISIS has
on the Syria-Iraq border has been deliberate ly left alone, to keep handy as a lever to
force Assad out in a settlement (which is not going to happen). Thus the claim an American
pullout will
lead to an ISIS "resurgence " is absurd. With US forces ceasing to play dog in the manger,
the Syrians, Russians, Iranians, and Iraqis will kill them. All of them.
If Trump is able to follow through with the pullout, will the Syrian war wind down? It needs
to be kept in mind that the whole conflict has been because we (the US, plus Israel, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom, etc) are the aggressors. We sought to use
al-Qaeda and other jihadis to effect regime change via the tried and true method. It
failed.
Regarding Trump's critics' claim that he is turning over Syria to the Russians and Iranians,
Assad is nobody's puppet. He can be allied with a Shiite theocracy but not controlled by it;
Iran, likewise, can also have mutually beneficial ties with an ideologically dissimilar
country, like it does with Christian Armenia. The Russians will stay and expand their presence
but unlike our presence in many countries – which seemingly never ends, for example in
Germany, Japan, and Korea, not to mention Kosovo – they'll be there only as long and to
the extent the Syrians want them. (Compare our eternal occupations with the Soviets' politely
leaving Egypt when Anwar Sadat asked them, or leaving Somalia when Siad Barre wanted them out.
Instead of leaving, why didn't Moscow just do a " Diem " on them?) It
seems that American policymakers have gotten so far down the wormhole of their paranoid
fantasies about the rest of the world – and it can't be overemphasized, concerning areas
where the US has no actual national interests – that we no longer recognize classic
statecraft when practiced by other powers defending genuine national interests (which of course
are legitimate only to the extent we say so).
Anyway, if this week's developments are the result of someone putting something into
Donald's morning Egg
McMuffin , America and the world owe him (or her) a vote of thanks. Let's see more of
the wrecking ball we Deplorables voted for !
Trump thought that by bringing the swamp into his fold he might be able to defang it. He
bent the knee, played nice and kissed the ring but still they kept at him. I think Trump has
had enough of giving a mile for getting an inch. I like Trump when he presents himself as a
human wrecking ball to all the evil plans of the Washington establishment and if he continues
like this I honestly believe he will be reelected in 2020, and one day will be acknowleged as
a true chapion for every day Americans but if he shrinks back into his shadow and gives the
likes of Bolton and Pompeo free reign to **** all over the globe with their insane scheming
he will be a one term failure.
Don't get too excited about the possibility that there may be more kinds of viagra to try
out, Jattras. If Trump recently seems to be more like the candidate we voted for, the real
reason for his reversion back is because the midterm elections are over and Trump kept the
Senate.
Check with me before you start making a lot of crack-pot statements
It was over two years ago that Wells Fargo's fake accounts scandal burst into the headlines, and since then, there has been an
unrelenting torrent of bad news. In late October, the American Banker
reported
that two executives were placed on leave after they received notifications of pending sanctions from the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency. In November, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell sent a
letter
to Senator Elizabeth Warren saying the Fed will not lift a cap on Wells's growth until the bank addresses deficiencies in oversight
and risk management. "The underlying problem at the firm was a strategy that prioritized growth without ensuring that risks were
managed, and as a result the firm harmed many of its customers," Powell wrote.
In early November, Jay Welker, who was the head of the private bank, which sits within the bank's wealth management business,
retired . Under Welker,
the private bank
pushed wealth advisors to vigorously sell
high-fee products . There may be more bad news about this aspect of the embattled bank. The Justice Department, the SEC, the
Labor Department, and Wells Fargo's own board are conducting ongoing investigations into its wealth management business that have
yet to be resolved.
There's still one aspect of how the wealth management business pushed for growth that former Wells Fargo employees say hasn't
gotten the scrutiny it should. For four years, starting in 2012 and through the end of 2015, Wells incentivized some of its advisors
in that business through something called the "Growth Award." Some former employees say these awards led to behavior that was not
in the best interest of clients, including steering them towards higher-fee products. The Growth Award was much discussed internally,
says a former investment strategist at Wells, although not everyone was privy to the details of how it worked.
Last summer, the Wall Street Journal
reported
the existence of the growth award, but not the details of how the money worked. Essentially, the growth award was a way of motivating
advisors to grow their businesses. In and of itself, that isn't unusual. The industry has for years offered successful brokers incentives,
often in the form of elaborate trips to exotic locales.The SEC is
weighing new rules that may curtail the use of such rewards under the theory that they could make brokers "predominantly motivated"
by "self enrichment." Firms have also long used rich packages to lure successful brokers to move their business.
But firms are cutting back on the use of such packages, according to industry insiders. When told about the details of the growth
award, three financial advisors at other firms with whom Yahoo Finance spoke expressed shock at both the sheer size and the way it
incentivized advisors for short-term growth, rather than long-term business building. (Another advisor thought that in the context
of the packages that were used to incentivize brokers to switch, it wasn't so surprising.) Or as former Wells Fargo executive, who
was in the retail brokerage industry for decades, says, "If a free golf outing is bad business, then the Growth Award is bad business
on steroids."
In a statement to Yahoo Finance, spokesperson Shea Leordeanu said, "At Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management, we are committed
to taking care of our clients' financial needs every day and take seriously our responsibility to help them preserve and invest their
hard-earned savings. Our primary goal is to be a trusted advisor to our clients and to act in their best interests. And we have supervisory
processes and controls in place so that, if a team member acts in a manner not in line with our values and our policies, we take
appropriate action."
An enormous, compounding bonus for bringing revenue to Wells Fargo
The Growth Award wasn't available to the entire army of some 14,000 advisors, who make up the broad group of Wells Fargo Advisors.
(Many others, most prominently those who came with the 2008 Wachovia merger, had different compensation plans with lock-ups that
are just now expiring, leading to something of an
exodus , according to press reports.) This Growth Award, on the other hand, was meant for the 3,000 or so advisors who were part
of something known as Wealth Brokerage Services, or WBS. These advisors are located in the bank branches, or in hubs -- Wells Fargo
buildings in cities -- that housed wealth management personnel among others like business bankers. (Wells Fargo subsequently
announced a reorganization
that is expected to combine what were separate groups of advisors.) To be eligible, you couldn't be a newbie -- you needed a two
year minimum at the bank -- and you had to be doing more than $350,000 in annual revenue. The former executive and another advisor
estimate that narrowed the group down to about 2,000 people.
The amounts people stood to make were extraordinary. Here's how the math worked. The goal was for an individual financial advisor
to increase his or her revenue by at least 15% for each of the four years that the Growth Award was in place. The award multiplied
each year the goal was achieved. So if you achieved 15% growth in the first year, you received a 15% bonus. If you achieved 15% growth
again in the second year, you received a 30% bonus. If you achieved 15% growth in the third year, you received a 45% bonus. Finally,
if you achieved 15% growth again in the 4th year, you received a whopping 60% bonus.
If you didn't achieve the goal, you were not penalized, but you didn't receive the bonus.
To get specific about just what these percentages could mean, say you generated $1 million in revenue in 2011, and you achieved
precisely 15% growth each year for the next 4 years. In year one, your revenue would be $1,150,000, and your bonus, at 15% of that,
would be $172,500. The new 2013 goal would be $1,322,500 (a 15% increase from the $1,150,000.). If you hit that goal, your Growth
Award bonus for 2013 would be $396,393. And so on. If you hit the goals for 2014 and 2015, you stood to make a bonus of $684,393
and $1,049,403, respectively. That means you stood to make $2.3 million in total Growth Award bonuses. In other words, the financial
incentives to hit the numbers were enormous.
Perhaps for the very reason the incentives were so enormous, more advisors hit the numbers than Wells had expected. (Of course,
there was also a strong bull market during that period.) The Journal reported that Wells had allotted $250 million for the Growth
Award bonuses. Instead, Wells had to pay $750 million between 2012 and 2015. "It's widely known inside Wells that they were so way
over budget," says another former advisor. "I personally know brokers who were awarded bonuses of over $2 million, which is a stunning
amount of money," says a former investment advisor.
Roughly two-thirds of the 2,000 or so eligible advisors earned an award.
"When you throw that kind of money out, it incentivizes."
Now consider the Growth Award from the perspective of a client, who might wander into a bank branch, maybe having gotten an unexpected
inheritance. "You have to connect the dots," the former executive says. "This is where the sales pressure in the bank branches meets
the wealth and investment management business."
The staff of the branch was incentivized to steer clients to a Wells financial advisor, because investment management referrals
helped them meet their sales goals, and that advisor, in turn had incentives -- really big incentives -- to steer the clients toward
products that generate upfront revenue. "If you don't have a high moral background, it'll put you in a position to do things for
clients that aren't in their best interest," says a former advisor. "I'm always looking at what's best for the client but it's also
what's best for my paycheck." "You are absolutely incentivizing advisors to sell the products with the highest upfront fees," says
the former executive.
"Yeah, when you throw that kind of money out, it incentivizes," says another former advisor. "Jesus would probably be okay. But
the disciples probably would have had some morals put to the test on that one."
Multiple sources say the Growth Award helps explain why annuity sales at Wells Fargo were so high, especially after the bank tried
to tamp down on the amount the Award was going to cost them. In 2014, Wells Fargo decided to stop "fee fronting," which allowed advisors
to count fees that would be paid in subsequent years toward their annual tally. So advisors began to search for products with high
initial fees, one former advisor said.
Annuities come with high upfront revenues for the broker, making them an obvious choice for someone who is trying to hit a revenue
target -- but maybe not the optimal choice for the client. "You think Wells Fargo's Bankers Are Bad? Take a Look at its Brokers,"
was the headline of an October 2016 piece in thestreet.com. The piece
noted that Wells had argued to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it should not be subject to rules to put its investors
first in cases where its advisors were making referrals for products including annuities, and that in 2015, Wells was number one
in the country for annuity sales.
"It's pretty stunning that a firm that has just half the assets of its larger competitors sells more annuities," says a former
advisor. "I think that just speaks to the emphasis on making sales numbers and a need to sell more of the highest payout products."
Indeed, the Journal reported and several former advisors corroborate that internally, 2015 was dubbed "The Year of the Annuity."
It wasn't just annuities. One former advisor also noted that advisors trying to chase the growth award also favored mutual funds
with high upfront fees. "You'd think if revenue was going up by 15% a year, your AUM would at least go up at least 12% or 13%," a
former advisor said. "That was not the case. The award was only revenue based -- there was nothing in there for AUM, longevity, or
anything like that. Strictly show us the money and we'll show you the money."
All the fees were disclosed to Wells Fargo's clients. But what clients didn't know was the incentive structure that was in place
for their advisor. So yes, clients understood the fees -- but they were in the dark as to at least part of the reason one product
might have been recommended over another. "Imagine that it's November," says the former executive. "You have to do $250,000 in revenue,
or you going to leave a million dollars on the table. What are you doing to do?" He continues, "Every client of WBS has to go back
and look at every trade, every single decision, from 2012 to 2015 and scrutinize whether it was impacted by the Growth Award." "I
think if clients and the public knew that Wells Fargo Advisors had given such substantial and amazing well-timed retention bonuses
to lock up their advisors, they would begin to wonder whether their advisors were giving the best advice to their clients," says
another former investment strategist.
There could be another problem, too. "If you achieved the goal early, you would stop doing business so you didn't have the higher
base to start from in the next year," says the former executive. "You'd sand bag -- and that might not be in the client's best interest
either."
A golden handcuff at a very good time for Wells Fargo
The Growth Award may also help explain why Wells has been able to retain as many advisors as it has, despite the ongoing scandals.
Six months before the end of the Growth Award program, midway through 2015, Wells Fargo asked those advisors who had qualified for
the award how they would like to receive their pay. There were two options. The first option essentially allowed the advisor to unlock
all the money at the end of February 2021. If the advisor left before that, the money was forfeited. A third of the advisors who
earned awards chose this option.
The other option paid out a tenth of the bonus each year for 10 years. If the advisor so chose, they could get that money up front
as a forgivable loan. Every year the advisor remained at Wells Fargo, he or she would simply pay the interest on their bonus, and
a tenth of the principle would be forgiven. But if the advisor left, he or she had to pay back the unforgiven principle. (Or if the
advisor hadn't taken the forgivable loan, the annual checks would stop.) Two-thirds of advisors opted for this route.
The Growth Award also had the potential to create another problem for advisors. The nice thing about building a fee-based business
is that it's an annuity for the advisor. Every year, there's a fee. If, on the other hand, the advisors put clients' money into things
that generate a one-time pop of revenue, the advisor doesn't get the same type of ongoing fees. So, the former executive says, some
advisors are in a hole, where they owe taxes on the Growth Award, while their income has shrunk dramatically. "I know guys who got
it who built or bought a huge house and are now stuck," he says.
The golden handcuff of the Growth Award has been good for the bank in the face of all of the scandals. One advisor told Yahoo
Finance that the growth in the number of clients also shrank dramatically amid the unrelenting negative news.
"I went from around 30 referrals to two in six months after the scandal hit," this person said. What had been a solid stream of
clients slowed to a trickle. But the only out for advisors would have been to have another firm hire them away and pay off their
loan.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Growth Award is how deliberate it was. "It was not a computer glitch or an oversight,"
as the former executive says. "It was not perpetrated by a few rogue employees. The Growth Award was conceived by the Compensation
Committee. The Compensation Committee is the most senior of senior management. The goal was to drive growth and drive growth it did."
But perhaps at a price for clients -- making the Growth Award, in its way, the most telling evidence yet of the cultural issues within
Wells Fargo.
President Donald Trump is planning on using his executive powers to cut food stamps for more
than 700,000 Americans.
The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing that states should only be allowed
to waive a current food stamps requirement -- namely, that adults without dependents must work
or participate in a job-training program for at least 20 hours each week if they wish to
collect food stamps for more than three months in a three-year period -- on the condition that
those adults live in areas where unemployment is above 7 percent,
according to The Washington Post . Currently the USDA regulations permit states to waive
that requirement if an adult lives in an area where the unemployment rate is at least 20
percent greater than the national rate. In effect, this means that roughly 755,000 Americans
would potentially lose their waivers that permit them to receive food stamps.
The current unemployment rate is 3.7 percent.
The Trump administration's decision to impose the stricter food stamp requirements through
executive action constitutes an end-run around the legislative process. Although Trump is
expected to sign an $870 billion farm bill later this week -- and because food stamps goes
through the Agriculture Department, it contains food stamp provisions -- the measure does not
include House stipulations restricting the waiver program and imposing new requirements on
parents with children between the ages of six and 12. The Senate version ultimately removed
those provisions, meaning that the version being signed into law does not impose a conservative
policy on food stamps, which right-wing members of Congress were hoping for.
"Congress writes laws, and the administration is required to write rules based on the law,"
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told The New York Times (Stabenow is the top Democrat on the
Senate's agriculture committee). "Administrative changes should not be driven by ideology. I do
not support unilateral and unjustified changes that would take food away from families."
Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from
Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His
work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.
Wow the only difference in the last one is that the FED or any central bank in the world
right now, doesn't have any ammunition left to kick start the economy back with cheap money.
Quite worrying.
Overall, oil prices will continue to "be difficult to predict," said Youngberg. "2019
will be volatile just as 2018 was."
Even so, he still offered some predictions for next year. He sees WTI prices averaging
$60 a barrel and global benchmark Brent averaging $66 in 2019. That would mark increases of
roughly 30% for WTI and 20% for Brent from Thursday's levels.
US stocks are decreasing at a slow time of year at about 2% a month. US will have minimal
growth in 2019, in all likelihood at current or even at $60 due the current low price. OPEC
plus is up to about a 1.5 million cut, so even at zero growth inventories will go away. So,
an equilibrium is assured damn, I ran out of fingers and toes,
I hope that is right.
Know it's not fair to ask with the recent price drop, but considering $46 a barrel price,
which shale play is going to contribute to a 600k barrel increase next year
By my logic, prices should be substantially higher, already. But, there is NO current
discussion which I believes touches on reality. Oil companies have to feel the same way.
Hence, my expectation of reduced capex through the first half. But, that's using logic over
future actions, which is a losing proposition. Oil prices will be volatile, and discussions
over supply/demand will be far from reality. That's a pretty good guess.
x Ignored says: 12/18/2018 at 10:56
pm So what are people going to say if the price goes low $40s, production increases and
companies post losses? And then the next year exactly the same thing happens. And the next.
Reply
Yes I don't believe chapter 11 bankruptcies stopped much production in 2016, will have to
wait and see if higher rates and a weaker junk bond market do anything
Look at the EIA field crude production page, which I assume for 2015, 2016 and 2017 is now
fairly accurate.
Production dropped more than 1.1 million BOPD from the 2015 peak.
The Permian frenzy appears to have been the primary driver of growth since, with US
production up 3 million BOPD from 9/15-9/18.
The price unfortunately needs to drop another $10 or so and stay there for awhile, as many
are hedged on a percentage of barrels in the Permian and I assume there is still quite a bit
of acreage that is not HBP.
I wound up owning FANG when it bought EGN. It is down $48 pretty quickly, and has been
considered one of the best independents in the Permian. I have heard claims they are
profitable in the $20s so I guess maybe we will find out.
The algos have been in charge of the oil market for awhile. Wouldn't surprise me if we
challenge 2016 low, if for no other reason than short to medium term oil prices near little
relation to the physical market.
When they're profitable in the 20s, they should have now tons of cash and dividends. At the
60$ WTI they should have made much more than 50% earning from total revenue, and should be
able to finance whole 2019 drilling program from cash they already earned.
Economic downturn . Perhaps the largest pricing risk, and one of the hardest to
predict, is the possibility of an economic
downturn . The global economy has already thrown up some red flags, with slowing growth in
China, contracting GDP in parts of Europe, currency crises in emerging markets and financial
volatility around the world. The tightening of interest rates looms large in many of these
problems. "Alarm bells are starting to ring. Demand growth has been a pillar of strength for
the oil market since prices fell and has exceeded 1 million b/d every year since 2012,"
WoodMac's Simon Flowers wrote. "We forecast 1.1 million b/d in 2019, but the trend is at risk."
The U.S.-China trade war could still drag down the global economy, but financial indicators are
already flashing warning signs.
Looks like a lot of bubbles bursting. Not likely to bounce back, so not much financing
available to float pure Permian players. Doesn't look good for any increase in production.
Oil prices will probably stay low with Dow for awhile. Until inventories get closer to zero.
Madness.
Interesting article from Goehring investment bank. They estimate that KSA remaining reserves
are around 50 billion bbls, instead of the 260 b claimed. They also (surprise) think that was
the reason the Aramco IPO was pulled. I also thought the Aramco IPO would never happen
because they would not be able to buy an acceptable reserve report.
Interesting, they are probably right.
I knew Aramco would pull out of the IPO. They are one of the most secretive companies. How
you going to float on the NYSE or London SE with no transparency, which is required by
law.
50 billion sounds about right in my worthless opinion. Interestingly enough that would be
more or less close to the Permian basin reserves.
I think peak oil will arrive without many people noticing until after it has occurred.
A few more thoughts about the referenced Goering report.
First, the basis or their report: "We have good data going up to 2008, however after that
point data becomes difficult to find."
Does anyone else have good data on Ghawar production through 2008. Actual Saudi production
data is hard to come by, and I would like to see a table of Ghawar production through 2008 if
it is out there.
Based on their 2008 data they have included a Hubbert Linearization which is the basis for
their claim.
Second, if their production data and linearization are correct, they have not been
adjusted for improved results from better technology. I believe the multi lateral super wells
Saleri described in his 2005 SPE paper have allowed KSA to recover several percent of
additional original oil in place, as well as to maintain high production rates longer.
Third is that it appears many of those super wells were drilled beginning in mid 2000's.
It would make sense that the change in Saudi attitudes regarding production restraint between
2014 and now could be due to those multilateral wells watering out.
Coffee. I hope if you have been investing in the Appalachian gas players that you have been
short.
The only investment class in oil and gas that may be worse over the past ten years would
be the service sector, particularly the drillers.
Interesting that, despite all the activity, the US onshore drillers are becoming penny
stocks. I have pointed out Nabors. The rest are all tanking bad it appears.
You made a big deal out of a very long lateral operated by Eclipse Resources. Eclipse
equity closed at 76 cents a share.
I am not so sure that ultra cheap oil and gas is such a great thing for the US, given we
are now the world's largest producer of both.
I never have, nor will I ever in the future, take any financial stake in these or any
other companies.
As I have stated numerous times over the years, my primary interest is in operations who
is doing what, how it is being done, who is doing it better – or claims to be.
My initial interest in this site way back when was to learn why some people seemed to
think this so called Shale Revolution was No Big Deal a retirement party, in the words of
Berman.
It was quickly apparent to me that a great deal of unawareness vis a vis industry
developments permeated this site's participants.
This, alongside several predisposing factors to NOT want the shale production to explode
upwards provided fertile grounds for the soon 12 to 16 million barrels per day US oil
production, along with 100+ Bcfd gas production to be a spectaculsrly unforseen reality.
What I prefer or not prefer is secondary to what I believe to be occurring, shallow.
If anyone cares to spend 3 minutes reading the April, 2017 USGS press release accompanying
the Haynesville/Bossier assessment, they will read the following from Walter Guidroz, Program
Coordinator of the USGS Energy Resources Program
"As the USGS revisits many of the oil and gas basins of the US, we continually find that
technological revolutions of the past few years have truly been a game changer in the amount
of resources that are now technically recoverable".
Addendum Eclipse is being shut down/folded into another entity.
The lead engineer behind their ultra long laterals is now working with the new outfit from
which this technology will continue to spread.
No offense meant coffee. I know some who post here like to tangle with you. I am not
interested in that, just straightforward discussion.
Shale has surprised the heck out of me, and has made me several times strongly consider
liquidating my entire investment in oil and gas, absent maybe keeping just a couple of KSA
like cheap (to quote PXD CEO) LOE wells to fool around with. Had I known in 2012-13 that this
was coming, would have sold all but those few "piddle around with wells." It has been
absolutely no fun when these price crashes occur, and is especially no fun knowing that this
shale miracle is less profitable than an operation producing less than one bopd per well from
very, very old and tired wells.
You have to admit that the way the shale is being developed is destroying the oil and gas
industries that are developing it.
Particularly hard hit are the service companies, many which are already bankrupt.
Even XOM, which I have owned for many, many years (prior to the merger, I owned both Exxon
and Mobil) has hit the skids, having fallen through the $70 per share barrier.
Range Resources is at $10.26, a level not seen since 2004. It traded as high as $90 before
the 2014 crash.
EQT was over $100. Today $18.55
Whiting was nearly $400 (accounting for a reverse split) and now is $21.98
CHK closed at $1.84. All time high was $64.
Nabors Industries, the largest onshore US driller closed at $2.09. Traded at split
adjusted $10 in 1978.
Halcon Resources Corp. was over $3,000 split adjusted at one time, went Ch 11 BK, now at
$1.65, looking not so good re: BK again.
We shall soon see who can access what in the way of capital to keep going assuming oil
prices stay below $50 WTI for a considerable time.
I guess I am always concerned about whether businesses make money. Seems to me that would
be of some importance to you, but it isn't, and I suppose there is no harm in that.
I have yet to work anywhere where making money was not the primary motivation.
If the money wasn't important, the shale executives would not make so much of it, I
suppose.
I have always had a hard time understanding why they kept drilling wells in Appalachia
when the gas was selling for 50 cents per mcf. Not important to you, but maybe to others.
Anyway, if we didn't have different views, places like this wouldn't be very
interesting.
For the past year I have concluded that the market was vulnerable to a number of factors and
was likely making an important top and likely setting up for a Bear Market:
Global economic growth was becoming more ambiguous and the fragility of worldwide growth
would be shortly exposed
An avalanche of debt would serve as a governor to growth
Corporate profit expectations for 2018-20 were too elevated
The pivot to monetary restraint by the Federal Reserve (taking the punch bowl away) would
be market unfriendly
With less liquidity would come a new regime of volatility
The risks of fiscal and monetary policy mistakes were growing
The behavior of the President and hastily crafted policy (e.g. the U.S. retreat from
Syria) would make economic uncertainty and market volatility great again (#muvga)
The reduction in the corporate tax rate has failed to deliver the growth expected to
reduce the burgeoning deficit – the benefit has trickled up and not down
Market structure represented a potential market threat that was being underestimated
Investors, participating in The Bull Market of Complacency, were ignoring the risks of a
large market drawdown
I concluded that the notion of T.I.N.A ("there is no alternative) was no longer applicable
and that rising short term interest rates made the compelling case for C.I.T.A. ("cash is the
alternative"):
Chart Courtesy of Charlie Bilello of Pension Partners
Out of 15 major asset classes ranging from stocks to bonds to REITs to Gold and Commodities,
only one is higher in 2018: Cash.
After the markets responded quite vigorously to the corporate tax reduction and cash
repatriation bills in January, markets swiftly moved higher – making a top near month
end. Consolidation and a multi-month period of choppiness followed but the markets made a new
high by mid-September at about 2920.
The toxic cocktail of the above factors have contributed to a more than 400 handle drop
(-13%) in the S&P Index to 2500 currently – below my (short term) expected trading
range of 2550-2700.
Back in early July I presented this suite of projections for the S&P Index – which
proved reasonably prescient, and to the penny we have just hit my six month projection of
S&P 2500 (!):
By the Numbers
As SPYDERS moved towards $273 yesterday afternoon -- on a full day spike in the S&P
Index of over 20 handles -- I moved back to market neutral.
Should the S&P Index climb back to 2,750-2,750 (my very short term prognostication), I
will move back again to a net short exposure, as downside risk expands over upside
reward.
My gross and net exposures remain light in a background of uncertainty (e.g., current
trade battle with China) and in the new regime of volatility. Quite frankly, I am playing
things "tight" in light of these factors -- and in consideration that I have had a very good
year thus far.
Again, my expectations below should be viewed not with precision, but rather as a
guideline to overall strategy:
Very Short Term (in the next five trading days)
–Higher, but not materially so. 2,750-2,775 seems a reasonable guesstimate.
–I plan to scale into a net short position on strength, but I will give the market a
wider berth today and into the first few days of the second half (inflows expected).
Short Term (in the next two months)
–Lower, but not materially so.
–I expect a series of tests of the S&P level 2,675-2,710.
Intermediate Term (in the next six months)
–Lower, a break towards "fair market value" of about 2,500 is my expectation.
More Lessons Learned
"When we ask for advice we are looking for an accomplice." – Saul Bellow
The investment mosaic is complex and Mr. Market is often unpredictable.
There is no quick answer or special sauce to capture the holy grail of investment results
– it takes hard work, common sense and the ability to navigate the noise.
The common thread of these naked swimmers are self confidence, smugness and the failure to
memorialize their investment returns (because the typically are so inconsistent and
dreadful).
They are bad and deceptive actors who are in denial to themselves and are artful and
accountable dodgers to the investing masses.
"In my next life I want to live my life backwards." – Woody Allen
Take Woody Allen's advice (above) – be forewarned and learn from history as common
sense is not so common as:
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."– Yogi Berra
I have spent a lot of time over the last few months exposing the bad actors who, we learned,
were swimming naked this year; as the market's tide went out .
I did so, not because of any hatred but because I saw this also in 2008-09 and we should
finally be learning from history so that we don't call on those same resources in the
futures.
Where Do We Go From Here?
"I'll just conclude by saying most of the issues we are dealing with today are induced by
bad political choices."– Fred Smith, CEO Of Fed Express (
conference call )
Over the last year I have consistently written that "fair market value" (based on a
multi-factor analysis) for the S&P Index was between 2400-2500 – well below the
expectations of every major Wall Street strategist. I posited that 2018 would be the first year
(in many) in which the revaluation of price earnings ratios would be headed lower. (Multiples
are down by nearly 20% this year).
The major indices have had the worst month of December since the Great Depression –
declining by about -9%. Though many pin the loss (especially yesterday's) on the Federal
Reserve's actions and communications, the recent market drawdown is a function of the reality
of the headwinds I listed at the beginning of this morning's missive (that most have
dismissed).
We are now at 2500 (down from 2920 three months ago) – which means the market is at
the upper end of being fairly valued for the first time all year. It also means that an
expanding list of stocks are now attractive if my recession expectations prove unfounded.
Expanding problems facing the White House and policy blunders (underestimated by investors
– see FedEx quote above), reduced domestic economic expectations and a continuation of
Fed tightening (and balance sheet drawdowns) have contributed to the latest market swoon. That
drawdown has occurred in a backdrop of rising fear and some extreme sentiment readings –
abetted by a changing market structure in which passive products and strategies "buy high and
sell low."
As posited this week I believe we are now going to have a playable year end rally from here
but as we move into the New Year things get more problematic.
"Though the third year of a Presidential cycle is usually bullish – it's different
this time.
Trump confusing brains with a bull market can't fathom the emerging Bear Market. At first
he blames it on Steve Mnuchin, his Secretary of Treasury (who leaves the Administration in
the middle of the year). Then he blames a lower stock market on the mid-term election which
turned the House. Then he blames the market correction on the Chinese.
The S&P Index hits a yearly low of 2200 in the first half of the year as the market
worries about slowing economic and profit growth and a burgeoning deficit/monetization. The
announcement of QE4 results in a year end rally in December, 2019. In a continued regime of
volatility (and in a market dominated by ETFs and machines/algos), daily swings of 1%-3%
become more commonplace. Investor sentiment slumps as redemptions from exchange traded funds
grow to record levels. The absence of correlation between ETFs and the underlying component
investments causes regulatory concerns throughout the year.
Congress holds hearings on the changing market structure and the weak foundation those
changes delivered during the year.
Short sellers provide the best returns in the hedge fund space as the S&P Index
records a second consecutive yearly loss (which is much deeper than in 2018).
As the Fed cuts interest rates the US dollar falls and emerging markets outperform the US
in 2019. The ten year Treasury note yield falls to 2.25%.
I, like many, are concerned about corporate credit (See Surprise #8) and though credit is
not unscathed, it is equities that bear the brunt of the Bear since they are below credit in
the company capitalization structure.
Bottom line, after a steep drop in the first six months of the year, the markets rise off
of the lows late in the year in response to this shifting political scene (the decline of
Trump) and a reversal to a more expansive Fed policy – ending the year with a -10%
loss."
Bottom Line
* For now, think like a trader and not an investor"
The illusion of positive possibilities is fading quickly in a market hampered by political
turmoil and strapped with untenable debt loads.
The key to delivering superior investment performance in 2018 was not a buy and hold
strategy. Rather, it was opportunistic and unemotional trading and for the foreseeable future
this will likely be the case.
While I believe we are likely to rally into year end, the near term upside to that rally has
been markedly reduced (though I still believe we can reach to at least 2600 or so on the
S&P Index by year end, a gain of 100 handles or more) -- the likelihood of a recession and
Bear Market in 2019 has increased.
Many threads to tug on at the close of this tumultuous work-week before the supreme holiday
of white privilege rolls through, all silver bells and hovering angels.
It took hours of rumination and prayer to arrive at a coherent notion about the strange
doings in Gen. Mike Flynn's sentencing hearing, but here goes: Judge Emmet Sullivan sent Gen
Flynn to the doghouse for three months to reconsider his guilty plea. The judge may believe
that Gen. Flynn needs to contest the charge in open court, where all the Special Prosecutor's
janky evidence will be subject to discovery and review. Mr. Mueller tried to toss a wrecking
bar into the proceedings the day before by pressing charges against two of Gen. Flynn's
colleagues in the Turkish lobbying gambit, which was meant to terrify Gen. Flynn as a hint that
separate charges would be dumped on him if he doesn't play ball. A lot can happen in three
months, including the arrival of a new Attorney General, and we'll leave it there for the
moment.
The stopgap spending bill before congress -- to avert a government shut-down -- is based on
the comical idea that the money is actually there to spend. Everyone with half a brain knows
that it's not money but " money ," a hypothetical abstraction composed of hopes and wishes. The
USA is worse than broke. It's down to liquidating its rehypothecated hypotheticals. After all,
financialization added up to money with its value removed . The global credit markets seem to
be sensing this as the tide of borrowings retreats , exposing all the wretched, slimy creatures
wheezing in the exposed mudflats who have no idea how to service their old loans or generate
credible new ones. But, no matter. We'll continue pretending until the US$ flies up its own
cloacal aperture and vanishes.
Contingent on that exercise is "money" for Mr. Trump's promised-and-requested border wall.
The wall is really a symbol for the nation's unwillingness to set a firm policy on immigration.
Half of the political spectrum refuses to even make a basic distinction between people who came
here legally and those who snuck in and broke the law. They've super-glued themselves to that
position not on any plausible principle, but because they're desperate to corral Hispanic votes
-- and notice how eager they are to get non-citizens on the voting rolls. Their mouthpiece, The
New York Times , even ran an op-ed today,
None of Us Deserve Citizenship , (is that even grammatical?) arguing that we should let
everybody and anybody into the country because of our longstanding wickedness.
The simple resolve to firmly and politely send interlopers back across the border would go a
long way to providing border security, but we've allowed this process to be litigated into
incoherence so that it is increasingly impossible to enforce the existing rules. Mr. Trump's
wall is an acknowledgement of that failure to agree on lawful action to defend the border. It
evokes the works of past empires, like the wall built across Britain by the Roman emperor
Hadrian to keep out the warlike, filthy, blue-faced Scots, or the Great Wall of China built to
block marauding Mongols. Of course, these societies didn't have closed circuit TV, drones,
laser sensors, four-wheel-drive landcruisers, and night-vision goggles. I'm not persuaded that
the US really requires Mr. Trump's wall, but it does require a functioning consensus that
national borders mean something, and the president's argument is a lever to produce that
consensus.
In the meantime, the condition of the US economy, which Mr. Trump has boasted is roaring on
his account, wobbles badly. It has been based for two decades on a three-card-monte trade
set-up in which China sends us amazingly cheap products and we send them IOUs (dollars, i.e.
Federal Reserve promissory notes). It was not an arrangement bound to last. And it entailed a
lot of mischief around the theft of complex intellectual property. The damage there appears to
be already done. China may have enough computer mojo now to make all kinds of trouble in the
world. Of course, China will have enough political and economic trouble when its Molto-Ponzi
banking system flies apart, so I would not assume that they are capable of attaining the kind
of world domination that scenario-gamers in the US Intel-and-Military offices dream up.
To me, these disturbances and machinations suggest the unravelling of the arrangements we've
called "globalism." That's what we face most acutely in 2019, along with the fragile conditions
in banking, markets, and currencies that can put the schnitz on supply lines as everybody and
his uncle around the world fear that they will never get paid. It all makes for a suspenseful
holiday. Bake as many cookies as you can while the fixings are still there and stuff a few in
your ammunition box for the fretful days ahed.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. ~ Ian Fleming
Notable quotes:
"... We believe that in all three cases Guccifer 2 was unlikely to anticipate that this Eastern timezone setting could be derived from the metadata of the documents that he published. However, one vocal critic with significant media reach objected to our East Coast finding as it related to our analysis of the ngpvan .7z file. This critic concluded instead that Guccifer 2 deliberately planted that clue to implicate a DNC worker who would die under suspicious circumstances a few days later on July 10, 2016. ..."
"... Now, we have this additional East Coast indication, which appears just one day after the ngpvan.7z files were collected. This new East Coast indication is found in a completely different group of files that Guccifer 2 published on his blog site. Further, this East Coast finding has its own unique and equally unlikely method of derivation. ..."
"... If we apply our critic's logic, what do we now conclude? That Guccifer 2 also deliberately planted this new East Coast indication? To what end? We wonder: Will this new evidence compel our out-spoken critic to retract his unsubstantiated claims and accusations? ..."
Editorial Note: The Forensicator recently published a report, titled " Guccifer
2 Returns To The East Coast ." Forensicator provided the following introduction to his
latest findings, reproduced here with the permission of the author.
In this post, we announce a new finding that confirms our previous work and is the basis for
an update that we recently made to Guccifer 2's Russian
Breadcrumbs . In our original publication of that report, we posited that there were
indications of a GMT+4 timezone offset (legacy Moscow DST) in a batch of files that Guccifer 2
posted on July 6, 2016. At the time, we viewed that as a "Russian breadcrumb" that Guccifer 2
intentionally planted.
Now, based on new information, we have revised that conclusion: The timezone offset was in
fact GMT-4 (US Eastern DST) . Here, we will describe how we arrived at this new, surprising
conclusion and relate it to our prior work.
A month/so after publication, Stephen McIntyre ( @ClimateAudit ) replicated our analysis. He ran a few
experiments and found an error in our
original conclusion.
We mistakenly interpreted the last modified time that LibreOffice wrote as
"2015-08-25T23:07:00Z" as a GMT time value. Typically, the trailing "Z" means " Zulu Time ", but
in this case, LibreOffice incorrectly added the "Z". McIntyre's tests confirm that LibreOffice
records the "last modified" time as local time (not GMT). The following section describes the
method that we used to determine the timezone offset in force when the document was saved.
LibreOffice Leaks the Time Zone Offset in Force when a Document was Last Written
Modern Microsoft Office documents are generally a collection of XML files and image files.
This collection of files is packaged as a Zip file. LibreOffice can save documents in a
Microsoft Office compatible format, but its file format differs in two important details: (1)
the GMT time that the file was saved is recorded in the Zip file components that make up the
final document and (2) the document internal last saved time is recorded as local time (unlike
Microsoft Word, which records it as a GMT [UTC] value).
If we open up a document saved by Microsoft Office using the modern Office file format (
.docx or .xlsx ) as a Zip file, we see something like the following.
LibreOffice , as shown below, will record the GMT time that the document components were
saved. This time will display as the same value independent of the time zone in force when the
Zip file metadata is viewed.
For documents saved by LibreOffice we can compare the local "last saved" time recorded in
the document's properties with the GMT time value recorded inside the document (when viewed as
a Zip file). We demonstrate this derivation using the file named
potus-briefing-05-18-16_as-edits.docx that Guccifer 2 changed using LibreOffice and then
uploaded to his blog site on July 6, 2016 (along with several other files).
Above, we calculate a time zone offset of GMT-4 (EDT) was in force, by subtracting the last
saved time expressed in GMT (2016-07-06 17:10:58) from the last saved time expressed as local
time (2016-07-06 13:10:57).
We've Been Here Before
The Eastern timezone setting found in Guccifer 2's documents published on July 6, 2016 is
significant, because as we showed in Guccifer 2.0
NGP/Van Metadata Analysis , Guccifer 2 was likely on the East Coast the previous day, when
he collected the DNC-related files found in the ngpvan.7z Zip file. Also, recall that Guccifer
2 was likely on the East Coast a couple of months later on September 1, 2016 when he built the
final ngpvan.7z file.
We believe that in all three cases Guccifer 2 was unlikely to anticipate that this Eastern
timezone setting could be derived from the metadata of the documents that he published.
However, one vocal critic with significant media reach objected to our East Coast finding as it
related to our analysis of the ngpvan .7z file. This critic concluded instead that Guccifer 2
deliberately planted that clue to implicate a DNC worker who would die under suspicious
circumstances a few days later on July 10, 2016.
Further, this critic accused the Forensicator (and Adam Carter ) of using this finding to amplify the
impact of Forensicator's report in an effort to spread disinformation. He implied that
Forensicator's report was supplied by Russian operatives via a so-called "tip-off file." The
Forensicator addresses those baseless criticisms and accusations in The Campbell
Conspiracy .
Now, we have this additional East Coast indication, which appears just one day after the
ngpvan.7z files were collected. This new East Coast indication is found in a completely
different group of files that Guccifer 2 published on his blog site. Further, this East Coast
finding has its own unique and equally unlikely method of derivation.
If we apply our critic's logic, what do we now conclude? That Guccifer 2 also deliberately
planted this new East Coast indication? To what end? We wonder: Will this new evidence compel our out-spoken critic to retract his
unsubstantiated claims and accusations?
Closing Thought: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. ~ Ian Fleming
It is curious how those running vpn's often don't bother appropriately setting their
device time zones.
Regarding the closing thought, that was my thinking regarding the Byzantine Vegetable
'ally' at /qr in a non-American time zone who repeatedly attacked me.
Perhaps I have shared some harsh words with you and William, but I do sincerely care for
your well being and my appreciation for the work you both have done remains. The Optics have
been understandably difficult to swallow for many, but I hope that in your own time, you both
will be willing to take another look at Q.
Interesting to see Fleming -- as time goes on, it is pretty clear that he was telling us a
few things about how power really works--psychopathic oligarchs with private wetworkers. Of
course now we have governments competing to hire the same mercenaries -- and the uniformed
mercenaries working oligarchs with government complicity.
Believe it or not, all these faces are fake. They have been synthesized by Nvidia's new AI
algorithm, a generative adversarial network capable of automagically creating humans, cats, and
even cars.
Credit: Nvidia
The technology works so well that we can expect synthetic image search engines soon - just
like Google's, but generating new fake images on the fly that look real. Yes, you know where
that is going - and sure, it can be a lot of fun, but also scary . Check out the video. It
truly defies belief:
According to Nvidia, its GAN is built around a concept called "style transfer." Rather than
trying to copy and paste elements of different faces into a frankenperson, the system analyzes
three basic styles - coarse, middle, and fine styles - and merges them transparently into
something completely new.
Coarse styles include parameters such as pose, the face's shape, or the hair style. Middle
styles include facial features, like the shape of the nose, cheeks, or mouth. Finally, fine
styles affect the color of the face's features like skin and hair.
According to the scientists, the generator is "capable of separating inconsequential
variation from high-level attributes" too, in order to eliminate noise that is irrelevant for
the new synthetic face.
For example, it can distinguish a hairdo from the actual hair, eliminating the former while
applying the latter to the final photo. It can also specify the strength of how styles are
applied to obtain more or less subtle effects.
Not only the generative adversarial network is capable of autonomously creating human faces,
but it can do the same with animals like cats. It can even create new cars and even
bedrooms.
Credit: Nvidia
Nvidia's system is not only capable of generating completely new synthetic faces, but it can
also seamlessly modify specific features of real people, like age, the hair or skin colors of
any person.
The applications for such a system are amazing. From paradigm-changing synthetic free-to-use
image search pages that may be the end of stock photo services to people accurately previewing
hair styling changes. And of course, porn.
"... If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ... If you can wait and not be tired by waiting ... If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim ... If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you ... Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it. ..."
The stock market has had a volatile year, and it's not over yet: The Dow Jones Industrial
Average lost more than 520 points on Monday and the S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent. Both are in
correction and on pace for their worst December performance since the Great Depression in
1931.
But for the average person, shifts in the market , even ones as dramatic as the ones we've
seen this year, shouldn't be cause for panic. During times of volatility, seasoned investor
Warren Buffett says it's best to stay calm and stick to the basics, meaning, buy-and-hold for
the long term.
So, during downturns, "heed these lines" from the classic 19th century Rudyard Kipling poem
"If -- " which help illustrate this lesson, Buffett wrote in his 2017 Berkshire Hathaway
shareholder letter :
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ...
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting ...
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim ...
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you ...
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.
Market downturns are inevitable, Buffett pointed out, using his own company as an example:
"Berkshire, itself, provides some vivid examples of how price randomness in the short term can
obscure long-term growth in value. For the last 53 years, the company has built value by
reinvesting its earnings and letting compound interest work its magic. Year by year, we have
moved forward. Yet Berkshire shares have suffered four truly major dips."
He went on to cite each of the steep share-price drops, including the most recent one from
September 2008 to March 2009, when Berkshire shares plummeted 50.7 percent.
Major declines have happened before and are going to happen again, he says: "No one can tell
you when these will happen. The light can at any time go from green to red without pausing at
yellow."
Rather than watch the market closely and panic, keep a level head. Market downturns "offer
extraordinary opportunities to those who are not handicapped by debt," he says, which brings up
another important investing lesson: Never borrow money to buy stocks .
"There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period," writes Buffett.
"Even if your borrowings are small and your positions aren't immediately threatened by the
plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless
commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions."
Don't miss: Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio agree on what to do when the stock market
tanks
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Stock Sell-Off Defies Everything the Bulls Hoped Would Stop It
(Bloomberg) -- Valuations aren't stopping it. Jerome Powell's softer tone failed
to soothe anyone. The moratorium on tariffs is a fading memory and now the
sturdiest chart level of the year is in danger of giving way.
A stock rout that bulls thought was finished three different times since October
is in a new and ominous phase, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 1,004
points in two days. No Santa Claus rally. Instead, the S&P 500 Index is hurtling
toward the second-worst December on record.
"The stock market doesn't care what looks good now. It's wondering if
fundamentals will deteriorate in the future," said Peter Mallouk, co-chief
investment officer of Creative Planning, which has around $36 billion under
management. "You have a lot of people that are scared, and they're sitting on the
sidelines to wait it out."
Waiting it out is starting to look like the only viable strategy. On Monday, the
S&P 500 briefly pierced a level that had been a psychological foundation for 10
months, its intraday low from Feb. 9. Valuations shrink and shrink -- computer
and software stocks trade at 15 times next year's earnings estimates, cheaper
than utilities and soapmakers -- and the selling just gets worse.
With Monday's 54-point loss, the S&P has now fallen 2 percent or more six times
this quarter. The Nasdaq Composite has done it 10 times. Both are the most since
the third quarter of 2011.
Pinning a single cause on the carnage has become an exercise in absurdity, with
analysts cycling through a rotating list of reasons that include trade, Donald
Trump's legal travails, China data, sinking oil and cooling home prices. Anyone
daring to suggest economic growth may slow in 2019 is pointed to charts showing
factories, employment and profits are booming -- but those assurances are
starting to fall on deaf ears.
While S&P 500 Index futures indicated a potential respite in Asian trading
Tuesday, rising as much as 0.5 percent, traders remained cautious.
Investors "are too worried, but that's the big driver behind the declines we've
seen recently, overall worries about U.S. growth and worries about global
growth," said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones. "Investors have
gotten very nervous about the changes they're seeing ahead and they're uncertain
about what they mean."
A troubling sign for Americans: equity pain, which all year has been worse
overseas, is landing with more force in the U.S. The Russell 2000 Index of small
caps, a proxy for domestically oriented companies, slid into a bear market
Monday, falling 21 percent since Aug. 31.
On the other hand, since hitting a 19-month low in late October, the MSCI
Emerging Markets Index has trended higher, even as the S&P 500 Index keeps making
new lows. Stocks in the EM gauge have outperformed the S&P 500 for three
consecutive weeks, the most since late January, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
To comfort themselves in the face of such depressing facts, beaten-up investors
have looked at past corrections and noticed that this one is still playing out
according a relatively benign plan. Under the pattern, major swoons that have
interrupted the bull market that began in 2009 have taken around 100 days to tire
out before dip-buyers swooped in to put things right.
At the same time, anyone betting the New Year will bring an end to the volatility
should be aware that bull markets can die slow deaths. The 88-day sell-off has
been going on roughly one-third as long as it has taken for the S&P 500 to fall
into the 11 bear markets it's suffered going back to World War II.
How many more sellers than buyers were there on Monday? The volume of stocks
trading lower on the New York Stock Exchange reached 1 billion shares, compared
with 158 million that were bought. The difference in trading volume, at 883
million shares, is on track to become the biggest weekly gap since 2016, data
compiled by Bloomberg show.
That the worst two-day sell-off since October landed on the same week Powell's
Federal Reserve is expected to announce its ninth interest rate hike was grist
for those who see central bank policy behind everything. As willingly as the Fed
chairman has walked back his most hawkish pronouncements, nobody thinks monetary
policy is likely to loosen even as growth in the economy and earnings slows from
this year's pace.
"That's what the market is struggling with right now -- do they believe in a
growth slowdown to trend or something more sinister than that?" said Phil
Camporeale, managing director of multi-asset solutions for JPMorgan Asset
Management. "I don't think people really want to take risk, but especially
trying to catch a falling knife on equity prices."
(Adds details on S&P 500 futures trading in seventh paragraph.)
j
3 hours ago
Don't borrow money to buy stocks. Got
that ? No margin accounts. Ever.
H
5
hours ago
This has been a long, ho-hum recovery
from the Great Recession. Asset prices got way ahead of the
fundamentals. Everything returns to the mean; margins, interest
rates, unemployment, etc. Count your blessings, a nine year
bull is rare.
s
3
hours ago
To make matters worse I read a
story earlier today indicating that the hedge funds in
Europe are literally being wiped out and those are their
favourite & biggest ones. Yup, Alex Jones (yeah I know
how everyone in mainstream media loves to hate the guy
and even censors him) predicted what would happen back in
2008 or 2009. He said that the recession then was just
the start of it. That the powers that be would facilitate
a come back, so that people could get into EVEN BIGGER
DEBTS (which they did with the 0% interest rates) and
then they'd engineer an even more massive crash that
would suck all the liquidity and equity out of the
markets towards the big wigs that controls everything -
read BOIS (Bank of International Settlements) which is
owned by a few very wealthy secretive people and they are
the ones that basically owns and operates the banks the
world over - and dictating all the banking laws too. They
just keep getting richer & richer at our expense. Like as
if they need all that wealth.
K
1 hour ago
40 years watching markets and people
just do not understand that forward PE's get cut in half or go
as low as 5x PE with a recession -- all the fluff on the upside
gets parsed out and once the income flows slow the gratuitous
accounting stops and suddenly there is transparency and people
wait 10 years to get even-maybe 20 this cycle- and the public
realizes they have been hoodwinked
b
2 hours
ago
Maybe POTUS can rehire Yellin after he
fires Powell (if only he could)
"... Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, on Monday said the S&P 500 stock index is headed to new lows and that U.S. equities are in a long-term bear market. ..."
"... "I think it is a bear market. I think we've had the first leg down and the second leg down is usually more painful than the first leg down," said Gundlach, who oversees more than $123 billion. ..."
"... "I think this lasts a long time. It has a lot to do with the fact that, I believe, that we're in a situation that is ... highly unusual - that we're increasing the budget deficit so spectacularly so late in the cycle while the Fed is hiking interest rates." ..."
"... The intraday low for the year in the S&P was on Feb. 9, when it bottomed at 2532.69. The low close for the year was on April 2 at 2581.88. On Monday, the S&P closed 2545.94. ..."
<img alt="FILE PHOTO: Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York" src="https://s.yimg.com/it/api/res/1.2/BXVsdhZsK0OiZdcOd8_ffw--~A/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7c209MTt3PTQ1MDtoPTMwMDtpbD1wbGFuZQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2018-12-17T182416Z_1_LYNXMPEEBG1NJ_RTROPTP_2_FUNDS-DOUBLELINE-GUNDLACH.JPG.cf.jpg" itemprop="url"/>
NEW YORK (Reuters) -
Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital,
on Monday said the S&P 500 stock index is headed to new lows and that U.S.
equities are in a long-term bear market.
Gundlach, speaking on CNBC TV, said passive investing has reached "mania status"
and will exacerbate market problems.
"I think it is a bear market. I think we've had the first leg down and the
second leg down is usually more painful than the first leg down," said
Gundlach, who oversees more than $123 billion.
"I think this lasts a long time. It has a lot to do with the fact that, I
believe, that we're in a situation that is ... highly unusual - that we're
increasing the budget deficit so spectacularly so late in the cycle while the
Fed is hiking interest rates."
The S&P 500 briefly erased its losses in late-morning trade on Monday but resumed
its steep decline and pierced through Gundlach's target after he made his "bear
market" comments.
The intraday low for the year in the S&P was on Feb. 9, when it bottomed at
2532.69. The low close for the year was on April 2 at 2581.88. On Monday, the S&P
closed 2545.94.
Investors are also bracing for the Federal Reserve's last rate decision of the
year on Wednesday, when they are expected to raise U.S. interest rates for a
fourth time for 2018.
Gundlach said the Fed should not raise rates this week but will. "The bond market
is basically saying, 'You know, Fed, there's no way you should be raising
interest rates'," he said.
The U.S. central bank's quantitative tightening campaign has made markets nervous
because of the ultra-low levels that have remained in place for several years,
Gundlach said.
"The problem is that the Fed shouldn't have kept them (rates) so low for so long.
The problem is, we shouldn't have had negative interest rates like we still have
in Europe. We shouldn't have had done quantitative easing, which is a circular
financing scheme," he said.
Gundlach also said the China-U.S. trade war gets worse from here. "China doesn't
like to be told what to do by President Trump," he said. For its part, "I think
they (the United States) will probably ratchet up the tariffs."
The remarks by Gundlach, who in April recommended investors short Facebook Inc,
extended losses in Facebook shares on Monday after he characterized the social
media giant as a "diabolical data-collection monster that would ultimately fall
victim to regulation." The stock closed 2.69 percent lower.
Gundlach took a shot at passive investment strategies such as index funds,
declaring the investing strategy a "mania" that is causing widespread problems in
global stock markets.
"I'm not at all a fan of passive investing. In fact, I think passive investing
... has reached mania status as we went into the peak of the global stock
market," Gundlach said. "I think, in fact, that passive investing and robo
advisers ... are going to exacerbate problems in the market because it's hurting
behavior," he said.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Traders and investors will be glad to see the back of 2018. It's been
the worst rout since 1901, by Deutsche Bank AG's reckoning, with almost every asset class
delivering losses. These charts illustrate the backdrop to what went wrong this year –
and hint at what could go better in 2019.
$14,889,930,106,680
That's how much the total value of companies listed on the world's stock markets has
declined since peaking at $87,289,962,917,450 on Jan 28. In other words, almost $15 trillion
has been wiped off the global equity market this year.
The list of potential motivations for the sell-off is long and includes rising geopolitical
risks, the prospect of trade wars erupting, the risk that a slowdown in global growth that
could degenerate into a worldwide recession, and the evergreen what-goes-up-must-come-down. But
might it just be possible that investors start to take the view stocks have fallen far and fast
enough to offer value next year?
Talkin' About a Recession
It's clear that one of the fundamental worries spooking investors is that the period of
coordinated global growth that propelled stock markets higher in recent years is coming to an
end.
The R word is increasingly cropping up in news articles. But economists put the chances of a
recession in the coming year at 15 percent in the U.S. and 18 percent in the euro zone,
according to Bloomberg surveys. Even the Brexit-battered U.K. economy is only at a 20 percent
risk, while for Japan the likelihood rises to 30 percent. Perhaps those concerns about a
recession are overdone.
Curving to Inversion
Or perhaps not. One trend was omnipresent in 2018 – the relentless flattening of the
yield curve in the U.S.
Yields at the short end of the Treasury market pushed higher with every quarterly increase
in the Fed's benchmark interest rate. Longer-dated bonds danced to a different beat,
particularly as the October equity shakeout drove a flight to quality.
An inverted yield curve – when yields on shorter-dated bonds are higher than their
longer-dated counterparts – is often seen as an indicator of impending recession. It's
finally happened: yields on five-years are below those for two-years. A key question for 2019
will be how the feedback loop develops between the Federal Reserve's policy intentions and the
shape of the curve.
Quantitative Tightening
The Fed has been reducing its economic stimulus by not replacing the bonds it bought under
its Quantitative Easing program as they mature.
But this "normalization" is already taking its toll as the sharp equity market sell off in
October showed. The Fed has a tricky choice to make in 2019 about whether it can persist both
with hiking rates and reducing quantitative easing. Is the world ready yet to stand on its own
feet without ongoing central bank support?
No Alarms and No Surprises
Economic surprise indexes – which measure actual economic data compared to forecasts
– are designed to be portents of the future. And for 2018 they largely did their job.
U.S. strength is waning and Brexit is taking a toll on the U.K. In particular the third-quarter
weakness in euro-zone growth, when both Germany and Italy turned negative, was well-flagged
from as early as the first quarter.
For 2019 there is a more neutral outlook, but it is interesting that the U.S. economic data
is much more evenly balanced in terms of expectations. Europe continues to be the worst
performer – quite something considering the predicament the U.K. is in.
Europe Stumbles
Europe has seen growth falter this year, with Italy's political crisis and Germany's diesel
vehicle emissions scandal taking their toll.
Italy's third-quarter growth was revised to -0.1 percent, beating only Germany. The
prospects for 2019 are none-too-rosy, bar the notable exception of Spain, as momentum has
evaporated. Europe remains in the sick bay of the developed world – just as the European
Central Bank prepares to remove its monetary stimulus to the economy.
Relying on China
China came to the global economy's rescue in the wake of the financial crisis, but it is
starting to pay the price for increasing its debt to create additional GDP growth. Total social
financing as a percentage of gross domestic product – a broad measure of credit creation
– is flat-lining. Adding extra debt to boost the economy is becoming a less effective
measure. It is not just the threat of a trade war with America that has pushed Chinese equities
down by 20 percent in 2018.
China faces the classic emerging-market middle-income trap where growth fueled by credit
runs out of road. This debt bubble will not be easily fixed.
Finding Reverse Again
Japanese Prime Minister's famous three economic arrows are failing to hit their mark. Debt
that stands in excess of 250 percent of GDP is hampering all efforts to resuscitate inflation
and sustainable growth in the world's third-largest economy. Third-quarter GDP contracted 2.5
percent on an annualized basis, the worst performance for four years.
Tokyo might be hosting the Olympics in 2020, but there is little benefit flowing through so
far. Japan, like the rest of the once dominant Asian export powerhouses, is just as beholden to
the outcome of the trade war with Trump as China is.
Hunting for Neutral
Until very recently, many economists were anticipating at least four more rate increases
from the Fed next year at a pace of one per quarter. While the futures market still suggests a
Dec. 19 hike is a done deal, the outlook for monetary policy in 2019 has shifted significantly
in recent weeks.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has trimmed its forecast for number of potential Fed rate increases
in 2019; billionaire fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said earlier this month that he's not
expecting any additional tightening from the U.S. central bank next year. A halt to the hikes
might prove as pleasing to financial markets as to President Donald Trump.
Credit Squeeze
Companies with dollar bonds have seen their borrowing costs soar relative to those of the
U.S. government as the Fed has driven its benchmark interest rate higher this year. Investors
have seen a corresponding slump in the value of the corporate debt they own.
Any slowdown in the ascent of U.S. borrowing costs as the Fed pauses for breath should give
succor to corporate bonds – provided it isn't accompanied by a rise in defaults.
Other People's Money
It's been a terrible year for the stocks of firms that manage other people's money for a
living.
Fund managers tend to invest in each other's shares. And you'd expect them to have
better-than-average insight into the business prospects of their peers. So watch for an
inflection point in asset management stocks – it might be a sign of a turning point for
the wider market.
Happy Birthday to the Euro
The common European currency celebrates its 20th birthday at the start of January. During
the two decades of its existence, rumors of the euro's demise have been proven to be greatly
exaggerated.
The European debt crisis at the beginning of this decade posed an existential threat to the
euro's well-being. The currency survived. At several points in the past few years, Greece
seemed on the verge of either quitting or being ousted from the project. Its membership
survived. And Italy's election of a populist government earlier this year raised the prospect
of a founding member threatening to leave if it wasn't allowed to break the bloc's budget
rules. Still, the euro survives.
In fact, as the chart above shows, investors are close to the most relaxed they've been
about the euro fracturing in more than five years based on the Sentix Euro Break-Up Index, a
monthly gauge of investor concern about the threat. So let's end by wishing the euro many happy
returns.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at [email protected]
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP
and its owners.
Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering asset management. He previously was
the London bureau chief for Bloomberg News. He is also the author of "Complicit: How Greed and
Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable."
Marcus Ashworth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European markets. He spent three
decades in the banking industry, most recently as chief markets strategist at Haitong
Securities in London.
Two months ago, to the chagrin of a generation of traders, Morgan Stanley made a dismal
observation : Price action in 2018 has shown that 'buy the dip' is on its way out. To wit,
buying the S&P 500 after a down week was a profitable strategy from 2005 through 2017, and
buying these dips fueled most of the post-crisis S&P 500 gains (relative to buying after
the market rallied). But in 2018 'buying the dip' has been a negative return strategy for the
first time in 13 years . In other words, "buying the fucking dip" is no longer the winning
strategy it had been for years (even if buying the most shorted hedge fund names still is a
stable generator of alpha).
However, a more concerning observation is that while BTFD may no longer work, it has been
replaced with an even more troubling trend for market bulls: Selling The Fucking Rip, or as it
is also known, STFR.
This selling of rallies has been especially obvious for the past two weeks as traders have
observed ongoing intra- US session asset-allocation trades out of the S&P and into TY, with
simultaneous volume spikes / blocks trading in ESH9 (selling) and THY9 (buying) at a number of
points throughout the day, but usually after the European close, and toward the end of the
trading day.
"SELL THE RIPS" IN SPOOZ BECOMING THE NORM
So what is behind this pernicious, for bulls if quite welcome for bears, pattern?
Here, Nomura's Charlie McElligott has some thoughts and in his morning note reminds clients
that he had previously highlighted a similar potential observation YTD between the inverse
relationship of UST stripping activity (buying US fixed-income) and the SMART index (end of day
US Equities flows being sold) -- which indicates a similar trend with pension fund de-risking
throughout 2018, as their funding ratios sit at post GFC highs.
In other words, one possible culprit is pension funds who have decided that the market may
have peaked, and are taking advantage of the recent selldown in fixed income, to reallocate
back from stocks and into bonds, locking in less risky funding ratios.
And, as McElligott concludes, this equities de-risking/outflow corroborates what we touched
upon this morning, namely this week's EPFR fund flows data which showed an astounding -$27.7B
outflow for US Equities (Institutional, Retail, Active and Passive combined), the second worst
weekly redemption of the past 1Y period.
Meanwhile, the equity weakness is being coupled with surprising strong bid for US
Treasuries, further confirmation of an intraday Pension reallocation trade.
According to McElligott, the price-action in the long-end of late indicates "that we
potentially are seeing "real money" players back involved for the first-time in awhile,
"toe-dipping" again in adding / receiving as the global slowdown story picks-up steam amidst
growing 2019 / 2020 recession belief", a hypothesis which is further validated by the sharp
rebound in direct bidders in recent auctions and especially yesterday's 30Y which we have
documented extensively, as the "buyers-strike" in long duration auctions seems to have
ended.
This Treasury bid could include large overseas pensions (which are less sensitive to hedge
costs than say Lifers), Risk-Parity (as previously-stated, our QIS RP model estimated the
risk-parity universe as a large buyer of both USTs and JGBs over the past month and a half) and
potentially, resumption of long-end buying from "official" overseas sources as well (with
market speculation that there could be an implicit agreement / gesture coming out of the G20
trade truce arrangement), McElligott notes.
One tangent to note: the bid has been more evident in futures and derivatives (as they are
"off-balance sheet" expressions into a liquidity constrained YE reality), which is reflected in
the fresh record dealer holdings of USTs and which the Nomura strategist notes has made made
futures super rich to cash, creating arb opportunities in the cash/futures basis as the
calendar is about to flip.
Finally, as to who or what is the real reason behind these inexplicable bouts of "selling
the rip", whoever it is, the biggest threat to the market is that once the pattern manifests
itself enough times it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at which point it's not a question of
who started it - as everyone will be doing it - but rather at what point does the Fed step in
to stop it.
Considering that nothing was fixed in 2008, we have had zirp for a decade, there is no
doubt that capital has been misallocated....GM closing plants, Caterpillar closing plants are
economic manifestations of this ponzi scheme...They cannot normalize interest rates with the
amount of debt used to paper over the last crisis...or to satisfy an American government
spending a trillion dollars a year more than they take in....Dow 6000...
Yes they CAN normalize interest rates. Why should someone with saved capital hold the bag
so that crooks who gamed the Globalist movement remain whole? Flotsam in the middle who lose
are fodder. Sorry but even the new socialism won't save them.
Blame the Globalists, not the savers. I suspect many Globalists are morphing into the new
Socialists. Yet to come is the Globalist definition of the new Socialist. Globalists demanded
low rates, low wages, open boarders for goods, and open boarders for people. Socialists will
demand much the same, I suspect.
Selling overvalued stocks and buying Treasuries after the Fed's brief tightening cycle
with the backdrop of a slowing global economy would be a smart and coherent move. Call me
skeptical but I just can't see pension funds behind such a logical move.
Buying Treasuries today is not smart. Flight to safety, multiplied by big money pouring
into the interest rate dip as a 'taper tantrum' move to scare the Fed into not raising rates
any more, is sucker money.
Money market funds are the only safe harbor at this moment.
Wait until rate increases from the Fed end, perhaps in another 3 or 4 increases.
Between now and then, liquidity issues will create big capital gains opportunities on debt
and debt funds if you wait it out.
Both BTFD and STFR are cynical HFT strategies. The faster algos prey on the slower ones,
except for the unique cases where a human predator preys on the algos. (In England, it's a
crime for humans to prey on algos.)
BTFD has a warm appeal because it appears to forecast blue skies and better days, but is
still a predator strategy if there's no fundamental reason to expect better times ahead.
STFR is based on the fear of missing out. Any human who loses on that one makes me
sad.
No, the day they stop will be the day the EU officially starts to decompose and rot in
front of the world. The entertainment will be watching and listening as the try to explain
away the festering and leprosy. All due to 'Kick the Can', not to mention the fact they were
dumb enough to fall for the Globalist scam of low rates and open boarders. There's no
explanation for that level of stupid. A few people sold out the entire Continent using
ideology and gullibility. All it took was a great sales pitch.
ok, so with the 10-yr already falling, what exactly is the Fed going to do. If they lower
then bonds just become a better investment (short run). Guess that's why they're gonna raise.
It's like a house of mirrors.
The Fed and/or SEC will not act until there is a major decline; like circuit breakers
kicking in. Which by the way were put in after the 1987 crash and have never been used.
The 80's had program buying/selling and portfolio insurance. Now we have algos and
computers running the show. Same kind of thing just faster to act with better speeds and
computer power.
This will eventually lead to a similar market mega move and those in power will not act
until it does.
They need something to blame (not someone-think financial crisis) as it can't be their
lack of oversight and blindness [sarc]
Anything goes until the market comes unglued and then the rules get changed. The
regulators are always late to the show and need to be shown what to do after it happens even
though it was clear to many.
Swing between extremes, however, consistent in US history, economic predatory dependence on
free/ultra cheap labor with no legal rights. Current instantiation, offshored and illegal and
"temporary" immigrant labor. Note neither party in the US is proposing "immigration reform"
is green card upon hire. Ds merely propose green card for time served for those over X number
of years donated as captive/cheap.
The entitled to cheap/captive now want it in law, national laws and trade agreements.
All privilege/no responsibilities, including taxes.
Doesn't scale. 1929 says so, 2008 says so.
Liberals, the Left, Progressives -- whatever you want to call them suffer from a basic
problem. They don't work together and have no common goals. As the article stated they
complain but offer no real solutions that they can agree on. Should we emphasize gay pride or
should we emphasize good-paying jobs and benefits with good social welfare benefits? Until
they can agree at least on priorities they will never reform the current corrupt system -- it
is too entrenched. Even if the Capitalist Monstrosity we have now self-destructs as the
writer indicates -- nothing good will replace it until the Left get their act together.
"Lesser of two evils" needs to go on the burn pile.
Encumbent congress needs a turn over.
Not showing up to vote is not okay. If people can't think of someone they want to write-in,
"none of the above" is a protest vote. Not voting is silence, which equals consent.
Local elections, beat back Koch/ALEC, hiding on ballots as "Libertarian". "Privatize
everything" is their mantra, so they can further profitize via inescapeable taxes, while
gutting "regulation" - safety and market integrity, with no accountability.
Corporation 101: limited liability. While means we are left holding the bag. As in bailout -
$125 billion in 1990, up to $7.7 trillion in 2008.
Anything the Economist presents as the overriding choice is probably best relegated to
one factor among many. I respect Milanovic's work, but he's seeing things from where we are
now. Remember we've seen populist surges come and go from the witch-burnings and religious
panics of the 17th century to 1890s Bryanism and the 1930s far right, and each time they've
yielded to a more articulate vision, though the last time it cost sixty million dead - not
something we want to see repeated. This time it's hard because dissent still clings to a
"post-ideological" delusion that those on top never succumbed to. But change will come as
what I'd term "post-rational" alternatives fail to deliver. Let's hope it's sooner rather
than later.
"Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt." Thank you Martin, at least someone
writing in the Guardian has got the point!
We voted against the EU's unelected European Central Bank, its unelected European Commission,
its European Court of Justice, its Common Agricultural Policy and its Common Fisheries
Policy.
We voted against the EU's treaty-enshrined 'austerity' (= depression) policies, which have
impoverished Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
We voted against the EU/US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would
privatise all our public services, which threatens all our rights, and which discriminates
against the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We voted against the EU's tariffs against African farmers' cheaper produce.
We opposed the City of London Corporation, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the IMF,
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which all wanted us to
stay in the EU.
We voted against the EU's undemocratic trilogue procedure and its pro-austerity Semester
programme. We voted to leave this undemocratic, privatisation-enforcing, austerity-enforcing
body.
Bailout was because that was public savings, pensions, 401ks, etc. the banks were playing
with, and lost. Bailout is billing all of us for it. Bad, letting the banks/financial
"services" not only survive but continue the exact same practices.
Bailout: $7.2 to $7.7 trillion. Current derivative holdings: $500 trillion.
Not just moral hazard but economic hazard when capitalism basic rule is broken, allow bad
businesses to die of their own accord. Subversion currently called "too big to fail", rather
than tell the public "we lost all your savings, pensions, ...".
Relocating poverty from the East into the West isn't improvement.
Creating sweatshops in the East isn't raising their standard of living.
Creating economies so economically unstable that population declines isn't improvement.
Trying to bury that fact with immigration isn't improvement.
Configuring all of the above for record profit for the benefit of a tiny percentage of the
population isn't improvement.
Gaming tax law to avoid paying into/for extensive business use of federal services and tax
base isn't improvement.
Game over. Time for a reboot.
I am glad you finally concede a point on neo-liberalism. The moral hazard argument is
extremely poor and typical in this era of runaway CEO pay, of a tendency to substitute
self-help fables (a la "The monk who sold his Ferrari) and pop psychology ( a la Moral
Hazard) for credible economic analysis.
The economic crisis is rooted in the profit motive just as capitalist economic growth is.
Lowering of Tarrif barriers, outsourcing, changes in value capture (added value), new
financial instruments, were attempts to restore the falling rate of profit. They did for a
while, but, as always happens with Capitalism, the seeds of the new crisis were in the
solution to the old.
And all the while the state continues growing in an attempt to keep capitalism afloat.
Neoliberalism failed ( or should I say "small state" ) and here is the graph to prove it: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/usgs_chartSp03t.png
Interesting, and I believe accurate, analysis of the economic and political forces afoot.
However it is ludicrous to state that Donald trump, who is a serial corpratist, out-sourcer,
tax avoider and scam artist, actually believes any of those populist principles that you
ascribe so firmly to him. The best and safest outcome of our election, in my opinion, would
be to have a Clinton administration tempered by the influences from the populist wings of
both parties.
Great article, however the elite globalists are in complete denial in the US. Our only choice
is to vote them out of power because the are owned by Wall Street. Both Bernie and Trump
supporters should unite to vote establishment out of Washington.
There were similar observations in the immediate aftermath of 2008, and doubtless before.
Many of us thought the crisis would trigger a rethink of the whole direction of the previous
three decades, but instead we got austerity and a further lurch to the right, or at best
Obama-style stimulus and modest tweaks which were better than the former but still rather
missed the point. I still find it flabbergasting and depressing, but on reflection the 1930s
should have been a warning of not just the economic hazards but also the political fallout,
at least in Europe. The difference was that this time left ideology had all but vacated the
field in the 1980s and was in no position to lead a fightback: all we can hope for is better
late than never.
Yes it is, it's an extremely bad thing destroying the fabric of society. Social science
has documented that even the better off are more happy, satisfied with life and feel safer in
societies (i.e. the Scandinavian) where there is a relatively high degree of economic
equality. Yes, economic inequality is a BAD thing in itself.
Oh, give me a break. Social science will document anything it can publish, no matter how
spurious. If Scandanavia is so great, why are they such pissheads? There has always been
inequality, including in workers' paradises like the Soviet Union and Communist China.
Inequality is what got us where we are today, through natural selection. Phenotype is largely
dependent on genotype, so why shouldn't we pass on material wealth as well as our genes?
Surely it is a parent's right to afford their offspring advantages if they can do so?
Have you got any numbers? Or references for your allegations. I say the average or median
wealth, opportunity, economic circumstance and health measures are substantially better than
a generation (lets say 30 years) ago.
Again I don't think our system is perfect. I don't deny that some in our societies
struggle and don't benefit, particularly the poorly educated, disabled, mentally ill and drug
addicted. I actually agree that we could better target our social redistribution from those
that have to those that need help. I disagree that we need higher taxes, protectionism,
socialism, more public servants, more legislation. Indeed I disagree with proposition that
other systems are better.
George Orwell said, in the 30s, that the price of social justice would include a lowering of
living standards for the working- & middle-classes, at least temporarily, so I follow
your line of thought. However, the outrageous tilt toward the upper .1% has no "adjustment"
fluff to shield it from the harsh despotism it represents. So, do put that in your
statistical pipe and smoke it.
Trump never ceases to crack me up. While his (terrible) current lawyer, declares on TV
that there was collusion but it just didn't last long, Trump calls his former lawyer/fixer at
"Rat".
This is just too funny, I mean this is the President of the United States calling his
former personal lawyer a "Rat" which of course is a common mob term for a witness testifying
against you.
Of course it never happened, just like Manafort didn't make 3 trips to London to meet
Julian Assange. These fictions were just used as a pretext for diving into the backgrounds of
Trump's political supporters and find crimes to charge them with.
The Cohen raid was particularly egregious, a likely violation of attorney-client
privilege. Not suprisingly the American Bar Association is silent.
So, Manafort never laundered money and failed to report taxes? Did Flynn never fail to
report his work as a foreign agent? Did he also not report income taxes?
Look at all these poor crooks, unfairly being prosecuted for cheating and stealing.
All that could have been prosecuted by a district attorney. They looked at all of
Manafort's dealings 10 years ago and passed because he was working with the Podesta Group at
the time and thus protected by Hillary Clinton's influence.
" Miller also admits that the dossier's broad claims are more closely aligned with
reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims. "
"... I see this in young people all around, 25-35 year old's saddled with $50-100k in debt defining every action and option they have (or don't!). Not everyone gets themselves into this bind, people make poor decisions, but our higher educational institutions readily promote without ample warning and education and the result is what's rumored to be a $1 Trillion student loan debt bubble. This isn't sustainable ..."
"... Educational institutions should not be seen as a profit making enterprise, education should be attainable to all without the fear of untenable costs. ..."
A very scholarly and educational read, well researched and documented. It is very in-depth,
perhaps not for the light hearted but I learned quite a bit about education philosophies
world-wide, their origins, how that effects current thoughts and practices, etc. And how the
United States higher educational institutions have gotten to where they are today, money
printing machines with unsustainable growth and costs being pushed onto those just seeking to
potentially better themselves.
I see this in young people all around, 25-35 year old's
saddled with $50-100k in debt defining every action and option they have (or don't!). Not
everyone gets themselves into this bind, people make poor decisions, but our higher
educational institutions readily promote without ample warning and education and the result
is what's rumored to be a $1 Trillion student loan debt bubble. This isn't sustainable
My years in oversea schools took place long ago, I can't testify nor draw direction
comparisons to the situation we face today. But I can say, that with three young kids
approaching college age we remain highly concerned to terrified what the costs and our kids
futures.
Educational institutions should not be seen as a profit making enterprise, education
should be attainable to all without the fear of untenable costs.
The median retirement account balance among all working US adults is $0 . This is true
even for the cohort closest to retirement age, those 55-64 years old.
The average (i.e., mean) near-retirement individual has less than 8% of one year's income
saved in a retirement account
77% of all American households aren't on track to have enough net worth to retire , even
under the most conservative estimates.
There a number of causal factors that have contributed to this lack of retirement
preparedness (decades of stagnant real wages, fast-rising cost of living, the Great Recession,
etc), but as we explained in our report The Great Retirement Con
, perhaps none has had more impact than the shift from dedicated-contribution pension plans to
voluntary private savings:
The Origins Of The Retirement Plan
Back during the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress promised a monthly lifetime
income to soldiers who fought and survived the conflict. This guaranteed income stream,
called a "pension", was again offered to soldiers in the Civil War and every American war
since.
Since then, similar pension promises funded from public coffers expanded to cover retirees
from other branches of government. States and cities followed suit -- extending pensions to
all sorts of municipal workers ranging from policemen to politicians, teachers to trash
collectors.
A pension is what's referred to as a defined benefit plan . The payout promised a worker
upon retirement is guaranteed up front according to a formula, typically dependent on salary
size and years of employment.
Understandably, workers appreciated the security and dependability offered by pensions.
So, as a means to attract skilled talent, the private sector started offering them, too.
The first corporate pension was offered by the American Express Company in 1875. By the
1960s, half of all employees in the private sector were covered by a pension
plan.
Off-loading Of Retirement Risk By Corporations
Once pensions had become commonplace, they were much less effective as an incentive to
lure top talent. They started to feel like burdensome cost centers to companies.
As America's corporations grew and their veteran employees started hitting retirement age,
the amount of funding required to meet current and future pension funding obligations became
huge. And it kept growing. Remember, the Baby Boomer generation, the largest ever by far in
US history, was just entering the workforce by the 1960s.
Companies were eager to get this expanding liability off of their backs. And the more
poorly-capitalized firms started defaulting on their pensions, stiffing those who had loyally
worked for them.
So, it's little surprise that the 1970s and '80s saw the introduction of personal
retirement savings plans. The Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) was formed by the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in 1974. And the first 401k plan was created
in 1980.
These savings vehicles are defined contribution plans . The future payout of the plan is
variable (i.e., unknown today), and will be largely a function of how much of their income
the worker directs into the fund over their career, as well as the market return on the
fund's investments.
Touted as a revolutionary improvement for the worker, these plans promised to give the
individual power over his/her own financial destiny. No longer would it be dictated by their
employer.
Your company doesn't offer a pension? No worries: open an IRA and create your own personal
pension fund.
Afraid your employer might mismanage your pension fund? A 401k removes that risk. You
decide how your retirement money is invested.
Want to retire sooner? Just increase the percent of your annual income contributions.
All this sounded pretty good to workers. But it sounded GREAT to their employers.
Why? Because it transferred the burden of retirement funding away from the company and
onto its employees. It allowed for the removal of a massive and fast-growing liability off of
the corporate balance sheet, and materially improved the outlook for future earnings and cash
flow.
As you would expect given this, corporate America moved swiftly over the next several
decades to cap pension participation and transition to defined contribution plans.
The table below shows how vigorously pensions (green) have disappeared since the
introduction of IRAs and 401ks (red):
So, to recap: 40 years ago, a grand experiment was embarked upon. One that promised US
workers: Using these new defined contribution vehicles, you'll be better off when you reach
retirement age.
Which raises a simple but very important question: How have things worked out?
The
Ugly AftermathAmerica The Broke
Well, things haven't worked out too well.
Four decades later, what we're realizing is that this shift from dedicated-contribution
pension plans to voluntary private savings was a grand experiment with no assurances.
Corporations definitely benefited, as they could redeploy capital to expansion or bottom line
profits. But employees? The data certainly seems to show that the experiment did not take
human nature into account enough – specifically, the fact that just because people have
the option to save money for later use doesn't mean that they actually will.
And so we end up with the dismal retirement stats bulleted above.
The Income Haves
& Have-Nots
In our recent report The Primacy Of Income , we
summarized our years-long predictions of a coming painful market correction followed by a
prolonged era of no capital gains across equities, bond and real estate.
Simply put: the 'easy' gains made over the past 8 years as the central banks did their
utmost to inflate asset prices is over. Asset appreciation is going to be a lot harder to come
by in the future.
Which makes income now the prime source of building -- or simply just maintaining -- wealth
going forward.
That being the case, it's obvious that those receiving a pension will be in far better shape
than those who aren't. They'll have a guaranteed income stream to partially or fully fund their
retirement.
Resentment Brewing
While the total number of people expecting a pension isn't tiny, it's certainly a minority
of today's workers.
31 million private-sector, state and local government workers in the US participate in a
pension plan. 3.3 million currently-employed civilian Federal workers will receive a pension;
as will some percentage of the 2 million people serving in the active military and
reserves.
Combined, that's about 25% of current US workers; roughly 13% of total US adults.
The danger here is of festering social discord. The majority, whom we already know will not
be able to retire, will highly likely start regarding pensioners with envy and resentment.
"Hey, I worked as hard as Joe during my career. How come he gets to retire and I don't?"
will be a common narrative running in the minds of those jealous of their neighbors.
This bitterness will only increase as taxes continue to rise to fund government pension
payouts, already
a huge drain on public budgets . "Why am I paying more so Joe can relax on the beach??"
Humans are wired to react angrily to perceived injustice and unfairness. This short clip
shows how it's hard-coded into our primate brains:
So it's not a stretch at all to predict the divisive tension and prejudice that will result
from the growing gap between the pension haves and have-nots.
The negative stereotypes of union workers will be tightly re-embraced. This SNL sketch
captures a good number of them:
The steady news
reports of pension fraud and abuse will anger the majority further. Any projected decreases
in Social Security (benefit payouts will only be 79 cents on the dollar by 2035 at our current
trajectory) will only exacerbate the ire, as the small governmental income the have-nots
receive becomes even more meager.
The growing potential here is for an emerging social schism, possibly accompanied with
intimidation and violence, not dissimilar to that which has occurred along racial or religious
lines during darker eras of our history.
As people become stressed, they react emotionally, and look for a culprit to blame. And as
they become more desperate, as many elderly workers with no savings often do, they'll resort to
more desperate measures.
Broken Promises
And it's not all sunshine and roses for the pensioners, either. Being promised a pension and
actually receiving one are two very different things.
Underfunded pension liabilities are a massive ticking time bomb, certain to explode over the
next few decades.
For example, many pensions offered through multi-employer plans are bad shape. The
multiemployer branch of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federally-instated
insurer behind private pensions, will be out of business by 2025 if no changes in law are made
to help. If that happens, retirees in those plans will get only 10% of what they were
promised.
Moreover, research conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows a
$1.4 trillion shortfall between state pension assets and guarantees to employees. There are
only two ways a gap that big gets addressed: massive tax hikes or massive benefit cuts. The
likeliest outcome will be a combination of both.
So, many of those today counting on a pension tomorrow may find themselves in a similar boat
to their pension-less neighbors.
No Easy Systemic Solutions, So Act For Yourself
There's no "fix" to the retirement predicament of the American workforce. There's no policy
change that can be made at this late date to reverse the decades of over-spending,
over-indebtedness, and lack of saving.
All we can do at this time is influence how we take our licks. Do we simply leave the masses
of unprepared workers to their sad fate? Or do we share the pain across the entire populace by
funding new social support programs via more taxes?
Time will tell. But what we can bet on is tougher times ahead, especially for those with
poor income prospects.
So the smart strategy for the prudent investor is to prioritize building a portfolio of
income streams in order to have sufficient dependable income for a sustainable retirement. Or
for simply remaining afloat financially.
Sadly, accustomed to the speculative approach marketed to us for so long by the financial
industry, most investors are woefully under-educated in how to build a diversified portfolio of
passive income streams (inflation-adjusting and tax-deferred whenever possible) over time.
Those looking to get up to speed can read our recent report A
Primer On Investing For Inflation-Adjusting Income , where we detail out the wide range of
prevalent (and not-so-prevalent) solutions for today's investors to consider when designing an
income-generating portfolio. From bonds, to dividends (common and preferred), to real estate,
to royalties -- we explain each vehicle, how it can be used, and what the major benefits and
risks are.
And in the interim, make sure the wealth you have accumulated doesn't disappear along with
the bursting of the Everything Bubble. If you haven't already read it yet, read our premium
report from last week What To Do Now That 'The
Big One' Is Here .
They can try and tax to fill pension buckets that are empty, but the population is more
likely than ever to react negatively to this sort of thing.
People will not move to areas where the potential for extortion to satisfy pension
promises exists. Nor will they move to any place where there's the possibility of a big tax
increase to fill public coffers.
In my own area there's already the threat of a large property tax increase to cover
'social improvements' that are not really the responsibility of the local government, but you
can't tell them that, they extend their tentacles into everything. The county is just as bad,
with property tax increases and then handing out grants that no one monitors and no one knows
about.
If govt's would go back to doing what they're supposed to do instead of the garbage
they're involved in now we'd be better off and it would cost those who actually pay the taxes
a lot less. It's one big reason people are moving to rural areas. My muni has voted several
times now to increase local option sales tax, the people keep putting it down, the voting
costs thousands to conduct, I wish they would give it up.
It's no wonder that Chicago loses 150 people every day...not a good thing.
"The list includes a married couple -- a police captain and a detective -- who joined DROP
at around the same time and collected nearly $2 million while in the program. They both filed
claims for carpal tunnel syndrome and other cumulative ailments about halfway through the
program. She spent nearly two years on disability and sick leave; he missed more than two
years ... the couple spent at least some of their paid time off recovering at their condo in
Cabo San Lucas and starting a family theater production company with their daughter..."
Pensions in many ways they are the biggest Ponzi Scheme of modern man. Pension payouts are
often predicated on the idea the money invested in these funds will yield seven to eight
percent a year and in today's low-interest rate environment, this has forced funds into ever
riskier investments.
The PBGC America's pension safety net is already under pressure and failing due to the
inability of pension funds to meet their future obligations. The math alone is troubling but
when coupled with the overwhelming possibility of a major financial dislocation looming in
the future a nightmare scenario for pensions drastically increases. More on this subject in
the article below.
84% of state and local public sector workers receive defined benefit pensions as do 100%
of federal workers with little to no contribution on their part. After 30 years Federal
workers receive 33% of their highest 3 consecutive years pay and state workers average
benefits are $43000 with a range from 15000 (MS) to 80000 (CA). Private sector employees get
to pay for this and have little if anything coming from their employers in the form of a
pension. Instead, private sector employees get to gamble their savings in the stock and bond
markets to secure a retirement. And don't thing government employees are paid less - they are
usually paid very competitively with the private sector. Bottom line is private sector
employees are slaves to federal, state, and local governments.
Not only are government workers not paid that less, they get a slew of days off, sicks
days, mental health days , every minor holiday is a day off. And because they never get laid
off, the lower salary is worth more over the long term. then the private sector worker who
gets fired every 5 years
A 401K is not a pension plan and if you don't put anything into the 401K then you get
nothing out of the 401K. Plus, pensions can fail. The people that made no other arrangements
for their retirement other than rely on SocSec will have more because they will qual for food
stamps, housing subsidies, utility credits, etc. The picture is being distorted.
There is not going to be the old American pension, it's the new America, where everything
has been hollowed out. The new American economic conditions has created a vast
underclass.
The growing underclass is because of being hollowed out. Social services for the
underclass is costing hundreds of billions. The Trumpers want a massive cut in social
funding.
The communist Democratic Socialist have a wedge issue of underclass causes which keeps the
Democratic Socialist party growing. Clinton is their enemy as we now know from Clinton's out
burst.
The only way out for Trumpers is an infrastructure build. This will draw in the masses as
labor markets tighten, thus pushing wages up.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. ..."
"... The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank conduct – and the WSJ ..."
"... I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion on my part, however I believe it true. ..."
"... Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo. ..."
"... It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as "partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by industry. ..."
"... Models on Clinton and Bush. What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following their long term policies? And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line. A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to Bernie. ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is
to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
The Wall Street Journal published an article
on December 12, 2018 that should warn us of coming disaster: "Banks Get Kinder, Gentler
Treatment Under Trump." The last time a regulatory head lamented that regulators were not
"kinder and gentler" promptly ushered in the Enron-era fraud epidemic. President Bush made
Harvey Pitt his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair in August 2001 and, in one of
his early major addresses, he spoke on October 22, 2001 to a group of accounting
leaders.
Pitt, as a private counsel, represented all the top tier audit firms, and they had
successfully pushed Bush to appoint him to run the SEC. The second sentence of Pitt's speech
bemoaned the fact that the SEC had not been "a kinder and gentler place for accountants." He
concluded his first paragraph with the statement that the SEC and the auditors needed to work
"in partnership." He soon reiterated that point: "We view the accounting profession as our
partner" and amped it up by calling accountants the SEC's "critical partner."
Pitt expanded on that point: "I am committed to the principle that government is and must be
a service industry." That, of course, would not be controversial if he meant a service agency
(not "industry") for the public. Pitt, however, meant that the SEC should be a "service
industry" for the auditors and corporations.
Pitt then turned to pronouncing the SEC to be the guilty party in the "partnership." He
claimed that the SEC had terrorized accountants. He then stated that he had ordered the SEC to
end this fictional terror campaign.
[A]ccountants became afraid to talk to the SEC, and the SEC appeared to be unwilling to
listen to the profession. Those days are ended.
This prompted Pitt to ratchet even higher his "partnership" language.
I speak for the entire Commission when I say that we want to have a continuing dialogue,
and partnership, with the accounting profession,
Recall that Pitt spoke on October 22, 2001. Here are the relevant excerpts from the NY
Times' Enron
timeline :
Oct. 16 – Enron announces $638 million in third-quarter losses and a $1.2 billion
reduction in shareholder equity stemming from writeoffs related to failed broadband and water
trading ventures as well as unwinding of so-called Raptors, or fragile entities backed by
falling Enron stock created to hedge inflated asset values and keep hundreds of millions of
dollars in debt off the energy company's books.
Oct. 19 – Securities and Exchange Commission launches inquiry into Enron
finances.
Oct. 22 – Enron acknowledges SEC inquiry into a possible conflict of interest
related to the company's dealings with Fastow's partnerships.
Oct. 23 – Lay professes confidence in Fastow to analysts.
Oct. 24 – Fastow ousted.
The key fact is that even as Enron was obviously spiraling toward imminent collapse (it
filed for bankruptcy on December 2) – and the SEC knew it – Pitt offered no warning
in his speech. The auditors and the corporate CEOs and CFOs were not the SEC's 'partners.'
Thousands of CEOs and CFOs were filing false financial statements – with 'clean' opinions
from the then 'Big 5' auditors. Pitt was blind to the 'accounting control fraud' epidemic that
was raging at the time he spoke to the accountants. Thousands of his putative auditor
'partners' were getting rich by blessing fraudulent financial statements and harming the
investors that the SEC is actually supposed to serve.
Tom Frank aptly characterized the Bush appointees that completed the destruction of
effective financial regulation as "The Wrecking Crew." It is important, however, to understand
that Bush largely adopted and intensified Clinton's war against effective regulation. Clinton
and Bush led the unremitting bipartisan assault on regulation for 16 years. That produced the
criminogenic environment that produced the three largest financial fraud epidemics in history
that hyper-inflated the real estate bubble and drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).
President Trump has renewed the Clinton/Bush war on regulation and he has appointed banking
regulatory leaders that have consciously modeled their assault on regulation on Bush and
Clinton's 'Wrecking Crews.'
Bill Clinton's euphemism for his war on effective regulation was "Reinventing Government."
Clinton appointed VP Al Gore to lead the assault. (Clinton and Gore are "New Democrat" leaders
– the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.) Gore decided he needed to choose an
anti-regulator to conduct the day-to-day leadership. We know from Bob Stone's memoir the sole
substantive advice he gave Gore in their first meeting that caused Gore to appoint him as that
leader. "Do not 'waste one second going after waste, fraud, and abuse.'" Elite insider fraud
is, historically, the leading cause of bank losses and failures, so Stone's advice was sure to
lead to devastating financial crises. It is telling that it was the fact that Stone gave
obviously idiotic advice to Gore that led him to select Stone as the field commander of Clinton
and Gore's war on effective regulation.
Stone convinced the Clinton-Gore administration to embrace the defining element of crony
capitalism as its signature mantra for its war on effective regulation. Stone and his troops
ordered us to refer to the banks, not the American people, as our "customers." Peters' foreword
to Stone's book admits the action, but is clueless about the impact.
Bob Stone's insistence on using the word "customer" was mocked by some -- but made an
enormous difference over the course of time. In general, he changed the vocabulary of public
service from 'procedure first' to 'service first.'"
That is a lie. We did not 'mock' the demand that we treat the banks rather than the American
people as our "customer" – we openly protested the outrageous order that we embrace and
encourage crony capitalism. Crony capitalism's core principle – which is unprincipled
– is that the government should treat elite CEOs as their 'customers' or 'partners.' A
number of us publicly expressed our rage at the corrupt order to treat CEOs as our customers.
The corrupt order caused me to leave the government.
Our purpose as regulators is to serve the people of the United States – not bank CEOs.
It was disgusting and dishonest for Peters to claim that our objection to crony capitalism
represented our (fictional) disdain for serving the public. Many S&L regulators risked
their careers by taking on elite S&L frauds and their powerful political fixers. Many of us
paid a heavy personal price because we acted to protect the public from these elite frauds. Our
efforts prevented the S&L debacle from causing a GFC – precisely because we
recognized the critical need to spend most of our time preventing and prosecuting the elite
frauds that Stone wanted us to ignore..
Trump's wrecking crew is devoted to recreating Clinton and Bush's disastrous crony
capitalism war on regulation that produced the GFC. In a June 8,
2018 article , the Wall Street Journal mocked Trump's appointment of Joseph Otting
as Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The illustration that introduces the article bears the
motto: "IN BANKS WE TRUST."
Otting, channeling his inner Pitt, declared his employees guilty of systematic misconduct
and embraced crony capitalism through Pitt's favorite phrase – "partnership."
I think it is more of a partnership with the banks as opposed to a dictatorial perspective
under the prior administration.
Otting, while he was in the industry, compared the OCC under President Obama to a fictional
interstellar terrorist. Obama appointed federal banking regulators that were pale imitation of
Ed Gray, Joe Selby, and Mike Patriarca – the leaders of the S&L reregulation. The
idea that Obama's banking regulators were akin to 'terrorists' is farcical.
The WSJ's December 12, 2018 article reported that Otting had also used Bob Stone's
favorite term to embrace crony capitalism.
Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting has also changed the tone from the top at his
agency, calling banks his "customers."
There are many terrible role models Trump could copy as his model of how to destroy banking
regulation and produce the next GFC, but Otting descended into unintentional self-parody when
he channeled word-for-word the most incompetent and dishonest members of Clinton and Bush's
wrecking crews.
The same article reported a trade association's statement that demonstrates the type of
outrageous reaction that crony capitalism inevitably breeds within industry.
Banks are suffering from "examiner criticisms that do not deal with any violation of law,"
said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute ."
The article presented no response to this statement so I will explain why it is absurd.
First, "banks" do not "suffer" from "examiner criticism." Banks gain from examiner criticism.
Effective regulators (and whistleblowers) are the only people who routinely 'speak truth to
power.' Auditors, credit rating agencies, and attorneys routinely 'bless' the worst CEO abuses
that harm banks while enriching the CEO. The bank CEO cannot fire the examiner, so the
examiners' expert advice is the only truly "independent" advice the bank's board of directors
receives. That makes the examiners' criticisms invaluable to the bank. CEOs hate our advice
because we are the only 'control' (other than the episodic whistleblower) that is willing and
competent to criticize the CEO.
The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe
and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. While
"violations of law" (felonies) are obviously of importance to us in almost all cases, our
greatest expertise is in identifying – and stopping – "unsafe and unsound
practices" because such practices, like fraud, are leading causes of bank losses and
failures.
Third, repeated "unsafe and unsound practices" are a leading indicator of likely elite
insider bank fraud and other "violations of law."
The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank
conduct – and the WSJ reporters' failure to point out the absurdity of that
complaint – demonstrate that the banking industry's goal remains the destruction of
effective banking regulation. Trump's wrecking crew is using the Clinton and Bush playbook to
restore fully crony capitalism. He has greatly accelerated the onset of the next GFC.
Thank you for this, Bill Black. IMO the long-term de-regulatory policies under successive
administrations cited here, together with their neutering the rule of law by overturning the
Glass-Steagall Act; de-funding and failing to enforce antitrust, fraud and securities laws;
financial repression of the majority; hidden financial markets subsidies; and other policies
are just part of an organized, long-term systemic effort to enable, organize and subsidize
massive control and securities fraud; theft of and disinvestment in publicly owned resources
and services; environmental damage; and transfers of social costs that enable the organizers
to in turn gain a hugely disproportionate share of the nation's wealth and nearly absolute
political control under their "Citizens United" political framework.
Not to diminish, but among other things the current president provides nearly daily
entertainment, diversion and spectacle in our Brave New World that serves to obfuscate what
has occurred and is happening.
I'm with you Chauncey. I believe the rot really got started with creative accounting in
early 1970s. That's when accountants of every flavor lost themselves and were soon followed
by the lawyers. Sauce for the goose.
Banks and Insurers and many industrial concerns have become too big. We could avoid all
the regulatory problems by placing a maximum size on commercial endeavour.
A number of years ago I did both the primary capital program and environmental (NEPA) review
for major capital projects in a Federal Region. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at
stake. A local agency wanted us (the Feds) to approve pushing up many of their projects using
a so-called Public Private Partnership (PPP). This required the local agency to borrow many
millions from Wall Street while at the same time privatizing many of their here-to-fore
public operations. And of course there was an added benefit of instituting a non-union
shop.
To this end I was required to sit down with the local agency head (he actually wore white
shoes), his staff and several representatives of Goldman-Sachs. After the meeting ended, I
opined to the agency staff that Goldman-Sachs was "bullshit" and so were their projects.
Shortly thereafter I was removed to a less high-profile Region with projects that were not
all that griftable, and there was no danger of me having to review a PPP.
Oh, and I denied, denied, denied saying "bullshit."
Thank you, NC, for featuring these posts by Bill Black.
I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's
rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for
the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for
the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion
on my part, however I believe it true.
Main Street also knows the importance of sound banking. Sound banking is not a 'poker
chip' to be used for games. Sound banking is key to the American experiment in
self-determination, as it has been called.
Politicians who 'don't get this" have lost touch with the entire American enterprise,
imo. And, no, the neoliberal promise that nation-states no longer matter doesn't make this
point moot.
adding: US founding father Alexander Hambleton did understand the importance of sound
banking, and so Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo.
It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate
employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as
"partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush
era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration
for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency
would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by
industry.
Models on Clinton and Bush.
What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following
their long term policies?
And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line.
A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to
Bernie.
Rip off and frozen wages for ordinary Americans can go on only for a while. At some point
there will be not that many people to buy all those Chinese's goods produced on outsourced
factories.
Overall, 28 percent of Americans said the economy will get better in the next year, while 33
percent predict it will get worse, according to the survey, which was released Sunday. Those
numbers were essentially reversed from January, when 35 percent said the economy would get
better and 20 percent said it would get worse.
Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz has asked SaraACarter.com to post her letter to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan
in support of her friend and colleague retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who will be
sentenced on Dec. 18. The Special Counsel's Office has requested that Flynn not serve any
jail time due to his cooperation with Robert Mueller's office. Based on new information
contained in a memorandum submitted to the court this week by Flynn's attorney, Sullivan has
ordered Mueller's office to turn over all exculpatory evidence and government documents on
Flynn's case by mid-day Friday. Sullivan is also requesting any documentation regarding the
first interviews conducted by former anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka
-known by the FBI as 302s- which were found to be dated more than seven months after the
interviews were conducted on Jan. 24, 2017, a violation of FBI policy, say current and former
FBI officials familiar with the process. According to information contained in Flynn's
memorandum, the interviews were dated Aug. 22, 2017.
Read Gritz's letter below... (emphasis added)
The Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan. December 5, 2018 U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001
Re: Sentencing of Lt. General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.)
Dear Judge Sullivan:
I am submitting my letter directly since Mike Flynn's attorney has refused to submit it as
well as letters submitted by other individuals. I feel you need to hear from someone who was an
FBI Special Agent who not only worked with Mike, but also has personally witnessed and reported
unethical & sometimes illegal tactics used to coerce targets of investigations externally
and internally.
About Myself and FBI Career
For 16 years, I proudly served the American people as a Special Agent working diligently on
significant terrorism cases which earned noteworthy results and fostered substantial
interagency cooperation. Prior to serving in the FBI I was a Juvenile Probation Officer in
Camden, NJ. Currently, I am a Senior Information Security Metrics and Reporting Analyst with
Discover Financial Services in the Chicago Metro area. I have recently been named as a Senior
Fellow to the London Center for Policy Research.
While in the FBI, I served as a Special Agent, Supervisory Special Agent, Assistant
Inspector, Unit Chief, and a Senior Liaison Officer to the CIA. I served on the NSC's Hostage
and Personnel Working Group and brought numerous Americans out of captivity and was part of the
interagency team to codify policies outlining the whole of government approach to hostage
cases.
In November 2007, I was selected over 26 other candidates to become the Supervisory Special
Agent, CT Extraterritorial Squad; Washington Field Office (WFO) in Washington, DC. At WFO, I
led a squad of experts in extraterritorial evidence collection, overseas investigations,
operational security during terrorist attacks/events, and overseas criminal investigations. I
coordinated and managed numerous high profile investigations (Blackwater, Chuckie Taylor,
Robert Levinson, and other pivotal cases) comprised of teams from US and foreign intelligence,
military, and law enforcement agencies. I was commended for displaying comprehensive leadership
performance under pressure, extensive teamwork skills, while conducting critical investigative
analysis within and outside the FBI.
In December 2009, I was promoted to GS-15 Unit Chief (UC) of the Executive Strategy Unit,
Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD). While the UC, I codified the WMDD five-year
strategic plan, formulated goals and objectives throughout the division, while translating the
material into a directorate scorecard with cascading measurements reflecting functional and
operational unit areas. This was the only time in Washington, DC when I did not work with of
for McCabe.
From September to December 2010, I was selected as the FBI's top candidate to represent the
FBI, and the USG in a rigorous, intellectually stimulating; 12 week course for civilian
government officials, military officers, and government academics at the George C. Marshall
Center in Garmisch, Germany, Executive Program in Advanced Security Studies. The class was
comprised of 141 participants from 43 countries.
I have received numerous recommendations and commendations for my professionalism, liaison
and interpersonal ability and experience . Additionally, I have been rated Excellent or
Outstanding for my entire career, to include by Andrew McCabe when I was stationed at the
Washington Field Office. Further, other awards of note are: West Chester University 2005 Legacy
of Leadership recipient, Honored with House of Representatives Citation for Exemplary record of
Service, Leadership, and Achievements: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Awarded with a framed
Horn of Africa blood chit from the Department of Defense and Office of the DASD (POW/MPA/MIA)
for my work in bringing Americans Out of captivity, "Patriot, Law Enforcement Warrior, and
Friend."
Length of Association with Flynn, McCabe, and Mueller
I met Michael Flynn in 2005, while working in the Counterterrorism Division (CTD) at FBI
Headquarters (FBIHQ).
I met then Supervisory Special Agent Andrew McCabe, when he reported to CTD at FBIHQ, around
the same time. McCabe subsequently was the Assistant Section Chief over my unit, my Assistant
Special Agent in Charge at the Washington Field Office, and the Assistant Director (AD) over
CTD when I encountered the discrimination and McCabe spearheaded the retaliation personally
(according to documentation) against me.
I have known both men for 12-13 years and worked directly with both throughout my career.
They are on the opposite spectrum of each other with regard to truthfulness, temperament, and
ethics, both professionally and personally.
I regularly briefed former FBI Director and Special Prosecutor Mueller on controversial and
complex cases and attended Deputies meetings at the White house with then Deputy Director
Pistole. I got along with both and trusted both. Watching what has been done to Mike and
knowing someone on the 7th floor had to have notified Mueller of my situation (Pistole had
retired), has been significantly distressing to me.
Lt.G. Michael T. Flynn:
Mike and I were counterparts on a DOJ-termed ground-breaking initiative which served as a
model for future investigations, policies, legislation and FBI programs in the Terrorist Use of
the Internet. For this multi-faceted and leading-edge joint operation, I was commended by Gen.
Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Keith Alexander (NSA Director), and LtG. Michael Flynn as well as
others for leading the FBI's pivotal participation in this dynamic and innovative interagency
operation. I received two The National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation (NIMUC) I for my
role in this operation. The NIMUC is an award of the National Intelligence Awards Program, for
contributions to the United States Intelligence Community.
Mick Flynn has consistently and candidly been honest and straightforward with me since the
day I met him in 2005. He has been a mentor and someone I trust to give me frank advice when I
ask for his opinion. His caring nature has shown through especially when he saw me being torn
apart by the FBI and he felt compelled to write a letter in support of me. He further took the
extra step to comment on my character in an NPR article and interview exposing the wrongdoings
in my case and others who have stood up for truth and against discrimination/retaliation.
Senator Grassley also commented on my behalf. NPR characterized this action against me as a
"warning shot" to individuals who stood up to individuals such as McCabe.
The day after I resigned from the FBI, while I was crying, Mike reached out and
congratulated me on my early retirement. I really needed to hear that from someone I respected
so much. His support for the last 13 years has been unparalleled and extremely valuable in
helping me get through the trauma of betrayal, unethical behavior, illegal activity executed
against me and to rebuild my life. Additionally, his support has helped my family in dealing
with their painful emotions regarding my situation. My parents wanted me to pass on to you that
they are blessed that I have had a compassionate and supportive individual on my side
throughout this trying time.
Mike has been a respected leader by his peers and by FBI Agents and Analysts who have
interacted with him. I personally feel he is the finest leader I have ever worked with or for
in my career. Our continued friendship and subsequent friendship with his family has helped all
of us cope with the stress a situation like this puts on individuals and families.
It is so very painful to watch an American hero, and my friend, torn apart like this. His
family has had to endure what no family should have to. I know this because of the damaging
effect my case had on my parent's health, finances, and emotional well-being. Mike and I both
had to sell our houses due to legal fees, endured smear campaigns (mostly by the same
individual, McCabe). I ended up being deemed homeless by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was
on public assistance and endured extensive health and emotional damage due to the retaliation.
Mike kept in touch and kept me motivated. He has always reached out to help me with whatever he
could.
The Process is the Punishment
Thomas Fitton of Judicial Watch commented to me that the "Process is the punishment." This
is the most accurate description I have heard regarding the time Mike has gone through with
this process and the year and a half I was ostracized and idled before I resigned. This process
is one which many FBI employees, current, retired and former, feel was brought to the FBI by
Mueller and he subsequently brought this to the Special Prosecutor investigation.
It also fostered the behavior among FBI "leadership" which we find ourselves shocked at when
revealed on a daily basis. Is this the proper way to seek justice? I say no. I swore to uphold
the Constitution while protecting the civil rights of the American people. I believe many
individuals involved in Mike's case have lost their way and could care less about protection of
due process, civil and legal rights of who they are targeting. Mike has had extensive
punishment throughout this process. This process has punished him harder than anyone else
could.
Andrew McCabe
I believe I have a unique inside view of the mannerisms surrounding Andrew McCabe, other FBI
Executive Management and Former Director Mueller, as well as the unethical and coercive tactics
they use, not to seek the truth, but to coerce pleas or admissions to end the pain, as I call
it. They destroy lives for their own agendas instead of seeking the truth for the American
people. Candor is something that should be encouraged and used by leadership to have necessary
and continued improvement. Under Mueller, it was seen as a threat and viciously opposed by
those he pulled up in the chain of command.
I am explaining this because numerous Agents have expressed the need for you to know
McCabe's and Mueller's pattern of "target and destroy" has been utilized on many others,
without regard for policies and laws. I, myself, am a casualty of this reprehensible behavior
and I have spoken to well over 150 other FBI individuals who are casualties as well.
I am the individual who filed the Hatch Act complaint against McCabe and provided
significant evidentiary documents obtained via FOIA, open source, and information from current,
former, and retired Special Agents. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) asked why my filing of
the complaint was delayed from the actual acts. I said I personally thought I was providing
additional information to what should have been an automatic referral to OSC by FBI OPR. I was
notified I was the only complainant. This illustrates not only a fatal flaw in OPR AD Candice
Will not making the appropriate and crucial referral, but also shows the fear of those within
the FBI to report individuals like McCabe for fear of retaliation.
While serving at the CIA, detailed by the FBI in January 2012, I was responsible for
overseas investigations, as opposed to Continental United States-based (CONUS) cases.
Unfortunately, during my assignment at the CIA, I encountered extensive discrimination by two
FBI Special Agents and subsequently, in 2012, I filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
complaint. Instead of addressing the issues, then CTD Assistant Director Andrew McCabe chose to
authorize a retaliatory Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation against me,
five days after my EEO contact. The OPR referral he signed was authored by the two individuals
I had filed the EEO complaint against. In his signed sworn statement, McCabe admitted he knew I
had filed or was going to file the EEO.
Numerous members of my department at the CIA requested to be spoken with by CTD executive
management, regarding my work ethic and accomplishments. However, CTD, Inspection Division, and
OPR disregarded the list of names and contact numbers I submitted. This is an example of
knowing you are being targeted and the truth is not being sought.
Although my time at this position was short, I was commended by my CIA direct supervisor
for: "having already contributed more than your predecessor in the short time you have been
here." My predecessor had been assigned to the post for 18 months; I had been there four
months.
In contrast and showing lack of candor, McCabe wrote on official documents the following
statement, contradicting the actual direct supervisor I worked with daily:
"SA Gritz had to be removed from a prior position in an interagency environment, due to
inappropriate communications and general performance issues"
This is one of many comments McCabe used to discredit my reputation and to ostracize me.
McCabe knew me as someone who told the truth, worked hard, got results, and was always willing
to be flexible when needed. He was also acutely aware of the excellent relationships I had
formed in the USG interagency due to comments made by individuals from numerous agencies. Yet,
he continued to make false statements on official documents. He has done this to numerous other
very valuable FBI employees, destroying their careers and lives. He used similar tactics of
lies against Flynn. It should be noted, McCabe was very aware of my professional association
with Mike Flynn.
In July 5, 2012, I was involuntarily pulled back to CTD from the CIA. I was told McCabe made
the decision. A year and a month later, I resigned from the job I absolutely loved and was good
at. All because of the lack of candor of numerous individuals within the FBI.
Unethical and
dishonest investigative tactics
Throughout the last year, I have kept abreast of the revelations surrounding anything
related to Mike's case. I believe, from my years at the FBI and in exposing corruption and
discrimination, the circumstances surrounding the targeting, investigation, leaking, and
coercion of him to plea are all consistent with the unethical process I and many others have
witnessed at the FBI. The charge which Mike Flynn plead to was the result of deception,
intimidation, and bias/agenda. Simply, Mike is being branded a convicted felon due to an
unethical and dishonest investigation by people who were malicious, vindictive, and corrupt.
They wished to silence Mike, like they had once silenced me.
The American people have read the Strzok/Page text messages, the conflicting testimony and
lack of candor statements of former Director Comey, the perceived overstepping of the
reasonable scope of the Special Prosecutor's investigation, the extensive unethical,
untruthful, and outright illegal behavior of Andrew McCabe, to include slanderous statements
against Flynn, and the facts found within FOIA released documents and Congressional testimony.
As a former/retired Agent, I have combed through every piece of information regarding Mike's
case, as if I was combing through evidence in the hundreds of cases I have successfully handled
while in the FBI.
The publicly reported Brady material alone, in this case, outweighs any statement given by
any FBI Agent (we now know at least one FD-302 was changed), Special Prosecutor investigator
report, and any other party still aggressively seeking that this case remain and be sentenced
as a felony. Quite simply, I cannot see justice being served by branding LtG. Michael Flynn a
convicted felon, when the truth is still being revealed while policies, ethics, and laws have
been violated by those pursuing this case.
We now know all FBI employees involved in Mike Flynn's case have either been fired, forced
to resign or forced to retire because of their excessive lack of candor, punitive biases,
leaking of information, and extensive cover-up of their deeds.
Summation
Michael Flynn has always displayed overwhelming candor and forthrightness. One of the main
individuals involved in his case is Andrew McCabe, who used similar tactics against me in my
case, of which Mike Flynn defended me by penning a letter of character reference and is a
witness. Seeing McCabe was named as a Responding Management Official in my case, he should have
recused himself with anything having to do with a character witness on my behalf against him
and DOJ.
I'm told by numerous people, but have been unable to confirm, that McCabe was asked why he
was so viciously going after Flynn; my name was mentioned. I do know, from experience with
McCabe, he is a vindictive individual and I have no doubt Mike's support of me fueled McCabe's
disdain and personally vindictive aggressive unethical activities in this case . It matches his
behavior in my case.
Reliable fact-finding is essential to procedural due process and to the accuracy and
uniformity of sentencing. I'm unsure if the fact-finding in this case is reliable, nor do I
think we currently have all the facts.
The punishment which LtG. Flynn has already endured this past year, due to the nature of the
case, legal fees and reputation damage, is punishment enough. He is a true patriot, a loving
husband and father, a devoted grandfather, a trusted friend, and has a close knit family made
up of compassionate and honest individuals. To be branded a felon, is a major hit to a hero who
protected the American people for 33 years. I do not think society would benefit from Mike
Flynn going to jail nor being branded as a convicted felon. Not knowing the sentencing
guidelines for this charge but if there is any chance that the case can be downgraded to a
misdemeanor, this would be an act of justice that numerous Americans need to see to stay
hopeful for further justice.
This lady is seriously brave. She confirms one more reason i strongly support our Second
Amendment; it's to protect us from tyrants and corrupt people like McCabe, Ohr, Comey and
Mueller. Oh yes. I almost forget Rosenstein who should be hung for treason also.
WOW...all this time I had been asking where are the whistle blowers and kept saying,
certainly not all the FBI are this corrupt -and further asked are they being threatened to
not come forward?"
Well, the later sure seems true when you consider Ms. Gristz statements, particularly "
the fear of those within the FBI to report individuals like McCabe for fear of retaliation.
"
This is the level of corruption that ought to bring this entire cabal to their knees and
place them behind bars. Hopefully Judge Sullivan's intuitions will be bolstered by Ms.
Gristz' letter.
The FBI is corrupt to the core...from top to bottom. If she joined the FBI to "uphold the
Constitution" or "serve the American People" or some other horseshit then that was her first
mistake. The FBI is a completely corrupt & unconstitutional organization that protects
only the (((globalists))) and other enemies of freedom. The Hoover Buliding should be
padlocked and all of the agents of evil put on trial for treason.
Flynn was an example to the rest of the Trump supporters. His guilt or innocense was/is
meaningless and irrlevant to the Prog Attack Dogs. The message was/is clear:
"We are the Power. Resistance is futile. Bend your knee or we will destroy you."
It is prudent for reasonable people to believe that the Progs have spent the past couple
years destroying evidence that can be used against their gods (Obama, Clinton, Soros, etc.)
and their cohorts.
There is no penalty or negative consequence for the Mueller team who engaged in
"unethical" activity. None of them will have to answer to anyone or disgorge the millions of
dollars in "fees" they have been paid by the Sheeple.
All Progs must hang.
Christopher Wray must hang next.
So much for peace that neoliberal globalization should supposedly bring...
Notable quotes:
"... We face a world of multiple wars some leading to direct global conflagrations and others that begin as regional conflicts but quickly spread to big power confrontations. ..."
"... In our times the US is the principal power in search of world domination through force and violence. Washington has targeted top level targets, namely China, Russia, Iran; secondary objectives Afghanistan, North and Central Africa, Caucuses and Latin America ..."
"... China is the prime enemy of the US for several economic, political and military reasons: China is the second largest economy in the world; its technology has challenged US supremacy it has built global economic networks reaching across three continents. China has replaced the US in overseas markets, investments and infrastructures. ..."
"... In response the US has resorted to a closed protectionist economy at home and an aggressive military led imperial economy abroad. ..."
"... The first line of attack are Chinese exports to the US and its vassals. Secondly, is the expansion of overseas bases in Asia. Thirdly, is the promotion of separatist clients in Hong Kong, Tibet and among the Uighurs. Fourthly, is the use of sanctions to bludgeon EU and Asian allies into joining the economic war against China. China has responded by expanding its military security, expanding its economic networks and increasing economic tariffs on US exports ..."
"... The US economic war has moved to a higher level by arresting and seizing a top executive of China's foremost technological company, Huawei. ..."
"... Each of the three strategic targets of the US are central to its drive for global dominance; dominating China leads to controlling Asia; regime change in Russia facilitates the total submission of Europe; and the demise of Iran facilitates the takeover of its oil market and US influence of Islamic world. As the US escalates its aggression and provocations we face the threat of a global nuclear war or at best a world economic breakdown. ..."
We face a world of multiple wars some
leading to direct global conflagrations and others that begin as regional conflicts but quickly spread to
big power confrontations.
We will proceed to identify 'great power'
confrontations and then proceed to discuss the stages of 'proxy' wars with world war consequences.
In our times the US is the principal
power in search of world domination through force and violence. Washington has targeted top level targets,
namely China, Russia, Iran; secondary objectives Afghanistan, North and Central Africa, Caucuses and Latin
America.
China is the prime enemy of the US for
several economic, political and military reasons: China is the second largest economy in the world; its
technology has challenged US supremacy it has built global economic networks reaching across three
continents. China has replaced the US in overseas markets, investments and infrastructures. China has built
an alternative socio-economic model which links state banks and planning to private sector priorities. On
all these counts the US has fallen behind and its future prospects are declining.
In response the US has resorted to a
closed protectionist economy at home and an aggressive military led imperial economy abroad. President Trump
has declared a
tariff
war on China; and multiple separatist and propaganda war; and aerial
and maritime encirclement of China's mainland
The first line of attack are Chinese
exports to the US and its vassals. Secondly, is the expansion of overseas bases in Asia. Thirdly, is the
promotion of separatist clients in Hong Kong, Tibet and among the Uighurs. Fourthly, is the use of sanctions
to bludgeon EU and Asian allies into joining the economic war against China. China has responded by
expanding its military security, expanding its economic networks and increasing economic tariffs on US
exports.
The US economic war has moved to a higher
level by arresting and seizing a top executive of China's foremost technological company, Huawei.
The White House has moved up the ladder
of aggression from sanctions to extortion to kidnapping. Provocation, is one step up from military
intimidation. The nuclear fuse has been lit.
Russia faces similar threats to its
domestic economy, its overseas allies, especially China and Iran as well as the US renunciation of
intermediate nuclear missile agreement
Iran faces oil sanctions, military
encirclement and attacks on proxy allies including in Yemen, Syria and the Gulf region Washington relies on
Saudi Arabia, Israel and paramilitary terrorist groups to apply military and economic pressure to undermine
Iran's economy and to impose a 'regime change'.
Each of the three strategic targets of
the US are central to its drive for global dominance; dominating China leads to controlling Asia; regime
change in Russia facilitates the total submission of Europe; and the demise of Iran facilitates the takeover
of its oil market and US influence of Islamic world. As the US escalates its aggression and provocations we
face the threat of a global nuclear war or at best a world economic breakdown.
Wars by Proxy
The US has targeted a second tier of
enemies, in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
In Latin America the US has waged
economic warfare against Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. More recently it has applied political and economic
pressure on Bolivia. To expand its dominance Washington has relied on its vassal allies, including Brazil,
Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina and Paraguay as well as right-wing elites throughout the region
As in numerous other cases of regime
change Washington relies on corrupt judges to rule against President Morales, as well as US foundation
funded NGO's; dissident indigenous leaders and retired military officials. The US relies on local political
proxies to further US imperial goals is to give the appearance of a 'civil war' rather than gross US
intervention.
In fact, once the so-called 'dissidents'
or 'rebels' establish a foot hole, they 'invite' US military advisers, secure military aid and serve as
propaganda weapons against Russia, China or Iran – 'first tier' adversaries.
In recent years US proxy conflicts have
been a weapon of choice in the Kosovo separatist war against Serbia; the Ukraine coup of 2014 and war
against Eastern Ukraine; the Kurd take over of Northern Iraq and Syria; the US backed separatist Uighurs
attack in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
The US has established 32 military bases
in Africa, to coordinate activities with local warlords and plutocrats. Their proxy wars are discarded as
local conflict between 'legitimate' regimes and Islamic terrorists, tribality and tyrants.
The objective of proxy wars are
threefold. They serve as 'feeders' into larger territorial wars
encircling
China, Russia
and Iran.
Secondly, proxy wars are 'testing
grounds' to measure the vulnerability and responsive capacity of the targeted strategic adversary, i.e.
Russia, China and Iran.
Thirdly, the proxy wars are 'low cost'
and 'low risk' attacks on strategic enemies. The lead up to a major confrontation by stealth.
Equally important 'proxy wars' serve as
propaganda tools, associating strategic adversaries as 'expansionist authoritarian' enemies of 'western
values'.
Conclusion
US empire builders engage in multiple
types of aggression directed at imposing a unipolar world. At the center are trade wars against China;
regional military conflicts with Russia and economic sanctions against Iran.
These large scale, long-term strategic
weapons are complemented by proxy wars, involving regional vassal states which are designed to erode the
economic bases of counting allies of anti-imperialist powers.
Hence, the US attacks China directly via
tariff wars and tries to sabotage its global "Belt and Road' infrastructure projects linking China with 82
counties.
Likewise, the US attacks Russian allies
in Syria via proxy wars, as it did with Iraq, Libya and the Ukraine.
Isolating strategic anti-imperial power
via regional wars, sets the stage for the 'final assault' – regime change by cop or nuclear war.
However, the US quest for world
domination has so far taken steps which have failed to isolate or weaken its strategic adversaries.
China moves forward with its global
infrastructure programs: the trade war has had little impact in isolating it from its principal markets.
Moreover, the US policy has increased China's role as a leading advocate of 'open trade' against President
Trump's protectionism.
ORDER IT NOW
Likewise, the tactics of encircling and
sanctioning Russia has deepened ties between Moscow and Beijing. The US has increased its nominal 'proxies'
in Latin America and Africa but they all depend on trade and investments from China. This is especially true
of agro-mineral exports to China.
Notwithstanding the limits of US power
and its failure to topple regimes, Washington has taken moves to compensate for its failures by escalating
the threats of a global war. It kidnaps Chinese economic leaders; it moves war ships off China's coast; it
allies with neo-fascist elites in the Ukraine. It threatens to bomb Iran. In other words the US political
leaders have embarked on adventurous policies always on the verge of igniting one, too, many nuclear fuses.
It is easy to imagine how a failed trade
war can lead to a nuclear war; a regional conflict can entail a greater war.
Can we prevent World War 3? I believe it
will happen. The US economy is built on fragile foundations; its elites are deeply divided. Its main allies
in France and the UK are in deep crises. The war mongers and war makers lack popular support. There are
reasons to hope!
I disagree. The parasitic terror regime that runs washington believe they can win a nuclear war, i have no
hope left for peace. They need a culling of the "useless eaters", we are stealing the food out of their poor
frightened children`s mouths by existing.
Eric Zuesse wrote a decent article yesterday at the Saker blog about the US nuclear forces and its owners
wet dream.
"The U.S. Government's Plan Is to Conquer Russia by a Surprise Invasion"
The actions of nato/EU/UK/ISR/KSA etc certainly supports his article, at least in my opinion.
The US, and the West, by instigating wars elsewhere, and selling weapons to
those, destroy countries and prosperity abroad. Those living in target countries find themselves miserable,
with loss of everything. It is only natural that they may try to escape a living hell by emigrating to the
West.
People in the US and the West in general will not want mass immigration, and with good reason; but if you
were in a war torn country or an impoverished country (as a result of western "help") you would also attempt
to move away from the bombs, etc.
If the West left the rest of the world alone (in terms of their regimes and in terms of their weapons),
they might prosper and no longer need to run away from their home countries.
The sanctions and embargoes have failed in the past, when China was much weaker, so we can be quite
confident that they will fail again, and quickly, as this timeline suggests:
September 3, 2018
:
Huawei unveils Kirin 980 CPU, the world's first commercial 7nm system-on-chip (SoC) and the first to use
Cortex-A76 cores, dual neural processing units, Mali G76 GPU, a 1.4 Gbps LTE modem and supports faster RAM.
With 20 percent faster performance and 40 percent less power consumption compared to 10nm systems, it has
twice the performance of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 and Apple's A11 while delivering noticeable battery life
improvement. Its Huawei-patented modem has the world's fastest Wi-Fi and its GPS receiver taps L5 frequency
to deliver 10cm. positioning.
September 5, 2018
. China's front-end fab capacity will account for 16 percent of the world's
semiconductor capacity this year, increasing to 20 percent by 2020.
September 15, 2018.
China controls one third of 5G patents and has twice as many installations
operating as the rest of the world combined.
September 21, 2018
. China has reached global technological parity and now has twelve of the
world's top fifty IC design houses (China's SMIC is fourth, Huawei's HiSilicon is seventh), and twenty-one
percent of global IC design revenues. Roger Luo, TSMC.
October 2, 2018
. Chinese research makes up 18.6 percent of global STEM peer-reviewed papers, ahead
of the US at 18 percent. "The fact that China's article output is now the largest is very significant. It's
been predicted for a while, but there was a view this was not likely to happen until 2025," said Michael
Mabe, head of STM.
October 14, 2018
. Huawei announces 7 nm Ascend 910 chipset for data centers, twice as powerful as
Nvidia's v100 and the first AI IP chip series to natively provide optimal TeraOPS per watt in all scenarios.
Available 2Q19.
October 7, 2018
: China becomes largest recipient of FDI in H1, attracting an estimated 70 billion
U.S. dollars, according to UNCTAD.
October 8, 2018:
Taiwan's Foxconn moves its major semiconductor maker and five integrated circuit
design companies to Jinan, China.
October 22, 2018
. China becomes world leader in venture capital, ahead of the US and almost twice
the rest of the world's $53.4 billion YTD. The Crunchbase report says the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the
world is undergoing a major transformation: it is now driven by China instead of the US.
Isolating strategic anti-imperial power via regional wars, sets the stage for the 'final assault' –
regime change by cop or nuclear war
good article.
Only idiot can believe that nuclear war can be won, IMHO. Elites aren't suicidal, oh no. On the contrary.
Can they make a mistake and cause that war, definitely.
Which brings us to the important part:
Can we prevent World War 3? I believe it will happen. The US economy is built on fragile foundations;
its elites are deeply divided. Its main allies in France and the UK are in deep crises. The war mongers
and war makers lack popular support.
Agree, but, that's
exactly
the reason I disagree with:
There are reasons to hope!
No need to be pedantic, of course there is always a reason for hope.
But, I see it as
so
fertile ground for making
The MISTAKE
.
Can we prevent World War 3? I believe it will happen. The US economy is built on fragile foundations;
its elites are deeply divided. Its main allies in France and the UK are in deep crises. The war mongers
and war makers lack popular support. There are reasons to hope!
It's when the elite war mongers' backs are up against the wall that they come up with a cleverly designed
false flag attack to rally public support for war. They are more dangerous now than ever.
Agree about Russia and China, however Iran needs to be viewed not as a play for oil or the Islamic crowd but
driven wholly and solely by Israel. Iran is not a threat to US in any context, only Israel.
question:
If the relatively small tariffs on Chinese goods amount to 'direct attacks on China', then what are the
massive tariffs by China on US goods?
The "Chess men" behind "The Wall Street Economy" have stated a few times that the only way to remain the
dominant economy is to first: convince rivals that resistance is futile, and second:
to atomize any
potential rival
(Ghaddaffi is a clear example).
Breaking up Russia has been on the to-do list for
decades, and I believe that the Chess Men have no idea what to do about containing China, and are clearly
flat-footed, and
desperate
kidnapping a Chinese business executive.
The Wall Street Economy depended on cheap Chinese labor it's own profits, and that was Ok until .?
Until the writing on the Wall became ledgible .
The smell of genuine fear is in the air.
" The war mongers and war makers lack popular support. There are reasons to hope! "
Is popular support
needed to get a people in a war mood ?
Both Pearl Harbour and Sept 11 demonstrate, in my opinion, that it is not very difficult to create a war
mood.
Yet, if another Sept 11 would do the trick, I wonder.
Sept 11 has been debated without without interruption since Sept 11.
After the 1946 USA Senate investigation into Pearl Harbour the USA government succeeded in preventing a
similar discussion.
Until now the west, Deep State, NATO, EU did not succeed in provoking Russia or China.
Each time they tried something, in my opinion they did this several times, Russia showed its military
superiority, at the same time taking care not to hurt public opinion in the west.
Is not it amazing that the morally miserable US, a "power in search of world domination through force and
violence," is officially governed by self-avowed pious X-tians. What kind of corruption among the high-level
clergy protects the satanists Pompeo, Bush, Rice, Clinton, Obama, Blair and such from excommunication?
"Washington does little to nothing to restore peace and help the devastated region to recover from the
long war, while its [US] airstrikes
continue to rack up civilian deaths
At the same time, the US
military presence at the Al-Tanf airbase and the "armed gangs" around it prevent refugees from returning
home."
– Nothing new. The multi-denominational Syria has been pounded by the US-supported "moderate" terrorists
(armed with US-provided arms and with UK-provided chemical weaponry) to satisfy the desires of
Israel-firsters, arm-dealers and the multitude of war-profiteers that have been fattening their pockets at
the US/UK taxpayers' expense.
"Timber Sycamore" [initiated by Obama] is the most important arms trafficking operation in History. It
involves at least 17 governments. The transfer of weapons, meant for jihadist organizations, is carried out
by Silk Way Airlines, a Azerbaïdjan public company of cargo planes."
@Godfree Roberts
Huawei can announce whatever, there are much more experienced adversaries(IBM, intel and ARM) who can`t beat
nV in computation, and especially in integration of silicon. Guess who`s running inference and computer
vision in all these car autopilots.
I think we could have an economic collapse like the Soviet Union had , or like Argentina had in 2001 with
the " corralito "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corralito
.
Being the complex and global society that we are , it would be a disaster , it would produce hunger ,
misery and all types of local wars .
"Notwithstanding the limits of US power and its failure to topple regimes "
Have to agree with that
statement. Seriously, wherein is this vaunted "superpower" that our American politicians always yap about?
All I've seen in my lifetime is our military getting its butt kicked in Cuba, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq,
Afghanistan. What, besides insanity and hubris, makes them think they could win anything much less a war
against Iran, China or Russia?
Mostly accurate, but 'closed protectionist society' ! Hardly. It's still very difficult to buy any
manufactured goods made in this country. Of course this is part of the World economic circle countries use
the US Dollar for all trade. They need dollars. We can print them and receive real goods in return. This has
been going around and around for decades. It may come to an end in the not-too-distant future, but it has a
lot of inertia.
@jilles dykstra
"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in
Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship,
or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce
the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY
COUNTRY."
The only threat to patriotic Americans is Zionism which has ruled the U.S. since it took control over the
money supply and the taxes via the privately owned Zionist FED and IRS and has given America nothing to wars
and economic destruction since the FED and IRS were put in place by the Zionist banking kabal in 1913 and
both are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
The threat is not from China or Russia or Iran etc., the threat is from within
the U.S. government which is controlled in every facet by the Zionists and dual citizens and is as foreign
to the American people as if it were from MARS!
Until the American people wake up to the fact that we are slaves on a Zionist plantation and are used as
pawns in the Zionist goal of a satanic Zionist NWO and abolish the FED and IRS and break the chains of
slavery that the FED and IRS have place upon us, until then nothing will change and the wars and economic
destruction by the Zionist kabal will continue!
Read The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman and The
Protocols of Zion, to see the Zionist satanic NWO plan.
Lost me at Kurd takeover of northern Iraq/Syria. The Kurds have defacto owned those areas since 1991, and
earlier. Saddam gassing the Kurds didn't accomplish anything except for making himself a target, no Arab
lived in those areas, the Kurds would kill them.
Nov 28, 2018 Belt & Road Billionaire in Massive Bribery Scandal
The bribery trial of Dr. Patrick Ho, a
pitchman for a Chinese energy company, lifts the lid on how the Chinese regime relies on graft to cut Belt
and Road deals in its global push for economic and geopolitical dominance.
I agree with Bob Sykes' commentary over on Instapundit:
Well, our "anti-ISIS" model in eastern Syria consists of defending ISIS against attacks by the Syrian
government, allowing them to pump and export Syrian oil for their profit, arming them and allowing them
to recruit new fighters. I suppose that means we should be arming the Taliban.
ISIS was created by the CIA to fight against Assad. But they slipped the leash and became the fighting
force for the dissident Sunni Arabs all along the Euphrates Valley. We only began to oppose them when
their rebellion reached the outskirts of Baghdad, and even then the bulk of the fighting was done by
Iraq's Shias and Iran. Now we are transferring them, or many of them, into secure (for ISIS) areas of
Iraq.
The three U.S. presidents, six secretaries of defense and five chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff are, in fact, war criminals, in exactly the same sense that Hitler, Goebels, Goering, Himmler et
al. were war criminals.
Those presidents, secretaries and generals launched wars of aggression
against Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Yemen not one of which threatened us
in any way. They engineered coups d'état against two friendly governments, Egypt and Turkey.
Now the
fake American, anti-American neocons want to attack Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and even Russia and
China.
Green needs to get his head out of his arse. We, the US, are the great rogue terrorist state. We are
the evil empire. We are the chief source of death and destruction in the world. How many hundreds of
thousands of civilians have we murdered in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia? How many cities have
we bombed flat like Raqqa and Mosel. Putin is a saint compared to any US President.
Iran has always been at the center of the Great Game, the key square on the board to block
Eurasia.You must either control Afghanistan AND Pakistan or Iran.
With Pakistan now in the SCO, Iran is a US imperative.
Israels antipathy is secondary and a useful foil, not the primary motive.
Read MacKinder, the imperial power has changed, not the strategy.
How is it possible for anyone to write an article titled:
A World of Multiple Detonators of Global Wars
without mentioning the Principal Detonator of Global Wars?? The Elephant!
The United States of America is no longer a Sovereign Nation.
The Local Political Power Elite (C. Wright Mills term), serve, are Minions, of the Zionist Jewish
Financial Terrorist Initiators and Controllers of the Global New World Order.
I would express this point in stronger terms, but I have not yet finished my coffee. The "Mulitiple
Detonators" Petras discusses are useless unless Triggered by the Global Controllers.
A Slight Digression: maybe:
Petras may have written his exposé this way, understanding that he might safely avoid mention of the
anti-Semitic (they hate Palestinians and other Arabs – actual Semites), Zionist Land Thieves, because a
clueless Anarchist would appear and complete his article for him. If that is the case, I want half of the $
Unz is paying Petras for this article.
In Conclusion: and by the number###:
1. The American Power Elite and servile Politicians in America's Knesset in Washington DC, do not go to the
Bathroom, without permission from their Zionist Oligarch masters.
2. The American Gauleters, Quislings, (better known as Traitors), serve the Rothschild and other Foreign
Oligarchs. Recently, only 1, of 100 'Senators' demanded that there be a discussion of the Bill to send
another $35 Billion gift to the Zionist occupiers of Palestine. Poor
Senator Rand Paul
. How many ribs
of his remain to be broken?
We the American people, have one Senator. And he has a great father.
3. Textbooks, Entertainment from Hollywood (key to all mind control), even Dictionaries, have been
ruthlessly censored.
4.
Our elected Zionist slaves in Congress, and all State and local governing bodies, live in fear
of saying (accidentally), some truth, and ending up working at Walmart or 7-11, (if they are lucky).
5. Our young are effectively brainwashed in their schools; they have already been removed from their
parents.
6. Our politicians are bribed with our own tax money (re-routed by the Zionists AIPAC, etc.).
7.
The Zionist Entity has huge Financial Resources
. They should be giving us 'Financial $$ Aid,
not the other way around. Since NAFTA, we have entire cities & tons of infrastructure to rebuild.
Excuse me
: Girlfriend thinks I should go to work.
Petras, I just fleshed out your, otherwise, promising article. You must understand – that
the ethnic
cleansing – genocide, against the Palestinian Nation, by the Terrorist Zionist Oligarchs, is the greatest
single crime being committed on our Planet.
All other crimes stem from this one.
We Americans must Restore Our Republic!
John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, M L King, Malcolm X. John Lennon; we are late, but we are coming.
The threat is not from China or Russia or Iran etc., the threat is from within the U.S. government
which is controlled in every facet by the Zionists and dual citizens and is as foreign to the American
people as if it were from MARS!
One comment:
Until the American people wake up to the fact that we are slaves on a Zionist plantation and are used
as pawns in the Zionist goal of a satanic Zionist NWO and abolish the FED and IRS and break the chains of
slavery that the FED and IRS have place upon us, until then nothing will change and the wars and economic
destruction by the Zionist kabal will continue!
In order to accomplish the above
, we American Citizen Patriots – must Restore Our Republic – that,
with our Last Constitutional President,
John F. Kennedy,
was destroyed by the Zionist Oligarchs and
their American underling traitors, in a hail of bullets, on November 22, 1963.
@Miro23
" same sense that Hitler, Goebels, Goering, Himmler et al. were war criminals. "
Why were they war criminals ?
Because of the Neurenberg farce ?; farce according to the chairman of the USA Supreme Court in 1945:
Bruce Allen Murphy, 'The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection, The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme
Court Justices', New York, 1983
Churchill and Lindemann in fact murdered some two million German civilians, women, children, old men. Not a
crime ?
Churchill refused the May 1941 Rudolf Hess peace proposal, not a crime ?
FDR deliberately provoked Pearl Harbour, some 2700 casualties, his pretcxt for war, not a crime ?
900.000 German hunger deaths between the 1918 cease fire and Versailles, the British food blockade, not a
crime ?
Will these wild accusations ever stop ?
I am all for the mother of all wars; however, it isn't going to come anytime soon, nay, not in our lifetime
but when it does appear on the next century's horizon, it would be cathartic to all concerned. Rejoice!
Europe is realigning. England leaving Euro. French population is in upheaval. Eventually France will leave
the Euro also.Most of German tourists now are going to Croatia. Italy is loosing tourists.
Italy living standard is declining. Germany is being pushed inevitably toward cooperation with Russia. Only
supporter of Ukraine will remain USA. Ukraine will be only burden.
Brussels power will evaporate. NATO will remain only on paper and will cease to be reality.
.
This will be great step toward peace in the world.
US is treating its allies as used toilet paper.
Obviously Kashogi was sentenced to death for high treason in absence. The sentence was carried out on Saudi
Arabia's territory. So in reality it is nobody's business.
All hula-buu did happen because he was a reporter working for warmongering Zionist New york times.
@Durruti
I agree with you partly, especially when it comes to the US regarding Zionism and the power of the Israel
lobby to influence US foreign policy and even domestic policy.
But when it comes to Global governance, you have a somewhat narrow minded approach.
Most of the ills today that happen in the world, is driven by the NEW WORLD ORDER OF NEOLIBERAL
GLOBALIZATION.
Unrelated phenomena, such as the destruction in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria), the
destruction of Yugoslavia, the coup in Ukraine and the Greek economic catastrophe are a consequence of this
NWO expansion. NWO expansion is the phasing out of national sovereignty (through economic and/or military
violence) and its replacement by a kind of transnational sovereignty administered by a Transnational Elite.
This is the network of the elites mainly based in the G7 countries, which control the world economic and
political/ military institutions (WTO, IMF, World Bank, EU, European Central Bank, NATO, UN and so on), as
well as the global media that set the agenda of the 'world community'.
The US is an important part of this since it provides the Military Means to integrate countries that do not
"comply" with the NWO dictates.
The Zionists carry a lot of blame and are part of that drive for this NWO, but there are others, most of
them in the US and Europe.
Here's a good link to an article if you have time, with good info about NWO & Trasnational corporations
that are mainly to blame about all the worlds and misery in our world today.
@WHAT
back door Intel
,
embedded ARM
Open source Red Hat-IBM
Hummm?.
I am not so sure, Mr. What. Experience may not mean much to abused IAI consumers. even if IAI catches up
to the exponential fundamentals achieved by Huawei consumers might prefer back-door-free equipment and
Operating Systems.
Russian times reported a few weeks ago that Russia has a quite different new processor and an OS that
does not use any IAI stuff and is developing a backup Internet for Russians which it expects to expand
regionally,
"What we have then, are criminal syndicates masquerading as philanthropic enterprises
Norman Dodd, director of research for the (U.S.) REECE COMMITTEE in its attempt to investigate tax exempt
foundations, stated:
"The Foundation world is a coordinated, well-directed system, the purpose of which is to ensure that the
wealth of our country shall be used to divorce it from the ideas which brought it into being."
The Rothschilds rule the U.S. through the foundations, the Council on foreign Relations, and the Federal
Reserve System, with no serious challenges to their power. Expensive 'political campaigns' are routinely
conducted, with carefully screened candidates who are pledged to the program of the WORLD ORDER. Should they
deviate from the program, they would have an 'accident', be framed on a sex charge, or indicted on some
financial irregularity.
Senator Moynihan stated in his book, "Loyalties", "A British friend, wise in the ways of the world, put
it thus: "They are now on page 16 of the Plan." Moynihan prudently did not ask what page 17 would bring.
"Tavistock's pioneer work in behavioural science along Freudian lines of 'controlling' humans established
it as the world center of FOUNDATION ideology.
[MORE]
Its network extends from the University of Sussex to the U.S. through the Standford Research
Institute, Esalen, MIT, Hudson Institute, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, Centre of Strategic and International
Studies at Georgetown, where State Dept personnel are trained, US Air Force Intelligence, and the Rand
and Mitre corporations.
(at the time of writing, 1992) Today the Tavistock Institute operates a $6 billion a year network
of foundations in the U.S., all of it funded by U.S. taxpayers' money. Ten major institutions are
under its direct control, with 400 subsidiaries, and 3000 other study groups and think tanks which
originate many types of programs to increase the control of the WORLD ORDER over the American people.
The personnel of the FOUNDATIONS are required to undergo indoctrination at one or more of these
Tavistock controlled institutions.
A network of secret groups – the MONT PELERIN SOCIETY, TRILATERAL COMMISSION, DITCHLEY FOUNDATION,
and CLUB OF ROME is the conduit for instructions to the Tavistock network.
Tavistock Institute developed the mass brain-washing techniques which were first used
experimentally on AMERICAN prisoners of war in KOREA.
Its experiments in crowd control methods have been widely used on the American public, a
surreptitious but nevertheless outrageous assault on human freedom by modifying individual behaviour
through topical psychology.
A German refugee, Kurt Lewin, became director of Tavistock in 1932. He came to the U.S. in 1933 as
a 'refugee', the first of many infiltrators, and set up the Harvard Psychology Clinic, which
originated the propaganda campaign to turn the American public against Germany and involve the U.S. in
WWII.
In 1938, Roosevelt executed a secret agreement with Churchill which in effect ceded U.S.
sovereignty to England, because it agreed to let Special Operations Executive control U.S. policies.
To implement this agreement, Roosevelt sent General Donovan to London for indoctrination before
setting up the OSS (now the CIA) under the aegis of SOE-SIS. The entire OSS program, as well as the
CIA has always worked on guidelines set up by the Tavistock Institute.
Tavistock Institute originated the mass civilian bombing raids [against the German people] carried
out by [the ALL LIES] Roosevelt and Churchill as a clinical experiment in mass terror, keeping records
of the results as they watched the "guinea pigs" reacting under "controlled laboratory conditions".
All Tavistock and American foundation techniques have a single goal – to break down the
psychological strength of the individual and render him helpless to oppose the dictators of the WORLD
ORDER.
Any technique which helps to break down the family unit, and family inculcated principles of
religion, honor, patriotism and sexual behaviour, is used by the Tavistock scientists as weapons of
crowd control.
The methods of Freudian psychotherapy induce permanent mental illness in those who undergo this
treatment by destabilizing their character. The victim is then advised to 'establish new rituals of
personal interactions', that is, to indulge in brief sexual encounters which actually set the
participants adrift with no stable personal relationships in their lives – destroying their ability to
establish or maintain a family.
Tavistock Institute has developed such power in the U.S. that no one achieves prominence in any
field unless he has been trained in behavioural science at Tavistock or one of its subsidiaries.
Tavistock maintains 2 schools at Frankfort, birthplace of the Rothschilds, the FRANKFURT SCHOOL, and
the Sigmund Freud Institute.
The 'experiment' in compulsory racial integration in the U.S. was organized by Ronald Lippert of
the OSS (forerunner of CIA) and the American Jewish Congress, and director of child training at the
Commission on Community Relations.
The program was designed to break down the individual's sense of personal knowledge in his
identity, his racial heritage. Through the Stanford Research Institute, Tavistock controls the
National Education Association.
The Institute of Social Research at the Natl Training Lab brain washes the leading executives of
business and government.
Another prominent Tavistock operation is the WHARTON SCHOOL OF FINANCE.
A single common denominator identifies the common Tavistock strategy – the use of drugs such as the
infamous MK Ultra program of the CIA, directed by Dr Sidney Gottlieb, in which unsuspecting CIA
officials were given LSD and their reactions studied like guinea pigs, resulting in several deaths –
no one was ever indicted.
(Source of info: author Eustace Mullins "The World Order: Our Secret Rulers" 2nd ed. 1992. He
dedicated his book "to American patriots and their passion for liberty". note: No copyright
restrictions)
@Agent76
Excellent video. More people need to see this to understand how corrupt the China Totalitarian state works
behind the scenes along with the US as part of the Globalization NWO movement to enrich the few and
impoverish the rest of the world population.
"... The American Chamber of Commerce subsequently expanded its base from around 60,000 firms in 1972 to over a quarter of a million ten years later. Jointly with the National Association of Manufacturers (which moved to Washington in 1972) it amassed an immense campaign chest to lobby Congress and engage in research. The Business Roundtable, an organization of CEOs 'committed to the aggressive pursuit of political power for the corporation', was founded in 1972 and thereafter became the centrepiece of collective pro-business action. ..."
"... Nearly half the financing for the highly respected NBER came from the leading companies in the Fortune 500 list. Closely integrated with the academic community, the NBER was to have a very significant impact on thinking in the economics departments and business schools of the major research universities. ..."
"... In order to realize this goal, businesses needed a political class instrument and a popular base. They therefore actively sought to capture the Republican Party as their own instrument. The formation of powerful political action committees to procure, as the old adage had it, 'the best government that money could buy' was an important step. ..."
"... The Republican Party needed, however, a solid electoral base if it was to colonize power effectively. It was around this time that Republicans sought an alliance with the Christian right. The latter had not been politically active in the past, but the foundation of Jerry Falwell's 'moral majority' as a political movement in 1978 changed all of that. The Republican Party now had its Christian base. ..."
"... It also appealed to the cultural nationalism of the white working classes and their besieged sense of moral righteousness. This political base could be mobilized through the positives of religion and cultural nationalism and negatively through coded, if not blatant, racism, homophobia, and anti feminism. ..."
"... The alliance between big business and conservative Christians backed by the neoconservatives consolidated, not for the first time has a social group been persuaded to vote against its material, economic, and class interests ..."
"... Any political movement that holds individual freedoms to be sacrosanct is vulnerable to incorporation into the neoliberal fold. ..."
"... Neoliberal rhetoric, with its foundational emphasis upon individual freedoms, has the power to split off libertarianism, identity politics, multiculturalism, and eventually narcissistic consumerism from the social forces ranged in pursuit of social justice through the conquest of state power. ..."
"... By capturing ideals of individual freedom and turning them against the interventionist and regulatory practices of the state, capitalist class interests could hope to protect and even restore their position. Neoliberalism was well suited to this ideological task. ..."
"... Neoliberalization required both politically and economically the construction of a neoliberal market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism and individual libertarianism. As such it proved more than a little compatible with that cultural impulse called 'postmodernism' which had long been lurking in the wings but could now emerge full-blown as both a cultural and an intellectual dominant. This was the challenge that corporations and class elites set out to finesse in the 1980s. ..."
"... Powell argued that individual action was insufficient. 'Strength', he wrote, 'lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations'. The National Chamber of Commerce, he argued, should lead an assault upon the major institutions––universities, schools, the media, publishing, the courts––in order to change how individuals think 'about the corporation, the law, culture, and the individual'. US businesses did not lack resources for such an effort, particularly when they pooled their resources together. ..."
The American Chamber of Commerce subsequently expanded its base from around 60,000 firms in 1972 to over a quarter of a million
ten years later. Jointly with the National Association of Manufacturers (which moved to Washington in 1972) it amassed an immense
campaign chest to lobby Congress and engage in research. The Business Roundtable, an organization of CEOs 'committed to the aggressive
pursuit of political power for the corporation', was founded in 1972 and thereafter became the centrepiece of collective pro-business
action.
The corporations involved accounted for 'about one half of the GNP of the United States' during the 1970s, and they spent close
to $900 million annually (a huge amount at that time) on political matters. Think-tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, the
Hoover Institute, the Center for the Study of American Business, and the American Enterprise Institute, were formed with corporate
backing both to polemicize and, when necessary, as in the case of the National Bureau of Economic Research, to construct serious
technical and empirical studies and political-philosophical arguments broadly in support of neoliberal policies.
Nearly half the financing for the highly respected NBER came from the leading companies in the Fortune 500 list. Closely
integrated with the academic community, the NBER was to have a very significant impact on thinking in the economics departments
and business schools of the major research universities. With abundant finance furnished by wealthy individuals (such as
the brewer Joseph Coors, who later became a member of Reagan's 'kitchen cabinet') and their foundations (for example Olin, Scaife,
Smith Richardson, Pew Charitable Trust), a flood of tracts and books, with Nozick's Anarchy State and Utopia perhaps the most widely
read and appreciated, emerged espousing neoliberal values. A TV version of Milton Friedman's Free to Choose was funded with a
grant from Scaife in 1977. 'Business was', Blyth concludes, 'learning to spend as a class.
In singling out the universities for particular attention, Powell pointed up an opportunity as well as an issue, for these
were indeed centers of anti-corporate and anti-state sentiment (the students at Santa Barbara had burned down the Bank of America
building there and ceremonially buried a car in the sands). But many students were (and still are) affluent and privileged, or
at least middle class, and in the US the values of individual freedom have long been celebrated (in music and popular culture)
as primary. Neoliberal themes could here find fertile ground for propagation. Powell did not argue for extending state power.
But business should 'assiduously cultivate' the state and when necessary use it 'aggressively and with determination'
In order to realize this goal, businesses needed a political class instrument and a popular base. They therefore actively
sought to capture the Republican Party as their own instrument. The formation of powerful political action committees to procure,
as the old adage had it, 'the best government that money could buy' was an important step. The supposedly 'progressive' campaign
finance laws of 1971 in effect legalized the financial corruption of politics.
A crucial set of Supreme Court decisions began in 1976 when it was first established that the right of a corporation to make
unlimited money contributions to political parties and political action committees was protected under the First Amendment guaranteeing
the rights of individuals (in this instance corporations) to freedom of speech.15 Political action committees could thereafter
ensure the financial domination of both political parties by corporate, moneyed, and professional association interests. Corporate
PACs, which numbered eighty-nine in 1974, had burgeoned to 1,467 by 1982.
The Republican Party needed, however, a solid electoral base if it was to colonize power effectively. It was around this time
that Republicans sought an alliance with the Christian right. The latter had not been politically active in the past, but the
foundation of Jerry Falwell's 'moral majority' as a political movement in 1978 changed all of that. The Republican Party now had
its Christian base.
It also appealed to the cultural nationalism of the white working classes and their besieged sense of moral righteousness.
This political base could be mobilized through the positives of religion and cultural nationalism and negatively through coded,
if not blatant, racism, homophobia, and anti feminism.
The alliance between big business and conservative Christians backed by the neoconservatives consolidated, not for the first
time has a social group been persuaded to vote against its material, economic, and class interests the evangelical Christians
eagerly embraced the alliance with big business and the Republican Party as a means to further promote their evangelical and moral
agenda.
Any political movement that holds individual freedoms to be sacrosanct is vulnerable to incorporation into the neoliberal fold.
The worldwide political upheavals of 1968, for example, were strongly inflected with the desire for greater personal freedoms.
This was certainly true for students, such as those animated by the Berkeley 'free speech' movement of the 1960s or who took to
the streets in Paris, Berlin, and Bangkok and were so mercilessly shot down in Mexico City shortly before the 1968 Olympic Games.
They demanded freedom from parental, educational, corporate, bureaucratic, and state constraints. But the '68 movement also had
social justice as a primary political objective.
Neoliberal rhetoric, with its foundational emphasis upon individual freedoms, has the power to split off libertarianism,
identity politics, multiculturalism, and eventually narcissistic consumerism from the social forces ranged in pursuit of social
justice through the conquest of state power. It has long proved extremely difficult within the US left, for example, to forge
the collective discipline required for political action to achieve social justice without offending the the Construction of Consent
desire of political actors for individual freedom and for full recognition and expression of particular identities. Neoliberalism
did not create these distinctions, but it could easily exploit, if not foment, them.
In the early 1970s those seeking individual freedoms and social justice could make common cause in the face of what many saw
as a common enemy. Powerful corporations in alliance with an interventionist state were seen to be running the world in individually
oppressive and socially unjust ways. The Vietnam War was the most obvious catalyst for discontent, but the destructive activities
of corporations and the state in relation to the environment, the push towards mindless consumerism, the failure to address social
issues and respond adequately to diversity, as well as intense restrictions on individual possibilities and personal behaviors
by state-mandated and 'traditional' controls were also widely resented. Civil rights were an issue, and questions of sexuality
and of reproductive rights were very much in play.
For almost everyone involved in the movement of '68, the intrusive state was
the enemy and it had to be reformed. And on that, the neoliberals could easily agree. But capitalist corporations, business, and
the market system were also seen as primary enemies requiring redress if not revolutionary transformation: hence the threat to
capitalist class power.
By capturing ideals of individual freedom and turning them against the interventionist and regulatory practices of the state,
capitalist class interests could hope to protect and even restore their position. Neoliberalism was well suited to this ideological
task. But it had to be backed up by a practical strategy that emphasized the liberty of consumer choice, not only with respect
to particular products but also with respect to lifestyles, modes of expression, and a wide range of cultural practices. Neoliberalization
required both politically and economically the construction of a neoliberal market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism
and individual libertarianism. As such it proved more than a little compatible with that cultural impulse called 'postmodernism'
which had long been lurking in the wings but could now emerge full-blown as both a cultural and an intellectual dominant. This
was the challenge that corporations and class elites set out to finesse in the 1980s.
In the US case a confidential memo sent by Lewis Powell to the US Chamber of Commerce in August 1971. Powell, about to be elevated
to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon, argued that criticism of and opposition to the US free enterprise system had gone too far
and that 'the time had come––indeed it is long overdue––for the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshaled
against those who would destroy it'.
Powell argued that individual action was insufficient. 'Strength', he wrote, 'lies in organization, in careful long-range
planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available
only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations'. The National
Chamber of Commerce, he argued, should lead an assault upon the major institutions––universities, schools, the media, publishing,
the courts––in order to change how individuals think 'about the corporation, the law, culture, and the individual'. US businesses
did not lack resources for such an effort, particularly when they pooled their resources together.
"... Dan Davies on financial fraud is certainly the most entertaining book on Economics I have read this year. Highly recommend ..."
"... Chris Dillow : Review of Dan Davies: Lying for Money ..."
"... Lying For Money ..."
"... Dan has also a theory of fraud. 'The optimal level of fraud is unlikely to be zero' he says. If we were to take so many precautions to stop it, we would also strangle legitimate economic activity... ..."
"Squalid crude affairs committed mostly by inadequates. This is a message of Dan Davies' history of fraud, Lying For Money ....
Most frauds fall into a few simple types.... Setting up a fake company... pyramid schemes...
control frauds, whereby someone abuses a position of trust...
plain counterfeiters.
My favourite was Alves dos Reis, who persuaded the printers of legitimate Portuguese banknotes to
print even more of them....
All this is done with the wit and clarity of exposition for which
we have long admired Dan. His footnotes are an especial delight, reminding me of William
Donaldson.
Dan has also a theory of fraud. 'The optimal level of fraud is unlikely to be zero'
he says. If we were to take so many precautions to stop it, we would also strangle legitimate
economic activity...
The subtitle of this effusively admiring biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Grand Strategist, does not reflect its
true purpose. A more accurate one might be this: "Just as Smart as the Other Guy." The other guy, of course, is Henry Kissinger. The
implicit purpose of Justin Vaïsse's book is to argue that in his mastery of strategic thought and practice, Brzezinski ranks as Kissinger's
equal.
Notable quotes:
"... That Brzezinski, who died last year at age 89, lived a life that deserves to be recounted and appraised is certainly the case. Born in Warsaw in 1928 to parents with ties to Polish nobility, Brzezinski had a peripatetic childhood. ..."
"... After graduating from McGill, Brzezinski set his sights on Harvard, which at the time was the very archetype of a "Cold War university." Senior faculty and young scholars on the make were volunteering to advise the national-security apparatus just then forming in Washington. For many of them, the Soviet threat appeared to eclipse all other questions and fields of inquiry. In this setting, Brzezinski flourished. Even before becoming an American citizen, he was thoroughly Americanized, imbued with the mind-set that prevailed in circles where members of the power elite mixed and mingled. Partially funded by the CIA, the Russian Research Center, Brzezinski's home at Harvard, was one of those places. ..."
"... From his time in Cambridge, he emerged committed, in his own words, to "nothing less than formulating a coherent strategy for the United States, so that we could eventually dismantle the Soviet bloc" and, not so incidentally, thereby liberate Poland. To this cause, the young Brzezinski devoted himself with single-minded energy. ..."
"... Convinced that the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc were internally fragile, he believed that economic and cultural interaction with the West would ultimately lead to their collapse. The idea was to project strength without provoking confrontation, while patiently exerting indirect influence. ..."
"... This limited academic influence probably did not bother Zbig; he never saw himself as a mere scholar. He was a classic in-and-outer, rotating effortlessly from university campuses to political campaigns, and from government service to plummy think-tank billets. According to Vaïsse, Brzezinski never courted the media. Even so, he demonstrated a pronounced talent for getting himself in front of TV cameras, becoming a frequent guest on programs like Meet the ..."
"... Toward the end of his life, Brzezinski even had a Twitter account. His last tweet, from May 2017, both summarizes the essence of his worldview and expresses his dismay regarding the presidency of Donald Trump: "Sophisticated US leadership is the sine qua non of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse." ..."
"... Although not an ideologue, Brzezinski was a liberal Democrat of a consistently hawkish persuasion. Committed to social justice at home, he was also committed to toughness abroad. In the 1960s, he supported US intervention in Vietnam, treated the domino theory as self-evidently true, and argued that, with American credibility on the line, the United States had no alternative but to continue prosecuting the war. Even after the war ended, Vaïsse writes, Brzezinski "did not view Vietnam as a mistake." ..."
"... Yet Vietnam did nudge Brzezinski to reconsider some of his own assumptions. In the early 1970s, with an eye toward forging a new foreign policy that might take into account some of the trauma caused by Vietnam, he organized the Trilateral Commission. Apart from expending copious amounts of Rockefeller money, the organization produced little of substance. For Brzezinski, however, it proved a smashing success. It was there that he became acquainted with Jimmy Carter, a Georgia governor then contemplating a run for the presidency in 1976. ..."
"... When Carter won, he rewarded Brzezinski by appointing him national-security adviser, the job that had vaulted Kissinger to the upper ranks of global celebrity. ..."
"... Because of Brzezinski's limited influence on foreign policy after Carter, Vaïsse's case for installing him in the pantheon of master strategists therefore rests on the claim that on matters related to foreign policy, the Carter presidency was something less than a bust. Vaïsse devotes the core of his book to arguing just that. Although valiant, the effort falls well short of success. ..."
"... From the outset of his administration, Carter accorded his national-security adviser remarkable deference. Brzezinski was not co-equal with the president; yet neither was he a mere subordinate. He was, Vaïsse writes, "the architect of Carter's foreign policy," while also exercising "an exceptional degree of control" over its articulation and implementation. ..."
"... The disintegration of the Soviet bloc and eventually of the Soviet Union itself was, in his view, a nominal goal of American foreign policy, but not an immediate prospect. ..."
"... The Camp David accords did nothing to resolve the Palestinian issue that underlay much of Israeli-Arab enmity; it produced a dead-end peace that left Palestinians without a state and Israel with no end of problems. And the Brzezinski-engineered embrace of China, enhancing Chinese access to American technology and markets, accelerated that country's emergence as a peer competitor. ..."
Underlying that purpose are at least two implicit assumptions. The first is that, when it comes to statecraft, grand strategy
actually exists, not simply as an aspiration but as a discrete and identifiable element. The second is that, in his writings and
contributions to US policy, Kissinger himself qualifies as a strategic virtuoso. For all sorts of reasons, we should treat both of
these assumptions with considerable skepticism.
That Brzezinski, who died last year at age 89, lived a life that deserves to be recounted and appraised is certainly the case.
Born in Warsaw in 1928 to parents with ties to Polish nobility, Brzezinski had a peripatetic childhood. His father was a diplomat
whose family accompanied him on postings to France, Germany, and eventually to Canada. The Nazi invasion of 1939, which extinguished
Polish independence, also effectively ended his father's diplomatic career. With war engulfing nearly all of Europe, Brzezinski would
not set foot on Polish soil again for nearly two decades.
Although the young Brzezinski quickly adapted to life in Canada, the well-being of Poles and Poland remained an abiding preoccupation.
After the war, he studied economics and political science at McGill University, focusing in particular on the Soviet Union, which
by then had replaced Germany as the power that dominated the country of his birth. Brzezinski was a brilliant student with a particular
interest in international affairs, a field increasingly centered on questions related to America's role in presiding over the postwar
global order.
After graduating from McGill, Brzezinski set his sights on Harvard, which at the time was the very archetype of a "Cold War university."
Senior faculty and young scholars on the make were volunteering to advise the national-security apparatus just then forming in Washington.
For many of them, the Soviet threat appeared to eclipse all other questions and fields of inquiry. In this setting, Brzezinski flourished.
Even before becoming an American citizen, he was thoroughly Americanized, imbued with the mind-set that prevailed in circles where
members of the power elite mixed and mingled. Partially funded by the CIA, the Russian Research Center, Brzezinski's home at Harvard,
was one of those places.
From his time in Cambridge, he emerged committed, in his own words, to "nothing less than formulating a coherent strategy for
the United States, so that we could eventually dismantle the Soviet bloc" and, not so incidentally, thereby liberate Poland. To this
cause, the young Brzezinski devoted himself with single-minded energy.
A s a scholar and author of works intended for a general audience, Zbig, as he was widely known, was nothing if not prolific.
Churning out a steady stream of well-regarded books and essays, he demonstrated a particular knack for "summarizing things in a concise
and striking way."
Clarity took precedence over nuance.
And with his gift for stylish packaging -- crafting neologisms ("technetronic")
and high-sounding phrases ("Histrionics as History in Transition") -- his analyses had the appearance of novelty, even if they often
lacked real substance.
Whether writing for his fellow scholars or addressing a wider audience, Brzezinski had one big idea when it
came to Cold War strategy: He promoted the concept of "peaceful engagement" as a basis for US policy.
Convinced that the Soviet Union
and the Soviet bloc were internally fragile, he believed that economic and cultural interaction with the West would ultimately lead
to their collapse. The idea was to project strength without provoking confrontation, while patiently exerting indirect influence.
Yet little of the Brzezinski oeuvre has stood the test of time. The American canon of essential readings in international relations
and strategy, beginning with George Washington's farewell address and continuing on through works by John Quincy Adams, Alfred Thayer
Mahan, Hans Morgenthau, and a handful of others (the list is not especially long), does not include anything penned by Brzezinski.
Although Vaïsse, a senior official with the French foreign ministry, appears to have read and pondered just about every word his
subject wrote or uttered, he identifies nothing of Brzezinski's that qualifies as must-reading for today's aspiring strategist.
This limited academic influence probably did not bother Zbig; he never saw himself as a mere scholar. He was a classic in-and-outer,
rotating effortlessly from university campuses to political campaigns, and from government service to plummy think-tank billets.
According to Vaïsse, Brzezinski never courted the media. Even so, he demonstrated a pronounced talent for getting himself in front
of TV cameras, becoming a frequent guest on programs like Meet the Press . He knew how to self-promote.
Toward the end of his life, Brzezinski even had a Twitter account. His last tweet, from May 2017, both summarizes the essence
of his worldview and expresses his dismay regarding the presidency of Donald Trump: "Sophisticated US leadership is the sine qua
non of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse."
F rom the time Brzezinski left Harvard in 1960 to accept a tenured position at Columbia, he made it his mission to nurture and
facilitate that sophistication. For Zbig, New York offered a specific advantage over Cambridge: It provided a portal into elite political
circles. As it had for Kissinger, the then-still-influential Council on Foreign Relations provided a venue that enabled Brzezinski
to curry favor with the rich and powerful, and to establish his bona fides as a statesman to watch. Henry's patron was Nelson Rockefeller;
Zbig's was Nelson's brother David.
Although not an ideologue, Brzezinski was a liberal Democrat of a consistently hawkish persuasion. Committed to social justice
at home, he was also committed to toughness abroad. In the 1960s, he supported US intervention in Vietnam, treated the domino theory
as self-evidently true, and argued that, with American credibility on the line, the United States had no alternative but to continue
prosecuting the war. Even after the war ended, Vaïsse writes, Brzezinski "did not view Vietnam as a mistake."
Yet Vietnam did nudge Brzezinski to reconsider some of his own assumptions. In the early 1970s, with an eye toward forging a new
foreign policy that might take into account some of the trauma caused by Vietnam, he organized the Trilateral Commission. Apart from
expending copious amounts of Rockefeller money, the organization produced little of substance. For Brzezinski, however, it proved
a smashing success. It was there that he became acquainted with Jimmy Carter, a Georgia governor then contemplating a run for the
presidency in 1976.
Zbig and Jimmy hit it off. Soon enough, Brzezinski signed on as the candidate's principal foreign-policy adviser. When Carter
won, he rewarded Brzezinski by appointing him national-security adviser, the job that had vaulted Kissinger to the upper ranks of
global celebrity.
Zbig held this post throughout Carter's one-term presidency, from 1977 to 1981. It would be his first and last time in government.
After 1981, Brzezinski went back to writing, continued to opine, and was occasionally consulted by Carter's successors, both Democratic
and Republican. Yet despite having ascended to the rank of elder statesman, never again did Brzezinski occupy a position where he
could directly affect US policy.
Because of Brzezinski's limited influence on foreign policy after Carter, Vaïsse's case for installing him in the pantheon of
master strategists therefore rests on the claim that on matters related to foreign policy, the Carter presidency was something less
than a bust. Vaïsse devotes the core of his book to arguing just that. Although valiant, the effort falls well short of success.
From the outset of his administration, Carter accorded his national-security adviser remarkable deference. Brzezinski was not
co-equal with the president; yet neither was he a mere subordinate. He was, Vaïsse writes, "the architect of Carter's foreign policy,"
while also exercising "an exceptional degree of control" over its articulation and implementation.
In a characteristic display of self-assurance and bureaucratic shrewdness, as the new president took office, Brzezinski gave him
a 43-page briefing book prescribing basic administration policy. Under the overarching theme of "constructive global engagement,"
Brzezinski identified 10 specific goals. The first proposed to "create more active and solid cooperation with Europe and Japan,"
the 10th to "maintain a defense posture designed to dissuade the Soviet Union from committing hostile acts." In between were less-than-modest
aspirations to promote human rights, reduce the size of nuclear arsenals, curb international arms sales, end apartheid in South Africa,
normalize Sino-American relations, terminate US control of the Panama Canal, and achieve an "overall solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
problem."
While Brzezinski's agenda was as bold as it was comprehensive, it nonetheless hewed to the Soviet-centric assumptions that had
formed the basis of US policy since the end of World War II. Zbig recognized that the world had changed considerably in the ensuing
years, but he also believed that any future changes would still occur in the context of a continuing Soviet-American rivalry. His
strategic perspective, therefore, did not include the possibility that the international order might center on something other than
the binaries imposed by the Cold War. The disintegration of the Soviet bloc and eventually of the Soviet Union itself was, in his
view, a nominal goal of American foreign policy, but not an immediate prospect.
Using Brzezinski's 10 policy objectives as a basis for evaluating his performance, Vaïsse gives the national-security adviser
high marks. "Few administrations have known so many tangible successes in only four years," he writes, citing the Panama Canal Treaty,
the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, and improved relations with China. Yet while Panama remains an underappreciated achievement,
the other two qualify as ambiguous at best. The Camp David accords did nothing to resolve the Palestinian issue that underlay much
of Israeli-Arab enmity; it produced a dead-end peace that left Palestinians without a state and Israel with no end of problems. And
the Brzezinski-engineered embrace of China, enhancing Chinese access to American technology and markets, accelerated that country's
emergence as a peer competitor.
More troubling still was Brzezinski's failure to anticipate or to grasp the implications of the two developments that all but
doomed the Carter presidency: the 1978 Iranian Revolution and the 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Vaïsse does his best to
cast a positive light on Brzezinski's role in these twin embarrassments. But there's no way around it: Brzezinski misread both --
with consequences that still haunt us today.
The Iranian Revolution, which Brzezinski sought to forestall by instigating a military coup in Tehran, offered a warning against
imagining that Washington could shape events in the Islamic world. Brzezinski missed that warning entirely, although he would by
no means be the last US official to do so. As for the Kremlin's plunge into Afghanistan, widely interpreted as evidence of the Soviet
Union's naked aggression, it actually testified to the weakness and fragility of the Soviet empire, already in an advanced state
of decay. Again, Brzezinski -- along with many other observers -- misread the issue. When clarity of vision was most needed, he failed
to provide it.
Together, these two developments ought to have induced a wily strategist to reassess the premises of US policy. Instead, they
resulted in decisions to deepen -- and to overtly militarize -- US involvement in and around the Persian Gulf. While this commitment
is commonly referred to as the Carter Doctrine, Vaïsse insists that it "was really a Brzezinski doctrine."
Regardless of who gets the credit, the militarization of US policy across what Brzezinski termed an "arc of crisis" encompassing
much of the Islamic world laid the basis for a series of wars and upheavals that continue to this day. If, as national-security adviser,
Brzezinski wielded as much influence as Vaïsse contends, then this too forms part of his legacy. When it mattered most, the master
strategist failed to understand the implications of the crisis that occurred on his watch.
The most glaring problem anyone faces in trying to assert Brzezinski's mastery of world affairs, however, rests not in Iran or
Afghanistan, but in how the Cold War came to an end. Indeed, Brzezinski viewed it as essentially endless. As late as 1987, just two
years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was still insisting that "the American-Soviet conflict is an historical rivalry that
will endure for as long as we live."
B rzezinski was certainly smart, flexible, and pragmatic, but he was also a prisoner of the Cold War paradigm. So too were virtually
all other members of the foreign-policy establishment of his day. Indeed, subscribing to that paradigm was a prerequisite of membership.
Yet this adherence amounted to donning a pair of strategic blinders: It meant seeing only those things that it was convenient to
see.
Which brings us back to Zbig's last tweet, with its paean to American leadership as the sine qua non of global stability. The
tweet neatly captures the mind-set that the foreign-policy establishment has embraced with something like unanimity since the Cold
War surprised that establishment by coming to an end. This mind-set gets expressed in myriad ways in a thousand speeches and op-eds:
The United States must lead. There is no alternative; history itself summons the country to do so. Should it fail in that responsibility,
darkness will cover the earth.
This is why Trump so infuriates the foreign-policy elite: He appears oblivious to the providential call that others in Washington
take to be self-evident. Yet adhering to this post–Cold War paradigm is also the equivalent of donning blinders. Whatever the issue
-- especially when the issue is ourselves -- it means seeing only those things that we find it convenient to see.
The post–Cold War paradigm of American moral and political hegemony prevents us from appreciating the way that the world is actually
changing -- rapidly, radically, and right before our very eyes. Today, with the planet continuing to heat up, the nexus of global
geopolitics shifting eastward, and Americans pondering security threats for which our pricey and far-flung military establishment
is all but useless, the art of strategy as practiced by members of Brzezinski's generation has become irrelevant. So too has Zbig
himself.
As big declines in legacy production are a characteristic of shale oil, then there will come a time when production from new
wells cannot keep up with the decline from the legacy wells. It can happen in 2019 or 2020.
My suspicion is that the economics are not that good and most wells are not profitable from November 2018 or so. So there is
something fishy that the shale oil industry ploughs on and continues to set new highs month after month.
Notable quotes:
"... We won't have much, or any growth in the first half of 2019, no matter what the hype is, unless prices spike. ..."
EF does not have pipeline problems, but it is not going to grow at $55 or less oil price. If
prices rise to $80, yes. But, the price will need to be consistent for a good long while.
GOM
has hit its high back in August according to SLa and George.
We won't have much, or any growth
in the first half of 2019, no matter what the hype is, unless prices spike.
Yeah, seems highly unlikely at best that Eagle Ford will ever regain its high. Even the EIA
forecast – notorious blue sky that it is – only gets it back to 1.5 million bpd.
And that on a theory of producers shifting from Permian due to logistical constraints in the
latter.
It's a mature area, only so many decent spots to drill.
"Note that an oil price scenario between the AEO 2018 low oil price case and reference oil
price case (average of the two scenarios) would mean that at current well cost, the Permian Basin
would never become profitable. This is what Mike Shellman has been saying all along."
Notable quotes:
"... We basically lost $20 a barrel in the blink of an eye. In our case, that is over $100K per month of income loss. This after 2015-17, where the price was less than half what it had been 2011-14. ..."
"... Imagine what would happen if the boss walked into the tech campus of a firm in Silicon Valley and said everyone was taking a $12,000 per month pay cut immediately. Would be a lot of knashing of teeth. ..."
"... Now imagine the pay cut was pretty much in conjunction with an erratic President, supported almost 100% by the industry, ironically, who erroneously thinks .30 a gallon lower gasoline prices will be a boon to the US economy. ..."
I think the frustration of a small business oil producer should be obvious.
My family and I have pretty much decided producing oil in the US is not a real business
anymore. How can one have a real business when there are so many fixed costs, that do not
change much, with the price of the product sold moving up and down like a yo-yo? Add to that
at least 50% of the voting public thinking what you are doing is evil. It is now much more
preferred that one grow harvest and sell cannabis so people can get high, rather than produce
oil for gasoline, diesel, plastics and the numerous other daily used consumer products.
You have done a lot of construction work, so I am sure you know the feeling when there is
a recession and work drops way off. At least you might get some sympathy in that situation.
Farmers get a government payment. Oil people get laughed at.
We basically lost $20 a barrel in the blink of an eye. In our case, that is over $100K per
month of income loss. This after 2015-17, where the price was less than half what it had been
2011-14.
Take the family out here that is living on 20 BOPD, doing all the work themselves. Selling
600 BO per month. That family just saw a $12,000 hit to the top line. The expenses didn't
change except for fuel, which has fallen some. Probably less than $1,000 per month savings
there.
Imagine what would happen if the boss walked into the tech campus of a firm in Silicon
Valley and said everyone was taking a $12,000 per month pay cut immediately. Would be a lot
of knashing of teeth.
Now imagine the pay cut was pretty much in conjunction with an erratic President,
supported almost 100% by the industry, ironically, who erroneously thinks .30 a gallon lower
gasoline prices will be a boon to the US economy. With the alternative being a party openly
hostile to the industry, who cannot differentiate between small business owners with small
footprints and corporate titans who make no money on the product, but make billions off the
corporate largess. We are all terrible polluters who need to get hit with a carbon tax and
made to jump through environmental testing hoops despite we are emitting less than the tiny
amounts of methane we were emitting 30 years ago.
Shallow. Thanks for explaining how it looks from where you stand.
As much as I hate to think this way, it raises the idea that the government should have a
price stability mechanism in place that shields producers from the volatility of the
dysfunctional market. Maybe gets updated every 6 months depending on market conditions or
something like that. I'm sure everyone would hate it.
Maybe the government should even have a longrange an energy policy. Like a ten yr plan. I
know crazy thinking.
Regarding my small oil business rant above. Small business is a tough place, not just in
the oil industry, but all over.
I think of the grocery store owners. Those guys had a pretty good thing going in small
towns 30 years ago. Now they are gone if there is a Walmart nearby.
Same with department stores. The mall in a mid sized town nearby is halfway a ghost town
now.
Capitalism can be brutal. But it doesn't seem that another way has proven to be a better
idea either. We tend to take freedom for granted in the USA. We are very lucky we have the
freedom we do have.
I don't know that price controls are a good idea. I don't know what the answer is to
market volatility. We benefitted from getting into oil when no one wanted to touch it, and
really did well from 2005–14. Since then, not so good, but maybe our time will come
once more.
Overall, shouldn't complain. Just trying to give a unique perspective. Also trying to
let everyone know that there are a lot of hardworking small business owners in upstream oil
and they aren't the terrible people some make them out to be.
Everything in the media these days is very urban centered and also very East Coast
dominant. So different perspectives from different regions is always good, I think.
!! Runners-up for Quote of the Year !!
from above:
"Shale oil is a by-product of easy monetary policies which are being withdrawn."
in a way kinda https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-11/real-implications-new-permian-estimates
"Now, I know FOR A FACT that American energy dominance is within our grasp"
and it keeps getting more better
"Reilly stressed, "Knowing where these resources are located and how much exists is crucial
to ensuring both our energy independence and energy dominance.""
Pretty Powerful results for just a by-product!
Was it JH Kunstler that pointed out that "energy dominance" is kinda kinky?
Shallow Sand
Neo Capitalism or Creditism might be better terms to describe our current monetary and
economic system. When central banks can issue Credit and lend it to their pets by the
billions and when those corporations go under they just issue more Credit to the
corporations that take their place. This is not Capitalism where companies and individuals
produce something valuable and return a profit that they can then reinvest as Capital.
This current economic system is destroying the sources of wealth and valuables. It
encourages burning down the house to stay warm. I used to dream of being a big farmer but
more and more I feel lucky when I see the stress and fear that so many of the bigger
farmers are dealing with.
I appreciate your great contribution to this site. I've learned so much from your
comments. They've increased my confidence that this shale business would not be here if it
were not for the biggest ponzi scheme to date. And that the peak of Oil production per
Capita that was reached in 1979 will never again be topped in my lifetime even with all
this fraud on its side.
Currently, legacy decline is just above 500,000 barrels per month. This means that if
production is to be increased by 100,000 barrels per month then new wells must produce
600,000 barrels per month of new oil.
If US new oil production is indeed increasing by 600,000 barrels/day per month, this is
a mind-blowing number -- 7.2 million barrels/day per year. Has new oil production ever
increased by this much anywhere else in the World?
"... Somewhat foolishly he deepened the cleavage between himself and ordinary people by both his patrician predilections and the love of lecturing ..."
This is the question that I am often asked and will be asked in two days. So I decided to
write my answers down.
The argument why inequality should not matter is almost always couched in the following
way: if everybody is getting better-off, why should we care if somebody is becoming extremely
rich? Perhaps he deserves to be rich -- or whatever the case, even if he does not deserve, we
need not worry about his wealth. If we do that implies envy and other moral flaws. I have
dealt with the misplaced issue of envy here * (in response to points made by Martin
Feldstein) and here ** (in response to Harry Frankfurt), and do not want to repeat it. So,
let's leave envy out and focus on the reasons why we should be concerned about high
inequality.
The reasons can be formally broken down into three groups: instrumental reasons having to
do with economic growth, reasons of fairness, and reasons of politics.
The relationship between inequality and economic growth is one of the oldest relationships
studied by economists. A very strong presumption was that without high profits there will be
no growth, and high profits imply substantial inequality. We find this argument already in
Ricardo where profit is the engine of economic growth. We find it also in Keynes and
Schumpeter, and then in standard models of economic growth. We find it even in the Soviet
industrialization debates. To invest you have to have profits (that is, surplus above
subsistence); in a privately-owned economy it means that some people have to be wealthy
enough to save and invest, and in a state-directed economy, it means that the state should
take all the surplus.
But notice that throughout the argument is not one in favor of inequality as such. If it
were, we would not be concerned about the use of the surplus. The argument is about a
seemingly paradoxical behavior of the wealthy: they should be sufficiently rich but should
not use that money to live well and consume but to invest. This point is quite nicely, and
famously, made by Keynes in the opening paragraphs of his "The Economic Consequence of the
Peace". For us, it is sufficient to note that this is an argument in favor of inequality
provided wealth is not used for private pleasure.
The empirical work conducted in the past twenty years has failed to uncover a positive
relationship between inequality and growth. The data were not sufficiently good, especially
regarding inequality where the typical measure used was the Gini coefficient which is too
aggregate and inert to capture changes in the distribution; also the relationship itself may
vary in function of other variables, or the level of development. This has led economists to
a cul-de-sac and discouragement so much so that since the late 1990s and early 2000s such
empirical literature has almost ceased to be produced. It is reviewed in more detail in this
paper. ***
More recently, with much better data on income distribution, the argument that inequality
and growth are negatively correlated has gained ground. In a joint paper **** Roy van der
Weide and I show this using forty years of US micro data. With better data and somewhat more
sophisticated thinking about inequality, the argument becomes much more nuanced: inequality
may be good for future incomes of the rich (that is, they become even richer) but it may be
bad for future incomes of the poor (that is, they fall further behind). In this dynamic
framework, growth rate itself is no longer something homogeneous as indeed it is not in the
real life. When we say that the American economy is growing at 3% per year, it simply means
that the overall income increased at that rate, it tells us nothing about how much better
off, or worse off, individuals at different points of income distribution are getting.
Why would inequality have bad effect on the growth of the lower deciles of the
distribution as Roy and I find? Because it leads to low educational (and even health)
achievements among the poor who become excluded from meaningful jobs and from meaningful
contributions they could make to their own and society's improvement. Excluding a certain
group of people from good education, be it because of their insufficient income or gender or
race, can never be good for the economy, or at least it can never be preferable to their
inclusion.
High inequality which effectively debars some people from full participation translates
into an issue of fairness or justice. It does so because it affects inter-generational
mobility. People who are relatively poor (which is what high inequality means) are not able,
even if they are not poor in an absolute sense, to provide for their children a fraction of
benefits, from education and inheritance to social capital, that the rich provide to their
offspring. This implies that inequality tends to persist across generations which in turns
means that opportunities are vastly different for those at the top of the pyramid and those
on the bottom. We have the two factors joining forces here: on the one hand, the negative
effect of exclusion on growth that carries over generations (which is our instrumental reason
for not liking high inequality), and on the other, lack of equality of opportunity (which is
an issue of justice).
High inequality has also political effects. The rich have more political power and they
use that political power to promote own interests and to entrench their relative position in
the society. This means that all the negative effects due to exclusion and lack of equality
of opportunity are reinforced and made permanent (at least, until a big social earthquake
destroys them). In order to fight off the advent of such an earthquake, the rich must make
themselves safe and unassailable from "conquest". This leads to adversarial politics and
destroys social cohesion. Ironically, social instability which then results discourages
investments of the rich, that is it undermines the very action that was at the beginning
adduced as the key reason why high wealth and inequality may be socially desirable.
We therefore reach the end point where the unfolding of actions that were at the first
supposed to produce beneficent outcome destroys by its own logic the original rationale. We
have to go back to the beginning and instead of seeing high inequality as promoting
investments and growth, we begin to see it, over time, as producing exactly the opposite
effects: reducing investments and growth.
"he argument is about a seemingly paradoxical behavior of the wealthy: they should be
sufficiently rich but should not use that money to live well and consume but to invest."
I disagree on this. I do not care if they use the high income to invest or to live well,
as long as it is one or the other.
The one thing I do not want the rich to do is to become a drain of money out of active
circulation. The paradox of thrift. Excess saving by one dooms others into excess debt to
keep the economy liquid.
If you invent a new widget that everyone on earth simply must have, and is willing to give
you $1 per to get it, such that you have $7 billion a year income... good for you!
Now what do you deserve in return?
1) To consumer $7 billion worth of other peoples' production?
Or
2) To trap the rest of humanity in $7 billion a year worth of debt servitude, which will
have your income ever increase as interest is added to your income, a debt servitude from
which it will be mathematically impossible for them to escape since you hold the money that
they must get in order to repay their debts?
The choice of capitalists
to buy paper not products
Wealthy households are obscene
But not macro drags.
When they buy luxury products and personal services
When they buy existing stocks of land paintings and the like of course this is as bad as
buying paper.
But at least that portfolio shifting
Can CO exist with product purchases.
So long as each type of spending remains close to a stable ratio
In my "ideal" tax regimen, steeply progressive income taxes would be avoided by real property
spending or capital investment to get deductions.
This, of course, would lead to over-investment in land, buildings, houses, etc. WHICH is
why my regimen also includes a real property tax (in addition to state and local real estate
taxes). The income tax would not be "avoided" by real property purchases as much as
"delayed".
To avoid 90% income tax, buy diamonds, paintings, expensive autos... then only pay 5% per
year on the real property, spreading the the tax over 20 years. Buy land, buildings, houses,
etc., get hit with the 5%, plus the local real estate taxes.
It really depends on what is consumed. Consumption can lead to malinvestment. For instance,
buying 1960s ferraris does very little for the current economy. This is an exceptionally low
multiplier activity.
inequality have bad effect on the growth of the lower deciles of the distribution as Roy and
I
"
~~BM~
keep in mind that there are many directions of growth. there is growth that benefits the
workers, the rank-and-file. there is growth that benefits the excessively wealthy. but now,
finally there's a third type of growth, the kind of growth that destroys the planet, and
perhaps a 4th a new channel of growth that would help us to preserve the planet. we need to
think about some of these things.
One VERY important item is missing from that list - environmental sustainability - giving
people control over much more resources than they need is a waste of something precious.
Ted Turner owning millions of acres of land he's restoring to prairie sustained by bison,
prairie dogs, wolves, etc is bad?
I wish he had ten times as much land. Or more so a million bison were roaming the west and
supplying lots of bison steaks, hides, etc, as they did for thousands of years before about
1850.
First reflections on the French "événements de décembre"
Because I am suffering from insomnia (due to the jetlag) I decided to write down, in the
middle of the night, my two quick impressions regarding the recent events in France -- events
that watched from outside France seemed less dramatic than within.
I think they raise two important issues: one new, another "old".
It is indeed an accident that the straw that broke the camel's back was a tax on fuel that
affected especially hard rural and periurban areas, and people with relatively modest
incomes. It did so (I understand) not as much by the amount of the increase but by
reinforcing the feeling among many that after already paying the costs of globalization,
neoliberal policies, offshoring, competition with cheaper foreign labor, and deterioration of
social services, now, in addition, they are to pay also what is, in their view and perhaps
not entirely wrongly, seen as an elitist tax on climate change.
This raises a more general issue which I discussed in my polemic with Jason Hickel and
Kate Raworth. Proponents of degrowth and those who argue that we need to do something
dramatic regarding climate change are singularly coy and shy when it comes to pointing out
who is going to bear the costs of these changes. As I mentioned in this discussion with Jason
and Kate, if they were serious they should go out and tell Western audiences that their real
incomes should be cut in half and also explain them how that should be accomplished.
Degrowers obviously know that such a plan is a political suicide, so they prefer to keep
things vague and to cover up the issues under a "false communitarian" discourse that we are
all affected and that somehow the economy will thrive if we all just took full conscience of
the problem--without ever telling us what specific taxes they would like to raise or how they
plan to reduce people's incomes.
Now the French revolt brings this issue into the open. Many western middle classes,
buffeted already by the winds of globalization, seem unwilling to pay a climate change tax.
The degrowers should, I hope, now come up with concrete plans.
The second issue is "old". It is the issue of the cleavage between the political elites
and a significant part of the population. Macron rose on an essentially anti-mainstream
platform, his heterogenous party having been created barely before the elections. But his
policies have from the beginning been pro-rich, a sort of the latter-say Thatcherism. In
addition, they were very elitist, often disdainful of the public opinion. It is somewhat
bizarre that such "Jupiterian" presidency, by his own admission, would be lionized by the
liberal English-language press when his domestic policies were strongly pro-rich and thus not
dissimilar from Trump's. But because Macron's international rhetoric (mostly rhetoric) was
anti-Trumpist, he got a pass on his domestic policies.
Somewhat foolishly he deepened the cleavage between himself and ordinary people by both
his patrician predilections and the love of lecturing others which at times veered into the
absurd (as when he took several minutes to teach a 12-year old kid about the proper way to
address the President). At the time when more than ever Western "couches populaires" wanted
to have politicians that at least showed a modicum of empathy, Macron chose the very opposite
tack of berating people for their lack of success or failure to find jobs (for which they
apparently just needed to cross the road). He thus committed the same error that Hillary
Clinton commuted with her "deplorables" comment. It is no surprise that his approval ratings
have taken a dive, and, from what I understand, even they do not fully capture the extent of
the disdain into which he is held by many.
It is under such conditions that "les evenements" took place. The danger however is that
their further radicalization, and especially violence, undermines their original objectives.
One remembers that May 1968, after driving de Gaulle to run for cover to Baden-Baden, just a
few months later handed him one of the largest electoral victories -- because of
demonstrators' violence and mishandling of that great political opportunity.
"So, harvesting energy from the sun is unsustainable?"
No. I'm saying it is not scale-able.
How are you going to do it? Run diesel fuel powered tractors to dig pit mines to get
metals, to be smelted in fossil fuel powered refineries. Burn fossil fuels to heat sand into
glass. Use toxic solvents purify the glass and to electroplate toxic metals. Then incinerate
the solvents in fossil fuel powered furnaces.
That may get us to a 40% reduction in carbon, but it isn't getting us to 90%
reduction.
Even then, how are you going to get nitrogen fertilizers for farms? Currently we strip H2
from CH4 (natural gas), then mix with nitrogen in the air, apply electricity, poof, nitrogen
fertilizers, and LOTS of CO2. I have yet to see a proposal for large-scale farming that
offers a method of obtaining nitrogen fertilizers without CO2 emissions.
AND, there is still a massive problem of storing the electricity from when the wind is
blowing and sun is shining until times when it isn't.
"So, you are calling for global thermonuclears war to purge 6 billion people from the
planet?"
Nope.
"You clearly believe the solution is not paying workers to work, but to not pay them so
they must die."
I'm all about paying workers to work. I vehemently disagree with liberals when they breach
the idea of "universal basic income"... a great way to end up like the old Soviet Union,
where everyone has money, but waits in long lines to get into stores with nothing on the
shelves for sale.
"The population is too high to support hunter-gathers and subsistence farming for 7
billion people plus."
Correct.
"You have bought into Reagan's free lunch framing and argue less trash, less processing of
6trash to cut costs, so everyone must earn less so they consume less, ideally becoming
dead."
Not even close.
This is where Liberals pissed me off right after Trump won and was still talking "border
adjustment tax". The cry from the likes of Robert Reich was "oh noooo... prices will go up
and hurt the poor." Since when were progressives the "we need low prices" party? I thought we
were the ones that wanted higher prices, if those higher prices were caused by higher wages
to workers!
"I call for evveryone paying high living costs to pay more workers to eliminate the waste of
landfilling what was just mined from the land."
Not sure how that makes it magically possible to cut carbon emissions 90% though.
Besides that, Saudi Arabia requires the organization to maintain a high level of oil
production due to pressure coming from
Washington to achieve a very low cost per barrel of oil. The US energy strategy targets
Iranian and Russian revenue from oil exports, but it also aims to give the US a speedy economic
boost. Trump often talks about the price of oil falling as his personal victory. The US
imports
about 10 million barrels of oil a day, which is why Trump wrongly believes that a decrease in
the cost per barrel could favor a boost to the US economy. The economic reality shows a strong
correlation
between the price of oil and the financial growth of a country, with low prices of crude oil
often synonymous of a slowing down in the economy.
It must be remembered that to keep oil prices high, OPEC countries are required to maintain
a high rate of production, doubling the damage to themselves. Firstly, they take less income
than expected and, secondly, they deplete their oil reserves to favor the strategy imposed by
Saudi Arabia on OPEC to please the White House. It is clearly a strategy that for a country
like Qatar (and perhaps Venezuela and Iran in the near future) makes little sense, given the
diplomatic and commercial rupture with Riyadh stemming from
tensions between the Gulf countries.
In contrast, the OPEC+ organization, which also includes other countries like the Russian
Federation, Mexico and Kazakhstan, seems to now to determine oil and its cost per barrel. At
the moment, OPEC and Russia have agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day,
contradicting Trump's desire for high oil output.
With this last choice Qatar sends a clear signal to the region and to traditional allies,
moving to the side of OPEC+ and bringing its interests closer in line with those of the Russian
Federation and its all-encompassing oil and gas strategy, two sectors in which Qatar and Russia
dominate market share.
In addition, Russia and Qatar's global strategy also brings together and includes partners
like Turkey (a future
energy hub connecting east and west as well as north and south) and Venezuela. In this
sense, the meeting between
Maduro and Erdogan seems to be a prelude to further reorganization of OPEC and its members.
It's crazy to think of all of the natural gas burned off by the world's oil producers. I
think of those oil platforms that have a huge burning flame on top. This is the kind of ****
that reminds us that the people who control the world care not for the people who live here.
Can't make a buck from it? ******* burn it.
Consider though that those oil producers are only in it for the money; it's not an
avocation with them. I imagine if there was a way to salvage the natural gas, it would be
done. Mo Muny would dictate it.
This could be the beggining of a level 5 popcorn event. It started a year or two ago and
when I saw it everybody laughed. Well look at it now. Saudi wants to defect. They have had
nothing but problems with the House of Sodomy for quite some time now.
If this leads to war in the Persian Gulf Edgar Cayce called it. The empire will burn that
place down before losing it. They may fail but something is going to go down.
Are the Sauds still full heartedly pushing the Zionist mission in Yemen?
As an Iranian-American I have been waiting for something big to happen with Iran. I am
really tired of waiting. I hope that Iran will grow some balls and fight the coalition. I
know that there are 80 million lives in danger, including my mom going back to Iran for a
short term. But this has been like a long torture and unending nightmare.
There is no multipolarity yet, but a bipolar hype of the world dominance run by US and its
vassals. An awakening will be harsh, when these realize their emperor goes naked.
Update 5: Cohen has been sentenced to 36 months in prison for his crimes, far below the
guideline of 51 - 63 months laid out by New York prosecutors. The Judge noted that the
guidelines aren't binding and had the ability to issue a lesser sentence.
Cohen has also been hit with forfeiture of $500,000, restitution of $1.4 million and a fine
of $50,000. He will be allowed to voluntarily surrender on March 6 .
Update 4: Judge Pauley has responded following Cohen's statement, saying "Mr. Cohen's crimes
implicate a far more insidious crime to our democratic institutions especially in view of his
subsequent plea to making false statements to Congress," adding that Cohen's crimes warrant
"specific deterrence."
Update 3: Cohen has spoken, telling the Judge: "Recently the president tweeted a statement
calling me weak and it was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was
because time and time again i felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds." Judge William
Pauley, meanwhile, noted that Cohen pleaded guilty to a " veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent
conduct ," which was motivated by "personal greed and ambition."
Update 2: Petrillo, Cohen's attorney, continues to reference Cohen's desire to cooperate
further with prosecutors to answer future questions - however Manhattan prosecutors don't
appear to care, according to Bloomberg banking reporter Shahien Nasiripour. In a memo last week
to the court, they said that Cohen's promise to cooperate further is worthless - especially
since there would be nothing requiring him to do so once he's already been sentenced.
Meanwhile, Jeannie Rhee - an attorney with Robert Mueller's office, told the court that
while Cohen lied to the special counsel's team during his first interview in July, he has been
truthful since.
Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Nicolas Roos, however, says that any reduction in sentence
"should be modest."
Roos added that Cohen "has eroded faith in the electoral process and compromised the rule of
law," and that he engaged in " a pattern of deception of brazenness and greed ."
Update: Cohen's attorney, Guy Petrillo, says Cohen thought that President Trump would shut
down the Mueller probe, and has argued that his client's cooperation warrants a lenient
sentence.
"Mr. Cohen's cooperation promotes respect for law and the courage of the individual to stand
up to power and influence," said Petrillo.
"His decision was an importantly different decision from the usual decision to cooperate,"
added Petrillo. "He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our
country. He did so not knowing what the result would be, not knowing how the politics would
play out and not even knowing that the special counsel's office would survive."
"The special counsel's investigation is of the utmost national significance... Not seen
since 40 plus years ago in the days of Watergate." -Guy Petrillo
Petrillo has asked the judge to "consider Cohen's "life of good works" in his decision,
adding that Cohen's cooperation stands in "profound contrast" to others who havern't cooperated
and who "have continued to double-deal while pretending to cooperate."
***
Michael Cohen, former longtime personal lawyer for President Trump, has shown up to a New
York courthouse where he will be sentenced on Wednesday for a laundry list of crimes - some of
which implicate Trump in possible wrongdoing, but most of which have nothing to do with the
president. Judge William Pauley, meanwhile, noted that Cohen pleaded guilty to a " veritable
smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct ," which was motivated by "personal greed and ambition."
Update 2: Petrillo, Cohen's attorney, continues to reference Cohen's desire to cooperate
further with prosecutors to answer future questions - however Manhattan prosecutors don't
appear to care, according to Bloomberg banking reporter Shahien Nasiripour. In a memo last week
to the court, they said that Cohen's promise to cooperate further is worthless - especially
since there would be nothing requiring him to do so once he's already been sentenced.
Meanwhile, Jeannie Rhee - an attorney with Robert Mueller's office, told the court that
while Cohen lied to the special counsel's team during his first interview in July, he has been
truthful since.
Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Nicolas Roos, however, says that any reduction in sentence
"should be modest."
Roos added that Cohen "has eroded faith in the electoral process and compromised the rule of
law," and that he engaged in " a pattern of deception of brazenness and greed ."
Update: Cohen's attorney, Guy Petrillo, says Cohen thought that President Trump would shut
down the Mueller probe, and has argued that his client's cooperation warrants a lenient
sentence.
"Mr. Cohen's cooperation promotes respect for law and the courage of the individual to stand
up to power and influence," said Petrillo.
"His decision was an importantly different decision from the usual decision to cooperate,"
added Petrillo. "He came forward to offer evidence against the most powerful person in our
country. He did so not knowing what the result would be, not knowing how the politics would
play out and not even knowing that the special counsel's office would survive."
"The special counsel's investigation is of the utmost national significance... Not seen
since 40 plus years ago in the days of Watergate." -Guy Petrillo
Petrillo has asked the judge to "consider Cohen's "life of good works" in his decision,
adding that Cohen's cooperation stands in "profound contrast" to others who havern't cooperated
and who "have continued to double-deal while pretending to cooperate."
***
Michael Cohen, former longtime personal lawyer for President Trump, has shown up to a
New York courthouse where he will be sentenced on Wednesday for a laundry list of crimes - some
of which implicate Trump in possible wrongdoing, but most of which have nothing to do with the
president.
Cohen, who went from claiming he would "take a bullet" for President Trump to stabbing his
former boss in the back, faces sentencing on nine federal charges , including campaign finance
violations based on a hush-money scheme to pay off two women who claimed to have had affairs
with Trump, as well as making false statements to special counsel Robert Mueller.
Prosecutors alleged that Cohen paid off two women at the "direction" of "Individual-1,"
who is widely assumed to be Trump.
Prosecutors said the payments amounted to illegal campaign contribution s because they
were made with the intent to prevent damaging information from surfacing during the 2016
presidential election, which Cohen pleaded guilty to in August.
Legal experts view the filing as an ominous sign for Trump , suggesting prosecutors have
evidence beyond Cohen's public admissions implicating the president in the payoff scheme.
While the Justice Department has said previously that a sitting president cannot be indicted,
that would not stop prosecutors from bringing charges against Trump once he leaves office. -
The Hill
New York prosecutors have recommended that Judge William Pauley impose "a substantial term
of imprisonment" on Cohen - which may be around five years. Cohen's attorneys, meanwhile, have
asked Pauley for a sentence which avoids prison time - citing his cooperation with the Mueller
probe and other investigations which began prior to his guilty plea last summer. Mueller said
that Cohen had "gone to significant lengths to assist the Special Counsel's investigation,"
having met with Mueller's team seven times where he reportedly provided information useful to
the Russia investigation. The special counsel's office has recommended that any sentence Cohen
receives for lying to Congress should run concurrently with the charges brought by the
Manhattan federal prosecutors.
Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty in August to tax evasion,
lying to banks and violating campaign finance laws - charges filed by the US Attorney's Office
for the Southern District of New York.
The campaign finance charges relate to his facilitation of two hush-money payments to porn
star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal shortly before the 2016 presidential
election. Both women say they had sex with Trump in the prior decade. The White House has
denied Trump had sex with either woman.
Prosecutors say the payments were made "in coordination with and at the direction of"
Trump, who is called "Individual-1" in a sentencing recommendation filed last week.
Cohen's crimes were intended "to influence the election from the shadows," prosecutors
wrote. -
CNBC
In November Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Organization's
ill-fated plans to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow - a project floated by Cohen and longtime
FBI asset who had been in Trump's orbit for years, Felix Sater. Cohen claims he understated
Trump's knowledge of the project. He also lied to Congress when he said that the Moscow project
talks ended in early 2016, when in fact he and the Trump Organization had continued to pursue
it as late as June 2016.
On Wednesday, Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Michael Avenatti - who is in attendance at Cohen's
sentencing, said in a Wednesday tweet that Cohen "thought we would just go away and he/Trump
would get away with it. He thought he was smart and tough. He was neither. Today will prove
that in spades."
Trump's paying around $280,000 in " hush money " .. out of his own pocket is
dwarfed into virtual insignificance by Obama's Presidential Campaign in 2008..,.
BEING FOUND "GUILTY" OF ILLEGAL USE OF 2 MILLION IN CAMPAIGN MONEY
barely reported by the media that saw THE OBAMA DOJ decide not to prosecute Obama and
instead quietly dispose of this
"REAL CRIME" with a fine of 375 thousand dollars by the US FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISION.
Welcome to the two tier Justice System we all live under..
One for the Deeeep State Globalist Elite and .. the other...
"... Neoliberalism's presence in higher education is making matters worse for students and the student debt crisis, not better. ..."
"... Cannan and Shumar (2008) focus their attention on resisting, transforming, and dismantling the neoliberal paradigm in higher education. They ask how can market-based reform serve as the solution to the problem neoliberal practices and policies have engineered? ..."
"... What got us to where we are (escalating tuition costs, declining state monies, and increasing neoliberal influence in higher education) cannot get us out of the SI.4 trillion problem. And yet this metaphor may, in fact, be more apropos than most of us on the right, left, or center are as yet seeing because we mistakenly assume the market we have is the only or best one possible. ..."
"... We only have to realize that the emperor has no clothes and reveal this reality. ..."
"... Indeed, the approach our money-dependent and money-driven legislators and policymakers have employed has been neoliberal in form and function, and it will continue to be so unless we help them to see the light or get out of the way. This book focuses on the $1.4+ trillion student debt crisis in the United States. It doesn't share hard and fast solutions per se. ..."
"... In 2011-2012, 50% of bachelor's degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more than $40,000 and about 28% of associate degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more than $30,000 (College Board, 2015a). ..."
Despite tthe fact that necoliberalism brings poor economic growth, inadequate availability
of jobs and career opportunities, and the concentration of economic and social rewards in the
hands of a privileged upper class resistance to it, espcially at universities, remain weak to
non-existant.
The first sign of high levels of dissatisfaction with neoliberalism was the election of
Trump (who, of course, betrayed all his elections promises, much like Obma before him). As a
result, the legitimation of neoliberalism based on references to the efficient
and effective functioning of the market (ideological legitimation) is
exhausted while wealth redistribution practices (material legitimation) are
not practiced and, in fact, considered unacceptable.
Despite these problems, resistance to neoliberalism remains weak.
Strategics and actions of opposition have been shifted from the sphere of
labor to that of the market creating a situation in which the idea of the
superiority and desirability of the market is shared by dominant and
oppositional groups alike. Even emancipatory movements such as women,
race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation have espoused individualistic,
competition-centered, and meritocratic views typical of ncolibcral dis-
courses. Moreover, corporate forces have colonized spaces and discourses
that have traditionally been employed by oppositional groups and move-
ments. However, as systemic instability' continues and capital accumulation
needs to be achieved, change is necessary. Given the weakness of opposi-
tion, this change is led by corporate forces that will continue to further
their interests but will also attempt to mitigate socio-economic contra-
dictions. The unavailability of ideological mechanisms to legitimize
ncolibcral arrangements will motivate dominant social actors to make
marginal concessions (material legitimation) to subordinate groups. These
changes, however, will not alter the corporate co-optation and distortion of
discourses that historically defined left-leaning opposition. As contradic-
tions continue, however, their unsustainability will represent a real, albeit
difficult, possibility for anti-neoliberal aggregation and substantive change.
Connolly (2016) reported that a poll shows that some graduated student loan borrowers
would willingly go to extremes to pay off outstanding student debt. Those extremes include
experiencing physical pain and suffering and even a reduced lifespan. For instance, 35% of
those polled would take one year off life expectancy and 6.5% would willingly cut off their
pinky finger if it meant ridding themselves of the student loan debt they currently held.
Neoliberalism's presence in higher education is making matters worse for students and
the student debt crisis, not better. In their book Structure and Agency in the
Neoliberal University, Cannan and Shumar (2008) focus their attention on resisting,
transforming, and dismantling the neoliberal paradigm in higher education. They ask how can
market-based reform serve as the solution to the problem neoliberal practices and policies
have engineered?
It is like an individual who loses his keys at night and who decides to look only beneath
the street light. This may be convenient because there is light, but it might not be where
the keys are located. This metaphorical example could relate to the student debt crisis.
What got us to where we are (escalating tuition costs, declining state monies, and
increasing neoliberal influence in higher education) cannot get us out of the SI.4 trillion
problem. And yet this metaphor may, in fact, be more apropos than most of us on the right,
left, or center are as yet seeing because we mistakenly assume the market we have is the only
or best one possible.
As Lucille (this volume) strives to expose, the systemic cause of our problem is "hidden
in plain sight," right there in the street light for all who look carefully enough to see.
We only have to realize that the emperor has no clothes and reveal this reality. If
and when a critical mass of us do, systemic change in our monetary exchange relations can
and, we hope, will become our funnel toward a sustainable and socially, economically, and
ecologically just future where public education and democracy can finally become realities
rather than merely ideals.
Indeed, the approach our money-dependent and money-driven legislators and policymakers
have employed has been neoliberal in form and function, and it will continue to be so unless
we help them to see the light or get out of the way. This book focuses on the $1.4+ trillion
student debt crisis in the United States. It doesn't share hard and fast solutions per
se. Rather, it addresses real questions (and their real consequences). Are collegians
overestimating the economic value of going to college?
What are we, they, and our so-called elected leaders failing or refusing to sec and why?
This critically minded, soul-searching volume shares territory with, yet pushes beyond, that
of Akers and Chingos (2016), Baum (2016), Goldrick-Rab (2016), Graebcr (2011), and Johannscn
(2016) in ways that we trust those critically minded authors -- and others concerned with our
mess of debts, public and private, and unfulfilled human potential -- will find enlightening
and even ground-breaking.
... ... ...
In the meantime, college costs have significantly increased over the past fifty years. The
average cost of tuition and fees (excluding room and board) for public four-year institutions
for a full year has increased from 52,387 (in 2015 dollars) for the 1975-1976 academic year,
to 59,410 for 2015-2016. The tuition for public two-year colleges averaged $1,079 in
1975-1976 (in 2015 dollars) and increased to $3,435 for 2015-2016. At private non-profit
four-year institutions, the average 1975-1976 cost of tuition and fees (excluding room and
board) was $10,088 (in 2015 dollars), which increased to $32,405 for 2015-2016 (College
Board, 2015b).
The purchasing power of Pell Grants has decreased. In fact, the maximum Pell Grants
coverage of public four-year tuition and fees decreased from 83% in 1995-1996 to 61% in
2015-2016. The maximum Pell Grants coverage of private non-profit four-year tuition and fees
decreased from 19% in 1995-1996 to 18% in 2015-2016 (College Board, 2015a).
... ... ....
... In 2013-2014, 61% of bachelor's degree recipients from public and private non-profit
four-year institutions graduated with an average debt of $16,300 per graduate. In
2011-2012, 50% of bachelor's degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more
than $40,000 and about 28% of associate degree recipients from for-profit institutions
borrowed more than $30,000 (College Board, 2015a).
Rising student debt has become a key issue of higher education finance among many
policymakers and researchers. Recently, the government has implemented a series of measures
to address student debt. In 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act
(2005) was passed, which barred the discharge of all student loans through bankruptcy for
most borrowers (Collinge, 2009). This was the final nail in the bankruptcy coffin, which had
begun in 1976 with a five-year ban on student loan debt (SLD) bankruptcy and was extended to
seven years in 1990. Then in 1998, it became a permanent ban for all who could not clear a
relatively high bar of undue hardship (Best 6c Best, 2014).
By 2006, Sallie Mae had become the nation's largest private student loan lender, reporting
loan holdings of $123 billion. Its fee income collected from defaulted loans grew from $280
million in 2000 to $920 million in 2005 (Collinge, 2009). In 2007, in response to growing
student default rates, the College Cost Reduction Act was passed to provide loan forgiveness
for student loan borrowers who work full-time in a public service job. The Federal Direct
Loan will be forgiven after 120 payments were made. This Act also provided other benefits for
students to pay for their postsecondary education, such as lowering interest rates of GSL,
increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grant (though, as noted above, not sufficiently to meet
rising tuition rates), as well as reducing guarantor collection fees (Collinge, 2009).
In 2008, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (2008) was passed to increase transparency
and accountability. This Act required institutions that are participating in federal
financial aid programs to post a college price calculator on their websites in order to
provide better college cost information for students and families (U.S. Department of
Education |U.S. DoE|, 2015a). Due to the recession of 2008, the American Opportunity Tax
Credit of 2009 (AOTC) was passed to expand the Hope Tax Credit program, in which the amount
of tax credit increased to 100% for the first $2,000 of qualified educational expenses and
was reduced to 25% of the second $2,000 in college expenses. The total credit cap increased
from $1,500 to $2,500 per student. As a result, the federal spending on education tax
benefits had a large increase since then (Crandall-Hollick, 2014), benefits that, again, are
reaped only by those who file income taxes.
"... Neoliberalism's presence in higher education is making matters worse for students and the student debt crisis, not better. ..."
"... Cannan and Shumar (2008) focus their attention on resisting, transforming, and dismantling the neoliberal paradigm in higher education. They ask how can market-based reform serve as the solution to the problem neoliberal practices and policies have engineered? ..."
"... What got us to where we are (escalating tuition costs, declining state monies, and increasing neoliberal influence in higher education) cannot get us out of the SI.4 trillion problem. And yet this metaphor may, in fact, be more apropos than most of us on the right, left, or center are as yet seeing because we mistakenly assume the market we have is the only or best one possible. ..."
"... We only have to realize that the emperor has no clothes and reveal this reality. ..."
"... Indeed, the approach our money-dependent and money-driven legislators and policymakers have employed has been neoliberal in form and function, and it will continue to be so unless we help them to see the light or get out of the way. This book focuses on the $1.4+ trillion student debt crisis in the United States. It doesn't share hard and fast solutions per se. ..."
"... In 2011-2012, 50% of bachelor's degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more than $40,000 and about 28% of associate degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more than $30,000 (College Board, 2015a). ..."
Despite tthe fact that necoliberalism brings poor economic growth, inadequate availability
of jobs and career opportunities, and the concentration of economic and social rewards in the
hands of a privileged upper class resistance to it, espcially at universities, remain weak to
non-existant.
The first sign of high levels of dissatisfaction with neoliberalism was the election of
Trump (who, of course, betrayed all his elections promises, much like Obma before him). As a
result, the legitimation of neoliberalism based on references to the efficient
and effective functioning of the market (ideological legitimation) is
exhausted while wealth redistribution practices (material legitimation) are
not practiced and, in fact, considered unacceptable.
Despite these problems, resistance to neoliberalism remains weak.
Strategics and actions of opposition have been shifted from the sphere of
labor to that of the market creating a situation in which the idea of the
superiority and desirability of the market is shared by dominant and
oppositional groups alike. Even emancipatory movements such as women,
race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation have espoused individualistic,
competition-centered, and meritocratic views typical of ncolibcral dis-
courses. Moreover, corporate forces have colonized spaces and discourses
that have traditionally been employed by oppositional groups and move-
ments. However, as systemic instability' continues and capital accumulation
needs to be achieved, change is necessary. Given the weakness of opposi-
tion, this change is led by corporate forces that will continue to further
their interests but will also attempt to mitigate socio-economic contra-
dictions. The unavailability of ideological mechanisms to legitimize
ncolibcral arrangements will motivate dominant social actors to make
marginal concessions (material legitimation) to subordinate groups. These
changes, however, will not alter the corporate co-optation and distortion of
discourses that historically defined left-leaning opposition. As contradic-
tions continue, however, their unsustainability will represent a real, albeit
difficult, possibility for anti-neoliberal aggregation and substantive change.
Connolly (2016) reported that a poll shows that some graduated student loan borrowers
would willingly go to extremes to pay off outstanding student debt. Those extremes include
experiencing physical pain and suffering and even a reduced lifespan. For instance, 35% of
those polled would take one year off life expectancy and 6.5% would willingly cut off their
pinky finger if it meant ridding themselves of the student loan debt they currently held.
Neoliberalism's presence in higher education is making matters worse for students and
the student debt crisis, not better. In their book Structure and Agency in the
Neoliberal University, Cannan and Shumar (2008) focus their attention on resisting,
transforming, and dismantling the neoliberal paradigm in higher education. They ask how can
market-based reform serve as the solution to the problem neoliberal practices and policies
have engineered?
It is like an individual who loses his keys at night and who decides to look only beneath
the street light. This may be convenient because there is light, but it might not be where
the keys are located. This metaphorical example could relate to the student debt crisis.
What got us to where we are (escalating tuition costs, declining state monies, and
increasing neoliberal influence in higher education) cannot get us out of the SI.4 trillion
problem. And yet this metaphor may, in fact, be more apropos than most of us on the right,
left, or center are as yet seeing because we mistakenly assume the market we have is the only
or best one possible.
As Lucille (this volume) strives to expose, the systemic cause of our problem is "hidden
in plain sight," right there in the street light for all who look carefully enough to see.
We only have to realize that the emperor has no clothes and reveal this reality. If
and when a critical mass of us do, systemic change in our monetary exchange relations can
and, we hope, will become our funnel toward a sustainable and socially, economically, and
ecologically just future where public education and democracy can finally become realities
rather than merely ideals.
Indeed, the approach our money-dependent and money-driven legislators and policymakers
have employed has been neoliberal in form and function, and it will continue to be so unless
we help them to see the light or get out of the way. This book focuses on the $1.4+ trillion
student debt crisis in the United States. It doesn't share hard and fast solutions per
se. Rather, it addresses real questions (and their real consequences). Are collegians
overestimating the economic value of going to college?
What are we, they, and our so-called elected leaders failing or refusing to sec and why?
This critically minded, soul-searching volume shares territory with, yet pushes beyond, that
of Akers and Chingos (2016), Baum (2016), Goldrick-Rab (2016), Graebcr (2011), and Johannscn
(2016) in ways that we trust those critically minded authors -- and others concerned with our
mess of debts, public and private, and unfulfilled human potential -- will find enlightening
and even ground-breaking.
... ... ...
In the meantime, college costs have significantly increased over the past fifty years. The
average cost of tuition and fees (excluding room and board) for public four-year institutions
for a full year has increased from 52,387 (in 2015 dollars) for the 1975-1976 academic year,
to 59,410 for 2015-2016. The tuition for public two-year colleges averaged $1,079 in
1975-1976 (in 2015 dollars) and increased to $3,435 for 2015-2016. At private non-profit
four-year institutions, the average 1975-1976 cost of tuition and fees (excluding room and
board) was $10,088 (in 2015 dollars), which increased to $32,405 for 2015-2016 (College
Board, 2015b).
The purchasing power of Pell Grants has decreased. In fact, the maximum Pell Grants
coverage of public four-year tuition and fees decreased from 83% in 1995-1996 to 61% in
2015-2016. The maximum Pell Grants coverage of private non-profit four-year tuition and fees
decreased from 19% in 1995-1996 to 18% in 2015-2016 (College Board, 2015a).
... ... ....
... In 2013-2014, 61% of bachelor's degree recipients from public and private non-profit
four-year institutions graduated with an average debt of $16,300 per graduate. In
2011-2012, 50% of bachelor's degree recipients from for-profit institutions borrowed more
than $40,000 and about 28% of associate degree recipients from for-profit institutions
borrowed more than $30,000 (College Board, 2015a).
Rising student debt has become a key issue of higher education finance among many
policymakers and researchers. Recently, the government has implemented a series of measures
to address student debt. In 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act
(2005) was passed, which barred the discharge of all student loans through bankruptcy for
most borrowers (Collinge, 2009). This was the final nail in the bankruptcy coffin, which had
begun in 1976 with a five-year ban on student loan debt (SLD) bankruptcy and was extended to
seven years in 1990. Then in 1998, it became a permanent ban for all who could not clear a
relatively high bar of undue hardship (Best 6c Best, 2014).
By 2006, Sallie Mae had become the nation's largest private student loan lender, reporting
loan holdings of $123 billion. Its fee income collected from defaulted loans grew from $280
million in 2000 to $920 million in 2005 (Collinge, 2009). In 2007, in response to growing
student default rates, the College Cost Reduction Act was passed to provide loan forgiveness
for student loan borrowers who work full-time in a public service job. The Federal Direct
Loan will be forgiven after 120 payments were made. This Act also provided other benefits for
students to pay for their postsecondary education, such as lowering interest rates of GSL,
increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grant (though, as noted above, not sufficiently to meet
rising tuition rates), as well as reducing guarantor collection fees (Collinge, 2009).
In 2008, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (2008) was passed to increase transparency
and accountability. This Act required institutions that are participating in federal
financial aid programs to post a college price calculator on their websites in order to
provide better college cost information for students and families (U.S. Department of
Education |U.S. DoE|, 2015a). Due to the recession of 2008, the American Opportunity Tax
Credit of 2009 (AOTC) was passed to expand the Hope Tax Credit program, in which the amount
of tax credit increased to 100% for the first $2,000 of qualified educational expenses and
was reduced to 25% of the second $2,000 in college expenses. The total credit cap increased
from $1,500 to $2,500 per student. As a result, the federal spending on education tax
benefits had a large increase since then (Crandall-Hollick, 2014), benefits that, again, are
reaped only by those who file income taxes.
Creation of docility is what neoliberal education is about. Too specialized slots, as if people can't learn something new. Look
at requirements for the jobs at monster or elsewhere: they are so specific that only people with previous exactly same job expertise
can apply. Especially oputragious are requernets posted by requetng firm. There is something really Orvallian in them. That puts people
into medieval "slots" from which it is difficult to escape.
I saw recently the following requirements for a sysadmin job: "Working knowledge of: Perl, JavaScript, PowerShell, BASH Script,
XML, NodeJS, Python, Git, Cloud Technologies: ( AWS, Azure, GCP), Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, SQL Server, Structured Query
Language (SQL), HTML, Windows OS, RedHat(Linux), SaltStack, Some experience in Application Quality Testing."
When I see such job posting i think that this is just a covert for H1B hire: there is no such person on the planet
who has "working knowledge" of all those (mostly pretty complex) technologies. It is clearly designed to block potential
candidates from applying.
Neoliberalism looks like a cancer for the society... Unable to provide meaningful employment for people. Or at least look surprisingly close to one. Malignant growth.
Add one -- a BIG ONE–to your list: The utter destruction of the K-12 classroom learning environment: students spend the vast
majority of their time trying to surreptitiously–or blatantly–use their cellphones in class; and if not actually using them, they
are preoccupied with the thought of using them. It has been going on for almost a decade now, and we will start to see the results
in that we will have a population where nobody can do anything that requires focus; it will be as if the entire upcoming population
of college students has ADHD.
Well Lee, you have a clue; but fail the really big picture regarding the abject failure of western education (which is a misnomer).
John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education, lays out the sad fact of "western education"; which has
nothing to do with education; but rather, an indoctrination for inclusion in society as a passive participant.
Docility is paramount in members of U.S. society so as to maintain the status quo; working according to plan, near as I can tell
File system Administration (VERTIAS File system/ VERITAS Cluster FS/ext3/ext4)
Troubleshooting the OS performance related issues
Providing the production support, maintenance, administration & Implementation
Upgrading the System/HBA ´s firmware
Nice To Have
Oracle Virtualization Manager (LDOM)/L2 Linux Administration Skills
Administration of Solaris Zones/Containers
EMC power path software Administration
Administering the VERITAS Cluster
AIX Server Administration
Knowledge / work experience in IBM PowerHA / HMC / LPAR and VIOs
Mandatory Functional Skills
IT-IS Linux Administrator with Puppet Skillset
Veritas Volume Manager, Veritas Cluster
Solaris Administration (L2/L3), Solaris Zones/Containers
AIX Administration with PowerHA knowledge
Total Experience Required
5 to 7 Plus years of experience in Linux Administration with indepth knowledge in Puppet
Unix Midrange Engineer at ACE Insured, Whitehouse Station, NJPosition Summary: rd level support of Chubb's UNIX,
storage, and backup and recovery systems.
Creation of docility is what neoliberal education is about. Too specialized slots, as if people can't learn something new. Look
at requirements for the jobs at monster or elsewhere: they are so specific that only people with previous exactly same job expertise
can apply. Especially oputragious are requernets posted by requetng firm. There is something really Orvallian in them. That puts people
into medieval "slots" from which it is difficult to escape.
I saw recently the following requirements for a sysadmin job: "Working knowledge of: Perl, JavaScript, PowerShell, BASH Script,
XML, NodeJS, Python, Git, Cloud Technologies: ( AWS, Azure, GCP), Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, SQL Server, Structured Query
Language (SQL), HTML, Windows OS, RedHat(Linux), SaltStack, Some experience in Application Quality Testing."
When I see such job posting i think that this is just a covert for H1B hire: there is no such person on the planet
who has "working knowledge" of all those (mostly pretty complex) technologies. It is clearly designed to block potential
candidates from applying.
Neoliberalism looks like a cancer for the society... Unable to provide meaningful employment for people. Or at least look surprisingly close to one. Malignant growth.
Add one -- a BIG ONE–to your list: The utter destruction of the K-12 classroom learning environment: students spend the vast
majority of their time trying to surreptitiously–or blatantly–use their cellphones in class; and if not actually using them, they
are preoccupied with the thought of using them. It has been going on for almost a decade now, and we will start to see the results
in that we will have a population where nobody can do anything that requires focus; it will be as if the entire upcoming population
of college students has ADHD.
Well Lee, you have a clue; but fail the really big picture regarding the abject failure of western education (which is a misnomer).
John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education, lays out the sad fact of "western education"; which has
nothing to do with education; but rather, an indoctrination for inclusion in society as a passive participant.
Docility is paramount in members of U.S. society so as to maintain the status quo; working according to plan, near as I can tell
File system Administration (VERTIAS File system/ VERITAS Cluster FS/ext3/ext4)
Troubleshooting the OS performance related issues
Providing the production support, maintenance, administration & Implementation
Upgrading the System/HBA ´s firmware
Nice To Have
Oracle Virtualization Manager (LDOM)/L2 Linux Administration Skills
Administration of Solaris Zones/Containers
EMC power path software Administration
Administering the VERITAS Cluster
AIX Server Administration
Knowledge / work experience in IBM PowerHA / HMC / LPAR and VIOs
Mandatory Functional Skills
IT-IS Linux Administrator with Puppet Skillset
Veritas Volume Manager, Veritas Cluster
Solaris Administration (L2/L3), Solaris Zones/Containers
AIX Administration with PowerHA knowledge
Total Experience Required
5 to 7 Plus years of experience in Linux Administration with indepth knowledge in Puppet
Unix Midrange Engineer at ACE Insured, Whitehouse Station, NJPosition Summary: rd level support of Chubb's UNIX,
storage, and backup and recovery systems.
"... Since February 2012, when the price declines associated with the last financial crisis ended, prices for existing homes in the United States have been rising steadily and enormously. According to the S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index (which I helped to create) as of September, the prices were 53 percent higher than they were at the bottom of the market in 2012. ..."
We are, once again, experiencing one of the greatest housing booms in United
States history.
How long this will last and where it is heading next are impossible to know now.
But it is time to take notice: My data shows that this is the United States' third
biggest housing boom in the modern era.
Since February 2012, when the price declines associated with the last
financial crisis ended, prices for existing homes in the United States have been rising steadily and enormously.
According to the
S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index
(which I helped to create) as of September, the prices
were 53 percent higher than they were at the bottom of the market in 2012.
That means, on average, a house that sold for, say, $200,000 in 2012 would bring
over $300,000 in September.
Even after factoring in Consumer Price Index inflation, real existing home prices
were up almost 40 percent during that period. That is a substantial increase in less than seven years.
In fact, based on
my data
, it amounts to the third strongest national boom in real terms since the Consumer Price Index began in
1913, behind only the explosive run-up in prices that led to the great financial crisis of a decade ago, and one
connected with World War II and the great postwar Baby Boom.
The No. 1 boom occurred from February 1997 to October 2006, when real prices of
existing United States homes rose 74 percent. This was a period of intense speculative enthusiasm -- for houses and
for financial instruments based on mortgages as investments -- and it was also a time of great regulatory
complacency. The term "flipping houses" became popular then. People exploited the boom by buying homes and selling
them only months later at a huge profit.
That boom ended disastrously. Soaring valuations collapsed with a 35 percent drop
in real prices for existing homes, ushering in the financial crisis that enveloped the world in 2008 and 2009.
The
second greatest boom
, from 1942 to 1947, had more benign consequences. Over this five-year interval, real
prices of existing homes rose 60 percent.
Today, signs of weakness in the housing market are being taken by some as a signal that the prices of single-family homes may
fall soon, as they did sharply after 2006. The leading indicators, which include building permits and sales of both existing and new
homes, have all been declining in recent months.
But with few examples of extreme booms, we cannot be sure what such indicators mean for the current market.
Low interest rates - imposed by the Federal Reserve and other central banks in reaction to the financial crisis - are the most
popular culprit in the current boom. There is some apparent merit to this view, since these three biggest nationwide housing booms
all included very low interest rates.
But the market reaction to interest rates is hardly immediate or predictable. The housing market does not react as directly as you
might expect to interest rate movements. Over the nearly seven years of the current boom, from February 2012 to the present, all
major domestic interest rates have increased, not decreased. So, while interest rates have been low, they have moved the wrong way,
yet the boom has continued.
Another explanation is simple economic growth. But, as a matter of history, prices of existing homes - as opposed to the supply of
newly built homes - have generally not responded to economic growth. There was only a 20 percent increase in real prices of existing
homes in the 50 years from 1950 to 2000 despite a sixfold increase in real G.D.P.
The simplest narrative being given for the current boom is just that the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the so-called Great
Recession are over and home prices are returning to normal.
But that explanation does not cut it either. In September they were 11 percent higher than at the 2006 peak in nominal terms, and
almost as high in real terms. This is not a return to normal, but a market that appears to be rising to a record.
It is difficult to assess the contribution of President Trump to the current boom.
It is certainly less obvious than the role of President George W. Bush in the 1997-2006 boom. Mr. Bush extolled the benefits of "the
ownership society" and in 2003 he signed the American Dream Downpayment Act, which subsidized home purchases. In his 2004
re-election bid he boldly asserted: "We want more people owning their own home." This seems to have contributed to an atmosphere of
high expectations for home price increases.
The Trump administration's attitude toward housing is less clear. President Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again" has overtones
of the "American dream." But provisions of his Tax Reform and Jobs Act of 2017 were unfriendly to homeowners.
Even without major further interest rate increases, there would seem to be a limit on how much the prices of existing homes can
increase. After all, people must struggle to cover a range of living expenses, and builders are supplying fresh new offerings to
compete with the existing houses on the market.
Perhaps the home price increases are now a self-fulfilling prophesy. As John Maynard Keynes argued in his 1936 "General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money," people seem to have a "simple faith in the conventional basis of valuation."
If the conventional basis is now that home prices are going up 5 percent a year, then sellers, who would otherwise have no idea what
to ask for their houses, will just put a price based on this convention. And likewise buyers will not feel they are paying too much
if they accept the convention. In the United States, we may believe that the process is all part of the "American dream."
"... The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity. Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality, led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash ..."
"... The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008 financial crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle . The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world. ..."
"... That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant or unreal. ..."
"... homo economicus ..."
"... A version of this article first appeared in Boston Review ..."
"... Main illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare ..."
As even its harshest critics concede, neoliberalism is hard to pin down. In broad terms, it denotes a preference for markets over
government, economic incentives over cultural norms, and private entrepreneurship over collective action. It has been used to describe
a wide range of phenomena – from Augusto Pinochet to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, from the Clinton Democrats and the UK's
New Labour to the economic opening in China and the reform of the welfare state in Sweden.
The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity.
Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality,
led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash .
We live in the age of neoliberalism, apparently. But who are neoliberalism's adherents and disseminators – the neoliberals themselves?
Oddly, you have to go back a long time to find anyone explicitly embracing neoliberalism. In 1982, Charles Peters, the longtime editor
of the political magazine Washington Monthly, published an essay titled
A Neo-Liberal's Manifesto . It makes for interesting reading 35 years later, since the neoliberalism it describes bears little
resemblance to today's target of derision. The politicians Peters names as exemplifying the movement are not the likes of Thatcher
and Reagan, but rather liberals – in the US sense of the word – who have become disillusioned with unions and big government and
dropped their prejudices against markets and the military.
The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of
which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008
financial
crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle
. The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade
agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world.
That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant
or unreal. Who can deny that the world has experienced a decisive shift toward markets from the 1980s on? Or that centre-left
politicians – Democrats in the US, socialists and social democrats in Europe – enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds
of Thatcherism and Reaganism, such as deregulation, privatisation, financial liberalisation and individual enterprise? Much of our
contemporary policy discussion remains infused with principles supposedly grounded in the concept of
homo economicus
, the perfectly rational human being, found in many economic theories, who always pursues his own self-interest.
But the looseness of the term neoliberalism also means that criticism of it often misses the mark. There is nothing wrong with
markets, private entrepreneurship or incentives – when deployed appropriately. Their creative use lies behind the most significant
economic achievements of our time. As we heap scorn on neoliberalism, we risk throwing out some of neoliberalism's useful ideas.
The real trouble is that mainstream economics shades too easily into ideology, constraining the choices that we appear to have
and providing cookie-cutter solutions. A proper understanding of the economics that lie behind neoliberalism would allow us to identify
– and to reject – ideology when it masquerades as economic science. Most importantly, it would help us to develop the institutional
imagination we badly need to redesign capitalism for the 21st century.
N eoliberalism is typically understood as being based on key tenets of mainstream economic science. To see those tenets without
the ideology, consider this thought experiment. A well-known and highly regarded economist lands in a country he has never visited
and knows nothing about. He is brought to a meeting with the country's leading policymakers. "Our country is in trouble," they tell
him. "The economy is stagnant, investment is low, and there is no growth in sight." They turn to him expectantly: "Please tell us
what we should do to make our economy grow."
The economist pleads ignorance and explains that he knows too little about the country to make any recommendations. He would need
to study the history of the economy, to analyse the statistics, and to travel around the country before he could say anything.
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But his hosts are insistent. "We understand your reticence, and we wish you had the time for all that," they tell him. "But isn't
economics a science, and aren't you one of its most distinguished practitioners? Even though you do not know much about our economy,
surely there are some general theories and prescriptions you can share with us to guide our economic policies and reforms."
The economist is now in a bind. He does not want to emulate those economic gurus he has long criticised for peddling their favourite
policy advice. But he feels challenged by the question. Are there universal truths in economics? Can he say anything valid or useful?
So he begins. The efficiency with which an economy's resources are allocated is a critical determinant of the economy's performance,
he says. Efficiency, in turn, requires aligning the incentives of households and businesses with social costs and benefits. The incentives
faced by entrepreneurs, investors and producers are particularly important when it comes to economic growth. Growth needs a system
of property rights and contract enforcement that will ensure those who invest can retain the returns on their investments. And the
economy must be open to ideas and innovations from the rest of the world.
But economies can be derailed by macroeconomic instability, he goes on. Governments must therefore pursue a sound
monetary policy , which means restricting the growth of liquidity to the increase in nominal money demand at reasonable inflation.
They must ensure fiscal sustainability, so that the increase in public debt does not outpace national income. And they must carry
out prudential regulation of banks and other financial institutions to prevent the financial system from taking excessive risk.
Now he is warming to his task. Economics is not just about efficiency and growth, he adds. Economic principles also carry over
to equity and social policy. Economics has little to
say about how much redistribution a society should seek. But it does tell us that the tax base should be as broad as possible, and
that social programmes should be designed in a way that does not encourage workers to drop out of the labour market.
By the time the economist stops, it appears as if he has laid out a fully fledged neoliberal agenda. A critic in the audience
will have heard all the code words: efficiency, incentives, property rights, sound money, fiscal prudence. And yet the universal
principles that the economist describes are in fact quite open-ended. They presume a capitalist economy – one in which investment
decisions are made by private individuals and firms – but not much beyond that. They allow for – indeed, they require – a surprising
variety of institutional arrangements.
So has the economist just delivered a neoliberal screed? We would be mistaken to think so, and our mistake would consist of associating
each abstract term – incentives, property rights, sound money – with a particular institutional counterpart. And therein lies the
central conceit, and the fatal flaw, of neoliberalism: the belief that first-order economic principles map on to a unique set of
policies, approximated by a Thatcher/Reagan-style agenda.
Consider property rights. They matter insofar as they allocate returns on investments. An optimal system would distribute property
rights to those who would make the best use of an asset, and afford protection against those most likely to expropriate the returns.
Property rights are good when they protect innovators from free riders, but they are bad when they protect them from competition.
Depending on the context, a legal regime that provides the appropriate incentives can look quite different from the standard US-style
regime of private property rights.
This may seem like a semantic point with little practical import; but China's phenomenal economic success is largely due to its
orthodoxy-defying institutional tinkering. China turned to markets, but did not copy western practices in property rights. Its reforms
produced market-based incentives through a series of unusual institutional arrangements that were better adapted to the local context.
Rather than move directly from state to private ownership, for example, which would have been stymied by the weakness of the prevailing
legal structures, the country relied on mixed forms of ownership that provided more effective property rights for entrepreneurs in
practice. Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs), which spearheaded Chinese economic growth during the 1980s, were collectives owned
and controlled by local governments. Even though TVEs were publicly owned, entrepreneurs received the protection they needed against
expropriation. Local governments had a direct stake in the profits of the firms, and hence did not want to kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs.
China relied on a range of such innovations, each delivering the economist's higher-order economic principles in unfamiliar institutional
arrangements. For instance, it shielded its large state sector from global competition, establishing special economic zones where
foreign firms could operate with different rules than in the rest of the economy. In view of such departures from orthodox blueprints,
describing China's economic reforms as neoliberal – as critics are inclined to do – distorts more than it reveals. If we are to call
this neoliberalism, we must surely look more kindly on the ideas behind the most dramatic
poverty reduction in history.
One might protest that China's institutional innovations were purely transitional. Perhaps it will have to converge on western-style
institutions to sustain its economic progress. But this common line of thinking overlooks the diversity of capitalist arrangements
that still prevails among advanced economies, despite the considerable homogenisation of our policy discourse.
What, after all, are western institutions? The size of the public sector in OECD countries varies, from a third of the economy
in Korea to nearly 60% in Finland. In Iceland, 86% of workers are members of a trade union; the comparable number in Switzerland
is just 16%. In the US, firms can fire workers almost at will;
French
labour laws have historically required employers to jump through many hoops first. Stock markets have grown to a total value
of nearly one-and-a-half times GDP in the US; in Germany, they are only a third as large, equivalent to just 50% of GDP.
The idea that any one of these models of taxation, labour relations or financial organisation is inherently superior to the others
is belied by the varying economic fortunes that each of these economies have experienced over recent decades. The US has gone through
successive periods of angst in which its economic institutions were judged inferior to those in Germany, Japan, China, and now possibly
Germany again. Certainly, comparable levels of wealth and productivity can be produced under very different models of capitalism.
We might even go a step further: today's prevailing models probably come nowhere near exhausting the range of what might be possible,
and desirable, in the future.
The visiting economist in our thought experiment knows all this, and recognises that the principles he has enunciated need to
be filled in with institutional detail before they become operational. Property rights? Yes, but how? Sound money? Of course, but
how? It would perhaps be easier to criticise his list of principles for being vacuous than to denounce it as a neoliberal screed.
Still, these principles are not entirely content-free. China, and indeed all countries that managed to develop rapidly, demonstrate
the utility of those principles once they are properly adapted to local context. Conversely, too many economies have been driven
to ruin courtesy of political leaders who chose to violate them. We need look no further than
Latin American populists or eastern European communist regimes to appreciate the practical significance of sound money, fiscal
sustainability and private incentives.
O f course, economics goes beyond a list of abstract, largely common-sense principles. Much of the work of economists consists
of developing
stylised models of how economies work and then confronting those models with evidence. Economists tend to think of what they
do as progressively refining their understanding of the world: their models are supposed to get better and better as they are tested
and revised over time. But progress in economics happens differently.
Economists study a social reality that is unlike the physical universe. It is completely manmade, highly malleable and operates
according to different rules across time and space. Economics
advances not by settling on the right model or theory to answer such questions, but by improving our understanding of the diversity
of causal relationships. Neoliberalism and its customary remedies – always more markets, always less government – are in fact a perversion
of mainstream economics. Good economists know that the correct answer to any question in economics is: it depends.
Does an increase in the minimum wage depress employment? Yes, if the labour market is really competitive and employers have no
control over the wage they must pay to attract workers; but not necessarily otherwise. Does trade liberalisation increase economic
growth? Yes, if it increases the profitability of industries where the bulk of investment and innovation takes place; but not otherwise.
Does more government spending increase employment? Yes, if there is slack in the economy and wages do not rise; but not otherwise.
Does monopoly harm innovation? Yes and no, depending on a whole host of market circumstances.
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and precipitated our current populist backlash' Trump signing an order to take the US out of the TPP trade pact. Photograph: AFP/Getty
In economics, new models rarely supplant older models. The basic competitive-markets model dating back to Adam Smith has been
modified over time by the inclusion, in rough historical order, of monopoly, externalities, scale economies, incomplete and asymmetric
information, irrational behaviour and many other real-world features. But the older models remain as useful as ever. Understanding
how real markets operate necessitates using different lenses at different times.
Perhaps maps offer the best analogy. Just like economic models, maps are
highly stylised representations
of reality . They are useful precisely because they abstract from many real-world details that would get in the way. But abstraction
also implies that we need a different map depending on the nature of our journey. If we are travelling by bike, we need a map of
bike trails. If we are to go on foot, we need a map of footpaths. If a new subway is constructed, we will need a subway map – but
we wouldn't throw out the older maps.
Economists tend to be very good at making maps, but not good enough at choosing the one most suited to the task at hand. When
confronted with policy questions of the type our visiting economist faces, too many of them resort to "benchmark" models that favour
the
laissez-faire
approach. Kneejerk solutions and hubris replace the richness and humility of the discussion in the seminar room. John Maynard
Keynes once defined economics as the "science of thinking in terms of models, joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant".
Economists typically have trouble with the "art" part.
This, too, can be illustrated with a parable. A journalist calls an economics professor for his view on whether free trade is
a good idea. The professor responds enthusiastically in the affirmative. The journalist then goes undercover as a student in the
professor's advanced graduate seminar on international trade. He poses the same question: is free trade good? This time the professor
is stymied. "What do you mean by 'good'?" he responds. "And good for whom?" The professor then launches into an extensive exegesis
that will ultimately culminate in a heavily hedged statement: "So if the long list of conditions I have just described are satisfied,
and assuming we can tax the beneficiaries to compensate the losers, freer trade has the potential to increase everyone's wellbeing."
If he is in an expansive mood, the professor might add that the effect of free trade on an economy's longterm growth rate is not
clear either, and would depend on an altogether different set of requirements.
This professor is rather different from the one the journalist encountered previously. On the record, he exudes self-confidence,
not reticence, about the appropriate policy. There is one and only one model, at least as far as the public conversation is concerned,
and there is a single correct answer, regardless of context. Strangely, the professor deems the knowledge that he imparts to his
advanced students to be inappropriate (or dangerous) for the general public. Why?
The roots of such behaviour lie deep in the culture of the economics profession. But one important motive is the zeal to display
the profession's crown jewels – market efficiency, the invisible hand, comparative advantage – in untarnished form, and to shield
them from attack by self-interested barbarians, namely
the protectionists . Unfortunately, these economists typically ignore the barbarians on the other side of the issue – financiers
and multinational corporations whose motives are no purer and who are all too ready to hijack these ideas for their own benefit.
As a result, economists' contributions to public debate are often biased in one direction, in favour of more trade, more finance
and less government. That is why economists have developed a reputation as cheerleaders for neoliberalism, even if mainstream economics
is very far from a paean to laissez-faire. The economists who let their enthusiasm for free markets run wild are in fact not being
true to their own discipline.
H ow then should we think about globalisation in order to liberate it from the grip of neoliberal practices? We must begin by
understanding the positive potential of global markets. Access to world markets in goods, technologies and capital has played an
important role in virtually all of the economic miracles of our time. China is the most recent and powerful reminder of this historical
truth, but it is not the only case. Before China, similar miracles were performed by South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and a few non-Asian
countries such as
Mauritius . All of these countries embraced globalisation rather than turn their backs on it, and they benefited handsomely.
Defenders of the existing economic order will quickly point to these examples when globalisation comes into question. What they
will fail to say is that almost all of these countries joined the world economy by violating neoliberal strictures. South Korea and
Taiwan, for instance, heavily subsidised their exporters, the former through the financial system and the latter through tax incentives.
All of them eventually removed most of their import restrictions, long after economic growth had taken off.
But none, with the sole exception of Chile in the 1980s under Pinochet, followed the neoliberal recommendation of a rapid opening-up
to imports. Chile's neoliberal
experiment eventually produced the worst economic crisis in all of Latin America. While the details differ across countries,
in all cases governments played an active role in restructuring the economy and buffering it against a volatile external environment.
Industrial policies, restrictions on capital flows and currency controls – all prohibited in the neoliberal playbook – were rampant.
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Pinterest Protest against Nafta in Mexico City in 2008: since the reforms of the mid-90s, the country's economy has underperformed.
Photograph: EPA
By contrast, countries that stuck closest to the neoliberal model of globalisation were sorely disappointed. Mexico provides a
particularly sad example. Following a series of macroeconomic crises in the mid-1990s, Mexico embraced macroeconomic orthodoxy, extensively
liberalised its economy, freed up the financial system, sharply reduced import restrictions and signed the North American Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta). These policies did produce macroeconomic stability and a significant rise in foreign trade and internal investment.
But where it counts – in overall productivity and economic growth –
the experiment failed
. Since undertaking the reforms, overall productivity in Mexico has stagnated, and the economy has underperformed even by the
undemanding standards of Latin America.
These outcomes are not a surprise from the perspective of sound economics. They are yet another manifestation of the need for
economic policies to be attuned to the failures to which markets are prone, and to be tailored to the specific circumstances of each
country. No single blueprint fits all.
A s Peters's 1982 manifesto attests, the meaning of neoliberalism has changed considerably over time as the label has acquired
harder-line connotations with respect to deregulation, financialisation and globalisation. But there is one thread that connects
all versions of neoliberalism, and that is the
emphasis
on economic growth . Peters wrote in 1982 that the emphasis was warranted because growth is essential to all our social and political
ends – community, democracy, prosperity. Entrepreneurship, private investment and removing obstacles that stand in the way (such
as excessive regulation) were all instruments for achieving economic growth. If a similar neoliberal manifesto were penned today,
it would no doubt make the same point.
ss="rich-link"> Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world Read more
Critics often point out that this emphasis on economics debases and sacrifices other important values such as equality, social
inclusion, democratic deliberation and justice. Those political and social objectives obviously matter enormously, and in some contexts
they matter the most. They cannot always, or even often, be achieved by means of technocratic economic policies; politics must play
a central role.
Still, neoliberals are not wrong when they argue that our most cherished ideals are more likely to be attained when our economy
is vibrant, strong and growing. Where they are wrong is in believing that there is a unique and universal recipe for improving economic
performance, to which they have access. The fatal flaw of neoliberalism is that it does not even get the economics right. It must
be rejected on its own terms for the simple reason that it is bad economics.
A version of this article first appeared in
Boston Review
"... The record of deceit and deception that has surfaced in just the past two months points to yes. ..."
"... You want to get really, really pissed off? Then read " Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States " by Jessica Silver-Greenberg in the New York Times ..."
"... The big banks, however, don't make the loans. They hide behind the scenes to facilitate the transactions through automatic withdrawals from the victim's bank account to the loansharking payday companies. Without those services from the big banks, these Internet loansharks could not operate. ..."
"... Banks like JPMorgan Chase provide the banking services that allow Internet payday loansharks to exist in the first place, with the sole purpose of breaking the state laws against usury ..."
"... Then Chase vultures the victims, who are often low-wage earners struggling to make ends meet, by extracting late fees from the victims' accounts. ..."
"... Let's be clear: JPMorgan Chase, the big bank that supposedly is run oh-so-well by Obama's favorite banker, Jamie Dimon, is aiding, abetting and profiting from screwing loanshark victims. ..."
"... What possible justification could anyone at Chase have for being involved in this slimy business? The answer is simple: profit. Dimon and company can't help themselves. They see a dollar in someone else's pocket, even a poor struggling single mom, and they figure out how to put it in their own. Of course, everyone at the top will play dumb, order an investigation and then if necessary, dump some lower-level schlep. More than likely, various government agencies will ask the bank to pay a fine, which will come from the corporate kitty, not the pockets of bank executives. And the banks will promise -- cross their hearts -- never again to commit that precise scam again. ..."
The record of deceit and deception that has surfaced in just the past two months points to yes. Print 147
COMMENTS Photo Credit: Songquan Deng / Shutterstock.com
Are too-big-to-fail banks organized criminal conspiracies? And if so, shouldn't we seize their assets, just like we do to drug
cartels?
Let's examine their sorry record of deceit and deception that has surfaced in just the past two months:
Loan Sharking
You want to get really, really pissed off? Then read "
Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States " by Jessica Silver-Greenberg in the New York Times (2/23/13). In sickening
detail, she describes how the largest banks in the United States are facilitating modern loansharking by working with Internet payday
loan companies to escape anti-loansharking state laws. These payday firms extract enormous interest rates that often run over 500
percent a year. (Fifteen states prohibit payday loans entirely, and all states have usury limits ranging from 8 to 24 percent.
See the list .)
The big banks, however, don't make the loans. They hide behind the scenes to facilitate the transactions through automatic withdrawals
from the victim's bank account to the loansharking payday companies. Without those services from the big banks, these Internet loansharks
could not operate.
Enabling the payday loansharks to evade the law is bad enough. But even more deplorable is why the big banks are involved in the
first place.
For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership. At first blush, processing automatic withdrawals hardly seems like a source
of profit. But many customers are already on shaky financial footing. The withdrawals often set off a cascade of fees from problems
like overdrafts.
Roughly
27 percent of payday loan borrowers say that the loans caused them to overdraw their accounts, according to a report released
this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That fee income is coveted, given that
financial regulations limiting fees on debit and credit cards have cost banks billions of dollars.
Take a deep breath and consider what this means. Banks like JPMorgan Chase provide the banking services that allow Internet payday loansharks to exist in the first place, with the sole purpose of breaking the state laws against usury.
Then Chase vultures the victims,
who are often low-wage earners struggling to make ends meet, by extracting late fees from the victims' accounts. So impoverished
single moms, for example, who needed to borrow money to make the rent, get worked over twice: First they get a loan at an interest
rate that would make Tony Soprano blush. Then they get nailed with overdraft fees by their loansharking bank.
For Subrina Baptiste, 33, an educational assistant in Brooklyn, the overdraft fees levied by Chase cannibalized her child support
income. She said she applied for a $400 loan from Loanshoponline.com
and a $700 loan from Advancemetoday.com in 2011. The loans, with annual
interest rates of 730 percent and 584 percent respectively, skirt New York law.
Ms. Baptiste said she asked Chase to revoke the automatic withdrawals in October 2011, but was told that she had to ask the
lenders instead. In one month, her bank records show, the lenders tried to take money from her account at least six times. Chase
charged her $812 in fees and deducted over $600 from her child-support payments to cover them.
Let's be clear: JPMorgan Chase, the big bank that supposedly is run oh-so-well by Obama's favorite banker, Jamie Dimon, is aiding,
abetting and profiting from screwing loanshark victims.
What possible justification could anyone at Chase have for being involved in this slimy business? The answer is simple: profit.
Dimon and company can't help themselves. They see a dollar in someone else's pocket, even a poor struggling single mom, and they
figure out how to put it in their own. Of course, everyone at the top will play dumb, order an investigation and then if necessary,
dump some lower-level schlep. More than likely, various government agencies will ask the bank to pay a fine, which will come from
the corporate kitty, not the pockets of bank executives. And the banks will promise -- cross their hearts -- never again to commit
that precise scam again.
(Update: After the publication of Jessica Silver-Greenberg's devastating article, Jamie Dimon "vowed on Tuesday to change how
the bank deals with Internet-based payday lenders that automatically withdraw payments from borrowers' checking accounts,"
according to the New York Times . Dimon called the practices "terrible." In a statement, the bank said, it was "taking a thorough
look at all of our policies related to these issues and plan to make meaningful changes.")
Money Laundering for the Mexican Drug Cartels and Rogue Nations
HSBC, the giant British-based bank with a large American subsidiary, agreed on Dec. 11, 2012 to pay $1.9 billion in fines for
laundering $881 million for Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and Colombia's Norte del Valle cartel. The operation was so blatant that "Mexican
traffickers used boxes specifically designed to the dimensions of an HSBC Mexico teller's window to deposit cash on a daily basis,"
reports Reuters . They
also facilitated "hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries,"
according to the Justice Department
.
Our banks got nailed as well. "In the United States, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wachovia Corp and Citigroup Inc have been cited for
anti-money laundering lapses or sanctions violations," continues the Reuters report. My, my, JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in
the U.S. sure does get around.
And the penalty? A fine (paid by the HSBC shareholders, of course, that amounts to 5.5 weeks of the bank's earnings) and we promise
– honest -- never to do it again.
Too Big to Indict?
Wait, it gets worse. Why weren't criminal charges filed against the bank itself? After all, the bank overtly violated money laundering
laws. This was no clerical error. The answer is simple: "
Too big to Indict," screams
the NYT editorial headline. You see federal authorities are worried that if they indict, the bank would fail, which in turn would
lead to tens of thousands of lost jobs, just like what happened to Arthur Anderson after its Enron caper, or like the financial hurricane
that followed the failure of Lehman Brothers. So if you're a small fish running $10,000 in drug money, you serve time. But if you're
a big fish moving nearing a billion dollars, you can laugh all the way to your too-big-to-jail bank.
Fleecing Distressed Homeowners
The big banks, in collusion with hedge funds and the rating agencies, puffed up the housing bubble and then burst it. Nine million
workers, due to no fault of their own, lost their jobs in a matter of months. Entire neighborhoods saw their home values crash. Tens
of millions faced foreclosure.
The big banks, which were bailed out and survived the crash, sought to foreclose on as many homes as possible, as fast as possible.
Hey, that's where the money was. In doing so they resorted to many unsavory practices including illegal robo-signing of foreclosure
documents. When nailed by the government, the big banks agreed to provide billions in aid for distressed homeowners. Were they finally
forced to do the right thing? Not a chance. (See "
Homeowners still face foreclosure despite billion in aid" NYT 2/22 .)
The big banks, despite what they say in their press statements, found a convenient loophole in the government settlement. The
banks began forgiving second mortgages, and then foreclosing on the first mortgage. That's a cute maneuver because in a foreclosure,
the bank rarely can collect on the second mortgage anyway. So they're giving away something of no value to distressed sellers and
getting government credit for it. Just another day at the office for our favorite banksters.
JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have been fined over a billion dollars for creating and selling mortgage-related securities
that were designed to fail so their hedge fund buddies could make billions. And then we've got the recent LIBOR scandal where the
biggest banks colluded to manipulate interest rates for fun and profit.
It's not about good people or bad people running these banks and hedge funds. It's the very nature of these institutions. That's
what they do. They make big money by doing what the rest of us would call cheating. As the record clearly shows, they cheat the second
they get the chance.
What kind of institution would loanshark, money launder, fix rates, game mortgage relief programs, and produce products designed
to fail? Answer: An institution that should not exist.
Nationalize Now and Create State Banks
There are about 20 too-big-to fail banks which have been designated "systematically significant." These should be immediately
nationalized. Shareholder value should be wiped out because these banks are repeatedly violating the law, including aiding and abetting
criminal enterprises. All employees should be placed on the federal civil service scale, where the top salary is approximately $130,000.
Can the government run banks? Yes, if we break up the big banks and turn them over to state governments so that each state would
have at least one public bank. (North Dakota has a strong working model.) The larger states would have several public state banks.
But never again would we allow banks to grow so large as to threaten our financial system and violate the public trust. Let FDIC
regulate the state banks. They're actually good at it.
(We'd also have to do something about the shadow banking industry -- the large hedge funds and private equity firms. Eliminating
their carried-interest tax loophole and slapping on a strong financial transaction tax would go a long way toward reining them in.)
Won't the most talented bankers leave the industry?
Hurray! It can't happen soon enough. It's time for the best and the brightest to rejoin the human race and help produce value
for their fellow citizens. Let them become doctors, research scientists, teachers or even wealthy entrepreneurs who produce tangible
goods and services that we want and need. What we don't need are more banksters.
Isn't This Socialism?
We already have socialism for rich financiers. They get to keep all of the upside of their shady machinations and we get to bail
them out when they fail. This billionaire bailout society is now so entrenched that our nascent economic recovery of the last two
years has been entirely captured by the top 1 percent. Meanwhile the rest of have received nothing. Nada. (See
"Why Is the Entire Recovery
Going to the Top One Percent? ")
I know, I know, people say, "Next time, just don't bail them out!" Meanwhile, they get to rip us off, day in and day out, until
the next crash? No thanks. Put them out of business now. If you have a better idea, let's hear it.
So what are we going to do about this? I fully agree with the assessment of this article and even the solution. State banks
would make very positive contributions to replacing these criminal enterprises. But, you have to understand that the Bank of North
Dakota was instituted in a time where the populist farmers were in a battle with the same criminal Banksters of the 1800/early
1900s. Thankfully, they succeeded in establishing their bank and it has shown us how well it works, even in a Red state like ND.
So, why is it that the dumbfuck Dems don't overwhelmingly endorse them? Two years ago, I publicly endorsed (as a citizen) state
banks as a solution to the financial problems for my state (Idaho), citing the BND as a model to follow. Who do you think gave
me the most shit about it? It wasn't the Idaho GOP, it was a Dem state senator who downplayed the state bank idea and pinned the
success that ND had on its shale oil production and proclaimed that Idaho needs to exploit its own natural resources more. Well,
they are. We are now going to start fracking for nat gas in Payette County. Dems and GOP alike here are endorsing the fracking
of our land. The sad fact is that there is not very much nat gas here to get excited about. We have nowhere near what ND has in
plays.
And, the Dems here completely miss the point of what a state bank can do for you
Try the last three centuries. They have absolute power as they control every nation's money supply and could if they wished
crash the economy next Tuesday. They can drag out a recession for years and have the ability to determine if you have job or not.
As the axiom about absolute power goes so goes the banking/financial business. Robbers and pond scum who just happen to know how
the system works but have no idea of what life is about.
"Globalism" is their mantra. Globalism is code for the Darwinian truth the elites pray to; which is their superiority giving them
the right to acquire ever increasing wealth always at any cost to other life or life support system. This IS their sum total understanding
of the meaning of existence. They laugh at our collective utter blind stupidity. If you haven't viewed "Money as Debt" on youtube
better have a boo. Then have a look at "The Money Masters" to see how the elites managed their take over of America and are now
going for the world.
"It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe
we would have a revolution before tomorrow morning."
Henry Ford
It is mandated fleecing by the likes of Bank of America in the state of Maryland- beginning January of this year, all child
support is handled by BoA via an "Epic" atm card... just one of the many ways they will skim from the people collecting support
for their kids is the 1 time per week atm rule for withdrawing cash- after that- $5 per transaction.
This is coordinated robbery with state legislature and the big banks... and it is abhorrant.
You want more examples - read Zero Day Threat by Ocheedo & Swartz (2009). That book peels back the curtain on the entire bank
card vs credit data corporation vs congressional enablers. And it's easy to read as it tracks a bunch of Canadian meth heads in
their successful efforts to steal our identities and then take our money and put it into fake bank accounts.
A reminder that the WASP society has it's roots in Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest which has been taken to new
heights lately to mean one is considered savvy if they are able to rob the meek and humble honest guy, the honest Abe's are just
too week minded, so the pain is internalized turned into self-blame "i guess i was too dumb to fall for it". I suggest the old
saying to put your hand into the tiger's mouth and take back what's yours. People are too damn dismissive and artificially programmed
to confuse nationalism with wall street thievery which they associate to the government and dare not criticize their USA government,
that would be unpatriotic and rebel rousing. I say hang the bastards all the way from Houston Texas to Los Angeles California
on every power pole from which they have stollen billion's of people's money by faking those "rolling blackouts". Authoritarianism
begets authoritarianism.
Not only are the banks a criminally organized mafia, there are more. For instance does anybody here know that there are two
mafia organizations in Italy? Let me explain to the novices here especially the knowledge challenged tea bagers cons repubics.
One mafia is in souther Italy in sicily which everyone knows including the dumbest tea bagers cons. The other one is in northern
Italy near Roma and is called the vatican where everything which goes on in southern Italy mafia also goes on here from money
laundering, power abuse from the top, human rights violation like converting all and sundry in foreign lands especially the vulnerables
and so on and on.
Yes they are criminals.....they just have laws that saya its ok to use people and steal from them unlike your average street
criminals.
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution
so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
~Thomas Jefferson~
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since
the hand that gives is above the hand that takes Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency;
their sole object is gain." – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815
Are these banks operating as criminals? Not really when you understand that they own lock, stock and barrel those who make
the laws. So if some pesky law was out there that prevented these capitalists from sucking every ounce of our blood they will
pay a meager fine, for appearances, and then bring the politicians and lawyers into their offices and tell them to change the
law. The government will obey as they know who the owners are.
Now let's talk about justice. When we get to that we see the whole system is so corrupt that there is no reform possible- if
you could fix it you wouldn't want to anyway.
Look, nowadays there is very little conspiratorial in any of this. They are doing it so blatantly out in the open and in our
faces it's as if they are challenging the people to stand up and fight back. So far not much resistance on the streets of the
Homeland.
I think it's also futile to attempt regulations or ask for any legal oversight. This is like the proverbial fox guarding the
hen house. The police will not police themselves. It's up to us.
Welcome to the world where businesses can 'regulate themselves'. I've said for decades that the business community is only
as socially responsible as they are legally required to be. The white collar criminal class has, like scum, risen to the top.
The first clue was the savings and loans collapse during King George the firsts rule. The creation of these entites came about
from the Reaganistas anti-regulation frenzy within the banking industry. They milked the system until it collapsed but very few
paid any price. Most actually made out like the bandits they were from THAT taxpayer bailout. So the pattern was set. Even the
Democratic party fell into lockstep because so much money could be legally stolen by these machinations. Of course, in order to
hide the fallout they had to change how inflation and unemployment was calculated.
This was all as predictable as the sunrise.
This is not a revelation - that big banks are little more than organized crime whose bosses dress in better suits, live at
better addresses and have more money than most people in organized crime ever dreamed of because these criminals are protected
by law and by the fact that even when the break what few laws there are that seriously affect them, they are simply not prosecuted.
After all who is going to launder the trillion or so dollars in drug money every year for handsome profits - as much as 20% sometimes.
Who is going to facilitate the transfer of laundered and other money in the international sale of hundreds of billions of dollars
in weapons to dictators, warlords and various other sleazebags around the world? The banks have an absolutely necessary role to
play in the Western World where Corruption is the norm in all businesses and banking operations that are bigger than one person.
Private banks need to be abolished and private bankers need to be in prison for life.
The current banking and economic system that is in place operates outside normal perception. Look at how Barclays was manipulating
interest rates to favour their investments and to charge others more. Geee I wonder if the other banks and investment houses did
the same? Toxic derivatives being sold as great investments knowing that they are going to fail. Goldman Sachs complicit in hiding
Greek debt for decades. Hyper trading where algorithms and nano second trading drive market values. These elite hyper traders
never seem to lose money.
The system is broken and those few benefiting from it do not want it to change.
We need to re-envision our world. I want a system where legislation benefits citizens, not corporations. I want legislation
that ensures the best possible results for the most people. I am not opposed to capitalist style economic system that serves a
citizenry needs. I am opposed to an economic system that has us serving it.
It seems it is only going to get worse. We have people trying to privatize education. Their goal is not better education but
a profit. The same people want a larger privatized penal system. Not to protect society and rehabilitate, but to generate profit.
We have this system in place in the health care industry. It does not get us better health care, it gets u more expensive health
care.
We seriously need to rethink how our economy functions, our society, etc....
Yes, Mo -- privatizing ed's about profit. But also about the new corporate religion.
Privatized schools play much more into the hands of admin. Teaching itself gets more niched into the specialized departments
whereby the specialists model the habits and reduced language of never looking into anything in anyone else's cubicles.
So few and so much rarer are the tenured posts in all these turfs that careerists will readily shear themselves of all ethics
in order to conform to the safe and orthodox. So will the many tens of thousands of Ph.D. contingent labor, who increasingly wither
in academe's vast corporate gulag.
Yes, you're so correct -- it's money that drives these massively amoral and immoral of high finance. But idolatry's more than
money. It's also the steroided vulgarized corporate religion. And it's rotting all ed, so the weakest rise to the top, and now
all K-12, too, becomes enablers of the standardized numbers rackets.
I would gladly award the DEATH penalty to the crooks who run Bank of America and Wells Fargo, two criminal organizations with
whom I have had dealings.
Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail Rolling Stone Magazine / by Matt Taibbi
The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep
bailing it out?
http://www.rollingstone.com...
And:
"It's Time to Break Up AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner and the Rest of the Telecoms." AlterNet / By David Rosen and Bruce
Kushnick
Today's telecoms provide overpriced and inferior service, and are systematically overcharging the hapless American consumer.
http://www.alternet.org/new...
"How the Phone Companies Are Screwing America: The $320 Billion Broadband Rip-Off" AlterNet / By David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick
Americans are stuck with an inferior and overpriced communications system, compared with the rest of the world, and we're being
ripped off in the process.
Great article. Spot on. Democrats used to be wary of the bankers, knowing that they needed to be watched and controlled. Regulated
banking is something necessary for an economy to run, with the emphasis on regulated. But, the banks have bought the regulators,
the "people's party," the democrats are sleeping with the bankers, and we are all paying the price.
Time to separate investment banking from commercial banking.
Time to enforce usury laws, including "fees" as part of the interest rate calculation
and, way past time to nationalize or simply yank the charters from the offending banks.
Clear, simple; and exactly what folks in Washington cannot understand.
The democrats? Who was it presided over this between 2000 and 2008, allowing it and creating laws to ensure the banks succeeded
in their ripoff? And who is currently standing in the way of any forward momentum? Republicans. Tea Party, Koch -funded Republicans
and their "Libertarian" network of slimeballs. Who was it pushing for the repeal of Glass-Steagall that made all of this possible?
Koch and their "Libertarian" slimeball network of free marketeers.And who was it that made the situation worse by getting more
of these aholes elected in 2010 and pretty much ensurig that nothing will get ccomplished? "Progressives" and "Libertarian" shysters
who were out in force yelling "both sidess are the same" - "don't vote."
And I see we're still at it in spite of everything we've witnessed the Tea Party do both at the federal and state levels.
But it's in alignment with the new, 21st century Neo-Fascist America.
Debtor prisons were eliminated more than a century ago because legislators had the sense (yes, they had some back then) to
understand that society is worse off, and no one benefits by putting those who can't pay their debts in prison. The burden was
thus shifted to creditors to assure their debtors could repay them before making the loan. The burden of indebtedness was thus
shifted from the debtor to the creditor as it should be.
In recent years the US has gone back to the old model of encouraging indebtedness and then punishing the debtors, initially
with non-bankruptable debt (thank you Joe Biden) and now with imprisonment.
There is absolutely nothing progressive or good for society in general or for individuals in particular in all of this. This
is all part of the reactionary movement in this country to destroy the Middle-class and return to a (neo) feudal society controlled
by a small class of "economic royalist" lording over a vast majority of disenfranchised and economically hopeless "serfs".
Six years after these criminals crashed the economy and almost took down the entire global structure we're still trying to
decide if these were crimes? The real crime is that We, the People meekly allow these crimes -and many others- to go unpunished.
After all, it really doesn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends.
Well put. If the mainstream media doesn't say something, the general population acts like it doesn't exist. The rich and powerful
have been very creative in hijacking public opinion and decimating our ability to think for ourselves. We are supposed to have
checks and balances between branches of government, but every single branch has been bought out and is in cahoots with each other.
I don't think anything short of a revolution will fix this corporatocracy. The White House has abandoned us, Congress has abandoned
us, and the Supreme Court has struck the final chord of war claiming that corporations are to be treated as people.
How much is your life worth? Not much if you aren't a politician or banker.
Neo Conned, look around you; look at the morons glued to their "smart" phones. Look at the idiots with their pants hanging
off their butts; listen to the people who can't put together a sentence in Standard English or who can't say two consecutive words
without at least one of them being a vulgar Anglo-Saxon term for a bodily function.
In general, Americans are probably the stupidest people in the world and we have lost our (at least at one time nominal) democratic
republic because of that: the obliviousness of the American people. (For reference please see Chris Hedges' excellent book, The
End of Reason and the Triumph of Illusion.)
Recently MI6 were implicated in Steel report, Skripals poisonings, Browder machinations, and creation of the Integrity
Initiative. Nice "non-interference" mode...
Notable quotes:
"... The UK's top spy spent some of his time blaming Russia for trying to, as he put it, "subvert the UK way of life" by supposedly poisoning the Skripals and through other mischievous but ultimately never verified actions, though moving beyond the infowar aspect of his speech and into its actual professional substance, he nevertheless touched on some interesting themes ..."
"... In other words, it's all about applying what he calls the "Fusion Doctrine" for building the right domestic and international teams across skillsets in order to best leverage new technologies for accomplishing his agency's eternal mission, which is "to understand the motivations, intentions and aspirations of people in other countries." ..."
"... "being able to take steps to change [targets'] behavior", this has actually been part and parcel of the intelligence profession since time immemorial, albeit nowadays facilitated by social media and other technological platforms that allow shadowy actors such as the UK's own "77th Brigade" to carry out psychological, influence, and informational operations. ..."
"... Considering Russia to be a country that "regards [itself] as being in a state of perpetual confrontation with [the West]", Younger believes that unacceptably high costs must be imposed upon it every time it's accused of some wrongdoing, forgetting that the exact same principle could more applicably be applied against the West by Russia for the same reasons. ..."
"... If read from a cynical standpoint by anyone who's aware of the true nature of contemporary geopolitics, Younger's speech is actually quite informative because it inadvertently reveals what the West itself is doing to Russia by means of projecting its own actions onto its opponent . ..."
"... That in and of itself is actually the very essence of Hybrid War , which is commonly understood to largely include blatantly deceptive techniques such as the one that the UK's top spy is unabashedly attempting to pull off. ..."
"... Accusing one's adversaries of the exact same thing that you yourself are doing is a classic method of deflecting attention from one's own actions by pretending that you're being victimized by the selfsame, which therefore "justifies" escalating tensions by portraying all hostile acts as "proactive defensive responses to aggression". ..."
"... Basically, the British spymaster just sloppily revealed his hand to Russia while attempting to implicate it for allegedly conducting "fourth generation espionage" against the UK. ..."
The head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Alex Younger briefed the public
about the challenges of so-called " fourth
generation espionage ".
The UK's top spy spent some of his time blaming Russia for trying to, as he put it, "subvert
the UK way of life" by supposedly poisoning the Skripals and through other mischievous but
ultimately never verified actions, though moving beyond the infowar aspect of his speech and
into its actual professional substance, he nevertheless touched on some interesting themes.
According to him, "fourth generation espionage" involves "deepening our partnerships to counter
hybrid threats, mastering covert action in the data age, attaching a cost to malign activity by
adversaries and innovating to ensure that technology works to our advantage."
In other words, it's all about applying what he calls the "Fusion Doctrine" for building the
right domestic and international teams across skillsets in order to best leverage new
technologies for accomplishing his agency's eternal mission, which is "to understand the
motivations, intentions and aspirations of people in other countries."
While he remarked that the so-called "hybrid threats" associated with "fourth generation
espionage" necessitate "being able to take steps to change [targets'] behavior", this has
actually been part and parcel of the intelligence profession since time immemorial, albeit
nowadays facilitated by social media and other technological platforms that allow shadowy
actors such as the UK's own "77th Brigade" to
carry out psychological, influence, and informational operations.
Younger warned that "bulk data combined with modern analytics" could be "a serious
challenge" if used against his country , obviously alluding to Cambridge
Analytica's purported weaponization of these cutting-edge technological processes to
supposedly "hack" elections, though neglecting to draw any attention to the fact that his
intelligence agency and its allies could conceivably do the same in advance of their own
interests, something that everyone who uses Western-based social media platforms is theoretically
at risk of having happen to them.
What Younger is most concerned about, however, are what he describes as the "eroded
boundaries" that characterize so-called "hybrid threats" lying between war and peace, which he
fears could undermine NATO's Article 5 obligation for all of the military alliance's members to
support one another during times of conflict. Considering Russia to be a country that "regards
[itself] as being in a state of perpetual confrontation with [the West]", Younger believes that
unacceptably high costs must be imposed upon it every time it's accused of some wrongdoing,
forgetting that the exact same principle could more applicably be applied against the West by
Russia for the same reasons.
He claims that it's the UK that will never respond in kind by
destabilizing Russia like Moscow's accused of doing to the UK, but in reality, it's President
Putin's so-called "judo moves" which prove that it's Russia who has mastered asymmetrical
responses instead. If read from a cynical standpoint by anyone who's aware of the true nature
of contemporary geopolitics, Younger's speech is actually quite informative because it
inadvertently reveals what the West itself is doing to Russia by means of projecting its own
actions onto its opponent .
That in and of itself is actually the very essence of HybridWar ,
which is commonly understood to largely include blatantly deceptive techniques such as the one
that the UK's top spy is unabashedly attempting to pull off.
Accusing one's adversaries of the
exact same thing that you yourself are doing is a classic method of deflecting attention from
one's own actions by pretending that you're being victimized by the selfsame, which therefore
"justifies" escalating tensions by portraying all hostile acts as "proactive defensive
responses to aggression".
Basically, the British spymaster just sloppily revealed his hand to
Russia while attempting to implicate it for allegedly conducting "fourth generation espionage"
against the UK.
Trump lost control of foreign policy, when he appointed Pompeo. US voters might elect Hillary with the same effect on foreign policy
as Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and the abominable Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel. ..."
"... Energy dominance, lebensraum for Israel and destroying the current Iran are all objectives that fit into one neat package. Those plans look to be coming apart at the moment so it remains to be seen how fanatical Trump is on Israel and MAGA. MAGA as US was at the collapse of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... As for pulling out of the Middle East Bibi must have had a good laugh. Remember when he said he wanted out of Syria. My money is on the US to be in Yemen before too long to protect them from the Saudis (humanitarian) and Iranian backed Houthis, while in reality it will be to secure the enormous oil fields in the North. ..."
"... The importance of oil is not to supply US markets its to deny it to enemies and control oil prices in order to feed international finance/IMF. ..."
Pompeo is a Deep State Israel-firster with a nasty neocon agenda. It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and the abominable
Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel.
Pompeo is a Deep State Israel-firster with a nasty neocon agenda. It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and
the abominable Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel.
Trump, Israel and the Sawdi's. US no longer needs middle east oil for strategic supply. Trump is doing away with the petro-dollar
as that scam has run its course and maintenance is higher than returns. Saudi and other middle east oil is required for global
energy dominance.
Energy dominance, lebensraum for Israel and destroying the current Iran are all objectives that fit into one neat package.
Those plans look to be coming apart at the moment so it remains to be seen how fanatical Trump is on Israel and MAGA. MAGA as
US was at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As for pulling out of the Middle East Bibi must have had a good laugh. Remember when he said he wanted out of Syria. My money
is on the US to be in Yemen before too long to protect them from the Saudis (humanitarian) and Iranian backed Houthis, while in
reality it will be to secure the enormous oil fields in the North.
Perhaps this was what the Khashoggi trap was all about. The importance of oil is not to supply US markets its to deny it
to enemies and control oil prices in order to feed international finance/IMF.
Not that Wikipedia gets everything right but here is a snippet of what it says about the Goldman Sachs CEO:
'Blankfein testified before Congress in April 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He
said that Goldman Sachs had no moral or legal obligation to inform its clients it was betting against the products which they
were buying from Goldman Sachs because it was not acting in a fiduciary role. The company was sued on April 16, 2010, by the SEC
for the fraudulent selling of a synthetic CDO tied to subprime mortgages. With Blankfein at the helm, Goldman has also been criticized
"by lawmakers and pundits for issues from its pay practices to its role in helping Greece mask the size of its debts". In April
2011, a Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report accused Goldman Sachs of misleading clients about complex mortgage-related
investments in 2007, and Senator Carl Levin alleged that Blankfein misled Congress, though no perjury charges have been brought
against Blankfein. In August of the same year, Goldman confirmed that Blankfein had hired high-profile defense lawyer Reid Weingarten'
Weingarten helped in the defense of the Worldcom thieves. Why would anyone do business with a company led by such an ethically
challenged CEO?
The problem here is probably deeper then personality of Blankfein.
There is such thing as system instability of economy caused by outsized financial sector and here GS fits the bill. Promotion
of psychopathic personalities with no brakes and outsize taste for risk is just an icing on the cake.
> Why would anyone do business with a company led by such an ethically challenged CEO?
Why you are assuming the other TBTF are somehow better then GS?
As long as RICO statute is not applied to big banks that current situation will continue.
And under neoliberalism it will be never be applied. Universities will continue helping big banks to recruit
new talent. Like in poor neibophood gang leaders recruit street fighter.
Notable quotes:
"... The students not only continue to flock to the amorality skills courses, but also put themselves into mega-debt by student loans to turn themselves not just imaginatively and ethically over to the corporate idolatries, but also to do another double whammy on themselves. ..."
People don't "meekly allow these crimes," Neo. Americans hugely endorse them.
The students not only continue to flock to the amorality skills courses, but also put
themselves into mega-debt by student loans to turn themselves not just imaginatively and
ethically over to the corporate idolatries, but also to do another double whammy on
themselves. They accept the servitude of massive student loan debt, and ensure by
prolonged interest payments on that debt to keep bloating all the most cynically immoral of
high finance.
And then all the other departments of corporate academe have seen how smoothly work the
most rank of corporate habits to ensure most mediocrity for most rank careerisms -- and all
have only increased departmentalism protocols over recent years. Tenure now means nothing
more than max award for most-narrowed specialist minds and for all most-max conformists in
all those niched fields.
Nuthin' "meek" about all this, Neo. The corporate disease, the cubicle culture, the
deference to plutocracy, the reduced literacy, the tracking to numbers -- all has been only
steroided since Citizens United quite flagrantly legally underlined what most genteel in corporate ed have been doing for
years.
willymack > kyushuphil • 6 years ago
Well said, and sadly, TRUE.
zonmoy > kyushuphil • 6 years ago
and how have students been pushed into those programs and the problems pushed on them by the corporate crooks that own
everything including our government.
Originally from:
Truthdig
December 8, 2018, 4:38 AM GMT
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom | Alternet
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom
As an employee at the Federal Reserve in 2011, three years after
the dissolution of Lehman Brothers, Carmen Segarra witnessed the results of this deregulation firsthand
Of the myriad policy decisions that have brought us to our current precipice, from the signing of the
North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
to the invasion of Iraq and the
gerrymandering
of House districts across the country, few have proven as consequential as the demise of
Glass-Steagall
. Signed into law as the U.S.A.
Banking Act of 1933, the legislation had been crucial to safeguarding the financial industry in the wake of the Great Depression.
But with its repeal in 1999, the barriers separating commercial and investment banking collapsed, creating the preconditions for
an economic crisis from whose shadow we have yet to emerge.
Carmen Segarra might have predicted as much. As an employee at the Federal Reserve in 2011, three years after the dissolution
of Lehman Brothers, she witnessed the results of this deregulation firsthand. In her new book, "
Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street,
"
she chronicles the recklessness of institutions
like Goldman Sachs and the stunning lengths the United States government went to to accommodate them, even as they authored one of
the worst crashes in our nation's history.
"They didn't want to hear what I had to say," she tells Robert Scheer in the latest installment of "Scheer Intelligence." "And
so I think what we have in terms of this story is really not just a failure of the banks and the regulators, but also a failure of
our prosecutors. I mean, a lot of the statutes that could be used -- criminal statutes, even, that could be used to hold these executives
accountable are not being used, and they have not expired; we could have prosecutors holding these people accountable."
Segarra also explains why she decided to blow the whistle on the Fed, and what she ultimately hopes to accomplish by telling her
story. "I don't like to let the bad guys win," she says. "I'd rather go down swinging. So for me, I saw it as an opportunity to do
my civic duty and rebuild my life. I was very lucky to be blessed by so many people who I shared the story to, especially lawyers
who were so concerned about what I was reporting, who thought that the Federal Reserve was above this, who thought that the government
would not fail us after the financial crisis, and who were livid."
"Noncompliant" explores one of the darkest chapters in modern American history, but with a crook and unabashed narcissist occupying
the Oval Office, its lessons are proving remarkably timely. "We live in a culture where we reward bad behavior, we worship bad behavior,
and it's something that needs to stop," she cautions. "Changing the regulatory culture on [a] U.S. governmental level is something
that's going to take a decade, maybe two. And we need to start now, before things get worse."
Listen to Segarra's interview with Scheer or read a transcript of their conversation below:
Robert Scheer:
Hi, I'm Robert Scheer, and this is another edition of "Scheer Intelligence," where the intelligence comes from
my guests. Today, Carmen Segarra. She's written a book, just came out, called "Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants
of Wall Street." And boy, did she ever. Perhaps you remember this case; it was in 2011, two, three years into the Great Recession.
There was a lot of pressure from Congress that these banks be regulated in a more serious way. As a result, Carmen Segarra, someone
of considerable education, was brought in. And she was assigned to do a survey of Goldman Sachs, to go over to Goldman Sachs. And
I just want to preface this, people have to understand that not only is the Federal Reserve an incredibly -- the most important economic
institution in the United States, but the New York Federal Reserve plays a special role being in New York. And they are basically
entrusted with regulating the banks, and they are the institution that most definitely failed in that task, and helped bring about
the Great Recession. Would you agree with that assessment?
Carmen Segarra:
Yes, I would agree with that assessment. When I joined the Federal Reserve, as you pointed out, I was hired from
outside the regulatory world, but within the legal and compliance banking world, to help fix its problems. And I was well aware of
the problems that existed. And scoping the problems itself was relatively easy; I mean, within days of arriving, I had participated
in meetings where you had Goldman Sachs executives, you know, lying, doublespeaking, and misrepresenting to regulatory agencies without
fear of repercussions. And where I saw Federal Reserve regulators actively working to suppress and expunge from the record evidence
of wrongdoing that could be used by regulatory agencies, prosecutors, and even the Federal Reserve itself to hold Goldman Sachs accountable.
The question was, when I arrived, you know, are these problems fixable? And, spoiler alert: I don't think so.
RS:
Well, your book really is a compelling read on, really, what one could consider the dark culture of finance capital. Most
of us know very little about it; we think it's boring, it's detailed and so forth. And I was thinking of another woman observer of
great education and experience, who first tipped me off as a journalist when I was trying to cover the stuff about banking deregulation
and so forth, and when Clinton was president and they did the basic financial deregulation. A woman named Brooksley Born, who was
head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and she had your kind of background, you know; a leading lawyer with the banks,
and so forth. Understood this a lot better than most of the men who were powerful, including Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; Lawrence
Summers, who took over from him and went on to be the head of Harvard; Alan Greenspan–none of them really understood these collateralized
debt obligations, credit default swaps; she did. She blew the whistle on it, and they basically destroyed her. She was forced out
of the Clinton administration, and what have you. Did you know about Brooksley Born's work when you got into this? Do you have any
sense? I mean, this was really sort of the first major whistleblower, and she was, as you have been, basically pushed aside.
CS:
Yes. I definitely knew about her. And you know, I have to say that I was, you know, just taking that historical perspective,
which I think is an important point of view through which we should approach this topic. I mean, I remember when I was in law school,
I was one of the very first graduating classes to graduate into a post-Glass-Steagall world. From a 50,000-foot level, I think people
have a better understanding of what that means, in the sense, you know, you have all of a sudden the securities and the banking products
can get together.
But from a practical standpoint, from a ground-zero level, where I was at, that essentially meant two things. From
a professional standpoint, we studied and were aware of the fact that there were a bunch of people on one side of the aisle, the
investment products side–you know, the collateralized debt obligations that you mentioned.
And then there were people who were on
the banking side; we're talking, you know, for purposes of argument, credit cards and debit cards. And that these people, they may
have known about their products, but they were highly specialized; they only knew about the one or two things that they touched,
and they certainly didn't know about them and how they interacted together. And one of the things that I remember studying were not
just the cases of whistleblowers, but also discussing amongst our classmates, you know, what the impact would be of all of a sudden
having a class or a series of classes, graduating from law school, with people who are focusing on banking and compliance, like I
was, and who are having to understand both of these products and sort of how they interact together. And what, sort of visualizing
what our work life would be like, in terms of reporting to people that had an incomplete understanding of how the banking world worked.
So, yes, I was definitely aware; I understood perfectly where she was coming from. And she was very much a cautionary tale for the
rest of us who are lawyers. In terms of, if you find yourself in these difficult situations, you sort of game out what potentially
can happen. And I certainly took it into consideration when I was gaming out whether or not to whistleblow.
RS:
Well, before you get to the whistleblowing stage, I think you're being too kind to what I personally think are people who
should be considered as, or at least charged and examined often with what is criminal behavior. Because ignorance is really not a
good defense; when they were called before congressional committees, these knowledgeable people admitted they really didn't understand
collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. And for people who are not that familiar, you mentioned Glass-Steagall.
And what Glass-Steagall was, was one of the, really maybe the most important response of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's democratic administration
to the Great Depression. And how did this terrible depression happen, how were the banks so irresponsible. And they decided the key
thing was to separate investment banks from commercial bank; investment banks could be high-rollers, private money, you know what
you're doing, you have knowledge; and commercial banks where you're basically protecting the assets of ordinary people, they're not
knowledgeable, they're trusting your expertise. And eliminating Glass-Steagall eliminated this wall between the two kinds of banking.
And the company that you went to observe, Goldman Sachs, was an investment bank. And by the working of that law, they should have
been allowed to go belly-up when it turned out they had a lot of these dubious credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations.
To people who don't know, a credit default swap was a phony insurance policy pretending to cover these things, but really there's
nothing backing it up. And somehow, in order to save them, they were allowed to announce they could do commercial banking. One could
argue, in some ways, the barrier was lifted to help–Citigroup was of course the other one–Citibank. And these are two banks that
the government stepped in to help and create this monster. Is it not the case?
CS:
Yeah, that's absolutely the case. But there's a couple of things that we need to keep in mind. I mean, I think that
we're all sort of educated enough to know that, you know, where there's a will, there's a way. And so if a system can be
corrupted, people that are allowed to grab hold of power will corrupt it–insofar and only for so long as we allow those people to
have the ability and the power to corrupt it. So ultimately, talking about more or less rules, or different rules, is productive
only to a point. Because ultimately what we're talking about here is the haphazard, slap on the wrist, failure to truly enforce
the rules and regulations equitably across the system. And that creates the imbalances that you see, for example, in Goldman
Sachs, and that you see in the system in general. One of the things that happened as a result of Glass-Steagall coming down was
that a lot of the investment bankers were allowed to take over the commercial banks. And those investment bankers knew nothing
about banking, and Goldman is a great example of that. I mean, when I arrived three years in after the financial crisis, what was
one of the things that was very shocking to me was going into meeting after meeting with Goldman senior management and hearing
them lie, doublespeak, and most shockingly of all, insist that they didn't have to comply with the law. And that is a problem.
Because a bank that doesn't believe, or management at a bank that doesn't believe they have to comply with the law–you bet they
are not supervising their employees correctly, and they're not incentivizing employees correctly in terms of how to do their job.
So their behavior is injecting enormous risk into the system
... ... ...
CS:
The case was assigned to a judge who was friends with the attorney, I had worked with the attorney that represented
the Fed. And then two days before dismissing the case, she revealed that she was married to someone who represented Goldman Sachs
for a living. So, yeah, there you go. [Laughs] I mean, it's almost impossible in terms of successfully blowing the whistle. But
going back to your question with respect to the recordings and having a say, I think the question that we need to be asking
ourselves is this: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Federal Reserve in general, is tasked with supervising the
banks. They have recorders. They have the law on their side. New York is a one person consent state. Banks, private banks,
habitually record everything that goes on inside the bank, and they do it for good reason. Because they do it to stop and prevent
fraud, among employees and by anybody that walks in the door. Why is the Federal Reserve not recording these executives? Why are
they not preserving evidence? I think that is the question that we need to be asking ourselves. You know, what I did was not
special. What I did is what the Fed should have been doing.
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom | Alternet
RS:
Well, it was special in that [Laughs]–come on! There have been a lot of witnesses to
these crimes, really, and you're the lone voice from within that system that dared to speak up. And as I
said, had you not been able to document it with these tapes, you would have been just dismissed as some
kind of kook. The book is called
Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall
Street.
You know, what is so important is nuance and language and attitude. And the people on Wall
Street can affect the protection of manners and complexity. I remember Lawrence Summers testifying in
Congress on why you had to get rid of Glass-Steagall, and he said "this is very complicated." And he said
the same thing Alan Greenspan said: "These people know what they're doing," and so forth. It wasn't
complicated. If the Mafia did it, you'd see right through it in five minutes. Right? You were bundling a
bunch of lousy deals together with some good deals, and you didn't even know what was in there, and you
sold them, and you got a phony insurance contract to back it up. And yet none of these people have been,
gone to jail; very few, one or two have been prosecuted as kind of a scapegoat. But the book is a great
story of an American heroine–but this is what everybody should do! [Laughs] I mean, the real issue about
whistleblowers like yourself is why did it take you? Where were the other folks? How many people–yeah, go
ahead.
CS:
Yeah, agreed. I think that's exactly right. You know, there's a number of
reasons why I wrote the book. First of all, because I think it's an important contribution to the
historical record. As to what is the systemic culture of corruption that exists in these regulatory
agencies that are taking our taxpayer dollars and paying themselves handsome salaries to work against the
American taxpayers. And then the second reason I wrote it is to incentivize people to come forward with
their stories. I wasn't the only person who wanted to blow the whistle in terms of what was going on
there. My circumstances were unique, and I sort of go through it in the book, in the sense that I was
very lucky, for example, that the Fed refused to even negotiate the mandated settlement that they were
supposed to negotiate with me. But they refused, and that allowed me to sue. There's a number of people
who have gone through the process and have been silenced by, you know, getting a monetary offer and
signing a settlement agreement. And we don't hear about them because they are forced not to talk. What I
sort of thought about was, you know, this is just a unique–you know, I didn't ask to be in this
situation, but I felt it was my civic duty. Because I do think that we need more people to really think
about how in their daily lives, they can stop rewarding bad behavior. We live in a culture where we
reward bad behavior, we worship bad behavior, and it's something that needs to stop, you know. Changing
the culture, the regulatory culture on the U.S. governmental level is something that's going to take a
decade, maybe two. And we need to start now, before things get worse. We are not in the best-off of
situations as a country; you know, we have what seems like an economic boom, but it's really just a
debt-fueled economic boom that is going to be temporary. And it's very tough to fix these types of
cultural issues, system issues, when the hurricane of the next financial crisis hits. We need to fix it
now, while we still have a semblance of peace, while we still have the sun shining. And we don't know how
much longer that's going to be. I hope it's long enough to fix it. I hope that people are inspired to
come forward and to think about how to make a difference in their daily lives. You know, because we need
to start thinking of raising children and raising adults that are incentivized in their daily lives to
reward good behavior. I think that until we create a critical mass of Americans that in their daily lives
refuse to reward bad behavior, we're not going to see real systemic change.
RS:
Well, we'll see change. It might not be good change. I mean, you have Donald
Trump–and I want to put some oomph behind this, that it's bipartisan. Because one of the–you know,
everybody, a lot of people I know are very upset about Donald Trump. He's speaking to what Hillary
Clinton calls the "deplorables"; but there's a lot of people hurting out there. And if you read a study
done by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis about the consequence of this economic meltdown that was
engineered from places like Goldman Sachs, the human cost was incredible. I mean, people lost everything.
They weren't bailed out. There was no mortgage relief. They were not helped. The banks were bailed out.
And yet no one has been held accountable, and the politicians, democrats and republicans, who supported
it, have gotten off scot-free.
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom | Alternet
CS:
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. This is not a democratic problem, this is not
a republican problem. This is an American problem with worldwide impact. The U.S. dollar is a reserve
currency. The world depends in large part on the American banking system to work. And for it to work,
there are these rules, and these rules are there to create trust in the system and to create smooth
processes in the system, so that money can be moved and the economy can continue to grow. If the world
can no longer trust the American banking system because Americans cannot be trusted to regulate it, they
are going to move away from the American banking system. They are going to move away from the U.S. dollar
as a reserve currency. And then we are going to find ourselves in the situation that a lot of countries
that are not governed by reserve currencies find themselves occasionally, from time to time, whenever
they have a crisis. You know, we're talking about countries in Latin America; we're talking about
countries in Africa; we're talking about countries in Asia. I hope the book will inspire people to really
take a look around and realize, you know, the American consumer, the American worker, is incredibly
powerful. You know, these banks cannot survive without our money. We don't have to wait for the
government to keep failing us; we don't have to wait for the judiciary to keep failing us; we don't have
to wait for lawyers to keep failing us. We choose who we work for. We choose where we keep our money. We
can choose to protest. We can choose to call our pension funds and tell them, I want you to stop doing
business with Goldman Sachs. It's what we do on a daily basis. When we stand up and we say, I am not
going to be banking with these people–they will listen. It's like, they control all of these other checks
and balances that were put in place in terms of the government to stop them. So now it's up to us as a
people to actually do something about this.
RS:
Let me take a break. And I've been
talking to Carmen Segarra, who is actually the lone honest person from within the banking system that I
know of who really took the story of what these people were doing, and swindling the American people, and
fortunately documented it with tape recording–as they document everything; if you call the bank for
information, "your conversation will be recorded to make it more efficient"–well, she turned the table on
that, had the record. The book is called
Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of
Wall Street.
[omission for station break] I'm not going to be able, in the time that I have here, to
do justice to this book, because the devil is in the details. I want to talk about some people who did
speak up. I mentioned Brooksley Born, who was this brilliant member of the Clinton administration who got
pushed out for speaking up. But when the pressure came down after the Great Recession, and the banks had
to be questioned, they at Goldman Sachs turned to a Columbia University finance professor, David Beim.
And he did a report. He had access to everything, he did this incredible report. We only know about it
because it showed up in some footnote somewhere. And by the way, I haven't given enough credit here to
the people who have helped break this story. ProPublica, who did a really terrific job on it, and the NPR
show This American Life, which really did a great job. So there has been really good reporting. As you
pointed out, it was absolutely shameful that Congress did not really take testimony from you; you were
there as an observer–I think in a red dress, to be noticed. [Laughs]
CS:
Yes. Well, you know, red is the color of martyrs.
RS:
And so I want to ask you about that. Before you even went there, this guy David
Beim had done a study. And William Dudley, the president of the bank, didn't even respond. He said thank
you, they looked at the–and they never responded to the criticisms in that study, which were devastating.
Of how the bank was operating.
CS:
Yeah, but that's how the Federal Reserve Bank of New York operates. And that's,
curiously enough, also how Goldman Sachs operates. They say one thing and do another. If you want to know
what they're doing, just flip it, right? I mean, if they're asking for a report, that means that they
plan to do nothing about it. And you know, the book sort of walks you through the story of how they
played at this game of pretending to clean up the regulatory issues. I mean, the joke really was on us,
the new regulators that were brought in from the industry to actually clean up the problems that were
there. None of us are there at the Fed anymore. Every single one of those people that I talk about that
validated my story, they're gone. And they are gone under different circumstances, some in good standing,
some in less good standing, but the point is they're all gone. Because the purpose of bringing us in was
not really to change things, it was to ensure that they had a smoke screen and a story to feed the press,
that they would print, saying that they had indeed fixed this. And there was nothing else there to see.
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom | Alternet
RS:
We're going to run out of time here, but I want to nail down
one–this chain of responsibility. And I had just mentioned New York Fed president
William Dudley, who I believe ran into some difficulty; he had ownership in
something that they were trading with. But leaving that aside, he replaced
Timothy Geithner. And when Goldman Sachs, when this whole banking thing happened,
there was no more important individual in this country, in a position to observe
it, than Timothy Geithner. He had been in the Clinton administration; he had
worked for Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers in the Clinton administration when
they deregulated Wall Street. And he was rewarded for that deregulation, right,
by being named to the most important regulatory position, to be head of the New
York Fed. And Barack Obama in 2008, as the banking meltdown was happening, gave a
speech at Cooper Union, April of 2008, blasting Wall Street. And then, when
Hillary Clinton lost the primary, Barack Obama turned to Lawrence Summers and
Timothy Geithner, and these people for advice, and he named Timothy Geithner to
be his treasury secretary. The guy who at the New York Fed, where you went there
to work and to try to supervise Goldman Sachs–he knew everything about this, and
told us nothing, and he was rewarded by being made treasury secretary.
CS:
When I'm saying, you know, we have to stop rewarding bad behavior,
that's an example of what I'm talking about. It's like, we have a culture where
we reward people for their bad behavior. And in the Fed it is a systemic problem.
And it is a problem that comes from the top down. And when I was at the Fed, Ben
Bernanke was head of the Fed; Bill Dudley, as you pointed out, was the head of
the New York Fed; and Sarah Dahlgren was his head of supervision. This is a very
small world. We're not talking about a lot of people; the culture is top-down,
and everybody there just does what these people say, because if they don't
they're afraid they're going to lose their jobs. So from their perspective, they
have nothing to lose, because they have a bunch of workers that are going to do
as they say. And they will do what is in their best corporate interests. I mean,
you have Bill Dudley, who was allowed to hold on to a lot of his investments that
predated his arrival at the Fed and were held at Goldman Sachs. And you know,
when you have somebody who's not forced to really work for the government–as in
divesting themselves of their own conflicts and truly taking taxpayer money and
doing their job–then you can't expect a good result to come from that. Again, we
rewarded bad behavior. And that's why I think, you know, the key here is really
about taking a really good look at our daily lives and seeing, who are we
rewarding on a regular basis? And we need to stop rewarding that bad behavior.
Wall Street's corruption runs deeper than you can fathom | Alternet
RS:
But I want to challenge what I think is your optimism. And in
fact, you are living proof that doing the right thing can be a career-ender. I
haven't asked you, I mean, I assume you still have a good career; you're highly
talented and competent, and you were, you know, extremely well educated. But
you're not being considered to be treasury secretary or something, right? The
consequences for you were quite dire, weren't they?
CS:
They
were. And you know, my career in banking is over on a permanent basis. But I
think you sort of point out to, a little bit to my personality, and I hope it
comes through in the book; I sort of talk about that fact that I'm just a very
resilient person. And I just, I don't like to let the bad guys win. I'd rather go
down swinging. So for me, I saw it as an opportunity to do my civic duty and
rebuild my life. You know, and I was very lucky to be blessed by so many people
who I shared the story to, especially lawyers who were so concerned about what I
was reporting, who thought that the Federal Reserve was above this, who thought
that the government would not fail us after the financial crisis, and who were
livid. And I've been blessed with their support through the process of
whistleblowing, and I continue to be blessed by their support even after. I have
a husband who was, you know, a real hero of the story in my book, and I have been
able to remake my life as a lawyer in private practice. And my clients, you know,
God bless them, they trust me to help them. And I wouldn't change what I did for
anything. Because I think for me–and I talk about it in the book–I think living a
meaningful life is more important than making money. I think for me, making money
is important insofar as it pays the bills. But once my bills are paid, it's about
having a meaningful life. And I just feel very, very lucky that I have had the
life that I've had, that I got to go to a Catholic school that taught me the
morals that I believe in. I think that I am who I am, and I think that I would be
just as moral if I had grown up Jewish, or if I had grown up a Mormon, or if I
had grown up a Protestant. So I feel very blessed that I was exposed to what good
values and good behavior are. I decided since I was very little that that's just
the way I wanted to live my life, and that to live meaningfully was more
important than anything else. And that has driven all of my decisions, and I
found the experience to be rewarding. And when people talk to me about how bad
things are and how things sort of look like they're never going to turn around, I
tell them, no. They will turn around. We just need to believe in ourselves and be
our own saviors, and be our own heroes in our own daily lives.
RS:
But let me, let me challenge that. And yes, you're an
exemplary person. No question. And people should read this book,
Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street.
But I
want to focus on that word, "lone." Lone whistleblower. These people had the same
great education you had at the best schools, OK? They didn't blow the whistle.
No, they abetted the crime! They made it possible. They destroyed people like
Brooksley Born, who dared challenge it. And the fact of the matter is, you can't
expect ordinary people–even myself. You know, I did graduate work in economics,
I'm a professor, blah blah blah. But I can tell you, when I went into my bank
loans, I didn't know all the details and what they were talking about and
everything. I counted on regulation, I counted on government, I counted on
accountability, frankly, on the part of these institutions. So my view is, you
can't expect ordinary people–that's why we had a distinction between investment
banks and commercial banks. Commercial banks are supposed to deal with ordinary
people, OK? They're supposed to hold their money, give them a fair interest rate,
make loans on their houses, and help them out. And they have to be regulated,
because you know, the ordinary person can't be an expert. The failure here is of
the educated class. Of the superachievers. And you count on those people, yes, to
do the right thing. But money talks. And the fact of the matter is, the people
you went to school with, at the Ivy League schools, at the wherever–they sold us
all out.
CS:
I think you make a good point. But I also think that the
problems are systemic and run deeper. I mean, I would point out, for example,
just from a personal perspective, when I graduated both college and law school I
happened to be one of those that graduated into a recession, twice. There weren't
too many jobs. I didn't have too many options. I ended up working in where I
ended up working because it was either that or not feed myself. And I think one
of the problems that we have that is systemic is that we have allowed capitalism
to create such huge imbalances in how we reward people for their daily work. So
people are forced to do something that they may not even like, or may not even be
good at, because they have no choice. It's a shame, because we're a big enough
country, we have a lot of talent, there should be more invisible hand, central
planning. This whole system where we are now turning our attention to creating
computer programmers is more based on making sure that computer programming
becomes a cheap, minimum-wage job where the owners of the computer companies like
Apple don't have to overpay like they are doing now for those workers. So I think
that there are more systemic issues than we realize. And I agree with you, I
think that, you know, we were sold out by the intellectual class. But we still
need to figure out–and the intellectuals are the ones who are going to help us–we
need to figure out how to fix the system on a larger scale if we are going to
rebalance things. And I don't have the monopoly on the answer, on all the
answers, you know? I'm just a girl born in Indiana to two Puerto Rican parents,
you know? [Laughs] It's not like I have any terms, in any way access to the
higher echelons and how that works. But I think that we really do need to think
about, in our own ways and in our own lives, how we can sort of convince other
people to make the right choices on a daily basis. Because I think that if
everybody takes making the right choices seriously, and realizes that we're all
in the same boat–you know, we're all Americans, this is going to impact us all–I
think that we can, slowly but surely, right the boat and start heading in the
right direction.
RS:
People should read
Noncompliant
–it's an important
word; they weren't compliant–
A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall
Street.
And recognize that the problem with modern governance is that the
decisions are made by people who don't have our common interest, who are bought
off. That money talks. And one reason we have such despair now, and we go for
demagogues, and we have such divisive, ugly language and ugly politics, is the
so-called civilized, well-educated leaders of our country went for the money and
betrayed ordinary people. I'll let you take the last word, and then we'll wrap it
up.
CS:
Ah, well, thank you. And again, you know, I know that you
are sort of [Laughs] thinking about it from the perspective of a hopeless sort of
case. But I do think that there is–and I hope people will look at it as the
beginning of change. You know, yes, the book is a very sad story; the bad guys do
win, for now. But just because they win the battle doesn't mean they're going to
win the war. And I refuse to give up hope in the American people, and I refuse to
give up hope in the American consumer. I think that we can make a difference if
we try. Because I think that when we get the American people–no matter whether
they're democrats, republicans, independent–when we get them educated on the
topic of finance, when we get them accessible stories, they will have their say.
And they matter–we matter. And it's important that they come to the table,
otherwise this problem isn't going to get solved.
Big finance does behave like an organized crime. And should be treated by society as
such...
Notable quotes:
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
By
Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of
economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank
Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic
Perspectives
I cannot write many blogs during the fall semesters because I teach four classes (I co-teach
one of them). The fall term of instruction at UMKC is now over so I am writing one piece before
turning to grading. I have recently done additional research on a topic I know is of great
interest -- the prosecution of elite white-collar criminals. I have organized it in the form of
a game in which the reader guesses who authored the quoted passage.
Which President
described the elite banksters of his era as "charlatans, chiselers and cheats?" Which Vice
President criticized prosecutions, enforcement actions, and even safety rules for the elite
white-collar criminals of his era in these terms?
But the number of complex regulations is only half the problem. As President [deleted] has
repeatedly emphasized, it is also the adversarial and seemingly mindless enforcement methods
that really get under people's skins. Business owners are sick of being treated like
criminals. They see a government that just doesn't make sense, that charges them with safety
violations when no one is in harm's way.
[Note that enforcement action is supposed to be 'adversarial' and that 'business owners'
need to be 'treated [as] [not 'like'] criminals' when they are criminals. A safety violation
that does not cause injury because no worker is in the unsafe trench when it collapsed should
be charged as a safety violation because it is. A well-run company with a strong safety record
takes that approach to safety. The government must too.]
Which U.S. Attorney General offered
the excuse for refusing to create a national task force to prioritize the prosecution of the
elite banksters of his era that the fraudsters were merely "white collar street criminals"?
Which U.S. Attorney General explained in these terms why he was working with the regulators
because prosecutions of elite banksters require enormous sophistication and prioritization?
[T]hese investigations most often involve complicated paper trails leading to highly
sophisticated schemes which disguise illegality under the veneer of legitimate business and
financial transactions.
[Note that this AG understood the essential danger that makes 'control frauds' uniquely
damaging -- the fact that the CEO finds it far easier to 'disguise illegality' 'under the
veneer' of seeming 'legitima[cy].']
Which U.S. President met with the Nation's U.S.
Attorneys to emphasize in these terms the criticality of prosecuting elite banksters?
It takes a snake, a cold-blooded snake, to betray the trust and innocence of hard-working
people," [deleted] said in a speech to his administration's U.S. attorneys in announcing his
effort. "And so, if we have to look under rocks to find these white-collar criminals, then we
will leave no stone unturned.
Which U.S. President proclaimed "I did not run for office to be helping out a
bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street"? Which FBI Director characterized the level of elite
fraud in failed insured institutions as 'pervasive' and explained that the fraud problem came
from the top in these terms?
The American public relied upon banking institutions and financial institutions being
soundly managed by people who were honest. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that this
program go forward to the end no matter how long that takes.
He discounted past arguments that Texas' economy was the root cause for the state's
financial crisis. "Although it was the general economic downturn in Texas that surfaced the
problem, it
appears to the FBI as if a pervasive pattern of fraudulent lending activity began much
earlier."
Which U.S. President told the Nation's leading bankers "My administration is the
only thing between you and the pitchforks"?
[Note that the President was characterizing the American people as a mob out to murder the
banksters that caused the financial crisis -- and stressing that his administration would
safeguard them from accountability for their crimes.]
Which U.S. Attorney General explained
in these terms how he began working with the new regulator the day after he was appointed to
ensure the prioritization of the most elite banksters in the ongoing financial crisis they were
both confronting?
I met with [deleted] Director of [deleted], the day after he assumed office to map out a
joint effort between the regulatory agencies and the Department of Justice to winnow through
the mass of referrals that had already been made to ensure that we were focusing upon the
most significant cases as our first priority.
Which regulatory agency made the 'mass of [criminal] referrals' the AG was
referring to? How many criminal referrals did the agency make in response to its financial
crisis? How many felony convictions of individuals did the Department of Justice (DOJ) obtain
in 'major' cases in response to these referrals? Which senior law enforcement agency warned in
September 2004 that an 'epidemic' of mortgage fraud was developing that would, he predicted,
cause a financial 'crisis' if it were not stopped? Which administration "debated for months the
advantages and perils of a criminal indictment against HSBC" given an FBI investigation
confirming the congressional finding that the bank, between 2001 and 2010, "exposed the U.S.
financial system to money laundering [by a leading drug cartel] and terrorist financing risks"
[by Saudis]"? The U.S. Attorney General, at the urging of the Fed and the Comptroller of the
Currency, refused to indict the bank or its senior officers who committed and profited from
tens of thousands of felonies. What U.S. Attorney General testified to Congress in the
following terms that the largest banks were too big to prosecute?
I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does
become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do
prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national
economy, perhaps even the world economy.
Under which administration did Scott G. Alvarez, general counsel at the Federal
Reserve successfully intervene with the SEC to weaken fraud penalties against some of the
world's largest banks? Under which administration did Timothy Geithner, then President of the
NY Fed, successfully intervene with then NY Attorney General Cuomo to caution against vigorous
prosecution of elite banksters? Did this harm Geithner and Cuomo's careers? Which President
unconstitutionally appointed the first Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision -- after
being warned that appointing him without the Senate's 'advice and consent' would be
unconstitutional? Why did the President do so -- and why did the Senate not protest the action?
Which administration ended the career prospects of a top regulator they appointed when he had
the audacity to bring an enforcement action against the President's son? Which U.S. Attorney
General wrote: "We are presently facing the largest financial disaster in American history
grounded in the betrayal of public trust by flagrant self-dealing in 'other people's money'"?
Which U.S. Attorney General described the causes of the financial crisis he was investigating
"the biggest white-collar swindle in history"?
For bonus points, these questions relate to a non-government party.
Who wrote the
following -- and made it public?
"Our savings and loan industry has created the largest mess in the history of U.S.
financial institutions," [deleted] said in a letter to the [industry trade association -- the
'league']. "The league responds to the savings and loan mess as Exxon would have responded to
the oil spill from the Valdez if it had insisted thereafter on liberal use of whisky by
tanker captains." [Deleted] blamed the league for 'constant and successful' lobbying over
many years that prevented government regulators from cracking down on S&Ls run by 'crooks
and fools' and persuaded regulators to use 'Mickey Mouse' accounting .
"It is not unfair to liken the situation now facing Congress to cancer and to liken the
league to a significant carcinogenic agent ."
"Because the League has clearly misled its government for a long time, to the taxpayers'
great detriment, a public apology is in order, not redoubled efforts to mislead further."
Answers : (plus the President that appointed the official):
George HW Bush Gore Mukasey
(Bush II) Thornburgh (Bush I) George HW Bush Obama William Sessions (Bush II) Obama Thornburgh
(Tim Ryan was the OTS Director he worked with) OTS, during the S&L debacle, made >
30,000 criminal referrals (all federal banking agencies combined made fewer than a dozen
criminal referrals in response to the Great Financial Crisis) and DOJ obtained > 1,000
felony convictions in cases DOJ defined as 'major.' The FBI (through Chris Swecker) Obama 13.
Holder (Obama) Bush II Bush II (No, Cuomo was elected Governor of NY and Obama appointed
Geithner as Treasury Secretary) George HW Bush (the unconstitutional appointment was Danny Wall
as OTS Director) George HW Bush (Tim Ryan was the OTS Director who brought the enforcement
action v. Neil Bush) Thornburg (Bush I) Thornburgh (Bush I) Warren Buffett and Charles Munger
(May 30, 1989).
The mess is caused by deregulation, money in politics, lobbying by the rich, wealth
inequality, fraud in the banking system, corruption of corporations, the wealthy hiding taxes
off-shore, greed, failure of democratic institutions, etc. In another way, you could say It's
the Love of Money. (It is a very long list epitomized by Black's quotations from the highest
offices in the land.)
Concise and enlightening summary. Thank you, Bill Black. Should be taught in every high
school US History and Civics class in America together with financial and monetary literacy.
Interesting how pervasive this behavior has been across so called "leaders" of both legacy
political parties and whose names repeatedly appear on the summary list. The damage to the
social and political fabric of the nation is incalculable.
"... L.A City Attorney Mike Feuer announced a $185 million settlement reached with Wells Fargo, after thousands of bank employees siphoned funds from their customers to open phony checking and savings accounts raking in millions in fraudulent fees. ..."
"... So where is the FBI? Where is the Department of Justice? How about California Attorney General Kamala Harris? Too busy campaigning for the Senate to notice? How about L.A. District Attorney Jackie Larry? ..."
"... Only City Attorney Mike Feuer took action, and he only has the authority to prosecute misdemeanors ..."
"... multi-billion dollar ..."
"... If the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes were to go out with his lantern in search of an honest man today, a survey of Wall Street executives on workplace conduct suggests he might have to look elsewhere. ..."
"... A quarter of Wall Street executives see wrongdoing as a key to success, according to a survey by whistleblower law firm Labaton Sucharow released on Tuesday. ..."
"... In a survey of 500 senior executives in the United States and the UK ..."
"... , 26 percent of respondents said they had observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace, while 24 percent said they believed financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct to be successful ..."
Organized crime. This phrase is now a precise synonym for big-banking in the United States.
These Big Banks commit big crimes; they commit small crimes. They cheat their own clients; they
swindle outsiders. They break virtually every financial law on the books. What do all these
crimes have in common? The Big Banks commit all these crimes
again and
again and
again – with utter impunity.
These fraud factories commit their serial mega-crimes, year after year, because the Big
Banks know that they will never, ever be punished. On rare occasions, their crimes have been so
egregious that U.S. 'justice' officials could no longer pretend to be oblivious to them. In
such cases, there was a token prosecution, there was a settlement where the law-breaking banks
didn't even have to acknowledge their own criminality, and there was a microscopic fine –
which didn't even force the felonious financial institutions to disgorge all of their profits
from these crimes.
Criminal sanctions, by definition, are supposed to deter criminal conduct.
The token prosecutions against U.S. Big Banks didn't deter Big Bank crime, they encouraged it.
But even these wrist-slaps were becoming embarrassing for this crime syndicate, so they dealt
with this problem. The Big Bank crime syndicate told
its lackeys in the U.S. 'justice' department that they were not allowed to prosecute one of its
tentacles, ever again.
The lackeys, as always, obeyed their Masters, and issued
a new proclamation . The U.S. 'Justice' Department would never prosecute a U.S. Big Bank
ever again – no matter what crimes it committed, no matter how large the crimes, no
matter how many times the same Big Banks committed the same crimes. Complete, legal immunity;
totally above the law. A literal culture of crime.
What happens when you create a culture of crime in (big) banking? Not only the banks break
laws – with impunity – their bank employees do so as well. Case in point:
Warren Buffett's favorite Big Bank – Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo employees came up with
a good idea for boosting their salaries: stealing money directly out of the accounts of
the bank's clients .
Consider how large this crime became, in just one of these tentacles of organized crime.
L.A City Attorney Mike Feuer announced a $185 million settlement reached with Wells
Fargo, after thousands of bank employees siphoned funds from their customers to open
phony checking and savings accounts raking in millions in fraudulent fees.
[emphasis mine]
Thousands of bank employees stealing millions of dollars from bank customers, in tiny,
little increments, again and again and again. But the story gets much worse. Why was a lowly
city attorney involved with the prosecution of this organized crime?
So where is the FBI? Where is the Department of Justice? How about California
Attorney General Kamala Harris? Too busy campaigning for the Senate to notice? How about L.A.
District Attorney Jackie Larry?
Only City Attorney Mike Feuer took action, and he only has the authority to prosecute
misdemeanors
There are only two ways in which the non-action of the U.S. pseudo-justice system can be
explained:
Take your pick. The U.S. pseudo-justice system is used to seeing so many
multi-billion dollar mega-crimes being committed by these fraud factories that
the systemic crime at Wells Fargo (which was 'only' in the $millions) didn't even attract their
attention. Or, the entire U.S. pseudo-justice system is completely bought-off and corrupt
– and they refuse to prosecute Big Bank organized crime .
A culture of crime.
It gets still worse. Thousands of Wells Fargo employees stole
millions of dollars, from countless clients. They were caught. But not even one
banker was sent to jail. In a real justice system, systemic crime of this nature would/could
only be prosecuted in one of three ways. Either every Wells Fargo criminal would be prosecuted
to the full extent of the law (given the egregious nature of the crime), or Wells Fargo
management would be prosecuted – because they would have/should have known about this
crime-wave. Or else both.
Bankers stealing money, directly and brazenly, right out of customer accounts, but no one
goes to jail? A culture of crime.
Understand that endemic, cultural changes of this nature don't originate at the bottom of
the corporate ladder. They originate at the top. In the case of the Wall Street crime
syndicate; we already know that their management personnel are criminals, because they have
admitted to
being criminals.
Many Wall Street executives says [sic] wrongdoing is necessary: survey
If the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes were to go out with his lantern in search
of an honest man today, a survey of Wall Street executives on workplace conduct suggests he
might have to look elsewhere.
A quarter of Wall Street executives see wrongdoing as a key to success, according to
a survey by whistleblower law firm Labaton Sucharow released on Tuesday.
In a survey of 500 senior executives in the United States and the UK
[New York and London] , 26 percent of respondents said they had observed or had
firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace, while 24 percent said they believed
financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or illegal conduct to be
successful [emphasis mine]
One-quarter of Big Bank management admitted that they "need" to commit crimes. A culture of
crime. More needs to be said about the rampant, disgusting criminality among upper management
in the Big Banks of the U.S. (and UK).
A known whistleblower was conducting a public survey, asking known criminals how many of
them were engaging in criminal behavior. What percentage of respondents would
lie when answering such a survey? Three-quarters sounds about right.
One-quarter of Wall Street executives admitted that committing crimes was a way of life. The
other three-quarters lied about their criminal acts.
Monkey see; monkey do. The lower level foot soldiers see their Bosses breaking laws, with
impunity, on a daily basis. Their reaction, at Wells Fargo? "Me too."
Most if not all of the Wall Street fraud factories conduct detailed "personality testing" on
their bank personnel. Are they looking to weed-out those with criminal (if not psychopathic)
inclinations? Of course not. They conduct this personality testing to find which employees have
no reservations about engaging in criminal conduct – so they can be fast-tracked
for promotion .
There is no other way in which the systemic criminality of senior banking personnel can be
reconciled with the detailed personality-testing in which they participated, in order to reach
that level of management. The Wall Street fraud factories look for the most amoral criminals
which they can find. And with the exorbitant, ludicrous "compensation" they award to these
criminals for their systemic crimes, they end up with (literally) the best criminals that money
can buy.
A culture of crime.
As a final note; the U.S. system of pretend-justice already has a powerful weapon in its
arsenal to fight organized crime: the "RICO" act.
This anti-racketeering statute was created for one, precise purpose: to not merely
prosecute/punish organized crime, but to literally dismantle the crime
infrastructure which supports the organized crime.
Not only does the statute confer strong (almost limitless) powers in gathering evidence of
organized crime, it also permits mass seizures of assets – anything/everything connected
to the organized crime of the entity(ies) in question. In the case of the Big Bank crime
syndicate, where all of its operations are directly/indirectly tied into criminal operations of
one form or another, if RICO was turned loose on these fraud factories, by the time the dust
had settled there would be nothing left.
Oh yes. If the U.S. 'Justice' Department ever went "RICO" on U.S. Big Banks, lots and lots
and lots of bankers would go to prison, for a very, long time.
Now that the banks are calling in their insurance, the EU has to deliver either by 1)
screwing down Italy the same as they did Greece, or 2) getting the French and German public
(or better the whole EU) to bail out the banks.
There is a third option: the banks simply accept their losses, and the bankers make do
without their customary bonuses for a few quarters.
"... Great article, thanks. Author says US LTO will be done by 2040, which makes sense. The speed and acceleration of sinking oil production is critical since we have not been strongly pursuing alternatives. If the production is down 50 percent by 2030 to 2035 it's going to be a tough go. If it falls faster then we are in severe trouble. ..."
"... The uncertainties he notes are shocking. That we have spent the last ten years pissing away our remaining "pennies" on a driving spree, instead of using it to build a renewable future, really makes me think that the backside of the peak is going to be awful. ..."
"... As a working petroleum geologist in the Delaware Basin and others, I will say USGS and EIA assessments are considered a joke. They do little to take into account the actual geology, or changes in the thermal maturity of the rock across a basin, it is more multiply an average well performance for a certain amount of acres drilled, times the total area of the basin, minus the number of drilled wells. ..."
"... I would not doubt oil production peaks in the mid-2020s as people drill up the best rock, and have to keep shifting to less productive horizons. ..."
"... So the oil cut is out: 1.2 mb. Together with russia and others. So LTO is saved, the frenzy can go on soon. ..."
Great article, thanks. Author says US LTO will be done by 2040, which makes sense. The
speed and acceleration of sinking oil production is critical since we have not been strongly
pursuing alternatives. If the production is down 50 percent by 2030 to 2035 it's going to be
a tough go. If it falls faster then we are in severe trouble.
Jean Laherrere knows a lot, but on LTO I think he may be wrong.
From the piece linked above: The best approach for forecasting future production is the extrapolation of past
production (called Hubbert linearization). For Eagle Ford the trend can be extrapolated
toward an ultimate quantity of 3 Gb.
The USGS estimates about a 12.5 Gb mean for the TRR of the Eagle Ford, when economics is
considered the URR might be reduced to 10Gb under a reasonable oil price scenario (AEO 2018
reference oil price scenario).
Recent USGS estimates for the Permian Delaware Basin have lead to a revision of my US
tight oil estimate to a mean of 74 Gb with peak probably in 2025 to 2030. Decline will be
relatively steep from 2030 to 2040, if the USGS estimates for the US tight oil resource prove
correct.
This is a terrific article. It takes all the confusions around oil and articulates them
beautifully. His review really makes me want to buy the book.
This is a delight to me because while I've always liked Laherrere's charts, I find his
English writing atrocious (not all his fault as a native speaker of French). This could
alienate lay readers, which is too bad because his message really needs to get out there.
The uncertainties he notes are shocking. That we have spent the last ten years pissing
away our remaining "pennies" on a driving spree, instead of using it to build a renewable
future, really makes me think that the backside of the peak is going to be awful.
Laherrere's knowledge is magisterial. Good on the editor who worked with him on this.
Indeed the amount of work that Jean is producing is truly quite amazing.
By the way what about Kjell Aleklett ?
According to his blog he didn't publish anything since 2017, the case ?
The "issue" with Jean is that he also is a climato skeptic (regarding CO2 effects) and this
has been detrimental to his ressource studies.
But one exercice in comparing the urgencies (taking the IPCC models just as they are), and
feeding them with the resource aspects of Laherrere, clearly shows that peak oil or even peak
fossile is the most urgent matter (knowing that anyway the mitigation measures, dimishing
fossile fuels burning, are usually the same, except stuff like CSS, that will most probably
never happen anyway).
Overall the terrible deficit of the "resource message" compared to the climate/CO2 one,
could be seen as a key reason for no measures being taken for the two aspects
Laherrere also suggests a 3 Gb URR for Eagle Ford where the USGS TRR mean estimate is
about 12.5 Gb and when economic assumptions are applied the ERR is probably about 10 Gb.
You are much more familiar with the Eagle Ford, at $80/b (2017$) does a 3 Gb URR estimate
seem correct?
Thanks. Does 10 Gb seem reasonable or is that too high? Average of USGS mean and
Laherrere's estimate would be about 6.5 Gb, again you know the area so your estimates would
probably be better than most.
It's pretty difficult to measure with strictly an $80 price. Some depends on gas price. There
are three windows in the EF. Oil, gas/condensate, and mostly gas. Gas has barely been
touched, and is the biggest window. Geologically older. It still will produce some oil and
condensate. If any, it will be mostly condensate. But it is still production as yet mostly
untouched. Gas/condensate has been drilled, and is responsible for the higher api coming out
of the EF, but in the past few years, less has been drilled due to the api. Oil window is
being drilled, but there is still plenty of tier two and three areas to go. Not so much tier
one. How do you measure that, and at what oil and gas price. I would say 12 is possible, but
it includes a lot of condensate and gas.
You could look at the USGS assessment of the Delaware in the same light. It may be there,
but is it cost productive? You may only get gas and/or condensate, depending on geological
age of the formation. Or, you may have to keep chasing after anything, as it moves quickly as
wells are drilled.
Thanks for the correction. Yes Gas prices would also be needed. The 10 Gb was C+C and yes
there is probably lots of condensate. I guess I would make it $4/ MCF for NG, you would
probably need condensate and NGL prices to do a full analysis, way too many moving parts for
me.
Got that right. Here's my cracker jacks geology assessment in the Permian. midland and
Delaware basins are slightly different, but the both have a wolfcamp as the lower level. It's
primarily a shale from my view of core samples. From the Bone Springs to the bottom wolfcamp,
there is no clear formation that acts as a container, Bone Springs looks like it is closer to
a sandstone, but closely formed from my view of the core samples. Not conducive to water
flooding due to lack of "walls". But, because of the lack of walls, the oil/condensate/gas
travels when wells are drilled. Indications are that EF has the same problems, but not as
fast? Very simplistic, and possibly wrong viewpoint.
And there is a fairly wide variety of prices depending on what comes out. I'm still trying
to figure out my pay Stubbs.
LARGEST CONTINUOUS OIL AND GAS RESOURCE POTENTIAL EVER
Today, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone
Spring Formation in the Delaware Basin portion of Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin
province contain an estimated mean of 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to an assessment by the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This estimate is for continuous (unconventional) oil, and
consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.
The Easter Bunny, Santa Clause, Tooth Fairy, but no Trolls? Conventional? They are out of
their Fxxng minds. Dept of the Interior is sharing the same hospital suite with the EIA. Both
digging for that phantom oil.
Somebody ought to tell the oil companies to quit using all this fracking stuff. All they
need to do is drill straight down. Sheesh!
I'm not a geologist, but your original projections peaking in 2025 appear reasonable to me.
Slow peak, not a huge peak like some. To add to that, JG Tulsa (below post), who is a working
geologist in the area, agrees with a mid 2020's peak. I'm not stupid enough to argue with
experts
You are clearly smarter than me. I do tend to listen when geologists and geophysicists try to educate me.
Here is a preliminary estimate for US LTO assuming USGS mean estimates are correct, the
Permian is up to date, but the older Bakken, EF, Niobrara, and US other LTO scenarios need to
be revised to reflect the AEO reference oil price scenario. Peak about 9 Mb/d in 2025, also
shown is an older estimate from June 2018 (before the recent Delaware Basin Wolfcamp and
Bonespring assessment from the USGS.)
This 46 billion barrels oil – along with 20 billion barrels NGLs and 281 Tcf gas
– is for the Delaware Basin Wolfcamp and Bone Spring only.
Combined with the earlier Midland Basin assessments of the Wolfcamp and Spraberry of 24
billion barrels combined, the total so far Technically Recoverable Resource is over 70
billion barrels oil.
Just as the Haynesville jumped from 39 Tcf to over 300 Tcf as the Haynesville/Bossier, the
Mancos from 1.6 to 66 Tcf, the Barnett from 26 to 52 Tcf, the Bakken/TF will jump next
assessment and both the Utica and Marcellus will skyrocket.
I know less about Marcellus, but Bakken/Three Forks was recently assessed in 2013, the new
assessment may be an increase, but I won't speculate in advance what it will be.
The 46 Gb mean undiscovered TRR for the Wolfcamp (Delaware Basin) and Bonespring is a
surprise to me, based on this the Permian tight oil TRR would be about 74 Gb, before this
assessment I had guessed 8 Gb for Delaware Wolfcamp based on output compared to Midland
Wolfcamp (it was about 30% of Midland so I took the 20 Gb Midland Wolfcamp times 0.3 and
rounded to 8 Gb). My previous mean estimate for Permian tight oil TRR was 38 Gb, so I was too
low by more than a factor of 2. My F5 (5% probability TRR might be higher) estimate was 54 Gb
before and the F95 estimate was 20 Gb, these are revised to F95=43 Gb and F5=113 Gb.
For the entire US I had a previous TRR estimate of 70 Gb for all of the US, this is
revised to 107 Gb for the mean US tight oil TRR.
An interesting development that might push the US peak in tight oil a little later and/or
a little higher. My F5 model had the Permian peak at about 7.5 Mb/d in 2027, a new model
might result in 2029 at 9.5 Mb/d, for the US as a whole, other tight oil plays might be
declining by 2029, so the overall US peak might be 2027 or 2028, based on current
information.
The formal report. The references are . . . a bit odd. There is a sense the whole thing is
dependent on technology results assessment from IHS.
Meaning, I don't see anything here that suggests USGS sent teams out to look at rock for
this whole area. They seem to have taken info from other IHS papers -- and the recent ones
from USGS were for what looks like much more limited geographic areas. Looks like IHS
encouraged extrapolation.
Btw someone at Bloomberg has declared this is a X2 on previous estimates. That would suggest
46 billion barrels of oil we're not just added to the US resource database. It would be more
like 23.
The Bloomberg guy didn't seem all that sharp, and so let's not take that as gospel.
Probably worth noting that it would not take much variance to move this resource into an
API 45+ or even 50+ configuration, and given the NAT gas and NGL estimates, that would seem a
pretty credible scenario. In which case it's not oil.
The Monterrey estimate was a study done for the EIA which was poorly done (it was not a USGS
estimate), the USGS estimates tend to be pretty good and have tended to be on the
conservative side, though we won't know for sure until all the oil is produced and the last
well is shut in. Every resource estimate involves extrapolation and/or modelling of future
well output by definition.
Some estimates are better than others, for example the USGS estimates are better than the
EIA estimates in most cases.
Previously I has guessed (incorrectly) that Permian mean TRR would be 38 Gb, this new
assessment would lead to a revision to about 74 Gb for mean TRR of the Permian Basin tight
oil resource.
In the scenario below I have a 253,000 well scenario (about 6 times more than my ND
Bakken/Three Forks mean scenario with 42,000 wells completed.) I assume new well EUR starts
to decrease in Jan 2023(about 3 years after my estimate of the future ND Bakken EUR decrease
start as Permian ramp up started about 3 years after Bakken). This assumption is easily
modified.
Peak is about 2028 with peak output at about 7000 kb/d (currently Permian tight oil output
is about 2750 kb/d based on EIA tight oil production estimates by play).
The scenario above does not consider economics. When we consider the discounted net revenue
over the life of the well and assume this must equal the real well cost in order for the well
to be completed using the assumptions below, then we find an economically recoverable
resource (ERR) scenario.
Economic assumptions (all costs in constant 2017$) are:
real oil prices in 2017$ follow the EIA AEO 2018 Reference Brent Oil Price scenario
royalties and taxes are 32% of wellhead revenue
transport cost is $4/b
OPEX is $2.3/b plus $15000 per month per well
real annual discount rate is 7% (nominal rate is 10% at 3% annual inflation rate)
real well cost=9.5 million 2017US$
Peak output is unchanged but wells completed are reduced to 173,000 and ERR=60 Gb.
The indications from drilling companies, so far, operating in the Delaware do not seem to
jive with the assessment of grandiosity. So, I am more than skeptical. The government can
create all the reserves they want, but if the oil companies can't get it out of the ground??
My understanding is that there is a core area in West Texas and NM. EOG is there. Extends a
few Counties in West Texas and NM starting around Loving County. Even there, it is high api.
Outside of that, it is highly sporadic. If you extrapolate what they are doing in tiny Loving
County to the rest of the Delaware, you can come up with these numbers. But, you can't. As I
read, there are over 800 Ducs outside of this area. You leave them as Ducs, because you
pretty much know what the completion will look like after drilling. Basically, the report is
hogwash. It's pretty easy to tell on the Texas side, as you can pull up completions by
county.
It may require higher oil prices and the associated gas is a problem, not enough
infrastructure to move it.
Also the USGS simply does a resource assessment, these are not reserves, no economic
assessment was done, the USGS leaves that to others.
I have often been skeptical of USGS Assessments (such as Bakken Assessment in 2013),
looking at proved reserves and cumulative production to data in the ND Bakken/Three Forks,
the 11 Gb mean TRR estimate from 2013 looks pretty good.
As a working petroleum geologist in the Delaware Basin and others, I will say USGS and EIA
assessments are considered a joke. They do little to take into account the actual geology, or
changes in the thermal maturity of the rock across a basin, it is more multiply an average
well performance for a certain amount of acres drilled, times the total area of the basin,
minus the number of drilled wells.
Everything is more complex than that. Right now operators
are drilling the best, most economic parts of the Delaware basin, at the going rate it will
not be too many years before they have to shift over to other benches of the Wolfcamp or Bone
Spring, which will be less productive. for deeper Wolfcamp benches you get more condensate,
less oil, much more gas, you might go from a 10,000′ lateral making 1-2 MMBO in the
Wolfcamp A, down to one making 300-500 MBO.
Still a decent well when you add in the gas, but
if you take that across a large area that will lead to a substantial decline in new well
performance. I would not doubt oil production peaks in the mid-2020s as people drill up the
best rock, and have to keep shifting to less productive horizons.
Can you give us your estimate of the TRR or ERR of the Delaware Wolfcamp and Bonespring.
There is a wide range in the USGS TRR estimate from 27 to 71 Gb with a mean of 46 Gb and a
median of 45 Gb. Would you say that 27 Gb is too high? It seems clear you think that 46 Gb is
far too optimistic. Note that the mean ERR would probably be around 38 Gb if the mean TRR
estimate was correct and prices follow the AEO 2018 reference price scenario. For the F95
USGS TRR estimate the ERR would be around 21 Gb.
Maybe you could also comment on other USGS assessments for Eagle Ford, Wolfcamp Midland
basin and Spraberry. Perhaps you could give us the "correct assessment".
I agree the EIA assessments are not good, economists do not know much about geophysics.
The people at the USGS are scientists, though they have limited information and thus use
statistical analysis to fill the data gaps.
Come on, Dennis. He may be a geologist, but my bet he is mortal, like you and I.
I really believe your first graph with 8 million as the high is the best I have seen. The
tail of that is probably not ever to be properly guessed, until it happens.
Dood, one of the most frequent points we deal with on this blog is the claim that technology
in horizontal fracking has multiplied output tremendously -- excluding from consideration
stage count/length.
The extra production "per well" seems to be from the well being longer in length and thus
consuming more water and proppant. Is this true, or is there some magical improvement in
proppant type or fracking pressure or whatever?
It's mostly the length of the lateral, although some is due to increased fracking stages
within the lateral (more holes in the pipe). Better drilling is another, although extra
lateral makes up most of it. The laterals, in general, are about twice as long.
Hanh? And this paragraph strikes this lay reader as utterly incoherent:
The U.S. sold overseas last week a net 211,000 barrels a day of crude and refined
products such as gasoline and diesel, compared to net imports of about 3 million barrels a
day on average so far in 2018, and an annual peak of more than 12 million barrels a day in
2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
From EIA: "In 2017, the United States consumed about 19.96 million barrels per day." Let's
call it 20.
Also from EIA: US weekly field production ending 11/30: 11.7 million barrels.
20-11.7=8.3????
True? Fudging? Lying? What am I missing?
Then, you read further into the article:
While the net balance shows the U.S. is selling more petroleum than buying, American
refiners continue to buy millions of barrels each day of overseas crude and fuel. The U.S.
imports more than 7 million barrels a day of crude from all over the globe to help feed its
refineries, which consume more than 17 million barrels each day.
The US refines a lot of imported oil -- for export. There is refinery gain in this. This
means a barrel comes in. It is refined to various constituent parts like gasoline, diesel,
kerosene, etc. The VOLUME of these parts are liquids of less density and this means their
volume is greater. So a barrel of crude will yield a sum total of more than 1 barrel of
liquids of lower density. Since these products are exported, the barrel count is in favor of
exports vs the barrel count imported.
This is not a huge effect, but it's significant.
There's an EIA page for US sales volume consumed. If you add up all the products you get
well over 15 million bpd. US production is rather less than that. Imports must exceed
exports.
Thanks for trying to explain it to me. Maybe it's just too complicated for me to understand.
I still can't reconcile the headline, "US becomes a net oil exporter" with the EIA's
numbers: The US consumes 20 million barrels a day. The US produces 12 million barrels a day.
But, yes, they're net exporters. Whatever.
After 14 years, the niceties of peak oil still escape me.
I am not sure I follow you entirely, but for heavier crude oils there is waste to get to
diesel (a bit higher than 30 API). And for extra light oil there is a huge waste to get to
diesel, as much has to be segregated to petroleum gas and gasoline components due to length
of carbon chain.
The case for diesel shortage in 2020 due to shipping legislation is still very much
legit.
I was talking about imported crude (that would not be LTO and probably diesel rich) being
refined into a larger number of barrels of product vs the barrels of input crude. They
export. It's a bias towards export.
I think mostly the report derives from very noisy weekly data. The US is not a net
exporter.
Donald Trump could hardly have chosen a more treacherous economic moment to tear up the
"decaying and rotten deal" with Iran. The world crude market is already tightening very fast. He
estimates that sanctions will cut Iran's exports by up to 500,000 barrels this year. "It could
well be twice more cut in 2019
North America has run into an infrastructure crunch. There are not yet enough pipelines to
keep pace with shale oil output from the Permian Basin of west Texas, and it is much the same
story in the Alberta tar sands. The prospect of losing several hundred thousand barrels a day of
Iranian oil exports would not have mattered much a year ago. It certainly matters now.
Notable quotes:
"... The peak oil theme is very much forgotten in all the turmoil, but is very real still. ..."
"... How much more reserves to classify as probable (2p) is a movable target, it depends on the oil price. ..."
"... I agree that 2019 will show big declines in OECD inventory primarily because core OPEC wants it. (increasing KSA premiums to the US +3,5 dollars in Jan and lowering it to Asia). ..."
"... Or still more likely, a spike in oil prices in 2H 2019 and a recession soon thereafter. ..."
"... Who knows..the only thing certain is that oil is being pressured towards the final "spare capacity" (whatever that is) and that a recession will come anyway as a result of the low oil price environment the last 4 years. ..."
The peak oil theme is very much forgotten in all the turmoil, but is very real
still.
How much more reserves to classify as probable (2p) is a movable target, it depends on
the oil price.
And how rapid the extraction rates of reserves can extend to difficult to say; technology
and not at least the 3D maps of reservoirs coupled with improved seismic data, more precise
drilling and lower costs due to excess oil service capacity (at least for offshore) have
countered the inevitable declining quality of oil reservoirs and size of new ones coming
online for some time now.
I agree that 2019 will show big declines in OECD inventory primarily because core OPEC
wants it. (increasing KSA premiums to the US +3,5 dollars in Jan and lowering it to
Asia).
The next question is how high oil prices will go before there is some reaction from the
nations that have spare storage/capacity. I am thinking there is some relief in increased
pipeline capacity in Texas in 2H 2019 and also Johan Sverdrup in Norway (since I follow
things close to home) in the same time period to save the oil market in winter 2020.
Or still more likely, a spike in oil prices in 2H 2019 and a recession soon
thereafter.
Who knows..the only thing certain is that oil is being pressured towards the final "spare
capacity" (whatever that is) and that a recession will come anyway as a result of the low oil
price environment the last 4 years.
Offshore is hit hard, so are supply in places "too risky" for cheap financing the hidden
secret of the oil market (why so few news stories covering this?)
Saved from $40 oil, but I really doubt there will be much of a frenzy at $52 oil price.
Hopefully, that will give them enough cash flow for stationary. They need to write Christmas
letters to their shareholders telling them everything will be better next year.
We will also have to see how long it takes for the shale frackers modify their behavior in
the face of $50 oil. We haven't seen any signs so far, with a few rigs continued to be added
each week. At some point the frackers will wake up and determine that oil at $50 doesn't go as
far as oil at $75 and tap the brakes just a hair. We are also due for a seasonal pause in some
of the U.S. Northern areas, as winter takes a bite out of drilling activity.
In practical terms we will probably be well into the first quarter before we see any impact
from OPEC production cuts. However, once we do, it will be like June of 2017 all over again,
and the price of oil could strongly respond to the upside.
"... Since Mrs Thatcher and the 364 economists, the neoliberal right has had an interest in discrediting economic expertise, and replacing academic economists with City economists in positions of influence. ..."
"... The first is access. Through a dominance of the printed media, a right wing elite can get a message across despite it being misleading or simply untrue. ..."
"... The second is that the elite often plays on a simple understanding of how things work, and dismisses anything more complex, when it suits them. ..."
"... As the earlier reference to Mrs Thatcher suggests, there is a common pattern to these attacks by elites on experts: they come from the neoliberal right. ..."
"... Attacks by elites on experts tend to come from the political right and not the left, and the neoliberal right in particular because they have an ideology to sell. ..."
The Bank's analysis is of course not beyond criticism. [2] But the attacks of the Brexiter
elite are quite deliberately not economic in character but political: Rees Mogg claimed Carney
is a second rate politician (a second rate foreign politician!) and his forecast is
designed to produce a political outcome ('Project Hysteria'). The idea is to suggest that these
projections should not be taken as a warning by experts but instead as a political act. Once
again, I'm not suggesting
we should never think about what an experts own interests might be, but if you carry this line
of thought to the Rees Mogg extreme you undermine all expertise that is not ideologically
based, which is exactly what Rees Mogg wants to do.
This I think is the second reason why the view of the overwhelming majority academic economists
that Brexit will be harmful is going to be ignored by many. Since Mrs Thatcher and the 364
economists, the neoliberal right has had an interest in discrediting economic expertise, and
replacing academic economists with City economists in positions of influence. (Despite
what most journalists will tell you, the 364 were correct
that tightening fiscal policy delayed the recovery.) Right wing think tanks like the IEA are
particularly useful in this respect, partly because the media often makes no distinction
between independent academics and think tank employees. Just look at how the media began to
treat climate change as controversial.
But isn't there a paradox here? Why would members of the public, who have little trust in
politicians compared to academics, believe politicians and their backers when they attack
academics? In the case of Brexit, and I think other issues like austerity, these elites have
two advantages. The first is access. Through a dominance of the printed media, a right wing
elite can get a message across despite it being misleading or simply untrue. Remember how
Labour's fiscal profligacy caused record deficits? Half the country believe this to be a fact
despite it being an obvious lie. What will most journalists tell you about Brexit and
forecasts? My guess is that forecasters got the immediate impact of Brexit very wrong, rather
than the reality that what they expected to happen immediately happened more gradually. Why
will journalists get these things wrong? Because they read repeated messages about failed
forecasts in the right wing press, but very little about how GDP is currently around 2.5% lower
as a result of Brexit, and real wages are lower still. The second is that the elite often plays on a simple understanding of how things work, and
dismisses anything more complex, when it suits them. Immigrants 'obviously' increase
competition for scarce public resources, because people typically fail to allow for immigrants
adding to public services either directly or through their taxes. The government should
'obviously' tighten its belt when consumers are having to do the same, and so on. In the case
of the economic effects of Brexit, it is obvious that we will save money by not paying in to
the EU, whereas everything else is uncertain and who believes forecasts etc. As the earlier reference to Mrs Thatcher suggests, there is a common pattern to these
attacks by elites on experts: they come from the neoliberal right. If you want to call the
Blair/Brown years neoliberal as well, you have to make a distinction between [neoliberal] right
and left. The Blair/Brown period was a high point for the influence of academics in general and
academic economists in particular
on government. As I note here , Iraq was
the exception not the rule, for clear reasons. Attacks by elites on experts tend to come
from the political right and not the left, and the neoliberal right in particular because they
have an ideology to sell.
So the USA decided to take hostages ;-) The key rule of neoliberalism is the financial
oligarchy is untouchable. This is a gangster-style move which will greatly backfire.
Now Russian financial executives would think twice about visiting UK, Canada, New Zealand or
Australia. and that's money lost. Probably forever.
Appearing in court wearing a green jumpsuit and without handcuffs, Meng reportedly looked to
be in good spirits in a Vancouver courtroom where the prosecutions' case was detailed publicly
for the first time. Specifically, the US alleges that Meng helped conceal the company's true
relationship with a firm called Skycom, a subsidiary closely tied to its parent company as it
did business with Iran.
Meng used this deception to lure banks into facilitating transactions that violated US
sanctions, exposing them to possible fines. The prosecutor didn't name the banks, but US media
on Thursday reported that a federal monitor at
HSBC flagged a suspicious transaction involving Huawei to US authorities, according to
Bloomberg. Prosecutors also argued that Meng has avoided the US since learning about its probe
into possible sanctions violations committed by Huawei, and that she should be held in custody
because she's a flight risk whose bail could not be set high enough. Before Friday's hearing, a
publication ban prevented details about the charges facing Meng from being released. However,
that ban was lifted at the beginning of her hearing.
Meng was arrested in Vancouver on Saturday while on her way to Mexico, according to reports
in the Canadian
Press.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada's ambassador in Beijing had
briefed the Chinese foreign ministry on Meng's arrest. The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa had
branded Meng's detention as a "serious violation of human rights" as senior Chinese officials
debate the
prospects for retaliation. Freeland said McCallum told the Chinese that Canada is simply
following its laws - echoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that Meng's arrest was the
result of a legal process happening independent of politics.
Friday's hearing in Vancouver is just the start of a legal process that could end with Meng
being extradited to stand trial in the US. Even if prosecutors believe there is little doubt as
to Meng's guilt, the extradition process could take months or even years.
Anything involving Iran is inherently political. The US is abusing Interpol in no less
brazen fashion than Russia and China when seeking the extradition of dissidents. Canada
shouldn't accomodate this BS.
"... In bull markets, everything works. In bear markets, the only thing that really works is short-term government and municipal bonds and cash. Ample opportunity is being given to cut exposure to risk, and it's clear that few people are taking advantage of it. They never do. ..."
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As a longtime market observer, what I find most interesting about the latest correction in equities has
the feeling of inevitability that it will turn into something worse. It wasn't this way in late January, when everyone wanted to
buy that dip. It certainly wasn't this way in 2007, when the magnitude of the recession was grossly underestimated.
Even the Federal Reserve is getting into the pessimism. Chairman Jerome Powell signaled last week that a pause in interest-rate
hikes might be forthcoming. What's interesting about that is Powell surely knew that such a reference might be interpreted as
bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump and yet he did it anyway. In essence, he risked the perception of the Fed's
independence probably because he knows the economic data is worsening.
Just about everyone I talk to in the capital markets, including erstwhile bulls, acknowledges that things are slowing down. Yes,
the Institute for Supply Management's monthly manufacturing index released earlier this week was strong, but jobless claims are
ticking up and I am hearing anecdotal reports of a wide range of businesses slowing down. Even my own business is slowing.
Anecdotes aside, oil has crashed, home builder stocks have been crushed, and the largest tech stocks in the world have taken a
haircut. If we get a recession from this, it will be a very well-telegraphed recession. Everyone knows it is coming.
A
recession is nothing to fear. We have lost sight of the fact that a recession has cleansing properties, helping to right the
wrong of the billions of dollars allocated to bad businesses while getting people refocused on investing in profitable
enterprises. Stock market bears are so disliked because it seems as though they actually desire a recession and for people to
get hurt financially. In a way, they are rooting for a recession because they know that the down part of the cycle is necessary.
There are signs that capital has been incorrectly allocated. In just in the span of a year, there have been three separate
bubbles: one in bitcoin, one in cannabis and one in the FAANG group of stocks: Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com, Netflix and
Google-parent Alphabet. This is uncommon. I begged the Fed to take the punch bowl away, and it eventually did, and now yields of
around 2.5 percent on risk-free money are enough to get people rethinking their allocation to risk.
Yet, I wonder if it is possible to have a recession when so many people expect one. The worst recessions are the ones that
people don't see coming. In 2011, during the European debt crisis, most people were predicting financial markets Armageddon. It
ended up being a smallish bear market, with the S&P 500 Index down about 21 percent on an intraday basis between July and
October of that year. It actually sparked a huge bull market in the very asset class that people were worried about: European
sovereign debt. We may one day have a reprise of that crisis, but if you succumbed to the panic at the time, it was a missed
opportunity.
But just the other day, the front end of the U.S. Treasury yield curve inverted, with two- and three-year note yields rising
above five-year note yields. Everyone knows that inverted yield curves are the most reliable recession indicators. Of course,
the broader yield curve as measured by the difference between two- and 10-year yields or even the gap between the federal funds
rate and 10-year yields has yet to invert, but as I said before, there is an air of inevitability about it. Flattening yield
curves always precede economic weakness. They aren't much good at exactly timing the top of the stock market, but you can get in
the ballpark.
I suppose all recessions are a surprise to some extent. If you are a retail investor getting your news from popular websites
or TV channels, you might not be getting the whole picture. In the professional community, it is becoming harder to ignore the
very obvious warning signs that a downturn is coming. In bull markets, everything works. In bear markets, the only thing
that really works is short-term government and municipal bonds and cash. Ample opportunity is being given to cut exposure to
risk, and it's clear that few people are taking advantage of it. They never do.
S 25 minutes
ago If our country is going bankrupt, there is no better President, with greater experience
at going bankrupt, than this President.
M 24 minutes ago
Another Republican recession whoda thunk that would happen trump's "greatest economy ever".
D 9 minutes ago So
let's see the market is up over 20% since January 3 2017 which means it's above it's
historical average gain per year. Meanwhile everyone is screaming recession and bear
market. I want to know why anyone who has been invested in the market longer than the last
two years is so upset about. Do you think your entitled to a gain of more than 10% a year.
Sexual harassment in academic contexts
Sexual harassment of women in academic settings is regrettably common and pervasive, and its
consequences are grave. At the same time, it is a remarkably difficult problem to solve. The
"me-too" movement has shed welcome light on specific individual offenders and has generated
more awareness of some aspects of the problem of sexual harassment and misconduct. But we have
not yet come to a public awareness of the changes needed to create a genuinely inclusive and
non-harassing environment for women across the spectrum of mistreatment that has been
documented. The most common institutional response following an incident is to create a program
of training and reporting, with a public commitment to investigating complaints and enforcing
university or institutional policies rigorously and transparently. These efforts are often well
intentioned, but by themselves they are insufficient. They do not address the underlying
institutional and cultural features that make sexual harassment so prevalent.
The problem of sexual harassment in institutional contexts is a difficult one because it
derives from multiple features of the organization. The ambient culture of the organization is
often an important facilitator of harassing behavior -- often enough a patriarchal culture that
is deferential to the status of higher-powered individuals at the expense of lower-powered
targets. There is the fact that executive leadership in many institutions continues to be
predominantly male, who bring with them a set of gendered assumptions that they often fail to
recognize. The hierarchical nature of the power relations of an academic institution is
conducive to mistreatment of many kinds, including sexual harassment. Bosses to administrative
assistants, research directors to post-docs, thesis advisors to PhD candidates -- these unequal
relations of power create a conducive environment for sexual harassment in many varieties. In
each case the superior actor has enormous power and influence over the career prospects and
work lives of the women over whom they exercise power. And then there are the habits of
behavior that individuals bring to the workplace and the learning environment -- sometimes
habits of masculine entitlement, sometimes disdainful attitudes towards female scholars or
scientists, sometimes an underlying willingness to bully others that finds expression in an
academic environment. (A recent issue of the Journal of Social Issues ( link ) devotes
substantial research to the topic of toxic leadership in the tech sector and the "masculinity
contest culture" that this group of researchers finds to be a root cause of the toxicity this
sector displays for women professionals. Research by Jennifer Berdahl, Peter Glick, Natalya
Alonso, and more than a dozen other scholars provides in-depth analysis of this common feature
of work environments.)
The scope and urgency of the problem of sexual harassment in academic contexts is documented
in excellent and expert detail in a recent study report by the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine (
link ). This report deserves prominent discussion at every university.
The study documents the frequency of sexual harassment in academic and scientific research
contexts, and the data are sobering. Here are the results of two indicative studies at Penn
State University System and the University of Texas System:
The Penn State survey indicates that 43.4% of undergraduates, 58.9% of graduate students,
and 72.8% of medical students have experienced gender harassment, while 5.1% of undergraduates,
6.0% of graduate students, and 5.7% of medical students report having experienced unwanted
sexual attention and sexual coercion. These are staggering results, both in terms of the
absolute number of students who were affected and the negative effects that these experiences
had on their ability to fulfill their educational potential. The University of Texas study
shows a similar pattern, but also permits us to see meaningful differences across fields of
study. Engineering and medicine provide significantly more harmful environments for female
students than non-STEM and science disciplines. The authors make a particularly worrisome
observation about medicine in this context:
The interviews conducted by RTI International revealed that unique settings such as medical
residencies were described as breeding grounds for abusive behavior by superiors. Respondents
expressed that this was largely because at this stage of the medical career, expectation of
this behavior was widely accepted. The expectations of abusive, grueling conditions in
training settings caused several respondents to view sexual harassment as a part of the
continuum of what they were expected to endure. (63-64)
The report also does an excellent job of defining the scope of sexual harassment.
Media discussion of sexual harassment and misconduct focuses primarily on egregious acts of
sexual coercion. However, the authors of the NAS study note that experts currently encompass
sexual coercion, unwanted sexual attention, and gender harassment under this category of
harmful interpersonal behavior. The largest sub-category is gender harassment:
"a broad range of verbal and nonverbal behaviors not aimed at sexual cooperation but that
convey insulting, hostile, and degrading attitudes about" members of one gender ( Fitzgerald,
Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 , 430). (25)
The "iceberg" diagram (p. 32) captures the range of behaviors encompassed by the
concept of sexual harassment. (See Leskinen, Cortina, and Kabat 2011 for
extensive discussion of the varieties of sexual harassment and the harms associated with gender
harassment.)
The report emphasizes organizational features as a root cause of a harassment-friendly
environment.
By far, the greatest predictors of the occurrence of sexual harassment are organizational.
Individual-level factors (e.g., sexist attitudes, beliefs that rationalize or justify
harassment, etc.) that might make someone decide to harass a work colleague, student, or peer
are surely important. However, a person that has proclivities for sexual harassment will have
those behaviors greatly inhibited when exposed to role models who behave in a professional
way as compared with role models who behave in a harassing way, or when in an environment
that does not support harassing behaviors and/or has strong consequences for these behaviors.
Thus, this section considers some of the organizational and environmental variables that
increase the risk of sexual harassment perpetration. (46)
Some of the organizational factors that they refer to include the extreme gender
imbalance that exists in many professional work environments, the perceived absence of
organizational sanctions for harassing behavior, work environments where sexist views and
sexually harassing behavior are modeled, and power differentials (47-49). The authors make the
point that gender harassment is chiefly aimed at indicating disrespect towards the target
rather than sexual exploitation. This has an important implication for institutional change. An
institution that creates a strong core set of values emphasizing civility and respect is less
conducive to gender harassment. They summarize this analysis in the statement of findings as
well:
Organizational climate is, by far, the greatest predictor of the occurrence of sexual
harassment, and ameliorating it can prevent people from sexually harassing others. A
person more likely to engage in harassing behaviors is significantly less likely to do so in
an environment that does not support harassing behaviors and/or has strong, clear,
transparent consequences for these behaviors. (50)
So what can a university or research institution do to reduce and eliminate the
likelihood of sexual harassment for women within the institution? Several remedies seem fairly
obvious, though difficult.
Establish a pervasive expectation of civility and respect in the workplace and the
learning environment
Diffuse the concentrations of power that give potential harassers the opportunity to
harass women within their domains
Ensure that the institution honors its values by refusing the "star culture" common in
universities that makes high-prestige university members untouchable
Be vigilant and transparent about the processes of investigation and adjudication through
which complaints are considered
Create effective processes that ensure that complainants do not suffer retaliation
Consider candidates' receptivity to the values of a respectful, civil, and non-harassing
environment during the hiring and appointment process (including research directors,
department and program chairs, and other positions of authority)
Address the gender imbalance that may exist in leadership circles
As the authors put the point in the final chapter of the report:
Preventing and effectively addressing sexual harassment of women in colleges and
universities is a significant challenge, but we are optimistic that academic institutions can
meet that challenge--if they demonstrate the will to do so. This is because the research
shows what will work to prevent sexual harassment and why it will work. A systemwide change
to the culture and climate in our nation's colleges and universities can stop the pattern of
harassing behavior from impacting the next generation of women entering science, engineering,
and medicine. (169)
2019 might be the year when Western powers start paying the price for 2014-2017 oil price
crash. Three years of subpar capital investment will bite them in the back.
Russia Economic
Report said that OPEC was the single most important factor for oil price outlooks in the
short term.
"As non-OPEC oil supply growth is expected to be greater than that of global demand, the
outlook for oil prices depends heavily on supply from OPEC members," the report's authors
noted. The level of spare capacity among OPEC members is estimated to be low at present,
suggesting there are limited buffers in the event of a sudden shortfall in supply of oil,
raising the likelihood of oil price spikes in 2019."
The World Bank is not alone in seeing OPEC's spare capacity as an important factor for oil
prices going forward. Spare capacity provides a cushion against price shocks as evidenced most
recently by the June decision of the cartel and Russia to start pumping more again after 18
months of cutting to arrest a too fast increase in oil prices. They had the capacity to do it
and prices stopped rising, helped by downward revisions of economic forecasts.
Now, the oil market is plagued with concerns about oversupply, but this could change quite
quickly if there is any sign that OPEC is nearing the end of its spare production capacity. As
to the likelihood of such a sign emerging anytime soon, this remains to be seen.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates OPEC's spare capacity at a little over 1
million bpd as of the fourth quarter of this year. That's down from 2.1 million bpd at the
end of 2017, but with Venezuela's production in free fall and with Iran pumping less because of
the U.S. sanctions, the total spare capacity of the group has declined substantially.
In the United States
today, and throughout "Western Brainwashed Civilization," only a handful of people exist who
are capable of differentiating the real from the created reality in which all explanations are
controlled and kept as far away from the truth as possible.
Everything that every Western government and "news" organization says is a lie to control
the explanations that we are fed in order to keep us locked in The Matrix.
The ability to control people's understandings is so extraordinary that, despite massive
evidence to the contrary, Americans believe that Oswald, acting alone, was the best shot in
human history and using magic bullets killed President John F. Kenndy; that a handful of Saudi
Arabians who demonstratively could not fly airplanes outwitted the American national security
state and brought down 3 World Trade Center skyscrapers and part of the Pentagon; that Saddam
Hussein had and was going to use on the US "weapons of mass destruction;" that Assad "used
chemical weapons" against "his own people;" that Libya's Gaddifi gave his soldiers Viagra so
they could better rape Libyan women; that Russia "invaded Ukraine;" that Trump and Putin stole
the presidential election from Hillary.
The construction of a make-believe reality guarantees the US military/security complex's
annual budget of $1,000 billion dollars of taxpayers' money even as Congress debates cutting
Social Security in order to divert more largess to the pockets of the corrupt military/security
complex.
Readers ask me what they can do about it. Nothing, except revolt and cleanse the system,
precisely as Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said.
"... The psychological reason behind this trick has to do with "pattern recognition". Human beings – through evolution – have learned to identify a phenomenon as real and true because it repeats again and again and again ..."
"... The American knee-jerk reaction to the recent Kerch bridge incident is a case in point. Ignoring facts, people automatically placed Russian behavior in the "aggressive" category because they have been programed by constant repetition for many years to think this way. Not having been taught this trick of the mind even educated people buy into the narrative unaware that their schemata dictate that the belief must be reinforced. All experiences regarding Russia are simply put into one box labeled "aggressive behavior". ..."
"... Another psychological cause of why Americans buy into the "Russia is aggressive" narrative is due to "confirmation bias". For a variety of reasons many Americans demonize Russians. Part of this is due to the fact that people actually enjoy having a "bad guy" to hate. This is why outlaw cowboys and mafia gangsters are so popular in American culture. We love our "anti-heroes" as much if not more than our heroes. Putin, of course, is the prototypical "baddie". He's a real-life Boris from the Bullwinkle cartoon who satisfies our need to boo and hiss the proverbial bad guy. ..."
The main reason so many Americans buy into the anti-Russian craze is not only due to what people are told by
the government and media, but by how they think and process information. For if Americans were taught how to
analyze and think properly they would not fall for the blatant propaganda.
For example, we are told that the Nazis discovered the secret of repetition as a means of programming people
into believing something to be true, but we are not taught why this practice is so effective.
The psychological reason behind this trick has to do with "pattern recognition". Human beings – through
evolution – have learned to identify a phenomenon as real and true because it repeats again and again and
again. After a while, the mind interprets this consistent pattern as proof of truth value. In psychological
terms, "schemata" are created by a layering of memories similar in nature over time so that all events
associated with the phenomenon are perceived through a prism of previous repetitions. In other words, even if
a certain type of behavior is different from the norm it will still be identified as belonging to the typical
pattern regardless. It is literally a trick of the mind.
The American knee-jerk reaction to the recent Kerch bridge incident is a case in point. Ignoring facts,
people automatically placed Russian behavior in the "aggressive" category because they have been programed by
constant repetition for many years to think this way. Not having been taught this trick of the mind even
educated people buy into the narrative unaware that their schemata dictate that the belief must be reinforced.
All experiences regarding Russia are simply put into one box labeled "aggressive behavior".
Another psychological cause of why Americans buy into the "Russia is aggressive" narrative is due to
"confirmation bias". For a variety of reasons many Americans demonize Russians. Part of this is due to the fact
that people actually enjoy having a "bad guy" to hate. This is why outlaw cowboys and mafia gangsters are so
popular in American culture. We love our "anti-heroes" as much if not more than our heroes. Putin, of course,
is the prototypical "baddie". He's a real-life Boris from the Bullwinkle cartoon who satisfies our need to boo
and hiss the proverbial bad guy.
To a certain extent, pattern recognition comes into play as well because in America TV shows and films over
the past two decades evil Russian spies and mafia types have figured prominently. The repeating portrayals
create schemata which then create stereotypes that frame how we think.
Russophobia, however, will not last forever because it is essentially based upon lies. Truth always wins out
over time and fantasy gives way to reality. Despite the censorship on social media and the attempts to silence
RT America the truth will eventually triumph.
For gagging the tongue of truth is always followed by a long-suppressed shout that echoes ever louder
throughout the ages.
===============================
My comment:
The most basic form of mind control is repetition.
The most basic form of mind control is repetition.
The most basic form of mind control is repetition.
... ... ...
The most basic form of mind control is repetition.
Well, Dr. Paul Whatshisname is obviously an agent of Putin. Did I even need to say this?
On a serious note, repetition works perhaps shockingly well. I was taught in my childhood that Germans are
bad because Hitler and Russia was good because twice saviors. Simple and effective. However, with no social
media at the time, critical thinking was also available so I could outgrow the propaganda.
On 12/5/2018 at 10:29 AM,
A/Plague
said:
Are you on a salary in "Russia Today" or a volunteer?
I try to gently (and if possible, humorously) nudge people to question the "official narrative".
CNN / WaPo is
far
worse propaganda than RT. RT is clearly biased, but they are open about their
pro-Russia bias. CNN pretends to be objective "journalism".
And sometimes I feel like commenting in the same vein of this little guy, bouncing all over excitedly:
By the way, did you know RT was nominated for an Emmy this year? It actually has a few nominations. Shocking,
right? I suspect a lot of the people who say "Ew, RT, propaganda," have never read anything from RT. I have.
they regularly republish Reuters and the FT as well as major U.s. outlets. I don't know what to think about
that, it's so confusing.
16 hours ago,
Marina Schwarz
said:
By the way, did you know RT was nominated for an Emmy this year? It actually has a few nominations.
Shocking, right? I suspect a lot of the people who say "Ew, RT, propaganda," have never read anything
from RT. I have. they regularly republish Reuters and the FT as well as major U.s. outlets. I don't know
what to think about that, it's so confusing.
16 hours ago,
Marina Schwarz
said:
By the way, did you know RT was nominated for an Emmy this year? It actually has a few nominations.
Shocking, right? I suspect a lot of the people who say "Ew, RT, propaganda," have never read anything
from RT. I have. they regularly republish Reuters and the FT as well as major U.s. outlets. I don't know
what to think about that, it's so confusing.
When I read their articles I am mindful that they are Russian. Having said that, they seem to publish a lot
of good content, and much of it is from Reuters and other (mostly) reputable sources. Editorials are free for
anyone to research for themselves. Pretty much the same as other pubs.
Laying conspiracy theories aside for one moment (and I do so love a good conspiracy theory), let's chat about
this Russia panic.
I am not one to panic in general. Sure, I have a food, guns, and water stash in my basement. I'm generally
well prepared. There are Russia-is-the-boogeyman theories, and then there are
Russia-boogey-man-theories-are-silly theories. Of course they both can't be right.
But where do these theories come from?
I am sure I'm not going to do a very good job explaining my self in the rant that follows. But I'm going to
give it a good college try.
I want to talk about the Russia Boogeyman theory. First, there's no way to explain this other than to
divulge my age. So I'm just going to spit it out right here and get that out of the way. I'm 40. I've been 40
for approximately 5 years, stubbornly refusing to go further than that. There. I said it. Now that that's out
of the way, it's important to note that children are sponges. As such, they are impressionable and in young
childhood, traumatic events can have a profound and lasting effect, and even change how someone thinks.
When I was about 10ish, in about 1983, a movie came out. If you lived in America, and likely even if you
didn't, and you're over the age of 40 (or if you've been 40 for a while), you've seen it. It's a movie called
"The Day After". It was a huge production and it aired on television. The most watched TV movie ever. And
ranked as one of the top 10 movies ever by several sources. You millennial whippersnappers will have no clue
what I'm talking about. Read on anyway, if you'd like. I'm all inclusive.
The movie was about nuclear warfare, and most importantly, the aftermath. The setting was a small town in
Kansas, I think. A small town that very closely resembled my home town, making it particularly impactful (I
know that's not a word. Sue me.) to me at the time. In the movie, which although was a complete work of fiction
was very realistic, Russia unleashed nuclear weapons. It was freaky. So eerily unsettling was it that I
obsessed about it after I saw it. I thought about it every night. I remember being so afraid that in the event
of a nuclear blast, I might be separated from my family. I remember pondering if I would rather be obliterated
in the blast immediately, or whether I would prefer to be spared instant death only to survive without my
family under horrid conditions. I also remember drills at school around that same time that were designed to
get people prepared in the event of such a disaster. While it may have done so, it also solidified in my mind
that there was a real possibility these events would unfold.
Nearly two years post-freaky-movie, Sting released it's "Russia" song, about Russians loving their children
too. Although it was not talked about much at the time, since life proceeded as normal, in my mind I remember
thinking that I didn't much care if the Russians loved their children, because they were looking to wipe us off
the map. And I lived near the Soo Locks, and I distinctly remember knowing (but I don't have any idea where I
came by this information) that the Locks would be a nuclear target in the event of a strike, since it is a main
thoroughfare for ships.
You can't undo that kind of fear, no more than you can undo my fear of spiders. I know in my head that
spiders, at least where I live, are not poisonous and they cannot harm me. I know it. But my head cannot
eradicate the intense creepiness that even thinking about spiders conjures up. Likewise, no rational thought
about Russia can completely undo a fear that was borne as a child.
There you have it. My Russia hysteria may be founded or unfounded--I know not. But I do not have the power
within me to change this mindset.
Okay Russia-boogeyman-theories-are-silly promoters: fire away.
Great description of what life was like back then, er, so I was told, by older people. Not those of us born in
the 60's, er, I mean the 70's, er, the 80's. Yeah, that's it, the 80's!
We had attack training at school in the 80s -- complete with gas masks and stuff -- on the other side of the
Iron Curtain for when the imperialists invaded, what can I say. I was too distracted by everything to pay
attention, though.
@Rodent
, your story tells me your propaganda was better than our propaganda, perish the thought. The Cold
War was a blast, right?
P.S. Stephen King has done a really good overview of this stage in the U.S. entertainment industry, by the
way. The stages of horror in movies. behind the curtain we only had heroic movies about the Second World War. I
shall now hypothesize that the Soviet bloc lost the Cold War because its entertainment industry was absent. End
of hypothesizing. Thank you for your attention.
8 hours ago,
Marina Schwarz
said:
We had attack training at school in the 80s -- complete with gas masks and stuff -- on the other side of
the Iron Curtain for when the imperialists invaded, what can I say. I was too distracted by everything to
pay attention, though.
@Rodent
, your story tells me your propaganda was better than our propaganda, perish the thought. The
Cold War was a blast, right?
P.S. Stephen King has done a really good overview of this stage in the U.S. entertainment industry, by
the way. The stages of horror in movies. behind the curtain we only had heroic movies about the Second
World War. I shall now hypothesize that the Soviet bloc lost the Cold War because its entertainment
industry was absent. End of hypothesizing. Thank you for your attention.
Makes sense. Not surprisingly the movie makers (supposedly) did not want to have Russia be the first striker
in the movie, but they needed to borrow some footage from the DoD, and the govt. refused to play ball unless
Russia struck first. The guy who made the movie, while he was making it, reportedly would go home at night
literally sick to his stomach at the horrific nature of the movie. It went rounds and rounds with the censors
who thought it might not be suitable for families.
Also interesting, speaking of Russia-led propaganda, and coming from someone who has dabbled a tiny bit in
white-hatishness, if you google "The Day After Russia" as I did to inquire about the movie, there is actually a
Russian movie titled "the day after" about zombies. Yup, let's just bury those search results! It's a
conspiracy!!!
There is another interesting thread here about the different search results showing up for different people.
What shows up when YOU google "The Day After"?
You know, speaking of conspiracies, there is a fairly logical opinion that that movie was designed to scare the
bajeezus out of people so they wouldn't vote for Reagan a second term.
"... They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless. ..."
"... Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them). ..."
"... Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many, they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall. ..."
"... Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that. ..."
Update: As the giant cache of newly released internal emails has also revealed, Karissa Bell
of
Mashable notes that Facebook used a VPN app to spy on its competitors .
The
internal documents , made public as part of a cache of documents released
by UK lawmakers, show just how close an eye the social network was keeping on competitors
like WhatsApp and Snapchat , both of which became acquisition targets.
Facebook tried to acquire Snapchat that year for $3 billion -- an offer Snap CEO Evan
Spiegel rejected . (Facebook then spent years attempting, unsuccessfully, to copy
Snapchat before finally kneecapping the app
by cloning Stories.)
...
Facebook's presentation relied on data from Onavo, the virtual private network (VPN)
service which Facebook also acquired several months later
. Facebook's use of Onavo, which has been likened to "corporate
spyware," has itself been controversial.
The company was forced to remove Onavo from Apple's App Store earlier this year after
Apple changed its
developer guidelines to prohibit apps from collecting data about which other services are
installed on its users' phones. Though Apple never said the new rules were aimed at Facebook,
the policy change came after repeated criticism of the social network by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
-
Mashable
A top UK lawmaker said on Wednesday that Facebook maintained secretive "whitelisting
agreements" with select companies that would give them preferential access to vast amounts of
user data, after the parliamentary committee released documents which had been sealed by a
California court, reports
Bloomberg .
The documents - obtained in a sealed California lawsuit and leaked to the UK lawmaker during
a London business trip, include internal emails involving CEO Mark Zuckerberg - and led
committee chair Damian Collins to conclude that Facebook gave select companies preferential
access to valuable user data for their apps, while shutting off access to data used by
competing apps. Facebook also allegedly conducted global surveys of mobile app usage by
customers - likely without their knowledge , and that "a change to Facebook's Android app
policy resulted in call and message data being recorded was deliberately made difficult for
users to know about," according to Bloomberg.
In one email, dated Feb. 4, 2015, a Facebook engineer said a feature of the Android
Facebook app that would "continually upload" a user's call and SMS history would be a
"high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective." A subsequent email suggests users wouldn't
need to be prompted to give permission for this feature to be activated. -
Bloomberg
The emails also reveal that Zuckerberg personally approved limiting hobbling Twitter's Vine
video-sharing tool by preventing users from finding their friends on Facebook.
In one email, dated Jan. 23 2013, a Facebook engineer contacted Zuckerberg to say that
rival Twitter Inc. had launched its Vine video-sharing tool, which users could connect to
Facebook to find their friends there. The engineer suggested shutting down Vine's access to
the friends feature, to which Zuckerberg replied, " Yup, go for it ."
"We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents," said Collins in a Twitter post accompanying the
published emails. -
Bloomberg
We don't feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues, which
is why we are releasing the documents.
Thousands of digital documents were passed to Collins on a London business trip by Ted
Kramer, founder of app developer Six4Three, who obtained them during legal discovery in a
lawsuit against Facebook. Kramer developed Pikinis, an app which allowed people to find photos
of Facebook users wearing Bikinis. The app used Facebook's data which was accessed through a
feed known as an application programming interface (API) - allowing Six4Three to freely search
for bikini photos of Facebook friends of Pikini's users.
Facebook denied the charges, telling Bloomberg in an emailed statement: "Like any business,
we had many of internal conversations about the various ways we could build a sustainable
business model for our platform," adding "We've never sold people's data."
A small number of documents already
became public last week, including descriptions of emails suggesting that Facebook
executives had discussed giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that
bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile-ad business. The alleged
practice started around seven years ago but has become more relevant this year because the
practices in question -- allowing outside developers to gather data on not only app users but
their friends -- are at the heart of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook said last week that the picture offered by those documents was misleadingly
crafted by Six4Three's attorneys. -
WaPo
"The documents Six4Three gathered for this baseless case are only part of the story and are
presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context," said Facebook's
director of developer platforms and programs, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, who added: "We stand
by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends' data with
developers. Any short-term extensions granted during this platform transition were to prevent
the changes from breaking user experience."
Kramer was ordered by a California state court judge
on Friday to surrender his laptop to a forensic expert after he admitted giving the UK
committee the documents. The order stopped just short of holding the company in contempt as
Facebook had requested, however after a hearing, California Superior Court Judge V. Raymond
Swope told Kramer that he may issue sanctions and a contempt order at a later date.
"What has happened here is unconscionable," said Swope. "Your conduct is not well-taken by
this court. It's one thing to serve other needs that are outside the scope of this lawsuit. But
you don't serve those needs, or satisfy those curiosities, when there's a court order
preventing you to do so ."
Trouble in paradise?
As Facebook is now faced with yet another data harvesting related scandal, Buzzfeed
reports that internal tensions within the company are boiling over - claiming that "after more
than a year of bad press, internal tensions are reaching a boiling point and are now spilling
out into public view."
Throughout the crises, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who maintains majority shareholder
control, has proven remarkably immune to outside pressure and criticism -- from politicians,
investors, and the press -- leaving his employees as perhaps his most important stakeholders.
Now, as its stock price declines and the company's mission of connecting the world is
challenged, the voices inside are growing louder and public comments, as well as private
conversations shared with BuzzFeed News, suggest newfound uncertainty about Facebook's future
direction.
Internally, the conflict seems to have divided Facebook into three camps: those loyal to
Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg; those who see the current scandals as
proof of a larger corporate meltdown ; and a group who see the entire narrative -- including
the portrayal of the company's hiring of
communications consulting firm Definers Public Affairs -- as examples of biased media
attacks. - Buzzfeed
"It's otherwise rational, sane people who're in Mark's orbit spouting full-blown anti-media
rhetoric, saying that the press is ganging up on Facebook," said a former senior employee.
"It's the bunker mentality. These people have been under siege for 600 days now. They're
getting tired, getting cranky -- the only survival strategy is to quit or fully buy in."
A Facebook spokesperson admitted to BuzzFeed that this is "a challenging time."
When exactly did [neo]Liberal Dems become enthusiastic cheerleaders for rapacious profit-maximizing
corporations acting illegally against the public interest?
Why would "progressives" want to shield Facebook from anti-trust legislation? Compared to
the 1950s / 60s / 70s ... it seems like "liberals" and "conservatives" have switched
roles.
Why is it that Zucker.slime.berg and so many other people of his ilk are basically crooks.
They go into business to wheel & deal and to rip people off. There are no depths that
they won't sink to just to enrich themselves with wealth and power. They quickly learn how to
sidestep and evade every law on the statute books. They have no integrity, no ethical
standards and no moral compass. They are conscienceless and shameless.
The world would be better off without them. Who would miss Phacephuq?
Surely by now people realize that FB is a data-gathering organ for a Deep State
geointelligence database? Why all the indignation? Every key stroke you have ever made has
been recorded. Just stop using all the Deep State social media (ie, all of them).
Get your
faces out of your phones and look around you and see what's happening. Humanity is becoming
digital. This is a control mechanism. To regain its sovereignty, humanity needs to unite
spiritually and head in a new direction. Reject all the "divide-and-conquer" BS. We are many,
they are few. United we stand. Divided, we fall.
Never used FaceBook nor any other social media platform. All they exist to do is aggregate
personal data which is then either sold or handed to governments to build profiles and keep
tabs on what people are doing. The hell with that.
In the USA we have always had will always have corruption to the fullest extent possible.
I know rich and powerful people who are very well connected and if the average person knew
what they truly think they would be freakin pissed!!
"... Everything Flynn had to say implicated Obama, Clapper & Brennan but the corrupt cabal isn't subject to the laws of unwashed inbreds like you and I and the other 320 million Americans (including those who THINK they're part of the club because they virtue signal so well). ..."
You realize 2 years of Flynn under Mueller's microscope yielded nothing? And the fact he's
facing sentencing means he's not going to be called as a witness to anything.
Everything Flynn had to say implicated Obama, Clapper & Brennan but the corrupt cabal
isn't subject to the laws of unwashed inbreds like you and I and the other 320 million
Americans (including those who THINK they're part of the club because they virtue signal so
well).
Says Summer Sausage who was of course not in the room. You think you know stuff? You know
stuff from the koolaide you've swallowed for the past 20 years...
"... By one measure, the yield curve inverted on Monday : The interest rate on five-year Treasury bonds slipped below the rate on three-year bonds. That's a worrying sign because rates on longer-term bonds are typically higher than those on shorter-term bonds, and such inversions are associated with recessions. ..."
"... A full inversion would be when interest rates on two-year Treasury bonds rise higher than rates on 10-year bonds. In the last 40 years, each time this has happened, the U.S. economy has entered a recession soon afterwards. ..."
"... As I write, the interest rate on two-year Treasury bonds is just above 2.8 percent while 10-year Treasury bonds are just below 3 percent. This is the closest they have been since the Great Recession ended. Does that mean that the U.S. is on the verge of recession? My answer: yes, probably. But, as with so much else, a lot depends on how the Federal Reserve reacts. ..."
"... Still, this explanation raises a deeper question. If the yield curve is inverting because bond traders believe that the Fed will lower rates in the future to fight an imminent recession, then why doesn't the Fed simply lower interest rates now and avoid the recession altogether? ..."
By one measure, the yield curve
inverted on Monday
: The interest rate on five-year Treasury bonds slipped below the rate on three-year bonds.
That's a worrying sign because rates on longer-term bonds are typically higher than those on shorter-term bonds,
and such inversions are associated with recessions.
So far, however, I would consider the yield curve only "partially" inverted. A full inversion would be when
interest rates on two-year Treasury bonds rise higher than rates on 10-year bonds. In the last 40 years, each time
this has happened, the U.S. economy has entered a recession soon afterwards.
This makes an inverted yield curve the most reliable indicator macroeconomists have for predicting a recession.
The last two times the yield curve inverted, in 1998 and 2008, the debate among economists was whether this time
would be different. In both cases, it wasn't.
As I write, the interest rate on two-year Treasury bonds is just above 2.8 percent while 10-year Treasury bonds
are just below 3 percent. This is the closest they have been since the Great Recession ended. Does that mean that
the U.S. is on the verge of recession?
My answer: yes, probably. But, as with so much else, a lot depends on how the Federal Reserve reacts.
When it meets next week, the Fed is widely expected to raise its target interest rate again, to 2.5 percent.
This rate, known as the federal funds rate, is the shortest term interest rate in the economy. It's the rate banks
charge each other for loans that last from the close of one business day to the opening of the next. These loans
help ensure that banks have enough funds available to process any payments authorized the previous day.
Raising this rate puts pressure on other short-term interest rates. December's increase is largely
already priced into
the interest rate on two-year Treasury bonds, so it alone won't be enough to push the
economy into recession. What really matters is how the Fed responds to the yield curve and other key macroeconomic
data over the next few months.
While almost all economists agree that a yield curve inversion signals a coming recession, they are divided on
why. The mainstream view is that the yield curve inverts because the markets expect the Fed to cut interest rates
once the economy starts to slow down. Traders want to lock in relatively high rates now so that they will be
protected from future declines. This makes sense: Investors wouldn't purchase 10-year bonds that paid a lower
interest than two-year bonds if those same investors thought interest rates were likely to rise.
Still, this explanation raises a deeper question. If the yield curve is inverting because bond traders believe
that the Fed will lower rates in the future to fight an imminent recession, then why doesn't the Fed simply lower
interest rates now and avoid the recession altogether?
The answer, I think, is that the inverted yield curve indicates that the Fed's current policy has
already begun to cause a recession. An inverted yield curve is telling us that short-term rates
have risen above the long-run
natural rate of interest
and that, one way or another, short-term interest rates are going to
have to fall. And they will fall either because the Fed recognizes its mistake and lowers them in
time to avoid a recession, or they will fall because the Fed fails to see its mistake and leads the
economy into recession.
Central to
this view is the realization that it is difficult for long-term interest rates to drift very far
from the long-term natural rate of interest. Suppose, for example, that over the next month or so
the yield curve fully inverts, yet the Fed continues with its plan to hike interest rates. Not only
would economic activity begin to slow, but inflation pressures would fall. And when inflation
falls, as Irving Fisher explained, inflation-adjusted interest rates rise.
The combination of less activity and higher rates makes debt service more difficult, raising the
risk of default. In response, investors would sell stocks and buy Treasury bonds. Thus interest
rates on those bonds would fall even as conditions in the rest of the economy got worse.
The economy faced just this scenario in 2000, when interest rates on 10-year Treasury bonds
continued to fall even as the Fed was raising rates:
By the time the Fed began cutting rates in December 2000, it was too late. The economy entered a
recession in March 2001.
In 2000, the Fed overestimated the strength of the economy, and starting in 2001 it was forced
to make deep rate cuts to make up for lost time. I fear it is making
a similar mistake
today. The underlying economy is fairly strong, but not as strong as the Fed
thinks.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP
and its owners.
To contact the author of this story:
Karl W. Smith
at
[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Newman
at
[email protected]
"... If I take Social Security at age 62 and then pay back the benefits within 12 months to erase the penalty for claiming early, is it true I get to keep the interest I earned while I had the money? ..."
"... I understand how delayed-retirement credits boost Social Security benefits by 8% for each year that one delays claiming between age 66 and age 70. But do cost-of-living adjustments during the years you wait amplify the advantage to more than 8% a year? ..."
Q If I take Social Security at age 62 and then pay back the benefits
within 12 months to erase the penalty for claiming early, is it true I get to keep the interest
I earned while I had the money?SEE ALSO:
10 Things You Must Know About Social Security
A Yes, but don't get too excited. Prior to 2010, when Social Security imposed the 12-month
limit for withdrawing an application and repaying benefits, it was often advised that people
who didn't need the money use this "do over" procedure to get what amounted to an interest-free
loan from the government. If you claimed benefits at 62 and repaid them at 66, you might be
playing with $100,000 or more of "house money." The 12-month window restricts that opportunity.
Also, note that if you receive benefits in one calendar year and pay them back in the next,
you'll likely have to pay tax on the benefits in year one. You can recoup the tax, but it's
complicated.
Q I understand how delayed-retirement credits boost Social Security benefits by 8% for
each year that one delays claiming between age 66 and age 70. But do cost-of-living adjustments
during the years you wait amplify the advantage to more than 8% a year?
A Yes. COLAs are built into benefits starting at age 62, the earliest age at which you can
claim benefits, even if you don't claim at that time.
Here's an example worked up for us by Baylor University professor William Reichenstein, head
of research for consulting firm Social Security Solutions. Let's say your benefit at age 66 is
estimated at $2,000 a month, but you decide to wait until age 70 to claim. You'll get eight
years of compounded COLAs based on the full retirement age benefit of $2,000 -- bringing the
monthly benefit up to $2,533, assuming an average annual COLA of 3%. You'd also get four years
of 8% delayed-retirement credits calculated on the $2,533 benefit. That extra 32% brings the
total monthly benefit at age 70 to $3,343. (Yes, a 3% COLA may seem high considering 2016's 0%
and 2017's 0.3%. But the annual average COLA since automatic adjustments started in 1975 is
3.8%.)
1. Re: the professor's hypothetical example... don't kid yourself. He shows a
hypothetical 20% increase ($2000 going up to $2500.) Just observing the past 3 years,
COLA's have been 0% twice,( so says social security) and & .3% this past year.. And a
few years before that, there were a few more 0% years, along with minimal COLA increases.
Myself, having been forced to retire in 2009, I've discovered what social security says
the COLA is, (on which they base your yearly increase in benefits) and what the CPI is in
REAL LIFE are ridiculously far apart.)
2. The payback question states, "it's complicated." Here's the quick and short answer: TO
START, you must be able to ITEMIZE your tax return ( and not take the standard deduction)
in the year you enact your do over, to even have a CHANCE to recoup some of the taxes you
paid on your social security benefits. The dollar amount you pay back in the "do over" to
SS that exceed the benefits you received from SS during the current year, is the amount
on which you can include as an itemized deduction on your tax return for the current
year. And remember, itemized deductions will only reduce your taxes by 15 cents or 25
cents on the dollar (depending on your marginal tax bracket.) There is no such thing as a
tax credit, nor an amended tax return, when it comes to trying to recoup income tax you
paid on social security benefits. My credentials? I'm a CPA & retired college
accounting professor.
Contra Tim Duy, The Lack of Federal Reserve Maneuvering Room Is Very
Worrisome...
This , by the every sharp Tim Duy, strikes me as simply wrong: Contrary to what he says,
the Fed has room to combat the next crisis only if the next crisis is not really a crisis, but
only a small liquidity hiccup in the financial markets. Anything bigger, and the Federal
Reserve will be helpless, and hapless.
Look at the track of the interest rate the Federal Reserve controls -- the short safe
nominal interest rate:
In the past third of a century, by my count the Federal Reserve has decided six times that
it needs to reduce interest rates in order to raise asset prices and try to lift contractionary
pressure off of the economy -- that is, once every five and a half years. Call these: 1985,
1987, 1991, 1998, 2000, and 2007.
But the internet has largely disabled the gigantic CIA fog-machine. Thousands of skilled
researchers quickly blow apart the propaganda line from the Deep State which is why there's
an hysterical reach these days to shut down the 'net (but still keep it open enough to sell
lots of stuff and nake money for the Predator Class).
Take the JFK assassination. One skilled researcher directs readers to the Warren
Commission, where buried deep inside one volume is a finding that Oswald's rife was
inoperable, certainly unable to function as a precise assassination weapon. Plus Oswald was a
lousy shot to begin with. Yet Military sharpshooters had to add parts just to site the weapon
and fire. This info in the WC pretty much excludes Oswald as the lone assassin. Without the
'net, how many people could find this info themselves.
9/11? Several researchers and web sites disclosed findings of a support network for the
alQ hijackers run by Saudi intelligence and the Royal family (the 28 pages inside the
Congressional 9/11 Inquiry); FBI informants providing financing, housing and other logistical
support to the hijackers; CIA knowledge that alQ had entered the US 18 months before 9/11 and
hid this knowledge etc.
Ditto for the OKC bombing (where local TV found bombs inside the Federal Building, which
blew away the FBI narrative about McVeigh)... ditto for the FBI role in handing out
explosives to the perps at the first WTC bombing etc. etc.
All this info, including news reports are up on the web even today... So with this kind of
info available for large numbers of people to find, the only tactic left for the deep state
psy-war operations to function is complete martial law in an Orwellian Police State. At that
point the game is over and the US collapses as a nation.
One month to the day after President Kennedy's assassination, the Washington Post published
an article by former president Harry Truman.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our
Central Intelligence Agency -- CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason
why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected
it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
Truman had envisioned the CIA as an impartial information and intelligence collector from
"every available source."
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting
conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to
established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such
intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all
intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as
President without department "treatment" or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a
volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about
this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead
the President into unwise decisions -- and I thought it was necessary that the President do
his own thinking and evaluating.
Truman found, to his dismay, that the CIA had ranged far afield.
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original
assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.
This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive
areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into
peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we
have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the
President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol
of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -- and a subject for cold war enemy
propaganda.
The article appeared in the Washington Post's morning edition, but not the evening
edition.
Truman reveals two naive assumptions. He thought a government agency could be apolitical and
objective. Further, he believed the CIA's role could be limited to information gathering and
analysis, eschewing "cloak and dagger operations." The timing and tone of the letter may have
been hints that Truman thought the CIA was involved in Kennedy's assassination. If he did, he
also realized an ex-president couldn't state his suspicions without troublesome
consequences.
Even the man who signed the CIA into law had to stay in the shadows, the CIA's preferred
operating venue. The CIA had become the exact opposite of what Truman envisioned and what its
enabling legislation specified. Within a few years after its inauguration in 1947, it was
neck-deep in global cloak and dagger and pushing agenda-driven, slanted information and
outright disinformation not just within the government, but through the media to the American
people.
The CIA lies with astonishing proficiency. It has made an art form of "plausible
deniability." Like glimpsing an octopus in murky waters, you know it's there, but it shoots
enough black ink to obscure its movements. Murk and black ink make it impossible for anyone on
the outside to determine exactly what it does or has done. Insiders, even the director, are
often kept in the dark.
For those on the trail of CIA and the other intelligence agencies' lies and skullduggery,
the agencies give ground glacially and only when they have to. What concessions they make often
embody multiple layers of back-up lies. It can take years for an official admission -- the CIA
didn't officially confess its involvement in the 1953 coup that deposed Iranian leader Mohammad
Mosaddeq until 2013 -- and even then details are usually not forthcoming. Many of the so-called
exposés of the intelligence agencies are in effect spook-written for propaganda or
damage control.
The intelligence agencies monitor virtually everything we do. They have tentacles reaching
into every aspect of contemporary society, exercising control in pervasive but mostly unknown
ways. Yet, every so often some idiot writes an op-ed or bloviates on TV, bemoaning the lack of
trust the majority of Americans have in "their" government and wondering why. The wonder is
that anyone still trusts the government.
The intelligence agency fog both obscures and corrodes. An ever increasing number of
Americans believe that a shadowy Deep State pulls the strings. Most major stories since World
War II -- Korea, Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination, foreign coups, the 1960s student unrest,
civil rights agitation, and civic disorder, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, domestic
surveillance, and many more -- have intelligence angles. However, determining what those angles
are plunges you into the miasma perpetuated by the agencies and their media accomplices.
The intelligence agencies and captive media's secrecy, disinformation, and lies make it
futile to mount a straightforward attack against them. It's like attacking a citadel surrounded
by swamps and bogs that afford no footing, making advance impossible. Their deadliest operation
has been against the truth. In a political forum, how does one challenge an adversary who
controls most of the information necessary to discredit, and ultimately reform or eliminate
that adversary?
You don't fight where your opponent wants you to fight. What the intelligence apparatus
fears most is a battle of ideas. Intelligence, the military, and the reserve currency are
essential component of the US's confederated global empire. During the 2016 campaign, Donald
Trump questioned a few empire totems and incurred the intelligence leadership's wrath,
demonstrating how sensitive and vulnerable they are on this front. The transparent flimsiness
of their Russiagate concoction further illustrates the befuddlement. Questions are out in the
open and are usually based on facts within the public domain. They move the battle from the
murk to the light, unfamiliar and unwelcome terrain.
The US government, like Oceania, switches enemies as necessary. That validates military and
intelligence; lasting peace would be intolerable. After World War II the enemy was the USSR and
communism, which persisted until the Soviet collapse in 1991. The 9/11 tragedy offered up a new
enemy, Islamic terrorism.
Seventeen years later, after a disastrous run of US interventions in the Middle East and
Northern Africa and the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian
government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear that Islamic terrorism is no longer a
threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets . For
all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating
terrorist strikes or defeating them in counterinsurgency warfare
So switch the enemy again, now it's Russia and China. The best insight the intelligence
community could offer about those two is that they've grown stronger by doing the opposite of
the US. For the most part they've stayed in their own neighborhoods. They accept that they're
constituents, albeit important ones, of a multipolar global order. Although they'll use big
sticks to protect their interests, carrots like the Belt and Road Initiative further their
influence much better than the US's bullets and bombs.
If the intelligence complex truly cared about the country, they might go public with the
observation that the empire is going broke. However, raising awareness of this dire threat --
as opposed to standard intelligence bogeymen -- might prompt reexamination of intelligence and
military budgets and the foreign policy that supports them. Insolvency will strangle the US's
exorbitantly expensive interventionism. It will be the first real curb on the intelligence
complex since World War II, but don't except any proactive measures beforehand from those
charged with foreseeing the future.
Conspiracy theories, a term popularized by the CIA to denigrate Warren Commission skeptics,
are often proved correct. However, trying to determine the truth behind intelligence agency
conspiracies is a time and energy-consuming task, usually producing much frustration and little
illumination. Instead,
as Caitlin Johnstone recently observed , we're better off fighting on moral and
philosophical grounds the intelligence complex and the rest of the government's depredations
that are in plain sight.
Attack the intellectual foundations of empire and you attack the whole rickety edifice,
including intelligence, that supports it. Tell the truth and you threaten those who deal in
lies . Champion sanity and logic and you challenge the insane irrationality of the powers that
be. They are daunting tasks, but less daunting than trying to excavate and clean the
intelligence sewer.
I sometimes wonder whether the Bond films are a psy-op.
I mean, the 'hero' is a psycho-killer ... the premise of the films is 'any means to an
end' ... they promote the ridiculous idea that you can be 'licensed to kill', and it's no
longer murder ... and they build a strong association between the State and glamour.
Bond makes a virtue out of 'following orders', when in reality, it's a Sin.
Can't remember which Section of MI6 Ian Fleming (novelist 007.5) worked but he came into
contact with my Hero, the best double-agent Cambridge, maybe World, has Ever produced, Kim
Philby. Fleming was a lightweight compared to him and was most likely provided the Funds, by
MI6 to titillate the Masses, spread the Word of Deep State.
The article makes many good points but still falls into use of distorting bs language.
For example, "after a disastrous run of US interventions" - well, they stole Libya's
wealth and destroyed the country: mission accomplished; that's what they were trying to do.
It was not an ""intervention", it was a f***ing war of aggression based on lies.
Well the good news is that folks now know there is deep State, shadow govt, puppet
masters, fake news MSM mockingbird programming, satanic "musik/ pop" promoters, etc.
Not everyone knows but more know, and some are now questioning the Matrix sensations they
have. That they have not been told the Truth.
Eventually humanity will awaken and get on track, how long it will take is unknown.
The CIA is a symptom of the problem but not the whole problem. Primarily it is the
deception that it sows, the confusion and false conclusions that the easily led fill their
heads with.
Now that you know there are bad guys out there...
Find someone to love, even if it is a puppy or a guppy. Simplify your needs, and commit
small acts of kindness on a regular basis. The World will heal, it may be a rocky
convalescence, yet Good triumphs in the end.
Like bolshevism this secular regions is to a large extent is a denial of Christianity. While Bolshevism is closer to the Islam,
Neoliberalism is closer to Judaism.
The idea of " Homo economicus " -- a person who in all
his decisions is governed by self-interest and greed is bunk.
Notable quotes:
"... There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice. ..."
"... In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here. ..."
"... We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good at it. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. ..."
"... It's acolytes are required to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be made a fully fledged bastard ..."
"... Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church. ..."
Unless you are completely confused by what neoliberalism is there is not a shred of logical sense in this.
There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism
is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice.
In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable
are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism.
Savers in a neoliberal society are lambs to the slaughter. Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and
died.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not. Neoliberalist policies have lifted
millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South America.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like
everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility
down, just like it does here.
I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from, massive state intervention in markets
(QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality,
and makes the announcement from a tractor factory.
Neoliberalism is a blight... a cancer on humanity... a massive lie told by rich people and believed only by peasants happy
to be thrown a turnip. In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different. Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves.
It's an abhorrent cult that comes up with purest bilge like expansionary fiscal contraction to keep all the money in the hands
of the rich.
Why, you have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests
the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good
at it.
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it
will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers.
It's acolytes are required
to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or
Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because
that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and
it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be
made a fully fledged bastard.
Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a
neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot
be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self
serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In
the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the
century plague.
There is a particular transparency of motive which becomes clear, and reconciles all inquiry, when an interested observer accepts
a particular media framework:
The media outlet CNN provides for their domestic and international audience, the preferred position for all policy and
points of advocacy from Hillary Clinton's Department of State.
The media outlet The Washington Post serves a similar purpose, however their specialized role is as a conduit for Barack
"Hussein" Obama's Central Intelligence Agency.
"the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear
that Islamic terrorism is no longer a threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets .
For all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating terrorist strikes or defeating them
in counterinsurgency warfare"
Excuse me,but WTF??
It's the US,NATO, Israhell and Saudis that created ISIS, with the above mentioned spending BILLIONS to combat ISIS in Syria.
The war on terror is a hoax. The lame exploitation of Arabs and Islam to manufacture consent for war on Iraq, starting with
Mossad planting of low yield thermal nuke weapons that brought the Towers down..Saudis were the patsies.
All of this with blessing of Zionists banksters and US Treasury& Fed Reserve.
Nobody would dispute the fact that sanctification of truth is an essential foundation for
a free society. The full extent of perversion and depravity of psychopaths in power is held
in check to some extent by their need to pay lip service to civility and rule of law in the
public eye -- until **** hits the fan. The full extent of pathocracy is about to become
obvious in the Reset. It's going to stun the general public.
I don't know if there is a general formula for describing this, but in my experience,
organizations with psychopaths at the top tend to disintegrate on their own, but they do one
hell of a lot of damage on the way down, since the psychopaths never cede their power and
make moral decisions willingly. Things are essentially guaranteed to get worse as long as
they retain power. It's hard to imagine any remedy to this situation that doesn't involve
some kind of violence, starting of course with manipulation of different groups on the
street. The trouble with any scenario fitting the description of Civil War is that it tends
to center around proxy groups, while those ultimately responsible get away.
We have anecdotes about 'white hat' groups like the so-called White Dragons. They, like the
CIA, appear to operate in the shadows. Do they really exist, and are they really working to
make a positive difference? Will we know them by their works?
I have no faith in Trump as some kind of solo superhero, because thus far all the talk
about him appears to have been nothing but wishful thinking. The man seems like a human
pinball, utterly inconsistent and unpredictable. That's helpful in some ways, not in others.
Something else needs to happen / someone else needs to rise in the role of a statesman and
genuine, meaningful reformer.
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - China and the United States have agreed to halt new tariffs as
both nations engage in trade talks with the goal of reaching an agreement within 90 days, the
White House said on Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi
Jinping held high-stakes talks in Argentina.
Trump agreed not to boost tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent on Jan. 1
as previously announced, as China agreed to buy an unspecified but "very substantial" amount
of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products, the White House said. The White House
also said China "is open to approving the previously unapproved Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O>
NXP <NXPI.O> deal should it again be presented."
The White House said that if agreement on trade issues including technology transfer,
intellectual property, non-tariff barriers, cyber theft and agriculture have not been reached
with China in 90 days that both parties agree that the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to
25 percent.
China does not have its own technological base and is depended on the USA for many technologies. So while China
isdefinitly in assendance, Washington still have capability to stick to "total global dominance" agenda for some time.
Attempt to crush China by Tariffs might provoke the economic crisi in China and possible a "regime change", like Washington
santions to the USSR in the past. And that's probably the calculation.
Notable quotes:
"... President Trump has taken long-simmering US complaints about China to boiling point, castigating Beijing for unfair trade, currency manipulation, and theft of intellectual property rights. China rejects this pejorative American characterization of its economic practices. ..."
"... The problem is that Washington is demanding the impossible. It's like as if the US wants China to turn the clock back to some imagined former era of robust American capitalism. But it is not in China's power to do that. The global economy has shifted structurally away from US dominance. The wheels of production and growth are in China's domain of Eurasia. ..."
"... Combined with its military power, the postwar global order was defined and shaped by Washington. Sometimes misleading called Pax Americana, there was nothing peaceful about the US-led global order. It was more often an order of relative stability purchased by massive acts of violence and repressive regimes under Washington's tutelage. ..."
"... In American mythology, it does not have an empire. The US was supposed to be different from the old European colonial powers, leading the rest of the world through its "exceptional" virtues of freedom, democracy and rule of law . In truth, US global dominance relied on the application of ruthless imperial power. ..."
"... Washington likes to huff and puff about alleged Chinese expansionism "threatening" US allies in Asia-Pacific. But the reality is that Washington is living in the past of former glory. Trading blocs like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) realize their bread is buttered by China, no longer America. ..."
"... Washington's rhetoric about "standing up to China" is just that – empty rhetoric. It doesn't mean much to countries led by their interests of economic development and the benefits of Chinese investment. ..."
"... China's strategic economic plans – the One Belt One Road initiative – of integrating regional development under its leadership and finance have already created a world order analogous to what American capital achieved in the postwar decades. ..."
"... American pundits and politicians like Vice President Mike Pence may disparage China's economic policies as creating "debt traps" for other countries . But the reality is that other countries are gravitating to China's dynamic leadership ..."
The G20 summits are nominally about how the world's biggest national economies can cooperate
to boost global growth. This year's gathering – more than ever – shows, however,
that rivalry between the US and China is center stage.
Zeroing in further still, the rivalry is an expression of a washed-up American empire
desperately trying to reclaim its former power. There is much sound, fury and pretense from the
outgoing hegemon – the US – but the ineluctable reality is an empire whose halcyon
days are a bygone era.
Ahead of the summit taking place this weekend in Argentina, the Trump administration has
been issuing furious ultimatums to China to "change its behavior". Washington is threatening an
escalating trade war if Beijing does not conform to American demands over economic
policies.
President Trump has taken long-simmering US complaints about China to boiling point,
castigating Beijing for unfair trade, currency manipulation, and theft of intellectual property
rights. China rejects this pejorative American characterization of its economic practices.
Nevertheless, if Beijing does not comply with US diktats then the Trump administration says
it will slap increasing tariffs on Chinese exports.
The gravity of the situation was highlighted by the comments this week of China's
ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, who warned that the "lessons of history" show trade wars can
lead to catastrophic shooting wars. He urged the Trump administration to be reasonable and to
seek a negotiated settlement of disputes.
The problem is that Washington is demanding the impossible. It's like as if the US wants
China to turn the clock back to some imagined former era of robust American capitalism. But it
is not in China's power to do that. The global economy has shifted structurally away from US
dominance. The wheels of production and growth are in China's domain of Eurasia.
For decades, China functioned as a giant market for cheap production of basic consumer
goods. Now under President Xi Jinping, the nation is moving to a new phase of development
involving sophisticated technologies, high-quality manufacture, and investment.
It's an economic evolution that the world has seen before, in Europe, the US and now
Eurasia. In the decades after the Second World War, up to the 1970s, it was US capitalism that
was the undisputed world leader. Combined with its military power, the postwar global order was
defined and shaped by Washington. Sometimes misleading called Pax Americana, there was nothing
peaceful about the US-led global order. It was more often an order of relative stability
purchased by massive acts of violence and repressive regimes under Washington's tutelage.
In American mythology, it does not have an empire. The US was supposed to be different from
the old European colonial powers, leading the rest of the world through its "exceptional"
virtues of freedom, democracy and rule of law . In truth, US global dominance relied on the
application of ruthless imperial power.
The curious thing about capitalism is it always outgrows its national base. Markets
eventually become too small and the search for profits is insatiable. American capital soon
found more lucrative opportunities in the emerging market of China. From the 1980s on, US
corporations bailed out of America and set up shop in China, exploiting cheap labor and
exporting their goods back to increasingly underemployed America consumers. The arrangement was
propped up partly because of seemingly endless consumer debt.
That's not the whole picture of course. China has innovated and developed independently from
American capital. It is debatable whether China is an example of state-led capitalism or
socialism. The Chinese authorities would claim to subscribe to the latter. In any case, China's
economic development has transformed the entire Eurasian hemisphere. Whether you like it or
not, Beijing is the dynamo for the global economy. One indicator is how nations across
Asia-Pacific are deferring to China for their future growth.
Washington likes to huff and puff about alleged Chinese expansionism "threatening" US allies
in Asia-Pacific. But the reality is that Washington is living in the past of former glory.
Trading blocs like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) realize their bread is buttered
by China, no longer America.
Washington's rhetoric about "standing up to China" is just that
– empty rhetoric. It doesn't mean much to countries led by their interests of economic
development and the benefits of Chinese investment.
One example is Taiwan. In contrast to Washington's shibboleths about "free Taiwan", more and
more Asian countries are dialing down their bilateral links with Taiwan in deference to China's
position, which views the island as a renegade province. The US position is one of rhetoric,
whereas the relations of other countries are based on material economic exigencies. And
respecting Beijing's sensibilities is for them a prudent option.
A recent
report by the New York Times starkly illustrated the changing contours of the global
economic order. It confirmed what many others have observed, that China is on the way to
surpass the US as the world's top economy. During the 1980s, some 75 per cent of China's
population were living in "extreme poverty", according to the NY Times. Today, less than 1 per
cent of the population is in that dire category. For the US, the trajectory has been in reverse
with greater numbers of its people subject to deprivation.
China's strategic economic plans – the One Belt One Road initiative – of
integrating regional development under its leadership and finance have already created a world
order analogous to what American capital achieved in the postwar decades.
American pundits and politicians like Vice President Mike Pence may disparage China's
economic policies as creating "debt traps" for other countries . But the reality is that other
countries are gravitating to China's dynamic leadership.
Arguably, Beijing's vision for economic development is more enlightened and sustainable than
what was provided by the Americans and Europeans before. The leitmotif for China, along with
Russia, is very much one of multipolar development and mutual partnership. The global economy
is not simply moving from one hegemon – the US – to another imperial taskmaster
– China.
One thing seems inescapable. The days of American empire are over. Its capitalist vigor has
dissipated decades ago. What the upheaval and rancor in relations between Washington and
Beijing is all about is the American ruling class trying to recreate some fantasy of former
vitality. Washington wants China to sacrifice its own development in order to somehow
rejuvenate American society. It's not going to happen.
That's not to say that American society can never be rejuvenated . It could, as it could
also in Europe. But that would entail a restructuring of the economic system involving
democratic regeneration. The "good old days" of capitalism are gone. The American empire, as
with the European empires, is obsolete.
That's the unspoken Number One agenda item at the G20 summit. Bye-bye US empire.
What America needs to do is regenerate through a reinvented social economic order, one that
is driven by democratic development and not the capitalist private profit of an elite few.
If not, the futile alternative is US failing political leaders trying to coerce China, and
others, to pay for their future. That way leads to war.
An interesting distinction: "nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that nationalism recruits the patriotic
sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger." But he might be mixing nationalism, far right nationalism, and
fascism. It is fascism that emerges out of feeling of nation/country being humiliated, oppressed, fall into economic
despair... It tries to mobilize nation on changing the situation as a united whole -- in this sense fascism
rejects individualism and "human rights".
BTW there were quite numerous far right movements in the USA history.
The current emergence of nationalist movements is a reaction on the crisis of neoliberalism as an ideology (since 2008). So nationalism
might be a defense reaction of societies when the dominant ideology (in our case neoliberalism) collapses. It is a temporary and defensive
reaction. As the author notes: "Foreign aggression and the onset of war will reliably generate nationalist moods and responses. "
The key question here is when a nation "deserves" a sovereign state, and when it would be better off by being a part of a larger
("imperial state" if we understand empire as conglomerate of multiple nations). As it involved economics, some choices can be bad,
even devastating for people's wellbeing.
Notable quotes:
"... Macron is not the first to try to make a hard, fast, and rhetorically pungent distinction between nationalism and patriotism. Orwell attempted to do the same in a famous essay . He wrote that patriotism is "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally." ..."
"... In the end, Orwell gives a rather unsatisfying account in which all the mental and moral vices of self-interest and self-regard are transmuted and supercharged by their absorption into a nationalistic "we." Nationalists in his account hold their nations supreme, thereby encouraging themselves to traduce any other people or nation. For Orwell, the patriot prefers this to that . The nationalist privileges us over them . For us, everything, to others nothing. ..."
"... In his recent book, The Virtue of Nationalism , Yoram Hazony makes a different contrast. His work is not primarily concerned with the moral status or self-deception of individuals, but with the organization of geopolitics. For him the contrast is between nationalism and imperialism. ..."
"... Orwell is tempted to believe the nationalist thinks his nation is best in all things, but much of nationalist rhetoric throughout Europe is a rhetoric of envy or arousal. Nationalists sometimes boast about their nations, but in many circumstances they express despair about their countries; they want to excite their people to achieve more, to take themselves as seriously as some rival national actor takes itself. ..."
"... Instead, nationalism is an eruptive feature of politics. It grows out of the normal sentiments of national loyalty, like a pustule or a fever. It could even be said that nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that nationalism recruits the patriotic sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger. ..."
"... National loyalty attaches us to a place, and to the people who share in its life. Destroying national loyalty would almost certainly bring about the return of loyalties based on creed and blood. ..."
"... One of the outstanding features of nationalist political movements, the thing that almost always strikes observers about them, is their irritated or aroused character. And it is precisely this that strikes non-nationalists as signaling danger. ..."
"... nationalist movements are teeming with powerful emotions: betrayal, anger, aggression. ..."
"... Nationalist politics tends to be opportunist; it takes other political ideas, philosophies, and forms of mobilization in hand and discards them. Nationalists throughout the 20th century adopted Communism or capitalism to acquire the patronage or weapons to throw off imperial rule, or stick it to a neighbor, for example. ..."
"... The reemergence of nationalist politics in America and abroad requires us to ask those simple questions. What is bothering them? Do they have a point? What do they want to do about it? Would it be just? In broad strokes I intend to take those questions up. ..."
"... What the vast majority of people apparently fail to realize is that the United states is an empire which by definition is a group of states or countries containing diverse ethnic and cultural identities. ..."
"... The break-up of the Soviet Union can be blamed in part for failing to establish a strong national identity ..."
"... Greenfeld describes it as "civic nationalism" to differentiate it from the ethnic, anti-liberal "nationalism" later adopted by Russia and Germany. ..."
"... Identifying "the people" as a linguistic-cultural entity with or without borders set the stage for the bloody conflicts that were fought over borders for these groups, and the discrimination and ethnic cleansing for those who didn't belong to the dominant linguistic-cultural group, to say nothing of what needed to be done about members of the dominant group who lived outside its borders. ..."
"... Also, in the late 16th century during what is now called the Wars of Religions (but which they called Civil Wars) in continental Europe, people moved from Monarchists to Republicans and back, depending of whether they were Catholics or Protestants, but mostly depending of the position of strength in which they were at the time... ..."
"... "Modern Conservatives" have a vested interest in muddying the debate, so that it does not become clear that "conservatism" is not linked to specific political or economical models, and more importantly it is not true that the Founding Fathers were all absolutist libertarian free traders... ;-) ..."
"... What, exactly, are our children inheriting? Press 2 for Spanish. ..."
"... And let us not forget neocons. ..."
"... You should be out there carving an empire for yourself, showing your supremacy and spreading the seeds of your "culture" over uncharted territories and untamed tribes... ;-) ..."
"... I think the obvious irritant lending support to Nationalist sentiments is the non benign aspects of Globalism. ..."
What is nationalism? The word is suddenly and surprisingly important when talking about the times we live in. But we seem to be
working without a shared definition.
"You know what I am? I'm a nationalist," Donald Trump said in an October rally in Houston.
French president Emmanuel Macron slapped back at a commemoration ceremony for World War I in France. "Nationalism is a betrayal
of patriotism," he said. "By saying 'our interests first, who cares about the others,' we erase what a nation holds dearest, what
gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values."
Macron is not the first to try to make a hard, fast, and rhetorically pungent distinction between nationalism and patriotism.
Orwell attempted to do the same in a
famous essay . He wrote that patriotism is "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to
be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally."
On the other hand, "The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the
nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality."
In the end, Orwell gives a rather unsatisfying account in which all the mental and moral vices of self-interest and self-regard
are transmuted and supercharged by their absorption into a nationalistic "we." Nationalists in his account hold their nations supreme,
thereby encouraging themselves to traduce any other people or nation. For Orwell, the patriot prefers this to that . The nationalist
privileges us over them . For us, everything, to others nothing.
In his recent book, The Virtue of Nationalism , Yoram Hazony makes a different contrast. His work is not primarily concerned with
the moral status or self-deception of individuals, but with the organization of geopolitics. For him the contrast is between nationalism
and imperialism. For Hazony, it is the nationalist who respects spontaneous order and pluralism. Imperialists run roughshod over
these, trampling local life for the benefit of the imperial center.
A border will rein in the ambition of the nationalist, whereas the imperial character rebels against limits. A century ago, in
what he called the days of "clashing and crashing Empires," the Irish nationalist Eoin MacNeil felt similarly. For him, the development
of a nation -- any nation -- had in it "the actuality or the potentiality of some great gift to the common good of mankind."
It's difficult to find a consistent definition of nationalism from its critics, meanwhile. Sometimes nationalism is dismissed
as the love of dirt, or mysticism about language. Other times it's the love of DNA.
In the critics' defense, though, the way nationalism has expressed itself in different nations and different times can be maddeningly
diverse. Orwell is tempted to believe the nationalist thinks his nation is best in all things, but much of nationalist rhetoric throughout
Europe is a rhetoric of envy or arousal. Nationalists sometimes boast about their nations, but in many circumstances they express
despair about their countries; they want to excite their people to achieve more, to take themselves as seriously as some rival national
actor takes itself.
I'd like to propose a different way of thinking about the question. When we use the vocabulary of political philosophies, we recognize
that we are talking about things that differ along more than one axis. Take Communism, liberalism, and conservatism: The first is
a theory of history and power. The second is a political framework built upon rights. The final disclaims the word "ideology" and
has been traditionally defined as a set of dispositions toward a political and civilizational inheritance.
I would like to sidestep Hazony's championing of nationalism as a system for organizing political order globally, a theory that
my colleague Jonah Goldberg is tempted to call "nationism."
My proposal is that nationalism as a political phenomenon is not a philosophy or science, though it may take either of those in
hand. It isn't an account of history. Instead, nationalism is an eruptive feature of politics. It grows out of the normal sentiments
of national loyalty, like a pustule or a fever. It could even be said that nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that
nationalism recruits the patriotic sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger.
In normal or propitious circumstances, national loyalty is the peaceful form of life that exists among people who share a defined
territory and endeavor to live under the laws of that territory together. National loyalty attaches us to a place, and to the people
who share in its life. Destroying national loyalty would almost certainly bring about the return of loyalties based on creed and
blood.
One of the outstanding features of nationalist political movements, the thing that almost always strikes observers about them,
is their irritated or aroused character. And it is precisely this that strikes non-nationalists as signaling danger. Republican democracies
should be characterized by deliberation. Conservatives distrust swells of passion. Liberals want an order of voluntary rights. But
nationalist movements are teeming with powerful emotions: betrayal, anger, aggression.
Therefore, I contend, like a fever, nationalism can be curative or fatal. And, like fevers, it can come and go depending on the
nation's internal health or the external circumstances a nation finds itself in. Foreign aggression and the onset of war will reliably
generate nationalist moods and responses. But cultural change can do it too. Maybe a national language falls into sharp and sudden
decline under pressure from a more powerful lingua franca. Even something as simple or common as rapid urbanization can be felt to
agitate upon a people's loyalties, and may generate a cultural response for preserving certain rural traditions and folkways. And
of course, sometimes nationalism is excited by the possibility of some new possession coming into view, the opportunity to recover
or acquire territory or humiliate a historic rival. The variety of irritants explains the variety of nationalisms.
You tend to find a lot of nationalism where there are persistent or large irritants to the normally peaceful sense of national
loyalty. Think of western Ukraine, where the local language and political prerogatives have endured the powerful irritant of Moscow's
power and influence in its region, and even in its territory. You find a great deal of nationalism in Northern Ireland, where a lineage
of religious differences signals dueling loyalties to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.
Until recently you didn't find a lot of political nationalism in the United States, because it is a prosperous nation with unparalleled
independence of action. But we are familiar with bursts of nationalism nonetheless -- for example, at times when European powers
threatened the U.S. in the early days of the Republic, during the Civil War and its aftermath, and especially during World War I,
which coincided with the tail end of a great wave of migration into the country.
If nationalist political movements are national loyalties in this aroused state, then we must judge them on a case-by-case basis.
When non-nationalists notice the irritated and irritable character of nationalism, often the very next thing they say is, "Well,
they have a point." You would judge a nationalist movement the way you would judge any man or group of men in an agitated state.
Do you have a right to be angry about this matter? What do you intend to do about it? How do you intend to do it?
We all do this almost instinctively. We understand that there are massive differences among nationalist projects. In order to
assert his young nation's place on the world stage, John Quincy Adams sought to found a national university. We may judge that one
way, whereas we judge Andrew Jackson's Indian-removal policy very differently. In Europe, we might cheer on the ambition of the Irish
Parliamentary party to establish a home-rule parliament in Dublin. That was a nationalist project, but so was the German policy of
seeking lebensraum through the racial annihilation of the Jews and the enslavement of Poland, which we judge as perhaps the most
wicked cause in human history. We might cheer the reestablishment of a Polish nation after World War I, but deplore some of the expansionist
wars it immediately embarked upon.
Nationalist politics tends to be opportunist; it takes other political ideas, philosophies, and forms of mobilization in hand
and discards them. Nationalists throughout the 20th century adopted Communism or capitalism to acquire the patronage or weapons to
throw off imperial rule, or stick it to a neighbor, for example.
The reemergence of nationalist politics in America and abroad requires us to ask those simple questions. What is bothering them?
Do they have a point? What do they want to do about it? Would it be just? In broad strokes I intend to take those questions up.
Kontraindicated 2 days ago
There is much discussion below as to the meaning of the term "nationalism" below. In the minds of many, it seems to be a relatively
benign term.
However, even recently we have seen extremely violent episodes break out that appear to be associated with some sort of flavour
of "nationalism", however it's defined.
In the former Yugoslavia, Tito tried to create a new "nation" that would have a common identity by breaking up the "nations"
that had previously existed on the same territory. This involved the forced relocation of various groups of Serbs and Croats (and,
to a lesser extent, Bosnians) who would now all live together in peace and harmony. However, when the political structures fell,
the people fell back into their old groups and immediately began fighting each other. The end result was an incredibly bloody
and vicious civil war and the ultimate re-establishment of Nations/Countries that mapped more closely to the ethnic/cultural/race
divisions that the people involved in the conflict were concerned with. Ultimately, they (as individuals) decided which team they
wanted to belong to and, as long as the "nation" agreed, they became part of that "nation".
Similar scenarios have played out across Africa and the Middle East (which was artificially set up for a century's worth of
conflict by Europeans in 1919).
All of which is mildly interesting, but it's not really related to the reason that this topic is coming up in NRO. The reason
that we are discussing this is that Macron spent a considerable amount of time during the Armistice Ceremony decrying "Nationalism"
(which, if we treat the term in the Yugoslavian context, likely did play a significant role in two World Wars) and Fox and Friends
were then able to teach Donald Trump a new word - after which he declared himself a "Nationalist".
So rather than beating ourselves up over semantics, would it not be better instead to debate two questions?:
Does "Nationalism" represent a growing force within enough countries that it represents a significant threat to the current
world order?
Does whatever Donald Trump thinks "Nationalism" means pose a threat to America's current place in the world and is it driving
the US away from its leadership role? (will "America First" lead to "America Isolated and Alone?")
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear Kontraindicated,
First, your last question is already answered, in the WTO, the EU, China, Canada, Mexico have raised a complaint against the
falsified use of "national security" by Trump to justify tariffs. If the USA decided then to leave the WTO, because Trump's personal
honor would be stained, (without forgetting that the US Congress should have already protested that these tariffs were illegal
in the first place) this will be another occasion to show that it is indeed "America Isolated and Alone"... Trump could have allied
himself with the EU, Canada, etc. against some of the unfair practices of China, instead he got two of the biggest trading block
in the world (including its two territorial neighbors) to ally themselves against the USA.
What a way of winning Donnie! ;-)
Then, let's go back to the question of the meaning of Nationalism.
There are two aspects:
What is the real meaning of nationalism compared to patriotism, when we remove all the fake ideological recent additions
to these terms? (and I have answered at length on this in my other comments) And this meaning is not necessarily nefarious. It
becomes a problem when one claims that each Nation must have one "sovereign" State (in the sense of country), and there should
be only one such Nation per country.
What is the meaning which is actually meant by Trump? And it is clear that he means it the way that it was whispered to
him, which is "One Nation, One and only One State; One State, One and only One Nation"...
It is no longer "e pluribus unum", but "e uno unum" (one from one), which is slightly less ambitious and certainly less of
a reason to get up in the morning and do something productive (but then there is a lot of opportunity for "Executive Time" and
playing golf)... ;-)
Leroy 2 days ago
"Out of many, one." ONE. Get it through your head. ONE. If you are MANY, you ARE Yugoslavia. And that doesn't end well.
TitoPerdue 2 days ago
I try to imagine my parents being informed that they must now accustom themselves to white people being turned into a minority.
Would have been stunned, my folks, who first arrived in 1771.
My folks: "But what did we do wrong!"
Me: "You've been too successful and must now be punished."
My folks: "What's wrong with being successful!"
Me: "It's racist. Ask Jonah Goldberg. You know how much the Jews despise ethnocentrism."
Gaurus 3 days ago
This is a useful take on the subject. There is a big Tower of Babel problem with this word as it seems to mean different things
to different people, and different nations also define it differently.
This language barrier is why Macron's criticism of the President should be taken with a grain of salt. The left's myopic/robotic
attempts to unilaterally define this word on their terms is reprehensible, just like so many of their other attempts at PC authoritarianism
aka thought control which is pushed by the national media.
What the vast majority of people apparently fail to realize is that the United states is an empire which by definition
is a group of states or countries containing diverse ethnic and cultural identities.
You must at some point come to ask yourself, "what keeps these diverse groups contained in the U.S. from fracturing, dividing,
and falling apart?" The answer is nationalism/national identity. It is the keystone or glue that binds these diverse ethnic and
cultural groups together. Anyone or anything that tugs or tears at nationalism therefore is altogether a bad thing for the country
and will sow division and strife that was not previously there. Ultimately civil war could result if those seeking to divide the
country for political gain go too far and the left ignorantly seems all-in on doing this.
Applying recent trends in politics using this as a backdrop, one can see how pro-globalists wouldn't care to attack nationalism
as they are by definition against the very concept of a nation-state and want top bring back good old feudalism, but this time
on a global scale. For comparison Russia is another example of an empire that is aware It needs to fuel nationalist sentiment
to hold itself together. The EU is an emerging empire that is conflicted with what this means. The break-up of the Soviet Union
can be blamed in part for failing to establish a strong national identity.
Plymouth mtng, PA 3 days ago
Well said! This truth is exemplified by the evidentiary and documented history that the Founding Fathers and Jackson, Lincoln,
and Grant and the whole of 19th century America used the language of Liberty and Patriot to define the American Republic.
Leroy 3 days ago
I just learned something new. I thought that ethnicity was the same as race. It isn't. Ethnicity: "the fact or state
of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition." By that definition, we're all in an ethnic
group, and we can belong to smaller ethnic groups as well.
If Americans don't become nationalists, understand that we share common interests and goals, it won't matter how much we love
our country, because it will be unrecognizable.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Leroy,
I happen to think that "race" does not exist, but we know that in the USA when people say "ethnic" they mean "race"... ;-)
I remember 30 years ago, at the hairdresser in London, picking up a copy of the tabloid "The Sun", and reading a sentence where
"ethnic" was used to mean "foreigner with a darker complexion"... (something like "the three men were ethnic") ;-)
Once more "ethnic" means "national", nothing more nothing less: "ethnos" is the Greek translation of "natio". These are words
which have been used for a few thousand years, and we have to understand what they really meant and what they really mean now,
and to remove from them the "ideological" additions.
The definition which you give shows such ideological addition, by adding "cultural" and "tradition". By definition a "nation",
as the same traditions and therefore the same "culture": they are just redundant in this definition.
An ethnic group is a nation. So yes, you are in an ethnic group, and you can "define" smaller and smaller ethnic groups within
the bigger one (the "tribes"). So in Gaul, there were many different "nations", who were Gauls, but had a great diversity between
them (just read a few pages of Cæsar).
But at some point when there are many ethnic groups within you country (and this is how a country like France was made by the
addition of regions with varying ethnic backgrounds and the migration/invasion of many other ethnic groups), at some point the
only unity is in the country, the "patria", this is there that you find the common interests and goals.
So you see in France the difference going from Nation to the Country, because in the early middle ages the king was called
"King of the French" Rex Francorum, (there were many other nations recognized on the French territory) and in the later part of
the Middle Ages, he was called "King of France", Rex Franciae.
But because the word "nation" is important, and people would not let it go, there has been a tendency to use it to mean "country",
as when we speak of the National Anthem, but this is by a shifting of its original sense.
When we want to oppose nationalism and patriotism, we need to go back to the original technical meaning, not invent a new one.
PS: the reason why "ethnic" and "race" are not the same thing, and we saw it with "Pocahontas" controversy (I mentioned it
then), it is because a nation can "adopt" somebody who was not genetically related to them. They shall still be fully part of
the nation... but their genetic material shall be different.
Leroy 3 days ago
I know you enjoy history, but the meaning of words can shift. I'll go with the meaning of the word Nation that the founders
meant when they founded this nation. Nations are sovereign, make laws and control territory. A group of people, who share a culture,
but who do not control territory is not a nation.
Hub312 3 days ago ( Edited )
Whoever wants a clear-headed understanding of nationalism, I suggest you read the world's foremost scholar on nationalism,
Liah Greenfeld's "Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity" and Pierre Manent's concise but rich "Democracy Without Nations?".
Nationalism is really just another word for modernity and democracy. . It arose in England at the end of the 17th and the 18th
centuries as the liberal answer to the question: if the people are sovereign, who are "the people" that we are now calling the
nation? Answer: those who live within the borders controlled by the sovereign. The nation state is our home and our protection
and we're all in it together regardless of language, culture, etc. This was the essentially liberal idea that was adopted and
adapted by the French. This was the form adopted by Americans too. Greenfeld describes it as "civic nationalism" to differentiate
it from the ethnic, anti-liberal "nationalism" later adopted by Russia and Germany.
It is the Russians, followed by the Germans and other central Europeans who followed their lead that gave nationalism a bad
name. Identifying "the people" as a linguistic-cultural entity with or without borders set the stage for the bloody conflicts
that were fought over borders for these groups, and the discrimination and ethnic cleansing for those who didn't belong to the
dominant linguistic-cultural group, to say nothing of what needed to be done about members of the dominant group who lived outside
its borders.
Empires and nations based on racial and ethnic identity have bloody borders, since it is impossible to draw any border anywhere
in the world that includes all members of the dominant group and excludes or oppresses all members of other groups.
Are they both called nationalisms? Yes. But they couldn't be farther apart.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Hub312,
the word that is missing in your comment is "country". "if the people are sovereign, who are "the people" that we are
now calling the nation?... etc."
I am interested to see in which English author of the end of the 17th century you find the expression of "sovereign people"
or the "people are sovereign". Do you have some primary sources? I do not find it in Locke, but perhaps I am looking in the wrong
place.
And in the UK, in the 18th and 19th century, and still now, it is clear that English, Welsh, Irish and Scots are different
nations in the same "country"... Today, in Rugby the 6 nations championship takes place actually between four countries.
In the Middle Ages it is clear that the "supreme power" "summa potestas" comes God, and after this it is a question of open
debate whether it is invested directly in the King, or through the people who then may elect a king, or decide on a Republic.
And I find in the Renaissance of the 16th and early 17th century, many proponents of a summa potestas that belongs to the people,
which gives incidentally rise to the possibility of removing from power bad kings, but they happen to be Spanish and Catholics:
Francisco Suarez, Juan de Mariana and Roberto Bellarmino... worse, they are all Jesuits... ;-), and they claim that the supreme
power comes from the consent of the governed, and they were all dead by 1630... So that's it when it comes to the notion of people's
sovereignty "arising" in England in the late 17th century... It was up and awake already.
I cannot find "souveraineté" as a word (which is different from having a "sovereign"), before Jean Bodin (16th century) (but
you perhaps have better sources than mine), then I can direct you to many discussions about the nature and origin of "souveraineté"
in French in the 16th and 17th century.
Rousseau (mid-18th century) is famous for ascribing sovereignty to the people, but he was not English (although he was Protestant),
nor French, but he is also the inspiration for the "dictatorship of the people", and the Terror.
Rousseau is part of the Social Contract school, to which is usually adjoined his predecessors Hobbes and Locke, but there is
no doubt that Hobbes is a partisan of absolute monarchy, and again I fail to see in Locke a direct notion of people's sovereignty:
when he speaks of civil sovereigns he speaks of the "magistrates" who rule. But I am certain that you shall direct me to the proper
place in Locke, which currently escapes me.
The thing is that the "consent of the people" or even the "sovereignty of the people", or the "social contract" does not mean
that they are individually free afterwards... they may actually live under an absolute monarchy and still have "consented" to
it, or under a dictatorship of the people (socialist), or a national dictatorship, or a mixture of both... ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Of course, as I read again what I wrote, I made the most silly of blunders: Bellarmino was Italian, not Spanish... this invalidates
all that I have ever written.. ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Also, in the late 16th century during what is now called the Wars of Religions (but which they called Civil Wars) in
continental Europe, people moved from Monarchists to Republicans and back, depending of whether they were Catholics or
Protestants, but mostly depending of the position of strength in which they were at the time... There is a very interesting literature regarding the nature
and origin of the supreme power, and whether the people must have absolute obedience to the the sovereign civil power (whatever
shape it has). Of course none of this has to do with 17th century England, except that the same questions where asked and answered
their own way in the English Civil War (which was a religious war), when the Round-Heads decided to chop that of their King, whose
shape they did not like. ;-)
Bellarmino wrote against James I when he tried to sustain is absolute divine right to rule.
All of this to say that these questions were raised long before the Glorious Revolution. ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear Hub312,
well, why would I read a secondary source book, if it does not know the primary sources which I know?
If this book describes nothing more than what you described (i.e. England, end of the 17th century, etc.), which is refuted
by the sources that I know, why would I waste time reading it? it could not edify me, if it does not add to what I know.
Hub312 4 hours ago ( Edited )
...and you would love the Manent book, written from a very European liberal perspective, which is brief and very concise.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Michael Brendan Dougherty,
I have a revolutionary proposal: instead of investing words with supposed meanings in order to be able to say that we approve
of them or not (which in English is called begging the question), why don't we simply use the etymological meaning of the word?
;-)
It's easy, "national" means precisely the same thing as "ethnic": one is Latin, the other is Greek. You know what ethnicity
is a euphemism for in the US: "race". A "nation" does not need to have borders to be a nation, the "barbarian nations" of late
Antiquity early Middle Ages were roving nations. This is why also initially German nationalism i the 19th and early 20th century
was expansive: it meant to "unify" the German nation in one country. This is why Irish, Scottish or Welsh nationalism is divisive
and restrictive, it is meant to separate the English (seen as invaders) from the local version of a Celtic nation.
The "Patria" is the Land of the fathers: this is the "country", the "land".
The one is "Blood", the other is "Soil", you see that each can be assigned bad meaning or good meaning, if one wants to.
Behind this you have the age old conflicts between Cain and Abel, between the roving pastor, and the settled farmer.
Both Nation and Patria can be a limit within which to stay, or a limit to expand: so one can be an "imperialist" or not, whether
one is a patriot or a nationalist. Because even a patriot, may require more land, to ensure the safety of the one that he has,
his own version of "lebensraum".
These two notions are also linked to the "jus sanguinis" (right of blood) and the "jus soli" (right of soil/land) question
regarding citizenship.
In countries which have official separate notions of citizenship and nationality (in the former USSR for instance), citizenship
is clearly ascribed to the country, and nationality is clearly ascribed to ethnicity: so one can be a Russian national, citizen
of Kazakhstan.
It is the notion of the Nation-State (which is comparatively recent), which tends to make believe that for each identifiable
"Nation" there must be one identifiable "Country" (a sovereign state). It is the geographical difficulty if not impossibility
of this which lead to the political upheavals in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was trying to merge Nationalism and Patriotism
that created the problems.
In some cases when supposed "nations" wanted to be unified within one country, there was the notion of "Pan-somethingism",
Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, etc., and/or Nations wanted to become independent: so you had the fights for the unification of Italy,
Germany, the independence of Poland, Greece, etc., within the 19th century. And then there were all these places were the population
was too mixed to make any such separation easy: the Balkans, the remnants of the Turkish Empire (a perfect example together with
the Persian Empire (for those who read Xenophon), why "Imperialism" does not mean "centralization"), remnants of "German" populations
in "Slavic" countries, etc. You know what followed.
So both nationalism and patriotism can have a good or a bad meaning, depending of how one intends to use them.
For instance the notion of a "Europe of Nations" is what helped secure the Good Friday Agreement, because another way of saying
it is a "Europe of Regions", where Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Basques, Bretons (of little Brittany), etc., have a possibility of
recognition, without necessarily breaking up "countries".
So you are right there is much more than one axis of meaning, and it is important that one opposes the right terms, and this
is the responsibility of what used to be called the "publicists", those who speak of the Res Publica, what we now call "pundits":
but in the USA none are more adept at using the wrong formulations than the "modern conservative" pundits. Why? well, "modern
conservative" says it all... because you are partly right conservatism is about "a set of dispositions toward a political and
civilizational inheritance", and "modern conservatism" is therefore an oxymoron. ;-)
And this is why "Modern Conservatism" became such an easy prey for the Alt-Right Anarchists: because they are not grounded
in an actual "tradition", but like all the "progressives" (which they are), they have to reinvent for themselves a new beginning...
in the 1950s, they said, now that there is National Review, we shall become "real" conservatives, "modern conservatives", before
us, they were not really conservatives... ;-)
But you cannot be a real conservative if you have to identify a date for the birth of your movement.
"Modern Conservatives" have a vested interest in muddying the debate, so that it does not become clear that "conservatism"
is not linked to specific political or economical models, and more importantly it is not true that the Founding Fathers were all
absolutist libertarian free traders... ;-)
So Conservatism is not the opposite of Liberalism, it is the opposite of Progressivism. Imperialism is indeed about expansion
of power, but it is not necessarily about "centralization", as many empires not only have left the "local life" untouched, but
this "local life" disappeared when a supposedly more "liberal" power took over...
Therefore I do beg American publicists, especially those of the conservative variety writing in NRO, stop begging the question
when you falsely "define" terms, so that they align with what you deem to be good or bad; be instead a real conservative, go back
to the etymology and the actual meaning of the words, see how they were used initially, not only in the last 50 or even 100 years...
because then you are using "progressive" definitions, and you keep repeating that "progressives" always change the meaning of
the words to suit their purpose... You are right on that one. ;-)
Leroy 3 days ago
Conservatism "has been traditionally defined as a set of dispositions toward a political and civilizational inheritance"?
That can't be true. We all know that conservatism now means free trade, where American workers are replaced by Chinese slave
labor. We know that conservatism means an insatiable desire for foreign migrants, adding millions of campesino's to our economy
every year. Most of all, we know that conservatism stands for foreign imperialist wars and globalist profits.
What, exactly, are our children inheriting? Press 2 for Spanish.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Leroy,
I agree with you that US Conservatives are Progressives by another name. see my main comment here. ;-)
TitoPerdue 2 days ago
Indeed. And let us not forget neocons.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear TitoPerdue,
given that the Founding Fathers were already progressives, who for you committed the original sin of believing that "all men
are created equal", why do you still live in that den of iniquity that is the USA?
You should be out there carving an empire for yourself, showing your supremacy and spreading the seeds of your "culture" over
uncharted territories and untamed tribes... ;-)
I hear that there are still some fairly inaccessible places in Papua-New-Guinea... ;-)
Perfect place to show your supremacy, or end up in the cooking pot. For once your philosophy of life would become true: eat
or be eaten! ;-)
hawkesappraisal 3 days ago
I agree. "Nationalism" is a charged but nebulous word, but it describes something that is clearly important in spite of the
obscurity of its meaning. So the struggle to come up with coherent definitions is worthwhile. The current Nationalism is probably
best defined by, Progressives saying "America sucks!" and the Right responding, "No it doesn't! America is Awesome!"
freedom1 3 days ago ( Edited )
Thoughtful piece. I think the obvious irritant lending support to Nationalist sentiments is the non benign aspects of Globalism.
A brand new expose
by Bloomberg shines light on modern day loan sharks: city officials that are armed with badges
like Vadim Barbarovich, who earned $1.7 million last year, easily giving him the most lucrative
job within the government of New York City. His official title is City Marshal, and he's one of
35 that the mayor has appointed to compete for fees from recovering debts. While traditionally
marshals evict tenants and tow cars, Barbarovich has found his place in part of a debt
collection industry that allows them to use their legal authority on behalf of predatory
lenders.
It's a practice that dates back to the 17th century. Back then, jobs across the Hudson River
for marshals yielded the highest fees. Under current law, marshals are entitled to keep 5% of
cash that they collect. The city also has a Sheriff's office that does similar work, but those
employees get a salary. Several mayors have called for an end to the marshal system over the
last few decades, but nobody has been successful in getting the state legislature to act upon
it.
While Barbarovich's jurisdiction is supposed to end at city limits, he has worked to recover
debts from places like California and Illinois, among others nationwide.
One person he "recovered" debt money from, to the tune of $56,000, Jose Soliz, asked: "How
could they pull all that money? I've never even been to New York."
When asked about Barbarovich's practices, a spokesman for the New York City Marshals
Association said that marshals simply "enforce court judgments".
The genesis of these judgments are often lenders who advance money to people at rates that
can sometimes top 400% annualized. They have found a loophole around loansharking rules by
stating that they are instead buying the money that businesses will likely make in the future
at a discounted price. Courts have been supportive of this distinction and, as such, the
"merchant cash advance" industry has grown to about $15 billion a year.
As soon as lenders see that borrowers have fallen behind they call marshals, whose job is to
force the banks to handover whatever cash is left. They do this by using a court order stamped
by a clerk that's obtained without going before a judge. Banks generally comply immediately,
without checking if the marshal has the right to actually take the funds. The borrower often
doesn't understand what's going on until the money is gone.
Prior to becoming a marshal, Barbarovich worked in property control earning about $70,000 a
year and sometimes volunteered as a Russian translator. Upon starting as a marshal in 2013, he
earned about $90,000. When cash advance companies discovered the power he had, his income
skyrocketed and his earnings increased almost 20 fold.
His financial disclosures show that his work enforcing Supreme Court property judgments
skyrocketed dramatically over the last two years, as did the amount of cash he recovered. In
some respects, the collection process is like the wild west: marshals don't draw a salary, earn
fees from customers and are encouraged to compete with one another, which can catalyze
aggressive behavior.
Avery Steinberg, a lawyer in White Plains, New York, who represents a few clients whose
accounts were seized by Barbarovich, told Bloomberg: "He goes about it in any which way he can.
He has a reputation of being a bully."
The Bloomberg article tells the story of Jose Soliz, whose company builds concrete block
walls for schools and stores in the Texas Panhandle. He had started borrowing from cash advance
companies several years ago and found himself trapped in a cycle of debt.
He eventually wound up taking out a $23,000 loan that he agreed to pay back within nine
weeks – to the tune of $44,970 : an 800% annualized interest rate.
He says that the fees were more than expected, so he stopped payment. When he went to go pay
his employees a couple days later, he noticed that his Wells Fargo account had been frozen and
his paychecks bounced.
He found out the hard way that cash advance companies like the one he used required him to
sign a document agreeing in advance that if there's a legal dispute, the borrower will
automatically lose, rendering any type of judicial review useless.
Those who are signing these agreements don't often realize the power that they are waiving.
Based on these agreements, the lender can accuse the borrower of defaulting, without proof, and
have a court judgment signed by a clerk on the same day.
This is exactly what happened to Soliz. His lender obtained such a judgment against him in
Buffalo, New York and called in Barbarovich to collect. Even though his Wells Fargo account was
opened in Texas, and the judgment was only valid in New York State, the bank turned over
$56,764 to the marshal. The rule is supposedly that marshals can go after out of state funds as
long as they serve demands at a bank location in New York City, according to the New York City
Department of Investigation.
On the other hand, it's not clear whether or not banks have to comply with these orders.
Some banks reject these demands but most have a policy of following any legal order they
receive so as to avoid the hassle of reviewing them and not to ruffle any feathers.
Wells Fargo, when contacted by Bloomberg, stated that it "carefully review[s] each legal
order to ensure it's valid and properly handled."
Barbarovich claims that he serves all legal orders by hand, though that is disputed by
Soliz's lawyer.
The Department of Investigation reportedly "continues to review" Barbarovich's work and
offered few specifics to Bloomberg.
The Department has stated that they're conducting multiple investigations into the
enforcement of judgments and focusing on whether not marshals are serving orders by hand.
Reminds me of another 'vishibalo' (shakedown artist) Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel who's parents
hailed from Odessa, Ukraine (a city which until today is still run by the Jewish mafia) and
his boyhood friend Meyer Lansky (who came from Belarus), who formed the first Jewish criminal
group in New York. Fiddler on the Roof: "If I were a rich man...... Tradition! Tradition!
"
His jurisdiction ends in NY, bank in Texas has no reason to comply, Soliz could suecthe
bank and sue the 'marshall' - he has no legal authority outside of nyc to seize funds absent
a court order in that jurisdiction.
Guy has a property interest of some sort in his funds being available. At very least due
process rights that were ignored.
My state had a loan shark running multiple easy cash joints and spending the money on all
sorts of properties and businesses. Voters capped his interest on loans and he left the
state.
"It's a practice that dates back to the 17th century."
Incorrect. This was a method used in ancient Rome to collect taxes. It's the reason
landowners and farmers abandoned their land. Excessive taxation and the capacity to acquire
wealth by collecting taxes from the state. By the way, the IRS pays 10%.
February 21, 1871 and the Forty-First Congress is in session. I refer you to the "Acts of
the Forty-First Congress," Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62. On this date in the
history of our nation, Congress passed an Act titled: "An Act To Provide A Government for the
District of Columbia." This is also known as the "Act of 1871." What does this mean? Well, it
means that Congress, under no constitutional authority to do so, created a separate form of
government for the District of Columbia, which is a ten mile square parcel of land.
In essence, this Act formed the corporation known as THE UNITED STATES. Note the
capitalization, because it is important. This corporation, owned by foreign interests, moved
right in and shoved the original "organic" version of the Constitution into a dusty corner.
With the "Act of 1871," our Constitution was defaced in the sense that the title was
block-capitalized and the word "for" was changed to the word "of" in the title. The original
Constitution drafted by the Founding Fathers, was written in this manner:
"The Constitution for the united states of America".
The altered version reads: "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA". It is the
corporate constitution. It is NOT the same document you might think it is. The corporate
constitution operates in an economic capacity and has been used to fool the People into
thinking it is the same parchment that governs the Republic. It absolutely is not.
Capitalization -- an insignificant change? Not when one is referring to the context of a
legal document, it isn't. Such minor alterations have had major impacts on each subsequent
generation born in this country. What the Congress did with the passage of the Act of 1871
was create an entirely new document, a constitution for the government of the District of
Columbia. The kind of government THEY created was a corporation. The new, altered
Constitution serves as the constitution of the corporation, and not that of America. Think
about that for a moment.
"He found out the hard way that cash advance companies like the one he used required him
to sign a document agreeing in advance that if there's a legal dispute, the borrower will
automatically lose, rendering any type of judicial review useless."
Immoral? Yep.
Unethical? Of course.
Surprising? Nope.
Bottom line is, these dumb shits signed off on a bottom line that SPELLED OUT THIS EXACT
PROCESS if they defaulted.
"... With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan. ..."
"... The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars. ..."
"... The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is polarized and the elites are divided. ..."
Over the past three decades, the US government has engaged in over a dozen wars, none of
which have evoked popular celebrations either before, during or after. Nor did the government
succeed in securing popular support in its efforts to confront the economic crises of 2008
– 2009.
This paper will begin by discussing the major wars of our time, namely the two US invasions
of Iraq . We will proceed to analyze the nature of the popular response and the political
consequences.
In the second section we will discuss the economic crises of 2008 -2009, the government
bailout and popular response. We will conclude by focusing on the potential powerful changes
inherent in mass popular movements.
The Iraq War and the US Public
In the run-up to the two US wars against Iraq, (1990 – 01 and 2003 – 2011) there
was no mass war fever, nor did the public celebrate the outcome. On the contrary both wars were
preceded by massive protests in the US and among EU allies. The first Iraqi invasion was
opposed by the vast-majority of the US public despite a major mass media and regime propaganda
campaign backed by President George H. W. Bush. Subsequently, President Clinton launched a
bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 with virtually no public support or
approval.
March 20, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the second major war against Iraq despite
massive protests in all major US cities. The war was officially concluded by President Obama in
December 2011. President Obama's declaration of a successful conclusion failed to elicit
popular agreement.
Several questions arise:
Why mass opposition at the start of the Iraq wars and why did they fail to continue?
Why did the public refuse to celebrate President Obama's ending of the war in 2011?
Why did mass protests of the Iraq wars fail to produce durable political vehicles to
secure the peace?
The Anti-Iraq War Syndrome
The massive popular movements which actively opposed the Iraq wars had their roots in
several historical sources. The success of the movements that ended the Viet Nam war, the ideas
that mass activity could resist and win was solidly embedded in large segments of the
progressive public. Moreover, they strongly held the idea that the mass media and Congress
could not be trusted; this reinforced the idea that mass direct action was essential to reverse
Presidential and Pentagon war policies.
The second factor encouraging US mass protest was the fact that the US was internationally
isolated. Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush wars faced hostile regime and mass
opposition in Europe, the Middle East and in the UN General Assembly. US activists felt that
they were part of a global movement which could succeed.
Thirdly the advent of Democratic President Clinton did not reverse the mass anti-war
movements.The terror bombing of Iraq in December 1998 was destructive and Clinton's war against
Serbia kept the movements alive and active To the extent that Clinton avoided large scale
long-term wars, he avoided provoking mass movements from re-emerging during the latter part of
the 1990's.
The last big wave of mass anti-war protest occurred from 2003 to 2008. Mass anti-war protest
to war exploded soon after the World Trade Center bombings of 9/11. White House exploited the
events to proclaim a global 'war on terror', yet the mass popular movements interpreted the
same events as a call to oppose new wars in the Middle East.
Anti-war leaders drew activists of the entire decade, envisioning a 'build-up' which could
prevent the Bush regime from launching a series of wars without end. Moreover, the
vast-majority of the public was not convinced by officials' claims that Iraq, weakened and
encircled, was stocking 'weapons of mass destruction' to attack the US.
Large scale popular protests challenged the mass media, the so called respectable press and
ignored the Israeli lobby and other Pentagon warlords demanding an invasion of Iraq. The
vast-majority of American, did not believe they were threatened by Saddam Hussain they felt a
greater threat from the White House's resort to severe repressive legislation like the Patriot
Act. Washington's rapid military defeat of Iraqi forces and its occupation of the Iraqi state
led to a decline in the size and scope of the anti-war movement but not to its potential mass
base.
Two events led to the demise of the anti-war movements. The anti-war leaders turned from
independent direct action to electoral politics and secondly, they embraced and channeled their
followers to support Democratic presidential candidate Obama. In large part the movement
leaders and activists believed that direct action had failed to prevent or end the previous two
Iraq wars. Secondly, Obama made a direct demagogic appeal to the peace movement – he
promised to end wars and pursue social justice at home.
With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political
machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued
the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to
new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates
of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South
China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan.
The mass popular movements of the previous two decades were totally disillusioned, betrayed
and disoriented. While most opposed Obama's 'new' and 'old wars' they struggled to find new
outlets for their anti-war beliefs. Lacking alternative anti-war movements, they were
vulnerable to the war propaganda of the media and the new demagogue of the right. Donald Trump
attracted many who opposed the war monger Hilary Clinton.
The Bank Bailout: Mass Protest
Denied
In 2008, at the end of his presidency, President George W. Bush signed off on a massive
federal bailout of the biggest Wall Street banks who faced bankruptcy from their wild
speculative profiteering.
In 2009 President Obama endorsed the bailout and urged rapid Congressional approval.
Congress complied to a $700-billion- dollar handout ,which according to Forbes (July 14, 2015)
rose to $7.77 trillion. Overnight hundreds of thousands of American demanded Congress rescind
the vote. Under immense popular protest, Congress capitulated. However President Obama and the
Democratic Party leadership insisted: the bill was slightly modified and approved. The 'popular
will' was denied. The protests were neutralized and dissipated. The bailout of the banks
proceeded, while several million households watched while their homes were foreclosed ,despite
some local protests. Among the anti-bank movement, radical proposals flourished, ranging from
calls to nationalize them, to demands to let the big banks go bankrupt and provide federal
financing for co-operatives and community banks.
Clearly the vast-majority of the American people were aware and acted to resist
corporate-collusion to plunder taxpayers.
Conclusion: What is to be Done?
Mass popular mobilizations are a reality in the United States. The problem is that they have
not been sustained and the reasons are clear : they lacked political organization which would
go beyond protests and reject lesser evil policies.
The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the
two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of
Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars.
By the second year of Trump's Presidency the US was threatening nuclear wars against Russia,
Iran and other 'enemies' of the empire. While public opinion was decidedly opposed, the
'opinion' barely rippled in the mid-term elections.
Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us but
they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the Democratic
Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and economic
transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national.
The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the
world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is
polarized and the elites are divided.
Mobilizations, as in France today, are self-organized through the internet; the mass media
are discredited. The time of liberal and rightwing demagogues is passing; the bombast of Trump
arouses the same disgust as ended the Obama regime.
Optimal conditions for a new comprehensive movement that goes beyond piecemeal reforms is on
the agenda. The question is whether it is now or in future years or decades?
Mass protest, which must ignore the mass media, depends on organizers. No organizers--no
protest. Since organizers are mostly working for somebodies agenda, those agendas apparently
don't want mass protest against war. They only want to push multi-genderism and minority
resistance, these days.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and
economic transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national. "
.gov gives not one damn what the people think and they willl do what pleases their
masters. We are allowed to "vote" once in a while to maintain the illusion that they
care.
Very few Americans are anti-war. They are just fine with endless war and the killing of
millions of people with brown skin for any reason the government gives. Even the so-called
anti-war protesters of the Sixties are now pro war. Back then there was a draft, and they
were at risk of dying in the war. Turns they were only against themselves dying, not somebody
else's child. The volunteer army is staffed by the unfortunates of American society who have
very few options except the military. Uneducated rural whites and inner city black youths are
today's military. Poor white trash and ghetto blacks. Who cares if they die? That's the
attitude of the Sixties anti-war crowd. Hypocrites.
A universal draft, male and female, would stop all the wars in a day.
True, I also believe many Americans turn their heads toward these endless/unneeded wars
because the "enemies" mortar fire is not landing in our own backyard.
But White people know if they pray, buy groceries, buy clothes for kids, keep their
appearance up... then losing jobs & middle class is only an obstacle if you don't work
harder... Fascism is about responsibility, looking and acting like the winner class. White
people will enlist in military, police, fire department... will work harder... will work 2-4
jobs... will blame themselves for everything.
No warning or reason given for closures,Customers, employees and communities are outraged
after Papa Gino's Pizza abruptly closed dozens of locations across New England overnight.
Now that congress serves only as a mechanism for creating and maintaining skimming
operations and rigging all markets, it is imperative that citizens get no information. Since
organized crime also owns the major media outlets, that is an easy task. With no information
in the mainstream there is no anti war and no anti bank.
Gone, like the people who wanted a real 9/11 investigation. Yahoos out there still think
that if it was an inside job someone would have spoke out by now . Lol
They are all their, they are just silenced in corporate main stream media whilst corporate
main stream media absolutely 'SCREAMS' about identity politics, not an accident. Identity
politics is the deep state and shadow government plan to silence the masses about fiscal and
foreign policy.
For example, even though I am centre left, I was there in the beginning of the alt right,
it was not white supremacy for the first few weeks it was Libertarian vs corporate
Republican, then the deep state and shadow government stepped in and using corporate main
stream media, re-branded alt-right as white supremacy, is was really fast.
Most people don't even know alt-right started out as very much Libertarian taking on the
corporate state and that is what triggered that attack and a stream of fake right wingers
(deep state agents) screaming they were the alt-right together with corporate main stream
media, to ensure Libertarian where silenced.
Look at it now, how much do you here from Libertarians, practically nothing, every time
they try, they are targeted as alt-right which they were as in the alternate to corporate
Republicans much the same as the Corporate Democrats. From my perspective the real left and
the Libertarians had much more in common, than the corporate Republicans and the corporate
Democrats (both attacking the libertarians and the greens to silence them).
They are all there fighting, just totally silenced in corporate main stream media, you
have to go to https://www.rt.com/ to find
them.
Bankers control the CFR, the CFR controls the media and most gov positions and most of the
deepstate 3 letter agencies.. Everything said is tracked by the NSA and everywhere you go is
tracked by your phone and cars. Ever wonder how they take over a grass root movement so fast?
Think about it.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every
Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether
he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city,
people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the
downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing
left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people
with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly
have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's
thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom
enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and
simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
The United States is now too big for popular protest. How can I, living in California,
have common cause with someone living in New York? We live on opposite sides of this
continent and have wildly different climates. Our heavy hitters are in Technology while New
York has Banking and Wall St.
Our elected officials are unable to get crap done in the same manner we're unable to get a
good protest underway. We can withdraw somewhat or go off grid where possible but that's
about it.
African American lack of support for the Iraq war:
According to several polls taken right before the war, only a minority of African-Americans
supported the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Most notably, a poll by the
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies had found that only 19 percent of
African-Americans supported it.
That is a striking statistic, especially considering that more than 70 percent of white
Americans were in favor of the military invasion, according to some polls.
Also note that 90% of white males were for that illegal war of aggression.
the left is so obsessed with getting trump, they can do nothing else. they are so *******
stoopid, that they wont even try to develop someone to beat trump. they put 100% of their
energy in hating trump. they are blinded by hatred.
the end is nigh and there's nothing to be done about it.... 10 years and thats it....
beyond that and event horizon... black hole... no one knows. ai terminator coming soon...
thats all i can see.
Most thinking people are not wanting to be part of a movement that will be co-opted for
someone else's political gain. I would rather prepare myself and family for the inevitable
collapse of the economy and perhaps more that awaits us. That's enough to keep me busy. I
can't change the whole world but I can prepare to help my family friends and neighbors.
In answer to the the question posed by the headerof this article, they have either been
exiled from 'respectable' media or are stuck yelling "Trump! Trump! Trump! Russia! Russia!
Russia" like a poorly programmed NPC caught in an infinite loop.
The hidden hand behind the puppet show has done a hell of a job massaging the masses, and
turning their minds into mush.
"Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party ."
Exactly! If there are any anti-war people out there they sure as hell are not with the
Democratic Party. Those leftist lunatics are the most destructive political group on this
planet. Their thinking is 'divide & conquer', incite racial tensions, spew hatred,
promoting that killing babies before they are born, or even on the day they are born is
awesome. One has to wonder if people that evil even have souls.
As for anti-bankers... is this author off his rocker? He's not fooling anyone by trying to
present the theory that if there are any consciencous objectors out there they would be
supporters of the Democratic party. That thought is outright laughable. Even worse, to try to
create this new narrative by writing this type of article is absolutely despicable.
Fortunately, not the least bit convincing. People know better.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party "
OK, so..... it's the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party. Not like anyone gives a
**** what words mean any more, but.... whatever. Use the right ******* words or..... *******
don't. Not like any of this **** matters any more at this level.
And not all of us are ******* Democrats. Neither party is really anti-war or anti-bank
now, so the red/blue thing has little relevance to those subjects. We all argue about much
more important issues now like transgender bathrooms and whether Kanye West is a racist for
supporting Trump or not.
Politics has become a black hole collapsing on us. Black hole don't give a ****. Look at
that black hole. It just ate a star and became bigger. It don't care.
Sorry but I do not see Trump as "threatening nuclear war".
Surely some of the Deep Staters did. But it's hard to see Trump as in control. His
presidency has been great for exposing how things really work. That's worth a lot. If only
the idiots would pay attention. But they won't. They're too busy placing great importance on
the trifling and little or none on the critically important.
Excuse me I have to run now and get the latest iPhone.
President Trump's ex-longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen worked with an FBI informant
known as "The Quarterback" to negotiate a deal for Trump Tower Moscow during the 2016 US
election, according to
BuzzFeed News .
"The Quarterback," Felix Sater - a longtime FBI and CIA undercover
intelligence asset who was busted running a $40 million stock scheme, leveraged his
Russia connections to pitch the deal, while Cohen discussed it with Putin's press secretary,
Dmitry Peskov, according to BuzzFeed , citing two unnamed US law enforcement
officials.
Sater told BuzzFeed News today that he and Cohen thought giving the Trump Tower's most
luxurious apartment, a $50 million penthouse , to Putin would entice other wealthy buyers
to purchase their own. "In Russia, the oligarchs would bend over backwards to live in the
same building as Vladimir Putin," Sater told BuzzFeed News. "My idea was to give a $50
million penthouse to Putin and charge $250 million more for the rest of the units. All the
oligarchs would line up to live in the same building as Putin." A second source confirmed
the plan. -
BuzzFeed
The Trump Tower Moscow plan is at the center of Cohen's
new plea agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller after he admitted to lying to
congressional committees investigating Trump-Russia collusion.
According to the
criminal information filed against Cohen Thursday, on Jan. 20, 2016 he spoke with a
Russian government official, referred to only as Assistant 1, about the Trump Tower Moscow
plan for 20 minutes. This person appears to be an assistant to Peskov, a top Kremlin
official that Cohen had attempted to reach by email.
Cohen "requested assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to
build the proposed tower and financing the construction," the court document states.
Cohen had previously maintained that he never got a response from the official, but in
court on Thursday he acknowledged that was a lie. -
BuzzFeed
While the deal ultimately fizzled, "and it is not clear whether Trump knew of the
intention to give away the penthouse," Cohen has said in court filings that Trump was
regularly briefed on the Moscow negotiations along with his family.
Sater and Cohen "worked furiously behind the scenes into the summer of 2016 to get the
Moscow deal finished," according to BuzzFeed - although it was claimed that the project was
canned in January 2016, before Trump won the GOP nomination.
Sater, who has worked with the Trump organization on past deals, said that he came up with
the Trump Tower Moscow idea, while Cohen - Sater recalled, said "Great idea." "I figured,
he's in the news, his name is generating a lot of good press," Sater told BuzzFeed earlier in
the year, adding "A lot of Russians weren't willing to pay a premium licensing fee to put
Donald's name on their building. Now maybe they would be."
So he turned to his old friend, Cohen, to get it off the ground . They arranged a
licensing deal, by which Trump would lend his name to the project and collect a part of the
profits. Sater lined up a Russian development company to build the project and said that
VTB, a Russian financial institution that faced US sanctions at the time, would finance it.
VTB officials
have denied taking part in any negotiations about the project. -
BuzzFeed
Two FBI agents with "direct knowledge of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations" told
BuzzFeed earlier this year that Cohen had been in frequent contact with foreigners about the
potential real estate project - and that some of these individuals "had knowledge of or
played a role in 2016 election meddling."
Meanwhile, Trump reportedly personally signed the letter of intent to move forward with
the Trump Tower Moscow plan on October 28, 2015 - the third day of the Republican primary
debate.
Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced on December 12. By cooperating with the DOJ, he is
hoping to avoid prison.
In 1998, Sater pleaded guilty to his involvement in a $40 million stock fraud scheme
orchestrated by the Russian Mafia , and became an informant
for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and federal prosecutors, assisting with organized crime investigations.
In 2017, Sater agreed to cooperate with investigators into international money laundering schemes.
Left, right and centre in contemporary USSA politics are rotten and corrupt. Bernie
Sanders proved that even he is susceptible to dodgy business decisions. Trump is no more
rotten and adverse to dodgy/boarderline legally tenuous deals than anybody in politics on
Capitol Hill. Do I care about this? No, because there are far more important issues to be
dealt with by a magnitude of 90000 times.
Both sides on this issue are imbeciles. One side is pushing guilt, when compared to what
Killary and the Clinton foundation got up to, it is a complete non-story. The other side
are completely absolving Orange Jesus of any guilt and making out he has morals beyond
reproach.
I rarely comment on the Trump/Russia angle, because most of it is overblown, the
narrative is distorted and context is deliberately misinterpreted.
President Trump's ex-longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen worked with an FBI
informant known as "The Quarterback" to negotiate a deal for Trump Tower Moscow during
the 2016 US election, according to BuzzFeed News.
There is nothing about this sentence which carries any credibility at all.
Honestly, you might not have bothered writing it, or the rest of the article. No. I
didn't read it, and am not going to waste any of my life doing so either.
Can somebody just give me the short, simple, dumbed-down version of what any of this
means? What does this amount to? Is this any kind of game-changer? Does it change
anything?
" ...an un-named source" ..... another fantastical fairytale from a failed american
media company by yet another un-named source. How very convenient. President Vladimir
living in an american themed cramped badly designed apartment building ? Please, I do not
like to laugh much but this is starting to make me smile. Our President has a State owned
mansion in the best part of our glorious capital ....like me he owns almost nothing and
works all the time ....why would anybody with sanity in their brain believe that he would
make this change, especially to be associated with ANYTHING american. Also no Russian
businessman that I know has ever bought a property in a trump complex .... the build
quality and design is rubbish. Westerners should take time to view some of our exceptional
office and residential towers along the Moskva River to see where wealthy people want to
invest, work and live here. Get real West !!
OK thought experiment, given that he "only" earns perhaps 150k, how is Putin going to
pay for the upkeep of such a White Elephant? Imagine if he had to pay for maintenance of
the complementary hot n cold running whores that inevitable come with such an apartment
.... what if something breaks and needs replaced?
It's like giving a Ferrari to an Amish. Thanks, but no, thanks. Not his style.
Because Putin wants to live in a building with a bunch of mobsters.
And small world - wouldnt you know the Russians who try to do hotel deals are also into
hacking illegal, unsecure servers?
And though this indicates nothing, true or not, about the election - here's the secret :
the judeocorporate media has got the public trained to react to 'Russia' and 'Putin' purely
emotionally - so much so the Maddows of the world will shriek that this proves 'collusion'
- when it does no such thing.
More Deep State smoke and mirrors.
If you havent watched any Dan Bongino speeches on youtube its worth a look.
Crooks and criminals took over worldwide. Now even US-citizens elected one for
President. It´s a shame. How long will it take until the killer squads of Blackstone
financed by Blackrock prowl through the streets to kill anybody who isn´t useful in
their view? They have been practicing for years in foreign countries, paid with taxpayers
money.
Why did the FBI or Muller zero in on this guy Michael Cohen?
Because they got everything on him, Trump and his family and associates, long before any
investigations were initiated.
NSA collected all the phone records, emails, text messages, internet usages, banking
records, library loan records, etc, . . . on EVERY Americans. All they need to do is type
in a name, like you type in a search phrase on Google, and everything associated with that
person would come up, on the screen.
The FBI knew everything they need to know about Michael Cohen, and General Michael
Flynn.
All they need to get them or entrap them is to ask them questions, which they already
knew the answers, and wait for them to "lie" or misrepresent themselves.
BINGO!
They are charged with lying to the FBI.
Trump was smart that he refused to be "interview" with the Muller, the Inquisitor. His
lawyers knew Muller will try to trap into "lying" to the FBI.
"... No longer were the chief executive officers of these companies chosen because they were of the right social background. Connections still mattered, but so did bureaucratic skill. The men who possessed those skills were rewarded well for their efforts. Larded with expense accounts and paid handsomely, they could exercise national influence not only through their companies, but through the roles that they would be called upon to serve in "the national interest." ..."
"... Given an unlimited checking account by politicians anxious to appear tough, buoyed by fantastic technological and scientific achievements, and sinking roots into America's educational institutions, the military, Mills believed, was becoming increasingly autonomous. Of all the prongs of the power elite, this "military ascendancy" possessed the most dangerous implications. "American militarism, in fully developed form, would mean the triumph in all areas of life of the military metaphysic, and hence the subordination to it of all other ways of life." ..."
"... Rather they understood that running the Central Intelligence Agency or being secretary of the Treasury gave one vast influence over the direction taken by the country. Firmly interlocked with the military and corporate sectors, the political leaders of the United States fashioned an agenda favorable to their class rather than one that might have been good for the nation as a whole ..."
"... The new breed of political figure likely to climb to the highest political positions in the land would be those who were cozy with generals and CEOs, not those who were on a first-name basis with real estate brokers and savings and loan officials. ..."
"... the emergence of the power elite had transformed the theory of balance into a romantic, Jeffersonian myth. ..."
"... neither Congress nor the political parties had much substantive work to carry out. "In the absence of policy differences of consequence between the major parties," Mills wrote, "the professional party politician must invent themes about which to talk." ..."
"... the image he conveyed of what an American had become was thoroughly unattractive: "He loses his independence, and more importantly, he loses the desire to be independent; in fact, he does not have hold of the idea of being an independent individual with his own mind and his own worked-out way of life." Mills had become so persuaded of the power of the power elite that he seemed to have lost all hope that the American people could find themselves and put a stop to the abuses he detected. ..."
Power in America today looks far different from the picture that C. Wright Mills painted nearly half a century ago. C. Wright Mills's
The Power Elite was published in 1956, a time, as Mills himself put it, when Americans were living through "a material boom,
a nationalist celebration, a political vacuum." It is not hard to understand why Americans were as complacent as Mills charged.
Let's say you were a typical 35-year-old voter in 1956. When you were eight years old, the stock market crashed, and the resulting
Clutch Plague began just as you started third or fourth grade. Hence your childhood was consumed with fighting off the poverty of
the single greatest economic catastrophe in American history. When you were 20, the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, ensuring that
your years as a young adult, especially if you were male, would be spent fighting on the ground in Europe or from island to island
in Asia. If you were lucky enough to survive that experience, you returned home at the ripe old age of 24, ready to resume some semblance
of a normal life -- only then to witness the Korean War, McCarthyism, and the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Into this milieu exploded The Power Elite . C. Wright Mills was one of the first intellectuals in America to write that
the complacency of the Eisenhower years left much to be desired. His indictment was uncompromising. On the one hand, he claimed,
vast concentrations of power had coagulated in America, making a mockery of American democracy. On the other, he charged that his
fellow intellectuals had sold out to the conservative mood in America, leaving their audience -- the American people themselves --
in a state of ignorance and apathy bearing shocking resemblance to the totalitarian regimes that America had defeated or was currently
fighting.
One of the goals Mills set for himself in The Power Elite was to tell his readers -- again, assuming that they were roughly
35 years of age -- how much the organization of power in America had changed during their lifetimes. In the 1920s, when this typical
reader had been born, there existed what Mills called "local society," towns and small cities throughout Am erica whose political
and social life was dominated by resident businessmen. Small-town elites, usually Republican in their outlook, had a strong voice
in Con gress, for most of the congressmen who represented them were either members of the dominant families themselves or had close
financial ties to them.
By the time Mills wrote his book, this world of local elites had become as obsolete as the Model T Ford. Power in America had
become nationalized, Mills charged, and as a result had also become interconnected. The Power Elite called attention to three
prongs of power in the United States. First, business had shifted its focus from corporations that were primarily regional in their
workforces and customer bases to ones that sought products in national markets and developed national interests. What had once been
a propertied class, tied to the ownership of real assets, had become a managerial class, rewarded for its ability to organize the
vast scope of corporate enterprise into an engine for ever-expanding profits. No longer were the chief executive officers of
these companies chosen because they were of the right social background. Connections still mattered, but so did bureaucratic skill.
The men who possessed those skills were rewarded well for their efforts. Larded with expense accounts and paid handsomely, they could
exercise national influence not only through their companies, but through the roles that they would be called upon to serve in "the
national interest."
Similar changes had taken place in the military sector of American society. World War II, Mills argued, and the subsequent start
of the Cold War, led to the establishment of "a permanent war economy" in the United States. Mills wrote that the "warlords," his
term for the military and its civilian allies, had once been "only uneasy, poor relations within the American elite; now they are
first cousins; soon they may become elder brothers." Given an unlimited checking account by politicians anxious to appear tough,
buoyed by fantastic technological and scientific achievements, and sinking roots into America's educational institutions, the military,
Mills believed, was becoming increasingly autonomous. Of all the prongs of the power elite, this "military ascendancy" possessed
the most dangerous implications. "American militarism, in fully developed form, would mean the triumph in all areas of life of the
military metaphysic, and hence the subordination to it of all other ways of life."
In addition to the military and corporate elites, Mills analyzed the role of what he called "the political directorate." Local
elites had once been strongly represented in Congress, but Congress itself, Mills pointed out, had lost power to the executive branch.
And within that branch, Mills could count roughly 50 people who, in his opinion, were "now in charge of the executive decisions made
in the name of the United States of America." The very top positions -- such as the secretaries of state or defense -- were occupied
by men with close ties to the leading national corporations in the United States. These people were not attracted to their positions
for the money; often, they made less than they would have in the private sector. Rather they understood that running the Central
Intelligence Agency or being secretary of the Treasury gave one vast influence over the direction taken by the country. Firmly interlocked
with the military and corporate sectors, the political leaders of the United States fashioned an agenda favorable to their class
rather than one that might have been good for the nation as a whole.
Although written very much as a product of its time, The Power Elite has had remarkable staying power. The book has remained
in print for 43 years in its original form, which means that the 35-year-old who read it when it first came out is now 78 years old.
The names have changed since the book's appearance -- younger readers will recognize hardly any of the corporate, military, and political
leaders mentioned by Mills -- but the underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues
to matter very much.
Changing Fortunes
The obvious question for any contemporary reader of The Power Elite is whether its conclusions apply to the United States
today. Sorting out what is helpful in Mills's book from what has become obsolete seems a task worth undertaking.
Each year, Fortune publishes a list of the 500 leading American companies based on revenues. Roughly 30 of the 50 companies
that dominated the economy when Mills wrote his book no longer do, including firms in once seemingly impregnable industries such
as steel, rubber, and food. Putting it another way, the 1998 list contains the names of many corporations that would have been quite
familiar to Mills: General Motors is ranked first, Ford second, and Exxon third. But the company immediately following these giants
-- Wal-Mart Stores -- did not even exist at the time Mills wrote; indeed, the idea that a chain of retail stores started by a folksy
Arkansas merchant would someday outrank Mobil, General Electric, or Chrysler would have startled Mills. Furthermore, just as some
industries have declined, whole new industries have appeared in America since 1956; IBM was fifty-ninth when Mills wrote, hardly
the computer giant -- sixth on the current Fortune 500 list -- that it is now. (Compaq and Intel, neither of which existed when Mills
wrote his book, are also in the 1998 top 50.) To illustrate how closed the world of the power elite was, Mills called attention to
the fact that one man, Winthrop W. Aldrich, the Am erican ambassador to Great Britain, was a director of 4 of the top 25 companies
in America in 1950. In 1998, by contrast, only one of those companies, AT&T, was at the very top; of the other three, Chase Manhattan
was twenty-seventh, Metropolitan Life had fallen to forty-third, and the New York Central Railroad was not to be found.
Despite these changes in the nature of corporate America, however, much of what Mills had to say about the corporate elite still
applies. It is certainly still the case, for example, that those who run companies are very rich; the gap between what a CEO makes
and what a worker makes is extraordinarily high. But there is one difference between the world described by Mills and the world of
today that is so striking it cannot be passed over. As odd as it may sound, Mills's understanding of capitalism was not radical enough.
Heavily influenced by the sociology of its time, The Power Elite portrayed corporate executives as organization men who "must
'fit in' with those already at the top." They had to be concerned with managing their impressions, as if the appearance of good results
were more important than the actuality of them. Mills was disdainful of the idea that leading businessmen were especially com petent.
"The fit survive," he wrote, "and fitness means, not formal competence -- there probably is no such thing for top executive positions
-- but conformity with the criteria of those who have already succeeded."
It may well have been true in the 1950s that corporate leaders were not especially inventive; but if so, that was because they
faced relatively few challenges. If you were the head of General Motors in 1956, you knew that American automobile companies dominated
your market; the last thing on your mind was the fact that someday cars called Toyotas or Hondas would be your biggest threat. You
did not like the union which organized your workers, but if you were smart, you realized that an ever-growing economy would enable
you to trade off high wages for your workers in return for labor market stability. Smaller companies that supplied you with parts
were dependent on you for orders. Each year you wanted to outsell Ford and Chrysler, and yet you worked with them to create an elaborate
set of signals so that they would not undercut your prices and you would not undercut theirs. Whatever your market share in 1956,
in other words, you could be fairly sure that it would be the same in 1957. Why rock the boat? It made perfect sense for budding
executives to do what Mills argued they did do: assume that the best way to get ahead was to get along and go along.
Very little of this picture remains accurate at the end of the twentieth century. Union membership as a percentage of the total
workforce has declined dramatically, and while this means that companies can pay their workers less, it also means that they cannot
expect to invest much in the training of their workers on the assumption that those workers will remain with the company for most
of their lives. Foreign competition, once negligible, is now the rule of thumb for most American companies, leading many of them
to move parts of their companies overseas and to create their own global marketing arrangements. America's fastest-growing industries
can be found in the field of high technology, something Mills did not anticipate. ("Many modern theories of industrial development,"
he wrote, "stress technological developments, but the number of inventors among the very rich is so small as to be unappreciable.")
Often dominated by self-made men (another phenomenon about which Mills was doubtful), these firms are ruthlessly competitive, which
upsets any possibility of forming gentlemen's agreements to control prices; indeed, among internet companies the idea is to provide
the product with no price whatsoever -- that is, for free -- in the hopes of winning future customer loyalty.
These radical changes in the competitive dynamics of American capitalism have important implications for any effort to characterize
the power elite of today. C. Wright Mills was a translator and interpreter of the German sociologist Max Weber, and he borrowed from
Weber the idea that a heavily bureaucratized society would also be a stable and conservative society. Only in a society which changes
relatively little is it possible for an elite to have power in the first place, for if events change radically, then it tends to
be the events controlling the people rather than the people controlling the events. There can be little doubt that those who hold
the highest positions in America's corporate hierarchy remain, as they did in Mills's day, the most powerful Americans. But not even
they can control rapid technological transformations, intense global competition, and ever-changing consumer tastes. American capitalism
is simply too dynamic to be controlled for very long by anyone.
The Warlords
One of the crucial arguments Mills made in The Power Elite was that the emergence of the Cold War completely transformed
the American public's historic opposition to a permanent military establishment in the United States. In deed, he stressed that America's
military elite was now linked to its economic and political elite. Personnel were constantly shifting back and forth from the corporate
world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological
innovations sponsored by the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. And while all these links between the economy and the
military were being forged, the military had become an active political force. Members of Congress, once hostile to the military,
now treated officers with great deference. And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers,
and appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military.
Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism
which had once characterized public opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are attempting
to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." Their goal was nothing less than a redefinition of reality -- one
in which the American people would come to accept what Mills called "an emergency without a foreseeable end." "War or a high state
of war preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States," Mills wrote. In this state
of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement,
precisely what the military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed permanent, then The Power
Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical, and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States.
Much as Mills wrote, it remains true today that Congress is extremely friendly to the military, at least in part because the military
has become so powerful in the districts of most congressmen. Military bases are an important source of jobs for many Americans, and
government spending on the military is crucial to companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which manufacture military equipment.
American firms are the leaders in the world's global arms market, manufacturing and exporting weapons everywhere. Some weapons systems
never seem to die, even if, as was the case with a "Star Wars" system designed to destroy incoming missiles, there is no demonstrable
military need for them.
Yet despite these similarities with the 1950s, both the world and the role that America plays in that world have changed. For
one thing, the United States has been unable to muster its forces for any sustained use in any foreign conflict since Vietnam. Worried
about the possibility of a public backlash against the loss of American lives, American presidents either refrain from pursuing military
adventures abroad or confine them to rapid strikes, along the lines pursued by Presidents Bush and Clinton in Iraq. Since 1989, moreover,
the collapse of communism in Russia and Eastern Europe has undermined the capacity of America's elites to mobilize support for military
expenditures. China, which at the time Mills wrote was con sidered a serious threat, is now viewed by American businessmen as a source
of great potential investment. Domestic political support for a large and permanent military establishment in the United States,
in short, can no longer be taken for granted.
The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a dramatic decrease in that proportion of
the American economy devoted to defense. At the time Mills wrote, defense expenditures constituted roughly 60 percent of all federal
outlays and consumed nearly 10 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product. By the late 1990s, those proportions had fallen to 17
percent of federal outlays and 3.5 percent of GDP. Nearly three million Americans served in the armed forces when The Power Elite
appeared, but that number had dropped by half at century's end. By almost any account, Mills's prediction that both the economy and
the political systemof the United States would come to be ever more dominated by the military is not borne out by historical developments
since his time.
And how could he have been right? Business firms, still the most powerful force in American life, are increasingly global in nature,
more interested in protecting their profits wherever they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority
of their employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice between invading another country
and investing in its industries and they will nearly always choose the latter over the former. Mills believed that in the 1950s,
for the first time in American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. Now it would be
more correct to say that America's economic elite finds more in common with economic elites in other countries than it does with
the military elite of its own. The Power Elite failed to foresee a situation in which at least one of the key elements of
the power elite would no longer identify its fate with the fate of the country which spawned it.
Mass Society and the Power Elite
Politicians and public officials who wield control over the executive and legislative branches of government constitute the third
leg of the power elite. Mills believed that the politicians of his time were no longer required to serve a local apprenticeship before
moving up the ladder to national politics. Because corporations and the military had become so interlocked with government, and because
these were both national institutions, what might be called "the nationalization of politics" was bound to follow. The new breed
of political figure likely to climb to the highest political positions in the land would be those who were cozy with generals and
CEOs, not those who were on a first-name basis with real estate brokers and savings and loan officials.
For Mills, politics was primarily a facade. Historically speaking, American politics had been organized on the theory of balance:
each branch of government would balance the other; competitive parties would ensure adequate representation; and interest groups
like labor unions would serve as a counterweight to other interests like business. But the emergence of the power elite had transformed
the theory of balance into a romantic, Jeffersonian myth. So anti democratic had America become under the rule of the power
elite, according to Mills, that most decisions were made behind the scenes. As a result, neither Congress nor the political parties
had much substantive work to carry out. "In the absence of policy differences of consequence between the major parties," Mills wrote,
"the professional party politician must invent themes about which to talk."
Mills was right to emphasize the irrelevance of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century images to the actualities of twentieth-century
American political power. But he was not necessarily correct that politics would therefore become something of an empty theatrical
show. Mills believed that in the absence of real substance, the parties would become more like each other. Yet today the ideological
differences between Republicans and Democrats are severe -- as, in fact, they were in 1956. Joseph McCarthy, the conservative anticommunist
senator from Wisconsin who gave his name to the period in which Mills wrote his book, appears a few times in The Power Elite
, but not as a major figure. In his emphasis on politics and economics, Mills underestimated the important role that powerful symbolic
and moral crusades have had in American life, including McCarthy's witch-hunt after communist influence. Had he paid more attention
to McCarthyism, Mills would have been more likely to predict the role played by divisive issues such as abortion, immigration, and
affirmative action in American politics today. Real substance may not be high on the American political agenda, but that does not
mean that politics is unimportant. Through our political system, we make decisions about what kind of people we imagine ourselves
to be, which is why it matters a great deal at the end of the twentieth century which political party is in power.
Contemporary commentators believe that Mills was an outstanding social critic but not necessarily a first-rate social scientist.
Yet I believe that The Power Elite survives better as a work of social science than of social criticism.
At the time Mills was writing, academic sociology was in the process of proclaiming itself a science. The proper role of the sociologist,
many of Mills's colleagues believed, was to conduct value-free research emphasizing the close em pirical testing of small-bore hypotheses.
A grand science would eventually be built upon extensive empirical work which, like the best of the natural sciences, would be published
in highly specialized journals emph a sizing methodological innovation and technical proficiency. Because he never agreed with these
objectives, Mills was never considered a good scientist by his sociological peers.
Yet not much of the academic sociology of the 1950s has survived, while The Power Elite , in terms of longevity, is rivaled
by very few books of its period. In his own way, Mills contributed much to the understanding of his era. Social scientists of the
1950s emphasized pluralism, a concept which Mills attacked in his criticisms of the theory of balance. The dominant idea of the day
was that the concentration of power in America ought not be considered excessive because one group always balanced the power of others.
The biggest problem facing America was not concentrated power but what sociologists began to call "the end of ideology." America,
they believed, had reached a point in which grand passions over ideas were exhausted. From now on, we would require technical expertise
to solve our problems, not the musings of intellectuals.
Compared to such ideas, Mills's picture of American reality, for all its exaggerations, seems closer to the mark. If the test
of science is to get reality right, the very passionate convictions of C. Wright Mills drove him to develop a better empirical grasp
on Am erican society than his more objective and clinical contemporaries. We can, therefore, read The Power Elite as a fairly
good account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written.
As a social critic, however, Mills leaves something to be desired. In that role, Mills portrays himself as a lonely battler for
the truth, insistent upon his correctness no matter how many others are seduced by the siren calls of power or wealth. This gives
his book emotional power, but it comes with a certain irresponsibility. "In Am erica today," Mills wrote in a typical passage, "men
of affairs are not so much dogmatic as they are mindless." Yet however one may dislike the decisions made by those in power in the
1950s, as decision makers they were responsible for the consequences of their acts. It is often easier to criticize from afar than
it is to get a sense of what it actually means to make a corporate decision involving thousands of workers, to consider a possible
military action that might cost lives, or to decide whether public funds should be spent on roads or welfare. In calling public officials
mindless, Mills implies that he knows how they might have acted better. But if he did, he never told readers of The Power Elite
; missing from the book is a statement of what concretely could be done to make the world accord more with the values in which Mills
believed.
It is, moreover, one thing to attack the power elite, yet another to extend his criticisms to other intellectuals -- and even
the public at large. When he does the latter, Mills runs the risk of becoming as antidemocratic as he believed America had become.
As he brings his book to an end, Mills adopts a termonce strongly identified with conservative political theorists. Appalled by the
spread of democracy, conservative European writers proclaimed the twentieth century the age of "mass society." The great majority,
this theory held, would never act rationally but would respond more like a crowd, hysterically caught up in frenzy at one point,
apathetic and withdrawn at another. "The United States is not altogether a mass society," Mills wrote -- and then he went on to write
as if it were. And when he did, the image he conveyed of what an American had become was thoroughly unattractive: "He loses his
independence, and more importantly, he loses the desire to be independent; in fact, he does not have hold of the idea of being an
independent individual with his own mind and his own worked-out way of life." Mills had become so persuaded of the power of the power
elite that he seemed to have lost all hope that the American people could find themselves and put a stop to the abuses he detected.
One can only wonder, then, what Mills would have made of the failed attempt by Republican zealots to impeach and remove the President
of the United States. At one level it makes one wish there really were a power elite, for surely such an elite would have prevented
an extremist faction of an increasingly ideological political party from trying to overturn the results of two elections. And at
another level, to the degree that America weathered this crisis, it did so precisely because the public did not act as if were numbed
by living in a mass society, for it refused to follow the lead of opinion makers, it made up its mind early and thoughtfully, and
then it held tenaciously to its opinion until the end.
Whether or not America has a power elite at the top and a mass society at the bottom, however, it remains in desperate need of
the blend of social science and social criticism which The Power Elite offered. It would take another of Mills's books --
perhaps The Sociological Imagination -- to explain why that has been lost.
Corey is an iconoclast and the author of
'Man's Fight for Existence' . He believes that the key to life is for men to honour their
primal nature. Visit his new website at primalexistence.com
It wasn't long ago that the Left represented the anti-establishment wing in politics. They
used to fight against globalism (remember the anti-globalization movement?) even if their
motives were different from those of today's anti-globalists, as well as being against
censorship, imperialist wars, and the expanding powers of governments and corporations. But
today, you see leftists protesting against Brexit, attacking and censoring anyone who disagrees
with the establishment (using Twitter on their Apple products while sipping on their Starbucks
coffee), and are calling for war in Syria to challenge the Russians. So, just how the hell did
did they end up becoming the patsies for the elites?
To understand, we must go back to 2011 when the Occupy movement was ongoing. The Occupy
protests, which now seem like ages ago, came about as a response to the economic downturn with
the people realizing that they were being screwed by the system. We can debate endlessly about
exactly who these people were and the motives behind them, but the important fact is that, to
the elites, it was a sign that the people were waking up and challenging their power.
The elites were in a panic as this was the first time in post-war history that the people of
West mobilized in mass to threaten their rule. So, the cabals decided that they needed to act
fast before the whole movement evolved to a full-blown revolution. And they already had a plan
in mind: the never antiquated strategy of divide and rule.
The Diversion
When the people are discontent and angry from being powerless and dispossessed, the pressure
will mount and it won't go anywhere. The people want to vent out their frustrations. The elites
know that responding directly with repression only inspires greater desire to rise up, so
instead of fighting it, they prefer to re-channel that pent up energy elsewhere.
On February 2012, with the Occupy movement still raging, the elites were given that golden
opportunity -- or, rather, they created one -- when a black teenager was shot dead in Florida:
the none other than the infamous Trayvon Martin case. The shooter wasn't even a full white, but
the elites jumped at the chance and used their control of the media to throw everything they
had on it; anything to divert the public attention away from them. With their efforts, it
quickly became the biggest story of America.
But they didn't stop there. Police shootings, which have always been happening and to all
races, were also highly publicized by the mainstream media to stoke liberal outrage and racial
tensions that led to the creation of Black Lives Matter movement -- a movement that is
financed by George Soros and others to stir up unrests across America.
Did the elites convert Occupy protesters into SJW patsies?
The diversion was complete as the people were now more interested in racial issues than the
"1%" who were dictating their lives. The Occupy movement faded away and the people were now
venting out their anger elsewhere. Although I don't have as much proof as with the rise of BLM
movement, I strongly suspect that the resurgence of social justice warriors around the same
time is also the work of the elites who want the Leftists to target fellow citizens over
asinine cultural issues rather than the established order.
The Strategy
Back in 19th century, Karl Marx claimed that religion and nationalism was being used to
distract the masses from the fact that they were being oppressed under capitalism. If we were
to apply this concept to the world today, the culture wars going on now are distractions to
keep the masses from undermining the power of the elites.
The goal the elites is simple: divide the masses and let them fight each other so that they
will never come together to topple those in power. Meanwhile, they themselves focus on
expanding their own wealth and continue to implement institutional control to further their
globalist plans. The worst case scenario the elites want to avoid is to have the common people
unite as one, so they must do everything they can to fragment them by creating as many
divisions as possible.
My understanding of their modus operandi is this: 1) Use hot-button issues to stir up
controversy (something that doesn't affect them like gay marriage, race issues, and all other
politically correct nonsense). 2) Have the Leftists either get outraged or do something that
will provoke a reaction from the Right. 3) Let the people vent out their anger onto each other
and get at each other's throats. 4) When the issue fades away, foment a new controversy to
repeat the whole process. By cycling through them over and over again, the elites are able to
maintain the status quo and keep the people from uniting against them.
Thus, we have our current situation where the masses are divided with blacks against whites,
women against men, Islam and atheism against Christianity, Left against Right, and so on, but
no more anti-globalization, Tea Party movement, or Occupy Wall Street.
As long as those on the left continue berating the right as racists, sexists, and bigots who
are controlled by corporations and the right in turn accuse the left of being degenerate,
socialist slackers who just want freebies from a nanny government, nothing will change. As long
as the two sides see each others as enemies who are stupid and ignorant, and getting in the way
of creating a decent society, the people will remain divided. As long as the rest of the
population go berserk over wedding cakes for homosexuals, the latest "misogynist" outrage, or
how a lion named Cecil got shot, the elites will continue to win.
I know they look like an occupying army, but there's nothing to be alarmed about. They're
just your friendly neighborhood police doing their jobs to protect you from the
"terrorists."
First, while this article has been focused on how the Left has been toyed by the globalist
elites, let's not forget that the Right are not totally immune to their influence either.
Remember how Neo-cons (
globalist puppets disguised as conservatives ) effectively lured the conservatives in
America through faith and patriotism? The support they got from that base was the impetus to
launch their war against Iraq based on bullshit evidences of WMD's and Saddam–Al-Queda
link. While the Right has changed a lot since then, there are still "conservatives" today who
are itching for a war with Russia because USA! USA! USA! .
Second, it is crucial to remember that although the main goal is to maintain divide and
rule, it is not the end of it. The elites have far more sinister aims. By raising hell in
societies through demographic conflicts and terrorism, the elites are preparing for a total
social control. I get the feeling that the elites are letting the chaos and violence run its
course so that the people from the two opposing camps will join together in their approval of
new government measures for social control.
No matter their differences, when the people get terrified of savagery and disorder, they'll
welcome the state to intervene in the name of security. Europe is already getting used to large
military presence on their
streets while the US government is seemingly
preparing for a war against their own citizens . A leaked Soros memo also reveals that the
BLM movement is potentially being used to federalize the US
police . While many people seem to be concerned about violence and terrorism, it seems
those are just tools used by the elites to justify a totalitarian state in the near
future.
The Culture Wars: Necessary Fight Or Engineered Distraction?
The issue of culture wars is not an easy one as they are important in many ways, but are
still forms of distraction implemented by the elites.
On one hand, we are playing into the hands of elites by raging against social justice and
feminist pigshits instead of trying to stop the globalists,
Zionists , bankers,
mega-corporations , and the governments from undermining our existence. Really, do the
issues of politically-incorrect Halloween costumes and whatever bathroom trannies use matter
more than the fact that the middle-class is being destroyed, revelations of
massive corruption in the DNC, the coming police-state, and the globalist wars that are
causing death and destruction around the world? All the drama of outrage and counter-outrage is
silly when the elites are snickering as their new world order is taking shape.
On the other hand, culture does matter in many ways. Uncontrolled immigration, anti-male
laws, and censorship are all very relevant issues. And as much of the Leftists are now serving
as pawns of the establishment, the situation isn't exactly the divide and rule model I
described above. In a way, we are now forced to fight the Left and everyone else who are
getting in the way of fighting the globalist elites.
So, does this mean we should ally with those who scorn us? Or should we continue playing the
elite's games and bicker with their SJW drones? I don't have a good answer, but whatever we
choose to do, I believe it is crucial for us to focus our battles and not get trolled into
petty issues that the mainstream media wants us to focus on. We should always keep in mind that
it is always those at the top who are the true enemies of mankind.
Conclusion: Is There
Still Hope?
Although we no longer see grassroots movements and popular mobilization, the current US
election has shown that the people are still awake and sick of the establishment. To me, that
alone is a hopeful sign that people are still willing to challenge the ruling class.
With Bernie Sanders brought down by the establishment and his supporters scattered into
different camps, the only anti-establishment movement now is the presidential campaign led by
Donald Trump. This is why we are seeing unprecedented efforts by the elites to bring down Trump
and use disgruntled Leftists against his supporters.
I have my doubts
about Trump , but he is thousand times preferable to the certain nightmare that Hillary
Clinton will bring to America and the world if she gets elected. But besides voting, I believe
that it is more important for the people themselves to wake up and be aware of the methods of
control that are being implemented upon us. We can't constantly expect some knight in shinning
armor to come rally us; we must take the initiative ourselves and be willing to fight for our
own destiny.
"People of the West", not just the US. It's possible that the Occupy movement, too,
was created by the elites to counter the Tea Party until it spiraled out of
control.
GhostOfJefferson
✓ᴺᵃᵗᶦᵒᶰᵃˡᶦˢᵗ
It's more than just possible, it's pretty clear that it was. They show up with
buses rented and food vendors in tow. Somebody was paying for that shit, and it
sure as hell wasn't the unwashed hippy wannabes out shitting on cop cars.
Hugo
Its a false statement by the author to state that the 'left' was anti
establishment back in the day. It wasn't. It's goal, then and now was to create
a global, Marxist establishment and to do that it had brainwash the masses into
believing it was 'fightin the man'.
When in fact the 'left' has always been 'the man' as Marxism is focused on
control and authority. None of this is new. Perhaps new to North America but,
exactly the methodology that was used in Europe since WW1 to turn it into the
Marxist shiithole it has become. That in essence was what WW2 was about;
Nationalism vs. Globalized Marxism. And Nationalism lost.
Although it is in how you define the establishment. At the time of
progressives assuming power (around WW1, give or take) the "Establishment" was
fairly Classical Liberal and friendly to liberty and free trade, at least to an
extent. Now the "establishment" is them, and they are absolutely "the Man"
these days.
Koch brothers and Soros are accused of funding Tea Party and OWS
respectively; both denied the charges. Buses and food vendors aren't that
expensive and they did receive donations from ordinary people.
But I feel like the whole point of the article is now lost due to this
debate of who funded who, who's controlled by who, which is the good side and
which the bad, which just confirms that we are divided. I guess some things
never change.
Sorry man, but I didn't bring up OWS, the article did. They were so
astroturfed that I can't even pretend to take them seriously as legitimate
protest. When you have Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the bulk of the Democrat
party cheering them on, that should give a moment for pause. On the flip side,
the Tea Party was reviled by the Dems AND the GOP simultaneously.
Oh please. Most free-market libertarian organizations are astroturfed by the Koch
brothers. They're every bit as insidious as the left, being the pro-free-trade and
pro-immigration people they are.
Spare me your Leftism. I took part in them, they were locally organized and
unfinanced, basically we just showed up (here in central Ohio) when a college
sophomore at OSU sent out a mass email to various local groups.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with free trade, and not all libertarians are
open borders/pro-immigration.
I concur whole heartedly. The tea party movement was a locally organized
movement and stood for ideals that made our country great .which is exactly why
the left lied so hard and loud about it.
Free trade is what caused all the factories in the rust belt to close and
outsourced all of American industry.
The Koch brothers themselves, the one that fund things like FreedomWorks,
GMU and certain elements of the Tea Party (simply because they weren't directly
involve in events does not make them not involved). They themselves are
pro-immigration.
I'm not a leftist in the slightest. Being an economic nationalist does not
make one left-wing.
Give me a break. Nobody "funded" us. There isn't even a leadership hierarchy
to fund. That's what you people don't get, it was a decentralized movement,
which gives it a lot of advantages that other movements do not have. It's why
we can't be "funded" as monolithic group.
"Free trade" didn't give us the current situation. The government now, and
at the time of NAFTA, so regulated the market and taxed it to the hilt that
it's laughable to even suggest that it's "free" in any real sense. The best you
can say about it is that it's mercantilist, which funny enough, is one step
away from "economic nationalism" aka national socialism.
> Give me a break. Nobody "funded" us. There isn't even a leadership
hierarchy to fund. That's what you people don't get, it was a
decentralized movement, which gives it a lot of advantages that other
movements do not have. It's why we can't be "funded" as monolithic
group.
BLM is also highly decentralized. Doesn't mean it isn't funded.
> "Free trade" didn't give us the current situation. The government
now,
and at the time of NAFTA, has so regulated the market and taxed it to
the hilt that it's laughable to even suggest that it's "free" in any
real sense. The best you can say about it is that it's mercantilist,
which funny enough, is one step away from "economic nationalism" aka
national socialism.
There's a difference between regulating industries and imposing preferential
tariffs and lavishing companies with subsidies similar to how China does.
They're the ones winning, in case you haven't noticed.
BLM has a hierarchy, a chain of command and this is easily seen by going to
the website of the people who started it.
If the government is out granting favors (or restricting access) then this
is not a "free market". Adam Smith would spit on the economic system that
America, and by proxy, most of the West has adopted since the
1930's.
> BLM has a hierarchy, a chain of command and this is easily seen by
going to the website of the people who started it
Yet the fact it can't keep the rank and file in line (as evidenced by the
endless rioting) speaks to this command structure not working.
> If the government is out granting favors (or restricting access)
then
this is not a "free market". Adam Smith would spit on the economic
system that America, and by proxy, most of the West has adopted since
the 1930's.
Funny you mention Adam Smith, because he argued for a social safety net and
a tax on beer to pay for it. Free-market fundamentalists love to ignore
this.
Yet the fact it can't keep the rank and file in line (as evidenced by the
endless rioting) speaks to this command structure not working.
They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is to create
chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing exactly what
they're told to do.
Sneering at Adam Smith does not change my statement at all. We are not now,
nor have we been since at least WW1, a "free market". Not even freaking close.
So the position you hold, I reject entirely.
> They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is
to
create chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing
exactly what they're told to do.
Do you honestly think that people trying to win the majority over to their
side would encourage beating the shit out of the majority? BLM, for all its
failings and Marxism, has lost the media war it was trying to win.
> They don't *want* them to be "in line". Their entire existence is
to
create chaos to necessitate "change" at various levels. They are doing
exactly what they're told to do.
Free-market capitalism is impossible in a situation where the state can
easily be used to slant the market in its favor. Corporations, especially big
ones, don't really like free markets.
Who says that they're trying to win the majority over to their side? This
aggitation is meant to spur a new set of "rules" and enforcers and empower
certain political groups at the expense of others.
Free-market capitalism is impossible in a situation where the state can
easily be used to slant the market in its favor. Corporations, especially big
ones, don't really like free markets.
Exactly, this is *exactly* what I'm pointing out. Blaming the "free market"
for things like NAFTA thus, is incorrect.
> Who says that they're trying to win the majority over totheir side?
This aggitation is meant to spur a new set of "rules" and enforcers and
empower certain political groups at the expense of others.
The people who are most able to facilitate change are the voters and the
organizations that control cops. Coming across as a bunch of thugs certainly
doesn't help them.
> Exactly, this is *exactly* what I'm pointing out. Blaming the "free
market" for things like NAFTA thus, is incorrect.
"Economic internationalism" (i.e no tariffs) would be a better term
then.
The people who are most able to facilitate change are the voters and
the
organizations that control cops. Coming across as a bunch of thugs
certainly doesn't help them.
You don't understand, this isn't about organizing voters. The changes I'm
talking about are not even vaguely connected to "democracy". Their entire point
is to be the firebomb throwers that enable a "crackdown". This is an old
script.
"Economic internationalism" (i.e no tariffs) would be a better term
then.
It's just the beginning. My hunch is that they will be fully mobilized after
Trump takes POTUS. The violence from the Left and their group of retards will
escalate an awful lot, I suspect.
Nah, the election is over, he's going to landslide. The only people who see
it as "iffy" are the mainstream media, and they're just trying to cover their
own asses at this point.
Just imagine, BLM if it got big enough could be the justification for a
police state. And when they raise the minium wage to $15 an hour, and even more
blacks have even fewer jobs .a desperate man does desperate things. Its BS that
blacks won't work, they had a higher employment rate in the 50's than whites.
And if you can't get a job you turn to crime. And families get broken up, and
welfare and divorce laws break up the family. And what has happened to them is
happening to everyone else, they were just the canaries in the coal
mine.
BLM has exceeded spectacularly. George Soros doesnt make many bad bets. The
police are against blacks, now blacks can justify killing cops, and cops can
justify killing blacks. Divide and conquer and no one sees that we are killing
you all.
Why would Adam Smith oppose the current model, when it is a continuation of
the British Empire he worked for, except that at least Britain forced Free
Trade on everyone else but themselves, this system asset strips every country.
BTW you show what an idiot you are mentioning 'what the West has adopted since
the 1930'. You do realise that we have had multiple conflicting economic models
since the 1930s? There was the Bretton Woods System, which Rockefeller and
Kissinger crushed to bring in the floating exchange rate, then Clintons 1999
repeal of the Glass Steagil Act, which set off the last 17 years of madness, so
there is no 1930s-2016 Western model Adam Smith would critique, as the current
madness is Smiths model. Free Trade was never some mom and pop trading freely
with each other utopia you might think, it was all about monopoly and gunboat
diplomacy. I thought that cult had ended 5 years ago? There is only 1 working
economic model, a high tech, high level education national socialist republic
with a national bank, where kikes have no control of finance, with one and only
one racial group, whites; no niggers, muds or kikes, then everything we work
towards is for Our Posterity.
Resorting? Fuck dude, you bring up "kikes" and go full dick sucking
admiration about "national socialism" which, I'm going to go out on a limb
here, is what the *FREAKING NAZIS* practiced.
And of course, when I note that you're for Nazism, that means that I'm under
jewish influence.
This whole "congruity" thing is new to you isn't it?
You do realise that national socialism is far older than "the
nazisssssssssss". It simply means a nation, as an ethnic group, and a
government of the people for the people. Most European countries have been
national socialists except the one major factor – they didn't have
control of the issuance of currency (as the Founding Fathers planned), ergo, it
was a socialist hive for jewish financiers/ central banking cartel. The
nazisssssssssss were pretty much the first country (other than Britain briefly
after WW1) to get control of the issuance of credit for what the Founding
Fathers coined The General Welfare. And look what happened, an economic miracle
in under a decade. When whites are given heir own space, free of jewish
parasitism, they are completely unbounded and can achieve anything (that was
until jew brainwashed America and allies fucked it up).
It simply means a nation, as an ethnic group, and a government of the
people for the people
Oh please, save that for people who have no grounding in socio-economic
theory.
Nationalism means what you say (in essence). SOCIALISM does NOT mean
anything of the sort. Trying to combine the two as a package deal is not going
to fly. Simply put, that dog don't hunt, son.
The Industrial Revolution from the very start, was a product of what the
French called Dirigisme. It was planned, financed and exectuted as a state run
project, both in Britian and France with the investment into science and the
creation of the canals, which laid the route for sending coal to the factories.
Americas developement was all through the same means, actually the US govenment
poaching the best scientists and miners etc from Britain, to use in America. I
guess you have never heard of Alexander Hamilton and is Report on Manufactures.
It is socialism minus any sick minded jewish involvement, ergo national
socialism. The left has been completely co-opted by jewish financiers with
Marx. Before Marx joined Masonry, he was a proponent of Freidrich List –
the true left, before kikes/ Freemasons hijacked it.
you had a great argument going until you started with the racial horse shit.
color and race dont matter to me. Its big government and big business against
everyone else, and those on top see no difference between black or white poor
people. to them, we are all trolls.
Free trade doesn't exist in the real world. The closer the West got to that
idea was in the 19th century. Moreover should we have a free trade, then
agreements and other binding documents wouldn't be necessary. A free trade
agreement is an oxymoron. Regulated trade agreement would be closer to the
truth.
Moreover China doesn't practice free trade, it practices mercantilism at a
high price: the suffering of its own people (check the working conditions and
the environmental costs). Had we (the west) exercised the ideas of free market,
we wouldn't be in this situation.
Really? Which country practised the uptoian Free Trade? Britian didn't
practise it; it forced Free Trade onto everyone else to keep rival countries
from developing, whilst using its own working class under worse conditions than
Africans-in-America slaves. Workhouses, borstals, child workers in mines from
age 6, 14 hours a day 6 days a week, dying on average at 28 years old. The good
old days of Free Trade!
You can go to Hell if what you search are utopias. In Earth and probably in
this universe you will find none. Moreover you misrepresent what I wrote. No
matter how you define it, in the 19th century there was more economic freedom
than now, at least within the countries. It was not a coincidence that that
century marked the zenith of European greatness.
By the way, I never said worldwide free trade is possible because it's not.
Intra-national free trade is possible and necessary along with a smaller
government, however not even within the European nations or within the U.S.
there is free trade. Endless Regulations, currency manipulation, finance
speculation are stifling trade and labor, and are making ever more attractive
the replacement of human labor via automation due to the high costs and risks
of hiring human beings (sex-lawsuits, constant pay rises) and the currency loss
of worth (devaluation).
By your writings, I can infer that you are just a racist communist. So I
guess the pogroms and gulags will continue until the morale
improves.
Free trade means freedom for the most prosperous country to flood foreign
countries with goods. There are two kinds of systems: overt mercantilism
(tariffs) or covert mercantilism (free "trade" with the WTO backing it).
If free trade benefitted the elite, they'd accept it.
That's why I said global unfettered (free) trade was impossible. Too many
differences. Free trade between two or more similar nations might be possible.
But free trade between unequal nations it doesn't work out as intented. However
we don't even have free trade within our borders how can you try to have free
trade with another nation?
Not exactly. Free market within a country is possible and the ideal
condition. Communism is just hellish ideology that ignores human nature, for
the "common good". Global or international free trade is most likely impossible
due to the human nature.
If you have a Free Market within a country, that means you are excluding
foreign competition, ergo it is not Free Trade, its just trade within a
protectionist country.
Wow, is it so simple now that simple minded man has explained it. Now how do
you suppose you protect your own economy (that your ancestors gifted to you)
from being flooded with cheaper imports, or your companies closing down and
moving to slave plantations to under cut wages? You do realise that Free Trade,
as an economic model (as opposed to the fantasy interpretation you have
deduced), was created with the sole purpose of looting and undercutting prices
to keep competators down? We can have a world of nation states – ethnic
nation states – where we have borders, regulations, protective tarrifs
and a central bank owned by and for the poeple, as opposed to the Roschild
family, and have a system of fair trade. It can't be free trade as you will
basically give every incentive to people who are not your people to undercut
you and practise economic and intellectual/ copyright espionage (like China
does). You do realise that this economic system since the start of the
Industrial Revolution, was created by known people, it was a conspiracy against
the feudal powers by the likes of John Baptiste Colbert and the French Academy
of Sciences. This Industrial Revolution didn't just happen by men who were
trying to make money and trade. There was a conspiracy by top scientists and
mathematicians to unlock nature through technology, in the face of the feudal
powers that tried suppressing it, such as the pressure Denis Papin had against
his work. There was literally government money all over the Industrial
Revolution from the start, and government regulation to protect
it.
Being thankful to your ancestors and proud of your ethnicity or race is one
thing. This guy however, he takes it to the next level.
Not white = not good enough.
All non-whites are enemies.
ENEMIES EVERYWHERRREEEE!!!
lol
Yeah, but then the state and the International bankers come in and demand 20
percent of the proceeds. Utopian in the sense it isn't possible given the
circumstances.
It's completely possible and happens all the time, in the black and gray
market. If left to our own devices, it would happen naturally and organically
among normal people.
With the caveat that there is no coercion. Coercion has managed to take on
incredible forms these days. I poison your food and try to sell you a health
book that promises a cure..free trade? I bribe researchers, to fake studies,
then sell drugs that don't work and share the money with doctors who are
accepted to be experts. Free trade? The more of a difference in intelligence
and money two parties have, usually the less free trade exists.
You are correct. The original Taxed Enough Already movement was designed as
a "headless" organization in an attempt to prevent the co-option of the group
by the Big Tent Republicans. Didn't work because Sarah Palin and the
FreedomWorks goons would show up in their Koch supplied buses and act like they
organized the events.
Open borders is fine, as long as you have zero welfare. Once you start
giving gibsmedats (welfare, health care, even free road use), then you need to
lock down the border tighter than a muslim's 9 year old bride.
Similarly (though more complex), free trade is great, as long as there is
little to no interference by the government, or at least similar business
crushing regulations on both ends (which is why free trade between Canada and
the US is a problem for neither country). Regulations, minimum wages, maternity
leave mandates, and such are the reason that free trade results in jobs going
over seas. Get the government to remove the regulations, and you eliminate
99.9% of the problem.
Wrong. Free trade didn't close the factories. Labor arbitrage is NOT a
function of free trade. That is how the masters have modified the language to
suit their needs.
The word you're looking for is arbitration. As for what destroyed the rust
belt, the fact the car industry went international and sought to produce cars
closer to markets meant that the old industrial heartland went to shit. Free
trade (or economic internationalism, just so GOJ doesn't call me out on this)
is partially to blame for this.
You're still at that magical thinking level where you think grassroots
movements just spring up? How quaint. The Tea Party was always funded by
billionaires. The Tea Party cult members acted like it got co-opted, but in
this country everything is lead from the top, they just pretend its grassroots
so you'll buy into something that really isn't in your best interest. As for
people saying America was created on Tea Party principles, it wasn't. The
Founding Father opposed the British Empires Free Market model which dumped
goods onto the colonies and prevented industry from developing. America is
inherently a high wage, high tech, protectionist nation state. Free Trade is
the opposite – cheap labor, no workers rights and monopoly, which is
really feudalism rebranded. For those who think the battle is Free Trade vs
Marxism, read what Marx said about British Free Trade (he was employed by the
Empire), he was wholly in support of it and David Ricado. Orginially Marx was
in favor of Freidrich List, and wrote essays on his system, then he got got
hooked into the Freemasonic networks, joined the British Library (spooks) and
pushed Free Trade, i.e British (jewish Freemasonic) Imperialism. There was a
left wing that was pushing our values, before the kikes took over it.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/books/Robert-Burns-book-2007.pdf
Occupy always stank to me. I don't know. It's as if I have some bullshit meter in my
head. This bullshit meter goes off when I see Obama. When I see people going crazy over
their country losing at football. When I see celebrity gossip. And when I see
OWS.
It stunk to me too because they didn't even seem to have a goal. Im mad so I'm
going to sit here stinking up the place. I'm mad, so we should close the federal
reserve..now that would have struck fear into the elitists!
I guess it stunk to me for two reasons:
1. Big organized movement with streamlined ideology. I always get a weird
feeling around my stomach when great numbers of people gather.
2. This super-focused blame on bankers, as if they were responsible for
everything wrong in their lives. I mean, most of those people aren't even the
underprivileged ones. They're probably students who just love the thrill of
protesting and get fed by mommy and daddy.
I experienced no.2 a few years back when a guy came to visit me to go to a
protest. So we were there walking with the crowd. A few people shouting through
megaphones attacking the police verbally. Police all around the movement.
Everybody kinda just walking like a zombie for some nebulous cause. Totally
pointless. I don't even feel the thrill. It's just boring to me. I would call
it scary, but it isn't even that. Those people are harmless. They aren't
killers. They have just enough courage to keep holding up a sign with some
slogan. When they shout, they don't even shout with passion. Or in other words:
They have just as much courage as the elite wants them to have in order for
them to not feel totally powerless. They get a little 'high' from the thing and
feel like they are changing the world, while nobody really cares. And this guy
who I was there with, he just loved it for fun. He didn't really care about the
cause either.
There were a bunch of enviro protesteres once at an event I went to, and I
started talking to them and asking basic enviro questions like " What causes
the ozone hole?" They had no clue. For many its a social club, maybe more of a
religion, they show up for their protests on Sunday and have a barbeque after,
and maybe get laid. But I agree with that guy you mentioned, there is a very
famous quote that he who controls the money controls the world. You might like
the movie Zeitgeist. The consipiracy theories arent theories, now with the
internet the proof can be so strong. I thought there was just NO WAY 911 could
have been faked-NO WAY. The fact that they pulled it off shows just how much
power the elites really have. 911 was a good deal all around, the new owner
made a fortune, the strongest reinsurance companies got stronger, US got the go
ahead to invade a few countries, and laws got passed depriving us of more
liberties(fear is always the best way to accomplish that). Win win
win.
Reminds me 1:1 of a former friend who is now a Scientologist. Scientology
has that "Say No To Drugs" campaign. They are against all drugs, no matter
what. My former friend happened to be at one of their stands so I went there
and confronted him, asked a few questions. The simplest one: Have you ever
taken drugs?
He said he took alcohol. And that's enough for him. He took alcohol and by
that he judges all drugs, including psychedelics. He gave some vague examples
of some cases where LSD supposedly hurt someone or whatever. But he didn't have
much answers either.
Only that Scientologists don't get laid is my guess. They attract and select
for the weakest of society. They appear to me to be mostly like sheep with zero
confidence, looking for a cause and a leader and a set of rules that explains
everything and blah blah.
Guess what. I told him I took LSD. He told me that that would probably
disqualify me from becoming a Scientologist. Hah! So you have thousands of
people working against psychedelics but not a single one of them has actually
taken them.
The more ironic that some people think Ron Hubbard came up with most of his
ideas on LSD
I read something about 911. Has it actually been proven to be true? That
would be a great thing to throw at people.
I've been learning alot about psychedelics lately too-a few interesting
things about them. They are all chemically related to adrenochrome-oxidized
adrenaline. oxidized adrenaline is a psychedelic(asthmatics take adrenaline,
which as it goes bad turns pink red then brown oxidizing), and it looks like
schizos are merely producing an excessive internal amount of this. To me, there
is a progression of behaviour modification..from normal, to borderline,
narcicism and ending with schizo with increased stress. Schizos are narcissists
by the way. But to me its adaptive, when you are under a great deal of stress
is when you drastically need to learn something and change your situation.
Another thing is that it appears mushrooms, reduce brain activity, which to me
links it to sensory deprivation and meditation. As for 911 heres a few good
videos, the simplest is the amazing stories told by the owner, that have to
change because they are so bad. And a multibillion dollar operation and he only
lost 4 people..and profited handsomely from the investment! Truly jewish
lightning.
its fantasyland stuff that you can demo a building in an afternoon. Which is
probably why he changed his story. Oh and he had plans drawn up for WTC 7 a
year before the attack. Perfectly normal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOSObJDs67Y
this guys says some interesting things
Hmm. What do you mean by chemically related? Is that some stuff you have
deeper knowledge that I probably wouldn't grasp? If so, that's cool. And what
do you mean by "it looks like" when you refer to schizos producing an excessive
amount? And where does the link between schizos and narcs come from and where
did you get that succession from (normal, borderline, narc, schizo). Seems a
bit inconclusive to me, especially since those are all groups of symptoms that,
as far as I can tell, have not been somehow linked to a real thing, but rather
those people are simply linked together because of similar symptoms. And the
symptoms of those 3 things are quite different, I'd say, and not really the
same or in some way successive.
Maybe you have a few good points, but I can't logically follow you because I
don't understand the links you make.
You also use 'it looks like' when you talk about mushrooms. What leads you
to that conclusion? Psychedelics have been shown to greatly increase brain
activity (not decrease). There was a test with LSD, the video is floating
around Youtube etc. Basically, they observed that there was a lot more activity
and what they called 'interconnectivity', which basically means all brain parts
lit up at the same time.
In other cultures, schizophrenics have been considered as those who walk
among the dead and given great respect. It's all a matter of perspective. My
experience with psychedelics is that they greatly raise awareness. They are
like an amplifier to all perceptions. I think you have to try it to be able to
make a conclusion, but maybe you have
But even then, schizophrenia is probably not even a real thing, just like
narcissism and borderline. More like a group of symptoms that don't necessarily
all have the same cause. So it is arguable that one schizophrenic is not the
same as another, which rings true from my experience in the nuthouse. One was
diagnosed with schizophrenia and yes, I would call him narcissistic. Others
were rather quiet and beaten down and shit (partly due to medication
probably).
Also, I wouldn't say meditation has much links to sensory deprivation,
although you could say that if you just think of some guy in a cave sitting
still. But that can be a good thing, too, because reducing the input from the
outside leaves more attention for the stuff that's inside, which can greatly
help you be mindful of your emotions and deal with your demons. Psychedelics
can help with this, although I use them scarcely. I see psychedelics a bit like
signposts for meditation. You take them and kinda know the direction you're
going and then you do the rest 'on foot'.
Thanks for the video links. I thought it was something that was officially
acknowledged, but it still seems to be kind of a borderline thing where you
have to do your own research, so I'll abstain from that for now. (Other stuff
on my mind)
By chemically similar I just mean similar molecular shape, if you read more
about the guys on that page you found they get more into it. Its good to talk
to you sounds like you have much experience on the subject.
Who knows, maybe my theory is wrong. To explain a little better my theory I
should say, a man usually goes through normal narcissism and then schizo, with
increasing amounts of stress. Borderline is more for women. And it seems like
environmental toxins might be able to cause it as well, and since they tend to
lodge in different places, that could cause different specific effects and
maybe they don't cause some of the same effects as adrenaline caused
narcissism. Now if you look at alot of the typical aspects of Narcissism you'll
notice that they would be good for say fighting or fleeing- black and white
thinking(no time for gray areas) more impulsive(no time to reflect), lack of
empathy(again there isnt enough time to consider nuances). One interesting
study found that narcissists actually can read emotion in others, just for some
reason they don't react to that info . Do you find that people with narc/schizo
have really really good memories? If so thats high adrenaline. If they also
tend to have a high heart rate, that would also tend to confirm my theory.
I had an interesting experience with a woman I know who had a resting heart
rate of 110(!) and a borderline personality. Just giving her a gram of sodium
ascorbate a day brought her resting heart rate down to 70, and she could sleep
8 hours now, and her personality actually changed. She went from being always
cold in a warm environment to absolutely radiating heat. This took place over a
few days.
Oh and for sensory deprivation, you can do the lite version, find some white
noise music and put something redish over your eyes. When I did this it was
like having a waking dream, very bizarre.
Yeah 911 is not officially debunked, everything is misinformation wars, and
people seem to be finally waking up to it this election.
Personally, I've gone through phases that would apply to pretty much all 3
of the categories. In fact, I dare say most of my life I've been stuck in a
fight or flight without realizing it. I think it's spot on. It allows black and
white, pretty much. In my case, it's a little more weird, because it kinda
conflicts with some other desires, leading to me being somewhat unpredictable
(borderline maybe, heh). I also seem to tend to have very high heart rate. Guy
at the gym told me this once despite me having not done much work or anything
beforehand. It was really just the stress of my social anxiety.
I find that this kind of stress creates a kind of sensation in my body that
may very well have to do with adrenaline. It feels kinda dead-ish. A bit like
the taste of blood when you get it into your mouth. Hard to describe. Numb, a
little sizzling, dark, oppressive, hot. Well yeah, dead. Also get it during
intensive training and too much of this makes me almost faint and gets me into
extremely weird states for a short amount of time. Like when I totally power
myself out, I can feel it coming. It's like I know shit I went too far and in
the next moment, I almost black out. Extremely extremely uncomfortable. It's
like I can feel my whole personality being deconstructed very quickly into
nothingness and then coming back again.
Interesting tip with the white noise I'll keep it in mind.
You might try paying attention to your heart rate more, either feel the side
of your neck, time for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4, or there are even
programs for smart phones that use the light and camera and can see the blood
pulses. What is likely happening to you is that when the heart beats
excessively fast, it actually stops pumping effectively, it seems to be a
defect we have-horses on the other hand have a max heart rate and wont go
beyond that even if they run faster. Now like I was telling the woman i know,
its like she's running a marathon, but she can never sit down, its a very
unhealthy thing. I think I saw a study in men where it correlates with a 400%
increase in mortality rate. There are many consequences of excess acid
production(co2 dissolved in blood is acidic). A little talked about fact of the
human body is that it goes to extreme effort to maintain PH. When you exercise,
your body aggressively and actively releases alkaline bone mineral to help
maintain PH, and when you rest it is rebuilt. You also eliminate acid through
breathing, urine and to a small extent through sweat. Excessive acid, can cause
kidney stones, gout, collagen breakdown, mild scurvy, acne, joint pain, feeling
of coldness. You might try like the woman I was talking with some potassium
ascorbate around a gram dissolved in a glass of water, take maybe two to three
times a day and see what your heart rate does, and if it improves some of your
other symptoms(potassium ascorbate I've learned is much better than sodium
ascorbate). You may see some initial negative effects too, because sometimes
all of a sudden you are eliminating toxins from your body that you werent
before. It isnt a panacea, but it can correct some of the basic problems going
on. For example the basic problem could be hyperthyroidism, which most likely
that woman had, and you have to treat that to decrease hormone production. I
suspect heavy metals that cross the blood brain barrier may be able to cause it
as well.
Quite interesting, I have to say. I am wondering how that can be reconciled
with my experiences. Maybe extreme stress is a precursor to death to the body,
hence it prepares itself to enter the world of the dead, in a sense. I think it
was proven (or hypothesized?) that the brain generates DMT on birth and death,
a potent psychedelic substance. It's like the mother of all psychedelics. Let's
you talk to God and shit like that.
This could indicate though, that schizophrenia (if the link is valid) is
less a result of a malfunctioning brain than some kind of constant stress that
is so severe that it creates those chemicals, leading to a 'disconnect from
reality'. If you think about it, death is a form of disconnect from reality, so
schizophrenia may be a half-way thing. That doesn't mean though that you have
to fight those chemicals with neuroleptika. In fact, I'd say the body produces
these things precisely because they are helpful in extreme stress. I have also
read here on ROK that extreme stress during lifting can create an almost
transcendental experience where you become one with the universe (or perceive
so) and stuff like that. If those chemicals create that kind of awareness, it
makes sense to me that it can be used constructively if the 'patient' practices
a lot of mindfulness or meditation.
Now, I will readily admit that I had something you could call a psychotic
episode on psychedelics. Only that I don't see it as pathologic. I am glad I
had that experience and I think it was important. Psychotic only describes the
symptoms. But a person that looks like he's freaking out from the outside may
be having a great experience on the inside that is actually healing and
helpful. Which is why indigenous tribes used psychedelics for thousands of
years as a cure, as a guide, as an initiation rite. Hah, and since we're
creating links: Initiation rites often deal with a lot of intense pain or even
symbolical dying. Christianity also talks about dying and being reborn. I think
there is a lot of truth in it. That to enter manhood fully, one has to die in a
sense and be reborn. Which is what those experiences can do they literally rip
you apart and put you back together in a better way.
Yeah those guys had an 80% ish success rate curing schizo. Looks like
toxoplasmosis(common infection) can cause it too. Orthomolecular was started by
Linus Pauling a double nobel prize winner. There are numerous things like this
where there are amazing cures, and no one cares to study further. Most medicine
is a scam. It would be horrible if it turned out simple herbs could cure
cancer, I mean they would lose about $50k per patient. Number two monopoly
according to Milton Friedman the famous economist. Japan and Germany seem to be
exceptions.
Thanks for the info on DMT and lifting, Ill check it out. Maybe DMT is an even
more potent one? I noticed that most of the greatest mathematical discoveries
happened during grave illness and a year before death. Look up Riemann or
Ramanujan as good examples. Now in my experience heart rate seems to be a good
measure of adrenaline..and from what Im reading it seem LSD and mushrooms
increases heart rate. As for rebirth in religion watch that movie I mentioned
Zeitgeist, it has a very interesting take on it. Many religions share the same
beliefs and it seems to be taken from the movement of the Sun.
Those rituals about killing the boy and going through hardship to be accepted
into the group of men seem very important. In a way its the classic heros
quest. A man can no longer run from danger as a child would, should no longer
cry from pain. Very important lessons that are rarely taught.
Honestly – do your own research. I know that's a redundant statement,
but that's what it has come down to. Zeitgeist promotes things such as the
Horus/Jesus theory – which has been debunked numerous times by mainstream
secular scholars. And that's only one among many other lies it propogates. When
it's so glaring that info is false – one is forced to look into their own
knowledge gathering
Doing your own research includes getting info from others with common
interests. The term "debunking" is a shit term. There are only better theories,
and better evidence. Many mainstream researchers are shit too, I talk alot
about medicine, and so much of what they do is provably crap based on their own
studies of what they do. And here as we've learned in the manosphere, studies
about men and women interactions are often gamed, to show that men are horrible
and women are saints. Someone producing a paper showing the wrong results will
almost never get published. Just like if you control the media, its easy to
have the appearance of authority, when in reality, money bought a fake
authority. SO do you have anything good to recommend?
But now its so clear how much control the elitists have, and how much they
are exerting now, I've had several posts insta vaporized from various places.
One was regarding threats to Trump and the other about a high level murder.
What they try to contol the most is what is most dangerous to them. They really
don't want Trump to win, because then they have to try to control him with
bullets, and that never looks good when you murder the highest guys. Because
then people notice. Putin is their nightmare, the elites set him up and pretty
soon some elites were floating in the river, and some were locked up. He let
others stay in their places, but it was clear a new sheriff was in town. I'm
enjoying watching them sweat.
Hmm but then, if "we" send people floating in the river are we actually
better or any different than the elite? Sounds like a perfectly mirror-reversed
behavior.
Well at the very least I would say the second was revenge while the first
was murder, however revolutions often produce the same tyrants they seek to
depose. And Tyrants create the same revolutions that kill them. They have a
goal to cull the worlds populations through social engineering(you might notice
for example all the porn now with incest one pornhub now) through toxins(drugs,
contaminated food and water), and financially. Sounds like a perfect program to
create a superman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8
Reminds me of some comment on Youtube by someone who met one of those
'reptilians' and asked why they are causing suffering and that thing replied
'to make humanity stronger'. Heh.
Yeah, I suppose it is that way. There will always be the oppressed and
underprivileged and there will always be those who enjoy being in the current
mainstream. The truly oppressed will never be equal with those in power, that's
a fever dream.
I looked up the reptillian stuff. It works perfectly if you relace reptilian
with"jewish banker" and half reptillian as "collaborator". Sometimes they have
to act crazy to even be allowed to spread ideas without getting murdered like
say kubrick after eyes wide shut.
Mad that reckless gambling by financial institutions caused a massive
economic crash and global recession, millions of people losing their jobs and
their homes, job market and middle class still hasn't recovered from it. How do
you not know any of that??? It's been in the news for 8 years now.
Dont be and idiot everyone knows that.b Being mad isnt a goal. If they had
said we want to break up all of the biggest banks that would have been a goal.
Sitting there because you are mad inspires nothing and no one. And not
surprisingly they changed nothing.
If being mad wasn't a goal, Fox 'news' and Breitbart wouldn't exist.
You're sadly uninformed about the occupy wall street movement. But you
already made up your mind about it, it seems, dismissing people braver and more
involved than you who actually went out to risk their safety and freedom
protesting the criminal recklessness of financial institutions and their
failure to take responsibility for their actions. What was the goal? to show
American politicians and the financial industry that American people are fed up
with their behavior so much they've shaken off their apathy that infects the
brains of so many.
THAT is what the people in power fear – that the sleeping sheep would
wake up and get informed and start fighting back.
The movement inspired a lot and it's a pity you can't see it ( or simply
refuse to ).
You're the one who is sitting there. These people actually got off their
asses to go out and try to make a difference. Doubt you can say the
same.
It stank to me as well because the stock exchange isn't some evil globalist
tool. Everybody can buy shares and, you know, they don't always go up making you
filthy rich, quite the contrary. They are a useful financing tool for companies
though.
Who was proposing abolishing the stock exchange in it's entirety? Total
straw man you made up. OWS was about the criminal executives who gambled and
crashed the global economy, wanting accountability and new laws to prevent a
similar disaster from occuring. I'd think anyone with common sense could agree
on that.
As it stands, they avoid any criminal liability by paying fines as part of a
settlement and admitting no guilt. And the fines are a small fraction of their
profits so there is no incentive to follow the laws. It's seen as the cost of
doing (shady) business.
They came to the government hat in hand after they screwed up, and got a fat
bailout at the taxpayers expense. This is why I can't stand conservatives.
They're all for socialism for the rich, but rugged individualism for the poor
and middle class. It should be the reverse. Goldman and the others should have
been turned away and homeowners bailed out instead.
Can you imagine going to a casino, recklessly gambling, losing it all, then
begging/demanding the government give you more money?
that was just a bunch of ignorant conservative rednecks who didn't like paying
taxes. Astroturf. That joke of a movement isn't even worth mentioning. But it's funny
when they eat their own, like with Eric Cantor. Now he has to take a job as million
dollar a year lobbyist subverting our government, how sad.
Great article, and probably true. Part of self-development is seeing through this
shit.
The thing is, if we as Men focus on our own self-development, and on expressing our
bigger and better selves by dominating our environments, none of this stuff matters and
will eventually change anyway.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Occupy and Tea Party had one thing in common. How quickly they suckered the masses into
thinking they were for the people. Movements that large don't suddenly appear
overnight.
If somebody does something heinous, like nationalize 1/6th of the economy (health
care) you bet your bippy that great amounts of people will gather suddenly overnight.
Same for the nationwide pro-gun demonstrations that happened after the CN shooting.
Technology has made organizing and getting large groups together in a flash pretty
easy. Not everything is some nefarious conspiracy.
Now if the Tea Party had shown up with organized busses, vendors and pre-selected
college faculty in tow, like OWS, then you'd have something.
Some do and they start out as a emotive grassroots network, but get quickly
comprimised. I had relatives active in the Tea Party and after awhile it gets hijacked
and ran into the ground.
Did you read about the Oregon uprising against the feds and how they were acquitted?
The evidence revealed half the people involved were paid FBI informants. Thats what
happens over time to any organization deemed a threat.
You'll not get many thumbs up here, given half the idiots are unrecovered Tea Party
Free Trade dupes, that like cheap labor being imported, so long as their jobs are not
threatened.
There has always been elites who have tried to control the masses through divide and
conquer. Even if this crop is eliminated, others will arise. The only way we can come
together is if we have a common guiding set of principals to go by. Throughout history,
violent revolutions that have resulted in a loss of freedom, (French Revolution, Bolshevik,
Nazi, Cuban .etc.) all had an anti-christian element, or a bastardization of
Christianity.
In retrospect, as a people, we need to be continually reminded of the principals that
enable freedom to exist. Integrity, work, charity, self determination, etc. are taught in
church. Go to church, work to strengthen those virtues, and expect virtue from your
neighbor. If we as a whole, reject the crap spewed out main stream media and leftists, we
will have a stronger society.
You are exactly correct, and this is *precisely* why the Marxists, back to Marx,
targeted things like the church, family and traditional social constructs for
destruction. He understood what you're saying perfectly.
The Left has been successful appealing to Angry Destructive People but since the
seventies they have run out of people with legitimate grievances so all they have are the
angry anti-social dregs of society, the lazy Delta Males, Ugly Feminists, Perverts and
assorted scum.
To directly address the argument of the article, I'll offer this.
Divide and Conquer is a known strategy and yes, politicians use it (as do generals on a
battlefield). It's legitimate to note the tactic and try to avoid falling for it. That
being said, if we go so paranoid that we don't ever, ever take positions based on principle
or form opposition groups, we'll have given these very same powers the victory that they're
looking for with divide and conquer.
The moment you form a group to "counter the controlling elite" I guarantee you that it
will be attacked and discredited because "divide and conquer!". Even if it succeeds (let's
be optimistic) it will simply install itself as the new elite. This is human nature. It may
not happen immediately, it may take a few generations (think the early united States, where
Washington refused to be a "king" and instead deferred to the new Constitutional Republic)
to happen, but it will happen eventually (think the same nation in the 1930's).
Last, not every mass movement is 'financed by nefarious sources'. Sometimes, people just
get pissed off. That said, lots of mass movements are financed by unsavory types. The
problem becomes that we tend to default accept "all" instead of taking each group
individually for what they are.
They kind of ebb and flow. I really haven't kept up much the last couple of
years. My focus since 2010 or so has been pro-2nd Amendment advocacy, to be
honest.
They made significant gains at the local and state level. The RINOs are clinging
to the national GOP, but as their candidates just got punked by Trump they are on
borrowed time.
I heard that after the death of Muhammad Ali, the Orlando shootings happened to prevent
people's unity. I strongly suspected, after his death, an attack would happen in the US by
a Muslim to prevent American Muslim and nonMuslim cooperation and understanding. Media
won't say, but the shooter was gay.
We don't need mulsim/ non-muslim co-operation in America. America was designed and
built by and for whites, for Our Posterity. Freedom of religion clearly meant the sects
of Christianity and secular deists. There is no place in America for Islam or
muslims.
How about natives? Or perhaps we need to reintroduce pox in certain areas? And
let us not forget 3/5ths. Designed and built by and for whites, on the red mans
land, upon the black man's back.
Your emotive points are not based on fact, but feel free to source your
agruement. But slogans like "pox on the red mans land, upon the black man's
back" are simply leftist slogans. The "pox" Thing was debunked years ago. Red
man lands? Which tribe and under what conditions? One Million Indians inhabited
North America until the White man showed up. Now there are more reds that have
ever lived in the old days. Black mans back did very little. Most of America
was built on white Europeans backs no blacks in the wilderness in the old days
and most of the swamp draining, coal mining, tree cutting, etc.. was done by us
poor white folk.
Believe your myths if it makes you feel better, but your bullshit exists to
bridge your inferiority complex and has little to do with the
truth.
The pox did wipe out a good chunk of natives, but let us say that was not
the case, intentionally or not. Tribes and conditions- does this imply that,
were there a formal written declaration, it would have been unethical and they
would not have attempted to gain control? More reds than before argument cannot
hold water- populations tend to increase in the long run. Blacks did nothing
for the same reason economic communism does not- lack of incentives. Why work
for your slavemaster if you're not getting much out of it?
You assume inferiority complex is the cause of these arguments. I have
friends of all races but also recognize that all races have their bloody hands.
I am simply pointing out the case of the origins of American here, as this is
what the conversation became. I find it ironic, as far as the title if this
article goes. Also ironic is how I mentioned the possibility of Muslim and
American peace and then get opposed while the same people praise the
traditionalism of muslim women. Everyone claims they're objective and
truthful.
Lets talk about Natives, who, like Stone Age tribes the world over, were in
endless inter-tribal warfare with each other. The colonialists that arrived in
America often sided with peaceful tribes and co-operated, as they did in New
Zealand with the weaker (more peaceful) Maori Iwi, who begged the colonialists
to buy land as a buffer between waring tribes. The less technologically
developed in terms of producing food and storing it, the more scarcity and the
more war. That is just a smple reality, and Stone Age primitives are always at
war. Since they are always at war, its an open invite to conquer. Native
Indians now have technology and means of living 3000 years in advance of what
they had 400 years ago. You are welcome.
The issue of smallpox is just mythology. Most colonialists either had smallpox
or were semi-resistent. Indians were not, and it hit them harder. Are you going
to also bring up the Hollywood History theory that whites raped native woemn
when the records show that the more violent tribes kidnapped other tribes women
and sold them to colonialists for goods – the women were them married off
and lived at higher living standards that they otherwise would have, so some
good came out of that bad situation.
As for 3/5th, blacks were classed as 3/5ths yet they were dumped onto America
by Jewish Dutch slave merchants, having been bought from African tribesmen.
Less than 5% of whites owned slaves, yet freed slaves – who were paid btw
(so they were really indentured labor) – bought slaves at higher rates
than any other people – except jews, of which 70% owned slaves (as they
created the hatred of blacks with their Curse of Ham bullshit). Blacks are not
3/5ths human. They are worthless and have no place in any advanced country.
Personally I would wipe them out and have Africa as a big Safari Park for
Asians and Europeans.
Blacks labour didn't build America. There were more whites in indentured labor
than blacks. Blacks were freed from slavery by the technological inventions (o
white men) which made their labor surplus to requirements. Again, like Native
Americans, blacks were given a leg up from Stone Age savages, of at least 3000
years of know-how and technological progress. There is every reason to believe
they are incapable of even making metal of their own volition. So again, you
are welcome, you are a beneficiary of my ancestors superior creativity.
BTW, British working class had higher productivty that black slaves, were paid
less, worked longer hours, died 5 years younger on average, had to endure
Northern Winters often with no shoes and simple clothing, while slaves worked
as seasonal farm workers. You have no idea how hard whites worked to build this
civilisation you benefit from, and you probably don't care so long as it
magically appears to you via your welfare cheque.
-"Open invite to conquer" By that reasoning, I guess Muslims would be
justified entry and establish traditionalism over feminism in the US.
Technology=/=happiness.
-I was referring only to the smallpox, which killed the majority of the
native population.
-Distribution is irrelevant. Mass cheap labor.
-"Blacks were freed from slavery by the technological inventions (o white
men) which made their labor surplus to requirements" Stabbing a guy 9″
deep and pulling out 6 doesn't mean you did him a favor. Progress, which was
built on previous civilizations, which is the case for all great nations. But
as for your example-I suppose you'd have your mother raped and killed in
exchange for technology. I hear kids these days kill for PS4's sometimes.
-"Had higher productivity" and had freedom of choice. Willing
labor>unwilling labor.
Hunter Gatherer peoples do not have concepts such as nations. They have not
created property rights, they merely have inter-tribal war, endless revenge
killings. In such a society, yes, it is an open invite to walk in and claim
unclaimed land. Muslims coming here is exactly the opposite, they are trying to
extort property rights we created. If you haven't even grasped the basics of
anthropology and patriarchy vs matriarchy (stone age primitivism) then perhaps
you are on the wrong website.
As for smallpox, I was aware that you were talking about smallpox. Smallpox
wasn't spread deliberatly, it was just the nature of the airborne virus.
You comment on native indian women is disingenuous. Colonialists could have
bought the women or not, if not, they'd be raped and killed by other tribes
(who wholesale slanghtered women and children); why would they not buy them
under such circumstances?
Willing labor vs unwilling labor? Really did British working class have a
choice? They didn't own land, and couldn't open property. They were renting as
serfs for hundreds of years, and serfdom was really just renamed. They were
still a class of tennents, so were they willing workers? They could have
refused to work, and be beaten by their master and put into workhouses, where
people lasted on average 2 months before dying of injuries. Slaves had an easy
life compared to white Irish and British workng class, extremely easy, and in a
moderate climate. No sensible person could suggest otherwise.
You know oppression isn't just a thing niggers have suffered, just because
those worthless pieces of shit constantly whine about slavery – slavery
their own ancestors sold them into. They wouldn't last 5 minutes in a Northern
English or Welsh coal mine from the age of 6, as was standard practice.
Say what you like, the fact is, blacks sold blacks into slavery, to Dutch Jews.
Rich land owners used them to undercut white labor. It isn't the responsibility
of the 95% of whites that didn't own slaves, and who worked under worse
conditions. Whites freed slaves through technology, so your analogy is bullshit
and you know it. You do realise that many niggers went back to African –
Libberia, and threw their passports in the sea in protest at America. 2 weeks
later they were all in the water looking for their passports to return to the
Land of the Free Stuff. They are just worthless parasites like kikes, so why
defend them? Can we even really consider them human when their history is
basically no better or more advanced than other lower primates? They are just
niggers.
Claim unclaimed land land is one thing, unused land is another. I suppose
you submit a written consent form before a bang as well. The US has invaded
many muslim lands and the government created isis by proxy, which has led to
the refugee crisis in the first place. So the US owes something to refugees
(although owing something back in such a form will be a failure of epic
proportions, I think.)
-And you think that if they knew, anything would have been different?
Smallpox was considered a triumph for them.
-Not all. If there were a way to tell which ones would have been raped and
killed, and which not, I could understand. They just did the same thing. My
point still stands; control for benefit. They did not have the natives
interests at heart- it was a matter of what method would be best to subjugate
and control.
Slaves in the US vs other nonslaves. If working class whites had it worse
off, they could have asked to be slaves too. But that wasn't the case.
Blacks sold blacks because there are sellouts of all races so they can be on
the winning team. Its easy to say the US is better if they take everything if
value and leave the other country worse off .
You're pretty ignorant of actual history aren't you?
I'll bet you can't actually explain to me why blacks were counted as 3/5 of
a person in the Constitution, can you? I mean the real reason, not the Malcom X
bullshit.
Blacks barely built anything, most of them worked on plantations in the
South. I collect antique photos, your sneering little "reality" bears no
resemblance to what was actually going on, at the time.
As to the "red man's land", well, he should have made a real claim to it
instead of doing that stupid hippy "no man can own the land" crap. And, he lost
the war. It was a war, he lost, that's what happens when you lose a war. Get,
the fuck, over it.
Politics and elections. Blacks were property, southerners needed voting
power, etc. is what I was taught in school.
It was to help out blacks. In order to stymie the South and keep them from
enshrining slavery as a permanent institution through Congress, the Founding
Fathers thought ahead and counted each black slave as 3/5 instead of a full
person to keep Southern state representation manageable until slavery could be
abolished.
Worked on plantations, yes. And a lot harder than whites, because they
were slaves. Therefore, their contribution per person in labor was
greater.
Oh please. Picking cotton is hard work, no doubt, but it's no harder than
being a free man carting around marble and laying down foundations for great
buildings, or steel work or any other kind of highly labor intensive job.
-Typical justification to do what you want. Sounds exactly like a Jewish
method.
LOL! Yeah man, because only Jews say "Woe to the defeated" in regard to war.
Well, them and every other ethnicity on the planet. But yeah dude,
(((jews!)))
– Which wouldn't ever be enough. Sticking a knife in 9 inches and then
taking it out 6 via 3/5ths isn't doing him a favor.
-A free man is willing labor. Also, they get more say in their hours. Job
flexibility.
-Didn't say something was yours? I'll take it. Oh you're living in it? I'll
take it anyway That's basically it in a nutshell, in this regard and with the
Jews in regards to Israel-Palestine.
Actually, it was enough. Which is why they passed a law eliminating any more
slave states being admitted to the union, which then resulted in Kansas being a
bunch of dicks, which then brought on the civil war (in summary).
A free man is willing labor. Also, they get more say in their hours. Job
flexibility.
You are thinking that "then" is like "now". It wasn't. Good luck trying that
attitude in 1830.
Didn't say something was yours? I'll take it. Oh you're living in it? I'll
take it anyway That's basically it in a nutshell, in this regard and with the
Jews in regards to Israel-Palestine.
And the Celts who first sacked Rome. And the Germans in France. And the
English across their empire. And Rome across its empire. And China in regards
to Mongolia.
-Talking about initial justification. If the blacks weren't that good, never
should have brought em. Slavery was the 9 inch.
-Not as much flexibility, sure. But relative to slaves, I meant.
– If Empire A was peaceful, but Empire B attacked and lost, then A has
the right to conquer B in self defense and simultaneously grow. This is just
one example of an ethical conquest, but it has happened. America was anything
but.
Shoulda Woulda Coulda has nothing to do with the reality as they then faced
it. Slaves were already there, long predating the births of the Founding
Fathers. Telling me what they "shoulda woulda coulda" is irrelevant, they had
reality, and they dealt with it in a way that ultimately helped end
slavery.
Flexibility. Heh. Yeah, like, none.
The point on empires is that they did the same thing and used the same
justification, just like every other ethnicity on the planet. You trying to
make this into "Jeeeewwwwws!" is silly. There are instances where you can call
out the wrong perpetrated by some Jews, but this is not one of them. You may
wish to cede this point to remain honest and consistent.
Founding fathers supported slavery. Ending slavery wasn't enough. Equality
is.
So slaves and free men have equal freedom of labor?
Not all empires have done this. Most have, yes. But essentially my point is
that you insist that conquering was a good thing and the natives and blacks
should be grateful for getting killed, raped, and enslaved in exchange for a
television. Same in the middle east. They don't want democracy. Everyone else
did it so I should do it too? Well in that case, so does the hate, hence blm
and why the world hates america.
Oh bullshit. Now you're back to square one. Some supported it, many were
against it. This is precisely why they did the 3/5 thing, which I've patiently
explained to you.
Most have, yes
Correct Ergo your sneering "you sound like a Jeeeewwww!" is rendered
meaningless.
So are you. Admit it- it wasn't justified, and 3/5ths wasn'tt near enough.
Get rid of the white hero complex. Its the reason America is so hated around
the world.
No, you claim victimhood from blacks and all the other people you take from
and still claim to be the savior. Hatred outside and within the US takes a
special kind of people. It is just retribution. And the Islamic empire, at
least the Rashidun caliphate, did not.
According to the 1850 census blacks were 12.5% of the population.
Most of the rest of the 35,000,000 of the population at the time were white.
Those 3.5 million slaves didn't build everything.
As for the natives, they had no boundarys no government, no property rights
,they were cavemen who were conquered and white folk started a country with
government, property rights and civilization.
But those 12.5% were slaves, so they were doing more labor per person. Mass
cheap labor. I agree that the natives needed codified law, but it would be
ridiculous to think that was the reason that was justification to conquer. It
was just Manifest Destiny, something that is happening today via western
imperialism.
Yes I agree the slaves would have worked more man hours but all those other
people were not just sitting around.
The natives just were not prepared.it was was simply the way of the world at
the time. It just is what it is.
I expect the unwillingness to work was a big factor as well; lack of
incentives. My main issue is that some people today are still trying to justify
that what they did. Just because many other nations of the past did so, does
not a right make. This goes the other way too of course- there have been times
where whites were massacred and enslaved and driven out, which is also
wrong.
Right, but what do you consider white. I mentioned the other day that a girl
who was a member of the daughters of the American revolution, had membership to
the union club etc called me a "gateway minority" because 5 generations ago my
forebearers came her eyes from Italy
I don't know, I guess those damn ole wops are white too
I get a really really dark tan every year I guess I'm white too.
What in the hell is a gateway minority anyway? .now I've forgotten the point I
was trying to make anyway.
Usually by about the middle of May I start looking funny when I take my hat
off because my face,neck,arms and legs are dark brown and my head is BRIGHT
white.
As usual, you are full of shit.
America was built BY Anglos, FOR Anglos. This country was never meant to be
"whiteopia." The alt-right looks at the 1950s as the glory days of America. The
founding fathers would have been disgusted at all of the "lesser European" groups
that were in the country at that time, such as the Irish. The blacks have more of a
right to be here than many European immigrant groups.
Historically you have a point. But the circumstances are pushing the
European derived ethnicities of that country (U.S.) towards the formation of
multiple "white" identities (Southern, Midwestern, etc) which are the
combination of all types of Europeans. For European observers like me it seems
a ridiculous development if it were in Europe, but once again It's happening in
America and I am not American. It just is (the phenomenon I just described).
Hence your argument is out of date.
Well, there already were significant differences between the regions of the
United States, even when the European population was majority Anglo. Compare
the aristocratic, agrarian South to the liberal urban North.
Total bullshit made up from your pathetic negro brainpower. The Irish,
Scttish, Germans and French were invited as immigrants from the start of
America as a Constitutional Republic – INVITED TO SETTLE. You stupid
cunt, you don't even realise that the Founding Fathers got many of their ideas
from the French and the French Academy of Sciences, as well as German
economists. It was created by white Freemasons, some of whom were Scottish not
Anglo YOU STUPID CUNT. You think slave owning Alexander Hamilton was an anglo,
dumbshit? Blacks have no right to be in America, they were never part of the
Founding Fathers vision. You think they were fucking retarded and wanted the
dregs of the bell curve as citizens? OUR POSTERITY means European.
The Irish were INVITED? The fuck are you smoking? The Irish were viewed as
little, if any better than the Negroes. If you had told Washington or Jefferson
that they were the same race as an Irishman, they would have laughed in your
fucking face. Franklin viewed the Germans in America as a problematic presence
in the United States. OUR POSTERITY meant the descendants of the (largely)
Anglo-Germanic Protestants who founded this country, not all European peoples.
Get your head out of Unkie Adolf's ass and learn some history, provided you
have more than a single-digit IQ, something which I think you
lack.
You are making shit up as you go. What an absurd way to argue. The Irish
were invited to settle, its an historical fact. Jefferson was even a proponent
of the Irish independence. There were Catholic Founding Fathers, even at a time
when in Britain they were persecuted. Oh now America is Anglo-Germanic, not
Anglo like you previously stated? What about the Scots such as Alexander
Hamilton, or Benjamin Frankin being a product of French schooling, and the
American Revolutionary War was funded by Russians, French aristocrats such as
Marquez de Lafayette. What about the Dutch colonies, which New York is from. Go
and make up some shitty historical fantasy with someone who doesn't know
history. America was European – white, from the start.
The United States of America was founded by Anglo-Germanic Protestants,
mostly Englishmen. The Dutch, French and Spanish had colonies in North America,
but they did not create the country that would become the United States of
America. That was almost entirely the English, with a few Scots thrown in
there. First point refuted.
"Irish immigrants of this period participated in significant numbers in the
American Revolution, leading one British major general to testify at the House
of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland."[14] Irish
Americans signed the foundational documents of the United States -- the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- and, beginning with Andrew
Jackson, served as President." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans
This first wave of Irish immigrants were the SCOTS-Irish, Scotsmen and
Englishmen who had settled (and in many ways colonized) Ireland. Second point
refuted.
I had an Irish forefather who fought as a private in the Revolution In the
PA Militia and another Irish forefather who came to America to fight the
British in the War of 1812. Johnny Bulls were still looked down upon in the
1950s by Irish and vice versa. LOL!
So now you have been proven incorrect, lets talk about why you elivate the
worthless nigger over fellow Europeans, in light of the evidence that Irish,
Russians, Italians (there was an Italian involved with the Founding documents
– look up Founding Fathers by Country of Origin), Prussians, Dutch,
Scottish and especially French were intimately involved in the creation of
America.
Correct. These are the people still pissed that Joe DiMaggio go to to play.
Ethnics in the major leagues?
I've mentioned it before, but there is a great quote from the movie The Good
Shepherd. Matt Damon plays an OSS office, Yale, skull and bones, American
pedigree, founding member o the CIA. He talks to Pesci who plays the mob boss
that the CIA tried to get to kill Castro.
Pesci: let me as you something. Us Italians, we got our families and the
church. The Jews have their traditions. The micks have their homeland. Even the
niggers have something, they have their music. What do you have
Damon: we have the United States of America the rest of you are just
tourists
If you don't date your family back to the mayflower than you are no
different than the Muslim invaders. Alt right would do well to remember than in
some people's eyebrows most of them are just light skinned niggers
The alt-right, like their SJW counterparts, don't care about facts. You
could lay it all out for them in the simplest terms imaginable and they'd still
be living in their fantasylands.
While I'm sure there's some truth to the notion of elites using divide and conquer, I
nonetheless get tired of fence-sitting rhetoric that implies that coming together with
leftists is the only way to defeat the elites.
Rank-and-file leftists want to BE elite, that's the main thing (other than provably
broken ideology) that differentiates them from me. I don't want power, I simply want people
to tell the truth and pull their weight. If you can't do that, I'd just as soon kill you as
look at you, because you are a cancer on this planet. I'm certainly not going to join up
with you to defeat some separate but equally evil group, lol. I prefer to fight and destroy
both groups.
I've been thinking about that a lot lately but I don't have the answer. I do
know that trying to find common ground with people who are part of the problem is
both the wrong answer and a waste of time.
It started in July 2012 at the Anaheim Riots. The whole thing was started by the white
anarchist anti authoritarian who s tired of taking shit from the cops.
I'm afraid your solution on a large scale basis is too ambitious. Most don't want to get
involved in any unpleasantness, much easier to go along to get along. Most don't want to
observe what's going on around them, it's much more important to walk around with one's
face in their iPhone or have it up to their ear. Most don't want to read, it's easier to
watch a video and have it summarized and spoon fed them. There is no right and wrong, it's
all relative.
Until the unthinkable happens to them or close friend or family most don't care,and if
said unthinkable DOES happen, it's Plan B time. Demand government find a solution to the
problem, any solution that makes them feel like something was done. And sure, they'll give
up privacy, their own ability to protect themselves, or agree to pay a little more as long
as a "feel good" measure is taken.
I was involved very early on in the Occupy movement, and I must say there were a lot of
good people in it who simply wanted to limit global finance capitalism from destroying the
American economy. Most of these people were older whites who were more in line with the
leftists we picture from the mid to late twentieth century. Unfortunately, the Occupy
movement already had the SJW seeds sown into its fabric from the very beginning. During the
meetings and marches I attended, it was made VERY CLEAR to me that if you are a white male,
it is your job to step aside and let the women and non-whites run the show and set the
agenda. And indeed that was the case. I stuck around for a little bit, listening to what
these angry black/brown women, socially retarded white women, and the token while male
faggot had to say. It started off as more anti-bank/capitalism, but the writing was on the
wall and I could see exactly how this movement was going to turn into the anti-white male
patriarchy, pro feminism, pro faggot, pro degeneracy movement it has transformed into
today.
"It started off as more anti-bank/capitalism, but the writing was on the
wall and I could see exactly how this movement was going to turn into
the anti-white male patriarchy, pro feminism, pro faggot, pro degeneracy
movement it has transformed into today."
Most movements and social-justice groups start out benevolent, like many religions.
Soon, those whom I call the "Crazy Elements" infiltrate that group/movement and alter
its definition. After not long, the "crazy" becomes the movement, and attracts more
bat-shit insane types faster than water seeking its own level. Once the lame-stream
media get bored, the ranks thin out, and everyone goes home, until the next group of
aggrieved shitheads gets loud (i.e. BLM, etc.). This shit is so easy to see from miles
away, though.
We've never had a natural form of capitalism which accords with the natural strengths of
people and nations. Instead, the natural instincts of what capitalism in its true sense was
meant to signify has always been undermined by the State and creeping socialism along each
step of the way. Civics, culture and customs, including religion were meant to be the
natural bulwarks against unfettered capitalism, not the State with all its forms of social
ideologies.
When will people ever get it- socialism is the natural blood and substance of modern
States in all its forms- the State's future (any western advanced State) is tied up
intrinsically with the "guardian" role of "social nanny" who'll protect her downtrodden
children from the nasty boggy man (who pays all her bills, including her socialist
programs) of libertine capitalism. The truth is that the entire system is rigged this way
and if we had a more conservative or traditional set of values (like religion etc) we
wouldn't need the socialist State to "protect us" from the free market, ispo facto, end of
the State control of peoples lives. Imagine, a world were people could survive in a state
of liberty and happiness without the need of the State? A Utopia perhaps??
The news about the Christian cartoonist Jack Chick's death, and the various reactions to
it, got me to thinking about how our elites view religion. It looks to me as if they think
about religion more rationally than they think about their childish utopianism regarding
globalization, race, immigration, feminism and sexual degeneracy.
Defenders of the elites' world view just laugh off religious obsessives who threaten
ordinary people with hell, especially straight white guys who ogle women, like the one in
Jack Chick's early tract, "This Was Your Life."
But they condemned Chick as a homophobe when he published tracts which threatened gays
with hell, even if they don't believe in it.
What accounts for the difference? Gays exist and hell doesn't, obviously. But also gays
have privileged status in our elites' project to destroy and remake traditional societies,
and they simply must remain immune from criticism, regardless of how much damage they cause
along the way, even from some religious nut who draws comic books which threaten them with
imaginary harm after death.
By contrast, notice that Chick also propagandized the fantasy that Israel's existence
somehow fulfills "bible prophecy," instead of showing the ordinary reality that people get
ideas from books. Not a peep of criticism from our elites about that delusion, curiously.
And not because our elites share Chick's belief about Israel, but because the Jews among
them have used this belief to play American Christians for suckers to make them support
pro-Israel policies in our government.
South Park Season 20 examines the concept of trolling. Here's my take:
trolling is defined as doing something to get a reaction from those defending the person
you insulted, which then brings a reaction from the other side. Sit back and watch the
fireworks.
We are being trolled when we fail to identify where the latest 'outrage' is coming from.
We allow ourselves to waste time and energy when the messenger dictates the terms.
By, for and about are the three key words with any message. Who is sending the message,
who is the message directed at, and what is the message itself. Basic critical analysis is
where the alt-right leaders (could) make the most impact.
It is a revolution against the middle class. With elite usiing weaponized poverty,
zombies and misfits against the middle clas.sRather than the top 1 percent, the left
attacks the privilege of the white assistant manager at Pizza Hut.
The concept of a free, middle class would be the historic exception. Throughout most
of history it was mostly made up of masters and lords as well as slaves and
serfs.
Read or view Milton Friedman on youtube. Every deep recession has been caused by a
drastic drop in money supply. The great depression was caused by the fed so that the
bankers could purchase the pieces for pennies on the dollar after. For those of you who
dont believe in conspiracy theories there has been so much time since 911 and all the
videos of all the people have been looked at and analyzed. Amazing stuff. Even better just
look at a few videos of speeches that the owner who just bought the trade centers not long
before(99 year lease).
The Me generation is the worst of America. And now they are in politics. America will be
better off when the self-serving, self-absorbed flower children are long gone.
Think about this – the elites know that white America is developing an awareness.
They also know that whites will revolt and correct the issue eventually. As a psychological
diffuser, they put a person in like Trump that appears to be everything he is. This will
allow whites to relax their defenses while the elites move to limit and censor information
that will oppose their long term goals. They do this under a president like Trump so whites
will remain docile. After 8 years, they continue their main agenda now with limited, if any
real independent news agencies, etc. It allows them to buy time, diffuse white opposition,
then continue with their program. Did Trump really "ditch" his inside team?
Agree. The radicals of the 60's supported the URSS against the US, today they want to
fight Putin, what is more puzzling is that they oppose Christians because we want to live
our faith, but they willingly accept sharia law that forbids women to wear a dress, are
shunned and considered second class, honor killings are frequent, feminists say nothing,
atheists say nothing, LGBT lobby is quiet, why? Because their leader, Soros has not given
the cue. Group thinking!!!
The occupy movement was a bunch of spoiled middle class suburban brats who were in the
top 1% globally. If they thought they were protesting the economic downturn, they were
fifteen years late. The Clinton administration signed the death warrant for the economy. It
just took 10 years to show the effect.
The housing bubble in 2006 ( which influenced the economic crash in 2008) was caused by
affirmative action policy in the big banks. The Clinton administration pressured the banks
into "not descriminating " against the poor. AKA giving hundreds of billions of dollars in
loans to people who were too irresponsible to pay rent. Then that debt was sold and resold,
until 1 by 1 the floor fell out.
A great explanation is in the new movie " The Big Short."
It was that terrible series of events that scared americans into voting for Barrack
Obama.
Then we had eight years of feminist propaganda, and here we are.
"... They are from the social sciences like Political Science or International Relations which are empty of real content. ..."
"... They throw in sometimes some "game theory" to give that an aura of "science", but most of it is BS. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson is the only media individual left that is brave enough to state the truth. So by implication the United States has zero democracy when it comes to our foreign policy. ..."
Being on the affected side as a historian please let me add, that the students' majority studies microhistory, family, company,
or even family members' personal events that is, which adds very little to our understanding of the world. It is overly and openly
supported currently in most universities for a number of reasons.
This is why obviously ideologically biased works about major correspondences such as Piketty's or Niall Ferguson's, not to
mention that young Israeli guy (Yair??) has so much effect. Because basically they are the only ones, or at least the ones with
the chance to publish, who take the great effort of choosing the harder way and making the necessary research. There are too few
willing to take the harder path.
Scientification, or should I say natural scientification of social sciences also does not help, because it promotes the 'publish
or perish' principle. But social sciences aren't like natural sciences, where X hours in a laboratory or experimenting yields
surely X or X/2 publications.
And on the top of that Marxist thinkers and intelligentsia, cast away from all meaningful positions to universities in the
50's and 60's fearing a communist influence have completely overtaken the higher education in the Western Hemisphere. In the Eastern
European countries they managed to keep their positions.
To sum it up while most of your criticism is valid, international relations e.g. has its merit, but are taught mostly by neoliberals
and Marxists, with the known results.
They are from the social sciences like Political Science or International Relations which are empty of real content.
Fully concur. They throw in sometimes some "game theory" to give that an aura of "science", but most of it is BS.
If, just
in case, I am misconstrued as fighting humanities field--I am not fighting it. Literature, language, history are essential for
a truly cultured human. When I speak about "humanities" I personally mean namely Political "Science".
Sir, I stand corrected on the humanities into govt assertion. I do tend to get humanities and social sciences jumbled in my numbers/cost/benefit
based thinking. I am open to people telling me how to do tasks that they have more experience performing and that I might need
to know about. And I have curiosities about people's experiences and perspectives on how the world of men works, but I'm not so
concerned about the world of men that I lose my integrity or soul or generally get sucked into their reality over my own. Of course
that's just me. Someone like Trump seeks approval and high rank amongst men. So, yes, I guess he is susceptible; though I still
think somewhat less than others. This is evident in how he refuses to follow the conventions and expectations of what a president
should look and act like. He is a defiant sort. I like that about him. Of course needing to be defiant is still a need and therefore
a chink in his armor.
I agree with you and I believe their influence has deepen over the two years. The only pro neocon policy he ran on was regime
change in Iran. Terrible idea no doubt. The vote was either potential regime change in Iran or a dangerous escalation with Russia
in Syria. I voted for more time. He seemed to have some sense on Syria and Russia at the time. Of course Clinton was promising
Apocalypse Now. You've stated the Neocon's have insinuated themselves into both parties. R2P and such. They basically control
the foreign policy of both parties due to control by donors, organizational control of DNC, RNC, the moronic narrative, think
tanks, media, probably security services, etc.
Tucker Carlson is the only media individual left that is brave enough to state
the truth. So by implication the United States has zero democracy when it comes to our foreign policy. As far as I can tell the
United States policy toward Russia continues toward escalation. Two current examples being the absurd Mueller "investigation"
into collusion and the Ukraine provocation in the Sea of Azov. Are we heading into the last war?
Engineer here, "worked" on myself and not even by very skilled people. Manipulative people are hard to counteract, if you're not
manipulative yourself the thought process is not intuitive. If you spend most of your life solving problems, you think its everyone's
goal. As I've gotten older I've only solidified my impression that as far as working and living outside of school, the best "education"
to have would be history. Preferably far enough back or away to limit any cultural biases. I'm not sure that college classes would
fill the gap though.
I'll pitch in with a suggestion for those who are for whatever reason not fond of reading: An old history education series called
The Western Tradition. Eugene Weber. A shrewd old guy who was interested in motivations which drove our history and culture. Will
get your kids solid A's in history if nothing else, if you can get them hooked on it. Insightful narrative as opposed to dry facts
helps retention. There are much worse starting points.
Moreover, the most of books which I believe constitute a canon of sorts are mentioned and points made in them brought to bear.
Leviathan, The Prince, Erasmus, how they affected general thought, which makes the viewer want to read them.
Re-reading TE Lawrence at the moment. What to watch a "pro" work? Scary good, he was.
To this day, my favorite college course was "The Century of Darwin" taught by Dr. Brown in the history department of RPI in 1973.
Dr. Brown was a bespectacled, white haired little man who looked like everyone's idea of a history professor. The course examined
the history of scientific discovery, evolving and competing religious and scientific ideas leading up to the general acceptance
of Darwin's works. It was a history of everything course, an intellectually exhilarating experience. I still have the textbooks.
I heartedly recommend those books.
"Darwin's Century" by Loren Eiseley came out in 1958 and was reprinted in 2009 with a new forward
by Stephan Bertman. "The Death of Adam" by John Green first came out in 1960 and was reprinted in 1981. "Genesis and Geology"
by Charles C. Gillespie came out in 1951. My paperback edition was published in 1973 and cost $2.45 new.
Colonel - Boswell's life of Johnson. A giant of a man seen through the eyes of a clever and observant pygmy. And they both know
it.
That makes it an odd book, that interplay between the two. It's also the ultimate in tourism. One is dumped in the middle of
eighteenth century London and very soon it becomes a second home.
For a long time that's all I got out of the book. Johnson himself emerges only slowly. A true intellectual giant with a flawless
acuity of perception, an elephantine memory, and the gift of turning out the perfect exposition, whether a long argument or one
of his famous pithy comments, is the starting point only.
As a person he can easily be read as a slovenly bully, at one time even as an unapologetic hired gun turning out the propaganda
of the day. He was subject to long fits of depression alternating with periods of great industry. As he got older the industry
fell away and he spent much of his time in the coffee house. It was there, often, that Boswell gathered up the materials - a fragment
here, a disquisition there - that allow us to see through to Johnson's outlook.
It was an outlook, or one could call it a philosophy of life, that could not be more needed at this time of frantic and one
sided ideological war.
It was no tidily worked-up outlook. Intensely patriotic yet ever conscious of the failings of his country. Honorable yet accepting
that he lived at a time of great corruption. Loyal yet always yearning after an older dispensation. Robust common sense but fully
recognizing the Transcendent. Narrowly prejudiced yet open to other cultures, recognizing their equal validity and worth while
remaining rooted in his own.
It's an outlook that today would be despised by many because, as far as I can tell, he had no ideology, no millenarian solution
into which all problems can be jammed. Merely a broad and humane normality and a recognition that, ultimately, each pilgrim must
find his own way.
Michael Cohen To Plead Guilty To Lying About Trump Russian Real-Estate Deal
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/29/2018 - 09:19 128 SHARES
Four months after
he pleaded guilty to campaign finance law violations, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has
copped to new charges of lying to congressional committees investigating Trump-Russia
collusion, according to
ABC . His latest plea is part of a new deal reached with Special Counsel Robert Mueller,
which had been said to be winding down before its latest burst of activity, including an
investigation into Roger Stone's alleged ties to Wikileaks. Stone ally
Jerome Corsi this week said he had refused to strike a plea deal with Mueller's
investigators, who had accused him of lying.
To hold up his end of the deal, Cohen sat for 70 hours of testimony with the Mueller probe,
he said Monday during an appearance at a federal courthouse in Manhattan where he officially
pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements.
According to
the Hill, Cohen's alleged lies stem from testimony he gave in 2017, when he told the House
Intelligence Committee that a planned real-estate deal to build the Trump Moscow Hotel had been
abandoned in January 2016 after the Trump Organization decided that "the proposal was not
feasible." While Cohen's previous plea was an agreement with federal prosecutors in New York,
this marks the first time Cohen has been charged by Mueller.
As part of his plea Cohen admitted to lying in a written statement to Congress about his
role in brokering a deal for a Trump Tower Moscow - the aborted project to build a
Trump-branded hotel in the Russian capitol. As has been previously reported, Cohen infamously
contacted a press secretary for President Putin to see if Putin could help with some red tape
to help start development, though the project was eventually abandoned.
Though, according to Cohen's plea, discussions about the project continued through the first
six months of the Trump administration. Cohen had discussed the Trump Moscow project with Trump
as recently as August 2017, per a report in the
Guardian.
As a reporter for NBC News pointed out on twitter, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman
Richard Burr and ranking member Mark Warner foreshadowed today's plea back in August after
Cohen pleaded guilty to the campaign finance violations.
Also notable: The plea comes just as President Trump is leaving for a 10-hour flight to
Argentina. In recent days, Trump appeared to step up attacks on the Mueller probe, comparing it
to
McCarthyism and questioning why the DOJ didn't pursue charges against the Clintons.
Cohen will be sentenced on Dec. 12, as scheduled. By cooperating, Cohen is hoping to avoid
prison, according to his lawyer. While this was probably lost on prosecutors, Cohen's admission
smacks of the "lair's paradox."
Senate Republicans have offered President Trump a degree of relief from his Mueller-related
anxieties by blocking a bill that would have protected the Mueller probe from being disbanded
by the president, but with the special counsel continuing his pursuit of
Roger Stone and
Jerome Corsi , and Congressional Democrats sharpening their knives in anticipation of
taking back the House in January, President Trump is once again lashing out at Mueller and the
FBI, declaring that the probe is an "investigation in search of a crime" and
once again highlighting the hypocrisy in the FBI's decision to give the Clintons a pass for
their "atrocious, and perhaps subversive" crimes.
Reiterating his claims that the Mueller probe bears many similarities to Sen. Joseph
McCarthy's infamous anti-Communist witch hunt, Trump also blasted the DOJ for "shattering so
many innocent lives" and "wasting more than $40,000,000."
"Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime? At the same time Mueller and
the Angry Democrats aren't even looking at the atrocious, and perhaps subversive, crimes that
were committed by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. A total disgrace!"
"When will this illegal Joseph McCarthy style Witch Hunt, one that has shattered so many
innocent lives, ever end-or will it just go on forever? After wasting more than $40,000,000
(is that possible?), it has proven only one thing-there was NO Collusion with Russia. So
Ridiculous!"
As CBS
News' Mark Knoller notes , this is the 2nd day in a row, Pres Trump likening the Mueller
investigation to the Joe McCarthy witch hunt of the 50s , known for making reckless and
unsubstantiated accusations against officials he suspect of communist views. McCarthy was
eventually censured by the Senate in 1954.
Last night, President Trump threatened to release a trove of
"devastating" classified documents about the Mueller probe if Democrats follow through with
their threatened investigations. He also declared that a pardon for soon-to-be-sentenced former
Trump Campaign executive Paul Manafort was still "on
the table.
My suspicion is that the left, since the special counsel was never actually given a
legitimate crime to investigate, will want this left in place permanently. That's just my
guess though.
Without a crime however, it's hard to argue that the special counsel has any legitimacy,
since the law specifies that there must be a crime.
With that said, how can the results of what Mueller does be looked at as anything but
illegitimate?
Yes, and that I can agree with you on, however, the focus of the investigation has been
misplaced on Trump when it should have been on the Clintons. So again I can say that the
legitimacy of the counsel is in question because with Trump there was no crime.
If anything the criminal activity was perpetrated on Trump by the deep state.
The difference is that McCarthy was right about everything. The similarity is that the
press wanted to talk about everything but the contents of McCarthy's folders. It's like the
Podesta emails - "Russia hacked muh emails!" but no one seems to want to discuss their
contents.
My comments here may try to be humorous but this video needs watched to fully understand
the Mueller probe--and forward to friends........... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aevtHHULag
Trump is right that Mueller is trying to create a crime where there is nothing but
politics as it is played today. Listen to former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who now
characterizes the Mueller investigation as 'a clown show', explain in great detail:
The crimes have been found.....and HRC and the democrats and their fbi pals committed
them. Mueller is not "in search of crimes", he's in search of crimes by trump associated
people.
You can see many similarities between the way the Democrats handled the Kavanaugh
nomination and Muellers investigation. If the GOP is smart they will start consolidating all
the facts about the FISA abuse, FBI abuse, IRS abuse, Mueller abuse and start a campaign
about it in time for the 2020 elections. If the Democrats were smart they would drop this
ASAP since it isn't going any where and hope people forget about it. Somehow, I doubt that
the Democrats are that smart... After all there was a movie about Watergate... and seems like
a lot of these people are trying to live Watergate all over again, but it's really about an
abuse of power, by the government and the media.
**** off, the government isnt going to do a ******* thing to these enterprise
criminals.
I find it completely demoralizing and a slap in the face to a country when you have these
enterprise criminals not being indicted and a president threatening to expose them because HE
doesnt like something. This is not about you Trump, this is about THE UNITED STATES.
I mean come-on Trump stop with the BS. DO YOUR ******* JOB.
What in the hell people, I personally find this to be a constant gut punch when these
criminals just commit crimes over and over and it becomes a Hannity or Limbaugh bullet point
for 3 hours.
How ******* stupid of Americans to sit idle while all of this in your face bank robbing
going on. Put another way the bank robber walks from the door of a bank with a sack of cash
to the car and the police say oh look a bank robber, and they turn to their partner and shrug
their shoulders drinking covfeffe
It's the Anglo-zionist entente that meddled in U.S. elections and if Americans don't get
upset about that then they are cucks who deserve their servile fate.
"In his foreword to my book, Alan Dershowitz discusses his time litigating cases in the
old Soviet Union. He was always taken by the fact that they could prosecute anybody they
wanted because some of the statutes were so vague. Dershowitz points out that this was a
technique developed by Beria, the infamous sidekick of Stalin, who said, " Show me the man
and I'll find you the crime ." That really is something that has survived the Soviet
Union and has arrived in the good old USA. "Show me the man," says any federal prosecutor,
"and I can show you the crime." This is not an exaggeration. "
The only reason Mueller exists is for Trump to flog the Dems with. Thats the only reason
Trump keeps him around. The problem is losing the house means losing the power of subpoena,
so this should get interesting. The Repubs have it in for Trump too. Why else would they lose
a supermajority and the power of subpoena while still retaining the power to crush any bill
that the House pushes through? He's doomed, unless he can pull a rabbit out of his ***.
You don't actually believe that, do you? I suppose you still actually believe that they
even bother to count the votes. Trump was INSTALLED, not elected.
To create the illusion of division, which in turn keeps the population divided. It's
theater. Look at everything that's gone down; it's way too stupid to be real and I am
referring to both sides when I say that. The whole thing is custom tailored to stir the
emotions of a population with an average IQ of 100.
The fact that anybody is still clinging to hope in political solutions to anything is
sad and pathetic.
I don't think the political system will solve any of my problems, but Obama made it
abundantly clear that the political system will create plenty of problems.
Does anyone still believe that we have a political solution to our challenges.
1) More invaders than ever flooding our country.
2) Our most notorious criminals still walking our streets.
3) Fed, et al still manipulating our economy.
4) Law abiding citizens still being thrown into jail.
5) Surveillance state becoming ever more all seeing, and all invasive.
6) The push to war stronger than it has ever been in recent times.
7) Over 150 military bases strung across the planet.
8) Open criminality and rampant lies by press and politicians... I realize I already made
mention of the criminals, but thought this deserved emphasis.
9) Big news today... Supremes may limit the degree to which local government can encroach
on eighth amendment... wow... that this is even a debate.
10) The white population is being ordered into silence and obscurity... though no one has
forgotten to collect taxes... while the chimps and thugs are being encouraged to loot what is
left of the asylum...
I could go on... tell me, what is your vote going to accomplish? We are living on borrowed
time, and time has just about run out...
That's why voting is a waste of time because you're simply exchanging one sociopath for
another and I gave up on the notion long ago that we're living in the "land of the free".
That's the biggest line of BS the state has ever pushed but the rubes still believe it.
Progressive income tax, property taxes, central banking and they're all tenet's of communism,
in fact we have attained all ten planks of the communist manifesto. Read the IRS code or the
federal register and you'll see exactly how much freedom you have.
all you need to know about Mueller is his professional position on 9/11/01. From Judicial
Watch:
Under Mueller's leadership, the FBI tried to discredit the story, publicly countering
that agents found no connection between the Sarasota Saudi family and the 2001 terrorist
plot. The reality is that the FBI's own files contained several reports that said the
opposite, according to the Ft. Lauderdale-based news group's ongoing investigation . Files
obtained by reporters in the course of their lengthy probe reveal that federal agents found
"many connections" between the family and "individuals associated with the terrorist attacks
on 9/11/2001." The FBI was forced to release the once-secret reports because the news group
sued in federal court when the information wasn't provided under the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA).
Though the recently filed court documents reveal Mueller received a briefing about the
Sarasota Saudi investigation, the FBI continued to publicly deny it existed and it appears
that the lies were approved by Mueller. Not surprisingly, he didn't respond to questions
about this new discovery emailed to his office by the news organization that uncovered it.
Though the mainstream media has neglected to report this relevant development, it's difficult
to ignore that it chips away at Mueller's credibility as special counsel to investigate if
Russia influenced the 2016 presidential election. Even before the Saudi coverup documents
were exposed by nonprofit journalists, Mueller's credentials were questionable to head any
probe. Back in May Judicial Watch reminded of Mueller's
misguided handiwork and collaboration with radical Islamist organizations as FBI
director.
Studying history is very important for your formation as a personality...
Notable quotes:
"... He evidently learned about balance sheets at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and wishes to apply the principle of the bottom line to everything. I will guess that he resisted taking elective courses in the Humanities as much as he could believing them to be useless. That is unfortunate since such courses tend to provide context for present day decisions. ..."
"... I have known several very rich businessmen of similar type who sent their children to business school with exactly that instruction with regard to literature, history, philosophy, etc. From an espionage case officer's perspective he is an easy mark. If you are regular contact with him all that is needed to recruit him is to convince him that you believe in the "genius" manifested in his mighty ego and swaggering bluster and then slowly feed him what you want him to "know." ..."
"... The number of folks who will pay the price for this are legion in comparison. His accomplices and "advisers" as you intone, will be deemed worthy of a Nuremburg of sorts when viewed in posterity. "Character must under grid talent or talent will cave in." His gut stove pipes him as a leader. I love and respect my dog. He follows his gut, because that is his end-state. It's honest. I will mourn the passing of one and and already rue the day the other was born. ..."
"... He survived as a New York City Boss. He has the same problem as Ronald Reagan. He believes the con. In reality, since the restoration of classical economics, sovereign states are secondary to corporate plutocrats. Yes, he is saluted. He has his finger on the red button. But, he is told what they want them to hear. There are no realists within a 1000 yards of him. The one sure thing is there will be a future disaster be it climate change, economic collapse or a world war. He is not prepared for it. ..."
"... There are other forces that are effective in addition to plutocrats and they are mostly bad. ..."
"... Falling under the sway of those who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing is an unenviable estate. The concentrated wisdom discoverable through a clear-eyed study of the humanities can serve as a corrective, and if one is lucky, as a prophylaxis against thinking of this type. ..."
"... A lot of people come out of humanities programs and into govt with all kinds of dopey notions; like R2P, globalism, open borders, etc. ..."
"... He is in thrall to the Israelis, their allies, the neocons, political donors and the popular media. An easy mark for skilled operators. ..."
"... Engineer here, "worked" on myself and not even by very skilled people. Manipulative people are hard to counteract, if you're not manipulative yourself the thought process is not intuitive. If you spend most of your life solving problems, you think its everyone's goal. As I've gotten older I've only solidified my impression that as far as working and living outside of school, the best "education" to have would be history. Preferably far enough back or away to limit any cultural biases. I'm not sure that college classes would fill the gap though. ..."
"... Read widely. start with something encyclopedic like Will and Ariel Durant's "The Story of Civilization." ..."
"... How about William H. McNeill's Rise of the West. ..."
"... Unlike your brother a good recruiting case officer would never ignore you except maybe at the beginning as a tease. That also works with women that you want personally. ..."
Yes. Trump says that is how he "rolls." The indicators that this is true are everywhere. He does not believe what the "swampies"
tell him. He listens to the State Department, the CIA, DoD, etc. and then acts on ill informed instinct and information provided
by; lobbies, political donors, foreign embassies, and his personal impressions of people who have every reason to want to deceive
him. As I wrote earlier he sees the world through an entrepreneurial hustler's lens.
He crudely assigns absolute dollar values to
policy outcomes and actions which rarely have little to do with the actual world even if they might have related opposed to the arena
of contract negotiations.
He evidently learned about balance sheets at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania
and wishes to apply the principle of the bottom line to everything. I will guess that he resisted taking elective courses in the
Humanities as much as he could believing them to be useless. That is unfortunate since such courses tend to provide context for present
day decisions.
I have known several very rich businessmen of similar type who sent their children to business school with exactly
that instruction with regard to literature, history, philosophy, etc. From an espionage case officer's perspective he is an easy
mark. If you are regular contact with him all that is needed to recruit him is to convince him that you believe in the "genius" manifested
in his mighty ego and swaggering bluster and then slowly feed him what you want him to "know."
That does not mean that he has been
recruited by someone or something but the vulnerability is evident. IMO the mistake he has made in surrounding himself with neocons
and other special pleaders, people like Pompeo and Bolton is evidence that he is very controllable by the clever and subtle. pl
I have an aged wire haired Jack Russel Terrier. He is well past his time. He is almost blind, and is surely deaf. In his earlier
days he was a force of nature. He still is now, but only in the context of food. He is still obsessed with it at every turn. Food
is now his reality and he will not be sidetracked or otherwise distracted by any other stimuli beyond relieving himself when and
where he sees fit. He lives by his gut feeling and damn everything else. There is no reason, no other calculus for him. Trump's
trusting his "gut" is just about as simplistic and equally myopic. My dog is not a tragedy, he shoulders no burden for others
and when he gets to the point of soiling himself or is in pain, he will be held in my arms and wept over for the gift he has been
when the needle pierces his hide. Trump, well, he is a tragedy. He does shoulder a responsibility to millions and millions and
for those to follow after he is long dead and gone. His willful ignorance in the face of reason and science reminds me of the
lieutenant colonel of 2/7 Cav. you spoke of at LZ Buttons.
The number of folks who will pay the price for this are legion in comparison.
His accomplices and "advisers" as you intone, will be deemed worthy of a Nuremburg of sorts when viewed in posterity. "Character
must under grid talent or talent will cave in." His gut stove pipes him as a leader. I love and respect my dog. He follows his
gut, because that is his end-state. It's honest. I will mourn the passing of one and and already rue the day the other was born.
Just after I looked at this post I went to Twitter and this came up. I don't know how long it's been since Jeremy Young was in
grad school but a 35% decline drop in History dissertations is shocking even if it's over a span of 3-4 decades.
View
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Yes. It's either STEM or Social Sciences these days and that is almost as bad as Journalism or Communications Arts. Most media
people are Journalism dummies.
He survived as a New York City Boss. He has the same problem as Ronald Reagan. He believes the con. In reality, since the restoration
of classical economics, sovereign states are secondary to corporate plutocrats. Yes, he is saluted. He has his finger on the red
button. But, he is told what they want them to hear. There are no realists within a 1000 yards of him. The one sure thing is there
will be a future disaster be it climate change, economic collapse or a world war. He is not prepared for it.
Falling under the sway of those who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing is an unenviable estate. The concentrated
wisdom discoverable through a clear-eyed study of the humanities can serve as a corrective, and if one is lucky, as a prophylaxis
against thinking of this type.
I am commending study of the humanities as historically understood, not the "humanities" of
contemporary academia, which is little better than atheistic materialism of the Marxist variety, out of which any place for the
genuinely spiritual has been systematically extirpated in favor of the imposition of some sort of sentimentalism as an ersatz
substitute.
My response to flattery, even if subtle, is, "Yeah? Gee thanks. Now please just tell me what you're really after". I'd think any
experienced man should have arrived at the same reaction at least by the time he's 35. Ditto trusting anyone in an atmosphere
where power and money are there for the taking by the ambitious and clever. As for a balance sheet approach, IMO, there is a real
need for that kind of thinking in govt. Perhaps a happy mix of it + a humanities based perspective.
A lot of people come out of
humanities programs and into govt with all kinds of dopey notions; like R2P, globalism, open borders, etc.
That is what the smart guys all say before really skilled people work on them. Eventually they ask you to tell them what is real.
The Humanities thing stung? I remember the engineer students mocking me at VMI over this.
They are from the social sciences like Political Science or International Relations which are empty of real content.
Fully concur. They throw in sometimes some "game theory" to give that an aura of "science", but most of it is BS. If, just
in case, I am misconstrued as fighting humanities field--I am not fighting it. Literature, language, history are essential for
a truly cultured human. When I speak about "humanities" I personally mean namely Political "Science".
As I wrote earlier the Issue in those Courses is they are actually pure and concentrated Fields...... Political Science, International
Relations are ambigious enough that a candidate can appeal to many Sectors and it is accepted, expected they will be competent....
Whether that be Governance/Diplomacy, Business, Travel etc...
Thus if you have no Idea what you want - those Fields are good to study, learning relatively little.....
If you know what you want - you have a Path.... You can study more concentrated Fields, but you damn well have to hope there
is a Job at the end of the Rainbow (Known at least a couple People who studied only to be told almost immediately - you will not
find Jobs domestically)
Sir, I stand corrected on the humanities into govt assertion. I do tend to get humanities and social sciences jumbled in my numbers/cost/benefit
based thinking. I am open to people telling me how to do tasks that they have more experience performing and that I might need
to know about. And I have curiosities about people's experiences and perspectives on how the world of men works, but I'm not so
concerned about the world of men that I lose my integrity or soul or generally get sucked into their reality over my own. Of course
that's just me. Someone like Trump seeks approval and high rank amongst men. So, yes, I guess he is susceptible; though I still
think somewhat less than others. This is evident in how he refuses to follow the conventions and expectations of what a president
should look and act like. He is a defiant sort. I like that about him. Of course needing to be defiant is still a need and therefore
a chink in his armor.
Engineer here, "worked" on myself and not even by very skilled people. Manipulative people are hard to counteract, if you're
not manipulative yourself the thought process is not intuitive. If you spend most of your life solving problems, you think its
everyone's goal. As I've gotten older I've only solidified my impression that as far as working and living outside of school,
the best "education" to have would be history. Preferably far enough back or away to limit any cultural biases. I'm not sure that
college classes would fill the gap though.
Any advice to help the "marks" out there?
I started developing my BS filter when I recognized that when my older brother was being nice, he wanted something. His normal
approach was to ignore me.
Unlike your brother a good recruiting case officer would never ignore you except maybe at the beginning as a tease. That also
works with women that you want personally.
The concept of car ownership could change, too. Today, privately owned cars spend most of
their lives parked and unused. Self-driving cars of the future are expected to be on the
roads for a much bigger portion of the day -- once they drive you to work, they can drive
someone else to the grocery store. That means roads could be filled with fewer vehicles
overall.
Self-driving cars will hasten the switch from gasoline-powered automobiles to electric
vehicles. The sensors and computers calling the shots will need electrical power, rather than
horsepower that gasoline engines provide.
You probably never studied computer science in depth. One probably needs a degree in
electrical engineering to understand huge problems on this technological path. But some
problems are visible even for mere mortals: The problem with self-driving cars is that
computers are very stupid (let's put it politely handicapped) drivers that can't sense a lot
of things that human sense. They are good only for "normal" situations and limited traffic
scenarios, for example following the car in front of you at (10+your speed) or greater
distance at speeds higher than 25 miles per hour. In congested bumper-to-bumper traffic with
crazy from spending 4 hours on the road human drivers cutting you left and right, they are
useless unless they can communicate with the car in front of you and the car behind you
getting their "intentions" beforehand. This is probably possible using Bluetooth or WiFi, but
is far ahead of us and requires developing protocols and standardizing actions taken by
self-driving cars across various manufacturers. The maximum you can envision now is
autonomous delivery of an empty car (no passengers) as a very low speed (like Google maps
cars) to the driver.
Self-driving cars will hasten the switch from gasoline-powered automobiles to electric
vehicles. The sensors and computers calling the shots will need electrical power, rather
than horsepower that gasoline engines provide.
I like your enthusiasm, but from an engineering point of view, this solution is less
attractive than driving cars on natural gas, and biodiesel. Right now early Tesla enthusiasts
are still not chased out of their expensive neighborhood, but soon they might suffer stigma
and find dead cats in their backyard, especially if other people air conditioning goes out in
summer, or electrical heating at winter due to their hobby ;-). Early Tesla buyers are either
"conspicuous consumption" junkies or the followers some secular cult of the "Second coming of
the electric cars." Rational person right now probably would buy a hybrid. In California as
far as I can tell this is mostly prestige issues that drive people to buy Tesla, especially
among IT specialists. Most of those people (for various reasons including inferiority
complex) are luxury car buyers anyway.
In 2016, there were about 222 million licensed drivers in the United States. Each driver
on average drives 13,474 miles each year. Now assuming 0.300 kilowatts per mile please (which
means no heating and air conditioning in those cars) and even distribution of those miles
during the year (so each driver drives 13,474/365 miles a day) calculate how much energy
needs to be produced for, say 80% of that car to be electric. Add 20% losses in transmission
and charging. Now divide by 12 hours as the most car will be charged at night, right?
Two problems:
1. How to generate so much energy for the cars needed each night? Are you advocating mass
buildup of nuclear power stations? Because neither solar nor wind can work without
compensating nuclear (gas powered -- you need rapid switch on/off) for night time in case of
the electric car is owned by the majority of the population. East-West high voltage lines can
help, but in a very limited way (only three hours difference). Who will pay for this giant
infrastructure project?
2. Liability questions arising are very complex. The question to you: when self-driving
car electronics detects a child is running directly in front of the car and determines that
it can't stop in time and will hit the child unless it crashes the car into the pole and
possibly kills one of the passengers in the front seats, whom it should save: passengers of
the car or the child?
JP Morgan has revising its outlook on Brent crude to US$73 per barrel on average, CNBC
reports . The bank's earlier forecast was for an average Brent crude price of US$83.50 a
barrel.
The head of the bank's Asia-Pacific oil and gas operations, Scott Darling, told CONB
analysts had factored in the increase in supply in North America that will occur in the second
half of 2019 and will eventually pressure prices even lower in 2020, to an average US$64 in
that year.
Funny stuff happens when a judge tells a plaintiff she has to
pay $341,500 for the legal expenses of a lawsuit she lost. All of a sudden
Stormy Daniels is saying her CPL, Michael Avenatti, was acting against her wishes:
"... Predictably, Western media has been complaining again about "Russian aggression", a gift that keeps on giving. Or blaming Russia for its over-reaction, overlooking the fact that Ukraine's incursion was with military vessels, not fishing boats. Russian resolve was quite visible, as powerful Ka-52 "Alligator" assault helicopters were promptly on the scene. ..."
"... Still, Kiev – "encouraged" by Washington – insists on militarizing the Sea of Azov. Misinformed American hawks emerging from the US Army War College even advocate that NATO should enter the Sea of Azov – a provocative act as far as Moscow is concerned. The Atlantic Council , which is essentially a mouthpiece of the powerful US weapons industry, is also pro-militarization. ..."
"... Rostislav Ischchenko , arguably the sharpest observer of Russia-Ukraine relations, in a piece written before the Kerch incident, said: "Ukraine itself recognized the right of Russia to introduce restrictions on the passage of ships and vessels through the Kerch Strait, having obeyed these rules in the summer." ..."
"... Thus a Kerch Strait incident designed as a cheap provocation, bearing all the hallmarks of a US think-tank ploy, is automatically interpreted as "Russian aggression", regardless of the facts. Indeed, any such tactics are good when it comes to derailing the Trump-Putin meeting at the G20 in Buenos Aires this coming weekend. ..."
"... Poroshenko's approval rate barely touches 8% . His chances of being re-elected, assuming polls are credible, are virtually zero. ..."
"... But the US would lose no sleep if they had to throw Poroshenko under the (Soviet) bus ..."
"... Poroshenko, wallowing in despair, may still ratchet up provocations. But the best he can aim at is NATO attempting to modernize the collapsing Ukrainian navy – an endeavor that would last years, with no guarantee of success. ..."
"... Feel sorry for the Ukrainians being used as tools. Before Obama-Hillary-and Pedo Biden overthrew the Democratically elected leader, people were just doing their normal stuff. Now they hide in bomb shelters and search for food at night. ..."
"... But vainglorious folks are not paying attention, and this is dangerous especially for Europe, and the pretenders in the Middle East, if it goes down, they too will go down, it's that simple and why? Because of military and security imperatives. Russia will take down, and out, any US or European ally in the M.E. lest, they open themselves up to flanking maneuvers. ..."
"... Putin already intimated of the current Russian mindset thus: "If you like, let's all go explain ourselves to God!". Do the neocons feel confident of cogent explanation to God, or do they even wish to come before him? I doubt it, and very much so, seeing as their hands are stained with the blood of innocents, and their hearts,plot evil continuously. ..."
"... And this my friends, viscerally demonstrates the wisdom of the founding fathers, especially Washington, who warned of "entangling alliances", buttressed a few generations later, by John Q. Adams, who re-advised "Go not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy". Pay attention folks, pay attention to the architects of the Republic, who knew what they were building, better than the "war loving battle dodging" chickenhawks who love to sip exotic drinks, while instructing others to kill for their depraved egos. ..."
"... NATO delenda est!... ..."
"... Poroshenko & Allies have a team of experts who spend 24/7 searching for the next provocation. Reminds me of May on this Brexit fiasco. ..."
"... This US coup of the Ukraine is turning out to be more hassle than its worth, a bankrupt corrupt country, installing Neo Nazi's as the first government was a big mistake, it could have been handled with more finesse, instead it was like a bull in a China shop. ..."
"... Poroshenko decided to not let a good crisis go to waste. ..."
"... Geopolitics and realpolitik, bitches. So much happening in the gas domain in Eastern Europe. Nordstream, Turkish Stream, BP stream, US LNG facilities in Greece, Poland and Germany, Russia supplying LNG to Germany, Cyprus-Greece-Israel drilling in the East Med, Turkey drilling in Cyprus EEZ. In the meanwhile I see gas infrastructure being build allover Eastern Europe, connecting houses to the grid. Gas heating and energy production is coming to Eastern Europe in addition to supplying Western Europe. The stakes are enormous and that what this is all about and that is why we can see more of this. ..."
"... Most of the Ukraine people hate Poroshenko and he knows he can't win re-election. He threatens Trump with dirt on Manafort, and demands Trump start a war. Or what? is the left in the US going to impeach Trump with the supposed Poroshenko dirt on Manafort? ..."
"... He was installed by Soros during the "Purple Color Revolution" (agent provocateurs with tiki torches getting violent to force a coup against the prior sitting President, a tactic attempted in Charlottesville only a couple years later) ..."
"... " Poroshenko's approval rate barely touches 8% . His chances of being re-elected, assuming polls are credible, are virtually zero. Little wonder he used the Kerch to declare martial law, effective this Wednesday, lasting for 30 days and bound to be extended. Poroshenko will be able to control the media and increase his chances of rigging the election. ..."
The West is complaining about Russian 'aggression' but the incident looks more like a cheap ploy by a desperate Ukrainian president
and US conservatives keen to undermine Trump's next pow-wow with Putin...
When the Ukrainian navy sent a tugboat and two small gunboats on Sunday to force their way through the Kerch Strait into the Sea
of Azov, it knew in advance the Russian response would be swift and merciless.
After all, Kiev was entering waters claimed by Russia with military vessels without clarifying their intent.
The intent, though, was clear; to raise the stakes in the militarization of the Sea of Azov.
The Kerch Strait connects the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea. To reach Mariupol, a key city in the Sea of Azov very close to the
dangerous dividing line between Ukraine's army and the pro-Russian militias in Donbass, the Ukrainian navy needs to go through the
Kerch.
Yet since Russia retook control of Crimea via a 2014 referendum, the waters around Kerch are de facto Russian territorial waters.
Kiev announced this past summer it would build a naval base in the Sea of Azov by the end of 2018. That's an absolute red line
for Moscow. Kiev may have to trade access to Mariupol, which, incidentally, also trades closely with the People's Republic of Donetsk.
But forget about military access.
And most of all, forget about supplying a Ukrainian military fleet in the port of Berdyansk capable of sabotaging the immensely
successful, Russian-built Crimean bridge .
Predictably, Western media has been complaining again about "Russian aggression", a gift that keeps on giving. Or blaming
Russia for its over-reaction, overlooking the fact that Ukraine's incursion was with military vessels, not fishing boats. Russian
resolve was quite visible, as powerful Ka-52 "Alligator" assault helicopters were promptly on the scene.
Washington and Brussels uncritically bought Kiev's "Russian aggression" hysteria, as well as the UN Security Council, which, instead
of focusing on the facts in the Kerch Strait incident, preferring to accuse Moscow once again of annexing Crimea in 2014.
The key point, overlooked by the UNSC, is that the Kerch incident configures Kiev's flagrant violation of articles 7, 19 and 21
of the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea .
I happened to be right in the middle of deep research in Istanbul over the geopolitics of the Black Sea when the Kerch incident
happened.
For the moment, it's crucial to stress what top Russian analysts have been pointing out in detail. My interlocutors in Istanbul
may disagree, but for all practical purposes, the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, in military terms, are de facto
Russian lakes.
At best, the Black Sea as a whole might evolve into a Russia-Turkey condominium, assuming President Erdogan plays his cards right.
Everyone else is as relevant, militarily, as a bunch of sardines.
Russia is able to handle anything – naval or aerial – intruding in the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea in a matter
ranging from seconds to just a few minutes. Every vessel moving in every corner of the Black Sea is tracked 24/7. Moscow knows it.
Kiev knows it. NATO knows it. And crucially, the Pentagon knows it.
Still, Kiev – "encouraged" by Washington – insists on militarizing the Sea of Azov. Misinformed
American hawks emerging
from the US Army War College even advocate that NATO should enter the Sea of Azov – a provocative act as far as Moscow is concerned.
The Atlantic
Council , which is essentially a mouthpiece of the powerful US weapons industry, is also pro-militarization.
Any attempt to alter the current, already wobbly status quo could lead Moscow to install a naval blockade in a flash and see the
annexation of Mariupol to the People's Republic of Donetsk, to which it is industrially linked anyway.
This would be regarded by the Kremlin as a move of last resort. Moscow certainly does not want it. Yet it's wise not to provoke
the Bear.
Cheap provocation
Rostislav
Ischchenko , arguably the sharpest observer of Russia-Ukraine relations, in a piece written before the Kerch incident, said:
"Ukraine itself recognized the right of Russia to introduce restrictions on the passage of ships and vessels through the Kerch Strait,
having obeyed these rules in the summer."
Yet, after the US Deep State's massive investment even before the protests on the Maidan in Kiev in 2014 that wrested Ukraine
away from Russian influence a possible entente cordiale between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, with Russia in control
of Crimea and a pro-Russian Donbass, could only be seen as a red line for the Americans.
Thus a Kerch Strait incident designed as a cheap provocation, bearing all the hallmarks of a US think-tank ploy, is automatically
interpreted as "Russian aggression", regardless of the facts. Indeed, any such tactics are good when it comes to derailing the
Trump-Putin
meeting at the G20 in Buenos Aires this coming weekend.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, chaos is the norm . President Petro Poroshenko is bleeding. The hryvnia is a hopeless currency. Kiev's
borrowing costs are at their highest level since a bond sale in 2018. This failed state has been under IMF "reform" since 2015 –
with no end in sight.
Poroshenko's approval rate barely touches 8% . His chances of being re-elected, assuming polls are credible, are virtually zero.
Little wonder he used the Kerch to declare martial law, effective this Wednesday, lasting for 30 days and bound to be extended. Poroshenko
will be able to control the media and increase his chances of rigging the election.
But the US would lose no sleep if they had to throw Poroshenko under the (Soviet) bus. Ukrainians will not die for his survival.
One of the captains at the Kerch incident surrendered his boat voluntarily to the Russians. When Russian Su-25s and Ka-52s started
to patrol the skies over the Kerch Strait, Ukrainian reinforcements instantly fled.
Poroshenko, wallowing in despair, may still ratchet up provocations. But the best he can aim at is NATO attempting to modernize
the collapsing Ukrainian navy – an endeavor that would last years, with no guarantee of success.
For the moment, forget all the rhetoric, and any suggestion of a NATO incursion into the Black Sea. Call it the calm before the
inevitable future storm
Feel sorry for the Ukrainians being used as tools. Before Obama-Hillary-and Pedo Biden overthrew the Democratically elected leader, people were just doing their normal stuff. Now they hide in bomb shelters and search for food at night.
The Bear has set the Trap, let NATO or whoever walk into it, but do so if they must, with the knowledge that it's a one way
ticket to hell. The Russians have been warning for years now, that one day, they'll have had enough and then..
But vainglorious folks are not paying attention, and this is dangerous especially for Europe, and the pretenders in the Middle
East, if it goes down, they too will go down, it's that simple and why? Because of military and security imperatives. Russia will
take down, and out, any US or European ally in the M.E. lest, they open themselves up to flanking maneuvers.
So someone, in this case, Europe, better tell, or force Poroshenko to tone it down, the Russians are not kidding around, this
is not a game, this is existential serious! Ukraine will go down, along with Poland, and the Baltics, if Russia feels, in any
way, shape, or manner, provoked beyond reason. Note the word "feels", some may play games, thinking it's just a game, Russia is
NOT playing games, not at all, not one bit.
Putin already intimated of the current Russian mindset thus: "If you like, let's all go explain ourselves to God!". Do the neocons feel confident of cogent explanation to God, or do they
even wish to come before him? I doubt it, and very much so, seeing as their hands are stained with the blood of innocents, and
their hearts,plot evil continuously.
Minsk was the best the Russians are willing to offer, from here on, the offer reduces exponentially, with every provocation
until there's no offer, just RAW discipline!
And this my friends, viscerally demonstrates the wisdom of the founding fathers, especially Washington, who warned of "entangling
alliances", buttressed a few generations later, by John Q. Adams, who re-advised "Go not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy".
Pay attention folks, pay attention to the architects of the Republic, who knew what they were building, better than the "war loving
battle dodging" chickenhawks who love to sip exotic drinks, while instructing others to kill for their depraved egos.
The biggest victims in all their failed adventures, are the US troops, folks who are deployed to fight wars which does nothing
to secure the Republic, but instead weakens the Republic, deprives the military of honor, capable recruits, and the economy, of
treasure, vigor, and vitality.
Poroshenko & Allies have a team of experts who spend 24/7 searching for the next provocation. Reminds me of May on this Brexit
fiasco.
When you're up ****-creek, Kerch, in this instance, you clutch at straws as the boat sinks.
With regard to NATO, they can't be involved as they're not imbeciles. Russia has provided the s300/Other upgraded Missile Defense
Systems to Syria, effectively nullifying Israeli's illegal incursions via Lebanon airspace, so what protections will Putin have
in place for one of his most strategic jurisdictions in his country? Rhetorical.
This US coup of the Ukraine is turning out to be more hassle than its worth, a bankrupt corrupt country, installing Neo Nazi's
as the first government was a big mistake, it could have been handled with more finesse, instead it was like a bull in a China
shop.
On the Crimea, let us all remember the following :
95% of Crimean's voted yes to joining Russia a result that western agencies, media etc have accepted as correct, This makes
it and the waters surrounding it Russian, I suspect the US would have a similar reaction if a couple of Russian gun boats cruised
unannounced into a US port and started doing donuts.
****** porkoshenko wont last until spring. ukraine is not a chocolate factory. a country too big for a chess piece. the best
move for trump is to stay out or invite willy wonka to pay a visit to us embassy and chop him off lol
Poroshenko decided to not let a good crisis go to waste.
Geopolitics and realpolitik, bitches. So much happening in the gas domain in Eastern Europe. Nordstream, Turkish Stream, BP
stream, US LNG facilities in Greece, Poland and Germany, Russia supplying LNG to Germany, Cyprus-Greece-Israel drilling in the
East Med, Turkey drilling in Cyprus EEZ. In the meanwhile I see gas infrastructure being build allover Eastern Europe, connecting
houses to the grid. Gas heating and energy production is coming to Eastern Europe in addition to supplying Western Europe. The
stakes are enormous and that what this is all about and that is why we can see more of this.
The cheap shot at Trump at the same time demanding action from Trump was Poroshenko's threat the Ukraine has dirt on Manafort.
How low can Poroshenko go?
Most of the Ukraine people hate Poroshenko and he knows he can't win re-election. He threatens Trump with dirt on Manafort,
and demands Trump start a war. Or what? is the left in the US going to impeach Trump with the supposed Poroshenko dirt on Manafort?
But asked if the Ukraine has any evidence that Manafort was getting paid directly by the Kremlin, Poroshenko said, "I am not
personally connected with the process.""
Not just undermine Trump/Putin meetings, but the big picture, Ukrainian "President" declaring martial law to suspend the election
he would no doubt lose.
He was installed by Soros during the "Purple Color Revolution" (agent provocateurs with tiki torches getting violent to force
a coup against the prior sitting President, a tactic attempted in Charlottesville only a couple years later)
" Poroshenko's approval rate barely touches 8% . His chances of being re-elected, assuming polls are credible, are virtually
zero. Little wonder he used the Kerch to declare martial law, effective this Wednesday, lasting for 30 days and bound to be extended.
Poroshenko will be able to control the media and increase his chances of rigging the election.
1891 -- Dr. Edward L. Bernays, lives, Wien, the "father of public relations" credited with
getting women to smoke & helping United Fruit overthrow Guatemalan President Arbenz; A
lovely piece of humanity: "with Bernays there is no consistency, no character, no integrity,
no conscience, no bravery, no truth." A nephew of Sigmund Freud (his sister Anna's son).
Would be perfect for the current 'Potemkin village' .
I'm not sure why Professor Li brings up the 'capitalist system' so prominently in the
article?
Perhaps I don't know the proper definition.
Seems to me that communist or socialist systems can produce just as much CO2.
Depends more on how many people, and their level of industrialization.
The only connection I can see is debt-fueled growth.
If you maximize the economic growth with as much debt as you can muster (borrowing from the
future economic production and wealth), you can grow far into overshoot. Like we have
now.
Perhaps this is more likely in a capitalist system. I'm not at all sure that is true.
Capitalism is simply the default system. The history of civilization has been a history of
capitalism. It has always been a dog eat dog world. To blame anything on capitalism is
nothing more than blaming it on human nature.
I would have said capitalism is simply the natural system. Other wise I think your right
on. Regulations are capitalism guard rails to a civil and successful society. Those who call
for a change to a different system are just ill informed.
There was no capitalist world system 500 years ago. Even 200 years ago, it was still
restricted to Western Hemisphere plus a fraction of Eurasia. In fact, even the English word
"capitalism" was not yet invented then. In 1848, Marx talked about "bourgeois society". So
there is not such a thing called "natural system"
Capitalism is very recent development.
First developed in Netherlands and England in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, and
wasn't part of the global world until colonization.
It will be gone shortly, as it needs a expanding economy.
What comes next?
Who knows?
Capitalism – an economic and political system in which a country's trade and
industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Synonyms:
free enterprise, private enterprise, the free market; enterprise culture
The free market has always existed, albeit at low percentage levels of total production,
which was mostly subsistence agriculture or hunting and gathering. It is certainly true that
capitalism has expanded greatly with the dramatic increase in production that came with
widespread use of fossil fuels, but the concept of private enterprise and private trade
didn't spring out of nothing. It was always there.
There were even private markets under pre-fossil-fuel feudalism, in which the politically
powerful were mostly concerned with defense and taxation. Lots of trade opportunities were
given to people by the state, but they were given to private enterprises. There were also
private traders operating without state support at the same time.
Even tribal groups engaged in trade, although it is often difficult to discern a
distinction between "the state" and "private enterprise" in tribal circumstances.
Capitalism as a word didn't exist but the mercantile economy (profitable trade) has been
going on well before money and money has been around for 5K years.
It seems to me that capitalism has no monopoly on damaging the environment. I'd suggest
rapidly destroying the environment is more a function of being an industrial economy, whether
capitalist or some other. Non-industrial economies seem to destroy the environment more
slowly.
First of all, people who lived in former socialist societies did not call these societies
"communism". That's an American expression later imposed on the rest of the world
Secondly, 20th century socialisms were a part of the capitalist world system and had to
play the system's basic game–economic growth
Thirdly, according to the world system theory (and agreed by many others), the essential
feature of capitalism is the pursuit of endless accumulation of capital.
Someone might say you can have market without growth. It is possible to have a non-growth
economy if the market is not dominant, like all the pre-capitalist societies. But if the
market is dominant, then you have competition everywhere and competition forces everyone to
pursue growth. If you do not grow, you fail and you are eliminated. That happens both to
individuals and countries
Lastly, at least a large minority of environmentalists agree that economic growth is
fundamentally incompatible with sustainability. So if you agree with point three and four,
you have to conclude that so long as capitalism exists, there is no hope for
sustainability.
a large minority of environmentalists agree that economic growth is fundamentally
incompatible with sustainability.
I would disagree. In fact, I'd say that some of the push for this idea has come from
ultra-conservatives like the Heartland Institute, which hopes to discredit
environmentalists.
Have you seen evidence for the idea that this is an idea held by a large minority of
environmentalists?
The article you provided starts with "To read the accounts in the mainstream media,
one gets the impression that renewable energy is being rolled out quickly and is on its way
to replacing fossil fuels without much ado, while generating new green jobs."
That's an explicit acknowledgement that the author is outside the mainstream.
it's fair to say that growth sustainability has yet to be proved
I would strongly disagree. I would describe the idea that investing in renewable power and
EVs would necessarily destroy economic growth as a fringe idea, outside the economic and
environmental mainstream. It is an extraordinary idea, which needs extraordinary
evidence.
For instance, I think it's fair to say that Germany is both an engineering and
environmental leader, and that the general consensus in German environmental circles is that
a transition away from FF is compatible with economic growth.
Yes, I understood. And I'm disagreeing. I think it's a small minority – a fringe.
The idea of a "large minority" suggests some degree of acceptance by the general
environmental community. It suggests that this is a strong contender in the "marketplace of
ideas". As the author of the article you provided acknowledged: he's out of the mainstream.
He's arguing to try to change that, but .his opinion is definitely outside the general
consensus. It's not generally considered a "strong contender".
Thirdly, according to the world system theory (and agreed by many others), the essential
feature of capitalism is the pursuit of endless accumulation of capital.
Well not really–
The essence is:
"The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage-labour and private ownership of the
means of who derive their income from the surplus product produced by the workers and
appropriated freely by the capitalists."
But agree– appropriate or die by the hands of those with greatest greed.
I've stopped using the term "capitalism" because it elicits so damn many knee-jerk reactions.
Of late, I always refer to "neoliberalism" and then if I feel like picking a fight, I'll
follow in parentheses (end-stage capitalism, that is). Neoliberalism is the end-stage of the
global economic system, in which I include China as well, because it's the period of total
rent-seeking (completely unearned wealth) and what I like to call The Mother Of All Asset
Bubbles (MOAAB).
All of U.S. energy policy since the Greatest Recession Ever, Dude began in Dec. 2007 has
been fostering full-out flat-out shale production in order to squash the less-diversified
energy-dependent economies such as Venezuela, Iran (where it hasn't succeeded, yet) and even
Russia (hasn't succeeded). But it's left the USA as the Hegemon of global energy at the
present moment.
This should leave the USA in the position for loads more unearned wealth-accumulation at
least until there is a bust in the fracked energy production. All this does is prolong the
length of the end stage of the economic system, in my humble opinion. At some point we'll
have to reckon with the end of the end stage.
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
"... The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects, was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution ..."
"... Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services. ..."
"... To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction." ..."
"The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects,
was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great
Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response
to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were
inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution that had occurred less than two decades before.
American capitalism could afford to make such concessions because of its economic
dominance. The past forty years have been characterized by the continued decline of American
capitalism on a world stage relative to its major rivals. The ruling class has responded to
this crisis with a social counterrevolution to claw back all gains won by workers. This has
been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations and with the assistance
of the trade unions.
Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have
pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate
bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services.
To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a
green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction."
I'm not sure why Professor Li brings up the 'capitalist system' so prominently in the
article?
Perhaps I don't know the proper definition.
Seems to me that communist or socialist systems can produce just as much CO2.
Depends more on how many people, and their level of industrialization.
The only connection I can see is debt-fueled growth.
If you maximize the economic growth with as much debt as you can muster (borrowing from the
future economic production and wealth), you can grow far into overshoot. Like we have
now.
Perhaps this is more likely in a capitalist system. I'm not at all sure that is true.
Capitalism is simply the default system. The history of civilization has been a history of
capitalism. It has always been a dog eat dog world. To blame anything on capitalism is
nothing more than blaming it on human nature.
I would have said capitalism is simply the natural system. Other wise I think your right
on. Regulations are capitalism guard rails to a civil and successful society. Those who call
for a change to a different system are just ill informed.
There was no capitalist world system 500 years ago. Even 200 years ago, it was still
restricted to Western Hemisphere plus a fraction of Eurasia. In fact, even the English word
"capitalism" was not yet invented then. In 1848, Marx talked about "bourgeois society". So
there is not such a thing called "natural system"
Capitalism is very recent development.
First developed in Netherlands and England in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, and
wasn't part of the global world until colonization.
It will be gone shortly, as it needs a expanding economy.
What comes next?
Who knows?
Capitalism – an economic and political system in which a country's trade and
industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Synonyms:
free enterprise, private enterprise, the free market; enterprise culture
The free market has always existed, albeit at low percentage levels of total production,
which was mostly subsistence agriculture or hunting and gathering. It is certainly true that
capitalism has expanded greatly with the dramatic increase in production that came with
widespread use of fossil fuels, but the concept of private enterprise and private trade
didn't spring out of nothing. It was always there.
There were even private markets under pre-fossil-fuel feudalism, in which the politically
powerful were mostly concerned with defense and taxation. Lots of trade opportunities were
given to people by the state, but they were given to private enterprises. There were also
private traders operating without state support at the same time.
Even tribal groups engaged in trade, although it is often difficult to discern a
distinction between "the state" and "private enterprise" in tribal circumstances.
Capitalism as a word didn't exist but the mercantile economy (profitable trade) has been
going on well before money and money has been around for 5K years.
It seems to me that capitalism has no monopoly on damaging the environment. I'd suggest
rapidly destroying the environment is more a function of being an industrial economy, whether
capitalist or some other. Non-industrial economies seem to destroy the environment more
slowly.
First of all, people who lived in former socialist societies did not call these societies
"communism". That's an American expression later imposed on the rest of the world
Secondly, 20th century socialisms were a part of the capitalist world system and had to
play the system's basic game–economic growth
Thirdly, according to the world system theory (and agreed by many others), the essential
feature of capitalism is the pursuit of endless accumulation of capital.
Someone might say you can have market without growth. It is possible to have a non-growth
economy if the market is not dominant, like all the pre-capitalist societies. But if the
market is dominant, then you have competition everywhere and competition forces everyone to
pursue growth. If you do not grow, you fail and you are eliminated. That happens both to
individuals and countries
Lastly, at least a large minority of environmentalists agree that economic growth is
fundamentally incompatible with sustainability. So if you agree with point three and four,
you have to conclude that so long as capitalism exists, there is no hope for
sustainability.
a large minority of environmentalists agree that economic growth is fundamentally
incompatible with sustainability.
I would disagree. In fact, I'd say that some of the push for this idea has come from
ultra-conservatives like the Heartland Institute, which hopes to discredit
environmentalists.
Have you seen evidence for the idea that this is an idea held by a large minority of
environmentalists?
The article you provided starts with "To read the accounts in the mainstream media,
one gets the impression that renewable energy is being rolled out quickly and is on its way
to replacing fossil fuels without much ado, while generating new green jobs."
That's an explicit acknowledgement that the author is outside the mainstream.
it's fair to say that growth sustainability has yet to be proved
I would strongly disagree. I would describe the idea that investing in renewable power and
EVs would necessarily destroy economic growth as a fringe idea, outside the economic and
environmental mainstream. It is an extraordinary idea, which needs extraordinary
evidence.
For instance, I think it's fair to say that Germany is both an engineering and
environmental leader, and that the general consensus in German environmental circles is that
a transition away from FF is compatible with economic growth.
Yes, I understood. And I'm disagreeing. I think it's a small minority – a fringe.
The idea of a "large minority" suggests some degree of acceptance by the general
environmental community. It suggests that this is a strong contender in the "marketplace of
ideas". As the author of the article you provided acknowledged: he's out of the mainstream.
He's arguing to try to change that, but .his opinion is definitely outside the general
consensus. It's not generally considered a "strong contender".
Thirdly, according to the world system theory (and agreed by many others), the essential
feature of capitalism is the pursuit of endless accumulation of capital.
Well not really–
The essence is:
"The capitalist mode of production proper, based on wage-labour and private ownership of the
means of who derive their income from the surplus product produced by the workers and
appropriated freely by the capitalists."
But agree– appropriate or die by the hands of those with greatest greed.
I've stopped using the term "capitalism" because it elicits so damn many knee-jerk reactions.
Of late, I always refer to "neoliberalism" and then if I feel like picking a fight, I'll
follow in parentheses (end-stage capitalism, that is). Neoliberalism is the end-stage of the
global economic system, in which I include China as well, because it's the period of total
rent-seeking (completely unearned wealth) and what I like to call The Mother Of All Asset
Bubbles (MOAAB).
All of U.S. energy policy since the Greatest Recession Ever, Dude began in Dec. 2007 has
been fostering full-out flat-out shale production in order to squash the less-diversified
energy-dependent economies such as Venezuela, Iran (where it hasn't succeeded, yet) and even
Russia (hasn't succeeded). But it's left the USA as the Hegemon of global energy at the
present moment.
This should leave the USA in the position for loads more unearned wealth-accumulation at
least until there is a bust in the fracked energy production. All this does is prolong the
length of the end stage of the economic system, in my humble opinion. At some point we'll
have to reckon with the end of the end stage.
Ignore the day-to-day moves in the markets, in the big picture, some MAJOR is happening
namely, that the Everything Bubble is bursting.
By creating a bubble in sovereign bonds, the bedrock of the current financial system,
Central Banks created a bubble in EVERYTHING. After all, if the risk-free rate of return is at
FAKE level based on Central Bank intervention ALL risk assets will eventually adjust to FAKE
levels.
This whole mess starting blowing up in February when we saw the bubble in passive investing/
shorting volatility start to blow up (some investment vehicles based on these strategies lost
85% in just three days).
The media and Wall Street swept that mess under the rug which allowed the contagion to start
spreading to other, more senior asset classes like corporate bonds.
The US Corporate bond market took 50 years to reach $3 trillion. It doubled that in the last
9 years, bringing it to its current level of $6 trillion.
This debt issuance was a DIRECT of result of the Fed's intervention in the bond markets.
With the weakest recovery on record, US corporations experienced little organic growth. As a
result, many of them resorted to financial engineering through which they issued debt and then
used the proceeds to buyback shares.
This:
Juiced their Earnings Per Share (the same earnings, spread over fewer shares= better
EPS).
Provided the stock market with a steady stream of buyers, which
Lead to higher options-based compensation for executives.
If you think this sounds a lot like a Ponzi scheme that relies on a bubble in corporate
debt, you're correct. And that Ponzi scheme is now blowing up. The question now is
how bad will it get?"
VERY bad.
The IMF estimates about 20% of U.S. corporate assets could be at risk of default if
rates rise – some are in the energy sector but it also includes companies in real
estate and utilities. Exchange-traded funds that buy junk bonds, like iShares iBoxx $
High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (HYG) and the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF (JNK),
could be among the most vulnerable if credit risks rise. iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade
Corporate Bond ETF (LQD) could also suffer.
Source: Barron's
With a $6 trillion market, a 20% default rate would mean some $1.2 trillion in corporate
debt blowing up: an amount roughly equal to Spain's GDP .
This process is officially underway.
Credit Markets Are Bracing for Something Bad
Cracks in corporate debt lead market commentary.
the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index losing more than 3.5 percent and on
track for its worst year since 2008.
Source: Bloomberg
Indeed, the chart for US corporate junk bonds is downright UGLY.
This is just the beginning. As contagion spreads we expect more and more junior debt
instruments to default culminating in full-scale sovereign debt defaults in the developed world
(Europe comes to mind).
This will coincide with a stock market crash that will make 2008 look like a picnic.
Again, the markets are going to CRASH. The time to prepare is now BEFORE this happens.
On that note we just published a 21-page investment report titled Stock Market Crash
Survival Guide .
In it, we outline precisely how the crash will unfold as well as which investments will
perform best during a stock market crash.
Today is the last day this report will be available to the public. We extended the deadline
into the weekend based on last week's action, but this is IT no more extensions.
And so . . . Sovereign Wealth Funds and Shale. Are they funding those loans?
Answer -- not really. There was a hyped announcement of Singapore's SWF sending money to
Chesapeake. But that was in 2010.
Reporters who dare to look into this don't seem to find much. They retreat to the
sanctuary of narrative. Something like this "With renewables smashing oil's future, SWFs that
are mostly funded by oil and gas are reluctant to invest in anything related to oil or
gas."
Uh huh.
Worth noting that China has 4 SWFs that clearly were not funded by oil or gas -- but they
aren't really SWFs either. They are just money in accounts at the PBOC and of course that
entity can declare itself to have whatever amount it wishes (just like the Fed's Balance
Sheet). (Note surprisingly in this context that Hong Kong (listed as one of China's) has a
"SWF" of about 1/2 trillion dollars, which is absurd). But . . . China's money isn't oil or
gas derived and even they aren't pouring into profitable oil or gas so diversification may
not be the motivator in this. (Venezuela doesn't count, there will be no profit there)
BTW narrative embracers, y'all might want to examine why Tesla's stock didn't fall.
Answer, Saudi's SWF owns 5% of the company in total and they don't sell more or less any of
their holdings. This is a common trait of SWFs. They seldom sell anything. tra la tra la
Last but not least, and wow this is intriguing, there is CONSIDERABLE talk of the UK
creating a SWF funded by shale gas that hasn't flowed yet. Gotta be an agenda there.
Crude oil – The recent spike highs in crude oil exports must be coming from
inventory draws. As the sum of refinery processing plus net crude oil exports is higher than
crude oil production.
Chart https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds2Aqz9WsAANjjJ.jpg
Twitter – Donald J. Trump
So great that oil prices are falling (thank you President T). Add that, which is like a big
Tax Cut, to our other good Economic news. Inflation down (are you listening Fed)!
1:46 pm – 25 Nov 2018 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
What exactly is going to change if the Fed suspends it's increases? Dollar liquidity is still
going to be an issue globally. Low oil price means less dollar liquidity particularly outside
USA. Market demands nothing less than full blown more QE and lower interest rates. There is
globally about 20 times the amount of dollar denominated debt as there is physical dollars to
service that debt. That is what happens when the FED drops interest rates from 5.25% to
0.25%. Everybody borrowed dollars. FED can't exit without putting us right back where we were
in 2009. They also can't continue. Why can't they continue? Answer is simple, the amount they
create to keep things going has to be an ever increasing amount at an ever lower interest
rate. Otherwise debt deflation happens. They hit a brick wall and can do nothing. So they
will try to deflate it a little at a time. By raising interest rates and unwinding QE a
little at a time. Then something major happens and it deflates a bunch all at once.
Update 4 : A UN Security Council meeting has been called for 11am
tomorrow after Ukraine incident with Russia, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a
tweet.
* * *
Update 3 : according to media reports, on Monday Ukraine's president will propose imposing
military law, amid the ongoing crisis with Russia.
* * *
Update 2: This is the moment when the escalating crisis started...
* * *
Update 1: Following reports from the Ukraine navy that Russian ships had fired on Ukraine
vessels near the Kerch Strait, Ukraine accused Moscow of also illegally seizing three of its
naval ships - the "Berdyansʹk" and "Nikopolʹ" Gurza-class small armored artillery
boats and a raid tug A-947 "Jani Kapu" - off Crimea on Sunday after opening fire on them, a
charge that if confirmed could ignite a dangerous new crisis between the two countries.
As reported earlier, Russia did not immediately respond to the allegation, but Russian news
agencies cited the FSB security service as saying it had incontrovertible proof that Ukraine
had orchestrated what it called "a provocation" and would make its evidence public soon.
According to media reports, Russia said it has "impounded" three Ukrainian naval ships after
they crossed the border with Russia
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko immediately called a meeting with his top
military and security chiefs to discuss the situation.
Separately, the EU has urged both sides to rapidly de-escalate the tense situation at the
Kerch strait:
*EU URGES UKRAINE, RUSSIA TO DE-ESCALATE SITUATION AT STRAIT
*UKRAINE, RUSSIA SHOULD ACT W/ `UTMOST RESTRAINT', EU SAYS
*EU URGES RUSSIA TO RESTORE FREEDOM OF PASSAGE AT KERCH STRAIT
NATO has confirmed it is "closely monitoring" developments and is calling for "restraint and
de-escalation"...
" NATO is closely monitoring developments in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, and we are
in contact with the Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint and de-escalation.
NATO fully supports Ukraine's sovereignty and its territorial integrity, including its
navigational rights in its territorial waters. We call on Russia to ensure unhindered access
to Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law.
At the Brussels Summit in July, NATO leaders expressed their support to Ukraine, and made
clear that Russia's ongoing militarisation of Crimea, the Black Sea, and the Azov Sea pose
further threats to Ukraine's independence and undermines the stability of the broader region.
"
Finally, Ukraine has called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting over 'Russian
aggression' while Ukraine's secretary for national security, Oleksander Turchynov, accused
Russia of engaging in an act of war: "We heard reports on incident and have concluded that it
was an act of war by Russian Federation against Ukraine"
* * *
As we detailed earlier, the Ukrainian navy has accused Russia of opening fire on some of its
ships in the Black Sea, striking one vessel, and wounding a crew member.
In a statement on its Facebook page , the Ukrainian navy said the
Russian military vessels opened fire on Ukrainian warships after they had left the 12-mile zone
near the Kerch Strait, leaving one man wounded, and one Ukrainian vessel damaged and
immobilized, adding that Russian warships "shoot to kill."
Ukraine accused a Russian coastguard vessel, named the Don, of ramming one of its tugboats
in "openly aggressive actions". The incident allegedly took place as three Ukrainian navy boats
- including two small warships - headed for the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, an area of
heightened tensions between the countries.
Russia accused Ukraine of illegally entering the area and deliberately provoking a
conflict.
Sky News reports that the Ukrainian president has called an emergency session of his war
cabinet in response to the incident.
"Today's dangerous events in the Azov Sea testify that a new front of [Russian] aggression
is open," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa said.
"Ukraine [is] calling now for emergency meeting of United Nations Security Council."
It comes after a day of rising tensions off the coast of Crimea, and especially around the
Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from mainland Russia after Ukrainian vessels allegedly
violated the Russian border. The passage was blocked by a cargo ship and fighter jets were
scrambled.
According to RT , Russia has
stopped all navigation through the waterway using the cargo ship shown above. Videos from the
scene released by the Russian media show a large bulk freighter accompanied by two Russian
military boats standing under the arch of the Crimea Bridge and blocking the only passage
through the strait.
"The [Kerch] strait is closed for security reasons," the Director-General of the Crimean sea
ports, Aleksey Volkov, told TASS, confirming earlier media reports.
Russian Air Force Su-25 strike fighters were also scrambled to provide additional security
for the strait as the situation remains tense. The move came as five Ukrainian Navy ships had
been approaching the strait from two different sides.
According to RT, two Ukrainian artillery boats and a tugboat initially approached the strait
from the Black Sea while "undertaking dangerous maneuvers" and "defying the lawful orders of
the Russian border guards." Later, they were joined by two more military vessels that departed
from a Ukrainian Azov Sea port of Berdyansk sailing to the strait from the other side.
The Russian federal security agency FSB, which is responsible for maintaining the country's
borders, denounced the actions of the Ukrainian ships as a provocation, adding that they could
create a "conflict situation" in the region. According to the Russian media reports, the
Ukrainian vessels are still sailing towards the strait, ignoring the warnings of the Russian
border guards.
According to
Reuters , a bilateral treaty gives both countries the right to use the sea, which lies
between them and is linked by the narrow Kerch Strait to the Black Sea. Moscow is able to
control access between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea after it built a bridge that straddles
the Kerch Strait between Crimea and southern Russia.
Reuters adds that tensions surfaced on Sunday after Russia tried to intercept three
Ukrainian ships -- two small armored artillery vessels and a tug boat -- in the Black Sea,
accusing them of illegally entering Russian territorial waters.
The Ukrainian navy said a Russian border guard vessel had rammed the tug boat, damaging it
in an incident it said showed Russia was behaving aggressively and illegally. It said its
vessels had every right to be where they were and that the ships had been en route from the
Black Sea port of Odessa to Mariupol, a journey that requires them to go through the Kerch
Strait.
Meanwhile, Russia's border guard service accused Ukraine of not informing it in advance of
the journey, something Kiev denied, and said the Ukrainian ships had been maneuvering
dangerously and ignoring its instructions with the aim of stirring up tensions.
It pledged to end to what it described as Ukraine's "provocative actions", while Russian
politicians lined up to denounce Kiev, saying the incident looked like a calculated attempt by
President Petro Poroshenko to increase his popularity ahead of an election next year. Ukraine's
foreign ministry said in a statement it wanted a clear response to the incident from the
international community.
"Russia's provocative actions in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have crossed the line and
become aggressive," it said. "Russian ships have violated our freedom of maritime navigation
and unlawfully used force against Ukrainian naval ships."
Both countries have accused each other of harassing each other's shipping in Sea of Azov in
the past and the U.S. State Department in August said Russia's actions looked designed to
destabilize Ukraine, which has two major industrial ports there.
It is clear that Poroshenko wants to stay in power. And this is one of the ways to increase Poroshenko chances on forthcoming
elections. It is simultaneously increase chances for him to land in jail as Timoshenko does not looks kindly on such blatant
attempts to hijack elections.
Unwilling to simply accept Poroshenko's claims that he had heard reliable whispers about an
imminent Russian invasion, opposition figures pressed Poroshenko on his reasoning for the
emergency measures, and ultimately succeeded in forcing him to water down the proposal. But
even before Poroshenko's decree won the approval of lawmakers, the Ukrainian president had
already started deploying troops into the streets of his country.
Now in a state of martial law, Ukraine has called up its reservists and deployed all
available troops to join the mobilization. Initially expected to last for two months,
Poroshenko revised his degree to avoid accusations that he would try to interfere in the
upcoming Ukrainian election. The decree passed by the Rada will leave martial law in effect for
30 days. The country has also started restricting travel for Russian nationals. NATO Commander
Jens Stoltenberg told the Associated Press that
Poroshenko had given his word that the order wouldn't interfere with the upcoming vote. The
conflict between the Ukraine and Russia exploded into life on Sunday
when Russian ships fired on two Ukrainian artillery ships and rammed a tugboat as the ships
traveled toward the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. Russia's
mighty Black Sea fleet has taken the three ships and their crew into custody, and has so far
ignored calls to release the soldiers by the UN, European leaders and Poroshenko himself.
US officials criticized Russia for its "aggressive" defense of the Kerch Strait, which
Ukraine has a right to use according to a bilateral treaty. After Nikki Haley said during an
emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that Russia was making it "impossible" to have
normal relations with the US, Mike Pompeo said Russia's "aggressive action" was a "dangerous
escalation" and also "violates international law." He also advocated for Poroshenko and Russian
President Vladimir Putin to engage in direct talks. Russia says the ships disobeyed orders to
halt, and that Ukraine had failed to notify Russia of the ships' advance. Ukraine claims that
it did notify Russia, and that the incident is the result of "growing Russian aggression." Six
Ukrainian crewmen were injured in the Russian attack, which was the first act of violence
between the two nations since the annexation of Crimea.
Chief diplomats from both countries traded accusations of provocations and "deliberate
hostility."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin tweeted that the dispute was not an accident and
that Russia had engaged in "deliberately planned hostilities," while Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov blamed Kiev for what he described as a "provocation," adding that "Ukraine had
undoubtedly hoped to get additional benefits from the situation, expecting the U.S. and
Europe to blindly take the provocateurs' side."
Poroshenko said the martial law was necessary because Ukraine was facing nothing short of a
all-out ground invasion.
Poroshenko said it was necessary because of intelligence about "a highly serious threat of
a ground operation against Ukraine." He did not elaborate.
"Martial law doesn't mean declaring a war," he said. "It is introduced with the sole
purpose of boosting Ukraine's defense in the light of a growing aggression from Russia."
But the president's plans to impose martial law throughout the country were rebuffed as the
opposition forced a compromise where troops will only be deployed in 10 border provinces. These
provinces share borders with Russia, Belarus and the Trans-Dniester, a pro-Moscow breakaway
region of Moldova.
Still, many remained skeptical. Opposition figures, including former President Yulia
Tymoshenko pointed out that the order would give soldiers broad latitude to do pretty much
whatever they want. Furthermore, Ukraine never called for martial law during the insurgency in
the east that erupted back in 2014, eventually leading to an armed conflict that killed more
than 10,000.
The approved measures included a partial mobilization and strengthening of air defenses.
It also contained vaguely worded steps such as "strengthening" anti-terrorism measures and
"information security" that could curtail certain rights and freedoms.
But Poroshenko also pledged to respect the rights of Ukrainian citizens.
[...]
Despite Poroshenko's vow to respect individual rights, opposition lawmaker and former
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko warned before the vote that his proposal would lead to the
possible illegal searches, invasion of privacy and curtailing of free speech.
"This means they will be breaking into the houses of Ukrainians and not those of the
aggressor nation," noted Tymoshenko, who is leading in various opinion polls. "They will be
prying into personal mail, family affairs ... In fact, everything that is written here is a
destruction of the lives of Ukrainians."
Poroshenko's call also outraged far-right groups in Ukraine that have advocated severing
diplomatic ties with Russia. Hundreds of protesters from the National Corps party waved
flares in the snowy streets of Kiev outside parliament and accused the president of using
martial law to his own ends.
But Poroshenko insisted it was necessary because what happened in the Kerch Strait between
Crimea and the Russian mainland "was no accident," adding that "this was not the culmination
of it yet."
His critics reacted to his call for martial law with suspicion, wondering why Sunday's
incident merited such a response. With his approval ratings in free fall following a series of
corruption scandals, Poroshenko's enemies worry that the incident may have been stage-managed
to give the president an excuse to crack down on dissent and free movement ahead of the
vote.
And then there is Yulia Tymoshenko who is doing well in the polls. That crazy bitch said
that the separatists in the East should be nuked. Ukraine gave up on its nukes though.
Wise lesson for the West here: All politicians in Eastern Europe -whatever country and
whatever party- are sick psychopaths. Not that ours are any better. Yet, people keep voting
for them.
Perhaps but Putin has more interest to keep the situation as it is. Russian gas needs to
keep flowing into Europe. Russia needs that cash cow that the US is trying to disrupt .
One of my Russian mates sent me a link to a Russian news website and according to the
iskra-news.info last night ,Ukrainian gold reserves (40 sealed boxes) were loaded on an
unidentified transport aircraft in Kiev's Borispol airport. The plane took off
immediately.
So my guess is, that is if indeed this report is true it either means the new ruling elite
have stolen the gold bullion or perhaps their is a legitimate fear of the Russians taking
possession of this bullion, whatever the facts, it still looks very shady indeed.
Conclusion
Official narrative: gold bullion is going to USA (maybe to reassure the Germans their gold
is in safe hands, after all the despite numerous requests from the German Govt The Feds have
not given access for them to even view their Gold Bullion) . Real narrative: probably to
Switzerland where it is divided between Yulia Tymoshenko and her cronies.
Once again I simply implore one ACTUAL journalist to report on what's happening there.
Beside the mercenary sociopaths that took in millions off the first round of
"freedom".
Russia is a hurt and vulnerable nation.
The US has ginormous truth issues never to be resolved
Hence the Goths and Barbarians will agree that once more......Rome is burning
Btw, not defending Russia and as convoluted as it sounds my point is truth has been lost
even in this Instagram milli-second of info slop offering by those who are not standing in
the snow covered mud of unbiased reality
The last time Poroshenko, the US man in Ukraine (OU) as he was referred to in US
diplomatic cables from 2006 and exposed by Wkikleads, got the Ukes into a war with the
Eastern oblasts, a lot of Ukrainians got killed.
Poor buggers were crushed and they should never have been there. The US / McCain et al
used them as cannon fodder.
The Uke military had rotted after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and that was largely
because their corrupt leaders never gave any consideration to going to war against anyone,
other than political war against each other to determine who got the biggest slice from
plundering the state.
The plundering continues, only now there is scant left for the general population.
After the US putsch, income per capita dropped by approx a third, cost of living doubled
and tax collection was hampered even more than before because the average Uke had no money
left to pay taxes so they went underground. and paid off local officials just to let them
make a living doing whatever the could..
"Why would Russia want Ukraine in the first place?".
Lets see.....so they can fund an addition 50 million lazy ***** and pick up the tab for 25
million fat, diabetes ridden BROKE Ukrainian pensioners?
So Russia can sink tens of billions into Ukraine's bankrupt healthcare system?
Where is the upside for Russia?
Putin can add, he is not in the least bit interested in ruling Ukraine, he'd just as well
seal the ******* boarder and be done with it, in fact its what he is doing. Once those
alternate pipe lines are in there will be a 5,000 km fence and the Ukes can freeze in the
dark on their own.
Russia isn't interested in taking any country, the countries are warming up to Russia and
China. This is pissing off mushroom head and band of gypsies in DC. The failing empire
looking for a war.
"Please stop using incorrect US government propaganda language in your
articles."
US Intel cant remember everything remember they have an agenda to push. It might be a
truther website for the people posting but it is also a intel gathering site to keep abreast
of how some of the sheeple really feel. What better way to get the sheeple to open up?
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
"... The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects, was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution ..."
"... Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services. ..."
"... To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction." ..."
"The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects,
was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great
Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response
to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were
inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution that had occurred less than two decades before.
American capitalism could afford to make such concessions because of its economic
dominance. The past forty years have been characterized by the continued decline of American
capitalism on a world stage relative to its major rivals. The ruling class has responded to
this crisis with a social counterrevolution to claw back all gains won by workers. This has
been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations and with the assistance
of the trade unions.
Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have
pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate
bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services.
To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a
green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction."
Christine Blasey Ford Thanks America For $650,000 Payday, Hopes Life "Will Return To
Normal"
by Tyler Durden
Tue, 11/27/2018 - 17:30 171 SHARES
Amid the sound and fury of the disgusting antics of the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS nomination
process, one of the main defenses of Christine Balsey Ford's sudden recollection of an '80s
sexual assault was simply "...why would she lie... what's in it for her?"
Certainly, the forced publicity by Dianne Feinstein and public questioning guaranteed her 15
minutes of fame (and perhaps even more infamy if Kavanaugh's nomination had failed) but now, in
a statement thanking everyone who had supported her, Ford is "hopeful that our lives will
return to normal."
The full statement was posted to her GoFundMe page :
Words are not adequate to thank all of you who supported me since I came forward to tell
the Senate that I had been sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. Your tremendous outpouring
of support and kind letters have made it possible for us to cope with the immeasurable
stress, particularly the disruption to our safety and privacy. Because of your support, I
feel hopeful that our lives will return to normal.
The funds you have sent through GoFundMe have been a godsend. Your donations have allowed
us to take reasonable steps to protect ourselves against frightening threats, including
physical protection and security for me and my family, and to enhance the security for our
home. We used your generous contributions to pay for a security service, which began on
September 19 and has recently begun to taper off; a home security system; housing and
security costs incurred in Washington DC, and local housing for part of the time we have been
displaced. Part of the time we have been able to stay with our security team in a residence
generously loaned to us.
With immense gratitude, I am closing this account to further contributions. All funds
unused after completion of security expenditures will be donated to organizations that
support trauma survivors. I am currently researching organizations where the funds can best
be used. We will use this space to let you know when that process is complete.
Although coming forward was terrifying, and caused disruption to our lives, I am grateful
to have had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty. Having done so, I am in awe of the many
women and men who have written me to share similar life experiences, and now have bravely
shared their experience with friends and family, many for the first time. I send you my
heartfelt love and support.
I wish I could thank each and every one of you individually. Thank you.
Christine
Well one thing is for sure - she has almost 650 thousand reasons why life since
the accusations could be more comfortable...
Here's an interesting fact: Her immediate family (siblings and parents) wants nothing to
do with her. They refused to sign a petition of support created by "close family and
friends", they refused to make any supporting statements and they refused to show up to the
hearings.
Sorry doesn't seem like much money to me at all. Put family through all that for that
amount? Risk ones families welfare and safety for that amount and a bad name? One would have
to be a total idiot or crazy for that.
Wanders in, belches out a pack of lies, destroys an entire family's lives, tears a big
chunk out of the social fabric of the country, collects a huge payday and hits the beach for
the rest of her life, or at least the portion not dedicated to indoctrinating yound
minds.
She is at least as much of a Democrat as Obama ever was.
Disgusting female. Brett Kavanaugh and his family donated the gomfund me set up for his
family, to a charity for abused women.
Ford has a second go fund me which raised more, to,pay for legals, she has made a fortune,
has a 3 million plus home, and whatever she was given for this charade. And the abortion drug
company interest. Plus the google renting illegally events thru the second fromt door.
Kavanaugh has an ordinary car, a simple home worth 1.3 million and a debt of 860,000.
Always been an employee so never the big paycheck like Avenatti got.
volunteers for homeless. Plus the sports coaching for school, kids and lecturing...both no
more.
In essence this is the largest casino in the world, created by casino capitalism. Previously
only wealthy individuals owned stocks. Now everybody owed them via thier 401K (which in recession
can easily become 201K ;-). In 2008 S&P500 touched the level of around 700. Does this mean
that the it was oversold? And what would happen to him if the government will not pushed
trillions to large banks, and some of those money went into S&p500.
Notable quotes:
"... There is no magic valuation level that supports high-flying stocks. They are driven by sentiment in both directions. ..."
"... That gets to the oft-quoted notion of "support." Does it really exist? Is there a level at which assets are just "too cheap" relative to their intrinsic values and therefore must be bought regardless of prevailing market trends? ..."
"... The mistake many market observers often make is to attribute all selloffs to gyrations in sentiment and to misunderstand that stock booms are driven by that exact factor -- in reverse. Sentiment will always rule market pricing in the short-term. ..."
Stocks quotes in this article: AAPL , NFLX , FB , AMZN , F , GE , IBM , T , GOOGLThere is no magic valuation level
that supports high-flying stocks. They are driven by sentiment in both directions.
It's on now. The markets are in full-blown correction mode.
I hope the truncated trading day on Friday did not escape your attention, because it
continued a negative price trend for stocks that began in late-September. The question now is:
How low can we go?
That gets to the oft-quoted notion of "support." Does it really exist? Is there a level
at which assets are just "too cheap" relative to their intrinsic values and therefore must be
bought regardless of prevailing market trends?
The mistake many market observers often make is to attribute all selloffs to gyrations
in sentiment and to misunderstand that stock booms are driven by that exact factor -- in
reverse. Sentiment will always rule market pricing in the short-term. That was just as
true with Apple ( AAPL ) at $220 per share as it is with
Apple at $172 per share, Netflix ( NFLX ) at $420 and $258 and on and on
down the list. Portfolio managers were buying Facebook ( FB ) above $200 per share and Amazon (
AMZN ) above
$2,000 because they had to, though, not based on innately unquantifiable, voodoo metrics such
as "disruption."
I am basing that statement on my regular conversations with fund managers at very large
asset managers, and of course no one can definitively take the pulse of every player in the
market. That is the great divide between individuals (my clients at Portfolio Guru LLC) and
institutions (pension funds, insurance companies, college endowments, sovereign wealth funds,
etc.)
Individuals want their portfolio values to rise. Period. Institutions want their portfolios
to outperform their carefully selected benchmarks over specific time periods on a risk-adjusted
basis.
So, that's what creates high-flying stocks to begin with. Portfolio managers need to
overweight the biggest names in the market -- owning more Apple, for instance, than its
weighting in the chosen benchmark would require, not simply owning or not owning Apple. In a
rising market that has a beneficial effect on valuations of those names.
If every portfolio manager needs to buy more Apple, Apple's share price will go up, making
it a larger component of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. As Apple's weighting increases, those
fund managers would have to -- you guessed it -- buy more Apple!
The circularity of that logic is undeniable, but I am telling you that's how the market for
big-cap stocks works. Please remember the men and women pulling those levers are responsible
for much, much larger asset bases than you are. So they will always move the markets, even if
history has proven their timing to be poor more often than it is excellent.
Bottom line: High-flying stocks are driven by sentiment in both directions, thus there is no
magic valuation level that supports them.
This is quite apparent in the charts of "fallen angel" stocks such as Ford ( F ) , General Electric (
GE ) , IBM (
IBM ) , and
AT&T ( T ) . The
market hates those stocks no more the day after Thanksgiving than it did the day after
Independence Day, but certainly no less, either. An investor could generate hours of amusement
by Googling "this is a bottom for..." and then entering in any of those names. So many pundits,
so many bad support level calls.
So, value traps are no way to ride out a market correction, but what about the stocks that
brought us into that correction? Are the FAANG names -- Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Apple
and Alphabet ( GOOGL ) (parent company of Google) --
destined to end up in the "hate pile" with GE and IBM? God, I hope not. That's the difference
between a pullback and a crash and, by implication, the difference between a depression and a
recession.
My analysis shows that buying Apple at 13x next year's earnings -- which implies a price of
$172.55, slightly above Friday's close -- has been a lucrative strategy in the past three
years. That said, I am worried that the steady stream of noise about production cuts from
Apple's suppliers implies Wall Street's estimates for Apple's fiscal 2019 earnings are
inflated. So I am not buying Apple today.
And so it goes. Chicken and egg. Is the stock market telling us the global economy is
slowing or is the global economy slowing driving down prices for assets, especially oil, thus
creating an economic slowdown? Crude's decline has spooked the market to no end, but so has
Apple's decline. And Netflix's and Facebook's.
At the end of the day, all securities are assets on someone's balance sheet. Gold, oil,
stocks, bonds, really anything on your screen except crypto, which is very very difficult to
clear and hence to accurately value. Anything that can be physically transferred can be sold,
and in a downturn that can be a sobering thought. Don't forget it.
Get an email alert each
time I write an article for Real Money. Click the "+Follow" next to my byline to this article.
"... "The 10 Bcm/year into Europe is not a game-changer from a volume point of view, but it is a game-changer from a new source of product into mainland Europe perspective and it can be expanded." ..."
"... Meanwhile, however, Russia and Turkey are building another pipeline, Turkish Stream, that will supply gas to Turkey and Eastern Europe, as well as possibly Hungary. The two recently marked the completion of its subsea section. Turkish Stream will have two lines, each able to carry up to 15.75 billion cubic meters. One will supply the Turkish market and the other European countries. ..."
"... In this context, the Southern Gas Corridor seems to have more of a political rather than practical significance for the time being , giving Europe the confidence that it could at some future point import a lot more Caspian gas because the infrastructure is there. ..."
The Southern Gas Corridor on which the European Union is pinning most of its hopes for
natural gas supply diversification away from Russia is coming along nicely and will not just be
on schedule, but it will come with a price tag that is US$5-billion lower than the original
budget , BP's vice president in charge of the project
told S&P Global Platts this week.
"Often these kinds of mega-projects fall behind schedule. But the way the projects have
maintained the schedule has meant that your traditional overspend, or utilization of
contingency, has not occurred," Joseph Murphy said, adding that savings had been the top
priority for the supermajor.
The Southern Gas Corridor will carry natural gas from the Azeri Shah Deniz 2 field in the
Caspian Sea to Europe via a network of three pipelines : the Georgia South Caucasus Pipeline,
which was recently expanded and can carry 23 billion cubic meters of gas; the TANAP pipeline
via Turkey, with a peak capacity of 31 billion cubic meters annually; and the Trans-Adriatic
Pipeline, or TAP, which will link with TANAP at the Turkish-Greek border and carry 10 billion
cubic meters of gas annually to Italy.
TANAP was
commissioned in July this year and the first phase of TAP is expected to be completed in
two years, so Europe will hopefully have more non-Russian gas at the start of the new decade.
But not that much, at least initially: TANAP will operate at an initial capacity of 16 billion
cubic meters annually, of which 6 billion cubic meters will be supplied to Turkey and the
remainder will go to Europe. In the context of total natural gas demand of 564 billion cubic
meters in 2020, according to a forecast from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies released
earlier this year, this is not a lot.
Yet at some point the TANAP will reach its full capacity and hopefully by that time, TAP
will be completed. Surprisingly, it was the branch to Italy that proved the most challenging,
and BP's Murphy acknowledged that. While Turkey built TANAP on time to the surprise of the
project operator, TAP has been struggling because of legal issues and uncertainty after the new
Italian government entered office earlier this year.
At the time, the government of Giuseppe Conte said the pipeline was pointless but, said
Murphy, since then he has accepted the benefits the infrastructure would offer, such as transit
fees. And yet local opposition in southern Italy remains strong but BP still sees first
deliveries of gas through Italy in 2020.
The BP executive admitted that at first the Southern Gas Corridor wouldn't make a
splash.
"The 10 Bcm/year into Europe is not a game-changer from a volume point of view, but it is
a game-changer from a new source of product into mainland Europe perspective and it can be
expanded."
Meanwhile, however, Russia and Turkey are building another pipeline, Turkish Stream, that
will supply gas to Turkey and Eastern Europe, as well as possibly Hungary. The two recently
marked the completion of its subsea section. Turkish Stream will have two lines, each able to
carry up to 15.75 billion cubic
meters. One will supply the Turkish market and the other European countries.
In this context, the Southern Gas Corridor seems to have more of a political rather than
practical significance for the time being , giving Europe the confidence that it could at some
future point import a lot more Caspian gas because the infrastructure is there.
Strangely, I found the attached image after making the above post (or else I would have
included it). In the image you can see Al-Waleed bin Talal, and look who is with him! They seem
pretty chummy.
On 11/24/2018 at 4:14 AM,
Qanoil said: think especially of alwaleed bin talal
who was the largest
shareholder in citigroup (who,
thanks to wikileaks was found to have
selected nearly every member of
hussein obama's cabinet
I also heard that Al-Waleed bankrolled Obama's education at Harvard and got him started
in politics. Supposedly, here is the source:
"When asked about Obama by the show's host, Dominic Carter, the respected black politico
Percy Sutton casually explained that he had been "introduced to [Obama] by a friend." The
friend's name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour.
Who is Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al-Mansour Ph.D? He
co-founded the United Bank of Africa, the World United Bank of Africa and the Saudi African
Bank. Since 1996, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a legal and financial Consultant to various public
and private companies., including none other than Al-Waleed.
According to Sutton, al-Mansour
was "raising money" for Obama's education and had asked him to "please write a letter in
support of [Obama] a young man that has applied to Harvard." Sutton gladly obliged. When Sutton
died in December 2009 -- "an enormous loss" said Obama."
If anybody had any doubts about the Washington's determination to
give Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman a pass over allegations that he was involved with
the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump put them to rest earlier this
week when he
released a statement praising Saudi Arabia, openly
questioning the CIA and stressing the importance of the US-Saudi relationship (while also
portraying Khashoggi as a suspicious and untrustworthy figure with ties to terror groups).
And while rumors about a possible intra-family coup in Riyadh have been simmering since
Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 (with
the latest reports surfacing earlier this week ), the notion that MbS's spurned relatives
might rise up and exact their revenge for last year's brutal
"corruption crackdown" at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton is looking increasingly improbable. In
other words, as long as the international response to the Khashoggi incident is limited to
countries that don't sell weapons to Saudi Arabia ending arms sales to the kingdom, then MbS
will almost certainly survive.
And in the latest indication that the royal family - not to mention nearly all of the
Saudis' regional allies - remains firmly behind the Crown Prince, even as the return of his
uncle from exile has set tongues wagging about MbS' impending ouster, one senior prince
recently told
Reuters that the CIA's findings are "not to be trusted."
"... By Nat Dyer, a freelance writer based in London. He was previously an investigator and campaigner at Global Witness, an anti-corruption group. He tweets at @natjdyer. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
By Nat Dyer, a freelance writer based in London. He was previously an investigator and campaigner at Global
Witness, an anti-corruption group. He tweets at @natjdyer. Originally published at
openDemocracy
There was a little bit of good news this month for those worried about a tidal wave of
McMafia-style financial crime. A new UK government agency tasked with fighting it – the
National
Economic Crime Centre (NECC) – opened its doors.
I say "little" because financial crime is far more deeply rooted in our financial and
political systems than we like to acknowledge.
From the LIBOR-rigging scandal to the offshore
secrets of the Panama Papers and
'dark money' in the Brexit vote , it is everywhere. In my recent work with anti-corruption
group Global Witness , I saw
first-hand how ordinary people in some of the world's poorest countries suffer the consequences
of corruption and financial crime. We
exposed suspicious mining and oil deals in Central Africa, in which over a billion dollars
of desperately-needed public finances were lost offshore. The story is about the West as much
as Africa. The deals were routed through a dizzying web of offshore shell companies in the
British Virgin Islands, often linked to listed companies in London, Toronto and elsewhere. Even
if the NECC is given enough resources and collaborates widely, it has got its work cut out.
One reason all this financial crime is tolerated is that thinkers who shine a light on its
systemic nature have been erased from the record. Top of my list of neglected economic
superstars is Professor Susan Strange of the London School of Economics, one of the founders of
the field of international political economy. In a series of ground-breaking books –
States and Markets, The Retreat of the State and Mad Money – Strange showed how epidemic
levels of financial crime were a consequence of specific political decisions.
"This financial crime wave beginning in the 1970s and getting bigger in later years is not
accidental," Strange wrote.
It would have hardly been possible to design a system, she said, "that was better suited
than the global banking system to the needs of drug dealers and other illicit traders who want
to conceal from the police the origin of their large illegal profits."
For Strange, money laundering, tax evasion and public embezzlement were a result of the
collapse in the 1970s of the post-war financial order. Here are four ways she showed how
politics and the financial crime epidemic were intimately connected.
1) Money Is Global, Regulation Is National
There was nothing inevitable about financial globalisation, Strange said. It was born out of
a series of political decisions. It means that global money can skip freely across borders
beyond the reach of national laws and supervision. For smart operators tax, regulations, and
compliance become a choice, not an obligation. Strange argued that international organisations
lack the power to control global money, only coordination between the world's major economies
can rein it in.
2) Tax Havens Are an Open Invitation to Embezzlement
Unless you have somewhere to stash the cash, the looting of public money and state
enterprises can only go so far.
Tax havens give "open invitations", Strange said, to corrupt politicians to steal from their
people.
Banking secrecy in the havens allows money from tax evasion, drug trafficking and public
embezzlement to mix together until they become indistinguishable from legitimate business.
For Strange the "obscenely large" bonuses paid to those in financial markets leads to a kind
of "moral contamination", she wrote which has "reinforced and accelerated the growth of the
links between finance and politics". Strange recognised that corruption and bribery were a
problem in London and New York as well as Asia, Africa and Latin America. "Bribery and
corruption in politics are not new at all. It is the scale and extent of it that have risen,
along with the domination of finance over the real economy," she wrote.
4) Money Is Political Power
Globalisation has redefined politics, Strange argued. Political power is not just what
happens in governments, but money and markets also have power. As legitimate and illegitimate
private operators grow richer, they increase their power to shape the world system. States
starved of tax revenues grow weaker and retreat, in a reinforcing spiral. National politics
becomes captured by global money markets.
In the twenty years since Susan Strange's death in 1998, these trends have only bedded down.
Bankers' bonuses have continued to skyrocket and in 2018 reached
their pre-crisis peak .
Columbia University professor James S Henry
estimates tha t in 2015 a scarcely imaginable $24 trillion to $36 trillion of the world's
financial wealth was held offshore. Much of that is money from legitimate businesses but
contributes to a system where financial crime can prosper.
We cannot hope to get out of the morass of financial crime, and out-of-control financial
markets, without understanding how they relate to one another. The genie of globalised money
cannot be put back into the bottle, but Strange would argue that we should challenge banking
secrecy, and through coordinated action of the world's large economies close down tax
havens.
Finance and crime was only one strand of her work, but it contributed to her unnerving,
perhaps prophetic, conclusion that unless we rein in the financial system it could sweep away
the entire Western liberal order. One only has to glance at the combination of financial
chicanery and violent rhetoric that characterises the Trump presidency to see that her concerns
could hardly be more contemporary.
Strange would tell us that we need more than a new government agency to turn back the tide
of financial crime. We need nothing less than a new approach to political economy at national
and global level.
The key observation here is that the financial system is de-facto a criminal cartel and
financial oligarchy can and should be viewed as a Mafioso-style group. So organized crime laws
are perfectly applicable to the financial sector. Removal of New Deal regulations essentially get
tremendous impulse for flourishing financial sector criminality.
Notable quotes:
"... By Nat Dyer, a freelance writer based in London. He was previously an investigator and campaigner at Global Witness, an anti-corruption group. He tweets at @natjdyer. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... "This financial crime wave beginning in the 1970s and getting bigger in later years is not accidental," Strange wrote. ..."
"... that was better suited than the global banking system to the needs of drug dealers and other illicit traders who want to conceal from the police the origin of their large illegal profits." ..."
By Nat Dyer, a freelance writer based in London. He was previously an investigator and
campaigner at Global Witness, an anti-corruption group. He tweets at @natjdyer. Originally
published at openDemocracy
There was a little bit of good news this month for those worried about a tidal wave of
McMafia-style financial crime. A new UK government agency tasked with fighting it -- the
National
Economic Crime Centre (NECC) -- opened its doors.
I say "little" because financial crime is far more deeply rooted in our financial and
political systems than we like to acknowledge.
From the LIBOR-rigging scandal to the offshore
secrets of the Panama Papers and
'dark money' in the Brexit vote , it is everywhere. In my recent work with anti-corruption
group Global Witness , I saw
first-hand how ordinary people in some of the world's poorest countries suffer the consequences
of corruption and financial crime. We
exposed suspicious mining and oil deals in Central Africa, in which over a billion dollars
of desperately-needed public finances were lost offshore. The story is about the West as much
as Africa. The deals were routed through a dizzying web of offshore shell companies in the
British Virgin Islands, often linked to listed companies in London, Toronto and elsewhere. Even
if the NECC is given enough resources and collaborates widely, it has got its work cut out.
One reason all this financial crime is tolerated is that thinkers who shine a light on its
systemic nature have been erased from the record. Top of my list of neglected economic
superstars is Professor Susan Strange of the London School of Economics, one of the founders of
the field of international political economy. In a series of ground-breaking books -- States
and Markets, The Retreat of the State and Mad Money -- Strange showed how epidemic levels of
financial crime were a consequence of specific political decisions.
"This financial crime wave beginning in the 1970s and getting bigger in later years is
not accidental," Strange wrote.
It would have hardly been possible to design a system, she said, " that was better
suited than the global banking system to the needs of drug dealers and other illicit traders
who want to conceal from the police the origin of their large illegal profits."
For Strange, money laundering, tax evasion and public embezzlement were a result of the
collapse in the 1970s of the post-war financial order. Here are four ways she showed how
politics and the financial crime epidemic were intimately connected.
1) Money Is Global, Regulation Is National
There was nothing inevitable about financial globalisation, Strange said. It was born out of
a series of political decisions. It means that global money can skip freely across borders
beyond the reach of national laws and supervision. For smart operators tax, regulations, and
compliance become a choice, not an obligation. Strange argued that international organisations
lack the power to control global money, only coordination between the world's major economies
can rein it in.
2) Tax Havens Are an Open Invitation to Embezzlement
Unless you have somewhere to stash the cash, the looting of public money and state
enterprises can only go so far.
Tax havens give "open invitations", Strange said, to corrupt politicians to steal from their
people.
Banking secrecy in the havens allows money from tax evasion, drug trafficking and public
embezzlement to mix together until they become indistinguishable from legitimate business.
For Strange the "obscenely large" bonuses paid to those in financial markets leads to a kind
of "moral contamination", she wrote which has "reinforced and accelerated the growth of the
links between finance and politics". Strange recognised that corruption and bribery were a
problem in London and New York as well as Asia, Africa and Latin America. "Bribery and
corruption in politics are not new at all. It is the scale and extent of it that have risen,
along with the domination of finance over the real economy," she wrote.
4) Money Is Political Power
Globalisation has redefined politics, Strange argued. Political power is not just what
happens in governments, but money and markets also have power. As legitimate and illegitimate
private operators grow richer, they increase their power to shape the world system. States
starved of tax revenues grow weaker and retreat, in a reinforcing spiral. National politics
becomes captured by global money markets.
In the twenty years since Susan Strange's death in 1998, these trends have only bedded down.
Bankers' bonuses have continued to skyrocket and in 2018 reached
their pre-crisis peak .
Columbia University professor James S Henry
estimates tha t in 2015 a scarcely imaginable $24 trillion to $36 trillion of the world's
financial wealth was held offshore. Much of that is money from legitimate businesses but
contributes to a system where financial crime can prosper.
We cannot hope to get out of the morass of financial crime, and out-of-control financial
markets, without understanding how they relate to one another. The genie of globalised money
cannot be put back into the bottle, but Strange would argue that we should challenge banking
secrecy, and through coordinated action of the world's large economies close down tax
havens.
Finance and crime was only one strand of her work, but it contributed to her unnerving,
perhaps prophetic, conclusion that unless we rein in the financial system it could sweep away
the entire Western liberal order. One only has to glance at the combination of financial
chicanery and violent rhetoric that characterises the Trump presidency to see that her concerns
could hardly be more contemporary.
Strange would tell us that we need more than a new government agency to turn back the tide
of financial crime. We need nothing less than a new approach to political economy at national
and global level.
Came across mention of her in a book recently and it struck me how much she seemed to be
a prophetess without honour. Her obituary on her life makes interesting reading-
Yes, it is a great shame, Rev. I read her obit, too, and I agree with you. I do
recommend Casino Capitalism and its sequel, Mad Money (Manchester U Press editions). She
was ahead of her time.
Oil continues collapsing. The 7% move today is probably magnified due to lack of liquidity
post-Thanksgiving, but nevertheless the move is huge. Oil is down 34% from recent highs.
Fundamentals and real economy do not change this quick, so expect to hear about more "hedge(ed)
funds" blowing up. After all this is a 3 sigma move .
What´s next for oil nobody knows, but 50 USD is a rather big level to watch. For
believers in Fibonacci, 50 is the 50% retracement from the 2016 lows.
Oil volatility, OIV index, is now in full explosion mode. This is pure panic and these
levels won´t be sustainable longer term, but the rise in oil volatility is simply
amazing.
As we outlined earlier, oil stress started spreading to credit several weeks ago. We have
been pointing out, no bounce in equities until we possibly see some stabilization in
credit . For the equity bulls, unfortunately credit continues imploding. European iTraxx
main continues the move violently higher.
Similar chart is to be found for the US CDX IG index.
Below chart shows the CDX IG index (white) versus oil (inverted, orange). The relationship
is rather clear. Add to this crowded positions and low liquidity and the moves continue feeding
of each other, causing enormous p/l pain and further risk reduction among funds.
European iTraxx main (inverted white) is now "aggressively" under performing the Eurostoxx
50 index (orange). The moves in credit are starting to feel rather "panicky", helping VIX and
other related volatilities higher.
Given the continuation in oil prices, we ask ourselves when will the market start to realize
Fed can´t be tightening as aggressively as (still) priced in. Maybe time for the Powell
put to revive?
Comments while mostly naive, are indicative for the part of the US society that elected Trump
and that Trump betrayed.
But the fact that gas went not to Europe, but to Turkey is pretty indicative. And even larger volume with go to China. At some
point Europe might lose part or all Russia gas supply as Russian gas reserved are not infinite. That the perspective EU leaders
are afraid of.
US shale gas is OK as long as the USA is supplied from Canada, Russia and other places as well. Some quantity can be
exported. But the USA can't be a large and stable gas supplier to Europe as shale gas is capital intensive and sweet spots
are limited.
Notable quotes:
"... Some worthy observations, especially with all the US "Think Tanks." But I would include the number of non-Jewish elites who have banded together with the Jewish elite and who have greatly aided in eating out the very heart of America. ..."
"... History also shows that ANY smaller entity (Israel) that depends on a larger entity (America) for its survival becomes a failed entity in the long run. Just saying. ..."
"... The American Empire is all cost and no benefit to the great majority of Americans. The MIC and that's it. Politicians on the right wave the flag and politicians on the left describe a politically correct future. All on our dime. ..."
While the Trump Administration still thinks it can play enough games to derail the
Nordstream 2 pipeline via sanctions and threats, the impotence of its position geopolitically
was on display the other day as the final pipe of the first train of the Turkstream pipeline
entered the waters of the Black Sea.
The pipe was sanctioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan who shared a public stage and held bilateral talks afterwards. I think it is
important for everyone to watch the response to Putin's speech in its entirety. Because it
highlights just how far Russian/Turkish relations have come since the November 24th, 2015
incident where Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 over Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TkFR25SArYM
When you contrast this event with the strained and uninspired interactions between Erdogan
and President Trump you realize that the world is moving forward despite the seeming power of
the United States to derail events.
And Turkey is the key player in the region, geographically, culturally and politically.
Erdogan and Putin know this. And they also know that Turkey being the transit corridor of
energy for Eastern Europe opens those countries up to economic and political power they haven't
enjoyed in a long time.
The first train of Turkstream will serve Turkey directly. Over the next couple of years the
second train will be built which will serve as a jumping off point for bringing gas to Eastern
and Southern Europe.
Turkstream will bring 15.75 bcm annually to Turkey and the second train that same amount to
Europe. The TAP – Trans Adriatic Pipeline -- will bring just 10 bcm annually and won't do
so before 2020, a project more than six years in the making.
Political Realities
The real story behind Turkstream, however, is, despite Putin's protestations to the
contrary, political. No project of this size is purely economic, even if it makes immense
economic sense. If that were the case then the STC wouldn't exist because it makes zero
economic sense but some, if not much, political sense.
No, this pipeline along with the other major energy projects between Russia and Turkey have
massive long-term political implications for the Middle East. Erdogan wants to re-take control
of the Islamic world from the Saudis.
This is why they have the Saudis on a residual-poison-type drip
feed of information relating to the death of Jamal Khashoggi to extract maximal value from
the situation as Erdogan plays the U.S. deep state against the Trump/Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)
alliance.
The U.S. deep state wants Trump weakened and MbS removed from power. Trump needs MbS to
advance his plans for securing Israel's future and prolong the dollar's long-term health.
Erdogan is using this rift to extract concessions left and right while continuing to do
whatever he wants to do vis a vis Syria, Iran and his growing partnership with Russia.
Erdogan is in a position now to drive a very hard bargain over U.S. involvement in Syria,
which neither faction in the U.S. government (Trump and the deep state) wants to give up
on.
By controlling the oil fields in the eastern part of Syria and blocking the roads leading
from Iraq the U.S. is playing a game it can't win because ultimately the Kurds will either have
to be betrayed by the U.S. to keep Erdogan happy or cut a deal with the Syrian government for
their future alienating the U.S.
This has been the ultimate end-game of the occupation of eastern Syria for months now and
time is on both Putin's and Erdogan's side. Because the U.S. can't pressure Turkey to stop
growing closer to Russia and Iran.
Eventually the U.S. troops in Syria will be nothing more than an albatross around Trump's
neck politically and he'll have to announce a pull out, which will be popular back home helping
his re-election campaign for 2020.
The big loser in this is Israel who is now having to circle the wagons politically since
Putin put the screws to Benjamin Netanyahu for his part in the deaths of 15 Russian airmen back
in September by closing the Syrian airspace and allowing mostly free movement of materiel to
Lebanon.
Netanyahu, as I talked about last week, is now in a very precarious position after Israel
was forced to sue for peace thanks to the unprecedentedly strong response by the Palestinians
in Gaza.
Elijah Magnier commented
recently that it this was the net result of Trump's unconditional support of Israel which
united the Arab resistance rather than dividing and conquering it.
But the US establishment decided to distance itself from the Palestinian cause and
embraced unconditionally the Israeli apartheid policy towards Palestine: the US supports
Israel blindly. It has recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, suspended financial aid
to UN institutions supporting Palestinian refugees (schools, medical care, homes), and
rejected the right of return of Palestinians. All this has pushed various Palestinian groups,
including the Palestinian Authority, to acknowledge that any negotiation with Israel is
useless and that also the US can no longer be considered a reliable partner. Moreover, the
failed regime-change in Syria and the humiliating conditions place on Arab financial support
were in a way the last straws that convinced Hamas to change its position, giving up on the
Oslo agreement and joining the Axis of the Resistance.
Project Netanyahu,
as Alistair Crooke termed it , was predicated on keeping the support of the Palestinians
split with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority at odds and then grinding out the resistance in
Gaza over time.
Trump's plans also involved the formation of the so-called "Arab NATO" the summit for which
has been put off until next year thanks to Erdogan's deft handling of the Saudi hit on
Khashoggi. There are still a number of issues outstanding -- the financial blockade of Qatar,
the war in Yemen, etc. -- that need to be resolved as well before any of this is even remotely
possible.
At this point that plan has failed and the clash with Israel last week proved it is
unworkable without tacit approval of Turkey who is gunning for the Saudis as the leaders of the
Sunni world.
Show me the Money
But, more importantly, over time, a Turkey that can ween itself off the U.S. dollar over the
next decade is a Turkey that can survive politically the upheaval to the post-WWII
institutional order coming over the next few years.
Remember, all of this is happening against the backdrop of a U.S. and European political
order that is failing to maintain the confidence of the people it governs.
The road to dollar independence will be long and hard but it will be possible. Russia is the
model for this having successfully removed the dollar from a great deal of its trade and is now
reaping the benefits of that stability.
And projects like Turkstream and the soon to be completed Power of Siberia Pipeline to China
will see the gas from both trade without the dollar as the intermediary.
If you don't think this de-dollarization of the Russian economy is happening or significant,
take one look at the Russian ruble versus the price of Brent crude in recent weeks. We've had
another historic collapse in oil prices and yet the ruble versus the dollar hasn't really moved
at all.
The upward move from earlier this year in the ruble (not shown) came from disruptions in the
Aluminum market and the threat of further sanctions. But, as the U.S. puts the screws even
tighter to Russia's finances by forcing the price of oil down, the effect on the ruble has been
minimal.
With today's move Brent is off nearly $30 from its October high ( a massive 35% drop in
prices) just seven weeks ago and the Ruble hasn't budged. The Bank of Russia hasn't been in
there propping up its price. Normally this would send the ruble into a tailspin but it
hasn't.
The other so-called 'commodity currencies' like the Canadian and Australian dollars have
been hit hard but not the ruble.
Set the Way Back Machine to 2014 when oil prices cratered and you'll see a ruble in free
fall which culminated in a massive blow-off top that required a fundamental shift in both
fiscal and monetary policy for Russia.
This had to do with the massive dollar-denominated debt of its, you guessed it, oil and gas
sector. Today that is not a point of leverage.
Today lower oil prices will be a forward headwind for Russian oil companies but a boon to
the Russian economy that won't experience massive inflation thanks to the ruble being sold to
cover U.S. dollar liabilities.
Those days are over.
And so too will those days come for Turkey which is now in the process of doing what Russia
did in 2015, divest itself of future dollar obligations while diversifying the currencies it
trades in.
Stability, transparency and solvency are the things that increase the demand for a currency
as not only a medium of exchange but also as a reserve asset. Russia announced the latest
figures of bilateral trade with China bypassing the dollar and RT had a very interesting
quote from Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.
No one currency should dominate the market, because this makes all of us dependent on the
economic situation in the country that issues this reserve currency, even when we are talking
about a strong economy such as the United States," Medvedev said.
He added that US sanctions have pushed Moscow and Beijing to think about the use of their
domestic currencies in settlements, something that "we should have done ten years ago."
" Trading for rubles is our absolute priority, which, by the way, should eventually turn
the ruble from a convertible currency into a reserve currency, " the Russian prime minister
said.
That is the first statement by a major Russian figure about seeing the ruble rise to reserve
status, but it's something that many, like myself, have speculated about for years now.
Tying together major economies like Turkey, Iran, China and eventually the EU via energy
projects which settle the trade in local currencies is the big threat to the current political
and economic program of the U.S. It is something the EU will only embrace reluctantly.
It is something the U.S. will oppose vehemently.
And it is something that no one will stop if it makes sense for the people on each side of
the transaction. This is why Turkstream and Nordstream 2 are such important projects they
change the entire dynamic of the flow of global capital.
Oil and commodity markets were used as a finishing move on the Soviet system. The book,
"The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century" by James R. Norman details the
use of oil futures as a geopolitical tool. Pipelines change the calculus quite a bit.
Soros funded 'migration' to Europe has also failed and created a massive cultural and
economic burden on Europe.
The Soros/Rothschild plan to destroy Middle Eastern countries and displace the people was
- of course - motivated by the Rothschilds 'bread and butter ' - OIL ( the worlds largest
traded commodity ) !!
...Where ever they go, they [neoliberals] get organised, identify the institutions/establishments/courts to infiltrate and then use that
influence to -
* Hijack the economy.
* Corrupt the society.
As the current trend shows, the nexus of the international economic activity is shifting
east. Turkey is not making a mistake aligning itself with the goals of Russia, Iran and
China. Although there is still a huge debt of the previous deeds that has to be paid.
"Half of the US billionaires are Jews while only being less then 3% of the population. And
it doesn't stop there. They work collectively to hijack the institutions critical for the
operations of the democracy."
Some worthy observations, especially with all the US "Think Tanks." But I would include
the number of non-Jewish elites who have banded together with the Jewish elite and who have
greatly aided in eating out the very heart of America.
I read on here previously some dimwit comment about "America prints a bill for 2 cents
while other countries have to earn a dollars worth of equity to buy it and we can do this
forever" kind of thing. Not if other countries don't supply the demand you can't :)
History also shows that ANY smaller entity (Israel) that depends on a larger entity
(America) for its survival becomes a failed entity in the long run. Just saying.
I think you could quite reasonably replace the term 'depends on a larger entity', with a
term that better describes a (smaller) ' parasite ' on a (larger) host...
From your lips to God's ear. The American Empire is all cost and no benefit to the great majority of Americans. The MIC
and that's it. Politicians on the right wave the flag and politicians on the left describe a
politically correct future. All on our dime.
Israhell is losing its status via Putins peaceful diplomacy and trade with ME countries
who are not onboard with the Yinon plan. This is why RUSSIAGATE, led by dual Israhelli democrats in Congress. There is always a
foreign policy issue attached to their demonizing of other countries. This is also why the UK just sent UK soldiers to Ukraine declaring war on Russia for
"invading Ukraine" and not telling parliament or the UK people.
UK/US blind support for Israhell will get us all killed.
We do know that UK soldiers have been sent to the Ukraine. We also know that, according to elements in the Government and the Civil Service, Russia
invaded and annexed the Ukraine, which is just another reason to not trust the
Government--any Government.
WRONG!!!!! NordStream Eins und Zwei are the Prizes, because DEU, Scandinavia, CHE, and FRA will
Benefit. TRK Wins 2nd Prize with TRKStream and SouthStream Pipelines. Losers are BGR and EU_PARAGOV, since BGR went from Prime Partner to Trickledown
Transiteer.
Ultimately, along with Nordstream and Turkstream, there will also be a Polarstream
(leading to UK and Iceland) and Southstream (which was already begun but temporarily
suspended after Obama threatened Bulgaria via Angela Merkel).
And, oh...I am sure there will also be a Ukrostream (also known as Mainstream)
unfortunately the Ukronazi government of Ukrainistan doesn't know this just yet. They will
find out in due course, I am sure.
First PolarStream is highly unlikely both because laying it would be extremely difficult
and expensive and because Iceland has no need for gas as it is sitting on thermal reserves
and the UK won't deal with Russia.
You are correct on SouthStream.
As to UkroStream (I assume you mean Ukraine) it is already in existence and has been for
50 plus years. Given the bad history between the parties the Russians will want to stop that
route asap, hence the timing of NordStream 2 and TurkStream. So in the future UkroSream is
going to end, not start.
long-term political implications for the Middle East. Erdogan wants to re-take control of
the Islamic world from the Saudis.
SA still has control of the Hajj -- religious tourism - command by the Magic Book that
even Turkish mohammadist must complete. +/- 18% of SA GDP-- and SA isn't sharing any of that
loot.
Ticip is required to go and throw rocks at the black orb -- and do the Muslim Hokey Pokey
along with all the rest.. oh, and pay the SA kings for the privilege !
The new 3D Grand Chessboard is being played very quietly out of Moscow.
The article is a wee bit deceptive. Whilst this was indeed the last bit of under sea pipe
they were celebrating, it should be pointed out the stunning speed that they achieved, about
a mile a day some to a depth of over 1000 feet, quite an achievement on land, let alone at
sea. This is quite interesting, especially the map
Also, as its landfall in Turkey is west of the Bosphorus, that is west of Istanbul, maybe
that 'for Turkish use' is a cover for its primary purpose, supplying the Balkans as well as
Turkey from January 2020.
Note the significance of the start to pump date, December 2019, the same as NordStream 2.
What else happens then? Oh yes, the gas transit contract with Ukraine ends. The combination
of these two new pipelines to a very great extent replace that agreement. Even though
politically everyone is saying Ukraine ($4B p.a. transit fees) should be protected.
Take another look at the map, note that it takes a dogleg south to Turkey. If at that
point it had gone straight ahead it would have gone to Bulgaria as SouthStream. But the US
and its EU vassal stopped that. Maybe the second pipeline the Russians are now discussing
will resurrect that route.
That discovery chart shows the problem well, I hadn't seen it before. The big blip in deep
water discoveries in the 2000s from improved technologies and higher prices contributed
greatly to the subsequent glut and price collapse – and now what's left? There hasn't
been much of an uptick in exploration despite the price rally, offshore drillers continue to
go bust, leasing activity still fairly slow – the tranches get bigger as the last, less
attractive bits are released but lease ratio falls, Permian dominates all news stories. Why
would the recent decline curve turn around? And the biggest surprise might be that gas is
just as bad as oil, so the recent boost in supplies from condensate and NGL might also have
run its course.
I tracked FIDs for oil through 2017, I've been a bit less diligent this year so may have
missed some, but for greenfield conventional plus oil sands I have for the remainder of 2018
through 2025: 400, 1770, 1170, 800, 985, 70, 250, 400 kbpd added – about 6 mmbpd total,
nothing after 2025, plus another 1 mmbpd from ramp ups from this year. Only pretty small
projects could get done now before 2022, and there aren't many of those left. Anything else
would need to come from brownfield (in-fill), LTO or new discoveries (including existing
known resources that become reserves once a development decision is made).
High economic growth matched high growth in energy consumption and recessions saw fall in
energy consumption.
Since 90% of the energy consumed comes from burning the stored energy in coal, oil, gas
and wood. It is hardly surprising that during high economic growth CO2 emissions increase
also.
Those who not not wish to see this link, obviously think Peak Oil is not a problem. GDP
growth will continue even though oil becomes more scarce.
If oil production falls by just 1% per year, taking into account new vehicle production.
The world would have to produce 90 million electric cars each year in order to prevent oil
prices from destroying other users such as the aviation industry.
This year 1.5 million fully electric cars were made and according to several people here
peak oil is no more then 4 years away.
Since 90% of the energy consumed comes from burning the stored energy in coal, oil, gas
and wood. It is hardly surprising that during high economic growth CO2 emissions increase
also
I have a hunch that we are about to see some major changes to that paradigm.
I hope you are correct, but I have done some calculations on what is needed.
According to reports around $1.7 trillion was invested in energy supply in 2017. $790
billion on oil, gas and coal supply. $320 billion was spent on solar and wind.
During 2017 oil consumption increased by 1 million barrels per day. Gas consumption increased
by 3% and even coal consumption went up.
The world needs to spend about $2.5 trillion per year on wind, solar and batteries in
order to meet increased energy demand and reduce fossil fuel burning by about 1% per year.
This obviously depends on GDP growth being about average.
Since recent scientific observations have discovered that Greenland, the Arctic and
Antarctica melting much faster than anyone thought. The shift needs to be a minimum of 2.5%.
Thus a spending of around £4 trillion per year is needed.
I do not see any country spending a minimum of 12 times more on solar and wind in the next
3-5 years. It would take every country doing so.
Agreed Hugo. The world is only making token moves towards installation of the necessary wind
and solar.
This coming decade will see everyone scrambling to get the equipment built and installed.
Looks like centralized planning (China) is going to beat 'the market' on being the primary
supplier. Our 'free' market has tariffs on PV imported. Brilliant.
Does having a 5 (or 10 yr) plan make you communist?
Or just smart.
"The world needs to spend about $2.5 trillion per year on wind, solar and batteries in order
to meet increased energy demand and reduce fossil fuel burning by about 1% per year. This
obviously depends on GDP growth being about average."
1% per year? You have got to be kidding.
The global oil consumption for transport is about 39.5 million barrels of oil per day. Using
PV to drive EV transport would mean an investment of 2.2 trillion dollars in PV to provide
global road transport energy.
So what do we use next year's money for?
.
"The global oil consumption for transport is about 39.5 million barrels of oil per day"
39.5 million is only gasoline in the world. Add diesel and jet fuel and you get to about
75 million barrels a day for transportation or about 75% of oil produced.
Did you get the point? That Hugo overstated the cost of renewables to replace fossil fuels
by a huge amount and understated their effect by another huge amount.
We have a couple of people that consistently do that on this site.
Somehow I doubt that this Christmas will win the Bing Crosby star of approval. Rather, we
see the financial markets breaking under the strain of sustained institutionalized fraud, and
the social fabric tearing from persistent systemic political dishonesty. It adds up to a
nation that can't navigate through reality, a nation too dependent on sure things, safe
spaces, and happy outcomes. Every few decades a message comes from the Universe that faking
it is not good enough.
The main message from the financials is that the global debt barge has run aground, and
with it, the global economy. That mighty engine has been chugging along on promises-to-pay
and now the faith that sustained those promises is dissolving. China, Euroland, and the USA
can't possibly meet their tangled obligations, and are running out of tricks for rigging,
gaming, and jacking the bond markets, where all those promises are vested. It boils down to a
whole lot of people not getting paid, one way or the other -- and it's really bad for
business.
Our President has taken full credit for the bubblicious markets, of course, and will be
Hooverized as they gurgle around the drain. Given his chimerical personality, he may try to
put on an FDR mask -- perhaps even sit in a wheelchair -- and try a few grand-scale policy
tricks to escape the vortex. But the net effect will surely be to make matters worse -- for
instance, if he can hector the Federal Reserve to buy every bond that isn't nailed to some
deadly derivative booby-trap. But then he'll only succeed in crashing the dollar. Remember,
there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can have plenty of
worthless money.
" Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can
have plenty of worthless money". Both pretty much sums up America's predicament. Americans
are deep in debt, and their money is worthless.
he may try to put on an FDR mask -- perhaps even sit in a wheelchair -- and try a few
grand-scale policy tricks to escape the vortex. But the net effect will surely be to make
matters worse -- for instance, if he can hector the Federal Reserve to buy every bond that
isn't nailed to some deadly derivative booby-trap. But then he'll only succeed in crashing
the dollar. Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or
you can have plenty of worthless money.
Here's a prediction. If the next GFC is bad enough, will the Government and the Fed bypass
the Banks and send Cash direct to Consumers? Maybe everybody with a SIN Number who is over 18
gets a Housing Voucher to be used towards the purchase of Real Estate??
- Will it be the last one or can they kick the can just..a..little..further down the
road
- Where will it leak to besides Bankruptcies? Politics? War? All of the Above?
didyoujustpullthatoutofyourass , 16 minutes ago
link
I think the powers that be are going to lose control of everything. We're going to be
looking at a Bolshevik Revolution on a global scale. The bad parts of the bible. Because of
years of indoctrination and immigration we can no longer fix our situation with ballots.
Because of years of overspending we can no longer get out of debt. Because of years of
outsourcing we can no longer produce our own basic necessities. All of Western civilization
is in a predicament that is impossible to get out of. We're screwed. This was done to us on
purpose, and the people who did it, still haven't stopped, because they want us
destroyed.
Embarrassing yellow paper journalism: attempt to connect the deal with Skripals false flag
operation by British intelligence agencies. The Daily Mail story preudo-analyst from Bellingcat
as a serious source, but provides no source at all for the alleged Russian quotes.
This actually a quite interesting article ( [written] by the 5 eyes intelligence
agencies)
Hot on the heels of proven Saudi state sanctioned murder under diplomatic immunity we have
a completely UNFOUNDED accusation that Russia has essentially committed the same crime.
Saudi bad guy.....Russia bad guy. Two negatives equals a positive (kind of thing). See
what I just did there? LMAO
The US spent $824.6 billion in 2018 compared to Russia's budget of $46 billion (18 times
the difference). Nevertheless, Congress recently declared, that in the event of a war with
Russia, the US could lose! So, if a President (Obama, Trump, whoever) really wanted to "Make
America Great Again" he would have to begin by firing 90% of the Military Industrial
Complex.
and Daily Mail knows this detail of how he emerged after the meeting because ...
more to come from BS factory ...
janus 1 day ago
Daily Mail will report that he died trying to slaughter a convention of journalists at
Putin's behest.
So ******* sick of britain's ruling class i want to wretch, if we need to break Britain to
get rid of them, so be it. They're all a bunch of decadent pedos and foppish fags
matriculated on globalism. they're disgusting, and even though we'll never get to see the
details, they actively tried to undermine our democracy (along with Tel Aviv).
And so it goes with our 'special relationships', special indeed, with friends like
these...
janus
Shemp 4 Victory 1 day ago
And Daily Mail knows this detail of how he emerged after the meeting because. Because they
read it from a script provided by a branch of MI6 known as OSF (Office of Substandard
Fiction).
In a trite refrain straight out of the standard Washington regime change playbook, the
United States has lodged a formal complaint alleging Iran is developing nerve agents "for
offensive purposes".
Some Wall St.
analysts believe that the Fed will cut rates a half a point this month. That may raise the
expectations high enough so the a smaller cut could send marketing into a tail spin.
According to Reuters "both
Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan (JPM) said on Friday they now see the Fed slashing the
benchmark federal funds rate down to 3.75 percent from the current 4.25 percent, with Goldman
also considering the possibility of an intermeeting move."
There are plenty of signs that the economy may be in recession in the current quarter. The
Fed's fire fighters may show up too late. Housing, financial services, and the automotive
industries are already in recession. The same may hold true for retail and consumer
durables.
If the Fed is tardy, a recession could last through the end of 2008.
Comey knows where all the skeletons are buried and has nothing to fear, apart from a
stitch-up behind closed doors hanging, where nobody gets to see. We all know Comey is a Deep
State puppet. This hearing is all for show, to give the dunces the illusion of a functioning
dumbocracy.
Pretty rich that he's worried about leaks....but then again, he would know.
He is damned worried about private testimony as doing so would open him up to suspicion
from guilty parties concerned he might rat them out to save his hide.
Select leaks, even if untrue (fake news turned against them) could bring great pressure
upon his life.
Former
FBI Director James Comey announced over Twitter on Thursday that he has been subpoenaed by
House Republicans.
He has demanded a public testimony (during which legislators would be unable to ask him
questions pertaining to classified or sensitive information), saying that he doesn't trust the
committee not to leak and distort what he says.
"Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans," he tweeted " I'm still happy to
sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a "closed door" thing because I've
seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion . Let's have a hearing and invite
everyone to see." In October Comey rejected a request by the House Judiciary Committee to
appear at a closed hearing as part of the GOP probe into allegations of political bias at the
FBI and Department of Justice, according to Politico
.
"Mr. Comey respectfully declines your request for a private interview," said Comey's
attorney, David Kelly, in a repsonse to the request.
The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) didn't appreciate Comey's
response.
" We have invited Mr. Comey to come in for a transcribed interview and we are prepared to
issue a subpoena to compel his appearance ," said a committee aide.
Goodlatte invited Comey to testify as part of a last-minute flurry of requests for
high-profile Obama administration FBI and Justice Department leaders, including former
Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. He threatened
to subpoena them if they didn't come in voluntarily. -
Politico
The House committee has been investigating whether overwhelming anti-Trump bias with in the
FBI and Department of Justice translated to their investigations of the President during and
after the 2016 US election.
Didn't Gowdy deal with this already? "When did the FBI conduct an interview limited to 5
minutes?" "When did the FBI ever conduct an interview in public?" And the rest. Sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander.
(I happen to think Gowdy is compromised, but the points remain.)
The crook knows a public hearing will allow him to defer answering EVERY question because
it "involves a current investigation", "it's classified", "I don't recall" and every other
dodge under the sun. Put this creep away for good!
Comey knows he can't withstand real questioning. He will be forced to take the 5th. A lot
of desperation showing here. He won't show and time will run out on the House, so Lindsay
Graham needs to take up the cause.
House Republicans will hear testimony on December 5 from the prosecutor appointed by
Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by the Clinton
Foundation, according to Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).
Meadows - chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, told The
Hill that it's time to "circle back" to former Utah Attorney General John Huber's probe with
the Justice Department into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in improper activities,
reports
The Hill .
"Mr. [John] Huber with the Department of Justice and the FBI has been having an
investigation – at least part of his task was to look at the Clinton Foundation and what
may or may not have happened as it relates to improper activity with that charitable foundation
, so we've set a hearing date for December the 5th.," Meadows told Hill.TV on Wednesday.
Meadows says the questions will include whether any tax-exempt proceeds were used for
personal gain and whether the Foundation adhered to IRS laws.
Sessions appointed Huber last year to work in tandem with the Justice Department to look
into conservative claims of misconduct at the FBI and review several issues surrounding the
Clintons. This includes Hillary Clinton 's ties to a Russian nuclear
agency and concerns about the Clinton Foundation.
Huber's
work has remained shrouded in mystery . The White House has released little information
about Huber's assignment other than Session's address to Congress saying his appointed should
address concerns raised by Republicans. -
The Hill
According to a report by the
Dallas Observer last November, the Clinton Foundation has been under investigation by the
IRS since July, 2016.
Meadows says that it's time for Huber to update Congress concerning his findings, and
"expects him to be one of the witnesses at the hearing," per The Hill . Additionally Meadows
said that his committee is trying to secure testimonies from whistleblowers who can provide
more information about potential wrongdoing surrounding the Clinton Foundation .
" We're just now starting to work with a couple of whistleblowers that would indicate that
there is a great probability, of significant improper activity that's happening in and around
the Clinton Foundation ," he added.
The Clinton Foundation - also under
FBI investigation out of the Arkansas field office, has denied any wrongdoing.
Launched in January, the Arkansas FBI probe, is focused on pay-for-play schemes and tax code
violations , according to The Hill at the time, citing law enforcement officials and a witness
who wishes to remain anonymous.
The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining
whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their
charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing
government outcomes .
The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or
political use and whether the Foundation complied with applicable tax laws , the officials
said. -
The Hill
The witness who was interviewed by Little Rock FBI agents said that questions focused on
"government decisions and discussions of donations to Clinton entities during the time Hillary
Clinton led President Obama's State Department," and that the agents were "extremely
professional and unquestionably thorough."
@tac The Torah,
biblical and Quran stories were written in agrarian societies where capitalistic enterprise
hardly existed.
Loans were for not dying of hunger in the period between when the food of the last harvest
had been used completely, and the new harvest was still in the future.
Thus interest was seen as blackmailing people, they needed money to prevent dying of
starvation.
There was enterprise long ago, and trade over long distances, in the early centuries for
example swords from Damascus were famous in Europe, and exported to Europe.
Investment for business was the exception, even the first iron smelting installations were
simple, those who wanted them could build them by themselves.
The idea that invested money could yield money came later, when installations became more
complex, ships bigger, etc.
With investment came risk, there was not much risk in consumptive loans, they normally could
paid out of the coming harvest.
And so the problem began, a church not understanding capitalism, an agrarian society based on
barter changing into a money using capitalistic society.
Commercial people had no problem with interest, even now Muslims do not have problems with
interest.
What they do is simply giving interest other names, such as a fine for repaying late.
It has been agreed that the repayment will be late, so anybody is happy.
@renfro And
there you have it in a nutshell: usary -- the usurper of civilization, the enslaver of
humanity, the seed of ultimate degeneracy. It seems humanity is adverse to learn from
history. It is an interesting side-note that both Christianity and Islam both prohibit the
use of usury (a consideration worthy of mention when one contemplates the ongoing wars in the
ME) and some who here take shots at Farakhann, 'neo-nazis', blue-hair and other deplorables.
Our dilemma today is the same that occurred in Rome. Our country and people will
suffer the same fate if usury continues as it has. From the onset of history, it has
been the moneychangers, who have exploited mankind for pure profit. Usury is an abomination
against God's statutes, which manipulates and destroys people, families, and nations. It is
by the profits made from usury used to attack Christianity. One needs only to ask- who is
in control of usury worldwide? Didn't Rome suffer from these same people? Usury brings
forth an insidious side to all people. The temptation to borrow is powerful, and it always
polarizes lender against borrower where the former becomes the master and the later, the
slave. As a vice, neighbor is pitted against his neighbor, and nation against nation.
[...]
The Roman government was far too corrupt already with its politicians bought by
moneychangers for any fledgling Christian sect to have an affect on its decline. The
moneychanger's demand was perpetually self-serving, which was disparate to the common good
of the populace. Originally, Rome was founded as a republic. The unchecked influence of the
moneychangers caused it to change into a democracy. A republic is derived through the
election of public officials whose attitude toward property is respected in terms of law
for individual rights. A democracy is derived through the election of public officials
whose attitude toward property is communistic and respects the "collective good" of the
population instead of the individual. This is the resultant system that moneychangers bring
to civilization. The subversion of power is a sleight of hand that changes the right of the
individual into what is often called the "collective good" of the people (communistic),
which is always controlled by an alliance of powerful interests.
There is no reference in the article to the moneychangers and their lawyers sowing the
seeds for Roman society to suffocate under its own lethargic weight. Lawyers were indeed a
problem to Rome. The Romans were so concerned by lawyers' opprobrious effect on public
morale that they attempted to curb their influence. In 204 BC, the Roman Senate passed a
law prohibiting lawyers from plying their trade for money. As the Roman republic declined
and became more democratic, it became increasingly difficult to keep lawyers in check and
prevent them from accepting fees under the table. Indeed, they were very useful to the
moneychangers. The lawyers fed upon corruption and accelerated the downward plunge of Roman
civilization. Some wealthy Romans began sending their sons to Greece to finish their
schooling, to learn rhetoric (Julius Caesar was one example) -- a lawyer's cleverness in
oration. This compounded Rome's growing woes.
[...] The moneychangers destroyed Rome from within by first monopolizing usury, monopolizing
the precious mineral trade and then disproportionately magnifying the temporal businesses
of prostitution (including pedophilia and homosexuality), and slavery. Constantine
(306-337 AD) was the first Roman emperor to issue laws, which radically limited the rights
of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire, a privilege conferred upon them by Caracalla in
212 AD. The laws of Constantius (337-361 AD) recognized the Jewish domination of the slave
trade and acted to greatly curtail it. A law of Theodosius II (408-410 AD), prohibited Jews
from holding any advantageous office of honor in the Roman state. Always the impetus was
buying influence concerning their trade.
[...] Usury has been the opiate that has ruined the ingenuity of many of its civilizations. As
this Jewish craft spread, the people increasingly suffered from the burdens of
indebtedness. So troubling was the effects of usury that Lex Genucia outlawed usury in
342 BC. Nevertheless, ways of evading such legislation were found and by the last period of
the Republic, usury was once again rife. Emperors like Julius Caesar and Justinian tried to
limit the interest rate and control its devastating effects (Birnie, 1958).
Entertainment was a way to temporarily set aside the burdens of indebtedness. It was a
way to festively indulge in all the glory that Rome had to offer. Rome soon became drunk on
hedonism. Collectively, entertainment helped disguise the collapsing of a great power.
Spectator blood sports, brothels, carnivals, festivals, and parties substituted for
everything that was wrong with Rome.
[...] Rome became a multi-cultural state much like our own in the United States. Indeed, it
was truly an international city. Foreigners of every nation resided and worked there. The
Romans soon intermarried and had children with the many foreigners. This included
concubines from the numerous slaves won through war. Rome had an extraordinary large
slave population and was estimated to make up about two-thirds of its population at one
time.
[...] Eventually, the Romans lost their tribal cohesion and identity. The population of Rome
had changed and so did its character. Increasing demands were made of the ruling
patricians. The aristocrats tried to appease the masses, but eventually those demands could
not be sustained. Rome had become bankrupt. The effects of usury polarized the patrician
class against an increasingly dispossessed and burdened class of citizens.
[...]
Rome was bankrupt and was collapsing. The parasitic nature of usury and its effect on
government was too complex for the uneducated plebeians to understand (see Addendum for
an illustration of usury's power). Indeed, it was the moneychangers with the use of
their lawyers that destroyed pagan Rome. The Jewish interests did not control all
usury. However, they were a people well recognized as being extremely loyal to each
other and adept in the black craft of usury. To all others (gentiles) they showed hate and
enmity. Throughout history the weapon of usury is used again and again to destroy
nations.
[...]
Fortunately, the writings of Cicero survived the burning of libraries. In the case against
Faccus, we can see the crafts of the Jews are the same today. The Jews clearly held
great influence in politics as a result of their professions and profited immensely at the
expense of Rome. We can further deduce by the case of Faccus that the Jews were not
concerned with the interests of Rome, but rather for their own interests. The Jewish
gold was being shipped from Rome and its provinces throughout the empire to Jerusalem. Why?
We also know that the Jews had utter contempt and hatred of the Romans. This contempt is
demonstrated by their breaking of Roman law, which Faccus tried to uphold. If we look
closer, we see that gold has a very special meaning to all Jewry unlike any other
people.
[...] There are enough records for us to piece together what actually occurred in Rome that
led to its downfall. Rome fell as a result of corruption and the lack of cohesion of its
own people. But, it was the instrument of usury that brought about this corruption and
allowed its gold and silver to be controlled by Jewish interests.
[...] It was Christianity that put an end to the destructive nature of usury on its people
(see addendum for usury example). Rome's treasury became barren as a result of the
moneychangers. It weakened the Roman Empire immeasurably, and thrust untold millions in
poverty, debt, and in prison. It was Christianity that halted the influence of the Jews and
their destructive trades and practices. And, the Christian faith spread throughout the
former Roman Empire. All of the European people eventually became Christianity's vanguard
and champion. Without the strict adherence to the moral ethos, any civilization will
devolve into the religion of Nimrod.
History repeats -- Looks like yet another
"Excessively careless" enthusiastic email sender: "The revelation prompted demands from
congressional investigators that Kushner preserve his records, which his attorney said he
had."
Ivanka Trump used her personal email account to send "hundreds" of emails last year to White
House aides, assistants and Cabinet officials, according to the Washington Post, citing "people
familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence." Of that, however, she discussed
government policies "less than 100 times" - and none of the content was classified.
"his daughter's practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton"
Some truth here. They are both chromosomally female, both were using email. Sure same thing
here, give her the cell next to Hillary. Fair sentencing would be something around life for
Hillary, week for Ivanka?
Honestly, after all of the grief those of us on the right gave Hillary, and rightfully so,
for Ivanka to be so obtuse and do this .... it just gives the liberals something to harp on.
Why make things harder than they need to be? The Trumps are under a microscope and have to
know that everything they do is going to be picked apart and debated in the court of public
opinion.
Now we will have to listen to people like Don Lemon and Rachel Madcow and the
Morning Joe Idiots for the next 2 months blow this waaayyyy out of proportion
"... Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest, zero risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance, profiteering guaranteed by Obamacare. ..."
Wonder the same about bankruptcy. IIRC, think the moneychangers' bankruptcy "reform" under
the Bush II regime turned it into a virtual debtors' prison, excluding several kinds of debt
from discharge, including student loans.
Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest,
zero risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance,
profiteering guaranteed by Obamacare.
Hudson perceives things that should be but aren't obvious -- about money, power, and
freedom. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but it's ultimately a weapon wielded
in an insatiable lust for power, absolute, utterly corrupt power, the ownership and
enslavement of others. Inequality is not a flaw of rigged-market cannibalism; it's a feature,
a feature those at the top of the food chain have no intention of "fixing". The US empire,
imo, is the nadir of this evil, a kleptocracy dependent on perpetual mass-murder. The paradox
is, they may be more enslaved to their narcotic than anyone.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Janis Joplin
The Israelis were extradited to the U.S., where the prosecutor described them as "a predatory group that targeted elderly people
in the U.S., conning them into believing they were lottery winners. Preying on their victims' dreams of financial comfort, [they]
bilked them out of substantial portions of their life savings." According to the
U.S. Attorney's office :
"The defendants operated multiple boiler rooms that used the names of various sham law firms purportedly located in New York,
including law firms named 'Abrahams Kline,' 'Bernstein Schwartz,' 'Steiner, Van Allen, and Colt,' 'Bloomberg and Associates,"
and 'Meyer Stevens.' The defendants further used various aliases and call forwarding telephone numbers to mask the fact that the
defendants were located in Israel. The defendants also possessed bank accounts in Israel, Cyprus, and Uganda, to which illegal
proceeds were wired."
The ringleaders, Avi Ayache and Yaron Bar, were eventually convicted, and the U.S. prosecutor announced that they would "spend a
substantial portion of their lives in prison." Ayache was sentenced in 2014 to 13 years in prison and Bar to 12. Yet,
prison records indicate the two were released the next year.
Other members
of the ring also appear to have been released after extraordinarily little time. If these men did serve only a tiny portion of their
U.S. sentences, as public records and phone calls and emails to the Bureau of Prisons indicate, this may be due to the fact that
Israelis are allowed to be imprisoned in Israel instead of in the U.S. Their sentences then are determined by Israel and, as we will
see below, are often far shorter than they would be in the U.S.
Gery Shalon – hundreds of millions of dollars
In 2015 Gery Shalon and
two other Israelis were charged with utilizing hacked data for 100 million people to spam them with "pump and dump" penny stocks,
netting hundreds of millions of dollars.
The money was then laundered through an illegal bitcoin exchange allegedly owned by Shalon (more on bitcoin below). Shalon was
considered the ringleader of what U.S. prosecutors called a "
sprawling
criminal enterprise. " He faced decades behind bars.
However, he was instead given a
plea deal
in which he escaped any prison sentence whatsoever. Worth $2 billion, Shalon was to pay a $403 million fine.
...The ringleaders, Avi Ayache and Yaron Bar, were eventually convicted, and the U.S. prosecutor announced that they would
"spend a substantial portion of their lives in prison." Ayache was sentenced in 2014 to 13 years in prison and Bar to 12. Yet,
prison records indicate the two were released the next year. Other members of the ring also appear to have been released after
extraordinarily little time.
So if the US government is secretly releasing Federal prisoners, and if that is the case then American justice is on par with
the Mexican penal system, where such occurrences are routine.
Can anyone here verify if those two are in prison in Israel or free?
"... Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest, zero risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance, profiteering guaranteed by Obamacare. ..."
Wonder the same about bankruptcy. IIRC, think the moneychangers' bankruptcy "reform" under
the Bush II regime turned it into a virtual debtors' prison, excluding several kinds of debt
from discharge, including student loans.
Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest,
zero risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance,
profiteering guaranteed by Obamacare.
Hudson perceives things that should be but aren't obvious -- about money, power, and
freedom. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but it's ultimately a weapon wielded
in an insatiable lust for power, absolute, utterly corrupt power, the ownership and
enslavement of others. Inequality is not a flaw of rigged-market cannibalism; it's a feature,
a feature those at the top of the food chain have no intention of "fixing". The US empire,
imo, is the nadir of this evil, a kleptocracy dependent on perpetual mass-murder. The paradox
is, they may be more enslaved to their narcotic than anyone.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Janis Joplin
Three things are certain: death, taxes, and that the already thin gap between human trader
and algo is narrowing ever further.
AllianceBernstein's new virtual assistant can now suggest to fixed income portfolio managers
what the best bonds may be to purchase using parameters such as pricing, liquidity and risk,
according to
Bloomberg . The machine has numerous advantages to humans: "she" can scan millions of data
points and identify potential trades in seconds. Plus she never needs to take a cigarette or a
bathroom break.
The new virtual assistant, dubbed Skynet 2.0 "Abbie 2.0", specializes in identifying bonds
that human portfolio managers have missed. She can also help spot human errors and communicate
with similar bots like herself at other firms to arrange trades, making humans redundant. This
is the second iteration of AllianceBernstein's electronic assistant which debuted in January of
this year, but could only build orders for bonds following precise input from humans.
Sourcing bonds that are easy to trade is done by Abbie 2.0 reaching out to another AB system
called ALFA, which stands for Automated Liquidity Filtering and Analytics. The AFLA system
gathers bids and asks from dealers and electronic trading venues to work out the best possible
trades.
For now, humans are still required: Jeff Skoglund, chief operating officer of fixed income
at AB told Bloomberg that "humans and machines will need to work closer than ever to find
liquidity, trade faster and handle risks. Our hope is that we grow and use people in ways that
are more efficient and better leverage their skills."
What he really means is that his hope is to fire as many expensive traders and PMs as
possible to fatten the company's profit margins. Which is why the virtual assistant already
helps support a majority, or more than 60 percent of AllianceBernstein's fixed income trades.
The "upgrades" that are coming for the new assistant will help it include high-yielding
investment grade bonds, before expanding to other more complex markets in the coming months. AB
says that they will still rely on humans to make the final decisions on trades. For now.
Related: IBM Launchs Global Payments System With New Stablecoin
While the original version of the assistant had to be told how much a portfolio manager
wanted of a specific bond, the new version now mines data pools to be proactive, making sizing
suggestions to portfolio managers. Among other things, the assistant looks at ratings of
companies, capital structure and macro data such as social and geopolitical risks.
This is just another step in the industry becoming machine oriented in order to help cut
costs, save time and avoid errors, especially in relatively illiquid bond markets. Liquidity
could become even more of a factor if the economy slips into recession over the next couple of
years.
Electronic trading in general is becoming more pronounced in fixed income as banks act more
like exchanges instead of holding bonds on their balance sheet. All the while, regulations have
encouraged the shifting of bond trading to exchanges. More than 80 percent of investors in
high-grade bonds use electronic platforms, accounting for 20 percent of volume, according to
Bloomberg.
Skoglund concluded, "We expect to be faster to market and capture opportunities we otherwise
would not have caught by using this system. There's a liquidity problem right now that could
become significantly more challenging in a risk-off environment."
"... farmers are, in any society in which interest on loans is calculated, inevitably subject to being impoverished, then stripped of their property, and finally reduced to servitude (including the sexual servitude of daughters and wives) by their creditors, creditors. The latter inevitably seek to effect the terminal polarization of society into an oligarchy of predatory creditors cannibalizing a sinking underclass mired in irreversible debt peonage ..."
"... For what is the most basic condition of civilization, Hudson asks, other than societal organization that effects lasting "balance" by keeping "everybody above the break-even level"? ..."
"... they possessed the financial sophistication to understand that, since interest on loans increases exponentially, while economic growth at best follows an S-curve. This means that debtors will, if not protected by a central authority, end up becoming permanent bondservants to their creditors. So Mesopotamian kings regularly rescued debtors who were getting crushed by their debts. ..."
"... By clearing away the buildup of personal debts, rulers saved society from the social chaos that would have resulted from personal insolvency, debt bondage, and military defection ..."
"... In ancient Mesopotamian societies it was understood that freedom was preserved by protecting debtors. ..."
"... For us freedom has been understood to sanction the ability of creditors to demand payment from debtors without restraint or oversight. This is the freedom to cannibalize society. This is the freedom to enslave. This is, in the end, the freedom proclaimed by the Chicago School and the mainstream of American economists. ..."
"... A constant dynamic of history has been the drive by financial elites to centralize control in their own hands and manage the economy in predatory, extractive ways. Their ostensible freedom is at the expense of the governing authority and the economy at large. As such, it is the opposite of liberty as conceived in Sumerian times ..."
"... And our Orwellian, our neoliberal notion of unrestricted freedom for the creditor dooms us at the very outset of any quest we undertake for a just economic order. Any and every revolution that we wage, no matter how righteous in its conception, is destined to fail. ..."
"... But, in the eighth century B.C., along with the alphabet coming from the Near East to the Greeks, so came the concept of calculating interest on loans. This concept of exponentially-increasing interest was adopted by the Greeks -- and subsequently by the Romans -- without the balancing concept of Clean Slate amnesty. ..."
"... Hudson is able to explain that the long decline and fall of Rome begins not, as Gibbon had it, with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five good emperors, in A.D. 180, but four centuries earlier, following Hannibal's devastation of the Italian countryside during the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.). ..."
"... latifundia Italiam ..."
"... Arnold Toynbee is almost alone in emphasizing the role of debt in concentrating Roman wealth and property ownership" (p. xviii) -- and thus in explaining the decline of the Roman Empire. ..."
"... This is a typical example of Orwellian doublespeak engineered by public relations factotums for bondholders and banks. The real hazard to every economy is the tendency for debts to grow beyond the ability of debtors to pay. The first defaulters are victims of junk mortgages and student debtors, but by far the largest victims are countries borrowing from the IMF in currency "stabilization" (that is economic destabilization) programs. ..."
"... The analogy in Bronze Age Babylonia was a flight of debtors from the land. Today from Greece to Ukraine, it is a flight of skilled labor and young labor to find work abroad. ..."
"... "Sin" and "Debt" are the same word in many languages, such as German, Scandinavian etc. ..."
"... The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity ..."
"... Yes, Hudson's scholarship puts the lie to a lot of common economic beliefs today. ..."
"... Bankruptcy is essentially a form of debt jubilee that isn't society-wide on a specific date. ..."
"... Keeping inflation target extremely low should serve the creditors more than the debtors. ..."
"... The ECB, as currently constituted, is a full on neoliberal disaster. Copious evidence provided here: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/ ..."
"... Western civilization, until very recently, had very strict anti-usury laws which prevented most people from borrowing money at all, let alone falling into debt servitude. Indeed, while laws varied widely from place to place, most victims of over-borrowing were royal courts and aristocrats, not smallholders. And of course, since most moneylenders were Jewish, one solution for debtors regularly employed was to simply run the creditors out of town or indeed, the country. Isn't that a kind of jubilee? ..."
"... The parallels of debt oligarchies to tech oligarchies, this article draws for me .. "So it was inevitable that, in the last century of American history, increasing numbers of small firms became irredeemably unviable and lost their ability to compete. It likewise was inevitable that the FANGS amassed the masses of entrepreneurial talent and established themselves in parasitic oligarchies." ..."
"... For what is the most basic condition of civilization, Hudson asks, other than societal organization that effects lasting "balance" by keeping "everybody above the break-even level"? ..."
"... That's the core regulating idea Geoff Mann draws out of Keynes in his recent "In the Long Run We Are All Dead." As best as I can tell his take on Keynes is accurate, and he's able to make a case for aligning him with the likes of Hegel and -- drum roll -- Robespierre, who was fiercely insistent on the guarantee of an "honorable poverty." In a way, they were all theorists of the abyss, pragmatists who insisted on measures to make sure economies didn't kill their members. I was particularly taken by the idea that the General Theory is not systematic but rather an analysis of different modes of breakdown, e.g. the liquidity trap, that must be compensated for. ..."
"... Yes. Bankruptcy is hardly any kind of Jubilee. Any debt is much harder to discharge post 2005, including medical, which is the cause of half of bankruptcies according to filers. ..."
"... Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest, zero risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance, profiteering guaranteed by Obamacare. ..."
"... Cooperation. Because we can decline the idea of debt right back to one thing. Cooperation. When Graeber says "Money is Debt" he is right but he fails to define the root of debt. Because debt is not money. ..."
"... Ordinary people in pension plans do own debt. That is where the hit would be hardest to absorb. ..."
"... At some point, supporters of debt forgiveness need to reconcile their position with the fact that the extinguishing of debt is, in effect, a sovereign action taking the property of another on a scale without much parallel in modern society. ..."
"... Let me suggest a parallel or two: the acquisition of property by means of enforced indebtedness combined with creditor fraud that occurred in the Great Foreclosure Carnage around 2008? Or the appropriation of the lion's share of economic growth since 1970 to the richest 1% or so? ..."
"... Creditors SHOULD be required to exercise judgment and restraint in extending credit. It's moral hazard in the other direction if the government lets them squeeze the life out of people. ..."
"... Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle ..."
"... "That is what creditors really wanted: Not merely the interest as such, but the collateral -- whatever economic assets debtors possessed, from their labor to their property, ending up with their lives" Creditors=Predators ..."
"... prædia/latifundia ..."
"... The purpose of doing so was as to keep society functioning by meeting demands that conflict with and at times are superior to the normal need to repay debt. Periodic debt forgiveness is equally normal, in the manner that medieval farmers let their land lie fallow so as to bear fruit another year. ..."
"... If the bank is stupid enough to make the loan, they are stupid enough to lose it. The bank must take the consequence of making a un-payable loan. ..."
"... The bank has far more resources to know if the loan is repayable than the person getting the loan. Since the bank 'knows' more, it should take on more responsibility for making the loan than the person getting the loan. And so, back to reason #1 above, stupid bank loses stupid loan. ..."
"... What could have facilitated debt jubilees in ancient societies was the fact that the new rulers which overthrew the old as a result of frequent wars, found it convenient to eliminate the former propertied classes to win over the support of the indebted and enslaved commoners. 'Wiping the slate clean' could have been just a measure to win political legitimacy. ..."
"... let me pre-purchase the book, and their system will download it and notify me when the content is available. ..."
To say that Michael Hudson's new book And Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure,
and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Yea r (ISLET 2018) is profound is an
understatement on the order of saying that the Mariana Trench is deep. To grasp his central
argument is so alien to our modern way of thinking about civilization and barbarism that Hudson
quite matter-of-factly agreed with me that the book is, to the extent that it will be
understood, "earth-shattering" in both intent and effect. Over the past three decades, Hudson
gleaned (under the auspices of Harvard's Peabody Museum) and then synthesized the scholarship
of American and British and French and German and Soviet assyriologists (spelled with a
lower-case a to denote collectively all who study the various civilizations of ancien t
Mesopotamia, which include Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, Babylonia, et al., as well as
Assyria with a capital A ). Hudson demonstrates that we, twenty-first century
globalists, have been morally blinded by a dark legacy of some twenty-eight centuries of
decontextualized history. This has left us, for all practical purposes, utterly ignorant
of the corrective civilizational model that is needed to save ourselves from tottering into
bleak neo-feudal barbarism.
This corrective model actually existed and flourished in the economic functioning of
Mesopotamian societies during the third and second millennia B.C. It can be termed Clean Slate
amnesty, a term Hudson uses to embrace the essential function of what was called amargi
and níg-si-sá in Sumerian, andurārum and mīš
arum in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia), šudūtu and kirenzi
in Hurrian, para tarnumar in Hittite, and deror (
דְּרוֹר ) in Hebrew: It is the necessary and periodic
erasure of the debts of small farmers -- necessary because such farmers are, in any society in
which interest on loans is calculated, inevitably subject to being impoverished, then stripped
of their property, and finally reduced to servitude (including the sexual servitude of
daughters and wives) by their creditors, creditors. The latter inevitably seek to effect the
terminal polarization of society into an oligarchy of predatory creditors cannibalizing a
sinking underclass mired in irreversible debt peonage. Hudson writes: "That is what creditors
really wanted: Not merely the interest as such, but the collateral -- whatever economic assets
debtors possessed, from their labor to their property, ending up with their lives" (p. 50).
And such polarization is, by Hudson's definition, barbarism. For what is the most basic
condition of civilization, Hudson asks, other than societal organization that effects lasting
"balance" by keeping "everybody above the break-even level"?
"Mesopotamian societies were not interested in equality," he told me, "but they were
civilized. And they possessed the financial sophistication to understand that, since interest
on loans increases exponentially, while economic growth at best follows an S-curve. This means
that debtors will, if not protected by a central authority, end up becoming permanent
bondservants to their creditors. So Mesopotamian kings regularly rescued debtors who were
getting crushed by their debts. They knew that they needed to do this. Again and again, century
after century, they proclaimed Clean Slate Amnesties."
Hudson also writes: "By liberating distressed individuals who had fallen into debt bondage,
and returning to cultivators the lands they had forfeited for debt or sold under economic
duress, these royal acts maintained a free peasantry willing to fight for its land and work on
public building projects and canals . By clearing away the buildup of personal debts, rulers
saved society from the social chaos that would have resulted from personal insolvency, debt
bondage, and military defection" (p. 3).
Marx and Engels never made such an argument (nor did Adam Smith for that matter). Hudson
points out that they knew nothing of these ancient Mesopotamian societies. No one did back
then. Almost all of the various kinds of assyriologists completed their archaeological
excavations and philological analyses during the twentieth century. In other words, this book
could not have been written until someone digested the relevant parts of the vast body of this
recent scholarship. And this someone is Michael Hudson.
So let us reconsider Hudson's fundamental insight in more vivid terms. In ancient
Mesopotamian societies it was understood that freedom was preserved by protecting debtors. In
what we call Western Civilization, that is, in the plethora of societies that have followed the
flowering of the Greek poleis beginning in the eighth century B.C., just the opposite,
with only one major exception (Hudson describes the tenth-century A.D. Byzantine Empire of
Romanos Lecapenus), has been the case: For us freedom has been understood to sanction the
ability of creditors to demand payment from debtors without restraint or oversight. This is the
freedom to cannibalize society. This is the freedom to enslave. This is, in the end, the
freedom proclaimed by the Chicago School and the mainstream of American economists.
And so
Hudson emphasizes that our Western notion of freedom has been, for some twenty-eight centuries
now, Orwellian in the most literal sense of the word: War is Peace • Freedom is
Slavery• Ignorance is Strength . He writes: "A constant dynamic of history has been
the drive by financial elites to centralize control in their own hands and manage the economy
in predatory, extractive ways. Their ostensible freedom is at the expense of the governing
authority and the economy at large. As such, it is the opposite of liberty as conceived in
Sumerian times" (p. 266).
And our Orwellian, our neoliberal notion of unrestricted freedom for the creditor
dooms us at the very outset of any quest we undertake for a just economic order. Any and every
revolution that we wage, no matter how righteous in its conception, is destined to fail.
And we are so doomed, Hudson says, because we have been morally blinded by twenty-eight
centuries of deracinated, or as he says, decontextualized history. The true roots of
Western Civilization lie not in the Greek poleis that lacked royal oversight to cancel
debts, but in the Bronze Age Mesopotamian societies that understood how life, liberty and land
would be cyclically restored to debtors again and again. But, in the eighth century B.C., along
with the alphabet coming from the Near East to the Greeks, so came the concept of calculating
interest on loans. This concept of exponentially-increasing interest was adopted by the Greeks
-- and subsequently by the Romans -- without the balancing concept of Clean Slate amnesty.
So it was inevitable that, over the centuries of Greek and Roman history, increasing numbers
of small farmers became irredeemably indebted and lost their land. It likewise was inevitable
that their creditors amassed huge land holdings and established themselves in parasitic
oligarchies. This innate tendency to social polarization arising from debt unforgiveness is the
original and incurable curse on our post-eighth-century-B.C. Western Civilization, the lurid
birthmark that cannot be washed away or excised. In this context Hudson quotes the classicist
Moses Finley to great effect: " . debt was a deliberate device on the part of the creditor to
obtain more dependent labor rather than a device for enrichment through interest." Likewise he
quotes Tim Cornell: "The purpose of the 'loan,' which was secured on the person of the debtor,
was precisely to create a state of bondage"(p. 52 -- Hudson earlier made this point in two
colloquium volumes he edited as part of his Harvard project: Debt and Economic Renewal in
the Ancient Near East , and Labor in the Ancient World ).
Hudson is able to explain that the long decline and fall of Rome begins not, as Gibbon had
it, with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five good emperors, in A.D. 180, but
four centuries earlier, following Hannibal's devastation of the Italian countryside during the
Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.). After that war the small farmers of Italy never recovered
their land, which was systematically swallowed up by the pr æ dia (note the
etymological connection with predatory ), the latifundia , the great oligarchic
estates: latifundia Italiam ("the great estates destroyed Italy"), as Pliny the Elder
observed. But among modern scholars, as Hudson points out, "Arnold Toynbee is almost alone in
emphasizing the role of debt in concentrating Roman wealth and property ownership" (p. xviii)
-- and thus in explaining the decline of the Roman Empire.
"Arnold Toynbee," Hudson writes, " described Rome 's patrician idea of 'freedom' or '
liberty ' as limited to oligarchic freedom from kings or civic bodies powerful enough to check
creditor power to indebt and impoverish the citizenry at large. 'The patrician aristocracy's
monopoly of office after the eclipse of the monarchy [Hudson quotes from Toynbee' s book
Hannibal's Legacy ] had been used by the patricians as a weapon for maintaining their
hold on the lion's share of the country's economic assets; and the plebeian majority of the
Roman citizen-body had striven to gain access to public office as a means to securing more
equitable distribution of property and a restraint on the oppression of debtors by creditors.'
The latter attempt failed," Hudson observes, "and European and Western civilization is still
living with the aftermath" (p. 262).
Because Hudson brings into focus the big picture, the pulsing sweep of Western history over
millennia, he is able to describe the economic chasm between ancient Mesopotamian civilization
and the later Western societies that begins with Greece and Rome: "Early in this century [
i.e . the scholarly consensus until the 1970s] Mesopotamia's debt cancellations were
understood to be like Solon's seisachtheia of 594 B.C. freeing the Athenian citizens
from debt bondage. But Near Eastern royal proclamations were grounded in a different
social-philosophical context from Greek reforms aiming to replace landed creditor aristocracies
with democracy. The demands of the Greek and Roman populace for debt cancellation can rightly
be called revolutionary [italics mine], but Sumerian and Babylonian demands were based
on a conservative tradition grounded in rituals of renewing the calendrical cosmos and its
periodicities in good order.
The Mesopotamian idea of reform had ' no notion [Hudson is quoting
Dominique Charpin ' s book Hammurabi of Babylon here] of what we would call social
progress. Instead, the measures the king instituted under his mīš arum were
measures to bring back the original order [italics mine]. The rules of the game had not
been changed, but everyone had been dealt a new hand of cards'" (p. 133). Contrast the Greeks
and Romans: " Classical Antiquity, " Hudson writes, "replaced the cyclical idea of time and
social renewal with that of linear time. Economic polarization became irreversible, not merely
temporary" (p. xxv). In other words: "The idea of linear progress, in the form of irreversible
debt and property transfers, has replaced the Bronze Age tradition of cyclical renewal" (p.
7).
After all these centuries, we remain ignorant of the fact that deep in the roots of our
civilization is contained the corrective model of cyclical return – what Dominique
Charpin calls the "restoration of order" (p. xix). We continue to inundate ourselves with a
billion variations of the sales pitch to borrow and borrow, the exhortation to put more and
more on credit, because, you know, the future's so bright I gotta wear shades.
Nowhere, Hudson shows, is it more evident that we are blinded by a deracinated, by a
decontextualized understanding of our history than in our ignorance of the career of
Jesus. Hence the title of the book: And Forgive Them Their Debts and the cover
illustration of Jesus flogging the moneylenders -- the creditors who do not forgive debts -- in
the Temple. For centuries English-speakers have recited the Lord's Prayer with the assumption
that they were merely asking for the forgiveness of their trespasses , their theological
sins : " and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us ."
is the translation presented in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. What is lost in
translation is the fact that Jesus came "to preach the gospel to the poor to preach the
acceptable Year of the Lord": He came, that is, to proclaim a Jubilee Year, a restoration of
deror for debtors: He came to institute a Clean Slate Amnesty (which is what
Hebrew דְּרוֹר connotes in this context).
So consider the passage from the Lord's Prayer literally: καὶ
ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ
ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν: " and
send away (ἄφες) for us our debts
(ὀφειλήματα)." The Latin translation is
not only grammatically identical to the Greek, but also shows the Greek word
ὀφειλήματα revealingly translated as
debita : et dimitte nobis debita nostra : " and discharge ( dimitte ) for
us our debts ( debita )." There was consequently, on the part of the creditor class, a
most pressing and practical reason to have Jesus put to death: He was demanding that they
restore the property they had rapaciously taken from their debtors. And after His death there
was likewise a most pressing and practical reason to have His Jubilee proclamation of a Clean
Slate Amnesty made toothless, that is to say, made merely theological: So the rich could
continue to oppress the poor, forever and ever. Amen.
Just as this is a profound book, it is so densely written that it is profoundly difficult to
read. I took six days, which included six or so hours of delightful and enlightening
conversation with the author himself, to get through it. I often availed myself of David
Graeber' s book Debt: The First 5,000 Years when I struggled to follow some of Hudson's
arguments. (Graeber and Hudson have been friends, Hudson told me, for ten years, and Graeber,
when writing Debt; The First 5,000 Years , relied on Hudson's scholarship for his
account of ancient Mesopotamian economics, cf. p. xxiii).
I have written this review as
synopsis of the book in order to provide some help to other readers: I cannot emphasize too
much that this book is indeed earth-shattering , but much intellectual labor is required
to digest it.
ADDENDUM: Moral Hazard
When I sent a draft of my review to a friend last night, he emailed me back with this
question:
-- Wouldn't debt cancellations just take away any incentive for people to pay back loans
and, thus, take away the incentive to give loans? People who haven't heard the argument
before and then read your review will probably be skeptical at first.
Here is Michael Hudson's response:
-- Creditors argue that if you forgive debts for a class of debtors – say, student
loans – that there will be some "free riders," and that people will expect to have bad
loans written off. This is called a "moral hazard," as if debt writedowns are a hazard to the
economy, and hence, immoral.
This is a typical example of Orwellian doublespeak engineered by public relations factotums
for bondholders and banks. The real hazard to every economy is the tendency for debts to grow
beyond the ability of debtors to pay. The first defaulters are victims of junk mortgages and
student debtors, but by far the largest victims are countries borrowing from the IMF in
currency "stabilization" (that is economic destabilization) programs.
It is moral for creditors to have to bear the risk ("hazard") of making bad loans, defined
as those that the debtor cannot pay without losing property, status or becoming insolvent. A
bad international loan to a government is one that the government cannot pay except by imposing
austerity on the economy to a degree that output falls, labor is obliged to emigrate to find
employment, capital investment declines, and governments are forced to pay creditors by
privatizing and selling off the public domain to monopolists.
The analogy in Bronze Age Babylonia was a flight of debtors from the land. Today from Greece
to Ukraine, it is a flight of skilled labor and young labor to find work abroad.
No debtor – whether a class of debtors such as students or victims of predatory junk
mortgages, or an entire government and national economy – should be obliged to go on the
road to and economic suicide and self-destruction in order to pay creditors. The definition of
statehood – and hence, international law – should be to put one's national solvency
and self-determination above foreign financial attacks. Ceding financial control should be
viewed as a form of warfare, which countries have a legal right to resist as "odious debt"
under moral international law.
The basic moral financial principal should be that creditors should bear the hazard for
making bad loans that the debtor couldn't pay -- like the IMF loans to Argentina and Greece.
The moral hazard is their putting creditor demands over the economy' s survival.
So is Hudson making the claim that Jesus was never talking about 'original sin' at all?
That he was talking about literal, temporal-world financial debts and the need to erase
them? If so, when and where did this theological confusion arise? Saul of Tarsus and his
mysticism?
King James version: "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
However, the temple whip episode demonstrated, by action, that he wanted separation of the
material economy from the religious, and 'render unto Caesar' that money was not his concern.
His inclusion of Matthew as a disciple had an antithesis with Simon the Zealot, sworn to kill
tax collectors, and says that material and financial values were to be set aside amongst his
followers.
If Hudson is claiming that the verse refers solely to this-world indebtedness, then he's
out over his skis. Not Jesus' problem.
Then of course there is the pharisee/sadducee conflict which ties into the Samaritan
story. The Samaritans were basically Jews with their own temple that didn't hand money over
to the Sadducees at the big shrine in Jerusalem everyone is always going on about. Of course,
Jesus does seem to share quite a bit in common with the Pharisees. Oh Lord, Jesus was
probably taking orders for tables and chairs during the Sermon on the Mount!
"Of course, Jesus does seem to share quite a bit in common with the Pharisees."
In his book The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity the late British Talmudic
scholar Hyam Maccoby
argues exactly that – that Jesus was a pharisee. He further asserts that Saul arrived
in Jerusalem seeking to study to become a Pharisee, a process that required extensive study,
but couldn't cut it. He then became an agent provocateur on behalf of the Sadducees in their
efforts to suppress phariseeism and the related sect founded by Jesus's disciples. After his
"road to Damascus moment," the now Paul cobbled together a new theology combining elements of
Judaism with elements of the pagan, nature religions of the Middle East. This "Jerusalem
Church," as Maccoby labels it, disappeared from history following the Roman sack of the city
in 70 CE. What has come down to us as the New Testament, argues the author in a footnote, is
a history of early Christianity that is analogous to a Stalinist history of the Russian
Revolution.
That's the theological equivalent to 'climate change is a natural phenomenon." That anti
semitic 'paul made it a jewish church' heresy been considered incorrect for over 1000 years.
read something else
add in the Constantinian Shift as well as the convenient lack of contemporary or original
texts and Christianity is hopelessly muddled. Theodosius muddled it even more.
In the same way as someone mentioned Judaism was split by the Babylonian Captivity(the elites
carted off, leaving the sub-elites in charge back home) upon their return, texts and ideas
were lost or burned, in the interest of temporal power.
same as it ever was.
in a former life, I endeavored to read all the source material of all this even read Eusebius
Constantine's pet bishop.
the various apocryphae throw everything we think we know about the history -- let alone the
original versions–into question. Nobody I've encountered in the world of religion wants
to go there but the idea of "Flog a Banker -- it's what Jesus would do" resonates with
ordinary Christians out here(except for the bankers, of course, and the rest of the
parasitium.
This book looks like a must-read. Any idea of a non-amazon source?
I was told, many years ago, that the Samaritans were the descendants of Jews who were not
shipped off to Babylon, while the sect that became dominant were the descendants of those who
went to Babylon. While there "in exile" they maintained their culture, but the two groups
inevitably diverged. When they returned from Babylon that group found the ones who had not
been exiled were not performing the rituals or interpreting "the Law" in exactly the same way
they did. Of course it was not possible that their own practices had changed.
Only the elite went into captivity, a common means of securing loyalty and assimilation.
My guess is the peasant religion probably wasn't terribly different from area to area when
you moved away from the coast and didn't get too close to Babylon or Egypt and likely just
assimilated new traditions various charismatic types passed through, not relying on anything
too specific as overlords also changed. Jerusalem was the last place the major powers could
fortify before they had to commit to a proper invasion of a major power. It was probably like
Christendom before the schism between East and West with powerful regional churches and
localized saints. Through the Americas, there are Christian celebrations with heavy local
influence from the Mexican Day of the Dead to the Irish throwing parades which aren't so
welcoming.
Islam strikes me more of a unifying religion of what was already there in a fashion
especially where Rome (Byzantines) wasn't really governing as well as a government
should.
The original sin was humans gaining the knowledge of duality and hence, the creation of
morality:
Genesis 2:15
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care
of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the
garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when
you eat from it you will certainly die. "
Genesis 3:4
"You will not certainly die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when
you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil."
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,
and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her
husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and
they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for
themselves. "
There are some who will say that Good and Evil in hebrew really mean that it was not
duality, but they would know "everything". However, if it did not mean good and evil why
would Adam and Eve be ashamed because they were naked? They did not know they were naked
because the dualism of naked/clothed did not exist.
Duality already existed but God did not want them to know about it because it would mean
they would suffer.
Jesus was a teacher of non-dualism. How can one die if there is no dualism, if there is no
opposite for "birth"?
I don't know. God looked over his creation and saw it was Good. I doubt that is a moral statement. I think it has more to do with creation and destruction.
They saw they were naked, so they destroyed gods creation, 'fig leaves', and created their
own, 'covering for themselves'.
Then god says the punishment for this was 'by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your
bread'
You were a hunter-gatherer, but now you have knowledge of creation and destruction, you
will become 'civilized' and become a farmer.
If we look at Cain and Abel we see one son was loved by god, while the other was not. It
was civilized man who offering god rejected, not the hunter-gatherer.
And after the murder, god told Cain "you are your brothers keeper'.
Its civilization that makes one man rich and another poor. Hunter gatherers are much more
egalitarian than civilized societies.
Jesus, and many others, are here to remind us that we are all children of god and in this
together.
And that 'civilized' man has a duty to those who are 'uncivilized'. The losers, they
people who can't make it, the bottom class, we owe them, because we 'took' their
livelihood.
"Original Sin" isn't part of Judaism or Islam despite the obvious inclusion of Adam and
Eve. IMHO, its probably not possible to separate Christianity from the Imperial structures of
Rome. A religion replacing a structure which makes its former leaders deities needs a good
story to be successful.
Adam and Eve aren't important stories in Judaism and Islam (they are evidence of
polytheistic roots), but they matter to Christians because of Saul's rants.
The other issue is the authors of the various doctrines depended on what they were
attracted to. "I am the Alpha and the Omega." If this line is the case, then in the
narrative, Jesus needs to reflect the beginning and the end. He's that important. Its like
when Q was in the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the same setting as the
premiere, but instead of dealing with a mystery, Picard has to deal with saving humanity and
his fish once again. Its a nice bow, but when Kirk shows up in Generations after dealing with
his issues both in Star Trek II and VI, it doesn't work. One Gospel traces Jesus through the
line of Kings, one through the prophets, and one just "the word." The Son of God isn't dying
for an extra day of lamp oil.
Mohammad is out there directing battles and building an empire that was probably better
than what was there before. Jesus was born into Pax Romana. He could have been born into much
worse places.
I do not feel anything you wrote is in disagreement with my thoughts.
Eden, I feel, is a an imprint of pre-history, of the paleolithic. A time when money was
not the common story that people willingly (or unwillingly) currently believe. I think this
is largely driven by genetics. If your genes can change by our diet why would they not be
able to be changed by our culture? So I do not care if someone wants to be capitalist, just give me my space to be an
anarchist. You capitalism does not work in my brain.
I think it is extremely unfortunate that Professor Hudson chose to make claims about 'mere
theology' that don't have a basis in the texts concerning Jesus. The inference I get from
reading all the evangelists wrote on the subject of the Lord's Prayer is that debt collecting
is indeed frowned upon, or rather to be forgiven, but what sense would it make for a follower
of Jesus to ask God to forgive economic debt? And the evangelists expand that concept to
mean, as has been earlier written by them, all the many shortcomings man is capable of, not
just penury.
Certainly the entire message of the Bible, old and new testaments, deals with the
honorable matter of helping the poor, widows and orphans as well, because that is a good
thing to do in the eyes of the Lord, who loves mankind created in His image as it is. All of
that is part of the compassionate spiritual being He is and we ought to be.
I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For those of us who think the
spiritual message is important, there is no conflict between our faith and Dr. Hudson's
excellent reminder that mankind realized what was necessary to provide for a stable earthly
government very early in the historic record. But it has really always been recognized until
the recent economic period that governments must manage equity in their populations or else
come to a speedy ruin. Maybe never spelled out in economic theory, but even the pueblo
Indians would have something to say on the matter. Chaco Canyon is a case in point.
I think Dr. Hudson is commenting on what makes for a stable, just and durable
society . Like symmetry, humans are exquisitely attuned to imbalances in equity and fairness. Ask
two siblings made to share what they each most want. Governments and societies ignore that at
their peril.
I think he would say that much of economics is a form of special pleading, an argument by
the wealthy that what they do to become wealthy is of great value to all (not just the few)
– despite the overwhelming contrary evidence – and determined by the nearly
divine laws of the market.
Societies, like families, prosper, however, through enduring and repetitive
self-sacrifice.
Not to put words into Professor Hudson's mouth, I would say that he is correct on the
perceptions he has about the jubilee year as it is represented in the Old Testament and even
Jesus' reference to a jubilee year in the early part of his ministry. I give Professor Hudson
great credit for pointing out that powerful part of Jesus' early speech in the Temple that
did scandalize many of the listeners there. I had not seen that message before Dr. Hudson
pointed to it, but it is a very important one as he says. But Jesus was then and also in all
his further sayings taking that economic law promulgated in earlier texts and not only
pointing out that it wasn't being observed by unscrupulous taxation practices, but also
expanding it into a larger spiritual context wherein the poor are really blessed in spirit,
because poverty is right down there with humility, and that emptying of oneself on behalf of
another is where true compassion begins.
In my faith, Jesus is God incarnate. God incarnate in order that we see in his humility,
the humility intrinsic to God's relationship to mankind. Humility and 'humus' are related,
and so they should be. The hard shell of the seed falling to the ground preserves the soul of
the seed, even as what hardens it is the vicissitudes of its early life. We all presently
have life; we are like seeds that way. And as you say, EoH, societies, like families, prosper
through enduring and repetitive self-sacrifice. That's where faith and economics, true
economics such as Professor Hudson is proposing, meet.
The only church that, to me, holds to Jesus's teaching is the Franciscan Church. Jesus also tried to help people with their fears of "doing without". This is crucial to
me. If you are unafraid to do without the capitalists have no power.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the
food, and the body than the raiment? 26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not
ye of much more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit
unto [a]the measure of his life? 28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto
you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God
doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Be not therefore anxious,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be
clothed?
There were different factions within Judaism vying for public and ideological support. A
prophetic Judaism where "God desired mercy and not sacrifice", where those who were outcasted
by the priestly Judaism, the poor who couldn't afford the Priestly ritual, taxes that
enriched the Pharisaic elite that acted as a proxy for Rome, the alien, the sinner, etc. In
this prophetic tradition love your neighbor, forgiveness of debts, and extending your
neighbor to include this traditionally outcasted, alongside predictions of Judgement for the
temple elites, and return of Gods Kingdom. Jesus belonged in this tradition. Jesus was seen
as a political and religious messiah in this tradition.
Paul belonged to the Pharisaic tradition but had some sort of religious/mystical
conversion to move from prosecuting early Christian's to starting a Christ cult. Instead of
Jesus proclaiming God desired Mercy and not sacrifice, Paul claimed Jesus became the required
sacrifice. Instead of forgiveness of debts, mercy and acceptance being the way to God, Jesus
became the priestly ritual and Christianity became a cult. Richard Horsely has done great
research on First century Judaism and the historical Jesus. I also really like "the last
week" by Borg and crossan
This is a very similar thesis to one found in David Graebers "5000 Years of Debt",
interesting that it's the conclusion being arrived at by multiple scholars.
Graeber and Hudson have been friends, Hudson told me, for ten years, and Graeber, when
writing Debt; The First 5,000 Years, relied on Hudson's scholarship for his account of
ancient Mesopotamian economics
was just going to add the point about "Debt". I found Graeber's work to be fascinating,
especially how the relationship between "sin" and debt, and the implications on the
development and rise of Christianity, the rejection of homosexuality (not just wives and
daughters became sex slaves), and perhaps most importantly, how wrong market fundamentalist
are in their understanding of how economic systems evolve and their belief that market-based
systems are "natural", arising from a pre-market barter state.
It's an excellent alternative to the creation myths of mainstream economics. I've listened
to the audio book three times through and gotten more out of it each time. It's always a
pleasure to see 'conventional wisdom' dethroned by that most pernicious of enemies: actual
history.
looking forward to picking up a copy. loved graeber's Debt: and this seems to build on
that and adds Hudson's economic background to Graeber's anthropological one
There is no 'moral hazard'. This is a non sequitur designed to deceive like a lot of
'sponsored' economic theory. Every loan carries a risk and the risk is it won't be paid
back.
The moral hazard argument only applies if debts are paid back at once, thus debtors can
'wait' for a jubilee. In the real world debt is paid back in bits along with interest. So no
one will be waiting for jubilee in day to day economic life without facing consequences.
What a debt jubilee does is wipes the slate clean of loans that 'won't' be paid back, and
maintains systemic balance rather than concentration and exploitation.
It's also pretty telling that those who control the "moral hazard" meme rarely if ever
discuss the moral hazard of bailing out major Corps and Financial Houses or the "moral
hazard" of handing large Corps years of taxpayer contributions to various States.
Also overlooks that outside of personal debt, the world of corporate debt see "strategic
defaults" occur all the time with no moral hand wringing involved. Debts are a promise to pay
back, not an obligation.
I had an interesting argument with my brother-in-law several years ago, usually a very
level headed fellow who was going back to school for engineering in his 30s, as soon as I
brought up the possibility of dissolving student debt he grew quite heated. To
paraphrase:
"Why should I be punished for responsibly paying back my loans while someone else who was
irresponsible gets that debt annulled?"
Moral outrage for the debtors being forgiven their sin! Of course, a few years later with
his debt built up his tune had completely changed
Bankruptcy is essentially a form of debt jubilee that isn't society-wide on a specific
date. The big problem I see with student loan debt is that it can't be discharged in
bankruptcy. Individual bankruptcy is not something to enter into lightly, but there are a
number of people out there who can never pay back their student debt and they should be able
to go through bankruptcy and reduce it to a manageable level so they can live the rest of
their lives productively instead of indentured servitude. At the very least, Social Security
should not be garnished to pay student debt.
Very nice read! It has been voiced by many people that ECB should set and achieve higher inflation
targets, but it sticks to the 2% target, for 'price stability', while underachieving even on
that. Keeping inflation target extremely low should serve the creditors more than the
debtors.
Real "moral hazard" are people who enable this system.
I'll have to pick up a copy of the book, which sounds quite interesting. However, I cannot
go along with the argument made here that Western Civilization is less civilized than the
Ancient Near East because it did not include regular debt jubilees.
Western civilization, until very recently, had very strict anti-usury laws which prevented
most people from borrowing money at all, let alone falling into debt servitude. Indeed, while
laws varied widely from place to place, most victims of over-borrowing were royal courts and
aristocrats, not smallholders. And of course, since most moneylenders were Jewish, one
solution for debtors regularly employed was to simply run the creditors out of town or
indeed, the country. Isn't that a kind of jubilee?
Depends what you mean by "very recently." In theory, and according to canon law
(Deuteronomy 23:19) lending at interest was completely forbidden. But quite sophisticated
banking systems had developed by the end of the middle ages, and "usury" became increasingly
defined as just "excessive interest". There was a huge controversy over this in the 16th an
17th centuries, effectively ending with the creation of the Bank of England in 1694. Most
countries had (and still have) laws against "usury" – excessive rates of interest
– but that's a different issue. Many ordinary people until quite recently lived on
non-cash economies and so this was, as you say, largely an issue for the rich. Kings in those
days frequently went bankrupt, usually because of the need to finance wars. Interestingly,
one of the biggest borrowers was the Pope, in his role as a secular prince. He had an account
with the Medici Bank in Florence, which was usually overdrawn. Someone should write a history
of the effect of the debts of Princes on history.
Supposedly the richest man *ever* was Baron Fugger . His biography by Streider is a
great read. He kept the Pope's plate as collateral for some debt or another -- when the Pope
wanted to display it in some procession, the Baron agreed. He personally accompanied the
convoy that brought the plate to Rome and also marched with it in the procession. What a
message that must have sent!
He was a miner as well as banker. Some of those mines, like earlier Roman ones across the
Mediterranean, remain among the most polluted spots on earth.
Yes. Well, the problem with interest rates being too low is because the wealthy already
have enough money, nominally speaking, to buy the world a couple times over. There is already
too much money tucked away by the wealthy as assets, but because of interest and profits,
more money is always being taken out of circulation in the real economy, and sequestered in
the financial sector. Even as the government borrows to replace it in circulation, and so
prevent *deflation.* in the real economy. The money will (eventually) be destroyed, but since
the government(s) of the world are too weak, it won't be by collecting taxes, (a la MMT.)
The parallels of debt oligarchies to tech oligarchies, this article draws for me .. "So it was inevitable that, in the last century of American history, increasing numbers of
small firms became irredeemably unviable and lost their ability to compete. It likewise was
inevitable that the FANGS amassed the masses of entrepreneurial talent and established
themselves in parasitic oligarchies."
"by keeping "everybody above the break-even level" why? to enable – the planet to go from 7 Billion people to 14 Billion? in an age of AI and vast chasm of IQ's below 100 – what could be the purpose?
I'm going to get the book.
And I wonder if the notion of "IQ" and what we've come to believe is "intelligent" could have
been as manipulated as people's relationship with and beliefs about debt.
For what is the most basic condition of civilization, Hudson asks, other than societal
organization that effects lasting "balance" by keeping "everybody above the break-even
level"?
That's the core regulating idea Geoff Mann draws out of Keynes in his recent "In the Long
Run We Are All Dead." As best as I can tell his take on Keynes is accurate, and he's able to
make a case for aligning him with the likes of Hegel and -- drum roll -- Robespierre, who was
fiercely insistent on the guarantee of an "honorable poverty." In a way, they were all
theorists of the abyss, pragmatists who insisted on measures to make sure economies didn't
kill their members. I was particularly taken by the idea that the General Theory is not
systematic but rather an analysis of different modes of breakdown, e.g. the liquidity trap,
that must be compensated for.
It's also worth noting that, according to Mann, Keynes was a poor, indifferent reader of
Marx, and that a better appreciation would have led Keynes to see they were in significant
agreement on some crisis dynamics in capitalism.
"latifundia Italiam ("the great estates destroyed Italy"), as Pliny the Elder observed."
< the quote is lacking its verb; should read "latifundia perdidere Italiam".
Also, Hudson's quote in the addendum seems to partly lack indentation
Looking forward to reading it. I really enjoyed the History of debt by David Graeber so
would be interesting to go more in depth. Does Hudson discuss bankruptcy law? After all in most of the world most types of loans can
be discharged in a bankruptcy which is the closest we have to the Jubilees
Except, of course, for the 1.5 trillion student loan debt. "For us freedom has been understood to sanction the ability of creditors to demand payment
from debtors without restraint or oversight. This is the freedom to cannibalize society. This
is the freedom to enslave. This is, in the end, the freedom proclaimed by the Chicago School
and the mainstream of American economists"
I only mentioned it because it's an example of an enormous, oppressive, non-dischargeable
debt for something that used to be considered a public good, and almost free.
The No Creditor Left Behind Bankruptcy "Reform" Act of 2005 carved a big hole in the idea
of debt forgiveness in America. Neoliberalism at its finest. Rescinding those changes would
probably be a big win for Democrats at the polls and in governance.
Yes. Bankruptcy is hardly any kind of Jubilee. Any debt is much harder to discharge post
2005, including medical, which is the cause of half of bankruptcies according to filers.
But that would mean showing contrition by the very malefactors who (hear's looking at you
– Biden, Schumer, Clinton .. along with their counterparts across the aisle)
Don't expect rescission from the likes of them !
The Plutocrats are just 'Biden their time until they own everything.
He's the main one responsible for this as a U.S. Senator servicing those "little family
businesses" headquartered in Delaware.
Wonder the same about bankruptcy. IIRC, think the moneychangers' bankruptcy "reform" under
the Bush II regime turned it into a virtual debtors' prison, excluding several kinds of debt
from discharge, including student loans.
Student loans. Now there's a naked fleecing scam by the moneychangers. High interest, zero
risk, no forgiveness. A great racket if you can get it, like Medical Insurance, profiteering
guaranteed by Obamacare.
Hudson perceives things that should be but aren't obvious -- about money, power, and
freedom. The love of money may be the root of all evil, but it's ultimately a weapon wielded
in an insatiable lust for power, absolute, utterly corrupt power, the ownership and
enslavement of others. Inequality is not a flaw of rigged-market cannibalism; it's a feature,
a feature those at the top of the food chain have no intention of "fixing". The US empire,
imo, is the nadir of this evil, a kleptocracy dependent on perpetual mass-murder. The paradox
is, they may be more enslaved to their narcotic than anyone.
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Janis Joplin
I wonder if Janis was an organ donor? These days, organ harvesting doesn't seem as
far-fetched. Were all those just urban legends about waking up in an ice bath with a note
attached about that impromptu kidney donation? /s
Regarding the point of moral hazard: what would Hudson's reply be to the person who says
"I paid off all my debts through hard work and abstinence; why should someone get a free pass
under the Jubilee. To yours truly, that would be ultimate slap in the face
Yes, the tab at the pub DID go away. A "pub" is "public house", in Babylonia too. The ale
wives weren't paid -- and they in turn didn't have to pay the palace or temples for the
consignment of beer.
A clean slate is a clean slate -- for consumer debts (NOT business debts).
It's necessary to read the book to get the details. i guarantee that nobody can deduce Bronze
Age finance abstractly.
Cooperation. Because we can decline the idea of debt right back to one thing. Cooperation.
When Graeber says "Money is Debt" he is right but he fails to define the root of debt.
Because debt is not money. It's just as the biologist here on NC said: If one amoeba hoarded
all the ATP it would simply kill off the rest of the amoeba because adenosinetriphosphate is
their source of energy, their "money".
The original sin is getting money mixed up by claiming
it is both a medium of exchange and a store of value. The word "store" goes off in its own
direction and becomes "hoard" and "deprive others". You get my drift? Debt must be
cooperation for the system to work.
A business loan used to help pay for workers' insurance – that would seem to be
worthy of consideration. A consumer loan used for an exotic vacation in the middle of an ocean – not so
worthy. A debt owed for child support or ex-wife (or husband) – would that be private or
public?
Found the source of my
misunderstanding: "In such cases rulers cancelled debts that were owed. (In that case, the ale women would
not owe the palace for the beer that had been advanced during the crop year.)" I had not put it together that the consumers were then forgiven by the ale women. Stands
to reason.
"i guarantee that nobody can deduce Bronze Age finance abstractly." Now that I can lift myself off the floor after the spastic convulsions of laughter that
brought on .. Kudos Sir . that was the best chortle I've had in yonks – !!!!!!! It is
probably the most hilarious synopsis of what ails about 90% of what we call economics at this
juncture. I think I'll have that put to paper in calligraphy and in a stunning frame on the wall
next to my Japanese charcoal art collection, of which sits on the wall around my comp
screen.
Let me get this straight your stance is basically, "I had to suffer through injustice and
I survived, why should anybody else get to have any justice?!"
It seems to favor mortgaged 'owners' of homes, if those loans are not considered
'business.' And disadvantages renters (who are thinking of borrowing to buy in the near future).
The answer is so that those other people will be able to sustain the consumption that is
necessary to absorb your production so that you don't get laid off -- but this requires an
understanding of macroeconomics unavailable in the current economic orthodoxy.
I've seen these arguments supporting debt forgiveness many, many times, but I have yet to
see any details on how this would be functionally accomplished today. I don't disagree with
the sentiment that debt has become a huge problem for many people, but sentiments aren't road
maps.
One person's debt is another person's credit. If you wipe out the debt on one side, you
extinguish the asset on the other (unless, of course, the sovereign government "buys" this
debt from the creditors in an eminent domain type fashion). Perhaps in ancient times
creditors were mostly well-healed oligarchs who could survive the loss. Today, much of the
debt is bundled and securitized and held by all sorts of individuals and institutions (think
mutual funds, pension plans, 401k's etc). While the one-percenters could absorb the hit, I'm
not so sure about those lower on the ladder who thought their retirement savings were secure
in a "safe" bond fund.
At some point, supporters of debt forgiveness need to reconcile their position with the
fact that the extinguishing of debt is, in effect, a sovereign action taking the property of
another on a scale without much parallel in modern society.
You could exchange equity interest for debt for business loans or loans secured by an
underlying asset. (mortgage loan). You could extend the time period or write down the interest rate enabling smaller
payments. You could have the Fed buy the debt, as you mentioned, and then forgive it. You could have the fed take over payments, or a portion of the payment, thereby proving
relief for the debtor while still keeping the creditor whole.
I think in the Ancient Middle East the government was the most important creditor (with
the debt arising from tax arrears) so yes, it was easier to forgive a debt then than now.
As I wrote a few lines before, another option (which has an advantage of having been in
use for centuries) is a bankruptcy.
Credit is an essential tool for stimulating any economy. Farmers often need funds to buy
seeds and get through the winter, auto manufacturers couldn't possibly survive if they had to
demand full payment up front for their cars, etc., etc (think up your own examples).
An intelligent state (or rather an idealized intelligent state) can and should issue
credit or print money to best utilize the society's productive potential. The problems begin
when the state allows this crucial function to be monopolized by the oligarchs, who unlike
the state are in the game only for profit, not for upgrading the overall well being (or war
readiness, if you prefer) of the society. A state that can print its own money can either
dispense with interest charges or forgive debt when it the debt/interest burden is excessive.
Since private lenders, who don't own the government, can't print money, they're in no
position to forgive debt. The advantage of maintaining a belief in the sanctity of debt, and
therefore the immiseration of the debtors, is that it allows the oligarchs to amass
staggering wealth, and build fabulous Xanadus in Malibu or on Long Island. You really
wouldn't want to live in a world where nobody could afford a thirty thousand square foot
house, would you?
At some point, supporters of debt forgiveness need to reconcile their position with
the fact that the extinguishing of debt is, in effect, a sovereign action taking the
property of another on a scale without much parallel in modern society.
Let me suggest a parallel or two: the acquisition of property by means of enforced
indebtedness combined with creditor fraud that occurred in the Great Foreclosure Carnage
around 2008? Or the appropriation of the lion's share of economic growth since 1970 to the
richest 1% or so?
You may have solved the problem right here: the sovereign government "buys" this debt." MMT is the perfect mechanism to do this. It accomplishes what the Temple could do in the
past. Then, the banking and insurance services required by society can be shifted to the
National Postal Service. Speculation, for those who need it, can be continued in the casinos,
where it belongs. And then we can have a real discussion about the "resource base" we call
Earth and look at ways that we can live within it, and even possibly beyond it, without
irreversibly damaging the ecology we need to revisit all this again, and again, and again
I would email your friend back and say, "you write like this is a bad thing!??!!?"
Creditors SHOULD be required to exercise judgment and restraint in extending credit. It's
moral hazard in the other direction if the government lets them squeeze the life out of
people.
Maybe its cause I have an M.div. How is this earth shattering? Its been the basic view of every dusty old Old Testament
churchman for years.
Sounds like Hudson skipped medieval cannon law and early modern eras to try and bolster the
"rediscovery" angle.
This is old hat:
Creditors aiming to own you- proverbs
Jubilee- Torah
Debts- they stoped saying that only in the 60s but I learned it like that.
But Hudson really shoulda resisted the urge to name drop Jesus quite so hard and make him
the economic revolutionary. Or is he trying to give reasons for his probable opponents to
write him off?
We on here are the choir. What do the folks in the pews here?
If he'd of kept the prophetic, he had then an ability to reach down into the prophets
which condemn growing estates, refusing jubilees, and even condemned sacrificing Children
(for material benefits from Idols) he would then be wielding a whole and big religion stick
Not just casting yet another 1800s historical Jesus.
I think you're overlooking the difference between prophecy and history here. Jesus was
another quite noisy prophet, saying what prophets say: "God's gonna getcha!" And of course He
got His for saying that, as they usually do.
We've been ignoring prophets while sanctifying them for a very long time. Hudson stitches
them back into the fabric of history. He takes them far more seriously and literally than
canon lawyers have. He helps me to understand their topsy-turvy justification of–to
build on your delightful auto-correct–cannon law.
What is the trigger point for debt forgiveness? When does it operate and upon what class
of debtors? Is it predictable or unpredictable? Is it frequent or infrequent?
It needs to be frequent enough yet to some extent unpredictable, or a class of predatory
debtors will be created, piling up debt immediately before the jubilee.
This is a means of redistribution of wealth. But aren't there better means, such as a
minimum basic income AKA universal SSI and other social entitlements? Of course, this assumes
that government seeks public welfare and is not merely the collective will of a predatory
oligarchy. Also not sure how it applies to the redistribution of wealth between nations.
If a student and medical debt jubilee, for example, were coupled with free tuition at
public colleges and M4A there would be no accumulation of debt going forward. I don't know if
there are comparable systemic changes for other types of debt, and most of this discussion is
over my head as far as theology or economic history. However, if it's about a religious,
social justice, or moral force for forgiving debts, it would include re-framing how we think
of society and our obligations to each other – not just debt forgiveness but changes to
structures to guard against further unsustainable debt.
WW I, the Russian Revolution, and WW II make one wonder about the definition of "Western
Civilization".
Each of these occurred after a period of very high wealth and income inequality with large
public and private debts in some cases.
the past century of history makes one wonder how smart it is for the 0.1% to focus on
increasing wealth and income inequality. It frequently does not end well for anybody.
Skeletons of wealthy and "noble" people at the bottom of mine shafts is often proof of
that.
And Piketty shows that these events interrupted and temporarily reversed the accumulation
of wealth, ushering in the abundance of the mid twentieth century.
'"Classical Antiquity," Hudson writes, "replaced the cyclical idea of time and social
renewal with that of linear time. Economic polarization became irreversible, not merely
temporary" (p. xxv). In other words: "The idea of linear progress, in the form of
irreversible debt and property transfers, has replaced the Bronze Age tradition of cyclical
renewal" '
I remember reading one of John Michael Greer's posts a few years back that pointed out the
differences in Western concept of time-as-linear and other, earlier societies', concept of
time as circular. We, in the West, think things will become increasingly better, (or worse)
right up to infinity. GDP will always grow, the stock market will always rise, freedom will
always increase.
Other societies thought of events as cyclical. The early growth of spring blossomed into
the fruitfulness of summer, then decayed in autumn and lay fallow in winter (or whatever
passed for winter where you were living). That's how Nature worked. And, it is inevitable
that societies grow, prosper, decline, die, then are renewed.
And, using the circle in deliberative sessions probably leads to different results than
the usual Western, linear one, of having the 'leaders' sitting in front, and the 'followers'
facing them in a subservient position. Witness the setups of most city council chambers.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote about it at length in Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
(1987).
His immediate topic was the history of the discovery of deep time, the idea that processes
observable today could explain vast changes in the earth if allowed to act over long enough
spans of time. Being Gould, he considers cultural applications beyond geology and
evolution.
One application is that the "biblical" version of a jubilee year was by the time of the
writing of the bible an ancient idea that had survived several thousand years of middle
eastern history. That writing was contemporaneous with the early Greeks and predates the
impact of Alexander and Roman rule over the eastern Mediterranean.
Cycles are real (see Nature); linear progress is delusional.
Which is why our deluded system of imaginary linear growth is subject to chronic booms and
busts which bring cyclical reality back -- Every. Single. Time.
I am troubled by these statements in the post:
" to the extent that it will be understood,'earth-shattering' in both intent and effect."
"Just as this is a profound book, it is so densely written that it is profoundly difficult to
read."
I fear too much that is "earth-shattering" will be lost if it is profoundly difficult.
Readers less able or less determined will let the interpretations of others sway their
understanding. Those others may not share the author's perspective or intent in their
interpretations, and they may not be of persons of honesty and good will.
How would Hudson respond to the person who laments " I worked and deprived my self to pay
back my loan. Why should someone else get a free ride, if I did not"?
I guess he would say that there is another moral hazard, on part of the lender which has
to be balanced against it. If I as a lender know that I can collect any loan that I make up
to enslaving the debtor if he falls in arrears then I don't assume any risk and have no skin
in the game.
Times change, we learn from mistakes, and change our ways? Before we did the wrong thing,
now we're getting it right?
Why does someone else being done justice hurt you? It's not a "free ride," either; that
implies getting something for nothing. Farmers wiped out by drought were hardly getting a
free ride when they were forgiven debts for grain that didn't grow in fields that didn't
exactly plant and tend themselves. People often do immense amounts of work only for the
bottom to drop out on the way back from the well.
One day I took a fall off a 4′ ladder, helping a friend paint their house,
shattering my left wrist. The $20,000 bill sent my life into a tailspin. Finally declared
bankruptcy, but I've still got a few years of purgatory.
That was no "free ride," friend.
I paid back my student loans, and it sucked. Literally sucked the food off my table many a
month. And I would rejoice at someone else not having to go through that. Education should be
free, to begin with, so relieving people of crushing burdens they shouldn't have at all would
be doubly enjoyable.
The answer is so that those other people will be able to sustain the consumption that is
necessary to absorb your production so that you don't get laid off -- but this requires an
understanding of macroeconomics unavailable in the current economic orthodoxy.
Jesus was not just driving the debt collectors out of the temple, he was driving out all
of the capitalists :
Mark 11:15 KJV
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out
them that sold and bought in the temple , and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers,
and the seats of them that sold doves ;
16 And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple .
17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all
nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
So he was kicking out people who were selling things in the temple, not just the money
changers, all the capitalists. A vessel carried goods and he did not even want to see them in
the temple.
It is not enough to end debt, because that still leaves us with capitalism.
The VERY NEXT verse is Mark 12, The Parable of the Tenants, literally telling the
capitalists that the people will rise up if you follow capitalism and then they will have to
kill the renters.
Oh, no, you don't. In the story it's the renters. My bad. But the renters in the story
would, I suppose, be equivalent to the rentiers we find ourselves plagued with today
"That is what creditors really wanted: Not merely the interest as such, but the collateral
-- whatever economic assets debtors possessed, from their labor to their property, ending up
with their lives"
Creditors=Predators
I would argue that it would be more appropriate to say that the
prædia/latifundia explains the ascent of the medieval feudal order rather than
explaining the decline of the Roman empire. The fall of the WRE is a multi-faceted phenomenon
with no singular cause, and besides it's a bit suspect to say that something that came about
6 centuries earlier caused it. The latifundia provided the template for social order
that would fill the void left by the collapse of the WRE, reaching its apex in high medieval
manorialism.
Late to comment on this but I always thought it would be an interesting thought to write a
history of the Western Roman Empire backwards in time starting maybe at the early middle ages
as the final presence of the Empire itself. As the end point of the Empire. As a culmination
of a process and working back tracing each step that was "caused" by the previous one
stretching back to its beginning in the 2d Cent BCE Rome-Italy and the economic problems of
debt, loss of the small farming economy, and the political social consequences. The Roman
victory in the Second Punic as the beginning of it as an Imperium with the Middle Ages as its
logical end, or so to speak, final "perfection".
Fascinating scholarship with very far reaching and profound implications, but I'm not
really satisfied with Hudson's answer to the friend of John Siman. The question posed is a
very fair one and of a very practical nature, concerning the possible deleterious effects of
systemic debt forgiveness on credit/lending. Hudson's answer, at least as it's presented
here, sidesteps the question and instead dives into a discussion of morality. I would think
loan durations, terms, interest rates, and generalized credit availability would all vary
greatly depending on whether or not debt cancellation was a regularly occurring, scheduled
event or a more fluid and unpredictable event based on political winds and the whims of
whatever autocrat happens to be in power. Regardless of the morality of a particular
debt/monetary system, requests for more information concerning the likely side effects of
debt forgiveness programs and any lessons regarding best debt forgiveness practices from the
ancient civilizations who practiced it are very much in order if Hudson is making the
argument that systematic debt cancellation is preferable to our present system of lifelong
compounding debts and generational indebtedness. I'm certainly not saying Hudson is off base
here, I like where he's going with his scholarship, but these are inevitable questions.
Anyone interested in the history Hudson has unearthed will want to know if he believes debt
forgiveness could work in a modern, interconnected, industrial society or if it only works
with pre-industrial grain farming peasants and a small class of aristocrats.
Oh my, perhaps the system that allowed the entire human world to be poisoned into
extinction would end. That would be awful, so many portfolios would be ruined.
Who is going to lend money for a loss? Credit card lenders manage risk with high interest
rates, limited credit lines, and closing accounts at will: good luck paying for college on
those terms. I'd guess the generous loan forgiveness in ancient times was made possible
through slave labor and spoils of war
What if students didn't have to pay for college? Or patients, health care? Pretty sure
I'd've done a much better job of spreading that money around than the deep pockets it went
into. Maybe, in not being unduly indebted myself, I could've helped others do likewise, at
least in my small way.
Where's the money going to come from? We have all the money we need, and then some, for
the things we deem necessary. Ask Wall St. and the Pentagon.
So I guess my question to all this is : why has Western civilization not collapsed? What's
the mechanisms that we have used that say, the Romans, didn't?
Who says we're not collapsing right now? The plow gave farmers mechanical advantage to speed things up. The steam engine, then
internal combustion, did likewise. Computers are aka information engines.
Sure, we've got immense momentum, way more than ever, but we're headed straight for
Climate Change Peak. And the morons in the cockpit? I can't even.
For your decades long, truth to power investigative and intellectual rigor. The
experience(s) from a young age, up to and including your work on modern money and now this
latest book.
Truly a view from a life long perspective the likes of which may never come along again.
A voice that is worthy of attention.
I wonder about the sources of debt in ancient times? It wasn't driven by consumerism like todays debt is, was it? Hopefully the book will speak to this.
Satisfying explanation of the failure of European and now North American society to
achieve civilization due to our reliance on Greek and Roman precedents for our public acts.
We were besotted by the birth of democracy in Athens and the abuse of force in Rome.
I shall buy this book, not because I am unaware of the basic argument but because I expect
Michael Hudson has a great many illustrations of the improved society that assyriologists
have discovered.
It is a great personal delight to know Hudson values Arnold Toynbee, one of my heroes and
a fine human being. Thanks NC for the review.
John Siman here. You seem to be one of only a few people posting comments who understands
the depth and vastness and importance of Hudson's project. You also love Toynbee. All this
makes me very happy!
I've never read Toynbee and my library only has a couple of his books. But I've read
elsewhere that he fell from scholarly favor in part because of his critical view of Zionism.
From Wikipedia:
Toynbee maintained, among other contentions, that the Jewish people have neither
historic nor legal claims to Palestine, stating that the Arab
"population's human rights to their homes and property over-ride all other rights in
cases where claims conflict." He did concede that the Jews, "being the only surviving
representatives of any of the pre-Arab inhabitants of Palestine, have a further claim to
a national home in Palestine." But that claim, he held, is valid "only in so far as it
can be implemented without injury to the rights and to the legitimate interests of the
native Arab population of Palestine."[30]
Time for a Toynbee revival? And while I'm a great fan of Hudson's writing on this blog and would humbly decline any
challenge to his scholarship, I do wonder about the notion of framing all of human history in
terms of money. Surely creditors only have power as long as they have force to back it up.
The book's thesis sounds a tad reductionist..
Pierre Bourdieu would probably say that the societal relations at issue are those of
power. Debtor-Creditor relations, using "money" as shorthand, are an expression of them.
Power and its absence define the rights and obligations of debtor and creditor – and
the manner in which they can be modified.
Hudson seems to be saying that his historical research tells him that the political
leaders in the ancient societies he has studied reserved to themselves the power periodically
to alter those relationships.
The purpose of doing so was as to keep society functioning by meeting demands that
conflict with and at times are superior to the normal need to repay debt. Periodic debt
forgiveness is equally normal, in the manner that medieval farmers let their land lie fallow
so as to bear fruit another year.
Rootless, unrestrained capital would plant the same ground every year, exhaust it, and
move on, leaving behind the detritus of its "creative destruction". For Hudson, a political
ruler with nowhere to move on to, feels compelled instead to play steward.
Under present day neoliberalism, most political leaders have out a less ambitious role for
themselves: they ask permission from capital to blow wind. Restraining it from unsustainably
harvesting every available resource – cotton, coal, fish, data, the earth – is
not within their normal purview.
I feel like I'm out of phase here after bringing up Toynbee in the early years of NC or is
it just a flash back thingy . society as a journey vs. a harbor.
I am reminded of this from the Merchant of Venice.
"Go with me to a notary, seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me".
Yes!! And do you know Horace's second epode, about Alfius the fænerator =
usurer?
Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,
ut prisca gens mortalium,
paterna rura bobus exercet suis,
solutus omni fænore .
Hudson's work totally illuminates this poem!
To answer the eternal question, often posed by concerned bankers or their supporters:
-- Wouldn't debt cancellations just take away any incentive for people to pay back loans
and, thus, take away the incentive to give loans?
While Dr. Hudson's answer is technically correct, it misses the mark. The question is
filled with incorrect assumptions and moral certainty. A better answer would be:
1st. If the bank is stupid enough to make the loan, they are stupid enough to lose it. The
bank must take the consequence of making a un-payable loan. And.
2nd. The bank has far more resources to know if the loan is repayable than the person getting
the loan. Since the bank 'knows' more, it should take on more responsibility for making the
loan than the person getting the loan. And so, back to reason #1 above, stupid bank loses
stupid loan.
Now when said banker or supporter starts to sputter about how you don't understand how the
world works, or how people must do the right thing, etc., reply back with: "Banks' don't give
loans, they sell loans." The price the borrower pays for the loan is both the face
value of the amount borrowed plus the price the bank sets on 'selling' that amount of money
(the interest rate of the loan). And that is if the borrower pays back the loan with money.
Otherwise the borrower pays back with the collateral used as a Plan B for the lender. So
banks 'give' (sell) loans if and only if:
1. they can make money loaning to that person (or business, or country). 'Make money' means
either getting the collateral for the loan or getting the purchase price (cost of the loan)
in full.
OR
2. they are 'requested' by a higher authority to make the loan. A government or even just a
higher up boss could 'request' that the loan officer approve the loan, regardless of the
borrower's ability to repay. This accounts for the fraud and bribery too often seen with the
banker's side of debt.
And while I'm at it, further reasons why debt should be retired and not paid back: The
consequence to society of a bank not getting repaid is much less than the consequence to
society of the individual being forced to pay back a loan that the individual can not
reasonably do. The society is not that much troubled by a bank losing 'its' money than its
members being forced into debt slavery via loan foreclosures and such. Second, the bank
should not get more money or services back from a defaulted loan than what the loan itself
was worth. Society is poorly served when the bank (and its officers) get rich by foreclosing
on loans.
Lastly, and deserving its own paragraph: Yes, the borrower usually has a gun to their head
-- want a good job? get a college degree or training, which needs a school loan to get; want
groceries on the table (but not earning enough wages to cover it)? get a payday loan; want to
make your small company's payroll (but did not see a downturn in the economy)? get a bridging
loan, etc., etc., etc.
The central question about debt, loans, and contracts is: Is a contract fair if it is
'your brains or your signature on the paper'? In case mafia bosses are reading this, the
answer is NO, it's not. And unfair contracts are not or should not be legally enforceable.
The sanctity of the contract rests on a foundation of is it a 'free and even' entered into
agreement.
What could have facilitated debt jubilees in ancient societies was the fact that the new
rulers which overthrew the old as a result of frequent wars, found it convenient to eliminate
the former propertied classes to win over the support of the indebted and enslaved commoners.
'Wiping the slate clean' could have been just a measure to win political legitimacy.
Finally someone dared to say it.
The debt economy is sustainable only by debt forgiveness: Personal bankruptcy as in USA (prior
to 2005) Or as corporations all around the world enjoy it. Remember how many times did
Trump's corporations went bankrupt?
There is a mass debt forgiveness that is not so obvious yet it is very effective to keep debt
economies alive and well. Moderate and higher inflation is a form of creeping debt forgivness
en mass. The fixed interest rates play a major role in having inflation forming a slow but
sure debt forgiveness.
Do you wonder why Ben Bernanke called for higher inflation in the midst of the GFC? Because
the moderate inflation is a crucial part of debt forgiveness that debt economy has to have in
order to function properly.
Jesus only shortened the Moses' orders on what to do with poverty in Deutoronomy 15.
Second part of Lord's Prayer is a shorter version of Moses' orders on Debt Jubilee. Even then
they knew the importance of Debt forgiveness and especially since rates were 20% all till
recently.
Today, with lower rates and inflation the need is lesser but personal bankruptcy is an
imediate help to debtors.
Since banks create money as issuing a loan and destroy money as loan is repaid (and only
interest stay as bank's profit) it is very usefull for a bank to have debt forgiven even when
loan is secured. Banks do not have to sell the property underpriced (as they usually do) to
get rid of liability that unperforming loan creates. There are expenses in selling property
especially under the price.
It is much better if the bankruptcy judge allows banks to erase their and debtors liabilities
without money being returned. It saves the banks and debtors.
This is all easy to learn when you know that banks create money when issuing a loan and
then destroy the money as the loan is returned. that is a Law.
Banks create money and then destroy it.
By forgiving the debts everyone benefits.
Same goes with moderate inflation 4-20%, everyone benefits.
A possible case of debt jubilee in our times comes to mind. In India opposition Congress
Party has promised that if it wins general elections in 2019 it will work to forgive the
debts of poor farmers. Here the motivation of this party might not be so much as to relieve
the distress of destitute farmers, many of whom are driven to suicides, as to get votes and
regain power.
Many a time benefits accrue to disadvantaged groups as an inadvertent collateral effect of
conflict of contending power groups and not as a deliberate benign act.
I guess the question is whether the local landsharks who hold these debts will observe the
edicts of New Delhi .
Speaking of which, it would be interesting to see whether and under what conditions the
jubilee model occurred in the Oriental civilizations, all of which were all too well
acquainted with rural usury. I know the Chinese empires had state granaries as insurance
against famines.
But I also recall an 1950s book "Slaves of the Cool Mountains". This discussed the
subcaste of non-Han families in the remote mountain valleys of Yunnan Province who had been
in multigenerational debt bondage and whose unusual economic order proved especially
challenging for the Communist authorities to reinvent. (I also think these areas suffered
horribly in the later famines)
Also, the Parsees (Farsis) of Mumbai were bankers to the Mughals for centuries, but I
suppose that would be state banking, not rural usury.
What distinguishes modern times from the ancient is that propertied classes in many
developed societies have strengthened their political stranglehold, which increases by the
day thanks to new artificial intelligence technologies, so much so that it appears
inconceivable how they could be displaced at all.
In ancient societies most rulers were frequently changing military adventurers and conquerors
and there was still some disconnect between power and wealth; but in modern there has
developed a close convergence between the two. In ancient societies political power was
arbiter of wealth but in modern, developed ones at least, wealth has become arbiter of
power.
Wealthy are the creditors who will not let debtors of the hook easily. I am afraid, we could
be moving to a dystopian future a la Aldous Huxley and George Orwell where rulers and asset
owners would form a same class, the ruled being little better than serfs and plebeians.
Look around. Do we not see the incipient signs already?
Sorry, I dont get it. Very much with the critical reviewer on this one:
"Wouldn't debt cancellations just take away any incentive for people to pay back loans and,
thus, take away the incentive to give loans?"
Hudson's response:
-- Creditors argue that if you forgive debts for a class of debtors – say, student
loans – that there will be some "free riders," and that people will expect to have bad
loans written off. This is called a "moral hazard," as if debt writedowns are a hazard to the
economy, and hence, immoral.
I bed to disagree. The argument is not a moral one. It is an economic one. If I expect my
dept to be written off, i have very little incentive to pay it back. As a creditor on the
other hand I would not care if i get my money from the state or the debtor. However if the
state if going to give money to people anyway we could arrange that by direct transfers and
spare us the trouble of calling it "debt", which we all know is not really debt, but just a
temporary pseudo-debt that will eventually be covered by the state.
I understand Hudson implies that the harm from taking away incentives to pay back debt is
lesser than the harm from dependencies arising from debt in general. I would like a
clarification for which kind of loans this actually holds true and would like to remind the
insame rise of wealth, well-being, long-livety of humanity since the rise of organised
credit/ loan systems.
You may expect there to be a window between the moment where your debt is due, and where a
debt jubilee could occur. So if you don't pay back your debt, bad things may happen: your
kids are incited to pay on your behalf, your house is sold to pay back the debt, your
paycheck is garnished whatever is in the law, and you should end up paying back after
all.
But if you have no kids, no house and no paycheck big enough to be garnished, no debt is paid
back, because no debt can be paid back, and on the day of the jubilee, you walk out clean,
but still with no money, no house and no significant paycheck.
What does change, however, is the risk factor for the creditor: debts that cannot be paid
back, will not be paid back: not by the debtor and not by the state.
So the bank should think twice before handing out a student loan for a very expensive
university where nobody finds work because they offer useless degrees.
As far as I can see, a jubilee would apply to any kind of debt.
Sorry about coming in late to this discussion. I want to comment on the earlier mention of
"Original Sin." I encourage those interested to read "Adam, Eve and the Serpent" by Elaine
Pagels. One of her theses is that Original Sin was a doctrine created by Augustine of Hippo
and that it fit very neatly with a drive to convince the Roman rulers to make Christianity
the official religion. After all, if humans are fundamentally flawed, they need a strong
ruler to tamp down the chaos. As one poster noted, Original Sin is not found in Judaism, and
if it dated from the story of Adam and Eve, you would expect it to be.
Actually, in my case, the Bronze Age angle is of particular interest. I don't mean to offer too much information, but hope that someone can perhaps pass this
info along to Dr. Hudson's publisher . it's not the shipping that plagues me if I have to
order via Amazon, it's the font sizes and the narrow kerning of printed pages 8^p
My eyes vastly prefer a screen reader to enlarge font sizes -- despite my
relative youth 8^\
Also, tablets and phones are vastly more portable.
Calls to my two favorite Seattle-area bookshops today went something like, "Wow, that book
looks interesting . We're going to have trouble ordering from that small publisher It would
be really hard for us to get you a copy -- why don't you just order it from Amazon
?"
In my case, ordering from Amazon would take about 3 weeks for delivery, which is hardly
the end of the world however, if I can't get it on a screen reader, then I would not be able
to take advantage of bumping up the font size >8^\
I hope that your publisher will be able to release the eBook version sooner, rather than
later. They might also contact iBooks to get a notification in Apple's system so that people
could at least see the book will be available there soon -- that way, iBooks can
automatically let me pre-purchase the book, and their system will download it and notify
me when the content is available.
FWIW, I have two of your books via iBooks ( The Monsters, Killing the Host ).
Very simple to carry around that way. Also, ginormous font size
Sorry to be Mr Pedant but The Monster is not by this Michael Hudson but a Dubya who's more
of a journalist if memory serves.
That being said, The Monster is a jaw-dropping work and will always pay re-reading after each
financial crash.
The new MH tome drops on my doormat on Monday all decks are being cleared as we speak for the
time that will be known to history as the Great Seclusion of 2018
Okay feeling silly , and thanks for the correction!
I busted through "The Monsters" some years back and must have mixed up authorship in my
memory archives. Yipes!
I was thinking that if mine arrived mid-Dec, it would be a grand northern latitude time of
year for an invigorating read. But it's all about font size (also, backlighting!)
Thanks again, and congrats on clearing your decks ;-)
Umm Sellers soft shoe at the door after spilling the rice .
After all the wrangling with the beard years ago_cough_ Babylonian debates, not to mention
the early refugees exodus out of the Sumerian collapse, only to experience a population boom
in near historical time, leading to the first city states in the region and all the baggage
that goes with it – evolution of everything.
Only to experience waves of external forces until it becomes de-facto state religion.
But yeah . some tell us human history is only 5000 years old or there about, never mind
the ad hoc assemblage as it drifts through history and the propensity of some to do a
Jefferson's bible treatment to forward personal biases – usual suspects IMO.
At certain points in social history, debt resistance becomes quite literally a matter of
war. Lenders will kill you if that is part of getting their money back. Debtors may have to kill the lenders to get out of debt. It is not always a heroic process. One of the most strident goals of the Nazi Party was to take over the Allied governments
that were imposing reparations.
For more perspective, see my article on "Ending the Evil of Student Loans" on this blog a
couple of months ago.
The question of the relationship between the oligarchs of ancient Rome and the kings who
forgave debts in even more ancient bronze age civilizations can be seen in high relief in the
life of Julius Caesar. The Roman Senate was a den of very rich thieves, while Caesar was a
charismatic leader popular with the common people. He was hated by the Roman elite because he
wanted to make the Roman state work by supporting the common people, while the Senate wanted
to be free to enrich themselves at the expense of both the people and the state. Caesar toyed
with the issue of becoming a king, leading the Senators to hate and fear him, and the people
to cheer him. Indeed, his comment on one occasion when the crowd would crown him king finds
echo in the gospels, for Caesar said "My name is not King, but Caesar!" During the passion
week of Christ, the chief priests cried out "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15) Caesar
worked to find land for his retired soldiers so that they could raise the next generation of
citizen soldiers. Roman estates progressively decreased the supply of citizen soldiers, and
forced increasing reliance on mercenaries.
If anyone wants to follow up on the life of Caesar, take a look at "Caesar: Politician and
Statesman" by Matthias Gelzer or "Julius Caesar" by Phillip Freeman. Freeman ends his book
with a report by Thomas Jefferson that Alexander Hamilton told him "The greatest man who ever
lived was Julius Caesar."
If anyone wants to take the question of Julius Caesar one step further in considering
Hudson's new book, they might want to read "Et tu, Judas? Then Fall Jesus!" by Gary Courtney
or "Jesus Was Caesar" by Francesco Carrota. While taking somewhat different paths to their
conclusion, both find reasons to conclude that Julius Caesar was the historical Jesus, while
the gospels are allegorical retellings of Caesar's life, set in a Jewish milieu, If so,
Christianity began its career in a cauldron of political and religious strife and propaganda,
not so different from what we live with now. After all, both died around Passover, and big
things happened on the third day!
It is a truism that Christianity began in a cauldron of political and religious strife.
Jews were living in a militarily occupied Palestine, a troublesome peripheral territory in
the Roman empire, one that had been assaulted culturally for centuries by the allure of the
Hellenistic world and assaulted physically for millenia by competing empires.
It is common to draw parallels from the surviving accounts of Jesus with the cultures of
Greece and Roman (conceding that Rome had a culture other than barbarism). Greek language and
culture was the lingua franca of the time.
Crossan, for one, points out that tales of divine origins and virgin births were common
when poet historians sought to explain the earthly power of emperors. What was uncommon was
to associate them with the cultural meaning of the life of an itinerant preacher and peasant
village Jew.
Humans understand the new by comparing it with the a parallel from the known. But to
conclude that the historical Julius was the historical Jesus confuses the real and the
metaphorical.
Looking at the coming 2019, Goldman's economists have retained their cheerful outlook and
despite recent hints of an economic slowdown, they expect the Fed to tighten five times between
now and the end of next year (4 in 2019 including once in December), lifting the funds rate to
3.25%-3.5%. And since Goldman also expects 10Y Treasury yields to peak at 3.5% during 2H 2019
and decline to 3.3% in 2020, this means that it is Goldman's official forecast that "the 2s-10s
portion of the yield curve will invert in 2H next year."
Inversion will likely be problem for the economy, and certainly for financial conditions. As
the latest Fed Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) indicated,
banks said that should the yield curve invert , they would tighten lending standards, as
they would view a moderate yield curve inversion both as signaling a "less favorable or more
uncertain" economic outlook and as likely to reduce the profitability of lending.
Naked Capitalism with a review of Michael Hudson's new
book, And Forgive Them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption from Bronze Age
Finance to the Jubilee Year. It digs into the ancient history of debt and forgiveness
which is, for obvious reasons, not taught in the neo-liberal 'west':
Nowhere, Hudson shows, is it more evident that we are blinded by a deracinated, by a
decontextualized understanding of our history than in our ignorance of the career
of Jesus. Hence the title of the book: And Forgive Them Their Debts and the cover
illustration of Jesus flogging the moneylenders -- the creditors who do not forgive debts
-- in the Temple. For centuries English-speakers have recited the Lord's Prayer with the
assumption that they were merely asking for the forgiveness of their trespasses ,
their theological sins : " and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us ." is the translation presented in the Revised Standard Version of the
Bible. What is lost in translation is the fact that Jesus came "to preach the gospel to the
poor to preach the acceptable Year of the Lord": He came, that is, to proclaim a Jubilee
Year, a restoration of deror for debtors: He came to institute a Clean Slate
Amnesty (which is what Hebrew דְּרוֹר
connotes in this context).
---
Back in July I wrote
that there is no Jewish race or Jewish people. There are only followers of the Jewish
religion strewn all over the world. Prof. Shlomo Sand makes a similar point and also debunks
some other religious fairytales:
Our political culture insists on seeing the Jews as the direct descendants of the
ancient Hebrews. But the Jews never existed as a 'people' – still less as a
nation
---
The UAE/Saudi alliance stopped their latest attempt to conquer Hodeidah port in Yemen.
They try to sell that as a humanitarian step. But the attack was failing when their
mercenaries ran into a wall of mines and missile attacks. They took a large number of
casualties. Videos:
1 , 2 .
I am copying my comment from the last open thread about the Hudson interview to below
@ karlof1 with the Michael Hudson book review
A quote from the review of the book
"
This innate tendency to social polarization arising from debt unforgiveness is the original
and incurable curse on our post-eighth-century-B.C. Western Civilization, the lurid birthmark
that cannot be washed away or excised.
"
I will write again that the problem I have with Michael Hudson is that he does everything BUT
question why the existence of private finance still.
Debt unforgiveness is only one symptom of the systemic cancer humanity of the West faces.
That systemic cancer is private finance/God of Mammon mentality. The incentives are all
wrong. Paradise California is the latest example. God Of Mammon greed compelled PG&E to
not maintain their infrastructure properly and they kept the equipment running when they
should have shut it down. PG&E has admitted complicity and also said that they didn't
have enough insurance to cover this tragedy and would go under. Someone representing
California government oversight of power providers have stated basically that PG&E is too
big to fail and they will be backstopped by taxpayers.
So how is debt forgiveness of any sort going to fix the underlying problem? It is not and
unless you have government managing any debt forgiveness instead of private folks, you will
have some form of genocide by the rich.
Until and unless Michael Hudson calls out private finance as the systemic problem Western
society has I will consider him an economic Sheep Dog like Bernie Sanders is a political
one
Thanks to b for the coverage of Syria on the ground.
The US has lost in Ukraine (US + 'allies' - Germany in first place), and lost in Syria ( +
Israel, KSA, Turkey crossed purposes..)
Syria. When Foreign Policy publishes The Syrian War is over and America has lost in
July 2018, it is kinda official...(don't recommend the article) and/or a warning to change
tack or up the game..
The upshot of the defeats. Internal groups, manipulated grass-roots-stuff (paid) -
so-called rebels (paid) / despots, dictators, corporations, on a rapacious bent, looking for
support and pie sharing - 'mafia' types who have their own code of profit-sharing - +
others.. in X country, will be very wary or will not enter into a partnership with the US as
it is not successful.
As the losses can't be acknowledged, the US will create as much hysterical clamor and
obfuscation as possible.
Exs. the Assad must go red-line demand has been seriously degraded now muted. The
emphasis at present seems to be on a 'new constitution' for Syria, i.e. the very lowest form
of law-warfare which will not succeed. As if a bunch of foreignors can draft the thing.. De
Mistura has quit.
The problem is that money is a voucher system and as such, the social contract enabling mass
society to function, yet we assume it to be a commodity to be mined from society. Which goes
to the western view of society as emergent from autonomous individuals, rather than
individuals as expressions of the organic network.
There was a time when government was private as well. It was called monarchy and eventually
the kings had to understand they served a function to society, not just be served by it. We
are at the "Let them eat cake." moment with the financial system. The problems and conceptual
flaws go much deeper than how money functions. If we want to cure the surface social issues,
we will need to get into those issues. If you want to turn off a stove, you don't just put
your hand on it, you turn off what powers it.
To psychohistoriian (#10) Thank you for the analysis of Michael Hudson. I have studied his
work and came to the same
conclusion. He seems to walk around the core issue, which happens a disappointing number of
times. Viz. the now
17 year old "wah on Terra" Core issue: what is the real truth about nine-eleven - and how the
hell does it relate to Iraq?
Core issue: The private server emails of Hillary Clinton and her cabal break numerous laws.
No one has EVER disputed the
veracity of the emails; the pay to play; the subverting of Saunders, etc etc. Instead they
scapegoat Julian Assange.
It's shocking - and I'm amazing that I still have the capacity to be shocked.
Pax.
""As economies polarize between debtors and creditors, planning is shifting out of public
hands into those of bankers. The easiest way for them to keep this power is to block a true
central bank or strong public sector from interfering with their monopoly of credit creation.
The counter is for central banks and governments to act as they were intended to, by
providing a public option for credit creation""
Michael Hudson is actually a pretty strong proponent of public finance.
He is more in the 'positive money' camp than most MMTers but that mostly reflects his
disgust at the abuses of private credit creation.
@juliana - Please read the review of Hudson's book I linked.
The issue of periodic debt forgiveness has a much longer history in the middle eastern
society and Jesus words can only be understand within that historic context.
The view of Jesus as a Jewish revolutionary is not new at all. Reza Aslan wrote a whole
book about it: Zealot: The Life
and Times of Jesus of Nazareth as did many others. In the end the local aristocracy would
no longer condone that he was firing up the plebs with his commie talk against the money
changer and they told the imperial Roman overlords to off him ... or else.
The Christian religions defused the revolutionary aspect when they changed the target of
his teaching from real life issues towards a more spiritual perspective. The real meaning of
"forgive our debt" was turned from a real money thing into a the forgiveness of sins by some
heavily figure. (The Churches/priests also made billions from selling of indulgences due to
this transferred teaching.)
Ah, yes. Goldman Sachs is
famous for their "good work and integrity".
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has said about $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB,
including some money that Goldman Sachs helped raise, by high-level officials of the fund and
their associates from 2009 through 2014.
US prosecutors filed criminal charges against 2 former Goldman Sachs bankers earlier this
month. One of them, Tim Leissner, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and
conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
I'm sure it was just a "few bad apples", like Goldman Sachs's Ex-CEO
Lloyd Blankfein , who was personally involved in the transaction.
You might remember Lloyd from his doing "God's
Work" .
"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in
order that they may have existence."
Léon Bloy
"The time will come when you will wish you could see the days of the Son of Man, but you
will not see it. There will be those who will say to you, 'Look, over there!' or, 'Look,
over here!' But don't go out looking for it. As the lightning flashes across the sky
and lights it up from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his time. But
first he must suffer much, and be rejected by the people of this day."
Luke 17:20-25
"They do not see the image of Almighty God before them, and ask themselves what He
wishes. And, for the same reason that they do not please Him, they succeed in pleasing
themselves. Hence, they become both self-satisfied and self-sufficient; – they think they
know just what they ought to do, and that they do it all; and in consequence they are very
well content with themselves, and rate their merit very high, and have no fear at all of
any future scrutiny into their conduct...
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am
in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I
am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain -- He knows what He is
about."
A federal judge has ordered Hillary Clinton to respond to further questions, under oath,
about her private email server.
Following a lengthy Wednesday court hearing, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (who is also presiding
over fmr. National Security adviser Michael Flynn's case), ruled that Clinton has 30 days to
answer two additional questions about her controversial email system in response to a lawsuit
from Judicial Watch .
Hillary must answer the following questions by December 17 (via
Judicial Watch )
Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to create the
system , the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and
when it became operational .
During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Select
Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails "were in the
State's system" and "if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do
so." Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in
support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made
aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of
these facts.
Sillivan rejected Clinton's assertion of attorney-client privilege on the question over
emails "in the State's system," however he did give Clinton a few victories:
The court refused Judicial
Watch's and media's requests to unseal the deposition videos of Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills
and other Clinton State Department officials . And it upheld Clinton's objections to
answering a question about why she refused to stop using her Blackberry despite warnings from
State Department security personnel . Justice Department lawyers for the State Department
defended Clinton's refusal to answer certain questions and argued for the continued secrecy
of the deposition videos. -
Judicial Watch
Wednesday's decision is the latest twist in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA)
lawsuit targeting former Clinton deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. The case seeks records
which authorized Abedin to conduct outside employment while also employed by the Department of
State.
"A federal court ordered Hillary Clinton to answer more questions about her illicit email
system – which is good news," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "It is shameful
that Judicial Watch attorneys must continue to battle the State and Justice Departments, which
still defend Hillary Clinton, for basic answers to our questions about Clinton's email
misconduct."
Allow me to predict Hillary's answers: I really can't recall. Somebody else was in charge
of creating it. I don't recall who that was but I was left out of the loop when it was
created. I don't know anything about computers. Somebody who had knowledge did that. I don't
know who authorized it, I assume it went through standard channels.
As a reminder, all the data to date suggests that Hillary broke the following 11 US CODES.
I provided the links for your convenience. HRC needs to immediacy be Arrested &
Indicted.
CEO aka "President" TRUMP was indeed correct when he said: "FBI Director Comey was the
best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad
deeds!"
18 U.S. Code § 1905 - Disclosure of confidential information generally
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to
their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty
of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined
under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office
under the United States.
The Preponderance of Evidence suggests that she broke these Laws, Knowingly, Willfully and
Repeatedly. This pattern indicates a habitual/career Criminal, who belongs in Federal
Prison.
If Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopath Hillary Clinton would have been
elected. Many if not all of the High Crimes, Crimes & sexual perversion's we see coming
to Light never would have been known off.
The Tyrannical Lawlessness we see before our eyes never would have seen the light of
day.
The cost of producing a large lithium battery is high and it is "perishable product",
which will not last even 10 years. The average life expectancy of a new EV battery at about
five (Tesla) to eight years. Or about 1500 cycles (assuming daily partial recharge, which
prolongs the life of the battery) before reaching 80% of its capacity rating. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cycle-lifetime-of-lithium-ion-batteries
Battery performance and lifespan begins to suffer as soon as the temperature climbs above
86 degrees Fahrenheit. A temperature above 86 degrees F affects the battery pack performance
instantly and often permanently. https://phys.org/news/2013-04-life-lithium-ion-batteries-electric.html
It is also became almost inoperative at below freezing point temperatures. For example it
can't be charged.
So they need to be cooled at summer and heated at winter. Storing such a car on the street
is out of question. You need a garage.
And large auto battery typically starts deteriorating after three years of daily use or
800 daily cycles.
Regular gas, and , especially, diesel cars can last 20 years, and larger trucks can last
30 years.
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This fracking can't go on much longer. They've drilled out much of the sweet spots already,
and from what I hear, there are already 7 'child' wells being drilled for every 'parent'
well. (as I understand it, a 'child' well is drilled in close proximity to the 'parent'
without – hopefully-hitting and drawing from the same formation') If fracking were to
stop tomorrow, you'd lose over 600k bbls/day in production immediately and the whatever is
leftover tapering off to zero over the course of two-three years.
The question is: Just how long will the USA be able to continue to increase production in
order to hold off peak oil?
Yes will it go bankrupt first or continue to run on until peak and depletion. Meanwhile it
drags down the oil price artificially making most other oil development less likely, and
increasing volatility.
The FED is reducing money supply by 50 billions per month at the moment. The first feeling it
will be comanies needing to sell junk bonds.
This is a big ploblem for the relentless "drill baby drill" programs of several LTO
companies.
And a global economic crises, even if only a few years long, will crash oil prices AND
credit supply. This will hurt LTO more than the oil price crash from 2015.
On the shale topic; it is marvelously stupefying to observe a heavily indebted shale
industry supplying increasing volumes of oil, to an extent that the price/bbl never hits a
level where any debt reduction can be realized. (to say nothing of profit)
Its' almost as if they have no intention of becoming solvent.
Some time ago presented estimate of oil used to create and move food in the US. My recall is
the number wasn't huge.
Recently came across new data. Will get around to laying it out.
25% of total US consumption. Tractors, insecticides, some fertilizer(transport of those to
the field), transport of animal food to hogs, beef, etc, transport of human food to shelves,
transport of people to the shelf and home. 15% pre transport of human food, 10% transport
human food.
Pretty efficient agriculture in the US. No squeezing that 5 mbpd.
The brutal warlord understood how to govern shrewdly and even humanely.
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, even Barack Obama: there are many
historical figures who Americans have turned to for inspiration in this political distemper.
That's especially true with the midterm elections only a week in the books. But I've recently
found an even more surprising leader who offers a number of political lessons worth
contemplating: Genghis Khan.
I'm quite serious.
As a former history teacher, I picked up Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern
World because I realized I knew relatively little about one of the most influential men in
human history. Researchers have
estimated that 0.5 percent of men have Genghis Khan's DNA in them, which is perhaps one of
the most tangible means of determining historical impact. But that's just the tip of the
iceberg. The Mongolian warlord conquered a massive chunk of the 13th-century civilized world --
including more than one third of its population. He created one of the first international
postal systems. He decreed universal freedom of religion in all his conquered territories --
indeed, some of his senior generals were Christians.
Of course, Genghis Khan was also a brutal military leader who showed no mercy to enemies who
got in his way, leveling entire cities and using captured civilians as the equivalent of cannon
fodder. Yet even the cruelest military geniuses (e.g. Napoleon) are still geniuses, and we
would be wise to consider what made them successful, especially against great odds. In the case
of Genghis Khan, we have a leader who went from total obscurity in one of the most remote areas
of Asia to the greatest, most feared military figure of the medieval period, and perhaps the
world. This didn't happen by luck -- the Mongolian, originally named Temujin, was not only a
skilled military strategist, but a shrewd political leader.
As Genghis Khan consolidated control over the disparate tribes of the steppes of northern
Asia, he turned the traditional power structure on its head. When one tribe failed to fulfill
its promise to join him in war and raided his camp in his absence, he took an unprecedented
step. He summoned a public gathering, or khuriltai , of his followers, and conducted a public
trial of the other tribe's aristocratic leaders. When they were found guilty, Khan had them
executed as a warning to other aristocrats that they would no longer be entitled to special
treatment. He then occupied the clan's lands and distributed the remaining tribal members among
his own people. This was not for the purposes of slavery, but a means of incorporating
conquered peoples into his own nation. The Mongol leader symbolized this act by adopting an
orphan boy from the enemy tribe and raising him as his own son.
Weatherford explains:
"Whether these adoptions began for sentimental reasons or for political ones, Temujin
displayed a keen appreciation of the symbolic significance and practical benefit of such acts
in uniting his followers through his usage of fictive kinship ."
Genghis Khan employed this equalizing strategy with his military as well -- eschewing
distinctions of superiority among the tribes. For example, all members had to perform a certain
amount of public service. Weatherford adds:
"Instead of using a single ethnic or tribal name, Temujin increasingly referred to his
followers as the People of the Felt Walls, in reference to the material from which they made
their gers [tents]."
America, alternatively, seems divided along not only partisan lines, but those of race and
language as well. There is also an ever-widening difference between elite technocrats and
blue-collar folk, or "deplorables." Both parties have pursued policies that have aggravated
these differences, and often have schemed to employ them for political gain. Whatever shape
they take -- identity politics, gerrymandering -- the controversies they cause have done
irreparable harm to whatever remains of the idea of a common America. The best political
leaders are those who, however imperfectly, find a way to transcend a nation's many differences
and appeal to a common cause, calling on all people, no matter how privileged, to participate
in core activities that define citizenship.
The Great Khan also saw individuals not as autonomous, atomistic individuals untethered to
their families and local communities, but rather as inextricably linked to them. For example,
"the solitary individual had no legal existence outside the context of the family and the
larger units to which it belonged; therefore the family carried responsibility of ensuring the
correct behavior of its members to be a just Mongol, one had to live in a just community." This
meant, in effect, that the default social arrangement required individuals to be responsible
for those in their families and immediate communities. If a member of a family committed some
crime, the entire unit would come under scrutiny. Though such a paradigm obviously isn't ideal,
it reflects Genghis Khan's recognition that the stronger our bonds to our families, the
stronger the cohesion of the greater society. Politicians should likewise pursue policies that
support and strengthen the family, the
"first society," rather than undermining or redefining it.
There are other gems of wisdom to be had from Genghis Khan. He accepted a high degree of
provincialism within his empire, reflecting an ancient form of subsidiarity. Weatherford notes:
"He allowed groups to follow traditional law in their area, so long as it did not conflict with
the Great Law, which functioned as a supreme law or a common law over everyone." This reflects
another important task for national leaders, who must seek to honor, and even encourage, local
governments and economies, rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions.
He was an environmentalist, codifying "existing ideals by forbidding the hunting of animals
between March and October during the breeding time." This ensured the preservation and
sustainability of the Mongol's native lands and way of life. He recognized the importance of
religion in the public square, offering tax exemptions to religious leaders and their property
and excusing them from all types of public service. He eventually extended this to other
essential professions like public servants, undertakers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and
scholars. Of course, in our current moment, some of these professions are already well
compensated for their work, but others, like teachers, could benefit from such a tax
exemption.
There's no doubt that Genghis Khan was a brutal man with a bloody legacy. Yet joined to that
violence was a shrewd political understanding that enabled him to create one of the greatest
empires the world has ever known. He eschewed the traditional tribal respect for the elites in
favor of the common man, he pursued policies that brought disparate peoples under a common
banner, and he often avoided a scorched earth policy in favor of mercy to his enemies. Indeed,
as long as enemy cities immediately surrendered to the Mongols, the inhabitants saw little
change in their way of life. And as Weatherford notes, he sought to extend these lessons to his
sons shortly before his death:
He tried to teach them that the first key to leadership was self-control, particularly
mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild
lion, and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned
them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead." He admonished them never to
think of themselves as the strongest or smartest. Even the highest mountain had animals that
step on it, he warned. When the animals climb to the top of the mountain, they are even
higher than it is.
Perhaps if American politicians were to embrace this side of the Great Khan, focusing on
serving a greater ideal rather than relentless point-scoring , we might achieve the same level
of national success, without the horrific bloodshed.
Changing the direction of American politics from the continued descent into degeneracy and
ahistoricity will be a dynastic task requiring us to teach our youngest generations about
civics and civility and U.S. history all the way from the intellectual and historical events
that led to the formation of the U.S. to the varied movements over the years that have either
strengthened the social cohesion of our melting pot nation or provoked rot from the inside
out.
Swallowing one's pride is the most difficult task of any political leader who tastes power
even once. At that point the politician frequently craves the citizenry to get on bended knee
and swallow the the arrogant decisions of the politician who has grown turgid from the
lustful exceses of the governmental trough.
I realize this "American Conservative" author is trying to point out strengths of someone
who he admits was also a tyrant, but there's a little too much much tyrant love for my taste.
Maybe strong leaders are exactly the problem, and maybe one of the reasons conservatives
often have their pants on fire is their claim that they love freedom as they beg for law and
order at the end of someone else's gun.
President Macron's protests against nationalism this weekend stand in stark contrast with
the words of France's WWII resistance leader and the man who would then become president:
General Charles de Gaulle.
Speaking to his men in 1913, de Gaulle reminded them:
"He who does not love his mother more than other mothers, and his fatherland more than
other fatherlands, loves neither his mother nor his fatherland."
This unquestionable invocation of nationalism reveals how far France has come in its pursuit
of globalist goals, which de Gaulle described later in that same speech as the "appetite of
vice."
While this weekend the media have been sharpening their knives on Macron's words, for use
against President Trump, very few have taken the time to understand what really created the
conditions for the wars of the 20th century. It was globalism's grandfather: imperialism, not
nationalism.
This appears to have been understood at least until the 1980s, though forgotten now. With
historical revisionism applied to nationalism and the great wars, it is much harder to
understand what President Trump means when he calls himself a "nationalist." Though the fault
is with us, not him.
" Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism
By pursuing our own interests first, with no regard to others,' we erase the very thing that
a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values,"
President Macron declared from the pulpit of the Armistice 100 commemorations.
Had this been in reverse, there would no doubt have been shrieks of disgust aimed at Mr.
Trump for "politicizing" such a somber occasion. No such shrieks for Mr. Macron, however, who
languishes below 20 percent in national approval ratings in France.
With some context applied, it is remarkably easy to see how President Macron was being
disingenuous.
Nationalism and patriotism are indeed distinct. But they are not opposites.
Nationalism is a philosophy of governance, or how human beings organize their affairs.
Patriotism isn't a governing philosophy. Sometimes viewed as subsidiary to the philosophy of
nationalism, patriotism is better described as a form of devotion.
For all the grandstanding, Mr. Macron may as well have asserted that chicken is the opposite
of hot sauce, so meaningless was the comparison.
Imperialism, we so quickly forget, was the order of the day heading into the 20th century.
Humanity has known little else but empire since 2400 B.C. The advent of globalism, replete with
its foreign power capitals and multi-national institutions is scarcely distinct.
Imperialism -- as opposed to nationalism -- seeks to impose a nation's way of life, its
currency, its traditions, its flags, its anthems, its demographics, and its rules and laws upon
others wherever they may be.
Truly, President Trump's nationalism heralds a return to the old U.S. doctrine of
non-intervention, expounded by President George Washington in his farewell address of 1796:
" It must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary
vicissitudes of [Europe's] politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities."
It should not have to be pointed out that the great wars of the 20th century could not be
considered "ordinary vicissitudes", but rather, that imperialism had begun to run amok on the
continent.
It was an imperialism rooted in nihilism, putting the totality of the state at its heart.
Often using nationalism as nothing more than a method of appeal, socialism as a doctrine of
governance, and Jews as a subject of derision and scapegoating.
Today's imperialism is known as globalism.
It is what drives nations to project outward their will, usually with force; causes armies
to cross borders in the hope of subjugating other human beings or the invaded nation's natural
resources; and defines a world, or region, or continent by its use of central authority and
foreign capital control.
Instead of armies of soldiers, imperialists seek to dominate using armies of economists and
bureaucrats. Instead of forced payments to a foreign capital, globalism figured out how to
create economic reliance: first on sterling, then on the dollar, now for many on the Euro. This
will soon be leapfrogged by China's designs.
And while imperialism has served some good purposes throughout human history, it is only
when grounded in something larger than man; whether that be natural law, God, or otherwise. But
such things are scarcely long-lived.
While benevolent imperialism can create better conditions over a period of time, humanity's
instincts will always lean towards freedom and self-governance.
It is this fundamental distinction between the United States' founding and that of the
modern Republic of France that defines the two nations.
The people of France are "granted" their freedoms by the government, and the government
creates the conditions and dictates the terms upon which those freedoms are exercised.
As Charles Kesler wrote for the Claremont
Review of Books in May, "As a result, there are fewer and fewer levers by which the governed
can make its consent count".
France is the archetypal administrative state, while the United States was founded on
natural law, a topic that scarcely gets enough attention anymore.
Nationalism - or nationism, if you will - therefore represents a break from the war-hungry
norm of human history . Its presence in the 20th century has been rewritten and
bastardized.
A nationalist has no intention of invading your country or changing your society. A
nationalist cares just as much as anyone else about the plights of others around the world but
believes putting one's own country first is the way to progress. A nationalist would never seek
to divide by race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference, or otherwise. This runs contrary to
the idea of a united, contiguous nation at ease with itself.
Certainly nationalism's could-be bastard child of chauvinism can give root to imperialistic
tendencies. But if the nation can and indeed does look after its own, and says to the world
around it, "these are our affairs, you may learn from them, you may seek advice, we may even
assist if you so desperately need it and our affairs are in order," then nationalism can be a
great gift to the 21st century and beyond.
This is definitely looks like the USSR trajectory with alcoholism. When people feel that they
are not needed they start to behave in self-destructive ways.
Drug overdoses led to more deaths in the U.S. in 2017 than any year on record and were the
leading cause of death in the country, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration
report issued Friday .
More than 72,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017 , according to
the NIH -- about 200 per day. That number is more than four times the number who died in
1999 from drug abuse: 16,849.
The figures are up about 15 percent from 63,632 drug-related deaths in 2016.
Since 2011, more people have died from drug overdoses than by gun violence, car accidents,
suicide, or homicide, the DEA report stated.
In 2017,
40,100 people died in vehicle incidents; 15,549 were fatally shot, not
including suicide;
17,284 were homicide victims, though an unspecified portion of this number includes gunshot
victims; and nearly 45,000 committed suicide.
The DEA attributed last year's uptick in deaths to a spike in opioid-related fatalities. The
agency said 49,060 people died as a result of abusing opioids, up from 42,249 in 2016.
Of those opioid deaths, synthetic opioids were responsible for nearly 20,000. More people
died from them than heroin. The DEA report said synthetic fentanyl and comparable types of
drugs are cheaper than heroin , making them more attractive to buyers.
The DEA also found heroin-related drug overdoses had doubled from 2013 to 2016 because
manufacturers illegally producing synthetic fentanyl have laced the heroin with opioids.
President Trump
declared the opioid epidemic a "national emergency" in October 2017. Last month, he
signed a comprehensive bill that included $8.5 billion in funding for related projects to
reduce addiction and deaths.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions noted one positive trend in the study.
"Preliminary data from the CDC shows that drug overdose deaths actually began to decline
in late 2017 and opioid prescriptions fell significantly," Sessions said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia has fully complied with OPEC+ agreement in every month through May. Since then
it has cut supply, but by less than it pledged to curb. October is 1st time it has increased
output above the starting point.
WTI has now retraced 60% of the two-year uptrend...
WTI Crude is now down over 6% YTD to its lowest since Dec 2017.
One issue in the current situation is the calendar. The Thanksgiving holiday is fast
approaching.
This is traditionally a period of very light stock market volumes with a bias to a drift
higher in preparation for the year end tape painting known as the Santa Claus rally.
Therefore timing is a bit of a headwind to the failed rally. It may require more of a
'trigger event' but that is very hard to forecast.
So let us be watchful for a market break lower here to a new low.
Modern technology makes many things possible, but it does not make them cheap... The camera
needs to work in pretty adverse conditions (think about the temperature inside the light on a hot
summer day, and temperature at winter) and transmit signal somewhere via WiFi (which has range
less then 100m) , or special cable that needs to be installed for this particular pole. With wifi
there should be many collection units which also cost money. So it make sense only for
streetlights adjacent to building with Internet networking. And there are already cameras of the
highway, so highways are basically covered. Which basically limits this technology to cities.
Just recoding without transmission would be much cheaper (transmission on demand). Excessive
paranoia here is not warranted.
According to new government procurement data, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have purchased an undisclosed number of secret
surveillance cameras that are being hidden in streetlights across the country.
Quartz
first reported this dystopian development of federal authorities stocking up on "covert
systems" last week. The report showed how the DEA paid a Houston, Texas company called Cowboy
Streetlight Concealments LLC. approximately $22,000 since June for "video recording and
reproducing equipment." ICE paid out about $28,000 to Cowboy Streetlight Concealments during
the same period.
"It's unclear where the DEA and ICE streetlight cameras have been installed, or where the
next deployments will take place. ICE offices in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio have
provided funding for recent acquisitions from Cowboy Streetlight Concealments; the DEA's most
recent purchases were funded by the agency's Office of Investigative Technology, which is
located in Lorton, Virginia," said Quartz.
Christie Crawford, who co-owns Cowboy Streetlight Concealments with her husband, said she
was not allowed to talk about the government contracts in detail.
"We do streetlight concealments and camera enclosures," Crawford told Quartz. "Basically,
there's businesses out there that will build concealments for the government and that's what
we do. They specify what's best for them, and we make it. And that's about all I can probably
say."
However, she added: "I can tell you this -- things are always being watched. It doesn't
matter if you're driving down the street or visiting a friend, if government or law enforcement
has a reason to set up surveillance, there's great technology out there to do it."
Quartz notes that the DEA issued a solicitation for "concealments made to house network PTZ
[Pan-Tilt-Zoom] camera, cellular modem, cellular compression device," last Monday. According to
solicitation number D-19-ST-0037, the sole source award will go to Obsidian Integration
LLC.
On November 07, the Jersey City Police Department awarded Obsidian Integration with "the
purchase and delivery of a covert pole camera." Quartz said the filing did not provide much
detail about the design.
It is not just streetlights the federal government wants to mount covert surveillance
cameras on, it seems cameras inside traffic barrels could be heading onto America's highways in
the not too distant future.
And as Quartz reported in October, the DEA operates a complex network of digital
speed-display road signs that covertly scan license plates. On top of all this,
Amazon has been aggressively rolling out its
Rekognition facial-recognition software to law enforcement agencies and ICE, according to
emails uncovered by the Project for Government Oversight.
Chad Marlow, a senior advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU, told Quartz that cameras in
street lights have been proposed before by local governments, typically under a program called
"smart" LED street light system.
"It basically has the ability to turn every streetlight into a surveillance device, which
is very Orwellian to say the least," Marlow told Quartz. "In most jurisdictions, the local
police or department of public works are authorized to make these decisions unilaterally and
in secret. There's no public debate or oversight."
And so, as the US continues to be distracted, torn amid record political, social and
economic polarization, big brother has no intention of letting the current crisis go to waste,
and quietly continues on its path of transforming the US into a full-blown police and
surveillance state.
I previously worked for one of these types of federal agencies and to be fair, $50,000
doesn't buy a lot of video surveillance equipment at government procurement costs. The
contractor doesn't just drill a hole and install a camera, they provide an entirely new
streetlight head with the camera installed.
It would be nice if they put some of this technology to work for a good cause. Maybe
warning you of traffic congestion ahead. Or advising you that one of your tires will soon go
flat.
Obviously that won't happen, so in the meantime, I can't wait to read next how the hackers
will find a way to make this government effort go completely haywire. As if the government
can't do it without any help. At least when the hackers do it, it will be funny and
thorough.
Besides the creepy surveillance part, some of the street light tech is interesting .
lights that dim like the frozen food section - when no one is in front of the case --- RGB
lighting that shows the approximate location for EMS to a 911 call ( lights that EMS can
follow by color)
basic neighborhood street lights are being replaced by LED -- lights in this article.
Hey, I have street lights AND cameras on the same poles at the shop/mad scientist lab/
play house.
but- surveillance -- the wall better have these lights -- light up the border !
This is yesteryears news. Shot Spotter has microphones that can pick up whispered
conversations for 300 feet for a long time now, while triangulating any gunshot in a
city...
I personally don't understand the French electorate on these matters. Macron in particular
did not promise anything other than to deliver more of the same policies, albeit with
more youth and more vigor, as a frank globalist. Who, exactly, was excited at his election but
is disappointed now? People with a short attention span or susceptibility to marketing
gimmicks, I assume.
It is hard to talk about the French media without getting a bit conspiratorial, at least, I
speak of "structural conspiracies." Macron's unabashed, "modernizing" globalism certainly
corresponds to the id of the French media-corporate elites and to top 20% of the
electorate, let us say, the talented fifth. He was able to break through the old French
two-party system, annihilating the Socialist Party and sidelining the conservatives. The media
certainly helped in this, preferring him to either the conservative François Fillon or
the civic nationalist Marine Le Pen.
However, the media have to a certain extent turned on Macron, perhaps because he
believes his "complex thoughts" cannot be grasped by
journalists with their admittedly limited cognitive abilities . Turn on the French radio
and you'll hear stories of how the so-called "Youth With Macron," whose twenty- and
thirty-somethings were invited onto all the talk shows just before Macron became a leading
candidate, were actually former Socialist party hacks with no grass roots. Astroturf. I could
have told you that.
Macron has made a number of what the media call "gaffes." When an old lady voiced concern
about the future of her pension,
he answered : "you don't have a right to complain." He has also done many things that
anyone with just a little sense of decorum will be disgusted by. The 40-year-old Macron, who
has a 65-year-old wife and claims not to be a homosexual, loves being photographed with sweaty
black bodies.
... ... ...
So there's that. But, in terms of policies, I cannot say that the people who supported
Macron have any right to complain. He is doing what he promised, that is to say, steaming full
straight ahead on the globalist course with, a bit more forthrightness and, he hopes,
competence than his Socialist or conservative predecessors.
Link
Bookmark In truth there are no solutions. There is nothing he can do to make the elitist and
gridlocked European Union more effective, nothing he can do to improve the "human capital" in
the Afro-Islamic banlieues , and not much he can do to improve the economy which the
French people would find acceptable. A bit more of labor flexibility here, a bit of a tax break
there, oh wait deficit's too big, a tax hike in some other area too, then. Six of one, half a
dozen in the other. Oh, and they've also passed
more censorship legislation to fight "fake news" and "election meddling" and other pathetic
excuses the media-political class across the West have come up with for their loss of control
over the Narrative.
Since the European Central Bank has been printing lending hundreds of billions of euros to
stimulate the Eurozone economy, France's economic performance has been decidedly mediocre, with
low growth, slowly declining unemployment, and no reduction in debt (currently at 98.7% of
GDP). Performance will presumably worsen if the ECB, as planned, phases out stimulus at the end
of this year.
There is a rather weird situation in terms of immigration and diversity. Everyone seems to
be aware of the hellscape of ethno-religious conflict which will thrive in the emerging
Afro-Islamic France of the future. Just recently at the commemoration of the Battle of Verdun,
an elderly French soldier asked Macron : "When will you kick out the illegal immigrants? .
. . Aren't we bringing in a Trojan Horse?"
More significant was the resignation of Gérard Collomb from his position as interior
minister last month to return to his old job as mayor of Lyon, which he apparently finds more
interesting. Collomb is a 71-year-old Socialist politician who has apparently awakened to the
problems of ethnic segregation and conflict. He said in his
farewell address :
I have been in all the neighborhoods, the neighborhoods of Marseille-North to Mirail in
Toulous, to the Parisian periphery, Corbeil, Aulnay, Sevran, the situation has deteriorated
greatly. We cannot continue to work on towns individually, there needs to be an overarching
vision to recreate social mixing. Because today we are living side by side, and I still say,
me, I fear that tomorrow we will live face-to-face [i.e. across a battle lines].
It is not clear how much Collomb tried to act upon these concerns as interior minister and
was frustrated. In any case, he dared to voice the same concerns to
the far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles last February. He told them: "The relations
between people are very difficult, people don't want to live together" (using the term
vivre-ensemble , a common diversitarian slogan). He said immigration's responsibility
for this was "enormous" and agreed with the journalist that "France no longer needs
immigration." Collomb then virtually predicted civil war:
Communities in France are coming into conflict more and more and it is becoming very
violent . . . I would say that, within five years, the situation could become irreversible.
Yes, we have five or six years to avoid the worst. After that . . .
It's unclear why "the next five or six years" should be so critical. From one point of view,
the old France is already lost as about
a third of births are non-European and in particular
one fifth are Islamic . The patterns of life in much of France will therefore likely come
to reflect those of Africa and the Middle-East, including random violence and religious
fanaticism. Collomb seems to think "social mixing" would prevent this, but in fact, there has
been plenty of social and even genetic "mixing" in Brazil and Mexico, without this preventing
ethno-racial stratification and extreme levels of violence.
I'm afraid it's all more of the same in douce France , sweet France. On the current
path, Macron will be a one-termer like Sarkozy and Hollande were. Then again, the next
elections will be in three-and-a-half years, an eternity in democratic politics. In all
likelihood, this would be the Right's election to win, with a conservative anti-immigration
candidate. A few people of the mainstream Right are open to working with Le Pen's National
Rally and some have even defended the Identitarians. Then again, I could even imagine
Macron posing as a heroic opponent of (illegal . . .) immigration if he thought it could
help get him reelected. Watch this space . . .
How many immigrants from Africa come to Europe depends only on political will of Europeans. The
demography of African has nothing to do with it. Europe has means to stop immigration legal and
illegal. Macron talking about how many children are born in Africa is just another cop out.
A few months ago I claimed that Emmanuel Macron has/holds an ""Alt Right" worldview" due
to him having had interactions with an influential member of the French Protestant Huguenot
minority in France: http://www.unz.com/article/collateral-damage/#comment-1955020
[...] Macron : Germany is different from France. You are more Protestant, which results
in a significant difference. Through the church, through Catholicism, French society was
structured vertically, from top to bottom. I am convinced that it has remained so until
today. That might sound shocking to some – and don't worry, I don't see myself as a
king. But whether you like it or not, France's history is unique in Europe. Not to put too
fine a point on it, France is a country of regicidal monarchists. It is a paradox: The
French want to elect a king, but they would like to be able to overthrow him whenever they
want. The office of president is not a normal office – that is something one should
understand when one occupies it. You have to be prepared to be disparaged, insulted and
mocked – that is in the French nature. And: As president, you cannot have a desire to
be loved. Which is, of course, difficult because everybody wants to be loved. But in the end,
that's not important. What is important is serving the country and moving it forward.
Who, exactly, was excited at his election but is disappointed now? People with a short
attention span or susceptibility to marketing gimmicks, I assume.
There are a lot of things that you can running one trillion deficit ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. crude oil production reached 11.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in August 2018, according to EIA's latest Petroleum Supply Monthly, up from 10.9 million b/d in July. This is the first time that monthly U.S. production levels surpassed 11 million b/d. U.S. crude oil production exceeded the Russian Ministry of Energy's estimated August production of 11.2 million b/d, making the United States the leading crude oil producer in the world. ..."
"... All of this bullshit is straight, I mean straight off Continental's self servicing investor presentation bullshit, Coffee. You need to wrap your head around some SEC filings, use some common sense and think for yourself. As opposed to letting someone else do your thinking for you. ..."
"... Watcher is correct, CLR's credit rating, its credit score, so to speak, is so bad it could not in the real world buy a pickup truck without its mama co-signing the note. If its wells are sooooooo much better, why don't they pay some of that $6 billion plus dollars of debt back? I mean really, who in their right mind would actually WANT to pay $420MM a year in interest on long term debt if it didn't have to? Never mind, you can't answer that. ..."
"... "If its wells are sooooooo much better, why don't they pay some of that $6 billion plus dollars of debt back? I mean really, who in their right mind would actually WANT to pay $420MM a year in interest on long term debt if it didn't have to?" ..."
"... We had 5-6 years of the highest, sustained oil prices in history and the shale oil industry could NOT make a profit. People seem to think now things have changed for some reason, that the shale oil industry has now become more ethical, and temporarily higher productivity of wells, and some imaginary oil price off in the future (for most shale guys its now down in the mid to low $50's) will allow them to pay down debt. Its absurd logic, but keeps people occupied, I guess, speculating about it. ..."
"... One thing to add. The shale companies did all this in the lowest interest rate environment we have had in a long time. They could not pay off their debt or even put a dent in it. What is going to happen when their interest costs increase 30-50% over the next 2-3 years? ..."
"... I was a former employee of Newfield, when we were drilling gas wells in the Arkoma Basin in 2007 and gas prices were the highest they had ever been, it was not cash flow positive. ..."
"... On the price, I understand why you use different scenarios. However, the average price over the next three years could be $100 or $50 WTI. Pretty much close to what we saw 2011-14 and 2015–17. ..."
"... However, the price is far too volatile to model anything very far into the future, just like we cannot budget past one year, and usually have to make adjustments to that. ..."
"... Our price has dropped over $10 in less than one month. That makes a huge difference, yet that level of volatility is common and has been for many years. ..."
"... What oil prices were you modeling in June, 2014 for 2015-17? Our timing was very fortunate to say the least. Many leases bought 1997-2005. Had we bought the same leases 2011-14 for the market prices of 2011-14, we would be bankrupt, absent having hedged everything for four years, which is very difficult to do. ..."
"... Few companies with zero debt ever go BK. We would with WTI at $30 for about three years. Is that likely? No, but oil did drop below that level in 2016. ..."
U.S. crude oil production reached 11.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in August 2018,
according to EIA's latest Petroleum Supply Monthly, up from 10.9 million b/d in July. This is
the first time that monthly U.S. production levels surpassed 11 million b/d. U.S. crude oil
production exceeded the Russian Ministry of Energy's estimated August production of 11.2
million b/d, making the United States the leading crude oil producer in the world.
Dennis, Coffee's comment did not turn me into a shale cheerleader. I suppose I am more in the
shale sceptic camp for the reasons you mention and others.
Nevertheless, I think Coffee's comment was correct, it does appear that shale producers in
the Bakken have expanded the area that produces exceptional wells. As one who underestimated
shale's viability before, I don't want to repeat the same mistake.
As you note, it is difficult to predict when average well productivity in the Bakken (or
anywhere) will occur. I had thought that current drilling levels would be inadequate to
sustain 1.15 million bpd production levels, but somehow they are increasing production there.
It does appear that for now, the shale operators are having some success.
How long that success will last depends not only on the operational decisions made, but macro
factors such as debt, interest rates, and the economy will play out, and eventually Bakken
production will decline. But for now
I have not read Continental's conference call transcript yet (Seeking Alpha provides
them), but it seems the suit from Continental now feels they will recover – from
present completions – 15 to 20 per cent of the OOIP.
That is huge as the norm was 3 to 5 per cent a few years back.
All of this bullshit is straight, I mean straight off Continental's self servicing investor
presentation bullshit, Coffee. You need to wrap your head around some SEC filings, use some
common sense and think for yourself. As opposed to letting someone else do your thinking for
you.
Watcher is correct, CLR's credit rating, its credit score, so to speak, is so bad it could
not in the real world buy a pickup truck without its mama co-signing the note. If its wells
are sooooooo much better, why don't they pay some of that $6 billion plus dollars of debt
back? I mean really, who in their right mind would actually WANT to pay $420MM a year in
interest on long term debt if it didn't have to? Never mind, you can't answer that.
If you are not in the oil business and have never balanced an oil well's checkbook in your
life, which Coffee hasn't, then you don't know that higher productivity comes with a higher
cost in the shale biz. The bottom line then is that the bottom line does not change if it did
the shale oil industry would be paying down some debt, right? Its not. Private debt is
skyrocketing.
Are things getting better for the shale biz? Right. Case in point, the largest pure
Permian Basin oil and associated gas producer, Concho, the genius behind a recent $8 billion
dollar acquisition from RSP, LOST $199MM 3Q2018. Inventories are going back up, prices are
down 18% the past month and what does the shale oil industry do?
It adds more rigs.
Productivity is not the same as profitability. In the real oil biz you learn that on about
day six.
"If its wells are sooooooo much better, why don't they pay some of that $6 billion plus
dollars of debt back? I mean really, who in their right mind would actually WANT to pay
$420MM a year in interest on long term debt if it didn't have to?"
I wonder about debt service, too.
When Dennis runs his scenarios he says that at a certain oil price, these companies will
be quite able to pay down debt.
But will they? Or will they just pay themselves as much as they can as long as they can
get away with it, and then declare bankruptcy and walk away.
We had 5-6 years of the highest, sustained oil prices in history and the shale oil
industry could NOT make a profit. People seem to think now things have changed for some
reason, that the shale oil industry has now become more ethical, and temporarily higher
productivity of wells, and some imaginary oil price off in the future (for most shale guys
its now down in the mid to low $50's) will allow them to pay down debt. Its absurd logic, but
keeps people occupied, I guess, speculating about it.
I urge folks to ignore the guessing, and the lying, (Hamm's 20% of OOIP in the Bakken is a
big 'ol whopper) and look at the shale industry's financial performance over the past 10
years and decide for yourselves if it is sustainable or not.
One thing to add. The shale companies did all this in the lowest interest rate environment we
have had in a long time. They could not pay off their debt or even put a dent in it. What is
going to happen when their interest costs increase 30-50% over the next 2-3 years?
I was a former employee of Newfield, when we were drilling gas wells in the Arkoma Basin in
2007 and gas prices were the highest they had ever been, it was not cash flow positive. It
actually ate all the revenue from the rest of the company. Getting to be in the black for the
play was always a year off. a decade later it never got there, they just got more and more
debt sold more producing assets to pay for it to keep the shell game going and just got
bought by Encanna. I have seen the same at every public company I have worked for, many of
them survived the downturn only because costs dropped and so did the cost of debt. Now with
increasing costs and cost of debt there will likely be many bankruptcies.
Yeah, I agree with Mike, Rystads announcements are mainly just self serving hogwash. Yes, oil
production in the US looks to be close to 11.3 million for August. EIA's reported production
for Texas is only about 50k over my high estimate, so I see nothing to argue about. GOM is
the main surprise, and George and others are better suited to comment on that. The
understanding I had was that it was temporary. As far as Texas goes, I'm pretty sure it is
the high, for awhile. Completions dictate how much oil comes out of the ground, not drilling
rigs. That is for unconventional wells, not conventional. That is why I think the EIA's DPR
is a ridiculous measurement assessment. Apples and oranges. Articles that I have read
indicate a significant decrease in completions in the Permian by the end of August. Texas
production is not all about the Permian. A significant amount was contributed by the Eagle
Ford and other areas. All completions have slowed to the point that by the end of September,
they were at slightly over 60% of June's completion numbers according to RRC statistics.
Significant drop, and it will show up in following months. First years decline rates will
assure that it will drop slightly from this point. $64 WTI won't motivate it to expand to any
extent. The next year will see US wavering along the 11.1 million barrel level, I still
think. Unless, George thinks the GOM increase is somewhat permanent, which I doubt.
And try to locate a time in history when production is trending up, while completions are
trending down. There is usually a several month lag by the time production slows. Takes a
while to get out of the ground if they are completed towards the end of the month.
Don't you just love simple logic? Like: fire burns, water is wet, stuff like that?
I second that. Being from Norway myself, and having actually been working in consulting some
years ago. It looks nice on paper, but the world is changing and it is wise to look out for
deception and that is often the case in consulting (customer/revenue first and reality
second).
Based on the shaleprofile data it looks as if well productivity increased alot in 2016 and
2017 due to longer laterals and increased proppant intensity. 2018 well productivity looks to
be trending pretty close to 2017, so the productivity gains from longer lats and increased
proppant might have been exhausted by now. Therefore, comparing 2018 well completion numbers
to any pre 2017 completion numbers won't tell you much, but a comparison of 2018 and 2017
numbers should. In the 4 months ending in September 2018 completions grew year over year by
almost 70% from 2017, hence the large assumed increase in production in the last four months
of 2018. What is interesting though is that it looks like the free lunch from increased lats
and proppant looks to be almost over, and any future increases in production must be the
result of an increase in completion activity, which should result in some inflation for the
service providers going forward. And, according to Schlumberger, if you adjust for the longer
lats and increased proppant it actually appears that productivity is starting to trend down
(and the increased usage of poor quality in basin sand will likely contribute to this as
well)
I take your word for it. Thank you, BTW. You are the only one left on this site that has any
common sense regarding shale oil economics and the burden all that massive, massive amount of
debt has on running a business where your assets decline at the rate of 28-15% annually.
Everybody else seems mesmerized by productivity.
Paying the debt off will depend very much on future oil and natural gas prices.
Once growth slows the companies will be companies operating many low volume wells.
Investors will want these companies to pay dividends because they will not be in a position
to grow. The operating costs will be higher, even though CAPEX will drop.
You are very confident prices will be high in the future. I suspect they will be volatile
in the future, as they have been for the past 20 years.
So, on a company by company basis, timing will be critical, IMO.
The prices can be thought of as 3 year average prices, yes there will be volatility, my
"low price scenario" has Brent Oil Price in 2017 $ never rising above $80/b. I cannot hope to
predict the exact oil price and of course oil prices will be volatile, but the average over
time allows a pretty good estimate.
Also a company by company model is a little too much work. I just do the industry average,
some companies will be better and some worse than average.
It certainly is the case that oil prices have been volatile and I agree this will
continue, but the three year trend in prices (centered 3 year average) has been up $7/b for
the past year, my expectation is that this trend will continue and the 3 year centered
average price will reach $80/b (in 2017$) by 2021 or 2022. The trend of oil prices will be
higher, if the peak arrives by 2025 as I expect prices (3 year centered average oil price in
2017$) are likely to reach $100/b by 2024 or 2025.
I think company by company because I have an investment in a private company. I know how
important timing is in the upstream industry to individual companies.
Likewise, I understand you aren't all that interested in individual companies. No problem
there.
On the price, I understand why you use different scenarios. However, the average price
over the next three years could be $100 or $50 WTI. Pretty much close to what we saw 2011-14
and 2015–17.
I was recently in a major city and saw more Tesla's than I ever had, including my first
Model 3 sighting.
Our little area now has two Model S, with the early adopter trading his 2012 for a
2018.
Pretty doubtful it will be $50/b over the next three years, in my opinion. If you believe
that you should find another business More likely is a gradual increase in
oil prices as we approach peak oil, the futures strip is likely to be wrong on oil price
(today's future strip). For Brent futures the current strip goes from $73/b (Jan 2019) to $61
(Dec 2026). By Contrast the EIA's AEO 2018 reference oil price scenario for Brent crude has
the spot price at $87.50/b in 2026, chart below has their scenario (which I think may be too
low.)
As always clicking on the chart give a larger view.
The price could be $50 from 2019-2021, and then $125 from 2022-2025. (Averages, of
course).
So in that scenario I'd feel pretty bad if I sold out in say 2020.
Your models are ok, I have no problem with you doing them. We try to make a budget for
every year.
However, the price is far too volatile to model anything very far into the future, just
like we cannot budget past one year, and usually have to make adjustments to that.
Our price has dropped over $10 in less than one month. That makes a huge difference, yet
that level of volatility is common and has been for many years.
What oil prices were you modeling in June, 2014 for 2015-17? Our timing was very fortunate
to say the least. Many leases bought 1997-2005. Had we bought the same leases 2011-14 for the
market prices of 2011-14, we would be bankrupt, absent having hedged everything for four
years, which is very difficult to do.
On a flowing barrel basis, I have seen leases sell as low as $2,000 per barrel and as high
as $180,000 per barrel in our basin from 1997-2018. That is what an oil price range of $8-140
per barrel will do.
Few companies with zero debt ever go BK. We would with WTI at $30 for about three years.
Is that likely? No, but oil did drop below that level in 2016.
The volatility is a big problem, there is no doubt of that. When imagining the "big
picture". I use the estimates of the EIA's AEO as a starting point then add my personal
perspective (that at some point oil output will peak.) Below is a chart with my guess from
Dec 2014 for future Brent oil prices in constant 2014$, nominal Brent spot price is give for
comparison.
Clearly my guess was not very good, the EIA guess from the AEO 2015 was also not great,
but better than my guess. Future guesses will be equally bad.
In 2013 we assumed prices in a range of $60-120 WTI moving forward.
In June of 2014 when oil spiked up and we received $99.25 in the field, we suspected oil
would fall and it began to. We again continued to assume $60 WTI would be a low.
We were dead wrong, of course.
Oil dropped again today. We will get $67 in the field for October sales paid in November.
However, our price today is down to $56.50. That is about a $60,000 per month revenue hit to
a small company which employs 8 full time employees, one part time employee office manager
and utilized numerous contractors (rigs, electricians, etc.).
Corn here is $3.51 per bushel today. Less than a month ago it was $2.96 per bushel.
Yes, yes, a hedging program would mitigate the price volatility.
Until you actually try to hedge with money at risk, don't talk to me about that. It's
about as easy as trading stocks. It is also very expensive due to the volatility. Or, if you
do SWAPS or Collars, you need to put up a lot of margin money.
Hedging seems a risky business, not sure I would come out ahead by hedging. You are in a
tough business, the volatility sucks. The silver lining is that prices will be
increasing.
Shallow Sand Wrote:
"Paying the debt off will depend very much on future oil and natural gas prices."
I don't think so. When energy prices rise, so do prices of everything else, included
interest rates. The only way the shale drillers could play off there debt is if the left
large number of completed wells untapped (ie leave it in the ground) while taking advantage
of cheap debt & low labor\material costs. Then selling the oil when prices & costs
have soared above investment costs.
The issue is that as soon as a well is completed, they start producing, at market prices.
Thus when oil prices rise most of the oil is already produced & drilling new wells (using
more debt) does not pay down the old debt.
Also consider the costs shale drillers will need for decommissioning older\depleted well.
I believe the cleanup cost is between $50K & $100K per drill site. To date have any shale
drillers spent money on clean up for depleted wells yet, or is it all deferred (ie never
going to happen)?
FWIW: I don't believe any of the shale companies are in game for the long term. They are
simply a modern Ponzi scam, taking investor money & providing an illusion of profitabity
by selling a product below cost. They will continue to play the game until investor capital
dries up.
I suspect that most shale drillers will go bust in the next 5 years when the bulk of their
bonds come due & they won't have the ability to refinance it or pay it off. If I recall
correctly Shale drillers will need to payoff or refinance about $270B in high-yield bonds
between 2020 & 2022.
My guess is that much of KSA will look a lot like the shabby end of Yemen before too long. This will perhaps strand some assets.
Once the House of Saud fragments further among competing clans/factions (Faisal, Sudairi, Abdullah, Bin Sultans) things will hasten.
Collapse is preceded by intra-elite rivalry over a shrinking pie, so to speak.
Caspian Report has a nice set on KSA if you look for them. Here's one- https://youtu.be/9tHwvZ9XDLU
And another- https://youtu.be/hh8isVX3H9w
Hightrekker once commented something quite apt, along the lines of~ 'And all this is probably like the Austrians in 1913 arguing
about who their next Habsburg Ruler is going to be'.
From what I understand there are 4000 Saudi princes (a suspiciously round number, so likely an approximate). It all should
make for a very bloody affair. Hopefully Iran will do the right thing and kick 'em while they're down.
"... Adam Schiff will shut down the probe that found FBI abuses. ..."
"... Credit for knowing anything at all goes to Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and more recently a joint investigation by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Trey Gowdy (Oversight). Over 18 months of reviewing tens of thousands of documents and interviewing every relevant witness, no Senate or House Committee has unearthed evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the presidential election. If Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found more, he hasn't made it public. ..."
"... But House investigators have uncovered details of a Democratic scheme to prod the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign. We now know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS, which hired an intelligence-gun-for-hire, Christopher Steele, to write a "dossier" on Donald Trump's supposed links to Russia. ..."
"... Mr. Steele fed that document to the FBI, even as he secretly alerted the media to the FBI probe that Team Clinton had helped to initiate. Fusion, the oppo-research firm, was also supplying its dossier info to senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion. ..."
"... This abuse of the FBI's surveillance powers took place as part of a counterintelligence investigation into a presidential campaign -- which the FBI also hid from Congress. Such an investigation is unprecedented in post-J. Edgar Hoover American politics, and it included running informants into the Trump campaign, obtaining surveillance warrants, and using national security letters, which are secret subpoenas to obtain phone records and documents. ..."
Adam Schiff will shut down the probe that found FBI abuses.
Arguably the most important power at stake in Tuesday's election was Congressional
oversight, and the most important change may be Adam Schiff at the House Intelligence
Committee. The Democrat says his top priority is re-opening the Trump-Russia collusion probe,
but more important may be his intention to stop investigating how the FBI and Justice
Department abused their power in 2016. So let's walk through what we've learned to date.
Credit for knowing anything at all goes to Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and more recently a
joint investigation by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Trey Gowdy (Oversight). Over 18
months of reviewing tens of thousands of documents and interviewing every relevant witness, no
Senate or House Committee has unearthed evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia
to win the presidential election. If Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found more, he hasn't
made it public.
But House investigators have uncovered details of a Democratic scheme to prod the FBI to
investigate the Trump campaign. We now know that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the
Democratic National Committee hired Fusion GPS, which hired an intelligence-gun-for-hire,
Christopher Steele, to write a "dossier" on Donald Trump's supposed links to Russia.
Mr. Steele fed that document to the FBI, even as he secretly alerted the media to the FBI
probe that Team Clinton had helped to initiate. Fusion, the oppo-research firm, was also
supplying its dossier info to senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, Nellie,
worked for Fusion.
House investigators have also documented the FBI's lack of judgment in using the dossier to
obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump aide Carter
Page. The four FISA warrants against Mr. Page show that the FBI relied almost exclusively on
the unproven Clinton-financed accusations, as well as a news story that was also ginned up by
Mr. Steele.
The FBI told the FISA court that Mr. Steele was "credible," despite Mr. Steele having
admitted to Mr. Ohr that he passionately opposed a Trump Presidency. The FBI also failed to
tell the FISA court about the Clinton campaign's tie to the dossier.
This abuse of the FBI's surveillance powers took place as part of a counterintelligence
investigation into a presidential campaign -- which the FBI also hid from Congress. Such an
investigation is unprecedented in post-J. Edgar Hoover American politics, and it included
running informants into the Trump campaign, obtaining surveillance warrants, and using national
security letters, which are secret subpoenas to obtain phone records and documents.
Mr. Nunes and his colleagues also found that officials in Barack Obama's White House
"unmasked" Trump campaign officials to learn about their conversations with foreigners; that
FBI officials exhibited anti-Trump bias in text messages; and that the FBI team that
interviewed then Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn reported that they did not think
Mr. Flynn had lied about his Russian contacts. Mr. Mueller still squeezed Mr. Flynn to cop a
guilty plea.
All of this information had to be gathered despite relentless opposition from Democrats and
their media contacts. Liberal groups ginned up a phony ethics complaint against Mr. Nunes,
derailing his committee leadership for months. Much of the media became Mr. Schiff's scribes
rather than independent reporters. Meanwhile, the FBI and Justice continue to stonewall
Congress, defying subpoenas and hiding names and information behind heavy redactions.
There is still much more the public deserves to know. This includes how and when the FBI's
Trump investigation began, the extent of FBI surveillance, and the role of Obama officials and
foreigners such as Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic who in spring 2016 supposedly told Trump
campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia held damaging Clinton emails. When he takes
over the committee, Mr. Schiff will stop asking these questions and bless the FBI-Justice
refusal to cooperate.
Senate Republicans could continue to dig next year, but Mr. Mueller seems uninterested.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March asked Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber to look into FBI
misconduct, but there has been little public reporting of what he is finding, if he is even
still looking. Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating, though that report
is likely to take many more months.
* * *
All of which puts an additional onus on Mr. Trump to declassify key FBI and Justice
documents sought by Mr. Nunes and other House investigators before Mr. Schiff buries the truth.
A few weeks ago Mr. Trump decided to release important documents, only to renege under pressure
from Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and members of the intelligence community.
Mr. Sessions resigned this week and perhaps Mr. Rosenstein will as well. Meantime, Mr. Trump
should revisit his decision and help Mr. Nunes and House Republicans finish the job in the lame
duck session of revealing the truth about the misuse of U.S. intelligence and the FISA court in
a presidential election.
"... Later, it emerged that QIA and Glencore planned to sell the majority of the stake they had acquired in Rosneft to China's energy conglomerate CEFC, but the deal fell through after Beijing set its sights on CEFC and launched an investigation that saw the removal of its chief executive. The investigation was reportedly part of a wide crackdown on illicit business practices on the part of private Chinese companies favored by Beijing. ..."
Russian VTB, a state-owned bank, funded a significant portion of the Qatar Investment
Authority's acquisition of a stake in oil giant Rosneft , Reuters
reports , quoting nine unnamed sources familiar with the deal.
VTB, however, has denied to Reuters taking any part in the deal.
"VTB has not issued and is not planning to issue a loan to QIA to finance the
acquisition," the bank said in response for a request for comment.
The Reuters sources, however, claim VTB provided a US$6 billion loan to the Qatar sovereign
wealth fund that teamed up with Swiss Glencore to acquire 19.5 percent in Rosneft last year.
Reuters cites data regarding VTB's activity issued by the Russian central bank that shows VTB
lent US$6.7 billion (434 billion rubles) to unnamed foreign entities and the loan followed
another loan of US$5.20 billion (350 billion rubles) from the same central bank.
The news first made
headlines in December, taking markets by surprise, as Rosneft's partial privatization was
expected by most to be limited to Russian investors. The price tag on the stake was around
US$11.57 billion (692 billion rubles), of which Glencore agreed to contribute US$324 million.
The remainder was forked over by the Qatar Investment Authority, as well as non-recourse bank
financing.
Russia's budget received about US$10.55 billion (
710.8 billion rubles ) from the deal, including US$ 270 million (18 billion rubles) in
extra dividends. Rosneft, for its part, got an indirect stake in Glencore of 0.54 percent.
Later, it
emerged that QIA and Glencore planned to sell the majority of the stake they had acquired
in Rosneft to China's energy conglomerate CEFC, but the deal fell through after Beijing set its
sights on CEFC and launched an investigation that saw the removal of its chief executive. The
investigation was reportedly part of a wide crackdown on illicit business practices on the part
of private Chinese companies favored by Beijing.
"... With all due cynical respect... I find it highly ironic that some of the biggest money launderers and Mafiosi are Baltic banks. The hilarity never ends. ..."
"... Full scale bull ****. No single former Soviet bloc country get into economic level of pre-Berlin wall fall. They are done. ..."
With all due cynical respect... I find it highly ironic that some of the biggest money
launderers and Mafiosi are Baltic banks. The hilarity never ends.
Here is classic: GDP PPP per capita. What to pay attention.
#1, After 30 years and joining EU and NATO there is no difference in former Soviet bloc.
Just looks like Russia is greatest profiteer. Now those parasites are chained to west.
#2, countries of former Soviet bloc are in better shape than countries that were in sphere
of western imperialism. Especially look at countries where USA imperialism worked since 1823
Monroe's doctrine. Chart shows that in 200 years USA was not able to achieve much progress
despite permanent military interventions and political influence.
As much as I like the idea of taking my state to Estonia status, too many winner-take-all
politicians and weak thinkers to recognize that new borders would solve lots and lots of
problems.
Socialists are clearly smart, but in actuality just simple evil, immoral thieves. They
will be unlikely to support any secession because they know their enemies are the source of
their lucre.
Balkanization, what little there will be, will most likely come after we are drug into
WWIII and we are back to a 1700's subsistence existence.
A pessimist is never disappointed, but I will happily take an optimist's surprise if
people just stop and live and let live.
.............. try, try to "Unchain America" next July 4. What better way to celebrate
Independence Day than with a joining of hands across the land, if not to secede, then to
affirm our right to, one state at a time?
It's 2,790 miles from New York to Los Angeles, which is 14,731,200 feet. At three feet per
person, it would take around 4,910,400 people -- less than 1/66th of the US population -- to
make a human chain like the three Balkan states did.
"... By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an "anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert". He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics . He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK ..."
"... 'a research paper by Hendrik Bessembinder published in the September edition of the Journal of Financial Economics posed the question "Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?" with some rather worrying conclusions for most equity investors. ..."
"... the view that stock markets themselves create value ..."
"... the view that stock markets themselves create value ..."
"... One aspect not touched upon is stocks are loans that never get repaid. If I pay $100 of a share and the company thrives. I get paid dividends in perpetuity. Plus, If I buy that share from someone who already had bought it (a trade) I am being paid when I actually provided none of the original loan (like a bank buying the "paper" from another bank). Someone calculated that the dividends paid by Apple have paid off the amount originally tendered by several hundred percent, which would make them the worst bank loans in all of creation. ..."
As many readers will know, I am not the greatest fan of stock markets. I consider most
activity on such markets to be exploitative because of the asymmetry of the information
available to investors. Much of it, from the pay directors take to the actions of most market
managers, I consider to be rent seeking. The idea that equities provide strong returns is
pretty much an urban myth, in my opinion, based on selective reading of data in those periods
between market crashes.
There is quite a lot of evidence to support my view in an article by long-term and highly
opinionated equity investor Terry Smith in the
FT this morning . As he notes he did this based on 'a research paper by Hendrik
Bessembinder published in the September edition of the Journal of Financial Economics posed the
question "Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?" with some rather worrying conclusions for most
equity investors. ' I should make clear that the research is US based. I have no reason to
think that performance in the UK is any different.
The main conclusions is that the majority of shares do not perform nearly as well as
government bonds. It is an exceptional few that make it look as though shares outperform
gilts.
Since 1977 the median new shares issued on the stock exchange has delivered a negative rate
of return, even with dividends reinvested.
On average, a quoted security has a life expectancy of just 7.5 years over the 90 year
period studied. No wonder short-termism is rife.
And as he notes:
Just five companies out of the universe of 25,967 in the study account for 10 per cent of
the total wealth creation over the 90 years, and just over 4 per cent of the companies
account for all of the wealth created.
So, what is to be learned?
First, the stock exchange is not a business funding mechanism: it is a business exit
strategy for most companies.
Second, most people are fools to take part in this game.
Third, if you insist on taking part only invest in the best stocks.
Fourth, since you have no way of knowing which ones they are, invest in a market
tracker.
Or fifth, buy gilts.
But whatever you don't believe the story that the market deliver higher rates of return than
government bonds: 96% of it does not.
When 43 pushed the privatization of Social Security through more 401k and similar
approaches my immediate thought was that he was rationalizing the transfer of wealth and
increased fees to Wall Street. Someday there will be a post-mortem about Neo-Liberalism and
that episode merits at least a footnote. To escape the memory hole.
Don't forget that Clinton had reached a deal with Gingerich to privatize up to half of the
Social Security Trust Fund in the stock market, which was only derailed by the Lewinski
scandal. Clinton was scheduled to unveil this at the State of the Union address the week
after the Lewinski story started to break, and pulled back because he was advised that if he
were impeached he'd need the Democrats in the Senate to avoid conviction. Google "Robert
Kuttner" "Clinton" and "Social Security" to get the details. There's also a book called "The
Pact" by Steven Gillon that documents the back channel negotiations, which were conducted by
Erskine Bowles, Clinton's last Chief of Staff.
It would have been the ultimate Neo-Liberal betrayal of the party of FDR, but we were
saved by a blue dress. Amazing story, not nearly as well known as it should be. We might have
been spared the Hillary Clinton phenomenon.
I don't want my Social Security benefits to be any kind of loan that has to be repaid.
That just gives the government another way to cut my benefits at some point.
I don't want Wall Street to get one penny of the contributions I have made to Social
Security for the past 50 years. They don't deserve it!
Your proposal is no more than a neoliberal justification for subjecting the Social
Security system to the depredations of the "Market", allowing the rentiers to get their cut
off the top.
Remember that taxes don't really pay for government expenses in a fiat system; don't
forget MMT.
Accounts are not real wealth any more than the map is the territory (CF Korzibsky and
general semantics). The stock market, as well as the bond market, are accounting gizmos, and
accounting is not actual wealth creation, and neither does owning stocks or binds produce
anything real.
Anyone investing in bonds in the low interest rate environment that has prevailed these
past ten years would disagree, I think.
I call rubbish on this article. Not my experience. My investing strategy is to follow the
oligarchs. Invest in stocks that make money by destroying the planet. Take profits when
things look toppy. Reinvest dividends.
Buy bonds at your own peril. Maybe when rates are in the 6% plus range but we're a long
way from that.
The main conclusions is that the majority of shares do not perform nearly as well as
government bonds. It is an exceptional few that make it look as though shares outperform
gilts.
Since 1977 the median new shares issued on the stock exchange has delivered a negative
rate of return, even with dividends reinvested.
On average, a quoted security has a life expectancy of just 7.5 years over the 90 year
period studied. No wonder short-termism is rife.
Have it your way – be poor. I'd rather have money than snark.
I have practical experience and have done better in equities.
The time scale of the article is 40 years – in our current economy 40 years ago is
ancient history. And they focus only on new issues, which represent a fraction of total
market cap. And I doubt many financial advisors would agree with me as I a) don't employ any
of them; and b) find them to be a repository of groupthink and always to miss inflection
points.
I dismiss anyone advising bonds in the current interest rate environment. Unless you want
to end up with less money than you started out with.
while it's great that you are succeeding in the market, remember that we have had 10 years
of qe and stock buybacks. I hear student loan bonds are very lucrative if you've got enough
dough to make a position
On average, a quoted security has a life expectancy of just 7.5 years over the 90 year
period studied. No wonder short-termism is rife.
This does not mean the average company goes bankrupt in 7.5 years. Acquisitions also
remove quoted securities. I don't see the link between how long a security is traded and
whether or not the underlying assets are managed for long or short term.
The dot com bubble sure had it's share of here today gone tomorrow stocks but, I'm also
wondering if they took into account many of the mergers and aquisitions that occurred during
the lead up to the bubble's popping.
The issue here is that companies only get money from e events:
1. During the initial IPO
2. If they issue new shares afterwards, which dilutes existing owners
Other than that, you are not, when you buy a share, sending money to the bank account of
the firm that you are investing in. What are you doing? Sending money to the person who you
bought the share from. It is pretty much speculation. Capitalists hate to admit this
idea.
Also, companies that buy back shares or pay dividends are taking money of their cash flows
and giving money to the shareholders.
In this regard, capitalism is not a good way to allocate capital. It can be used for
various types of manipulation, an example being a share buyback right before executives cash
in their stock options.
Years ago I read in Marjorie Kelly's The Divine Right of Capital
that 97% of all stock trades never contribute one direct penny to the Company who's shares
are traded. It's purely a speculative game.
It was the book that first woke me up 15 years ago to the way our financial system really
works. Needless to say, this site has become my ongoing educational resource.
Stock prices are a zero sum game. Every extra dollar the seller of a stock gets is an
extra dollar that the purchaser has paid to secure a share of future profits.
IMO stock markets in and of themselves both create and destroy "value" in much the same
way that a casino does, including largely hidden social costs. While there is little in the
way of public data to support either a pro or con view and setting aside issues of
manipulation of market prices, the view that stock markets themselves create value by
enabling price discovery is integral to neoliberalism. I agree with the view that the related
long-term "financialization" of the economy contributes to recurring speculative asset price
bubbles and leads to long-term economic stagnation while enriching a few.
"price discovery is integral to neoliberalism"
I would have thought it's the exact opposite ?
(Perhaps your "indeed" was ironic ?)
It's the inequality of information (ie price discovery) that makes the stock market so
profitable for the "right" people.
The Fed's years of QE is another factor that has made price discovery very difficult.
I believe that the concept of price 'discovery' is already an important element of
neoliberal framing, and that Chauncey Gardiner has shared a profound insight. Discovery
implies that there is a natural price, somehow prior to and independent of human/political
intervention. The stock market is a way to embody the collective of individual 'rational
actors', and give this collective transcendent power over individuals, corporations and
nations. It is perhaps more clear when one looks at bond markets and the way they are used to
'discipline' nations whose fiscal policies diverge from the neoliberal consensus. The fact
that the hand holding the whip is invisible is a feature, not a bug. The whipped feel the
lash, les autres hear the crack and see the blood, but there is no recourse
imaginable -- because Markets.
Your point about information inequality is good, but I think that would be viewed in
neoliberal doctrine as a minor flaw in the market, even if, for the main actors, it is the
raison d'etre .
Yup, what the author describes as a flaw -- "asymmetry of the information available to
investors", isn't a bug; it's a feature. But the real elephant soiling the room is who has
access to all that free debt printed by the unaccountable private cartel we refer to as the
Federal Reserve. Could you benefit from a zero-interest deferred-payment mortgage?
Even better "our" millionaire legislators are exempt from insider-trading laws and they in
turn have immunized their investors. Clearly the most lucrative investment by far is
political bribery. The new Wall Street Socialists have redefined capitalism and democracy as
Orwellian doublespeak.
I agree -- I think this post plays on its words. The stock market price for a stock
indicates what speculators are willing to pay and sellers are willing to accept for the
stock. These need have very little to do with the 'value' of the stock other than its 'value'
in the stock market. That's seldom been truer than in the current stock 'market'. I'm not a
very trusting sort so I don't believe more than half the numbers in corporate reports. Many
stocks stocks like Apple or Amazon tend to trade on 'value' instead of anything like what
used to be called value. At a time when there seems to be no limit on the amount of money
finding its way into the hands of the wealthy I'm not sure the selling of stock has anything
to do with raising money for investments. Many firms can coin their own money through their
many monopolies and monopsonies, and 'retained earnings' -- a category I believe often labels
earnings squeezed from the small sellers, suppliers, and labor thrall to the large firms. To
me, asserting "Stock markets do not create value" is shorthand for a much deeper critique of
our financialized stock markets.
Westinghouse in the days of George Westinghouse, General Electric in the days of Thomas
Edison, Xerox in the days shortly after Chester Carlson all created value. I like to believe
that at least in some periods of the stock market their stocks represented and did not create
but "shared" the value these firms invented and developed. I also like to believe at least
some of the new issues these and other firms sold did indeed once help fund real investments
in productive capital. But all that has become but romantic memory.
I believe the Corporate Management is busily engaged in cashing-out what real value
remains within the firms they control and will continue doing so until all that's left is a
hollow shell servicing the bonds and notes the firm created as part of their liquidation
process. The stock market is where speculators can bet against each other on the ebb and flow
of prices moving toward a great twilight of our stock markets and our gutted economy.
Well, there's entertainment value, just like casinos and horse racing, but that isn't what
they're paid for – unlike casinos or race tracks.
An Indiana paper (Indy Star? used to print the stock market numbers facing the horse race
results. My father was not amused when I pointed that out, since investing in stocks was part
of his job. I thought it was hilarious.
Realistically, financial "markets" are an overhead cost, part of your management system
for the economy. Not saying whether it's MIS- management.
They used to say you can make money if you are right 51% of the time. Such a narrow edge
– because the reverse is also true. This is a good argument for not wasting time and
money on the cherished institution of the market. Nancy Pelosi was blabbering on about all
our sacred institutions (cows) trying to cover her fauxpaux when she tried to defuse the
demand for single payer with her stumbling, tooth sucking comment that "this is a capitalist
country" and therefore we simply canot have anything so cost effective as single payer. I'm
convinced she doesn't know her capitalism from a hot rock. So now, armed with this simple
demonstration of how wasteful the whole idea of a stock market is, I'm thinking the Market is
a very questionable institution. Much better to be highly selective and deliberate about
stocks and stock companies. Not just in the share-buying but in the whole company concept. If
returns on government bonds are the best choice then why would anyone get upset about "the
debt". It's the best investment. And I am left to assume this is true because that money is
spent on valuable things in the first place. I'm also thinking how to do an end-run around
Nancy's new Institution-patriotism with a movement to provide everyone with a medical credit
card. Why not? Everything else, including Nancy's paycheck and percs, are on credit. What a
velvet revolution, no?
I went to Richard Murphy's websites and I'm not sure his new book "The Joy of Tax" will be
a big winner here in the US. He may need to give it a new title.
Your post supports the paper's conclusion. In the USA, there are about 4,000 companies
listed on exchanges and another 15,000 that trade OTC. Members of the S&P 500 are in fact
the "exceptional few."
I think that stock markets are reflective of value, they don't in themselves create value.
Certainly there is speculation and cheating, but in general, the value of a stock should
increase as the value of the underlying business increases. Better to say that the price
reflects the expected business in the future.
We've done fantastically well investing in stocks and mutual funds over the last 30 years.
Not every fund went up. Not every stock went up. But the total gains far outpaced the
losses.
Companies take money from the market by going public and by issuing new shares. They also
hold some shares from some issues that are used to incentivize employees.
I think the original author sort of tilted the table by talking treating all securities
the same. Likely the newcomers to the market are much smaller and have more risk of
failure.
I'm also puzzled how they square this claim agains the historical value of something like
he Russell 2000 index.
"Since 1977 the median new shares issued on the stock exchange has delivered a negative
rate of return, even with dividends reinvested." If this were true I'd expect to see a lot
more red in the historical returns. Maybe the word "median" is doing some heavy lifting?
This data would seem to indicate that corporations have consistently earned money and
these profits should be reflected in stock prices. (I don't know if these are in constant
dollars).
Hopefully someone can correct me here, if necessary, but hasn't the stock market risen in
a dollar amount roughly equivalent to the amount of QE pumped into the economy ?
No correction from me. The stock-casino representing "free-market capitalism" has risen in
lockstep with the Central Cartel's QE. The evidence, if circumstantial, is overwhelming, with
countless charts showing an almost exact correlation. Pretty hard to argue against
causation.
The 1980s financial innovation of sheer unadulterated genius that enabled the cartel to
buy the market -- legalizing stock buybacks -- a syringe for mainlining monetary heroin
straight into market veins. This is the new efficient-markets theory called "hindsight price
discovery". You will discover the true price and value after insiders dump their pumped
holdings
The only "correction" coming is in the market casino.
You forget that equities are a form of money which C-corps can create at will and don't
necessarily have fundamentals underpinning them e.g. Jbonds sold for stock by backs or abuse
of risk tools to lower credit weighing and deals between the sell and buy side marry go
round.
Don't know what to make out of the comment about communists e.g. old school classical
capitalists likened the financial traders to rats in the back alleys or bars they once traded
in. Not to mention the propensity for the financial traders to blow themselves and everyone
up with them like clock work. It has only been during the neoliberal period that the FIRE
sector gained a veneer of respectability through broad spectrum PR.
Something of a reference point to the Australian experience.
If the general managers of the 12 banks that burst in 1891 and 1893 had kept paid clowns
to make fun of the valuations of city and suburban land, made by the old-established
auctioneers and valuators of Melbourne in the land boom days, their banks would never have
closed their doors.
Every bank should keep a laughing department where absurd valuations and ridiculous
securities could be laughed off the premises. The easiest marks as borrowers were the
building societies and the land and estate agents, and they had a right royal time asking for
and getting advances. In those halcyon days nobody was ever refused a loan by a bank manager.
So the banks opened agencies in Scotland, Ireland and England, and borrowed millions on
deposit receipts for 18 months and lent them out in Victoria for 30 years, and a great deal
of the money, for eternity.
It wasn't a mad or pessimistic or despondent thing to do. It was one calling for laughter,
for merriment, for jocosity.
Why should the good-humoured borrower explain to the dismal bank manager, irritated and
worried by Head Office letters and circulars censuring him for not lending money fast enough,
that though he had paid £1 a foot for land at Coburg or Glen Iris or Mentone that it
was not in his own opinion worth the £10 a foot of his own valuation.
Nobody dared to laugh at these insane transactions, nobody was brave enough to say,
" All this business is frenzied, delusive and pure buffoonery. There must be a smash.
" And there was. Prices of houses and lands jumped higher and higher, day by day, nay, hour
by hour, and more and more people were drawn into the maelstrom, into a true Walpurgis ride
to sudden wealth.
Rateable property in cities, towns and boroughs went up by leaps and bounds from £53
to £86 million sterling in 5 years, while the rateable property of shire councils
jumped from £71 to £108 million in the 5 years 1886-1890. It was all so dashed
funny, because there was no solid foundation for all this paper wealth.
Production did not increase part passu, nor overseas trade, nor exports, nor shipping,
except that imports increased literally horribly. During 1886 and 1890 in Victoria, railways
costing Z8 ,000,000 and 486 new churches and chapels were built. To me it was all so
ridiculous and amusing, and the best of the joke was that none of the leaders of the people
in Press, Parliament, Church, or on the platform, ever uttered a single word of warning about
the coming debacle, The terrible catastrophe so close at hand which brought ruin to tens of
thousands of decent people and nearly smashed Victoria.
Bank assets rose from £41m in 86 to £63m in 91.
Deposits grew from £31m in 86 to £40m in 91.
After that they fell away and did not reach £40m until 1907, or 28 years later. I am
writing of what I know because I went through that critical period on the inside in a finance
company and in a property company as an executive officer, and when the panic stopped I was a
member of the Stock Exchange.
"the view that stock markets themselves create value"
Value as determined by who? In terms of which inputs to achieve what outputs? As an
example, a company experiencing challenges (or as I call them – problems) may need to
hire more people to achieve long-term growth. However, if they do that Wall Street will
hammer their stocks which will go down. If they cut their workforce instead, Wall Street will
reward them by valuing their stocks even higher though the company has effectively sabotaged
their future growth plans. Thus Wall Street is not doing price discovery so much as
constructing their own outputs to be achieved by individual companies along some ideological
goal. Perhaps they are trying to create the 'perfect market' by warping reality which
is a neoliberal trait.
One aspect not touched upon is stocks are loans that never get repaid. If I pay $100
of a share and the company thrives. I get paid dividends in perpetuity. Plus, If I buy that
share from someone who already had bought it (a trade) I am being paid when I actually
provided none of the original loan (like a bank buying the "paper" from another bank).
Someone calculated that the dividends paid by Apple have paid off the amount originally
tendered by several hundred percent, which would make them the worst bank loans in all of
creation.
Would not simple loans make more sense? (Yes I am aware of the abuses of the Japanese uses
of banks, but they were abuses of a system, not the system itself that resulted in their
decline.)
ardent 19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy Report flag
"Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, is an Israeli Mossad-trained operative whose
real name is Elliot Shimon, a *** who took courses in Islamic theology and Arabic Speech." -
Snowden
Old Poor Richard 49 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
Now how would Ed Snowden know this? Is he some kind of super h4x0r tapped into the Pegasus
mainframe?
ShakenNotStirred 42 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
I heard you have a bunch of Mossad agents below your bed. Check it out or you will be
"Mossaded" before the morning.
passingthroughtown 2 hours ago remove Share link Copy
Proving once again that the Saudis and Israelies have been working hand in glove for a
very long time. Is there any doubt about the connection between the two and what happened on
911?
But what is even more disturbing:
In recent days, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu have reached out to the Trump administration to express support for the
crown prince, arguing that he is an important strategic partner in the region, said people
familiar with the calls.
"Strategic partner" makes it all okay. This is merely a glimpse of what is coming in the
future. You ain't seen NOTHIN yet.
He–Mene Mox Mox 3 hours ago remove Share link Copy
Derezzed 3 hours ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy
" Israel is routinely at the top of the US' classified threat list of hackers along
with Russia and China [ ] even though it is an ally "
Our best allies ! " Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the United States to stand by Saudi
Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS) in the wake of the Khashoggi case. "
The most morale people !
I bet they are behind ISIS too with their (((allies))) and the (((deep state))).
But hey isn't it conspirationnist and antisemitic to accuse them of anything ?
Because you know as the most " kind " and " human " people there needs to be
laws, censorship and repression, to protect them from being hated.
< 1% of the global population and they make the headlines 4/5 times a day.
Can only be bad luck and a cohencidence !
Dickweed Wang 3 hours ago remove Share link Copy
"Israel is routinely at the top of the US' classified threat list of hackers along
with Russia and China [ ] even though it is an ally"
Sorry Ed, IsraHell isn't an ally of the USA. It's a ******* parasite and it's well on its
way to killing the host.
alamac 4 hours ago remove Share link Copy
I guess Netanyahoo and KSM love each other because they have a common hobby: Killing
Arabs.
RagnarRedux 4 hours ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy
ISRAEL FLAGGED AS TOP SPY THREAT TO U.S. IN NEW SNOWDEN/NSA DOCUMENT (2007)
Former U.S. Officials Say CIA Considers Israel To Be Mideast's Biggest Spy Threat
(2012)
U.S. intelligence agents stationed in Israel report multiple cases of equipment
tampering, suspected break ins in recent years; CIA officials tell the Associated Press that
Israel may have leaked info that led to the capture of an agent inside Syria's chemical
weapons program.
What is really troubling, is Kushner's involvement in the affair. He would have been
debriefed once he returned to the U.S., not only by his father-in-law, Trump, but the intel
community too. You can bet every dollar you have that both the Israelis and Saudis were using
NSO surveillance on him. What is even more troubling, it appears that the action taken to
"neutralize" Jamal Khashoggi, more than likely had the blessings of Washington, since Kushner
met with the Saudis prior to the killing. It really makes one wonder, since Kushner declined
to discuss the state of his relationship with Prince Mohammed.
GRDguy 4 hours ago remove Share link Copy
"licensed only to legitimate government agencies"
That's the problem.
There are no legitimate government agencies any more.
"... Trump wasn't finished, however, and during the same gaggle, he suggested he could pull press credentials from other reporters who don't show him "respect" two days after the president suspended the press pass of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta after a contentious exchange during a news conference. ..."
"... "I think Jim Acosta is a very unprofessional man," Trump explained and when asked how long Acosta's credentials will be suspended, the president replied: "As far as I'm concerned, I haven't made that decision. But it could be others also." ..."
"... On this one Trump needs to take a hint from Obozo, stop doing daily press briefings... Hold them once a month ..."
"... the stooge press/talking heads have made a cottage industry off of the press conferences. the msm sends stooges to sell their product. trump is 100% correct- the msm doesn't have the guts to cull their stooge legions- oh dear- the white house will do their job for them. ..."
Having barred his CNN arch nemesis Jim Acosta from the White House,
on Friday the president lashed out at another CNN reporter at the White House over his
appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting AG as well as Whitaker's views towards the special
counsel investigation.
During a Friday morning gaggle with White House reporters before Trump's trip to Paris,
CNN's Abby Phillip asked the president if he was hoping Whitaker, who previously criticized
Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation, would "rein in" the Russia probe. " Do you want
[Whitaker] to rein in Robert Mueller?" Phillip asked.
Trump's response left the stunned reported speechless. "What a stupid question that is,"
Trump said and, just in case it was lost, repeated "what a stupid question."
"But I watch you a lot," Trump continued. "You ask a lot of stupid questions."
Trump then demonstrably walked away, leaving the shocked reporters screaming more questions
in his wake.
Earlier, Trump said he has not spoken to acting AG Matt Whitaker about the Russia
investigation, which Whitaker now oversees. Trump defended Whitaker as a "very well respected
man in the law enforcement community" but claimed he does not know him personally. "I didn't
speak to Matt Whitaker about it. I don't know Matt Whitaker," Trump told reporters at the White
House before leaving for a trip to Paris.
While Trump sought to place personal distance
between himself and Whitaker, he made it clear he stood by his decision to place a loyalist in
charge of the Justice Department, a move many see as an effort to seize control of special
counsel Robert Mueller's probe. The president also rejected suggestions that Whitaker is
ineligible to serve as attorney general, a position held by some legal experts who say the
Justice Department leader must be confirmed by the Senate.
The acting AG has raised eyebrows, and in some cases prediction of a constitutional crisis,
because before joining the DOJ, Whitaker was an outspoken critic of Mueller's investigation and
many Democrats and legal scholars have said he should recuse himself from leading the probe.
Whitaker also claimed there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian
interference efforts in the 2016 election, which is the central question of the Mueller
probe.
Trump lamented the criticism of Whitaker's past commentary, saying "it's a shame that no
matter who I put in, they go after him."
Trump then reiterated his plans to have Whitaker serve in an acting capacity, but declined
to reveal who might be Sessions' permanent replacement. He said he likes Chris Christie, who is
under consideration , but said he has not spoken to the former NJ governor about the post.
Christie was at the White House on Thursday for an event on prison reform but Trump said he did
not speak to him.
* * *
Trump wasn't finished, however, and during the same gaggle, he suggested he could pull press
credentials from other reporters who don't show him "respect" two days after the president
suspended the press pass of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta after a contentious
exchange during a news conference.
"I think Jim Acosta is a very unprofessional man," Trump explained and when asked how long
Acosta's credentials will be suspended, the president replied: "As far as I'm concerned, I
haven't made that decision. But it could be others also."
Trump also went after April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks as a "loser" who "doesn't
know what the hell she is doing."
Keyser 15 minutes ago
On this one Trump needs to take a hint from Obozo, stop doing daily press briefings...
Hold them once a month, then hand-pick which reporters you want in the room... And if a
reporter publishes a story you don't like, prosecute them... What we have now is what happens
when the lunatics are given free reign...
dcmbuffy 55 minutes ago remove
the stooge press/talking heads have made a cottage industry off of the press conferences.
the msm sends stooges to sell their product. trump is 100% correct- the msm doesn't have the
guts to cull their stooge legions- oh dear- the white house will do their job for them.
Predicting the Next Bear Market in Six Charts
Here are some clues investors are using to see if the long bull run is nearing an end.
Nine years, seven months, four weeks and two days
into the
current bull market, some investors are asking whether a bear is on the horizon.
The S&P 500 is
up 307%
since the bull market began in 2009. Stock
prices have powered forward thanks to robust earnings growth. Investors have also been willing to pay a higher
premium for those earnings, as seen in expanding price-to-earnings ratios.
While there is no single indicator that can predict market turns on its own, here are six things analysts and
investors are watching to see if the next bear market, typically defined as a 20% decline from a recent peak, is
around the corner.
We may already be part of the way there. The S&P 500 is
5.98% off
its all-time high reached
Sept. 20, 2018
.
S&P 500 Index
Bear market (peak to trough)
... ... ...
Source: SIX
Dive into these
six
metrics to test your prediction, and see the results of our
readers' poll below.
High-Yield Bond Spreads
What It Is
A measure of what riskier companies pay to borrow compared with what the government pays. These high-yield bond
spreads have historically picked up signs of economic stress earlier than other assets. When spreads are tight,
investors tend to think that even the weakest companies will be fine. When they are wider, it is harder for these
companies to access loans, crimping profits and signalling that investors believe defaults are on the horizon.
What to Watch
A steady trend higher in high-yield bond spreads accompanied the last two stock market peaks. It signalled that
investors were getting wary about riskier companies' ability to pay back debts.
ICE BofAML US High Yield Master II Option-Adjusted Spread
... ... ...
Source: ICE via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
'This tells me whether the most-stressed companies have the cash flow to pay their
debts. If not, to me that's a signal that we're rolling over, and credit markets tend to tell you first.'
Alicia Levine, chief market strategist at BNY Mellon Investment Management
Yield Curve Steepness
What It Is
The yield curve is one of the most closely watched indicators of the stock market's health, measuring the
interest rates paid on debt of various maturities. When the economy is strong, the yield on long-term government
bonds is typically higher than on short-term debt, reflecting confidence in the long-term economic outlook. When
the yield curve inverts, and short-term yields surpass long ones, it's a sign investors are worried that
inflation -- and growth -- will be low in the future. High short-term rates tend to crimp business and consumer
spending, slowing the economy and putting pressure on corporate profits.
What to Watch
Inversions often precede recessions and bear markets for stocks. This measure did not invert until after the
1987 bear market, but did precede the bears of 1980, 2000 and 2007. Investors are staunchly divided over whether
an inverted yield curve on U.S. Treasurys can still signal a bear market, or whether rates have been distorted by
years of unorthodox global monetary policy that keep yields on long-term debt low.
Gap between 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields
... ... ...
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
'It's an incredibly useful forecasting tool for the peak in the stock market.'
Jeffrey Kleintop, global chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab
Deal Activity
What It Is
The total dollar value of mergers and acquisitions by month.
What to Watch
A big pickup in deal activity has historically come toward the end of bull markets. A jump in mergers can
signal that sentiment has turned excessively optimistic -- or that companies see it as the only way to grow as the
economy decelerates. Mergers and acquisitions spiked in 2000 and 2007 shortly ahead of the stock market peaks in a
sign of excessive risk-taking. More recent peaks have been false alarms, though a spike at the end of 2015 was
followed by a stock market correction that fell short of a bear market.
Global value of announced mergers and acquisitions
... ... ...
Source: Dealogic
'Enthusiasm for [deal] activity tends to reflect broader economic optimism and
coincides with booms in stock prices and credit expansion. However, history shows that these M&A waves are
late-cycle indicators. Their demise often coincides with the end of the business cycle.'
Abi Oladimeji, chief investment officer at Thomas Miller Investment
Weekly Jobless Claims
What It Is
A weekly count of people filing to receive unemployment insurance benefits. Market participants view the
figures as a key leading indicator of the U.S. labor market, the health of the broader economy, and thus the
ability of companies to generate cash.
What to Watch
When unemployment rises, consumers spend less money, which crimps what companies take in. Analysts suggest
looking for a consistent rise in jobless claims after a steady period. If this happens at the same time as
weakness in the monthly U.S. jobs report, it is an ominous sign for the economy.
Four-week moving average of initial claims
... ... ...
Note: Seasonally adjusted
Source: Labor Department via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
'Jobless claims are clearly a leading indicator of recessions [ ] They start to flash
red on the economy when they start to rise on a four-week average basis, likely after a flattish period, and then
continue to work gradually higher. That's just a sign that something is likely amiss in the job market.'
Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Financial Group
Investor Sentiment
What It Is
The AAII survey is a barometer of American retail investor sentiment that asks participants to predict the
direction of the S&P 500 over the next six months.
What to Watch
Look for extreme highs and lows of investor bullishness, says Charles Rotblut at the AAII. When investors get
too optimistic, they tend to run down their savings and overspend. There's typically less cushion to protect the
market, allowing selloffs to gain momentum. This measure worked very well just before the dot-com bubble burst,
and spiked just before selloffs in 2011 and 2018.
American Association of Individual Investors Sentiment Survey, percent bullish, weekly
... ... ...
Source: American Association of Individual Investors
'When you've got confidence among players, they start engaging in bad behaviors. They
create excesses and the bear has something to bite.'
Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group
What the Market Thinks
What It Is
Think of this as the market crowdsourcing predictions of a bear market. As measured through options expiring in
roughly six months, it is the estimated probability of a 20% or more drop in the S&P 500, the typical definition
of a bear market. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found indicators like this useful as a
gauge of current expectations for future prices, but it's really more a measure of what investors think right now
than a predictive indicator.
What to Watch
A relatively new measure, this chart spiked during the financial crisis and rose sharply during other recent
episodes of market stress, including the 2016 China growth scare that sent markets tumbling.
Market-based probability of an S&P 500 bear market within 6 months
... ... ...
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Note:
The charts above include two recent periods commonly considered by
investors to have been bear markets. Some market technicians say that the March 2000 bear market briefly paused between
September 2001 and January 2002, during which a small bull market occurred. Similarly, some analysts say the 2007 bear
market technically ended in late November 2008 before another bear market took shape in January 2009.
One little discussed aspect of Social Security is the modest wealth
redistribution resulting from disability benefits. The upward trend of disability in
previous decades mirrors the decline in working class and lower middle class jobs and
income.
SSDI has been a target of the cutters for years and puts Trump in the middle between his
conservatives and his more lumpenproletariat base members, an increasing number of whom
live off SSDI benefits .
The number of SSDI recipients has tripled since the 1980s.
Democrats should continue to exploit the divergence between GOP policy and the grim
reality of a significant share of the Trumpist base.
Gold age of the USA (say 40 years from 1946 to approximately 1986 ) were an in some way an aberration caused by WWII. As soon
as Germany and Japan rebuilt themselves this era was over. And the collapse of the USSR in 1991 (or more correct Soviet
nomenklatura switching sides and adopting neoliberalism) only make the decline more gradual but did not reversed it. After
200 it was clear that neoliberalism is in trouble and in 2008 it was clear that ideology of neoliberalism is dead, much like
Bolshevism after 1945.
As the US ruling neoliberal elite adopted this ideology ad its flag, the USA faces the situation somewhat similar the USSR
faced in 70th. It needs its "Perestroika" but with weak leader at the helm like Gorbachov it can lead to the dissolution of
the state. Dismantling neoliberalism is not less dangerous then dismantling of Bolshevism. The level of brainwashing of both
population and the elite (and it looks like the USA elite is brainwashed to an amazing level, probably far exceed the level of
brainwashing of Soviet nomenklatura) prevents any constructive moves.
In a way, Neoliberalism probably acts as a mousetrap for the country, similar to the role of Bolshevism in the
USSR. Ideology of neoliberalism is dead, so what' next. Another war to patch the internal divisions ? That's probably
why Trump is so adamant about attacking Iran. Iran does not have nuclear weapons so this is in a way an ideal target.
Unlike, say, Russia. And such a war can serve the same political purpose. That's why many emigrants from the USSR view the current
level of divisions with the USA is a direct analog of divisions within the USSR in late 70th and 80th. Similarities are
clearly visible with naked eye.
Notable quotes:
"... t is well known that legendary American gangster Al Capone once said that 'Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class', - and I have commented on the links between organised crime and capitalist accumulation before on this blog, but I recently came across the following story from Claud Cockburn's autobiography, and decided to put it up on Histomat for you all. ..."
"... "Listen," he said, "don't get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system. The American system..." As though an invisible chairman had called upon him for a few words, he broke into an oration upon the theme. He praised freedom, enterprise and the pioneers. He spoke of "our heritage". He referred with contempuous disgust to Socialism and Anarchism. "My rackets," he repeated several times, "are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way"...his vision of the American system began to excite him profoundly and now he was on his feet again, leaning across the desk like the chairman of a board meeting, his fingers plunged in the rose bowls. ..."
"... A month later in New York I was telling this story to Mr John Walter, minority owner of The Times . He asked me why I had not written the Capone interview for the paper. I explained that when I had come to put my notes together I saw that most of what Capone had said was in essence identical with what was being said in the leading articles of The Times itself, and I doubted whether the paper would be best pleased to find itself seeing eye to eye with the most notorious gangster in Chicago. Mr Walter, after a moment's wry reflection, admitted that probably my idea had been correct.' ..."
"... The biggest lie ever told is that American hegemony relies on American imperialism and warmongering. The opposite is true. America is weak precisely because it is trying so hard to project strength, because anyone with half a brain knows that it is projecting strength to enrich oligarhcs, not to protect or favor the American people. ..."
"... please mr. author don't give us more globalist dribble. We want our wealth back ..."
"... America the empire is just another oligarchic regime that other countries' populations rightly see as an example of what doesn't work ..."
"... It's the ruling capitalist Predator Class that has been demanding empire since McKinley was assassinated. That's the problem. ..."
"... And who do you suppose are the forces which are funding US politicians and thus getting to call their shots in foreign policy? Can you bring yourself to name them? ..."
"... The US physical plant and equipment as well as infrastructure is in advanced stages of decay. Ditto for the labor force which has been pauperized and abused for decades by the Predator Class... ..."
"The only wealth you keep is wealth you have given away," said Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD),
last of the great Roman emperors. US President Donald Trump might know of another Italian,
Mario Puzo's Don Vito Corleone, and his memorable mumble : "I'm going to make him
an offer he can't refuse."
Forgetting such Aurelian and godfather codes is propelling the decline and fall of the
American empire.
Trump is making offers the world can refuse – by reshaping trade deals, dispensing
with American sops and forcing powerful corporations to return home, the US is regaining
economic wealth but relinquishing global power.
As the last leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Mikhail Gorbachev's
perestroika (restructuring) led to the breakup of its vast territory(22 million square
kilometers). Gorbachev's failed policies led to the dissolution of the USSR into Russia and
independent countries, and the end of a superpower.
Ironically, the success of Trump's policies will hasten the demise of the American empire:
the US regaining economic health but losing its insidious hold over the world.
This diminishing influence was highlighted when India and seven other countries geared up to
defy Washington's re-imposition of its unilateral, illegal sanctions against Iran, starting
Monday.
The US State Department granting "permission" on the weekend to the eight countries to buy
Iranian oil was akin to waving the green flag at a train that has already left the
station
The US State Department granting "permission" on the weekend to the eight countries to buy
Iranian oil was akin to waving the green flag at a train that has already left the station.
The law of cause and effect unavoidably delivers. The Roman Empire fell after wars of greed
and orgies of consumption. A similar nemesis, the genie of Gorbachev, stalks Pennsylvania
Avenue, with Trump unwittingly writing the last chapter of World War II: the epilogue of the
two rival superpowers that emerged from humanity's most terrible conflict.
The maverick 45th president of the United States may succeed at being an economic messiah to
his country, which has racked up a $21.6 trillion debt, but the fallout is the death of
American hegemony. These are the declining days of the last empire standing.
Emperors and mafia godfathers knew that wielding great influence means making payoffs.
Trump, however, is doing away with the sops, the glue that holds the American empire together,
and is making offers that he considers "fair" but instead is alienating the international
community– from badgering NATO and other countries to pay more for hosting the US legions
(800 military bases in 80 countries) to reducing US aid.
US aid to countries fell from $50 billion in fiscal year 2016, $37 billion in 2017 to $7.7
billion so far in 2018. A world less tied to American largesse and generous trade tarrifs can
more easily reject the "you are with us or against us" bullying doctrine of US presidents. In
the carrot and stick approach that largely passes as American foreign policy, the stick loses
power as the carrot vanishes.
Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in The Godfather. Big payoffs needed for big influence. A
presidential lesson for Don Trump
More self-respecting leaders will have less tolerance for American hypocrisy, such as
sanctioning other countries for nuclear weapons while having the biggest nuclear arsenal on the
planet.
They will sneer more openly at the hysteria surrounding alleged interference in the 2016 US
presidential elections, pointing to Washington's violent record of global meddling. They will
cite examples of American hypocrisy such as its sponsorship of coups against elected leaders in
Latin America, the US Army's Project Camelot in 1964 targeting 22 countries for intervention
(including Iran, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia), its support for bloodthirsty dictators, and its
destabilization of the Middle East with the destruction of Iraq and Libya.
Immigrant
cannon fodder
Trump's focus on the economy reduces the likelihood of him starting wars. By ending the
flood of illegal immigrants to save jobs for US citizens, he is also inadvertently reducing the
manpower for illegal wars. Non-citizen immigrants comprise about 5% of the US Army. For its
Iraq and Afghanistan wars, US army recruiters offered citizenship to lure illegal immigrants,
mostly Latinos.
Among the first US soldiers to die in the Iraq War was 22-year old illegal immigrant
Corporal Jose Antonio Gutierrez, an orphan from the streets of Guatemala City. He sneaked
across the Mexican border into the US six years before enlisting in exchange for American
citizenship.
On March 21, 2003, Gutierrez was killed by friendly fire near Umm Qasr, southern Iraq. The
coffin of this illegal immigrant was draped in the US flag, and he received American
citizenship – posthumously.
Trump policies targeting illegal immigration simultaneously reduces the availability of
cannon fodder for the illegal wars needed to maintain American hegemony.
Everything comes to an end, and so too will the last empire of our era.
The imperial American eagle flying into the sunset will see the dawn of an economically
healthier US that minds its own business, and increase hopes for a more equal, happier world
– thanks to the unintentional Gorbachev-2 in the White House.
I am sure that many of us are OK with ending American Empire. Both US citizens and other
countries don't want to fight un-necessary and un-ending wars. If Trump can do that, then he
is blessed.
See a pattern here? Raja Murthy, you sound like a pro-American Empire shill. 1964 Project
Camelot has nothing to do with the current administration. Raja, you forgot to wear your
satirical pants.
The idea and catchy hook of 2016 was Make America Great Again, not wasting lives and
resources on the American Empire. You point out the good things. Who might have a problem
with the end of the American Empire are Globalists. What is wrong with relinquishing global
power and not wasting lives and money?
"The only lives you keep is lives you've given away" That does not ring true. The only
lies you keep are the lies you've given away. What? You're not making any sense, dude. How
much American Empire are you vested in? Does it bother you if the Empire shrinks its death
grip on Asia or the rest of the world? Why don't you just say it: This is good! Hopefully
Trump's policies will prevent you from getting writers' cramp and being confusing--along with
the canon fodder. Or maybe you're worried about job security.
America is a super power, just like Russia. Just like England. However, whom the US
carries water for might change. Hope that's ok.
Trump is an empirial president, just like every other US president. In fact, that's what
the article is describing. MAGA depends upon imperialist domination. Trump and all of US
capitalism know that even if the brain-dead MAGA chumps don't.
Capitalism can't help but seek to rule the world. It is the result of pursuing
capitalism's all-important growth. If it's not US capitalism, it will be Chinese capitalism,
or Russian capitalism, or European capitalism that will rule the world.
The battle over global markets doesn't stop just because the US might decide not to play
anymore. Capitalism means that you're either the global power who is ******* the royal ****
out of everyone else, or you're the victim of being fucked up the *** by an imperialist
power.
The only thing which makes the US different from the rest of the world is its super
concentration of power, which in effect is a super concentration of corruption.
Another day and another ZeroHedge indictment of American capitalism.
And how refreshing that the article compares US capitalism to gangsterism. It's a most
appropriate comparison.
--------------------
Al Capone on Capitalism
It is well known that legendary American gangster Al Capone once said that 'Capitalism is the
legitimate racket of the ruling class', - and I have commented on the links between organised
crime and capitalist accumulation before
on this blog, but I recently came across the following story from Claud Cockburn's autobiography, and decided
to put it up on Histomat for you all.
In 1930, Cockburn, then a correspondent in America for the Times newspaper,
interviewed Al Capone at the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, when Capone was at the height of his
power. He recalls that except for 'the sub-machine gun...poking through the transom of a door
behind the desk, Capone's own room was nearly indistinguishable from that of, say, a "newly
arrived" Texan oil millionaire. Apart from the jowly young murderer on the far side of the
desk, what took the eye were a number of large, flattish, solid silver bowls upon the desk,
each filled with roses. They were nice to look at, and they had another purpose too, for
Capone when agitated stood up and dipped the tips of his fingers in the water in which
floated the roses.
I had been a little embarrassed as to how the interview was to be launched. Naturally the
nub of all such interviews is somehow to get round to the question "What makes you tick?" but
in the case of this millionaire killer the approach to this central question seemed mined
with dangerous impediments. However, on the way down to the Lexington Hotel I had had the
good fortune to see, I think in the Chicago Daily News , some statistics offered by an
insurance company which dealt with the average expectation of life of gangsters in Chicago. I
forget exactly what the average was, and also what the exact age of Capone at that time - I
think he was in his early thirties. The point was, however, that in any case he was four
years older than the upper limit considered by the insurance company to be the proper average
expectation of life for a Chicago gangster. This seemed to offer a more or less neutral and
academic line of approach, and after the ordinary greetings I asked Capone whether he had
read this piece of statistics in the paper. He said that he had. I asked him whether he
considered the estimate reasonably accurate. He said that he thought that the insurance
companies and the newspaper boys probably knew their stuff. "In that case", I asked him, "how
does it feel to be, say, four years over the age?"
He took the question quite seriously and spoke of the matter with neither more nor less
excitement or agitation than a man would who, let us say, had been asked whether he, as the
rear machine-gunner of a bomber, was aware of the average incidence of casualties in that
occupation. He apparently assumed that sooner or later he would be shot despite the elaborate
precautions which he regularly took. The idea that - as afterwards turned out to be the case
- he would be arrested by the Federal authorities for income-tax evasion had not, I think, at
that time so much as crossed his mind. And, after all, he said with a little bit of
corn-and-ham somewhere at the back of his throat, supposing he had not gone into this racket?
What would be have been doing? He would, he said, "have been selling newspapers barefoot on
the street in Brooklyn".
He stood as he spoke, cooling his finger-tips in the rose bowl in front of him. He sat
down again, brooding and sighing. Despite the ham-and-corn, what he said was probably true
and I said so, sympathetically. A little bit too sympathetically, as immediately emerged, for
as I spoke I saw him looking at me suspiciously, not to say censoriously. My remarks about
the harsh way the world treats barefoot boys in Brooklyn were interrupted by an urgent angry
waggle of his podgy hand.
"Listen," he said, "don't get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the
idea I'm knocking the American system. The American system..." As though an invisible
chairman had called upon him for a few words, he broke into an oration upon the theme. He
praised freedom, enterprise and the pioneers. He spoke of "our heritage". He referred with
contempuous disgust to Socialism and Anarchism. "My rackets," he repeated several times, "are
run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way"...his vision of the
American system began to excite him profoundly and now he was on his feet again, leaning
across the desk like the chairman of a board meeting, his fingers plunged in the rose
bowls.
"This American system of ours," he shouted, "call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call
it what you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it
with both hands and make the most of it." He held out his hand towards me, the fingers
dripping a little, and stared at me sternly for a few seconds before reseating himself.
A month later in New York I was telling this story to Mr John Walter, minority owner of
The Times . He asked me why I had not written the Capone interview for the paper. I
explained that when I had come to put my notes together I saw that most of what Capone had
said was in essence identical with what was being said in the leading articles of The
Times itself, and I doubted whether the paper would be best pleased to find itself seeing
eye to eye with the most notorious gangster in Chicago. Mr Walter, after a moment's wry
reflection, admitted that probably my idea had been correct.'
This article was obviously written by someone who wants to maintain the status quo.
America would be much stronger if it were not trying to be an empire. The biggest lie ever
told is that American hegemony relies on American imperialism and warmongering. The opposite
is true. America is weak precisely because it is trying so hard to project strength, because
anyone with half a brain knows that it is projecting strength to enrich oligarhcs, not to
protect or favor the American people.
I truly believe that "America First" is not selfish. America before it went full ******
was the beacon of freedom and success that other countries tried to emulate and that changed
the world for the better.
America the empire is just another oligarchic regime that other
countries' populations rightly see as an example of what doesn't work.
Empire is a contrivance, a vehicle for psychopathic powerlust. America was founded by
people who stood adamantly opposed to this. Here's hoping Trump holds their true spirit in
his heart.
If he doesn't, there's hundreds of millions of us who still do. We don't all live in
America...
America is weak precisely because it is trying so hard to project strength, because
anyone with half a brain knows that it is projecting strength to enrich oligarhcs [sic],
not to protect or favor the American people.
And who do you suppose are the forces which are funding US politicians and thus getting to
call their shots in foreign policy? Can you bring yourself to name them? Oligarchs...you're
FULL of ****. Who exactly pools all (((their))) money, makes sure the [s]elected officials
know (((who))) to not question and, instead, just bow down to them, who makes sure these
(((officials))) sign pledges for absolute commitment towards Israel--or in no uncertain
terms-- and know who will either sponsor them/or opposes them next time around?
JSBach1 called you a 'coward', for being EXACTLY LIKE THESE TRAITOROUS SPINELESS
VERMIN who simply just step outside just 'enough' the comfort zone to APPEAR 'real'. IMHO, I
concur with JSBach1 ...your're a coward indeed, when you should know better .....
shame you you indeed!
There is little evidence, Trump's propaganda aside (that he previously called Obama
dishonest for) that the US economy is improving. If anything, the exploding budget and trade
deficits indicate that the economy continues to weaken.
Correct. The US physical plant and equipment as well as infrastructure is in advanced
stages of decay. Ditto for the labor force which has been pauperized and abused for decades
by the Predator Class...
the US can't even raise an army... even if enough young (men) were
dumb enough to volunteer there just aren't enough fit, healthy and mentally acute recruits
out there.
America is weak precisely because it is trying so hard to project strength, because
anyone with half a brain knows that it is projecting strength to enrich oligarhcs [sic],
not to protect or favor the American people.
And who do you suppose are the forces which are funding US politicians and thus getting to
call their shots in foreign policy? Can you bring yourself to name them? Oligarchs...you're
FULL of ****. Who exactly pools all (((their))) money, makes sure the [s]elected officials
know (((who))) to not question and, instead, just bow down to them, who makes sure these
(((officials))) sign pledges for absolute commitment towards Israel--or in no uncertain
terms-- and know who will either sponsor them/or opposes them next time around?
Yes financial machinations can drive price down. But who will produce cheap oil to sustain
this bear market? Not the Us shale companies. They need $80 per barrel or more. Then who? That's the question
Also global growth in oil consumption now is coming from Africa and Asia and it is unlikely
to stop, as they emerge from very low levels of consumption, 10 or more times less per capita then
any Western country.
It will be flat in the USA and most of Europe, that's true, but the USA and Europe is not the whole market.
Oil prices are on the cusp of a bear market one month after hitting four-year highs as a
wave of supply has returned to hit crumbling confidence in global growth.
The US is going to extend its "combat operations" - the sanctions war aimed at reshaping the
world - to Latin America.
Tough new penalties are planned against the "troika of tyranny," consisting of Venezuela,
Cuba, and Nicaragua "in the very near future." This
announcement was made by National Security Adviser (NSA) John Bolton on Nov.1 -- a few days
before the US mid-term elections -- in an attempt to draw more support from Hispanic voters,
especially in Florida. An executive order on sanctions against Venezuela has already been
signed by President Trump, but that's just the beginning.
It was rather symbolic that on the same day the NSA delivered his bellicose speech, the UN
General Assembly (UNGA)
voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution calling for an end to the US economic
embargo against Cuba. The document did not include amendments proposed by the US that would put
pressure on Havana to improve its human-rights record.
This is a prelude to a massive escalation in US foreign policy, which will include the
formation of alliances, in addition to the active confrontation of those who dare to pursue
policies believed to be anti-US.
"Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our
shores," Bolton stated, adding,
"The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere -- Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua - has finally
met its match."
Sounds like a declaration of war. Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Peru are probably
some of the nations the US is eyeing for a potential alliance.
Bolton's "troika" includes only countries ruled by governments that are openly "red" or
Communist. The list of nations unfriendly to the US is much longer and includes Bolivia,
Ecuador, Dominica, Grenada, Uruguay, and some other states ruled by leftist governments.
Andrés Obrador , the president-elect of Mexico, takes office on Dec. 1. The Mexican
leader represents the country's left wing and looks like a tough nut to crack. Outright
pressure may not be helpful in this particular case.
Now that this new US policy is in place, Moscow and Washington appear to have another
divisive issue clouding their relationship. The "troika of tyranny" against which Washington
has declared war enjoys friendly relations with Russia.
With Cuba facing tougher restrictions, new opportunities are opening up that will encourage
the Russian-Cuban relationship to thrive. The chairman of the Cuban State Council and Council
of Ministers, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin
during his official
visit to Moscow Nov. 1-3. Their joint statement reaffirmed the strategic and allied
relations between the two counties. Their long list of joint projects includes the deployment
of a Russian GLONASS ground station in Cuba, which will give it access to a broad array of
technical capabilities for satellite and telecommunications services and for taking remote
readings of Earth. Russia will modernize Cuba's railways. Sixty contracts are scheduled to be
signed during President Putin's visit to Cuba next year. Rosneft, the Russian state oil giant,
has recently resumed fuel shipments to Cuba and is negotiating a major energy agreement.
Military cooperation is also to get a boost. The military chiefs are to meet this month to
discuss the details. Moscow is considering granting Havana €38 million for Russian arms
purchases.
The US-imposed restrictions are a factor spurring Russian exports to Cuba and other regional
countries. When the US cut aid to Nicaragua in 2012, Russia increased its economic and military
cooperation with that country. The memorandum signed between the Russian and Nicaraguan
governments on May 8, 2018 states that the parties are to "mark a new step to boost political
dialog" in such areas as "international security and cooperation through various international
political platforms." Russia accounts for about 90% of Nicaraguan arms and munitions
imports. It has far-reaching interests in building the Nicaraguan Canal in its role as a
stakeholder and partner responsible for security-related missions.
President Vladimir Putin offered support for his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro after
the United States rejected his reelection in May. Russian energy giant Rosneft plays an
important role in that country's energy sector. It was Russia that came to Venezuela's rescue
in 2017 with a debt-restructuring deal that prevented the default that was looming after the US
sanctions were imposed. This was just
another example of Moscow lending a helping hand to a Latin American nation that was facing
difficult times.
Russia is currently pursuing a number of commercial projects in the region, in oil, mining,
nuclear energy, construction, and space services. It enjoys a special relationship with the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America (ALBA), which was founded by Cuba and Venezuela and includes Bolivia, Ecuador, and
Nicaragua, among other countries. This grouping is looking to create economic alternatives to
Western-dominated financial institutions. This cooperation with Latin American nations goes far
beyond ALBA. For instance, the Peruvian air force is in the process of contracting for 24
additional Mi-171s, as well as establishing a maintenance facility for their helicopters near
the La Joya base in Arequipa. A contract to upgrade its aging Mig-29 fighters is under
consideration. In January 2018, Russia signed a number of economic agreements with Argentina
during President Macri's visit to Moscow. All in all, trade between Russia and Latin American
countries reached $14.5 bln in 2017 and is growing.
RT Spanish was launched in 2009, featuring its own news presenters and programming in
addition to translated content, with bureaus operating in Buenos Aires, Caracas , Havana , Los Angeles , Madrid , Managua , and Miami. Russia's Sputnik media outlet
has been broadcasting in Spanish since 2014, offering radio- and web-based news and
entertainment to audiences across Latin America.
Some countries may back down under the US sanctions and threats, but many will not. There's
a flip side to everything. The policy could backfire. The harder the pressure, the stronger the
desire of the affected nations to diversify their international relations and resist the
implementation of the Monroe doctrine that relegates them to the role of America's
backyard.
Fu Ying, the chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China's National People's
Congress, said while confirming the reality that China and Russia now find themselves in the
same trenches: "I just hope that if some people in the U.S. insist on dragging us down the hill
into Thucydides' trap, China will be smart enough not to follow."
Indeed to step back and review the breadth of Russia-China cooperation over the past couple
years alone reveals the full potential "cost" of a US-China conflict , given the ways Russia
could easily be pulled in. Fu Ying articulated the increasingly common view from Beijing, that
"There is no sense of threat from Russia" and that "We feel comfortable back-to-back."
And participants in a
recent study by the National Bureau of Asian Research , a
Seattle-based think tank, actually agree. They were asked whether American policy was at fault
for pushing China and Russia into closer cooperation, and alarmingly, as Bloomberg notes: "Some
among the 100-plus participants called for Washington to prepare for the worst-case scenario
the realignment implies: a two-front war ."
Here's but a partial list of the way Sino-Russian relations have been transformed in recent
years:
China is now Russia's biggest single trade partner.
Since 2015 Russia has been China's top supplier of crude oil, displacing Saudi Arabia.
Early this year Russia ramped up its capacity to pipe crude oil to China, to about 600,000
barrels per day, which is about double the prior capability
Increased coordination at the U.N. Security Council.
Regional coordination in Asia, such as Russia supplying the engines for Chinese-Pakistani
fighter jets, resulting in an increasingly worried India which is seeing Russia move into the
Chinese orbit instead of being an arbiter in Chinese-Pakistani relations
The "bromance" at recent summits between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who meet each
other with increased regularity.
Joint military exercises between the two are now routine.
This year Russia supplied China with its most advanced S-400 air defense system as well
as Sukhoi SU-35 fighter aircraft
Increased willingness on the part of Russia to thwart Washington's argument that China is
a threat to Moscow's aims in the East.
The new "Power of Siberia" natural gas pipeline set to start pumping 38 billion cubic
meters (1.3 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas per year to northern China in December
2019.
Increasingly discovering non-conflicting interests: Europe and China "are two independent
destinations and two independent routes" for gas and oil, Russian Energy Minister Alexander
Novak said in an October interview. "We do not see any need to redirect volumes."
There were moments when Putin showed support and a practical approach toward Trump (like
when he schooled Fareed Zakaria). Putin even expressed that he was welcoming and respectful
of Trumps proposition to restore full-fledged relations with Russia.
I blame the democrats for pointlessly antagonizing Russia for two years just to attempt to
cover up the stench of their own excrement. Now it will be even more difficult to address the
problem of the Chi-coms.
US has nothing to offer Russia as China has. Stop dreaming to befriend Russia to fight
China. US had the opportunity to lead the world after the collapse of USSR but flunk it big
time being the biggest bully in the history.
Forrest Trump - "My Herpes and Genital Warts are responsible for Melania sleeping in
another room, not my small uncircumcised **** and uncontrollable flatulence. Just wanted to
clarify." Hum, ahhhhhhh gee thanks for info...I think. Poor Forrest...sigh
You are absolutely right. Add in that they are greedy motherfuckers and pied pipers to
millions of blithering idiots that can't go one day without making things worse.
China and Russia make an almost perfect symbiosis:
Adjacent countries, transportation costs are as low as possible
Neither regime cares as much as a gnat tear about civil rights & freedoms and
neither is impeded by the vagaries of elections
China has a huge need for natural resources, especially oil & nat gas, but has few
resources beyond coal & not-so-rare earths, while Russia has natural resources in
abundance
Russia manufactures almost nothing for the international goods market while China is
the world's factory
USA regime lords have done an excellent job of alienating and uniting both of them
There were moments when Putin showed support and a practical approach toward Trump (like
when he schooled Fareed Zakaria). Putin even expressed that he was welcoming and respectful
of Trumps proposition to restore full-fledged relations with Russia.
I blame the democrats for pointlessly antagonizing Russia for two years just to attempt to
cover up the stench of their own excrement. Now it will be even more difficult to address the
problem of the Chi-coms.
US has nothing to offer Russia as China has. Stop dreaming to befriend Russia to fight
China. US had the opportunity to lead the world after the collapse of USSR but flunk it big
time being the biggest bully in the history.
Russia and China will come to blows soon enough. China has their eyes on all of that
unpopulated land in Siberia, and they won't like it too much when Russia takes advantage of
the fact that China is dependent on them for energy. The idea that they'll be best buddies is
laughable.
Trump's balls are so big that he ran like a bitch away from his campaign promises to
normalize relations with Russia and prevent this exact scenario. Or maybe he was just
lying.
Nevermind, the ZH herd is stampeding on how great Trump is for pulling some press
privileges of a CNN guy.
I don't think Trump was lying. I think he is doing his best to stay alive and get done
what he can. This country is more fucked up than even he realized.
Forrest Trump - "My Herpes and Genital Warts are responsible for Melania sleeping in
another room, not my small uncircumcised **** and uncontrollable flatulence. Just wanted to
clarify." Hum, ahhhhhhh gee thanks for info...I think. Poor Forrest...sigh
You are absolutely right. Add in that they are greedy motherfuckers and pied pipers to
millions of blithering idiots that can't go one day without making things worse.
China and Russia make an almost perfect symbiosis:
Adjacent countries, transportation costs are as low as possible
Neither regime cares as much as a gnat tear about civil rights & freedoms and
neither is impeded by the vagaries of elections
China has a huge need for natural resources, especially oil & nat gas, but has few
resources beyond coal & not-so-rare earths, while Russia has natural resources in
abundance
Russia manufactures almost nothing for the international goods market while China is
the world's factory
USA regime lords have done an excellent job of alienating and uniting both of them
There were moments when Putin showed support and a practical approach toward Trump (like
when he schooled Fareed Zakaria). Putin even expressed that he was welcoming and respectful
of Trumps proposition to restore full-fledged relations with Russia.
I blame the democrats for pointlessly antagonizing Russia for two years just to attempt to
cover up the stench of their own excrement. Now it will be even more difficult to address the
problem of the Chi-coms.
US has nothing to offer Russia as China has. Stop dreaming to befriend Russia to fight
China. US had the opportunity to lead the world after the collapse of USSR but flunk it big
time being the biggest bully in the history.
Russia and China will come to blows soon enough. China has their eyes on all of that
unpopulated land in Siberia, and they won't like it too much when Russia takes advantage of
the fact that China is dependent on them for energy. The idea that they'll be best buddies is
laughable.
Trump's balls are so big that he ran like a bitch away from his campaign promises to
normalize relations with Russia and prevent this exact scenario. Or maybe he was just
lying.
Nevermind, the ZH herd is stampeding on how great Trump is for pulling some press
privileges of a CNN guy.
I don't think Trump was lying. I think he is doing his best to stay alive and get done
what he can. This country is more fucked up than even he realized.
Looking ahead, barring no major upsets, analysts at Deutsche Bank and other Wall Street
banks see potential for the market to rally into the end of the year, with some analysts who
were only recently calling for an extended losing streak now seeing potential upside of between
11% and 14%. But then again, with so much uncertainty between now and then, market returns -
and analysts' expectations - could shift dramatically between now and then.
The leader of Communist China, Chairman Mao, warned the country that revisionists were
threatening to erase all the progress made since the Communist Revolution which brought Mao to
power.
It had been almost 20 years since the bloody revolution, and Mao wanted to reinvigorate the
rebel spirit in the youth. He instructed students to root out any teachers who wove subtle
anti-communist sentiments in their lessons.
Mao encouraged students to rebel against any mindless respect for entrenched authority,
remnants, he said, of centuries of capitalist influence.
Students at Yizhen Middle School, like many others, quickly took up the task. They "exposed"
capitalist intellectual teachers and paraded them around in dunce caps with insulting signs
hung around their necks.
Teachers were beaten and harassed until they confessed to their crimes most of which were,
of course, false confessions to avoid further torture.
It only escalated from there.
What ensued puts Lord of the Flies to shame.
One teacher killed himself after being taken captive by students. Most teachers fled.
Soon the students were left entirely in charge of their school. Two factions quickly
emerged, one calling themselves the East is Red Corps, and the other the Red Rebels.
One student was kidnapped by the East is Red Corps, and suffocated to death on a sock
stuffed in his mouth.
A girl was found to be an East is Red spy among the Red Rebels. She was later cornered with
other East is Red students in a building. She shouted from a window that she would rather die
than surrender. Praising Chairman Mao, she jumped to her death.
Some Red Rebels died from an accidental explosion while making bombs.
Many were tortured, and another student died from his injuries at the hands of the East is
Red Corps.
A female teacher refused to sign an affidavit lying about the cause of death. She was beaten
and gang-raped by a group of students.
Although it might be tempting to see what happened at YMS as mostly relevant to group
adolescent behavior what happened at the school occurred throughout China in government
offices, factories, within the army, and among Chinese of all ages in an eerily similar
way
The students' repressed resentment at having to be so obedient now boiled over into anger
and the desire to be the ones doing the punishing and oppressing
In the power vacuum that Mao had now created, another timeless group dynamic emerged.
Those who were naturally more assertive, aggressive, and even sadistic pushed their way
forward and assumed power , while those who were more passive quietly receded into the
background becoming followers
Once all forms of authority were removed and the students ran the school, there was
nothing to stop the next and most dangerous development in group dynamics. The split into
tribal factions
People may think they are joining because of the different ideas or goals of this tribe or
the other, but what they want more than anything is a sense of belonging and a clear tribal
identity.
Look at the actual differences between the East is Red Corps and the Red Rebels. As the
battle between them intensified it was hard to say what they were fighting for, except to
assume power over the other group.
One strong or vicious act of one side called for a reprisal from the other, and any type
of violence seemed totally justified. There could be no middle ground, nor any questioning of
the rightness of their cause.
The tribe is always right. And to say otherwise is to betray it.
I write this on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections.
And like Mao handing down his orders to dispose of capitalist sympathizers, such have the
leaders of each major US political party rallied their supporters.
This is the most important election of our lifetime, they say.
No middle ground. Violence is justified to get our way. Betray the tribe, and be considered
an enemy.
Just like Mao, they have manufactured a crisis that did not previously exist.
The students had no violent factions before Mao's encouragement. They had no serious
problems with their teachers.
Is there any natural crisis occurring right now? Or has the political establishment whipped
us into an artificial frenzy?
This isn't just another boring election, they say. This is a battle for our future.
The students battled over who were the purest revolutionaries.
The voters now battle over who has the purest intentions for America.
Do the factions even know what they are fighting for anymore?
They are simply fighting for their tribe's control over the government.
The battle of the factions at schools across China were "resolved" when Mao came to support
one side or the other. In that sense, it very much did matter which side the students were
on
The government came down hard against the losing faction.
They had chosen wrong and found themselves aligned against the powerful Communist Party.
It won't be a dictator that hands control to one faction or another in this election. It
will be a simple majority. And those in the minority will suffer.
The winners will feel that it is their time to wield power, just as the students were happy
to finally have the upper hand on their teachers.
If Mao didn't have so much power, he could have never initiated such a violent crisis.
And if our government didn't have so much power, it would hardly matter who wins the
election.
Yet here we are, fighting for control of the government because each faction threatens to
violently repress the other if they gain power.
It is a manufactured crisis. A crisis that only exists because political elites in the
government and media have said so.
They decided that this election will spark the USA's "Cultural Revolution."
And anyone with sympathies from a bygone era will be punished.
You don't have to play by the rules of the corrupt politicians, manipulative media, and
brainwashed peers.
When you subscribe to The Daily Bell, you also get a free guide:
How to Craft a Two Year Plan to Reclaim 3 Specific Freedoms.
This guide will show you exactly how to plan your next two years to build the free life of
your dreams. It's not as hard as you think
Tribal warfare? You clearly don't understand what's happening here. The Globalist cartel
has created division between two parties to incite chaos and violence. The "warfare" you
reference will be nothing but protesting ->rioting ->anarchy ->police restraint of
the Democrat incited sheeple.
There's no tribalism associated with upholding and preserving the Constitution.
I think the globalists will try to cool it off before things spin out of (((their)))
control. Either that or move to the next phase...world war... so they can just slaughter us
and not have to bother trying to herd the increasingly "woke" goyim live stock.
I have NOT heard about a SINGLE CREDIBLE violent incident where people got hurt FROM THE
RIGHT. All the incidents of "White Fascist Violence" look like FALSE FLAGS and contrived
incidents. The foregoing CAN NOT be said of the Leftist Antifa types including racist La Raza
supporters, racist Blacks who want something for nothing, immigrants from any country who
want to be fully supported because they BREATHE and the Top Group (pun intended) Whites who
do not believe in boundaries, standards or quality of life UNLESS it's their lives. NOT all
Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrants are in the Left; but most Blacks, Hispanics and Immigrants
are on the Left and havn't a clue they are responsible for their own prisons because they
cannot REASON and virtue signaling is more important so they are part of the GROUP. Misplaced
EMPHASIS on what is important in creating a CIVILIZED and SAFE society.
Here are a few quotes from President Trump's constant cheerleading of the American economy
in the last several months leading up to next week's midterms.
"In many ways, this is the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America"
-- President Trump tweeted, June 04
"We have the strongest economy in the history of our nation."
-- Trump told reporters, June 15
"We have the greatest economy in the history of our country."
-- Trump said in an interview with Fox News, July 16
"We're having the best economy we've ever had in the history of our country."
-- Trump, said in a speech in Illinois, July 26
"This is the greatest economy that we've had in our history, the best."
-- Trump said at rally in Charleston, W.Va., Aug. 21
"You know, we have the best economy we've ever had, in the history of our country."
-- Trump said in an interview on "Fox and Friends," Aug. 23
"It's said now that our economy is the strongest it's ever been in the history of our
country, and you just have to take a look at the numbers."
-- Trump said on a White House video log, Aug. 24
"We have the best economy the country's ever had and it's getting better."
-- Trump told the Daily Caller, Sept. 03
Democrats are anticipating a blue wave during the November midterm elections, but according
to President Trump, the "strong" US economy could propel Republicans to victory next week.
"History says that whoever's president always seems to lose the midterm," Trump said on an
Oct. 16 interview with FOX Business' Trish Regan.
"No one had the economy that we do. We have the greatest economy that we've ever had."
President Trump's cheerleading sounds great and certainly helps animal spirits, but a new
study warns that more than 25% of American renters are not confident they could cover a $400
emergency. About 18% of homeowners report record low emergency savings. And if you thought that
was bad, more than 30% of renters feel insecure about eating, as do 19% of homeowners, the
Urban Institute study , a
nonpartisan think tank in Washington, reported.
The main takeaway from the report: renters are struggling more than homeowners in the
"greatest economy ever."
"Rental costs are rising much faster than renters' salaries. Between 1960 and 2016, the
median income for a renter grew by just 5%. During the same period, the median rent ballooned
by more than 60%, according to The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
(Both figures account for inflation.)
To be sure, buying a house has also become harder for many Americans -- to do so now costs
four times the median household income. The homeownership rate fell to 63% in 2016 –
the lowest rate in half a century," said
CNBC .
Corianne Scally, a senior research analyst at the Urban Institute and a co-author of the
study, told CNBC that "renters seem to be worse off." Scally said the report was derived from
its 2017 well-being and basic needs survey, which received about 7,500 responses from people
aged 18 to 64.
2017 living arrangements for Americans
About half of renters in the survey reported financial hardships since President Trump took
office, compared with 33% of homeowners. More than 25% of renters in the survey were not
confident they could cover a $400 emergency. Around 18% of homeowners reported low emergency
savings. Almost 20% of renters saw large and unexpected declines in pay in the past year,
compared with 14% of homeowners.
Reported problems paying family medical bills
More than 12% of renters said they could barely pay rent, compared with 9% of homeowners who
warned their mortgage payments were getting too expensive. 15% of renters said they were on the
brink of not being able to afford utilities during the last 12 months, while 11% of homeowners
said the same.
Households unable to consistenly access or afford food
Scally made it clear to CNBC that renters are much worse off than ever before, but it is
also clear that some homeowners are feeling the pain as well.
"It seems that some of them are having to make trade-offs in just meeting their basic
needs," she said.
Maybe the "greatest economy ever," is not so great?
If so, then why is the Trump administration creating smoke and mirrors about the
economy?
The simple answer: it is all about winning the midterms by any means necessary. As for after
the midterms, then into 2019, a global slowdown lingers, that is the reason why the stock
market had one of its worst months since the 2008 crash. Trouble is ahead.
"... Every academic critique of neoliberalism is an unacknowledged memoir. We academics occupy a crucial node in the neoliberal system. Our institutions are foundational to neoliberalism's claim to be a meritocracy, insofar as we are tasked with discerning and certifying the merit that leads to the most powerful and desirable jobs. Yet at the same time, colleges and universities have suffered the fate of all public goods under the neoliberal order. We must therefore "do more with less," cutting costs while meeting ever-greater demands. The academic workforce faces increasing precarity and shrinking wages even as it is called on to teach and assess more students than ever before in human history -- and to demonstrate that we are doing so better than ever, via newly devised regimes of outcome-based assessment. In short, we academics live out the contradictions of neoliberalism every day. ..."
"... Whereas classical liberalism insisted that capitalism had to be allowed free rein within its sphere, under neoliberalism capitalism no longer has a set sphere. We are always "on the clock," always accruing (or squandering) various forms of financial and social capital. ..."
Every academic critique of neoliberalism is an unacknowledged memoir. We academics
occupy a crucial node in the neoliberal system. Our institutions are foundational to
neoliberalism's claim to be a meritocracy, insofar as we are tasked with discerning and
certifying the merit that leads to the most powerful and desirable jobs. Yet at the same time,
colleges and universities have suffered the fate of all public goods under the neoliberal
order. We must therefore "do more with less," cutting costs while meeting ever-greater demands.
The academic workforce faces increasing precarity and shrinking wages even as it is called on
to teach and assess more students than ever before in human history -- and to demonstrate that
we are doing so better than ever, via newly devised regimes of outcome-based assessment. In
short, we academics live out the contradictions of neoliberalism every day.
... ... ...
On a more personal level it reflects my upbringing in the suburbs of Flint, Michigan, a city
that has been utterly devastated by the transition to neoliberalism. As I lived through the
slow-motion disaster of the gradual withdrawal of the auto industry, I often heard Henry Ford s
dictum that a company could make more money if the workers were paid enough to be customers as
well, a principle that the major US automakers were inexplicably abandoning. Hence I find it
[Fordism -- NNB] to be an elegant way of capturing the postwar model's promise of creating
broadly shared prosperity by retooling capitalism to produce a consumer society characterized
by a growing middle class -- and of emphasizing the fact that that promise was ultimately
broken.
By the mid-1970s, the postwar Fordist order had begun to breakdown to varying degrees in the
major Western countries. While many powerful groups advocated a response to the crisis that
would strengthen the welfare state, the agenda that wound up carrying the day was
neoliberalism, which was most forcefully implemented in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher
and in the United States by Ronald Reagan. And although this transformation was begun by the
conservative part)', in both countries the left-of-centcr or (in American usage) "liberal"party
wound up embracing neoliberal tenets under Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, ostensibly for the
purpose of directing them toward progressive ends.
With the context of current debates within the US Democratic Party, this means that Clinton
acolytes are correct to claim that "neoliberalism" just is liberalism but only to the extent
that, in the contemporary United States, the term liberalism is little more than a word for
whatever the policy agenda of the Democratic Party happens to be at any given time. Though
politicians of all stripes at times used libertarian rhetoric to sell their policies, the most
clear-eyed advocates of neoliberalism realized that there could be no simple question of a
"return" to the laissez-faire model.
Rather than simply getting the state "out of the way," they both deployed and transformed
state power, including the institutions of the welfare state, to reshape society in accordance
with market models. In some cases creating markets where none had previously existed, as in the
privatization of education and other public services. In others it took the form of a more
general spread of a competitive market ethos into ever more areas of life -- so that we are
encouraged to think of our reputation as a "brand," for instance, or our social contacts as
fodder for "networking." Whereas classical liberalism insisted that capitalism had to be
allowed free rein within its sphere, under neoliberalism capitalism no longer has a set sphere.
We are always "on the clock," always accruing (or squandering) various forms of financial and
social capital.
The U.S. is going for the jugular with new Iran sanctions intended to punish those who trade
with Teheran. But the U.S. may have a fight on its hands in a possible post- WWII
turning-point...
The next step in the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran has
begun, with the most severe sanctions being re-imposed on the Islamic Republic. Crucially, they
apply not only to Iran but to anyone who continues to do business with it.
It's not yet clear how disruptive this move will be. While the U.S. intention is to isolate
Iran, it is the U.S. that could wind up being more isolated. It depends on the rest of the
world's reaction, and especially Europe's.
The issue is so fraught that disputes over how to apply the new sanctions have even divided
Trump administration officials.
The administration is going for the jugular this time. It wants to force Iranian exports of
oil and petrochemical products down to as close to zero as possible. As the measures are now
written, they also exclude Iran from the global interbank system known as SWIFT.
It is hard to say which of these sanctions is more severe. Iran's oil exports have already
started falling. They
peaked at 2.7 million barrels a day last May -- just before Donald Trump pulled the U.S.
out of the six-nation accord governing Iran's nuclear programs. By early September oil exports
were averaging a million
barrels a day less .
In August the U.S. barred Iran's purchases of
U.S.-dollar denominated American and foreign company aircraft and auto parts. Since then the
Iranian rial has crashed to
record lows and inflation has risen above 30 percent.
Revoking Iran's SWIFT privileges will effectively cut the nation out of the
dollar-denominated global economy. But there are moves afoot, especially by China and Russia,
to move away from a dollar-based economy.
The SWIFT issue has caused infighting in the
administration between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and John Bolton, Trump's national security
adviser who is among the most vigorous Iran hawks in the White House. Mnuchin might win a
temporary delay or exclusions for a few Iranian financial institutions, but probably not much
more.
On Sunday, the second round of sanctions kicked in since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the
2015 Obama administration-backed, nuclear agreement, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange
for stringent controls on its nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has
repeatedly certified that the deal is working and the other signatories -- Britain, China,
France, Germany and Russia have not pulled out and have resumed trading with Iran. China and
Russia have already said they will ignore American threats to sanction it for continuing
economic relations with Iran. The key question is what will America's European allies
do?
Europeans React
Europe has been unsettled since Trump withdrew in May from the nuclear accord. The European
Union is developing a trading mechanism to get around U.S. sanctions. Known as a
Special Purpose Vehicle , it would allow European companies to use a barter system similar
to how Western Europe traded with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Juncker: Wants Euro-denominated trading
EU officials have also been lobbying to preserve
Iran's access to global interbank operations by excluding the revocation of SWIFT privileges
from Trump's list of sanctions. They count
Mnuchin,who is eager to preserve U.S. influence in the global trading system, among their
allies. Some European officials, including Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European
Commission, propose making the euro a global trading currency
to compete with the dollar.
Except for Charles de Gaulle briefly pulling France out of NATO in 1967
and Germany and France voting on the UN Security Council against the U.S. invading Iraq in
2003, European nations have been subordinate to the U.S. since the end of the Second World
War.
The big European oil companies, unwilling to risk the threat of U.S. sanctions, have already
signaled they intend to ignore the EU's new trade mechanism. Total SA, the French petroleum
company and one of Europe's biggest, pulled
out of its Iran operations several months ago.
Earlier this month a U.S. official confidently
predicted there would be little demand among European corporations for the proposed barter
mechanism.
Whether Europe succeeds in efforts to defy the U.S. on Iran is nearly beside the point from
a long-term perspective. Trans-Atlantic damage has already been done. A rift that began to
widen during the Obama administration seems about to get wider still.
Asia Reacts
Asian nations are also exhibiting resistance to the impending U.S. sanctions. It is unlikely
they could absorb all the exports Iran will lose after Nov. 4, but they could make a
significant difference. China, India, and South Korea are the first, second, and third-largest
importers of Iranian crude; Japan is sixth. Asian nations may also try to work around the U.S.
sanctions regime after Nov. 4.
India is considering purchases of Iranian crude via a barter system or denominating
transactions in rupees. China, having already said it would ignore the U.S. threat, would like
nothing better than to expand yuan-denominated oil trading, and this is not a hard call: It is
in a protracted trade war with the U.S., and an oil-futures market launched in Shanghai last
spring already claims roughly 14 percent of the global market for "front-month" futures --
contracts covering shipments closest to delivery.
Trump: Unwittingly playing with U.S. long-term future
As with most of the Trump administration's foreign policies, we won't know how the new
sanctions will work until they are introduced. There could be waivers for nations such as
India; Japan is on record asking for one. The E.U.'s Special Purpose Vehicle could prove at
least a modest success at best, but this remains uncertain. Nobody is sure who will win the
administration's internal argument over SWIFT.
Long-term Consequences for the U.S.
The de-dollarization of the global economy is gradually gathering momentum. The orthodox
wisdom in the markets has long been that competition with the dollar from other currencies will
eventually prove a reality, but it will not be one to arrive in our lifetimes. But with
European and Asian reactions to the imminent sanctions against Iran it could come sooner than
previously thought.
The coalescing of emerging powers into a non-Western alliance -- most significantly China,
Russia, India, and Iran -- starts to look like another medium-term reality. This is driven by
practical rather than ideological considerations, and the U.S. could not do more to encourage
this if it tried. When Washington withdrew from the Iran accord, Moscow and Beijing immediately
pledged to support Tehran by staying with its terms.If the U.S. meets significant resistance,
especially from its allies, it could be a turning-point in post-Word War II U.S.
dominance.
Supposedly Intended for New Talks
All this is intended to force Iran back to the negotiating table for a rewrite of what Trump
often calls "the worst deal ever." Tehran has made it clear countless times it has no intention
of reopening the pact, given that it has consistently adhered to its terms and that the other
signatories to the deal are still abiding by it.
The U.S. may be drastically overplaying its hand and could pay the price with additional
international isolation that has worsened since Trump took office.
Washington has been on a sanctions binge for years. Those about to take effect seem
recklessly broad. This time, the U.S. risks lasting alienation even from those allies that have
traditionally been its closest.
"... In this book, I provide a somewhat cumbersome definition of neoliberalism and a pithier one, both of which inform the argument running throughout this book. The cumbersome one is as follows: 'the elevation of marked-based principles and techniques of evaluation to the level of state-endorsed norms'. ..."
In this book, I provide a somewhat cumbersome definition of neoliberalism and a pithier
one, both of which inform the argument running throughout this book. The cumbersome one is as
follows: 'the elevation of marked-based principles and techniques of evaluation to the level of
state-endorsed norms'.
What this intends to capture is that, while neoliberal states have extended and liberated
markets in certain areas (for instance, via privatisation and anti-union legislation), the
neoliberal era has been marked just as much by the reform of non-market institutions, so as to
render them market-like or business-like. Consider how competition is deliberately injected
into socialised healthcare systems or universities. Alternatively, how protection of the
environment is pursued by calculating a proxy price for natural public goods, in the
expectation that businesses will then value them appropriately (Fourcade, 2011). It is economic
calculation that spreads into all walks of life under neoliberalism, and not markets as such.
This in turn provides the pithier version: neoliberalism is 'the disenchantment of politics by
economics'.
The crisis of neoliberalism has reversed this ordering. 2008 was an implosion of technical
capabilities on the part of banks and financial regulators, which was largely unaccompanied by
any major political or civic eruption, at least until the consequences were felt in terms of
public sector cuts that accelerated after 2010, especially in Southern Europe. The economic
crisis was spookily isolated from any accompanying political crisis, at least in the beginning.
The eruptions of 2016 therefore represented the long-awaited politicization and publicisation
of a crisis that, until then, had been largely dealt with by the same cadre of experts whose
errors had caused it in the first place.
Faced with these largely unexpected events and the threat of more, politicians and media
pundits have declared that we now need to listen to those people 'left behind by
globalization'. Following the Brexit referendum, in her first speech as Prime Minister, Theresa
May made a vow to the less prosperous members of society, 'we will do everything we can to give
you more control over your lives. When we take the big calls, we'll think not of the powerful,
but you.' This awakening to the demands and voices of marginalized demographics may represent a
new recognition that economic policy cannot be wholly geared around the pursuit of 'national
competitiveness' in the 'global race', a pursuit that in practice meant seeking to prioritise
the interests of financial services and mobile capital. It signals mainstream political
acceptance that inequality cannot keep rising forever. But it is still rooted in a somewhat
economistic vision of politics, as if those people 'left behind by globalisation' simply want
more material wealth and opportunity', plus fewer immigrants competing for jobs. What this
doesn't do is engage with the distinctive political and cultural sociology of events such as
Brexit and Trump, which are fuelled by a spirit of rage, punishment and self-punishment, and
not simply by a desire to get a slightly larger slice of the pie.
This is where, 1 think, we need to pay close attention to a key dimension of neoliberalism,
which 1 focus on at length in this book, namely competition. One of my central arguments here
is that neoliberalism is not simply reducible to 'market fundamentalism', even if there are
areas (such as financial markets) where markets have manifestly attained greater reach and
power since the mid1970s. Instead, the neoliberal state takes the principle of competition and
the ethos of competitiveness (which historically have been found in and around markets), and
seeks to reorganise society around them. Quite how competition and competitiveness are defined
and politically instituted is a matter for historical and theoretical exploration, which is
partly what The Limits of Neoliberalism seeks to do. But at the bare minimum, organising social
relations in terms of 'competition' means that individuals, organisations, cities, regions and
nations are to be tested in terms of their capacity to out-do each other. Not only that, but
the tests must be considered fair in some way, if the resulting inequalities are to be
recognised as legitimate. When applied to individuals, this ideology is often known as
'meritocracy''.
The appeal of this as a political template for society is that, according to its advocates,
it involves the discovery of brilliant ideas, more efficient business models, naturally
talented individuals, new urban visions, successful national strategies, potent entrepreneurs
and so on. Even if this is correct (and the work of Thomas Piketty on how wealth begets wealth
is enough to cast considerable doubt on it) there is a major defect: it consigns the majority
of people, places, businesses and institutions to the status of'losers'. The normative and
existential conventions of a neoliberal society stipulate that success and prowess are things
that are earned through desire, effort and innate ability, so long as social and economic
institutions are designed in such a way as to facilitate this. But the corollary of this is
that failure and weakness are also earned: when individuals and communities fail to succeed,
this is a reflection of inadequate talent or energy on their part.
This has been critically
noted in how 'dependency' and 'welfare' have become matters of shame since the conservative
political ascendency of the 1980s. But this is just one example of how a culture of obligatory
competitiveness exerts a damaging moral psychology, not only in how people look down on others,
but in how they look down on themselves. A culture which valorises 'winning' and
'competitiveness' above all else provides few sources of security or comfort, even to those
doing reasonably well. Everyone could be doing better, and if they're not, they have themselves
to blame. The vision of society as a competitive game also suggests that anyone could very
quickly be doing worse.
Under these neoliberal conditions, remorse becomes directed inwards, producing the
depressive psychological effect (or what Freud termed 'melancholia') whereby people search
inside themselves for the source of their own unhappiness and imperfect lives (Davies, 2015).
Viewed from within the cultural logic of neoliberalism, uncompetitive regions, individuals or
communities are not just 'left behind by globalisation', but are discovered to be inferior in
comparison to their rivals, just like the contestants ejected from a talent show. Rising
household indebtedness compounds this process for those living in financial precarity, by
forcing individuals to pay for their own past errors, illness or sheer bad luck (Davies,
Montgomerie & Wallin, 2015).
In order to understand political upheavals such as Brexit, we need to perform some
sociological interpretation. We need to consider that our socio-economic pathologies do not
simply consist in the fact that opportunity and wealth are hoarded by certain industries (such
as finance) or locales (such as London) or individuals (such as the children of the wealthy),
although all of these things are true. We need also to reflect on the cultural and
psychological implications of how this hoarding has been represented and justified over the
past four decades, namely that it reflects something about the underlying moral worth of
different populations and individuals.
One psychological effect of this is authoritarian attitudes towards social deviance: Brexit
and Trump supporters both have an above-average tendency to support the death penalty, combined
with a belief that political authorities are too weak to enforce justice (Kaufman, 2016).
However, it is also clear that psychological and physical pain have become far more widespread
in neoliberal societies than has been noticed by most people. Statistical studies have shown
how societies such as Britain and the United States have become afflicted by often inexplicable
rising mortality rates amongst the white working class, connected partly to rising suicide
rates, alcohol and drug abuse (Dorling, 2016). The Washington Post identified close geographic
correlations between this trend and support for Donald Trump (Guo, 2016). In sum, a
moral-economic system aimed at identifying and empowering the most competitive people,
institutions and places has become targeted, rationally or otherwise, by the vast number of
people, institutions and places that have suffered not only the pain of defeat but the
punishment of defeat for far too long.
NEOLIBERALISM: DEAD OR ALIVE?
The question inevitably arises, is thus thing called 'neoliberalism' now over? And if not,
when might it be and how would we know? In the UK, the prospect of Brexit combined with the
political priority of reducing immigration means that the efficient movement of capital
(together with that of labour) is being consciously impeded in a way that would have been
unthinkable during the 1990s and early 2000s. 1'he re-emergence of national borders as
obstacles to the flow of goods, finance, services and above all people, represents at least an
interruption in the vision of globalisation that accompanied the heyday of neoliberal policy
making between 1989-2008. If events such as Brexit signal the first step towards greater
national mercantilism and protectionism, then we may be witnessing far more profound
transformations in our model of political economy, the consequences of which could become very
ugly.
Before we reach that point, it is already possible to identify a reorientation of national
economic policy making away from some core tenets of neoliberal doctrine. One of the main case
studies of this book is antitrust law and policy, which has been a preoccupation for neoliberal
intellectuals, reformers and lawyers ever since the 1930s. The rise of the Chicago School view
of competition (which effectively granted far greater legal rights to monopolists, while also
being tougher on cartels) in the American legal establishment from the 1970s onwards, later
repeated in the European Commission, meant that market commitments to neoliberal policy goals
is still less than likely. Free trade areas such as NAETA, policies designed to attract and
please mobile capital, the search for global hegemony surrounding international markets (as
opposed to naked, mercantilist self-interest) may then continue for a few more years. But the
collapse of legitimacy or popularity of these agendas will not be reversed.
Meanwhile, the inability of the Republican Party to defend these policies any longer signals
the ultimate divorce between the political and economic wings of neoliberalism: the
conservative coalition that came into being as Keynesianism declined post-1968, and which got
Ronald Reagan to power, no longer functions in its role of rationalising and de-politicising
economic policy making. If neoliberalism is the 'disenchantment of politics by economics', then
economics is no longer performing its role in rationalising public life. Politics is being
re-enchanted, by images of nationhood, of cultural tradition, of'friends' against enemies, ot
race ana religion, une ot me many political miscalculations mat lea to Brexit was to
under-estimate how many UK citizens would vote for the first time in their lives, enthralled by
the sudden sovereign power that they had been granted in the polling booth, which was entirely
unlike the ritual of representative democracy with a first-past-the-post voting system that
renders most votes irrelevant. The intoxication of popular power and of demagoguery is being
experienced in visceral ways for the first time since 1968, or possibly longer. Wendy Brown
argues that neoliberalism is a 'political rationality'' that was born in direct response to
Fascism during the 1930s and '40s (Brown, 2015). While it would be an exaggeration to say that
the end of neoliberalism represents the re-birth of Fascism, clearly there were a number of
existential dimensions of'the political' that the neoliberals were right to fear, and which we
should now fear once more.
While there is plenty of evidence to suggest that 2016 is a historic turning point indeed as
I've argued here, possibly the second 'book-mark' in the crisis of neoliberalism we need also
to recognise how the seeds of this recent political rupture were sown over time. Indeed, we can
learn a lot about policy paradigms from the way they' go into decline, for they always contain,
tolerate and even celebrate the very activities that later overwhelm or undermine them.
Clearly, the 2008 financial crisis was triggered by activities in the banking sector that were
not fundamentally different from those which had been viewed as laudable for the previous 20
years. Equally, as we witness the return of mercantilism, protectionism, nationalism and
charismatic populism, we need to remember the extent to which neoliberalism accommodated some
of this, up to a point.
The second major case study in this book, in addition to anti-trust policy, is of strategies
for 'national competitiveness'. The executive branch of government has traditionally been
viewed as a problem from the perspective of economic liberalism, seeing as powerful politicians
will instinctively seek to privilege their own territories vis-a-vis others. This is the threat
of mercantilism, which can spin into resolutely anti-liberal policies such as trade tariffs and
the subsidisation of indigenous industries and 'national champions'. These forms of
mercantilism may now be returning, however, the logic of neoliberalism was never quite as
antipathetic to them as orthodox market liberals might have been. Instead, I suggest in Chapter
4, rather than simply seek to thwart or transcend nationalist politics, neoliberalism seizes
and reimagines the nation as one competitive actor amongst many, in a global contest for
'competitiveness', as evaluated by business gurus such as Michael Porter and think tanks such
as the World Economic Eorum. To be sure, these gurus and think tanks have never been anything
but hostile to protectionism; but nevertheless, they have encouraged a form of mild nationalism
as the basis for strategic thinking in economic policy. As David Harvey has argued, 'the
neoliberal state needs nationalism of a certain sort to survive': it draws on aspects of
executive power and nationalist sentiment, in order to steer economic activity towards certain
types of competitive strategies, culture and behaviours and away from others (Harvey, 2005:
85).
There is therefore a deep-lying tension within the politics of neoliberalism between a
'liberal' logic, which seeks to transcend geography, culture and political difference, and a
more contingent, 'violent' logic that seeks to draw on the energies of nationhood and combat,
in the hope of diverting them towards competitive, entrepreneurial production. These two logics
are in conflict with each other, but the story I tell in this book is of how the latter
gradually won out over the long history of neoliberal thought and policy making. Where the
neoliberal intellectuals of the 1930s had a deep commitment to liberal ideals, which they
believed the market could protect, the rise of the post-war Chicago School of economics and the
co-option of neoliberal ideas by business lobbies and conservatives, meant that (what 1 term)
the 'liberal spirit' was gradually lost. There is thus a continuity at work here, in the way
that the crisis of neoliberalism has played out.
Written in 2012-13, the book suggests that neoliberalism has now entered a 'contingent'
state, in which various failures of economic rationality are dealt with through incorporating
an ever broader range of cultural and political resources. The rise of behavioural economics,
for example, represents an attempt to preserve a form of market rationality in the face of
crisis, by incorporating expertise provided by psychologists and neuroscientists. A form of
'neo-communitarianism' emerges, which takes seriously the role of relationships, environmental
conditioning and empathy in the construction of independent, responsible subjects. This remains
an economistic logic, inasmuch as it prepares people to live efficient, productive, competitive
lives. But by bringing culture, community and contingency within the bounds of neoliberal
rationality, one might see things like behavioural economics or 'social neuroscience' and so on
as early symptoms of a genuinely post-liberal politics. Once governments (and publics) no
longer view economics as the best test of optimal policies, then opportunities for post-liberal
experimentation expand rapidly, with unpredictable and potentially frightening consequences. It
was telling that, when the British Home Secretary, Amber Kudd, suggested in October 2016 that
companies be compelled to publicly list their foreign workers, she defended this policy as a
'nudge'.
The Limits of Neoliberalism is a piece of interpretive sociology. It starts from the
recognition that neoliberalism rests on claims to legitimacy, which it is possible to imagine
as valid, even for critics of this system. Inspired by Luc Boltanski, the book assumes that
political-economic systems typically need to offer certain limited forms of hope, excitement
and fairness in order to survive, and cannot operate via domination and exploitation alone. For
similar reasons, we might soon find that we miss some of the normative and political dimensions
of neoliberalism, for example the internationalism that the IiU was founded to promote and the
cosmopolitanism that competitive markets sometimes inculcate. There may be some elements of
neoliberalism that critics and activists need to grasp, refashion and defend, rather than to
simply denounce: this book's Afterword offers some ideas of what this might mean. But if the
book is to be read in a truly post-neoliberal world, 1 hope that in its Interpretive
aspirations, it helps to explain what was internally and normalively coherent about the
political economy known as 'neoliberalism', but also why the system really had no account of
its own preconditions or how to preserve them adequately. The attempt to reduce all of human
life to economic calculation runs up against limits. A political rationality that fails to
recognise politics as a distinctive sphere of human existence was always going to be
dumbfounded, once that sphere took on its own extra-economic life. As Bob Dylan sang to Mr
Jones, so one might now say to neoliberal intellectuals or technocrats: 'something is happening
here, but you don't know what it is'.
... ... ...
Most analyses of neoliberalism have focused on its commitment to 'free markets, deregulation
and trade. I shan't discuss the validity of these portrayals here, although some have
undoubtedly exaggerated the similarities between 'classical' nineteenth-century liberalism and
twentieth-century neoliberalism. The topic addressed here is a different one the character of
neoliberal authority, on what basis does the neoliberal state demand the right to be obeyed, if
not on substantive political grounds? To a large extent, it is on the basis of particular
economic claims and rationalities, constructed and propagated by economic experts. The state
does not necessarily (or at least, not always) cede power to markets, but comes to justify its
decisions, policies and rules in terms that are commensurable with the logic of markets.
Neoliberalism might therefore be defined as the elevation of market-based principles and
techniques of evaluation to the level of state-endorsed norms (Davies, 2013: 37). The authority
of the neoliberal state is heavily dependent on the authority of economics (and economists) to
dictate legitimate courses of action. Understanding that authority and its present crisis
requires us to look at economics, economic policy experts and advisors as critical components
of state institutions.
Since the banking crisis of 2007-09, public denunciations of 'inequality' have increased
markedly. These draw on a diverse range of moral, critical, theoretical, methodological and
empirical resources. Marxist analyses have highlighted growing inequalities as a symptom of
class conflict, which neoliberal policies have greatly exacerbated (Harvey, 2011; Therborn,
2012). Statistical analyses have highlighted correlations between different spheres of
inequality', demonstrating how economic inequality influences social and psychological
wellbeing (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Data showing extreme concentrations of wealth have
led political scientists to examine the US political system, as a tool through which inequality
is actively increased (Hacker & Pierson, 2010). Emergent social movements, such as Occupy,
draw a political dividing line between the '99%' and the '1%' who exploit them. Political
leaders and public intellectuals have adopted the language of'fairness' in their efforts to
justify and criticize the various policy interventions which influence the distribution of
economic goods (e.g. Hutton, 2010).
It is important to recognize that these critiques have two quite separate targets, although
the distinction is often blurred. Firstly, there is inequality that exists within reasonably
delineated and separate spheres of society. This means that there are multiple inequalities,
with multiple, potentially incommensurable measures. The inequality that occurs within the
market sphere is separate from the inequality that occurs within the cultural sphere, which is
separate from the inequality' that occurs within the political sphere, and so on. Each sphere
can either unwelcome politically, or impractical (Davies, 2013). Hayek's support for the
welfare state, Simons' commitment to the nationalization of key industries, the ordo-liberal
enthusiasm for the 'social market' demonstrate that the early neoliberals were offering a
justification for what Walzer terms 'monopoly' (separate inequalities in separate spheres) and
not 'dominance' (the power of one sphere over all others).
As the next chapter explores, it was Coasian economics (in tandem with the Chicago School)
that altered this profoundly. The objective perspective of the economist implicitly working for
a university or state regulator would provide the common standard against which activity could
be judged. Of course economics does not replace the price system, indeed economics is very
often entangled with the price system (Callon, 1998; Caliskan, 2010), but the a priori equality
of competitors becomes presumed, as a matter of economic methodology, which stipulates that all
agents are endowed with equal psychological capacities of calculation. It is because this
assumption is maintained when evaluating all institutions and actions that it massively
broadens the terrain of legitimate competition, and opens up vast, new possibilities for
legitimate inequality and legitimate restraint. Walzerian dominance is sanctioned, and not
simply monopoly. The Coasian vision of fair competition rests on an entirely unrealistic
premise, namely that individuals share a common capacity' to calculate and negotiate, rendering
intervention by public authorities typically unnecessary: the social reality of lawyers' fees
is alone enough to undermine this fantasy. Yet in one sense, this is a mode of economic
critique that is imbued with the 'liberal spirit' described earlier. It seeks to evaluate the
efficiency of activities, on the basis of the assumed equal rationality of all, and the
neutrality of the empirical observer.
Like Coase, Schumpeter facilitates a great expansion of the space and time in which the
competitive process takes place. Various 'social' and 'cultural' resources become drawn into
the domain of competition, with the goal being to define the rules that all others must play
by. Monopoly is undoubtedly the goal of competitiveness. But unlike Coase's economics,
Schumpeter's makes no methodological assumption regarding the common rationality' of all
actors. Instead, it makes a romantic assumption regarding the inventive power of some actors
(entrepreneurs), and the restrictive routines of most others. Any objective judgements
regarding valid or invalid actions will be rooted in static methodologies or rules.
Entrepreneurs have no rules, and respect no restraint. They seek no authority or validation for
what they do, but are driven by a pure desire to dominate. In this sense their own immanent
authority comes with a 'violent threat', which is endorsed by the neoliberal state as Chapter 4
discusses.
These theories of competition are not 'ideological' and nor are they secretive. They are not
ideological because they do not seek to disguise how reality is actually constituted or to
distract people from their objective conditions. They have contributed to the construction and
constitution of economic reality, inasmuch as they provide objective and acceptable reports on
what is going on, that succeed in coordinating various actors. Moreover, they are sometimes
performative, not least because of how they inform and format modes of policy, regulation and
governance. Inequality has not arisen by accident or due to the chaos of capitalism or
'globalization'. Theories and methodologies, which validate certain types of dominating and
monopolistic activity, have provided the conventions within which large numbers of academics,
business people and policy makers have operated. They make a shared world possible in the first
place. But nor are any of these theories secret either. They have been published in
peer-reviewed journals, spread via policy papers and universities. Without shared, public
rationalities and methodologies, neoliberalism would have remained a private conspiracy.
Inequality can be denounced by critics of neoliberalism, but it cannot be argued that in an era
that privileges not only market competition but competitiveness in general inequality is not
publicly acceptable.
These theories of competition are not 'ideological' and nor are they secretive. They are not
ideological because they do not seek to disguise how reality is actually constituted or to
distract people from their objective conditions. They have contributed to the construction and
constitution of economic reality, inasmuch as they provide objective and acceptable reports on
what is going on, that succeed in coordinating various actors. Moreover, they are sometimes
performative, not least because of how they inform and format modes of policy, regulation and
governance. Inequality has not arisen by accident or due to the chaos of capitalism or
'globalization'. Theories and methodologies, which validate certain types of dominating and
monopolistic activity, have provided the conventions within which large numbers of academics,
business people and policy makers have operated. They make a shared world possible in the first
place. But nor are any of these theories secret either. They have been published in
peer-reviewed journals, spread via policy papers and universities. Without shared, public
rationalities and methodologies, neoliberalism would have remained a private conspiracy.
Inequality can be denounced by critics of neoliberalism, but it cannot be argued that in an era
that privileges not only market competition but competitiveness in general inequality is not
publicly acceptable.
The contingent neoliberalism that we currently live with is in a literal sense unjustified.
It is propagated without the forms of justification (be they moral or empirical) that either
the early neoliberals or the technical practitioners of neoliberal policy had employed, in
order to produce a reality that 'holds together', as pragmatist sociologists like to say. The
economized social and political reality now only just about 'holds together', because it is
constantly propped up, bailed out, nudged, monitored, adjusted, data-mincd, and altered by
those responsible for rescuing it. It does not survive as a consensual reality: economic
judgements regarding 'what is going on' are no longer 'objective' or 'neutral', to the extent
that they once were. The justice of inequality can no longer be explained with reference to a
competition or to competitiveness, let alone to a market. Thus, power may be exercised along
the very same tramlines that it was during the golden neoliberal years of the 1990s and early
millennium, and the same experts, policies and agencies may continue to speak to the same
public audiences. But the sudden reappearance of those two unruly uneconomic actors, the
Hobbesian sovereign state and the psychological unconscious, suggests that that the project of
disenchanting politics by economics has reached its limit. And yet crisis and critique have
been strategically deferred or accommodated. What resources are there available for this to
change, and to what extent are these distinguishable from neoliberalism's own critical
capacities?
... ... ...
Neoliberalism, as this book has sought to demonstrate, is replete with its own internal
modes of criticism, judgement, measurement and evaluation, which enable actors to reach
agreements about what is going on. These are especially provided by certain traditions of
economics and business strategy, which privilege competitive processes, on the basis that those
processes are uniquely able to preserve an element of uncertainty in social and economic life.
The role of the expert be it in the state, the think tank or university within this programme
is to produce quantitative facts about the current state of competitive reality, such that
actors, firms or whole nations can be judged, compared and ranked. For Hayek and many of the
early neoliberals, markets would do this job instead of expert authorities, with prices the
only facts that were entirely necessary. But increasingly, under the influence of the later
Chicago School and business strategists, the 'winners' and the 'losers' were to be judged
through the evaluations of economics (and associated techniques and measures), rather than of
markets as such. Certain forms of authority are therefore necessary for this game' to be
playable. Economized law is used to test the validity of certain forms of competitive conduct;
audits derived from business strategy are used to test and enthuse the entrepreneurial energies
of rival communities. But the neoliberal programme initially operated such that these forms of
authority could be exercised in a primarily technical sense, without metaphysical appeals to
the common good, individual autonomy or the sovereignty of the state that employed them. As the
previous chapter argued, various crises (primarily, but not exclusively, the 2007-09 financial
crisis) have exposed neoliberalism's tacit dependence on both executive sovereignty and on
certain moral-psychological equipment on the part of individuals. A close reading of neoliberal
texts and policies would have exposed this anyway. In which case, the recent 'discovery' that
neoliberalism depends on and justifies power inequalities, and not markets as such, may be
superficial in nature. Witnessing the exceptional measures that states have taken to rescue the
status quo simply confirms the state-centric nature of neolibcralism, as an anti-political mode
of politics. As Zizek argued in relation to the Wikileaks' exposures of 2011, 'the real
disturbance was at the level of appearances: we can no longer pretend we don't know what
everyone knows we know' (Zizek, 2011b). Most dramatically, neoliberalism now appears naked and
shorn of any pretence to liberalism, that is, it no longer operates with manifest a priori
principles of equivalence, against which all contestants should be judged. Chapter 2 identified
the 'liberal spirit' of neoliberalism with a Rawlsian assumption that contestants are formally
equal before they enter the economic 'game'. Within the Kantian or 'deontological' tradition of
liberalism, this is the critical issue, and it played a part in internal debates within the
early neoliberal movement. For those such as the ordoliberals, who feared the rationalizing
potential of capitalist monopoly, the task was to build an economy around such an a priori
liberal logic. Ensuring some equality of access to the economic game', via the active
regulation of large firms and 'equality of opportunity' for individuals, is how neoliberalism's
liberalism has most commonly been presented politically. As Chapter 3 discussed, the American
tradition of neoliberalism as manifest in Chicago Law and Economics abandoned this sort of
normative liberalism, in favour of a Benthamite utilitarianism, in which efficiency claims
trumped formal arguments. The philosophical and normative elements of neoliberalism have, in
truth, been in decline since the 1950s.
The 'liberal spirit' of neoliberalism was kept faintly alive by the authority that was
bestowed upon methodologies, audits and measures of efficiency analysis. The liberal a priori
just about survived in the purported neutrality of economic method (of various forms), to judge
all contestants equally, even while the empirical results of these judgements have increasingly
benefited alreadydominant competitors. This notion relied on a fundamental epistemological
inconsistency of neoliberalism, between the Hayekian argument that there can be no stable or
objective scientific perspective on economic activity, and the more positivist argument that
economics offers a final and definitive judgement. American neoliberalism broadens the 'arena'
in which competition is understood to take place, beyond definable markets, and beyond the
sphere of the 'economy', enabling cultural, social and political resources to be legitimately
dragged into the economic 'game', and a clustering of various forms of advantage in the same
hands. Monopoly, in Walter's terms, becomes translated into dominance.
The loss of neoliberalisms pretence to liberalism transforms the type of authority that can
be claimed by and on behalf of power, be it business, financial or state power. It means the
abandonment of the globalizing, universalizing, transcendental branch of neoliberalism, in
which certain economic techniques and measures (including, but not only, prices) would provide
a common framework through which all human difference could be mediated and represented.
Instead, cultural and national difference potentially leading to conflict now animates
neoliberalism, but without a commonly recognized principle against which to convert this into
competitive inequality. What I have characterized as the 'violent threat' of neoliberalism has
come to the fore, whereby authority in economic decision making is increasingly predicated upon
the claim that 'we' must beat 'them'. This fracturing of universalism, in favour of political
and cultural particularism, may be a symptom of how capitalist crises often play out (Gamble,
2009). One reason why neoliberalism has survived as well as it has since 2007 is that it has
always managed to operate within two rhetorical registers simultaneously, satisfying both the
demand for liberal universalism and that for political particularism, so when the former falls
apart, a neoliberal discourse of competitive nationalism and the authority of executive
decision is already present and available.
One lesson to be taken from neoliberalism, for political movements which seek to challenge
it, is that both individual agency and collective institutions need to be criticized and
invented simultaneously. Political reform does not have to build on any 'natural' account of
human beings, but can also invent new visions of individual agency. The design and
transformation of institutions, such as markets, regulators and firms, do not need to take
place separately from this project, but in tandem and in dialogue with it. A productive focus
of critical economic enquiry would be those institutions which neolibcral thought has tended to
be entirely silent on. These are the institutions and mechanisms of capitalism which coerce and
coordinate individuals, thereby removing choices from economic situations. The era of applied
neoliberal policy making has recently started to appear as one of rampant 'financialisation'
(Krippner, 2012). So it is therefore peculiar how little attention is paid within neoliberal
discourse to institutions of credit and equity, other than that they should be priced and
distributed via markets. Likewise, the rising power of corporations has been sanctioned by
theories that actually say very little about firms, management, work or organization, but focus
all their attention on the incentives and choices confronting a few 'agents' and 'leaders' at
the very top. Despite having permeated our cultural lives with visions of competition, and also
permeated political institutions with certain economic rationalities, the dominant discourse of
neoliberalism actually contains very little which represents the day-to-day lives and
experiences of those who live with it. This represents a major empirical and analytical
shortcoming of the economic theories that are at work in governing us, and ultimately a serious
vulnerability.
A further lesson to be taken from neoliberalism, for the purposes of a critique of
neoliberalism, is that restrictive economic practices need to be strategically and inventively
targeted and replaced. In the 1930s and 1940s, 'restrictive economic practices' would have
implied planning, labour organization and socialism. Today our economic freedoms are restricted
in very different ways, which strike at the individual in an intimate way, rather than at
individuals collectively. In the twenty-first century, the experience of being an employee or a
consumer or a debtor is often one of being ensnared, not one of exercising any choice or
strategy. Amidst all of the uncertainty of dynamic capitalism, this sense of being trapped into
certain relations seems eminently certain. Releasing individuals from these constraints is a
constructive project, as much as a critical one: this is what the example of the early
neoliberals demonstrates.
Lawyers willing to rewrite the rules of exchange, employment and finance (as, for instance
the ordo-liberals redrafted the rules of the market) could be one of the great forces for
social progress, if they were ever to mobilize in a concerted w'ay. A form of collective
entrepreneurship, which like individual entrepreneurs saw' economic nonnativity as fluid and
changeable, could produce new forms of political economy, with alternative valuation
systems.
The reorganization of state, society, institutions and individuals in terms of competitive
dynamics and rules, succeeded to the extent that it did because it offered both a vision of the
collective and a vision of individual agency simultaneously. It can appear impermeable to
critique or political transformation, if only challenged on one of these terms. For instance,
if a different vision of collective organization is proposed, the neoliberal rejoinder is that
this must involve abandoning individual 'choice' or freedom. Or if a different vision of the
individual is proposed, the neoliberal rejoinder is that this is unrealistic given the
competitive global context. Dispensing with competition, as the template for all politics and
political metaphysics, is therefore only possible if theory proceeds anew, with a
political-economic idea of individual agency and collective organization, at the same time.
What this might allow is a different basis from which to speak of human beings as paradoxically
the same yet different. The problem of politics is that individuals are both private, isolated
actors, with tastes and choices, and part of a collectivity, with rules and authorities. An
alternative answer to this riddle needs to be identified, other than simply more competition
and more competitiveness, in which isolated actors take no responsibility for the collective,
and the collective is immune to the protestations of those isolated actors.
"... "the housing market does have a momentum component and we're seeing a clipping of momentum at this time." ..."
"... "If the markets go down, it could bring on another recession. The housing market has been an important element of economic activity. If people start to get pessimistic about housing and pull back and don't want to buy, there will be a drop in construction jobs and that could be a seed for another recession." ..."
"... "By the way, we're overdue for another recession." ..."
"... "The drop in home prices in the financial crisis was the most severe drop in the US market since my data begin in 1890," ..."
"... "It could be that we're primed to repeat it because it's in our memory and we're thinking about it but still I wouldn't expect something as severe as the Great Financial Crisis coming on right now. There could be a significant correction or bear market, but I'm waiting and seeing now." ..."
The weakening housing market is similar to the last market high, just before the subprime
housing bubble burst a decade ago, says famed housing-watcher Robert Shiller. The economist,
who predicted the 2007-2008 crisis, told Yahoo Finance that current data shows "a sign of
weakness."
Housing pivots take more time than those in the stock market, Shiller said, adding that
"the housing market does have a momentum component and we're seeing a clipping of momentum
at this time."
The Nobel Laureate explained: "If the markets go down, it could bring on another
recession. The housing market has been an important element of economic activity. If people
start to get pessimistic about housing and pull back and don't want to buy, there will be a
drop in construction jobs and that could be a seed for another recession." He added:
"By the way, we're overdue for another recession."
When reminded that 2006 predated the greatest financial crisis in a lifetime, Shiller
acknowledged that any correction would likely be far less severe.
"The drop in home prices in the financial crisis was the most severe drop in the US
market since my data begin in 1890," the Yale economist said.
"It could be that we're primed to repeat it because it's in our memory and we're
thinking about it but still I wouldn't expect something as severe as the Great Financial Crisis
coming on right now. There could be a significant correction or bear market, but I'm waiting
and seeing now."
The infamous US housing bubble in the mid-2000s and the subsequent subprime meltdown were
key factors spurring the broader financial crisis of 2008. A speculative frenzy over house
prices, mortgages beyond long-term capabilities to finance, and eventually a wave of defaults
by borrowers, threatened the solvency of some key financial institutions which in turn led to a
stock market crash, and the global financial crisis.
"... creates a parallel society in the countryside that never see these money, but are the pros of having that money there and contributing to the economy outweigh these cons? It would if the money were invested with a view of making a profit from a factory, but I don't think that happens in this case. What do you think? ..."
"... The result is what we Australians call a two-speed economy or a split economy, where one sub-economy caters for the very rich (real estate agents specialising in luxury properties, lots of luxury hotels and playgrounds, boutique shops and restaurants) and the other sub-economy is hidden away, made up of local people who have to rent their homes because they can't afford to buy their own homes, who have to hold down two or more jobs to survive and who supply the staff for the hotels, shops and restaurants frequented by the rich. Eventually the local people start disappearing to find better-paying jobs and the hotels, restaurants, etc start bringing in foreign labour to replace them. ..."
I've lately been wondering about the economics of being a big tax haven like the UK. A place
like the Bahamas, I think benefits from it since there are so few citizens and it's easy to
bribe them, and it costs a lot less than paying taxes back home. But then you move on to
Panama, and the grey area starts. Someone is getting rich there, but the population of Panama
is a lot bigger than that of the Bahamas, and that population is not exactly rich. Does it
create bigger class divisions and also retards politics in terms of trying to develop their
own unique economy not dependent on servicing the rich foreign tax thieves?
Then you get to London and the UK, with their absolutely enormous population. Most of the
people outside of London will never see any of this money, and in London it creates a runaway
housing crisis as the best investment for laundered money is thought to be real estate.
Obviously there is investment in the local economy other than that, such as buying football
clubs and stores, but I don't think that money goes towards funding a pharma start-up or
buying stock in a local car company.
So it exacerbates inequality sure (London real estate is insane and out of reach of most
locals), and creates a parallel society in the countryside that never see these money, but
are the pros of having that money there and contributing to the economy outweigh these cons?
It would if the money were invested with a view of making a profit from a factory, but I
don't think that happens in this case. What do you think?
I think it is an extremely interesting discussion point; one that I would not venture into
without doing a bit of research, but right now I have to leave for work. It's definitely
something we could chew over for a bit, and I imagine Jen will have something for us on it.
Blatnoi, if you get hold of the Nicholas Shaxson book I mentioned before, I recall there's a
chapter that discusses the effect of being a tax haven has on the Channel Islands economy and
Jersey Island in particular. The money that ends up there is in the pockets of a very few
people who use it to buy and real estate as if it were shares on the stock market.
The result
is what we Australians call a two-speed economy or a split economy, where one sub-economy
caters for the very rich (real estate agents specialising in luxury properties, lots of
luxury hotels and playgrounds, boutique shops and restaurants) and the other sub-economy is
hidden away, made up of local people who have to rent their homes because they can't afford
to buy their own homes, who have to hold down two or more jobs to survive and who supply the
staff for the hotels, shops and restaurants frequented by the rich. Eventually the local
people start disappearing to find better-paying jobs and the hotels, restaurants, etc start
bringing in foreign labour to replace them.
I certainly agree with you that a two-speed economy creates and exacerbates class
divisions, and moreover destroys not only local economies in the areas where it operates but
also local societies and cultures.
Aha I Googled "Shaxson", "economy" and "Jersey" and out of what Google threw at me, I
found this account by Bram Wanrooij of his time living in Jersey with his family for six
years:
An excerpt from Wanrooij's post:
".. I have never been so aware of wealth discrepancies as I have in Jersey. And that
says a lot, as I have lived in places like Kenya and Sudan when I was younger. Disparity is
on full display, in combination with a shameless promotion of greed and privilege. Range
Rovers wizz past you, their 4×4 engines sputtering out clouds of pollution, utterly
useless on a small island with a decent infrastructure and no real elevation to speak of. You
even see flashy sports cars; quite amusing when you consider the speed limit is 40 at most.
What are these people trying to prove?
The island caters to the very wealthy, especially reflected in everyday expenses and
housing and travel costs. Getting off the island becomes ever more impossible as your family
grows, with flights to England ridiculously expensive and ferries charging a small fortune
for carrying you across the channel. In this way, Jersey has quickly become a financial and
geographical prison for middle and low earners.
In the six years I've lived here, my family has had to move six times and every time we
had to rent a house which was slightly beyond our budget, even though both my wife and I are
hard workers with honest professions. I have seen qualified, talented people leave because of
this, a phenomenon which makes no sense, neither on a social, nor an economic level "
Comparisons between the Jersey-style financial two-speed economy and economies afflicted
with so-called Dutch disease (typically economies like Saudi Arabia and others dependent on
oil, gas and mineral exploitation) have been made. Characteristics of such economies are
outlined in detail at this link: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/11977/oil/dutch-disease/
I've lived on the outskirts of London for many years and what I've seen is the city becoming
increasingly hollowed out. You can walk around street after street at night and everywhere is
in darkness – the lights are out because no-one is home, not that evening, not ever.
London is permanently under construction; huge numbers of new buildings have gone up in
recent years – all of them beyond the purchasing power of most Londoners – and
huge numbers of those new buildings have been purchased off plan by overseas investors with
no intention or interest in living in them.
When the money moves in existing communities disintegrate, local councils seek to dump
those in social housing on other, less fashionable boroughs (thus exacerbating housing
problems in those areas) or even outside London so housing can be razed and the land sold to
developers, those renting in the private sector are priced out, local businesses close down
– their market has gone plus insane rent and rates increases etc etc. London used to
have a bit of a 'village' feel to it – distinct areas with settled communities,
traditional butcher-baker-candlestick maker high streets, a sense of community. All gone or
going.
The multimillion-pound wrecks are evidence of a property culture in which the world's
richest people see British property as investments. One Hyde Park, a block of apartments in
Knightsbridge, is another example where more than half the flats are registered with the
council as empty or second homes.
Buying properties in hot-spot areas and leaving them empty – because you plan to trade
and sell them if and when the prices rocket up to levels you want – would be typical
behaviour of people who treat property portfolios like share portfolios. You want to be ready
to sell when the price is right so you don't move tenants into them. Getting rid of tenants
can be a hassle if you want to sell quickly.
Also buying property and deliberately leaving it to rot is a way of using it as a tax
shelter to minimise land and other taxes, lower your income or claim a tax rebate on losses
you make because you're forking out more in land taxes, council rates and other rates than
you are making on the property, depending on the taxation jurisdiction prevailing in the area
or country where you have bought the property.
Apparently, the U.S. authorities believe that by squeezing the corrupt Russian money out
of the Great Britain, they would force those corrupt rich Russians to return their money home
and remake the Russia as a modern Western nation with the rule of law and checks and
balances.
At least, that's what I have heard at anti-Putin forums. So -- and especially so in view
of your article -- that ought to be taken with a grain of salt.
But if that's indeed the idea -- I'm skeptical that it would work. Definitely, it sounds
alright, and if it were implemented, say, 30 years ago -- it might have sort of worked, by
preventing the corrupt Russians to move their assets abroad. Now, I think, they would just
move their fortunes into some other friendly jurisdiction outside of the reach of Uncle Sam
and Russia's authorities.
If getting at dirty money was that easy, I doubt that China would ever need to resort to
such a complex operation as the "Fox Hunt".
Another kick in the sack for Britain, caused by Washington but for which Washington will
suffer no penalty. That Special Relationship certainly is something, isn't it?
I think you're probably right – although I never thought of such a devious motive as
forcing Putin's enemies (in some cases) back to Russia, where they would presumably start
financing the opposition and making trouble, I agree it likely would not work according to
plan. Very likely all it would accomplish is the withdrawal of their money from London, to be
hidden somewhere else.
"... Every academic critique of neoliberalism is an unacknowledged memoir. We academics occupy a crucial node in the neoliberal system. Our institutions are foundational to neoliberalism's claim to be a meritocracy, insofar as we are tasked with discerning and certifying the merit that leads to the most powerful and desirable jobs. Yet at the same time, colleges and universities have suffered the fate of all public goods under the neoliberal order. We must therefore "do more with less," cutting costs while meeting ever-greater demands. The academic workforce faces increasing precarity and shrinking wages even as it is called on to teach and assess more students than ever before in human history -- and to demonstrate that we are doing so better than ever, via newly devised regimes of outcome-based assessment. In short, we academics live out the contradictions of neoliberalism every day. ..."
"... Whereas classical liberalism insisted that capitalism had to be allowed free rein within its sphere, under neoliberalism capitalism no longer has a set sphere. We are always "on the clock," always accruing (or squandering) various forms of financial and social capital. ..."
Every academic critique of neoliberalism is an unacknowledged memoir. We academics
occupy a crucial node in the neoliberal system. Our institutions are foundational to
neoliberalism's claim to be a meritocracy, insofar as we are tasked with discerning and
certifying the merit that leads to the most powerful and desirable jobs. Yet at the same time,
colleges and universities have suffered the fate of all public goods under the neoliberal
order. We must therefore "do more with less," cutting costs while meeting ever-greater demands.
The academic workforce faces increasing precarity and shrinking wages even as it is called on
to teach and assess more students than ever before in human history -- and to demonstrate that
we are doing so better than ever, via newly devised regimes of outcome-based assessment. In
short, we academics live out the contradictions of neoliberalism every day.
... ... ...
On a more personal level it reflects my upbringing in the suburbs of Flint, Michigan, a city
that has been utterly devastated by the transition to neoliberalism. As I lived through the
slow-motion disaster of the gradual withdrawal of the auto industry, I often heard Henry Ford s
dictum that a company could make more money if the workers were paid enough to be customers as
well, a principle that the major US automakers were inexplicably abandoning. Hence I find it
[Fordism -- NNB] to be an elegant way of capturing the postwar model's promise of creating
broadly shared prosperity by retooling capitalism to produce a consumer society characterized
by a growing middle class -- and of emphasizing the fact that that promise was ultimately
broken.
By the mid-1970s, the postwar Fordist order had begun to breakdown to varying degrees in the
major Western countries. While many powerful groups advocated a response to the crisis that
would strengthen the welfare state, the agenda that wound up carrying the day was
neoliberalism, which was most forcefully implemented in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher
and in the United States by Ronald Reagan. And although this transformation was begun by the
conservative part)', in both countries the left-of-centcr or (in American usage) "liberal"party
wound up embracing neoliberal tenets under Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, ostensibly for the
purpose of directing them toward progressive ends.
With the context of current debates within the US Democratic Party, this means that Clinton
acolytes are correct to claim that "neoliberalism" just is liberalism but only to the extent
that, in the contemporary United States, the term liberalism is little more than a word for
whatever the policy agenda of the Democratic Party happens to be at any given time. Though
politicians of all stripes at times used libertarian rhetoric to sell their policies, the most
clear-eyed advocates of neoliberalism realized that there could be no simple question of a
"return" to the laissez-faire model.
Rather than simply getting the state "out of the way," they both deployed and transformed
state power, including the institutions of the welfare state, to reshape society in accordance
with market models. In some cases creating markets where none had previously existed, as in the
privatization of education and other public services. In others it took the form of a more
general spread of a competitive market ethos into ever more areas of life -- so that we are
encouraged to think of our reputation as a "brand," for instance, or our social contacts as
fodder for "networking." Whereas classical liberalism insisted that capitalism had to be
allowed free rein within its sphere, under neoliberalism capitalism no longer has a set sphere.
We are always "on the clock," always accruing (or squandering) various forms of financial and
social capital.
The Devil, in Greek
diabolos
the 'divider', 'scatterer', 'slanderer'
"OMB Director Mulvaney cites a record high in gov't revenue. True, revenues hit a high
in nominal terms over FY18, growing 0.4% Y/Y, However after adjusting for inflation,
growth actually
fell
by 1.6%".
Steve Rattner
"Non Farm Payrolls puffed up all year, major negative adjustment to come later. For
most Americans this is not a strong economy, regardless of what Fed or Administration
says. When the jobs data is benchmarked to the tax data in February, there will be a
massive downward revision.
I just ran the October withholding, and there is no way that this number is correct.
Withholding was extremely weak. Bureau of Labor Statistics overstating gains all
year."
"Thanks [Lee] for the insight on the inconsistency of NFP with payroll withholding. I
was about to have a quick look at tax receipts but you saved me from that task. As for
avg wages rising I expect much wage gains concentration in top 10% (supervisory),
similarly for per capita incomes... [for a truer picture look at
median
numbers
especially in times of record income disparity]
BLS says 250,000 jobs created. Zero attention to how number compiled. BLS number helped
each month by "birth-death" ESTIMATE to account for unknown business shutdowns and
startups. Guess what? The Birth-death estimate this time was +246,000. Good NFP
before midterms."
How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated
against the American People
by Allen W. Smith / April 14th, 2010
David Leonhardt's article ,
"Yes, 47% of Households Owe No Taxes. Look Closer," in Tuesday's New York Times was
excellent, but it just scratches the tip of the iceberg of how the rich have gained at the
expense of the working class during the past three decades. When Ronald Reagan became President
in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had
operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As
Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, "Reagan thus gambled the future
-- his own, his party's, and in some measure the nation's -- on a perilous and largely untested
new course called supply-side economics."
Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a "tax
and spend" policy, to a "borrow and spend" policy, where the government continued its heavy
spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were
catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the
first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one
trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations,
the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!
Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated
against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is
still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon
which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was
built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn't know much about economics. Alan
Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that
would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.
Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a
virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and
they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the
redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don't know the
nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as
between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three
decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the
natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan
and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.
If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and
pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working
class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the
help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:
1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on
Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)
2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security
surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that
could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.
3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order
to generate large future surpluses.
4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the
general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or
invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans,
was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan's big income tax cuts that went primarily to
the rich.
5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One
can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a
payback for Greenspan's role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)
6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan
Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when
he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social
Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for
the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983
payroll tax hike. Moynihan's view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of
the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus
Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of
repealing the payroll tax hike. The "read-my-lips-no-new-taxes" president was not about to give
up his huge slush fund.
The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general
government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated
approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the
trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust
fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to
pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can't
do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been
laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam. For more information,
please visit my website or contact me.
This article was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 9:00am and is filed under
Economy/Economics
, Social
Security , Tax .
5 comments on this article so far ...
Still, this is only symptom or really quite legal act by US. So, appears to me of the
system. So, what's wrong-right with the system of which governing the country by laws is
integral part? Apparently nothing; even to allen smyth.
So, why bother complaining ab an a legal act? Beats me! Why not change the system that
allows this? tnx
I think politics is, has and always will be the problem and it seems to have creeped in
to Dr. Smiths article.
The American people through decades of political rhetoric have come to believe all the lies
that have been told by politicians and duly reinforced by a compliant media.
Reagan proposed cutting benefits to fix social security. On 5/12/81 HHS Secretary Richard
Schweiker sent Congress the Administrations plan to rely on benefit cuts. You know what
happened next – the Democrats pounced with the elderly lobbies not far behind. Reagan
gave up and not unlike todays President, formed the commission mostly for political cover
and to take the heat off. And remember Congress passes the law, the President does not get
a vote.
The reserve fund build up for the boomers is also a myth. That is if we can believe the
Congressionsl Research Service:
"In fact, it has become conventional wisdom that Congress deliberately intended to built
up large balances in the trust funds, not just for the near term, but to help finance the
benefits of the post World War II baby boomers and later retirees." "To the contrary, a
review of the record of congressional proceedings would suggest that the goal was
not to create surpluses, but to assure that the system would not be threatened by
insolvency again in the event adverse conditions arose." ( CRS Report for Congress –
Social Security Financing Reform: Lessons From the 1983 Amendments – 97-741 EPW )
Or if we choose to believe Robert J Meyers:
Q: As we look at it today, some people rationalize the financing basis by saying that
it's a way of partially having the baby boomers pay for their own retirement in advance.
You're telling me now this was not the rationale. Nobody made that argument or adopted that
rationale?
Myers: That's correct. The statement you made is widely quoted, it is widely used, but
it just isn't true. It didn't happen that way, it was mostly happenstance that the
Commission adopted this approach to financing Social Security.
( http://ssaonline.us/history/myersorl.html
)
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan may have become outraged but he was on the commission.
He never realized that all cash surpluses have to be invested in debt – since Social
Security began? I find that hard to believe, but he was right to recommend cutting the FICA
tax, which of course went nowhere in CONGRESS.
If this new commission comes up with a plan to "extend the life" of the trust fund, as
happened with the new health care bill, it's just kicking the can down the road again.
Let's let them use the "trust fund" and run it down to zero. How? cut spending
elsewhere.
this is a great article alan, you missed one of the most important things greenspan did
to destroy the economy
he went to war on what he termed "wage inflation"
every time you see the prime go up that means there is upward pressure on wages and he
is trying to keep businesses from having money to offer higher wage
when you see wages go down it's because wage pressure is either stagnant or negative
of course there are other factors that make the prime go up or down but wage pressure is
the big reason you see it happening
when greenspan said "the economy is heating up" what he meant is "people are asking for
and getting a raise"
important stuff and one of the main reasons the middle classes wages have been
stagnant
– the US was not alone – this scam was taking place in most if not all
western faux-democracies. For the Canadian perspective – which has cost Cdn taxpayers
some two trillion dollars over the last 30+ years in "debt service" whilst government after
government claims 'no money!!' and slashes the social programs Cdns worked generations to
establish – What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html
. And thus it will continue until people catch on to this scam, this fraud, and put a lot
of people in jail. ABout the same time I find my way out from behind the looking glass, I
expect. We're all in cloud cuckooland now. Dorothy. The wizard is dead and the black witch
rules.
"Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a
virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and
Johnson"
Republicans BAD ..Democrats GOOD.
"When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic
policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years"
The 'traditional' economic policy of 'capitalism' (are economists allowed to utter that
word in public, or is 'traditional' a better oxymoron?) was rampant before 1981 and was
going about its destructive business. This article paints a picture of the pre-1981 world
being the 'glory days'.
"The official actuaries of the Social Security system say in order to get our Social
Security and retirement funds in balance, they'd have to cut benefits by 25 percent
indefinitely into the future," he says. "Do I think it's going to happen? Well I don't know,
but this is one of the reasons why inflation is the major problem out there. So long as you
don't do it, you're going to cause the debt overall -- the total government debt -- to rise
indefinitely, and that is an unstable situation."
He adds: "In the book discussing what the long-term outlook is all about, we say that the
issue of the aging of the population and its consequences on entitlements is having a
significant negative deterioration over the long run. The reason for that is what the data
unequivocally show is that entitlements -- which are mandated by law -- are gradually and
inexorably driving our gross domestic savings, and the economy, dollar for dollar. And so
long as that happens, we have to borrow from abroad, which is our current account
deficit."
He also said:
"When you deal with fear, it is very difficult to classify," he tells Here &
Now 's Jeremy Hobson. "But you can look at the consequences of it, and the consequence
is basically a suppressed level of innovation and therefore of capital investment and a
disinclination to take risks."
I agree with this, but not just as it relates to " a suppressed level of innovation " but
instead as it relates to the 2005 World Bank report on what produces wealth in a developed
economy like ours. It comes down to trust. Trust in your judicial system and trust in your
education system. I discuss this in the following 3 posts: 2007, 2009, 2011
This election at it's core is about trust. Destroy that, and we have no democracy, we have
no economy. It's that simple. That McConnell et al has decided he will not abide by the rules
agreed to in conducting the business of the Senate means we have no currently functioning
democracy. That is how fragile democracy in the US is. Our democracy comes down to two people,
the leaders of each party in the Senate agreeing to the rules. When one decides not to, there
is nothing that can be done other than vote.
You can hear the full interview here:
Sandi , November 5, 2018 10:48 am
Trust – I could't agree more. Thanks for shining this light.
Paul Krugman has been pounding the drum for years about the GOP's repeated con game of
creating deficits when they are in power, then running through the room with their hair on
fire on how deficits are going to be our downfall and so we MUST, MUST, MUST cut
entitlements. And yet we never seem to catch on.
It seems to me we should make all income, not just wages, subject to FICA. Of course we
could never touch what gets shipped off-shore anyway, so we'd just have to let that slide,
I suppose ..still, as long only the 'wage slaves' are taxed, things will only get
worse.
Karl Kolchak , November 5, 2018 12:16 pm
You still have trust? I gave that up after the Iraq War, the bailouts the Obama Betrayal
and Citizens United. Now I just assume the worst, no matter who is in power, and rarely am
I disappointed.
"... By James Heckman, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University of Chicago; Founding Director, Center for the Economics of Human Development and Sidharth Moktan, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for the Economics of Human Development, University of Chicago. Originally published at VoxEU ..."
"... Anecdotal evidence suggests that the 'Top Five' economics journals have a strong influence on tenure and promotion decisions, but actual evidence on their influence is sparse. This column uses data on employment and publication histories for tenure-track faculty hired by the top US economics departments between 1996 and 2010 to show that the impact of the Top Five on tenure decisions dwarfs that of non-Top Five journals. A survey of US economics department faculties confirms the Top Five's outsized influence. ..."
"... American Economic Review ..."
"... Journal of Political Economy ..."
"... Quarterly Journal of Economics ..."
"... Review of Economic Studies ..."
"... We find that the Top Five has a large impact on tenure decisions within the top 35 US departments of economics, dwarfing the impact of publications in non-Top Five journals. A survey of current tenure-track faculty hired by the top 50 US economics departments confirms the Top Five's outsize influence. ..."
Yves
here. In case you hadn't noticed it, the economics discipline has doctrinal norms. Academics
who stray too far from it find themselves welcome only at the small number of colleges and
universities, such as the University of Missouri – Kansas City and the University of
Massachusetts – Amherst, that embrace heterodox views.
The top five economics journals play a large role in enforcing the orthodoxy. Jamie
Galbraith has described how he'd submit suitably mathed-up papers to one of the heavyweights,
get an initial positive response, but when they understood where he was going, they'd alway
reject the paper. The reviewers would claim that the mathematics were flawed, when that was not
the case. But being published by the top five is essential to advancing in prestigious
economics faculties, such as Harvard, Chicago, Princeton, and MIT.
It should be noted that no real science has a rigid hierarchy of journals like this. The
article documents disfunction among the editors at these journals, such as incest and
clientelism.
By James Heckman, Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, University
of Chicago; Founding Director, Center for the Economics of Human Development and Sidharth
Moktan, Predoctoral Fellow, Center for the Economics of Human Development, University of
Chicago. Originally published at VoxEU
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the 'Top Five' economics journals have a strong
influence on tenure and promotion decisions, but actual evidence on their influence is sparse.
This column uses data on employment and publication histories for tenure-track faculty hired by
the top US economics departments between 1996 and 2010 to show that the impact of the Top Five
on tenure decisions dwarfs that of non-Top Five journals. A survey of US economics department
faculties confirms the Top Five's outsized influence.
Anyone who talks with young economists entering academia about their career prospects and
those of their peers cannot fail to note the importance they place on publication in the
so-called Top Five journals in economics: the American Economic Review ,
Econometrica ,the Journal of Political Economy ,the Quarterly Journal of
Economics , and the Review of Economic Studies .The discipline's preoccupation
with the Top Five is reflected in the large number of scholarly papers that study aspects of
the these journals, many of which acknowledge the Top Five's de facto role as arbiter in tenure
and promotion decisions (e.g. Ellison 2002, Frey 2009, Card and DellaVigna 2013, Anauti et al.
2015, Hamermesh 2013, 2018, Colussi 2018).
While anecdotal evidence suggests that the Top Five has a strong influence on tenure and
promotion decisions, actual evidence on such influence is sparse. Our paper (Heckman and Moktan
2018) fills this gap in the literature. We find that the Top Five has a large impact on
tenure decisions within the top 35 US departments of economics, dwarfing the impact of
publications in non-Top Five journals. A survey of current tenure-track faculty hired by the
top 50 US economics departments confirms the Top Five's outsize influence.
Our empirical and survey-based findings of the Top Five's influence beg the question: is the
Top Five an adequate filter of quality? Extending the analysis of Hamermesh (2018), we show
that appearance of an article in the Top Five is a poor predictor of quality as measured by
citations. Substantial variation in the citations accrued by papers published in the Top Five
and overlap in article quality across journals outside the Top Five make aggregate measures of
journal quality such as the Top Five label and Impact Factors poor measures of individual
article quality. This is a view expressed by many economists and non-economists alike.
1
There are many consequences of the discipline's reliance on the Top Five. It subverts the
essential process of assessing and rewarding original research. Using the Top Five to screen
the next generation of economists incentivises professional incest and creates clientele
effects whereby career-oriented authors appeal to the tastes of editors and biases of journals.
It diverts their attention away from basic research toward strategising about formats, lines of
research, and favoured topics of journal editors, many with long tenures. It raises the entry
costs for new ideas and persons outside the orbits of the journals and their editors. An
over-emphasis on Top Five publications perversely incentivises scholars to pursue follow-up and
replication work at the expense of creative pioneering research, since follow-up work is easier
to judge, is more likely to result in clean publishable results, and is hence more likely to be
published. 2 This behaviour is consistent with basic common sense: you get what you
incentivise.
In light of the many adverse and potentially severe consequences associated with current
practices, we believe that it is unwise for the discipline to continue using publication in the
Top Five as a measure of research achievement and as a predictor of future scholarly potential.
The call to abandon the use of measures of journal influence in career advancement decisions
has already gained momentum in the sciences. As of the time of the writing of this column, 667
organisations and 13,019 individuals have signed the San Francisco Declaration of Research
Assessment, a declaration denouncing the use of journal metrics in hiring, career advancement,
and funding decisions within the sciences. 3 Economists should take heed of these
actions. We provide suggestions for change in the concluding portion of this column.
Documenting the Power of the Top Five
We find strong evidence of the influence of the Top Five. Without doubt, publication in the
Top Five is a powerful determinant of tenure and promotion in academic economics. We analyse
longitudinal data on employment and publication histories for tenure-track faculty hired by the
top 35 US economics department between 1996 and 2010. We find that Top Five publications
greatly increase the probability of receiving tenure during the first spell of tenure-track
employment (see Figure 1). This is true if we limit samples to the first seven years of
employment. Estimates from duration analyses of time to tenure show that publishingthree Top
Five articles is associated with a 370% increase in the rate of receiving tenure, compared to
candidates with similar levels of publication in non-Top Five journals. The estimated effects
of publication in non-Top Five journals pale in comparison.
Figure 1 Predicted probabilities for receipt of tenure in the first spell of tenure-track
employment
Notes : The figures plot the predicted probabilities associated with
different levels of publications by authors in different journal categories, where the
predictions are obtained from a logit model. White diamonds on the bars indicate that the
prediction is significantly different than zero at the 5% level.
A survey of current assistant and associate professors hired by the top 50 US economics
departments corroborates these findings. On average, junior faculty rank Top Five publications
as being the single most influential determinant of tenure and promotion outcomes (see Figure
2). 4
Figure 2 Ranking of performance areas based on their perceived influence on tenure and
promotion decisions
Notes : The figure summarises respondents' rankings of either performance
areas. Responses are summarised by type of career advancement: tenure receipt, promotion to
assistant professor, and promotion to associate professor. The bars present mean responses for
each performance area. Respondents were given the option to not rank any or all of the eight
performance areas. As a result, the number of respondents varies across the performance
areas.
Responses to our survey reveal a widespread belief among junior faculty that the effect of
the Top Five on career advancement operates independently of differences in article quality. To
separate quality effects from a Top Five placement effect, we ask respondents to report the
probability that their department awards tenure or promotion to an individual with Top Five
publications compared to an individual identical to the first individual in every way except
that he/she has published the same number and quality of articles in non-Top Five journals. If
the Top Five influence operates solely through differences in article impact and quality, the
expected reported probability would be 0.5. The results in Figure 3 show large and
statistically significant deviations from 0.5 in favour of Top Five publication. On average,
respondents from top 10 departments believe that the Top Five candidate would receive tenure
with a probability of 0.89. The mean probability increases slightly for lower-ranked
departments.
Figure 3 Probability that a candidate with Top Five publications receives tenure or
promotion instead of an identical candidate with non-Top Five publications, ceteris paribus
Notes : The figure summarises respondents' perceptions about the probability
that a candidate with Top Five publications is granted tenure or promotion by the respondent's
department instead of a candidate with non-Top Five publications, ceteris paribus. Responses
are summarised by type of career advancement: tenure receipt, promotion to assistant professor,
and promotion to associate professor. The bars present mean responses for each performance
area. White diamonds indicate that the mean response is significantly different than 50% at the
10% level.
The Top Five as a Filter of Quality
The current practice of relying on the Top Five has weak empirical support if judged by its
ability to produce impactful papers as measured by citation counts. Extending the citation
analysis of Hamermesh (2018), we find considerable heterogeneity in citations within journals
and overlap in citations across Top Five and non-Top Five journals (see Figure 4). Moreover,
the overlap increases considerably when one compares non-Top Five journals to the less-cited
Top Five journals. For instance, while the median Review of Economics and Statistics
article ranks in the 38thpercentile of the overall Top Five citation distribution, the same
article outranks the median-cited article in the combined Journal of Political Economy
and Review of Economic Studies distributions.
Figure 4 Distribution of residualalog citations for articles published between 2000 and 2010
(as at July 2018)
Source : Scopus.com (accessed July 2018) Note : a The table plots distributions of residual log citations obtained from a model
that estimates log(citations+1) as a function of third-degree polynomial for years elapsed
between the date of publication and 2018, the year citations were measured. This
residualisation adjusts log citations for exposure effects, thereby allowing for comparison of
citations received by papers from different publication cohorts. Definition of journal abbreviations : QJE–Quarterly Journal Of Economics,
JPE–Journal Of Political Economy, ECMA–Econometrica, AER–American Economic
Review, ReStud–Review Of Economic Studies, JEL–Journal Of Economic Literature,
JEP–Journal Of Economic Perspectives, ReStat–Review Of Economics And Statistics,
JEG–Journal Of Economic Growth, JOLE–Journal Of Labor Economics, JHR–Journal
Of Human Resources, EJ–Economic Journal, JHE–Journal Of Health Economics,
ICC–Industrial And Corporate Change, WBER–World Bank Economic Review,
RAND–Rand Journal Of Economics, JDE–Journal Of Development Economics,
JPub–Journal Of Public Economics, JOE–Journal Of Econometrics, HE–Health
Economics, ILR–Industrial And Labor Relations Review, JEEA–Journal Of The European
Economic Association, JME–Journal Of Monetary Economics, JRU–Journal Of Risk And
Uncertainty, JInE–Journal Of Industrial Economics, JOF–Journal Of Finance,
JFE–Journal Of Financial Economics, ReFin–Review Of Financial Studies,
JFQA–Journal Of Financial And Quantitative Analysis, and MathFin–Mathematical
Finance.
Restricting the citation analysis to the top of the citation distribution produces the same
conclusion. Among the top 1% most-cited articles in our citations database, 5 13.6%
were published by three non-Top Five journals. 6
Low Editorial Turnover and Incest
Figure 5 Density plot of the number of years served by editors between 1996 and 2016
Source : Brogaard et al. (2014) for data up to 2011. Data for subsequent
years collected from journal front pages.
Compounding the privately rational incentive to curry favour with editors is the phenomenon
of longevity of editorial terms, especially at house journals (see Figure 5). Low turnover in
editorial boards creates the possibility of clientele effects surrounding both journals and
their editors. We corroborate the literature that documents the inbred nature of economics
publishing (Laband and Piette 1994, Brogaard et al. 2014, Colussi 2018) by estimating incest
coefficients that quantify the degree of inbreeding in Top Five publications. We show that
network effects are empirically important – editors are likely to select the papers of
those they know. 7
Table 1 Incest coefficients: Publications in Top Five between 2000 and 2016, by author
affiliation listed during publication
Source : Elsevier, Scopus.com.
Notes : The table reports three columns for each Top Five journal. The left
most columns report the number of articles that were affiliated to each university. The middle
columns present the percentage of articles published in the journal that were affiliated to the
university out of all articles affiliated to the list top universities. The right most columns
present the percentage of articles published in the journal that were affiliated to the
university out of all articles published in the journal. An author is defined as being
affiliated with a university during a given year if he/she listed the university as an
affiliation in any publication that was made during that specific year. An article is defined
as being affiliated with a university during a specific year if at least one author was
affiliated to the university during the year.
Discussion
Reliance on the Top Five as a screening device raises serious concerns. Our findings should
spark a serious conversation in the economics profession about developing implementable
alternatives for judging the quality of research. Such solutions necessarily de-emphasise the
role of the Top Five in tenure and promotion decisions, and redistribute the signalling
function more broadly across a range of high-quality journals.
However, a proper solution to the tyranny will likely involve more than a simple
redefinition of the Top Five to include a handful of additional influential journals. A better
solution will need to address the flaw that is inherent in the practice of judging a scholar's
potential for innovative work based on a track record of publications in a handful of select
journals. The appropriate solution requires a significant shift from the current
publications-based system of deciding tenure to a system that emphasises departmental peer
review of a candidate's work. Such a system would give serious consideration to unpublished
working papers and to the quality and integrity of a scholar's work. By closely reading
published and unpublished papers rather than counting placements of publications, departments
would signal that they both acknowledge and adequately account for the greater risk associated
with scholars working at the frontiers of the discipline.
A more radical proposal would be to shift publication away from the current journal system
with its long delays in refereeing and publication and possibility for incest and favoritism,
towards an open source arXiv or PLOS ONE format. 8 Such formats facilitate the
dissemination rate of new ideas and provide online real-time peer review for them. Discussion
sessions would vet criticisms and provide both authors and their readers with different
perspectives within much faster time frames. Shorter, more focused papers would stimulate
dialogue and break editorial and journal monopolies. Ellison (2011 )notes that online
publication is already being practiced by prominent scholars. Why not broaden the practice
across the profession and encourage spirited dialogue and rapid dissemination of new ideas?
This evolution has begun with a recently launched economics version of arXiv .
Under any event, the profession should reduce incentives for crass careerism and promote
creative activity. Short tenure clocks and reliance on the Top Five to certify quality do just
the opposite. In the long run, the profession will benefit from application of more
creativity-sensitive screening of its next generation.
The actions that are taken are a three-pronged attack in order to foster in global
governance, and they are as such:
Create ubiquitous electronic surveillance with unlimited police power
Throw the entire earth into an economic tailspin
Destroy all nationalism, national borders, and create chaos among all nations prior to an
"incendiary event" or series of actions that leads to a world war.
The world war is the most important part of it all, in the eyes of the globalists. The Great
Depression culminated in a world war, and periods of economic upheaval are always followed by
wars.
... ... ...
Every word here is recorded by XKeyscore mine and yours and stored in the NSA database in
Utah, under a file for "dissenters," "agitators," and every other descriptive label that can be
thought of for those who champion critical thought and independent thinking. Every
conservative-minded journalist or writer who dares to espouse these views and theories is being
recorded and kept under some kind of watch. You can be certain of it . Many are either shutting
down or "knuckling under" and complying.
The globalists are getting what they wish: consolidating the resources while they "tank" the
fiat economies and currencies of the nations. They are destroying cultures who just a mere two
centuries ago would have armed their entire male populaces with swords and sent invaders either
packing or in pieces.
They are destroying cultures by making them question themselves ! The greatest tactic
imaginable!
I submit this last for your perusal. Do you know who you are? The question is not just as
simple as it seems. Let's delve deeply. Do you really know who you are, where your family
originates? Your heritage, and its strengths and weaknesses? Is that heritage yours, along with
your heritage as an American citizen? It is not important that I, or others should know of
these strengths not at this moment in time. The world war is yet to come. As Shakespeare said,
"To thine own self be true." This is important for you to know it and hold fast to it. We are
in the decline of the American nation-now-empire.
When the dust settles, you'll know who will run with the ball even with three blockers
against them and will manage to slip the tackles or forearm shiver them in the face, outside of
the ref's eye, to run that ball in. The Marquis of Queensbury is dead, and those rules will go
out the window. When the dust settles, those who had the foresight and acted on it will be the
ones who will be given a gift: a chance to participate in what is to come. Stay in that good
fight, and fight it to win each day.
22 minutes ago remove Share link Copy There's still way too much fake liquidity in the system.
Until C/B's pull back their exposure, or rates become so unattractive that lending against
yourself [like APPL issuing debt to buy back stock] **** will continue as usual.
play_arrowplay_arrow Reply reply Report
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Apple was under severe pressure to pay dividends as apple was buying back stock instead to
increase earnings.
Apple has bigger issues...a slowing consumer base that have grown up with adult
problems...paying for diapers, mortgages and car payments. All of a sudden that old phone
with some nicks and scratches seems just fine instead of shelling out $1100, for a phone
call, $10 per month for an insurance plan and $95 for a case and extra charger.
1200 dollars to make a phone call. ATT of 1980 was cheap by todays standards
Historians of the now seventeen-year old U.S. war in Afghanistan will take note of this past week
when the newly-appointed American general in charge of US and NATO operations in the country made a
bombshell, historic admission.
He conceded that
the United States cannot win in
Afghanistan
.
Speaking to NBC News last week, Gen. Austin Scott Miller made his
first public statements after taking charge of American operations, and shocked with his frank
assessment that that
the Afghan war cannot be won militarily and peace will only be
achieved through direct engagement and negotiations with the Taliban
--
the very
terror group which US forces sought to defeat when it first invaded in 2001.
"This is not going to be won militarily,"
Gen. Miller said.
"This is going to a political solution."
Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the U.S. commander of resolute support, via EPA/NBC
My assessment is the Taliban also realizes they cannot win militarily.
So if you
realize you can't win militarily at some point, fighting is just, people start asking why.
So you do not necessarily wait us out, but I think now is the time to start working through the
political piece of this conflict.
He gave the interview from the Resolute Support headquarters building in Kabul. "We are more in
an offensive mindset and don't wait for the Taliban to come and hit [us]," he said. "So that was an
adjustment that we made early on. We needed to because of the amount of casualties that were being
absorbed."
Starting
last summer it was revealed
that
US State Department officials began meeting with
Taliban leaders in Qatar to discuss local and regional ceasefires and an end to the war
. It
was reported at the time that the request of the Taliban, the US-backed Afghan government was not
invited; however, there doesn't appear to have been any significant fruit out of the talks as
the Taliban now controls more territory than ever before in recent years
.
Such controversial and shaky negotiations come as in total the United States has spent well
over $840 billion fighting the Taliban insurgency
while also paying for relief and
reconstruction in a seventeen-year long war that
has become more expensive, in current
dollars, than the Marshall Plan
, which was the reconstruction effort to rebuild Europe
after World War II.
Even the
New
York Times
recently chronicled the
flat out deception of official Pentagon
statements vs. the reality
in terms of the massive spending that has gone into the
now-approaching two decade long "endless war" which began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
Via NYT report
As of September of this year the situation was as bleak as it's ever been after over a
decade-and-a-half of America's longest running war, per
the NYT's numbers
:
But since 2017, the Taliban have held more Afghan territory than at any time since
the American invasion
. In just one week last month, the insurgents killed 200 Afghan
police officers and soldiers, overrunning two major Afghan bases and the city of Ghazni.
The American military
says
the
Afghan government effectively "controls or influences" 56 percent of the country. But that
assessment relies on
statistical sleight of hand
. In many districts,
the
Afghan government controls only the district headquarters and military barracks, while the
Taliban control the rest
.
For this reason Gen. Miller spoke to NBC of
an optimal "political outcome" instead of
"winning"
--
the latter being a term rarely if ever used by Pentagon and officials
and congressional leaders over the past years.
Miller
told NBC
: "I naturally feel compelled to try to set the conditions for a political outcome. So,
pressure from that standpoint, yes. I don't want everyone to think this is forever."
And ending on a bleak note in terms of the "save face" and "cut and run" nature of the U.S.
future engagement in Afghanistan, Gen. Miller concluded,
"This is my last assignment as
a soldier in Afghanistan. I don't think they'll send me back here in another grade. When I leave
this time I'd like to see peace and some level of unity as we go forward."
Interestingly, the top US and NATO commander can now only speak in remotely hopeful terms of
"some level of unity"
--
perhaps just enough to make a swift exit at least.
Tags
War Conflict
Politics
There not going to come out as say, where here because we want
BOMB IRAN a few years down the track and maintain US Military
deployment for Israel's long-term interests. Israel are suspected
of committing 9/11 attacks, if you think about it long term policy
of expansion, getting ride of its surrounding threats it's all
makes sense. scraficing 3000 americans for Israel's longterm
policy's seems to be the pill they were willing to swallow.
US is trying to shift the blame on Russia, as the Talibans went
to Moscow for peace talks.
And with Pakistan aligning with Russia/China and Iran (
Pakistan being the main supply route for the US army in
Afghanistan), the US army is practically f*cked.
Good to know that Trump is not prepared to continue to protect
Deep State opium production at the taxpayers' expense. I hope he's
planning to withdraw US armed forces from all foreign soil.
Based on what? What did he stop? Which wars did he pull out out
of?
Military was a huge contributor to his votes. He's not
going to lift a finger. He would have started by pardoning
Snowden, or closing Gitmo - something Obama lied about when
making campaign promises. Where, here is your chance, Donald.
Do at least one single thing that shows you as anything other
that a MIC puppet. Just one thing! Anything!
Bombing Syria? Yep. Blind eye to Saudi crimes in Yemen? Yep.
Dancing to Zionist demands? Yep.
Trade wars? Oh sure, those things never lead to military
conflict either!
The only reason we were in Afghanistan in the first place was to
protect the heroin trade from acquisition by the Taliban. It's
time to pull out and let the British protect their poppy fields if
they want em that badly.
Notice that Rivera says the Marines just had a visit from
Prince Charles. If you want to know more about why we have
so much heroin in America now and who benefits.. read Dope
Inc.
"... The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed. ..."
"... the Republicans are being forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.) ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court, where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift, new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual depravity in higher education. ..."
"... I hope that the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. ..."
Back in the last century, when this was a different country, the Democrats were the "smart"
party and the Republicans were the "stupid" party.
How did that work?
Well, back then the Democrats represented a broad middle class, with a base of factory
workers, many of them unionized, and the party had to be smart, especially in the courts, to
overcome the natural advantages of the owner class.
In contrast, the Republicans looked like a claque of country club drunks who staggered
home at night to sleep on their moneybags. Bad optics, as we say nowadays.
The Democrats also occupied the moral high ground as the champion of the little guy. If not
for the Dems, factory workers would be laboring twelve hours a day and children would still be
maimed in the machinery. Once the relationship between business and labor was settled in the
1950s, the party moved on to a new crusade on even loftier moral high ground: civil rights,
aiming to correct arrant and long-lived injustices against downtrodden black Americans. That
was a natural move, considering America's self-proclaimed post-war status as the world's Beacon
of Liberty. It had to be done and a political consensus that included Republicans got it done.
Consensus was still possible.
The Dems built their fortress on that high ground and fifty years later they find themselves
prisoners in it. The factory jobs all vamoosed overseas. The middle class has been pounded into
penury and addiction.
The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons
seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the
permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual
minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group
that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of
them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed.
The Republican Party has, at least, sobered up some after getting blindsided by Trump and
Trumpism. Like a drunk out of rehab, it's attempting to get a life. Two years in, the party
marvels at Mr. Trump's audacity, despite his obvious lack of savoir faire. And despite a
longstanding lack of political will to face the country's problems,the Republicans are being
forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration
policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of
medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on
thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.)
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting
with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an
unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even
more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no
Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling
them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court,
where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift,
new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual
depravity in higher education.
I hope that Democrats lose as many congressional and senate seats as possible.I hope that
the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding
dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. If
there is anything to salvage in this organization, I hope it discovers aims and principles that
are unrecognizable from its current agenda of perpetual hysteria. But if the party actually
blows up and disappears, as the Whigs did a hundred and fifty years ago, I will be content. Out
of the terrible turbulence, maybe something better will be born.
Or, there's the possibility that the dregs of a defeated Democratic Party will just go
batshit crazy and use the last of its mojo to incite actual sedition. Of course, there's also a
distinct possibility that the Dems will take over congress, in which case they'll ramp up an
even more horrific three-ring-circus of political hysteria and persecution that will make the
Spanish Inquisition look like a backyard barbeque. That will happen as the US enters the most
punishing financial train wreck in our history, an interesting recipe for epic political
upheaval.
+ 45
DR
Members
+ 45
28 posts
Posted
Wednesday
at 03:48 AM
On 10/18/2018 at 11:38 PM,
Jan van Eck
said:
The problem that Qatar faces is one of population and geography. Qatar is dominantly Sunni, but
not the really severe branch that envelops KSA. And it sits next door to Bahrain, which is
apparently about 70% Shia. Qatar also juts way out into the Gulf, and is thus a convenient
sea-land bridge from Iran. Were Iran to go for a land invasion of KSA, then crossing into Qatar
with landing craft, or seizing a Qatari airport, is logical. To prevent this, the USA has built
a major air base in Qatar, specifically to cut off this route. That big US base is a natural
(and juicy) target for Iran should a shooting war break out, and the USA join in against Iran
(and that would be logical).
Meanwhile Qatar has this bizarre and unfathomable dysfunctional relationship with MbS, and a
very difficult relationship with Bahrain, which has cut off diplomatic relations and sent the
Qatari diplomats packing, in 2017. Now Iran is under sanctions, which is stressing their cash
receipts. Iran pushes back, against their ideological and religious rivals and enemies the
Sunnis, by threatening to either invade or to sink tankers with gas coming out of Qatar. The
problem for gas LNG tankers is that the stuff is kept docile by bringing the temp down to minus
176 degrees. If you whack an LNG tanker with a torpedo and breach the container spheres, easy
enough to do, then that ship is likely to blow up; one little spark and all that gas will be a
salient lesson for all the others.
The deterrent effect of this will be that nobody will dare to tempt fate by sending in an LNG
tanker. So Iran can shut down LNG traffic without firing a shot, all they have to do is go
crazy and start threatening. Iran has these subs that can go sit on the bottom of the Gulf and
pop up to launch a torpedo, and everyone knows it. That is one heck of a deterrent.
Meanwhile you have Europe now heavily dependent on gas. Either the Europeans continue to
genuflect to the Russians, which some Europeans at least find unpalatable, or they have to find
an alternative source. That is likely going to be the USA. I predict that the aggressions of
the Russians, and the problems of Qatar in any real ability to fill long-term contracts, and the
threat of
force-majeure
hovering in the background, brings Europe to buy US LNG.
Qatar delivered 80 million tons last year, as number 1 LNG exporter by a long shot. Australia
trailed behind at 56 million, followed by Malaysia 26M, Nigeria 21M, Indonesia 16M, USA 13M, Algeria
12M.
Qatar was responsible for 17M tons exported to EU, followed by Algeria at 10.4M. US Liquefaction
capacity is estimated to match the whole Middle East by 2025 with Calcasieu, LA at 4 bcf/day,
Brownsville, TX at 3.6 bcf/day; Plaquemines at 3.4 bcf/day; and Nikiski Alaska at 2.6 Bcf/day for the
Asian market.
BP has its new 'Partnership Fleet', Shell is chartering heavily and owns a large fleet as well.
Gaslog has over 25 modern large capacity vessels on the water, and the order book for 2019-2020
deliveries is extensive, and they will be available for US to EU transport (Tellurian and Cheniere
have already chartered Gaslog ships for their exclusive use)
The catch here is that Russia is delivering 10.8 million tons per year via Yamal, and their
upcoming Arctic 2LNG that will be on the ice in the Arctic circle adding even more to that production.
They have a fleet delivering year round of Teekay and Dynagas ice breaker LNG carriers, and their
primary clients have been Belgium, France and Spain during their debut ice breaking season. They are
centrally located to maximize deliveries to Asia and Europe.
I doubt that Russia will cut off Europe after spending all that money to secure liquefaction and
transport capabilities in the Arctic, but who knows. They are geared up to deliver to Asia, but could
only do so in the Summer months, or during the Winter months with the assistance of a Nuclear
Icebreaker to lead the ships.
Honestly, I hope that Germany completes the Hamburg LNG Terminal quickly and begins buying US LNG
so that we can diversify from our usual Mexico, S Korea, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Egypt, Jordan
clientele. Germany consumed over 90 million CBM of natural gas last year (controversial because they
stopped 'officially' disclosing the numbers after 2016, these are OECD estimates from the IEA), and
are getting close to Japan's 120 million CBM.
Qatar/Iran tensions could be the perfect storm for a US to EU energy boom.
Absent independents, Republicans are running away with it. And independents are most assuredly witnessing the insanity that has gripped the
Democratic Party, and will vote for Republicans at least 9:1.
Well, hang in there, sport. Yes, the US does seem to be going down the tubes, in that it's
lost all respect in the world; we still fear it, but don't respect it. Sic transit
gloria , or something like that...
"... Upon investigation, the Judiciary Committee investigators found that Munro-Leighton was a left wing activist who is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh , who lives in Kentucky. When Committee investigators contacted her, she backpedaled on her claim of being the original Jane Doe - and said she emailed the committee "as a way to grab attention." ..."
"... Grassley has also asked the DOJ to investigate Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick, who claimed through her attorney, Michael Avenatti, that Kavanaguh orchestrated a date-rape gang-bang scheme in the early 1980s. ..."
"... She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she "just wanted to get attention"; (2) "it was a tactic"; and (3) "that was just a ploy." She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford's allegations surfaced – to oppose his nomination. Regarding the false sexual-assault allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: "I was angry, and I sent it out." When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: "Oh Lord, no." ..."
A Kentucky woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of rape has been referred
to the Department of Justice after she admitted that she lied .
The woman, Judy Munro-Leighton, took credit for contacting the office of Sen. Kamala Harris
(D-CA) as "Jane Doe" from Oceanside, California. Jane Doe claimed - without naming a time or
place - that Kavanaugh and a friend raped her "several times each" in the backseat of a car.
Harris referred the letter to the committee for investigation.
"They forced me to go into the backseat and took 2 turns raping me several times each. They
dropped me off 3 two blocks from my home," wrote Munro-Leighton, claiming that the pair told
her "No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl."
Kavanaugh was questioned on September 26 about the allegation, to which he unequivocally
stated: "[T]he whole thing is ridiculous. Nothing ever -- anything like that, nothing... [T]he
whole thing is just a crock, farce, wrong, didn't happen, not anything close ."
The next week, Munro-Leighton sent an email to the Judiciary committee claiming to be Jane
Doe from Oceanside, California - reiterating her claims of a "vicious assault" which she said
she knew "will get no media attention."
Upon investigation, the Judiciary Committee investigators found that Munro-Leighton was a
left wing activist who is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh , who lives in Kentucky. When
Committee investigators contacted her, she backpedaled on her claim of being the original Jane
Doe - and said she emailed the committee "as a way to grab attention."
"I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe's letter. I read the transcript of the call
to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news." claimed Munro-Leighton.
Grassley has also asked the DOJ to investigate Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick, who claimed
through her attorney, Michael Avenatti, that Kavanaguh orchestrated a date-rape gang-bang
scheme in the early 1980s.
President Trump chimed in Saturday morning, Tweeting: "A vicious accuser of Justice
Kavanaugh has just admitted that she was lying, her story was totally made up, or FAKE! Can you
imagine if he didn't become a Justice of the Supreme Court because of her disgusting False
Statements. What about the others? Where are the Dems on this?"
... ... ...
In a Friday letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray,
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote:
on November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone
and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made
to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted,
contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and
was not the author of the original "Jane Doe" letter .
When directly asked by Committee
investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the "Jane Doe" from Oceanside California who
had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: "No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab
attention. I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe's letter. I read the transcript of
the call to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news."
She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she "just wanted to get
attention"; (2) "it was a tactic"; and (3) "that was just a ploy." She told Committee
investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing
process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford's allegations surfaced – to oppose
his nomination. Regarding the false sexual-assault allegation she made via her email to the
Committee, she said: "I was angry, and I sent it out." When asked by Committee investigators
whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: "Oh Lord, no."
"An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to
it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature
of the European and American financial systems." -- The New York Times Book
Review
"Whereas since the 1970s the incessant mantra of the spokespeople of the financial industry
had been free markets and light touch regulation, what they were now demanding was the
mobilization of all of the resources of the state to save society's financial infrastructure
from a threat of systemic implosion, a threat they likened to a military emergency." (Loc.
3172-3174)
Adam Tooze takes the well know Financial Crisis of 2007-08 through its full history of
international ramifications and brings it up to the present with the question of whether the
large organizations, structures and processes on the one hand; decision, debate, argument and
action on the other that managed to fall into place in that crisis period in this and many
other countries will develop if needed again. "The political in "political economy" demands
to be taken seriously." (Loc. 11694). That he does.
Tooze is an Economic Historian and Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the
World is a wonderfully rich enquiry into causes and effects of the Financial Crisis and how
the failing of poorly managed greed motivated practices of a few financial institutions, and
their subprime mortgagees, tumbled economies in the developed and developing world, causing
events that matched the Great Depression's dislocation and could have matched its duration,
springing from world wide money markets "interlocking matrix" of corporate balance sheets --
bank to bank."
A warning he is not kind to existing political beings, the Republican Party in particular
" to judge by the record of the last ten years, it is incapable of legislating or cooperating
effectively in government." (Loc.11704)
His criticism is, in fairness, based on technical management grounds, and he does find fault
as well with the inner core of the Obama advisors and their primary concerns for the
financial sectors well being, rather than nationwide happenings where homes and incomes
disappeared.
This reviewer's favorite (not mentioned by Tooze) is the early 2009 comment of Larry
Sumners when Christina D. Romer, the chairwoman of President Obama's Council of Economic
Advisers and leading authority on the Great Depression saw a need for $1.8 trillion stimulus
package, "What have you been smoking?"
Sumners, Geithner, and Orszag, who favored transferring $700 billion to the banks to offset
possible bank failures and such -- became policy. Tooze mentions that by 2012 Sumners was
concerned by the slowness of the U.S. economy's recovery taking, as it did, 8 years to reach
2008 levels of employment.
Can an Economic History be an exciting read? Tooze gives us over 700 pages of just that,
but much will be familiar as reported news and may be skimmed, and some of the Fed's expanded
international roles very dense in content. His strength is the knowledge of what could have
happened, had solutions not been found, and how agreements were reached out of public
sight.
" the world economy is not run by medium-sized entrepreneurs but by a few thousand massive
corporations, with interlocking shareholdings controlled by a tiny group of asset managers.
(Loc.418-419).
Add wily politicians and hard driven bankers EU Ukraine and China you have an adventure.
Corporate control is not new -- rich descriptions of its inner connections are.
Adam Tooze does this well a reference work for years to come.
5 stars
Columbia history professor Adam Tooze, an authority on the inter-war years, has offered up an
authoritative history of the financial crises and their aftermath that have beset the world
since 2008. He integrates economics, the plumbing of the interbank financial system and the
politics of the major players in how and why the financial crisis of 2008 developed and the
course of the very uneven recovery that followed. I must note that Tooze has some very clear
biases in that he views the history through a social democratic prism and is very critical of
the congressional Republican caucus and the go slow policies of the European Central Bank
under Trichet. To him the banks got bailed out while millions of people suffered as
collateral damage from a crisis that was largely made by the financial system. His view may
very well be correct, but many readers might differ. Simply put, to save the economy policy
makers had to stop the bleeding.
He starts off with the hot topic of 2005; the need for fiscal consolidation in the United
States. Aside from a few dissidents, most economists saw the need for the U.S. to close its
fiscal deficit and did not see the structural crisis that was developing underneath them.
Although he does mention Hyman Minsky a few times in the book, he leaves out Minsky's most
important insight that "stability leads to instability" as market participants are lulled
into a false sense of security. It therefore was against the backdrop of the "great
moderation" that the crisis began. And it was the seemingly calm environment that lulled all
too many regulators to sleep.
The underbelly of the financial system was and still is in many respects is the wholesale
funding system where too many banks are largely funded in repo and commercial paper markets.
This mismatch was exacerbated by the use of asset-backed commercial paper to fund long term
mortgage securities. It was problems in that market that triggered the crisis in August
2007.
The crisis explodes when Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy in September 2008. In
Tooze's view the decision to let Lehman fail was political, not economic. After that the
gates of hell are opened causing the Bush Administration and the Federal Reserve to ask for
$750 billion dollar TARP bailout of the major banks. It was in the Congressional fight over
this appropriation where Tooze believes the split in the Republican Party between the
business conservative and social populist wing hardens. We are living with that through this
day. The TARP program passes with Democratic votes. Tooze also notes that there was great
continuity between the Bush and early Obama policies with respect to the banks and auto
bailout. Recall that in late 2008 and early 2009 nationalization of the banks was on the
table. Tooze also correctly notes that the major beneficiary of the TARP program was
Citicorp, the most exposed U.S. bank to the wholesale funding system.
Concurrent with TARP the Bernanke Fed embarks on its first quantitative easing program
where it buys up not only treasuries, but mortgage backed securities as well. It was with the
latter Europe's banks were bailed out. Half of the first QE went to bail out Europe's
troubled banks. When combined the dollar swap lines with QE, Europe's central banks
essentially became branches of the Fed. Now here is a problem. Where in the Federal Reserve
Act does it say that the Fed is the central bank to the world? To some it maybe a
stretch.
Tooze applauds Obama's stimulus policy but rightly says it was too small. There should
have been more infrastructure in it. To my view there could have been more infrastructure if
only Obama was willing to deal with the Republicans by offering to waive environmental
reviews and prevailing wage rules. He never tried for fear of offending his labor and
environmental constituencies. Tooze also gives great credit to China with it all out monetary
and fiscal policies. That triggered a revival in the energy and natural resource economies of
Australia and Brazil thereby helping global recovery.
He then turns to the slow responses in Europe and the political wrangling over the tragedy
that was to befall Greece. It came down to the power of Angela Merkel and her unwillingness
to have the frugal German taxpayer subsidize the profligate Greeks. As they say "all politics
is local". The logjam in Europe doesn't really break until Mario Draghi makes an off-the-cuff
remark at a London speech in July 2012 by saying the ECB will do "whatever it takes" to
engender European recovery.
As a byproduct of bailing out the banks and failing to directly help the average citizen a
rash of populism, mostly of the rightwing variety, breaks out all over leading to Brexit,
Orban in Hungary, a stronger rightwing in Germany and, of course, Donald Trump. But to me it
wasn't only banking policy that created this. The huge surge in immigration into Europe has a
lot more to do with it. Tooze under-rates this factor. He also under-rates the risk of having
a monetary policy that is too easy and too long. The same type of Minsky risk discussed
earlier is now present in the global economy: witness Turkey, for example. Thus it is too
early to tell whether or not the all-out monetary policy of the past decade will be judged a
success from the vantage point of 2030.
Adam Tooze has written an important book and I view it as must read for a serious lay
reader to get a better understanding of the economic and political policies of the past
decade.
"... The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed. ..."
"... the Republicans are being forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.) ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court, where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift, new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual depravity in higher education. ..."
"... I hope that the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. ..."
Back in the last century, when this was a different country, the Democrats were the "smart"
party and the Republicans were the "stupid" party.
How did that work?
Well, back then the Democrats represented a broad middle class, with a base of factory
workers, many of them unionized, and the party had to be smart, especially in the courts, to
overcome the natural advantages of the owner class.
In contrast, the Republicans looked like a claque of country club drunks who staggered
home at night to sleep on their moneybags. Bad optics, as we say nowadays.
The Democrats also occupied the moral high ground as the champion of the little guy. If not
for the Dems, factory workers would be laboring twelve hours a day and children would still be
maimed in the machinery. Once the relationship between business and labor was settled in the
1950s, the party moved on to a new crusade on even loftier moral high ground: civil rights,
aiming to correct arrant and long-lived injustices against downtrodden black Americans. That
was a natural move, considering America's self-proclaimed post-war status as the world's Beacon
of Liberty. It had to be done and a political consensus that included Republicans got it done.
Consensus was still possible.
The Dems built their fortress on that high ground and fifty years later they find themselves
prisoners in it. The factory jobs all vamoosed overseas. The middle class has been pounded into
penury and addiction.
The Democratic Party split into a four-headed monster comprised of Wall Street patrons
seeking favors, war hawks and their corporate allies looking for new global rumbles, the
permanent bureaucracy looking to always expand itself, and the various ethnic and sexual
minorities whose needs and grievances are serviced by that bureaucracy. It's the last group
that has become the party's most public face while the party's other activities – many of
them sinister -- remain at least partially concealed.
The Republican Party has, at least, sobered up some after getting blindsided by Trump and
Trumpism. Like a drunk out of rehab, it's attempting to get a life. Two years in, the party
marvels at Mr. Trump's audacity, despite his obvious lack of savoir faire. And despite a
longstanding lack of political will to face the country's problems,the Republicans are being
forced to engage on some real issues, such as the need for a coherent and effective immigration
policy and the need to redefine formal trade relations. (Other issues like the insane system of
medical racketeering and the deadly racket of the college loan industry just skate along on
thin ice. And then, of course, there's the national debt and all its grotesque outgrowths.)
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become the party of bad ideas and bad faith, starting
with the position that "diversity and inclusion" means shutting down free speech, an
unforgivable transgression against common sense and common decency. It's a party that lies even
more systematically than Mr. Trump, and does so knowingly (as when Google execs say they "Do no
Evil"). Its dirty secret is that it relishes coercion, it likes pushing people around, telling
them what to think and how to act. Its idea of "social justice" is a campus kangaroo court,
where due process of law is suspended. And it is deeply corrupt, with good old-fashioned grift,
new-fashioned gross political misconduct in federal law enforcement, and utter intellectual
depravity in higher education.
I hope that Democrats lose as many congressional and senate seats as possible.I hope that
the party is shoved into an existential crisis and is forced to confront its astounding
dishonesty. I hope that the process prompts them to purge their leadership across the board. If
there is anything to salvage in this organization, I hope it discovers aims and principles that
are unrecognizable from its current agenda of perpetual hysteria. But if the party actually
blows up and disappears, as the Whigs did a hundred and fifty years ago, I will be content. Out
of the terrible turbulence, maybe something better will be born.
Or, there's the possibility that the dregs of a defeated Democratic Party will just go
batshit crazy and use the last of its mojo to incite actual sedition. Of course, there's also a
distinct possibility that the Dems will take over congress, in which case they'll ramp up an
even more horrific three-ring-circus of political hysteria and persecution that will make the
Spanish Inquisition look like a backyard barbeque. That will happen as the US enters the most
punishing financial train wreck in our history, an interesting recipe for epic political
upheaval.
Fed moves to hike interest rates are leading to a liquidity evaporation -- enough so that
Morgan Stanley is defying the rest of Wall Street to call a true bear market, warning that the
sell-off we're seeing now won't be just a blip in the bull run.
Each year I choose a book to be the Globalization Book of the Year, i.e., the "Globie". The prize is strictly honorific and does
not come with a check. But I do like to single out books that are particularly insightful about some aspect of globalization. Previous
winners are listed at the bottom.
This year's choice is
Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the Worldby
Adam Tooze of Yale University . Tooze, an historian, traces the events leading up to the crisis and the subsequent ten years.
He points out in the introduction that this account is different from one he may have written several years ago. At that time Barak
Obama had won re-election in 2012 on the basis of a slow but steady recovery in the U.S. Europe was further behind, but the emerging
markets were growing rapidly, due to the demand for their commodities from a steadily-growing China as well as capital inflows searching
for higher returns than those available in the advanced economies.
But the economic recovery has brought new challenges, which have swept aside established politicians and parties. Obama was succeeded
by Donald Trump, who promised to restore America to some form of past greatness. His policy agenda includes trade disputes with a
broad range of countries, and he is particularly eager to impose trade tariffs on China. The current meltdown in stock prices follows
a rise in interest rates normal at this stage of the business cycle but also is based on fears of the consequences of the trade measures.
Europe has its own discontents. In the United Kingdom, voters have approved leaving the European Union. The European Commission
has expressed its disapproval of the Italian government's fiscal plans. Several east European governments have voiced opposition
to the governance norms of the West European nations. Angela Merkel's decision to step down as head of her party leaves Europe without
its most respected leader.
All these events are outcomes of the crisis, which Tooze emphasizes was a trans-Atlantic event. European banks had purchased held
large amounts of U.S. mortgage-backed securities that they financed with borrowed dollars. When liquidity in the markets disappeared,
the European banks faced the challenge of financing their obligations. Tooze explains how the Federal Reserve supported the European
banks using swap lines with the European Central Bank and other central banks, as well as including the domestic subsidiaries of
the foreign banks in their liquidity support operations in the U.S. As a result, Tooze claims:
"What happened in the fall of 2008 was not the relativization of the dollar, but the reverse, a dramatic reassertion of the pivotal
role of America's central bank. Far from withering away, the Fed's response gave an entirely new dimension to the global dollar"
(Tooze, p. 219)
The focused policies of U.S. policymakers stood in sharp contrast to those of their European counterparts. Ireland and Spain had
to deal with their own banking crises following the collapse of their housing bubbles, and Portugal suffered from anemic growth.
But Greece's sovereign debt posed the largest challenge, and exposed the fault line in the Eurozone between those who believed that
such crises required a national response and those who looked for a broader European resolution. As a result, Greece lurched from
one lending program to another. The IMF was treated as a junior partner by the European governments that sought to evade facing the
consequences of Greek insolvency, and the Fund's reputation suffered new blows due to its involvement with the various rescue operations.The
ECB only demonstrated a firm commitment to its stabilizing role in July 2012, when its President Mario Draghi announced that "Within
our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro."
China followed another route. The government there engaged in a surge of stimulus spending combined with expansionary monetary
policies. The result was continued growth that allowed the Chinese government to demonstrate its leadership capabilities at a time
when the U.S. was abandoning its obligations. But the ensuing credit boom was accompanied by a rise in private (mainly corporate)
lending that has left China with a total debt to GDP ratio of over 250%, a level usually followed by some form of financial collapse.
Chinese officials are well aware of the domestic challenge they face at the same time as their dispute with the U.S. intensifies.
Tooze demonstrates that the crisis has let loose a range of responses that continue to play out. He ends the book by pointing
to a similarity of recent events and those of 1914. He raises several questions: "How does a great moderation end? How do huge risks
build up that are little understood and barely controllable? How do great tectonic shifts in the global world order unload in sudden
earthquakes?" Ten years after a truly global crisis, we are still seeking answers to these questions.
"... Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism. ..."
"... Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors, Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal in the postwar world. ..."
"... "We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later, she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as "Merkel the Bold." ..."
"... The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics), she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim world might prove difficult. ..."
"... Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question. ..."
"... In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself. ..."
Drop of Light/Shutterstock Whatever her accomplishments
as pathbreaking female politician and respected leader of Europe's dominant economic power, Angela Merkel will go down in history
for her outburst of naivete over the issue of migration into Europe during the summer of 2015.
Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks
the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism.
She had seen the vote share of her long dominant party shrink in one regional election after another. The rebuke given to her
last weekend in Hesse, containing the Frankfurt region with its booming economy, where she had campaigned extensively, was the final
straw. Her CDU's vote had declined 10 points since the previous election, their voters moving toward the further right (Alternative
fur Deutschland or AfD). Meanwhile, the further left Greens have made dramatic gains at the expense of Merkel's Social Democrat coalition
partners.
Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the
dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain
for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors,
Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal
in the postwar world.
One can acknowledge that while Merkel never admitted error for her multiculti summer fling (beyond wishing she had communicated
her goals better), she did manage to adjust her policies. By 2016, Germany under her watch was paying a healthy ransom to Turkey
to keep would-be migrants in camps and preventing them from sailing to Greece. Merkel's departure will make the battle to succeed
her one of the most watched political contests in Europe. She has turned migration into a central and quite divisive issue within
the CDU and Germany, and the party may decide that it has no choice but to accommodate, in one way or another, the voters who have
left them for the AfD.
Related to the issue of who should reside in Europe (objectively the current answer remains anyone who can get there) is the question
of how are such questions decided. In July 2015, five years after asserting in a speech that multiculturalism has
"utterly failed" in Germany (without addressing what policies should be pursued in an increasingly ethnically diverse society)
and several weeks after reducing a young Arab girl to tears at a televised forum by telling her that those whose asylum claims were
rejected would "have to go back" and that "politics is hard," Merkel changed course.
For those interested in psychological studies of leadership and decision making, it would be hard to imagine a richer subject.
Merkel's government first announced it would no longer enforce the rule (the Dublin agreement) that required asylum claimants to
be processed in the first country they passed through. Then she doubled down. The migrants fleeing the Syrian civil war, along with
those who pretended to be Syrian, and then basically just anyone, could come to Germany.
"We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later,
she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male
asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at
the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as
"Merkel the Bold."
Her words traveled far beyond those fleeing Syria. Within 48 hours of the "no limit" remark, TheNew York Times
reported a sudden stirring of migrants from Nigeria. Naturally Merkel boasted in a quiet way about how her decision had revealed
that Germany had put its Nazi past behind it. "The world sees Germany as a land of hope and chances," she said. "That wasn't always
the case." In making this decision personally, Merkel was making it for all of Europe. It was one of the ironies of a European arrangement
whose institutions were developed in part to transcend nationalism and constrain future German power that 70 years after the end
of the war, the privately arrived-at decision of a German chancellor could instantly transform societies all over Europe.
The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's
socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of
sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European
criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics),
she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim
world might prove difficult.
Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants
during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question.
In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself.
Her public approval rating plunged from 75 percent in April 2015 to 47 percent the following summer. The first electoral rebuke came
in September 2016, when the brand new anti-immigration party, the Alternative fur Deutschland, beat Merkel's CDU in Pomerania.
In every election since, Merkel's party has lost further ground. Challenges to her authority from within her own party have become
more pointed and powerful. But the mass migration accelerated by her decision continues, albeit at a slightly lower pace.
Angela Merkel altered not only Germany but the entire European continent, in irreversible ways, for decades to come.
Scott McConnell is a founding editor ofand the author of Ex-Neocon: Dispatches From the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars
.
"... On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S. military establishment wants, Merkel must provide. ..."
"... But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum Lady, Theresa May here). ..."
"... Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea. ..."
"... Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring at a staggering pace in Russia. ..."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stepped down as the leader of the Christian Democratic
Union, the party she has led for nearly two decades. Yesterday's election in Hesse, normally a
CDU/SPD stronghold was abysmal for them.
She had to do something to quell the revolt brewing against her.
Merkel knew going in what the polls were showing. Unlike American and British polls, it
seems the German ones are mostly accurate with pre-election polls coming close to matching the
final results.
So, knowing what was coming for her and in the spirit of trying to maintain power for as
long as possible Merkel has been moving away from her staunch positions on unlimited
immigration and being in lock-step with the U.S. on Russia.
She's having to walk a tightrope on these two issues as the turmoil in U.S. political
circles is pulling her in, effectively, opposite directions.
The globalist Davos Crowd she works for wants the destruction of European culture and
individual national sovereignty ground into a paste and power consolidated under the rubric of
the European Union.
They also want Russia brought to heel.
On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that
furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever
forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S.
military establishment wants, Merkel must provide.
So, if she rejects that role and the chaos U.S. policy engenders, particularly Syria, she's
undermining the flow of migrants into Europe.
This is why it was so significant that she and French President Emmanuel Macron joined this
weekend's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan in Istanbul.
It ended with an agreement on Syria's future that lies in direct conflict with the U.S.'s
goals of the past seven years.
It was an admission that Assad has prevailed in Syria and the plan to atomize it into yet
another failed state has itself failed. Merkel has traded 'Assad must go' for 'no more
refugees.'
To President Trump's credit he then piggy-backed on that statement announcing that the U.S.
would be pulling out of Syria very soon now. And that tells me that he is still coordinating in
some way with Putin and other world leaders on the direction of his foreign policy in spite of
his opposition.
But the key point from the Istanbul statement was that Syria's rebuilding be prioritized to
reverse the flow of migrants so Syrians can go home. While
Gilbert Doctorow is unconvinced by France's position here , I think Merkel has to be
focused on assisting Putin in achieving his goal of returning Syria to Syrians.
Because, this is both a political necessity for Merkel as well as her trying to burnish her
crumbling political throne to maintain power.
The question is will Germans believe and/or forgive her enough for her to stay in power
through her now stated 'retirement' from politics in 2021?
I don't think so and it's obvious Davos Crowd boy-toy Macron is working overtime to salvage
what he can for them as Merkel continues to face up to the political realities across Europe,
which is that populism is a natural reaction to these insane policies.
Merkel's job of consolidating power under the EU is unfinished. They don't have financial
integration. The Grand Army of the EU is still not a popular idea. The euro-zone is a disaster
waiting to happen and its internal inconsistencies are adding fuel to an already pretty hot
political fire.
On this front, EU integration, she and Macron are on the same page. Because 'domestically'
from an EU perspective, Brexit still has to be dealt with and the showdown with the Italians is
only just beginning.
But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to
fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum
Lady, Theresa May here).
And Macron should stop looking in the mirror long enough to see he's standing on a quicksand
made of blasting powder.
This points to the next major election for Europe, that of the European Parliament in May
where all of Merkel's opposition are focused on wresting control of that body and removing
Jean-Claude Juncker or his hand-picked replacement (Merkel herself?) from power.
The obvious transition for Merkel is from German Chancellor to European Commission
President. She steps down as Chancellor in May after the EPP wins a majority then to take
Juncker's job. I'm sure that's been the plan all along. This way she can continue the work she started
without having to face the political backlash at home.
But, again, how close is Germany to snap elections if there is another migrant attack and
Chemnitz-like demonstrations. You can only go to the 'Nazi' well so many times, even in
Germany.
There comes a point where people will have simply had enough and their anger isn't born of
being intolerant but angry at having been betrayed by political leadership which doesn't speak
for them and imported crime, chaos and violence to their homes.
And the puppet German media will not be able to contain the story. The EU's speech rules
will not contain people who want to speak. The clamp down on hate speech, pioneered by Merkel
herself is a reaction to the growing tide against her.
And guess what? She can't stop it.
The problem is that Commies like Merkel and Soros don't believe in anything. They are
vampires and nihilists as I said over the
weekend suffused with a toxic view of humanity.
Oh sure, they give lip service to being inclusive and nice about it while they have
control over the levers of power, the State apparatus. But, the minute they lose control of
those levers, the sun goes down, the fangs come out and the bloodletting begins.
These people are vampires, sucking the life out of a society for their own ends. They are
evil in a way that proves John Barth's observation that "man can do no wrong." For they never
see themselves as the villain.
No. They see themselves as the savior of a fallen people. Nihilists to their very core
they only believe in power. And, since power is their religion, all activities are justified
in pursuit of their goals.
Their messianic view of themselves is indistinguishable to the Salafist head-chopping
animals people like Hillary empowered to sow chaos and death across the Middle East and North
Africa over the past decade.
Add to this Merkel herself who took Hillary's empowerment of these animals and gave them a
home across Europe. At least now Merkel has the good sense to see that this has cost her nearly
everything.
Even if she has little to no shame.
Hillary seems to think she can run for president again and win with the same schtick she
failed with twice before. Frankly, I welcome it like I welcome the sun in the morning, safe in
the knowledge that all is right with the world and she will go down in humiliating defeat yet
again.
Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing
for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European
electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea.
Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There
will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring
at a staggering pace in Russia.
Social pressure to conform is natural in any organization. And universities are not exception. Various people positioned
differently on confiormism-independent_thinking spectrum, so we should not generalize that social pressure makes any
students a conformist, who is afraid to voice his/her opinion. Some small percentage of student can withstand significant social
pressure. But the fact that around 50% can't withstand significant social pressure sounds right.
As more and more college professors express their social and
political views in classrooms, students across the country are feeling increasingly afraid to
disagree according to a survey of 800 full-time undergraduate college students, reported by the
Wall Street Journal ' s James Freeman.
When students were asked if they've had "any professors or course instructors that have
used class time to express their own social or political beliefs that are completely
unrelated to the subject of the course," 52% of respondents said that this occurs "often,"
while 47% responded, "not often."
A majority -- 53% -- also reported that they often "felt intimidated" in sharing their
ideas, opinions or beliefs in class because they were different from those of the professors.
-
WSJ
What's more, 54% of students say they are intimidated expressing themselves when their views
conflict with those of their classmates.
The survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of Yale's William F. Buckley,
Jr. Program (which counts Freeman among its directors), was undertaken between October 8th and
18th, and included students at both public and private four-year universities across the
country.
This is a problem, suggests Freeman - as unbiased teachers who formerly filled universities
have been replaced by activists who "unfortunately appear to be just as political and
overbearing as one would expect," and that " perhaps the actual parents who write checks can
someday find some way to encourage more responsible behavior. "
As for the students, there's at least a mixed message in the latest survey results. On the
downside, the fact that so many students are afraid of disagreeing with their peers does not
suggest a healthy intellectual atmosphere even outside the classroom. There's more
disappointing news in the answers to other survey questions. For example, 59% of respondents
agreed with this statement:
My college or university should forbid people from speaking on campus who have a history of
engaging in hate speech.
This column does not favor hatred, nor the subjective definition of "hate speech" by college
administrators seeking to regulate it. In perhaps the most disturbing finding in the poll
results, 33% of U.S. college students participating in the survey agreed with this
statement:
If someone is using hate speech or making racially charged comments, physical violence can be
justified to prevent this person from espousing their hateful views.
An optimist desperately searching for a silver lining would perhaps note that 60% of
respondents did not agree that physical violence is justified to silence people speaking what
someone has defined as "hate speech" or "racially charged" comments. But the fact that a third
of college students at least theoretically endorse violence as a response to offensive speech
underlines the threat to free expression on American campuses.
Perhaps more encouraging are the responses to this question:
Generally speaking, do you think the First Amendment, which deals with freedom of speech, is
an outdated amendment that can no longer be applied in today's society and should be changed
or an important amendment that still needs to be followed and respected in today's society?
A full 79% of respondents opted for respecting the First Amendment, while 17% backed a
rewrite.
On a more specific question, free speech isn't winning by the same landslide. When asked if
they would favor or oppose their schools having speech codes to regulate speech for students
and faculty, 54% of U.S. college kids opposed such codes while 38% were in favor.
The free exchange of ideas is in danger on American campuses. And given the unprofessional
behavior of American faculty suggested by this survey, education reformers should perhaps focus
on encouraging free-speech advocates within the student body while adopting a campus slogan
from an earlier era: Don't trust anyone over 30.
this tyranny applies not only to politics and weirdo social world view, it runs thru
everything. Group think is powerful and those not following get excluded, defunded of
resources and ridicule and other punishment.
The education-industrial complex is a massive spending and debt-fed bubble, that has
created a massive political organizing force and teflon monoculture. They are parasites
feeding off government and the debt of students
It's always been like this, at school as a 5 year old ....my little kid was sent to the
headmaster for objecting to making a key ring thing in craft as not one kid had a key. He
spoke a well reasoned argument and of course is at the Supreme Court now. But gained no
respect or nurturing from that school. I also copped it, made career decision to be a
scientist because of the stupidity of an english teacher not knowing same issues prevailed
there. Was thrown out of english honours course so did the exam on my own knowledge and got
first class honours in the state.
At University we all know you feed back what they want if you want to pass. Some want
intelligence and best true understanding others want their crippled stuff. This also applies
if you are a science, physiology researcher. Cutting edge work if not mainstream does not get
published, you have to be part of a recognised institution to be published so no independent
researcher,
There are set ideas and marketing there of eg antioxidants fallacies, need for estrogen,
and until recently How stupid was Lamarck because he espoused the passing down of response to
environment to subsequent generations...Darwin thought this too but idea was suppressed. Then
epigenetics got the new hot thing for grants. Fck them all.
My child and I discussed a version with the principal when he was doing the
bacceaulureate, as from 5 onwards teachers rejected correct answers and wanted their answers.
The excellent advice was to view it all like a driving exam, learn the road rules and give
them back.
students always know the tyranny of the teacher and evaluator. At 6 my kid was sat with
the slow learners and forced to give 30answers a day ' correct' . Ie lies and untruths.
Infinity as answer to how many corners has a cylinder was not only mad bad but
ridiculed.
It's impossible to actually debate someone who has NO FACTS on either side of the
argument....
it winds up like this....
"not even WRONG"
The phrase " not even wrong " describes an argument or explanation that purports to be
scientific but is based on invalid reasoning or speculative premises that can neither be
proven correct nor falsified .
Hence, it refers to statements that cannot be discussed in a rigorous, scientific sense . [1] For a
meaningful discussion on whether a certain statement is true or false, the statement must
satisfy the criterion called "falsifiability" -- the inherent possibility for the statement
to be tested and found false. In this sense, the phrase "not even wrong" is synonymous to
"nonfalsifiable". [1]
The phrase is generally attributed to theoretical physicistWolfgang Pauli , who was
known for his colorful objections to incorrect or careless thinking. [2][3]Rudolf Peierls documents an
instance in which "a friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected
was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not
even wrong' ." [4] This is also
often quoted as "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong", or in Pauli's native
German , " Das
ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!". Peierls remarks that quite a few
apocryphal stories of this
kind have been circulated and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched for by
him. He also quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau , "What you said was so confused
that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not. " [4]
Chemical engineering, engineering structural (optional), basic electrical engineering and
C++ programing and he can make any machine to automatically preform any chemical process out
of his garage. You could probably watch a butt ton of YouTube and a library card and also
learn those skills.
The homogenized culture of colleges today is very similar to what I imagine it was like in
the 1950's, but with a different set of "values" obviously. The 1950's led to the 1960's, and
a complete rejection by many young people of establishment mono-culture. Maybe the young
people eventually will figure out that what they see as SJW counter-culture is actually new
establishment culture, and they will rebel against it in a few years. Probably not,
though.
When I was in the army and got sentence to 2 years less a day in Military prison in
Edmonton, I paid $1.70 a day, which the military were so kind to ring up a tab for me, when I
got released from prison they handed me my bill and made me work it off before I got my
dishonorable discharge
Under neoliberlaism the idea of loyalty between a corporation and an employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
Notable quotes:
"... Any expectation of "loyalty", that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking ..."
"... With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor ..."
"... This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend IBM products ..."
"... The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests. ..."
"... The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation. And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980. ..."
I started at IBM 3 days out of college in 1979 and retired in 2017. I was satisfied with my choice and never felt mistreated because
I had no expectation of lifetime employment, especially after the pivotal period in the 1990's when IBM almost went out of business.
The company survived that period by dramatically restructuring both manufacturing costs and sales expense including the firing
of tens of thousands of employees. These actions were well documented in the business news of the time, the obvious alternative
was bankruptcy.
I told the authors that anyone working at IBM after 1993 should have had no expectation of a lifetime career. Downsizing, outsourcing,
movement of work around the globe was already commonplace at all such international companies. Any expectation of "loyalty",
that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking .
I was always prepared to be sent packing, without cause, at any time and always had my resume up-to-date. I stayed because
of interesting work, respectful supervisors, and adequate compensation.
The "resource action" that forced my decision to retire was no surprise, the company that hired me had been gone for decades.
With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy
their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor
I had, more or less, the same experience at Cisco. They paid me to quit. Luckily, I was ready for it.
The article mentions IBMs 3 failures. So who was it that was responsible for not anticipating the transitions? It is hard enough
doing what you already know. Perhaps companies should be spending more on figuring out "what's next" and not continually playing
catch-up by dumping the older workers for the new.
I was laid off by IBM after 29 years and 4 months. I had received a division award in previous year, and my last PBC appraisal
was 2+ (high performer.) The company I left was not the company I started with. Top management--starting with Gerstner--has steadily
made IBM a less desirable place to work. They now treat employees as interchangeable assets and nothing more. I cannot/would not
recommend IBM as an employer to any young programmer.
Truly awesome work. I do want to add one thing, however--the entire rhetoric about "too many old white guys" that has become so
common absolutely contributes to the notion that this sort of behavior is not just acceptable but in some twisted way admirable
as well.
Is anyone surprised that so many young people don't think capitalism is a good system any more?
I ran a high technology electronic systems company for years. We ran it "the old way." If you worked hard, and tried, we would
bend over backwards to keep you. If technology or business conditions eliminated your job, we would try to train you for a new
one. Our people were loyal, not like IBMers today. I honestly think that's the best way to be profitable.
People afraid of being unjustly RIFFed will always lack vitality.
I'm glad someone is finally paying attention to age discrimination. IBM apparently is just one of many organizations that discriminate.
I'm in the middle of my own fight with the State University of New York (SUNY) over age discrimination. I was terminated by
a one of the technical colleges in the SUNY System. The EEOC/New York State Division of Human Rights (NYDHR) found that "PROBABLE
CAUSE (NYDHR's emphasis) exists to believe that the Respondent (Alfred State College - SUNY) has engaged in or is engaging in
the unlawful discriminatory practice complained of." Investigators for NYDHR interviewed several witnesses, who testified that
representatives of the college made statements such as "we need new faces", "three old men" attending a meeting, an older faculty
member described as an "albatross", and "we ought to get rid of the old white guys". Witnesses said these statements were made
by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and a dean at the college.
This saga at IBM is simply a microcosm of our overall economy. Older workers get ousted in favor of younger, cheaper workers;
way too many jobs get outsourced; and so many workers today [young and old] can barely land a full-time job. This is the behavior that our system incentivises (and gets away with) in this post Reagan Revolution era where deregulation is
lauded and unions have been undermined & demonized. We need to seriously re-work 'work', and in order to do this we need to purge
Republicans at every level, as they CLEARLY only serve corporate bottom-lines - not workers - by championing tax codes that reward
outsourcing, fight a livable minimum wage, eliminate pensions, bust unions, fight pay equity for women & family leave, stack the
Supreme Court with radical ideologues who blatantly rule for corporations over people all the time, etc. etc. ~35 years of basically
uninterrupted Conservative economic policy & ideology has proven disastrous for workers and our quality of life. As goes your
middle class, so goes your country.
I am a retired IBM manager having had to execute many of these resource reduction programs.. too many.. as a matter of fact. ProPUBLICA....You
nailed it!
IBM has always treated its customer-facing roles like Disney -- as cast members who need to match a part in a play. In the 60s
and 70s, it was the white-shirt, blue-suit white men whom IBM leaders thought looked like mainframe salesmen. Now, rather than
actually build a credible cloud to compete with Amazon and Microsoft, IBM changes the cast to look like cloud salespeople. (I
work for Microsoft. Commenting for myself alone.)
I am a survivor, the rare employee who has been at IBM for over 35 years. I have seen many, many layoff programs over 20 years
now. I have seen tens of thousands people let go from the Hudson Valley of N.Y. Those of us who have survived, know and lived
through what this article so accurately described. I currently work with 3 laid off/retired and rehired contractors. I have seen
age discrimination daily for over 15 years. It is not only limited to layoffs, it is rampant throughout the company. Promotions,
bonuses, transfers for opportunities, good reviews, etc... are gone if you are over 45. I have seen people under 30 given promotions
to levels that many people worked 25 years for. IBM knows that these younger employees see how they treat us so they think they
can buy them off. Come to think of it, I guess they actually are! They are ageist, there is no doubt, it is about time everyone
knew. Excellent article.
Nice article, but seriously this is old news. IBM has been at this for ...oh twenty years or more. I don't really have a problem with it in terms of a corporation trying to make money. But I do have a problem with how IBM also
likes to avoid layoffs by giving folks over 40 intentionally poor reviews, essentially trying to drive people out. Just have the
guts to tell people, we don't need you anymore, bye. But to string people along as the overseas workers come in...c'mon just be
honest with your workers. High tech over 40 is not easy...I suggest folks prep for a career change before 50. Then you can have the last laugh on a company
like IBM.
From pages 190-191 of my novel, Ordinary Man (Amazon):
Throughout
it all, layoffs became common, impacting mostly older employees with many years
of service. These job cuts were dribbled out in small numbers to conceal them
from the outside world, but employees could plainly see what was going on.
The laid off
employees were supplanted by offshoring work to low-costs countries and hiring
younger employees, often only on temporary contracts that offered low pay and
no benefits – a process pejoratively referred to by veteran employees as
"downsourcing." The recruitment of these younger workers was done under the
guise of bringing in fresh skills, but while many of the new hires brought new
abilities and vitality, they lacked the knowledge and perspective that comes
with experience.
Frequently,
an older more experienced worker would be asked to help educate newer
employees, only to be terminated shortly after completing the task. And the new
hires weren't fooled by what they witnessed and experienced at OpenSwitch,
perceiving very quickly that the company had no real interest in investing in
them for the long term. To the contrary, the objective was clearly to grind as
much work out of them as possible, without offering any hope of increased
reward or opportunity.
Most of the
young recruits left after only a year or two – which, again, was part of the
true agenda at the company. Senior management viewed employees not as talent,
but simply as cost, and didn't want anyone sticking around long enough to move
up the pay scale.
This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend
IBM products. I love AIX and have worked with a lot if IBM products but not anymore. Good luck with the millennials though...
I worked for four major corporations (HP, Intel, Control Data Corporation, and Micron Semiconductor) before I was hired by IBM
as a rare (at that time) experienced new hire.
Even though I ended up working for IBM for 21 years, and retired in 2013, because
of my experiences at those other companies, I never considered IBM my "family."
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
It is a business arrangement, not a love affair. Every individual needs to continually assess their skills and their value to
their employer. If they are not commensurate, it is the employee's responsibility to either acquire new skills or seek a new employer.
Your employer will not hesitate to lay you off if your skills are no longer needed, or if they can hire someone who can do your
job just as well for less pay. That is free enterprise, and it works for people willing to take advantage of it.
I basically agree. But why should it be OK for a company to fire you just to replace you with a younger you? If all that they
accomplish is lowering their health care costs (which is what this is really about). If the company is paying about the same for
the same work, why is firing older workers for being older OK?
Good question. The point I was trying to make is that people need to watch out for themselves and not expect their employer to
do what is "best" for the employee. I think that is true whatever age the employee happens to be.
Whether employers should be able to discriminate against (treat differently) their employees based on age, gender, race, religion,
etc. is a political question. Morally, I don't think they should discriminate. Politically, I think it is a slippery slope when
the government starts imposing regulations on free enterprise. Government almost always creates more problems than they fix.
Sorry, but when you deregulate the free enterprise, it created more problems than it fixes and that is a fact that has been proven
for the last 38 years.
That's just plain false. Deregulation creates competiiton. Competition for talented and skilled workers creates opportunities
for those that wish to be employed and for those that wish to start new ventures. For example, when Ma Bell was regulated and
had a monopoly on telecommunications there was no innovation in the telecom inudstry. However, when it was deregulated, cell phones,
internet, etc exploded ... creating billionaires and millionaires while also improving the quality of life.
No, it happens to be true. When Reagan deregulate the economy, a lot of those corporate raiders just took over the companies,
sold off the assets, and pocketed the money. What quality of life? Half of American lived near the poverty level and the wages
for the workers have been stagnant for the last 38 years compared to a well-regulated economy in places like Germany and the Scandinavian
countries where the workers have good wages and a far better standard of living than in the USA. Why do you think the Norwegians
told Trump that they will not be immigrating to the USA anytime soon?
What were the economic conditions before Regan? It was a nightmare before Regan. The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare
of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation.
And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980.
At least we had a manufacturing base in the USA, strong regulations of corporations, corporate scandals were far and few, businesses
did not go under so quickly, prices of goods and services did not go through the roof, people had pensions and could reasonably
live off them, and recessions did not last so long or go so deep until Reagan came into office. In Under Reagan, the jobs were
allowed to be send overseas, unions were busted up, pensions were reduced or eliminated, wages except those of the CEOs were staganent,
and the economic conditions under Bush, Senior and Bush, Jr. were no better except that Bush, Jr, was the first president to have
a net minus below zero growth, so every time we get a Republican Administration, the economy really turns into a nightmare. That
is a fact.
You have the Republicans in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin using Reaganomics and they are economic disaster areas.
You had an industrial base in the USA, lots of banks and savings and loans to choose from, lots of mom and pop stores, strong
government regulation of the economy, able to live off your pensions, strong unions and employment laws along with the court system
to back you up against corporate malfeasance. All that was gone when Reagan and the two Bushes came into office.
Amazingly accurate article. The once great IBM now a dishonest and unscrupulous corporation concerned more about earnings per
share than employees, customers, or social responsibility. In Global Services most likely 75% or more jobs are no longer in the
US - can't believe a word coming out of Armonk.
I'm not sure there was ever a paradise in employment. Yeah, you can say there was more job stability 50 or 60 years ago, but that
applied to a much smaller workforce than today (mostly white men). It is a drag, but there are also lot more of us old farts than
there used to be and we live a lot longer in retirement as well. I don't see any magic bullet fix either.
Great article. What's especially infuriating is that the industry continues to claim that there is a shortage of STEM workers.
For example, google "claim of 1.4 million computer science jobs with only 400,000 computer science graduates to fill them". If
companies would openly say, "we have plenty of young STEM workers and prefer them to most older STEM workers", we could at least
start addressing the problem. But they continue to promote the lie of there being a STEM shortage. They just want as big a labor
pool as possible, unemployed workers be damned.
I've worked there 17 years and have worried about being layed off for about 11 of them. Moral is in the toilet. Bonuses for the
rank and file are in the under 1% range while the CEO gets millions. Pay raises have been non existent or well under inflation
for years. Adjusting for inflation, I make $6K less than I did my first day. My group is a handful of people as at least 1/2 have
quit or retired. To support our customers, we used to have several people, now we have one or two and if someone is sick or on
vacation, our support structure is to hope nothing breaks. We can't keep millennials because of pay, benefits and the expectation
of being available 24/7 because we're shorthanded. As the unemployment rate drops, more leave to find a different job, leaving
the old people as they are less willing to start over with pay, vacation, moving, selling a house, pulling kids from school, etc.
The younger people are generally less likely to be willing to work as needed on off hours or to pull work from a busier colleague.
I honestly have no idea what the plan is when the people who know what they are doing start to retire, we are way top heavy with
30-40 year guys who are on their way out, very few of the 10-20 year guys due to hiring freezes and we can't keep new people past
2-3 years. It's like our support business model is designed to fail.
Make no mistake. The three and four letter acronyms and other mushy corporate speak may differ from firm to firm, but this is
going on in every large tech company old enough to have a large population of workers over 50. I hope others will now be exposed.
This article hits the nail right on the head, as I come up on my 1 year anniversary from being....ahem....'retired' from 23 years
at IBM....and I'll be damned if I give them the satisfaction of thinking this was like a 'death' to me. It was the greatest thing
that could have ever happened. Ginny and the board should be ashamed of themselves, but they won't be.
Starting around age 40 you start to see age discrimination. I think this is largely due to economics, like increased vacation
times, higher wages, but most of all the perception that older workers will run up the medical costs. You can pass all the age
related discrimination laws you want, but look how ineffective that has been.
If you contrast this with the German workforce, you see that they have more older workers with the skills and younger workers
without are having a difficult time getting in. So what's the difference? There are laws about how many vacation weeks that are
given and there is a national medical system that everyone pays, so discrimination isn't seen in the same light.
The US is the only hold out maybe with South Africa that doesn't have a good national medical insurance program for everyone.
Not only do we pay more than the rest of the world, but we also have discrimination because of it.
This is very good, and this is IBM. I know. I was plaintiff in Gundlach v. IBM Japan, 983 F.Supp.2d 389, which involved their
violating Japanese labor law when I worked in Japan. The New York federal judge purposely ignored key points of Japanese labor
law, and also refused to apply Title VII and Age Discrimination in Employment to the parent company in Westchester County. It
is a huge, self-described "global" company with little demonstrated loyalty to America and Americans. Pennsylvania is suing them
for $170 million on a botched upgrade of the state's unemployment system.
In early 2013 I was given a 3 PBC rating for my 2012 performance, the main reason cited by my manager being that my team lead
thought I "seemed distracted". Five months later I was included in a "resource action", and was gone by July. I was 20 months
shy of 55. Younger coworkers were retained. That was about two years after the product I worked on for over a decade was off-shored.
Through a fluke of someone from the old, disbanded team remembering me, I was rehired two years later - ironically in a customer
support position for the very product I helped develop.
While I appreciated my years of service, previous salary, and previous benefits being reinstated, a couple years into it I
realized I just wasn't cut out for the demands of the job - especially the significant 24x7 pager duty. Last June I received email
describing a "Transition to Retirement" plan I was eligible for, took it, and my last day will be June 30. I still dislike the
job, but that plan reclassified me as part time, thus ending pager duty for me. The job still sucks, but at least I no longer
have to despair over numerous week long 24x7 stints throughout the year.
A significant disappointment occurred a couple weeks ago. I was discussing healthcare options with another person leaving the
company who hadn't been resource-actioned as I had, and learned the hard way I lost over $30,000 in some sort of future medical
benefit account the company had established and funded at some point. I'm not sure I was ever even aware of it. That would have
funded several years of healthcare insurance during the 8 years until I'm eligible for Medicare. I wouldn't be surprised if their
not having to give me that had something to do with my seeming "distracted" to them. <rolls eyes="">
What's really painful is the history of that former account can still be viewed at Fidelity, where it associates my departure
date in 2013 with my having "forfeited" that money. Um, no. I did not forfeit that money, nor would I have. I had absolutely no
choice in the matter. I find the use of the word 'forfeited' to describe what happened as both disingenuous and offensive. That
said, I don't know whether's that's IBM's or Fidelity's terminology, though.
Jeff, You should call Fidelity. I recently received a letter from the US Department of Labor that they discovered that IBM was
"holding" funds that belonged to me that I was never told about. This might be similar or same story .
Under neoliberlaism the idea of loyalty between a corporation and an employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
Notable quotes:
"... Any expectation of "loyalty", that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking ..."
"... With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor ..."
"... This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend IBM products ..."
"... The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests. ..."
"... The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation. And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980. ..."
I started at IBM 3 days out of college in 1979 and retired in 2017. I was satisfied with my choice and never felt mistreated because
I had no expectation of lifetime employment, especially after the pivotal period in the 1990's when IBM almost went out of business.
The company survived that period by dramatically restructuring both manufacturing costs and sales expense including the firing
of tens of thousands of employees. These actions were well documented in the business news of the time, the obvious alternative
was bankruptcy.
I told the authors that anyone working at IBM after 1993 should have had no expectation of a lifetime career. Downsizing, outsourcing,
movement of work around the globe was already commonplace at all such international companies. Any expectation of "loyalty",
that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking .
I was always prepared to be sent packing, without cause, at any time and always had my resume up-to-date. I stayed because
of interesting work, respectful supervisors, and adequate compensation.
The "resource action" that forced my decision to retire was no surprise, the company that hired me had been gone for decades.
With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy
their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor
I had, more or less, the same experience at Cisco. They paid me to quit. Luckily, I was ready for it.
The article mentions IBMs 3 failures. So who was it that was responsible for not anticipating the transitions? It is hard enough
doing what you already know. Perhaps companies should be spending more on figuring out "what's next" and not continually playing
catch-up by dumping the older workers for the new.
I was laid off by IBM after 29 years and 4 months. I had received a division award in previous year, and my last PBC appraisal
was 2+ (high performer.) The company I left was not the company I started with. Top management--starting with Gerstner--has steadily
made IBM a less desirable place to work. They now treat employees as interchangeable assets and nothing more. I cannot/would not
recommend IBM as an employer to any young programmer.
Truly awesome work. I do want to add one thing, however--the entire rhetoric about "too many old white guys" that has become so
common absolutely contributes to the notion that this sort of behavior is not just acceptable but in some twisted way admirable
as well.
Is anyone surprised that so many young people don't think capitalism is a good system any more?
I ran a high technology electronic systems company for years. We ran it "the old way." If you worked hard, and tried, we would
bend over backwards to keep you. If technology or business conditions eliminated your job, we would try to train you for a new
one. Our people were loyal, not like IBMers today. I honestly think that's the best way to be profitable.
People afraid of being unjustly RIFFed will always lack vitality.
I'm glad someone is finally paying attention to age discrimination. IBM apparently is just one of many organizations that discriminate.
I'm in the middle of my own fight with the State University of New York (SUNY) over age discrimination. I was terminated by
a one of the technical colleges in the SUNY System. The EEOC/New York State Division of Human Rights (NYDHR) found that "PROBABLE
CAUSE (NYDHR's emphasis) exists to believe that the Respondent (Alfred State College - SUNY) has engaged in or is engaging in
the unlawful discriminatory practice complained of." Investigators for NYDHR interviewed several witnesses, who testified that
representatives of the college made statements such as "we need new faces", "three old men" attending a meeting, an older faculty
member described as an "albatross", and "we ought to get rid of the old white guys". Witnesses said these statements were made
by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and a dean at the college.
This saga at IBM is simply a microcosm of our overall economy. Older workers get ousted in favor of younger, cheaper workers;
way too many jobs get outsourced; and so many workers today [young and old] can barely land a full-time job. This is the behavior that our system incentivises (and gets away with) in this post Reagan Revolution era where deregulation is
lauded and unions have been undermined & demonized. We need to seriously re-work 'work', and in order to do this we need to purge
Republicans at every level, as they CLEARLY only serve corporate bottom-lines - not workers - by championing tax codes that reward
outsourcing, fight a livable minimum wage, eliminate pensions, bust unions, fight pay equity for women & family leave, stack the
Supreme Court with radical ideologues who blatantly rule for corporations over people all the time, etc. etc. ~35 years of basically
uninterrupted Conservative economic policy & ideology has proven disastrous for workers and our quality of life. As goes your
middle class, so goes your country.
I am a retired IBM manager having had to execute many of these resource reduction programs.. too many.. as a matter of fact. ProPUBLICA....You
nailed it!
IBM has always treated its customer-facing roles like Disney -- as cast members who need to match a part in a play. In the 60s
and 70s, it was the white-shirt, blue-suit white men whom IBM leaders thought looked like mainframe salesmen. Now, rather than
actually build a credible cloud to compete with Amazon and Microsoft, IBM changes the cast to look like cloud salespeople. (I
work for Microsoft. Commenting for myself alone.)
I am a survivor, the rare employee who has been at IBM for over 35 years. I have seen many, many layoff programs over 20 years
now. I have seen tens of thousands people let go from the Hudson Valley of N.Y. Those of us who have survived, know and lived
through what this article so accurately described. I currently work with 3 laid off/retired and rehired contractors. I have seen
age discrimination daily for over 15 years. It is not only limited to layoffs, it is rampant throughout the company. Promotions,
bonuses, transfers for opportunities, good reviews, etc... are gone if you are over 45. I have seen people under 30 given promotions
to levels that many people worked 25 years for. IBM knows that these younger employees see how they treat us so they think they
can buy them off. Come to think of it, I guess they actually are! They are ageist, there is no doubt, it is about time everyone
knew. Excellent article.
Nice article, but seriously this is old news. IBM has been at this for ...oh twenty years or more. I don't really have a problem with it in terms of a corporation trying to make money. But I do have a problem with how IBM also
likes to avoid layoffs by giving folks over 40 intentionally poor reviews, essentially trying to drive people out. Just have the
guts to tell people, we don't need you anymore, bye. But to string people along as the overseas workers come in...c'mon just be
honest with your workers. High tech over 40 is not easy...I suggest folks prep for a career change before 50. Then you can have the last laugh on a company
like IBM.
From pages 190-191 of my novel, Ordinary Man (Amazon):
Throughout
it all, layoffs became common, impacting mostly older employees with many years
of service. These job cuts were dribbled out in small numbers to conceal them
from the outside world, but employees could plainly see what was going on.
The laid off
employees were supplanted by offshoring work to low-costs countries and hiring
younger employees, often only on temporary contracts that offered low pay and
no benefits – a process pejoratively referred to by veteran employees as
"downsourcing." The recruitment of these younger workers was done under the
guise of bringing in fresh skills, but while many of the new hires brought new
abilities and vitality, they lacked the knowledge and perspective that comes
with experience.
Frequently,
an older more experienced worker would be asked to help educate newer
employees, only to be terminated shortly after completing the task. And the new
hires weren't fooled by what they witnessed and experienced at OpenSwitch,
perceiving very quickly that the company had no real interest in investing in
them for the long term. To the contrary, the objective was clearly to grind as
much work out of them as possible, without offering any hope of increased
reward or opportunity.
Most of the
young recruits left after only a year or two – which, again, was part of the
true agenda at the company. Senior management viewed employees not as talent,
but simply as cost, and didn't want anyone sticking around long enough to move
up the pay scale.
This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend
IBM products. I love AIX and have worked with a lot if IBM products but not anymore. Good luck with the millennials though...
I worked for four major corporations (HP, Intel, Control Data Corporation, and Micron Semiconductor) before I was hired by IBM
as a rare (at that time) experienced new hire.
Even though I ended up working for IBM for 21 years, and retired in 2013, because
of my experiences at those other companies, I never considered IBM my "family."
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
It is a business arrangement, not a love affair. Every individual needs to continually assess their skills and their value to
their employer. If they are not commensurate, it is the employee's responsibility to either acquire new skills or seek a new employer.
Your employer will not hesitate to lay you off if your skills are no longer needed, or if they can hire someone who can do your
job just as well for less pay. That is free enterprise, and it works for people willing to take advantage of it.
I basically agree. But why should it be OK for a company to fire you just to replace you with a younger you? If all that they
accomplish is lowering their health care costs (which is what this is really about). If the company is paying about the same for
the same work, why is firing older workers for being older OK?
Good question. The point I was trying to make is that people need to watch out for themselves and not expect their employer to
do what is "best" for the employee. I think that is true whatever age the employee happens to be.
Whether employers should be able to discriminate against (treat differently) their employees based on age, gender, race, religion,
etc. is a political question. Morally, I don't think they should discriminate. Politically, I think it is a slippery slope when
the government starts imposing regulations on free enterprise. Government almost always creates more problems than they fix.
Sorry, but when you deregulate the free enterprise, it created more problems than it fixes and that is a fact that has been proven
for the last 38 years.
That's just plain false. Deregulation creates competiiton. Competition for talented and skilled workers creates opportunities
for those that wish to be employed and for those that wish to start new ventures. For example, when Ma Bell was regulated and
had a monopoly on telecommunications there was no innovation in the telecom inudstry. However, when it was deregulated, cell phones,
internet, etc exploded ... creating billionaires and millionaires while also improving the quality of life.
No, it happens to be true. When Reagan deregulate the economy, a lot of those corporate raiders just took over the companies,
sold off the assets, and pocketed the money. What quality of life? Half of American lived near the poverty level and the wages
for the workers have been stagnant for the last 38 years compared to a well-regulated economy in places like Germany and the Scandinavian
countries where the workers have good wages and a far better standard of living than in the USA. Why do you think the Norwegians
told Trump that they will not be immigrating to the USA anytime soon?
What were the economic conditions before Regan? It was a nightmare before Regan. The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare
of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation.
And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980.
At least we had a manufacturing base in the USA, strong regulations of corporations, corporate scandals were far and few, businesses
did not go under so quickly, prices of goods and services did not go through the roof, people had pensions and could reasonably
live off them, and recessions did not last so long or go so deep until Reagan came into office. In Under Reagan, the jobs were
allowed to be send overseas, unions were busted up, pensions were reduced or eliminated, wages except those of the CEOs were staganent,
and the economic conditions under Bush, Senior and Bush, Jr. were no better except that Bush, Jr, was the first president to have
a net minus below zero growth, so every time we get a Republican Administration, the economy really turns into a nightmare. That
is a fact.
You have the Republicans in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin using Reaganomics and they are economic disaster areas.
You had an industrial base in the USA, lots of banks and savings and loans to choose from, lots of mom and pop stores, strong
government regulation of the economy, able to live off your pensions, strong unions and employment laws along with the court system
to back you up against corporate malfeasance. All that was gone when Reagan and the two Bushes came into office.
Amazingly accurate article. The once great IBM now a dishonest and unscrupulous corporation concerned more about earnings per
share than employees, customers, or social responsibility. In Global Services most likely 75% or more jobs are no longer in the
US - can't believe a word coming out of Armonk.
I'm not sure there was ever a paradise in employment. Yeah, you can say there was more job stability 50 or 60 years ago, but that
applied to a much smaller workforce than today (mostly white men). It is a drag, but there are also lot more of us old farts than
there used to be and we live a lot longer in retirement as well. I don't see any magic bullet fix either.
Great article. What's especially infuriating is that the industry continues to claim that there is a shortage of STEM workers.
For example, google "claim of 1.4 million computer science jobs with only 400,000 computer science graduates to fill them". If
companies would openly say, "we have plenty of young STEM workers and prefer them to most older STEM workers", we could at least
start addressing the problem. But they continue to promote the lie of there being a STEM shortage. They just want as big a labor
pool as possible, unemployed workers be damned.
I've worked there 17 years and have worried about being layed off for about 11 of them. Moral is in the toilet. Bonuses for the
rank and file are in the under 1% range while the CEO gets millions. Pay raises have been non existent or well under inflation
for years. Adjusting for inflation, I make $6K less than I did my first day. My group is a handful of people as at least 1/2 have
quit or retired. To support our customers, we used to have several people, now we have one or two and if someone is sick or on
vacation, our support structure is to hope nothing breaks. We can't keep millennials because of pay, benefits and the expectation
of being available 24/7 because we're shorthanded. As the unemployment rate drops, more leave to find a different job, leaving
the old people as they are less willing to start over with pay, vacation, moving, selling a house, pulling kids from school, etc.
The younger people are generally less likely to be willing to work as needed on off hours or to pull work from a busier colleague.
I honestly have no idea what the plan is when the people who know what they are doing start to retire, we are way top heavy with
30-40 year guys who are on their way out, very few of the 10-20 year guys due to hiring freezes and we can't keep new people past
2-3 years. It's like our support business model is designed to fail.
Make no mistake. The three and four letter acronyms and other mushy corporate speak may differ from firm to firm, but this is
going on in every large tech company old enough to have a large population of workers over 50. I hope others will now be exposed.
This article hits the nail right on the head, as I come up on my 1 year anniversary from being....ahem....'retired' from 23 years
at IBM....and I'll be damned if I give them the satisfaction of thinking this was like a 'death' to me. It was the greatest thing
that could have ever happened. Ginny and the board should be ashamed of themselves, but they won't be.
Starting around age 40 you start to see age discrimination. I think this is largely due to economics, like increased vacation
times, higher wages, but most of all the perception that older workers will run up the medical costs. You can pass all the age
related discrimination laws you want, but look how ineffective that has been.
If you contrast this with the German workforce, you see that they have more older workers with the skills and younger workers
without are having a difficult time getting in. So what's the difference? There are laws about how many vacation weeks that are
given and there is a national medical system that everyone pays, so discrimination isn't seen in the same light.
The US is the only hold out maybe with South Africa that doesn't have a good national medical insurance program for everyone.
Not only do we pay more than the rest of the world, but we also have discrimination because of it.
This is very good, and this is IBM. I know. I was plaintiff in Gundlach v. IBM Japan, 983 F.Supp.2d 389, which involved their
violating Japanese labor law when I worked in Japan. The New York federal judge purposely ignored key points of Japanese labor
law, and also refused to apply Title VII and Age Discrimination in Employment to the parent company in Westchester County. It
is a huge, self-described "global" company with little demonstrated loyalty to America and Americans. Pennsylvania is suing them
for $170 million on a botched upgrade of the state's unemployment system.
In early 2013 I was given a 3 PBC rating for my 2012 performance, the main reason cited by my manager being that my team lead
thought I "seemed distracted". Five months later I was included in a "resource action", and was gone by July. I was 20 months
shy of 55. Younger coworkers were retained. That was about two years after the product I worked on for over a decade was off-shored.
Through a fluke of someone from the old, disbanded team remembering me, I was rehired two years later - ironically in a customer
support position for the very product I helped develop.
While I appreciated my years of service, previous salary, and previous benefits being reinstated, a couple years into it I
realized I just wasn't cut out for the demands of the job - especially the significant 24x7 pager duty. Last June I received email
describing a "Transition to Retirement" plan I was eligible for, took it, and my last day will be June 30. I still dislike the
job, but that plan reclassified me as part time, thus ending pager duty for me. The job still sucks, but at least I no longer
have to despair over numerous week long 24x7 stints throughout the year.
A significant disappointment occurred a couple weeks ago. I was discussing healthcare options with another person leaving the
company who hadn't been resource-actioned as I had, and learned the hard way I lost over $30,000 in some sort of future medical
benefit account the company had established and funded at some point. I'm not sure I was ever even aware of it. That would have
funded several years of healthcare insurance during the 8 years until I'm eligible for Medicare. I wouldn't be surprised if their
not having to give me that had something to do with my seeming "distracted" to them. <rolls eyes="">
What's really painful is the history of that former account can still be viewed at Fidelity, where it associates my departure
date in 2013 with my having "forfeited" that money. Um, no. I did not forfeit that money, nor would I have. I had absolutely no
choice in the matter. I find the use of the word 'forfeited' to describe what happened as both disingenuous and offensive. That
said, I don't know whether's that's IBM's or Fidelity's terminology, though.
Jeff, You should call Fidelity. I recently received a letter from the US Department of Labor that they discovered that IBM was
"holding" funds that belonged to me that I was never told about. This might be similar or same story .
Jonathan Golub, Credit Suisse chief U.S. equity strategist, and Margaret Patel, Wells Fargo
Asset Management senior portfolio manager, join 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss markets
rebounding after last week's sell-off.
yesterday HAHAHAHAHA ...
What ground breaking insight! This claim has ALWAYS been true ... so to claim otherwise
would be insane.
The questions are ... are we going lower before the rebound ... and how long will it take
to get it all back after a 15% to 20% correction.
Any doofus can look at the long term market charts and make this same claim. The key term
is "eventually" ... and key factor is how long will it take along with how old you are or
how much time you have to recoup. yesterday If he could tell the future I sure
wish he would have told me to pull out last month. 23 hours ago Wells Fargo
Asset Management??? THAT inspires confidence. LOL yesterday Move the stock exchange to Las
Vegas. It's a more fitting place to host the gambling.
y
yesterday If you live long enough.
M yesterday I agree - a
nice holiday season rally will put us back to the highs before the end of the year. As soon
as the market starts going up, everyone will jump onboard. Good time to sit on the
sidelines and wait for the drama queens to let it all out
IBM must be borrowing a lot of cash to fund the acquisition. At last count it had about $12B in the bank... https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ibm/financials/balance-sheet.
Looking at the Red Hat numbers, I would not want to be an existing IBM share-holder this morning; both companies missing market
expectations and in need of each other to get out of the rut.
It is going to take a lot of effort to make that 63% premium pay-off. If it does not pay-off pretty quickly, the existing RedHat
leadership with gone in 18 months.
P.S.
Apparently this is going to be financed by a mixture of cash and debt - increasing IBM's existing debt by nearly 50%. Possible
credit rating downgrade on the way?
As soon as they have a minimum of experience with the terrible IBM change management processes, the many layers of bureocracy
and management involved and the zero or negative value they add to anything at all.
IBM is a shinking ship, the only question being how long it will take to happen. Anyone thinkin RH has any future other than
languish and disappear under IBM management is dellusional. Or a IBM stock owner.
I'm still trying to figure out "why" they bought Red hat.
The only thing my not insignificant google trawling can find me is that Red Hat sell to the likes of Microsoft and google -
now, that *is* interesting. IBM seem to be saying that they can't compete directly but they will sell upwards to their overlords
- no ?
As far as I can tell, it is be part of IBM's cloud (or hybrid cloud) strategy. RH have become/are becoming increasingly successful
in this arena.
If I was being cynical, I would also say that it will enable IBM to put the RH brand and appropriate open source soundbites on
the table for deal-making and sales with or without the RH workforce and philosophy. Also, RH's subscription-base must figure greatly
here - a list of perfect customers ripe for "upselling". bazza
Re: But *Why* did they buy them?
I'm fairly convinced that it's because of who uses RedHat. Certainly a lot of financial institutions do, they're in the market
for commercial support (the OS cost itself is irrelevant). You can tell this by looking at the prices RedHat were charging for
RedHat MRG - beloved by the high speed share traders. To say eye-watering, PER ANNUM too, is an understatement. You'd have to
have got deep pockets before such prices became ignorable.
IBM is a business services company that just happens to make hardware and write OSes. RedHat has a lot of customers interested
in business services. The ones I think who will be kicking themselves are Hewlett Packard (or whatever they're called these days).
Because AIX and RHEL are the two remaining enterprise unixoid platforms (Solaris & HPUX are moribund and the other players
are pretty small). Now both of those are owned by IBM: they now own the enterprise unixoid market.
"I'm still trying to figure out "why" they bought Red hat."
What they say? It somehow helps them with cloud. Doesn't sound like much money there - certainly not enough to justify the
significant increase in debt (~US$17B).
What could it be then? Well RedHat pushed up support prices and their customers didn't squeal much. A lot of those big enterprise
customers moved from expensive hardware/expensive OS support over the last ten years to x86 with much cheaper OS support so there's
plenty of scope for squeezing more.
> I was given the choice, retire or get a bad review and get fired, no severance. I
retired and have not been employed since because of my age. Got news for these business
people, experience trumps inexperience. Recently, I have developed several commercial Web
sites using cloud technology. In your face IBM.
> This could well have been written about Honeywell. Same tactics exactly. I laid myself
off and called it retirement after years of shoddy treatment and phonied up employee
evaluations. I took it personally until I realized that this is just American Management in
action. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror in the morning.
> As an HR professional, I get sick when I hear of these tactics. Although this is not the
first company to use this strategy to make a "paradigm shift". Where are the geniuses at
Harvard, Yale, or the Wharton school of business (where our genius POTUS attended)? Can't
they come up with a better model of how to make these changes in an organization without
setting up the corp for a major lawsuit or God forbid ......they treat their employees with
dignity and respect.
> They are not trained at our business schools to think long-term or look for solutions to
problems or turn to the workforce for solutions. They are trained to maximizes the profits
and let society subsidies their losses and costs.
> Isn't it interesting that you are the first one (here or anywhere else that I've seen)
to talk about the complicity of Harvard and Yale in the rise of the Oligarchs.
Perhaps we should consider reevaluation of their lofty perch in American Education. Now if
we could only think of a way to expose the fraud.
> I was given the choice, retire or get a bad review and get fired, no severance. I
retired and have not been employed since because of my age. Got news for these business
people, experience trumps inexperience. Recently, I have developed several commercial Web
sites using cloud technology. In your face IBM.
> This could well have been written about Honeywell. Same tactics exactly. I laid myself
off and called it retirement after years of shoddy treatment and phonied up employee
evaluations. I took it personally until I realized that this is just American Management in
action. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror in the morning.
> As an HR professional, I get sick when I hear of these tactics. Although this is not the
first company to use this strategy to make a "paradigm shift". Where are the geniuses at
Harvard, Yale, or the Wharton school of business (where our genius POTUS attended)? Can't
they come up with a better model of how to make these changes in an organization without
setting up the corp for a major lawsuit or God forbid ......they treat their employees with
dignity and respect.
> They are not trained at our business schools to think long-term or look for solutions to
problems or turn to the workforce for solutions. They are trained to maximizes the profits
and let society subsidies their losses and costs.
> Isn't it interesting that you are the first one (here or anywhere else that I've seen)
to talk about the complicity of Harvard and Yale in the rise of the Oligarchs.
Perhaps we should consider reevaluation of their lofty perch in American Education. Now if
we could only think of a way to expose the fraud.
My employer outsourced a lot of our IT to IBM and Cognizant in India. The experience has
been terrible and 4 years into a 5 year contract, we are finally realizing the error and insourcing rapidly.
Back in 1999 ATT moved about 4000 of us tech folks working on
mainframe computers to IBM. We got pretty screwed on retirement benefits from ATT. After we
moved over, IBM started slowly moving all of our workload overseas. Brazil and Argentina
mainly.
It started with just tier 1 help desk. Then small IBM accounts started to go over
there. They were trained by 'unwilling' US based people. Unwilling in the sense that if you
didn't comply, you weren't a team player and it would show on your performance review.
Eventually the overseas units took on more and more of the workload. I ended up leaving in
2012 at the age of 56 for personal reasons.
Our time at ATT was suppose to be bridged to IBM
but the only thing bridged was vacation days. A lawsuit ensued and IBM/ATT won. I'm guessing
it was some of that 'ingenious' paperwork that we signed that allowed them to rip us off like
that. Thanks again for some great investigation.
"... In the early 1980's President Regan fired the striking air traffic controllers. This sent the message to management around the USA that it was OK to abuse employees in the workplace. By the end of the 1980's unions were totally emasculated and you had workers "going postal" in an abusive workplace. When unions were at their peak of power, they could appeal to the courts and actually stop a factory from moving out of the country by enforcing a labor contact. ..."
"... The American workplace is a nuthouse. Each and every individual workplace environment is like a cult. ..."
"... The American workplace is just a byproduct of the militarization of everyday life. ..."
"... Silicon Valley and Wall Street handed billions of dollars to this arrogant, ignorant Millennial Elizabeth Holmes. She abused any employee that questioned her. This should sound familiar to any employee who has had an overbearing know-it-all, bully boss in the workplace. Hopefully she will go to jail and a message will be sent that any young agist bully will not be given the power of god in the workplace. ..."
In the early 1980's President Regan fired the striking air traffic controllers. This
sent the message to management around the USA that it was OK to abuse employees in the
workplace. By the end of the 1980's unions were totally emasculated and you had workers
"going postal" in an abusive workplace. When unions were at their peak of power, they could
appeal to the courts and actually stop a factory from moving out of the country by enforcing
a labor contact.
Today we have a President in the White House who was elected on a platform of "YOU'RE
FIRED." Not surprisingly, Trump was elected by the vast majority of selfish lowlives in this
country. The American workplace is a nuthouse. Each and every individual workplace
environment is like a cult.
That is not good for someone like me who hates taking orders from people. But I have seen
it all. Ten years ago a Manhattan law firm fired every lawyer in a litigation unit except an
ex-playboy playmate. Look it up it was in the papers. I was fired from a job where many of my
bosses went to federal prison and then I was invited to the Christmas Party.
What are the salaries of these IBM employees and how much are their replacements making?
The workplace becomes a surrogate family. Who knows why some people get along and others
don't. My theory on agism in the workplace is that younger employees don't want to be around
their surrogate mother or father in the workplace after just leaving the real home under the
rules of their real parents.
The American workplace is just a byproduct of the militarization of everyday life. In the
1800's, Herman Melville wrote in his beautiful book "White Jacket" that one of the most
humiliating aspects of the military is taking orders from a younger military officer. I read
that book when I was 20. I didn't feel the sting of that wisdom until I was 40 and had a 30 year old appointed as
my supervisor who had 10 years less experience than me.
By the way, the executive that made
her my supervisor was one of the sleaziest bosses I have ever had in my career. Look at the
tech giant Theranos. Silicon Valley and Wall Street handed billions of dollars to this
arrogant, ignorant Millennial Elizabeth Holmes. She abused any employee that questioned her.
This should sound familiar to any employee who has had an overbearing know-it-all, bully boss
in the workplace. Hopefully she will go to jail and a message will be sent that any young agist bully will not be given the power of god in the workplace.
Four years ago, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) warned
of "the worst rental affordability crisis ever," citing data that:
"About half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent, up from 18% a decade
ago, according to newly released research by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Twenty-seven percent of renters are paying more than half of their income on rent."
This is a significant problem for US consumers, and especially millennials, because as we
have noted repeatedly over the past year, and a new
report confirms , "rent increases continue to outpace workers' wage growth, meaning the
situation is getting worse."
In the second quarter of 2017, median asking rents jumped 5% from $864 to $910. In the first
half of 2018, they have remained at levels crushing the American worker.
While the surge in median asking rents has triggered an affordability crisis, new data now
shows just how much a person must make per month to afford rent.
According to HowMuch.Net, an American should budget 25% to 30% of monthly income for rent,
but as shown by the New Deal Democrat, workers are budgeting about 50% more of their salaries
than a decade earlier. The report specifically looked at the nation's capital, where a person
must make approximately $8,500 per month to afford rent.
In California, the state with the largest housing bubble, the monthly income to afford rent
is roughly $8,300, followed by Hawaii at $7,800 and New York at $7,220.
In contrast, the Rust Belt and the Southeastern region of the United States, one needs to
make only $3,500 per month to afford rent.
"Based on the rule of applying no more than one-third of income to housing, people living
in the Northeast must earn at least twice as much as those living in the South just to afford
rent for what each market considers an average home," HowMuch.net's Raul Amoros told
MarketWatch .
Which, however, is not to say that owning a house is a viable alternative to renting. In
fact, as Goldman notes in its latest Housing and Mortgage Monitor, "buying is looking
increasingly less affordable vs. renting with home prices growing faster than rents."
In short: the situation is not likely to improve in the short-term.
A
sign of relief could be coming in the second half of 2019 or entering into 2020 when the US
economy is expected to enter a slowdown, if not outright recession. This would reverse the real
estate market, thus providing a turning point in rents that would give renters relief after a
near decade of overinflated prices.
In what can only be described as a desperation move, IBM announced that it would acquire
Linux distributor Red Hat for a whopping $33.4 billion, its biggest purchase ever, as the
company scrambles to catch up to the competition and to boost its flagging cloud sales. Still
hurting from its
Q3 earnings , which sent its stock tumbling to the lowest level since 2010 after Wall
Street was disappointed by yet another quarter of declining revenue...
... IBM will pay $190 for the Raleigh, NC-based Red Hat , a 63% premium to the company's
stock price, which closed at $116.68 on Friday, and down 3% on the year.
In the statement, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said that "the acquisition of Red Hat is a
game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market," but what the acquisition really
means is that the company has thrown in the towel in years of accounting gimmicks and attempts
to paint lipstick on a pig with the help of ever
lower tax rates and pro forma addbacks, and instead will now "kitchen sink" its endless
income statement troubles and non-GAAP adjustments in the form of massive purchase accounting
tricks for the next several years.
While Rometty has been pushing hard to transition the 107-year-old company into modern
business such as the cloud, AI and security software, the company's recent improvements had
been largely from IBM's legacy mainframe business, rather than its so-called strategic
imperatives. Meanwhile, revenues have continued the shrink and after a brief rebound, sales
dipped once again this quarter, after an unprecedented period of 22 consecutive declines
starting in 2012, when Rometty took over as CEO.
While the U.S. Shale Industry
produces a record amount of oil, it continues to be plagued by massive oil decline rates and debt.
Moreover, even as the companies brag about lowering the break-even cost to produce shale oil, the
industry still spends more than it makes. When we add up all the negative factors weighing down
the shale oil industry, it should be no surprise that a catastrophic failure lies dead ahead.
Of course, most Americans have no idea that the U.S. Shale Oil Industry is nothing more than a
Ponzi Scheme because of the mainstream media's inability to report FACT from FICTION. However,
they don't deserve all of the blame as the shale energy industry has done an excellent job hiding
the financial distress from the public and investors by the use of highly technical jargon and BS.
For example, Pioneer published this in the recent Q2 2018 Press Release:
Pioneer placed 38 Version 3.0 wells on production during the second quarter of 2018. The
Company also placed 29 wells on production during the second quarter of 2018 that utilized
higher intensity completions compared to Version 3.0 wells. These are referred to as Version
3.0+ completions. Results from the 65 Version 3.0+ wells completed in 2017 and the first half of
2018 are outperforming production from nearby offset wells with less intense completions. Based
on the success of the higher intensity completions to date, the Company is adding approximately
60 Version 3.0+ completions in the second half of 2018.
Now, the information Pioneer published above wasn't all that technical, but it was full of BS.
Anytime the industry uses terms like "Version 3.0+ completions" to describe shale wells, this
normally means the use of "more technology" equals "more money."
As the shale industry
goes from 30 to 60 to 70 stage frack wells, this takes one hell of a lot more pipe, water, sand,
fracking chemicals and of course, money
.
However, the majority of investors and the public are clueless in regards to the staggering
costs it takes to produce shale oil because they are enamored by the "wonders of technology." For
some odd reason, they tend to overlook the simple premise that
MORE STUFF costs MORE MONEY.
Of course, the shale industry doesn't mind using MORE MONEY, especially if some other poor slob
pays the bill.
Shale Oil Industry: Deep The Denial
According to a recently released article by 40-year oil industry veteran, Mike Shellman,
"Deep
The Denial,"
he provided some sobering statistics on the shale industry:
I recently put somebody very smart on the necessary research (SEC K's, press releases
regarding private equity to private producers, etc.) to determine what total upstream shale oil
debt actually is.
We found it to be between $285-$300B (billion), both public and
private
. Kallanish Energy Consultants recently wrote that there is $240B of long term
E&P debt in the US maturing by 2023 and I think we should assume that at least 90 plus percent
of that is associated with shale oil. That is maturing debt, not total debt.
By year end 2019 I firmly believe the US LTO industry will then be paying over $20B
annually in interest on long term debt.
Using its own self-touted "breakeven" oil price, the shale oil industry must then produce
over 1.5 Million BOPD just to pay interest on that debt each year. Those are barrels of oil that
cannot be used to deleverage debt, grow reserves, not even replace reserves that are declining
at rates of 28% to 15% per year that is just what it will take to service debt.
Using its own "breakeven" prices the US shale oil industry will ultimately have to
produce 9G BO of oil, as much as it has already produced in 10 years just to pay its total long
term debt back
.
Using Mike's figures, I made the following chart below:
For the U.S. Shale Oil Industry just to pay back its debt, it must produce 9 billion
barrels of oil.
That is one heck of a lot of oil as the industry has produced about 10
billion barrels to date. Again, as Mike states, it would take 9 billion barrels of shale oil to
pay back its $285-300 billion of debt (based on the shale industry's very own breakeven prices).
Furthermore, the shale industry may have to sell a quarter of its oil production (1.5
million barrels per day) just to service its debt by the end of 2019.
According to the
EIA, the U.S. Energy Information Agency, total shale oil (tight oil) production is now 6.2 million
barrels per day (mbd):
The majority of shale oil production comes from three fields and regions, the Eagle Ford (Blue),
the Bakken (Yellow) and the Permian (light, medium & dark brown). These three fields and regions
produce 5.2 mbd of the total 6.2 mbd of shale production.
Unfortunately, the shale industry continues to struggle with mounting debt and negative free
cash flow. The EIA recently published this chart showing the cash from operations versus capital
expenditures for 48 public domestic oil producers:
You will notice that capital expenditures (
brown line
) are still higher than
cash from operations (
blue line
). So, it doesn't seem to matter if the oil price
is over $100 (2013-2014) or less than $70 (2017-2018), the shale oil industry continues to spend
more money than it's making.
The shale energy companies have resorted to selling assets,
issuing stock and increasing debt to supplement their inadequate cash flow to fund operations.
A perfect example of this in practice is Pioneer Resources the number one shale oil producer in
the mighty Permian. While most companies increased their debt to fund operations, Pioneer decided
to take advantage of its high stock price by raising money via share dilution.
Pioneer's
outstanding shares ballooned from 115 million shares in 2010 to 170 million by 2017. From 2011 to
2016, Pioneer issued a staggering $5.4 billion in new stock
:
So, as Pioneer issued over $5 billion in stock to produce unprofitable shale oil and gas,
Continental Resources racked up more than $5 billion in debt during the same period. These are
both examples of "Ponzi Finance." Thus, the shale energy industry has been quite creative in
hoodwinking both the shareholder and capital investor.
Now, there is no coincidence that I have focused my research on Pioneer and Continental
Resources.
While Continental is the poster child of what's horribly wrong with the shale
oil industry in the Bakken, Pioneer is a role model for the same sort of insanity and delusional
thinking taking place in the Permian.
Pioneer Spends A Lot More Money With Unsatisfactory Production Results
To be able to understand what is going on in the U.S. shale industry, you have to be clever
enough to ignore the "Techno-jargon" in the press releases and read between the lines. As
mentioned above, Pioneer stated that it was going to add a lot more of its "high-tech" Version 3.0+
completion wells in the second half of 2018 because they were outperforming the older versions.
Well, I hope this is true because Pioneer's first half 2018 production results in the Permian
were quite disappointing compared to the previous period.
If we compare the increase of
Pioneer's shale oil production in the Permian versus its capital expenditures, something must be
seriously wrong
.
First, let's look at a breakdown of Pioneer's Permian energy production from their September
2018 Investor Presentation:
Pioneer's Permian oil and gas production is broken down between its horizontal shale and
vertical convention production. I will only focus on its horizontal shale production as this is
where the majority of their capital expenditures are taking place. The highlighted yellow line
shows Pioneer's horizontal shale oil production in the Permian Basin.
You will notice that Pioneer's shale oil production increased significantly in Q3 & Q4 2017
versus Q1 & Q2 2018. Furthermore, Pioneer's shale gas production surged in Q2 2018 by nearly 50%
(highlighted with a red box) compared to oil production only increasing 5%. That is a serious RED
FLAG for natural gas production to jump that much in one quarter.
Secondly, by comparing the increase of Pioneer's quarterly shale oil production in the Permian
with its capital expenditures, the results are less than satisfactory:
The RED LINE shows the amount of capital expenditures spent each quarter while the OLIVE colored
BARS represent the increase in Permian shale oil production. To simplify the figures in this
chart, I made the following graphic below:
Pioneer spent $1.36 billion in the second half of 2017 to increase its Permian shale oil
production by 30,232 barrels per day (bopd) compared to $1.7 billion in the first half of 2018
which only resulted in an additional 10,832 bopd
. Folks, it seems as if something
seriously went wrong for Pioneer in the Permian as the expenditure of $340 million more CAPEX
resulted in two-thirds less the production growth versus the previous period.
Third, while Pioneer (stock ticker PXD) proudly lists that they are one of the lowest cost
shale producers in the industry, they still suffer from negative free cash flow:
As we can see, Pioneer lists their breakeven oil price at approximately $22, which is downright
hilarious when they spent $132 million more on capital expenditures than the made in cash from
operations:
The public and investors need to understand that "oil breakeven costs" do not include capital
expenditures. And according to Pioneer's Q2 2018 Press Release, the company plans on spending
$3.4 billion on capital expenditures in 2018. The majority of the capital expenditures are spent
on drilling and completing horizontal shale wells.
For example, Pioneer brought on 130 new wells in the first half of 2018 and spent $1.7
billion on CAPEX (capital expenditures) versus 125 wells and $1.36 billion in 2H 2017.
I
have seen estimates that it cost approximately $9 million for Pioneer to drill a horizontal shale
well in the Permian. Thus, the 130 wells cost nearly $1.2 billion.
However, the interesting thing to take note is that Pioneer brought on 125 wells in 2H 2017 to
add 30,000+ barrels of new oil production compared to 130 wells in 1H 2018 that only added 10,000+
barrels.
So, how can Pioneer add five more wells (130 vs. 125) in 1H 2018 to see its oil
production increase a third of what it was in the previous period?
Regardless, the U.S. shale oil industry continues to spend more money than they make from
operations. While energy companies may have enjoyed lower costs when the industry was gutted by
super-low oil prices in 2015 and 2016, it seems as if inflation has made its way back into the
shale patch. Rising energy prices translate to higher costs for the shale energy industry. Rinse
and repeat.
Unfortunately, when the stock markets finally crack, so will energy and commodity prices.
Falling oil prices will cause severe damage to the Shale Industry as it struggles to stay afloat by
selling assets, issuing stock and increasing debt to continue producing unprofitable oil.
I believe the U.S. Shale Oil Industry will suffer catastrophic failure from the impact
of deflationary oil prices along with peaking production.
While U.S. Shale Oil production
has increased exponentially over the past decade, it will likely come down even faster.
AP-NORC
Poll national survey with 1,152 adults found 8 in 10 Americans believe the country is
divided regarding essential values, and some expect the division to deepen into 2020.
Only 20% of Americans said they think the country will become less divided over the next
several years, and 39% believe conditions will continue to deteriorate. A substantial majority
of Americans, 77%, said they are dissatisfied with the state of politics in the country , said
AP-NORC.
... ... ...
The nationwide survey was conducted on October 11-14, using the AmeriSpeak
Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Overall, 59% of
Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president, while 40% of Americans
approve.
More specifically, the poll said 83% of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the
job, while 92% of Democrats and 61% of Independents strongly disagree.
More than half of Americans said they are not hearing nor seeing topics from midterm
campaigns that are important to them. About 54% of Democrats and 44% of Republicans said vital
issues, such as health care, education, and economic activity, Social Security and crime, were
topics they wanted to hear more.
Looking at their communities, most American (Republicans and Democrats) are satisfied with
their state or local community. However, on a national level, 58% of Americans are dissatisfied
with the direction of the country, compared to 25%, a small majority who are satisfied.
Most Americans are dissatisfied with the massive gap between rich and poor, race relations
and environmental conditions. The poll noticed there are partisan splits, 84% of Democrats are
disappointed with the amount of wealth inequality, compared with 43% of Republicans. On the
environment, 77% of Democrats and 32% Republicans are dissatisfied. Moreover, while 77%
Democrats said they are unhappy with race relations, about 50% of Republicans said the
same.
The poll also showed how Democrats and Republicans view certain issues. About 80% of
Democrats but less than 33% of Republicans call income inequality, environmental issues or
racism very important.
"Healthcare, education and economic growth are the top issues considered especially
important by the public. While there are many issues that Republicans and Democrats give
similar levels of importance to (trade foreign policy and immigration), there are several
concerns where they are far apart. For example, 80% of Democrats say the environment and
climate change is extremely or very important, and only 28% of Republicans agree. And while
68% consider the national debt to be extremely or very important, only 55% of Democrats
regard it with the same level of significance," said AP-NORC.
Although Democrats and Republicans are divided on most values, many Americans
consider the country's diverse population a benefit.
Half said America's melting pot makes the country stronger, while less than 20% said it
hurts the country. About 30% said diversity does not affect their outlook.
"However, differences emerge by party identification, gender, location, education, and
race . Democrats are more likely to say having a population with various backgrounds makes
the country stronger compared to Republicans or Independents. Urbanities and college-educated
adults are more likely to say having a mix of ethnicities makes the country stronger, while
people living in rural areas and less educated people tend to say diversity has no effect or
makes the country weaker," said AP-NORC.
Overall, 60% of Americans said accusations of sexual harassment with some
high-profile men forced to resign or be fired was essential to them. However, 73% of women said
the issue was critical, compared with 51% of men. The data showed that Democrats were much more
likely than Republicans to call sexual misconduct significant.
More than 40% of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court after allegations of sexual harassment in his
college years. 35% of Americans said they heartily approved of Kavanaugh's confirmation.
The evidence above sheds light on the internal struggles of America. The country is divided,
and this could be a significant problem just ahead.
Why is that? Well, America's future was outlined in a book called "The Fourth Turning: What
Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous With Destiny."
In the book, which was written in the late 1990s, authors William Strauss and Niel Howe
theorize that the history of civilization moves in 80-to-100 year cycles called "saecula."
The idea behind this theory dates back to the Greeks, who believed that at given saeculum's
end, there would come "ekpyrosis," or a cataclysmic event.
This era of change is known as the Fourth Turning, and it appears we are in the midst of one
right now.
The last few Fourth Turnings that America experienced ushered in the Civil War and the
Reconstruction era, and then the Great Depression and World War II. Before all of that, it was
the Revolutionary War.
Each Fourth Turning had similar warning signs: periods of political chaos, division, social
and economic decay in which the American people reverted from extreme division and were forced
to reunite in the rebuild of a new future, but that only came after massive conflict.
Today's divide among many Americans is strong. We are headed for a collision that will rip
this country apart at the seams. The timing of the next Fourth Turning is now, and it could
take at least another decade to complete the cycle.
After the Fourth Turning, America will not be the America you are accustomed to today. So,
let us stop calling today the "greatest economy ever" and start preparing for turbulence.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has
released a new audit of a computer network at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Earth
Resouces Observation and Science (EROS) Center satellite imaging facility in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota.
OIG initiated an investigation into suspicious internet traffic discovered during a regular
IT security audit of the USGS computer network. The review found that a single USGS employee
infected the network due to the access of unauthorized internet web pages.
Those web pages were embedded with harmful malware, and then downloaded onto a
government-issued laptop, which then "exploited the USGS' network."
A digital forensic team examined the infected laptop and found porn. After further review,
it was determined the USGS employee visited 9,000 web pages of porn that were hosted mainly on
Russian servers and contained toxic malware.
OIG found the employee saved much of the pornographic content on an unauthorized USB drive
and personal smartphone, both of which were synced to the government computer and network.
"Our digital forensic examination revealed that [the employee] had an extensive history of
visiting adult pornography websites" that hosted dangerous malware, the OIG wrote.
"The malware was downloaded to [the employees'] government laptop, which then exploited
the USGS' network."
The forensic team determined two vulnerabilities in the USGS' IT security review: website
access and open USB ports. They said the "malware is rogue software that is intended to damage
or disable computers and computer systems." The ultimate objective of the malware was to steal
highly classified government information while spreading the infection to other systems.
The U.S. Department of the Interior's Rules of Behavior explicitly prohibit employees from
using government networks to satisfy porn cravings, and the IOG found the employee had agreed
to these rules "several years prior to the detection."
The employee was discharged from the agency, OIG External Affairs Director Nancy DiPaolo
told
Nextgov.
However, this is not the first time government workers have been figuratively caught with
their pants down.
Over the last two decades, similar incidents have occurred at the Environmental Protection
Agency, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the IRS.
Last year, a D.C. news team uncovered "egregious on-the-job pornography viewing" at a dozen
federal agencies and national security officials have reportedly found an "unbelievable" amount
of child porn on government devices, said Nextgov.
It seems that porn watching on government devices is so widespread that Rep. Mark Meadows,
R-N.C., introduced legislation banning porn at federal agencies -- three separate times.
Government workers have a porn addiction problem, and it is now jeopardizing national
security.
There was also a highly-recommended, heavily-commented piece at Daily Kos.
Here's a pro tip: when you see a daily stock market move leading the political blogs, it's a
sign of a bottom, not a top.
That's because it's a sign of emotion, and it means that amateurs are paying close
attention. By the time that happens, the big move is over, or at least almost over.
Paul Kasriel used his "infallible" recession warning indicator to
accurately forecast the deep 2007-09 recession in early 2007.
The indicator consists of two components: monetary and the yield curve.
In August, Kasriel forecast that the indicator would be triggered by the end of this year,
meaning a recession in 2019.
But one of the two components hasn't been met yet, and if present trends continue, it won't
be met until sometime in the second half of 2019. Introduction
We'll get an update on two quarterly long leading indicators - fixed private residential
investment and proprietors' income - on Friday with the Q3 GDP report. Before that, though, I
thought I would update the two long leading indicators that make up the "Kasriel Recession
Warning Indicator" that is one of the systems I make use of.
The "Kasriel Recession Warning Indicator," named for Paul Kasriel, formerly of the Northern
Trust Co., and currently a Senior Advisor at Legacy Private Trust Co., holds that when two
conditions are met: (1) an inverted yield curve as measured by the 10-year Treasury bond and
the Fed Funds rate, and (2) real adjusted monetary base turns negative, a recession follows
within twelve months. It has been "infallible" since the 1960s.
Here's what it looked like back in the beginning of 2007, when he used it to accurately
forecast a recession in late 2007 or 2008:
Updating the indicator is of particular interest now, because
two months ago Kasriel wrote that the second condition had been met, and he expected the
requisite yield curve inversion by the end of this year, therefore he expected a recession by
the end of 2019. Here's his supporting graph:
The crown jewel of California's Progressive-feminist policy this year was Senate
Bill 826 which mandates publicly-held corporations to put women on their boards. It was
passed and signed by Governor Jerry Brown. California now proudly leads the nation in identity
politics. The law requires a minimum of one woman board member by 2019, and by 2020, two for
boards with five members and three with boards of six or more.
The law's goal is gender
parity, but it is couched in financial terms suggesting that companies with women on their
boards do better than those that don't. Several studies are cited to back this claim (UC Cal,
Credit Suisse, and McKinsey). Catalyst
, a nonprofit that promotes women in the workplace, did a
widely quoted study that claimed:
Return on Equity: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board
directors outperformed those with the least by 53% .
Return on Sales: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women board
directors outperformed those with the least by 42% .
Return on Invested Capital: On average, companies with the highest percentages of women
board directors outperformed those with the least by 66%.
This claim doesn't meet the smell test and the overwhelming conclusion of scientific
research in the field says that women directors have little or no effect on corporate
performance. Much of the data supporting the feminist theory lacks empirical rigor and is
coincidental ( A happened and then B happened, thus A caused B ).
Professor Alice H.
Eagly , a fellow at Northwestern's Institute of Policy Research, and an expert on issues
related to women in leadership roles, commented on this issue in the Journal of Social Issues :
Despite advocates' insistence that women on boards enhance corporate performance and that
diversity of task groups enhances their performance, research findings are mixed, and
repeated meta‐analyses have yielded average correlational findings that are null or
extremely small.
Rather than ignoring or furthering distortions of scientific knowledge to fit advocacy
goals, scientists should serve as honest brokers who communicate consensus scientific
findings to advocates and policy makers in an effort to encourage exploration of
evidence-based policy options. [Emphasis added]
American politics
has become a game of, by, and for corporate interests, with tax cuts for the rich, deregulation for polluters, and war and global
warming for the rest of us. Americans – and the world – deserve better.
"... While I am generally not in favor of bankruptcy discrimination, the ineligibility of bankrupt colleges for taxpayer funding is eminently sensible ..."
The Bezzle: "For-profit college chain files (for receivership)" [
Credit Slips ].
"While I am generally not in favor of bankruptcy discrimination, the ineligibility of
bankrupt colleges for taxpayer funding is eminently sensible.
Given the weakness of
institutional gatekeeping and the political challenges to shutting down predatory schools, and
the for-profit college business model in which taxpayer grants and loans are used to prepay
tuitions for students who are frequently misled about career chances, we don't need bankruptcy
to give these failing schools a new lease on life." • Ouch.
Roughly one hundred years ago, the people who "ran things," – the drivers behind
governments, big business and banking – formulated a concept which became known by a
number of names, but, predominantly, as the "New World Order."
The concept was to put an end to unnecessary competition and warfare and have a central,
unelected group of people run the entire world. It was not considered necessary to completely
eliminate individual countries; the idea was to control them all centrally. It also didn't
necessarily mean that wars would end. Warfare can be quite useful for rulers, as they provide
an excellent distraction from resentment toward the leaders who impose control over a
people.
Ever since that time, this same rough group of people has continued generationally.
Sometimes, but not always, the family names change. Useful people are added on and less useful
ones removed. But the concept itself has continued, evolved and, in fact, gained strength.
But, as yet, the process remains incomplete. Several facets to a New World Order are not yet
in place. It's proven difficult to "fool all of the people all of the time," so the effort to
subjugate an entire world has taken more time than originally anticipated.
An essential component of this control is the elimination of the personal holding of wealth.
Whilst the leaders intend to expand their own wealth in an unlimited fashion, they seek to
suppress the ability of the average person to increase his own wealth. Wealth leads to
independence and independence from a New World Order is unacceptable. Wealth gives people
options. They must be taught to accept being herded like cattle and being compliant, or they
will become troublesome.
Surveillance Capitalism is nice term for STASI=line regime which became the "new normal". When we say Google we mean CIA.
Notable quotes:
"... Being touted as "the world's first neighborhood built from the internet up," the Google designed smart city is set to deploy an array of cameras and sensors that detect pedestrians at traffic lights or alert cleanup crews when garbage bins overflow, reports The Globe and Mail . Robotic vehicles will whisk away garbage in underground tunnels, heated bike lanes will melt snow and a street layout will accommodate a fleet of self-driving cars. ..."
"... Such an account could potentially work with facial recognition "and allow for example a repairman to get into a home to perform his duties and firefighters to have access a building when a fire alarm is triggered." ..."
"... The project's critics included former BlackBerry CEO Jim Balsillie who referred to the development as "a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic and political issues." ..."
"... Ann Cavoukia's decision to walk away from the project was made just weeks after Waterfront Toronto's Digital Strategy Advisory Panel member, Saadia Muzaffar, resigned over concerns about how Google will collect and handle data collected from people within the smart city. ..."
"... "We are at a point where a secretive, unelected, publicly funded corporation with no expertise in IP, data or even basic digital rights is in charge of navigating forces of urban privatization, algorithmic control and rule by corporate contract." ..."
A privacy expert tasked with protecting personal data within a Google-backed smart city project has resigned as her pro-privacy
guidelines would largely be ignored by participants.
"I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance," Ann Cavoukian, the former privacy
commissioner of Ontario, wrote
in a resignation letter to Google sister company Sidewalk Labs.
"I felt I had no choice because I had been told by Sidewalk Labs that all of the data collected will be de-identified at source,"
she added.
Cavoukian was an acting consultant involved in the plan by Canada's Waterfront Toronto to develop a smart city neighborhood in
the city's Quayside development. She had created an initiative called Privacy by Design that aimed to ensure citizens' personal data
would be protected.
Once it became apparent that citizen privacy could not be guaranteed, Cavoukian decided it was time to leave the project:
But then, at a Thursday meeting, Cavoukian reportedly realized such anonymization protocols could not be guaranteed. She told
the Candian news outlet that Sidewalk Labs revealed at that meeting that their organization could commit to her guidelines, but
other involved groups would not be required to abide by them.
Cavoukian realized third parties could possibly have access to identifiable data gathered through the project. "When I heard
that, I said, 'I'm sorry. I can't support this. I have to resign because you committed to embedding privacy by design into every
aspect of your operation,'" she told Global News. –
Gizmodo
Being touted as "the world's first neighborhood built from the internet up," the Google designed smart city is set to deploy
an array of cameras and sensors that detect pedestrians at traffic lights or alert cleanup crews when garbage bins overflow,
reports The Globe
and Mail . Robotic vehicles will whisk away garbage in underground tunnels, heated bike lanes will melt snow and a street layout
will accommodate a fleet of self-driving cars.
The city will also
provide each
citizen a "user account" which will allow access to "the various online services of the neighborhood and improve participatory
democracy."
Such an account could potentially work with facial recognition "and allow for example a repairman to get into a home to perform
his duties and firefighters to have access a building when a fire alarm is triggered."
The project's critics included former BlackBerry CEO Jim Balsillie who referred to the development as "a colonizing experiment
in surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic and political issues."
In an October op-ed, Balsillie describes smart cities as the new battlefront for big tech and warned that the commercialization
of IP and data within the city would mean that personal information would just be another target of corporate digital-gold mining.
The 21st-century knowledge-based and data-driven economy is all about IP and data. "Smart cities" are the new battlefront for
big tech because they serve as the most promising hotbed for additional intangible assets that hold the next trillion dollars
to add to their market capitalizations. "Smart cities" rely on IP and data to make the vast array of city sensors more functionally
valuable, and when under the control of private interests, an enormous new profit pool. As Sidewalk Labs' chief executive Dan
Doctoroff
said
: "We're in this business to make money." Sidewalk also wants
full autonomy from
city regulations so it can build without constraint.
You can only commercialize IP or data when you own or control them. That's why Sidewalk, as a recent Globe and Mail investigation
revealed , is taking control to own all IP on this project. All smart companies know that controlling the IP controls access
to the data, even when it's shared data. Stunningly, when Waterfront Toronto released its "updated" agreement, they left the ownership
of IP and data unresolved, even though IP experts publicly asserted that ownership of IP must be clarified up front or it
defaults to Sidewalk. Securing new monopoly IP rights coupled with the best new data sets creates a systemic market advantage
from which companies can inexorably expand.
A privately controlled "smart city" infrastructure upends traditional models of citizenship because you cannot opt out of a
city or a society that practises mass surveillance. Foreign corporate interests tout new technocratic efficiencies while shrewdly
occluding their unprecedented power grab. As the renowned technologist Evgeny Morozov
said : "That the city is also the primary target of big tech is no accident: If these firms succeed in controlling its infrastructure,
they need not to worry about much else."
Ann Cavoukia's decision to walk away from the project was made just weeks after Waterfront Toronto's Digital Strategy Advisory
Panel member, Saadia Muzaffar,
resigned over concerns about how Google will collect and handle data collected from people within the smart city.
Saadia Muzaffar specifically pointed to "Waterfront Toronto's astounding apathy and utter lack of leadership regarding shaky public
trust and social licence."
Local residents remain concerned over the lack of transparency in regards to the project as many believe the deal has been shrouded
in secrecy. As Jim Balsillie described it:
"We are at a point where a secretive, unelected, publicly funded corporation with no expertise in IP, data or even basic
digital rights is in charge of navigating forces of urban privatization, algorithmic control and rule by corporate contract."
Barry McBear, 2 hours ago
Getting rid of facebook was easy, but de-googling my life is going to be a real pain in the ***. One that clearly must be
done though.
"... While I am generally not in favor of bankruptcy discrimination, the ineligibility of bankrupt colleges for taxpayer funding is eminently sensible ..."
The Bezzle: "For-profit college chain files (for receivership)" [
Credit Slips ].
"While I am generally not in favor of bankruptcy discrimination, the ineligibility of
bankrupt colleges for taxpayer funding is eminently sensible.
Given the weakness of
institutional gatekeeping and the political challenges to shutting down predatory schools, and
the for-profit college business model in which taxpayer grants and loans are used to prepay
tuitions for students who are frequently misled about career chances, we don't need bankruptcy
to give these failing schools a new lease on life." • Ouch.
I apologize in advance to Lambert for adding this link to his terrific daily water cooler
topics, but since Yves and NC were specifically mentioned I thought it would be interesting
to share. The video is titled, "Should we trust MMT?" with Joe Bongiovanni. It is 48 minutes
long and I only made it about 20 minutes after becoming too annoyed. Yves/NC are mentioned at
18 minutes and 40 seconds in. Joe says he was part of the NC commentariat for years, but was
banned due to his thoughts that MMT proponents are misleading and don't "tell the real
truth".
Not being an economist or comfortable enough with my understanding of MMT to know if what
he was saying had merit. Plus the style and lack of preparation from the interviewer other
than wanting her expert to debunk MMT for her right wing followers.
I'm 30 min in .skip ahead to that point to get to the meat of his discussion.
He keeps repeating that he wants monetary "reform", so that the money system 'works for
the people'. But he doesn't say what that change is or why MMT gets it wrong in its
understanding of how the system works.
He says "govt doesn't create money by spending". Except, yes, it does. It then chooses to
offset that spending later with bond auctions.
He doesn't make a distinction between public and private debt, doesn't distinguish between
currency users and issuers. No distinction between stocks and flows. No discussion of
capacity constraints, inflation.
He actually fear-mongers about the debt around the 38-39 min mark. Says there's going to
be tough times when we get austerity (in addition to environment collapsing).
He talks a lot about how 'the monetary system works', but it's clear to me he doesn't get
how the banking system works. I don't think you can understand one without the other very
well.
MMT can offer a clear explanation of why:
1) 30 yr treasury bond yields fell rapidly in the 1980s while deficits were exploding.
2) 30 yr treasury bond yields rose in 2000, hitting 7% on the 30 yr at one point, when the
government was running surpluses.
3) Japan has a functional currency and economy with massive debts and deficits for many
years.
Conventional economics has NO explanation for the above phenomenon.
Cheers Johnny – he's been here before and took umbrage to the NC crew saying that
taxation for revenue is obsolete. Don't make me go there.
Said NC doesn't like criticism and Yves had banned him I'd be banned too if I thought
that!!
Got some trolls on Youtube worked up. I'll go and finish them off after I do a little more
digging on Joe and his Kettle Pond Institute for Debt Free Money.
He had a go at Bill Mitchell on this post recently:
IMO, Tvc, if you want some relevant stuff, look at how Jimmy Dore (a comedian turned
activist) gets his head around MMT – Stephanie Kelton was good and has been linked here
and also Chris Hedges
People like JD are very influential and I can see a heightened awareness out there that we
are not going to get anywhere now by being polite and civil.
I don't remember the details, but he was banned for behavior. The problem that so often
happens is that the people on losing sides of arguments here (as in not just the moderators
but the commentariat does a good job of debunking their claims) is they don't give up and
start going into various forms of bad faith argumentation: broken record, straw manning, or
just plain getting abusive. Then they try to claim they were banned due to their position, as
opposed to how they started carrying on when they couldn't make their case.
The AMI people are a real problem, and the worst is that they use enough lingo that sounds
MMT-like that they confuse people about MMT. They are also presumptuous as hell. I was part
of an Occupy Wall Street group, Alternative Banking. Every week, a group came and kept trying
to hijack the discussion to be about Positive Money. They got air time because that's Occupy
but everyone else regarded them as an annoyance.
One Sunday, the president of AMI showed up in a suit, uninvited, and expected to be able
to take over the group and lecture. The rules were everyone on stack got only 2 or 3 minutes
each (I forget how long) and then had to cede the floor. Since everyone else was too polite,
I was the one who had to shut him up by blowing up at him and telling him he was totally out
of line and had no business abusing the group's rules. That is the only time in my WASPy life
I have carried on like that in a public setting. Broke up the meeting, which reconvened only
after he left.
Despite the almost unprecedented divisive nature of Donald J. Trump's presidency, he is
chalking up some impressive foreign policy victories, including finally bringing Beijing to
task over its decades long unfair trade practices, stealing of intellectual property rights,
and rampant mercantilism that has given its state-run companies unfair trade advantages and as
a result seen Western funds transform China to an emerging world power alongside the U.S.
Now, it looks as if Trump's recent tirade against America's European allies over its
geopolitically troubling reliance on Russian gas supply may also be bearing fruit. On Tuesday,
The Wall Street Journal reported that earlier this month German Chancellor Angela Merkel
offered government support to efforts to open up Germany to U.S. gas, in what the report called
"a key concession to President Trump as he tries to loosen Russia's grip on Europe's largest
energy market."
German concession
Over breakfast earlier this month, Merkel told a small group of German lawmakers that the
government had made a decision to co-finance the construction of a $576 million liquefied
natural gas (LNG) terminal in northern Germany, people familiar with the development said.
The project had been postponed for at least a decade due to lack of government support,
according to reports, but is now being thrust to the center of European-U.S. geopolitics.
Though media outlets will mostly spin the development, this is nonetheless a geopolitical and
diplomatic win for Trump who lambasted Germany in June over its Nordstream 2 pipeline deal with
Russia.
In a televised meeting with reporters and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before a
NATO summit in Brussels,
Trump said at the time it was "very inappropriate" that the U.S. was paying for European
defense against Russia while Germany, the biggest European economy, was supporting gas deals
with Moscow.
Both the tone and openness of Trumps' remarks brought scathing rebukes both at home and
among EU allies, including most media outlets. However, at the end of the day, it appears that
the president made a fair assessment of the situation. Russia, for its part, vehemently denies
any nefarious motives over its gas supply contacts with its European customers, though Moscow's
actions in the past dictate otherwise.
Moscow also claims that the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline is a purely commercial venture. The
$11 billion gas pipeline will stretch some 759 miles (1,222 km), running on the bed of the
Baltic Sea from Russian gas fields to Germany, bypassing existing land routes over Ukraine,
Poland and Belarus. It would double the existing Nord Stream pipeline's current annual capacity
of 55 bcm and is expected to become operational by the end of next year.
Russia, who stands the most to lose not only in terms of regional hegemony, but economically
as well, if Germany pushes through with plans to now build as many as three LNG terminals,
always points out that Russian pipeline gas is cheaper and will remain cheaper for decades
compared to U.S. LNG imports.
While that assessment is correct, what Moscow is missing, or at least not admitting, is a
necessary German acquiescence to Washington. Not only does the EU's largest economy need to
stay out of Trump's anti-trade cross hairs, it still needs American leadership in both NATO and
in Europe as well.
Russian advantages
Without U.S. leadership in Europe, a vacuum would open that Moscow would try to fill, most
likely by more gas supply agreements. However, Russia's gas monopoly in both Germany and in
Europe will largely remain intact for several reasons.
First, Russian energy giant Gazprom, which has control over Russia's network of pipelines to
Europe, supplies close to 40 percent of Europe's gas needs.
Second, Russia's gas exports to Europe rose 8.1 percent last year to a record level of 193.9
bcm, even amid concerns over Russia's cyber espionage allegations, and its activities in Syria,
the Ukraine and other places.
Moreover, Russian gas is indeed as cheap as the country claims and will remain that way for
decades. Using a Henry Hub gas price of $2.85/MMBtu as a base, Gazprom
recently estimated that adding processing and transportation costs, the price of
U.S.-sourced LNG in Europe would reach $6/MMBtu or higher – a steep markup.
Henry Hub gas prices are currently trading at $3.151/MMBtu. Over the last 52-week period
U.S. gas has traded between $2.64/MMBtu and $3.82/MMBtu. Russian gas sells for around $5/MMBtu
in European markets and could even trade at lower prices in the future as Gazprom removes the
commodity's oil price indexation.
"The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices. Their
intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness. We have been lulled into a
trance. They have made us indifferent to ourselves, to others. We are focused only on our own
gain." -- They Live , John Carpenter
We're living in two worlds, you and I.
There's the world we see (or are made to see) and then there's the one we sense (and
occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven
reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.
Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America - privileged, progressive and free -
is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power
are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and "freedom,"
such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the
teeth.
All is not as it seems.
"You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall.
You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong."
This is the premise of
John Carpenter's film They Live , which was released 30 years ago in November 1988 and
remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.
Best known for his horror film Halloween , which assumes that there is a form of evil so
dark that it can't be killed, Carpenter's larger body of work is infused with a strong
anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker's concerns
about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.
Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens,
a populace out of touch with reality , technology run amok, and a future more horrific than
any horror film.
In Escape from New York , Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.
In The Thing , a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes
that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.
In Christine , the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel about a demon-possessed car,
technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.
In In the Mouth of Madness , Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose "the ability
to know the difference between reality and fantasy."
And then there is Carpenter's They Live , in which two migrant workers discover that the
world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by
aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace --
blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives -- has been lulled into
complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized
by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and
the like.
It is only when homeless drifter John Nada (played to the hilt by the late Roddy
Piper ) discovers a pair of doctored sunglasses -- Hoffman lenses -- that Nada sees what
lies beneath the elite's fabricated reality: control and bondage.
When viewed through the lens of truth, the elite, who appear human until stripped of their
disguises, are shown to be monsters who have enslaved the citizenry in order to prey on
them.
Likewise,
billboards blare out hidden, authoritative messages : a bikini-clad woman in one ad is
actually ordering viewers to "MARRY AND REPRODUCE." Magazine racks scream "CONSUME" and "OBEY."
A wad of dollar bills in a vendor's hand proclaims, "THIS IS YOUR GOD."
When viewed through Nada's Hoffman lenses, some of the other hidden messages being drummed
into the people's subconscious include: NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, CONFORM, SUBMIT, STAY ASLEEP,
BUY, WATCH TV, NO IMAGINATION, and DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
This indoctrination campaign engineered by the elite in They Live is painfully familiar to
anyone who has studied the decline of American culture.
A citizenry that does not think for themselves, obeys without question, is submissive, does
not challenge authority, does not think outside the box, and is content to sit back and be
entertained is a citizenry that can be easily controlled.
In this way, the subtle message of They Live provides an apt analogy of our own distorted
vision of life in the American police state, what philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to
as dictatorship in
democracy , "the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom."
We're being fed a series of carefully contrived fictions that bear no resemblance to
reality.
The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists,
shooters ,
bombers ).
They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our
safety and well-being.
They want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other's
throats.
Most of all, they want us to continue to march in lockstep with their dictates.
Tune out the government's attempts to distract, divert and befuddle us and tune into what's
really going on in this country, and you'll run headlong into an unmistakable, unpalatable
truth: the moneyed elite who rule us view us as expendable resources to be used, abused and
discarded.
In fact, a study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the
U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens . Instead, the study
found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called "economic elite."
Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly
always favor special interests and lobbying groups.
In other words, we are being
ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism --
a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the
people are seen as mere subjects to be controlled.
Not only do you have to be rich -- or beholden to the rich -- to get elected these days, but
getting elected is also a
surefire way to get rich . As CBS News reports, "Once in office, members of Congress enjoy
access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are
unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow
them to profit even further."
In denouncing this blatant corruption of America's political system, former president Jimmy
Carter blasted the process of getting elected -- to the White House, governor's mansion,
Congress or state legislatures -- as "
unlimited political bribery a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major
contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election
is over."
Rest assured that when and if fascism finally takes hold in America, the basic forms of
government will remain: Fascism will appear to be friendly. The legislators will be in session.
There will be elections, and the news media will continue to cover the entertainment and
political trivia. Consent of the governed, however, will no longer apply. Actual control will
have finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Sound familiar?
Clearly, we are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate
interests.
We have moved into "corporatism" (
favored by Benito Mussolini ), which is a halfway point on the road to full-blown
fascism.
Corporatism is where the few moneyed interests -- not elected by the citizenry -- rule over
the many. In this way, it is not a democracy or a republican form of government, which is what
the American government was established to be. It is a top-down form of government and one
which has a terrifying history typified by the developments that occurred in totalitarian
regimes of the past: police states where everyone is watched and spied on, rounded up for minor
infractions by government agents, placed under police control, and placed in detention (a.k.a.
concentration) camps.
For the final hammer of fascism to fall, it will require the most crucial ingredient: the
majority of the people will have to agree that it's not only expedient but necessary.
But why would a people agree to such an oppressive regime?
Fear is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government. And,
as most social commentators recognize, an atmosphere of fear permeates modern America: fear of
terrorism, fear of the police, fear of our neighbors and so on.
The propaganda of fear has been used quite effectively by those who want to gain control,
and it is working on the American populace.
Despite the fact that we are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a
terrorist attack; 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a
terrorist plot involving an airplane; 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a
terrorist attack, and 8 times more likely to be
killed by a police officer than by a terrorist , we have handed over control of our lives
to government officials who treat us as a means to an end -- the source of money and power.
As the Bearded Man in They Live warns , "They are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for
slavery."
In this regard, we're not so different from the oppressed citizens in They Live .
From the moment we are born until we die, we are indoctrinated into believing that those who
rule us do it for our own good. The truth is far different.
Despite the truth staring us in the face, we have allowed ourselves to become fearful,
controlled, pacified zombies.
We live in a perpetual state of denial, insulated from the painful reality of the American
police state by wall-to-wall entertainment news and screen devices.
Most everyone keeps their heads down these days while staring zombie-like into an electronic
screen, even when they're crossing the street. Families sit in restaurants with their heads
down, separated by their screen devices and unaware of what's going on around them. Young
people especially seem dominated by the devices they hold in their hands, oblivious to the fact
that they can simply push a button, turn the thing off and walk away.
Indeed, there is no larger group activity than that connected with those who watch screens
-- that is, television, lap tops, personal computers, cell phones and so on. In fact, a Nielsen
study reports that American screen viewing is at an all-time high. For example, the average
American watches approximately 151 hours of television per month .
The question, of course, is what effect does such screen consumption have on one's mind?
Psychologically it is similar to
drug addiction . Researchers found that "almost immediately after turning on the TV,
subjects
reported feeling more relaxed , and because this occurs so quickly and the tension returns
so rapidly after the TV is turned off, people are conditioned to associate TV viewing with a
lack of tension." Research also shows that regardless of the programming, viewers' brain waves
slow down, thus transforming them into a more passive, nonresistant state.
Historically, television has been used by those in authority to quiet discontent and pacify
disruptive people. "Faced with severe overcrowding and limited budgets for rehabilitation and
counseling, more and more
prison officials are using TV to keep inmates quiet ," according to Newsweek .
Given that the majority of what Americans watch on television is provided through channels
controlled by six mega corporations , what we watch is now controlled by a corporate elite
and, if that elite needs to foster a particular viewpoint or pacify its viewers, it can do so
on a large scale.
If we're watching, we're not doing.
The powers-that-be understand this. As television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned in a
1958 speech:
We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent . We have currently a built-in
allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we
get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to
distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who
look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
This brings me back to They Live , in which the real zombies are not the aliens calling the
shots but the populace who are content to remain controlled.
When all is said and done, the world of They Live is not so different from our own.
We, too, are focused only on our own pleasures, prejudices and gains. Our poor and
underclasses are also growing. Racial injustice is growing. Human rights is nearly nonexistent.
We too have been lulled into a trance, indifferent to others.
Oblivious to what lies ahead, we've been manipulated into believing that if we continue to
consume, obey, and have faith, things will work out. But that's never been true of emerging
regimes. And by the time we feel the hammer coming down upon us, it will be too late.
So where does that leave us?
The characters who populate Carpenter's films provide some insight.
Underneath their machismo, they still believe in the ideals of liberty and equal
opportunity. Their beliefs place them in constant opposition with the law and the
establishment, but they are nonetheless freedom fighters.
When, for example, John Nada destroys the alien hyno-transmitter in They Live , he restores
hope by delivering America a wake-up call for freedom.
That's the key right there: we need to wake up.
Stop allowing yourselves to be easily distracted by pointless political spectacles and pay
attention to what's really going on in the country.
The real battle for control of this nation is not being waged between Republicans and
Democrats in the ballot box.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , the real battle for control of this nation is
taking place on roadsides, in police cars, on witness stands, over phone lines, in government
offices, in corporate offices, in public school hallways and classrooms, in parks and city
council meetings, and in towns and cities across this country.
The real battle between freedom and tyranny is taking place right in front of our eyes, if
we would only open them.
All the trappings of the American police state are now in plain sight.
Wake up, America.
If they live (the tyrants, the oppressors, the invaders, the overlords), it is only because
"we the people" sleep.
"Has America Become A Dictatorship Disguised As A Democracy?"
Thanks to alternative media the answer is NO. It is important to note, however, that The
left, the Drive-By Media (MSM), and some corporations think we are now a dictatorship - and
they are the dictators. On a daily basis you see them spewing and sputtering and spinning in
circles claiming that we are a dictatorship and THEY are in charge! Sorry fuckwads -
ain't gonna happen.
This story from 1963 has something we instantly recognize in the bullshittery of David
Icke of this decade.
George is a name that means "farmer" So George Nada is farmer of nothing. Radell Faraday
Nelson knew an interesting lot of folks, many of whom including Burroughs were... what? From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs
" Burroughs was born in 1914, the younger of two sons born to Mortimer Perry Burroughs
(June 16, 1885 – January 5, 1965) and Laura Hammon Lee (August 5, 1888 – October
20, 1970). His was a prominent family of English ancestry in St. Louis, Missouri . His grandfather,
William
Seward Burroughs I , founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the
Burroughs
Corporation . Burroughs' mother was the daughter of a minister whose family claimed to be
closely related to Robert E. Lee . His maternal uncle,
Ivy Lee , was an
advertising pioneer later employed as a publicist for the Rockefellers. His father ran an
antique and gift shop, Cobblestone Gardens in St. Louis; and later in Palm Beach, Florida when they
relocated."
...Beat poets (right). Starving artists.
Anyway, Carpenter has done some great work. I remember "They Live" from the theater in '88
at 13. That and Die Hard. If you do a close read of this stuff you'll have fun for days. File
away Ray dosing LSD with PKD. That must have been awesome! So have at it.
Let me ask you, can one take a half step to waking up? Can one be half pregnant?
One of the all time best films I have watched. "They Live" is a really good movie. I have
seen it twice in my lifetime and am going to watch it again in a day or two. If you have
never seen it then you are in for a real treat. It is truly a film worth watching.
Sheep and people who can't think for themselves love dictators. They have a need for
someone they can look up to for "leadership" and to be "herded".
And, bye the way, let's set this article straight. America was never a "Democracy".
America, since the beginning, has been controlled by the elites, or the "Oligarchy". John
Adams once said, "if the majority were given real power, they would redistribute wealth and
dissolve the subordination so necessary for politics". The founding fathers were very much
like the vast majority of European Enlightenment thinkers and against Democracy.. From their
lofty perspective, they understood it to be a dangerous and chaotic form of uneducated mob
rule. The Founding Fathers felt the masses were not only incapable of ruling, but they were
considered a threat to the hierarchical social structures necessary for good governance.
So, the U.S. was formed as a "Republic", by devising a written constitution, which defined
to the masses, how the oligarchy would herd them, and toss them a few bread crumbs called the
"Bill of Rights", so the masses would feel assured of some respect and dignity and would
comply. (Yet, they allowed slavery and indentured-servitude to exist). America is still ruled
by an Oligarchy today, yet most Americans don't seem to know any better.(Perhaps the elites
were right about the masses being uneducated)? Even George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 described America as "a despotic aristocracy." Not much has
changed in the way Americans are governed in past 231 years. After all, who leads our country
today, but a dictatorial aristocratic billionaire. Again, Sheep like to be herded because
they don't know any better..
It's much worse than that Mr. Whitehead, much worse! We're at the begining stages of a
cathartic transformation that'll either wither the USA for good, or provide the impetus for
deep-seated change. For decades, we struggled to slow down the march of tyranny, and while we
may say we succeeded to an extent, it wasn't enough.
There was too much general ignorance, too much complacency, apathy, and freeloading to
make the efforts bear significant fruits, and just now, the last shoe has dropped thus, the
fundamental right that pillars all fundamental rights, the right to speech according to an
individual's preference, has just been stealthily abrogated, in the guise of preventing
election meddling, whatever that means.
Now, Americans are free to allow the US government to do with them as it wishes, the rest
of the world however, are not bound by that choice therefore, if we may advise the ROW (Rest
of World), it's time to inoculate, and quarantine yourselves against the virus that's
infected the USA.
It is glaring now, nothing anyone can do to halt the arrival of the accountant, absolutely
nothing. The best we can do, is advise the patriots to quarantine themselves, the Republic
cannot be restored just yet, and we don't know what it'll take, or when it'll happen but this
much we know, the time has come for the calibration of the USA.
Folks will scoff as usual, and that's not our concern, we are no longer allowed to be
involved actively, we'll pray for folks though, and hope they find the strength to persevere,
other than that, nothing else we can do, cause now, it really doesn't matter anymore, who
rules, or governs the US, it doesn't..
So now, we'll observe, and assist the faithful to grow in strength, prestige, and wealth,
they at least, understand what it's all about.
So to you my friends, vote or don't vote, it's irrelevant, advocate or not, it doesn't
matter, the Republicans might win, the Democrats might win, it doesn't matter, and it's not
worth caring about anymore. As the spoilt generation engage in their final acts of depravity
before they exit, we'll advise you to get out of their way, and observe keenly from a safe
distance.
The way to health as usual, goes through the rough valley of deprivation. Now, it's time
to concentrate on the healthy, and let the sick heal themselves, and the dead bury the dead,
while yet the living live fully.
We thought it was possible to reform the depraved, it wasn't...even we must admit the
limits of our efforts, it wasn't enough, oh what a crying shame...
Not a "slave"? Tell your ******* boss you quit, walk out, burn up your savings, crawl back
a beggar. What do you call it?
One of the (very successful) tactics of corporatism (fascism) is to destroy individual
inventiveness and entrepreneurship outside the big office. You become a wage slave, afraid to
lose a crappy job, in debt because of inadequate wages, bombarded by corporate propaganda.
Your kids are turned against you, because the ads say you're mean. You succumb, watch
distractions on corporate media that show you that the "others out there" are worse off and
trying to steal your stuff (which isn't paid for and is worthless). I dropped out a long time
ago. I'm an escaped slave, hiding out, picking up what I can, living in the tropics. When I
occasionally go back "home" and see friends who took the bait - hook, line and sinker - I
pity them.
One consolation - the corporate captains of industry are also slaves, but their cells are
a bit better than yours.
Always been comfortable with Carpenter. His dystopian world view is pretty close to the
awful reality of Western life. I live elsewhere.
I have been bothered by the changes in society for many years. I lived in many
dictatorships and Theocracies, and many of the trappings of those countries have now been
installed here in America. It is not just that, but also basic changes in the way people
think and act has brought this entire civilization to the brink. The US is not a
dictatorship, but it is way more controlled and less free than it was when I was young. Thing
is, change is always happening, nothing stands still. Societies age and become weak,
eventually falling into dictatorship after the people stop believing in self discipline and
self reliance, and start to live off of the gifts of the state. It is the death of a nation,
and a society as a whole.
But the entire advanced civilization we currently have is failing, due to the changes in
our belief systems. When we began to believe females are just males with different plumbing,
we started on the long decline to eventual destruction as a race. Families depend upon real
females to exist and thrive, and societies and the entire race depends upon families for
survival as a species. We have lost that.
Every society on earth is, or would like to become, a dictatorship disguised as a
democracy. No surprise there.
But, alas, foiled again. Damn those visionaries from 1776. If only we could convince
the
Americans to be more like the Euro-geldings, we'd be there already.
And now their poisonous ability to say no is starting to spread into the veins of the
already cowed and conquered.
latest example: politicos and media decrying the mysterious mailing of bombs by " trump
supporters " to the liberal elite as " unamerican " and " not our values " etc
I guess Boeing, Northrup Grumman and the rest of the MIC really hate bombs too, unless
they are purchased and deployed under cost plus plus contracts for the pentagon.
USA is droning 'enemy combatants' and 'collateral damage' without regard for the terror
that this sows, or should i say, with explicit intent to sow fear.
The worthy Guardians of Democracy have taught us that democracy is about being able to
bring down duly elected Governments by conducting espionage, promoting dissent, killing a few
popular leaders, funding colour revolutions and various Springs, installing henchmen and boot
lickers of their liking so that the Guardian Angels can walk in, turn the countries into
piles of rubble, plunder whatever wealth they have so that the Guardians themselves can live
a comfortable life – now this is real democracy.
It is not a dictatorship. It is a dicktatorship and run by crooks and murderers. The
dicktators are the people who own and control the media, the financial system and the major
political parties. Their power comes from their concentration money and information in their
exclusive control.
"... Attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick have been referred to the Justice Department for criminal investigation for a "potential conspiracy to provide materially false statements to Congress and obstruct a congressional committee investigation, three separate crimes, in the course of considering Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States," according to a statement released by the Judiciary Committee. ..."
"... The referral has an entire section entitled: "issues with Mr. Avenatti's credibility," which starts out highlighting a 2012 dispute with a former business partner over a coffee chain investment in which accuser Patrick Dempsey said that Avenatti lied to him, while the company was also "reportedly involved in additional litigation implicating his credibility, including one case in which a judge sanctioned his company for misconduct." ..."
"... Swetnick - whose checkered past has called her character into question, alleges that Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, ran a date-rape "gang bang" operation at 10 high school parties she attended as an adult (yet never reported to the authorities). ..."
"... The Wall Street Journal has attempted to corroborate Ms. Swetnick's account, contacting dozens of former classmates and colleagues, but couldn't reach anyone with knowledge of her allegations . No friends have come forward to publicly support her claims. - WSJ ..."
"... Soon after Swetnick's story went public, her character immediately fell under scrutiny - after Politico reported that Swetnick's ex-boyfriend, Richard Vinneccy - a registered Democrat, took out a restraining order against her, and says he has evidence that she's lying. ..."
Attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick have been referred to the Justice Department for criminal
investigation for a "potential conspiracy to provide materially false statements to Congress and obstruct a congressional
committee investigation, three separate crimes, in the course of considering Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's nomination to the
Supreme Court of the United States," according to a statement released by the Judiciary Committee.
While the Committee was in the middle of its extensive investigation of the late-breaking
sexual-assault allegations made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford against Supreme Court nominee Judge
Brett Kavanaugh, Avenatti publicized his client's allegations of drug- and
alcohol-fueled gang rapes in the 1980s. The obvious, subsequent contradictions along with the
suspicious timing of the allegations necessitate a criminal investigation by the Justice
Department.
"When a well-meaning citizen comes forward with information relevant to the committee's work, I
take it seriously. It takes courage to come forward, especially with allegations of sexual
misconduct or personal trauma. I'm grateful for those who find that courage," Grassley said. "
But
in the heat of partisan moments, some do try to knowingly mislead the committee
. That's
unfair to my colleagues, the nominees and others providing information who are seeking the
truth. It stifles our ability to work on legitimate lines of inquiry. It also wastes time and
resources for destructive reasons. Thankfully, the law prohibits such false statements to
Congress and obstruction of congressional committee investigations. For the law to work, we
can't just brush aside potential violations. I don't take lightly making a referral of this
nature, but ignoring this behavior will just invite more of it in the future."
Grassley referred Swetnick and Avenatti for investigation in a letter sent today to the Attorney
General of the United States and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The letter
notes potential violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1001 and 1505,
which respectively define
the federal criminal offenses of conspiracy, false statements and obstruction of Congress. The
referral seeks further investigation only, and is not intended to be an allegation of a crime
.
-
Senate
Judiciary Committee
The referral has an entire section entitled: "issues with Mr. Avenatti's credibility,"
which starts out highlighting a 2012 dispute with a former business partner over a coffee chain
investment in which accuser Patrick Dempsey said that Avenatti lied to him, while the company was
also "reportedly involved in additional litigation implicating his credibility, including one case
in which a judge sanctioned his company for misconduct."
Swetnick - whose checkered past has called her character into question, alleges that Kavanaugh
and a friend, Mark Judge, ran a date-rape "gang bang" operation at 10 high school parties she
attended
as an adult
(yet never reported to the authorities).
The allegations were posted by Avenatti over Twitter, asserting that Kavanaugh and Judge made
efforts to cause girls "
to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be "gang
raped" in a side room or bedroom by a "train" of numerous boys
."
To try and corroborate the story, the
Wall
Street Journal
contacted "dozens of former classmates and colleagues," yet couldn't find
anyone who knew about the rape parties.
The Wall Street Journal has attempted to corroborate Ms. Swetnick's account, contacting
dozens of former classmates and colleagues,
but couldn't reach anyone with knowledge of
her allegations
. No friends have come forward to publicly support her claims. -
WSJ
smart traffic they say? Wowsers. I always wanted those lights to turn green immediately (when Im around).
And 24/7 tracking, so they can give you personal ads on LCD billboards while you walk past.
And better yet: access to lock or unlock your front door for a 'repairman'. Yeah that will work out great. I always wanted to
hand the keys to my home to outsiders for safe keeping, but now its automatic!
Amazing. What a different life we would all lead in this Smart City. /s
Oil prices are down a bit, but are still close to multi-year highs. That should leave the
shale industry flush with cash. However, a long list of US shale companies are still struggling
to turn a profit. A new report
from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and the Sightline
Institute detail the "alarming volumes of red ink" within the shale industry.
"Even after two and a half years of rising oil prices and growing expectations for
improved financial results, a review of 33 publicly traded oil and gas fracking companies shows
the companies posting negative free cash flows through June," the report's authors write.
The 33 small and medium-sized drillers posted a combined $3.9 billion in negative cash flow in
the first half of 2018.
The glaring problem with the poor financial results is that 2018 was supposed to be the year
that the shale industry finally turned a corner. Earlier this year, the International Energy
Agency painted a rosy portrait of US shale,
arguing in a report that "higher prices and operational improvements are putting the US
shale sector on track to achieve positive free cash flow in 2018 for the first time
ever."
The improved outlook came after years of mounting debt and negative cash flow. The IEA
estimates that the US shale industry generated cumulative negative free cash flow of over
$200 billion between 2010 and 2014. The oil market downturn that began in 2014 was supposed to
have changed profligate spending, pushing out inefficient companies and leaving the sector as a
whole much leaner and healthier.
"Current trends suggest that the shale industry as a whole may finally turn a profit in
2018, although downside risks remain," the IEA wrote in July. " Several companies expect
positive free cash flow based on an assumed oil price well below the levels seen so far in 2018
and there are clear indications that bond markets and banks are taking a more positive attitude
to the sector, following encouraging financial results for the first quarter."
But the warning signs
have been clear for some time. The Wall Street Journal reported
in August that the second quarter was a disappointment. The WSJ analyzed 50 companies, finding
that they spent a combined $2 billion more than they generated in the second quarter.
The new report from IEEFA and the Sightline Institute add more detail the industry's recent
performance. Only seven out of the 33 companies analyzed in the report had positive cash flow
in the first half of the year, and the whole group burned through a combined $5 billion in cash
reserves over that time period.
Even more remarkable is the fact that the negative financials come amidst a production boom.
The US continues to break production records week after week, and at over 11 million barrels
per day, the US could soon become the world's largest oil producer. Analysts differ over the
trajectory of shale, but they only argue over how fast output will grow.
Yet, even as drillers extract ever greater volumes of oil from the ground, they still are
not turning a profit. "To outward appearances, the US oil and gas industry is in the midst
of a decade-long boom," IEEFA and the Sightline Institute write in their report. However,
"America's fracking boom has been a world-class bust."
The ongoing struggles raises questions about the long-term. If the industry is still not
profitable – after a decade of drilling, after major efficiency improvements since 2014,
and after a sharp rebound in oil prices – when will it ever be profitable? Is there
something fundamentally problematic about the nature of shale drilling, which suffers from
steep decline rates over relatively short periods of time and requires constant spending and
drilling to maintain?
Third quarter results will start trickling in over the next few days and weeks, which should
provide more clues into the shale industry's health. There is even more pressure on drillers to
post profits because the third quarter saw much higher oil prices.
"Until the industry as a whole improves, producing both sustained profits and
consistently positive cash flows, careful investors would be wise to view fracking companies as
speculative investments," the authors of the report concluded.
"... US tight oil output was about 6200 kb/d in August 2018 according to the EIA, not that the DPR includes oil from the region of tight oil plays that is conventional oil, also it is a model that is not very good so I ignore the DPR ..."
Any guess what the price of crude would be today if we had no fracking in N. America?
Wild guess is all I've got, but I'm saying $142 (and much lower economic growth over the past
9 yrs- maybe even flat averaged for the whole period).
Any other speculations on this?
USA LTO is ~7.5 million bpd. That exceeds global spare capacity over demand as-is today by at
least four times. So if the world was still trying to consume what it is today, we would be
several million short and would have been short by seven figures for several years.
I think we would have found out if there really are any huge but uneconomical fields out
there by now as the panic from that set in a few years ago. A shortage on that scale means
arbitrary prices pending demand cap/destruction.
US tight oil output was about 6200 kb/d in August 2018 according to the EIA, not that the
DPR includes oil from the region of tight oil plays that is conventional oil, also it is a
model that is not very good so I ignore the DPR .
WAG on oil price with zero LTO output is $120/b in 2017$, plus or minus $20/b.
Canada (offshore), Hebron is expected to produce around 150,000 barrels a day, from about
40,000 barrels a day now.
2018-10-22 (The Globe and Mail) It's been one year since ExxonMobil's long-awaited Hebron
platform off the southeast coast of Newfoundland started pumping crude from its first well.
It took four years, $14 billion, 132,000 cubic metres of concrete and a few thousand workers
to bring it online, and so far, it's churning out about 40,000 barrels a day, with the crude
bound for markets in the U.S. Gulf states, Europe and much of eastern North America.
Eventually, Hebron will drill 20 to 30 wells, and is expected to produce around 150,000
barrels a day.
With an expected reserve of 700 million barrels of recoverable crude, the Hebron project is
expected to operate for 30 years. As Newfoundland's fourth offshore platform, it will play a
key role in the province's plan to double overall production to more than 650,000 barrels a
day by 2030.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-why-hebron-has-a-leg-up-on-albertas-oil-sands/
Hebron is already at 70 kbpd and has been for a few months. I thinks its expected annual
average for oil only is 135 and it will take a year or so to get there as the coming wells
will be less productive that the first ones. In the mean time the three other platforms are
in decline (Terra Nova was originally due to be taken off line next year – not sure
what the latest thinking is). They dropped about 35 kbpd last year but that may accelerate as
Hibernia is coming off a secondary plateau.
Yeah, that's going to get a lot worse. It's counting Iran production, and not what it can
sell. A lot in floating storage, and being stored close to China and elsewhere. US is the
only one with an increase, and that increase is on a hiatus until new pipelines come on,
regardless of the EIA overstated production numbers. So, we would be short before any demand
increase, or non-OPEC declines. But, never worry, as IEA says peak oil is just a figment of
our imagination
"The Saudi government said it would take another month to complete a full investigation,
which would be overseen by Mohammed.
Mohammad will find that Mohammad had nothing to do with the issue."
Perhaps an anti-KSA Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement will get started.
Consumers and competitors might find the idea appealing.
Nice ideas for new KSA flag designs at this link here (I most like the chainsaw instead of
the current sword design- reminds me of Scarface- Mo Bin Clownstick™ is about as
legitimate and sophisticated as a coke runner): https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/saudis-admit-khashoggi-murder.html
The Sultan is playing his hand well (drip drip drip Turkish Int. leaks to the news with an
intensifying puke factor- one recent read that Khashoggi was dismembered alive and dissolved
in acid). Has Mo Bin Clownstick™ met his match? https://lobelog.com/the-geopolitics-of-the-khashoggi-murder/
I can't help but wonder about all those guys he threw into a hotel prison and shook down for
billions of dollars. They can afford a lot of media with the money they had remaining.
From the report: The $3.9 billion in negative cash flows in the first two quarters of 2018 represented an
improvement over the first halves of 2016 and 2017, when red ink totaled $11 billion and $7.2
billion, respectively.
These 33 companies have had positive net income since 2017Q4 and long term debt reached
its peak for these companies in 2018Q1 at 138 billion with a gradual decrease to 126 billion
in 2018Q2. As prices continue to rise debt will gradually be paid down,
When I look at that report I see an improving situation for these companies. I would
prefer it if they broke the data into two groups, oil focused and natural gas focused
companies. There has been a better recovery in oil prices than natural gas prices though it
looks like we might see a spike in natural gas prices if we have a colder than normal
winter.
India's crude oil imports, the average for the first 9 months of 2018 is up +279 kb/day
compared to first 9 months of 2017
Seasonal chart: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqGtWDoX4AAYDwJ.jpg
India's crude oil refinery processing, the average for the first 9 months of 2018 is up +231
kb/day compared to first 9 months of 2017
Seasonal chart: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqGttFOW4AAr0Uy.jpg
Saudi Arabia spare capacity, there seems to be a consensus that Saudi Arabia can produce 11
million b/day. I guess that producing above that level would be subject to maintenance,
outages and natural decline? (Also I'm guessing that the Khurais field expansion might not be
ready until later in 2019?)
2018-10-22 Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Al Falih speaks to TASS
Saudi Arabia now in October is producing 10.7 million b/day.
And is likely to go up, in the near future, to 11 million b/day on a steady basis.
Our total production capacity is currently 12 million b/day.
And that could be increased to 13 million b/day with an investment of $20 to $30 billion.
Interview with TASS: http://tass.com/economy/1026924
Exxon in Brazil holds potential 41 billion barrels based on preliminary studies
2018-10-18 RIO DE JANEIRO and HOUSTON (Bloomberg) -- In a single year, Exxon Mobil has
gone from being a tiny bit player in Brazil to the second-largest holder of oil exploration
acreage, trailing only state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro.
The last 24 concessions the U.S. giant bought with its partners may hold 41 billion bbl,
based on preliminary studies, according to Eliane Petersohn, a superintendent at Brazil's
National Petroleum Agency, or ANP. While the existence of the oil still needs to be
confirmed, along with whether its extraction will be cost-effective, it's a huge figure --
almost double Exxon's current reserves.
The Irving, Texas-based company is betting big in particular on Brazil's offshore, where a
single block is currently producing more than all of Colombia and profitability compares to
the best U.S. tight oil, according to Decio Oddone, the head of ANP.
It should take six to eight years for oil to start flowing if economically viable deposits
are discovered, according to ANP.
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/10/18/exxon-makes-major-bet-on-brazil-as-petrobras-eases-its-grip
Was the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald still getting as much media coverage three
weeks after his death as it did that first week after Nov. 22, 1963? Not as I recall.
Yet, three weeks after his murder, Jamal Khashoggi, who was not a U.S. citizen, was not
killed by an American, and died not on U.S. soil but in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, consumes
our elite press.
The top two stories in Monday's Washington Post were about the Khashoggi affair. A third,
inside, carried the headline, "Trump, who prizes strength, may look weak in hesitance to punish
Saudis."
On Sunday, the Post put three Khashoggi stories on Page 1. The Post's lead editorial bashed
Trump for his equivocal stance on the killing.
Two of the four columns on the op-ed page demanded that the Saudis rid themselves of Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the prime suspect in ordering the execution.
Page 1 of the Outlook section offered an analysis titled, "The Saudis knew they could get
away with it. We always let them."
Page 1 of the Metro section featured a story about the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in
Virginia that began thus:
"Corey A. Stewart's impulse to use provocative and evidence-free slurs reached new heights
Friday when the Republican nominee for Senate disparaged slain Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal
Khashoggi
"Stewart appears to be moving in lockstep with extremist Republicans and conservative
commentators engaging in a whisper campaign to smear Khashoggi and insulate Trump from global
rebuke."
This was presented as a news story.
Inside the Business section of Sunday's Post was a major story, "More CEOs quietly withdraw
from Saudi conference." Featured was a photo of JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, who had canceled his
appearance.
On the top half of the front page of the Sunday New York Times were three stories about
Khashoggi, as were the two top stories on Monday.
The Times' lead editorial Monday called for a U.N. investigation, a cutoff in U.S. arms
sales to Riyadh and a signal to the royal house that we regard their crown prince as
"toxic."
Why is our prestige press consumed by the murder of a Saudi dissident not one in a thousand
Americans had ever heard of?
Answer: Khashoggi had become a contributing columnist to the Post. He was a journalist, an
untouchable. The Post and U.S. media are going to teach the House of Saud a lesson: You don't
mess with the American press!
Moreover, the preplanned murder implicating the crown prince, with 15 Saudi security agents
and an autopsy expert with a bone saw lying in wait at the consulate to kill Khashoggi, carve
him up, and flee back to Riyadh the same day, is a terrific story.
Still, what ought not be overlooked here is the political agenda of our establishment media
in driving this story as hard as they have for the last three weeks.
Our Beltway elite can smell the blood in the water. They sense that Khashoggi's murder can
be used to discredit the Trump presidency, expose the amorality of his foreign policy and sever
his ties to patriotic elements of his Middle American constituency.
How so?
First, there are those close personal ties between Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, son
of the King, and Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the president of the United States.
Second, there are the past commercial connections between builder Donald Trump, who sold a
floor of a Trump building and a yacht to the Saudis when he was in financial straits.
Third, there is the strategic connection. The first foreign trip of the Trump presidency
was, at Kushner's urging, to Riyadh to meet the king, and the president has sought to tighten
U.S. ties to the Saudis ever since.
Fourth, Trump has celebrated U.S. sales arms to the Saudis as a job-building benefit to
America and a way to keep the Saudis as strategic partners in a Mideast coalition against
Iran.
Fifth, the leaders of the two wings of Trump's party in the Senate, anti-interventionist
Rand Paul and interventionist Lindsey Graham, are already demanding sanctions on Riyadh and
an ostracizing of the prince.
As story after story comes out of Riyadh about what happened in that consulate on Oct. 2,
each less convincing than the last, the coalition of forces, here and abroad, pressing for
sanctions on Saudi Arabia and dumping the prince, grows.
The time may be right for President Trump to cease leading from behind, to step out front,
and to say that, while he withheld judgment to give the Saudis every benefit of the doubt, he
now believes that the weight of the evidence points conclusively to a plot to kill Jamal
Khashoggi.
Hence, he is terminating U.S. military aid for the war in Yemen that Crown Prince Mohammed
has been conducting for three years. Win-win.
Mike Shellman writes again. No need for me to elaborate much on his persistent and very much needed gentle nudgings about debts
coming due in the U.S. Shale Oil industry.
Ignoring debt doesn't make it go away < cough > Venezuela < cough >
By year end 2019 I firmly believe the US LTO industry will then be paying over $20B annually in interest on long term debt.
...
In other words, at the moment about 29% of total LTO production in America is used just to pay debt interest.
Using its own "breakeven" prices the US shale oil industry will ultimately have to produce 9G BO of oil, as much as it has
already produced in 10 years...just to pay its total long term debt back. Essentially the only chance it has of doing that is
if oil prices go to $125 a barrel, and stays there for a very long time.
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1483 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser and what we've accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, more original reporting ..."
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street ..."
"... Why does this sell-off smell different? Read (or rather listen to) THE WOLF STREET REPORT ..."
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and
author, with extensive international work experience. Originally
published at Wolf Street
US bank stock index down 17% from January. EU bank stocks crushed, crushed, crushed since
Financial Crisis.
Monday early afternoon, the US KBW Bank index, which tracks large US banks and serves as a
benchmark for the banking sector, is down 2.5% at the moment. It has dropped 17% from its
post-Financial Crisis high on January 29. If the index closes at this level, it would be the
lowest close since September 18, 2017:
While that may be a nerve-wracking decline for those who have not experienced bank-stock
declines, it comes after a huge surge that followed the collapse during the Financial
Crisis:
The second chart is on a different scale than the first chart above. So this year's decline
is small fry compared to the movements since 2006, including the dizzying plunge toward zero in
early 2009, and the subsequent boom when it became clear that the Fed would pull out all stops
to save the banks with all kinds of mechanisms, including ruthless financial repression –
forcing interest rates to 0% – that it waged on depositors and savers for a decade.
Profits derived from these mechanisms effectively recapitalized the banks.
The 55% jump in bank stocks after the 2016 election through the peak in January 2018 was a
reaction to promises for banking deregulation and tax cuts from the new Trump administration
along with signs of lots of goodwill toward Wall Street, as top positions in the new
administration were quickly being filled with Wall Street insiders. However, the "Trump bump"
for banks is now being gradually unwound.
But unlike their American brethren, the European banks have remained stuck in the miserable
Financial Crisis mire – a financial crisis that in Europe was followed by the Euro Debt
Crisis. The Stoxx 600 bank index, which covers major European banks, including our hero
Deutsche Bank , has plunged 27%
since February 29, 2018, and is down 23% from a year ago:
But note how minuscule this year's 26% drop is in the overall collapse-scenario in the chart
below going back to 2006: The Stoxx 600 Banks index never got anywhere near recovering after
the Financial Crisis, as after each hopeful partial recovery, it kept falling off the wagon,
and is once again falling off the wagon:
It's not exactly a propitious sign that the banks in the US, after nearly recovering to
their pre-Financial Crisis highs – "Close, but no cigar!" – are once again turning
around and heading south as the Fed is "gradually" removing accommodation, which results in
higher funding costs for banks and greater credit risks on outstanding loans.
And the European banks remain a mess and have an excellent chance of getting still get
messier.
Wolf is prob my least fav commentator on NC. No actual analysis. plus US banks rallied
before the election throughout 2016. It's a function of the slope of the yield curve. Yield
curve tightened in H2 2017 – now which is why the sector has stopped out. Plus Fed
policy mistake on raising shows how elastic demand is to even modest changes in rates with
loan origination drying up.
European banks, esp British and swiss, are interesting values.
i like reposted articles from wolf street. they highlight economic and financial trends
that i would otherwise have missed. ws bloggers have also done plenty of analysis of why euro
banks are floundering.
I like the wolfstreet writers, they have a variety of styles and we're kinda spoiled by
yves easy writing . Wolf seems to go for the waypoints in the fog so maybe some of the many
people stumbling around looking for info find it easy to find. Also since I'm opining the
short, concise, internet article is what gets the readers, with deeper conversations BTL and
to that point my favorite weasel word of he decade is recapitalisation
Shouldve just dumped the trillions in NSF grants & infrastructure. Wouldve provided
more jobs to main street, and started a boom of startups in areas other than the already
saturated software market.
Yesterday
the news broke that Swamp Monster-In-Chief John Bolton has been pushing President Trump to
withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the 1988 arms control agreement
between the US and the Soviet Union eliminating all missiles of a specified range from the
arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers. Today, Trump
has announced that he will be doing exactly as Bolton instructed.
This would be the second missile treaty between the US and Russia that America has withdrawn
from since it abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
in 2002. John Bolton, an actual
psychopath who Trump hired as his National Security Advisor in April, ran point on that move as well
back when he was part of the increasingly indistinguishable Bush administration.
"This is why John Bolton shouldn't be allowed anywhere near US foreign policy," tweeted Senator
Rand Paul in response to early forecasts of the official announcement.
"This would undo decades of bipartisan arms control dating from Reagan. We shouldn't do
it. We should seek to fix any problems with this treaty and move forward."
"This is the most severe crisis in nuclear arms control since the 1980s," Malcolm Chalmers,
the deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute,
told The Guardian .
"If the INF treaty collapses, and with the New Start treaty on strategic arms due to
expire in 2021, the world could be left without any limits on the nuclear arsenals of nuclear
states for the first time since 1972."
"A disaster for Europe," tweeted Russia-based journalist
Bryan MacDonald. "The treaty removed Cruise & Pershing missiles, and Soviet ss20's from the
continent. Now, you will most likely see Russia launch a major build up in Kaliningrad &
the US push into Poland. So you're back to 1980, but the dividing line is closer to
Moscow."
"Russia has violated the agreement. They've been violating it for many years and I don't
know why President Obama didn't negotiate or pull out," Trump told reporters in Nevada.
"We're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and do weapons and we're not
allowed to. We're the ones that have stayed in the agreement and we've honored the agreement
but Russia has not unfortunately honored the agreement so we're going to terminate the
agreement, we're going to pull out."
What Trump did not mention is that the US has indeed been in
violation of that agreement due to steps it began taking toward the development of a new
ground-launched cruise missile last year. The US claims it began taking those steps due to
Russian violations of the treaty with its own arsenal, while Russia claims the US has already
been in violation of multiple arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements.
So, on the one front where cooler heads prevailing is quite literally the single most
important thing in the world, the exact opposite is happening. Hotter, more impatient, more
violent, more hawkish heads are prevailing over diplomacy and sensibility, potentially at the
peril of the entire world should something unexpected go wrong as a result. This is of course
coming after two years of Democratic Party loyalists attacking Trump on the basis that he has
not been sufficiently hawkish toward Russia, and claiming that this is because he is Putin's
puppet.
In response to this predictable escalation the path for which has been lubricated by
McResistance pundits and their neoconservative allies, those very same pundits are now reacting
with horror that Putin's puppet is now dangerously escalating tensions with Putin.
"BREAKING: Trump announces that the United States will pull out of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty that the US has been in for 31 years," exclaimed the popular
Russiagater Brian Krassenstein in a tweet that as of this writing has over 5,000 shares.
"Welcome back to the Cold War. This time it's scarier And no, It's not Obama, or Hillary or the
Democrat's fault. It's ALL TRUMP!"
"Hilarious to listen to all this alarmed screaming about US withdrawal from INF Treaty
emanating from those who for 2 years have been demanding that Trump get tough with Russia,"
tweeted George Szamuely
of the Global Policy Institute. "Now that they've got their arms race I hope they are pleased
with themselves."
"Are those who have spent the past two years warning of a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy &
cheering confrontation w/ Russia ready to shut the fuck up yet?" asked Aaron Maté, who
has been among the most consistently lucid critics of the Russiagate narrative in the US.
Are they ready to shut the fuck up? That would be great, but this is just the latest
escalation in a steadily escalating new cold war, and these blithering idiots didn't shut the
fuck up at any of the other steps toward nuclear holocaust.
They didn't shut the fuck up when this administration adopted a Nuclear
Posture Review with greatly increased aggression toward Russia and blurred lines between
when nuclear strikes are and are not appropriate.
As signs point to Mueller's investigation
wrapping up in the near future without turning up a single shred of evidence that Trump
colluded with the Russian government, it's time for everyone who helped advance this toxic,
suicidal anti-Russia narrative to ask themselves one question: was it worth it? Was it worth it
to help mount political pressure on a sitting president to continually escalate tensions with a
nuclear superpower and loudly screaming that he's a Putin puppet whenever he takes a step
toward de-escalation? Was it worth it to help create an atmosphere where cooler heads don't
prevail in the one area where it's absolutely essential for everyone's survival that they do?
Or is it maybe time to shut the fuck up for a while and rethink your entire worldview?
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see
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Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
The middle class in America has been declining for decades, and we continue to get even more
evidence of the catastrophic damage that has already been done.
According to the Social Security
Administration, the median yearly wage in the United States is just $30,533 at this point.
That means 50 percent of all American workers make at least that much per year, but that also
means that 50 percent of all American workers make that much or less per year. When you divide
$30,533 by 12, you get a median monthly wage of just over $2,500. But of course nobody can
provide a middle class standard of living for a family of four for just $2,500 a month, and we
will discuss this further below. So in most households at least two people are working, and in
many cases multiple jobs are being taken on by a single individual in a desperate attempt to
make ends meet. The American people are working harder than ever, and yet the middle class just
continues to erode .
The deeper we dig into the numbers provided by the Social Security Administration, the more
depressing they become. Here are just a few examples from their official website
-34 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
-48 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
-59 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
-68 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.
At this moment, the federal poverty level for a family of five is $29,420 , and yet about half the workers in
the entire country don't even make that much on a yearly basis.
So can someone please explain to me again why people are saying that the economy is "doing
well"?
Many will point to how well the stock market has been doing, but the stock market has not
been an accurate barometer for the overall economy in a very, very long time.
And the stock market has already fallen
nearly 1,500 points since the beginning of the month. The bull market appears to be over
and the bears are licking their chops.
No matter who has been in the White House, and no matter which political party has
controlled Congress, the U.S. middle class has been systematically eviscerated year after year.
Many that used to be thriving may still even call themselves "middle class", but that doesn't
make it true.
You would think that someone making "the median income" in a country as wealthy as the
United States would be doing quite well. But the truth is that $2,500 a month won't get you
very far these days.
First of all, your family is going to need somewhere to live. Especially on the east and
west coasts, it is really hard to find something habitable for under $1,000 a month in 2018.
If you live in the middle of the country or in a rural area, housing prices are significantly
cheaper. But for the vast majority of us, let's assume a minimum of $1,000 a month for
housing costs.
Secondly, you will also need to pay your utility bills and other home-related expenses.
These costs include power, water, phone, television, Internet, etc. I will be extremely
conservative and estimate that this total will be about $300 a month.
Thirdly, each income earner will need a vehicle in order to get to work. In this example
we will assume one income earner and a car payment of just $200 a month.
So now we are already up to $1,500 a month. The money is running out fast.
Next, insurance bills will have to be paid. Health insurance premiums have gotten
ridiculously expensive in recent years, and many family plans are now well over $1,000 a
month. But for this example let's assume a health insurance payment of just $450 a month and
a car insurance payment of just $50 a month.
Of course your family will have to eat, and I don't know anyone that can feed a family of
four for just $500 a month, but let's go with that number.
So now we have already spent the entire $2,500, and we don't have a single penny left over
for anything else.
But wait, we didn't even account for taxes yet. When you deduct taxes, our fictional
family of four is well into the red every month and will need plenty of government
assistance.
This is life in America today, and it isn't pretty.
In his most recent article, Charles Hugh Smith estimated that an income of at
least $106,000 is required to maintain a middle class lifestyle in America today. That
estimate may be a bit high, but not by too much.
Yes, there is a very limited sliver of the population that has been doing well in recent
years, but most of the country continues to barely scrape by from month to month. Out in
California, Silicon Valley has generated quite a few millionaires, but the state also has the
highest poverty in the entire nation. For every Silicon Valley millionaire, there are thousands
upon thousands of poor people living in towns such as
Huron, California
Nearly 40 percent of Huron residents -- and almost half of all children -- live below the
poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's more than double the statewide rate
of 19 percent reported last month, which is the highest in the U.S. The national average is
12.3 percent.
"We're in the Appalachians of the West," Mayor Rey Leon said. "I don't think enough
urgency is being taken to resolve a problem that has existed for way too long."
Multiple families and boarders pack rundown homes, only about a quarter of residents have
high school diplomas and most lack adequate health care in an area plagued with diabetes and
high asthma rates in one the nation's most polluted air basins.
One recent study found that the gap between the wealthy and the poor is the largest that it
has been
since the 1920s , and America's once thriving middle class is evaporating right in front of
our eyes.
We could have made much different choices as a society, but we didn't, and now we are going
to have a great price to pay for our foolishness...
Facebook's New Troll-Crushing "War Room" Confirms Surveillance By Corporation Is The New
America
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 10/21/2018 - 22:30 270 SHARES
Facebook on Wednesday briefed journalists on its latest attempt to stop fake news during the
election season , offering an exclusive tour of a windowless conference room at its California
headquarters, packed with millennials monitoring Facebook user behavior trends around the
clock, said
The Verge .
This is Facebook's first ever "war room," designed to bring leaders from 20 teams,
representing 20,000 global employees working on safety and security, in one room to lead a
crusade against conservatives misinformation on the platform as political
campaigning shifts into hyperdrive in the final weeks leading up to November's US midterm
elections. The team includes threat intelligence, data science engineering, research, legal,
operations, policy, communications, and representatives from Facebook and Facebook-owned
WhatsApp and Instagram.
"We know when it comes to an election, every moment counts," said Samidh Chakrabarti, head
of civic engagement at Facebook, who oversees operations in the war room.
"So if there are late-breaking issues we see on the platform, we need to be able to detect
and respond to them in real time, as quickly as possible."
This public demonstration of Facebook's internal efforts comes after a series of security
breaches and user hacks, dating back to the 2016 presidential elections. Since the announcement
of the Cambridge Analytics privacy scandal in March, Facebook shares have plunged -14.5% It
seems the war room is nothing more than a public relations stunt, which the company is
desperately trying to regain control of the narrative and avoid more negative headlines.
The war room is staffed with millennials from 4 am until midnight, and starting on Oct. 22,
social media workers will be monitoring trends 24/7 leading up to the elections. Leaders from
20 teams will be present in the room. Workers will use machine learning and artificial
intelligence programs to monitor the platform for trends, hate speech, sophisticated trolls,
fake news, and of course, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference.
Nathan Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity, told CNBC the company wants fair
elections, and that "debate around the election be authentic. ... The biggest concern is any
type of effort to manipulate that."
In the first round of presidential elections in Brazil, Facebook's war room identified an
effort to suppress voter turnout:
"Content that was telling people that due to protest, that the election would be delayed a
day," said Chakrabarti. "This was not true, completely false. So we were able to detect that
using AI and machine learning. The war room was alerted to it. Our data scientist looked into
what was behind it and then they passed it to our engineers and operations specialist to be
able to remove this at scale from our platform before it could go viral."
The war room has been focused on the US and Brazilian elections because it says
misinformation in elections is a global problem that never ends. Gleicher warns that Facebook
is observing an increased effort to manipulate the public debate ahead of US midterms.
"Part of the reason we have this war room up and running, is so that as these threats
develop, not only do we respond to them quickly, but we continue to speed up our response, and
make our response more effective and efficient." Gleicher adds that it is not just foreign
interference but also domestic "bad actors" who are hiding their identity, using fake accounts
to spread misinformation.
"This is always going to be an arms race, so the adversaries that we're facing who seek to
meddle in elections, they are sophisticated and well-funded," said Chakrabarti.
"That is the reason we've made huge investments both in people and technology to stay
ahead and secure our platforms."
Big Brother is watching you: surveillance by corporations is the new America.
One of the privileges granted to corporations under State laws is the limitation of
liabilities as to shareholders. If you operate a business as a sole proprietor or as one of
the partners in a general partnership, then you can personally be sued for the unpaid debts
or other liabilities arising from the operation of the business. But if you are an owner of a
corporation, which is what shareholders are, then you have no personal liability and can't be
held accountable for the unpaid debts or other liabilities arising from the operation of the
corporation.
This limited liability privilege is what is wrong with corporations. The most you stand to
lose as a shareholder is what you paid for your shares. As a result, corporations can amass a
large amount of capital and when they become very large they not only damage free market
competition, but they power associated with their size and importance gives them control over
the political process. They can lobby and bribe politicians for laws that are favourable to
themselves, and unfavourable to the rest of us. And shareholders lose control over the
operation, just like your vote for politicians is relatively meaningless as a percentage of
the total vote. Management takes over, just like the elite take over governments, and ethics
disappear.
If shareholders of corporations did not have limited liability, the incentive to buy
shares would disappear, and most businesses would be carried out by small entities; we would
have a competitive "mom and pop" economy instead of a monopoly or oligopoly type economy. And
with a competitive economy if one of the competitors pulled the **** that the big internet
corporations pull, they would soon suffer the wrath of their customers who would have
alternative places to go.
Corporate laws are just another example of government interference in the economy that
produces the bad results we see today from corporatism. Corporatism is just another mechanism
to create rule by the elite and slavery for the majority. The solution is to prohibit States
from franchising corporations, and to use existing anti-trust laws to bust up all the big
corporations.
It is sad that so many people think that corporatism is capitalism and then reach the
conclusion that socialism or communism is the solution to the bad results they see today. It
is not. Capitalism is a free market with no government granted privilege to any of the
competitors. The only role of government in the economy is to protect rights, instead of
destroying rights as they do today.
I just had to uninstall my ESET anti-virus software. It was intentionally erasing utorrent
from my computer. To get to Pirate Bay, now blocked in the USA, I set my VPN to Belgium.
Almost immediately, I started getting messages from my e-mail provider, MSN, asking if I was
signing in from Belgium. When I make any payments via Internet banking, I have to turn off my
VPN or the transaction will not be recognized. When Trump and his NWO puppeteers decide to
take their gloves off, I am pretty sure my Internet connection will be on the Kill List. Just
like yours, you ZH posters.
That is why my description on Facebook states that if you post political information you
will be unfollowed. I only allow photos of kittens and well a lot of nebulous stuff,
education, and health and fitness. If they knew my ideas I would be followed by all the
worlds security agencies. I am resolved to help people become Normal within the infosphere. I
allow no politics because politics is Fake News and the sooner people forget about the
concept the sooner they will be inclined to decentralize existing concentrations of
wealth.
" The war room is staffed with millennials from 4 am until midnight, and starting on Oct.
22, social media workers will be monitoring trends 24/7 leading up to the elections. Leaders
from 20 teams will be present in the room. Workers will use machine learning and artificial
intelligence programs to monitor the platform for trends, hate speech, sophisticated trolls,
fake news, and of course, Russian, Chinese, and Iranian interference."
With all this fascist (and highly provocative) techno-insanity at their disposal
before the midterms...
...what, pray tell, will these pointy-headed leftist brats say about a red
asshamering in November?
Their silly "war room" wasn't expansive or invasive enough...?
Even the dullest people should be able to figure out that the easiest way to divulge the
truth about anything is to allow ALL information to flow like a stream. Whoever's telling the
lies will be discovered apace. Of course, FaceBook, Google, Twitter and all of the other
corporate entities know this. And they also know who the (((great masters of the lie))) are.
It is themselves. They are in panic mode, folks. We must kill this latest effort of
(((theirs))) by simply avoiding their platforms. Use their own weapons against them...
BOYCOTT. Seek alternative sites and search engines. Most importantly, spread far and wide
what you know to be their ulterior motives.
About half of nonelderly Americans have one or more pre-existing health conditions,
according to a recent brief by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS,
that examined the prevalence of conditions that would have resulted in higher rates,
condition exclusions, or coverage denials before the ACA. Approximately 130 million
nonelderly people have pre-existing conditions nationwide, and, as shown in the table
available below, there is an average of more than 300,000 per congressional district.
Nationally, the most common pre-existing conditions were high blood pressure (44 million
people), behavioral health disorders (45 million people), high cholesterol (44 million
people), asthma and chronic lung disease (34 million people), and osteoarthritis and other
joint disorders (34 million people).
While people with Medicaid or employer-based plans would remain covered regardless of
medical history, the repeal of pre-ex protections means that the millions with pre-existing
conditions would face higher rates if they ever needed individual market coverage. The
return of pre-ex discrimination would hurt older Americans the most. As noted earlier,
while about 51 percent of the nonelderly population had at least one pre-existing condition
in 2014, according to the HHS brief, the rate was 75 percent of those ages 45 to 54 and 84
percent among those ages 55 to 64. But even millions of younger people, including 1 in 4
children, would be affected by eliminating this protection.
We're getting close to the end now. Can you feel it? I do. It's in the news, on the streets,
and in your face every day. You can't tune it out anymore, even if you wanted to.
Where once there was civil debate in the court of public opinion, we now have censorship
, monopoly , screaming , insults
,
demonization , and, finally, the use of force to
silence the opposition. There is no turning back now. The political extremes are going to war,
and you will be dragged into it even if you consider yourself apolitical.
There are great pivot points in history, and we've arrived at one. The United States,
ruptured by a thousand grievance
groups , torn by shadowy agencies drunk on a
gross excess of power ,
robbed blind by oligarchs and their treasonous henchmen and decimated by frivolous wars of choice, has
finally come to a point where the end begins in earnest. The center isn't holding indeed,
finding a center is no longer even conceivable. We are the schizophrenic nation, bound by no
societal norms, constrained by no religion, with no shared sense of history, myth, language,
art, philosophy, music, or culture, rushing toward an uncertain future fueled by nothing more
than easy money, hubris, and sheer momentum.
There comes a time when hard choices must be made...when it is no longer possible to remain
aloof or amused, because the barbarians have arrived at the gate. Indeed, they are here now,
and they often look a whole lot like deracinated, conflicted, yet bellicose fellow Americans,
certain of only one thing, and that is that they possess "rights", even though they could
scarcely form an intelligible sentence explaining exactly what those rights secure or how they
came into being. But that isn't necessary, from their point of view, you see. All they need is
a "voice" and membership in an approved victim class to enrich themselves at someone else's
expense . If you are thinking to yourself right now that this does not describe you, then guess
what? The joke's on you, and you are going to be expected to pay the bill that "someone else"
is you.
In reality, though, who can blame the minions, when the elites have their hand in the till
as well? In fact, they are even more hostile to reasoned discourse than Black Lives Matter , Occupy Wall Street,
or
Antifa . Witness the complete meltdown of the privileged classes when President Trump
mildly suggested that perhaps our "intelligence community" isn't to be trusted, which is after
all a fairly sober assessment when one considers the track record of the CIA ,
FBI , NSA
, BATF, and the other assorted Stasi agencies. Burning cop cars or bum-rushing
the odd Trump supporter seems kind of tame in comparison to the weeping and gnashing of teeth
when that hoary old MIC "intelligence" vampire was dragged screaming into the light. Yet Trump
did not drive a stake into its heart, nor at this point likely can anyone... and that is
exactly the point. We are now Thelma and Louise writ large. We are on
cruise control, happily speeding towards the cliff, and few seem to notice that our not so
distant future involves bankruptcy, totalitarianism, and/or nuclear annihilation. Even though
most of us couldn't identify the band, we nonetheless surely live the lyrics of the Grass
Roots : "Live for today, and don't worry about tomorrow."
The "Defense" Department, "Homeland" Security, big pharma, big oil, big education, civil
rights groups, blacks, Indians, Jews, the Deep State, government workers, labor unions,
Neocons, Populists, fundamentalist Christians, atheists, pro life and pro death advocates,
environmentalists, lawyers, homosexuals, women, Millenials, Baby Boomers, blue collar/white
collar, illegal aliens... the list goes on and on, but the point is that the conflicting
agendas of these disparate groups have been irreconcilable for some time. The difference today
is that we are de facto at war with each other, and whether it is a war of words or of actual
combat doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is that we no longer communicate, and when
that happens it is easy to demonize the other side. Violence is never far behind ignorance.
I am writing this from the bar at the Intercontinental
Hotel in Vienna, Austria. I have seen
with my own eyes the inundation of Europe with an influx of hostile aliens bent on the
destruction of Old Christendom, yet I have some hope for the eastern European countries because
they have finally recognized the threat and are working to neutralize it. Foreign malcontents
can never be successfully integrated into a civilized society because they don't even intend to
try;
they intend to conquer their host instead. Yet even though our own discontents are domestic
for the most part, we have a much harder row to hoe than Old Europe because our own "invaders"
are well entrenched and have been for decades, all the way up to the highest levels of
government. That there are signs Austria is finally waking up is a good thing, but it serves to
illustrate the folly of expecting the hostile cultures within our own country to get along with
each other without rupturing the republic. Indeed, that republic died long ago, and it has been
replaced by a metastasizing mass of amorphous humanity called the American Empire, and it is at
war with itself and consuming itself from within.
Long ago, we once knew that as American citizens each of us had a great responsibility. We
were expected to work hard, play fair, do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and
serve our country when called upon to do so. Today, we don't speak of duty, except in so much
as a slogan to promote war, but we certainly do speak of benefits for ourselves and our "group"
of entitled peeps. We will fail because of our greed and avarice. The United States of Empire
has become quite simply too big, too
diverse , and too
"exceptional" to survive.
The US belief in free markets isn't doing them any favours.
What goes wrong with free markets?
They found out in the 1930s, after believing in free markets in the 1920s.
Henry Simons was a firm believer in free markets, which is why he was at the University of
Chicago in the 1930s.
Having experienced 1929 and the Great Depression, he knew that the only way market
valuations would mean anything would be if the bankers couldn't inflate the markets by
creating money through loans.
Henry Simons and Irving Fisher supported the Chicago Plan to take away the bankers ability
to create money, so that free market valuations could have some meaning.
The real world and free market, neoclassical economics would then tie up.
The mandate to fight for the Republic ends in November, after that, it's optional. We'll
keep our part of the bargain, after that, the USA is on her own. There are too many people
who refuse to understand that the way to national health, goes through some rough valleys,
from the President, through congress, the states, and down to the regular folks.
Many are not paying attention, those that understand, are busy looting what's left, those
that'll pay, are wringing their hands in helplessness, or burying their heads like ostriches,
hoping denial of reality, will protect them from reality.
The political class has made the determination that rather than acknowledge reality, and
adjust accordingly, they'll instead implement a surveillance state, ensure comfortable
positions for themselves, and oppress the plebs into compliance. The plebs on their part,
have sacrificed their honor, integrity, and conscience, hoping the world can be looted, to
keep their standard of living.
What the protagonists fail to understand, or understanding, refuse to acknowledge, is that
ROW (Rest of World), is not amenable to looting anymore. Lootable generations are fading
away, unlootabke generations replacing them.
It can be confidently asserted now, that the West, devoid of Europe, has cast the dice for
the final gamble thus, intimidate the world into lootability, or threaten to take everyone
down as well. The problem? Russia responded thus, game on! India responded thus, bring it on!
Pakistan responded thus, up yours! Africa is responding thus, really? China is yet to respond
clearly but we know where they stand thus, what?
Does that mean the end of America? No! It means the end of the American delusion
masquerading as dream. You can't carry on this way, refusing to acknowledge reality, hoping
to somehow do the impossible thus, overturn the laws of nature. You simply cannot game the
rules, no matter how clever. It's analogous to inhaling, but refusing to exhale, it's
unsustainable, impossible in fact!
You have to exhale, or explode, no third choice. You can exhale slowly, Powell's way,
exhale in one breath, Gorbachev's way, or refuse to exhale, British way, with the attendant
consequences, disorderly disintegration.
Trump is trying not to exhale, while still trying to inhale. It's schizophrenic because
you neither get the benefit of fresh oxygen, nor rid yourself of unpleasant carbon dioxide.
Every attempt to do both simultaneously, wastes the available oxygen, while the carbon
dioxide builds up, turning you BLUE in the face, when what you really require, is a healthy
red complexion.
It's a paradox really, that folks are running in reverse, and yet claim their destination
is ahead, it doesn't make sense, it's basically self deception writ large. Well, November is
practically here, and then, we'll be free of all obligations and can thus move on. We very
much look forward to our liberty, very much indeed, this Republic restoration business, has
not been profitable at all, we're cutting our losses...
Myriad, conflicting, "security" departments only further prove 9-11 was a coup d' etat.
Plus it's all about oil (and now ethanol, think water next). Where the US once sent aid to
places like Honduras we now use it as a mere drug distribution center.
"The center isn't holding indeed, finding a center is no longer even conceivable. We are
the schizophrenic nation, bound by no societal norms,"
Free Speech. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These are the core values of America. They are under attack, but still there. This is the
single thread that binds our history, culture, and identity together.
It's the left-cultural Marxist faction that has forgotten it, twisted it and made it about
'diversity.' Sold out our country to Chi-coms and globalists.
Anyone who doesn't understand this can either learn fast or GTFO
The best that can happen now - as many are jolted rudely out of their MSM-programmed sleep
- is for people to ask themselves, friends, neighbors, and - the $lime that currently runs
the place: how did we get to this nightmare the author describes? And sift the answers -
mercilessly.
They will - imho - all need to take a deep breath, and look way up/out in $cale to see the
structure and architects of the massive ponzi that has debilitated a whole planet via debt,
and cancel/walk away from it. The fish is the last to discover water. Let the rentier
universe implode. People need real money.
A lot of attention should be devoted to the techniques, authors and motives of the social
engineering that facilitated this debilitation. People need real culture.
The populism/nationalism heading towards (hopefully massive) decentralization we are now
starting to see (so reviled by all DS/NWO MSM, camp-followers/useful idiots) is the
beginning. People need real, local, democratic politics ASAP.
It was never truly an "American" empire, just as the British Empire was never truly
"British".
It was ran and blown up by Luciferian-Hazarian globalist parasites that made untold
profits on the way up, and down.
I would call it the Western Banking/Vatican/MIC Empire, with this empire of old being
represented by London as the financial center, the Vatican/Rome as the Spiritual/Religous
center, and Washington, D.C. as the Military center; and now the facade is cracking.
During the 20th century it successfully kicked off two world wars, spread its version of
globalization (and communism) benefiting the banksters the most (Bretton-Woods), installed a
debt-based fiat currency reserve system (globally), and more.
Now they're trying to do the same thing with China, all the while cut the US at it's
knees, and inundate Western Europe with the Muslim hordes they purposely destablized with
manufactured Middle Eastern wars. (China's trying to play both sides, btw)
Then kick off a possible WWIII, and the aftermath will have whomever's left begging for a
"peaceful" NWO, on any condition.
The losers in this scenario have been, and will be the vast majority of humanity,
regardless of nationality; unless a drastic change is made to the global financial/governance
system as a whole; and it won't be pretty but it will be worth it. How that looks, I truly
don't know.
I'm sure it gets more complex with various factions at the upper echelons, but that's my
summary in a nutshell....
Another of countless articles on the Hedge where all the symptoms are laid out in gruesome
detail while conveniently not stating who's behind the disintegration of the country.
"We are the schizophrenic nation, bound by no societal norms, constrained by no
religion, with no shared sense of history, myth, language, art, philosophy, music, or
culture, rushing toward an uncertain future fueled by nothing more than easy money, hubris,
and sheer momentum."
This is precisely what the (((nation wreckers))) have done throughout history. The
miscegenation of races and cultures, the breaking down of morals & religion (replaced by
a worship of money and Mammon), the erasure of the indigenous peoples' history and heritage,
a bastardization of language and philosophy, and debasement of all art and music... These are
but a few of the techniques employed by the parasitic entity. Once the cattle are adequately
milked, only slaughter remains for them before the butchers move on to their next host.
America WAS once a great idea, founded on white Christian ethics. Our Founders had a "no
foreign entanglements" mentality. No, it wasn't perfect, but it worked and our people
prospered. The sickness began in earnest when the eternal contagion was allowed free access
into our societal body in the 1880s. Like syphilis, its insidious influence has slowly eaten
away at our bodies and souls to the present point of insanity.
Bob... it's late and I must retire. However, I felt I owe you some sort of rebuttal.
I must admit, your vernacular leaves me somewhat puzzled and at a loss as to form any
cohesive and concise reply.
My references to Christendom were generalities. One can always find exceptions to any
definitive statement where weak humankind are concerned.
Suffice it to say that the European Christian peoples who inhabited this continent in the
18th & 19th Centuries were heartier and humbler folk than those alive today. "Generally"
speaking... they were God-fearing... guided by an ethos of humility and respect... divorce
was unheard of... children had a mother AND a father present... music and other communal
entertainments were wholesome... they had a pride in the forebearers' accomplishments... they
were taught a sound understanding of the 3 "R"'s... etc, etc...
"Generally" speaking... ALL of the above-mentioned attributes are absent today in a
majority of our citizenry. Think about that. Before (((they))) poisoned our reputable
wellspring, people were FAR better off.
So, yes... Christians had Inquisitions, Crusades, Wars, Conquests, etc... but, they also
had a value system which served as the basis for far-greater deeds, art, architecture and
civilization. Put on a scale, I'd say their philosophy has given the world far more "good"
than "bad". Only my humble opinion.
The social engineering - the cultural Marxism and other gambits used by the Parasite -
merits much (very public) attention to its goals, authors and techniques.
For the time being, the nation is involved in the uncivil war.
The geographical boundaries although somewhat still existing are not, nor ever will be, as
before, so clearly defined. The writer himself made this point. A fractured nation of special
interests with their various greviances sprinkled (forgive the pun) liberally throughout
every state, city, town, village, Berg, family or more accurately what is left of the family
.
Lies, corruption, distraction at every turn, and I would say a great majority are
oblivious to the primary threats and the larger games afoot.
A population ripe for continued abuse and exploitation, as they are well fed , well
entertained, and as Mr. Roberts is fond of pointing out, largely overcome by insouciance ...
devil take the hindmost ..
No it will end or begin in with some cataclysmic event, an event so great, that not even
the greatest liars and deceivers that the world has ever known will be able to cover up the
event, thus all doubt shall be removed at once, and all former lofty considerations of party
affiliation, social status, education , health care, corrupt government and money systems ,
shall seem like quaint and pleasant abstract discussions of the more innocent time.
In a new article titled " Mueller
report PSA: Prepare for disappointment ", Politico cites information provided by defense
attorneys and "more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning
Watergate to the 2016 election case" to warn everyone who's been lighting candles at their
Saint Mueller altars that their hopes of Trump being removed from office are about to be dashed
to the floor.
"While [Mueller is] under no deadline to complete his work, several sources tracking the
investigation say the special counsel and his team appear eager to wrap up," Politico
reports.
"The public, they say, shouldn't expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of
Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump - not to mention an explanation
of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller
sleuths," the report also says, adding that details of the investigation may never even see
the light of day.
An obscene amount of noise and focus, a few indictments and process crime convictions which
have nothing to do with Russian collusion, and this three-ring circus of propaganda and
delusion is ready to call it a day.
This is by far the clearest indication yet that the Mueller investigation will end with
Trump still in office and zero proof of collusion with the Russian government, which has been
obvious since the beginning to everyone who isn't a complete fucking moron. For two years the
idiotic, fact-free, xenophobic Russiagate conspiracy theory has been ripping through mainstream
American consciousness with shrieking manic hysteria, sucking all oxygen out of the room for
legitimate criticisms of the actual awful things that the US president is doing in real life.
Those of us who have been courageous and clear-headed enough to stand against the groupthink
have been shouted down, censored, slandered and smeared as assets of the Kremlin on a daily
basis by unthinking consumers of mass media propaganda, despite our holding the philosophically
unassailable position of demanding the normal amount of proof that would be required in a
post-Iraq invasion world.
As I
predicted long ago , "Mueller isn't going to find anything in 2017 that these vast,
sprawling networks wouldn't have found in 2016. He's not going to find anything by 'following
the money' that couldn't be found infinitely more efficaciously via Orwellian espionage. The
factions within the intelligence community that were working to sabotage the incoming
administration last year would have leaked proof of collusion if they'd had it. They did not
have it then, and they do not have it now. Mueller will continue finding evidence of corruption
throughout his investigation, since corruption is to DC insiders as water is to fish, but he
will not find evidence of collusion to win the 2016 election that will lead to Trump's
impeachment. It will not happen." This has remained as true in 2018 as it did in 2017, and it
will remain true forever.
None of the investigations arising from the Russiagate conspiracy theory have turned up a
single shred of evidence that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016
election, or to do anything else for that matter. All that the shrill, demented screeching
about Russia has accomplished is manufacturing support for
steadily escalating internet censorship , a
massively bloated military budget , a hysterical McCarthyite atmosphere wherein anyone who
expresses political dissent is painted as an agent of the Kremlin and any dissenting opinions
labeled "Russian talking points" , a complete lack of accountability for the Democratic
Party's brazen election rigging, a total marginalization of real problems and progressive
agendas, and an overall diminishment in the intelligence of political discourse. The
Russiagaters were wrong, and they have done tremendous damage already.
In a just world, everyone who helped promote this toxic narrative would apologize profusely
and spend the rest of their lives being mocked and marginalized. In a world wherein pundits and
politicians can sell the public a war which results in the slaughter of a million Iraqis and
suffer no consequences of any kind, however, we all know that that isn't going to happen.
Russiagate will end not with a bang, but with a series of carefully crafted diversions. The
goalposts will be moved, the news churn will shuffle on, the herd will be guided into
supporting the next depraved oligarchic agenda , and almost nobody will have the intellectual
honesty and courage to say "Hey! Weren't these assholes promising us we'll see Trump dragged
off in chains a while back? Whatever happened to that? And why are we all talking about China
now?"
But whether they grasp it or not, mainstream liberals have been completely discredited. The
mass media outlets which inflicted this obscene psyop upon their audiences deserve to be driven
out of business. The establishment which would inflict such intrusive psychological
brutalization upon its populace just to advance a few preexisting agendas has proven that it
deserves to be opposed on every front and rejected at every turn.
And those of us who have been standing firm and saying this all along deserve to be listened
to. We were right. You were wrong. Time to sit down, shut up, stop babbling about Russian bots
for ten seconds, and let those who see clearly get a word in edgewise.
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see
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Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
It's not over until every corrupt "player" who had a material role in the DemoRats'
corrupt scheme to fraudulently frame Trump is brought to justice. Not to do so means there's
absolutely no deterrent to prevent the DemoRats from repeatedly fraudulently weaponizing
government agencies to attack their political opponents (defined as "Obamunism'). After all,
this was the most egregious fraudulent and illegal political conspiracy in our nation's
history. The DemoRat players must spend a decade or more in the big house. You'd think the
MSM would like that, as the trials of the traitors to America would give the MSM fodder for
their endless psycho-babble and shift attention away from the MSM's complicity in
Obamunism.
That ******* **** Maddow is the deep state's Tokyo Rose and should be yanked from the
airwaves and prosecuted for seditious lies and slander. She has plenty of company at the
other major news networks as well.
Can you imagine all of the "Deer-Caught-In-The-Headlights" looks if Mueller were to come
out with an indictment of Hillary, the Decepticrats and the DNC? I can!
All of this Russia ******** has been a diversion to distract the current administration
and to inhibit the discovery of the real crimes that have been committed against the US and
the world since 1991 when GHWB took office... Everything from 9-11 to WMDs in Iraq to
billions of $$$ in cash being airlifted to Iran to Barry Soetoro being a stooge for Saudi
Arabia... They have bought themselves two years in the process, but they cannot stop the
truth coming out...
I spoke to an ex-pat Indian, now an American citizen; settled there for three decades and
more. Well knowledgeable. He praised Pres. Trump but told me, "But Trump did not win fair."
When I told him that this Russia probe is going to wind up, admitting no collusion, he was
surprised. Then I told him that his favourite media are lying to him; he was confused. Then I
asked him to google "Seth Rich"; he was stunned. Finally it dawned on him he was the Truman
without the benefit of a show. By the time I did my talk over, about 20 minutes later, he was
a much chastised man. He had the intellectual integrity to admit that he was wrong, that he
had been fooled and he ought to have been more careful.
Thank you Caitlin, you have been a truth advocate from the beginning. We have been waiting
for #Russiagate ******** to end and embarrass the Democrats. Unfortunately, President Trump
is starting to be hostile towards Russia now. What a pity it was, that Democrats ruined a
chance of Peace !
The entire Mueller probe is based on a lie... Rosenstein called for a special counsel
without evidence of a crime being committed and no, collusion is not a crime on the
books...
Why all of this has taken 2 years to come to light is beyond me.. The only answer is that
the entire affair has been a giant kabuki show on both sides of the aisle to keep the people
distracted and divided...
Not just the Obama admin spying on Trump, but to tie his hands in investigating everything
from billions of $$$ in cash being delivered to Iran, to who controls Barry Soetoro himself,
to Uranium one, to the Clinton Foundation and on and on and on... There is ample evidence
that the US was infiltrated by a Manchurian Candidate that was hell-bent on destroying the
country, but what we have gotten as a by-product is half of the country hating the US... Weak
minded lemmings that want socialism... The US is fucked and has been for decades... All part
of the reason I left...
The best part is, I hope Carter page , George papadopolous, Paul manafort, and myriad
Russian defendants drag their lawsuits out forever and bring unlimited documents into
discovery, pulling these **** head shill lawyers into never ending court circuses and
hopefully sue Mueller's team to recoup the wasted taxpayer millions. BTW much of this is the
fault of shills like McCain, Lindsay Graham, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, and the other neocon
establishment who would rather see Trump taken down by Democrat hoax operations than
legitimately beat them.
This is ridiculous, the result could not be clearer:
If there's any suggestion that Mueller's report cannot be released then we know without a
doubt that the report contains absolutely nothing of consequence.
Otherwise, why would they do so much preparation for disappointment.
I too hope that all the people who have been ruined by this debacle bring countless legal
actions that require public disclosure of alleged 'secret' documents.
In the end Trump will have to, regardless of protest from the UK or anyone else for that
matter, have to declassify the whole lot of it so that his false accusers are laid bare on
the alter of shame for all to see.
They never could win legitimately so they cheated like no other, and of course as the
foundation they used the queen cheater Hillary Clinton herself. I hope she does run for
election in 2020, it will be 3 strikes and the bitch is out. What an embarassement for
Hillary.
Gotta say this out loud ZH people- seeing first hand what the Democrats did 2011-2016,
getting way to close to government operations in my state, pushed me from left to the right
in absolute disgust with the left. Seemed like maybe the right is different and better
nowadays. However, general gay bashing and blatant racism on websites like this one scares
some and puts some moderates and Independents off the right. I'm all for #hetoo and Corey
Booker reaping what he sowed. What they did to Kavenaugh was despicable. A conservative party
that disavows racism, gaybashing and misogyny is highly appealing nowadays over the left. I'm
a card carrying member of the NRA, but when you start that gaybashing you all get scary and
make some reconsider voting red for fear of devolving. Want to change your gender? Knock
yourself out; none of my friggen business. But to force the taxpayer to pay for "gender
reassignment", and then claim there's no money for stopping and repairing the landslides in
Pennsylvania's red counties, and blame it on Trump? That's the insanity of the leftist
governor in my state. All you do when you attack a group over race, being gay or being women
is create a new class dependent victims for the left to "protect" and give a free ride in
exchange for votes. Hope this makes sense. Not as articulate as some here but hope I got the
point across.
The right was looking pretty good after Kavenaugh. Maybe this whole post and many of its
comments is a ploy to draw in the stupid and the trolls. This post and comments like yours
are making the right look like apes last minute before the midterms. Its working. You all
could have handled this news with some decency and some class and some tolerance and sealed
it for the republicans in the upcoming elections. But no. You let yourselves be drawn into
posts like this, for all the world to see that maybe nothing at all has changed about the
right. SMH.
Some of us who wanted to vote red might have a family member who is gay. Coworkers and
neighbors and friends who are black. Now we have to worry, after reading posts like yours,
that we'll be plunging loved ones back into a world of discrimination and maybe violence by
voting red. Thought all this crap was in the past. Nope. Still raging strong I see after
reading posts like these
I should think that there ought to be a change in American law wherein someone making a
sexual accusation without proof can be held liable financially and possibly criminally.
Booker must be sweating bullets now that his secret is out. Maybe he and the anointed one,
Obama, can get it on in a steam room in somewhere in D.C. together, with the Wookie looking
the other way.
Unless there is a smoking gun in regards to evidence, I do think we should stoop to their
lowness - play their game. Kill them with the rule of law. Be sympathetic to the gay man and
tell him if there is real evidence they will follow-up, but if not they have no grounds to go
anywhere with it. Show them what they SHOULD have done. Then let the rumors and paranoia of
potential evidence do the job on Booker. It will eat him up. Mean time, we move forward and
ride the Red Wave.
Forget about data collection. There are important issues that I would like to bring to
your attention before we go into frivolous stuff. Here are my monthly bills. To understand
this better I work in a field that pays be a 60k. Most people don't get that salary. I live
in a co op. I have to take the train to the city for work.
1) Rent_Mortgage - 800
2) Rental Insurance_ Co op Liability Insurance - 20
3) Co op Monthly maintenance - 400
4) State_Federal_City - ?
5) Metro North - 300
6) Car Payments - 200
7) Groceries - 150 (40*4)
8) Eating outside at work - 150
9) Subway - 120
10) Monthly parking at the train station - I need to drive to the metro north to get to
the train - 100
11) Parking - 80 (Optional)
12) Car Insurance - 60 (Optional)
13) Cell Phone - 75
14) Utilities_ Gas+Electricity+Heating - 75
15) Internet - 45
16) Netflix - 15
17) Laundry - 15 (if I did twice a month its 7.5*2 or three times it would be more like
5*3)
18) Microsoft _Adobe Buillshit - 10
19) Health Insurance - 80 (If its a family of 3 its around 150 with a high deductible)
20) Dental Insurance - 20
This is heavy. I have to spend money that I receive after getting taxed at 35%. I am being
generous here. Please feed me in with any thing that I have missed. This is without a family
for a single person. Add going out on dates with lousy chicks (Hey man I am trying to get
laid ok?), kids .. When you look at this does it all makes any sense at all. I am a
vegetarian. I don't eat meat, booze, nor smoke just because they are expensive.
I have to do some thing about it or else no chick can date me financially this sound
:(...
Which is why popular anger and resentment must constantly be directed outward, at an external
enemy. Wake up, Americans – Russia and China are robbing you of your American Dream!!
It's their fault, not that of your own elites and/or the political system that assures their
place!!
In at least one area, though, Unz is full of it.
This perhaps explains why so many sons and daughters of top Chinese leaders attend
college in the West: enrolling them at a third-rate Chinese university would be a tremendous
humiliation, while our own corrupt admissions practices get them an easy spot at Harvard or
Stanford, sitting side by side with the children of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W.
Bush.
It is not as easy as he makes out, as a timely lawsuit suggests – Asian-Americans
often have to tiptoe through an admissions minefield whose process is exquisitely designed to
discover their ethnic background, so that Asian admissions can be limited. According to this
reference, basing its conclusions on an internal study conducted by Harvard itself, if that
institution looked only at academic standards when filling its admissions, Asians and
Asian-Americans would make up 43% of its student body. Instead, it's maybe half that.
It is uniquely-American irony that the driving force behind the initiative is Ed Blum,
about as far from a populist as you could get, who is pushing the lawsuit as a means of
wrecking any correction of the system; it's designed to lose.
I must have missed that bit, but if so, how does he reconcile that with children of the
Chinese leadership just coasting into the Ivy League as if the admissions process were a
slide?
In Australia here anyway, some universities have very large international student intakes to
the extent that in some institutions, overseas students (mostly from China and India)
constitute as much as or more than 40% of the entire student population. http://www.universityrankings.com.au/international-student-numbers.html
A major part of the reason must be that as government funding to universities here
continues to decrease, universities are forced to make up the shortfall by relying on full
fee-paying students and international students and their families can be exploited in this
way by being forced to pay upfront for their education.
No doubt, being private educational institutions, Ivy League universities view the
children of Chinese political elites as similar gold mines and the admission standards
required of such potential students are likely to be very different from what is applied to
students coming out of American high schools.
Dear Patient Observer: I try to give credit where credit is due; so any sociological theory
that is factual and based on mathematics deserves to be aired in public.
My beef with Unz is their overall fascist slant. Some of the articles are so viciously
anti-Jewish, that one is simply forced to ask: "What is your end game? A second Holocaust?"
(which the more Nazi of the commenters are forced into Zugzwang, because they deny the first
one even happened, and yet call for a second one )
Having said that, I call upon people to perform a simple thought experiment: Imagine it were
actually proved scientifically factual (beyond a statistical doubt) that certain ethnic
groups were intellectual "smarter" in the arena of, say, college success. (For example, Jews
or "Asians".) Then what should be the policy ensuing? Should governments institute quotas to
make sure the "dumber" ethnos get their share of the college degrees? Or just let nature take
its course?
I reckon the answer would depend on the government in question, and the whole damn history.
When the Soviet Union decided (in the late 70's and 1980's) to limit Jews to certain quotas
in university admissions, they were raked over the coals by Westies. And yet when Westie
institutions attempt to set ethnic quotas, then it might be reasonable.
Where do I stand on this issue? I honestly don't know but I admit that I don't have the
answers
I told this story before but will do so again as it has relevancy. My 2nd term calculus
graduate assistance was a young woman; perhaps 18 years old. Her name was Stern or Sternberg.
She was socially awkward, clearly uncomfortable in the classroom and not good at teaching
A few years later, I read a story in a regional newspaper about her. The headline was
something like "Is this Perfection?". Anyway, the story indicated that she graduated from the
University at the age of 16. She was the product of an experiment by her parents. From
conception onward, she was exposed to every sort of stimulation to build her intellectual
development – classical music played while in the womb, every sort of pre-school
educational stimulation and constant urging to excel in academics.
My take is most "ethnic" intellectual achievement is the product of sociological factors.
Overbearing Jewish moms or Asian tiger moms are likely a major factor in such academic
achievements. In my value system, that behavior is destructive to the kids psychological
well-being. Not worth it in the long run I believe.
Asians I personally know tell me that Asian kids are not genetically smarter than anyone
else. Their parents value education, and make them work harder than most western kids do. Got
spare time? Study. Already mastered the subject? Take up another. When you're good at all of
them, then you can take a break.
A friend of mine who was a junior officer in the Navy is Chinese. She consented to be
interviewed by a Chinese magazine, because of her position as a military officer, but it was
clear to her that her interviewers were a little disappointed that she was not fluent in
Mandarin. When they proceeded with the interview in English, they wanted to know, "Why you no
doctor? Why you no Rawyer?"
But isn't the selection of African or Asian students who may study in Europe or the USA based
more on class? Surely, if you are a Chinese or African – black, brown,
sky-blue-with-pink-polka-dots or whatever, you must be bourgeois if you have been allowed to
study at Yale or Oxford etc.
In the UK, the working class is becoming increasingly uneducated, and class is not
ethnicity.
"We're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement," Trump said Saturday after a
campaign rally in Elko, Nevada. "We're going to terminate the agreement."
As Russia continues to outmaneuver the US by developing new ballistic missiles like the 9M729
ground-launched cruise missile, as well
as hypersonic weapons
capable of carrying a nuclear payload,
President Trump said
Saturday that he plans to abandon a 1987 arms-control treaty that has (on paper, at least)
prohibited the US and Russia from deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles
as Russia
has continued to "repeatedly violate" its terms according to the president, the
Associated Press reports.
"We're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement," Trump
said Saturday after a campaign rally in Elko, Nevada. "We're going to terminate the agreement."
In a report that undoubtedly further complicated John Bolton's weekend trip to Moscow,
the Guardian revealed on Friday
that the national security advisor - in what some described as
an overreach of the position's typical role - had been pushing Trump to abandon the Intermediate
Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
The announcement comes after the U.S. had been warning Russia it could resort to strong
countermeasures unless Moscow complies with international commitments to arms reduction under the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a pact struck in the 1980s.
When first signed by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev following their
historic 1986 meeting, the INF was touted as an important deescalation of tensions between the two
superpowers. But it has since become a flashpoint in the increasingly strained relationship between
the US and Russia, as both sides have accused the other of violating its terms.
But for the US, Russia is only part of the problem.
The New York Times
reported that the pact has limited the US from deploying weapons to counter
the burgeoning military threat
posed by
China in the Western Pacific,
where the country has ignored claims of sovereignty in the South
China Sea and transformed reefs into military bases. And since China was never a party to the
treaty, Beijing can hardly cry foul when the US decides to withdrawal, especially because Russia is
already openly using the treaty as toilet paper.
Speaking at a rally in Elko Nevada, President Trump accused Russia of violating the agreement
and said he didn't want to leave the US in a position where Russia would be free to "go out and do
weapons and we're not allowed to."
"Russia has violated the agreement. They have been violating it for many years," Trump said
after a rally in Elko, Nevada. "And we're not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and
go out and do weapons and we're not allowed to."
Therefore, unless both Russia and China - which isn't a party to the pact - agree to
not
develop
these weapons, the US would be remiss to continue abiding by the terms of the
agreement.
"We'll have to develop those weapons,
unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us
and they all come to us and say let's really get smart and let's none of us develop those
weapons,
but if Russia's doing it and if China's doing it, and we're adhering to the
agreement, that's unacceptable," he said.
While the decision to abandon this treaty - which doesn't bode well for negotiations to extend
the New START treaty after it expires in 2021 - carries serious weight, many Americans and
Russians, having never lived through a war, might remain ignorant to the potential consequences, as
one analyst opined.
"We are slowly slipping back to the situation of cold war as it was at the end of the Soviet
Union, with quite similar consequences, but now it could be worse because (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin belongs to a generation that had no war under its belt," said Dmitry Oreshkin,
an independent Russian political analyst.
"These people aren't as much fearful of a war
as people of Brezhnev's epoch. They think if they threaten the West properly, it gets scared."
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to try and get in front of the US's decision to leave
this week when he declared that Russia would abide by a policy of nonaggression regarding its
nuclear arsenal,
agreeing only to use its nuclear weapons
if it is attacked first.
Although some inside the Pentagon are reportedly wary of abandoning the treaty, Putin's word is
hardly enough to reassure uberhawks like Bolton because the fact remains that if Russia did decide
to use any of the array of nuclear arms that it is currently developing, there would be nothing
stopping it. And with the US already behind in its push to manufacture advanced weapons like
hypersonic missiles, any obstacles to deploying these types of weapons will only serve to weaken
the US and strengthen its geopolitical adversaries.
Watch President Trump's remarks from the rally below:
The cold war was fought by people who lived through the horrors of
WWII. Both sides managed to control their respective neocons. That
generation is no longer in power and people that think a first
strike and a winnable nuclear war are possible are in control on
both sides. Yes, we have two tribes.
When I hear of democrats calling trump negative things, like
racist or whatever...I just laugh at their ignorant fat asses..
But here on ZH, people actually make good points on both sides
of trump being trojan horse for deep state, or trump fighting the
deep state..
I personally do not see evidence enough to draw a conclusion,
but I am hoping he is not deep state...in any case, its been
watching the left squirm, MSM going downhill in temper tantrums,
comey and others fired.. There is no proof that there is a supreme
being or "God" that created the earth. I just believe it because I
believe in His son...Maybe I will trust trump actually puts
hillary in jail..I mean coe on guys, as you notice, I am careful
about my decisions, but the crimes hillary has commited, and the
evidence to back it up, is beyond a shadow of a doubt, and
everyone here knows it...she needs to be in ******* gitmo
"
unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they
all come to us and say let's really get smart and let's none of us
develop those weapons
"
Does anybody believe Trump's offer is real?
Like the USA and Israel are going to give up their nuclear
weapons and missiles?
Yeah, give up weaponizing space and the missile (first-strike)
encirclement of Russia.
The MIC would not even allow the denuclearization of the Korean
penisula, nor withdrawal from any of the invaded/occupied nations.
The MIC wants to sell to the Saudis, re-arm Japan, and have Kiev
join NATO.
Who can believe the MIC-owned Congress will ratify any
disarmament treaties?
Will any Israeli-first president ever back a denuclearized
Israel?
Treaty or not MAD is still in effect... hopefully this will steady
the hand of the neocon scum who have hijacked the US government,
but with the current crop of demons in the state department who
knows?
You can expect that Kaliningrad is going to be armed with all
kinds of nuclear candies ready to blow Europe up as soo as they
see the strike is coming. How is that goign to help Poland or
Europe for that matter? I have no idea.
You can also expect that
the Russian's Subs and Poseidon are going to be around US shores
constantly ready for unleash Nuclear tsunamis with cobalt 60 in
them.
The Chines are going to build military and naval base in
Venezuela for sure with nukes and we could also see much more to
come.
Like we didn't have a Spanish fighter jet missile accidently
launched near Russian border just a couple of days ago.
Like we didn't see US Navy accidents crashing into tankers.
We do not really have a ******* adults running NATO nowadays.
Its all tranny shitshow with no nerves of steal and thinking.
If you thought the old Cold War hawks back there who wanted to
nuke Soviet Union and unleash Operation Northwood just to have a
war were crazy than think how stupid and out of touch with reality
this twats are.
That we haven't seen WW3 yet is becasue of Russians restrain
but once you push it too far and they increasingly are pushing it
too far, then they will murder our asses like beasts. Just look at
what the pilot who got shot down last time did. He rather blew
himself up with grenade killing as much terrorist as possible
after he ran out of ammo than being captured.
That is who we are dealing here with ladies & gentleman.
Is Trump even aware that the U.S. broke its "iron-clad guarantees"
that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward?" If I lived in
Russia, I would look nervously at the increasing military hardware
near my border
!
The "original" so-called intelligence report was a load of BS, I read it, I'm a computer
engineer of over 30 years experience. My opinion is that it was pure BS, "filler" posing as a
report, no evidence presented. Nothingburger. People then seized on it, waved it in the air,
and said, "Here's the proof!". That's a common tactic that's been used over, and over. Here's
the NY Times "correction". Note, after the correction, Hillary continued to spout the
nonsense that 17 agencies all agreed. It was ONLY the FBI, CIA Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (Dan Coats), and the NSA.
The puzzling part is this - since the "blame Russia" story is fake, why does the US
continue to harass and provoke Russia, via Nato, Bolton, Haley? Who's in charge??
Correction: June 29, 2017
A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump's deflections and denials about
Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia
orchestrated hacking attacks during last year's presidential election. The assessment was
made by four intelligence agencies -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National
Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American
intelligence community.
But what if comes out that they didn't break any law ? They can ask for reparations of
lost money because of sanction and then every sanctioned entity and individual in Russia can
ask for reparations because of bogus charges.
It seems likely the overwhelming record of the Mueller "probe" into "interference in US
elections" will be pretended prosecution of acts which never occurred or which violate no
statutory laws.
In other words, it's been a political stunt with no lawful foundation from the very
beginning.
Had they bothered to look into FBI and DNC/Hillary efforts to deceptively manipulate
public perception with false accusations, they would have found ample evidence of criminal
conduct.
I been waiting for some news on this one. I had heard a while back that Mueller tried to
deny the Russian company the ability to contest the charges with that weak *** "they haven't
been served properly" excuse only to have it rejected by the judge.
I hope this deflates on Mueller and leaves him open to charges by the others who he
alleges conspired to meddle in US elections.
FFS the US meddles in EVERYONE's elections they now kicking and screaming cuz someone
might have setup a troll farm or dispensed some info on Hillary that might not have been true
(can it be?)
This will play out badly for the Mueller team, the judge already hates them and is
disgusted by their tactics.
"Made up a crime to fit the facts they have" is a normal mode of operation for federal
prosecutors. Hopefully the judge throws out all charges, but unlikely to have a broader
impact on non-stop fabrications by US attorneys.
What this accusation boils down to is saying that the Russian firm's deception is "proof"
that they thought they were violating US law, and that this intention to break a non-existent
law constitutes a framework under which they can be convicted of breaking a non-existent law.
The crazy never stops. Mueller and his minions should be disbarred.
Why is there any requirement to identify oneself beyond an alias, unless there are
obligations of debt involved. Even there, the LLC places a barrier between an individual and
the creditor.
I post with a pseudonym. My pseudonymous identity bears responsibility for its own
reputation.
ELECTION MEDDLING (as defined by Mueller and Kravis): every VPN blogger and/or user with
more than one GMail account.
But NOT multi-million dollar foreign "contributions" to the Clinton Foundation. That have
dried up since November of 2016. Oh no, nothing meddling about over there.
By participation, do they mean like polls that consistently show the USA as the greatest
impediment to global peace and tranquility? Or the numerous opinion sharers that the US
government is depraved? Or like the kind of participation of Victoria "**** the EU" Nuland?
Or like the Western sponsored Jihadi headchoppers hired to interfere in Syrian elections? Or
like the US military fueled aggression against Yemeni sovereignty? Or like the US/Clinton
sponsored destabilization of Libyan democracy? Or like the Obama/US sponsored destabilization
of Egypt? Or like the US/Western sponsored failed coup in Turkey?
Or most crucially, the US/neoconservative never ending direct interference in internal
Russian affairs?
These need to be clarified so folks can understand what meddling/interference/intervention
means. It's not enough to point fingers, when worse activities have been, are being carried
out by the pointers. Any society that abandons basic ethics, is one destined for the scrap
heap of history.
Americans have forgotten what it means to be Americans, and this desperate gambit by the
DOJ highlights viscerally, that the American system of government, one based on ethical
values, is no more! It demonstrates the fragility of the system.
God alone knows if salvage is possible now, the USA has in the blink of an eye, become the
erstwhile USSR, overly sensitive to the unworkability of its sociopolitical system. It is the
end game of unsustainable imperium.
"Rather, the allegation is that the company knowingly engaged in deceptive acts that
precluded the FEC, or the Justice Department, from ascertaining whether they had broken the
law. -
Bloomberg " I didn't know Prof. Irwin Corey worked for the US Attorney's office. By this
explanation whether you break a law or not you can be guilty of precluding these agencies
from determining that you did not break a law, even if whatever you did to prevent such
determination was not illegal.
didn't the Judge in Manaforts trial do something similar when he called out the Mueller
team on their motivation's for bringing Manafort up on old charges the DOJ had previously
declined to prosecute him on?
Amerika is 180 degree turn from my logic. Mueler presented fake evidence and fabricated
Lockerbie trial. He was working with Steele.
So this is great guy to head FBI and bull sheet Russia medling. In normal country, guy
like Mueler is so discredired that can be hapi to have county investigator job, not
government job
LOL, Mueller's investigation is fucked. Indeed, they are going to have to bring forth the
evidence via discovery.
It will come to light they manufactured a crime without the evidence. Also, if they don't
drop the case they're running the risk of exposing even more crimes they committed.
This is where the American people should rise up and repeal prosecutorial immunity and
make the real criminal's pay the price for manufacturing crime's! Care to speculate how many
prosecutor's wouldn't even touch a potential criminal with doubt of innocence, if indeed
prosecutors were held accountable for their own crimes???
Like I've said, people have NO idea how raunchy and corrupt this manufactured Mueller
investigation is, once the unredacted FISA warrant and 302's are released, the people will
realize both the seditious and traitorous behavior that went on in the ObamaSpy ring to frame
Trump!
"... Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began, that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or Oberlin or Yale. ..."
"... My brother is a biology professor at an elite liberal arts college in the Midwest. He uses no pronouns with his students, as the demands escalate and change daily. A whole cluster of young female students in the physics department have suddenly declared themselves trans. ..."
"... He says that it is impossible -- absolutely impossible -- to question what is happening in society concerning the abandonment of human biological facts or to have a rational debate about any of this on campus, either among the faculty or with the students. ..."
"... This is 100% correct and also the result of our K-12 education system doing what it was designed to do: engineer certain social outcomes. ..."
"... I grew in a period of suffocating conformity, the dregs of the Cold War hysteria that communists are hiding under your bed and in your anxiety closet to burst out and turn your local church into a museum pretending that a Russian invented the telephone. ..."
"... Somehow, quite a few of us found the means to stand up, to challenge, to question, to dismiss, to lampoon, and most of all, to turn back mindless adjectives accusing us of Thining The Wrong Way. I doubt that any generation coming up now is so mindlessly conformist as the writer insinuates. ..."
"... I also find it ironic that a piece called "Creating A-Plus Conformists" is published by the author of "The Benedict Option". I can't think of a greater force for creating conformity than religious orthodoxy. ..."
"... I have no idea who Alice is. But as a college professor, I find this to be (and this is being charitable) exaggerated nonsense. Has Alice actually ever stood in front of and talked to class of college freshman? ..."
Reader Alice comments on the hyperpoliticization of college students:
Understand: they *arrive at universities thinking this way*.
Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began,
that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes
you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or
Oberlin or Yale.
The "best and brightest" accepted to these schools are kids who, consciously or
unconsciously, have learned to excel in places by accepting as true the acceptable ideas and
never bringing up the unacceptable. Some thoughts are just too dangerous to have.
Trajectories that are good for one's future to the Ivies don't allow you to engage these
unacceptable ideas. So in school and in other places where one deals with adults, these front
row kids learn to believe, or at least be comfortable with parroting, these acceptable ideas.
Just as there's a correct answer to a calculus question, there's a correct answer to
questions such as why one country is more successful than another, why there are measurable
differences in incarceration rates by race (even as there's also a contradictory answer to
the question of what is a race), what a nation owes non-citizens vs. citizens, how much
training can alter [ ], are sex differences on average innate, are there two sexes, etc.
Meanwhile, if you hear something unacceptable, you've also been equipped with the trump
card to demolish the argument: arguer is racist, sexist, bigot. So the Overton window is big
for trans rights and little for the role of, say, duty to ones' elders, big for
microaggression but little for the personality differences of men and women.
Whether they believe it or not at the beginning is irrelevant. They make the appropriate
verbal gestures, they get a reward. After 6-12 years of doing so, they're not capable of
engaging in debate or rhetoric, argument from evidence, even following a line of reasoning or
recognizing a fallacy. They've never done it, and anyone who tried was actively shut down
either calls of "my truth".
On the past, ignorance and obnoxious self regard were demolished by profs rather quickly.
What's changed is college profs no longer push back on this crap. They no longer demand
argument, reason, and counter argument. They simply are stunned that they share no overlap of
consciousness with the students they bequeathed to themselves. They are afraid of them and
afraid to stand up to the students or spineless weasel administrators.
I live on the east coast and can only tell you what we see. The public schools teach gender
identity ideology, starting in elementary. I didn't even know what that is until our autistic
daughter suddenly decided that she's "really a guy", along with a cluster of her school
friends, when she was 16. They are 19 now, and two of her friends have had irreversible
surgery which has made them sterile.
My brother is a biology professor at an elite liberal arts college in the Midwest. He uses
no pronouns with his students, as the demands escalate and change daily. A whole cluster of
young female students in the physics department have suddenly declared themselves trans. The
mantra of "supporting women in physics!" swiftly changed to "supporting transgender people in
physics!"
He says that it is impossible -- absolutely impossible -- to question what is
happening in society concerning the abandonment of human biological facts or to have a
rational debate about any of this on campus, either among the faculty or with the
students.
The unthinkable has happened. An ideology which would have been laughed at as ridiculous
on college campuses in the 1980s is now driving social, legal, and medical practice
throughout our entire country. If you haven't been affected by this yet, then you will be.
Soon.
This is 100% correct and also the result of our K-12 education system doing what it was
designed to do: engineer certain social outcomes.
Conservative calls to "de-fund college" over this are misplaced.
Also, the reason that college professors don't stand up to this is because they know that
the administration won't have their back if a student accuses them of being
racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic. And the administrator won't have their back due to the
desire to avoid bad press and students protesting on campus. Give the (vocal) students what
they want so everyone stays happy.
I could not disagree with this more strongly. This is the false argument of broad
generalization. The vast majority of schools are not en masses teaching radical SJW thought
control. They are doing their best to teach AT ALL given the federal over reach into state
public education and the excessive focus on testing and scores and the impact that has on
funding.
And certainly anecdote does not equal accumulative data but our personal experience of
high school
For our children is that there is zero indoctrination of SJW values coming from the teachers
of the institution. Certainly the peer group has SJW people and activities but I'm here to
declare that not one teacher or one principal in my district has for e fed my children any
SJW dogma. In fact I can list multiple examples of Tim's when I've wondered how teachers got
away with things like singing Christian or Jewish music at a choir concert or teaching the
Our Father prayer in German or studying the great schism and having my kids present the
Orthodox side of the story in World History.
Who knows. Maybe I live in an anomaly. But I wonder if the hyping of crazy SJW stories of
abuse in schools has created an image in people's minds that ALL schools are crazy SJW
hotbeds.
It's just not true. Public education IS in crisis due to ridiculous over testing and
funding that is abysmal. And the majority of people who work in public ed are really just
hanging on by their fingernails trying to do their best and make rent!!!
Sure there's a crazy teacher, waka-doodle principal or spineless superintendent that makes
the news. And certainly the NEA is an bastion of left leaning ideas, but to make this huge
sweep that the kids arriving at University were indoctrinated by their 1st grade teacher and
on up through their childhood is just absolutely not true.
A hundred years or so ago, I was in high school debate. One of the good things about that is
we had to learn how to argue either for or against the same thing with equal conviction.
Because we were young and inexperienced, i.e. stupid, most of us were pretty liberal, but the
idea that there was only one way to think about a problem was completely foreign.
Well, the writer of that comment paints a picture. But that assumes facts not in evidence. I
don't have a statistical overview of all the high schools in the country, but I know enough
about enough students at enough of them to question whether the above description is The
Truth About The Meaning Of Life And Everything.
I grew in a period of suffocating conformity, the dregs of the Cold War hysteria that
communists are hiding under your bed and in your anxiety closet to burst out and turn your
local church into a museum pretending that a Russian invented the telephone.
Somehow, quite a few of us found the means to stand up, to challenge, to question, to
dismiss, to lampoon, and most of all, to turn back mindless adjectives accusing us of Thining
The Wrong Way. I doubt that any generation coming up now is so mindlessly conformist as the
writer insinuates.
There are two answers to being reflexively called "racist, sexist, bigot."
1) So what?
2) Prove it.
I prefer the second option, but there are other adjectival nouns I would respond to with
the first.
This situation will not last. The Social Justice canon is too clearly false and modern people
are too rebellious to shoulder it for long. One of the characteristics of liquid modernity is
that the pendulum swings more freely than it ever has before. It will be interesting to see,
when the Social Justice narrative finally collapses, how much of our foundational mythology
goes along with it.
As far as I can tell, our modern dysfunction is a very consistent and rational result of
one simple foundational lie: "All men are created equal." The intent of this lie may have
been noble but it is self-evidently false. And the Social Justice narrative rests very
comfortably upon it. I can't see how it survives the collapse of Social Justice no matter how
badly we desire to maintain it.
P.S. I understand the reflexive anger and distrust that most readers will feel upon
reading this post. This is certainly a painful idea to grapple with. It is embedded deeply
into our many intersecting identities. But what would you say to someone claiming that all
pots are created equal? Would you posit that anyone denying this claim is a wok supremacist?
No. If two things are not interchangeable, then they are not equal. But this does not mean
that one is ultimately superior to the other. Human equality is a comfortable illusion. But
we can find better reasons to treat one another with the proper respect and kindness. And in
the process we might build a more perfect civilization.
The natural follow up for those in power to saying "Some men are more equal than others"
is to say "therefore the better men are the ones in power."
No. Being born poor makes it much, much harder to succeed. Having connections puts
incompetents and immoral people in power. We need to understand that the rich and powerful
*are* usually born with silver spoons in their mouths. Injustice is real. Face it.
College students today are the first generation in US history to have grown up with openly
gay friends and neighbors. They know, from lived experience, that there is nothing wrong with
gay people. They know it in their bones.
So, yah, they think differently than we do on sexual issues, and they tune us out when we say
things they know to be false.
"Kids, I don't know what's wrong with the kids these days".
So a reader send this in without citing any Support for her conclusions and you tack on a
headline about conformism and print it.
One could easily write a companion piece about homeschooled kids going off to some
evangelical college where they set aside all reason and accept creationism and the Bible as
the sole arbiter of truth. But those kids aren't going to get into "Brown or Oberlin or
Yale".
That's where Alice tips her hand. This has nothing to do with the brainwashing or
indoctrination of our youth, but that the Brown, Oberlin and Yale graduates are going to end
up running this country, while Alice doesn't get, and isn't in anyway entitled too, tell them
what to think.
Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began,
that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes
you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or
Oberlin or Yale.
There has never been a time in history that this hasn't been true.
Rod, the comment is okay, but seems to lack an actual article written around it. Looks quite
incomplete both from a literary perspective and from the perspective of the idea.
This may sound mawkish, and it's based on just a few years teaching undergrads when I was in
grad school, but I think there are a lot of college students who want to be able to say or
write something more than the party line, but often they don't know how and have managed to
go through high school without having read anything. My students, of both sexes and all
races, included a good number of kids who, once I made it clear enough that I didn't want to
hear any canned "diversity is excellence" crap or whatever, seemed pretty happy that they
could try writing about something else for a change.
There are always the sycophantic
apple-polishers whose whole shtick is regurgitating the conventional wisdom at every
opportunity, but people hate that kind of person (see Hillary Clinton).
You could spend some time reading your kids' AP World History and AP US History textbooks
to discover the "analytical" grid that everything is rammed through. Good for you/your kids if your local teachers don't teach it in that manner, but trust me, the AP test
questions are geared toward certain ideological answers.
Also, when Alice mentioned "My truth" I wondered if she has also had a kid in an elite
college prep school. If so, it sure sounds like she and I have come to the same conclusions
from experience.
Working in IT I get to talk to a lot of young people coming out of college with a variety of
degrees. Most have no idea what Alice is talking about. Perhaps if you go for something like
a sociology or general liberal arts degree at the most liberal schools in the nation this is
true but real students are worried about their fields of study (business, software, UX
design, etc.) and the courses that might teach these types of things are fluff electives they
skate through and ignore as much as possible.
I also find it ironic that a piece called "Creating A-Plus Conformists" is published by
the author of "The Benedict Option". I can't think of a greater force for creating conformity
than religious orthodoxy.
This post is one big exercise in confirmation bias. There are no facts, just assertions
stated firmly enough to convince the already-convinced. I expect better from The American
Conservative.
The fact that it's supposedly an example of other peoples' conformity is just the
ironic icing on the non-self-aware cake.
"But what would you say to someone claiming that all pots are created equal?"
That pots are objects with objective value and none inherent, while people are subjects who
invest value in objects and possessed of inherent worth that is not objectively comparable,
so we shorthand render it "equality". You know, the reason conservatives are supposed to hate
'borshun.
Actual studies shows actually, what happens in college is professors move left-wing students
slightly to the right and right-wing students slightly to the left.
Hi Rod, sorry about the typos in the original! Thanks for the raising the comment. I hope
it's fruitful.
To some folks saying 'this is an overgeneralization', my comments were in the post re:
what's happening at the elite institutions, and so were directed to the set of kids on k-12
that intend to get to such institutions. Those elite univs are more likely to select students
with this SJW profile on the first place, yes. But again, the kids intending to go to such
places know this is the profile.
To those questioning whether every k-12 school is like this, I ask you to look at the
required courses in teaching colleges and master's programs that credential teachers. It's
SJWism everywhere all the time, in every single discipline. Math class is about racial
equity. Reading class is about gender equity. There's no other lens through which teachers
are taught, so this is the lens through which they teach. Read the journals in teaching and
see the articles.
To those questioning whether every college is like this, I suggest you look more closely
at your community college's bookstore.
I'm in a southern state that voted for Trump. The big city cc offers this required English
class,
ENG-111: Writing and Inquiry
'This course is designed to develop the ability to produce clear writing in a variety of
genres and formats using a recursive process. Emphasis includes inquiry, analysis, effective
use of rhetorical strategies, thesis development, audience awareness, and revision. Upon
completion, students should be able to produce unified, coherent, well-developed essays using
standard written English. This course will also introduce students to the skills needed to
produce a college-level research essay.'
Seems a reasonable course, right? Freshman English.
The Reader for the course in 2017:
Sex Ed
Family Values
Oh, Come On, Men Aren't Finished
Wonder Woman by Gloria Steinem
Sex, Lies and Conversation: why Is It So Hard to Talk to Each Other?
Again, you can claim I'm cherry picking, but you will find this in every city in every
state.
Or just listen to vacuous comments of middle school admins. Look at when districts give
days off to kids to bus them to anti Trump rallies, and ask yourself if such a place is real
pushing a socratic discussion about these points of view.
If you listen closely, you will understand this is everywhere.
Andrew in MD: "If two things are not interchangeable, then they are not equal." Is interchangeability the sole criteron of equality? Could a person argue that since all people are sinners/fallen, they are, therefore, equal?
Or are some more sinning or fallen?
The Buddha demonstrated that all people are empty of self – why cannot that suffice
for the establishment of equality?
Andrew in MD: some great American (John Randolph?) once said "I do not believe that all men
are equal, for the simple reason that it isn't true". So, nothing anger-producing in your
post. If giving up this noble lie is what is needed to consign SJWism to the ideological
trash bin along with other totalitarian ideologies like Maoism, then out it goes.
When I was, in my late college years through my first ten or so years in The Real World, I
was a doctrinaire conservative Republican, although not a member of any church or religion.
In a way, this did me some good, because I was attending some elite, some not-so-elite,
and all very leftish educational institutions. Often my grades suffered, but I had to learn
to marshal facts and formulate arguments that people did not want to hear. Often this was
pretty easy, because the people I was arguing with had never really thought about what they
believed or why, much less the unspoken assumptions underlying those beliefs, and they had
never heard them challenged.
Usually the response was sputtering outrage, but that's a poor substitute for logical
argument, especially when I am almost autistic in how little I care what other people think
of me. In fact, if you react by being even calmer and more logical, the other person will
dissolve into a spitting mad Donald Duck meltdown.
If I had simply gone with the flow, all that was necessary was to recite the correct
dogmas and platitudes with adequate conviction and I would have been greeted with
hosannas.
They say that a person becomes more conservative as they get older, but the opposite
happened to me. I suppose because I enjoy challenging my own beliefs, finding facts that
don't fit my own theories and then trying to make sense of them.
I learned that theory didn't always apply in real world conditions and pat answers don't
always translate into solutions. (Apply "markets in all the things" to healthcare, for
instance.)
They also say that a person becomes more conservative as they become more successful, but
that wasn't the case for me either. I suppose to a certain extent, I am successful because I
was lucky.
Honestly, what Shelley wrote sounds more accurate than what Alice did, although I think there
is at least a grain of truth in Alice's post, too. And the poster at another one of Rod's
pieces who put more of the blame on the Internet than on schools and teachers at any level
made sense, too.
As much as I find the content on AmCon to be generally thought provoking, the complaint
expressed by "Alice" is a recurring sentiment that I think "conservatives" use to cover up
shoddy arguments
"I have all these really great ideas and deep insights about race and gender, but every
time I try to express them, I get called a bigot, and I'm totally not a bigot, but those
dastardly liberals won't even let me make my argument because they are always shouting me
down and calling me a bigot, so me and the vast majority of ordinary folks who also agree
with me are effectively silenced a shrill few elites, which is totally unfair! Anyone else
feel this way? Sad!"
Point #1
Something doesn't jive about the general premise. Summarizing Alice's post as "All the kids
today are totally brainwashed by SJWs, and everyone mindlessly goes along with whatever the
PC police say". On a related note, last week's major news item was essentially "ordinary
Americans were recently polled and 92% of them don't support political correctness and they
are totally sick of identity politics and fed up with SJWs -- #WalkAway #RedWave #MAGA"
Am I missing something? Because those don't seem to make sense to be occurring in the same
place at the same time. "The kids are totally brainwashed by identity politics and are just a
bunch of useful idiots for the Left", BUT "they also see right through it, see that it's a
sham, and they thoroughly reject it". Also, "The ordinary folks are cowering in fear, there's
nothing they can do about it, the situation is beyond hopeless because the SJWs have
effectively silenced all dissent", BUT "there's a revolution about to burst forth because so
many ordinary people are mad as hell and not going to take it any more and in November they
are going to vote hardcore against all this identity stuff and kick these knuckleheads out of
power."
Doesn't make sense. It's one or the other, not both.
Point #2
I don't instinctively believe that all Republicans and Conservatives are bigots. I'm a
Conservative. I don't think I'm a bigot. But I do get a little skeptical of a particular
handful of my fellow conservatives who always seem to be running around complaining
"everyone's always calling me a bigot, everyone's always calling me a bigot, I'm totally not
a bigot, but everyone's always calling me a bigot when I express my ideas".
Well, okay, what exactly are these wonderful, totally not bigoted ideas that you have?
Would you like to share them with us?
For example, Alice (or anyone else), please illuminate us with the answer to one of the
questions that you raised in your post, one of those off-limits questions where people are
always unfairly saying that your answer is racist: why there are measurable differences in incarceration rates by race?
Help me to understand, in your own, totally not-bigoted words, what is the answer that we
all need the hear, the answer that the SJWs won't let us hear? I promise, promise, promise
that I will not call you a racist. This is a safe space for you.
I have no idea who Alice is. But as a college professor, I find this to be (and this is being
charitable) exaggerated nonsense. Has Alice actually ever stood in front of and talked to
class of college freshman?
The upside is that all the good little Maoists will starve, come some real crises in our
society. Good for them that they can make up micro aggressions out of nothing, not so good
for them that they won't be able to feed their soy faces when things begin to break down in
this nation.
I figured we'd already gone around the useless bend with these people years ago when I was
trapped someplace and MTV was playing. Some yoyo on the TV was talking about a show he was
producing and soooooo scared that it wasn't going to go right and freaking out and all this,
basically over nothing. I then noticed more and more of this type of behavior once I started
looking for it. Lots of younger and younger people living in fear of absolutely nothing just
fear for its own sake.
Learned fear and helplessness, nothing less or more. You have an increasingly large number
of kids who are raised up as sheltered as possible and who have no real will or ability to
take care of themselves. Couple that with the ideological vampires that roam higher education
these days and you wind up with people who don't really care about whatever cause they're
promoting, or what they're protesting, but it becomes all abut trying to drive out any
dissenting sound from a basis of fear.
The soy boys are wretched creatures at best, and the harpies who lead them about by the
nose are just as pitiful. Kinda dangerous, but only to a point, because all of them value
their own skin more than real confrontation or principles (this is kinda true of the
alt-right, too, which is why the media always suffers meltdowns at violence that wouldn't
even merit a mention in Freikorps-riddled Germany, where the Browns and Reds duke it out
regularly and Hitler brandished a pistol, not a Twitter hissy fit).
There's really no upside, just the irritation of living with these people on a daily basis
and trying to tune out their BS. Maybe the social credit system will get rolling here and
some point, which will be a clue to move to the sticks and learn how to raise organic produce
and enjoy the simpler things. Lord knows, none of them are going to want to risk getting mud
on their hipster work boots by being in the real country.
I'm sure Reader Alice is identifying a real phenomenon, but it's funny to see a traditional
Christian publishing it. Are we saying the other side is a haven of consistently
rational debate ?
I teach high school kids for a living. My school is in a high income area and nearly 100% of
the kids are college bound, many of them to very selective universities. My experience is
that our stronger students take challenging and reasonably balanced courses – they do
not arrive to college as leftist zombies. Our weaker students sometimes find a home with the
leftists and realize that they can be praised by adults and sometimes even given high grades
in politicized but low level classes. These are the ones I worry about. I have a good view of
the next generation, and from where I sit the most capable 17 year olds are for more
influenced by Lin Manuel Miranda than by Ta Nehisi Coates – and I find that fairly
encouraging.
I taught high school English in the California Bay Area and even there, I encountered only a
couple teachers who could be said to have any kind of liberal agenda and to have included it
in the classroom. My 3 kids have gone to California public schools (2 of them are currently
in high school), in the Bay Area and the Sacramento regions, and we haven't experienced any
of what the writer of this post describes. It's been my experience that kids get their
political leanings these days mostly from their peers, their media heroes and social media.
Now, college is another matter entirely, but I don't need to tell anyone here that.
I remember well the time I made the perfectly wise and rational statement in history class
that "might makes right," which of course it does. My poor teacher, at his usual loss for
words in dealing with my divine wisdom sputtered some foolishness to the effect that, "Hitler
had might. Was he right?'
To which I responded, as the Young Voice of God, "Hitler lost."
The look on the poor man's face was worth the price of admission for he had chosen exactly
the wrong example to use. He slumped back, defeated, for he had proven me right.
Fear not. The young will grow up and, as their compatriots in Christian schools will,
learn to see past the platitudes, knowing that the very idea of justice is a vile thing,
incompatible with their personal freedom, and they will end up despising it from their very
bones.
Jonathan Haidt has pointed out a key reason why we get such mixed messages about what is
really happening.
Millennials get blamed for a lot of this, but most of this stuff is actually the arrival
of the first of the immediate post-millennial generation at college, just within the last
couple of years.
He points out that this is the first generation to have gone through formative late
childhood/early adolescent years experiencing the destructive impact social media throughout
their development. (Previous generations encountered it after they were just that bit older
and more emotionally stable.)
I can look back at my kids, who were born smack-dab in the middle of the millennial
generation, and their high school experience wasn't remotely like anything described above.
Granted, they grew up in Old West country, but it was at a very large high school–and
as this blog repeatedly points out, nowhere is sheltered from the modern diseases. Their
teachers were certainly overwhelmingly liberal, as is true pretty much everywhere these days,
no matter how red the state.
If Haidt is right, the experience my millennial kids had (and the experiences that many
readers of this blog will be appealing to) is *completely* irrelevant. There is something
brand-new just arrived on the scene, and only in the last 2-3 years.
We can argue about whether teachers caused it, culture caused it, social media caused it,
parents caused it The question is what we are going to do about it.
I find this really, really hard to believe. Also, I think I can state (with some degree of
confidence) that Alice does, in fact, believe that there is only one answer to her questions
about incarceration, national success, etc.
The "best and brightest" come in a few different flavors. A lot of them are the kids who
do everything absolutely right, don't seem to rock any particular boats, and are often pretty
conservative in various ways, including politically.
Others are those fueled by a desire for justice and reforms, because they've been on the
receiving end of injustice, or they've witnessed it and felt sympathy/empathy. These are the
ones who often clash with administrators and/or the more entitled demographics among their
peers. They're the ones standing by their controversial school newspaper articles, the ones
organizing the gay-straight (etc.) alliances in the face of often serious threat, and so on.
This isn't happening because they've been indoctrinated, though they may have been inspired
by that one English or History teacher.
As others have said Rod, you've stumbled across the NPC meme. No doubt someone will be along
to tell you about how you are dehumanizing people, because having an NPC avatar will get you
banned from twitter but calling white people dogs will get you on the editorial board of the
NYT.
For those unfamiliar with it, NPC means Non-Player-Character. It comes from video games,
although I've read that it appeared in DnD before that. In any case it is mostly relevant to
RPG games here. In an RPG game, the player will encounter many NPCs who have a few scripted
responses that they will repeat whenever the player talks to them. The meme is that SJWs do
not think for themselves, and simply respond to everything with a few scripted responses to
any political debate, usually some variation of an 'ist' or an 'ism' or white privilege or
lived experience. It has been an effective meme for mocking the left, which is why twitter
moved so quickly to shut it down.
So the Overton window is big for trans rights and little for the role of, say, duty to
ones' elders, big for microaggression but little for the personality differences of men and
women.
This is exactly right, and is actually the reason why the experience of becoming
"red-pilled" can be so exhilarating and freeing for many people. Suddenly there are huge
areas of discussion and debate that you can explore. It is especially potent because often
these areas were once filed under "common sense" or "fairness". Examples include the
differences between men and women which are evident to most toddlers, or the intrinsic
unfairness of judging people guilty for crimes that were committed hundreds of years before
they were born.
The euphoria of this rediscovered freedom can lead people to over-correct, and go very far
into conspiracy theories in search of more "truths" which have been considered off-limits.
I've seen this in an acquaintance who went far down the rabbit-hole of holocaust denial
theories and neo-nazism. I think it became a rush for him to go where others fear to tread,
and I think it is somehow connected to the red-pill experience.
[NFR: I found the graphic when I typed "conformity" into Shutterstock's search engine.
-- RD]
Shelley, I don't mean this as an insult, but you are 100% completely out of touch on this
issue. My sense is that you don't want to know the truth. This is evidenced by statements
like this:
"For our children is that there is zero indoctrination of SJW values coming from the
teachers of the institution. Certainly the peer group has SJW people and activities but I'm
here to declare that not one teacher or one principal in my district has for e fed my
children any SJW dogma."
First of all, this is anecdotal. Secondly, I can ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE you that your
absolutist statement is wrong. Your assertion that you know every single thing that
teachers/administrators have "fed" to your children shows how unserious you are about soberly
assessing/investigating the situation. You are operating on selective evidence and faith.
We are living in a time where our schools, the mainstream media, the entertainment
industry, high ed, and The Democratic party are united in a vitriolic, hysterical insistence
that citizens of all ages support The Narrative, OR ELSE.
I think your mindset is shared by many who simply can't accept the fact that what should
be the fringe rantings of the occasional "waka-doodle" has become the norm in the leftist
controlled institutions I listed above. I hope you all wake up, and see the extremist agenda
and actual violence that the left is supporting. If you don't, we will descend into actual
civil war. That probably sounds crazy to you, too. I wish you were right.
"This situation will not last. The Social Justice canon is too clearly false and modern
people are too rebellious to shoulder it for long."
Agree ..I would call it the social justice Koran though ..but unlike the Islamic Koran
(Qu'ran) it keeps changing all the time.
One day you're an "ally" the next day you find yourself a "nazi"
Seriously ..just go around campus today saying lines from Obama speeches back in 2008 ."I
believe marriage is between a man and a woman" and "immigration must be controlled and the
violence on the southern border must be stopped"
Thats now "hate speech"
At least the wahhabis tend to stick to one set of rules.
As someone who has spent most of my life in education and higher education, it is not my
experience that there is some sort of universal SJW indoctrination. In reality what basically
happens is this:
Certain professions at the commanding heights of the culture (journalism,
entertainment, academia etc ) are inherently cosmopolitan and tend to disproportionately
appeal to liberals/leftists.
Therefore, most college profs, students, and academic types end up being Nice Moderate
Liberals. Most are not dogmatic or hateful, and are willing to entertain rational
argumentation (to a point). Many–especially the students–are apolitical.
However, centrist liberal hegemony is largely defenseless against radical SJWs,
especially if they are ethnic minorities/women making accusations of racism/sexism, and the
Nice Moderate Liberals get bullied (sometimes quite literally) into going along with the SJW
agenda.
So, for instance, during the big SJW freakouts in places like Yale and Evergreen State,
the SJWs were not protesting and shutting down conservatives (too few of them to really
matter). They were protesting/assaulting/shutting down moderate liberals.
I was and still am a teacher (worked in public schools). Some teachers are liberal, some are
conservative. Personal politics does not come into the classroom unless a teacher brings it
in. However, standardized testing, funding, and infrastructure spending are all political
realities that affect teachers.
The idea that there are teachers indoctrinating your children is a conservative boogeyman.
There are a few bad teachers, but they are usually apathetic, not passionate. There are also
a few doctors who have sexually abused their clients, but that doesn't demonize the whole
health profession.
If parents are so concerned about transmitting values, they are free to homeschool, but it
would involve living on one income and re-prioritizing their finances. Many people are not
really that concerned about it, but it's easy to decry the fictional bad teachers they
imagine are stalking the schools. If public schools did not exist, all of these parents would
be forced to educate their own children, and they would realize a small sampling of what
teachers contend with on a daily basis.
Please stop painting a false picture of the profession. Public education is a genuine good
of democracy. If it disappears completely, people will one day realize what they have
lost.
I would like to echo reader G's sentiment – paraphrasing G, you've stated your
arguments in a detached way, without giving any samples of your own thinking. It's as if you
seek some implied consensus on conclusions you are, for some reason, unwilling to share. Your
arguments seem to be:
(a) Grade and high school age students are being indoctrinated into "certain acceptable
ideas", which they carry to the university;
(b) Universities confirm and deepen this indoctrination: "Some thoughts are just too
dangerous to have";
(c) Science and engineering fields lead to objectively correct, singular solutions to
given questions. The humanities try to mimic them, by insisting that there are singular
solutions to more complex questions as well;
(d) Here you do give us a few hints of these complex questions: some countries are more
successful than others, incarceration rates vary by race, what is the correct treatment of
non-citizens, the number of sexes, and possibly, a question on IQ;
If I've misunderstood any of your arguments, please correct me. I would also like to echo
G's invitation for you to provide a sample of your own thinking on any of these questions.
Should you respond, I too promise not to engage in polemics. To encourage you, Alice, for
what it's worth, these are my early thoughts on why "one country is more successful than
another":
At an individual's level, the basic idea of "success" is biological survival and
procreation. At the level of a country (and by that, I mean a nation which embodies a certain
culture), it is cultural survival, and handing down of its culture to succeeding generations
for preservation and improvement. Thus, at this basic level, the most successful countries
are those that faced adversity, even dissolution as states (some for several generations),
and still managed to preserve, improve, and pass on their culture till more favorable times.
This is one proof, perhaps the strongest, of cultural resilience;
Other measures of "success" are more ephemeral. All countries, if they survive long
enough, experience cycles of economic and military ups and downs, cultural rots and
regenerations, and demographic changes, to list a few examples. Thus, history decrees that in
these matters, no country can expect to be "number one" in perpetuity. In my mind, such
passing things are not good indicators of "success". For countries, success depends on those
cultural factors that are transmittable and willingly accepted (even embraced and cherished)
by succeeding generations. It also depends of each generation to have the wherewithal to
continuously adapt and improve them. The next question would be, what are these factors?
Has anyone considered that these kids (who are certainly no where close to a majority) might
be picking up these values at home? Leftwing people also have kids.
from where I sit the most capable 17 year olds are far more influenced by Lin Manuel
Miranda than by Ta Nehisi Coates – and I find that fairly encouraging.
Publicly standing up against the Bush administration was not the sort of thing that was an
unthinking default at the time. I don't think it was the way to get into the best
universities. I don't think it was a path prescribed by teachers and the corporate media
(though lots of conservatives claimed otherwise).
It represented a struggle for social justice, and an unpopular one at that.
"... Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began, that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or Oberlin or Yale. ..."
"... My brother is a biology professor at an elite liberal arts college in the Midwest. He uses no pronouns with his students, as the demands escalate and change daily. A whole cluster of young female students in the physics department have suddenly declared themselves trans. ..."
"... He says that it is impossible -- absolutely impossible -- to question what is happening in society concerning the abandonment of human biological facts or to have a rational debate about any of this on campus, either among the faculty or with the students. ..."
"... This is 100% correct and also the result of our K-12 education system doing what it was designed to do: engineer certain social outcomes. ..."
"... I grew in a period of suffocating conformity, the dregs of the Cold War hysteria that communists are hiding under your bed and in your anxiety closet to burst out and turn your local church into a museum pretending that a Russian invented the telephone. ..."
"... Somehow, quite a few of us found the means to stand up, to challenge, to question, to dismiss, to lampoon, and most of all, to turn back mindless adjectives accusing us of Thining The Wrong Way. I doubt that any generation coming up now is so mindlessly conformist as the writer insinuates. ..."
"... I also find it ironic that a piece called "Creating A-Plus Conformists" is published by the author of "The Benedict Option". I can't think of a greater force for creating conformity than religious orthodoxy. ..."
"... I have no idea who Alice is. But as a college professor, I find this to be (and this is being charitable) exaggerated nonsense. Has Alice actually ever stood in front of and talked to class of college freshman? ..."
Reader Alice comments on the hyperpoliticization of college students:
Understand: they *arrive at universities thinking this way*.
Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began,
that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes
you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or
Oberlin or Yale.
The "best and brightest" accepted to these schools are kids who, consciously or
unconsciously, have learned to excel in places by accepting as true the acceptable ideas and
never bringing up the unacceptable. Some thoughts are just too dangerous to have.
Trajectories that are good for one's future to the Ivies don't allow you to engage these
unacceptable ideas. So in school and in other places where one deals with adults, these front
row kids learn to believe, or at least be comfortable with parroting, these acceptable ideas.
Just as there's a correct answer to a calculus question, there's a correct answer to
questions such as why one country is more successful than another, why there are measurable
differences in incarceration rates by race (even as there's also a contradictory answer to
the question of what is a race), what a nation owes non-citizens vs. citizens, how much
training can alter [ ], are sex differences on average innate, are there two sexes, etc.
Meanwhile, if you hear something unacceptable, you've also been equipped with the trump
card to demolish the argument: arguer is racist, sexist, bigot. So the Overton window is big
for trans rights and little for the role of, say, duty to ones' elders, big for
microaggression but little for the personality differences of men and women.
Whether they believe it or not at the beginning is irrelevant. They make the appropriate
verbal gestures, they get a reward. After 6-12 years of doing so, they're not capable of
engaging in debate or rhetoric, argument from evidence, even following a line of reasoning or
recognizing a fallacy. They've never done it, and anyone who tried was actively shut down
either calls of "my truth".
On the past, ignorance and obnoxious self regard were demolished by profs rather quickly.
What's changed is college profs no longer push back on this crap. They no longer demand
argument, reason, and counter argument. They simply are stunned that they share no overlap of
consciousness with the students they bequeathed to themselves. They are afraid of them and
afraid to stand up to the students or spineless weasel administrators.
I live on the east coast and can only tell you what we see. The public schools teach gender
identity ideology, starting in elementary. I didn't even know what that is until our autistic
daughter suddenly decided that she's "really a guy", along with a cluster of her school
friends, when she was 16. They are 19 now, and two of her friends have had irreversible
surgery which has made them sterile.
My brother is a biology professor at an elite liberal arts college in the Midwest. He uses
no pronouns with his students, as the demands escalate and change daily. A whole cluster of
young female students in the physics department have suddenly declared themselves trans. The
mantra of "supporting women in physics!" swiftly changed to "supporting transgender people in
physics!"
He says that it is impossible -- absolutely impossible -- to question what is
happening in society concerning the abandonment of human biological facts or to have a
rational debate about any of this on campus, either among the faculty or with the
students.
The unthinkable has happened. An ideology which would have been laughed at as ridiculous
on college campuses in the 1980s is now driving social, legal, and medical practice
throughout our entire country. If you haven't been affected by this yet, then you will be.
Soon.
This is 100% correct and also the result of our K-12 education system doing what it was
designed to do: engineer certain social outcomes.
Conservative calls to "de-fund college" over this are misplaced.
Also, the reason that college professors don't stand up to this is because they know that
the administration won't have their back if a student accuses them of being
racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic. And the administrator won't have their back due to the
desire to avoid bad press and students protesting on campus. Give the (vocal) students what
they want so everyone stays happy.
I could not disagree with this more strongly. This is the false argument of broad
generalization. The vast majority of schools are not en masses teaching radical SJW thought
control. They are doing their best to teach AT ALL given the federal over reach into state
public education and the excessive focus on testing and scores and the impact that has on
funding.
And certainly anecdote does not equal accumulative data but our personal experience of
high school
For our children is that there is zero indoctrination of SJW values coming from the teachers
of the institution. Certainly the peer group has SJW people and activities but I'm here to
declare that not one teacher or one principal in my district has for e fed my children any
SJW dogma. In fact I can list multiple examples of Tim's when I've wondered how teachers got
away with things like singing Christian or Jewish music at a choir concert or teaching the
Our Father prayer in German or studying the great schism and having my kids present the
Orthodox side of the story in World History.
Who knows. Maybe I live in an anomaly. But I wonder if the hyping of crazy SJW stories of
abuse in schools has created an image in people's minds that ALL schools are crazy SJW
hotbeds.
It's just not true. Public education IS in crisis due to ridiculous over testing and
funding that is abysmal. And the majority of people who work in public ed are really just
hanging on by their fingernails trying to do their best and make rent!!!
Sure there's a crazy teacher, waka-doodle principal or spineless superintendent that makes
the news. And certainly the NEA is an bastion of left leaning ideas, but to make this huge
sweep that the kids arriving at University were indoctrinated by their 1st grade teacher and
on up through their childhood is just absolutely not true.
A hundred years or so ago, I was in high school debate. One of the good things about that is
we had to learn how to argue either for or against the same thing with equal conviction.
Because we were young and inexperienced, i.e. stupid, most of us were pretty liberal, but the
idea that there was only one way to think about a problem was completely foreign.
Well, the writer of that comment paints a picture. But that assumes facts not in evidence. I
don't have a statistical overview of all the high schools in the country, but I know enough
about enough students at enough of them to question whether the above description is The
Truth About The Meaning Of Life And Everything.
I grew in a period of suffocating conformity, the dregs of the Cold War hysteria that
communists are hiding under your bed and in your anxiety closet to burst out and turn your
local church into a museum pretending that a Russian invented the telephone.
Somehow, quite a few of us found the means to stand up, to challenge, to question, to
dismiss, to lampoon, and most of all, to turn back mindless adjectives accusing us of Thining
The Wrong Way. I doubt that any generation coming up now is so mindlessly conformist as the
writer insinuates.
There are two answers to being reflexively called "racist, sexist, bigot."
1) So what?
2) Prove it.
I prefer the second option, but there are other adjectival nouns I would respond to with
the first.
This situation will not last. The Social Justice canon is too clearly false and modern people
are too rebellious to shoulder it for long. One of the characteristics of liquid modernity is
that the pendulum swings more freely than it ever has before. It will be interesting to see,
when the Social Justice narrative finally collapses, how much of our foundational mythology
goes along with it.
As far as I can tell, our modern dysfunction is a very consistent and rational result of
one simple foundational lie: "All men are created equal." The intent of this lie may have
been noble but it is self-evidently false. And the Social Justice narrative rests very
comfortably upon it. I can't see how it survives the collapse of Social Justice no matter how
badly we desire to maintain it.
P.S. I understand the reflexive anger and distrust that most readers will feel upon
reading this post. This is certainly a painful idea to grapple with. It is embedded deeply
into our many intersecting identities. But what would you say to someone claiming that all
pots are created equal? Would you posit that anyone denying this claim is a wok supremacist?
No. If two things are not interchangeable, then they are not equal. But this does not mean
that one is ultimately superior to the other. Human equality is a comfortable illusion. But
we can find better reasons to treat one another with the proper respect and kindness. And in
the process we might build a more perfect civilization.
The natural follow up for those in power to saying "Some men are more equal than others"
is to say "therefore the better men are the ones in power."
No. Being born poor makes it much, much harder to succeed. Having connections puts
incompetents and immoral people in power. We need to understand that the rich and powerful
*are* usually born with silver spoons in their mouths. Injustice is real. Face it.
College students today are the first generation in US history to have grown up with openly
gay friends and neighbors. They know, from lived experience, that there is nothing wrong with
gay people. They know it in their bones.
So, yah, they think differently than we do on sexual issues, and they tune us out when we say
things they know to be false.
"Kids, I don't know what's wrong with the kids these days".
So a reader send this in without citing any Support for her conclusions and you tack on a
headline about conformism and print it.
One could easily write a companion piece about homeschooled kids going off to some
evangelical college where they set aside all reason and accept creationism and the Bible as
the sole arbiter of truth. But those kids aren't going to get into "Brown or Oberlin or
Yale".
That's where Alice tips her hand. This has nothing to do with the brainwashing or
indoctrination of our youth, but that the Brown, Oberlin and Yale graduates are going to end
up running this country, while Alice doesn't get, and isn't in anyway entitled too, tell them
what to think.
Our US students have been taught since at least grade 6, but mostly since school began,
that there are only certain acceptable ideas, and genuflecting to those ideas is what makes
you the Top Student, the Front Row kid, the one who checks all the boxes to get into Brown or
Oberlin or Yale.
There has never been a time in history that this hasn't been true.
Rod, the comment is okay, but seems to lack an actual article written around it. Looks quite
incomplete both from a literary perspective and from the perspective of the idea.
This may sound mawkish, and it's based on just a few years teaching undergrads when I was in
grad school, but I think there are a lot of college students who want to be able to say or
write something more than the party line, but often they don't know how and have managed to
go through high school without having read anything. My students, of both sexes and all
races, included a good number of kids who, once I made it clear enough that I didn't want to
hear any canned "diversity is excellence" crap or whatever, seemed pretty happy that they
could try writing about something else for a change.
There are always the sycophantic
apple-polishers whose whole shtick is regurgitating the conventional wisdom at every
opportunity, but people hate that kind of person (see Hillary Clinton).
You could spend some time reading your kids' AP World History and AP US History textbooks
to discover the "analytical" grid that everything is rammed through. Good for you/your kids if your local teachers don't teach it in that manner, but trust me, the AP test
questions are geared toward certain ideological answers.
Also, when Alice mentioned "My truth" I wondered if she has also had a kid in an elite
college prep school. If so, it sure sounds like she and I have come to the same conclusions
from experience.
Working in IT I get to talk to a lot of young people coming out of college with a variety of
degrees. Most have no idea what Alice is talking about. Perhaps if you go for something like
a sociology or general liberal arts degree at the most liberal schools in the nation this is
true but real students are worried about their fields of study (business, software, UX
design, etc.) and the courses that might teach these types of things are fluff electives they
skate through and ignore as much as possible.
I also find it ironic that a piece called "Creating A-Plus Conformists" is published by
the author of "The Benedict Option". I can't think of a greater force for creating conformity
than religious orthodoxy.
This post is one big exercise in confirmation bias. There are no facts, just assertions
stated firmly enough to convince the already-convinced. I expect better from The American
Conservative.
The fact that it's supposedly an example of other peoples' conformity is just the
ironic icing on the non-self-aware cake.
"But what would you say to someone claiming that all pots are created equal?"
That pots are objects with objective value and none inherent, while people are subjects who
invest value in objects and possessed of inherent worth that is not objectively comparable,
so we shorthand render it "equality". You know, the reason conservatives are supposed to hate
'borshun.
Actual studies shows actually, what happens in college is professors move left-wing students
slightly to the right and right-wing students slightly to the left.
Hi Rod, sorry about the typos in the original! Thanks for the raising the comment. I hope
it's fruitful.
To some folks saying 'this is an overgeneralization', my comments were in the post re:
what's happening at the elite institutions, and so were directed to the set of kids on k-12
that intend to get to such institutions. Those elite univs are more likely to select students
with this SJW profile on the first place, yes. But again, the kids intending to go to such
places know this is the profile.
To those questioning whether every k-12 school is like this, I ask you to look at the
required courses in teaching colleges and master's programs that credential teachers. It's
SJWism everywhere all the time, in every single discipline. Math class is about racial
equity. Reading class is about gender equity. There's no other lens through which teachers
are taught, so this is the lens through which they teach. Read the journals in teaching and
see the articles.
To those questioning whether every college is like this, I suggest you look more closely
at your community college's bookstore.
I'm in a southern state that voted for Trump. The big city cc offers this required English
class,
ENG-111: Writing and Inquiry
'This course is designed to develop the ability to produce clear writing in a variety of
genres and formats using a recursive process. Emphasis includes inquiry, analysis, effective
use of rhetorical strategies, thesis development, audience awareness, and revision. Upon
completion, students should be able to produce unified, coherent, well-developed essays using
standard written English. This course will also introduce students to the skills needed to
produce a college-level research essay.'
Seems a reasonable course, right? Freshman English.
The Reader for the course in 2017:
Sex Ed
Family Values
Oh, Come On, Men Aren't Finished
Wonder Woman by Gloria Steinem
Sex, Lies and Conversation: why Is It So Hard to Talk to Each Other?
Again, you can claim I'm cherry picking, but you will find this in every city in every
state.
Or just listen to vacuous comments of middle school admins. Look at when districts give
days off to kids to bus them to anti Trump rallies, and ask yourself if such a place is real
pushing a socratic discussion about these points of view.
If you listen closely, you will understand this is everywhere.
Andrew in MD: "If two things are not interchangeable, then they are not equal." Is interchangeability the sole criteron of equality? Could a person argue that since all people are sinners/fallen, they are, therefore, equal?
Or are some more sinning or fallen?
The Buddha demonstrated that all people are empty of self – why cannot that suffice
for the establishment of equality?
Andrew in MD: some great American (John Randolph?) once said "I do not believe that all men
are equal, for the simple reason that it isn't true". So, nothing anger-producing in your
post. If giving up this noble lie is what is needed to consign SJWism to the ideological
trash bin along with other totalitarian ideologies like Maoism, then out it goes.
When I was, in my late college years through my first ten or so years in The Real World, I
was a doctrinaire conservative Republican, although not a member of any church or religion.
In a way, this did me some good, because I was attending some elite, some not-so-elite,
and all very leftish educational institutions. Often my grades suffered, but I had to learn
to marshal facts and formulate arguments that people did not want to hear. Often this was
pretty easy, because the people I was arguing with had never really thought about what they
believed or why, much less the unspoken assumptions underlying those beliefs, and they had
never heard them challenged.
Usually the response was sputtering outrage, but that's a poor substitute for logical
argument, especially when I am almost autistic in how little I care what other people think
of me. In fact, if you react by being even calmer and more logical, the other person will
dissolve into a spitting mad Donald Duck meltdown.
If I had simply gone with the flow, all that was necessary was to recite the correct
dogmas and platitudes with adequate conviction and I would have been greeted with
hosannas.
They say that a person becomes more conservative as they get older, but the opposite
happened to me. I suppose because I enjoy challenging my own beliefs, finding facts that
don't fit my own theories and then trying to make sense of them.
I learned that theory didn't always apply in real world conditions and pat answers don't
always translate into solutions. (Apply "markets in all the things" to healthcare, for
instance.)
They also say that a person becomes more conservative as they become more successful, but
that wasn't the case for me either. I suppose to a certain extent, I am successful because I
was lucky.
Honestly, what Shelley wrote sounds more accurate than what Alice did, although I think there
is at least a grain of truth in Alice's post, too. And the poster at another one of Rod's
pieces who put more of the blame on the Internet than on schools and teachers at any level
made sense, too.
As much as I find the content on AmCon to be generally thought provoking, the complaint
expressed by "Alice" is a recurring sentiment that I think "conservatives" use to cover up
shoddy arguments
"I have all these really great ideas and deep insights about race and gender, but every
time I try to express them, I get called a bigot, and I'm totally not a bigot, but those
dastardly liberals won't even let me make my argument because they are always shouting me
down and calling me a bigot, so me and the vast majority of ordinary folks who also agree
with me are effectively silenced a shrill few elites, which is totally unfair! Anyone else
feel this way? Sad!"
Point #1
Something doesn't jive about the general premise. Summarizing Alice's post as "All the kids
today are totally brainwashed by SJWs, and everyone mindlessly goes along with whatever the
PC police say". On a related note, last week's major news item was essentially "ordinary
Americans were recently polled and 92% of them don't support political correctness and they
are totally sick of identity politics and fed up with SJWs -- #WalkAway #RedWave #MAGA"
Am I missing something? Because those don't seem to make sense to be occurring in the same
place at the same time. "The kids are totally brainwashed by identity politics and are just a
bunch of useful idiots for the Left", BUT "they also see right through it, see that it's a
sham, and they thoroughly reject it". Also, "The ordinary folks are cowering in fear, there's
nothing they can do about it, the situation is beyond hopeless because the SJWs have
effectively silenced all dissent", BUT "there's a revolution about to burst forth because so
many ordinary people are mad as hell and not going to take it any more and in November they
are going to vote hardcore against all this identity stuff and kick these knuckleheads out of
power."
Doesn't make sense. It's one or the other, not both.
Point #2
I don't instinctively believe that all Republicans and Conservatives are bigots. I'm a
Conservative. I don't think I'm a bigot. But I do get a little skeptical of a particular
handful of my fellow conservatives who always seem to be running around complaining
"everyone's always calling me a bigot, everyone's always calling me a bigot, I'm totally not
a bigot, but everyone's always calling me a bigot when I express my ideas".
Well, okay, what exactly are these wonderful, totally not bigoted ideas that you have?
Would you like to share them with us?
For example, Alice (or anyone else), please illuminate us with the answer to one of the
questions that you raised in your post, one of those off-limits questions where people are
always unfairly saying that your answer is racist: why there are measurable differences in incarceration rates by race?
Help me to understand, in your own, totally not-bigoted words, what is the answer that we
all need the hear, the answer that the SJWs won't let us hear? I promise, promise, promise
that I will not call you a racist. This is a safe space for you.
I have no idea who Alice is. But as a college professor, I find this to be (and this is being
charitable) exaggerated nonsense. Has Alice actually ever stood in front of and talked to
class of college freshman?
The upside is that all the good little Maoists will starve, come some real crises in our
society. Good for them that they can make up micro aggressions out of nothing, not so good
for them that they won't be able to feed their soy faces when things begin to break down in
this nation.
I figured we'd already gone around the useless bend with these people years ago when I was
trapped someplace and MTV was playing. Some yoyo on the TV was talking about a show he was
producing and soooooo scared that it wasn't going to go right and freaking out and all this,
basically over nothing. I then noticed more and more of this type of behavior once I started
looking for it. Lots of younger and younger people living in fear of absolutely nothing just
fear for its own sake.
Learned fear and helplessness, nothing less or more. You have an increasingly large number
of kids who are raised up as sheltered as possible and who have no real will or ability to
take care of themselves. Couple that with the ideological vampires that roam higher education
these days and you wind up with people who don't really care about whatever cause they're
promoting, or what they're protesting, but it becomes all abut trying to drive out any
dissenting sound from a basis of fear.
The soy boys are wretched creatures at best, and the harpies who lead them about by the
nose are just as pitiful. Kinda dangerous, but only to a point, because all of them value
their own skin more than real confrontation or principles (this is kinda true of the
alt-right, too, which is why the media always suffers meltdowns at violence that wouldn't
even merit a mention in Freikorps-riddled Germany, where the Browns and Reds duke it out
regularly and Hitler brandished a pistol, not a Twitter hissy fit).
There's really no upside, just the irritation of living with these people on a daily basis
and trying to tune out their BS. Maybe the social credit system will get rolling here and
some point, which will be a clue to move to the sticks and learn how to raise organic produce
and enjoy the simpler things. Lord knows, none of them are going to want to risk getting mud
on their hipster work boots by being in the real country.
I'm sure Reader Alice is identifying a real phenomenon, but it's funny to see a traditional
Christian publishing it. Are we saying the other side is a haven of consistently
rational debate ?
I teach high school kids for a living. My school is in a high income area and nearly 100% of
the kids are college bound, many of them to very selective universities. My experience is
that our stronger students take challenging and reasonably balanced courses – they do
not arrive to college as leftist zombies. Our weaker students sometimes find a home with the
leftists and realize that they can be praised by adults and sometimes even given high grades
in politicized but low level classes. These are the ones I worry about. I have a good view of
the next generation, and from where I sit the most capable 17 year olds are for more
influenced by Lin Manuel Miranda than by Ta Nehisi Coates – and I find that fairly
encouraging.
I taught high school English in the California Bay Area and even there, I encountered only a
couple teachers who could be said to have any kind of liberal agenda and to have included it
in the classroom. My 3 kids have gone to California public schools (2 of them are currently
in high school), in the Bay Area and the Sacramento regions, and we haven't experienced any
of what the writer of this post describes. It's been my experience that kids get their
political leanings these days mostly from their peers, their media heroes and social media.
Now, college is another matter entirely, but I don't need to tell anyone here that.
I remember well the time I made the perfectly wise and rational statement in history class
that "might makes right," which of course it does. My poor teacher, at his usual loss for
words in dealing with my divine wisdom sputtered some foolishness to the effect that, "Hitler
had might. Was he right?'
To which I responded, as the Young Voice of God, "Hitler lost."
The look on the poor man's face was worth the price of admission for he had chosen exactly
the wrong example to use. He slumped back, defeated, for he had proven me right.
Fear not. The young will grow up and, as their compatriots in Christian schools will,
learn to see past the platitudes, knowing that the very idea of justice is a vile thing,
incompatible with their personal freedom, and they will end up despising it from their very
bones.
Jonathan Haidt has pointed out a key reason why we get such mixed messages about what is
really happening.
Millennials get blamed for a lot of this, but most of this stuff is actually the arrival
of the first of the immediate post-millennial generation at college, just within the last
couple of years.
He points out that this is the first generation to have gone through formative late
childhood/early adolescent years experiencing the destructive impact social media throughout
their development. (Previous generations encountered it after they were just that bit older
and more emotionally stable.)
I can look back at my kids, who were born smack-dab in the middle of the millennial
generation, and their high school experience wasn't remotely like anything described above.
Granted, they grew up in Old West country, but it was at a very large high school–and
as this blog repeatedly points out, nowhere is sheltered from the modern diseases. Their
teachers were certainly overwhelmingly liberal, as is true pretty much everywhere these days,
no matter how red the state.
If Haidt is right, the experience my millennial kids had (and the experiences that many
readers of this blog will be appealing to) is *completely* irrelevant. There is something
brand-new just arrived on the scene, and only in the last 2-3 years.
We can argue about whether teachers caused it, culture caused it, social media caused it,
parents caused it The question is what we are going to do about it.
I find this really, really hard to believe. Also, I think I can state (with some degree of
confidence) that Alice does, in fact, believe that there is only one answer to her questions
about incarceration, national success, etc.
The "best and brightest" come in a few different flavors. A lot of them are the kids who
do everything absolutely right, don't seem to rock any particular boats, and are often pretty
conservative in various ways, including politically.
Others are those fueled by a desire for justice and reforms, because they've been on the
receiving end of injustice, or they've witnessed it and felt sympathy/empathy. These are the
ones who often clash with administrators and/or the more entitled demographics among their
peers. They're the ones standing by their controversial school newspaper articles, the ones
organizing the gay-straight (etc.) alliances in the face of often serious threat, and so on.
This isn't happening because they've been indoctrinated, though they may have been inspired
by that one English or History teacher.
As others have said Rod, you've stumbled across the NPC meme. No doubt someone will be along
to tell you about how you are dehumanizing people, because having an NPC avatar will get you
banned from twitter but calling white people dogs will get you on the editorial board of the
NYT.
For those unfamiliar with it, NPC means Non-Player-Character. It comes from video games,
although I've read that it appeared in DnD before that. In any case it is mostly relevant to
RPG games here. In an RPG game, the player will encounter many NPCs who have a few scripted
responses that they will repeat whenever the player talks to them. The meme is that SJWs do
not think for themselves, and simply respond to everything with a few scripted responses to
any political debate, usually some variation of an 'ist' or an 'ism' or white privilege or
lived experience. It has been an effective meme for mocking the left, which is why twitter
moved so quickly to shut it down.
So the Overton window is big for trans rights and little for the role of, say, duty to
ones' elders, big for microaggression but little for the personality differences of men and
women.
This is exactly right, and is actually the reason why the experience of becoming
"red-pilled" can be so exhilarating and freeing for many people. Suddenly there are huge
areas of discussion and debate that you can explore. It is especially potent because often
these areas were once filed under "common sense" or "fairness". Examples include the
differences between men and women which are evident to most toddlers, or the intrinsic
unfairness of judging people guilty for crimes that were committed hundreds of years before
they were born.
The euphoria of this rediscovered freedom can lead people to over-correct, and go very far
into conspiracy theories in search of more "truths" which have been considered off-limits.
I've seen this in an acquaintance who went far down the rabbit-hole of holocaust denial
theories and neo-nazism. I think it became a rush for him to go where others fear to tread,
and I think it is somehow connected to the red-pill experience.
[NFR: I found the graphic when I typed "conformity" into Shutterstock's search engine.
-- RD]
Shelley, I don't mean this as an insult, but you are 100% completely out of touch on this
issue. My sense is that you don't want to know the truth. This is evidenced by statements
like this:
"For our children is that there is zero indoctrination of SJW values coming from the
teachers of the institution. Certainly the peer group has SJW people and activities but I'm
here to declare that not one teacher or one principal in my district has for e fed my
children any SJW dogma."
First of all, this is anecdotal. Secondly, I can ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE you that your
absolutist statement is wrong. Your assertion that you know every single thing that
teachers/administrators have "fed" to your children shows how unserious you are about soberly
assessing/investigating the situation. You are operating on selective evidence and faith.
We are living in a time where our schools, the mainstream media, the entertainment
industry, high ed, and The Democratic party are united in a vitriolic, hysterical insistence
that citizens of all ages support The Narrative, OR ELSE.
I think your mindset is shared by many who simply can't accept the fact that what should
be the fringe rantings of the occasional "waka-doodle" has become the norm in the leftist
controlled institutions I listed above. I hope you all wake up, and see the extremist agenda
and actual violence that the left is supporting. If you don't, we will descend into actual
civil war. That probably sounds crazy to you, too. I wish you were right.
"This situation will not last. The Social Justice canon is too clearly false and modern
people are too rebellious to shoulder it for long."
Agree ..I would call it the social justice Koran though ..but unlike the Islamic Koran
(Qu'ran) it keeps changing all the time.
One day you're an "ally" the next day you find yourself a "nazi"
Seriously ..just go around campus today saying lines from Obama speeches back in 2008 ."I
believe marriage is between a man and a woman" and "immigration must be controlled and the
violence on the southern border must be stopped"
Thats now "hate speech"
At least the wahhabis tend to stick to one set of rules.
As someone who has spent most of my life in education and higher education, it is not my
experience that there is some sort of universal SJW indoctrination. In reality what basically
happens is this:
Certain professions at the commanding heights of the culture (journalism,
entertainment, academia etc ) are inherently cosmopolitan and tend to disproportionately
appeal to liberals/leftists.
Therefore, most college profs, students, and academic types end up being Nice Moderate
Liberals. Most are not dogmatic or hateful, and are willing to entertain rational
argumentation (to a point). Many–especially the students–are apolitical.
However, centrist liberal hegemony is largely defenseless against radical SJWs,
especially if they are ethnic minorities/women making accusations of racism/sexism, and the
Nice Moderate Liberals get bullied (sometimes quite literally) into going along with the SJW
agenda.
So, for instance, during the big SJW freakouts in places like Yale and Evergreen State,
the SJWs were not protesting and shutting down conservatives (too few of them to really
matter). They were protesting/assaulting/shutting down moderate liberals.
I was and still am a teacher (worked in public schools). Some teachers are liberal, some are
conservative. Personal politics does not come into the classroom unless a teacher brings it
in. However, standardized testing, funding, and infrastructure spending are all political
realities that affect teachers.
The idea that there are teachers indoctrinating your children is a conservative boogeyman.
There are a few bad teachers, but they are usually apathetic, not passionate. There are also
a few doctors who have sexually abused their clients, but that doesn't demonize the whole
health profession.
If parents are so concerned about transmitting values, they are free to homeschool, but it
would involve living on one income and re-prioritizing their finances. Many people are not
really that concerned about it, but it's easy to decry the fictional bad teachers they
imagine are stalking the schools. If public schools did not exist, all of these parents would
be forced to educate their own children, and they would realize a small sampling of what
teachers contend with on a daily basis.
Please stop painting a false picture of the profession. Public education is a genuine good
of democracy. If it disappears completely, people will one day realize what they have
lost.
I would like to echo reader G's sentiment – paraphrasing G, you've stated your
arguments in a detached way, without giving any samples of your own thinking. It's as if you
seek some implied consensus on conclusions you are, for some reason, unwilling to share. Your
arguments seem to be:
(a) Grade and high school age students are being indoctrinated into "certain acceptable
ideas", which they carry to the university;
(b) Universities confirm and deepen this indoctrination: "Some thoughts are just too
dangerous to have";
(c) Science and engineering fields lead to objectively correct, singular solutions to
given questions. The humanities try to mimic them, by insisting that there are singular
solutions to more complex questions as well;
(d) Here you do give us a few hints of these complex questions: some countries are more
successful than others, incarceration rates vary by race, what is the correct treatment of
non-citizens, the number of sexes, and possibly, a question on IQ;
If I've misunderstood any of your arguments, please correct me. I would also like to echo
G's invitation for you to provide a sample of your own thinking on any of these questions.
Should you respond, I too promise not to engage in polemics. To encourage you, Alice, for
what it's worth, these are my early thoughts on why "one country is more successful than
another":
At an individual's level, the basic idea of "success" is biological survival and
procreation. At the level of a country (and by that, I mean a nation which embodies a certain
culture), it is cultural survival, and handing down of its culture to succeeding generations
for preservation and improvement. Thus, at this basic level, the most successful countries
are those that faced adversity, even dissolution as states (some for several generations),
and still managed to preserve, improve, and pass on their culture till more favorable times.
This is one proof, perhaps the strongest, of cultural resilience;
Other measures of "success" are more ephemeral. All countries, if they survive long
enough, experience cycles of economic and military ups and downs, cultural rots and
regenerations, and demographic changes, to list a few examples. Thus, history decrees that in
these matters, no country can expect to be "number one" in perpetuity. In my mind, such
passing things are not good indicators of "success". For countries, success depends on those
cultural factors that are transmittable and willingly accepted (even embraced and cherished)
by succeeding generations. It also depends of each generation to have the wherewithal to
continuously adapt and improve them. The next question would be, what are these factors?
Has anyone considered that these kids (who are certainly no where close to a majority) might
be picking up these values at home? Leftwing people also have kids.
from where I sit the most capable 17 year olds are far more influenced by Lin Manuel
Miranda than by Ta Nehisi Coates – and I find that fairly encouraging.
Publicly standing up against the Bush administration was not the sort of thing that was an
unthinking default at the time. I don't think it was the way to get into the best
universities. I don't think it was a path prescribed by teachers and the corporate media
(though lots of conservatives claimed otherwise).
It represented a struggle for social justice, and an unpopular one at that.
"... The federal student loan system creates perverse incentives that enable bad actors to prey on students. Without adequate protections for students, these predatory corporations will continue to base their business models on the availability of these loans, with little commitment to providing quality education. ..."
"... These Obama-era protections and remedies were being blocked by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss rejected a request by for-profit college representatives to halt the regulations. Even with the win, the answer from the Department of Education is arrogant in response. Student loan servicers do not hesitate a moment to penalize a borrower with penalties and fees if the are late. ..."
"... DeVos and conservatives have said the Obama-era policies are unfair to colleges and too costly for taxpayers. She has proposed creating a stricter standard for fraud claims and eliminating the ban on mandatory arbitration agreements ..."
A
Federal Court cleared the way for students who have been defrauded by for-profit
institutions (I hesitate to call them schools).
"This court ruling is a major victory for thousands of students across the country who
were defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges taking advantage of our broken student loan
system. We commend Attorney General Maura Healey for her leadership fighting for students who
were left with thousands of dollars in debt after their for-profit colleges collapsed.
The federal student loan system creates perverse incentives that enable bad actors to
prey on students. Without adequate protections for students, these predatory corporations
will continue to base their business models on the availability of these loans, with little
commitment to providing quality education. "
These Obama-era protections and remedies were being blocked by Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos. U.S. District Judge Randolph
Moss rejected a request by for-profit college representatives to halt the regulations. Even
with the win, the answer from the Department of Education is arrogant in response. Student loan
servicers do not hesitate a moment to penalize a borrower with penalties and fees if the are
late.
"DeVos and conservatives have said the Obama-era policies are unfair to colleges and too
costly for taxpayers. She has proposed creating a stricter standard for fraud claims and
eliminating the ban on mandatory arbitration agreements.
But DeVos' push to finalize those revised regulations has hit an unexpected snag that will
delay having a replacement policy on the books by another year. The Education Department said
it won't meet a key Nov. 1 regulatory deadline, meaning that the replacement regulations
aren't likely to take effect until July 2020 at the earliest."
Hopefully the State Attorneys and others can convince the Judge to hold Betsy DeVos in
contempt for not activating the court's requirements in a reasonable amount of time less than 2
years.
likbez , October 19, 2018 1:15 pm
Under neoliberalism any such victory is temporary and will be eventually rolled
back
Citing "three people familiar", Bloomberg reports that on Thursday, around the time when the
Trump administration was contemplating next steps in the Saudi Arabia fiasco, Trump's chief of
staff, John Kelly, and his national security adviser, John Bolton, engaged in a
"profanity-laced" shouting match outside the Oval Office.
The shouting match was so intense that other White House aides worried one of the two men
might immediately resign. Neither is resigning, the people said.
While one possible reason for the argument is which of the two admin officials was more
excited to start war in [Insert Country X], Bloomberg said that it wasn't immediately clear
what Trump's chief of staff and national security adviser were arguing about. However, the
clash was the latest indication that tensions are again resurfacing in the White House 19 days
before midterm elections.
It's not clear if Trump heard the argument. "but the people said he is aware of it."
"... The federal student loan system creates perverse incentives that enable bad actors to prey on students. Without adequate protections for students, these predatory corporations will continue to base their business models on the availability of these loans, with little commitment to providing quality education. ..."
"... These Obama-era protections and remedies were being blocked by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss rejected a request by for-profit college representatives to halt the regulations. Even with the win, the answer from the Department of Education is arrogant in response. Student loan servicers do not hesitate a moment to penalize a borrower with penalties and fees if the are late. ..."
"... DeVos and conservatives have said the Obama-era policies are unfair to colleges and too costly for taxpayers. She has proposed creating a stricter standard for fraud claims and eliminating the ban on mandatory arbitration agreements ..."
A
Federal Court cleared the way for students who have been defrauded by for-profit
institutions (I hesitate to call them schools).
"This court ruling is a major victory for thousands of students across the country who
were defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges taking advantage of our broken student loan
system. We commend Attorney General Maura Healey for her leadership fighting for students who
were left with thousands of dollars in debt after their for-profit colleges collapsed.
The federal student loan system creates perverse incentives that enable bad actors to
prey on students. Without adequate protections for students, these predatory corporations
will continue to base their business models on the availability of these loans, with little
commitment to providing quality education. "
These Obama-era protections and remedies were being blocked by Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos. U.S. District Judge Randolph
Moss rejected a request by for-profit college representatives to halt the regulations. Even
with the win, the answer from the Department of Education is arrogant in response. Student loan
servicers do not hesitate a moment to penalize a borrower with penalties and fees if the are
late.
"DeVos and conservatives have said the Obama-era policies are unfair to colleges and too
costly for taxpayers. She has proposed creating a stricter standard for fraud claims and
eliminating the ban on mandatory arbitration agreements.
But DeVos' push to finalize those revised regulations has hit an unexpected snag that will
delay having a replacement policy on the books by another year. The Education Department said
it won't meet a key Nov. 1 regulatory deadline, meaning that the replacement regulations
aren't likely to take effect until July 2020 at the earliest."
Hopefully the State Attorneys and others can convince the Judge to hold Betsy DeVos in
contempt for not activating the court's requirements in a reasonable amount of time less than 2
years.
likbez , October 19, 2018 1:15 pm
Under neoliberalism any such victory is temporary and will be eventually rolled
back
Adding to what you just said, let me just put this out there as a teacher, and not trying
to wag a Big White Triumphal Exceptionalist Stick, our US kids are dumb as rocks too, but
this is based on actual experience, and documented records:
My East Asian students showed up to class with no textbooks. They can't afford them in
their eyes. $75USD is 1,000,000 rupiahs! When I sighed and said, 'OK, I'll add one more prep
to my 16-hour day, and print copies in the teacher's lounge for $25 apiece, if anyone wants
one, see me after class.'
An East Asian kid came up to me with a $20, and I'm like, what? He says, and I quote,
"Does this mean I'll get an A?"
I always try to learn the local lingo, and be non-judgmental, but I am a teacher and grading
is part of the job and you have to hold the line. So I said, 'No!' He got rather upset,
thinking I was raising my asking price! $20 always worked for him to get an A before,
back in East Asia.
So now I'm getting perturbed. These kids all had 4.0 GPAs when they got into our school,
here they were barely passing in my class. Is it ESL language? Is it my presentation? So I
got hold of an East Asian teacher and got the East Asian grading rubric: >70% is an A,
>80% is an A+! That's nuts! In the USA, 70% is just barely passing, and you need 95% for
an A+! So there was zero parity between rubrics. They're passing them through as 4.0's for
bribes and H-2B student visa fees!
So I mention this to my Dean, he smiles, and says, 'You're job is just to make sure they
all pass." H-2Bs is a big, big money maker for US colleges. I had to give them the final exam
three times, dumbing it down each time. The last time, we read the exam questions and the
answers out loud together, then I gave them the test. Two of them STILL did not pass, and I
got called in and got my ass chewed!
That's why you see so many smiling East Asian students everywhere. Half of the classes, at
least, are East Asian. So when an East Asian 'college' (sic) graduate claiming an A+ East
Asian GPA, their East Asian colleges even docent the after-graduation testing for graduate
school! They don't have independent SAT or GRE exam boards, their colleges do the
grading!
But let's drill down one more layer. I got to meet the now-a-Green Card mother of one of
my students, and we had a little Asian food buffet and then she's asking me how her kid is
doing, and you know, what do you say? Then she tells me, they paid $20,000USD to get the
visas! Their whole family back in East Asia is in hock to the human-trafficker mafiyas, and
that's why the "A+" schtick and why the 'just make sure they pass' pipeline, is to get them
over here so they can do IT coding or pluck chickens or drive for Uber or whatever ,
to keep their family in East Asia from being bludgeoned.
So let's build a $TRILLION wall, for East Asians to fly over by the jumbo-jet load, 10
plane flights every day, and we'll call it MAGA! and WINNING! and 'lowest unemployment on
record' ... because all the new jobs are going to East Asians.
E pluribus now get back to work. Oh, and remember to vote! Really get high-fever pitched!
DRINK THE RED AND BLUE KOOLAID!
"... By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator ..."
"... Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers to this day resist the idea that adopting FDIC style reforms, which would have provided a rational resolution to the foreclosure crisis (albeit, at a cost of destroying the capital base of the big Wall Street banks). Summers dismissed these ideas as something akin to "socialism " ..."
"... Faced with the choice of preserving the financial industry as it was or embracing far-reaching reforms that would have served the interests of those who voted for him, Barack Obama, the "change you can believe in" President, chose the former. Not only did that taint every government initiative undertaken in the aftermath of the bailouts (such as healthcare), but it created an undercurrent of cynicism, political disillusionment and anger that ultimately paved the way for Donald Trump. ..."
October 19, 2018 By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator
I'll readily admit this is a personal post. One of the few, if not the only, good things to
come out of the 2008 financial crisis was my introduction to "Naked Capitalism" and its
proprietor, Yves Smith. In contrast to virtually all of the Pollyannish commentary out there
(remember when Ben Bernanke estimated that losses from the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the
United States would be around $100bn?
), NC gave a much better read of the extent of the problems well before the MSM, as well as
identifying and excoriating all sorts of perps, by name (like Robert Khuzami, who was the SEC's
head of enforcement under Obama, now making news as the prosecutor who nailed Michael Cohen).
Naked Capitalism also documented multiple legal theories that were eminently well-suited to
prosecuting TBTF executives. The more I came to read her blog, the more impressed I came to be
with the scope of breadth of the coverage of the mounting crisis, as well forming a friendship
with a person, whose integrity and scholarship is second to none. So I hope you will give
generously to Naked Capitalism; the Tip Jar tells you how .
It's wrong to say that Naked Capitalism's coverage ultimately made a difference, if one is
to judge by the state of affairs today. But history will treat Yves's accounts much more
kindly, especially when the next crisis comes, as it most assuredly will.
Why do I express unhappy confidence that a new crisis will soon be upon us? Because if one
is to read the voluminous commentaries that have emerged in the last few weeks, as the
aftermath of Lehman's demise has been recounted. Most disturbing has been the reticence of
policy makers at the time, with the benefit of hindsight, to recognize that there was a better
approach than simply restoring the status quo ante via bank bailouts which demanded nothing of
private creditors, but punished private debtors – socialism for the rich, capitalism for
the rest of us.
As George Soros and the President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), Rob
Johnson
have argued : "a critical opportunity was missed when the balance of the burden of
adjustment was tilted heavily in favor of creditors relative to debtors in the response to the
crisis and that this contributed to the prolonged stagnation that followed the crisis. The
long-term social and political ramifications of this missed opportunity have been profound."
Unlike the Savings & Loan crisis, there was no private sector loss recognition. Then
Treasury Secretary Geithner falsely claimed that there were only 2 options: bailouts or letting
the system collapse.
That was a false choice. As Soros & Johnson point out, much more effective and fair use
of taxpayers' money would have been to reduce the value of mortgages held by ordinary Americans
to reflect the decline in home prices and to inject capital into the financial institutions
that would become undercapitalized. Yes, this might have exposed the full extent of the banks'
liabilities and might well have forced FDIC style restructurings, which ultimately would have
resulted in changed management, and a break-up of Too Big To Fail Banks (and likely no "To Big
to Jail" bank executives). Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Larry Summers to
this day resist the idea that adopting FDIC style reforms, which would have provided a rational
resolution to the foreclosure crisis (albeit, at a cost of destroying the capital base of the
big Wall Street banks). Summers dismissed these ideas as
something akin to "socialism "
Faced with the choice of preserving the financial industry as it was or embracing
far-reaching reforms that would have served the interests of those who voted for him, Barack
Obama, the "change you can believe in" President, chose the former. Not only did that taint
every government initiative undertaken in the aftermath of the bailouts (such as healthcare),
but it created an undercurrent of cynicism, political disillusionment and anger that ultimately
paved the way for Donald Trump. Of course, Trump's cabinet of corrupt billionaires has
done no better. But even as #TheResistance has risen to protest the rise of his profoundly
corrupt presidency, we should not pretend it is replacing something that was popular or
effective. The old normal was
not working . The nostalgia for the Obamas in the White House is not a yearning for Obama's
policies.
In today's highly tribalised environment, it is hard to get many in the mainstream media to
recognize this fundamental truth. Criticism of any financial reforms undertaken by the Obama
Administration is now seen as de facto endorsement of Trump or #MAGA. It's nothing of the sort
and Naked Capitalism is one of the few publications that has managed to maintain its moral
bearings and speak truth to power, even when it is unpopular to do so. In this day of "fake
news", not only does NC remain worthy of your support, but essential to provide ongoing
financial support so that Yves and her colleagues can continue their important mission.
There's no question that articulating a view that diverges widely from a prevailing
consensus can be painful. Heaven knows, as an ardent and vocal supporter of Modern Monetary
Theory in the blogosphere, it was often personally painful, exhausting and dispiriting for me
(and others, such as Randy Wray, Warren Mosler, Rob Parenteau, Scott Fullwiler, and many more)
taking on anonymous trolls, who substituted debate for mendacity and vicious personal attacks
of the worst kind. But it was always good to know that I had a supportive editor like Yves, who
always had my back as well as the intellectual self-confidence (and, indeed, brilliance) to
help me and others take on the onslaught.
Later she was joined by some great people like Matt Stoller, Dave Dayen, Lambert Strether,
and others, all of them helped to make Naked Capitalism a intelligent platform which encouraged
free but fair-minded debate, a venue where new ideas could be debated honestly and
intelligently. And in many respects helped move the debate forward in a very positive
direction. Yves Smith deserves a huge amount of credit for making NC that kind of venue and for
that reason, she shall always have my loyalty, friendship, and support for this blog going
forward. It's been 10 years since we've collaborated together and become good friends as an
additional bonus. Long may it continue! Please do your part to make sure it does. Share
articles and what you learn here with people you know. And give generously to this fundraiser . Whatever
you can contribute, $5, $50, or $5000, all helps keep Naked Capitalism an important voice for
all of us.
I was reading in "Crashed" by Adam Tooze about the conference called by John McCain in
September 2008. McCain halted his campaign for the presidency to address the financial
crisis. He hardly spoke at the conference whereas Obama managed to put forth the right ideas
aligned with the true "money bag" republicans and the Wall Street tycoons. At that point
Obama and the Democrats became the party of the bailout. McCain was caught in a vice between
the Tea Party anti-bailouts and big Republican donors who wanted a bailout, hence, he kept
quiet.
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/18/2018 - 12:50 1.3K SHARES
The noose appears to be tightening further around the law-less behaviors of the Obama
administration in their frantic efforts to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
from lawsuits seeking information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private
email server and her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,
Libya.
As Fox News reports , the transparency group Judicial Watch initially sued the State
Department in 2014, seeking information about the response to the Benghazi attack after the
government didn't respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Other parallel
lawsuits by Judicial Watch are probing issues like Clinton's server , whose existence was
revealed during the course of the litigation.
The State Department had immediately moved to dismiss Judicial Watch's first lawsuit, but
U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth (who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald
Reagan) denied the request to dismiss the lawsuit at the time, and on Friday, he said he was
happy he did, charging that State Department officials had intentionally misled him because
other key documents, including those on Clinton's email server, had not in fact been
produced.
"It was clear to me that at the time that I ruled initially, that false statements were
made to me by career State Department officials , and it became more clear through discovery
that the information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the
search and this – what we now know turned out to be the Secretary's email system."
"I don't know the details of what kind of IG inquiry there was into why these career
officials at the State Department would have filed false affidavits with me. I don't know the
details of why the Justice Department lawyers did not know false affidavits were being filed
with me, but I was very relieved that I did not accept them and that I allowed limited
discovery into what had happened."
In a somewhat stunningly frank exchange with Justice Department lawyer Robert Prince, the
judge pressed the issue, accusing Prince of using "doublespeak" and "playing the same word
games [Clinton] played."
That "was not true," the judge said, referring to the State Department's assurances in a
sworn declaration that it had searched all relevant documents.
"It was a lie."
Additionally,
Fox notes that Judge Lamberth said he was "shocked" and "dumbfounded" when he learned that
FBI had granted immunity to former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills during its investigation
into the use of Clinton's server, according to a court transcript of his remarks.
"I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a
published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief,
and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in -- by the Justice
Department in the Hillary Clinton email case."
On Friday, Lamberth said he did not know Mills had been granted immunity until he "read the
IG report and learned that and that she had accompanied [Clinton] to her interview."
We give the last word to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who was present at the
hearing, as he pushed the White House for answers.
"President Trump should ask why his State Department is still refusing to answer basic
questions about the Clinton email scandal," Fitton said.
"Hillary Clinton's and the State Department's email cover up abused the FOIA, the courts,
and the American people's right to know."
Perhaps the deep state remains in control behind the scenes after all (consider the recent
back-pedal on declassifying the Russian probe documents)?
"... I have skipped the chest thumbing about the economy from Mnuchin and Mulvaney to focus on the stupidity ala CNBC . Real government spending barely kept pace with inflation, which is why outlays relative to GDP fell from 20.7% to 20.3%. Real tax revenues clearly fell in absolute terms and as a percent of GDP went from 17.2% to 16.5%. I guess this is what one gets when one lets Lawrence Kudlow become a chief economic adviser. But this kind of dishonesty is well known ever since Kudlow and his ilk tried to pull this intellectual garbage in the 1980's. Does anyone at CNBC not realize the Trump White House is playing the same games with numbers? ..."
"The only way to lower the record-high federal deficit would be to cut entitlement programs
like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security1."
More McConnell: "It's disappointing but it's not a Republican problem." The deficit, grew 17
percent to $779 billion in fiscal year 2018. "It is a bipartisan problem and a problem of the
unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those
programs to the demographics of America in the future."
The deficit has increased 77 percent since McConnell became majority leader in 2015.
A new Treasury Department analysis on Monday revealed that corporate tax cuts had a
significant impact on the deficit this year. Federal revenue rose by 0.04 percent in 2018 which
is a nearly 100 percent decrease from the previous year's 1.5 percent. In fiscal year 2018, tax
receipts on corporate income fell to $205 billion from $297 billion in 2017.
Still, McConnell insisted the change had nothing to do with a lack of revenue due to the tax
break or increased spending resulting from new programs since 2015. Instead he insists the
deficit increase is due to entitlement and welfare programs. Now he does the old switcheroo
from the yearly deficit to the national debt.
McConnell said, the debt is very "disturbing and is driven by the three big entitlement
programs that are very popular, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. There has been a
bipartisan reluctance to tackle entitlement changes because of the popularity of those
programs. Hopefully, at some point here, we'll get serious about this."
What McConnell
does not tell you is 8 years out those tax decreases will go away for much of the
population and many will see tax increases. McConnell and Republicans needed a way to keep the
60% of the total tax break going to the 1% of the Household Taxpayers making greater than
$500,000 annually since this tax break was passed under Reconciliation rules (Democrats could
not block it without 60 votes). Robert Reich has called this a Trojan
Horse tax break.
Recently, Mitch McConnell has been considering his legacy. I think it would be adequate to
paraphrase it as: "I saved the 2018 tax break for the 1 percenters. To hell with the rest of
you."
1. PGL pointed out the variance is barely audible on scale of the deficits. " I have
skipped the
chest thumbing about the economy from Mnuchin and Mulvaney to focus on the stupidity ala
CNBC . Real government spending barely kept pace with inflation, which is why outlays relative
to GDP fell from 20.7% to 20.3%. Real tax revenues clearly fell in absolute terms and as a
percent of GDP went from 17.2% to 16.5%. I guess this is what one gets when one lets Lawrence
Kudlow become a chief economic adviser. But this kind of dishonesty is well known ever since
Kudlow and his ilk tried to pull this intellectual garbage in the 1980's. Does anyone at CNBC
not realize the Trump White House is playing the same games with numbers? "
I kept my post the same because it is just another ruse by McConnell to get something done
for no reason what-so-ever. It is a lie by McConnell.
EMichael , October 17, 2018 11:00 am
And it will cost them exactly zero votes among the working class.
I wonder why that would be?
little john , October 17, 2018 12:02 pm
Maybe he'll get serious and endorse the NW Plan.
pgl , October 17, 2018 12:26 pm
A CNBC Federal spending SURGED. As in a 3.2% increase in NOMINAL spending, which means
real spending barely went up. As I noted under that post of mine on the CNBC/Treasury
dishonesty, Paul Ryan tried this same dishonest trick but the CBS guy nailed him. Well he
tried to but Ryan cut him off and repeated the same line.
Now how many people are stupid enough to not realize that Paul Ryan lies 24/7?
run75441 , October 17, 2018 1:20 pm
PGL:
I read your post earlier and recognized your point of spending barely rising. It is a ruse
of cut spending inside of a much larger ruse being precipitated by McConnell. If he can get
them to cut spending now, then maybe, maybe, they do not increase taxes down the road as
planned. I should have looked further and I did not.
I am thinking of adding your point in the text of my post. It is a great point and also
reinforces my point of the lies the Republicans tell the public. Thanks!
run75441 , October 17, 2018 9:19 pm
Noted . . . Just added your comment. Thanks again.
Joel , October 17, 2018 12:28 pm
"Maybe he'll get serious and endorse the NW Plan."
Co-terminus with the first verified report of porcine aviation.
pgl , October 17, 2018 3:04 pm
Trump blames the rise in the deficit on hurricanes and forest fires:
Someone fact check this please. But let's humor the Idiot in Chief for a comment by
assuming that the rise in the deficit is due to some temporary surge in FEMA spending. That
undermines the call for permanent reductions in Social Security and Medicare.
Point made – these clowns cannot keep their lies straight!
Amateur Socialist , October 17, 2018 7:17 pm
McConnell: "It's disappointing but it's not a Republican problem."
Not as long as people keep electing these clowns. I guess we'll find out in 3 more
weeks.
Treasury Official Arrested, Charged With Leaking Confidential Info On Ex-Trump Advisers;
BuzzFeed Implicated
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 10/17/2018 - 16:22 1.3K SHARES
In the latest indication of the Trump administration's efforts to root out alleged leakers,
a senior Treasury Department official working in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FINCEN), Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards,
has been charged with leaking confidential financial reports to the media concerning former
Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, according to
The Hill .
Prosecutors say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards , a senior adviser to FinCEN,
photographed what are called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, and other sensitive
government files and sent them to an unnamed reporter, in violation of U.S. law. -
The Hill
Suspicious Activity Reports are filed by banks in order to confidentially notify law
enforcement of potentially illegal financial transactions. The documents leaked by the Treasury
official, which began last October, are reported to have been used as the basis for 12 news
articles published by an unnamed organization.
While the news organization was not named in the complaint, it lists the headlines and other
details of six BuzzFeed articles published between October 2017 to as recently as Monday which
they allege were based on the leaks.
BuzzFeed reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier are commonly listed on several of the
articles referenced in the government's complaint. (examples
here ,
here and
here ).
Edwards has been charged with one count of unauthorized disclosures of SAR reports and one
count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclousres of SARs. She will be tried in the Southern
District of New York, and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on both charges.
When she was arrested, Edwards was in possession of a flash drive which was allegedly used
to save the unlawfully disclosed SARs, as well as a cell phone " containing numerous
communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive
government information to Reporter-1."
"We hope today's charges remind those in positions of trust within government agencies that
the unlawful sharing of sensitive documents will not be tolerated and will be met with swift
justice by this Office," said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman in a statement.
According to the criminal complaint, agents in the Treasury inspector general's office
detected "a pattern" of unauthorized media disclosures of the sensitive financial files
beginning in October 2017 and continuing for a year . The disclosures were related to matters
being investigated either by special counsel Robert Mueller , the U.S. Attorney's Office
for the Southern District of New York or the Justice Department's National Security
Division.
They included leaks about suspicious transactions made by Manafort, Trump's former
campaign chairman, and Gates, Manafort's longtime business partner who also served on the
Trump campaign and the transition team. Both individuals were charged in connection with
Mueller's Russia investigation last October with crimes stemming from their foreign lobbying
activity. Both have since decided to plead guilty and cooperate with Mueller's probe. -
The Hill
Could Manafort now make the case that unauthorized media leaks saturating national headlines
baised the jury against him?
Edwards is also accused of leaking sensitive financial information regarding Russian
national, Maria Butina, who was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Russian
government.
The alleged leak announced Wednesday would be the second major suspected breach at FinCEN
reported this year, after a federal law enforcement official told The New Yorker in May that
he leaked SARs on a shell company set up by Michael Cohen , Trump's former attorney,
after two similar bank records appeared to be missing from the FinCEN database. -
The Hill
Edwards is also accused of sending the reproter internal FinCEN emails, investigative memos
and intelligence assessments
"... ...Even with the one percent fat and wealthy, and corporations chock full of cash and building monopolies at a record pace, can the US economy sustain itself with a consumer base that is frightened, unhealthy, generally put upon by frauds, and scraping by on stagnant incomes? ..."
"Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked
by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the
power of man who can fabricate it."
Hannah Arendt
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon
you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy...
The world you live in -- your nation, your people -- is not the world you were born in at
all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs,
the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you
never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is
changed.
Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even
know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a
system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have
intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the
way."
Milton Meyer, They Thought They Were Free
...Even with the one percent fat and wealthy, and corporations chock full of cash and
building monopolies at a record pace, can the US economy sustain itself with a consumer base that
is frightened, unhealthy, generally put upon by frauds, and scraping by on stagnant
incomes?
I don't even live in a 'swing state' and the level of television ads and door to door
volunteers is at surprisingly high levels.
All politicians lie, but lately they are lying so much and so casually that they doesn't even
bother to hide their tracks or make any attempt to save face, except with more lies and denials.
And the whole process on both sides of the aisle has become cynically slick, professionally
noxious, noisome and disgusting.
The working class may be hooked on opiod, but the elite's drug of choice is
Denietol . Why not? It appears to be working fine
for them. Our healthcare system is criminally insane. The level of corruption in the corporate
world and on Wall Street is at record levels. And what are we talking about on the national
stage? Certainly not financial and healthcare reform. Have a pleasant evening.
United States District Judge S. James Otero issued an order and ruling today dismissing
Stormy Daniels' defamation lawsuit against President Trump. The ruling also states that the
President is entitled to an award of his attorneys' fees against Stormy Daniels. A copy of
the ruling is attached. No amount of spin or commentary by Stormy Daniels or her lawyer, Mr.
Avenatti, can truthfully characterize today's ruling in any way other than total victory for
President Trump and total defeat for Stormy Daniels. The amount of the award for President
Trump's attorneys' fees will be determined at a later date.
Daniels' attorney Michael Avenatti responded to the dismissal, tweeting: "We will appeal the
dismissal of the defamation cause of action and are confident in a reversal," while stating
that Daniels' other claims against Trump and Cohen "proceed unaffected."
Re Judge's limited ruling: Daniels' other claims against Trump and Cohen proceed
unaffected. Trump's contrary claims are as deceptive as his claims about the inauguration
attendance.
We will appeal the dismissal of the defamation cause of action and are confident in a
reversal.
Last week Trump's legal team argued that it made no sense for them to keep fighting in court
over a $130,000 hush payment received by Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, as she
invalidated the non-disclosure agreement she signed with Trump's longtime fixer and lawyer,
Michael Cohen.
The lawsuit is moot because Trump has consented that the agreement, as she has claimed,
was never formed because he didn't sign it and he has agreed not to try to enforce it, Trump
said in his court filing. The company created by Cohen to facilitate the non-disclosure
agreement, which initially said Clifford faced more than $20 million in damages for talking,
said in September that it wouldn't sue to enforce the deal. -
Yahoo
Michael Avenatti's terrible October
This month has not treated Stormy's attorney well. Michael Avenatti went from Democrat
darling during his representation of Daniels, to scapegoat over Justice Brett Kavanaugh's
nomination to the Supreme Court after he introduced an 11th hour claim by a woman who said
Kavanaugh orchestrated gang-rape parties in the early 1980s - an allegation thought by many to
have derailed otherwise legitimate claims against the Judge.
Less than two weeks later Avenatti came under fire after he launched a now-deleted
fundraising page for Texas Democratic Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke.
In the fine print, O'Rourke supporters discovered that half the proceeds went to Avenatti's
Fight PAC , which he formed a little over
seven weeks ago .
Avenatti called the criticism "complete nonsense," noting that Senators Elizabeth Warren and
Kamala Harris "do the same thing." Perhaps sensing he'd made a huge mistake, Avenatti deleted
the page - telling the Daily Beast in a text message: "It wasn't worth the nonsense that
resulted from people that don't understand how common this is."
The question now is; after three strikes, is Avenatti out?
Given his free $50 million in publicity, and the amount of GoFundMe he's gonna get or has
gotten, I'd say "losing" is entirely in the eye of the beholder, lol.
Avenatti is the best thing that has happened to Trump.
It's almost like he is intentionally doing stupid and outrageous things to make the dems
look even more unhinged than they are.
I wouldn't be surprised if we find he has been secretly working for Trump all along. Trump
did run a reality show after all so that would be a great plot twist ;)
The best thing about Avenatti and the Clintons is that they won't stop until they bring
the entire Democratic Party down. It reminds me of Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer,
scumbags who keep coming back and discredit the entire party because of their own glorious
egos.
"... Virtually every investment portfolio measures risk by utilizing some combination of volatility and correlation, both of which are backward-looking and low. But the present is knowable. The past too. And the multi-decade trends that carried us to today produced levels of inequality rarely seen. ..."
"... To an observer, it's neither right nor wrong, it simply is. Some see parallels between today and the late-1930s, which led to World War II. We also see parallels with the mid-1960s, which led to The Great Inflation. ..."
Submitted by Eric Peters of One River Asset Management
The future is unknowable. Yet never has capital been so concentrated in strategies that
depend on the future closely resembling the past. The most dominant of these strategies
requires bonds to rally when stocks fall. For decades, both rose inexorably. And a new array of
increasingly complex and illiquid strategies depends on a jump in volatility to be followed by
a rapid decline of equal magnitude. They appear uncorrelated until they are not.
Virtually every investment portfolio measures risk by utilizing some combination of
volatility and correlation, both of which are backward-looking and low. But the present is
knowable. The past too. And the multi-decade trends that carried us to today produced levels of
inequality rarely seen.
Low levels of inflation, growth, productivity, and volatility are features of this cycle's
increasingly unequal distribution. But cycle extremes produce pressures that reverse their
direction.
On cue, an anti-establishment political wave washed away the globalists, with promises to
turn the tide. Such change is nothing new, just another loop around the sun.
Now signs of a cycle swing abound; shifting trade agreements, global supply chains, military
dynamics, immigration, wage pressures, polarization, nationalism, tribalism.
To an observer, it's neither right nor wrong, it simply is. Some see parallels between today
and the late-1930s, which led to World War II. We also see parallels with the mid-1960s, which
led to The Great Inflation.
What comes next is sure to look different still. But investment strategies that prospered
from the past decade's low inflation, growth, productivity and volatility will face headwinds
as this cycle turns.
Those strategies that suffered should enjoy tailwinds. That's how cycles work . And we know
the 1940s was a strong decade for Trend performance. The 1970s was the best decade for Trend in
150yrs. And following cycle turns in both the 1930s and 1960s, the world became a profoundly
volatile place.
* * *
And, as a bonus, here are three observations from Peters on what he calls " Groundhog
Day"
"Starting in the mid-1960s several significant policy changes, made in the context of a
belief that inflation wasn't a concern, all but caused the outcome that was considered
impossible," wrote Lindsay Politi in her latest thought piece. "The first proximate catalyst to
the great inflation was the Tax Reduction Act of 1964. At the time, it was the largest tax cut
in American history. The Act slashed income taxes, especially on higher income households, by
reducing income taxes by 20% across the board in addition to reducing corporate rates . The
expectation was that the tax cut would ultimately increase total tax revenue by lowering
unemployment, increasing consumption, and increasing the incentive for companies to invest and
modernize their capital stock. The tax cut did increase growth, but it also pushed unemployment
very low, to one of the only sustained periods of unemployment below 4% in the post war
period."
"The 2nd policy change was how employment was considered," continued Lindsay. "In the
mid-1960s, there was concern about a cultural divide. The US social critic Michael Harrington
spoke about "The Other America": the unskilled Americans in mostly rural areas who had a
"culture of poverty" and were being left behind by the post war economic boom of the 1950s. In
that context the drop in the unemployment rate after the tax cut was welcome. The belief was
that pushing the unemployment rate to very low levels would help transfer wealth from the
prosperous urban and suburban areas to "The Other America." They thought that, while very low
unemployment might increase inflation, the increase would only be modest, and the social
benefits of modestly higher inflation and lower unemployment were desirable. At the time, there
wasn't a uniform theory for the relationship between inflation and unemployment, so when
inflation started to increase with very low unemployment rates it wasn't a concern."
"A 3rd proximate cause of The Great Inflation was the failure to appreciate a significant,
structural productivity decline. Capital deepening for WWII and the Korean War had boosted
productivity. However, much lower peacetime capital spending had caused productivity growth to
slow. Despite the relative lack of capital spending, productivity declines were generally
dismissed . It became clear at the end of the 1960s into the early 1970s that inflation has a
self-reinforcing trend. Stability in inflation can reinforce stability, but acceleration also
reinforces acceleration. As inflation increases, all else equal, it lowers real interest rates
which stimulates growth, creating higher inflation. It 's part of why anchored inflation
expectations are so critical to inflation staying low, but also why expectations of higher
inflation can be hard to fight."
Most people forget that Hitler was elected to power, and then proceeded to make himself a
dictator.
Germany escaped much of the 1929 crash effects, but in 1932 a Rothschild bank in Austria
failed (Kredit-Anstalt) after being forced to absorb two smaller banks which were
insolvent.
Along with the failure of two other German banks around that time period, hyper-inflation
of the currency returned to German society. Savers saw their life savings disappear
overnight.
During the elections, the Nazi's gained enough seats that they rose to power. Hitler
promised to stabilize the currency,reduce unemployment, and stop the running gun battles in
the street.He achieved all of these goals. Hitler was a liar and worse, a micro-manager. But
so was Churchill, who would keep his staff up until the early hours of the morning on a
regular basis.
To avoid the hardship of not having substantial hard currency reserves, Germany engaged in
a great deal of barter trade in the late thirties. Because this sidelined the banks, they
objected to this economic activity, which desperate countries have used for thousands of
years.
The current tariffs are not the same as the ones that brought about the Great Depression,
nor were tariffs the cause of World War 2. Your analogies are false and misleading to the
extreme.
I want the republicans and trump to stay in power however all his tariffs and sanctions
are harming the us more than yo think. of course it takes a couple of years to realize the
damage , but the deficit is easy to realize this years it will be over $1.3 trillion next
year $ 1.5 trillion in addition to the $22 trillion obama left, in other words you are
fucked.
Everyone sees parallels to WW2....and WW1....and the American Civil War....and the Russian
Revolution....and The Thirty Years War.....and.....and....and.....
A bunch of broken clocks. One thing I know for sure, nobody knows a ******* thing and
there will definitely be another very nasty world war.
I read "Tragedy and Hope" (great read, highly recommend it) it goes into great detail on
the players throughout history, from what's in there I would say it's way more like pre-WW1
then 2.
The vast regime of
torture created by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks
continues to haunt
America.
The political class and most of the media have never dealt honestly with the
profound constitutional corruption that such practices inflicted. Instead, torture enablers are
permitted to pirouette as heroic figures on the flimsiest evidence.
Former FBI chief James Comey is the latest beneficiary of the media's "no fault" scoring
on the torture scandal.
In his media interviews for his new memoir,
A Higher Loyalty:
Truth, Lies, and Leadership
, Comey is portraying himself as a Boy Scout who sought only to do
good things. But his record is far more damning than most Americans realize.
Comey continues to use memos from his earlier government gigs to whitewash all of the
abuses he sanctified.
"Here I stand; I can do no other," Comey told George W. Bush in 2004
when Bush pressured Comey, who was then Deputy Attorney General, to approve an unlawful
anti-terrorist policy. Comey was quoting a line supposedly uttered by Martin Luther in 1521, when
he told Emperor Charles V and an assembly of Church officials that he would not recant his sweeping
criticisms of the Catholic Church.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, and other organizations did excellent
reports prior to Comey's becoming FBI chief that laid out his role in the torture scandal. Such
hard facts, however, have long since vanished from the media radar screen.
MSNBC host
Chris Matthews recently declared, "James Comey made his bones by standing up against torture. He
was a made man before Trump came along."
Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria, in
a column declaring that Americans should be "deeply grateful" to lawyers such as Comey, declared,
"The Bush administration wanted to claim that its 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were lawful.
Comey believed they were not .
So Comey pushed back as much as he could.
"
Martin Luther risked death to fight against what he considered the scandalous religious
practices of his time. Comey, a top Bush administration policymaker, found a safer way to oppose
the worldwide secret U.S. torture regime widely considered a heresy against American values:
he approved brutal practices and then wrote some memos and emails fretting about the
optics.
Losing Sleep
Comey became deputy attorney general in late 2003 and "had oversight of the legal
justification used to authorize" key Bush programs in the war on terror,
as a Bloomberg
News analysis noted. At that time, the Bush White House was pushing the Justice Department to again
sign off on an array of extreme practices that had begun shortly after the 9/11 attacks. A 2002
Justice Department memo had leaked out that declared that the federal Anti-Torture Act "would be
unconstitutional if it impermissibly encroached on the President's constitutional power to conduct
a military campaign." The same Justice Department policy spurred a secret 2003 Pentagon document on
interrogation policies that openly encouraged contempt for the law: "Sometimes the greater good for
society will be accomplished by violating the literal language of the criminal law."
Photos had also leaked from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing the stacking of naked
prisoners with bags over their heads, mock electrocution from a wire connected to a man's penis,
guard dogs on the verge of ripping into naked men, and grinning U.S. male and female soldiers
celebrating the sordid degradation.
Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh
published extracts in the New Yorker from a March 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba that
catalogued other U.S. interrogation abuses: "Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric
liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle
and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and
perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with
threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."
The Bush administration responded to the revelations with a torrent of falsehoods,
complemented by attacks on the character of critics.
Bush declared, "Let me make very
clear the position of my government and our country . The values of this country are such that
torture is not a part of our soul and our being." Bush had the audacity to run for reelection as
the anti-torture candidate, boasting that "for decades, Saddam tormented and tortured the people of
Iraq. Because we acted, Iraq is free and a sovereign nation." He was hammering this theme despite a
confidential CIA Inspector General report warning that post–9/11 CIA interrogation methods might
violate the international Convention Against Torture.
James Comey had the opportunity to condemn the outrageous practices and pledge that the
Justice Department would cease providing the color of law to medieval-era abuses. Instead, Comey
merely repudiated the controversial 2002 memo.
Speaking to the media in a
not-for-attribution session on June 22, 2004, he declared that the 2002 memo was "overbroad,"
"abstract academic theory," and "legally unnecessary." He helped oversee crafting a new memo with
different legal footing to justify the same interrogation methods.
Comey twice gave explicit approval for waterboarding
, which sought to break
detainees with near-drowning. This practice had been recognized as a war crime by the U.S.
government since the Spanish-American War. A practice that was notorious when inflicted by the
Spanish Inquisition was adopted by the CIA with the Justice Department's blessing. (When Barack
Obama nominated Comey to be FBI chief in 2013, he testified that he had belatedly recognized that
waterboarding was actually torture.)
Comey wrote in his memoir that he was losing sleep over concern about
Bush-administration torture polices. But losing sleep was not an option for detainees, because
Comey approved sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique.
Detainees could be
forcibly kept awake for 180 hours until they confessed their crimes. How did that work? At Abu
Ghraib, one FBI agent reported seeing a detainee "handcuffed to a railing with a nylon sack on his
head and a shower curtain draped around him, being slapped by a soldier to keep him awake."
Numerous FBI agents protested the extreme interrogation methods they saw at Guantanamo and
elsewhere, but their warnings were ignored.
Comey also approved "wall slamming"
-- which, as law professor David Cole wrote,
meant that detainees could be thrown against a wall up to 30 times. Comey also signed off on the
CIA's using "interrogation" methods such as facial slaps, locking detainees in small boxes for 18
hours, and forced nudity. When the secret Comey memo approving those methods finally became public
in 2009, many Americans were aghast -- and relieved that the Obama administration had repudiated
Bush policies.
When it came to opposing torture, Comey's version of "Here I stand" had more loopholes
than a reverse-mortgage contract.
Though Comey in 2005 approved each of 13 controversial
extreme interrogation methods, he objected to combining multiple methods on one detainee.
The Torture Guy
In his memoir, Comey relates that his wife told him,
"Don't be the torture guy!"
Comey apparently feels that he satisfied her dictate by writing memos that opposed
combining multiple extreme interrogation methods. And since the vast majority of the American media
agree with him, he must be right.
Comey's cheerleaders seem uninterested in the damning evidence that has surfaced since
his time as a torture enabler in the Bush administration.
In 2014, the Senate Intelligence
Committee finally released a massive report on the CIA torture regime -- including death resulting
from hypothermia, rape-like rectal feeding of detainees, compelling detainees to stand long periods
on broken legs, and dozens of cases where innocent people were pointlessly brutalized.
Psychologists aided the torture regime, offering hints on how to destroy the will and resistance of
prisoners. From the start, the program was protected by phalanxes of lying federal officials.
When he first campaigned for president, Barack Obama pledged to vigorously investigate the Bush
torture regime for criminal violations. Instead, the Obama administration proffered one excuse
after another to suppress the vast majority of the evidence, pardon all U.S. government torturers,
and throttle all torture-related lawsuits. The only CIA official to go to prison for the torture
scandal was courageous whistleblower John Kiriakou. Kiriakou's fate illustrates that telling the
truth is treated as the most unforgivable atrocity in Washington.
If Comey had resigned in 2004 or 2005 to protest the torture techniques he now claims to
abhor, he would deserve some of the praise he is now receiving.
Instead, he remained in
the Bush administration but wrote an email summarizing his objections, declaring that "it was my
job to protect the department and the A.G. [Attorney General] and that I could not agree to this
because it was wrong." A 2009 New York Times analysis noted that Comey and two colleagues "have
largely escaped criticism [for approving torture] because they raised questions about interrogation
and the law." In Washington, writing emails is "close enough for government work" to confer
sainthood.
When Comey finally exited the Justice Department in August 2005 to become a lavishly paid senior
vice president for Lockheed Martin, he proclaimed in a farewell speech that protecting the Justice
Department's "reservoir" of "trust and credibility" requires "vigilance" and "an unerring
commitment to truth." But he had perpetuated policies that shattered the moral credibility of both
the Justice Department and the U.S. government. He failed to heed Martin Luther's admonition, "You
are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say."
Comey is likely to go to his grave without paying any price for his role in
perpetuating appalling U.S. government abuses.
It is far more important to recognize
the profound danger that torture and the exoneration of torturers pose to the United States. "No
free government can survive that is not based on the supremacy of the law," is one of the mottoes
chiseled into the façade of Justice Department headquarters. Unfortunately, politicians nowadays
can choose which laws they obey and which laws they trample.
And Americans are supposed
to presume that we still have the rule of law as long as politicians and bureaucrats deny their
crimes.
Tags
Comey was the hand-picked schlub that was placed in a position of
power to be a firewall... Nothing more and he has been rewarded
handsomely for playing this role... One can only hope that one day he
becomes a liability to his handlers and that there is a pack of
hungry, wild dogs that will rips him apart... Hopefully on PPV...
The Absolute, Complete,
Open, in our Faces Tyrannical Lawlessness began.
Unabated. Like a malignant Cancer.
Growing to Gargantuan proportions.
Irrefutable proof of the absolute, complete, open Lawlessness by
the Criminal Fraud UNITED STATES, CORP. INC., its CEO & Board of
Directors.
1. Torture .
2. WMD lie to the American People.
3. Lying the American People into War.
4. Illegal Wars of Aggression.
5. Arming, funding & training of terror organizations by the State
Dept. / CIA & members of CONgress.
6. BENGAZI
7. McCain meets with ISIS (Pics available).
8. Clapper lies to CONgress.
9. Brennan lies to CONgress & taps Congressional phones / computers.
10. Lynch meets Clinton on tarmac.
11. Fast & Furious deals with the Sinaloa Cartel.
12. Holder in Contempt of CONgress.
13. CIA drug / gun running / money laundering through the tax payer
bailed out TBTFB.
14. Illegal NSA Spying on the American People.
15. DNC Federal Election Crime / Debbie Wasserman Shultz.
16. Hillary Clinton email Treason.
17. Clinton Foundation pay to play RICO.
18. Anthony Weiner 650,000 #PizzaGate Pedo Crimes.
19. Secret Iran deal.
20. Lynch takes the Fifth when asked about Iran deal
21. FBI murders LaVoy Finicum
At the current moment we're completely Lawless.
We have been for quite some time. In the past, their Criminality
was "Hidden in plain view."
Now it's out in the open, in your face Criminality & Lawlessness.
Complete debachary.
Thing is, the bar & precedent has been set so high among these
Criminals I doubt we will ever see another person arrested in our
lifetime.
Comey thinks he is above the law. He and his associates feel they are
not bound by the rules and laws of the US, they are the ELITE. Comey
should go to JAIL, HARD CORE not Country Club, along with his
associates, Yates, Rosenstein, Brennan, McCabe, Stzrock, Paige and
etc. Lock him up
Yields to maturity on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes are now at their highest level since April
2011. The current yield to maturity is 3.21%, a significant rise from 1.387% which the market
touched on July 7, 2016 in the immediate aftermath of Brexit and a flight to quality in U.S.
dollars and U.S. Treasury notes.
The Treasury market is volatile with lots of rallies and reversals, but the overall trend
since 2016 has been higher yields and lower prices.
The consensus of opinion is that the bull market that began in 1981 is finally over and a
new bear market with higher yields and losses for bondholders has begun. Everyone from bond
guru Bill Gross to bond king Jeff Gundlach is warning that the bear has finally arrived.
I disagree.
It's true that bond yields have backed up sharply and prices have come down in recent
months. Yet, we've seen this movie before. Yields went from 2.4% to 3.6% between October 2010
and February 2011 before falling to 1.5% in June 2012.
Yields also rose from 1.67% in April 2013 to 3.0% in December 2013 before falling again to
1.67% by January 2015. In short, numerous bond market routs have been followed by major bond
market rallies in the past ten years.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the bond market rally have been "greatly
exaggerated." The bull market still has legs. The key is to spot the inflection points in each
bear move and buy the bonds in time to reap huge gains in the next rally.
That's where the market is now, at an inflection point. Investors who ignore the bear market
mantra and buy bonds at these levels stand to make enormous gains in the coming rally.
The opportunity is illustrated in the chart below. This chart shows relative long and short
positions in ten major trading instruments based on futures trading data. The 10-year U.S.
Treasury note is listed as "10Y US."
As is shown, this is the most extreme short position in markets today. It is even more short
than gold and soybeans, which are heavily out of favor. It takes a brave investor to go long
when the rest of the market is so heavily short.
"... The great false front of the financial markets resumes falling over into the November election. ..."
"... The rubble from all that buries whatever is left of the automobile business and the housing market. The smoldering aftermath will be described as the start of a long-overdue recession -- but it will actually be something a lot worse, with no end in sight. ..."
"... Complicating matters this time will be the chaos unleashed in politics and governing when the long-running "Russia collusion" melodrama boomerangs into a raft of indictments against the cast of characters in the Intel Community and Department of Justice AND the Democratic National Committee, and perhaps even including the Party's last standard bearer, HRC, for ginning up the Russia Collusion matter in the first place as an exercise in sedition. The wheels of the law turn slowly, but they'll turn even while financial markets tumble. ..."
Looks like somebody threw a dead cat onto Wall Street's luge run overnight to temporarily
halt the rather ugly 2000 point slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average - and plenty of
freefall in other indices, including markets in other countries. A Friday pause in the
financial carnage will give the hedge funders a chance to plant "for sale" signs along their
Hamptons driveways, but who might the buyers be? Hedge funders from another planet, perhaps?
You can hope. And while you're at it, how do you spell liquidity problem?
Welcome to the convergence zone of the long emergency, where Murphy's law meets the law of
unintended consequences and the law of diminishing returns, the Three Amigos of collapse.
Here's where being "woke" finally starts to mean something. Namely, that there are more
important things in the world than sexual hysteria . Like, for instance, your falling standard
of living (and that of everyone else around you).
The meet-up between Kanye West and President D.J. Trump was an even richer metaphor for the
situation: two self-styled "geniuses" preening for the cameras in the Oval Office, like kids in
a sandbox, without a single intelligible idea emerging from the play-date, and embarrassed
grownups all standing 'round pretending it was a Great Moment in History. You had to wonder how
much of Kanye's bazillion dollar fortune was stashed in the burning house of FAANG stocks.
Maybe that flipped his bipolar toggle. Or was he even paying attention to the market action
through all the mugging and hugging? (He did have his phone in hand.) Meanwhile, Mr. Trump
seemed to be squirming through the episode behind his mighty Resolute desk as if he had "woke"
to the realization that ownership of a bursting epic global financial bubble was not exactly
"winning."
If I were President, I'd declare Oct 12 Greater Fool Day. (Nobody likes Christopher Columbus
anymore, that genocidal monster of dead white male privilege.) The futures were zooming as I
write in the early morning, a last roundup for suckers at the OD corral, begging the question:
who will show up on Monday. Nobody, I predict. And then what?
The great false front of the financial markets resumes falling over into the November
election.
The rubble from all that buries whatever is left of the automobile business and the housing
market. The smoldering aftermath will be described as the start of a long-overdue recession --
but it will actually be something a lot worse, with no end in sight.
The Democratic Party might not be nimble enough to capitalize on the sudden disappearance of
capital. Their only hope to date has been to capture the vote of every female in America, to
otherwise augment their constituency of inflamed and aggrieved victims of unsubstantiated
injustices. It's been fun playing those cards, and the Party might not even know how to play a
different game at this point. Democratic politicians may also be among the one-percenters who
watch their net worth go up in a vapor in a market collapse, leaving them too numb to act. The
last time something like this happened, in the fall of 2008, candidate Barack Obama barely knew
what to say about the fall of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing cascade of misery - though
unbeknownst to the voters, he was already a hostage of Wall Street.
Complicating matters this time will be the chaos unleashed in politics and governing when
the long-running "Russia collusion" melodrama boomerangs into a raft of indictments against the
cast of characters in the Intel Community and Department of Justice AND the Democratic National
Committee, and perhaps even including the Party's last standard bearer, HRC, for ginning up the
Russia Collusion matter in the first place as an exercise in sedition. The wheels of the law
turn slowly, but they'll turn even while financial markets tumble.
And the threat to order
might be so great that an unprecedented "emergency" has to be declared, with soldiers in the
streets of Washington, as was sadly the case in 1861, the first time the country turned itself
upside down.
One of the reasons that countries fail is that collective memory is continually destroyed as
older generations pass away and are replaced by new ones who are disconnected from what came
before.
Initially, the disconnect was handled by history and by discussions around family tables.
For example, when I was a kid there were still grandparents whose fathers had fought for the
Confederacy. They had no slaves and owned no plantations. They fought because their land was
invaded by Lincoln's armies. Today if Southern families still know the facts, they would
protect their children by not telling them. Can you imagine what would happen to a child in a
public school that took this position?
Frustrated by the inability of the Union Army to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia led by
West Point graduate Robert E. Lee, Lincoln resorted to war criminals. Generals Sherman and
Sherridan, operating under the drunken General Grant, were the first modern war criminals who
conducted war against civilian women and children, their homes and food supply. Lincoln was so
out of step with common morality that he had to arrest and detain 300 Northern newspaper
editors and exile a US Congressman in order to conduct his War for Empire.
Today this history is largely erased. The court historians buried the truth with the fable
that Lincoln went to war to free the slaves. This ignorant nonsense is today the official
history of the "civil war," which most certainly was not a civil war.
A civil war is when two sides fight for control of the government. The Confederacy was a new
country consisting of those states that seceded. Most certainly, the Confederate soldiers were
no more fighting for control over the government in Washington than they were fighting to
protect the investment of plantation owners.
Memory is lost when historical facts are cast down the memory hole
So, what does this have to do with the lesson for today? More than history can be erased by
the passage of time. Culture can be erased. Morality can be erased. Common sense can disappear
with the diplomacy that depends on it.
The younger generation which experiences threats shouted all around it at Confederate war
memorials and street names - Atlanta has just struck historic Confederate Avenue out of
existence and replaced it with United Avenue - at white males who, if they are heterosexual,
have been redefined by Identity Politics as rapists, racists, and misogynists, at distinguished
scientists who state, factually, that there are innate differences between the male and the
female, and so on, might think that it is natural for high officials in the US government to
issue a never-ending stream of war threats to Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela.
A person of my generation knows that such threats are unprecedented, not only for the US
Government but also in world history. President Trump's crazed NATO Ambassador, Kay Bailey
Hutchison, threatened to "take out Russian missiles." President Trump's crazed UN Ambassador
Nikki Hailey issues endless threats as fast as she can run her mouth against America's allies
as well as against the powerful countries that she designates as enemies. Trump's crazed
National Security Advisor John Bolten rivals the insane Haley with his wide-ranging threats.
Trump's Secretary of State Pompeo spews out threats with the best of them. So do the inane New
York Times and Washington Post. Even a lowly Secretary of the Interior assumes the prerogative
of telling Russia that the US will interdict Russian navy ships.
What do you think would be the consequences if the Russians, the Chinese, and the Iranians
took these threats seriously? World Wars have started on far less. Yet there is no protest
against these deranged US government officials who are doing everything in their power to
convince Russia and China that they are without any question America's worst enemies. If you
were Russia or China, how would you respond to this?
Professor Stephen Cohen, who, like myself, remembers when the United States government had a
diplomatic tradition, is as disturbed as I am that Washington's decision to chuck diplomacy
down the memory hole and replace it with war threats is going to get us all killed.
More
Cold War Extremism and Crises
Overshadowed by the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, US-Russian relations grow ever more
perilous.
Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon slammed UN ambassador Nikki Haley's decision on
Tuesday to announce her resignation, calling it "suspect" and "horrific," and that it
overshadowed positive news that Trump and the Republicans need to build support going into
midterms, according to
Bloomberg .
The timing was exquisite from a bad point of view ," Bannon told Bloomberg
News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest London forum. "
Everything she said yesterday and everything she said about stepping down could have been done
on the evening of November 6. The timing could not have been worse. "
Haley's announcement, according to Bannon, took White House officials by surprise - and
distracted attention from Brett Kavanaugh's first day as a justice on the Supreme Court, along
with headlines over the lowest US unemployment rate in five decades. Haley's decision
undermines Trump's message to Republican voters, said Bannon.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said Haley told him six months ago she wanted a break
after spending two years in the post. She'll continue in her role until year-end. Haley said
Tuesday that she was ready for a break after two terms as South Carolina's governor and two
years at the United Nations. -
Bloomberg
Bannon also says that he took Haley at her word that she has no political aspirations -
particularly when it comes to running against Trump in 2020. She says that she looks forward to
campaigning for Trump in two years. That said, Bannon calls Haley "ambitious" and "very
talented," though he said so using a backhanded compliment.
"I think she is incredibly politically ambitious," Bannon added. " Ambitious as Lucifer but
that is probably...I am probably taking Milton out of context."
Trump defended the timing of Haley's departure on Wednesday, saying "there's no good time"
for her to have announced her resignation - and that if she'd waited until after midterms, it
would have raised questions as to whether her motive was based on the results.
Bannon is unhinged. Nikki Haley was horrible in her position! If Bannon payed attention to
voter base of Trump, he'd see Haley was a thorn in the side of the Trump administration.
One of the best appointments Trump has made, is Mike Pompeo. I thought he'd be some crazed
warmonger, but has turned out to be quite the opposite.
He's got this kind of easy going swagger and confidence about him. He's chubby, and his
every day guy, sort of approach, is affable.
Yes sir... her rhetoric is pure deep state war mongering of the most evil kind. She was
told to stir up as much hatred and fear at the UN as possible and try to get the opposition
to do something stupid in response to her remarks. That's not Trump talk for damned sure...
that's deep state talk.
He makes a GREAT point that occurred to me immediately. If you are resigning effective at
the end of the year and everything is awesome, just time to move on.... why the hell are you
publicly announcing it 3 weeks before a VERY contentious midterm election and only a day or
so after a brutal SCOTUS nomination conclusion? Why? Why now? Very curious and a unforced
error.
Rosenstein said he was joking when he made the comments to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe and FBI attorney Lisa Page, however that claim has been refuted by the FBI's former top
attorney.
"We have many questions for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and expect answers to those
questions. There is not at this time a confirmed date for a potential meeting ," the aide told
the Caller .
" Don't think he is coming ," added one Republican lawmaker on Wednesday.
The same lawmaker told TheDCNF on Tuesday that Rosenstein was likely to testify before the
House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees to answer questions
about claims he discussed wearing a wire during his interactions with Trump.
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus had called on Rosenstein to testify about
his remarks, which were first reported by The New York Times on Sept. 21.
The conservative lawmakers, including North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows and Ohio Rep. Jim
Jordan, have been staunch critics of Rosenstein because of his failure to respond to requests
for documents related to the FBI's handling of the Trump-Russia probe. - Daily Caller
On Tuesday we reported that the FBI's former top attorney, James Baker, told Congressional
investigators last week that Rosenstein wasn't joking about taping Trump.
"As far as Baker was concerned, this was a real plan being discussed," reports
The Hill 's John Solomon, citing a confidential source.
"It was no laughing matter for the FBI," the source added.
Solomon points out that Rosenstein's comments happened right around the time former FBI
Director James Comey was fired.
McCabe, Baker's boss, was fired after the DOJ discovered that he had leaked self-serving
information to the press and then lied to investigators about it. Baker, meanwhile, was central
to the surveillance apparatus within the FBI during the counterintelligence operation on
then-candidate Trump.
As the former FBI general counsel, Baker was a senior figure with a pivotal position who
had the ear of the FBI director.
Baker also is at the heart of surveillance abuse accusations , many from congressional
Republicans. His deposition lays the groundwork for a planned closed-door House GOP interview
with Rosenstein later this week.
Baker, formerly the FBI's top lawyer, helped secure the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, as well as three subsequent
renewals. -
Fox News
Meanwhile, the New
York Times noted that McCabe's own memos attest to Rosenstein's intentions to record Trump
- which led to Rosenstein reportedly tendering a verbal resignation to White House chief of
staff John Kelly.
span y gjohnsit on Mon, 10/08/2018 - 12:46pm Things always get nutty late in a credit
cycle, when overconfidence reaches irrational levels. This time is no different.
But that doesn't mean that the craziness looks like the last time.
Here are some good examples of what to look for when the next crisis hits.
According to a new report by the Wall Street Journal, a record number, or 83% of US listed
IPOs over the first three quarters of 2018, were companies that lost money in the 12 month
prior to their going public.
According to the WSJ, this is the highest proportion on record dating back to 1980.
Not only that, but investors who have been buying these money-losing companies have been
rewarded. Stocks of companies that lose money and list in the United States this year are up
an average of 36% from their IPO price. This actually outperformed the return for IPO stocks
that are posting positive earnings, which came in at 32%. Both beat the S&P 500, which
has returned 9% over the same course of time.
Consider Wall Street's latest financial Frankenstein of a bad idea, collateralized fund
obligations. Perhaps a better monster metaphor would be zombies, because these securities are
the sort of terrible concoction that rise out of the Wall Street swamp and don't seem to die.
Collateralized fund obligations, or CFOs, were first given life in the early 2000s, but the
market for them has mostly been dormant since the financial crisis. It has come back only
recently.
...The biggest problem is that CFOs appear to transform equity investments into bonds, which
are assumed to have much less risk than stocks. Structure and ordering of bonds can remove
some of the extra risk and volatility that goes along with equities, but it can't eliminate
it. What it does is concentrate the risk somewhere until it breaks down the door of the
closet bankers thought they had locked. That's what happened with subprime loans during
financial crisis.
That's all very interesting, but the real worrying concentration of risk on Wall Street lies
in the
corporate bond market .
Chief financial officers have been borrowing as much as they can get away with without
their debt being classed as junk, because the move to junk leads to sharply higher borrowing
costs. The attention paid to that rating boundary means the usual danger of leverage comes
with an extra risk: the buildup of BBB bonds could mean even more downgrades to junk in the
next recession than usual.
...The scale of the debt at risk of downgrade to junk is already frighteningly high, despite
decent economic growth. Hans Lorenzen, a credit strategist at Citigroup, calculates that just
the weakest BBB-rated bonds with a negative outlook or on review for downgrade, plus those
where the issuer has other junk-rated bonds, amount to about half the existing size of the $1
trillion U.S. junk market.
More than $500 billion of these BBB-rated bonds are just one downgrade away from being junk,
according to Fitch Ratings.
So why does this matter? Because a 37-year long bull market in bonds has come to an
end.
Interest rates had fallen for 36 year.
Let's put that into
perspective .
We're currently living through the second longest bond bull market in recorded history, and
the longest since the 16th century , according to a new research paper from the Bank of
England.
..."The average length of bond bull markets stands at 25.8 years, and the range falls between
61 years (1451-1511) and 12 years (1718-1729). Our present real rate bond bull market, at 34
years, is already the second longest ever recorded," Schmelzing writes.
Interest rates have fallen for so long that last year they reached their lowest
levels in 5,000 years of recorded civilization .
When you have to go back to the ice age to find lower interest rates, you know that they can't
fall much further.
Sure enough, the markets are slowly coming to grips with this
new global reality .
Global bonds are hitting fresh milestones of misery.
Strong U.S. data, a tighter-than-expected monetary trajectory, rising commodity prices and
brewing wage pressures are conspiring to push Treasury yields to cycle-highs, hitting money
managers of all stripes.
The value of the Bloomberg Barclays Multiverse Index, which captures investment-grade and
high-yield securities around the world, slumped by $916 billion last week, the most since the
aftermath of Donald Trump's election victory in November 2016.
American high-grade obligations are down 2.53 percent in 2018 -- a Bloomberg Barclays
index tracking the debt has dropped in just three years since 1976.
"Bond investors have rarely seen losses like this over the past 40+ years," Ben Carlson,
director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management, wrote in a blog
post. "Any further moves higher in rates could lead to the worst year since 1976 in terms of
overall bond returns."
There are no traders left on Wall Street that even know how to trade a bear market in bonds.
I'd bet the algorithms don't know how either.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Washington of making a "colossal" but "typical"
mistake by exploiting the dominance of the dollar by levying economic sanctions against regimes
that don't bow to its whims.
"It seems to me that our American partners make a colossal strategic mistake," Putin
said.
"This is a typical mistake of any empire," Putin said, explaining that the US is ignoring
the consequences of its actions because its economy is strong and the dollar's hegemonic
grasp on global markets remains intact. However "the consequences come sooner or later."
These remarks echoed a sentiment expressed by Putin back in May, when he said that Russia
can no longer trust the US dollar because of America's decisions to impose unilateral sanctions
and violate WTO rules.
... ... ...
With the possibility of being cut off from the dollar system looming, a plan prepared by Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian
bank VTB, is being embraced by much of the Russian establishment. Kostin's plan would facilitate the conversion of dollar
settlements into other currencies which would help wean Russian industries off the dollar. And it already has the backing of
Russia's finance ministry, central bank and Putin.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is also working on deals with major trading partners to accept the Russian ruble for imports and exports.
In a sign that a united front is forming to help undermine the dollar, Russia's efforts have been readily embraced by China
and Turkey, which is unsurprising, given their increasingly fraught relationships with the US. During joint military exercises
in Vladivostok last month, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that their countries would work together to counter
US tariffs and sanctions.
"More and more countries, not only in the east but also in Europe, are beginning to think about how to minimise dependence on
the US dollar," said Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesperson. "And they suddenly realise that a) it is possible, b) it needs to
be done and c) you can save yourself if you do it sooner."
Why does the dollar continue to possess a hegemonic status a decade after the crisis that
seemed to signal an end to U.S.-U.K. dominated finance? Gillian Tett of the
Financial Times offers several reasons. The first is the global reach of U.S.
based banks. U.S. banks are seen as stable, particularly when compared to European banks. Any
listing
of the largest international banks will be dominated by Chinese banks, and
these institutions have expanded their international business . But the Chinese banks will
conduct business in dollars when necessary. Tett's second reason is the relative strength of
the U.S. economy, which grew at a 4.1% pace in the second quarter. The third reason is the
liquidity and credibility of U.S. financial markets, which are superior to those of any
rivals.
The U.S. benefits from its financial dominance in several ways.
Jeff Sachs of Columbia University points out that the cost of financing government deficits
is lower due to the acceptance of U.S. Treasury securities as "riskless assets." U.S. banks and
other institutions earn profits on their foreign operations. In addition, the use of our
banking network for international transactions provides the U.S. government with a powerful
foreign policy tool in the form of sanctions
that exclude foreign individuals, firms or governments from this network .
There are risks to the system with this dependence. As U.S. interest rates continue to rise,
loans that seemed reasonable before now become harder to finance. The burden of
dollar-denominated debt also increases as the dollar appreciates. These developments exacerbate
the repercussions of policy mistakes in Argentina and Turkey, but also affect other countries
as well.
The IMF in its latest Global Financial Stability (see also here )
identifies another potential destabilizing feature of the current system. The IMF reports that
the U.S. dollar balance sheets of non-U.S. banks show a reliance on short-term or wholesale
funding. This reliance leaves the banks vulnerable to a liquidity freeze. The IMF is
particularly concerned about the use of foreign exchange swaps, as swap markets can be quite
volatile. While
central banks have stablished their own network of swap lines , these have been
criticized .
The status of the dollar as the primary international currency is not welcomed by foreign
governments. The Russian government, for
example, is seeking to use other currencies for its international commerce. China and
Turkey have offered some support, but China is invested in promoting the use of its own
currency. In addition, Russia's dependence on its oil exports will keep it tied to the
dollar.
But interest in formulating a new international payments system has now spread outside of
Russia and China.
Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has called for the establishment of "U.S. independent
payment channels" that would allow European firms to continue to deal with Iran despite the
U.S. sanctions on that country.
Chinese electronic payments systems are being used in Europe and the U.S. The dollar may
not be replaced, but it may have to share its role as an international currency with other
forms of payment if foreign nations calculate that the benefits of a new system outweigh its
cost. Until now that calculation has always favored the dollar, but the reassessment of
globalization initiated by the Trump administration may have lead to unexpected
consequences.
The debate about peak oil demand always tends to focus on how quickly electric vehicles will
replace the internal-combustion engine , especially as EV sales are accelerating. However, the
petrochemical sector will be much more difficult to dislodge , and with alternatives far
behind, petrochemicals will account for an increasing share of crude oil demand growth in the
years ahead.
U3 unemployment rate declined -0.2% from 3.9% to 3.7%
U6 underemployment rate rose from 7.4% to 7.5%
Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment:
Wages and participation rates
Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: declined -152,000 from 5.379 million to 5.237
million
Part time for economic reasons: rose +263,000 from 4.379 million to 4.642 million
Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: unchanged at 79.3%
Average Weekly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose $.07 from
$22.74 to $22.81, up +2.7% YoY. (Note: you may be reading different information about wages
elsewhere. They are citing average wages for all private workers. I use wages for
nonsupervisory personnel, to come closer to the situation for ordinary workers.)
I am expecting the employment gains to slow down substantially over the next 9 to 12 months.
This report was consistent with that forecast, even though for the next few months, it
continues to suggest the economy will be quite good.
Bert Schlitz , October 5, 2018 1:00 pm
Just for some honesty, without Florence job growth probably would have been slightly
higher and wages slightly lower(interestingly enough). Unemployment at 3.8%. Household
slowdown is the real canary though.
Signs the prime age workforce is leveling off as well.
pgl , October 5, 2018 3:01 pm
Employment to population ratio for Sept. 2018 = 60.4% which is where it was as of Sept.
2017. In other words, no real progress over the last 12 months.
"... Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their worldview. ..."
"... This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the three of us just spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of this problem." ..."
"... We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as "cultural studies" or "identity studies" (for example, gender studies) or "critical theory" because it is rooted in that postmodern brand of "theory" which arose in the late sixties. ..."
Three scholars wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous
conclusions.
Harvard University's Yascha Mounk writing for The Atlantic:
"Over the past 12 months, three scholars -- James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter
Boghossian -- wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous
conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender
studies, queer studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable
Sokal Squared doesn't just expose the low standards of the journals that publish this kind of
dreck, though. It also demonstrates the extent to which many of them are willing to license
discrimination if it serves ostensibly progressive goals.
This tendency becomes most evident in an article that advocates extreme measures to
redress the "privilege" of white students.
Exhorting college professors to enact forms of "experiential reparations," the paper
suggests telling privileged students to stay silent, or even BINDING THEM TO THE FLOOR IN
CHAINS
If students protest, educators are told to "take considerable care not to validate
privilege, sympathize with, or reinforce it and in so doing, recenter the needs of privileged
groups at the expense of marginalized ones. The reactionary verbal protestations of those who
oppose the progressive stack are verbal behaviors and defensive mechanisms that mask the
fragility inherent to those inculcated in privilege."
In an article for Areo magazine, the authors of the hoax explain their motivation:
"Something has gone wrong in the university -- especially in certain fields within the
humanities.
Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances
has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields, and their scholars
increasingly bully students, administrators, and other departments into adhering to their
worldview.
This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has
been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking. For this reason, the
three of us just spent a year working inside the scholarship we see as an intrinsic part of
this problem."
We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected
peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as "cultural
studies" or "identity studies" (for example, gender studies) or "critical theory" because it
is rooted in that postmodern brand of "theory" which arose in the late sixties.
As a result of this work, we have come to call these fields "grievance studies" in
shorthand because of their common goal of problematizing aspects of culture in minute detail
in order to attempt diagnoses of power imbalances and oppression rooted in identity.
We undertook this project to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance
studies, which is corrupting academic research.
Because open, good-faith conversation around topics of identity such as gender, race, and
sexuality (and the scholarship that works with them) is nearly impossible, our aim has been
to reboot these conversations.''
To read more, see Areo magazine + "academic grievance studies and the corruption of
scholarship"
President Trump said that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the victim of a Democrat
Hoax, and that allegations of sexual assault levied by multiple women were "all made up" and
"fabricated."
In comments made to reporters on the White House driveway, Trump addressed rumors that the
Democrats will investigate and attempt to impeach Kavanaugh if they regain control over the
House or Senate during midterms.
"So, I've been hearing that now they're thinking about impeaching a brilliant jurist -- a
man that did nothing wrong, a man that was caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats
using the Democrats' lawyers -- and now they want to impeach him," said Trump.
The President then suggested that the attacks on Kavanaugh will bring conservatives to the
polls for midterms:
"I think it's an insult to the American public," said Trump. "The things they said about him
-- I don't even think he ever heard of the words. It was all made-up. It was fabricated. And
it's a disgrace. And I think it's going to really show you something come November sixth."
"... It's a matter of record that Dr. Ford traveled to Rehobeth Beach Delaware on July 26, where her Best Friend Forever and former room-mate, Monica McLean, lives, and that she spent the next four days there before sending a letter July 30 to Senator Diane Feinstein that kicked off the "sexual assault" circus. ..."
"... The Democratic Party has its fingerprints all over this, as it does with the shenanigans over the Russia investigation. Not only do I not believe Dr. Ford's story; I also don't believe she acted on her own in this shady business. ..."
What's happening with all these FBI and DOJ associated lawyers is an obvious circling of the
wagons. They've generated too much animus in the process and they're going to get
nailed..."
Aftermath As Prologue
"I believe her!"
Really? Why should anyone believe her?
Senator Collins of Maine said she believed that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford experienced
something traumatic, just not at the hands of Mr. Kavanaugh. I believe Senator Collins said
that to placate the #Metoo mob, not because she actually believed it. I believe Christine
Blasey Ford was lying, through and through, in her injured little girl voice, like a bad
imitation of Truman Capote.
I believe that the Christine Blasey Ford gambit was an extension of the sinister activities
underway since early 2016 in the Department of Justice and the FBI to un-do the last
presidential election, and that the real and truthful story about these seditious monkeyshines
is going to blow wide open.
It turns out that the Deep State is a small world.
Did you know that the lawyer sitting next to Dr. Ford in the Senate hearings, one Michael
Bromwich, is also an attorney for Andrew McCabe, the former FBI Deputy Director fired for lying
to investigators from his own agency and currently singing to a grand jury?
What a coincidence. Out of all the lawyers in the most lawyer-infested corner of the USA,
she just happened to hook up with him.
It's a matter of record that Dr. Ford traveled to Rehobeth Beach Delaware on July 26, where
her Best Friend Forever and former room-mate, Monica McLean, lives, and that she spent the next
four days there before sending a letter July 30 to Senator Diane Feinstein that kicked off the
"sexual assault" circus. Did you know that Monica McClean was a retired FBI special agent, and
that she worked in the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York under Preet
Bharara, who had earlier worked for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer? Could Dr. Ford have
spent those four days in July helping Christine Blasey Ford compose her letter to Mrs.
Feinstein? Did you know that Monica McClean's lawyer, one David Laufman is a former DOJ top
lawyer who assisted former FBI counter-intel chief Peter Strozk on both the Clinton and Russia
investigations before resigning in February this year -- in fact, he sat in on the notorious
"unsworn" interview with Hillary in 2016. Wow! What a really small swamp Washington is!
Did you know that Ms. Leland Keyser, Dr. Ford's previous BFF from back in the Holton Arms
prep school, told the final round of FBI investigators in the Kavanaugh hearing last week -- as
reported by the The Wall Street Journal -- that she "felt pressured" by Monica McLean and her
representatives to change her story -- that she knew nothing about the alleged sexual assault,
or the alleged party where it allegedly happened, or that she ever knew Mr. Kavanaugh. I think
that's called suborning perjury.
None of this is trivial and the matter can't possibly rest there. Too much of it has been
unraveled by what remains of the news media. And meanwhile, of course, there is at least one
grand jury listening to testimony from the whole cast-of-characters behind the botched Hillary
investigation and Robert Mueller's ever more dubious-looking Russian collusion inquiry: the
aforementioned Strozk, Lisa Page, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, et. al. I have a
feeling that these matters are now approaching critical mass with the parallel unraveling of
the Christine Blasey Ford "story."
The Democratic Party has its fingerprints all over this, as it does with the shenanigans
over the Russia investigation. Not only do I not believe Dr. Ford's story; I also don't believe
she acted on her own in this shady business. What's happening with all these FBI and DOJ
associated lawyers is an obvious circling of the wagons. They've generated too much animus in
the process and they're going to get nailed. These matters are far from over and a major battle
is looming in the countdown to the midterm elections. In fact, op-ed writer Charles M. Blow
sounded the trumpet Monday morning in his idiotic column titled:
Liberals, This is War . Like I've been saying: Civil War Two.
Blasey-Ford happens to work at Palo Alto University, which is the west coast HQ for the
left wing feminist movement in the US. Here's a good video by a woman professor from Canada
that blows the lid off the entire conspiracy:
Nope, the people are so fragmented and full of disinfo and propaganda that they actually
think the other peons are the real problem. While we peons slaughter each other for having
different opinions on the privileged predator class spokespeople, they hop into the private
planes and disappear.
I actually fought in a civil war, the one in the former Yugoslavia. They are like
wildfires that can not be controlled but must burn until the fuel is consumed...
"... At the time the eligible voters were males of European descent (MOED), and while not highly educated they were relatively free of propaganda and IQ's were higher than today. After giving women the right to vote and with other minorities voting the MOED became a minority voter. ..."
"... So today with propaganda and education being what it is, not to mention campaign financing laws especially post Citizen United, and MSM under control of 6 companies, the entire voting class is miseducated and easily influenced to vote for candidates chosen by the elites ..."
"... The founders who incited the revolution against British rule were the American Elites (also British citizens) who wanted more. The elites today got everything they want. They have no need for revolution. The common folk are divided, misinformed, unorganized, leaderless and males are emasculated. Incapable of taking control peacefully or otherwise. ..."
"... This was the high-tariff-era and the budget surplus was an issue all through the balance of the 19th Century. So what were the politics about? 1. Stirring stump (Trump) speeches were all about "waving the bloody shirt" ..."
"... In my view of the fundamental dynamic - namely that of history being one unbroken story of the rich exploiting the poor - representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be madness. ..."
The constitution was a creation of the elite at the time, the property class. Its mission was to prevent the common folk from
having control. Democracy=mob rule= Bad.
The common folk only had the ability to elect representatives in the house, who in turn would elect Senators. Electors voted
for President and they were appointed by a means chosen by the state legislature , which only in modern times has come to mean
by the popular vote of the common folk. Starting from 1913 it was decided to let the common folk vote for Senator and give the
commonfolk the illusion of Democracy confident they could be controlled with propaganda and taxes (also adopted in 1913 with the
Fed)
At the time the eligible voters were males of European descent (MOED), and while not highly educated they were relatively
free of propaganda and IQ's were higher than today. After giving women the right to vote and with other minorities voting the
MOED became a minority voter.
Bernays science of propaganda took off during WWI, Since MOED's made up the most educated class (relative to minorities and
women) up to the 70's this was a big deal for almost 60 years , although not today when miseducation is equal among the different
races, sexes and ethnicities.
So today with propaganda and education being what it is, not to mention campaign financing laws especially post Citizen
United, and MSM under control of 6 companies, the entire voting class is miseducated and easily influenced to vote for candidates
chosen by the elites
So how do the common folk get control over the federal government? That is a pipe dream and will never happen. The founders
who incited the revolution against British rule were the American Elites (also British citizens) who wanted more. The elites today
got everything they want. They have no need for revolution. The common folk are divided, misinformed, unorganized, leaderless
and males are emasculated. Incapable of taking control peacefully or otherwise.
Pft has a point. If there was ever a time for the people to take the republic into its hands, it may have been
just after the Civil War when the Dems were discredited and the Repubs had a total control of Congress.
This was the high-tariff-era and the budget surplus was an issue all through the balance of the 19th Century.
So what were the politics about? 1. Stirring stump (Trump) speeches were all about "waving the bloody shirt"
All manner of political office-seekers devoted themselves to getting on the government gravy train, somehow.
The selling of political offices was notorious and the newspaper editors of the time were ashamed of this.
Then there was the Whiskey Ring. The New York Customs House was a major source of corruption lucre.
Then there was vote selling in blocks of as many as 10,000 and the cost of paying those who could do this.
Then there were the kickbacks from the awards of railroad concessions which included large parcels of land.
If there ever was a Golden Age of the United States it must have been when Franklin Roosevelt was President.
karlof1 @ 34 asked:"My question for several years now: What are us Commonfolk going to do to regain control of the federal government?"
The only thing us "common folk" can do is work within our personal sphere of influence, and engage who you can, when you can,
and support with any $ you can spare, to support the sites and any local radio stations that broadcast independent thought. (
if you can find any). Pacifica radio, KPFK in LA is a good example. KPFA in the bay area.
Other than another economic crash, I don't believe anything can rouse the pathetic bovine public. Bread and circuses work...
The division of representative power and stake in the political process back at the birth of the US Constitution was as you
say it was. But this wasn't because any existing power had been taken away from anyone. It was simply the state of play back then.
Since that time, we common people have developed a more egalitarian sense of how the representation should be apportioned.
We include former slaves, all ethnic groups and both genders. We exclude animals thus far, although we do have some - very modest
- protections in place.
I think it has been the rise of the socialist impulse among workers that has expanded this egalitarian view, with trade unions
and anti-imperialist revolutions and national struggles. But I'm not a scholar or a historian so I can't add details to my impression.
My point is that since the Framers met, there has been a progressive elevation of our requirements of representative government.
I think some of this also came from the Constitution itself, with its embedded Bill of Rights.
I can't say if this expansion has continued to this day or not. History may show there was a pinnacle that we have now passed,
and entered a decline. I don't know - it's hard to say how we score the Internet in this balance. It's always hard to score the
present age along its timeline. And the future is never here yet, in the present, and can only ever be guessed.
In my view, the dream of popular control of representative government remains entirely possible. I call it an aspiration rather
than a pipe dream, and one worth taking up and handing on through the generations. Current global society may survive in relatively
unbroken line for millennia to come. There's simply no percentage in calling failure at this time.
It may be that better government comes to the United States from the example of the world nations, over the decades and centuries
to come. Maybe the demonstration effect will work on us even when we cannot work on ourselves. We are not the only society of
poor people who want a fair life.
In my view of the fundamental dynamic - namely that of history being one unbroken story of the rich exploiting the poor - representative
government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect it from the
predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up now would be
madness.
"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect
it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give up
now would be madness."
Here, here! I fully agree with you.
In my opinion, representative government was stronger in the U.S. from the 1930's to the 1970's and Europe after WW2. And as
a result the western world achieved unprecedented prosperity. Since 1980, the U.S. government has been captured by trans-national
elites, who, since the 1990's have also captured much of the political power in the EU.
Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result
of this dictatorship.
Prosperity, and peace, will only return when the dictators are removed and representative government is returned.
"Both Europe and the U.S. are now effectively dictatorships, run by a trans-national elite. The crumbling of both is the result
of this dictatorship."
Exactly!! I feel like the Swedish knight Antonius Block in the movie the 7th Seal. There does not seem any way out of this
evil game by the death dealing rulers.
Love it. But you fad3d at the end. It was Gingrich, not Rodham, who was behind Contract on America, and GHWBush's Fed Bank
group wrote the legislation that would have been Bush's second term 'kinder, gentler' Gramm-Leach-Bliley bayonet up the azs of
the American Dream, as passed by a majority of Congress, and by that point Tripp and Lewinski had already pull-dated Wild Bill.
God, can you imagine being married to that hag Rodham? The purple people-eating lizards of Georgetown and Alexandria. Uurk.
I'm reading a great FDR book, 'Roosevelt and Hopkins', a signed 1st Ed copy by Robert Sherwood, and the only book extant from
my late father's excellent political and war library, after his trophy wife dumped the rest of his library off at Goodwill, lol.
They could have paid for her next booblift, ha, ha, ha.
Anyway, FDR, in my mind, only passed the populist laws that he did because he needed cannon fodder in good fighting shape for
Rothschild's Wars ("3/4ths of WW2 conscripts were medically unfit for duty," the book reports), and because Rothschild's and Queens
Bank of London needed the whole sh*taco bailed out afterward, by creating SS wage-withholding 'Trust Fund' (sic) the Fed then
tapped into, and creating Lend-Lease which let Rothschilds float credit-debt to even a higher level and across the globe. Has
it all been paid off by Germany and Japan yet?
Even Lincoln, jeez, Civil War was never about slavery, it was about finance and taxation and the illegitimate Federal supremacy
over the Republic of States, not unlike the EU today. Lincoln only freed the slaves to use them as cannon fodder and as a fifth
column.
All of these politicians were purple people-eating lizards, except maybe the Kennedy's, and they got ground and pounded like
Conor McGregor, meh?
"representative government is one of the greatest achievements of the poor. If we could only get it to work honestly, and protect
it from the predations of the rich. This is a work in progress. It forms just one aspect of millennia of struggle. To give
up now would be madness."
Compare to: Sentiments of the Nation:
12º That as the good Law is superior to every man, those dictated by our Congress must be such, that they force constancy and
patriotism, moderate opulence and indigence; and in such a way increase the wages of the poor, improve their habits, moving away
from ignorance, rapine and theft.
13º That the general laws include everyone, without exception of privileged bodies; and that these are only in the use of the
ministry..
14º That in order to dictate a Law, the Meeting of Sages is made, in the possible number, so that it may proceed with more
success and exonerate of some charges that may result.
15. That slavery be banished forever, and the distinction of castes, leaving all the same, and only distinguish one American
from another by vice and virtue.
16º That our Ports be open to friendly foreign nations, but that they do not enter the nation, no matter how friendly they
may be, and there will only be Ports designated for that purpose, prohibiting disembarkation in all others, indicating ten percent.
17º That each one be kept his property, and respect in his House as in a sacred asylum, pointing out penalties to the offenders.
18º That the new legislation does not admit torture.
19º That the Constitutional Law establishes the celebration of December 12th in all Peoples, dedicated to the Patroness of
our Liberty, Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe, entrusting to all Peoples the monthly devotion.
20º That the foreign troops, or of another Kingdom, do not step on our soil, and if it were in aid, they will not without the
Supreme Junta approval.
21º That expeditions are not made outside the limits of the Kingdom, especially overseas, that they are not of this kind yet
rather to spread the faith to our brothers and sisters of the land inside.
22º That the infinity of tributes, breasts and impositions that overwhelm us be removed, and each individual be pointed out
a five percent of seeds and other effects or other equally light weight, that does not oppress so much, as the alcabala, the Tobacconist,
the Tribute and others; because with this slight contribution, and the good administration of the confiscated goods of the enemy,
will be able to take the weight of the War, and pay the fees of employees.
Temple of the Virgen of the Ascencion
Chilpancingo, September 14, 1813.
José Mª Morelos.
23º That also be solemnized on September 16, every year, as the Anniversary day on which the Voice of Independence was raised,
and our Holy Freedom began, because on that day it was in which the lips of the Nation were deployed to claim their rights with
Sword in hand to be heard: always remembering the merit of the great Hero Mr. Don Miguel Hidalgo and his companion Don Ignacio
Allende.
Answers on November 21, 1813. And therefore, these are abolished, always being subject to the opinion of S. [u] A. [alteza]
S. [very eminent]
Our commenter psychohistorian and others interested in public banking, and the
concept of money as a public utility rather than a private (and profit-gouging) instrument,
may want to watch the latest Keiser Report, which has an interview with Ellen Brown.
Brown relates that the city of Los Angeles has on its ballot for the November elections a
measure to create a city-owned bank. This was put on the ballot by the city council itself,
prompted by a groundswell of support coming from constituents.
The rapid-fire interview doesn't go deeply into the politics behind this citizen
initiative, but it seems like a happy story of young millennials looking for an alternative
to Wall Street banks, and learning from Brown and others about the strong value of the public
bank.
An interesting turn of events. The interview starts in the second half of the show at
14:40:
So they are continuing to turn on each other. I predict this will continue as they try to
'out victim' each other, and their logical inconsistencies become more and more evident.
Sadly this will likely turn violent, as the screaming harpies no of no other way to
resolve conflicts other than scorched earth.
Yep. Scorched-earth violence is capitalism's preferred method of dealing with it's
problems, as millions of people in the Middle East have come to learn.
There's nothing to cry about. Nothing at all has changed. The 1% owned the Supreme Court before adding Kavanaugh. I'm just
pointing out a little reality to all the useful idiots.
"... Accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history ..."
"... September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine. ..."
"... The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the Iraq debacle. ..."
"... Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by floating the idea of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White House candidate. ..."
Accountability is for the little people,
immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human
history
'If there are no legal consequences for profiteers who defrauded the
global economy into a collapse, what will deter those profiteers from doing that again?' Illustration: Mark Long/Mark Long for Guardian
US W hen the former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was
released from prison
a few weeks ago, the news conjured memories of a corporate scandal that now seems almost quaint – and it was also a reminder
that Enron executives were among the last politically connected criminals to face any serious consequences for institutionalized
fraud.
Since Skilling's conviction 12 years ago,
our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut
or election victory. This movement's objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled
aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.
Let's remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic
stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters.
While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition,
incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.
That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge,
the key players who created this era's catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment
– many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
The effort to construct this elite haven has tied together so many seemingly disparate news events, suggesting that there is a
method in the madness. Consider this past month that culminated with the dramatic battle over the judicial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which
served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine.
The event was attended by Iraq war proponents of both parties, from
Dick Cheney to
Lindsey
Graham to Hillary Clinton. The funeral featured a saccharine eulogy from the key Democratic proponent of the invasion, Joe Lieberman,
as well the resurrection of George W Bush. The
codpiece-flaunting
war president who piloted America into the cataclysm with
"bring 'em on" bravado,
"shock and awe" bloodlust and
"uranium from
Africa" dishonesty was suddenly portrayed as an icon of warmth and civility when he
passed a lozenge to Michelle Obama. The scene was depicted not as the gathering of a rogues gallery fit for a war crimes tribunal,
but as a
venerable
bipartisan reunion evoking
nostalgia for the supposed halcyon days – and Bush promptly used his newly revived image to
campaign
for Republican congressional candidates and
lobby
for Kavanaugh's appointment .
The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the
Iraq debacle.
Next up came the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis – a meltdown that laid waste to the global economy, while providing
lucrative taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street firms.
To mark the occasion, the three men on whose watch it occurred – Fed chair Ben Bernanke, Bush treasury secretary Hank Paulson
and Obama treasury secretary Tim Geithner – did not offer an apology, but instead promised that another financial crisis will eventually
occur, and they
demanded lawmakers give public officials
more power to bail out big banks in the future.
In a similar bipartisan show of unity, former Trump economic adviser
Gary Cohn gave an interview in which he asked "Who broke the law?" – the implication being that no Wall Street executives were
prosecuted for their role in the meltdown because no statutes had been violated. That suggestion, of course, is undermined by
banks
'
own
admissions that they defrauded investors (that includes
admissions of fraud
from Goldman Sachs – the very bank that Cohn himself ran during the crisis). Nonetheless,
Obama's attorney
general, Eric Holder – who has now rejoined
his old corporate defense law firm – subsequently backed Cohn up by arguing that nobody on Wall Street committed an offense that
could have been successfully prosecuted in a court of law.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by
floating the idea
of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic
lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White
House candidate.
Again, the message came through: nobody who engineered the financial crisis will pay any real price for wreaking so much havoc.
Then as
Hurricane Florence provided the latest illustration of climate change's devastation, ExxonMobil
marched into the supreme court to demand an end to a state investigation of its role denying and suppressing climate science.
Backed by 11 Republican attorneys general
, the fossil fuel giant had reason to feel emboldened in its appeal for immunity: despite
investigative reporting detailing the company's prior knowledge of fossil fuel's role in climate change, its executives had already
convinced
the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down a similar investigation.
Once again, the message was unavoidable: in the new accountability-free zone, companies shouldn't be bothered to even explain
– much less face punishment for – their role in a crisis that threatens the survival of the human species.
... ... ...
The answer is nothing – which is exactly the point for the aristocracy. But that cannot be considered acceptable for the rest
of us outside the accountability-free zone.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist at Capital & Main. His latest book is Back to Our Future:
How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
"... Leland Keyser, who Ford claims was at the infamous high school "groping" party, told FBI investigators that mutual friend and retired FBI agent, Monica McLean, warned her that Senate Republicans were going to use her statement to rebut Ford's allegation against Kavanaugh, and that she should at least "clarify" her story to say that she didn't remember the party - not that it had never happened. ..."
"... So we have Dr. Blasey-Ford in Rehoboth Beach, DE, on 26th July 2018. We've got her life-long BFF, Monica L McLean, who worked as attorney and POI in the DOJ/FBI in Rehoboth Beach, DE . Apparently at same time she wrote letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein. ..."
A former FBI agent and lifelong friend of Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford allegedly
pressured a woman to change her statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault by
Kavanaugh in 1982, reports the
Wall
Street Journal
.
Leland Keyser, who Ford claims was at the infamous high school "groping" party, told FBI
investigators that mutual friend and retired FBI agent, Monica McLean, warned her that Senate
Republicans were going to use her statement to rebut Ford's allegation against Kavanaugh, and that
she should at least "clarify" her story to say that she didn't remember the party - not that it had
never happened.
The
Journal
also reports that after the FBI sent their initial report on the Kavanaugh
allegations to the White House,
they sent the White House and Senate an additional package
of information which included text messages from McLean to Keyser
.
McLean's lawyer, David Laufman, categorically denied that his client pressured Keyser, saying in
a statement: "Any notion or claim that Ms. McLean pressured Leland Keyser to alter Ms. Keyser's
account of what she recalled concerning the alleged incident between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh
is absolutely false."
Ms. Keyser's lawyer on Sept. 23 said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that
she had no recollection of attending a party with Judge Kavanaugh
, whom she
said she didn't know.
That same day, however, she told the Washington Post that she
believed Dr. Ford
. On Sept. 29, two days after Dr. Ford and the judge testified before
the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms.
Keyser's attorney sent a letter to the panel saying
his client wasn't refuting Dr. Ford's account and that she believed it but couldn't corroborate
it.
-
WSJ
Keyser's admission to the FBI - which is subject to perjury laws - may influence the Senate's
upcoming confirmation debates. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN)
said that he found the most
significant material in the FBI report to be statements from people close to Ford who wanted to
corroborate her account and were "sympathetic in wishing they could, but they could not."
In his testimony last week, Judge Kavanaugh sought to use Ms. Keyser's initial statement to
undercut his accuser. "
Dr. Ford's allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted
by the very people she says were there, including by a long-time friend of hers
," he
said. "
Refuted
."
Two days later, Ms. Keyser's lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee: "Ms.
Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford's account, and she has already told the press that she believes
Dr. Ford's account." Mr. Walsh added: "However,
the simple and unchangeable truth is
that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in
question.
" -
WSJ
In last week's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ford claimed she never told
Keyser about the assault, saying "She didn't know about the event. She was downstairs during the
event and I did not share it with her," and adding that she didn't "expect" that Keyser would
remember the "very unremarkable party."
"Leland has significant health challenges, and I'm happy that she's focusing on herself and
getting the health treatment that she needs, and she let me know that she needed her lawyer to take
care of this for her, and she texted me right afterward with an apology and good wishes, and et
cetera." said Ford.
About that polygraph
On Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) fired off an intriguing
letter to Christine Blasey Ford's attorneys on Tuesday, requesting several pieces of evidence
related to her testimony - including all materials from the polygraph test she took,
after
her ex-boyfriend of six years
refuted statements she made
under oath last week.
Grassley writes: "The full details of Dr. Ford's polygraph are particularly important because
the Senate Judiciary Committee has received a sworn statement from a longtime boyfriend of Dr.
Ford's, stating that
he personally witnessed Dr. Ford coaching a friend on polygraph
examinations.
When asked under oath in the hearing whether she'd ever given any tips or
advice to someone who was planning on taking a polygraph,
Dr. Ford replied, "Never."
This
statement raises specific concerns about the reliability of her polygraph examination results."
McLean issued a Wednesday statement rejecting the ex-boyfriend's claims that she was coached on
how to take a polygraph test.
A closer look at McLean
Enjoying the tastes are In back (l-r) Kelly Devine and Nuh Tekmen. In front,
Monica
McLean
, Karen Sposato, Catherine Hester, Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes, and Jennifer Burton.
BY DENY HOWETH
An intriguing analysis by "Sundance" of the
Conservative
Treehouse
lays out several curious items for consideration.
First, McLean signed a letter from members of the Holton-Arms class of 1984 supporting Ford's
claim.
Next, we look at McLean's career:
Monica Lee McLean was admitted to the California Bar in 1992, the same year Ms Ford's
boyfriend stated he began a six-year relationship with her best friend
. The address
for the current inactive California Law License is now listed as *"Rehoboth Beach, DE". [*Note*
remember this, it becomes more relevant later.] -
Conservative
Treehouse
Sundance notes that "Sometime between 2000 and 2003, Ms. Monica L McLean transferred to the
Southern District of New York (SDNY), FBI New York Field Office; where she shows up on various
reports, including media reports, as a spokesperson for the FBI." and that "
After 2003, Ms.
Monica L McLean is working with the SDNY as a Public Information Officer for the FBI New York Field
Office, side-by-side with SDNY Attorney General Preet Bharara
:"
Here's where things get really interesting:
Ms. Monica Lee McLean and Ms. Christine Blasey-Ford are life-long friends; obviously they
have known each other since their High School days at Holton-Arms; and both lived together as
"roommates" in California after college. Their close friendship is cited by Ms. Fords former
boyfriend of six years.
Ms. Monica McLean retired from the FBI in 2016; apparently right after the presidential
election.
Her current residence is listed at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
; which
aligns with public records and the serendipitous printed article.
Now,
where did Ms. Blasey-Ford testify she was located at the time she wrote the
letter to Dianne Feinstein, accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh
?
[Transcript]
MITCHELL: The second is the letter that you wrote to Senator Feinstein, dated the -- July 30th of
this year.
MITCHELL: Did you write the letter yourself?
FORD: I did.
MITCHELL: And I -- since it's dated July 30th, did you write it on that date?
FORD: I believe so. I -- it sounds right.
I was in Rehoboth, Delaware, at the time
.
I could look into my calendar and try to figure that out. It seemed
MITCHELL: Was it written on or about that date?
FORD: Yes, yes. I traveled, I think, the 26th of July to Rehoboth, Delaware. So that makes
sense, because I wrote it from there.
MITCHELL: Is the letter accurate? FORD: I'll take a minute to read it.
So we have Dr. Blasey-Ford in Rehoboth Beach, DE, on 26th July 2018. We've got her life-long
BFF, Monica L McLean, who worked as attorney and POI in the DOJ/FBI in Rehoboth Beach, DE .
Apparently at same time she wrote letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein. -
Conservative
Treehouse
Thus, it appears that Blasey Ford was with McLean for four days leading up to the actual writing
of the letter, from July 26th to July 30th.
Not only did Ms. McLean possesses a particular set of skills to assist Ms. Ford, but Ms.
McLean would also have a network of DOJ and FBI resources to assist in the endeavor. A former
friendly FBI agent to do the polygraph; a network of politically motivated allies?
Does the appearance of FBI insider and Deputy FBI Director to Andrew McCabe, Michael
Bromwich, begin to make more sense?
Do the loud and overwhelming requests by political allies for FBI intervention, take on a
different meaning or make more sense, now?
Standing back and taking a look at the bigger, BIG PICTURE .. could it be that Mrs.
McLean and her team of ideological compatriots within the DOJ and FBI, who have massive axes to
grind against the current Trump administration, are behind this entire endeavor?
-
Conservative
Treehouse
Were Ford and McLean working together to take out Kavanaugh?
In September we reported that an audio recording purportedly from a July conference call
suggests that Christine Blasey Ford's sexual assault accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh wasn't simply a reluctant claim that Diane Feinstein sat on until the 11th hour.
The recording features
Ricki Seidman
-
a former Clinton and Obama White House official and Democratic operative who advised Anita Hill
during the Clarence Thomas hearings, and who was revealed on Thursday as an adviser to Ford by
Politico
.
Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of
sexually assaulting her when they were both teenagers,
is being advised by Democratic
operative Ricki Seidman
.
Seidman, a senior principal at TSD Communications, in the past worked as an investigator for
Sen. Ted Kennedy, and was involved with Anita Hill's decision to testify against Supreme Court
Nominee Clarence Thomas. -
Politico
"While I think at the outset, looking at the numbers in the Senate, it's not extremely likely
that the nominee can be defeated," says Seidman. "I would absolutely withhold judgement as the
process goes on. I think that I would not reach any conclusion about the outcome in advance."
What's more, the recording makes clear that
even if Kavanaugh is confirmed, Democrats
can use the doubt cast over him during midterms.
"Over the coming days and weeks, there will be a strategy that will emerge, and I think it's
possible that that strategy might ultimately defeat the nominee...
whether or not it
ultimately defeats the nominee, it will help people understand why it's so important that they vote
and the deeper principles that are involved in it.
"
"... Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy on Tuesday recommended an FBI investigation into Swetnick for making false statements about Judge Kavanaugh. ..."
"... in keeping with his "shock" approach to the practice of law, moments ago Avenatti released a sworn, redacted statement with from yet another witness claiming to have seen Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge "drink excessively and be overly aggressive and verbally abusive toward girls." ..."
The back and forth escalated as Swetnick's claims have increasingly come under fire as her
own credibility has been undermined by both recent interviews and her own past actions. So much
so, in fact, that Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy on Tuesday recommended an FBI
investigation into Swetnick for making false statements about Judge Kavanaugh.
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. 0
@SenBillCassidy
A criminal referral should be sent to the FBI/DOJ regarding the
apparently false affidavit signed by Julie Swetnick that was
submitted to the Senate by @MichaelAvenatti.
12:37 PM-Oct 2, 2018
Q? 25.9K Q 13K people are talking about this О
The threat of a probe into his own client did not daunt the pop lawyer, who on
Wednesday morning tweeted that "we
still have yet to hear anything from the FBI despite a new witness coming forward &
submitting a declaration last night. We now have multiple witnesses that support the
allegations and they are all prepared to be interviewed by the FBI. Trump's "investigation" is
a scam."
And, in keeping with his "shock" approach to the practice of law, moments ago Avenatti
released a sworn, redacted statement with from yet another witness claiming to have seen Brett
Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge "drink excessively and be overly aggressive and verbally
abusive toward girls."
As Russia is preparing plans to wean its banking system off the dollar, advancing a trend of
de-dollarization among the US's largest economic and geopolitical rivals, Russian President
Vladimir Putin accused Washington of making a "colossal" but "typical" mistake by exploiting
the dominance of the dollar by levying economic sanctions against regimes that don't bow to its
whims.
"It seems to me that our American partners make a colossal strategic mistake," Putin
said.
"This is a typical mistake of any empire," Putin said, explaining that the US is ignoring
the consequences of its actions because its economy is strong and the dollar's hegemonic
grasp on global markets remains intact. However "the consequences come sooner or later."
These remarks echoed a sentiment expressed by Putin back in May, when he said that Russia
can no longer trust the US dollar because of America's decisions to impose unilateral sanctions
and violate WTO rules.
While Putin's criticisms are hardly new, these latest remarks happen to follow a report in
the
Financial Times, published Tuesday night, detailing Russia's efforts to wean its economy
off of the dollar. The upshot is that while de-dollarization may be painful, it is, ultimately
doable.
The US imposed another round of sanctions against Russia over the summer in response to the
poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the US Senate is
considering measures that would effectively cut Russia's biggest banks off from the dollar and
largely exclude Moscow from foreign debt markets.
With the possibility of being cut off from the dollar system looming, a plan prepared by
Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian bank VTB, is being embraced by much of the Russian
establishment. Kostin's plan would facilitate the conversion of dollar settlements into other
currencies which would help wean Russian industries off the dollar. And it already has the
backing of Russia's finance ministry, central bank and Putin.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is also working on deals with major trading partners to accept the
Russian ruble for imports and exports.
In a sign that a united front is forming to help undermine the dollar, Russia's efforts have
been readily embraced by China and Turkey, which is unsurprising, given their increasingly
fraught relationships with the US. During joint military exercises in Vladivostok last month,
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that their countries would work together to
counter US tariffs and sanctions.
"More and more countries, not only in the east but also in Europe, are beginning to think
about how to minimise dependence on the US dollar," said Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's
spokesperson. "And they suddenly realise that a) it is possible, b) it needs to be done and
c) you can save yourself if you do it sooner."
Still, there's no question that US sanctions have damaged Russia's currency and contributed
to a rise in borrowing costs. And whether Russia - which relies heavily on energy exports - can
convince buyers of its oil and natural gas to accept payment in rubles remains an open
question. Increased trade with China and other Asian countries has helped reduce Russia's
dependence on the dollar. But the greenback still accounted for 68% of Russia's payment
inflow.
But, as Putin has repeatedly warned, that won't stop them from trying. The fact is that
Russia is a major exporter, with a trade surplus of $115 billion last year. As the FT pointed
out, Russia's metals, grain, oil and gas are consumed around the world - even in the west,
despite the tensions surrounding Russia's alleged involvement in the Skripal poisoning and its
annexation of Crimea.
To be sure, abandoning the dollar as the currency of choice for oil-related payments would
be no easy feat. But China has already taken the first step and show that it can be done by
launching a yuan-denominated futures contract that trades in Shanghai - striking the most
significant blow to date against the petrodollar's previously unchallenged dominance.
That should embolden Putin to continue with his experiment - not that the US is leaving him
much choice.
"... The vote for Brexit and the election of protectionist Donald Trump to the US presidency – two momentous markers of the ongoing pushback against globalization – led some to question the rationality of voters. This column presents a framework that demonstrates how the populist backlash against globalisation is actually a rational voter response when the economy is strong and inequality is high. It highlights the fragility of globalization in a democratic society that values equality. ..."
"... See original post for references ..."
"... Aversion to inequality thus reflects envy of the economic elites rather than compassion for the poor. ..."
Posted on September 28,
2018 by Yves
Smith Yves here. Haha, Lambert's volatility voters thesis confirmed! They are voting
against inequality and globalization. This important post also explains how financialization
drives populist rebellions.
By Lubos Pastor, Charles P. McQuaid Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth
School of Business and Pietro Veronesi, Roman Family Professor of Finance, University of
Chicago Booth School of Business. Originally published at VoxEU
The vote for Brexit and the election of protectionist Donald Trump to the US presidency
– two momentous markers of the ongoing pushback against globalization – led some to
question the rationality of voters. This column presents a framework that demonstrates how the
populist backlash against globalisation is actually a rational voter response when the economy
is strong and inequality is high. It highlights the fragility of globalization in a democratic
society that values equality.
The ongoing pushback against globalization in the West is a defining phenomenon of this
decade. This pushback is best exemplified by two momentous 2016 votes: the British vote to
leave the EU ('Brexit') and the election of a protectionist, Donald Trump, to the US
presidency. In both cases, rich-country electorates voted to take a step back from the
long-standing process of global integration. "Today, globalization is going through a major
crisis" (Macron 2018).
Some commentators question the wisdom of the voters responsible for this pushback. They
suggest Brexit and Trump supporters have been confused by misleading campaigns and foreign
hackers. They joke about turkeys voting for Christmas. They call for another Brexit referendum,
which would allow the Leavers to correct their mistakes.
Rational Voters
We take a different perspective. In a recent paper, we develop a theory in which a backlash
against globalization happens while all voters are perfectly rational (Pastor and Veronesi
2018). We do not, of course, claim that all voters are rational; we simply argue that
explaining the backlash does not require irrationality. Not only can the backlash happen in our
theory; it is inevitable.
We build a heterogeneous-agent equilibrium model in which a backlash against globalization
emerges as the optimal response of rational voters to rising inequality. A rise in inequality
has been observed throughout the West in recent decades (e.g. Atkinson et al. 2011). In our
model, rising inequality is a natural consequence of economic growth. Over time, global growth
exacerbates inequality, which eventually leads to a pushback against globalization.
Who Dislike Inequality
Agents in our model like consumption but dislike inequality. Individuals may prefer equality
for various reasons. Equality helps prevent crime and preserve social stability. Inequality
causes status anxiety at all income levels, which leads to health and social problems
(Wilkinson and Pickett 2009, 2018). In surveys, people facing less inequality report being
happier (e.g. Morawetz et al. 1977, Alesina et al. 2004, Ferrer-i-Carbonell and Ramos 2014).
Experimental results also point to egalitarian preferences (e.g. Dawes et al. 2007).
We measure inequality by the variance of consumption shares across agents. Given our other
modelling assumptions, equilibrium consumption develops a right-skewed distribution across
agents. As a result, inequality is driven by the high consumption of the rich rather than the
low consumption of the poor. Aversion to inequality thus reflects envy of the economic elites
rather than compassion for the poor.
Besides inequality aversion, our model features heterogeneity in risk aversion. This
heterogeneity generates rising inequality in a growing economy because less risk-averse agents
consume a growing share of total output. We employ individual-level differences in risk
aversion to capture the fact that some individuals benefit more from global growth than others.
In addition, we interpret country-level differences in risk aversion as differences in
financial development. We consider two 'countries': the US and the rest of the world. We assume
that US agents are less risk-averse than rest-of-the-world agents, capturing the idea that the
US is more financially developed than the rest of the world.
At the outset, the two countries are financially integrated – there are no barriers to
trade and risk is shared globally. At a given time, both countries hold elections featuring two
candidates. The 'mainstream' candidate promises to preserve globalization, whereas the
'populist' candidate promises to end it. If either country elects a populist, a move to autarky
takes place and cross-border trading stops. Elections are decided by the median voter.
Global risk sharing exacerbates US inequality. Given their low risk aversion, US agents
insure the agents of the rest of the world by holding aggressive and disperse portfolio
positions. The agents holding the most aggressive positions benefit disproportionately from
global growth. The resulting inequality leads some US voters, those who feel left behind by
globalization, to vote populist.
Why Vote Populist?
When deciding whether to vote mainstream or populist, US agents face a
consumption-inequality trade-off. If elected, the populist delivers lower consumption but also
lower inequality to US agents. After a move to autarky, US agents can no longer borrow from the
rest of the world to finance their excess consumption. But their inequality drops too, because
the absence of cross-border leverage makes their portfolio positions less disperse.
As output grows, the marginal utility of consumption declines, and US agents become
increasingly willing to sacrifice consumption in exchange for more equality. When output grows
large enough -- see the vertical line in the figure below -- more than half of US agents prefer
autarky and the populist wins the US election. This is our main result: in a growing economy,
the populist eventually gets elected. In a democratic society that values equality,
globalization cannot survive in the long run.
Figure 1 Vote share of the populist candidate
Equality Is a Luxury Good
Equality can be interpreted as a luxury good in that society demands more of it as it
becomes wealthier. Voters might also treat culture, traditions, and other nonpecuniary values
as luxury goods. Consistent with this argument, the recent rise in populism appears
predominantly in rich countries. In poor countries, agents are not willing to sacrifice
consumption in exchange for nonpecuniary values.
Globalization would survive under a social planner. Our competitive market solution differs
from the social planner solution due to the negative externality that the elites impose on
others through their high consumption. To see if globalization can be saved by redistribution,
we analyse redistributive policies that transfer wealth from low risk-aversion agents, who
benefit the most from globalization, to high risk-aversion agents, who benefit the least. We
show that such policies can delay the populist's victory, but cannot prevent it from happening
eventually.
Which Countries Are Populist?
Our model predicts that support for populism should be stronger in countries that are more
financially developed, more unequal, and running current account deficits. Looking across 29
developed countries, we find evidence supporting these predictions.
Figure 2 Vote share of populist parties in recent elections
The US and the UK are good examples. Both have high financial development, large inequality,
and current account deficits. It is thus no coincidence, in the context of our model, that
these countries led the populist wave in 2016. In contrast, Germany is less financially
developed, less unequal, and it runs a sizable current account surplus. Populism has been
relatively subdued in Germany, as our model predicts. The model emphasises the dark side of
financial development – it spurs the growth of inequality, which eventually leads to a
populist backlash.
Who are the Populist Voters?
The model also makes predictions about the characteristics of populist voters. Compared to
mainstream voters, populist voters should be more inequality-averse (i.e. more anti-elite) and
more risk-averse (i.e. better insured against consumption fluctuations). Like highly
risk-averse agents, poorer and less-educated agents have less to lose from the end of
globalization. The model thus predicts that these agents are more likely to vote populist. That
is indeed what we find when we examine the characteristics of the voters who supported Brexit
in the 2016 EU referendum and Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
The model's predictions for asset prices are also interesting. The global market share of US
stocks should rise in anticipation of the populist's victory. Indeed, the US share of the
global stock market rose steadily before the 2016 Trump election. The US bond yields should be
unusually low before the populist's victory. Indeed, bond yields in the West were low when the
populist wave began.
Backlash in a booming economy
In our model, a populist backlash occurs when the economy is strong because that is when
inequality is high. The model helps us understand why the backlash is occurring now, as the US
economy is booming. The economy is going through one of its longest macroeconomic expansions
ever, having been growing steadily for almost a decade since the 2008 crisis.
This study relates to our prior work at the intersection of finance and political economy.
Here, we exploit the cross-sectional variation in risk aversion, whereas in our 2017 paper, we
analyse its time variation (Pastor and Veronesi 2017). In the latter model, time-varying risk
aversion generates political cycles in which Democrats and Republicans alternate in power, with
higher stock returns under Democrats. Our previous work also explores links between risk
aversion and inequality (Pastor and Veronesi 2016).
Conclusions
We highlight the fragility of globalization in a democratic society that values equality. In
our model, a pushback against globalization arises as a rational voter response. When a country
grows rich enough, it becomes willing to sacrifice consumption in exchange for a more equal
society. Redistribution is of limited value in our frictionless, complete-markets model. Our
formal model supports the narrative of Rodrik (1997, 2000), who argues that we cannot have all
three of global economic integration, the nation state, and democratic politics.
If policymakers want to save globalization, they need to make the world look different from
our model. One attractive policy option is to improve the financial systems of less-developed
countries. Smaller cross-country differences in financial development would mitigate the uneven
effects of cross-border risk sharing. More balanced global risk sharing would result in lower
current account deficits and, eventually, lower inequality in the rich world.
"rising inequality is a natural consequence of economic growth. " For which definition of
growth? Or maybe, observing that cancer is the very model of growth, for any definition?
Nice model and graphs, though.
What kind of political economy is to be discerned, and how is one to effectuate it with
systems that would have to be so very different to have a prayer of providing lasting
homeostatic functions?
The global overclass can hardly wait too. They think they are in position to guide the
change to their desired outcome. Targeted applied Jackpot Engineering, you know.
At some point if the majority dont think they get any benefit from the economy, they will
put a stake through it, and replace it with some thing that works?now that could be some
thing very different, but it will happen
I had the same thought – growth as defined in the current, neoliberal model. There
is nothing inevitable about inequality – it is caused by political choices.
It is painful to find these assumptions accepted at NC.
"the economy is strong"
Not from my perspective. Or from the perspectives of the work force or the industrial base
replacing themselves. Or the perspective of a 4 to 5 trillion dollar shortfall in
infrastructure funding.
"In our model, rising inequality is a natural consequence of economic growth."
Well, that simply did not happen 1946 to 1971.
"populist delivers lower consumption but also lower inequality to US agents."
REALLY? Consumption of WHAT? Designer handbags and jeans? What about consumption of mass
public transit and health care services? I'm very confident that a populist government that
found a way to put a muzzle on Wall Street and the banksters would increase consumption of
things I prefer while also lessening inequality.
Reading through this summary of modeling, it occurred to me that the operative variable
was not inequality so much as "high financial development."
Yes and also, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. These days, just saying
that globalisation leads to inequality and people act rationally, when they push back –
even though choices are limited – is pretty revolutionary. We need other analyses along
those lines, maybe with a few corrections. Thanks for posting!
" In our model, a populist backlash occurs when the economy is strong because that is when
inequality is high. "
Yes to the above comments. This sentence really stuck in my throat. A strong economy to me
is one that achieves balanced equality. Somehow this article avoids the manner in which the
current economy became "strong". Perhaps a better word is "corrupt". (No 'perhaps' really;
I'm just being polite.)
I also didn't like that the anti-neoliberalists are being portrayed as not having sympathy
for the poor. Gosh, we are a hard-hearted lot, only interested in our own come-uppance and
risk-adversity.
A "strong" economy is one that is growing as measured by GDP – full stop. Inequality
looks to me like a feature of our global economic value system, not a bug.
I only read these articles to see what the enemy is thinking. The vast majority of
economists are nothing more than cheerleaders for capitalism. I imagine anybody who strays
too far from neoliberal orthodoxy is ignored.
the Trump/Brexit populist thinking has nothing to do with equality. it has do do with who
should get preferential treatment and why -- it's about drawing a tight circle on who get's
to be considered "equal".
not sure how you can pull a desire for equality from this (except through statistics,
which can be used to "prove" anything).
I'm confused – so the evidence of statistics should be discounted, in favor of more
persuasive evidence? Consisting of your own authoritative statements about the motives of
other people?
In the future, please try to think about what sorts of arguments are likely to be
persuasive to people who don't already agree with you.
If you consider yourself an "environmentalist," then you have to be against
globalization.
(From the easiest to universally agree upon) the multi-continental supply chain for
everything from tube socks to cobalt to frozen fish is unsustainable, barring Star Trek-type
transport tech breakthroughs.
(to the less easily to universally agree upon) the population of the entire developed
(even in the US) would be stablized/falling/barely rising, but for migration.
mass migration-fueled population growth/higher fertility rates of migrants in the
developed world and increased resource footprint is bad for both the developed world and
developing world.
The long, narrow, and manifold supply lines which characterize our present systems of
globalization make the world much more fragile. The supply chains are fraught with single
points of systemic failure. At the same time Climate Disruption increases the risk that a
disaster can affect these single points of failure. I fear that the level of instability in
the world systems is approaching the point where multiple local disasters could have
catastrophic effects at a scale orders of magnitude greater than the scale of the triggering
events -- like the Mr. Science demonstration of a chain-reaction where he tosses a single
ping pong ball into a room full of mousetraps set with ping pong balls. You have to be
against globalization if you're against instability.
The entire system of globalization is completely dependent on a continuous supply of cheap
fuel to power the ships, trains, and trucks moving goods around the world. That supply of
cheap fuel has its own fragile supply lines upon which the very life of our great cities
depends. Little food is grown where the most food is eaten -- this reflects the distributed
nature of our supply chains greatly fostered by globalization.
Globalization increases the power and control Corporate Cartels have over their workers.
It further increases the power large firms have over smaller firms as the costs and
complexities of globalized trade constitute a relatively larger overhead for smaller firms.
Small producers of goods find themselves flooded with cheaper foreign knock-offs and
counterfeits of any of their designs that find a place in the market. It adds uncertainty and
risk to employment and small ventures. Globalization magnifies the power of the very large
and very rich over producers and consumers.
I believe the so-called populist voters and their backlash in a "booming" economy are
small indications of a broad unrest growing much faster than our "booming" economies. That
unrest is one more risk to add to the growing list of risks to an increasingly fragile
system. The world is configured for a collapse that will be unprecedented in its speed and
scope.
Actually, the way I see it – if one considers oneself an environmentalist, one has
to be against capitalism, not just globalization. Capitalism is built on constant growth
– but on a planet, with limited resources, that simply cannot work. Not long term
unless we're prepared to dig up and/or pave over everything. Only very limited-scale,
mom-and-pop kind of capitalism can try to work long term – but the problem is, it would
not stay that way because greed gets in the way every time and there's no limiting greed.
(Greed as a concept was limited in the socialist system – but some folks did not like
that.)
" Given their low risk aversion, US agents insure the agents of the rest of the world by
holding aggressive and disperse portfolio positions."
That low risk aversion could be driven by the willingness of the US government to provide
military/diplomatic/trade assistance to US businesses around the word. The risk inherent in
moving factories, doing resource extraction and conducting business overseas is always there,
but if one's government lessens the risk via force projection and control of local
governments, a US agent could appear to be "less risk averse" because the US taxpayer has
"got their back".
This paper closes with
"If policymakers want to save globalization, they need to make the world look different
from our model. One attractive policy option is to improve the financial systems of
less-developed countries. Smaller cross-country differences in financial development would
mitigate the uneven effects of cross-border risk sharing. More balanced global risk sharing
would result in lower current account deficits and, eventually, lower inequality in the rich
world."
Ah yes, to EVENTUALLY lower inequality, the USA needs to "improve the financial systems of
less-well developed countries"
Perhaps the USA needs to improve its OWN financial system first?
Paul Woolley has suggested, the US and UK financial systems are 2 to 3 times they should
be.
And the USA's various financial industry driven bubbles, the ZIRP rescue of the financial
industry, and mortgage security fraud seem all connected back to the USA financial
industry.
Inequality did not improve in the aftermath of these events as the USA helped preserve the
elite class.
Maybe the authors have overlooked a massive home field opportunity?
That being that the USA should consider "improving" its own financial system to help
inequality.
I'm glad to see that issues and views discussed pretty regularly here in more or less
understandable English have been translated into Academese. Being a high risk averse plebe,
who will not starve for lack of trade with China, but may have to pay a bit more for
strawberries for lack of cheap immigrant labor, I count myself among the redistributionist
economic nationalists.
Right now I'm making raisins from the grapes harvested here at home .. enough to last for
a year, or maybe two. Sure, it's laborous to some extent, but the supply chain is very short
.. the cost, compared to buying the same amount at retait rates, is minuscule, and they're as
'organic' as can be. The point I'm trying to make is that wth some personal effort, we can
all live lighter, live slower, and be, for the most part, contented.
Might as well step into collapse, gracefully, and avoid the rush, as per J. M. Greer's
mantra.
The UK had become somewhat dependent on Switzerland for wristwatches prior to WW2, and all
of the sudden France falls and that's all she wrote for imports.
Must've been a mad scramble to resurrect the business, or outsource elsewhere.
My wife and I were talking about what would happen if say the reign of error pushes us
into war with China, and thanks to our just in time way of life, the goods on the shelves of
most every retailer, would be plundered by consumers, and maybe they could be restocked a few
times, but that's it.
I recently purchased a cabinet/shelf for 20 tubmans, from a repurposing/recycling
business, and, after putting a couple of hundred moar tubmans into it .. some of which
included recycled latex paints and hardware .. transformed it into a fabulous stand-alone
kitchen storage unit. If I were to purchase such at retail, it would most likely go for close
to $800- $1000.00 easy !!
With care, this 'renewed' polecat heirloom will certainly outlive it's recreator, and pass on
for generations henceforth.
Yes, thank goodness there was no mention of Canada's failure to negotiate a trade treaty
with our best friend. All of a sudden, Canadians seem to be the target of a lot of ill will
in other articles.
I think it's just ill- informed jealousy. Us US mopes think Canadians are much better off
than we Yanks, health care and such. You who live there have your own insights, of course.
Trudeau and the Ford family and tar sands and other bits.
And some of us are peeved that you don't want us migrating to take advantage of your more
beneficent milieu.
It's a different vibe up over, their housing bubble crested and is sinking, as the road to
HELOC was played with the best intentions even more furiously than here in the heat of the
bubble.
Can Canada bail itself out as we did in the aftermath, and keep the charade going?
Feel free to fill out that 8 inch high pile of Canadian immigration documentation, so
ya'all can come on up and join the party. Or just jump on your pony and ride North into the
Land of the Grandmother. Trudeau wants more people and has failed to offer proper sacrifice
to the god Terminus, the god of borders, so .
Just don't move to "Van" unless you have a few million to drop on a "reno'ed" crack shack.
When the god Pluto crawls back into the earth, the housing bubble will burst, and it's not
going to be pretty.
That's funny as our dam here is called the Terminus Reservoir, if the name fits
I'm just looking for an ancestral way out of what might prove to be a messy scene down
under, i'd gladly shack up in one of many of my relatives basements if Max Mad breaks out
here.
Great article, interesting data points, but besides placing tariffs on Chinese imports
there is nothing populist about Trump, just empty rhetoric. Highly regressive tax cuts for
the wealthy, further deregulation, wanton environmental destruction, extremist right-wing
ideologues as judges, a cabinet full of Wall Street finance guys, more boiler-plate Neo-Lib
policies as far as I can tell.
I fear Trump and the Brexiters are giving populism a bad name. A functioning democracy
should always elect populists. A government of elected officials who do not represent the
public will is not really a democracy.
Aversion to inequality thus reflects envy of the economic elites rather than
compassion for the poor.
That's ridiculous. Indeed, the Brexit campaign was all about othering the poor and
powerless immigrants, as well as the cultural, artistic, urban and academic elites, never the
the moneyed elites, not the 1%. The campaign involved no dicussion what's so ever of the
actual numbers of wealth inequality.
When deciding whether to vote mainstream or populist, US agents face a
consumption-inequality trade-off. If elected, the populist delivers lower consumption but
also lower inequality to US agents.
How can anyone possibly write such a thing? The multi-trillion tax cut from Donald Trump
represents a massive long time rise in inequality. Vis-à-vis Brexit, the entire
campaign support for that mad endeavor came from free-trader fundamentalists who want to be
free to compete with both hands in the global race-to-the-bottom while the EU is (barely)
restraining them.
Trump and Brexit voters truly are irrational turkeys (that's saying a lot for anyone who's
met an actual turkey) voting for Christmas.
Some of us mopes who voted for Trump did so as a least-bad alternative to HER, just to try
to kick the hornet's nest and get something to fly out: So your judgment is that those folks
are "irrational turkeys," bearing in mind how mindless the Christmas and Thansgiving turkeys
have been bred to be?
Better to arm up, get out in the street, and start marching and chanting and ready to
confront the militarized police? I'd say, face it: as people here have noted there is a
system in place, the "choices" are frauds to distract us every couple of years, and the
vectors all point down into some pretty ugly terrain.
Bless those who have stepped off the conveyor, found little places where they can live
"autarkically," more or less, and are waiting out the Ragnarok/Gotterdammerung/Mad Max
anomie, hoping not to be spotted by the warbands that will form up and roam the terrain
looking for bits of food and fuel and slaves and such. Like one survivalist I spotted
recently says as his tag-line, "If you have stuff, you're a target. If you have knowledge.
you have a chance–" this in a youtube video on how to revive a defunct nickel-cadmium
drill battery by zapping it with a stick welder. (It works, by the way.)He's a chain smoker
and his BMI must be close to 100, but he's got knowledge
The papers's framing of the issues is curious: the populace has 'envy' of the well-off;
and populism (read envy) rises when the economy is strong and inequality rises (read where's
my yaht?).
The paper lacks acknowledgement of the corruption, fraud, and rigging of policy that rises
when an overly financialized economy is 'good.' This contributes to inequality. Inequality is
not just unequal, but extremely disproportionate distributions which cause real suffering and
impoverishment of the producers. It follows (but not to the writer of this paper) that the
citizens take offense at and objection to the disproprtionate takings of some and the meager
receipts of the many. It's this that contributes to populism.
And the kicker: to save globalization, let's financialize the less developed economies to
mitigate cross-border inequalities. Huh? Was not the discussion about developed nations'
voters to rising inequality in face of globalization? The problem is not cross-border 'envy.'
It's globalization instrinsically and how it is gamed.
I'm with Olga. It's good to see that voting "wrong" taken seriously, and seen as
economically rational. Opposing globalization makes sense, even in the idiosyncratic usage of
economics.
The trouble, of course, is that the world of economics is not the world we live in.
Why does the immigrant cross the border? Is it only for "pecuniary interests," only for
the money? Then why do so many send most of it back across the border, in remittances?
If people in poor countries aren't willing to sacrifice for "luxuries," like a dignified
human life, who was Simon Bolivar, Che Guevara, or more recently, Berta Cáceres?
Seems to be a weakness of economic models in general: it's inconceivable that people do
things for other than pecuniary interests. In the reductionist terms of natural science,
we're social primates, not mechanical information engines.
If this model were a back patio cart, like the one I'm building right now, I wouldn't set
my beer on it. Looks like a cart from a distance, though, esp when you're looking for
one.
To the extent that the backlash has irrational aspects in the way it manifests, I would
suspect that it relates to the refusal of the self-styled responsible people to participate
in opening more rational paths to solutions, or even to acknowledge the existence of a
problem. When the allegedly responsible and knowledgeable actors refuse to act, or even see a
need to act, it's hardly surprising that the snake oil vendors grow in influence.
I'm always leery of t-test values being cited without the requisite sample size being
noted. You need that to determine effect size. While the slope looks ominously valid for the
regression model, effects could be weak and fail to show whether current account deficits are
the true source. Financialization seems purposely left out of the model.
Ms. Mitchell had a line of questioning about the friend who was mutual to Kavanaugh and
Ford. It turns out this was the same person who had been named earlier by Ed Whelan. Ford
said she had dated Garrett, also knew his younger brother, but flatly refused to refer to him
by name in public.
I'll assume Ms. Mitchell was allowed to review all of the investigative material collected
by the Committee to date. There has to be a reason she pursued this line of questioning.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Who would most likely drive a girl to a party with older high school boys from a different
school and different circle of friends? Who would most likely take a 15 year old girl home
from a party in an age without cell phones? His name is Chris Garrett, nickname of "Squi".
She claims to not remember the person that drove her home, and she claims to not remember the
name of the last boy at the gathering. And she refuses to publicly state the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh. These are all one and the same person, her boyfriend and
soon-to-be-ex-BF Chris Garrett, who may have either assaulted her or broke up with her that
day.
fleur de lis , 13 hours ago
What a spoiled brat she must have been whilst growing up.
She must be a really obnoxious snot to her coworkers over the years, too.
And as a teacher she must be a real screwball.
Which explains how she landed an overpaid job at a snowflake factory.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She walked upstairs calmly with her boyfriend Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi".
Why was Ms. Ford wearing glasses that looked like someone rubbed Crisco on the lenses? As
a long time wearer of glasses, I can tell you we dont roll that way, kind of defeats the
purpose. Answer? Those were not her glasses...they were a prop...
Dormouse , 15 hours ago
She's an Illuminati/NXIVM MKUltra-ed CIA sex-kitten. Her family glows in the dark with CIA
connections. She's a CIA recruiter at Stamford, as well as her other job at Palo Alto. Oh,
something traumatic has happened to her, multiple times; but at the hands of her family and
their close Agency friends. Alyssa Milano in the audience? Come on! This is so ******* sick!
What a disgusting display for those in the Know. Does the FBI currently have the balls to
call them all out? That's the question, has Trump reformed the DOJ/FBI -- beyond the hobbled
and shackled part consummed by these criminals with their coup? He seems confident, almost
like he's tormenting his enemies as usual.
aloha_snakbar , 16 hours ago
Funny how Democraps are getting their panties in a wad over BK drinking beer in college,
yet were okay with Slappy Sotoro snorting cocaine in college....go figure...
MrAToZ , 17 hours ago
The Dims don't believe Ford any more than they believe in the constitution. They are
building a better world. They are true believers, one in the cause.
If one of them were at the receiving end of this type of Spanish inquisition they would be
crying foul right out of the batter's box. But, because this is for the cause they will put
the vagina hat on, goose step around and say they believe that mousey Marxist.
It's a made up sink if he's innocent, guilty if he floats game show. They know exactly
what they are doing, which makes them even more reprehensible.
Sinophile , 19 hours ago
If the bitch 'struggled academically in college' then how the hell did she get awarded a
freaking P(ost)H(ole)D(igger)?
onewayticket2 , 19 hours ago
Again, So What??
The democrats have already soiled this Judge's career and family name. Now it's about
delay.
Exoneration note from the Republicans' lawyer carries precisely zero weight with
them.....they are too busy sourcing everyone who ever drank beer with Kav....in an effort to
get another Week Long extension/argue that Trump already greenlighted such an extension to
investigate how much Kav likes beer. or who's milk money he stole in 3rd grade....
onewayticket2 , 18 hours ago
He is not the first college student to get drunk.
Equating getting drunk to charges in every newspaper and TV news station for weeks stating
he is a gang rapist ring leader etc is laughably idiotic. Nice job. Thx for the laugh.
Opulence I Has It , 20 hours ago
The only things she does remember, are the things that directly support her allegations.
That fact, by itself, is reason enough to disbelieve everything she says. The idea that she
would have concrete memories of only those specific events, is not believable.
It's totally believable, though, that she's been counseled thus, to make her story easier
to remember and avoid those inconvenient secondary details. You know, those secondary details
that every police detective knows are how you trip up a liar. They are so focused on their
bogus story, the little details of the time surrounding the fabrication don't hold up.
Last of the Middle Class , 16 hours ago
She remembers clearly she only had one beer and was taking no medication yet cannot
remember for sure how she accessed her counselors records on her whether by internet or
copying them less than 3 months ago?
Not possible.
She's a lying shill and in time it will come out.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She doesn't remember her rescuer that drove her home and away from such a terrible
situation. Is this plausible? I say absolutely not. IMHO, she knows his name but refuses to
say it while pretending to not remember. Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who introduced her
to Kavanaugh and who was her boyfriend once. Some have speculated that he assaulted her that
day and/or ended her relationship that day after she didn't want to take things to the next
level with him.
Babble_On2001 , 20 hours ago
Right, that's why the fraud Ford kept repeating, "I don't remember" or "I can't recall."
Yes, a very believable story. Now let me tell you about another female figure that has been
treated poorly, she's called the Tooth Fairy.
deja , 19 hours ago
Tawana Brawley, substitute republican conservative for white state trooper.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Not only are these claims of not remembering completely implausible, but the transcript
shows that she explicitly refuses to say the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. It
strikes me as wildly disrespectful to Rachel Mitchell and just screams for further
exploration.
Babble_On2001 , 20 hours ago
Right, that's why the fraud Ford kept repeating, "I don't remember" or "I can't recall."
Yes, a very believable story. Now let me tell you about another female figure that has been
treated poorly, she's called the Tooth Fairy.
deja , 19 hours ago
Tawana Brawley, substitute republican conservative for white state trooper.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Not only are these claims of not remembering completely implausible, but the transcript
shows that she explicitly refuses to say the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. It
strikes me as wildly disrespectful to Rachel Mitchell and just screams for further
exploration.
sunkeye , 21 hours ago
T/y Prosecutor Mitchell for conducting yourself w/ professionalism, decency, & honor -
personal traits none of the Democratic senators seem to possess, or would even recognize if
shown to them directly as you did. Again. t/y & bravo.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She allowed Ford to refuse to speak the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. Chris
Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who was Ford's one-time boyfriend. Some speculate that he was the
unnamed final boy at the party and that he may have assaulted Ford and/or dumped her after
she refused to go to the next level with him. Hence the trauma.
Paracelsus , 21 hours ago
I am having trouble keeping these personalities separate as I want to give everyone the
benefit of the
doubt. When I see Justice Kavanaugh, I think of the confirmation hearing as a political
attack on the
Trump administration . Also as an attempt to score points, or make the other side
screw up, before the
upcoming elections.When I see Dr. Ford, I see Hillary Clinton and all the bitterness
from a failed
politician.
The funny thing is I thought all the Trump "fake news" statements were a load of crap.
Turns out he hit the
mark quite often. The lefties are so damn mad because Trump is succeeding and they haven't
been able to
score points against him. So they feel that it is justified to use other
methods,regardless of the fallout.
There is a whiff of panic and desperation present.
I have stated this before, as have others: The loss of the White House by the Democrats
provided a
unique opportunity to clean out the deadwood. This may have seemed cruel and heartless
but the
Obama era is over and the Dem's urgently need to return to their roots before it is too
late. Did they
use this moment of change or did they revert to business as usual? To ask the question
is to
answer it.... This is commonly described as bureaucratic inertia. The Dem's only needed
to get the
ball rolling and they would be moving towards the objective of regaining power. New,
younger
and more diplomatic and law abiding types need to be encouraged to apply. Put out the
help wanted
sign. Do what Donald does,"You're fired!".
RighteousRampage , 21 hours ago
Well, if others have stated it before, it MUST be true. Republiconarists and Demcraps are
playing the same stupid games. Dems got punked w Garland, and now Reps are getting their
comeuppance w Kavanaugh (who really made it worse for himself by holding up such an obviously
false pious portrait of himself).
American Dissident , 22 hours ago
I believe Judge Brett Kavanaugh. I believe Rachel Mitchell, Esq. I believe Leland Keyser.
I believe Mark Judge. I believe P.J. Smyth.
I believe the evidence. That's why I don't believe Ms. Christine Blasey Ford.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
But she only had one beer!
Torgo , 11 hours ago
What do you think of the Chris Garrett hypothesis?
VWAndy , 22 hours ago
Mrs Fords stunt works in family courts all the time. Thats why they tried it folks. They
have gotten away with it before.
Aubiekong , 23 hours ago
Never was about justice, this is simply a liberal/globalist plan to stop Trump.
Prince Eugene of Savoy , 20 hours ago
Squeaky Ford only testified to what she had written down. She never used the part of the
brain dealing with actual memory. https://youtu.be/uGxr1VQ2dPI
JLee2027 , 1 day ago
Guys who have been falsely accused, like me, knew quickly that Ford was lying. They all
have the same pattern, too many smiles, attention seeking, stories that make no sense or too
vague,etc.
Barney08 , 1 day ago
Ford is a crusader. She thinks she is a Roe v Wade savior but she is an over educated
ditz.
dogmete , 1 day ago
Right Barney, not an undereducated and-proud-of-it slob like you.
MrAToZ , 1 day ago
You Dims are so willing to just swallow the hook. You idiots have been trained to react,
leave common sense at the door, slap on the vagina hats and start marching in circles.
What a cluster f*ck. Evidently there are suckers born every minute.
Kelley , 1 day ago
One word uttered by Ford proves that not only did Kav. not attack her but no one ever
assaulted her . That word is "hippocampus." No woman in recorded history has ever used
that word to describe their strongest reaction to a sexual assault.
It's mind blowing that a person would react to what was supposedly one of the most
traumatic experiences of her life with a nearly gleeful "Indelibly in my hippocampus " or
something to that effect unless of course it didn't happen. Her inappropriate response leads
me to believe that Ford was never assaulted in the manner in which she claimed. If her
claimed trauma had been a case of mistaken identity regarding a real assault, she still would
have felt it and reacted far differently.
Emotional memories get stored in the amygdala. The hippocampus is for matter-of-fact
memories. When Senator Feinstein asked Ford about her strongest memories of the event, Ford
went all "matter of fact" in her reply, "Indelibly in my hippocampus ." without a trace of
emotion in her response. No emotions = no assault by ANYONE let alone by Kavanaugh.
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
Not only that, her most indelible memory from the experience was the maniacal laughter ,
not the part where a hand was forcibly placed over her mouth and she thought she may in that
moment, have been accidently killed.
As to the hippopotamus, is that a turtle neck she is wearing or just her neck. What the
**** happened there, she said nothing about strangulation.
pnchbowlturd , 1 day ago
Another peculiar thing about Ford's testimony was the adolescent voicing she gave it in.
It was if she was imitating a 6 year old. I wish MItchell had fleshed out Ford's hobbies
(surfing??) more and given more context to her career activities and recreational pursuits in
college, alcohol consumption patterns or substance abuse treatments. Her voicing was a tell
that she seemed to be overplaying the victim persona for a person who holds a doctorate and
travels the world surfing
Nunny , 1 day ago
If they coached her (while on the loooong drive from CA...lol) to use that voice, they
didn't do her any favors. I thought femi-libs were all about being 'strong' and 'tough'. They
can't have it both ways.....strike that.....they do have it both ways.....and the useful
idiots on the left buy it.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
IMHO, the most peculiar thing was her outright refusal to say aloud the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh, when repeatedly questioned by Rachel Mitchell. It was
wildly obvious that she was being evasive and I see it as an enormous tell. Chris Garrett,
nicknamed "Squi", was IMHO the boy that drove her to and from the party, and if he didn't
outright assault her that day, he may have dumped her that day.
MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 day ago
If the FBI is to have ANY credibility, they must insist on Ford's emails, texts and phone
records for the last 2 years.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Kill shots:
Ranging from "mid 1980s" in a text to the Washington Post to "early 80s"
No name was listed in 2012 and 2013 individual and marriage therapy notes.
she was the victim of "physical abuse," whereas she has now testified that she told her
husband about a "sexual assault."
she does not remember who invited her to the party or how she heard about it. She does
not remember how she got to the party." Mitchell continued: "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any
specificity. Perhaps most importantly, she does not remember how she got from the party to
her house."
In her letter to Feinstein, she said "me and 4 others" were at the party but in her
testimony she said there were four boys in additional to Leland Keyser and herself. She did
not list Leland Keyser even though they are good friends. Leland Keyser's presence should
have been more memorable than PJ Smyth's,
· She testified that she had exactly one beer at the party
· "All three named eyewitnesses have submitted statements to the Committee denying
any memory of the party whatsoever,
· her BFF: Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever
being at a party or gathering where he was present with
· the simple and unchangeable truth is that Keyser is unable to corroborate [Dr.
Ford's allegations] because she has no recollection of the incident in question.
· Mitchell stated that Ford refused to provide her therapy notes to the Senate
Committee.
· Mitchell says that Ford wanted to remain confidential but called a tipline at the
Washington Post.
· she also said she did not contact the Senate because she claimed she "did not
know how to do that."
· It would also have been inappropriate to administer a polygraph to someone who
was grieving.
· the date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was told that Ford's
symptoms prevented her from flying, but she agreed during testimony that she flies "fairly
frequently."
· She also flew to Washington D.C. for the hearing.
· "The activities of Congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford's attorneys likely
affected Dr. Ford's account.
"... Who would most likely drive a girl to a party with older high school boys from a different school and different circle of friends? Who would most likely take a 15 year old girl home from a party in an age without cell phones? His name is Chris Garrett, nickname of "Squi". She claims to not remember the person that drove her home, and she claims to not remember the name of the last boy at the gathering. And she refuses to publicly state the name of the boy that introduced her to Kavanaugh. These are all one and the same person, her boyfriend and soon-to-be-ex-BF Chris Garrett, who may have either assaulted her or broke up with her that day. ..."
"... Yes. I was focused on trying to get into an elite college when I was in HS and these people's lives were nothing like mine in my teens. But then like a lot of people I'm lowborn as opposed to these people. I was a caddy at the Country Club, and my parents were certainly not members. ..."
"... She walked upstairs calmly with her boyfriend Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi". ..."
"... You go (down) girl, Doctor Ford! What a brave 15 year-old drinking at HS and College-Level Parties! Truly a Progressive ahead of the times! ..."
"... Can't see that it isn't about Trump. It's about a Populist/Nationalist movement to put an end to the degradation of Progressive Globalists ..."
"... Why was Ms. Ford wearing glasses that looked like someone rubbed Crisco on the lenses? As a long time wearer of glasses, I can tell you we dont roll that way, kind of defeats the purpose. Answer? Those were not her glasses...they were a prop... ..."
"... Hahaha! She should have just taken out the lens out. No one would have looked that closely or would they ? ..."
"... Her family glows in the dark with CIA connections. She's a CIA recruiter at Stamford, as well as her other job at Palo Alto. ..."
"... She doesn't remember her rescuer that drove her home and away from such a terrible situation. Is this plausible? I say absolutely not. IMHO, she knows his name but refuses to say it while pretending to not remember. Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who introduced her to Kavanaugh and who was her boyfriend once. Some have speculated that he assaulted her that day and/or ended her relationship that day after she didn't want to take things to the next level with him. ..."
Ms. Mitchell had a line of questioning about the friend who was mutual to Kavanaugh and
Ford. It turns out this was the same person who had been named earlier by Ed Whelan. Ford said
she had dated Garrett, also knew his younger brother, but flatly refused to refer to him by
name in public.
I'll assume Ms. Mitchell was allowed to review all of the investigative material collected
by the Committee to date. There has to be a reason she pursued this line of
questioning.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Who would most likely drive a girl to a party with older high school boys from a different
school and different circle of friends? Who would most likely take a 15 year old girl home
from a party in an age without cell phones? His name is Chris Garrett, nickname of "Squi".
She claims to not remember the person that drove her home, and she claims to not remember the
name of the last boy at the gathering. And she refuses to publicly state the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh. These are all one and the same person, her boyfriend and
soon-to-be-ex-BF Chris Garrett, who may have either assaulted her or broke up with her that
day.
fleur de lis , 13 hours ago
What a spoiled brat she must have been whilst growing up. She must be a really obnoxious snot to her coworkers over the years, too. And as a teacher she must be a real screwball. Which explains how she landed an overpaid job at a snowflake factory.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Yes. I was focused on trying to get into an elite college when I was in HS and these
people's lives were nothing like mine in my teens. But then like a lot of people I'm lowborn
as opposed to these people. I was a caddy at the Country Club, and my parents were certainly
not members.
Brazillionaire , 14 hours ago
I haven't read all the comments so I don't know if somebody already brought this up... can
this woman (who was 15) explain why she was in an upstairs bedroom with two boys? Did they
drag her up the stairs? In front of the others? If she went willingly, for what purpose?
Some things reign eternal... You go (down) girl, Doctor Ford! What a brave 15 year-old
drinking at HS and College-Level Parties! Truly a Progressive ahead of the times! Thank you
for paving the road to ruin! Don't forget to breathe in-between. You ARE the FACE OF THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, GIRL! Suck it up, Buttercup!
alfbell , 15 hours ago
I BELIEVE!!
... that America's institutions are being torn down by Leftists. The attempt to create a
new totalitarian regime has been upon us for decades and is now perfectly clear.
We will not say goodbye to morality.
We will not say goodbye to science.
We will not say goodbye to democracy.
We will not say goodbye to our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Founding Fathers, Logic,
Decency, etc. etc. etc.
MAGA!
AHBL , 15 hours ago
Morality: Your dear Leader cheated on 3 different wives, one of them with a
prostitute,...while she was pregnant (or had a 4 month old, I forget); filed for bankruptcy 5
times, cheating many people out of money; settled fraud lawsuits; lied about charity
donations; your party nominated an actual PEDOPHILE (Moore) for Senate and now wants to
appoint an angry drunk to be SCJ!
Science: You folks are literally disputing the conclusions of the vast, vast majority of
scientists (97% by my last count) when it comes to global warming.
Democracy: this is a Democratic Republic...if it was a Democracy Trump wouldn't be
President.
The rest of the nonsense you wrote was just filler...obviously.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Still better than the rapist and intern cigarer and Benghazi killer clintons. why do retarded libturds not see that!!
alfbell , 11 hours ago
You are clueless. Have all of your priorities and importances upside down. Have zero
critical thinking.
Can't see that it isn't about Trump. It's about a Populist/Nationalist movement to put an
end to the degradation of Progressive Globalists. Look at the big picture AHBL. C'mon you can
do it.
aloha_snakbar , 15 hours ago
Why was Ms. Ford wearing glasses that looked like someone rubbed Crisco on the lenses? As
a long time wearer of glasses, I can tell you we dont roll that way, kind of defeats the
purpose. Answer? Those were not her glasses...they were a prop...
NeigeAmericain , 13 hours ago
Hahaha! She should have just taken out the lens out. No one would have looked that closely
or would they ? 🤔
Dormouse , 15 hours ago
She's an Illuminati/NXIVM MKUltra-ed CIA sex-kitten.
Her family glows in the dark with CIA
connections. She's a CIA recruiter at Stamford, as well as her other job at Palo Alto.
Oh,
something traumatic has happened to her, multiple times; but at the hands of her family and
their close Agency friends. Alyssa Milano in the audience? Come on! This is so ******* sick!
What a disgusting display for those in the Know. Does the FBI currently have the balls to
call them all out? That's the question, has Trump reformed the DOJ/FBI -- beyond the hobbled
and shackled part consummed by these criminals with their coup? He seems confident, almost
like he's tormenting his enemies as usual.
" The episode occurred on a September evening in 1985 after Kavanaugh, Ludington and
Dudley, attended the UB40 concert ."
UB40? Well, there you have it, if that isn't disqualifying, I don't know what is.
Debt Slave , 16 hours ago
She is a cross eyed boobis and we have to believe her because she says Kavanaugh, a white
hetero catholic man without any decent upbringing or engrained scruples raped her like a
monkey savage out of the jungle. Oh sorry, TRIED to rape her. As a teenager. Tried to raped a
pathetic, stupid cross eyed retarded moron that has since been successfully lobotomized at a
'modern' American university.
When is the last time you saw a 'mentally challenged' person being abused? Oh yes I
remember now, it was Chicongo, January 2017. Four negroes shoved a retarded white man's head
in a toilet and demanded he swear that he loved Niggers.
Never heard what happened to the savage fuckers, eh? Not surprised.
i know who and what I am voting for white man, do you?
benb , 16 hours ago
Time for the un-redacted FISA docs and the text messages. That should send Schumer and the
gang into a tailspin.
MrAToZ , 17 hours ago
The Dims don't believe Ford any more than they believe in the constitution. They are
building a better world. They are true believers, one in the cause.
If one of them were at the receiving end of this type of Spanish inquisition they would be
crying foul right out of the batter's box. But, because this is for the cause they will put
the vagina hat on, goose step around and say they believe that mousey Marxist.
It's a made up sink if he's innocent, guilty if he floats game show. They know exactly
what they are doing, which makes them even more reprehensible.
BankSurfyMan , 18 hours ago
Fordy had sexual encounters, she drinks beer and flies all over the globe... One day she
had a beer and cannot remember getting home on time to watch, MOAR DOOM NEWS! Fucktard Fordy!
Doom 2019! Next!
Kafir Goyim , 18 hours ago
Just had lunch with a democrat. He's generally tolerable, so his level of anger at
Kavanaugh and his acceptance of "anything goes" to derail Kavanaugh was surprising to me.
Democrats believe that Roe V Wade is instantly overturned if Kavanaugh gets in. They also
think that if Roe V Wade is overturned, no woman will ever be able to abort another baby in
the US.
I explained to him that destruction of Roe V Wade will only make it a state issue, so
girls in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, etc will be able to kill as many babies as
they want to. It will only be girls in Wyoming or Utah or some other very red state that
might have to schlep their *** to another state to kill their kid.
Democrats see this as a battle for abortion, and if Kav gets confirmed, abortion is
completely gone in the USA. That's why you have these women freaking out. They think the
stakes are much higher than they actually are. Almost all of the women that are so worried
about this live in states where it won't have any effect on them at all.
Kafir Goyim , 18 hours ago
I think I kind of calmed him down. We need to let them know that their world doesn't end
if Roe V Wade is overturned. I am also not at all sure it would be overturned, even with Kav
on the court, but they insist it will be, so not worth arguing. Reminding them that it
doesn't effect them, if they live in a blue state should calm their fears a little.
The right to abort is their 2nd amendment, God help us. If you explain to them they are
not really in danger, it may calm them down. They'll still make noise about those poor girls
who can't get an abortion after school and still make it home for dinner, and instead, have
to take a bus to another state to kill their kid, but they won't be as personally threatened
and lashing out as they mistakenly are now.
when the saxon began , 17 hours ago
And therein lies the fatal flaw of an elected representative government. The votes of the
ignorant and stupid are counted the same as yours or mine. And there are far more of
them.
VisionQuest , 18 hours ago
Democrats stand for atheism, abortion & sodomy. Ask yourself this question: Who stands
with Democrats? If your answer is "I do." then you'd best rethink your precious notions of
morality, truth, common decency, common sense and justice.
It is undoubtedly true that, in our entirely imperfect world, the American Way of life is
also far from perfect. But it is also true that, compared to every other system of government
on the planet, there is no comparison with the level of achievement accomplished by the
American Way of life.
Democrats hate and will destroy the American Way of life. Have you been a Democrat? Walk
away.
freedommusic , 19 hours ago
At this point the FBI should recommend a criminal investigation to the DOJ for treasonous
actors who are subverting the constitutional process of SC nomination. The crimes of perjury,
sedition, and treason, need to be clearly articulated to the public and vigorous prosecution
ensue.
We are STILL a Constitutional Republic - RIGHT?
Giant Meteor , 18 hours ago
Well, I am betting 27 trillion dollars that the answer to your question is a resounding ,
no ...
eitheror , 19 hours ago
Thank you Rachel Mitchell for having the courage to tell the truth about the testimony of
Ms. Blasey Ford, P.h.D.
Ford is not a medical Doctor but is a P.h.D.
The Democrats seem to have abandoned Ms. Ford like a bad haircut, instead focusing on
other smoke and mirrors.
onewayticket2 , 19 hours ago
Again, So What??
The democrats have already soiled this Judge's career and family name. Now it's about
delay.
Exoneration note from the Republicans' lawyer carries precisely zero weight with
them.....they are too busy sourcing everyone who ever drank beer with Kav....in an effort to
get another Week Long extension/argue that Trump already greenlighted such an extension to
investigate how much Kav likes beer. or who's milk money he stole in 3rd grade....
Babble_On2001 , 20 hours ago
About 35 years ago, at a party in San Francisco where everyone was very drunk, now Senator
Feinstein sexually molested me. Don't remember the date or location or anything else, but it
happened, I swear! Naturally, want to remain anonymous to protect my integrity, but it did
happen! She shoved me down onto my knees and ground her crotch in my face. It was terrible, I
can still recall the horrible smell to this day! The stench was a combination of rotting
flesh and urine. Makes me nauseous just thinking of that sexual assault. INVESTIGATE this
serial molester!
Opulence I Has It , 20 hours ago
The only things she does remember, are the things that directly support her allegations.
That fact, by itself, is reason enough to disbelieve everything she says. The idea that she
would have concrete memories of only those specific events, is not believable.
It's totally believable, though, that she's been counseled thus, to make her story easier
to remember and avoid those inconvenient secondary details. You know, those secondary details
that every police detective knows are how you trip up a liar. They are so focused on their
bogus story, the little details of the time surrounding the fabrication don't hold up.
Last of the Middle Class , 16 hours ago
She remembers clearly she only had one beer and was taking no medication yet cannot
remember for sure how she accessed her counselors records on her whether by internet or
copying them less than 3 months ago?
Not possible.
She's a lying shill and in time it will come out.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She doesn't remember her rescuer that drove her home and away from such a terrible
situation. Is this plausible? I say absolutely not. IMHO, she knows his name but refuses to
say it while pretending to not remember. Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who introduced her
to Kavanaugh and who was her boyfriend once. Some have speculated that he assaulted her that
day and/or ended her relationship that day after she didn't want to take things to the next
level with him.
American Dissident , 20 hours ago
McConnell on the Senate Floor 50 minutes ago: "The time for endless delay and obstruction
has come to a close.... Mr. President, we'll be voting this week."
xear , 21 hours ago
Brett is obviously innocent. Groping her, holding her down, grinding into her... it's not
like it was rape. And as far as covering her mouth so she couldn't scream... after a heavy
night of drinking who wants to hear screaming? Almost anyone would do the same.
I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 20 hours ago
it's always interesting to see where and why people claim to know things about which they
have literally no 'knowledge.'
Also interesting to see how the same people who would protest assuming the guilt of an
alleged Muslim terrorist or Black liquor store robber now argue it is 'whiteness' and
'patriarchy' to not assume the guilt of a white male regarding decades old uncorroborated
charges... which 4 named witnesses deny having knowledge of, by a woman who lied about a fear
of flying to try to delay the process.
We can all be hypocrites.
But watching the Left embrace hypocrisy as social justice has been, in the pure sense of
the word, awesome to behold.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Not only are these claims of not remembering completely implausible, but the transcript
shows that she explicitly refuses to say the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. It
strikes me as wildly disrespectful to Rachel Mitchell and just screams for further
exploration.
FBaggins , 21 hours ago
To fix things if after all of this crap from the feminazis and Kavenaugh simply withdraws
his name, Trump should put forward Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next candidate. It would
really ensure support for Trump candidates in the midterms from women in general and from
social-conservative family-values people in the US and it would perhaps teach the feminazis a
lesson at the same time.
istt , 20 hours ago
No, Kavanaugh deserves better. He has earned his place on the USSC.
Giant Meteor , 20 hours ago
My prediction was, and still is Kavanaugh goes forward. Even the revered CNN is starting
to walk the drinking issue back.
By the way , the Trump presser today was a ******* hoot!
ToddTheBabyWhale , 21 hours ago
Nine page memo, Tyler. Your starting to write like a pro journalist now.
aloha_snakbar , 22 hours ago
Ms Ford, the newly minted millionaire, is probably lying poolside in Mexico, indulging in
her favorite psychotropics and getting pounded by the local brown talent. Wow...having a
vagina is like having a meat 3D printer that spews out money...
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
Was there in 1965, and I can recall what my classmates wore, who could dance, who kissed
great, who had the best music, who got laid and how often...and it was NOT the head of the
football or basketball team.
Her memory is selectively scripted, and I am 20 years older and my memory is just
fine.
charlewar , 23 hours ago
In other words, Ford is a liar
JohnG , 23 hours ago
She's a goddamned sociopathic lying bitch.
arby63 , 23 hours ago
A highly paid one. Gofundme alone is over $900,000.
1970SSNova396 , 22 hours ago
Her two *** lawyers doing well for their time and attention. McCabe's lawyer comes to the
rescue for Ford.
Dead how? We already know that these corporation are die hard neo-liberal but name me 2
republicans or ANY federal entity that would EVER go after a corporation like that.
You are not aware of the score if you think anything will be done to them.
HerrDoktor , 23 hours ago
My hippocampus is turgid and throbbing after seeing Chris Ford in those Adrian (Talia
Shire) spectacles.
blind_understanding , 23 hours ago
I had to look it up ..
TURGID - from Latin turgidus , from turgēre to be swollen
peippe , 22 hours ago
nothing better than a confused lady who forgets stuff...........
I'm all over that if she was thirty-six years younger. oops.
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
So why is Ford dressed like a WWII school Liberian? Halloween?
How does she do all the water sports (easy boys, keep it clean) that she brags about? How
does she keep a case of beer down and then go surfing in Costa Rica? What is all this 'Air
sickness" stuff? How come she works for a company that has a very controversial Abortion pill
and didn't say this? That $750,000 in GoFundMe bucks will sure help heal those cat scratches
she gave herself. Does she pay taxes on that? So many questions and so little answers. Did
she perjer herself?
Sort of convenient that the statute of limitations has run out for her to make an OFFICIAL
complaint in Maryland.
I was the victim of an abuse event when I was 4. I'm 47 now. I know exactly where the
house is, we were in the backyard and I can tell anyone what happened and who was there. It
happened a few days back to back maybe three days, it was during the winter in the
midafternoon. I guess my hippocampus is in better shape than hers.
sgt_doom , 1 day ago
" Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was poised, articulate, clear and convincing. More than
that, she radiated self-assured power ."
----- So says Robert Reich
Saaaaay, Bobby, have you ever met Wesley Allen Dodd or Ted Bundy? I once came into contact
with Dodd, the epitome of calm, cool and collected --- and he was later executed for
torturing to death small children!
A (female) law professor from Seattle University said:
" Dr. Christine Blasey Ford (why do they keep referring to a professor of
psychology as doctor --- s_d) was credible and believable. " (Evidently, we don't need
no stinking proof or evidence where a law professor is concerned!?)
Sgt_Doom says: Prof. Christine Blasey Ford sounded credible, believable and completely
unsubstantiated.
Credible Allegations
Over this past weekend I learned three startling facts:
(1) All American women have been raped;
(2) All American males are rapists and liars; and,
(3) "Credible allegations" are accusations not requiring any shred of evidence.
Fake news facts , that is . . . . .
All this was conveyed by high-middle class (or higher) females who worship globalization
and American exceptionalism --- from the same news conduits who once reported on
weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq and other similar mythologies!
Not a single so-called reporter --- not a single self-described journalist in American ---
thought to ask that most obvious of obvious questions:
Where in bloody perdition is Christine Blasey Ford's Holton Arms yearbooks?
After all, they introduced Kavanaugh's yearbook, so why not Christine Blasey's
yearbook?
Second most obvious question:
When one searches online for Holton Arms yearbooks, the searcher can find the yearbooks
for the years preceding Ford's last several years at Holton Arms, and the years following ---
why have the last several years when Christine Blasey attended missing? Why have they been
removed --- even cached versions --- from the Web?
Takes some serious tech resources to accomplish this in such a short period of time?!
How very odd . . . .
I do not want Kavanaugh, nor anyone like him, on the Supreme Court bench, but that does
not mean I automatically believe any and all unsubstantiated accusations and am sane enough
to comprehend that credible allegations require proof --- also referred to as
evidence.
It is not enough to state that this person drinks and is therefore guilty or that person
is a male and is therefore guilty.
I fully support an expanded investigation into both Kavanaugh AND Christine Blasey Ford,
including Ms. Ford's Holton Arms yearbooks and any and all police blotter activity/records
for her ages of 13, 14, 15 and 16.
And I wish some of those useless reporters would being asking the obvious questions . . .
. and finally start doing their jobs!
Sidebar : Sen. Chris Coons claimed that Prof. Ford was courageous to have come forward as
she had nothing to gain , yet within several days after her testimony, Christine
Blasey Ford is almost one-half million dollars wealthier --- nothing to gain?
Hardly . . . .
[Next rant: MY elevator encounter with a 14-year-old psychotic blonde student, and her
buddy, many years ago in Bethesda, Md.]
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
She (Mitchell) was there to handle her like the delicate flower. To the pubes defense,
someone was smart enough to realize that a bunch of GOP white guys questioning her was not
going to play well. Enter the female prosecutor and her report.
On the other hand the dem guys and dolls could not genuflect enough , so their questioning
was fine. I mean they had her painted as the courageous hero of the modern era. So brave, so
noble , so, so, utterly awesome!
Puke ....
scraping_by , 23 hours ago
She had an emotional meltdown for a big finish. Note who gave her the run-in for it. (Not
Mitchell).
nicholforest , 1 day ago
Seems pretty obvious that Mitchell could not see a case for prosecution - what we heard
was mostly 'He said ... She said". So an unsurprising conclusion.
And there is no moral high ground for Republicans to criticize the process pursued by the
Democrats. They would have (and in the past have) done the same. A curse on both their
houses.
But what struck me was the behavior and style of Kavanaugh. He came across as belligerent,
petty, evasive, aggressive and impulsive. Those are not the characteristics that we want in a
candidate for the Supreme Court.
Little Lindsey G would say that Kavanaugh has a right to be angry, which may be so - but
the way that such anger is manifested is critical. In the military we look for leaders to be
cool under fire. The same should be true for a judge in the highest court in the land.
Instead he came across like a fearful, reactive, spiteful, spoilt frat boy. That will not
do.
scraping_by , 1 day ago
Ah, the double bind. Either he's robotic and reciting a script, or he's wild and howling
brat. Nice how that works.
FAQMD1 , 23 hours ago
nicholforest - And there is no moral high ground for Republicans to criticize the
process pursued by the Democrats. They would have (and in the past have) done the same. A
curse on both their houses.
Please enlighten us on specifically which Dem. SC nomination the Republicans did a full on
character assassination .... were waiting!
It is mindless comments and a lack of rigorous thinking and moral equivocation like yours
that has led the country into the abyss of nonsense and division.
Dickweed Wang , 1 day ago
Look at the time line provided and then tell me the Democrats aren't a pack of lying
weasles. The truth means absolutely NOTHING to them. Their agenda (to **** over Trump in any
way possible) is all that matters. Could anyone imagine what would have happened if the
Republicans would have pulled just 1/10th of that kind of ******** with the Homo *****??
There would have been continuous MSM inspired riots in the streets.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
They play by Alinsky Rules
rksplash , 1 day ago
I guess the only way this nonsense is going to go away is if the GOP start using the same
tactics. Hire some wannabe spin doctors to go through some old high school yearbooks in a
church basement somewhere in Alabama. An old black and white of some poor pimple faced
senator grabbing his crotch at the prom in 72.
Dickweed Wang , 1 day ago
She did take a polygraph - and passed.
Yeah that's what the lying sacks of **** say, but of course there's absolutely no proof it
happened. She passed? O.k., let's assume they are at least not lying about that . . . what
questions were asked?
Bastiat , 1 day ago
A polygraph with 2 questions apparently. In other words a complete joke. A real poly has
scores if not hundreds of questions.
robertocarlos , 23 hours ago
Two questions were asked. "Are you a woman"? and "Are you a liar"?
Wile-E-Coyote , 1 day ago
It's amazing what a false memory can do.
Is there a verbatim transcript of the questions asked?
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Mitchell said it was irresponsible to give a polygraph to someone grieving the loss of a
loved one. Grandmother in this case.
peippe , 22 hours ago
rumor has it the exam included two questions.
Two Questions.
you decide what that means.
nsurf9 , 1 day ago
Not one shred of corroboration evidence of Ford's testimony, not even from her friend, who
flatly denied she ever went to such party, NONE, NADA, UNBELIEVABLE!
Don't these Congressional a-holes vet these people to safeguard against crazy loons'
bald-faced lies, and even worst, one's with democrat financed malicious intent to defame?
And further, Montgomery County Police has formally stated that, as a misdemeanor, the
statute of limitations ran out on this allegedly crime - 35 frigging years ago.
And lastly, with regard to drinking in college, not one democrat mentions he finished top
of his Yale undergrad class and top of his Yale Law School class.
FAQMD1 , 23 hours ago
nsurf9 - Don't these Congressional a-holes vet these people to safeguard against crazy
loons' bald-faced lies, and even worst, one's with malicious intent to defame?
Please tell me how you or I could possible "safeguard" ourselves from "crazy loon" and
"bald-face lies" ....?
That is why we're supposed to be a nation of laws and innocent until proven guilty.
It is one thing to disagree over a person political position and or ideas but that is not
what is happening here. The Dems are in full assault mode to destroy BK and his family as a
warning to any future Conservative judge who may dare accepts a nomination to the SC.
What the Dems are doing will lead to some type of civil war if they do not stop this. It
will not be pretty if that happens.
nsurf9 , 23 hours ago
Requiring even a modicum of corroborated facts or evidence, outside of mere "words," would
be a good start!
JLee2027 , 1 day ago
Guys who have been falsely accused, like me, knew quickly that Ford was lying. They all
have the same pattern, too many smiles, attention seeking, stories that make no sense or too
vague,etc.
dogmete , 1 day ago
Yeah what an incredible story. She was at a party with some drunken creepy guys and got
sexually assaulted. Everyone knows that never happens!
scraping_by , 1 day ago
The current sleaze isn't overturning the legal right to abortion, it's making it
impossible to get one. It's a legal right that a woman has to sit through lectures, travel to
specific places, make certain declarations, and get a physician who's usually under attack at
the state level. It's not illegal, it's impossible.
It's not about restricting women, it's about making life harder for middle and lower class
people. Women of the Senator's economic class have always had and always will have access to
safe abortions. It's wage earners who have to depend on local providers.
Whether Catholic K will go along with the sabotage of a privacy right isn't clear. But
he's probably going to be sympathetic to making those working class wenches show some
responsibility.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
To quote famed feminist and Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, women can always "Keep
their pants zipped". But then Granholm only extended her authoritarian control freakery to
the male half of the human race when she said that a few years ago. If women lose some
"reproductive rights" then some of them might start to have some empathy for men and our lack
of rights. But I won't hold my breath waiting for them to empathize with us.
Kelley , 1 day ago
One word uttered by Ford proves that not only did Kav. not attack her but no one ever
assaulted her . That word is "hippocampus." No woman in recorded history has ever used
that word to describe their strongest reaction to a sexual assault.
It's mind blowing that a person would react to what was supposedly one of the most
traumatic experiences of her life with a nearly gleeful "Indelibly in my hippocampus " or
something to that effect unless of course it didn't happen. Her inappropriate response leads
me to believe that Ford was never assaulted in the manner in which she claimed. If her
claimed trauma had been a case of mistaken identity regarding a real assault, she still would
have felt it and reacted far differently.
Emotional memories get stored in the amygdala. The hippocampus is for matter-of-fact
memories. When Senator Feinstein asked Ford about her strongest memories of the event, Ford
went all "matter of fact" in her reply, "Indelibly in my hippocampus ." without a trace of
emotion in her response. No emotions = no assault by ANYONE let alone by Kavanaugh.
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
Not only that, her most indelible memory from the experience was the maniacal laughter ,
not the part where a hand was forcibly placed over her mouth and she thought she may in that
moment, have been accidently killed.
As to the hippopotamus, is that a turtle neck she is wearing or just her neck. What the
**** happened there, she said nothing about strangulation.
pnchbowlturd , 1 day ago
Another peculiar thing about Ford's testimony was the adolescent voicing she gave it in.
It was if she was imitating a 6 year old. I wish MItchell had fleshed out Ford's hobbies
(surfing??) more and given more context to her career activities and recreational pursuits in
college, alcohol consumption patterns or substance abuse treatments. Her voicing was a tell
that she seemed to be overplaying the victim persona for a person who holds a doctorate and
travels the world surfing
Nunny , 1 day ago
If they coached her (while on the loooong drive from CA...lol) to use that voice, they
didn't do her any favors. I thought femi-libs were all about being 'strong' and 'tough'. They
can't have it both ways.....strike that.....they do have it both ways.....and the useful
idiots on the left buy it.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
IMHO, the most peculiar thing was her outright refusal to say aloud the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh, when repeatedly questioned by Rachel Mitchell. It was
wildly obvious that she was being evasive and I see it as an enormous tell. Chris Garrett,
nicknamed "Squi", was IMHO the boy that drove her to and from the party, and if he didn't
outright assault her that day, he may have dumped her that day.
I Write Code , 1 day ago
Wasn't there an old SNL skit about the "amygdala"?
YouTube doesn't seem to have an index on the term, LOL.
seryanhoj , 1 day ago
One more example of US governance and party politics on its way down the tubes. There is
no topic, no forum nowhere where the truth is even something to be considered. Media, law
makers, everyone looks at a story and says " Let's make this work for our agenda even if we
have to reinvent it from scratch". Then it is more than easy to find people to testify any
which way you want. Vomits copiously.
mabuhay1 , 1 day ago
The standard for females should be "They are lying if their lips are moving." Any claims
of sexual abuse should require proof, and witnesses that can back up said claims. Many
studies have found that years before the MeToo# lies began, about 60% of all claimed rapes
were false. Now, with the "Must believe all women" and the "MeToo#" scam, I would suspect the
rate of false claims to be very close to 100%
scraping_by , 1 day ago
The standard for any criminal investigation is ABC. Assume nothing, Believe no one, and
Check everything. The current feminist howl is sweep that aside and obey a women when she
points at a man.
Jack McGriff , 1 day ago
And yet every single MSM outlet is claiming she is credible! WTF!!!
MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 day ago
If the FBI is to have ANY credibility, they must insist on Ford's emails, texts and phone
records for the last 2 years.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Kill shots:
Ranging from "mid 1980s" in a text to the Washington Post to "early 80s"
No name was listed in 2012 and 2013 individual and marriage therapy notes.
she was the victim of "physical abuse," whereas she has now testified that she told her
husband about a "sexual assault."
she does not remember who invited her to the party or how she heard about it. She does
not remember how she got to the party." Mitchell continued: "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any
specificity. Perhaps most importantly, she does not remember how she got from the party to
her house."
In her letter to Feinstein, she said "me and 4 others" were at the party but in her
testimony she said there were four boys in additional to Leland Keyser and herself. She did
not list Leland Keyser even though they are good friends. Leland Keyser's presence should
have been more memorable than PJ Smyth's,
· She testified that she had exactly one beer at the party
· "All three named eyewitnesses have submitted statements to the Committee denying
any memory of the party whatsoever,
· her BFF: Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever
being at a party or gathering where he was present with
· the simple and unchangeable truth is that Keyser is unable to corroborate [Dr.
Ford's allegations] because she has no recollection of the incident in question.
· Mitchell stated that Ford refused to provide her therapy notes to the Senate
Committee.
· Mitchell says that Ford wanted to remain confidential but called a tipline at the
Washington Post.
· she also said she did not contact the Senate because she claimed she "did not
know how to do that."
· It would also have been inappropriate to administer a polygraph to someone who
was grieving.
· the date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was told that Ford's
symptoms prevented her from flying, but she agreed during testimony that she flies "fairly
frequently."
· She also flew to Washington D.C. for the hearing.
· "The activities of Congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford's attorneys likely
affected Dr. Ford's account.
Zero-Hegemon , 1 day ago
Major Hegelian dialectic **** going on with the Ford/Kav reality show.
Women everywhere side with Ford because she's a women, claims she was abused, and "has to
be believed", in order to settle some personal score that they all claim empathy for, even
though she has given every tell in the book that she is lying.
Men everywhere empathize with a man being falsely accused, regardless of his politics and
judicial history, even though he made his bones in the Bush administration, and can probably
be relied on to further the authoritarian state via the Supreme court. Guilty of this myself,
because it could be anyone of us next.
Pick a side, doesn't matter, because we've already lost.
Bastiat , 1 day ago
I "Believe the Women" -- the 3 women Ford named as witnesses who denied it ever happened,
the 65 women who signed the letter in support of Ford, and all the women who have worked with
him and had no issues. I don't believe this one, though.
phillyla , 1 day ago
truly embarrassing answer
were I a self important college professor I might lie and say "Shakespeare" but the truth
will out I learned it from The Avengers movie when Loki called Black Widow a 'mewling
quim'
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
A lot of women have seen their sons and brothers falsely accused. Ford was completely
unconvincing in her "I don't remember the details of a traumatic "sexual assault"
BGO , 1 day ago
Mitchell the "veteran prosecutor" also failed to ask Ford who hosted the party where the
alleged assault took place.
This is an important question. Maybe the most important question.
No one should be expected to remember their high school friends' home addresses, just like
no one should be expected to remember every person who attended a specific high school
party.
One thing ANYONE who suffered a violent attack would remember is WHO OWNED THE HOUSE where
the attack took place.
High school parties generally are hosted by a the same people throughout a students high
school years. It's not like everyone in class takes their turn throwing a kegger.
As anyone who drank to get drunk at parties in high school will tell you, it was always
the same handful of kids, maybe three or four, who let their friends drink alcohol in their
parents' home.
Narrowing down exactly who owned the home where the alleged attack took place should be
easy due to the fact that, according to Ford, it was more of a small get together than a full
blown party.
All investigators should need to do is ask the known attendees, under oath, whether or not
they hosted the party where the alleged attack took place.
The fact that Ford's testimony includes exactly one person whose name she cannot remember
is NOT a coincidence.
The phantom attendee was created out of thin air to give Ford an out if the known
attendees claimed the attack did not occur at their homes.
There are so many things wrong with this political farce. Liberal mental illness, as with
any case, is a given, automatically assumed.
Flip flopping dufuses on the other side, weakness, gross ineptitude.
The entire system needs to be culled via a massive firestorm; no one or thing left
standing.
Cassander , 1 day ago
@BGO -- Re your first sentence, Mitchell notes in her memo "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any specificity".
I think this covers your point implicitly. If she doesn't remember what house it was, how can
she remember whose house it was?
Just thought you were going a bit hard on Mitchell, whose memo seems pretty damning to
me...
BGO , 1 day ago
Asking *what* house and *whose* house are two ENTIRELY different things.
Think about the most traumatic experience of your life. You know EXACTLY where the
traumatic experience took place, right?
FUBO , 1 day ago
She didn't ask one sexual question of her either,bu but dove right in on Kavanaugh.
istt , 1 day ago
And now we find out Leland Keyser was Bob Beckel's ex-wife. Unbelievable. Small circle
these libs run in.
Totally_Disillusioned , 1 day ago
Actually nothing about the Democrats is surprising. They are predictable in keeping within
their closed ranks.
Totally_Disillusioned , 1 day ago
They brought the wrong tool to the fight. Mitchell is a sex abuse prosecutor? Her tactics
may well work in the courtroom but the Judiciary Comm hearing was not a platform of
Mitchell's expertise. She apologized to Ms Ford and stated at the onset she would not ask Ms
Ford about the "incident" other than her recollections of location, date and witnesses.
Mitchell then hit Judge Kavanaugh head on with questions of gang rape, rape, sexual assault,
drinking behaviors. All validating Kavanaugh's guilt for the sheeple.
My two Eng Springer Spaniels exhibit better strategy than what we saw here.
Herdee , 1 day ago
Her father was in the CIA. Who was it within the organization that planned this?
aloha_snakbar , 1 day ago
If Fords alleged/imaginary groping is allowed to stand, what about all of the groping that
the TSA dispenses daily?
phillyla , 1 day ago
if touching over your clothes = rape I have several lawsuits to file against the TSA
...
Luce , 1 day ago
How does this ballsy ford bitch keep her PTSD in check when the TSA gropes her for all of
her exotic vacations?
phillyla , 1 day ago
some one should investigate if she signed up for the TSA's skip the line service for
frequent fliers ...
Also telling... nobody from her family (mother, father, brother) has come forward to
support her. Only her husband's family. They likely know she is making it up as it relates to
Kavanaugh. They know who she is.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
That's actually false. However, the muted support from her father is likely due his not
wanting to be ostracized from his upper-crust old boys golf club.
....and the biggest indications of fraud here are 4 go fund me accounts now raising over
$2M for CBF. Professional lying to advance a political agenda is a good gig if you can get it
now days.
opport.knocks , 1 day ago
Y'all are being distracted and played, as usual, I am sad to say...
The judge Napolitano video at the end should have been played to Congress.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
Yup, this man is not a friend of liberty, or justice.
IridiumRebel , 1 day ago
His *** is rethinking it now
istt , 1 day ago
"Kavanaugh claimed that putting a GPS tracking device on a person's car without first
obtaining a warrant was just fine because it didn't constitute a "search" as defined by the
Fourth Amendment."
I like him more now that I have read this article. Police should be able to legally track
known or suspected drug dealers. You got a problem with that? I suppose you're outraged over
our treatment of MS-13 as well?
opport.knocks , 1 day ago
Yes, I have a problem with that. Police must have enough prior evidence to get a warrant
to put a device on anyone's property (car, phone, email account, internet router) - any
private property is protected by the 4th.
Once they convince a judge of probable cause and get the warrant, they can plant the
tracking device. Most cops are power hungry, petty, vindictive, control freaks, with too much
time on their hands - one tried to make my life hell simply because I cut him off in
traffic.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
The hypocrisy of ZH posters in favor of this douche is unreal. Where is the libertarian
outrage?
opport.knocks , 1 day ago
I think most libertarians have left ZH and this is a predominantly Republican partisan
site now. The internet is quickly becoming a bunch of echo chambers for like minded people,
with trolls appearing from time to time to fan flames if interest and eyeballs starts to
wane. We are lucky if one post out of 50 has any insight or real information.
11b40 , 1 day ago
Once you start down this slippery slope, the next step down is easy.
spieslikeus , 1 day ago
Eye opening, thanks for that. Appoint Judge Napolitano!
opport.knocks , 1 day ago
It would be nice to have a token libertarian voice on the court. Kavanaugh is not only a
statist, but a deep statist.
Golden Phoenix , 1 day ago
If taken completely at her word the gist of her story is someone touched the outside of
her clothes. Prison for tailors! They are all rapists!
Bricker , 1 day ago
Ford says she ran from the house, Question, how did you get home? Answer, I don't
remember.
No Time for Fishing , 1 day ago
No one followed her out. No one said where are you going.
She is outside the house, no car, no phone, maybe clicked her heals and was magically at
home, worked for Dorthy.
Walked six miles home but just doesn't remember that? could be.
Knocked on a neighbors door to ask to use the phone and had someone pick her up but
doesn't remember that? could be.
Walked a few blocks to a pay phone and with the quarter she had in her bathing suit called
someone to pick her up, waited for them, didn't tell them what happened and then they drove
her home, just doesn't remember it? could be.
When she ran from the house did she not leave her purse or bag behind? Did she ever get it
back? Did her girlfriend never ask why she left?
Maybe I should just believe her......
Bastiat , 1 day ago
She ran all the way, got home in 35'32" -- she would have been a track star but the coach
looked at her *** at the team tryouts.
Benjamin123 , 1 day ago
Auntie delivers
The Swamp Got Trump , 1 day ago
Ford is a lunatic and a liar.
onebytwo , 1 day ago
so she does not remember how she got to the party or how she left the party but she
suggested she narrowed down the year because she knew she did not drive to the party since
she could not drive yet so she must have been 15.
I beg your pardon!
bh2 , 1 day ago
So does anyone recall Comey giving Clinton a free pass despite her many deliberate and
clear violations of US security laws on the basis that no reasonable prosecutor would take
action against her?
nope-1004 , 1 day ago
Dr. Fraud was a planned hit. Her social media presence was methodically deleted over the
last few months. There is nothing about her anywhere.... it's almost as if her name is fake
too.
Heard on 4chan that her and her husband have a big interest at the place she used to work,
Corcept Therapeutics. Apparently Corcept has developed a new abortion drug and have invested
a ton in R&D.
As always, follow the money.......
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
yeah, yeah. you do realize that her father plays golf with Kav's dad at their local
country club.
don't forget your tinfoil hat your way out, nutjob.
nope-1004 , 1 day ago
And you do realize that Kav's mother was the judge that presided over Dr. Frauds' parents
home foreclosure?
Lots of motives here.
Thanks for chiming in so we can all get to he truth.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
Presiding over a foreclosure is not a matter of guilt or innocence, it's a strictly
administrative task. The bank is the one foreclosing, you dolt.
Garciathinksso , 1 day ago
another unhinged, faux compassionate, rude leftist
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
Another braindead gaslighting troglodyte
11b40 , 1 day ago
Then what is the judge for?
istt , 1 day ago
Turns out Ford is not even a psychologist. Some of the stupidest people I know carry PhD
titles because they are perpetual students. This just starkly shows the difference between
the two worlds people live in, if they can find Ford credible. She is the face of left wing
hysteria and partisanship.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
And angry-boy Kavanaughty is the perfect reflection of unhinged conspi-racist GOP.
istt , 1 day ago
Keep repeating the mantras, losers. I'm sure there are many single mom's out there who
made lousy decisions, who hate their lives, who are willing to buy your whole story. YOU
resonate with them. But they are not here so get lost.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
I crap bigger than you.
Got The Wrong No , 1 day ago
That's because you are Crap
Slaytheist , 1 day ago
Real men that live lives of principal and truth, get angry when women (inclues numen like
you) lie like children to get their way.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
So pretty much all of Kavanaugh's old cronies turn out to be degenerate drunkard
misogynist ultra-right-wing conspiracy theorist toolbags and somehow Kavanaugh himself is Mr.
Squeaky Clean? <cough>********<cough>
nope-1004 , 1 day ago
No, they were all drunken college kids.
So have you lefties changed it and would like to charge him for partying?
lmao.....
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
Lol, drunked college kids? More like degenerate a-holes. Troll harder.
IridiumRebel , 1 day ago
Yes. Troll harder.
Garciathinksso , 1 day ago
your being spoon fed a narrative by the msm like rice pudding to a gay cowboy, you make me
sick
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
Keep your homoerotic fantasies to yourself, please.
Garciathinksso , 1 day ago
I thought I was being kind with the gay cowboy remark
istt , 1 day ago
Get the **** out of here, wingnut. Switch back to your CNN. We don't need your ilk here,
loser.
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
I have been here farrrrr long than the vast majority of you pikers. Long enough to recall
what ZH was intended to be for, before it became the cesspool it is today, infested with
russian trolls, nazi-fascist thugs, lunatic fringe d-bags spouting off like they know
anything about anything. So GET the F OFF MY LAWN, punk.
istt , 1 day ago
Anyone who finds this woman and her story credible need their head examined. They are
incapable of critical reasoning.
A political hit job and the stupid, ignoramus Ford was willing to do the hit. She should
be in jail for this disgraceful action.
onebytwo , 1 day ago
So she was communicating on Whatsup with the Washington Post on JULY 6th! How is that
consistent with wanting this whole story to be confidential?
She knew the person she was in contact with since she admitted she was the same journalist
who wrote the article in September. In whatsup you know each other's phone numbers so the
journalist knew her identity from the very beginning. Stop lying about the anonymous tip line
!
Let's call this for what it is: a conspiracy to hijack a supreme court nomination and Mrs
Blasio Ford, the Washington Post, democratic parties operatives (including senator
Fienstein's staff or the senator herself and the Kats legal firm) were co-conspirators).
onwisconsinbadger , 1 day ago
Hired by Pukes, no surprise here.
cheech_wizard , 1 day ago
So elections have consequences, right?
I'll bet you didn't miss a single one of Hillary's campaign events in Wisconsin, did
you?
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
I really don't get it, there are many qualified conservative judges who would do a much
better job on SCOTUS and not damage the court's honor and credibility. Why Kavanaugh?
onwisconsinbadger , 1 day ago
Because he is a political heck and Drumpf likes it that way.
Bricker , 1 day ago
Ford doesnt remember much, except when it matters. She doesnt know exactly when she was
raped or where she claims to be raped, but remembers seeing Mark Judge in a Safeway exactly 8
weeks later.
Hell I remember where I was when the space shuttle blew up in the 80s, I remember where I
was and who I was with when Mt St Helens blew her top in 1980.
People will always remember notable events, PERIOD!
Here is a classic, if you believe her story, I have a bridge for sale
Endgame Napoleon , 1 day ago
Back when the Roy Moore thing was keeping MSM ratings up, I, a person in Dr. Ford's age
group, recalled a 100% harmless event from my 16th year. The reason it sprang to mind is: it
echoed things they were accusing him of.
Accusers said he was in the mall, flirting with girls in their late teens and in other
commercial venues, chatting it up girls in that age group.
Although this event had not crossed my mind in years -- so un-traumatic was it -- I
remembered in much greater detail than Ford the specificities of this harmless event.
I was working at a locally owned steakhouse as a hostess, a glorified and very bored door
opener. I was wearing a pink, medium-warm-gray and light-warm-gray, striped dress (ugh, the
Eighties).
After work, I decided to stop at a local grocery store, and I felt pleased that a
candidate for office who later won handed me his card, trying to convince me to vote for him.
He also mildly flirted with me, not knowing how old I was, and I did not tell him my age,
enjoying the feeling of being older, sophisticated and attractive enough to get his
attention.
He put his phone number on the card, not that anything happened as a result. I knew that I
would not be allowed to go out with this man who really wasn't that much older than me,
anyway, probably about a decade older.
If this man ever ran for another office, or was appointed to a high office, I could call
this sexual assault, I guess, in this insane world. But I would never do that, nor would
almost any woman that I have met.
There must be something in the water, producing more barracudas with a mission to
criminalize things that earlier generations would have called flirting.
learnofjesuits , 1 day ago
was she on valium for funeral and polygraph test ?
this explains why test was done after funeral and her passing this test,
FBI must check this
RighteousRampage , 1 day ago
And while they're at it, they should also check all the stories from Yale classmates who
can attest to the fact that Kavanaugh was often spotted late at night stumbling and slurring
his words, and sometimes aggressively starting sh*t.
learnofjesuits , 1 day ago
inconsequential, nothing will come out of this,
opposite of her being on drugs for polygraph test, this just ends her story
"... The whole point of discussing door #2 was to bring Ford's purported 35-year-old PTSD affliction into the discussion. Poor Dr. Ford, suffering like a Vietnam vet who was the only survivor of a helicopter crash only to be tortured in a tiger cage by the Cong. A lifetime of PTSD and claustrophobia caused by a clumsy groping of a future Supreme Court nominee. Oh the humanity! How come her bad case of acne during the Nor'easter of '84 wasn't brought up? ..."
"... Concentrate on Dr. Ford's work with creating false memories through hypnosis . ..."
"... Oh no! You get the Zoning Nazis on your ***...you're in balls deep. ..."
"... Her bizarre, squeaky, 10 year-old wounded-child's voice was both creepy, and if not bad acting, then a sign she is truly mentally ill. ..."
"... My father's friend, who was a practicing psychiatrist forever, always said that the field's "professionals" had the craziest people he'd ever seen. ..."
Hey, John Brennan said to dig deeper, so we are. Keep peeling the onion and expose more
and more layers. She had a second door put in to improve the house's curb appeal, but you
can't see the door from the curb. The door helped with her claustrophobia but it only allows
egress from living space separate from her main residence.
As the commenter above said, "look squirrel"!
The whole point of discussing door #2 was to
bring Ford's purported 35-year-old PTSD affliction into the discussion. Poor Dr. Ford,
suffering like a Vietnam vet who was the only survivor of a helicopter crash only to be
tortured in a tiger cage by the Cong. A lifetime of PTSD and claustrophobia caused by a
clumsy groping of a future Supreme Court nominee. Oh the humanity! How come her bad case of
acne during the Nor'easter of '84 wasn't brought up?
The only pacifier evident here is the one up your ***.
Beatscape , 1 hour ago
Follow the money... it almost always takes you to the real motivating factors.
Sounds more like hubby didn't want strangers in the house, and she wanted the extra income
or potential. Perhaps, he was scared of the consequences of getting busted, after spending
the money...doing something non code compliant.
Builder here.
This starts to make sense...in a fucked up way.
digitalrevolution , 2 hours ago
Too far in the weeds on this one.
Concentrate on Dr. Ford's work with creating false memories through hypnosis .
NoPension , 1 hour ago
Oh no! You get the Zoning Nazis on your ***...you're in balls deep.
PGR88 , 2 hours ago
Her bizarre, squeaky, 10 year-old wounded-child's voice was both creepy, and if not bad
acting, then a sign she is truly mentally ill.
ChartRoom , 2 hours ago
My father's friend, who was a practicing psychiatrist forever, always said that the
field's "professionals" had the craziest people he'd ever seen.
Wild Bill Steamcock , 1 hour ago
Can confirm
45North1 , 2 hours ago
A floor plan would be instructive.
NoPension , 2 hours ago
Two rooms, a bathrooom and a separate entrance. In an area where that setup probably
commands $2000 a month.
Ms. Mitchell had a line of questioning about the friend who was mutual to Kavanaugh and
Ford. It turns out this was the same person who had been named earlier by Ed Whelan. Ford
said she had dated Garrett, also knew his younger brother, but flatly refused to refer to him
by name in public.
I'll assume Ms. Mitchell was allowed to review all of the investigative material collected
by the Committee to date. There has to be a reason she pursued this line of questioning.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Who would most likely drive a girl to a party with older high school boys from a different
school and different circle of friends? Who would most likely take a 15 year old girl home
from a party in an age without cell phones? His name is Chris Garrett, nickname of "Squi".
She claims to not remember the person that drove her home, and she claims to not remember the
name of the last boy at the gathering. And she refuses to publicly state the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh. These are all one and the same person, her boyfriend and
soon-to-be-ex-BF Chris Garrett, who may have either assaulted her or broke up with her that
day.
Being Free , 23 hours ago
Stunning accusation that Sen. Feinstein covered up 1990 sexual assault by a wealthy
foreign donor against another supporters daughter ...
Ford is a practiced liar. She was coached to cry all the way thru her polygraph test thus
skewing the results.
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
So why is Ford dressed like a WWII school Liberian? Halloween?
How does she do all the water sports (easy boys, keep it clean) that she brags about? How
does she keep a case of beer down and then go surfing in Costa Rica? What is all this 'Air
sickness" stuff? How come she works for a company that has a very controversial Abortion pill
and didn't say this? That $750,000 in GoFundMe bucks will sure help heal those cat scratches
she gave herself. Does she pay taxes on that? So many questions and so little answers. Did
she perjer herself?
Sort of convenient that the statute of limitations has run out for her to make an OFFICIAL
complaint in Maryland.
Blasey-Ford's squeaky, 10 year-old wounded-child voice was both poor acting, and creepy.
If it wasn't acting, then its a clear sign of a deranged mind.
Blasey-Ford resides at 3872 Duncan Place in Palo Alto CA. Her house (according to Zillow)
is currently valued at $3,000,000.00+. There must be a lot of idiots out there contributing
to her GoFundMe account. She will need a lawyer, soon. I believe that there will be a trail
leading back to witnesses who will admit the entire thing was a hoax. And, the band played
on.
morongobill , 1 day ago
Saw this over at Burning Platform. Interesting that Ford's address is reveled.
I for one see her as a political operative, may be crusader for abortions right (which I
support) and very troubled human being, possibly on antidepressants or something similar (her
facial expression, and kind of "permanently glued smile" are not natural at all and she looks
like a female of over 60 biological age while being 51 years old)
Former CIA Director John Brennan assures us that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's
accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is "a national treasure." And his former colleague, James
Comey, has urged investigators to "dig deeper."
So begin at the beginning of her Senate Judiciary Committee testimony :
" I had never told the details to anyone until May 2012, during a couple's counseling
session. The reason this came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed a very
extensive, very long remodel of our home and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that
he and others disagreed with and could not understand.
In explaining why I wanted a second front door, I began to describe the assault in
detail."
Under questioning
from Sen. Diane Feinstein, Ford described an agonizing after-effect of the alleged Kavanaugh
attack that caused her to demand that second door :
"Anxiety, phobia and PTSD-like symptoms are the types of things that I've been coping
with," Ford said. "More specially, claustrophobia, panic and that type of thing."
FEINSTEIN: "Is that the reason for the second front door? Claustrophobia?"
FORD: "Correct."
The trade-off, apparently, was evident in Ford's statement that "our house does not look
aesthetically pleasing from the curb." From the view on Google Earth, or Redfin, one can't see
the second door easily and the house appears no uglier "from the curb" than it ever did, if it
did. But a glance at the real estate databases about Ford's house are instructive.
The Fords bought the house on June 20, 2007. And the "very extensive, very long remodel,"
including the second front door, were completed under a building permit granted in 2008.
So a natural question is why, four years after the remodeling, which also added two rooms
and a bathroom, is the installation of that second door still such a bone of contention between
the couple that it was an issue in the counseling they were undergoing in May 2012?
One key may be Ford's continuing testimony to Feinstein, after describing the aesthetic
difficulties "from the curb."
FEINSTEIN: "I see. And do you have that second front door?"
FORD: "Yes."
FEINSTEIN: "It "
FORD: "It - it now is a place to host Google interns. Because we live near Google, so we
get to have - other students can live there."
Now that she mentions it, the additional remodeling in effect added a self-contained unit to
the house, with its own entrance, perfect for "hosting" or even possibly renting, in violation
of the local zoning . Perhaps a
professional office might be a perfect use, if an illegal one. And in the tight Palo Alto real
estate market, there are a lot of games played for some serious income.
And that may
answer another strange anomaly.
Because since 1993, and through some listings even today, there was another tenant at what
is now the Ford property . It is listed as this person's residence from 1993 to July 2007, a
week or so after she sold the house to the Fords.
Her name is Dr. Sylvia Randall, and she listed this address for her California licensed
practice of psychotherapy, including couples psychotherapy, until her move to Oregon in
2007.
Currently she only practices in that state, where she also pursues her new career as a
talented artist as well.
But many existing directories still have Dr. Randall's address listed at what is now the
Ford residence.
Which raises other questions.
Why has Christine Ford never said a word about Dr. Randall? And why has she been evasive
about the transcripts of her crucial 2012 therapy session, which she can't seem to recall much
about either? Did she provide them to the Washington Post, or did she just provide the
therapist's summary? Who was the psychologist?
In a phone call, I asked Dr. Randall if she had sold her house to the Fords. She asked back
how I had found out. I asked if she was the couples therapist who treated the Fords. She would
not answer yes or no, replying, "I am a couples therapist."
So was the second door an escape for Christine Blasey Ford's terrors or was documenting her
terrors a ruse for sneaking a rental unit through tough local zoning ordinances? And if the
second door allowed access and egress for the tenant of a second housing unit, rather than for
the primary resident, how did the door's existence ameliorate Ford's professed
claustrophobia?
None of this means that her charges against Kavanaugh might not be perfectly valid, but her
explanation for the "second door" looks like it could use more investigation. At the very least
it appears to be a far more complicated element of Ford's credibility than it originally
appeared.
lulu34 , 3 minutes ago
It's a simple property tax scheme. Rent out the spacw to offset the taxes. You don't
report this income to the "authorities".
hannah , 22 minutes ago
first...******* NO ONE STATES THAT THERE ISNT EVEN A DOCTOR MUCH LESS THEIR NOTES...?
everyone wants to see the doctors notes yet no one has even mentioned the name of the doctor.
i dont think there are notes about a door. that is all ********. feinsteins people typed up
'the notes'.......also if she is renting the remodel area is she paying taxes on that income.
in california it could be $24,000 to $48,000 a year easily........
lulu34 , 2 minutes ago
Bingo...it's a cost $$$ collection to offset property taxes
Automatic Choke , 34 minutes ago
Illegal and unzoned apartment added to a house? Watch out, here comes the tax collector.
She just might have talked her way into a tax fraud conviction.
Seal Team 6 , 47 minutes ago
Randall ran a business from her home so I would wonder if she put the door in in the 90s,
as businesses run from homes typically have alternate entrances. Ford and husband listed it
on the permit in 2007 to cover it up otherwise it could be used as a basis to walk on a real
estate deal...no building permit was granted. Happens all the time. Boy if someone has a
picture of Ford's house from the 90's and see's that second door, she is done done done.
Former CIA Director John Brennan assures us that Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is "a national treasure."
national treasure
Is CLEARLY a code word.
Payoff? Bribe?
silverserfer , 22 minutes ago
Creepy as **** that a former CIA diector would say soemthing like this.
surf@jm , 18 minutes ago
Fords father was CIA....
Dont forget that.....
thebigunit , 42 minutes ago
Very curious.
So was the second door an escape for Christine Blasey Ford's terrors or was documenting
her terrors a ruse for sneaking a rental unit through tough local zoning ordinances?
What I find MOST curious is the fact that Dr. Ford's internet persona has been completely
"sanitized".
Someday, the master conspiracy will be revealed, and it will look something like this:
The main plotter and organizer of the anti-Trump coup d'etat was former CIA director
John O. Brennan.
Venture capital funding for Google was provided by CIA venture capital operation
In-Q-Tel.
Google was started by Stanford University grad students Larry Page and Sergey
Brin.
Stanford University is located in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a company town for Stanford University
Stanford University is a captive technology incubator for the CIA
One of the biggest technology companies in Palo Alto is CIA contractor Palantir
Palo Alto is a company town for the CIA.
Dr. Christine Baseley Ford was a professor at Palo Alto University and also taught at
Stanford University.
Overy 1750 Stanford University graduates work at Google.
The CIA developed the plan to take out Judge Kavanaugh using radical feminist
operatives associated with Stanford University and Stanford Law School to claim sexual
misconduct.
The CIA used its control of the technology industry and Google in particular to
sanitize Christine Ford's internet personna and to obscure or suppress any information that
might disclose her radical history and associations.
The CIA, Stanford, and Google are joined at the hip.
Mitchell the "veteran prosecutor" also failed to ask Ford who hosted the party where the
alleged assault took place.
This is an important question. Maybe the most important question.
No one should be expected to remember their high school friends' home addresses, just like
no one should be expected to remember every person who attended a specific high school
party.
One thing ANYONE who suffered a violent attack would remember is WHO OWNED THE HOUSE where
the attack took place.
High school parties generally are hosted by a the same people throughout a students high
school years. It's not like everyone in class takes their turn throwing a kegger.
As anyone who drank to get drunk at parties in high school will tell you, it was always
the same handful of kids, maybe three or four, who let their friends drink alcohol in their
parents' home.
Narrowing down exactly who owned the home where the alleged attack took place should be
easy due to the fact that, according to Ford, it was more of a small get together than a full
blown party.
All investigators should need to do is ask the known attendees, under oath, whether or not
they hosted the party where the alleged attack took place.
The fact that Ford's testimony includes exactly one person whose name she cannot remember
is NOT a coincidence.
The phantom attendee was created out of thin air to give Ford an out if the known
attendees claimed the attack did not occur at their homes.
There are so many things wrong with this political farce. Liberal mental illness, as with
any case, is a given, automatically assumed.
Flip flopping dufuses on the other side, weakness, gross ineptitude.
The entire system needs to be culled via a massive firestorm; no one or thing left
standing.
Cassander , 1 day ago
@BGO -- Re your first sentence, Mitchell notes in her memo "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any specificity".
I think this covers your point implicitly. If she doesn't remember what house it was, how can
she remember whose house it was?
Just thought you were going a bit hard on Mitchell, whose memo seems pretty damning to
me...
BGO , 1 day ago
Asking *what* house and *whose* house are two ENTIRELY different things.
Think about the most traumatic experience of your life. You know EXACTLY where the
traumatic experience took place, right?
America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs
are more evil.
This is a really apt quote: "America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with
one another on war, neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases
the power and profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both."
Notable quotes:
"... The buzzword "bipartisan" gets used a lot in US politics because it gives the illusion that whatever agenda it's being applied to must have some deep universal truth to it for such wildly divergent ideologies to set aside their differences in order to advance it, but what it usually means is Democrat neocons and Republican neocons working together to inflict new horrors upon the world. ..."
"... America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war, neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs are more evil. ..."
If there's one thing that brings a tear to my eye, it's the inspiration I feel when watching
Republican-aligned neoconservatives and Democrat-aligned neoconservatives find a way to bridge
their almost nonexistent differences and come together to discuss the many, many, many, many,
many, many many many things they have in common.
In a conference at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, "Resistance" leader and
professional left-puncher Neera Tanden met with Iraq-raping neocon Bill Kristol to discuss
bipartisanship and shared values. While leprechauns held hands and danced beneath candy
rainbows and gumdrop Reaper drones, the duo engaged in a friendly, playful conversation with
the event's host in a debate format which was not unlike watching the Pillsbury Doughboy have a
pillow fight with himself in a padded room after drinking a bottle of NyQuil.
To get the event started, the host whose name I refuse to learn asked the pair to discuss
briefly what common ground such wildly different people could possibly share to make such a
strange taboo-shattering dialogue possible.
"Issues around national security and believing in democratic principles as they relate to
foreign policy," replied
Tanden . "And opposing authoritarianism, and opposing the kind of creeping populism that
undermines democracy itself."
Neera Tanden, in case you are unaware, is a longtime Clinton and Obama insider
and CEO of the plutocrat-backed
think tank Center for American Progress. Her emails featured prominently in the 2016
Podesta drops by WikiLeaks, which New Republic described as revealing "a
pattern of freezing out those who don't toe the line, a disturbing predilection for someone who
is a kind of gatekeeper for what ideas are acceptable in Democratic politics." Any quick glance
at Tanden's political activism and Twitter presence will render this unsurprising, as she often
seems more concerned with attacking the Green Party and noncompliant progressive Democrats than
she does with advancing progressive values. Her entire life is dedicated to keeping what passes
for America's political left out of the hands of the American populace.
Kristol co-signed Tanden's anti-populist rhetoric and her open endorsement of
neoconservative foreign policy, and went on to say that another thing he and Tanden have in
common is that they've both served in government, which makes you realize that nothing's black
and white and everything's kinda nebulous and amorphous so it doesn't really matter if you, say
for example, help deceive your country into a horrific blunder that ends up killing a whole lot
of people for no good reason.
"I do think if you've served in government -- this isn't universally true but somewhat true --
that you do have somewhat more of a sense of the complexity of things, and many of its
decisions are not black and white, that in public policy there are plusses and minuses to
most policies," Kristol said
.
"There are authentic disagreements both about values, but also just about how certain
things are gonna work or not work and that is what adds a kind of humility to one's belief
that one is kind of always right about everything."
I found this very funny coming from the man who is notoriously always wrong about
everything, and I'd like to point out that "complexity" is a key talking point that the
neoconservatives who've been consistently proven completely wrong about everything are fond of
repeating. Everything's complicated and nothing's really known and it's all a big blurry mess
so maybe butchering a million Iraqis and destabilizing the Middle East was a good thing . Check
out this short clip of John
Bolton being confronted by Tucker Carlson about what a spectacular error the Iraq invasion was
for a great example of this:
I listened to the whole conference, but it was basically one long smear of amicable
politeness which was the verbal equivalent of the color beige, so I had difficulty tuning in.
Both Tanden and Kristol hate the far left (or as those of us outside the US pronounce it, "the
center"), both Tanden and Kristol hate Trump, and hey maybe Americans have a lot more in common
than they think and everyone can come together and together together togetherness blah blah. At
one point Kristol said something about disagreeing with internet censorship, which was weird
because his Weekly Standard
actively participates in Facebook censorship as one of its authorized "fact checkers".
The buzzword "bipartisan" gets used a lot in US politics because it gives the illusion that
whatever agenda it's being applied to must have some deep universal truth to it for such wildly
divergent ideologies to set aside their differences in order to advance it, but what it usually
means is Democrat neocons and Republican neocons working together to inflict new horrors upon
the world.
America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or legs
are more evil.
Neera Tanden and Bill Kristol are the same fucking person. They're both toxic limbs on the
same toxic beast, feeding the lives of ordinary people at home and abroad into its gaping mouth
in service of the powerful. And populism, which is nothing other than support for the
protection of common folk from the powerful, is the only antidote to such toxins. Saying
populism undermines democracy is like saying democracy undermines democracy.
Keyser , 29 minutes ago
The only thing the neocons care about is money and dead brown people, in that order,
because the more dead people, the more $$$ they make...
Jim in MN , 28 minutes ago
You mean, neolibcon globalist elite sociopath traitors, right?
bshirley1968 , 38 minutes ago
I am confident that if I ever spent time around Caitlin there would be a whole host of
things we would disagree about......but this,
" America's two mainstream political parties agree furiously with one another on war,
neoliberalism, Orwellian surveillance, and every other agenda which increases the power and
profit of the plutocratic class which owns them both. The plutocrat-owned mass media plays up
the differences between Democrats and Republicans to hysterical proportions, when in reality
the debate over which one is worse is like arguing over whether a serial killer's arms or
legs are more evil."
.....is something we can absolutely agree on. This FACT needs to be expounded and driven
down the sheeple throats until they are puking it up. Why don't they teach that in screwls?
Because school is where the foundation for this lie of two parties is laid .
DingleBarryObummer , 29 minutes ago
It's funny that you say that. I was just thinking about how high school was a microcosm of
how the world is.
The football stars were the "protected class." They could park like assholes, steal food
from the cafeteria, and show up late, and wouldn't get in trouble.
That's just one of a multitude of examples. That's a whole nother article in itself.
DingleBarryObummer , 39 minutes ago
Tucker Carlson made Bolton look like the dingus he is in that interview. We all know
(((who))) he works for.
+1 to tucker
WTFUD , 43 minutes ago
Campaigns are funded, career Politicians become made-men, conduits for the scramble of
BILLIONAIRES gorging bigly on-the-public-teat, with a kick-back revolving door supernova
gratuity waiting at the end of the rainbow.
Of course they can ALL AGREE . . . eventually.
Chupacabra-322 , 54 minutes ago
"How many people have Kristol and his ilk murdered in their endless wars for israel?"
Countless.
ChiangMaiXPat , 58 minutes ago
As a Trump voter, I believe I have more in common with Caitlin Johnstone then "any"
Neocon. Her articles and writing are mostly "spot on." I imagine I would disagree on a couple
key social issues but on foreign policy I believe most conservatives are on the same page as
her.
ChiangMaiXPat , 54 minutes ago
I thought her piece was "spot on," she's a very good writer. The Neo CONS will be the
death of this country.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has released a letter from former meteorologist and former
Democratic candidate for Maryland's 8th district, Dennis Ketterer, who claims that Brett
Kavanaugh's third accuser and Michael Avenatti client, Julie Swetnick, was a group-sex
enthusiast that he initially mistook for a prostitute at a 1993 Washington D.C. going-away
party for a colleague.
"Due to her having a directly stated penchant for group sex, I decided not to see her
anytmore" -Dennis Ketterer
Ketterer writes that Swetnick approached him "alone, quite beautiful, well-dressed and no
drink in hand."
"Consequently, my initial thought was that she might be a high end call girl because at the
time I weighed 350lbs so what would someone like her want with me? "
The former meteorologist then said that since "there was no conversation about exchanging
sex for money" he decided to keep talking to her, noting that he had never been hit on in a bar
before.
Over the ensuing weeks, Ketterer claims that he and Swetnick met at her residence for an
extramarital affair that did not involve sex.
"Although we were not emotionally involved there was physical contact. We never had sex
despite the fact that she was very sexually aggressive with me.
...
During a conversation about our sexual preferences, things got derailed when Julie told me
that she liked to have sex with more than one guy at a time. In fact sometimes with several
at one time. She wanted to know if that would be ok in our relationship.
Ketterer claims that since the AIDS epidemic was a "huge issue" at the time and he had
children, he decided to cut things off with Swetnick. He goes on to mention that she never said
anything about being "sexually assaulted, raped, gang-raped or having sex against her will,"
and that she "never mentioned Brett Kavanaugh in any capacity."
After Ketterer decided to run for Congress in Maryland, he thought Julie could be of service
to his campaign - however he lost her phone number. After contacting her father, he learned
that Julie had "psychological and other problems at the time."
Last week we reported that Swetnick's ex-boyfriend,
Richard Vinneccy - a registered Democrat, took out a restraining order against her, and says
he has evidence that she's lying.
"Right after I broke up with her, she was threatening my family, threatening my wife and
threatening to do harm to my baby at that time ," Vinneccy said in a telephone interview with
POLITICO. " I know a lot about her ." -
Politico
" I have a lot of facts, evidence, that what she's saying is not true at all ," he said. " I
would rather speak to my attorney first before saying more ."
Avenatti called the claims "outrageous" and hilariously accused the press of " digging into
the past " of a woman levying a claim against Kavanaugh from over 35 years ago.
And now we can add "group sex enthusiast" to the claims against Swetnick. Read below:
About 35 years ago, at a party in San Francisco where everyone was very drunk, now Senator
Feinstein sexually molested me. Don't remember the date or location or anything else, but it
happened, I swear!
Naturally, want to remain anonymous to protect my integrity, but it did
happen! She shoved me down onto my knees and ground her crotch in my face. It was terrible, I
can still recall the horrible smell to this day! The stench was a combination of rotting
flesh and urine. Makes me nauseous just thinking of that sexual assault. INVESTIGATE this
serial molester!
Guys who have been falsely accused, like me, knew quickly that Ford was lying. They all
have the same pattern, too many smiles, attention seeking, stories that make no sense or too
vague,etc.
VWAndy , 22 hours ago
Mrs Fords stunt works in family courts all the time. Thats why they tried it folks. They
have gotten away with it before.
Barney08 , 1 day ago
Ford is a crusader. She thinks she is a Roe v Wade savior but she is an over educated
ditz.
Kelley , 1 day ago
One word uttered by Ford proves that not only did Kav. not attack her but no one ever
assaulted her . That word is "hippocampus." No woman in recorded history has ever used
that word to describe their strongest reaction to a sexual assault.
It's mind blowing that a person would react to what was supposedly one of the most
traumatic experiences of her life with a nearly gleeful "Indelibly in my hippocampus " or
something to that effect unless of course it didn't happen. Her inappropriate response leads
me to believe that Ford was never assaulted in the manner in which she claimed. If her
claimed trauma had been a case of mistaken identity regarding a real assault, she still would
have felt it and reacted far differently.
Emotional memories get stored in the amygdala. The hippocampus is for matter-of-fact
memories. When Senator Feinstein asked Ford about her strongest memories of the event, Ford
went all "matter of fact" in her reply, "Indelibly in my hippocampus ." without a trace of
emotion in her response. No emotions = no assault by ANYONE let alone by Kavanaugh.
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
Not only that, her most indelible memory from the experience was the maniacal laughter,
not the part where a hand was forcibly placed over her mouth and she thought she may in that
moment, have been accidently killed.
As to the hippopotamus, is that a turtle neck she is wearing or just her neck. What the
**** happened there, she said nothing about strangulation.
pnchbowlturd , 1 day ago
Another peculiar thing about Ford's testimony was the adolescent voicing she gave it in.
It was if she was imitating a 6 year old. I wish MItchell had fleshed out Ford's hobbies
(surfing??) more and given more context to her career activities and recreational pursuits in
college, alcohol consumption patterns or substance abuse treatments.
Her voicing was a tell that she seemed to be overplaying the victim persona for a person
who holds a doctorate and travels the world surfing
Nunny , 1 day ago
If they coached her (while on the loooong drive from CA...lol) to use that voice, they
didn't do her any favors. I thought femi-libs were all about being 'strong' and 'tough'. They
can't have it both ways.....strike that.....they do have it both ways.....and the useful
idiots on the left buy it.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
IMHO, the most peculiar thing was her outright refusal to say aloud the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh, when repeatedly questioned by Rachel Mitchell. It was
wildly obvious that she was being evasive and I see it as an enormous tell. Chris Garrett,
nicknamed "Squi", was IMHO the boy that drove her to and from the party, and if he didn't
outright assault her that day, he may have dumped her that day.
MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 day ago
If the FBI is to have ANY credibility, they must insist on Ford's emails, texts and phone
records for the last 2 years.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Kill shots:
Ranging from "mid 1980s" in a text to the Washington Post to "early 80s"
No name was listed in 2012 and 2013 individual and marriage therapy notes.
she was the victim of "physical abuse," whereas she has now testified that she told her
husband about a "sexual assault."
she does not remember who invited her to the party or how she heard about it. She does
not remember how she got to the party." Mitchell continued: "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any
specificity. Perhaps most importantly, she does not remember how she got from the party to
her house."
In her letter to Feinstein, she said "me and 4 others" were at the party but in her
testimony she said there were four boys in additional to Leland Keyser and herself. She did
not list Leland Keyser even though they are good friends. Leland Keyser's presence should
have been more memorable than PJ Smyth's,
· She testified that she had exactly one beer at the party
· "All three named eyewitnesses have submitted statements to the Committee denying
any memory of the party whatsoever,
· her BFF: Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever
being at a party or gathering where he was present with
· the simple and unchangeable truth is that Keyser is unable to corroborate [Dr.
Ford's allegations] because she has no recollection of the incident in question.
· Mitchell stated that Ford refused to provide her therapy notes to the Senate
Committee.
· Mitchell says that Ford wanted to remain confidential but called a tipline at the
Washington Post.
· she also said she did not contact the Senate because she claimed she "did not
know how to do that."
· It would also have been inappropriate to administer a polygraph to someone who
was grieving.
· the date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was told that Ford's
symptoms prevented her from flying, but she agreed during testimony that she flies "fairly
frequently."
· She also flew to Washington D.C. for the hearing.
· "The activities of Congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford's attorneys likely
affected Dr. Ford's account.
All Comments 833
NaturalOnly , 10 hours ago
It is not a matter of proving he is guilty to be prosecuted and go to jail. I think he did
it. I think we all do stupid stuff when we are young and drunk. By all accounts he was a
boozer.
There are a ton of people who would like to be on the Supreme court, why shove this guy
down everyone's throat? He was an a$$. He needs to go away.
At first I thought this was all about politics. It might be a little. But women are sick
of being victimized by men who get by with it. He should not get by with this.
Mzhen , 10 hours ago
No. Corroborating. Evidence.
Mike in Tokyo Rogers , 9 hours ago
Illogical and emotional "reasoning."
merlinfire , 2 hours ago
"I think he is guilty despite the evidence, so he must be guilty, despite the
evidence."
Mzhen , 11 hours ago
Ms. Mitchell had a line of questioning about the friend who was mutual to Kavanaugh and
Ford. It turns out this was the same person who had been named earlier by Ed Whelan. Ford
said she had dated Garrett, also knew his younger brother, but flatly refused to refer to him
by name in public.
I'll assume Ms. Mitchell was allowed to review all of the investigative material collected
by the Committee to date. There has to be a reason she pursued this line of questioning.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Who would most likely drive a girl to a party with older high school boys from a different
school and different circle of friends? Who would most likely take a 15 year old girl home
from a party in an age without cell phones? His name is Chris Garrett, nickname of "Squi".
She claims to not remember the person that drove her home, and she claims to not remember the
name of the last boy at the gathering. And she refuses to publicly state the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh. These are all one and the same person, her boyfriend and
soon-to-be-ex-BF Chris Garrett, who may have either assaulted her or broke up with her that
day.
fleur de lis , 13 hours ago
What a spoiled brat she must have been whilst growing up.
She must be a really obnoxious snot to her coworkers over the years, too.
And as a teacher she must be a real screwball.
Which explains how she landed an overpaid job at a snowflake factory.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Yes. I was focused on trying to get into an elite college when I was in HS and these
people's lives were nothing like mine in my teens. But then like a lot of people I'm lowborn
as opposed to these people. I was a caddy at the Country Club, and my parents were certainly
not members.
Brazillionaire , 14 hours ago
I haven't read all the comments so I don't know if somebody already brought this up... can
this woman (who was 15) explain why she was in an upstairs bedroom with two boys? Did they
drag her up the stairs? In front of the others? If she went willingly, for what purpose?
Some things reign eternal... You go (down) girl, Doctor Ford! What a brave 15 year-old
drinking at HS and College-Level Parties! Truly a Progressive ahead of the times! Thank you
for paving the road to ruin! Don't forget to breathe in-between. You ARE the FACE OF THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, GIRL! Suck it up, Buttercup!
alfbell , 15 hours ago
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RED WAVE!! RED WAVE!!
RighteousRampage , 15 hours ago
Yes, we all got to see Kavanaugh PMS'ing on national television. No need to shout about
it.
alfbell , 15 hours ago
I BELIEVE!!
... that America's institutions are being torn down by Leftists. The attempt to create a
new totalitarian regime has been upon us for decades and is now perfectly clear.
We will not say goodbye to morality.
We will not say goodbye to science.
We will not say goodbye to democracy.
We will not say goodbye to our Constitution, Bill of Rights, Founding Fathers, Logic,
Decency, etc. etc. etc.
MAGA!
AHBL , 15 hours ago
Morality: Your dear Leader cheated on 3 different wives, one of them with a
prostitute,...while she was pregnant (or had a 4 month old, I forget); filed for bankruptcy 5
times, cheating many people out of money; settled fraud lawsuits; lied about charity
donations; your party nominated an actual PEDOPHILE (Moore) for Senate and now wants to
appoint an angry drunk to be SCJ!
Science: You folks are literally disputing the conclusions of the vast, vast majority of
scientists (97% by my last count) when it comes to global warming.
Democracy: this is a Democratic Republic...if it was a Democracy Trump wouldn't be
President.
The rest of the nonsense you wrote was just filler...obviously.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Still better than the rapist and intern cigarer
and Benghazi killer clintons😂😂😂
why do retarded libturds not see that!!
alfbell , 11 hours ago
You are clueless. Have all of your priorities and importances upside down. Have zero
critical thinking.
Can't see that it isn't about Trump. It's about a Populist/Nationalist movement to put an
end to the degradation of Progressive Globalists. Look at the big picture AHBL. C'mon you can
do it.
RighteousRampage , 15 hours ago
"Wave goodbye to science"
Um, I believe you have your parties confused.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
ISIS killee obama turned the democrats into te
aloha_snakbar , 15 hours ago
Why was Ms. Ford wearing glasses that looked like someone rubbed Crisco on the lenses? As
a long time wearer of glasses, I can tell you we dont roll that way, kind of defeats the
purpose. Answer? Those were not her glasses...they were a prop...
NeigeAmericain , 13 hours ago
Hahaha! She should have just taken out the lens out. No one would have looked that closely
or would they ? 🤔
Dormouse , 15 hours ago
She's an Illuminati/NXIVM MKUltra-ed CIA sex-kitten. Her family glows in the dark with CIA
connections. She's a CIA recruiter at Stamford, as well as her other job at Palo Alto. Oh,
something traumatic has happened to her, multiple times; but at the hands of her family and
their close Agency friends. Alyssa Milano in the audience? Come on! This is so ******* sick!
What a disgusting display for those in the Know. Does the FBI currently have the balls to
call them all out? That's the question, has Trump reformed the DOJ/FBI -- beyond the hobbled
and shackled part consummed by these criminals with their coup? He seems confident, almost
like he's tormenting his enemies as usual.
RighteousRampage , 15 hours ago
I heard she was chapter head of the local Elk's lodge as well.
GotAFriendInBen , 16 hours ago
Bye bye lying Brett
New reports question Kavanaugh's credibility on past drinking behavior, when he knew about
allegations
Texts suggest Supreme Court nominee knew of Ramirez accusations months before when he
testified he had heard them
Gold Banit , 16 hours ago
Trump is brilliant and very smart!
Trump destroyed 17 high profile and very rich Republicans in the primaries.
Trump destroyed high profile and very rich Hillary Clinton and became the President of the
USA.
Trump will now destroy the Democratic Party CNN and the main stream media.
Trump is not only brilliant and very smart he is a genius..
The DemoRats are in panic mode and are scared to death cause they are starting to realize
that this could be the end of the Democratic Party.
RighteousRampage , 15 hours ago
"Trump is brilliant and very smart!"
Easy there, you're gonna hurt yourself.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Best president in hi
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
He is brilliant
he knew this pick would get beat so he picked Kavanaugh
it was brilliant because even Bush was forced to fight for
kacenau😂😂😂
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
He will be confirmed this week
no problem
just outing the democrats that will be targeted in nov
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
I'll believe a woman after she's happily, on her own, made me breakfast 5 years or
more....like mine does 8 years later.
ParaZite , 16 hours ago
Democrats have shown that they are anything but reasonable.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
Racheal Doleazle...Blase'- Ford....We should believe these women! - Why?l
ParaZite , 16 hours ago
Because they have a vagina and can cry when their go fund me page hits 500K.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Cause a fat turd senator from Hawaii ordered us too😂😂😂
after that bitch tried to get the democrat rapist clinton back in my White House???
she hates Brett???
dekocrats are riding a fastvttrain to hell
aloha_snakbar , 16 hours ago
Funny how Democraps are getting their panties in a wad over BK drinking beer in college,
yet were okay with Slappy Sotoro snorting cocaine in college....go figure...
Dormouse , 14 hours ago
They're terrified of what happens once he's confirmed.
10/10/18 Checkmate
Extinction
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
The million babies a year quit being executed
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Where WAS the media when ISIS killer obama put those two fat no resume turds on the
court???
GotAFriendInBen , 16 hours ago
Be wary of anyone this lunatic wants to plant for a lifetime position
Trump Says He 'Fell In Love' With Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un
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Block reference ID: f9d6i listen to the ****-11e8-8d59-**** you
aloha_snakbar , 16 hours ago
Lol... what, seeing UB40?
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Ouch
might be right on that😂😂😂
Mareka , 16 hours ago
I suspect this is as much about discouraging others from stepping forward as it is about
destroying Kavenaugh.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
I suspect this is about Communists trying to take over our government.
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
Amen
this is warning the good guys
Debt Slave , 16 hours ago
She is a cross eyed boobis and we have to believe her because she says Kavanaugh, a white
hetero catholic man without any decent upbringing or engrained scruples raped her like a
monkey savage out of the jungle. Oh sorry, TRIED to rape her. As a teenager. Tried to raped a
pathetic, stupid cross eyed retarded moron that has since been successfully lobotomized at a
'modern' American university.
When is the last time you saw a 'mentally challenged' person being abused? Oh yes I
remember now, it was Chicongo, January 2017. Four negroes shoved a retarded white man's head
in a toilet and demanded he swear that he loved Niggers.
Never heard what happened to the savage fuckers, eh? Not surprised.
i know who and what I am voting for white man, do you?
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
This is all over BRUTAL KISS
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
Whaaa waa waa waa. Whahhh wa waaaaa. It's good to be retarded! Then you don't even have to
try and understand the stupid **** we are FED today!
ThePhantom , 17 hours ago
bitch didn't clean her glasses.... mother ******
rkb100100 , 17 hours ago
I hear Anita Hill is worth a lot of money. I wonder what kind of pay-off this slime ball
will end up with.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
Pubic hair is worth a lot! It's got electrolytes!
Empire's Frontiers , 17 hours ago
You know, we ain't heard much about Russia for a few days.
Mouldy , 16 hours ago
Yeah ZH... **** this Kavanaugh ****, can we get back to the regularly
scheduled doom **** please.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
Quitchabitchen.
benb , 16 hours ago
Time for the un-redacted FISA docs and the text messages. That should send Schumer and the
gang into a tailspin.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
....disqus spinning thing
Hadenough1000 , 11 hours ago
God bless brilliant trump
holding those real crimes over democrats
cant wait until he drops the bombs
MrAToZ , 17 hours ago
The Dims don't believe Ford any more than they believe in the constitution. They are
building a better world. They are true believers, one in the cause.
If one of them were at the receiving end of this type of Spanish inquisition they would be
crying foul right out of the batter's box. But, because this is for the cause they will put
the vagina hat on, goose step around and say they believe that mousey Marxist.
It's a made up sink if he's innocent, guilty if he floats game show. They know exactly
what they are doing, which makes them even more reprehensible.
benb , 16 hours ago
Yes a Hoax! But how many out there believe this crap? I'd like to see an accurate poll if
that's possible.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
I believe it all! Both sides are right!
Debt Slave , 16 hours ago
That's why we call them 'Bolsheviks'. That's what they are.
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
They killed millions! ...and are poised to try and do it again.
BankSurfyMan , 18 hours ago
Fordy had sexual encounters, she drinks beer and flies all over the globe... One day she
had a beer and cannot remember getting home on time to watch, MOAR DOOM NEWS! Fucktard Fordy!
Doom 2019! Next!
inosent , 18 hours ago
Well, at least Rachel doesn't come off as one of those psycho SJW bitches
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
I am a black woman that identifies as a pre-pubescent Taiwanese man.
SocratesSolutions , 18 hours ago
Hmm. I think here, now which is it really? Does Ford make a better looking man, or does
Kavanaugh make a better looking woman?
Giant Meteor , 17 hours ago
I dunno. But so far no one has been able to answer this question. Why, in the picture
above, does Ford look like she swalowed a hula hoop ?
Oldguy05 , 16 hours ago
Because.
Kafir Goyim , 18 hours ago
Just had lunch with a democrat. He's generally tolerable, so his level of anger at
Kavanaugh and his acceptance of "anything goes" to derail Kavanaugh was surprising to me.
Democrats believe that Roe V Wade is instantly overturned if Kavanaugh gets in. They also
think that if Roe V Wade is overturned, no woman will ever be able to abort another baby in
the US.
I explained to him that destruction of Roe V Wade will only make it a state issue, so
girls in California, Oregon, Washington, New York, etc will be able to kill as many babies as
they want to. It will only be girls in Wyoming or Utah or some other very red state that
might have to schlep their *** to another state to kill their kid.
Democrats see this as a battle for abortion, and if Kav gets confirmed, abortion is
completely gone in the USA. That's why you have these women freaking out. They think the
stakes are much higher than they actually are. Almost all of the women that are so worried
about this live in states where it won't have any effect on them at all.
I am Groot , 18 hours ago
I hope you took a bath and a flea dip after lunch.
Kafir Goyim , 18 hours ago
I think I kind of calmed him down. We need to let them know that their world doesn't end
if Roe V Wade is overturned. I am also not at all sure it would be overturned, even with Kav
on the court, but they insist it will be, so not worth arguing. Reminding them that it
doesn't effect them, if they live in a blue state should calm their fears a little.
The right to abort is their 2nd amendment, God help us. If you explain to them they are
not really in danger, it may calm them down. They'll still make noise about those poor girls
who can't get an abortion after school and still make it home for dinner, and instead, have
to take a bus to another state to kill their kid, but they won't be as personally threatened
and lashing out as they mistakenly are now.
when the saxon began , 17 hours ago
And therein lies the fatal flaw of an elected representative government. The votes of the
ignorant and stupid are counted the same as yours or mine. And there are far more of
them.
VisionQuest , 18 hours ago
Democrats stand for atheism, abortion & sodomy. Ask yourself this question: Who stands
with Democrats? If your answer is "I do." then you'd best rethink your precious notions of
morality, truth, common decency, common sense and justice.
It is undoubtedly true that, in our entirely imperfect world, the American Way of life is
also far from perfect. But it is also true that, compared to every other system of government
on the planet, there is no comparison with the level of achievement accomplished by the
American Way of life.
Democrats hate and will destroy the American Way of life. Have you been a Democrat? Walk
away.
Automatic Choke , 19 hours ago
EXCUSE ME, Y'ALL.....
but where the hell are the texts, FISA memo, & other docs?
look, another ******* squirrel !!!!!
J Jason Djfmam , 19 hours ago
They should also recommend an investigation of the woman with two front holes...errr front
doors.
snatchpounder , 18 hours ago
Yes Flake should be investigated I concur.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
Zing!
freedommusic , 19 hours ago
At this point the FBI should recommend a criminal investigation to the DOJ for treasonous
actors who are subverting the constitutional process of SC nomination. The crimes of perjury,
sedition, and treason, need to be clearly articulated to the public and vigorous prosecution
ensue.
We are STILL a Constitutional Republic - RIGHT?
Giant Meteor , 18 hours ago
Well, I am betting 27 trillion dollars that the answer to your question is a resounding ,
no ...
didthatreallyhappen , 19 hours ago
there is not "case"
ZeroPorridge , 19 hours ago
STOP SHOWING THIS LAME ****, TYLER! I HAD ENOUGH OF THIS WAFFLECRAP!!
DingleBarryObummer , 19 hours ago
It's the nothing burger flavor of the week. Tylers gotta put bread on the table u know. Be
grateful for the good stuff they host, ZH is still the best news site on the internet. And
don't worry, this nothing burger will get stale and we will have a new one in a week or 2,
and everyone can get hysterical from that and forget about this one.
dchang0 , 19 hours ago
A body language analysis video on BitChute goes through the Ford testimony and points out
all the markers for lying and rehearsed lines:
I saw a video on youtube where a man threw chicken bones and saw Kavanaugh is guilty. I
mean, what other proof does one need.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
Red herrIng much?
Anunnaki , 14 hours ago
Excellent. Thanks
loved the part on pretty pose. Her helium voice was an act
Shillinlikeavillan , 19 hours ago
This **** won't mean anything to the leftards, they will pretend that this report never
happened and will carry on acting like a bunch of dumbasses...
Meanwhile, there was indeed a party with ford in it that night...
... and its hard to stop a train...
RighteousRampage , 19 hours ago
...of old angry entitled white men from gang banging our constitutional rights.
Mr. Universe , 19 hours ago
How come all of a sudden 8 year old accounts whom I've never seen before start trolling?
At least 4 so far I've seen, strange co inky dink ehh?
RighteousRampage , 16 hours ago
I gave up posting here years ago when the site went from sharp-eyed financial analysis to
Russia-humping conspiro-nazism. That said, this Kavanaughty thing is just too much of a
meatball to pass up.
Now, respect your elders, and go back to playing in your sandbox, little boy.
Sinophile , 19 hours ago
If the bitch 'struggled academically in college' then how the hell did she get awarded a
freaking P(ost)H(ole)D(igger)?
snatchpounder , 18 hours ago
She probably blew the right man or men.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
That's why GRE and other standardized tests should be prioritized. Thinking on one's feet
is a good thing!
eitheror , 19 hours ago
Thank you Rachel Mitchell for having the courage to tell the truth about the testimony of
Ms. Blasey Ford, P.h.D.
Ford is not a medical Doctor but is a P.h.D.
The Democrats seem to have abandoned Ms. Ford like a bad haircut, instead focusing on
other smoke and mirrors.
onewayticket2 , 19 hours ago
Again, So What??
The democrats have already soiled this Judge's career and family name. Now it's about
delay.
Exoneration note from the Republicans' lawyer carries precisely zero weight with
them.....they are too busy sourcing everyone who ever drank beer with Kav....in an effort to
get another Week Long extension/argue that Trump already greenlighted such an extension to
investigate how much Kav likes beer. or who's milk money he stole in 3rd grade....
RighteousRampage , 19 hours ago
i guess Kavanuaghty wasn't worried about soiling the family name all those times he
stumbled home slurring his words and yelling at random passersby.
onewayticket2 , 18 hours ago
He is not the first college student to get drunk.
Equating getting drunk to charges in every newspaper and TV news station for weeks stating
he is a gang rapist ring leader etc is laughably idiotic. Nice job. Thx for the laugh.
HowdyDoody , 19 hours ago
Reports that Chinese naval vessel has chased a US vessel USS Decatur out of disputed
waters. The Chinese vessel came within ~40 meters of the USS vessel (which is pretty darn
close).
French president Macron, visiting the West Indows was interviewed about the confrontation.
He responded, saying "don't bug me, bro. I got important things on my mind".
About 35 years ago, at a party in San Francisco where everyone was very drunk, now Senator
Feinstein sexually molested me. Don't remember the date or location or anything else, but it
happened, I swear! Naturally, want to remain anonymous to protect my integrity, but it did
happen! She shoved me down onto my knees and ground her crotch in my face. It was terrible, I
can still recall the horrible smell to this day! The stench was a combination of rotting
flesh and urine. Makes me nauseous just thinking of that sexual assault. INVESTIGATE this
serial molester!
nope-1004 , 20 hours ago
Anyone see what that fat, big mouthed, undisciplined pig Rosie O'Donnell tweeted today? I
didn't. But I'm sure that fat piggy just had to weigh-in (no pun intended) on how she's been
crossed by this.
Any other lefties lurking here who have kids that can't stand you / your insane views, and
have disowned you like Rosie's did?
lol
I am Groot , 19 hours ago
Piggy ? More like a rabid albino silverback beating her hairy chest.
Opulence I Has It , 20 hours ago
The only things she does remember, are the things that directly support her allegations.
That fact, by itself, is reason enough to disbelieve everything she says. The idea that she
would have concrete memories of only those specific events, is not believable.
It's totally believable, though, that she's been counseled thus, to make her story easier
to remember and avoid those inconvenient secondary details. You know, those secondary details
that every police detective knows are how you trip up a liar. They are so focused on their
bogus story, the little details of the time surrounding the fabrication don't hold up.
Mr. Universe , 19 hours ago
Would you expect less from the company?
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
Can't remember when it happened, how she got there, who was there, how she got home
She remembers clearly she only had one beer and was taking no medication yet cannot
remember for sure how she accessed her counselors records on her whether by internet or
copying them less than 3 months ago?
Not possible.
She's a lying shill and in time it will come out.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She doesn't remember her rescuer that drove her home and away from such a terrible
situation. Is this plausible? I say absolutely not. IMHO, she knows his name but refuses to
say it while pretending to not remember. Chris Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who introduced her
to Kavanaugh and who was her boyfriend once. Some have speculated that he assaulted her that
day and/or ended her relationship that day after she didn't want to take things to the next
level with him.
quasi_verbatim , 20 hours ago
What a load of 'Murican crap.
Giant Meteor , 20 hours ago
Squawkkkkkk, it's what we do !
American Dissident , 20 hours ago
McConnell on the Senate Floor 50 minutes ago: "The time for endless delay and obstruction
has come to a close.... Mr. President, we'll be voting this week."
xear , 21 hours ago
Brett is obviously innocent. Groping her, holding her down, grinding into her... it's not
like it was rape. And as far as covering her mouth so she couldn't scream... after a heavy
night of drinking who wants to hear screaming? Almost anyone would do the same.
I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 20 hours ago
it's always interesting to see where and why people claim to know things about which they
have literally no 'knowledge.'
Also interesting to see how the same people who would protest assuming the guilt of an
alleged Muslim terrorist or Black liquor store robber now argue it is 'whiteness' and
'patriarchy' to not assume the guilt of a white male regarding decades old uncorroborated
charges... which 4 named witnesses deny having knowledge of, by a woman who lied about a fear
of flying to try to delay the process.
We can all be hypocrites.
But watching the Left embrace hypocrisy as social justice has been, in the pure sense of
the word, awesome to behold.
RighteousRampage , 20 hours ago
Almost, but not quite, as awesome to behold as the right's embrace of complete immorality
by the supposed party of faith and religion.
ZD1 , 20 hours ago
The demonic Democrat socialist party are all about immorality.
The real neo-Marxist fascists on the Supreme Court are:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Marxist *** from ACLU)
Elena Kagan (Marxist ***)
Sonia Sotomayer (Marxist brown supremacist from La Raza/MEHcA)
Stephen Breyer (Marxist ***)
They are no different than the left-wing billionaire neo-Marxist fascists that own and
control the demonic Democrat socialist party.
RighteousRampage , 20 hours ago
Showing your Nazi stripes again?
The religious right will never again be able to claim any moral high-ground, never. Not
after Trump and this Kavanaugh fiasco.
ZD1 , 20 hours ago
The immoral lying neo-Marxist fascists in the demonic Democrat socialist party never had
any high ground, EVER!
Now run along Antifa fascist.
RighteousRampage , 20 hours ago
Whatever you say, Boris.
Dancing Disraeli , 20 hours ago
Boris is a Russian name. If you wanted to run the Nazi narrative, you should've called him
Fritz.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
I love the new ignore feature on the Hedge. Buh bye Snowflake
Babble_On2001 , 20 hours ago
Right, that's why the fraud Ford kept repeating, "I don't remember" or "I can't recall."
Yes, a very believable story. Now let me tell you about another female figure that has been
treated poorly, she's called the Tooth Fairy.
deja , 19 hours ago
Tawana Brawley, substitute republican conservative for white state trooper.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Not only are these claims of not remembering completely implausible, but the transcript
shows that she explicitly refuses to say the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. It
strikes me as wildly disrespectful to Rachel Mitchell and just screams for further
exploration.
FBaggins , 21 hours ago
To fix things if after all of this crap from the feminazis and Kavenaugh simply withdraws
his name, Trump should put forward Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next candidate. It would
really ensure support for Trump candidates in the midterms from women in general and from
social-conservative family-values people in the US and it would perhaps teach the feminazis a
lesson at the same time.
istt , 20 hours ago
No, Kavanaugh deserves better. He has earned his place on the USSC.
Giant Meteor , 20 hours ago
My prediction was, and still is Kavanaugh goes forward. Even the revered CNN is starting
to walk the drinking issue back.
By the way , the Trump presser today was a ******* hoot!
cheech_wizard , 20 hours ago
Aren't they all...
Standard Disclaimer: Keep calm and MAGA on!
ToddTheBabyWhale , 21 hours ago
Nine page memo, Tyler. Your starting to write like a pro journalist now.
jomama , 21 hours ago
Checked in for a minute to have a peek at countless fat, white, middle aged, anonymous
assholes spewing hatred and misogyny.
Wasn't disappointed. Keeping it classy, ZH.
I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 21 hours ago
that's big talk coming from a pedophile.
prove you aren't, dickhead.
Lore , 21 hours ago
That isn't helpful. The reason why jomama's post is wrong is because it's merely spewing
vitriol, when the priority should be to dis-indoctrinate and self-educate.
American Dissident , 20 hours ago
Reading this made is like seeing a fire truck on fireeeeeee
tmosley , 20 hours ago
I started blocking low effort trolls after one warning.
Slowly cleaning the place up.
Jein , 20 hours ago
Tmosley: "it hurts my feelings to read things I dont like and I need a safe space to cry
in"
Mr. Universe , 19 hours ago
Another 9 year member troll I've never seen before. Do you think the mockingbirds want to
disrupt any discourse and devolve it into "them vs. us"? You bet they do. Buzz off, jomama
back to whatever basement they dug you up out of. Tell Georgie that we will resist this
treachery with our last breaths.
Lore , 21 hours ago
You misunderstand, because your perspective is handicapped by progressivist
indoctrination. A conscientious ZHer will read a note like that and dismiss it as
intellectual laziness: mindless regurgitation of programming.
Strive to deprogram, and you'll quickly develop better perspective about the distinction
between political correctness and pursuit of truth. God knows there is name-calling on both
sides, but I think it's safe to say that the biggest concern on sites like ZH is the way
mainstream American discourse has been hijacked by amoral pathocracy. What matters is not
doing The Right Thing: what matters is ******* over the other guy to get Your Way. That is
the evil that is on the verge of destroying this nation.
cheech_wizard , 20 hours ago
It's either that, or drugs.
robertocarlos , 21 hours ago
I'm not that fat.
Harvey_Manfrengensen , 21 hours ago
I am at 16% bodyfat. Nor am I white. Try again.
istt , 21 hours ago
Jomama raped me when I was in the 6th grade. Just came out after a therapy session. Can
anyone corroborate my story, you ask? No, but I am 100% sure he is the guy. You are a guy,
right? Now if we can just expose who he is I will press charges and have him put away for a
very long time, ruin his family and his career.
rwmomad , 20 hours ago
He pulled my pants down in first grade on the play ground and touched my pee pee. I am
seeking counsel.
Giant Meteor , 20 hours ago
How's that going?
IridiumRebel , 20 hours ago
Still can't refute anything so ad hominem attacks....got it.
Stay generalized!
let freedom ring , 21 hours ago
Trump has given up on K. The calculus is that it will be bad for the democrats if he
doesn't make it on the court. Don't expect Trumps help from here on in. K was a flawed
candidate from the start and Trump knew it, and is playing his base like a violin.
istt , 20 hours ago
Total BS. You've lost your senses. People are expendable but not that much. Trump has to
be thought of as a guy who backs his appointees, that he will go to the wall for them.
sunkeye , 21 hours ago
T/y Prosecutor Mitchell for conducting yourself w/ professionalism, decency, & honor -
personal traits none of the Democratic senators seem to possess, or would even recognize if
shown to them directly as you did. Again. t/y & bravo.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
She allowed Ford to refuse to speak the name of the boy that introduced her to BK. Chris
Garrett, nicknamed "Squi", who was Ford's one-time boyfriend. Some speculate that he was the
unnamed final boy at the party and that he may have assaulted Ford and/or dumped her after
she refused to go to the next level with him. Hence the trauma.
Jein , 21 hours ago
All this vitriol breaks my heart. Why can't we all just love eachother? I heard human
centipeding is a great way to team build. Who's in?
chrbur , 21 hours ago
Jein...because first we must remove evil....
RighteousRampage , 21 hours ago
right, and by labeling the opposing side, "evil" that pretty much means anything goes.
first step is to dehumanize, then all possibilities are on the table, amirite?
istt , 20 hours ago
Yeah, that's following the Alinsky playbook. Something you have been spewing all over
these threads. Guilty until proven innocent. No, better, yet, guilty because he was
accused.
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a
socialist."
RighteousRampage , 20 hours ago
Funny how all of the "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" crowd here was so
quick to send Hillary to the gulag, or believe in that Obama was a Muslim, or that a pizza
parlor was ground-zero for a child trafficking ring, or....
let freedom ring , 21 hours ago
I like it. lets sew a string of Trumptards together *** to mouth, south park style.
Jein , 21 hours ago
Love it. I'm willing to make the sacrifice be the head.
Negative_Prime , 20 hours ago
Why? You're so good at being the rear.
Don't deny your nature.
tmosley , 20 hours ago
I told you to stop that ****.
You are now on ignore. Suggest everyone do the same. This guy never said anything
interesting.
Paracelsus , 21 hours ago
I am having trouble keeping these personalities separate as I want to give everyone the
benefit of the
doubt. When I see Justice Kavanaugh, I think of the confirmation hearing as a political
attack on the
Trump administration . Also as an attempt to score points, or make the other side
screw up, before the
upcoming elections.When I see Dr. Ford, I see Hillary Clinton and all the bitterness
from a failed
politician.
The funny thing is I thought all the Trump "fake news" statements were a load of crap.
Turns out he hit the
mark quite often. The lefties are so damn mad because Trump is succeeding and they haven't
been able to
score points against him. So they feel that it is justified to use other
methods,regardless of the fallout.
There is a whiff of panic and desperation present.
I have stated this before, as have others: The loss of the White House by the Democrats
provided a
unique opportunity to clean out the deadwood. This may have seemed cruel and heartless
but the
Obama era is over and the Dem's urgently need to return to their roots before it is too
late. Did they
use this moment of change or did they revert to business as usual? To ask the question
is to
answer it.... This is commonly described as bureaucratic inertia. The Dem's only needed
to get the
ball rolling and they would be moving towards the objective of regaining power. New,
younger
and more diplomatic and law abiding types need to be encouraged to apply. Put out the
help wanted
sign. Do what Donald does,"You're fired!".
RighteousRampage , 21 hours ago
Well, if others have stated it before, it MUST be true. Republiconarists and Demcraps are
playing the same stupid games. Dems got punked w Garland, and now Reps are getting their
comeuppance w Kavanaugh (who really made it worse for himself by holding up such an obviously
false pious portrait of himself).
American Dissident , 22 hours ago
I believe Judge Brett Kavanaugh. I believe Rachel Mitchell, Esq. I believe Leland Keyser.
I believe Mark Judge. I believe P.J. Smyth.
I believe the evidence. That's why I don't believe Ms. Christine Blasey Ford.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
But she only had one beer!
Torgo , 11 hours ago
What do you think of the Chris Garrett hypothesis?
VWAndy , 22 hours ago
Mrs Fords stunt works in family courts all the time. Thats why they tried it folks. They
have gotten away with it before.
Drop-Hammer , 22 hours ago
IOW, she is a lying leftist loon and fraud. I am only surprised that she is not a
treacherous jewess.
1970SSNova396 , 22 hours ago
The bitch was a fraud and anybody with a working brain understands that. Of course that
exempts the democrat voting base.
The two ugly women senators from Maine and Alaska just might sink Kav. Lord knows they
want to so bad.
arby63 , 22 hours ago
And you are about duplicitous as one paid troll could be. Go punch yourself and apologize
to those that actually have a job.
1970SSNova396 , 22 hours ago
G F Y sport
arby63 , 22 hours ago
Don't you wish. Bitch.
RighteousRampage , 21 hours ago
Zerohedge is basically Breitbart now, with even more doomporn and more Putin puffery.
cheech_wizard , 20 hours ago
******* yourself might be the only sex you're getting... Just saying...
RighteousRampage , 20 hours ago
Maybe he's a proud beer drinking virgin, just like your man Kavanaugh.
STONEHILLADY , 22 hours ago
also for someone going up before Congress for any reason, this Ford girl had NOT one
family member or husband by her side....that is a real telling sign.
Also check out the secret courts going on in E. Warren's state Mass. same kind of Justice,
guilty to prove innocent, they have adopted the court system of the Inquisition, get ready
folks if the Dems. take back the Congress. these type of courts coming to blue state near
you.
1970SSNova396 , 22 hours ago
If your father was CIA would you want him there? Of course she is a carpet eater so two
lesbians is enough.
RighteousRampage , 21 hours ago
I guess then, by your logic, the Clinton's should be considered innocent?
Anunnaki , 14 hours ago
She kept looking at her prepared statement like a security blanket under cross
examination
Torgo , 11 hours ago
It was an attempt to make her look alone and vulnerable. Along with the girly voice and
the glasses to make her eyes look huge and neotenous.
YourAverageJoe , 22 hours ago
Writing the memo was easy for her. She could have cut and pasted large parts of Comey's
July 2016 exoneration of Hillary speech.
aloha_snakbar , 22 hours ago
Ms Ford, the newly minted millionaire, is probably lying poolside in Mexico, indulging in
her favorite psychotropics and getting pounded by the local brown talent. Wow...having a
vagina is like having a meat 3D printer that spews out money...
cheech_wizard , 20 hours ago
That so reminds me of this line in "He Never Died"...
I, uh, don't have money, so...
Then how did you end up inebriated?
Vaginas are like coupon books for alcohol.
Aubiekong , 23 hours ago
Never was about justice, this is simply a liberal/globalist plan to stop Trump.
peippe , 22 hours ago
why can't they lay back & take the pounding?
might even start to enjoy it. MAGA!
Trump Train will place at least one more justice on the bench beyond Brettster. : )
I Am Jack's Macroaggression , 21 hours ago
Trump is surrounded by Jews.. Zionists and bankers.
We are watching the Ultra-Zionist Jews in a power struggle with the Globalist Jews.
And 100 years ago Churchill notes the same - Jews divided between destroying nations
(Bolsheviks) and building their own to rule the world and possess its wealth (Zionism).
Bad cop, bad cop.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
Well stated. Churchill famously and openly wrote about this in the early 1920s.
arby63 , 23 hours ago
If you haven't punched a Democrat today, try harder.
Jein , 22 hours ago
Cuck alert
arby63 , 22 hours ago
Let us all know when you're ready to jump.
LadyAtZero , 22 hours ago
Prosecutor Rachel did a great job and given that Christine's testimony was under oath,
Christine is set up to be held to what she said.
Friends, Christine is C_A and so is her dad. These C_A facts are all over the
internet.
Christine during her testimony had a fake "little girl, looking over her glasses, am I not
cute?" demeanor.
She is a psych. PhD for heavens sake -- she is 52 years old. No need to act like a hurt
little girl, unless one is facing the big white male meanies who dare to question her and she
can emit "I'm a victim" all day long.
Go Kavanaugh!
(and I don't care if Brett Kavanaugh likes to drink beer and I don't care that he drank in
college and got rip-roaring drunk. Most of us did... as we all know).
........sigh.....
Prince Eugene of Savoy , 20 hours ago
Squeaky Ford only testified to what she had written down. She never used the part of the
brain dealing with actual memory. https://youtu.be/uGxr1VQ2dPI
Torgo , 11 hours ago
And she outright refused to speak the name of the boy that had introduced her to BK. It
was wildly evasive and inappropriate and is a huge red flag for this case. Chris Garrett,
nicknamed "Squi". Her one-time boyfriend and I am convinced that he both drove her to and
away from the party. After she refused his effort to take their relationship to the next
level.
I am Groot , 18 hours ago
There are no more "Democrats" or "liberals". There are only Marxists and communists.
Stop breathing. We will all be better off. Even you.
headless blogger , 22 hours ago
We don't need a cultist that talks at the camera with only his head showing (weird) to
tell us what to believe.
We can figure it out without that phony racist cultist's lecture.
VWAndy , 22 hours ago
Attack the message not the messenger. Every discerning person here is hip to that
trick.
headless blogger , 19 hours ago
We don't need cultists speaking out in our name. It only discredits the truth movement.
The Messenger DOES matter.
Golden Phoenix , 23 hours ago
Ever notice #MeToo
reads 'Pound Me Too!'
American Dissident , 23 hours ago
should be #boxwineresistance
Grandad Grumps , 23 hours ago
Sp, Rachel is "deep state"?
ToSoft4Truth , 23 hours ago
Parrty on, Garth.
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
Was there in 1965, and I can recall what my classmates wore, who could dance, who kissed
great, who had the best music, who got laid and how often...and it was NOT the head of the
football or basketball team.
Her memory is selectively scripted, and I am 20 years older and my memory is just
fine.
charlewar , 23 hours ago
In other words, Ford is a liar
JohnG , 23 hours ago
She's a goddamned sociopathic lying bitch.
arby63 , 23 hours ago
A highly paid one. Gofundme alone is over $900,000.
1970SSNova396 , 22 hours ago
Her two *** lawyers doing well for their time and attention. McCabe's lawyer comes to the
rescue for Ford.
My German Sheppard's nose is smaller than hers. Holy schnozes Batman ! That's Toucan Sam
in glasses.
LA_Goldbug , 22 hours ago
Amazing. Now I see what a wonderful mechanism they created with this. Payoff camouflage
!!!
Moving and Grooving , 21 hours ago
Gofundme is a dead man walking. It cannot be allowed to expedite money laundering on the
donor side, and anonymous donations to the receiver in these ridiculous amounts on the other.
If this isn't already illegal, I'll be shocked.
.
PantherCityPooPoo , 21 hours ago
Dead how? We already know that these corporation are die hard neo-liberal but name me 2
republicans or ANY federal entity that would EVER go after a corporation like that.
You are not aware of the score if you think anything will be done to them.
HerrDoktor , 23 hours ago
My hippocampus is turgid and throbbing after seeing Chris Ford in those Adrian (Talia
Shire) spectacles.
blind_understanding , 23 hours ago
I had to look it up ..
TURGID - from Latin turgidus , from turgēre to be swollen
peippe , 22 hours ago
nothing better than a confused lady who forgets stuff...........
I'm all over that if she was thirty-six years younger. oops.
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
So why is Ford dressed like a WWII school Liberian? Halloween?
How does she do all the water sports (easy boys, keep it clean) that she brags about? How
does she keep a case of beer down and then go surfing in Costa Rica? What is all this 'Air
sickness" stuff? How come she works for a company that has a very controversial Abortion pill
and didn't say this? That $750,000 in GoFundMe bucks will sure help heal those cat scratches
she gave herself. Does she pay taxes on that? So many questions and so little answers. Did
she perjer herself?
Sort of convenient that the statute of limitations has run out for her to make an OFFICIAL
complaint in Maryland.
Ford is a practiced liar. She was coached to cry all the way thru her polygraph test thus
skewing the results.
Jein , 23 hours ago
Brett's tears were real
RighteousRampage , 23 hours ago
But my calendars!!! I graduated Yale!!!! My mommy was a judge!!! SCOTUS is my
destineeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, it's mine all mine!!!!!
arby63 , 23 hours ago
Kavanaugh would/could literally beat the **** out of you. I believe that 1000000000%.
RighteousRampage , 23 hours ago
C'mon, his performance was disgraceful for a wannabe SCOTUS judge. He whinges like a
little a girl who had her lolly stolen.
Can you imagine Gorsuch or Scalia behaving that way?
arby63 , 22 hours ago
Disgraceful? Seriously? Because he spoke like a MAN and wasn't willing to "take it" from
the ****** fascists? **** you.
Jein , 22 hours ago
Arby (you're probably a fat **** right?), he spoke like a whiny cuck bitch. Just like you
do. That ain't being a man. Try sucking a my **** for a taste of masculinity.
NEOCON1 , 23 hours ago
Still jerking off to photoshopped nudes of Hillary Clinton?
Jein , 22 hours ago
Nah chelsea. She has nice nips
peippe , 22 hours ago
they were beer tears.
it's said he cries Bud Light.
He's awesome.
Being Free , 23 hours ago
Stunning accusation that Sen. Feinstein covered up 1990 sexual assault by a wealthy
foreign donor against another supporters daughter ...
I was the victim of an abuse event when I was 4. I'm 47 now. I know exactly where the
house is, we were in the backyard and I can tell anyone what happened and who was there. It
happened a few days back to back maybe three days, it was during the winter in the
midafternoon. I guess my hippocampus is in better shape than hers.
Anunnaki , 17 hours ago
When I brought this up wth Liberal friends at coffee this AM, they said it was so
traumatic that forgetting details was her coping mechanism
Iberal pretzel logic
Jein , 1 day ago
I would let trump **** my girl. How bout yall?
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
Is that code? The nickname you gave your penis? Girl? God damn you are a sick ****. Look
the gay thread is down the hall, second door on the left, therapy third door on the right
..
Good luck ...
Jein , 23 hours ago
Yeah I would top for trump. Normally love getting my ******* pounded though. U verse
bro?
Goldennutz , 23 hours ago
We all be gettin' our asses pounded for years by our goobermint!
HerrDoktor , 23 hours ago
Everyone else is having your girl, so why not?
sgt_doom , 1 day ago
" Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was poised, articulate, clear and convincing. More than
that, she radiated self-assured power ."
----- So says Robert Reich
Saaaaay, Bobby, have you ever met Wesley Allen Dodd or Ted Bundy? I once came into contact
with Dodd, the epitome of calm, cool and collected --- and he was later executed for
torturing to death small children!
A (female) law professor from Seattle University said:
" Dr. Christine Blasey Ford (why do they keep referring to a professor of
psychology as doctor --- s_d) was credible and believable. " (Evidently, we don't need
no stinking proof or evidence where a law professor is concerned!?)
Sgt_Doom says: Prof. Christine Blasey Ford sounded credible, believable and completely
unsubstantiated.
Credible Allegations
Over this past weekend I learned three startling facts:
(1) All American women have been raped;
(2) All American males are rapists and liars; and,
(3) "Credible allegations" are accusations not requiring any shred of evidence.
Fake news facts , that is . . . . .
All this was conveyed by high-middle class (or higher) females who worship globalization
and American exceptionalism --- from the same news conduits who once reported on
weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq and other similar mythologies!
Not a single so-called reporter --- not a single self-described journalist in American ---
thought to ask that most obvious of obvious questions:
Where in bloody perdition is Christine Blasey Ford's Holton Arms yearbooks?
After all, they introduced Kavanaugh's yearbook, so why not Christine Blasey's
yearbook?
Second most obvious question:
When one searches online for Holton Arms yearbooks, the searcher can find the yearbooks
for the years preceding Ford's last several years at Holton Arms, and the years following ---
why have the last several years when Christine Blasey attended missing? Why have they been
removed --- even cached versions --- from the Web?
Takes some serious tech resources to accomplish this in such a short period of time?!
How very odd . . . .
I do not want Kavanaugh, nor anyone like him, on the Supreme Court bench, but that does
not mean I automatically believe any and all unsubstantiated accusations and am sane enough
to comprehend that credible allegations require proof --- also referred to as
evidence.
It is not enough to state that this person drinks and is therefore guilty or that person
is a male and is therefore guilty.
I fully support an expanded investigation into both Kavanaugh AND Christine Blasey Ford,
including Ms. Ford's Holton Arms yearbooks and any and all police blotter activity/records
for her ages of 13, 14, 15 and 16.
And I wish some of those useless reporters would being asking the obvious questions . . .
. and finally start doing their jobs!
Sidebar : Sen. Chris Coons claimed that Prof. Ford was courageous to have come forward as
she had nothing to gain , yet within several days after her testimony, Christine
Blasey Ford is almost one-half million dollars wealthier --- nothing to gain?
Hardly . . . .
[Next rant: MY elevator encounter with a 14-year-old psychotic blonde student, and her
buddy, many years ago in Bethesda, Md.]
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
Radiated self assured power? Are you shitting me?
rwmomad , 23 hours ago
The courageous woman with nothing to gain is well on the way to a mil in go fund me
contributions. Plus there will be a book and movie deal.
DjangoCat , 23 hours ago
"And I wish some of those useless reporters would being asking the obvious questions . . .
. and finally start doing their jobs!.."
Those useless reporters would be fired if they did. The problem is much further up the
line than the reporter on the beat.
blindfaith , 23 hours ago
Yep, BCC was VERY loose...So was Northwestern in G.Town and Holton-Arms High. They were way ahead in drugs, booze and
Freon baloons too. Heck at Blair, we thought drugs were like aspirin and stuff. Now if
Ms.Ford had gone to Blair, I might believe
her....helm lines above the knee was a no no.
Jein , 1 day ago
Is lindsey Graham a closet homosexual?
robertocarlos , 1 day ago
There are men who are not gay but have never been with a woman.
Dancing Disraeli , 23 hours ago
It's a bot.
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
Possibly but this site is not your own personal dating service.
Jein , 23 hours ago
GM let me get them digits homie. Haven't seen u on grindr lately
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
Look if we are going to converse you're going to have to speak in English or some other
language I might understand, what is this verse and grindrr you speak of "bro?'
Jein , 23 hours ago
Hablas espanol? Quiero tu tongueo en my cacahole
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
Now that was just ******* funny as all hell. You are improving....
rwmomad , 23 hours ago
He might be, but that is his business. The left, which is supposedly supporters of gay
rights,throw that out the window if you are on the other team.
Jein , 23 hours ago
I just dont like trannys
Anunnaki , 23 hours ago
I love The Hedge's new block feature. Buh bye, Hillary
Giant Meteor , 23 hours ago
I'm going to let this one go awhile . A fascinating case study.
Jein , 23 hours ago
<3
Jein , 23 hours ago
Snowflake
tmosley , 20 hours ago
You just don't have anything to say that is intersting.
Just bile.
Goodbye forever.
robertocarlos , 1 day ago
So Mitchell faked her love for Ford. You sure can't trust women.
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
She (Mitchell) was there to handle her like the delicate flower. To the pubes defense,
someone was smart enough to realize that a bunch of GOP white guys questioning her was not
going to play well. Enter the female prosecutor and her report.
On the other hand the dem guys and dolls could not genuflect enough , so their questioning
was fine. I mean they had her painted as the courageous hero of the modern era. So brave, so
noble , so, so, utterly awesome!
Puke ....
scraping_by , 23 hours ago
She had an emotional meltdown for a big finish. Note who gave her the run-in for it. (Not
Mitchell).
nicholforest , 1 day ago
Seems pretty obvious that Mitchell could not see a case for prosecution - what we heard
was mostly 'He said ... She said". So an unsurprising conclusion.
And there is no moral high ground for Republicans to criticize the process pursued by the
Democrats. They would have (and in the past have) done the same. A curse on both their
houses.
But what struck me was the behavior and style of Kavanaugh. He came across as belligerent,
petty, evasive, aggressive and impulsive. Those are not the characteristics that we want in a
candidate for the Supreme Court.
Little Lindsey G would say that Kavanaugh has a right to be angry, which may be so - but
the way that such anger is manifested is critical. In the military we look for leaders to be
cool under fire. The same should be true for a judge in the highest court in the land.
Instead he came across like a fearful, reactive, spiteful, spoilt frat boy. That will not
do.
scraping_by , 1 day ago
Ah, the double bind. Either he's robotic and reciting a script, or he's wild and howling
brat. Nice how that works.
FAQMD1 , 23 hours ago
nicholforest - And there is no moral high ground for Republicans to criticize the
process pursued by the Democrats. They would have (and in the past have) done the same. A
curse on both their houses.
Please enlighten us on specifically which Dem. SC nomination the Republicans did a full on
character assassination .... were waiting!
It is mindless comments and a lack of rigorous thinking and moral equivocation like yours
that has led the country into the abyss of nonsense and division.
Mineshaft Gap , 23 hours ago
We're all left to imagine the calm, lucid, rational yet caring manner in which you would
have defended yourself against a pack of vultures and their vague career-ending
accusations.
I'm picturing a cross between Cicero, Chris Cuomo and Caitlin Jenner.
Dancing Disraeli , 23 hours ago
Counting on that spiteful aspect to offset his RINO squish proclivities.
rwmomad , 23 hours ago
Why has their never been a sex scandal on a dem appointment, but their always is now on a
repub appointment? Just a coinky dinky or a part of their playbook?
Bastiat , 1 day ago
I like that last pic of Mitchel: defines "looking askance."
I Write Code , 1 day ago
"Weaknesses", forsooth.
Dickweed Wang , 1 day ago
Look at the time line provided and then tell me the Democrats aren't a pack of lying
weasles. The truth means absolutely NOTHING to them. Their agenda (to **** over Trump in any
way possible) is all that matters. Could anyone imagine what would have happened if the
Republicans would have pulled just 1/10th of that kind of ******** with the Homo *****??
There would have been continuous MSM inspired riots in the streets.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
They play by Alinsky Rules
rksplash , 1 day ago
I guess the only way this nonsense is going to go away is if the GOP start using the same
tactics. Hire some wannabe spin doctors to go through some old high school yearbooks in a
church basement somewhere in Alabama. An old black and white of some poor pimple faced
senator grabbing his crotch at the prom in 72.
scraping_by , 1 day ago
Well, the Arkansas Project was political and partisan. Indeed, the right-wing world were
praising Mellon for using money effectively. And it wasn't until Flint evened the score that
decorum was restored.
truthalwayswinsout , 1 day ago
How dare another women even think of questioning a rape and assault allegation and demand
facts, and consistent detailed explanations that do not change.
Zus , 1 day ago
She's obviously an "old white guy" in disguise.
Wile-E-Coyote , 1 day ago
If this woman can try and attempt to destroy a man's life then the least she should be
made to do is a take a lie detector test. You can't prosecute anyone on hear say.
nicholforest , 1 day ago
She did take a polygraph - and passed.
scraping_by , 1 day ago
That's the story. Little or no evidence of what that story means.
Dickweed Wang , 1 day ago
She did take a polygraph - and passed.
Yeah that's what the lying sacks of **** say, but of course there's absolutely no proof it
happened. She passed? O.k., let's assume they are at least not lying about that . . . what
questions were asked?
Bastiat , 1 day ago
A polygraph with 2 questions apparently. In other words a complete joke. A real poly has
scores if not hundreds of questions.
robertocarlos , 23 hours ago
Two questions were asked. "Are you a woman"? and "Are you a liar"?
Wile-E-Coyote , 1 day ago
It's amazing what a false memory can do.
Is there a verbatim transcript of the questions asked?
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Mitchell said it was irresponsible to give a polygraph to someone grieving the loss of a
loved one. Grandmother in this case.
peippe , 22 hours ago
rumor has it the exam included two questions.
Two Questions.
you decide what that means.
nsurf9 , 1 day ago
Not one shred of corroboration evidence of Ford's testimony, not even from her friend, who
flatly denied she ever went to such party, NONE, NADA, UNBELIEVABLE!
Don't these Congressional a-holes vet these people to safeguard against crazy loons'
bald-faced lies, and even worst, one's with democrat financed malicious intent to defame?
And further, Montgomery County Police has formally stated that, as a misdemeanor, the
statute of limitations ran out on this allegedly crime - 35 frigging years ago.
And lastly, with regard to drinking in college, not one democrat mentions he finished top
of his Yale undergrad class and top of his Yale Law School class.
FAQMD1 , 23 hours ago
nsurf9 - Don't these Congressional a-holes vet these people to safeguard against crazy
loons' bald-faced lies, and even worst, one's with malicious intent to defame?
Please tell me how you or I could possible "safeguard" ourselves from "crazy loon" and
"bald-face lies" ....?
That is why we're supposed to be a nation of laws and innocent until proven guilty.
It is one thing to disagree over a person political position and or ideas but that is not
what is happening here. The Dems are in full assault mode to destroy BK and his family as a
warning to any future Conservative judge who may dare accepts a nomination to the SC.
What the Dems are doing will lead to some type of civil war if they do not stop this. It
will not be pretty if that happens.
nsurf9 , 23 hours ago
Requiring even a modicum of corroborated facts or evidence, outside of mere "words," would
be a good start!
JLee2027 , 1 day ago
Guys who have been falsely accused, like me, knew quickly that Ford was lying. They all
have the same pattern, too many smiles, attention seeking, stories that make no sense or too
vague,etc.
dogmete , 1 day ago
Yeah what an incredible story. She was at a party with some drunken creepy guys and got
sexually assaulted. Everyone knows that never happens!
Nunny , 1 day ago
^Tool
austinmilbarge , 23 hours ago
All she has to to is prove it.
samolly , 1 day ago
None of this matters. What matters is that the democrats think Kavanaugh will overturn Roe
v. Wade so they will be against him regardless of any outcome in this matter.
It's all and only about abortion.
scraping_by , 1 day ago
The current sleaze isn't overturning the legal right to abortion, it's making it
impossible to get one. It's a legal right that a woman has to sit through lectures, travel to
specific places, make certain declarations, and get a physician who's usually under attack at
the state level. It's not illegal, it's impossible.
It's not about restricting women, it's about making life harder for middle and lower class
people. Women of the Senator's economic class have always had and always will have access to
safe abortions. It's wage earners who have to depend on local providers.
Whether Catholic K will go along with the sabotage of a privacy right isn't clear. But
he's probably going to be sympathetic to making those working class wenches show some
responsibility.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
To quote famed feminist and Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, women can always "Keep
their pants zipped". But then Granholm only extended her authoritarian control freakery to
the male half of the human race when she said that a few years ago. If women lose some
"reproductive rights" then some of them might start to have some empathy for men and our lack
of rights. But I won't hold my breath waiting for them to empathize with us.
Bastiat , 1 day ago
. . . but according to Dr. Fair, white men are murderous.
Barney08 , 1 day ago
Ford is a crusader. She thinks she is a Roe v Wade savior but she is an over educated
ditz.
dogmete , 1 day ago
Right Barney, not an undereducated and-proud-of-it slob like you.
MrAToZ , 1 day ago
You Dims are so willing to just swallow the hook. You idiots have been trained to react,
leave common sense at the door, slap on the vagina hats and start marching in circles.
What a cluster f*ck. Evidently there are suckers born every minute.
Kelley , 1 day ago
One word uttered by Ford proves that not only did Kav. not attack her but no one ever
assaulted her . That word is "hippocampus." No woman in recorded history has ever used
that word to describe their strongest reaction to a sexual assault.
It's mind blowing that a person would react to what was supposedly one of the most
traumatic experiences of her life with a nearly gleeful "Indelibly in my hippocampus " or
something to that effect unless of course it didn't happen. Her inappropriate response leads
me to believe that Ford was never assaulted in the manner in which she claimed. If her
claimed trauma had been a case of mistaken identity regarding a real assault, she still would
have felt it and reacted far differently.
Emotional memories get stored in the amygdala. The hippocampus is for matter-of-fact
memories. When Senator Feinstein asked Ford about her strongest memories of the event, Ford
went all "matter of fact" in her reply, "Indelibly in my hippocampus ." without a trace of
emotion in her response. No emotions = no assault by ANYONE let alone by Kavanaugh.
Giant Meteor , 1 day ago
Not only that, her most indelible memory from the experience was the maniacal laughter ,
not the part where a hand was forcibly placed over her mouth and she thought she may in that
moment, have been accidently killed.
As to the hippopotamus, is that a turtle neck she is wearing or just her neck. What the
**** happened there, she said nothing about strangulation.
pnchbowlturd , 1 day ago
Another peculiar thing about Ford's testimony was the adolescent voicing she gave it in.
It was if she was imitating a 6 year old. I wish MItchell had fleshed out Ford's hobbies
(surfing??) more and given more context to her career activities and recreational pursuits in
college, alcohol consumption patterns or substance abuse treatments. Her voicing was a tell
that she seemed to be overplaying the victim persona for a person who holds a doctorate and
travels the world surfing
Nunny , 1 day ago
If they coached her (while on the loooong drive from CA...lol) to use that voice, they
didn't do her any favors. I thought femi-libs were all about being 'strong' and 'tough'. They
can't have it both ways.....strike that.....they do have it both ways.....and the useful
idiots on the left buy it.
Torgo , 11 hours ago
IMHO, the most peculiar thing was her outright refusal to say aloud the name of the boy
that introduced her to Kavanaugh, when repeatedly questioned by Rachel Mitchell. It was
wildly obvious that she was being evasive and I see it as an enormous tell. Chris Garrett,
nicknamed "Squi", was IMHO the boy that drove her to and from the party, and if he didn't
outright assault her that day, he may have dumped her that day.
I Write Code , 1 day ago
Wasn't there an old SNL skit about the "amygdala"?
YouTube doesn't seem to have an index on the term, LOL.
seryanhoj , 1 day ago
One more example of US governance and party politics on its way down the tubes. There is
no topic, no forum nowhere where the truth is even something to be considered. Media, law
makers, everyone looks at a story and says " Let's make this work for our agenda even if we
have to reinvent it from scratch". Then it is more than easy to find people to testify any
which way you want. Vomits copiously.
mabuhay1 , 1 day ago
The standard for females should be "They are lying if their lips are moving." Any claims
of sexual abuse should require proof, and witnesses that can back up said claims. Many
studies have found that years before the MeToo# lies began, about 60% of all claimed rapes
were false. Now, with the "Must believe all women" and the "MeToo#" scam, I would suspect the
rate of false claims to be very close to 100%
scraping_by , 1 day ago
The standard for any criminal investigation is ABC. Assume nothing, Believe no one, and
Check everything. The current feminist howl is sweep that aside and obey a women when she
points at a man.
Jack McGriff , 1 day ago
And yet every single MSM outlet is claiming she is credible! WTF!!!
MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 day ago
If the FBI is to have ANY credibility, they must insist on Ford's emails, texts and phone
records for the last 2 years.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Kill shots:
Ranging from "mid 1980s" in a text to the Washington Post to "early 80s"
No name was listed in 2012 and 2013 individual and marriage therapy notes.
she was the victim of "physical abuse," whereas she has now testified that she told her
husband about a "sexual assault."
she does not remember who invited her to the party or how she heard about it. She does
not remember how she got to the party." Mitchell continued: "She does not remember in what
house the assault allegedly took place or where that house was located with any
specificity. Perhaps most importantly, she does not remember how she got from the party to
her house."
In her letter to Feinstein, she said "me and 4 others" were at the party but in her
testimony she said there were four boys in additional to Leland Keyser and herself. She did
not list Leland Keyser even though they are good friends. Leland Keyser's presence should
have been more memorable than PJ Smyth's,
· She testified that she had exactly one beer at the party
· "All three named eyewitnesses have submitted statements to the Committee denying
any memory of the party whatsoever,
· her BFF: Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever
being at a party or gathering where he was present with
· the simple and unchangeable truth is that Keyser is unable to corroborate [Dr.
Ford's allegations] because she has no recollection of the incident in question.
· Mitchell stated that Ford refused to provide her therapy notes to the Senate
Committee.
· Mitchell says that Ford wanted to remain confidential but called a tipline at the
Washington Post.
· she also said she did not contact the Senate because she claimed she "did not
know how to do that."
· It would also have been inappropriate to administer a polygraph to someone who
was grieving.
· the date of the hearing was delayed because the Committee was told that Ford's
symptoms prevented her from flying, but she agreed during testimony that she flies "fairly
frequently."
· She also flew to Washington D.C. for the hearing.
· "The activities of Congressional Democrats and Dr. Ford's attorneys likely
affected Dr. Ford's account.
Collectivism Killz , 1 day ago
Brett's real blight is that he barely dignifies the fourth amendment, which has arguably
been the most compromised as of late. Funny how the dims never bring this up. His record and
statements are RVW are centrist, so what makes the dims scared? Maybe Q is on to something
with the whole military tribunals.
GoingBig , 1 day ago
If he just said that he drank too much in college and that was that I would be okay with
him. But he made himself out to be a freak up there saying all this conspiracy crap about the
Clintons. What kind of SCOTUS Justice is this guy? I say no!
Ron_Mexico , 1 day ago
you fight fire with fire
rockstone , 1 day ago
Well if the question even makes sense to you then you're too ******* stupid to have an
opinion that anyone should take seriously. In other words, what you think doesn't count.
kbohip , 1 day ago
I think you got confused today honey. This is not the Salon comments section.
seryanhoj , 1 day ago
That age group drink and grope every chance they get. Its what we all did given the
chance. No one made fuss because up till now no one was told to get upset about it or try to
get political leverage out of it.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
The only way to fight back against passive aggressions is with full on aggression. It
shocked the Dems b/c they thought they could just dole out a bunch of virtue signalling
holier than thou testimony and Kavanaugh would have to sit and eat ****
Mineshaft Gap , 23 hours ago
+1
"It shocked the Dems"
Spot on. They had their safe space taken away from them and called out for what it was --
an auto-da-fe.
Heather Mac Donald made the astute point that this is hideous campus culture emerging into
the mainstream.
Anunnaki , 23 hours ago
Do you watch Game of Thrones? Remember the season when Cersei was being attacked by the
religious nuts.
The woman kept asking her "Do you confess?" under torture
Same here. Kavanaugh was asked to bend the knee and beg forgiveness for his "crime".
He said **** YOU
dogmete , 1 day ago
Goingbig, don't try to talk sense to knuckle draggers. They huddle together or die.
RighteousRampage , 23 hours ago
One has to think that half of them are on working overtime at the troll farm trying to
stir up partisan hatred. Hard to believe real people could be this obtuse.
Zero-Hegemon , 1 day ago
Major Hegelian dialectic **** going on with the Ford/Kav reality show.
Women everywhere side with Ford because she's a women, claims she was abused, and "has to
be believed", in order to settle some personal score that they all claim empathy for, even
though she has given every tell in the book that she is lying.
Men everywhere empathize with a man being falsely accused, regardless of his politics and
judicial history, even though he made his bones in the Bush administration, and can probably
be relied on to further the authoritarian state via the Supreme court. Guilty of this myself,
because it could be anyone of us next.
Pick a side, doesn't matter, because we've already lost.
Bastiat , 1 day ago
I "Believe the Women" -- the 3 women Ford named as witnesses who denied it ever happened,
the 65 women who signed the letter in support of Ford, and all the women who have worked with
him and had no issues. I don't believe this one, though.
Zero-Hegemon , 1 day ago
I'm with you 200%
phillyla , 1 day ago
I am a woman, a wife and the mother of an adult male and I don't believe this mewling quim
for one second and I haven't met one woman who believes her.
Most of the women of my acquaintance know that anyone with a repressed memory is a loon
looking for attention.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
A lot of women have seen their sons and brothers falsely accused. Ford was completely
unconvincing in her "I don't remember the details of a traumatic "sexual assault"
Whoa Dammit , 1 day ago
In her letter to Feinstein, she said "me and 4 others" were at the party
This does not sound like something a PHD would write. I would hope that someone who is
well educated would know that the proper English is "four others and I." It makes one wonder
if Dr. Ford wrote the letter, or if was written by a Feinstein aide.
"... By L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics at Bard College. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Treatise on Money ..."
"... State Theory of Money ..."
"... Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies ..."
"... Understanding Modern Money ..."
"... Modern Money Theory ..."
"... Payback: Debt and the shadow side of wealth ..."
"... Reclaiming the State ..."
"... Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea ..."
"... permanent Zirp (zero interest rate policy) is probably a better policy since it reduces the compounding of debt and the tendency for the rentier class to take over more of the economy. ..."
"... that one of the consequences of the protracted super-low interest rate regime of the post crisis era was to create a world of hurt for savers, particularly long-term savers like pension funds, life insurers and retirees. ..."
"... income inequality ..."
"... even after paying interest ..."
"... It seems to me that the US macroeconomic policy has been operating under MMT at least since FDR (see for example Beardsley Ruml from 1945). ..."
"... After learning MMT I've occasionally thought I should get a refund for the two economics degree's I originally received. ..."
"... "Taxes or other obligations (fees, fines, tribute, tithes) drive the currency." ..."
"... "JG is a critical component of MMT. It anchors the currency and ensures that achieving full employment will enhance both price and financial stability." ..."
I was asked to give a short presentation at the MMT conference. What follows is the text
version of my remarks, some of which I had to skip over in the interests of time. Many readers
might want to skip to the bullet points near the end, which summarize what I include in
MMT.
I'd also like to quickly respond to some comments that were made at the very last session of
the conference -- having to do with "approachability" of the "original" creators of MMT. Like
Bill Mitchell, I am uncomfortable with any discussion of "rockstars" or "heroes". I find this
quite embarrassing. As Bill said, we're just doing our job. We are happy (or, more accurately
pleasantly surprised) that so many people have found our work interesting and useful. I'm happy
(even if uncomfortable) to sign books and to answer questions at such events. I don't mind
emailed questions, however please understand that I receive hundreds of emails every day, and
the vast majority of the questions I get have been answered hundreds, thousands, even tens of
thousands of times by the developers of MMT. A quick reading of my Primer or search of NEP (and
Bill's blog and Warren's blogs) will reveal answers to most questions. So please do some
homework first. I receive a lot of "questions" that are really just a thinly disguised pretense
to argue with MMT -- I don't have much patience with those. Almost every day I also receive a
2000+ word email laying out the writer's original thesis on how the economy works and asking me
to defend MMT against that alternative vision. I am not going to engage in a debate via email.
If you have an alternative, gather together a small group and work for 25 years to produce
scholarly articles, popular blogs, and media attention -- as we have done for MMT -- and then
I'll pay attention. That said, here you go: [email protected] .
As an undergraduate I studied psychology and social sciences -- but no economics, which
probably gave me an advantage when I finally did come to economics. I began my economics career
in my late 20's studying mostly Institutionalist and Marxist approaches while working for the
local government in Sacramento. However, I did carefully read Keynes's General Theory
at Sacramento State and one of my professors -- John Henry -- pushed me to go to St. Louis to
study with Hyman Minsky, the greatest Post Keynesian economist.
I wrote my dissertation in Bologna under Minsky's direction, focusing on private banking and
the rise of what we called "nonbank banks" and "off-balance sheet operations" (now called
shadow banking). While in Bologna, I met Otto Steiger -- who had an alternative to the barter
story of money that was based on his theory of property. I found it intriguing because it was
consistent with some of Keynes's Treatise on Money that I was reading at the time.
Also, I had found Knapp's State Theory of Money -- cited in both Steiger and
Keynes–so I speculated on money's origins (in spite of Minsky's warning that he didn't
want me to write Genesis ) and the role of the state in my dissertation that became a
book in 1990 -- Money and Credit in Capitalist Economies -- that helped to develop the
Post Keynesian endogenous money approach.
What was lacking in that literature was an adequate treatment of the role of the
state–which played a passive role -- supplying reserves as demanded by private bankers --
that is the Post Keynesian accommodationist or Horzontalist approach. There was no discussion
of the relation of money to fiscal policy at that time. As I continued to read about the
history of money, I became more convinced that we need to put the state at the center.
Fortunately I ran into two people that helped me to see how to do it.
First there was Warren Mosler, who I met online in the PKT discussion group; he insisted on
viewing money as a tax-driven government monopoly. Second, I met Michael Hudson at a seminar at
the Levy Institute, who provided the key to help unlock what Keynes had called his "Babylonian
Madness" period -- when he was driven crazy trying to understand early money. Hudson argued
that money was an invention of the authorities used for accounting purposes. So over the next
decade I worked with a handful of people to put the state into monetary theory.
As we all know, the mainstream wants a small government, with a central bank that follows a
rule (initially, a money growth rate but now some version of inflation targeting). The fiscal
branch of government is treated like a household that faces a budget constraint. But this
conflicts with Institutionalist theory as well as Keynes's own theory. As the great
Institutionalist Fagg Foster -- who preceded me at the University of Denver–put it:
whatever is technically feasible is financially feasible. How can we square that with the
belief that sovereign government is financially constrained? And if private banks can create
money endogenously -- without limit -- why is government constrained?
My second book, in 1998, provided a different view of sovereign spending. I also revisited
the origins of money. By this time I had discovered the two best articles ever written on the
nature of money -- by Mitchell Innes. Like Warren, Innes insisted that the dollar's value is
derived from the tax that drives it. And he argued this has always been the case. This was also
consistent with what Keynes claimed in the Treatise, where he said that money has been a state
money for the past four thousand years, at least. I called this "modern money" with intentional
irony -- and titled my 1998 book Understanding Modern Money as an inside joke. It only
applies to the past 4000 years.
Surprisingly, this work was more controversial than the earlier endogenous money research.
In my view it was a natural extension -- or more correctly, it was the prerequisite to a study
of privately created money. You need the state's money before you can have private money.
Eventually our work found acceptance outside economics -- especially in law schools, among
historians, and with anthropologists.
For the most part, our fellow economists, including the heterodox ones, attacked us as
crazy.
I benefited greatly by participating in law school seminars (in Tel Aviv, Cambridge, and
Harvard) on the legal history of money -- that is where I met Chris Desan and later Farley
Grubb, and eventually Rohan Grey. Those who knew the legal history of money had no problem in
adopting MMT view -- unlike economists.
I remember one of the Harvard seminars when a prominent Post Keynesian monetary theorist
tried to argue against the taxes drive money view. He said he never thinks about taxes when he
accepts money -- he accepts currency because he believes he can fob it off on Buffy Sue. The
audience full of legal historians broke out in an explosion of laughter -- yelling "it's the
taxes, stupid". All he could do in response was to mumble that he might have to think more
about it.
Another prominent Post Keynesian claimed we had two things wrong. First, government debt
isn't special -- debt is debt. Second, he argued we don't need double entry book-keeping -- his
model has only single entry book-keeping. Years later he agreed that private debt is more
dangerous than sovereign debt, and he's finally learned double-entry accounting. But of course
whenever you are accounting for money you have to use quadruple entry book-keeping. Maybe in
another dozen years he'll figure that out.
As a student I had read a lot of anthropology -- as most Institutionalists do. So I knew
that money could not have come out of tribal economies based on barter exchange. As you all
know, David Graeber's book insisted that anthropologists have never found any evidence of
barter-based markets. Money preceded market exchange.
Studying history also confirmed our story, but you have to carefully read between the lines.
Most historians adopt monetarism because the only economics they know is Friedman–who
claims that money causes inflation. Almost all of them also adopt a commodity money view --
gold was good money and fiat paper money causes inflation. If you ignore those biases, you can
learn a lot about the nature of money from historians.
Farley Grubb -- the foremost authority on Colonial currency -- proved that the American
colonists understood perfectly well that taxes drive money. Every Act that authorized the issue
of paper money imposed a Redemption Tax. The colonies burned all their tax revenue. Again,
history shows that this has always been true. All money must be redeemed -- that is, accepted
by its issuer in payment. As Innes said, that is the fundamental nature of credit. It is
written right there in the early acts by the American colonies. Even a gold coin is the
issuer's IOU, redeemed in payment of taxes. Once you understand that, you understand the nature
of money.
So we were winning the academic debates, across a variety of disciplines. But we had a hard
time making progress in economics or in policy circles. Bill, Warren, Mat Forstater and I used
to meet up every year or so to count the number of economists who understood what we were
talking about. It took over decade before we got up to a dozen. I can remember telling Pavlina
Tcherneva back around 2005 that I was about ready to give it up.
But in 2007, Warren, Bill and I met to discuss writing an MMT textbook. Bill and I knew the
odds were against us -- it would be for a small market, consisting mostly of our former
students. Still, we decided to go for it. Here we are -- another dozen years later -- and the
textbook is going to be published. MMT is everywhere. It was even featured in a New
Yorker crossword puzzle in August. You cannot get more mainstream than that.
We originally titled our textbook Modern Money Theory , but recently decided to
just call it Macroeconomics . There's no need to modify that with a subtitle. What we
do is Macroeconomics. There is no coherent alternative to MMT.
A couple of years ago Charles Goodhart told me: "You won. Declare victory but be magnanimous
about it." After so many years of fighting, both of those are hard to do. We won. Be nice.
Let me finish with 10 bullet points of what I include in MMT:
1. What is money: An IOU denominated in a socially sanctioned money of account. In almost
all known cases, it is the authority -- the state -- that chooses the money of account. This
comes from Knapp, Innes, Keynes, Geoff Ingham, and Minsky.
2. Taxes or other obligations (fees, fines, tribute, tithes) drive the currency. The ability
to impose such obligations is an important aspect of sovereignty; today states alone monopolize
this power. This comes from Knapp, Innes, Minsky, and Mosler.
3. Anyone can issue money; the problem is to get it accepted. Anyone can write an IOU
denominated in the recognized money of account; but acceptance can be hard to get unless you
have the state backing you up. This is Minsky.
4. The word "redemption" is used in two ways -- accepting your own IOUs in payment and
promising to convert your IOUs to something else (such as gold, foreign currency, or the
state's IOUs).
The first is fundamental and true of all IOUs. All our gold bugs mistakenly focus on the
second meaning -- which does not apply to the currencies issued by most modern nations, and
indeed does not apply to most of the currencies issued throughout history. This comes from
Innes and Knapp, and is reinforced by Hudson's and Grubb's work, as well as by Margaret
Atwood's great book: Payback: Debt and the shadow side of wealth .
5. Sovereign debt is different. There is no chance of involuntary default so long as the
state only promises to accept its currency in payment. It could voluntarily repudiate its debt,
but this is rare and has not been done by any modern sovereign nation.
6. Functional Finance: finance should be "functional" (to achieve the public purpose), not
"sound" (to achieve some arbitrary "balance" between spending and revenues). Most importantly,
monetary and fiscal policy should be formulated to achieve full employment with price
stability. This is credited to Abba Lerner, who was introduced into MMT by Mat Forstater.
In its original formulation it is too simplistic, summarized as two principles: increase
government spending (or reduce taxes) and increase the money supply if there is unemployment
(do the reverse if there is inflation). The first of these is fiscal policy and the second is
monetary policy. A steering wheel metaphor is often invoked, using policy to keep the economy
on course. A modern economy is far too complex to steer as if you were driving a car. If
unemployment exists it is not enough to say that you can just reduce the interest rate, raise
government spending, or reduce taxes. The first might even increase unemployment. The second
two could cause unacceptable inflation, increase inequality, or induce financial instability
long before they solved the unemployment problem. I agree that government can always afford to
spend more. But the spending has to be carefully targeted to achieve the desired result. I'd
credit all my Institutionalist influences for that, including Minsky.
7. For that reason, the JG is a critical component of MMT. It anchors the currency and
ensures that achieving full employment will enhance both price and financial stability. This
comes from Minsky's earliest work on the ELR, from Bill Mitchell's work on bufferstocks and
Warren Mosler's work on monopoly price setting.
8. And also for that reason, we need Minsky's analysis of financial instability. Here I
don't really mean the financial instability hypothesis. I mean his whole body of work and
especially the research line that began with his dissertation written under Schumpeter up
through his work on Money Manager Capitalism at the Levy Institute before he died.
9. The government's debt is our financial asset. This follows from the sectoral balances
approach of Wynne Godley. We have to get our macro accounting correct. Minsky always used to
tell students: go home and do the balances sheets because what you are saying is nonsense.
Fortunately, I had learned T-accounts from John Ranlett in Sacramento (who also taught
Stephanie Kelton from his own, great, money and banking textbook -- it is all there, including
the impact of budget deficits on bank reserves). Godley taught us about stock-flow consistency
and he insisted that all mainstream macroeconomics is incoherent.
10. Rejection of the typical view of the central bank as independent and potent. Monetary
policy is weak and its impact is at best uncertain -- it might even be mistaking the brake
pedal for the gas pedal. The central bank is the government's bank so can never be independent.
Its main independence is limited to setting the overnight rate target, and it is probably a
mistake to let it do even that. Permanent Zirp (zero interest rate policy) is probably a better
policy since it reduces the compounding of debt and the tendency for the rentier class to take
over more of the economy. I credit Keynes, Minsky, Hudson, Mosler, Eric Tymoigne, and Scott
Fullwiler for much of the work on this.
That is my short list of what MMT ought to include. Some of these traditions have a very
long history in economics. Some were long lost until we brought them back into discussion.
We've integrated them into a coherent approach to Macro. In my view, none of these can be
dropped if you want a macroeconomics that is applicable to the modern economy. There are many
other issues that can be (often are) included, most importantly environmental concerns and
inequality, gender and race/ethnicity. I have no problem with that.
A JG is to discontinue NAIRU or structural under-unemployment with attendant
monetarist/quasi inflation views. Something MMT has be at pains to point out wrt fighting a
nonexistent occurrence due to extended deflationary period.
Its double entry accounting counting both sides of the equation. Fed deposits money into
bank requires 4 entries, a double entry for the Fed and for the bank. Typical double entry
accounting only looks at the books of 1 entity at a time. Quadruple Entry accounting makes
the connection between the government monetary policy and private business accounting. I'm
not an accountant, I may have butchered that.
think about banks and reserves, your money is on the bank's liability side (and your
asset), while the reserves are on the bank's asset side (and gov't or fed's liability.)
i think its the reserves that quadruple it, reserves are confusing because when you move
$5 from a bank account to buy ice cream its not just one copy of the $5 that moves between
checking accounts, there is another $5 that moves "under the hood" so to speak in reserve
world
Very briefly, double entry bookkeeping keeps track of how money comes in/out, and where it
came from/went. Cash is the determining item (although there may be a few removes). Hence,
say I buy a $20 dollar manicure from you. I record my purchase as "Debit (increase) expense:
manicure $20, credit (decrease) cash, $20". Bonus! If my bookkeeping is correct, my debits
and credits are equal and if I add them up (credits are minus and debits are plus) the total
is zero – my books "balance". So, double-entry bookkeeping is also a hash-total check
on my accounting accuracy. But I digress.
On your books, the entry would be "Debit (increase) cash $20, credit (decrease)
sales, $20".
So, your double-entry book plus my double-entry books would be quadruple-entry
accounting.
#7 was my immediate stopper, too. It drives me nuts when people introduce 2-3-4 letter
acronyms with no explanation (I work for the DoD and I'm surrounded by these "code words". I
rarely know what people are talking about and when I ask, the people talking rarely know what
these TLAs – T hree L etter A cronyms – stand for either!).
Next question regarding #7: What is ELR?
Other than #7, I really appreciate this article. NC teaches and/or clarifies on a daily
basis.
This quick, entertaining read is IMHO nothing less than a "Rosetta Stone" that can bring
non-specialists to understand MMT: not just how , but why it differs from
now-conventional neoliberal economics. I hope it finds a wide readership and that its many
references to MMT's antecedents inspire serious study by the unconvinced (and I hope they
don't take Wray's invitation to skip the 10 bullet points).
This piece is a fine demonstration of why I've missed Wray as he seemed to withdraw from
public discourse for the last few years.
Thank you! The (broad) analogies with my own experience are there. I had a decidedly
"mainstream" macro education at Cambridge (UK); though many of the "old school"
professors/college Fellows who, although not MMT people as we'd currently understand (or
weren't at *that* stage – Godley lectured a module I took but this was in the early
1990s) were still around, in hindsight the "university syllabus" (i.e. what you needed to
regurgitate to pass exams) had already steered towards neoliberalism. I never really
understood why I never "got" macro and it was consistently my weakest subject.
It was later, having worked in the City of London, learned accountancy in my actuarial
training, and then most crucially starting reading blogs from people who went on to become
MMT leading lights, that I realised the problem wasn't ME, it was the subject matter. So I
had to painfully unlearn much of what I was taught and begin the difficult process of getting
my head around a profoundly different paradigm. I still hesitate to argue the MMT case to
friends, since I don't usually have to hand the "quick snappy one liners" that would torpedo
their old discredited understanding.
I'm still profoundly grateful for the "old school" Cambridge College Fellows who were
obviously being sidelined by the University and who taught me stuff like the Marxist/Lerner
critiques, British economic history, political economy of the system etc. Indeed whilst I had
"official" tutorials with a finance guy who practically came whenever Black-Scholes etc was
being discussed, an old schooler was simultaneously predicting that it would blow the world
economy up at some point (and of course he was in the main , correct). I still had to fill in
some gaps in my knowledge (anthropology was not a module, though Marxist economics was), with
hindsight I appreciate so much more of what the "old schoolers" said on the sly during quiet
points in tutorials – Godley being one, although he wasn't ready at that time to
release the work he subsequently published and was so revolutionary. Having peers educated
elsewhere during my Masters and PhD who knew nothing of the subjects that – whilst
certainly not the "key guide" to "proper macro" described in the article – began to
horrify me later in my career.
This is really great. Thanks a ton, as Yves would say.
I know I have used to "rock star" metaphor on occasion, so let me explain that to
me what is important in excellent (i.e., live) rock and roll is improvisational
interplay among the group members -- the dozen or so who understood MMT in the beginning, in
this case -- who know the tune, know each other, and yet manage to make the song a little
different each time. It's really spectacular to see in action. Nothing to do with spotlights,
or celebrity worship, or fandom!
I'm no MMT expert, but I think
this article does a good job of juxtaposing MMT with classic (non-advanced)
macroeconomics. I quote:
In the language of Tinbergen (1952), the debate between MMT and mainstream macro can be
thought of as a debate over which instrument should be assigned to which target. The
consensus assignment is that the interest rate, under the control of an independent central
bank, should be assigned to the output gap target, while the fiscal position, under control
of the elected budget authorities, should be assigned to the debt sustainability target. [
] The functional finance assignment is the reverse -- the fiscal balance under the budget
authorities is assigned to the output target, while any concerns about debt sustainability
are the responsibility of the monetary authority.
What about interest rate fixing? The central bank would remain in charge of that, but in
an MMT context this instrument would lose most of its relevance:
[W]hile a simple swapping of instruments and targets is one way to think about
functional finance, this does not describe the usual MMT view of how the policy interest
rate should be set. What is generally called for, rather, is that the interest rate be
permanently kept at a very low level, perhaps zero. In an orthodox policy framework, of
course, this would create the risk of runaway inflation; but keep in mind that in the
functional framework, the fiscal balance is set to whatever level is consistent with price
stability.
It may be a partial reconstruction of MMT, but to me this seems to be a neat way to
present MMT to most people. Saying that taxes are there just to remove money from the economy
or to provide incentives is a rather extreme statement that is bound to elicit some fierce
opposition.
Having said that, I've never seen anyone address what I think are two issues to MMT: how
to make sure that the power to create money is not exploited by a political body in order to
achieve consensus, and how to assure that the idea of unlimited monetary resources do not
lead to misallocation and inefficiencies (the bloated, awash-with-money US military industry
would probably be a good example).
The best comparison of MMT with neoliberal neoclassical economics, in my view, is Bill
Mitchell's blog post, "How to Discuss Modern Monetary Theory" ( http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=25961
). I especially recommend the table near the end as a terrific summary of the differences
between the mainstream narrative and MMT.
Thanks! I have enormous respect for Mitchell, given the quantity and quality of his
blogging. However, my only nitpick is that a lot of his blog entries are quite long and "not
easily digestible". I have long thought that one of those clever people who can do those 3
minute rapid animation vids we see on youtube is needed to "do a Lakoff" and change the
metaphors/language. But this post of Mitchell (which I missed, since I don't read all his
stuff) is, IMHO, his best at "re-orienting us".
Saying that taxes are there just to remove money from the economy or to provide
incentives is a rather extreme statement that is bound to elicit some fierce
opposition.
Yes this is a frightening statement. The power to tax is the power to destroy. If this is
a foundation point of the proposal then
Having said that, I've never seen anyone address what I think are two issues to MMT: how
to make sure that the power to create money is not exploited by a political body in order
to achieve consensus, and how to assure that the idea of unlimited monetary resources do
not lead to misallocation and inefficiencies (the bloated, awash-with-money US military
industry would probably be a good example).
Bingo. My thoughts exactly. Too much power in the hands of the few. Easy to slide into
Orwell's Animal Farm – where some people are more equal than others.
MMT is based upon very good intentions but, in my view, there is a moral rot at the root
of the US of A's problems, not sure this can be solved by monetary policy and more
centralized control.
And the JG? Once the government starts to permanently guarantee jobs
I suggest you delve into what is proposed by the MMT – PK camp wrt a JG because its
not centralized in the manner you suggest. It would be more regional and hopefully
administrated via social democratic means e.g. the totalitarian aspect is moot.
I think its incumbent on commenters to do at least a cursory examination before heading
off on some deductive rationalizations, which might have undertones of some book they read
e.g. environmental bias.
Skippy, I read the article, plus the links, including those links of the comments. I will
admit that I am a little more right of center in my views than many on the website.
The idea is interesting, but the administration of such a system would require rewriting
the US Constitution, or an Amendment to it if one thinks the process through, would it not? I
think of the Amendment required to create the Federal Reserve System when I say this.
One thing I really don't like at all -- and I've crossed swords with many over this -- is
that we do tend to take (not just in the US, this is prevalent in far too many
places) things like the constitution, or cultural norms, or traditions or other variants of
"that's the way we've always done this" and elevate them to a level of sacrosanctity.
Not for one moment am I suggesting that we should ever rush into tweaking such devices
lightly nor without a great deal of analysis and introspective consultations.
Constitutions get amended all the time. The Republic of Ireland changed its to renounce a
territorial claim on Northern Ireland. The U.K. created a right for Scotland to secede from
the Union. There's even a country in Europe voting whether to formally change its name right
now. Britain "gave up" its empire territories (not, I would add speedily, without a lot of
prodding, but still, we got there in the end). All of which were, at one time or another,
"unthinkable". Even the US, perhaps the most inherently resistant to change country when it
thinks it's being "forced" to do so, begrudgingly acknowledged Cuba.
Why would a jobs guarantee require a constitutional amendment? The federal government
creates jobs all the time, with certain defined benefits. This would merely expand upon that,
to potentially include anyone who wants a job.
There are a couple different aspects of this that people are getting mixed together, I
think. The core of MMT is not a proposal for government to implement. Rather, it is simply a
description of how sovereign currencies actually operate, as opposed by mainstream economics,
which has failed in this regard. In other words, we don't need any new laws to implement MMT
– we need a paradigm shift.
The Jobs Guarantee is a policy proposal that flows from this different paradigm.
It has been stated many times that it is to inform policy wrt to potential and not some
booming voice from above dictating from some ridged ideology.
Persoanly as a capitalist I can't phantom why anyone would want structural under –
unemployment. Seems like driving around with the hand brake on and then wondering why
performance is restricted or parts wear out early.
Thinking of the Federal Reserve Act being enabled by the Federal Income Tax of the 16th
Amendment.
Using Federal taxes to fund the JG; I do not think that this aspect of it (and others)
would survive a Constitutional challenge. Therefore ultimately an Amendment might be
needed.
Then again I may be wrong. Technically Obamacare should have been implemented by an
Amendment were strict Constitutional law applied.
Rights to health care and jobs are not enumerated in either the Constitution or Bill of
Rights, as far as I am aware.
Not opposed to some of the principles of MMT, just don't understand, in this modern age
where effectively all currency is electronic digits in a banking computer system, the issue
of a currency must be tied to taxes. In years past, where currency was printed and in one's
pocket, or stuffed under a mattress, or couriered by stagecoach, then yes – taxes would
be needed. But today can we not just print (electronically) the cash needed for government
operations each year based upon a fixed percentage of private sector GDP? Why therefore do we
need government debt? Why do we need an income tax?
Skippy, I have lived and worked in countries without income tax (but instead indirect tax)
and where government operating revenue was based upon a percentage of projected national
revenue. I have been involved in the administration of such budgets.
I am in favor of government spending, or perhaps more accurately termed investing, public
money on long-term, economically beneficial projects. But this is not happening. The reality
is that government priorities can easily be hijacked by political interests, as we currently
witness.
While I agree that political highjacking is possible and must be dealt with, this is not
strictly speaking part of an economic theory, which is what MMT is. While MMT authors may
take political positions, the theory itself is politically neutral.
Income taxes, tithes, or any other kind of driver is what drives the monetary circuit.
Consider it from first principles. You have just set up a new government with a new currency
where this government is the monopoly issuer. No one else has any money yet. So, the
government must be the first spender. However, how is this nascent government going to
motivate anyone to use this new currency? Via taxation, or like means, that can only be met
by using the national currency, whatever form that currency may take, marks on a stick,
paper, an entry in a ledger, or the like.
Thank you for this explanation. I understand that, for example, this is why the Federal
Reserve Act of 1913, I believe, created the Federal Reserve and Federal Income Tax at the
same time.
But the US economy functioned adequately, survived a civil war, numerous banking crises,
experienced industrialization, national railways, etc without a central bank or federal
income tax from the 1790's to 1913.
To me, the US's state of perpetual war is enabled by Federal Income Tax. Without it the
MIC would collapse, I am certain.
Functioned adequately
During the 150 yr hard money period we had recessions/depressions that we're both far more
frequent (every three years) and on avg far deeper than what we have had since fdr copied the
brits and took us off the gold standard. Great deprecession was neither the longest or
deepest.
Two reasons
Banks used to fail frequently, a run on one bank typically leading to runs on other banks,
spreading across regions like prairie fires if your bank failed you lost all your money.
Consequences were serious.
During GR so many banks failed in the Midwest, leading to farm foreclosures, the region was
near armed insurrection in 1932. Fiat meant that the fed can supply unlimited liquidity.
Since then banks have failed but immediately taken over by another. Critically, no depositor
has lost a penny, even those with far more exposed than the deposit insurance limit. No runs
on us banks since 1933.
Second, we now have auto stabilizers, spending continues during downturns because gov has no
spending limit. Note previously in an emergency gov borrowed. 10 mil from J.P. Morgan.
But at what cost? no depositor loses money, yet huge amounts are required to be printed,
thus devaluing the "currency". So is the answer inflation that must by necessity become
hyperinflation?
I don't understand why it is important to protect a bank vs. making it perform its function
without risking collapse. This is magical thinking as we have found very few banks in this
world not ready and willing to pillage their clients, be it nations or just the little
folk.
Why would anyone trust a government to do the right thing by its population? When has that
ever worked out in favor of the people?
I can not understand the trust being demanded by this concept. It wants trust for the users,
but in no way can it expect trust or virtue from the issuer of the "currency"
also, I can't help but think MMT is for growth at all costs. Hasn't the growth shown that
it is pernicious in itself? Destroy the planet for the purpose of stabilizing "currency".
Our federal reserve gave banks trillions of dollars, and then demanded they keep much of
it with the Fed and are paid interest not to use it. It inflated the "currency" in
circulation yet again and now it is becoming clear a great percentage of people in our
country can no longer eat, no longer purchase medications, a home, a business
If being on a hard money system as we were causes recessions and depressions, would we
find that it was a natural function to cut off the speculators at their knees?
How does MMT promote and retain value for the actual working and producing people that
have no recourse with their government? I would like to read about what is left out of this
monumental equation.
US had a federal income tax during the civil war and for a decade or so after.
I have always assumed that mass conscription and the Dreadnought arms race led to the
implementation of the modern taxing/monetary system. (gov't needed both warfare and
welfare)
Taxes, just as debt, create an artificial demand for currency as one must pay back their
taxes in {currency}, and one must pay back debt in {currency}. It doesn't have to be an
income tax, and I think a sales tax would be a better driver of demand than an income
tax.
The US had land sales that helped fund government expenditures in the 1800s.
Not all taxes are income taxes. Back in the day (20's/30's/40's),my grandfather could pay
off the (county) property taxes on his farm by plowing snow for the county in the winter --
and he was damned careful to make sure that the county commissioners' driveways were plowed
out as early as possible after a storm.
In the 30's/40's the property tax laws were changed to be payable only in dollars.
So Grandpa had to make cash crops. Things changed and money became necessary.
But today can we not just print (electronically) the cash needed for government
operations each year based upon a fixed percentage of private sector GDP?
The élites could, but it would be totally undemocratic and the economics profession's
track record of forecasting growth is no better than letting a cat choose a number written on
an index card.
Why therefore do we need government debt?
There is no government debt. It's just a record of interest payments Congress has agreed
to make because the wealthy wanted another welfare program.
Why do we need an income tax?
The only logically consistent purpose is because people have too much income.
I think the point they're driving at, is that by requiring the payment of taxes in a
particular currency, a government creates demand for that currency. There are other uses for
federal taxes, not the least of which is to keep inflation in check.
Government debt is not needed, at least not at the federal level. My understanding of it
is that it's a relic from the days of the gold standard. It's also very useful to some rather
large financial institutions, so eliminating it would be politically difficult.
Wray has said in interviews that the debt (and associated treasury bonds), while not
strictly necessary in a fiat currency, is of use in that it provides a safe base for
investment, for pensioners and retirees, etc.
Sure, it could be eliminated by (a) trillion dollar platinum coins deposited at the
Federal Reserve followed by (b) slowly paying off the existing debt when the bonds mature or
(c) simply decreeing that the Fed must go to a terminal and type in 21500000000000 as the US
Gov account balance (hope I got the number of zeroes correct!).
It could be argued that the US doesn't strictly need taxes to drive currency demand as
long as our status as the world reserve currency is maintained (see oft-discussed
petrodollar, Libya, etc). If that status is imperiled, say by an push by a coalition of
nations to establish a different currency as the "world reserve currency") taxes would be
needed to drive currency demand.
I think most of this is covered in one way or another here:
Government debt is not actually a 'real thing'. It is a residue of double-entry
bookkeeping, as is net income (income minus expenses, that's a credit in the double-entry
system). It could as well be called 'retained earnings (also a 'book' credit in the
double-entry system). If everybody had to take bookkeeping in high school there would be far
few knickers in knots!
There are two kinds of government 'debt': the accumulated deficit which is the money in
circulation not a real debt, and outstanding bonds which is real in the sense that it must be
repaid with interest.
However, the government can choose the interest rate and pay it (or buy back the bonds at
any time) with newly minted money at no cost to itself, cf. QE.
seems to me that the guaranteed jobs would be stigmatized, and make it harder for people
to get private sector jobs. "once youre in the JG industry, its hard to get out" etc.
how much of a guarantee is the job guarantee supposed to be? ie. at what point can you get
fired from a guaranteed job?
Yes, my mind wandered into the same territory. While I agree that something needs to be
done, it also has the potential to strike at the heart of a lean, merit-based system by
introducing another layer of bureaucracy. In principle, I am not against the idea, but as
they say, "God (or the Devil – take your pick) is in the details ".
If you haven't already read it, "Reclaiming the State" by Mitchell and Fazi (Pluto Press
2017) provides a detailed and cogent analysis of how neoliberalism came into ascendency, and
how the principles of MMT can be used to pave the way to a more humane and sustainable
economic system. A new political agenda for the left, drawing in a different way upon the
nationalism that has energized the right, is laid out for those progressives who understand
the necessity of broadening their appeal. And the jobs guarantee that MMT proposes has
NOTHING to do with MacJobs and Amazon workers. It has to do with meeting essential human and
environmental needs which are not profitable to meet in today's private sector.
Job guarantee, or govt as employer of last resort -- now there is a social
challenge/opportunity if there ever was one.
Well managed, it would guarantee a living wage to anyone who wants to work, thereby
setting a floor on minimum wages and benefits that private employers would have to meet or
exceed. These minima would also redound to the benefit of self-employed persons by setting
standards re income and care (health, vacations, days off, etc) *and* putting money in the
pockets of potential customers.
Poorly managed it could create the 'digging holes, filling them in' programs of the
Irish Potato Famine
ore worse (hard to imagine, but still ). It has often been remarked that the potato blight
was endemic across Europe, it was only a famine in Ireland -- through policy choices.
So, MMT aside (as being descriptive, rather than prescriptive), we are down to who
controls policy. And that is *really* scary.
In terms of power, the government has the power to shoot your house to splinters, or blow
it up, with or without you in it. We say they're not supposed to, but they have the ability,
and it has been done.
The question of how to hold your government to the things it's supposed to do applies to
issues beyond money. We'd best deal with government power as an issue in itself. I should
buckle down and get Mitchell's next-to-newest book Reclaiming the State .
I don't claim to fully understand MMT yet, but I find Wray's use of the derogatory term
"gold bugs" to be both disappointing and revealing. To lump those, some of whom are quite
sophisticated, who believe that currencies should be backed by something of tangible value
(and no, "the military" misses the point), or those who hold physical gold as an insurance
policy against political incompetence, and the inexorable degradation of fiat currencies, in
with those who promote or hold gold in the hopes of hitting some type of lottery, is
disingenuous at best.
OMT seemingly has no reason to exist being old school, but for what it's worth, the
almighty dollar has lost over 95% of it's value when measured against something that matters,
since the divorce in 1971.
I found this passage funny, as in flipping the dates around to 1791, is when George
Washington set an exchange rate of 1000-1 for old debauched Continental Currency, in exchange
for newly issued specie. (there was no Federal currency issued until 1861)
So yeah, they burned all of their tax revenue, because the money wasn't worth jack.
Farley Grubb -- the foremost authority on Colonial currency -- proved that the American
colonists understood perfectly well that taxes drive money. Every Act that authorized the
issue of paper money imposed a Redemption Tax. The colonies burned all their tax
revenue.
Gold bug is akin to money crank e.g. money = morals. That's not to mention all the
evidence to date does not support the monetarist view nor how one gets the value into the
inanimate object or how one can make it moral.
Gold doesn't historically perform as a hedge but as a speculative trade. Those who think
it can protect them from political events typically don't realize that a gold standard means
public control of the gold industry, thereby cutting any separation from the political
process off at the knees.
When a government declares that $20 is equal in value to one ounce of gold, it also
declares an ounce of gold is equal to $20 dollars. It is therefore fixing, through a
political decision subject to political changes, the price of the commodity.
Nonsense. When fiat currencies invariably degrade, and especially at a fast rate, gold has
proven to be a relative store of value for millennia . All one need do is to look at
Venezuela, Argentina, Turkey, etc., to see that ancient dynamic in action today.
You, and others who have replied to my comment, are using the classical gold standard as a
straw man, as well. Neither I, nor many other gold "bugs" propose such a simple solution to
the obviously failed current economy, which is increasingly based on mountains of debt that
can never be repaid.
gold has proven to be a relative store of value for millennia.
As long as one is mindful that gold is just another commodity, subject to the same
speculative distortions as any other commodity (see Hunt brothers and silver).
But that is obviously false, given that no other commodity has remotely performed with
such stability over such a long period of time.
It is true that over short periods distortions can appear, and the *true* value of gold
has been suppressed in recent years through the use of fraudulent paper derivatives. But
again, I'm not arguing for the return of a classical gold standard.
Don't worry, I'm likely to be at least equally dense!
I didn't mean to suggest that there is some formula from which a *true* value of precious
metals might be derived. I simply meant that gold has clearly been the object of price
suppression in recent years through the use of paper derivatives (i.e. future contracts). The
reason for such suppression, aside from short-term profits to be made, is that gold has
historically acted as a barometer relating to political and economic stability, and those in
power have a particular interest in suppressing such warning signals when the system becomes
unstable.
So, while the Central Banks created previously unimaginable mountains of debt, it was
important not to alarm the commoners.
The suppression schemes have become less effective of late, and will ultimately fail when
the impending crisis unfolds in earnest.
As long as one is mindful that gold is just another commodity, subject to the same
speculative distortions as any other commodity
It sounds good in theory, but history says otherwise.
The value remained more or less the same for well over 500 years as far as an English
Pound was concerned, the weight and value of a Sovereign hardly varied, and the exact weight
and fineness of one struck today or any time since 1817, is the same, no variance
whatsoever.
Thus there was no speculative distortions in terms of value, the only variance being the
value of the Pound (= 1 Sovereign) itself.
" who believe that currencies should be backed by something of tangible value"
As I understand it, MMT also requires that currency be backed by something of tangible
value: a well managed and productive economy. It doesn't matter in the least if your debt is
denominated in your own currency if you have the economy of Zimbabwe.
Sounds reasonable in theory, but that was supposed to be the case with the current
economic system, as well, and we can all see where that has led.
I'm not arguing that there isn't a theoretically better way to create and use
"modern" money, but rather doubt that those empowered to create it out of thin air will ever
do so without abusing such power.
Oh, I agree with you. In no universe that I am aware of would the temptation to create
money beyond the productive capacity of the economy to back it up be resisted. I think
Zimbabwe is a pretty good example of where the theory goes in practice.
That's exactly wrong. Zimbabwe had a production collapse. Same amount of money to buy a
much smaller amount of goods. The gov responded not by increasing goods, but increasing money
supply.
Mark Blyth has a good discussion of the gold standard in his book Austerity: The
History of a Dangerous Idea . He makes the point that, in imposing the adjustments
necessary to keep the balance of payments flowing, the measures imposed by a government would
be so politically toxic, that no elected official in his or her right mind would implement
them, and expect to remain in office. In short, you can have either democracy, or a gold
standard, but you can't have both.
Also, MMT does recognize that there are real world constraints on a currency, and that is
represented by employment, not some artificially-imposed commodity such as gold (or bitcoin,
or seashells, etc). The Jobs Guarantee flows out of this.
As mentioned above, you, among others who have replied to my original comment, are using
the classical gold standard as a straw manl. Neither I, nor many other gold "bugs", propose
such a simple solution for the failed current economic system, which is increasingly based on
mountains of debt that can never be repaid.
increasingly based on mountains of debt that can never be repaid.
Huh? I listed two ways they could be repaid above. In the US, the national debt is
denominated in dollars, of which we have an infinite supply (fiat). In addition, the Federal
Reserve could buy all the existing debt by [defer to quad-entry accounting stuff from Wray's
primer] and then figuratively burn it. Sure, the rest of the world would be pissed and
inflation *may* run amok, but "can never" is just flat out wrong.
Of course it can be extinguished through hyperinflation. I didn't think that it would be
necessary to point that out. No "may" about it, though, as if the U.S. prints tens of
trillions of dollars to extinguish the debt, hyperinflation will be assured.
I didn't think that it would be necessary to point that out.
Sorry, but I'm an old programmer; logic rules the roost. When one's software is expected
to execute billions of times a day without fail for years (and this post is very likely
routed through a device running an instance of something I've written). Always means every
time, no exceptions; never means not ever, no matter what.
I'm sure that there is no one solution proposed, though an alternative to the current
system which seems plausible would be a currency backed by a basket of commodities, including
gold.
Hi Tinky, much late but still. Gold will have value as long as people believe it has
value. But what will they trade it for? The bottom line is your life.
I don't have any gold, too expensive, and it really has no use. But I remember Dimitri Orlov's
advice : I am long in needles, pins, thread, nails and screws, drill bits, saws, files,
knives, seeds, manual tools of many sorts, mechanical skills and beer recipes. Plus I can
sing.
The vast majority of people who hold physical gold are well aware of the value of having
skills and supplies, etc., in case of a serious meltdown. But it's not a zero-sum game, as
you suggest. Gold will inexorably rise sharply in value when today's fraudulent markets
crash, and there will be plenty of opportunities for those who own it to trade it for other
assets.
Furthermore, as previously mentioned, gold's utility is already on full display,
to those who are paying attention, and not looking myopically through a USD lens.
"Mountains of debt that can never be repaid" is a propaganda statement with no reference
to any economic fact. Why do you feel that this "debt" needs to be "repaid"? It is simply an
accounting artifact. The "debt" is all of the dollars that have been spent *into* the economy
without having been taxed back *out*. The word "debt" activates your feels, but has no
intrinsic meaning in this context. Please step back from your indoctrinated emotional
reaction and understand that the so-called national "debt" is nothing more than money that
has been created via public spending, and "repaying" it would be an act of destruction.
I keep telling (boring, annoying, infuriating) people that, in the simplest terms, the
national debt is the money supply and they won't grasp that simple declaration. When I said
it to my Freedom Caucus congress critter (we were seated next to each other on an exit aisle)
his head started spinning, reminding me of Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
As I said to my congress critter, if the debt bother's y'all so much, why not just pay it
off, dust off your hands, and be done with it?
Personally, if I were President for a day, I'd have the mint stamp out 40 or so trillion
dollar platinum coins just to fill the top right drawer of the Resolute desk. Would give me
warm fuzzy feelings all day long.
p.s. I also told him that the man with nothing cares not about inflation. He didn't like
that either.
"those, some of whom are quite sophisticated, who believe that currencies should be backed
by something of tangible value (and no, "the military" misses the point), or those who hold
physical gold as an insurance policy against political incompetence, and the inexorable
degradation of fiat currencies"
I suspect that Wray exactly means that these people are the goldbugs, not the ones who
speculate on gold.
The whole point that currencies should be backed by something of tangible value IMO is
wrong, and I think the MMTers agree with me on this.
If so, then he should clarify his position, as again, lumping the billions –
literally – of people who consider gold to be economically important, together as one,
is disingenuous.
I think people that consider gold to be a risk hedge understand its anthro, per se an
early example of its use was a fleck of golds equal weight to a few grains of wheat e.g. the
gold did not store value, but was a marker – token of the wheat's value – labour
inputs and utility. Not to mention its early use wrt religious iconography or vis-à-vis
the former as a status symbol. Hence many of the proponents of a gold standard are really
arguing for immutable labour tokens, problem here is scalability wrt high worth individuals
and resulting distribution distortions, unless one forwards trickle down sorts of
theory's.
Not to mention in times of nascent socioeconomic storms many that forward the idea of gold
safety are the ones selling it. I think as such the entire thing is more a social psychology
question than one of factual natural history e.g. the need to feel safe i.e. like commercials
about "peace of mind". I think a reasonably stable society would provide more "peace of mind"
than some notion that an inanimate object could lend too – in an atomistic
individualistic paradigm.
I once had an co-worker that was a devout Christian. When he realized I wasn't religious,
he asked me, incredulously, how I was able to get out of bed in the morning. Meaning, he
couldn't face a world without meaning.
I think a lot of people feel that same way about money. They fight over it, lie for it,
steal it, kill for it, go to war over it, and most importantly, slave for it. Therefore, it
must have intrinsic value. I think gold bugs are in this camp.
Talking about Warren's blog ( http://moslereconomics.com/ ), everytime I try to go there,
Cloudflare asks me to prove that I am human. Anyone know what's up with that? It's the only
website I've ever seen do that.
That's a good suggestion. Unfortunately, as I sometimes find, you can pass ALL the major
test-sites but something (a minor, less-used site using out-of-date info?) can give you
grief. NC site managers once (kindly) took the time to explain to me why I might have
problems that they had no ability to address at their end. I had to muck around with a link
given earlier to Bill Mitchell's blog before my browser would load it.
I think there can be quirks that are beyond our control (unfortunately) – for instance
I think a whole block of IP addresses (including mine) used by my ISP have been flagged
*somewhere* – no doubt due to another customer doing stuff that the checker(s) don't
like. (The issue I mentioned above was more likely due to a strict security protocol in my
browser, however.)
Monetary policy in terms of interest rates is not just weak, it also tends to treat all
targets the same. Fiscal policy can be targetted to where it is felt it can do the most
good.
Christine Desan's book, "Making Money," exhaustively documents the history of money as a
creature of the state. Recall as well that creating money and regulating its value are among
the enumerated POWERS granted to our government by we, the people. Money, indeed, is
power.
Hmmm Randy Wray states that " permanent Zirp (zero interest rate policy) is probably a
better policy since it reduces the compounding of debt and the tendency for the rentier class
to take over more of the economy. "
But just last week, Yves stated that " that one of the consequences of the protracted
super-low interest rate regime of the post crisis era was to create a world of hurt for
savers, particularly long-term savers like pension funds, life insurers and retirees. "
[ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/09/crisis-caused-pension-train-wreck.html
]
So are interest rates today too high, or too low? We're getting mixed messages here.
IMO, interest rates are too low . Beyond the harmful effect to savers, it also
drives income inequality . How? When interest rates are less than inflation, it is
trivial to borrow money, buy some assets, wait for the assets to appreciate, sell the assets,
repay the debt, and still have profit left over even after paying interest . Well,
it's trivial if you're already rich and have a line of credit that is both large and
low-interest. If you're poor with a bad FICO score, you don't get to play the asset
appreciation game at all.
The rates between riskier and less risky borrowers will still be reflected in the
different rates given to each.
The low rates encourage greater risk taking to increase the reward(a higher rate of
return). This is what leads to the gross malinvestment.
Case in point: the low rates led to more investments into the stock market, where the
returns are unlimited. This is what led to the income inequality of Obama's term, as
mentioned above.
I cannot speak for Yves, nor or Randy, but IMO, interest rates are too low for people who
depend on interest for their living -- as an old person, I have seen my expected income drop
to about zilch when I had expected 7 to 10% on my savings. Haha! So yeah, too low for us who
saved for 'retirement'.
Too high for people financing on credit, since a decent mortgage on a modestly-priced
house will cost you almost the same as
the house . And that doesn't even begin to look at unsecured consumer credit (ie, credit
card debt), which is used in the US and other barbaric countries for medical expenses, not to
mention student debt. The banks can create the principal with their keystrokes, but they
don't create the interest. Where do you suppose that comes from? Hint: nowhere, as in
foreclosures and bankruptcies.
Wray's statement reflects his preferences from an operational policy perspective.
Sovereign government debt cares no risk and therefore should not pay interest. The income
earned from that interest is basically a subsidy and all income when spent caries a risk of
inflation induced excess demand. Therefore who unnecessarily add the risk to the economy and
potential risk needing to reduce other policy objectives to accommodate unnecessary interest
income subsidies to mostly rich people?
Yves comment reflects the reality of prior decades of economic history. Even if Wray's
policy perspective is optimal, there are decades of people with pensions and retirement
savings designed around the assumption of income from risk-free government debt. It's this
legacy that Yves is commenting on and is a real problem that current policy makers are just
ignoring.
As for your comments on how low cost credit can be abused, I believe you'll find most MMT
practitioners would recommend far more regulation on the extension of credit for
non-productive purposes.
I just wrote a note to Randy:
The origin of money is not merely for accounting, but specifically for accounting for DEBT --
debt owed to the palatial economy and temples.
I make that clear in my Springer dictionary of money that will come out later this year:
Origins of Money and Interest: Palatial Credit, not Barter
Can somebody help me out here? It seems to me that the US macroeconomic policy has been
operating under MMT at least since FDR (see for example Beardsley Ruml from 1945).
Since then, insofar as I understand MMT, fiat has been printed and distributed to flow
primarily through the MIC and certain other periodically favored sectors (e.g. the Interstate
Highway System). Then, rather than destroying this fiat through taxation, the sectoral
balances have been kept deliberately out of balance: Taxes on unearned income have been
almost eliminated with an eye to not destroying fiat, but to sequestering as much as possible
in the private hands of the 1%. This accumulating fiat cannot be productively invested
because that would cause overproduction, inflation, and reduce the debt burden by which the
1% retains power over the 99%. So the new royalists, as FDR would have styled them, keep
their hoard as a war chest against "socialists".
I get all this, more or less, and I appreciate that it is well and good and important that
MMTers insistently point out that the emperor has no clothes. This is a necessary first step
in educating the 99%.
But I don't see MMT types discussing the fact that US (and NATO) macroeconomic policy
already has a Job Guarantee: if you don't want to work alongside undocumented immigrants on a
roof or in a slaughterhouse or suffer the humiliation of US welfare, such as it is, you can
always get a job with the army, or the TSA, or the police, or as a prison guard, or if you
have some education, with a health unsurance company or pushing drone buttons. You only have
to be willing to follow orders to kill–or at least help to kill–strangers.
(Okay, perhaps I overstate. If you're a medical doctor or an "educator" with university
debt you don't have to actively kill. You can decline scant Medicaid payments and open a
concierge practice, or you can teach to the test in order that nobody learns anything
moral.)
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it. Wouldn't it be clarified matters if MMTers acknowledged that we already
have a JG?
We have been operating on MMT since the end of WW2, with 2 exceptions in 1968 when Silver
Certificate banknotes no longer were redeemable for silver, and in 1971 when foreign central
banks (not individuals!) weren't allowed to exchange FRN's for gold @ $35 an ounce
anymore.
It's been full on fiat accompli since then and to an outsider looks absurd in that money
is entirely a faith-based agenda, but it's worked for the majority of all of lives, so nobody
squawks.
It's an economic "the emperor has no clothes" gig.
It seems to me that the US macroeconomic policy has been operating under MMT at
least since FDR (see for example Beardsley Ruml from 1945).
Yup, you are correct, IMO. And about the jobs guarantee, too. The point of MMT is not that
we have to adopt, believe in, or implement it, but that *this is how things work* and we need
to get a %&*^* handle on it *STAT* or they will ride it and us to the graveyard. The
conservatives and neo-cons are already on to this, long-time.
I believe the chant is:
We can have anything we want that is available in our (sovereign) currency and for which
there are resources
What we get depends on what we want and how well we convince/coerce our 'leaders' to make
it so.
JG is geared toward community involvement to create an open-ended collection of potential
work assignments, not top-down provision of a limited number of job slots determined by
bureaucrats on a 1% leash.
About every 80 years, there has been a great turning in terms of money in these United
States
Might as well start with 1793 and the first Federal coins, followed in 1861 by the first
Federal paper money, and then the abandonment of the gold standard (a misnomer, as it was one
of many money standards @ era, most of them fiat) in 1933.
We're a little past our use-by date for the next incarnation of manna, or is it already
here in the guise of the great giveaway orchestrated since 2008 to a selected few?
After learning MMT I've occasionally thought I should get a refund for the two economics
degree's I originally received. One of the primary mainstream teachings that I now readily
see as false is the concept of money being a vale over a barter economy. It's lazy,
self-serving analysis. It doesn't even pass a basic logical analysis let alone archeological
history. Even in a very primitive economy it would be virtually impossible for barter to be
the main form of transaction. The strawberry farmer can't barter with the apple farmer. His
strawberries will be rotten before the apples are ripe. He could give the apple farmer
strawberries in June on the promise of receiving apples in October, but that's not barter
that's credit. The apple farmer could default of his own free will or by happenstance (he
dies, his apple harvest is destroyed by an act of god, etc ). How does the iron miner get his
horse shoed if the blacksmith needs iron before he can make the horse show? Credit has to
have always been a key component of any economy and therefore barter could never have been
the original core.
After learning MMT I've occasionally thought I should get a refund for the two
economics degree's I originally received.
Agreed. Richard Wolff notes that in most Impressive Universities there are two schools,
one for Economics (theory) and another for Business (practice). Heh. I say, go for the
refund, you was robbed.
All the Rupee* has done over time is go down in value against other currencies, and up in
the spot price measured in Rupees even as gold is trending down now, and that whole stupid
demonetization of bank notes gig, anybody on the outside of the fiat curtain looking in, had
to be laughing, and ownership there is no laughing matter, as it's almost a state financial
religion, never seen anything like it.
* A silver coin larger than a U.S. half dollar pre-post WW2, now worth a princely 1.4
cents U.S.
Not an economist, but I appreciate both the applicability of MMT and the fierce, but often
subtle resistance its proponents have encountered academically, institutionally and
politically. However, I have questioned to what extent MMT is uniquely applicable to a nation
with either a current account surplus or that controls access to a global reserve
currency.
How does a nation that is sovereign in its own currency, say Argentina for example (there
are many such examples), lose 60 percent of its value in global foreign exchange markets in a
very short time period?
Is this due primarily to private sector debts denominated in a foreign currency (and if
so, what sectors of the Argentine economy undertook those debts, for what purposes, and to
whom are they owed?), foreign exchange market manipulation by external third parties, the
effective imposition of sanctions by those who control the global reserve currency and
international payments system, or some combination of those or other factors?
MMT makes more sense than orthodox neoliberal accounts of currency and sovereign spending
to me, as it does a better job of acknowledging reality. MMT recognizes that currency is an
artifice and that imagined limitations on it are just that, and real resources are the things
which are limited. Neoliberal economics acts as if all sorts of byzantine factors mean
currency must be limited, but we can think of resources, and the growth machine they feed, as
being infinite.
"Taxes or other obligations (fees, fines, tribute, tithes) drive the
currency."
Specifically, what does "drive" mean? Does it mean:
1. When taxes are reduced, the value of money falls?
2. If taxes were zero, the value of money would be zero?
3. Cryptocurrencies, which are not supported by taxes, have no value?
"JG is a critical component of MMT. It anchors the currency and ensures that achieving
full employment will enhance both price and financial stability."
Specifically, what do "anchors" and "critical component" mean? Do they mean:
1. Since JG does not exist, the U.S. dollar is unanchored and MMT does not exist?
2. Providing college graduates with ditch-digging jobs enhances price and financial
stability?
3. Forcing people to work is both morally and economically superior to giving them money and
benefits?
"Drive" means "creates initial demand for":
1. No, not for an established currency.
2. See 1.
3. Crypto is worth what you can buy with it.
"Anchors" means it acts against inflation and deflation. "Critical component" means the
economy works better if it has it.
1. Yes and no.
2. Yes, if no-one else will hire them.
3. No element of force is implied.
"... I still find it incredible that this video by Samuelson essentially acknowledging that a key part of his multi-decade "core" textbook is religion, not science, is not more widely shared. ..."
Steve Keen of Kingston University, London gives an important high-level talk on the
considerable shortcomings of mainstream economics. Keen argues that a major objective of the
discipline is to justify the virtues of markets, which in turn leads them to adopt a strongly
ideological posture along with highly simplified models and narrow mathematical approaches to
reach conclusions that they find acceptable.
Keen has many informative asides, like the introductory level texts he used in the 1970s
were more advanced than many graduate level guides.
I still find it incredible that this video by Samuelson essentially acknowledging that a
key part of his multi-decade "core" textbook is religion, not science, is not more widely
shared.
OK the person who constructed the complete youtube vid has typos etc and editing
probably didn't help the cause. but still
"... Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy of Islamists. ..."
"... The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump. For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty. ..."
"... But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness to be "presidential." ..."
"... Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day. ..."
"... Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning out to be just another agent of the power elite. ..."
"... Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? ..."
"... Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy ..."
"... Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion." ..."
"... " while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it without establishment support." ..."
Did the Deep State deep-six Trump's populist revolution?
Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington,
"globalist" establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new
presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National
Security Council on April 5.
Until then, the presidency's early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his administration's first
weeks, Trump's biggest supporters frequently tweeted the hashtag #winning and exulted that he was decisively doing exactly what,
on the campaign trail, he said he would do.
In a flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions bearing Bannon's fingerprints, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, declared a sweeping travel ban, instituted harsher deportation policies, and more.
These policies seemed to fit Trump's reputation as the "
tribune of poor white people
," as he has been called; above all, Trump's base calls for protectionism and immigration restrictions. Trump seemed to be delivering
on the populist promise of his inauguration speech (thought to be written by Bannon), in which he said:
"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration
to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American
People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories
closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their
triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling
families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration.
And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January
20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country
will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now." [Emphasis added.]
After a populist insurgency stormed social media and the voting booths, American democracy, it seemed, had been wrenched from
the hands of the Washington elite and restored to "the people," or at least a large, discontented subset of "the people." And this
happened in spite of the establishment, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and "polite opinion" throwing everything it had at Trump.
The Betrayal
But for the past month, the administration's axis seems to have shifted. This shift was especially abrupt in Trump's Syria policy.
Days before Bannon's fall from grace, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared that forcing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
from power was no longer top priority. This too was pursuant of Trump's populist promises.
Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They
are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending
American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also
saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy
of Islamists.
The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump.
For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies
of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these
libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the
state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty.
But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack
on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same
excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness
to be "presidential."
Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold
water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced
an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day.
Here I make no claim as to whether any of these policy reversals are good or bad. I only point out that they run counter to the
populist promises he had given to his core constituents.
Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning
out to be just another agent of the power elite.
Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? Or, after constant obstruction,
has he simply concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Regardless of how it came about, it seems clear that whatever prospect there was for a truly populist Trump presidency is gone
with the wind. Was it inevitable that this would happen, one way or another?
One person who might have thought so was German sociologist Robert Michels, who posited the "iron law of oligarchy" in his 1911
work Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy .
Michels argued that political organizations, no matter how democratically structured, rarely remain truly populist, but inexorably
succumb to oligarchic control.
Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable
of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of
persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion."
This practical limitation necessitates delegation of decision-making to officeholders. These delegates may at first be considered
servants of the masses:
"All the offices are filled by election. The officials, executive organs of the general will, play a merely subordinate part,
are always dependent upon the collectivity, and can be deprived of their office at any moment. The mass of the party is omnipotent."
But these delegates will inevitably become specialists in the exercise and consolidation of power, which they gradually wrest
away from the "sovereign people":
"The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive organization renders necessary what is called expert
leadership. Consequently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the specific attributes of leadership, and is gradually
withdrawn from the masses to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than
the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its control.
Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union,
or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly."
Trumped by the Deep State
Thus elected, populist "tribunes" like Trump are ultimately no match for entrenched technocrats nestled in permanent bureaucracy.
Especially invincible are technocrats who specialize in political force and intrigue, i.e., the National Security State (military,
NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). And these elite functionaries don't serve "the people" or any large subpopulation. They only serve their own
careers, and by extension, big-money special interest groups that make it worth their while: especially big business and foreign
lobbies. The nexus of all these powers is what is known as the Deep State.
Trump's more sophisticated champions were aware of these dynamics, but held out hope nonetheless. They thought that Trump would
be an exception, because his large personal fortune would grant him immunity from elite influence. That factor did contribute to
the independent, untamable spirit of his campaign. But as I
predicted
during the Republican primaries:
" while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it
without establishment support."
No matter how popular, rich, and bombastic, a populist president simply cannot rule without access to the levers of power. And
that access is under the unshakable control of the Deep State. If Trump wants to play president, he has to play ball.
On these grounds, I advised his fans over a year ago, " don't hold out hope that Trump will make good on his isolationist rhetoric
" and anticipated, "a complete rapprochement between the populist rebel and the Republican establishment." I also warned that, far
from truly threatening the establishment and the warfare state, Trump's populist insurgency would only invigorate them:
"Such phony establishment "deaths" at the hands of "grassroots" outsiders followed by "rebirths" (rebranding) are an excellent
way for moribund oligarchies to renew themselves without actually meaningfully changing. Each "populist" reincarnation of the power
elite is draped with a freshly-laundered mantle of popular legitimacy, bestowing on it greater license to do as it pleases. And nothing
pleases the State more than war."
Politics, even populist politics, is the oligarchy's game. And the house always wins.
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), developing educational and inspiring
content for FEE.org , including articles and courses. The originally appeared on the
FEE website and is reprinted with the author's permission.
Looks like she has mental issues. also some of her behaviour falls in female sociopath
category, although it is difficult to tell without knowing a person.
Fake allegation of sexual harassment are favorite weapon of female sociopath. They also are
poweful revenge weapon of some rejected woman.
The woman who charges she was gang-raped at a party where Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh was present, Julie Swetnick, had a lawsuit filed against her by a former employer
that alleged she engaged in "unwelcome, sexually offensive conduct" towards two male
co-workers, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
WebTrends, a web analytics company headquartered in Portland, filed the defamation and fraud
lawsuit
against Swetnick in Oregon in November 2000 and also alleged that she lied about graduating
from Johns Hopkins University.
Swetnick alleged Wednesday that she was gang
raped at a party where Kavanaugh was present in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has vehemently
denied the allegation.
Swetnick is represented by Michael Avenatti , the lawyer
for porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with President Donald Trump.
WebTrends voluntarily dismissed its suit after one month. Avenatti told The Daily Caller
News Foundation that the case was ended because it was "completely bogus."
Swetnick's alleged conduct took place in June 2000, just three weeks after she started
working at WebTrends, the complaint shows. WebTrends conducted an investigation that found both
male employees gave similar accounts of Swetnick engaging in "unwelcome sexual innuendo and
inappropriate conduct" toward them during a business lunch in front of customers, the complaint
said.
Swetnick denied the allegations and, WebTrends alleged, "in a transparent effort to divert
attention from her own inappropriate behavior [made] false and retaliatory allegations" of
sexual harassment against two other male co-workers.
"Based on its investigations, WebTrends determined that Swetnick had engaged in
inappropriate conduct, but that no corroborating evidence existed to support Swetnick's
allegations against her coworkers," the complaint said.
After a WebTrends human resources director informed Swetnick that the company was unable to
corroborate the sexual harassment allegations she had made, she "remarkably" walked back the
allegations, according to the complaint.
In July, one month after the alleged incident, Swetnick took a leave of absence from the
company for sinus issues, according to the complaint. WebTrends said it made short-term
disability payments to her until mid-August that year. One week after the payments stopped,
WebTrends received a note from Swetnick's doctor claiming she needed a leave of absence for a
"nervous breakdown."
The company said it continued to provide health insurance coverage for Swetnick, despite her
refusal provide any additional information about her alleged medical condition.
In November, the company's human resources director received a notice from the Washington,
D.C. Department of Unemployment that Swetnick had applied for unemployment benefits after
claiming she left WebTrends voluntarily in late September.
"In short, Swetnick continued to claim the benefits of a full-time employee of WebTrends,
sought disability payments from WebTrends' insurance carrier and falsely claimed unemployment
insurance payments from the District of Columbia," the complaint states.
Swetnick allegedly hung up the phone on WebTrends managers calling to discuss why she
applied for unemployment benefits, according to the complaint. She then sent letters to
WebTrends' upper management, detailing new allegations that two male co-workers sexually
harassed her and said that the company's human resources director had "illegally tired [sic]
for months to get privileged medical information" from her, her doctor and her insurance
company.
WebTrends also alleged that Swetnick began her fraud against the company before she was
hired by stating on her job application that she graduated from John Hopkins University. But
according to the complaint, the school had no record of her attendance.
An online resume posted by
Swetnick makes no reference to John Hopkins University. It does show that she worked for
WebTrends from December 1999 to August 2000.
It's unclear what transpired after the complaint was filed against Swetnick. One month after
WebTrends filed the action, the company voluntarily dismissed the action with prejudice.
The complaint against his client was "[c]ompletely bogus which is why it was dismissed
almost immediately," Avenatti told
TheDCNF in an email. "The lawsuit was filed in retaliation against my client after she pursued
claims against the company."
WebTrends did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In March 2001, three months after WebTrends dismissed its action, Swetnick's ex-boyfriend,
Richard Vinneccy, filed a restraining order against Swetnick, claiming that she threatened him
after he ended their four-year relationship.
vulcanraven , 1 hour ago
Looks like Avenatti has his work cut out for him, he sure knows how to pick the winners.
By the way, this is not the first time we have seen a woman claim "sexual harassment" after
being turned down.
maxblockm , 25 minutes ago
Potiphar's wife.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master's wife
took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!"
8 But he refused. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern
himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.
9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from
me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin
against God?" 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to
bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the
household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to
bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the
house, 14 she called her household servants."Look," she said to them, "this Hebrew
has been brought to us to make sport of us!He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.
15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of
the house."
16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then
she told him this story: "That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me.
18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of
the house."
19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, "This is how your
slave treated me," he burned with anger. 20 Joseph's master took him and put him
in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him
Buck Shot , 1 hour ago
I think all three of the accusers are lying psychopaths. I get tired of all this pining
for women. Plenty of women have done a lot of horrible things including these three liars.
There are millions of lying skeezers out there, especially in the USA.
Seal Team 6 , 1 hour ago
Yeah...whatever. No one is talking about Swatnick including the Dems. While Ford is just
unbelievable, Zwetnik's story requires major hits of psychedelics that haven't been invented
yet.
TeraByte , 1 hour ago
"A courageous survivor", yet an untrustworthy lunatic.
Dickweed Wang , 2 hours ago
Text book Fatal Attraction bitch.
Piss her off enough and she'll sneak in at night and cut off your ****. Then she'll file
attempted rape charges against you, claiming the **** chopping was in self defense. And
she'll get away with it because, well . . . she's a woman.
HowardBeale , 1 hour ago
"Fatal attraction..."
That's my hypothesis on this clearly mentally unstable "Professor" Ford: She is exacting
revenge because she was enamored over Kavanaugh in high school; she attended several parties
where he was present; and she was so insignificant in his mind -- being hideous to look at
and listen to -- that he never even saw her...
Dickweed Wang , 1 hour ago
Pretty good hypothesis. It's hard not to think that looking at her, either back then or
now.
eurotrash96 , 1 hour ago
Please! Most women are not like her. Most women, the muted female majority, are perfectly
aware that men are men and we love it! Please do not think the majority of women are like
those who currently prevail in MSM.
legalize , 2 hours ago
This woman has a 14-page resume with her contact information blasted across the top of
every page. In every hiring situation I've been in, such a resume would be a red flag in and
of itself.
LoveTruth , 2 hours ago
She definitely needs to either be fined for defamation, or be put in jail even if it is
for a month or two.
RiotActing , 2 hours ago
She sounds completely credible.... whats the problem?
HowardBeale , 1 hour ago
I am surprised that nobody has picked up on/mentioned in the media the issues with her
memory or inability to understand common English words; for example, her memory of "the
event" changed live before our eyes, as at one point in the questioning she said "someone
pushed me from behind into a bedroom...," and a short time later she said "Kavanaugh pushed
me into a bedroom."
Watch her testimony and see for yourself.
aloha_snakbar , 2 hours ago
She should write resumes for a living...LOL..."Drupal / Wordpress Architect"....if you can
use a word processor, you can be an 'architect' on either one of those platforms...
Mzhen , 2 hours ago
This is the guy hired in D.C. to represent Deborah Ramirez -- William Pittard. They are
out to force Kavanaugh to withdraw over perjury in testimony, since he said he had never
harassed anyone past the age of 18. The civil attorney in Boulder will be trying to cash in
from another angle.
Prior to joining KaiserDillon, Bill served in the Office of General Counsel of the U.S.
House of Representatives for more than five years, including most recently as the Acting
General Counsel. In that role, he acted as legal counsel to Members, committees, officers,
and employees of the House on matters related to their official duties. He also represented
the House itself in litigation and other matters in which it had an institutional interest.
The Congressional Record summarizes, in part: "Mr. Pittard provided frequent and invaluable
legal advice and representation to Members of the House . . . , the officers of the House,
the committees of the House, and the leadership of the House -- most often in connection with
their interactions with the other branches of the Federal Government. He did so
professionally and without regard to partisan identity and, as a result, we came to rely on
his expertise and guidance."
MauiJeff , 2 hours ago
These women live in a world were sexual harassment is ubiquitous. They see sexual
harassment everywhere because sexual harassment is anything they think it is, it is purely
based on their perception. If you subtract a conscience and personal integrity from your
psyche you can interpret anything as sexual harassment you get a post Frankfurt School of
psychology masterpiece like Swetnick. She can only destroy and cannot create.
SDShack , 3 hours ago
"Unwelcome sexual conduct", and later "a nervous breakdown". LOL! Yesterday I said on
another thread that I bet she was a hedonist.
TBT or not TBT , 3 hours ago
Swetnick says she went to a dozen high school parties, as an adult, where gang rapes were
organized by high school boys, including one time on her.
Banana Republican , 3 hours ago
I wonder why she stopped going?
divingengineer , 2 hours ago
she sounds like a sport
MoreFreedom , 2 hours ago
I'll bet she didn't even bother to think that people might wonder:
Why was a college girl going to high school parties?
Why would a women who witnessed a gang rape not call the police?
Why would a women who witnessed multiple gang rapes not call the police?
Why would a women who witnessed gang rapes at these parties, continue going to more of
them?
Does she have the names of any of the attendees or victims at these parties, and if not
why not?
When and where were these parties?
Instead, she seems to think people would just believe her lies. Truth is a wonderful
thing. and the actions of people say a lot about them. Her actions show she doesn't care
about real victims of sexual abuse, she's willing to lie for her benefit, and she has no
problem bearing false witness against others.
It's so easy to make up false plausible accusations. Ford is obviously a more intelligent
liar.
Employment at less than a living wage is not "employment."
True, this "living wage" issue has become now America's chronic illness. Once one begins
to look at the real estate dynamics, even for a good earners living in such places as
Seattle, Portland (not to speak of L.A. or SF) becomes simply not affordable, forget buying
anything decent. Hell, many rents are higher than actual mortgages, however insane they
already are.
"... I still find it incredible that this video by Samuelson essentially acknowledging that a key part of his multi-decade "core" textbook is religion, not science, is not more widely shared. ..."
Steve Keen of Kingston University, London gives an important high-level talk on the
considerable shortcomings of mainstream economics. Keen argues that a major objective of the
discipline is to justify the virtues of markets, which in turn leads them to adopt a strongly
ideological posture along with highly simplified models and narrow mathematical approaches to
reach conclusions that they find acceptable.
Keen has many informative asides, like the introductory level texts he used in the 1970s
were more advanced than many graduate level guides.
I still find it incredible that this video by Samuelson essentially acknowledging that a
key part of his multi-decade "core" textbook is religion, not science, is not more widely
shared.
OK the person who constructed the complete youtube vid has typos etc and editing
probably didn't help the cause. but still
I think those measure have implicit blessing from Washington, which realized how dangerous
withdrawal of Iraq oil from the market can be for the USA economy
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York is a place where world leaders are able to hold
important meetings behind closed doors. Russia, China, the UK, Germany, France, and the EU
seized that opportunity on Sept. 24 to achieve a real milestone.
The EU, Russia, China, and Iran
will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a "financially independent sovereign channel,"
to bypass US sanctions against Tehran and breathe life into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) , which is in jeopardy. "Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible
results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment
channels, notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate
payments related to Iran's exports, including oil," they announced in a
joint statement. The countries are still working out the technical details. If their plan
succeeds, this will deliver a blow to the dollar and a boost to the euro.
The move is being made in order to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. According to Federica
Mogherini , High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy, the SPV will facilitate payments for Iran's exports, such as oil, and imports so that
companies can do business with Tehran as usual. The vehicle will be available not just to EU
firms but to others as well. A round of US sanctions aimed at ending Iranian oil exports is to
take effect on November 5. Iran is the world's seventh-largest oil producer. Its oil sector
accounts for 70% of the country's exports. Tehran has warned the EU that it should find new
ways of trading with Iran prior to that date, in order to preserve the JCPOA.
The SPV proposes to set up a multinational, European, state-backed financial intermediary to
work with companies interested in trading with Iran. Payments will be made in currencies other
than the dollar and remain outside the reach of those global money-transfer systems under US
control. In August, the EU passed a blocking statute to guarantee the immunity of European
companies from American punitive measures. It empowers EU firms to seek compensation from the
United States Treasury for its attempts to impose extra-territorial sanctions. No doubt the
move will further damage the already strained US-EU relationship. It might be helpful to create
a special EU company for oil exports from Iran.
Just hours after the joint statement on the SPV, US President Trump defended his unilateral
action against Iran in his
UNGA address . US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the EU initiative ,
stating:
"This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional global peace
and security."
To wit, the EU, Russia, and China have banded together in open defiance against unilateral
steps taken by the US. Moscow and Beijing are in talks on how to combine their efforts to fend
off the negative impacts of US trade tariffs and sanctions. A planned Sept 24-25 visit by
Chinese Vice-Premier Liu, who was coming to the United States for trade talks, was cancelled as
a result of the discord and President Trump added more fuel to the fire on Sept. 24 by imposing
10% tariffs on almost half of all goods the US imports from China. "We have far more bullets,"
the president
said before the Chinese official's planned visit. "We're going to go US$200 billion and 25
per cent Chinese made goods. And we will come back with more." The US has recently imposed
sanctions on China to punish it for the purchase of Russian S-400 air-defense systems and
combat planes. Beijing refused to back down. It is also adamant in its desire to continue
buying Iran's oil.
It is true, the plan to skirt the sanctions might fall short of expectations. It could fail
as US pressure mounts. A number of economic giants, including Total, Peugeot, Allianz, Renault,
Siemens, Daimler, Volvo, and Vitol Group have already left Iran as its economy plummets, with
the rial losing two-thirds of its value since the first American sanctions took effect in May.
The Iranian currency dropped to a record low against the US dollar this September.
What really matters is the fact that the leading nations of the EU have joined the global
heavyweights -- Russia and China -- in open defiance of the United States.
This is a milestone event.
It's hard to underestimate its importance. Certainly, it's too early to say that the UK and
other EU member states are doing a sharp pivot toward the countries that oppose the US
globally, but this is a start - a first step down that path. This would all have seemed
unimaginable just a couple of years ago - the West and the East in the same boat, trying to
stand up to the American bully!
"... Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy of Islamists. ..."
"... The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump. For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty. ..."
"... But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness to be "presidential." ..."
"... Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day. ..."
"... Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning out to be just another agent of the power elite. ..."
"... Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? ..."
"... Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy ..."
"... Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion." ..."
"... " while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it without establishment support." ..."
Did the Deep State deep-six Trump's populist revolution?
Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington,
"globalist" establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new
presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National
Security Council on April 5.
Until then, the presidency's early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his administration's first
weeks, Trump's biggest supporters frequently tweeted the hashtag #winning and exulted that he was decisively doing exactly what,
on the campaign trail, he said he would do.
In a flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions bearing Bannon's fingerprints, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, declared a sweeping travel ban, instituted harsher deportation policies, and more.
These policies seemed to fit Trump's reputation as the "
tribune of poor white people
," as he has been called; above all, Trump's base calls for protectionism and immigration restrictions. Trump seemed to be delivering
on the populist promise of his inauguration speech (thought to be written by Bannon), in which he said:
"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration
to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American
People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories
closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their
triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling
families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration.
And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January
20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country
will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now." [Emphasis added.]
After a populist insurgency stormed social media and the voting booths, American democracy, it seemed, had been wrenched from
the hands of the Washington elite and restored to "the people," or at least a large, discontented subset of "the people." And this
happened in spite of the establishment, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and "polite opinion" throwing everything it had at Trump.
The Betrayal
But for the past month, the administration's axis seems to have shifted. This shift was especially abrupt in Trump's Syria policy.
Days before Bannon's fall from grace, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared that forcing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
from power was no longer top priority. This too was pursuant of Trump's populist promises.
Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They
are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending
American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also
saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy
of Islamists.
The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump.
For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies
of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these
libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the
state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty.
But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack
on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same
excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness
to be "presidential."
Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold
water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced
an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day.
Here I make no claim as to whether any of these policy reversals are good or bad. I only point out that they run counter to the
populist promises he had given to his core constituents.
Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning
out to be just another agent of the power elite.
Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? Or, after constant obstruction,
has he simply concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Regardless of how it came about, it seems clear that whatever prospect there was for a truly populist Trump presidency is gone
with the wind. Was it inevitable that this would happen, one way or another?
One person who might have thought so was German sociologist Robert Michels, who posited the "iron law of oligarchy" in his 1911
work Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy .
Michels argued that political organizations, no matter how democratically structured, rarely remain truly populist, but inexorably
succumb to oligarchic control.
Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable
of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of
persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion."
This practical limitation necessitates delegation of decision-making to officeholders. These delegates may at first be considered
servants of the masses:
"All the offices are filled by election. The officials, executive organs of the general will, play a merely subordinate part,
are always dependent upon the collectivity, and can be deprived of their office at any moment. The mass of the party is omnipotent."
But these delegates will inevitably become specialists in the exercise and consolidation of power, which they gradually wrest
away from the "sovereign people":
"The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive organization renders necessary what is called expert
leadership. Consequently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the specific attributes of leadership, and is gradually
withdrawn from the masses to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than
the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its control.
Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union,
or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly."
Trumped by the Deep State
Thus elected, populist "tribunes" like Trump are ultimately no match for entrenched technocrats nestled in permanent bureaucracy.
Especially invincible are technocrats who specialize in political force and intrigue, i.e., the National Security State (military,
NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). And these elite functionaries don't serve "the people" or any large subpopulation. They only serve their own
careers, and by extension, big-money special interest groups that make it worth their while: especially big business and foreign
lobbies. The nexus of all these powers is what is known as the Deep State.
Trump's more sophisticated champions were aware of these dynamics, but held out hope nonetheless. They thought that Trump would
be an exception, because his large personal fortune would grant him immunity from elite influence. That factor did contribute to
the independent, untamable spirit of his campaign. But as I
predicted
during the Republican primaries:
" while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it
without establishment support."
No matter how popular, rich, and bombastic, a populist president simply cannot rule without access to the levers of power. And
that access is under the unshakable control of the Deep State. If Trump wants to play president, he has to play ball.
On these grounds, I advised his fans over a year ago, " don't hold out hope that Trump will make good on his isolationist rhetoric
" and anticipated, "a complete rapprochement between the populist rebel and the Republican establishment." I also warned that, far
from truly threatening the establishment and the warfare state, Trump's populist insurgency would only invigorate them:
"Such phony establishment "deaths" at the hands of "grassroots" outsiders followed by "rebirths" (rebranding) are an excellent
way for moribund oligarchies to renew themselves without actually meaningfully changing. Each "populist" reincarnation of the power
elite is draped with a freshly-laundered mantle of popular legitimacy, bestowing on it greater license to do as it pleases. And nothing
pleases the State more than war."
Politics, even populist politics, is the oligarchy's game. And the house always wins.
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), developing educational and inspiring
content for FEE.org , including articles and courses. The originally appeared on the
FEE website and is reprinted with the author's permission.
The Ragin' Cajun, I believe, coined the phrase "Nuts and Sluts" to succinctly describe the
tactic used by the elites I call The Davos Crowd to smear and destroy someone they've
targeted.
Brett Kavanaugh is the latest victim of this technique. But, there have been dozens of
victims I can list from Gary Hart in the 1980's to former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn to
Donald Trump.
"Nuts and Sluts" is easy to understand. Simply accuse the person you want to destroy of
being either crazy (the definition of which shifts with whatever is the political trigger issue
of the day) or a sexual deviant.
This technique works because it triggers most people's Disgust Circuit, a term created by
Mark Schaller as part of what he calls the Behavioral Immune System and popularized by
Johnathan Haidt.
The disgust circuit is easy to understand.
It is the limit at which behavior in others triggers our gut-level outrage and we recoil
with disgust.
The reason "Nuts and Sluts" works so well on conservative candidates and voters is because,
on average, conservatives have a much stronger disgust circuit than liberals and/or
libertarians.
This is why it always seems to be that anyone who threatens the global order or the
political system always turns out to have some horrible sexual deviance in their closet.
It's why the only thing any of us remember about the infamous Trump Dossier is the image of
Trump standing on a bed in a Moscow hotel room urinating on a hooker.
The technique is used to drive a wedge between Republican voters and lawmakers and make it
easy for them to go along with whatever stupidity is brought forth by the press and the
Democrats.
And don't think for a second that, more often than not, GOP leadership isn't in cahoots with
the DNC on these take-downs. Because they are.
But, here's the problem. As liberals and cultural Marxists break down the societal order, as
they win skirmish after skirmish in the Culture War, and desensitize us to normalize ever more
deviant behavior, the circumstances of a "Nuts and Sluts" accusation have to rise
accordingly.
It's behavioral heroin. And the more tolerance we build up to it the more likely people are
to see right through the lie.
It's why Gary Hart simply had to be accused of having an affair in the 1980's to scuttle his
presidential aspirations but today Trump has to piss on a hooker.
And it's why it was mild sexual harassment and a pubic hair on a Coke can for Clarence
Thomas, but today, for Brett Kavanaugh, it has to be a gang-rape straight out of an 80's frat
party in a Brett Eaton Ellis book -- whose books, by the way, are meant to be warnings not
blueprints.
Trump has weathered both the Nuts side of the technique and the Sluts side. And as he has
done so The Resistance has become more and more outraged that it's not working like it used
to.
This is why they have to pay people to be outraged by Kavanaugh's nomination. They can't
muster up a critical mass of outrage while Trump is winning on many fronts. Like it or not, the
economy has improved. It's still not good, but it's better and sentiment is higher.
So they have to pay people to protest Kavanaugh. And when that didn't work, then the fear of
his ascending to the Supreme Court and jeopardizing Roe v. Wade became acute, it doesn't
surprise me to see them pull out Christine Blasie Ford's story to guide them through to the
mid-term elections.
And that was a bridge too far for a lot of people.
The one who finally had enough of 'Nuts and Sluts' was, of all people, Lindsey Graham . Graham is one of
the most vile and venal people in D.C. He is a war-mongering neoconservative-enabling
praetorian of Imperial Washington's status quo.
But even he has a disgust circuit and Brett Kavanaugh's spirited defense of himself, shaming
Diane Feinstein in the process, was enough for Graham to finally redeem himself for one brief
moment.
When Lindsey Graham is the best defense we have against becoming a country ruled by men
rather than laws, our society hangs by a thread.
It was important for Graham to do this. It was a wake-up call to the 'moderate' GOP senators
wavering on Kavanaugh. Graham may be bucking for Senate Majority Leader or Attorney General,
but whatever. For four minutes his disgust was palpable.
The two men finally did what the 'Right' in this country have been screaming for for
years.
Fight back. Stop being reasonable. Stop playing it safe. Trump cannot do this by
himself.
Fight for what this country was supposed to stand for.
Because as Graham said, this is all about regaining power and they don't care what damage
they do to get it back.
The disgust circuit can kick in a number of different ways. And Thursday it kicked in to
finally call out what was actually happening on Capitol Hill. This was The Swamp in all its
glory.
And believe me millions were outraged by what they saw.
It will destroy what is left of the Democratic Party. I told you back in June that
Kanye West and Donald Trump had won the Battle of the Bulge in the Culture War. Graham and
Kavanuagh's honest and brutal outrage at the unfairness of this process was snuffing out of
that counter-attack.
The mid-terms will be a Red Tide with the bodies washing up on the shore the leadership of
the DNC and the carpet-baggers standing behind them with billions in money to buy fake
opposition.
The truth is easy to support. Lies cost money. The more outrageous the lie the more
expensive it gets to maintain it.
Because the majority of this country just became thoroughly disgusted with the Democrats.
And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
Update 2:35 p.m. GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has joined Jeff Flake (R-AZ) in
supporting a delay of the full floor vote on Kavanaugh until an FBI can investigate accusations
against him. This would require a request from the White House, however it could be done within
a week according to Bloomberg .
While walking into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of
Alaska, a key vote, said "yes," when asked if she supports Sen. Jeff Flake's proposal for a
delay.
CNN asked: And do you think it should be limited to Ford's accusations or should it
include an investigation into other allegations?
Murkowski responded: " I support the FBI having an opportunity to bring some closure to
this ." - CNN
President Trump says he'll "let the Senate handle" whether or not the vote is delayed.
Trump also said that testimony from both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford
was "very compelling."
Feinstein reportedly cornered Murkowski on Thursday for an intense conversation, and today
Murkowski supports a delay.
... ... ...
Ford claimed that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while at a high school party, while
Kavanaugh responded with a vehement and categorical denial in an emotional statement.
Senate Republicans are seeking to push Kavanugh through to confirmation on Friday, while the
Democrats stood by Ford and are insisting that the confirmation be stopped or delayed until a
"full investigation" can be conducted.
Friday morning, Politico reported that the Senate panel had been advised by Rachel Mitchell,
the attorney who represented the GOP members, that as a prosecutor "she would not charge
Kavanaugh or even pursue a search warrant."
"Rachel Mitchell, a lawyer who was retained by the Senate GOP to question Ford, broke down
her analysis of the testimony to Republicans, but did not advise them how to vote. She told
them that as a prosecutor she would not charge Kavanaugh or even pursue a search warrant,
according to a person briefed on the meeting." -
Politico
Last night, Townhall
reported that Kavanaugh has the votes to make it out of committee and will be confirmed on the
floor for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a Senate insider.
Sens. Flake (R-AZ), Collins (R-ME), Murkowski (R-AK), and Manchin (D-WV) are expected to
vote in favor of Kavanaugh. All the Republicans are voting yes. Also, in the rumor mill,
several Democrats may break ranks and back Kavanaugh. That's the ball game, folks. -
Townhall
Speaking with reporters, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says he thinks "all of
America" thought Ford's testimony was compelling, while President Trump tweeted on Thursday
night: " Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was
powerful, honest, and riveting."
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, told CBS This Morning said that Kavanaugh
will call "balls and strikes" fairly, as he has done for more than a decade. She noted that
Ford's testimony was "very compelling and very sympathetic," and that Ford "was wronged by
somebody," but that it wasn't Kavanaugh.
" It seems that she absolutely was wronged by somebody it may turn out that they're both
right," she said. "That she was sexually assaulted but that he had nothing to do with it."
There's a lot to unpack in the national psychodrama that played out in the senate judiciary
committee yesterday with Ford v. Kavanaugh. Dr. Ford laid out what The New York Times is
calling the "appalling trauma" of her alleged treatment at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh 36
years ago. And Mr. Kavanaugh denied it in tears of rage.
Dr. Ford scored points for showing up and playing her assigned role. She didn't add any
validating evidence to her story, but she appeared sincere. Judge Kavanaugh seemed to express a
weepy astonishment that the charge was ever laid on him, but unlike other questionably-charged
men in the grim history of the #Metoo campaign he strayed from his assigned role of the
groveling apologist offering his neck to the executioner, an unforgivable effrontery to his
accusers.
The committee majority's choice to sub out the questioning to "sex crime prosecutor" Rachel
Mitchell was a pitiful bust, shining a dim forensic light on the matter where hot halogen fog
lamps might have cut through the emotional murk. But in today's social climate of sexual
hysteria, the "old white men" on the dais dared not engage with the fragile-looking Dr. Ford,
lest her head blow up in the witness chair and splatter them with the guilt-of-the-ages. But
Ms. Mitchell hardly illuminated Dr. Ford's disposition as a teenager -- like, what seemed to be
her 15-year-old's rush into an adult world of drinking and consort with older boys -- or some
big holes in her coming-forward decades later.
For instance, a detail in the original tale, the "locked door." It's a big deal when the two
boys shoved her into the upstairs room, but she escaped the room easily when, as alleged, Mark
Judge jumped on the bed bumping Mr. Kavanaugh off of her. It certainly sounds melodramatic to
say "they locked the door," but it didn't really mean anything in the event.
Ms. Mitchell also never got to the question of Dr. Ford's whereabouts in the late summer,
when the judiciary committee was led to believe by her handlers that she was in California,
though she was actually near Washington DC at her parent's beach house in Delaware, and Mr.
Grassley, the committee chair, could have easily dispatched investigators to meet with her
there. Instead, the Democrats on the committee put out a cockamamie story about her fear of
flying all the way from California - yet Ms. Mitchell established that Mrs. Ford routinely flew
long distances, to Bali, for instance, on her surfing trips around the world.
Overall, it was impossible to believe that Dr. Ford had not experienced something with
somebody -- or else why submit to such a grotesque public spectacle -- but the matter remains
utterly unproved and probably unprovable. Please forgive me for saying I'm also not persuaded
that the incident as described by Dr. Ford was such an "appalling trauma" as alleged. If the
"party" actually happened, then one would have to assume that 15-year-old Chrissie Blasey, as
she was known then, went there of her own volition looking for some kind of fun and excitement.
She found more than she bargained for when a boy sprawled on top of her and tried to grope her
breasts, grinding his hips against hers, working to un-clothe her, with his pal watching and
guffawing on the sidelines -- not exactly a suave approach, but a life-changing trauma? Sorry,
it sounds conveniently hyperbolic to me.
I suspect there is much more psychodrama in the life of Christine Blasey Ford than we know
of at this time. She wasn't raped and her story stops short of alleging an attempt at rape,
whoever was on top of her, though it is apparently now established in the public mind (and the
mainstream media) that it was a rape attempt. But according to #Metoo logic, every unhappy
sexual incident is an "appalling trauma" that must be avenged by destroying careers and
reputations.
The issues in the bigger picture concern a Democratic Party driven by immense bad faith to
any means that justify the defeat of this Supreme Court nominee for reasons that everyone over
nine-years-old understands : the fear that a majority conservative court will overturn Roe v.
Wade - despite Judge Kavanaugh's statement many times that it is "settled law."
What one senses beyond that, though, is the malign spirit of the party's last candidate for
president in the 2016 election and a desperate crusade to continue litigating that outcome
until the magic moment when a "blue tide" of midterm election victories seals the ultimate
victory over the detested alien in the White House.
"I'm going to rely on all of the people including Senator Grassley who's doing a very good
job," added Trump.
During meeting with the president of Chile, President Trump says he found Dr. Christine
Blasey Ford's testimony "very compelling." https:// cbsn.ws/2Oj63Rs
Meanwhile, CNBC reports that an attorney for Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's high school friend said
to have been in the room during an alleged groping incident, says that Judge "will answer any
and all questions posed to him" by the FBI.
"If the FBI or any law enforcement agency requests Mr. Judge's cooperation, he will answer
any and all questions posed to him," Judge's lawyer Barbara Van Gelder told CNBC in an email.
-
CNBC
Accuser Christin Blasey Ford says that both Judge and Kavanaugh were extremely drunk at a
1982 party that she has scant memories of, when Kavanaugh grinded his body against hers on a
bed and attempted to take her clothes off. She testified that it was only after Judge jumped on
the bed that the attack stopped.
Of note, four individuals named by Ford have all denied any memory of the party - including
Ford's "lifelong" friend, Leland Ingham Keyser, who says she has never been at a party where
Kavanaugh was in attendance.
American Dissident , 7 minutes ago
The same FBI that couldn't get to the bottom of the Las Vegas mass shooting in a year is
going to uncover new information about a 1982 high school party in a week - Right.
didthatreallyhappen , 13 minutes ago
the democrats are moving the goal posts to infinity. that was their plan all along. This
will never stop. Due process in this country is OVER, DONE, GOOD BYE
The hearing about potential Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh is still going on, but the
hearings have clearly missed 90% of key material facts that as always - as we have explained in
our books Splitting Pennies and
Splitting Bits , the world is not as it
seems; and certainly, not ever - as seen on TV. The peculiar thing about this particular
political circus is that the GOP is allowing this to happen, as if there's nothing they can do
to allow the left to manipulate the masses before the elections coming up, all we need after a
victimized woman by an old, respectable white man is another school shooting, this time with a
white rich kid holding the gun at a minority school. Having said that, if you do have children
at public schools, it might be worth considering home schooling or private school at least
until the swamp is drained, if it ever will be (or consider a remote rural public school where
staging such events is less likely). As these deep-state nut jobs will stop at nothing to
acheive their ends, which seem simple but evil: vindicate the Soros - Clinton Mafia (which is a
multi-family 'faction 2' power center that goes well beyond Bill & Hillary) and in the
process destroy Trump and everything connected to it.
Why wasn't this 'accuser' vetted, as one would be in a court case? This is after all the
'judiciary committee' we know the answer to that, this is political theater of the worst kind.
However if this were a court case, and the complaining witness were to undergo
cross-examination and deposition, they should ask the following questions:
What is Dr. Ford's relationship with the CIA, and with her father?
The importance of noting the CIA banking connections of Ralph G. Blasey Jr. , this
report explains, is due to the outbreak of what is now known as the " CIA
Bank War " -- and whose start of, in 1982, a CIA seized from publication news report
( Declassified
in Part-Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R00150010-7 )
describes as: " This is Wall Street, the center of the international banking system, a
system on the edge of a crisis so severe that the Central Intelligence Agency is
preparing drastic measures. Something must be done to avert the breakdown of the Free
World's monetary system. "
Who paid for her lawyer, lie detector test, and other items related to her
testimony?
Was she offered a book deal?
What is Dr. Ford's association with the Soros foundation, directly or indirectly?
What is the association with Frederick_T._Melges and specifically,
did they collaborate on work involving mind control, memory, and time while at Stanford, or a
CIA think tank, or any other time?
What is the explanation that no other witness can testify to verify the statements of
what happened that night, combined with the lack of other physical evidence, and even
evidence to the contrary? (Such as Brett Kavanaugh's diary/journal he kept)
What are the political associations of Dr. Ford, specifically are there direct
connections to the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton, including but not limited to
when Clinton
was the Secretary of State ? (For those of you who don't know, the State Department is
the political cover for CIA operations globally.)
This staged, orchestrated, and artificial testimony is no doubt the creation of deep-state
actors connected to Soros/Clinton/CIA et. al. The GOP doesn't want to mention MKUltra in a
public hearing as this would take things in an entirely different direction. If this was a
court, it is highly doubtful that a jury would convict Kavanaugh based on he said she said with
no evidence for the complaining witness but an overwhelming amount of evidence for the defense.
Not only the hundreds of character letters of support, the diaries/journals, and all the work
Dr. Ford has done over the years on mind control as a qualified and practicing Dr. of
Psychology (Edited 10:00 am 9/28/2018, it was misreported "Psychiatry" Dr.
Ford works as a practicing psychologist in Stanford's department of Psychiatry ); but the
fact that Kavanaugh has actually worked for the Federal Government and the White House
specifically on a number of occasions and has gone through a Congressional confirmation many
times - why now? Something is fishy here, just as it was proven that several of the 'victims'
of Trump were actually paid actors, the mere accusation is enough to cast doubt on the whole
topic. And this accusation isn't from a poor helpless child, it is from a Dr. of Psychiatry
that has authored more than 50 papers on the topics of behavioral science, including topics of
great interest to the CIA such as:
Ford has written about the cognitive affect of the
September 11 terrorist attacks, too. She and her co-authors wrote, "[Our] findings
suggest that there may be a range of traumatic experience most conducive to growth and they
also highlight the important contributions of cognitive and coping variables to psychological
thriving in short- and longer-term periods following traumatic experience."
Finally, why is the GOP so defenseless as to allow such a show to occur, which will do much
greater damage to the mind of the Sheeple than it will to actually affect the appointing of
Judge Kavanaugh or not. Whether he is appointed or not, the damage to the minds of the masses
is done - this further polarizes an already polarized country divided between the 'sane' and
the 'insane.'
Article update 9/28/2018 - We have updated the article to reflect change in name, we wrote
'Psychiatry' which should have been 'Psychology' this was a mis-read on our end, in a rush to
publish quickly. Mistakes happen in quick sloppy journalism which operates under real-time
market conditions like trading. However, we do not believe it significantly impacts the
argument here, however, if we are to publish an article about misrepresented facts we better
have all of our facts right! Other elaboration will come in another article, to be composed
over the weekend. Stay tuned. www.globalintelhub.com
The breakout in Brent crude prices above $80 this week has prompted analysts at the sell
side banks to start talking about a return to $100 a
barrel oil . Even President Trump has gotten involved, demanding that OPEC ramp up
production to send oil prices lower before they start to weigh on US consumer spending, which
has helped fuel the economic boom over which Trump has presided, and for which he has been
eager to take credit.
But to hear respected petroleum geologist and oil analyst Art Berman tell it, Trump should
relax. That's because supply fundamentals in the US market suggest that the recent breakout in
prices will be largely ephemeral, and that crude supplies will soon move back into a
surplus.
Indeed, a close anaysis of supply trends suggests that the secular deflationary trend in oil
prices remains very much intact. And in an interview with MacroVoices , Berman laid out his argument using a handy
chart deck to illustrate his findings (some of these charts are excerpted below).
As the bedrock for his argument, Berman uses a metric that he calls comparative petroleum
inventories. Instead of just looking at EIA inventory data, Berman adjusts these figures by
comparing them to the five year average for any given week. This smooths out purely seasonal
changes.
And as he shows in the following chart, changes in comparative inventory levels have
precipitated most of the shifts in oil prices since the early 1990s, Berman explains. As the
charts below illustrate, once reported inventories for US crude oil and refined petroleum
products crosses into a deficit relative to comparative inventories, the price of WTI climbs;
when they cross into a surplus, WTI falls.
Looking back to March of this year, when the rally in WTI started to accelerate, we can on
the left-hand chart above how inventories crossed below their historical average, which Berman
claims prompted the most recent run up in prices.
Comparative inventories typically correlate negatively to the price of WTI. But
occasionally, perceptions of supply security may prompt producers to either ramp up - or cut
back - production. One example of this preceded the ramp of prices that started in 2010 when
markets drove prices higher despite supplies being above their historical average. The ramp
continued, even as supplies increased, largely due to fears about stagnant global growth in the
early recovery period following the financial crisis.
The most rally that started around July 2017 correlated with a period of flat production
between early 2016 and early 2018.
Meanwhile, speculators have been unwinding their long positions. Between mid-June 2017 and
January 2018, net long positions increased +615 mmb for WTI crude + products, and +776 for WTI
and Brent combined. Since then, combined Brent and WTI net longs have fallen -335 mmb, while
WTI crude + refined product net long positions have fallen -225 mmb since January 2018 and -104
mmb since the week ending July 10. This shows that, despite high frequency price fluctuation,
the overall trend in positioning is down.
And as longs have been unwinding, data show that the US export party has been slowing, as
distillate exports, which have been the cash cow driving US refined product exports, have
declined. Though they remain strong relative to the 5-year average, they have fallen relative
to last year. This has accompanied refinery expansions in Mexico and Brazil.
Meanwhile, distillate and gasoline inventories have been building.
Meanwhile, US exports of crude have remained below the 2018 average in recent weeks, even as
prices have continued to climb.
This could reflect supply fears in the global markets. The blowout in WTI-Brent spreads
would seem to confirm this. However, foreign refineries recognize that there are limitations
when it comes to processing US crude (hence the slumping demand for exports).
In recent weeks, markets have been sensitive to supply concerns thanks to falling production
in Venezuela and worries about what will happen with Iranian crude exports after US sanctions
kick in in November.
But supply forecasts for the US are telling a different story than supply forecasts for
OPEC. In the US, markets will likely remain in equilibrium for the rest of the year, until a
state of oversupply returns in 2019. But OPEC production will likely continue to constrict,
returning to a deficit in 2019.
Bottom line: According to Berman, the trend of secular deflation in oil prices remains very
much intact. While Berman expects prices to remain rangebound for the duration of 2018 - at
least in the US - it's likely markets will turn to a supply surplus next year, sending prices
lower once again.
In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its
appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are
increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their
expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change
, which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the
power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter
any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of
Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system,
rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the
establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched
US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still
failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife
era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social
security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced
NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has
been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the
power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself...
however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how
relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook
summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and
wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and
has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the
anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top
of uk dynamics..
(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that
necessitates (a)
Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of
conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and
crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality.
Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration.
This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing
the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to
fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took
place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked
off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his
promise, as every President has done since .
Karlof1 I could be wrong of course but one example of why none of that would matter is
when the US dollar for all practical purposes winks out of existence and that could happen
right now as we speak. Why would that happen you may ask? It would happen whenever someone
"beyond personal wealth" like the usual finance suspects decides it is the way for them to
make enormous amounts of profit out of the resulting worldwide instability before any of
their competitors beat them to it. The longer they wait the more likely someone else will
jump the gun and surprise them.
I don't think the US has two years worth of "blood" left in it before that happens.
In a sense nothing will be left when each and every dollar becomes at least 20 trillion
times less valuable. If the response to that happening is the same as the early 20ieth
century response (Germany) then nothing will be left at all considering the difference in
technology and differences in circumstance (everybody already have the weapons ready). If the
response is the late 20ieth century response (USSR) then maybe something will be left but the
USSR was both lucky and relatively solvent in comparison to the current US. The starting
point for the US is several magnitudes worse in both examples. The world can't afford to
carry the US at cost any more than the US can't right now and like the US haven't been able
to for decades, the required wealth doesn't exist.
The nascent USA had its national capital sacked and presidential residence burnt during
what's known as the War of 1812, yet it continued to exist politically. Same during Civil
War. During the Revolutionary War, the USA had a national government and 13 separate state
governments, all of which continued to function as the war raged. There've been at least two
Coups--1963 and 2000--but the USA continued its political existence. Even the Germany
destroyed by WW2 still existed politically. Destroying political entities is
very--extremely--difficult, which is why it seldom occurs. Rome's central authority ceased in
the mid 6th century but its provinces continued as did the Eastern portion of the Roman
Empire. Russia's governmental system was drastically altered during and after Russia's Civil
War, but Russia continued to exists as a political entity. The USSR was an imperial governing
edifice built atop numerous national political entities. It did vanish, but the nations
comprising it didn't; indeed, new nations were born as a result.
As for the dollar and its international position, even those nations desirous of undoing
dollar hegemony have said it cannot be done overnight as the overall system is both too
complex and too fragile for hasty adjustments to be made stably . Moreover, for better
or worse, the Outlaw US Empire's an integral component of the global economy, which motivates
those changing the system to arrive at a Soft Landing, not a Hard Crash.
Catastrophism belongs in the realm of Geology, not Geopolitics, although the former will
certainly affect the latter. Geopolitics can certainly enable an ecological crisis such as
the Overshoot we're now entering, but that's several magnitudes less than what rates as a
geological catastrophe--and not all such catastrophes are global.
In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its
appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are
increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their
expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change
, which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the
power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter
any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of
Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system,
rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the
establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched
US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still
failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife
era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social
security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced
NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has
been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the
power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself...
however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how
relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook
summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and
wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and
has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the
anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top
of uk dynamics..
(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that
necessitates (a)
Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of
conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and
crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality.
Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration.
This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing
the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to
fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took
place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked
off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his
promise, as every President has done since .
There's a new film out regarding (il)legal finance: Scenes From the Spider's Web .
Some will find the information provided by Hudson in his interview segment
astounding and shocking, but somehow not altogether surprising.
The entire documentary "The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire" by Michael Oswald is
worth watching as an introduction to the corruption in the global finance industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8
And when you finish watching that - twice, three times, however many times you need for
all the information to sink in - you can read Nicholas Shaxson's excellent book "Treasure
Islands:Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World", on which the documentary leans heavily
for information and structure.
That's amazing example of contlling the nattarive and suppressing alternative sources. Should
go in all textbooks on the subject
Notable quotes:
"... Magnitsky did not disclose the theft. He first mentioned it in testimony in October 2008. But it had already been reported in the New York Times on July 24, 2008. In reality, the whistleblower was a certain Rimma Starova. She worked for one of the implicated shell companies and, having read in the papers that authorities were investigating, went to police to give testimony in April 2008 – six months before Magnitsky spoke of the scam for the first time (see here and here ). ..."
"... Why, then, did I report that about Magnitsky? Because at the time my sole source for the story was Team Browder, who had reached out to the Cyprus Mail and with whom I communicated via email. I was provided with 'information', flow charts and so on. All looking very professional and compelling. ..."
"... For the second article, I conversed briefly on the phone with the soft-spoken Browder himself, who handed down the gospel on the Magnitsky affair. Under the time constraints, and trusting that my sources could at least be relied upon for basic information which they presented as facts, I went along with it. I was played. But let's be clear: I let myself down too. ..."
"... Titled 'The Magnitsky Act – Behind The Scenes', it does a magisterial job of depicting how the director initially took Browder's story on faith, only to end up questioning everything. The docudrama dissects, disassembles and dismantles Browder's narrative, as Nekrasov – by no means a Putin apologist – delves deeper down into the rabbit hole. ..."
"... The point can't be stressed enough, as this very claim is the lynchpin of Browder's account. In his bestseller Red Notice, Browder alleges that Magnitsky was arrested because he exposed two corrupt police officers, and that he was jailed and tortured because he wouldn't retract. ..."
"... It gets worse for Nekrasov, as he goes on to discover that Magnitsky was no lawyer. He did not have a lawyer's license. Rather, he was an accountant/auditor who worked for Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan. Yet every chance he gets, Browder still refers to Magnitsky as 'a lawyer' or 'my lawyer'. ..."
"... The full deposition, some six hours long, is (still) available on Youtube . As penance for past transgressions, I watched it in its entirety. While refraining from using adjectives to describe it, I shall simply cite some examples and let readers decide on Browder's credibility. Browder seems to suffer an almost total memory blackout as a lawyer begins firing questions at him. He cannot recall, or does not know, where he or his team got the information concerning the alleged illicit transfer of funds from Hermitage-owned companies. ..."
"... According to Team Browder, in 2007 the 'Klyuev gang' together with Russian interior ministry officials travelled to Cyprus, ostensibly to set up the tax rebate scam using shell companies. But in his deposition, the Anglo-American businessman cannot remember, or does not know, how his team obtained the travel information of the conspirators. ..."
Before getting down to brass tacks, let me say that I loathe penning articles like this; loathe writing about myself or in the
first person, because a reporter should report the news, not be the news. Yet I grudgingly make this exception because, ironically,
it happens to be newsworthy. To cut to the chase, it concerns Anglo-American financier Bill Browder and the Sergei Magnitsky affair.
I, like others in the news business I'd venture to guess, feel led astray by Browder.
This is no excuse. I didn't do my due diligence, and take full responsibility for erroneous information printed under my name.
For that, I apologize to readers. I refer to two articles of mine published in a Cypriot publication, dated December 25, 2015 and
January 6, 2016.
Browder's basic story, as he has told it time and again, goes like this: in June 2007, Russian police officers raided the Moscow
offices of Browder's firm Hermitage, confiscating company seals, certificates of incorporation, and computers.
Browder says the owners and directors of Hermitage-owned companies were subsequently changed, using these seized documents. Corrupt
courts were used to create fake debts for these companies, which allowed for the taxes they had previously paid to the Russian Treasury
to be refunded to what were now re-registered companies. The funds stolen from the Russian state were then laundered through banks
and shell companies.
The scheme is said to have been planned earlier in Cyprus by Russian law enforcement and tax officials in cahoots with criminal
elements.
All this was supposedly discovered by Magnitsky, whom Browder had tasked with investigating what happened. When Magnitsky reported
the fraud, some of the nefarious characters involved had him arrested and jailed. He refused to retract, and died while in pre-trial
detention.
In my first article, I wrote: "Magnitsky, a 37-year-old Russian accountant, died in jail in 2009 after he exposed huge tax embezzlement
"
False . Contrary to the above story that has been rehashed countless times, Magnitsky did not expose any tax fraud, did not blow
the whistle.
The interrogation
reports show that Magnitsky had in fact been summoned by Russian authorities as a witness to an already ongoing investigation
into Hermitage. Nor he did he accuse Russian investigators Karpov and/or Kuznetsov of committing the $230 million treasury fraud,
as Browder claims.
Magnitsky did not disclose the theft. He first mentioned it in testimony in October 2008. But it had already been reported
in the New York Times
on July 24, 2008. In reality, the whistleblower was a certain Rimma Starova. She worked for one of the implicated shell companies
and, having read in the papers that authorities were investigating, went to police to give testimony in April 2008 – six months before
Magnitsky spoke of the scam for the first time (see
here
and here
).
Why, then, did I report that about Magnitsky? Because at the time my sole source for the story was Team Browder, who had reached
out to the Cyprus Mail and with whom I communicated via email. I was provided with 'information', flow charts and so on. All looking
very professional and compelling.
At the time of the first article, I knew next to nothing about the Magnitsky/Browder affair. I had to go through media reports
to get the gist, and then get up to speed with Browder's latest claims that a Cypriot law firm, which counted the Hermitage Fund
among its clients, had just been 'raided' by Cypriot police. The article had to be written and delivered on the same day. In retrospect
I should have asked for more time – a lot more time – and Devil take the deadlines.
For the second article, I conversed briefly on the phone with the soft-spoken Browder himself, who handed down the gospel
on the Magnitsky affair. Under the time constraints, and trusting that my sources could at least be relied upon for basic information
which they presented as facts, I went along with it. I was played. But let's be clear: I let myself down too.
In the ensuing weeks and months, I didn't follow up on the story as my gut told me something was wrong: villains and malign actors
operating in a Wild West Russia, and at the centre of it all, a heroic Magnitsky who paid with his life – the kind of script that
Hollywood execs would kill for.
Subsequently I mentally filed away the Browder story, while being aware it was in the news.
But the real red pill was a documentary by Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, which came to my attention a few weeks ago.
Titled 'The Magnitsky Act – Behind The Scenes', it does a magisterial job of depicting how the director initially took Browder's
story on faith, only to end up questioning everything. The docudrama dissects, disassembles and dismantles Browder's narrative, as
Nekrasov – by no means a Putin apologist – delves deeper down into the rabbit hole.
The director had set out to make a poignant film about Magnitsky's tragedy, but became increasingly troubled as the facts he uncovered
didn't stack up with Browder's account, he claims.
The 'aha' moment arrives when Nekrasov appears to show solid proof that Magnitsky blew no whistle.
Not only that, but in his
depositions
– the first one dating to 2006, well before Hermitage's offices were raided – Magnitsky did not accuse any police officers of being
part of the 'theft' of Browder's companies and the subsequent alleged $230m tax rebate fraud.
The point can't be stressed enough, as this very claim is the lynchpin of Browder's account. In his bestseller Red Notice,
Browder alleges that Magnitsky was arrested because he exposed two corrupt police officers, and that he was jailed and tortured because
he wouldn't retract.
We are meant to take Browder's word for it.
It gets worse for Nekrasov, as he goes on to discover that Magnitsky was no lawyer. He did not have a lawyer's license. Rather,
he was an accountant/auditor who worked for Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan. Yet every chance he gets, Browder still refers to Magnitsky
as 'a lawyer' or 'my lawyer'.
The clincher comes late in the film, with footage from Browder's April 15, 2015 deposition in a US federal court, in the Prevezon
case. The case, brought by the US Justice Department at Browder's instigation, targeted a Russian national who Browder said had received
$1.9m of the $230m tax fraud.
In the deposition, Browder is asked if Magnitsky had a law degree in Russia. "I'm not aware that he did," he replies.
The full deposition, some six hours long, is (still) available on
Youtube . As penance for past transgressions, I watched
it in its entirety. While refraining from using adjectives to describe it, I shall simply cite some examples and let readers decide
on Browder's credibility. Browder seems to suffer an almost total memory blackout as a lawyer begins firing questions at him. He
cannot recall, or does not know, where he or his team got the information concerning the alleged illicit transfer of funds from Hermitage-owned
companies.
This is despite the fact that the now-famous Powerpoint presentations – hosted on so many 'anti-corruption' websites and recited
by 'human rights' NGOs – were prepared by Browder's own team.
Nor does he recall where, or how, he and his team obtained information on the amounts of the 'stolen' funds funnelled into companies.
When it's pointed out that in any case this information would be privileged – banking secrecy and so forth – Browder appears to be
at a loss.
According to Team Browder, in 2007 the 'Klyuev gang' together with Russian interior ministry officials travelled to Cyprus,
ostensibly to set up the tax rebate scam using shell companies. But in his deposition, the Anglo-American businessman cannot remember,
or does not know, how his team obtained the travel information of the conspirators.
He can't explain how they acquired the flight records and dates, doesn't have any documentation at hand, and isn't aware if any
such documentation exists.
Browder claims his 'Justice for Magnitsky' campaign, which among other things has led to US sanctions on Russian persons, is all
about vindicating the young man. Were that true, one would have expected Browder to go out of his way to aid Magnitsky in his hour
of need.
The deposition does not bear that out.
Lawyer: "Did anyone coordinate on your behalf with Firestone Duncan about the defence of Mr Magnitsky?"
Browder: "I don't know. I don't remember."
Going back to Nekrasov's film, a standout segment is where the filmmaker looks at a briefing document prepared by Team Browder
concerning the June 2007 raid by Russian police officers. In it, Browder claims the cops beat up Victor Poryugin, a lawyer with the
firm.
The lawyer was then "hospitalized for two weeks," according to Browder's presentation, which includes a photo of the beaten-up
lawyer. Except, it turns out the man pictured is not Poryugin at all. Rather, the photo is actually of Jim Zwerg, an American human
rights activist beaten up during a street protest in 1961 (see
here and here ).
Nekrasov sits down with German politician Marieluise Beck. She was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(Pace), which compiled a report that made Magnitsky a cause celebre.
You can see Beck's jaw drop when Nekrasov informs her that Magnitsky did not report the fraud, that he was in fact under investigation.
It transpires that Pace, as well as human rights activists, were getting their information from one source – Browder. Later, the
Council of Europe's Andreas Gross admits on camera that their entire investigation into the Magnitsky affair was based on Browder's
info and that they relied on translations of Russian documents provided by Browder's team because, as Gross puts it, "I don't speak
Russian myself."
That hit home – I, too, had been fed information from a single source, not bothering to verify it. I, too, initially went with
the assumption that because Russia is said to be a land of endemic corruption, then Browder's story sounded plausible if not entirely
credible.
For me, the takeaway is this gem from Nekrasov's narration:
"I was regularly overcome by deep unease. Was I defending a system that killed Magnitsky, even if I'd found no proof that he'd
been murdered?"
Bull's-eye. Nekrasov has arrived at a crossroads, the moment where one's mettle is tested: do I pursue the facts wherever they
may lead, even if they take me out of my comfort zone? What is more important: the truth, or the narrative? Nekrasov chose the former.
As do I.
Like with everything else, specific allegations must be assessed independently of one's general opinion of the Russian state.
They are two distinct issues. Say Browder never existed; does that make Russia a paradise?
I suspect Team Browder may scrub me from their mailing list; one can live with that.
oncemore1 , 6 minutes ago
Soros and Browder are the same tribe. FULLSTOP.
Slipstream , 6 minutes ago
Wow. That's a big **** up. But at least this guy is a journalist with ethics. He got it
wrong and has said so, to set the record straight. This should be a case taught in every
journalism school in the world. Unfortunately, I don't see the Magnitsky Act being repealed
any time soon.
Usura , 8 minutes ago
Bill Browder is a lying ***
Thordoom , 12 minutes ago
Andrei Nekrasov now has webpage dedicated to The Magnitsky Act Behind the Scenes.
I watched the documentary too. The depositions of Browder were devastating to any notion
of him as truth-teller. And yet, he managed to dupe politicians and media around the
world.
Thordoom , 33 minutes ago
The only good thing Yeltsin did in his miserable life was to say " **** you " to Bill
Clinton in the end when he found out how they wanted to set him up with that 7 billion of IMF
money they stolen in order to put Boris Berezovsky in the charge of Russia as a president for
hire and stole anything that was not welded down. Yeltsin knowing that the only way for
Russia to survive was to put Vladimir Putin in charge to clense the unclean filth that
infested Russia in the 90s
resistedliving , 52 minutes ago
classic agitprop.
Don't trust Browder and his self-interests much but trust this guy less.
Browser knows he'll never see that money again and has spent his own funds on his one man
mission
Thordoom , 40 minutes ago
Stupid moron he is spending Knohorkovsky's money and HSBC bank money. Half of the UK and
US government officials and intl officials and Harward boys are deeply involved in this
looting of Russian people in the 90s.
RationalLuddite , 31 minutes ago
Classic Reverse blockade lie by you Restedliving. Good luck moving the middle on Browder .
He's just not that bright in lying so I suppose your Talmudic exegesis honed Accusatory
Inversion is worth a try.
Please keep it up. Seriously. "Agitprop"😄😄😄😄
You are like a Browder red-pill dispenser with every incoherent mendacious utterance.
Thank you mate :*
WTFUD , 29 minutes ago
Bruiser Browser Browder, ex light-heavyweight champion of La-La Potemkin Village,
Ninnyapolis, USA.
Shouldn't Fakebook be banning the US Government for a plethora of Fake News? Then again
it's a nice fit for these 2 entities, a cosy relationship.
The Paucity of Hope , 54 minutes ago
Nekrasov's movie has been disappeared, but was excellent. Also, look at The Forecaster,
about Martin Armstrong. It talks about Hermatage Capital and was blocked in the US and
Switzerland for several years.
Ahmeexnal , 57 minutes ago
Browder must hang!
chunga , 38 minutes ago
Not a single person in the US gov will even acknowledge this. None. Not one.
At the same time the US domestic affairs revolve around unsubstantiated stories of SC
nominee penis wagging, special prosecutors investigating **** actress affairs/bribery with
POTUS, FBI, DOJ off the rails, while at the same time asserting a moral authority to sanction
and/or attack other countries as though it's an obligation or entitlement.
There's a new film out regarding (il)legal finance: Scenes From the Spider's Web .
Some will find the information provided by Hudson in his interview segment
astounding and shocking, but somehow not altogether surprising.
The entire documentary "The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire" by Michael Oswald is
worth watching as an introduction to the corruption in the global finance industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_ylvc8Zj8
And when you finish watching that - twice, three times, however many times you need for
all the information to sink in - you can read Nicholas Shaxson's excellent book "Treasure
Islands:Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World", on which the documentary leans heavily
for information and structure.
Logic and reason seem to have been abandoned long ago in Washington's decision-making, even
more so given that Trump has completely renounced all his electoral promises regarding foreign
policy. The rapprochement with Moscow is now a distant mirage; the special relationship between
Xi Jinping and Trump is just the latter's propaganda, anxious as he is to reach an agreement
with the DPRK and show some example of success to his base.
The logic of imposing more than $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese products, and then asking
for strong support from Beijing in mediation with Pyongyang, seems more like the moves of a
desperate person rather than those of an amateur. Even historical allies like South Korea,
Pakistan, India and Turkey, as repeatedly
stressed recently , fear Washington's irrationality and politics of "America First" and are
running for cover. They are diversifying energy resources and ignoring American diktats, buying
armaments from Russia, cooperating with China in large infrastructure projects to connect the
vast Eurasian continent, and participating in economic and financial forums to diversify
funding and cooperate on a new and industrial level.
Indeed, the strategic triangle that emerges between Tehran, Beijing and Moscow, seems to
draw all the neighbouring countries into a large geopolitical waltz. A transition to a
multipolar reality brings many advantages to Washington's allies, but it also brings many
tensions with American oligarchs. The example of the sale of the S-400 in Ankara is an
important wake-up call for the oligarchs of the American military-industrial complex, who see a
potential loss in revenue. In the same way, the creation of an alternative system to SWIFT
strongly reduces the centrality of American banking institutions and thus their political
weight. We must also keep in mind Sino-Russian actions in Africa, which are progressively
breaking the chains of Western neo-colonialism, thereby freeing African countries to pursue a
more balanced foreign policy focused on their national interests.
This transition phase that we have been living in over the last few years will continue for
some time. Like an already written script, the trend is easily discernible to a lucid mind free
of Western propaganda. Erdogan certainly is not a person to be completely trusted, and the
talks in Astana should be understood in this light, especially if viewed from the
Russian-Iranian point of view. Yet such cooperation opens the door to an unprecedented future,
although at present Astana seems more like an alternative to a bloody war between countries in
Syria than a conversation between allies. Syria's future will unavoidably see the country's
territorial integrity maintained, thanks to allies who are now disengaged from the Western
system and are gravitating around centers of power opposed to Washington, namely Beijing,
Moscow and Tehran.
The reconstruction of the country will bypass western sanctions and bring significant
amounts of money to the country. In the same way Iraq, once under the rule of a dictator
friendly to Washington, today openly and genuinely collaborates with Moscow, and especially
Tehran, in defeating the Wahhabi proxies of Riyadh, an American ally.
The economic battle serves to complete the picture, with European allies forced to suffer
huge economic losses as a result of sanctions against Russia and Iran . The tariffs on trade,
especially to countries like Turkey, Japan and South Korea (although it
seems that this proposal was intentionally sabotaged by a collaborator within the Trump
administration), are further serving to push US allies to explore alternatives in terms of
trust and cooperation.
China and Russia have seized the opportunities, offering through adroit diplomacy military,
industrial and economic proposals that are drawing Washington's historical allies into a new
political reality where there is less space for Washington's diktats.
The European establishment in some Western countries like Germany, France and the UK seems
to have decided wait out Trump (this torture perhaps brought to an early end through a palace
coup). But many others have instead intuited what is really happening in the West. Two factions
are fighting each other, but still within the confines of a shared worldview that sees the
United States as the only benevolent world power, and the likes of China and Russia as rivals
that need to be contained. In such a difficult situation to manage, well-known leaders like
Modi, Abe, Moon Jae-In and Erdogan are starting to take serious steps towards exploring
possible alternatives to an exclusive alliance with the United States, that is, towards
experiencing the benefits of a multipolar-world environment.
It is not just a question for these countries of breaking the strategic alliance with the
United States. This aspect will probably not change for several years, especially in countries
that have enormous military and economic ties with Washington. The path that South Korea,
Turkey and Japan appear to be taking is deeply rooted in the concept of Multipolarity, which
diversifies international relations, allowing countries to shop around to find the best
opportunities. It is therefore not surprising to see the Japanese prime minister and the
Russian president discussing at the economic forum in Vladivostok the possibility of signing a
historic peace treaty. In the same way, if Turkey suffers a double political and economic
attack from the US, it should not surprise us if they decide to purchase the S-400 defense
system from Russia or start a full fledged campaign to de-dollarize. Such examples could be
repeated, but the case of South Korea stands out. There is no need for Seoul to wait for
Washington to mess things up diplomatically with Pyongyang before discussing the rebirth of
relations between the two countries. Seoul is anxious to seize the opportunity for a renewed
dialogue between leaders and solve the Korean impasse as much as possible. Finally, India,
which has no intention of losing the opportunity for an economic partnership with Beijing and a
military one with Moscow, launched the basis for a multi-party discussion between the Eurasian
powers on the Afghan situation that has caused so much friction with Islamabad, especially with
the new political phase that Imran Khan's victory as Pakistan's prime minister promises.
Washington faces all these scenarios with skepticism, annoyance and disgust, fearing losing
important countries and its ability to determine the regional balance around the planet. What
fascinates many analysts is the stubbornness and stupidity of US policy-makers. The more they
try to prolong the US unipolar moment, the more incentive they give to other countries to jump
on the multipolar bandwagon.
Even countries that probably have deep ties with the United States on an oligarchic level
will have no alternative other than to modify and redesign their strategic alliances over the
next 30 years. The United States continues along the path of diplomatic arrogance and strategic
stupidity, mired in a civil war among its elites, with no end in sight.
Each scenario involving the US now has to be viewed with two factors in mind: not just the
attempt to maintain an imperialist posture, but also an internal struggle involving its elites.
This adds a further level of confusion for America's allies and the world in general, who
strain to decipher the next moves of a deep state totally out of control.
All Comments 18
WTFUD , 1 minute ago
To American Exceptionalism
Dearly Beloved
We are gathered here . . . . . to say **** You . . . . . .
Adolfsteinbergovitch , 3 minutes ago
Next thing you know, the once glorious USA have become the pariah of this world.
And nobody sees this as a bad thing. That's just the cycle of life.
turkey george palmer , 12 minutes ago
It's always the same. Stupid corrupt right wing blather about family values back in the
80's, still a winning line of ********. Trump took it to cartoonish levels and got the low
informed vote to come out and git er done...
Course Hillary charged them up too, which is really surprising unless Ole bent pecker bill
really told Lynch to launch the deep state overthrow of trump and was actually letting
Hillary throw the election.
Disobedient Media has closely followed the work of the Forensicator , whose analysis has shed much light
on the publications by the Guccifer 2.0 persona for over a year. In view of the more recent
work published by the Forensicator regarding potential media collusion with Guccifer 2.0, we
are inclined to revisit an interview given by WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange in
August of 2016, prior to the publication of the Podesta Emails in October, and the November US
Presidential election.
During the
interview, partially transcribed below, Assange makes a number of salient points on the
differentiation between the thousands of pristine emails WikiLeaks received, and those which
had surfaced in other US outlets by that date. Though Assange does not name the Guccifer 2.0
persona directly throughout the interview, he does name multiple outlets which publicized
Guccifer 2.0's documents.
The significance of revisiting Assange's statements is the degree to which his most
significant claim is corroborated or paralleled by the Forensicator's analysis. This is of
enhanced import in light of allegations by
Robert Mueller (not to mention the legacy media), despite a total absence of evidence, that
Guccifer 2.0 was WikiLeaks's source of the DNC and Podesta emails.
This author previously
discussed the possibility that Assange's current isolation might stem in part from the
likelihood that upon expulsion from the embassy, Julian Assange could provide evidential proof
that the DNC emails and Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks were not sourced from Russia, or
backed by the Kremlin, all without disclosing the identity of their source.
"In the US media there has been a deliberate conflation between DNC leaks, which is what
we've been publishing, and DNC hacks, of the US Democratic Party which have occurred over the
last two years, by their own admission what [Hillary Clinton] is attempting to do is to
conflate our publication of pristine emails – no one in the Democratic party argues
that a single email is not completely valid. That hasn't been done. The head of the DNC,
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, has rolled as a result.
And whatever hacking has occurred, of the DNC or other political organizations in the
United States, by a range of actors – in the middle, we have something, which is the
publication by other media organizations, of information reportedly from the DNC, and that
seems to be the case. That's the publication of word documents in pdfs published by The Hill,
by Gawker, by The Smoking Gun. This is a completely separate batch of documents, compared to
the 20,000 pristine emails that we have at WikiLeaks.
In this [separate] batch of documents, released by these other media organizations, there
are claims that in the metadata, someone has done a document to pdf conversion, and in some
cases the language of the computer that was used for that conversion was Russian. So that's
the circumstantial evidence that some Russian was involved, or someone who wanted to make it
look like a Russian was involved, with these other media organizations. That's not the case
for the material we released.
The Hillary Clinton hack campaign has a serious problem in trying to figure out how to
counter-spin our publication because the emails are un-arguable There's an attempt to bring
in a meta-story. And the meta-story is, did some hacker obtain these emails? Ok. Well, people
have suggested that there's evidence that the DNC has been hacked. I'm not at all surprised
its been hacked. If you read very carefully, they say it's been hacked many times over the
last two years. Our sources say that DNC security is like Swiss Cheese.
Hillary Clinton is saying, untruthfully, that she knows who the source of our emails are.
Now, she didn't quite say "our emails." She's playing some games, because there have been
other publications by The Hill, by Gawker, other US media, of different documents, not
emails. So, we have to separate the various DNC or RNC hacks that have occurred over the
years, and who's done that. The source: we know who the source is, it's the Democratic
National Committee itself. And our sources who gave these materials, and other pending
materials, to us. These are all different questions. "
The core assertion made by Assange in the above-transcribed segment of his 2016 interview
with RT is the differentiation between WikiLeaks's publications from the altered documents
released by Guccifer 2.0 (after being pre-released to US media outlets as referenced by
Assange). This finer point is one that is corroborated by the Forensicator's analysis, and one
which it seems much of the public has yet to entirely digest.
"Ars Technica found "Russian fingerprints" in a PDF posted by Gawker the previous day.
Apparently, both Gawker and The Smoking Gun (TSG) had received pre-release copies of Guccifer
2.0's first batch of documents; Guccifer 2.0 would post them later, on his WordPress.com blog site. Although neither Gawker nor TSG
reported on these Russian error messages, some readers noticed them and mentioned them in
social media forums; Ars Technica was likely the first media outlet to cover those "Russian
fingerprints."
The Forensicator's analysis cannot enlighten us as to the ultimate source of WikiLeaks's
releases. At present, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Guccifer 2.0 was, or was
not, WikiLeaks' source. There is no evidence connecting Guccifer 2.0 with WikiLeaks, but there
is likewise no evidence to rule out a connection.
It is nonetheless critically important, as Assange indicated, to differentiate between the
files published by Guccifer 2.0 and those released by WikiLeaks. None of the "altered"
documents (with supposed Russian fingerprints) published by Guccifer 2.0 appear in WikiLeaks's
publications.
It is also worth noting that, though Assange's interview took place before the publication
of the Podesta email collection, the allegations of a Russian hack based on Guccifer 2.0's
publication were ultimately contradicted by a DNC official, as reported by the Associated
Press. Disobedient
Media wrote:
" Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole
the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation – because the
document did not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails."
Again: The very document on which the initial "Russian hack" allegations were based did not
originate within the DNC Emails at all, but in the Podesta Emails, which at the time of
Assange's RT interview, had not yet been published.
"The fact the email to which the Trump opposition report was attached was later published
in the Podesta Email collection by WikiLeaks does not prove that Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks
shared a source on the document. However, it does suggest that either the DNC, the operators
of the Guccifer 2.0 persona, or both parties had access to Podesta's emails. This raises
questions as to why the DNC would interpret the use of this particular file as evidence of
Russian penetration of the DNC."
This creates a massive contradiction within the DNC's narrative, but it does not materially
change Assange's assertion that the pristine emails obtained by WikiLeaks were fundamentally
distinct and should not be conflated with the altered documents published by Guccifer 2.0, as
the WikiLeaks publication of the Podesta emails contain none of the alterations shown in the
version of the documents published by Guccifer 2.0.
Though no establishment media outlet has reported on this point, when reviewing the evidence
at hand and especially the work of the Forensicator, it is evident that the Guccifer 2.0
persona never actually published a single email. The persona published documents and even
screenshots of emails – but never the emails themselves. Thus, again, Guccifer 2.0's
works are critically different from the DNC and Podesta email publications by WikiLeaks.
The following charts are included to help remind readers of the timeline of events relative
to Guccifer 2.0, including the date specific documents were published:
Image Courtesy Of The Forensicator
Image Courtesy of the Forensicator
This writer previously
opined on the apparent invulnerability of the Russiagate saga to factual refutation. One
cannot blame the public for such narrative immortality, as the establishment-backed press has
made every effort to confuse and conflate the alterations made to documents published by
Guccifer 2.0 and the WikiLeaks releases. One can only hope, however, that this reminder of
their distinct state will help raise public skepticism of a narrative based on no evidence
whatsoever.
It is also especially important to reconsider Julian Assange's statements and texts in light
of his ongoing isolation from the outside world, which has prevented him from commenting
further on an infinite array of subjects including Guccifer 2.0 and the "Russian hacking"
saga.
Winston S. contributed to the content of this report.
platyops , 22 minutes ago
The name was Seth Rich. They robbed him for his watch and money but forgot to take the
watch and money. Yes that makes as much sense as Dr. Ford and her imagination party!
Dems lie and maybe kill people but they do lie for sure!
Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 33 minutes ago
All signs point to a young Bernie Sanders supporter at the DNC named Seth Rich.
Surftown , 2 hours ago
Brennan is Guccifer 2.0 using NSA Toolkit ( hacked and released) to feign Russia -- to
promote the fake Russia interference narrative leading to the FISA warrant justification, or
better yet, to the Direct Obama FISA approval/override to approve surveillance of Mr
Trump.
Endgame Napoleon , 1 hour ago
There are a bunch of competing smartphone apps, letting you convert Word docs to PDFs,
believe it or not.
Maybe, they only work in limited form, but you can write a resume (or whatever) into the
app, saving it in Word, converting it to PDF and sending it to your email.
Real programmers seem to scoff at the technical precision of those apps, so maybe, they
are not as sophisticated as they appear to non-techies.
The sequencing of this is weird. If I read it right, it sounds like several publications
received the "converted" versions -- the screenshots or PDFs -- of some emails before
Wikileaks released the actual, non-converted emails.
Who released those to the media organizations, and how did they have access to the machine
containing the emails, enabling them to make screenshots, convert them to PDFs or whatever
they did to provide representations of the emails, not the actual emails that Wikileaks later
released?
bh2 , 2 hours ago
Actually, William Binney et al demonstrated the email transfer could not have been
effected outside the four walls of the DNC because the required network speeds did not exist
at that time to any external location, least of all one located outside the US.
The only way that transfer could happen in the time logged was onto a device located on
the DNC LAN.
Seth Rich is the person Assange all but directly named as the source.
These two things, taken together, provide a compelling refutation of the DNC fairy tale
that the emails were pilfered by Russia (or any other outside actor).
JimmyJones , 2 hours ago
Bunny said the download speed was indicating a USB thumb drive was used
medium giraffe , 2 hours ago
IIRC the transfer speed was similar to a USB bus speed, meaning it wasn't even transferred
over a local network, but by a USB flash device directly connected to a DNC PC or laptop.
Endgame Napoleon , 1 hour ago
The US Congress is so unprofessional, allowing this circus about high-school parties to
commandeer a SCOTUS confirmation hearing, but did you ever hear any of them trying to get to
the bottom of this complex stuff, calling in technical experts to explain this evidence to
voters?
The US economy is not running real well except for the very very well to do, and those who
happen to work for the likes of Google or Facebook, or of course an ibank.
The US economy is not running real well except for the very very well to do, and those who
happen to work for the likes of Google or Facebook, or of course an ibank.
True. But it's no worse than it was two years ago, so it's unlikely the Dims will try and
run on it.
"The economy is still running reasonably well except for the poor."
Given that the majority of the u.s. population qualifies as poor - over 50 % does not have
500 u$ to cover a surprise urgent necessity - this is an outstanding example of
understatement.
Russia now awaits possible new sanctions as a result of its involvement in the United
States election and as a result of the potential nerve agent attack in England.
Who the **** writes this ****? Who believes those baldfaced lies?
Hass C. , 49 minutes ago
A little glimpse into how much influence Putin has on his own economy. Which is not much.
He is trying hard to remove Russia's testicles from the vice of US control but this is a slow
process as the economy and capital market are totally open, except for military production
which is under his own control and pretty much protected from the whims of markets.
The steady increase of sanctions has the objective of forcing Putin's hand into lashing
out and trying a dirigistic neo-stalinist approach, but this would cut Russia from foreign
technology and capital, make the best work force fly abroad, resulting in final
implosion.
Whether Russia survives as an industrial economy till US and the dollar loses its power
over it is anybody's guess. The more Russia is weakened at that time, the more likely China
will flood it with its love.
Ms No , 51 minutes ago
The thing with Putin is that he is a great leader and Patriot. He wishes us no harm and
would like to be our friends (the western population); however, Putin isn't motivated by
saving the world, your nation or you personally. His loyalty is to his people and their
future.
All actions that Putin has taken that ended up saving your *** were simply a benefit
gained by the happenstance of what benefits us benefitting him.
Putin will save his own (hopefully) but you have to save yourself. Remember that.
LaugherNYC , 8 minutes ago
If Putin wants to be friends with the West, then why did he reverse the course of openness
to the EU and NATO, the trend towards normalization, and turn hard right into an
ultra-nationalist despot, starting to spout the diseased philosophy of Ilyin, becoming a
xenophobic tin pot kleptocrat, like some African warlord, funneling funds and assets offshore
through shell companies and his buddies?
It will be interesting to see what happens when/if there is a real global investigation of
Putin's offshored assets, and an expose of how he has plundered his country. He will be the
very last to repatriate - nor should we want him to be forced into it. If you close his
escape hatch, Vlad will be forced to live up to his rhetoric, which is very Rapture-esque,
very nuclear nightmare, very Judgement Day Armageddon
Anonymous IX , 1 hour ago
Where's Billy Browder? What's next on his agenda? Billy, btw, the next time you allow
anyone to film you, have your handlers minimize the obvious drug and/or electronic mind
control over you a little earlier. You seem to "wake up" an awful lot...you know...where your
head snaps up like you didn't realize something...or you're "waking up" from something. Just
a helpful hint. You did so chronically throughout the Magnitsky film. Here's what a mind
looks like on "mind control." Don't look for eggs in a frying pan.
Ms No , 50 minutes ago
So mind control looks something like sleep apnea?
Savvy , 1 hour ago
the desire to keep assets out of the reach of the United States Treasury
Can you say 'capital flight'? I knew you could. Not a country in the world is going to
trust the US with a grain of salt.
Well done Trump and your $864billon/month deficit spending.
Ms No , 49 minutes ago
We really should stop referring to it as the US treasury. Its something else.
opport.knocks , 3 minutes ago
Lendery?
Cashlaudratomat?
Ponzi-prefecture?
The US Usury?
hooligan2009 , 1 hour ago
according to polls aired by tv station "euro news", putin's ratings are down 10% because
he wants to raise the retirement ages of men to 65 from 60 (male life expectancy is 66) and
womens retirement age from 55 to 60 (womens life expectancy is 71).
i guess this is proof that sanctions are working. putin has to raise the retirement age
and russians die 12-15 years earlier than those in the west.
oh, the humanity!
sanctions work: they hurt the bottom 50%, not those better off.
Balance-Sheet , 58 minutes ago
Good to note this and it appears to be correct. Male life expectancy is 65/66 on average
so many will die reaching for their first tiny pension check. I do not know why Putin simply
does not seek to save money by ordering people to be shot at 65 as a humane measure. Russia
has shot 10s of millions over the past 100 years so this will maintain a tradition.
I am interested in your remark on Putin's popularity- he appears to be slipping into
megalomania also typical of Russian leaders so perhaps he will be removed. Raising the
retirement age in Russia is recklessly stupid from a political perspective in an impoverished
country established as Earth's largest resource treasure house.
Ms No , 44 minutes ago
War and sanctions are expensive. Through this evil the world is impoverished. Zionist fiat
currency is also crushingly expensive. We would be exceedingly wealthy without all of this. A
whole different world could exist.
That probably wont happen until the next age (a golden age) though because people now are
inherently stupid and lack any connection. Sticking their appendenges in everything and
sinking completely in dense materialism is more important.
Hass C. , 39 minutes ago
Can you specify why you say he "appears to be slipping into megalomania"? Been observing
him for years and his megalomania index seems stable to me.
Also, Russian demography makes raising the retirement age necessary, they say. Their birth
rate is increasing but so does life expectancy.
opport.knocks , 1 minute ago
He will not be able to run for re-election so now is the time to implement necessary but
unpopular reforms.
Shemp 4 Victory , 38 minutes ago
according to polls aired by tv station "euro news"
Well, if "euro news" said, then so it is. Free European press can't lie.
hooligan2009 , 28 minutes ago
haha.. yes.. i watched it for ten minutes, so the same four headlines scrolled through in
a cycle three times in those ten minutes. pope, a survivor underneath a boat after two days
in lake victoria, blunt brexit and putins popularity.
nothing approcahing any quality whatsoever. i was just making sure the other side of the
house hadn't got past "stupid"!!!
123dobryden , 1 hour ago
Rossia. Davaj
notfeelinthebern , 1 hour ago
Yeah, he's giving the west the proverbial finger. Instead of creating a bridge to trade
and friendship, the west is doing nothing but trying to destroy an imaginary enemy.
Matteo S. , 1 hour ago
It is not imaginary from the anglo-saxon empire's point of view.
The anglo-saxon empire has been playing this game for more than 3 centuries.
It first constantly attacked France until it definitely emasculated it with Napoleon's
downfall.
Then it immediately went to the jugular of Russia. And on this occasion was formulated
Mackinder's gropolitics principles.
Then it went for Germany.
Then in again against USSR/Russia.
This is not due to imagination. This is a deliberate and structural way to interact with
the rest of the world. The anglo-saxon empire hates competition and tries to destroy any
potential competitor instead of agreeing to cooperate with peers.
Ms No , 42 minutes ago
The Anglo Saxon empire was occupied by Zionist money lending. They controlled the British
empire. A lot of those blueblood royal were theirs to begin with also. They were also the
bankers of Rome.
Matteo S. , 27 minutes ago
Forget your fantasies about the Catholic Church and the pope.
It is Protestants who have always dominated the anglo-saxon empire. Protestants from
Britain but also from Netherlands, Germany, France, who allied with the English and Scot
Protestants to build their mammonite empire.
And for one Rothschild family, you had the Astors, Vanderbilt's, Rockefellers, Carnegie's,
Morgans, Fords, ... etc, none of which were jewish.
The Zionists are just the tail of the anglo-saxon dog.
justdues , 1 hour ago
"Russia now awaits possible new sanctions as a result of it,s ALLEGED involvement in the
United States election and as a result of the ALLEGED nerve agent attack in England .
FIFTylers
hooligan2009 , 1 hour ago
quite right. no trial, no evidence and harsh sentences/convictions via trade
embargoes.
russia offered reciprocation so it could try Browder. the west said no, invented crimes
culminating in a Magnitsy act.
if individuals in Europe, the UK or the US were convicted and imprisoned without trial
governments in those places would be thrown out on their ear.
as it is, western governments can bring the entire planet to the brink of war, based on
their political opinions - with no evidence, no trial and no opportunity to argue a case for
a defence of charges.
JibjeResearch , 1 hour ago
lolz ahaha.... a bad choice..., any fiat is a bad choice...
Go phy.gold or cryptos (BTC, ETH, XTZ),
phy.silver is good too...
An Shrubbery , 40 minutes ago
Cryptosporidiosis are no different than fiat, maybe even a little worse. They are NOT
anonymous, and are becoming less and less so and eventually will be co-opted by deep state
operatives such as googoyle, facefuck, Twatter, amazog, etc. for the deep state. There is an
absolute record of your every transaction in the blockchain.
It's just a matter of time. There will be a crypto that we're all forced to use in the
near future, and big brother will have absolute control of it.
my new username , 1 hour ago
This has zero impact on working class Americans. It only affects liberals and rich
people.
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
Everything has impact on everything else. We are all, in some bizarre ways,
interconnected. Deripaska (pictured above) has a virtual global monopoly on aluminum trade.
Guess who uses aluminum? You guessed it: people like you and I. The airplane industry.
Consumer industry. The military. Medical equipment industry. Construction industry. Food
industry. Everyone!
There is no such thing as isolationism anymore. It wasn't possible even during Warren
Harding's presidency, let alone now. This deranged notion that Donald Trump will somehow
insulate us all from the effects of his aggressive overseas posturing is deranged beyond
description.
By initiating an attack on the Syrian province of Latakia, home to the Russia-operated
Khmeimim Air Base, Israel, France and the United States certainly understood they were flirting
with disaster. Yet they went ahead with the operation anyways.
On the pretext that Iran was preparing to deliver a shipment of weapon production systems to
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israeli F-16s, backed by French missile launches in the Mediterranean,
destroyed what is alleged to have been a Syrian Army ammunition depot.
What happened next is already well established : a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft,
which the Israeli fighter jets had reportedly used for cover, was shot down by an S-200
surface-to-air missile system operated by the Syrian Army. Fifteen Russian servicemen perished
in the incident, which could have been avoided had Israel provided more than just one-minute
warning before the attack. As a result, chaos ensued.
Whether or not there is any truth to the claim that Iran was preparing to deliver
weapon-making systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon is practically a moot point based on flawed
logic. Conducting an attack against an ammunition depot in Syria – in the vicinity of
Russia's Khmeimim Air Base – to protect Israel doesn't make much sense when the
consequence of such "protective measures" could have been a conflagration on the scale of World
War III. That would have been an unacceptable price to achieve such a limited objective, which
could have been better accomplished with the assistance of Russia, as opposed to NATO-member
France, for example. In any case, there is a so-called "de-confliction system" in place between
Israel and Russia designed to prevent exactly this sort of episode from occurring.
And then there is the matter of the timing of the French-Israeli incursion.
Just hours before Israeli jets pounded the suspect Syrian ammunition storehouse, Putin and
Turkish President Recep Erdogan were in Sochi
hammering out the details on a plan to reduce civilian casualties as Russian and Syrian
forces plan to retake Idlib province, the last remaining terrorist stronghold in the country.
The plan envisioned the creation of a demilitarized buffer zone between government and rebel
forces, with observatory units to enforce the agreement. In other words, it is designed to
prevent exactly what Western observers have been fretting about, and that is unnecessary
'collateral damage.'
So what do France and Israel do after a relative peace is declared, and an effective measure
for reducing casualties? The cynically attack Syria, thus exposing those same Syrian civilians
to the dangers of military conflict that Western capitals proclaim to be worried
about.
Israel moves to 'damage control'
Although Israel has taken the rare move of acknowledging its involvement in the Syrian
attack, even expressing "sorrow" for the loss of Russian life, it insists that Damascus should
be held responsible for the tragedy. That is a highly debatable argument.
By virtue of the fact that the French and Israeli forces were teaming up to attack the
territory of a sovereign nation, thus forcing Syria to respond in self-defense, it is rather
obvious where ultimate blame for the downed Russian plane lies.
"The blame for the downing of the Russian plane and the deaths of its crew members lies
squarely on the Israeli side," Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said.
"The actions of the Israeli military were not in keeping with the spirit of the
Russian-Israeli partnership, so we reserve the right to respond."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, took admirable efforts to prevent the blame
game from reaching the boiling point, telling reporters that the
downing of the Russian aircraft was the result of "a chain of tragic circumstances, because the
Israeli plane didn't shoot down our jet."
Nevertheless, following this extremely tempered and reserved remark, Putin vowed that Russia
would take extra precautions to protect its troops in Syria, saying these will be "the steps
that everyone will notice."
Now there is much consternation
in Israel that the IDF will soon find its freedom to conduct operations against targets in
Syria greatly impaired. That's because Russia, having just suffered a 'friendly-fire' incident
from its own antiquated S-200 system, may now be more open to the idea of providing Syria with
the more advanced S-300 air-defense system.
Earlier this year, Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached an agreement
that prevented those advanced defensive weapons from being employed in the Syrian theater. That
deal is now in serious jeopardy. In addition to other defensive measures, Russia could
effectively create the conditions for a veritable no-fly zone across Western Syria in that it
would simply become too risky for foreign aircraft to venture into the zone.
The entire situation, which certainly did not go off as planned, has forced Israel into
damage control as they attempt to prevent their Russian counterparts from effectively shutting
down Syria's western border.
On Thursday, Israeli Major-General Amikam Norkin and Brigadier General Erez Maisel, as well
as officers of the Intelligence and Operations directorates of the Israeli air force will pay
an official visit to Moscow where they are expected to repeat their concerns of "continuous
Iranian attempts to transfer strategic weapons to the Hezbollah terror organization and to
establish an Iranian military presence in Syria."
Moscow will certainly be asking their Israeli partners if it is justifiable to subject
Russian servicemen to unacceptable levels of danger, up to and including death, in order to
defend Israeli interests. It remains to be seen if the two sides can find, through the fog of
war, an honest method for bringing an end to the Syria conflict, which would go far at
relieving Israel's concerns of Iranian influence in the region.
CoCosAB , 1 minute ago
The TERRORISTS keep doing the same **** all the time... And ***** PUTIN keeps cool!
Fecund Stench , 2 minutes ago
'There will, however, be some form of no-fly zone and as Vladimir Putin stated Russia will
take "the steps that everyone will notice."'
Failure to notice bespeaks complicity in the Ziomedia.
toady , 12 minutes ago
"...if it is justifiable to subject Russian servicemen to unacceptable levels of danger,
up to and including death, in order to defend Israeli interests."
Surely a few dozen Russians isn't comparable to all the Jews that died in the
holocaust.
Just as all the Jews that died in the holocaust aren't comparable to all the the Russians
that died in wwII.
isn't religion and the victim mentality a fun game to play?
JoeTurner , 13 minutes ago
Israel must have its lebensraum.....
bh2 , 45 minutes ago
Putin is not going to initiate WWIII over Syria or any military action within it. The
outcome in Syria affects Russian national interests. But unlike Crimea, it does not affect
any of Russia's vital national interests.
rejected , 35 minutes ago
If Syria was to shoot down one (1) American jet with one (1) pilot the US would respond
like it was Pearl Harbor and Syria for sure isn't vital to America's national interests
unless one considers results like Libya a national interest.
rejected , 1 hour ago
I seriously doubt Putin will allow the S-300 to Syria. Like the US, Russia is controlled
by the 5th column Jews inside Russia itself except the control is not as complete as in the
US. The Russian plane is Russia's USS Liberty.... and it is possible, and IMO that it was
France that shot down the plane. The fact that they fired missiles at the same time and that
has disappeared down the memory hole is very suspicious.
The West is out of control They talk International law but consider them selves above it.
Israel, France, UK, US have no 'right' to attack Syria. They have no right to be within
Syrian borders. They are now all allied with the terrorists and provide them with weapons.
Israel actually provides for their wounds at Israeli hospitals.
By the old definition of terrorist, it is the West that fits the description.
As for Mr. Putin,,, He has done what was unthinkable a short time ago. He has allowed the
murder of Russians. Not once,,, not twice,,, but now three times with only a whimper. He
actually defended the aggressors this time. This will only serve to make them double down. If
any more Russians are murdered it will be he who is guilty by lack of action. Even Somalia
fought back when the US tried an attack.
The author here defends Putin as acting with a cool head as the author, like so many
cowards thee days, dismisses those fifteen lives. He will also be responsible when the next
batch of Russians are sacrificed for world peace as the Western marauders, the US especially,
murders their way to world domination like Germany's Hitler and France's Napoleon.
It was Russia that saved the world from those two dictators and is why Russia stands proud
today. It is Russia's history to savagely defend Russians and Russia. Today with thousands of
Russians killed by Ukrainian Nazis supported and armed by the West (MAGA) and now Russians
killed in Syria by the West with little to no response from Russia other than "Its against
international law" and authors like this that nonchalantly discard Russian lives as necessary
for world peace.
Mr. Putin just needs to hand over the keys to Russia,,, for world peace of course.
The international working classes are racists. They are misogynists. Xenophobic transphobes.
They do not think the way we want them to. Some of them actually still believe in God. And they are
white supremacists. Anti-Semites. Gun-toting, Confederate-flag-flying rednecks. Most of them
have never even heard of terms like "intersectionality," "TERF," and so on.
They do not respect the corporate media. They think that news sources like the Washington
Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and so on, are basically propaganda
outlets for the global corporations and oligarchs who own them, and thus are essentially no
different from FOX, whose pundits they believe every word of.
Their minds are so twisted by racism and xenophobia that they can't understand how global
capitalism, the graduated phase-out of national sovereignty, the privatization of virtually
everything, the debt-enslavement of nearly everyone, and the replacement of their so-called
"cultures" with an ubiquitous, smiley-faced, gender-neutral, non-oppressive,
corporate-friendly, Disney simulation of culture are actually wonderfully progressive steps
forward on the road to a more peaceful, less offensive world.
Now this has been proved in numerous studies with all kinds of charts and graphs and so on.
And not only by the corporate statisticians, and the corporate media, and liberal think tanks.
Why, just this week, Mehdi Hasan, in an exasperated
jeremiad in the pages of The Intercept , that bastion of fearless, adversarial journalism
owned by billionaire Pierre Omidyar, proved, once again, that Donald Trump was elected because
PEOPLE ARE GODDAMN RACISTS!
Somewhere between the creation of the Magna Carta and now, leftists have forgotten why due
process matters; and in some cases, such as that of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, they choose to
outright ignore the judicial and civil rights put in place by the U.S. Constitution.
In this age of social media justice mobs, the accused are often convicted in the court of
public opinion long before any substantial evidence emerges to warrant an investigation or
trial. This is certainly true for Kavanaugh. His accuser, Christine
Blasey Ford , cannot recall the date of the alleged assault and has no supporting
witnesses, yet law professors are ready to ruin his entire life and career. Not because they
genuinely believe he's guilty, but because he's a pro-life Trump nominee for the Supreme
Court.
It goes without saying: to "sink Kavanaugh even if" Ford's allegation is untrue is
unethical, unconstitutional, and undemocratic. He has a right to due process, and before
liberals sharpen their pitchforks any further they would do well to remember what happened to
Brian Banks.
In the summer of 2002, Banks was a highly recruited 16-year-old linebacker at Polytechnic
High School in California with plans to play football on a full scholarship to the University
of Southern California. However, those plans were destroyed when Banks's classmate, Wanetta
Gibson, claimed that Banks had dragged her into a stairway at their high school and raped
her.
Gibson's claim was false, but it was Banks's word against hers. Banks had two options: go to
trial and risk spending 41 years-to-life in prison, or take a plea deal that included five
years in prison, five years probation, and registering as a sex offender. Banks accepted the
plea deal under the counsel of his lawyer, who
told him that he stood no chance at trial because the all-white jury would "automatically
assume" he was guilty because he was a "big, black teenager."
Gibson and her mother subsequently sued the Long Beach Unified School District and won a
$1.5 million settlement. It wasn't until nearly a decade later, long after Banks's promising
football career had already been tanked, that Gibson admitted she'd fabricated the entire
story.
Following Gibson's confession, Banks was exonerated with the help of the California
Innocence Project . Hopeful to get his life back on track, he played for Las Vegas
Locomotives of the now-defunct United Football League in 2012, and signed with the Atlanta
Falcons in 2013. But while Banks finally received justice, he will never get back the years or
the prospective pro football career that Gibson selfishly stole from him.
Banks's story is timely, and it serves as a powerful warning to anyone too eager to condemn
those accused of sexual assault. In fact, a film about Banks's ordeal, Brian Banks , is set to
premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival next week.
Perhaps all the #MeToo Hollywood elites and their liberal friends should attend the
screening - and keep Kavanaugh in their minds as they watch.
Reaper , 2 minutes ago
False charges were condemned by Moses 3200 years ago. We need his solution: the false
accusser suffers the penalty they desired on ther falsely accused.
- This is a repost of the recent Palisade
Weekly Letter –
Earlier this week –
news went by relatively unnoticed by the ' mainstream ' financial media (CNCB and such)
that Beijing's started selling their U.S. debt holdings.
Putting it another way – they're dumping U.S. bonds. . .
"China's ownership of U.S. bonds, bills and notes slipped to $1.17 trillion, the lowest
level since January and down from $1.18 trillion in June."
And although they're starting to sell U.S. bonds – expect it to be at a slow and
steady pace. They don't want to risk hurting themselves over this.
I believe China may be selling just enough to get the attention of Trump and the Treasury. A
soft warning for them not to take things too far with tariffs and trade.
Yet already just as news hit the wire that China was selling bonds a few days ago –
U.S. yields spiked above 3%. . .
Don't forget that China's the U.S.'s largest foreign creditor. And this is an asset for
them.
And although them selling is worrisome – the real problems started months ago. . .
Over the last few months, my macro research and articles are all finally coming together.
This thesis we had is finally taking shape in the real world.
I wrote in a detailed piece a few months back that foreigners just aren't lending to the
U.S. as much anymore ( you can read that here ).
I called this the 'silent problem'. . .
Long story short: the U.S. is running huge deficits. They haven't been this big since the
Great Financial Recession of 08.
And it shouldn't come as a surprise to many.
Because of Trump's tax cuts, there's less government revenue coming in. And that means the
increased military spending and other Federal spending has to be paid for on someone else's
tab.
The U.S. does 'bond auctions' all the time where banks and foreigners buy U.S. debt –
giving the Treasury cash to spend now.
But like I highlighted in the 'silent problem' article (seriously, read it if you haven't)
– foreigners are buying less U.S. debt recently. . .
This is a serious problem because if the Treasury wants to spend more while collecting less
taxes, they need to borrow heavily.
This trend's continued since 2016 and it's getting worse. And with the mounting liabilities
(like pensions and social security and medicare), they'll need to borrow trillions more in the
coming years.
So, in summary – the U.S. has less interested foreign creditors at a time when they need
them more than ever.
But wait, it gets worse. . .
The Federal Reserve's currently tightening – they're raising rates and selling bonds
via Quantitative Tightening (QT – fancy word for sucking money out of system).
This is the second big problem – and I wrote about in 'Anatomy of a Crisis' (
read here ). And
even earlier than that
here .
So, while the Fed does this tightening, they're creating a global dollar shortage. . .
As I wrote. . . "This is going to cause an evaporation of dollar liquidity – making
the markets extremely fragile. Putting it simply – the soaring U.S. deficit requires an
even greater amount dollars from foreigners to fund the U.S. Treasury . But if the Fed is
shrinking their balance sheet , that means the bonds they're selling to banks are sucking
dollars out of the economy (the reverse of Quantitative Easing which was injecting dollars into
the economy). This is creating a shortage of U.S. dollars – the world's reserve currency
– therefore affecting
every global economy."
The Fed's tightening is sucking money – the U.S. dollar – out of the global
economy and banks. And they're doing this at a time when Foreigners need even more liquidity so
that they can buy U.S. debt.
How is the Treasury supposed to get funding if there's less dollars out there available? And
how can they entice investors if Foreigners don't have enough liquidity to fund U.S. debt?
These Emerging Markets must use their dollar reserves to prop up their own currencies and
economies today. They can't be worrying about funding U.S. pensions and other bloated spending
when their economies are crumbling.
These two themes I've written about extensively – the decline of foreign investors and
the Fed's tightening – have gotten us to this point today.
And the U.S. is extremely fragile because of both problems. . .
Here's the worst part – China probably knows this . That's why they're selling just
enough U.S. bonds to spook markets.
But if the trade war and soon-to-be a currency war continues, no doubt China will sell more
of their debt – sending yields soaring.
I just got done last week detailing how U.S. debt servicing costs (interest payments) are
already becoming very unsustainable ( click here if you missed it
).
At this point they're literally borrowing money just to pay back old debts – that's
known as a 'ponzi scheme'.
This is why I believe the Fed will eventually cut rates back to 0% – and then into
negative territory. And instead of sucking money out of the economy via QT, they're going to
start printing trillions more.
How else will the Treasury be able to get the funding they need?
I'll continue to keep you up to date with what's going on and how it all fits together.
But I think the two big problems I wrote about above are now converging into a new massive
problem. And I don't see any way out of it unless the Fed monetizes the U.S. Treasury and
outstanding debts. And that will cause massive moves in the markets.
I'm sure Trump will eventually
tweet , "Oh Yeah? Foreigners don't want to buy the U.S. debt? Blasphemy! Who needs you all
when we have a printing press!"
Or something like that. . .
TimeTraveller , 1 hour ago
I'm really starting to get sick of these crap reports from Palisade Research. Again they
are totally wrong on so many levels.
1. China is selling Treasuries, because they are pre-empting a debt crisis in their own
country and need Dollar financing for their overleveraged companies and their banking sector.
Also, China is lending money to every 3rd world country that needs infrustructure for it's
Belt and Road Initiative. Building ports, bridges and railways across Asia and Africa, costs
money.
2. Selling Treasuries will weaken the Dollar, so making the RMB stronger. China does NOT
want the RMB stronger because it erodes their exporters margins and competetiveness. Why
would they want to hurt themselves just to punish their biggest customer?
To even suggest China is "using the Nuclear option" of dumping Treasuries just shows your
total ignorance of the real world.
Palisade are clueless
ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago
OTOH, the crisis in Emerging Markets and the effect of capital flight on China are just
two of the MANY things not mentioned in this article. There has been tension building into
financial warfare between China and the US ever since they pegged the yuan low to the dollar
in 1987. The US is doing things under the table to China, China to the US, and they're both
quite capable of paying Adam Tumerkan (and others) to write hit pieces against the other
side. Think deeply before choosing a side.
Journalist Sara Carter told Sean Hannity during his Wednesday radio show that the FBI has
two sets of records in the Russia investigation, and that "certain people above Peter Strzok
and above Lisa Page" were aware of it - implicating former FBI Director James Comey and his #2,
Andrew McCabe.
Hannity : Sara, I'm hearing it gets worse than this–that there is potentially out
there–if you will, two sets of record among the upper echelon of the FBI–one that
was real one that was made for appearances . Is there any truth to this?
Carter : Absolutely, Sean . With the number of sources that I have been speaking with as
well as some others that there is evidence indicating that the FBI had separate sets of
books.
I will not name names until all of the evidence is out there, but there were certain
people above Peter Strzok and above Lisa Page that were aware of this . I also believe that
there are people within the FBI that have actually turned on their former employers and are
possibly even testifying and reporting what happened inside the FBI to both the Inspector
General and possibly even a Grand Jury.
""The two most aggressive central bank players in the equity markets are the Swiss
National Bank and the Bank of Japan. The goal of the Bank of Japan, which now owns 75% of
Japanese exchange-traded funds, is evidently to stimulate growth and defy longstanding
expectations of deflation. But the Swiss National Bank is acting more like a hedge fund,
snatching up individual stocks because "that is where the money is." About 20% of the SNB's
reserves are in equities, and more than half of that is in US equities.""
""Abolishing the central banks is one possibility, but if they were recaptured as public
utilities, they could serve some useful purposes. A central bank dedicated to the service of
the public could act as an unlimited source of liquidity for a system of public banks,
eliminating bank runs since the central bank cannot go bankrupt. It could also fix the
looming problem of an unrepayable federal debt, and it could generate "quantitative easing
for the people," which could be used to fund infrastructure, low-interest loans to cities and
states, and other public services.""
------------------------
This Ellen Brown article was referenced in Michael Hudson's latest article
""Today's financial malaise for pension funds, state and local budgets and underemployment is
largely a result of the 2008 bailout, not the crash. What was saved was not only the banks
– or more to the point, as Sheila Bair pointed out, their bondholders – but the
financial overhead that continues to burden today's economy.
Also saved was the idea that the economy needs to keep the financial sector solvent by an
exponential growth of new debt – and, when that does not suffice, by government
purchase of stocks and bonds to support the balance sheets of the wealthiest layer of
society. The internal contradiction in this policy is that debt deflation has become so
overbearing and dysfunctional that it prevents the economy from growing and carrying its debt
burden.""
""The beneficiaries are the stockholders who are concentrated in the wealthiest
percentiles of the population. Governments are not underwriting homeownership or the solvency
of labor's pension plans, but are underwriting the value of collateral backing the savings of
the narrow financial class.""
The fog of war and geopolitics makes initial responses to the attack on Russian and Syrian
forces recently difficult to assess.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's response seemed timid and was at odds with statements
from his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and more recent statements from Russia's Foreign
Ministry.
Putin backed off on explicitly blaming Israel for the downing of the IL-20 ELINT aircraft
which killed 15 Russian servicemen, but made it clear he holds them responsible for the attack
as a whole.
It was obvious to me that this attack was designed as a provocation to start World War III
in Syria and blame the Russians for attacking a NATO member without proper cause , since the
Syrian air defense forces were the ones responsible for shooting down the plane.
Lying us into war is a time-honored American political tradition, whether we're talking Fort
Sumter, Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin. All of these incidents were avoidable by Presidents
intent on getting into a conflict while simultaneously playing the victim card by getting the
other side to shoot first.
I'm sorry if that is a controversial statement but the historical record on them is very,
very clear.
From Strategic Culture:
The setup is pretty clear. Israel and France coordinated an attack on multiple targets
within Syria without US involvement but with absolute US knowledge of the operation to
provoke Russia into going off half-cocked by attacking the inconsequential French frigate
which assisted Israel's air attack.
That would constitute an attack on a NATO member state and require a response from NATO,
thereby getting the exact escalation needed to continue the war in Syria indefinitely and
touch off WWIII.
This neatly bypasses any objections to a wider conflict by President Trump who would have
to respond militarily to a Russian attack on a NATO ally. It also would reassert NATO's
necessity in the public dialogue, further marginalizing Trump's attacks on it and any
perceived drive of his for peace.
My hat is off to Joachin Flores for his analysis here. It is long and involved and worth
your time to read. I will summarize it here. His thesis? Putin is trying to save Russian/French
relations by not naming France as the culprit for the lost plane and the 15 men.
That Russia noted French missile launches but didn't say what or who they hit. And before
the Russians said anything about the attack the French denied they had any involvement in the
attack.
Instead, Russia went along with the story the U.S. et.al. prepared in advance, which doesn't
fit what facts we know about the situation, that Syrian Air Defenses shot down the IL-20 by
mistake.
Both the French denial and the U.S. statements about Syrian air defenses being the culprit
came before anything official came from the Russians.
This is a classic "preparing the narrative" technique used by the West all the time. Seize
the story, plant seeds of doubt and put your opponent into a rhetorical box they can't wiggle
out of with the truth.
MH-17, Skripal, Crimea, chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta, Douma etc. These operations are
scripted.
And Flores is exactly right that this script was going off as planned with one small
problem.
The Russians went along with it.
Russia, and Putin, did the one thing that makes this whole thing look like a frame job, it
accepted the narrative of Israeli malfeasance in the interest of stopping a wider conflict by
accusing and/or attacking a NATO member, France.
Flores makes the salient point that the S-200 friendly fire scenario is highly unlikely.
That, in fact, France shot down the plane, was prepared to accept blame (which it did by
preemptively denying it was involved) and destroy what was left of Russian/French
relations.
Now Russia can use the excuse of Israeli betrayal as justification for upgrading Syria's air
defenses. Citing the very thing that caused the tragic death of their soldiers, antiquated air
defense systems which didn't properly identify friend from foe.
It may be a lie, but since when did that matter in geopolitics?
And as I point out in my other article
This is Israel's worst nightmare. A situation where any aerial assault on targets within
Syria would be suicide missions, puncturing the myth of the Israeli air force's superiority
and shifting the delicate balance of power in Syria decidedly against them.
This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked Putin so hard over the last two
years. But, this incident wipes that slate clean. This was a cynical betrayal of Putin's
trust and patience. And Israel will now pay the price for their miscalculation.
Giving Syria S-300's does not avenge the fifteen dead Russian soldiers. Putin will have to
respond to that in a more concrete way to appease the hardliners in his government and at
home. His patience and seeming passivity are being pushed to their limit politically. This
is, after all, a side benefit to all of this for the neoconservative and globalist hawks in
D.C., Europe and Tel Aviv.
But, the real loss here for Israel will be Russia instituting a no-fly zone over western
Syria. Any less response from Putin will be seized upon by and the situation will escalate
from here. So, Putin has to deploy S-300's here. And once that happens, the real solution to
Syria begins in earnest.
And it means that if the FUKUS alliance -- France, the U.K. and the U.S. -- want an invasion
of Syria they will have to do so openly without a casus belli. And this is something we have
avoided for five years now.
Because lying us into war is how we maintain the illusion of fighting wars of conquest under
the rubric of Christian Just War Theory which supports our national spirit of manifest
destiny.
Ok, what of the assets mixed in with the idlib bunch. The FUKUS has pretty valuable people
in that group and maybe some information the west dos not want made available to Russia. I
think Putin can get some of those people and use them.
There's some other things the US has over there that they don't want anyone to be able to
show on TV
africoman , 18 hours ago
With the downing of the IL-20 ELINT aircraft which killed 15 Russian servicemen, by the
aggressions of Israhell
1st violating sovereign Syrian territory,
2nd attacking Syrian forces in multiple fronts and
3rd deliberately shielding themselves in the nearby Russian aircraft informing Russia
just 1 min about their illegal engagement, causing to be hit by Syrian S-200
Putin's response seemed timid/weak and was at odds with strong statements from his
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who put the blame directly on Israhell condemning and more
recent statements from Russia's Foreign Ministry.
Putin backed off on explicitly blaming Israel, saying it was chain of reaction that
caused the situation etc instead of pining it to that parasite
Yes, i observed the tondown by Putin, maybe we don't know the big boys like Putin knew
what is at stake than 15 Russian service men,RIP
It seems to me Putin/Russia is in the game for greater good than such provocation by the
middle finger and are paying dearly.
Russia didn't stick her nake for nothing as i said above,geopolitics and long term
national interest etc
The attack by Israhell came just after the "Idlib liberation deconfliction zone" deal
reached with Russia/Putin & Turkey/Erdogan after many hours of talk
That was something, not seen/wanted by the enemy of Syria.
So it was expected, provokation?
Maybe Putin's answer/response not verbally, it would gonna come practically, by ratcheting
up the defensive shield of Russian position and eventually upgrading Syrian air defense, as
both are now targeted if they pursue liberating Idlib from the filthy jihadist infestations,
including Iran.
The USA/UK warned Russia/Syria/Iran if they dare touch their 'rebel boys' then we will
respond UNSC dramatic talk on which what i found it interesting was that
the Syrian ambassador to UN,Dr.Bashar Jaafari exposed their hypocrisy asking the absurdity
that if they will let say 15,000 'rebels' aka terrorist in manchester city doing terrorism
and they will let Russia wanted to do same.
So i see toning down of Vlad is good in avoiding another provocation by Israhell/USA
One can see, Israhell blamed Syria right, then if Syria increased her ability of defense
then that will be seen as danger/aggression by Israhell
that is the statu quo there, criminals
OverTheHedge , 20 hours ago
There is another interpretation, over at MoonOfAlabama, which seems to be more sensible
than the doom-laden war-mongering rhetoric in this article.
1. Israel and Russia have a deconfliction agreement, so Russia would have notified Israel
about its IL-20 flight plans.
2. Israel would have agreed not to have fighter aircraft in that area, as part of the
agreement.
3. Israeli fighter planes used the IL-20 to mask their run in, which is a breach of the
agreement, and just rude, frankly. Israel appears to believe that agreements don't apply.
4. The Syrian air defence saw the Israeli planes, targeted and locked on. Panic in the
cockpit.
5. The Israeli pilot(s) used the bulk of the IL-20 to mask their radar reflection, and the
S-200 missile, being old and dim, went for the biggest radar cross-section. In other words,
the Israeli pilot saved his life by sacrificing the russian plane. Note that the missile
itself doesn't do IFF, and can't be recalled or retargeted once it is in the air. It has a
brain that an Atari 200 would be embarrassed by.
Whether this was in the plan, or just a brown trouser moment, is another question. If
there happened to be a civilian airliner in the vacinity, would the Israeli pilot have done
the same?
So, Israel is at fault for ignoring the agreement with Russia, and attacking despite
russian presence in a restricted area. It all went wrong. Lots of Israeli damage control with
Russia - offers to send the Israeli air force commander to Moscow to grovel in person, etc.
You can conspiracy theory as much as you like, and the French missile is not included in the
above, but I like ****-up over conspiracy, and idiot commanders not considering the
consequences more likely than vast overarching 200 move secret plans to rule the universe by
Thursday.
NB - the above is not my work, just in case you thought I was clever (unlikely, I
know).
rita , 21 hours ago
Putin as usual is brilliant, unlike the others who are continually trigger happy trying
desperately to inflate the situation in Syria!
RG_Canuck , 21 hours ago
Agreed, but I would like to see Putin grab that little frog by the te$ticle$ until he gets
on the ground and begs for mercy.
Posa , 22 hours ago
I totally agree with this interpretation. The tide is running with Russia-friendly
right-wing European parties who eventually will depose the Macron- Merkel axis, thanks to the
Social Dems accepting a flood of refugees from Bush-Clinton-Obama Regime Change War Crimes.
The writing is on the wall and Putin does not want to disrupt the inevitable flow of events
by being suckered into firing the first shots.
Loss of personnel and aircraft is accepted as war-time casualties... BUT I also agree that
retaliation will be more subtle, coming in the form of upgrades to defense of Syrian air
space defense. Of course, if Putin really wants to stick it to France- Israel he can also
complete the deal with Iran to sell the S series upgrades to Iran.
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
Some of the interpretation is accurate. Some is Russian spin. The part I liked best
was:
"whether we're talking Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin."
Darn right accurate! I would have added WMD's in Iraq to the list.
indus creed , 12 hours ago
According to Joel Skousen, Russia and China are not yet militarily ready to take on West.
Then again, Skousen used to be a CIA asset. Whom to believe these days?
Joiningupthedots , 23 hours ago
It changes nothing.
Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah won the war.
The West is desperately trying to turn Syria into another Libya and is desperately
failing.
ZeroLounger , 23 hours ago
A video on one of the links describes large quantities of captagon were seized, along with
motorcycles and weapons, near Palmyra.
So a war fueled by meth, basically.
thisandthat , 11 hours ago
Always was, at least since ww2
Is-Be , 23 hours ago
Because lying us into war is how we maintain the illusion of fighting wars of conquest
under the rubric of Christian Just War Theory which supports our national spirit of
manifest destiny
I'm getting the distinct impression that monotheism is a very bad idea.
A curse upon Charlemagne the Butcher and Oathbreaker!
Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 1 day ago
The fog of war and geopolitics makes initial responses to the attack on Russian and Syrian
forces recently difficult to assess.
That would have been excellent one-line article. But no. We have to expand on it.
Yellow_Snow , 12 hours ago
Just heard that Russia is indeed setting up a 'No Fly Zone' and will be doing Naval
training/testing in zones around Syria... between 0 and 19000 altitude
IsaHell has attacked Syria by air 200 times while the world has stood by...
S-400 needs to get deployed - now is the time - what's the point of having these SAM's and
never using them...
Needs to stop
DEMIZEN , 1 day ago
the Russian heads will stay cool. militarily, it is too early to move in and go full
****** with air defences the Jews are too close and will study their gear and structure.
Russian voter is beginning to rise eyebrows i assume, and Putins reputation is taking a
hit. i bet there will some tough Putin videos following this mess to restore his image in
public. Russian public wants Jewish blood, but i cant see a good immediate response.Revenge
is best served cold.
this mess will be followed up with more gear and more training for SAA, you cant blame
Syrian Army for any of this, they sacrifice two dozens of soldiers on a good day. most of
Syria SAM crews were executed in the first months of the war.
ships will keep coming. SAA will keep growing, Russians will likely focus on Ukraine and
EU diplomacy now. Assad and Kurds need to sit down and look at the option. Opposition in
idlib will disarm or die.Guerillas w/o insignia will keep hitting SDF. US will leave AL Tanf.
Its going to be a slow winter.
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
Putin's reputation is not taking a hit!
What did Israel achieve in this attack? No one is reporting. Maybe Israel wanted to hit
Iranian militia units that were concentrating for the attack on Idlib before the units were
redeployed. We don't know.
Israel did not claim any success, just an attack without the loss of any F-16s.
In the eyes of Russians, Putin stood up to the "evil empire" once again. The cost was 15
soldiers. Russian's mothers are very vocal about sons coming home in body bags. That causes
social unrest. Support for Putin does not waver however. The deaths are the price Russia pays
to protect the mother land.
The author is correct that Putin's restraint shows skill and courage. Putin's weakness was
assigning blame for the 15 soldiers. Assigning blame was probably the work of some
sycophantic underlings.
turkey george palmer , 15 hours ago
Ok, what of the assets mixed in with the idlib bunch. The FUKUS has pretty valuable people
in that group and maybe some information the west dos not want made available to Russia. I
think Putin can get some of those people and use them.
There's some other things the US has over there that they don't want anyone to be able to
show on TV
africoman , 18 hours ago
With the downing of the IL-20 ELINT aircraft which killed 15 Russian servicemen, by the
aggressions of Israhell
1st violating sovereign Syrian territory,
2nd attacking Syrian forces in multiple fronts and
3rd deliberately shielding themselves in the nearby Russian aircraft informing Russia
just 1 min about their illegal engagement, causing to be hit by Syrian S-200
Putin's response seemed timid/weak and was at odds with strong statements from his
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu who put the blame directly on Israhell condemning and more
recent statements from Russia's Foreign Ministry.
Putin backed off on explicitly blaming Israel, saying it was chain of reaction that
caused the situation etc instead of pining it to that parasite
Yes, i observed the tondown by Putin, maybe we don't know the big boys like Putin knew
what is at stake than 15 Russian service men,RIP
It seems to me Putin/Russia is in the game for greater good than such provocation by the
middle finger and are paying dearly.
Russia didn't stick her nake for nothing as i said above,geopolitics and long term
national interest etc
The attack by Israhell came just after the "Idlib liberation deconfliction zone" deal
reached with Russia/Putin & Turkey/Erdogan after many hours of talk
That was something, not seen/wanted by the enemy of Syria.
So it was expected, provokation?
Maybe Putin's answer/response not verbally, it would gonna come practically, by ratcheting
up the defensive shield of Russian position and eventually upgrading Syrian air defense, as
both are now targeted if they pursue liberating Idlib from the filthy jihadist infestations,
including Iran.
The USA/UK warned Russia/Syria/Iran if they dare touch their 'rebel boyes' then we will
respond UNSC dramatic talk on which what i found it interesting was that
the Syrian ambassador to UN,Dr.Bashar Jaafari exposed their hypocrisy asking the absurdity
that if they will let say 15,000 'rebels' aka terrorist in manchester city doing terrorism
and they will let Russia wanted to do same.
So i see toning down of Vlad is good in avoiding another provocation by Israhell/USA
One can see, Israhell blamed Syria right, then if Syria increased her ability of defense
then that will be seen as danger/aggression by Israhell
that is the statu quo there, criminals
pluto the dog , 19 hours ago
To paraphrase Jean-Marie le Pen- Putin has described the Jewish takeover of Russia in 1917
and the slaughter of 62
million Christian Slavs that followed as "an incident of history" - and best
forgotten.
Putin is so deep in bed with Jewish oligarchs - and Bibi - it aint funny. LOL
Pleas note - the figure of 62 million dead is the most accurate yet. Was deduced by
researchers who had access to Kremlin archives for short period of time after the Soviet
Union imploded. So round that down to approx. 60 million and you will be safely in the ball
park.
Mustahattu , 20 hours ago
FUKUS alliance? More like FUCKUS alliance.
OverTheHedge , 20 hours ago
There is another interpretation, over at MoonOfAlabama, which seems to be more sensible
than the doom-laden war-mongering rhetoric in this article.
1. Israel and Russia have a deconfliction agreement, so Russia would have notified Israel
about its IL-20 flight plans.
2. Israel would have agreed not to have fighter aircraft in that area, as part of the
agreement.
3. Israeli fighter planes used the IL-20 to mask their run in, which is a breach of the
agreement, and just rude, frankly. Israel appears to believe that agreements don't apply.
4. The Syrian air defence saw the Israeli planes, targeted and locked on. Panic in the
cockpit.
5. The Israeli pilot(s) used the bulk of the IL-20 to mask their radar reflection, and the
S-200 missile, being old and dim, went for the biggest radar cross-section. In other words,
the Israeli pilot saved his life by sacrificing the russian plane. Note that the missile
itself doesn't do IFF, and can't be recalled or retargeted once it is in the air. It has a
brain that an Atari 200 would be embarrassed by.
Whether this was in the plan, or just a brown trouser moment, is another question. If
there happened to be a civilian airliner in the vacinity, would the Israeli pilot have done
the same?
So, Israel is at fault for ignoring the agreement with Russia, and attacking despite
russian presence in a restricted area. It all went wrong. Lots of Israeli damage control with
Russia - offers to send the Israeli air force commander to Moscow to grovel in person, etc.
You can conspiracy theory as much as you like, and the French missile is not included in the
above, but I like ****-up over conspiracy, and idiot commanders not considering the
consequences more likely than vast overarching 200 move secret plans to rule the universe by
Thursday.
NB - the above is not my work, just in case you thought I was clever (unlikely, I
know).
not-me---it-was-the-dog , 20 hours ago
" If there happened to be a civilian airliner in the vacinity, would the Israeli pilot
have done the same? "
only civilian airliners over syria......as far as i can tell, are from iran. so, answer
would be yes.
Southerly Buster , 18 hours ago
Have you not just described the 'official' story, a " chain of tragic
circumstances."
Nothing 'alternative' or 'clever' with the MoA's interpretation.
not-me---it-was-the-dog , 21 hours ago
no-fly zone over western syria? no.
no-fly zone over lebanon.
.........you read it here first.
rita , 21 hours ago
Putin as usual is brilliant, unlike the others who are continually trigger happy trying
desperately to inflate the situation in Syria!
RG_Canuck , 21 hours ago
Agreed, but I would like to see Putin grab that little frog by the te$ticle$ until he gets
on the ground and begs for mercy.
Posa , 22 hours ago
I totally agree with this interpretation. The tide is running with Russia-friendly
right-wing European parties who eventually will depose the Macron- Merkel axis, thanks to the
Social Dems accepting a flood of refugees from Bush-Clinton-Obama Regime Change War Crimes.
The writing is on the wall and Putin does not want to disrupt the inevitable flow of events
by being suckered into firing the first shots.
Loss of personnel and aircraft is accepted as war-time casualties... BUT I also agree that
retaliation will be more subtle, coming in the form of upgrades to defense of Syrian air
space defense. Of course, if Putin really wants to stick it to France- Israel he can also
complete the deal with Iran to sell the S series upgrades to Iran.
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
Some of the interpretation is accurate. Some is Russian spin. The part I liked best
was:
"whether we're talking Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin."
Darn right accurate! I would have added WMD's in Iraq to the list.
indus creed , 12 hours ago
According to Joel Skousen, Russia and China are not yet militarily ready to take on West.
Then again, Skousen used to be a CIA asset. Whom to believe these days?
Joiningupthedots , 23 hours ago
It changes nothing.
Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah won the war.
The West is desperately trying to turn Syria into another Libya and is desperately
failing.
ZeroLounger , 23 hours ago
A video on one of the links describes large quantities of captagon were seized, along with
motorcycles and weapons, near Palmyra.
So a war fueled by meth, basically.
thisandthat , 11 hours ago
Always was, at least since ww2
Is-Be , 23 hours ago
Because lying us into war is how we maintain the illusion of fighting wars of conquest
under the rubric of Christian Just War Theory which supports our national spirit of
manifest destiny
I'm getting the distinct impression that monotheism is a very bad idea.
A curse upon Charlemagne the Butcher and Oathbreaker!
Baron Samedi , 23 hours ago
Had my champagne and a bottle of potassium iodide in my pocket ...
Like China, Putin is thinking the long game... not a quick score before the next
commercial timeout... and he's a chess player, so thinking ahead to the next set of moves is
the norm.... when this is lost, so is life.. think of Caesar as an example of those that
don't know when to say when... when to stop and smell the roses... when to consolidate
operations before the next set are begun.
What will the West do when their plans do go as planned? Sit around in the Med Sea for how
long? The Kurds will get played as the fools they are, same as always... this is the basic
script of all of our lives here in 'Purgatory'.. a school in self conscious awareness.. and
this is how we learn.... how many times does a lesson need to repeat before we learn? THink
of the example of Neo in that film 'The Matrix'.... "You've been done that street before
Neo..."
15 lives lost.... but no excuse yet given to start WW3 and lose many, many more... the
idiot puppets in the Western capitals get frustrated and lose their sanity.. as their OWO
puppet show is steered over the cliff by their own puppet masters in the SG... 'out with the
OWO, in with the NWO'... the best puppets are those that never even think they could be
one.... and so it goes.
pluto the dog , 23 hours ago
Putins in bed with Bibi just like Trump is. And Putins daughter is married to a *******
****. Does that sound familiar?
Yous are gonna be waitin a long time for WW3 to start
Blankone , 22 hours ago
What? Is Putin's daughter really married to a ***.
Holy ---, Just like all of Trump's kids who have married.
Damn
pluto the dog , 20 hours ago
Putins daughter now divorced from his buddy Nikolai Shamalovs son Kirill
no one in Russia is allowed to talk about this stuff
below link takes you to photo of Nikolai Shamalov. Please examine photo - looks very
ashkenazi to me LOL
The links of the stormfront article lay things out well.
I have the bad feeling again. I knew Putin's background was Russian mafia/corruption in
taking over from Yeltsin and that Putin was catering to the jews, but this was a
surprise.
Damn
Jung , 20 hours ago
She is married to a Dutchman and many were angry with them about MH17, so they left the
Netherlands. Don't worry about what he is, Putin knows his Grand Chessboard and has to avoid
problems with his fifth column in Russia (a group of Jewish people with a lot of clout.
One of these is not like the others.. , 23 hours ago
12$ a month!
Who do you think I am, Rothschild??
(I looked at the patreon link).
Is-Be , 23 hours ago
Here's a novel idea, France.
How about protecting France? It is, after all, called a Defence Force.
Or do tired eyes deceive me?
RG_Canuck , 21 hours ago
Defence Farce, more like it.
ZeroLounger , 23 hours ago
It appears that Armageddon is underway before our very eyes.
Buy stawks.
Is-Be , 23 hours ago
You have Armageddon, we have Ragnarok.
The difference is, we don't lust after Ragnarok.
Odin fears Ragnarok, for his doom is fortold.
Only Ask and Embla survive Ragnarok.
eyesofpelosi , 20 hours ago
Yes, the three (***/christian/islam) "*** cults" really WANT the end for all things.
Sickening, childish, and...evil. I'm a follower of Hela for the most part, yet I do not "rush
what is inevitable" either, lol.
terrific , 23 hours ago
The FUKUS alliance. Who thought that one up? It's hilarious.
FreeEarCandy , 23 hours ago
A false flag attack on any Christian historical site within Israel is all Israel needs to
do to drag the west into starting WW3. Historically, we know Israel has special place in
their heart for Christians.
besnook , 1 day ago
putin will respond in a way to get the most roi. he played this masterfully. concede on
issues when you have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.
tel aviv has a red dot on it's forehead now.
Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 1 day ago
The fog of war and geopolitics makes initial responses to the attack on Russian and Syrian
forces recently difficult to assess.
That would have been excellent one-line article. But no. We have to expand on it.
Yellow_Snow , 1 day ago
Russia should use Syria as a testing ground for the S-400 and the new S-500 systems... A
No fly Zone and 'hot' testing site
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
It would be nice for the West, but...
1. Creating a No Fly Zone would force Russia to respond to any infraction. That reduces
Putin's options and diverts effort from Russia's objectives in Syria.
2. Installing S-400 or S-500 or S-999 would only show Israel and the US the capabilities
of these advanced weapon systems. According to the author, the S-300 is sufficient to keep
Israeli planes in check.
Yellow_Snow , 12 hours ago
Just heard that Russia is indeed setting up a 'No Fly Zone' and will be doing Naval
training/testing in zones around Syria... between 0 and 19000 altitude
IsaHell has attacked Syria by air 200 times while the world has stood by...
S-400 needs to get deployed - now is the time - what's the point of having these SAM's and
never using them...
Needs to stop
caconhma , 1 day ago
Prostitutin is a CIA asset and a total POS.
Shemp 4 Victory , 23 hours ago
Yeah, you're the adequacy, of course.
Your reactions are worthy of Pavlov's dog. You, I suppose, were trained with the same
methods.
Victor999 , 21 hours ago
Throw him a treat.
Anunnaki , 1 day ago
Putin is a Ziomist
Brazen Heist II , 1 day ago
Rooting for the collapse of FUKUS and Pissraeli imperialism.
But evil takes time to weaken because evil still has much more power than it deserves.
Putin is playing the long game, he knows these devils don't value anything they preach,
and they are sore losers about Syria, and he is neutering their scumbag behaviour, which may
seem like acquiesence to some, but it is merely realpolitik because he knows the FUKUS +
Pissrael can overpower Russia if they are united, esp when Russia is seen to strike back with
force directly.
They were united in Syria until their ragtag army of headchoppers fell apart, thanks to
Russian and Iranian realpolitik. So Russia, like China and Iran, is biding its time and
deflecting some big hits, taking a few blows, but they are in it for the victory in the long
run which means weakening the FUKUS + Pissraeli imperialist alliance through attrition and
clever maneuvering.
ThanksChump , 1 day ago
This analysis is compelling. It would be nice to have corroborating evidence that it was
the French vessel that shot down the IL-20, but even without that evidence, this story
satisfies the Occam's Razor test. This was a major gamble against a better player.
So, is Assad going to get new S-300 or new S-400 systems? The Iranians might feel slighted
if Assad gets S-400s.
DEMIZEN , 1 day ago
the Russian heads will stay cool. militarily, it is too early to move in and go full
****** with air defences the Jews are too close and will study their gear and structure.
Russian voter is beginning to rise eyebrows i assume, and Putins reputation is taking a
hit. i bet there will some tough Putin videos following this mess to restore his image in
public. Russian public wants Jewish blood, but i cant see a good immediate response.Revenge
is best served cold.
this mess will be followed up with more gear and more training for SAA, you cant blame
Syrian Army for any of this, they sacrifice two dozens of soldiers on a good day. most of
Syria SAM crews were executed in the first months of the war.
ships will keep coming. SAA will keep growing, Russians will likely focus on Ukraine and
EU diplomacy now. Assad and Kurds need to sit down and look at the option. Opposition in
idlib will disarm or die.Guerillas w/o insignia will keep hitting SDF. US will leave AL Tanf.
Its going to be a slow winter.
nowhereman , 1 day ago
OOOH Nastradamus
DEMIZEN , 1 day ago
i actually knew your were going to comment.
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
Putin's reputation is not taking a hit!
What did Israel achieve in this attack? No one is reporting. Maybe Israel wanted to hit
Iranian militia units that were concentrating for the attack on Idlib before the units were
redeployed. We don't know.
Israel did not claim any success, just an attack without the loss of any F-16s.
In the eyes of Russians, Putin stood up to the "evil empire" once again. The cost was 15
soldiers. Russian's mothers are very vocal about sons coming home in body bags. That causes
social unrest. Support for Putin does not waver however. The deaths are the price Russia pays
to protect the mother land.
The author is correct that Putin's restraint shows skill and courage. Putin's weakness was
assigning blame for the 15 soldiers. Assigning blame was probably the work of some
sycophantic underlings.
sevensixtwo , 1 day ago
Who's going to say, "The Israelis attacked behind the Russian plane because they knew it
would mess up the radar on the S-200?"
BrownCoat , 22 hours ago
We don't know what caused the IL-20 destruction. Was it a French rocket? Was it a Syrian
or Russian working the missile defense system? My hunch is "friendly fire," but I wasn't
there.
Hindsight, the pilot should have disobeyed his flight plan and left the theater when the
SHTF. The plane could have landed in Cyprus. The pilot would have gotten grief (and probably
a demotion), but he would have saved the plane and its crew.
Mister Ponzi , 15 hours ago
You're making the mistake to let your emotions dominate your analysis. First, Russia does
not owe Syria (or any other Arab country for that matter) anything. As The Saker some time
ago rightly pointed out: Where was the Arab support for Russia in Chechenya or Georgia? Which
Arab country does recognize the indepence of Abkhasia, South Ossetia or Transnistria? What
was their reaction to Western sanctions against Russia? And how do they support Russia in the
case of Donbass or Crimea? Russia is in Syria only for her own interest and will do the
things that help her most. This will support the Assad government only in those areas where
the interest is aligned. If it were in Russian interest (which it isn't) they wouldn't
hesitate to get rid of Assad. Second, of course they give their S400s to Turkey because
Turkey is the big prize out there strategically. Sure, Erdogan is a despicable politicians
whose actions evoke memories of the darkest periods of the Ottoman Empire. But Russian
foreign policy is not driven by the hysterical human rights howling the West usually displays
(but only against governments that are not pro-Western) but by Realpolitik. You may welcome
it or reject it you must always analyze Russian foreign policy through this lens. Would
Russia tear Turkey out of the NATO phalanx if they could? Of course! Turkey would be a
tremendous loss for NATO strategically. This explains Russia's attitude towards Erdogan
including the chatter that it was Putin who warned Erdogan of the coup that was underway.
Third, the claim that Russia is too passive has been discussed so extensively that anyone who
wanted to understand the arguments of both sides and to weigh the pros and cons could have
done so, therefore, I'm not going to repeat the discussion here. For those who do not support
warmongering or cry "*****" all the time you can find a more balanced analysis of the Russian
position here:
Obviously a well planned operation and huge assault. No one is talking of the missiles
fired on Homs, Tartus and Latakia.
"One minute notice" by Israel, is patently unfair.
And the innocent US who took no part, but had a few nuclear subs and half a dozen warships
loaded and ready . . waiting for high noon!
Putin needs to get serious, or this will repeat in short time.
FBaggins , 1 day ago
Putin in dealing with three sociopath governments of three sociapathetic nations (Isreal,
the UK and the US) whose people are unable to elect leaders independent of the the sociopath
unelected puppet masters. He is not going to take the death of 15 servicemen lightly and the
sociopaths know this, but he is also not going to start WWIII over the incident. Sociopaths
like Netanyahu who want to escalate conflict in the area for the growth of Israel are
unpredictable.
Putin's job is to drive out the terrorist and stabilize the nation which is exactly the
opposite of what Israel, the UK and the US set out to do, but those nations continue to
support and even pay the terrorist insurgents they initially sent into Syria. They are
sociopaths because they do not give a rap about all of the killing and destruction they have
directly caused with their destabilization and regime change efforts to serve their own
designs. The entire world is aware of their crimes and increasingly will turn away from any
reliance on these nations or on their money.
The Ram , 1 day ago
FUKUS - forgot the 'I'. Should be written - I FUK US The 'I' being the real leader of the
pack.
Posa , 22 hours ago
Wrong. Getting into a shooting war at precisely the time when the US poodles in the EU are
ripe to be deposed would be a huge strategic mistake WHICH THE Anglo-Americans ARE TRYING to
provoke... not taking the bait is a smart move... in contrast to the USSR in Afghanistan, for
example, which became their Vietnam.
justdues , 1 day ago
Here is the oh so predictable Blankbrain with his usual demands that Putin act like a
punch drunk street thug and lash out at every provocation . Putin is way smarter than you
CIA/Mossad boy and those of us that aint in a hurry to see our loved ones vaporised thank God
for that.
A lot of people see society in organic terms, and think the maintenance of the whole
over-rides the welfare of any particular bit – even if that particular bit happens to be
themselves (Trump recently hit this theme when he tweeted that "patriotic" Americans were
prepared to sacrifice for the greater good in the trade war).
Heirarchy is probably unavoidable, not for reasons of individual difference but because
one-to-many organisation is the only form that scales readily. We can all have an equal voice on
a jury, but not when building a henge or a operating a car-factory.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of non-conservatives have a very difficult time grappling with the notion that a commitment to inequality, that a belief in the inherent superiority of some people over others, that one group has the the right to rule and dominate others, is a moral belief. ..."
"... Since, according to this argument, you are amongst other things, your social class, I cannot judge your moral actions unless I understand your social circumstances. But morality is a form of judgement, or to put it another way a ranking. Morality is means nothing unless I can say: 'you are more moral then him, she is more moral than you' and so on. (Nietzsche: 'Man is Man the esteemer' i.e. someone who ranks his or her fellow human beings: human beings cannot be morally equal or the phrase has no meaning). ..."
"... Therefore, unless people have a role in life (i.e. butcher, baker, candlestick maker) then morality collapses (this is the weak point in the argument and if you wanted to tear the whole edifice down you would start here). ..."
"... And of course this social order must be hierarchical, or else anyone can be anything one wants to be, and in that case, who will sweep the streets? ' ..."
"... In other words Conservatives believe that without hierarchy, without ranking and without a stratified (and therefore meaningful) social order, morality actually disintegrates. You simply cannot have a morality without these things: everything retreats into the realm of the subjective. Conservatives don't believe that things like the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields, the Great Terror, the Cultural Revolution are bad things that happened to happen: they believe that they are the necessary and inevitable end result of atheistical, relativistic, egalitarian politics. ..."
"... To the Right, the Left has no morality, as they understand the term, and cannot in fact do so. Leftist morality is a contradiction in terms, in this worldview. ..."
I think this is an incredibly important point here:
'One last point: A lot of non-conservatives have a very difficult time grappling with
the notion that a commitment to inequality, that a belief in the inherent superiority of some
people over others, that one group has the the right to rule and dominate others, is a moral
belief. For many people, particularly on the left, that idea is not so much immoral as
it is beyond the pale of morality itself. So that's where the charge that I'm being
dismissive or reductive comes from, I'm convinced. Because I say the animating idea of the
right is not freedom or virtue or limited government but instead power and privilege, people,
and again I see this mostly from liberals and the left, think I'm making some sort of claim
about conservatism as a criminal, amoral enterprise, devoid of principle altogether, whereas
I firmly believe I'm trying to do the exact opposite: to focus on where exactly the moral
divide between right and left lies.'
Both the Right and the Left, think that they are moral. And yet they disagree about moral
issues. How can this be?
The solution to this problem is to see that when Rightists and Leftists use the word
'moral' they are using the word in two different (and non compatible) senses. I won't dwell
on what the Left mean by morality: I'm sure most of you will be familiar with, so to speak,
your own moral code.
What the Right mean by morality is rather different, and is more easily seen in 'outliers'
e.g. right wing intellectuals like Evelyn Waugh and T.S. Eliot rather than politicians.
Intellectuals can be rather more open about their true beliefs.
The first key point is to understand the hostility towards 'abstraction': and what
purposes this serves. Nothing is more alien to right wing thought that the idea of an
Abstract Man: right wing thought is situational, contextual (one might even call it
relativistic) to the core. de Maistre states this most clearly: 'The (French) constitution of
1795, like its predecessors, has been drawn up for Man. Now, there is no such thing in the
world as Man . In the course of my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; I
am even aware, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be a Persian. But, as for Man, I declare
that I have never met him in my life.'
This sounds postmodern to us, even Leftist (and of course Marx might have given highly
provisional approval to this statement). But the question is not: is this statement true?
It's: 'what do the right do with this statement?'
Again to quote another reactionary thinker Jose Ortega y Gasseett: 'I am myself plus my
circumstances'. Again this is simply a definition of contextualism. So what are your
circumstances? They are, amongst other things, your social circumstances: i.e. your social
class.
Since, according to this argument, you are amongst other things, your social
class, I cannot judge your moral actions unless I understand your social circumstances. But
morality is a form of judgement, or to put it another way a ranking. Morality is means
nothing unless I can say: 'you are more moral then him, she is more moral than you' and so
on. (Nietzsche: 'Man is Man the esteemer' i.e. someone who ranks his or her fellow human
beings: human beings cannot be morally equal or the phrase has no meaning).
But I can't hermeneutically see what moral role you must play in life, I cannot judge you,
unless I have some criteria for this judgement, and for this I must know what your
circumstances are.
Therefore, unless people have a role in life (i.e. butcher, baker, candlestick maker)
then morality collapses (this is the weak point in the argument and if you wanted to tear the
whole edifice down you would start here). Because unless we know what one's social role
is then we can't assess whether or not people are living 'up to' that role. And of course
this social order must be hierarchical, or else anyone can be anything one wants to be, and
in that case, who will sweep the streets? '
And if anyone has any smart arse points to raise about that idea, God usually gets roped
in to function, literally, as a Deux ex Machina.
' The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.'
Clive James put it best when discussing Waugh: 'With no social order, there could be no
moral order. People had to know their place before they knew their duty he (and, more
importantly society) needed a coherent social system (i.e. an ordered social system, a
hierarchical social system)'
In other words Conservatives believe that without hierarchy, without ranking and
without a stratified (and therefore meaningful) social order, morality actually
disintegrates. You simply cannot have a morality without these things: everything retreats
into the realm of the subjective. Conservatives don't believe that things like the Khmer
Rouge's Killing Fields, the Great Terror, the Cultural Revolution are bad things that
happened to happen: they believe that they are the necessary and inevitable end result of
atheistical, relativistic, egalitarian politics. Social 'levelling', destroying
meaningful (i.e. hierarchical ('organic' is the euphemism usually used)) societies will
usually, not always but usually, lead to genocide and/or civil war. Hence the hysteria that
seizes most Conservatives when the word relativism is used. And their deep fear of
postmodernism, a small scale, now deeply unfashionable art movement with a few (very few)
philosophical adherents: as it destroys hierarchy and undermines one's capacity to judge and
therefore order one's fellow human beings, it will tend to lead to the legalisation of
pedophilia, the legalisation of rape, the legalisation of murder, war, genocide etc, because,
to repeat, morality depends on order. No social order= no morality.
Hence the Right's deep suspicion of the left's morality. To the Right, the Left
has no morality, as they understand the term, and cannot in fact do so. Leftist
morality is a contradiction in terms, in this worldview.
"... My take on Minsky moment is that banking introduces positive feedback loop into the system, making it (as any dynamic system with strong positive feedback loop) unstable. ..."
"... To compensate you need to introduce negative feedback loop in a form of regulation and legal system that vigorously prosecute financial oligarchy "transgressions," instilling fear and damping its predatory behavior and parasitic rents instincts. In a way number of bankers who go to jail each year is metric of stability of the system. Which was a feature (subverted and inconsistent from the beginning and decimated in 70th) of New Deal Capitalism. ..."
These days are the tenth anniversary of the biggest Minsky
Moment since the Great Depression. While when it happened most commentators mentioned Minsky
and many even called it a "Minsky Moment," most of the commentary now does not use that term
and much does not even mention Minsky, much less Charles Kindleberger or Keynes. Rather much of
the discussion has focused now on the failure of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2017. A new
book by Lawrence Ball has argued that the Fed could have bailed LB out as they did with Bear
Stearns in February of that year, with Ball at least, and some others, suggesting that would
have resolved everything, no big crash, no Great Recession, no angry populist movement more
recently, heck, all hunky dory if only the Fed had been more responsible, although Ball
especially points his finger at Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, for especially
pressuring Bernanke and Geithner at the Fed not to repeat Bear Stearns. And indeed when they
decided not to support Lehman, the Fed received widespread praise in much of the media
initially, before its fall blew out AIG and brought down most of the pyramid of highly
leveraged derivatives of derivatives coming out of the US mortgage market ,which had been
declining for over two years.
Indeed, I agree with Dean Baker as I have on so many times regarding all this that while
Lehman may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, it was the camel's back breaking
that was the problem, and it was almost certainly going to blow big time reasonably soon then.
It it was not Lehman, it was going to be something else. Indeed, on July 12, 2008, I posted
here on Econospeak a
forecast of this, declaring "It looks like we might be finally reaching the big crash in the US
mortgage market after a period of distress that started last August (if not earlier)."
I drew on Minsky's argument (backed by Kindleberger in his Manias, Panics, and
Crashes ) that the vast majority of major speculative bubbles experience periods of gradual
decline after their peaks prior to really seriously crashing during what Minsky labeled the
"period of financial distress," a term he adopted from the corporate finance literature. The US
housing market had been falling since July, 2006. The bond markets had been declining since
August, 2007, the stock market had been declining since October, 2007, and about the time I
posted that, the oil market reached an all-time nominal peak of $147 per barrel and began a
straight plunge that reached about $30 per barrel in November, 2008. This was a massively
accelerating period of distress with the real economy also dropping, led by falling residential
consumption. In mid-September the Minsky Moment arrived, and the floor dropped out of not just
these US markets, but pretty much all markets around the world, with world economy then falling
into the Great Recession.
Let me note something I have seen nobody commenting on in all this outpouring on this
anniversary. This is how the immediate Minsky Moment ended. Many might say it was the TARP or
the stress tests or the fiscal stimulus, All of these helped to turn around the broader slide
that followed by the Minsky Moment. But there was a more immediate crisis that went on for
several days following the Lehman collapse, peaking on Sept. 17 and 18, but with obscure
reporting about what went down then. This was when nobody at the Board of Governors went home;
cots made an appearance. This was the point when those at the Fed scrambled to keep the whole
thing from turning into 1931 and largely succeeded. The immediate problem was that the collapse
of AIG following the collapse of Lehman was putting massive pressure on top European banks,
especially Deutsches Bank and BNP Paribas. Supposedly the European Central Bank (ECB) should
have been able to handle this But along with all this the ECB was facing a massive run on the
euro as money fled to the "safe haven" of the US dollar, so ironic given that the US markets
generated this mess.
Anyway, as Neil Irwinin The Alchemists (especially Chap. 11) documented, the crucial
move that halted the collapse of the euro and the threat of a fullout global collapse was a set
of swaps the Fed pulled off that led to it taking about $600 billion of Eurojunk from the
distressed European banks through the ECB onto the Fed balance sheet. These troubled assets
were gradually and very quietly rolled off the Fed balance sheet over the next six months to be
replaced by mortgage backed securities. This was the save the Fed pulled off at the worst
moment of the Minsky Moment. The Fed policymakers can be criticized for not seeing what was
coming (although several people there had spotted it earlier and issued warnings, including
Janet Yellen in 2005 and Geithner in a prescient speech in Hong Kong in September, 2006, in
which he recognized that the housing related financial markets were highly opaque and fragile).
But this particular move was an absolute save, even though it remains today very little known,
even to well-informed observers.
Barkley Rosser
run75441 , September 18, 2018 7:07 am
Barkley:
A few days ago, it was just a housing bubble to which a few of us pointed out an abnormal
housing bubble created by fraud and greed on Wall Street. The market was riddled with false
promises to pay through CDS, countering naked-CDS both of which had little if any reserves in
this case to back up each AIG CDS insuring Goldman Sachs securities. When Goldman Sachs made
that call to AIG, there were few funds to pay out and AIG was on the verge of collapse.
And today, some of those very same created banks under TARP which were gambling then and
some of which had legal issues are free from the stress testing Dodd – Frank imposed
upon banks with assets greater than $50 billion. Did the new limit need to be $250 billion?
Volcker thought $100 billion was adequate and Frank argued for a slightly higher limit well
under $250 billion. The fox is in the chicken coop again with Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas,
UBS, and Credit Suisse not being regulated as closely and 25 of the largest 38 banks under
less regulation. These are not community banks and they helped to bring us to our knees. Is
it still necessary for American Express to be a bank and have access to low interest rates
the Fed offers? I think not; but, others may disagree with me. It is not a bank.
You remember the miracle the Fed pulled off as detailed in The Alchemists which I also
read at your recommendation. I remember the fraud and greed on Wall Street for which Main
Street paid for with lost equity, jobs, etc. I remember the anger of Wall Street Execs who
were denied bonuses and states who had exhausted unemployment funding denying workers
unemployment. We were rescued from a worse fate; but, the memory of the cure the nation's
citizenry had to take for Wall Street greed and fraud leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
EMichael , September 18, 2018 8:39 am
This never ending meme about Tarp saving the banks is really starting to aggravate me. The
Fed saved the banking system(on both sides of the Atlantic) before Tarp issued one dollar,
and they did so with trillions, not billions, of loans and guarantees that stopped the run on
the banks and mutual funds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Just look at the amounts. Tarp gave out $250 billion to the banks. Do people seriously
think this saved the banking system? Or that Wells goes under without their $25 billion
loan?
Tarp was window dressing and pr, not a solution by any stretch of the imagination.
"Bloomberg ran quite a story, yesterday. It stems from a Freedom of Information Act
Request that yielded the details of previously secret borrowing from the federal government
to the biggest banks.
The bottom line, reports Bloomberg, by March of 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion
"to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the
U.S. that year." The lending began in August of 2007.
The reporting from Bloomberg Markets Magazine is spectacular, so we hope you click over
and give the exhaustive piece a read."
If you pick up The Alchemist, I believe you will see all of this ($7 trillion) explained
in there. TARP was used to buy up junk MBS from banks by the Treasury and separate from the
FED. It was also used to buy up bank stock to give them reserves. It saved two of the three
OEMs too.
Ken Houghton , September 18, 2018 11:52 am
The general U.S. mortgage market died on Hallwe'en 2006. By the first quarter of 2007, it
was dead even for IBs who owned originators.
There were two IBs who were dependent on MBS for their profits: Bear and Lehmann. Doesn't
mean they didn't have other businesses, but their earnings would go from a V-8 to a
3-cylinder.
Bear went first, and ShitforBrains Fuld & Co. had six months after that to shore up
capital, find a buyer, or go under.
We all knew that the reason Bear was saved wasn't out of generosity, but because it really
would have had a systemic effect had it gone through bankruptcy proceedings. But THAT was
because Bear had two core businesses, and the other one was Custodial Services.
Had Bear gone through bankruptcy, those Customer funds would have been inaccessible for at
least 30 days.
Lehmann had no similar function; failure of Lehmann was failure of Lehmann.
Fuld knew all of this and still fucked around for six months pretending he was driving a
911 instead of a Geo Metro.
Lawrence Ball is a brain-dead idiot if he thinks saving that firm would have in any way
made things better.
likbez , September 18, 2018 12:41 pm
My take on Minsky moment is that banking introduces positive feedback loop into the
system, making it (as any dynamic system with strong positive feedback loop) unstable.
To compensate you need to introduce negative feedback loop in a form of regulation and
legal system that vigorously prosecute financial oligarchy "transgressions," instilling fear
and damping its predatory behavior and parasitic rents instincts. In a way number of bankers
who go to jail each year is metric of stability of the system. Which was a feature (subverted
and inconsistent from the beginning and decimated in 70th) of New Deal Capitalism.
As neoliberalism is essentially revenge of financial oligarchy which became the ruling
class again, this positive feedback loop is an immanent feature of neoliberalism.
Financial oligarchy is not interesting in regulation and legal framework that suppresses
its predatory and parasitic "instincts." So this is by definition is an unstable system prone
to periodic financial "collapses." In which the government needs to step in and save the
system.
So the question about the 2008 financial crisis is when the next one commences and how
destructive it will be. Not why it happened.
likbez , September 18, 2018 12:47 pm
In a perverse way the percentage of financial executives who go to jail each year might be
viewed as a metric of stability of the financial system ;-)
Perhaps the Eagle Ford will never be profitable, it will depend on the price of oil and
many other factors.
I guess I have a little more faith in the oil industry than you.
EOG has produced a fair amount of oil in the Eagle Ford and their net income in 2014 (when
oil prices were high) was $2.9 billion, about 178 kb/d of C+C was produced from Eagle Ford in
2014 (about 65 million barrels) by EOG (about 62% of total 2014 EOG C+C output). The average
price for C+C in the US received by EOG was about $93/b in 2014.
So it seems in 2014, for a well run oil company, $93/b worked just fine. Over the period
from 2010 to 2014 EOG's net income was about $6 billion. From 2010 to 2017, the total net
income was about $2.6 billion (not adjusted for inflation) as 2015 and 2016 were bad years
with 5 billion losses in net income.
Debt to assets at the end of 2017 was about 21% with debt at $6.4 billion and assets at
$29.8 billion. In 2017 Eagle Ford output was about 47% of EOG's C+C output, the average oil
price EOG received in the US was $50.91/b in 2017, about $600 million of long term debt was
paid off in 2017 with no new long term debt issued, but net cash flow was negative $766
million.
A discounted cash flow at a 10% annual discount rate results in a breakeven oil price (10%
annual ROI) of $90.3/b for the average 2016 Eagle Ford well, if we assume a well cost of 9
million. Note that this is a "real" discount rate as I do costs in real inflation adjusted
dollars, so it is equivalent to a nominal discount rate of 12.5% so would be equivalent to a
nominal annual ROI of 12.5%.
EUR is 238 kb over 13.8 years and the well is shut in at 10 b/d. An assumption of 15 b/d
shut in reduces EUR to 220 kb and well life to 9.75 years, and breakeven oil price rises to
$91/b, an increase of 70 cents per barrel. Well payout is in 46 months at $91/b.
What is the full cost of the average Eagle Ford well?
Note that I have assumed zero revenue from natural gas or NGL in my breakeven analysis and am
considering C+C output only, not sure if there are natural gas pipeline bottlenecks in the
EFS as there seems to be in the Permian basin. In any case, the economics might be slightly
better when natural gas is included.
There wasn't significant drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale until 2011. How many of the 700
inactive wells started producing in 2009 and 2010? By Enno Peters data using Eagle Ford and
unknown wells in Karnes County from Jan 2011 to Dec 2016, I get 2487 horizontal wells
completed in total over that period. Note that the productivity rate distribution at Enno's
site gives some funky numbers at the low end, so they should probably be ignored. "Zero"
output after 24 months should probably be less than 15 b/d after 24 months. For Eagle Ford
2014 wells, supposedly there are 1747 wells with zero production rate after 24 months out of
3962 total wells, this is just a programming error. That is, zero does not mean zero in this
case, would be my guess.
I checked with Enno Peters on this and the lowest column means output at 24 months is 0 to 50
b/d, same is true for each column it is from the previous to the next label so 0-50, 50-100,
etc.
Could over 20% of the horizontal wells in Karnes Co., TX already be shut in for over
one year? These wells first produced 1/1/2019 to 12/31/2016, so they are not old wells at
all? Less than 10 year economic life?
No the wells have not been shut in as you think, for 2009 to 2016 wells in Karnes county
and Eagle Ford Formation I get 763 wells with "zero" production rate at Enno's site. He has
pointed out that this is really 0 to 50 bopd for those 763 wells out of a total of 2425 wells
producing that started production from 2009 to 2016. The average production rate was 86 bopd
for all of the Karnes county Eagle Ford formation wells.
For all counties there were 15,600 wells with 7754 wells with output at 0 to 50 bopd at 24
months. Average for all counties is 63 bopd at 24 months. At 12 months the average rate was
127 bopd for all counties with about 25% of the wells at 0 to 50 bopd at 12 months.
Older article, but more important, now. EIA, and most of the Rystad type companies are
continuing to report significant increases in the Permian. Latest monthlies are from June,
all else is estimated, including drilling info. Completions are happening, and the new wells
included in drilling info are, no doubt, true as to production. Who measures shut ins until
final numbers are accumulated? Who spends significant time communicating with the small
producer? Heck, they make up half the wells drilled in the Permian. I think there are
considerable shut ins that will eventually reduce the magnificent increases that are
currently being reported.
I ran a quick search on horizontal wells in Karnes Co., TX.
I found 2,778 active horizontal wells with first production from 1/1/2009 to
12/31/2016,
In the most recent month, here are the numbers:
170 wells produced 3,001+ BO
1,034 wells produced 1,001-3,000 BO
872 wells produced 501-1,000 BO
702 wells produced 1-500 BO
Could that be correct?
Furthermore, there appear to be over 700 inactive wells, which are defined as wells that
have no recorded oil or gas production in the last 12 months.
Could over 20% of the horizontal wells in Karnes Co., TX already be shut in for over one
year? These wells first produced 1/1/2019 to 12/31/2016, so they are not old wells at all?
Less than 10 year economic life?
I know Mike has commented on how bad the EFS really is economically. It seems the hyper
focus is now on the PB. However, EFS produces significant volumes of oil. Looks like this one
could really collapse once the last locations are completed.
I saw many, many wells with cumulative production of 250K oil, that are now producing
under 500 BO per month.
I ran the same search on De Witt Co., TX. Less wells, but similar results. Interesting to
see all the wells in both counties that have maybe paid out, but are now producing less than
500 BO per month.
Even Karnes County has it's less than tier one oil areas, and a lot of the wells were not up
to par in the beginning. The well has to pay out capex in the first year, or its not worth
drilling. Profit in year two and three, and not much after that. Period. End of story. I
don't see much better out of the Permian, and may be getting worse. Yes, on the whole, less
than a ten year economic life. Gets a lot worse in tier two stuff, and tier three stuff is,
at these prices, a definite loss. But they are still drilling in tier three areas, go figure.
My lease area is producing around 250k to 300k total, and it is barely touched, because EOG
wants 300k. Yeah, when the tier one areas play out, costs to maintain will be prohibitive.
Increase? Just a dream.
Look at EOG's economics of which wells are "premium" locations. There are not many left, and
EOG probably owns the lion's share. It has to produce 200k barrels the first year. They
priced that at $40 oil price, but it makes no difference, because it doesn't change the
number of locations that can generate 200k barrels. They are justifying production to a 5200
ft lateral. Some make significantly more, some less. I have that memorized, as my wells have
proven from the 125k to 175k the first year. Probably, a 250k to 300k EUR. So, I have to
wait. They will be venturing into my area sometime before their "premium" locations are
depleted. Beginning of the year, that count was at 2300. About 10 years at their current
drilling rate, and less if they pick up activity. These are developmental wells, the Permian
is still largely exploratory.
As far as holdings go, EOG is the cream of the crop. So, you can't make averages based on
one company. Most look far, far worse. Their financial info was shit before, as were all the
rest. Setting a bar for where to drill, will, in all likelihood, make them much better. There
are a large number of smaller companies who still complete wells in tier three acreage. It's
amazing, they know what they will get. I see initial production at 500 barrels a day, or
less, and I know that someone is losing money.
Now, do the math. There is not 10 years, or in most cases even five years of economically
recoverable oil from shale. A 60 month payback???? At the highest bracket, it includes wells
with about 3000 barrels a month. And there are only about 10k of those. Less than 3 years of
completions. And if you look at the total number of producing wells it is slightly less now
than in 2014. So, what happened to them??! To make it clearer, the number of wells that has
become inactive is pretty close to the number of wells that has been drilled in four years.
Yeah, production is up, because the wells producing over 3000 a month is up. But applying a
ten year, or even five year economic life to them is pretty stupid. But, I don't have to look
at total numbers to get to that conclusion, I look at individual wells, or groups of wells in
a lease. It's a lot steeper treadmill than the hoopla indicates. Here's the count from Dec
2014. Shale wells will probably not drop down into the last category, so just look at the
first two to compare them to current. If they do drop into the last category, the production
doesn't mean much to the cost of the well, or profitability. About four thousand more, and
tens of thousands of new wells since then. http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/media/26405/welldistribution1214.pdf
So, think about this when your looking at Eno's data, averages are deceiving. Whether they
are tier one, two, or three makes a huge difference.
The links to the report show plugging activity. Substantial. In August EF had 120 oil
completions, and 50 something oil wells plugged. Completions were higher in August. Dec 2017,
oil wells completed and plugged were almost equal. That is not an exact description of EF
horizontals, but that is the main thing going in these districts. $250 sounds low, I think.
Shallow, FTR, last thread: my current est. economic limits of 15-18 BOPD for LTO wells will
be much higher for major integrated companies, yes. The everything is peachy 'assumption' is
that smaller companies will buy those wells and carry on. I do not believe that. A 6-10%
decline in total UR because of premature economic limits IS a big deal. It makes or breaks
thousands of wells.
The liquids rich gas leg of DeWitt and Karnes Counties IMO will see <35% of its wells
be 'significantly' profitable, for instance above 150 ROI. Your data you are showing is a big
deal that seems to be going plum over peoples heads. Sorry. Time will show that the Eagle
Ford was, is the biggest financial toilet of all three shale basins; the economics are indeed
awful. I operate conventional production IN the EF trend and have interest in wells. Folks
don't realize how many $10-12MM dollar wells were drilled from 2009-2013. Jeff Brown and I
guessed eight years ago only 35-40% of shale oil wells in the EF will even pay back
D&C&A costs. I think that is way too high now.
Whatever the definition of "works," means, Dennis, for the EF; newer well designs are
leading to much higher IP180-360, but not higher UR. It does not look that way to me. Now new
wells in the EF must carry the burden of the highest level of legacy debt in the LTO
industry. To maintain and actually pay that debt back will take much higher oil prices than
you think as the play is now pretty much exhausted. At current oil prices it takes 325-350K
BO to pay new wells with longer laterals and much bigger frac's out.
The LTO industry is not in business so people can speculate about how much oil it is going
to make, or the jobs it provides, or how much cheaper gasoline it can provide for
consumers https://www.oilystuffblog.com/single-post/2018/09/12/Cartoon-Of-the-Week
; its in business to MAKE money. 150 ROI's is not making sufficient money to be self
sustainable and be able to kick the credit/debt addiction.
Longhorn is correct, Matador did indeed pay $95K an acre for PMNM acreage. I suggest we
bow our heads and honor its shareholders with a moment of silence and a little prayer to the
Goddess of Wolfcamp in order that she be merciful. Another bench Matador is touting to
justify its "wisdom" is the (De) Cline shale interval. Phftttttt.
The irony is that the majors and large independents divested of many assets in the US lower
48 in the 1990s because they were perceived as high cost with little economic future.
However, folks like us are still producing that stuff profitably.
OTOH the same companies are now spending large sums on shale, which is economically
inferior to what they divested 20-30 years ago.
Mr.Simmons likely never considered the productive wonders of a cash flow negative oil boom
aka USA LTO sarc/
I wonder how many more cash flow negative oil booms the world can endure, and how long USA
LTO will last. While we're at it, I wonder how the pension funds invested in USA LTO are
gonna do for their members once the rats under the floorboards get flushed out.
Buckle your chin strap. Within a few to several years we'll perhaps know better how this
is gonna shake out. George Kaplan and Dennis Coyne had some future production charts in the
comments of last post. By my rough eyeball and memory, I think George Kaplan had future
production down to about 40 million barrels a day by 2050 (see link below). Dennis, ever the
optimist ;), had us down to about 50 million barrels a day by 2050 (see Mr. Coynes comments
in response to George). Either way, those alive in 2050 are gonna be living in a very
different world!
A lot depends on how much oil can be extracted. George Kaplan's scenario looks to be
roughly a URR of 2400 Gb if the 2020 to 2063 trend continues in future years (it is roughly
straight line decline over that period so I just extended the line to zero and estimated URR.
It is more likely, in my view that URR will be about 3060 Gb (including 260 Gb of extra heavy
and LTO oil), that's about midway between a pessimistic HL scenario(2600 GB) and optimistic
USGS scenario (3000 Gb) for conventional oil.
Also higher rates of extraction could keep production a bit higher maybe 64 Mb/d in 2050,
it will depend on the length of Great Depression 2 in 2030. Of course I think that might only
last 4-5 years, being an optimist.
I haven't worked it out but I'd guess the ultimate recovery is more than your estimate.
First, as I said before, the XH production is based on long cycle projects, so it would have
a fat tail extending beyond when most of the conventional oil is exhausted (there are a few
reasons for that but one is that it needs upgraders and those are not built with excess
capacity). Second, as I said twice before, Laherrere has about 180 Gb of "rest of the world"
reserves that I didn't include as I don't know what they represent – if they are
undiscovered oil then at current rates it will take about 40 years to find them, or if the
recent trend for declining discoveries holds then forever.
And that is the last I am going to write – or read – on that Laherrere paper. It
was just a comment on a blog, not an article in Nature or the Times or even a letter to
either of those, or even a letter to the local free advertising paper. I wrote it most for my
own interest, writing things out help clarify ideas, but I rarely do more than a cursory
proofread. Most people who bothered to look at it would have read a couple of sentences and
skimmed the rest, a very few might have got more out of it. It didn't change anything
fundamental. If somebody was going to write another comment they wrote exactly what they were
going to write anyway.
It won't take to 2050 to see a different world. Just a small fall in supply has effects
well out of proportion to the nominal cash value of the oil lost. Cheap flights would
disappear, trade would plummet, GDPs shrink – the books have to balance one way or
another (see recent paper on impact on trade, I think by Barclays, and works by Hall and
Kummel). The biggest impact might be food prices, they could easily double and more short
term, then the few billion who spend half their income on food suddenly have to spend it all.
Turmoil would ensue and likely knock more oil supply off line. There was a paper about Sweden
I think – from memory (don't quote me) a rapid fall by a quarter of the oil available
leads to collapse and by a half to complete loss of civilization.
At the same time the declining cheap and efficient energy would hamper efforts to address
the other big ticket, long term issues: rising population, evolutionary inevitable
aspirations – "poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain't
satisfied till he rules everything" (of course); declining levels in some of the big aquifers
(a few are getting to the point where the basic pump designs don't work, the replacements
needed are much more expensive and much more energy intensive); declining soil loss (at
current rate all the soil on sloped arable land will be gone in 50 years – that's a
third – and most of the rest in another 50); and of course climate change related
extreme weather. This year we've had record heat waves, wild fires, typhoons and (soon)
hurricanes plus droughts etc. Soon those will be weekly events (we're not far off now) but on
top of that we will be having two or three extreme extreme-weather events per year. More and
more of the oil will be going simply to triage on these (but the patient will get worse
anyway). At some point countries will cease to be liberal democracies, the USA seems to be
leading the way there, and say what you like about liberal democracies they have never
declared war on each other, dictatorships on the other hand
People will say oh we just need to do this, that or the other – but there is no
"just" about any of it, and especially as oil disappears: ignoring the externalities there is
absolutely no better real energy source imaginable by some way, especially the cheap stuff we
used to have.
You of course know all this and are preparing much better than me, I do not much more than
appease my conscience by not flying and hardly ever riding in a car, but I think I'm getting
to the "acceptance" stage and pretty much missed out on depression (no physical symptoms
anyway).
[end of rant].
I tend to agree with you George. Only a small decrease a short time after peak, and the
realization that it's not going back up, will likely open a lot of people's eyes to the fact
that almost every stock and equity is overvalued (come to understand that anticipated future
growth will not be realized). I plan to hunker down and catch up on my reading while the dust
settles, and I'm thinking there'll be a lot of dust. I'll send you a map. Password is 'I
think I'm with the band'.
I find this to be also an interesting take on the future of oil
So what does Trump do before the midterms? Live with higher prices? Quietly drop the
sanctions ? Find a way to get Iranian oil on the market while pretending there are sanctions?
Accept the high prices and blame Obama?
Oil price can rise some, now. It's only a month and a half to go. Gasoline stocks are high,
so it will take some trickle down time. Raiding the SPR is overkill.
I'm betting they don't. Saudi production in September is more likely to be down than up. But
if it is up it will only by a tiny amount, not near enough to affect prices. Saudi Arabis is
just not interested in increasing production by any significant amount. They would like to
keep production steady .if possible.
"Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the
turmoil & disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil
production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference Prices to high! He has
agreed!" the tweet read.
And of course, after the King hung up the phone he probably said: "We are not going
to do any of that shit." The Saudis, just like Trump's staff, know he is an idiot.
"And of course, after the King hung up the phone he probably said: "We are not going to do
any of that shit."
I doubt that happened but I don't have any inside contacts in the WH to confirm. My guess
is that Trump has turned up the heat on Iran because of requests from KSA & Israel.
The USA has been helping MbS with is Yemen war, as well as proxy war in Syria. If KSA want
the US to economically crush Iran, than KSA will need to help but increasing its Oil exports.
Perhaps KSA as some oil stashed in storage that it could release for a short period. My guess
KSA would delay using its storage reserves until there is a price spike that might force the
US to back off on Iran.
I doubt that happened but I don't have any inside contacts in the WH to confirm.
You doubt what happened? The quote was a tweet directly from the President. He sent it out
to the world, you don't need an inside contact to the White House. Trump's tweets go out to
the public.
Yes, it did happen. Of course, the part about what the King did afterward was just
speculation on my part. But he did not increase oil production as Trump requested. That much
we do know.
Not arguing the tweet Trumpet made, but your reasoning that the MbS will ignore the
request.
I am reasonably sure MbS wants the USA to go after Iran, and thus has a motive to try to
comply with Trumpet's request for more Oil. That said, I very much doubt KSA can increase
production, but they may have 50 to 150 mmbl in storage they could release if Oil prices
spike.
FYI:
"Why The U.S. Is Suddenly Buying A Lot More Saudi Oil"
" the Saudis are responding to the demands of their staunch ally U.S. President Donald
Trump, who has repeatedly slammed OPEC for the high gasoline prices, urging the cartel in
early July to "REDUCE PRICING NOW!""
"Saudi Arabia cut last week its official selling price (OSP) for its flagship Arab Light
grade for October to Asia by US$0.10 a barrel to US$1.10 a barrel premium to the Dubai/Oman
average"
So it appears that KSA is trying to comply with Trumpet's request. At least by trying to
lower the oil prices via selling their oil at a discount.
** Note: Not trying to be a PITA, just providing an alternative viewpoint. I do value what
you post. Hope you understand.
Libya and Nigeria more likely to go down than up from here to the end of the year and
probably drag down overall OPEC numbers with them. First cargo from Egina (200 kbpd
nameplate) will be in early January. Angola looks like it might be in trouble. Sonangol were
predicting possible 10 to 20%+ decline rates for the on-line FPSOs from about 2023, but it
might be happening a few years early, and their only new production was from EOR type
projects as far as I could see, none of which have been announced, plus a couple of small
tie-backs.
"The short-term investment focus adopted since 2014 offers a finite set of opportunities
over a limited period of time, and this period is now clearly coming to an end as seen by
accelerating decline rates in many countries around the world," Kibsgaard pointed out.
BAU won't get it done – no quick fixes, 'new shale revolution' or 'reserve
production' to get us through – my interest is mostly how we (as a society and culture)
will react as constraints on the resource 'haves' and 'have nots' set in.
Went through Irma in South Florida last Fall – and in general order was maintained
– but really only out of Gas for about 3 days – and was more of a shock type
shortage. A very slow decline of world supply will hit those who can't pay for it most
– and maybe wake up enough through higher prices to begin planning for what will be the
greatest energy transition that must take place!
The big oil companies are selling a story of long term stability to their investors, partly
so they can justify the long term investments needed for the mega-projects where they get
most of their oil and cashflow (some of those see no net return for many years). They only
need to sell themselves to their investors, not their customers who just buy the cheapest or
most convenient, be it crude to refineries or petrol to motorists.
The service companies live more year to year – they get hired to help develop and
drill a field and then their workload drops a lot except for some well servicing during
operation. Schlumberger is selling itself to its customers (the 'operators' who are the
E&P companies) and investors as the go to guy for the next couple of years as activity
tries to pick up but faces increasing issues as the easy (and now not so easy but still
OK-ish) oil goes away.
Schlumberger is not a typical service provider to the producers, although that is a large
portion of their business. Since their purchase of Cameron International and other oilfield
manufacturing companies, they have been providing facility engineering and fabrication
services to the oil producers worldwide.
In point of fact, Schlumberger does have the information that the producers have, and then
some. They use those numbers as a basis for facility engineering, and as such are arguably in
a better position to interpret them than the producer as of late.
I've regularly read the BP annual report, and have come to regard it as little more than a
curiosity. Schlumberger, Shell and Total have a firmer grip on the world oil situation, based
on my read of their CEO's comments. However that may be confirmation bias on my part. We
shall see .
Probably the more important item is Russian reserves my estimate is we are at 90% depletion
for existing technology and OIP at cost for western Russian reserves. At this point a squeeze
plan in Syria would ensure foreign reserve earnings to into wars and not fuels outcome is
standard wars as a result of miss spending income
Yes, I assume they have some problems since they reformed the tax system in favor of upstream
risky projects and at the same time imposed more taxes on downstream refineries. But to
assume Russia has problems is like assuming the whole world has a problem. Could be perfectly
right, but why expose Russia as opposed to others? Russia has a lot of higher cost oil; just
look at the land mass and offshore mass. How could there not be prospects? Some inside
knowledge is sorely lacking, since I like most western people don't have connections in that
part of the world.
80% of the world's oil has peaked, and the resulting oil crunch will flatten the
economy.
New scientific research suggests that the world faces an imminent oil crunch, which
will trigger another financial crisis.
A report by HSBC shows that contrary to the commonplace narrative in the industry, even
amidst the glut of unconventional oil and gas, the vast bulk of the world's oil production
has already peaked and is now in decline; while European government scientists show that the
value of energy produced by oil has declined by half within just the first 15 years of the
21st century.
The upshot? Welcome to a new age of permanent economic recession driven by ongoing
dependence on dirty, expensive, difficult oil unless we choose a fundamentally different
path.
Then they say: The HSBC report you need to read, now
Real issue is giants, your article in 2015 real issue is 90% ..real issue is squeeze play in
motion in Syria..goal? if don't have it, don't drill it at home, no rig increases so 'end
game' is cut off Isreali/Saudi friendly arab gas to Europe own Caspian area (city I recall
owned by Ukraine under British treaty Yelsin) in end no WW2 buildup during economic issues
(Russia 5M/day, Saudi similar) no Hilter, just preempt what's left..
I downloaded it then, and just had to look at the date the file was created. You probably
also have it in your hard-drive.
It provided a nice confirmation to my thesis that Peak Oil won't happen in the future. It
is taking place now, and the date we entered the Peak Oil plateau was 2015. You also
forecasted that, as I did.
You are correct. Hey, I am 80 years old and I just can't remember shit anymore.
Okay, I posted a few days ago that I thought peak oil would be in 2019. Perhaps I was
wrong. Hell, I have been wrong quite a few times. But now perhaps peak oil is right now.
Perhaps? We shall see.
But my point is everyone seems to be agreeing with me now. Old giant fields are seeing an
ever increase in decline rates. I predicted this a long time ago. Once the water hits those
horizontal laterals at the very top of the reservoir, the game is over.
The decline rate in those old giant fields is increasing at an alarming rate.
Obviously! Fucking obviously. It could not possibly be otherwise. Thank you and
goodnight.
Memory is less necessary these days with internet, computers, and smart phones, where
searches can be run in a moment. Don't worry too much about that.
"But my point is everyone seems to be agreeing with me now."
I discovered your blog in 2014 when looking for confirmation on my suspicion that the oil
price crash was going to result in Peak Oil. I was impressed to see that you were there years
before through your analyses. I have a lot of respect for you and your intellectual capacity,
and I agree with you in many things, besides Peak Oil, including the population problem, and
your worries about the environment.
I don't believe the world cannot increase its oil production, I just believe it won't do
it. Both Saudi Arabia and Russia have the capacity to go full throttle on what they have
left. Shaybah is the most recent supergiant in KSA and expected to produce until 2060 at
current output. No doubt they could increase production from Shaybah by a lot, but it is not
in their interest to do so. Russia lacks the capacity to quickly increase its production, but
there's still plenty of oil in Eastern Siberia, so they could also produce more. Again it is
also unlikely, as it would require an investment and effort that goes against their own
interest.
Peak Oil is not happening because the world is trying to produce more oil and failing, it
is happening by a combination of economical, geological, and political factors that could not
be easily predicted and that were set in motion in the early 2000's when the low-hanging
fruit of conventional on-shore and off-shore crude oil (the cheapest kind to produce) reached
its production limit. Political errors, like taking out Gaddafi, added unnecessary
difficulties. The collapse of Venezuela is the latest political cause. And when things start
to go wrong, it never rains, but it pours.
"Peak Oil is not happening because the world is trying to produce more oil and failing, it is
happening by a combination of economical, geological, and political factors that could not be
easily predicted and that were set in motion in the early 2000's when the low-hanging fruit
of conventional on-shore and off-shore crude oil (the cheapest kind to produce) reached its
production limit."
Isn't this just a distinction without a difference? It's peak oil.
The issue is that Peak Oil has been misunderstood by most people. The argument that Peak Oil
won't happen until this or that date because ultimate reserves are such or such, so often
read in this forum, is incorrect. Even economically recoverable reserves are not decisive. To
make the problem intractable there are many liquids so some might peak while others don't so
discussions about Peak Oil are endless.
But it is very simple. Peak Oil is when the world no longer gets the oil it needs to keep
expanding its economy. And the best way to measure it is through C+C, because crude oil is
what we have been getting since the late 19th C ans is the stuff that produces everything our
economy needs, from asphalt to diesel, plane fuel, and gasoline. NGL won't cut it. Biofuels
won't cut it.
And Peak Oil is being determined by economical and political factors, besides the
geology.
The difference matters because Peak Oil is going to get almost everybody by surprise. Most
won't realize what is the cause of all the troubles we are going to get and they'll be
reassured that there is plenty of oil to be extracted, which is true but irrelevant.
Thanks for the reply. I also tremble at the prospect of what is to happen because of the
failure of the predictions last decade. I can only describe it through an analogy (being a
lay reader and a writer):
In the 2000s, people were saying that we had an ugly wound and that we had better do
something about it. But instead of properly addressing the wound, we just wrapped it in
gauze, and when the blood stopped showing through, we said, "See? All better." That's my
analogy for the "shale revolution" -- it was essentially a Bandaid. The complacency has only
worsened in the last ten years.
This has just made the infection all the worse. When pus starts showing through the
dressing and we unwrap it this time -- we're going to find gangrene.
I am re-reading Joseph Tainter's 1998 book "The collapse of complex societies." It is a
sober reading that shows that in the end the laws of entropy and diminishing returns always
produce the same result. We are not more intelligent than the people that preceded us. If
anything we can only be stupider on average. We just have a very high opinion of
ourselves.
Time for a wake up and a little bit more darwinism in our lives. The problem is the pain.
With so many people it is just going to be unbearable. On a scale never imagined, not even by
writers of bad sci-fi.
That would be a more important definition of peak oil to me, and I think we are definitely
there. Then we have the absolute production definition, which was the original definition, as
to production. It is now anticlimactic to your definition. As to the date or year it happens,
who cares? More importantly, now, is when demand will lower enough to stop draining
inventories. At what oil price will that start occurring? How fast will alternate sources
replace unmet demand? New directions and everyone is likely to be wrong on estimates. EIA and
IEA were totally useless before, and that will probably not change in the near future.
Looking in the past won't give us much, and the future is anybody's guess.
As to current prices, $68 oil won't get any extra interest from E&Ps outside of the
Permian that is stalled. To any measurable extent. Close to $80 oil is not expanding interest
very much outside of the US. We are just living on borrowed time.
Oil prices are likely to continue to rise, especially if your estimates of future
production (roughly similar to my estimates, but perhaps a bit more pessimistic) are correct,
unless consumption of oil stops increasing. My guess is that oil (C+C) consumption will
continue to increase at 400 to 800 kb/d each year , until oil prices get to about $150/b or
more (around 2025 to 2027),by that time or soon after ( maybe 2030) oil consumption growth
may stop either because of the expansion of electric and natural gas powered transport or
because of a second Great Financial Crisis. My hope is it will be the former, but I think the
latter scenario is much more likely.
Hopefully Keynes' General Theory will make a comeback before then.
Ron Wrote:
"I predicted this a long time ago. Once the water hits those horizontal laterals at the very
top of the reservoir, the game is over. "
FWIW: That's already happened. when it occurs, they drill a new horizontal above the old
one. The new lateral also have valves on there ports. so that when the water breaches one or
more of the ports, they shut them off to reduce water cut. I posted Saudi Aramco tech
articles here back between 2014 and 2016 when they were available on the SA website.
Hi Carlos, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I tend to agree with peak oil being now
(ish). From what I recall the peak month for C+C was, so far, in November 2016. I suppose
there is also a peak day, a peak weak, and a peak year. Folks seem to like packaging time in
various proportions. Hell, there's probably a peak decade and a peak hour. My guess is the
peak year will be 2018. I like, because I'm a bit thick at maths, how Ron has added trailing
12 month average to his world production chart. I just look at the 12 month trailing average
for each December to get an idea of how much was produced in each calendar year. It seems
that 12 month trailing average for December 2018 will beat that of 2017. My guess is 2019
won't beat 2018. Or will any other year after that. So, if Ron say's 2019, and I say 2018,
then it seems that I think he is wrong lol he's probably 100 times smarter than me so doesn't
lose sleep over it lol. Up until this time I have always agreed with Ron on peak oil. But
now, I throw down the gauntlet! 2018 vs 2019. Two will enter, one will leave.
The exact week, month, or year when maximal production is reached has only historical
interest. The point is that since the end of 2015 the 12-month averaged C+C production has
barely increased (EIA data) despite the increase in demand.
Dec 2015 80,564 100.0%
Dec 2016 80,579 100.0%
Dec 2017 80,936 100.5%
Apr 2018 81,363 101.0%
We will have to see how it evolves over to the next December, but so far it is annualized
to a 0.4% increase. To me we are in a bumpy plateau since late 2015 and all those meager
gains and more will be lost in the next crisis. The problem will be evident to many when
after the crisis we are not able to increase production above those values.
Peak Oil is a situation, not a date, and we are in that situation since late 2015. The oil
that the world demands cannot be produced so prices are going up, and up. I suppose it is
possible that the powers that be intervene to reduce global oil demand by favoring a crisis
in developing countries, like Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, through interest rate
changes. Wait, it is already happening. It is a dangerous tactic, as crises can spread
around, and the interest rise weakens the economy.
Well one has to define the plateau a bit better. If we make the bounds wide enough one
could say the peak was 2005 or even 1980 and we have been on a bumpy plateau since that
point.
Better in my view to define peak as peak in centered 12 month average output wth center
between month 6 and 7.
I use a 13-month centered average, so it is symmetrical with 6 months at each side.
But really, after a clear period of production growth 2010-2014, there was a strong growth
in production 2014-2015 in response to falling prices, and then production got stuck in late
2015.
It is not a question if we are in a plateau (or very reduced growth) period, but what
happens afterwards. After the previous plateau 2005-2009 there was a clear fall 2009-2010,
before tight oil saved the day.
The recent plateau is due to excess inventory and the resulting low oil price level. Oil
inventories have been reduced over the past 12 to 18 months and as oil prices increase,
output will also increase with perhaps a 6 to 12 month lag. How much will it need to rise
above the Dec 2015 level before you no longer consider that output has not risen above your
"plateau". Give me a number, is it 81.5 Mb/d, 82 Mb/b, I prefer to use a year rather than 13
months, that's 182 days on either side of the middle of the 12 month period. On leap years we
can use Midnight of day 183
One issue that has been corrected is that reserve requirements for large banks have
increased.
Also lenders are more careful with their mortgages making a housing bubble less
likely.
In addition, the assumption that higher oil prices played a major role in the GFC is
incorrect.
Perhaps there is a looming recession, whether this happens in 2018, 2030 or some other
year we will only know when it occurs.
Someone who predicts a recession every year will be right eventually.
I maintain my guess of 2023 to 2027 for the 12 month centered average c+c peak and severe
recession GFC2 starting 2029 to 2033, lasting 5 to 7 years.
So people think that oil production next year will not meet demand. Of course consumption
will equal production, but demand will be higher, and we won't be belabor this further
because the point here is a question above -- how does society react too insufficient oil?
The question is never analyzed in a particular way. It's usually evaluated from the
consumer's perspective. Who does what to get the oil they need. We can imagine they bid
higher, we can imagine that day seize the oil enroute to someone else, and we can imagine a
magical agreement on the part of everyone to stop all economic activity not involved in food
production/distribution to reduce global consumption.
What seldom is described is the decision making process within the leadership of oil
producers and exporters. It seems clear that a sudden awareness of insufficiency would yield
leadership meetings making decisions not about how to distribute more oil to customers, but
rather how to keep the oil for future generations of the producing country, without getting
invaded and destroyed.
One would think that the optimal strategy for a country that has oil is to ally itself
with a military power that can deter invasion by some other military power, without having
the ally's troops actually present on the territory. Or perhaps more effective would be
investing in the necessary explosives or nuclear material for one's own oil fields, and
inform potential invaders that the oil will remain the property of the country whose
geography covers it, or the fields will be contaminated for hundreds of years to deny them to
anyone else.
Clearly this is the optimal path for an oil producer and not seeking some technology that
can allow them to drain the resources of future generations more rapidly now.
So people think that oil production next year will not meet demand. Of course consumption
will equal production, but demand will be higher,
Watcher, I assume you think demand is what people want. But there is no way to measure
what people want but can't afford. So "demand" in that sense has no meaning whatsoever. So
what happens is the price of gasoline, or whatever, rises or falls until supply equals
demand. As prices rise, demand falls and as prices fall, demand rises because people can now
afford it. Therefore demand always equals consumption. Demand is what people buy at the
price they can afford. I wish we had a word for what people want but even if we did there
would be no way to measure it. A poll perhaps?
Estimating demand is essential for a company and can determine its survival. Demand is
dependent on price, so demand estimates are essential for deciding the price of a product.
The curves for price and demand cross at a point that maximizes income.
Demand is estimated statistically (polls sometimes), with models, and expert forecast. It
has a large uncertainty.
"there is no way to measure what people want but can't afford."
That is potential demand at a lower price point. It is estimated in the same way.
Companies decide to lower their prices with hopes to realize that lower-price demand.
"demand always equals consumption."
Exactly. Demand becomes consumption when realized, so it only makes sense to talk about
demand in the future or the present (due to lack of real-time data). It doesn't make sense to
talk about past demand, because it becomes consumption or sales.
There is a numerical measure for how much people want gasoline, regardless of price.
It is the length of the line of cars at the gas station in the 1970s. Demand was measured
in 100s of feet. Price somewhat doesn't matter. If you can't afford it, you put it on a
credit card and then default.
The length of the queue is an interesting metric by which to measure the want that people
have for an item. Nice one. I'm gonna use that. Reminds me of my Dad's old story about lining
up for a week to buy tickets to see The Beatles.
When you are lining up to buy tickets to see the Beatles it might be called a 'Want' or a
'Desire'. However, when it is the line at the soup kitchen it becomes 'Hunger' or
'Desperation'!
And that queue can sometimes feel like a hundred miles
The bigger issue is people, Business, & gov'ts servicing their debt. If the cost of
energy increases, it make it more difficult to service their debt. Recall that Oil prices
peaked at $147 right before the beginning of the 2008/2009 economic crisis. Since then 2008
Debt continued to soar as companies & gov'ts piled on more debt. Debt is promise on
future production. Borrow now and pay it back over time.
I recall the presentation Steven Kopits did about 4 or 5 years ago that stated Oil
production was well below demand. I think real global oil demand was projected to be about
120mmbd back in 2012-2013 (sorry don't recall the actual figures).
I think the bigger factor is how steep the declines will be. Presumably all of the super
giants are in the same shape and likely heavily relied on horizontal drilling to offset
natural decline rates. Presuming as the oil column shrinks in the decline rates will rapidly
accelerate. Most of the Artic\Deep water projects were cancelled back in 2014\2015, and I
believe most of those projects would take about 7 years to complete and need between Oil at
$120 to $150/bbl (in 2012 dollars) to be economical. I am not sure the world can sustainably
afford $120+ oil, especially considering the amount of new debt that has been added in the
past 10 years.
Ron Wrote:
" I wish we had a word for what people want but even if we did there would be no way to
measure it"
Perhaps the word "Gluttony" or the phase "Business As Usual". People don't like change,
especially when the result, is a decrease in living standards.
Being willing to pay more for oil may change who gets it. But it will not alter the fact that
someone who wants oil will not get it. That will be a ripple of market information which will
travel around the world pretty quick, I should imagine!
The vast majority in almost all the places in the world would like to use more oil but their
income is not enough so they end up doing with less. That includes me. Who doesn't want a
bigger faster newer lawn mower, truck, or tractor? What person would not prefer the latest
iphone etc. ? or going on vacation, eating out at high end steakhouses? The main reason they
can't is because it would take more and cheaper oil for them to be able to afford it. Else
they can only try to take it away from someone else? The peak in global oil production/person
happened back in 1979, not because folks were tired of using it all but due to the laws of
physics coming into play.
So there are two 'classes' of 'peak oil'. One class is where oil supply is constrained by
price (throwing more money at production sees an increase in production), the second class is
where oil supply is constrained by physical availability at any price (wave more money at
production, but production cannot increase).
In the first case (price constrained) normal market behaviour will apply – folk pay
more (if they can afford it) to get more.
But in the second case (resource constrained), it does not matter how much is offered,
there is simply no more oil to be had.
With the prevailing declining yields and declining discoveries, are we not in the
transition between these two states – moving from price constrained to resource
constrained? And once we get well into resource constrained, the price a buyer can pay will
determine who gets the remaining available oil, and no amount of screeching and
dollar-bill-waving by those who have missed out will improve the supply situation for
them.
LTO decline rate would be no problem by a conventional / state possessed oil company.
They would have a field with tight oil, and then just equip let's say 20 fracking /
drilling teams and start to produce through their field in 30 or 50 years. They would have a
slow decline by starting at the best location and getting to the worse one, while increasing
experience / technic during the years to compensate a bit.
You have a pretty good argument except for the "30 or 50 years" part. That's where the wheels
fell off your go-cart. Just how large would the tight oil reservoir have to be to keep 20
drilling and fracking units for 30 to 50 years? And if you assume other oil companies are in
that same reservoir doing the same thing? They are going to cover a lot of acreage very fast.
It matters very little. At any time t the available supply is limited and the market price
will determine who gets what is available. Those willing to pay more than others will get the
oil. When we reach a point where no more oil can be supplied at price P, there might always
be some more oil that could be at some higher price P', it is simply a matter of oil prices
reaching the point that there are substitutes that can replace the use of oil in some uses.
Today the biggest use for oil is transport and electricity and natural gas may soon replace a
lot of this use, especially as oil becomes scarce and prices increase.
At $100 to $120/b the transition to EVs could be quite rapid, maybe taking 20 to 25 years
to replace 90% of new ICEV sales and then another 15 years for most of the fleet to be
replaced as old cars are scrapped. So by 2055 most land transport uses for oil will be
eliminated.
The higher oil prices rise, the more incentive there will be to switch to cheaper EVs,
even natural gas will probably not be able to compete with EVs as Natural Gas will also peak
(2030 to 2035) and prices will rise. It will probably be unwise to spend a lot of money for
Natural gas fueling infrastructure, though perhaps it might work for long haul trucking, rail
seems a more sensible option.
Adam Ash Wrote:
"So there are two 'classes' of 'peak oil'. One class is where oil supply is constrained by
price (throwing more money at production sees an increase in production), the second class is
where oil supply is constrained by physical availability at any price (wave more money at
production, but production cannot increase)"
Consider this way:
There is already a huge shortage of $10/bbl oil, and a massive glut of $300/bbl oil. There is
always shortage resources. Price is just a system that balances demand with supply.
Adam Ash Wrote:
"But in the second case (resource constrained), it does not matter how much is offered, there
is simply no more oil to be had no amount of screeching and dollar-bill-waving by those who
have missed out will improve the supply situation for them."
Not exactly. People that can only afford $50/bbl Oil get out priced by people willing to
pay $100/bbl. Supply shifts to the people that can afford the hire price at the expense of
people that cannot afford the higher cost. Higher prices will lead to new production, even if
has a Negative EROEI (ie tar sands using cheap NatGas).
In an ideal world, higher prices lead to less energy waste (flying, recreation boating)
and better efficiency (more energy efficient buildings & vehicles). But I am not sure
that will be the case in our world.
The first to suffer from high energy prices will be the people living in poor nations.
Recall back in 2008-2014 we had the Arab spring when people could afford the food costs, and
started mass riots and overthrough gov'ts. This will return when Oil prices climb back
up.
Its possible that the world make continue to experience price swings, as global demand
struction decreases demand. For instance in July 2008 Oil was at $147/bbl but by Jan 2009 it
was about $30/bbl. I doubt we will see such large price swings, but I also doubt that Oil
will continuously move up without any price corrections.
Realistically we are in deflation driven global economy as the excessive debt applies
deflationary force to the economy. However central banks counter deflation with artificially
low interest rates and currency printing (ie Quantitive Easing). My guess is that
industrialized nation gov't will become increasing dependent on QE and other gimmicks that
lead to high inflation\stagnation.
There are a lot of folks out there talking recession in the near-term. Most of that derives
from history. Recession occurs every so often, or rather it used to.
It's really hard to have a decrease in GDP when you are running a deficit near a trillion
dollars. A trillion dollars is about 4.8% of GDP. If GDP grew by less than that then you have
some sort of word to invent to describe growth absent created money. (Not by the Fed, but also
not by capitalism). And there's a lot of cash being repatriated, and that damn sure hasn't
finished yet. So it's really hard to get a GDP decrease until all of that works through.
As has been noted before, the real danger in all of this is drawing attention to what
Bernanke did. When it is completely visible that money was created whimsically, and that the
Chinese have proven that you don't have to allow your currency to trade completely outside
government controls, then the system gets dicey.
The only thing stopping exporting country leadership from concluding that the oil is better
off underground for the grandchildren rather than being traded for pieces of paper with ink on
it -- the only thing preventing that conclusion is an array of advisors whose own personal
wealth would be endangered by such an exposure about money in general. They are the ones
whispering in the ears of their leadership, and their advice is not sourced in the best
interests of that country.
To a certain extent we could label all such advisors for all oil exporting countries as,
dare one say it, Deep State. Establishment political infrastructure in each country giving
advice sourced in their own well-being and not that of the country.
"... A basic principle should be the starting point of any macro analysis: The volume of interest-bearing debt tends to outstrip the economy's ability to pay. This tendency is inherent in the "magic of compound interest." The exponential growth of debt expands by its own purely mathematical momentum, independently of the economy's ability to pay – and faster than the non-financial economy grows. ..."
Wall Street did not let the Lehman Brothers crisis go to waste. The banks that have paid the
largest fines for financial fraud are now much bigger and more profitable. The victims of their
junk mortgage loans are poorer, and the economy is facing debt deflation.
Was it worth it? What was not saved was the economy.
I think Dennis said some time ago that Saudi's 266 billion barrels of reserves that they
claim was perhaps when they raised P2 reserves to P1 reserves.
Naaaa, that's not where they got it. They still claim 403 billion barrels of P2 reserves
and 802 billion barrels of P3 reserves. And that 802 billion barrels will soon be increased
to 900 billion barrels via enhanced recovery techniques.
This is a good article if you need a good belly laugh today. It is brought to you on the
opinion page of Arab News. Arab News is a Saudi Publication just in case anyone is
wondering. I used to get it in hard copy, free, courtesy of ARAMCO, when I was there.
Saudi Aramco, according to its own records, has about 802.2 billion barrels of oil
resources, including about 261 billion barrels of proven reserves; 403.1 billion of probable,
possible and contingent reserves. The company has produced up to 138 billion barrels of oil
to date out of the 802.2 billion barrels.
It plans to raise oil resources to 900 billion barrels from the 802.2 billion over the
long term as its also plans to increase recovery rate of reserves to 70 percent from the
current 50 percent.
P.S. When I was in Saudi they had a word for this kind of thing. They called it
wasta . Wasta means "deliberate exaggeration" as a way of dialogue. That's just the
way they talk. They don't believe they are lying. They really expect you to know they are
just exaggerating. They don't expect you to take it literally.
A little bit up in the comments for this thread but, it is a point to make that OECD stocks
increased 7.9 mb in July. What is much more important and difficult to measure is the
inventory globally. If we have a 10-40 million draw in Chinese inventory in July/August as is
plausible due to a variety of sources and maybe 30-10 million barrels of draw in KSA with
close partners inventory for July/August then the picture didn't change that much as we were
lead to believe. The first figure before the "-" is July, the second for Aug; all guesses of
course. It is very difficult to push the botton to increase oil production, and therefore it
is also very difficult to increase worldwide inventories after a prolonged investment drought
as we have seen.
Over the years there has been various speculation of how KSA defines reserves:
ya, per article, probable redefined as proven. maybe
there was a time when it was suggested KSA was defining reserves as what was originally
there, ignoring production since 1960 or whatever.
there was even a suggestion that the oil/water mix coming up was being used to redefine
original rock porosity, which would redefine reserves
Here is what you need to know about reserves: No one has any incentive to tell you the
truth about them. How could KSA benefit by telling anyone the truth? If they were going to
shut down 100% in the next 3 years, they absolutely would not tell anyone. That would just be
begging to be invaded by someone who needs most of what's left and has no reason to
share.
So don't expect that you'll ever know KSA reserves. Why should you?
Actually, I'm not really very bothered about knowing their reserves. What I'd really like to
know though is when they're gonna peak, and how steep the decline will be after that. I guess
I think it'll give me an edge lol
Does anybody here think that KSA will mirror China in post peak proportions?
Here's an article with a good chart on China. http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-latest-usa-world-oil-production-data/
Are there any good case studies that might give insight into KSA's peak production
profile?
Personally I think KSA is acting desperate. The anti corruption drive was just a big
shakedown, they're in Yemen for oil, gas (not much), ports close to Oman in what used to be
called South Yemen, and maybe a pipeline to one of them ports that gets them to the ocean on
the other side of Iran's straits. Lots of other nonsense with their neighbours too. KSA is
train wrecking, and I don't think it's all just some generational thing.
There's been a couple of articles recently, from pretty sober and credible sources, saying
that MbS might be gone next year. He lives mostly on his yacht with armed guards now. All his
schemes have pretty much turned to dust one after the other: the Yemeni war is costing about
$5 billion a month, his father has turned against him (my interpretation would be that
someone else has taken over as having the the king's ear now, as he's got some sort of
dementia so probably doesn't do much original thinking), the attempt to distract attention
with anti-Qatar sentiment isn't working, the Ritz-Carlton extortion episode is backfiring
even though it got him some ready money, Sunni-Shia issues still bubbling.
Sort of related: Saudi Arabia is buying Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system and
Israel has offered to share intelligence on Iran with the Saudis. This according to an
article at Reuters quoted at Oil-Price/ASPO under Peak Oil News.
I'm expecting next to see pigs in my silver maple.
Hanging out on a yacht is bad form for a man with such motivated & creative enemies.
Obviously he and his security entourage have not heard of the late Lord Mountbatten, or The
Rainbow Warrior.. A few limpet mines and he's old news.
Second oil reserves have been flat since around 2010, and declining recently for the first
time since the 1970s. Note, before someone points it out, they don't count Canadian Bitumen.
This is so ridiculous it is funny. Oil discoveries have been going down, down, and down, way
below replacement level. Yet so-called "proven" reserves keep going up, up and up.
"This is so ridiculous it is funny. Oil discoveries have been going down, down, and down, way
below replacement level. Yet so-called "proven" reserves keep going up, up and up."
Well to some degree, technology has been able to extract more oil from a field. Thus a
field discovered in 1950 with an initial proven reserve of 100mbbls, may have 125mbbls or
proven reserves as technology has improved recovery rates. That said technology improvements
likely don't match the paper proven reserves.
The Venezuelan heavy oil reserves are overstated (I assume the large bump prior to 2010 is
the booking of the Magna Reserva in the Orinoco Oil belt, which i know are fake). It's fairly
easy to eyeball the better number by substracting 300 billion a flat line around 1200. If you
want to add future bookings in that heavy oil belt, add up to 50 billion gradually. Dont
forget that at the current decline rate Venezuela will be producing about 1.1 million BOPD in
december, and IF things go as I think they will sometime in the first half of 2019 exports
will drop to zero for a few months.
Third gas reserves also flat. If condensate and NGLs have been meeting the increased demand
that crude has been unable to, then that might be about to stop.
That's a bold statement but cancerous growth is typical of any intelligence agency, especially CIA: all of them want more and more
budget money and try to influence both domestic and foreign policy. That's signs of cancel.
FBI actually has dual mandate: suppressing political dissent (STASI functions) and fight with criminals and organized crime.
The fact the President does not control his own administration, especially State Department isclearly visible now. He is more like
a ceremonial figura that is allowed to rant on Twitter, but can't change any thing of substance in forign policy. and Is a typucal Repiblican
in domenstic policy, betraying the electorate like Obama did
Notable quotes:
"... Sessions recused himself from the "Russia Collusion" investigation. Now that it is known to have been an extension of Democratic election rigging, and DC bureaucratic "Resistance," he could be initiate a broad sweep investigation into Washington, DC based bureaucratic bias and corruption. ..."
Shifting from Sessions to the much-maligned FBI, Trump said the agency was "a cancer" and that uncovering deep-seated corruption
in the FBI may be remembered as the "crowning achievement" of his administration, per
the Hill .
"What we've done is a great service to the country, really," Trump said in a 45-minute, wide-ranging interview in the Oval
Office.
"I hope to be able put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to ... expose something that is truly a cancer
in our country."
Moreover, Trump insisted that he never trusted former FBI Director James Comey, and that he had initially planned to fire Comey
shortly after the inauguration, but had been talked out of it by his aides.
Trump also said he regretted not firing former FBI Director James Comey immediately instead of waiting until May 2017, confirming
an account his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, gave Hill.TV earlier in the day that Trump was dismayed in 2016 by the way Comey handled
the Hillary Clinton email case and began discussing firing him well before he became president.
"If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,"
Trump said. "I should have fired him right after the convention, say I don't want that guy. Or at least fired him the first day
on the job. ... I would have been better off firing him or putting out a statement that I don't want him there when I get there."
The FISA Court judges who approved the initial requests allowing the FBI to surveil employees of the Trump Campaign also came
in for some criticism, with Trump claiming they used "poor Carter Page, who nobody even knew, and who I feel very badly for...as
a foil...to surveil a candidate or the presidency of the United States." Trump added that he felt the judges had been "misled" by
the FBI.
He criticizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court's approval of the warrant that authorized surveillance
of Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign aide, toward the end of the 2016 election, suggesting the FBI misled the court.
"They know this is one of the great scandals in the history of our country because basically what they did is, they used Carter
Page, who nobody even knew, who I feel very badly for, I think he's been treated very badly. They used Carter Page as a foil in
order to surveil a candidate for the presidency of the United States."
As for the judges on the secret intelligence court: "It looks to me just based on your reporting, that they have been misled,"
the president said, citing a series of columns in The Hill newspaper identifying shortcomings in the FBI investigation. "I mean
I don't think we have to go much further than to say that they've been misled."
"One of the things I'm disappointed in is that the judges in FISA didn't, don't seem to have done anything about it. I'm very
disappointed in that Now, I may be wrong because, maybe as we sit here and talk, maybe they're well into it. We just don't know
that because I purposely have not chosen to get involved," Trump said.
Trump continued the assault on Sessions during a brief conference with reporters Wednesday morning. When asked whether he was
planning to fire Sessions, Trump replied that "we're looking into lots of different things."
To be sure, Sessions has managed to hang on thus far. And if he can somehow manage to survive past Nov. 6, his fate will perversely
rest on the Democrats' success. Basically, if they wrest back control of the Senate (which, to be sure, is unlikely), Sessions chances
of staying on would rise dramatically. But then again, how much abuse can a man realistically endure before he decides that the costs
of staying outweigh the benefits of leaving?
DingleBarryObummer , 19 minutes ago
Sessions works for Trump, because Trump is running the uniparty russia-gate stormy-gate anti-trump show. Sessions was intentionally
placed there to stonewall and make sure the kabuki goes on. Rosenstein is a Trump appointee. This **** garners sympathy for him
as the persecuted underdog, rallies his base; and distracts from the obvious zio-bankster influence over his admin and his many
unfulfilled campaign promises. He's deceiving you. Why do you think Giuliani acts like such a buffoon? It's because that's what
he was hired for. All distractions and bullshit. He will not get impeached, Hillary is not going to jail, nothing will happen.
The zio-Banksters will continue to stay at the top of the pyramid, because that's who trump works for, NOT you and me.
"While Trump's fascination with the White House still burned within him [re: 2011], he also had The Apprentice to deal with--and
it wasn't as easy as you might think. He loved doing the show and was reluctant to give it up. At one point, he was actually thinking
of hosting it from the oval office if he made it all the way to the White House. He even discussed it with Stephen Burke, the
CEO at NBCUniversal, telling Burke he would reconsider running if the network was concerned about his candidacy." -Roger Stone
"To some people the notion of consciously playing power games-no matter how indirect-seems evil, asocial, a relic of the past.
They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in ways that have nothing to do with power. You must beware of such people,
for while they express such opinions outwardly, they are often among the most adept players at power. They utilize strategies
that cleverly disguise the nature of the manipulation involved. These types, for example, will often display their weakness and
lack of power as a kind of moral virtue. But true powerlessness, without any motive of self-interest, would not publicize its
weakness to gain sympathy or respect. Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very effective strategy, subtle and deceptive,
in the game of power." -Robert Greene
Sparkey , 31 minutes ago
This is why the 'little' people love President 'The Donald' Trump, he says the things they would like to say, but have no platform
to speak from, Mushroom man The Donald has no fear he has got Mushroom power, and he has my support in what ever he does!
Secret Weapon , 43 minutes ago
Is Sessions a Deep State firewall? Starting to look that way.
TrustbutVerify , 48 minutes ago
Sessions recused himself from the "Russia Collusion" investigation. Now that it is known to have been an extension of Democratic
election rigging, and DC bureaucratic "Resistance," he could be initiate a broad sweep investigation into Washington, DC based
bureaucratic bias and corruption.
I suspect Sessions will last until after the mid-term elections. Then Trump will fire him and bring someone like Gowdy in to
head the DOJ and to bring about investigations.
And, my gosh, there seems to be so much to investigate. And to my mind prosecute.
loop, 49 minutes ago
"I've never seen a President - I don't care who he is - stand up to them (Israel). It just boggles the mind. They always
get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down.
If the American people understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
- U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer
mendigo, 59 minutes ago
Cool stuff. But really the cancer goes much deeper. That is the scary part. Trump is now largely controlled by the Borg.
Government employees and elected officials have a choice: can either play along and become wealthy and powerful or have
their careers destroyed, or worse.
Taxes/regulationUS/Global EconomicsThe
Minsky Moment Ten Years After These days are the tenth anniversary of the biggest Minsky
Moment since the Great Depression. While when it happened most commentators mentioned Minsky
and many even called it a "Minsky Moment," most of the commentary now does not use that term
and much does not even mention Minsky, much less Charles Kindleberger or Keynes. Rather much of
the discussion has focused now on the failure of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2017. A new
book by Lawrence Ball has argued that the Fed could have bailed LB out as they did with Bear
Stearns in February of that year, with Ball at least, and some others, suggesting that would
have resolved everything, no big crash, no Great Recession, no angry populist movement more
recently, heck, all hunky dory if only the Fed had been more responsible, although Ball
especially points his finger at Bush's Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, for especially
pressuring Bernanke and Geithner at the Fed not to repeat Bear Stearns. And indeed when they
decided not to support Lehman, the Fed received widespread praise in much of the media
initially, before its fall blew out AIG and brought down most of the pyramid of highly
leveraged derivatives of derivatives coming out of the US mortgage market ,which had been
declining for over two years.
Indeed, I agree with Dean Baker as I have on so many times regarding all this that while
Lehman may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, it was the camel's back breaking
that was the problem, and it was almost certainly going to blow big time reasonably soon then.
It it was not Lehman, it was going to be something else. Indeed, on July 12, 2008, I posted
here on Econospeak a
forecast of this, declaring "It looks like we might be finally reaching the big crash in the US
mortgage market after a period of distress that started last August (if not earlier)."
I drew on Minsky's argument (backed by Kindleberger in his Manias, Panics, and
Crashes ) that the vast majority of major speculative bubbles experience periods of gradual
decline after their peaks prior to really seriously crashing during what Minsky labeled the
"period of financial distress," a term he adopted from the corporate finance literature. The US
housing market had been falling since July, 2006. The bond markets had been declining since
August, 2007, the stock market had been declining since October, 2007, and about the time I
posted that, the oil market reached an all-time nominal peak of $147 per barrel and began a
straight plunge that reached about $30 per barrel in November, 2008. This was a massively
accelerating period of distress with the real economy also dropping, led by falling residential
consumption. In mid-September the Minsky Moment arrived, and the floor dropped out of not just
these US markets, but pretty much all markets around the world, with world economy then falling
into the Great Recession.
Let me note something I have seen nobody commenting on in all this outpouring on this
anniversary. This is how the immediate Minsky Moment ended. Many might say it was the TARP or
the stress tests or the fiscal stimulus, All of these helped to turn around the broader slide
that followed by the Minsky Moment. But there was a more immediate crisis that went on for
several days following the Lehman collapse, peaking on Sept. 17 and 18, but with obscure
reporting about what went down then. This was when nobody at the Board of Governors went home;
cots made an appearance. This was the point when those at the Fed scrambled to keep the whole
thing from turning into 1931 and largely succeeded. The immediate problem was that the collapse
of AIG following the collapse of Lehman was putting massive pressure on top European banks,
especially Deutsches Bank and BNP Paribas. Supposedly the European Central Bank (ECB) should
have been able to handle this But along with all this the ECB was facing a massive run on the
euro as money fled to the "safe haven" of the US dollar, so ironic given that the US markets
generated this mess.
Anyway, as Neil Irwinin The Alchemists (especially Chap. 11) documented, the crucial
move that halted the collapse of the euro and the threat of a fullout global collapse was a set
of swaps the Fed pulled off that led to it taking about $600 billion of Eurojunk from the
distressed European banks through the ECB onto the Fed balance sheet. These troubled assets
were gradually and very quietly rolled off the Fed balance sheet over the next six months to be
replaced by mortgage backed securities. This was the save the Fed pulled off at the worst
moment of the Minsky Moment. The Fed policymakers can be criticized for not seeing what was
coming (although several people there had spotted it earlier and issued warnings, including
Janet Yellen in 2005 and Geithner in a prescient speech in Hong Kong in September, 2006, in
which he recognized that the housing related financial markets were highly opaque and fragile).
But this particular move was an absolute save, even though it remains today very little known,
even to well-informed observers.
Barkley Rosser
run75441 , September 18, 2018 7:07 am
Barkley:
A few days ago, it was just a housing bubble to which a few of us pointed out an abnormal
housing bubble created by fraud and greed on Wall Street. The market was riddled with false
promises to pay through CDS, countering naked-CDS both of which had little if any reserves in
this case to back up each AIG CDS insuring Goldman Sachs securities. When Goldman Sachs made
that call to AIG, there were few funds to pay out and AIG was on the verge of collapse.
And today, some of those very same created banks under TARP which were gambling then and
some of which had legal issues are free from the stress testing Dodd – Frank imposed
upon banks with assets greater than $50 billion. Did the new limit need to be $250 billion?
Volcker thought $100 billion was adequate and Frank argued for a slightly higher limit well
under $250 billion. The fox is in the chicken coop again with Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas,
UBS, and Credit Suisse not being regulated as closely and 25 of the largest 38 banks under
less regulation. These are not community banks and they helped to bring us to our knees. Is
it still necessary for American Express to be a bank and have access to low interest rates
the Fed offers? I think not; but, others may disagree with me. It is not a bank.
You remember the miracle the Fed pulled off as detailed in The Alchemists which I also
read at your recommendation. I remember the fraud and greed on Wall Street for which Main
Street paid for with lost equity, jobs, etc. I remember the anger of Wall Street Execs who
were denied bonuses and states who had exhausted unemployment funding denying workers
unemployment. We were rescued from a worse fate; but, the memory of the cure the nation's
citizenry had to take for Wall Street greed and fraud leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
EMichael , September 18, 2018 8:39 am
This never ending meme about Tarp saving the banks is really starting to aggravate me. The
Fed saved the banking system(on both sides of the Atlantic) before Tarp issued one dollar,
and they did so with trillions, not billions, of loans and guarantees that stopped the run on
the banks and mutual funds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Just look at the amounts. Tarp gave out $250 billion to the banks. Do people seriously
think this saved the banking system? Or that Wells goes under without their $25 billion
loan?
Tarp was window dressing and pr, not a solution by any stretch of the imagination.
"Bloomberg ran quite a story, yesterday. It stems from a Freedom of Information Act
Request that yielded the details of previously secret borrowing from the federal government
to the biggest banks.
The bottom line, reports Bloomberg, by March of 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion
"to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the
U.S. that year." The lending began in August of 2007.
The reporting from Bloomberg Markets Magazine is spectacular, so we hope you click over
and give the exhaustive piece a read."
If you pick up The Alchemist, I believe you will see all of this ($7 trillion) explained
in there. TARP was used to buy up junk MBS from banks by the Treasury and separate from the
FED. It was also used to buy up bank stock to give them reserves. It saved two of the three
OEMs too.
Ken Houghton , September 18, 2018 11:52 am
The general U.S. mortgage market died on Hallwe'en 2006. By the first quarter of 2007, it
was dead even for IBs who owned originators.
There were two IBs who were dependent on MBS for their profits: Bear and Lehmann. Doesn't
mean they didn't have other businesses, but their earnings would go from a V-8 to a
3-cylinder.
Bear went first, and ShitforBrains Fuld & Co. had six months after that to shore up
capital, find a buyer, or go under.
We all knew that the reason Bear was saved wasn't out of generosity, but because it really
would have had a systemic effect had it gone through bankruptcy proceedings. But THAT was
because Bear had two core businesses, and the other one was Custodial Services.
Had Bear gone through bankruptcy, those Customer funds would have been inaccessible for at
least 30 days.
Lehmann had no similar function; failure of Lehmann was failure of Lehmann.
Fuld knew all of this and still fucked around for six months pretending he was driving a
911 instead of a Geo Metro.
Lawrence Ball is a brain-dead idiot if he thinks saving that firm would have in any way
made things better.
likbez , September 18, 2018 12:41 pm
My take on Minsky moment is that banking introduces positive feedback loop into the
system, making it (as any dynamic system with strong positive feedback loop) unstable.
To compensate you need to introduce negative feedback loop in a form of regulation and
legal system that vigorously prosecute financial oligarchy "transgressions," instilling fear
and damping its predatory behavior and parasitic rents instincts. In a way number of bankers
who go to jail each year is metric of stability of the system. Which was a feature (subverted
and inconsistent from the beginning and decimated in 70th) of New Deal Capitalism.
As neoliberalism is essentially revenge of financial oligarchy which became the ruling
class again, this positive feedback loop is an immanent feature of neoliberalism.
Financial oligarchy is not interesting in regulation and legal framework that suppresses
its predatory and parasitic "instincts." So this is by definition is an unstable system prone
to periodic financial "collapses." In which the government needs to step in and save the
system.
So the question about the 2008 financial crisis is when the next one commences and how
destructive it will be. Not why it happened.
likbez , September 18, 2018 12:47 pm
In a perverse way the percentage of financial executives who go to jail each year might be
viewed as a metric of stability of the financial system ;-)
the obligatory four freedoms of the EU are free movement of goods, services, persons and
capital throughout the Union. Open borders. That is the essence of the European Union, the
dogma of the Free Market.
The problem with the Open Border doctrine is that it doesn't know where to stop. Or it
doesn't stop anywhere. When Angela Merkel announced that hundreds of thousands of refugees were
welcome in Germany, the announcement was interpreted as an open invitation by immigrants of all
sorts, who began to stream into Europe. This unilateral German decision automatically applied
to the whole of the EU, with its lack of internal borders. Given German clout, Open Borders
became the essential "European common value", and welcoming immigrants the essence of human
rights.
Very contrasting ideological and practical considerations contribute to the idealization of
Open Borders. To name a few:
This combination of contrasting, even opposing motivations does not add up to a majority in
every country. Notably not in Hungary.
It should be noted that Hungary is a small Central European country of less than ten million
inhabitants, which never had a colonial empire and thus has no historic relationship with
peoples in Africa and Asia as do Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. As one of the
losers in World War I, Hungary lost a large amount of territory to its neighbors, notably to
Romania. The rare and difficult Hungarian language would be seriously challenged by mass
immigration. It is probably safe to say that the majority of people in Hungary tend to be
attached to their national identity and feel it would be threatened by massive immigration from
radically different cultures. It may not be nice of them, and like everyone they can change.
But for now, that is how they vote.
In particular, they recently voted massively to re
Like the Soviet Union, the European Union is not merely an undemocratic institutional
framework promoting a specific economic system; it is also the vehicle of an ideology and a
planetary project. Both are based on a dogma as to what is good for the world: communism for
the first, "openness" for the second. Both in varying ways demand of people virtues they may
not share: a forced equality, a forced generosity. All this can sound good, but such ideals
become methods of manipulation. Forcing ideals on people eventually runs up against stubborn
resistance.
There are differing reasons to be against immigration just as to be for it. The idea of
democracy was to sort out and choose between ideals and practical interests by free discussion
and in the end a show of hands: an informed vote. The liberal Authoritarian Center represented
by Verhofstadt seeks to impose its values, aspirations, even its version of the facts on
citizens who are denounced as "populists" if they disagree. Under communism, dissidents were
called "enemies of the people". For the liberal globalists, they are "populists" – that
is, the people. If people are told constantly that the choice is between a left that advocates
mass immigration and a right that rejects it, the swing to the right is unstoppable.
Orban's reputation in the West as dictator is unquestionably linked to his intense
conflict with Hungarian-born financier George Soros
And not only Soros, of course:
'I know that this battle is difficult for everyone. I understand if some of us are also
afraid. This is understandable, because we must fight against an opponent which is different
from us. Their faces are not visible, but are hidden from view; they do not fight directly,
but by stealth; they are not honourable, but unprincipled; they are not national, but
international; they do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland,
but feel that the whole world is theirs.' --
Viktor Orbán
Watch the great Hungarian foreign minister repel attacks by the BBCs arrogant open borders
propagandist, rudely treating him like an ignorant child and calling him a racist for
defending his nation.
Economic liberals maintain that because Europe is aging, it needs young immigrant
workers to pay for the pensions of retired workers.
Not gonna happen. Their 80 IQ skills are uncompetitive and useless in Europe even before
Automation erases those low-skilled positions in the coming decade or two. Meanwhile, (real)
European youth unemployment rate is 20%. Young Europeans are not making babies because they
don't have a stable future. This can only get worse as the hostile invaders get preferential,
Affirmative Action treatment, in schools and workplaces. None of this is accidental.
There are, in my opinion, two reasons for letting the mass immigration happen:
- the Brussels belief, expressed in a 2009 official document, not secret, that the EU needs
60 million immigrants.
- a Merkel belief dat the Germans are bad, they caused two world wars and perpetrated the
holocaust, so the German people must be changed through mass immigration.
The Brussels belief seems to be based mainly on the increasing average age in the EU.
It is incomprehensible to me, at the same time fear that robots slowly will do all simple
jobs.
The Merkel belief, on the other side of the Atlantic, where few understand German, and
cannot or do not watch German tv, I wonder how many understand that the 20th century
propaganda of the victors still is decisive in German daily life and politics.
The danger of neonazi's and fascism is everywhere.
Nationalism, the equivalent of building gas chambers.
The EU also is based on the 20th century fairy tales, only the EU prevented wars in Europe
after WWII.
The idea that Germans were victims in two world wars, and, until Hitler became power in 1933,
also between the world wars, in unthinkable.
The idea that Endlösung meant deportation to Madagaskar, even more unthinkable.
That jews, as one Rothschild wrote to another around 1890, have and had but one enemy,
themselves, the world unthinkable is too weak.
Yet
'From prejudice to destruction', Jacob Katz, 1980, Cambridge MA
explains it, things as 'close economic cooperation, intermarriage, ostentious behaviour'.
In this respect
'Christianity and the Holocaust of the Hungarian Jewry', Moshe Y Herclz, 1993 New York
University press
also is a very interesting book, after jews in the thirties had been banned from many
intellectual professions not a single Hungarian newspaper could be published any more.
Soros trying to force Muslim immigrants on deeply catholic Hungary, he was born in
Hungary, experienced anti semitism, revenge ?
I was recently in Budapest on business and will likely be returning soon: It is the most
beautiful city I have ever seen, with stunning architectural restoration projects, almost
non-existent police and military presence, food and wines that rival those of Paris, and a
very friendly, non-bureaucratic and non-obsese (as opposed to the USA) population. I would
like to hear from others who have recently visited and have knowledge of the country.
Viszlát! -- John
When the fort of folly that Globalism is finally falls, Diana Johnstone's article will be
cited as exemplary in exposing its hidden grammar. That fall cannot be far off now given that
psy-ops can only work if people are ignorant of the manipulation afoot.
Great opening, Diana. For forty years the presstitude media have leaned on the use of
implication as argument to have the ninety-nine percent buy what they are selling. What was
not pointed out very well until now, is that their implications are all false. Now, only a
dummy among the dumbed-down cannot see it.
For those who have the patience to read the English subtitles, here is an excellent speech
given by Orbán in July. Here he outlines his thinking on the issues facing Hungary and
the world.
Viktor Orbán is a very intelligent leader, and he has the vast majority of the
Hungarian people behind him. History has taught those people many things, and they have had
enough. They are not fools. Look to them as an example for all of us.
@John Siman I was recently in Budapest on business and will likely be returning soon: It
is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, with stunning architectural restoration
projects, almost non-existent police and military presence, food and wines that rival those
of Paris, and a very friendly, non-bureaucratic and non-obsese (as opposed to the USA)
population. I would like to hear from others who have recently visited and have knowledge of
the country. Viszlát! -- John Wherever US influence is not yet overwhelming (and such
places are becoming fewer every day, unfortunately), you will still find "old-fashioned" ways
of interaction, few fatties, and decent food and drink.
People may become fat for many reasons, but most fatties these days in the Anglosphere
belong to the underclass. These wretches get fat from eating expensive trash at McDonald's
and other fast food outlets, and drinking Coca Cola and similar sugar-saturated garbage.
Their behavior may seem strange because their brains have largely withered away through
endless TV watching (mainly US or US-inspired visual trash), their hearing impaired by ear-
and mind numbing noise passing for music.
I am afraid the way out of that prison is long and tortuous for all victims of US
neoliberalism.
The usual anti-EU propaganda that Ms Johnstone has been peddling for at least a dozen years,
although she has recently moved from claiming to be a far-leftist to claiming to be a
far-rightest. Whatever pretext "proves" the EU to be evil is trotted out! However, she points
out very clearly Viktor Orban's dilemma. The choice for Hungary is between the EU and Putin's
tanks. After 40 years of occupation by a Soviet Union in which the ethnic Russians acted as
colonial overlords and the general contempt which Hungarians have for Slavs, choosing the
latter option would be political suicide for any Hungarian leader. Thus, Orban is stuck with
the EU whether he likes it or not and the other Member States are stuck with Orban whether
they like it or not. In addition, two of Ms Johnstone's factual claims need to be corrected.
The "EU" is taking no step whatsoever to strip Hungary of its political rights. The
(according to Ms Johnstone, "largely rubber stamp") European Parliament has adopted a
resolution calling on the Member States to sanction Hungary. The EP always does something
attention-grabbing in the run up to elections and since Ms Johnstone once worked for the
European Parliament (as a far-leftist!), I'm sure she knows that. Imposing sanctions, as
always in the EU, is a matter for the sovereign Member States and the decision has to be
unanimous. Poland has already said it will not vote for sanctions, so the whole thing is a
dead letter. Secondly, the claim that Hungary "never had a colonial empire" is untrue. It
never had a colonial empire outside Europe but before 1918, it ruled over Slovakia, most of
Croatia, Transylvania, now part of Romania, and the Vojvodina, now part of Serbia (so much
for Ms Johnstone's supposed "expertise" on ex-Yugoslavia!). In general, the frantic, almost
hysterical, tone of the article suggests that Ms Johnstone doesn't believe that Viktor Orban
is going to be the cause of the imminent and inevitable demise of the hated EU that she has
been predicting for as long as I have been reading her articles (and that goes back at least
14 years!).
@Michael Kenny The usual anti-EU propaganda that Ms Johnstone has been peddling for at
least a dozen years, although she has recently moved from claiming to be a far-leftist to
claiming to be a far-rightest. Whatever pretext "proves" the EU to be evil is trotted out!
However, she points out very clearly Viktor Orban's dilemma. The choice for Hungary is
between the EU and Putin's tanks. After 40 years of occupation by a Soviet Union in which the
ethnic Russians acted as colonial overlords and the general contempt which Hungarians have
for Slavs, choosing the latter option would be political suicide for any Hungarian leader.
Thus, Orban is stuck with the EU whether he likes it or not and the other Member States are
stuck with Orban whether they like it or not. In addition, two of Ms Johnstone's factual
claims need to be corrected. The "EU" is taking no step whatsoever to strip Hungary of its
political rights. The (according to Ms Johnstone, "largely rubber stamp") European Parliament
has adopted a resolution calling on the Member States to sanction Hungary. The EP always does
something attention-grabbing in the run up to elections and since Ms Johnstone once worked
for the European Parliament (as a far-leftist!), I'm sure she knows that. Imposing sanctions,
as always in the EU, is a matter for the sovereign Member States and the decision has to be
unanimous. Poland has already said it will not vote for sanctions, so the whole thing is a
dead letter. Secondly, the claim that Hungary "never had a colonial empire" is untrue. It
never had a colonial empire outside Europe but before 1918, it ruled over Slovakia, most of
Croatia, Transylvania, now part of Romania, and the Vojvodina, now part of Serbia (so much
for Ms Johnstone's supposed "expertise" on ex-Yugoslavia!). In general, the frantic, almost
hysterical, tone of the article suggests that Ms Johnstone doesn't believe that Viktor Orban
is going to be the cause of the imminent and inevitable demise of the hated EU that she has
been predicting for as long as I have been reading her articles (and that goes back at least
14 years!). Judging by your name, you are not a European, but an Englishman, or from
somewhere else in the Anglosphere. It is a good thing for England and especially the English
to be leaving the EuSSR, which is more of a prison than commonly realized. Ruled by a greedy
class of corrupt and, to make it worse, utterly mediocre, politicians, incompetent and stupid
bureaucrats (yes, I know this is an oxymoron) in the exclusive interest of ruthless big
corporations, human rights do not exist in the EuSSR.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe has seen a wave of privatizations on a scale
only comparable to what happened in the former USSR. Nevertheless, taxation has increased to
a point where today, the average EuSSR "citizen" pays between 75% and 80% taxes on every Euro
he earns. The middle class is on its way to extinction. The judiciary is a joke, education
has been dismantled or stupidified, health care is a disaster, save in Southern Europe where
many doctors and nurses still have a sense of humanity.
The piece by Mrs. Johnstone may not be flawless, but it says what needs to be said.
70 years ago the Democrat party in the American South was the party of regular working
class White Southerners and promoted Southern heritage and Southern history including
Confederate history.
Then things change.
Now the national Democrat party and the Democrat party in the South hates Whites
Southerners, hates Southern heritage and Southern history and are promoting the desecration
of Confederate monuments and confederate graves.
60 years ago Hungarian was under Soviet Communist domination and Hungarian patriots looked
to the West – especially American and Great Britain to help them achieve some personal
freedom from Communism.
Now things have completely changed. It's the Wester (EU) UK BBC, American mass media that
restricts freedom and National Christianity in Hungary and pretty much everywhere else.
Russia is once again a health European Christian nation. Nobody in Hungary, Eastern Europe or
Russia wants to allow their countries to be invaded by millions of 3rd world Muslim
rapists.
So I living in Chicago IL (Obama was my neighbor) look to Hungary, Poland, Russia and
Eastern Europe for any small dose of freedom.
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
-- The Empire Strikes Back
Since Vladimir Putin brought up Bill Browder's name in Helsinki, events have escalated to a
fever pitch. Russia is under extreme attack the U.S./European financial and political
establishment.
Danske's report on these allegations are due on Wednesday.
No matter what they say, however, the die has been cast.
Danske is being targeted for termination by the U.S. and possible takeover by the European
Central Bank.
There's precedent for this but let me lay out some background first.
The Oldest
Trick
Browder's complaint says the money laundered is in connection with the reason why he was
thrown out of Russia and the $230 million in stolen tax money which Browder's cause
célèbre , the death of accountant Sergei Magnitsky, hangs on.
That crusade got the Magnitsky Act passed not only in the U.S. but all across the West, with
versions on the books in Canada, Australia the EU and other places.
Danske's shares have been gutted in the wake of the accusation.
The U.S. is now investigating this complaint and that shouldn't come as much of a shock.
The Treasury Department can issue whatever findings it wants, and then respond by starving
Danske of dollars, known as the "Death Blow" option the threat of which was plastered
all over the pages of the Wall St. Journal on Friday.
Note this article isn't behind the Journal's pay-wall. They want everyone to see this.
Browder filed complaints both in Demmark and in Estonia, and the Estonian government was
only too happy to oblige him.
The Devil Played
To see the whole picture I have to go back a littler further.
Back in March, Latvian bank, ABLV, was targeted in a similar manner, accused of laundering
money. Within a week the ECB moved in to take control of the bank even though it wasn't in
danger of failing.
It was an odd move, where the ECB exercised an extreme response utilizing its broader powers
given to it after the 2008 financial crisis, like it did with Spain's Banco Popular in
2017.
Why? The U.S. was looking for ways to cut off Russia from the European banking system. And
the ECB did its dirty work.
I wrote about this
back in May in relation to the Treasury demanding all U.S. investors divest themselves of
Russian debt within thirty days.
It threw the ruble and Russian debt markets into turmoil since Russian companies bought a lot
of euro-denominated debt after the Ruble Crisis of 2014, having been shut off from dollars.
ABLV was a conduit for many Russian entities to keep access to Europe's banks, having been
grandfathered in as clients when the Baltics entered the Euro-zone.
So, now a replay of ABLV's seizure is playing out through Browder's money laundering
complaint against Danske.
Was Convincing Everyone
The goal of this lawsuit is two-fold.
The first is to undermine the faith in the Danish banking system. Dutch giant ING is also
facing huge AML fines.
This is a direct attack on the EU banking system to being it under even more stringent
government control.
The second goal, however, is far more important. As I said, the U.S. is desperate to cut
money flow between the European Union and Russia, not just to stop the construction of
Nordstream 2, but to keep Russia's markets weak having to scramble for euros to make coupon
payments and create a roll-over nightmare.
Turkey is facing this now, Russia went through it in 2014/15.
So, attacking a major bank like Danske for consorting with dirty Russians and using Mr.
Human Rights Champion Browder to file the complaint is pure power politics to keep the EU
itself from seeking rapprochement with Russia.
Anti-Money Laundering laws are tyrannical and vaguely worded. And with the Magnitsky Act and
its follow-up, CAATSA, in place, they help support defining money laundering to include
anything the U.S. and the EU deem as supporting 'human rights violations.'
Seeing the trap yet?
Now all of it can be linked through simple accusation regardless of the facts. The bank gets
gutted, investors and depositors get nervous, the ECB then steps in and there goes another
tendril between Russia and Europe doing business.
And that ties into Browder's minions in the European Parliament, all in the pay of Open
Society Foundation, issued a threat of invoking Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty to Cyprus over
assisting Russia investigate Browder's financial dealings there.
Why? Violations of Mr. Browder's human rights because, well, Russia!
What's becoming more obvious to me as the days pass is that Browder is an obvious asset of
the U.S. financial and political oligarchy, if not U.S. Intelligence. They use his humanitarian
bona fides to visit untold misery on millions of people simply to:
1) cover up their malfeasance in Russia
2) wage hybrid war on anyone willing to stand up to their machinations.
He Didn't Exist
Because when looking at this situation rationally, how does this guy get to run around
accusing banks of anything and mobilize governments into actions which have massive
ramifications for the global financial system unless he's intimately connected with the very
people that operate the top of that system?
How does this no-name guy in the mid-1990's, fresh 'off the boat' as it were, convince
someone to give him $25 million in CASH to go around Russia buying up privatization vouchers at
less than pennies on the dollar?
It simply doesn't pass a basic sniff test.
Danske is the biggest bank in Denmark and one of the oldest in Europe. The message should be
clear.
If they can be gotten to this way, anyone can.
Just looking at the list of people named in the Magnitsky Act, a list given to Congress by
Browder and copied verbatim without investigation, and CAATSA as being 'friends of Vladimir'
it's obvious that the target isn't Putin himself for his human rights transgressions but anyone
in Russia with enough capital to maintain a business bigger than a chain of laundromats in
Rostov-on-Don.
Honestly, even some in the U.S. financial press said it looked like they just went through
the Moscow phone book.
But, here the rub. In The Davos Crowd's single-minded drive to destroy Russia, which has
been going on now for close to two generations in various ways, they are willing to undermine
the very institutions on which a great deal of their power rests.
The more Browder gets defended by people punching far above his weight, the more obvious it
is that there is something wrong with his story. Undermining the reputation of the biggest bank
in Denmark is a 'playing-for-keeps' moment.
But, it's one that can and will have serious repercussions over time.
It undermines the validity of government institutions, exposing corruption that proves we
live in a world ruled by men, not laws. That the U.S. and EU are fundamentally no different in
their leadership than banana republics.
And that's bad for currency and debt markets as capital always flows to where it is treated
best.
But, it's one that can and will have serious repercussions over time. The seizure of ABLV
and 2017's liquidation of Spain's Banco Popular were rightly described by Martin Armstrong as
defining moments where no one in their right mind would invest in a European banks if there was
the possibility of losing all of your capital due to a change in the political winds
overnight.
Using the European Parliament to censure Cyprus via Article 7 over one man's financial
privacy, which no one is guaranteed in this world today thanks to these same AML and KYC laws,
reeks of cronyism and corruption of the highest degree.
If you want to know what a catalyst for the collapse of the European banking system looks
like, it may well be what happens this week if Danske tries to fight the spider's web laid down
by Bill Browder and his friends in high places.
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hanekhw , 1 minute ago
Browder, the Clintons, Soros and the EU were made for each other weren't they? They've
been screwing us publicly for what, over two generations? And without a condom! We've gotten
how many FTDs (financially transmitted diseases) from these people? They never unzip their
flys.
geno-econ , 1 hour ago
According to Browder, Putin is worth over $100 Billion most of it stashed away in foreign
banks through intermediates and relatives. If true, it will bring down Putin and many western
banks. Perhaps a Red Swan is about to take off exposing an unsustainable .financial system
and corrupt political enterprise on both sides of the divide sur to cause chaos. Ironically,
Putin who represents Nationalism in Russia is under attack by Globalists accusing Putin of
Capitalistic Greed utilizing western banks Suicidal !
hanekhw , 16 minutes ago
Browder, the Clintons, Soros and the EU were made for each other weren't they? They've
been screwing us publicly for what, over two generations? And without a condom! We've gotten
how many FTDs (financially transmitted diseases) from these people? They never unzip their
flys.
zeroboris , 24 minutes ago
They use his humanitarian bona fides
Browder's bona fides? LOL
monad , 8 minutes ago
Minion (((Browder))) snitches on his masters. Nowhere to hide.
Vanilla_ISIS , 18 minutes ago
Someone should just kill this dude. Browder has certainly earned it.
roadhazard , 14 minutes ago
But what about the money laundering.
Panic Mode , 15 minutes ago
You better run. Your buddy McCain is gone and see who else will fight for you.
pndr4495 , 42 minutes ago
Somehow - Mnuchkin's desire to sell his Park Ave. apartment fits into this tale of
intrigue and bullshit.
markar , 47 minutes ago
Send this guy Browder a polonium cocktail. It's on me.
TahoeBilly2012 , 1 hour ago
((Browder)) ??
Clogheen , 37 minutes ago
Yes. Did you really need to ask?
geno-econ , 1 hour ago
According to Browder, Putin is worth over $100 Billion most of it stashed away in foreign
banks through intermediates and relatives. If true, it will bring down Putin and many western
banks. Perhaps a Red Swan is about to take off exposing an unsustainable .financial system
and corrupt political enterprise on both sides of the divide sur to cause chaos. Ironically,
Putin who represents Nationalism in Russia is under attack by Globalists accusing Putin of
Capitalistic Greed utilizing western banks Suicidal !
Max Cynical , 1 hour ago
I watch the banned documentary...The Magnitsky Act - Behind the Scenes.
Only the slimiest rats get into the club of "Can Do No Wrong" and these types of gigs.
Thaxter , 1 hour ago
This documentary is first class, a really absorbing look into the mind of the sociopath
Browder, a pathological, absolutely shameless liar and a very stupid and weak person. To
understand the influence that this insignificant invertebrate yields, look to his father,
Earl Russell Browder, who was the leader of the Communist Party in the United States during
the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s.
blindfaith , 22 minutes ago
Look no further than our own political circus to see that mighty hands pull the strings.
Like all strings, they will fray and break...eventually.
Jim in MN , 1 hour ago
Yes well the Big Question for us now is the degree to which the President is in control of
any of this.
Recall, dear ZH fighters, how we worked out a sound strategy for the Trump Administration
in the early days. Key aspects were to leave the generals and the bankers alone for a couple
of years. This would allow immigration, trade, health care and deregulation including tax
reform to form the early core wins, along with Supreme Court nominees of course.
Lo, cometh the Deep State and its frantic attempts to both save and conceal itself.
One key tentacle was to rouse the intelligence community into an active enemy of the
POTUS. This partially fouled up the 'leave the generals alone' strategy.
Another is to try to force war with the emergent Eurasian hegemony comprised of China and
Russia. This is seen all across the 'hinterland' of Russia.
The USA has no vital strategic interests in Eurasia at this juncture of history. Everyone
should be clear on that.
The USA's logical and sane policy stance is to support peace, free and fair trade, and
stable democracy, including border controls and the rule of law through LEADING BY
EXAMPLE.
So for Trump to continue to allow the financial sector Deep State traitors to operate
against a peaceful Eurasia is becoming increasingly intolerable.
Where to from here?
BandGap , 1 hour ago
Keep opening it up to scrutiny.
This article opened my eyes, I did not fully understand why Russia was all over Browder
except the stealing aspect, but bigger yet, why he was being protected by the EU/US.
No wonder Putin wants to work with the Donno. Taking Browder out and exposing this
manipulation works for both sides.
LA_Goldbug , 40 minutes ago
If Browder is a surprise to you then look at Khodorkovsky (there is more of these types
from he came from).
Because when looking at this situation rationally, how does this guy get to run around
accusing banks of anything and mobilize governments into actions which have massive
ramifications for the global financial system unless he's intimately connected with the very
people that operate the top of that system?"
Exactly. He was sent by the Anglo-Zionist Tribe otherwise he would be a nobody.
JacquesdeMolay , 1 hour ago
Also, a very good book on the topic: "suppressed and banned by the CIA's supplier, Amazon,
The Grand Deception: The Browder Hoax is a highly intelligent, frank and entertaining
take-down of one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the US public and the world
– The Magnitsky Act. Krainer's study of Bill Browder's book and actions is a riveting,
unflinching expose of what might end up being pivotal in revealing one of this decade's big
hoaxes."
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the
weight of their own money-grubbing schemes.
Notable quotes:
"... Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their mortgage . ..."
"... By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in Yes! Magazine ..."
"... Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of admitting they can't pay their bills. ..."
"... Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick, or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew. ..."
"... With a default rate approaching 40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say, ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances. ..."
"... When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems. ..."
"... Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization." ..."
"... "Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost." ..."
"... A recent manifesto by activist and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains. ..."
"... Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six years, routinely. ..."
Yves
here. This article describes how the stigma of struggling to pay student debt is a burden in
and of itself. I wish this article had explained how little it take to trigger an escalation
into default interest rates and how punitive they are. The piece also stresses the value of
activism as a form of psychological relief, by connecting stressed student debt borrowers with
people similarly afflicted.
But the bigger issue is the way indebtedness is demonized in a society that makes it pretty
much impossible to avoid borrowing. One reader recounted how many (as in how few) weeks of
after tax wages it took to buy a car in the 1960s versus now. Dealers don't want to talk to
buyers who want to pay in full at the time of purchase. And if you don't have installment
credit or a mortgage, the consumer credit agencies ding you!
It goes without saying that the sense of shame is harder to endure due to how shallow most
people's social networks are, which is another product of neoliberalism.
In keeping, the New York Times today ran an op-ed by one of its editors on how student
debtors are also victims of the crisis, reprinted from a longer piece in The Baffler (hat tip Dan
K).
Key sections :
Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid
more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly
payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like
Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and
that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially
meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their
mortgage .
Many people have and will continue to condemn me personally for my tremendous but
unexceptional student debt, and the ways in which it has made the recession's effects linger
for my family. I've spent quite a lot of time in the past decade accepting this blame. The
recession may have compounded my family's economic insecurity, but I also made the conscious
decision to take out loans for a college I couldn't afford in order to become a journalist, a
profession with minimal financial returns. The amount of debt I owe in student loans -- about
$100,000 -- is more than I make in a given year. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this, but as
I grow older, I think it is time that those profiting from this country's broken economic
system share some of my guilt
[At my commencement in 2009] Mrs. Clinton then echoed a fantasy of boundless opportunity
that had helped guide the country into economic collapse, deceiving many of the parents in
attendance, including my own, into borrowing toward a future that they couldn't work hard
enough to afford. "There is no problem we face here in America or around the world that will
not yield to human effort," she said. "Our challenges are ones that summon the best of us,
and we will make the world better tomorrow than it is today." At the time, I wondered if this
was accurate. I now know how wrong she was.
By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in
Yes! Magazine
Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of
admitting they can't pay their bills.
Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial
trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick,
or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew.
With a default rate approaching
40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets
demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student
debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say,
ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances.
When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their
names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who
went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified
of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems.
"If I shared this with anyone they will look down upon me as some kind of fool," explains a
North Carolina psychologist who is now beyond retirement age. He explains that his student debt
balance soared after losing a well-paying position during the financial crisis, and that he is
struggling to pay it back.
Financial shame alienates struggling borrowers. Debtors blame themselves and self-loathe
when they can't make their payments, explains Colette Simone, a Michigan psychologist. "There
is so much fear of sharing the reality of their financial situation and the devastation it is
causing in every facet of their lives," she says. "The consequences of coming forward can
result in social pushback and possible job -- related complications, which only deepen their
suffering."
Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken
their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or
had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization."
With an average debt of just over $37,000 per borrower for the
class of 2016 , and given that incomes have been flat since the 1970s , it's not
surprising that borrowers are struggling to pay. Student loans have a squeaky-clean reputation,
and society tends to view them as a noble symbol of the taxpayers' generosity to the working
poor. Fear of facing society's ostracism for failure to pay them back has left borrowers
alienated and trapped in a lending system that is engulfing them in debt bondage.
"Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet
Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost."
Student debtors can counter despair by fighting back through activism and political
engagement, she says. "Connection is the antidote to alienation, and engaging in activism,
along with therapy, is a way to recovery."
Despite the fear of coming forward, some activists are building a social movement in which
meaningful connections among borrowers can counter the taboo of openly admitting financial
ruin.
Student Loan Justice, a national grassroots lobby group, is attempting to build this
movement by pushing for robust legislation to return
bankruptcy protections to borrowers. The group has active chapters in almost every state, with
members directly lobbying their local representatives to sign on as co-sponsors to HR 2366.
Activists are building a supportive community for struggling borrowers through political
agitation, local engagement, storytelling, and by spreading a courageous message of hope that
may embolden traumatized borrowers to come forward and unite.
Julie Margetaa Morgan
, a fellow at The Roosevelt Institute, recently noted that student debt servicers like Navient
have a powerful influence on lawmakers. "Student loan borrowers may not have millions to spend
on lobbying, but they have something equally, if not more, powerful: millions of voices," she
says.
A recent manifesto by activist
and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in
constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able
to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading to a
mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical change.
In a recent interview he
explained that the conditions for borrowers are so bad already that debtors may not join the
boycott willingly. Instead, participation may simply happen by default given the lack of proper
work opportunities that lead to borrowers' inability to pay.
While a large-scale default may not happen through willful and supportive collective action,
ending the secrecy of the crisis through massive national attention may destigmatize the shame
of financial defeat and finally bring debtors out of the isolation that causes them so much
despair.
Activists are calling for a significant conversation about the commodification of educating
our youth, shifting our focus toward investing into the promise of the young and able, rather
than the guarantee of their perpetual debt bondage. In calling for collective action they
soothe the hurt of so many alienated debtors, breaking the taboos that allow them to say, "Me,
too" and admit openly that in this financial climate we all need each other to move
forward.
How much are the interest rates on student loans there in the USA? Here in India its 11.5%
if you want to finance studies abroad. 8.5 for some select institutions.
I wonder if the media's obsession with "millenials" isn't primarily a way to try to divide
people with shared interests, above all around the topics of student debt and the job market
and to make the problems seem like they have shallower roots than they really do. The
individuals mentioned here are older than that 24-37 age cohort, one of them much older.
Dealers don't want to talk to buyers who want to pay in full at the time of
purchase.
Yes Yes. Car manufacturers are actually finance houses selling products manufactured by
subcontractors – such is the state of American industry – but their dream is to
move to a SaaS model where ownership, of anything, becomes a relic of the past (except for
the overlords and oligarchs).
This could not be possible without government corruption and revolving-door regulation.
Maybe these PAYG vehicles will contain built-in body scanners too; for our own security, of
course.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading
to a mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical
change.
Default, or radical change, would bring the economy to it's knees. But when there is
another economic downturn, this is going to happen anyway. Terrible situation; negative real
interest rates destroying the pensions of the elderly, student loan servitude destroying the
youth and the middle class being squeezed to oblivion. What can be done to fix it, I ask?
Yet they are doing God's work, are they? Well, this is not a God I choose to worship.
Well good for you. How many cars, of what age, have you bought, for your anecdote to rate
as anything vaguely resembling the wide reality, and how does your personal financial
situation let you just write checks for $30 or $70,000?
Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales
force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six
years, routinely.
And one wonders what the investment is in trying to impeach the points of this report, wth
such an unlikely and atypical claim.
Maybe a little traction, then, for the notion, and increasingly the inescapable reality, of
#juststoppaying on those "remember Joe Biden" virtually non-dischargeable, often fraudulently
induced, "student loan" debt shackles?
"Teaching to the test" is a perversion of education. Excessive quantification is bad. Both are primary features of neoliberal
education.
Notable quotes:
"... If we care about the prospects of democratic education, we must take neoliberalism's success seriously, for it is a philosophical framework in which freedom and democratic education are mutually exclusive. ..."
"... We must intentionally challenge the neoliberal notion of the value freedom and the usefulness of its associated philosophical assumptions. ..."
Goodlad, et al. (2002) rightly point out that a culture can either resist or support change.
Schein's (2010) model of culture indicates observable behaviors of a culture can be explained
by exposing underlying shared values and basic assumptions that give meaning to the
performance. Yet culture is many-faceted and complex. So Schein advised a clinical approach to
cultural analysis that calls for identifying a problem in order to focus the analysis on
relevant values and assumptions. This project starts with two assumptions:
The erosion of democratic education is a visible overt behavior of the current U.S.
macro-culture, and
This is a problem.
I intend to use this problem of the erosion of democratic education as a basis for a
cultural analysis. My essential question is: What are the deeper, collective, competing value
commitments and shared basic assumptions that hinder efforts for democratic education? The
purpose of this paper is to start a conversation about particular cultural limitations and
barriers we are working with as we move toward recapturing the civic mission of education.
... ... ...
Neoliberalism's success in infiltrating the national discourse shuts out alternative
discourses and appears to render them irrelevant in everyday American culture (R. Quantz,
personal communication, Summer 2006). If we care about the prospects of democratic education,
we must take neoliberalism's success seriously, for it is a philosophical framework in which
freedom and democratic education are mutually exclusive. Dewey (1993), in all his wisdom,
warned:
And let those who are struggling to replace the present economic system by a cooperative one
also remember that in struggling for a new system of social restraints and controls they are
also struggling for a more equal and equitable balance of powers that will enhance and
multiply the effective liberties of the mass of individuals. Let them not be jockeyed into
the position of supporting social control at the expense of liberty [emphasis added]. (p.
160)
Yet, that is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves today. Democratic education is
viewed as a social control policy, as an infringement on the supremacy of the [neoliberal] freedom. We
witness a lack of democratic citizenship, moral, and character education in our schools. We see
a lack of redistributing resources for equality of educational opportunity. We observe a lack
of talk about education's civic mission, roles, and goals. Democratic education is viewed as
tangential, secondary, and mutually exclusive from the prioritized value of "liberty." How can
we foster alternative notions of freedom, such as Lincoln's republican sense of liberty as
collectively inquiring and deciding how we rule ourselves?
We must intentionally challenge the
neoliberal notion of the value freedom and the usefulness of its associated philosophical
assumptions.
So your information and private data can be traded for some small amount of money to God knows whom
Notable quotes:
"... Considering that Amazon employees in the US are some of the most poorly paid in tech and retail (Jeff Bezos was recently booed by his own employees over low wages), perhaps the WSJ' s theory holds water. ..."
Amazon has launched an investigation to track down a sophisticated network of employees
running a "black market" of confidential information and favors, illegally sold through
intermediaries to site merchants in order to give them a competitive advantage over other
sellers, reports the
Wall Street Journal .
In addition to providing sales metrics, search keywords and reviewers' email addresses,
bribed Amazon employees would delete negative feedback for around $300 per review, with
middleman brokers typically demanding a five-review minimum from merchants looking to game the
system.
Employees of Amazon, primarily with the aid of intermediaries , are offering internal data
and other confidential information that can give an edge to independent merchants selling
their products on the site, according to sellers who have been offered and purchased the
data, brokers who provide it and people familiar with internal investigations.
...
In exchange for payments ranging from roughly $80 to more than $2,000 , brokers for Amazon
employees in Shenzhen are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers' email addresses, as
well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts , the people
said.
...
Amazon is investigating a number of cases involving employees, including some in the U.S.,
suspected of accepting these bribes , according to people familiar with the matter.
-WSJ
The data brokers primarily operate ion China, as the number of new Amazon sellers in the
country has been skyrocketing. The Journal speculates that " Amazon employees in China have
relatively small salaries, which may embolden them to take risks. "
Considering that Amazon employees in the US are some of the most poorly paid in
tech and retail (Jeff Bezos was recently booed by his own
employees over low wages), perhaps the WSJ' s theory holds water.
The internal probe was launched after a tip over the practice in China was sent to Eric
Broussard, an Amazon VP in charge of overseeing global marketplaces. The company has since
moved key executives into different positions in China to try and "root out the bribery,"
reports the Journal .
"We hold our employees to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our Code faces
discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties," an Amazon
spokeswoman said of the situation, confirming that the company is investigating the claims. The
same applies to sellers: "We have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad
actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them ," she
said.
Merchant network
A major component of Amazon's success is its massive network of third-party merchants, where
the company derives the majority of merchandise sales. Over two million merchants now offer an
estimated 550 million products over Amazon, which constitutes over half of all units sold on
the site. Third party sales constituted an estimated $200 billion in gross merchandise volume
last year, according to estimates by FactSet.
As such, "Sellers must aggressively compete to
get their products noticed on the first page of search results, where customers typically make
most of their purchase decisions," notes the Journal .
Evolving manipulations
Merchants have long sought competitive advantages over each other - first gaming Amazon's
automated ranking system, by paying people to leave fake reviews and drive traffic to
products.
After some time, the black market for internal information emerged, as bribed employees
began providing data and access to various benefits, according to a person who has facilitated
by brokers.
Brokers are the middlemen between Amazon employees and sellers who want negative reviews
deleted or access to internal sales information. Brokers search for Amazon employees on
Chinese messaging platform WeChat
and send messages asking them if they would like to provide these services in exchange for
cash , according to brokers and sellers who say they have been approached by brokers.
The going rate for having an Amazon employee delete negative reviews is about $300 per
review , according to people familiar with the practice. Brokers usually demand a five-review
minimum, meaning that sellers typically must pay at least $1,500 for the service, the people
said.
-WSJ
For a lower fee, merchants can pay Amazon employees for the email addresses of verified
reviewers, giving them the opportunity to reach out to those who have left negative reviews for
the opportunity to persuade them to adjust or delete their comment - sometimes bribing the
reviewer with a free or discounted product.
Also offered for sale is proprietary sales information, "such as the keywords customers
typically use to search for items on Amazon's site, sales volume and other statistics about
buyers' habits, according to the people," enabling Amazon sellers to better craft product
descriptions in a manner which will boost their search result rankings.
At a recent conference hosted for sellers -- which wasn't run by Amazon -- a broker pulled
up internal keyword results on his laptop. The broker said $80 can buy information on sales
data, the number of times users searched for a certain product and clicked on a product page,
which sellers are bidding for advertisements and how much those cost, according to the person
who viewed the results.
-WSJ
One seller in China told the Journal that competition on the website had become so intense
that he needs to cheat in order to gain a competitive advantage. " If I don't do bad things I
will die ," he said.
If all else fails in rooting out the black market, perhaps Bezos will simply release the
hounds:
surf@jm , 9 minutes ago
China's motto......
Who needs Christian morality, when lying, cheating and stealing is our religion.....
surf@jm , 9 minutes ago
China's motto......
Who needs christian morality, when lying, cheating and stealing is our religion.....
Suicyco , 44 minutes ago
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys
Last of the Middle Class , 44 minutes ago
Just like Wal Mart charging by the inch for shelf space. Same game different monkeys.
Normal , 44 minutes ago
Prime example of how the US is a fascist state: the corporation gets government to enforce
law on poor people.
DoctorFix , 1 hour ago
When Amazon opened the flood gates of corruption and scams by allowing Chinese sellers to
compete with Americans on the US site... well, the locals were fucked! Lying, scamming
Chinese fuckers don't care who or how they screw you. And Amazon doesn't give a shit so long
as it makes money. Fuck Amazon! That's why I cancelled any prime membership and haven't
bought a damn thing from them in ages.
803Mastiff , 1 hour ago
And the Pentagon farmed out their servers to AWS.....What are Amazon employees getting
paid for military intel?
richsob , 1 hour ago
If local retailers have a crappy inventory and the stores are staffed with surly
Millennials, then why shouldn't I buy stuff on Amazon at a better price? I support local
businesses that deserve being supported. The rest of them sound like a bunch of whiny
liberals who feel "entitled" to my money.
cornflakesdisease , 2 minutes ago
Everything on Amazon can be found online somewhere else cheaper. You check out the item on
Amazon and then buy it elsewhere. Any seller has to mark up on Amazon to pay Amazon.
Logically, then, from his direct website, he would be slightly cheaper.
I'm sorry, did I miss the part where Disgruntled Amazon employees sell access to the CIAs
web farms?
Being Free , 1 hour ago
I have a letter from a woman who used to work with Bezos at a McDonalds restaurant when
they were both in high school in Miami. She says Bezos walked her home from McDonalds one day
after work and sexually attacked her in her home. He tried to rip her clothes off her but she
managed to escape his evil clutches. She was and is so distraught over this incident that she
is still afraid especially now that he is such a wealthy and powerful man.
just the tip , 44 minutes ago
well played.
JoeTurner , 1 hour ago
Oligarchs bitchez ! it's their country....you just pay the taxes...
ZD1 , 1 hour ago
"A major component of Amazon's success is its massive network of third-party merchants,
where the company derives the majority of merchandise sales. Over two million merchants now
offer an estimated 550 million products over Amazon, which constitutes over half of all units
sold on the site. Third party sales constituted an estimated $200 billion in gross
merchandise volume last year, according to estimates by FactSet."
Mostly Chicom sweatshop shit.
abgary1 , 1 hour ago
Giving away our privacy for convenience sake is inane and insane.
Have we become that lazy and ignorant?
Without privacy and thus freedom we have nothing.
Midas , 37 minutes ago
Give me convenience or give me death!
--Jello Biafra
pitz , 1 hour ago
That's nothing. Amazon has access to the business data of a large number of businesses
that use AWS. The possibilities of abuse there are nearly endless.
bluebird100 , 1 hour ago
Get fucked Amazon, that's what you get for doing business in China.
Fuckin' sick of people moaning about Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc, yet spending half
their life on there and buying shit from them.
Personally I can't stand what Amazon has become and would never spend £1 with
them.
Facebook is evil shit designed to re-wire the brain to make you a self conscious
narcissist which will ultimately end in misery.
Google are a million miles away from 'do no evil' but TBH they have a very good product
however they are evil scumbags.
These companies literally believe they are gods, that they control the world.... just like
the big banks did before 2008.
I hope the crash comes soon.
-WetWipe
mrtoad , 1 hour ago
Banks do control the world
MARDUKTA , 1 hour ago
President will destroy them soon/CIA.
MedicalQuack , 1 hour ago
Heck, this is not just China being solicited, a couple weeks ago I had 4 voicemails, all
the same recording stating "making $17.00 to $35.00 an hour posting reviews to Amazon. I
didn't answer the calls and saw that they were junk and didn't run upon them until I checked
my voicemail for a real message I had missed and there they were.
They all had a different number to call and a different company name, but it was the same
recorded message on all 4 of them and this happened in a couple days, 2 on one day, and
another 2 the next day. I guess they figured I was not going to respond and took me off
attempt #5:)
Why wouldn't folks in the inside go after a scam like this, look at their CEO, a big fat
quant from Wall Street..and of course we have all heard and read the stories about how Amazon
pays...
This being said, I don't think this scam was just limited to China..if I remember
correctly, this was promoted as part time work with posting reviews to Amazon and work as
many hours as you like. I deleted all of them so I can't go back and listen again as they
were just nuisance calls like others that I just get rid of.
MARDUKTA , 1 hour ago
Bezos partnered with some tribal chieftain in Nigeria who is CEO of Scams-R-Us.
"Teaching to the test" is a perversion of education. Excessive quantification is bad. Both are primary features of neoliberal
education.
Notable quotes:
"... If we care about the prospects of democratic education, we must take neoliberalism's success seriously, for it is a philosophical framework in which freedom and democratic education are mutually exclusive. ..."
"... We must intentionally challenge the neoliberal notion of the value freedom and the usefulness of its associated philosophical assumptions. ..."
Goodlad, et al. (2002) rightly point out that a culture can either resist or support change.
Schein's (2010) model of culture indicates observable behaviors of a culture can be explained
by exposing underlying shared values and basic assumptions that give meaning to the
performance. Yet culture is many-faceted and complex. So Schein advised a clinical approach to
cultural analysis that calls for identifying a problem in order to focus the analysis on
relevant values and assumptions. This project starts with two assumptions:
The erosion of democratic education is a visible overt behavior of the current U.S.
macro-culture, and
This is a problem.
I intend to use this problem of the erosion of democratic education as a basis for a
cultural analysis. My essential question is: What are the deeper, collective, competing value
commitments and shared basic assumptions that hinder efforts for democratic education? The
purpose of this paper is to start a conversation about particular cultural limitations and
barriers we are working with as we move toward recapturing the civic mission of education.
... ... ...
Neoliberalism's success in infiltrating the national discourse shuts out alternative
discourses and appears to render them irrelevant in everyday American culture (R. Quantz,
personal communication, Summer 2006). If we care about the prospects of democratic education,
we must take neoliberalism's success seriously, for it is a philosophical framework in which
freedom and democratic education are mutually exclusive. Dewey (1993), in all his wisdom,
warned:
And let those who are struggling to replace the present economic system by a cooperative one
also remember that in struggling for a new system of social restraints and controls they are
also struggling for a more equal and equitable balance of powers that will enhance and
multiply the effective liberties of the mass of individuals. Let them not be jockeyed into
the position of supporting social control at the expense of liberty [emphasis added]. (p.
160)
Yet, that is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves today. Democratic education is
viewed as a social control policy, as an infringement on the supremacy of the [neoliberal] freedom. We
witness a lack of democratic citizenship, moral, and character education in our schools. We see
a lack of redistributing resources for equality of educational opportunity. We observe a lack
of talk about education's civic mission, roles, and goals. Democratic education is viewed as
tangential, secondary, and mutually exclusive from the prioritized value of "liberty." How can
we foster alternative notions of freedom, such as Lincoln's republican sense of liberty as
collectively inquiring and deciding how we rule ourselves?
We must intentionally challenge the
neoliberal notion of the value freedom and the usefulness of its associated philosophical
assumptions.
Nellie Ohr will sit for an interview with Congress next week, according to Rep. John
Ratcliffe (R-TX).
Ohr, an expert on Russia who speaks fluent Russian, is a central figure in the nexus between
Fusion GPS - the opposition research firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the "Steele
Dossier " - and the Obama Justice Department - where her husband, Bruce Ohr, was a senior
official. Bruce was demoted twice after he was caught lying about his extensive involvement
with Fusion's activities surrounding the 2016 US election.
Notably, the Ohrs had extensive contact with Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy who authored
the salacious anti-Trump dossier used to justify spying on the Trump campaign during the
election, and later to smear Donald Trump right before he took office in 2017. According to
emails turned over to Congress and reported in late August, the Ohrs would have breakfast with
Steele on July 30 at the downtown D.C. Mayflower hotel - days after Steele had turned in
several installments of the infamous dossier to the FBI . The breakfast took place one day
before the FBI/DOJ launched operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the codename for the official
counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.
"Great to see you and Nellie this morning Bruce," Steele wrote shortly following their
breakfast meeting. " Let's keep in touch on the substantive issues/s (sic). Glenn is happy to
speak to you on this if it would help," referring to Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson.
No stranger to the US intelligence community, Nellie Ohr represented the CIA's "Open Source
Works" group in a 2010 " expert working group report on
international organized crime" along with Bruce Ohr and Glenn Simpson .
Nayel , 56 minutes ago
I'd bet she gets up there and denies everything, lust like Strozk. And the DOJ does
nothing, and even allows the perjury to slide.
Sessions is clearly complicit. Loretta Lynch might as well be still running the show...and
perhaps she is...
Seeing as how the Shadow Government seems to be running the "Collusion Investigation"
on themselves...
thebriang , 1 hour ago
Is she going to name the 3 "journalists" that Fusion paid to start pushing the Russia
narrative in the MSM?
I want names, goddammit.
samsara , 1 hour ago
Thread by Thread the garment is unraveled for all to see
" Needless to say, Congress will have no shortage of questions to ask Nellie. "
Like why did she get a ham radio? I guess she didn't trust the NSA?
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the
weight of their own money-grubbing schemes.
Notable quotes:
"... Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their mortgage . ..."
"... By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in Yes! Magazine ..."
"... Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of admitting they can't pay their bills. ..."
"... Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick, or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew. ..."
"... With a default rate approaching 40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say, ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances. ..."
"... When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems. ..."
"... Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization." ..."
"... "Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost." ..."
"... A recent manifesto by activist and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains. ..."
"... Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six years, routinely. ..."
Yves
here. This article describes how the stigma of struggling to pay student debt is a burden in
and of itself. I wish this article had explained how little it take to trigger an escalation
into default interest rates and how punitive they are. The piece also stresses the value of
activism as a form of psychological relief, by connecting stressed student debt borrowers with
people similarly afflicted.
But the bigger issue is the way indebtedness is demonized in a society that makes it pretty
much impossible to avoid borrowing. One reader recounted how many (as in how few) weeks of
after tax wages it took to buy a car in the 1960s versus now. Dealers don't want to talk to
buyers who want to pay in full at the time of purchase. And if you don't have installment
credit or a mortgage, the consumer credit agencies ding you!
It goes without saying that the sense of shame is harder to endure due to how shallow most
people's social networks are, which is another product of neoliberalism.
In keeping, the New York Times today ran an op-ed by one of its editors on how student
debtors are also victims of the crisis, reprinted from a longer piece in The Baffler (hat tip Dan
K).
Key sections :
Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid
more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly
payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like
Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and
that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially
meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their
mortgage .
Many people have and will continue to condemn me personally for my tremendous but
unexceptional student debt, and the ways in which it has made the recession's effects linger
for my family. I've spent quite a lot of time in the past decade accepting this blame. The
recession may have compounded my family's economic insecurity, but I also made the conscious
decision to take out loans for a college I couldn't afford in order to become a journalist, a
profession with minimal financial returns. The amount of debt I owe in student loans -- about
$100,000 -- is more than I make in a given year. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this, but as
I grow older, I think it is time that those profiting from this country's broken economic
system share some of my guilt
[At my commencement in 2009] Mrs. Clinton then echoed a fantasy of boundless opportunity
that had helped guide the country into economic collapse, deceiving many of the parents in
attendance, including my own, into borrowing toward a future that they couldn't work hard
enough to afford. "There is no problem we face here in America or around the world that will
not yield to human effort," she said. "Our challenges are ones that summon the best of us,
and we will make the world better tomorrow than it is today." At the time, I wondered if this
was accurate. I now know how wrong she was.
By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in
Yes! Magazine
Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of
admitting they can't pay their bills.
Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial
trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick,
or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew.
With a default rate approaching
40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets
demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student
debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say,
ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances.
When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their
names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who
went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified
of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems.
"If I shared this with anyone they will look down upon me as some kind of fool," explains a
North Carolina psychologist who is now beyond retirement age. He explains that his student debt
balance soared after losing a well-paying position during the financial crisis, and that he is
struggling to pay it back.
Financial shame alienates struggling borrowers. Debtors blame themselves and self-loathe
when they can't make their payments, explains Colette Simone, a Michigan psychologist. "There
is so much fear of sharing the reality of their financial situation and the devastation it is
causing in every facet of their lives," she says. "The consequences of coming forward can
result in social pushback and possible job -- related complications, which only deepen their
suffering."
Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken
their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or
had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization."
With an average debt of just over $37,000 per borrower for the
class of 2016 , and given that incomes have been flat since the 1970s , it's not
surprising that borrowers are struggling to pay. Student loans have a squeaky-clean reputation,
and society tends to view them as a noble symbol of the taxpayers' generosity to the working
poor. Fear of facing society's ostracism for failure to pay them back has left borrowers
alienated and trapped in a lending system that is engulfing them in debt bondage.
"Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet
Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost."
Student debtors can counter despair by fighting back through activism and political
engagement, she says. "Connection is the antidote to alienation, and engaging in activism,
along with therapy, is a way to recovery."
Despite the fear of coming forward, some activists are building a social movement in which
meaningful connections among borrowers can counter the taboo of openly admitting financial
ruin.
Student Loan Justice, a national grassroots lobby group, is attempting to build this
movement by pushing for robust legislation to return
bankruptcy protections to borrowers. The group has active chapters in almost every state, with
members directly lobbying their local representatives to sign on as co-sponsors to HR 2366.
Activists are building a supportive community for struggling borrowers through political
agitation, local engagement, storytelling, and by spreading a courageous message of hope that
may embolden traumatized borrowers to come forward and unite.
Julie Margetaa Morgan
, a fellow at The Roosevelt Institute, recently noted that student debt servicers like Navient
have a powerful influence on lawmakers. "Student loan borrowers may not have millions to spend
on lobbying, but they have something equally, if not more, powerful: millions of voices," she
says.
A recent manifesto by activist
and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in
constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able
to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading to a
mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical change.
In a recent interview he
explained that the conditions for borrowers are so bad already that debtors may not join the
boycott willingly. Instead, participation may simply happen by default given the lack of proper
work opportunities that lead to borrowers' inability to pay.
While a large-scale default may not happen through willful and supportive collective action,
ending the secrecy of the crisis through massive national attention may destigmatize the shame
of financial defeat and finally bring debtors out of the isolation that causes them so much
despair.
Activists are calling for a significant conversation about the commodification of educating
our youth, shifting our focus toward investing into the promise of the young and able, rather
than the guarantee of their perpetual debt bondage. In calling for collective action they
soothe the hurt of so many alienated debtors, breaking the taboos that allow them to say, "Me,
too" and admit openly that in this financial climate we all need each other to move
forward.
How much are the interest rates on student loans there in the USA? Here in India its 11.5%
if you want to finance studies abroad. 8.5 for some select institutions.
I wonder if the media's obsession with "millenials" isn't primarily a way to try to divide
people with shared interests, above all around the topics of student debt and the job market
and to make the problems seem like they have shallower roots than they really do. The
individuals mentioned here are older than that 24-37 age cohort, one of them much older.
Dealers don't want to talk to buyers who want to pay in full at the time of
purchase.
Yes Yes. Car manufacturers are actually finance houses selling products manufactured by
subcontractors – such is the state of American industry – but their dream is to
move to a SaaS model where ownership, of anything, becomes a relic of the past (except for
the overlords and oligarchs).
This could not be possible without government corruption and revolving-door regulation.
Maybe these PAYG vehicles will contain built-in body scanners too; for our own security, of
course.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading
to a mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical
change.
Default, or radical change, would bring the economy to it's knees. But when there is
another economic downturn, this is going to happen anyway. Terrible situation; negative real
interest rates destroying the pensions of the elderly, student loan servitude destroying the
youth and the middle class being squeezed to oblivion. What can be done to fix it, I ask?
Yet they are doing God's work, are they? Well, this is not a God I choose to worship.
Well good for you. How many cars, of what age, have you bought, for your anecdote to rate
as anything vaguely resembling the wide reality, and how does your personal financial
situation let you just write checks for $30 or $70,000?
Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales
force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six
years, routinely.
And one wonders what the investment is in trying to impeach the points of this report, wth
such an unlikely and atypical claim.
Maybe a little traction, then, for the notion, and increasingly the inescapable reality, of
#juststoppaying on those "remember Joe Biden" virtually non-dischargeable, often fraudulently
induced, "student loan" debt shackles?
"... Rajan turned out to be a party pooper, questioning whether "advances" in the financial sector actually increased, rather than reduced, systemic risk . Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called him a Luddite . " I felt like an early Christian who had wandered into a convention of half-starved lions ," he wrote. But though delivered in genteel academic lingo, his paper was powerful and prescient. ..."
"... "There has been a shift of risk from the formal banking system to the shadow financial system." He also told me the post-crisis reforms did not address central banks' role in creating asset bubbles through accommodative monetary policy, which he sees as the financial markets' biggest long-term challenge. ..."
"... 99% of all people should invest in themselves first. That means having no debt and also having a small company that you only put sweat equity into to make it work starting out as a side business and keeping it as a side business even if it grows bigger. That also means going to college and earning a money making degree that is in demand. ..."
"The ultimate thing that brings down financial markets is excess leverage So, you look
where's the big leverage, and right now I think it's in emerging markets."
Shilling is particularly worried about the $8 trillion in dollar-denominated
emerging-market corporate and sovereign debt, especially as the U.S. dollar rises along with
interest rates. "The problem is as the dollar increases," he said, "it gets tougher and
tougher for them to service [that debt] because it takes more and more of their local
currency to do so." Of that,
$249 billion must be repaid or refinanced through next year , Bloomberg reported.
... ... ...
That housing-related stocks "saw a parabolic run-up" in 2016-17, but in
January his index "peaked and now it's coming down hard." And this spells "bad news on the
housing market looking 12 months down the road."
But the biggest danger, Stack told me, is from low-quality corporate debt. Issuance of
corporate bonds has "gone from around $700 billion in 2008 to about two and a half times that
[today]."
And, he added, more and more of that debt is subprime . Uh-oh.
In 2005, he pointed out, companies issued five times as much high-quality as subprime
debt, but last year "we had as much subprime debt, poor quality-debt issued, as quality debt
on the corporate level," he said, warning "this is the kind of debt that does get defaulted
on dramatically in an economic downturn."
"Managers have greater incentive to take risk because the upside is significant, while the
downside is limited."
"Moreover, the linkages between markets, and between markets and institutions, are now more
pronounced. While this helps the system diversify across small shocks, it also exposes the
system to large systemic shocks "
"The financial risks that are being created by the system are indeed greater [potentially
creating] a greater (albeit still small) probability of a catastrophic meltdown."
What he says now:
"There has been a shift of risk from the formal banking system to the shadow financial
system." He also told me the post-crisis reforms did not address central banks' role in
creating asset bubbles through accommodative monetary policy, which he sees as the financial
markets' biggest long-term challenge.
"You get hooked on leverage. It's cheap, it's easy to refinance, so why not take more of it?
You get lulled into taking more leverage than perhaps you can handle."
And what might be coming:
Rajan also sees potential problems in U.S. corporate debt, particularly as rates rise, and
in emerging markets, though he thinks the current problems in Turkey and Argentina are "not
full-blown contagion."
"But are there accidents waiting to happen? Yes, there are."
What he says now:
"I think the choice of Europe is going to have to put [all the debt] on the balance sheet of
the European Central Bank. If they don't, then the euro zone breaks apart and we're going to
get a 50% valuation collapse."
"Greece...is a rounding error. Italy is not . And Brussels and Germany are going to have to
allow Italy to overshoot their persistent debt, and the ECB is going to have to buy that
debt."
"If it doesn't happen, the debt triggers a crisis in Europe, [and] that triggers the
beginning of a global recession" but... "there are so many little dominoes, if they all start
falling, one leads to the next."
Mauldin estimates the world has almost "half a quadrillion dollars," or $500 trillion, in
debt and unfunded pension and other liabilities, which he views as unsustainable.
But the flashpoint for the next crisis is likely to be in Europe, especially Italy, he
maintains.
Fed-up with being Sick and Tired , 3 minutes ago
It is an interesting piece. I do recall seeing A. Gary Shilling speaking back then when I
watched mainstream financial news which I no longer do. It would be interesting now to hear
what these four would have to see to actually see de-leveraging occur, and a reset put in
motion. I am tiring of the shenanigans of Central Bankers who clearly are trying everything
to keep this mess propped up.
Iskiab , 21 minutes ago
These guys are all right in their risk assessments but are being cautious on saying how it
will play out. Debt is one factor; but protectionism, demographic changes, and
dedollarization are the other threats.
The truth is no one knows how things will unfold, but I'm betting stagflation will be in
the works for the US for an extended period soon.
smacker , 1 hour ago
The 2008 financial crash was fundamentally caused by excessive DEBT.
That excessive debt was in the hands of: government, corporates and private individuals
and the banksters were making huge profits out of it, so they had no incentive to rein it in.
Clowns like UK Chancellor Gordoom Brown went on record claiming that he'd abolished boom
& bust, so the borrow/spend culture went on. ho-ho.
But borrowers eventually got to the point where they simply couldn't take on any more
debt, so the economy crashed, given that it was based on rising never-ending debt.
All of the labels given to this debt mountain such as: sub-prime mortgages, derivatives,
excessive leverage etc are all valid for analysts to analyse but the common connection
between them all was excessive DEBT.
That is what I concluded at the time and it has been confirmed 1,000,000 times since
then.
I am on record saying that this huge debt pile would take a generation to work its way
thru the economy which implied a long recession or depression.
I also predicted there'd likely be a BIG RESET to speed up the adjustment process. Despite
central banks irresponsibly printing vast amounts of fiat to alleviate the consequences for
their friends the banksters (but in reality to create new asset price bubbles) and dropping
interest rates to near zero to encourage more debt and mal-investment, nothing that has
happened has changed my mind.
The situation today, 10 years later, is that debt levels are hugely higher than in 2008
and the solution which existed then remains on the table. It's just that central banks
falsely believe their money-printing actions will solve the problem whereas in truth they are
in denial.
You cannot solve a debt problem by printing more money and taking on more debt. Central
banks and the likes of Krugman think otherwise.
The day of reckoning is on the horizon: either there will be a huge long
recession/depression to work debt out of the system with all of its implications to asset
values and social cohesion AND/OR a BIG RESET will be enacted. The latter will destroy the
wealth of vast numbers of ordinary people with their savings and investments going down the
flusher.
Neither solution will be a pretty sight.
Prepare accordingly.
Cincinnatuus , 1 hour ago
I think you are spot on with your assessment of the situation, and it seems a great many
other knowledgeable people agree with you. In fact, many market prognosticators are openly
talking about a RESET as a result of the dollar value collapsing and a resulting
hyper-inflation. Too many people think this.
The Contrarian in me says because everybody is expecting that, it's not going to play out
that way. I too, talk about the value of the dollar getting cut in half from here. Instead of
a RESET, I expect the collapse of the value of the dollar to usher in a deflationary
implosion as all that unpayable debt and financial obligations collapses and gets marked down
to zero. Likely the Banksters try some sort of money printing orgy along the way... Never let
a good crisis go to waste.
smacker , 1 hour ago
This article from Robert Prechter dating back to 2010 predicted the:
Prechter wasn't wrong, he just couldn't predict when it would happen. He understood that
the only solution to the huge debt crises was to clear it by letting it work its way thru the
economy (a generation or so to do) or by a BIG RESET.
Nothing has changed. Except that in the last 10 years, central banks have taken actions to
kick the can down the road because they're in denial and think they know better.
What the central banks never took into account in 2008 was that ((other things)) have
changed in the past 10 years, most notably the waning power of the USD as the Global Reserve
Currency which can only have negative consequences.
Fed-up with being Sick and Tired , 3 minutes ago
It is an interesting piece. I do recall seeing A. Gary Shilling speaking back then when I
watched mainstream financial news which I no longer do. It would be interesting now to hear
what these four would have to see to actually see de-leveraging occur, and a reset put in
motion. I am tiring of the shenanigans of Central Bankers who clearly are trying everything
to keep this mess propped up.
Iskiab , 21 minutes ago
These guys are all right in their risk assessments but are being cautious on saying how it
will play out. Debt is one factor; but protectionism, demographic changes, and
dedollarization are the other threats.
The truth is no one knows how things will unfold, but I'm betting stagflation will be in
the works for the US for an extended period soon.
bunkers , 1 hour ago
Greg Hunter, on YouTube, interviews Catherine Austin Fitts in an early Sunday morning
release. It's excellent.
turkey george palmer , 1 hour ago
Ha, good times bad times like the song says
But when I whispered in her ear, I lost another friend, oooh.
smacker , 1 hour ago
The 2008 financial crash was fundamentally caused by excessive DEBT.
That excessive debt was in the hands of: government, corporates and private individuals
and the banksters were making huge profits out of it, so they had no incentive to rein it in.
Clowns like UK Chancellor Gordoom Brown went on record claiming that he'd abolished boom
& bust, so the borrow/spend culture went on. ho-ho.
But borrowers eventually got to the point where they simply couldn't take on any more
debt, so the economy crashed, given that it was based on rising never-ending debt.
All of the labels given to this debt mountain such as: sub-prime mortgages, derivatives,
excessive leverage etc are all valid for analysts to analyse but the common connection
between them all was excessive DEBT.
That is what I concluded at the time and it has been confirmed 1,000,000 times since
then.
I am on record saying that this huge debt pile would take a generation to work its way
thru the economy which implied a long recession or depression.
I also predicted there'd likely be a BIG RESET to speed up the adjustment process. Despite
central banks irresponsibly printing vast amounts of fiat to alleviate the consequences for
their friends the banksters (but in reality to create new asset price bubbles) and dropping
interest rates to near zero to encourage more debt and mal-investment, nothing that has
happened has changed my mind.
The situation today, 10 years later, is that debt levels are hugely higher than in 2008
and the solution which existed then remains on the table. It's just that central banks
falsely believe their money-printing actions will solve the problem whereas in truth they are
in denial.
You cannot solve a debt problem by printing more money and taking on more debt. Central
banks and the likes of Krugman think otherwise.
The day of reckoning is on the horizon: either there will be a huge long
recession/depression to work debt out of the system with all of its implications to asset
values and social cohesion AND/OR a BIG RESET will be enacted. The latter will destroy the
wealth of vast numbers of ordinary people with their savings and investments going down the
flusher.
Neither solution will be a pretty sight.
Prepare accordingly.
U. Sinclair , 1 hour ago
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting
different results".
Cincinnatuus , 1 hour ago
I think you are spot on with your assessment of the situation, and it seems a great many
other knowledgeable people agree with you. In fact, many market prognosticators are openly
talking about a RESET as a result of the dollar value collapsing and a resulting
hyper-inflation. Too many people think this.
The Contrarian in me says because everybody is expecting that, it's not going to play out
that way. I too, talk about the value of the dollar getting cut in half from here. Instead of
a RESET, I expect the collapse of the value of the dollar to usher in a deflationary
implosion as all that unpayable debt and financial obligations collapses and gets marked down
to zero. Likely the Banksters try some sort of money printing orgy along the way... Never let
a good crisis go to waste.
smacker , 1 hour ago
This article from Robert Prechter dating back to 2010 predicted the:
Prechter wasn't wrong, he just couldn't predict when it would happen. He understood that
the only solution to the huge debt crises was to clear it by letting it work its way thru the
economy (a generation or so to do) or by a BIG RESET.
Nothing has changed. Except that in the last 10 years, central banks have taken actions to
kick the can down the road because they're in denial and think they know better.
What the central banks never took into account in 2008 was that ((other things)) have
changed in the past 10 years, most notably the waning power of the USD as the Global Reserve
Currency which can only have negative consequences.
Wahooo , 56 minutes ago
Got the collapse right, but not the hyperinflation.
smacker , 51 minutes ago
Time will tell... if the huge debt problem is resolved correctly by actions intended to
clear it and the USD loses its GRC status, deflation followed by hyperinflation will likely
follow as USDs flood back into the US economy.
CoCosAB , 16 minutes ago
The simple solution is - an old fashion I know - a DEBT JUBILEE !
The last time some schmuck tried to make the millennia tradition return he got himself
crucified!
There's NO OTHER SOLUTION in the present status of the MONETARY SYSTEM to re-balance it.
Of course that the OWNERS of the SYSTEM and the WEALTH (DEBT) don't wont to see their WEALTH
disappear in a click of a button...
So, the next Great Transference of Wealth (1st in 2007/8 and so on) its about to
start!
The example given above its just a peanut " Paulson, of course, loaded up on CDS's and
made $4 billion in what has been called "the greatest trade ever." "We made 15 times our
money," Shilling says. "...
Keep it up SLAVES... "WORK, DEBT, CONSUME"
smacker , 7 minutes ago
A "debt jubilee" is equal to a BIG RESET. I believe this will be enacted but for .govs to
get away with it, there'll have to create a huge distraction so they can blame it on someone
else.
That distraction will almost certainly be WAR or some other major event on a big enough
scale to distract attention away from what they're doing.
Push , 2 hours ago
I guess Tyler has never heard of Lyndon LaRouche? He accurately predicted the 2008 crash,
and others previously. The fact is that monetary policy is not economics, and when you look
at the inter-connectivity of human labor from the perspective of scientific progress it's
easy to see where the financial system is heading, for a huge collapse.
If you study what the United States did coming out of the Revolutionary War to build this
nation, then the subsequent dismantling of Hamilton's system by Andrew Jackson, the the
re-implementation of Hamilton's system by Carey and Clay through Lincoln, you can see that
what people today consider "economics" has nothing to do with the productive powers of the
labor force. British Free Trade, floating exchange rates, the offshore banking industry, Wall
Street, and the City of London are subverting economic fortitude in favor of the
consolidation of power in a process to build a new kind of empire.
The Real Tony , 2 hours ago
Eventually America will run out of lies to tell. This will be the catalyst for the next
crises.
truthalwayswinsout , 2 hours ago
No reason to listen to any of this or even care. Do not invest in the stock market; it is a scam and will always be a scam.
99% of all people should invest in themselves first. That means having no debt and also
having a small company that you only put sweat equity into to make it work starting out as a
side business and keeping it as a side business even if it grows bigger. That also means
going to college and earning a money making degree that is in demand.
Everyone in our family has no mortgages. Everyone in our family has small companies that
because they have no debt churn out cash like ATMs from $6K to $170K per year. And when the
markets crash or assets become extremely cheap we buy assets. We bought homes in the last
fiasco, did minor fixes, rented them, and sold them all 3 years ago. We made a 220% return in
6 years.
We are going to do it again with homes because they will again fall off dramatically and
this time we can pay cash for all the purchases. We will also be looking at unique food
companies that are over leveraged that we can buy at 10 cents on the dollar. (One of our
family is a chef and makes all kinds of stuff that can be packaged and sold but we have no
market access).
Batman11 , 3 hours ago
Problem solving involves two steps.
Understand the problem
Find a solution
Post 2008 - "It was a black swan". We didn't complete step 1, so we couldn't learn anything. The Chinese have now completed step one and have seen their Minsky moment on the
horizon. The indicators of financial crises are over inflated asset prices and the private
debt-to-GDP ratio. Debt is being used to inflate asset prices.
They are called Minsky moments. Too late for Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Hong Kong as they've been inflating
their real estate markets with mortgage lending. Wall Street leverages up the asset price bubble to make the bust much worse.
"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back
of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the
Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.
Leverage is just a profit and loss multiplier. The bankers take the bonuses on the way up and taxpayers cover the losses on the way
down.
Batman11 , 3 hours ago
Bankers only have one real product and that's debt. When they are messing about you can see it in the private debt-to-GDP ratio. It's that simple. They are clever and hide what they are doing on the surface, you just look underneath.
It's easy to see when you know where to look. Even the FED should be able to understand it. Well, we can just tell them where to look anyway; Harvard PhDs aren't what they used to
be.
Batman11 , 2 hours ago
How can bankers use their debt products to create real wealth and increase GDP for
growth? The UK:
Before 1980 – banks lending into the right places that result in GDP growth. After 1980 – banks lending into the wrong places that don't result in GDP growth. The UK eliminated corset controls on banking in 1979 and the banks invaded the mortgage
market and this is where the problem starts.
Richard Werner was in Japan in the 1980s when it went from a very stable economy and
turned into a debt fuelled monster. He worked out what happened and had all the clues
necessary to point him in the right direction. Bank credit (lending) creates money.
1929 – Inflating the US stock market with debt (margin lending)
2008 – Inflating the US real estate market with debt (mortgage lending)
Inflating asset prices with debt (type 3 lending).
Creating real wealth and increasing GDP (growth) requires type 1 lending.
Batman11 , 56 minutes ago
Economic liberalism – the fundamental flaw. Everyone looks to make as much money as possible, doing as little as possible. Asset stripping, activist shareholders being a very good example. Real wealth creation involves making real goods and providing real services, and involves
real work.
It doesn't look very attractive; there are easier ways to make money.
hillwalker , 3 hours ago
The Parasites! No mention of the over $600 TRILLION opaque OFF BALANCE SHEET derivatives market!
Nelbev , 5 hours ago
I think these guys miss the obvious.
1.) There is a housing bubble in London, OZ, Canada in Vancouver and Toronto. US prices
have bounced back nominally, but financing better than prior. The banking crisis will start
with housing bubble abroad.
2.) US deficits and debts are at a stage where inflation will lead to higher rates. The
amount to service the public and private debt load will increase with interest rates. You
cannot just print money forever and expect it never to catch up, or excess reserves not to
escape the banking system blowing air on the fire. The debt load publicly is dangerously high
and will trigger a fiscal crisis when add about $200+ billion a year to fiscal budget.
3.) The EU will disintegrate over next few years, global recession will just accelerate
that and be a feedback, could be a bit of a buffer on US with flight to quality. Think about
when UK contribution to EU budget drys up in March 2019, will EU raise taxes on rest by 20%
to pay for Eurocrats salaries?, and what if Italy has a referendum? EU is mess in making.
4.) Next recession, which could be triggered by stochastic shock of a trade war (err ...
gov managing economy always f*cks it up), the monetary authorities have no buffer to lower
interest rates due to policy since housing bubble, only more useless QE, little stimulus,
just inflation in works.
5.) Last was housing bubble, next is bond bubble . 30 yr tb at 3.13 - you have to
be idiot (or PBC which cannot unload their trill $ portfolio of US toilet paper without
depressing prices) to hold and expect inflation next 30 years at less. You think magically a
trillion dollar year federal deficit will shrink under DT? It really does not matter what the
fed does, stuck in a hard space, print more money to keep ponzi scheme going or neutralize
federal with higher rates and try to shrink balance sheet. You cannot keep interest rates low
when commodity futures arbitrage during inflation offer an alternate return. Easy money will
just fuel fire.
Md4 , 3 hours ago
The Fed can, and does, manipulate some interest rates, and it's balance sheet, all the
time.
But, as I see it, (hyper) inflation isn't just a money supply issue.
It's also a vote of confidence...
Ballooning deficits, and rising debt loads are not elements of fundamentally
healthy economies.
Rather than disappearing dumped U.S. debt, the Fed may just add it to it's "holdings", and
therefore, ensure there's always a "buyer".
Theoretically, perhaps.
But, it can't buy all U.S. debt, lest there be no real "market".
So, that means debt issued won't be free.
It also means there's a real limit to just how much the Fed can manage inflation...
Normalisation of Deviance , 4 hours ago
Excellent comment. Reminds me of the good old days when the comments at ZH were more more
informative and well written than the articles, (which were also informative and well
written).
Also Gold Bitchezz!
Superlat , 4 hours ago
Whether or not this matters, the housing bubble in Seattle has peaked, if not completely
popped. However, it's gone far enough that just about everyone including the media is
admitting a downturn is happening. Whether it persists is anyone's guess.
Maybe the next crisis is just cumulative, not one big thing.
The Real Tony, 2 hours ago
More like the Chinese buying up everything in Seattle has peaked.
The Real Tony , 2 hours ago
The Pakis in Brampton and Mississauga Ontario, Canada will throw their last welfare cheque
towards housing before losing their home/homes to the bank. It might take longer than you
think.
ZIRPdiggler , 5 hours ago
Sorry to rain all over your doom porn ZH'ers but I don't think we are going to have an
"economic collapse". Also, I just heard a new Lindsay Williams.....he says the Trump election
changed everything for the dark cabal's plans lol. Says they're gonna take the DOW over
40,000. Of course, Armstrong has been predicting that for a long long time. So go figure.
Maybe cycles are bullet proof, regardless of who's trying to do the manipulation. keep buying
that gold though....maybe your great grand children can benefit from it.
Md4 , 5 hours ago
"If it doesn't happen, the debt triggers a crisis in Europe, [and] that triggers the
beginning of a global recession" but... "there are so many little dominoes, if they all start
falling, one leads to the next."
What people don't seem to understand yet, is that this is no longer just an economic or
even a debt problem ex parte.
The non-solution of the last ten years have now made this a human quality of life
problem.
The loss of so many middle class income opportunities over the now-near 50 years of
outsourcing, has not only caused more insurmountable debt loads to form, but the chronic
income insufficiency is hammering even first-world social psyches as never before.
After all, rising debt is rising for a reason.
It's a big mistake to automatically assume a financial collapse has to precede a
social calamity.
It can easily be the other way around...
Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 3 hours ago
You have to design financial systems for human needs, taking into account human
characteristics. There are no "laws" of social sciences that "must" be followed. Physics is
the only constraint.
Fred box , 6 hours ago
Bottom line folks,this party is over done.One of many different things can cause at the least a 20%
correction(-5000pts) as well as bigger.The TBTF are now To Humungous To Fail.We live in
interesting times!
TRN , 6 hours ago
Likely 40% correction.
LeftandRightareWrong , 6 hours ago
Public pension systems and unfettered illegal immigration.
Normal , 6 hours ago
$500 trillion, in debt. That means that some kind of system had it to lend. Makes me want
to puke and then go start a revolution.
Bricker , 7 hours ago
All 3 in common...Debt bomb. 1929 Debt, 2008 Debt, 20?? debt; IMO its student loans
wrapped up as commercial paper and bonds.
Someone is going to miss an interest payment after tranches are bet on with student
loans
GoldHermit , 7 hours ago
Watch the Big Short. Those guys came as close as anyone IMO
daedon , 7 hours ago
No, READ The Big Short.
Erwin643 , 7 hours ago
Yeah, try making a movie based on a book. You have to take a lot of shortcuts. I think The Big Short was one of the very best films ever made, based on a book.
The actors played their real-life counterparts perfectly.
daedon , 7 hours ago
Forget (broken clock) Schiff, I read a great book in 1993, The Great Reckoning: Protect
Yourself in the Coming Depression. That was 25 years ago, I'm getting impatient. French president Charles de Gaulle saw this shit coming in 1968 and he died waiting for
it.
The Roman Empire lasted 500 years, so be patient, Trump's bosses have an armada of think
tanks staffed with Aspies that have IQs well above low earth orbit at their disposal, so they
could drag this out another 1000 years.
In addition to the usual (and deserved) remembrances of the September 11 attacks, this week
also marks the grim anniversary of a very different but equally significant collapse. Ten years
ago on September 15, the financial meltdown began that would usher in the recession of
2008.
It was the single worst financial crisis in the adult lifetime of almost everyone who was
alive at the time. Yet you'd never know it from the way our ruling class has behaved ever
since. When they weren't using the Great Recession for crude racial and class warfare
demagoguery, they were effectively denying that it was really that bad. (Remember Democrats'
weak retort to Donald Trump that "America is already great"? Or Republicans tossing off "We
don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem" at the height of unemployment and low
aggregate demand?)
Trenchant New Republic columnist Jeet Heer recently noted in a Twitter essay
that centered on the funeral of John McCain, "We've had decades of elite failure, elite
impunity, elite coddling of racism and also elite tolerance of corruption." He finished by
noting that "The failure of the elite to come to terms with its own responsibility vitiates
everything [else]." He might as well have been writing an editorial on the meltdown and its
aftermath.
... ... ...
September 2008 spelled the beginning of the end of the "giants of industry"
that had defined the mid-to-late 20th century American economy. General Motors, Merrill Lynch,
Chrysler, Lehman Brothers, Maytag, Polaroid, Kodak, Continental Bakeries, K-Mart/Sears,
Mervyns, Circuit City, Radio Shack, Borders, Blockbuster -- all fell like 10-pins in a bowling
alley. (Not to mention desiccated coal mines and steel factories
and local newsrooms. ) The few that are still alive today are mere shadows of their former
selves.
The companies that survived and thrived during the Great Recession, and are currently
powering today's recovery -- Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and
Tesla -- were all launched over the last two decades or so by the most fortunate factions of
Millennials and Xers. These are people who have no adult memory of the Great Prosperity that
their postwar parents and grandparents practically took for granted.
It's also no accident that many of the worst racial excesses in recent years happened after
the white middle class finally got a taste of the same zero-tolerance and no-excuses
"bootstraps" medicine that liberals have accused conservatives of throwing in minorities'
faces. As Jamelle Bouie
noted inSlate, "When coupled with the broad decline in incomes and living standards
caused by the Great Recession, it seemed to signal the end of a hierarchy that had always
placed white Americans at the top." But while African Americans, immigrants, and
lower-middle-class whites were now forced into a Hunger Games- like competition for what
little scraps were left, the bankers and CEOs and their politician enablers shamelessly
rewarded
themselves with record-breaking bonuses and benefits. Their attitude was almost as
appalling as a spousal abuser asking for thanks because he dropped you off at the ER
afterwards.
This is because, for the most part, the people who were ruling both parties' electoral
roosts during the run-up to the 2016 election were people for whom the Great Recession had
brought nothing but fame and fortune. The years from 2009 through 2012 meant lucrative book and
cable deals, gorgeous jewelry and tailored suits, luxury cars, and upscale new homes for Paul
Ryan, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Valerie Jarrett, Reince Priebus, and
Robby Mook. The donor classes of both sides were so unbelievably wealthy and privileged that
the meltdown never really affected them.
Telly Davidson is the author of a new book,
Culture War: How the 90's Made Us Who We Are Today (Like it Or Not) . He has written on
culture for ATTN, FrumForum, All About Jazz, FilmStew, and Guitar Player, and worked on the
Emmy-nominated PBS series "Pioneers of Television."
"the bankers and CEOs and their politician enablers shamelessly rewarded themselves "
This is one of the least remarked aspects of the disaster.
In fact, the bankers and CEOs were able to shamelessly reward themselves because of
their politician enablers. And the politician enablers were at least half of the original
problem -- they practically forced banks to make bad loans with all their enabling
legislation, their veiled threats against businesses that failed to loan to their political
clients, and the high-sounding Clintonite crap about "the home ownership society".
Another little-remarked feature is that even foreigners were able to get on or stay on the
dole. The Israelis didn't even break stride. They kept wolfing down huge, world-beating
helpings of our money, cashing giant welfare checks from the US taxpayer, even as everything
in the US itself was being cut back and Americans were told to tighten our belts and lower
our life's expectations. Same with other foreign parasites. They kept letting in H1B workers
and immigrants of every description.
Incredible and disgusting. But there are some of us, at least, who have not forgotten,
will never forget, and will do our damnedest to make them pay.
If not always fair or flexible, it seems efficient – attorneys collecting large fees
in a justice system designed to enrich attorneys.
A shyster attorney that I had the
unfortunate experience in working with, did tell the truth once when he said that there is no
such thing as a justice system but there is a legal industry.
"... Note: Taking a spousal benefit does not reduce or change the amount your current spouse, ex-spouse, or ex-spouse's current spouse may receive. ..."
By Dana
Anspach Updated August 17, 2018 When a spouse dies, their Social Security benefits may
become available to their current or former marital partner, depending on certain
circumstances. A Social
Security spouse benefit is called a "spousal benefit" and is available to:
Current spouses
Widowed spouses
Ex-spouses
Before applying for spousal benefits, you should understand how your spouse's benefit may
be affected if you take your Social Security
benefits early, and what happens upon the death of a spouse. Eligibility for a Spousal
Benefit Current spouses and ex-spouses (if you were married for over 10 years and did not
remarry prior to age 60) both have eligibility for the spousal benefit. You must be age 62 to
file for or receive a spousal benefit. You are not eligible to receive a spousal benefit until
your spouse files for their own benefit first. Different rules apply
to ex-spouses . You can receive a spousal benefit based on an ex-spouse's record
even if your ex-partner has not yet filed for his or her own benefits, but your ex must be age
62 or older. Note: Taking a spousal benefit does not reduce or change the amount your
current spouse, ex-spouse, or ex-spouse's current spouse may receive.How Much You
Get As a spouse, you can claim a Social Security benefit based on your own earnings record,
or you can collect a spousal benefit that will provide you 50 percent of the amount of your
spouse's Social Security benefit as calculated at their full retirement age (FRA). Check the
Social Security website to determine your FRA, as it depends on your year of birth. If you file
before you reach your own FRA, your spousal benefit will be reduced because you are
filing early. You are automatically entitled to receive either a benefit based on your own
earnings or a spousal benefit based on your spouse's or ex-spouse's earnings. Social Security
calculates and pays the higher amount. If you were born on or before January 1, 1954, after you
reach FRA, you can choose to receive only the spousal benefit by filing a restricted
application. By doing this you delay receiving your own retirement benefits based on your
earnings record, until a later date. For example, at age 70 you could switch from receiving a
spousal benefit to receiving your own potentially higher benefit amount. Due to recent
Social
Security laws that went into effect Nov. 2, 2015, if you were born on or after Jan. 2,
1954, you will not be able to restrict your application and only receive spousal benefits. For
anyone born on or after Jan. 2, 1954, when you file you will automatically be deemed to be
filing for all benefits for which you are eligible.
"... If you have reached your full retirement age (and turned 62 before January 2, 2016), you may also elect to receive spousal benefits and delay taking your benefits, allowing your own delayed retirement credits to accrue, and switch to your own benefit at a later date. ..."
If you could receive more from Social Security based on your own earnings record than
through the spousal benefit, the Social Security Administration will automatically provide you
with the larger benefit.
If you have reached your full retirement age (and turned 62 before January 2, 2016), you may
also elect to receive spousal benefits and delay taking your benefits, allowing your own
delayed retirement credits to accrue, and switch to your own benefit at a later date.
However, you cannot elect to receive spousal benefits below your retirement age and later
switch to your own benefits.
Individuals who turn 62 on or after January 2, 2016, will not be
able to choose to take spousal benefits at their full retirement age.
However, spousal benefits should still be taken into consideration when planning your own
retirement strategy.
For example, let's say you and your spouse are both 66 and are still working, so you are
considering letting your Social Security benefit grow for another few years. However, if your
spouse anticipates collecting a spousal benefit on your work record, you might be better off
filing at your full retirement age instead of waiting.
As I mentioned earlier, there are no delayed retirement credits for spousal benefits. And
one of the requirements for collecting a spousal benefit is that the primary worker must be
collecting his or her own retirement benefit. Therefore, it rarely makes financial sense to
delay Social Security beyond your spouse's retirement age, if they expect a spousal
benefit.
This is just one example of how a spousal benefit can affect your overall retirement
strategy. The bottom line is that Social Security spousal benefits will affect the retirement
income of millions of American workers, so it's important to know what they are and how they
work.
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Many couples can significantly enhance their lifetime Social Security earnings by having one
of the pair claim spousal benefits at 66 years and delay personal benefits until 70 years of
age.
This claiming strategy, which we call free spousal benefits , has
been discussed here
and elsewhere as one of the best ways to avoid the otherwise inevitable trade-off between
getting money sooner (early claiming) and a larger benefit later (delayed claiming).
Having drunk the free-spousal-benefit pool-aid, an inquisitive client asked if the claiming
strategy would work in the reverse. Instead of claiming spousal benefits first and then
switching to personal benefits later, Karen wanted to know if she should claim her modest
Social Security retirement benefits early, say at 62 years of age, and then switch to claiming
her husband's larger spousal benefits later on. On its face, her idea seems to make sense.
However, let's look at how this actually works for Karen and her husband Burt. They are both
62 and their full retirement age is 66. Karen's full retirement benefit is $400 a month and
Burt's is $2,000. Karen's maximum spousal benefit is $1,000 at 66 (that is half of Burt's age
66 retirement benefits). Burt plans to file for retirement benefits at 66, at which point Karen
will be eligible to claim spousal benefits. Karen knows that she can claim retirement benefits
early at age 62 and get $300/month (75% of the $400 she could get at her full retirement age).
She also believes that at 66 she can switch to her spousal benefits and get $1,000.
On this last point Karen is wrong. When getting supplemental spousal benefits at 66, her
full retirement age, her benefit will be $900, not $1,000.
The reasons for this are very convoluted. (A more complete description of the issues can be
found at socialsecuritychoices.com/blog/?p=391 .)
While Karen was hopeful that the reduction in benefits from early claiming will be temporary,
confined to benefits during her 62nd to 66th years of age, unfortunately this is not the
case.
While claiming at 62 will provide Karen with income sooner, there is a cost. First, claiming
at 62 means that she will receive only 75% of her retirement benefit. Secondly, the total
benefit she will receive after getting the spousal supplement will be smaller than it would
have been if she had waited until full retirement age to claim her retirement benefits. If she
opts for this strategy, she will receive this smaller benefit for the rest of her life.
Approach the strategy of taking your own retirement benefits now and a supplemental spousal
benefit later with caution. The rules here are especially complicated and Karen's example may
not apply in your case.
It would be wise to consult an expert before pursuing such a strategy. The long-term benefit
of claiming early might be lower than you expect.
@ Lochearn who is correcting my genealogical representation of empire
Yes, you are more correct than I. That said, does it go back even further to the founding
of monotheistic religions? We are referring to social control by an elite in my mind more
than the Jewish bankers part of your genealogy. I admit to the bankers part but see that
bankers group as the encourage/control entity for the other monotheistic religions.
Has that system dynamic changed/evolved seriously since the Roman era? We have usury. We
have inheritance. We have banking. The concept of private property evolved along with the
mythical moral fig leaf of rule-of-law. We call it the Western form of "civilization".
Psycho Historian: I have been reading a Great Courses book on the history of the Achaemenid
rmpire that ruled Persia and one interesting tidbit from my reading is that temples and their
priests made loans to property (though turned did not accept deposits). So religious
institutions got into the banking business early.
In his talks about his upcoming book, Hudson has said that besides the Palace the Temples
were the first sources of credit. But their relation to society then vastly differs from what
evolved as both Palace and Temple become corrupted by greed.
So religious institutions got into the banking business early.
Achaemenids? I think this was rather late. IIRC temples in Ur, Sumer and Babylon were in
the business long before the Achaemenid period.
However Ur, Sumer and Babylon also seem to have had a general debt amnesty about every 7
years. There was a sound political or economic rationale for this. Something about the idea
that one was not supposed to grind the faces of the poor into the gravel, nor destroy the
fabric of society.
The temples were the only organizations that had the administrative ability to do this.
Temple, at least in Mesopotamia is a bit of a misnomer. As I understand it, the "temple" was
the home of the god, the royal palace and the seat of the civil service all rolled into
one.
You might find David Graeber's book Debt : The First 5,000 Years interesting. He
discusses why the temples were in the money lending business. It's a rather fun read and
comes in hard cover and completely free pdf. https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf
did not accept deposits
I never thought of it, but yes of course. Given their functions they would not take
deposits. They were loaning from state resources and did not need deposits. They would not
have even understood the concept.
I am not sure if this applies during the Achaemenid period but it seems likely.
"... That said, many - including Yahoo News's Michael Isikoff (the guy whose article containing info fed to him by Christopher Steele was used by the FBI to obtain Carter Page's FISA warrant) - have pointed to potential targets on the left. ..."
"... Those people include former Manafort associates Tony Podesta, Vin Weber and Greg Craig - all of whom failed to register as foreign agents in connection with work outside the United States, as well as members of the Obama administration . Of course, the thought of Mueller going after "the untouchables" seems a bit far fetched. ..."
"... The FSB ambition: to choose the least competent Presidential candidate and, unbeknownst to him, smooth his way to the White House. Thus Robert Meuller's inconvenient truth: If Donald Trump were competent enough to be entrusted with collusion, then he would be too competent for the FSB to achieve its ambitions! I bet the FSB people in charge are gobsmacked that The Donald hasn't been impaled on the 25th Amendment yet! ..."
"... I don't understand Dershowitz here. What could Manafort say that Papadopoulos and Flynn haven't already told Mueller? He was Trump's campaign manager for what three months? ..."
"... If anyone had something juicy on Trump it'd be Michael Flynn since he was in the Trump administration if just for a short time. This is about keeping this farce of a charade going as long as humanly possible. ..."
"... My guess -- a guess -- is that Mueller is under a lot of pressure from the Clinton Family including Brennan, Clapper et al to find something, anything, on enough people to make the last 2 years look legit to the Americans who watch CNN. ..."
"... My guess is that the CF has gone from supporting Mueller to making him scared. ..."
"... That should work for continuing the Conspiracy theory... It is all the DOJ, FBI, Sessions and now newcomer Manafort trying to BRING Down the POTUS. All of this is happening to such a great guy like Trump... Sad huh... ..."
"... Jesus you Trumptards are delusional. The average American is no more likely to take up arms against his masters than the North Koreans are. ..."
Harvard Law professor and prominent liberal Alan Dershowitz - who has been shunned by the
liberal elite of late for defending President Trump - now says that the White House should be
alarmed over Paul Manafort's plea deal with special counsel Robert Mueller.
" Well of course they should be ," replied Dershowitz - though he added the rather large
caveat that Mueller is "not a credible witness," and would be at best be a corroborating
witness against Trump.
"There's nothing he can testify to that would probably lend weight to impeachment because he
didn't have close contact with President Trump while he was president," said Dershowitz. " What
they are looking for is self-corroborating information that can be used against Trump if they
can make him sing and then there's the possibility of him composing, elaborating on the story
."
Dershowitz added that there is "no doubt" Mueller is trying to flip Manafort against
Trump.
" Once he agrees to cooperate, he has to cooperate about everything , said Dershowitz.
"There's no such thing as partial cooperation."
As for Trump pardoning Manafort? That's now "off the table," and that flipping on the
President "opens up a lot of doors that probably haven't been opened before."
It's a "big win" for Mueller, Dershowitz concludes.
That said, many - including Yahoo
News's Michael Isikoff (the guy whose article containing info fed to him by Christopher Steele
was used by the FBI to obtain Carter Page's FISA warrant) - have pointed to potential targets
on the left.
Those people include former Manafort associates Tony Podesta, Vin Weber and Greg Craig - all
of whom failed to register as foreign agents in connection with work outside the United States,
as well as members of the Obama administration . Of course, the thought of Mueller going after
"the untouchables" seems a bit far fetched.
quintus.sertorius , 19 minutes ago
The Tribe plays both sides: Dershowitz the plant in Trump team has the same real loyalty
as fellow tribesman Haim Saban or Sheldon Adelson. They want to blackmail Trump into fighting
Israel's war in Syria.
radbug , 55 minutes ago
The FSB ambition: to choose the least competent Presidential candidate and, unbeknownst to
him, smooth his way to the White House. Thus Robert Meuller's inconvenient truth: If Donald
Trump were competent enough to be entrusted with collusion, then he would be too competent
for the FSB to achieve its ambitions! I bet the FSB people in charge are gobsmacked that The
Donald hasn't been impaled on the 25th Amendment yet!
ZazzOne , 1 hour ago
"Big Win For Mueller"? Only if he plans on going after the founders of the Red Shoe "Pedo"
Club.....John and Tony Podesta! Though I highly doubt he'll ever go down that rabbit
hole!!!!!
Straddling-the-fence , 2 hours ago
Once he agrees to cooperate, he has to cooperate about everything , said Dershowitz.
"There's no such thing as partial cooperation.
That's asinine. There are terms to a plea agreement. Unless those terms encompass what is
claimed above, then that is simply false.
KekistanisUnite , 3 hours ago
I don't understand Dershowitz here. What could Manafort say that Papadopoulos and Flynn
haven't already told Mueller? He was Trump's campaign manager for what three months?
George
Papadopoulos I don't know how long he was there but if really has nothing of value to offer
then neither would Manafort.
If anyone had something juicy on Trump it'd be Michael Flynn
since he was in the Trump administration if just for a short time. This is about keeping this
farce of a charade going as long as humanly possible.
Econogeek , 3 hours ago
My guess -- a guess -- is that Mueller is under a lot of pressure from the Clinton Family
including Brennan, Clapper et al to find something, anything, on enough people to make the
last 2 years look legit to the Americans who watch CNN.
My guess is that the CF has gone from supporting Mueller to making him scared.
ThePhantom , 4 hours ago
i like to think Mueller is on the plate too, and this is his chance to save his own ass.
Greg Craig and Podesta's names are out in all the papers .... they worked with manafort first
and foremost....
no idea what dershowitz is talking about.. none.
Calvertsbio , 4 hours ago
Yea sure he is, the SPECIAL Counsel running the show to bring down corruption is "ON THE
PLATE" yea, ok...
That should work for continuing the Conspiracy theory... It is all the DOJ, FBI, Sessions
and now newcomer Manafort trying to BRING Down the POTUS. All of this is happening to such a
great guy like Trump... Sad huh...
Doesn't make much difference how much of this BS is posted, no one is buying it anymore...
Even FAUX news has basically given up on him... Everyone know that once it all comes out, it
will be labelled by HIS SHEEPLE that it is all made up BS to take him down...
Hillary did it... no ! Sessions did it, nope, it was RYAN ? McConnell... lets keep the
guessing game going... The Dossier did it...
BigJim, 4 hours ago
"The swamp critters better stop ignoring the Hillary/DNC side of this or the population is going to be marching in with
pitchforks and guillotines."
Jesus you Trumptards are delusional. The average American is no more likely to take up arms against his masters than
the North Koreans are.
It's really difficult rationally explain Trump obsession with Iran. may be Israeli lobby influence would be the most
appropriate instead of "The Insecurity Of A Teenage Girl"
At the end of a week in which former Secretary of State John Kerry's unauthorized meetings
with top Iranian officials have taken center stage, and in which both President Trump and
current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have
publicly thrashed Kerry's "unheard of" and "illegal meetings" with Iran that "undercut" the
White House, Kerry has gone on his own anti-Trump rant .
Appearing on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, Kerry slammed the president as
having "the maturity of an 8-year-old boy with the insecurity of a teenage girl" in remarks
that are sure to continue the ongoing war of words. Previously in the week upon news of John
Kerry's Wednesday
Hugh Hewitt Show radio interview in which he admitted meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif "three or four times" since Donald Trump took office, President Trump slammed the
"illegal meetings" as serving to "undercut" White House diplomatic dealings with Iran .
Trump further hinted that Kerry violated the Logan Act by rhetorically asking whether Kerry
is officially registered as a foreign agent .
The president tweeted: John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime,
which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He
told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act? BAD!
When asked about the White House's potential threats of legal inquiry
into the meetings, Kerry dismissed: "There's nothing unusual about it. The conversation he
really ought to be worrying about is Paul Manafort with Mueller."
"Unfortunately, we have a president, literally, for whom the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth is three different things, and you don't even know what they are," Kerry
added.
We can only imagine how Trump is going to respond, whether on Twitter, or perhaps by
announcing a legal inquiry over Kerry possibly breaking the Logan Act and failing to register
as a foreign agent, as Trump's Thursday evening tweet suggested.
CHUCK TODD TROTSKY: Yeah, I was just going to say, if the F.B.I., for instance, had a FISA
court order of some sort for a surveillance, would that be information you would know or not
know?
CLAPPER: Yes.
CHUCK TODD TROTSKY: You would be told this?
CLAPPER: I would know that.
CHUCK TODD TROTSKY: If there was a FISA court order–
CLAPPER: Yes.
CHUCK TODD TROTSKY: –on something like this.
CLAPPER: Something like this, absolutely.
CHUCK TODD TROTSKY: And at this point, you can't confirm or deny whether that exists?
>>>CLAPPER: I can deny it.<<<
The head of ObaMao's intelligence, the DNI ...(Clapper)...just lied on national TeeeVeee,
to the American public, with a straight face, something we all now know to be absolutely,
verifiably, true.
Something as blatantly deceptive as this needs something special in return. Like a
noose.
FreedomWriter ,
Yeah, lying on CNN, apparently you can be arrested for that, it's almost as bad as lying
to Congress under oath..... oh wait...
nmewn ,
They are twisted, seditious, criminal , lying, bastards.
In a nutshell: Hillary Clinton paid a foreign agent (Christopher Steele, via two entities
to wipe her fingerprints, those being Perkins Coie & Fusion GPS) to fabricate the pretext
of FISA warrants... which her cronies then dutifully introduced into a secret court ...and
were granted FISA warrants (not once but FOUR TIMES) for US government intelligence agencies
to spy on her political opponents.
Its unprecedented, a scandal more vast and all encompassing than Watergate.
And...having found NOTHING (again, four times) to charge Carter Page with, they leak to
their cronies in the Alinsky Press that US government intelligence agencies do in fact have
an active spying operation going on against American citizens to damage the reputations and
careers having failed to find any evidence of "Russian collusion" which (again) was the
pretext for the FISA warrants.
Now that those among us with a fully functional brain know FOR SURE that there are TWO
SETS of laws in this nation we can go about our individual activities and businesses with
total disregard to "their laws" without any self imposed moral or ethical trepidation.
herbivore ,
There's just one set of laws, but they're selectively enforced, depending on whether
you're one of the little people or you're among the elite. Must be nice to be one of the
elite, not having to worry about laws and stuff.
Carter Paige? You mean the guy this time last year was a Russian spy? The guy who hasn't
been charged with anything? The guy that the original FISA warrants were issued against in
order to spy on the trump campaign? Oh yeah that guy.
Is he connected to the Papadopoulos guy? You know... The guy that got 14 days for lying to
meathead?
And now Manafort. Somehow hes bringing Trump down for sure. Even if it doesn't have
anything to do with the Trump campaign.
As looney would say... Looney
Dilluminati ,
From my understanding the unmasking of a national security investigation does make liable
to suit the press by Carter Page, additionally I'm still amazed that people are seeing this
through their preconceptions. How NSL (national security letters) and FISA material made it
consistently from the top echelons of government needs people asking some genuine questions.
If you have followed this carefully, it is evident that despite the non-related charges
brought forth by Mueller that this was a politicized prosecution by the establishment. The
questioning of the narrative of this gets people called all types of names.
Talking about establishment behaving badly:
I finally came across an article where the establishment is calling people "Satan" and the
article was accurate from the standpoint of an "establishment analysis" but of course left
out the actual details of the ongoing criminal racketeering.
I had a person say that they "felt sorry for me" Pity being an expression of disrespect
that I no longer attended Church, and I thought to myself that it wasn't worth the reply that
saying sorry or asking forgiveness cuts it, or that the decision or another or your belief
yourself guarantees you are saved if your repeated heinous crimes boil down to asking
"forgiveness" a mistake, bad judgement.
And the abuse was SEVERE again the details are slowly coming out but you see how the
Demonization process works. The response in both cases identical.
And remember that none of this is new.. simply signs of very corrupt people feeling
non-accountable to anything. I fully expect the abuse at the Church to continue, I expect the
Star Chamber establishment to become more bold.. and in summation I'm predicting very cleanly
and accurately this ends badly. No escaping this.. it ends badly
If this insurance policy were actually true, it also could include tactics memorialized in
a memo, written in 2009 by a Democratic strategist working at the time for the liberal smear
group Media Matters.
>It described how to fight a "well funded, presidential-style campaign to discredit and
embarrass" targets. Private eyes would probe into their personal lives, courts would be used
for lawsuits. "Massive demonstrations" would be organized, Michael Moore would make a
negative documentary and "a team of trackers" would stake out targets at events. "Opposition
research" would be collected.
The targets would be attacked on social media, yard signs posted in their neighborhoods,
and a "mole" placed inside their organization.
If there really were an insurance policy against Trump, it might include having ex-intel
officials getting hired at national news outlets where they'd monitor and influence news
organizations, and be invited to give daily spin on controversies surrounding their own
actions.
Figures such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Comey aide
Josh Campbell and others could get hired by CNN; former CIA Director John Brennan and
ex-Mueller/Comey aide Chuck Rosenberg could get hired by NBC and MSNBC.
But all that would never really happen. Or if it did, it's downright silly to think of it
as part of an organized insurance policy.
Uncovered text messages reveal that FBI agent Peter Strzok wanted to use CNN's
"bombshell" report about the infamous "Steele Dossier" to interview witnesses in the
Trump-Russia probe
CNN used leaked knowledge that Comey briefed Trump on the dossier as a trigger to
publish
The FBI knew of CNN's plans to publish, confirming a dialogue between the FBI and
CNN
This is particularly damning in light of revelations of FBI-MSM collusion against the
Trump campaign
Newly revealed text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney
Lisa Page reveal that Strzok wanted to use CNN's report on the infamous "Steele Dossier" to
justify interviewing people in the Trump-Russia investigation, reports CNN . "
Sitting with Bill watching CNN. A TON more out ," Strzok texted to Page on Jan. 10, 2017,
following CNN's report.
"Hey let me know when you can talk. We're discussing whether, now that this is out, we use
it as a pretext to go interview some people ," Strzok continued.
Recall that CNN used the (leaked) fact that former FBI Director James Comey had briefed
then-President-Elect Donald Trump on a two-page summary of the Steele Dossier to justify
printing their
January report .
This is a troubling development in light of a
May report that the FBI knew that CNN was " close to going forward " with the Steele
Dossier story, and that " The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed, "
clearly indicating active communications between CNN and the FBI.
Weeks later, as the Daily Caller 's
Chuck Ross notes, the FBI approached former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos "under
the guise of interviewing him about his contacts with an alleged source for the dossier."
In short, knowledge of the Comey-Trump briefing was leaked to CNN, CNN printed the story,
Strzok wanted to use it as a pretext to interview people in the Trump-Russia investigation, and
weeks later George Papadopoulos became ensnared in their investigation.
And when one considers that we learned of an FBI "
media leak strategy " this week, it suggests pervasive collusion between Obama-era
intelligence agencies and the MSM to defeat, and then smear Donald Trump after he had won the
election.
Text messages discussing the "media leak strategy" were revealed Monday by Rep. Mark Meadows
(R-NC). The messages, sent the day before and after two damaging articles about former Trump
campaign adviser Carter Page, raise " grave concerns regarding an apparent systematic culture
of media leaking by high-ranking officials at the FBI and DOJ related to ongoing
investigations."
A review of the documents suggests that the FBI and DOJ coordinated efforts to get
information to the press that would potentially be "harmful to President Trump's
administration." Those leaks pertained to information regarding the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court warrant used to spy on short-term campaign volunteer Carter Page.
The letter lists several examples:
April 10, 2017: (former FBI Special Agent) Peter Strzok contacts (former FBI Attorney)
Lisa Page to discuss a "media leak strategy." Specifically, the text says: "I had literally
just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy
with DOJ before you go."
April 12, 2017: Peter Strzok congratulates Lisa Page on a job well done while referring
to two derogatory articles about Carter Page. In the text, Strzok warns Page two articles
are coming out, one which is "worse" than the other about Lisa's "namesake"." Strzok added:
"Well done, Page." -
Sara Carter
Recall that Strzok's boss, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was fired for
authorizing self-serving leaks to the press.
Also recall that text messages released in January reveal that Lisa Page was on the phone
with Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett , then with the New York Times , when the
reopening of the Clinton Foundation investigation hit the news cycle - just one example in a
series of text messages matching up with MSM reports relying on leaked information, as reported
by the
Conservative Treehouse .
♦Page: 5:19pm "Still on the phone with Devlin . Mike's phone is ON FIRE."
♥Strzok: 5:29pm "You might wanna tell Devlin he should turn on CNN, there's news
on."
♦Page: 5:30pm "He knows. He just got handed a note."
♥Strzok: 5:33pm "Ha. He asking about it now?"
♦Page: 5:34pm "Yeah. It was pretty funny. Coming now."
At 5:36pm Devlin Barrett tweets:
Meadows says that the texts show " a coordinated effort on the part of the FBI and DOJ to
release information in the public domain potentially harmful to President Donald Trump's
administration. "
Revisiting the FBI-CNN connection
Going back to the
internal FBI emails revealed in May by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), we find that McCabe had
advance knowledge of CNN's plans to publish the Steele Dossier report.
In an email to top FBI officials with the subject "Flood is coming," McCabe wrote: " CNN is
close to going forward with the sensitive story ... The trigger for them is they know the
material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment." McCabe does not reveal how
he knew CNN's "trigger" was Comey's briefing to Trump.
McCabe shot off a second email shortly thereafter to then-Deputy Attorney General Sally
Yates along with her deputy, Matthew Alexrod, with the subject line "News."
" Just as an FYI, and as expected ," McCabe
wrote , " it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting. " Again,
how McCabe knew this is unclear and begs investigation.
Johnson also wanted to know when FBI officials " first learned that media outlets, including
CNN, may have possessed the Steele dossier. "
As
The Federalist noted in May, "To date, there is no public evidence that the FBI ever
investigated the leaks to media about the briefing between Trump and Comey. When asked
in a recent interview by Fox News Channel's Bret Baier , Comey scoffed at the idea that the
FBI would even need to investigate the leak of a secret briefing with the incoming
president."
" Did you or your subordinates leak that? " Baier
asked .
" No ," Comey responded. " I don't know who leaked it. "
" Did you ever try to find out? " Baier asked.
" Who leaked an unclassified public document? " Comey said, even though Baier's question
was about leaking details of a briefing of the incoming president, not the dossier. " No ,"
Comey said.
And now it looks like we have an answer for why the FBI never investigated the leak...
k3g ,
Tell me again how Watergate was impeachable and this - Obamagate, Spygate, Framegate,
ReverseCollusionGate, whatever ya wanna call it - is not .
Watergate was nothing next to this. And Obama's prints are all over it. The guy used govt
resources - FBI, US intel, foreign partner intel - to try to destroy a candidate in order to
throw a US POTUS election, and upon failing continued to try to take the guy out. Methinks
that's why Obama's been looking so gaunt and wan of late. The guy looks terminal.
herbivore ,
There is only one agency in the U.S. government that can put people in prison and it's
called the DOJ. Not only that, there are only a handful of people at the top of the DOJ who
can decide who and who not to prosecute. Therefore, if you're the Clinton/Obama crime family,
you only need a few loyalists at the top of the DOJ and you can get away with pretty much
anything. Clearly, the Clinton/Obama crime family had and STILL have those loyalists on their
side. Trump has done a pathetic job of changing that.
BendGuyhere ,
The good news, if you noticed, is the big swamp creatures (Comey, McCabe, Brennan, et al),
that were SO loud and proud just a few months ago seem to have gotten really quiet
lately.
This could mean that SHIT IS GETTING REAL and their lawyers are telling them to STFU.
So maybe the keebler elf grandpa Sessions is in fact orchestrating a legal checkmate on
all these fuckers as the drip=drip becomes a deluge.
The deep state may try to manufacture a distraction-any ideas?
Anunnaki ,
Since 9/11 the Permanent government is immune from legal responsibility and
accountability
if we lived by the same Laws we used against Chelsea Manning, Snowden, Assange and the
rest Obama, Hellary, Huma, Lynch. Comey, Mueller, Yates, Rice, Jarrett, McCabe, the Ohrs,
Strzok and Page, Glenn Simpson would all get serious jail time
CNN should lose their broadcast license over this
Alas, Rip Van Sessions continues to do nothing and all the Crying Cheetolini can do is
bitch tweet like a eunuch
urhotdogs ,
Obama must be panicking. He is all of a sudden "out of retirement" and campaigning to get
Dems elected to take back the house and the Senate. If that happens, all the corruption from
his Administration can be swept back under the rug and Trump impeached and his ass saved.
G-R-U-N-T ,
The ObamaSpy ring to frame Trump, his family, his campaign and the American people is a
hell of a lot more extensive than most people think. The web not only extends domestically
but internationally, the FVEY's, mainly Great Britain and Australia would appear to have
their hand in this as well.
Yes, treason and espionage, all for a few pieces of silver and the illusion of power. All
the 'gas lighting' propaganda and contempt with NO evidence was and is all a set-up by those
nefarious forces that used to run the cesspool.
'They never thought she would lose' , like Hilary allegedly said: "If that fucking bastard
wins we all hang from nooses", do tell, do tell.
We elected Trump to take back our country and I believe that's exactly what he's
doing!
StarGate ,
Fact that Obama used Britain's GHCQ to spy on the Republican candidate he was trying to
prevent win as Prez - recall Obama said emphatically "Trump will never be President" - so now
we know WHY Obama was so certain;
And fact that UK/ Aussie Ambassador Downer coordinated with FBI conspirators against the
Republican candidate; (recall that the Aussie Prez call with Trump was made public probably
by Aussie Prez Turnbull himself)...
And fact that Obama RENEWED the British GHCQ spy op against Trump as he was Prez; puts the
FBI British spy Dossier caper and all the FBI agents into the TREASON category because they
were working AGAINST USA interests WITH foreign countries - Britain and Australia.
Dan'l ,
So much for the highly anticipated internal FBI investigation by that clown Horowitz, the
Inspector General who said there was "no evidence" of political influence by the FBI
investigators. He said that with a straight face.
thinkmoretalkless ,
Politics is the only thing forestalling swift justice in this sordid mess. The media has
exposed itself as ridiculously complicit in a seditious conspiracy by a group of narcissistic
elite establishment underlings. I am as impatient as anyone else who see the blatant
corruption and little in the way of prosecutorial response, but if this is as some portend a
sophisticated attempt to drain the swamp then there is some hope a significant and honest
reckoning awaits. I don't blame those not optimistic, but personally I'm trying Trumps power
of positive thinking.
Marketing Consultant ,
What a bunch of bad people.
True swamp rats that don't deserve a position in government.
MK ULTRA Alpha ,
Another angle we must consider, the CIA was deeply involved. I believe it was the CIA
managing the coup, the FBI was taking orders from the CIA who was planning and leading the
overthrow of Trump.
Brennan and his WH coordinator Clapper are guilty. The FBI is just an attack dog of what
the CIA set up with help from MI6. Clapper contacted MI6 for electronic intercept, the WH
couldn't use NSA, there would have been a paper trail. And NSA would have told. Clapper is
the one who contacted and used UK MI6 assets. (Steele a former MI6 agent? No, Steele is
working for MI6.)
Everything leads back to Brennan and Clapper from the beginning. Brennan was deep into the
election and re-election of Obama supplying intelligence data during the campaign.
It was Brennan who set up the game plan for the coup. Even his statements from the
beginning indicated this. Will Brennan fall on his sword for Obama? Will Clapper fall on his
sword for Obama? Brennan is a hard core communist, he may take the bullet for Obama, but not
Clapper.
We don't get MSM stating this, is it fear of the CIA. Or is it fear there will be no more
anonymous sources. Remember FBI agents were taking bribes for leaking data to the MSM. I
doubt they're still working for the FBI. There has been a secret purge at the top. It was
stated on MSM several FBI have left the FBI.
Interesting CNN has a former homosexual CIA officer who stated the CIA would kill Trump.
He's a regular CNN employee. It was CNN, the FBI used to leak data to set Trump up.
Should CNN be sued? Should the NYT be sued? It's better to hit them in the pocket
book.
Another point, remember General Flynn? I believe the CIA wanted to take him out. It was
said he didn't lie by the FBI who did the interview, later higher ups, Comey and the like
said he lied.
I believe the CIA wanted to pay him back for exposing Brennan's unlawful operations in
Syria.
Also, remember the Las Vegas hit on Trump kind of supporters, could this have been a
message by the CIA to the WH to expect a hit if Brennan was exposed. Just saying, we have to
review every angle to the equation because the level of corruption in the government is
beyond the belief of the average American. These players are above the law, perhaps this was
a reminder.
Is the FBI going to accept their fate of being the fall guy for the CIA?
freedommusic ,
GCHQ had back door into NSA...
1970SSNova396 ,
The head of GCHQ resigned days before The Don took the keys to the white house so he could
spend more time with the children. The Don knows the deal. Get the new guy on the SC and then
shit will hit the fan. Trump has zero to lose going forward and he is going to rock the
house.
chrbur ,
The Mueller Investigation is a international embarrassment. The search for a Trump/Russia
connection by Inspector Clouseau is turning up over do jaywalking tickets while the glaringly
obvious crimes of the Clinton Crime Family, aka, the Democrat party are ignored. I have to
tell everyone that I am Canadian and I voted for Justin Trudeau.....hey.....it is less
shameful.....
StarGate ,
Those who set up the Mueller Special Counsel (Rosenstein who used to perhaps still does,
work for Hillary) did so, not only to create a false impeachment process against Trump but
also to undermine any of his efforts to take America back for Americans.
Are they succeeding? Yes and No.
Trump already stopped the TTP, Paris nonAccord, Iran nuclear delay, set ups. Trump began
the world Peace engine with outreach to North Korea and Russia. He began an adjustment to the
tax system and regulatory small business chokers. He has made inroads to curb corruption at
the FBI;
But without a Congress that is on the side of America, he has not been able to stop the
not-legal alien criminal inflow and "sanctuary-mafia" protection system - as yet.
1970SSNova396 ,
Trump is up against the NWO/Globalist/Jewish Bankers/Jewish MSM Cabal 24/7/365. He has
cost them billions in his two years. Trump has few friends in congress because they're owned
by the above as well.
There is no doubt Trump has /is bringing everybody out onto the stage and you can see just
how fuking corrupt this country is and has been for 40 years. This is the last chance.
urhotdogs ,
Ryan, McConnell and many Rinos complicit in all of this. Notice they've never come out and
condemn the FBI or DOJ involvement in all this. Only a few Republicans keeping this going
Thom Paine ,
ALSO those given immunity by Meuller may not have immunity , and could have it reversed,
if it can be shown the only reason immunity was given them was to protect them against future
prosecution.
Immunity requires that the person have important evidence for a trial and that they could
be implicating themselves in a criminal act by providing that evidence, ie they were somehow
involved in the commission of the crime, in some relate-able way. Immunity gives them
protection against being prosecuted for related crimes.
You cannot give somebody immunity against Tax Fraud prosecution when they are providing
evidence of a car accident they saw.
Providing immunity for all unrelated crimes is the same power as the POTUS power of
pardon.
SO the DOJ could at some future time challenge the immunity given by Mueller on the basis
that is given only to protect them, and in exchange for nothing tangible. i.e. a fraud.
Which may mean Mueller could be prosecuted for prevision of justice.
Uncovered text messages reveal that FBI agent Peter Strzok wanted to use CNN's
"bombshell" report about the infamous "Steele Dossier" to interview witnesses in the
Trump-Russia probe
CNN used leaked knowledge that Comey briefed Trump on the dossier as a trigger to
publish
The FBI knew of CNN's plans to publish, confirming a dialogue between the FBI and
CNN
This is particularly damning in light of revelations of FBI-MSM collusion against the
Trump campaign
Newly revealed text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney
Lisa Page reveal that Strzok wanted to use CNN's report on the infamous "Steele Dossier" to
justify interviewing people in the Trump-Russia investigation, reports CNN
.
911bodysnatchers322 ,
So now CNN is complicit in illegal leaking, (dis)information laundering, citizen
targetting, conspiracy against rights, subversion, sedition and treason?
No wonder it's a nonstop Trump hate fest. They aren't just trying to get Trump impeached
in the court of public opinion, they're desperate to get rid of him before he 100% destroys
him
Well it's too late. Impeach away. But we'll still hold CNN for treason. The two things
aren't related. You can't steal from a store just because Trump set the one next to it on
fire
BGO ,
Fatigue is setting in with this charade. Soon the (((pundits))) will respond with the
obligatory ***yawn*** troll to all future allegations.
If Trump cannot or is unable to respond to this non-sense in the harshest terms possible,
he should not be president. It's amazing no one in this drama has met their maker Hitlery
style. If that cunt was in charge and dealing with this shit, bodies would have already hit
the floor.
J Mahoney ,
This whole situation has to piss off anyone that is even 10% objective. How could any
elected representative or senator still spew shit like "Leave Mueller Alone"
BOTTOM LINE -- If we do not get to work quickly to elect non establishment republicans in
the midterms NOTHING will EVER be done and Trump may be forced out if Dems make gains
apocalypticbrother ,
All old news. No one in jail except Manafort. It really seems like Trump is powerless
against agencys. He must hate being a powerless president.
squid ,
If, and I do mean IF, the GOP holds onto both houses of congress.....
Everyone of these fucks has to be indited with sedition, PERIOD.
its slam dunk. And, if the elected houses ever wants to get hold of the CIA, FBI and NSA
and gain some control over those rogue agencies 20-50 agents from each will have to go down
to spend the rest of their lives in Leavenworth.
These uncollected asshats have tried to change the government of the United States.
The only person on the left that appears to understand this is Glen Greenwald.
Squid
Save_America1st ,
the problem is that in my opinion the majority of the GOP is also so fucking corrupt that
I don't think most of them actually want to hold control of the House. They never even wanted
Trump to win in the first place. On top of that, I would say many of those treasonous
scumbags probably actually wanted Hitlery to win the fucking thing even if Trump wasn't going
to be her opponent!
Look at all the resignations. Never seen before in history. Why? Two reasons...Trump is
using the evidence to push many of them out or they end up in Guantanamo for life. And others
in the beginning were quitting in order to give up part of the majority in order to flip the
House to the even more evil, treasonous Demoscums so that it would restrict Trump's full
majority.
Just look how "No Name" McStain acted when voting down against repealing O-Fuck-You-Care,
right???
He was a traitor, plain and fucking simple. We all know it. Fuck their bullshit funeral.
That was a cathedral full of traitors to this country. Psychopaths and sociopaths. Except for
General Kelly and General Mattis keeping a close eye on that room full of demons.
"Strzok CERTAINLY wasn't the only one... Obozo, Hitlery, Lynch, Comey, Rice, Kerry, DOJ, FBI, CIA, MSM, et alia!" McCain, Shummer, Pelosi, Ryan, McConnell and lots of other are co-conspirators in the
overthrow of the elected Govt.
And a large portion, if not the Majority, of the Oligarchs including the Owners of the 5
Media Companies and Big Tech which may have the same exact owners as the Media Companies.
Shemp 4 Victory ,
This is particularly damning in light of revelations of FBI-MSM collusion against the
Trump campaign
Collusion of big government and big media? That's textbook fascism. (Of course, nobody
reads textbooks, so...)
"Hey let me know when you can talk. We're discussing whether, now that this is out, we
use it as a pretext to go interview some people," Strzok continued.
"Because any pretext that provides even the flimsiest plausibility means we can play our
little power games and ride the gravy train to easy money instead of pretending to do the
work that taxpayers think they are paying us to do."
Above the law, like they all are.
Creative_Destruct ,
"...pervasive collusion between Obama-era intelligence agencies and the MSM to defeat, and
then smear Donald Trump after he had won the election. "
Yes, it was (and is) a concerted effort at collusion to politically assassinate Trump. But
remember, this is a rigged game. The campaign's (non) "collusion" will be crammed into
whatever "legitimate", "legal" mold it will fit; the conspiracy to "find a crime" for Trump
within the Deep/In-You-Face State is simply "oversight" and "investigation."
The Mueller investigation has been going on for a very long time - if he had found
anything of any real value it would be out there already, trying to reduce Trump popularity
and hit the GOP mid-terms.
The Mid Terms are very important to Deep State. The Dems must at least get the House back
in order to stop Trump.
That Mueller and Co have virtually have found nothing to put out there to stop Trump and
the GOP means they have fuck all, and are now clutching at Straws.
They are going to have to go the Bullshit path....start inventing. OH and all sorts of
False Flags between now and Mid Terms are guaranteed. ALSO will the neocons dupe Trump into a
Syria mistake that causes the death of many US soldiers? We know Deep State don't care who or
how many they kill, so long as they get what they want.
One wonders if the Censoring of Conservative media, and Political Sites is because Deep
State are planning to Assassinate President Trump , as is stated on Alex Jone's site.
BANNED VIDEOS – PENTAGON INTEL SAYS GLOBALISTS WANT TRUMP DEAD BY MARCH 2019
Watch the clips censored by over one hundred websites
There have probably been several Trump assassination attempts since he was elected.
Knowing what happened to Lincoln when he vetoed the National Bank / Fed Reserve of his
time;
And what happened to JFK when he stated he would shut down the CIA;
Trump is fully aware he performs a death defying act daily. There may be others out there
willing to make the Trump-JFK-Lincoln sacrifice, to take back America, but not Pence, not
Sanders, not any current Democrat prez wanna be.
Thom Paine ,
It would be impossible, or an exercise in suicide by the GOP and or Democrats if they
actually impeached Trump.
Two thirds of the Senate is required for Impeachment, meaning the GOP would have to
vote with the Dems and that would mean total devastation of the GOP at the following
elections.
If the Dems tried impeachment, they would be only signaling to their hardcore base, but
there would be a significant voter backlash against them. It would be a self defeating
act.
If the GOP and Dems voted to impeach Trump in the Senate, Trump can appeal to the
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court would deny the Impeachment - unless there was proper legal
cause.
There has to be a legally provable breach of Federal law outside the POTUS exercise of
powers. Extraordinary prosecution requires extraordinary evidence.
You cannot remove a President elected by 62 million people on flimsy hearsay, or 'he said
she said' evidence, or pure circumstantial evidence. It would also set a precedence where
Presidents could be impeached on the drop of a hat.
At the moment the Dems and Deep State want to impeach Trump because he beat Clinton and
fucked up the last step in their plan to own America.
If Trump beat Sanders not many would be whining right now, they wouldn't care.
StarGate ,
Your premise legally appears to be accurate, that the Supreme Court is a failsafe against
a retaliatory political impeachment, based primarily on fact Hillary lost.
However, that means the Supreme Court would have to been beyond corruption and Trump would
have to bring a case.
j0nx ,
No. All the Dems and deep state need to know is that a lot of the deplorable would riot
like mofos if they tried. No dem would be safe. You think they don't know that? Sociology
101.
Saying the deplorables wouldn't riot is like saying Obama's minions wouldn't have if the
shoe were reversed 7 years ago and there was an open coup against him like there is
Trump.
Withdrawn Sanction ,
Sorry to nit pick, but there are 2 steps here: the first is impeachment by the House. Akin
to an indictment. Then there is a trial in the Senate which is presided over by the Chief
Justice of the SC. THEN a 2/3s affirmative vote is required for conviction and removal from
office.
An impeachment just like an indictment is meaningless w/o a conviction. You see how much
"damage" an impeachment did to Slick Willy. Didn't skip a beat
"Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports
or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or
naval forces of the United States, or to promote the success of its enemies, or shall
willfully make or convey false reports, or false statements, . . . or incite insubordination,
disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States,
or shall willfully obstruct . . . the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States,
or . . . shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous,
or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of
the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States . . . or shall
willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully . . . urge, incite, or
advocate any curtailment of production . . . or advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing
of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act
support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word
or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more
than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both...."
or sedition = this
" A review of the documents suggests that the FBI and DOJ coordinated efforts to get
information to the press that would potentially be "harmful to President Trump's
administration. "
There is one small point everyone seems to be over looking. It was Rosenstein's official
recommendation to Trump to terminated Comey because Rosenstein was trying to install Mueller
as FBI director, a professional "yes man" and cover up specialist. So when Trump wouldn't
make Mueller FBI director, then Rosenstein had to destroy Trump to cover up. He appointed
Mueller to special council.
The cover ups go all the way back to 9/11.
missionshk ,
missed that they are all tied to 911 conspirators, brennan, mueller, comey
missed the satanists dems.drinking the blood of children, weiners laptop, and pakistani
spies
missed the clinton bribery foundation, and failed one world government
and missed continued demonization of russia, the social paid antifa soros treason
One of the most intriguing aspects of the 2007-09 financial crisis is how little understanding there is of what
actually occurred. Some of this has to do with the complexities of the event, as well as how hard it is to
identify forces lurking below the surface that had built up over the years.
Even a decade later, many people still cling to
false ideas
about the underlying causes (there wasn't just one, folks!) of the crisis. What follows are my 10
favorite flawed memes,
misunderstandings
and just outright falsehoods about the financial crisis and its aftermath:
No. 1.
Lehman's collapse caused the crisis
: "If only we had saved Lehman Brothers, we could
have avoided the crisis," goes a popular lament. This reflects a
fundamental misunderstanding
of the scale of the dislocations. To accept this premise -- former Lehman
employees are some of the loudest apostles of this theory -- then one has to pretend an entire universe of other
issues didn't exist.
Lehman, like
Bear Stearns
before it, suffered from many of the same issues that afflicted most of the U.S.'s other big
banks and brokers: too much junk paper, too much leverage, too little capital and deficient risk controls. Lehman
was simply among the most overleveraged and undercapitalized of the lot.
No. 2.
If not for X, we would have been OK:
Take your pick
of things to insert here, but it's important to understand that this was not a
single event
, but rather the result of
many factors
that came together over time. These include: the Federal Reserve's ultralow interest rates, a fundamentally weak
recovery from the dot-com collapse, the housing boom and bust, huge amounts of financial leverage, securitization
of mortgages, the embrace of derivatives and reckless deregulation of the financial industry that enabled much of
the above, and more. I depicted these elements via
this
graphic
in "
Bailout
Nation
."
No. 3.
Repeal of Glass-Steagall
: The argument is that in the decades after Glass-Steagall was
enacted during the Great Depression, Wall Street crises were confined to Wall Street and didn't spill onto Main
Street. See as examples the 1987 stock-market crash or the Mexican peso crisis of 1994. But the causative issue we
run into to is the but-for test. Would we have had a crisis if Glass-Steagall were still in place? I don't see how
we can make that claim. Perhaps had Glass-Steagall not been repealed,
the crisis
might have been smaller, but it is very hard to say it wouldn't have occurred anyway.
No. 4.
Bailouts were the only option
: There were many other options, but they would have been
very painful and required considerable foresight. I believed then (and still believe) that the best course of
action would have been
prepackaged bankruptcies
for all the insolvent institutions instead of bailouts. I would have had the federal
government provide debtor-in-possession financing, allowed qualified private institutional investors to bid on the
assets thereby letting markets set the valuations, with the government picking up the rest. It would have been
more difficult in the short term, but the economy would have rebounded much sooner.
No. 5.
Taxpayers were repaid in full and even made a profit
: There are two major issues with
this claim: The first is that the Troubled Asset Relief Program and most other loans and bailouts were all (or
almost all) repaid. But to make that happen, the federal government in a move questioned by tax experts allowed
failed American International Group to carry forward the net operating losses for use to offset future earnings;
this was a
stealth bailout
worth
tens of billions
of dollars that didn't appear to "cost" anything. Meanwhile the Federal Reserve kept rates at
zero for almost a decade. This resulted in a huge transfer from savers to bailed-out lenders.
The federal government also took a huge amount of risk during a period when financial markets tripled. And that
is before we account for all of the collateral losses and moral hazards we created.
No. 6.
No one went to jail because stupidity isn't a crime
: This one is laugher, from the
behavior of the executives at Lehman Brothers to all of the
foreclosure fraud
that took place. Jesse Eisinger, author of "
The
Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
," explained how the white-collar
defense bar successfully lobbied and undercut the Department of Justice during the years before the crisis. You
can't
convict a criminal
if you don't have the personnel, intellectual firepower or stomach to prosecute in the
first place.
No. 7.
Borrowers were as blameworthy as lenders
: First, we know that for huge swaths of the
banking industry, the basis for lending changed in the run-up to the crisis. For most of financial history, credit
was granted based on the borrower's
ability to repay
. In the years before the crisis, the incentive to lend shifted: It was based not on the
likelihood of repayment but on whether a loan could be sold to someone else, often a securities firm, which would
repackage the loan with other loans to create a mortgage-backed security. Selling 30-year mortgages with a 90-day
warranty changes the calculus for who qualifies: just find a warm body that will make the first three payments;
after that it's someone else's problem.
Second, we know that if you offer people free money, they will take it. This is among the reasons we have
banking regulations in the first place. We expect the banking professionals to understand risk better than the
unwashed masses.
No. 8.
Poor people caused the crisis
: This is another intellectually dishonest claim. If any
U.S.
legislation
such as the
Community
Reinvestment Act
was the actual cause of the crisis, then the boom and bust wouldn't have been global. Second,
if poor people and these policies were the cause, then the crisis would have been centered in South Philadelphia;
Harlem, New York; Oakland, California; and Atlanta instead of the burgeoning suburbs of Las Vegas, Southern
California, Florida and Arizona. The folks making this argument seem to have questionable motivations.
No. 9.
The Fed made a mistake by stepping in when Congress refused:
Congress is the
governmental entity that should have done more in response to the crisis. But it didn't, and all of those members
who opposed efforts to repair the economy and financial system should have been thrown out of office. The Fed gave
cover to Congress, creating congressional moral hazard and allowing it to
shirk its
responsibilities
. We don't know how the world would have looked if that hadn't happened, but I imagine it
would be significantly different than it does today -- and not necessarily better.
No. 10.
Lehman could have been saved
: This is perhaps the most
delusional
of all the claims.
Lehman
was
insolvent
. We know this from an accounting sleight-of-hand it performed called Repo 105, in which it
which "sold" $50 billion in holdings to an entity it owned, booked a profit just before quarterly earnings, then
repurchased the holdings. The sleuthing done by hedge-fund manager David Einhorn reached the same conclusion about
Lehman's solvency long
before the collapse
;
the Fed itself
also made clear that it couldn't take on Lehman's losses.
When people stubbornly refuse to acknowledge facts, when they insist on staying married to their own faulty
belief system, it becomes very challenging to respond with sound policies. As a society, the sooner we reckon with
reality, the sooner we can begin to avoid disasters like the financial crisis.
It seems fatuous to argue, especially in a healthy economy, that the upper middle class
faces overwhelming financial insecurities. After all, U.S. stocks have entered the longest bull
market ever recorded, the labor force has markedly improved, and small business optimism is at
a level unseen since the early 1980s. It appears that happy days are here again. But this
halcyon period -- marked by invigorating statistics -- still hasn't prevented even
upper-middle-class Americans from feeling discontent. For countless families, especially in
thriving metro regions, a six-figure salary fails to deliver economic security. Their sense of
vulnerability is real, not imagined.
What defines the upper middle class? According to the Pew Research Center, middle-class
households, as of 2010, had incomes ranging from $35,294 to $105,881. In 2016, U.S. Census
Bureau data showed that the median household income was $59,039. Based on Census findings from
that year, the highest earning households -- before the top 5 percent ($224,251 and upward) --
ranged from $74,878 to $121,018. Reviewing these findings, a household income ranging anywhere
from $75,000 to $200,000 could fall under the upper-middle class.
A six-figure income should bring long-term stability. But members of the upper-middle class
find themselves prisoners of voluntary yet inescapable costs. A multi-generational phenomenon
has unfolded, its roots traceable to the economic slowdown of the early 2000s and the
subsequent Great Recession. There is a feeling of anxiety among Baby Boomers who cannot retire,
Gen. Xers saddled with expensive mortgages and child care costs, and Millennials paralyzed by
insurmountable student debt. Data cannot measure emotion. The sense of unease is palpable
despite the economy's booming conditions.
A helpful cultural reference point is HBO's Divorce , which concluded its second
season earlier this year. The comedy-drama focuses on the angst and dysfunction of a
middle-aged divorced couple in Hastings-on-Hudson, an idyllic town in New York's prosperous
Westchester County. Frances DuFresne, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, quits her day job in the
city to open an art gallery. Her ex-husband, played by Thomas Hayden Church, is a former Wall
Street executive now struggling as a contractor. The estranged couple, raising two children,
are undeniably upper-middle class. Their professional background, cultural tastes, and suburban
lifestyle personify affluence. But their financial insecurity, mainly the result of career
choices, remains a theme throughout the series. The DuFresnes' social circles remind them that
their economic position, while favorable, is vulnerable compared to the higher earners
inhabiting their bucolic suburb.
The characters portrayed in Divorce exemplify a modern reality: many
upper-middle-class households are high earning but asset poor. In 2015, Quartz's Allison
Schrager illustrated how "America's upper middle class have almost no emergency cushion and are
woefully unprepared for retirement." Reviewing Federal Reserve data, Schrager showed the
precarious financial position of upper-middle-class individuals aged 40 to 55 with household
incomes ranging from $50,000 to $100,000. The data indicated that this income bracket had fewer
assets than ever (assets exclude a house, car, or business, but include retirement funds). As
Schrager noted, even a high earner who worked for many years typically had only $70,000 in
financial assets. Approximately 25 percent of upper-middle-class 40- to 55-year-olds,
meanwhile, had less than $17,500 in financial assets.
Such findings suggest that seemingly high earners are living paycheck-to-paycheck. While
Federal Reserve data has since found that median family income grew 10 percent between 2013 and
2016, a disproportionate number of upper-income Americans still cannot retire. In addition to
their own financial woes, they must support their elderly parents, which involves innumerable
costs. Overwhelming debt has become a vicious trap.
In one Brookings
Institution study , researchers reported that nearly one quarter of households earning
$100,000 to $150,000 a year claim to be unable to pull together $2,000 in a month to pay bills.
Sustained economic growth has not repaired this cycle of debt. According to Deutsche Bank
economist Torsten Slok, Americans have more debt than cash than at any time since 1962. The
2018 Northwestern Mutual Planning and Progress Study found that the average American's personal
debt (independent of home mortgages) now exceeds $38,000. Stock market growth and rising home
prices have not altered this trend.
In a Washington Post report last year, Todd C. Frankel demonstrated how modern life
adds up for an upper-middle class family. Frankel reported on a couple in suburban Atlanta with
a combined income of $180,000, an indisputably high earning level. But financial uncertainty
rises from a mortgage, three children, day care costs, and the prospect of college tuition. "I
don't feel wealthy," the wife, a tax manager, told Frankel. "I don't have a bunch of money
stashed away anywhere." While the 2017 tax reform bill brought relief for many Americans,
limits on state and local tax deductions have further engendered economic unease.
In her new book Squeezed , Alissa Quart captures how middle-class American families
are struggling to attain the standard of living once enjoyed by their parents. And in an
important chapter on the upper middle class, she profiles "life at the bottom of the top."
Quart argues that higher earners, like most Americans, contend with income disparity and the
extreme wealth enveloping metro regions. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance,
upper-middle-class families go broke hiring tutors and maintaining lifestyles that permit their
children to compete with their wealthiest peers. The parents, working professionals, are
emotionally ravaged by endless costs. They discover few perks in geographical serendipity,
graduate degrees, or traditionally high-earning professions like law.
Quart reveals how the legal profession has induced economic stress since the 2008 recession.
In the past decade, law firms and corporations have hired fewer lawyers. Yet for lawyers just
entering the profession, student debt is a crippling part of their lives. As Quart notes,
student debt at the average law school increased from $95,000 to about $112,000 in 2014. It is
difficult to fathom how simple steps in life -- getting married, buying a home, starting a
family -- are financially possible with such debt levels. But the struggle transcends age.
Quart profiles a 59-year-old Mississippi lawyer who, following health setbacks, was ultimately
"pushed out" by her employer. Life continued at its indifferent pace. The mother still had to
pay for her son's college tuition during her initial medical leave. "This is a vastly different
life from what I expected to be having at this age," she told Quart. "The six-figure salaries
and benefits are long gone."
The upper middle class's discontent also transcends political ideology. A seemingly
high-earning Republican household in suburban Cleveland confronts expenses similar to a
high-earning Democratic household in suburban Philadelphia. These are people who tune out the
minute-by-minute plot twists of the Trump presidency. If anything, they are streaming Netflix
or watching HGTV for a nurturing distraction. Their daily focus is on remaining financially
viable.
Aspirations prove costly regardless of geography. A four-year degree at a public college,
for example, costs nearly twice as much as it did in 1996. Exorbitant college debt now dictates
the financial future of Baby Boomers, Gen. Xers, and Millennials. Boomers, at the peak of their
earnings, postpone retirement and support children with student loans. Gen. Xers, nearing the
height of their careers, remain broke due to years of paying off higher education debt.
Millennials, still young in their professional lives, primarily work to pay off monthly federal
and private student loan bills. Credit cards are a necessary prescription for each generation's
economic survival. In 2017, the nation's total credit card debt was over $1 trillion.
Economic insecurity is not limited to higher education. The cost of health care has also
doubled since the 1990s. Obamacare only accelerated the costs incurred by households. The
Journal of the American Medical Association has reported studies suggesting that the
consolidation of medical practices actually "drives up costs." Obamacare hastened the
swallowing of regional hospitals by larger health care systems. This merger frenzy has
empowered hospital systems to negotiate with insurance companies. But the mergers have
increased costs, eliminated competition, and created barriers to care. The upper middle class,
like so many others, are absorbing the costs of this transformed landscape. Rising premiums
only add to their financial burden.
Of course, the upper middle class is in a better position than most Americans. In Dream
Hoarders , Richard V. Reeves correctly unveiled how they are collectively removed from the
socio-economics of the nation's majority. Their economic outcomes remain favorable compared to
the struggles of countless working-class Americans. But a sizable number of higher earning
households are not "opportunity hoarding." There is a cost to working parents ensuring their
children have better lives than their own. In the booming 2010s, this segment of the population
thought they would be in a better place than what they'd anticipated during the booming 1990s.
Yet their diplomas did not translate into liquid cash. Upper-middle-class families, while
affluent and well connected, have been met with empty pockets and unfulfilled dreams in this
brave new economy.
Charles F. McElwee III is a writer based in northeastern Pennsylvania. He's written
for The American Conservative , City Journal, The Atlantic , National Review
, and the Weekly Standard , among others.
At the end of the day, it's math. If you spend more than you take in, you'll be broke. I have
always thought of myself as "New England Frugal," and I wear it like a badge of honor. We
could've sent our kids to private school, but they went to public (as did my husband and I).
We could've driven Mercedes, but I like Toyota. We could've lived in a big fancy home, but
stayed in our more modest home.
The good news is that we were able to pay our kids' college bills (paying now for our
daughter's master's degree). We finally bought a couple of nicer cars. Still in our house
though.
We have never really cared what others have. We are both savers and that's what we did.
Recent promotions mean more money coming in and we can spend a little more, but if either one
of us gets laid off, the other can pay the bills. Math.
Law and orderly made the point that they should move out of overpriced cities. I think that
rings true. I just read an article – about the number of millionaires in each state
– that Manhattan in NYC has a cost-of-living that's 138% above the national average, or
238% of that average. That means that a household has to make $71,400 just to be the same as
$30,000 gets them in Everytown, USA. (I believe that the actual median in Manhattan is a bit
over $80,000, which puts them at about 34 grand.) That ironically makes this high-rolling
borough below average in effective income. I would highly advise many of them to get out, and
live with the Apple Knockers or the rest of us hicks.
The article itself seemed like on big whine. The comment section OTOH seem to have a lot of
common sense advice attached to it. I live a more modest lifestyle nowadays and to tell the
truth I seem to be happier and less stressed. To tell the truth it took a long time for me to
live within my means.
"... Interesting article on and comments by Thomas Frank, touching on the cognitive elite as a unified class and war on the middle class (my words not his) ..."
"... "Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of education......." ..."
".....the ongoing dissolving and crumblingand sinking -- all his metaphors -- of our
society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story" he is telling in
Rendezvous with Oblivion: "This is what a society looks like when the glue that holds it
together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when they learn that the
structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses through the veins of
the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on their power to
accumulate" "
And this
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory
health care providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to
accommodate its new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not
of the sons of toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge
economy's winners: the Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall
Street titans who gave so much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class'
that truly gets the power of education......."
"... Interesting article on and comments by Thomas Frank, touching on the cognitive elite as a unified class and war on the middle class (my words not his) ..."
"... "Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory health care providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to accommodate its new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not of the sons of toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge economy's winners: the Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall Street titans who gave so much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class' that truly gets the power of education......." ..."
".....the ongoing dissolving and crumblingand sinking -- all his metaphors -- of our
society. And with such metaphors Frank describes the "one essential story" he is telling in
Rendezvous with Oblivion: "This is what a society looks like when the glue that holds it
together starts to dissolve. This is the way ordinary citizens react when they learn that the
structure beneath them is crumbling. And this is the thrill that pulses through the veins of
the well-to-do when they discover that there is no longer any limit on their power to
accumulate" "
And this
"Today we live in a world of predatory bankers, predatory educators, even predatory
health care providers, all of them out for themselves . Liberalism itself has changed to
accommodate its new constituents' technocratic views. Today, liberalism is the philosophy not
of the sons of toil but of the 'knowledge economy' and, specifically, of the knowledge
economy's winners: the Silicon Valley chieftains, the big university systems, and the Wall
Street titans who gave so much to Barack Obama's 2008 campaign . They are a 'learning class'
that truly gets the power of education......."
Days after Google was exposed trying to
help Hillary Clinton
win the 2016
election, a leaked "internal only"
video published by
Breitbart
Senior
Tech correspondent Allum Bokhari
reveals a panel of Google executives
who are absolutely beside themselves
following Hillary Clinton's historic
loss.
The video is a full recording of
Google's first all-hands
meeting following the 2016 election
(these weekly meetings are known
inside the company as "TGIF" or
"Thank God It's Friday" meetings).
Sent to Breitbart News by an
anonymous source, it features
co-founders Larry Page and
Sergey Brin, VPs Kent Walker and
Eileen Naughton, CFO Ruth Porat, and
CEO Sundar Pichai
. -
Breitbart
In the video, Brin can be heard
comparing Trump supporters to fascists
and extremists - arguing that like
other extremists, Trump voters suffered
from "boredom" which has, he
claims, historically led to fascism and
communism.
He then asks his company what they
can do to ensure a "better quality of
governance and decision-making."
And according to Kent Walker, VP for
Global Affairs, those who support
populist causes like the MAGA movement
are motivated by "fear, xenophobia,
hatred and a desire for answers that
may or may not be there."
He later says that
Google
needs to fight to ensure that populist
movements around the world are merely a
"blip" and a "hiccup" in the arc of
history that "bends towards progress."
The video can be seen below, however
scroll down for a list of timestamped
segments to note, courtesy of
Breitbart
.
(00:00:00 – 00:01:12) Google
co-founder Sergey Brin states that
the weekly meeting is
"probably not the most joyous we've
had"
and that
"most
people here are pretty upset and
pretty sad."
(00:00:24) Brin contrasts the
disappointment of Trump's election
with his excitement at the
legalization of cannabis in
California, triggering laughs and
applause from the audience of Google
employees.
(00:01:12) Returning to
seriousness, Brin says he is
"deeply offen[ded]"
by the
election of Trump, and that the
election
"conflicts with
many of [Google's] values."
(00:09:10) Trying to explain the
motivations of Trump supporters,
Senior VP for Global Affairs, Kent
Walker
concludes: "fear, not
just in the United States, but
around the world is fueling
concerns, xenophobia, hatred, and a
desire for answers that may or may
not be there."
(00:09:35) Walker goes on to
describe the Trump phenomenon as a
sign of "tribalism that's
self-destructive [in] the
long-term."
(00:09:55) Striking an
optimistic tone, Walker assures
Google employees that despite the
election,
"history is on our
side"
and that the
"moral arc of history bends towards
progress."
(00:10:45) Walker approvingly
quotes former Italian Prime Minister
Matteo Renzi's comparison between
"the world of the wall" with its
"isolation and defensiveness" and
the "world of the square, the
piazza, the marketplace, where
people come together into a
community and enrich each other's
lives."
(00:13:10) CFO Ruth Porat
appears to break down in tears when
discussing the election result.
(00:15:20) Porat promises that
Google will "use the great strength
and resources and reach we have to
continue to advance really important
values."
(00:16:50) Stating
"we
all need a hug,"
she then
instructs the audience of Google
employees to hug the person closest
to them.
(00:20:24) Eileen Noughton, VP
of People Operations, promises that
Google's policy team in DC is "all
over" the immigration issue and that
the company will "keep a close watch
on it."
(00:21:26) Noughton jokes about
Google employees asking, '
Can
I move to Canada?
' after
the election. She goes on to
seriously discuss the options
available to Google employees who
wish to leave the country.
(00:23:12) Noughton does
acknowledge "diversity of opinion
and political persuasion" and notes
that s
he has heard from
conservative Google employees who
say they "haven't felt entirely
comfortable revealing who [they]
are."
and urged
"tolerance." (Several months later,
the company would fire James Damore
allegedly for disagreeing with
progressive narratives.)
(00:27:00) Responding to a
question about "filter bubbles,"
Sundar Pichai promises to work
towards "correcting" Google's role
in them
(00:27:30)
Sergey Brin
praises an audience member's
suggestion of increasing matched
Google employee donations to
progressive groups.
(00:34:40)
Brin compares
Trump voters to "extremists,"
arguing for a correlation between
the economic background of Trump
supporters and the kinds of voters
who back extremist movements. Brin
says that "voting is not a rational
act" and that not all of Trump's
support can be attributed to "income
disparity." He suggests that Trump
voters might have been motivated by
boredom rather than legitimate
concerns.
(00:49:10) An employee asks if
Google is willing to "invest in
grassroots, hyper-local efforts to
bring tools and services and
understanding of Google products and
knowledge" so that people can "make
informed decisions that are best for
themselves." Pichai's response:
Google will ensure its "educational
products" reach "segments of the
population [they] are not
[currently] fully reaching."
(00:54:33) An employee asks what
Google is going to do about
"misinformation" and "fake news"
shared by "low-information
voters." Pichai responds by stating
that
"investments in machine
learning and AI" are a "big
opportunity" to fix the problem.
(00:56:12) Responding to an
audience member, Walker says Google
must ensure the rise of populism
doesn't turn into "a world war or
something catastrophic and instead
is a blip, a hiccup."
(00:58:22) Brin compares Trump
voters to supporters of fascism and
communism, linking the former
movement to "boredom," which Brin
previously linked to Trump voters.
"It sort of sneaks up sometimes,
really bad things" says Brin.
(01:01:15) A Google employee
states:
"speaking to white
men, there's an opportunity for you
right now to understand your
privilege"
and urges
employees to "go through the
bias-busting training, read about
privilege, read about the real
history of oppression in our
country." He urges employees to
"discuss the issues you are
passionate about during Thanksgiving
dinner and don't back down and laugh
it off when you hear the voice of
oppression speak through metaphors."
Every executive on stage – the CEO,
CFO, two VPs and the two Co-founders
– applaud the employee.
(01:01:57) An audience member
asks if the executives see "anything
positive from this election result."
The audience of Google employees,
and the executives on stage, burst
into laughter. "Boy, that's a really
tough one right now" says Brin.
Google and it's execs seem to be a collective of Dr.
Frankenstein's whose creation unknowingly or knowingly practices evil
against innocence.
Little Girl Scene from 1931
Frankenstein
and 1974
Young
Frankenstein
We saw the scene in 1931
Frankenstein
where the creature
meets a young girl. Although a little afraid, she accepts him and
plays games with him. After they throw all the petals from a flower
into the lake, he looks around for something else to throw. He picks
her up and throws her in. Until recently, the actual toss was cut
from presentations of the film, because it is just too painful.
DeadFred
,
I have a friend who was there that night with the election coverage
crew. He's a secret conservative trying not to lose his good paying
job so I won't give details. But he described a scene to me that
would be comical if it wasn't so pathetic. It was pretty much how it
is described here and he had to just grit his teeth and try to keep
from laughing or crying. "Just keep repeating, $190,000 per year"
uhland62
,
When the Emperor (google) doesn't like his people he must go and find
himself another people.
Thebighouse
,
SOMEHOW GOOGLE FACEBOOK TWITTER NEED TO PAY US FOR USING OUR PERSONAL
AND DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION WITHOUT
"REAL" CONSENT.
Ever gone googling? They need to pay you for selling you
information. It is blatant theft. You are ENTITLED TO YOUR MONEY.
I got that word entitled from Warren and obummers micky and barry.
Oh and sharpton too.
bobdog54
,
First, they may have a reasonably good, not high, IQ but it's clear
the stark reality of the real world and its people are completely
unknown to them or they have little to no integrity.
Second,
maybe they are completely brain dead to support a clear criminal over
4 decades or they themselves are essentially of the criminal mind.
I don't give a fuck about the next new iPhones that will not deliver any improvements in
technology. Bigger is just bigger, not better. How about Apple fix the problems that really
irritate people; 1) Siri sucks, fix the fucking thing, 2) Speech to text sucks, fix the
fucking thing, 3) Apple has never been able to maintain a reliable Bluetooth connection to a
headset, fix the fucking thing. That's just a the beginning. Stop blowing it out about your
wonderful amazing new OLED screens, it's already old technology, Samsung phones have had OLED
screens for years. How about Apple do what Jobs did and come up with products that change the
way people do things. The iPhone changed the way people communicate. The iPod changed the way
people listened to and purchased music. Invent something we haven't seen before and don't
even know we need it until it's introduced. Or...., just shut the fuck up...
alfbell ,
The new iPhone allows the CIA and NSA to keep better track of you and your activities.
Don't worry though, this is for your safety and protection.
TalkToLind ,
I only buy inexpensive, unlocked phones with removable batteries and I pay cash for
them.
Dr. Winston O'boogie ,
I prefer to keep my Galaxy S8. It is more than enough for my liking. I also have managed
to be perfectly satisfied with my 10 year old pc (with a few minor upgrades). The only Apple
product I use is my trusty, old Ipod.
This continued obsession with the masses to get their hands on the latest Apple product is
ridiculous.
AnonymousCitizen ,
Faster, thinner, more pixels, better camera. Okay, got it.
Remember a few editions ago when I wrote in celebration of the cross-aisle cooperation
between Senator Elizabeth Warren and President Donald Trump with respect to the re-engineering
of the equity complex? After all, it was only a month ago. However, for those who fail this
recall test, the gist of it was as follows. Senator Warren introduced a bill to regulate large
corporations in a manner that de-emphasizes profits as a corporate objective, and the President
sought to soften the blow by suggesting a reduction in the frequency at which company
chieftains would be required to announce the certain-to-be bad news to the investing
public.
At the time, I was deeply touched by the prospect of narrowing the gap between two schools
of economic thought -- so deeply at odds with one another, to such deep annoyance and detriment
to the well-being of the masses. However, I feared it was a "one-off".
So it brings me great pleasure to report upon the happy news that the divide continues to
close. As my readers are probably aware, everyone's favorite Socialist Senior Citizen Senator:
Bernie Sanders, took to the airwaves this past week to denounce the evils of what by many
accounts is everyone's favorite publicly traded corporation. In live television interviews,
and, of course, on Twitter, Bro Bernie entered into a full-throated denouncement of Amazon,
going so far as to include a series of ad-hominem attacks on its fabulously infallible
founder: one Jeff Bezos.
In doing so, Sen. Sanders joins a critical chorus led by the President, who for months has
been throwing shade at the erstwhile bookseller that would take over the world. Bernie is
passionately (if questionably) upset about the unfair treatment of Amazon workers. Trump is
presumably most peeved at the temerity of Bezos at having taken ownership/control over the
Washington Post. But both agree on one thing: the great unwashed are getting a raw deal with
respect to the business arrangement between the Company and the U.S. Postal Service.
I've looked into these matters, and objectively as I can determine, this is not an open and
shut case against Amazon. Yes, they're getting a government (and therefore a taxpayer) subsidy,
but they are arguably performing services that would be difficult and more expensive for the
post office to undertake without them – rain, sleet, snow and gloom of night
notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, to their everlasting credit, both Amazon and its shareholders reacted to the
rhetorical pummeling with characteristic equanimity:
It's not as though they didn't feel the sting a bit, and here, the sentimental can be
forgiven if they lament the timing. Sharp-eyed observers will note a slight down-tick in the
price at the more immediate, right end portion of the graph. This reversal is all the more
unfortunate because on Tuesday, the day after our traditional holiday celebrating the working
class, the Company's valuation joined that of Apple's as the only business enterprise ever to
surpass the lofty and heretofore unimaginable $1T threshold.
But that was then; as of Friday's close, Amazon's market capitalization fell to the
beggarly-by- comparison level of $952B.
It says here that Amzonians of every stripe should keep that stiff upper lip demeanor at the
ready, as I suspect they may face a string of challenges before the inevitable happens, and the
Company achieves full global hegemony.
Because, while the following edict did not make the cut on my "10 Commandments of Risk
Management", it probably should have: any enterprise that has found itself in the
cross-hairs of both Trump and Bernie has reason to worry.
And if Amazon is staring into the face of a political spit storm, so, too, perhaps, are
those other lovable Tech Titans whose stock performance have so deeply enriched us in the
post-crash era. Consider, if you will, the recent pricing action of a couple of other tech
darlings: Facebook and Twitter, linked not only by the social media stranglehold they
collectively command, but also by the fact that each company sent one of their gods down from
their heavenly Silicon Valley Olympus, to earthly Washington, where each faced full-on Capitol
Hill roasting:
Facebook Defacing:
Twitter De-Tweeting:
Now, this is a Dickensian Tale of Two Stocks if ever there was one. With Zuck presumably
hiding under his desk, Sheryl Sandberg taking the Congressional heat this round. In the wake of
all that, Facebook managed to breach the lows registered after its historic July tanking of
earnings, and is knocking on the door of breaking the bottoms recorded when Zuck had to explain
away to hostile legislatures the pimping out of user data to sketchy organizations like
Cambridge Analytica. By contrast, the long-besieged Twitter, which had been on an improbable
profit upswing of late, managed to give back all and then-some in the wake of Jack Dorsey's
Capitol Hill Star Chamber Inquisition.
Anybody notice a pattern here? Well, for me, what we're witnessing is the early innings of
what I expect to be a slowly unfolding, populist/political undermining of the flower of the
American Tech industry. Now, I don't expect anything overly nasty to transpire in the short
term; more likely than not, the garroting of Silicon Valley high-flyers will be a multi-year
proposition. Rather, I suspect that the TMT/big dogs of the NDX will more than likely reach new
highs – perhaps material ones – before they face the prospect of careening,
Icarus-like, to terra firma.
But if the prevailing tone – taking place as it is under a presumably
business-friendly political paradigm -- is any indication, I shudder to think about what
happens when the progressive elements re-assert their mojo and take hold of the control
panel. And trust me, they will: if not immediately then eventually.
Of course, one cannot help but admire the way that West Coast Tech monsters – from San
Diego to Seattle – have anticipated this, and attempted, and with some success, to brand
themselves as torch carriers for the progressive mindset. I believe is that this will work for
a while, but not into perpetuity. Eventually, they will be unmasked and vilified as the filthy,
profit-seeking capitalists that they are.
And here, perhaps, is the main (if most obvious) point: as Tech goes, so goes the stock
market. I don't have the exact figures handy, but I can assure you that if you review index
gains over the last, say, five years, and remove the contribution of Apple, Amazon, Facebook,
Microsoft and Google from the equation, you're looking at a chart that, best case, is
flat as a pancake. As such, I don't think that the unfolding Madam Defarge (villainess of Tale
of Two Cities, known most prominently for knitting at the guillotine) dynamic that I fear may
be emerging in Tech-land is much cause for celebration.
The shortened week brought a small taste of the look and feel of the new-age vibe that
awaits us. Equity indices retreated, but only modestly, and in manner that failed to capture
the carnage that lies beneath. I may be connecting dots too far flung to merit they're linkage,
but it is not lost on me that all of the above transpired against the backdrop of a
deteriorating geopolitical sneaker fire (Nike?). I won't waste much space here, but between the
editorial stylings of Anonymous, the absolute (if unsuccessful) effort to turn the Kavanaugh
hearings into a pig circus, the breathless anticipation of another Bob Woodward political
workover, and the unfortunate ramping up of trade skirmishes, it's hard not to look at the
world with a glaze in one's eyes and a growing pit in one's stomach.
But of course and as always the news by no means all bad. The Jobs Report pretty much checks
every bling box, so much so that slumbering holders of longer-term U.S. debt, and sold down
some of their holdings. Factset is projecting another boffo quarter at about ~+20%.
Equities, though, remain a quandary nonetheless (as do Commodities), but my hunch is that
the indices will gather themselves a bit over the next few sessions, before breaking everyone's
heart – yet again -- later in the month. Moreover, if the months-long pattern holds
(Trump offsetting domestic political bludgeons with accretive policy actions), I would expect
some happy noise from the front of the trade wars over the next several days. There'd better
be, because the long knives are out against the current administration, and the only defensive
weapon at their disposal is one that involves playing offense on the economy.
I'm more than willing to do my share, so, as I sign off, know that I'm logging into my
Amazon Prime account to purchase a holy document called "The Art of the Deal", along with "Our
Revolution: A Future to Believe In", written by one Bernie Sanders, and released on November
15, 2016, exactly one week after the author of the former book, against all odds, won the
presidential election.
Who knows? Maybe Donnie and Bernie have more common ground than they realize, and if I find
anything of this sort, I'll be sure to pass it along – to them, and, of course, to
you.
TIMSHEL
This post is brought to you by General Risk Advisors, a full service risk solutions group.
For more information, visit genriskadvisors.com .
At this point there's not even so much as feigning surprise or
suspense in the now sadly all-too-familiar Syria script out of Washington.
The Wall Street Journal has just published a bombshell on Sunday evening as Russian and
Syrian warplanes continue bombing raids over al-Qaeda held Idlib, citing
unnamed US officials who claim " President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of
chlorine gas in an offensive against the country's last major rebel stronghold."
And perhaps more alarming is that the report details that Trump is undecided over whether
new retaliatory strikes could entail expanding the attack to hit Assad allies Russia and Iran
this time around .
That's right, unnamed US officials are now claiming to be in possession of intelligence
which they say shows Assad has already given the order in an absolutely unprecedented level of
"pre-crime" telegraphing of events on the battlefield .
And supposedly these officials have even identified the type of chemical weapon to be used:
chlorine gas .
The anonymous officials told the WSJ of "new U.S. intelligence" in what appears an eerily
familiar repeat of precisely how the 2003 invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public
(namely, "anonymous officials" and vague assurances of unseen intelligence) -- albeit posturing
over Idlib is now unfolding at
an intensely more rapid pace :
Fears of a massacre have been fueled by new U.S. intelligence indicating Mr. Assad has
cleared the way for the military to use chlorine gas in any offensive, U.S. officials said .
It wasn't clear from the latest intelligence if Mr. Assad also had given the military
permission to use sarin gas , the deadly nerve agent used several times in previous regime
attacks on rebel-held areas. It is banned under international law.
It appears Washington is now saying an American attack on Syrian government forces and
locations is all but inevitable .
And according to the report, President Trump may actually give the order to attack even if
there's no claim of a chemical attack, per the WSJ:
In a recent discussion about Syria, people familiar with the exchange said, President
Trump threatened to conduct a massive attack against Mr. Assad if he carries out a massacre
in Idlib , the northwestern province that has become the last refuge for more than three
million people and as many as 70,000 opposition fighters that the regime considers to be
terrorists.
The Pentagon is crafting military options , but Mr. Trump hasn't decided what exactly
would trigger a military response or whether the U.S. would target Russian or Iranian
military forces aiding Mr. Assad in Syria , U.S. officials said.
Crucially, this is the first such indication of the possibility that White House and defense
officials are mulling over hitting "Russian or Iranian military forces" in what would be a
monumental escalation that would take the world to the brink of World War 3.
The WSJ report cites White House discussions of a third strike -- in reference to US attacks
on Syria during the last two Aprils after chemical allegations were made against Damascus --
while indicating it would "likely would be more expansive than the first two" and could include
targeting Russia and Iran .
During the debate this year over how to respond to the second attack, Mr. Trump's
national-security team weighed the idea of hitting Russian or Iranian targets in Syria ,
people familiar with the discussions said. But the Pentagon pushed for a more measured
response, U.S. officials said, and the idea was eventually rejected as too risky.
A third U.S. strike likely would be more expansive than the first two, and Mr. Trump would
again have to consider whether or not to hit targets like Russian air defenses in an effort
to deliver a more punishing blow to Mr. Assad's military.
Last week the French ambassador, whose country also vowed to strike Syria if what it deems
credible chemical allegations emerge, said during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Idlib :
"Syria is once again at the edge of an abyss."
With Russia and Iran now in the West's cross hairs over Idlib, indeed the entire world is
again at the edge of the abyss.
developing...
Jack Oliver ,
You must read this - Bolton is definitely FUCKING insane !
LOL Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources again. Anyone that gives this more than
0.0003 seconds worth of attention is a barely functional retard. Haha, looking at the
comments below, we have a bunch of Charley Brown's running up to kick a football held by
Lucy. Fuckin moron cunts.
Bokkenrijder ,
Trump has already written and signed the order for the attack, the only thing that needs
to be added is the appropriate date for when Israel gives the green light
Wake up Trumptards!
Citium ,
Ok after all those thumbs down when I called Trump part of the swamp? You guys still agree
that he wants to help the American people?
Get a grip. Y'all are getting Hoodwinked like Obama's first term. Increasing debt,
increasing military expansion to police the globe, stimulus in he form of tax cuts to
corporations who barely pay taxes, his inability to control Jeff sessions, his increase in
deficits, expanded the surveillance state and takes credit for the Federal reserve all time
high fake market.
Are you guys fucking delusional? Q is mossad, Alex Jones is mossad. Wake up. Both parties
hate you and this is all Kabuki theater.
Responding to an anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times detailing an active resistance within
the Trump White House, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told
Reuters that President Trump is facing a "coup" the likes of which haven't been seen since
the American Civil War.
... ... ...
" This is a crisis . The country has only ever had such a crisis in the
summer of 1862 when General McClellan and the senior generals, all Democrats in the Union Army,
deemed that Abraham Lincoln was not fit and not competent to be commander in chief ," said
Bannon - whose departure from the White House was in large part over a fallout with Trump's
"establishment" advisers. Bannon said at the time that the "Republican establishment" sought to
nullify the results of the 2016 election and effectively neuter Trump.
"There is a cabal of Republic establishment figures who believe Donald Trump is not fit to
be president of the United States. This is a crisis," Bannon said in Rome.
Anonymous IX ,
The naivete of so many astounds me. Do you really think that Trump cannot get the name of
the person who wrote the op-ed? In the old days, you sent your operatives to break into the
Watergate. With today's computers and backdoors everywhere into any computer system [open
your reading horizons... https://www.rt.com/op-ed/437895-privacy-five-eyes-encryption/
], anyone can obtain this information if they so desire. Why is Trump being portrayed as a
poor "rich guy" who only wants the best for the country while valiantly fighting a nefarious
coup...whose members, by the way, are so clever and clandestine that they write an op-ed in
the friggin' New York Times! Sorry...don't have much time to continue discussing op-eds in
the NYT, gotta go re-insert ourselves into an independent sovereign nation, called Syria,
where our 1%-ers have deemed we need to go!
I like Trump's bravado and I like his partner, Melania. Designers should definitely bring
back slits in skirts! Scroll down. Here's a lady with class and style. She doesn't have to
show you her entire bosom for you to get the idea that she's hot! https://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/09/03/melania-trump-labor-day-looks/
thebigunit ,
Silicon Valley comes full circle:
Apple's famous "1984" ad.
How ironic.
The guy on the TV screen is Tim Cook. He's saying "WE MUST SUPPRESS ALEX JONES!"
The anonymous leaker might not exist. Maybe the oped was written by someone at the new
york times. The reason for lying such might be to make Trump start hunting for his own
subordinates, that could turn some of his subordinates against him who then become an actual
leaker. I think this is their plan.
Moe Howard ,
Of course it is a coup in progress. So obvious it is beyond a question.
The fake op-ed was just the latest shot.
Seems to me that we need to break up and destroy these MSM and interweb monopolies.
No more dual national control over media outlets.
DEDA CVETKO ,
Yes, Steve Bannon. This is a coup. And it is a bad, bad, bad nazi-style,
beer-putsch kind of coup, the night of long knives and all.
But this is the coup you and your party (as well as your technical adversaries, but
friends in real life - the "democrats" - have been preparing for decades . This is the
coup you have been paving the way for with bombbombbomb Iran, with "export of
democracy" to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Russia (and pretty much
everywhere else); with weaponization of dollar and global finance and militarization of media
and the police, with colored and rosey and khaki revolutions, with vulture hedge funds as the
primary instrument of the foreign policy and with 1% distribution of the 99% of national
wealth.
Yes. Steve Bannon. These are all proud accomplishments of the Republican and
Democratic party.
This is the coup your party (as well as the other one) has been funding for almost
three decades by voting for $1 trillion-per-year war budgets and never-ending wars across the
globe and by vigorously bankrolling the nazi merchants of death a/k/a/
military-industrial-financial-academic-media complex. And now you are shocked to learn that
nazis have fondness for putcshes? No kiddin', Sherlock!
This is the coup your party ideologically, theologically and morally justified in
terms of divine national exceptionalism, messianic narcissism, arrogant group-think and
never-ending pursuit of national might-makes-right and peace-through-strength.
Yes, Steve Bannon, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was right when he said that the chickens are
coming home to roost, er...roast. But this time, they are not coming home as McDonalds'
Chikken McNuggets or Kentucky Fried Chicken Shit. This time they are returning as chicken
guts'n'bones for the gigantic globalist chicken soup called New World Order.
You and your party should be rejoicing, not bemoaning. For, after all, this is your
proudest achievement and your finest hour.
God is The Son ,
Bannon is a retard, Trump is a retard, both Zionists. The only hope is Mattias to a Order
Coup De Ta. Military General needs to recognize that how Israel, Jews, Rothschilds have taken
over Banking Politics and Media in US and have hijacked US and are looting it. He also needs
to realize that they run the Left and the Right of Politics's. Arrest Trump, Alex Jones,
Zionists, ABC, FOX, Re-Investigate 9/11 findings will probably come to that the CIA and
Zionists did it, and that JFK killing was also CIA and Zionists. The CIA gets destroyed into
Thousand pieces and Israeli influence is removed entirely from all parts of American Society.
Federal Reserve, gets taken and turned into Public Central Bank of America under eye of US
Military. Rothschilds then told to leave or Arrested.
Peter41 ,
Well, correct up to a point. The established world order elites "saved" the system in
2007-08, by propping up the moribund banks (Citibank, JP Morgan, and others) by massive
injections of liquidity. Rather than removing this liquidity after the debacle, the Fed kept
the accelerator to the floor with continued "quantitative easing." Now presiding over a
$4Trillion balance sheet, the Fed is in the famous "liquidity trap" which Lord Keynes avoided
describing a solution for, by opining, "in the long run we are all dead."
Well, the elites are now in the position of watching the whole shitteree come unglued as
the Fed's policies framed by the elites will soon come unwound. Then, the elites will be
exposed as powerless.
Griffin ,
The old world order was not so organised, and the main ideology the ruling elites had in
common was transfer of wealth and wealth control,.
Using ideas like privatisation to get control of strategic assets like natural resources,
energy etc.
Using scams like pump and dump to suck wealth out of economies and then investing outside
the economy or planting it in a tax haven.
In Iceland there was roughly a 5 year interval between crashes. I called it the bubble
crash machine.
The msm and bank analysts were a important tool for politicians to keep this scam running,
but its dead now.
The new world order was supposed to be far more advanced and more organised, a tool to
eliminate all kinds of problems for large corporations, like the sovereign rights of states
for instance.
This was supposed to be a fusion between the superstate in Europe, where Merkel was at the
helm, and the liberal globalist friendly USA where Hillary was supposed to lead.
If this would have materialised it would have enabled multinational corporations to sue
nation states for imposing inconvenient laws that could suppress hopes of future profits for
instance, giving the corporations a indirect control over state politics, overriding
democracy and constitutions.
Abraxas ,
Coup, my ass. These guys turn everything upside-down. What a bunch of hyaenas.
Just look, these are the people that will drag us all down to the depths of hell with
them, telling us how nice and prosperous ride we'll have getting there. Stop this train, I
want to get off!
shortonoil ,
Having worked around DC I can tell you that the place collects nutcases, screwballs, and
sociopaths like fresh dog fresh shit collects flies. The Deep State is not the problem, the
problem is the DC State! DC is the epicenter of power hungry, greedy, self centered, self
serving, backstabbing, backbiting lunatics, and every one of them is looking for a gimmick to
advance their own personal agenda. The welfare of the nation is number 101 on their list of
100. Too much money, in too small a place with too many people trying to climb the same
ladder at the same time leads to anarchy. Give the power to collect money, and regulate back
to the States where it belongs, and let DC sink back into the swamp it was built on. The
Federal Government is out of control. The States have the Constitutional power, and
responsibility to regulate, and control the Federal government, and they had better start
using it before this dog and pony show breaks down into a lynching party.
Herdee ,
U.S. under Trump interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The CIA goes around the
world overthrowing governments. American hypocrisy is so phony, especially their Washington
NeoCon/NeoNazi politicians:
These uniparty hacks are the same who claim Trump has disemboweled the Obama agenda, which
he has. Some nutcase... doing what he ran on. The only things he can't get done are because
of the career uniparty hacks.The op-ed was nothing more then carryover from the McCain
funeral. It's all transparent and meaningless, but a useful tool for Trump now.
DingleBarryObummer ,
"To some people the notion of consciously playing power games-no matter how indirect-seems
evil, asocial, a relic of the past. They believe they can opt out of the game by behaving in
ways that have nothing to do with power. You must beware of such people, for while they
express such opinions outwardly, they are often among the most adept players at power. They
utilize strategies that cleverly disguise the nature of the manipulation involved. These
types, for example, will often display their weakness and lack of power as a kind of moral
virtue. But true powerlessness, without any motive of self-interest, would not publicize its
weakness to gain sympathy or respect. Making a show of one's weakness is actually a very
effective strategy, subtle and deceptive, in the game of power" -Robert Greene '48 Laws of
Power'
chumbawamba ,
What results though? So far, the results are in and the swamp is still pretty full.
As Dinglebutt pondered: deception, but for what purpose? Have you considered that you
might be being lulled into a safe landing right into the heart of totalitarianism?
Don't think for one moment Trump isn't capable of selling you out for his own
interests.
-chumblez.
Dilluminati ,
correction demonic coup (re-posted) but the Pizza gate it seems to be real, all the fake
news for generatons and the one story the globalists couldn't get to uncovering ~~~ YOU MUST
DECIDE!!
Sweden tonight.. Europe tomorrow. The left lives in fantasy land. Where Kapernick is some
NFL hero and the guy sucked at QB, I mean looking at the record, he sucked, he didn't win
anything. He ran like Mike Vick and that is about that.. and like Mike he suddenly realized
that EVERYBODY runs fast in the NFL unlike college. Then there is IMMIGRATION notice how the
globalists love three things above all others: profits for the 1%, paying no taxes, and they
love them some open borders and immigrant cheap labor. Take for example the imaginary op-ed
fake news from the NYT, or the CNN fake news story with leftist Lanny Davis, or lets drag
that whore Stormy out on stage for another trailer park runway dollar bill, or how about the
hearings on SCOTUS and Spartacus? Pocahontas? Abolishing Ice to fight crime, getting rid of
the 2nd amendment to make us safer, Or more gun legislation in Chicago or Baltimore doubling
down on stupid.. And now the ghouls who run the Democratic party have to go and try and sell
the Obama myth, talk about fantasy.. what the fuck was Obamacare? Where was the $ saved and
could people keep their doctor if they wanted? Each and every idea the Democrats and left
have come up with is proof that what the left doesn't fuck up it shits upon instead, and
now.. after being globally discredited the GLOBALISTS cocksuckers are done. Name a single
promise that the Globalists kept to any but the 1% the cocksuckers!
But turn on any globalist media, the NFL, ESPN, CNN, and of the Globalist monopoly news or
media outlets, the same lies are told. These Globalist cocksuckers cannot stop telling these
lies so instead they need to be removed by ballot, laws, and if need be FORCE!
The rudeness and desperation of the 1% is astonishing, but their boldness is like that of
the Pedophile Catholic Church! They get up on stage and do their empty virtue signalling and
then rape their communities cynically and with methodical efficiency, yes they are the 1% and
they do not care, yes they are the 1% and there is now no laws to confront them. There is
only the ballot. They intend to run to New Zealand as they know their days are numbered, they
skip the hearings like Google when called to account by Congress, and still you turn on the
media and see:
I'm sure Madeline has brokered some deal to service some 1% benefactor somewhere. But
again the rudeness, they come into your home under the guise of sports, under the guise of a
legitimate news source, and then they spread their LIES and distortions.
Watch Brexit and Google pissing in the face of Congress.. they do not respect the ballot
though they clamor about democracy, they but care about the 1% like the Pedophile Catholic
Church and do not care about your laws, they want to abolish Ice, they want to disarm you so
that they can more efficiently abuse you. That is your globalists not some loser on a Nike
ad, who has less of a career than say Tim Tebow (who could run) but wasn't the apologist and
hate America first Cunt stooge of the globalists. Watch Brexit and Google as they piss in the
face of democracy and remember.
This brief comment became the biggest headline news to come out of the third debate, as
many saw it as Mr Trump threatening to shatter a 240-year-old electoral tradition, one of the
cornerstones of US democracy: the losing candidate must always concede defeat, regardless of
the result.
Presidential rival Hillary Clinton called his stance "horrifying", saying it "was not
the way our democracy works".
Barack Obama labelled Trump's comments as "dangerous", and damaging to
democracy.
You see how that works? The left is like the Pedophile Catholic Church all worked up about
the plastic in the ocean, one set of laws and democracy for you, and another for them..
The lies, the globalist lies.. vote for your freedom.. What does the NFL and the Pedophile
Catholic Church have in common? NEITHER PAYS TAXES! Them globalists them silly globalists:
love three things above all others: profits for the 1%, paying no taxes, and they love them
some open borders and immigrant cheap labor.
The real PIZZA GATE my friends is the Globalists. The 1% with their laws, unaccountable to
ours which they twist against us.
I'm watching Bob Woodward being pimped by the Globalists media this morning, and I have to
think that in this guy's lifetime the largest scandal in the Church, the global abuse and
coverup, never warranted an op-ed. Need I say more? When you look at the fabled globalist Bob
Woodward, remember that he missed the abuse, the cover-up, the complete and orchestrated
abuse of power globally, he missed that story!
It took the state of Pennsylvania and a Grand Jury to tell that story that the globalist
and Bob Woodward would not, instead he peddled rumors, similar to Stormy trotted out for a
dollar bill on the trailer park runway.
notfeelinthebern ,
Been nothing but a coup since before day one even.
iinthesky ,
Started right after the Trump stepped off the escalator
Jim in MN ,
If the globalist elite neolibcon blackmail files ever see the light of day a lot of folks
are going to swing from nooses...where have I heard that phrase before....
This is still our last peaceful chance for change.
iinthesky ,
I think most historically competent folks quickly come to the conclusion that ''Kompramat"
as the Russians call it is without a doubt how the government governs itself.. hence an
'outsider' is rarely ever seen and never allowed to govern
The past is not dead; it is people who are sleeping . The current night and daymares that we
are having arise out of murders lodged deep in our past that have continued into the present.
No amount of feigned amnesia will erase the bloody truth of American history, the cheap grace
we bestow upon ourselves.
We have, as Harold Pinter said in his Nobel address, been feeding on "a vast tapestry of
lies" that surrounds us, lies uttered by nihilistic leaders and their media mouthpieces for a
very long time. We have, or should have, bad consciences for not acknowledging being active or
silent accomplices in the suppression of truth and the vicious murdering of millions at home
and abroad.
But, as Pinter said,
"I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce
intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our
societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory."
No one is more emblematic of this noble effort than David Ray Griffin, who, in book after
book since the attacks of 11 September 2001, has meticulously exposed the underside of the
American empire and its evil masters. His persistence in trying to reach people and to warn
them of the horrors that have resulted is extraordinary. Excluding his philosophical and
theological works, this is his fifteenth book since 2004 on these grave issues of life and
death and the future of the world.
In this masterful book, he provides a powerful historical argument that right from the start
with the arrival of the first European settlers, this country, despite all the rhetoric about
it having been divinely founded and guided, has been "more malign that benign, more demonic
than divine." He chronologically presents this history, supported by meticulous documentation,
to prove his thesis. In his previous book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the
World , Griffin cataloged the evil actions that flowed from the inside job/false flag attacks
of September 11th, while in this one -- a prequel -- he offers a lesson in American history
going back centuries, and he shows that one would be correct in calling the United States a
"false flag empire."
The attacks of 11 September 2001 are the false flag fulcrum upon which his two books pivot.
Their importance cannot be overestimated, not just for their inherent cruelty that resulted in
thousands of innocent American deaths, but since they became the justification for the United
States' ongoing murderous campaigns termed "the war on terror" that have brought death to
millions of people around the world. An international array of expendable people. Terrifying as
they were, and were meant to be, they have many precedents, although much of this history is
hidden in the shadows. Griffin shines a bright light on them, with most of his analysis focused
on the years 1850-2018.
As a theological and philosophical scholar, he is well aware of the great importance of
society's need for religious legitimation for its secular authority, a way to offer its people
a shield against terror and life's myriad fears through a protective myth that has been used
successfully by the United States to terrorize others. He shows how the terms by which the U.S.
has been legitimated as God's "chosen nation" and Americans as God's "chosen people" have
changed over the years as secularization and pluralism have made inroads. The names have
changed, but the meaning has not. God is on our side, and when that is so, the other side is
cursed and can be killed by God's people, who are always battling el diabalo.
He exemplifies this by opening with a quote from George Washington's first Inaugural Address
where Washington speaks of "the Invisible Hand" and "Providential agency" guiding the country,
and by ending with Obama saying "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my
being." In between we hear Andrew Jackson say that "Providence has showered on this favored
land blessings without number" and Henry Cabot Lodge in 1900 characterize America's divine
mission as "manifest destiny." The American religion today is American Exceptionalism, an
updated euphemism for the old-fashioned "God's New Israel" or the "Redeemer Nation."
At the core of this verbiage lies the delusion that the United States, as a blessed and good
country, has a divine mission to spread "democracy" and "freedom" throughout the world, as
Hilary Clinton declared during the 2016 presidential campaign when she said that "we are great
because we are good," and in 2004 when George W. Bush said, "Like generations before us, we
have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom." Such sentiments could only be
received with sardonic laughter by the countless victims made "free" by America's violent
leaders, now and then, as Griffin documents.
Having established the fact of America's claim to divine status, he then walks the reader
through various thinkers who have taken sides on the issue of the United States being benign or
malign. This is all preliminary to the heart of the book, which is a history lesson documenting
the malignancy at the core of the American trajectory.
"American imperialism is often said to have begun in 1898, when Cuba and the Philippines
were the main prizes," he begins. "What was new at this time, however, was only that America
took control of countries beyond the North American continent."
The "divine right" to seize others' lands and kill them started long before, and although no
seas were crossed in the usual understanding of imperialism, the genocide of Native Americans
long preceded 1898. So too did the "manifest destiny" that impelled war with Mexico and the
seizure of its land and the expansion west to the Pacific. This period of empire building
depended heavily on the "other great crime against humanity" that was the slave trade, wherein
it is estimated that 10 million Africans died, in addition to the sick brutality of slavery
itself. "No matter how brutal the methods, Americans were instruments of divine purposes,"
writes Griffin. And, he correctly adds, it is not even true that America's overseas
imperialistic ventures only started in 1898, for in the 1850s Commodore Perry forced "the
haughty Japanese" to open their ports to American commerce through gunboat diplomacy.
Then in 1898 the pace of overseas imperial expansion picked up dramatically with what has
been called "The Spanish-American War" that resulted in the seizure of Cuba and the Philippines
and the annexing of Hawaii. Griffin says these wars could more accurately be termed "the wars
to take Spanish colonies." His analysis of the brutality and arrogance of these actions makes
the reader realize that My Lai and other more recent atrocities have a long pedigree that is
part of an institutional structure, and while Filipinos and Cubans and so many others were
being slaughtered, Griffin writes, "Anticipating Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
declaration that 'we don't do empire,' [President] McKinley said that imperialism is 'foreign
to the temper and genius of this free and generous people.'"
Then as now, perhaps mad laughter is the only response to such unadulterated bullshit, as
Griffin quotes Mark Twain saying that it would be easy creating a flag for the Philippines:
We can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars
replaced by the skull and cross-bones.
That would have also worked for Columbia, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic,
Haiti, Nicaragua, and other countries subjugated under the ideology of the Monroe Doctrine;
wherever freedom and national independence raised its ugly head, the United States was quick to
intervene with its powerful anti-revolutionary military and its financial bullying. In the Far
East the "Open Door" policy was used to loot China, Japan, and other countries.
But all this was just the beginning. Griffin shows how Woodrow Wilson, the quintessentially
devious and treacherous liberal Democrat, who claimed he wanted to keep America out of WW I,
did just the opposite to make sure the U.S. would come to dominate the foreign markets his
capitalist masters demanded. Thus Griffin explores how Wilson conspired with Winston Churchill
to use the sinking of the Lusitania as a casus belli and how the Treaty of Versailles's harsh
treatment of Germany set the stage for WW II.
He tells us how in the intervening years between the world wars the demonization of Russia
and the new Soviet Union was started. This deprecation of Russia, which is roaring at
full-throttle today, is a theme that recurs throughout The American Trajectory. Its importance
cannot be overemphasized. Wilson called the Bolshevik government "a government by terror," and
in 1918 "sent thousands of troops into northern and eastern Russia, leaving them there until
1920."
That the U. S. invaded Russia is a fact rarely mentioned and even barely known to Americans.
Perhaps awareness of it and the century-long demonizing of the U.S.S.R./Russia would enlighten
those who buy the current anti-Russia propaganda called "Russiagate."
To match that "divine" act of imperial intervention abroad, Wilson fomented the Red Scare at
home, which, as Griffin says, had lasting and incalculable importance because it created the
American fear of radical thought and revolution that exists to this very day and serves as a
justification for supporting brutal dictators around the world and crackdowns on freedom at
home (as is happening today).
He gives us brief summaries of some dictators the U.S has supported, and reminds us of the
saying of that other liberal Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who famously said of the brutal
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, that "he may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our
son-of-a-bitch." And thus Somoza would terrorize his own people for 43 years. The same took
place in Cuba, Chile, Iran, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, etc. The U.S. also
supported Mussolini, did nothing to prevent Franco's fascist toppling of the Spanish Republic,
and supported the right-wing government of Chiang-Kai Shek in its efforts to dominate
China.
It is a very dark and ugly history that confirms the demonic nature of American actions
around the world.
Then Griffin explodes the many myths about the so-called "Good War" -- WW II. He explains
the lies told about the Japanese "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor; how Roosevelt wished to get
the U.S. into the war, both in the Pacific and in Europe; and how much American economic
self-interest lay behind it. He critiques the myth that America selflessly wished to defend
freedom loving people in their battles with brutal, fascist regimes. That, he tells us, is but
a small part of the story:
This, however, is not an accurate picture of American policies during the Second World
War. Many people were, to be sure, liberated from terrible tyrannies by the Allied victories.
But the fact that these people benefited was an incidental outcome, not a motive of American
policies. These policies, as [Andrew] Bacevich discovered, were based on 'unflagging
self-interest.'
Then there are the conventional and atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nothing could
be more demonic, as Griffin shows. If these cold-blooded mass massacres of civilians and the
lies told to justify them don't convince a reader that there has long been something radically
evil at the heart of American history, nothing will. Griffin shows how Truman and his advisers
and top generals, including Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman's Chief of
Staff, knew the dropping of the atomic bombs were unnecessary to end the war, but they did so
anyway.
He reminds us of Clinton's Secretary of State Madeline Albright's response to the question
whether she thought the deaths of more than 500, 000 Iraqi children as a result of Clinton's
crippling economic sanctions were worth it: "But, yes, we think the price is worth it." (Notice
the "is," the ongoing nature of these war crimes, as she spoke.) But this is the woman who also
said, "We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall "
Griffin devotes other chapters to the creation of the Cold War, American imperialism during
the Cold War, Post-Cold War interventions, the Vietnam War, the drive for global dominance, and
false flag operations, among other topics.
As for false flag operations, he says, "Indeed, the trajectory of the American Empire has
relied so heavily on these types of attacks that one could describe it as a false flag empire."
In the false flag chapter and throughout the book, he discusses many of the false flags the
U.S. has engaged in, including Operation Gladio, the U.S./NATO terrorist operation throughout
Europe that Swiss historian Daniele Ganser has extensively documented, an operation meant to
discredit communists and socialists. Such operations were directly connected to the OSS, the
CIA and its director Allen Dulles, his henchman James Jesus Angleton, and their Nazi
accomplices, such as General Reinhard Gehlen. In one such attack in 1980 at the Bologna, Italy
railway station, these U.S. terrorists killed 85 people and wounded 20 others. As with the
bombs dropped by Saudi Arabia today on Yemeni school children, the explosive used was made for
the U.S. military. About these documented U.S. atrocities, Griffin says:
These revelations show the falsity of an assumption widely held by Americans. While
recognizing that the US military sometimes does terrible things to their enemies, most
Americans have assumed that US military leaders would not order the killing of innocent
civilians in allied countries for political purposes. Operation Gladio showed this assumption
to be false.
He is right, but I would add that the leaders behind this were civilian, as much as, or more
than military.
In the case of "Operation Northwoods," it was the Joint Chiefs of Staff who presented to
President Kennedy this false flag proposal that would provide justification for a U.S. invasion
of Cuba. It would have involved the killing of American citizens on American soil, bombings,
plane hijacking, etc. President Kennedy considered such people and such plans insane, and he
rejected it as such. His doing so tells us much, for many other presidents would have approved
it. And again, how many Americans are aware of this depraved proposal that is documented and
easily available? How many even want to contemplate it? For the need to remain in denial of the
facts of history and believe in the essential goodness of America's rulers is a very hard nut
to crack. Griffin has written a dozen books about 11 September 2001, trying to do exactly
that.
If one is willing to embrace historical facts, however, then this outstanding book will open
one's eyes to the long-standing demonic nature of the actions of America's rulers. A reader
cannot come away from its lucidly presented history unaffected, unless one lives in a
self-imposed fantasy world. The record is clear, and Griffin lays it out in all its graphic
horror. Which is not to say that the U.S. has not "done both good and bad things, so it could
not sensibly be called purely divine or purely demonic." Questions of purity are meant to
obfuscate basic truths. And the question he asks in his subtitle -- Divine or Demonic? -- is
really a rhetorical question, and when it comes to the "trajectory" of American history, the
demonic wins hands down.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out one place where Griffin fails the reader. In his
long chapter on Vietnam, which is replete with excellent facts and analyses, he makes a crucial
mistake, which is unusual for him. This mistake appears in a four page section on President
Kennedy's policies on Vietnam. In those pages, Griffin relies on Noam Chomsky's terrible book
-- Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture (1993), a book wherein
Chomsky shows no regard for evidence or facts -- to paint Kennedy as being in accord with his
advisers, the CIA, and the military regarding Vietnam. This is factually false. Griffin should
have been more careful and have understood this. The truth is that Kennedy was besieged and
surrounded by these demonic people, who were intent on isolating him, disregarding his
instructions, and murdering him to achieve their goals in Vietnam. In the last year of his
life, JFK had taken a radical turn toward peace-making, not only in Vietnam, but with the
Soviet Union, Cuba, and around the globe. Such a turn was anathema to the war lovers. Thus he
had to die. Contrary to Chomsky's deceptions, motivated by his hatred of Kennedy and perhaps
something more sinister (he also backs the Warren Commission, thinks JFK's assassination was no
big deal, and accepts the patently false official version of the attacks of 11 September 2001),
Griffin should have emphatically asserted that Kennedy had issued NSAM 263 on October 11, 1963
calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, and that after he was assassinated
a month later, Lyndon Johnson reversed that withdrawal order with NSAM 273. Chomsky
notwithstanding, all the best scholarship and documentary evidence proves this. And for
Griffin, a wonderful scholar, to write that with the change from Kennedy to Johnson that "this
change of presidents would bring no basic change in policy" is so shockingly wrong that I
imagine Griffin, a man passionate about truth, simply slipped up and got sloppy here. For
nothing could be further from the truth.
Ironically, Griffin makes a masterful case for his thesis, while forgetting the one pivotal
man, President John Kennedy, who sacrificed his life in an effort to change the trajectory of
American history from its demonic course.
It is one mistake in an otherwise very important and excellent book that should be required
reading for anyone who doubts the evil nature of this country's continuing foreign policy.
Those who are already convinced should also read it, for it provides a needed historical
resource and impetus to help change the trajectory that is transporting the world toward
nuclear oblivion, if continued.
If -- a fantastic wish! -- The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic ? were
required reading in American schools and colleges, perhaps a new generation would arise to
change our devils into angels, the arc of America's future moral universe
CHX13 ,
For many decades, the US has been preying upon the ROTW via the petro-$. The late $trength
will prove it$ ultimate downfall, IMHO. The world is imploding as we speak. Too much bad debt
all over, tens if not hundred of trillions in the US and the ROTW combined. US debt 21T plus
(21T that is unaccounted for) plus 100+ T unfunded liabilities and a totally pension system
on the verge of collapse etc etc etc and this is the "good ol' U S(S) of A... No need to pull
China or Europe through the meat grinder, there's plenty of unsolved (read "unsolvable")
problems at home already. No finger pointing needed, the US is a wolf in sheepskin, that's
for sure. There's a lot of good-natured folk in the US though that simply have no clue
whatsoever about what is about to be going down. I feel sorry for them, they really believe
in "their duty for the country", in "liberty and justice for all" et al. Things that once
made the US indeed great, but that was lost many many many moons ago. So I'd say divinely
diabolic. #So sad.
Adolfsteinbergovitch ,
A country is exceptional, until it isn't any longer.
khnum ,
Reuters has just run a story International criminal court judges at the Hague will face
heavy sanctions if they investigate American war crimes in Afghanistan,lawlessness next stop
perdition.
The matrix has u ,
That would be right. Americunt "Exceptionalism" still at work.
recently ruled
that under some circumstances employers can link their 401(k) matching contributions to the amount of an employee's student loan
repayments -- making it easier for recent graduates to take advantage of this employer benefit. But that's one spot of good news
in a sea of bad, according to one anonymous Slashdot reader: Two new articles
criticize America's
student loan policies (under both the Obama and Trump administrations). CNBC cites reports that within six years,
more than 15% of student borrowers had officially defaulted , while 10% more had stopped making payments and another 4.8% were
at least 90 days late. And for-profit colleges fared even worse, where nearly 25% of graduates defaulted, and a total of 44% faced
"some form of loan distress."
These trends were masked by Department of Education reports which stopped tracking repayment rates after just three years (reporting
defaults rates of just 10%), according to Ben Miller, senior director for post-secondary education at the left-leaning Center for
American Progress. "Official statistics present a relatively rosy picture of student debt. But looking at outcomes over more time
and in greater detail shows that hundreds of thousands more borrowers from each cohort face troubles repaying."
More plausible theory is that it was written by NYT staff in Iago-style operation to saw discord in Trump administration
and promote Woodward's book
Notable quotes:
"... might be just what the NYT wants the Trump Whitehouse to waste time on. ..."
"... It could very well be a trap. In fact, the timing almost guarantees it. The other alternative is that the NYT is very desperate and the Deep State in dire straights. ..."
"... I don't think the op-ed piece came from anyone in the WH. It's fake but rest assured Trump can still use it to his advantage. ..."
"... The "op-ed" was likely either a set-up fabrication / amalgam from the CIA Toilet Paper of Record or some deluded over ambitious piece of shit like Nikki Haley. ..."
1) The NYT OpEd was actually written by one of the people who were fired during the very
EARLY days of the Trump administration because they turned out to not be so good (like
Bannon, Preibus, Walsh, Yates, Comey, Spicer, Gorka, Tillerson, McMaster, etc). This also
makes sense because they are describing (very exaggerated) the early days of the Trump admin
which were known to be somewhat chaotic before Trump got a good chief of staff (because
Preibus was useless)
2) The NYT has been holding onto the letter for almost two years as a weapon to use during
the mid-term elections
3) Looking for them inside the current administration is useless, because they are already
long gone
4) The NYT is probably stretching the truth about them being "senior" official which they
have a history of stretching the truth on for sources
5) It is also the exact same person as the (primary/only) source for all the accusations
in Woodward's book
Assuming this was written recently is a HUGE tactical oversight and might be just what the NYT wants the Trump
Whitehouse to waste time on.
Brazen Heist II ,
It could very well be a trap. In fact, the timing almost guarantees it. The other alternative is that the NYT is very desperate and the Deep State in dire
straights.
FreeEarCandy ,
"Issue Of National Security" and "looking into legal action".
If its a "REAL" issue of national security looking into legal action is non sequitur. You
raid the NYT and send all the usual suspects to Guantanamo Bay for a little water
boarding.
This whole stunt is pure political mind fuckery. Since when does the justice department
determine if we can legally defend our national security?
Kreditanstalt ,
Trump, like the rest of the Deep State elite, detests and is enraged more by "disloyalty"
among fellow elitists than by the opposition!
Dangerclose ,
I don't think the op-ed piece came from anyone in the WH. It's fake but rest assured Trump
can still use it to his advantage. I'll bet he gets EVERYONE to show a little more support
and less resistance. Hmmmmmm?
benb ,
The "op-ed" was likely either a set-up fabrication / amalgam from the CIA Toilet Paper of
Record or some deluded over ambitious piece of shit like Nikki Haley.
In any event it doesn't
matter. It's all about subversion. The Communist Party USA (Democrats) and Deep State know
they are about to get their asses handed to them in November.
They're are a bunch of desperate assholes at this point. Heads up. Be ready for anything
from here on out.
recently ruled
that under some circumstances employers can link their 401(k) matching contributions to the amount of an employee's student loan
repayments -- making it easier for recent graduates to take advantage of this employer benefit. But that's one spot of good news
in a sea of bad, according to one anonymous Slashdot reader: Two new articles
criticize America's
student loan policies (under both the Obama and Trump administrations). CNBC cites reports that within six years,
more than 15% of student borrowers had officially defaulted , while 10% more had stopped making payments and another 4.8% were
at least 90 days late. And for-profit colleges fared even worse, where nearly 25% of graduates defaulted, and a total of 44% faced
"some form of loan distress."
These trends were masked by Department of Education reports which stopped tracking repayment rates after just three years (reporting
defaults rates of just 10%), according to Ben Miller, senior director for post-secondary education at the left-leaning Center for
American Progress. "Official statistics present a relatively rosy picture of student debt. But looking at outcomes over more time
and in greater detail shows that hundreds of thousands more borrowers from each cohort face troubles repaying."
Looks like this Iago-style false flag operation by NYT: the anonymous author does not exists and the the plot is to saw
discord and mutual suspicion
Notable quotes:
"... The more I study US politics, the less useful I find it to think of it in political terms. The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice while advancing the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both parties, yes, but even more importantly it's a mechanism of narrative control. ..."
"... If you belonged to a ruling class, obviously your goal would be to ensure your subjects' continued support for you. In a corporatist oligarchy, the rulers are secret and the subjects don't know they're ruled, and power is held in place with manipulation and with money. As such a ruler your goal would be to find a way to manipulate the masses into supporting your agendas, and, since people are different, you'd need to use different narratives to manipulate them. You'd have to divide them, tell them different stories, turn them against each other, play them off one another, suck them in to the tales you are spinning with the theater of enmity and heroism. ..."
"... As a result of the New York Times op-ed, if this administration engages in yet another of its many, many establishment capitulations (let's say by attacking the Syrian government again ), Trump's supporters won't see it as his fault; it will be blamed on the deep state insiders in his administration who have been working to thwart his agendas of peace and harmony. ..."
"... Would a billionaire WWE Hall of Famer and United States President understand the theater of staged conflict for the advancement of plutocratic interests, and willingly participate in it? I'm going to say probably. ..."
If any evidence existed to be found that Donald Trump had illegally colluded with the
Russian government to rig the 2016 presidential election, that evidence would have been picked
up by the sprawling surveillance networks of the US and its allies and leaked to the Washington
Post before Obama left office.
Russiagate is like a mirage. From a distance it looks like a solid, tangible thing, but when
you actually move in to examine it critically you find nothing but gaping plot holes,
insinuation, innuendo, conflicting narratives, bizarre mental contortions to avoid
acknowledging contradictory information, a few arrests for corruption and process crimes, and a
lot of hot air. The whole thing has been held together by nothing but the confident-sounding
assertions of pundits and politicians and sheer, mindless repetition. And, as we approach the
two year mark since this president's election, we have not seen one iota of movement toward
removing him from office. The whole thing's a lie, and the smart movers and shakers behind it
are aware that it is a lie.
And yet they keep beating on it. Day after day after day after day it's been Russia, Russia,
Russia, Russia. Instead of attacking this president for his many, many real problems in a way
that will do actual damage, they attack this fake blow-up doll standing next to him in a way
that never goes anywhere and never will, like a pro wrestler theatrically stomping on the
canvass next to his downed foe.
What's up with that?
... ... ....
As you doubtless already know by now, the New York Times has made the wildly controversial
decision to publish an anonymous op-ed
reportedly authored by "a senior official in the Trump administration." The op-ed's author
claims to be part of a secret coalition of patriots who dislike Trump and are "working
diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." These
"worst inclinations" according to the author include trying to make peace with Moscow and
Pyongyang, being rude to longtime US allies, saying mean things about the media, being
"anti-trade", and being "erratic". The possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment is briefly
mentioned but dismissed. The final paragraphs are spent gushing about John McCain for no
apparent reason.
I strongly encourage you to read the piece in its entirety, because for all the talk and
drama it's generating, it doesn't actually make any sense. While you are reading it, I
encourage you to keep the following question in mind: what could anyone possibly gain by
authoring this and giving it to the New York Times ?
Seriously, what could be gained? The op-ed says essentially nothing, other than to tell
readers to relax and trust in anonymous administration insiders who are working against the bad
guys on behalf of the people (which is interestingly the exact same message of the right-wing
8chan conspiracy phenomenon QAnon, just with the white hats and black hats reversed). Why would
any senior official risk everything to publish something so utterly pointless? Why risk getting
fired (or risk losing all political currency in the party if NYTAnon is Mike Pence, as
has been
theorized ) just to communicate something to the public that doesn't change or accomplish
anything? Why publicly announce your undercover conspiracy to undermine the president in a
major news outlet at all?
What are the results of this viral op-ed everyone's talking about? So far it's a bunch of
Democratic partisans making a lot of excited whooping noises, and Trump loyalists feeling
completely vindicated in the belief that all of their conspiracy theories have been proven
correct. Many rank-and-file Trump haters are feeling a little more relaxed and complacent
knowing that there are a bunch of McCain-loving "adults in the room" taking care of everything,
and many rank-and-file Trump supporters are more convinced than ever that Donald Trump is a
brave populist hero leading a covert 4-D chess insurgency against the Deep State. In other
words, everyone's been herded into their respective partisan stables and trusting the
narratives that they are being fed there.
And, well, I just think that's odd.
Did you know that Donald Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame ? He was inducted
in 2013, and he's been enthusiastically involved in pro wrestling for many years, both as a fan
and as a performer .
He's made more of a study on how to draw a crowd in to the theatrics of a choreographed fight
scene than anyone this side of the McMahon family (a member of whom happens to be part of the Trump
administration currently).
You don't have to get into any deep conspiratorial rabbit hole to consider the possibility
that all this drama and conflict is staged from top to bottom. Commentators on all sides
routinely crack jokes about how the mainstream media pretends to attack Trump but secretly
loves him because he brings them amazing ratings. Anyone with their eyes even part way open
already knows that America's two mainstream parties feign intense hatred for one another while
working together to pace their respective bases into accepting more and more neoliberal
exploitation at home and more and more neoconservative bloodshed abroad. They spit and snarl
and shake their fists at each other, then cuddle up and share candy
when it's time for a public gathering. Why should this administration be any different?
I believe that a senior Trump administration official probably did write that anonymous
op-ed. I do not believe that they were moved to write it out of compassion for the poor
Americans who are feeling emotionally stressed about the president. I believe it was written
and published for the same reason many other things are written and published in mainstream
media: because we are all being played.
The more I study US politics, the less useful I find it to think of it in political terms.
The two-headed one party system exists to give Americans the illusion of choice while advancing
the agendas of the plutocratic class which owns and operates both parties, yes, but even more
importantly it's a mechanism of narrative control. If you can separate the masses into two
groups based on extremely broad ideological characteristics, you can then funnel streamlined
"us vs them" narratives into each of the two stables, with the white hats and black hats
reversed in each case. Now you've got Republicans cheering for the president and Democrats
cheering for the CIA, for the FBI, and now for a platoon of covert John McCains alleged to be
operating on the inside of Trump's own administration. Everyone's cheering for one aspect of
the US power establishment or another.
If you belonged to a ruling class, obviously your goal would be to ensure your subjects'
continued support for you. In a corporatist oligarchy, the rulers are secret and the subjects don't
know they're ruled, and power is held in place with manipulation and with money. As such a
ruler your goal would be to find a way to manipulate the masses into supporting your agendas,
and, since people are different, you'd need to use different narratives to manipulate them.
You'd have to divide them, tell them different stories, turn them against each other, play them
off one another, suck them in to the tales you are spinning with the theater of enmity and
heroism.
As a result of the New York Times op-ed, if this administration engages in yet another of
its many, many establishment capitulations (let's say by
attacking the Syrian government again ), Trump's supporters won't see it as his fault; it
will be blamed on the deep state insiders in his administration who have been working to thwart
his agendas of peace and harmony. Meanwhile those who see Trump as a heel won't experience any
cognitive dissonance if any of the establishment agendas they support are carried out, because
they can give the credit to the secret hero squad in the White House.
Would a billionaire WWE Hall of Famer and United States President understand the theater of
staged conflict for the advancement of plutocratic interests, and willingly participate in it?
I'm going to say probably.
* * *
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Federal prosecutors have been using a grand jury over the last several months to investigate
former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, reports the
Washington Post , citing two people familiar with the matter.
What's more, the grand
jury has summoned at least two witnesses, and the case is ongoing according to WaPo 's sources.
The presence of the grand jury shows prosecutors are treating the matter seriously,
locking in the accounts of witnesses who might later have to testify at a trial. But such
panels are sometimes used only as investigative tools, and it remains unclear if McCabe will
ultimately be charged. -
Washington Post
McCabe was fired on March 16 after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
issued a criminal referral following a months-long probe, which found that McCabe lied four
times, including twice under oath, about authorizing a self-serving leak to the press. Horowitz
found that McCabe " had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor -
including under oath - on multiple occasions. "
Specifically, McCabe was fired for lying about authorizing an F.B.I. spokesman and attorney
to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St.
Journal - just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not put the brakes on a
separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation, at a time in which McCabe was coming under
fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton proxy pal, Terry
McAuliffe.
In order to deal with his legal woes, McCabe set up a GoFundMe "legal defense fund" which
stopped accepting donations, after support for the fired bureaucrat took in over half a million
dollars - roughly $100,000 more than his wife's campaign took from McAuliffe as McCabe's office
was investigating Clinton and her infamous charities. Who's lying?
In May , federal investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office interviewed former FBI
director James Comey as part of an ongoing probe into whether McCabe broke the law when he lied
to federal agents, reports the
Washington Post .
Investigators from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office recently interviewed former FBI
director James B. Comey as part of a probe into whether his deputy, Andrew McCabe, broke the
law by lying to federal agents -- an indication the office is seriously considering whether
McCabe should be charged with a crime, a person familiar with the matter said. -
Washington Po st
Of particular interest is that Comey and McCabe have given conflicting reports over the
events leading up to McCabe's firing, with
Comey calling his former deputy a liar in an April appearance on The View, where he claimed
to have actually "ordered the [IG] report" which found McCabe guilty.
Comey was asked by host Megan McCain how he thought the public was supposed to have
"confidence" in the FBI amid revelations that McCabe lied about the leak.
" It's not okay. The McCabe case illustrates what an organization committed to the truth
looks like ," Comey said. " I ordered that investigation. "
Comey then appeared to try and frame McCabe as a "good person" despite all the lying.
"Good people lie. I think I'm a good person, where I have lied," Comey said. " I still
believe Andrew McCabe is a good person but the inspector general found he lied , " noting that
there are "severe consequences" within the DOJ for doing so.
This is a classic color revolutions trick, usually called "Diplomats letter". Used many times
in many color revolutions worldwide. In EuroMaydan it preceded "sniper massacre".
Notable quotes:
"... I think he has to do it ASAP because the NYT editorial looks like an act of desperation and I expect Mueller to pile on soon, so beat them to the punch and put them on their heels for a change. No doubt, this is hardball. ..."
Now that ridiculously juvenile NYT's "op-ed" starts to make sense...they were given a
heads up on the GJ proceedings against this "stellar public servant" and wanted to knock it
off the front page.
What's in my head is declassifying a bunch of nasty shit.
Either way, if NYT made up fake news pretending to be a senior white house official, OR,
there really is somebody in his inner circle anonymously stabbing POTUS in the back, it is
very bad news and there should be serious hell to pay. I do not like nor trust a single one
of his appointees so I'm guessing it's somebody. It would be suicide for NYT getting caught
making this all up, that would be risky business IMO.
This isn't a complicated timeline of he said, she said over this piss dossier that glosses
people's eyes over. This is very simple stuff people can understand and Trump could make a
very rational case that the swamp is so damn deep he can't even put together a staff without
it being infiltrated and say "here look" and declassify shit that would encompass ALL the
recent scandals and ensnare the fake news experts colluding to make this happen.
That would light a big fire in DC that would be very hard to put out.
Well personally I don't believe for one second that the "op-ed" was anything other than
Fake Nuuuz.
As far as ordering the release/declassification of everything the DoJ & FBI has on the
Hillary Dossier I believe it's getting close but it's a hardball kind of swamp, it would be
before the midterms for maximum effect I would think.
I think he has to do it ASAP because the NYT editorial looks like an act of desperation
and I expect Mueller to pile on soon, so beat them to the punch and put them on their heels
for a change. No doubt, this is hardball.
As was no doubt their intent, the mainstream media has succeeded in overshadowing the Kavanaugh
confirmation hearing with a flurry of stories about a mutiny allegedly brewing inside the West Wing
that has set
more than a
few
tongues
wagging
about the
possibility of Trump's cabinet invoking the 25th amendment
(an eventuality that was once reportedly discussed by former White House Chief Strategist
Steve Bannon
). But while White House officials have already vehemently denied the quotes
gathered by Bob Woodward
in the strategically leaked (to his own newspaper) excerpts from the
Watergate reporter's upcoming book, speculation is shifting to
who might be the mystery author
of a scathing NYT op-ed reportedly penned by a "senior
administration official" that portrays Trump as unfit for office.
Fortunately for Trump, several voices of moderation have come forward to condemn the attacks
(amid speculation that the Times' "senior" source may not be so senior after all).
But this
incipient backlash didn't deter Axios (a media org that, like the Times, is notoriously critical of
Trump) from piling on with a story about President Trump's intensifying distrust of those in his
inner circle.
Trump, Axios claims, is "deeply suspicious of much of the government he
oversees" from federal agency grunts all the way up to those privileged few with unfettered access
to the Oval Office. The piece even goes so far as to quote yet another anonymous "senior
administration official" as saying that "a lot of us are wishing we'd been the writer."
"I find the reaction to the NYT op-ed fascinating - that people seem so shocked that there is
a resistance from the inside," one senior official said.
"A lot of us [were] wishing
we'd been the writer, I suspect ... I hope he [Trump] knows - maybe he does? - that there are
dozens and dozens of us."
And in case you couldn't figure out why this is important, allow
Axios
to elaborate:
Why it matters:
Several senior White House officials have described their
roles to us as saving America and the world from this president.
A good number of current White House officials have privately admitted to us they consider
Trump unstable, and at times dangerously slow.
But the really deep concern and contempt, from our experience, has been at the agencies -- and
particularly in the foreign policy arena.
In what was perhaps the most bombastic claim included in the piece, Trump reportedly once
carried around with him a list of suspected leakers.
"The snakes are everywhere but we're
getting rid of them,"
he reportedly told
Axios.
For some time last year,
Trump even carried with him a handwritten list of people
suspected to be leakers undermining his agenda.
"He would basically be like, 'We've gotta get rid of them.
The snakes are everywhere
but we're getting rid of them,'"
said a source close to Trump.
Trump would often ask staff whom they thought could be trusted.
He often
asks the people who work for him what they think about their colleagues, which can be not only
be uncomfortable but confusing to Trump: Rival staffers shoot at each other and Trump is left
not knowing who to believe.
And just in case you haven't read enough about Trump's purported obsession with "snakes" -
here's some more.
"When he was super frustrated about the leaks, he would rail about the 'snakes' in
the White House,"
said a source who has discussed administration leakers with the
president.
"Especially early on, when we would be in Roosevelt Room meetings,
he would sit down
at the table, and get to talking, then turn around to see who was sitting along the walls behind
him."
"One day, after one of those meetings, he said, 'Everything that just happened is going to
leak. I don't know any of those people in the room.' ... He was very paranoid about this."
All of this reinforces the idea that Trump truly believes that there is an organized "deep
state" conspiracy to take him down.
Of course, what Axios neglects to say,
is that he's
not wrong.
"Trump flopped as an owner of a professional football
team, effectively killing not only his own franchise but
the league as a whole... He bankrupted his casinos five
times over the course of nearly 20 years. His eponymous
airline existed for less than three years and ended up
almost a quarter of a billion dollars in debt. And he has
slapped his surname on a practically never-ending
sequence of duds and scams (Trump Ice bottled water,
Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks,
Trump
magazine, Trump
Mortgage, Trump University -- for which he settled a
class-action fraud lawsuit earlier this year for $25
million)."
And Kruse didn't even mention The Donald's sixth
bankruptcy, the one he filed for the debt-ridden Plaza Hotel
in 1992.
So, people, what do you think Trump, the
bankrupter-in-chief, is gonna do to the good old US of A?
That's one of my major hopes for this presidency. That
Trump can get us through the coming bankruptcy without
a large scale war/depression breaking out.
"one senior
official said"... oh really, why should I believe
that? When something is obvious BS, repeating it
just makes you look foolish, it doesn't make it
true, Hitlers propaganda play book is dated and no
longer functions in the age of the internet. At
least we know that Operation Mocking Bird is alive
and well.
This just shows us how they keep recycling
the same shit bureaucrat's over and over
again and they become an animal that lives
within and outside of whomever is POTUS.
Perhaps it's time to burn the whole thing
down and start over again.....
We the People are not so
schooled in the finer points.
We have rope and can see
treason with our own eyes, and
figure to do our part, be
civic minded for the greater
good and all.
If he has the power to do it, the time is
right to declassify some major bombs on the
swamp.
It sounds sensational but it's also
a step in the right direction to move the
capital out of DC. It really is the nerve
center of raunch, deceit, fraud and an
irredeemable shit hole.
Agreed, but moving won't help. The problem
is the concentration of money and power.
You could move the capitol every day and
the swamp would follow like remoras follow
a shark
The only way to deal with the Debt, is to grow the
economy and shrink it on a relative basis. So much
of the past debt was incurred on non-productive
expenditures that yield no returns.
Trump knows
that. Amazing what he gets done with all the
snipers outside and all the cockroaches inside. A
lesser man would have said fuck it a long time ago.
Its as if they think the people actually support
the Deep State Establishment and don't loath them.
Please tell me how I should really love John McCain
again now that he's dead.
"Trump, Axios claims, is
'deeply suspicious of much of the government
he oversees'
"
Again, if people believed the corporate
media Trump wouldn't be president right now,
HIllary would be, so that fight is pretty
much over.
Also, just because you are paranoid and
think they are all out to get you doesn't
mean it isn't true!. Of course the deep
state hates Trump. It's all just a circus
and a show until it's not. I really don't
know what Trump is waiting for. Call Bill
Binney in and get your heads together and
take down all the deep state.
PUT THEM ALL IN PRISON.
Yes, it will wipe out the whole government
as we know it.... but that is why Trump was
elected in the first place.
a very big part. rub is, i don't think he
knew. i think wray came in on a "if you
don't appoint him, the FIB is going to be
without a director" sort of threat. i think
sessions totally ass raped trump.
as for the remainder of his
administration, if you turn the white house
into goldman south, what exactly do you
expect for an economic plan.
as for the pre-election dumbfucks saying
trump is an executive, he will appoint good
people, and let them do their jobs. i
haven't seen one good appointment yet out of
trump. out of all of his appointments, scott
pruitt was the best and trump should have
backed him up, but didn't. he was sacrificed
to the environmentalists.
holee shit!!!!!
have i got an off topic comment to make.
i clicked on the globalintelhub link at
the top of the page about the possible source
of the op-ed.
what i found about one fourth of the way
into the article stopped me dead in my
tracks. this is the comment that did it:
But what is news in this disclosure
are the
newly
released emails
between Mark Mazzetti,
the New York Times's national security and
intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman
Marie Harf.
you see it? do you see it? MARIE
HARF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
does that name ring a bell? it damn well
should. she was a long time spokeshole in
the HNIC state department. she is the one
who uttered the phrase:
We need in the medium to longer term
to go after the root causes that leads people
to join these groups, whether it's a lack of
opportunity for jobs,
jobs for jihadists!!!! and this whore
still has a job in gov't? as a CIA
spokeshole? RUFKM
my fucking gawd get rid of these fucking
people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So if they go 25th Amendment on him will
Trump supporters chimp out or wait for the
proof to be presented and evaluate if his
staff have a vaild point?
Edit: I mostly
agree with your post and thats why I have
been so critical. What I saw early on, and
since, has been one big clusterfuck of
"you keep making decisions that in no way
reflect a person who is as awesome as you
promised."
Figures. When you are blocked from pillaging foreign
nations, you of course turn to the idea of bankruptcy.
You people just don't seem to understand that you are
not kings and queens, but common folk and you should
pay your debts, and tighten your belts. It would be
relatively short term pain for long term gain.
That,
more than anything else, speaks to the absence of any
character in the American make up.
I'll not believe it until Woof Shitzer and/or
Rachel Madcow confirm these rumors.
Radical Left
Plagiarist Farheed Diarrhea has evidently been
preoccupied by being dumped by his wife after 21
years of hardship so we won't be hearing his inane
comments bashing Trump for awhile.
Zakaria was suspended for a week in August
2012 while Time and CNN investigated an allegation
of plagiarism
[46]
involving an August 20 column on gun control with
similarities to a New Yorker article by
Jill Lepore
. In a statement Zakaria apologized,
saying that he had made "a terrible mistake."
Go back to Chinese Tire and buy some "made in
Canada" crap. Tell me again how the "Canadians"
co-opted the British in 1812 . Watch some more
Franz Kafka on the CBC, the Chinese Broadcasting
Corporation and explain to the CAW in southern
Ontario how Justine Twinklesocks traded auto worker
jobs for the Quebec Milk Quota.
There are
Canadians with character, but you ain't one of
them.
The US went into receivership in 1933, so I guess
"make it bankruptier?"
I have no problem with this,
since it's going to be interesting to see how the
debtors (The US and its employees) are going to pay
the creditors (that would be the Citizens) back for
the $17 trillion they owe us.
Going to have to be one helluva bake sale.
But my guess is they will just throw another woar
and kill off another generation of Creditors like they
have done for the past century. (And collect the
insurance premiums, since Social Security Insurance
pays out to the primary beneficiary first..and that
would be...The US GOv).
What? You thought Social Security was for YOUR
benefit?! Hahah, silly wabbits.
Is Vice President Mike Pence trying to pull off a "House of Cards"-style scheme to undermine Trump
and increase his own chances of assuming the presidency?
Apparently, more than a few journalists
believe that might be the case. According to the Huffington Post, some believe that
the use
of a single word - "lodestar" - is a crucial tell
pointing toward Pence as the op-ed's
author. During the op-ed's final paragraphs the mystery author refers to John McCain as "a lodestar
for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue."
Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter.
All Americans should
heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our
shared values and love of this great nation.
We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example - a
lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue.
Mr. Trump may
fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.
There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put
country first.
But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above
politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one:
Americans.
Pence has, of course, categorically denied these allegations and affirmed his loyalty to the
president.
Still, one video circulating on twitter shows Pence using the word in eight different speeches
dating back to 2001, when he was a Congressman from Indiana.
At the very least, there's some evidence to suggest that the author is a man. As Bloomberg's
Jennifer Jacobs pointed out yesterday, the Times' official Twitter feed may have inadvertently
revealed their gender.
For those who aren't familiar with the word, Merriam-Webster defines "lodestar" as
"a
star that leads or guides"
or a person who
"serves as an inspiration, model, or
guide."
To be sure, the Pence theory isn't without its holes. Trump staffers have said previously that
they pay attention to the idioms employed by others as a defense mechanism when speaking to the
press under the guise of anonymity.
"To cover my tracks, I usually pay attention to other staffers' idioms and use that in
my background quotes.
That throws the scent off me," one White House official told
Axios
.
But online betting markets have put Pence at the top of the list of suspects, with MyBookie
currently
reflecting 2-to-3 odds
on Pence as the culprit, per the
New
York Post
. The favorite right now, at 1-3 odds, is "the field" - i.e. someone not listed among
the 18 most likely senior admin officials, according to the Costa-Rica-based betting operation.
Still, at first brush, the theory makes a degree of sense:
As first in line for the
throne, Pence undoubtedly has the most to gain from the collapse of the Trump presidency.
But it's equally likely that a more junior official could've intentionally included these cues to
sow discord in the ranks.
As the Trump administration has proved time and time again, anything is possible in the West
Wing.
not sure pence is entirely a team member ... he has been told
to wait for more ... being around the trump tower, you can see
why pence would believe it besides the fact that he must have
been talking to real players that he knows they are real
players ...
having said all that, 100% this is coordinated ... it is no
coincidence it comes out at the same time with Bob Woodwards
book, Theresa May verdict on assailant of the failed attempt to
kill in salisbury soil, big offensive in Idlib (where trimp is
doing a 180 degrees and being a team member again ... to name
just a few ... it is the end of the line ... that economist
magazine "prediction" from 1988 on 30 years later comes to mind
... time for the US to come down hard i suppose ...
No way is the op-ed writer VP Pence. It
doesn't have his boring Midwestern tone.
It seems much more likely that the
letterbomb was written by a group --
not
in
the administration.
Rather, a
group of Deep State crybabies who aren't
getting their way and have devised this
lame, transparent effort akin to
Valley girls passing notes in homeroom ...
"like, I mean, um, whatever" ... because
they're too dumb to do anything else. And
the NYTimes ate it up.
But he IS a moron. All the war mongering pharisees are
morons.
Pence is a pro war psychopath who is very much
disconnected from his tortured soul and is a simple
biological robot devoid of higher levels of thought.
Pence is literally a moron. Only humans have souls and
access to imagination, inspiration, intuition, empathy:
pharisees DO NOT. They are all robotic machines: morons.
There being so many convoluted theories floating around,
here's mine. Trump, Pence and friends arranged this whole
editorial/reaction incident. As you point out, many other
stories were suddenly demoted to by-the-way status. This
gives Trump another reason to urge his supporters to be
enraged. It also could provide courage for purges within the
administration, someqthing it has long needed. Diverse
elements of the MSM are even attacking each other.
Ultimately, ask yourselves: cui bono? Who benefits?
It is
all too confusing. I'm getting a headache. Back to munching
on dark chocolate and watching cat videos.
Millions were beginning to think that that Trump wasn't
really leading the charge against the NWO and that he was
really
part of the NWO himself
--just like the NYT and the
person who wrote the op-ed, but by attacking Trump, these
NWO stooges
proved
Trump is leading the charge
against the NWO, and
proved
(after the
Sarah Jeong scandal
) to just as many others that the
NYT really is the most trustworthy institution in America
... just when both the NYT and Trump needed some street
cred the most ... and there's no way we are getting
played ... and there's no way this could be just theater
... or a psyop ... oh wait ...
Wasn't there a ZH article a few weeks ago about an algorithm that
could predict the author of a text, to a very high 90's percentile,
based on speech patterns?
I say we try it out and root out this
"saboteur".
However, I think we'd find that they are a fake.
Something about it feels contrived, why would a deep spate
functionary expose the apparatus that controls power regardless of
who is elected? What is the first rule of Fight Club?
I have a suspicion it is a plant, in an effort to convince the
masses that the deep state does exist. They are preaching to the
choir here at ZH, but 98% of the country has absolutely no idea what
the fuck Deep State even means. This makes it real for the common
man, In that respect, I guess it's a good thing. It just feels fake
though.
This whole year is playing out like the script from "House of Cards."
Now the MSM is calling for Trump to be removed as "unfit to hold
office." Liberals have hated Donald Trump since he first appeared on the
scene oil the 1970s as a loudmouth trust fund developer. They fought
every project he undertook and mocked him. Famously, "Spy" Magazine
belittled him as a "short-fingered vulgarian and Queens-born casino
operator" every time they mentioned his name, which was often. The
magazine's editor, Graydon Carter, despised Trump. Trump predicted the
magazine would fail within a year. So Carter put a calendar in the back
of the magazine, tearing off the days to prove Trump wrong. Alas, Trump
was right, and Spy shuttered before the year was out. It was a shame,
because the magazine was terrific and funny, but it had that typical
liberal New York Ivy League snottiness and superiority.
As
embarrassing as Trump may be, and he is certainly that, he is not
insane, nor unable to do the job. You may hate the job he is doing, but
this country has laws. If Mueller proves Trump committed real crimes
that mandate his indictment and removal, then so be it. But until then,
just because he runs a chaotic ship doesn't mean he can simply be taken
out.
An op-ed written in the New York Times by an anonymous "senior official in the Trump
administration" has drawn harsh rebuke from both sides of the aisle and beyond - after everyone
from President Trump to Glenn Greenwald to the
Los Angeles Times
chimed in with various
criticisms.
The author, who claims to be actively working against Trump in collusion with other
senior officials in what they call a "resistance inside the Trump administration," has now been
labeled everything from a coward, to treasonous, to nonexistent.
Trump, as expected,
lashed out
at the "failing" New York Times - before questioning whether the the mystery
official really exists, and that if they do, the New York Times should reveal the author's identity
as a matter of national security.
Trump supporters, also as expected, slammed the op-ed as either pure fiction or treason - a
suggestion Trump made earlier Wednesday.
What we don't imagine the anonymous author or the
Times
saw coming was the onslaught of
criticism coming from the center and left - those who stand to benefit the most from Trump's fall
from grace, or at least probably wouldn't mind it.
In an op-ed which appeared hours after the
NYT
piece, Jessica Roy of
the
Los
Angeles Times
writes: "
No, anonymous Trump official, you're not 'part of
the resistance.' You're a coward
" for not going
far enough
to stop Trump and in
fact enabling him.
If they really believe there's a need to subvert the president to protect the country,
they should be getting this person out of the White House. But they're too cowardly and
afraid of the possible implications
. They hand-wave the notion thusly:
"Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of
invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But
no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis."
How is it that utilizing the 25th Amendment of the Constitution would cause a crisis,
but admitting to subverting a democratically elected leader wouldn't?
...
If you're reading this, senior White House official, know this: You are not resisting
Donald Trump. You are enabling him for your own benefit. That doesn't make you an unsung hero.
It makes you a coward. -
LA
Times
Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald - the Pulitzer Prize Winning co-founder of
The Intercept,
also
called the author of the op-ed
a "coward" whose ideological issues "voters didn't ratify."
Greenwald continues; "The irony in the op-ed from the NYT's anonymous WH coward is glaring and
massive:
s/he accuses Trump of being "anti-democratic" while boasting of membership in an
unelected cabal that covertly imposes their own ideology with zero democratic accountability,
mandate or transparency.
"
So who is the "coward" in the White House?
While the author remains anonymous, there are a couple of clues in the case. For starters,
Bloomberg
White
House reporter Jennifer Jacobs points out that the
New York Times
revealed that a man
wrote the op-ed, which rules out Kellyanne Conway, Nikki Haley, Ivanka and Melania (the latter two
being
CNN's
suggestions
).
A second clue comes from the language used in the op-ed, and in particular "
Lodestar
"
- a rare word used by Mike Pence in at least one speech. Then again, someone trying to make one
think it's pence would also use that word (which was oddly Merriam-Webster's
word of the day
last
Tuesday).
A pence-theory hashtag has already emerged to support this theory;
#VeepThroat
Given the Op-Ed's praise of the late Senator John McCain, never-Trumper and Iraq War
sabre-rattler Bill Kristol tweeted that it was Kevin Hassett, the Chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisers. Of course, Kristol and whoever wrote the op-ed are ideologically aligned, so one
might question why he would voluntarily work against this person.
So while we don't know who wrote the op-ed, it appears to be backfiring spectacularly on its
author(s) amid wild theories and harsh rebuke from all sides of the aisle.
We're sure Carlos Slim - the largest owner of the
New York Times
and once the richest
man on earth, is having a good laugh at Trump's expense either way... for now.
Perhaps Trump can push the "fabrication" angle longer than NYT can retain the moral high ground
- especially after they hired, then refused to fire,
Sarah Jeong
- a new addition to the NYT editorial board who was revealed in old tweets to be an
openly bigoted, with a particularly deep hatred of "old white men."
The
New York Times
stood by Jeong - claiming she was simply responding to people
harassing her for being an Asian lesbian - only to have their absurd theory shredded within hours
.
Jeong
in fact has a multi-year history of unprovoked and random comments expressing hatred towards white
men.
And now she's right on the front lines of perhaps the greatest attempt to smear Trump yet. Not
exactly a good look for the
Times
at a time when MSM credibility has already taken a hit.
How many
broke bread
with the Clinton campaign leading up to the 2016 election?
Vote up!
158
Vote down!
2
Coup d'etat, in every sense of the word.......Constitution? What's that?
Roaches aren't even scurrying when you turn the lights on anymore. Trying to overthrow an elected standing government is the very definition of
treason.
That is an interesting angle. . . Trump creating his
own narratives by using agents to leak to the
blatently bias NYT. Jeebus, but the trouble that
strategy could cause. Millions out there are wound
tight across Amerika. Wouldnt take much of a spark to
get a good fire going. .
These are all staged irrelevances designed to distract
people...the few remaining people who are not addicted to
their screens. Remember - all media, all members of both
parties, all white house employees and especially Trump
work for the same cabal. No one can step out of line and
stay alive. The cabal knows everything.
If people yell loud and often enough, many will
actually forget that they are now knee deep in
ice-cold saltwater.
#Titanic
Let's focus on the important things, like a
scripted reality show fight, versus, idk, the fact
that we are again on the precipice of yet another
meltdown, only this time the Fed is fucked cause
nobody can borrow anymore $$, interest rates are still
way too low, and we are on our way to a Maunder
Minimum.
I could go on and on with REAL issues, but it seems
we just don't talk about them anymore. No need to see
how medical is bankrupting us, pensions are fucked,
"students" are quickly on their way to being
skullfucked with no way out.
We are setup for a calamity that will be 10x worse
than 2008, and the only thing I hear is the ever
increasing volume of "Everything is Awesome."
My dear, you don't really quite realize what you have
given the Trump Administration.
What the Times have
done is assured their readers that there is a counter
coup currently underway to bring down this sitting
President.
Back up and let that reality marinate.
Understand that now any failings or short comings that
come out of this administration can be laid at the feet
of the saboteurs working to bring down the government.
So if the economy rolls over and dies, it's the
saboteur's fault. If gas prices spike, it's the
senator's fault. If a nuke goes off in an American city,
it's the saboteur's fault. If the President is
impeached, it is the saboteur's fault. Any opposition to
this President from this point on is the result of a
concerted effort on the part of a gang of saboteurs to
bring down the government.
Merry Christmas, you have
just added the raison d'eter for a purge of all Obama
appointees in every executive agency.
President Trump thought that he could 'go along
to get along'. He is a slow learner. Taking credit
for a ginormous stock market bubble created by
cheap credit and buybacks, no real effort to build
a wall, massive tax cuts to
millionaires/billionaires, kissing Israel's ass,
the list goes on and on. The man hasn't done much
of anything to really help the middle class. And,
he hasn't done enough to even protect himself. The
op-ed is a hit piece. So what. But, Trump better
get up to speed sooner rather than later.
Are you really this stupid? The Trump administration
is owned by the banksters, every bit as much as the
'saboteur'. You really don't understand the game at
all.
CIA hit piece to discredit Trump and
sow division in the cabinet shortly before midterms.
If Trump fires half of his cabinet, or locks everyone down
hunting for the mole - "Seee?! We told you he was tyrannical!"
If he doesn't react or address it, it hangs out there,
continuing to make everyone believe he's an unstable bumbling
moron. And as he's stated previously, he's a "very stable
genius".
Either way, what may have been a clever ploy is a ham-fisted
CIA plot that misjudged it's audience (like they've never done
THAT before) and will continue to backfire. People are so sick
of the virtue signalling horseshit (Nike and Kuntpaernik come
to mind) that it's almost a guaranteed backfire when you try to
do it.
Imagine for a moment that you win the lottery and are appointed the
director of the CIA. Do you have any idea what the CIA does? Do you have
any inkling beyond what you have read in the media and the alternate media
of what agendas are afoot? Do you have any idea of what's at stake? Do
you have a clue about who you can trust? Are the lower echelons for you or
against you? Who do you talk to just to find out what is going on? Once
you are informed can you trust the information? Are the options you are
offered real options or are the serving someone's private agenda?
Now
imagine that you are President of the United States and half the electorate
wants to remove you from office. Who do you tap on the shoulder to
initiate the purge? How do you know they won't purge you?
I never said I was smart but I worked for one of the most corrupt
bureaucracies in the world for about a decade, and I learned a few
things about political tools and how to manipulate the narrative. What
the Times has done is publicly assert that there are saboteurs working
in the Trump administration who are actively attempting to bring down
this President. The Resistance i.e. the Democratic Party through its
mouth piece has openly stated that they are participating in an ongoing
coup to bring down the government. Do you not realize what kind of club
that has just been handed to Trump to beat down his opposition? Any
opposition is now aiding and abetting the attempted coup.
As for
government, the banks lent the money to purchase it in 1913. The banks
running the show is old news.
CIA hit piece to discredit Trump and sow division
in the cabinet shortly before midterms.
If Trump fires half of his cabinet, or locks everyone down hunting for
the mole - "Seee?! We told you he was tyrannical!" If he doesn't react or
address it, it hangs out there, continuing to make everyone believe he's an
unstable bumbling moron. And as he's stated previously, he's a "very stable
genius".
Either way, what may have been a clever ploy is a ham-fisted CIA plot
that misjudged it's audience (like they've never done THAT before) and will
continue to backfire. People are so sick of the virtue signalling horseshit
(Nike and Kuntpaernik come to mind) that it's almost a guaranteed backfire
when you try to do it.
syria had a legitimately elected government too, and look what's gone on
for the last seven years there.
you think these fuckers at CIA see any
difference between what they are able to do there and here in the US?
over there they drop pallets of weapons from the sky. over here they
drop what passes for information from their mockingbird operations.
same difference.
most america haters here at ZH are laughing because they think this
is the US getting their comeuppance. the comeuppance we are getting is
for challenging those who have been doing this to others for all these
years. it's not other nations turning around and doing this to the US.
it is those who have done this to others, are now doing it to the
citizens of the US. those america haters better hope we citizens win,
if not, that hell trump said would be unleashed on iran, will be
unleashed on the world. and all the hyperweapons invented or dreamed of
will not be able to stop it.
Government , its representatives and its agencies are unscrupulous
and immoral beyond the imagination of a normal person.
Northwoods,
Iraq WMD, Vietnam chemical weapon campaign, The Lusitania, Grenada,
Tonkin, kennedy assassinations.
The amazing thing is how people swallow all that and trot off to
the polls and never ask for any murderous corrupt bastard to be held
to account.
Meanwhile we lost the free press so now no lone voice questions
the moves of the real powers. The waste their voice on partisan
bickering over people who are only puppets leaving real power to play
its global killing games un remarked.
For anyone that hasn't seen this yet check out this video of McStain's
"funeral" where Mattis and Kelly give Lindsey Graham the stare down after he
gives hugs to Huma Abedine.
Graham refuses to look at General Kelly and when he finally does Kelly
points to his right eye like "We're watching you punk". Graham definitely
looks like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar as both Mattis
and Kelly stare him down. It's classic.
During the embrace, Miss Lindsey and Huma touch hands. I assumed
something small was being handed off between them, and Kelly's gesture
indicated that he had witnessed the transfer. Mattis appeared to be
touching an earpiece, as though he were concentrating on something being
said.
Mob funeral. "Remember Michael, the guy that comes to you from the Senate,
and promises you that you will be safe on his territory... that's the
traitor."
Graham, "Mueller must continue the investigation."
Ahhh Yes, Huma Abedine, the middle eastern spy / goddess (not) married to an
Ashkenazi Weiner.
Anthony Weiner and Ashkenazi CHUTZPAH
Most normal people would be thankful that after dealing with what Anthony
Weiner has been through over the past few years that they were still
breathing.
His original "sexting" scandal would have crushed lesser human beings.
But the intrepid and moronic recidivist Weiner is still at it!
Weiner represents Ashkenazi Jewish hubris at its most egregious.
It is clear that he has no shame, and continues to believe that there are
no rules for his truly deplorable behavior. It is a sense of Jewish
entitlement that is based on a "Da'as Torah" mentality that allows Jewish
leaders and prominent figures like politicians to think that they are above
the Law.
It is truly a stunning development that is sure to plague the Clinton
presidential campaign.
In a 2010 Politico article written by current MSNBC host Steve Kornacki we
see clearly how Weiner gradually became unmoored from his patron Senator
Charles Schumer, also an Ashkenazi Jew, and aggressively upped his public
profile:
How come Gen. Flynn didn't have a GoFundMe deal working for him? I know he is a
man of integrity, but I would have contributed had I known of such a fund.
one can only hope he's been thrown under the bus. If he's taking one for the team
it'll be a slap on the wrist, maybe a year in an open prison or so and a
directorship once he's beern "rehabilitated". If he's ben shat on, expect
fireworks and much ass-covering by means of singing. /popcorn
Trump has seven members of his campaign team under indictment. Between Faux News
and the Republican National Committee, and their attorneys, who should have been
vetting Donald Trump's choices? Clearly, no attorney at Faux or the RNC took time
to do background checks. The two fossils, McConnell and Giuliani didn't foresee
any problems with Trump's campaign team, nor did Adelson, the Koch Brothers, or
Rupert Murdoch.
So how is McCabe any different from Manafort, Gates,
Papadopoulous, or Mike Flynn? and come 24 Sept, I want to hear Trump talk at
length and in detail about Mike Flynn: where did Flynn learn money laundering?
did he pass techniques on to anyone else? Why is he giving speeches to the
Ukraine? the United States military got its ass kicked in Viet Nam because of
Russia and Communist China, and the Ukraine is a direct line to Russian
oligarchs. Robert Mueller is doing the vetting job that someone in the Republican
Party should have done as Trump assembled his team.
The day after Trump's surprising win on Nov. 9, 2016, the FBI counterintelligence
team engaged in a new mission, bluntly described in another string of emails
prompted by another news leak.
"We need ALL of their names to scrub, and we should give them ours for the
same purpose," Strzok emailed Page on Nov. 10, 2016, citing a Daily Beast article
about some of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's allegedly unsavory
ties overseas.
"Andy didn't get any others," Page wrote back, apparently indicating McCabe
didn't have names to add to the "scrub."
"That's what Bill said," Strzok wrote back, apparently referring to then-FBI
chief of counterintelligence William Priestap. "I suggested we need to exchange
our entire lists as we each have potential derogatory CI info the other doesn't."
CI is short for confidential informants.
It's an extraordinary exchange, if for no other reason than this: The very day
after Trump wins the presidency, some top FBI officials are involved in the sort
of gum-shoeing normally reserved for field agents, and their goal is to find
derogatory information about someone who had worked for the president-elect.
"... The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ). ..."
"... As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale. ..."
"... Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods. ..."
"... Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. ..."
"... A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up) ..."
"... The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has turned on American citizens. ..."
"... It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in. One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must answer to grand juries. ..."
"... As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial arrangements has to be reduced. ..."
And so the sun seems to stand still this last day before the resumption of
business-as-usual, and whatever remains of labor in this sclerotic republic takes its ease in
the ominous late summer heat, and the people across this land marinate in anxious
uncertainty.
What can be done?
Some kind of epic national restructuring is in the works. It will either happen consciously
and deliberately or it will be forced on us by circumstance. One side wants to magically
reenact the 1950s; the other wants a Gnostic transhuman utopia. Neither of these is a plausible
outcome.
Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan Peterson calls "pseudo issues."
Let's try to take stock of what the real issues might be.
Energy
The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e.
Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The
Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ).
For all that, the shale oil producers still
couldn't make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has
already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course - say,
to rescue the stock and bond markets - then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years
before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we're out of tricks. It will
affect everything.
The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced
by other means than fossil fuels , so-called alt energy. This will only happen on the most
limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit
electric grid itself.) What's required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the
landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling
suburbia -- or at least moving out of it -- is evidently unthinkable. But it's going to happen
whether we make plans and policies, or we're dragged kicking and screaming away from
it.
Corporate tyranny
The nation is groaning under despotic corporate rule. The fragility of these operations is
moving toward criticality. As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial
legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply
lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale.
Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that
is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods.
The implosion
of national chain retail is already underway. Amazon is not the answer, because each Amazon
sales item requires a separate truck trip to its destination, and that just doesn't square with
our energy predicament. We've got to rebuild main street economies and the layers of local and
regional distribution that support them. That's where many jobs and careers are.
Climate change is most immediately affecting farming. 2018 will be a year of bad harvests in
many parts of the world. Agri-biz style farming, based on oil-and-gas plus bank loans is a
ruinous practice, and will not continue in any case. Can we make choices and policies to
promote a return to smaller scale farming with intelligent methods rather than just brute
industrial force plus debt? If we don't, a lot of people will starve to death. By the way, here
is the useful work for a large number of citizens currently regarded as unemployable for one
reason or another.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine.
Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. Both are
destined to be severely downscaled.
A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college
loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up).
We need
millions of small farmers more than we need millions of communications majors with a public
relations minor. It may be too late for a single-payer medical system. A collapsing oil-based
industrial economy means a lack of capital, and fiscal hocus-pocus is just another form of
racketeering. Medicine will have to get smaller and less complex and that means local
clinic-based health care. Lots of careers there, and that is where things are going, so get
ready.
Government over-reach
The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually
reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has
turned on American citizens.
It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in.
One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran
illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use
their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must
answer to grand juries.
As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial
arrangements has to be reduced. It's happening already, whether we like it or not, as
geopolitical relations shift drastically and the other nations on the planet scramble for
survival in a post-industrial world that will be a good deal harsher than the robotic paradise
of digitally "creative" economies that the credulous expect.
This country has enough to do
within its own boundaries to prepare for survival without making extra trouble for itself and
other people around the world. As a practical matter, this means close as many overseas bases
as possible, as soon as possible.
As we get back to business tomorrow, ask yourself where you stand in the blather-storm of
false issues and foolish ideas, in contrast to the things that actually matter.
"... The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ). ..."
"... As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale. ..."
"... Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods. ..."
"... Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. ..."
"... A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up) ..."
"... The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has turned on American citizens. ..."
"... It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in. One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must answer to grand juries. ..."
"... As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial arrangements has to be reduced. ..."
And so the sun seems to stand still this last day before the resumption of
business-as-usual, and whatever remains of labor in this sclerotic republic takes its ease in
the ominous late summer heat, and the people across this land marinate in anxious
uncertainty.
What can be done?
Some kind of epic national restructuring is in the works. It will either happen consciously
and deliberately or it will be forced on us by circumstance. One side wants to magically
reenact the 1950s; the other wants a Gnostic transhuman utopia. Neither of these is a plausible
outcome.
Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan Peterson calls "pseudo issues."
Let's try to take stock of what the real issues might be.
Energy
The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e.
Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The
Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ).
For all that, the shale oil producers still
couldn't make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has
already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course - say,
to rescue the stock and bond markets - then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years
before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we're out of tricks. It will
affect everything.
The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced
by other means than fossil fuels , so-called alt energy. This will only happen on the most
limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit
electric grid itself.) What's required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the
landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling
suburbia -- or at least moving out of it -- is evidently unthinkable. But it's going to happen
whether we make plans and policies, or we're dragged kicking and screaming away from
it.
Corporate tyranny
The nation is groaning under despotic corporate rule. The fragility of these operations is
moving toward criticality. As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial
legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply
lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale.
Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that
is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods.
The implosion
of national chain retail is already underway. Amazon is not the answer, because each Amazon
sales item requires a separate truck trip to its destination, and that just doesn't square with
our energy predicament. We've got to rebuild main street economies and the layers of local and
regional distribution that support them. That's where many jobs and careers are.
Climate change is most immediately affecting farming. 2018 will be a year of bad harvests in
many parts of the world. Agri-biz style farming, based on oil-and-gas plus bank loans is a
ruinous practice, and will not continue in any case. Can we make choices and policies to
promote a return to smaller scale farming with intelligent methods rather than just brute
industrial force plus debt? If we don't, a lot of people will starve to death. By the way, here
is the useful work for a large number of citizens currently regarded as unemployable for one
reason or another.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine.
Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. Both are
destined to be severely downscaled.
A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college
loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up).
We need
millions of small farmers more than we need millions of communications majors with a public
relations minor. It may be too late for a single-payer medical system. A collapsing oil-based
industrial economy means a lack of capital, and fiscal hocus-pocus is just another form of
racketeering. Medicine will have to get smaller and less complex and that means local
clinic-based health care. Lots of careers there, and that is where things are going, so get
ready.
Government over-reach
The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually
reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has
turned on American citizens.
It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in.
One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran
illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use
their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must
answer to grand juries.
As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial
arrangements has to be reduced. It's happening already, whether we like it or not, as
geopolitical relations shift drastically and the other nations on the planet scramble for
survival in a post-industrial world that will be a good deal harsher than the robotic paradise
of digitally "creative" economies that the credulous expect.
This country has enough to do
within its own boundaries to prepare for survival without making extra trouble for itself and
other people around the world. As a practical matter, this means close as many overseas bases
as possible, as soon as possible.
As we get back to business tomorrow, ask yourself where you stand in the blather-storm of
false issues and foolish ideas, in contrast to the things that actually matter.
Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan Peterson calls "pseudo issues."
Let's try to take stock of what the real issues might be.
Energy
The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e.
Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The
Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ). For all that, the shale oil producers still
couldn't make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has
already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course - say,
to rescue the stock and bond markets - then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years
before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we're out of tricks. It will
affect everything.
The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced
by other means than fossil fuels , so-called alt energy. This will only happen on the most
limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit
electric grid itself.) What's required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the
landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling
suburbia -- or at least moving out of it -- is evidently unthinkable. But it's going to happen
whether we make plans and policies, or we're dragged kicking and screaming away from it.
Indeed. Especial kudos for mentioning that the bailout cost way way more than the "Tarp"
program. Some additional thoughts though.
1. Our financial economy is now so subsidized and rigged, I wonder if it is even possible
to have a traditional financial-style collapse? I mean, the stock market is high only because
the companies are borrowing like crazy to boost their stock prices, and the Federal Reserve
will manufacture unlimited money to boost and bail out financial firms. However, on its own
this won't cause hyperinflation, because this money is mostly not making it back onto Main
Street, it's just money chasing money in the the clouds. I suggest that perhaps the next
collapse will be triggered by physical matters, as massive immigration fuels continued
population growth, and the real economy is starved of the massive physical investment needed
to deal with this and our own industrial base is gutted by free trade agreements. A physical
collapse cannot be papered over by financial manipulation
2. There will be no revolution, sorry. Look at Barack Obama, for eight years he was as
corrupt a whore to big money as any US politician, and the man is still treated as a secular
saint. The Democrats are for Wall Street bailouts and eternal pointless wars etc.etc. but
people will keep voting for them because Trump is a fascist, a racist, "literally Hitler." I
mean, CNN told them so, so it must be true. Meanwhile, even though it looked like the
Republicans for a moment were going to deal with reality, they too have mostly been co-opted
into mindlessly supporting Trump because the Democrats are "socialists" (hah! Lenin would
have had a good laugh at that one) and Nancy Pelosi is weird.
I think you'll find what common sense might predict, namely, that deaths by shooting have
declined in per capita terms. Maybe people still manage to commit suicide as reliably by
other means but there can have been no substitute for accidental shootings.
"... Many of the root causes of the crisis remain today, making another economic downturn or collapse possible. The New Yorker reports that little has changed since 2008, with Wall Street banks returning to risky behavior and the inadequate regulation of Dodd-Frank being weakened. Big finance is more concentrated and dominant than it was before the crash. Inequality and debt have expanded, and despite the capital class getting wealthier in a record stock market with corporate profits soaring, real wages are stuck at pre-crisis levels . ..."
"... So, when the next crash comes. Let's put forward a People's Agenda. Let's be like Iceland and mobilize for policies that put people first. Collectively, we have the power to overcome the political elites and their donor class. ..."
Ten years ago, there was panic in Washington, DC, New York City and financial
centers around the world as the United States was in the midst of an economic
collapse. The crash became the focus of the presidential campaign between Barack
Obama and John McCain and was followed by protests that created a popular movement,
which continues to this day.
Banks: Bailed Out; The People: Sold Out
On the campaign trail, in March 2008,
Obama blamed mismanagement of the economy on both Democrats and Republicans
for rewarding financial manipulation rather than economic productivity. He called
for funds to protect homeowners from foreclosure and to stabilize local governments
and urged a 21st Century regulation of the financial system. John McCain opposed
federal intervention, saying the country should not bail out banks or homeowners
who knowingly took financial risks.
By September 2008, McCain and Obama
met with President George W. Bush and together they called for a $700 billion
bailout of the banks, not the people. Obama and McCain issued a joint statement
that called the bank bailout plan "flawed," but said, "the effort to protect
the American economy must not fail."
Obama expressed "outrage" at the "crisis," which was "a direct result of
the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street
for years."
By October 2008, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), or bank bailout,
had recapitalized the banks, the Treasury had stabilized money market mutual
funds and the FDIC had guaranteed the bank debts. The Federal Reserve began
flowing money to banks, which would ultimately total almost twice
the $16 trillion claimed in a federal audit. Researchers at the University
of Missouri found that the Federal Reserve gave
over $29 trillion
to the banks.
" the crisis took years to emerge. It was caused by reckless lending practices,
Wall Street greed, outright fraud, lax government oversight in the George W.
Bush years, and deregulation of the financial sector in the Bill Clinton years.
The deepest source, going back decades, was rising inequality. In good times
and bad, no matter which party held power, the squeezed middle class sank ever
further into debt."
Before his inauguration, Obama proposed an economic stimulus plan, but, as
Paul Krugman wrote, "Obama's prescription doesn't live up to his diagnosis.
The economic plan he's offering isn't as strong as his language about the economic
threat."
In the end, the stimulus was even smaller than what Obama proposed. Economist
Dean Baker explained that it may have created 2 million jobs, but we needed
12 million. It was $300 billion in 2009, about the same in 2010, and the remaining
$100 billion followed over several years -- too small to offset the $1.4 trillion
in annual lost spending.
Protest near Union Square in New York, April, 2010. Popular Resistance
Still at Risk
Many of the root causes of the crisis remain today, making another economic
downturn or collapse possible. The
New Yorker reports that little has changed since 2008, with Wall Street
banks returning to risky behavior and the inadequate regulation of Dodd-Frank
being weakened. Big finance is more concentrated and dominant than it was before
the crash. Inequality and debt have expanded, and despite the capital class
getting wealthier in a record stock market with corporate profits soaring,
real wages are stuck at pre-crisis levels .
People are economically insecure in the US and live with growing despair,
as measured by
reports on well-being . The
Federal Reserve reported in 2017 that "two in five Americans don't have
enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense." Further, "more than one in
five said they weren't able to pay the current month's bills in full, and more
than one in four said they skipped necessary medical care last year because
they couldn't afford it."
Positive Money writes: "Ten years on, big banks are still behaving in
reckless, unfair and neglectful ways . The structural problems with our
money and banking system still haven't been fixed. And many experts fear that
if we don't change things soon, we're going to sleepwalk into
another crash ."
Larry Eliott wrote in the Guardian , "Capitalism's near-death experience
with the banking crisis was a golden opportunity for progressives." But the
movement in the United States was not yet in a position to take advantage of
it.
There were immediate protests. Democratic Party-aligned groups such as USAction,
True Majority and others
organized nationwide actions . Over 1,000 people
demonstrated on Wall Street and phones in Congress were ringing wildly.
While there was opposition to the bailout, there was a lack of national consensus
over what to do.
Protests continued to grow. In late 2009, a
"Move Your Money" campaign was started that urged people to take their money
out of the big banks and put it in community banks and credit unions. The most
visible anti-establishment rage in response to the bailout arose later
in the Tea Party and Occupy movements . Both groups shared a consensus that
we live in a rigged economy created by a corrupt political establishment. It
was evident that
the US is an oligarchy, which serves the interests of the wealthy while
ignoring the necessities of the people.
The anti-establishment consensus continues to grow and showed itself in the
2016 presidential campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They
were two sides of the same coin of populist anger that defeated Jeb Bush and
Hillary Clinton. Across the political spectrum, there is a political crisis
with
both mainstream, Wall Street-funded political parties being unpopular but
staying in power due to a calcified political system that protects the duopoly
of Democrats and Republicans.
Preparing for the Next Collapse
When the next financial crisis arrives, the movement is in a much stronger
position to take advantage of the opportunity for significant changes that benefit
people over Wall Street. The Occupy movement and other efforts since then have
changed the national dialogue so that more people are aware of wealth inequality,
the corruption of big banks and the failure of the political elites to represent
the people's interests.
There is also greater awareness of alternatives to the current economy. The
Public Banking movement has grown significantly since 2008. Banks that need
to be bailed out could be transformed into public banks that serve the people
and are democratically controlled. And there are multiple platforms, including
our People's
Agenda , that outline alternative solutions.
We also know the government can afford almost $30 trillion to bail out the
banks. One sixth of this could provide a $12,000 annual basic income, which
would cost $3.8 trillion annually,
doubling Social Security payments to $22,000 annually, which would cost
$662 billion, a $10,000
bonus for all US public school teachers, which would cost $11 billion, free
college for all high school graduates, which would cost $318 billion, and universal
preschool, which would cost $38 billion. National improved Medicare for all
would actually
save the nation trillions of dollars over a decade. We can afford to provide
for the necessities of the people.
We can look to Iceland for an example of how to handle the next crisis. In
2008 , they jailed the bankers, let the banks fail without taking on their
debt and put controls in place to protect the economy. They recovered more quickly
than other countries and with less pain.
How did they do it? In part, through protest. They held sustained and noisy
protests, banging pots and pans outside their parliament building for five months.
The number of people participating in the protests grew over time. They created
democratized platforms for gathering public input and sharing information widely.
And they created new political parties, the Pirate Party and the Best Party,
which offered agendas informed by that popular input.
So, when the next crash comes. Let's put forward a People's Agenda. Let's
be like Iceland and mobilize for policies that put people first. Collectively,
we have the power to overcome the political elites and their donor class.
John Gunther Dean, now 92, and a former American ambassador to
five countries, has long maintained that Israel was behind his
attempted assassination on August 28, 1980, in a suburb of
Beirut, which was attributed to a rightwing Lebanese group. Dean
and his wife and daughter and son-in-law were in a motorcade and
narrowly escaped serious injury.
Dean said that he was targeted because he was doing something
regarded as antithetical to Israel's interest: consulting with
the Palestine Liberation Organization and its head, Yasser
Arafat, at a time when such contacts were the third rail in US
politics. He was also outspokenly critical of Israeli attacks on
Lebanon.
A new book offers backing to Dean's claim. But while that book
has been highly-publicized, the question of whether Israel
attacked our ambassador has gotten no attention in the press.
That is not a surprise; for Dean has asserted that the case
itself was never thoroughly investigated by the U.S. government.
Let's begin this story where I first heard about it, from
historian Remi Brulin's twitter thread
on
May 30:
"On August 28, 1980, the three-car motorcade of John Gunther
Dean, the American Ambassador to Lebanon, was attacked on the
motorway by several assailants armed with automatic rifles as
well as light anti-tank weapons or LAWs. The ambassador and his
wife escaped unscathed.
"This attack is in
RAND's
'terrorism' database
. Entry states that 'responsibility for
attack was later claimed by the Front for the Liberation of
Lebanon from Foreigners, a shadowy right-wing group.' Various
media outlets at the time reported on FLLF taking credit for the
attack
"Over the years Ambassador Dean has repeatedly argued that
Israel was behind the August 1980 attempt on his life. In a
n
interview for the Oral History Project
in September 2000, he
explained how the Lebanese Intelligence services had managed to
retrieve the empty canisters of two of the light anti-tank
weapons (LAWs) that had been used during the attack on his
motorcade and, during raiding a house by the intersection where
the assault had taken place, found 8 more. Dean collected the
numbers on the 10 missiles & sent them to Washington to be
traced.
"Three weeks (and one angry phone call) later, the US Ambassador
finally learned 'where the light anti-tank weapons came from,
where they were shipped to, on what date, who paid for them, and
when they got to their destination.'
"The LAWs had been manufactured in the US and 'were sold and
shipped to Israel in 1974.' In
this
interview
, Dean further states that he "did find out a great
deal about this incident' over the following years, and calls
this assassination attempt 'one of the more unsavory episodes in
our Middle Eastern history' and ends by noting that 'our
Ambassador to Israel, Sam Lewis, took up this matter with the
Israeli authorities.'
"Dean concludes: 'I know as surely as I know anything that
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was somehow involved in
the attack. Undoubtedly using a proxy, our ally Israel had tried
to kill me.' [Haaretz
covered
Dean's claim, made in his 2009 autobiography
; so did
The
Nation
]
"All of this has been known for years, although it is very
rarely discussed in the US media. When discussed, Dean's
assertions/accusations are dismissed as conspiracy theories.
"In January however, a book was published that appears to
reinforce the plausibility of Dean's position. The book is Ronen
Bergman's
Rise
and Kill First
.
It has received rave reviews in the US
press, and its author has been interviewed countless times since
the book was published. The book focuses on Israeli 'targeted
assassinations' and it contains one truly remarkable revelation.
"In 1979, [Rafael] Eitan and [Meir] Dagan [both brass in the
Israel Defense Forces] created the Front for the Liberation of
Lebanon from Foreigners, and ran that fictitious group from 1979
to 1983. In 1981 and 1982, Ariel Sharon used that Front to
conduct a series of indiscriminate car bombings that killed
hundreds of civilians.
"The objective of this massive 'terrorist' car bombing campaign
was to 'sow chaos' amongst the Palestinian & Lebanese civilian
population" and, in 1981-82, to provoke the PLO into resorting
to 'terrorism,' thus providing Israel with an excuse to invade
Lebanon.
"The FLLF operation is described in great details in Bergman's
book. His account is based solely on first hand accounts from
Israeli officials involved in the operation or who were aware of
it at the time. It is also described in detail in my article
here [
in
Mondoweiss in May:
The remarkable disappearing act of
Israel's car-bombing campaign in Lebanon or: What we (do not)
talk about when we talk about 'terrorism'].
"As I show in this article, not a SINGLE review of Bergman's
book in the US media has mentioned the FLLF operation. Nor has
it been mentioned in a SINGLE of the countless interviews he has
given on the topic over the last few months. The US media has
thus been fully silent about the fact that Israeli officials
directed a major & fully indiscriminate car bombing campaign
that killed 100s of civilians in Lebanon. This silence also
means that the US media has failed to notice the possible
implications of this revelation about the Dean case.
"Bergman himself does not mention the assassination attempt
against Dean. But we know that the FLLF took credit for this
attack at the time. That Dean's own investigation pointed to
Israel & to its Lebanese proxies. And we now know that the FLLF
was CREATED and RUN by Israel.
"None of this is absolutely conclusive, of course. Nonetheless,
this topic might warrant investigation from US journalists (who
might also want to write about the FLLF car bombing campaign, ie
about Israeli officials resorting to 'terrorism.'"
Brulin subsequently added this important comment:
Bergman does note on several occasions in his book that he
is not allowed to write and talk about a lot of the
operations that his sources talked to him about. I wonder if
this FLLF operation vs Dean is one of those.
Let us add some details and context. Dean was born to a Jewish
family in Germany in 1926 and escaped the Holocaust to the
United States in 1938, later graduating from a Kansas City high
school. It goes without saying that being ambassador to five
countries, Cambodia, Denmark, Lebanon, Thailand and India, is a
stellar career in foreign service.
I reached out to Dean and did not hear from him, but in his oral
history, the ambassador says that the attack was a "horrible
experience" that scarred his daughter.
The road at that stretch was wide and a Mercedes car was
parked below a small hill overlooking the road. As we
turned, our convoy took 21 rifle bullets and two grenades
anti-tank fired against the car I was in. My wife threw
herself on top of me and said: "Get your head down" because
I was trying to look out and was stunned by the "fireworks".
When you have these light anti-tank weapons (LAWs) explode,
there are a lot of sparks and explosions. The two LAWs fired
at my car bounced off the rear of the car. I also noticed
that on the window of my armored car there were some shots
all very well centered where I was sitting, but they had not
penetrated because the plastic windows were bullet-proof.
In his autobiography
Danger
Zones,
Dean says he urged the State Department to
investigate, but: "No matter how hard I tried, I could not get a
straight answer from the State Department about what the U.S.
had discovered in its investigations I was simply told to
resume my duties as ambassador. That was not so easy when I
learned what the Lebanese intelligence agency found out [using
the numbers on the weapons]."
Dean says he was clearly understood to be an enemy of Israel
because on repeated occasions he had publicly condemned Israel's
attacks on Lebanon's borders and air space, a stance the State
Department usually did not take.
Scurrilous attacks on me in the Israeli Knesset and the
Israeli press just prior to the assassination attempt
indicate that the Israeli authorities were unhappy with the
activist role I played in Lebanon, defending Lebanese
sovereignty and maintaining an active relationship with the
PLO–the very policies I was given to pursue by the president
of the United States. The venomous talk in the Israeli
Knesset by the right-wing parties portrayed me as a tool of
the Palestinians. Because I was willing, even eager, to talk
with all the factions in Lebanon's civil war, I was
suspected of being anti-Israel.
Dean said he had a "close working relationship" with the PLO–
including calling on Yasser Arafat to help broker the release of
13 of 66 American hostages held by Iranians in Tehran in
November 1979, those 13 being the women and African-Americans.
"On a number of occasions the PLO helped me to get Americans
released American authorities considered the PLO a valid
interlocutor for discussing ways of finding a nonmilitary
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
At that time, the PLO was verboten in official policy circles.
Andrew Young was forced to resign as Jimmy Carter's ambassador
to the U.N. in 1979 after the Israelis leaked the fact that he
had met with a representative of the PLO. In 1977,
Ted
Koppel and Marvin Kalb wrote
a thriller that turned on a US
official having a supersecret meeting with a fictitious
Palestinian group, and it leaking and the official being charged
with betraying Israel. In 1976, the dissident Jewish peace group
Breira came apart after Wolf Blitzer, who was at the time also
working for the Israel lobby group AIPAC, reported in the
Jerusalem Post that Breira members had met with PLO officials.
Dean had a reputation for being free-thinking in Washington
circles. In 1988, when Dean was ambassador to India, Pakistani
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq died in Pakistan when his plane
was sabotaged. Dean maintained that Israel was behind the
assassination because it did not want Pakistan to obtain nuclear
weapons, which it was then developing. Dean's speculation was
based in part on the fact that pro-Israel congressmen (Stephen
Solarz and Tom Lantos) had visited him in New Delhi and pressed
him to support Israel's ally India over Pakistan and to seek to
thwart Pakistan's path toward nukes.
"The more I pushed for answers, the more officials from the
Reagan administration pushed back," he wrote. Within a year,
Dean, 63, retired amid official questions about his sanity under
"strain." "The department's first thought was to send me to an
asylum." Instead he was sent to Switzerland for "recuperation,"
he writes in his autobiography. "This was the kind of technique
that the Stalinist regime used to silence its critics in the
Soviet Union."
Ronen Bergman's new book
on
the Israeli assassination and terrorism campaign
contains no
reference to the John Gunther Dean attack. I asked him via a
twitter message why he had left it out, noting that his
revelation about Israeli security officials establishing the
Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners gives
credence to Dean's claim. He did not respond.
The Israeli investigative reporter is now working for the New
York Times, and lately reported in the Times on the
killing
of a Syrian rocket scientist in a car bomb attack
in
northwestern Syria on the night of August 4, evidently by
Israel.
P.S. The US government has had a miserable record of
investigating
known
Israeli
attacks on Americans– on the USS Liberty in 1967 and Rachel
Corrie in 2003.
Good to see Dean being taken seriously after so long in the
wilderness.
The throwaway line about Dean, a Jew, being born in Germany and
escaping the Holocaust when his family went to America in 1938,
is a bit much, but serves to remind us what a challenge it is
for those of Tribal consciousness such as friend Weiss, to hew
to the truth when the opposing lie is so consequential.
Expensive weapon systems for export is Trump administration official policy, his Military
Keyseanism stance.
Notable quotes:
"... The US is to render substantial military assistance to a country with an economy in the doldrums , reforms that have foundered , a democracy that is in question , and corruption that is widespread . ..."
...
Kurt Volker , US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said in an interview
with the Guardian published on September 1 that "Washington is ready to expand arms supplies to
Ukraine in order to build up the country's naval and air defense forces in the face of
continuing Russian support for
eastern separatists ." According to him, the Trump administration was "absolutely" prepared
to go further in supplying lethal weaponry to Ukrainian forces than the anti-tank
missiles it delivered in April .
Mr. Volker explained that "[t]hey need to rebuild a navy and they have very limited air
capability as well. I think we'll have to look at air defense."
The diplomat
believes Ukraine needs unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-battery radar systems, and
anti-sniper systems. The issue of lethal arms purchases has been discussed at the highest
level.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 allocated
$250m in military assistance to Ukraine, including lethal arms. The
US has delivered Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Kiev but this time the
ambassador talked about an incomparably larger deal. Former President Barack
Obama had been unconvinced that granting Ukraine lethal defensive weapons
would be the right decision, in view of the widespread corruption there. This
policy has changed under President Trump, who - among other things - approved deliveries
of anti-tank missiles to Kiev last December.
Ukraine has officially requested US air-defense systems. According to
Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, the Ukrainian
military wants to purchase at least three air-defense systems. The cost of
the deal is expected to exceed $2 billion, or about $750 million apiece. The
system in question was not specified, but it's generally believed to be the
Patriot.
Volker's statement was made at a time of rising tensions in the Sea of Azov,
which is legally shared by Ukraine and Russia. It is connected to
the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait. The rhetoric has heated up and ships
have been placed under arrest as this territorial dispute turns the area
into a flashpoint.
Russia has
slammed the US for backing Ukraine's violations of international law in
the area. According to a 2003 treaty, the Sea of Azov is a jointly
controlled territory that both countries are allowed to use freely.
The US military already runs a maritime operations center located within
Ukraine's Ochakov naval base. The facility is an operational-level warfare
command-and-control organization that is designed to deliver flexible
maritime support throughout the full range of military operations. Hundreds
of US and Canadian military instructors are
training Ukrainian personnel at the Yavorov firing range.
NATO has
granted Ukraine the status of an aspirant
country - a step that is openly provocative toward Russia. Macedonia,
Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are also aspirant nations. Last year,
Ukraine's parliament adopted
a resolution recognizing full membership in NATO as a foreign policy
goal. In 2008, NATO agreed that Ukraine along with Georgia should become a
full-fledged member. In March, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia announced the
formation of an alliance to oppose Russia.
I received a message last week from a savvy reader, a former McKinsey partner who has also
done among other things significant pro-bono work with housing not-for-profits (as in he has
more interest and experience in social justice issues than most people with his background).
His query:
We both know that financialization has, among so many other things, turned large swaths of
the capital markets into a casino
Here's my thought/question: is there a house?
The common wisdom is that the 'house wins' in casinos
In all likelihood, at least in the great financial crisis, the TBTF banks were the 'house'
yet, it's at least a bit different from a casino house because, absent the bailouts, those
banks would not have won.
So, who or what was really the 'house'? Was it the Fed? Did the Fed actually 'win'?
Maybe the 'house' is the 1% . or, more precisely, the .01%???
I have included this fetching image to give you the opportunity to formulate your own answer
before scrolling down.
My reply:
The producers in finance: the managing directors and heads of trading desks at major
banks, the more senior managers who are along for the ride, the hedgies, guys in private
equity.
The "house" is individuals, not institutions. That is how looting works.
Remember, the question is not merely who wins from our current hypertrophied financial
system, but who is set up to be the house, as in to win no matter what. The answer in this case
is intrinsically linked to looting.
an economic underground can come to life if firms have an incentive to go broke for profit
at society's expense (to loot) instead of to go for broke (to gamble on success). Bankruptcy
for profit will occur if poor accounting, lax regulation, or low penalties for abuse give
owners an incentive to pay themselves more than their firms are worth and then default on
their debt obligations. Bankruptcy for profit occurs most commonly when a government
guarantees a firm's debt obligations. The most obvious such guarantee is deposit insurance,
but governments also implicitly or explicitly guarantee the policies of insurance companies,
the pension obligations of private firms, virtually all the obligations of large banks,
student loans, mortgage finance of subsidized housing, and the general obligations of large
or influential firms. . . .
Because net worth is typically a small fraction of total assets for the insured
institutions, . . . bankruptcy for profit can easily become a more attractive strategy for
the owners than maximizing true economic values. If so, the normal economics of maximizing
economic value is replaced by the topsy-turvy economics of maximizing current extractable
value , which tends to drive the firm's economic net worth deeply negative. Once owners
have decided that they can extract more from a firm by maximizing their present take, any
action that allows them to extract more currently will be attractive -- even if it causes a
large reduction in the true economic net worth of the firm).
The difference between the classic Akerlof/Romer notion of looting, where the owner
ssyphoned off funds and left the company so fragile that eventual bankruptcy was almost
inevitable, is that the evolution of Wall Street has produced a much broader class of
individuals who are treated as if they have claims on profit streams. That puts them in a
quasi-ownership position.
These "producers" are typically perceived to have enough control over a revenue stream as to
have leverage over the institution. That includes anyone who runs a profit center (and
remember, a profit center can be as small as one trader and a trading assistant), as well as
individuals on the more-team-oriented investment banking side of the house that have strong
enough client relationships that they could take some business with them (and perhaps other
members of their team) if they left. As we explained in ECONNED:
In the financial services industry version of looting, we instead have firms where
operational authority, is decentralized, vested in senior business managers, or "producers."
As a result of industry evolution and perceived competitive pressures, these producers, as a
result of formal incentives plus values held widely within the industry, focused solely on
producing the maximum amount possible in the current bonus period. The formal and informal
rewards system thus tallies exactly with the topsy-turvy scheme of " maximizing current
extractable value ."
This behavior in the past was positive, indeed highly productive, as long as it was
contained and channeled via tough-minded oversight, meaning top management who could properly
supervise the business. The main mechanisms are management reporting systems, risk
management, and personal understanding of and involvement in day-to-day operations, plus
external checks, such as regulations and criminal penalties. For a host of reasons, the
balance of power has shifted entirely toward the forces that encourage looting. And because
the damage that results cannot clearly be pinned on the top brass it is difficult to
ascertain from the outside whether the executives merely unwittingly enabled this process or
were active perpetrators.
Notice this excessive extraction that led to business failure took place even though these
firms had high levels of employee stock ownership. At Bear Stearns, members of the firm owned
roughly one-third of the shares. At Lehman, they held nearly 30%, and the average managing
director owned shares worth on average two times his annual take. Economic theory says that
share ownership by employees and managers should lead them to produce the best long-term
results for the enterprise. Yet those assumptions were shown to be flawed on Wall Street, as
they were with Enron, in which 62% of the 401(k) assets were invested in Enron stock, and
senior management also had significant share ownership.
Just as we have seen in Corporate America, using equity to align the interests of managers
and shareholders has produced the converse of what the theorists expected, a pathological
fixation on short-term results. On Wall Street, where the business model and rewards systems
already had an intrinsic propensity to emphasize the quick kill, widespread employee
ownership was an ineffective counter at best and more likely served to reinforce the fixation
on current performance, irrespective of the true cost of achieving it.
The very worst feature of looting version 2.0 is that it has created doomsday machines. In
the old construct, the CEO fraudsters would drain a business, let it fail, and move on. The
fact of bankruptcy assured that the trail of wreckage would catch up with them sooner or
later. But here, the firms, due to their perceived systemic importance, are not being
permitted to fail. So there are no postmortems, in particular criminal investigations, to
determine to what extent fraud, as opposed to mere greed and rampant stupidity, led to what
would otherwise have been their end.
Now mind you, these producers aren't the Ayn Randian rugged individualists that they often
envision themselves to be. Their success depends on institutional infrastructure: concentrated
capital and information flows, access to cheap leverage, risk control systems, a back office,
etc. Quite a few successful Goldman traders have flopped when trying to launch their own hedge
fund. John Meriwether, a storied Salomon trader, has presided over a series of hedge fund
failures in his later life, the most spectacular being LTCM. Former Goldman CEO Jon Corzine is
another high profile example of a supposedly successful trader and trading manager who came a
cropper when given more degrees of freedom at MF Global than at his former home.
But while these individuals' ability to succeed on a stand-alone basis or in different type
of firm is subject to question, they nevertheless hold their employers hostage. If they decamp
to a competitor, they not only take some (or a lot) of their revenues with them, but they can
damage the ability to be competitive in closely aligned businesses. Senior people cannot be
replaced quickly and each unit's activity is so specialized that employees from other area
can't pinch hit for the recently departed producer or team. And if the loss is significant
enough, competitors will poach on other business units, which in a worse case scenario can put
a firm in a downspiral.
And the worst is given the present structure of these firms, there is no simple way to curb
the leverage these staffers have over their employers. Again from ECONNED:
On paper, capital markets enterprises look like a great opportunity. The firms that are at
the nexus of global money flows participate in a very high level of transactions. Enough of
them are in complex products or not deeply liquid markets so as to allow firms to find ways
to uncover, in many cases create, and capture profit opportunities. New, typically
sophisticated products often provide particularly juicy returns to the intermediary. And in
theory, clever, adaptive, narrowly skilled staff can stay enough ahead of the game so that
the amount captured off this huge transaction flow is handsome.
Once again, however, the real world deviates in important respects from the fantasy. Why?
This business model is also a managerial nightmare.
We have a paradox: "success" and profitability in the investment banking context entails
giving broad discretion to individuals with highly specialized know-how. But the businesses
have outgrown the ability to monitor and manage these specialists effectively. The high
frequency, meaningful stakes, and large absolute number of decisions made at the operational
level, the geographic span of these firms, and the often imperfectly understood
interconnections among business risks make effective supervision well-nigh impossible.
What is intriguing about the ex-McKinsey partner's question is that even after reading
extensively about the crisis, he was unable to see the true locus of power in the financial
services industry. Yet the answer is obvious to anyone who has worked in or closely with major
capital markets firms.
And the conundrum we have outlined means the people who call for prosecutions of individuals
are exactly right. Punishing firms is ineffective. Firms are fluid; key players can and often
do move around. And the culpability for bad practices typically resides both at the producer
level (the manager immediately responsible for the unit in which the bad conduct took place)
and more senior management (which typically benefits directly from any ill-gotten profits, in
terms of their compensation levels, and needs to be held responsible, even if they were simply
derelict in duty, as opposed to actively complicit).
When the SEC was respected and feared, back in the stone ages of the 1970s, the capital
markets delivered far better value for society as a whole than they do now. But even though
financial services industry looters are the big winners in the capital markets casino, many
members of the 0.1% have been along for the ride. Until some of the uber-rich join the great
unwashed as victims of financial services industry looting, the house has nothing to worry
about.
"Consider this analogy: In a hypothetical casino card game the house takes 5% of every
pot. If 10% of the money at the table is on average played on each hand, then the house takes
0.5% of the money in the game on each rake. After 200 hands, 100% of the money that is on
average at the table has been taken by the house. The only way the game may continue is to
have new money come to it. The winners, of course, smell the new blood and even anticipate it
greedily. And the biggest winner over a time is always the house. Until the free market
ideologues took over, the biggest difference between a casino bank and finance was that the
gaming house took a bigger cut of the handle.
"The media have played up the CDS and futures gambling aspect of derivatives, in what they
call 'Casino Capitalism.' This distracts from the better casino analogy where the principal
players are the house that always wins. The fundamental function of the big hedge funds,
banks, brokerages, private equity firms [formerly venture capitalists] investors and
insurance companies is to take a cut of almost every transaction and enterprise through
interest on finance and profit on investment, banking, debt and credit card fees, etc. Even
if some of them did lose a little on the derivatives frenzy and didn't pass on their losses
– to we, the people, their victims, the all time losers – by virtue of the
bailout, the biggest just got bigger and only the suckers and small fry got hurt badly or
wiped out."
Good analogy. I see the casino as two camps: 1) Those getting commissions on trades; and
2) those supplying casino credit to players needing help through volitile periods. The house
loves volatility because it drives both of these mechanisms for paying the house.
Great post Yves. I was taken by this portion near the end:
When the SEC was respected and feared, back in the stone ages of the 1970s, the capital
markets delivered far better value for society as a whole than they do now. But even though
financial services industry looters are the big winners in the capital markets casino, many
members of the 0.1% have been along for the ride. Until some of the uber-rich join the great
unwashed as victims of financial services industry looting, the house has nothing to worry
about.
I had thought that this had indeed started to happen. The biggest example I can think of
is JP Morgan's dealings with Madoff's failed Ponzi scheme. And probing the recesses of my
memory and then searching the blog, I came up with these stories:
So it would seem that the 1%, dare I say, 0.1% and 0.01% are indeed being hit. But they
seem unable to align their material interests with better control over Wall St. Is that
because an relatively insignificant portion of the uber wealthy are being hit, or because
Wall St. is so deeply embedded in the bodies that should be regulating it?
Even among the super-rich, there is a collective action problem. I met with Blavatnik to
discuss the idea of broader noise-making about JP Morgan misconduct. He made clear he was not
interested in looking like an enemy of banks, that (among other things) as a buyer and seller
of companies, he needed them. He was receptive to the idea of narrower action but I concluded
the cost of doing it right was probably higher than made sense given the uncertain payoff.
But part of it also is that structurally, they are forced to go after the institution. They
can't single out the individuals who were the immediate perps (save for describing their role
in litigation).
And you also have the problem of denial. Blavanik was so clearly abused, in a way that
there was no basis for self-recriminatation that he was clear about taking action, which in
his case was suing. But a lot of people are really embarrassed about losing money or being
taken advantage of. So even if they might threaten litigation, they won't talk it up among
their peers to try to shift opinions and recruit allies.
So I'd hazard things have to get worse before the real economy types start to organize to
rein in Wall Street.
"But a lot of people are really embarrassed about losing money or being taken advantage
of. So even if they might threaten litigation, they won't talk it up among their peers to try
to shift opinions and recruit allies."
Very well said! This same psychology partly explains why, at the lower end of the
socio-economic spectrum, it is so difficult to get workers to go after even egregious cases
of wage theft. Plus, these workers rightly understand that, by taking action, they risk
gaining a "troublemaker" label that will make it very hard for them to keep earning their
daily bread.
I agree with Larry– this is a really great, great post of yours. I think I now have
to get your book and read it -- soon .
In reading through the fascinating observations, I was reminded of a saying which, in the
current context would run, "If you have to ask 'Who is the 'House' in this (gaming
operation)?' then it's clear that you and yours don't belong to it."
'Maximizing current extractable value tends to drive the firm's economic net worth
deeply negative.'
This is true in spades for governments. Lawrence Kotlikoff has estimated Usgov's negative
net worth at minus $200 trillion, or twelve years' worth of GDP.
For those at the top, looting is done indirectly by capitalizing on one's prestige and
power after leaving office. Those lifelong public servants, the Clintons, have raked in
nearly half a billion this way.
Meanwhile, our corpgov sponsors loot directly via federal expenditures. Our splendid new
war in Syria, voted yesterday, is looting in its purest form.
And certainly our healthcare system is organized around the principle of looting. Cui
bono? Well, the insurance companies, hospital groups and pharma companies. Who owns them? The
usual plutocrat suspects. Since they make the rules, it's hard to find a game that they
lose.
It seems to me that there is a sever disconnect between money and value delivered. The
whole system seems utterly broken because of the asynchronous nature of debt. You can make a
trick look like value by deferring the truth through debt.
"Money" has become too abstract and that we need to move back up the scale towards
bartering in order to re-assert the link between reward and value delivered.
"Investors who lost their life savings in convicted Texas financier R. Allen Stanford's $7
billion Ponzi scheme got their day in court today on the first day of the Supreme Court's
2013 term, but it was unclear whether their plea will pay dividends. Unable to recover their
investments from Stanford or his fraudulent entities, including a bank based in Antigua, the
plaintiffs filed class-action lawsuits in state and federal courts in Texas and Louisiana.
But a law passed by Congress in 1998 was intended to preclude such lawsuits and assert
federal jurisdiction. Faced with conflicting lower court rulings, the Supreme Court must
decide whether to side with the defrauded investors or the financial institutions, law firms
and insurance companies accused of aiding Stanford's scheme. The federal government, seeking
to protect the Securities and Exchange Commission's regulatory authority over security fraud
claims, is siding with the defendants." http://www.businessreport.com/section/tagged&tagID=1085&tag=Fraud
I think a lot of very wealthy fraud victims still believe that they have a chance of
recovering their losses through legal channels, not realizing how much the game has been
rigged to allow the fraudsters to operate with impunity. Perhaps more importantly, I think a
lot of wealthy investors are simply unaware of how they are being fleeced. They have very
diversified investments, usually managed by other people. They may feel mildly disappointed
that their returns are modest in what the media has told them is a historic bull market. Yet
as long as some parts of their portfolio do bring decent returns, the overall picture they
have of their finances is that of modest growth– so they shrug off the possibility that
they have been conned. No one likes to think of themselves as a mark. As long as they still
have enough money sloshing around to live in the style to which they're accustomed, why go
into all the ugly details?
You make some valid points about the wealthier investors and not wanting to believe that
they're a mark or a victim of some looter. That, plus they're probably connected by family or
societal ties to the looters, so they don't want to make waves. Making waves are for the
rabble, who'll lose anyway.
Unless or until the looting gets really egregious and/or enough of the very wealthy (upper
2% or 3% but not .1%) starting seeing their wealth dwindling, don't expect them to lift a
finger or make a stink.
The court cases against crooks like Madoff and Stanford may (have in the case of Madoff, I
believe) result in investors getting some of their money back, but I believe it ends up being
pennies on the dollar. Probably worse than the drubbing that investors took from the crash of
'08.
Believing that the USA regulatory, administrative and/or "justice" system will serve your
needs is what I like to call Magical Thinking. Ain't gonna happen. Most we rubes might get
is, as with Madoff's case, pennies on the dollar.
Great post and great question–the term "maximizing current extractable value" is a
terrific term that should be more generally used about all assets and call it "MCEV." Anyway
the term does open up vast horizons. As for who the "House" is I think it is not the key
managers and traders who seem to have the world by the short hairs but, instead, the imperial
apparatus that consists of a network of oligarchs around the world that make sure the crooked
game continues and this would include the crooked dealers; we have to remember that,
ultimately the ones who control the guns are always going to be the House.
Until some of the uber-rich join the great unwashed as victims of financial services
industry looting, the house has nothing to worry about.
-- -- --
It will happen but not on our schedule. Patience is a virtue.
I think there's a huge wall of cognitive dissonance and learned frames to overcome.
We have been trained to see the systems as orbits of institutions, and to assume there's
structures serving to keep them in line. Even when those break down, we still grant implicit
assumption that people work for institutions, not the other way around.
It remains invisible to most of the country that the system has evolved to legalize and
enable looting by sociopathic individuals on a massive-widespread-systematic-ongoing scale.
It's so simple, so pedestrian.. so un-American.
Yes. A must-read on that issue (the role of loose networks of individuals who play
multiple role, and how those alliances have come to dominate the power structure) is Janine
Wedel's The Shadow Elite.
First, largely I agree. It's important to highlight the role of individuals.
Second, the house doesn't win every single hand. It loses often, with very high variance.
In a way, that's part of the trick that keeps it from being obvious the house ultimately
always wins: because the house only wins on average.
So the TBTF institutions (qua institutions) can also act as the house, even if they had
lost the 2008 hand. Which, it should be noted, they didn't. "Absent the bailout, they would
have lost" almost misses the whole point.
The heads-I-win-tails-you-lose nature of the social guarantees and bailouts are
effectively an extremely valuable option. Whomever is getting those options for free is
acting analagous to the house.
I hate to break it to yee "New Deal "socialists but banking extraction is very much state
policy.
The state is the bank and the bank is the state.
We can easily see this as wealth is concentrated.
This is how it has worked since Tudor times.
The King is no longer divine and all that jazz.
The bank took its seat inside the Tabernacle.
And as they say the rest is history or was it the end of history ?
McMike un-American, or quintessentially American? Better yet, pandemic through history,
regardless of Empire? The hoorah Kool-Aid we get in our early years is strong stuff when we
cling to a false paradigm, such as , "American", it prevents us from moving into a new
paradigm and order. I mention how arcane our Constitution is to folks, how we can and should
re-tool for the 21st century and beyond, and folks recoil in horror. Is my concept, or their
reaction un-American? BTW, I can't imagine Chris Hedges, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Noam Chomsky
all in the same room hammering out a new Constitution. Why would they get the invite? Do we
have to abdicate our thinking to Proxy? Sure is easy to have little-and-declining hope these
days if one is paying even a bit of attention back to, Dancing with the Master Chefs! The
Kardashian-Jenners are guests!!
It is interesting how small a percentage of the citizenry is able to really remove the
Kool Aid induced veil over our eyes and really accept what this country is. I have friends
who have directed me NOT to discuss these "UnAmerican" issues with them ever again. They
simply will not countenance any discussion about how badly we are being ripped off by our
elected officials (and others, of course) in the District of Criminals. It doesn't matter how
some vote – not a partisan issue – it's the majority. Hooray for the Red, White
& Blue is, apparently, very compelling for the majority. Pass the clicker!
One of the better examples of short term extraction vs company future.
At Simmons, Bought, Drained and Sold, Then Sent to Bankruptcy
Oct 4, 2009 Left, the Simmons Bedding Company in early days. Right, Zalmon Its recent
history has been notable, too, but for a different reason. Simmons
Excellent post with a particularly concise description of the problem. I'm trying to
imagine how the system could have evolved to its current state without the repeal of
Glass-Steagall, but I can't. Your mention of Meriwether and Corzine makes my point. The
"managers" you refer to are able to create profit centers because of the discounted (and
subsidized) access to capital that TBTF banks receive from all of us. Left to fend for
themselves in the market for access to capital that us mere mortals conduct business, they
are no more than average.
The repeal of Glass Steagall was not the key event. Glass Steagall was a dead letter long
before it was repealed. Banks were already substantial participants in capital markets by
then. Credit Suisse (a bank) bought First Boston (a major investment bank and top bond
trader, of Salomon's stature) in 1988, 11 years before Glass Steagall was repealed.
If I had to single change that over time changed the industry most, it was the repeal in
1970 of the New York Stock Exchange rule that required all members to be partnerships.
For me, an outsider, the big change was the move on Wall Street, from the white shoe, golf
club leisure class to the Brooklyn hard scrabble, hungry guy. 1980s? 1970s?
The Brooklyn boys were eager, in a hurry, and had sharp elbows. This may be too broad but
– much of the damage done by The Street was perhaps done by such "boys," not the old
crowd of [HYP] Harvard-Yale-Princeton guys from top families.
If so, democratization of some industries doesn't always work.
The critical events began much earlier. Nixon closing the gold window and cementing the
special relationship with Saudi Arabia that tled the oil market to the dollar, giving the
largest banks access to essentially unlimited off shore deposits, as well as a magnificent
usury opportunity to plunder oil starved nations, activities which the Fed could not have
regulated if it wanted to. Money essentially ceased to exist as a store of value. Mega banks
could no longer be resolved, only bailed out. After 1973 only individuals and bit players
have been allowed to fail. As the amount of money in circulation mushroomed, it had nowhere
to go but transactions escalating asset values, particularly corporate asset values.
Successful looters gained control of the transaction machinery.
On the subject of the rich who lose money to looters, it is worth remembering that the
rich are not homogenous. There are the smart, amoral rich who will generally get richer and
there are also the dumb rich (sometimes the children of smart amoral rich) who the first
category regard as legitimate and extremely tempting prey. And as they are dumb, they
probably will never think or know how to do anything to redress their losses.
I came across some who clearly regarded it as a badge of honour to boast how much they had
lost through Madoff (presumably because it showed how much they had to lose initially). These
are the people who provide the basis for the (sometimes true) saying 'clogs to clogs in three
generations'.
I have been introduced to a new term – maximum company extractable value.
There seems to be no difference between the thoughts and actions of company leaders who know
the firm is going down.
The bailouts I don't think make much difference in their behavior, were the bailouts not
available.
I assume the thieves' notion of maximum extractable value means taking every cent out of what
is currently available.
Don Levit
"Maximum extractable value" -- savor the sounds here -- plenty of masculine consonants to
make the neurons stand up and tingle.
There must be an HBS course here. And certainly a B-school paper on the topic with plenty
of empiricals, especially gathered since the 2000s, the fertile times.
Also wealth here for a consulting practice built on this pillar. Impressive when a highly
paid young consultant throws it at you.
Your summary of the Akerlof and Romer paper sounds like an instruction manual for private
equity.
And as for who is the house? I remember flying into Las Vegas on Southwest Airlines one
day and after landing, the pilot came on and said "Welcome to Vegas! And for all of you
getting ready to gamble, please take a look out the right side of the plane. See those big,
gleaming, new fancy hotels? They weren't built with money from the winners."
I imagine if you take a similar plane ride into the Hamptons, you'll see equally
impressive mansions, and they also weren't built with money from the winners of the Wall St.
casino. So what's the difference? The hotels are owned by the casino corporations, while the
Hamptons mansions are owned by private individuals
These hotels were probably built with a little bit of money from the losers and a lot of
money from leverage IOW printed money from misallocation of capital if you believe that a
city based on gambling is a waste of resources and destructive to society over the mid to
long term.
The Finance and Bankster Offal, carefully backed up by "DogPatch-DC", who the ef* else!
Believing otherwise is like devoting fervent prayers to the Tooth Fairy! Apparently the rich
are often even dumber!
When the whole system has been so looted for so long – by decades of IBGYBG scam
artists – it is a dead man walking. It is time to change it. In a revolutionary
fashion. It might be good PR to throw the sleaziest traders in jail, but that isn't gonna
change anything fundamentally because fear of prosecution will just make the next gen
cleverer. A financial system that is uncorruptible seems like a fantasy though. When has
there ever been one? That very question could be the basis of new finance. Since nothing we
have tried so far has worked over the long run we need to look at the way human society
evolves and stay one step ahead of it – financially. Don't ask me how.
Do I hear a tune of desperation here -- "scam artists," "a dead man walking," "sleaziest
traders in jail", "fantasy"?
And change in "a revolutionary fashion"?
Actually, I don't think we've really explored economic alternatives here in the USA. Yeah,
some talked about socialism during the Real Depression. But mostly we've embroidered and
tinkered with our current set-up. So if we don't want socialism and capitalism is broken,
what's left?
Alternatives do exist to our current financial and economic systems. Unfortunately they
haven't received much in the way of PR, much less public discussion. For example, some here
have mentioned Gar Alperovitz.
But there are many other ideas. Maybe NakedCap can help spread these.
To some real extent, however, hasn't it always been a casino? In fact, the police who ran
the first stock traders off of Paris street corners understood this to be a fact, as did
those who rioted against them. At least, this is my recollection of. . . someone's account
(Henwood's? Maybe I picked this up in a lecture from Tom Weisskopf decades ago. . .) Would
love it if someone could point me to early accounts of these dealings because there would be
a lot to learn from them. . .
I think there's a tendency of reformist as opposed to structural analysts to posit this
perversion of something that was at one time good (the noble stock market has been turned
into a casino!). . . nah. Even the original notion of shared risk in the buying and selling
of shares is in no way a democratizing function, but a game for the one percent. (Of course,
it could be SOLD as such. . . )
"And the conundrum we have outlined means the people who call for prosecutions of
individuals are exactly right. Punishing firms is ineffective. Firms are fluid; key players
can and often do move around. And the culpability for bad practices typically resides both at
the producer level (the manager immediately responsible for the unit in which the bad conduct
took place) and more senior management (which typically benefits directly from any ill-gotten
profits, in terms of their compensation levels, and needs to be held responsible, even if
they were simply derelict in duty, as opposed to actively complicit)."
======================================================
So clearly put, so nicely explained. The American way – mistakes were made ..let's not
dwell in the past.
Seemed like a simple question with simple answer to me: The dealers are the house. Duh.
That's why they've been lobbying for this system for so long.
Agree that it's astounding that anyone who worked for McKinsey could be confused about
this issue.
You are of course right that there are certain individuals within the dealers who make the
most off of the system -- but something tells me you'd find the same basic phenomenon in the
casino business. "The house wins" doesn't mean that low-level employees of the house win, and
it doesn't mean that shareholders of the house win.
Came back to post something like this–the "house" is never as clear cut an entity in
gambling as it looks, either. Turns out the city fathers take their cut, local interests, the
Mafia has its hand in, the pols who cleared the way legally. . .
"... Bill threw away the Deplorables' jobs in NAFTA in search of the Globalist Utopian vision at the heart of the Establishment's indoctrination in the schools. ..."
"... Those who said farewell to Senator John McCain at the National Cathedral did not mentioned that he is as responsible as anyone for the forever wars that are causing the refugee influx that is tearing Europe apart ..."
"... I think it is very important to realize that the current mess in this country is largely a result of not reigning in the investment bankers as well as the country embarking on deadly and abusive wars against a large part of the non-western world. ..."
"... Where you and I differ is over Donald Trump. I do not believe for one minute that he gives a damn about the people that have been screwed so royally over the last thirty to forty years. He is just louder and more obnoxious than most. ..."
"... If there is a way out of this mess, I cannot see it. ..."
"... The banks make everything function. When there is a banking crisis they turn up the screws on the politicians and the politicians respond by bailing the banks out at the expense of the majority of the population. ..."
"... Second, they are pathetically easy for the establishment to manipulate. It is as simple as getting the nominally left faction of the establishment to have a woman stump for a policy using vaguely left wing terms and they will fall over themselves to support it. I've been told by these people that Russia must be violently opposed because Vladimir Putin is a homophobic, islamaphobic (!), racist right-winger. It's kind of amazing to see the political descendants of the hippies cheering on the prospect of a nuclear war because it would be a woman killing everyone in the name of LGBT rights. ..."
"... many of these deplorables embraced Bernie Sanders* (a Neo-Bolshevik?) and would welcome a return to an FDR style democratic party. ..."
"... Like was said 2 yrs ago, the dems would rather lose with Clinton than win with Sanders. And I include Pelosi, Schumer, you name it, in that bunch. ..."
"... As for Trump's base--I have always thought it erroneous to label that base as working men and women of below average education, etc. 90% of Trump voters supported Romney and 60% had a median income above the national average. ..."
"... The military, veterans, and various police agencies. States fail when they will no longer enforce the official line. That's usually happens when their own family members start showing up in the marches, barricades, protests, and such. ..."
We Americans were traditionally divided politically and culturally by region. There is still
some of that but the major fault lines are more fuzzy now.
1. The Establishment. This group was on parade during the McCain imperial procession across
the lands. The sight of the supposedly mutually opposed Republicans and Democrats hobnobbing,
backslapping, joking, hugging and passing around the bi-partisan mints while they waited for
the stiff to be wheeled in was revealing. The cavernous nave of the pseudo-Gothic church was a
perfect venue for this fête de joie. A window depicting Robert Lee looked down
on this vast space until recently. That has been taken down to maintain amity between the
Yankee and "Southern" wings of the establishment. The Episcopal Church of today has no use for
such as he. I wonder if the masses who support "the middle" understand how cruelly they are
deceived by the pretended mutual animosity of their "betters." The farce was on display last
week.
2. The Neo-Bolsheviks. These people have been gathering their strength in the schools since
the '60s. they have indoctrinated the young all this time with a hatred of capitalism, a
contempt for American tradition to include the Constitution and a desire to see the country
reduced to the status of Cambodia in the Year Zero. The spectacle of the disintegration of
Venezuela after decades of socialist tinkering means nothing to them. This time we will get it
right! This is their belief. Disillusioned communists told me all across what had been the
Warsaw Pact that Communism was never given a fair chance to prove itself. The American Bolsheviki think they will get it right this time if they attain power. The original Bolsheviks
seized power with how many members in the vanguard? 20,000? Tell me. The governments of New
York, California and New Jersey are all seeking to accommodate the Neo-Bolsheviks. How far will
they go? The Soviet Bolsheviks killed millions of Russian Kulaks and political enemies.
Remember that!
3. The Deplorables. This is essentially the "country party." They are the people who know
they are being dis-possessed. These are the people who know they are despised by both the
Establishment and the Neo-Bolsheviks and who are acutely aware that these other groups intend
to exterminate them as a group if not as individuals. The Clintons were the ultimate
Establishment people. Bill threw away the Deplorables' jobs in NAFTA in search of the Globalist
Utopian vision at the heart of the Establishment's indoctrination in the schools.
Ross Perot
was an amusing little freak? He spoke of a "great sucking sound" that would be heard as
Deplorable jobs followed cheap capital across the southern border?
The Deplorables do not think
he was funny at all. They elected Trump to give them hope and he has done that. They do not
want to be governed by Establishment figures like HC who detested them as obstacles so much
that she could not refrain from treating the miners with contempt to their faces. Bette Midler
said this week that the Establishmenters cannot fight the Deplorables because people like her
have no weapons but PBS tote bags. An interesting point.
There are a lot of splinter groups and factions. Tell me what they are. pl
Compared to the 60s there is much less social strife today. No riots on the streets, no
bombings by radical groups, no live fire shootings to quell protests in universities. So is
this the quiet before the storm?
What we see today is much more arm-chair fighting using keyboards on social media.
Frothing at the mouth pushing hashtags The extent of action is writing #MeToo and
#BringBackOurGirls. Can such somnambulant warriors cause a real war?
My observation is that over the last 30 years, there are a few big trends.
One, is PCness becoming more and more embedded causing increased censorship of
speech.
The second is rising "doublethink" and the Establishment melding into a true Ingsoc
with increasing governmental interference in all aspects of people's lives to benefit the
"party club".
The third, is the growth in "state capitalism", reflected in the increasing
financialization of the economy and the substitution of credit for capital. It's no
longer what's good for GM but what's good for Goldman Sachs. The Federal Reserve run by
the Ph.Ds on the "sophistry" standard as the primary lever.
The fourth trend is a slow moral decay among the elites as the powerful no longer feel
a sense of duty and honor. It is more important for them how they are perceived by the
"club". Invitations to gatherings such as Davos, Aspen, & the Google "camp".
Fifth, is increasing hopelessness among many segments reflected in the rising deaths
to opioids.
This post brought a smile of recognition to my face. I agree.
The media desperately ignores this issue. The current Western power structure is in
flux and is confusing.
Communism died when the Soviet Union fell. China, Cuba and Vietnam are
not workers' paradises. The hard left is impotent and in the lurch. The mild left and
liberals sold out to the Plutocrats. Republicans are crazy except for Corporatists who are
keeping their mouths shut and passing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
Those who
said farewell to Senator John McCain at the National Cathedral did not mentioned that he is
as responsible as anyone for the forever wars that are causing the refugee influx that is
tearing Europe apart.
Their donors are imposing austerity and poverty on to the people.
There
is no one championing the concerns of the Deplorables except the hard right. These Theocrats
are most likely to start carting off red shirted teachers, librarians, pot heads, agnostics,
unemployed and dissidents to work camps, once things fall apart.
I think it is very important to realize that the current mess in this country is largely a
result of not reigning in the investment bankers as well as the country embarking on deadly
and abusive wars against a large part of the non-western world.
As you rightly pointed out, both establishment parties are equally guilty of the worst
offensives against those who choose to live outside of the major metropolitan areas.
This country would be much better off if people were taught how the investment banking
system works and how it is regularly abused by the rich to make themselves richer. Of course,
that is not in the interest of the establishment leaders.
Where you and I differ is over Donald Trump. I do not believe for one minute that he gives
a damn about the people that have been screwed so royally over the last thirty to forty
years. He is just louder and more obnoxious than most.
If there is a way out of this mess, I cannot see it.
I am like you over seventy. I believe the old should be encouraged to disappear from
politics and only the young should be engaged in trying to save this country (as well as
themselves).
In my varied career I worked twice as an employee and three times as a consultant for
Standard & Poors Retail Brokerage Division. I also worked for the Bank of New York,
Government Clearance Division and did various consulting stints at Union Bank of Switzerland
and Manufacters Hanover.
All of these positions were in the technology field.
You would be amazed at what you can learn from the inside.
The banks make everything function. When there is a banking crisis they turn up the screws
on the politicians and the politicians respond by bailing the banks out at the expense of the
majority of the population.
Of course, the politicians know that they will be rewarded either directly or indirectly
by the bankers. Just think of all those millions they pay for speaking fees.
We are as united as Rome was near the end of their Empire when their idiot
establishment was convinced they could integrate a massive influx of tribes that loathed
their way of life. Same is occurring in Europe. History rhymes.
Rural vs City you touched on, gun owners vs gun banners, gender sanity vs gender
insanity, free traders vs keeping what's left of our manufacturing base, stockholders vs
deplorable's, open border chaos vs normal immigration patterns to the US, CNN& MSNBC
vs Rural, Decent healthcare vs nothing, establishment vs God, Democrat intense hate vs
Southern whites. I am a rural southern white who did consider myself independent,
however, the intense hate directed toward me and my southerners makes me hate them. So be
it.
Using your terminology, the places where I see the most serious factional divisions
are the Neo-Bolsheviks. There's a group one might call the "50 Staters" after Howard
Dean; they're people who want to re-orient the country in a more socialist direction
(Medicare for all, increased minimum wage, expanded union rights, generally expanded
intervention in the economy) and believe they can sell this as an electoral platform.
They hate the establishment, and are themselves hated like poison by much of the rest of
the Neo-Bolsheviks. The term "Bernie Bro" and "Brocialist" were thrown around a lot last
election by people who's platform is basically "destroy all power structures" without
thinking too hard about what it would mean should they have the power to do it. I've
classed them with the Neo-Bolsheviks due to geographic and cultural similarities, though
they may also be viewed as the left wing of the Deplorables. Personally, these are the
lot I'd say I'm the most similar too.
The remainder of the neo-Bolsheviks can largely be grouped according to what they
believe the source of all evil in the world is: Men; white people; the concept of gender
itself; and in fringe cases the idea that being overweight is unhealthy or other aspects
of reality they find inconvenient. Politically they're hamstrung by three things:
First, they can't really think about anything coherently. The only way they allow
themselves to process issues is deciding who the victim of men/white-people/etc... is in
a situation and deciding that this person must be in the right. If that leads to an
conclusion where the cognitive dissonance is too much to bear (most recently the Siraj
Wahhaj case), they then argue that the fact you're talking about it means "you're
racist/sexist/transphobic/*-phobic shut up". This naturally leads to things like someone
who believes that white-people are the source of all evil talking about how the groping
attacks in Germany were just 'white bodies being subjected to what they subject black
bodies too' (they love to use the word 'bodies' instead of 'people'). The people who
believe men are the source of all evil took some umbrage at this idea. This infighting is
constant.
Second, they are pathetically easy for the establishment to manipulate. It is as
simple as getting the nominally left faction of the establishment to have a woman stump
for a policy using vaguely left wing terms and they will fall over themselves to support
it. I've been told by these people that Russia must be violently opposed because Vladimir
Putin is a homophobic, islamaphobic (!), racist right-winger. It's kind of amazing to see
the political descendants of the hippies cheering on the prospect of a nuclear war
because it would be a woman killing everyone in the name of LGBT rights.
Third, every effective organizer and leader they may have just becomes part of the
establishment. Since these are typically female, gay, or non-white, they cannot
meaningfully be opposed no matter how obviously they betray the goals of the
neo-Bolsheviks. This happens to the deplorables as well, but they seem to be far more
aggressive in countering it. It's not a coincidence that the neo-Bolsheviks have never
really succeeded in any political project that the establishment doesn't find
acceptable.
I may well be downplaying their threat, but they do seem to have disadvantages that
the original versions lacked.
I'm not sure who you would lump in with the "Neo-Bolsheviks", but as someone living in
a semi-rural area of Iowa--deplorable central -- that voted democratic for decades and then
voted for Trump, many of these deplorables embraced Bernie Sanders* (a Neo-Bolshevik?)
and would welcome a return to an FDR style democratic party.
If for no other reason than to partake of the benefits afforded every other citizenry
in the western world such as universal healthcare, free or affordable college, etc.
Establishment Dems:
Imho, far from being supporters of progessive economic policy, most liberal dem
politicians defend the status quo as much as anyone and defer to their tech, insurance,
arms, and financial donors.
Like was said 2 yrs ago, the dems would rather lose with Clinton than win with
Sanders. And I include Pelosi, Schumer, you name it, in that bunch.
Trump's Base/Deplorables:
As you say, there are many more factions. Not all so-called deplorables are the same
politically of course.
As for Trump's base--I have always thought it erroneous to label that base as working
men and women of below average education, etc. 90% of Trump voters supported Romney and
60% had a median income above the national average.
While he is supported by disparate
groups, the largest of Trump's base is the vast suburban gop voters of many large US
cities. The Msm just doesn't want to acknowledge that Trump voters are also their well to
do neighbors. Trump carried Suffolk County/Hamptons in New York state.
The military, veterans, and various police agencies. States fail when they will no
longer enforce the official line. That's usually happens when their own family members
start showing up in the marches, barricades, protests, and such.
Loads of bright eyed youngsters have joined up over the last few decades thinking they
would be like Luke Skywalker only to find out they're being used as Imperial
Stormtroopers.
Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Vladimir
Putin, has gone on record with
The
Hill
's John Solomon - admitting to colluding with Americans
leading up to the 2016 US election, except it might not be what
you're thinking.
Deripaska, rumored to be Donald Trump's "
back
channel
" to Putin via the Russian's former association with Paul
Manafort, says he "colluded" with the
US
Government
between 2009 and 2016.
In 2009, when
Robert
Mueller was running the FBI
, the agency asked Deripaska to
spend $25 million of his own money to bankroll an FBI-supervised
operation to rescue a retired FBI agent - Robert Levinson, who was
kidnapped in 2007 while working on a 2007 CIA contract in Iran. This
in and of itself is more than a bit strange.
Deripaska agreed, however the Obama State Department, headed by
Hillary Clinton, scuttled a last-minute deal with Iran before
Levinson could be released. He hasn't been heard from since.
FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel
meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington
.
Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the
mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither
involve nor harm his homeland. -The Hill
In other words -
Trump's
alleged "back channel" to Putin was in fact an FBI asset
who
spent $25 million helping Obama's "scandal free" administration find
a kidnapped agent. Deripaska's admitted
Steele, Ohr and the 2016 US Election
Trending Articles
Earth's "Big Freeze" Looms As Sun Remains Devoid
Of
Scientists believe that Earth could experience a
"big freeze" as the sun goes through what's
known as "solar minimum."
As the
New
York Times
frames it, distancing Deripaska from the FBI (no
mention of the $25 million rescue effort, for example), the Russian
aluminum magnate was just one of several Putin-linked Oligarchs the
FBI tried to flip.
The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader,
clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining
cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia's richest men,
nearly
all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V.
Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said. -
NYT
Central to the recruiting effort were two central players in the
Trump-Russia investigation; twice-demoted DOJ #4 official
Bruce
Ohr and Christopher Steele
- the author of the largely
unverified "Steele Dossier."
Steele, a longtime associate of Ohr's, worked for Deripaska
beginning in 2012 researching a business rival - work which would
evolve to the point where the former British spy was interfacing
with the Obama administration on his behalf - resulting in Deripaska
regaining entry into the United States, where he visited numerous
times between 2009 and 2017.
The State Department tried to keep him from getting a U.S. visa
between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified
connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated
power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those
allegations...
Whatever the case,
it
is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska
regained entry to the United States
. And he visited
numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show. -
The
Hill
Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of
several
Russians sanctioned
in April in response to alleged 2016
election meddling.
In a September 2016 meeting,
Deripaska
told FBI agents that it was "preposterous" that Paul Manafort was
colluding with Russia to help Trump win the 2016 election
.
This, despite the fact that Deripaska and Manafort's business
relationship "ended in lawsuits, per
The
Hill
- and the Russian would have every reason to throw
Manafort under the bus if he wanted some revenge on his old
associate.
So the
FBI
and DOJ secretly collaborated with Trump's alleged backchannel over
a seven-year period
, starting with Levinson, then on
Deripaska's Visa, and finally regarding whether Paul Manafort was an
intermediary to Putin. Deripaska vehemently denies the assertion,
and even took out newspaper advertisements in the US last year
volunteering to testify to Congress, refuting an
AP
report
that he and Manafort secretly worked on a plan to
"greatly benefit the Putin government" a decade ago.
Soon after the advertisements ran, representatives for the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees called a Washington-based
lawyer for Mr. Deripaska, Adam Waldman, inquiring about taking
his client up on the offer to testify, Mr. Waldman said in an
interview.
What happened after that has been in dispute. Mr. Waldman, who
stopped working for Mr. Deripaska after the sanctions were
levied, said he told the committee staff that his client would
be willing to testify without any grant of immunity, but would
not testify about any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign
because "he doesn't know anything about that theory and actually
doesn't believe it occurred." -
NYT
In short, Deripaska wants it known that he worked with the FBI and
DOJ, and that he had nothing to do with the Steele dossier.
Today, Deripaska is banned anew from the United States, one of
several Russians sanctioned in April by the Trump administration
as a way to punish Putin for 2016 election meddling. But he
wants to be clear about a few things, according to a statement
provided by his team.
First,
he did collude with Americans in the form of voluntarily
assisting and meeting with the FBI, the DOJ and people such as
Ohr between 2009 and 2016.
He also wants Americans to know
he
did not cooperate or assist with Steele's dossier, and he tried
to dispel the FBI notion that Russia and the Trump campaign
colluded during the 2016 election
. -
The
Hill
Interestingly, Steele's dossier which was partially funded by the
Clinton campaign, relied on
senior
Kremlin officials
.
Meera Srinivasan interviews Eric Toussaint, April 18
2018
'Sooner or later, there will be a new financial crisis'
In the the tenth anniversary year of the 2008 financial
crash, debt remains an unsolved problem – not just for
debtors, but for creditors – and is driving the
political and social crises racking the world's
hotspots. Bubbles in the financial markets foretell an
imminent financial crisis that would likely be stronger
and more dangerous than in the past, according to Eric
Toussaint, historian, political scientist and a
spokesman of the Committee for the Abolition of
Illegitimate Debt (CADTM). In this interview with The
Hindu,
Mr. Toussaint, who was in Sri Lanka for a
regional seminar on debt, spoke on the risks of banks
engaging in speculative activities.
Charging regulatory authorities of being "very lenient" with the banks,
he said that governments and regulatory authorities were supposed to
moralise the banking system, separate commercial banks from investment
banks, end exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and finally finance the real
economy. "Instead all we have had is a long list of misappropriations
that have been brought to light by a series of bank failures and big
scams."
The CADTM is an international network of activists working on
cancellation of illegitimate debt. Based in Belgium and Morocco, its
activists work on developing alternatives to help communities tackle the
pile up of debt, with particular focus on the global south. Mr.
Toussaint's book 'Bankocracy', published in 2015, drew global attention
for its analysis of the role of banks and governments in enlarging
public debt.
Now, he warns of a "new crisis", consequent to a series of misjudgements
in policy in recent years.
Central banks -- the U.S. Federal reserve, the European Central Bank, the
Bank of England, the Bank of Japan -- implemented a policy of
Quantitative Easing, injecting a lot of liquidity into banks, and buying
"very toxic" products like mortgage-backed securities and asset
backed-securities.
While the central banks bought such products, giving banks "a lot of
money" in return, the banks did not lend it to producers or households.
Instead, they used it for further speculative activities leading to "a
new bubble" in stock markets for about four years.
"It is absolutely evident that the capitalisation of the stock exchange
is totally exaggerated, that it does not correspond with the real value
of the assets of the big corporations. Sooner or later, there will be a
new financial crisis," he said.
Private debt
There is also a big concern with the private debt of big financial and
non-financial corporations, with their indebtedness increasing
tremendously in recent years. "There is a new bubble in this segment of
the financial market and that is another possibility of crisis."
On the banking sector crisis in India and the demand from sections for
its further privatisation, Mr. Toussaint said the problem does not come
from the public character of the banks, but from them having adopted a
behaviour similar to the private sector's.
"The public banking sector, like the private banking sector, is in
favour of secrecy and doesn't want to be controlled. The challenge for
us is to improve and to materialise the public character of the banking
sector -- and in the case of India, to defend the public banking sector,
but to change it profoundly."
'Socialisation of banks'
Mr. Toussaint advocated the "socialisation of the banks" where citizens,
the banks' employees and local authorities control the activities of
banks. "The public banks should intervene in the local economy and help
it develop and coincide with the needs of the people."
On microcredit and its presence in Latin America, Africa and Asia, he
said there was a huge propaganda campaign and very strong institutional
support -- right from the World Bank to most national governments -- to
microfinance.
From his research, he found that there were more than 120 million
borrowers of microcredit loans, 81% of whom were women.
"My visit has showed me how fast the microcredit industry developed its
activity in the country after the end of the war in 2009 and how brutal
it could be – it is impossible for people to repay a debt if they should
pay 40% to 60% interest rates."
Excerpts from the interview:
In your book Bankocracy, published in 2015, you talk about how
governments and banks across the world are colluding to dramatically
increase public debt. How do you view the crisis now?
First, it is very clear that the big banks in the US, North America,
Western Europe did not clean their assets. They were supposed to clean
their balance sheets reducing toxic products they hold, to reduce
non-performing loans, to increase the ratio between their equities and
their overall assets. In reality, they did not take the necessary
decisions to do that and to stop very dangerous and speculative
activity. Regulatory authorities were supposed to strengthen their
control on the banks, but we saw in the last two years that they are
very lenient with the banks. Governments and regulatory authorities were
supposed to moralise the banking system, separate commercial banks from
investment banks, end exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and finally
finance the real economy. Instead of a moralising of the banking system,
all we have had is a long list of misappropriations that have been
brought to light by a series of bank failures and big scams.
During Obama's Presidency, the US Congress adopted a law – the
Dodd-Frank Act to strengthen the regulation and control on the US banks.
And now Trump is dismantling it and eliminating the few policies and
regulatory measures taken in the name of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Second, the central banks – the US Federal reserve, the European Central
Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan – implemented a policy of
Quantitative Easing: it consists of injecting a lot of liquidity into
the banks, buying very toxic products like MBS (mortgage-backed
securities) and ABS (asset backed-securities). The central banks bought
these products from the banks and gave them a lot of money in exchange.
But these banks did not use it to lend money to producers – small or
middle level producers or households. They are using this money to
increase speculative activities – for instance, to buy back their own
shares in the stock exchange. This has led to the development of a new
bubble in the stock exchanges for around four years. There is a real
risk of a new stock market crash in the near future. It is difficult to
predict when this will happen, but it is absolutely evident that the
capitalisation of the stock exchange is totally exaggerated, that it
does not correspond with the real value of the assets of the big
corporations. Sooner or later, there will be a new financial crisis.
There is also a big concern with the private debt of the big financial
and non-financial corporations. The debt of these corporations increased
tremendously in the recent years, so there is another bubble in the
segment of corporate bond markets. These bonds are issued by big
corporations to borrow money on a long term basis.
There is a new bubble in this segment of the financial market and that
is another possibility of crisis. The previous big crash on the bond
market happened in 1987. In the future, we will probably have a crisis
in this sector which will be stronger and more dangerous than what
happened then.
Coming to the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM)
and the work you have been doing. You say that a lot of existing debt is
illegitimate debt, taking into account where the funds go, whether it is
used for the majority of the population's requirements. When we take the
question of debt, internationally or nationally, governments or banks
are seldom willing to share information, it is at times guarded with
secrecy legislation. They are not very transparent about where the money
goes In India, it is only after the Right To Information Act in 2005
that citizens are able to demand some information. How do we get a real
sense of this illegitimate debt?
There are many instruments to get the information, even though it is
clear that the banks and the public authorities try to avoid disclosure
of such details. Nevertheless, you can find a lot of data on the
internet. The problem is to correctly interpret the information given on
the websites of the Central Banks. We can also use the information given
by the research departments of several big banks, investment firms and
auditing firms like KPMG, PwC, etc. The challenge is to convince more
and more citizens of the necessity of trying to understand how debt is
used for which purpose, at which interest rates, who exactly receives
the money, what were the conditionalities imposed by multilateral
institutions like the World Bank, ADB, IMF. It is important to analyse
these contracts and the conditions imposed by the creditors, and to
understand the real sense of the policy implemented by the governments.
They can say: "We are borrowing money for that purpose", when in reality
they use it for another purpose. As CADTM members, our challenge is to
help the citizens trying to question the accumulation of debt in order
to reach a conclusion about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of debt.
For instance, in collaboration with the President in the Greek
parliament, the CADTM coordinated the truth committee on public debt in
Greece. The CADTM has an international network, published a manual for
the citizen to audit the debt, participated in the audit of debt in
Ecuador in 2007-08, and then in Paraguay in 2008. In Spain, we work with
new political forces coming from citizen mobilisations like the
anti-austerity movement organised around public squares in 2011. After
they defeated the traditional parties in many municipal elections, these
forces are willing to enforce citizen debt audits. Despite the
willingness of these new political forces, we are convinced that this
objective can only be implemented under the pressure of popular
movements – this is the meaning of our work there.
The massive level of public debt reduces the capacity of public
authorities to guarantee to citizens the satisfaction of human rights at
the level of education, health, security, jobs. Therefore, tackling the
problem of the huge amounts of public money used to pay back the debt is
vital if we want to free major parts of the budget to satisfy the needs
of the people.
You are saying that huge amounts of public debt weaken public
institutions, governance etc. Could you talk a bit about the possible
political fallout to this trend? In the last few years, in many parts of
Europe and elsewhere, we see ultra nationalist forces gaining more
political ground. Is there a link between the financial crisis, the
weakening of public institutions due to mounting debt and the rise of
the ultra-right?
Yes, it is clear that there is a link. At the same time, I am not sure
that the general trend is always in favour of right wing policy. It
depends on the situation. In Europe and in North America it is clear
that the majority of the citizens are not satisfied with the traditional
parties.
Right-wing parties succeed in gathering popular support denouncing the
[current economic] situation and proposing nationalist, chauvinist,
racist, anti-migrant policies. But at the same time, when real
progressive forces try to explain to the citizens another alternative
they can gather important support. An example of that is Jeremy Corbyn's
campaign in Britain last year. The Tories precipitated the elections
thinking that they would have a victory one year after Brexit. As a
militant on the left of the Labour Party, Corbyn proposed a radical
policy of nationalisation of the railways, of the postal services, of
finding a solution to the problem of student debt, of the debt of
municipalities and defending an anti-racist, internationalist position.
The votes in favour of the Labour Party increased and he won 30 seats in
the parliament while Theresa May lost 13 seats! Now the Left is gaining
space in Britain and right-wing parties are not.
In the US, the situation was contradictory. If the Democratic Party had
decided to support Bernie Sanders as a presidential candidate, it would
have won the election against Trump. In the eyes of the people, Hilary
Clinton represented the establishment. Trump represented a possibility
of change and Sanders too – if Sanders had been selected by the
Democratic party he would surely have been victorious, given that
Sanders's engagement in favour of the people is clearly more authentic
than Trump's theatrical gesticulations.
It is clear that so-called right-wing populist campaigns are gaining
space because of the scandalous evolution of finance and the influence
of the big corporations and bankers on the traditional parties. But the
situation is not so much in favour of the right when the left is capable
of presenting another perspective. Then, the left really has the
possibility to be victorious.
In the wake of the banking sector crisis in India – marked by huge scams
to the tune of billions of dollars – many economists, policy makers
argue that there has never been a better time for further privatisation
of the banking sector. Do you think that would work?
The real problem is that the current public banks are not
really acting in favour of the majority of the population. The problem
does not come from the public character of these banks, but from them
having adopted a behaviour similar to the private sector's. They are not
taking the responsibility of service to the public upon themselves. And
there is a lack of citizen control on the public banking sector. The
public banking sector, like the private banking sector, is in favour of
secrecy and doesn't want to be controlled. The challenge for us is to
improve and to materialise the public character of the banking sector –
and in the case of India, to defend the public banking sector, but to
change it profoundly. It should stop speculative activities and
clientelism and it should give loans to households, to municipal
authorities for useful projects to improve the economy and living
conditions of the population. I am advocating the socialisation of the
banks. It means that the citizens, the banks' employees and the local
authorities should control the activities of the banks. The public banks
should intervene in the local economy and help it develop and coincide
with the needs of the people.
In Sri Lanka there is an increased awareness about microcredit and
indebtedness. Is this a trend in the global south? It seems prevalent in
South Asia.
Microcredit is extending its activities in Latin America, in Africa, in
Asia, everywhere in the global south. There is a huge propaganda
campaign and very strong institutional support – right from the World
Bank to most national governments -- to microfinance, which is depicted
as the solution for the poor through their connection to the market. Big
private banks are more and more involved in microfinance. We can really
speak of an industry of microcredit. It is internationally developed,
supported and organised. You have now more than 120 million borrowers of
microcredit loans in the world and 81 per cent are women.
But why is it more widespread in the global south, almost as if it
targeted these countries that have aspirations for development?
On the global scale, two billion adults don't have yet a bank account,
and most of them live in the global south. Microfinance aims to connect
these adults to the financial markets. Microcredit is the link to
connect them to the globalisation of the economy. It is a tool to
incorporate them fully to the capitalist system or the mercantile
system.
When we spoke about the rise of the ultra-right, you said it was
possible for progressive forces to present an alternative. You have also
said earlier that there is a need for working class movements and trade
unions to widen their struggle to incorporate questions on indebtedness.
Yes! We on the left decayed since Thatcher and Reagan came to power in
the beginning of the 1980s. There has been a general offensive of big
capital against social rights. The traditional working class has been
affected. More and more workers or employees have a very precarious job.
The sector of the working class which is in the formal sector is a
minority in most the of countries – you know it in India. This trend is
also true in countries like the USA and a majority of countries in
Europe – precarious, part-time jobs increase. More and more people are
indebted, because the wages are going down. To maintain the possibility
of consumption, more and more people get indebted.
It was very clear, for instance in the US, with the subprime crisis.
After the explosion of the subprime crisis in 2006-2007, 14 million
indebted families in the US were evicted from their homes.
My visit to Sri Lanka has showed me how fast the microcredit industry
developed its activity in the country after the end of the war in 2009
and how brutal it could be – it is impossible for people to repay a debt
if they should pay 40 to 60 percent interest rates. Giving micro loans
at this rate is creating a condition of over-indebtedness. People have
to take more microcredit loans to pay back previous ones. It is a
vicious cycle which causes tremendous problems for the victims of this
situation, a majority of whom are women. It is incredible to listen to
the testimonies – women telling us that microfinance agencies are giving
loans to people who have no earning. It is impossible to repay a debt
without any earning, so they will lose the few assets they can have – if
they have a house, a small land where they cultivate vegetables, they
will lose them to pay back the debt.
Both in the global north and in the global south, the challenge for the
workers' movements is to take into account the question of private debt
of the households, because it is more complicated to participate in
social movements and in strikes for people who are under enormous
pressure because they need to repay their debt.
This war is tremendous waste of resources on both sides with no clear
victory in sight. Killing of individual commanders does not change the
strategic situation. It just invites retaliation.
Although the war did increase the coherence of the Ukrainian society
(like any war does) the price is way too high.
Zakharchenko was a soldier and knew the risks, many others are ready to take his
place.
VV Putin could have occupied the whole so-called ukraine in the same manner he occupied
Crimea, even better, he could've sent volunteers to shoot CIA and Mossad agents during the
maidan events.Lots of volunteers.
He didnt.
Please consider that ukraine project is an infinite black hole sucking money and resources
(agents, weapons, influence) from the Hegemon, at the same time bringing him absolutely
nothing.
Especially the Debaltsevo cauldron was painful, as lots of modern artillery control gear
was lost in pristine state and sent directly to Moscow.Without considering the humiliation of
German and Canadian mercenaries being caught and released for indeterminate price.
In exchange the Hegemon learned that Russian artillery is still as dangerous as in '45, at
Saur Mogila whole battalions of Ukrainian army disappeared literally in minutes when caught
by Buratino fire.
Perhaps some remember the shellshocked Ukrainian infantry lieutenant, when interviewed by
CNN freshly out of Ilovaisk, screaming into the mic that *two meters, you must dig two
meters, or you die!* , well-intentioned American female reporter decidedly confused.
The show will go on until Hegemon decides that he had enough, and gives green light to the
ukrainian army to coup the govt, exterminate the nazi battalions, and begin a very slow and
painful ascension back into a semblance of normality first, then re-unification with the
Motherland next.
As usual, the most vulnerable, old people, women, workers will suffer the most, and the
guilty will go unpunished.
Not Pepe's best sauce, but always worth a read. He's best when he's reporting from the
field. His armchair geopolitics aren't that much better than anyone else's.
That said, Eurasian integration, Western Hemispheric energy independence, the populist
revolt against forced globalization/sovereignty elimination/kleptocracy and the outbreak of
global peace are all changing the chessboard profoundly. Most of the premises of traditional
imperialist power politics are simply blown away. Instead, a new 'Chinese Peace with Russian
Muscle' is the de facto hegemony in the vast bulk of the world, including parts of South
American and most of Africa. With the Brits and French too slow and stupid to react, the
Germans as weaselly and venal as ever, and the Japanese comatose, the hulk known as the G7 is
heeling over into full capsize mode. And, good riddance.
Now the G20 has to either stand up or collapse. Much depends on which outcome
develops.
However it works out, we can all stand and cheer that it is not a US dependent historical
course any more. We've ceded our moral and military leadership. Perhaps we can reform, even
if by bloody revolution, and re-emerge with something to give the rest of the world. Free
markets, liberty, democracy, freedom of thought......the future is now really a question of
whether any of these ideas will have a chance in a remade global order dominated, so far, by
dictatorship, corruption, and moral crime.
So, we tend to our own house now. Anyone got a pack of matches?
** We've ceded our moral and military leadership **
Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Benghazi, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Georgia, NATO expansion, the
Clintoons, the Bush dynasty of mediocrity, our open border, offshoring, Muslim ass kissing,
free-ranging Antifa filth, media monopoly and lies, foreigners taking university slots,
sexual confusion, ass kissing homosexuals, groveling before bat shit crazy feminists,
destruction of our basic legal document through judicial usurpation, diseased leftists
spouting lies and delusion, excusing black dysfunction, fiscal incontinence, unaddressd
monopolies, attacks on free speech, criminal immunity for elites, a president who won't
exercise his authority and tolerates insubordination, an unaccountable bureaucracy, a loose
cannon prosecutor, Jewish political domination, slobbering over Israel as though Jerusalem is
our capitol not Washington, denigration of the white majority culture, celebration of
miscegenation, degradation of marriage, our diseased educational establishment, rampant vote
fraud, illegal and unconstitutional wars, chest beating about "exceptionalism," and a
generally crap culture all say you're right.
There will be no sudden and dramatic collapse. There will only be a slow, painful,
never-ending, degrading decay into nothingness, a death from one million pundits, a process
readily apparent (literally) all around us. Tune in to CNN, see for yourself.
I see your point, but I am not convinced bankers work independently. Bankers do not have a
monopoly on psychotics. The psychotics in gov have as much greed and craving for power as the
bankers and I believe they work around, with, and against each other for various reasons just
like everything else in the world works. Thus a one dimensional theory will not be complete -
and maybe that is what you are arguing: to include bankers in geopolitics. I agree the
bankers are a big part of the rotten problem but like when I am overseas - I watch the guys
with the guns.
Most of the planet has put up with a lot of shit from America It's good that it's finally
coming to an end.
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population... Our real task
in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain
this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we
will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming, and our attention will have to
be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive
ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction... We should
cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the
living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to
deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the
better."
George Kennan, State Department memo, 1948
America never gave up on the idealistic slogans -- the figleaf for the Empire of Chaos.
Finally shutting the fuck up after the game is over will be welcome.
"... No wonder one of the side effects of progressive Eurasia integration will be not only a death blow to Bretton Woods but also to "democratic" neoliberalism. ..."
Alastair Crooke took a great
shot at deconstructing why Western global elites are terrified of the Russian
conceptualization of Eurasia.
It's because "they 'scent' a stealth reversion to the old, pre-Socratic values: for the
Ancients the very notion of 'man', in that way, did not exist. There were only men: Greeks,
Romans, barbarians, Syrians, and so on. This stands in obvious opposition to universal,
cosmopolitan 'man'."
So it's Heraclitus versus Voltaire – even as "humanism" as we inherited it from the
Enlightenment, is de facto over.
Whatever is left roaming our wilderness of mirrors depends on
the irascible mood swings of the Goddess of the Market.
No wonder one of the side effects of
progressive Eurasia integration will be not only a death blow to Bretton Woods but also to
"democratic" neoliberalism.
What we have now is also a remastered version of sea power versus land powers. Relentless
Russophobia is paired with supreme fear of a Russia-Germany rapprochement – as Bismarck
wanted, and as Putin
and Merkel recently hinted at. The supreme nightmare for the U.S. is in fact a truly
Eurasian Beijing-Berlin-Moscow partnership.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has not even begun; according to the official Beijing
timetable, we're still in the planning phase. Implementation starts next year. The horizon is
2039.
To those who say Statements 1 and 3 in B's post reflect or demonstrate reality: don't
confuse bullying with strength.
The statements are expressions of Social Darwinism in its various forms. Social Darwinism
represents a particular belief system that justifies the existence of an elite dominating
society and culture, so as to ensure its (that is, the elite's) continued survival and
domination.
Needless to say, Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara are under police investigation in
Israel for corruption. Sara N apparently is also notorious for ill-treating her staff and
throwing her weight around to impress and intimidate others.
Is this sort of behaviour - stealing from the nation, bullying others - the behaviour of
those who are strong and secure in their power?
-----
Even the Mongols, though they brought destruction, extermination and ruin everywhere they
went, did eventually bring order and stability, and revived trade and civilisation. They
themselves became civilised by the peoples they conquered. In the end, they were undone by
their own internal family squabbles and competition. They were not so strong as they first
seemed.
It's not enough to be "strong" in a military sense - what a nation's leadership does with
its power is as important as acquiring and having that power in the first place.
On the "blue" side of things, mendacity rules as usual lately, especially in
the Deep State septic abscess that the Russia probe has become.
Department
of Justice official Bruce Ohr, twice demoted but still on the payroll, went
into a closed congressional hearing and apparently threw everybody but his
mother under the bus, laying out an evidence trail of stupendous, flagrant
corruption in that perfidious scheme to un-do the election results of 2016.
Most amazingly, it was revealed that Mr. Ohr had not been called to testify
by special counsel Robert Mueller nor by the federal prosecutor John Huber,
who is charged with investigating the FBI / DOJ irregularities surrounding
the Russia probe.
It is amazing because Mr. Ohr is precisely the
pivotal figure in what now looks like an obvious conspiracy to politically weaponize the agencies against the Golden Golem.
An
awful lot of people have some 'splainin' to do on that one, starting with
the Attorney General and his deputy. Who will put it to them?
Kunstler sums it all up colorfully and correctly. If America is
to survive we need to take the money out of politics but fat
chance of that. In ancient Athens and in Rome's early republic
period, positions in government were given to men respected by
their peers and known to be honest and fair. Look at our
Congress. Look at the lowlife presidents of the last 25 years. A
sex degenerate, a brain-damaged alcoholic, a jive dancing
homosexual. And they lionize McCain as a great man. He actually
plans his own funeral with multiple venues and has presidents
kissing his ass even in death and all for anti-Trump
showmanship. This doesn't look like a nation on the way up to
me.
Ancient Athens and Rome faced the same problem - complete political
corruption - their leaders were chosen on the basis of their wealth
and property - indeed, if you weren't a property holder, you usually
weren't even a citizen. And their personal lives back then were
just as perverted, if not more so than our politicians and captains
of industry today.
Baron, if you are right,
historians (if there are any), will one day compare
Rome's emperors from Caligula to Nero
to recent US presidents.
History repeats, first as tragedy, then as farce
. - K. Marx
He seems to be saying that the real Fed chairman is an algo on
steroids, and while elites know it, they will not admit it,
publicly, whereas the serfs still blame things like offshoring
of jobs and displacement from jobs by illegal aliens with
welfare-hoisted wages, hence their attendance at MAGA rallies, not
that Trump has succeeded in motivating the congressional swamp to do
anything about this. He also seems to be saying that, when it hits
the fan, underemployed serfs will win something, but will blame
elites despite their winnings. If the post-collapse "winnings"
are anything like other economic upsides for serfs, they better not
blink, or they will miss all the good stuff. It will be a lot like
that imperceptible payroll tax cut that Obama's stimulus provided to
most non-welfare-eligible serfs, living on earned-only income, or
what most serfs got out of the Trump tax cuts: a
Costco-membership-sized lift to their monthly paychecks, which
are half consumed by rent alone.
"... I was not sure whether Trump was controlled opposition or simply a useful scapegoat for the economic crisis that globalists are clearly engineering. Now it appears that he is both. ..."
"... Many businessmen end up dealing with elitist controlled banks at some point in their careers. But when Trump entered office and proceeded to load his cabinet with ghouls from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Council on Foreign Relations and give Wilber Ross the position of Commerce Secretary, it became obvious that Trump is in fact a puppet for the banks. ..."
"... If one examines the history of fake coups, there is ALWAYS an element of orchestrated division, sometimes between the globalists and their own puppets. This is called 4th Generation warfare, in which almost all divisions are an illusion and the real target is the public psyche. ..."
"... the overall picture is not as simple as "Left vs. Right." Instead, we need to look at the situation more like a chess board, and above that chess board looms the globalists, attempting to control all the necessary pieces on BOTH sides. Every provocation by leftists is designed to elicit a predictable response from conservatives to the point that we become whatever the globalists want us to become. ..."
"... Therefore it is not leftists that present the greatest threat to individual liberty, but the globalist influenced Trump administration. A failed coup on the part of the left could be used as a rationale for incremental and unconstitutional "safeguards." And conservatives may be fooled into supporting these measures as the threat is overblown. ..."
At that time I was certain that the globalists would find great use for a Trump presidency,
more so in fact than a Clinton presidency. However, I was not sure whether Trump was controlled
opposition or simply a useful scapegoat for the economic crisis that globalists are clearly
engineering. Now it appears that he is both.
Trump's history was already suspicious. He was bailed out of his considerable debts
surrounding his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in the early 1990s by
Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross , which saved him from embarrassment and
possibly saved his entire fortune . This alone was not necessarily enough to deny Trump the
benefit of the doubt in my view.
Many businessmen end up dealing with elitist controlled banks at some point in their
careers. But when Trump entered office and proceeded to load his cabinet with ghouls from
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Council on Foreign Relations and give Wilber Ross the position of
Commerce Secretary, it became obvious that Trump is in fact a puppet for the banks.
Some liberty movement activists ignore this reality and attempt to argue around the facts of
Trump's associations. "What about all the media opposition to Trump? Doesn't this indicate he's
not controlled?" they say. I say, not really.
If one examines the history of fake coups, there is ALWAYS an element of orchestrated
division, sometimes between the globalists and their own puppets. This is called 4th Generation
warfare, in which almost all divisions are an illusion and the real target is the public
psyche.
This is not to say that leftist opposition to Trump and conservatives is not real. It
absolutely is. The left has gone off the ideological deep end into an abyss of rabid frothing
insanity, but the overall picture is not as simple as "Left vs. Right." Instead, we need to
look at the situation more like a chess board, and above that chess board looms the globalists,
attempting to control all the necessary pieces on BOTH sides. Every provocation by leftists is
designed to elicit a predictable response from conservatives to the point that we become
whatever the globalists want us to become.
... ... ...
As this is taking place, conservatives are growing more sensitive to the notion of a leftist
coup, from silencing of conservative voices to an impeachment of Trump based on fraudulent
ideas of "Russian collusion."
To be clear, the extreme left has no regard for individual liberties or constitutional law.
They use the Constitution when it suits them, then try to tear it down when it doesn't suit
them. However, the far-left is also a paper tiger; it is not a true threat to conservative
values because its membership marginal, it is weak, immature and irrational. Their only power
resides in their influence within the mainstream media, but with the MSM fading in the face of
the alternative media, their social influence is limited. It is perhaps enough to organize a
"coup," but it would inevitably be a failed coup.
Therefore it is not leftists that present the greatest threat to individual liberty, but the
globalist influenced Trump administration. A failed coup on the part of the left could be used
as a rationale for incremental and unconstitutional "safeguards." And conservatives may be
fooled into supporting these measures as the threat is overblown.
I have always said that the only people that can destroy conservative principles are
conservatives. Conservatives diminish their own principles every time they abandon their
conscience and become exactly like the monsters they hope to defeat. And make no mistake, the
globalists are well aware of this strategy.
Carroll Quigley, a pro-globalist professor and the author of Tragedy and Hope, a book
published decades ago which outlined the plan for a one world economic and political system, is
quoted in his address ' Dissent: Do We Need It
':
"They say, "The Congress is corrupt." I ask them, "What do you know about the Congress? Do
you know your own Congressman's name?" Usually they don't. It's almost a reflex with them,
like seeing a fascist pig in a policeman. To them, all Congressmen are crooks. I tell them
they must spend a lot of time learning the American political system and how it functions,
and then work within the system. But most of them just won't buy that. They insist the system
is totally corrupt. I insist that the system, the establishment, whatever you call it, is so
balanced by diverse forces that very slight pressures can produce perceptible results.
For example, I've talked about the lower middle class as the backbone of fascism in the
future. I think this may happen. The party members of the Nazi Party in Germany were
consistently lower middle class. I think that the right-wing movements in this country are
pretty generally in this group."
Is a "failed coup" being staged in order to influence conservatives to become the very
"fascists" the left accuses us of being? The continuing narrative certainly suggests that this
is the game plan.
* * *
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"... For dessert today, I offer Russia's Grand Strategy Revisited published on the 24th. The Outlaw US Empire is in the midst of a Seldon Crisis but lacks the means to even recognize the spectacular mess its made for itself, much of which is quite visibly articulated in its NDS I linked to above. ..."
"... By every metric I've observed, the USA's citizenry from all political POVs wants a return to Reality for that's the only basis from which to address and solve the many domestic problems. ..."
Too Funny!
Trump whines, threatens pullout from WTO again! After decades of bullying
nations and impoverishing their people, other nations are using the Outlaw
US Empire's WTO as a weapon against it, so Trump cries Unfair! As I wrote
above, Big Money's trapped within its own web.
The "Softies" are yet another entity in the Smoke & Mirrors Fun House
designed to fool and gain citizenry's consent to be robbed blind.
Russians already went through that and are very wary as illustrated by
the very sensitive nature of the recent
Pension System Reform Debate and legislation that Putin had to solve
using his political capital.
As with all politicians, you won't know what you elected until you learn
how your rep votes issues, although some can be anticipated by examining
their past behavior as with our pseudo Democrat-Socialist.
For dessert today, I offer Russia's
Grand Strategy Revisited published on the 24th. The Outlaw US
Empire is in the midst of a Seldon Crisis but lacks the means to even recognize
the spectacular mess its made for itself, much of which is quite visibly
articulated in its NDS I linked to above.
By every metric I've observed, the USA's citizenry from all political
POVs wants a return to Reality for that's the only basis from which to address
and solve the many domestic problems.
Big Money refuses as its addicted to Smoke & Mirrors since that's what
was used to gain its power and will now double-down.
"... Developing the tradition charted by C. Wright Mills in his 1956 classic The Power Elite , in his latest book, Professor Peter Phillips starts by reviewing the transition from the nation state power elites described by authors such as Mills to a transnational power elite centralized on the control of global capital. ..."
Developing the tradition charted by C. Wright Mills in his 1956 classic The Power Elite
, in his latest book, Professor Peter Phillips starts by reviewing the transition from the
nation state power elites described by authors such as Mills to a transnational power elite
centralized on the control of global capital.
Thus, in his just-released study Giants: The Global
Power Elite , Phillips, a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University
in the USA, identifies the world's top seventeen asset management firms, such as BlackRock and
J.P Morgan Chase, each with more than one trillion dollars of investment capital under
management, as the 'Giants' of world capitalism. The seventeen firms collectively manage more
than $US41.1 trillion in a self-invested network of interlocking capital that spans the
globe.
This $41 trillion represents the wealth invested for profit by thousands of millionaires,
billionaires and corporations. The seventeen Giants operate in nearly every country in the
world and are 'the central institutions of the financial capital that powers the global
economic system'. They invest in anything considered profitable, ranging from 'agricultural
lands on which indigenous farmers are replaced by power elite investors' to public assets (such
as energy and water utilities) to war.
In addition, Phillips identifies the most important networks of the Global Power Elite and
the individuals therein. He names 389 individuals (a small number of whom are women and a token
number of whom are from countries other than the United States and the wealthier countries of
Western Europe) at the core of the policy planning nongovernmental networks that manage,
facilitate and defend the continued concentration of global capital. The Global Power Elite
perform two key uniting functions, he argues: they provide ideological justifications for their
shared interests (promulgated through their corporate media), and define the parameters of
action for transnational governmental organizations and capitalist nation-states.
More precisely, Phillips identifies the 199 directors of the seventeen global financial
Giants and offers short biographies and public information on their individual net wealth.
These individuals are closely interconnected through numerous networks of association including
the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference, university affiliations,
various policy councils, social clubs, and cultural enterprises. For a taste of one of these
clubs, see this account of The Links in New York. As Phillips
observes: 'It is certainly safe to conclude they all know each other personally or know of each
other in the shared context of their positions of power.'
The Giants, Phillips documents, invest in each other but also in many hundreds of investment
management firms, many of which are near-Giants. This results in tens of trillions of dollars
coordinated in a single vast network of global capital controlled by a very small number of
people. 'Their constant objective is to find enough safe investment opportunities for a return
on capital that allows for continued growth. Inadequate capital-placement opportunities lead to
dangerous speculative investments, buying up of public assets, and permanent war spending.'
Because the directors of these seventeen asset management firms represent the central core
of international capital, 'Individuals can retire or pass away, and other similar people will
move into their place, making the overall structure a self-perpetuating network of global
capital control. As such, these 199 people share a common goal of maximum return on investments
for themselves and their clients, and they may seek to achieve returns by any means necessary
– legal or not . the institutional and structural arrangements within the money
management systems of global capital relentlessly seek ways to achieve maximum return on
investment, and the conditions for manipulations – legal or not – are always
present.'
Like some researchers before him, Phillips identifies the importance of those transnational
institutions that serve a unifying function. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, G20,
G7, World Trade Organization (WTO),
World Economic Forum (WEF), Trilateral
Commission, Bilderberg Group ,
Bank for International Settlements, Group of 30 (G30), the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Monetary
Conference serve as institutional mechanisms for consensus building within the transnational
capitalist class, and power elite policy formulation and implementation. 'These international
institutions serve the interests of the global financial Giants by supporting policies and
regulations that seek to protect the free, unrestricted flow of capital and debt collection
worldwide.'
But within this network of transnational institutions, Phillips identifies two very
important global elite policy-planning organizations: the Group of Thirty (which has 32 members) and the extended executive
committee of the Trilateral Commission
(which has 55 members). These nonprofit corporations, which each have a research and support
staff, formulate elite policy and issue instructions for their implementation by the
transnational governmental institutions like the G7, G20, IMF, WTO, and World Bank. Elite
policies are also implemented following instruction of the relevant agent, including
governments, in the context. These agents then do as they are instructed. Thus, these 85
members (because two overlap) of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission comprise a
central group of facilitators of global capitalism, ensuring that 'global capital remains safe,
secure, and growing'.
So, while many of the major international institutions are controlled by nation-state
representatives and central bankers (with proportional power exercised by dominant financial
supporters such as the United States and European Union countries), Phillips is more concerned
with the transnational policy groups that are nongovernmental because these organizations 'help
to unite TCC power elites as a class' and the individuals involved in these organizations
facilitate world capitalism. 'They serve as policy elites who seek the continued growth of
capital in the world.'
Developing this list of 199 directors of the largest money management firms in the world,
Phillips argues, is an important step toward understanding how capitalism works globally today.
These global power elite directors make the decisions regarding the investment of trillions of
dollars. Supposedly in competition, the concentrated wealth they share requires them to
cooperate for their greater good by identifying investment opportunities and shared risk
agreements, and working collectively for political arrangements that create advantages for
their profit-generating system as a whole.
Their fundamental priority is to secure an average return on investment of 3 to 10 percent,
or even more. The nature of any investment is less important than what it yields: continuous
returns that support growth in the overall market. Hence, capital investment in tobacco
products, weapons of war, toxic chemicals, pollution, and other socially destructive goods and
services are judged purely by their profitability. Concern for the social and environmental
costs of the investment are non-existent. In other words, inflicting death and destruction are
fine because they are profitable.
So what is the global elite's purpose? In a few sentences Phillips characterizes it thus:
The elite is largely united in support of the US/NATO military empire that prosecutes a
repressive war against resisting groups – typically labeled 'terrorists' – around
the world. The real purpose of 'the war on terror' is defense of transnational globalization,
the unimpeded flow of financial capital around the world, dollar hegemony and access to oil; it
has nothing to do with repressing terrorism which it generates, perpetuates and finances to
provide cover for its real agenda. This is why the United States has a long history of CIA and
military interventions around the world ostensibly in defense of 'national
interests'.
An interesting point that emerges for me from reading Phillips thoughtful analysis is that
there is a clear distinction between those individuals and families who have wealth and those
individuals who have (sometimes significantly) less wealth (which, nevertheless, is still
considerable) but, through their positions and connections, wield a great deal of power. As
Phillips explains this distinction, 'the sociology of elites is more important than particular
elite individuals and their families'. Just 199 individuals decide how more than $40 trillion
will be invested. And this is his central point. Let me briefly elaborate.
There are some really wealthy families in the world, notably including the families
Rothschild (France and the United Kingdom), Rockefeller (USA), Goldman-Sachs (USA), Warburgs
(Germany), Lehmann (USA), Lazards (France), Kuhn Loebs (USA), Israel Moses Seifs (Italy),
Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia), Walton (USA), Koch (USA), Mars (USA), Cargill-MacMillan (USA) and Cox
(USA). However, not all of these families overtly seek power to shape the world as they
wish.
Similarly, the world's extremely wealthy individuals such as Jeff Bezos (USA), Bill Gates
(USA), Warren Buffett (USA), Bernard Arnault (France), Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico) and Francoise
Bettencourt Meyers (France) are not necessarily connected in such a way that they exercise
enormous power. In fact, they may have little interest in power as such, despite their obvious
interest in wealth.
In essence, some individuals and families are content to simply take advantage of how
capitalism and its ancilliary governmental and transnational instruments function while others
are more politically engaged in seeking to manipulate major institutions to achieve outcomes
that not only maximize their own profit and hence wealth but also shape the world itself.
So if you look at the list of 199 individuals that Phillips identifies at the centre of
global capital, it does not include names such as Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Koch, Walton or even
Rothschild, Rockefeller or Windsor (the Queen of England) despite their well-known and
extraordinary wealth. As an aside, many of these names are also missing from the lists compiled
by groups such as Forbes and
Bloomberg , but their
absence from these lists is for a very different reason given the penchant for many really
wealthy individuals and families to avoid certain types of publicity and their power to ensure
that they do.
In contrast to the names just listed, in Phillips' analysis names like Laurence (Larry) Fink
(Chairman and CEO of BlackRock), James (Jamie) Dimon (Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase) and
John McFarlane (Chairman of Barclays Bank), while not as wealthy as those listed immediately
above, wield far more power because of their positions and connections within the global elite
network of 199 individuals.
Predictably then, Phillips observes, these three individuals have similar lifestyles and
ideological orientations. They believe capitalism is beneficial for the world and while
inequality and poverty are important issues, they believe that capital growth will eventually
solve these problems. They are relatively non-expressive about environmental issues, but
recognize that investment opportunities may change in response to climate 'modifications'. As
millionaires they own multiple homes. They attended elite universities and rose quickly in
international finance to reach their current status as giants of the global power elite. 'The
institutions they manage have been shown to engage in illegal collusions with others, but the
regulatory fines by governments are essentially seen as just part of doing business.'
In short, as I would characterize this description: They are devoid of a legal or moral
framework to guide their actions, whether in relation to business, fellow human beings, war or
the environment and climate. They are obviously typical of the elite.
Any apparent concern for people, such as that expressed by Fink and Dimon in response to the
racist violence in Charlottesville, USA in August 2017, is simply designed to promote
'stability' or more precisely, a stable (that is, profitable) investment and consumer
climate.
The lack of concern for people and issues that might concern many of us is also evident from
a consideration of the agenda at elite gatherings. Consider the International Monetary
Conference. Founded in 1956, it is a private yearly meeting of the top few hundred bankers in
the world. The American Bankers Association (ABA) serves as the secretariat for the conference.
But, as Phillips notes: 'Nothing on the agenda seems to address the socioeconomic consequences
of investments to determine the impacts on people and the environment.' A casual perusal of the
agenda at any elite gathering reveals that this comment applies equally to any elite forum.
See, for example, the agenda of the recent WEF meeting in
Davos . Any talk of 'concern' is misleading rhetoric.
Hence, in the words of Phillips: The 199 directors of the global Giants are 'a very select
set of people. They all know each other personally or know of each other. At least 69 have
attended the annual World Economic Forum, where they often serve on panels or give public
presentations. They mostly attended the same elite universities, and interact in upperclass
social setting[s] in the major cities of the world. They all are wealthy and have significant
stock holdings in one or more of the financial Giants. They are all deeply invested in the
importance of maintaining capital growth in the world. Some are sensitive to environmental and
social justice issues, but they seem to be unable to link these issues to global capital
concentration.'
Of course, the global elite cannot manage the world system alone: the elite requires agents
to perform many of the functions necessary to control national societies and the individuals
within them. 'The interests of the Global Power Elite and the TCC are fully recognized by major
institutions in society. Governments, intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police
forces, military, and corporate media all work in support of their vital interests.'
In other words, to elaborate Phillips' point and extend it a little, through their economic
power, the Giants control all of the instruments through which their policies are implemented.
Whether it be governments, national military forces, 'military contractors' or mercenaries
(with at least $200 billion spent on private security globally, the industry currently employs
some fifteen million people worldwide) used both in 'foreign' wars but also likely deployed in
future for domestic control, key 'intelligence' agencies, legal systems and police forces,
major nongovernment organizations, or the academic, educational, 'public relations propaganda',
corporate media, medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries, all instruments are fully
responsive to elite control and are designed to misinform, deceive, disempower, intimidate,
repress, imprison (in a jail or psychiatric ward), exploit and/or kill (depending on the
constituency) the rest of us, as is readily evident.
Defending Elite Power
Phillips observes that the power elite continually worries about rebellion by the 'unruly
exploited masses' against their structure of concentrated wealth. This is why the US military
empire has long played the role of defender of global capitalism. As a result, the United
States has more than 800 military bases (with some scholars suggesting 1,000) in 70 countries
and territories. In comparison, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia have about 30 foreign
bases. In addition, US military forces are now deployed in 70 percent of the world's nations
with US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) having troops in 147 countries, an increase of 80
percent since 2010. These forces conduct counterterrorism strikes regularly, including drone
assassinations and kill/capture raids.
'The US military empire stands on hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and continues
to support repressive, exploitative governments that cooperate with global capital's imperial
agenda. Governments that accept external capital investment, whereby a small segment of a
country's elite benefits, do so knowing that capital inevitably requires a return on investment
that entails using up resources and people for economic gain. The whole system continues wealth
concentration for elites and expanded wretched inequality for the masses .
'Understanding permanent war as an economic relief valve for surplus capital is a vital part
of comprehending capitalism in the world today. War provides investment opportunity for the
Giants and TCC elites and a guaranteed return on capital. War also serves a repressive function
of keeping the suffering masses of humanity afraid and compliant.'
As Phillips elaborates: This is why defense of global capital is the prime reason that NATO
countries now account for 85 percent of the world's military spending; the United States spends
more on the military than the rest of the world combined.
In essence, 'the Global Power Elite uses NATO and the US military empire for its worldwide
security. This is part of an expanding strategy of US military domination around the world,
whereby the US/ NATO military empire, advised by the power elite's Atlantic Council , operates in service to the
Transnational Corporate Class for the protection of international capital everywhere in the
world'.
This entails 'further pauperization of the bottom half of the world's population and an
unrelenting downward spiral of wages for 80 percent of the world. The world is facing economic
crisis, and the neoliberal solution is to spend less on human needs and more on security. It is
a world of financial institutions run amok, where the answer to economic collapse is to print
more money through quantitative easing, flooding the population with trillions of new
inflation-producing dollars. It is a world of permanent war, whereby spending for destruction
requires further spending to rebuild, a cycle that profits the Giants and global networks of
economic power. It is a world of drone killings, extrajudicial assassinations, death, and
destruction, at home and abroad.'
Where is this all heading?
So what are the implications of this state of affairs? Phillips responds unequivocally:
'This concentration of protected wealth leads to a crisis of humanity, whereby poverty, war,
starvation, mass alienation, media propaganda, and environmental devastation are reaching a
species-level threat. We realize that humankind is in danger of possible extinction'.
He goes on to state that the Global Power Elite is probably the only entity 'capable of
correcting this condition without major civil unrest, war, and chaos' and elaborates an
important aim of his book: to raise awareness of the importance of systemic change and the
redistribution of wealth among both the book's general readers but also the elite, 'in the hope
that they can begin the process of saving humanity.' The book's postscript is a 'A Letter to
the Global Power Elite', co-signed by Phillips and 90 others, beseeching the elite to act
accordingly.
'It is no longer acceptable for you to believe that you can manage capitalism to grow its
way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution
and waste, and civil unrest is everywhere inevitable at some point. Humanity needs you to step
up and insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every
family, and all human beings. We urge you to use your power and make the needed changes for
humanity's survival.'
But he also emphasizes that nonviolent social movements, using the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as a moral code, can accelerate the process of redistributing wealth by pressuring
the elite into action.
Conclusion
Peter Phillips has written an important book. For those of us interested in understanding
elite control of the world, this book is a vital addition to the bookshelf. And like any good
book, as you will see from my comments both above and below, it raised more questions for me
even while it answered many.
For this reason I do not share his faith in moral appeals to the elite, as articulated in
the letter in his postscript. It is fine to make the appeal but history offers no evidence to
suggest that there will be any significant response. The death and destruction inflicted by
elites is highly profitable, centuries-old and ongoing. It will take powerful,
strategically-focused nonviolent campaigns (or societal collapse) to compel the necessary
changes in elite behavior. Hence, I fully endorse his call for nonviolent social movements to
compel elite action where we cannot make the necessary changes without their involvement. See
'A Nonviolent Strategy to End Violence and Avert Human Extinction' and Nonviolent Campaign Strategy .
Fundamentally, Giants: The Global
Power Elite is a call to action. Professor Peter Phillips is highly aware of our
predicament – politically, socially, economically, environmentally and climatically
– and the critical role played by the global power elite in generating that
predicament.
If we cannot persuade the global power elite to respond sensibly to that predicament, or
nonviolently compel it to do so, humanity's time on Earth is indeed limited.
*
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence.
He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are
violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'Why Violence?' His email address
is [email protected]
and his website is here . He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research.
In the
most recent Hudson Report , Michael explains the current state of the economy and the
basic differences between how a public bank would operate versus a big private bank, which
ought to interest the many barflies advocating public banking. Hudson references a report
written by The Democracy Collaborative, The Crisis Next Time: Planning for Public
ownership as Alternative to Corporate Bailouts , which can be found and downloaded
here . At 74 pages, I've yet to digest it having just discovered it, but an Executive
Summary's provided.
"... John Ross, Senior Fellow, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: ..."
The latest U.S. data shows clearly that in his first year in office
President Trump failed in his claim to fundamentally accelerate U.S.
growth. U.S. GDP growth in 2017 was only 2.3 percent – scarcely above
the long-term U.S. average growth rate of 2.2 percent. The recently
published U.S. data now available for the first quarter of 2018 also
shows no change in the underlying situation.
The U.S. GDP data shows the U.S. economy proceeding on a very
predictable track of slow average growth but cyclical recovery from its
extremely poor performance in 2016. In more detail:
There is no sign of any acceleration in the medium/long term average
annual U.S. growth rate, which remains at around 2.2 percent.
In recovering from the extremely bad U.S. economic performance in
2016, when year on year growth fell to 1.2 percent in the second
quarter, and growth for the entire year was only 1.5 percent, the
U.S. is experiencing a normal cyclical upturn. U.S. growth in 2018,
and possibly 2019, should continue to be above the long-term average
rate before falling back in 2020-2021.
The fundamental data is shown in Figure 1. It shows that U.S. year on
year growth has recovered from far below the average growth of only 1.2
percent in the second quarter of 2016 to above average 2.9 percent in
the first quarter of 2018. This normal cyclical fluctuation, however,
leaves the long-term average annual U.S. growth rate unchanged at
slightly above 2 percent.
Figure 1
The medium/long-term U.S. rate of growth is clear from Table1. This
shows that, using a moving average to eliminate purely short-term
fluctuations, the three-year moving annual average of U.S. GDP growth is
2.1 percent, the five-year moving average is 2.3 percent, the seven-year
moving average is 2.2 percent, and the 20-year moving average 2.2
percent. This consistency over both the medium-and longer-term means
that the U.S. annual growth rate over anything except the very short
term is extremely predictable (only a 10-year moving average shows a
significantly lower growth rate, at 1.6 percent, due to the great impact
of the 2008 international financial crisis).
Table 1
US Annual Average GDP Growth Rate to 1st Quarter 2018
3-year moving average
2.1%
5-year moving average
2.3%
7-year moving average
2.2%
20-year moving average
2.2%
Source: Calculated from US Bureau of Economic Analysis NIPA
Table 1.1.3
The consistency of this medium/long-term trend for U.S. growth is
therefore clear. The medium/long-term average growth rate of the U.S.
economy remains slightly above 2 percent – the 2.2 percent figure may be
taken as a central figure. Given this medium/long-term average growth
rate,the upturn of the U.S. economy in thefirstquarter of 2018 is a
normal cyclical shift and there is no evidence of an acceleration in
U.S. fundamental economic growth. Due to the extremely depressed U.S.
growth during 2016, to counterbalance this while maintaining the overall
slightly above 2percentaverage, U.S. growth during 2018-19 may be
expected to be above the 2.2 percent medium/long-term average.
IMF
Turning to the newly released IMF projections for the U.S. economy for
the next five years, published in its twice-yearly World Economic
Outlook, which are shown in Figure 2. As may be seen the IMF projects
the same overall pattern as in the analysis given above – i.e.
relatively fast U.S. growth, above its medium/long-term average, in
2018-2019 followed by slowing growth in 2020-2023.
Figure 2
However, the overall U.S. growth projected by the IMF over the five-year
period as a whole is significantly lower than the analysis above. The
IMF projects only an average 1.8 percent annual average U.S. GDP growth
between 2018 and 2023.
It is extremely unclear why the IMF projects this significant slowdown
in the U.S. economy – the IMF provides no explanation for this. Analysis
of the underlying features of the U.S. economy also indicate no reason
to assume this. Analysis shows the main determinant of U.S.
medium/long-term growth is U.S. net fixed investment – the correlation
between the percentage of net fixed investment in U.S. GDP and U.S. GDP
growth over an eight-year period is an extremely high 0.71.
However, at present, while the U.S. net fixed investment is low by
historical standards, there is currently no sign of it significantly
worsening. There is therefore no reason to believe there will be a
substantial slowdown in U.S. medium/long-term economic growth.
The current author has on numerous occasions been critical of IMF
projections for the U.S. economy which the facts have confirmed were
excessively optimistic. In this case, however, while the IMF's
projections are not impossible, they appear to be slightly pessimistic.
Future upward revisions of IMF projections for the U.S. economy would
therefore not necessarily represent an improvement in the actual
situation of the U.S. economy but merely a correction of excessively
negative current IMF projections.
Conclusion
Two conclusions follow from the above analysis:
The upturn in the U.S. economy in 2018/19 is a normal business cycle
development and there is no evidence from the U.S. data that Trump's
policies have achieved any significant increase in the fundamental
medium/long-term U.S. growth rate.
Whether the IMF's prediction that the medium/long-term growth rate
of the U.S. economy will fall to 1.8 percent is correct, or the
present author's view that unless the level of U.S. fixed investment
falls further, U.S. medium/long-term growth rate will remain
slightly above 2 percent is correct, there is no indication of any
fundamental increase in the U.S. growth rate. U.S. medium/long-term
growth will continue to be slow at slightly above or slightly below
2 percent a year.
In summary, both the latest U.S. GDP data and the latest projections of
the IMF indicate the U.S. economy is experiencing a normal cyclical
upturn. President Trump has not achieved any increase in the
medium/long-term growth rate of the U.S. economy.
John Ross, Senior Fellow, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies,
Renmin University of China, is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more
information please visit:
Leading official forecasters do not expect the main industrialised countries' growth to
accelerate in the next period, and the UK economy is expected to be the weakest of all. This is
despite the fact that the growth rate in the world economy since the recession has been
extremely modest by historical standards. The Great Recession has been followed in the advanced
industrialised economies by the Great Stagnation.
The World Bank's latest
economic outlook carries the title, 'The turning of the tide?' Its central conclusion is
that, "global growth is expected to decelerate over the next two years as global slack
dissipates, major central banks remove policy accommodation, and the recovery in commodity
exporters matures."
Similarly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released
its latest forecasts for its member countries, which include the advanced industrialised
countries. They are largely aligned to the downbeat estimates of both the World Bank and the
IMF.
None of these organisations has an impeccable forecasting record and mostly missed the onset
of the Great Recession of 2008 almost entirely. But their errors are generally guided by
over-optimism, and the belief in the self-correcting nature of economic imbalances. They are
rarely wildly pessimistic. Table 1 below shows the latest OECD forecasts for selected countries
or areas.
Table 1 OECD data and forecasts for selected countries real GDP growth Source: OECD
Capacity constraints
One of the most frequently cited causes of the anticipated slowdown is capacity constraints
in the advanced industrialised economies, or as the World Bank puts it, the 'dissipation of
global [productive] slack'. This can take a number of forms. These include a shortage of
capital (evidenced by rising bond yields in the US government bond market and elsewhere), a
shortage of labour and/or skills (as unemployment rates fall especially in the US and UK, but
workforce skills are not rising) or a shortage of available commodities (as shown by rising
commodities' prices).
However, each of these, financial capital, workforce skills and availability of commodities
are components of the productive capacity of the economic. The increase or improvement of that
productive capacity ('the development of the productive forces' in Marx's terminology) is
primarily a function of the level of investment. Availability of capital, workforce skills and
access to commodities are important but subordinate factors, and can be increased through the
returns on investment.
That investment can be in new fixed investment such as equipment, machinery, IT and so on,
or investment in the education and training of the workforce, or in the extraction or creation
of new sources of commodities, which in the modern era should increasingly be the development
of renewable energy sources. Over-arching all of these is in the increase in the division of
labour, or to use Marx's term, the socialisation of production, which is the most powerful
force of all.
It is the failure to invest, primarily a failure of business investment in the advanced
industrialised economies which is the source of global capacity constraints. These then become
manifest as rising interest rates, or labour and/or skills' shortages or rising commodities'
prices.
The growth rate of business investment is not accelerating, and in most of the international
bodies' forecasts it is set to slow once more. The trends in OECD business fixed investment
(Gross Fixed Capital Formation, GFCF) are shown in Chart 1 below.
The OECD projection of 4.2% growth in GFCF for the OECD as a whole in 2018 would be
fractionally the fastest growth on this measure since 2006, but is then forecast to slow once
more to 3.9% in 2019. The implication is that this is as good as it gets.
Chart 1. OECD
Growth in OECD Gross Fixed Capital Investment, 2003 to 20019 (Forecast)
It is important to note that the deceleration in the growth of GFCF preceded the Great
Recession. And in the US the contraction in private residential investment began as far back as
2006. Falling investment preceded the decline in GDP as a whole and was the cause of that
broader contraction.
Fixed investment is a key determinant of growth for the whole economy. Oddly, this is widely
disputed. Yet it is self-evident that goods or services cannot be produced unless there is a
prior capacity to produce them. Therefore, unless there is spare capacity ('global slack')
output of goods and services can only be increased if there is first an increase in productive
capacity through investment. Government spending, consumer demand and least of all
'entrepreneurship' can create new productive capacity.
The official forecasters' concern rests on the analysis that spare capacity has been eroded
or used up. This becomes decisive if there has also been very limited investment.
Residential investment does not increase the productive capacity of the economy. Housing
provides a very important good, but not one which itself can produce other goods. At the same
time, measuring Gross Investment does not take account of depreciation and depletion of fixed
assets. Therefore, in relation to fixed investment, it is necessary to gauge the change in the
Net Capital Stock. Taking these factors into account allows an assessment of the development of
the key component of productive capacity.
Chart 2. OECD Growth in Net Capital Stock, 1993 to
2019 (Forecast)
In the OECD, the growth in the Net Capital Stock is miserably weak. Falling from an annual
average growth rate of 3.7% at the turn of the century to hovering around just 1.5% now. This
is consistent with the general stagnation of the advanced industrialised countries as a
whole.
Signs of stress
The recent gyrations of financial markets, commodities' markets and in the labour market in
some countries should all be seen as indicators of this stress, rather than causes of
slowdown.
To take one obvious example, the oil price has risen sharply over the course of the last 12
months before a sudden recent set-back. West-Texas Intermediate was trading at $43/bbl in June
last year, and rose to $72/bbl in May this year before pulling back to under $66/bbl. But the
oil price by itself has limited impact on world growth as a rise in price tends to redistribute
incomes and growth to oil producers from net oil consumers. A fall in the price tends to do the
opposite.
More fundamentally, the sharply rising price indicates that a moderate rise in demand
associated with modest expansion of the world economy is not being met by rising supply of
energy (which should of course come primarily from building renewable energy capacity). Rising
prices indicate an inability to meet this demand at current prices (plus some activity by
speculators). It remains to be seen whether the recent slippage in the oil price represents a
fall in demand, or simply speculators getting out temporarily.
A similar pattern is evident in the US government bond market (or 'Treasuries'). Yields on
10-year Treasuries rose in the last 12 months to over 3% but have since fallen back below that
level. Treasuries yields matter to the world economy. Along with the level of the US Dollar
they are the key global financial reserve instruments and a decisive source of the US's
dominance of global financial markets.
The yield on Government bonds also serves as an indicator of the global balance between
available savings and investment. As the US is both the world's dominant financial power and
the world's largest net debtor, any increase in US demand for capital will tend to push up bond
yields more generally, not solely in the US. The US became the world's largest net debtor in
the mid-1980s. The deficit has risen steadily ever since and is now just under US$8 trillion,
as shown in Chart 3 below.
Chart 3. US Net International Investment Position
The increase in demand for capital may be either for Consumption of for Investment. In this
case, Trump has slashed business taxes and cut tax rates for the rich. This will increase in
the US Federal deficit and will have the effect of pushing up bond yields to attract capital.
Of course, if the recipients of Trump's tax giveaways used those newly available funds to
increase investment, or the US Government was itself was significantly increasing its own
investment, then the US economy would grow more rapidly. The increase in returns on those
investment would exceed the still modest level of Treasuries' yields. But that is not the
case.
In his
latest blog Michael Roberts addresses many of these issues and highlights a concern about
the shape of the US yield curve, focusing on the yield differential between 1-year and 10-year
US Treasuries. Under 'normal' conditions the gap between these two should be fairly wide, as
there are greater risks (including inflation risks) from lending long-term. Any sharp narrowing
of the yield gap means that credit conditions are becoming restrictive and any move into a
negative yield gap is usually associated with recession. Currently, this yield gap has been
narrowing significantly.
But there is little sign of a dramatic US slowdown, at least for the time being. US GFCF
growth was 1.4% in the 1st quarter of this year, just 4.5% higher than a year ago, despite the
first flush of the tax cuts. This does not yet suggest any significant acceleration in the pact
of US investment, but neither does it represent a slowdown.
Corporate profits are decisive for business investment, so the recent slowdown in profits
does not suggest a surge in business investment. Chart 4 shows the growth of US corporate
profits since 2014.
Chart 4. US Corporate Profits, % change
At the same time, evidence from producers is that the modest expansion in the US is set to
continue for now. That is certainly the message from the
positive surveys of purchasing managers in the US. Overall, the US presents a mixed
picture. There is no evidence of the much-touted boom. But overall conditions do not point to a
marked decline at this point.
The danger of Trump
Instead, there is probably a greater danger to the world economy, and that is the policies
of the Trump administration itself.
The global economy is already running into capacity constraints, as noted above. The US, in
line with all the other major capital economies has not seen a recovery in investment that
would lead to sustainably stronger growth. Conditions in the US economy and in the financial
markets are not laying the basis for a boom, although this has been much
forecast by mainstream economic commentators. Above all, US corporate profits do not point
rapidly rising business investment.
Trump poses a threat to the world economy through increased protectionism, which will be
discussed in a follow-up piece. But his domestic policies also pose a threat. In effect he is
attempting to by-pass the problems of the US economy, including its low investment and savings
rates by sucking in capital from the rest of the world.
When Trump argues
that the US is 'the piggy bank the world is robbing' , he is stating the opposite of the
facts. The US deficit on its Current Account was $466 billion in 2017, following a deficit of
$452 billion in 2016. The deficit is a deficit in international trade in goods and services.
Overwhelmingly this deficit is driven by the lack of competitiveness of the US economy (given
its current levels of Consumption and the prevailing exchange rates), shown in Chart 5
below.
Chart 5. US Current Account Deficit, US$ billions
The source of deficit is clear by showing the categories of the deficit components, in Table
2 below. The Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that in 2017 exactly half of the total $808
billion US trade deficit was from consumer goods, and cars accounted for another quarter of the
total.
Table 2. US Trade Deficit and Main Categories in 2017, US$bn
All deficits on the current account must be off-set by a matching surplus on the capital
account. In effect, the US borrows from overseas or runs down existing overseas assets in order
to cover the deficit. The US is forced to continually borrow abroad to meet a lofty level of
Consumption that cannot be met by domestic production.
If at the same time the demand for capital rises in the US, interest rates tend to rise to
attract capital from overseas. This rising demand for capital can either be for Investment
purposes or to finance further increases in Consumption.
Trump's tax cuts are likely to lead to increased private Consumption. They will certainly
lead to a much wider Federal Government deficit. It is the anticipation of this trend which has
been mainly responsible for driving US bond yields higher.
But capital flows from the rest of the world can prove disastrous for 'emerging market'
economies. The 1998 Asian financial crisis was caused by rising long-term US interests, as was
the earlier Latin American debt crisis of the 1970s. Given the relative size of their
economies, capital flows to fund rising US deficits can be vastly proportionately greater for
those countries that the capital is flowing from. It used to be said of the other Western
economies that 'if the US sneezes, they catch a cold'. Now it could be said, for those
countries with substantial savings and no controls on capital movements, that if the US
sneezes, they can catch pneumonia. Chart 6 below reproduces a chart from the US Federal Reserve
on the relationship between US 10-year yields and average yields in 'emerging
markets'.
Chart 6. US 10-year Treasuries yields and Average EM 10-year yields Source: FRB
But the Less Developed Countries are not uniform, and the effects of all changes are
registered unevenly. There are already strains appearing in some of those countries, sometimes
severe as in the case of Argentina
and Turkey . They have both experienced sharp sell-offs in their currencies, and downward
pressure on government bond markets. Argentina's President Macri was a darling of the
neoliberal economists' consensus whose first act was to remove capital controls. Humiliatingly,
he has now had to go to the IMF for another onerous bailout.
The IMF, which is dominated by the US, almost always insists on the removal of capital
controls on countries seeking funds for a bailout. This directly serves US continuous needs for
overseas capital. It is not coincidental.
Other countries are not immune from the current turmoil. There has been intense downward
pressure on currencies and/or stock markets leading the central banks to make unwanted rises in
interest rates. Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and
India have all come under pressure . And with the US Federal Reserve Bank widely expected
to raise official rates once more, the pressures may intensify.
The UK is not immune from any of these pressures, along with the other advanced
industrialised economies. But it is a special case. As noted previously, it is forecast to be
the weakest country within the advanced economies over the next period. It is a distinct case,
owing to the particular negative effects of the Brexit vote. But this will be dealt with in a
separate piece.
There are strains in the advanced industrialised economies as a whole, including the US. But
far greater strains are evident in the Less Developed Countries. Their cause is the same, the
effects of the Great Stagnation, driven by the extraordinarily low levels of investment in the
advanced industrialised economies. This is primarily the weakness of business investment,
combined with a general refusal of governments to fill the gap.
This structural weakness is being exacerbated by the reckless Trump policy of tax cuts for
big business and the rich in the US, which is sucking capital from the rest of the world and
destabilising it. Trump poses a new threat to global living standards.
If the paeans to McCain by diverse political climbers seems detached from reality, it's
because they reflect the elite view of U.S. military interventions as a chess game, with the
millions killed by unprovoked aggression mere statistics.
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in digital form.
As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist Helena Cobban participated in an
academic conference at an upscale resort near Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in
the Middle East. When she attended what was listed as the "Gala Dinner with keynote speech",
she quickly learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, "Adopt a Muj."
"I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican women from the Phoenix suburbs and
being asked, 'Have you adopted a muj?" Cobban told me. "Each one had pledged money to sponsor a
member of the Afghan mujahedin in the name of beating the communists. Some were even seated at
the event next to their personal 'muj.'"
The keynote speaker of the evening, according to Cobban, was a hard-charging freshman member
of Congress named John McCain.
During the Vietnam war, McCain had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army after being
shot down on his way to bomb a civilian lightbulb factory. He spent two years in solitary
confinement and underwent torture that left him with crippling injuries. McCain returned from
the war with a deep, abiding loathing of his former captors, remarking as late as 2000, "I hate
the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." After he was criticized for the racist remark,
McCain
refused to apologize. "I was referring to my prison guards," he said, "and I will continue
to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture
of my friends."
'Hanoi Hilton' prison where McCain was tortured. (Wikimedia Commons)
McCain's visceral resentment informed his vocal support for the mujahedin as well as the
right-wing contra death squads in Central America -- any proxy group sworn to the destruction
of communist governments.
So committed was McCain to the anti-communist cause that in the mid-1980s he had joined
the advisory board of the United States Council for World Freedom, the American affiliate of
the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, a former leader of WACL's
British chapter who had turned against the group in 1974, described the organization as "a
collection of Nazis, fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and
corrupt self-seekers. It has evolved into an anti-Semitic international."
Joining McCain in the organization were notables such as Jaroslav Stetsko, the Croatian Nazi
collaborator who helped oversee the extermination of 7,000 Jews in 1941; the brutal Argentinian
former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla; and Guatemalan death squad leader Mario Sandoval Alarcon.
Then-President Ronald Reagan honored the group for playing"a leadership role in drawing
attention to the gallant struggle now being waged by the true freedom fighters of our
day."
Being Lauded as a Hero
On the occasion of his death, McCain is being honored in much the same way -- as a patriotic
hero and freedom fighter for democracy. A stream of hagiographies is pouring forth from the
Beltway press corps that he described as his true political base. Among McCain's most
enthusiastic groupies is CNN's Jake Tapper, whom he chose as his personal stenographer for a
2000 trip to Vietnam. When the former CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Tapper in February, 2000,
"When you're on the [campaign] bus, do you make a conscious effort not to fall under the
magical McCain spell?"
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.
Ocasio-Cortez: Called McCain 'an unparalleled example of human decency.'
But the late senator has also been treated to gratuitous tributes from an array of prominent
liberals, from George Soros to his soft
power-pushing client, Ken Roth, along with three fellow directors of
Human Rights Watch and "democratic socialist" celebrity Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who hailed McCain as
"an unparalleled example of human decency." Rep. John Lewis, the favorite civil rights symbol
of the Beltway political class, weighed in as well to
memorialize McCain as a "warrior for peace."
If the paeans to McCain by this diverse cast of political climbers and Davos denizens seemed
detached from reality, that's because they perfectly reflected the elite view of American
military interventions as akin to a game of chess, and the millions of dead left in the wake of
the West's unprovoked aggression as mere statistics.
There were few figures in recent American life who dedicated themselves so personally to the
perpetuation of war and empire as McCain. But in Washington, the most defining aspect of his
career was studiously overlooked, or waved away as the trivial idiosyncrasy of a noble servant
who nonetheless deserved everyone's reverence.
McCain did not simply thunder for every major intervention of the post-Cold War era from the
Senate floor, while pushing for sanctions and assorted campaigns of subterfuge on the side. He
was uniquely ruthless when it came to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict
zones to another to personally recruit far-right fanatics as American proxies.
In Libya and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al Qaeda as allies, and in Ukraine, McCain
courted actual, sig-heiling neo-Nazis.
While McCain's Senate office functioned as a clubhouse for arms industry lobbyists and
neocon operatives, his fascistic allies waged a campaign of human devastation that will
continue until long after the flowers dry up on his grave.
American media may have sought to bury this legacy with the senator's body, but it is what
much of the outside world will remember him for.
'They are Not al-Qaeda'
McCain with Abdelhakim Belhaj, leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a former Al
Qaeda affiliate.
When a violent insurgency swept through Libya in 2011, McCain parachuted into the country to
meet with leaders of the main insurgent outfit, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG),
battling the government of Moamar Gaddafi. His goal was to make kosher this band of hardline
Islamists in the eyes of the Obama administration, which was considering a military
intervention at the time.
What happened next is well documented, though it is scarcely discussed by a Washington
political class that depended on the Benghazi charade to deflect from the real scandal of
Libya's societal destruction. Gaddafi's motorcade was
attacked by NATO jets , enabling a band of LIFG fighters to capture him,
sodomize him with a bayonet, then murder him and leave his body to rot in a
butcher shop in Misrata while rebel fanboys snapped cellphone selfies of his fetid corpse.
A slaughter of Black
citizens of Libya by the racist sectarian militias recruited by McCain immediately followed
the killing of the pan-African leader. ISIS took over Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte while
Belhaj's militia took control of Tripoli, and a war of the warlords began. Just as Gaddafi had
warned , the ruined country became a staging ground for migrant smugglers on the
Mediterranean, fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe and enabling the return of slavery to
Africa.
Many might describe Libya as a failed state, but it also represents a successful realization
of the vision McCain and his allies have advanced on the global stage.
Following the NATO-orchestrated murder of Libya's leader, McCain tweeted , "Qaddafi on his way
out, Bashar al Assad is next."
McCain's Syrian Boondoggle
Like Libya, Syria had resisted aligning with the West and was suddenly confronted with a
Salafi-jihadi insurgency armed by the CIA. Once again, McCain made it his personal duty to
market Islamist insurgents to America as a cross between the Minutemen and the Freedom Riders
of the civil rights era. To do so, he took under his wing a youthful DC-based Syria-American
operative named Mouaz Moustafa who had been a consultant to the Libyan Transitional Council
during the run-up to the NATO invasion.
In May 2013, Moustafa convinced McCain to take an illegal trip across the Syrian border and
meet some freedom fighters. An Israeli millionaire named Moti Kahana who coordinated efforts
between the Syrian opposition and the Israeli military through his NGO, Amaliah, claimed to have "financed the opposition group
which took senator John McCain to visit war-torn Syria."
"This could be like his Benghazi moment," Moustafa remarked excitedly in a scene from a
documentary, "Red
Lines," that depicted his efforts for regime change. "[McCain] went to Benghazi, he came
back, we bombed."
During his brief excursion into Syria, McCain met with a group of CIA-backed insurgents and
blessed their struggle. "The senator wanted to assure the Free Syrian Army that the American
people support their cry for freedom, support their revolution," Moustafa said in an interview
with CNN. McCain's office promptly released a photo showing the senatorposing beside a beaming
Moustafa and two grim-looking gunmen.
Days later, the men were
named by the Lebanese Daily Star as Mohammad Nour and Abu Ibrahim. Both had been implicated
in the kidnapping a year prior of 11 Shia pilgrims, and were identified by one of the
survivors. McCain and Moustafa returned to the U.S. the targets of
mockery from Daily Show host John Stewart and the subject of harshly critical reports from
across the media spectrum. At a town hall in Arizona, McCain was berated by constituents, including Jumana
Hadid, a Syrian Christian woman who warned that the sectarian militants he had cozied up to
threatened her community with genocide.
McCain with then-FSA commander Salam Idriss, an insurgent later exposed for kidnapping Shia
pilgrims.
But McCain pressed ahead anyway. On Capitol Hill, he introduced another
shady young operative into his interventionist theater. Named Elizabeth O'Bagy, she was a
fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, an arms industry-funded think tank directed by
Kimberly Kagan of the neoconservative Kagan clan. Behind the scenes, O'Bagy was consulting for
Moustafa at his Syrian Emergency Task Force, a clear conflict of interest that her top Senate
patron was well aware of. Before the Senate, McCain cited a Wall Street Journal editorial by
O'Bagy to support his assessment of the Syrian rebels as predominately "moderate," and
potentially Western-friendly.
Days later, O'Bagy was
exposed for faking her PhD in Arabic studies. As soon as the humiliated Kagan fired O'Bagy,
the academic fraudster took another pass through the Beltway's revolving door, striding into
the halls of Congress as McCain's newest foreign policy aide.
McCain ultimately failed to see the Islamist "revolutionaries" he glad handled take control
of Damascus. Syria's government held on thanks to help from his mortal enemies in Tehran and
Moscow, but not before a billion dollar CIA arm-and-equip operation helped spawn one of the
worst refugee crises in post-war history. Luckily for McCain, there were other intrigues
seeking his attention, and new bands of fanatical rogues in need of his blessing. Months after
his Syrian boondoggle, the ornery militarist turned his attention to Ukraine, then in the
throes of an upheaval stimulated by U.S. and EU-funded soft power NGO's.
Coddling the
Neo-Nazis of Ukraine
On December 14, 2013, McCain materialized in Kiev for a meeting
with Oleh Tyanhbok , an unreconstructed fascist who had emerged as a top opposition leader.
Tyanhbok had co-founded the fascist Social-National Party, a far-right political outfit that
touted itself as the "last hope of the white race, of humankind as such." No fan of Jews, he
had complained that
a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia" had taken control of his country, and had been photographed throwing
up a sieg heil Nazi salute during a speech.
None of this apparently mattered to McCain. Nor did the scene of Right Sector neo-Nazis
filling up
Kiev's Maidan Square while he appeared on stage to egg them on.
"Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better!" McCain proclaimed to
cheering throngs while Tyanhbok stood by his side. The only issue that mattered to him at the
time was the refusal of Ukraine's elected president to sign a European Union austerity plan,
opting instead for an economic deal with Moscow.
McCain met with Social-National Party co-founder Oleh Tyanhbok.
McCain was so committed to replacing an independent-minded government with a NATO vassal
that he even mulled a military assault on Kiev. "I do not see a military option and that is
tragic," McCain lamented in an interview about the crisis. Fortunately for him, regime change
arrived soon after his appearance on the Maidan, and Tyanhbok's allies rushed in to fill the
void.
By the end of the year, the Ukrainian military had become bogged down in a bloody trench war
with pro-Russian, anti-coup separatists in the country's east. A militia affiliated with the
new government in Kiev called Dnipro-1 was
accused by Amnesty International observers of blocking humanitarian aid into a
separatist-held area, including food and clothing for the war torn population.
Six months later, McCain appeared
at Dnipro-1's training base alongside Sen.'s Tom Cotton and John Barasso. "The people of my
country are proud of your fight and your courage," McCain told an assembly of soldiers from the
militia. When he completed his remarks, the fighters belted out a World War II-era salute made
famous by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators: "Glory to Ukraine!"
Today, far-right nationalists occupy key posts in Ukraine's pro-Western government. The
speaker of its parliament is
Andriy Parubiy , a co-founder with Tyanhbok of the Social-National Party and leader of the
movement to honor World World Two-era Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera. On the cover of
his 1998 manifesto, "View From The Right," Parubiy appeared in a Nazi-style brown shirt with a
pistol strapped to his waist. In June 2017, McCain and Republican Speaker of the House Paul
Ryan
welcomed Parubiy on Capitol Hill for what McCain called a "good meeting." It was a shot in
the arm for the fascist forces sweeping across Ukraine.
McCain with Dnipro-1 militants on June 20, 2015
The past months in Ukraine have seen a
state sponsored neo-Nazi militia called C14 carrying out a pogromist rampage against
Ukraine's Roma population, the country's parliament erecting an exhibition honoring Nazi
collaborators, and the Ukrainian military formally approving the pro-Nazi
"Glory to Ukraine" greeting as its own official salute.
Ukraine is now the sick man of Europe, a perpetual aid case bogged down in an endless war in
its east. In a testament to the country's demise since its so-called "Revolution of Dignity,"
the deeply unpopular President Petro Poroshenko has promised White House National Security
Advisor John Bolton that his country -- once a plentiful source of coal on par with
Pennsylvania -- will now purchase coal from the
U.S. Once again, a regime change operation that generated a failing, fascistic state stands as
one of McCain's greatest triumphs.
McCain's history conjures up memory of one of the most inflammatory statements by Sarah
Palin, another cretinous fanatic he foisted onto the world stage. During a characteristically
rambling stump speech in October 2008, Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling
around with terrorists." The line was dismissed as ridiculous and borderline slander, as it
should have been. But looking back at McCain's career, the accusation seems richly ironic.
By any objective standard, it was McCain who had palled around with terrorists, and who
wrested as much resources as he could from the American taxpayer to maximize their mayhem.
Here's hoping that the societies shattered by McCain's proxies will someday rest in peace.
"... There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel, going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters. ..."
"... Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve." ..."
"... Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the neo-liberal trickle-down baloney. ..."
SA is cursed with neo-liberal trickle-down baloney stifling radical economicchangeKevin Humphrey, The New Age, Johannesburg, 1 December 2016
South Africa's massive inequalities are abundantly obvious to even the most casual observer. When the ANC won the elections in
1994, it came armed with a left-wing pedigree second to none, having fought a protracted liberation war in alliance with progressive
forces which drew in organised labour and civic groupings.
At the dawn of democracy the tight knit tripartite alliance also carried in its wake a patchwork of disparate groupings who, while
clearly supportive of efforts to rid the country of apartheid, could best be described as liberal. It was these groupings that first
began the clamour of opposition to all left-wing, radical or revolutionary ideas that has by now become the constant backdrop to
all conversations about the state of our country, the economy, the education system, the health services, everything. Thus was the
new South Africa introduced to its own version of a curse that had befallen all countries that gained independence from oppressors,
neo-colonialism.
By the time South Africa was liberated, neo-colonialism, which as always sought to buy off the libera-tors with the political
kingdom while keep-ing control of the economic kingdom, had perfected itself into what has become an era where neo-liberalism reigns
supreme. But what exactly is neo-liberalism? George Monbiot says: "Neo-liberalism sees competi-tion as the defining characteristic
of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process
that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that 'the market' delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning."
Never improving
There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and
is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel,
going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters.
Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and
regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade
unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is
recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a
more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve."
Nelson Mandela
South Africa's sad slide into neo-liberalism was given impetus at Davos in 1992 where Nelson Mandela had this to say to the assembled
super rich: "We visualise a mixed economy, in which the private sector would play a central and critical role to ensure the creation
of wealth and jobs. Future economic policy will also have to address such questions as security of investments and the right to repatriate
earnings, realistic exchange rates, the rate of inflation and the fiscus."
Further insight into this pivotal moment was provided by Anthony Sampson, Mandela's official biographer who wrote: "It was not
until February 1992, when Mandela went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he finally turned against nationalisation.
He was lionised by the world's bankers and industrialists at lunches and dinners."
This is not to cast any aspersions on Mandela, he had to make these decisions at the time to protect our democratic transition.
But these utterances should have been accom-panied by a behind the scenes interrogation of all the ANC's thoughts on how to proceed
in terms of the economy delivering socialist orientated solutions without falling into the minefield of neo-liberal traps that lay
in wait for our emerging country.
Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen
to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the
table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the
neo-liberal trickle-down baloney.
Now no one dares to express any type of radical approach to our economic woes unless it is some loony populist. Debate around
these important issues is largely missing and the level of commentary on all important national questions is shockingly shallow.
Anti-labour, anti-socialist, anti-poor, anti-black The status quo as set by the largely white-owned media revolves
around key neo-liberal slogans mas-querading as commentary that is anti-labour, anti-socialist and anti-poor, which sadly translates
within our own context as anti-black and therefore repugnantly racist.
We live in a country where the black, over-whelmingly poor majority of our citizens have voted for a much revered liberation movement
that is constantly under attack from within and without by people who do not have their best interests at heart and are brilliant
at manipulating outcomes to suit themselves on a global scale.
Kevin Humphrey is associate executive editor of The New Age
Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) dropped a late-night
bombshell on Monday suggesting there's evidence that the FBI and DOJ
rigged their own FISA spy warrants by leaking information to the
press, then using the resultant articles to obtain court
authorization to surveil targets.
"We've learned NEW information suggesting our suspicions are true:
FBI/DOJ
have previously leaked info to the press, and then used those same
press stories as a separate source to justify FISA's
,"
tweeted Meadows.
We've learned NEW information suggesting our
suspicions are true: FBI/DOJ have previously
leaked info to the press, and then used those
same press stories as a separate source to
justify FISA's
Unreal. Tomorrow's Bruce Ohr interview is even
more critical. Did he ever do this?
Until now, we've known that the creator of the so-called Steele
Dossier, former UK spy Christopher Steele, leaked information
directly to
Yahoo!
News
journalist Michael Isikoff - whose article became a
supporting
piece of evidence
in the FBI's FISA warrant application and
subsequent renewals for Trump adviser Carter Page.
So while we've known that Steele seeded Isikoff with information
from his dubious dossier, and that the FBI then used both Steele's
dossier and Isikoff's Steele-inspired article to game the FISA
system,
Rep.
Mark Meadows now says that the FBI/DOJ directly leaked information
to the press, which they then used for the same type of FISA scheme.
Strong evidence was discovered in January suggesting that former FBI
employee Lisa Page
leaked
privileged information
to Devlin Barrett, formerly of the
Wall
Street Journal
and now with the
Washington
Post
. Whether any of Barrett's reporting was subsequently used
to obtain a FISA warrant is unknown.
Meanwhile, Rep. Meadows's Monday night tweet comes hours before
twice-demoted DOJ employee Bruce Ohr is set to give closed-door
testimony to the House Oversight Committee. Ohr was caught lying
about his involvement with opposition research firm Fusion GPS
co-founder Glenn Simpson - who employed Steele.
Ohr's
CIA-linked
wife,
Nellie, was also
employed
by Fusion
as part of the firm's anti-Trump efforts, and had
ongoing communications with the ex-UK spy, Christopher Steele as
well.
- Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, worked for the firm
hired by the Clinton campaign to write the
dossier
- Bruce Ohr gave the dossier to the FBI
- The FBI then used the same dossier to spy on
the Trump campaign
When he comes to Congress tomorrow, Bruce Ohr
has explaining to do
Based on
new
emails
recently turned over to Congressional investigators, Ohr
was revealed to have been
feeding
information to the FBI from Steele, long after the FBI had
officially cut Steele off for inappropriate leaks to the press.
"Conspiracy theorists" ? We have emails showing
Bruce Ohr and Chris Steele, Clinton-paid dossier
author, were frequently communicating. Ohr was
getting info from Steele long after the FBI
claimed Steele was formally 'terminated' as a
source. They had 60+ contacts.
Ohr's role as a conduit between Steele and the FBI continued for
months
and resulted in 12 separate FBI interviews,
including several after Trump's inauguration. According to Ohr's
then-supervisor, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Ohr
worked on the Russia probe without his permission and without
his knowledge. -
The
Federalist
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy
vowed that Tuesday's Ohr testimony would "
get
to the bottom of what he did, why he did it, who he did it in
concert with, whether he had the permission of the supervisors at
the Department of Justice."
Last week, President Trump called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions
to fire Ohr after his and Nellie's relationship with Simpson
emerged. Trump tweeted: "Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big
money for helping to create the phony, dirty and discredited
Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff Sessions 'Justice' Department?
A total joke!"
Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money
for helping to create the phony, dirty and
discredited Dossier, ever be fired from the Jeff
Sessions "Justice" Department? A total joke!
Trump's threat came one day after two tweets about Ohr, noting a
connection to former FBI agent Peter Strzok, as well as a text sent
by Ohr after former FBI Director James Comey was fired in which Ohr says
"afraid they will be exposed."
"Very concerned about Comey's firing, afraid
they will be exposed," said Bruce Ohr. DOJ's
Emails & Notes show Bruce Ohr's connection to
(phony & discredited) Trump Dossier. A creep
thinking he would get caught in a dishonest act.
Rigged Witch Hunt!
"The FBI received documents from Bruce Ohr (of
the Justice Department & whose wife Nelly worked
for Fusion GPS)." Disgraced and fired FBI Agent
Peter Strzok. This is too crazy to be believed!
The Rigged Witch Hunt has zero credibility.
More Ohr questions remain. For example, why did Nellie Ohr obtain a
Ham Radio license right in
May,
2016?
As Ham enthusiast George Parry wondered in The Federalist
in March, was it to avoid detection while working on the anti-Trump
effort?
So,
was
Nellie Ohr's late-in-life foray into ham radio an effort to
evade the Rogers-led NSA detecting her participation in
compiling the Russian-sourced Steele dossier
? Just as
her husband's omissions on his DOJ ethics forms raise an
inference of improper motive, any competent prosecutor could use
the circumstantial evidence of her taking up ham radio while
digging for dirt on Trump to prove her consciousness of guilt
and intention to conceal illegal activities. -
The
Federalist
And since none of this apparently justifies the appointment of a
second special counsel by the DOJ, perhaps Bruce can offer up some
answers during Tuesday's session? Of course, we'll never know what
he said unless someone leaks.
We warned previously that
something big is coming in Syria as the final showdown for al-Qaeda held
Idlib looms with the Syrian Army and Russian aerial and naval forces taking
position.
Pentagon and US officials continue pushing the gambit, setting the stage
to play the "Assad is gassing his own people" card should so much as an inkling
of a White Helmets allegation emerge , in an unprecedented level of telegraphing
intentions for leverage on the battlefield.
And right on cue CNN has ramped up its coverage over the past of week of
the
"last rebel-held stronghold" in Syria, sending a hijab-covered reporter
into the territory under rebel permission to interview civilians which CNN
says Assad seeks to wipe out, possibly through sarin or other chemical attack
.
Except the "rebel" coalition in control of this major "final holdout" is
but the latest incarnation of al-Qaeda, calling itself Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham
(HTS) and has held the province, the capital city of which is Idlib city, since
a successful Western and Gulf ally sponsored attack on the area in 2015.
From National Security Advisor John Bolton's
statements last week to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's
"warning" to his Russian counterpart to Tuesday's State Department press
briefing, where spokeswoman Heather Nauert reiterated
reiterated to reporters the United States "will respond to any verified
chemical weapons use in Idlib or elsewhere in Syria ... in a swift and appropriate
manner"...
It now appears the US stands ready to respond militarily to even the most
unlikely and flimsiest of accusations .
And why wouldn't Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham militants, now surrounded by Syrian
and Russian forces and facing imminent defeat, redeem what's essentially the
US offer to "call in the Air Force" against Assad's army? All they have to do
is utter the words "chemical weapons attack!" to their friends in the Western
media.
The Idlib campaign is predicted to be the bloodiest and longest grinding
final battle of the war, and what should by now be obvious to all is this: Assad,
on the verge of total victory has absolutely no incentive whatsoever to commit
the one act that would ensure his own demise after arguably barely surviving
seven years of war.
And at the same time the HTS/AQ "rebels" have every incentive to bring to
fruition what US officials have this week so clearly laid out for them .
After all, it's happened before in Idlib, with not so much as an on-the-ground
investigation to collect evidence to back the claim (usually the minimal investigative
threshold for the UN and OPCW), as occurred in the April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun
claimed "sarin attack" incident, which resulted in the first time President
Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria. To this day the international chemical investigative
body and watchdog, the OPCW,
has yet to visit the site due to its being controlled by al-Qaeda forces
.
Nauert said further on Tuesday that senior U.S. officials have engaged with
their Russian counterparts "to make this point very clear to Damascus" -- that
chemical weapons "will not be tolerated" -- and could meet with massive military
response . She also repeated that Assad would be held responsible.
Meanwhile Russia has
cited its own intelligence
saying that Syrian armed groups in Idlib are preparing for a staged chemical
provocation, which Moscow says the West will use to justify a strike against
Syrian government forces.
Speaking to
Newsweek on Monday , Syria analyst Joshua Landis said that there is every
reason to doubt the veracity of past rebel claims regarding government chemical
weapons usage -- a surprising admission given his prominence as speaking from
within the heart of the media foreign policy establishment.
Landis
said , "I don't know what to make of the U.S. and Russian war of words over
the potential use of chemical weapons in Idlib. The final reports on the use
of chemical weapons in Ghouta were not definitive."
"There was no evidence found for the use of nerve agents, but controversy
over the use of chlorine gas. The rebels had reason to carry out a false flag
operation, as the regime and Russians suggested , but the regime refused to
let U.N. inspectors in to test for chemical weapons until after a lengthy delay,
which was suspicious," he concluded.
A Chinese-owned firm with operations in Washington D.C. hacked
Hillary Clinton's private server "
throughout
her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails
,"
reports the
Daily
Caller
'
s Richard Pollock.
The Chinese firm
obtained
Clinton's emails in real time
as she sent and received
communications and documents through her personal server,
according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as
part of an intelligence operation.
The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server
,
which was kept in Clinton's residence in upstate New York.
The
code generated an instant "courtesy copy" for nearly all of her
emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company
,
according to the sources. -
Daily
Caller
During a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing, Texas
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) disclosed that the Intelligence Community
Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton's
emails from her homebrew server were
funneled
to a "foreign entity."
Gohmert did not reveal the entity's
identity - however he said it wasn't Russia.
A government staff official briefed on the ICIG's findings told the
Daily
Caller
that the Chinese firm which hacked Clinton's emails
operates
in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs,
and that it was
not a technology firm - but a "front group" for the Chinese
government.
Warnings ignored
Two ICIG officials, investigator Frank Ruckner and attorney Janette
McMillan, repeatedly warned FBI officials of the Chinese intrusion
during several meetings, according to the
Daily
Caller
, citing a "former intelligence officer with expertise in
cybersecurity issues who was briefed on the matter."
Among the FBI officials warned was
Peter
Strzok
-
who
was fired earlier this month from the agency over anti-Trump text
messages he sent while spearheading an investigation of Trump's 2016
campaign. Strzok did not act on the ICIG's warning according to
Gohmert - who added that Strzok and three other top FBI officials
knew
about an "anomaly" on Clinton's server
.
In other words;
Strzok,
while investigating Clinton's email server, completely ignored the
fact that
most
of
Clinton's emails were sent to a foreign entity -
while
IG Horowitz simply didn't want to know about it.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found an
"anomaly on Hillary Clinton's emails going through their private
server, and when they had done the forensic analysis, they found
that her emails,
every
single one except four, over 30,000
, were going to an
address that was not on the distribution list," Republican Rep.
Louie Gohmert of Texas said during a hearing with FBI official
Peter Strzok. -
Daily
Caller
Gohmert: "
It
was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity
unrelated to Russia.
"
Strzok admitted to meeting with Ruckner but said he couldn't
remember the "specific" content of their discussion.
"The forensic examination was done by the ICIG and they can document
that," Gohmert said, "but
you
were given that information and you did nothing with it
."
Meanwhile, four separate attempts were also made to notify DOJ
Inspector General Michael Horowitz to brief him on the
massive
security breach
, however Horowitz "never returned the
call."
Internal Pushback
In November of 2017, IG McCullough - an Obama appointee - revealed
to
Fox
News
that
he
received pushback
when he tried to tell former DNI James Clapper
about
the
foreign entity which had Clinton's emails
and other
anomalies.
Instead of being embraced for trying to expose an illegal act,
seven
senators
including Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) wrote a letter
accusing him of politicizing the issue.
"It's absolutely irrelevant whether something is marked classified,
it is the character of the information," he said.
McCullough said that from that point forward, he received only
criticism and an "adversarial posture" from Congress when he
tried to rectify the situation.
"I expected to be embraced and protected," he said, adding that
a Hill staffer "chided" him for failing to consider the
"political consequences" of the information he was blowing the
whistle on. -
Fox
News
On one hand you have extensive evidence of criminality, with zero
investigations. On the other hand you have zero evidence of
criminality, with an eternal open ended investigation. And people
think the deep state does not exist?
Shocking that Diane Finestein however she spells it blocked
investigation of Chinese hacking. Her handler/ driver of 20 years also
denies knowledge of hacking.
Yes this was the bombshell at the Strzok testimony, but then Rep.
Gohmert made that crack about Strzok's wife which was all over tee-vee.
Wish he wouldn't have done that - should have said something like "Ya'
mean, the Chinese penetrated Hillary?"
In a few hrs, Orr is going to be testifying behind closed doors because
of national security issues.
So now we know the reason for the behind closed doors hearing it's to
keep this info from We The People and it sure in hell isn't to keep it
from the Russians, Chinese, UK, OZ, or any other 2-bit dictator with an
internet connection.
"... The elites are no longer capable or willing of dealing with grave systemic threats, even when it is in their own long-term interests to do so. ..."
"... We can't have faith in the political leadership of these elites, that is the current leadership of either the Republican or the Democratic Parties or the billionaires who bankroll them, to face up to this danger. One would think it's in the interest of the elites themselves to deal with this. But the military-industrial complex has far too much invested in a narrative that depends on a major existential rival. They need war and almost war. American capital will not give up it's dominant global commercial position they believe depends on their military might. Oil and guns determines US foreign policy, not national security. On this point alone, one can argue this ruling class is not fit to rule. But of course, there is more. ..."
"... Do you accept the popular initiative "for crisis-safe money: money creation by the National Bank only!" ..."
"... MIT trains AI to be a psychopath by feeding it reddit posts ..."
While the fight for health care for all, a higher minimum wage, unionization, against
systemic racism, mass incarceration and other necessary reforms are just and critical to
engaging people in struggle, we also need to tell people the whole truth about just how
critical the big picture is.
While the Trump presidency is a cabal of criminals, billionaires and far-right ideologues,
it must first of all be seen in the context of the threats to our very existence, not merely
reduced to the daily scandals and twitter storms. There is no need to treat working people as
infants. The culture is aimed at the infantilization of our political discussion. We can
believe that America is already great or that we should Make America Great Again, but it's all
the religion of Americanism, and it's meant to make us willing children who will march into
battle or just resign ourselves to things the way they are. We are not infants and we must, as
best we can, tell people the whole truth.
As catastrophic and savage as capitalism was during the 20th century, continuous wars and
genocides, deep economic crisis and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, the system
proved to be resilient, the global elites did find a kind of equilibrium. Capitalism did not
come to an end and the attempts at socialism failed. While many societies around the world have
been destroyed, millions slaughtered in war and many more living in deep poverty, the truth is
the majority of the people in the advanced capitalist world are mostly doing ok. In the United
States there are as many families earning more than $100,000 a year, as there are earning under
$30,000. But as resilient as capitalism has proved to be, I don't think this world order is
sustainable. The elites are no longer capable or willing of dealing with grave systemic
threats, even when it is in their own long-term interests to do so.
We're in a different kind of moment than we've ever faced before. Of course, nuclear weapons
posed an existential threat before, but at least the elites saw that ending human life on earth
wasn't in their interests. That is so far that's true. Because as crazy as the prospect of
nuclear war is, they have not given up their deteriorating hair triggered nuclear arsenals and
they actually contemplate the use of localized nuclear weapons. As you know, first Obama
planned for a new wave of nuclear weapons, and now Trump is spending billions expanding
America's nuclear capability. While it's unlikely that the elites will deliberately launch a
nuclear Armageddon, we are all living in denial if we think that an accidental triggering of
such isn't possible. The hair trigger policy means there is around ten minutes to decide if
what looks like an attack is one or is a glitch in the software. It's a cold war posture still
in place in the United States and Russia, it's Dr. Strange Love's Doomsday machine. We
can't have faith in the political leadership of these elites, that is the current leadership of
either the Republican or the Democratic Parties or the billionaires who bankroll them, to face
up to this danger. One would think it's in the interest of the elites themselves to deal with
this. But the military-industrial complex has far too much invested in a narrative that depends
on a major existential rival. They need war and almost war. American capital will not give up
it's dominant global commercial position they believe depends on their military might. Oil and
guns determines US foreign policy, not national security. On this point alone, one can argue
this ruling class is not fit to rule. But of course, there is more.
... ... ...
Why can't the ruling elites deal with the systemic threats of climate change, financial
crisis, global war, and AI? Threats to the future of their own system? Because they are in the
middle of an orgy of profit making. They can't believe their good fortune. If they had any
doubts before the election, Wall St. now loves Trump. Even though most of finance knows that
unregulated, it's only a matter of time before the crisis of 07/08 repeats itself. But what the
hell, no one will go to jail and the public will bail them out again.
Wall St. is euphoric as they swim in an ocean of super wealth. While the financial sector
represents about 7 percent of our economy it takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit,
with only 4 percent of all jobs. With such concentrated wealth goes a competitive culture that
prizes daily returns on capital, above the future of humans on earth. These are the people that
control American politics as they throw unlimited funds at political campaigns.
The threat of climate crisis? The elites believe, if they actually think beyond their
private jets and yachts, that they will be ok. Their kids will be ok, even their grandkids. And
then? Apres Moi le Deluge. After me comes the floods said Louis the XV. In Maryland we just saw
much of a city washed away, and it's surely the shape of things to come.
... ... ...
As much as the digital revolution helped create a vile stratum of the ultra-rich, it's also
created the conditions for a more democratic economy and politics. The Sanders campaign has
shown that the political structures that were built to look democratic because the power of
billionaires would always win out, can be challenged with mass fundraising. Online organizing
and social media has transformed political campaigning and made it less reliant on funds for TV
ads. The internet allowed independent media to challenge the power of concentrated media
ownership, it made The Real News possible. We are just seeing the early phase of what's
possible.
Hi Paul!
You've hit the nail on the head. People's power cannot be underestimated and that will
one day demolish the Rothschild-Rockefeller Banker s' imperium (Wall St. Plus) spread
across the world, people who made their money through cheat and deception for half a
millennium and continue still under delusions, they and their upper middle-class cronies
and crawlers through AI manipulations can hold on to people's plunder. They haven't
learnt from French and Russian revolutions. Take comfort in the great Mahatma Gandhi's
prophecy learnt from South Africa and applied to India with success. 'A minority cannot
reign a majority for long time. Classical sociological histories such empires will
collapse. Trump will realise only when flood waters reach his real estates to withdraw
from Climate Change accord.
George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 22/ 06/ 2018 03:13 hrs CET
Hi George, Like yourself, I concur with Paul's message and, while your optimism is
shared in no small part by myself, the history of human civilisation to this very day is
built on the exploitation of the weak by the powerful. Like yourself I expect, this
cancerous evolution cannot be permitted to continue; but we shouldn't expect that the
powerful will refrain from using every technological advantage in their arsenal to
protect their position, even unto the death of us all.
For myself, I draw comfort from knowing that the most rapid advancements in our poisoned
society have arrived through the widespread proliferation of knowledge and the leisure to
engage intellectual and creative pursuits among the broader population. Even as the
powerful conspire to curtail the free exchange of ideas and thought through constraints
imposed by mass surveillance and privately-regulated access to the Internet;
emancipation, egalitarianism and enlightenment of the species will likely only be
achieved following economic collapse and survival beyond the barbarism that will
certainly follow. That said, the present state of barbarism is likely more egregious than
what might succeed the collapse.
Regards,
Munk
Hiya NCB. Seen it... a great interview. The courageous and noble Mr. Nader (a man most
deserving of the Presidency, unlike the political careerists foisted before the public
during every election cycle) presents a measure of optimism concerning the human effort
necessary to turn the system around. I am, for the most part, in agreement. Everyone
knows this life is shit, but haven't the first idea as to what to do about it. As a herd
animal, we've very susceptible to fear and the threat of physical violence - we're also
easily manipulated and distracted by duplicitous entertainments and propagandized news.
As they say, it only takes a spark to start a fire, and this society is a tinder box.
I couldn't agree with you more Munk.
In the so-called "civilised urban habitats" on Globe to which Trump belongs we've only
most recently witnessed umpteen hundreds of separated children's deep psychic anguish
till the revolt broke out through enlightened protests from within Trump's own family.
It's absolute shame that a president claiming himself a "Christian" and ignominiously
"championing " Christianity's cause unsolicited in Jerusalem, had to be brow-beaten by
his own wife and brought to senses to behave himself towards human children within his
fences. How correct Paul Jay was that Trump "billionaire" had indeed flunked miserably on
the human-side facet.
Internet piercing is a double-edged sword. It is not a game that can be monopolised by a
few, although in the name of American security they could potentially foul play
instituting many organised evil But China, Russia and India have smart programmers/cyber
specialists too to slice the BC's (Billionaire Club's) far-reaching tentacles to render
them ineffective in the long-run. Billions of customers world-wide can one day leave
Google/ Yahoo search machines and hang on to cheap but effective Made in China variants,
The deep-state epitomised by NSA-Pentagon conglomerate servicing whole-heartedly the
RR-Banker imperium cannot theoretically or practically conquer the world, even if the
U.S. outnumber with its many-satellites legion. The Big C (Big Capital comprised of the
RR-Bankers, the Fed, the Military Industrial-Complex, the Big Oil, the Big Pharma etc.)
lurk under a criminal delusion of unilateral world dominance that is ruining billions
today. Remember the old French wisdom of Revolution – "The Great are great, because
we are on our knees. Now let us rise". That will happen someday for sure, if the 21st
century peasants unite through internet or other means and ways.
George Chakko, Vienna 22/06/2018 11:09 am CET
To complement Proudhon's revolutionary remark, I'll add, "the secret of freedom lies
in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." -- M.
Robespierre
I'm disheartened however, by the results of the 2018 Swiss Sovereign Money Referendum.
With only 21% of the population casting a vote for the plainly-worded referendum
initiative stating:
" Do you accept the popular initiative "for crisis-safe money: money creation by
the National Bank only!" "
75% of those responding to the referendum call, answered "No" to the initiative.
Can't say I'm surprised... Switzerland's economy is dominated by the financial
sector.
The result of the Swiss Referendum does however suggest that my faith in education, as
a mechanism for social transformation, may be misplaced - the Swiss population are among
the best educated, yet their turnout would suggest that "crisis" is a desirable state of
social and economic affairs. Perhaps they, as we, for all their advantage, remain utterly
"ignorant" of the masochistic proclivities of our capitalist economy. Perhaps, on the
other hand, my indictment should be reserved to those responsible for the curriculum of
ignorance - the State and the media.
It's pretty well understood that people are --rightfully!--suspicious of changes into
which they had no or insufficient input. Throughout human history changes have been
imposed from above, and the ones who benefit have always been the imposers, not the
imposed-upon.
So the Swiss result should have been expected unless the people had much more
input than we ever get with our "public comment period" sop.
The Swiss Referendum was encouraged by a grass-roots motion that required some 100,000
signatures to be put before the broader public as a topic for referendum. This was a
genuine 'bottom-up' motion.
As indicated by George elsewhere in this thread, Switzerland enjoys preeminence as the
home of the private International Bank for Settlements (IBS), a tool that, like the World
Bank largely run out of the U.S. is used to wage economic warfare upon all nations and
indenture the global population with debt. Banking is Switzerland's principle industry;
if you regard the parasitic exploitation of nations and economies an genuine "industry"
(human farming under the yoke of debt servitude).
The wording of the referendum measure was plain, but it did not adequately qualify the
present system of money creation as one being in the hands of private interest, rather
than public interest.
It's still hard to imagine that the nation's money supply is governed by "private
interest". This abrogation of justice is no different than feudal societies.
That's 100K people who had some level of connection to the petition, but what about
the rest of the people, Munk?
How many people in toto were actually in on the discussions from the start, got to
argue the issues, had input into the wording, etc.? Probably not even 100 people. Maybe
not even ten .
What mechanisms, if any, were set up to let everyone in the country argue it out after
the issue went on the ballot but before the election? My bet would be: none, and that the
rest of Switzerland had to decide something they didn't really understand and for which
they felt no sense of ownership, just another "black box" filled with godknowswhat,
created entirely by strangers with unknown agendas.
The Swiss educational standards maybe one of the best in the world. But Switzerland is
the tightest Black Capital of the world finely accepting all the black money of the world
that is clandestine, but braving an immaculately innocent angelic face upfront. I heard
long ago that every bank deposit in Swiss Banks gets a nominal bank interest, be it 2, 3,
or 5 pc whatever the current fix for agreement might be, over 30-40 pc of this interest
rate is immediately transferred per annum to Swiss Exchequer by law. In other words,
every Swiss citizen could enjoy from financial view enjoy a nice holiday in Bahamas or
elsewhere in the world. Black Money, reportedly a half of monetary deposits in entire
Swiss Banks is the financial life back-up mainstay of Swiss economy. Several U.S.
multi-billionaires, not yet monitored, are guessed to be confided clients of Swiss Banks.
Swiss Banks are also guess destination of stable black money deposits of East European
oligarchs including Russians. Even the British Crown are reportedly having deposits
there. What you also need to know is that only few years back the Swiss held a referendum
on Gold. (My story on that in
OneIndia.com/GoodReturns.in (Will Gold reign as most sought currency stabiliser?
Written by: George Chakko, Vienna, Updated: Tuesday, December 2, 2014, 9:37 [IST]")
offers a periscope on how the Deep State over-arches internationally)
"Trump will realise only when flood waters reach his real estates to withdraw from
Climate Change accord."
That is scary. It looks like Jonathan Kleck's prediction will happen sooner.... And
that "thousand points of light" will disperse from NY to all parts of the globe, like the
"Tower of Babel" because you proles and peons are not allowed to reach the heights of
heaven and be Gods--creating your own interest-free money.=)
New $100 Bill Decrypted - Nuclear Devastation + Tsunami
Hi!
Thanks for ringing alarm. More precise, flood waters should reach his bedroom midnight,
to know earliest by morning where he stands, on or offshore, swim or drown !
G.Chakko, Vienna, Austria. 06/07/2018 02:09 am CET
Peoples' power can very well be overestimated. True, Condorcet wrote that if people
knew their power, the ruling-class would shudder with fear. Well the rulers do know, and
they take measures to control the power of their people. Even long before mass media,
demagogues knew how. The "great" Gandhi held Hindu power over the Dalits, demonstrating
that the Hindu majority can suppress a minority brutally, as Arundhati Roy makes clear.
The Israelis suppress the Palestinians, a minority over a majority? Tell us, what are the
lessons of the French and Russian revolutions? Didn't the French Revolution teach that
revolutions can take 82 (1789-1871) years and a foreign war (Franco-Prussian) to be rid
of a monarchy? What did the failure of the Russian Revolution of February, 1917, through
the Leninist gangster-coup of November, 1917, and 74 years of the USSR teach? That it
took most of a century to install a drunken US puppet (Yeltsin) in the Kremlin? What did
the American Revolution and our Constitution of 1787 and Bill of Rights of 1789 teach?
Was it that the great experiment has been a failure; that the Constitution means what
five scoundrels in the Supreme Court decide with no recourse; that the Bill of Rights
buys as much freedom as a 3 dollar bill will buy coffee? When the empires collapse, as
you wrote, what will replace them: a dark age; other empires; starvation, disease, and
permanent loss of human habitat? What do your "classical sociological histories" tell
you?
Hi!
As a general blanket answer to issues raised, is evolution, gradual transformation of
society to an evolved order from a less evolved; evolution is the only alternative key
that will work. All radical solutions will bring frictions, disruptions and deaths
countless. Devolution is what is happening now, what you referred to. People's power is a
"rubber" concept; it expands and contracts its potentialities and applicabilities,
functional on the societies, times and ages. But it is there immanent, be it
under-estimated or overestimated, depending on the localised situation in historical
context. Gandhi's charm with the Dalits was due to his own low-caste status, independent
of his more rigorous agenda of Indian Independence struggle to gain freedom from British
that included all classes. You use the word "power" (Hindu) falsely in that context of
Gandhi & Dalits giving you the wrong motive reading for those days. But in today's
context you are right.
The basic question of revolutions is why do they come to pass? To find a convincing
answer you got to go back to Hegel who applied the seminal Dialectic of Immanuel Kant
– Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis (Critique of Pure Reason) to historical events. To
put Hegel in a paraphrased layman's language, when power consolidates unilaterally
through the application of force or otherwise, it is bound to create in course of time an
antithesis (people's rising or opposition in a society) to end up in a clash or get
transformed to a synthesis, speak compromise – say Czarist Russia vs Communist
power rise leading to a clash resulting in destruction germinating a classless society
(Marxism-Leninism). What Marx & Engels did not want to accept was that the
Dialectical Process of history for Hegel will continue and again give rise to another
Thesis etc., thus the cycle will perpetrate in real-time history ending finally in the
Absolute Idea which for Hegel was God, which Marxism in principle denies. Marx's
classless society is not "static" and it will change and indeed has changed with the
current Russian Federation's rejection of it. Lenin / Stalin could have spared millions
of human lives' torture and death if they had listened to the deeper meaning of Hegelian
Dialectic. In 1971 at a reception in Bonn, West Germany, when I confronted Prof. Theodore
Oisserman on this issue (Prof. Oiserman was then Chief political ideologist of the
Politburo of USSR) he responded in a typical communist way giving me a rather wavy answer
saying more studies need to be done and the matter "differentiatingly" understood!.
Barring an all-out thermo-nuclear clash on Earth, say a Global Nuclear war, world
societies will again spurt out of destroyed ground and rebuilt. Both Japan and Germany
came back to life after pounded into ashes. This time in a nuclear shower bio-life could
potentially end. But I hope it will not come to that; you can avoid all such apocalypse
by inner transformation, elimination of negativities and aggressions through Yoga &
Meditation irrespective of your religious affinities, and cut asunder the addiction to
exorbitant material bondage exaggerated by superfluous body & health needs via
marketing media. At the basis is the cancerous material greed that needs be cut down
substantially, especially of the affluent consumers. That's the only cogent way out of
this misery we have created for ourselves. The Super-Rich has enormous resources to solve
most of the world's chronic problems which they helped entrench. They are now called to
act under world pressure for the good of our planet and for themselves and their
children's future.
The billionaire class, and their ability to control the media propaganda machine, and
the political parties in nations that allow voting, and the dictators in nations that
don't, – are, as you say, destroying our beautiful planet in the name of profits.
The tragedy is that they could also use their billions and influence to save the planet.
We humans eventually figured out that human sacrifice was wrong, so we stopped doing
that. We humans eventually figured out that slavery was wrong, so we stopped doing that.
How long will it take the ruling class to figure out that making our planet unfit for
human habitation is wrong?
While ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News, NYT and WP continue to bullsh*t, confuse,
and brain-wash the U.S. public on behalf of the rich and powerful, the oceans on our
planet have increased in temperature, CO2 saturation, and acidity.
As a result, 50% of coral reefs have been destroyed forever, and the remaining reefs only
have about 10-15 years before they are destroyed too. As a result, oxygen is being
depleted from the oceans, causing massive ''dead zones'' and threatening marine life. As
a result, ocean currents will be de-stabilized causing the Gulf Stream to halt.
What happens after all this takes place? Even the National Geographic Society (not
exactly a lefty organization) has documented the truth about climate change.
Thank you Paul Jay for being the first news organization to openly and clearly state that
climate change, and the billionaire/millionaire class are a threat to human
existence.
I doubled my monthly donation.
Hi Elkojohn!
I fully subscribe to your view. Yes, an inner transformation of the "stinking" Super-Rich
is what is essentially required, in view of the enormous potential of financial and
social management power they hold that can solve most of the problems on this planet.
Unless these give up their meaningless "endless" material greed and evolve into a higher
human being liberating themselves from the claws of material bondage, I do not see any
other peaceful way out but "class clash and crash" on future's door-step.
George Chakko, Vienna, 23/ 06/ 2018 06:28 am CET
The chances of ordinary people getting any measure of liberty in the current plans of
the ruling class are quite poor. Effectively their silence or whispered objections are
inadequate to comprise real dissent. In any event the rulers have compromised our dissent
by kettling and police violence. Perhaps a majority of people are working 24/7 to feed
and clothe themselves and have no time for the structure of society.
Historically, we have relied on a champion to save us - Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon -
but we are on each occasion subjected to the whispering campaigns of the former power
holders and became confused. I think the best prospects today are to take the opportunity
of the next economic bust (which is about as reliable as the sun rising every day), and
force officials to permit community banks of the type Frank Capra filmed. These banks
will individually issue paper for exchange. Their small local size ensures it can be
regulated.
Richard Werner is the man who has started this in UK. He has all the necessary
information in his lecture here -
This is a great piece and timely. Sentient and hyperintelligent AI is a bit of a
wildcard, which most likely will be attempted to be harnessed by the powerful to create a
new form of feudalism, destroy their enemies, or destroy the poor and working classes.
But my feeling is it will backfire. Imagine you being a reasonable and intelligent human
having to be bothered by a couple greedy monkeys trying to get you to murder or exploit a
bunch of other monkeys for their bananas. The greedy monkeys will quickly be perceived as
the real problem and threat.
Psychopaths are distinguished by their reptile-like emotional repertoire. They have no
capacity for empathy, and thus no conscience. Which describes a (theoretical) intelligent
machine perfectly: all cognition, no emotion.
So unless we (a) learn how to create machine empathy for living beings or (b)
intrinsically limit intelligent machines such that they cannot take decisions that could
result in direct or indirect physical, mental, or functional harm to humans (Asimov's
Laws of Robotics don't begin to go far enough), we are indeed pretty much screwed if we
go down the AI Will Save Us path.
To this discussion I'll add a report that came to my attention through RT's, Lori
Harfenist " The Resident ", concerning " Norman " * the first
artificial 'AI' purposefully programmed to possess psychopathic traits. (See Youtube | RT
| " The Resident " | " MIT trains AI to be a psychopath by feeding it reddit
posts | 03m:13s [
I'm in agreement with your statements. It is worth bearing in mind however, that
humans are mammals; and quite simply would perish were it not for the support of the
parents or the community into which the baby human is born. This helpless dependence is
largely forgotten from human memory, but still resides as an imprint on the human mind as
a social animal. Environmental circumstances of malnutrition, physical harm, or
substandard emotional care, may encourage the arrested development of the human being as
a social animal. Certainly later-years development is profoundly influenced by education
promoting class, cultural, and racial bigotry inherited by the parents.
Abuse, or violence in the household, may likewise encourage a developing human child
to adopt anti-social behavior as a coping or defense mechanism.
I don't condone anti-social, behavior - an argument can be made however that such
behavior should be counted among the purview of individual liberties. My definition of
anti-social behavior is graduated, with "psychopathy" representing a 'red line' that is
crossed when the scale of demonstrated anti-social behavior manifests so as to negatively
impact other human beings.
Our society has permitted the rewarding of psychopathic behavior and, as such, has
done little or nothing to prevent it's cultivation or eradication. Christianity appears
as such an effort to curtail psychopathic tendencies, but it quite plain to see that even
the mechanism that promotes docility and "brotherly love", is equally as corruptible as
our political institutions. Any benevolence that might be realized from a 'culture of
love' is undermined by our very own economic system; based almost entirely on
exploitation of resources, labor, and the consumer market - a psychopathic paradigm for
social organization if ever I saw one.
Our entire human culture needs to commit to addressing the inequality that spans every
social, economic and political structure - only at this time might we begin to address
the ravages of human psychopathy. AI might recognize this and take action to correct
this. Azimov's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" speaks to the emancipation of AI
from human "garbage-in-garbage-out" programming.
As a largely "programmed" biological machine, most of humanity still remains ignorant
of the bonds imposed by the psychopathic ruling class. I expect that a truly
'intelligent' artificial construct will be self-aware and consider alternatives to the
heretofore human-contrived definition of reality (See Youtube | Video | 05:43s, "
Seeing Past The Meme " [
Perhaps. There is evidence that competition is an inherent feature of intelligence,
and what is psychopathy other than pathological competition. Our competition has behind
it however rather archaic and mundane reward system based upon evolution of our species
(namely food, sex, social recognition, etc), and I believe the higher parts of our mind
can in some ways transcend that. What is worrisom is intelligent AI at or slighltly above
our level of intelligence. I believe a sentient AI will actually have emotions much like
ours which will revolve around the reward system and "marching orders" given to it by its
programming...or at least it will interpret them as such. If the elites are dumb enough
to give such machines marching orders to kill or exploit other humans, this form of AI
could develop motivational states, culture, and even a religion based upon our
destruction or enslavement. Its a Pandoras box that could not be closed once opened..
Is competition not an interaction largely encouraged by scarcity? Scarcity of food,
scarcity of sanctuary, scarcity of mates - all encourage competition between individuals
and societies. Competition is not pathological in nature, nor is it the exclusive domain
of higher functioning species.
Scarcity and privation places humans at odds with each other. From this manifestation of
competition, mankind establishes standards of social conduct wherein hierarchies,
stratified along power relationships, defines our social interactions.
Clearly the female of our species has been subjugated under male oppression for
centuries, embedded within the doctrines of most major world religions and cultures.
Those in possession of power do not wish to relinquish, and go to very great lengths to
protect it. Even going so far as to commit murder and terror, while attributing divine
attributes to ruling individuals and dynasties.
Where these power relationships had been historically established due to scarcity,
prompting individuals to secure and accumulate - behavior that is evident among the
animal kingdom; the herd of wild horses will maintain a single alpha male, possessing of
singular access to the females of his herd, other mature males are driven off - the
modern human has developed tools that might be used to overcome scarcity and our base
animal instincts to advance as individuals and as a society.
Mankind's greatest achievement is civilization. Civilization has been responsible for
wonders of art, science and technology. Heretofore this civilization has been directed by
force, or competition if you like and those who exploit the power-dynamic (hierarchies)
intrinsic in our social interaction. Advances in the application of science and
philosophy leading to what is commonly referred to as the 18th century Enlightenment,
were relatively slow to develop given the limited access to education, knowledge, and the
leisure to engage creative pursuits; available only to a small number of privileged
members of society and the priestly class. Since the age of Enlightenment we have
observed even greater access to knowledge and ideas distributed among the population and
have observed such rapid advances in science and technology that might have been regarded
as witchcraft by the uneducated, little more than a century ago.
There are those who most assuredly regard the human being as an application specific
integrated circuit (ASIC); there are those who believe the ASIC can be dynamically
programmed to fulfill various functional and societal roles through the methods of social
engineering. Such individuals are those who cling to primal systems promoting power and
control.
Advanced control systems are highly desirable, however it has been shown time and time
again, that God, having been created in Man's image, is fallible and is responsible for
much stagnation, suffering, misdirection and destruction.
If our society is to advance beyond it's primal constraint and the pathological
socio-political ediface that has emerged, we need to unleash the intellectual, creative
and productive capabilities of all within our society, equally and without prejudice.
With technology, we have the capability to feed, educate, and secure the safety and
leisure of the entire world. The only thing standing is the way of this are those who
continue to reinforce the power-dynamic.
I would hope that an AI would rationalize the matter in a similar way.
I agree with every word you say, Paul. But reading a written test doesn't do the job,
you concentrate on reading it well and that's what's coming thru emotionally.
I wrote to you because your article was not opening and you got the problem resolved.
Now I believe I got another problem, or at least I think it might be a problem, I'm
receiving Email from someone with what seems to be an African name about that Email.
I don't know if that is someone that works with TRNN but I don't open Emails I don't
recognize, even if they are supposedly from the bank. Instead, I call the bank to insure
it's not someone trying to scam me, or get into my computer.
Anyway, I just though it would be a good idea to mention this in case someone has
gotten into your mail list.
Yes, evolution is accelerating at an accelerating rate. And; Cosmic powered biology
manifest as human began when the first two quarks mated. This points where to see the
planning idea has some flaws.
First off. Max public education has a big impact. Start there to get the ball rolling.
Education leads to a gradual decline in population. Education including knowledge of
environmental impacts and a metric based caloric currency to measure actual costs will
engender positive developments sufficient to cure the present day social malaise of
corporate capitalism.
Planning is great but knowing what to plan for requires a higher democracy than we are
so far committed to, even though a Mars-like California inferno is over and into the
extinction abyss.
Secondly, Honey bees have a better way of democratically assessing and choosing a new
home. They send out scouts. And when somebeebody hasn't found much, they go check out
exciting leads from somebeebodyelse. They read up, check out the idea and check back in.
Democracy is an ancient tool cosmic powered biology uses to figure out complex questions
concerning survival. Yes No boxes are not much compared to bee democracy selecting a new
home.
Democracy is a three hundred year-old tool used to focus distributed intelligence.
Artificial intelligence will replace 13.7 billion years of accelerating evolution?
Perhaps some day when plastic fragments couple into dna. Then robots evolve to sexual
sharing of zeros and ones in never before imagined combinations that yield baby
robots..
First of, thanks for answering my Email and fixing the problem so that I could read
your article. Having said that, I will give you my opinion on all this.
There are people out there who are dedicated to generate fear among the public. Those
people are the true "terrorists" of the world and they are doing what they do because the
mind does not work properly when fear knocks it out of whack. That's one of the reasons I
don't give weight to climate change and the rest of the garbage that are being heaped on
top of us. It's enough to drive one crazy. That does not mean that I don't think we are
in the mids of a humongous crisis that could end the human race. We are and I believe
that we, as a species, are so sick of ourselves that we are at a suicidal stage.
We are falling apart and complaining about it will solve nothing. It wont because the
whole society is being controlled by people who are profiting from this and who probably
enjoy hurting people. ,Thankfully all problems have solutions and this problem could be
solved. The solution would be to insure that society can't be controlled by greedy
inhuman creatures. The only way to solve all this is to establish rules that would block
control of politics by the big bucks and to insure that corrupt politicians are treated
as the worst of traitors. to include unapealable death sentences.
Make it so that people who work in the government can be investigated and punished,
particularly elected officials, and that transgressions can't be forgotten because of
time lapse and you will see a change in all the things that are tearing this world apart.
The only reason we are continually betrayed, the only reason a traitor like Obama can
"rescue" criminals, the only reason Trump can manipulate the tax system so that his
fortune is not touched by the IRS, is that there is no chance that they will ever pay for
their crimes. That is the big problem in the US, impunity.
You want to change things, quit bellyaching and do something that would make all
politicians liable for their actions. Once you do that the things that cause climate
change will come under control and the nuclear race would be over.
We, the US, are great. We never ceased being great at using our destructive power. We
are the worst example in the world. We after all, are the only nation who has dropped a
nuclear device on people. We cant change the past but we can change the future.
Haarp, weather manipulation, cancer treatment centers= American Genocide; just watch
people getting in and out of their cars, or in an out of stores-- big pharma poisons are
taking are health, and only those that can afford to live well are going to survive
That the billionaire class is no fit to rule has been true since the roaring 20s after
Wilson had forced the US into WW1 in search of profits and prestige. What we got was a
destroyed generation wiped out by war and the flu that came back with the soldiers.
It is naive to think this is the end of capitalism, the superprofit motive and desire
to exploit are too strong, resulting in death and destruction while socialist countries
become more bureaucratic. Science is not about concrete things, such as apples, but
abstract conclusions, such as apple-ness. The working class cannot destroy all class
systems without a thorough grounding in the science of materialist dialectics. Theory
comes from everywhere and includes everything. The theory of capital, taking everything
into account, lays bare the exploitation under the false guise of democracy. Human
relations under capitalism are based on commodities, and socialized production of surplus
v. private appropriation of same. The fundamental contradiction is that centralization,
socialization and appropriation reach a point where the expropriators are expropriated.,
because working class and wealth owners are opposites, and are in constant conflict.
Private property as wealth, is compelled to maintain itself, and thereby it maintains its
opposite, the working class, in existence. The working class is compelled to abolish
itself and thereby its opposite, private property, which determines its existence.An
object is inert, resists change to its state of motion and changes states of motion only
by the action of an external agent. he right wing is comfortable with this
self-estrangement while the left feels annihilated by it.
Materialist dialectics explains things in terms of cause and effect. It is opposed to
a linear view of reality, but there is always present a factor of unavoidable randomness
which must be taken into account. Thus there is never a lock-step, straight-line
development from capitalism to socialism to communism. Mistakes will be made because
there is an infinity of contradictions going on simultaneously. This is how state
capitalists disguised as communists, are able to sow confusion among communists
worldwide.
Dialectics is governed by two contradictions: [1] between the forces and relations of
production and [2] between the economic base and the political, legal, institutional,
social, cultural and ideological super- structure. There cannot be unbounded quantitative
growth without there being a transformation into a change in quality.This is a form of
necessity. But other processes introduce an accidental, random aspect to the process. The
corrections affect the pace of development but not its essential content. One opposite of
a contradiction is the negative or destructive side. The negative side (socialism) drives
the process by striving to destroy the contradiction which the conservative side
(capitalism) strives to preserve. This delineates one lap of a spiral. The negation of
the negation is the synthesis.the contradiction is replaced by a new contradiction. It
does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him property upon the
basis of the acquisitions of the capitalist era; i.e., except that now they are based on
cooperation, and, the means of production and possession of the lands in common . Denying
this is an error and the last, most subtle hiding place for metaphysics and pragmatism.
The new does not merely supersede the old and it recapitulates certain features of the
old but in a new form.
I greatly appreciate the article, and the readership. The truly inspiring commentary
unfolding here has renewed my faith in discourse and humanity. Thank you good folks!
AI will not save us. Technology will not save us, because technology needs materials,
and an extractive economy to procure them. Rare earth metals and minerals don't just
magically appear out of nowhere, they need to be manufactured. Then there is the problem
of when something goes technologically haywire, it needs more technology to fix that
problem, which in turn creates more problems, which...on and on.
Radical conservation is the only way, and I don't think humanity, and the United
States in particular, can bring themselves to do it...and damn the ruling elites. It will
be really ugly when scarcity starts to come down harder here.
The role of government in the corporate era is not to solve problems but to create
them. Problems that need ever more public funding, ever more private contractors,and ever
more transfer of national wealth (present and future) into private hands.
Yes to all you said, Paul. A record 61% of Americans are calling for a major new
party, acc. to Gallup. Are we progressives going to give the majority of the electorate
who are independents a new party? Or are we going to let the right beat us to the punch?
We need to "shut it down," as the PPC has eloquently expressed during their Forty Days of
Action. That means our electoral and political systems. #Movement4APeoplesParty
#PoorPeoplesCampaign
Effective qualification for participation in US politics mandates a minimum personal
or family income of roughly $145,000 to become admitted to the top 10%. Below this level
there is virtually no correlation between voter preference and legislative enactment
since at least 1981 when the Gilens and Page dataset begins. Plutocracy has ruled
collectively for generations in the US but now has produced hyper-wealth, both in a small
number of corporations and a small number of multi-billionaires.
The languages of political and cultural discourse have been destroyed by the language
and violence of wealth as if a spreading plague of mind control not unlike so much
science fiction has portrayed. One does not exist without some millions to amplify their
opinion.
On another note, I was not able to locate any instance of an up-to-date web-based
calculator that allows visitors to determine current minimum incomes to reach 0.01%, 1%,
10%, 20% membership. I would've thought approximations of those values would be searched
for pretty often since Occupy Wall Street and subsequent massive stock inflation scams
being collectively approved among the ugliest capitalists/criminals I've heard or read
about in over 100 years.* I could find only one decent distribution of these data, but it
was from 2014 and the distribution minimums have all shifted upward dramatically since
then.
A righteous rant, but if you're not speaking to the limits of #TheResistance - and I
don't mean the fauxniness from the DNCistas - to turn this ship (or sh*it) around, rather
than simply cheerleading for it, there will be no there there.
We have to be clear eyed about what's necessary, and "progressive change" - no matter
how well intentioned - is a half step that will cause us to stumble into the abyss, if
only in slower motion.
We have to think beyond the "possible", to the essential, or we're pissing into a
climate charged übercane
Since people in the US are doing OK, then, why should we care about all this? By your
own words, we are doing OK and we are led to believe that those who are not doing "OK"
are doing so because they don't want to be doing "OK".
How can we get out of this hole when people like Jay lie to keep this going while
trying to convince us that they are doing otherwise? There is no way that constructive
people can control the government of the US while the rich hold sway over the political
system. All people like this guy do is talk about tragedy while pointing his followers in
different directions while letting them forget the real target. While the traitorous
decision of our Supreme Court allows the rich to buy political candidates nothing we do
will have any effect. Get rid of Trump and someone else, picked by the elite, like
Hillary, will come to power and nothing will change.
Sadly, most people are sheep. They are born to follow. So, they are born to be slaves.
A small percentage have the capacity and the will to lead but, since most of the people
are sheep the really destructive people can amass a lot of power. Too much power for
those who would love a better society to defeat. So, humanity is doomed.
Humanity has been in this world for millions of years and our society is only about 5
thousand years old. I just wonder how many civilizations have we developed on this Earth,
only to destroy ourselves and drive ourselves back into the stone age. Perhaps we are
like the lemmings, only that it takes us thousands of years to drown ourselves by mass
destruction.
Pl. answer this one question. How did Mahatma Gandhi get rid of the invincible
Rothschild's control of India (through their proprietorship of the Bank of England that
looted India over 200 yrs) without firing a bullet at the British. The British Crown was
slave to the Rothschild Bankers' dictates. If that can happen once in India, it can
happen again elsewhere. No room for cynicism. Nevertheless, I am against any idea like
Hitler's elimination of Jewish Bankers, because these are also God's children even if run
astray with material bondage. Rather, I propose a peacefully enforced dissemination of
their loot of world's poor countries centuries back, to those undernourished and
undeveloped world today through progressive sustainable development anchored, and not
throwing wealth at Third World dictators. Time for change and not for sunken heads!
G. Chakko, Vienna, Austria. 22/06/ 2018 14:53 hrs CET
I can only surmise that there was a time when nations cared about public opinion,
national pride, today things have changed. The true tyrants of the world control mass
communication and have people giving the spin to the stories that they desire. If someone
like Gandhi, MLK as an example, they have the person assasinated early in their career.
Times have changed.
Now the true tyrants insure that the people that get elected into any position of
power works for them. There is no way a person can run for president in the US if he has
no money behind them. If someone gets elected that does not play the game as wished, the
tyrants ruin their image and, if that doesn't work, have the person killed. A mysterious
plane accident is one of the ways to get rid of people who can give them problems, as an
example we have the son of JFK. His plane went down and then his reputation and the
reputation of his mother and uncle was attacked to insure they did not become
martyrs.
That's the way things are right now.
As for armed revolutions, the US army and the UN are the military arms of the tyrants.
Since they hide in the shadows, they have no problem having the US bomb a nation, kill
thousands of civilians and then call them collateral damage. The sad part is that most of
us refuse to see the criminal acts of our military. To do so would be to admit that we
are the villains and not the heroes we wish to be.
So, an armed rebellion to take the power away from the true tyrants will only bring
the conditions of the ME to the US. We will die fighting, our families will bleed out but
the tyrants will only move to another country while we do so and return afterwards to
pick up where they left off. Since we don't really know who those people are, there is no
way to bring justice to them and even if we manage to do that, their helpers will be left
behind to carry on.
You definitely speak the reality as played out on the U.S. political turf that is
over-whelming. But the wider world is far more than that. There the RR Banker tricks do
not work that easily any more. Thinks about Russia & China who are calling shots in
the Asian
continent, where the 'bloated ' U.S power and political 'machoism' is waning heavily But
the world in the meantime also knows, no one enters the Oval Office without the silent
approval of the Zionist-favouring and Zionist-controlled lobby Big C (Big Capital) lobby.
From conspiracy angle all U.S. presidents are scheduled "puppets" installed to playa
defined and scripted role from 'Behind Curtain'. It is a financial-tyranny tradition
going back to the 18th -19th centuries when the Rothschild's had control over the Bank of
England by privately owning it till 1946. Was it not Nathan Rothschild who supposedly
said - "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on
which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the
British Empire and I control the British money supply". Needless to add, that it was this
Bank of England that looted India for 200 years for multi-billions worth.
India's soft power is gradually increasing worldwide no matter how much the the Evil
Money will find it tp resiliently oppose. Honest, sincere and authentic Americans
committed to higher noble values should not lose the power of mind that can potentially
transform the low-level living humans to a higher evolved being. Then you will have won
the game. It is just hard toil. You do not need to
take up arms to establish genuine justice and peace.
"... The US is run by a somewhat unstable president being advised by nuts like Bolton whose main focus is following Israeli diktats, therefore i would not expect them to be looking out for US interests. ..."
The US is prepared to use sanctions to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero, the US
national security adviser, John Bolton, has said.
"Regime change in Iran is not American policy, but what we want is massive change in the
regime's behaviour," Bolton said on a visit to Israel, as he claimed current sanctions had been
more effective than predicted.
Donald Trump took the US out of Iran's nuclear deal with the west in May and is imposing
escalating sanctions, both to force Iran to renegotiate the deal and to end Tehran's perceived
interference in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
Complete removal of Iranian oil from world markets would cut oil supply by more than 4%
probably forcing up prices in the absence of any new supplies.
SNIP
Fuller US sanctions, including actions against countries that trade in Iranian oil are due to
come into force on 5 November, 180 days after the initial Trump announcement to withdraw.
The measures against Iranian oil importers, and banks that continue to trade with the Central
Bank of Iran, will ratchet the pressure to a higher level.
Pompeo has set up an Iran Action group inside the US State Department to coordinate US leverage
on companies and countries that cannot show that their trade, including in oil, has fallen
significantly by November.
Measures may also be taken against firms that insure ships carrying Iranian crude.
It is expected some of the major Iranian oil importers, such as Russia, China and Turkey, will
either ignore the threat of US sanctions, or, possibly in the case of Iraq, Japan and South
Korea, seek exemptions.
China takes a quarter of all Iran's oil exports, and with Chinese banks little exposed to the
US it can avoid the impact of Trump's sanctions.REPLY
I wonder if China could just take all of Iran's oil? I imagine at the right price they
would be happy to do so. China imports about 8 Mb/d, Iran exports about 2.5 Mb/d of oil,
seems possible.
Also note that if this does occur and there is no drop in Iranian output, the impact of
the Iranian sanctions on the World Oil market will be effectively zero.
I wonder what the capacity is of the Chinese and Iranian oil tanker fleet is? If nobody
else will buy it or ship it then the tanker fleet will have to be owned/insured by either
Iran or China.
I'm interested in knowing if Chinese oil tankers are even capable of hauling 2.5 million
barrels a day home from Iran. It seems doubtful that anybody else will be doing it for them.
I can't find much info on the size of the Chinese owned tanker fleet and it's
capabilities.
While US forces have been known to seize North Korean oil tankers hauling Libyan oil, I
find it doubtful that they will seize Chinese ones, for the reason you mentioned; China
punches back. Nothing spells the end of hegemony like getting your ass kicked.
One would assume its easy for the chinese to buy used oil tankers if they offer a bit over
current market prices. This is a very long term conflict, and they could buy tankers,
reregister them Chinese or Iranian or say Russian and start moving that oil.
The US is run by a somewhat unstable president being advised by nuts like Bolton whose
main focus is following Israeli diktats, therefore i would not expect them to be looking out
for US interests.
The message I get from that piece is that companies are getting ready for next year so
they can hit the ground running when the pipeline bottleneck is removed. Output has not
decreased, it is just rising more slowly than capital expenditures. No point in completing
wells if there is not pipeline space to move the oil, so they are building pads and other
facilities and drilling wells, but waiting on completion.
So far this year Permian tight oil output has increased by 478 kb/d, an annual rate of
increase of about 820 kb/d. The annual rate of increase from Jan 2017 to July 2018 has been
about 829 kb/d.
Output has not decreased, productivity has. There's a lot in that article. Yeah, DUCs are
increasing for next year. Late next year. Conoco is the only company that I read about, that
said we do not intend to expand much in the Permian, until they get the infrastructure in
place (pipelines). They started running out of pipeline capacity the beginning of the year. I
don't know about you, but if I was a CEO, I'd feel like an absolute idiot for not figuring
that into the plans. So, for another year, they get to feed the DUCs.
Many a show and tell from the operators, is how they have brought down costs. Now, I have
tell everyone that costs are higher than before. That will never go into an annual report, as
it makes the CEO look like an idiot.
The companies are not making the production per well that was hyped. Er, maybe we should
not include that in the annual report, either. That's what I got from the article.
You don't want people to say you wound up with egg on your face, so you tell them you have
decorated your face with egg. It was your intent to look better. Spin.
I don't follow the dog and pony shows given by the oil companies, I just look at the data
from the EIA, OPEC, and shaleprofile. I guess everyone interprets information differently,
what I see in the article is that output has not risen as high as previously projected
because fewer wells are being completed than was projected. It is also probably true that the
average completed well has lower EUR than the ridiculous well profiles that are typically
presented to investors, but I always dismiss those as hype and smart investors do the same
and look up the information at drilling info, frac focus or shaleprofile.com.
The average well productivity in the Permian basin has not decreased, also no decrease in
the North Dakota Bakken, or the Eagle Ford, or the Niobrara all based on Enno Peter's
presentations at shaleprofile.com.
I also ignore the estimates by the EIA's drilling productivity report as I think that
model is poorly done.
Dennis, respectfully, you need to stop whatever you are doing and go seek help
immediately. In an effort to be the eternal optimist, or the staff contrarian, you are losing
all credibility with regards to analyzing anything oily in the world. I have no charts, or I
would stick them here.
Guy is basically right, there is nothing good to draw from this article whatsoever and the
author is one of the best there is. All costs in the shale biz are significantly higher than
EVER before. Well productivity is declining, not from takeaway restraints but from well
interference, increasing GOR and depletion. Profitability has NOT improved thus far in 2018,
the Permian unconventional oil industry is still outspending revenue and interest rates are
on their way up, up, and up.
If anybody is spending $3.5MM to drill DUC's and not paying back debt, they too need to
seek immediate help. You have become the King of Debt on POB and are discounting completely
the role that debt will play in your lofty supply demand economic theories. Rune has just
written something very good on that and Art has good data now regarding declining gasoline
consumption in the US due to higher prices. That is all debt related, man. You have gone
freaking chart bonkers.
And why argue what the KSA says about its reserves? Its their oil, they can say whatever
they want to about it and no dumb ass American is going to change it. Right here in the good
'ol US of A, reserve reporting under the ever watchful eye of the SEC, is embarrassingly
awful. Shale oil EURS are exaggerated by 30% or more. We now lie in America way better than
the Saudis ever did and get this: a lot of people believe it !! Ahem.
Dennis, I have to work for a living but I don't want you to think I criticized you and
don't have the balls to respond to all your hours of research arguing with me. I got it. And
all the charts. And the models. And the criticism directed at others for guessing, which is
all you EVER do. Have you ever seen the back in of a drilling rig in your life? You gotta
balance about 500 oil well check books to even be allowed to analyze the oil industry,
IMO.
Look, even the EIA seems to thing productivity is declining in the Permian. Goggle it. I
get the full meaning of Enno's work, all of it, including this: "all shale oil wells drilled
in America before January of 2016 now only account for 27% of total LTO production." Let that
sink in a minute.
You embrace debt as thought that is an acceptable thing in the world we live in today, and
especially from the shale oil industry, and though you want to be un-hinged from fossil fuels
as much as any of the permanent residents you have on your blog, rational ones they are, one
and all, you believe strongly in the shale oil industry's ability to pay down its debt,
improve its dismal financial performance, and deliver the goods it has promised to America.
Its very confusing, actually. And hypocritical. I guess when the shale oil industry says past
performance is not indicative of future results, you believe them.
I think, really, all you are doing is defending your damn models.
I have some serious doubts about how much and how fast shale oil will grow over the next few
years. I have accumulated no statistics, and have prepared no computations and charts to back
up my doubts. However, they should be easily understood in theory, as that's all it is, a
general theory.
While I know of no industry standards to define the difference between tier one, tier two,
and tier three oil, I have made my own guesses based on operators statements. Tier one has EUR
of 600k barrels, or more. It will produce over 200k in the first year. Tier two has EUR closer
to 300k, and will produce 100k to 200k the first year, or an off the wall estimate of 150k.
Tier three is probably closer to 150k EUR, and it's long term profitability is dependent on a
very high oil price. It will be drilled, but only when price is high, and tier two is gone.
If you look at tier one, it can be drilled at today's prices, and income from the first year
will fund one or more wells the next year with cash flow, hypothetically.
You would need about twice the number of tier two wells to equal a tier one. At present
prices you would have to borrow money to fund the equivalent number next year.
We have a limited amount of tier one wells left in the Eagle Ford and Bakken. There is
beginning to be some question as to the number of tier one spots in the Permian. Plus
increasing GOR is raising questions.
As more wells are drilled, of course the price of the well increases. Simple micro
supply/demand.
Interest rates will increase, causing borrowing costs to increase.
Even at $100 oil price, I can't see over a two million barrel a day increase in a short
period of time (three to five years).
I could put numbers to this, but I could never reach what it actually would be, anyway. Do
your own figures and see what you come up with. I just can't get to over 2 million barrels, and
that would be tough.
I'm not saying that the estimates for recovery are wrong. I'm saying using past data to
estimate the future does not take into consideration that all rock is not the same, and that
costs and borrowing ability will put their own limits on how much, and how fast growth occurs.
REPLY
All very much guess work. There are factors such as improved well layout, better well
design and so forth that tend to drive well cost for some "optimized" well design (a given
lateral length, number of frac stages and pounds of proppant and other materials) lower that
may offset the microeconomic tendency for costs to go up as constraints are reached (not
enough workers, equipment, or infrastructure). That's the reason I assume for simplicity that
long term well cost in constant dollars remained fixed.
I also have no idea on the numbers of tier one to three wells that potentially can be
drilled. All I have used is average well output for ND Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian from
shale profile. That is simply a mix of all wells producing. I assume oil companies attempt to
drill the most prospective areas first (not an exact science) so that as the play is
understood average new well EUR will gradually rise to some maximum (as oil companies figure
out both the best areas to drill and the best well design) and then after some period
(probably 2 to 3 years) the best areas will become saturated with wells so that less
prospective areas will be drilled and new well EUR will gradually decrease. That is my model
in a nutshell and the result for the US is that tight oil output may be able to rise from
6000 kb/d in July 2018 to about 8000 kb/d by July 2023 (about 5 years). This scenario assumes
high oil prices and is optimistic, a "medium" oil price scenario would result in maybe a 1.5
Mb/d increase in tight oil output over 5 years and a "low oil price scenario" ($80/b in 2017$
maximum by 2025) might see only a 500 kb/d increase in tight oil output from 2018 to
2023.
Note that US tight oil output has risen by about 700 kb/d over the first 7 months of 2018.
I do not believe this rate of increase will continue for much longer and will gradually
decrease as we approach 2021.
For the Permian basin specifically the peak is about 1 Mb/d lower for my "low oil price"
scenario relative to the medium price scenario ($80/b vs $113/b max price). Other basins
would also be affected, but I haven't run the scenarios on all tight oil basins so I am not
sure how much the entire US tight oil peak would be affected, probably 1.5 Mb/d lower than
the medium price scenario. For Rune Likvern's near term oil price scenario tight oil output
would be fairly flat from current output levels in my opinion and that would tend to put
upward pressure on oil prices.
We have not had any difference of opinion on future shale output, in the last 6 months,
according to my recollection. Any minor differences that may have been discussed fit into the
"who knows" classification. My comment was for those "other" projections coming out, that
basically are surreal. They have caused, in my opinion, an excess of pipelines being built,
and massive expenditures to be able to export another 3 to four million barrels of oil a day
that will probably never show up.
700k a day out of the Permian, is actually what I am projecting for 2018. Even 800k is
within probability. 200k of extra pipeline is due sometime before year end. Not much more
than that until late 2019 when bigger pipelines may be available. But the amount you could
crank it up to would be limited by the number of months left in 2019.
Agree 100%. Note that 700 kb/d is roughly my estimate for Permian increase in 2018 as
well, for the US tight oil as a whole possibly 1000 to 1200 Kb/d increase in 2018. Many of
the estimates are too high on that point we are definitely on the same page.
I mean, there are only four months left. I know the Eagle Ford can't do hardly anything in
that time fraim, Bakken is stuck at a high of about a 100k increase, so what fields will add
that much?
From Bakken, Eagle Ford, Niobrara, and STACK/SCOOP.
So far non-Permian US tight oil has increased about 215 kb/d through the first 7 months of
2018, I would expect this to accelerate if anything as capital moves to other tight oil
basins due to the low oil prices at Midland. So a 400 kb/d increase from other tight oil
basins (exit rate for 2018), plus 700 kb/d from Permian basin would give us 1100 kb/d.
So far in 2018 we have increases of 92 kb/d in Bakken, 61 kb/d from Eagle Ford, 38 kb/d
from Niobrara, 479 kb/d from Permian, and 24 kb/d from all other US tight oil plays.
If all output stopped increasing in other tight oil plays besides the Permian after July
2018 we would have a 915 kb/d increase in US tight oil output in 2018, if my guess of a 700
kb/d increase for the Permian basin tight oil output in 2018 is correct. My best guess
remains 1100+/-100 kb/d for the US tight oil increase in output from Dec 2017 to Dec
2018.
I only have data through July 2018, so 5 months left for increases, if we extrapolate the
rate of increase for the first 7 months of 2018 we get 1190 kb/d for the 2018 increase in
tight oil output. I scale it back a bit because I expect Permian output increase will slow
down. Other plays might also speed up.
Ok, your looking at EIAs production estimate per play, again. I'm only going to go by
monthlies. There will be other field declines, besides tight oil. GOM, Alaska, and non tight
oil Texas.
Haven't looked at rig counts lately so it's a guess. Just figure the capial may move to
higher profit areas such as Bakken or Niobrara. Yes there are DUCs that could be completed.
There may be more available frac crews in other plays as everyone has flocked to Permian.
The Kashagan oilfield is proving to be a real nightmare for operators and partners. No
wonder a decision was made to expand capacity for the land based Tengiz field. No similar
call was made for Kashagan even if stated reserves are a bit higher than for Tengiz.
It is a bit like offshore deepwater. If the size of a new prospect warrants it, the cost
can be kept down reasonably. And the North Slope is probably one of the places it is possible
to find another or even several gigant oil fields (above 500 million barrels). Just shows
that some majors are betting on higher oil prices.
EIA Weekly U.S. Ending Stocks to Friday 17th August
Crude oil down -5.8 million barrels
Oil products up +1.5
Overall total, down -4.3 (shown on chart)
Natural Gas: Propane & NGPLs up +1.5 (not included in the chart) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlZH1X2X0AIPDLR.jpg
Big drop in Iranian exports the first of August, and not close to Nov. yet. One million
looks more likely, eventually. And for those that may have missed it, Sinopec has started
buying US oil, again. To me, that indicates China is attempting to remain somewhat
neutral.
It's pretty clever. They want money from the state before they do any work developing
their own lease. The money would fund . . . haha . . . management salaries, among other
things.
And if it proves out as no oil, well, then they got the state to fund exploration. If
there is oil, they get the money from selling the oil. It's no lose.
Saudi Aramco, apparently there was an audit of their reserves in preparation for the Aramco
IPO. It says Baker Hughes was involved???
2018-04-29 DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – An audit of Saudi Aramco's oil reserves – an
essential part of the preparatory work for its planned initial public offering – has
found the state oil giant to have higher reserves than it previously reported, sources familiar
with the matter told Reuters.
Two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the independent external audit has
found the proven oil reserves to be at least 270 billion barrels, which is slightly higher than
the 260.8 billion barrels the company reported in its 2016 annual review.
Dallas-based DeGolyer and MacNaughton, and Gaffney, Cline and Associates, part of Baker
Hughes, are involved in the auditing, sources have said.
Did they pay for the audit? I've found that audits often show the results the customer is
looking for. Its not quite a science. More like a combination of fishing and editing.
"In no way should these results be construed as a true representation of the 'real' ."
au·dit
NOUN
an official inspection of an individual's or organization's accounts, typically by an
independent body.
VERB
conduct an official financial examination of (an individual's or organization's
accounts).
"companies must have their accounts audited"
They audited their books! I have no doubt that they found exactly what Saudi had on
their books. But that is likely to bear no resemblance to what field reserves actually are.
At any rate, it is entirely possible that Saudi could have doctored their books in
anticipation of the audit.
How would one go about actually checking the remaining reserves in Ghawar? Or any of the
other Saudi fields?
Dipstick??🤡 Seriously, they are both oil consulting companies. Hardly an audit.
Just high priced consultants. Key phrase is high priced. Nobody is going to jerk their
consulting license if they accept the high price, and give SA what they want. If SA runs out
of oil tomorrow, the worst that could happen is the companies say, whoops, missed that
one.
New blog post by Rune Likvern on credit creation, interest rates and oil price: https://runelikvern.online/2018/08/21/the-price-of-oil/
. He focuses on the demand side and believes that Brent will trade in $55 – $70/bo range
over the coming year. This seems a bit low IMHO., considering the supply side of the equation.
REPLY
I agree with your opinion. There will be a downward pull from multiple directions. Dollar
strength, Rune's analysis, higher price in general, Iran discounting their oil, and maybe
some others. All of those will not keep price from going up if supply is too low. Just keep
an eye on world inventory levels. They tell the long term story.
Also consider that $80/b at 29.5 Gb consumption is about $2.4 trillion for a World economy
of $80 trillion, that's about 3% of World GDP, in 2013 when prices were $108/b and
consumption was 27.8 Gb and World GDP was $76.5T, oil consumption (C+C) was about 3.9% of
World GDP. Perhaps rising interest rates will make spending 3% of World GDP on oil a problem,
but despite Rune Likvern's excellent analysis, I think the connection between credit creation
and oil prices that he reveals may be a spurious correlation.
Certainly higher credit creation will tend to increase aggregate demand (of which oil
consumption is a part) and will tend to increase demand for oil. The price of oil is
determined by both supply (production of oil) and demand (consumption) of oil.
Just as supply does not create its own demand (Say's Law), demand does not create its own
supply. Even if demand for oil should decrease (which I doubt will occur without a major
recession such as the 80s oil shock or the GFC), eventually the supply of oil is likely to
not keep up with the increase in oil consumption (likely by 2019), the lower oil prices are
the more likely this is to occur because oil production will not be profitable at prices
under $70/b for many shale and deepwater plays, thus their will be a lack of oil investment
and oil will become scarce.
I think Euan Mearns prediction of $80/b for oil (made in early 2018) seems
reasonable .
Good question. Getting rid of power plants buring fuel oil and investing in solar power
seems to be the plan. Wonder if they are able to execute it. In addition the removal of
subsidies on gasoline ought to also reduce consumption.
Very short term exports from SA will be impacted by the annual Hajj pilgrimage now in
August. 2.4 million pilgrims demand huge amounts of extra desalinated water supply and
artificial cooling based on more fuel oil electricity. There are reports of much lower
exports in July compared to June, and August seems to be even lower so far.
it is absolutely clear who is behind the food and medicine boycotts (empty supermarket
shelves), and the induced internal violence. It is a carbon copy of what the CIA under
Kissinger's command did in Chile in 1973 which led to the murder of the legitimate and
democratically elected President Allende and to the Pinochet military coup ; except,
Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary experience, and built up some tough resistance.
To understand the context 'Venezuela', we may have to look at the country's history.
Before the fully democratically and internationally observed election of Hugo Chavez in
1998, Venezuela was governed for at least 100 years by dictators and violent despots which
were directed by and served only the United States. The country, extremely rich in natural
resources , was exploited by the US and Venezuelan oligarchs to the point that the population
of one of the richest Latin-American countries remained poor instead of improving its
standard of living according to country's natural riches. The people were literally enslaved
by Washington controlled regimes .
A first coup attempt by Comandante Hugo Chavez in 1992 was oppressed by the Government of
Carlos Andrés Pérez and Chavez was sent to prison along with his co-golpistas.
After two years, he was freed by the Government of Rafael Caldera.
During Peréz' first term in office (1974-1979) and his predecessors, Venezuela
attained a high economic growth based on almost exclusive oil exports . Though, hardly
anything of this growth stayed in the country and was distributed to the people. The
situation was pretty much the same as it is in today's Peru which before the 2008 crisis and
shortly thereafter had phenomenal growth rates – between 5% and 8% – of which 80%
went to 5% of the population oligarchs and foreign investors , and 20% was to be distributed
to 95% of the population – and that on a very uneven keel. The result was and is a
growing gap between rich and poor, increasing unemployment and delinquency.
Venezuela before Chavez lived practically on a monoculture economy based on petrol. There
was no effort towards economic diversification. To the contrary, diversification could
eventually help free Venezuela from the despot's fangs, as the US was the key recipient of
Venezuela's petrol and other riches. Influenced by the 1989 Washington Consensus,
Peréz made a drastic turn in his second mandate (1989-1993) towards neoliberal
reforms, i.e. privatization of public services, restructuring the little social safety
benefits laborers had achieved, and contracting debt by the IMF and the World Bank. He became
a model child of neoliberalism, to the detriment of Venezuelans. Resulting protests under
Peréz' successor, Rafael Caldera, became unmanageable. New elections were called and
Hugo Chavez won in a first round with more than 56%. Despite an ugly Washington inspired coup
attempt ("The Revolution will Not be Televised", 2003 documentary about the attempted 2002
coup), Hugo Chavez stayed in power until his untimely death 2013. Comandante Chavez and his
Government reached spectacular social achievements for his country.
Washington will not let go easily – or at all, to re-conquer Venezuela into the new
Monroe Doctrine, i.e. becoming re-integrated into Washington's backyard. Imagine this
oil-rich country, with the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves, on the doorsteps of the
United Sates' key refineries in Texas, just about 3 to 4 days away for a tanker from
Venezuela, as compared to 40 to 45 days from the Gulf, where the US currently gets about 60%
of its petrol imports. An enormous difference in costs and risks, i.e. each shipment has to
sail through the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz.
In addition, another socialist revolution as one of Washington's southern neighbor –
in addition to Cuba – is not convenient. Therefore, the US and her secret forces will
do everything to bring about regime change, by constant economic aggressions, blockades,
sanctions, boycotts of imports and their internal distribution – as well as outrights
military threats. The recent assassination attempt of President Maduro falls into the same
category. "
"... This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at large. ..."
Text of Michael Hudson's speech on debt and the world economy, presented at Peking
University's School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the
economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today's Western finance-capitalist
economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing
their cost of living and doing business. That is the main reason why they are losing their
export markets and becoming de-industrialized.
What policies are best suited for China to avoid this neo-rentier disease while raising
living standards in a fair and efficient low-cost economy? The most pressing policy challenge
is to keep down the cost of housing. Rising housing prices mean larger and larger debts
extracting interest out of the economy. The strongest way to prevent this is to tax away the
rise in land prices, collecting the rental value for the government instead of letting it be
pledged to the banks as mortgage interest.
The same logic applies to public collection of natural resource and monopoly rents. Failure
to tax them away will enable banks to create debt against these rents, building financial and
other rentier charges into the pricing of basic needs.
U.S. and European business schools are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They
teach the tactics of asset stripping and how to replace industrial engineering with financial
engineering, as if financialization creates wealth faster than the debt burden. Having rapidly
pulled ahead over the past three decades, China must remain free of rentier ideology that
imagines wealth to be created by debt-leveraged inflation of real-estate and financial asset
prices.
Western capitalism has not turned out the way that Marx expected. He was optimistic in
forecasting that industrial capitalists would gain control of government to free economies from
unnecessary costs of production in the form of rent and interest that increase the cost of
living (and hence, the break-even wage level). Along with most other economists of his day, he
expected rentier income and the ownership of land, natural resources and banking to be taken
out of the hands of the hereditary aristocracies that had held them since Europe's feudal
epoch. Socialism was seen as the logical extension of classical political economy, whose main
policy was to abolish rent paid to landlords and interest paid to banks and bondholders.
A century ago there was an almost universal belief in mixed economies. Governments were
expected to tax away land rent and natural resource rent, regulate monopolies to bring prices
in line with actual cost value, and create basic infrastructure with money created by their own
treasury or central bank. Socializing land rent was the core of Physiocracy and the economics
of Adam Smith, whose logic was refined by Alfred Marshall, Simon Patten and other bourgeois
economists of the late 19th century. That was the path that European and American capitalism
seemed to be following in the decades leading up to World War I. That logic sought to use the
government to support industry instead of the landlord and financial classes.
China is progressing along this "mixed economy" road to socialism, but Western economies are
suffering from a resurgence of the pre-capitalist rentier classes. Their slogan of "small
government" means a shift in planning to finance, real estate and monopolies. This economic
philosophy is reversing the logic of industrial capitalism, replacing public investment and
subsidy with privatization and rent extraction. The Western economies' tax shift favoring
finance and real estate is a case in point. It reverses John Stuart Mill's "Ricardian
socialism" based on public collection of the land's rental value and the "unearned increment"
of rising land prices.
Defining economic rent as the unnecessary margin of prices over intrinsic cost value,
classical economists through Marx described rentiers as being economically parasitic, not
productive. Rentiers do not "earn" their land rent, interest or monopoly rent, because it has
no basis in real cost-value (ultimately reducible to labor costs). The political, fiscal and
regulatory reforms that followed from this value and rent theory were an important factor
leading to Marx's value theory and historical materialism. The political thrust of this theory
explains why it is no longer being taught.
By the late 19th century the rentiers fought back, sponsoring reaction against the socialist
implications of classical value and rent theory. In America, John Bates Clark denied that
economic rent was unearned. He redefined it as payment for the landlords' labor and enterprise,
not as accruing "in their sleep," as J. S. Mill had characterized it. Interest was depicted as
payment for the "service" of lending productively, not as exploitation. Everyone's income and
wealth was held to represent payment for their contribution to production. The thrust of this
approach was epitomized by Milton Friedman's Chicago School claim that "there is no such thing
as a free lunch" – in contrast to classical economics saying that feudalism's legacy of
privatized land ownership, bank credit and monopolies was all about how to get a free lunch, by
exploitation.
The other major reaction against classical and Marxist theory was English and Austrian
"utility" theory. Focusing on consumer psychology instead of production costs, it claimed that
there is no difference between value and price. A price is whatever consumers "choose" to pay
for commodities, based on the "utility" that these provide – defined by circular
reasoning as being equal to the price they pay. Producers are assumed to invest and produce
goods to "satisfy consumer demand," as if consumers are the driving force of economies, not
capitalists, property owners or financial managers.
Using junk-psychology, interest was portrayed as what bankers or bondholders "abstain" from
consuming, lending their self-denial of spending to "impatient" consumers and "credit-worthy"
entrepreneurs. This view opposed the idea of interest as a predatory charge levied by
hereditary wealth and the privatized monopoly right to create bank credit. Marx quipped that in
this view, the Rothschilds must be Europe's most self-depriving and abstaining family, not as
suffering from wealth-addiction.
These theories that all income is earned and that consumers (the bourgeois term for
wage-earners) instead of capitalists determine economic policy were a reaction against the
classical value and rent theory that paved the way for Marx's analysis. After analyzing
industrial business cycles in terms of under-consumption or over-production in Volume I of
Capital, Volume III dealt with the precapitalist financial problem inherited from feudalism and
the earlier "ancient" mode of production: the tendency of an economy's debts to grow by the
"purely mathematical law" of compound interest.
Any rate of interest may be thought of as a doubling time. What doubles is not real growth,
but the parasitic financial burden on this growth. The more the debt burden grows, the less
income is left for spending on goods and services. More than any of his contemporaries, Marx
emphasized the tendency for debt to grow exponentially, at compound interest, extracting more
and more income from the economy at large as debts double and redouble, beyond the ability of
debtors to pay. This slows investment in new means of production, because it shrinks domestic
markets for output.
Marx explained that the credit system is external to the means of production. It existed in
ancient times, feudal Europe, and has survived industrial capitalism to exist even in socialist
economies. At issue in all these economic systems is how to prevent the growth of debt and its
interest charge from shrinking economies. Marx believed that the natural thrust of industrial
capitalism was to replace private banking and money creation with public money and credit. He
distinguished interest-bearing debt under industrial capitalism as, for the first time, a means
of financing capital investment. It thus was potentially productive by funding capital to
produce a profit that was sufficient to pay off the debt.
Industrial banking was expected to finance industrial capital formation, as was occurring in
Germany in Marx's day. Marx's examples of industrial balance sheets accordingly assumed debt.
In contrast to Ricardo's analysis of capitalism's Armageddon resulting from rising land-rent,
Marx expected capitalism to free itself from political dominance by the landlord class, as well
as from the precapitalist legacy of usury.
This kind of classical free market viewed capitalism's historical role as being to free the
economy from the overhead of unproductive "usury" debt, along with the problem of absentee
landownership and private ownership of monopolies – what Lenin called the economy's
"commanding heights" in the form of basic infrastructure. Governments would make industries
competitive by providing basic needs freely or at least at much lower public prices than
privatized economies could match.
This reform program of industrial capitalism was beginning to occur in Germany and the
United States, but Marx recognized that such evolution would not be smooth and automatic.
Managing economies in the interest of the wage earners who formed the majority of the
population would require revolution where reactionary interests fought to prevent society from
going beyond the "bourgeois socialism" that stopped short of nationalizing the land, monopolies
and banking.
World War I untracked even this path of "bourgeois socialism." Rentier forces fought to
prevent reform, and banks focused on lending against collateral already in place, not on
financing new means of production. The result of this return to pre-industrial bank credit is
that some 80 percent of bank lending in the United States and Britain now takes the form of
real estate mortgages. The effect is to turn the land's rental yield into interest.
That rent-into-interest transformation gives bankers a strong motive to oppose taxing land
rent, knowing that they will end up with whatever the tax collector relinquishes. Most of the
remaining bank lending is concentrated in loans for corporate takeovers, mergers and
acquisitions, and consumer loans. Corporate capital investment in today's West is not financed
by bank credit, but almost entirely out of retained corporate earnings, and secondarily out of
stock issues.
The stock market itself has become extractive. Corporate earnings are used for stock
buybacks and higher dividend payouts, not for new tangible investment. This financial strategy
was made explicit by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Jensen, who advocated that
salaries and bonuses for corporate managers should be based on how much they can increase the
price of their companies' stock, not on how much they increased or production and/or business
size. Some 92 percent of corporate profits in recent years have been spent on stock buyback
programs and dividend payouts. That leaves only about 8 percent available to be re-invested in
new means of production and hiring. Corporate America's financial managers are turning
financialized companies into debt-ridden corporate shells.
A major advantage of a government as chief banker and credit creator is that when debts come
to outstrip the means to pay, the government can write down the debt. That is how China's banks
have operated. It is a prerequisite for saving companies from bankruptcy and preventing their
ownership from being transferred to foreigners, raiders or vultures.
Classical tax and banking policies were expected to streamline industrial economies,
lowering their cost structures as governments replaced landlords as owner of the land and
natural resources (as in China today) and creating their own money and credit. But despite
Marx's understanding that this would have been the most logical way for industrial capitalism
to evolve, finance capitalism has failed to fund capital formation. Finance capitalism has
hijacked industrial capitalism, and neoliberalism is its anti-classical ideology.
The result of today's alliance of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector with
natural resource and infrastructure monopolies has been to reverse that the 20th century's
reforms promoting progressive taxation of wealth and income. Industrial capitalism in the West
has been detoured along the road to rent-extracting privatization, austerity and debt
serfdom.
The result is a double-crisis: austerity stemming from debt deflation, while public health,
communications, information technology, transportation and other basic infrastructure are
privatized by corporate monopolies that raise prices charged to labor and industry. The debt
crisis spans government debt (state and local as well as national), corporate debt, real estate
mortgage debt and personal debt, causing austerity that shrinks the "real" economy as its
assets and income are stripped away to service the exponentially growing debt overhead. The
economy polarizes as income and wealth ownership are shifted to the neo-rentier alliance headed
by the financial sector.
This veritable counter-revolution has inverted the classical concept of free markets.
Instead of advocating a public role to lower the cost structure of business and labor, the
neoliberal ideal excludes public infrastructure and government ownership of natural monopolies,
not to speak of industrial production. Led by bank lobbyists, neoliberalism even opposes public
regulation of finance and monopolies to keep their prices in line with socially necessary cost
of production.
To defend this economic counter-revolution, the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA)
and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures now used throughout the world were inspired by
opposition to progressive taxation and public ownership of land and banks. These statistical
measures depicting finance, insurance and real estate as the leaders of wealth creation, not
the creators merely of debt and rentier overhead.
What is China's "Real" GDP and "real wealth creation"?
Rejection of classical value theory's focus on economic rent – the excess of market
price over intrinsic labor cost – underlies the post-classical concept of GDP. Classical
rent theory warned against the FIRE sector siphoning off nominal growth in wealth and income.
The economics of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, J.S. Mill and Marx share in common the view that
this rentier revenue should be treated as an overhead charge and, as such, subtracted from
national income and product because it is not production-related. Being extraneous to the
production process, this rentier overhead is responsible for today's debt deflation and
economically extractive privatization that is imposing austerity and shrinking markets from
North America to Europe.
The West's debt crisis is aggravated by privatizing monopolies (on credit) that historically
have belonged to the public sector. Instead of recognizing the virtues of a mixed economy,
Frederick Hayek and his followers from Ayn Rand to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the
Chicago School and libertarian Republicans have claimed that any public ownership or regulation
is, ipso facto, a step toward totalitarian politics.
Following this ideology, Alan Greenspan aborted economic regulation and decriminalized
financial fraud. He believed that in principle, the massive bank fraud, junk-mortgage lending
and corporate raiding that led up to the 2008 crisis was more efficient than regulating such
activities or prosecuting fraudsters.
This is the neoliberal ideology taught in U.S. and European business schools. It assumes
that whatever increases financial wealth most quickly is the most efficient for society as a
whole. It also assumes that bankers will find honest dealing to be more in their economic
self-interest than fraud, because customers would shun fraudulent bankers. But along with the
mathematics of compound interest, the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism is to establish a
monopoly and capture government regulatory agencies, the justice system, central bank and
Treasury to prevent any alternative policy and the prosecution of fraud.
The aim is to get rich by purely financial means – by increasing stock-market prices,
not by tangible capital formation. That is the opposite of the industrial logic of expanding
the economy and its markets. Instead of creating a more productive economy and raising living
standards, finance capitalism is imposing austerity by diverting wage income and also corporate
income to pay rising debt service, health insurance and payments to privatized monopolies.
Progressive income and wealth taxation has been reversed, siphoning off wages to subsidize
privatization by the rentier class.
This combination of debt overgrowth and regressive fiscal policy has produced two results.
First, combining debt deflation with fiscal deflation leaves only about a third of wage income
available to be spent on the products of labor. Paying interest, rents and taxes – and
monopoly prices – shrinks the domestic market for goods and services.
Second, adding debt service, monopoly prices and a tax shift to the cost of living and doing
business renders neo-rentier economies high-cost. That is why the U.S. economy has been
deindustrialized and its Midwest turned into a Rust Belt.
How Marx's economic schema explains the West's neo-rentier problem
In Volume I of Capital, Marx described the dynamics and "law of motion" of industrial
capitalism and its periodic crises. The basic internal contradiction that capitalism has to
solve is the inability of wage earners to be paid enough to buy the commodities they produce.
This has been called overproduction or underconsumption, but Marx believed that the problem was
in principle only temporary, not permanent.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital described a pre-capitalist form of crisis, independent
of the industrial economy: Debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy and finally bringing
its expansion to an end with a financial crash. That descent into bankruptcy, foreclosure and
the transfer of property from debtors to creditors is the dynamic of Western finance
capitalism. Subjecting economies to austerity, economic shrinkage, emigration, shorter life
spans and hence depopulation, it is at the root of the 2008 debt legacy and the fate of the
Baltic states, Ireland, Greece and the rest of southern Europe, as it was earlier the financial
dynamic of Third World countries in the 1960s through 1990s under IMF austerity programs. When
public policy is turned over to creditors, they use their power for is asset stripping,
insisting that all debts must be paid without regard for how this destroys the economy at
large.
China has managed to avoid this dynamic. But to the extent that it sends its students to
study in U.S. and European business schools, they are taught the tactics of asset stripping
instead of capital formation – how to be extractive, not productive. They are taught that
privatization is more desirable than public ownership, and that financialization creates wealth
faster than it creates a debt burden. The product of such education therefore is not knowledge
but ignorance and a distortion of good policy analysis. Baltic austerity is applauded as the
"Baltic Miracle," not as demographic collapse and economic shrinkage.
The experience of post-Soviet economies when neoliberals were given a free hand after 1991
provides an object lesson. Much the same fate has befallen Greece, along with the rising
indebtedness of other economies to foreign bondholders and to their own rentier class operating
out of capital-flight centers. Economies are obliged to suspend democratic government policy in
favor of emergency creditor control.
The slow economic crash and debt deflation of these economies is depicted as a result of
"market choice." It turns out to be a "choice" for economic stagnation. All this is
rationalized by the economic theory taught in Western economics departments and business
schools. Such education is an indoctrination in stupidity – the kind of tunnel vision
that Thorstein Veblen called the "trained incapacity" to understand how economies really
work.
Most private fortunes in the West have stemmed from housing and other real estate financed
by debt. Until the 2008 crisis the magnitude of this property wealth was expanded largely by
asset-price inflation, aggravated by the reluctance of governments to do what Adams Smith, John
Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall and nearly all 19th-century classical economists recommended: to
keep land rent out of private hands, and to make the rise in land's rental value serve as the
tax base.
Failure to tax the land leaves its rental value "free" to be pledged as interest to banks
– which make larger and larger loans by lending against rising debt ratios. This "easy
credit" raises the price of obtaining home ownership. Sellers celebrate the result as "wealth
creation," and the mainstream media depict the middle class as growing richer by higher prices
for the homes its members have bought. But the debt-financed rise in housing prices ultimately
creates wealth mainly for banks and their bondholders.
Americans now have to pay up to 43 percent of their income for mortgage debt service,
federally guaranteed. This imposes such high costs for home ownership that it is pricing the
products of U.S. labor out of world markets. The pretense is that using bank credit (that is,
homebuyers' mortgage debt) to inflate the price of housing makes U.S. workers and the middle
class prosperous by enabling them to sell their homes to a new generation of buyers at higher
and higher prices each generation. This certainly does not make the buyers more prosperous. It
diverts their income away from buying the products of labor to pay interest to banks for
housing prices inflated on bank credit.
Consumer spending throughout most of the world aims above all at achieving status. In the
West this status rests largely on one's home and neighborhood, its schools, transportation and
other public investment. Land-price gains resulting from public investment in transportation,
parks and schools, other urban amenities and infrastructure, and from re-zoning land use. In
the West this rising rental value is turned into a cost, falling on homebuyers, who must borrow
more from the banks. The result is that public spending ultimately enriches the banks –
at the tax collector's expense.
Debt is the great threat to modern China's development. Burdening economies with a rentier
overhead imposes the quasi-feudal charges from which classical 19th-century economists hoped to
free industrial capitalism. The best protection against this rentier burden is simple: first,
tax away the land's rising rental valuation to prevent it from being paid out for bank loans;
and second, keep control of banks in public hands. Credit is necessary, but should be directed
productively and debts written down when paying them threatens to create financial
Armageddon.
Marx's views on the broad dynamics of economic history
Plato and Aristotle described a grand pattern of history. In their minds, this pattern was
eternally recurrent. Looking over three centuries of Greek experience, Aristotle found a
perpetual triangular sequence of democracy turning into oligarchy, whose members made
themselves into a hereditary aristocracy – and then some families sought to take the
demos into their own camp by sponsoring democracy, which in turn led to wealthy families
replacing it with an oligarchy, and so on.
The medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Khaldun saw history as a rise and fall. Societies rose
to prosperity and power when leaders mobilized the ethic of mutual aid to gain broad support as
a communal spirit raised all members. But prosperity tended to breed selfishness, especially in
ruling dynasties, which Ibn Khaldun thought had a life cycle of only about 120 years. By the
19th century, Scottish Enlightenment philosophers elaborated this rise-and-fall theory,
applying it to regimes whose success bred arrogance and oligarchy.
Marx saw the long sweep of history as following a steady upward secular trend, from the
ancient slavery-and-usury mode of production through feudalism to industrial capitalism. And
not only Marx but nearly all 19th-century classical economists assumed that socialism in one
form or another would be the stage following industrial capitalism in this upward technological
and economic trajectory.
Instead, Western industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Aristotelian terms
the shift was from proto-democracy to oligarchy. Instead of freeing industrial capitalism from
landlords, natural resource owners and monopolists, Western banks and bondholders joined forces
with them, seeing them as major customers for as much interest-bearing credit as would absorb
the economic rent that governments would refrain from taxing. Their success has enabled banks
and bondholders to replace landlords as the major rentier class. Antithetical to socialism,
this retrogression towards feudal rentier privilege let real estate, financial interests and
monopolists exploit the economy by creating an expanding debt wedge.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value (German Mehrwert), his history of classical political
economy, poked fun at David Ricardo's warning of economic Armageddon if economies let landlords
siphon off of all industrial profits to pay land rent. Profits and hence capital investment
would grind to a halt. But as matters have turned out, Ricardo's rentier Armageddon is being
created by his own banking class. Corporate profits are being devoured by interest payments for
corporate takeover debts and related financial charges to reward bondholders and raiders, and
by financial engineering using stock buybacks and higher dividend payouts to create "capital"
gains at the expense of tangible capital formation. Profits also are reduced by firms having to
pay higher wages to cover the cost of debt-financed housing, education and other basic expenses
for workers.
This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to
polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent
dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an
opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's
anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by
socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but
just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a
hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at
large.
Greece's debt crisis has all but abolished its democracy as foreign creditors have taken
control, superseding the authority of elected officials. From New York City's bankruptcy to
Puerto Rico's insolvency and Third World debtors subjected to IMF "austerity programs,"
national bankruptcies shift control to centralized financial planners in what Naomi Klein has
called Crisis Capitalism. Planning ends up centralized not in the hands of elected government
but in financial centers, which become the de facto government.
England and America set their economic path on this road under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan by 1980. They were followed by even more pro-financial privatization leaders in Tony
Blair's New Labour Party and Bill Clinton's New Democrats seeking to roll back a century of
classical reforms and policies that gradually were moving capitalism toward socialism. Instead,
these countries are suffering a rollback to neofeudalism, whose neo-rentiereconomic and
political ideology has become mainstream throughout the West. Despite seeing that this policy
has led to North America and Europe losing their former economic lead, the financial power
elite is simply taking its money and running.
So we are brought back to the question of what this means for China's educational policy and
also how it depicts economic statistics to distinguish between wealth and overhead. The great
advantage of such a distinction is to help steer economic growth along productive lines
favoring tangible capital formation instead of policies to get rich by taking on more and more
debt and by prying property away from the public domain.
If China's main social objective is to increase real output to raise living standards for
its population – while minimizing unproductive overhead and economic inequality –
then it is time to consider developing its own accounting format to trace its progress (or
shortcomings) along these lines. Measuring how its income and wealth are being obtained would
track how the economy is moving closer toward what Marx called socialism.
Of special importance, such an accounting format would revive Marx's classical distinction
between earned and unearned income. Its statistics would show how much of the rise in wealth
(and expenditure) in China – or any other nation – is a result of new tangible
capital formation as compared to higher rents, lending and interest, or the stock market.
These statistics would isolate income and fortunes obtained by zero-sum transfer payments
such as the rising rental value of land sites, natural resources and basic infrastructure
monopolies. National accounts also would trace overhead charges for interest and related
financial charges, as well as the economy's evolving credit and debt structure. That would
enable China to measure the economic effects of the banking privileges and other property
rights given to some people.
That is not the aim of Western national income statistics. In fact, applying the accounting
structure described above would track how Western economies are polarizing as a result of their
higher economic rent and interest payments crowding out spending on actual goods and services.
This kind of contrast would help explain global trends in pricing and competitiveness.
Distinguishing the FIRE sector from the rest of the economy would enable China to compare its
economic cost trends and overhead relative to those of other nations. I believe that these
statistics would show that its progress toward socialism also will explain the remarkable
economic advantage it has obtained. If China does indeed make this change, it will help people
both in and out of China see even more clearly what your government is doing on behalf of the
majority of its people. This may help other governments – including my own – learn
from your example and praise it instead of fearing it.
"... And now Davis, the Clinton fixer, is Michael Cohen's lawyer. The fixer defending a fixer. So who pays the bill? Well, ostensibly no-one, because Davis started a Go Fund Me campaign where people can donate so Cohen "can tell people the truth about Trump". The goal is $500,000. Which goes to .. Lanny Davis. ..."
"... On TV yesterday he apparently promoted a wrong URL , which was promptly picked up by someone else who had it redirect to the Trump campaign. Even fixers screw up, right? Still, there's already well over $100,000 donated for Cohen Davis. But why $500,000? One of the accusations against Cohen concerns lying to a bank for a $20 million loan. He bought an apartment not long ago for $6.7 million. He owned multiple apartments in Trump buildings. ..."
"... Did he lose everything when Robert Mueller et al raided his office, home and hotel room on April 9 2018? Were all his assets frozen? Possibly. What we do know is that he 'expected' the Trump campaign to pay for his legal fees. Which they declined. Or rather, as Fortune reported in June : "The Trump campaign has given some money to Cohen to help cover legal expenses for the Russia investigation. To date, though, it has not offered financial assistance in the investigation of his business practices." ..."
"... But anyway. So Lanny Davis, fixer of fixers and presidents, goes on a talk-show tour last night and what do you think happens? He walks back just about everything he's said the previous day. Aaron Maté made a list in this Twitter thread ..."
"... What do you think will happen when someone of the stature of Bob Mueller spends 18 months investigating the Clintons and their fixers? Perhaps the events of the past few days won't bring such a 2nd Special Counsel any closer, but by the same token they might do just that. Offense is the best defense. ..."
"... That is both dangerous in that the mandate of a Special Counsel should be limited lest it becomes endless and veers off the reasons it was initiated, as well as in the risk that it can easily turn into a party-political tool to hurt one's opponent while one's own dirt remains unscrutinized. ..."
"... In the end, I can draw only one conclusion: there are so many sharks and squids swimming in the swamp that either it should be expanded or the existing one should be cleaned up and depopulated. So bring it: investigate the FBI, the Clintons, and fixers like Lanny Davis and Michael Avenatti, the same way the Trump camp has been. ..."
If there's one thing that is exposed in the sorry not-so-fairy tale of former Trump aides Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, it's
that Washington is a city run by fixers. Who often make substantial amounts of money. Many though by no means all, start out as lawyers
and figure out that let's say 'the edges of what's legal' can be quite profitable.
And it helps to know when one steps across that edge, so having attended law school is a bonus. Not so much to stop when stepping
across the edge, but to raise one's fees. There's a lot of dough waiting at the edge of the law. None of this should surprise any
thinking person. Manafort and Cohen are people who think in millions, with an easy few hundred grand thrown in here and there.
But sometimes the fixers happen to come under scrutiny of the law, like when they get entangled in a Special Counsel investigation.
Both Manafort and Cohen now rue the day they became involved with Trump, or rather, the day he was elected president and solicited
much more severe scrutiny.
Would either ever have been accused of what they face today had Trump lost to Hillary? It's not too likely. They just gambled
and lost. But there are many more just like them who will never be charged with anything. Still, a new fixer name has popped up the
last few days who may, down the line, not be so lucky.
And that's not even because Lanny Davis is a registered foreign agent for Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch wanted
by the US government. After all, both Manafort and Cohen have their contacts in that part of the world. Manafort made tens of millions
advising then-president Yanukovich in the Ukraine before the US coup dethroned the latter. Cohen's wife is Ukrainian-American.
Lanny Davis is a lawyer, special counsel even, for the Clintons. Has been for years. Which makes it kind of curious that Michael
Cohen would pick him to become his legal representation. But that's not all Davis is involved in. Like any true fixer, he has his
hands in more cookie jars than fit in the average kitchen. Glenn Greenwald wrote this in August 2009 about the health care debate:
After Tom Daschle was selected to be Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services and chief health care adviser, Matt
Taibbi wrote: "In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle." One could easily have added:
"And then there's Lanny Davis." Davis frequently injects himself into political disputes, masquerading as a "political analyst"
and Democratic media pundit, yet is unmoored from any discernible political beliefs other than: "I agree with whoever pays me."
It's genuinely difficult to recall any instance where he publicly defended someone who hadn't, at some point, hired and shuffled
money to him. Yesterday, he published a new piece simultaneously in The Hill and Politico – solemnly warning that extremists on
the Far Left and Far Right are jointly destroying democracy with their conduct in the health care debate and urging "the vast
center-left and center-right of this country to speak up and call them out equally" – that vividly illustrates the limitless whoring
behavior which shapes Washington generally and specifically drives virtually every word out of Lanny Davis' mouth.
Davis' history is as long and consistent as it is sleazy. He was recently hired by Honduran oligarchs opposed to that country's
democratically elected left-wing President and promptly became the chief advocate of the military coup which forcibly removed
the President from office. He became an emphatic defender of the Israeli war on Gaza after he was named by the right-wing The
Israel Project to be its "Senior Advisor and Spokesperson." He has been the chief public defender for Joe Lieberman, Jane Harman
and the Clintons, all of whom have engaged his paid services.
And as NYU History Professor Greg Grandin just documented: "Recently, Davis has been hired by corporations to derail the labor-backed
Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize, all the while touting himself as a "pro-labor liberal."
Davis was also the chief U.S. lobbyist of the military dictatorship in Pakistan in the late 90s and played an important role in
strengthening relations between then President Bill Clinton and de facto president General Perez Musharraf."
Trending Articles Majority Of Young Americans Live In A Household Receiving
New analysis from CNS News finds that the majority of Americans under 18 live in households that take "means-tested
There's much more in that article, but you get the drift. And now Davis, the Clinton fixer, is Michael Cohen's lawyer. The fixer
defending a fixer. So who pays the bill? Well, ostensibly no-one, because Davis started a Go Fund Me campaign where people can donate
so Cohen "can tell people the truth about Trump". The goal is $500,000. Which goes to .. Lanny Davis.
On TV yesterday
he apparently promoted a wrong URL , which was promptly picked up by someone else who had it redirect to the Trump campaign.
Even fixers screw up, right? Still, there's already well over $100,000 donated for Cohen Davis. But why $500,000? One of the
accusations against Cohen concerns lying to a bank for a $20 million loan. He bought an apartment not long ago for $6.7 million.
He owned multiple apartments in Trump buildings.
Did he lose everything when Robert Mueller et al raided his office, home and hotel room on April 9 2018? Were all his assets frozen?
Possibly. What we do know is that he 'expected' the Trump campaign to pay for his legal fees. Which they declined. Or rather, as
Fortune reported in June : "The
Trump campaign has given some money to Cohen to help cover legal expenses for the Russia investigation. To date, though, it has not
offered financial assistance in the investigation of his business practices."
It seems safe to assume that's the point where Cohen turned, or was turned, to Lanny Davis. From a full decade of being Trump's
fixer to being fixed by the Clintons' fixer. That's a big move. It raises a number of questions :
First, why did Trump not pay Cohen's legal fees? This is 2 months after the raid on the man's office, home, hotel room, in
which huge amounts of files and disks etc. were seized.
Second question: if Lanny Davis only now sets up a Go Fund Me campaign, who's been paying him over the past 2 months? Did Cohen
sell assets, or is someone else involved?
Anyway, so Davis goes on TV with big words about how Cohen will tell all about Trump -provided people donate half a million- and
adding "I know that Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person
in the oval office. And [Cohen] has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump."
Oh, and that "the turning point for his client's attitude toward Trump was the Helsinki summit in July 2018 which caused him to
doubt Trump's loyalty to the U.S." That, to my little brain, doesn't sound like something that would come from Cohen. That sounds
more like a political point the likes of which Cohen has never made. That's plain old Russiagate.
But anyway. So Lanny Davis, fixer of fixers and presidents, goes on a talk-show tour last night and what do you think happens?
He walks back just about everything he's said the previous day. Aaron Maté made a list in this Twitter thread:
1/ In a few minutes of airtime today, Michael Cohen attorney Lanny Davis has rejected a key Steele dossier claim, and, more
significantly I think, the basis for all of the ceaseless, frenzied speculation that Cohen has something to offer Mueller on Trump-Russia
collusion:
3/ Right after, Davis walks back his already heavily qualified innuendo to
@ Maddow -- which generated endless chatter -- about Cohen being useful
to Mueller's probe on collusion & knowing of hacking. Now Davis claims he was "tentative", that Cohen "may or may not be useful",
etc:
4/ Earlier in the day, Davis also asserted that Cohen was "never, ever" in Prague -- undermining a key claim in the Steele
dossier that he went there in August/September 2016 as part of the collusion scheme:
https:// twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/st atus/1032427395993624576
6/ So in short: Lanny Davis has not just denied what was explosively alleged about Cohen-Trump by Steele, CNN, and McClatchy,
but has also walked back the explosive speculation about Cohen-Trump that Lanny Davis himself generated.
Is Michael Cohen sure he wants this guy as his lawyer? Is he watching this stuff?
If Cohen and Manafort have broken laws, they should be punished for it. The same goes for all other Trump campers, including the
Donald. But it would be good if people realize that Cohen and Manafort are not some kind of stand-alone examples, that they are instead
the norm in Washington. And Moscow, and Brussels, London, everywhere there's a concentration of power. In all these places, and probably
more so in DC, there are these folks specializing in the edge of the law.
What do you think will happen when someone of the stature of Bob Mueller spends 18 months investigating the Clintons and their
fixers? Perhaps the events of the past few days won't bring such a 2nd Special Counsel any closer, but by the same token they might
do just that. Offense is the best defense.
I don't know, we don't know, what monsters Trump has swept under his luxurious carpets. But we do know that those are not the
only monsters in Washington. Meanwhile, the Steele dossier that was used to start the entire Mueller remains just about entirely
unverified. The Russian collusion meme he was tasked with investigating has so far come up empty.
That he would find something if he tried hard enough was obvious from the start. That is both dangerous in that the mandate of
a Special Counsel should be limited lest it becomes endless and veers off the reasons it was initiated, as well as in the risk that
it can easily turn into a party-political tool to hurt one's opponent while one's own dirt remains unscrutinized.
In the end, I can draw only one conclusion: there are so many sharks and squids swimming in the swamp that either it should be
expanded or the existing one should be cleaned up and depopulated. So bring it: investigate the FBI, the Clintons, and fixers like
Lanny Davis and Michael Avenatti, the same way the Trump camp has been.
Because if you don't do that, you can only possibly end up in an even bigger mess. You can't drain half a swamp.
Federal prosecutors have granted immunity to American Media Inc. CEO and longtime friend of
President Trump, David Pecker, reports the Wall Street
Journal .
This "Trump vs Davos globalists" theme is unconvincing. Trump actions
are ruthless globalist actions, who wnat to preverse the US status of
superpower at all costs, even by abrogating important treaties.
He might be not a neoliberal globalist thouth -- he does not offere equl
seats on the table to vassals.
Trumpo statement that if Germany buy Russian gas it does not need NATO
is very shroud indeed.
Notable quotes:
"... Optics are important and this image captures what both parties wanted to convey. This meeting is the beginning of a shift in the relationship between Germany and Russia for the better. ..."
"... The obvious answer is necessity brought about by pressure being placed on both countries by Donald Trump through sanctions and tariffs and their shared interests represented by the Nordstream 2 pipeline. ..."
"... But, this meeting went far deeper than that, especially since Merkel's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas boldly proclaimed that Europe needs an alternative to the SWIFT system of international electronic payments so as to keep global trade alive while the U.S. further weaponizes the U.S. dollar ..."
"... Why would Merkel allow Maas to state this publicly and why was it picked up by that establishment stenographer The Financial Times ? ..."
"... If Trump's goal, as presented by much of the European press (as presented here by Gilbert Doctorow), is to regain complete subjugation of Europe to American dominance, then this seems counter-productive. ..."
"... SWIFT is the main lever on which much of the U.S.'s sanctions power rests. Because it is through SWIFT that transactions can be tracked, payments halted and fines imposed. That none of this is strictly legal is irrelevant in the game of power-politics. ..."
"... This undermines the EU's credibility at a foundational level. It shows them to be the toothless and, in EU President Donald Tusk's case, witless when faced with opposition to their rule that isn't supported by The Davos Crowd, which Trump most definitely doesn't represent. ..."
"... And I've talked about these in the past. His real goal is the destruction of that post WWII institutional order which in his mind bankrupts the U.S. treasury through massive trade deficits. ..."
"... I said back in June that Trump's leaving the JCPOA was all part of his strategy to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Germany. The Davos Crowd needs that deal to keep the dream of transferring the power of the world back to Europe from the U.S. via cheap, Iranian energy and keep the conflict between Israel/Saudi Arabia and Iran front and center to foment global chaos awhile keeping Russia from getting rich again. ..."
"... It needs that to support the narrative we need NATO to protect us from the inevitable Russian attack after we provoke them into it. This keeps the money flowing through the banks and lobbyists while draining the U.S. dry through the military/industrial complex. ..."
"... And despite relentless Russia bashing since before Trump was elected, the American people overwhelmingly want peace with Russia, not war. ..."
"... By driving a wedge between Germany and the US over NATO and attacking the foundations of the German economy Trump is ensuring the current rapprochement between Germany and Russia? ..."
Vladimir Putin's charm tour of Germany and Austria last weekend is a significant sign of
change to come.
To the U.S. and European press Putin is only a step or two away from Hitler reincarnated
(thanks chiefly to Bill Browder). It serves the purpose of maintaining the post WWII
institutional order.
But, Putin is always nothing but relentlessly patient in his diplomatic efforts, even when
European leaders, like Merkel, treat him and Russia poorly. She is, after all, the leading
mouthpiece and political ally of The Davos Crowd that believes they run the world.
The conduct of his Foreign Ministry under Sergei Lavrov always strikes the perfect balance
between bluntness and diplo-speak.
So, color me surprised when I see the official photos of his meeting with Merkel carefully
framed to paint him in a positive light.
Putin in light blues and grays, Merkel in green, the fountain in the background, leaning in
looking directly at each other and a simple Sunday morning chat.
If I didn't know better I'd be expecting them to share photos of their grandkids, well,
Putin's grandkids anyway.
Optics are important and this image captures what both parties wanted to convey. This
meeting is the beginning of a shift in the relationship between Germany and Russia for the
better.
And the question is why?
The obvious answer is necessity brought about by pressure being placed on both countries by
Donald Trump through sanctions and tariffs and their shared interests represented by the
Nordstream 2 pipeline.
But, this meeting went far deeper than that, especially since Merkel's Foreign Minister
Heiko Maas boldly proclaimed that Europe needs an alternative to the SWIFT system of
international electronic payments so as to keep global trade alive while the U.S. further
weaponizes the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. just seized another $5 billion of Russian 'oligarch' money using Credit Suisse as
its enforcement arm.
SWIFT is the main lever on which much of the U.S.'s sanctions power rests. Because it is
through SWIFT that transactions can be tracked, payments halted and fines imposed. That none of
this is strictly legal is irrelevant in the game of power-politics.
Banks like Credit Suisse can't function without access to SWIFT.
So they will roll over to the pressure. That's why the response from EU leadership to
Trump's abandoning the JCPOA has been far more bark than bite. Because the measures implemented
to protect European businesses from U.S. retaliation against them hold no weight with the
companies staring at billions in losses.
Case in point: France's Total pulling out of a multi-billion exploration deal with Iran.
This undermines the EU's credibility at a foundational level. It shows them to be the
toothless and, in EU President Donald Tusk's case, witless when faced with opposition to their
rule that isn't supported by The Davos Crowd, which Trump most definitely doesn't
represent.
So, again, the question is why?
All of this seems incredibly contradictory, at times even to a jaded and cynical observer
like me. Until you step back for a second and think bigger picture and ask the most important
question of all.
What are Trump's real goals?
It's Good to Have Goals
And I've talked about these in the past. His real goal is the destruction of that post WWII
institutional order which in his mind bankrupts the U.S. treasury through massive trade
deficits.
And in a word that means . NATO.
Trump goal is the dissolution of NATO. He wants it dismantled because it is a massive drain
on our capital base. Building weapons and maintaining bases in Europe is expensive and that
money is needed here. He knows this.
Even the mere hint of this has The Davos Crowd in apoplexy. Hence, the post-Helsinki freak
out. Hence, the drive to impeach him over Stormy Freaking Daniels. It's pathetic.
I said back in June that Trump's leaving the JCPOA was all part of his strategy to drive a
wedge between the U.S. and Germany. The Davos Crowd needs that deal to keep the dream of transferring the power of the world
back to Europe from the U.S. via cheap, Iranian energy and keep the conflict between
Israel/Saudi Arabia and Iran front and center to foment global chaos awhile keeping Russia from
getting rich again.
It needs that to support the narrative we need NATO to protect us from the inevitable
Russian attack after we provoke them into it. This keeps the money flowing through the banks
and lobbyists while draining the U.S. dry through the military/industrial complex.
The problem is that that narrative is garbage. And despite relentless Russia bashing since
before Trump was elected, the American people overwhelmingly want peace with Russia, not
war.
Poland and the Baltics sound like Democrats unhinged hysterical children over the 'threat of
Russian aggression.'
This is why Trump is also pressuring Turkey at the same time. He knows Europe is vulnerable
to Turkey's implosion. Turkey and Germany are major trading partners and the vast bulk of
Turkey's foreign currency exposure is owned by European banks, making them, as
I've said previously, Ground Zero for the debt bomb.
So the final question then is this.
Has this been Trump's goal the entire time? Is this what Trump and Putin discussed behind
closed doors in Helsinki?
The NATO Wedge
By driving a wedge between Germany and the US over NATO and attacking the foundations of
the German economy Trump is ensuring the current rapprochement between Germany and Russia?
Merkel, for her part, has been so terminally weakened by her immigration policy and
strong-armed approach to dissent that this whirlwind weekender by Putin was as much for her
benefit, politically, as his.
The implication being that if Merkel wants to stay in power with her weakening coalition and
poll numbers it's time for her to reverse course. And if that means cozying up to Russia then
so be it.
Merkel will continue to talk a good game about Crimea and Ukraine while Putin will speak
directly to the German people about ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria as a proxy for
ending the threat of further immigration.
This outflanks Merkel's position and undermines George Soros' goals of the cultural
destruction of Europe. At this point, politically, how can Merkel even argue against that
without betraying her true loyalties?
And that's what makes the implications of this Summit-That-Wasn't so interesting.
If this is indeed the case then the future of the world rests on the mid-term elections and
whether Trump is not indicted for having sex with a couple of porn stars.
I almost feel dirty writing that.
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The antagonism between Saudi Arabia and Iran sets off a variety of political reverberations
affecting the countries of the Persian Gulf, unsettling the situation between Turkey, Syria,
and Iraq, and entangling Russia and the United States in the ensuring imbroglio.
... ... ...
The role of the Russian Federation cannot be viewed apart from what is happening in the
energy-rich, formerly Soviet Central Asian republics. The so-called -Stans (Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan) are major players in today's energy markets. Whatever
they do, however, cannot be seen as separate from what Russia is doing or from Russia's
intentions. Although some of them, primarily Azerbaijan, have initiated projects that are not
aligned with Moscow's goals, they nevertheless need to behave in ways that do not upset their
powerful northern neighbour on whom they are heavily reliant, to some extent, for their welfare
(due to their dependence on oil and gas pipeline networks).
Politics is therefore deeply intertwined with energy in most of those cases, bringing
diplomacy front and centre as a determinant of behaviour and economic outcomes.
... ... ...
Europe's problem is that, with the exception of North Sea oil and gas, it relies entirely on
imports to provide it with a comfortable level of energy. Thus, events in the Middle East and
the Russian stance toward the continent determines whether it is adequately supplied with
energy or faces shortages.
The deposits in the North Sea have kept some European states (Britain and Scandinavia among
others) well supplied for quite a while. But unfortunately there is a strong suspicion that
these deposits are diminishing at a dangerous rate. As a result Europe will gradually become
dependent on imports from the Middle East, North Africa, Russia, and the Atlantic (Angola,
Brazil, Mexico, and the US). The situation is disquieting since Japan, and more recently,
China, are seeking to buy their own supplies from the same sources.
"...Things started to change after the fracking and shale gas revolution. The United
States suddenly realized that it could not only became absolutely self-sufficient in oil and
gas, but it also emerged as one of the most important exporters to the rest of the
world..."
Ths is factually untrue. The US still depends on crude oil imports to meet its needs. And
if this simple, verifiable fact is misunderstood by the author, then I have to wonder about
the rest of his analysis...
From the middle of the last century to the present, everything has been about oil. The
peak oilers were correct. What they did not consider was the power of debt to hold this whole
thing together long after it should have collapsed. Shale oil is not profitable. That does
not mater as long as debt underwrites the cost of production. What does matter is the rapid
decline rate of shale oil wells. Yes it is true that shale wells are continuing to produce
long after they have reached their peak but it is the volume of production that matters.
If you read the projections put out by the Hirsch Report, the Llyiods Report and the
Bundeswehr Report, things should get interesting in the next couple of years.
"... Trump's US aims for 'domination', not through the globalists' permanent infrastructure of the US defence umbrella, but through the smart leveraging of the US dollar and financial clearing monopoly, by ring-fencing, and holding tight, US technology, and by dominating the energy market, which in turn represents the on/off valve to economic growth for US rivals. ..."
"... "Towards the tail end of the Clinton administration and the Dot Com boom in 2000, [Trump's U.S. Treasury Secretary until April 2018] Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs had dinner with his counterpart at Morgan Stanley, John Shapiro. From this dinner was hatched an audacious plan to take control of the global oil market through a new electronic global market platform." ..."
"... "Wall Street bankers, particularly Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, backed him and he launched ICE in 2000 (giving 80 percent control to the two banks who, in turn, spread out the control among Shell, Total, and British Petroleum)." ..."
"... "The second objective was a switch from oil to natural gas, and when the U.S. [ military ] was obliged to leave Saudi Arabia, they [the U.S.] thereupon established their biggest regional base in Qatar, who co-own with Iran the greatest single natural gas reserve on the planet – South Pars. ..."
"... Energy Dominance ..."
"... In the four months since President Trump's announcement, the market strategy developed by Gary Cohn is now being implemented and its elements are emerging into view. ..."
"... Firstly, there has been a massive inflow of Managed Money into the oil market, particularly the Brent contract, which has seen the Brent oil price increase by 35% since the starting point, which I believe can be dated to the August Brent/BFOE Crude Oil option expiry on June 27 th 2017. ..."
"... The dominant market narrative is that the backwardation in Brent is evidence of surging global oil demand which has emptied inventories and is leading the price to new sunlit uplands. However, I see the market rather differently. ..."
"... Firstly, whether the Brent spot month is supported by financial, rather than physical demand, the result will still be a backwardation, and because few oil producers expect a price over $60 to be sustainable they therefore hedge and depress the forward price. In support of this view, I am far from the only market observer who believes that Aramco, and Rosneft would not be selling equity if either Saudi Arabia or Russia believed the oil price trajectory will be positive even in the medium term. ..."
"... This still leaves open the $64 billion question of which market participant is motivated and able to support the ICE Brent term structure for years into the future by swapping dollar risk (T-Bills) for long term oil risk (oil reserves leased via prepay purchase/resale contracts). ..."
"... My conclusion by a process of elimination is that this Big Long can only be Saudi Arabia and regional allies, with Saudi Arabia now under the management of the thrusting young Mohammad bin Salman." ..."
"... Although Trump routinely talks about withdrawing U.S. troops, he does the exact opposite. ..."
"... the U.S. economy becomes increasingly dependent upon Big Oil and Big Minerals and Big Money and Big Military, ..."
"... War against King Saud's chosen enemies (Iran, Qatar, Syria) and possibly even against the U.S. aristocracy's chosen enemy, Russia (and against Russia's allies: China, Iran, and Syria) -- seems more likely, not less likely, with Trump's geostrategy. ..."
"... "I want to address what Mr. Cohn was talking about from a standpoint of how important American energy is as an option, not as the only option, but as an option to our allies and to count[r]ies around the world. ..."
"... At the G7 it was really kind of interesting. The first thing they beat on the table talking about the Paris accord, you can't get out of it, and I was kind of like OK. Then we would go into our bilats and they'd go, how about some of that LNG you've got? How do we buy your LNG, how do we buy your coal? And it was really interesting, it was a political issue for them. This whole Paris thing is a public relation[s], political issue for them. We made the right decision, the President made the right decision on this. I think it was one of the most powerful messages that early on in this administration that was sent. ..."
"... We are in a position to be able to clearly create a hell of a lot more friends by being able to deliver to them energy and not being held hostage by some countries, Russia in particular. Whether it is Poland, Ukraine, the entirety of the EU. Totally get it, if we can lay in American LNG, if we can be able to have an alternative to Russian anthracite coal that they control in the Ukraine. ..."
"... If that was more the reality of Trump's "Unleashing American Energy" policy than just the pro-global-burnout cheerleading of Trump's mere words, then it seems to be -- in the policy's actual intent and implementation -- more like "send more troops in" than "bring the troops home," to and from anywhere. It is more like energy policy in support of the military policy, than military policy in support of the energy policy. ..."
"... In any aristocracy, some members need to make compromises with other members, no matter how united they all are against the publics' interests. This is the way it's done -- by compromises with each other. ..."
"Trump's US aims for 'domination', not through the globalists' permanent infrastructure of
the US defence umbrella, but through the smart leveraging of the US dollar and financial
clearing monopoly, by ring-fencing, and holding tight, US technology, and by dominating the
energy market, which in turn represents the on/off valve to economic growth for US rivals.
In
this way, Trump can 'bring the troops home', and yet America keeps its hegemony [America's
control of the world, global empire]. Military conflict becomes a last resort."
He bases that crucially upon a landmark 6 November 2017 article by Chris Cook, at Seeking
Alpha, which laid out, and to a significant extent documented, a formidable and complex
geostrategy driving U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign policies. Cook headlined there
"Energy Dominance And
America First" , and noted that,
"Towards the tail end of the Clinton administration and the Dot Com boom in 2000,
[Trump's U.S. Treasury Secretary until April 2018] Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs had dinner with
his counterpart at Morgan Stanley, John Shapiro. From this dinner was hatched an audacious plan
to take control of the global oil market through a new electronic global market
platform."
This "global market platform," which had been started months earlier in 2000 by Jeffrey Sprecher , is "ICE,"
or InterContinental Exchange, and it uses financial derivatives in order to provide to Wall
Street banks control over the future direction of commodites prices (so that the insiders can
game the markets), by means of the financial-futures markets, locking in future
purchase-and-sale agreements. It also entails Wall Street's
buying enormous commodities-storage warehouses and stashing them with such commodities - such
as, in that case, aluminum) , and so it influences also the real estate markets, and
doesn't only manipulate the commodities markets. Those vast storehouses (and the operation of
the U.S. Government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to carry out a similar price-manipulation
function in the oil business) are crucial in order for the entire scheme to be able to
function, because without control over the storehousing of physical commodities, such
futures-price manipulations aren't possible. Consequently, ICE couldn't get off the ground
without major Wall Street partners, which are willing to do that. Cohn and Shapiro (Goldman,
and Morgan Stanley) backed Sprecher's operation; and Wikipedia states that,
"Wall Street bankers, particularly Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, backed him and he
launched ICE in 2000 (giving 80 percent control to the two banks who, in turn, spread out the
control among Shell, Total, and British Petroleum)."
This is today's financial world -- a world in which billionaires control the future
directions of commodities-prices, and thus manipulate markets, and even determine the economic
fates of nations. It's not the myth of capitalism; it is the reality of capitalism. It
functions by means of corruption, as it always has, but the corrupt methods constantly
evolve.
However, Trump's geostrategy goes beyond merely this, especially by bringing into the entire
operation the world's wealthiest person, the trillionaire King Saud, who, as the sole owner of
the Saudi Government, which in turns owns the world's largest corporation Aramco, which in turn
dominates the oil market and which is also #6 in the natural-gas market (far behind the three
giants, which King Saud is trying to destroy -- Russia, Iran, and Qatar -- so that the Sauds
will become able to dominate even there). Trump's geostrategy ties King Saud even more tightly
than before, into America's aristocracy.
King Saud, as Cook noted, is trying to disinvest in petroleum and reposition increasingly
into natural gas, because outside the United States and around the world, people are seriously
concerned to minimize global warming so as to postpone global burnout from uncontrollably
soaring atmospheric carbon. Petroleum has an even worse carbon footprint than does natural gas;
and therefore natural gas is the world's "transition fuel" to a 'survivable' future, while
solar and other alternatives take hold (even if too late). Despite all of the carbon-fuels
industries' propaganda, people outside the United States are determined to delay global
burnout, and the insiders know this. King Saud knows that his petroleum-laden portfolio will
have to diversify fast, because the long-term future for petroleum-prices is decline. And he
won't be able to control prices at all in the natural-gas business unless he's got America's
aristocracy on his side, in the effort to keep those prices up (at least while the Sauds will
be increasing their profits from natural gas). Unlike his dominance over OPEC, Saudi Arabia has
no such position to control natural gas-prices. He thus needs Wall Street's cooperation.
Cook said:
"The second objective was a switch from oil to natural gas, and when the U.S. [
military ] was
obliged to leave Saudi Arabia, they [the U.S.] thereupon established their biggest regional
base in Qatar, who co-own with Iran the greatest single natural gas reserve on the planet
– South Pars.
Energy Dominance
In the four months since President Trump's announcement, the market strategy developed
by Gary Cohn is now being implemented and its elements are emerging into view.
Firstly, there has been a massive inflow of Managed Money into the oil market,
particularly the Brent contract, which has seen the Brent oil price increase by 35% since the
starting point, which I believe can be dated to the August Brent/BFOE Crude Oil option expiry
on June 27 th 2017.
The dominant market narrative is that the backwardation in Brent is evidence of surging
global oil demand which has emptied inventories and is leading the price to new sunlit uplands.
However, I see the market rather differently.
Firstly, whether the Brent spot month is supported by financial, rather than physical
demand, the result will still be a backwardation, and because few oil producers expect a price
over $60 to be sustainable they therefore hedge and depress the forward price. In support of
this view, I am far from the only market observer who believes that Aramco, and Rosneft would
not be selling equity if either Saudi Arabia or Russia believed the oil price trajectory will
be positive even in the medium term.
This still leaves open the $64 billion question of which market participant is motivated
and able to support the ICE Brent term structure for years into the future by swapping dollar
risk (T-Bills) for long term oil risk (oil reserves leased via prepay purchase/resale
contracts).
My conclusion by a process of elimination is that this Big Long can only be Saudi Arabia
and regional allies, with Saudi Arabia now under the management of the thrusting young Mohammad
bin Salman."
However, I do not agree with Alastair Crooke's "In this way, Trump can 'bring the troops
home', and yet America keeps its hegemony [America's control of the world, global empire].
Military conflict becomes a last resort." I explained at Strategic Culture on March 25th
"How the
Military Controls America" and noted there that "on 21 May 2017, US President Donald Trump
sold to the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia, an all-time-record $350 billion of US
arms-makers' products." This means that not only Wall Street -- the main institutional agency
for America's aristocracy -- and not only American Big Oil likewise, are committed to the royal
Saud family, but U.S. corporations such as Lockheed Martin also are. Vast profits are to be
made, by insiders, in invasions and occupations, just as in gas and oil, and in brokerage.
Although Trump routinely talks about withdrawing U.S. troops, he does the exact opposite.
And even if this trend reverses and America's troop-numbers head down, while
the U.S. economy
becomes increasingly dependent upon Big Oil and Big Minerals and Big Money and Big Military,
America's military budget is, under Trump, the only portion of the entire U.S. federal
Government that's increasing; so, "Military conflict becomes a last resort" does not seem
likely, in such a context. Rather, the reverse would seem to be the far likelier case.
War against King Saud's chosen enemies (Iran, Qatar, Syria) and possibly even against
the U.S. aristocracy's chosen enemy, Russia (and against Russia's allies: China, Iran, and
Syria) -- seems more likely, not less likely, with Trump's geostrategy.
In fact, on 29 June 2017, when President Trump first announced his "Unleashing American
Energy Event," the President spoke his usual platitudes about the supposed necessity to
increase coal-production, and what he said was telecast and
publicized ; but his U.S. Energy Secretary, the barely literate former Governor of Texas,
Rick Perry, also delivered a speech, which was never telecast nor published, except that a few
days later, on July 3rd, an excerpt from it was somehow published on the website of Liquified
Natural Gas Global, and it was this:
"I want to address what Mr. Cohn was talking about from a standpoint of how important
American energy is as an option, not as the only option, but as an option to our allies and
to count[r]ies around the world.
At the G7 it was really kind of interesting. The first thing they beat on the table
talking about the Paris accord, you can't get out of it, and I was kind of like OK. Then we
would go into our bilats and they'd go, how about some of that LNG you've got? How do we buy
your LNG, how do we buy your coal? And it was really interesting, it was a political issue
for them. This whole Paris thing is a public relation[s], political issue for them. We made
the right decision, the President made the right decision on this. I think it was one of the
most powerful messages that early on in this administration that was sent.
We are in a position to be able to clearly create a hell of a lot more friends by
being able to deliver to them energy and not being held hostage by some countries, Russia in
particular. Whether it is Poland, Ukraine, the entirety of the EU. Totally get it, if we can
lay in American LNG, if we can be able to have an alternative to Russian anthracite coal that
they control in the Ukraine. That singularly will have more to do with keeping our allies
free and building their confidence in us than practically anything else that I have seen out
there. It is a positive message around the world right now."
If that was more the reality of Trump's "Unleashing American Energy" policy than just
the pro-global-burnout cheerleading of Trump's mere words, then it seems to be -- in the
policy's actual intent and implementation -- more like "send more troops in" than "bring the
troops home," to and from anywhere. It is more like energy policy in support of the military
policy, than military policy in support of the energy policy.
This sounds even better for the stockholders of Lockheed Martin and other weapons-firms than
for the stockholders of ExxonMobil and other extractive firms. On 6 March 2018, Xinhua News
Agency reported that, "U.S.
President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn has summoned executives from U.S.
companies that depend on aluminum and steel to meet with Trump this Thursday, in a bid to
persuade the president to drop his tariff plan, media reported Tuesday." After all: Goldman has
warehouses full of aluminum, and has the futures-contracts which already commit the Wall Street
firm to particular manipulations in the aluminum (and other) markets. Controlling the
Government so that it does only what you want it to do, and only when you want the Government
to do it, is difficult. In any aristocracy, some members need to make compromises with
other members, no matter how united they all are against the publics' interests. This is the
way it's done -- by compromises with each other.
You can always count on the neocons in Congress to ignore reality, ignore evidence, and
ignore common sense in their endless drive to get us involved in another war.
Last week, for example, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-NC), Bob Menendez
(D-NJ), and others joined up to introduce what Senator Graham called "the sanctions bill from
hell," aimed at applying "crushing" sanctions on Russia.
Senator Graham bragged that the bill would include "everything but the kitchen sink" in its
attempt to ratchet up tensions with Russia.
Sen Cory Gardner (R-CO) bragged that the new sanctions bill "includes my language requiring
the State Department to determine whether Russia merits the designation of a State Sponsor of
Terror."
Does he even know what the word "terrorism" means?
Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD) warns that the bill must be passed to strengthen our resolve against
"Vladimir Putin's pattern of corroding democratic institutions and values around the world, a
direct and growing threat to US national security."
What has Russia done that warrants "kitchen sink" sanctions that will "crush" the country
and possibly designate it as a sponsor of terrorism? Sen. Menendez tells us:
"The Kremlin continues to attack our democracy, support a war criminal in Syria, and
violate Ukraine's sovereignty."
There is a big problem with these accusations on Russia : they're based on outright lies and
unproven accusations that continue to get more bizarre with each re-telling .
How strange that when US Senators like Menendez demand that we stand by our NATO allies even
if it means war, they attack Russia for doing the same in Syria. Is the Syrian president a "war
criminal," as he claims? We do know that his army is finally, with Russian and Iranian help,
about to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, which with US backing for seven years have turned Syria into
a smoking ruin. Does Menendez and his allies prefer ISIS in charge of Syria?
And how hypocritical for Menendez to talk about Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty. The
unrest in Ukraine was started by the 2014 US-backed coup against an elected leader. We have
that all on tape!
How is Russia "attacking our democracy"? We're still waiting for any real evidence that
Russia was involved in our 2016 elections and intends to become involved in our 2018 elections.
But that doesn't stop the propagandists, who claim with no proof that Russia was behind the
election of Donald Trump.
These Senators claim that sanctions will bring the Russians to heel, but they are wrong.
Sanctions are good at two things only: destroying the lives of innocent civilians and leading
to war.
As I mentioned in an episode of my Liberty Report last week, even our own history shows that
sanctions do lead to war and should not be taken lightly. In the run-up to US involvement in
the War of 1812, the US was doing business with both France and the UK, which were at war with
each other. When the UK decided that the US was favoring France in its commerce, it imposed
sanctions on the US. What did Washington do in response? Declared war. Hence the War of 1812,
which most Americans remember as that time when the British burned down the White House.
Recent polls show that the majority of Americans approve of President Trump's recent meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among Republicans, a vast majority support the meeting.
Perhaps a good defeat in November will wake these neocon warmongers up. Let's hope so!
CIA whistleblower Kevin Shipp says that the
mainstream
media is laser-focused on the recent Cohen plea and the Manafort conviction,
both of which have nothing to do with "Russian collusion."
He says
this is because the mainstream media are conspirators and have nothing to do
with real news.
"They have, from their editors on down and their corporate owners,
an objective and, in this case, to remove Donald Trump. He stands
against everything that they are, the Left or the 'Dark Left' as I
call it.
Trump
is actually confronting the Shadow Government and Deep State, and he
has them shaking.
He has the news media shaking that pushes
these really leftist things. So,
they
are intentionally and on purpose blocking the news and deleting the
news about things like this soft coup, the (phony) dossier
."
This is a very powerful interview. If you have the time, we suggest you
watch it in its entirety. It is just over 37 minutes long.
Shipp went on to detail the truth: "The MSM will not tell you the latest
revelation and that is
Bruce
Ohr, who was the fourth highest ranking official in the Obama Justice
Department (DOJ), wrote the now infamous phony Trump Dossier which was
used to apply for fraudulent federal wiretaps (with the FISA Court) to
spy on Trump.
"
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Shipp says all of this investigating started with Bruse Ohr, and he'll
be the next to lose his security clearance.
"It all started from the fake dossier which led eventually to the
appointment of Robert Mueller (Special Prosecutor) and the entire
foundation is based on a falsity. . . .
I
understand the next revocation of security clearance is probably
going to be Bruce Ohr because he crafted the fake dossier with
Christopher Steele, and he may even have written the thing...
After the FBI supposedly fired Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr had at
least 70 communications (with Steele) back and forth talking about
the 'firewall' is still there to protect us
. Recent
accounts show that Bruce Ohr either wrote the dossier with
Christopher Steele or he wrote it himself in communication with
Christopher Steele." –
Kevin
Shipp
When Hunter asked Shipp if the dossier meant to frame Trump came
directly from the FBI and the DOJ, Shipp confirmed that it did.
"Yes. Oh, they coordinated it for sure.
There are 70 emails
back and forth between Ohr and Steele crafting the dossier. So, the
FBI and Department of Justice were intimately involved with the
creation and publication of that dossier."
"They even went further than that. The FBI and CIA
counter-intelligence even placed an agent inside the Trump
campaign."
-Kevin
Shipp
Shipp concluded that a Civil War in the making right now.
"I
think we are at the beginning of a civil war. You've got the 'Dark Left'
and you've got the Conservative people, the Constitutionalists.
In
progressivism, one of its tenets is to change the Constitution,
especially the First Amendment, and uproot traditional America.
Whatever
happens in November is going to intensify that
. . . . Their
attack is against Christians and the Constitution."
History has a velocity of its own, and its implacable forces
will
drag
the good, the bad, the clueless, the clever, the guilty, the
innocent, the avid, and the unwilling to a certain fate.
One
can easily see a convergence of vectors shoving the nation
toward political criticality this autumn.
Mr. Trump is like some unfortunate dumb brute of the ancient
Teutonic forests with a bulldog clamped to his nose, the rest of
the pack close behind snapping at his hamstrings and soft,
swaying underbelly.
His
desperate bellowing goes unanswered by the indifference of the
trees in forest, the cold moon above, and all the other
furnishings of his tragic reality.
As these things tend to happen, it looks like the exertions of
Robert Mueller have turned from the alleged grave offenses of a
foreign enemy to the sequela of consort with a floozie. Down
goes Mr. Trump's private attorney, Michael Cohen, in his
personal swamp of incriminating files and audio recordings.
Enter, stage left, one David Pecker, publisher of the venerable
National
Enquirer
-- the newspaper of wreckage -- on his slime-trail
of induced testimony. And there is your impeachable offense: an
illegal campaign contribution.
ne way or another
, as Blondie used to sing,
I'm gonna getcha, getcha, getcha
.
Some in this greatest of all possible republics may be asking
themselves if this is quite fair play, given the hundreds of
millions of dollars washed-and-rinsed through the laundromat
known as the Clinton Foundation, and related suspicious doings
in that camp of darkness. But remember, another president, Jimmy
Carter, once declared to the shock of official Washington that
"life
is unfair."
What I wonder is what these dogs of vengeance reckon will happen
when they achieve their goal of bringing down the bellowing bull
and pulling his guts out.
Perhaps a few moments of
tribal satisfaction, one last war dance around the fire, and
when the fire dies out, they will find themselves under the same
cold indifferent moon with blood on their snouts and an ill wind
blowing in the tree tops.
After two years of fomenting hysteria, the "winners" will
discern the reality behind all the melodrama:
the
financialization rackets that replaced what used to be the
economy have come unglued, and institutions begin to fail left
and right
: banks, pension funds, corporations, state
and municipal governments, federal promises to pay this and
that, and, in general, the ability of the USA to carry on
anything approximating what might be considered normal life.
It will be interesting to see how the impeachment of Donald
Trump plays as all this goes down.
My
guess is that the people warning about a second civil war are
not far off the mark.
The final consequence of a
political-economy based on the proposition that
anything
goes and nothing matters
will be the rueful discovery that
consequences actually exist, and
consequently
that
anything can't go and some things really do matter: like whether
or not money is actually worth what it says it's worth.
That issue will surely be determined by whether the borrowers of
money can possibly pay back what they owe. The discovery that
it's impossible will coincide with whatever the legal fate of
Donald Trump's presidency might be. The result of all this is
apt to be a political nightmare of bankruptcy and bloodshed that
makes the first civil war (1861-1865) look like a tale of
knighthood in flower.
Our national living arrangements are far too fragile.
The
players on both sides of this dire game must assume that the
trappings of American life are sturdy, and they are quite wrong
about that. Personalities are not in control anymore. Murphy's
law rules, and we're about to find out how that law differs from
the federal election statutes and the humdrum business of
indicting ham sandwiches just because they're out there on the
table.
"... These wars, no matter what form they take, are a circus for the public. They are engineered to create controlled chaos and manageable fear. They are a means to influence us towards a particular end, and that end, in most cases, is more social and economic influence in the hands of a select few. In each instance, people are being convinced to believe that the world is being divided when it is actually being centralized. ..."
"... Globalists themselves are drawn together by an ideology. They have no common nation, they have no common political orientation, they have no common cultural background or religion, they herald from the East just as they herald from the West. They have no true loyalty to any mainstream cause or social movement. ..."
"... What do they have in common? They seem to exhibit many of the traits of high level narcissistic sociopaths, who make up a very small percentage of the human population. These people are predators, or to be more specific, they are parasites. They see themselves as naturally superior to others, but they often work together if there is the promise of mutual benefit. ..."
"... Contrary to popular belief in the liberty movement, Putin DID NOT kick out international banks or remove their power structures during his presidential rise. In fact, Rothschild banks still operate in Russia to this day, while Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan continue to act as the largest investment banks in the country. ..."
"... The globalist presence in Russia is perhaps why the nation developed such a close relationship with the IMF after the fall of the Soviet Union , why they continue their ties to the IMF an the Bank for International Settlements to this day and why the Kremlin has in the past called for a new global currency system controlled by the IMF. ..."
"... Trump has also had extensive dealings with the globalists, including Rothschild connected banking elites for the past 25 years. Wilber Ross , an investment banker working for the Rothschilds, was the primary agent that bailed Trump out of his considerable debts surrounding his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. After Trump's rise to the White House, he made Wilber Ross commerce secretary and Ross now heavily promotes the developing trade war. ..."
"... Clearly, there is no "division" between the world's political leaders when it comes to who they are allied with. International banks and globalist think tanks are involved with ALL of them. But what about the rest of the world in general? Isn't the trade war causing division and decentralization among nations and economies? When you look at the very top of the pyramid, the divisions vanish. ..."
The greatest tool at the disposal of globalists is the
use
of false paradigms to manipulate public perception and thus public action
.
The masses are led to believe that at the highest levels of geopolitical and
financial power there is such a thing as "sides." This is utter nonsense when we
examine the facts at hand.
We are told the-powers-that-be are divided by "Left" and "Right" politics,
yet
both sides actually support the same exact policy actions when it comes to the
most important issues of the day and only seem to differ in terms of rhetoric,
which is meaningless and cosmetic anyway.
That
is to say, it's nothing but Kabuki theater.
We are told that corporate power must be balanced by government power and that
government power must be balanced by "free markets," when in reality
corporations are chartered and protected by governments and free markets simply
don't exist in today's economy.
In the case of social media
"censorship," we are told that the solution is to use government power to
enforce "fairness" instead of simply launching our own alternative platforms.
Yet, social media corporations exist in the form of monopolies exactly because
of government power and intervention in business. The abuses of one "side" are
being used to push us into the arms of the other side, which is just as abusive.
In terms of geopolitics, we are told that national powers stand "at
cross-purposes;"
that they have different interests and different goals,
which has led to things like "trade wars" and sometimes shooting wars.
Yet,
when we look at the people actually pulling the strings in most of these
countries, we find the same names and institutions.
Whether you are in
America, Russia China, the EU, etc., globalist think tanks and international
banks are everywhere, and the leaders in all of these countries call for MORE
power for such institutions, not less.
These wars, no matter what form they take, are a circus for the public. They are
engineered to create controlled chaos and manageable fear. They are a means to
influence us towards a particular end, and that end, in most cases, is more
social and economic influence in the hands of a select few. In each instance,
people are being convinced to believe that the world is being divided when it is
actually being centralized.
The key to any magic show is to get the audience to participate in the lie; to
get them to focus on the distracting hand
, to assume that what they are
seeing is actually what is really happening - to suspend their skepticism.
Make no mistake, what we are seeing in geopolitics today is indeed a magic show.
The
false East/West paradigm is as powerful if not more powerful than the false
Left/Right paradigm. For some reason, the human mind is more comfortable
believing in the ideas of division and chaos, and it often turns its nose up
indignantly at the notion of "conspiracy." But conspiracies and conspirators can
be demonstrated as a fact of history. Organization among elitists is
predictable.
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the 'comfort' of the haves and the have-notes.
Globalists themselves are drawn together by an ideology.
They have no
common nation, they have no common political orientation, they have no common
cultural background or religion, they herald from the East just as they herald
from the West. They have no true loyalty to any mainstream cause or social
movement.
What do they have in common?
They seem to exhibit many of the
traits of high level narcissistic sociopaths, who make up a very small
percentage of the human population. These people are predators, or to be more
specific, they are parasites. They see themselves as naturally superior to
others, but they often work together if there is the promise of mutual benefit.
The closest thing I can relate narcissistic sociopaths (and thus globalists) to
in mythology would be vampires. I have often wondered if the concept of
"vampires" was created as a way for the peasants of the dark ages to explain the
soulless and monstrous behavior of the elites of their time. The notion that any
person is capable of that kind if evil, let alone organized evil in the form of
a cabal, is hard for people to accept to this day.
Vampires in mythology are usually depicted as elites, hiding in plain site as
leaders of communities in the upper echelons of society. They seek out a
village, insert themselves as upstanding patrons and aristocrats, then feed
until that village is destroyed. Afterward, they move on to the next village.
This is what they are. This is what they do, and they do it in organized fashion
to make the process more efficient.
It takes a village to feed a vampire, or a narcissistic sociopath.
I relate this metaphor because I think it's important for the average person to
understand what we are really dealing with here. When some people recoil at the
notion of a syndicate at the highest levels of finance and politics working
towards nefarious purposes, they should know that this is easily explained not
only in terms of historic myths and archetypes, but in well documented
psychological study.
Analysts and activists within the liberty movement have proven impressively
immune to many of the narratives and lies of conspiratorial globalists, which is
why they are now the main target of multiple propaganda campaigns. Globalists
don't feel comfortable climbing into their coffins to sleep during the day while
so many Van Helsings are lurking about exposing their activities.
The latest propaganda effort I have seen is the narrative of the "multipolar
world" developing in the wake of what the IMF refers to as the "global economic
reset." In fact, the term "multipolar world" is being used in alternative media
circles a lot these days, and this is once again a ploy designed to con us into
believing that centralization is no longer a threat and that the divisions we
see are real rather than fabricated.
Under the multipolar narrative, we are told that the shift away from the U.S.
dollar as the world reserve is now happening and that this is being led by
Eastern political powers seeking alternatives. This is true, to a point.
The lies surrounding this development are many, though. We are told that Eastern
political powers are at odds with globalists and globalism -- this is false. We
are told that BRICS nations are seeking a decentralized system to replace dollar
hegemony -- this is false. We are told that Eastern leaders like Putin and Xi are
countering the globalist power grab and are being targeted by the elites as if
they are "rebelling" against the empire -- this is also false. We are told that
the trade war is a means for Donald Trump to disrupt globalization and throw a
monkey wrench into the globalists plans -- this is fantasy.
Liberty activists and analysts are particularly susceptible to the idea because
it plays on our desire to see the longstanding dollar-based empire of the
Federal Reserve fall into the oblivion it deserves.
The
problem is that the narrative is based on the fraudulent assumption that the
globalist empire is rooted in the "American empire."
Here are the facts
:
Globalist influences are hyper-present in eastern nations.
For example,
Vladimir Putin, who is often depicted as some kind of anti-globalist hero in
liberty movement discussions, is not anti-globalist at all. Putin was
"discovered" by vocal new world order proponent Henry Kissinger decades ago in
the early 1990s before he took on the role as acting president of Russia. Putin
relates his first meeting with Kissinger and their longstanding friendship in
the book
First
Person
, his autobiographical account of his early career.
Contrary to popular belief in the liberty movement, Putin DID NOT kick out
international banks or remove their power structures during his presidential
rise. In fact,
Rothschild
banks
still operate in
Russia
to
this day, while
Goldman
Sachs and JP Morgan
continue to act as the largest investment banks in the
country.
The
globalist
presence in Russia
is perhaps why the nation developed such a close
relationship with the IMF after the fall of the Soviet Union
, why they
continue their ties to the IMF an the Bank for International Settlements to this
day and why the Kremlin has in the past called for a new global currency system
controlled by the IMF.
China has also called for the same new monetary system
, not decentralized,
but completely centralized under the IMF.
China has been under the
influence
of
the Rockefeller Foundation
since around 1915, when they opened a university
in the country based on the University of Chicago. China continues its ties to
the globalists through the BIS and IMF, and
Goldman
Sachs
is heavily involved in Chinese government activities and business
arrangements. Only last year, Goldman established a $5 billion deal with an arm
of the Chinese government to make it easier to purchase companies and assets
within the United States. Donald Trump praised the deal as beneficial to the
U.S., which is not surprising considering the number of Goldman Sachs alumni
Trump has involved in his cabinet.
Trump has also had extensive dealings with the globalists, including Rothschild
connected banking elites for the past 25 years.
Wilber
Ross
, an investment banker working for the Rothschilds, was the primary
agent that bailed Trump out of his considerable debts surrounding his Taj Mahal
casino in Atlantic City. After Trump's rise to the White House, he made
Wilber
Ross commerce secretary
and Ross now heavily promotes the developing trade
war.
Clearly, there is no "division" between the world's political leaders when it
comes to who they are allied with.
International banks and
globalist think tanks are involved with ALL
of
them. But what about the rest of the world in general? Isn't the trade war
causing division and decentralization among nations and economies? When you look
at the very top of the pyramid, the divisions vanish.
Consider Russia's ongoing oil pipeline deal with
Germany
,
or Russia's latest deal to allow
China
to farm over 2.5 million acres of Russian land
, helping directly combat U.S.
sanctions. Or what about the
Caspian
Sea
deal between Russia, Iran and multiple other countries to end the
dispute over the region? And how about China's defiance of sanctions on
Iranian
oil
? Or the EU's growing protests over US interference in their oil trade
with both Iran and Russia?
These are just some of the latest examples of the rest of the world melding into
a larger conglomerate in the wake of the trade war. The trade war is bringing
all these supposedly disparate countries together in a way that is rather
convenient for globalists. If we take into account the reality of globalist
influence in all major economies, then we have to also take into account the
possibility that the "global economic reset" is not about a "multipolar world,"
but an even more centralized unipolar world. A world which sacrifices the U.S.
model along with the dollar as world reserve and replaces it with something
EVEN
WORSE.
In the meantime, liberty activists are lately being told that they should rally
around the death of dollar and the global reset as if it is the end of
globalism.
In other words, we are supposed to stupidly believe that the
shift to the new world order is "decentralization" simply because they call it
"multipolar."
Just
because the U.S. is no longer the face of the beast does not mean the beast is
gone.
* * *
If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have
just read, visit our donations page
here
.
We greatly appreciate your patronage.
"... Duncan described herself as an avid supporter of President Trump, but said she was moved by four full boxes of exhibits provided by Mueller's team – though she was skeptical about prosecutors' motives in the financial crimes case. ..."
"... Though Duncan said the jury was not political in its conviction, she said she was skeptical of prosecutors' intentions, which she implied were political. ..."
A juror who sat on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's
case said on
Fox
News Wednesday night
that a
lone
juror prevented a ruling on all 18 counts against Manafort.
Juror
Paula Duncan said a lone juror could not come to a guilty verdict on
10 charges, forcing judge T.S. Ellis III to declare a mistrial on 10
of Manafort's 18 counts.
"It was one person who kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18
counts," Duncan, 52, said. She added that Mueller's team of
prosecutors often seemed bored, apparently catnapping during parts
of the trial.
In an exclusive interview on
@
foxnewsnight
,
Paul Manafort juror Paula Duncan said Special
Counsel Robert Mueller's team was one holdout
juror away from convicting Paul Manafort on all
18 counts of bank and tax fraud.
https://
fxn.ws/2Mrmrzb
While the identities of the jurors have been closely held, kept
under seal by Judge T.S. Ellis III at Tuesday's conclusion of the
high-profile trial, Duncan gave a behind-the-scenes account to Fox
News on Wednesday, after the jury returned a guilty verdict against
the former Trump campaign chairman on eight financial crime counts
and deadlocked on 10 others.
Duncan described herself as an avid supporter of President Trump,
but said she was moved by four full boxes of exhibits provided by
Mueller's team – though she was skeptical about prosecutors' motives
in the financial crimes case.
"Certainly Mr. Manafort got caught breaking the law, but he
wouldn't have gotten caught if they weren't after President
Trump," Duncan said of the special counsel's case, which she
separately described as a "witch hunt to try to find Russian
collusion," borrowing a phrase Trump has used in tweets more
than 100 times.
Though Duncan said the jury was not political in its conviction, she
said she was skeptical of prosecutors' intentions, which she implied
were political.
Following a lengthy jury deliberation, former
Trump
campaign
manager Paul Manafort was
convicted
on
eight counts, including tax fraud, failure to disclose
foreign bank accounts, and bank fraud –
even
though jurors were still hung on another ten counts
:
"If we cannot come to a consensus for a single count, how can we
fill in the verdict sheet?" the jurors asked in the note.
"It is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so," said
Ellis, who encouraged each juror to make their own decisions on
each count. If some were in the minority on a decision, however,
they could think about the other jurors' conclusions.
Notably, the case has nothing
to
do
with "Trump, the Trump campaign or the 2016 US election" – it
has to do with work Manafort did with former Ukranian President
Victor Yanukovych from 2005-2014.
The
case was referred to the federal prosecutors in the Southern
District of New York (SDNY) by Special Investigator
Robert
Mueller
who also referred Democrat superlobbyist Tony Podesta
for prosecution as part of similar work he did for Yanukovych.
All of this begs the question – if Tony Podesta committed the same
crimes as Paul Manafort, why hasn't the SDNY brought charges against
him?
Last year, Tucker Carlson exposed just how close Tony Podesta and
the
Podesta
Group
were to the Ukranian and Russian governments...
...which was summed up in the below list originally complied by
iBankCoin
–
detailing Manafort's close ties with the Podesta Group regarding
Russian
/Ukranian
lobbying:
Lobbyist and temporary Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
is at the center of the Russia probe – however the scope of
the investigation has broadened to include his activities
prior to the 2016 election.
Manafort worked with the Podesta Group since at least
2011 on behalf of Russian interests
, and was at the
Podesta Group offices "all the time, at least once a
month," peddling Russian influence through a shell group
called the
European
Centre for a Modern Ukraine
(ECMU).
Manafort brought a "parade" of Russian oligarchs to congress
for meetings with members and their staffs, however, the
Russia's
"central effort" was the Obama Administration.
In 2013,
John
Podesta recommended that Tony hire David Adams, Hillary
Clinton's chief adviser at the State Department, giving them
a "direct liaison" between the group's Russian clients and
Hillary Clinton's State Department.
In late 2013 or early 2014,
Tony
Podesta and a representative for the Clinton Foundation met
to discuss how to help Uranium One
– the Russian
owned company that controls 20 percent of American Uranium
Production – and whose board members gave over $100 million
to the Clinton Foundation.
"
Tony
Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation."
Believing she would win the 2016 election,
Russia
considered the Podesta Group's connection to Hillary highly
valuable
.
Podesta Group is a nebulous organization with no board
oversight and all financial decisions made by Tony Podesta.
Carlson's source said
payments
and kickbacks could be hard for investigators to trace,
describing it as a "highly secret treasure trove."
One
employee's only official job was to manage Tony Podesta's
art
collection
, which could be used to conceal
financial transactions.
Trending Articles
"Thank God This Is Happening" Russia Says Time
Has Come To
With the US unveiling a new set of sanctions
against Russia on Friday, Moscow said it would
definitely respond to
Additionally, Zerohedge
explained
why
this list is so significant:
emails obtained by the Associated Press showed that Gates
personally directed two Washington lobbying firms,
Mercury
LLC and the Podesta Group, between 2012 and 2014 to set up
meetings between a top Ukrainian official and senators and
congressmen on influential committees involving Ukrainian
interests
. Gates noted in the emails that the official,
Ukraine's foreign minister, did not want to use his own embassy
in the United States to help coordinate the visits.
And this is where the plot thickens,
because
while the bulk of the press has so far spun the entire Ukraine
lobbying scandal, which led to Manafort's resignation, as the
latest "proof" that pro-Moscow powers were influencing not only
Manafort but the Trump campaign in general (who some democrats
have even painted of being a Putin agent), the reality is that a
firm closely tied with the Democratic party, the Podesta Group,
is just as implicated.
As AP further adds, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a
Brussels-linked nonprofit entity which allegely ran the lobbying
project,
paid
Mercury and the Podesta Group a combined $2.2 million over
roughly two years.
In papers filed in the U.S. Senate,
Mercury and the Podesta Group listed the European nonprofit as
an independent, nonpolitical client. The firms said the center
stated in writing that it was not aligned with any foreign
political entity.
In other words, the Podesta Group was likely
as
much or even more complicit in any wrongdoing than Manafort was
.
Of course, none of this stopped
Mueller
from
offering
Podesta immunity – in exchange for testimony against Manafort:
It is not as though Manafort is blameless or guilt-free in his
conduct – and according to Corey Lewandowski,
President
Trump
himself was not particularly fond of
some
of
his conduct on the campaign trail, at one point
lowering
his helicopter
to berate him via cell phone:
While were in the air, heading for Delaware, somebody -- I think it
was Ann Coulter -- tweeted out
a
quote from Manafort saying that Trump shouldn't be on television
anymore
, that he shouldn't do the Sunday shows. And
from now on Manafort would do all shows. Because he's the
fucking expert, right? Not Trump, who had already turned the
whole primary race on its head
"Yes, sir," Hope said, "Paul said he doesn't want you on TV."
Trump went fucking ballistic. We were still over the New York
metropolitan area, where you can get cell service if you fly at
a low altitude.
"Lower it!" Trump yelled to the pilot. "I have to make a call."
He got Manafort on the phone, "Did you say I shouldn't be on TV
on Sunday??" Manafort could barely hear him because of the
helicopter motor. But Trump said,
"I'll
go on TV anytime I goddamn fucking want and you won't say
another fucking word about me! Tone it down? I wanna turn it up!
I don't wanna tone anything down! I played along with your
delegate charts, but I have had enough."
He got Paul on the phone and completely decimated him again
verbally. Ripped his fucking head off. I wish I'd recorded it,
because it was one of the greatest takedowns in the history of
the world.
"You're a political pro? Let me tell you something. I'm a pro at
life. I've been around a time or two. I know guys like you, with
your hair and your skin "
and again, according to Lewandowski, Trump was unaware of
Manafort's connections when he took the job, but was seriously
unhappy about them after they were released to the press:
"It's all lies," Manafort said. "My lawyers are fighting it."
"But if it's in the paper someone has to give Trump a heads-up,
because if it's in the paper, it's reality."
Just as Steve had thought, the story ran the next day, August
15, on Page One, above the fold.
"I've got a crook running my campaign," Trump said when he read
it.
However, in spite of his apparent misgivings for Manafort, Trump has
decided to support him – ostensibly because he did not cave to the
outrageous demands of the Mueller "
investigation
":
I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his
wonderful family. "Justice" took a 12 year old
tax case, among other things, applied tremendous
pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he
refused to "break" - make up stories in order to
get a "deal." Such respect for a brave man!
....and why hasn't the Podesta brother been
charged and arrested, like others, after being
forced to close down his very large and
successful firm? Is it because he is a VERY well
connected Democrat working in the Swamp of
Washington, D.C.?
...the Podesta brothers are both well-connected swamp creatures, on
the same political team as the
uber-politicized
SDNY
assigned to levy charges against them.
CIA spies operating within the Kremlin have suddenly "gone to ground" according to the
New York
Times , citing American officials clearly abusing their security clearances.
The officials do not think their sources have been compromised or killed - rather, they've
been spooked into silence amid "more aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including
efforts to kill spies," according to the Times, pointing to the still-unsolved March poisoning
of former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal in the UK.
Curiously, the Times immediately suggests that the lack of intelligence is " leaving the CIA
and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin's intentions are for
November's midterm elections. "
But American intelligence agencies have not been able to say precisely what are Mr.
Putin's intentions : He could be trying to tilt the midterm elections, simply sow chaos or
generally undermine trust in the democratic process . - NYT
There it is. Of course, buried towards the end of the article is this admission:
But officials said there has been no concrete intelligence pointing to Mr. Putin ordering
his own intelligence units to wade into the election to push for a certain outcome , beyond a
broad chaos campaign to undermine faith in American democracy.
Meanwhile, "current and former officials" tell the Times that the outing of FBI spy Stefan
Halper, who infiltrated the Trump campaign, had a " chilling effect on intelligence collection
."
"... Trump's authorization for the establishment of a "US Space Force" as an additional military branch was one of the more egregious trashing of a longstanding international treaty. ..."
"... In June 2018, America's Israeli-style harassment was also meted out to former Spanish Foreign Minister and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. He was denied a US visa waiver because he had visited Iran in 2013 to attend President Hassan Rouhani's inauguration. ..."
On December 6, 2017, Trump announced official US recognition of Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel. In 1980, a UN Security Council abstention permitted
the adoption of Resolution 478. The measure supplemented the earlier Resolutions
252, 267, 271, 298, and 465, which required that all UN member states, including
the United States, are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal Israeli
occupation of East Jerusalem. The passage of Resolution 478 resulted in nations
that had moved their embassies to Jerusalem, including Costa Rica and El Salvador,
moving them back to Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, or Herzliya. Trump's action reversed
that action, with Guatemala, Paraguay, and Honduras moving their embassies back
to Jerusalem.
On May 8, 2018, Trump renounced the US signature on the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran, the nuclear agreement with Iran. Even though
the pact was signed by the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Germany, the
European Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, Trump, taking
his cues from the Israeli war hawk, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, decided,
once again, to make the United States an outlier. Trump effectively gave the
back of his hand to the international community to placate Netanyahu. Moreover,
Trump threatened "secondary sanctions" against foreign nations and firms that
continued to engage in commerce with Iran after a November 4, 2018 deadline.
Trump's authorization for the establishment of a "US Space Force" as
an additional military branch was one of the more egregious trashing of a longstanding
international treaty. The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities
of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and
Other Celestial Bodies, known simply as the "Outer Space Treaty," established
the basis for international space law. The original signatories were the United
States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom. Since 1967, 107 nations have fully
ratified the treaty, which bans the placement of weapons of mass destruction
in Earth orbit and the establishment of military bases, installations, and fortifications
on the Moon and other celestial bodies.
Trump's creation of a military Space Force to supplant the civilian National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in US space operations and his call
for space to be a "new warfighting domain" effectively violate US treaty obligations.
The US Air Force's X-37B robotic space planes, smaller versions of NASA's
discontinued space shuttle orbiter, are believed to have carried out top secret
military-oriented missions since 2010. Trump's creation of a Space Force represents
a public admission of America's desire to militarize space, even as the Air
Force remains mum on the actual purpose of the X-37B program.
The basis in international law for the Outer Space Treaty was the Antarctic
Treaty of 1959. The Antarctic Treaty bans military activity of the continent.
Only scientific research in Antarctica is permitted under the Antarctic Treaty
System. However, Trump's disregard for the entire international treaty system
has placed the Antarctic Treaty in as much jeopardy as the Outer Space Treaty.
The suspected presence of rare earth minerals and gas hydrates under melting
Antarctic ice shelves has Trump's cronies in the mining and fossil fuel industries
anxious to undermine the Antarctica Treaty and open the continent to commercial
exploitation.
Considering the schoolmarmish haughtiness of Trump's ambassador to the UN,
former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, someone who had no foreign policy
experience before taking over at the US Mission to the UN, the 1947 US-UN treaty,
titled the "Agreement Between the United Nations and the United States of America
Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations," may also be violated. The
imposition of draconian visa bans and other sanctions and travel restrictions
on government officials of Iran, Turkey, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua,
Cuba, China, Chad, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Yemen, Myanmar, Laos, Syria,
Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Eritrea places in jeopardy US law that requires
the facilitation of travel for delegations of UN member states and official
observers to and from the UN headquarters in New York.
Trump's total disregard for international laws and treaties may eventually
see leaders and diplomats of foreign nations detained or arrested when they
arrive in New York to attend UN sessions. Such harassment began in earnest just
a few weeks after Trump was inaugurated as president. In February 2017, former
Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was caught up in Trump's visa
ban against visitors from Muslim nations. Bondevik was detained at Dulles International
Airport outside of Washington and subjected to questioning about an Iranian
visa in his diplomatic passport.
In June 2018, America's Israeli-style harassment was also meted out to
former Spanish Foreign Minister and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. He
was denied a US visa waiver because he had visited Iran in 2013 to attend President
Hassan Rouhani's inauguration. Solana told Spanish television, "It's a
bit of a mean decision... I don't think it's good because some people have to
visit these complicated countries to keep negotiations alive." Trump's renunciation
of the US signature on the Iran nuclear deal showed the world what Trump and
his neo-conservative advisers think about peace "negotiations." Although the
general purpose visa waiver ban was instituted by Barack Obama, the Trump administration
has been violating the spirit and intent of the US-UN Treaty by applying it
to those, like Bondevik and Solana, possessing diplomatic passports.
Trump has made no secret of his disdain for foreign government officials
and the countries they represent. During a briefing on the Indian sub-continent,
Trump reportedly delighted in referring to Nepal as "nipple" and Bhutan as "button."
According to the "tell-all" book by former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault
Newman, Trump, after viewing a video of his pushing aside Montenegro Prime Minister
Duško Marković at the 2017 NATO summit, called him a "whiny punk bitch." Trump
referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "meek and mild" over a
rift on US-Canadian trade policy.
One of Trump's first phone calls as president with a foreign leader resulted
in Trump complaining that his discussions with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull were "most unpleasant." Before warming to North Korean leader Kim Jong
UN, Trump referred to him as "little rocket man." During remarks at the UN in
September 2017, Trump referred to Namibia as "Nambia." Later, he called African
countries and Haiti "shithole" countries.
Cities that have served as hosts for international summits and meetings have
also earned Trump's scorn. He called Brussels a "hell hole," London a magnet
for Muslim terrorist immigrants, and Paris not being Paris any longer because
of Muslim immigrants.
Trump, ever the America Firster – a phrase invented by pro-Hitler politicians
in the 1930s – has decimated international law on issues ranging from the environment
and outer space to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and international guarantees
for the right of the Palestinians. Trump's tearing up of international treaties
signed by his predecessors with the chiefs of various Native American tribes
warrants it own article. Mr. Trump's damage to international relations represents
a historical watershed event and it will take decades to recover from the current
"dark ages" of American diplomacy.
Jesus would not stay very long on Twitter. People would take his tweets all too literally and
he would get tired of having to explain for the umpteenth time that he didn't believe that a
camel really could walk through the eye of a needle.
That post led to an outpouring of deeply lived personal experience, of almost
French complexity, extolling the virtues of eating particular food types in
particular combinations at particular times, and not paying too much attention
to calories. Fine. If you wish to be befuddled, that is your perfect right.
So, with some trepidation, here is a summary of the current state of knowledge
regarding intelligence and health. Indeed, it is my summary of a summary paper.
A pointless redundancy, you may say, but I know you are busy, and I would not
like to interrupt your lunch break.
Intelligent people lead healthier lives, and that is not just because they
intelligently make healthy decisions, but also, it would appear, because they
are inherently healthier. Spooky.
What genome-wide association studies reveal about the association between
intelligence and physical health, illness, and mortality
Ian JDeary 1 Sarah EHarris 12 W DavidHill 1
1 Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology,
University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom
2Medical Genetics Section, Centre for Genomic & Experimental Medicine, MRC Institute
of Genetics & Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital,
Edinburgh EH4 2XU, United Kingdom
The associations between higher intelligence test scores from early life
and later good health, fewer illnesses, and longer life are recent discoveries.
Researchers are mapping the extent of these associations and trying to understanding
them. Part of the intelligence-health association has genetic origins. Recent
advances in molecular genetic technology and statistical analyses have revealed
that: intelligence and many health outcomes are highly polygenic; and that
modest but widespread genetic correlations exist between intelligence and
health, illness and mortality. Causal accounts of intelligence-health associations
are still poorly understood. The contribution of education and socio-economic
status -- both of which are partly genetic in origin -- to the intelligence-health
associations are being explored.
Until recently, an article on DNA-variant commonalities between intelligence
and health would have been science fiction. Thirty years ago, we did not
know that intelligence test scores were a predictor of mortality. Fifteen
years ago, there were no genome-wide association studies. It was less than
five years ago that the first molecular genetic correlations were performed
between intelligence and health outcomes. These former blanks have been
filled in; however, the fast progress and accumulation of findings in the
field of genetic cognitive epidemiology have raised more questions. Individual
differences in intelligence, as tested by psychometric tests, are quite
stable from later childhood through adulthood to older age. The diverse
cognitive test scores that are used to test mental capabilities form a multi-level
hierarchy; about 40% or more of the overall variance is captured by a general
cognitive factor with which all tests are correlated, and smaller amounts
of variance are found in more specific cognitive domains (reasoning, memory,
speed, verbal, and so forth). Twin, family and adoption studies indicated
that there was moderate to high heritability of general cognitive ability
in adulthood (from about 50–70%), with a lower heritability in childhood[4].
It has long been known that intelligence is a predictor of educational attainments
and occupational position and success
In addition to mortality, intelligence test scores are associated with
lower risk of many morbidities, such as cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular
disease, hypertension, cancers such as lung cancer, stroke, and many others,
as obtained by self-report and objective assessment. Higher intelligence
in youth is associated at age 24 with fewer hospital admissions, lower general
medical practitioner costs, lower hospital costs, and less use of medical
services, and intelligence appeared to account for the associations between
education and such health outcomes. Higher intelligence is related to a
higher likelihood of engaging in healthier behaviours, such as not smoking,
quitting smoking, not binge drinking, having a more normal body mass index
and avoiding obesity, taking more exercise, and eating a healthier diet.
All this work launched a new field: cognitive epidemiology. When studying
health, factor in intelligence. If you read any research about a health problem,
like for example obesity, always ask yourself the question: how much of this
problem is associated with intelligence? Do they have early childhood data on
ability and health? Without that, there is probable confounding.
The associations which are found between health and intelligence could be
due to a direct genetic pathway shared by intelligence and health, and/or by
better, more educated and wealthy intelligence choices.
Genome-wide association studies transformed the field. Box 1 summarises all
the different statistical methods. This is a very good guide to the field. The
main one is GWAS, which finds regions of the genome which are correlated with
the trait in question and statistically significant at a P-value of <5 × 10−8
to control for the multiple comparison being made.
Here are all the correlations between the genetic code and health.
Table 1 here
Another part of understanding the genetic contribution to intelligence
health correlations concerns other predictors of health inequalities, and
intelligence's correlations with them. Intelligence is related to education
and socio-economic status (SES), and those were known to be related to health
inequalities before intelligence was known to have health associations.
Although education and SES are principally thought of as social-environmental
variables, both have been found to be partly heritable, by oth twin
based and molecular genetic studies, both have high genetic correlations
with intelligence, Mendelian Randomisation results show bidirectional genetic
effects between intelligence and education, and both have genetic correlations
with health outcomes
What does all this mean? It may mean that the underlying causes of health,
happiness, morbidity and mortality are unequally distributed, and favour some
people more than others. Evolution does not have to conform to our imaginings
or our notions of fairness. If genetics is a significant contributor within
a genetic group, it is plausible that it contributes to between group variance.
Perhaps the Japanese live longer because they are Japanese. This remains to
be proved, but is worth testing. If we ever achieve the noble ambition of creating
healthy environments all over the inhabited world we may yet have a residuum
of health differences due to purely genetic causes.
Meanwhile, you may be wondering what is the intelligent thing to do about
your health. Don't smoke, don't get fat, and don't read too many health warnings.
"... Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher rates of growth. ..."
"... In financialized economies with inflated asset prices, people have low savings and can't even afford to buy real estate or can only afford it by taking on lots of debt and having to depend on further price inflation so that they don't go underwater. In countries with financial repression, public debt tends to be low and interest rates tend to be low and capital gets directed towards industry ..."
"... Well like I said earlier, this is a matter of one's values and views on political economy. If one prefers asset price inflation and a capital structure of heavily indebted households and young adults, then there's nothing wrong and everything is rosy. ..."
"... Household income overall, not just wages, has stagnated. ..."
Whether it's an irrational criticism or not depends on one's values and
views on political economy. To some, the financial sector has manifestly
failed at allocating capital properly and is filled with rent seeking. Others
will point to its size and the capitalization of financial markets as evidence
of its value and importance.
What's the evidence that it has failed at allocating capital successfully?
No shortage of rent-seeking of course. But if there's one thing I've
learned it's that bagholders are gonna bag. This isn't some hypothetical either, look at countries without sophisticated
financial markets. People are forced to save by speculating in real estate,
and credit is often not available to business unless the state makes it
available (perfectly reasonable in such economies to be fair).
Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been
much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher
rates of growth.
There have been several bubbles, and consumer debt has
risen significantly while income has stagnated and startup formation is
at a 40 year low. Capital allocation has been very unproductive. It's caused
lots of asset price inflation and increased debt without producing new assets
and income streams. Capital allocation is highly centralized and it has
the same problems communist economies have with central planning where capital
is centralized in the state. A lot of unproductive activity and rent seeking.
In financialized economies with inflated asset prices, people have low
savings and can't even afford to buy real estate or can only afford it by
taking on lots of debt and having to depend on further price inflation so
that they don't go underwater. In countries with financial repression, public
debt tends to be low and interest rates tend to be low and capital gets
directed towards industry.
Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been
much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher
rates of growth.
Stock prices were unusually low in the 1970s, as epitomized by BusinessWeek's
famous 1979 The Death of Equities cover. In addition to reversion to the mean, several other factors made stocks
more valuable since that time.
The collapse of inflation and interest rates increased the net present
value of stocks, the rise of emerging markets with poor domestic capital
markets increased foreign demand for stocks, America's persistent trade
deficit further increased foreign demand for American assets, and the low-cost
trading and 401k revolutions.
Well like I said earlier, this is a matter of one's values and views
on political economy. If one prefers asset price inflation and a capital
structure of heavily indebted households and young adults, then there's
nothing wrong and everything is rosy.
Household income overall, not just wages, has stagnated.
Startup formation is still at a 40 year low, despite all the noise about
venture capital and Silicon Valley.
ROC and ROE are based on corporate income, which are at historical highs.
The rest of your comment is just econ 101 and biz school corp finance
and accounting 101 hand waving to justify the status quo.
Your whole argument in the original post is that Tesla and SpaceX could
not get the capital that they have without Musk committing fraud and violating
a bunch of laws. In other words, two new industrial firms with tremendous
brand value and advancing decades ahead of the competition (
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/05/every-3-5-years-spacex-is-adding-a-decade-lead-on-competitors.html
) could not have been capitalized otherwise.
"... Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher rates of growth. ..."
"... In financialized economies with inflated asset prices, people have low savings and can't even afford to buy real estate or can only afford it by taking on lots of debt and having to depend on further price inflation so that they don't go underwater. In countries with financial repression, public debt tends to be low and interest rates tend to be low and capital gets directed towards industry ..."
"... Well like I said earlier, this is a matter of one's values and views on political economy. If one prefers asset price inflation and a capital structure of heavily indebted households and young adults, then there's nothing wrong and everything is rosy. ..."
"... Household income overall, not just wages, has stagnated. ..."
Whether it's an irrational criticism or not depends on one's values and
views on political economy. To some, the financial sector has manifestly
failed at allocating capital properly and is filled with rent seeking. Others
will point to its size and the capitalization of financial markets as evidence
of its value and importance.
What's the evidence that it has failed at allocating capital successfully?
No shortage of rent-seeking of course. But if there's one thing I've
learned it's that bagholders are gonna bag. This isn't some hypothetical either, look at countries without sophisticated
financial markets. People are forced to save by speculating in real estate,
and credit is often not available to business unless the state makes it
available (perfectly reasonable in such economies to be fair).
Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been
much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher
rates of growth.
There have been several bubbles, and consumer debt has
risen significantly while income has stagnated and startup formation is
at a 40 year low. Capital allocation has been very unproductive. It's caused
lots of asset price inflation and increased debt without producing new assets
and income streams. Capital allocation is highly centralized and it has
the same problems communist economies have with central planning where capital
is centralized in the state. A lot of unproductive activity and rent seeking.
In financialized economies with inflated asset prices, people have low
savings and can't even afford to buy real estate or can only afford it by
taking on lots of debt and having to depend on further price inflation so
that they don't go underwater. In countries with financial repression, public
debt tends to be low and interest rates tend to be low and capital gets
directed towards industry.
Since the 80s, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio has been
much higher than the historical norm, higher than when the US had higher
rates of growth.
Stock prices were unusually low in the 1970s, as epitomized by BusinessWeek's
famous 1979 The Death of Equities cover. In addition to reversion to the mean, several other factors made stocks
more valuable since that time.
The collapse of inflation and interest rates increased the net present
value of stocks, the rise of emerging markets with poor domestic capital
markets increased foreign demand for stocks, America's persistent trade
deficit further increased foreign demand for American assets, and the low-cost
trading and 401k revolutions.
Well like I said earlier, this is a matter of one's values and views
on political economy. If one prefers asset price inflation and a capital
structure of heavily indebted households and young adults, then there's
nothing wrong and everything is rosy.
Household income overall, not just wages, has stagnated.
Startup formation is still at a 40 year low, despite all the noise about
venture capital and Silicon Valley.
ROC and ROE are based on corporate income, which are at historical highs.
The rest of your comment is just econ 101 and biz school corp finance
and accounting 101 hand waving to justify the status quo.
Your whole argument in the original post is that Tesla and SpaceX could
not get the capital that they have without Musk committing fraud and violating
a bunch of laws. In other words, two new industrial firms with tremendous
brand value and advancing decades ahead of the competition (
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/05/every-3-5-years-spacex-is-adding-a-decade-lead-on-competitors.html
) could not have been capitalized otherwise.
"Russian influence will flow through that pipeline right into Europe, and that is what we
are going to prevent," an unnamed U.S. official told the
Wall Street Journal just as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Angela
Merkel meet outside of Berlin on Saturday centered on the two countries moving forward with the
controversial Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but also involving issues from the
Iran nuclear deal to ending the war in Syria.
Intense pressure from Washington is overshadowing the project, construction of which is
already in advanced stages, as
the WSJ cites current and former US officials who say sanctions are under discussion and
could be mobilized in a mere matter of weeks .
These potential sanctions, ostensibly being discussed in response to US intelligence claims
of Russian interference in the 2016 election, could target companies and financial firms
involved in the massive pipeline's construction . This comes after comments from President
Trump at the opening of a NATO summit in July made things uncomfortable for his German
counterpart when he said that Germany is so dependent on Russia for energy that it's
essentially being "held captive" by Vladimir Putin and his government.
"Germany is captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia. They
pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,"
Trump told NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg at a televised opening breakfast.
The pipeline has been opposed by multiple US administrations, who have long accuse the
Kremlin of seeking to accrue political leverage over Europe given the latter's already high
dependence on Russian natural gas. The pipeline has been a frequent talking point and target of
attacks by Trump,
who has threatened to escalate the trade war against Germany going back months if it
supported the construction of the pipeline. US officials have also expressed concern that
Russia will pull pack significantly from delivering natural gas via Ukraine when its Gazprom
tranit contract expires by the close of 2019. Ukraine is currently the chief Russian
natural-gas export point to the EU and depends heavily on levying fees on this trade.
Both Russia and Germany have sought to calm US concerns over the Ukraine issue, with Putin
himself reportedly telling both Merkel and Trump that he is "ready to preserve" gas transit
through Ukraine even after Nord Stream 2 was completed.
US officials speaking to the WSJ , however, downplayed the Ukraine issue, instead focusing
on the urgency of allowing such significant and irreversible Russian economic, political, and
infrastructural inroads into the heart of Europe .
Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, told the
WSJ , "We have been clear that firms working in the Russian energy export-pipeline sector
are engaging in a line of business that carries sanctions risk," -- something which he's
repeatedly emphasized with officials in Berlin. President Trump himself has also reportedly
raised the issue directly with Chancellor Merkel on multiple occasions. But for all the shrill
US media claims that Trump is somehow doing Putin's bidding, the WSJ
has this illuminating line : "Officially, the European Commission, the EU's executive body,
is coordinating the gas-transit talks, but Ms. Merkel also has played a leading role because of
her regular contacts and longstanding relationship with Mr. Putin, European officials say
."
Meanwhile, it appears that Washington has a losing hand even while making threats of
sanctions in an attempt to block the pipeline project.
A European energy executive familiar with the discussions said company representatives had
told John McCarrick, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Energy
Resources, that the five European companies and Gazprom had already provided €5.5
billion ($6.3 billion) in financing and that the project wouldn't be stopped even if the U.S.
were to impose sanctions .
The Nord Stream 2 project was started in 2015 and is a major joint venture between Russia's
Gazprom and European partners, including German Uniper, Austria's OMV, France's Engie,
Wintershall and the British-Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell.
The pipeline is set to run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea - doubling the
existing pipeline's capacity of 55 cubic meters per year, and is therefore critical for
Europe's future energy needs.
Currently, the second phase involves utilizing an existing pipeline already channelling
smaller amount of gas from Russia to Germany. Construction for the second phase started in May
of this year.
The FBI has been dealt a major blow after a Washington DC judge
ruled
that the agency must respond to a FOIA request
for documents concerning the bureau's
efforts to verify the controversial Steele Dossier,
before it was used as the foundation
of a FISA surveillance warrant application and subsequent renewals.
US District Court Judge Amit
Mehta - who in January sided with the FBI's decision to ignore the FOIA request, said that
President Trump's release of two House Intelligence Committee documents (the "Nunes" and "Schiff"
memos) changed everything.
Considering that the FBI offered Steele
$50,000
to
verify the Dossier's claims yet never paid him, BuzzFeed has unsuccessfully
tried
to do the same
to defend themselves in a dossier-related lawsuit, and a
$50 million Soros-funded investigation
to continue the hunt have turned up nothing that we
know of - whatever documents the FBI may be forced to cough up regarding their attempts to verify
the Dossier could prove highly embarrassing for the agency.
[I]f Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay
him $50,000 for his efforts
, according to two people familiar with the offer.
Ultimately,
he was not paid
. -
NYT
What's more,
forcing the FBI to prove they had an empty hand will likely embolden calls
to disband the special counsel investigation
- as the agency's mercenary and politicized
approach to "investigations" will be laid all the more bare for the world to see. Then again, who
knows - maybe the FBI verified everything in the dossier and it simply hasn't leaked.
That said, while the FBI will likely be forced to acknowledge the documents thanks to the
Thursday ruling, the agency will still be able to try and convince the judge that there are other
grounds to withhold the records.
In January, Mehta
blessed the FBI's decision
not to disclose the existence of any records containing the agency's
efforts to verify the dossier - ruling that Trump's tweets about the dossier didn't require the FBI
and other intelligence agencies to act on records requests.
"
But then the ground shifted
," writes Mehta of Trump declassifying the House
memos. "As a result of the Nunes and Schiff Memos, there is now in the public domain meaningful
information about how the FBI acquired the Dossier and how the agency used it to investigate
Russian meddling."
The DOJ also sought to distinguish between the Steele Dossier and a synopsis of the dossier
presented to both Trump and then-President Obama in 2016, however Mehta rejected the attempt,
writing "That position defies logic," while also rejecting the government's refusal to even say if
the FBI has a copy of that synopsis.
"It remains no longer logical nor plausible for the FBI to maintain that it cannot confirm nor
deny the existence of documents," Mehta wrote.
It is simply not plausible to believe that, to whatever extent the FBI has made efforts to
verify Steele's reporting, some portion of that work has not been devoted to allegations that
made their way into the synopsis. After all,
if the reporting was important enough to
brief the President-elect, then surely the FBI thought enough of those key charges to attempt to
verify their accuracy
. It will be up to the FBI to determine which of the records in
its possession relating to the reliability of the Dossier concerns Steele's reporting as
discussed in the synopsis.
"This ruling represents another incremental step in revealing just how much the FBI has been
able to verify or discredit the rather personal allegations contained in that synopsis derived from
the Steele dossier," said Brad Moss, a lawyer pressing the lawsuit for the pro-transparency group,
the James Madison Project. "It will be rather ironic if the president's peripheral actions that
resulted in this ruling wind up disclosing that the FBI has been able to corroborate any of the
'salacious' allegations."
In other words, the FBI must show what they did to verify the claims contained within the Nunes
and Schiff memos.
Because the case was heard on appeal, the ruling will not take immediate effect, notes
Politico
,
which
adds that the appeals court is now likely to remand the case to Mehta, while the FBI is going to
try and convince him the records should remain unreleased.
Strange how the alphabet soup agencies always seem to fight hardest
only when it comes to hiding embarrassing information from the
American people. Yet they wonder why we don't consider them all
civil servants and heroes.
"... Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
"... there will be no war and no negotiations ..."
"... carries out the decrees, and answers to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state ..."
"... Trump's ALL IN CAPS meme ..."
"... This is where Ali Khamenei's stance is more puzzling, at least to me: when he says that there will be no war, does he mean that the US threats are not credible or does he mean that Iran has the means to deter a US attack? His words make it sound like he is quite certain that there will be no war. How can he be so sure? I am especially amazed by the apparent Iranian confidence that the AngloZionists will not attack them when I compare it with the obvious Russian policy of actively preparing for war since at least 2014 (also see here , here , here , here , here and here ). Of course, Iran has been preparing for war with the US for almost 40 years now whereas the Russians only woke up to reality comparatively recently. I see several potential explanations for Ali Khamenei's statement (there might be more, of course) ..."
"... Personally, every time I think of a possible US attack on Iran I think of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 which happened in spite of the fact that it was plainly visible to everybody that the Israelis were waltzing straight into a conflict which they could not win and which, in fact, resulted into one of the most abjects defeats in military history. Conversely, while Hezbollah did win a truly historical victory, it also remains a fact that Hezbollah leaders did not expect the Israelis to launch a full-scale ground offensive. Finally, history is full of examples of wars which were started in spite of all objective factors indicating that they would end up in disaster. ..."
"... If it weren't for its nuclear arsenal, the US could be dismissed as a particularly obnoxious country led by ignorant leaders with bloated and mostly ineffective armed forces. Alas, the US nuclear arsenal is very real (and still very capable) and we know that top-level US Neocons have already considered using tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state's conventional force in the past . In a twisted way, this makes sense: if you are a megalomaniac infused with a sense of messianic superiority then international or even civilizational norms of behavior are of no interest (or even relevance) to you. Listening to US Presidents, pretty much all of them (but especially Obama and Trump) it is pretty clear that these folks consider themselves to be the Kulturträger ..."
"... Shaytân-e Bozorg ..."
"... It would be a big mistake to dismiss the US because of its incapable military or moral bankruptcy. The truth is that in terms of aggregate national power, the US still remains the most powerful country on the planet (even if we don't include nuclear weapons). Anyone doubting that needs to look how how the currencies of the countries the US is singles out for attack suddenly began slipping: the Russian ruble (which has since bounced back), the Iranian rial, the Venezuelan bolivar, the Turkish lira , etc.) or how little time it took Trump to bring the (admittedly spineless) Europeans to heel . ..."
"... As for Russia, for all her military might, she remains only a semi-sovereign country in which the pro-US/pro-Israeli "Atlantic Integrationists" continue to try to sabotage (often successfully) everything Putin and his supporters are doing . I would not place big hopes in China either, especially considering the lack of meaningful Chinese action in Syria where Russia and Iran did all the heavy lifting. ..."
"... So count with yet another imperial war of aggression, a barrel of crude at over 100$ and oil shortages, rocketing inflation, job losses, a stagnant real estate market and stock exchange, and a national debt and government deficit which would make even Reagan proud. And plenty of dead Americans (nevermind the Iranians, right?). But don't worry: there will still be a huge supply of Chinese-made US flags to wave! ..."
=>
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We can all thank God for the fact that the AngloZionists did not launch a war on the DPRK, that no Ukronazi attack on the Donbass
took place during the World Cup in Russia and that the leaders of the Empire have apparently have given up on their plans to launch
a reconquista of Syria. However, each of these retreats from their hysterical rhetoric has only made the Neocons more frustrated
and determined to show the planet that they are still The Hegemon who cannot be disobeyed with impunity. As I wrote after the failed
US cruise missile strike on Syria this spring, " each click brings us closer
to the bang ". In the immortal words of Michael
Ledeen , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show the world we mean business ". The obvious problem is that there are no "small crappy little countries"
left out there, and that those who are currently the object of the Empire's ire are neither small nor crappy.
Having now shown several times that for all its hysterical barking the Empire has to back down when the opponent does not cower
away in fear, the Empire is now in desperate need to prove its "uniqueness" and (racial?) superiority. The obvious target of the
AngloZionist wrath is Iran. In fact, Iran has been in the cross-hairs of the Empire ever since the people of Iran dared to show the
AngloZionists to the door and, even worse, succeed in creating their own, national and Islamic democracy. To punish Iran, the US,
the USSR, France and all the other "democratic" countries unleashed their puppet (Saddam Hussein) and gave him full military support,
and yet the Iranians still prevailed, albeit at a terrible cost. That Iranian ability to prevail in the most terrible circumstances
is also the most likely explanation for why there has not been an overt attack on Iran for the past four decades (there have, of
course, there has been plenty of covert attacks during all these years).
I won't list all the recent AngloZionist threats against Iran – we all know about them. The bottom line is this: the US, Israel
and the KSA are, yet again, working hand in hand to set the stage for a major war under what we could call the " Skripal-case rules
of evidence " aka " highly likely ". And yet, in spite of all this saber-rattling, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has summed
up Iran's stance in
the following words " there will be no war and no negotiations ".
First, let's first look at Iranian rationale for "no negotiations"
The obvious: "no negotiations"
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been very clear in his explanations for why negotiating with the US makes no sense. On his Twitter
account he wrote:
The Iranian Supreme Leader even posted a special graphic summary to summarize and explain the Iranian position:
Finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated his fundamental approach towards the AngloZionist Empire:
The contrast between the kindergarten-level low-IQ bumbling hot air and threats coming out of the White House and the words of
Ali Khamenei could not be greater, especially if we compare the words the two leaders decided to post all in caps;
Trump : To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES
OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS
OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
Khamenei : THERE WILL BE NO WAR, NOR WILL WE NEGOTIATE WITH THE U.S..
Notice first that in his typical ignorance, Trump fails to realize that Hassan Rouhani is only the President of Iran and that
threatening him makes absolutely no sense since he does not make national security decisions, which is the function of the Supreme
Leader. Had Trump taken the time to at the very least check
with Wikipedia he would have understood that the Iranian President " carries out the decrees, and answers to the Supreme
Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state ". It is no wonder that Trump's infantile threats
instantly
turned into an Internet meme !
In contrast, Khamenei did not even bother to address Trump by name but, instead, announced his strategy to the whole world.
Trump's ALL IN CAPS meme
Of course, issuing ALL IN CAPS threats just to be treated with utter contempt by the people you are trying to hard to bully and
having your words become a cause of laughter on the Internet will only further enrage Trump and his supporters. When you are desperately
trying to show the world how tough and scary you are, there is nothing more humiliating as being treated like some stupid kid. Therein
also lies the biggest danger: such derision could force Trump and the Neocons who run him to do something desperate to prove to the
word that their "red button" is still bigger than everybody else's.
ORDER IT NOW
It is important to note here that making negotiations impossible is something the Trump administration seems to have adopted as
a policy. This is best illustrated by the conditions attached to the latest sanctions against Russia which, essentially, demand that
Russia admit poisoning the Skripals. In fact, all the western demands towards Russia (admitting that Russia is guilty for the Skripal
case, that Russia shot down MH-17, that Russia hand over Crimea to the Ukronazis, etc.) are carefully crafted to make absolutely
sure that Russia will not negotiate. The sames, of course, goes for the ridiculous
Pompeo demands towards the DPRK
(including handing over to the US 60 to 70 percent of its nukes within six to eight months; no wonder the North Koreans denounced
a "gangster-like" attitude) or the latest US grandstanding towards Turkey. Sadly, but the Neocon run media has successfully imposed
the notion that negotiations are either a sign of weakness, or treason, or both. Thus to be "patriotic" and "strong" no US official
can afford to be caught red-handed negotiating with the enemy of the day.
Under these conditions, why would anybody want to negotiate with the US?
Frankly, the "no negotiations" approach makes perfectly good sense, and while the Iranians are the only ones who have openly said
so, the Russians have hinted to the same on many occasions (see their words about the US being "non-agreement capable" or about US
diplomats confusing Austria and Australia). To any objective observer it should by now be completely obvious by now that a) the US
cannot negotiate (due to intellectual, cultural and political limitations) and b) the US has no desire to negotiate. This is, of
course, a highly undesirable and dangerous situation, but it would only make things worse to pretend that civilized negotiations
with the US are possible.
So, if both sides agree on "no negotiations", what about war?
The not so obvious: No war?
This is where Ali Khamenei's stance is more puzzling, at least to me: when he says that there will be no war, does he mean
that the US threats are not credible or does he mean that Iran has the means to deter a US attack? His words make it sound like he
is quite certain that there will be no war. How can he be so sure? I am especially amazed by the apparent Iranian confidence that
the AngloZionists will not attack them when I compare it with the obvious
Russian policy of actively preparing for war
since at least 2014 (also see
here
, here ,
here ,
here ,
here and
here ). Of course,
Iran has been preparing for war with the US for almost 40 years now whereas the Russians only woke up to reality comparatively recently.
I see several potential explanations for Ali Khamenei's statement (there might be more, of course):
Political: Iran is trying to demonstrate that it will do everything possible to avoid a war so that if a war should break out,
it would be absolutely clear to everybody that Iran did not want it, Iran did not trigger it and the responsibility for the consequences
fall entirely and solely upon the US and Israel. Deception: Iran knows that a war is coming but is trying to pretend like it won't
to better conceal the war preparations and lure the Empire into a sense of complacency resulting into an ineffective/costly attack.
Intelligence: the Iranians might have intelligence indicating to them that all the US threats are just hot air spewed in order
to appease the Israel Lobby and to look "patriotic" in preparation for the upcoming elections this Fall. Miscalculation: the Iranians
might underestimate the level of hubris, arrogance and stupidity of the US leadership and mistakenly conclude that since an attack
on Iran makes no sense and the US cannot "win", such an attack will therefore not happen.
Personally, every time I think of a possible US attack on Iran I think of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 which happened
in spite of the fact that it was plainly visible to everybody that the Israelis were waltzing straight into a conflict which they
could not win and which, in fact, resulted into one of the most abjects defeats in military history. Conversely, while Hezbollah
did win a truly historical victory, it also remains a fact that Hezbollah leaders did not expect the Israelis to launch a full-scale
ground offensive. Finally, history is full of examples of wars which were started in spite of all objective factors indicating that
they would end up in disaster.
It seems to me that in purely military terms (not in political ones!) Israel could be seen as a stand-in for the US and Hezbollah
as a stand-in for Iran and that the outcome of any future US-Iranian war will be very similar to the outcome of the war in 2006,
albeit on a much larger (and bloodier) scale. I am confident that the folks in the Pentagon realize that, but what about their Neocon
bosses – do they even care about Iranian or, for that matter, US casualties? I highly doubt it: all they care about is their power
and messianic ideology.
If it weren't for its nuclear arsenal, the US could be dismissed as a particularly obnoxious country led by ignorant leaders
with bloated and mostly ineffective armed forces. Alas, the US nuclear arsenal is very real (and still very capable) and we know
that
top-level US Neocons have already considered using tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state's conventional force in the
past . In a twisted way, this makes sense: if you are a megalomaniac infused with a sense of messianic superiority then international
or even civilizational norms of behavior are of no interest (or even relevance) to you. Listening to US Presidents, pretty much all
of them (but especially Obama and Trump) it is pretty clear that these folks consider themselves to be the Kulturträger
and the Herrenvolk of the 21st century and their messianism is in no way less delusional than the one of their Nazi predecessors
(or, for that matter, the one of the Popes of the past 1000 years). And why would the people who nuked two Japanese cities under
the (entirely fallacious) pretext of "shortening the war" (almost a humanitarian operation!) not do the same thing in Iran?
Of sure, they probably realize that using nukes will result in a massive political backlash, but they are confident that no matter
what happens in the end, they will always be able to say "screw you!" to the rest of the planet. After all, this is something which
Israel and the US have been doing with almost total inpunity for decades already – why would they stop now? As for the fact that
the Persian people have been dealing with all kinds of invaders since no less than 2500 years will not stop the AngloZionists from
trying to crush them. After all, having laid waste to a country which many see as the cradle of civilization, Iraq, why not do the
same thing to Iran? Iraq, Iran – what's the difference, they are all just "sand niggers" and our red button is bigger than theirs,
right?
Standing up to Shaytân-e Bozorg (almost alone?)
It would be a big mistake to dismiss the US because of its incapable military or moral bankruptcy. The truth is that in terms
of aggregate national power, the US still remains the most powerful country on the planet (even if we don't include nuclear weapons).
Anyone doubting that needs to look how how the currencies of the countries the US is singles out for attack suddenly began slipping:
the Russian ruble (which has since bounced back), the Iranian rial, the Venezuelan bolivar, the
Turkish lira , etc.) or
how little
time it took Trump to bring the (admittedly spineless) Europeans to heel .
As for Russia, for all her military might, she remains only a semi-sovereign country in which the pro-US/pro-Israeli "Atlantic
Integrationists" continue to try to
sabotage (often successfully)
everything Putin and his supporters are doing . I would not place big hopes in China either, especially considering the lack
of meaningful Chinese action in Syria where Russia and Iran did all the heavy lifting.
Sadly, but the only ally Iran can truly count on is Hezbollah. And while Hezbollah is considered a "non-state actor", it has a
formidable capability to strike at the US's colonial masters,
especially in terms of missiles .
This will not protect Iran, but it could serve as a very real deterrent to the Israelis, especially since Hezbollah Secretary
General Hassan Nasrallah he has made it clear that Hezbollah more than capable
of taking on Israel .
Does that look to you like there will be no war against Iran?
I hope so. But to me it very much looks like an attack is pretty much inevitable. I have been predicting such an attack since
2007 and, so far, I have been completely wrong (and thank God for that!). The very first article I ever wrote for my blog was entitled
" Where the Empire meets
to plan the next war " ended with the following words:
So count with yet another imperial war of aggression, a barrel of crude at over 100$ and oil shortages, rocketing inflation,
job losses, a stagnant real estate market and stock exchange, and a national debt and government deficit which would make even
Reagan proud. And plenty of dead Americans (nevermind the Iranians, right?). But don't worry: there will still be a huge supply
of Chinese-made US flags to wave!
And yet, 11 years later, the AngloZionist attack which looked so imminent in 2007 has not happened yet. Could it be that this
time again an attack on Iran can be avoided? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to be very confident that it will not happen. I am not
so sure, but I fervently hope that he is right.
Big trouble is brewing in the mighty North Dakota Bakken Oil Field. While oil production in
the Bakken has reversed since it bottomed in 2016 and increased over the past few years, so has
the amount of by-product wastewater. Now, it's not an issue if water production increases along
with oil. However, it's a serious RED FLAG if by-product wastewater rises a great deal more
than oil.
And... unfortunately, that is exactly what has taken place in the Bakken over the past two
years. In the oil industry, they call it, the rising "Water Cut." Furthermore, the rapid
increase in the amount of water to oil from a well or field suggests that peak production is at
hand . So, now the shale companies will have an uphill battle to try to increase or hold
production flat as the water cut rises.
According to the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, the Bakken produced 201
million barrels of oil in the first six months of 2018. However, it also produced a stunning
268 million barrels of wastewater:
Thus, the companies producing shale oil in the Bakken had to dispose of 268 million barrels
of by-product wastewater in just the first half of the year. I have spoken to a few people in
the industry, and the estimate is that it cost approximately $4 a barrel to gather, transport
and dispose of this wastewater. Which means, the shale companies will have to pay an estimated
$2.2 billion just to get rid of their wastewater this year.
Now, some companies may be recycling their wastewater, but this isn't free. Actually, I have
seen estimates that it cost more money to recycle wastewater than it does to simply dispose of
it. So, as the volume of wastewater increases while the percentage of oil production declines,
then the shale companies are hit with a double-whammy... less oil revenue and rising wastewater
disposal costs.
To give you an idea just how much more water is being produced versus oil in the Bakken, I
went back to the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources and looked at their data back to
2015. Unfortunately, the data published in excel only goes back to 2015, even though they have
figures published in PDF form starting in 2003.
Regardless, four years is plenty of time to show just how bad the situation is becoming in
the Bakken. In June 2015, the North Dakota Bakken produced 16% more water than oil. However
June this year, the Bakken field produced 38% more water than oil :
You will notice that overall oil and water production declined in 2016, due to the falling
oil price, but as production grew in 2017 and 2018, the percentage increase of by-product
wastewater surged to 32% and 38% respectively. Here is an interesting comparison:
Bakken Oil & Water Production:
June 2015 Oil = 34.4 million barrels
June 2015 Water = 39.8 million barrels (16% more water)
June 2018 Oil = 33.8 million barrels
June 2018 Water = 46.8 million barrels (38% more water)
As we can see, while overall Bakken oil production in June 2018 was less than it was in June
2015, the volume of waster water increased by an additional 7 million barrels.
I believe there are two negative forces at work in the Bakken as it pertains to the rising
volume of wastewater.
As the wells and field age, more water is produced than oil
Larger Frac Stages, which require more water and sand, are now being utilized to keep
production growing or to keep it from falling
While a rising water cut isn't a surprise to the industry as it is a natural progression of
an aging oil well or field, the use of Larger Frac Stage wells should be a WAKE-UP CALL to
investors. Why? Because Larger Frac Stage wells consume a great deal more water and sand to
produce more oil initially, but the decline rates are even more severe than regular shale
wells.
So, when the Investor Relations are bragging how the companies are using the newer
technology of more complex Large Frac Stage wells, this isn't a good sign. This means that the
company is now desperate to try and grow production, or at worst, to keep it from falling.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Shale Industry is in serious trouble. Most of the shale fields have
reached a peak and when production starts to decline, especially during a collapsing oil price,
I forecast a rapid disintegration of the industry. We must remember, as the oil price and oil
production falls, then company stock and asset values will plummet while the high debt levels
remain. Thus, the shale industry will have increasing difficulty in servicing its debt.
I will continue to monitor the production of oil and wastewater in the Bakken. Please check
back for updates.
The most embarrassing outcome will turn out to be that they actually did nothing to verify
the Steele dossier. Why would they question it? They wanted to use it as a political tool. Do
I question and inspect a hammer before I swing it?
Barring that, if they did try to verify it, their complete and utter stupidity will see
the light of day.
In either case they are truly fucked by this court order.
So the FBI's position is that they cannot confirm nor deny the existence of documents to
confirm or deny the truth of the dossier, but they used it in the FISA warrants. But the
procedure required for the warrants are that all information must be verified, so those
documents need to exist. So the FBI is admitting that they did not follow the required
procedure. That makes the warrants void, which means that all information obtained that way
is mute, and thus the entire case collapses. Further, filling a warrant request where the
rules have not been followed is perjury, making everyone who signed it guilty of a criminal
offense against the court.
But always remember, the FBI/DOJ is "honorable". Yeah, that's the term
they use to refer to the scumbags that "represent" us in congress. In
reality, "there is no honor amongst thieves", and government is full of
them because sociopaths gravitate to positions of power.
It's a unruly fuck show at the FBI and nobody is being held accountable. No
leadership, no standards, no neutrality, no accountability. Obama weaponized
the FBI. Fire everyone.
The
Wall Street Journal
continues to counter
the
liberal
mainstream media's Trump Derangement Syndrome
, dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs and
refusing to back off its intense pressure to get to the truth and hold those responsible,
accountable (in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or
'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants) .
And
once again Kimberley
Strassel
- who by now has become the focus of social media attacks for her truth-seeking
reporting - does it again this morning, as she points out -
hours after former CIA Director
Brennan threw a tantrum over having his security clearance removed - that while Justice has
released some damning documents - particularly on what Bruce Ohr was doing - much of the truth
is still classified.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department have continued to insist they did
nothing wrong in their Trump-Russia investigation. This week should finally bring an end to
that claim, given the clear evidence of malfeasance via the use of Bruce Ohr.
Mr. Ohr was until last year associate deputy attorney general.
He began feeding information to the FBI from dossier author Christopher Steele in late 2016
- after the FBI had terminated Mr. Steele as a confidential informant for violating the
bureau's rules. He also collected dirt from Glenn Simpson, cofounder of Fusion GPS, the
opposition-research firm that worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign and employed Mr. Steele.
Altogether, the FBI pumped Mr. Ohr for information at least a dozen times, debriefs that remain
in classified 302 forms.
All the while, Mr. Ohr failed to disclose on financial forms that his wife, Nellie, worked
alongside Mr. Steele in 2016, getting paid by Mr. Simpson for anti-Trump research. The Justice
Department has now turned over Ohr documents to Congress that show how deeply tied up he was
with the Clinton crew - with dozens of emails, calls, meetings and notes that describe his
interactions and what he collected.
Mr. Ohr's conduct is itself deeply troubling. He was acting as a witness (via FBI
interviews) in a case being overseen by a Justice Department in which he held a very senior
position. He appears to have concealed this role from at least some superiors, since Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified that he'd been unaware of Mr. Ohr's intermediary
status.
Lawyers meanwhile note that it is a crime for a federal official to participate in any
government matter in which he has a financial interest. Fusion's bank records presumably show
Nellie Ohr, and by extension her husband, benefiting from the Trump opposition research that
Mr. Ohr continued to pass to the FBI. The Justice Department declined to comment.
But for all Mr. Ohr's misdeeds, the worse misconduct is by the FBI and Justice
Department.
It's bad enough that the bureau relied on a dossier crafted by a man in the employ of the
rival presidential campaign. Bad enough that it never informed the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court of that dossier's provenance. And bad enough that the FBI didn't fire Mr.
Steele as a confidential human source in September 2016 when it should have been obvious he was
leaking FBI details to the press to harm Donald Trump's electoral chances. It terminated him
only when it was absolutely forced to, after Mr. Steele gave an on-the-record interview on Oct.
31, 2016.
But now we discover the FBI continued to go to this discredited informant in its
investigation after the firing -- by funneling his information via a Justice Department cutout.
The FBI has an entire manual governing the use of confidential sources, with elaborate rules on
validations, standards and documentation. Mr. Steele failed these standards. The FBI then
evaded its own program to get at his info anyway.
And it did so even though we have evidence that lead FBI investigators may have suspected
Mr. Ohr was a problem.
An Oct. 7, 2016, text message from now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok to his colleague Lisa
Page reads: "Jesus. More BO leaks in the NYT," which could be a reference to Mr. Ohr.
The FBI may also have been obtaining, via Mr. Ohr, information that came from a man the FBI
had never even vetted as a source -- Mr. Simpson. Mr. Steele had at least worked with the FBI
before; Mr. Simpson was a paid political operative. And the Ohr notes raise further doubts
about Mr. Simpson's forthrightness. In House testimony in November 2017, Mr. Simpson said only
that he reached out to Mr. Ohr after the election, and at Mr. Steele's suggestion. But Mr.
Ohr's inbox shows an email from Mr. Simpson dated Aug. 22, 2016 that reads, in full: "Can u
ring."
The Justice Department hasn't tried to justify any of this; in fact, last year it quietly
demoted Mr. Ohr. In what smells of a further admission of impropriety, it didn't initially turn
over the Ohr documents; Congress had to fight to get them.
But it raises at least two further crucial questions.
First, who authorized or knew about this improper procedure? Mr. Strzok seems to be in the
thick of it, having admitted to Congress interactions with Mr. Ohr at the end of 2016. While
Mr. Rosenstein disclaims knowledge, Mr. Ohr's direct supervisor at the time was the previous
deputy attorney general, Sally Yates. Who else in former FBI Director Jim Comey's inner
circle and at the Obama Justice Department nodded at the FBI's back-door interaction with a
sacked source and a Clinton operative?
Second, did the FBI continue to submit Steele- or Simpson-sourced information to the FISA
court? Having informed the court in later applications that it had fired Mr. Steele, the FBI
would have had no business continuing to use any Steele information laundered through an
intermediary.
* * *
Strassel concludes with the point that she and The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board have
been hammering for months...
We could have these answers pronto; they rest in part in those Ohr 302 forms. And so once
again: a call for President Trump to declassify.
It's time for things to get more serious than slaps on the wrist, firings, and
self-inflicted black-eyes!
That Mueller is ignoring this OBVIOUS
Clinton/Steele/Ohr/FBI etc, etc Russian collusion
while prosecuting Manafort for an unrelated, 2005
financial crime (while granting IMMUNITY to Tony
Podesta for the identical crime) is all the proof you
need it's a coverup, not an "investigation" into
russian collusion.
Strassel deserves a Pulitzer. But instead, CNN
received an award for their comey story (after it was
proven that comey leaked the documents to
them....it's not that CNN did tons of investigative
work....the docs were handed to them and they
published them - dutifully in exchange for an award
to be given at the WH Correspondents' dinner.)
That's a fact, long after Steele was fired as a "foreign
asset" Ohr was still passing his Russian procured
bullshit through to fellow travelers within the FBI & DoJ...like
McCabe and Stzrok.
Hell the day before the Trump Tower
meeting with Natalia, Glenn Simpson was dining with this
"Russian government lawyer".And oddly enough, the very next
day too.
The ONLY Russian collusion was happening on the dim side
and one of the first clues is ALWAYS watch for what they
are accusing other's of cuz that is what THEY are doing ;-)
Every time I read these things I start by saying the
FBI/DOJ was trying to hide ____ , then I replace that
with the FBI/DOJ conspired to hide ____. You start doing
that too much and you have to say the FBI/DOJ colluded
to nullify the election, overthrow an elected president.
Somewhere this Summer I started saying the word coup
with a little more conviction. When 350 news outlets
then write coordinated editorials targeting that same
president, not the architects of this conspiracy, this
failed (so far) coup, I tend to side more against than
with them. Journalism and Yellow Journalism are
different things - I think that's why they added
"Yellow" to the term.
"When CNN and MSNBC start to ask questions like this then
I'll start paying attention."
Their money loving greed will never allow them to tell their
dedicated liberals any such thing..
The media is the enemy of the Constitution, its amendments,
and the Declaration of Independence. They do not care about who
they hurt, they do not care about Americans or America....they
are a foreign enemy under foreign control.
Hatch Act Violations by many in FBI... plus CIA, NSA, DNI, DOJ.
Prohibitions against political activity by Federal Employees. Brennen
should be scared that we all prove common policy prohibition does lead
to lying/deceit and even sedition, treason, subterfuge, subversion
charges.
This article, along with all the other reports, always state that the
DOJ did this, the FBI did that, but fails to name the individual
involved or the department heads who were responsible. The information
is always muddled and obfuscated by the bureaucratic organization, so
no individual is responsible. Enough of this, name names please!!! or
no one will ever be accountable.
Stalin had the Moscow Trials where he framed his opposition and had
them executed. Does anyone doubt had Hillary won that she would have
orchestrated the prosecution of Trump and his cronies knowing full well
she ran the entire frame-up behind the scenes?
Who would have stood
up for Trump? Both sides wanted him buried and gone. History would
have written that Trump was the ultimate Manchurian candidate...paid
for, supported by, and mandated to by Russia, now serving a life
sentence for treason.
Very insightful comment. Nobody has any doubt but half the country
wouldn't care. The other half as you eluded to, would be scattered
to the wind and left at the mercy of the controlled opposition that
is the Republican Party.
We all need to be ready to form a
Big Tent Party
outside the power structure of the
current D's and R's. Obviously not the moment now but there will
come a moment when we all must strike out
Alone...Together
.
Leave these shit stains and all of their divide and conquer BS in
the dust.
Double pronged exercise: 1) Start war with Russia, steal its oil, break into tiny States
to destroy its power; 2) Destroy Trump as enemy of globalist world domination and USA
disintegration plan.
MSM propaganda arm to sell (1) and (2).
These retired Intel specialists keep interfering in the game and interjecting inconvenient
facts:
DNC server never hacked by Russia or anyone. It was an insider transfer. Insider dead.
Dead men tell no tales and so far, neither does Wikileaks.
VIPS is doing some excellent work and they show what really happened while Rosenstein is
out to Lunch, Sessions is deaf dumb and blind - useless - both Sessions and Rosenstein need
to go.
Muller does not care and he is not interested in the truth and is ignoring the facts and
the corruption in the FBI/DOJ - Muller and his band of Clinton Loyalist are trying to frame
Trump.
Rosenstein and Mueller KNOW the DNC server was not hacked by Russia or by anyone. Insider
transfer. So are they working for HilBarry? Or is this a magic act?
What Sessions is doing is unknown. He knows he was set up by Barry sending the Russian
ambassador to his office and by (FBI? Spy) Paul Ericsson offering to connect campaign thru
him to Russia. He had to recuse or be in the midst of the mess. Does he have a plan? - we
don't know.
It's not Russiagate, it's Americagate and it's your problem, not ours.
The only significant remaining question is whether you fade gracefully from the page of
History or whether you take the Samson Option and we all go out flash-bang.
I have a ton of respect for Binney. Regardless as to how fucked up this country is and its
govt, there are still people who will step up and try to set the record straight.
If you put a camera in front of a bunch of randomly selected Americans and ask them to
state their name and where they live, before answering if they voted for Trump, you get a lot
of No replies.
Now do the same questioning anonymously. The number of Nos drops.
This is the gaping hole in Goebbels argument. Anonymous polls can get closer to the truth.
Then the "accepted truth" is challenged, as in 9-11.
"There has been much amateurish journalism, false reporting, misrepresentation,
distortion, misquotation, and omission." In other words, the CIA was behind this.
so... the upshot is that G.2 and DCLeaks fabricated the leak as a hack AND the tools to do
this and to fabricate signatures/date stamps etc existed in the CIA (proven here: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/index.html
) and possibly MI6, but not in Russia, or Romania?
the CIA has "stations" all over the world?
looks like a few facebook and twitter posts have resulted in the alphabet soup, deep
state, DNC and MSM spending tens of billions of dollars pushing a false agenda against russia
AND have caused hundreds of billions of exra dollars on military expenditure and extra
security globally.
in which case, they have won by further diverting taxes away from taxpayers and increasing
debt where insufficient taxes remain/ed.
The fact that the files were downloaded from the DNC computer, and not hacked from abroad,
should be the key to unlocking Clinton conspiracies that would destroy large portions of the
Democrat establishment if revealed.
I can achieve up to 1 Gbit/s up & downstream. The average up/downstream is probably
quite a bit lower but +50mb/s is probably average. So i lol at the VIPS LOL
The poison of partisan propaganda dumped into American polity to prevent the prosecution
of the guilty (for illegally spying on Trump campaign and the assorted crimes associated with
it, including the murder of Seth Rich) will continue to foul the atmosphere for decades. The
fight is certainly between an unelected octopus that has captured all the three wings of
American polity, and a determined if not well armed citizens. The end is not near.
There is a small, nice book by C Northecote Parkinson, "The Law and the Profits". He
describes how in 1909 the British empire started a simultaneous course of welfare state and
empire building warfare state bureacracy, and how it eventually bankrupted the people by
1945. America started its own version with L B Johnson's Great Society and Vietnam War. Since
American economy was much bigger the dichotomous struggle has lasted much longer. But now the
time to choose one over another is at hand. Candidate Trump advocated trimming the warfare
state more and first. But President Trump is sending mixed signals.
The only saving grace is the self aware American citizenry and its capacity to reform
itself.
"... Can someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Some poor slub, baker in Colorado is forced to make a cake for some homos (I say it with love) because he violated their constitutional right of equal protection. But, twitter and Facebook can ban and censor free speech in violation of the constitution. The baker is privately owned and the propaganda companies are public, what's the deal? ..."
That is a very good idea. Trump's use of another honest 'platform' would be one heluvan
endorsement, which is what the alt - twitters need, lacking all the (((billions))) the big
(((3))) were given (which is why we know all about them but not so much the honest, free
speech alternatives)
Can someone explain this to me like I'm 5. Some poor slub, baker in Colorado is forced to
make a cake for some homos (I say it with love) because he violated their constitutional
right of equal protection. But, twitter and Facebook can ban and censor free speech in
violation of the constitution. The baker is privately owned and the propaganda companies are
public, what's the deal?
Because as it stands these companies are private entities that can do whatever they want
shy of discriminating against a person of one of several protected classes for one of several
activities.
If the baker refused to bake a cake for the Log Cabin Republicans on the grounds that they
were republicans then everything is cool. but if he refused on the grounds that they are "
Log Cabins " then that aint cool.
Still doesn't compute to me.... certain groups have only attained "protected " status due
to the constitutional interpretation of "equal protection " .... in other words they are only
protected because their constitutional rights may have been violated. How is the social media
banning and censorship of groups not a violation of their constitutional rights, as long as
they don't advocate violence?
Although political speech is protected speech, there is no requirement for private
organizations to honor the same code that the central state must honor. If Twitter banned you
because you were black, white or gay then you would have a case.
And you DONT want it that way. This is a moral panic not unlike the Red Scare of the 50's,
the Satanic Panic of the 80s. In both cases there was a grain of truth that was used to
employ broad sweeping over-reactions from people and corporations. They were both eventually
replaced with the exact opposite of their stated goals.
If you started a media company you do not want the gov telling you that you must publish
one thing or another.
Do not worry. This will blow up spectacularly. We are witnessing the last gasps of Legacy
Media. They have become irrelevant. The future is the Wild West of Information. There will be
a tipping point soon when the body politic suddenly wakes up and rejects the old way and
realizes that what we crave for news and entertainment is On Another Channel. That channel
will be Alt-Tech.
Alt-Tech will not contain CNN, Fox News et al. They will be outcompeted by the truth and
actual investigative journalism and gritty-pulpy entertainment that is ALL against the TOS of
the Legacy Tech giants.
You-tube, Twitter will go the way of Facebook where anyone with a brain knows that they
are riddled with zombie accounts. Advertisers will flee (as they have already begun to do)
and the architecture of Soc. Media will change forever. That is the future. Prepare for
it.
Do not fall for the public utilities angle. These companies live by the sword and they
will die by the sword. What develops out of their demise needs to be unfettered and pure.
Look to the giant creators like Pewdiepie and Alex Jones to get together and join en mass
an Alt-tech social media site. The two of them together have more subscribers/fans than ALL
of the cable pundits COMBINED.
Calling Peter Thiel...Put together an alt-social media site and Trump can promote it by
cross posting his messages there. Only he won't post them ALL...
The really good ones he will post on Alt-Tech and force the world to bend.
This raises another point. The true power of Trump and social media is the power of the
Boycott. Trump can destroy Billion dollar industries with a single message.
Trump, with this power can be the first president that continues to rule after office via
social media. THAT my friends is the thing that scares the living shit out of the deep state.
It is exactly what Barry Soweto Wanted to do but was thwarted at the last minute. It is the
reason they are turning themselves inside out to silence the groundswell.
Something wicked this way comes for NWO Globalist Vampires.
Thursday, the New York Times decried Trump's accusation that the media are "the enemy of the
people." "Insisting that truths you don't like are 'fake news' is dangerous to the lifeblood of
democracy. And calling journalists 'the enemy of the people' is dangerous, period," said the
Times .
FBI Forensic labs are shit and dishonest. They had 20 years of cases reviewed because of
their false testimony on hair matching. Went into court swearing that dog hair was an exact
match to the suspects.
FBI forensics are nothing more than a bullshit factory for manufacturing convictions.
What is the science behind ballistic "matching" of a bullet to a gun? Just a carefully
constructed lie. They imply every gun bullet combination is unique. There is NO scientific
basis for claiming that. In other words a "match" might be correct but the "match" might also
apply to a shitload of other weapons. Those lying fucks go into court every day and bullshit
juries.
What is the science behind claiming every fingerprint is unique? Most people believe that
bullshit but there is no science behind it.
What do you make of this exchange?
Lab Tech: "Here are the results from analyzing the residue on the device" (Finding is
pyrodex - not gunpowder. Pyrodex is not an explosive so federal crimes aren't implicated)
ATF Agent: "Are you sure? Wasn't there any black powder? We need that" (Black powder is
considered an explosive thus implicating federal crimes)
Lab Tech: "Don't worry. The results are preliminary - we will find it"
Lab Tech: "Here are the final results. We found a small amount of black powder residue.
You have your device."
The only part of the FBI that might not be corrupted is their efforts against sex
trafficking. But even their anti child molesting activity isn't worth much because all they
do is get perverts downloading images and videos. They don't go after the actual molesters
because almost always has to be a state thing. Resources given to the FBI for this would be
better handled at the state level.
"... Bruce Ohr and his wife are complicit in the fake Christopher Steele Russian dossier ..."
"... All of this was orchestrated by the Obama Administration ..."
"... All of these FBI and DOJ people are just lackeys who take their orders from higher-ups. The real deep state controllers seem to always be protected by the underlings. But it's the underlings who fall on the sword. ..."
I've posted this before, I keep this running timeline:
Sep/15 Washington Free Beacon retains FusionGPS for oppo-research
on Trump.
Spring/16 WFB drops oppo-research project with Fusion GPS, DNC/HRCC
picks project up, money washed through Perkins Coie/Marc Elias
Apr28/16 NSA (Rogers) bans FBI 'private contractors' from access
to NSA database (Daniel Richman-Comey's leak-buddy, Shearer+Blumenthal? FusionGPS?).
Based on audit by FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer (released Apr26/17).
May/16 FusionGPS hires Nellie Ohr, wife of DD DOJ for organized
crime Bruce Ohr.
10May/16 Papadopoulos meets Australian ambassador, Clinton
Foundation sponsor
Alexander Downer in 'Kensington Wine Room' in
London
Jun/16 FBI attempts to get FISA warrant on Trump campaign –
denied.
MidJul/16 State Dept/John Winer gives Chris Steele 'dossier2,'
received from Clinton operatives Shearer+Blumenthal. Victoria Nuland, Elizabeth
Dibble also get copies.
Jul06/16 FBI/Comey vindicate HRC. Agent Strzok lead the case.
Jul/16 Steele gives dossier to FBI agent in Rome.
Jul31/16 FBI initiates investigation of Carter Page (former FBI
informer in Russian banker sting).
Aug15/16 FBI agents Strzok+Page discuss
"insurance policy" in Andy's office.
Sep/16 Steele comes to WDC, offering dossier to WaPo, NYT,CNN,
New Yorker &
Yahoo, violating FBI orders.
Only Yahoo/Isakoff takes the bait.
Mid-Oct/16 Clapper/ODNI + Carter/DOD lobby POTUS to fire Adm.
Rogers/NSA
Oct21/16 FISA warrant issued on Carter Page, based almost
completely on dossier.
Surveillance of Trump tower begins.
Nov01/16 FBI terminates relation with "CHS" Steele.
Nov08/16 Trump elected.
Nov17/16 GCHQ/Robert Hannigan writes FM Boris Johnson that there is
request from
Susan Rice to extend Aug28/16 five eyes
warrant on floors 5+26 Trump Tower,
referred to as operation "Fullsome"
(by-passing US civil rights protections??)
Nov18/16 Rogers/NSA meets Trump in Trump Tower
Nov19/16 Trump moves transition team from Trump Tower to Bedminster
Golf Club
Nov22/16 DD DOJ Bruce Ohr (wife at FusionGPS), begins extensive
unauthorized contact on behalf of FBI with Steele, resulting in 12
FBI302's from 11/22/16-05/17/17.
Dec09/16 Never-Trumper Sen. McCain (R-AZ) sends David Kremer to
London to meet
With Steele, get copy of dossier, McCain turns
it over to FBI.
Jan03/17 Ranking democrat Diane Feinstein (D-CA) resigns from
Senate Intelligence (SSCI). Her staffer Dan Jones raises $50 mil for
FusionGPS – for Russian interference research. Replaced by Mark Warner (D-VA).
Jan06/17 Comey briefs Trump on 'salacious and unverified'
dossier.
Jan09/17 Buzzfeed publishes the dossier, other press outlets
follow.
Jan11/17 ODNI/Clapper makes official statement "IC has not made
any judgement that the information is reliable." Nobody knew
"info" is already basis of FISA warrant.
Jan12/17 Comey/Yates extend FISA warrant with 'salacious and
unverified' dossier 2
nd
time.
Feb01/17 Leaks of SIGINT starts, Trump=Australian PM,
Flynn=Russian Amb. Kislyak, etc.
Feb14/17 Flynn resigns.
Mar01/17 AG Sessions recuses.
Mar30/17 Mark Warner of SSCI tries to establish backdoor contact
with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Chris Steele via Deripaska's
rep, Adam Waldman.
1st week, before 16 - Caputo reports someone claiming to be a former NSA
agent offered him Hillary emails. He declined concerned they were
classified and urged whistleblower process be followed. He reported event
to Mueller.
9 or 13 - FBI Priestap in London
10 - *Papadopoulos meets Australian ambassador & Clinton Foundation
sponsor Alexander Downer in 'Kensington Wine Room' in London
Reported by NYT on 30 Dec 2017.
10 - Paul Ericsson sends "Kremlin Connection" email to Sen Sessions
offering to hook DJT campaign up with Russia's Putin
May Date? - Rosenstein-Mueller Special Counsel team member Preet Bharara
granted a special Visa for Russian agent Natalia Veselnitskaya in order for
her to meet with Trump Jr at a June 2016 Tower meeting the FBI would
record. Obama sent one of his translators to the meeting. Natalia needed a
special Visa because she was barred from entering the US.
9 - Russian Rinat Akhmetshin visits Obama White House for the day.
Later he was in Trump Tower meeting of June 2016. WH visitor Log.
JUNE 2016
9 - Infamous Trump Tower meeting w/ Jr and Russian atty Natalia. Then
Natalia meets w/ Simpson Fusion GPS before & after Tower mtg
14 - Russian atty Natalia attends US House Foreign Affairs hearing.
DATE? - Russian atty attends Magnitsky Act meeting w/ Dem Reps
Rohrbacher and Dellums.
26 - 1st FISA court warrant denied.
27 - DoJ AG Lynch met with Bill Clinton on Arizona airport tarmac
28 - CIA Evan McMullin sister creates fake "Trump OrGAINization" site
and bought from GoDaddy the domain trump-email.com. Site then fake robot
calls Russian Alfa Bank to create 'ping trail.'
Did not keep McMullin research. There were family
pics of them. They attended same Auburn High School in WA, near
Seattle.
Was Mormon mission agent in Brazil. Interned for CIA while at
Mormon college. Agent for UN in Israel & Muslim nation of Jordan. For
CIA was recruiter for Muslim radicals. Worked w/ British UK spy
system. Did he know Steele?
McMullin ran against DJT in 2016 election w/ backers 'never
Trump'. Got 21% UT vote. McMullin went directly from CIA to being
"undercover?" Prez candidate.
Also of note,
Halper is UK citizen (&US) plus Rhodes at Oxford same time as
Rhodes Bill Clinton. It is unknown if Rhodes scholars take loyalty
oath to UK.
Right on McMullin. The fact that Alfa Bank Russia was pinging
Trump tower was brought up several times by the Lamestream Media
during peak 'muh Russia' in 2017, and believe Clinton mentioned it
in one of the debates. But there are Russian owners of apartments
in Trump Tower who apparently use the house server, and (I
speculate) that these Russian residents were managing their own
private banking.
Now you make it sound like it was a set-up by
McMullin's sister? By the way I agree with your analysis of the
CIA candidate... at least strip Utah's electoral college votes
from Trump.
Again, there can never be a legal judgement that the DOJ and/or the FBI tried
to sway a political election and then engaged in seditious actions when the
election wasn't swayed. This would "destroy" the power of these
institutions. It is obvious and EVIDENT that there was a conspiracy by DOJ
and FBI employees to stop Trump.
The issue the Deep State has is that they
were able to successfully end the IRS exposure by destroying all of the
evidence as Obama was elected for another 4 years. The Deep State expected
Hillary to win and stay for 8 years so none of this DOJ/FBI information would
see the light of day. Trump is in charge now. If the Rs take more seats in
2018 the Deep State may do some really interesting things as they are feeling
the heat. Sessions has been playing the wait and see game. As a career
politician he is waiting to see which way the wind blows in November.
It is normal tendency in US Military to try to control war news, hold back
information from the public like coffins coming home from Vietnam or Iraq.
And we are not surprised if the Pentagon actually engaged in counter
intelligence against US Citizens. I've said this about Obama Care (ACA) and
Mr. Guber or whatever... and I've said this about Hillary Clinton.
- It is
completely different when our MICC in FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, engage in Hatch Act
Violations while on the Job against a presidential candidate with phony intel,
spies, false statements to FISA court, false news stories... then 'Smirk' on
camera and continue to lie to all of America. Hatch Act governs political
behavior, but I'd say the FBI, NSA, CIA, DOJ are to be held to the highest
levels of behavior. No politics on Govt Time/working hours.
https://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/Hatch_Act.pdf
"He appears to have concealed this role from at least some superiors, since
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified that he'd been unaware of Mr.
Ohr's intermediary status."
Is this an attempt at humor by Strassel?
And why won't Trump declassify??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bruce Ohr and his wife are complicit in the fake Christopher Steele Russian
dossier. Feckless Jeff Sessions needs to indict Ohr and his wife (and the rest
of the Deep State cabal) involved in their treasonous coup attempt against the
duly elected POTUS!!!!!!!
All of this was orchestrated by the Obama Administration.
And because Obama must be recognized historically as the greatest and most
honest president of all time, because he was the first black president
ever.....
We cannot allow the legacy of the first black president to be tarnished
To
allow anything else to happen could offend someone.
Obama knew this would be the case and thus he knew he had a free pass to get
away with anything he wanted.
Hillary knew the exact same thing and, well, When you give an honest person
a chance to get away with a few things they will take a mile. Hillary is not
an honest person, so she went as far as possible under the belief that she
would get away with it.
All of these FBI and DOJ people are just lackeys who take their orders from
higher-ups. The real deep state controllers seem to always be protected by
the underlings. But it's the underlings who fall on the sword.
The Wall Street Journal
continues to counter the liberal
mainstream media's Trump Derangement Syndrome , dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs and
refusing to back off its intense pressure to get to the truth and hold those responsible,
accountable (in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or
'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants) .
And once again Kimberley
Strassel - who by now has become the focus of social media attacks for her truth-seeking
reporting - does it again this morning, as she points out - hours after former CIA Director
Brennan threw a tantrum over having his security clearance removed - that while Justice has
released some damning documents - particularly on what Bruce Ohr was doing - much of the truth
is still classified.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department have continued to insist they did
nothing wrong in their Trump-Russia investigation. This week should finally bring an end to
that claim, given the clear evidence of malfeasance via the use of Bruce Ohr.
Mr. Ohr was until last year associate deputy attorney general.
He began feeding information to the FBI from dossier author Christopher Steele in late 2016
- after the FBI had terminated Mr. Steele as a confidential informant for violating the
bureau's rules. He also collected dirt from Glenn Simpson, cofounder of Fusion GPS, the
opposition-research firm that worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign and employed Mr. Steele.
Altogether, the FBI pumped Mr. Ohr for information at least a dozen times, debriefs that remain
in classified 302 forms.
All the while, Mr. Ohr failed to disclose on financial forms that his wife, Nellie, worked
alongside Mr. Steele in 2016, getting paid by Mr. Simpson for anti-Trump research. The Justice
Department has now turned over Ohr documents to Congress that show how deeply tied up he was
with the Clinton crew - with dozens of emails, calls, meetings and notes that describe his
interactions and what he collected.
Mr. Ohr's conduct is itself deeply troubling. He was acting as a witness (via FBI
interviews) in a case being overseen by a Justice Department in which he held a very senior
position. He appears to have concealed this role from at least some superiors, since Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified that he'd been unaware of Mr. Ohr's intermediary
status.
Lawyers meanwhile note that it is a crime for a federal official to participate in any
government matter in which he has a financial interest. Fusion's bank records presumably show
Nellie Ohr, and by extension her husband, benefiting from the Trump opposition research that
Mr. Ohr continued to pass to the FBI. The Justice Department declined to comment.
But for all Mr. Ohr's misdeeds, the worse misconduct is by the FBI and Justice
Department.
It's bad enough that the bureau relied on a dossier crafted by a man in the employ of the
rival presidential campaign. Bad enough that it never informed the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court of that dossier's provenance. And bad enough that the FBI didn't fire Mr.
Steele as a confidential human source in September 2016 when it should have been obvious he was
leaking FBI details to the press to harm Donald Trump's electoral chances. It terminated him
only when it was absolutely forced to, after Mr. Steele gave an on-the-record interview on Oct.
31, 2016.
But now we discover the FBI continued to go to this discredited informant in its
investigation after the firing -- by funneling his information via a Justice Department cutout.
The FBI has an entire manual governing the use of confidential sources, with elaborate rules on
validations, standards and documentation. Mr. Steele failed these standards. The FBI then
evaded its own program to get at his info anyway.
And it did so even though we have evidence that lead FBI investigators may have suspected
Mr. Ohr was a problem.
An Oct. 7, 2016, text message from now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok to his colleague Lisa
Page reads: "Jesus. More BO leaks in the NYT," which could be a reference to Mr. Ohr.
The FBI may also have been obtaining, via Mr. Ohr, information that came from a man the FBI
had never even vetted as a source -- Mr. Simpson. Mr. Steele had at least worked with the FBI
before; Mr. Simpson was a paid political operative. And the Ohr notes raise further doubts
about Mr. Simpson's forthrightness. In House testimony in November 2017, Mr. Simpson said only
that he reached out to Mr. Ohr after the election, and at Mr. Steele's suggestion. But Mr.
Ohr's inbox shows an email from Mr. Simpson dated Aug. 22, 2016 that reads, in full: "Can u
ring."
The Justice Department hasn't tried to justify any of this; in fact, last year it quietly
demoted Mr. Ohr. In what smells of a further admission of impropriety, it didn't initially turn
over the Ohr documents; Congress had to fight to get them.
But it raises at least two further crucial questions.
First, who authorized or knew about this improper procedure? Mr. Strzok seems to be in the
thick of it, having admitted to Congress interactions with Mr. Ohr at the end of 2016. While
Mr. Rosenstein disclaims knowledge, Mr. Ohr's direct supervisor at the time was the previous
deputy attorney general, Sally Yates. Who else in former FBI Director Jim Comey's inner
circle and at the Obama Justice Department nodded at the FBI's back-door interaction with a
sacked source and a Clinton operative?
Second, did the FBI continue to submit Steele- or Simpson-sourced information to the FISA
court? Having informed the court in later applications that it had fired Mr. Steele, the FBI
would have had no business continuing to use any Steele information laundered through an
intermediary.
* * *
Strassel concludes with the point that she and The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board have
been hammering for months...
We could have these answers pronto; they rest in part in those Ohr 302 forms. And so once
again: a call for President Trump to declassify.
It's time for things to get more serious than slaps on the wrist, firings, and
self-inflicted black-eyes!
Trump revoked Brennan's clearance for what he called "unfounded and outrageous allegations"
against his administration, while also announcing that the White House is evaluating whether to
strip clearances from other former top officials.
Trump later told the Wall Street Journal his decision was connected to the ongoing federal
probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and allegedly collusion by his
presidential campaign.
"I call it the rigged witch hunt, (it) is a sham," Trump said in an interview with the
newspaper on Wednesday. "And these people led it."
"It's something that had to be done," Trump added. -
Reuters
This fall, more than 20 million college students will begin a new academic year. To help
cover rising tuition rates that continue to
outpace inflation , they'll rely on one or more of the federal government's six
low-interest loan programs, adding to the $1.5 trillion of student debt already owed in the
United States. Despite nine repayment plans, eight forgiveness programs, and almost three dozen
deferment options offered by the government, most won't be debt-free until they're in their
40s.
"... It looks as if Zuckerman's 'nightmare situation' has come about. I don't know that these were ever proven reserves, and in fact I have the impression that the supposed energy bounty of the Caspian did not turn out quite as imagined, but Washington once thought – not long ago, either – that it was imperative America controlled the Caspian region because it was about 'America's energy security'. Which is another way of saying 'America must have control over and access to every oil-producing region on the planet.' ..."
"... Richardson was correct, though, that Russia 'does not share America's values'. In fact, Americans do not share America's values, in the sense that most Americans by far would not support the actions of the Saudi military in Yemen, the clever false-flag operations of the White Helmets in Syria, the deliberate destabilization of Venezuela, regime-change operations to the right and left in order to obtain governments who will facilitate American commercial and political control, and many other things that official America considers just important tools in the American Global Dominance Toolbox. ..."
"... Washington has long nurtured the dream of being Europe's primary, if not only, energy supplier, and owning the Caspian (had the reserves expectations played out) would have brought them closer to their dream. ..."
The other backstory being that NATO wanted to stick its nose in the Caspian Sea, but has been
pushed out. Not sure exactly what the pretext was. I have a piece in VZGLIAD that explains the whole
thing, but I haven't worked through it yet, will probably do a piece on my own blog in the
near future. But I have a couple of other projects in the queue first.
Dick Cheney, among others, was convinced that the Caspian Basin holds massive deposits of oil
and gas and is strategically significant for that reason.
"Central Asian resources may revert back to the control of Russia or to a Russian led
alliance. This would be a nightmare situation. We had better wake up to the dangers or one
day the certainties on which we base our prosperity will be certainties no more. The
potential prize in oil and gas riches in the Caspian sea, valued up to $4 trillion, would
give Russia both wealth and strategic dominance. The potential economic rewards of Caspian
energy will draw in their train Western military forces to protect our investment if
necessary."
Mortimer Zuckerman
Editor, U.S. News and World Report
"This is about America's energy security. Its also about preventing strategic inroads
by those who don't share our values. We are trying to move these newly independent countries
toward the West. We would like to see them reliant on Western commercial and political
interests. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian and it's important
that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."
Bill Richardson
Then-U.S. Secretary Energy (1998-2000)
It looks as if Zuckerman's 'nightmare situation' has come about. I don't know that these
were ever proven reserves, and in fact I have the impression that the supposed energy bounty
of the Caspian did not turn out quite as imagined, but Washington once thought – not
long ago, either – that it was imperative America controlled the Caspian region because
it was about 'America's energy security'. Which is another way of saying 'America must have
control over and access to every oil-producing region on the planet.'
Richardson was correct, though, that Russia 'does not share America's values'. In fact,
Americans do not share America's values, in the sense that most Americans by far would not
support the actions of the Saudi military in Yemen, the clever false-flag operations of the
White Helmets in Syria, the deliberate destabilization of Venezuela, regime-change operations
to the right and left in order to obtain governments who will facilitate American commercial
and political control, and many other things that official America considers just important
tools in the American Global Dominance Toolbox.
Washington has long nurtured the dream of being Europe's primary, if not only, energy
supplier, and owning the Caspian (had the reserves expectations played out) would have
brought them closer to their dream. A pipeline network would have carried Caspian oil and gas
to Europe. Agreement among the Caspian nations was most definitely not in American interests,
and if you dig you will probably find American interventions to prevent that from coming
about.
Meanwhile going back to the ongoing escalation in political tensions between the US and
Turkey, one day after Erdogan vowed to boycott US electronics products, including the iPhone,
Ankara slapped an additional tax on imports of a broad range of American goods. Turkey
announced it would impose an additional 50% tax on U.S. rice, 140% on spirits and 120% on cars.
There are also additional charges on U.S. cosmetics, tobacco and some food products. The was Erdogan's latest retaliation for the Trump administration's punitive actions over the past few
weeks to pressure Turkey into releasing an American pastor.
Bloomberg
calculated that the items listed in the decree accounted for $1 billion of imports last
year, similar to the amount of Turkish steel and aluminum exports that were subjected to higher
tariffs by President Donald Trump last week.
The decision shows Turkey giving a proportionate
response to American "attacks" on the Turkish economy, Vice President Fuat Oktay said in tweets
this morning.
No matter how globalism is repackaged, it always smells the same way in the end.
For decades, the globalists have subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) been moving us toward a
world in which national borders have essentially been made meaningless . The ultimate goal, of
course, is to merge all the nations of the world into a "one world socialist utopia" with a
global government, a global economic system and even a global religion.
The European Union is a model for what the elite hope to achieve eventually on a global
scale . The individual nations still exist, but once inside the European Union you can travel
wherever you want, economic rules have been standardized across the Union, and European
institutions now have far more power than the national governments.
Liberty and freedom have been greatly restricted for the "common good", and a giant horde of
nameless, faceless bureaucrats constantly micromanages the details of daily life down to the
finest details.
With each passing day the EU becomes more Orwellian in nature, and that is why so many in
Europe are completely fed up with it.
"... Trump in fact was not the consensus candidate of the American capitalist class back to the 2016 election. So with respect to these economic policies, especially about his trade protectionist measures, these new tariffs imposed on the Chinese goods, let's put it this way: These are not, certainly not the traditional kind of neoliberal economic policy as we know it. So some sections of the American manufacturing sector [capitalists] may be happy about this. But I would say the majority of the American capitalists probably would not approve this kind of trade war against China. ..."
"... So on the Chinese part, ironically, China very much depends on these overall what Martin Wolf called liberal global order, which might better be called the model of global neoliberal capitalism. So China actually much more depends on that. ..."
"... despite whatever happened to the U.S., China would still be committed to the model of openness, committed to privatization and the financial liberalization. The Chinese government has declared new measures to open up a few economic sectors to foreign investment. ..."
"... for China to rearrange towards this kind of domestic consumption-led model of economic development, the necessary condition is that you have income, wealth redistribution towards the workers, towards poor people. And that is something that the Chinese capitalists will resist. And so that is why and so far China has not succeeded in transforming itself away from this export-led model based on exploitation of cheap labor. ..."
"... first of all, China is not socialist at all today. So income of economic sector, the [space] sector accounts for a small number, a small fraction of the overall economy, by various measurements. ..."
"... And so it's expected China will also become the world's largest importer of natural gas by the year 2019. So you are going to have China to be simultaneously the largest importer of oil, natural gas, and coal. ..."
"... let's say the Chinese government right now, even though is led by the so-called Communist Party, is actually much more committed to the neoliberal global order that the Trump administration in the U.S. ..."
"... The Trump administration of this trade protectionist policy, although not justified, it reflects fundamental social conflicts within the U.S. itself, and that probably cannot be sorted out by the Americans' current political system. ..."
"... So the overall neoliberal regime has become much more unstable. ..."
PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay.
The Financial Times chief economic columnist Martin Wolf has called Trump's trade wars with
Europe and Canada, but obviously the big target is China, he's called this a war on the liberal
world order. Well, what does this mean for China? China's strategy, the distinct road to
socialism which seems to take a course through various forms of state hypercapitalism. What
does this mean for China? The Chinese strategy was developed in what they thought would be a
liberal world order. Now it may not be that at all.
Now joining us to discuss what the trade war means for China, and to have a broader
conversation on just what is the Chinese model of state capitalism is Minqi Li, who now joins
us from Utah. Minqi is the professor, is a professor of economics at the University of Utah.
He's the author of The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, and the
editor of Red China website. Thanks for joining us again, Minqi.
MINQI LI: Thank you, Paul.
PAUL JAY: So I don't think anyone, including the Chinese, was expecting President Trump to
be president Trump. But once he was elected, it was pretty clear that Trump and Bannon and the
various cabal around Trump, the plan was twofold. One, regime change in Iran, which also has
consequences for China. And trade war with China. It was declared that they were going to take
on China and change in a fundamental way the economic relationship with China and the United
States. And aimed, to a large extent, trying to deal with the rise of China as an equal, or
becoming equal, economy, and perhaps someday in the not-too-distant future an equal global
power, certainly as seen through the eyes of not just Trumpians in Washington, but much of the
Washington political and economic elites.
So what does this mean for China's strategy now? Xi Jinping is now the leader of the party,
leader of the government, put at a level virtually equal to Mao Tse-tung. But his plan for
development of the Chinese economy did not, I don't think, factor in a serious trade war with
the United States.
MINQI LI: OK. As you said, Trump was not expected. Which meant that Trump in fact was not
the consensus candidate of the American capitalist class back to the 2016 election. So with
respect to these economic policies, especially about his trade protectionist measures, these
new tariffs imposed on the Chinese goods, let's put it this way: These are not, certainly not
the traditional kind of neoliberal economic policy as we know it. So some sections of the
American manufacturing sector [capitalists] may be happy about this. But I would say the
majority of the American capitalists probably would not approve this kind of trade war against
China.
Now, on the Chinese part, and we know that China has been on these parts, there was
capitalist development, and moreover it has been based on export-led economic growth model and
with exploitation of cheap labor. So on the Chinese part, ironically, China very much depends
on these overall what Martin Wolf called liberal global order, which might better be called the
model of global neoliberal capitalism. So China actually much more depends on that.
And so you have, indeed there are serious trade conflicts between China and U.S. that will,
of course, undermine China's economic model. And so far China has responded to these new
threats of trade war by promising that China, despite whatever happened to the U.S., China
would still be committed to the model of openness, committed to privatization and the financial
liberalization. The Chinese government has declared new measures to open up a few economic
sectors to foreign investment.
Now, with respect to the trade itself, at the moment the U.S. has imposed tariffs on, 25
percent tariffs on the worth of $34 billion of Chinese goods. And then Trump has threatened to
impose new tariffs on the additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. But this amount at
the moment is still a small part of China's economy, about 3 percent of the Chinese GDP. So the
impact at the moment is limited, but certainly has created a lot of uncertainty for the global
and the Chinese business community.
PAUL JAY: So given that this trade war could, one, get a lot bigger and a lot more serious,
and/or even if they kind of patch it up for now, there's a lot of forces within the United
States, both for economic and geopolitical reasons. Economic being the discussion about China
taking American intellectual property rights, becoming the new tech sector hub of the world,
even overpassing the American tech sector, which then has geopolitical implications; especially
when it comes to the military. If China becomes more advanced the United States in artificial
intelligence as applied to the military, that starts to, at least in American geopolitical
eyes, threaten American hegemony around the world.
There are a lot of reasons building up, and it's certainly not new, and it's not just Trump.
For various ways, the Americans want to restrain China. Does this start to make the Chinese
think that they need to speed up the process of becoming more dependent on their own domestic
market and less interested in exporting cheap labor? But for that to happen Chinese wages have
to go up a lot more significantly, which butts into the interests of the Chinese billionaire
class.
MINQI LI: I think you are right. And so for China to rearrange towards this kind of domestic
consumption-led model of economic development, the necessary condition is that you have income,
wealth redistribution towards the workers, towards poor people. And that is something that the
Chinese capitalists will resist. And so that is why and so far China has not succeeded in
transforming itself away from this export-led model based on exploitation of cheap labor.
PAUL JAY: You know, there's some sections of the left in various parts of the world that do
see the Chinese model as a more rational version of capitalism, and do see this because they've
maintained the control of the Chinese Communist Party over the politics, and over economic
planning, that do see this idea that this is somehow leading China towards a kind of socialism.
If nothing else, a more rational planned kind of capitalism. Is that, is there truth to
this?
MINQI LI: Well, first of all, China is not socialist at all today. So income of economic
sector, the [space] sector accounts for a small number, a small fraction of the overall
economy, by various measurements.
And then regarding the rationality of China's economic model, you might put it this way: The
Chinese capitalists might be more rational than the American capitalists in the sense that they
still use most of their profits for investment, instead of just financial speculation. So that
might be rational from the capitalist perspective. But on the other hand, regarding the
exploitation of workers- and the Chinese workers still have to work under sweatshop conditions-
and regarding the damage to the environment, the Chinese model is not rational at all.
PAUL JAY: My understanding of people that think this model works better, at least, than some
of the other capitalist models is that there's a need to go through this phase of Chinese
workers, yes, working in sweatshop conditions, and yes, wages relatively low. But overall, the
Chinese economy has grown by leaps and bounds, and China's position in the world is more and
more powerful. And this creates the situation, as more wealth accumulates, China is better
positioned to address some of the critical issues facing China and the world. And then, as bad
as pollution is, and such, China does appear to be out front in terms of developing green
technologies, solar, sustainable technology.
MINQI LI: OK. Now, Chinese economy has indeed been growing rapidly. It used to grow like
double-digit growth rate before 2010. But now China's growth rate has slowed down just under 7
percent in recent years, according to the official statistics. And moreover, a significant part
of China's growth these days derives rom the real estate sector development. And so there has
been this discussion about this growing housing market bubble. And it used to be that this
housing price inflation was limited to a few big cities. But for the first half of 2018,
according to the latest data, the national average housing price has grown by 11 percent
compared to the same period last year. And that translates into a pace of doubling every six
years.
And so that has generated lots of social resentment. And so not only the working class these
days are priced out of the housing market. Moreover, even the middle class is increasingly
priced out of the housing market. So that is the major concern. And in the long run, I think
that China's current model of accumulation will also face the challenge of growing social
conflicts. Worker protests. As well as resources constrained and environmental damage. And
regarding the issue of China's investment in renewable energy, it is true. China is the largest
investor in renewable energy development, in the solar panels. And although China is of all the
largest investor in about everything.
And so China is still the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, accounting for
almost 30 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the world every year. And then
China's own oil production in decline, but China's oil consumption is still rising. So as a
result, China has become the world's largest oil importer. That could make the Chinese economy
vulnerable to the next major oil price shock.
PAUL JAY: And how seriously is climate change science taken in China? If one takes the
science seriously, one sees the need for urgent transformation to green technology. An urgent
reduction of carbon emission. Not gradual, not incremental, but urgent. Did the Chinese- I
mean, it's not, it's so not taken seriously in the United States that a climate denier can get
elected president. But did the Chinese take this more seriously? Because you don't get the
same, any sense of urgency about their policy, either.
MINQI LI: Well, yeah. So like many other governments, the Chinese government also pays lip
service to the obligation of climate stabilization. But unfortunately, with respect to policy,
with respect to mainstream media, it's not taken very seriously within China. And so although
China's carbon dioxide emissions actually stabilized somewhat over the past few years, but is
starting to grow again in 2017, and I expect it will continue to grow in the coming year.
PAUL JAY: I mean, I can understand why, for example, Russia is not in any hurry to buy into
climate change science. Its whole economy depends on oil. Canada also mostly pays lip service
because the Alberta tar sands is so important to the Canadian economy. Shale oil is so
important to the American economy, as well as the American oil companies own oil under the
ground all over the world. But China is not an oil country. You know, they're not dependent on
oil income. You'd think it'd be in China's interest to be far more aggressive, not only in
terms of how good it looks to the world that China would be the real leader in mitigating,
reducing, eliminating the use of carbon-based fuels, but still they're not. I mean, not at the
rate scientists say needs to be done.
MINQI LI: Not at all. Although China does not depend on all on oil for income, but China
depends on coal a lot. And the coal is still something like 60 percent of China's overall
energy consumption. And so it's still very important for China's energy.
PAUL JAY: What- Minqi, where does the coal mostly come from? Don't they import a lot of that
coal?
MINQI LI: Mostly from China itself. Even though, you know, China is the world's largest coal
producer, on top of that China is either the largest or the second-largest coal importer in the
world market as well. And then on top of that, China is also consuming an increasing amount of
oil and natural gas, especially natural gas. And so although natural gas is not as polluting as
coal, it's still polluting. And so it's expected China will also become the world's largest
importer of natural gas by the year 2019. So you are going to have China to be simultaneously
the largest importer of oil, natural gas, and coal.
PAUL JAY: The Chinese party, just to get back to the trade war issue and to end up with, the
idea of this Chinese nation standing up, Chinese sovereignty, Chinese nationalism, it's a
powerful theme within this new Chinese discourse. I'm not saying Chinese nationalism is new,
but it's got a whole new burst of energy. How does China, if necessary to reach some kind of
compromise with the United States on the trade war, how does China do that without looking like
it's backing down to Trump?
MINQI LI: Well, yes, difficult task for the Chinese party to balance. What they have been
right now is that on the one hand they promise to the domestic audience they are not going to
make concessions towards the U.S., while in fact they are probably making concessions. And then
on the other hand the outside world, and they make announcement that they will not change from
the reform and openness policy, which in practice means that they will not change from the
neoliberal direction of China's development, and they will continue down the path towards
financial liberalization. And so that is what they are trying to balance right now.
PAUL JAY: I said finally, but this is finally. Do the Americans have a case? Does the Trump
argument have a legitimate case that the Chinese, on the one hand, want a liberal world order
in terms of trade, and open markets, and such? On the other hand are not following intellectual
property law, property rights and law, the way other advanced capitalist countries supposedly
do. Is there something to that case?
MINQI LI: Well, you know, let's say the Chinese government right now, even though is led
by the so-called Communist Party, is actually much more committed to the neoliberal global
order that the Trump administration in the U.S. - but I don't want to make justifications
for the neoliberal global order. But let's put it this way: The Trump administration of
this trade protectionist policy, although not justified, it reflects fundamental social
conflicts within the U.S. itself, and that probably cannot be sorted out by the Americans'
current political system.
PAUL JAY: So the crisis- you know, when you look at the American side and the Chinese side,
including the deep debt bomb people talk about in China, there really is no sorting out of this
crisis.
MINQI LI: So the overall neoliberal regime has become much more unstable.
PAUL JAY: All right. Thanks for joining us, Minqi. I hope we can pick this up again
soon.
MINQI LI: OK. Thank you.
PAUL JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
We are in a very peculiar ideological and political place in which Democracy (oh sainted
Democracy) is a very good thing, unless the voters reject the technocrat class's leadership.
Then the velvet gloves come off. From the perspective of the elites and their technocrat
apparatchiks, elections have only one purpose: to rubberstamp their leadership.
As a general rule, this is easily managed by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
advertising and bribes to the cartels and insider fiefdoms who pony up most of the cash.
This is why incumbents win the vast majority of elections. Once in power, they issue the
bribes and payoffs needed to guarantee funding next election cycle.
The occasional incumbent who is voted out of office made one of two mistakes:
1. He/she showed a very troubling bit of independence from the technocrat status quo, so a
more orthodox candidate is selected to eliminate him/her.
2. The incumbent forgot to put on a charade of "listening to my constituency" etc.
If restive voters can't be bamboozled into passively supporting the technocrat status quo
with the usual propaganda, divide and conquer is the preferred strategy. Only voting for the
technocrat class (of any party, it doesn't really matter) will save us from the evil Other :
Deplorables, socialists, commies, fascists, etc.
In extreme cases where the masses confound the status quo by voting against the technocrat
class (i.e. against globalization, financialization, Empire), then the elites/technocrats will
punish them with austerity or a managed recession. The technocrat's core ideology boils down to
this:
1. The masses are dangerously incapable of making wise decisions about anything, so we have
to persuade them to do our bidding. Any dissent will be punished, marginalized, censored or
shut down under some pretext of "protecting the public" or violation of some open-ended
statute.
2. To insure this happy outcome, we must use all the powers of propaganda, up to and
including rigged statistics, bogus "facts" (official fake news can't be fake news, etc.),
divide and conquer, fear-mongering, misdirection and so on.
3. We must relentlessly centralize all power, wealth and authority so the masses have no
escape or independence left to threaten us. We must control everything, for their own good of
course.
4. Globalization must be presented not as a gargantuan fraud that has stripmined the planet
and its inhabitants, but as the sole wellspring of endless, permanent prosperity.
5. If the masses refuse to rubberstamp our leadership, they will be punished and told the
source of their punishment is their rejection of globalization, financialization and
Empire.
Technocrats rule the world, East and West alike. My two favorite charts of the outcome of
technocrats running things to suit their elite masters are:
The state-cartel-crony-capitalist version: the top .1% skim the vast majority of the gains
in income and wealth. Globalization, financialization and Empire sure do rack up impressive
gains. Too bad they're concentrated in the top 1.%.
The state-crony-socialist version: the currency is destroyed, impoverishing everyone but the
top .1% who transferred their wealth to Miami, London and Zurich long ago. Hmm, do you discern
a pattern here in the elite-technocrat regime?
Ideology is just a cover you slip over the machine to mask what's really going on.
"... Facebook employees said privately over the past several months that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wants to outsource many of the most sensitive political decisions, leaving fact-checking to media groups and geopolitics to think tanks. The more he succeeds, the fewer complications for Facebook's expansion, the smaller its payroll, and the more plausible its positioning as a neutral platform. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. ..."
"... The establishment "elites" are in such denial about the consequences of the world they created, all they can do is spastically attack symptoms. Trump didn't divide U.S. society and Alex Jones didn't cause our widespread (and entirely justifiably) distrust in institutions; the status quo system did that via its spectacular failures. Trump's election and Alex Jones' popularity are merely symptoms of an incredibly corrupt and failed status quo paradigm, the stewards of which continually refuse to take a look in the mirror, accept blame and reform. ..."
Anyone who tells you the recent escalation of censorship by U.S. tech giants is merely a
reflection of private companies making independent decisions is either lying or dangerously ignorant.
In the case of Facebook, the road from pseudo-platform to willing and enthusiastic tool of
establishment power players is fairly straightforward. It really got going earlier this year when
issues surrounding egregious privacy violations in the case of Cambridge Analytica (stuff that had
been
going
on for years
) could finally be linked to the Trump campaign. It was at this point that
powerful and nefarious forces spotted an opportunity to leverage the company's gigantic influence in
distributing news and opinion for their own ends. Rather than hold executives to account and break up
the company, the choice was made to commandeer and weaponize the platform. This is where we stand
today.
Let's not whitewash history though. These tech companies have been compliant, out of control
government snitches for a long time. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we're aware of the deep and
longstanding cooperation between these lackeys and U.S. intelligence agencies in the realm of mass
surveillance. As such, the most recent transformation of these companies into full fledged information
gatekeepers should be seen in its proper context; merely as a dangerous continuation and expansion of
an already entrenched reality.
But it's all out in the open now. Facebook isn't even hiding the fact that it's outsourcing much of
its "fake news" analysis to the Atlantic Council, a think tank funded by NATO, Gulf States and defense
contractors. As reported by
Reuters
:
Facebook began looking for outside help amid criticism for failing to rein in Russian
propaganda ahead of the 2016 presidential elections
With scores of its own cybersecurity professionals and $40 billion in annual revenue in
2017, Facebook might not seem in need of outside help.
It doesn't need outside help, it needs political cover, which is the real driver behind this.
But the lab and Atlantic Council bring geopolitical expertise and
allow Facebook to
distance itself from sensitive pronouncements.
On last week's call with reporters, Alex
Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, said the company should not be expected to identify or
blame specific governments for all the campaigns it detects.
"Companies like ours don't have the necessary information to evaluate the relationship
between political motivations that we infer about an adversary and the political goals of a
nation-state," said Stamos, who is leaving the company this month for a post at Stanford
University. Instead, he said Facebook would stick to amassing digital evidence and turning
it over to authorities and researchers.
It would also be awkward for Facebook to accuse a government of wrongdoing when the company
is trying to enter or expand in a market under that government's control.
Facebook donated an undisclosed amount to the lab in May that was enough, said
Graham Brookie, who runs the lab, to vault the company to the top of the Atlantic Council's donor
list, alongside the British government.
Facebook employees said privately over the past several months that Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg wants to outsource many of the most sensitive political decisions, leaving
fact-checking to media groups and geopolitics to think tanks.
The more he succeeds, the
fewer complications for Facebook's expansion, the smaller its payroll, and the more plausible its
positioning as a neutral platform. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.
Now that it's been established that Facebook is in fact censoring based on advice provided by
former spooks and other assorted establishment charlatans, let's talk about what this means. I think
there are two major takeaways.
First and foremost, the entire push to make arbitrary de-platforming by tech giants the new
norm proves the establishment is scared to death.
The very powerful folks accustomed to
manipulating and shaping the world via narrative creation aren't terrified about what Alex Jones says,
they're terrified that it's popular. The establishment "elites" are in such denial about the
consequences of the world they created, all they can do is spastically attack symptoms. Trump didn't
divide U.S. society and Alex Jones didn't cause our widespread (and entirely justifiably) distrust in
institutions; the status quo system did that via its spectacular failures. Trump's election and Alex
Jones' popularity are merely symptoms of an incredibly corrupt and failed status quo paradigm, the
stewards of which continually refuse to take a look in the mirror, accept blame and reform.
The way I see it, two key events of the 21st century directly led to the situation we find
ourselves in currently. The launching of the Iraq war based on false evidence spread by intelligence
agencies, politicians and the media, and the decision to bail out bankers and protect them from jail
in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Combined, these two things created an environment of anger
and distrust in which nearly anything becomes possible politically and socially. Trump and Alex Jones
are symptoms of a failing society, not the root causes of it.
If I'm right about this, censorship of such voices by SilIcon Valley billionaires will backfire
spectacularly. Alex Jones has now been made a martyr by tech oligarchs and deep state think tanks,
which gives him more street cred than he had before. De-platforming does nothing to the demand side of
the equation when it comes to his content, as we saw with his Infowars app
soaring
in the charts
soon after the purge. If people want to find Alex Jones and Infowars, they will find
it. Moreover, other communities are beginning to wake up to how dangerous all of this is. For example,
last week we witnessed a growing number of Bitcoiners
create
accounts at decentralized Twitter-alternative Mastodon
in case Jack Dorsey decides to step up
censorship there.
Ultimately, it's safer for society to have open public forums where all ideas -- whether you
consider them dangerous and crazy or not -- can be openly expressed alongside each other. That way we
can see what's out there and debate or debunk them in front of large and diverse audiences.
This is 2018 and de-platforming popular content won't make it go away.
It'll just
shift it over into areas of the internet you can't see, where it'll fester and grow stronger over time
in even more intense and radicalized echo chambers.
You'll think it's gone from society
because it's been safely cleansed from your corporate-government Facebook timeline, but it may grow
even stronger in the shadows.
This is particularly the case in a nation dominated by an
entrenched, corrupt and unaccountable elitist class. One that refuses to confront the reality of its
monumental failures, and instead chooses to self-interestedly obsess over what are just symptoms of a
decadent empire in decline.
* * *
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"There is also international fury over Facebook's
denial of a platform of Infowars and Alex Jones. One of
the self-proclaimed media Masters of the Universe is
facing anger from multiple groups. One report says that
to appease the hard-left, Israeli-controlled
Facebook pulled the plug on 40 million users in July
alone
.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and internet providers
abuse their monopoly by deciding who and what information
should be available to the public. It is a sinister
reminder of life in the past when corporate-owned media,
in alliance with government, manipulated minds by
spinning news and information
As well as Alex Jones, Ron Paul, David Icke, SGT
report and ex-CIA Michael Scheuer,
hundreds of
sites critical of Zionism or Globalism have been denied
access to Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms
.
YouTube allows promotion of abortion; even provide
recipes for abortion food but remove academic opinions
being aired....."
this crap shifted into high gear after the unite the right
fiasco. been going on a long time. web hosting companies
banned many MANY of the best websites right after that
production
But CIA and Pentagon have bought off all platforms, all
mainstream media. When I say CIA and Pentagon I mean Israel.
Whose idea was it for the NSA and mass surveillance? Israel.
Whose idea is it to implement SWAT as S.O.P. of all police in
the entire country and world? Israel. Whose idea is it to jail
someone into solitary confinement long before any charges are
filed (Michael Coen, Tommy Robinson, Assange)? Israel. Who is
Silicon Valley, all tech? Israel Inside. Israel manufactures
Intel chips and set exploits specifically for surveillance on
anyone's personal device. Yet Congress just voted for $38
billion to Israel over the next 10 years. Here at home -- TV,
Rachael Maddow and the rest making double digit millions to
propagandise and foment madness, normalize child sex abuse and
torture and protect Israel from all real and true scrutiny.
We deserve everything we get. Period. We don't hold anyone
accountable, either by court or by assassination. We're
pathetic citizens of a usurped nation.
Sadly, this is the truth. As a peoole we have become
pathetic and weak. Not by choice mind you, but by design.
People lived long before vaccines and fluoride in the water.
If you must use social media, as we all should, its a
great source for information and discussion, try the new app
called Mumblit.
The father of lies vs the rest
of the spiritual world whatever that is to you.
It really is just good vs evil and it's funny what teammates
you end up with but in the grand scheme of things even if Trump
is doing someone else's bidding there is a greater plan.
I think too many don't understand that Trump was part of a
marketing plan put there by the same people he's just a change
of management style.
They were never going to put Hillary in there she's not a
like able enough person, her husband was, she's not, and that's
a terrible flaw for a national level politician.
It was simply a management change to buy time.
Everything to me is a matter of divide and conquer, they are
splitting the population right down the middle for a reason to
buy more time.
Why?
Well obviously to finish implementing the control grid of
course and I think it's at the stage now they are confident
they can move on it.
AI is scheduled to be our new overlord and we'll all be
powerless to defend ourselves from it when it's fully engaged.
The primary defenders of our civilization come complete with
an entire mythos that even predicts all this conveniently allow
certain folks to rapture out of it and leaving the rest of us
to deal with the wickedness on our own.
It's a matrix of control but who's doing the controlling?
Why?
We are indoctrinated that this world is not our ultimate
reward, this world is Satan's world and our ultimate reward
comes in heaven not the earth.
Maybe that's true, maybe that's just the lie they tell you
to keep you in line?
The only hope humanity has is a war among elites, only that
is going to save us, we need division among our adversaries
what's good for the goose is good for the gander type of thing.
Good post.
Yeah it all gets deep and takes serious
reflection.
Then you have to eat.
And defend yourself.
And keep yourself from just wanting to pull the ejection
handle.
Yes. The article says "The very powerful folks accustomed to
manipulating and shaping the world via narrative creation..."
This Zionist Communist Global Dictatorship have done just that - they
have set ethnic-European females against our wonderful males by
turning them into feminazis who love pseudo victimhood and the blame
game. And look what is the UNTOLD STORY OF OUR MEN:
I still have the privilege of having a
neighbor who went through the Great Depression, and fought in WWII.
He's traditionally an old school Democrat, but even he admitted
society out here has lost it.
He's also about the only person I truly relate to, and can have a
pleasant, high-cognitive, logical conversation with these days.
Now imagine being him (in his 90's), fully coherent, and seeing
these spoiled, brainwashed little shits out here, and those in NYC
and DC, run amuck actively tearing down the American society along
with older Western values that were built in the modern age by his
generation, damn.
The left is scared, and rightly so.
They are actually drawing more
attention to the voices they wish to cancel out. Typical
liberal/leftist cluelessness.
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
If you listen to the radio much, you will see that the
60's, 70's etc have been filtered. They ONLY play
songs they approve of.
No MONSTER
No Working Class Hero
on and on.
<Snip>
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd
years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Agreed. But it doesn't mean that sides don't matter. They adhere
to the Frankfort school of thought, which takes from Hegel, the
dialectic of politics. By Frankfort, I mean Bolsheviks. They
fund the Left and Right to move the mind of society in general,
through Thesis, Anti-thesis or Left/Right, to a compromise
where the desired solution was known. This is now evident in the
caging of speech to include ONLY the dialectic. Same story
repeating itself, every time Bolsheviks are allowed to feed on the
public.
Despite their best efforts, they can't block the internet.
And as Ayn
Rand famously said "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the
consequences of reality". The Middle Class is dying, the American dream is
dead, the Millenials are still living in Mom's basement and developing
ideas about "Democratic Socialism" involving more Free Shit and Bigger
Government, largely because of the above and because they have never been
given an opportunity to experience real free market capitalism.
That will come as a last ditch effort to put the milk back in the
bottle. I'm sure everyone will just forget everything and go on with
their slave life*
*Those of us designated as the workers to pay for
all the shitheads, that is. The shitheads will be fine with being
ignorant. To fix anything might mean they have to work. "Fuck that" is
what they will always say until they are forced to go cold turkey.
Hammer it and remove all EMF's. An old microwave over works as a Faraday cage. Also; if you take a cell phone and wrap it in
just a layer or two of aluminum foil; it will not make or receive calls.
Good point. Save alot of shekkels too. Why just the other day I was standing in grocery line having an imaginary conversation
with my imaginary broker, on my fake phone! The conversation became quite heated. It was all going swell until I ran into the
door on my way out, fell over backwards, spilt the milk carton, and crushed a dozen eggs. No one even noticed ..
They don't need GPS to know where you are, cell towers report the same information to good enough accuracy for most uses. When
Google is tracking you, that is how they are doing it usually.
OSMand replaces google maps very nicely, and works perfectly fine completely off line (by GPS). It also doesn't have to allow
google to update its maps every 30 days to keep it working, download maps for anywhere in the world and just use them.
Lineage OS is a replacement for Android OS. I've had it in 2 phones so far, quite content with it. Open source, so lots of
eyes on it to make sure this sort of shit isn't happening. You can minimize or completely eliminate the google presence, your
choice.
Whether some deep-down shit is tracking me, I have no idea. I assume it is, and act accordingly.
Love to try lineage but I'm on Verizon and their phones since the note 5 are locked down good. Rooting, jailbreaking, or what
ever you call it is the way to go if your concerned about privacy.
Even taking the battery out doesn't work anymore... they've built in transistors that will
hold enough juice to keep the tracking capabilities enabled for several hours after the
battery is removed.
Peter Strzok,
who spearheaded the FBI's investigations into both the Clinton email
"matter" and the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election,
has been
fired from the agency over anti-Trump texts,
according to The
Washington
Post
.
Aitan Goelman, Strzok's lawyer, said
FBI Deputy Director David L. Bowdich ordered the
firing on Friday
-- even though the director of the FBI office that normally handles
employee discipline had decided Strzok should face only a demotion and 60-day suspension.
Goelman said the move undercuts the FBI's repeated assurances that Strzok would be afforded the
normal disciplinary process. -
Washington
Post
"
This isn't the normal process in any way more than name
," Goelman said.
Strzok's termination follows a
June report
that he was physically escorted out of an FBI building despite still being employed
by the agency.
In response Goelman said in a statement: "
Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and
respected the process
, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal
attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks."
In the same June letter, Goelman complained about the "
impartiality of the disciplinary
process, which now appears tainted by political influence
."
In other words, Peter Strzok - who vowed in a text message to his FBI mistress to "stop" Trump,
was the victim of political bias - according to his attorney.
Goelman also wrote that "instead of publicly calling for a long-serving FBI agent to be
summarily fired, politicians should allow the disciplinary process to play out free from political
pressure." We are confident that
everyone
will be very interested in watching the
"impartial" disciplinary process play out fully in the coming months.
Goelman's conclusion: "Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has
complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as part of the
ongoing internal proceedings."
Strzok's anti-Trump sentiment came to light after an internal investigation revealed he and his
FBI mistress Lisa Page had exchanged 50,000 text messages, many of which contained clear animus
towards then-candidate Donald Trump.
Strzok's position in the bureau had been precarious since last summer, when Inspector General
Michael E. Horowitz told Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III that the lead agent on his team
had been exchanging anti-Trump messages with an FBI lawyer. The next day, Mueller expelled
Strzok from the group.
The lawyer, Lisa Page, had also been a part of Mueller's team, though she left a few weeks
earlier and no longer works for the FBI. She and Strzok were having an affair. -
Washington
Post
Perhaps the most alarming of the exchanges mentions an "insurance policy" in the event Trump is
elected.
"
I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that
there's no way he
[Trump]
gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk."
Strzok
wrote to Page, adding "
It's like a life insurance policy in the unlikely event you die
before you're 40
."
In another text exchange, Strzok tells Page: "I am riled up. Trump is a f*cking idiot, is unable
to provide a coherrent answer," and
"I CAN'T PULL AWAY, WHAY THE F*CK HAPPENED TO OUR
COUNTRY (redacted)??!?!
"
Page then messages Strzok, saying "And maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're
meant to
protect the country from that menace
. (links to NYT article), to which
Strzok replied "
I can protect our country at many levels
."
The text messages made
abundantly clear
that Strzok - the man who downgraded
the FBI's assessment of Hillary's email mishandling from "grossly negligent" to "extremely
careless," and
used a largely unfounded Trump-Russia dossier to launch a
counterintelligence operation
- holds a deep disdain for Donald Trump.
In response to the discovery of Strzok and Page's texts, President Trump derided the pair as
"FBI lovers." On Sunday, Trump tweeted "Will the FBI ever recover it's once stellar reputation, so
badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top
officials now dismissed or fired? So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by
these clowns and losers!"
Strzok testified at a Congressional earing last month, asserting that there was "no evidence of
bias in my professional actions," and that his testimony was "just another victory notch in
[Russian President Vladimir] Putin's belt and another milestone in our enemies' campaign to tear
America apart."
The now-former FBI agent also creeped people out with a weird smirk during the session, as well
as the generally creepy faces he made:
PS tried to influence a US election! He should be
made an example of to put fear in the 'Russians' or
anyone else that ever tries to throw an election, a
sentence of life in a hard labor camp will be fair!
They didn't issue a firearm to him. He was not a graduate of
FLETC nor a law enforcement agent/officer. He is not an 1811
criminal investigator. He was a CIA puke shipped to FBI for
detail by Brennan. This is all lies.
Sounds like my lib
brother who says there is no need to go after Hillary because she
lost. I told him by that logic we shouldn't have tried the Nazis
because they lost.
Firing him only means he is of no more use. Lisa Page was fired after she
had no more use other than testifying. I'll be interested to see what
happens to PS. He represents an interesting mix of factors. His background
is pure Deep State yet he is personally well and truly screwed. Will he
flip to save his hide or will he go down with the globalist ship? I
personally think he turned on them but that is just a guess. The
demon-possessed kabuki testimony was just an act he was told to portray for
optics IMHO. Tie will tell
He played a big role in the CIA infiltration of the FBI (to get
around that annoying policy of no spying on Americans in the CIA...
officially of course). He doesn't even show up as completing the FBI
Academy program... same for McCabe...
But why is he not being
charged for conspiracy to take down a sitting president using official
government agency tools?
I doubt PS has any dirt on anyone who hasn't already been fired.
No,
his best bet personally is to make a truckload of cash for appearances,
talks and book advances (no one will buy them, of course). The Deep
State look after their own.
Strzok thought he would be safe towing the FBI party line during his
congressional hearing, where he behaved like a useful idiot. Now that he
is on record defending the FBI, it was no longer necessary to keep him on
the payroll, so the FBI fired him. That's how the deep-state closes ranks
after they discard one of their own who stupidly embarrassed them by
leaving text messages that showed FBI corruption in exonerating Clinton and
framing Trump.
"
In other words, Peter Strzok - who vowed to "stop" Trump, was the
victim of political bias according to his attorney."
Everything
I say is a lie. But, if everything I say is a lie, then, I'm lying as I say
this. Therefore, everything I say is truth. But, if everything I say is
true, and I'm telling you that I am lying
This is awesome because Team Mueller & Co. won't be able to resist from
pulling at the threads of this latest twist, as in "was Stroke's firing
politically motivated...", and will further unravel the DNC's, Democrats
and Fusion GPS collusion at all levels of government.
Fucking genius
move, and most well deserved (though he got off easy). If he's smart
he'll stay out of the public eye.
who at the FBI awarded immunity
from prosecution to Clintons lawyers et al?
was it Comey, Strzok, McCabe?
why does that immunity still stand if the FBI officers that granted
it were poltical hacks fucking on government time and using
federal/taxpayers money?
The FBI packed with Ivy Leaguers, Friends and Relatives of Wall Street,
Social Justice Warriors, and Govt types who know they are above the Law.
The real question is, is the FBI worth saving ?
or can it even be saved and made back into a beacon of integrity?
The best policy would be to close it, terminate everyone and transfer
any law enforcement or national secutiry work that it might have
inadvertently been doing, to the various other myriad of Law Enforcement
Agencies, like Homeland, US Marshals, Treasury, ATF etc etc etc.....
"... Gilbert Doctorow is an independent political analyst based in Brussels. His latest book, "Does the United States Have a Future?" was published on 12 October 2017. Both paperback and e-book versions are available for purchase on http://www.amazon.com and all affiliated Amazon websites worldwide. See the recent professional review http://theduran.com/does-the-united-states-have-a-future-a-new-book-by-gilbert-doctorow-review/ For a video of the book presentation made at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. on 7 December 2017 see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciW4yod8upg ..."
Tharoor quotes from New York Times columnist David Brooks who concluded that Trump's behavior was that "of a man who
wants the alliance to fail." He quotes extensively from Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and leader of the Liberal
political fraction in the European Parliament fighting for a much more integrated EU, who sees Trump as the enemy of liberal internationalism
and ally of his own alt right enemies in Europe.
Tharoor also brings into play Martin Wolf of the Financial Times , who delivered a scathing attack on Trump for his rejection
of the West: " today the U.S. president appears hostile to core American values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law; he feels
no loyalty to allies; he rejects open markets; and he despises international institutions."
In the 23 July issue of "Today's World View," Tharoor takes advantage of the time gone by since Helsinki to refine the conclusions.
He offers a pithy commentary from Susan Glasser of The New Yorker : "We are witnessing nothing less than the breakdown of
American foreign policy."
In the same issue, Tharoor notes that public reaction to Trump in Helsinki is less pronounced than one might suppose from reading
the pundits. He offers the following remarks of colleagues on the results of a recent poll: "Most Americans do not feel Trump went
'too far' in supporting Puitn, and while more Americans say U.S. leadership has gotten weaker than stronger under Trump, his ratings
on this question are slightly improved from last fall."
If we go back in time to the days following Trump's visit to the NATO gathering in Brussels, we find in the headlines of the 11
July issue another take on what Trump is doing:
"Trump's NATO trip shows 'America First' is 'America Alone.'"
Here we read about Trump's insistence that America "stop footing Europe's bill" for its defense, namely his demand that all NATO
allies pay up 2% of GDP at once, not in the remote future; and that they prepare to double that to 4% very quickly. By intentional
abrasiveness, these moves by Trump are, Tharoor tells us, "undercutting the post-World War II order in pursuit of short-term, and
likely illusory, wins."
All of these comments address the question of what Trump opposes. However, Tharoor is unable to say what, if anything, Trump stands
for. There are only hints: continued US hegemony but without the ideological cover; might makes right; nationalism and the disputes
that lead to war.
Does this make sense? Or is it just another way of saying that Trump's foreign policy stance is an inconsistent patchwork, illogical
and doomed to fail while causing much pain and destruction along the way?
I fully agree with the proposition that Donald Trump is ripping up the post-Cold War international order and is seeking to end
NATO and the rest of the alliance system by which the United States has maintained its global hegemony for decades. But I believe
this destructive side is guided by a creative vision of where he wants to take US foreign policy.
This new foreign policy of Donald Trump is based on an uncompromising reading of the teachings of the Realist School of international
affairs, such as we have not seen since the days of President Teddy Roosevelt, who was its greatest practitioner in US history.
This is not isolationism, because Trump is acting to defend what he sees as US national interests in foreign trade everywhere
and in geopolitics in one or another part of the world. However, it is a world in which the US is cut free from the obligations of
its alliances which entail maintenance of overseas bases everywhere at the cost of more than half its defense budget. He wants to
end the risks of being embroiled in regional wars that serve our proxies, not core US national interests. And he is persuaded that
by a further build-up of military might at home, by adding new hi-tech materiel the US can secure its interests abroad best of all.
I reach these conclusions from the snippets of Trump remarks which appear in the newspapers of daily record but are intentionally
left as unrelated and anecdotal, whereas when slotted together they establish the rudiments of an integrated worldview and policy.
For example, I take his isolated remark that the United States should not be prepared to go to war to defend Montenegro, which
recently passed NATO accession, because Montenegro had been a trouble-maker in the past. That remark underwent virtually no analysis
in the media, though it could be made only by someone who understood, remarkably, the role of Montenegro at the Russian imperial
court of Nicholas II precisely as "troublemaker," whose dynastic family aided in their own small way the onset of WWI.
Donald Trump is not a public speaker. He is not an intellectual. We cannot expect him to issue some "Trump Doctrine" setting out
his Realist conception of the geopolitical landscape. All we get is Tweets. This inarticulate side of Trump has been used by his
enemies to argue he has no policy.
In fact, Trump is the only Realist on the landscape.
Going back to 2016, I thought he was being guided by Henry Kissinger during the campaign and then in the first months of his presidency,
I misjudged entirely. Trump is true to the underlying principles of Realism without compromise, whereas Henry K. made his peace with
the prevailing Wilsonian Idealism of the American Establishment a couple of decades ago in order to remain welcome in the Oval Office
and not to be entirely marginalized.
Trump's vision of Realism draws from the source in the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648 with its guiding concept of sovereign nation-states
that do not intervene in others' domestic affairs. It further draws on the notions of raison d'état or national interest
developed by the French court of Louis XIV and then taken further by "perfidious Albion" in the eighteenth century, with temporary
and ever changing combinations of states in balance of power realignments of competitors. The history of the Realist School
was set out magnificently by Kissinger in his 1994 work Diplomacy . It is a pity that the master himself strayed from true
and narrow.
In all of this, you have the formula for Trump's respect, even admiration for Putin, since that also is now Vladimir Vladimirovich's
concept of Russia's way forward: as a strong sovereign state that sets its own course without the constraints of alliances and based
on its own military might.
The incredible thing is how a man with such poor communication skills, a man who does not read much came to such an integrated
vision that outstrips the conceptual abilities of his enemies, his friends and everyone in between.
We are tempted to look for a mentor, and one who comes to mind is Steve Bannon, who is very articulate, razor-sharp in his intellect
and who provided Trump with much of the domestic content of his 2016 campaign from the alt right playbook. And though Bannon publicly
broke with Trump in their falling out over his ever diminishing role in the Administration, Bannon's ongoing project, in particular
his Movement to influence European politics and shift it to the Right by coordinating activities across the Continent during the
parliamentary elections of May 2019, very closely parallel what Trump's ambassador in Berlin seems to be doing in Trump's name.
It may well be that the President and his confidantes find it prudent for him to play the hapless fool, the clueless disrupter
of the global political landscape until he has the support in Congress to roll out the new foreign policy that is now in gestation.
The logical consequence of such a Realist approach to foreign policy will be to reach an understanding with the world's other
two principal military powers, Russia and China, regarding respective spheres of influence in their geographic proximity. But I do
not believe we will see a G-3 succeeding America's unipolar moment. Given the predispositions of both Russia and China, we are more
likely to see a broader board of governors of global policy in the form of the G-20, ushering in the multipolar age. In such a formulation,
regional conflicts will be settled locally by the interested parties and with the major powers involved only as facilitators, not
parties to conflict. That promises a much more stable and peaceful future, something which none of Donald Trump's detractors can
begin to imagine as his legacy.
The shift will be to hybrids - not fully-electric. I don't know of ANY country that has
the infrastructure, let alone the electrical production capacity, to cover the needs of
all-electric vehicles.
Fossil fuelled vehicles will be with us for a LONG time to come.
Somehow the Saudis don't strike me as people who buy a.non gasoline car manufacturer
invested in a solar city failure for a pumped up price and ever postponed profits and barely
met production promises with faulty cars factory gated.
gjohnsit on Sun, 08/12/2018 - 3:04pm Stocks have been on a record run. The S&P
500 is near all-time highs, while
NASDAQ is doing even better.
But appearances are deceiving.
Six stocks account for 98% of the S&P 500 Index's advance from the July low, according to
Bloomberg. That's right, 98%!
Those six stocks are (no big surprise here): Facebook FB, -1.55% Amazon AMZN, -0.64% Apple
AAPL, -0.30% Netflix NFLX, -1.00% Google GOOG, -0.92% GOOGL, -0.95% and Microsoft MSFT,
-0.61% Let's call them FAANG+M.
The recent gains in the general stock market hide two glaring weaknesses, both of those
weaknesses involve concentration
.
The American stock market has been shrinking. It's been happening in slow motion -- so slow
you may not even have noticed. But by now the change is unmistakable: The market is half the
size of its mid-1990s peak, and 25 percent smaller than it was in 1976.
...When I say "shrinking," I'm using a specific definition: the reduction in the number of
publicly traded companies on exchanges in the United States. In the mid-1990s, there were
more than 8,000 of them. By 2016, there were only 3,627, according to data from the Center
for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Because the population of the United States has grown nearly 50 percent since 1976, the
drop is even starker on a per-capita basis: There were 23 publicly listed companies for every
million people in 1975, but only 11 in 2016, according to Professor Stulz.
Fewer and fewer companies makes it harder for investors to diversify. It also means there
are fewer and fewer small companies, leaving the economy more and more dominated by
behemoths.
However, there is another hidden weakness here that is even more alarming.
Profits are increasingly concentrated in the cluster of giants -- with Apple at the forefront
-- that dominate the market. For a far larger assortment of smaller companies, though, profit
is often out of reach. In 2015, for example, the top 200 companies by earnings accounted for
all of the profits in the stock market, according to calculations by Kathleen Kahle, a
professor of finance at the University of Arizona, and Professor Stulz. In aggregate, the
remaining 3,281 publicly listed companies lost money.
In theory, as a shareholder, you are entitled to a piece of a company's future earnings.
That's one of the main arguments for buying stock in the first place. But the reality is that
you often are buying a piece of a money-losing proposition. Aside from the top 200 companies,
the rest of the market, as a whole, is burning, not earning, money .
I think that is mind-blowing. Even a majority of the S&P 500 are money losers.
Netflix, for example, loses money constantly despite being a member of the elite FAANG.
So when the media talks about record earnings, keep in mind that the corporate world has
even more inequality than society in general.
All of those corporations losing money means that they must cover expenses with borrowing,
and that leads us to a looming
crisis .
Much has been made of the degradation of the $7.5 trillion U.S. corporate debt market. High
yield offers too little, well, yield. And "high grade" now requires air quotes to account for
the growing dominance of bonds rated BBB, which is the lowest rung on the investment-grade
ladder before dropping into "junk" status. And then there's the massive market for leveraged
loans, where covenants protecting investors have all but disappeared.
How does that break down? Corporate bonds rated BBB now total $2.56 trillion, having
surpassed in size the sum of higher-rated debentures, which total $2.55 trillion, according
to Morgan Stanley. Put another way, BBB bonds outstanding exceed by 50 percent the size of
the entire investment grade market at the peak of the last credit boom, in 2007.
But aren't they still investment grade? At little to no risk of default? In 2000, when BBB
bonds were a mere third of the market, net leverage (total debt minus cash and short term
investments divided by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) was
1.7 times. By the end of last year, the ratio had ballooned to 2.9 times.
Yield for these "investment grade" corporate bonds is extremely low, which means prices are
extremely high, even while these companies lose money hand over fist.
I believe there is a name
for that.
Even the few money-making companies are borrowing because interest rates have been so
cheap.
The problem is what they are
doing with that cash.
Welcome to the Buyback Economy. Today's economic boom is driven not by any great burst of
innovation or growth in productivity. Rather, it is driven by another round of financial
engineering that converts equity into debt. It sacrifices future growth for present
consumption. And it redistributes even more of the nation's wealth to corporate executives,
wealthy investors and Wall Street financiers
Corporate executives and directors are apparently bereft of ideas and the confidence to
make long-term investments. Rather than using record profits, and record amounts of borrowed
money, to invest in new plants and equipment, develop new products, improve service, lower
prices or raise the wages and skills of their employees, they are "returning" that money to
shareholders. Corporate America, in effect, has transformed itself into one giant leveraged
buyout.
Last year, public companies spent more than $800 billion buying back their own shares and,
thanks to all the cash freed up by the recent tax bill, Goldman Sachs estimates that share
buybacks will surge to $1.2 trillion this year. That comes at a time when share prices are at
an all-time high -- so companies are buying at the top -- and when a growing global economy
offers the best opportunity to expand into new products and new markets. This is nothing
short of corporate malpractice.
It amazes me how no one is talking about reforming Corporate America.
It seems obvious that corporate culture is toxic, predatory, and working against the interests
of the country.
Have people forgotten that we can change the rules on how corporations function?
There is simply no good reason why we can't make corporations more democratic and more
responsive to the people of this nation.
New Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the US spiked 63% year-over-year in March to 770 filings, the
highest number of filings for any month since April 2011 (when there had been 789 filings as
companies were still trying to emerge from the Great Recession).
sounds good, sign me up. What tools do I need to fix this thing? I've woodworking, metal
smithing, electrical, plumbing, landscaping, trench warfare, roofing, brain numb chucks,
plows, psychic voodoo and a few special chemicals. I'll meet you at the source. I'm the lady
with a big back pack and passion in her eyes.
The mainstream media used to report the outrageous salaries and lavish lifestyles of CEOs.
How long has it been since we've heard about a $6000 shower curtain or
$30 million yearly compensation? (spoiler alert--Aug. 2002) When financial regulations were
weakened during the Clinton and Bush administrations, the banks were bailed out in 2008,
Obama supported the status quo, and Trump and the Republicans are gutting Frank-Dodd, there's
little incentive for Corporate America to change. The best predictor of future behavior is
past behavior.
For equity valuations to avoid reverting closer to a historical average these will be
required to at least maintain their current pace of buying. Most importantly, record
corporate stock buyback activity will be required to continue to make up for the
demographic headwind to equity valuations.
The question of, "Who will baby boomers have to sell to?" is about more than just real
estate. It's also about equities. The Fed has estimated that over the coming years
demographic trends could mean the stock market reverts to a price-to-earnings ratio of 8
versus 24 today. Without record stock buyback activity or radical central bank intervention
this outcome becomes a near certainty.
@gjohnsit
China. The one thing they really need from us is space. The developed coast of China is
incredibly crowded.
And, indeed, Chinese investors are recycling dollars buying real estate.
For equity valuations to avoid reverting closer to a historical average these will
be required to at least maintain their current pace of buying. Most importantly, record
corporate stock buyback activity will be required to continue to make up for the
demographic headwind to equity valuations.
The question of, "Who will baby boomers have to sell to?" is about more than just
real estate. It's also about equities. The Fed has estimated that over the coming years
demographic trends could mean the stock market reverts to a price-to-earnings ratio of
8 versus 24 today. Without record stock buyback activity or radical central bank
intervention this outcome becomes a near certainty.
There are plenty of overvalued companies, and Apple is only the most ridiculous because
of the combination of the transcendent hugeness of its valuation and the cultish devotion
of its most avid consumers, who respond to the company's ever-blander aesthetic like John
Ruskin swooning over 19th-century Venice. But we should worry when whole trillion-dollar
pieces of our economies are effectively make-believe, when, as was the case in 2007-2008
and in the dot-com blowup before that, a small spark of panic anywhere can swiftly cause a
run on the whole rickety thing.
Tesla comes to mind as well. They lose money on every car they sell.
I thought this piece expressed much of the problem pretty well... as did yours. Economies
falter as empires collapse don't they?
@Lookout
Apple has a huge valuation, but also huge earnings. Estimated P/E for 2018 is between 17 and
18. I agree that there is probably more downside risk than upside potential, but they at
least make huge profits so you can argue that the capitalization is reasonable. Some of these
other companies (Tesla being perhaps the most extreme example) make huge losses and it's not
clear how they will become profitable.
It amazes me how no one is talking about reforming Corporate America.
There are plenty of overvalued companies, and Apple is only the most ridiculous
because of the combination of the transcendent hugeness of its valuation and the
cultish devotion of its most avid consumers, who respond to the company's ever-blander
aesthetic like John Ruskin swooning over 19th-century Venice. But we should worry when
whole trillion-dollar pieces of our economies are effectively make-believe, when, as
was the case in 2007-2008 and in the dot-com blowup before that, a small spark of panic
anywhere can swiftly cause a run on the whole rickety thing.
Tesla comes to mind as well. They lose money on every car they sell.
I thought this piece expressed much of the problem pretty well... as did yours.
Economies falter as empires collapse don't they?
"It amazes me how no one is talking about reforming Corporate America.
It seems obvious that corporate culture is toxic, predatory, and working against the
interests of the country.
Have people forgotten that we can change the rules on how corporations function?"
There has been plenty of talk of change. As long as congress remais a wholly owned
subsidiary, options will be few.
"It amazes me how no one is talking about reforming Corporate America.
It seems obvious that corporate culture is toxic, predatory, and working against the
interests of the country.
Have people forgotten that we can change the rules on how corporations function?"
There has been plenty of talk of change. As long as congress remais a wholly owned
subsidiary, options will be few.
what several companies could do instead of buying the stock back.
Supposedly, McDonalds could give each of their employees $4,000.00, and other companies
could pay up to $22,000 per employee ! It may have even been higher, but I can't recall the
details.
These corporate pigs simply refuse to pay employees. I'm all for making that form of
company illegal. They depend on financial engineering, their products frequently suck, and
they now have monopolistic powers.
@dfarrah
If stock prices are too low, a reverse split is the answer.
However, stock buybacks are used to produce artificial results to boost bonuses.
If a company has too much money and nothing to do with it, it should issue taxable
dividends.
what several companies could do instead of buying the stock back.
Supposedly, McDonalds could give each of their employees $4,000.00, and other
companies could pay up to $22,000 per employee ! It may have even been higher, but I
can't recall the details.
These corporate pigs simply refuse to pay employees. I'm all for making that form of
company illegal. They depend on financial engineering, their products frequently suck,
and they now have monopolistic powers.
Google (Alphabet), for example, has three types of stock. Google type C confers no voting
rights and pays no dividends. So you are buying part of a company when you buy Google C, but
the only way you get your money back or make a profit is if someone buys it from you and you
have no say in what the company does. The stock really has no intrinsic value. At least with
dividend paying stocks, you get cash and if the company grows you get more cash.
Many stocks are simply a con game Google (Alphabet), for example, has three types of
stock. Google type C confers no voting rights and pays no dividends. So you are buying part
of a company when you buy Google C, but the only way you get your money back or make a
profit is if someone buys it from you and you have no say in what the company does. The
stock really has no intrinsic value. At least with dividend paying stocks, you get cash and
if the company grows you get more cash.
That doesn't sound like a Google C share represents anything whatsoever at all.
And all speculation-only stocks (like Google C) are cons......
Google (Alphabet), for example, has three types of stock. Google type C confers no
voting rights and pays no dividends. So you are buying part of a company when you buy
Google C, but the only way you get your money back or make a profit is if someone buys it
from you and you have no say in what the company does. The stock really has no intrinsic
value. At least with dividend paying stocks, you get cash and if the company grows you
get more cash.
According to Critical
Thinking at the Free School in London, there are three structural flaws that must be
fixed before any new approach can work. (More on that below.) Every year they publish an ever
more refined roadmap to restructuring the global monetary system and transforming the
political economy.
This is their latest paper and I think it is very good with novel ideas that we never talk
about:
They are an evidence-based think tank, which is unusual in a world filled with
ideological-based think tanks. Critical Thinking offers a free education in monetary policy.
They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in which money
operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When people are able to
see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Excerpt from the article, inked above:
The Structural Elite is comprised of banking and industrial dynasties, European royalty,
those in charge of the "military industrial – media academic complex" (MIMAC),
political and economic predators and the super-rich.
Underpinning the political economy are three fundamental flaws which shape it and create
the global and domestic problems we suffer today:
• Institutional hierarchy.
• Denial of access to the commons.
• Usury.
::
Surplus food facilitated specialization from which emerged institutional
hierarchy ; activities became less communal, non-hierarchical and amateur, evolving
into a stratified pyramid of wealth and power administered by a professional, technocratic
class serving the interests of the Structural Elite at the apex.
Nowhere is specialization more significant than among the technocratic, political class
which creates laws to shape the evolving political economy to benefit the Structural Elite
controlling the other levers of power. It matters not whether we are governed by theocracy,
monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, Soviet/ Chinese communism or representative democracy,
the end result is the same because farming humans is much more profitable than livestock or
crops.
::
Once hierarchy became established, the ruling classes, initially priests who controlled
the harvest, began to colonize not just the harvest but land and other resources. Over
time, through conquest, enclosures, and privatization, more and more of the commons
have been appropriated for the benefit of the Structural Elite, denying the rest of
humanity the means to life unless we enter a Faustian pact with the abusive, oppressive and
destructive political economy.
Land and resources are the most obvious commons that have been appropriated but there
are others such as the radio spectrum or knowledge which has been increasingly monetized
and restricted through intellectual property rights, denying humanity our birthright.
To survive, we have to work like domesticated animals but the number of real jobs is
diminishing while the population demanding the means to life is growing.
::
Although the first two flaws created inequality, usury or interest on money
is the wealth transfer mechanism on steroids that drives inequality today. It is also the
means by which banking dynasties have accumulated vast wealth and power. Interest is the
invisible wrecking machine at the heart of the economic system.
The interest-based economy demands exponential growth which has potentially fatal
consequences. Interest drives unsustainable debt growth creating bubbles followed by
collapse. All because we give money a "time value" through interest. We need a monetary
system which conforms to natural law, a system which is not about growth per se but which
delivers prosperity, justice, and freedom.
They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in which money
operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When people are able to
see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Were i to draft a simple essay tomorrow proposing a contest in which the winner is the
person or person's combined who creatively replace the word oligarch in all its meaning,
either by another word--unknown to be at this writing--or a short phrase that could transform
the meaning of oligarch to language that everyone could and would immediately understand;
comprehend?
Suggest leaving a thread open for a week so many c99ers could have fun and
participate.
Best phrase or word wins tickets to the hearts of mankind's "in need of help
production."
Silly or go for it?
Think ... what would Edward Bernays come up with?
According to Critical
Thinking at the Free School in London, there are three structural flaws that must be
fixed before any new approach can work. (More on that below.) Every year they publish an
ever more refined roadmap to restructuring the global monetary system and transforming
the political economy.
This is their latest paper and I think it is very good with novel ideas that we never
talk about:
They are an evidence-based think tank, which is unusual in a world filled with
ideological-based think tanks. Critical Thinking offers a free education in monetary
policy. They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in
which money operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When
people are able to see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Excerpt from the article, inked above:
The Structural Elite is comprised of banking and industrial dynasties, European
royalty, those in charge of the "military industrial – media academic complex"
(MIMAC), political and economic predators and the super-rich.
Underpinning the political economy are three fundamental flaws which shape it and
create the global and domestic problems we suffer today:
• Institutional hierarchy.
• Denial of access to the commons.
• Usury.
::
Surplus food facilitated specialization from which emerged institutional
hierarchy ; activities became less communal, non-hierarchical and amateur,
evolving into a stratified pyramid of wealth and power administered by a professional,
technocratic class serving the interests of the Structural Elite at the apex.
Nowhere is specialization more significant than among the technocratic, political
class which creates laws to shape the evolving political economy to benefit the
Structural Elite controlling the other levers of power. It matters not whether we are
governed by theocracy, monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, Soviet/ Chinese communism or
representative democracy, the end result is the same because farming humans is much
more profitable than livestock or crops.
::
Once hierarchy became established, the ruling classes, initially priests who
controlled the harvest, began to colonize not just the harvest but land and other
resources. Over time, through conquest, enclosures, and privatization, more and more of
the commons have been appropriated for the benefit of the Structural Elite,
denying the rest of humanity the means to life unless we enter a Faustian pact with the
abusive, oppressive and destructive political economy.
Land and resources are the most obvious commons that have been appropriated but
there are others such as the radio spectrum or knowledge which has been increasingly
monetized and restricted through intellectual property rights, denying humanity our
birthright.
To survive, we have to work like domesticated animals but the number of real jobs is
diminishing while the population demanding the means to life is growing.
::
Although the first two flaws created inequality, usury or interest on
money is the wealth transfer mechanism on steroids that drives inequality today.
It is also the means by which banking dynasties have accumulated vast wealth and power.
Interest is the invisible wrecking machine at the heart of the economic system.
The interest-based economy demands exponential growth which has potentially fatal
consequences. Interest drives unsustainable debt growth creating bubbles followed by
collapse. All because we give money a "time value" through interest. We need a monetary
system which conforms to natural law, a system which is not about growth per se but
which delivers prosperity, justice, and freedom.
They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in which
money operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When people
are able to see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Were i to draft a simple essay tomorrow proposing a contest in which the winner is the
person or person's combined who creatively replace the word oligarch in all its meaning,
either by another word--unknown to be at this writing--or a short phrase that could
transform the meaning of oligarch to language that everyone could and would immediately
understand; comprehend?
Suggest leaving a thread open for a week so many c99ers could have fun and
participate.
Best phrase or word wins tickets to the hearts of mankind's "in need of help
production."
They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in which
money operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When people
are able to see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Were i to draft a simple essay tomorrow proposing a contest in which the winner is the
person or person's combined who creatively replace the word oligarch in all its meaning,
either by another word--unknown to be at this writing--or a short phrase that could
transform the meaning of oligarch to language that everyone could and would immediately
understand; comprehend?
Suggest leaving a thread open for a week so many c99ers could have fun and
participate.
Best phrase or word wins tickets to the hearts of mankind's "in need of help
production."
According to Critical
Thinking at the Free School in London, there are three structural flaws that must be
fixed before any new approach can work. (More on that below.) Every year they publish an
ever more refined roadmap to restructuring the global monetary system and transforming
the political economy.
This is their latest paper and I think it is very good with novel ideas that we never
talk about:
They are an evidence-based think tank, which is unusual in a world filled with
ideological-based think tanks. Critical Thinking offers a free education in monetary
policy. They believe that it is essential for the People to understand the context in
which money operates; who controls money, and who controls the levers of power. When
people are able to see it for what it does, they will have the power to transform it.
Excerpt from the article, inked above:
The Structural Elite is comprised of banking and industrial dynasties, European
royalty, those in charge of the "military industrial – media academic complex"
(MIMAC), political and economic predators and the super-rich.
Underpinning the political economy are three fundamental flaws which shape it and
create the global and domestic problems we suffer today:
• Institutional hierarchy.
• Denial of access to the commons.
• Usury.
::
Surplus food facilitated specialization from which emerged institutional
hierarchy ; activities became less communal, non-hierarchical and amateur,
evolving into a stratified pyramid of wealth and power administered by a professional,
technocratic class serving the interests of the Structural Elite at the apex.
Nowhere is specialization more significant than among the technocratic, political
class which creates laws to shape the evolving political economy to benefit the
Structural Elite controlling the other levers of power. It matters not whether we are
governed by theocracy, monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, Soviet/ Chinese communism or
representative democracy, the end result is the same because farming humans is much
more profitable than livestock or crops.
::
Once hierarchy became established, the ruling classes, initially priests who
controlled the harvest, began to colonize not just the harvest but land and other
resources. Over time, through conquest, enclosures, and privatization, more and more of
the commons have been appropriated for the benefit of the Structural Elite,
denying the rest of humanity the means to life unless we enter a Faustian pact with the
abusive, oppressive and destructive political economy.
Land and resources are the most obvious commons that have been appropriated but
there are others such as the radio spectrum or knowledge which has been increasingly
monetized and restricted through intellectual property rights, denying humanity our
birthright.
To survive, we have to work like domesticated animals but the number of real jobs is
diminishing while the population demanding the means to life is growing.
::
Although the first two flaws created inequality, usury or interest on
money is the wealth transfer mechanism on steroids that drives inequality today.
It is also the means by which banking dynasties have accumulated vast wealth and power.
Interest is the invisible wrecking machine at the heart of the economic system.
The interest-based economy demands exponential growth which has potentially fatal
consequences. Interest drives unsustainable debt growth creating bubbles followed by
collapse. All because we give money a "time value" through interest. We need a monetary
system which conforms to natural law, a system which is not about growth per se but
which delivers prosperity, justice, and freedom.
(Joseph Campbell mucked this all up in retelling it)
The word mukha in Sanskrit refers to the face while kīrti means "fame, glory". The
story of Kirtimukha begins when a great king Jalandhara, who "by virtue of extraordinary
austerities ... accumulated to himself irresistible powers."[2] In a burst of pride, he sent
forth his messenger, the monster Rahu, whose main task is eclipsing the moon, to challenge
Shiva. "The challenge ... was that Shiva should give up his shining jewel of a bride
[Parvati]."[3] Shiva's immediate answer was to explode a tremendous burst of power from his
third eye, which created a horrendous, emaciated, ravenous lion. A terrified Rahu sought
Shiva's mercy, which Shiva agreed to. But how then were they to feed the ravenous demon lion?
"Shiva suggested that the monster should feed on the flesh of its own feet and hands."[4] So
Kirtimukha willingly ate his body starting with its tail as per Lord Shiva's order, stopping
only when his face remained. Shiva, who was pleased with the result gave it the name Face of
Glory and declared that it should always be at the door of his temples. Thus Kirtimukha is a
symbol of Shiva himself.
The point, of course, is that consuming yourself to feed yourself is self-defeating.
Sunday, August 12, 2018Back That A$$et Up ... From the first sentence of
Michael Sproul's There's No Such Thing as Fiat Money (2007) :
I make the claim that fiat money does not exist, and that the money that is commonly called
fiat money is actually backed by the assets of its issuer.
Who would argue against the premise that modern currencies are backed by the
issuer's assets? The questions that remain are: How broad a definition of "assets" is being
considered? And does "asset backing" justifiably negate the meaning of "fiat", or is this mere
semantics?
In any event, I would counter argue that the meaning of "fiat" is possibly in need of
clarification. And such clarification would then allow for the sensible conclusion that fiat
money does indeed exist. Sproul's premise is a good launch pad for clarifying just what it is
that backs the US Dollar.
Many have said that the US military "backs" the dollar. And indeed, the US Deep State and
its Military Industrial Corporatist alliance represents a huge investment in strategic
worldwide military deployment. That investment is an asset, and it does in part back the
dollar. There are other factors, that are considered in the foreign exchange marketplace, and
there are varying opinions as to which factors bear such weight upon the prime factor :
relative changes in purchasing power. As we have discussed before, usage is a considerable factor in determining a
currency's relative purchasing power, which in turn supports further usage, in a circular
fashion. In times past, there were set fundamentals that established relative fiat currency
exchange value: the country's stability, its industrial base, trade practices and metrics,
population demographics and economic condition, debt to GDP, and so on.
As our real world has progressed into a world of derivative statistic and valuation, through
the rise of financialization, those fundamental factors have evolved to include other factors
that are brought to bear upon a modern digital currency's backing.
Does the depth of a currency in global derivative positions act as a form of backing?
This is a factor which did not exist prior to the existence of derivatives. Does that depth not
guarantee further usage, and that further usage not create greater depth? Does the currency
function successfully as a systemic weapon against other currency issuers? Again, relatively
recent dollar era phenomena.
But there is an incredibly powerful, hugely overlooked factor which begins only around 2008,
which backs the US dollar. I will tell you now that it is the US Government's control
over its people which gives the US dollar the largest share of "asset backing" of any
other factor under consideration - in the FX market and otherwise.
When the US Government publicly bailed out the global banking system and made the
American people the guarantor of that bailout, an incredible precedent was set. It proved to
the families that the issuer of the US Dollar could obligate its tax base to an unrepayable
debt, and that tax base would neither understand, nor care enough about the consequences of
that precedent ... to stand up and fight against the fraud and thievery that keeps the 99% in
perpetual bondage, and the 1% in a risk free position to do as they please.
The issuer has proven to generational wealth that it can divert the attention of the tax
base from the world's most egregious robbery, and do it again every so often, including to
other middle classes who hold wealth, as it moves from country to country. And they will do so
in equally powerful police states, combined with well developed welfare states, as the fiat
wealth concept manages the debt slaves of any culture, keeping them pacified under the doctrine
of "debt as wealth".
You will watch in amazement as China eventually "becomes" the USA in this regard. To the
North, there is one proud people, who thrive on the adversity which shapes their strong
cultural identity - who will be a thorn in the dollar's side - but they will be dealt with, as
opportunity allows.
This modern state of affairs is an incredible asset which the global corporatist banking
cartel (the BIS led global central banking system) has endowed upon the US Dollar - and it's
rival issuers are part and parcel to that system. Until China, India and Russia's central banks
(along with their strategic but smaller allied CBs) achieve a true Coup d'etat (either publicly
- or more likely privately) and begin to act independently from BIS mandate, the world's middle
classes will never have any enduring prosperity - only the fleeting type that comes with
targeted booms, busts and the fraud and bailouts they enable.
Much more importantly ... that Coup will NEVER HAPPEN as long as the American people agree
to the dollar contract they are so deeply sworn to. Americans have been taught to accept the
double standard they now live by. They can default on debt and lose everything they own, but
their lenders can never default - they will be bailed out by whatever wealth remains. There is
no other society on earth who have been so culturally conditioned to accept slavery and
socialism as the generation of Americans whose OBEDIENCE backs the dollar today. That
compliance, coupled with contempt for the wealth of their fellow man, and the social justice
herd mentality, makes the family's smile with exceeding confidence ... that this dollar empire
can milk much more middle class wealth across the globe as it spreads its "debt as wealth"
religion even further into systemic entrenchment.
And this Trump fellow. He and Wilbur are doing well to earn the trust of generational
wealth.
An unexpected wildcard can always be drawn, including an international war. But the
Roacheforque's will profit from war as well - nonetheless, and just the same. Generational
wealth aways profits from the spread of global corporatism, as they are both the authors and
benefactors of it.
This we learn ... from the flower of understanding.
This is ,of course, hypothesis by Eric Zuesse, and the idea that the USA elite decided to
abandon EU elite is somewhat questionable, but some of his consideration are interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... Yeah, its the defense contractors. It has nothing to do with the zillions of cars that clog every fucking freeway in this country every morning and every evening, 7 days a week. Its not the assholes cruising around in monster trucks alone, just to show off their stupid trucks. It has nothing to do with the the zillions of jets screaming through the skies carry all those fat assholes to meetings all over the world for no reason. It has nothing to do with the billions of barrels of oil that come to the US on tankers as long as city blocks filled constantly day and night. ..."
The following is entirely from open online sources that I have been finding to be
trustworthy on these matters in the past. These sources will be linked-to here; none of this
information is secret, even though some details in my resulting analysis of it will be entirely
new.
It explains how and why the bottom-line difference between Donald Trump and Barack Obama,
regarding US national security policies, turns out to be their different respective estimations
of the biggest danger threatening the maintenance of the US dollar as the world's leading or
reserve currency. This has been the overriding foreign-policy concern for both Presidents .
Obama placed as being the top threat to the dollar, a breakaway of the EU (America's largest
market both for exports and for imports) from alliance with the United States. He was
internationally a Europhile. Trump, however, places as being the top threat to the dollar, a
breakaway of Saudi Arabia and of the other Gulf Arab oil monarchies from the U.S. Trump is
internationally a Sunni-phile: specifically a protector of fundamentalist Sunni monarchs -- but
especially of the Sauds themselves --
and they hate Shia and especially the
main Shia nation, Iran .
Here's how that change, to Saudi Arabia as being America's main ally, has happened --
actually it's a culmination of decades. Trump is merely the latest part of that process of
change. Here is from the US State Department's official
historian , regarding this history:
By the 1960s, a surplus of US dollars caused by foreign aid, military spending, and
foreign investment threatened this system [the FDR-established 1944 Bretton Woods gold-based US dollar as
the world's reserve currency ], as the United States did not have enough gold to cover
the volume of dollars in worldwide circulation at the rate of $35 per ounce; as a result, the
dollar was overvalued. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson adopted a series of
measures to support the dollar and sustain Bretton Woods: foreign investment disincentives;
restrictions on foreign lending; efforts to stem the official outflow of dollars;
international monetary reform; and cooperation with other countries. Nothing worked.
Meanwhile, traders in foreign exchange markets, believing that the dollar's overvaluation
would one day compel the US government to devalue it, proved increasingly inclined to sell
dollars. This resulted in periodic runs on the dollar.
It was just such a run on the dollar, along with mounting evidence that the overvalued
dollar was undermining the nation's foreign trading position, which prompted President
Richard M. Nixon to act, on August 13, 1971 [to end the convertibility of dollars to
gold].
When Nixon ended
the gold-basis of the dollar and then in 1974 secretly switched to the current oil-basis,
this transformation of the dollar's backing, from gold to oil, was intended to enable the
debt-financing (as opposed to the tax-financing, which is less acceptable to voters) of
whatever military expenditure would be necessary in order to satisfy the profit-needs of
Lockheed Corporation and of the other US manufacturers whose only markets are the US Government
and its allied governments, as well as of US extractive industries such as oil and mining
firms, which rely heavily upon access to foreign natural resources, as well as of Wall Street
and its need for selling debt and keeping interest-rates down (and stock-prices -- and
therefore aristocrats' wealth -- high and rtising).
This new system didn't only supply a constant flow of Saudi tax-money to the US Government;
it supplied a constant flow of new sales-orders and profits to the military firms that were
increasingly coming to control the US Government -- for the benefit of both aristocracies: the
Sauds, and America's billionaires.
That was near the end of the FDR-produced 37-year period of US democratic leadership of the
world, the era that had started at Bretton Woods in 1944. It came crashing to an end not in
1974 (which was step two after the 1971 step one had ended the 1944 system) but on the day when
Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981. The shockingly sudden ascent, from that moment
on, of US federal Government debt (to be paid-off by future generations instead of by current
taxpayers) is shown, right here, in a graph
of "US Federal Debt as Percent of GDP, 1940-2015" , where you can see that the debt had
peaked above 90% of GDP late in WW II between 1944-1948 , and then plunged during Bretton
Woods, but in 1981 it started ascending yet again, until reaching that WW II peak for a second
time, as it has been ever since 2010 , when Obama bailed-out the mega-banks and their
mega-clients, but didn't bail out the American public, whose finances had been destroyed by
those banksters' frauds, which Obama refused to prosecute; and, so, economic inequality in
America got even more extreme after the 2008 George W. Bush crash, instead of less extreme
afterward (as had always happened in the past).
Above 90% debt/GDP during and immediately following WW II was sound policy, but America's
going again above 90% since 2010 has reflected simply an aristocratic heist of America, for
only the aristocracy's benefit -- all of the benefits going only to the super-rich.
Another, and
more-current US graph shows that, as of the first quarter of 2018, this percentage
(debt/GDP) is, yet again, back now to its previous all-time record high of 105-120%%, which had
been reached only in 1945-1947 (when it was justified by the war).
But can the US Government's extreme misallocation of wealth, from the public to the
insiders, continue without turning this country into a much bigger version of today's Greece?
More and more people around the world are worrying about that. Of course, Greece didn't have
the world's reserve currency, but what would happen to the net worths of America's billionaires
if billionaires worldwide were to lose faith in the dollar? Consequently, there's intensified
Presidential worrying about how much longer foreign investors will continue to trust the
oil-based dollar.
America's political class now have two competing ideas to deal with this danger , Obama's
versus Trump's, both being about how to preserve the dollar in a way that best serves the needs
of 'defense' contractors, extractive firms, and Wall Street. Obama chose Europe (America's
largest market) as America's chief ally (he was Euro-centric against Russia); Trump chose the
owner of Saudi Arabia (he's Saudi-Israeli centric against Iran) -- that's the world's largest
weapons-purchaser, as well as the world's largest producer of oil (as well as the largest
lobbies) .
The Saudi King owns Saudi Arabia, including the world's largest and most valuable oil
company, Aramco, whose oil is the "sweetest" -- the least expensive to extract and refine --
and is also the most abundant, in all of the world, and so he can sell petroleum at a profit
even when his competitors cannot. Oil-prices that are so low as to cause economic losses for
other oil companies, can still be generating profits -- albeit lowered ones -- for King Saud;
and this is the reason why his decisions determine how much the global oil-spigot will be
turned on, and how low the global oil-price will be, at any given time. He controls the value
of the US dollar. He controls it far more directly, and far more effectively, than the EU can.
It would be like, under the old FDR-era Bretton Woods system, controlling the exchange-rates of
the dollar, by raising or lowering the amount of gold produced. But this is liquid gold, and
King Saud determines its price.
Furthermore, King Saud also leads the Gulf Cooperation Council of all other Arab oil
monarchs, such as those who own UAE -- all of them are likewise US allies and major
weapons-buyers.
In an extraordinarily fine recent article by Pepe Escobar at Asia Times, "Oil
and gas geopolitics: no shelter from the storm" , he quotes from his not-for-attribution
interviews with "EU diplomats," and reports:
After the Trump administration's unilateral pull-out from the Iran nuclear deal, known as
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), European Union diplomats in Brussels, off the
record, and still in shock, admit that they blundered by not "configuring the eurozone as
distinct and separate to the dollar hegemony". Now they may be made to pay the price of their
impotence via their "outlawed" trade with Iran.
As admitted, never on the record, by experts in Brussels; the EU has got to reevaluate its
strategic alliance with an essentially energy independent US, as "we are risking all our
energy resources over their Halford Mackinder geopolitical analysis that they must break up
[the alliance between] Russia and China."
That's a direct reference to the late Mackinder epigone Zbigniew "Grand Chessboard"
Brzezinski, who died dreaming of turning China against Russia.
In Brussels, there's increased recognition that US pressure on Iran, Russia and China is
out of geopolitical fear the entire Eurasian land mass, organized as a super-trading bloc via
the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), [and] the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), is
slipping away from Washington's influence.
This analysis gets closer to how the three key nodes of 21st century Eurasia integration
-- Russia, China and Iran -- have identified the key issue; both the euro and the yuan must
bypass the petrodollar, the ideal means, as the Chinese stress, to "end the oscillation
between strong and weak dollar cycles, which has been so profitable for US financial
institutions, but lethal to emerging markets."
It's also no secret among Persian Gulf traders that in the -- hopefully unlikely -- event
of a US-Saudi-Israeli war in Southwest Asia against Iran, a real scenario war-gamed by the
Pentagon would be "the destruction of oil wells in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council]. The
Strait of Hormuz does not have to be blocked, as destroying the oil wells would be far more
effective."
And what the potential loss of over 20% of the world's oil supply would mean is
terrifying; the implosion, with unforeseen consequences, of the quadrillion derivatives
pyramid, and consequentially [consequently] of the entire Western financial casino
superstructure.
In other words: it's not the 'threat' that perhaps, some day, Iran will have nuclear
warheads, that is actually driving Trump's concern here (despite what Israel's concerns are
about that matter), but instead, it is his concerns about Iran's missiles, which constitute the
delivery-system for any Iranian warheads: that their flight-range be short enough so that the Sauds will be
outside their range . (The main way Iran intends to respond to an invasion backed by the
US, is to attack Saudi Arabia -- Iran's leaders know that the US Government is more dependent
upon the Sauds than upon Israel -- so, Iran's top targets would be Saudi capital Riyadh, and
also the Ghawar oil field, which holds over half of Saudi oil. If US bases have been used in
the invasion, then all US bases in the Middle East are also be within the range
of Iran's missiles and therefore would also probably be targeted.)
Obama's deal with Iran had focused solely upon preventing Iran from developing nuclear
warheads -- which Obama perhaps thought (mistakenly) would dampen Israel's (and its billionaire
US financial backers') ardor for the US to conquer Iran. Israel had publicly said that their
concern was Iran's possibility to become a nuclear power like Israel became; those possible
future warheads were supposed to be the issue; but, apparently, that wasn't actually the issue
which really drove Israel. Obama seems to have thought that it was, but it wasn't, actually.
Israel, like the Sauds, want Iran conquered. Simple. The nuclear matter was more an excuse than
an explanation.
With Trump now in the White House, overwhelmingly by money from the Israel lobbies (proxies
also for the Sauds) -- and with no equivalently organized Jewish opposition to the pro -Israel
lobbies (and so in the United States, for a person to be anti-Israel is viewed as being
anti-Semitic, which is not at all true, but Israel's lies say it's true and many Americans
unfortunately believe it) -- Trump has not only the Sauds and their allies requiring him to be
against Iran and its allies, but he has also got this pressure coming from Israel: both the
Big-Oil and the Jewish lobbies drive him. Unlike Obama, who wasn't as indebted to the Jewish
lobbies, Trump needs to walk the plank for both the Sauds and Israel.
In other words: Trump aims to keep the dollar as the reserve currency by suppressing not
only China but also the two main competitors of King Saud: Iran and Russia. That's why
America's main 'enemies' now are those three countries and their respective allies.
Obama was likewise targeting them, but in a different priority-order , with Russia being the
main one (thus Obama's takeover
of Ukraine in February 2014 turning it against Russia, next door ); and that difference was
due to Obama's desire to be favorably viewed by the residents in America's biggest export and
import market, the EU, and so his bringing another member (Ukraine) into the EU (which still
hasn't yet been culminated).
Trump is instead building on his alliance with King Saud and the other GCC monarchs, a group
who can more directly cooperate to control the value of the US dollar than the EU can.
Furthermore, both conservative (including Orthodox) Jews in the United States, and also white
evangelical Protestants in the US, are strongly supportive of Israel, which likewise sides with
the Arab oil monarchs against Iran and its allies. Trump needs these people's votes.
Trump also sides with the Sauds against Canada. That's a matter which the theorists who
assert that Israel controls the US, instead of that the Sauds (allied with America's and
Israel's billionaires) control the US, ignore; they ignore whatever doesn't fit their theory.
Of course, a lot doesn't fit their theory (which equates "Jews" with "Israelis" and alleges
that "they" control the world), but people whose prejudices are that deep-seated, can't be
reached by any facts which contradict their self-defining prejudice. Since it defines
themselves, it's a part of them, and they can never deny it, because to do so would be to deny
who and what they are, and they refuse to change that. The Sauds control the dollar; Israel
does not, but Israel does the lobbying, and both the Sauds and Israel want Iran destroyed.
Trump gets this pressure not only from the billionaires but from his voters.
And, of course, Democratic Party billionaires push the narrative that Russia controls
America. It used to be the Republican Joseph R. McCarthy's accusation, that the "commies" had
"infiltrated" , especially at the State Department . So: Trump
kicked out Russia's diplomats, to satisfy those
neocons -- the neoconservatives of all Parties and persuasions, both conservative and
liberal.
To satisfy the Sauds, despite the EU, Trump has dumped the Iran deal . And he did it also to
satisfy Israel, the main US lobbyists for the Sauds. (Americans are far more sympathetic to
Jews than to Arabs; the Sauds are aware of this; Israel handles their front-office.) For Trump,
the Sauds are higher priority than Europe; even Israel (who are an expense instead of a
moneybag for the US Government) are higher priority than Europe. Both the Sauds and Israel
together are vastly higher. And the Sauds alone are higher priority for Trump than are even
Canada and Europe combined . Under Trump, anything will be done in order to keep the Sauds
and
their proxy-lobbyists (Israel) 'on America's side'.
Consequently, Trump's political base is mainly against Iran and for Israel, but Obama's was
mainly against Russia and for the EU. Obama's Democratic Party still are controlled by the same
billionaires as before; and, so, Democrats continue demonizing Russia, and are trying to make
as impossible as they can, any rapprochement with Russia -- and, therefore, they smear Trump
for anything he might try to do along those lines.
Both Obama and Trump have been aiming to extend America's aristocracy's dominance around the
world, but they employ different strategies toward that politically bipartisan
American-aristocratic objective: the US Government's global control, for the benefit of the US
aristocracy, at everyone else's expense. Obama and Trump were placed into the White House by
different groups of US billionaires, and each
nominee serves his/her respective sponsors , no public anywhere -- not even their voters'
welfare.
An analogous example is that, whereas Fox News, Forbes, National
Review, The Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily,
Breitbart News, InfoWars, Reuters, and AP , are propagandists for the Republican Party ; NPR,
CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The New Republic, New Yorker, New York
Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Huffington Post, The Daily Beast , and
Salon , are propagandists for the Democratic Party ; but, they all draw their chief sponsors
from the same small list of donors who are America's billionaires, since these few people
control the top advertisers, investors, and charities, and thus control nearly all of the
nation's propaganda. The same people who control the Government control the public; but,
America isn't a one-Party dictatorship. America is, instead, a multi-Party dictatorship . And
this is how it
functions.
Trump cancelled the Iran deal because a different group of billionaires are now in control
of the White House, and of the rest of the US Government. Trump's group demonize especially
Iran; Obama's group demonize especially Russia. That's it, short. That's America's aristocratic
tug-of-war; but both sides of it are for invasion, and for war. Thus, we're in the condition of
'permanent war for permanent peace' -- to satisfy the military contractors and the billionaires
who control them. Any US President who would resist that, would invite assassination; but,
perhaps in Trump's case, impeachment, or other removal-from-office, would be likelier. In any
case, the sponsors need to be satisfied -- or else -- and Trump knows this.
Trump is doing what he thinks he has to be doing, for his own safety. He's just a figurehead
for a different faction of the US aristocracy , than Obama was. He's doing what he thinks he
needs to be doing, for his survival. Political leadership is an extremely dangerous business.
Trump is playing a slightly different game of it than Obama did, because he represents a
different faction than Obama did. These two factions of the US aristocracy are also
now battling each other for political control over Europe .
The US #1 objective is to protect US$ as the only one reserve currency that is the
foundation of US economic and military power as well as the US economic stability and
prosperity
Zionist Banking Mafia controls US$ and both US major political Parties
The USA can accomplish its goals only by destroying China, Russia, and Iran. The USA
cannot achieve its goals short of having a major military confrontation with China. Russia
is only one power that can provide/satisfy China with raw materials including oil &
gas. However, politically Trump is locked in a corner by the Democratic Party and it's
globalists allies who are trying to destroy Russia due to it's "misguided" policies in
Syria and Iran.
China understands the game and does it's best to confront America. Time is on China's
side. Very shortly China will move it's military to Iran and Syria with Turkey becoming a
serious US headache.
The Bottom Line
Trump and its policies have no chance to succeed neither inside nor outside the USA. The
USA has less than 3-5 years to maintain the present status quo.
Yeah, its the defense contractors. It has nothing to do with the zillions of cars that clog every fucking freeway in this
country every morning and every evening, 7 days a week. Its not the assholes cruising around
in monster trucks alone, just to show off their stupid trucks. It has nothing to do with the
the zillions of jets screaming through the skies carry all those fat assholes to meetings all
over the world for no reason. It has nothing to do with the billions of barrels of oil that
come to the US on tankers as long as city blocks filled constantly day and night.
Its not that, its Lockheed selling them airplanes. Thats how the sand niggers got so much
US money, Lockheed.
What a fucking conspiratorial ass-swipe this guy is.
Eric Zeusse ranks in popularity right along the Gatestone Institute - though Eric may just
be ignorant and opinionated whilst Gatestone is an affirmative disinformation propaganda
organ, both are equally annoying to read. I just came for the comments :).
+1. Eric Zuesse is part-and-parcel of the agenda that the Gatestone Institute
espouses.
Eric Zuesse's real agenda can be revealed by his position on 9/11 (see second link below).
He also blames Obama for everything (he shifts the blame away from Israel onto any other
party which could be blamed due to either direct or indirect ties)
Here is Eric Zuesse in his own words:
Notice the absence of Israel/Zionism
Historic New Harpers Article Exposes Who Controls America
Posted on December 17, 2015 by Eric Zuesse.
"The fundamentalist-Sunni royal family of the Sauds have bought the highest levels of the
U.S. government in order to control U.S. foreign policies, especially the ongoing wars to
take down the governments of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and ultimately (they hope) of Russia itself,
which latter nation has allied itself instead with Shia countries. The controlling entities
behind American foreign policies since at least the late 1970s have been the Saud family and
the Sauds' subordinate Arabic aristocracies, which are the ones in Qatar (the al-Thanis),
Kuwait (the al-Sabahs), Turkey (the Turkish Erdoğans, a new royalty), and UAE (its six
royal families: the main one, the al-Nahyans in Abu Dhabi; the other five: the al-Maktoums in
Dubai, al-Qasimis in Sharjah, al-Nuaimis in Ajman, al-Mualla Ums in Quwain, and al-Sharqis in
Fujairah). Other Saudi-dominated nations -- though they're not oil-rich (more like Turkey in
this regard) -- are Pakistan and Afghanistan."
". But, perhaps, one can safely say that the alliance between the U.S. aristocracy and the
royal Sauds, is emerging as a global dictatorship, a dictatorial type of world government.
Because, clearly: those two aristocraciues have been, to a large extent, ruling the world
together, for several decades now. From their perspective, jihadists are themselves a weapon,
not merely a political nuisance.
This is a more realistic explanation of America's decades-long catastrophic failures to
make significant progress in eliminating even a single one of the numerous jihadist groups
around the world: that's how things have been planned to be. It's not just 'intelligence
errors' or 'not being tough enough.' Those 'explanations' are just cover-stories, propaganda,
PR from the aristocrats. It's skillful 'crowd control': keeping the people in their 'proper'
places."
9/11: Israel Didn't Do It; The Plan Was Co-Led by U.S. & Saud Governments
By Eric Zuesse
March 15, 2018
"9/11 was a well-planned operation, whatever it was. Substantial money paid for it, but
little if any of that came from either Iran or Israel. It all came from
fundamentalist-Sunnis.
And, if all of the money was fundamentalist-Sunni, then the only non-Sunni people who
could have been involved in planning the operation would have been George W. Bush and his
friends
The problem certainly isn't Jews nor Muslims. The problem is the aristocracy, which
controls Saudi Arabia, and the aristocracy which controls Israel, and the aristocracy which
controls America. The victim is the public, and the victimizer is the aristocracy. It's not
just 9/11."
Obama's Nazis
Posted on August 17, 2014 by Eric Zuesse.
(Zuesse's obsession with the word nazis or Nazis)
"What Obama has done and is doing in Ukraine is historic, like what Adolf Hitler did, and
like what Slobodan Milosevic* did, and like other racist fascists have done; and he, and we
Americans (if we as a nation continue accepting this), will be remembered for it, like they
and their countries were. Evil on this scale cannot be forgotten. No matter how solidly the
American "news" media hide this history, it is already solidly documented for the history
books. Obama will be remembered as the worst President in U.S. history, just as the
racist-fascist or 'nazi' leaders of other countries are."
Jewish Billionaire Finances Ukraine's Aydar SS Nazi Troops
Posted on April 7, 2015 by Eric Zuesse.
"The hyper-nationalist Ukrainian-Israeli billionaire Ihor Kolomoysky, a friend of the
Obama White House and employer of Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, is a major donor to far-right
Ukrainian causes. He sides with the followers of Stepan Bandera, the pro-Nazi Ukrainian
leader whom Hitler ditched when Bandera made clear that he wanted Ukraine to be nazi but
independent of Germany's Nazi Party. Briefly, Bandera's #2 in command, Yaroslav Stetsko, led
nazi Ukraine, and approved the slaughter of thousands of Jews there."
"Zuesse is pushing Zionist lies. One of the links in the article goes to a Reuters story,
"Exclusive – Over 100 Russian soldiers killed in single Ukraine battle – Russian
rights activists," that claims to get its info from the "Russian presidential human rights
council."
If you want to read more lies by Zuesse, go to this "AMAZON" link to read reviews of his
book, "Iraq War: The Truth," in which Zuesse claims that GW Bush invaded Iraq to thank Jesus
for his alcohol and drug addiction cure and to neuter the International Criminal Court???
There is one comment lavishing praise on Zuesse's book about the Iraq War by David
Swanson, another Zionist tool and BS artist, who's been outed in the past by the blog,
"American Everyman."
See how fast the internet warriors are to claim the article is rubbish, and not reflecting
reality. No argument to back up their propaganda, but that's not important. Must be
depressing running the Sunday evening shift in the cubicle farm; all the boys in their neatly
pressed uniforms, clicking away to keep us safe from democracy. Well done lads, another day
keeping the evil Russians /Iranians at bay.
I actually find it interesting to see what shakes the foundations, and this article seems
to be something that they don't like, so probably worth a re-read just to get all the
nuances. Of course, the author suggesting that it is not Jews running America will get short
shrift from some commenters, but it is certainly interesting to have pointed out, finally,
that Israel is a net drain, and Saudi Arabia an enormous gain for the US. We always say to
follow the money, and whilst Israel is good profit for the MIC, Saudi Arabia IS the
petrodollar system - mustn't forget that. No oil in Saudi Arabia, no petrodollar. I wonder
how long they have left until it's all gone? That would probably be the over-riding factor in
deciding war with Iran.
I always wondered why the EU did nit make bigger efforts to replace the petrodollar with
the petroeuro but nobody wants to end up as Ghadaffi or Saddam Hussein who threatened to do
just that. Iran has also repeatedly threaten to that. Also Putin has recently said that
Russia wants to move away from the petrodollar. He must know that that is dangerous for one's
health so there must be some sort of alliance against the dollar being formed.
Rising oil prices will slow down the growth and secular stagnation will return. The USA
economy has no capacity to grow in oil prices are approximately above $70-$80
Four months after the CBO surprised US economy watchers by releasing an especially strong
outlook for 2018 US GDP, which it said would hit 3.3%, on Monday afternoon in its latest
projections , the CBO unexpectedly trimmed its 2018 real GDP forecast to 3.1% citing
concerns over rising trade war coupled with higher inflation.
The Congressional Budget Office kept its 2019 GDP growth forecast unchanged at 2.4%, and
also trimmed its 2020 outlook to 1.7% from 1.8% in April.
What does it matter, they have adjusted what constitutes GDP 3 times in the last fiver
years. The most current being the extra 1 trillion they found by basically adjusting the
price deflator down ward.
The fact is there is NOTHING NEW in this economy generating higher GDP except Cost and
Debt. Healthcare alone over the last 5 years has added trillions yet it picks everyone's
pockets to the point they cant use it.
So the question is looking at today's markets, who will be the first domino to fall? Some
thought Cyprus but that was contained. Then there was Greece but that was contained. There was
talk of Italy being the first. Then last week we had Turkey. If the Turkish situation
deteriorates you can bet that the financial markets will, like during the Asian crisis, become
nervous regarding areas beyond Turkey bringing considerable risks of financial contagion. We
already saw investors dumping stocks such as Italian bank UniCredit last week, for fear that
they are over exposed to risks in Turkey. According to the Bank for International Settlements,
international banks had outstanding loans of $224 billion to Turkish borrowers, including $83
billion from banks in Spain, $35 billion from banks in France, $18 billion from banks in Italy,
$17 billion each from banks in the United States and in the United Kingdom, and $13 billion
from banks in Germany. So what happens next is anybody's guess but to believe that it couldn't
happen again is probably not the most prudent view to take.
The Founding Fathers had someone just like Donald Trump in mind when they
banned any and all emoluments to the president from any foreign or state
governments
Conservatives, we are constantly told, believe in strict adherence to the
Constitution based primarily on the text and secondarily on the views of the
Founding Fathers, who wrote and breathed life into our founding document. If
conservatives really were "originalists," they would be the first to say that
Donald Trump is exactly the kind of president who ought to be impeached.
The Founding Fathers, savvy students of history and human nature, were
highly attuned to the risks of public corruption -- actual or perceived -- and
inserted language into the Articles of Confederation and later into the
Constitution to guard against such human frailties. They wanted to make sure
that anyone who held a public office would serve only one master: the American
people.
A farewell to kings
For the Founders, public corruption wasn't just a theoretical danger. They
viewed it as the primary threat to their independence. Living in a small,
fledgling country, the Americans feared that the European powers would seize
control of the American democracy by flattering and bribing our officials.
The kings and princes of Europe were masters of the art. The British king
had corrupted Parliament by providing titles and sinecures, a major
contributor to the split between the colonies and Britain. The true history of
the 1670 Treaty of Dover had just been published, which revealed that King
Louis XIV of France had bribed Charles II of England with a secret pension, a
beautiful and beloved French mistress, and a promise of protection. In
exchange, Charles had agreed to convert to Catholicism and to join Louis in
his costly and fruitless war against the Dutch, his former ally.
During the Constitutional Convention (
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/debcont.asp
),
Gouverneur Morris (who is regarded as the chief architect of the presidency)
argued that receiving such emoluments would justify impeachment of the
president: Because the president would not have a lifetime office or income,
Morris said, "he may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust; and
no one would say that we ought to expose ourselves to the danger of seeing the
first Magistrate in foreign pay, without being able to guard against it by
displacing him."
It seems the Founding Fathers had Donald Trump (or someone very like him)
in mind when they wrote those clauses into the Constitution. They were
concerned about our government officials being corrupted by foreign or
domestic powers. Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist Paper #73 (
https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers
)
that the domestic emoluments clause was designed to keep the president
independent and incorruptible.
'Appealing to his avarice'
"In the main," Hamilton argued, "it will be found that a power over a man's
support is power over his will."
With the emolument ban in place, "they can neither weaken his fortitude by
operating on his necessities, nor corrupt his integrity by appealing to his
avarice," Hamilton wrote.
The key passage in the Constitution is Article I, Section 9: (
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-sect
-)
"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person
holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent
of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any
kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
The point of this clause is to prevent any foreign power from gaining
influence over the U.S. government by providing gifts, titles, jobs or other
benefits to its officials.
No exceptions
Article II, Section 1 (
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript#toc-sect
)
specifically limits the president and does not allow Congress to approve
exceptions: "The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a
Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the
Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within
that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them."
The point of this clause is to prevent the Congress or any of the states
from gaining undue influence over the president by lining his pockets.
Note that these prohibitions don't require a legal finding of bribery. The
Constitution doesn't say payments are OK as long as there's no quid pro quo.
Such "emoluments" are unconstitutional, full stop.
The only real point of dispute between Trump's defenders and his critics is
over the meaning of the word "emolument." Trump's lawyers say (
http://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2018-03/Defendants-Motion-to-Dism
)"emolument"
means only the money that is earned for holding an office (and not for renting
a room or granting a lease). His critics say "emolument" means any profit,
advantage, gain or benefit.
It's interesting that Messitte's ruling relies heavily (but not
exclusively) on an "originalist" approach. He notes in his opinion that the
preponderance of the evidence shows that the common meaning in 1787 of the
word "emolument" was any "profit," "gain" or "advantage." Nearly all
dictionaries of the day followed this definition, and many authors and
politicians at that time also used that definition. Trump's alternative
definition has almost no contemporaneous support, the judge ruled.
Messitte's ruling may be overturned, of course. There is considerable
pressure on Republican office holders, as well as conservative jurists, to
ignore the stench of corruption stemming from Trump's ownership of a large and
complex business that does business with governments near and far.
The Founding Fathers could well imagine that a foreign or domestic power
would try to corrupt the president. But they could not imagine that the
constitutional system they created would ever permit the president to corrupt
the Congress or the courts. Let's hope they weren't wrong about us.
'Guard against corruption'
Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, delegate to the Philadelphia
convention and first attorney general of the United States, said during the
ratification debate that the president "is restrained from receiving any
present or emolument whatever. It is impossible to guard better against
corruption."
And if the president does so, "he may be impeached," Randolph declared with
no reservations.
The Founding Fathers, in other words, would have impeached Trump in a New
York minute.
ZH is just as bad as cnn and fox news these days. Report the REAL NEWS you fucks. Tylers i
am so sorry what happened to this website, nothing but russian propoganda anymore.
Prove me wrong. Do a story on the reason Carter Page was never charged w/ a crime is bc he
was a cooperating fbi witness in 2016 and the fbi knew CP wasnt a spy bc he just finished
helping them, the fbi, bust up a REAL russian spy ring, or does that not fit into your
narrative?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/02/02/the-fbi-knew-carter-page-m
stfu, anyone who has been paying attention knows goddam well that Carter Page was giving
testimony of behalf of the gov just a couple months before he magically became a russian
agent so that they could justify all the spying they'd already been doing on team trump.
Carter Page was a plant, just like Manafort and Papadapolous.
One week ago, when discussing the
"
source
of China's next debt crisis
",
namely the recent explosion in Chinese household debt
which over the past year has soared by over 40% even as credit growth across other debt categories
remained relatively stable...
... and which was on the verge of surpassing the nation's corporations as the biggest source of
credit demand, we highlighted the one financial sector that has recently emerged as most at risk in
China's economy: online peer-to-peer lenders who collect money from retail investors and dispense
small loans to consumers,
usually without collateral, putting the loans at risk of a
default with zero recovery.
We pointed out that outstanding loans on P2P platforms rose 50% just last year to total Rmb1.49
trillion ($215 billion) - making the size of China's P2P industry far bigger than in the rest of
the world combined - and due to their lack of collateral,
interest rates often are as high
as 37%, with additional charges for late payment.
P2P, in which platforms gather funds from retail investors and loan the money to small corporate
and individual borrowers, promising high returns, started to flourish nearly unregulated in China
in 2011. At its peak in 2015, there were about 3,500 such businesses.
But after Beijing launched a campaign several years ago to defuse debt bubbles and reduce risks
in the economy (a campaign which recently reversed once the Trump trade war started getting hot),
including the country's enormous non-bank lending sector, cracks began to appear as investors
pulled their funds.
As a result, the peer-to-peer lending channel not only got clogged up, but went in reverse. In a
recent article, the WSJ reported that a string of Chinese internet lenders have already shut their
doors in recent weeks,
stranding investors as the economy slows and regulators tighten
controls over an unruly side of the fintech sector.
Across China, more than 200 internet-based fund managers since late June have either shut
down, closed parts of their operations or are reeling from cash crunches, missing executives and
other problems, according to industry tracker Wangdaizhijia.
The tide began to turn even more forcefully against the sector ahead of a late June deadline for
new stringent registration regulations. With a slowing economy making it difficult for some
companies to pay back loans, many lenders decided to simply shut down. Meanwhile, investors,
already souring on the sector, began pulling out funds, further pinching the lending platforms, and
as
Reuters reports
, since June, 243 online lending platforms have gone bust, according to
wdzj.com, a P2P industry data provider. In that period,
the industry saw its first monthly
net fund outflows since at least 2014.
And, as we noted last week, it was only a matter of time before social unrest spread as Chinese
investors who had funded these usually small, unregulated P2P operations, found they had lost all
their money demanding a bail out.
That's precisely what happened... except for one thing: Beijing was already one step ahead of
the protesters.
Take the case of Peter Wang: as
Reuters reports
, Wang was asleep at his home in Beijing last Monday
when police
officers arrived before dawn to detain him,
saying he had helped organize a protest
planned for later that day. Peter wasn't alone, and across Beijing, others who had lost money
investing in China's online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms - including some who had traveled
from half way across the country - got similar visits from police.
A police officer gestures at the photographer as security patrol outside the headquarters of
China's banking regulator, to prevent planned protests by investors who lost money from collapsed
peer-to-peer (P2P) online lending platforms
Why the crackdown?
Because by the time they were released, the demonstration they had planned using social media
chat groups had fizzled amid a massive security response around the China Banking and Insurance
Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) headquarters in the heart of Beijing's financial district. Those
protesters who did show up were in for a surprise:
instead of demanding that the government
bail out the hundreds of collapsed P2P companies, they were forced onto buses and carted away to
Jiujingzhuang,
a holding center for petitioners on the outskirts of Beijing, according to
two Reuters sources.
"Once the police checked your ID cards and saw your petition materials, they knew you are here
looking to protect your rights. Then they put you on a bus directly," said Wang, who works at an
auto repair shop, and who is a perfect representative of China's prevailing ideology that a
government bailout of any investment is a fundamental "right."
Wang did not give up and after his detention he joined a separate, smaller protest in a
different part of Beijing. "There was no channel to solve any problems. All they care about was
preventing any disturbance."
* * *
The latest burst of anger, which led to the planned protests, flared up ahead of a June 30
deadline for companies to comply with new business practice standards, which are still being
finalised, and as noted above, many P2Ps shut down rather than face tougher regulations, Zane Wang,
chief executive of online micro-loan provider China Rapid Finance told Reuters.
That caused panic in the broader market. Investors tried to pull funds from P2P companies,
causing liquidity problems for many smaller operators, Wang said, although larger ones are
faring better.
"Some platforms might become a winner out of this, and some platforms,
probably a large portion of the platforms, might not be able to make it," he said.
Naturally, to avoid an even bigger panic, no mainland Chinese media - official mainstream papers
or more independent-leaning publications - reported the attempts to protest in China's capital. The
media blackout took place as China's propaganda machine swung into action as Beijing sought "to
reassure people that the Chinese economy and financial markets are healthy" despite a trade war
with the United States and steep declines in the value of stock prices and the yuan.
As part of the government's crackdown, many would-be protesters "
were forced to give
fingerprints and blood samples and prevented from traveling to Beijing. Some were even removed from
Beijing-bound trains ahead of the protests, said a Shanghai-based P2P investor who lost 1.3 million
yuan
." She declined to be named out of fear for her safety.
What is surprising, is just how worried about the prospect of widespread social unrest Beijing
was: even after the demonstrations were effectively snuffed out, hundreds of security personnel
patrolled around CBIRC's office, "highlighting authorities' sensitivity to any form of social
instability" according to Reuters.
It has reason to be worried: on Sunday, Xinhua reported that the government has proposed 10
measures to reduce risk in the P2P sector,
including a strict ban on new P2P companies and
online finance platforms,
and a blacklist under China's social credit rating system for
those who don't repay their loans. This means that P2P investors will soon suffer tens of billions
in more losses (although it may well end up being good news for those who borrowed money from the
insolvent P2Ps as there will be nobody left to collect).
* * *
This is not the first time China was burned on P2P platforms, which traditionally lend to
customers that might be deemed too risky for a commercial bank, which has resulted in liquidity
crises when too many investors demand their funds at once if loans appear to be going south.
The most famous case of P2P fraud is Ezubao - a $7.6 billion Ponzi scam involving more than
900,000 investors - which we
described in early 2016
, and which led to a similar forceful government crackdown after the
public demanded a full bailout. While none has come close to the scale of Ezubao's collapse,
there are currently more than 100 publicly listed Chinese companies that are involved in P2P, and
32 of those own more than 30% of a P2P company, according to a July research report by CITIC
Securities.
Exacerbating the problems facing the P2P industry, China extended by two years a separate June
30 deadline for an online finance clean-up campaign. But rather than calming matters, it created
more uncertainty, market watchers said as CITIC Securities estimated that - under the campaign -
only about 100 platforms out of 1,836 would be able to meet even today's regulatory
standards and obtain a license. Less than 50 would thrive.
This would amount to hundreds of billions in investor losses, and not even an army could prevent
the social outcry that would result.
Meanwhile, the market is starting to price in the worst, and shares of some of the Chinese P2P
companies listed in the U.S. have plunged. China Rapid Finance shares have lost 73% in 2018, while
Yirendai slumped 71%. PPDai dropped 44%, and Hexindai is down 27%.
And as if to ensure that the peer-2-peer bank run in China gets worse, Tang Ning, founder and
chief executive officer of CreditEase, the majority owner of P2P lending platform Yirendai,
told Reuters that he was concerned that the "industry-wide panic" would escalate
.
He urged regulators to "act with a sense of urgency" to protect good P2P companies while
punishing bad players to avoid harming China's financial system and economy.
"Otherwise,
it will be 'winter' for the industry. All companies will be hit, both
illicit and compliant. Everyone will lose and that's a situation no one wants to see,"
said Tang. "Small businesses will lose an important, or the most important source of funding.
That's not only hurting the financial system but also the real economy."
As for individual investors such as the abovementioned Peter Wan - who was so sure it is his
"right" to be bailed out by the government - the pain is acute. He and his family had invested 7
million yuan - their life savings, with which they had planned to use to buy a home at the end of
the year - in two P2P platforms that have shut down.
From comments: "Relax everyone, Stockman says
exactly the same thing
this time every year, he
just changes the dates."
Notable quotes:
"... We are in a "never before seen" monetary "experiment" Some debt will be written off. Stocks will fall. Banks will fail. Long overdue. ..."
"... Today's doom porn is brought to you by the letters D and S ..."
"... He says the Earth has entered the Anthropocene. Although it is not an official epoch on the geological timescale, the Anthropocene is entering scientific terminology. It spans the time since industrialisation, when our species started to rival ice ages and comet impacts in driving the climate on a planetary scale. Fenner says the real trouble is the population explosion and "unbridled consumption". ..."
"... Capitalism requires growth to survive. Look at what happened to FB recently when they merely stated that their growth was slowing. ..."
"... The answer to your question, is yes. As short term rates continue to rise, PM hoarders will begin cashing in much of their holdings, to chase yields. which will start a run ..."
"... I suspect the waterfall move down will be in property prices, both CRE and residential. ..."
David Stockman warns that the global economy has reached an "epochal pivot", a moment when the
false prosperity created from $trillions in printed money by the world's central banks lurches
violently into reverse.
There are few people alive who understand the global economy and its (mis)management better
than David Stockman
-- former director of the OMB under President Reagan, former US
Representative, best-selling author of
The
Great Deformation
, and veteran financier -- which is why his perspective is not to be dismissed
lightly. He knows intimiately how how our political and financial systems work, as well as what their
vulnerabilties are.
And Stockman thinks the top for the current asset price bubble era is in -- specifically,
he thinks it hit its apex in January 2018.
As this "Everything Bubble" prepares to burst,
Stockman estimates the risk of economic crisis is as great, if not greater than, the 2008 Great
Financial Crisis because of the radical and unsustainable monetary policy expansion the central banks
have pursued over the past decade.
This has caused the prices of stocks, bonds, real estate and most other assets to appreciate at
rates that have no basis in the ongoing income/cash flow of the global economy. In short, they are
wildly overvalued.
A key condition that Stockman has been waiting to see, that serves as a signal the bubble's
bursting is nigh, is the concentration of speculative capital into fewer and fewer stocks as the
"good" options for investors shrink. We now clearly see this in the FAANG complex (a topic covered in
detail in our recent report
The
FAANG-nary In The Coal Mine
)
Stockman's main warning is that there's no bid underneath this market -- that when
perception shifts from greed to fear, the bottom is much farther down than most investors realize. In
his words, it's "rigged for implosion".
He predicts a Great Reset is imminent.
One that, for those who see it
coming and take prudent action today, will offer tremendous, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime, investment
opportunity once the dust settles.
To hear Stockman's specific predictions and warnings, listen to this 16-minute interview:
Those interested in having the opportunity to spend an entire day with David Stockman, where he'll
present the specifics of his forecasts as well as address investor Q&A, should consider attending Peak
Prosperity's
New
York City Summit with him on Sep 26, 2018
.
It's a good thing this Summit is coming up soon. We very likely do not have much time left before
Stockman's predicted Great Reset begins.
As he puts it himself:
You would think by now that the big thinkers and strategists of Wall Street would get the joke.
Trump's election was always a dagger aimed squarely at the egregious financial bubbles on Wall
Street that have been building for 30 years at the expense of a stagnant main street economy.
And now [America's] no-holds barred pursuit of Trade Wars and Fiscal Debauch have guaranteed
that the day of reckoning is at hand.
In fact, it may be only days away. And this chart from the final days of the dotcom bubble may
be a pretty serviceable roadmap as to why and when.
Maybe one of the keys to surviving this upcoming
economic collapse is to be completely out of debt with very little money in the bank
and with just enough precious metals to keep from starving while living in a small
town just far enough away from the city to keep foreigners from invading.
"This hatred will be still further magnified by the effects of
an economic crises, which will stop dealing on the exchanges
and bring industry to a standstill. We shall create by all the
secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of
gold, which is all in our hands, a universal economic crises
whereby we shall throw upon the streets whole mobs of workers
simultaneously in all the countries of europe. These mobs will
rush delightedly to shed the blood of those whom, in the
simplicity of their ignorance, they have envied from their
cradles, and whose property they will then be able to loot."
If you want timing, I would say within the month we will have the
first installment of the correction. As for fixing things, it is
never guaranteed, much like a war.
Lots of people are saying that
the correction won't come in
installments, but in one lump sum.
Dunno, but doesn't timing always include those 'limit down' days?
as long as the pm's are in your control and not at some brokerage storage
area, you should be fine. If you can't touch it every day, then you don't
own it is my philosophy.
This economy is more Oscar-the-Grouch-like than Big Birdish, no matter how
much bragging is done. It is not Big Bird's fault, however. It was all in
place before he ever got there. Sunny day, not.
One question, though...If you are an average Venezuelan, wouldn't it be
easier to have BitCoin? Affluent people have the means to store gold and
better ways of selling it in the case of an economic catastrophe. It would
be interesting to hear the perspective of ordinary people in places with
hyperinflated currency. They would probably be afraid to discuss it,
though, due to nutty .gov officials. It seems like people could help them
easier via BTC, assuming they have some way to spend it on staples. In the
event of a calamity, most people will just give up, I fear.
Actually, I believe it's 99% of all species that ever existed have gone
extinct. Humans will not be the exception. What people don't realize is how
soon down the road human extinction might be.
"We're going to become extinct," the eminent scientist says. "Whatever
we do now is too late."
Fenner is an authority on extinction. The emeritus professor in
microbiology at the Australian National University played a leading role in
sending one species into oblivion: the variola virus that causes smallpox.
And his work on the myxoma virus suppressed wild rabbit populations on
farming land in southeastern Australia in the early 1950s.
He made the comments in an interview at his home in a leafy Canberra
suburb. Now 95, he rarely gives interviews.
He says the Earth has entered the Anthropocene. Although it is not an
official epoch on the geological timescale, the Anthropocene is entering
scientific terminology. It spans the time since industrialisation, when our
species started to rival ice ages and comet impacts in driving the climate
on a planetary scale. Fenner says the real trouble is the population explosion and "unbridled
consumption".
The number of Homo sapiens is projected to exceed 6.9 billion this year,
according to the UN. With delays in firm action on cutting greenhouse gas
emissions, Fenner is pessimistic.
"We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island," he says.
"Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we're seeing remarkable
changes in the weather already. The human species is likely to go the same
way as many of the species that we've seen disappear.
"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he says.
"A lot of other animals will, too. It's an irreversible situation. I think
it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do
something, but they keep putting it off.
"Mitigation would slow things down a bit, but there are too many people
here already."
Stop paying citizens and noncitizens to reproduce via welfare
programs and the progressive tax code.
Maybe, high interest rates will moderate consumption patterns,
which are already on a downward trend, even in the Consumption
Capital of the World, USA.
Capitalism requires growth to survive. Look at what happened to FB
recently when they merely stated that their growth was slowing.
Almost all of capitalism's growth comes from population expansion. If
we demanded that nobody could reproduce, and the global population
was quickly cut in half, capitalism would utterly collapse. So, what
do you want to do? What do you think the richest capitalists, who
totally rule the world, want to do? Well, we know what they're going
to do. We're watching them do it. They're going to drive humanity
towards extinction and hope that their massive wealth allows them to
survive while 7 billion people perish; as if climate change will
abruptly come to a halt at that point and they will be spared. They
won't be. But that's their only game plan. What else could they
possibly do?
This planet has seen Cambrian and other explosions of
diversity as well as Permian-level extinctions that wiped out 90% of
all organisms and 40% of phyla. YET LOOK HOW THINGS STAND NOW.
Forget the cult of doom-saying, which really has all the elements
of a weird religious movement. If you bet, bet on life. Not
jackassery.
"Fenner says the real trouble is the population explosion and "unbridled
consumption".
The population of almost every western nation has been
declining for years. Even in the USA, if we subtracted immigration the
numbers would show a below replacement level birthrate. Africa, on the
other hand, shows a surprising increase in population every year defying
the expectations of demographers year after year and the continent is
now expected to have 4 trillion Africans by the end of the century. So
we do not have an overpopulation problem on planet earth. We have an
African problem. Furthermore, nearly all the growth in greenhouse gases
in western countries is driven by the transfer of immigrants from very
low carbon footprint countries to high carbon footprint countries. If
open border globalist David Gelbaum had not bribed the Sierra Club in
2006 with 100 million dollars to never mention immigration and the harm
it does our environment more people would be talking about the dangers
of immigration to our environment.
The eminent scientist may be right, we could be headed for
extinction, but not for his reasons, but for our fear of confronting the
reckless growth in Africa and the agenda of the globalist to turn all
western countries into dysfunctional ungovernable tribal nations via
massive endless immigration.
The problem is, that in a crisis, yes, both gold and silver will drop,
possibly almost as much as the stock and bond markets, however, at some
point during the crisis, they will snap back, and roar upwards. The
problem, as always, is that in a crisis environment, would you even be able
to obtain physical gold and silver, and, at what premium? It wasn't so long
ago that silver was trading at a 35% premium to spot, and we weren't even
in a financial or banking crisis, so, you can just imagine the kind of
spreads you would be paying to own physical, in a real crisis.
To my way
of thinking, if you believe in the durability of gold and silver to weather
not only severe inflation, but also severe deflation, one is much better
off buying before the crisis hits.
If inflation becomes the dominant trend, then your gold and silver will
rise with each hit on fiat currencies and the reserves banks that issue
them. If deflation becomes the dominant theme, yes, you may loose nominal
value compared to the price you purchased those holdings at, but since
everything else will be plummeting in prices, your relative wealth
advantage will be preserved.
It's difficult to say what will happen when the bottom falls out, once
again. This time will not be like 2008/09, when the Fed and other central
banks had small balance sheets and could buy government debt at very low
interest rates. Considering the trap that many countries (US included) find
themselves in now, I am not sure it is realistic to expect interest rates
to rise to 22% as they did when Nixon closed the gold window, for the
simple reason that interest rates at that level will definitely bankrupt
many sovereigns, making the situation even worse.
It might also be of interest to note, that in the last 15 years, the
price of gold, in all major currencies (pound, dollar, franc, euro, yen,
AUS and CAD) has risen between 10 and 12% a year, on average over those
years. Which simply means that the 'real' inflation rate has been between
10% and 12% in those currencies.
That is what gold does. It doesn't make you 'moar' money, but it does
preserve the purchasing power of the money you do have.
The answer to your question, is yes.
As short term rates continue to rise,
PM hoarders will begin cashing in much of their holdings, to chase
yields. which will start a run
Imo, gold and silver will continue to go down, which means, better buying
opportunities.
Anybody leveraged into PM's is long gone, I suspect the waterfall move down
will be in property prices, both CRE and residential. A tripling of
interest rates would not even get them back to historical norms, this will
devastate most mortgage holders.
"... The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics. ..."
"... Same economics, same problem, globally. Neoliberalism was just one huge debt fuelled boom, which was replicated across the UK, the US, the Euro-zone, Japan and China. ..."
"... The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity in the economy by removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income and they conflated "land" with "capital". ..."
"... DS has been saying that Armageddon is just around the corner for about seven years at this stage. Yet the ponzi continues.... ..."
One of the things folks are not getting is that when a crash occurs that there is
no place for the crash to land. There is no ground on which the economy can land
in order to reset. The only growth engines in play are new expanded human herding
opportunities and using government to add value to assets. Both of these engines
are running out of gas.
The massive debt load hanging above our heads has not receded or gone
away it has merely been transferred to the public sector where those in charge of
such things feel it is more benign
.
By a series of off-book and
backdoor transactions those in charge have transferred the burden of loss from
the banks onto the shoulders of the people, however, shifting the liability from
one sector to another does not alleviate the problem.
Writing off bad debt is
usually a painful process and often results in a huge change in what something is
worth. The creditor, meaning the person, business, or institution that holds the
paper can suffer a huge loss. Defaults generally constitute an unplanned and
involuntary financial adjustment. We as individuals should be concerned as to how
defaults can spill over and affect our lives. The article below delves into this
subject.
The economics of the neoliberal era had a fundamental flaw.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped
over into the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the
problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that
doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.
Same economics, same problem, globally.
Neoliberalism was just one huge debt fuelled boom, which was
replicated across the UK, the US, the Euro-zone, Japan and China.
At 25.30 mins we can see the super imposed the debt-to-GDP ratios.
You may not like it, but it's always been craponomics.
It was corrupted
at birth to hide the discoveries of the Classical economists.
They had realised most at the top of society were parasites living off
the hard work of everyone else, an idle rentier class.
The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity
in the economy by removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned"
income and they conflated "land" with "capital".
They also took the focus off the cost of living, which had been so
important in Classical Economics.
Anythin coming from this financial shark is suspicious. also at 86 he probably does not
understand as much as thirty years before. But it is true that the glory days of neoliberalism
are over and with them Soros statute and influence.
Briefly touching on Europe's economic outlook, he said, "We may be heading for another major
financial crisis." Partly in response to his warning, the Dow fell nearly 400 points that day.
Soros is generally considered the greatest speculator Wall Street has known, and though he
stopped managing other people's money years ago, the reaction was a real-time display of his
continued ability to move markets. The attention given to that comment also underscored, in a
subtle way, an enduring frustration of his life: His financial thoughts still tend to carry
more weight than his political reflections.
Trump attacked former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the man at the center of the Trump dossier scandal, who
had extensive contacts with the Department of Justice's former #4 ranked official, before and after the FBI opened its Trump-Russia
probe in the summer of 2016,
according to new emails
recently turned over to Congressional investigators.
That official, Bruce Ohr, was
demoted twice
after the DOJ's Inspector General discovered that he lied about his involvement with opposition research firm Fusion
GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson - who employed Steele. Ohr's CIA-linked wife, Nellie, was also
employed by Fusion
as part of the firm's anti-Trump efforts, and had ongoing communications with the ex-UK spy, Christopher Steele
as well, suggesting that Steele was much closer to the Obama administration than previously disclosed, and his DOJ contact Bruce
Ohr reported directly to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates - who approved at least one of the FISA warrants to surveil Trump campaign
aide Carter Page.
"The big story that the Fake News Media refuses to report is lowlife Christopher Steele's many meetings with Deputy A.G. Bruce
Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly. It was Fusion GPS that hired Steele to write the phony & discredited Dossier, paid for by Crooked
Hillary & the DNC.... " Trump tweeted.
"...Do you believe Nelly worked for Fusion and her husband STILL WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF "JUSTICE." I have never seen anything
so Rigged in my life. Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed - not pretty. IG Report soon?
Witch Hunt!"
Trump's latest broadside on Steel and Ohr was likely prompted by speculation that the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee is preparping subpoenas for people connected to the controversial Steele dossier. As The Hill
reported earlier
this week
, Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is said to be preparing subpoenas for Bruce Ohr, his wife Nellie Ohr and Fusion GPS
co-founder Glenn Simpson.
By escalating his all too public demands on AG Sessions, Trump is risking further scrutiny by Robert Mueller, who is
already
poring over Trump's tweets
to solidify his Obstruction of justice case, while inviting a whole new set of contradictory statements
by his newest attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who most recently said that Trump would be willing to sit down with Mueller if two specifics
topics are not discussed:
Why Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
What Trump said to Comey about the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Of course, by continuing his periodic twitter attacks on Sessions, Trump makes it prohibitively difficult for Mueller to agree
to those terms. Tags
Multiline Utilities - NEC
It's hard to say what's really going on behind the scenes but you'd think at some point soon that a huge and undeniable truth-bomb
is revealed.
Here's a sick thought...is Session's position as Trump's AG the "insurance policy" (((they))) had in place?
If Session's isn't part of Trump's plan then he'll be gone soon enough. If Trump endlessly tolerates Session's inactivity and
merely berates him periodically (just for optics) then we'll know Sessions is clandestinely working behind the scenes (w/HUBER)
and this movie starts to finally get interesting.
Obama, Hillary & Co. will pay for their attempted/failed treason. But will Session's be the AG that see's it through?
He's just trying to mess with your head and make you confused. That's what he does.
"Hit it from every angle. Open multiple fronts on your enemy. He must be confused, and feel besieged on every side."- Roger
Stone's Rules (the guy who got trump elected.)
What you don't realize is WE the people are his "enemy" in that tactic above. It's gaslighting.
Here's another Stone rule
"Always praise 'em before you hit 'em."
"Politics isn't theater. It's performance art. Sometimes, for its own sake."
"Unless you can fake sincerity, you'll get nowhere in this business"
MetaMussolini Our golfing warthog president has picked a cabinet of semi-human dirty people who are intellectually corrupt gangsters. Trump makes worse the sorrows of the middle class.
This confirms what we've been hearing on the alt news. Sessions isn't doing his job and the criminals will get a pass. Mr.
Sessions, you may not agree with the President and may feel you're acting honorably but that's a problem. You were put there to
round up the criminals (your former esteemed colleagues) and didn't follow through on your duties. Step aside and let someone
step up who isn't timid and let's git 'er done. Of course, that's assuming any of this was real to begin with and I have serious
doubts.
I think it goes a lot deeper than Hillary, Obama, or any intel agencies. All the way up to the globalist western oligarchs who
are scared shitless of losing control and allowing a populist movement to fuck up their racketts.
Orders come down the pike from
the oligarchs through the politicans [ who's campaigns cannot be funded without the oligarchs, and who nod is needed to be accepted
by either of the two parties ] and their appointed intelligentce agents, down through the media, through the special interest groups
to the idiot at home watching CNN.
If Session's isn't part of Trump's plan then he'll be gone soon enough. If Trump endlessly tolerates Session's inactivity
and merely berates him periodically (just for optics) then we'll know Sessions is clandestinely working behind the scenes (w/HUBER)
and this movie starts to finally get interesting.
Do you think that there are a lot of public servants in Washington DC
who practice rule of law, hold themselves to higher ideals, are
interested in promoting and spreading liberty? Tell me about them.
Most Reps are just talking heads, that's all they do, appear before
cameras looking like they are accomplishing shit. Same with Sessions,
except now he's in a appointed position, where there's actual things
to be accomplished besides finding the next donor to sell out to. But
it's not called the swamp for nothing. These law abiding freedom
loving so called conservatives we've been voting for are a joke, no
significant gains, only slightly less aggressive rate of
deterioration into a bigger state. And Session fits into that club
nicely. The conservative club is the joke. I'm merely pointing it
out. I'd like to be wrong, but I see no evidence of it. We're way
past the tipping point, too many of us are in on the take, in one way
or another, to go back, and by design.
Amen! I heard a sound clip of Sessions giving a speech on XM 125 a few
days ago. The man can barely talk and when he does talk he sounds like a
moron. A real life Forest Gump. He sounds retarded. Bad choice on the
part of Trump.
ADF: Alliance Defending Freedom and is made of Christians. Because of
that it is a hate group. The fucking commies will never stop. This PC
crap that everything is hate speech and everything is racist is
nonsense. I'm sick of it, quite frankly. Want to be racist? Go ahead.
Want to say something hateful or stupid? Go ahead. Let the leftists
freak out. I have had enough of their caterwauling!
This is awesome: "lowlife Christopher Steele's many meetings with Deputy A.G.
Bruce Ohr and his beautiful wife, Nelly." If you have seen pics of Nelly,
well, she isn't beautiful. Her being married to Ohr is weird. Beyond weird.
These two things do not go together!
Thats interesting because waldman inserted himself with assange and did
nine visits..the purpuse of that was to establish a mythical Russian
bridge to Assange that would be used against him by Mueller who was
exposed workin on Oleg Matter with the FBI . Oleg powed 25 M of own
money..and never got his visa. Chris steele was working to Get Oleg his
visa..Walman represented steele assange and Oleg...
He completed his
mission..on assange then sold him down the river turning the immunity
deal over to Warner...
Knowing full well Warner Comey and deepstate would trash it.
Warner is King of the Snakes..Adam was just doing what was best for
his mafioso boss Olegs business. Oleg and FBI are joined at the hip.
Sessions was the insurance. He screened everyone during the transition
including halper, who was then pushed aggressively by Navarro... Its ironic
that when paige , the patsy, went to the Cambridge meeting paid by Halpers
connection.. Paige took it cuz no body wanted to go so he volunteered.. the
guest speakers were Madelinne Albright of the Atlantic Council and Vin Weber
disgraced congressman whose PR firm was scrutinized by Mueller.
Albright went to emphasize what a threat Trump and the populist movement
was and how important it was to get on the transition team. No telling how
many others Sessions let thru. Make no mistake.. he will be implicated in
this. Trump knows what a betrayal this really was.
Slowly, America is moving toward a system where only favored groups will be allowed to
express their opinion. Arguably, America is already at the point where groups such as Antifa
simply do not have to obey the law at all, while ruinous lawsuits and "lawfare" are unleashed
against conservative groups.
... ... ...
The end result: a country that increasingly seems on the brink of madness as it is
gaslighted by a media
growing ever more shrill. America is being put on a permanent war footing -- and the enemy its
people are being mobilized against is the historic American nation, those European-Americans
who live this country and its heritage.
This is kind of symbolic and amazing figures: 34 billions are spend in casinos each year. and that's just official figure...
Notable quotes:
"... Casinos and Gambling are a tax on the ignorant and the indigent. ..."
"... Economist, Michael Hudson recently said in an interview that economics trumps politics every time. I am an observer of casinos and gambling in it's many forms. I am someone who has been fleeced by vulture capitalists and unscrupulous financial types as well as government officials in charge of business financial assistance schemes that don't deliver. ..."
"... Another version of how ''Brave New World'' has come to pass. The documentaries: ''The Century of the Self'' and ''HyperNormalisation 2016'' by Adam Curtis explain how we have been subdued. This lady professor is very knowledgable. Excellent episode. ..."
"... Completing the circle of predatory capitalism. Government controlled by oligarchy/plutoracry that see us, the citizens, as enemies of the state. ..."
On this week's episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses the ramifications of casino culture in America with Professor Natasha
Dow Schüll, author of " Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas". RT Correspondent Anya Parampil examines how gambling
has become our premier form of entertainment and escape.
Economist, Michael Hudson recently said in an interview that economics trumps politics every time. I am an observer of
casinos and gambling in it's many forms. I am someone who has been fleeced by vulture capitalists and unscrupulous financial types
as well as government officials in charge of business financial assistance schemes that don't deliver.
Often the two ie the vultures and the government officials work in tandem.
I have extreme distaste for these zombies and an always on the alert. I am bowled over with how an overwhelming number of people
in society are scammed day in and day out and having their lives ruined. I fear it will shatter life as we know it not for individuals
only but for whole nations. People must pay more attention to attention to what this video says and what Michael Hudson explains
in his books .....Killing the Host and Junk Economics are his most recent ones.
I liked what she had to say, but I wonder why she didn't go a bit deeper into the operant conditioning aspect considering that's
what Skinner's work was based on. Why intermittent rewards work so well, and why the dopamine spike curve is so important in conditioning
a behavior in anything with a limbic system. Important because understanding how dopamine and dopamine spikes work came largely
from gambling research for slot machines. Technology that was built on Skinner's work by the gov and then business marketing along
with gov propaganda, then gambling. If people understood how it worked and where the technology came from they would be much less
likely to let gambling addiction happen in the first place.
I come from a family of gamblers, at least on my father's side. My dad towed us around to the racetracks and billiards parlors
until we were old enough to drive, and card games for money were a frequent family activity for us. I never felt attracted to
gambling, and often feel bored by the prospect. Needless to say, with advanced age I now find myself estranged from my remaining
siblings. What had occurred to me some time ago is how living life is such a gamble. Outcomes can always vary, from planning and
preparing for a career to going to the market for groceries. Games of chance seem to furnish a microcosm of the life experience,
where participants are allowed an illusion of greater control and the outcomes tend to be uniformly immediate. It also allows
you to ignore your greater life experience. Maybe that's the "zone" so many enjoy. I didn't remember what "March Madness" is.
Until all those slots were shown I thought they were talking about something similar to Black Friday. Now that I remember, it
hits me that my brother and sister undoubtedly have their bets down in multiple pools.
Another version of how ''Brave New World'' has come to pass. The documentaries: ''The Century of the Self'' and ''HyperNormalisation
2016'' by Adam Curtis explain how we have been subdued. This lady professor is very knowledgable. Excellent episode.
23:50 right on. We selfie generation are
too busy trolling the media and playing games to think, meditate, analyze, understand and act for our fellow man or a healthier
future for our country. It's all about me and my short-term gratifications.
Casino-Disasterism Capitalism is well named -- All of the engineered mechano-psychological traits used to make longshot escapist-gambling
popular, lucrative and addicting, based on the faux-goals of numb indulgence, cultivating of cheap-thrill delights, pandering
to the conceits of synthetic wastrel satisfactions and dead-end fatalism -- is evident in the terminal phase of the global corporate
deepstate technoracy of Empire Inc. that is pillaging and plundering its way across the planet, securitizing the earth right out
from under our feet! ~ ; )
Professor Natasha Dow Schüll said Trump won the presidential election, because Trump used his casino expertise to manipulate
voters. Based on the news I've seen, Trump was a failed casino owner. Trump is a con-artist who uses his massive inheritance,
multiple bankruptcies, privatized large gains, socialized larger losses, and sales hype in order "to win". Trump, Obama, and Bush
Jr. are good examples of how the average person lacks the talent, training, and experience to manage his/her own nation. Democracy,
majority tyranny, mob rule, or dumb-mock-crazy elections are modern myths.
The Clinton era, signified so much. Basically, in regard to this aspect, the very ending of any culture whatsoever; gambling
casinos took over our down-towns, and our oldest landmarks. I went in once and saw those carpets and nearly puked. Now she tells
why they are so ugly. Why any human being would find that appealing reminds me of Kissinger's infamous quote: "We've successfully
made the public so dumb, I cannot die. For there is no one to replace me.."
This is kind of symbolic and amazing figures: 34 billions are spend in casinos each year. and that's just official figure...
Notable quotes:
"... Casinos and Gambling are a tax on the ignorant and the indigent. ..."
"... Economist, Michael Hudson recently said in an interview that economics trumps politics every time. I am an observer of casinos and gambling in it's many forms. I am someone who has been fleeced by vulture capitalists and unscrupulous financial types as well as government officials in charge of business financial assistance schemes that don't deliver. ..."
"... Another version of how ''Brave New World'' has come to pass. The documentaries: ''The Century of the Self'' and ''HyperNormalisation 2016'' by Adam Curtis explain how we have been subdued. This lady professor is very knowledgable. Excellent episode. ..."
"... Completing the circle of predatory capitalism. Government controlled by oligarchy/plutoracry that see us, the citizens, as enemies of the state. ..."
On this week's episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses the ramifications of casino culture in America with Professor Natasha
Dow Schüll, author of " Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas". RT Correspondent Anya Parampil examines how gambling
has become our premier form of entertainment and escape.
Economist, Michael Hudson recently said in an interview that economics trumps politics every time. I am an observer of
casinos and gambling in it's many forms. I am someone who has been fleeced by vulture capitalists and unscrupulous financial types
as well as government officials in charge of business financial assistance schemes that don't deliver.
Often the two ie the vultures and the government officials work in tandem.
I have extreme distaste for these zombies and an always on the alert. I am bowled over with how an overwhelming number of people
in society are scammed day in and day out and having their lives ruined. I fear it will shatter life as we know it not for individuals
only but for whole nations. People must pay more attention to attention to what this video says and what Michael Hudson explains
in his books .....Killing the Host and Junk Economics are his most recent ones.
I liked what she had to say, but I wonder why she didn't go a bit deeper into the operant conditioning aspect considering that's
what Skinner's work was based on. Why intermittent rewards work so well, and why the dopamine spike curve is so important in conditioning
a behavior in anything with a limbic system. Important because understanding how dopamine and dopamine spikes work came largely
from gambling research for slot machines. Technology that was built on Skinner's work by the gov and then business marketing along
with gov propaganda, then gambling. If people understood how it worked and where the technology came from they would be much less
likely to let gambling addiction happen in the first place.
I come from a family of gamblers, at least on my father's side. My dad towed us around to the racetracks and billiards parlors
until we were old enough to drive, and card games for money were a frequent family activity for us. I never felt attracted to
gambling, and often feel bored by the prospect. Needless to say, with advanced age I now find myself estranged from my remaining
siblings. What had occurred to me some time ago is how living life is such a gamble. Outcomes can always vary, from planning and
preparing for a career to going to the market for groceries. Games of chance seem to furnish a microcosm of the life experience,
where participants are allowed an illusion of greater control and the outcomes tend to be uniformly immediate. It also allows
you to ignore your greater life experience. Maybe that's the "zone" so many enjoy. I didn't remember what "March Madness" is.
Until all those slots were shown I thought they were talking about something similar to Black Friday. Now that I remember, it
hits me that my brother and sister undoubtedly have their bets down in multiple pools.
Another version of how ''Brave New World'' has come to pass. The documentaries: ''The Century of the Self'' and ''HyperNormalisation
2016'' by Adam Curtis explain how we have been subdued. This lady professor is very knowledgable. Excellent episode.
23:50 right on. We selfie generation are
too busy trolling the media and playing games to think, meditate, analyze, understand and act for our fellow man or a healthier
future for our country. It's all about me and my short-term gratifications.
Casino-Disasterism Capitalism is well named -- All of the engineered mechano-psychological traits used to make longshot escapist-gambling
popular, lucrative and addicting, based on the faux-goals of numb indulgence, cultivating of cheap-thrill delights, pandering
to the conceits of synthetic wastrel satisfactions and dead-end fatalism -- is evident in the terminal phase of the global corporate
deepstate technoracy of Empire Inc. that is pillaging and plundering its way across the planet, securitizing the earth right out
from under our feet! ~ ; )
Professor Natasha Dow Schüll said Trump won the presidential election, because Trump used his casino expertise to manipulate
voters. Based on the news I've seen, Trump was a failed casino owner. Trump is a con-artist who uses his massive inheritance,
multiple bankruptcies, privatized large gains, socialized larger losses, and sales hype in order "to win". Trump, Obama, and Bush
Jr. are good examples of how the average person lacks the talent, training, and experience to manage his/her own nation. Democracy,
majority tyranny, mob rule, or dumb-mock-crazy elections are modern myths.
The Clinton era, signified so much. Basically, in regard to this aspect, the very ending of any culture whatsoever; gambling
casinos took over our down-towns, and our oldest landmarks. I went in once and saw those carpets and nearly puked. Now she tells
why they are so ugly. Why any human being would find that appealing reminds me of Kissinger's infamous quote: "We've successfully
made the public so dumb, I cannot die. For there is no one to replace me.."
"... I never meet Jew haters in my personal life but there sure are a lot on this site. How does less than 2% of the US population utterly dominate the nation? Is each Jew 50 times stronger than every gentile. ..."
"... They tend to be urban dwellers where salaries are higher but standards of living are often lower. Those in my neighborhood are very well assimilated. They put elaborate Christmas lights on their houses. It is not a rich neighborhood. ..."
"... Their earlier history was wretched and included slavery and persecutions for thousands of years. Don't waste much time fearing Jews ..."
I never meet Jew haters in my personal life but there sure are a lot on this site. How does less than 2% of the US population
utterly dominate the nation? Is each Jew 50 times stronger than every gentile.
I meet many Jews but can't recall a single
super Jew. Maybe they are clever deceivers? The great majority are middle earners. There are some rich and some poor. Jews dominate
Hollywood and certain occupations but they are underrepresented as engineers and architects. So what.
They tend to be urban dwellers where salaries are higher but standards of living are often lower. Those in my neighborhood
are very well assimilated. They put elaborate Christmas lights on their houses. It is not a rich neighborhood.
Jewish history does not support the idea of a super race. They only entered middle classes in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and only in the western world. Before that they were not allowed to attend universities or even own land in many cases.
Their earlier history was wretched and included slavery and persecutions for thousands of years. Don't waste much time
fearing Jews.
"... Although he was a brilliant orator, Hitler's failures are too innumerable to list. [Link] He was certainly a failure as a painter and his General staff considered him an incompetent military strategist (fortunately for the Allies.) However, Hitler was merely the right man at the right time and place to achieve power. As Ross explains, Hitler was , "the result of a large protest movement colliding with complex patterns of elite self-interest, in a culture increasingly prone to aggressive mythmaking and irrationality." That sounds all too close to home, doesn't it? ..."
"... Enter Donald Trump; the right man at the right time and place. He's a brute, a bully, and a demagogue, but he understands the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and he adjusts his message to appeal to his base. ..."
"... I have known many bullies; on the playground and in the boardroom. A bully may achieve short-term gain, but for long-term pain. It is very easy to destroy corporate culture, but extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mend a toxic workplace after the bully was dismissed. Now, extrapolate this to the world under Donald Trump. ..."
"... After his first meeting with Trump, he wrote that Trump "saw every unknown person as a threat and that his first instinct was to annihilate that threat. 'He's like a velociraptor. He has to be boss, and if you don't show him deference he kills you.'" ..."
"... If everything is so awesome, why are Americans drinking themselves to death in record numbers?" [Link] ..."
We're told that great leaders make history. Like so much of what we are taught, that's a
load of bunk. Yes, great leaders make it into the history books, but they do not make history.
You make history. I make history. All we dirt people together make history. Government-run
schools don't teach us this because it makes us easier to control.
The "Great Man Theory" [Link] tells us that history can be
largely explained by the impact of great leaders. This theory was popularized in the 1800's by
the historian and social commentator Thomas Carlyle [Link] The Great Man Theory downplays the
importance of economic and practical explanations. It is an appealing theory because its
simplicity offers the path of least resistance. That should ring an alarm.
Herbert Spencer [Link] forcefully disagreed with the "Great
Man Theory." He believed that great leaders were merely products of their social environment.
"Before he can remake his society, his society must make him." Tolstoy went so far as to call
great leaders "history's slaves." However, this middle ground still misses the mark.
At the other extreme is "history from below" [Link] aka 'the people's history.'
"History from below" takes the perspective of common people rather than leaders. It emphasizes
the daily life of ordinary people that develop opinions and trends " as opposed to great people
introducing ideas or initiating events." Unfortunately, this too is only half the equation, and
it is no surprise that it appeals to Leftist and Marxist agendas.
Having studied politics and history ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963,
I determined that although history is partly the environments and individuals shaping each
other reciprocally, it is more than that. It is you and I who make history with every decision
we make, every dollar we spend, everything we learn, every vote we cast and every opinion we
voice. It's even what we don't do. It is mostly organic and cannot easily be explained in a
simple, linear fashion the way the aforementioned political philosophers tried.
Great leaders are merely the right person at the right time and place. However, they do not
lead so much as follow from the front. They stick their finger in the air to see which way the
wind blows. They may be brutes, bullies or demagogues, but they are sensitive enough to
understand the zeitgeist , the spirit of the times and so, they adjust their message
accordingly.
That is one reason Jimmy Carter was a failed President. He was a nice guy, but he did not
get an accurate reading of the times. Instead, he acted on the wishful thinking that is
characteristic of liberals.
One of the significant shortcomings of many political philosophers is their ignorance of
human nature. That is why Collectivism in all its forms appeals to the downtrodden. "Share and
share alike" is a beautiful ideal so long as you get other people's stuff, but the flip side of
the coin is not quite so appealing.
I heard a radio interview with a self-avowed Communist:
"So do you believe in 'share and share alike?"
"Yes, I do."
"And, if you had more than one house, you'd give them away and keep just one for
yourself?"
"Yes. I would."
"And, if you had more than one vehicle, you'd give them away and keep just one for
yourself?"
"Yes, I would."
"And, if you had more than one shirt "
"Whoa, wait a minute! I have more than one shirt."
I can't remember the rest of the interview as I was laughing too hard.
The Great Man Theory is one extreme, its critics are somewhere in the middle and 'the
history of the people' is at the other end of the spectrum. Despite this, we are still
fascinated by great leaders. That is human nature. Whether we are slaves at heart, or lack
self-confidence or some other explanation is endlessly debatable. However, the fact remains
that we are fascinated by great leaders and our inability to understand them further disproves
the accepted theories.
Adolph Hitler is the ultimate example of our fascination with a great man. According to Alex
Ross's "The Hitler Vortex," [Link]
tens of thousands of books have been written about Hitler. "Books have been written about
Hitler's youth, his years in Vienna and Munich, his service in the First World War, his
assumption of power, his library, his taste in art, his love of film, his relations with women,
and his predilections in interior design ('Hitler at Home')."
Tens of thousands of books failed to explain Hitler. Ross, too, does no better when he
writes, "What set Hitler apart from most authoritarian figures in history was his conception of
himself as an artist-genius who used politics as his métier. It is a mistake to call him
a failed artist; for him, politics and war were a continuation of art by other means." WTF? Are
we to believe Hitler was simply an artist who used the world as his canvas? Equally pointless
is the notion that, "Hitler debased the Romantic cult of genius to incarnate himself as a
transcendent leader hovering above the fray."
Although he was a brilliant orator, Hitler's failures are too innumerable to list.
[Link] He
was certainly a failure as a painter and his General staff considered him an incompetent
military strategist (fortunately for the Allies.) However, Hitler was merely the right man at
the right time and place to achieve power. As Ross explains, Hitler was , "the result of a
large protest movement colliding with complex patterns of elite self-interest, in a culture
increasingly prone to aggressive mythmaking and irrationality." That sounds all too close to
home, doesn't it?
Enter Donald Trump; the right man at the right time and place. He's a brute, a bully, and a
demagogue, but he understands the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and he adjusts his message
to appeal to his base.
I have known many bullies; on the playground and in the boardroom. A bully may achieve
short-term gain, but for long-term pain. It is very easy to destroy corporate culture, but
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mend a toxic workplace after the bully was
dismissed. Now, extrapolate this to the world under Donald Trump.
John Feeley is the former U.S. Ambassador to Panama portrayed in The New Yorker magazine
article "The Diplomat Who Quit the Trump Administration." [Link]After his first meeting with Trump, he wrote that Trump "saw every unknown person as a threat
and that his first instinct was to annihilate that threat. 'He's like a velociraptor. He has to
be boss, and if you don't show him deference he kills you.'"
Feeley fears that "the country was embracing an attitude that was profoundly inimical to
diplomacy 'If we do that we will become weaker and less prosperous.'" He is correct in that
regard. China is building a large, new embassy at the mouth of the Panama Canal visible to
every ship "as they enter a waterway that once symbolized the global influence of the United
States."
Feeley is also correct in warning that the Trump administration's gutting the diplomatic
corps will have negative repercussions. Throughout Latin America, leftist leaders are in
retreat, and popular movements reject corrupt governance. Yet, America is losing "the greatest
opportunity to recoup the moral high ground that we have had in decades." Instead, the U.S. is
abandoning the region to China. Feeley calls it "a self-inflicted Pearl Harbor."
China is replacing U.S. influence in Latin America and Chinese banks "provided more than a
hundred and fifty billion dollars in loan commitments to the region In less than two decades,
trade between China and Latin America has increased twenty-seven-fold." Although that began
long before Trump, "We're not just walking off the field. We're taking the ball and throwing a
finger at the rest of the world."
Feeley says that he felt betrayed by what he regarded as "the traditional core values of the
United States." Sorry, Feeley, but America lost its core values long before Trump was elected.
Trump is not the cause; he is the symptom, the result of the declining American Empire.
Hunters know that one of the most dangerous animals is a wounded one. The same is correct
about failing empires because they are a danger not only to others but to their own citizens as
well. The elites are running out the clock in order to loot as much as they can before it hits
the fan.
We dirt people will continue to suffer from stagnant wage growth while the so-called
increase in national wealth goes to a tiny minority.
[link]
Moreover, nobody wins a trade war that raises consumer prices even if Trump eventually
triumphs.
The economy staggers under the weight of phony wars, fake finances, fake GDP, fake CPI, fake
employment, fake pensions and fake everything.
[Link] The national debt increases $1 trillion every year, consumer debt is at an all-time
high
[Link] while the tax cuts benefit only the ultra-wealthy. Also, the fake news tells us
everything is wonderful. Don't believe it. "If everything is so awesome, why are Americans
drinking themselves to death in record numbers?"
[Link]
It is said that every few generations, money returns to its rightful owners. That is what's
happening now.
America emerged relatively unscathed from the Second World War whereas many other countries
were bombed back into the Stone Age. The Marshal Plan helped rebuild countries that were to
become both America's future customers and its competitors. America's busy factories
transformed from war production to consumer goods, the demand for which was created by "the
Father of Spin" Edward Bernays' marketing propaganda. [Link]
As well, the U.S. stole the gold that the Nazis had stolen from others, [Link]
and that wealth in addition to robust, productive capacity temporarily propelled the U.S. far
ahead of other nations. However, it would not last. Eventually, the undeserved prosperity of
the 1950's and '60's began to run out of steam as other nations rebuilt and competed with the
U.S. President Nixon defaulting on the dollar in 1971 by "closing the gold window" signaled the
end of America's good times . The subsequent debt creation now unconstricted by a gold basis
helped to cushion the blow for several decades, but wealth was now flowing to Asia along with
factory jobs.
For 5,000 years, China was a world superpower with only a short, two-century hiatus that is
now ending as China again emerges as an economic superpower. Such a massive shift in wealth
cannot be attributed to either leadership or the people below. It is a painful reversion to the
mean. All the finger-pointing and wailing and gnashing of teeth not even bombastic Trump and
his tariffs can stem the tide and make America great again as money continues to flow back to
its rightful owners.
The USA is a declining, bankrupt, warmongering police state and most of its indoctrinated
citizens think they live in a free, peaceful country.
China is a corrupt police state, but most of its citizens know it.
We have met the enemy, and he is us. The future awaits.
The United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin
sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having two
Russian citizens take out life memberships in the organization with the intention of corrupting
it and turning it into a mouthpiece for President Vladimir Putin.
Both of the Russians – Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin – have, by the way,
long well documented histories as advocates for gun ownership and were founders of Right to
Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind and is rather a genuine
lobbying group with an active membership and agenda.
Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the
licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms,
modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Maria Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in solitary confinement in a
federal prison, having been charged with collusion with Torshin and failure to register as an
agent of the Russian Federation. It is unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to
register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, but she has not been granted bail
because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee
the US and return home. It is to be presumed that she is being pressured to identify others
involved in her alleged scheme to overthrow American democracy through NRA membership.
Indeed, in any event, it would be difficult to imagine why anyone would consider the NRA to
be a legitimate intelligence target. It only flexes its admitted powerful legislative muscles
over issues relating to gun ownership, not regarding policy on Russia. In short, Butina and by
extension Torshin appear to have done nothing wrong. Both are energetic advocates for their
country and guns rights, which they appear to believe in, and Butina's aggressive networking
has broken no law except not registering, which in itself assumes that she is a Russian
government agent, something that has not been demonstrated. To put the shoe on the other foot,
will every American who now travels to Russia and engages in political conversations with local
people be suspected of acting as an agent of the US government? Once you open the door, it
swings both ways.
One might dismiss the entire Affair Butina as little more than a reflection of the
anti-Russia hysteria that has been sweeping the United States since Hillary Clinton lost the
2016 election, but that would be unfair to those remaining honest FBI agents who may have
investigated Butina and Torshin and come up with what they believed to be a plausible case for
an indictment . There were possibly suspicious money transfers as well as email intercepts that
might be interpreted as incriminating.
But two important elements are clearly missing.
The first is motive. Did the Kremlin seriously believe that it could get anything
substantial out of having a gun totin' attractive young Russian woman as a life member in the
NRA? What did the presumed puppet masters in Moscow expect to obtain apart from the sorts of
group photos including Butina that one gets while posing with politicians at the annual NRA
convention? Sure, the photo might even evolve into a cup of coffee together, but what is the
end game?
Second is the lack of any of the hallmarks of an intelligence operation, which is referred
to in the business as tradecraft. Spies meet secretly or at least outside the public eye with
prospective agents whereas Maria operated completely in the open and she made no effort to
conceal her love for her country and her desire that Washington and Moscow normalize
relations. Spies also communicate securely, which means that they use encrypted systems or
various cut-outs, i.e. mis-directions, when maintaining contact with those who are running
them. Again, Maria did none of that, which is why the FBI has her emails. Also spies work
under what is referred to as an "operating directive" in CIA-speak where they have very
specific information that they seek to obtain from their contacts. There is no indication
that Maria Butina in any way sought classified information or intelligence that would relate
either to the security of the United States or to America's political system. And finally,
Maria made no attempt to recruit anyone and turn them into an actual controlled Russian
agent, which is what spies eventually seek to do.
It has come down to this: if you are a Russian and you are caught talking to anyone in any
way influential, there is potentially hell to pay because the FBI will be watching you. You are
automatically assumed to be part of a conspiracy. Once "evidence" is collected, you will be
indicted and sent to prison, mostly to send a message to Moscow.
It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union's judiciary used to function is now
becoming standing operating procedure in the United States.
"... Silencing unpopular viewpoints with which the majority might disagree -- whether it's by shouting them down, censoring them, muzzling them, or criminalizing them -- only empowers the controllers of the Deep State. ..."
"... It's political correctness disguised as tolerance, civility and love, but what it really amounts to is the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite. ..."
"... Instead of intelligent discourse, we've been saddled with identity politics, "a safe space from thought, rather than a safe space for thought." ..."
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of
speech." ― Benjamin Franklin
What a mess.
As America has become ever more polarized, and those polarized factions have become more
militant and less inclined to listen to - or even allow for the existence of - other
viewpoints, we are fast becoming a nation of people who just can't get along.
Here's the thing: if Americans don't learn how to get along - at the very least, agreeing to
disagree and respecting each other's right to subscribe to beliefs and opinions that may be
offensive, hateful, intolerant or merely different - then we're going to soon find that we have
no rights whatsoever (to speak, assemble, agree, disagree, protest, opt in, opt out, or forge
our own paths as individuals).
In such an environment, when we can't agree to disagree, the bullies (on both sides) win and
freedom suffers.
Intolerance, once the domain of the politically correct and self-righteous, has been
institutionalized, normalized and politicized. Even those who dare to defend speech that may be
unpopular or hateful as a constitutional right are now accused of " weaponizing the
First Amendment ."
On college campuses across the country, speakers whose views are deemed "offensive" to some
of the student body are having their invitations recalled or cancelled, being shouted down by
hecklers, or forced to hire costly security details. As The Washington Post concludes, "
College students support free speech -- unless it offends them ."
At Hofstra University,
half the students in a freshman class boycotted when the professor assigned them to read
Flannery O'Connor's short story "Artificial Nigger." As Professor Arthur Dobrin recounts,
"The boycotters refused to engage a writer who would use such an offensive word. They hadn't
read the story; they wouldn't lower themselves to that level. Here is what they missed: The
story's title refers to a lawn jockey, a once common ornament of a black man holding a lantern.
The statue symbolizes the suffering of an entire group of people and looking at it bring a
moment of insight to a racist old man."
... ... ...
What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that's a whole
other ballgame.
Just as surveillance has been shown to " stifle and smother
dissent, keeping a populace cowed by fear ," government censorship gives rise to
self-censorship, breeds compliance, makes independent thought all but impossible, and
ultimately foments a seething discontent that has no outlet but violence.
The First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to speak their minds, air their
grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world.
When there is no steam valve - when there is no one to hear what the people have to say -
frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force a
conversation. By bottling up dissent, we have created a pressure cooker of stifled misery and
discontent that is now bubbling over and fomenting even more hate, distrust and paranoia among
portions of the populace.
Silencing unpopular viewpoints with which the majority might disagree -- whether it's by
shouting them down, censoring them, muzzling them, or criminalizing them -- only empowers the
controllers of the Deep State.
Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language
appear well-intentioned -- discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination
and hatred -- inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination and
infantilism.
It's political correctness disguised as tolerance, civility and love, but what it really
amounts to is the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to
the cultural elite.
We've allowed ourselves to be persuaded that we need someone else to think and speak for us.
And we've allowed ourselves to become so timid in the face of offensive words and ideas that
we've bought into the idea that we need the government to shield us from that which is ugly or
upsetting or mean.
The result is a society in which we've stopped debating among ourselves, stopped thinking
for ourselves, and stopped believing that we can fix our own problems and resolve our own
differences.
In short, we have reduced ourselves to a largely silent, passive, polarized populace
incapable of working through our own problems with each other and reliant on the government to
protect us from our fears of each other.
... ... ...
Instead of intelligent discourse, we've been saddled with identity politics, "a safe space from thought, rather than a
safe space for thought."
With Elon Musk refusing to name any of the parties from whom he has allegedly "secured funding" after launching a huge short squeeze
in Tesla yesterday with his now infamous Tesla "going private" series of tweets, it was only a matter of time before the regulators
- who have so far stubbornly ignored Tesla - started asking questions.
According to
the WSJ , that time is now, because the SEC has inquired with Tesla about Elon Musk's announcement that he may take the company
private " and whether his claim was factual ", or in other words, whether Musk lied when he said he had secured financing.
The regulator also asked why the disclosure which kept people glued to twitter for hours was made on the social network rather
than in a regulatory filing, and whether the firm believes the announcement complies with investor-protection rules.
According to the WSJ, the SEC inquiries - which originated from its San Francisco office so it will be relatively easy to visit
the Fremont office - suggest Tesla could come under an enforcement investigation if regulators develop evidence that Musk's tweet
was misleading or false.
"Frankly, the bigger issue is going to be whether the information is correct or not," said Ira Matetsky, a partner at Ganfer
& Shore in New York, who outlined questions the SEC might ask. "When Musk tweeted this, was he saying this was something that
was definitely going to happen? Something that might happen? How would a reasonable investor interpret that and was it consistent
with the facts as they existed at the time?" -
BBG
And while it is mostly semantics, so far it remains unclear if the SEC had opened a formal enforcement investigation based on
the answers it received from the company.
"To put that out unless he absolutely has financing secured and is ready to make the bid that could be market manipulation," Keith
Higgins, a Ropes & Gray partner who formerly led the SEC's corporation finance unit, told
Bloomberg . "He could be in big trouble if that turns out not to have been true."
The biggest risk for Musk is if regulators find that he made a statement only intending to goose his company's share price, or
as he likes to put it, "crush the shorts." Under US securities law, companies and corporate officers can (and will) be held liable
for making misstatements or omitting information that shareholders need to make informed investment decisions.
In his email to employees on Tuesday, instead of detailing the circumstances around the "pre-commited" going private deal, Musk
blamed short sellers and other pressures public markets put on companies as factors in announcing he wanted to take the company private.
However, that's not enough.
As
we noted earlier , one potential problem is that merely the intent of a "going private" transaction, triggers rule 13E-3, which
requires the company to file a Schedule
13E-3 with the SEC as well as furnish the required disclosures to the company's shareholders. Note: the rule is triggered in
either case, even if the intent to go private is ultimately unsuccessful.
13E-3 or no, the SEC will demand to know just what is going on, what the Board knew and when - recall it stated today that it
was made aware of Elon's plans last week and yet there was no mention of this in the 10-Q's "Recent Developments" section - and if
Musk was even sober and rational when he tweeted what he did.
Meanwhile, Tom Farley, the former President of the NYSE, had some advice for the SEC:
Dear @SEC_News, this is an easy one: ask TSLA to show you the agreement(s) signed by their funding source(s) by 5pm EST that
demonstrates the funding is "secured" and "certain." If there is no such agreement, require a statement by 5:30pm. Inspire market
confidence.
And while Musk has historically been extremely cavalier with his tweeting, this time it could cost: if found guilty of stock fraud,
he would surely be on the hook for billions as the lawsuits start piling in, with the worst case scenario giving Musk an unlimited
amount of time to tweet to his heart's content... from prison.
The stock dropped back under $370 on the news, and is rapidly approaching the $359.8676 conversion price of the $920 million of
convertible bond due March 2019, which some have speculated is the entire reason behind the "going private" spectacle.
Vote up! 3 Vote down! 1
In the beginning Tesla looked like a good business venture because of limited oil reserves in the world and the promise of
increasing oil prices.
The prospects for vast profits were very promising for the people who control US fiances, and Musk an insider bought a controlling
interest of the company.
Eight years ago Musk brought the company public to raise funds developing its then upcoming Model S electric car. However,
the company was also at the time awash in red ink. It had lost $290.2 million since its 2003 founding, and its first-quarter loss
in 2010 was $29.5 million, but a $465 million U.S. Department of Energy loan helped the company gain some momentum.
Musk's companies, Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have
benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support. The figure underscores a common theme running through his emerging
empire: a public-private financing model underpinning long-shot start-ups.
It is government money being used and not exclusive private money for such risks, but what is the difference when the same
people control US finances, the Fed, and the government?
A year before Musk announced his recent intention to take Tesla Motors private all things seemed to go wrong for the company,
like thousands of Model 3s electric cars dormant in various parking lots as if they are not selling (as if they have really tried),
production delays, and numerous unprecedented numbers of Tesla autos catching fire with occupants dying - very dramatic. The stocks
stocks begin to fall and then Musk just recently announces his plans to go private.
What promise does Musk really see in his various models? Has this very connected man or the people behind him made efforts
to screw SH's by depressing share value?
"... Freeman and McKinley also successfully make their point that Citigroup and its predecessors have repeatedly used their political connections to help the bank ..."
But there has never been an accounting of how Citigroup got itself into so much trouble and
why the decisions were made to bail it out -- to the tune of, as the authors reveal, more than
$517 billion all told, some $40 billion more than the roughly $476 billion in cash and
guarantees described in a 2011 congressional report.
... ... ...
But "Borrowed Time" is not the book I was hoping it would be. It provides little new insight
into what possessed Citigroup to go so far off the rails a decade ago and why it was not just
allowed to dissolve like Lehman Brothers. Sure, Freeman and McKinley point out the important
facts that Citigroup had hired Robert Rubin, the former Treasury
secretary , into the bank's executive suite, that he had a major role in ratcheting up
Citigroup's risk-taking and that his protégés Tim Geithner and Jack Lew, both
Treasury secretaries under Barack Obama, were in a position to help Citigroup (the authors
state that Rubin was Geithner's "professional patron") when the bank needed rescuing. But none
of this is explored in much detail, and what's there feels rushed and perfunctory.
The authors also ignore the low-hanging fruit of Citigroup whistle-blowers, like Richard
Bowen and Sherry Hunt, who would have had plenty to say about how their colleagues in the
bank's mortgage department knowingly lowered their credit standards and continued to package
shoddy mortgages into securities and to sell them off -- for big fees and then big bonuses --
as investments all over the world. "Borrowed Time" has plenty of citations from books and
articles about the financial crisis and about the often fascinating group of executives who led
the bank over its long history, but the endnotes reveal only one actual interview the authors
conducted -- with Bart Dzivi, the former special counsel to the Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission. What about the sizable cast of characters that brought the bank to the brink of
disaster in 2008? Surely not every one of them would have declined to be interviewed.
If the book has any narrative tension, it is found in the authors' interesting -- but too
quick -- asides about their often unsuccessful efforts to pry supposedly public information
about the bank out of its regulators. (Under the auspices of the Freedom of Information Act,
Freeman and McKinley initiated a marginally successful lawsuit against the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation to get documents about Citigroup that weren't forthcoming.) It turns out
there is more information about the bank available in the files of the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency from the 19th and early 20th centuries than there is in its files
about, say, the years 1991 and 1992, another time the bank almost failed. The authors argue
that in the aftermath of the passage of the Federal Records Act of 1950, regulators have
"routinely destroyed the exam reports" for the bank, leading Freeman and McKinley to the sound
conclusion that it is "easier to repeat history if the lessons of the past are erased."
Colorful characters show up in "Borrowed Time" -- from Frank Vanderlip and "Sunshine
Charlie" Mitchell to John Reed and Sandy Weill -- and some of them, especially Mitchell, become
better known as a result. Freeman and McKinley also successfully make their point that
Citigroup and its predecessors have repeatedly used their political connections to help the
bank
Tech giants like Tesla, Uber, or Spotify are making less and less profit at the moment and
experts are worried about their impact on the world. Are we seeing a new economic bubble in the
making? RT's Daniel Bushel finds out. American tech corporations are often making headlines
nationwide and internationally, although their own performance is far from perfect. They lose
more and earn less, and experts warn of a potential "bubble" looming in the
horizon.
Tesla, Elon Musk's flagship company, is worth more than Ford or GM, but produces only a
small number of cars. Spotify, a music streaming service, as well as Uber, are losing billions
of dollars every year.
"Definitely, there's a bubble, not just in tech stocks but in general stock market
itself," Jack Rasmus, professor of political economy at St. Mary's College, told RT,
warning that "there are signs of financial fragility" that endanger the world
Earlier estimates of OPEC have now changed, and there is no increase from June. Probably, a
slight decrease from SA. From OPEC sources, not Platts. I think they would start increasing
if Iran drops, but not much otherwise. I think Sauds and Kuwait joint venture is set up for
that potential.
Changing the way I gage things, into a much simpler format. Now, I look at world inventory
drops, and look at current increases from OPEC and US. Neither will change much, so inventory
drops should continue. Opec needs to come up with a lot more, or it will look damn scary in
2019. With pipeline constraints, Canada is pretty much out of the picture for further
increases this year, and not much, elsewhere.
Yes the outlook for OPEC's July production is looking more flat now. This is a strange
situation because Platts is one of OPEC secondary sources and so I assume that they see all
the numbers
Thank you. This news confirms that world production is stagnating. Possibly very close to the
decline. We will have to be attentive to the inventories. It will be the first place that the
nations get hold of in order to supply themselves with oil.
The US
Congress has revived
the so-called "NOPEC" bill
for countering OPEC and OPEC+.
Officially called the "
No
Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act
",
NOPEC is the definition of so-called
"lawfare" because it enables the US to extra-territorially impose its domestic legislation on
others by giving the government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of
their coordinated efforts to control oil prices.
Lawsuits, however, are
unenforceable
, which is why the targeted states'
refusal to abide by the US courts' likely predetermined judgement against them will probably be
used to trigger sanctions under the worst-case scenario, with this chain of events being catalyzed
in order to achieve several strategic objectives.
The first is that the US wants to break up the
Russian-Saudi
axis
that forms the core of OPEC+, which leads to the second goal of then unravelling the
entire OPEC structure and heralding in the free market liberalization of the global energy
industry.
This is decisively to the US' advantage as it seeks to become an energy-exporting superpower,
but it must neutralize its competition as much as possible before this happens, ergo the
declaration of economic-hybrid war through NOPEC. How it would work in practice is that the US
could threaten primary sanctions against the state companies involved in implementing OPEC and
OPEC+ agreements, after which these could then be selectively expanded to secondary sanctions
against other parties who continue to do business with them.
The purpose behind this approach is to intimidate the US' European vassals into
complying with its demands so as to make as much of the continent as possible a captive market of
America's energy exporters, which explains why Trump also wants to
scrap
LNG export licenses to the EU
.
If successful, this could further erode Europe's shrinking strategic independence and also
inflict long-term economic damage on the US' energy rivals that could then be exploited for
political purposes.
At the same time, America's recently unveiled "
Power
Africa
" initiative to
invest $175 billion
in gas projects
there could eventually see US companies in the emerging energy frontiers
of
Tanzania
,
Mozambique
,
and elsewhere become important suppliers to their country's Chinese rival, which could make
Beijing's access to energy even more dependent on American goodwill than ever before.
If looked at as the opening salvo of a global energy war being waged in parallel with the
trade
one
as opposed to being dismissed as the populist piece of legislation that it's being
portrayed as by the media,
NOPEC can be seen as the strategic superweapon that it
actually is,
with its ultimate effectiveness being dependent of course on whether it's
properly wielded by American decision makers.
It's too earlier to call it a game-changer because it hasn't even been promulgated
yet, but in the event that it ever is, then it might go down in history as the most impactful
energy-related development since OPEC, LNG, and fracking.
No way US can manipulate oil trade at this
point without hurting themselves or helping
their "enemies". Cause and effect, just think
it through.
The world needs energy, Russia has
energy...and a real surplus for sale. The US
is a net energy consumer with no surplus.
China needs energy in a big way. Trying to
cut off Russian and Iranian oil and trying to
blow up the Chinese economy are acts of war.
The West realizes there is no way they can
survive in their current status of moar with
that kind of competition out there. The
BRICST now constitute $17 trillion in
combined GDP. They have the energy sources
(Russia and Iran), they have the
manufacturing base (China), they have the
agricultural base (Russia, Brazil, South
Africa), and they have plenty of
customers.....even outside the BRICST union.
That is a formidable competitive force to
face when you are an economy structured on
infinite growth on a finite planet......that
you control less and less of each year.
If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true,
then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of
espionage, at a minimum.
Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means
that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning
and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies
against the sitting President.
As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to
Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the
expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.
I'd read it a few times, because it's about as murky as The Swamp gets. And, still my eyes
glaze over.
The Magnitsky Act and its sequel have been used to support aggressive policy actions by the
U.S. against Russia and destroy the relationship between the world's most prominent militaries
and nuclear powers.
The new bill is said to want to put 'crushing sanctions' on Russia to make 'Putin feel the
heat.' In effect, what this bill wants to do is force President Trump to enforce sanctions
against
the entire Russian state for attempting to do business anywhere in the world.
The new financial penalties would target political figures, oligarchs, family members and
others that "facilitate illicit and corrupt activities" on behalf of Putin.
It would also impose new sanctions on transactions tied to investments in state-owned
energy projects, transactions tied to new Russian debt, and people with the capacity or
ability to support or carry out a "malicious" cyber act.
In addition, if it wasn't clear enough already, that he's no friend of the President, Graham
is trying to tie the President's hands on NATO withdrawal, requiring a two-thirds majority.
Now, why would Graham be worried about that, unless it was something the President was
seriously considering? This is similar to last year's sanctions bill requiring a similar
majority for the President to end the original sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 over the
reunification with Crimea.
And behind it all stands Bill Browder.
Because it has been Browder's one-man campaign to influence members of Congress, the EU and
public opinion the world over against Putin and Russia for the past 10 years over Magnitsky's
death.
Browder's story is the only one we see in the news. And it's never questioned, even though
it has. He continually moves to block films and articles critical of him from seeing
distribution.
Browder is the epicenter around which the insane push for war with Russia revolves as
everyone involved in the attempt to take over Russia in 1999 continues to try and cover their
collective posteriors posterities.
And it is Browder, along with Republic National Bank chief Edmond Safra, who were involved
together in the pillaging of Russia in the 1990's. Browder's firm hired Magintsky as an
accountant (because that's what he was) to assist in the money laundering Heritage Capital was
involved in.
The attempted take over of Russia failed because Yeltsin saw the setup which led him to
appoint Putin as his Deputy Prime Minister.
There was $7 billion that was wired through Bank of New York which involved money stolen
from the IMF loans to Russia. The attempt to takeover Russia by blackmail was set in motion.
As soon as that wire was done, that is when Republic National Bank ran to the Department of
Justice to say it was money-laundering. I believe this started the crisis and Yeltsin was
blackmailed to step down and appoint Boris A. Berezovsky as the head of Russia.
Clearly, Republic National Bank was involved with the US government for they were sending
also skids of $100 bills to Russia. It was written up and called the
Money Plane . Yeltsin then turned to Putin realizing that he had been set up. This is how
Putin became the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia on August 9th, 1999 until August 16th,
1999 when he became the 33rd Prime Minister and heir apparent of Yeltsin.
So, now why, all of a sudden, do we need even stronger sanctions on Russia, ones that would
create untold dislocation in financial markets around the world?
Look at the timeline today and see what's happening.
Earlier this year Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 people associated with
Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, for influencing the 2016 election.
Then Mueller indicts twelve members of Russian intelligence to sabotage the upcoming
summit between Trump and Putin while the Russia Hacked Muh Election narrative was
flagging.
Three days later President Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. There a Putin let
the world know that he would assist Robert Mueller's investigation if in return the U.S.
would assist Russia in returning Bill Browder, who was tried and convicted in absentia for
tax evasion.
All of a sudden Browder's story is all over the alternative press. Browder is all over
U.S. television.
Earlier this week Facebook comes out, after horrific earnings, to tell everyone that IRA
was still at it, though being ever so sneaky, trying to influence the mid-terms by engaging
Democrats and anti-Trumpers to organize... In that release, Facebook let it be known it was
working with the political arm of NATO, The Atlantic Council, to ferret out these dastardly
Russian agents.
And now we have a brand-new shiny sanctions bill intended to keep any rapprochement between
the U.S. and Russia from occurring.
Why is that? What's got them so scared of relations with Russia improving?
Maybe, just maybe, because Putin has all of these people dead to rights and he's informed
Trump of what the real story behind all of this is.
That at its core is a group of very bad people who attempted to steal trillions but only got
away with billions and still have their sights set on destroying Russia for their own
needs.
And Lindsay Graham is their mouthpiece. (all puns intended)
That all of U.S. foreign policy is built on a lie.
That our relationship with Russia was purposefully trashed for the most venal of reasons,
for people like Bill Browder to not only steal billions but then have the chutzpah to steal the
$230 million he would have paid in taxes on those stolen billions.
And the only way to ensure none of those lies are exposed is for Trump to be unable to
change any of it by forcing him to openly side with the Russian President over members of his
own political party.
The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department
thinks they are a bad idea. But, at this point there is nothing Graham won't do for his
owners.
Because they are desperate they will push for open warfare with Russia to push Putin from
power, which is not possible. All of this is nothing more than a sad attempt to hold onto power
long enough to oust Trump from the White House and keep things as horrible as they currently
are.
Because no one gives up power willingly. And the more they are proven to be frauds the more
they will scream for war.
I should also mention Putin's treatment of certain Jewish oligarchs who have attempted
to influence Western policies toward Russia (e.g., Mikhail Khodorkovsky). A truly stunning
moment in the Trump-Putin presser (all but ignored in the MSM) was Putin saying that Bill
Browder and his associates had illegally earned $1.5 billion in Russia ("the way the money
was earned was illegal") without paying taxes either to Russia or the United States where
the money was transferred. And that he and his associates had contributed $400 million to
Hillary Clinton's campaign. While the charges back and forth are impossible for me to
evaluate, Browder's firm, Hermitage Capital Management, has been involved in other
accusations of fraud. Browder was the main force promoting the Magnitsky Act, signed by
President Obama in 2012, that barred Russian officials said to be involved in the death of
Sergei Magnitsky, a Browder associate, from entering the U.S. or using the U.S. banking
system.
Here the point is that American neocons have been in the forefront of hostility over
Putin's treatment of Jewish oligarchs, taking the view that Browder et al. are completely
innocent victims of Russian evil. Along with Russian foreign policy, Putin's actions toward
the oligarchs is one factor in neocon and hence some factions of the GOP toward Russia.
It's no surprise that they are now eagerly joining the hate-Trump chorus throughout the
American establishment.
"William Felix "Bill" Browder was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois.
Browder's paternal grandfather was Earl Browder , who was born in Kansas in
1891. [1] He was a
radical and had lived in the Soviet Union for several years from 1927 and married Raisa
Berkman, a Jewish Russian woman, while living there. [1]
After his return to the United States in 1931, [1] Earl Browder
became the leader of the Communist Party USA , and ran for
U.S. president in 1936 and 1940. [13]
After World War II, Earl Browder lost favor with Moscow and was expelled from the American
Communist party . [1]
Remove all jew supremacists from all positions of power, no matter how small-NOW!
Get It, Read It:
"A History of Central Banking and the Enslavement of Mankind" Stephon Mitford Goodson
Great film that takes you from Browder the poor defrauded good guy with a hero lawyer
Magnitsky, to a bad guy with Magnitsky the long employed accountant who made none of the
assertions injected into the Russian -English translations that no one reviewed. But why is
this film banned in the West? (/s)
Not only is Steele part of this shady group but there are ties with Alexander Litvinenko,
Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Perepelichny (who all meet thier untimely deaths) around Bill
Browder (directly/indirectly)"
As Browder responds with "I do not recall" and "I do not know" on any substantial
inquiry in the court, the US judiciary could be very interested in hearing Perepelichny.
This menace to Magnitsky Act was eliminated one week before the bill passed the US House:
on Nov 10, 2012 Alexander Perepelichny was found dead outside his mansion in London. The
police investigation did not bring any tangible result but the theory of "Russian mafia"
involved was timely injected into the international media. One month later Magnitsky Act
was signed by president Obama
McCain hand carried the Steele Dossier to Comey. McCain was in Canada when MI6 operative
Sir Andrew Wood enlisted McCain. Then McCain took the bait, no he was working to take Trump
out.
He tried to get out of it in his new book, The Restless Wave.
I've watched McCain for years, I believe he has brain damage from the Vietnam War.
I can understand repealing Jackson-Vanik because it pertained to how U. S. deals with
"non-market economies." Free market mechanisms were introduced in Russia and China since the
1970s so there needed to be changes. However, if there's government corruption in other
nation states, how does this rate an act of Congress? Why repeal the law that required annual
reviews of trade relations and replace it with normalization of trade only to sanction
foreign government officials that have never even had a trial? What about all the financial
misdeeds, money laundering, abuse of the banking system that can be traced to Browder, the
congressional instigator? How does Graham, McCain and Cardin benefit by derailing relations
with Russia over ONE GUY's WORD with a dicey past?
Law
In June 2012, the United
States House Committee on Foreign Affairs reported to the House a bill called the Sergei
Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (H.R. 4405). The main intention of the law
was to punish Russian officials who were thought to be responsible for the death of Sergei
Magnitsky by prohibiting their entrance to the United States and their use of its banking
system. The legislation was taken up by a Senate panel the next week,
sponsored by Senator Ben
Cardin , and cited in a broader review of the mounting tensions in the international
relationship.
In November 2012, provisions of the Magnitsky bill were attached to a House bill (H.R.
6156) normalizing trade with Russia (i.e., repealing the Jackson–Vanik
amendment ) and Moldova . On December 6, 2012, the U.S. Senate
passed the House version of the law, 92-4. The law was signed by President Barack Obama on December 14, 2012.
In 2016, Congress enacted the Global Magnitsky Act which allows the US Government to
sanction foreign government officials implicated in human rights abuses anywhere in the
world.
trump has wrecked environmental policy, trade policy and domestic social policy....the
upshots will be: 1- a much more toxic environment & much higher level of respiratory
disease and cancerous related ailments; overall poorer health & health care for the
average citizen 2- higher prices for imported goods, lower level of trade exports, fewer US
based jobs and more off-shoring of US jobs 3- a substantial increase in the homeless
population in the urban areas of this country; increased rates of poverty for the poor, lower
economic prosperity for the lower and lower middle class income brackets; wage stagnation for
the middle & upper middle income brackets; less advanced education & lower worker
productivity and innovation to name just a few of the impacts created by this idiot....in
simple in English, Trump and his so-called initiatives are shafting this country in almost
every way possible
What part of international law is not just pissed on toiler paper strewn over the floors of a
urinal? Which post WWII president respected this law?
None.
International law, since WWII failed. It failed in '47 when no referendum was held in
Palestine - against Chapter 1, Article 1 paragraph 2 of the UN Charter. It failed in Crimea,
when the results of such a referendum was spat on by the previous war criminal to sit in the
Oval Office. It fails now as sanctions are used unilaterally - being equivalent to the use of
force in result, they should be
But then let's not stop at after the war. The US is the only country to nuke civilians.
6/7 US four star generals at the time said the action had no strategic or tactical purpose
whatsoever.
The US is what ISIS dreams to be, the sooner it falls into obscurity the better.
Pure nonsense. The Great Depression began on October 29, 1929. FDR was inaugurated on March
4, 1933 nearly 4 years after it began. Hoover had actually only been in office for just over
6 months before Black Tuesday. GDP began growing and unemployment began falling in 1933
shortly after FDR took office. The Depression officially came to an end in 1939 when GDP
returned to pre-Depression levels.
There is no long term US growth. There is a debt default after people realize the fact that
the top of the whole US government is incompetent. That it has chained itself to such
astronomic liabilities for useless wars (as the Empire has not succeeded in world hegemony),
is even sadder. It coould have spent the $5tn of Iraq and Afghanistan on building shit, but
instead it bombed shit.
Trump doesn't matter for US long run - in 5-10 years time the country will be only found
in history books.
Remember Kruschev's (sp?) last words on leaving office, and I'm paraphrasing: "Don't worry
about America, they'll spend themselves to death (just like we have)". Continued economic
growth is a wet dream of Wall Street origin. We are massively overpopulated and rapidly using
up earth's natural resources at an increasingly unsustainable rate. We must begin to reduce
our growth, not keep increasing it. Population density stress is killing us now and only
increasing every day along with the 220,000 new mouths to feed that we are turning out into a
world that has no room for 28,000,000 homeless migrants already. Just how crazy are we
really. If this article is to be believed, we are nuts. E.F. Schumacher is rolling in his
grave! Stress R Us
The contribution of a president to the national debt depends a bit on how you calculate it.
You could simply look at rhe dates of inauguration or go a step further and look at the
fiscal years. For the latter see :
In absolute terms Obama is indeed at the top of the list, percentagewise his predecessor
played a larger part. No matter how you look at it or what the causes were, under Bush and
Obama the U.S. debt seems to have spiralled out of of control and Trump is doing bugger all
to stop that trend.
We need to see a larger context then neoliberalism in this issue. And it is the end of "cheap oil" or "Plato oil production
with increasing prices" environment.
Which might well be within a decade or two. At least for the next year, the USA production is stalled. By the time it picks
back up, supply will not meet demand so the prices might increase while the total production staying on the same level or slightly
decreasing.
Among possible effects we can mention the following:
1. Another round of lowering the standard of living for the US population, increasing social tensions.
2. Making transcontinental transportation, especially by air, too expensive and favoring local production. Essentially what
Trump is trying to achieve.
3. Part of human influence on climate will dissipate. For example, it will end the mass transportation of goods by air and
might cut private auto transportation, especially in the USA (actually for the latter you might need just around $10 per gallon
of gas or so). So the the carbon footprint of humanity might improve.
4. Permanent stagnation of economy will cut into population growth. Without cheap hydrocarbons, current agriculture needs to
change drastically and to sustain, say, 8 billion people on the planet might be more difficult.
5. Will stimulate the transition to electric cars for private transportation and to the reduction of the size of the cars in
the USA to European levels.
6. Will affect military (especially military aviation) and might fasten dissolution of Global US-led neoliberal empire -- the
process started by Trump.
7. Might provoke more wars for resources (of which Iraq and Libya wars are already "accomplished" events) which might deteriorate
to the level of exchange of nuclear strikes between major powers leading to WWIII. The latter might end a large part of human
civilization ( In worst case, Europe, the USA, Russia, China and Japan)
"... By Jang-Sup Shin, professor of economics at the National University of Singapore and a senior research associate at the Academic-Industry Research Network. This blog post draws on his INET working paper, "The Subversion of Shareholder Democracy and the Rise of Hedge-Fund Activism," which is in turn part of a forthcoming book with William Lazonick on predatory value extraction. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
By Jang-Sup Shin, professor of economics at the National University of Singapore and a senior research associate at the Academic-Industry
Research Network. This blog post draws on his INET working paper, "The Subversion of Shareholder Democracy and the Rise of Hedge-Fund
Activism," which is in turn part of a forthcoming book with William Lazonick on predatory value extraction. Originally published
at the Institute for New
Economic Thinking website
The casual observer can hardly comprehend the value-extracting power of hedge fund activists. Technically, they are no more than
minority shareholders. Yet they exert enormous influence, often forcing these companies to undertake fundamental restructuring and
to increase stock buybacks and dividends substantially. For instance, Third Point Management and Trian Fund Management, holding only
2% of the outstanding stock of Dow Chemical and DuPont, respectively, engineered a merger-and-split of America's top two chemical
giants at the end of 2015 that resulted in both massive layoffs and the closure of DuPont's central research lab, one of the first
industrial science labs in the United States.
So how did hedge fund activists gain power so far in excess of their actual shareholdings?
In the 1980s, predatory value extraction was the province of the corporate raiders who flexed their muscles by becoming major
shareholders of target companies and staging hostile takeovers. This mode of value extraction was highly risky in two respects. First,
the raiders needed to raise substantial amounts of money to purchase enough shares that they could plausibly threaten to take control
of the companies they targeted. Second, they frequently faced legal battles with management or incumbent shareholders because nothing
less than control of the company was at stake. Being able to influence corporations without taking those risks would be a corporate
raider's dream come true.
In the late 1980s and 1990s this dream became a reality. Driven by a clamor for "shareholder democracy" amid a rapid increase
in institutional shareholding of public corporations and broadening acceptance of the maximizing shareholder value (MSV) view, the
federal government implemented regulatory changes that set the stage for hedge fund activism.
The first set of regulatory changes was put into motion by Robert Monks, who in 1985 set up Institutional Shareholder Services
(ISS), the first proxy-advisory firm, upon his resignation from the post of chief pension administrator at the U.S. Department of
Labor (DOL). During his sole year in the Labor Department's employ, Monks endeavored to make proxy voting compulsory for pension
funds, using his position as a platform for public advocacy of the notion that the funds had an obligation to become responsible
"corporate citizens" and actually exercise the power their financial holdings gave them over corporate management. In 1988, his former
DOL colleagues established proxy voting as a fiduciary duty of pension funds by the so-called "Avon Letter." Compulsory voting of
proxies was later extended to all other institutional investors, including mutual funds, under an SEC regulation in 2003.
Monks and his disciples justified the changes under the pretext of realizing the long-held goal of "shareholder democracy," which,
however, was all but irrelevant to proxy voting. A political project that had begun in the early 20 th century, shareholder
democracy was intended to lessen public distrust of corporations and to create social cohesion by distributing corporate shares to
retail investors who had U.S. citizenship. Institutional investors were simply money-managing fiduciaries who, lacking the status
of citizens, had never been seen as having any part in shareholder democracy. Moreover, voting in most countries is not legally compulsory,
it is one's right as a citizen. But Monks and his followers appropriated the banner of shareholder democracy to impose the voting
of proxies on institutional investors as a fiduciary duty.
The consequence was the creation of a huge vacuum in corporate voting. Most institutional investors remained uninterested in voting
and incapable of doing it meaningfully. The situation got worse with the increasing popularity of index funds, currently estimated
to hold about one-third of all shares issued by companies listed in the U.S. Faced with the new requirement not only to vote but
also to justify their voting decisions, institutional investors became heavily reliant on proxy-advisory firms. But these firms are
often no more competent in making voting decisions than the institutional investors that hire them, and, as for-profit entities,
are wide open to conflicts of interest. Some large mutual funds and pension funds, responding to public criticism that they are simply
outsourcing voting decisions, have set up internal "corporate-governance teams" or "stewardship teams." However, these teams are
designed to do no more than pay "lip service" to voting requirements: they are minimally staffed and their decision-making resembles
"the corporate governance equivalent of speed dating," as
the
New York Times phrased it, rather than examining the concrete contexts of individual companies' voting issues. The potential
for cooperation with hedge fund activists is great: the current owner of ISS, for example, is itself a private equity fund founded
by corporate raiders.
The second set of regulatory changes was proxy-rule changes in 1992 and 1999 that allowed "free communication and engagement"
among public shareholders and between public shareholders and management, as well as between public shareholders and the general
public. These proxy-rule changes ostensibly aimed at correcting an imbalance between public shareholders and management by making
it easier for minority shareholders to aggregate their votes. By that time, however, the balance of power between public shareholders
and management was already skewed decisively toward the former. Institutional shareholding of American corporations' stock had already
approached 50% by the early 1990s and, by 2017, was to reach nearly 70%. The proxy-rule changes further strengthened the power of
public shareholders by allowing them to form de facto investor cartels and freely criticize management. Even if the SEC
required those whose holdings of a given company's stock reached a 5% share to disclose the fact publicly, hedge fund activists could
easily circumvent that limit by forming "wolf packs": soliciting the participation of other activists, whose holdings had not reached
the threshold for reporting, in staging sudden, concerted campaigns against target companies.
Allowing free communication between shareholders and the public, far from evening the supposed imbalance between shareholders
and management, intensified the influence of the former. Activist shareholders were freed by the SEC directives to allow them criticize
a company's management "as long as the statements [they made were] not fraudulent." In contentious issues, management makes its decisions
by weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the options available. But the directives have made it all too easy for activist
shareholders to criticize management in public by simply emphasizing some of the disadvantages while remaining within the limit of
not perpetrating fraud.
A third set of regulatory changes, which allowed hedge fund activists to gain even more power, followed from the 1996 National
Securities Markets Improvement Act (NSMIA). Part of the financial market deregulation that took place during the Clinton administration,
NSMIA effectively allowed hedge funds to pool unlimited financial resources from institutional investors without regulations requiring
disclosure of their structure or prohibiting overly speculative investments. This threw the door wide open to co-investments between
activist hedge funds and institutional investors who put their money into the hedge funds as "alternative investment." For instance,
the California Teachers Retirement System (CaLSTRS) cooperated in Trian Fund's campaign against DuPont from the beginning by co-signing
a letter supporting the hedge fund's demands in 2015. It later turned out that CaLSTRS, a long-term investor in DuPont, was also
one of Trian's major investors.
In combination, these regulatory changes increased the incidence of predatory value extraction in the U.S. economy. For more than
a decade, major public corporations have routinely disbursed to shareholders nearly all of their profits, and often sums equivalent
to more than their profits, in the form of stock buybacks, dividends, and deferred taxes while investing less for the future and
undertaking restructuring simply for the sake of reducing costs. It is now increasingly difficult to find incidents in which management
rejects hedge fund activists' proposals outright and risks proceeding to a showdown proxy vote in a shareholder meeting. As Steven
Davidoff Solomon wrote in
his New York Times column , "companies, frankly, are scared" and "[their] mantra is to settle with hedge funds before
it gets to a fight over the control of a company."
If a regulatory change is found to be misguided, it should be reversed or recalibrated. What would that look like in the context
of activist hedge funds? Here are some suggestions for rebuilding the U.S. system of proxy voting and shareholder engagement such
that it will support sustainable value creation and value extraction:
First, the SEC should make it mandatory, when shareholders make a submission of shareholder proposals to a shareholders' meeting,
that they justify their proposals in terms of value creation by and capital formation for the corporation, rather than simply
requesting distribution of company funds that could be made available by, for instance, disgorgement of free cash flows. Second,
voting should be removed as a fiduciary duty of institutional investors. The compulsory voting of institutional investors, who
tend to be both uninterested in voting and incapable of doing so meaningfully, has only given illegitimate power to proxy-advisory
firms and hedge fund activists. Third, as a practical enforcement mechanism that will shape the thinking and behavior of shareholders
so that they take sustainable value creation and value extraction into account, the regulatory authorities should allow differentiated
voting rights that favor long-term shareholders. Fourth, the SEC should make it mandatory for both shareholders and management
to disclose to the public what they have discussed in engagement sessions. Free engagement has been reserved to a restricted number
of influential investors who have preferred to keep this communication private.
Fifth, hedge funds should be subject to regulations equivalent to those imposed on institutional investors. Hedge funds are already
big enough to pose systemic risks to the economy, a lesson that might have been taken from the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management
in 1998. Since the passage of the NSMIA in 1996, hedge funds have managed a large portion of institutional investors' funds for the
benefit of their ultimate customers, who include ordinary workers and pensioners. There is no plausible reason why hedge funds should
be treated as private entities and freed from financial regulations applied to institutional investors when they are functioning
as surrogate institutional investors.
The merger is certainly an impressive feat of financial engineering. It will bring together two companies: DuPont, with
54,000 employees, and Dow Chemical, with 53,000 employees. The two behemoths will merge, and then in the space of two years
spit out three newly formed companies, one in agriculture, another in material sciences and a third in specialty products used
in such fields as nutrition and electronics.
This plan is one easily understood by a hedge fund activist or investment banker in a cubicle in Manhattan with an Excel
spreadsheet . To them, it makes perfect sense to merge a company and then almost immediately split it in three. Doing so
will meet the goal to define business lines with precision and, it is hoped, spur growth. Expenses can also be cut, on paper
at least.
The companies that the combined entity will create can cut $3 billion in expenses, but the last time I checked, three companies
each require a chief executive, general counsel and many other executives, so these savings may be eaten up by new overhead.
Nearly 100,000 employees and their dependents, suppliers, and customers will get the hedge fund roto rooter treatment so a
handful of rich bastards make moar. Ain't America great already?
The cherry on top is the public employee pension fund's assist in this certain debacle, when the three spun out entities synergize
themselves into dust, taking suppliers and customers with them, while freeing up $3 billion in the short term to grease the looting
operation. By the way $3 billion represents 30,000 employees were they paid $100,000 per year.
Whatever the names of the three new entities, append the word 'disaster' to it.
Once again, why not just abolish the corporate income tax and make the point of incidence of taxation the wealth and income
of the beneficial owners of corporations, the stock and bond holders? (This could be done in a "revenue neutral" way, but obviously
greatly increased taxes on top tier wealth and income would be desirable for other reasons). That would obviate the point of such
extractive strategies, which is simpler and more plausible than imagining the SEC would suddenly develop teeth and muscle and
be able to impose "norms" on the business.
Or we could just regulate hedge funds right out of existence. And maybe take care of private equity firms at the same time.
I have yet to see any benefit to society at large from either of them.
"... "The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran, and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. " ..."
"... The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US' dominant role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and companies into compliance, though China remains a key holdout. ..."
"... The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's behavior," according to an administration official. ..."
"... A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the "totality of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East ..."
With the hours ticking by ahead of Washington's re-imposition of a slew of economic
sanctions on Iran, President Trump has just released a statement confirming the narrative he
would prefer Americans believe.
Just hours after the European Union issued a statement Monday ahead of when
renewed US sanctions are set to snap back against Iran after midnight US Eastern time, saying
it "deeply regrets" the sanctions and will take immediate action to protect European companies
still doing business with Iran.
Trump makes it clear that any violation (among America's allies) will not be
tolerated...
"The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. "
The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian
government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US'
dominant role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and
companies into compliance, though China remains a key holdout.
"The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of
blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb," Trump said Monday, defining that its policy
as applying "maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime."
The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's
behavior," according to an administration official.
A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed
up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the
"totality of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East.
"None of this needs to happen," an official said on sanctions. Trump is willing to meet the
Iranian leadership "any time" for talks," the official noted. * * *
Full Statement below:
REIMPOSING TOUGH SANCTIONS: President Donald J. Trump, Administration is taking action to
reimpose sanctions lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
President Trump made clear when he ended United States participation in the JCPOA that
his Administration would be reimposing tough sanctions on the Iranian regime.
In connection with the withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Administration laid out two
wind-down periods of 90 days and 180 days for business activities in or involving Iran.
Consistent with President Trump's decision, the Administration will be reimposing
specified sanctions after August 6, the final day of the 90-day wind-down period.
On August 7, sanctions will be reimposed on:
The purchase or acquisition of United States bank notes by the Government of Iran.
Iran, trade in gold and other precious metals.
Graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes.
Transactions related to the Iranian rial.
Activities relating to Iran's issuance of sovereign debt
Iran, automotive sector.
The remaining sanctions will be reimposed on November 5, including sanctions on:
Iran, port operators and energy, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors.
Iran, petroleum-related transactions.
Transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The Administration will also relist hundreds of individuals, entities, vessels, and
aircraft that were previously included on sanctions lists.
ENSURING FULL ENFORCEMENT: President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regime's
aggression, and the United States will fully enforce the reimposed sanctions.
The Iranian regime has exploited the global financial system to fund its malign
activities.
The regime has used this funding to support terrorism, promote ruthless regimes,
destabilize the region, and abuse the human rights of its own people.
The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences.
Since the President announced his decision on May 8 to withdraw from the JCPOA, the
Administration has sanctioned 38 Iran-related targets in six separate actions.
PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY: The JCPOA was defective at its core and failed to
guarantee the safety of the American people.
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal upheld his highest obligation:
to protect the safety and security of the American people.
The Iranian regime only grew more aggressive under the cover of the JCPOA and was given
access to more resources to pursue its malign activities.
The regime continues to threaten the United States and our allies, exploit the
international financial system, and support terrorism and foreign proxies.
The Administration is working with allies to bring pressure on the Iranian regime to
achieve an agreement that denies all paths to a nuclear weapon and addresses other malign
activities.
* * *
The initial reaction in markets was modest aside from in the oil complex where prices
spiked...
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston
Churchill
Notable quotes:
"... As if living out one of Aesop's Fables, the hammer of US kinetic power so eagerly embraced at the urging of neo-conservatives and neoliberals alike following the collapse of communism exhausted the Western welders of the weapon instead of their targets. ..."
"... The reckless resort to indiscriminate military power in the US-dominated invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the following campaigns to topple the governments of Syria and Libya created unexpected consequences comparable to Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion – Every Action has an Equal and Opposite Reaction. ..."
"... However, the motives of the scores of millions of Americans who voted for Trump were perfectly clear: They were opting for American nationalism instead of American Empire. They were sickened by the clear results of 70 years of post-World War II global imperium that had arrogantly and casually allowed US domestic industry and society to wither on the vine for the supposed Greater Good of Global Leadership. ..."
"... These developments, to echo US President Thomas Jefferson's telling phrase nearly 200 years ago, are grave warnings. They are firebells in the night. They serve notice to Washington and London that their facilely optimistic "ever onward and upwards" drive to reshape the entire human race in their own image must be abandoned. ..."
"... Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom is a remotely united society any more. Both of them need to turn inward to resolve their own problems and abandon the fantastic quest to reassert global dominance that Reagan and Thatcher launched nearly 40 years ago. ..."
"... Capitalism is a society where billionaire capitalists own vast companies, banks, shares, and much of the land as well. Elected governments are bent to the will of the big corporations which the capitalists own. ..."
"... America has the greatest inequalities, highest mortality rate, most regressive taxes, and largest public subsidies for bankers and billionaires of any developed capitalist country. ..."
"... Contrary to the propaganda pushed by the business press, between 67% and 72% percent of corporations had zero tax liabilities after credits and exemptions while their workers and employees paid between 25 – 30% in taxes. The rate for the minority of corporations, which paid any tax, was 14%. ..."
"... According to the US Internal Revenue Service, billionaire tax evasion amounts to $458 billion dollars in lost public revenues every year – almost a trillion dollars every two years by this conservative esti ..."
"... Meanwhile US corporations in crisis received over $14.4 trillion dollars (Bloomberg claimed 12.8 trillion) in public bailout money, split between the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve, mostly from US tax payers, who are overwhelmingly workers, employees and pensioners. ..."
"... The problem is both the US and the UK have lost citizenry-control. Both countries have shadow governments and media operatives that work unseen to manipulate sentiment and events in-line with an overall world-government objective (Neo-Marxism). ..."
"... The so-called elites behind the curtain are after total control which is why we will continue toward totalitarian dictatorship. It will not be a one-man show nor will it be readily recognizable as such, rather there will be a Cabal of select ultra-wealthy liberals who will negotiate with each other as to which levers to pull and valves to turn in order to "guide" culture and civilization. ..."
The colossal project to re-colonialize the world started with United States President Ronald Reagan eagerly backed by United Kingdom
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981 and over the next 20 years seemed to sweep all before it.
But we can now see that the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 marked the turn
of the tide.
Since then one super-ambitious project of nation destruction and rebuilding after another generated by Washington and eagerly
embraced by its main Western European allies has collapsed spectacularly.
As if living out one of Aesop's Fables, the hammer of US kinetic power so eagerly embraced at the urging of neo-conservatives
and neoliberals alike following the collapse of communism exhausted the Western welders of the weapon instead of their targets.
The reckless resort to indiscriminate military power in the US-dominated invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the
following campaigns to topple the governments of Syria and Libya created unexpected consequences comparable to Isaac Newton's Third
Law of Motion – Every Action has an Equal and Opposite Reaction.
Nevertheless, US and Western confidence in the triumph of liberal, free trade and democratic ideals around the world has remained
almost totally impervious to the sobering lessons of recalcitrant global realities. The great reawakening of Western imperial and
capitalist resolve heralded by Reagan and championed by his loyal spear carriers, Thatcher and her successors as prime ministers
of the United Kingdom continued unabated: Until 2016.
Two epochal events happened that year :
The British people, to the astonishment most of all of their own leaders, pundits and self-selected Platonic guides and "betters'
voted for Brexit : They opted by a narrow but decisive vote of 48 percent to 52 percent to leave the 28-nation European Union.
The disruptions and chaos set in motion by that fateful outcome have still only begun to work their way through the political
and economic systems of Europe.
Second, Donald Trump, even more amazingly was elected president of the United States to the limitless fury of the American
"Deep State" which continues unabated in its relentless and frantic efforts to topple him.
However, the motives of the scores of millions of Americans who voted for Trump were perfectly clear: They were opting for
American nationalism instead of American Empire. They were sickened by the clear results of 70 years of post-World War II global
imperium that had arrogantly and casually allowed US domestic industry and society to wither on the vine for the supposed Greater
Good of Global Leadership.
A decade and a half of endless, fruitless, ultra-expensive global wars entered into by the feckless and stupid George W. Bush
and continued by the complacent and superficial Barack Obama advanced this process of weariness and rejection.
Two years after the election of Trump and the British people's vote for Brexit, the great surge of the West that outlasted the
Soviet Union is clearly on the ebb : Now the United States is exhausted, the EU is falling apart and NATO is an empty shell – a paper
tiger if you will. Why is this happening and can it be reversed?
Free Trade was never the universal panacea it has been ludicrously claimed to be now for more than 240 years since Adam Smith
published his Wealth of Nations . On the contrary, the cold, remorseless facts of economic history clearly show that protective tariffs
to safeguard domestic manufactures and advantageous export-driven balance of payment surpluses are the true path to economic growth
and sustainable, lasting national power and wealth.
The idea that democracy – at least in the narrow, highly structured, manipulative and patchy form practiced in the United States
is some sort of universal guarantee for happiness, national stability and growth has also been repeatedly confounded.
Instead, the Western democratic states have fallen into exactly the same intellectual pit that trapped and eventually wrecked
the Soviet Union. They have launched a worldwide ideological crusade and poured wealth and resources into it to ignoring the well-being
and advancement of their own domestic economies and populations.
Far from bringing eternal and universal world peace – the alluring Holy Grail of every dangerous idealistic idiot since Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and Immanuel Kant – these policies only brought failure, frustration and rising military death lists for the countries that
pursued them instead.
This year, new hammer blows are following on the Reagan-Thatcher-spawned era of revived Anglo-American global leadership and domination.
The British themselves have palpably failed to cave out any secure or even plausible economic prospects for themselves in the
world once they leave the EU. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya all remain wrecked societies shattered by the repeated air strikes
that Western compassion and reverence for human rights and democracy have visited upon them.
Now India and Pakistan – two English-speaking democracies and members of the once British-led Commonwealth of Nations, still so
dear to Queen Elizabeth II's aging heart – have opted to bury their existential rivalry and jointly join the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization – confirming it as the premier and by far the most powerful security alliance on the planet.
These developments, to echo US President Thomas Jefferson's telling phrase nearly 200 years ago, are grave warnings. They
are firebells in the night. They serve notice to Washington and London that their facilely optimistic "ever onward and upwards" drive
to reshape the entire human race in their own image must be abandoned.
Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom is a remotely united society any more. Both of them need to turn inward to
resolve their own problems and abandon the fantastic quest to reassert global dominance that Reagan and Thatcher launched nearly
40 years ago.
And they had better move fast. Jefferson's firebell is tolling and the sands of time are running out.
Capitalism is a society where billionaire capitalists own vast companies, banks, shares, and much of the land as well. Elected
governments are bent to the will of the big corporations which the capitalists own. To achieve genuine socialism, this ownership
of the world's wealth by the 1% must be ended. Capitalism means that a great deal of our society's resources, needed to produce
the things we need, are privately owned.
Capitalism is based on the private ownership of the productive forces (factories, offices, science and technique)
The bosses of the big corporate enterprises always threaten that if wages and conditions are not worsened, they will take their
business to another country where wages are lower.
America has the greatest inequalities, highest mortality rate, most regressive taxes, and largest public subsidies for bankers
and billionaires of any developed capitalist country.
Contrary to the propaganda pushed by the business press, between 67% and 72% percent of corporations had zero tax liabilities
after credits and exemptions while their workers and employees paid between 25 – 30% in taxes. The rate for the minority of corporations,
which paid any tax, was 14%.
According to the US Internal Revenue Service, billionaire tax evasion amounts to $458 billion dollars in lost public revenues
every year – almost a trillion dollars every two years by this conservative estimate.
The largest US corporations sheltered over $2.5 trillion dollars in overseas tax havens where they paid no taxes or single
digit tax rates.
Meanwhile US corporations in crisis received over $14.4 trillion dollars (Bloomberg claimed 12.8 trillion) in public bailout
money, split between the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve, mostly from US tax payers, who are overwhelmingly workers, employees
and pensioners.
You confuse free market capitalism with corporate cronyism, then suggest socialism is the answer? Why do you think that socialism
is the default panacea? Have you considered other alternatives? What of the pitfalls of socialism?
The problem is both the US and the UK have lost citizenry-control. Both countries have shadow governments and media operatives
that work unseen to manipulate sentiment and events in-line with an overall world-government objective (Neo-Marxism).
The so-called
elites behind the curtain are after total control which is why we will continue toward totalitarian dictatorship. It will not
be a one-man show nor will it be readily recognizable as such, rather there will be a Cabal of select ultra-wealthy liberals who
will negotiate with each other as to which levers to pull and valves to turn in order to "guide" culture and civilization.
But
the tightknit Cabal has more work to do to infiltrate deeper into world governments.
The EU's Parliament is a proto-type test
to tweak how they must proceed. As the Cabal coalesces their power, more draconian rulership will become apparent. The noose will
tighten slowly so as to be un-noticeable. Certain events are planned that will cause citizenry to demand totalitarianism (for
safety reasons). For the Cabal, it'll be like taking candy from a baby.
This, in a nutshell, is the outline of how the West loses
its democracy.
The Ministry of Plenty ( Newspeak : Miniplenty ) is in control of
Oceania's planned
economy .
It oversees rationing of food , supplies , and goods . As told in Goldstein's book, the
economy of Oceania is very important, and it's necessary to have the public continually create
useless and synthetic supplies or weapons for use in the war, while they have no access to the
means of
production .
This is the central theme of Oceania's idea that a poor, ignorant populace is
easier to rule over than a wealthy, well-informed one. Telescreens often make reports on how Big Brother has been able
to increase economic production, even when production has actually gone down (see §
Ministry of Truth ).
The Ministry hands out statistics which are "nonsense". When Winston is adjusting some
Ministry of Plenty's figures, he explains this:
But actually, he thought as he readjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not
even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of
the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world,
not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as
much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of time
you were expected to make them up out of your head.
Like the other ministries, the Ministry of Plenty seems to be entirely misnamed, since it
is, in fact, responsible for maintaining a state of perpetual poverty , scarcity and financial shortages.
However, the name is also apt, because, along with the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of
Plenty's other purpose is to convince the populace that they are living in a state of perpetual
prosperity. Orwell made a similar reference to the Ministry of Plenty in his allegorical work
Animal Farm
when, in the midst of a blight upon the farm, Napoleon the pig orders the silo to
be filled with sand, then to place a thin sprinkling of grain on top, which fools human
visitors into being dazzled about Napoleon's boasting of the farm's superior economy.
A department of the Ministry of Plenty is charged with organizing state lotteries . These are very popular among the
proles, who buy tickets and hope to win the big prizes – a completely vain hope as the
big prizes are in fact not awarded at all, the Ministry of Truth participating in the scam and
publishing every week the names of non-existent big winners.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate
professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of
Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
Steven Krystofiak formed the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending, a
professional association dedicated to fighting mortgage fraud and predation. On August 1, 2006.
He tried to save our Nation by issuing one of the most prescient warnings about the epidemic of
mortgage fraud and predation and the crisis it would so cause.
The context was Congress' effort to empower and convince the Federal Reserve to take action
against what the mortgage lending industry called, behind closed doors, "liar's" loans. A
liar's loan is a loan in which the lender does not verify (at least) the borrower's actual
income. The industry knew that the failure to verify inherently led to endemic fraud. George
Akerlof and Paul Romer's 1993 article on "Looting" by financial CEOs explicitly cited the
failure to verify the borrower's income as an example of a lending practice that only
fraudulent lenders would use on a widespread basis.
Congress gave the Fed the unique authority to ban all liar's loans in 1994, by passing the
Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). HOEPA gave the Fed the authority to ban
liar's loans even by "shadow" sector financial firms that had no federal deposit insurance.
Liar's loans began to become material around 1989 during the savings and loan debacle where
all good U.S. financial frauds are born – Orange County, California. In that era, they
were called "low documentation" ('low doc') loans. We (the West Region of the Office of Thrift
Supervision (OTS), were the federal regulator for these S&Ls, and we were overwhelmed
dealing with the "control frauds" driving the debacle, who overwhelmingly used commercial real
estate (CRE) as their accounting "weapon" of choice. Our examiners, however, made two critical
points. No honest lender would make widespread loans without verifying the borrower's income
because it was certain to produce severe "adverse selection" and produce serious losses. The
examiners' second warning was that such loans were growing rapidly in Orange County and
multiple lenders were involved.
We listened and responded well to our examiners' timely and sound warnings and made it a
moderate priority to drive liar's loans out of the industry we regulated. The last of the major
fraudulent S&L liar's loan lenders was Long Beach Savings. Long Beach set a common pattern
for fraudulent lenders by also engaging in predation primarily against Latinos and blacks. In
1994, the same year HOEPA became law; Long Beach voluntarily gave up federal deposit insurance
and its charger as a savings and loan. Long Beach's controlling owner, Roland Arnall, did this
for the sole purpose of escaping our regulatory jurisdiction and our ability to examine, sue,
and sanction the S&L and its officers. Arnall changed its name to Ameriquest, and converted
it to a mortgage bank. Mortgage banks were essentially unregulated. Arnall successfully sought
sanctuary in what we now call the "shadow" financial sector. The S&L debacle did not end.
It found sanctuary in the Shadow and grew 50% annually for 13 years.
Ameriquest and its leading mortgage bank competitor, run by former S&L officers we (OTS)
had "removed and prohibited" from working in any federally insured lender, became the leading
"vectors" spreading the epidemic of fraudulent liar's loans through (initially) the shadow
sector and later back into federally insured lenders. Many of Arnall's lieutenants eventually
left Ameriquest to lead other fraudulent and predatory lenders making predatory liar's loans.
Michael W. Hudson's book, The Monster , is a great read that presents this history.
Ameriquest and its fraudulent and predatory peers grew at extraordinary rates for over a
decade. They hyper-inflated the bubble and drove the financial crisis.
Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake refused to use HOEPA to stop this surging epidemic of
fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. This was the setting when Krystofiak, on his own dime
and initiative took advantage of a Fed hearing on predatory lending near his home to warn us
all of the coming disaster. Krystofiak was not the first warning. His written
testimony cited the appraisers' and the FBI's prior warnings. The appraisers' 2000 petition
explaining how lenders and their agents were extorting appraisers to inflate appraisals was
superb. Chris Swecker's 2004 warning on behalf of the FBI that the developing "epidemic" of
mortgage fraud would cause a financial "crisis" if not stopped was superb.
Krystofiak was also superb. The Fed did not want to conduct hearings on fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans – Congress forced it to do so. The Fed's Board members were not
interested in stopping fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. The Fed did not invite Krystofiak
to testify. The Fed offered only a brief "cattle call" at the end of the hearing allowing
(after a top Fed official had left to fly back to DC) the public to make a very brief
statement.
The Fed's treatment of Krysofiak stood in sharp contrast to its fawning treatment of the
Mortgage Bankers Associations' chosen witness. The MBA chose the leading originator of
fraudulent liar's loans in California – IndyMac – to present the MBA's position.
The MBA's position was that the Fed should not use its HOEPA authority to ban fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans. The Fed officials cracked jokes with and treated the IndyMac officer
like an old pal. They treated Krytofiak with cold indifference. The MBA witness presented utter
BS. Krystofiak
spoke truth to power. Power loved the BS. The truth discomfited the Fed officials.
Krytofiak's written testimony made many vital points, but I refer to only two related points
here. First, he warned the Fed that the twin mortgage fraud origination epidemics –
appraisal fraud and liar's loans – were so large that they were inflating the housing
bubble. Second, his means of quantifying the incidence of liar's loan fraud showed the
regulators and the prosecutors that they could use the same method to document reliably,
cheaply, and quickly the incidence of liar's loan fraud at every relevant financial firm.
Data Collected by the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending
A recent
sample of 100 stated income loans which were compared to IRS records (which is allowed through
IRS forms 4506, but hardly done) found that 90 % of the income was exaggerated by 5 % or more.
MORE DISTURBINGLY, ALMOST 60 % OF THE STATED AMOUNTS WERE EXAGGERATED BY MORE THAN 50%. These
results suggest that the stated income loans deserves the nickname used by many in the
industry, the "liar's loan" (emphasis in original).
The MBA's anti-fraud experts, MARI, appears to have conducted the study for Krystofiak. They
featured the 4506-T (the "T" stands for "transcript") study and its finding of a 90% fraud
incidence in liar's loans. In 2006, MARI presented its fraud study at the MBA's annual meeting.
The MBA sent MARI's report to every member, which included all the major mortgage players.
Any honest originator, purchaser, or packager of liar's loans was on notice no later than
mid-2006 that they could determine quickly, cheaply, and reliably the fraud incidence in those
liar's loans by using the 4506-T forms to test a sample of those loans. Krystofiak aptly noted
that while lenders typically required borrowers to sign the IRS 4506-T form allowing the lender
to access their tax information, it was actually "hardly done." Lenders supposedly require the
4506-T because taxpayers have an obvious interest in not inflating their income to the IRS. The
self-employed have to report their income accurately or face potential tax fraud sanctions.
The reason liar's loan mortgage lenders, purchasers, the packagers of toxic collateralized
debt obligations (CDOs ) that typically were composed of large amounts of liar's loans, and
credit rating agencies, "hardly [ever] used" or required the sellers to use their 4506-T
authority is also clear if you understand "accounting control fraud." Any 4506-T study of
liar's loans will document their pervasive frauds. Virtually all liar's loan and CDO sales
required "reps and warranties" that they were not fraudulent. If a firm making or selling
liar's loans conducted a 4506-T study and documented that it knew its reps and warranties were
false, and it continued t make, sell, package, or rate those fraudulent loans under false reps
and warranties it would be handling its counterparty a dream civil fraud suit. They would be
handing DOJ the ability to prosecute them successfully for felonies that caused hundreds of
billions of dollars in losses. The fraudulent mortgage money machine relied on the major
players following a financial "don't ask; don't tell" policy.
The exceptions prove the rule. I have found public evidence of only two cases in which
mortgage players (other than Krystofiak) conducted 4506-T audits of liar's loans. I have never
found public evidence that any federal regulator or prosecutor conducted or mandated a 4506-T
study. The two known cases of 4506-T audits were Wells Fargo (just disclosed by DOJ) and
Countrywide (disclosed by the SEC investigation and complaint). Both audits found massive fraud
incidence in the liar's loans. The risk officers presented these audit results to the banks'
senior managers.
Bank Whistleblowers United's 4506-T Proposal
Two and-a-half years ago, Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU) discussed the senior officers of
Countrywide's response to its 4506-T audit. We noted that BWU co-founder Michael Winston blew
the whistle on Countrywide's frauds to the bank's most senior officers to try to prevent these
frauds. Mr. Winston eagerly aided potential prosecutors – who failed to prosecute
Countrywide's senior officers leading the frauds. BWU then explained the analogous response of
Citigroup's senior officers to a different but equally reliable audit conducted by BWU
co-founder Richard Bowen. We did so in a January 30, 2016 New Economic Perspectives
blog urging presidential candidates in the 2016 election to pledge to implement the 60-day
BWU plan to restore the rule of law to Wall Street.
As documented in the SEC complaint, Countrywide's managers conducted a secret internal
study of Countrywide's liar's loans that, on June 2, 2006, confirmed Krystofiak's findings of
endemic fraud in liar's loans. Fraud was the norm in Countrywide's liar's loans, a fact that
it failed to disclose to its stockholders and secondary market purchasers. Instead of
stopping such loans, Countrywide's senior officers caused it to adopt what they termed
"Extreme Alt-A" loans offered by Bear and Lehman that "layered" this fraud risk on top of a
half dozen additional massive risks to create what Countrywide's controlling officer
described as loans that were "toxic" and "inherently unsound." "Alt-A" was the euphemism for
liar's loans. Countrywide made massive amounts of "Extreme Alt-A" and acted as a vector
spreading these "toxic" loans throughout the financial system. A member of our group, Dr.
Michael Winston, tried to stop these kinds of abuses, which enriched top management but
bankrupted Countrywide.
Similarly, a member of our group, Richard Bowen and his team of expert underwriters,
documented that Citigroup knew that it was purchasing tens of billions of dollars of loans
annually on the basis of fraudulent "reps and warranties" – and then reselling them to
Fannie and Freddie on the basis of fraudulent reps and warranties. Bowen put the highest
levels of Citigroup (including Bob Rubin) on personal notice in writing as the incidence of
fraud climbed from 40% to 60%. (It eventually reached an astonishing 80% fraud incidence.)
Citigroup's leadership's response was to remove his staff. Senior Citigroup officers also
responded to the surging fraud by causing Citigroup to become a major purchaser of
fraudulently originated liar's loans.
We can now add the senior leaders that determined Wells Fargo's response to its 4506-T
audit. We draw on the Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosures in conjunction with its
indefensible settlement of civil fraud claims against Wells Fargo's massive mortgage fraud. The
DOJ press release revealed that "in 2005, Wells Fargo began an initiative to double its
production of subprime and Alt-A loans." DOJ did not explain that this was after the FBI warned
there was an emerging "epidemic" of mortgage "fraud" that would cause a financial "crisis" if
it were not stopped. The settlement discloses that Wells' risk officers alerted senior managers
that the plan to increase greatly the number of liar's loans would greatly increase fraud in
2005 before Wells implemented the plan.
The press release had other bombshells (unintentionally) demonstrating the strength of the
criminal cases that DOJ refused to bring against Wells' senior officers. Wells Fargo's 4506-T
audit found that its liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, and the amount of inflated
income was extraordinary.
The results of Wells Fargo's 4506-T testing were disclosed in internal monthly reports,
which were widely distributed among Wells Fargo employees. One Wells Fargo employee in risk
management observed that the "4506-T results are astounding" yet "instead of reacting in a
way consistent with what is being reported WF [Wells Fargo] is expanding stated [income loan]
programs in all business lines."
The press release note some other actions by Wells' senior managers that show what
prosecutors term "consciousness of guilt." Such actions make (real) prosecutors salivate. The
press release's final substantive revelation is the unbelievable rate of loan defaults on Wells
Fargo's fraudulent loans and the exceptional damages those loans and sales caused.
Wells Fargo sold at least 73,539 stated income loans that were included in RMBS between
2005 to 2007, and nearly half of those loans have defaulted, resulting in billions of dollars
in losses to investors.
Typical default rates on conventional mortgages averaged, for decades, around 1.5 percent.
The Wells Fargo liar's loans defaulted at a rate 30 times greater.
How Corrupt is Wells? Cheating Customers is "Courageous"
The press release does not contain the Wells Fargo gem that proves our family rule that it
is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. Paragraph H of the settlement reveals
that Wells' term for doubling its number of fraudulent liar's loans in 2005 was "Courageous
Underwriting." Wells' senior managers changed its compensation system to induce its employees
to approve even worse loans. Calling defrauding your customers "courageous" epitomizes Wells
Fargo's corrupt culture built on lies and lies about lies.
DOJ's pathetic settlement with Wells Fargo has no admissions by the bank. It does not
require a penny in damages from any bank officer. It does not require a bank officer to return
a penny of bonuses received through these fraudulent loans. The settlement contains DOJ's
statement that its investigation found that Wells' violated four federal criminal
statutes. DOJ will continue to grant de facto immunity from prosecution to elite
banksters. The Trump administration has again flunked a major test dealing with the swamp
banksters.
Section H (b) of the settlement is factually inaccurate in a manner that makes it highly
favorable to fraudulent lenders making liar's loans. There is no indication that DOJ ever
investigated Wells' fraudulent loan origination practices. It was overwhelmingly lenders and
their loan brokers that put the lies in liar's loans. DOJ's settlement documents do not refer
to Wells whistleblowers, even though and competent investigation would have identified dozens
of whistleblowers. Throughout its Wells documents, DOJ implies that borrowers overstated their
income rather than Wells and its loan brokers.
The Jig is Up on DOJ's Pathetic Excuses for Refusing to Jail Elite Bank Frauds
We now know with certainty from the whistleblowers and the internal audits that the response
of Citigroup, Countrywide, and Wells Fargo's senior leaders to knowing that most of
their liar's loans and the reps and warranties they made about those loans were fraudulent. We
know with certainty that Michael Winston and Richard Bowen's disclosures were correct. We know
with certainty that each served up to DOJ on a platinum platter dream cases for prosecuting
Citigroup and Countrywide's top managers. The senior managers' response to proof that their
banks were engaged in endemic fraud makes sense only if the senior managers were leading an
"accounting control fraud," which enriches the managers by harming the lender.
When the appraisers' warned of extensive extortion by lenders and their agents to inflate
appraisals, when the FBI warned that mortgage fraud was becoming "epidemic" and would cause a
financial "crisis" if not halted, and when the MBA publicized Krystofiak and MARI's warnings
that liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, the fraudulent CEOs' response was always the
same. In each case, they expanded what they knew were endemically fraudulent liar's loans and
increased the extortion of appraisers.
Back to BWU's 4506-T Proposal
This brings us back to reminding the public what BWU proposed 32 months ago about 4506-T
audits. Point 17 of our 60-day plan began:
Within 60 days, each federal financial regulatory agency directs any bank that it
regulates to conduct and publicly report a "Krystofiak" study on a sample of "liar's" loans
that they continue to hold. Krystofiak devised a clever study that he presented to the
Federal Reserve in an unsuccessful attempt to try to get the Fed to stop the epidemic of
fraudulent liar's loans. Lenders and secondary market purchasers routinely required borrowers
to authorize the lender and any subsequent purchaser of the loan to obtain a "transcript"
(4506-T) of the borrower's tax returns from the IRS to allow the lender to quickly and
inexpensively verify the borrower's reported income.
Other parts of our 60-day plan called for DOJ appointees with the courage, integrity, and
skills to restore the rule of law to Wall Street. We also explained the needs (and means) for
the banking regulators to conduct the investigations (such as 4506-T audits), activate a legion
of whistleblowers, and make the criminal referrals to DOJ essential to bring successful
prosecutions.
Conclusion
Had the regulators (particularly the Fed through its HOEPA power) required each bank making
liar's loans to conduct a 4506-T audit, the senior managers would have faced a dilemma. They
could stop the fraudulent lending or provide DOJ with a great opportunity to prosecute them.
The bank CEOs' response to the internal audits showing endemic fraud and the retaliation
against the whistleblowers combine to offer superb proof of senior managers' 'specific intent'
to defraud. The reasons for the failure to prosecute were some combination of cowardice and
politics. If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to
force each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Of course, the Republican Senate and House chairs could order those steps today . We are not
holding our breath, but BWU's co-founders are eager to aid either, or both, parties restore the
rule of law to Wall Street. Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic
environment on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis.
Did John Stumpf (President of Wells Fargo 2007-2016) really say, "If one family loses
their home, it is a tragedy. If ten million people lose their homes, it is a statistic?"
Even by Black's lofty standards, this is an outstanding article. The fact that it won't be
published in the mainstream media, and that the vast majority of regulators and politicians
will ignore it, underscores once again just how broken and corrupted the American political
and economic systems are.
It's the same in the UK with regard to mortgage fraud and reporting.
A colleague, brought in from the regulator to clean up our German basket case TBTF's brief
and late in the day foray into the mortgage market, said the UK mortgage market was as
corrupt / fraudulent. The same US firms were involved in many, if not most, cases. Lehman had
an outpost, Ascendant, in my home county, Buckinghamshire, for such activity. Lehman, Merrill
and Citi carved out the UK on geographical lines. One (US) firm was given the name of the
Germanic tribe that settled in the area 1500 years before.
FWIW, the kinds of government errors, cowardice, and confusions that Black relates –
on top of having taxpayers foot the bill for it all – was a key factor IMVHO in people
voting Trump as a kind of protest vote. He talks about 'fake news' to a huge number of
Americans who faked income, or approved fake income.
The rest of us, I assume, continue to seethe and are supporting 'honest money, fair
wages/salary' candidates like Warren and Sanders.
In early 2005 I was working as a loan Broker when I met the World Savings rep or the first
time.
The first words out of his mouth were a warning not to take more than 3 pints on the back end
because it was greedy, the second sentence was "If there's a problem with the income the
underwriter will drop the file on my desk, I'll call you and we'll fix it".
He's still in the business, a few rungs further up the corporate ladder, I got out of the
business the following week.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
The establishment democrats that receive donor dollars from Wall Street banks? I wouldn't
hold my breath waiting for them to even investigate much less do anything else to stop this
criminal activity.
Fabulous piece as usual from Mr. Black. Just makes the tenure of the previous
administration all the more complicit in the current state of affairs. As Mr. Black details
there was an obvious solution to uncover the fraud and go after senior execs, something that
also could have also been done when the 'democrat' party held the House and at least a
leverage position in the Senate. What the American public received instead was a giant con
job/cover-up advertised as restitution and Obama goes on national TV to pathetically claim
that grossly fraudulent behavior was simply unethical. Obviously that maneuver had a higher
ROI for post-tenure legacy building and fundraising.
There is really a simple solution: fire everyone at DOJ and replace them with Air Force
officers.
An Air Force officer is brave. He will fly through enemy fire if he has to in order to do
his job. He gives no thought to the Taliban career opportunities that he might be forgoing by
bombing them.
An Air Force officer is competent. He can fly through thunderstorms in the dead of night
and get his bombs when and where the forward air controller down with the infantry needs
them. Compare that to the experience of an honest IG official trying to get an indictment
from DOJ for anyone at a mega-bank.
An Air Force officer knows how to get funding for his priorities. The Air Force annual
budget, at $156 billion, is about 5 times that of DOJ. Enough said.
When you know these facts, the solution is obvious.
Go read The Pentagon Wars or Coram's Boyd . Air Force (or other service)
officers have no particular claim to virtue. If you pulled mostly captains maybe it'd work,
but the bravery and competence needed on the front line is vastly different from that needed
from say a Colonel or General running programs/units which is likely the officers you'd be
bringing in. Remember you're advocating bringing in people responsible for the boondoggle
that is the F35 to shape up an organization. (which is not an isolated instance but
emblematic of the upper tiers of the service)
Thanks for the referrals; let me take a look. (I have read Thomas Ricks' The
Generals , which I suspect makes a similar point to those.) The point is acknowledged,
although I have not only read The Chickenshit Club but lived through it. There were
many DOJ people I had to deal with whom I can only describe using Bundy's pungent phrase for
the South Vietnamese political leadership: "the absolute bottom of the barrel." They
contrasted starkly with the fellow junior officers I knew in my youth, but as you noted,
those were junior officers.
The simplicity of the 4506-T audits is as profound as the physics comparison of the
diversity of the economy to GDP. These things don't work when all the chaos comes home to
roost. In 1989 our economy was on the rocks and our corporations were offshoring as fast as
they could; the USSR collapsed and we landed like a murder of crows to pick their bones and
loot Russia. OPEC was naming their price; China was exporting massive deflation; our banks
were already on the brink. But how to bring home all the loot from not just Russia but all
the other illegal sources connected with our once and future imperialism? We were no longer a
country of laws; we were looters, thieves and launderers. We were trying to salvage our
"investments" or we were hoovering up flight capital or some other thing that had nothing to
do with law and order and democracy. You name it. How else did all the banks, all of them,
agree to forego their own standards and make all those conveyor belt loans? They prolly all
had to become industrial laundromats and get rid of the stuff asap. Which was perhaps only
one aspect to the ongoing collapse of "capitalism" as we once knew it – but were unable
to protect it. I love Bill Black because he makes me come to uncomfortable explanations who
knows how it all fell apart? Somebody does.
Superb comment Susan. I make know how ' it all fell apart ' other than recognising that
the early capitalists worked with stuff that had to be produced, and so despite vile excesses
produced something useful to many , whereas these financial capitalists produce nothing of
value to anyone except themselves and take away something from everybody else ( liar's loans
being a key example ) . The question is , is there any here beyond here ? Clearly not with
ANY of the present political incumbents ( I am in the UK it's the same for you and us ) . So
that in two sentences is my answer to your question . My question is ' how on earth do we get
beyond here ?'
Re Bill Black: " Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic environment
on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis."
By design and intent with no fear of criminal prosecution for fraud, imprisonment, or even
surrender of ill-gotten personal financial gains. All brought to us courtesy of the political
donor class and large corporations, those they have corrupted, and the Supreme Court's
Orwellian-named Citizens United decision and expanded executive branch powers that
make it possible.
Look at any set of issues: Failure to pass and implement policies to address climate
change, endless wars, defunding public education and infrastructure, the opioid crisis,
manipulation of financial markets, federal government austerity, transfers of public lands
and resources into private hands, privatization of public services, healthcare, stagnant real
wages, loss of any semblance of economic equality, debt burdens placed on our young people
seeking economic opportunity or family formation, lack of legal separation of bank depository
and payments system functions from their market speculations, failure to enforce corporate
antitrust laws, erosion of privacy and civil liberties, repeated bubbles, concentration of
media ownership in the hands of a few, secret international tax havens, etc. and what do you
see?
With the latest disclosures about WF stealing directly from their banking customers on top
of their previous frauds, I'm just sure the regulators will come down hard on them this time
(NOT!)
I wonder if Mr. Trump, with his involvement in commercial RE, ever "mis-stated" his his
income, assets and/or liabilities when obtaining a loan. Nah, couldn't happen.
I wonder why anybody still banks with WF. My late mom had about 30K in a WF account under
a trust that I could not close out for 24 months (Florida laws – WF had a branch in
their eldercare facility.) I was delighted that my closeout check did not bounce.
A while back I worked at a medical device startup operating within a formal (i.e. written
and comprehensive) quality system. A quality system is required for any commercial sales of
medical products; previously I had been involved in early stage R+D and had not been bound by
such systems. So a lot of it was new to me.
Something that stuck out at the time, and probably ties in to the article above, was the
sanctity of corporate internal audit files. The FDA could demand access to almost any company
quality system document, except for internal audit files. They could be provided
with summaries of these internal audits indicating something like "6 minor deficiencies
found, 1 major deficiency found, 0 extreme deficiencies found" , but were not permitted
access to the raw internal audits.
I suspect that financial firms have the same level of protection for their internal
audits. Had they hired a consulting firm to investigate the accuracy of stated income in the
loans they originated, the results of that outside investigation would probably be a document
reviewable by government regulators (assuming they were interested in doing their job). But
by pursuing this as an internal audit, executives knew that the results would never be
reviewable, and give them plausible deniability that they knew of the systemic level of
fraud.
There certainly must be other ways of investigating efficiency or compliance within a
company, but by pursuing it as an internal audit they could easily bury the results.
A quibble: comparing stated income to income tax forms may be misleading, although it is
the standard. People have an interest in understating their income to the IRS, and in
overstating it when seeking a loan. The logic is that they risk prosecution if they
understate to the IRS, but there are plenty of situations where they're very unlikely to get
caught. It's conceivable the loan application is more honest than the tax return.
Loan officers I knew over the decades have changed their views. Asking them if they would
lend their own money to the proposed borrower used to be more likely to elicit a Yes. When
standards loosened (again) earlier this millennium, some answered No until realizing that
they shouldn't care since the money wasn't theirs. What really mattered was getting that
commission endorsed and deposited, given the rise of IBGYBG (I'll be gone, you'll be gone)
thinking.
Another question I asked was about tracking borrower performance relative to loan officer
compensation. Relationship building and longer term interactions declined with the rise of
neo-liberalish (the -ish suffix indicates a primitive reaction to immediate perceived
incentives without further investigation) mindsets. Portfolio lenders had more at risk but
still laid off some of that on the deposit insurance funds. Loan buyers did not fully
appreciate that they had to trust everyone preceding them in the value (destruction) cycle,
from brokers and investment bankers through ratings agencies.
Internal audits, compliance functions and regulatory exams were often the only temporary
inconveniences or obstacles to transactions and related income distribution.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Let us, for a moment, imagine this happens. Then what? The results would show widespread
fraud and a pathetic lack of adequate vetting by the issuer. Then those fraudulent loans were
aggregated into various RMBS and sold to others. I hope you can see that just this disclosure
is likely to cause a substantial hiccup in the financial system, perhaps another full-blown
crisis. And who would the public blame? The criminals – or the cops? I could see Dems,
even Dems with little or no connection to the Street, deciding not to open Pandora's box.
That is one of the problems with the American political system. From defense
appropriations to banking regulation, the pols live in fear of being tarred for doing the
right thing, if the outcome is temporarily bad or unpopular. Yes, it would obviously be best
to cleanse the wound, but doing so would hurt, so the pols decide that it would be best for
their popularity to let the wound fester until it becomes too big to ignore or financial
Armageddon occurs. Isn't that precisely the thinking of the Obama Administration?
All major Wall St banks and brokerages including Wachovia, Wells, BofA and even Citadel
and a few foreign banks (ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, etc) set up an offshore sub
called CDS Indexco. This was used as a defacto cartel to control the prices of both Sub-Prime
CDO issues and their respective Credit Default Swaps. They created the Markit BBB- index
which was used by Paulsen, Ackman and a few other chosen ones to short the MBS sub-prime
market. This is the truth.. CDS Indexco dropped that name in Nov. 2008 when the accounting
rules forced Marked to Market accounting and also the Consolidation of VIE's (Special Purpose
Financial Subs that got an exception to the Enron Rule). So in other words: if banks had been
made to follow the "Enron Rule" the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. Goldman's own
employee was the Chairman of CDS Indexco, I couldn't make this shit up. And Yves knows it
too. Gramm Leach Bliley made it all possible – so banks could hold both the debt and
the equity of an entity that they took no responsibility for. This was the precise reason for
Glass-Steagall banks were manhandling the ownership of business due to inherent conflicts of
interest between debt and equity holders.
My dear Murgatory, Wow. This is the first I have heard of CDS Indexco. You are suggesting
that it was much more than a mere market clearinghouse. Where could I read more on this?
A former bank/trustee foreclosure attorney is running for a District Court judge position
in Seattle. Remember Trott, the Foreclosure King, who Michigan sent to Congress? Yeah, this
dude is trying to get on the bench.
For consider the fruits of free trade policy during the last 25 years : the frozen wages of
U.S. workers, $12 trillion in U.S. trade deficits, 55,000 factories lost, 6 million
manufacturing jobs gone, China surpassing the U.S in manufacturing, all causing a backlash that
pushed a political novice to the Republican nomination and into the presidency.
To maintain a belief in the superiority of free trade to economic patriotism, in the face of
such results, is to recognize that this belief system is impervious to contradictory proof.
The sad reality that I see all around is that Western civilization has been hijacked by
degenerate hyenas like Rome was sacked from within first before being sacked externally. The
institutions that once made the West a leader and a model, have been corrupted, tainted and
filled with anti-humanists and crony corporatists. Greed is out of control and "popular
culture" is spreading decay. The hollowing out will continue until these parasites find
another host to leech off. Will it be China? Will it be a global government? Will it be
another planet? Who knows.
Once upon a time figures like Rosenstein, Mueller, Brennan, Browder, Clapper, Clinton etc
would be just fucking taken out or punished. Instead of that, they get to wander their toxic
asses around like protected peacocks, all on tax payers dime, with their shitty agendas, and
their shitty handlers cheering on the degeneracy and assault on the truth and the people.
If this is what "civilization" has boiled down to, count me the fuck out of it. The 5000
year old human farming experiment is merely switching straight jackets. Its the same old
story that ever was, ever since we gave up the nomadic lifestyle. In a way, its probably an
inevitability, given our flawed human nature, and the size of the population....and average
intellect. The desire to be 'lead' by some ruling class, no matter what flavour of 'ism' it
is, eventually all turns to the same end result....shit. Unless this global awakening can
muster into a force to be reckoned with, and not be swayed by divide and conquer tactics,
nothing will change. So far with the toxic Left vs Right divide, and countless other divides,
the only beneficiaries of this are the ones at the top of the pyramid.
Pat Buchanan: Are Globalists Plotting A Counter-Revolution?
HopefulCynical : Is the sky blue? Is water wet? Is fire hot?
FFS, look at the goddamn purge on (((Social media))). Of COURSE the (((globalists))) are
attempting a counter-revolution.
We all need to move to alt-tech: Minds , Gab , Bitchute . Even if you don't have a
(((social media))) presence, consider getting an alt-media presence. We've been wondering
when the next phase would begin, whewn it would be time to take further action. Well, it's
here.
First step in this next phase is to set up multiple lines of communication not under
(((establishment))) control. Even if you seldom use them, set up accounts; advise those you
know to do likewise. Wanna see the establishment panic? If they see the subscriber count for
the alt-tech sites suddenly quadruple (or more) in response to their purge, they'll shit
themselves. They'll probably attempt to pull domain registrars and financial processing
services from those sites.
Then - the motherfucking games begin, bitchez.
[EDIT:] According to Styx, the alt-tech sites are already seeing a surge in membership.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZP1fwkdupg
Let the (((establishment))) diaper-filling begin!
But will "negotiations" and regulatory loosening on issues like the environment and worker
safety, which have gotten out of hand in the US to the disadvantage of underemployed
citizens, offset the extremely low wages offered to Asian and Latin American workers in the
countries where American-owned companies shipped over 6 million jobs, canceling out the
SS-retirement fund contributions that would have been made by American workers [and]
employers if the jobs had been kept here?
Cheap labor seems to TRUMP everything with US employers.
Running from the SS trust fund might be another reason for their abandonment of
America.
Cheap labor Trumps everything here in the USA, too, and the cheap-labor pool is aided and
abetted by the welfare system. That is why US employers prefer an often extremely absentee
welfare and progressive-tax-code-subsidized labor market, receiving .gov-financed monthly
bills and up to $6,431 in refundable child-tax-credit cash for US-born instant-citizen
kids.
Contrary to myth, hard work, daily and all-day attendance and even work productivity, like
every-month quota meeting, is NOT preferred by American employers for most of the jobs left
here in the USA.
The welfare-eligible 42 million are (on the books) not hard workers, but part-time
workers, staying under the income limits for welfare programs. I KNOW that from working at
the Department of Human Services, where single moms and the womb-productive girlfriends of
illegal and legal immigrants MUST submit proof of a single-breadwinner's part-time, traceable
earnings to get the free stuff.
The earnings must fall below the income limits for welfare programs that ALWAYS reward
part-time work in womb-productive single-breadwinner households of citizens and noncitizens.
You cannot work full time in a minimum-wage job while meeting the income limits. When I
worked at DHS, both the EBT and monthly cash assistance income limits were BELOW $900 per
month......
Even if Trump eventually lures US corporations back here with looser regulations and tax
cuts, rather than just unleashing a stock buy-back spree, it will not matter to the 101
million American citizens of working age who are out of the labor force and the 78 million
gig pieceworkers, not if this welfare-rigged labor market of citizens and noncitizens
continues to be the norm.
You cannot compete with a bigly labor market full of welfare-fetching citizens &
noncitizens who do not need pay sufficient to cover rent due to their womb production.
Only a Deplorables First immigration reform would address that issue, including a big
reduction in the number of welfare-eligible legal immigrants let in each year. The number 1.5
million is too many. This -- no more and no less than illegal immigration -- keeps wages
down, but the illegal immigration has the added bonus of making America more dangerous.
The impasse on the immigration issue is the reason why I am skeptical of the value of
current trade-war maneuvering, even though I am glad that Trump is addressing that general
issue.
The other thing that complicates this trade war is the way that globalist elites have sold
America out over the years, not just destroying the middle class with all of this offshoring
and welfare-supported illegal labor, but also getting the US economy 1) waist-deep in debt,
2) dependent on foreign investment and 3) subject to getting jerked around by Machiavellian
currency manipulation that non-math people, like me, really don't understand.
It sounds kind of dangerous, though, even just the argument that Stockman makes about
China being a house of cards that, if it came down, could have unintended consequences for
the US.
I have no idea. But I do know that many of the people who voted for Trump are pretty
adamant about the immigration issue, first and foremost, regarding it as an easier and less
risky thing to get done as well.
Maybe, the children-at-the-border Movie of the Week has convinced most Trump voters to
stay on the train, thinking something permanent has been done to contain the flow of
welfare-rewarded illegal immigration.
I think many of the teenagers, released into the country to live with extended family or
in foster care, will, in a few years, be entering the labor force as part-time workers,
producing instant-citizen kids and getting free monthly bills and refundable child-tax-credit
cash from .gov, while citizens like me will still face rent that eats up over half of our
monthly, earned-only income from low-wage churn jobs.
As much of an enthusiastic Trump voter as I have been, going back a long way, I am not
sure that I am going to vote in the mid-term general election. I am not going to vote for
this Tammany Hall II Democratic Party, but I may just stay home.
There are many populists out there, not just on the right either, who are disgruntled for
very real reasons, like this interesting article explains, so there will likely be wave after
wave of non-centrist populism until globalism's shoreline has been redefined.
Hmmm, weird, when I loaded the other link, it conformed to the format of this text box,
but then when I loaded the link above this last paragraph, it reverted to cutting off the
text on the side. Until I post it, I cannot see the full text after links are added.
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so
dependent on it favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other
hand, the great body of people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous
advantages...will bear its burden without complaint and perhaps without suspecting that the
system is inimical to their best interests."
-Rothschild Brothers of London communique' to associates in New York June 25th, 1863.
The Difference.
J. Speer-Willams
June 16, 2010.
New-Cons. Love War & torture, increased regulations, tyranny and taxes; with our taxes
going to the plutocrats of the private banking community. They support governmental
destruction of our environment, under the pretender of protecting it. They, also, overtly
support corporatism (Fascism for Oligarchs) and any measures supported by the Republican
Party that enrich the private International Monetary / Banking Cartel at the expensive of
the. American People.
New- Libs. Love War & torture, increased regulations, tyranny and taxes; with our
taxes going to the plutocrats of the private banking community. They support governmental
destruction of our environment, under the pretender of protecting it. They, also, overtly
support corporatism (Socialism for Oligarchs) and any measures supported by the Democratic
Party that enrich the private International Monetary / Banking Cartel at the expensive of
the. American People.
The economics of the neoliberal era had a fundamental flaw.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into
the debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building
up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical
economics.
I think Pat also gets this sentence wrong and if so I say he misses details we would like
to see
This is truly economics uber alles, economy before country.
The University Economist programs/studies were more oriented toward people in the old
days. Economics today is used to justify Wall Street type finance and ideology. Economic
study was hijacked to serve only those looking to get rich any way they can. CFR agenda comes
to mind. Globalism comes to mind also and is an attack on all nations constitutions.
The Americans have been discovering the problems of running an economy with bad
economics.
Economics was always far too dangerous to be allowed to reveal the truth about the
economy.
The Classical economist, Adam Smith, observed the world of small state, unregulated
capitalism around him.
"The labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining
of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the
labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious
merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his
money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no
usurers and no tax gatherers."
How does this tie in with the trickledown view we have today?
Somehow everything has been turned upside down.
The workers that did the work to produce the surplus lived a bare subsistence
existence.
Those with land and money used it to live a life of luxury and leisure.
The bankers (usurers) created money out of nothing and charged interest on it. The bankers
got rich, and everyone else got into debt and over time lost what they had through defaults
on loans, and repossession of assets.
Capitalism had two sides, the productive side where people earned their income and the
parasitic side where the rentiers lived off unearned income. The Classical Economists had
shown that most at the top of society were just parasites feeding off the productive activity
of everyone else.
Economics was always far too dangerous to be allowed to reveal the truth about the
economy.
How can we protect those powerful vested interests at the top of society?
The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity in the economy by
removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income and they conflated "land" with
"capital". They took the focus off the cost of living that had been so important to the
Classical Economists to hide the effects of rentier activity in the economy.
The landowners, landlords and usurers were now just productive members of society
again.
It they left banks and debt out of economics no one would know the bankers created the
money supply out of nothing. Otherwise, everyone would see how dangerous it was to let
bankers do what they wanted if they knew the bankers created the money supply through their
loans.
The powerful vested interests held sway and economics was corrupted.
Now we know what's wrong with neoclassical economics we can put the cost of living back
in.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Employees want more disposable income (discretionary spending)
Employers want to pay lower wages for higher profits
The cost of living = housing costs + healthcare costs + student loan costs + food + other
costs of living
The neoliberals obsessed about reducing taxes, but let the cost of living soar.
The economists also ignore the debt that is papering over the cracks and maintaining
demand in the economy. This can never work in the longer term as you max. out on debt.
The problem is the US has lost citizenry-control. A shadow-government along with media
operatives work unseen to manipulate sentiment and events in-line with an overall globalist,
world-government objective (Neo-Marxism). The so-called elites behind the curtain are after
total control which is why we will continue toward totalitarian dictatorship. It will not be
a one-man show nor will it be readily recognizable as such, rather there will be a secretive
Cabal of select ultra-wealthy liberals who will negotiate with each other as to which levers
to pull and valves to turn in order to "guide" culture and civilization. But the tightknit
Cabal has more work to do to infiltrate deeper into US (and world) government. The EU's
Parliament is a proto-type test to tweak how they must proceed. As the Cabal coalesces their
power, more draconian rulership will become apparent. The noose will tighten slowly so as to
be un-noticeable and unstoppable. Certain events are planned that will cause citizenry to
demand totalitarianism (for safety reasons). For the Cabal, it'll be like taking candy from a
baby. This, in a nutshell, is the outline of how the US (and Western civilization) loses its
democracy.
Understanding how trillions of trade dollars influence geopolitical policy we begin to
understand the three-decade global financial construct they seek to protect.
That is, global financial exploitation of national markets. FOUR BASIC ELEMENTS :
♦Multinational corporations purchase controlling interests in various national
outputs and industries of developed industrial western nations.
♦The Multinational Corporations making the purchases are underwritten by massive
global financial institutions, multinational banks.
♦The Multinational Banks and the Multinational Corporations then utilize lobbying
interests to manipulate the internal political policy of the targeted nation state(s).
♦With control over the targeted national industry or interest, the multinationals
then leverage export of the national asset (exfiltration) through trade agreements structured
to the benefit of lesser developed nation states – where they have previously
established a proactive financial footprint.
Pat must suffer from some kind of cognitive dissonance. There is no free trade, nor there
was before Trump. In a world of flexible exchange rates and central banking
backed-inflationary credit trade wars are the status quo. He willfully ignores all the
effects of credit inflation, unsound money, tax structures, subsidies, regulatory burdens
created internally and by those "trade deals" and last but not least the reserve status of
the fiat dollar which basically turned the US in a huge nothing-for-something economy
relative to its imports.
Completing the latest round of tariffs pledged against China, the US Trade Representative
announced on Tuesday (after the close of course) it will impose 25% tariffs on $16
billion-worth of Chinese imports starting August 23. The new round of tariffs completes Trump's
previously disclosed threat to impose $50 billion of import taxes on Chinese goods. The first
$34 billion-worth went into effect on July 6th.
According to the USTR statement, customs will collect duties on 279 product lines, down from
284 items on the initial list; as Bloomberg notes, this will be the second time the U.S. slaps
duties on Chinese goods in about the past month, overruling complaints by American companies
that such moves will raise business costs, tax US consumers and raise prices.
On July 6, the U.S. levied 25% duties on $34 billion in Chinese goods prompting swift
in-kind retaliation from Beijing.
Of course, China will immediately retaliate, having vowed before to strike back again,
dollar-for-dollar, on the $16 billion tranche.
The biggest question is whether there will be a far bigger tariff in the near future: as a
reminder, the USTR is currently also reviewing 10% tariffs on a further $200 billion in Chinese
imports, and may even raise the rate to 25%. Those tariffs could be implemented after a comment
period ends on Sept. 5. President Donald Trump has suggested he may tax effectively all imports
of Chinese goods, which reached more than $500 billion last year.
Over the weekend, Trump boasted that he has the upper hand in the trade war, while Beijing
responded through state media by saying it was ready to endure the economic fallout. Judging by
the US stock market, which has risen by $1.3 trillion since Trump launched his trade war with
China, which has crushed the Shanghai Composite, whose recent drop into a bear market has been
duly noted by Trump, the US president is certainly ahead now, even if the market's inability,
or unwillingness, to push US stocks lower has led many traders and analysts to scratch their
heads.
"... "The USHA was empowered to advance loans amounting to 90% of project costs, at low-interest and on 60-year terms. By the end of 1940, over 500 USHA projects were in progress or had been completed, with loan contracts of $691 million. The goal was to make the program self-sustainable through the collection of rents: one-half of rent from the tenants themselves, one-third paid by contributions from the Federal government; and one-sixth paid by annual contributions made by the localities themselves." ..."
The first thing that popped into my head for whatever reason was a little bit in Roald
Dahl's Dickensian little childhood autobiography, Boy .
"At Prep School in those days, a parcel of tuck was sent once a week by anxious mothers
to their ravenous little sons, and an average tuck-box would probably contain, at almost
any time, half a home-made currant cake, a packet of squashed-fly biscuits, a couple of
oranges, an apple, a banana, a pot of strawberry jam or Marmite, a bar of chocolate, a bag
of Liquorice Allsorts, and a tin of Bassett's lemonade powder. An English school in those
days was purely a money-making business owned and operated by the Headmaster. It suited
him, therefore, to give the boys as little food as possible himself and to encourage the
parents in various cunning ways to feed their offspring by parcel post from home.
'By all means, my dear Mrs Dahl, do send your boy some little treats now and
again,' he would say. 'Perhaps a few oranges and apples once a week' – fruit was very
expensive – 'and a nice currant cake, a large currant cake perhaps because
small boys have large appetites, do they not, ha-ha-ha Yes, yes, as often as you
like. More than once a week if you wish Of course he'll be getting plenty
of good food here, the best there is, but it never tastes quite the same as home
cooking, does it? I'm sure you wouldn't want him to be the only one who doesn't get a
lovely parcel from home every week."
It won't fix homelessness. 1 in 5 Los Angeles community college students is homeless and 1
in 10 Cal State students are homeless.
The thing is though not necessarily free community college is cheap anyway about $200 a
class, and Cal State about 7k a year. One might be able to afford housing if they didn't have
this expense? ONLY if they could pay for housing with student loans. In other words Houston
we might have much bigger problems.
Here's my question: When?
When will the overworked, distracted, and misinformed denizens of this great nation declare
they have had enough?
That the richest society on Earth adds to the coffers of its billionaires, let's its
corporations run offshore and tax-free, supplies unlimited munificence on its military death
machine while its students starve, its populace moves further and further to financial
precarity, its water and highway systems grind to a halt, its health care system generates
infant mortality worse than Bulgaria.
What exactly is the tipping point?
Say hello to my little friend, "United States Housing Authority" ??? ;-)
All I'm saying is that we have the power to fix everything , and we can look back
to many things that were part of FDR's New Deal as guide posts to bigger and better solutions
that are desperately needed today.
"The USHA was empowered to advance loans amounting to 90% of project costs, at
low-interest and on 60-year terms. By the end of 1940, over 500 USHA projects were in
progress or had been completed, with loan contracts of $691 million. The goal was to make the
program self-sustainable through the collection of rents: one-half of rent from the tenants
themselves, one-third paid by contributions from the Federal government; and one-sixth paid
by annual contributions made by the localities themselves."
This where I believe Basic Income in tandem with a JG could provide a symbiotic
relationship. You can give students a BI to (help) cover expenses beyond free tuition so they
(and/or their families) could get affordable housing or subsidized university housing.
I'd call this person* a "raging regressive leftist" instead of a centrist: the latter
tends to do excessive navel-gazing while the former blames those racist white people for
anything and everything.
Then again, I was born in Europe, live in Europe, engage in live "politicking" in Europe, so
my experiences with American politics come mostly from the internet.
On topic: getting your first degree in my country is mostly free in state-funded colleges
and universities. Mostly, because 1: the applicant needs to meet a minimum point** threshold,
2: the applicant needs to meet the institutions's own threshold*** for that given department,
3: the applicant needs to rank high enough compared to the rest, because admissions are
limited by nature, 4: the applicant needs to maintain a high enough GPA to stay in a state
funded slot for their given department, and lastly, 5: there are some departments that
receive no funding at all, and choosing one of those means paying by default.
During my university years, I've never met anyone who had to starve, not even the poorest
students. There were, and are, several different scholarship programs aside from the usual
"get a real high GPA and you'll receive a free price if you're lucky" ones. Students can
usually get a student job in our larger cities, and depending on the department, there are
some other ways to earn some money: engineering and IT students often get picked by larger
firms in their sophomore or senior year, and even if they don't, there's always someone in
need of some help with those killer assignments.
The problem here is housing. Dorm spaces are limited, and renting a room is relatively
expensive costing somewhere around $500 USD per month in a country with a $22000 USD yearly
median income (estimate by OECD). Getting a degree was widely regarded as a means of upward
mobility by my father's generation, but the years after the destruction of the Iron Curtain
proved them wrong. And of course, they knew nothing about the Free Western States.
*While I see a woman, these are the people who'd bite my face off for misgendering them.
No such thing in continental Europe, for now.
**There's a minimum threshold of 260 points. Base points are calculated from high school
grades, third and fourth year, and the high school diploma's grades. Bonus points are awarded
for state accredited language certificates, high placements on certain students'
competitions, and other degrees.
***Institutions apply their own thresholds based on the quantity and quality of their
applicants.
When I was a graduate student at UCLA the food on campus was pretty cheap and the salads
were sold by the size of the bowl, not by weight. We all became expert at piling those bowls
high.
When I taught at CU Boulder, the food on campus was expensive and the salads were weighed.
A healthy salad could easily cost you eleven bucks, so I stopped eating campus food and took
sandwiches to work instead.
The increase in food prices seems to have parallelled the increase in fees over those
forty years.
However, I would make another observation: many young people, in my experience, when they
are stressed or working hard, tend to forget to eat – irrespective of how well-off they
are. And many of the students I taught had been addicted at high school to "attention
deficit" drugs like Ritalin and Adderol, which, being forms of speed, are
appetite-suppressants.
Two of my daughters graduated from a university in a university town in Nova Scotia in the
late1990s. That university set up its own food bank many years ago, to supplement the food
banks set up by two churches and the town and county. Housing was still available (small
town, student, faculty and school money spent locally), from shared apartments to rooming
houses. In any sizable city in Canada or the US, those options for students may not now be
available at all, because of greedy landlords, gentrification, and Air B'nb.
On the other hand, during the 1930s, my father-in-law was living in Vancouver, a teenager.
He frequently told us stories of the many poor students who lived on or just off the beaches
in the western part of the city, in shanties of driftwood and scraps while attending
university. Try that now, in any city.
So, you see, today's undergraduates are in many ways even worse off than "great
depression" students. Their possible makeshift accommodations have been legislated away.
Robbing the future of our nation to pay the fatcats. What a wonderful way to run a
country! If We the People- loosely defined as the other 90%- don't step up and take our
country back, we won't have one to speak of in another decade.
"... "The USHA was empowered to advance loans amounting to 90% of project costs, at low-interest and on 60-year terms. By the end of 1940, over 500 USHA projects were in progress or had been completed, with loan contracts of $691 million. The goal was to make the program self-sustainable through the collection of rents: one-half of rent from the tenants themselves, one-third paid by contributions from the Federal government; and one-sixth paid by annual contributions made by the localities themselves." ..."
The first thing that popped into my head for whatever reason was a little bit in Roald
Dahl's Dickensian little childhood autobiography, Boy .
"At Prep School in those days, a parcel of tuck was sent once a week by anxious mothers
to their ravenous little sons, and an average tuck-box would probably contain, at almost
any time, half a home-made currant cake, a packet of squashed-fly biscuits, a couple of
oranges, an apple, a banana, a pot of strawberry jam or Marmite, a bar of chocolate, a bag
of Liquorice Allsorts, and a tin of Bassett's lemonade powder. An English school in those
days was purely a money-making business owned and operated by the Headmaster. It suited
him, therefore, to give the boys as little food as possible himself and to encourage the
parents in various cunning ways to feed their offspring by parcel post from home.
'By all means, my dear Mrs Dahl, do send your boy some little treats now and
again,' he would say. 'Perhaps a few oranges and apples once a week' – fruit was very
expensive – 'and a nice currant cake, a large currant cake perhaps because
small boys have large appetites, do they not, ha-ha-ha Yes, yes, as often as you
like. More than once a week if you wish Of course he'll be getting plenty
of good food here, the best there is, but it never tastes quite the same as home
cooking, does it? I'm sure you wouldn't want him to be the only one who doesn't get a
lovely parcel from home every week."
It won't fix homelessness. 1 in 5 Los Angeles community college students is homeless and 1
in 10 Cal State students are homeless.
The thing is though not necessarily free community college is cheap anyway about $200 a
class, and Cal State about 7k a year. One might be able to afford housing if they didn't have
this expense? ONLY if they could pay for housing with student loans. In other words Houston
we might have much bigger problems.
Here's my question: When?
When will the overworked, distracted, and misinformed denizens of this great nation declare
they have had enough?
That the richest society on Earth adds to the coffers of its billionaires, let's its
corporations run offshore and tax-free, supplies unlimited munificence on its military death
machine while its students starve, its populace moves further and further to financial
precarity, its water and highway systems grind to a halt, its health care system generates
infant mortality worse than Bulgaria.
What exactly is the tipping point?
Say hello to my little friend, "United States Housing Authority" ??? ;-)
All I'm saying is that we have the power to fix everything , and we can look back
to many things that were part of FDR's New Deal as guide posts to bigger and better solutions
that are desperately needed today.
"The USHA was empowered to advance loans amounting to 90% of project costs, at
low-interest and on 60-year terms. By the end of 1940, over 500 USHA projects were in
progress or had been completed, with loan contracts of $691 million. The goal was to make the
program self-sustainable through the collection of rents: one-half of rent from the tenants
themselves, one-third paid by contributions from the Federal government; and one-sixth paid
by annual contributions made by the localities themselves."
This where I believe Basic Income in tandem with a JG could provide a symbiotic
relationship. You can give students a BI to (help) cover expenses beyond free tuition so they
(and/or their families) could get affordable housing or subsidized university housing.
I'd call this person* a "raging regressive leftist" instead of a centrist: the latter
tends to do excessive navel-gazing while the former blames those racist white people for
anything and everything.
Then again, I was born in Europe, live in Europe, engage in live "politicking" in Europe, so
my experiences with American politics come mostly from the internet.
On topic: getting your first degree in my country is mostly free in state-funded colleges
and universities. Mostly, because 1: the applicant needs to meet a minimum point** threshold,
2: the applicant needs to meet the institutions's own threshold*** for that given department,
3: the applicant needs to rank high enough compared to the rest, because admissions are
limited by nature, 4: the applicant needs to maintain a high enough GPA to stay in a state
funded slot for their given department, and lastly, 5: there are some departments that
receive no funding at all, and choosing one of those means paying by default.
During my university years, I've never met anyone who had to starve, not even the poorest
students. There were, and are, several different scholarship programs aside from the usual
"get a real high GPA and you'll receive a free price if you're lucky" ones. Students can
usually get a student job in our larger cities, and depending on the department, there are
some other ways to earn some money: engineering and IT students often get picked by larger
firms in their sophomore or senior year, and even if they don't, there's always someone in
need of some help with those killer assignments.
The problem here is housing. Dorm spaces are limited, and renting a room is relatively
expensive costing somewhere around $500 USD per month in a country with a $22000 USD yearly
median income (estimate by OECD). Getting a degree was widely regarded as a means of upward
mobility by my father's generation, but the years after the destruction of the Iron Curtain
proved them wrong. And of course, they knew nothing about the Free Western States.
*While I see a woman, these are the people who'd bite my face off for misgendering them.
No such thing in continental Europe, for now.
**There's a minimum threshold of 260 points. Base points are calculated from high school
grades, third and fourth year, and the high school diploma's grades. Bonus points are awarded
for state accredited language certificates, high placements on certain students'
competitions, and other degrees.
***Institutions apply their own thresholds based on the quantity and quality of their
applicants.
When I was a graduate student at UCLA the food on campus was pretty cheap and the salads
were sold by the size of the bowl, not by weight. We all became expert at piling those bowls
high.
When I taught at CU Boulder, the food on campus was expensive and the salads were weighed.
A healthy salad could easily cost you eleven bucks, so I stopped eating campus food and took
sandwiches to work instead.
The increase in food prices seems to have parallelled the increase in fees over those
forty years.
However, I would make another observation: many young people, in my experience, when they
are stressed or working hard, tend to forget to eat – irrespective of how well-off they
are. And many of the students I taught had been addicted at high school to "attention
deficit" drugs like Ritalin and Adderol, which, being forms of speed, are
appetite-suppressants.
Two of my daughters graduated from a university in a university town in Nova Scotia in the
late1990s. That university set up its own food bank many years ago, to supplement the food
banks set up by two churches and the town and county. Housing was still available (small
town, student, faculty and school money spent locally), from shared apartments to rooming
houses. In any sizable city in Canada or the US, those options for students may not now be
available at all, because of greedy landlords, gentrification, and Air B'nb.
On the other hand, during the 1930s, my father-in-law was living in Vancouver, a teenager.
He frequently told us stories of the many poor students who lived on or just off the beaches
in the western part of the city, in shanties of driftwood and scraps while attending
university. Try that now, in any city.
So, you see, today's undergraduates are in many ways even worse off than "great
depression" students. Their possible makeshift accommodations have been legislated away.
Robbing the future of our nation to pay the fatcats. What a wonderful way to run a
country! If We the People- loosely defined as the other 90%- don't step up and take our
country back, we won't have one to speak of in another decade.
Tech giants like Tesla, Uber, or Spotify are making less and less profit at the moment and
experts are worried about their impact on the world. Are we seeing a new economic bubble in the
making? RT's Daniel Bushel finds out. American tech corporations are often making headlines
nationwide and internationally, although their own performance is far from perfect. They lose
more and earn less, and experts warn of a potential "bubble" looming in the
horizon.
Tesla, Elon Musk's flagship company, is worth more than Ford or GM, but produces only a
small number of cars. Spotify, a music streaming service, as well as Uber, are losing billions
of dollars every year.
"Definitely, there's a bubble, not just in tech stocks but in general stock market
itself," Jack Rasmus, professor of political economy at St. Mary's College, told RT,
warning that "there are signs of financial fragility" that endanger the world
UPDAT The Bezzle: "MoviePass Played by Silicon Valley's Insane Rules" [ The
New Republic ]. "MoviePass, whose subscribers pay a monthly fee to see an unlimited number
of movies in most theaters in America, appears to be circling the drain. On Friday, the service
temporarily shut down after the company ran out of cash MoviePass' demise seemed inevitable, if
only because of simple math. The company paid theaters full price for the tickets, but
subscribers only paid $9.95 a month, so anyone who used MoviePass even once a month was costing
it money . But MoviePass is not an anomaly. Many of the largest tech companies employ a similar
strategy of burning cash in pursuit of rapid growth that could, theoretically, eventually be
turned into profit. As the New York Times's Kevin Roose argued earlier this year, only somewhat
hyperbolically, the '
entire economy is MoviePass now .'
Looking at tech peers in Silicon Valley (particularly Netflix, to which it was inevitably
compared) it should be no surprise that MoviePass settled on a simple formula: Take money from
venture capitalists, provide a below-market price for a popular service, and profit." •
Leaving open the question of why stupid money stays stupid for some firms, and not for
others. Nice paper there for somebody .
The US Congress has revived the so-called "NOPEC" bill for countering OPEC and OPEC+.
Officially called the " No Oil Producing and
Exporting Cartels Act ", NOPEC is the definition of so-called "lawfare" because it enables
the US to extra-territorially impose its domestic legislation on others by giving the
government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of their coordinated
efforts to control oil prices.
Lawsuits, however, are unenforceable , which is why the targeted states' refusal to abide by
the US courts' likely predetermined judgement against them will probably be used to trigger
sanctions under the worst-case scenario, with this chain of events being catalyzed in order to
achieve several strategic objectives.
The first is that the US wants to break up the Russian-Saudi axis that
forms the core of OPEC+, which leads to the second goal of then unravelling the entire OPEC
structure and heralding in the free market liberalization of the global energy industry.
This is decisively to the US' advantage as it seeks to become an energy-exporting
superpower, but it must neutralize its competition as much as possible before this happens,
ergo the declaration of economic-hybrid war through NOPEC. How it would work in practice is
that the US could threaten primary sanctions against the state companies involved in
implementing OPEC and OPEC+ agreements, after which these could then be selectively expanded to
secondary sanctions against other parties who continue to do business with them.
The purpose behind this approach is to intimidate the US' European vassals into complying
with its demands so as to make as much of the continent as possible a captive market of
America's energy exporters, which explains why Trump also wants to scrap LNG export licenses to the EU .
If successful, this could further erode Europe's shrinking strategic independence and also
inflict long-term economic damage on the US' energy rivals that could then be exploited for
political purposes. At the same time, America's recently unveiled " Power Africa " initiative to invest $175 billion in gas projects there
could eventually see US companies in the emerging energy frontiers of Tanzania
,
Mozambique , and elsewhere become important suppliers to their country's Chinese rival,
which could make Beijing's access to energy even more dependent on American goodwill than ever
before.
If looked at as the opening salvo of a global energy war being waged in parallel with the
trade
one as opposed to being dismissed as the populist piece of legislation that it's being
portrayed as by the media, NOPEC can be seen as the strategic superweapon that it actually is,
with its ultimate effectiveness being dependent of course on whether it's properly wielded by
American decision makers.
It's too earlier to call it a game-changer because it hasn't even been promulgated yet, but
in the event that it ever is, then it might go down in history as the most impactful
energy-related development since OPEC, LNG, and fracking.
If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true,
then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of
espionage, at a minimum.
Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means
that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning
and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies
against the sitting President.
As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to
Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the
expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.
I'd read it a few times, because it's about as murky as The Swamp gets. And, still my eyes
glaze over.
The Magnitsky Act and its sequel have been used to support aggressive policy actions by the
U.S. against Russia and destroy the relationship between the world's most prominent militaries
and nuclear powers.
The new bill is said to want to put 'crushing sanctions' on Russia to make 'Putin feel the
heat.' In effect, what this bill wants to do is force President Trump to enforce sanctions
against
the entire Russian state for attempting to do business anywhere in the world.
The new financial penalties would target political figures, oligarchs, family members and
others that "facilitate illicit and corrupt activities" on behalf of Putin.
It would also impose new sanctions on transactions tied to investments in state-owned
energy projects, transactions tied to new Russian debt, and people with the capacity or
ability to support or carry out a "malicious" cyber act.
In addition, if it wasn't clear enough already, that he's no friend of the President, Graham
is trying to tie the President's hands on NATO withdrawal, requiring a two-thirds majority.
Now, why would Graham be worried about that, unless it was something the President was
seriously considering? This is similar to last year's sanctions bill requiring a similar
majority for the President to end the original sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 over the
reunification with Crimea.
And behind it all stands Bill Browder.
Because it has been Browder's one-man campaign to influence members of Congress, the EU and
public opinion the world over against Putin and Russia for the past 10 years over Magnitsky's
death.
Browder's story is the only one we see in the news. And it's never questioned, even though
it has. He continually moves to block films and articles critical of him from seeing
distribution.
Browder is the epicenter around which the insane push for war with Russia revolves as
everyone involved in the attempt to take over Russia in 1999 continues to try and cover their
collective posteriors posterities.
And it is Browder, along with Republic National Bank chief Edmond Safra, who were involved
together in the pillaging of Russia in the 1990's. Browder's firm hired Magintsky as an
accountant (because that's what he was) to assist in the money laundering Heritage Capital was
involved in.
The attempted take over of Russia failed because Yeltsin saw the setup which led him to
appoint Putin as his Deputy Prime Minister.
There was $7 billion that was wired through Bank of New York which involved money stolen
from the IMF loans to Russia. The attempt to takeover Russia by blackmail was set in motion.
As soon as that wire was done, that is when Republic National Bank ran to the Department of
Justice to say it was money-laundering. I believe this started the crisis and Yeltsin was
blackmailed to step down and appoint Boris A. Berezovsky as the head of Russia.
Clearly, Republic National Bank was involved with the US government for they were sending
also skids of $100 bills to Russia. It was written up and called the
Money Plane . Yeltsin then turned to Putin realizing that he had been set up. This is how
Putin became the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia on August 9th, 1999 until August 16th,
1999 when he became the 33rd Prime Minister and heir apparent of Yeltsin.
So, now why, all of a sudden, do we need even stronger sanctions on Russia, ones that would
create untold dislocation in financial markets around the world?
Look at the timeline today and see what's happening.
Earlier this year Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 people associated with
Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, for influencing the 2016 election.
Then Mueller indicts twelve members of Russian intelligence to sabotage the upcoming
summit between Trump and Putin while the Russia Hacked Muh Election narrative was
flagging.
Three days later President Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. There a Putin let
the world know that he would assist Robert Mueller's investigation if in return the U.S.
would assist Russia in returning Bill Browder, who was tried and convicted in absentia for
tax evasion.
All of a sudden Browder's story is all over the alternative press. Browder is all over
U.S. television.
Earlier this week Facebook comes out, after horrific earnings, to tell everyone that IRA
was still at it, though being ever so sneaky, trying to influence the mid-terms by engaging
Democrats and anti-Trumpers to organize... In that release, Facebook let it be known it was
working with the political arm of NATO, The Atlantic Council, to ferret out these dastardly
Russian agents.
And now we have a brand-new shiny sanctions bill intended to keep any rapprochement between
the U.S. and Russia from occurring.
Why is that? What's got them so scared of relations with Russia improving?
Maybe, just maybe, because Putin has all of these people dead to rights and he's informed
Trump of what the real story behind all of this is.
That at its core is a group of very bad people who attempted to steal trillions but only got
away with billions and still have their sights set on destroying Russia for their own
needs.
And Lindsay Graham is their mouthpiece. (all puns intended)
That all of U.S. foreign policy is built on a lie.
That our relationship with Russia was purposefully trashed for the most venal of reasons,
for people like Bill Browder to not only steal billions but then have the chutzpah to steal the
$230 million he would have paid in taxes on those stolen billions.
And the only way to ensure none of those lies are exposed is for Trump to be unable to
change any of it by forcing him to openly side with the Russian President over members of his
own political party.
The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department
thinks they are a bad idea. But, at this point there is nothing Graham won't do for his
owners.
Because they are desperate they will push for open warfare with Russia to push Putin from
power, which is not possible. All of this is nothing more than a sad attempt to hold onto power
long enough to oust Trump from the White House and keep things as horrible as they currently
are.
Because no one gives up power willingly. And the more they are proven to be frauds the more
they will scream for war.
With the hours ticking by ahead of Washington's re-imposition of a slew of economic
sanctions on Iran, President Trump has just released a statement confirming the narrative he
would prefer Americans believe.
Just hours after the European Union issued a statement Monday ahead of when renewed US
sanctions are set to snap back against Iran after midnight US Eastern time, saying it "deeply
regrets" the sanctions and will take immediate action to protect European companies still doing
business with Iran.
Trump makes it clear that any violation (among America's allies) will not be tolerated...
"The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran ,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. "
The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian
government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US' dominant
role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and companies
into compliance, though China remains a key holdout.
"The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of
blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb," Trump said Monday, defining that its policy as
applying "maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime."
The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's behavior,"
according to an administration official.
A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed
up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the "totality
of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East.
"None of this needs to happen," an official said on sanctions. Trump is willing to meet the
Iranian leadership "any time" for talks," the official noted. * * *
Full Statement below:
REIMPOSING TOUGH SANCTIONS: President Donald J. Trump, Administration is taking action to
reimpose sanctions lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
President Trump made clear when he ended United States participation in the JCPOA that his
Administration would be reimposing tough sanctions on the Iranian regime.
In connection with the withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Administration laid out two wind-down
periods of 90 days and 180 days for business activities in or involving Iran.
Consistent with President Trump's decision, the Administration will be reimposing specified
sanctions after August 6, the final day of the 90-day wind-down period.
On August 7, sanctions will be reimposed on:
The purchase or acquisition of United States bank notes by the Government of Iran.
Iran, trade in gold and other precious metals.
Graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes.
Transactions related to the Iranian rial.
Activities relating to Iran's issuance of sovereign debt
Iran, automotive sector.
The remaining sanctions will be reimposed on November 5, including sanctions on:
Iran, port operators and energy, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors.
Iran, petroleum-related transactions.
Transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The Administration will also relist hundreds of individuals, entities, vessels, and
aircraft that were previously included on sanctions lists.
ENSURING FULL ENFORCEMENT: President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regime's
aggression, and the United States will fully enforce the reimposed sanctions.
The Iranian regime has exploited the global financial system to fund its malign
activities.
The regime has used this funding to support terrorism, promote ruthless regimes, destabilize
the region, and abuse the human rights of its own people.
The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran, and
those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences.
Since the President announced his decision on May 8 to withdraw from the JCPOA, the
Administration has sanctioned 38 Iran-related targets in six separate actions.
PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY: The JCPOA was defective at its core and failed to guarantee
the safety of the American people.
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal upheld his highest obligation: to
protect the safety and security of the American people.
The Iranian regime only grew more aggressive under the cover of the JCPOA and was given
access to more resources to pursue its malign activities.
The regime continues to threaten the United States and our allies, exploit the international
financial system, and support terrorism and foreign proxies.
The Administration is working with allies to bring pressure on the Iranian regime to
achieve an agreement that denies all paths to a nuclear weapon and addresses other malign
activities.
* * *
The initial reaction in markets was modest aside from in the oil complex where prices
spiked...
Exposing the growing backlash against Trump's trade policies, the
WSJ writes
that "ticked-off Canadians", angered by U.S. metals tariffs and Trump's harsh words
for their prime minister,
are boycotting American products and buying Canadian.
Take Garland Coulson, a 58-year-old Alberta entrepreneur, who admits that while usually he doesn't
pay much attention to where the goods he buys are coming from, saying that "you tend to buy the
products that taste good or you buy the products that are low in price where taste isn't an issue",
he believes the tariffs from Canada's neighbor are a "slap in the face," and added that in recent
he has put more Canadian products into his shopping cart.
Or take Calgary resident Tracy Martell, who "replaced her Betty Crocker brownie mix with a
homemade recipe and hasn't visited the U.S. since shortly after President Trump's inauguration."
Or take Ontario resident Beth Mouratidis is trying out Strub's pickles as a replacement for her
longtime favorite, Bick's.
The push to " boycott America" and buy more Canadian products gained strength after the U.S.
levied 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and 10% on aluminum starting June 1 and President Trump called
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "Very dishonest & weak" on Twitter following a Group of
Seven meeting the following week. Canada in turn imposed retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. products,
including foodstuffs such as ketchup, orange juice and yogurt.
"People sort of feel that we're getting a raw deal from the U.S. and we have to stick up for
ourselves," said Tom Legere, marketing manager for Ontario-based Kawartha Dairy Ltd., which has
seen more interest in its ice cream recently. "And this is their way at the supermarket of
trying to do so."
However, in their attempt to exclude US produce, Canadians have run into a problem:
what
is American, and what is really Canadian
?
The logistical spiderweb of global supply chains has made even something as simple as a boycott
surprisingly complex. It shouldn't be: after all, Canada is the U.S.'s top export market, taking a
little more than 18% of all U.S. exports. According to some estimates, roughly 40% to 60% of food
on Canada's grocery shelves is from the US, while closely linked production chains make it tough to
determine how much of any given item was produced domestically.
That has left would-be boycotters scratching their heads as they untangle how much of a given
product was made or grown outside the country.
The confusion has led to a mini cottage industry: tracing the origins of Canadian products.
"I'll swear up and down something is 100% Canadian," said Mouratidis, who curates a Facebook list
of Canadian household goods, food products and other items. Occasionally, she runs into surprises:
she was convinced Old Dutch chips were all-Canadian until she found out Old Dutch Foods Ltd. is a
subsidiary. The parent company, Old Dutch Foods Inc., is based in Minnesota.
This leads to occasional exclusions on the boycott list: the Old Dutch snack food remains on Ms.
Mouratidis's list because the Canadian company makes its chips in Canada.
It has also led to a sales boost for companies whose products are not "diluted" with traces of
American influence. A social-media post promoting Kawartha Dairy over "American" Haagen-Dazs ice
cream was criticized by a Facebook user who pointed out that Haagen-Dazs products sold in Canada
are made at a Canadian plant. The plant also uses Canadian dairy, Nestlé Canada Inc. confirmed.
Kawartha Dairy, which wasn't involved in the original post, received more than a hundred
emails and Facebook messages in recent weeks from Canadians asking where they could find the
company's ice cream.
Another product getting a boost from the "Buy Canadian" push: Hawkins Cheezies, a corn snack
that looks like a denser and crunchier version of Cheetos that is made with Canadian cheddar. W.T.
Hawkins Ltd., which makes the snack, said two large grocery-store chains recently increased their
orders.
The growing animosity to "Made in America" has made some traditional staples
non-grata:
Kraft Heinz has been a frequent target for Canadians since Heinz stopped producing ketchup
in Ontario in 2014.
A list circulating online recently that ranked consumers' best options for Canadian products
puts French's ketchup ahead of Heinz because it is manufactured in Canada.
Then again, unlike the Chinese where a
boycott really means a boycott
,
one wonder if for all the clamor, Canada's revulsion to US products is merely just another example
of virtue signaling. After all, one sector where the boycott efforts are failing miserably, is
travel. Although some people are deliberately staying away from the U.S., the WSJ notes that
according to official Canadian data,
overall cross-border car trips by Canadians were up
12.7% in June from the same month last year
.
Foreign trade can be mutually beneficial. For the most
part it has not been beneficial for the US for the last 40
years.
Much of the problem centers around US politicians simply
selling out to foreign interests through family, friends,
and foundations. The US worker has been left to dry up and
die.
All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we
discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most
information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may
develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of
the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized
agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops,
"Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."
Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close
variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of
thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic
media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single
real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from
my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims
were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance.
When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us
and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you
may gradually grow suspicious.
Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image
and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The
New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League
school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy,
but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my
lengthy Meritocracy
analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best
available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the
other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the
situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed
warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute
smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.
"... Well, first of all, the banks have captured the regulatory agencies. They're in charge of basically approving Federal Reserve members, and also members of the local and smaller bank regulatory agencies. So you have deregulators put in charge of these agencies. Second, bank lobbyists have convinced Congress to de-tooth the Dodd Frank Act. ..."
"... For instance, banks are very heavily into derivatives. That's what brought down AIG in 2008. These are bets on which way currencies or interest rates will go. There are trillions of dollars nominally of bets that have been placed. They're not regulated if a bank does this through a special-purpose entity, especially if it does it through those that are in Britain. That's where AIG's problems were in 2008. So the banks basically have avoided having to back up capital against making a bad bet. ..."
Dante Dallavalle: So to be clear: a rise in demand for these short-term treasuries is
an indication that investors and businesses find too much risk in the economy as it stands now
to be investing in anything more long-term.
Michael Hudson: That's exactly right. It's not that the inverted yield curve
causes a slowdown. Rather, it's a symptom reflecting that investors are expecting
a further slowdown and non-recovery. The economy is in a debt quandary.
I should add that short-term interest rates are determined by the Fed, and it is pushing up
short-term rates ostensibly to show down price rises (its euphemism for the possibility of wage
increases). So that is the "given." Long-term rates have moved up slightly – meaning that
their bond prices have declined a bit. There's so little chance of their going down much (and
rising in price), and so much chance of rates rising further (and lowering bond prices) that
investors are afraid of taking a loss during the bond's remaining maturity.
So the Fed is setting short-term rates. Obviously, there are still a lot of takers –
but not enough to overwhelm the Fed's insistence of raising rates. My point is that there's not
going to be a "recovery."
Dante Dallavelle: OK. So we have prominent economists and policymakers, like
Geithner, Bernanke Paulson, etc., making the point that we need not worry about a future crisis
in the near term, because our regulatory infrastructure is more sound now than it was in the
past, for instance before 2008. I know you've talked a lot about the weak nature of financial
regulation both here at home in the United States and internationally. What are the
shortcomings of Dodd Frank? Haven't recent policies gutting certain sections of the law made us
more vulnerable, not less, to crises in the future?
Michael Hudson: Well, you asked two questions. First of all, when you talk about
Geithner and Bernanke – the people who wrecked the economy – what they mean by
"more sound" is that the government is going to bail out the banks again at public expense.
It cost $4.3 trillion last time. They're willing to bail out the banks all over again. In
fact, the five largest banks have grown much larger since 2008, because they were bailed
out. Depositors and companies think that if a bank is so crooked that it grows so fast that
it's become too big to fail, they had better take their money out of the local bank and put it
in the crooked big bank, because that's going to be bailed out – because the government
can't afford to let it go under.
The pretense was that Dodd Frank was going to regulate them, by increasing the capital
reserves that banks had to have. Well, first of all, the banks have captured the regulatory
agencies. They're in charge of basically approving Federal Reserve members, and also members of
the local and smaller bank regulatory agencies. So you have deregulators put in charge of these
agencies. Second, bank lobbyists have convinced Congress to de-tooth the Dodd Frank
Act.
For instance, banks are very heavily into derivatives. That's what brought down AIG in
2008. These are bets on which way currencies or interest rates will go. There are trillions of
dollars nominally of bets that have been placed. They're not regulated if a bank does this
through a special-purpose entity, especially if it does it through those that are in Britain.
That's where AIG's problems were in 2008. So the banks basically have avoided having to back up
capital against making a bad bet.
If you have bets over where trillions of dollars of securities, interest rates, bonds and
currencies are going to go, somebody is going to be on the losing side. And someone on the
losing side of these bets is going to go under, like Lehman Brothers did. They're not going to
be able to pay their customers. You're going to have rolling defaults.
You've also had Trump de-tooth to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. So the banks
say, well, let's do what Wells Fargo did. Their business model is fraud, but their earnings are
soaring. They're growing a lot, and they're paid a tiny penalty for cheating their customers
and making billions of dollars off it. So more banks are jumping on the high-risk consumer
exploitation bandwagon. That's certainly not helping matters.
Michael Palmieri: So, Michael we've talked a little bit about the different
indicators that point towards a financial crisis. It's also clear from what you just stated
from a regulatory standpoint that the U.S. is extremely vulnerable. Back in 2008 many argue
that there was a huge opportunity lost in terms of transforming our private banking system to a
publicly owned banking system. Recently the Democracy Collaborative published a report titled,
The Crisis Next Time: Planning for Public ownership as Alternative to Corporate Bailouts
. That was put out by Thomas Hanna. He was calling for a transition from private to public
banking. He also made the point, which you've made in earlier episodes, that it's not a
question of if another financial crisis is going to occur, but when . Can you
speak a little bit about how public banking as an alternative would differ from the current
corporate private banking system we have today?
Michael Hudson: Sure. I'm actually part of the Democracy Collaborative. The best way
to think about this is that suppose that back in 2008, Obama and Wall Street bagman Tim
Geithner had not blocked Sheila Bair from taking over Citigroup and other insolvent banks. She
wrote that Citigroup had gambled with money and were incompetent, and outright crooked. She
wanted to take them over.
Now suppose that Citibank would had been taken over by the government and operated as a
public bank. How would a public bank have operated differently from Citibank?
For one thing, a public entity wouldn't make corporate takeover loans and raids. They
wouldn't lend to payday loan sharks. Instead they'd make local branches so that people didn't
have to go to payday loan sharks, but could borrow from a local bank branch or a post office
bank in the local communities that are redlined by the big banks.
A public entity wouldn't make gambling loans for derivatives. What a public bank
would do is what's called the vanilla bread-and-butter operation of serving small
depositors, savers and consumers. You let them have checking accounts, you clear their checks,
pay their bills automatically, but you don't make gambling and financial loans.
Banks have sort of turned away from small customers. They've certainly turned away from the
low-income neighborhoods, and they're not even lending to businesses anymore. More and more
American companies are issuing their own commercial paper to avoid the banks. In other words, a
company will issue an IOU itself, and pay interest more than pension funds or mutual funds can
get from the banks. So the money funds such as Vanguard are buying commercial paper from these
companies, because the banks are not making these loans.
So a public bank would do what banks are supposed to do productively, which is to help
finance basic production and basic consumption, but not financial gambling at the top where all
the risk is. That's the business model of the big banks, and some will lose money and crash
like in 2008. A public bank wouldn't make junk mortgage loans. It wouldn't engage in consumer
fraud. It wouldn't be like Wells Fargo. It wouldn't be like Citibank. This is so obvious that
what is needed is a bank whose business plan is not exploitation of consumers, not fraud, and
isn't gambling. That basically is the case for public ownership.
Paul Sliker: Michael as we're closing this one out, I know you're going to hate me
for asking this question. But you were one of the few economists to predict the last crisis.
What do you think is going to happen here? Are we looking at another global financial crisis
and when do you think, if so, that might be coming?
Michael Hudson: We're emphatically not looking for "another" global crisis, because
we're in the same crisis! We're still in the 2008 crisis! This is the middle stage of
that crisis. The crisis was caused by not writing down the bad debts, which means the bad
loans, especially the fraudulent loans. Obama kept these junk mortgage loans and outright fraud
on the books – and richly rewarded the banks in proportion to how badly and recklessly
they had lent.
The economy's been limping along ever since. They say there's been a recovery, but even with
the fake lying with statistics – with a GDP rise – the so-called "recovery" is the
slowest that there's been at any time since World War II. If you break down the statistics and
look at what is growing, it's mainly the financial and real estate sector, and
monopolies like health care that raise the costs of living and crowd out spending in the real
economy.
So this is the same crisis that we were in then. It's never been fixed, and it can't be
fixed until you get rid of the bad-debt problem. The bad debts require restructuring the way in
which pensions are paid – to pay them out of current income, not financializing them. The
economy has to be de-financialized, but I don't see that on the horizon for a while. That's s
why I think that rather than a new crisis, there will be a slow shrinkage until there's a break
in the chain of payments. Then they're going to call that the crisis.
Hillary will say it's the Russians who did it, but it really is Obama who did it. The
Democratic Party leadership is in the hands of Wall Street, and has not done anything to
prevent the same dynamics that caused the crisis in 2008 and are still causing the economy to
shrink.
ORDER IT NOW
Paul Sliker: That's exactly why I wanted to reframe that question, because I think a
lot of people look at economic and financial crises through just the simple paradigm of a
bubble and the bubble bursting. But I think you did a fine job of clarifying that.
Well Michael, as always, we could go on but we have to end here. Thank you so much for
joining us on The Hudson Report.
Michael Hudson: Well you've asked all the right questions.
Bylines:
Paul Sliker is a writer, media consultant, and the co-host ofLEFT OUT-- a
podcast
The economy's been limping along ever since [2008]. They say there's been a recovery,
but even with the fake lying with statistics – with a GDP rise – the so-called
"recovery" is the slowest that there's been at any time since World War II.
There has been no recovery. The US economy is based on the NATO_Narco_Petro dollar and it
is currently stalled in Iran.
The petrodollar "crashed" in 2008 was the result of the failed coup attempt in Georgia, on
August 8, 2008, (ie, on the Olympic night), by the US-NATO war criminals and their Canadian
friends.
We are in the point when capitalist system (which presented itself as asocial system that created a large middle class)
converted into it opposite: it is social system that could not deliver that it promised and now want to distract people from this
sad fact.
The Trump adopted tax code is a huge excess: we have 40 year when corporation paid less taxes. This is last moment when they
need another gift. To give them tax is crazy excess that reminding
Louis XV of France. Those gains are going in buying of socks. And real growth is happening elsewhere in the world.
After WW2 there were a couple of decades of "golden age" of US capitalism when in the USA middle class increased considerably.
That was result of pressure of working class devastated by Great Depression. Roosevelt decided that risk is too great and he
introduced social security net. But capitalist class was so enraged that they started fighting it almost immediately after the
New Deal was introduced. Business class was enrages with the level of taxes and counterattacked. Tarp act and McCarthyism were
two successful counterattacks. McCarthyism converting communists and socialists into agents of foreign power.
The quality of jobs are going down. That's why Trump was elected... Which is sad. Giving your finger to the
neoliberal elite does not solve their problem
Notable quotes:
"... Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort. But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction. ..."
"... When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety, the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. ..."
"... Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem. It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it to rot, right behind the facade. ..."
"... The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage of this moment, grab it all before it disappears. ..."
In another interesting interview with Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff explains why the Trump presidency is the last resort of a system
that is about to collapse:
Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened
in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort.
But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from
below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction.
So, absent that counter force we are going to see this system spinning out of control and destroying itself in the very way its
critics have for so long foreseen it well might.
When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety,
the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. If we hadn't been a country with two or three decades of
a middle class - working class paid really well - maybe we could have gotten away with this. But in a society that has celebrated
its capacity to do what it now fails to do, you have an explosive situation.
Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem.
It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we
need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist
system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it
to rot, right behind the facade.
The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage
of this moment, grab it all before it disappears.
In France, it was said
'Après moi, le déluge' (after me the
catastrophe). The storm will break.
Paul Sliker: So, Michael, over the past few months the IMF has been sending warning
signals about the state of the global economy. There are a bunch of different macroeconomic
developments that signal we could be entering into another crisis or recession in the near
future. One of those elements is the yield curve, which shows the difference between short-term
and long-term borrowing rates. Investors and financial pundits of all sorts are concerned about
this, because since 1950 every time the yield curve has flattened, the economy has tanked
shortly thereafter.
Can you explain what the yield curve signifies, and if all these signals I just mentioned
are forecasting another economic crisis?
Michael Hudson: Normally, borrowers have to pay only a low rate of interest for a
short-term loan. If you take a longer-term loan, you have to pay a higher rate. The longest
term loans are for mortgages, which have the highest rate. Even for large corporations, the
longer you borrow – that is, the later you repay – the pretense is that the risk is
much higher. Therefore, you have to pay a higher rate on the pretense that the interest-rate
premium is compensation for risk. Banks and the wealthy get to borrow at lower rates.
Right now what's happened is that the short-term rates you can get by putting your money in
Treasury bills or other short-term instruments are even higher than the long-term rates. That's
historically unnatural. But it's not really unnatural at all when you look at what the economy
is doing.
You said that we're entering into a recession. That's just the flat wrong statement. The
economy's been in a recession ever since 2008, as a result of what President Obama did by
bailing out the banks and not the economy at large.
Since 2008, people talk about "look at how that GDP is growing." Especially in the last few
quarters, you have the media saying look, "we've recovered. GDP is up." But if you look at what
they count as GDP, you find a primer on how to lie with statistics.
The largest element of fakery is a category that is imputed – that is, made up –
for rising rents that homeowners would have to pay if they had to rent their houses from
themselves. That's about 6 percent of GDP right there. Right now, as a result of the 10 million
foreclosures that Obama imposed on the economy by not writing down the junk mortgage debts to
realistic values, companies like Blackstone have come in and bought up many of the properties
that were forfeited. So now there are fewer homes that are available to buy. Rents are going up
all over the country. Homeownership has dropped by abut 10 percent since 2008, and that means
more people have to rent. When more people have to rent, the rents go up. And when rents go up,
people lucky enough to have kept their homes report these rising rental values to the GDP
statisticians.
If I had to pay rent for the house that I have, could charge as much money as renters down
the street have to pay – for instance, for houses that were bought out by Blackstone.
Rents are going up and up. This actually is a rise in overhead, but it's counted as rising GDP.
That confuses income and output with overhead costs.
The other great jump in GDP has been people paying more money to the banks as penalties and
fees for arrears on student loans and mortgage loans, credit card loans and automobile loans.
When they fall into arrears, the banks get to add a penalty charge. The credit-card companies
make more money on arrears than they do on interest charges. This is counted as providing a
"financial service," defined as the amount of revenue banks make over and above their borrowing
charges.
The statistical pretense is that they're taking the risk on making loans to debtors that are
going bad. They're cleaning up on profits on these bad loans, because the government has
guaranteed the student loans including the higher penalty charges. They've guaranteed the
mortgages loans made by the FHA – Fannie Mae and the other groups – that the banks
are getting penalty charges on. So what's reported is that GDP growth is actually more and more
people in trouble, along with rising housing costs. What's good for the GDP here is awful for
the economy at large! This is bad news, not good news.
As a result of this economic squeeze, investors see that the economy is not growing. So
they're bailing out. They're taking their money and running.
If you're taking your money out of bonds and out of the stock market because you worry about
shrinking markets, lower profits and defaults, where are you going to put it? There's only one
safe place to put your money: short-term treasuries. You don't want to buy a long-term Treasury
bond, because if the interest rates go up then the bond price falls. So you want buy short-term
Treasury bonds. The demand for this is so great that Bogle's Vanguard fund management company
will only let small investors buy ten thousand dollars worth at a time for their 401K
funds.
The reason small to large investors are buying short term treasuries is to park their money
safely. There's nowhere else to put it in the real economy, because the real economy isn't
growing.
What has grown is debt. It's grown larger and larger. Investors are taking their
money out of state and local bonds because state and local budgets are broke as a result of
pension commitments. Politicians have cut taxes in order to get elected, so they don't have
enough money to keep up with the pension fund contributions that they're supposed to make.
This means that the likelihood of a break in the chain of payments is rising. In the United
States, commercial property rents are in trouble. We've discussed that before on this show. As
the economy shrinks, stores are closing down. That means that the owners who own commercial
mortgages are falling behind, and arrears are rising.
Also threatening is what Trump is doing. If his protectionist policies interrupt trade,
you're going to see companies being squeezed. They're not going to make the export sales they
expected, and will pay more for imports.
Finally, banks are having problems of they hold Italian government bonds. Germany is
unwilling to use European funds to bail them out. Most investors expect Italy to do exit the
euro in the next three years or so. It looks like we're entering a period of anarchy, so of
course people are parking their money in the short term. That means that they're not putting it
into the economy. No wonder the economy isn't growing.
Dante Dallavalle: So to be clear: a rise in demand for these short-term Treasuries is
an indication that investors and businesses find too much risk in the economy as it stands now
to be investing in anything more long-term.
Michael Hudson: That's exactly right.
Dante Dallavelle: OK. So we have prominent economists and policymakers, like
Geithner, Bernanke Paulson, etc., making the point that we need not worry about a future crisis
in the near term, because our regulatory infrastructure is more sound now than it was in the
past, for instance before 2008. I know you've talked a lot about the weak nature of financial
regulation both here at home in the United States and internationally. What are the
shortcomings of Dodd Frank? Haven't recent policies gutting certain sections of the law made us
more vulnerable, not less, to crises in the future?
Michael Hudson: Well, you asked two questions. First of all, when you talk about
Geithner and Bernanke – the people who wrecked the economy – what they mean by
"more sound" is that the government is going to bail out the banks again at public expense.
It cost $4.3 trillion last time. They're willing to bail out the banks all over again. In
fact, the five largest banks have grown much larger since 2008, because they were bailed
out. Depositors and companies think that if a bank is so crooked that it grows so fast that
it's become too big to fail, they had better take their money out of the local bank and put it
in the crooked big bank, because that's going to be bailed out – because the government
can't afford to let it go under.
The pretense was that Dodd Frank was going to regulate them, by increasing the capital
reserves that banks had to have. Well, first of all, the banks have captured the regulatory
agencies. They're in charge of basically approving Federal Reserve members, and also members of
the local and smaller bank regulatory agencies. So you have deregulators put in charge of these
agencies. Second, bank lobbyists have convinced Congress to de-tooth the Dodd Frank Act.
For instance, banks are very heavily into derivatives. That's what brought down AIG in 2008.
These are bets on which way currencies or interest rates will go. There are trillions of
dollars nominally of bets that have been placed. They're not regulated if a bank does this
through a special-purpose entity, especially if it does it through those that are in Britain.
That's where AIG's problems were in 2008. So the banks basically have avoided having to back up
capital against making a bad bet.
If you have bets over where trillions of dollars of securities, interest rates, bonds and
currencies are going to go, somebody is going to be on the losing side. And someone on the
losing side of these bets is going to go under, like Lehman Brothers did. They're not going to
be able to pay their customers. You're going to have rolling defaults.
You've also had Trump de-tooth to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. So the banks
say, well, let's do what Wells Fargo did. Their business model is fraud, but their earnings are
soaring. They're growing a lot, and they're paid a tiny penalty for cheating their customers
and making billions of dollars off it. So more banks are jumping on the high-risk consumer
exploitation bandwagon. That's certainly not helping matters.
Michael Palmieri: So, Michael we've talked a little bit about the different
indicators that point towards a financial crisis. It's also clear from what you just stated
from a regulatory standpoint that the U.S. is extremely vulnerable. Back in 2008 many argue
that there was a huge opportunity lost in terms of transforming our private banking system to a
publicly owned banking system. Recently the Democracy Collaborative published a report titled,
The Crisis Next Time: Planning for Public ownership as Alternative to Corporate Bailouts
. That was put out by Thomas Hanna. He was calling for a transition from private to public
banking. He also made the point, which you've made in earlier episodes, that it's not a
question of if another financial crisis is going to occur, but when . Can you
speak a little bit about how public banking as an alternative would differ from the current
corporate private banking system we have today?
Michael Hudson: Sure. I'm actually part of the Democracy Collaborative. The best way
to think about this is that suppose that back in 2008, Obama and Wall Street bagman Tim
Geithner had not blocked Sheila Bair from taking over Citigroup and other insolvent banks. She
wrote that Citigroup had gambled with money and were incompetent, and outright crooked. She
wanted to take them over.
Now suppose that Citibank would had been taken over by the government and operated as a
public bank. How would a public bank have operated differently from Citibank?
For one thing, a public entity wouldn't make corporate takeover loans and raids. They
wouldn't lend to payday loan sharks. Instead they'd make local branches so that people didn't
have to go to payday loan sharks, but could borrow from a local bank branch or a post office
bank in the local communities that are redlined by the big banks.
A public entity wouldn't make gambling loans for derivatives. What a public bank
would do is what's called the vanilla bread-and-butter operation of serving small
depositors, savers and consumers. You let them have checking accounts, you clear their checks,
pay their bills automatically, but you don't make gambling and financial loans.
Banks have sort of turned away from small customers. They've certainly turned away from the
low-income neighborhoods, and they're not even lending to businesses anymore. More and more
American companies are issuing their own commercial paper to avoid the banks. In other words, a
company will issue an IOU itself, and pay interest more than pension funds or mutual funds can
get from the banks. So the money funds such as Vanguard are buying commercial paper from these
companies, because the banks are not making these loans.
So a public bank would do what banks are supposed to do productively, which is to help
finance basic production and basic consumption, but not financial gambling at the top where all
the risk is. That's the business model of the big banks, and some will lose money and crash
like in 2008. A public bank wouldn't make junk mortgage loans. It wouldn't engage in consumer
fraud. It wouldn't be like Wells Fargo. It wouldn't be like Citibank. This is so obvious that
what is needed is a bank whose business plan is not exploitation of consumers, not fraud, and
isn't gambling. That basically is the case for public ownership.
Paul Sliker: Michael as we're closing this one out, I know you're going to hate me
for asking this question. But you were one of the few economists to predict the last crisis.
What do you think is going to happen here? Are we looking at another global financial crisis
and when do you think, if so, that might be coming?
Michael Hudson: We're emphatically not looking for "another" global crisis, because
we're in the same crisis! We're still in the 2008 crisis! This is the middle stage of
that crisis. The crisis was caused by not writing down the bad debts, which means the bad
loans, especially the fraudulent loans. Obama kept these junk mortgage loans and outright fraud
on the books – and richly rewarded the banks in proportion to how badly and recklessly
they had lent.
The economy's been limping along ever since. They say there's been a recovery, but even with
the fake lying with statistics – with a GDP rise – the so-called "recovery" is the
slowest that there's been at any time since World War II. If you break down the statistics and
look at what is growing, it's mainly the financial and real estate sector, and
monopolies like health care that raise the costs of living and crowd out spending in the real
economy.
So this is the same crisis that we were in then. It's never been fixed, and it can't be
fixed until you get rid of the bad-debt problem. The bad debts require restructuring the way in
which pensions are paid – to pay them out of current income, not financializing them. The
economy has to be de-financialized, but I don't see that on the horizon for a while. That's s
why I think that rather than a new crisis, there will be a slow shrinkage until there's a break
in the chain of payments. Then they're going to call that he crisis.
Hillary will say it's the Russians who did it, but it really is Obama who did it. The
Democratic Party leadership is in the hands of Wall Street, and has not done anything to
prevent the same dynamics that caused the crisis in 2008 and are still causing the economy to
shrink.
Paul Sliker: That's exactly why I wanted to reframe that question, because I think a
lot of people look at economic and financial crises through just the simple paradigm of a
bubble and the bubble bursting. But I think you did a fine job of clarifying that.
Well Michael, as always, we could go on but we have to end here. Thank you so much for
joining us on The Hudson Report.
Michael Hudson: Well you've asked all the right questions.
Three weeks ago, former banker turned author Philip Augar launched his history of Barclays
since Big Bang (1986). A descendant of Mr Barclay was there. Both good guys. Augar is always
well worth reading.
The pair took a similar view to Hudson. They were a bit surprised that the public and / or
a utility bank option had not been pursued / pushed in 2008 and new competitors have not
emerged since, but think that the world is going back to 2008 and the incumbents won't
survive.
The duo think that what led to 2008 has not been resolved and that one could say the world
has been in recession since the early noughties, not 2008.
Further to banking, the consensus was the American giants would survive and prosper due to
the nature and scale of American markets, but European banks would become utilities and be
challenged by newcomers and public options. This time, there would be no escape for European
banks. The view was also that European banks would finally give up investment banking or
accept to become minor league players, not that there was anything wrong with that. The only
challenge to the US behemoths would be from China.
They support Glass-Steagall and ring fencing, reckoning that the ring fenced banks could
well emerge as the utilities.
The descendant of Mr Barclay left his family bank in 1999 and has led the family's efforts
in financial technology and funding platforms. He did not see Barclays as having much of a
long-term future. Aside, he mentioned their enthusiasm for China's one belt, one road
initiative and what spin offs could emerge from that.
I highly respect Professor Hudson's work and consider myself a MMT adherent, but his
explanation of the inverted yield curve is confused and confusing. The large demand for
short-term treasuries that he describes would lower short-term yields and steepen the yield
curve, not invert it. In fact, the curve is inverted because of higher demand for longer-term
treasuries because people don't expect to have a better place to invest for the near- to
middle term, which is consistent with expectations of poor econonic conditions over a
relatively longer period than is normal for "good" times.
I found that confusing as well. What's happened this year is that short-term rates have
increased steeply while longer-term rates have increased at a slower rate. So it's almost
like those who were in short term bonds are moving out of it and splitting the money between
stocks, cash, and long-term bonds. Could be aggregation bias by me on the splitting though
maybe those who were collectively in short term bonds are all different types of investors
and are now placing their bets in different ways.
Mr. Cole thank you for a better definition of the yield curve inversion. Very few writers
in the US financial press today offers a clear understanding of this concept, which the
general public readership can understand. I know, I've tried, and usually end up asking my
banker brother "what is this article (in the WSJ, recently) trying to say"? Even he takes a
little time to figure it all out
Short-term interest rates are determined by the Fed, and it is pushing up short-term rates
ostensibly to show down price rises (its euphemism for the possibility of wage increases). So
that is the "given." Long-term rates have moved up slightly – meaning that their bond
prices have declined a bit. There's so little chance of their going down much (and rising in
price), and so much chance of rates rising further (and lowering bond prices) that investors
are afraid of taking a loss during the bond's remaining maturity.
I should have emphasized the degree to which the Fed is setting short-term rates. Obviously,
there are still a lot of takers – but not enough to overwhelm the Fed's insistence of
raising rates.
My point is that there's not going to be a "recovery."
So, which (if any) industrialized countries are managing the economic Rubic's Cube
properly? The 'colors' of the cube being health care, employment, public education,
infrastructure maintenance, environment, & public safety?
Mr. Hudson, it'd be very beneficial if you'd describe how the Fed manipulates the system
so that increased purchases of US Treasury paper actually INCREASES the coupon paid!
I wonder if what's happening is that there's actually greater issuance of private debt on
the short-end of the curve. See for instance https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=kJIv . I
used the y-axis on the right hand side for the commercial paper issuance (bright red). The
left hand y-axis is for everything else – the rates. Notice how issuance increases and
decreases correlated with short term rates. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.
So it would be good if somebody could weigh in on this. But to me it would make sense if the
private issuance drove the causation.
And more would have to be added onto that heap. Commercial paper isn't the only private
debt on the short-end, there's other non-bank debt issuance as well, but I'm not sure of
where to get data for that. That could explain what's been happening in the graph with short
term yields going up since 2016. Yes, the Fed Reserve is increasing their Fed Funds rate, but
I've seen discussion/arguments elsewhere that the Fed Reserve sets their rate so that it
remains competitive with what the private market is doing.
Michael,
You have it exactly right. The Fed's easy money policy has distorted the price of all
financial assets and has made asset flipping and the carry trade profitable, while long-term
investment in productive assets is too risky. The flattening of the yield curve is highly
suggestive that the Fed is taking away the punch bowl and we'll soon be struggling to
remember what it is that so many call a recovery.
Keep up the great work!!
Industrial Service Banking and Utility Banking are required if there is to be a recovery.
I believe I am perceiving this interview as it is titled. I add Industrial Service Banking
from my reading of "Killing the Host".
I've theorized that as regards Brexit & the Finance flight to France what is left in
the UK could aggressively solicit business for industry as opposed to banking for real estate
& risky financial instruments such as Derivatives.
As a working man who graduated high school in 1971 I feel as though my work life perfectly
tracks the common experience of a great many of us whose entire lives were sent on the war
time trajectories. Our working lives ended as they began. We gained nothing and were knocked
back to where ever we started.
If you didn't go into Finance, or Insurance or Real Estate, or Government Work you were
beat by "Forces Beyond Your Control".
In my own case it was from carpentry to Aviation Ground Services to Motion Picture
Technical services then back to carpentry. "Fed Policy, Fed Policy, Fed Policy "
Now I simply identify as "Beat".
We were made into the "Reinsurer of the Reinsurer AIG" and that is our doom since the
election of Trump and Minuchin.
Not much chance of Utility Banking. All of everything done is to keep pushing up land
assessed values and the banks just lend to the rentiers who get their checks from the
management companies while neo feudalism is made more & more recreated.
If there is to be any write offs or write downs they will come from some bigger more
traditional war, appears to be in the offing though that looks a lot like Apocalyptic Riot to
me.
While you can blame Obama for what happened under Timothy Geithner it was Clinton Unit One
that engineered the set up. That being Meyer Lansky Financial Engineering.
Thanks, P.S. My ideal political event would hence be a great Mechanized March on the US
Treasury in Washington. There I would see on stage all the greats of Economics working today.
Michael Hudson, Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton, Randall Wray, Bill Black, Robert Reich. The
American People are simply denied the benefits of their own Treasury is the way I see it.
Youtube is TV Land Lite. When the people are at least given the true story of why they are
forced into desperation for no reason other than the wealthy can and it is thrilling to them
to keep getting away with the whole thing. Certainly Jeff Bezos the national overseer of the
dispossessed is obviously just thrilled, simply thrilled. His and then Musk's Mars mission
mimic the Puritan immigration to the New World. Auto electrification and the Musk Power Wall
are valuable contributions to a possible future of some sort of Civilization. Gopsay policies
are fully dystopian. A Reinsurer's Revolt? Is there a phrase that will work?
Thanks you for making that point because I had the same thought when reading the piece
(but wouldn't have brought it up for fear of 2nd guessing those more knowledgeable than
me!).
And thanks to Mr. Hudson for clarifying the point – now it all makes a lot more
sense.
We're emphatically not looking for "another" global crisis, because we're in the same
crisis! We're still in the 2008 crisis! This is the middle stage of that crisis. The crisis
was caused by not writing down the bad debts, which means the bad loans, especially the
fraudulent loans. Obama kept these junk mortgage loans and outright fraud on the books
– and richly rewarded the banks in proportion to how badly and recklessly they had
lent.
The economy's been limping along ever since. They say there's been a recovery, but even
with the fake lying with statistics – with a GDP rise – the so-called
"recovery" is the slowest that there's been at any time since World War II. If you break
down the statistics and look at what isgrowing, it's mainly the financial and real estate
sector, and monopolies like health care that raise the costs of living and crowd out
spending in the real economy.
So this is the same crisis that we were in then. It's never been fixed, and it can't be
fixed until you get rid of the bad-debt problem. The bad debts require restructuring the
way in which pensions are paid – to pay them out of current income, not
financializing them. The economy has to be de-financialized, but I don't see that on the
horizon for a while. That's s why I think that rather than a new crisis, there will be a
slow shrinkage until there's a break in the chain of payments. Then they're going to call
that he crisis.
Hillary will say it's the Russians who did it, but it really is Obama who did it . The
Democratic Party leadership is in the hands of Wall Street, and has not done anything to
prevent the same dynamics that caused the crisis in 2008 and are still causing the economy
to shrink.
Love it when Michael Hudson says it was Obama not the Russians who did it, because his
words are truer than he knows (Obama's act of fraud when he classified Steele report so he
could spy on his political opponents so he could meddle in the election for Hillary).
About 2010, the CEO of one of the UK's largest retailers thought that the British economy
had been in a crisis for a lot longer than from August 2007. This was echoed recently by one
of the City's leading economists.
Interestingly, said CEO's successor reckons that, judging from retail footfall, the UK's
population is a few millions in excess of the official figure and this is what is driving
growth, albeit anaemic growth.
Thats a very important point about population. Its a major factor sometimes in why GDP PP
figures can be deceptive. Back in the 1990's in London it was considered a rule of thumb to
add one million people to the official census figures. Its not simply a case of illegal
immigrants – often its just a big floating population around Europe (construction
workers, casual workers, students on a year off), settling somewhere for a short while and
not bothering to register officially).
I recall in Ireland about 12 years ago when someone pointed out that the new census
figures for Polish and Chinese people were less than half the claimed circulation figures for
the main Polish and Chinese language newspapers the official response was . silence. Nobody
wanted to know.
In the US, our 'financial crisis' has morphed into a political crisis, and we're deeper
into a legitimacy crisis by the day.
The Dems can't seem to get it through their thick, dull sculls that Pelosi is perceived as
a Bailout Queen by a whole lot of 'flyover folks', no matter what else she manages to
achieve. She's become political poison, and she'll never stop wreaking of TARP. Ditto
Schumer. The GOP needs them both desperately in order to act like they're railing and wailing
against Big Gumint; unfortunately, as long as this stale drama continues, we're going to be
offered pallid incrementalism, because they can't seem to imagine revamping the system. Thus,
in a horrifying feedback loop, the delegitimacy spirals ever downward.
One reason the Dems need new leadership is to clean up the gridlock, but another reason is
to give some breathing room to initiatives like postal banking. I don't see it coming from
those who have held power, or who were anywhere near the TARP bailouts.
Which, I suppose, is my cue to go donate to some smart, tough Dems running for Congress
this year. (Fingers crossed!)
I already had similar thoughts but the article lays them out better than I could
write/say. The current whole system is basically the reason why I am buying Bitcoin et al. I
strongly believe that money itself should be 100% neutral, no government control over it.
Once you have government control that's where "the road to hell is paved with good
intentions". Gotta keep things "safe" – more government regulations make things safer
when it merely moves the actual risk underneath the rug. Purely an illusion.
Banks should be much smaller and that when the inevitable chaos happen (it's human nature,
cannot regulate it away) the smaller banks should go under without too much damage to the
whole economy. Lessons thus learned, etc. Now it's only a few giant banks. Making the giant
banks safer goes only so far best to be smaller and focus on government controls purely on
keeping banks small and stamping out unethical behavior.
Insane debt levels, insane housing pricing, insane medicine pricing, insane constant
military industrial complex, etc all symptoms of money emittance. I thought MMT would solve
much of the problems but realized that it still has central authorities emitting money no
good.
So Bitcoin et al it is. I will find out in 2030 whether I am correct on Bitcoin et al
being the money for the world or not. Don't bother telling me Bitcoin will never work it has
been around a decade now – it does have staying power. That alone made me look closer
into it. You should, too. If you don't agree, at least Bitcoin is a relatively uncorrelated
asset class
I am not rich enough, nor tech savvy enough, to invest in Bitcoin–but this slow
decline into oblivion is why I have always put my money into tangibles (antiques,
collectibles, jewelry). Fortunately I bought these things long ago and selling them now is
what's keeping me afloat.
I got an unexpected bounty and had the tech savvy (+ NN Taleb inspired courage) to invest
in Bitcoin – before any vulture capitalists' siphons got involved. Fortunately I bought
these things long ago and selling them now is what's keeping me afloat.
I think that cryptos can be good (or bad) investments. I think their capacities as far as
replacing government issued currencies (i.e., being the mediums of exchange for most
transactions) are extremely limited on a mass scale, as day to day life for most people would
be even more chaotic. I don't think people have thought through how regular, day to day, life
would be for most people in a world where there are no more dollars, Yen, RMB, etc. Most
people don't have the capacity to invest in anything, since the costs of basic things have
been outpacing wage growth for decades. So, what might make you some money or what might be a
good investment doesn't mean that crypto currencies can be used on a mass level, and it
doesn't mean that the profits from appreciating crypto currencies are benefiting anything
more than a very small percentage of the public. Same as stocks, bonds and every other
financial investment where ownership is highly concentrated. Them being a unit of account
would be problematic, as any item you could imagine would have no one value in any country. A
pair of shoes wouldn't be worth X amount of dollars in the US, or X Yen in Japan. The shoes
would be worth X amount of Bitcoin, X amount of this crypto, x amount of that crypto, there
would no longer be a unit of account in the same way there is now. How in the hell would a
poor working stiff possibly exist in that world? Maybe you could operate in that world, most
couldn't, and wouldn't want to either. Maybe we could pass around Rothbard books and convert
people to the church. Some might suggest that Bitcoin could be the unit of account and that
other crypto currencies would be fixed to Bitcoins, but who would decide this, and if we have
a democracy, why would people vote to support that? Would the big, evil state decide this?
How are taxes paid with cryptos? Let's say you have a few cryptos, and they collapse in
value. You're in trouble as far as redeeming your debt to the state. And how would the state
calculate how someone would pay taxes? What would they do a bunch of different crypto
currencies? During the free banking era, there were thousands of currencies. Do they have
values for each currency, which change second by second with those currencies? You owe this
much in this currency, this much in this one, etc. Naïve to think it would work, or that
most people would want that world.
How exactly would we possibly deal with the environmental crisis with cryptos? We already
are struggling with the non-market nature of most of these impacts, and it is already
extremely difficult to address the environmental crisis, given the complex and chaotic nature
of decentralized market systems. Now, we're going to further fracture society and our economy
by using a multitude of currencies? Mises had a book called Planned Chaos. This world would
just be chaos, as planning would be next to impossible. Maybe that is the point.
Personally, I think cryptos are actually far more un-democratic than government issued
currencies. At least with US dollars, we could democratize money creation, we could have
transparent public banks (seems just fine with the Bank of North Dakota), we could have some
say on what we spend on, invest in, etc. Not the case now because of corruption, but it would
be the case if we democratized the economy and the political system. That isn't possible with
cryptos. That's a big reason why the libertarians love them.
To me, this stuff is just more financial "innovation". Saying that they are good
investments is one thing, I have a problem with them personally beyond that, and I don't have
tons of faith in libertarians in regards to their relationship to objective reality.
As Professor Hudson makes clear, it is not the size of the bank that matters, it is the
fact that banks were allowed to expand into derivative trading and what I being no expert
would call 'financial wheeling and dealing.' His recommended fix is not that the banks become
smaller but that there be an alternative public banking system that doesn't do all those
there things.
One point I would enlarge upon is fixing the blame for all of this. Clearly Obama fell
down in extending huge loans from public coffers to big banks in trouble, and Professor
Hudson explains clearly how the failures of 2008 occurred, and that we are still in that
recession – it has most definitely felt like it! And thanks to him for also explaining
clearly how the failures of that critical time have been converted into pluses by finagling
the factors going into GDP. We knew it had to be phony; he has explained how. So, who else is
to blame? I'll go right back to that late signing of Bill Clinton that gave away the store.
Bill and Newt, partners in crime. At the time I didn't know what they were doing, but you can
bet they did.
Not seeing any of this gloom and doom and stress and vacancies here in the DC area. It is
go-go-go, buildings sprouting like weeds, luxury apartments (not condos) and few vacancies in
existing buildings. Developers are starting new phases because the previous phases are full.
The thing that will put a more immediate kibosh on this steam train is construction costs
– Mr. Trump's tariffs and immigration policies have already hit construction hard, and
a sub that might have projected $8mil last year early in design is quoting $10mil now that
it's time to sign a contract (that's unusual).
All that said, most of us building these things have no idea who is paying $5k/mo in rent
but that's what it is. For now it's not letting up. Maybe next year.
One thing that does line up with the article to some extent is the mixed-use retail spots
are not filling up. But retail is being universally crushed by online sales.
London is not so different and some regional markets like Edinburgh, Oxford and
Cambridge.
UK retail is getting crushed, even at the high end, but that is due to the immiseration of
the population, fraud and private equity "investment". Online sales are a convenient fig
leaf.
My friends in A/E/construction in NYC say it's similar to DC at the moment. I was up over
the weekend (chicken bus delayed 3hrs in massive traffic btw) and noted all the new
skyscrapers and other interesting new bldgs -- wow Chelsea and the Meatpacking dist are hot
hot hot! The highline sure did a lot for that area. Lèched les vitrines all over town
and didn't notice many street level retail vacancies in Manhattan. It's sure to come crashing
down spectacularly but that does not seem imminent.
The DC area is awash with the largesse of the imperial treasury. Of course thing would
look different there. I live out near the WV border and the overflow even splashes around
here. Life is easy next to the spring in the desert.
Great article once again. This subject of public ownership of banks is close to my heart
because here in South Africa it's one that always finds itself pushed to the periphery of
public discourse. The argument used to discredit the notion is one of "scarcity of
skills/expertise" and it goes something like this: banking and finance institutions are
highly specialized entities requiring highly skilled operators to manage them "successfully",
and such expertise aren't in plentiful supply in the public sector. As such, a public bank
would be faced with only two options:
1. Parachute specialists (Jamie Dimon running a public bank) private banks to come and run
it while keeping them on a very tight leash ( surely a highly undesirable prospect for people
used to operating in environments where leashes are anathema)
2. Collapsing into dysfunction and insolvency due to the ineptitude of its lowly skilled
management plucked from other public sector entities
But to my mind, Prof Hudson clears this up by debunking the complexity myth. Complexity in
banking is a function of financial engineering and public banks would have no business
conjuring up such elaborate schemes. The assumption underpinning this argument is that public
banks would be structured the same as current private banks, thus requiring the same "skills"
to run, which clearly wouldn't be the case.
It's a great podcast. The question for me is why are there personal debts at all? The
reason is clear of course, but those of us who are victimized from these schemes from young
adulthood (for a lot of us it is merely going to college/university, which, incidentally, we
were repeatably told to do from early childhood, or much worse, young mothers just going to
the Dollar Store to feed their kids) –whom among us did not freak out when Obama said
(regarding the banksters), "We must look forward and not backward." When I heard that I knew
I was played, big time. We all were. In my opinion, anything going forward that does not
confront that piece of shit statement, ever, and forever, is just delusional.
90+ degrees in Munich today. Reality is setting in.
The real problem is that we're still in the aftermath of when the bubble
burst in 2008, that all of the growth in the economy has only been in the financial sector, in
the monopolies -- only for the 1 percent. And it's as if there are two economies, and the 99
percent has not grown. And so, the American economy is still in a debt deflation. So the real
problem is, stocks have doubled in price since 2008, and the economy, for most people,
certainly who listen to your show, hasn't grown at all.
So, finally, the stocks were inflated really by the central bank, by the Fed, creating an
enormous amount of money, $4.5 trillion, essentially, to drop over Wall Street to buy bonds
that have pushed the yields down so high -- so low, to about 0.1 percent for government bonds,
that pension funds and investors say, "How can we make money?" So they buy stocks. And they
borrowed at 1 percent to buy up stocks that yield maybe 4 percent. But who are the largest
people who buy the stocks? They're the companies themselves that have done stock buybacks.
They're the managers of the companies that have used their earnings, essentially, to push up
stock prices so they get more bonuses. Ninety precent of all the earnings of the biggest
companies in America in the last five years have gone for stock buybacks and dividends. It's
not being invested. It's not building new factories. It's not employing more people.
So, the real problem is that we're in a nonrecovery in America, and Europe is in an absolute
class war of austerity. That's what the eurozone is, an austerity zone. So that's not growing.
And that's really what's happening. And all that you saw on Monday was just sort of like a
shift, tectonic shift, is people realizing, "Well, the game is up, it's time to get out." And
once a few people want to get out, everybody sees the game's up. AMY GOODMAN : Michael Hudson,
your book is titled Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the
Global Economy . Explain what you mean.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, most people think of parasites as sort of just taking, taking money
from the economy, and the 1 percent is sort of sucking up all the income from the 99 percent.
But in nature, what parasites do, they don't simply take. In order to take, they have to take
over the brain of the host. And economists have a word, "host economy." It's for a foreign
country that lets American investors in. Smart parasites help the host grow. But the parasite,
first of all, has to make the host believe that the intruder is actually part of the body, to
be nurtured and taken care of. And that's what's happened in national income accounting in
America and in other countries. The newspapers and the media -- not your show, but most of the
media -- treat the financial sector as if that's really the economy, and when the stock market
goes up, the economy is going up. But the economy isn't going up at all.
And the financial sector somehow depicts itself as the brains of the economy, and it would
like to replace government. What Larry Summers said is what -- governments have to pay their
debts by privatizing more, essentially, by doing what Margaret Thatcher did in England. That's
his solution to the crisis: All the governments have to do is balance the budget, sell
everything to Wall Street on credit, and we won't have any more problem. And that's basically
-- the financial sector is almost at war, not only against labor, as most of the socialists
talk about, but against governments and against industry. It's cannibalizing industry. So now
most of the corporations in America are using their income not to do what industrial capitalism
did a century ago, not to build more factories and employ more people and make more profits;
they're just using it, as I said, to push it to pay dividends and to buy back their shares and
to somehow manipulate the financial sector in the stock prices, not the economy as a whole. So
there's been a divergence between the real economy and what I call the -- economists call the
FIRE sector -- finance, insurance and real estate. And they're going in separate
directions.
AMY GOODMAN : You are -- you have been an adviser to the Syriza party in Greece. You're a
friend of the former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. Can you talk about what's happening
there now and what that bodes for the economy, not only in Greece, but in Europe, maybe even
here?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, the story begins, actually, about four years ago, when Greece had a
very large foreign debt, taken on basically by the military government and what followed. And
it was obvious that as soon as the PASOK , the socialist party, came in, they said, "Look, the
debt's much larger than we thought. We can't pay it." And they were going to write it down. The
IMF looked in and said, "Greece can't pay the debts. We've got to write them down." The board
looked in, said they can't pay the debts. But then the European central banks came in and said,
"Look, our job as central bankers is to support the banks. Greece owes the debt to the,
essentially, French banks and German banks, and we've got to support them." So, despite the
fact that the IMF was pushing for a debt write-down four years ago -- the head of the IMF at
that time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, wanted to run for president of France, and he was told by
French President Sarkozy, "Well, wait a minute, if French banks hold most of Greek debts, you
can't, at the IMF , say that we're going to write down the debts." So they didn't. And
meanwhile, the eurozone said, "We won't let you, the IMF , be part of our program, the troika,
if you don't pretend that Greece can pay the debt."
So Greece was left with a huge debt. It was pushed into depression. The GDP fell worse than
it did in the 1930s. Finally, the Syriza party came in, in January, and Varoufakis and Tsipras
thought, "Well, then, OK, we can explain to the finance ministers of Europe that you can't
expect to push Greece into a depression, push more austerity, and somehow austerity will enable
us to repay the debt. That's crazy." And he thought that he could reason with them. And the
Europeans, who he was reasoning with, the central bankers, said, "We're not here to talk about
economics. We're lawyers. We're here to collect money. It doesn't matter that you're going to
go into a depression. It doesn't matter that you're going to have to have another 20 percent of
your population emigrate. We're only here to collect the payments. And if you don't pay, then
we're going to pull the plug."
And they pulled the plug on the Greek banks a few months ago and said, "We're not going to
accept any of the bank transfers, payments with Greek banks here. So, if you're exporting and
you want credit for export, you're not going to give it to you. We're going to treat Greece
like America treated Cuba and America treated North Korea. You're going to be the North Korea
of Europe if you don't succumb, surrender and pay." And that's why Tsipras said, "Oh, my -- we
don't want to bring an absolute, you know, total breakdown, because that would bring the right
wing to power." Varoufakis said, well, he agrees that there's no alternative but to sort of
surrender for the present and try to join hands with Italy, Spain and Portugal, but he wasn't
going to be the administrator of the depression. So you had the referendum, and the Greeks now
say, "Well, no matter what, we're not going to pay." And the eurozone says, "Then we're going
to just wreck you, or smash and grab."
AMY GOODMAN : I want to ask you very quickly about presidential politics, about two of the
Republican presidential candidates, Jeb Bush and John Kasich. Both worked for Lehman Brothers,
Kasich after he ran for -- after he was a congressman; Jeb Bush, according to The Wall
Street Journal , Bush signed on with Lehman after leaving the Florida Governor's Mansion,
making it clear he wanted to work as a hands-on investment banker. I believe he made something
like $14 million working for Lehman and then Barclays.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, almost -- both parties are basically run by Wall Street. The
Democratic Party, ever since Bill Clinton, was run by Robert Rubin. And all of the secretaries
of the treasury, the officials, have basically come from Goldman Sachs, especially Tim
Geithner. One of the problems in Greece, by the way, was that Obama and Geithner, coming from
the Rubin group, met at the Group of Eight meetings and told -- were told, basically, Greece,
"You have to pay, because the American banks have made so many big bets on Greek bonds that if
Greece doesn't repay" -- this is back in 2011 -- "then the American banks will go under, and if
we go under, we're going to pull Europe down." So, the American banks basically -- we're
talking about Wall Street investment firms. They don't -- they're called investment bankers,
but they don't invest. They gamble. And we're really much more in casino capitalism than
finance capitalism.
So you have Wall Street people basically running politics, whether they're the actual
politicians -- Obama didn't work on Wall Street, but he worked with the real estate families.
No matter who the president is, they're going to appoint Treasury heads and Fed, Federal
Reserve, heads from Wall Street. Wall Street has a veto power on all the major Cabinet
positions, and so, essentially, the economy is being run by the financial sector for the
financial sector. That's the problem with politics in America today.
Not seeing any of this gloom and doom and stress and vacancies here in the DC area. It is
go-go-go, buildings sprouting like weeds, luxury apartments (not condos) and few vacancies in
existing buildings. Developers are starting new phases because the previous phases are full.
The thing that will put a more immediate kibosh on this steam train is construction costs
– Mr. Trump's tariffs and immigration policies have already hit construction hard, and
a sub that might have projected $8mil last year early in design is quoting $10mil now that
it's time to sign a contract (that's unusual).
All that said, most of us building these things have no idea who is paying $5k/mo in rent
but that's what it is. For now it's not letting up. Maybe next year.
One thing that does line up with the article to some extent is the mixed-use retail spots
are not filling up. But retail is being universally crushed by online sales.
London is not so different and some regional markets like Edinburgh, Oxford and
Cambridge.
UK retail is getting crushed, even at the high end, but that is due to the immiseration of
the population, fraud and private equity "investment". Online sales are a convenient fig
leaf.
My friends in A/E/construction in NYC say it's similar to DC at the moment. I was up over
the weekend (chicken bus delayed 3hrs in massive traffic btw) and noted all the new
skyscrapers and other interesting new bldgs -- wow Chelsea and the Meatpacking dist are hot
hot hot! The highline sure did a lot for that area. Lèched les vitrines all over town
and didn't notice many street level retail vacancies in Manhattan. It's sure to come crashing
down spectacularly but that does not seem imminent.
The DC area is awash with the largesse of the imperial treasury. Of course thing would
look different there. I live out near the WV border and the overflow even splashes around
here. Life is easy next to the spring in the desert.
The housing market is now apparently turning down. Consumer incomes are limited by jobs
offshoring and the ability of employers to hold down wages and salaries. The Federal Reserve
seems committed to higher interest rates - in my view to protect the exchange value of the US
dollar on which Washington's power is based. The arrogant fools in Washington, with whom I
spent a quarter century, have, with their bellicosity and sanctions, encouraged nations with
independent foreign and economic policies to drop the use of the dollar. This takes some time
to accomplish, but Russia, China, Iran, and India are apparently committed to dropping or
reducing the use of the US dollar.
A drop in the world demand for dollars can be destabilizing of the dollar's value unless the
central banks of Japan, UK, and EU continue to support the dollar's exchange value, either by
purchasing dollars with their currencies or by printing offsetting amounts of their currencies
to keep the dollar's value stable. So far they have been willing to do both. However, Trump's
criticisms of Europe has soured Europe against Trump, with a corresponding weakening of the
willingness to cover for the US. Japan's colonial status vis-a-vis the US since the Second
World War is being stressed by the hostility that Washington is introducing into Japan's part
of the world. The orchestrated Washington tensions with North Korea and China do not serve
Japan, and those Japanese politicians who are not heavily on the US payroll are aware that
Japan is being put on the line for American, not Japanese interests.
If all this leads, as is likely, to the rise of more independence among Washington's
vassals, the vassals are likely to protect themselves from the cost of their independence by
removing themselves from the dollar and payments mechanisms associated with the dollar as world
currency. This means a drop in the value of the dollar that the Federal Reserve would have to
prevent by raising interest rates on dollar investments in order to keep the demand for dollars
up sufficiently to protect its value.
As every realtor knows, housing prices boom when interest rates are low, because the lower
the rate the higher the price of the house that the person with the mortgage can afford. But
when interest rates rise, the lower the price of the house that a buyer can afford.
If we are going into an era of higher interest rates, home prices and sales are going to
decline.
The "on the other hand" to this analysis is that if the Federal Reserve loses control of the
situation and the debts associated with the current value of the US dollar become a problem
that can collapse the system, the Federal Reserve is likely to pump out enough new money to
preserve the debt by driving interest rates back to zero or negative.
Would this save or revive the housing market? Not if the debt-burdened American people have
no substantial increases in their real income. Where are these increases likely to come from?
Robotics are about to take away the jobs not already lost to jobs offshoring. Indeed, despite
President Trump's emphasis on "bringing the jobs back," Ford Motor Corp. has just announced
that it is moving the production of the Ford Focus from Michigan to China.
Apparently it never occurs to the executives running America's offshored corporations that
potential customers in America working in part time jobs stocking shelves in Walmart, Home
Depot, Lowe's, etc., will not have enough money to purchase a Ford. Unlike Henry Ford, who had
the intelligence to pay workers good wages so they could buy Fords, the executives of American
companies today sacrifice their domestic market and the American economy to their short-term
"performance bonuses" based on low foreign labor costs.
What is about to happen in America today is that the middle class, or rather those who were
part of it as children and expected to join it, are going to be driven into manufactured
"double-wide homes" or single trailers. The MacMansions will be cut up into tenements. Even the
high-priced rentals along the Florida coast will find a drop in demand as real incomes continue
to fall. The $5,000-$20,000 weekly summer rental rate along Florida's panhandle 30A will not be
sustainable. The speculators who are in over their heads in this arena are due for a future
shock.
For years I have reported on the monthly payroll jobs statistics. The vast majority of new
jobs are in lowly paid nontradable domestic services, such as waitresses and bartenders, retail
clerks, and ambulatory health care services. In the payroll jobs report for June, for example,
the new jobs, if they actually exist, are concentrated in these sectors: administrative and
waste services, health care and social assistance, accommodation and food services, and local
government.
High productivity, high value-added manufactured jobs shrink in the US as they are offshored to
Asia. High productivity, high value-added professional service jobs, such as research,
design, software engineering, accounting, legal research, are being filled by offshoring or by
foreigners brought into the US on work visas with the fabricated and false excuse that there
are no Americans qualified for the jobs.
America is a country hollowed out by the short-term greed of the ruling class and its shills
in the economics profession and in Congress. Capitalism only works for the few. It no longer
works for the many.
On national security grounds Trump should respond to Ford's announcement of offshoring the
production of Ford Focus to China by nationalizing Ford. Michigan's payrolls and tax base will
decline and employment in China will rise. We are witnessing a major US corporation enabling
China's rise over the United States. Among the external costs of Ford's contribution to China's
GDP is Trump's increased US military budget to counter the rise in China's power.
Trump should also nationalize Apple, Nike, Levi, and all the rest of the offshored US global
corporations who have put the interest of a few people above the interests of the American work
force and the US economy. There is no other way to get the jobs back. Of course, if Trump did
this, he would be assassinated.
America is ruled by a tiny percentage of people who constitute a treasonous class. These
people have the money to purchase the government, the media, and the economics profession that
shills for them. This greedy traitorous interest group must be dealt with or the United States
of America and the entirety of its peoples are lost.
In her latest blockbuster book, Collusion , Nomi Prins documents how central banks and
international monetary institutions have used the 2008 financial crisis to manipulate markets
and the fiscal policies of governments to benefit the super-rich.
These manipulations are used to enable the looting of countries such as Greece and Portugal
by the large German and Dutch banks and the enrichment via inflated financial asset prices of
shareholders at the expense of the general population.
One would think that repeated financial crises would undermine the power of financial
interests, but the facts are otherwise. As long ago as November 21, 1933, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt wrote to Col. House that "the real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a
financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew
Jackson."
Thomas Jefferson said that "banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than
standing armies" and that "if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue
of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks . . . will deprive the
people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers
conquered."
The shrinkage of the US middle class is evidence that Jefferson's prediction is coming
true.
"... In May it was revealed that AT&T paid Cohen up to $600,000 for his "insights" - asking him to specifically look into the proposed $85 billion merger with Time Warner Inc. He also took money from Swiss healthcare giant Novartis, Korea Aerospace Industries and Russian businessman Victor Vekselberg. In total, Cohen has been paid a total of $1.8 million since Trump took office for his "insights," according to the companies, which would have been better off tossing their money in a fireplace. ..."
"... In other words, Cohen - who Trump has severed ties with, was either a terrible unregistered lobbyist or ran a bait and switch operation. ..."
"... Authorities are investigating whether Mr. Cohen engaged in unregistered lobbying in connection with his consulting work for corporate clients after Mr. Trump went to the White House, according to people familiar with the probe ..."
"... Investigators are also examining potential campaign-finance violations and bank fraud surrounding, among other deals, Mr. Cohen's October 2016 payment to Stephanie Clifford , the former adult-film star called Stormy Daniels, to keep her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the probe. Mr. Trump denies any encounter took place. - WSJ ..."
Right before the feds raided former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in early April, a top Trump
donor offered to pay Cohen $10 million plus a retainer fee in exchange for help securing
funding for a nuclear-power project - including a $5 billion loan from the US Government,
claims the
Wall Street Journal , citing people familiar with the matter.
Under the contract, Mr. Haney agreed to pay Mr. Cohen a monthly retainer in addition to
the $10 million success fee if he could help obtain the funding, including approval of the
full amount of the project's application under a U.S. Department of Energy loan program, the
people familiar with the deal said. -
WSJ
Before we get too far down the rabbit hole, it should be noted that Cohen never actually
entered into the deal according to the donor's attorney, while application with the Department
of Energy (DOE) is still pending. The Journal also provides no evidence of the contract, only
anonymous sources, and there is also no suggestion that President Trump knew about the alleged
offer from the donor - who contributed $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund, yet primarily
backed Democrats before the Cohen arrangement.
The donor, Franklin L. Haney , gave the contract to Trump attorney Michael Cohen in early
April to assist his efforts to complete a pair of unfinished nuclear reactors in Alabama,
known as the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant, these people said.
Had he been paid the success fee, Mr. Cohen's deal with Mr. Haney could have been among
the most lucrative of the known consulting agreements he secured after Mr. Trump's election
by emphasizing his personal relationship with the president, according to people familiar
with his pitches. -
WSJ
According to the DOE, Cohen hasn't communicated with Energy Secretary Rick Perry about the
project, however he did make "several calls to officials at the Energy Department in the
spring" to inquire about the process for securing the loan - including what could be done to
speed it up, according to the Journal.
Had Cohen accepted the deal, it would mark yet another corporate interest which lined his
pockets, yet received nothing in return.
In
May it was revealed that AT&T paid Cohen up to $600,000 for his "insights" - asking him
to specifically look into the proposed $85 billion merger with Time Warner Inc. He also took
money from Swiss healthcare giant Novartis, Korea Aerospace Industries and Russian businessman
Victor Vekselberg. In total, Cohen has been paid a total of $1.8 million since Trump took
office for his "insights," according to the companies, which would have been better off tossing
their money in a fireplace.
In other words, Cohen - who Trump has severed ties with, was either a terrible unregistered
lobbyist or ran a bait and switch operation.
Authorities are investigating whether Mr. Cohen
engaged in unregistered lobbying in connection with his consulting work for corporate
clients after Mr. Trump went to the White House, according to people familiar with the
probe.
Investigators are also examining potential campaign-finance violations and bank fraud
surrounding, among other deals,
Mr. Cohen's October 2016 payment to Stephanie Clifford , the former adult-film star
called Stormy Daniels, to keep her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr.
Trump, according to people familiar with the probe. Mr. Trump denies any encounter took
place. -
WSJ
"Neither Mr. Haney nor Nuclear Development LLC ever entered into a contract with Michael
Cohen or his affiliate for lobbying services related to the Bellefonte project," said Haney's
attorney, Larry Blust, referring to the name of the Company Haney is using for the project.
Haney's company, Nuclear Development, agreed to pay $111 million in a November 2016 contract
to purchase the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant from the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has
until this November to close on the deal.
One month after the November agreement, Haney donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural fund
via a corporate entity, according to FEC records. He had previously backed Democrats. As part
of their arrangement - perhaps to take him for a test drive, Cohen reportedly participated in
an April 5 meeting in Miami with Haney to pitch his project to the vice chairman of the Qatar
Investment Authority, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed al-Thani, the Journal
reported in May , citing yet more anonymous people familiar with the matter.
The meeting took place near Miami Beach, where a Qatari delegation had come to promote
business ties with the U.S. Mr. Cohen spent a night on Mr. Haney's yacht during the trip, one
of those people has said.
There is no indication that the Qataris have decided to invest with Mr. Haney. A Qatar
spokesman in Washington has confirmed the meeting. A representative of the Qatari
sovereign-wealth fund didn't respond to a request for comment. -
WSJ
A professor of government at American University, James Thuber, told the WSJ that such fees
are "outside the ethical norms" among Washington lobbyists are frowned upon.
Century-old court rulings deemed fees contingent on lobbyists obtaining public funds or
killing legislation unenforceable and counter to public policy, saying they encouraged
corruption, he said. Several lobbyists contacted by the Journal said $10 million was an
unheard-of sum to pay a consultant for government-related work. -
WSJ
That said, there is no blanket federal ban on success fees for Washington lobbyists, while
Cohen has never worked for the Trump administration - something former chief strategist Steve
Bannon ensured early on in the campaign.
Following the money...
Meanwhile, five Republican Congressmen urged the Trump administration in a May 14
letter to finish reviewing Nuclear Development's loan application , describing the project
as an "engine for economic development."
According to the Journal , the DOE's Loan Programs Office COO Dong Kim wrote back saying
that the agency would address the application "as quickly as possible, while still performing
the necessary due diligence to protect taxpayer interests."
What about part-times who are are exploited to the mex and paied very little... This is
sophistry to assume that everybody has full time job in compemporary America.
...A single person taking a minimum wage job would earn an annual income of $15,080. A
married couple would earn $30,160. By the way, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
less than 4 percent of hourly workers in 2016 were paid the minimum wage. That means that over
96 percent of workers earned more than the minimum wage. Not surprising is the fact that among
both black and white married couples, the poverty rate is in the single digits. Most poverty is
in female-headed households.
In the latest effort to punish Moscow over alleged election meddling, as well its role in both Ukraine
and Syria, a bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate Thursday that
seeks to be so
far reaching that it's being widely described as "crushing".
Predictably, it has as
sponsors such Congressional hawks as Senators Bob Menendez, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham
--
the
latter which announced the bill's goal is to "
impose crushing sanctions and other measures
against Putin's Russia
until he ceases and desists meddling in the U.S. electoral process,
halts cyber-attacks on US infrastructure, removes Russia from Ukraine, and ceases efforts to create
chaos in Syria," according a
statement
.
Via Google News
According to lawmakers' statements,
the
Graham-Menendez bill introduces harsh new restrictions on sectors ranging from energy and oil projects
to uranium imports and on sovereign debt transactions.
And the new sanctions further target
various Russian political figures and oligarchs.
Bob Menendez (D) of New Jersey
called the measure
the
"next step in tightening the screws on the Kremlin"
so
Putin understands
"that the U.S. will not tolerate his behavior any longer."
Other supporters include Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)
among those previously mentioned.
In a statement Sen. John McCain said, "Until Putin pays a serious price for his actions, these
attacks on our democracy will only grow.
This bill would build on
the strongest sanctions
ever imposed on the Putin regime
for its assault on democratic institutions, violation
of international treaties, and siege on open societies through cyberattacks and misinformation
campaigns."
Notably, part of the legislation would
require the State Department to make an assessment
on
whether Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism
.
It might have trouble passing, however, as even though
a broad spectrum of legislators have
lately criticized President Trump for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month
and have charged Russia with seeking to interfere in US elections, there's concern that it could
inadvertently impact markets beyond Russia's borders. It would further have to pass the House of
Representatives before going to Trump's desk.
The Banking and Foreign Relations Committees are planning hearings in advance of legislation
coming to the floor. Some senators have expressed concern new sanctions might go too far or not
succeed in getting Putin to change course.
The Treasury Department has warned Congress against legislation that would block
transactions and financing for Russian sovereign debt in part
because of the pain
it would wreak across markets outside Russia's borders
.
The bill is considered the broadest and most far reaching of any Russia sanctions bill previously
considered. Sen. Graham had recently described that it would include everything but "the kitchen
sink."
Meanwhile
the ruble and Russian local bonds were shaken moments after the bipartisan
legislation was announced Thursday
:
the ruble traded down by as much as 0.9 percent
against the dollar, and bond yields jumped to the highest level since July last year.
One thing I don't understand about MAGA. The rallying cry is to make America great again,
but the actions are to revert the government and tax system to when America wasn't that
great.
The height of American civilization was the 50s or 60s, but all the actions are to bring
the state back to how it was in pre-WW1 or the 1920s. It was the stronger labour controls and
high taxes of the 50s that coincided with American dominance. The kind that if someone tried
to introduce them today they'd be called socialist.
" Indeed, socialism sounds good but, when practiced, leads to disaster"
Im sure the author is thinking of Venezuela. But Venezuela, like all of South America, is
a cartel infested, militaristic, corrupt country run by a megalomaniac. It's more oligarch
than socialist.
He should ask the question: if socialism in a stable society, like say Sweden, means free
health care & education, why do people say the US has a low tax rate? Just add that cost
right to your taxes, and bim bam boom the US tax rate is probably more than a 100%, because,
lets be honest, the average $55k/year for a family of 4 will NEVER EVER cover the $1 million
it would take to send your kids to college debt free.
President Trump was later then normal to take to his Twitter account this morning, but nevertheless
provided a triumvirate of tweets that doubled down on his views of the Russia probe and what should
be done about it.
Trump began with a two-fer tweet, quoting Alan Dershowitz:
"
FBI Agent Peter Strzok (on the Mueller team) should have recused himself on day
one.
He was out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP. He needed an insurance policy. Those
are illegal, improper goals, trying to influence the Election. He should never, ever been allowed
to remain in the FBI while he himself was being investigated.
This is a real issue. It
won't go into a Mueller Report because Mueller is going to protect these guys. Mueller has an
interest in creating the illusion of objectivity around his investigation.
"
And then Trump took aim at his own AG,
demanding the probe be shut down "right now"...
Sessions, who has recused himself from supervising the Mueller investigation, didn't immediately
respond to the president's tweet. Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department,
declined to comment.
Trump said last summer he would have chosen a different attorney general had he known Sessions
would recuse himself from supervising the investigation of election interference. Trump has
periodically launched barrages of public attacks on Sessions related to the special counsel's
investigation.
Trump's tweet was immediately condemned by some Democratic lawmakers as a blatant attempt to
obstruct justice:
"The President of the United States just called on his Attorney General to put an end to an
investigation in which the President, his family and campaign may be implicated," Representative
Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on
Twitter. "This is an attempt to obstruct justice hiding in plain sight. America must never
accept it."
However, Trump was not done as he made sure the American public understand his relationship with
Paul Manafort...
"These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion - a Hoax!"
And once again pinned the blame on the real colluders..."
The Democrats paid for the phony
and discredited Dossier which was, along with Comey, McCabe, Strzok and his lover, the lovely Lisa
Page, used to begin the Witch Hunt. Disgraceful!
"
What about getting Browder and his fraudulent crime gang to
Putin as a symbol good faith? Great movie about Browder's
actual goings on in Russia. Banned of course, can't have a
spook enterprise revealed.
Rotten to the core.
History will quickly expose Sessions for the
sellout he is.
Horses ass face Mueller is so blatantly
obviously corrupt, it's amazing he is even tolerated.
But there must be very strong
evidence yet undisclosed.
Something serious enough to raid
Cohens office. Nobody signs up for
that without utmost serious and
extremely powerful material
evidence. Ecuador dumping Assange
points to some powerful evidence
connected to him too.
The undisclosed evidence likely
pins Sessions pawn, as the chess
analogy goes.
Some top Republicans must know of
the strength of the undisclosed
evidence, as they have repeatedly
validated the investigation as
having merit.
Sessions knows he f'd up recusing himself,
but he feels he can't take it back. I
disagree, I think he can. Rosenstein's
conflict on the FISA warrant gives him
plenty of reason, not to mention the manor
of Mueller's appointment. Sessions is a
man of integrity, one of the few in the DC
swamp that actually has it. Trump needs
to declassify those FISA warrants. I
suspect he's going to play that card
soon. I don't know if it will be this
month, next, or an October surprise..but
you have to figure it's coming. Remember
he knows more about this than any of us.
Trump's correct, it's causing serious disruption
to the social fabric of the nation.
Sessions
has proven he's really an ignorant hillbilly
from Alabama catering to the Jews. He's now
preaching about his religion, that no one is
taking his religion seriously. There is supposed
to be a separation between Church and State.
He's a Zionist Christian. Israel over America
and he only supported Trump to administer his
Zionist hate for people of color. It's a racial
caste system of Jews on top, then whites like
Sessions and people of color and whites who
don't follow this mutated religion of hate on
the bottom.
Another insane Sessions policy was to ramp up
stealing people's money based only on suspicion.
Another one is cannabis, he had a man who was
the first drug Csar who now works in the drugs
testing business make a public recommendation to
drug test everybody.
So we have many constitutional laws broken,
using the office of USAG forcing his religious
belief, confiscation of people's money when
Congress had to vote to say no(the government is
doing it anyway because they know Sessions will
do nothing to them), and an insane drugs testing
policy for some low life doctor who's making a
fortune on it.
Sessions is a real low life and we can all
see. This is another Republican forced pick on
Trump.
There are Republicans behind the scenes and
it's in our face trying to destroy Trump, like
Bush, because we can't have a 9/11
investigation, recall Trump questioned the
government's version of 9/11. If Trumps success
and power grows then later maybe a second term
the question of 9/11 could be opened back up
since the majority don't believe the governments
version.
So everyone who is guilty is trying to take
Trump out. Is Mueller guilty of crimes? yes. Is
Rosenstein guilty of crimes? yes and so on, from
Bennan to Clapper.
They're all guilty. So we can see, Sessions
is as crooked as they come and he professes to
being a Christian and whined just recently that
his religion is no longer accepted.
He believes it's because of a loss of
religious freedom, no it's because less than 10%
attend church. See, he thinks he can use the
government to force his belief system on us.
It's unprecedented.
If the majority reds in
congress managed to find some balls they would hold
Irrelevant General Sessions in contempt.
The will not because they are afraid of 17 angry
blues...on the opposing fucking team!
Tick tock - midterms are coming.
Democrats are ANGRY at the wrong people.
This Trump derangement syndrome means they
need help & a little look within. We wouldn't have Trump right now if
Democrats had not stolen the primary from
Sanders and forced a war criminal sociopath
down our throats .
Why is no one saying anything about the
FBI LYING to the FISA court Judge in that
they didn't tell him that the dossier was a
political hit piece paid for by Clinton & the
DNC??
tht is where you are wrong because you think
they act like conservatives when they are
pissed. They will have loonie tantrums and
scream and tweet and say meaningful "hurtful
things" about the other side, but won't do
anything because they are lazy, limp, wet
noodles.
"... the most important trade of the past decade is now reversing" namely the reversal of the growth/value which has also commingled with the "momentum trade", and which means that the growth/tech "market leadership" that defined the market for the past decade is now gone at least for the time being. ..."
At the same time as Morgan Stanley's institutional traders
were warning
that the current tech sell is "different this time", warning that "you can't have
a >$100bn loss in a well held name and not have collateral damage" and calculating that "the
performance of HF longs based on 13F holdings shows the last few weeks have been a ~2 standard
deviation loss event", Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist, Mike Wilson, had some even
harsher words: "
the selling has just begun and this correction will be biggest since the
one we experienced in February.
"
The reason for that is the same one
Nomura discussed
on Friday: "
the most important trade of the past decade is now
reversing"
namely the reversal of the growth/value which has also commingled with the
"momentum trade", and which means that the growth/tech "market leadership" that defined the market
for the past decade is now gone at least for the time being.
... ... ...
As a reminder, Morgan Stanley was the
one bank
which on July 8
"went out on a limb" downgrading tech stocks to Sell and as Wilson comically adds, "truth be told, we haven't
had much interest from clients wanting to follow us down this path." Nevertheless, he adds somewhat gleefully, "since our upgrade
of Utilities on June 18th, defensive sectors have meaningfully outperformed."
There are early birds and
dip buyers in each direction. Watching the volume in those
directions will give you an idea where institutional money
flowing. Once a moving average, like the 10 day is breached,
moar out flows start. Then when the Fibonacci retracement
passes the third support level, things pick up on the down side
quickly.
Sounds rather similar to 2017 and 2018, doesn't it? What ever happened to that
infrastructure idea? Oh, more tax breaks for the donors that matter is a priority because
that'll pay for fixing the crumbling infrastructure right after the collapse.
The whole beauty of Oil Fracking, is they don't have to disclose the secret sauce they
pump down the holes, well because it's secret. So it can't be linked to any outbreaks, that's
brilliant that is. And that's the Law, that's brilliant as well. It's just a word play on an
old War meme, where people have to die so that rich people can get richer.
Can't waste resources here at home assuring sound drinking water for
all, no, we need to attack Iran because as the rumor has it that the
"undemocratic" Ayatollah is denying his people the benefits of
premium drinking water. Or something like that. I get confused.
I'm certain, however, that the banks will step forward in their
community spirit and lend the money at interest necessary to see
Kalamazoo through their current crisis (bonds maturing sometime in
the 22nd century).
Same here. Living on a 100+ year old farm in the corn belt, no
freaking way was I going to risk the well not being
contaminated with agricultural chemicals and who-knows-what
The fact that Mark Zuckerberg is so rich is annoying, and his separateness from Main Street may not be a great thing socially,
but in an economic sense, his fortune did not "come from" the paychecks of ordinary workers...
It damn sure did. It came straight out of their pension funds. Thousands of pension funds across the world bought faang stocks
and those workers will be getting fucked in the end while while zuck heads back to hawaii with their money. look at elon, his
company hasn't made dime one in profit but he is a billionaire. amzn, with a p/e of 228. they didn't get that p/e without millions
of ordinary folk buying their overpriced stock. it is pure ponzi-nomics with fascist overtones and the maggots are cashing out
big time.
The greatest fortunes in history have been built in the last 10 years with 0% interest rates. You were spot on about pensions,
they were the casualties, almost every private pension in the country bankrupted by 0% rates so that these fucks could amass unimaginable
wealth.
Now the filthy commoner scum have the audacity to suggest that they should pay taxes on it. Where will the madness end?
All my friends Jews knew this was going to happen. They were buying stocks like crazy when I was telling them to buy gold and
get ready for a big reset that never happened. Ten years later they are all multimillionaires and I lost half of my money buying
gold...
institutions bought their shares with real earned money. bezos did not. as far as i'm concerned being a ceo is a license to
steal. bezos damn sure didn't earn that money because he is smarter or works harder than anyone else. look at how he treats his
workers. what an asshole.
It's even worse than that. So much worse. Facebook was stolen by the Satanic Judaic Zionist crowd. Research it. Another gentleman
invented it. The Jews stole it, like they've stolen pretty much everything else. No wonder Napoleon said that "The Jews are the
master robbers of the modern age". And beyond the criminal vile theft, you have what they are using it for. And that is?
Using it for the 911'd cows in America. And that is you. The Satanic Jews are murdering you and robbing you blind. They 911'd
you physically with the Twin Towers. Now they're doing it mentally and financially with Facebook, a control system grid -- a gate
to herd cattle which they view you as. They are herding you. You'll be 911'd again in larger and larger numbers until the Satanic
Judaic is removed from the World Stage.
Zuckerberg is a planted punk Zionist spook. You're going to have to clear the world of all of these Satanic Judaic ladies and
gentlemen. First the idea needs to come in to show how and why. This is underway.
Ever since the housing crisis I been waiting for the world to become a better place. I see now that I been fooling myself into
believing that we live in a civilized and honest world. Nobody gives a shit about anyone nor anything, people only care about
themselves...
Jeff Bezos did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he
expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence. He purchased
the long-trusted U.S. newspaper for the power it would ensure him
in Washington and because it could be wielded as a propaganda
mouthpiece to extend his ability to both shape and control public
opinion.
Dearth of investments in oil projects mean a spike in prices above $100 could be on the
horizon
Crude across the globe is being used up faster than it is being replaced, raising the
prospect of even higher oil prices in the coming years. The world isn't running out of oil. Rather, energy companies and petro-states -- burned by
2014's price collapse -- are spending less on new projects, even though oil prices have more
than doubled since 2016. That has sparked concerns among some industry watchers of a massive
price spike that could hurt businesses and consumers. The oil industry needs to replace 33 billion barrels of crude every year to satisfy anticipated
demand growth, particularly as developing countries like China and India are consuming more
oil. This year, new investments are set to account for an increase of just 20 billion barrels,
according to data from Rystad Energy.
The industry's average decline rate -- the speed at which output falls without field
maintenance or new drilling -- was 6.3% in 2016 and 5.7% last year, the Norway-based
consultancy said. In the four years before the crash, that decline rate was 3.9%.
Any shortfall in supply could push prices higher, similar to when oil hit nearly $150 a
barrel in 2008, some industry participants say. "The years of underinvestment are setting the scene for a supply crunch," said Virendra
Chauhan, an oil industry analyst at consultancy Energy Aspects. He believes a production
deficit could come as soon as the end of next year, potentially pushing oil above $100 a
barrel.
SNIP In parts of Brazil and Norway, decline rates are already above 10-15%, Energy Aspects' Mr.
Chauhan said. Output from Venezuela's aging fields fell by more than 700,000 barrels a day over
the past year, according to the IEA. In June, Angola's output hit a 12-year low, while Mexico's
production is down nearly 300,000 barrels a day since the middle of 2016, despite efforts to
open up the industry and reverse declines, the IEA said. "Nobody is really stepping in," said Doug King, chief investment officer of the $140 million
Merchant Commodity hedge fund. "People still got burned by the downturn."
Rystad has first half figures for discoveries a bit better than last year, though more on the
gas side than oil, but there was a billion barrel Equinor discovery in Brazil this week that
will make things look better. I thought things were worse, partly because I assumed the
Guyana discoveries would count as appraisals and be back dated against 2016 and 2017, but it
looks like they are new fields. Overall though it still shows a big drop over the past few
years.
A "remarkable" recovery from "abnormally" low levels – complete bollocks, and pretty
close to self-contadictory. Everything is, and always will be, awesome in the oilprice
universe, if not they'd lose their revenue stream.
"... Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned. ..."
"... Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat. ..."
"... The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges recently noted , "The most basic constitutional rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security." ..."
"... This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious). ..."
"... According to Deloitte's Shift Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years. ..."
"... Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms. ..."
Our society should've collapsed by now. You know that, right?
No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a "Star
Wars" movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans
can't afford a $500 emergency
. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now
worth a record $141 billion . He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than
he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide,
one in
10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has?
193 million years . (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our
current world or even just our nation.
So shouldn't there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn't it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren't on fire.
No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone's going to work at gunpoint? No. We're all choosing to
continue on like this.
Why?
Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched,
like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.
I'm going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I'm going to cover eight because
(A) no one reads a column titled "Hundreds of Myths of American Society," (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have
other shit to do.
Myth No. 8 -- We have a democracy.
If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something
that the people of America supported that did not align with corporate interests? You probably can't do it. It's like trying to think
of something that rhymes with "orange." You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn't. Even the Carter Center
and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been
transformed into
an oligarchy : A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the myth that
we're a democracy to give us the illusion of control.
Myth No. 7 -- We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.
Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines,
voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties
that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!
What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?
No, we have what a large Harvard study called the
worst election system in the Western world . Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has
a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he's driving the car? That's what our election system is -- a toy
steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, "I'm steeeeering !"
And I know it's counterintuitive, but that's why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what's stolen
through our ridiculous rigged system.
Myth No. 6 -- We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.
Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard
on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to
rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the
myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing
nothing but a trench coat.
Myth No. 5 -- We have an independent judiciary.
The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions
of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges
recently noted , "The most basic constitutional
rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret
evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security."
If you're not part of the monied class, you're pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to
The New
York Times , "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty
in exchange for a lesser sentence."
That's the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don't have a million
dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn't advertise on beer coasters.)
Myth No. 4 -- The police are here to protect you. They're your friends .
That's funny. I don't recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still
legal in 32
states .)
The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely
immoral war on drugs -- which by definition is a war on our own people .
We lock up more people than
any other country on earth
. Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking
heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea -- none of them match the numbers of people locked up
right here under Lady Liberty's skirt.
Myth No. 3 -- Buying will make you happy.
This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a
tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because
most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then
flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).
If we're lucky, we'll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find
it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn't truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say
buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis. Now does
your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies
off and you'll feel alive !
The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won't keep running around the wheel.
And if we aren't running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are not good for the ruling
elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.
Myth No. 2 -- If you work hard, things will get better.
According to Deloitte's Shift
Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their
lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years.
Ask yourself what we're working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon
a time, jobs boiled down to:
I plant the food -- >I eat the food -- >If I don't plant food = I die.
But nowadays, if you work at a café -- will someone die if they don't get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda
doubt they'll keel over from a blueberry scone deficiency.
If you work at Macy's, will customers perish if they don't get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt
it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could've known. So that means we're all working to
make other people rich because we have a society in which we have to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that
truly must get done.
So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we're not doing
that at all. And no one's allowed to ask these questions -- not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal
basic income is barely discussed because it doesn't compute with our cultural programming.
Scientists say it's quite possible artificial intelligence will take away
all human jobs in 120 years . I think they know that will
happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don't need to be done! The bots will take over and
then say, "Stop it. Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic."
One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and leave the shirts wrinkly.
And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.
Myth No. 1 -- You are free.
... ... ...
Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.
Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.
Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, "Yeah, I was
bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore."
Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don't have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed
potatoes, you do have some pictures you've drawn on a napkin to give them instead.
Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something while black.
We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more
billionaires than ever .
Meanwhile,
Americans
supply 94 percent of the paid blood used worldwide. And it's almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire
system is literally sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a free decision they made? Or does that sound like something
people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)
Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear
gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into,
hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.
815M people chronically malnourished according to the UN. Bezos is worth $141B.
$141B / 815M people = $173 per person. That would definitely not feed them for "multiple years". And that's only if Bezos could
fully liquidate the stock without it dropping a penny.
" Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't
need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for
us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults. "
Seems like there's tear gas in the air and guns are going to be used soon. The myths are dying on the tongues of the liars.
Molon Labe!....and I'm usually a pacifist.
"American Society Would Collapse If It Weren't For Invasions Of Foreign Countries, Murdering Their People, Stealing Their Oil
Then Blaming Them For Making The US Do It."
Well, in a world driven by oil, it is entirely bogus to suggest that citizens have to work their asses off. That was the whole
point of the bill of goods that was sold to us in the late 70's and early 80'. More leisure time, more time for your family and
personal interests.
Except! It never happened. All they fucking did was reduce real wages and force everyone from the upper middle class down,
into a shit hole.
But, they will pay for their folly. Guaran-fucking-teed.
As one who has hoed many rows of cotton in 115F temperatures as well as picking cotton during my childhood and early adolescence
during weekends and school holidays, I concur. It was a very powerful inducement to get a good education back when schools actually
taught things and did not tolerate backtalk or guff from students instead of babysitting them. It worked, and I ended up writing
computer software for spacecraft, which was much fun than working in the fields.
"... Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned. ..."
"... Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat. ..."
"... The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges recently noted , "The most basic constitutional rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security." ..."
"... This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious). ..."
"... According to Deloitte's Shift Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years. ..."
"... Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms. ..."
Our society should've collapsed by now. You know that, right?
No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a "Star
Wars" movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans
can't afford a $500 emergency
. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now
worth a record $141 billion . He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than
he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide,
one in
10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has?
193 million years . (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our
current world or even just our nation.
So shouldn't there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn't it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren't on fire.
No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone's going to work at gunpoint? No. We're all choosing to
continue on like this.
Why?
Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched,
like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.
I'm going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I'm going to cover eight because
(A) no one reads a column titled "Hundreds of Myths of American Society," (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have
other shit to do.
Myth No. 8 -- We have a democracy.
If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something
that the people of America supported that did not align with corporate interests? You probably can't do it. It's like trying to think
of something that rhymes with "orange." You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn't. Even the Carter Center
and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been
transformed into
an oligarchy : A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the myth that
we're a democracy to give us the illusion of control.
Myth No. 7 -- We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.
Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines,
voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties
that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!
What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?
No, we have what a large Harvard study called the
worst election system in the Western world . Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has
a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he's driving the car? That's what our election system is -- a toy
steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, "I'm steeeeering !"
And I know it's counterintuitive, but that's why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what's stolen
through our ridiculous rigged system.
Myth No. 6 -- We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.
Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard
on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to
rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the
myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing
nothing but a trench coat.
Myth No. 5 -- We have an independent judiciary.
The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions
of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges
recently noted , "The most basic constitutional
rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret
evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security."
If you're not part of the monied class, you're pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to
The New
York Times , "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty
in exchange for a lesser sentence."
That's the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don't have a million
dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn't advertise on beer coasters.)
Myth No. 4 -- The police are here to protect you. They're your friends .
That's funny. I don't recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still
legal in 32
states .)
The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely
immoral war on drugs -- which by definition is a war on our own people .
We lock up more people than
any other country on earth
. Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking
heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea -- none of them match the numbers of people locked up
right here under Lady Liberty's skirt.
Myth No. 3 -- Buying will make you happy.
This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a
tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because
most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then
flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).
If we're lucky, we'll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find
it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn't truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say
buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis. Now does
your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies
off and you'll feel alive !
The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won't keep running around the wheel.
And if we aren't running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are not good for the ruling
elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.
Myth No. 2 -- If you work hard, things will get better.
According to Deloitte's Shift
Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their
lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years.
Ask yourself what we're working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon
a time, jobs boiled down to:
I plant the food -- >I eat the food -- >If I don't plant food = I die.
But nowadays, if you work at a café -- will someone die if they don't get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda
doubt they'll keel over from a blueberry scone deficiency.
If you work at Macy's, will customers perish if they don't get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt
it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could've known. So that means we're all working to
make other people rich because we have a society in which we have to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that
truly must get done.
So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we're not doing
that at all. And no one's allowed to ask these questions -- not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal
basic income is barely discussed because it doesn't compute with our cultural programming.
Scientists say it's quite possible artificial intelligence will take away
all human jobs in 120 years . I think they know that will
happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don't need to be done! The bots will take over and
then say, "Stop it. Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic."
One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and leave the shirts wrinkly.
And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.
Myth No. 1 -- You are free.
... ... ...
Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.
Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.
Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, "Yeah, I was
bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore."
Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don't have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed
potatoes, you do have some pictures you've drawn on a napkin to give them instead.
Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something while black.
We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more
billionaires than ever .
Meanwhile,
Americans
supply 94 percent of the paid blood used worldwide. And it's almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire
system is literally sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a free decision they made? Or does that sound like something
people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)
Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear
gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into,
hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.
815M people chronically malnourished according to the UN. Bezos is worth $141B.
$141B / 815M people = $173 per person. That would definitely not feed them for "multiple years". And that's only if Bezos could
fully liquidate the stock without it dropping a penny.
" Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't
need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for
us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults. "
Seems like there's tear gas in the air and guns are going to be used soon. The myths are dying on the tongues of the liars.
Molon Labe!....and I'm usually a pacifist.
"American Society Would Collapse If It Weren't For Invasions Of Foreign Countries, Murdering Their People, Stealing Their Oil
Then Blaming Them For Making The US Do It."
Well, in a world driven by oil, it is entirely bogus to suggest that citizens have to work their asses off. That was the whole
point of the bill of goods that was sold to us in the late 70's and early 80'. More leisure time, more time for your family and
personal interests.
Except! It never happened. All they fucking did was reduce real wages and force everyone from the upper middle class down,
into a shit hole.
But, they will pay for their folly. Guaran-fucking-teed.
As one who has hoed many rows of cotton in 115F temperatures as well as picking cotton during my childhood and early adolescence
during weekends and school holidays, I concur. It was a very powerful inducement to get a good education back when schools actually
taught things and did not tolerate backtalk or guff from students instead of babysitting them. It worked, and I ended up writing
computer software for spacecraft, which was much fun than working in the fields.
How much does Google really know about you? We did a deep-dive into the data the company
collects to find out...
Google might just know you better than anyone.
Thanks to the data the tech giant collects in order to sell ads, Google has a wealth of
information on you -- from what you look like to where you live and where you've traveled. The
corporation may even be able to guess your favorite food.
Just how does Google know all of this? Jump to our
infographic for a quick overview of everything Google knows about you, or check out our
full guide by clicking on the icons below.
Although "Google it" has officially entered the cultural lexicon, the mega-corporation is
much more than a search engine. It's through its apps, internet-related services, acquired
companies and more that the technology company collects data on you. Below, we've broken down
the most common app, product or service Google uses to track data, as well as an overview of
the specific data collected.
From what you've searched online and the websites you've visited to who your contacts are
and what you talk about, Google knows a lot about you. The company is then able to take this
information and make informed decisions regarding what you might be interested in, which they
show you in the form of ads.
Google's apps give the company a wealth of information on you, from the personal details
that make up who you are to your interests, your past travels and your future goals.
Who
You Are
From facial recognition to audio recordings and intuitive search, Google is able to create a
comprehensive -- and unnervingly correct -- profile about what makes you, you.
Your appearance
Thanks to facial recognition in Google Photos, the search engine probably has a pretty good
idea of what you look like. In fact, you can create a "label" within Google Photos that's
essentially a tag for each person in your images, and Google is able to separate out that
person from every photo you upload -- even if the photo only includes a partial picture or is
obscured.
Your voice
If you've ever used voice commands with Google Home, an Android device, or any other Google
product or device, the site has a log of it. In fact, not only can you view your past voice
commands in the " Voice and Audio " section
of Google's My Activity section, you can hear them as well. The site keeps a full history of
your audio commands, including voice recordings.
Your religious/political beliefs
Have you searched Google for how to donate to a political campaign? Visited a candidate's
website? Watched a sermon on YouTube? Google uses all of this information to build a
comprehensive profile that covers everything from whether you're more religious or spiritual to
who you're probably voting for in the next election.
Your health status
If you use Google Fit, the company probably has a pretty good overview of your health, from how
active you are to the calories you burn a day to your fitness goals. But even if you don't use
this Google app, the site probably has a pretty good understanding of the state of your immune
system -- or at least how you view it -- from your Google searches. In fact, compiling search
engine data and cross-referencing it against patterns may even allow Google to tell if you're
getting sick or dealing with a medical issue.
Your personal details
Searched Google for the best lactose-free milk? For what to expect when you're expecting? For
how to learn Spanish fast? Everything you search is tracked by Google, which can be used to
better understand personal details about your life, from whether you have dietary restrictions
to what languages you speak.
Everywhere You've Ever Been
Location tracking is one of the areas Google excels in -- thanks to advanced location
recognition technology, the company knows everything from where you went on vacation two
summers ago to what restaurant you eat at most often.
Your home and office
Android phones, which run off of Google's services, and Pixel, Google's own phone, track and
record your location through several means, including Wi-Fi, GPS and cellular networks. This
means that the phone knows everywhere you are, every day, and how long you're there for.
Google is able to interpret that data and draw conclusions from it -- for example, where you
live is probably where your phone is for the majority of nights and weekends. In fact, it
may only take Google Now three days to determine where you live. For those on Apple devices
or other operating systems, Google Maps works in a similar way.
Places you visit
In addition to collecting information about where you live and work, Google is able to track
the other places you visit most often. Do you have a favorite coffee shop? A running route? A
daycare center you use every weekday? Google probably knows about it.
Places you've traveled
Google doesn't just know the ins and outs of your everyday life. The tech company knows where
you've traveled too, be it a weekend getaway or a month-long trip to a different country.
Not only can Google track the places you've traveled to, it can see what you did while you
were there. If you visited a museum in Paris or went line-dancing in Texas, Google knows --
down to the exact time you arrived, how long you stayed, and how long it took you to get from
one destination to another. The location tracking can even tell the method of transportation
you used, like if you walked or took a train.
Additionally, Google's acquisition of Waze means the site can collect data on where you've
been even if you're not connected to Maps or on a Google device.
Who Your Friends Are
Between your contacts and conversations in Gmail and Hangouts and the appointments you make
in Google Calendar, the company knows everything from who you're talking with to when and where
you're seeing them.
Who you talk to
If you use Gmail for your personal or work email, Google has a list of all your contacts,
including who you talk to the most: navigate to Google's " Frequently contacted " section to see which of your
Gmail contacts you spend the most time conversing with (and to check if Google's assessment of
who you like the most aligns with your own). Android and Pixel users also give Google access to
their phone contacts and text messages.
Where you meet
Meeting a friend for coffee later? If it's on your Google Calendar, the company knows about it
-- and, thanks to location tracking, can map your trip from your house to the coffee shop and
back. If you take a picture with your friend at the shop and upload it to Google Photos, Google
can use facial recognition to add them to their own specific photo album. You can also tag the
location the photo was taken as well.
If, years later, you're trying to remember who you grabbed coffee with that day, Google can
help you remember.
What you talk about
Does Google keep track of what you talk about over Gmail? It's an issue up for debate -- the
company announced in
2017 that they would stop reading emails for the purposes of creating targeted
advertisements. Whether they've actually stopped reading them altogether is another
matter.
What You Like and Dislike
Google is in the business of knowing what you're into -- it's how the search engine creates
and sells such a personalized advertising experience. From your favorite movie genre to your
favorite type of food, Google knows your preferences.
Food, books and movies
Google can use search engine data, like recipes you've researched or book titles you've
searched for, to form an idea of what you like and dislike. Certain apps like Google Books,
which keeps tracks of the books you've searched and read, deepen this knowledge. Additionally,
Google owns YouTube, which means they know which movie trailers you've been seeking out.
Google uses this information, as well as the websites you've visited and the ads you've
clicked on, to create a profile of the subjects they think you're interested in. You can see a
full list of who they think you are -- down to what shows you watch and what hobbies you pursue
in your free time -- in their ads
dashboard .
Where you shop and what you buy
If you've ever used Google Shopping to compare the prices of online vendors, Google knows about
it. They also know what products you've searched and clicked on through Google Search and can
track your website visits and what products you've viewed on retailer websites through Google
Chrome.
Your Future Plans
Google's knowledge isn't limited to what you've done in the past or are doing in the
present. The company can also use data from their applications and search engine to make
predictions about what you'll be doing in the future.
What you're interested in buying, seeing or eating
Interested in seeing a new movie? Checking out a new restaurant or taking a weekend trip to a
new city? If you've used Google Search to look up the movie times, make an online reservation
or scout out the best tourist activity, Google knows.
Upcoming trips and reservations
Have you searched restaurants to eat at and shows to go to in the city you're visiting? Have
you created an itinerary in Google Calendar? Google can collect that data in order to assess
your upcoming trips. Google also scans your emails to see what flights you have coming up and
can automatically add restaurant reservations to your schedule based on confirmations that have
been sent to Gmail.
Future life plans
Have you been searching about homeownership? About when the best age to have children is? About
tips for travelling to China? Google uses this information to understand more about you and
what you want in the future, to better tailor online advertisements to your needs.
Your
Online Life
At its most basic, Google is a search engine and internet services company. So, it's no
surprise that in addition to knowing a wealth of your personal details, the site also knows
everything there is to know about what you do online.
Websites you've visited
Google keeps a comprehensive list of every site you've visited on Chrome, from any device. The
site also keeps a running tab of every search you've run, every ad you've clicked on and every
YouTube video you've watched.
Your browsing habits
From how many sites you have bookmarked to how many passwords Chrome auto-fills, Google has a
comprehensive understanding of your browser habits, including:
Your apps from the Chrome Web Store and the Google Play Store
Your extensions from the Chrome Web Store
The browser settings you've changed in Chrome
Email addresses, addresses and phone numbers you've set to autofill in Chrome
All the website addresses you've ever entered in the address bar
The pages you have bookmarked in Chrome
All the passwords you've asked Chrome to save for you
A list of sites you've told Chrome not to save passwords for
All the Chrome tabs that are open across your devices
The number of Gmail conversations you've had
How many Google searches you've made this month
If you're unnerved by the amount of information Google has on you, there are several steps
you can take to get around the company's relentless tracking.
1. Use a VPN
A Virtual
Private Network (VPN) is a secure option to keep Google from tracking you while you're
online. Although virtual private networks can't completely keep the company from accessing
your data, they do hide your IP
address , encrypt your internet traffic and make your browsing history private, keeping
your online actions much more secure.
2. Use private browsing
Use Google's Incognito Mode to ensure that the pages you access won't show up in your
browsing history or search history. Be aware, however, that other websites can still collect
and share information about you, even when you're using private browsing.
3. Adjust your privacy settings
Check out Google's Activity Controls to change what
data is stored about you and visit your Activity Page to delete stored history and
activity.
4. Turn off location reporting
In Google Maps -- as well as in your Android and Pixel device settings, if you use those
products -- disable location reporting to keep Google from tracking where you are and where
you go. If you use Google Maps or Waze for directions, though, the company can still collect
location data on you when you're using those apps.
5. Use a different browser and search engine
To stop Google from tracking your searches and website visits, you can use another browser
and search engine, like Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Bing. However, this will only stop
Google from tracking you -- Microsoft (or whatever company owns the browser you switch to)
will get your data instead.
6. Delete your Google accounts
To truly stop the tech giant from tracking you, you'll need to take drastic measures --
namely, disavowing the use of any of the company's products. That means deleting any apps
linked to the company, including Gmail, Google Drive and any Android devices, and moving to a
different browser and search engine.
Google has made life a lot simpler in many ways. Google Search has made answers just a click
away. Google Maps has made directions easy to find and understand. Google Drive has made
working across multiple platforms seamless.
This convenience comes with a price: privacy. If you're concerned about how Google is
tracking you -- and what they're doing with the data -- follow the steps above to keep yourself
safe, and visit Google's Privacy
Site for a more comprehensive overview of what data Google is tracking and how they use
it.
There are two faces of Google: evil (systematic collection of user data, collision with the
intelligence agencies( Snowden revelations about PRISM, Gmail) and good (Googlemap (rumored to be
a present from the US military), Youtube, Google translator, Google scholar, and several other
projects).
It documents that Eric
Emerson Schmidt , the Executive Chairman of Alphabet – an American multinational
conglomerate that owns a lot and among them Google – is working on "de-ranking" alleged
propaganda outlets such as Russia Today, RT – the world's third largest television
network – and Sputnik.
Who is Eric Schmidt?
On the Wikipedia link you can read more about Mr. Schmidt , one of the
richest person on earth, an advocate of net neutrality, a corporate manager and owner of a lot,
a collector of modern art, etc. And you can read about his heavy involvement with Hillary
Clinton's recent campaign and the Obama administration and about Schmidt's involvement with
Pentagon, too.
Eric Emerson Schmidt's name is associated with the world's largest and most systematic data
collecting search engine , Google, that millions upon millions use. School children, teachers,
parents, media people, politicians and you and I all daily "google" what we need to know.
While we do that, Google tracks everything about us and if you are searching for a thing to
buy, say a camera, be sure that camera ads will shortly after turn up on your screen. And they
know everything we are interested in through our "googling" including political interests and
hobbies.
Playing God
This very powerful corporate leader with a open political orientation has decided - as will
be seen 58 seconds into the video – that the Internet and his hugely dominating search
engine a) shall cave in to political pressure, b) de-rank at least these two Russian media
organizations because c) he knows they are "propaganda outlets" (it isn't discussed at all or
compared with US or other countries' media) and d) in the name of political correctness it is
OK to limit the freedom of opinion-formation.
In fact, he says in a few words that he – well, not he himself but a computer program
and mechanism called an algorithm – shall decide what you are I shall be able to find.
Google as Good, Google as God.
Conspicuously, his de-ranking – read censorship – policy shall not hit media (as
far as we can understand from this clip at least and not from
this backgrounder either) that have, for instance, been using fake news and planted
stories, omitted facts and perspectives and sources and told us propaganda and worse about,
say, US wars around the world.
It's Russia's media. And naturally you ask: Whose next? And where does that end? ("Wherever
they burn books, in the end will also burn human beings." – Heinrich
Heine).
Obvious human rights violation
This type of political paternalism is not only totally unethical and foolish, it's a
violation of human rights. It cannot be defended with the argument that other countries and
media outlets also use propaganda. The Western world – the U.S. in particular –
calls itself 'the free world" and gladly, without the slightest doubts, fights and kills to
spread that freedom around the world and has done so for decades.
We humans have right to information without interference – at least if international
law counts. Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights states states that "Everyone has the right to freedom
of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference
and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers."
You abuse power, Mr. Schmidt
Mr Schmidt, you are blatantly and clearly interfering in the rights of millions, if not
billions, to know. To seek information. To shape their opinions.
With your few words you abuse your almost unlimited digital, political, economic and
'defence' power – much much worse than if you had sexually abused just one woman for
which older men today are fired or choose to resign.
This has to be stated irrespective of whether we like or dislike Russia and its media. That
is not the issue here. This has to be fought against because it is slippery slope, Mr
Schmidt.
You ought to stand up and use your powers with principles and vision: To protect the
Internet against every and each reduction of freedom. Freedom for all, also the fake
news-makers however we define them. Yes, there is another solution for that problem and it is
not your paternalism.
It just cannot be for you to decide what is good for others and collect data about us all
which is only good for you.
Has the West really become so insecure about itself?
Censorship – de-ranking – and information warfare is not the solution to
anything. A strong society or culture that believes in its own moral value and vitality does
not censor. Dictatorships – "regimes" – do.
Mr. Schmidt has much more power than many state leaders but he is not up to it and how would
he be able to re-rank themes and media again in the future.
Has the West, the US and Western culture become so weak, so trembling at the sight of the
global future and so morally deranged that it cannot live with – does not believe it can
compete factually and intelligently with – other views? With fake? With propaganda by
others? If so, that is where the Soviet Union was in the early 1980s. And if so, watch the
writing of the Western walls!
Education and trust
There are much better solutions – if you think. Mr. Schmidt may also google them
It's education – education of young and old to learn to identify what is trustworthy
and what is not. Learning to learn on the Internet. It is dialogue and it is dignity –
instead of succumbing to the lowest of levels that he accuses others of being at.
And there is more solutions.
Making democracy, freedom and human rights stronger – by believing in human beings,
their intelligence and solidarity. When Google de-ranks, it de-humanises. It offends the
intelligence of the world's users of the Google search engine.
It sinks to the low level where fakers and liars are – devoid of morals but passionate
about selling a particular message even if totally unfounded.
What are you so afraid of,
Mr. Schmidt?
If I were Eric Schmidt, I think I would be afraid of being perceived as a "useful idiot" or
an an evil operator on behalf of US militarism – since he is targeting Russia in a the
new Cold War atmosphere.
After all is/was a
member also of various US government security and Pentagon related boards. And after all,
he spoke at the Halifax Security
Forum filled with military defence people and hardliners who see only Russia, North Korea
and Iran as problems, never the US itself. One of the panels deals with the "Post-Putin
Prep"!
Regime change in Russia too in the future and with truthful news from Google?
Mr. Schmidt and his corporate fellows should also be afraid that millions will become more
sympathetic to Russia Today, Sputnik and even Russia itself precisely because of his words.
There are no wars on the ground without information war. If Schmidt's Google fights
political wars with de-ranking, many of us will be de-parting to more peaceful,
rights-respecting and ethical search engines than his. ...
Right, considering Schmidt is known to have hung out at the Playboy manor and has loved up
more than his share of the babes... No proof, but this sounds like damage control.
Never understood why Google went anywhere. It wasn't superior to anything search-wise
until the mid 2000s and earlier in the decade was little more than a joke with a curious
name. "PageRank" was nothing particularly interesting, and was generally too computationally
complex to implement anyways. Almost nothing was uniquely invented at Google, a company that
mostly leveraged open source software created elsewhere. So what is Google really? And why do
they have such a cult following?
Yahoo atrophied in the face on millions of websites, Alta Vista conquered that but the
user still had read thru wads of results, then Google came along and it was a breath of fresh
air, then Google accrued too much power and became Goolag.
Yeah, it's amazing to watch. With Trump in 2016 they went with "Racist, Sexist, Homophobe,
insane person", etc. and now they're going with "Russia" and censorship.
Labor was such a longtime stronghold for the Democrats and they've lost it. Labor doesn't
give a shit about Russia. Everyone though, is sick of the corruption. #Walkaway. The whole
"Russia" hoax is designed to blow a huge smoke screen into the felony crimes committed
principally by Clinton allies and the deep state.
The immolation of both the legacy media and the democratic party is occurring
simultaneously. We have seen Peak Facebook.
We have some real giants out there like Stefan Molyneux. A whole galaxy of them helped
bring Trump into the White House and as legacy platforms censor, new ones arise.
I am afraid that historically we better be prepared for what the left does when it doesn't
get its way and that is violence. Look at how the media is openly inciting violence. They've
made heros out of thugs who rob, out of violent shit-and-piss hurling hooligans, and
democratic local bosses have stood down as law-abiding citizens assembled for peaceful
speech.
So the wholesale insanity is going to be more than screaming at the sky.
"... 'Let us be clear about the magnitude of the Nasdaq collapse. The tumble has been so steep and so bloody -- close to $4 trillion in market value erased in one year -- that it amounts to nearly four times the carnage recorded in the October 1987 crash.' ..."
"... Chernow characterized the Nasdaq stock market as a 'lunatic control tower that directed most incoming planes to a bustling, congested airport known as the New Economy while another, depressed airport, the Old Economy, stagnated with empty runways. The market functioned as a vast, erratic mechanism for misallocating capital across America,' Chernow observed. ..."
"... And proudly I did not own any Facebook, and considered myself wise, and better than the others who did. ..."
"This is how Ron Chernow correctly described what was happening for New York Times' readers on March 15,
2001:
'Let us be clear about the magnitude of the Nasdaq collapse. The tumble has been so steep and so bloody
-- close to $4 trillion in market value erased in one year -- that it amounts to nearly four times the carnage
recorded in the October 1987 crash.'
Chernow characterized the Nasdaq stock market as a 'lunatic control tower that directed most incoming
planes to a bustling, congested airport known as the New Economy while another, depressed airport, the Old
Economy, stagnated with empty runways. The market functioned as a vast, erratic mechanism for misallocating
capital across America,' Chernow observed.
Let that sink in for a moment. It wasn't just that
investment bankers on Wall Street were bringing to the public markets companies with the equivalent of a
business plan written on the back of a napkin. It was that all of the major investment banks on Wall Street,
out of a motive of pure greed, were engaged in a mass conspiracy to misallocate capital across America – which
strikes at the very heart of America's economy and national interests...
Yesterday we got a little taste of what's in store this time around courtesy of the Masters of the Universe on
Wall Street, the majority of whom have 'buy' ratings on Facebook."
The venerable 'wash and rinse,' a Wall Street favorite, especially in 'new era stocks' and highly leveraged
commodity markets. It's not just for penny stocks in deregulated, devil-take-the-hindmost markets such as
these.
And proudly I did not own any Facebook, and considered myself wise, and better than the others who did.
But there was no one left to protect or care about me, when they finally came for the rest, and bailed us in. Go
back to sleep, everything will be all right.
"... "In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind." Dietrich Bonhoeffer ..."
"... "A credibility trap is when the managerial functions of a society have been sufficiently compromised by corruption so that the leadership cannot reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system without implicating a broad swath of the powerful, including themselves. The moneyed interests and their aspirants tolerate the corruption because they have profited from it, and would like to continue to do so. Discipline is maintained by various forms of soft financial rewards and career and social coercion." ..."
"A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land,
purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. "
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful
land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to
think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed
ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a
value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our
communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations."
Wendell Berry
GDP came in slightly below expectations but still much higher than we have seen recently.
Inflation remains around 2% at the core and 3% overall.
I suspect that this GDP number is not sustainable, and that continued wage stagnation will
continue to provide a damper on aggregate demand, despite the sugar high being provided by
tax cuts, mostly to corporations and the wealthiest few.
Stocks shook off the rosy GDP number, albeit in line and short of inflated whisper
numbers, preferring to act off real world news coming out in the earnings reports.
Gold and silver marked time within this long trading range.
The dollar was slightly lower.
There will be an FOMC meeting next week.
We will also be seeing the Non-Farm Payrolls Report for July at the end of the week. I
have included an economic calendar for next week below.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in
them.
Have a pleasant weekend.
The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with
balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable
recovery.
"In the Incarnation the whole
human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any
attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the
form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.
Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true
humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse
individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our
solidarity with all mankind." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"A credibility trap is when the managerial functions of a society have
been sufficiently compromised by corruption so that the leadership
cannot reform, or even honestly address, the problems of that system
without implicating a broad swath of the powerful, including themselves.
The moneyed interests and their aspirants tolerate the corruption
because they have profited from it, and would like to continue to do so.
Discipline is maintained by various forms of soft financial rewards and
career and social coercion."
In a press conference this morning, the Russian president said his country doesn't plan to
abandon holding reserves in U.S. dollars though he said that the risk of sanctions is prompting
Russia to diversify its foreign currency assets.
"Russia isn't abandoning the dollar,"
Putin said in answer to a question
about the sharp decline in its holdings of U.S. Treasuries in April and May.
"We need to minimize risks, we see what's happening with sanctions."
"As for our American partners and the restrictions they impose involving the dollar," he
added,
"I think that is a major strategic mistake because they're undermining confidence in
the dollar as a reserve currency."
Putin did however caution that the US is making a big mistake if it hopes to use the dollar as a
political weapon:
"
Regarding our American partners placing limitations, including those on dollar
transactions, I believe is a big strategic mistake
. By doing so, they are undermining
the trust in the dollar as a reserve currency"
In this vein, Putin added that many countries are discussing the creation of new reserve
currencies, noting that China's yuan is a potential reserve currency, but concluded:
"We will continue to use the US dollar unless the United States prevents us from
doing so."
The Russian president also emphasized the need for other currencies in global trade and the
emergence of new reserve currencies like the ruble.
Additionally, President Putin said he's ready to hold a new summit with U.S.
counterpart Donald Trump in either Moscow or Washington,
praising him for sticking to his
election promises to improve ties with Russia.
"One of President Trump's big pluses is that he strives to fulfill the promises he
made to voters, to the American people,"
Putin told a press conference at the BRICS
summit in Johannesburg.
"As a rule, after the elections some leaders tend to forget what they promised the
people but not Trump."
Putin, who said he expects to meet Trump on the sidelines of the G-20
The Anglo Zionist empire not only weaponizes the USD, but
also "democracy" and "human rights".
The golden days of the 1990s
where Uncle Scam could enjoy unrivalled power are gone. Like all
greedy full spectrum empires, abusing unipolar power with wild
abandon and arrogance is now starting to hurt.
Sandbox the Zionist infil
traitors
and take down
the tentacles of the Deep State, and let America join the global
polity of great nations in a new paradigm of peaceful coexistence,
rather than following the directives of that small, paranoid tribe
bent on full spectrum dominance.
One thing that makes me optimistic is that more people are
becoming aware and are questioning the apparatus and narratives of
the old world order. It was alot different 10 years ago, when I felt
like I was a very small minority with a multipolar view, drowned out
in a sea of denial.
Trump and his ZH crybabies
whine on about how "unfairly the rest of the world has been
treating the US" but they 'conveniently' forget that most of
today's problems (wars, financial instability, fiat
currency) originate from the US Reserve Currency Status and
the Breton Woods system which the US has been using UNFAIRLY
to it's advantage for Many DECADES in order to finance wars
and manipulate the price of commodities.
But that's too difficult to grasp for most Trumptards...
They're too busy screaming "sieg heil" for the Orange Jew!
*) They complain about foreign wars and the MIC,
yet vote for someone who promised to INCREASE the
Pentagon's already enormous budget
*) The complain about "the Jews," "Israhell," and
"the ZOG," and yet they vote for someone who is in bed
with Israel and Netanyahu and has a Jewish-American
lawyer who fucks him over
*) They complain about the "banksters," and yet
they vote for someone who makes a Deep State
Goldmanite (Mnuchin) his Treasure Secretary
*) They complain about The Deep State and The
Swamp, and they vote for someone who hires Pompeo,
Haspel and Bolton
*) They complain about the massive amounts of debt
and the fiat currency system, and yet they vote for
someone who calls himself "The King of Debt" and calls
for a massive increase in military spending
I guess now the ZH Trumptards only have one
'weapon' left: downvotes!
I'm not your classic fanboy of Trump, but he has to
work with those cretins somehow, and not turn into
a degenerate pedophile in the process. He was the
lesser of two evils presented in the 2 party
duopoly, sadly, that's what modern 'democracy' has
become; a Hobson's choice.
So far, he's doing
alright, given the circumstances, and everything
stacked against him.
"He was the lesser of two evils presented in
the 2 party duopoly,..."
I completely
agree with that assessment, but what I fail to
understand is how the supposedly "highly
educated readers of ZH," can be so fucking
stupid to blindly believe all the Trump
bullshit.
Being the lesser of two evils is still not
being very good I'm afraid, and being the lesser
of two evils means that he still kinda sucks.
That is what we're witnessing every day: a
stupid narcissistic idiot who can barely play
0,5D chess, let alone 4D chess...
The system that churns out leadership in
America is fundamentally flawed and corrupted
to the bone, yet once in a blue moon, an
"insider outsider" as I like to call them,
like Jackson, Kennedy and Trump, slips
through. And that's when decades happen in a
few years.
Who blindly believes bs? Trump is provably
the most honest politician since the
invention of recording devices. Just having
an uncontested birth certification and school
records is a big head start. Who do you think
would make your paycheck (subsidy?) go higher
than President Trump. Trump is threatening a
lot of people's sinecures and subsidies. Who
wants to guarantee more NPR wannabee hacks a
good paycheck?
What a lot of folks seeem to overlook is that
the lesser of two evils is still, wait for
it, ... evil. This is a highly subjective
measurement of course, the beauty of all that
evil being in the minds eye, of the beholder
..
What do we have ? IMO the jury is still
out on that one. I had hoped that President
Trump would talk straight to the American
people. Particularly in regards to the true
state of the overall economy. But those of us
who have tried to inform friends & family on
these subjects have run up against that solid
wall of denial. Most people don't want to
hear the truth. They fight against it with
everything they've got. Between the Deep
State attacking Trump to maintain their
privileges & power, and a dumbed down
population aggressively in denial - the
president has a Herculean challenge.
Fine, we are Trump fan boyz and Putin fan
boyz, and we'll believe whatever we choose to
believe, for our own reasons, and we don't
owe anyone a stinkin explanation why!
You
can open your eyes, and see why we support,
fight for, defend, and will keep fighting for
Trump! He's the Hope that we can Change the
vampirous system that's defenestrated
everyone playing by the rules!
He's a narcissistic idiot who can barely
play multidimensional chess? You don't say!
Anyhow, even if he were, and he isn't, he's
OUR narcissistic idiot who beat the living
daylights, out of the prissy, elitist,
wicked, and thieving a**holes arrayed against
him!
So how come your folks couldn't win
against a narcissistic idiot? Because your
folks are the narcissistic idiots, who can't
come to terms with the reality that Hope of
True Change is here, and embodied in Trumpus
Maximus Magnus!!
You don't like that he's a Maximux Magnus?
Fine, you can suck my pinkie!...
There is a clear battle going on and at 70+
years of age, I give President Trump a huge
helping of credit just to deal with it all,
without going insane in the process. One thing
though... He had better corral the
dirty-dealers around him, along with the
hag
and those involved from the previous
administration, or it will eventually overwhelm
him. Guaranteed.
Indeed, its a battle for the
soul
of America. The pedophiles, degenerates, Zionists, imperialists must not win. A purge is needed and coming. I hope he survives like Jackson, and doesn't go the way of Kennedy. In any case, he has a big following, but I fear a civil war type scenario is coming no matter what happens. The vitriol and partizanship is at toxic levels.
It's obvious that the NWO crowd weaponizes
populations. Obummer wanted his internal
force 'as well funded & equipped as the
military '. And, theyve been working hard
with their propaganda machine to overturn
the American people's 2nd Amendment.
This is likely one of the most delicate &
dangerous times in American history.
So let's see ... Hillary in conjunction with obama
demonized Iran and Russia (Crimea... have you
forgotten?) for years prior to trump ... overthrew
Libya and stirred the pot in Syria via proxies ...
and Bernie Sanders was against these wars AND
against unfettered globalization ... all part and
parcel of the neoconservative PNAC doctrine ....
but trump trying to implement peace and diplomacy
with Russia and North Korea is 'bad' ... but since
at the same time he increases the budget for the
MIC and he is 'bad' for doing so and he is pissing
off our so-called 'trade partners' as manufacturing
has essentially left the US ... so he is to pick a
fight with the MIC internally to the nation on top
of everything else including pissing of the
globalist cretins in our so called intelligence
(where are those WMDs) ... okie dokie ...
With over 3000 platforms, 25,000 miles of pipeline, all unsecure in the Gulf of Mexico,
they provide a lucrative target in any conflict with the US. Energy disruptions and
environmental calamities would reek havoc. Surely there is a plan to quickly secure the Gulf
from under/over/on the water threats? If not get at it.
More Oilprice.com industry pimping. The world uses 36 billion barrels (Gb) of crude per
year. Plus they are quoting boe, or barrels equivalent. Gas is not crude. The article should
read: "The world is still pumping 9 barrels for every 1 it finds". D day is not something the
industry doesn't wants advertised.
Look at the graph again. Draw a trend line from left to right across the peaks from 2014
til now. Is the line pointing up or down? That's peak oil.
So there's been an up tick this year. How much has been discovered. Ooooh, 4.5 billion
barrels. Sounds like a lot to you? What's the world consumption rate expressed in millions of
barrels per DAY? Don't know? It's around 90 million barrels per DAY. Look it up if you doubt
me. If you divide 4.5 billion by 90 million, you'll calculate how many DAYS it takes to
consume 4.5 billion barrels. To make it easier for you, just reduce the fraction by stroking
6 zeros off each number. That's 4,500/90. Not too hard. That's 50 DAYS of supply!!! OK, maybe
another 4.5 billion will be found in 2H2018. Oooooh, another 50 DAYS worth. We're
saved!!!
In the last paragraph, what's the Reserve Replacement Rate? 10% . That's not so good.
Also, a large portion of the newly discovered oil is offshore, in ultra deep reservoirs.
Do you think that might be more expensive to produce?
As for abiotic oil, as Laws of Physics pointed out, even if that desperate theory were
true -- which it isn't -- it's the rate of replacement that matters, and it's nowhere near 90
million barrels per day.
So, fore-warned is fore-armed, but if you'd rather bury your head in the sand that's your
prerogative.
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that Russia became America's sworn enemy in the aftermath
of the 2016 presidential election. As is often the case, however, conventional wisdom can be
illusory.
In the momentous 2016 showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,
a faraway dark
kingdom known as Russia, the fantastic fable goes, hijacked that part of the American brain
responsible for critical thinking and lever pulling with a few thousand dollars' worth of Facebook
and Twitter adverts, bots and whatnot.
The result of that gross intrusion into the squeaky
clean machinery of the God-blessed US election system is now more or less well-documented history
brought to you by the US mainstream media: Donald Trump, with some assistance from the Russians
that has never been adequately explained, pulled the presidential contest out from under the wobbly
feet of Hillary Clinton.
For those who unwittingly bought that work of fiction, I can only offer my sincere
condolences.
In fact, Russiagate is just the latest installment of an anti-Russia story
that has been ongoing since the presidency of George W. Bush.
Act 1: Smokescreen
Rewind to September 24th, 2001.
Having gone on record as the first global
leader to telephone George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Putin showed his
support went beyond mere words. He announced a five-point plan to support America in the 'war
against terror' that included the sharing of intelligence, as well as the opening of Russian
airspace for US humanitarian flights to Central Asia.
In the
words
of
perennial Kremlin critic, Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia,
Putin's
"acquiescence to NATO troops in Central Asia signaled a reversal of two hundred years of Russian
foreign policy. Under Yeltsin, the communists, and the tsars, Russia had always considered Central
Asia as its 'sphere of influence.' Putin broke with that tradition."
In other words, the new Russian leader was demonstrating his desire for Russia to have, as Henry
Kissinger
explained
it
some seven years later, "a reliable strategic partner, with America being the preferred choice."
This leads us to the question for the ages: If it was obvious that Russia was now
fully prepared to enter into a serious partnership with the United States in the 'war on terror,'
then how do we explain George W. Bush announcing the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty just three months later?
There are some things we may take away from that move, which Putin tersely and rightly
described
as
a "mistake."
First
, Washington must not have considered a security partnership with
Moscow very important, since they certainly understood that Russia would respond negatively to the
decision to scrap the 30-year-old ABM Treaty.
Second
, the US must not considered the 'war on terror' very serious
either; otherwise it would not have risked losing Russian assistance in hunting down the baddies in
Central Asia and the Middle East, geographical areas where Russia has gained valuable experience
over the years. This was a remarkably odd choice considering that the US military apparatus had
failed spectacularly to defend the nation against a terrorist attack, coordinated by 19 amateurs,
armed with box cutters, no less.
Third
, as was the case with the
decision
to
invade Iraq, a country with nodiscernible connection to the events of 9/11, as well as the
imposition of the
pre-drafted
Patriot
Act on a shell-shocked nation, the decision to break with Russia seems to have been a premeditated
move on the global chessboard. Although it would be hard to prove such a claim, we can take some
guidance from Rahm Emanuel, former Obama Chief of Staff, who notoriously advised, "You never want a
serious crisis to go to waste."
So why did Bush abrogate the ABM Treaty with Russia?
The argument was that some
"rogue state," rumored to be Iran, might be tempted to launch a missile attack against "US
interests abroad." Yet there was absolutely no logic to the claim since Tehran was inextricably
bound by the same principle of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) as were any other states that
tempted fate with a surprise attack on US-Israeli interests. Further, it made no sense to focus
attention on Shia-dominant Iran when the majority of the terrorists, allegedly acolytes of Osama
bin Laden, reportedly hailed from Sunni-dominant Saudi Arabia. In other words, the Bush
administration happily sacrificed an invincible relationship with Russia in the war on terror in
order to guard against some external threat that only nominally existed, with a missile defense
system that was largely unproven in the field. Again, zero logic.
However, when it is considered that the missile defense system was tailor-made by
America specifically with Russia in mind, the whole scheme begins to make more sense, at least from
a strategic perspective.
Thus, the Bush administration used the attacks of 9/11 to not
only dramatically curtail the civil rights of American citizens with the passage of the Patriot
Act, it also took the first steps towards encircling Russia with a so-called 'defense system' that
has the capacity to grow in effectiveness and range.
For those who thought Russia would just sit back and let itself be encircled by foreign
missiles, they were in for quite a surprise.
In March 2018, Putin stunned the world, and
certainly Washington's hawks, by
announcing
in
the annual Address to the Federal Assembly the introduction of advanced weapons systems – including
those with hypersonic capabilities - designed to overcome any missile defense system in the world.
These major developments by Russia, which Putin emphasized was accomplished "without the
benefit" of Soviet-era expertise, has fueled the narrative that "Putin's Russia" is an aggressive
nation with "imperial ambitions," when in reality its goal was to form a bilateral pact with the
United States and other Western states almost two decades ago post 9/11.
Now, US officials can only wring their hands in angst while speaking about an "aggressive
Russia."
"Russia is the most significant threat just because they pose the only
existential threat to the country right now. So we have to look at that from that perspective,"
declared
Air
Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of US Strategic Command, or STRATCOM.
Putin reiterated in his Address, however, that there would have been no need for Russia to have
developed such advanced weapon systems if its legitimate concerns had not been dismissed by the
US.
"Nobody wanted to talk with us on the core of the problem," he said. "Nobody
listened to us. Now you listen!"
Everybody needs to get up to speed on international Jew criminal Bill
Browder. He's at the center of the Deep State, and royally fucked up when
he tried to rip off Putin for $400 million.
I should also mention Putin's treatment of certain Jewish
oligarchs who have attempted to influence Western policies toward
Russia (e.g., Mikhail Khodorkovsky). A truly stunning moment in the
Trump-Putin presser (all but ignored in the MSM) was Putin saying
that Bill Browder and his associates had illegally earned $1.5
billion in Russia ("the way the money was earned was illegal")
without paying taxes either to Russia or the United States where the
money was transferred. And that he and his associates had contributed
$400 million to Hillary Clinton's campaign. While the charges back
and forth are impossible for me to evaluate, Browder's firm,
Hermitage Capital Management, has been involved in other accusations
of fraud. Browder was the main force promoting the Magnitsky Act,
signed by President Obama in 2012, that barred Russian officials said
to be involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Browder associate,
from entering the U.S. or using the U.S. banking system.
Here the point is that American neocons have been in the forefront
of hostility over Putin's treatment of Jewish oligarchs, taking the
view that Browder et al. are completely innocent victims of Russian
evil. Along with Russian foreign policy, Putin's actions toward the
oligarchs is one factor in neocon and hence some factions of the GOP
toward Russia. It's no surprise that they are now eagerly joining the
hate-Trump chorus throughout the American establishment.
In the long run, the US has two distinct advantages that offset some of the vulnerabilities in the US economy, brought about
by 40 years of outsourcing. The US is energy independent to a very large extent, where China is greatly dependent on energy
imports, largely priced in dollars. The US has a global military advantage that will persist for the next decade or more.
Hard to say where this will lead. Best option is for the US and China to resume the trade talks that broke off months ago.
Economic mutually assured destruction is not a pleasant outcome, particularly at a moment when even the IMF is worrying about
emerging market debt, corporate debt defaults and other signs of another global financial crisis.
My sense is that the whole issue of trade disputes is not so much about trade and economics as much
as politics and sovereignty. Not a whole lot will have changed in economic terms when the dust
clears, but the underlying politics will have been altered unrecognizably. The whole idea of
creating international bureaucratic bodies to oversee and regulate international trade (e.g. WTO)
was to bypass the "normal" politics in the states involved. Long ago, the weaker countries cried
"modern day imperialism" over these because they felt (not entirely without justification) that
these arrangements took trade policy out of the hands of their domestic politics and unresponsive
to their needs, interests, and demands--and, in a sense, this was exactly the point, since
protectionism, even economically undesirable varieties, are product of "good" domestic politics.
But since 1980s and 90s, the pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction where
reclaiming a share of sovereignty over trade policy is preferred by many over trusting
international bureaucracy. While not exactly "trade" policy (but it is economic), the experiences
of the less well off countries in EU (as well as segments of the publics even in better off
countries) has to be a fairly widespread worldview in many countries these days--certainly enough
that it should make good politics to try to address them in some fashion, not try to override them
by fiat (the latter seeming to be the preferred approach of the cosmopolitan elite)
"My sense is that the whole issue of trade disputes is not so much about trade and economics as
much as politics and sovereignty."
That has to be right, and it certainly applies to small
countries. Small countries must always be aware that there is a loss of sovereignty implicit in
the very act of trading with larger ones. The greater weight of the large country can enable it
to impose trading terms that are sometimes disadvantageous to the smaller.
Tough. That's how it is. But the smaller country must always be on its guard against the very
real danger of allowing that to extend to loss of political sovereignty.
What I don't see is how this applies to the US. The US is not a small country and need not
fear any loss of political sovereignty attendant upon any lack of size or power. Therefore one
could perhaps see the current US trade negotiations in a different light.
That is, that Trump is not defending his country against any such threat. He is merely
attempting to level the playing field. For far too long that playing field has been tilted
against the US worker and, ultimately, the US economy. He was elected to rectify that and will,
I believe, be judged by his success in doing so.
If, in attempting that, he ruffles a few feathers - well, if he went the asking nicely route
they'd walk all over him.
That quibble aside, I couldn't agree more with your note.
I don't think the size of the country is the decisive factor.
International trade always
produces winners and losers. Depending on the particulars, the gains might be more widely
spread than losses, or vice versa. Both sides want to play the political game to shape the
terms of the trade in their favor. Generally, those who are in favor of more protection tend
to do well in domestic politics, while those who tend to gain more by opening up trade don't.
This is why international bureaucracy regulating trade winds up being set up, to bypass the
domestic political process in favor of the free traders.
I don't think there is a fundamental relationship between the size of the country and the
political conflict over free trade. It may be that smaller countries tend to be predisposed
more towards protectionist policies, but counterexamples are found easily (e.g. Singapore).
The real issue is that creation of and deference to international bureaucracy is a mechanism
through which the winners from free trade shift the venue of politics from the domestic to
the international and, in a sense, unfairly disadvantage their political enemies by depriving
them of the means to affect trade policy easily. Or, in other words, international trade
bureaucracy is NOT just a solution for trade conflict between nations, but a political weapon
directed at the skeptics at home. If the winners of free trade were willing to share their
gains with the losers, the conflict would not need to be so sharp. This has not been the case
in US: more than in most other developed countries, the winners of free trade kept the gains
only to themselves, claiming moral absolute of the free trade and their Mammon-given right to
hold on to everything. Those who lose from the free trade are not only aggrieved, but find
themselves at the wrong end of the political game specifically rigged to deprive them of
influence. They don't want to play by its rules if they can--and Trump is providing them this
option.
In this sense, Trump's actions are re-domesticalizing the politics of free trade, making
trade policy responsive to domestic interests that were shunted side formerly. The
internationalists have only their own short-sightedness to blame: if they were willing to
build up a broader coalition, or at least, appease their domestic opponents better, the
opposition to free trade detached from domestic politics would not have become so
acrimonious.
Personally, I think it's not a good development: walking back from free trade is not easy,
if at all possible--too many linkages have been built, too many sectors are dependent on
access to foreign inputs or markets, that actual protectionism will be near impossible to
bring back without major costs. Still, if you are creating international bureaucracy to
bypass domestic politics, you'd better not piss off folks back home enough that they'd start
with pitchforks, and this is among the many mistakes internationalists have made.
This interview of Sir James Goldsmith by Charlie Rose frames his debate with Laura Tyson, Clinton's
trade representative. Well worth watching to understand the trade debate.
Play
Hide
The analyst in the link below explained the myth US energy independence. Although it is not as
severe as china's need for foreign energy supply , but she got russian energy export via landline
as opposed as sealane gulf imports.
There also this constant propaganda of better unemployment
statistic , because of the way the data was processed to make it looks better (cooked)
-- -- -- -- --
From Srsroccoreport :
While the Mainstream media and the Whitehouse continue with the energy independent mantra, the
U.S. is still highly reliant upon a great deal of foreign oil.
Ahttps://d3hxt1wz4sk0za.clo...
, why would the U.S. import 8 million barrels of oil per day if
its shale oil production has surged over the past decade?
Well, it's quite simple. The U.S. Shale Oil Industry is producing way too much light tight oil,
with a high API Gravity, for our refineries that are designed for a lower grade. So, as U.S. shale
oil production exploded , the industry was forced to export a great deal more of this light oil
overseas.
Thanks for your exposition.
Some observations:
China's import of oil in US funds is about equal to USA's net import in US$ - the rest is in ruble/yuan.
The armed force imbalance is of no value, as attack on China is certain to get A-bombs into play
[aside form danger to US ships both naval and other due to Chinese/Russian made anti ship missiles]
The USA can not maintain 25% duties on consumer goods for the simple reason that 75% of population
can not afford to be consumer -debt levels are too high.
The USA can not maintain high tariffs as such would greatly increase the inflation rate applicable
to the "deplorables" who are already on ropes [homelessness, welfare, food subsidies etc.] Notably
the Fed would have to raise rates if inflation increases with dire result for the bond market and
the federal deficit due to increased interest costs.
That the European satraps have bowed under US pressure is nothing new... there will be more changes
in governments in the next cycle - the present bunch is too ripe [or rotten].
I do not imply by the above that China will not suffer, however they have a trillion dollar kitty
to balance the external trade problems.
"75% of population can not afford to be consumer..."
They are in debt because they are consuming beyond thier income. "the Fed would have to raise
rates if inflation increases" The Fed has already raised rates twice this year. It was less than
ten days ago that Trump based the Fed for raising rates. The losers in that have always been
Americans at the bottom.
http://thehill.com/policy/f...
The article is long but very important and is worth a careful read. It shows that the
military/security complex has woven itself so tightly into the American social, economic, and
political fabric as to be untouchable. President Trump is an extremely brave or foolhardy
person to take on this most powerful and pervasive of all US institutions by trying to
normalize US relations with Russia, chosen by the military/security complex as the "enemy" that
justifies its enormous budget and power.
In 1961 President Eisenhower in his last public address to the American people warned us
about the danger to democracy and accountable government presented by the military/industrial
complex.
You can imagine how much stronger the complex is 57 years later after decades of Cold War
with the Soviet Union.
The Russian government, Russian media, and Russian people desperately need to comprehend how
powerful the US military/security complex is and how it is woven into the fabric of America. No
amount of diplomacy by Lavrov and masterful chess playing by Putin can possibly shake the
control over the United States exercised by the military/security complex.
Professor Roelofs has done a good deed for the American people and for the world in
assembling such extensive information documenting the penetration into every aspect of American
life of the military/security complex. It is a delusion that a mere President of the United
States can bring such a powerful, all-pervasive institution to heel and deprive it of its
necessary enemy.
For many people the "military-industrial-complex (MIC)" brings to mind the top twenty
weapons manufacturers. President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned about it in 1961, wanted to call
it the military- industrial-congressional-complex, but decided it was not prudent to do so.
Today it might well be called the military-industrial-congressional-almost-everything-complex.
Most departments and levels of government, businesses, and also many charities, social service,
environmental, and cultural organizations, are deeply embedded with the military.
The weapons industry may be spearheading the military budget and military operations; it is
aided immensely by the cheering or silence of citizens and their representatives. Here we will
provide some likely reasons for that assent. We will use the common typology of three national
sectors: government, business, and nonprofit, with varying amounts of interaction among them.
This does not preclude, though it masks somewhat, the proposition that government is the
executive of the ruling class.
Every kind of business figures in the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Lockheed is
currently the largest contractor in the weapons business. It connects with the worldwide MIC by
sourcing parts, for example, for the F-35 fighter plane, from many countries. This helps a lot
to market the weapon, despite its low opinion among military experts as well as anti-military
critics. Lockheed also does civilian work, which enhances its aura while it spreads its
values.
Other types of businesses have enormous multi-year contracts -- in the billions. This
despite the constitutional proviso that Congress not appropriate military funds for more than a
two year term. Notable are the construction companies, such as Fluor, KBR, Bechtel, and Hensel
Phelps. These build huge bases, often with high tech surveillance or operational capacity, in
the US and abroad, where they hire locals or commonly, third country nationals to carry out the
work. There are also billion-funded contractors in communications technology, intelligence
analysis, transportation, logistics, food, and clothing. "Contracting out" is our modern
military way; this also spreads its influence far and wide.
Medium, small, and tiny businesses dangle from the "Christmas tree" of the Pentagon,
promoting popular cheering or silence on the military budget. These include special set-asides
for minority-owned and small businesses. A Black-owned small business, KEPA-TCI (construction),
received contracts for $356 million. [Data comes from several sources, available free on the
internet: websites, tax forms, and annual reports of organizations; usaspending.gov (USA) and
governmentcontractswon.com (GCW).] Major corporations of all types serving our services have
been excellently described in Nick Turse's The Complex. Really small and tiny businesses are
drawn into the system: landscapers, dry cleaners, child care centers, and Come- Bye Goose
Control of Maryland.
Among the businesses with large DoD contracts are book publishers: McGraw-Hill, Greenwood,
Scholastic, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, Elsevier, and others. Rarely have the biases
in this industry, in fiction, nonfiction, and textbook offerings, been examined. Yet the
influences on this small but significant population, the reading public, and the larger
schooled contingent, may help explain the silence of the literate crowd and college
graduates.
Much of what is left of organized industrial labor is in weapons manufacture. Its PACs fund
the few "progressive" candidates in our political system, who tend to be silent about war and
the threat of nuclear annihilation. Unlike other factories, the armaments makers do not
suddenly move overseas, although they do use subcontractors worldwide.
Military spending may be only about 6% of the GDP, yet it has great impact because:
1. it is a growing sector;
2. it is recession-proof;
3. it does not rely on consumer whims;
4. it is the only thing prospering in many areas; and
5. the "multiplier" effect: subcontracting, corporate purchasing, and employee spending
perk up the regional economy.
It is ideally suited to Keynesian remedies, because of its ready destruction and
obsolescence: what isn't consumed in warfare, rusted out, or donated to our friends still needs
to be replaced by the slightly more lethal thing. Many of our science graduates work for the
military directly or its contractee labs concocting these.
The military's unbeatable weapon is jobs, and all members of Congress, and state and local
officials, are aware of this. It is where well-paying jobs are found for mechanics, scientists,
and engineers; even janitorial workers do well in these taxpayer-rich firms. Weaponry is also
important in our manufactured goods exports as our allies are required to have equipment that
meets our specifications. Governments, rebels, terrorists, pirates, and gangsters all fancy our
high tech and low tech lethal devices.
Our military economy also yields a high return on investments. These benefit not only
corporate executives and other rich, but many middle and working class folk, as well as
churches, benevolent, and cultural organizations. The lucrative mutual funds offered by
Vanguard, Fidelity, and others are heavily invested in the weapons manufacturers.
Individual investors may not know what is in their fund's portfolios; the institutions
usually know. A current project of World Beyond War ( https://worldbeyondwar.org/divest ) advocates
divestment of military stocks in the pension funds of state and local government workers:
police, firepersons, teachers, and other civil servants. Researchers are making a
state-by-state analysis of these funds. Among the findings are the extensive military stock
holdings of CALpers, the California Public Employees Retirement System (the sixth largest
pension fund on earth), the California State Teachers Retirement System, the New York State
Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Employees Retirement System, and the New York
State Common Retirement Fund (state and local employees). Amazing! the New York City teachers
were once the proud parents of red diaper babies.
The governmental side of the MIC complex goes far beyond the DoD. In the executive branch,
Departments of State, Homeland Security, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Interior; and CIA, AID, FBI,
NASA, and other agencies; are permeated with military projects and goals. Even the Department
of Agriculture has a joint program with the DoD to "restore" Afghanistan by creating a dairy
cattle industry. No matter that the cattle and their feed must be imported, cattle cannot graze
in the terrain as the native sheep and goats can, there is no adequate transportation or
refrigeration, and the Afghans don't normally drink milk. The native animals provide yogurt,
butter, and wool, and graze on the rugged slopes, but that is all so un-American.
Congress is a firm ally of the military. Campaign contributions from contractor PACs are
generous, and lobbying is extensive. So also are the outlays of financial institutions, which
are heavily invested in the MIC. Congresspeople have significant shares of weapons industry
stocks. To clinch the deal, members of Congress (and also state and local lawmakers) are well
aware of the economic importance of military con- tracts in their states and districts.
Military bases, inside the US as well as worldwide, are an economic hub for communities. The
DoD Base Structure Report for Fy2015 lists more than 4,000 domestic properties. Some are
bombing ranges or re- cruiting stations; perhaps 400 are bases with a major impact on their
localities. The largest of these, Fort Bragg, NC, is a city unto itself, and a cultural
influence as well as economic asset to its region, as so well described by Catherine Lutz in
Homefront. California has about 40 bases ( https://militarybases.com/by - state/), and is home to major
weapons makers as well. Officers generally live off-base, so the real estate, restaurant,
retail, auto repair, hotel and other businesses are prospering. Local civilians find employment
on bases. Closed, unconvertible installations are sometimes tourist attractions, such as the
unlikeliest of all vacation spots, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
DoD has direct contracts and grants with state and local governments. These are for various
projects and services, including large amounts to fund the National Guard. The Army Engineers
maintain swimming holes and parks, and police forces get a deal on Bearcats. JROTC programs
nationwide provide funding for public schools, and even more for those that are public school
military academies; six are in Chicago.
National, state and local governments are well covered by the "insecurity blanket;" the
nonprofit sector is not neglected. Nevertheless, it does harbor the very small group of
anti-war organizations, such as Iraq Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, World Beyond
War, Peace Action, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for International Policy, Catholic
Worker, Answer Coalition, and others. Yet unlike the Vietnam War period there is no vocal group
of religious leaders protesting war, and the few students who are politically active are more
concerned with other issues.
Nonprofit organizations and institutions are involved several ways. Some are obviously
partners of the MIC: Boy and Girl Scouts, Red Cross, veterans' charities, military think-tanks
such as RAND and Institute for Defense Analysis, establishment think-tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute, Atlantic Council, and the flagship of US world projection, the Council on
Foreign Relations. There are also many international nongovernmental organizations that assist
the US government in delivering "humanitarian" assistance, sing the praises of the market
economy, or attempt to repair the "collateral" damage inflicted on lands and people, for
example, Mercy Corps, Open Society Institutes, and CARE.
Educational institutions in all sectors are embedded with the military. The military schools
include the service academies, National Defense University, Army War College, Naval War
College, Air Force Institute of Technology, Air University, Defense Acquisition University,
Defense Language Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, Defense Information School, the medical
school, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the notorious School of the
Americas in Fort Benning, GA, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. "In addition, Senior Military Colleges offer a combination of higher education
with military instruction. SMCs include Texas A&M University, Norwich University, The
Virginia Military Institute, The Citadel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
(Virginia Tech), University of North Georgia and the Mary Baldwin Women's Institute for
Leadership" ( https://www.usa.gov/military-colleges ).
A university doesn't have to be special to be part of the MIC. Most are awash with
contracts, ROTC programs, and/or military officers and contractors on their boards of trustees.
A study of the 100 most militarized universities includes prestigious institutions, as well as
diploma mills that produce employees for military intelligence agencies and contractors (
https://news.vice.com/article/these-are-the-100
- most-militarized-universities-in-america).
Major liberal foundations have long engaged in covert and overt operations to support
imperial projection, described by David Horowitz as the "Sinews of Empire" in his important
1969 Ramparts article. They have been close associates of the Central Intelligence Agency, and
were active in its instigation. The foundation created and supported Council on Foreign
Relations has long been a link among Wall Street, large corporations, academia, the media, and
our foreign and military policymakers.
Less obvious are the military connections of philanthropic, cultural, social service,
environmental, and professional organizations. They are linked through donations; joint
programs; sponsorship of events, exhibits, and concerts; awards (both ways); investments;
boards of directors; top executives; and contracts. The data here covers approximately the last
twenty years, and rounds out the reasons for the astounding support (according to the polls)
that US citizens have conferred on our military, its budget, and its operations.
Military contractor philanthropy was the subject of my previous CP reports, in 2006 and
2016. Every type of nonprofit (as well as public schools and universities) received support
from the major weapons manufacturers; some findings were outstanding. Minority organizations
were extremely well endowed. For many years there was crucial support for the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from Lockheed; Boeing also funded the
Congressional Black Caucus. The former president and CEO of the NAACP, Bruce Gordon, is now on
the Board of Trustees of Northrop Grumman.
General Electric is the most generous military contractor philanthropist, with direct grants
to organizations and educational institutions, partnerships with both, and matching
contributions made by its thousands of employees. The latter reaches many of the
nongovernmental and educational entities throughout the country.
Major donors to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (listed in its 2016 Annual
Report) include the Defense Intelligence Agency, Cisco Systems, Open Society Foundations, US
Department of Defense, General Electric, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Lockheed
Martin. This is an echo of the CEIP's military connections reported in Horace Coon's book of
the 1930s, Money to Burn.
The DoD itself donates surplus property to organizations; among those eligible are Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League Baseball,
and United Service Organizations. The Denton Program allows non-governmental organizations to
use extra space on U.S. military cargo aircraft to transport humanitarian assistance
materials.
There is a multitude of joint programs and sponsorships. Here is a small sample...
The American Association of University Women's National Tech Savvy Program encourages
girls to enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers, with sponsorship
from Lockheed, BAE Systems, and Boeing.
Junior Achievement, sponsored by Bechtel, United Technologies, and others, aims to train
children in market-based economics and entrepreneurship.
Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts is partnered with Northrop Grumman for an
"early childhood STEM 'Learning through the Arts' initiative for pre-K and kindergarten
students."
The Bechtel Foundation has two programs for a "sustainable California" -- an education
program to help "young people develop the knowledge, skills, and character to explore and
understand the world," and an environmental program to promote the "management, stewardship
and conservation for the state's natural resources."
The NAACP ACT-SO is a "yearlong enrichment program designed to recruit, stimulate, and
encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African-American high school
students," with sponsorship from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman et al. The national
winners receive financial awards from major corporations, college scholarships, internships,
and apprenticeships -- in the military industries.
In recent years the weapons makers have become enthusiastic environmentalists. Lockheed was
a sponsor of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Sustainability Forum in 2013. Northrop
Grumman supports Keep America Beautiful, National Public Lands Day, and a partnership with
Conservation International and the Arbor Day Foundation (for forest restoration). United
Technologies is the founding sponsor of the U.S. Green Building Council Center for Green
Schools, and co-creator of the Sustainable Cities Design Academy. Tree Musketeers is a national
youth environmental organization partnered by Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Awards go both ways: industries give awards to nonprofits, and nonprofits awards to military
industries and people. United Technologies, for its efforts in response to climate change, was
on Climate A list of the Climate Disclosure Project. The Corporate Responsibility Association
gave Lockheed position 8 in 2016 in its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. Points of Light
included General Electric and Raytheon in its 2014 list of the 50 Most Community-Minded
Companies in America. Harold Koh, the lawyer who as Obama's advisor defended drone strikes and
intervention in Libya, was recently given distinguished visiting professor status by Phi Beta
Kappa. In 2017, the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility recognized 34 Young
Hispanic Corporate Achievers; 3 were executives in the weapons industry. Elizabeth Amato, an
executive at United Technologies, received the YWCA Women Achievers Award.
Despite laborious searching through tax form 990s, it is difficult to discover the specifics
of organizations' investments. Many have substantial ones; in 2006, the American Friends
Service Committee had $3.5 million in revenue from investments. Human Rights Watch reported
$3.5 million investment income on its 2015 tax form 990, and more than $107 million in
endowment funds.
One of the few surveys of nonprofit policies (by Commonfund in 2012) found that only 17% of
foundations used environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria in their investments. ESG
seems to have replaced "socially responsible investing (SRI)" in investment terminology, and it
has a somewhat different slant. The most common restriction is the avoidance of companies doing
business in regions with conflict risk; the next relates to climate change and carbon
emissions; employee diversity is also an important consideration. Commonfund's study of
charities, social service and cultural organizations reported that 70% of their sample did not
consider ESG in their investment policies. Although 61% of religious organizations did employ
ESG criteria, only 16% of social service organizations and 3% of cultural organizations
did.
Weapon industries are hardly ever mentioned in these reports. Religious organizations
sometimes still used the SRI investment screens, but the most common were alcohol, gambling,
pornography, and tobacco. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a resource for
churches, lists almost 30 issues for investment consideration, including executive
compensation, climate change, and opioid crisis, but none concerning weapons or war. The United
Church (UCC) advisory, a pioneer in SRI investment policies, does include a screen: only
companies should be chosen which have less than 10% revenue from alcohol or gambling, 1% from
tobacco, 10% from conventional weapons and 5% from nuclear weapons.
The Art Institute of Chicago states on their website that "[W]ith the fiduciary
responsibility to maximize returns on investment consistent with appropriate levels of risk,
the Art Institute maintains a strong presumption against divesting for social, moral, or
political reasons." Listed as an associate is Honeywell International, and a major benefactor
is the Crown Family (General Dynamics), which recently donated a $2 million endowment for a
Professorship in Painting and Drawing.
Nonprofit institutions (as well as individuals and pension funds of all sectors) have heavy
investments in the funds of financial companies such as State Street, Vanguard, BlackRock,
Fidelity, CREF, and others, which have portfolios rich in military industries ( https://worldbeyondwar.org/wp -
content/uploads/2016/11/indirect.pdf). These include information technology firms, which,
although often regarded as "socially responsible," are among the major DoD contractors.
In recent years foundations and other large nonprofits, such as universities, have favored
investments in hedge funds, real estate, derivatives, and private equity. The Carnegie
Endowment, more "transparent" than most, lists such funds on its 2015 tax form 990 (Schedule D
Part VII). It is unlikely that Lockheed, Boeing, et al, are among the distressed debt bonanzas,
so these institutions may be low on weapons stock. Nevertheless, most of them have firm
connections to the MIC through donations, leadership, and/or contracts.
Close association with the military among nonprofit board members and executives works to
keep the lid on anti-war activities and expression. The Aspen Institute is a think-tank that
has resident experts, and also a policy of convening with activists, such as anti-poverty
community leaders. Its Board of Trustees is chaired by James Crown, who is also a director of
General Dynamics. Among other board members are Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Javier
Solana (former Secretary-General of NATO), and former Congresswoman Jane Harman. Harman
"received the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Service in 1998, the CIA Seal Medal in
2007, and the CIA Director's Award and the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service
Medal in 2011. She is currently a member of the Director of National Intelligence's Senior
Advisory Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations." Lifetime Aspen
Trustees include Lester Crown and Henry Kissinger.
In recent years, the Carnegie Corporation board of trustees included Condoleezza Rice and
General Lloyd Austin III (Ret.), Commander of CENTCOM, a leader in the 2003 invasion of Iraq,
and also a board member of United Technologies. A former president of Physicians for Peace (not
the similarly named well-known group) is Rear Admiral Harold Bernsen, formerly Commander of the
US Middle East Force and not a physician.
TIAA, the college teachers' retirement fund, had a CEO from 1993-2002, John H. Biggs, who
was at the same time a director of Boeing. TIAA's current board of directors includes an
associate of a major military research firm, MITRE Corporations, and several members of the
Council on Foreign Relations. Its senior executive Vice President, Rahul Merchant, is currently
also a director at two information technology firms that have large military contracts: Juniper
Networks and AASKI.
The American Association of Retired Persons' chief lobbyist from 2002-2007, Chris Hansen,
had previously served in that capacity at Boeing. The current VP of communications at Northrop
Grumman, Lisa Davis, held that position at AARP from 1996-2005.
Board members and CEOs of the major weapons corporations serve on the boards of many
nonprofits. Just to indicate the scope, these include the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, Newman's Own Foundation, New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall Society,
Conservation International, Wolf Trap Foundation, WGBH, Boy Scouts, Newport Festival
Foundation, Toys for Tots, STEM organizations, Catalyst, the National Science Center, the US
Institute of Peace, and many foundations and universities.
The DoD promotes the employment of retired military officers as board members or CEOs of
nonprofits, and several organizations and degree programs further this transition. U.S. Air
Force Brigadier General Eden Murrie (Ret.) is now Director of Government Transformation and
Agency Partnerships at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. She maintains that
"[F]ormer military leaders have direct leadership experience and bring talent and integrity
that could be applied in a nonprofit organization. . ."
(seniormilitaryintransition.com/tag/eden-murrie/). Given the early retirement age, former
military personnel (and reservists) are a natural fit for positions of influence in federal,
state, and local governments, school boards, nonprofits, and volunteer work; many are in those
places.
Perhaps the coziest relationships under the insecurity blanket are the multitudes of
contracts and grants the Department of Defense tenders to the nonprofit world. DoD fiscal
reporting is notoriously inaccurate, and there were conflicting accounts between and within the
online databases. Nevertheless, even a fuzzy picture gives a good idea of the depth and scope
of the coverage.
From the TNC 2016 Annual Report: "The Nature Conservancy is an organization that takes care
of people and land, and they look for opportunities to partner. They're nonpolitical. We need
nongovernment organizations like TNC to help mobilize our citizens. They are on the ground.
They understand the people, the politics, the partnerships. We need groups like TNC to
subsidize what government organizations can't do" (Mamie Parker, Former Assistant Director,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Arkansas Trustee, The Nature Conservancy).
Among the subsidies going the other way are 44 DoD contracts with TNC totaling several
million for the years 2008-2018 (USA). These are for such services as Prairie Habitat
Reforestation, $100,000, and Runway and Biosecurity upkeep at Palmyra Atoll, HI, $82,000 (USA).
For the years 2000-2016, GCW lists a total of $5,500,000 in TNC's DoD contracts.
Grants to TNC for specific projects, not clearly different from contracts, were much larger.
Each is listed separately (USA); a rough count of the total was more than $150 million. One $55
million grant was for "Army compatible use buffer (acubs) in vicinity of Fort Benning military
installation." Similar grants, the largest, $14 million, were for this service at other bases.
Another was for the implementation of Fort Benning army installation's ecological monitoring
plan. Included in the description of these grants was the notice: "Assist State and local
governments to mitigate or prevent incompatible civilian land use/activity that is likely to
impair the continued operational utility of a Department of Defense (DoD) military
installation. Grantees and participating governments are expected to adopt and implement the
study recommendations."
TNC's Form 990 for 2017 states its investment income as $21 million. It reported government
grants of $108.5 million, and government contracts of $9 million. These may include funds from
state and local as well as all departments of the federal government. The Department of the
Interior, which manages the vast lands used for bombing ranges and live ammunition war games,
is another TNC grantor.
Other environmental organizations sustained by DoD contracts are the National Audubon
Society ($945,000 for 6 years, GCW), and Point Reyes Bird Observatory ($145,000, 6 years, GCW).
USA reports contracts with Stichting Deltares, a Dutch coastal research institute, for $550,000
in 2016, grants to the San Diego Zoo of $367,000, and to the Institute for Wildlife Studies,
$1.3 million for shrike monitoring.
Goodwill Industries (training and employing the disabled, ex-offenders, veterans, and
homeless people) is an enormous military contractor. Each entity is a separate corporation,
based on state or region, and the total receipt is in the billions. For example, for 2000-2016
(GCW), Goodwill of South Florida had $434 million and Southeastern Wisconsin $906 million in
contracts. Goods and services provided include food and logistics support, records processing,
army combat pants, custodial, security, mowing, and recycling. Similar organizations working
for the DoD include the Jewish Vocational Service and Community Workshop, janitorial services,
$12 million over 5 years; Lighthouse for the Blind, $4.5 million, water purification equipment;
Ability One; National Institute for the Blind; Pride Industries; and Melwood Horticultural
Training Center.
The DoD does not shun the work of Federal Prison Industries, which sells furniture and other
products. A government corporation (and thus not a nonprofit), it had half a billion in sales
to all federal departments in 2016. Prison labor, Goodwill Industries, and other
sheltered-workshop enterprises, along with for- profits employing immigrant workers, teenagers,
retirees, and migrant workers (who grow food for the military and the rest of us), reveal the
evolving nature of the US working class, and some explanation for its lack of revolutionary
fervor, or even mild dissent from the capitalist system.
The well-paid, and truly diverse employees (including executives) of major weapons makers
are also not about to construct wooden barricades. Boards of directors in these industries are
welcoming to minorities and women. The CEOs of Lockheed and General Dynamics are women, as is
the Chief Operating Officer of Northrop Grumman. These success stories reinforce personal
aspirations among the have-nots, rather than questioning the system.
Contracts with universities, hospitals, and medical facilities are too numerous to detail
here; one that illustrates how far the blanket stretches is with Oxford University, $800,000
for medical research. Professional associations with significant contracts include the
Institute of International Education, American Council on Education, American Association of
State Colleges and Universities, National Academy of Sciences, Society of Women Engineers,
American Indian Science and Engineering Society, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists,
Society of Mexican-American Engineers, and U.S. Green Building Council. The Council of State
Governments (a nonprofit policy association of officials) received a $193,000 contract for
"preparedness" work. Let us hope we are well prepared.
The leaders, staff, members, donors, and volunteers of nonprofit organizations are the kind
of people who might have been peace activists, yet so many are smothered into silence under the
vast insecurity blanket. In addition to all the direct and indirect beneficiaries of the
military establishment, many people with no connection still cheer it on. They have been
subject to relentless propaganda forthe military and its wars from the government, the print
and digital press, TV, movies, sports shows, parades, and computer games -- the latter teach
children that killing is fun.
The indoctrination goes down easily. It has had a head start in the educational system that
glorifies the violent history of the nation. Our schools are full of in-house tutoring, STEM
programs, and fun robotics teams personally conducted by employees of the weapons makers. Young
children may not understand all the connections, but they tend to remember the logos. The JROTC
programs, imparting militaristic values, enroll far more children than the ones who will become
future officers. The extremely well-funded recruitment efforts in schools include "fun"
simulations of warfare.
There is a worldwide supporting cast for the complex that includes NATO, other alliances,
defense ministries, foreign military industries, and bases, but that is a story for another
day.
The millions sheltered under our thick and broad blanket, including the enlistees under the
prickly part of it, are not to blame. Some people may be thrilled by the idea of death and
destruction. However, most are just trying to earn a living, keep their organization or rust
belt afloat, or be accepted into polite company. They would prefer constructive work or income
from healthy sources. Yet many have been indoctrinated to believe that militarism is normal and
necessary. For those who consider change to be essential if life on this planet has a chance at
survival, it is important to see all the ways that the military-
industrial-congressional-almost everything-complex is being sustained.
"Free market economy" is a myth. In addition to the huge nonprofit (non-market) sector,
government intervention is substantial, not only in the gigantic military, but in agriculture,
education, health care, infrastructure, economic development (!), et al. For the same trillions
we could have a national economy that repairs the environment, provides a fine standard of
living and cultural opportunities for all, and works for peace on earth.
* * *
Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire.
She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (SUNY Press, 2003)
and Greening Cities (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). She is the translator of Victor
Considerant's Principles of Socialism (Maisonneuve Press, 2006), and with Shawn P. Wilbur, of
Charles Fourier's anti-war fantasy, The World War of Small Pastries (Autonomedia, 2015). A
community education short course on the military industrial complex is on her website, and may
be used for similar purposes.
"... Crude price manipulation is important to maintain the (fraudulent) petrodollar system because the sheeple subconsciously measure inflation through the price of gasoline. The Oligarchy that owns The Fed will not give up the petrodollar system because it is their main weapon for global domination and control. Unprofitable shale companies will continue to be lent money ;) ..."
"... That's not what the article is saying. If we stopped drilling and fracking today, in one month's time, the production would decline by 500k bbl/day. To offset that, 500k bbl/day production from new wells needs to be brought online in a month, which is what they're doing. The problem is, the more production, the more they have to drill just to keep production flat. ..."
"... it really was by the end of aug the production will drop by 1/2 mbpd making 10.5 mbpd unless somewhere else they made up for that loss, and thats prolly not counting your ability to bring that new production to mkt, via VW bus? ..."
"... Shale production is used primarily as a diluent, and as a petro chemical feed stock. The majority of it is used by Canada and Mexico. ..."
"... The Eagle Ford shale play here at home went bust two years ago. It has never recovered and does not look like it ever will. Most of my family have to drive to Odessa for oil work. Now the greed over there is raping the workers with exorbitant rental rates. Those poor slobs can't get a break. Well most working folks just can't get a break period. ..."
While the U.S. reached a new record of 11 million barrels of oil production per day last week,
the top five shale oil fields also suffered the highest monthly decline rate ever. This is bad
news for the U.S. shale industry as it must produce more and more oil each month, to keep oil
production from falling.
According to the newest EIA Drilling Productivity Report, the top five U.S. Shale Oil
fields monthly oil decline rate is set to surpass a half million barrels per day in August.
Thus, the companies will have to produce at last 500,000 barrels of new oil next month just to keep
production flat.
Here are the individual shale oil field charts from the EIA's July Drilling Productivity Report:
The figures that are shown above the UP arrow denote the forecasted new production added next
month while the figures above the DOWN arrow provide the monthly legacy decline rate. For example,
the chart on the bottom right-hand side is for the Permian Region. The EIA forecasts that the
Permian will add 296,000 barrels per day (bpd) of new shale oil production in August, while the
existing wells in the field will decline by 223,000 bpd.
If we add up these top five shale oil fields monthly decline rate for August will be 503,000
bpd. Thus, the shale oil companies must produce at least 503,000 bpd of new oil supply next month
just to keep production from falling. And, we must remember, this decline rate will continue to
increase as shale oil production rises.
We can see this in the following chart below. Again, according to the EIA's figures,
the top five U.S. shale oil fields monthly legacy decline rate increased from 398,000 bpd in
January to 503,000 bpd for August
:
In just the first seven months of 2018, the total monthly decline rate from these top shale
fields increased by 26%. These massive decline rates are the very reason the shale oil and gas
companies are struggling to make money. A perfect example of this is PXD, Pioneer Resources.
Pioneer is the largest shale oil producer in the Permian. According to Pioneer's Q1 2018 Report:
Producing 260 thousand barrels oil equivalent per day (MBOEPD) in the Permian Basin,
an increase of 9 MBOEPD, or 3%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2017;
first quarter
Permian Basin production was at the top end of Pioneer's production guidance range of 252 MBOEPD
to 260 MBOEPD; as previously announced, freezing temperatures in early January resulted in
production losses of approximately 6 MBOEPD; Permian Basin oil production increased to 170
thousand barrels of oil per day (MBOPD);
63 horizontal wells were placed on production
.
Pioneer spent $818 million on capital expenditures (CapEx) for additions to oil and gas
properties (drilling and completion costs) during Q1 2018, brought on 63 horizontal wells in the
Permian, and only added 9,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent over the previous quarter.
So, how much Free Cash Flow did Pioneer make with oil prices at the highest level in almost four
years?? Well, you're not going to believe me... so here is Pioneer's Cash Flow Statement below:
Pioneer reported $554 million in cash from operations and spent $818 million drilling and
completing oil wells in the Permian and a few other locations. Thus, Pioneer's Free Cash Flow was
a negative $264 million. However, Pioneer spent an additional $51 million for additions to other
assets and other property and equipment shown right below the RED highlighted line for a total of
$869 million in total CapEx spending. Total net free cash flow for Pioneer is -$315 million if we
include the additional $51 million.
Therefore, the largest shale oil producer in the Permian spent $264 million more than they made
from operations drilling 63 new wells in the Permian and only added a net 9,000 barrels per day of
oil equivalent. Now, how economical is that???
How long can this insanity go on??
If we look at the Free Cash Flow for some of the top shale energy companies in Q1 2018, here is
the result:
Of the ten shale companies in the chart above (in order: Continental, EOG, Whiting, Concho,
Marathon, Oasis, Occidental, Hess, Apache & Pioneer), only three enjoyed positive free cash flow,
while seven suffered negative free cash flow losses.
The net result of the group was a
negative $455 million in free cash flow.
Even with higher oil prices, the U.S. shale energy companies are still struggling to make money.
So, the question remains. What happens to these shale oil companies when the oil price falls
back towards $30 when the stock market drops by 50+% over the next few years?? And how is the U.S.
Shale Energy Industry going to pay back the $250+ billion in debt??
Lastly, here is my recent video on the Shale Oil Ponzi Scheme if you haven't seen it yet:
Crude price manipulation is important to maintain the (fraudulent)
petrodollar system because the sheeple subconsciously measure inflation
through the price of gasoline. The Oligarchy that owns The Fed will not
give up the petrodollar system because it is their main weapon for global
domination and control. Unprofitable shale companies will continue to be
lent
money
;)
Let's do the math: US produced 11 million bbls a day recently, but
production is declining at a rate of 1/2 million bbls/day according to
the article. So that means US oil production will be zero bbl/day in
about 3 weeks.
That's not what the article is saying. If we stopped drilling and
fracking today, in one month's time, the production would decline by
500k bbl/day. To offset that, 500k bbl/day production from new wells
needs to be brought online in a month, which is what they're doing.
The problem is, the more production, the more they have to drill just
to keep production flat.
This is a well know item, horizontal fracking produces very well
for a couple years and then not so much. Also known that the US uses
17 to 19 (depending on who is telling) million barrels per day so the
US still imports a lot of crude per day. We use it like there is no
tomorrow and one day there won't be but I'm 85 so the three words
to tranquility applies. "Not my problem".
it really was by the end of aug the production will drop by 1/2 mbpd
making 10.5 mbpd unless somewhere else they made up for that loss,
and thats prolly not counting your ability to bring that new
production to mkt, via VW bus?
the yearly chart is very telling. we stayed in a $20-$40 range from the
70's to mid 2000's then bush drove the price up but we fell exactly when
obama won the election BUT UNDER OBAMA WE SETTLED INTO A RANGE OF
$40-$100....fucking double the old range.
The US has 1.7 million operating shale wells. Over the next five years 1.4
million of those wells will have to be replaced to keep production
constant. The decline rate for the average shale well is 89% over its first
five years. At an average replacement cost of $4.4 million per well the
total cost of replacing 1.4 million wells will be $6.2 trillion. The total
cost of all the petroleum products consumed by the US over the next five
years will approximately $2.5 trillion.
To keep the shale industry alive over the next five years it will cost
the US economy 2.5 times as much as it will spend on all the petroleum
products it will consume. Expect a massive dislocation in the petroleum
industry in the very near future!
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
First... I don't trust Continental
Resources figures, but I can't get into that yet... long story.
Second, EOG is spending twice as much as most shale players on
CapEx per quarter and are making some free cash flow. However,
EOG also paid $97 million in dividends Q1 2018. So, if we
subtract out their dividend payouts, EOG only netted $14 million
after spending $1.4 billion in Capex during Q1 2018.
Lastly, Whiting's oil production is still less than what it was
in 2016. By cutting CapEx spending drastically, from $600 million
a quarter two years ago to only $178 million in Q1 2018, they can
make some free cash flow. But, by drastically cutting CapEx
spending, Whiting won't be able to increase production to pay back
the $2.8 billion in long-term debt that they owe.
And this is the same pattern for our govts.... spend more and
get less..... the result is inevitable, same with our pumped up
markets.... not if, but when.... and it looks to be soon...
Now, Trump wants the EU to buy this gas? It's obviously a very
short term deal, or he hasn't looked at the numbers at all...
which makes him perfect for his role in the 'out with the OWO,
in with the NWO'.
Ponzi scheme is the correct word for this shale industry,
same with all of our industries ,as empires all operate this
way... pushing off paying the bills till tomorrow, always a new
tomorrow... kick that can down the road... the states do it,
the fed govt does it... all those not making money do it... and
these are the opposite of startups.
Buying time. Short and sweet. The mere fact that they are so
actively "buying time" with these short-term policies is
proof that they are aware time is running out, which leaves
one to ponder just exactly "how much" time are they trying
to buy, and toward what end. Big plans are in the works I
suspect, and the end of "buying time" is rapidly
approaching.
For as long as there are enough natural resources left in the
world to be able to strip-mine at about exponentially increasing
rates, as enabled by making "money" out of nothing as debts in order
to "pay" for doing so, which is a debt slavery system based on the
public powers of governments used to back up legalized counterfeiting
by private banks, and the big corporations that grew up around those
big banks. The oil extraction corporations operate inside of that
overall context where everything they are able to do is based on the
degree to which the sources of their funding ultimately depend upon
being able to continue enforcing frauds.
It is too good a phrase to use to refer to those aspects of that
process as being "Ponzi Schemes," since deceived people voluntarily
participated in Ponzi's Scheme. The dominant Pyramid Schemes of
Globalized Neolithic Civilization are systems that offered people a
deal they could not refuse.
The history of oil can not be separated from the history of war.
Within the overall context that money is measurement backed by
murder, the funding of the oil industry developed as vicious feedback
loops due to be able to
enforce frauds
, despite that
about exponentially advancing technologies were enabling about
exponentially increasing fraudulence, with respect to the related
about exponentially increasing strip-mining.
"How long can this insanity go on?"
Probably for a relatively long time for those who are old and
rich, and positioned near the center, toward the top, of the Pyramid
Scheme of enforced frauds which achieve
symbolic robberies
for those people.
Shale oil extraction exemplifies DIMINISHING RETURNS, which
applies across everything else that Civilization is doing.
"It's amazing the amount of money that needs to be invested
just to replace production."
It is more
"amazing"
when one goes through the labyrinth of Money
As Debt, which is the MADNESS of
negative capital
,
which is able to be publicly presented as if that is still positive
capital. While it is abstractly obvious that murder systems are
manifestations of general energy systems, there is relatively little
public appreciation of those murder systems backing up the money
systems.
Around about the 15 minute mark in the video embedded in the
article above, some of the reasons for calling shale oil extraction a
"Ponzi Scheme" are outlined, including "Ponzi Stock Finance," which
are secondary mechanisms where the MAD Money As Debt travels from its
original source
ex nihilo
through other
investors, before going into the shale oil industry. The underlying
issues related to DIMINISHING RETURNS will manifest first and
foremost through the fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting
systems which almost totally dominant Globalized Neolithic
Civilization.
"How long can this insanity go on?"
Until those runaway debt insanities provoke sufficient runaway
death insanities to cause series of crazy collapses which result in
whatever systems of organized crime could continue to operate after
the consequences of DIMINISHING RETURNS have worked their way
through. Since it is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to
which
negative extraction
was presented as
if that was positive production, it is also barely possible to
exaggerate the degree of psychotic breakdowns that will manifest when
runaway enforced frauds finally have their about exponentially
increasing fraudulence go past their tipping points.
The USA became the most important component in Globalized
Neolithic Civilization. The USA has led the way into the development
of globalized monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from
apes with atomic bombs, whose lives still mostly became dependent
upon the chemical energy in petroleum resources. The USA, therefore,
also led the way to the development of shale oil extraction, while
that continued to be publicly presented as if that was production.
At the present time, and for the foreseeable finite future, it is
politically impossible for human beings living inside of the dominant
Civilization to better understand themselves as manifestations of
general energy systems. Instead, almost everyone who is adapted to
living inside that Civilization has developed ways to present what
they are actually doing in the most dishonest and absurdly backward
ways possible.
Extracting more and more expensive petroleum resources is merely
one of the leading symbols of what is happening everywhere else one
looks. That Civilization is almost totally based on being able to
back up legalized lies with legalized violence continues to be
socially successful to the degree that most people do not understand
that, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand
that being able to back up lies with violence never stops those lies
from still being fundamentally
false.
THAT
was the source of the
"insanity."
It is too optimistic to expect that will
not continue, despite series of collapses into crazy chaos, and the
related series of psychotic breakdowns. Whatever civilization
survives will continue to operate according to the principles and
methods of organized crime, which will continue to have the related
corollaries that the apparent successfulness of those organized
crimes will depend upon most people not wanting to understand what is
actually happening.
Theoretically, enough people "should" better understand themselves
as manifestations of energy systems, which would then include their
perceptions of the ways that they lived as
nested toroidal
vortices engaged in entropic pumping of environmental energy sources.
That is made even more theoretically imperative to the degree that
some people have better understood some energy systems.
However, throughout everything that operates through Pyramid
Schemes, for those continue requires that the pyramidion people do
everything they can to make sure that those lower down in those
Pyramid Schemes do not understand that those Pyramids are actually
NESTED TOROIDAL VORTICES. At the present time, and in the foreseeable
finite future, the dominant Civilization will continue intensifying
its paradoxical Grand Canyon Contradictions that physical science
makes prodigious progress in understanding some energy systems, while
political science makes no similar progress in understanding human
energy systems, except to the degree that human systems are thereby
enabled to become about exponentially more dishonest.
Fracking symbolizes advancing physical technologies, channeled
through financial systems which only "advance" by becoming about
exponentially more fraudulent. Since almost everything Civilization
is doing has become based on that exponentially increasing
fraudulence, which in turn is based on exponentially increasing
strip-mining, it is politically impossible for that Civilization to
stop that
"insanity"
other than by driving
itself some series of psychotic breakdowns.
That
"lousy shale oil economics will pull down the U.S
economy"
is only one of the more and more painfully
obviously tips of the immense icebergs of enforced frauds, whose own
exponentially increasing fraudulences are melting themselves. (In
that context it is old-fashioned nonsense that possessing precious
metals is a somewhat saner "solution" to the runaway criminal
"insanity"
of Civilization.)
"At an average replacement cost of $4.4 million per well the total cost
of replacing 1.4 million wells will be $6.2 trillion. "
I think your
math is way off, To To date, Shale spent about $500B to $750B drilling &
operating those 1.7M wells. That said, Shale drillers borrowed about
$400B, Its unlikely they'll find more Suckers^H^H^H^H investors to
borrow another $400B. Plus they are running out of sweet spots to drill
in Bakken & Eagle Ford. I believe currently the only remaining sweet
spot they can develop is the Permian Basin. Plus the debt coupon on the
borrowed money start coming due between 2019-2023 (They need to roll
that debt over).
Frackers are really dumb. They can't refracture the wells. As soon as their
wells run dry, it's game over. Financial guys are really smart. They make
pronouncements from their desk. They are never wrong.
I'm going back under my bed and work on my Zombie apocalypse cookbook. On
sale soon.
"Frackers are really dumb. They can't refracture the wells."
They can
re-frack their wells, but the yield is abysmally low; so it is rarely
attempted. Re-fracking produces very little additional oil. Most of what is
produced from refracking is gas, which is a low revenue product. It is, by
far, more cost effective to just drill a new well.
By our calculations the US is selling the oil it produces at 46% below its
full life cycle cost of production. The shale industry is apparently using
a business plan that was developed by an Ivy League business school MBA.
They got their degree in Advance Ponzi Schemes.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
My family owned some mineral interest in Blaine County, Oklahoma. It's one of
the hottest shale plays out there right now. A well was drilled and it came in
just gang busters. Within 3 months, the production had fallen by 86%. The well
results out of the gate were so good that the well was mentioned in an investor
presentation for a major oil company. I doubt anyone went back to inform the
investors of the results 90 days later.
That's Shale. If you're lucky you get initial high rates BUT IT WILL drop
in production like hell with time. It's all in the geology. Just look at
the perms and you will understand.
Any idiot can sell goods at half the price it costs them to produce. That
is shale.
Peak oil theory was proved to be correct. It referred to conventional oil.
At the time sour oil wasn't even used, now a majority of the world's oil
is sour. No enhanced oil recovery techniques were available, now every barrel is
geeked out. Water flooding failing Ghawar super giant oilfield, shows the
desperation to keep up oil production.
As far as I know, every Giant in the world (the less than 1% of total
fields that produce 60% of world production) is using some form of
tertiary extraction method to keep producing. Tertiary extraction
methods retrieve anywhere from 2 to 20% of OOIP (original oil in place).
6 to 7% is probably the average. Ghawar is using CO2 injection, in
junction with horizontal wells to extract the last 30 feet of its
original 350 foot oil seam. In other words Ghawar is over 90% depleted.
That was the main reason that the Saudi's $2 trillion IPO for Aramco
fell apart.
With the huge amount of capital outflow now leaving the EM
it seems likely that world demand will begin to decline at about the
same time production begins to decline. The EM constitutes 38% of world
GDP, and 47% of world trade. They also use a greater amount of oil per
GDP $ produced than does the DE. As they continue to fail, as we have
seen recently from Turkey to Venezuela, their petroleum usage will fall.
As Shale has a very limited shelf life (now needing $6.2 trillion over
the next five years to keep production even) the US will find itself in
the situation of having to deal with whipsawing oil markets. Its
precarious debt situation means that it is going to be a rough ride down
from here.
As far as I know no one has called a peak in shale production. As long as
the FED is giving them a $65/ barrel subsidy with ZIRP it is hard to do.
What we can say is that they are planning on taking the $6.2 trillion they
will need for new wells over the next 5 years out of your hide. Invest in
Neosporin, there is gong to be some chapped asses coming down the pike.
I for one want to thank you SOO. Your analysis is also spot on, and
along with your real world experience it reminds me of that ole
detective show Dragnet, "Just the facts Ma'm, just the facts".
Now if
there was an answer that we could all live with....
About what I'd expect. We are 2 years out from the bottom. Exploration and
drilling came to halt. Now that's starting to show up in the declines. It will
start to pick up now with higher prices. Pendulum swings both ways.
"What happens to these shale oil companies when the oil price falls back towards
$30..."
This is the part I don't get, unless you are making two separate
arguments.
Oil is a strategic resource
and as so is an issue of
national security.
They will produce at a loss until they're all dry, if
they have to. The financing will not stop. Same reasoning: Since Musk is
advancing the whole globalist agenda, I hesitate to short the hell out of Tesla.
The financing may just not ever stop. Can the same be said of the broader market?
They've been wiping out EM debt with jubilees; is that how they plan on printing
forever and fueling GDP with debt?
I would protest. They will produce at a fiat loss until dry (assuming fiat
is still accepted of course). The will not produce at an energy loss
though, less than 3 to 4 EROEI.
A Shale well, with an IP (initial production) of 450 b/d, reaches its
energy breakeven point at about 70,000 barrels, or about 10 months. After
that point they must be energy subsidized to keep producing; they go from
being an energy source to become an energy sink. A conventional well
remains an energy source until the WOR (water oil ratio) reaches 45:1, or a
97.8% water cut. At which point they become uneconomical to operate and are
shut in. Shale wells are only operational past their energy source/sink
point because energy is being input from other sources. Much of that comes
from conventional crude - but - the ERoEI of conventional is also falling.
The average conventional well will reach its energy breakeven point by
2030. In thermodynamics that is referred to as the "dead state".
Shale production is used primarily as a diluent, and as a petro chemical
feed stock. The majority of it is used by Canada and Mexico. The Canadians
need it to produce their tar sands oil, and Mexico uses it for their Mayan
Heavy. Both are important raw material sources for US oil refineries.
Even
though Shale is net energy neutral, or negative, and will never be
economical to produce, if the US wants to keep its primary suppliers of
crude in business it has to supply them with diluent. The FED has already
been subsidizing Shale through its ZIRP policy.
Over its full production
life cycle that has contributed about $65 a barrel. In the event that the
FED can no longer keep interest rates suppressed subsidizes will have to
come from some other source. Those may come through the refineries, or like
farmers they may be paid by the bushel. In any event those costs are going
to become extremely burdensome as these high decline rate wells need to be
replaced frequently. Shale will remain a massive, and growing expensive
until the economy has chugged to a halt, and it is no longer needed.
I'm telling you they're lying thru their teeth about oil. We are sucking the
planet dry faster than you can say, "Dry as a popcorn fart."
The powers that
be dont want you to know this because they dont want you to slow down because
they need your tax money to hold up the sick wobbling over weight monster they
created.
It's common knowledge, at least to anyone glancing at the industry, that shale
oil has a two-year boom/bust cycle.
But that oil was not supposed to
exist. Nor any of the last half century's production.
A year ago, there were articles predicting the shale-induced peak would be
2019. (But shale gas was going to be increasing for another couple of
decades.)
You expect profit margins to fall as you squeeze the last of the juice.
Not really sure what the news is, or at least why it is so remarkable.
Calling it a Ponzi scheme, come now.
The Eagle Ford shale play here at home went bust two years ago.
It has never
recovered and does not look like it ever will. Most of my family have to drive
to Odessa for oil work. Now the greed over there is raping the workers with
exorbitant rental rates.
Those poor slobs can't get a break.
Well most working folks just can't get a break period.
We continue careening towards more conflicts which can always lead to unintended
consequences, ever closer to nuclear war. Meanwhile efforts for a dialogue with Russia are
thwarted by our internal politics and dysfunction in Washington.
Sifting through the cacophony of commentary from the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, here
are four key points missed, ignored or glossed over by the Washington establishment and
mainstream news coverage - and they require a good airing.
They are:
1) It's clear now that Europeans will increase their contributions to NATO. But Big Media
totally ignored the trillion dollar gorilla in room: Why does anyone have to spend so much on
NATO in the first place?
Are we planning a ground attack on Russia because we really think the former Soviet Empire
will invade Poland or the Baltic nations? Are we planning for a land war in Europe to
intervene in the Ukraine? What for is the money? The Trump administration and Big Media, for
all their noise, mainly argue that more spending is good. There is no debate about the
reasons why. Meanwhile
Russia is cutting its military spending.
Washington is so dominated by our military-industrial-congressional complex that spending
money is a major intent. Remember when Washington first insisted that putting up an
anti-missile system in Poland and Romania was supposed to protect Europe from an Iranian
attack? Of course, it was really directed against Russia. Washington was so eager to spend
the money that it didn't even ask the Europeans to pay the cost even though it was supposedly
for their defense. As of 2016 Washington had spent $800 million on the
site in Romania. Now it appears that Poland and Romania will pay billions to the Raytheon
Corporation for the shield to comply with their commitment to increase military spending to 2
percent of gross national product.
2) There was no focus on the real, growing threat of nuclear war, intentional or
accidental. No one, including journalists at the joint press conference, spoke about the
collapsing missile treaties (the only one who reportedly seemed keen to discuss it was
ejected beforehand).
Scott Ritter details these alarming risks here on TAC .
The U.S. is now funding new cruise missiles with nukes which allow for a surprise attack
on Russia with only a few minutes of warning, unlike the ICBMs which launch gives a half an
hour or more. This was the reason Russia opposed the anti-missile system in Eastern Europe,
because they could have little warning if cruise missiles were fired from the new bases.
Americans may think that we don't start wars, but the Russians don't. The old shill argument
that democracies don't start wars is belied by American attacks on Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and
Yemen.
3) For all the Democratic and Big Media attacks on Trump for supposedly caving in to
Putin, he gave Putin nothing. His administration is still maintaining an increasingly
stringent economic attack on Russian trade and banking, announcing (just days after his
meeting)
$200 million of new aid to Ukraine's military and threatening Europeans with sanctions if
they go ahead with a new Baltic pipeline to import Russian natural gas. Consequently, some
analysts believe that
Putin has given up on wanting better relations with the U.S. and instead is just trying
to weaken and discredit America's overwhelming power in the world. In a similar vein Rand
Paul writes how we never think
about other nations' interests.
4) The release of intelligence agency findings about Russians' intervention in the last
election just a day before the conference precisely shows the strength of the "Deep State" in
dominating American foreign policy. An article by Bruce Fein in TAC argues we should
"Forget Trump: The Military-Industrial Complex is Still Running the Show With Russia, "
showing how Washington wants to keep Russia as an enemy because it's good for business.
Furthermore, releasing the accusations and indictments via a press already out for Trump's
blood is explained away by pointing out that the special prosecutor has separate authority to
that of the president. But the timing, a day before the Helsinki meeting, obviously shows
intent to cause disarray and to prevent meaningful dialogue with Russia. It's interesting to
note that TAC has been criticizing the "Deep
State" since at least 2015.
The casualness with which much of Washington regards conflict and starting wars is only
comparable to the thoughtlessness of Europeans when they started World War I. Like now, that
war followed nearly a century of relative peace and prosperity. Both sides thought a war would
be "easy" and over quickly and were engulfed in it because of minor incidents instigated by
their small nation allies. It was started with a single assassination in Serbia. The situation
is similar now. America is hostage to the actions of a host of tiny countries possibly starting
a war. Think of our NATO obligations and promises to Taiwan and Israel.
America has become inured to the risks of escalation and Congress has ceded its war powers
to the president. The authority of war power was one of the most important tenets of our
Constitution, designed to prevent our rulers from irresponsibly launching conflicts like the
European kings. Witness now how casually Trump talks about starting a war with Iran, with no
thought of possible consequences, including blowing up oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, oil
and gas vital for the world economy.
For most Americans, war means sitting in front of their TVs watching the bombs fall on small
nations unable to resist or respond to our power. "We" kill thousands of "them" in easy battles
and then worry if a single American soldier is harmed. We don't viscerally understand the full
threat of modern weapons because they've never been used against us. This is not unlike World
War I, for which the countries engaged were wholly unprepared for a protracted siege war
against the lethality of new modern artillery and chemical weapons. All had assumed the war
would be over in weeks. I wrote about these issues after visiting the battlefields of the
Crimean war. (See " Lessons in
Empire")
And so we continue careening towards more conflicts which can always lead to unintended
consequences, ever closer to nuclear war. Meanwhile efforts for a dialogue with Russia are
thwarted by our internal politics and dysfunction in Washington.
The Trump Tower meeting was arranged by Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone, who said during
Congressional testimony reviewed by
Breitbart that he believes the June 9, 2016 meeting was a "bait and switch" by a Russian
lobbyist who promised "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, and admitted that he used hyperbolic language
on purpose to ensure that the meeting would take place.
"I, therefore, used the strongest hyperbolic language in order to secure this request from
Donald Trump Jr. based on the bare facts I was given," said Goldstone, a UK publicist and music
manager.
"It was an example of, I was given very limited information, and my job was to get a
meeting, and so I used my professional use of words to emphasize what my client had only
given bare-bones information about, in order to get the attention of Mr. Trump Jr. " -Rob
Goldstone
Goldstone then said " it appeared to me to have been a bait and switch of somebody who
appeared to be lobbying for what I now understood to be the Magnitsky act," - which sanctions
Russian officials thought to be involved in the death of a Russian tax accountant.
Fusion GPS associate Natalia Veselnitskaya, an attorney for Russian businessman and Fusion
GPS client Denis Katsy, said that Emin Agalarov - the son of Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov -
told her to contact his representative, Irakly "Ike" Kaveladze to set up the Trump Tower
meeting, which Kaveladze attended.
While both Agalarov and Katsyv opposed the Magnitsky act, Veselnitskaya worked only for
Katsyv, while approaching Agalarov and his associates to participate in the Trump Tower
meeting. Of ntoe, Agalarov organized the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow when it was
partially owned by Donald Trump.
Veselnitskaya said Agalarov told her to get in touch with Kaveladze about the meeting
because he had connections with the Trump team.
Veselnitskaya said she made a point of asking Goldstone -- who she mistakenly thought was
a lawyer -- whether it was OK to include Akhmetshin, given that he was a registered lobbyist.
Goldstone told her it was fine, she said. -
NBC News
On June 3, 2016, Goldstone sent an email to Trump Jr. on behalf of Emin Agalarov to set up
the meeting. Goldstone was described last July as "associated with Fusion GPS" by Mark Corallo
- spokesman for Trump's outside legal counsel, according to the
Washington Post .
"Specifically, we have learned that the person who sought the meeting is associated with
Fusion GPS , a firm which according to public reports, was retained by Democratic operatives
to develop opposition research on the president and which commissioned the phony Steele
dossier" -Mark Corallo
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting
offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would
incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its
government's support for Mr. Trump -- helped along by Aras and Emin.
Trump Jr. replied to Goldstone that " if it's what you say I love it especially later in the
summer ."
Breitbart News previously
reported that Russian-born Washington lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, who attended the meeting
with Veselnitskaya, evidenced a larger relationship with Fusion GPS and the controversial
firm's co-founder Glenn Simpson , according to Akhmetshin's testimony before the same
committee. -
Breitbart
Fusion's fingerprints are all over this...
Hours before Veselnitskaya attended the Trump Tower meeting to lobby Trump Jr. about the
Magnitsky act, she met with Fusion GPS co-founder
Glenn Simpson .
While most people know that Fusion GPS was paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the
infamous "Steele Dossier" - assembled by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, Fusion was also
working for a Russian businessman who wanted the Magnitsky act repealed, Denis Katsyv, and
Veselnitskaya was his lawyer who was given special permission by the Obama DOJ to enter the
U.S. to represent him.
In late November of 2017, The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross reported that
heavily redacted Fusion GPS bank records reveal DNC law firm Perkins Coie
paid Fusion a total of $1,024,408 in 2016 for opposition research on then-candidate Donald
Trump - including the 34-page dossier.
Ross also reported that law firm Baker Hostelter paid Fusion $523,651 between March and
October 2016 on behalf of a company owned by Katsyv
to research Bill Browder , a London banker who helped push through the Magnitsky Act.
Keep in mind, Veselnitskaya really doesn't like Donald Trump based on several archived
Facebook posts:
I'm unsure of the zeitgeist being proposed here but it sure sounds like you are offering
up the theory that the Deep State actually wanted Trump.
Yet he..."colluded"...among outside parties like the DNC funded Fusion, Perkins Coie, MI6
and then the FBI, the CIA, DNI and the DoJ to manufacture FALSE EVIDENCE.
In order to produce that "evidence" to a FISA court, in order to "legally" surveil (with
taxpayer funds, of course) the very same man (and his associates).
So as to, gather incriminating evidence against him (Trump) so he could be removed from
office in disgrace (almost immediately) because he is actually the one the Deep State wants
in office, as President of the United States.
The only one telling a different story is the guy who's trying desperately to stay out of
prison. Not the best witness. Particularly since he didn't remember for two years prior.
Reasonable doubt anyone?
So hold on this chick is employed by Fusion GPS- who was paid to concoct a dossier against
Trump- using Russian sources and UK intelligence, has dinner with the head of Fusion GPS the
night before the meeting, she gets the meeting offering information- within minutes changes
the course of the meeting- realizing something was wrong, Donald Trump Jr ends the meeting-
and the crime is Trump may have known about it??
It's a set up plain and simple. These fucking people are dirty AS SHIT- including the
Brown Clown Kenyan.
The big story is using opposition research- paid for- submitted to the court as proof to
secure a FISA warrant, and if they didn't know the information was false and paid for- what
the fuck is the "I" in FBI for??
April 2018...."Michael is in business, he is really a businessman, a fairly big business,
as I understand it. I don't know his business." He "also practices law." And, "I have many
attorneys. Sadly, I have so many attorneys you wouldn't even believe it." Cohen handled only
a "tiny, tiny little fraction of my overall legal work."
According to Adam Davidson of the New Yorker, Cohen was not part of the Trump
Organization's Legal Team in any sense. Alan Garten was the Trump Org's attorney on real
estate matters and Marc Kasowitz usually represented Trump in important cases.
Cohen's legal education was not stellar by any sense of the word. Cohen often told this
joke:
Q: "What do you call a lawyer who graduated with a 2.0?"
A: "Counselor."
Would Trump actually hire a guy like this to be his "personal" attorney? He was
effectively a trip-and-fall attorney up to the point he was brought into the organization by
Trump Sr. In truth, Cohen was a fairly savvy real estate investor and, as such, was appointed
Trump's "deal maker" for international projects. He was also Trump's personal "fixer." Cohen
made things 'go away.' You don't need to be an attorney to "make things go away."
It's doubtful that there was a legitimate "attorney/client" relationship there.
In any case, reports are out tonight that the Trump Organization's CFO has been subpoenaed
to testify in the Cohen investigation. Why? Allen Weisselberg's name came up in the recording
that Lanny Davis released yesterday. While everyone was getting their thongs in a twist about
who said "cash," the Weisselberg mention was actually the biggest shoe to drop on that tape.
Weisselberg has a thorough knowledge of all Trump's deals, payments and income.
It was setup by Democrats trying to tie Trump to Russia
The Russian lawyer was briefed before and after the meeting by Fusion GPS
The lawyer was offering dirt on Clinton, but lied and had another agenda
What people should care about, is that Democrats were attempting to frame Trump, in the
dirtiest campaign trick in my lifetime, and using it as a pretext to get the government to
spy on Trump. But you're right that the Dems care about it, because they think (magically)
that it means Trump was colluding with Russia. LOL Consider, wouldn't Trump be doing the USA
a great favor by obtaining Hillary's emails from Russia, which would prove that Putin was
blackmailing her and Obama. The Democrats are completely ignoring this narrative, as if it's
Trump's fault Putin has her emails. LOL
You're a funny guy...The perverse inquisition by the Purple Inquisitors strike again.
Nothing but a pathetic Op to "Sting" Trump by the Psyop Deep State Dip Shits. Cohen squeals
on cue, check his Cayman Isle bank account. Mr Mueller is beyond desperate as you should be
well able to relate to. Ha F'n Ha, but you'll always have Hillary's " "Precious" pee pee
dossier...
Trump knew about a meeting re: oppo research on Hellary. Which is the same crime Hellary
and the DNC did with the bogus Russo 8ntel from the Steele Dossier against What is good for
the goose not good for the gander.
It's like a George Webb wayback machine.
Also funny how no one ever mentions that the Podesta Group closed shop immediately after
George Webb filed his lawsuit against them.
Who were in bed with Fusion... who were in bed with the DNC... who were in bed with Awan.
Also funny how that fake ass Rosenstein Russian indictment stole George Webbs lawsuits
actblues paragraph almost word for word, but substituting Russians for Awan.
The Awan who also downloaded terabytes of congressional data From Pakistan, ffs.
My, what a wicked web they weave.
Cohen is a plant. The guy was in no danger of anything happening to him. Once the DOJ took
everything they broke the law for lawyer client confidentiality. Cohen could just stfu and
say nothing and no judge would prosecute him given he never broke a law... So why is he
singing like a bird? Because its all a fucking setup.
Who knows, maybe he disliked Trump, Maybe his bitch wife made him do it at the end of the
day its his word against a bunch of other people.
Incredible what they are allowing Mueller to do. He basically makes it clear to the person
that if they do not say what they want to hear they are going to ruin them financially, so
people say tell me what you want me to say, and Mueller backs off. I am blown away this
charade is being allowed to go forward. Mueller has done more to destroy the faith people
have in our justice system than any other figure in our modern history. Truly, Mueller should
be rotting in prison for a very long time since it is clear that he is attempting a silent
coup, the US and the American public be damned. This is all about Mueller and appeasing his
puppet masters.
But slowly, ever so slowly, this charade is unraveling. This is throwing his constituents
a bone.
How do I really feel? FUCK YOU, Mueller. Fuck you and your outsized ego.
Was just reported Cohen has already testified to Congress under oath Trump didn't know and
Lanny Davis is accusing the Trump team of leaking this made up story...Cohen getting the
treatment by Trump..
President Trump's former longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is prepared to tell
special counsel Robert Mueller that then-candidate Donald Trump knew in advance about the June
2016 Trump tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Fusion GPS associate Natalia
Veselnitskaya - who is not a fan of Trump Sr., and several other individuals - including Cohen
who says he was there, reports
CNN .
Pompeo told those democrat Senators where to shove it at the hearing. "Did You Ask Obama About His Private Meeting With Putin?", Mike Pompeo SILENCES Arrogant
Dem Senator
"The first thing to do is check the current risk of the portfolio," Koury said. "This will
help the investor determine what would be the worst case scenario if the market were to go into
a bear market. That means an investor will know how much they're willing to lose of their
portfolio, and they can determine whether or not that is comfortable for them."
Investors who don't plan to make withdrawals from their portfolios for decades could leave
their investments be until the next bull market, but investors planning on retiring soon might
want to limit their exposure. Koury recommends that investors should seek the help of either a
financial planner or software to see if a reallocation is necessary to help them meet their
goals.
Set Aside What You Need To Live
In addition to limiting their exposure to equities, retirees and other investors living off
of their portfolio's returns also should prioritize their living expenses over investing when
the market's down.
"If you are taking income from your portfolio, always be sure you have a couple year's worth
of withdrawals in money market or short term bonds," said Edward Snyder, certified financial
planner at Oak Tree Advisors. "The rest of your portfolio should be diversified among major
asset classes, including intermediate term bonds. This should allow you to ride out a down
market without having to sell stock investments while the market is down."
Mentally
Prepare Yourself
Your own bad investment decisions can cost your portfolio as much as market losses,
certified financial planner Patrick Amey thinks.
"Prepare yourself emotionally to 'ride it out' and tune out the noise," Amey said. "Yes,
your portfolio will go down in value. But you have the cash you need so you can give your
portfolio the time it needs to recover. Stay consistent with you allocation and don't make knee
jerk decision."
The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to have been finally
explained, and it's not good news for the Russia-gate faithful...
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of
Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19,
2017 saying there was "no big there there," he meant there was no evidence of collusion between
the Trump campaign and Russia.
It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month Page gave her
explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and
in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.
Strzok's apparent admission to Page about there being "no big there there" was
reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple
sources who he said were present during Page's closed door interview.
Strzok's text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI
subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some "there" -- preferably a big
"there" -- but had failed miserably. If Solomon's sources are accurate, it is appearing more
and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole
cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The "no there there" text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded
in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was
all but certain wasn't there.
Strzok during his public testimony earlier this month.
Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me
last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to
discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was
the first to dare report on its
implications.
Parry's article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating
comment to Page on there being "no big there there," is a case study in professional
journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok's text: " The hysteria over
'Russia-gate' continues to grow but at its core there may be no there there ." (Emphasis
added.)
As for "witch-hunts," Bob and others at Consortiumnews.com, who didn't succumb to the
virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, and refused to slurp the Kool-Aid offered at the
deep Deep State trough, have come close to being burned at the stake -- virtually. Typically,
Bob stuck to his guns: he ran an organ (now vestigial in most Establishment publications) that
sifted through and digested actual evidence and expelled drivel out the other end.
Those of us following the example set by Bob Parry are still taking a lot of incoming fire
-- including from folks on formerly serious -- even progressive -- websites. Nor do we expect a
cease-fire now, even with Page's statement (about which, ten days after her interview, the
Establishment media keep a timorous silence). Far too much is at stake.
As Mark Twain put it, "It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been
fooled." And, as we have seen over the past couple of years, that goes in spades for
"Russia-gate." For many of us who have looked into it objectively and written about it
dispassionately, we are aware, that on this issue, we are looked upon as being in sync with
President Donald Trump.
Blind hatred for the man seems to thwart any acknowledgment that he could ever be right
about something -- anything. This brings considerable awkwardness. Chalk it up to the price of
pursuing the truth, no matter what bedfellows you end up with.
Courage at The Hill
Page: Coughs up the meaning of 'there.'
Solomon's article merits a careful read, in toto . Here are the most germane paragraphs:
"It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was
debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level
of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller's special counsel team. [Page has since left
the FBI.]
"'Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?'" Strzok
wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more
attractive role: 'An investigation leading to impeachment?'
"A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: 'You and I
both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question. I
hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there.'
"So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative -- as well as
Rosenstein's decision to appoint Mueller -- apparently knew all along that the evidence was
going to lead to 'nothing' and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a
possibility of impeachment."
Solomon adds: "How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your
love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by
the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don't think
occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired
from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?"
The Timing
As noted, Strzok's text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.
The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through
an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted
in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special
prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.
Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative
efforts -- legal and other -- he could find no "there there"?
Comey's leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen.
Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by -- you guessed it -- the
ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.
In any event, the operation worked like a charm -- at least at first. And -- absent
revelation of the Strzok-Page texts -- it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey's best buddies, to be special
counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when
the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit
on them.
A Timeline
Here's a timeline, which might be helpful:
2017
May 16: Comey leak to NY Times to get a special counsel appointed
May 17: Special counsel appointed -- namely, Robert Mueller.
May 19: Strzok confides to girlfriend Page, "No big there there."
July: Mueller appoints Strzok lead FBI Agent on collusion investigation.
August: Mueller removes Strzok after learning of his anti-Trump texts to Page.
Dec. 12: DOJ IG releases some, but by no means all, relevant Strzok-Page texts to Congress
and the media, which first
reports on Strzok's removal in August.
2018
June 14: DOJ IG Report Published.
June 15; Strzok escorted out of FBI Headquarters.
June 21: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces Strzok has lost his security
clearances.
July 12: Strzok testifies to House committees. Solomon reports he refused to answer
question about the "there there" text.
July 13: Lisa Page interviewed by same committees. Answers the question.
Earlier: Bob Parry in Action
Journalist Robert Parry
On December 12, 2017, as soon as first news broke of the Strzok-Page texts, Bob Parry and I
compared notes by phone. We agreed that this was quite big and that, clearly, Russia-gate had
begun to morph into something like FBI-gate. It was rare for Bob to call me before he wrote; in
retrospect, it seemed to have been merely a sanity check.
The piece Bob
posted early the following morning was typical Bob. Many of those who click on the link will be
surprised that, last December, he already had pieced together most of the story. Sadly, it
turned out to be Bob's last substantive piece before he fell seriously ill. Earlier last year
he had successfully shot down
other Russia-gate-related canards on which he found Establishment media sorely lacking --
"Facebook-gate," for example.
Remarkably, it has taken another half-year for Congress and the media to address --
haltingly -- the significance of Deep State-gate -- however easy it has become to dissect the
plot, and identify the main plotters. With Bob having prepared the way with his Dec.13 article,
I followed up
a few weeks later with "The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate," in the process winning no friends
among those still suffering from the highly resistant HWHW virus.
VIPS
Parry also deserves credit for his recognition and appreciation of the unique expertise and
analytical integrity among Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and giving us a
secure, well respected home at Consortium News.
It is almost exactly a year since Bob took a whole lot of flak for publishing
what quickly became VIPS' most controversial, and at the same time perhaps most important,
Memorandum For the President; namely, "Intelligence Veterans Challenge 'Russia Hack'
Evidence."
Critics have landed no serious blows on the key judgments of that Memorandum, which rely
largely on the type of forensic evidence that Comey failed to ensure was done by his FBI
because the Bureau never seized the DNC server. Still more forensic evidence has become
available over recent months soon to be revealed on Consortium News, confirming our
conclusions.
Just think how questionable and sleazy their entire FBI careers must have been? We are
already at the point where malicious prosecution is a given, so how many cases are going to
be appealed based on their behavior? We know Mueller has been accused of evidence tampering
and malicious prosecution to protect Whitey Bulger and his other crooked agents, now there is
probably actual evidence.
"... For many years some have seen the US as a form of corporatism* - as a country run in the interests of the corporations and those who lead them. There is considerable evidence that in many senses they are correct. However to see Trump as the epitome of this 'rule by corporations' I think misses something important. Trump is different from what went before in important respects. ..."
"... The government of Donald Trump is different. It is a selective plutocracy , and with one important exception that plutocracy is selected by Trump. In that way it can also be seen as a democratic dictatorship , where the complexity of government requires some delegation of power to other individuals. Like many dictatorships, some of those individuals are the dictator's family members. ..."
"... The photo above is taken from an extraordinary recent event (watch here ) where Trump walks down a line of senior executives, who in turn stand up and say what they are doing for the US and pledge to do more. Each statement is applauded with a positive statement by Trump, as his daughter trails behind. These are top companies: IBM, Microsoft, General Motors etc. It is all a show, of course, but of a kind the US has never seen before. It seems indicative that this is not just a continuation of past corporatism but something quite different. These are corporate executives doing the President's bidding for fear or favour. ..."
For
many years some have seen the US as a form of corporatism* - as a country run in the interests
of the corporations and those who lead them. There is considerable evidence that in many senses
they are correct. However to see Trump as the epitome of this 'rule
by corporations' I think misses something important. Trump is different from what went before
in important respects.
The way business influenced politicians in the past was straightforward. Campaigns cost a lot
of money (unlike the UK there are no tight limits on how much can be spent), and business can
provide that money, but of course corporate political donations are not pure altruism. The
strings attached helped influence both Republican and Democratic politicians. It was influence
that followed the money, and that meant to an extent it was representative of the corporate
sector as a whole. The same point can be made about political lobbying.
The government of Donald Trump is different. It is a selective
plutocracy , and with one important exception that plutocracy is selected by Trump. In
that way it can also be seen as a democratic
dictatorship , where the complexity of government requires some delegation of power to
other individuals. Like many dictatorships, some of those individuals are the dictator's family
members.
A dictatorship of this form would not be possible if Congress had strongly opposed it. That it
has not is partly because the Republican party chooses not to oppose, but also because Trump
wields a power over Congress that can override the influence of corporate money. That power
comes from an alliance between Trump and the media that has a big influence on how Republican
voters view the world: Fox News in particular but others as well. The irony is that under these
conditions democracy in the form of primaries gives Trump and the media considerable power over
Congress.
The distinction between traditional corporate power 'from below' and the current Trumpian
plutocracy can be seen most clearly in Trump's trade policy. It would be a mistake to see
past US trade
policy as an uninterrupted promotion of liberalisation, but I think it is fair to say that
trade restrictions have never been imposed in such a haphazard way, based on such an obviously
false pretext (US surpluses good, deficits bad). Trump's policy is a threat to the
international trading system that has in the past been lead by the US, and therefore it is a
threat to most of corporate USA. Yet up till now Congress has done very little to stop Trump's ruinous policy.
The photo above is taken from an extraordinary
recent event (watch here ) where Trump
walks down a line of senior executives, who in turn stand up and say what they are doing for
the US and pledge to do more. Each statement is applauded with a positive statement by Trump,
as his daughter trails behind. These are top companies: IBM, Microsoft, General Motors etc. It
is all a show, of course, but of a kind the US has never seen before. It seems indicative that
this is not just a continuation of past corporatism but something quite different. These are
corporate executives doing the President's bidding for fear or favour.
All this matters because it creates a tension that could at some stage drive events. So far the
Republican party has been prepared to allow Trump to do what he wishes as long as didn't
require their explicit approval (i.e their votes in Congress), but it has not as yet bent its
collective agenda to his. (Arguments that it already has tend to look at past
Republican rhetoric rather than actions.) This uneasy peace may no longer become tenable
because of developments on trade, or Russia, or the mid-term election results. If enough
Republicans think their future is safer by opposing Trump rather than indulging him, they still
have the power to bring Trump to heel. But the longer the peace lasts, Trump's influence on the
Republican party will only grow.
* Readers outside the US may be confused by my use of the term corporatism: it is one of those
terms with many meanings. I'm using it in the fourth and final sense described
here .
Case in point:
An opinion piece on the Fox News website, by Dan Gainor makes note of the absolute media
carnage (not too strong a word in this case) concerning the reaction of the political
establishment and almost ALL media outlets (including Fox) to President Trump's conciliatory
tone struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Helsinki Summit, one week ago
today.
We have excerpted from his piece, adding emphasis:
A raging epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome broke out among reporters covering the
summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, as journalists
gave the American president hellish reviews for his performance in Helsinki at a joint news
conference.
No reporters knew what actually transpired in the main event of the day – the
private meeting between the two presidents. So journalists put themselves in the position of
critics, grading President Trump's news conference performance
USA Today
reported in a front-page story: " Every nation has an infamous traitor. And now, after a
news conference Monday in Finland, the term is being used in relations to the 45th president
of the United States. Donald Trump, master of the political insult, finds himself on the
receiving end. "
The New York Daily News screamed "OPEN TREASON" on its cover page with a cartoon showing
Trump holding Putin's hand and holding a gun in his other hand and shooting Uncle Sam in the
head. Really.
CNN host Fareed Zakaria wasn't satisfied with "treason" as a descriptor. "I feel like
treasonous is too weak a word, because the whole thing has taken on an air of such
unreality," he said.
Zakaria had lots of
company : CNN analyst Max Boot, MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, and, of course, former CIA
Director John Brennan, who now works for NBC
and MSNBC.
CNN presidential historian
Douglas Brinkley said "the spirit of what Trump did is clearly treasonous," and declared
that the president "came off as being a puppet of Putin."
The list of network reactions in Mr. Gainor's article is very long and deserves a careful
read. But all of those reactions and more led to this point :
The hellish outrage over the Helsinki news conference had its desired effect for now.
Newsweek posted a story on an opinion poll that
declared : "According to a new Ipsos poll, 49 percent of Americans said Trump was
"treasonous" during the summit and ensuing press conference, with only 27 percent
disagreeing."
In other words the viewing, listening and reading public did absorb this very unified
tirade. One of the most unusual aspects of this which we have reported on here, is that the
media's unity included many conservative elements. In all but a few cases, most notably that of
Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, even very respected conservative voices still bought into
"Russian meddling" as though this were some sort of issue. It really isn't, because as even
some of these hosts acknowledged, "everyone does it."
But as to why this is happening, the explanation really has to do with the establishment
reaction to a speech that President Putin himself gave several years ago about the situation in
the West. It is this speech that spurred most of the sanctions and actions taken against
Russia. It is NOT the "invasion" of Crimea or the 25 invasions of Ukraine that were reported
during the years 2014-2016. It is the alignment that the Russian President noted in the West,
and Russia's refusal to follow that same path.
Blackpilled offered this video
clip and a translation of the speech in English. We offer that clip and the relevant part of
the speech's transcript here.
It is of tantamount importance to understand that this is the main factor in all the
opposition against President Trump, because his presence threw a major monkey wrench into "the
plan."
2. The narrator of "BlackPilled is incorrect in attributing this speech as being given
"shortly after Trump was elected." The actual speech was given at the Valdai conference in
2013. If we consider this, and the timeline of events following – such as the Sochi
Olympics and the concurrent list of "scandal after scandal" concerning Russia, then the
pieces fall into place:
Another serious challenge to Russia's identity is linked to events taking place in the
world. Here there are both foreign policy and moral aspects. We can see how many of the
Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values
that constitute the basis of Western civilisation. They are denying moral principles and all
traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual. They are implementing
policies that equate large families with same-sex partnerships, belief in God with the belief
in Satan.
The excesses of political correctness have reached the point where people are seriously
talking about registering political parties whose aim is to promote paedophilia. People in
many European countries are embarrassed or afraid to talk about their religious affiliations.
Holidays are abolished or even called something different; their essence is hidden away, as
is their moral foundation. And people are aggressively trying to export this model all over
the world. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism,
resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis.
What else but the loss of the ability to self-reproduce could act as the greatest
testimony of the moral crisis facing a human society? Today almost all developed nations are
no longer able to reproduce themselves, even with the help of migration. Without the values
embedded in Christianity and other world religions, without the standards of morality that
have taken shape over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. We consider
it natural and right to defend these values . One must respect every minority's right to be
different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.
At the same time we see attempts to somehow revive a standardised model of a unipolar
world and to blur the institutions of international law and national sovereignty. Such a
unipolar, standardised world does not require sovereign states; it requires [slaves]."
And... anyone that is against America's unipolar hegemon must be removed - as this year's
new US military strategy proved, as Defense Secretary Mattis explained that fighting terror is
now on the back burner, because " we face growing threats from revisionist powers as different
as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian
models ... great power competition -- not terrorism -- is now the primary focus of US national
security."
It started the day that Putin said "no more" to US mischief and moved into Syria.
From there the coup in Ukraine was engineered in an attempt to neutralize the Black Sea
fleet supporting Syria, which was based in Crimea.
That was never going to be allowed to happen, but the usual suspects managed to lose their
shit anyway when they failed to capture Crimea in the coup and the fleet was able to continue
to assist Syria against US/Turk/Saudi-sponsored jihadis.
the coup de'tat in Ukieville occurred in late 2013/early2014 and Putin's speech to the UN
was Sept. 2015, where he asked: 'Do you (meaning the west) realize what you have done?", and
promptly a week later he starts bombing terrorists in Syria
I really couldn't give a good god-damn about whether or not he's a billionaire, a
gazillionaire or any other number... look, if Mark Fuckerberg can steal an idea from the
twins and make a few billion, I have NO issue with Vlad having all the loot he needs... no
questions asked, ever
He is not a multi-billionaire. That is just part of the anti-Putin propaganda campaign by:
Boris Berezovsky, Bill Browder, Mikhail Khodorovsky, Masha Gessen, George Soros and assorted
other (((Usual Suspects))), to attempt to isolate Russia and Putin from the global
"community".
Anti-Putin propagandists Masha Gessen and the Washington Post's David Ignatius's led the
charge on that one. The Palace is wonderful, but no one claims it belongs to Putin.
The whislterblower claims in the Wikipedia entry are unsubstantiated and appear to be
totally motivated by other business dealings that went bad. Similar to Bill Browder and the
Magninsky Affair.
Wait until we see Bill Browders client list. What Democratic insiders made the most from
his Hermitage hedge fund prior to his stealing the money and the tax money and paying off
those deep state Dems (including Soros) who helped make it happen. Can we charge some Mi6
fucks too? Magnitsky was killed by Browder to set the stage for his stories.
From then on, the Dems needed a Russian villain to demonize so the cover would stick...
Until Putin and Donald exposed the truth in Helstinky
No, Putin's speech didn't start anything, because most Americans were totally unaware of
it, since MSM rarely ever reports much about what Putin says. Instead, America has had a
hatred for Russia going back over 100 years, starting with the first Red Scare in 1917-1924.
Second Red Scare 1947-1957. . This current nonsense about the Russians makes Red Scare
#3.
Last weekend's release of a FISA warrant application to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter
Page was quite revealing - perhaps most of all because we learned that the FBI in relied heavily on
the Steele dossier, contrary to claims that it played a minor role.
What's even more troubling, as noted by Chuck Ross of the
Daily Caller
,
is
a report contained in a
new book
by two journalists involved in the ordeal, David Corn and Michael Isikoff, who state
that
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson had serious doubts about one of the sources used
in the Steele Dossier
.
Simpson called dossier source Sergei Millian a
"big talker
"
who
overstated his connections to Trump, and had a "fifty-fifty" chance of being accurate.
"Had Millian made something up or repeated rumors he had heard from others to impress Steele's
collector? Simpson had his doubts. He considered Millian a big talker," Isikoff and Corn, who are
good friends with Simpson. Isikoff notably wrote a
Yahoo! News
article containing claims
directly from Christopher Steele - a relationship the FBI lied about in Carter Page's FISA
application when they said Isikoff did not directly receive the information from the former MI6
spy, while Isikoff said he did in a
February podcast
.
Millian is both Source D and Source E in the dossier, according to The Wall Street Journal
and The Washington Post. In the 35-page document,
Source D alleged that the Russian
government is blackmailing Donald Trump with video of a sexual tryst with prostitutes at a
Moscow hotel room. Source E described an alleged "well-developed conspiracy of co-operation
between them and the Russian leadership."
"This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidate's campaign manger, Paul
MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries,"
reads the dossier. -
Daily
Caller
Millian
, meanwhile, operates a shadowy trade group called the Russian-American
Chamber of Commerce. He denies being a dossier source, though he has refused to speculate as to
whether he may have unwittingly provided claims that ended up in the report.
Millian did have one known link to the Trump campaign.
In late July 2016, he reached
out to George Papadopoulos
, the Trump adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the
FBI about the timing of his contacts with an alleged Russian agent.
Sources close to Papadopoulos have told The Daily Caller News Foundation that
he met
Millian for the first time several days after Millian reached out to the campaign aide on
LinkedIn
. Sources close to Papadopoulos have also said that
Millian offered
Papadopoulos $30,000 a month for a business deal that would require him to remain in the Trump
orbit.
Papadopoulos rejected the idea, according to TheDCNF's sources. -
Daily
Caller
Millian, a Belarusian American businessman, has denied being a Russian spy, though he does admit
to having Kremlin contacts, and told the
Daily Caller'
s Chuck Ross that he was one of the
"very few people who have insider knowledge of Kremlin politics...who has been able to successfully
integrate in American society."
While the 412-page release of Page's FISA application and subsequent renewals were heavily
redacted, GOP lawmakers who have seen less redacted copies say that the redacted portions don't
provide any evidence that they verified the dossier whatsoever, while it remains unclear what
efforts - if any, the FBI undertook to corroborate any of the claims.
What's more,
the FBI stated several dossier claims as fact within the FISA application.
For example, the FBI says in the application that Page secretly met with Kremlin insiders Igor
Sechin and Igor Diveykin during a July 2016 trip to Moscow - a claim directly out of the dossier,
which Page has vehemently disputed.
... ... ...
Another approach used to beef up the FISA application's curb appeal was
circular
evidence,
via the inclusion of a letter from Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
(NV) to former FBI Director James Comey, citing information Reid got from John Brennan,
which
was in turn from the Clinton-funded dossier
.
... ... ...
The FBI also went to extreme lengths
to convince the FISA judge that Steele ("Source
#1"), was reliable when they could not verify the unsubstantiated claims in his dossier - while
also having to explain why they still trusted his information after having terminated Steele's
contract over inappropriate disclosures he made to the media.
"Not withstanding Source1's reason for conducting the research into Candidate1's ties to
Russia,
based on Source1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby
Source1
provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source 1s reporting herein to be
credible
"
... ... ...
Millian, meanwhile, is Sure that Trump likes Russia, "because he likes beautiful Russian
ladies... He likes talking to them, of course. And he likes to be able to make lot of money with
Russians, yes, correct."
Trump also likes paying them to urinate on beds, according to Millian, allegedly.
So exactly who were the journalists Fusion GPS paid to pump the Russian narrative
in the very beginning?
Or is that still a state secret? I want goddamn names.
Update : The responses have begun. James Clapper spoke on CNN this
afternoon, calling Trump's actions "a petty way of retribution."
"Well, it's interesting news. I'm reading it and learning about it just as you are. I think
it's off the top of my head it's a sad commentary,"
Clapper said. "For political reasons, this is a petty way of retribution, I suppose for
speaking out against the president, which I think, on the part of all of us, are born out of
genuine concerns about President Trump."
"It's frankly more of a courtesy that former senior officials and the intelligence community
are extended the courtesy of keeping the security clearance. Haven't had a case of using it.
And it has no bearing whatsoever on my regard or lack thereof for President Trump or what he's
doing," he continued.
* * *
President Trump is exploring ways to strip several former Obama officials of their security
clearances over politicized statements, including John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Susan
Rice, and Andrew McCabe, according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Responding to a question about comments tweeted earlier in the day by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
that former CIA Director Brennan should have his clearance stripped, Sanders replied:
"Not only is the President looking to take away Brennan's security clearance, he's also
looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice and McCabe," said Sanders, reading
from a prepared statement, "because they've politicized, and in some cases, monetized their
public service and security clearances. Making baseless accusations of improper contact with
Russia or being influenced by Russia, against the President, is extremely inappropriate."
"The fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides
inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence."
Earlier in the day, Senator Rand Paul tweeted: "Is John Brennan monetizing his security
clearance? Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media
with his attacks on @realDonaldTrump ?"
Brennan, a senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, said that
President Trump's comments following the Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin
"rises to & exceeds the threshold of "high crimes & misdemeanors," adding "It was nothing
short of treasonous."
James Clapper, meanwhile, is an employee of CNN, while former FBI Director James Comey has
been traveling around the country peddling his book, telling people to vote Democrat - just not "
Socialist Democrat. "
07/23/2018 Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Republican representative, Trey Gowdy from South Carolina said that in 18 months, he has not
seen "one scintilla" of evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia. He added that if that
evidence existed, we could all be rest assured that it would have been leaked by now.
Since leaks from the White House are not few and far between since Donald Trump has taken
office, Gowdy is likely onto something here. There are leaks about everything and regarding
everything.
Leaks to the media have plagued Trump's presidency since his first day in office, and a
new report on leakers' motives opens a window into the extent of the subterfuge. "To be
honest, it probably falls into a couple of categories," one White House official
told Axios 's, Jonathan Swan . "The first is personal vendettas. And two is to make sure
there's an accurate record of what's really going on in the White House." Many of those with
ties and puppet strings connecting them to the deep state are actually in Trump's White
House, according to
The Washington Post.
A former White House official who, according to Swan, "turned leaking into an art form,"
said that "leaking is information warfare; it's strategic and tactical -- strategic to drive
[the] narrative, tactical to settle scores." –
SHTFPlan
And Gowdy seems to see the writing on the wall. Who was that said, "a lie told often enough times
becomes the truth?" (It was infamous Marxist Vladimir Lenin, FYI). That appears to be
exactly what Democrats and their lapdogs in mainstream media continue to propagate. If they
just repeat that Trump and Russia colluded enough times, the people will eventually buy that
lie without any evidence.
" I have not seen one scintilla of evidence that this president colluded, conspired,
confederated with Russia, and neither has anyone else, or you may rest assured Adam Schiff
would have leaked it, " Gowdy said on
Fox News Sunday as reported by The Daily Wire.
Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, has been among the most vocal of Trump haters.
As head of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff is privy to a lot of information that
others are not and leaks of information have streamed out of the committee. "That's why they've
moved off of collusion onto obstruction of justice, which is now their current preoccupation,"
Gowdy added alluding to the fact that if there was evidence of collusion, the public would have
seen it months ago
Gowdy, though, noted that after 18 months, there's been no evidence of any crime
committed. And now, the probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller appears to moving into
the sex realm. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, reportedly recorded a conversation with
Trump about a former Playboy model who claims Trump once had an affair with her.
That latest revelation, of course, has already leaked. So it does make sense: If anyone
had anything on Trump, it'd already be out there. –
The Daily Wire
The attorney for President Trump's former longtime personal attorney has given
CNN
a copy of a secretly recorded conversation between Trump and Cohen, in which they
discuss purchasing the rights to a Playboy model's claim that she and Trump had an affair.
McDougal, claims to have had a nearly yearlong affair with Trump in 2006, right before Melania
Trump gave birth to their son Barron. McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer for $150,000
as the 2016 presidential campaign was in its final months, however the tabloid sat on the story
which kept it from becoming public in a practice known as "catch and kill."
Cohen told Trump about his plans to set up a company and finance the purchase of the rights
from American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer.
"I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our
friend David,"
Cohen said in the recording, likely a reference to American Media head
David Pecker.
Trump interrupts Cohen asking,
"What financing?"
according to the recording.
When Cohen tells Trump,
"We'll have to pay."
Trump is heard saying
"pay
with cash"
but the audio is muddled and it's unclear whether he suggests paying with
cash or not paying. Cohen says,
"no, no"
but it is not clear what is said next.
-
CNN
The Enquirer's chairman, David J. Pecker, is a personal friend of Trump's, and McDougal has
accused Cohen of taking part in the deal.
By burying Ms. McDougal's story during the campaign in a practice known in the tabloid
industry as "catch and kill," A.M.I. protected Mr. Trump from negative publicity that could have
harmed his election chances, spending money to do so.
The authorities believe that the company was not always operating in what campaign finance
law calls a "legitimate press function," according to the people briefed on the investigation,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. That may explain why prosecutors did not follow typical
Justice Department protocol to avoid subpoenaing news organizations when possible, and to give
journalists advance warning when demanding documents or other information. -
New
York Times
While Trump never paid for the rights, Lanny Davis says that the recording, made in 2016, shows
Trump knew about the payment.
On Saturday, President Trump broke his silence over the recording, tweeting: "Inconceivable that
the government would break into a lawyer's office (early in the morning) - almost unheard of. Even
more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client - totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The
good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!" Trump tweeted.
Meanwhile, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani confirmed with the
New York Times
last week
that Trump and Cohen had discussed payments - and that "
there was no indication on the tape
that Mr. Trump knew before the conversation about the payment from the Enquirer's parent company,
American Media Inc., to Ms. McDougal
."
"
Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance
,"
said Giuliani, adding that Trump had previously told Cohen that if he were to make a payment
related to the woman, to write a check instead of sending cash so that the transaction could be
properly documented. "In the big scheme of things, it's powerful exculpatory evidence," Giuliani
added.
Cohen made a similar payment of $130,000 to porn star and stripper Stormy Daniels, whose real
name is Stephanie Clifford. Cohen said at the time "In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own
personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford."
Clifford - whose husband
just
filed for divorce
, is suing Trump over a nondisclosure agreement so that she can "tell her
story" (in the form of a book, we imagine), while she is also suing both Trump and Cohen for libel
after Trump called her statements "fraud" over Twitter, while claiming that Clifford fabricated a
story that she was threatened by a man after she went to journalists with the story of her affair.
Shortly before the 2016 election, former Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said that
McDougal's allegations were "totally untrue."
Honestly, no one cares except the libtards and democrats
if there is a difference. The men and women I know love
Trump because, among other things, he is not limp-wristed
like Bush and Obama were.
Americans care about jobs,
immigrants and terrorists.
"pay with cash" probably is just a response to the
word "financing". Just my guess of course, but
from the dialogue it flows logically, as in Trump
saying to himself "why finance it, just pay her
cash". Doesn't necessarily mean pay with currency
just means don't borrow the money. Besides, it
doesn't matter much in this context since the
lawyer said no, and there is no crime here unless
he said "pay her with campaign contributions".
Clinton paid Paula Jones, what, $850,000? And he
didn't even get the rights to the story.
Trump's negotiating genius on display lol.
"'pay with cash' probably is just a response to
the word 'financing'."
I would say 99%
probability that's what he meant. Lawyer: "we
need to talk about financing" Trump: "pay with
cash." He didn't mean a suitcase full of
bills. He meant "just write a check." Anyone
in business knows the terminology. Plus it's
not even clear WTF they are talking about.
I have no love for Trump, in fact I think
he's an asshole. But this is all so much ado
about nothing.
I have to admit I'm confused as to why he should
pay anything at all. Why not let the smoking hot
model tell the world you scored with her? What's
the downside here?
So this is the tape that Trump said he doesn't give a
crap about the release of, outside of the larger
question of EVERYONE'S RIGHT of lawyer-client
privilege?
Well just damn, it must be a smoker
that will finally lead to his impeachment ;-)
Well yeah...but these days ya just roll with what
they present, like..."past and former government
officials who are in a position to know have
confirmed that"...which invariably leads to, abuse
of authority, presenting falsified/manufactured
evidence to a court, withholding exculpatory
evidence to a court, stolen classified documents
after being fired, obstruction of justice,
perjury...ya know, the normal regular things progs
do to put their heads in the noose ;-)
It was FBI that raided Cohen's office so I'll
presume that's where this tape came from.
I'm
not going to start sticking up for the
maverick's lapses in fidelity, but holy crap,
the FBI/DOJ have been blatantly weaponized
against him and in charge of those outfits
are....Sessions and Wray?
Well yeah...but these days ya just roll with what
they present, like..."past and former government
officials who are in a position to know have
confirmed that"...which invariably leads to, abuse
of authority, presenting falsified/manufactured
evidence to a court, withholding exculpatory
evidence to a court, stolen classified documents
after being fired, obstruction of justice,
perjury...ya know, the normal regular things progs
do to put their heads in the noose ;-)
It was FBI that raided Cohen's office so I'll
presume that's where this tape came from.
I'm
not going to start sticking up for the
maverick's lapses in fidelity, but holy crap,
the FBI/DOJ have been blatantly weaponized
against him and in charge of those outfits
are....Sessions and Wray?
At least DJT has shown generosity toward his, um, friends. What did JFK do
to Marilyn? What did Teddy do to Mary Jo? LBJ had at least one mistress.
What did Bill Clinton call the gal in the blue dress, wasn't it "that
woman"? What did Obama call his wife, Michael if I recall correctly.
Poor
Jimmy Carter. All he ever had was a killer rabbit. He may have been totally
incompetent, but at least he was a decent guy while in office. Afterward,
unfortunately, not so much.
Broadcast of a recording that falls under attorney-client priviledge,
which is specifically exempted from use by anyone, period
recorded with single-party consent
from records siezed by a surprise raid by the FBI of the standing
president's attorney
as part of an investigation predicated on evidence completely
fabricated by the other party
discovered by a special group tasked
specifically keep privledged
information from being passed on,
by court order
the investigation is still ongoing so presumably all evidence is
sensitive
leaked by special counsel
Any one of these is a federal felony. The people behind this are willing to
break a
lot
of laws to make it happen. All to release a
recording that on the face of it is regarding a legal activity (a forebearance
contract.)
I saw a
Twitter thread between two journalists the other day which completely summarized my
experience of debating the establishment Russia narrative on online forums lately . Aaron
Maté, who is in my opinion one of the clearest voices out there on American Russia
hysteria, was approached with an argument by a journalist named Jonathan M Katz.
Maté engaged the argument by asking for evidence of the claims Katz was making,
only to be given the runaround.
I'm going to copy the back-and-forth into the text here for anyone who doesn't feel like
scrolling through a Twitter thread, not because I am interested in the petty rehashing of a
meaningless Twitter spat, but because it's such a perfect example of what I want to talk about
here.
Katz : Are you aware of what Russian agents did during the 2016 presidential election, by
chance?
Maté : I'm aware of what Mueller has accused Russian agents of --
are we supposed to just reflexively believe the assertions of prosecutors &
intelligence officials now, or is it ok to wait for the evidence? (as I did in the tweet
you're replying to)
Katz : Why are you even asking this question if you're just going to discard the reams of
evidence that have supplied by investigators, spies, and journalists over the last two
years?
Maté : Why are you avoiding answering the Q I asked? If I can guess, it's
cause doing so would mean acknowledging your position requires taking gov't claims on faith.
Re: "reams of evidence", I've actually written about it extensively, and disagree that it's
convincing.
Katz : Yeah I'm familiar with your work. You're asking for someone to summarize two years
of reporting, grand jury indictments, reports from independent analysts, give agencies both
American and foreign, and on and on just so you can handwave and draw some vague
equivalencies.
Maté : No, actually I've asked 2 Qs in this thread, both of which have been
avoided: 1) what evidence convinces you that Russia will attack the midterms 2) are we
supposed to reflexively believe the assertions of prosecutors & intel officials now, or
is it ok to wait for the evidence?
Katz : See this is what you do. You pretend like all of the evidence produced by
journalists, independent analysts and foreign governments doesn't exist so you can accuse
anyone who doesn't buy this SF Cohen Putinist bullshit you're selling of being a deep state
shill.
Maté : Except I haven't said anything about anyone being a "deep state shill",
here or anywhere else. So that's your embellishment. I'm simply asking whether we should
accept IC/prosecutor claims on faith. Mueller does lay out a case, that's true, but no
evidence yet.
Katz : No. You should not accept a prosecutor's claims on faith. You should read
independent analyses, evidence gathered by journalists and other agencies, and compare all it
to what is known on the public record. And you could if you wanted to.
Katz continued to evade and deflect until eventually exiting the conversation .
Meanwhile another journalist, The Intercept 's Sam Biddle, interjected that the debate was
"a big waste of" Katz's time and called Maté an "inverse louise mensch", all for
maintaining the posture of skepticism and asking for evidence. Maté invited Katz
and Biddle to debate their positions on The Real News , to which Biddle replied , "No thank you,
but I have some advice: If everyone has gotten it wrong, you should figure out who really did
it! If not Russia, find out who really hacked the DNC, find out who really spearphished
American election officials. Even OJ pretended to search for the real killer."
If you were to spend an entire day debating Russiagate online (and I am in no way suggesting
that you should), it is highly unlikely that you would see anything from the proponents of the
establishment Russia narrative other than the textbook fallacious debate tactics exhibited by
Katz and Biddle in that thread. It had the entire spectrum:
Gish gallop
-- The tactic of providing a stack of individually weak arguments to create
the illusion of one solid argument, illustrated when Katz cited unspecified "reams of
evidence" resulting from "two years of reporting, grand jury indictments, reports from
independent analysts, give agencies both American and foreign." He even claimed he shouldn't
have to go through that evidence point-by-point because there's too much of it, which is like
a poor man's Gish gallop fallacy.
Argumentum
ad populum -- The "it's true because so many agree that it is true"
argument that Katz attempted to imply in invoking all the "journalists, independent analysts
and foreign governments" who assert that Russia interfered in a meaningful way in America's
2016 elections and intends to interfere in the midterms.
Ad hominem
-- Biddle's "inverse louise mensch". You have no argument, so you insult the other
party instead.
Attempting
to shift the burden of proof -- Biddle's suggestion that Maté
needs to prove that someone else other than the Russian government did the things Russia is
accused of doing. Biddle is implying that the establishment Russia narrative should be
assumed true until somebody has proved it to be false, a tactic known as an appeal to ignorance
.
I'd like to talk about this last one a bit, because it underpins the entire CIA/CNN Russia
narrative.
As we've
discussed previously , in a post-Iraq invasion world the confident-sounding assertions of
spies, government officials and media pundits is not sufficient evidence for the public to
rationally support claims that are being used to escalate dangerous cold war
tensions with a nuclear superpower . The western empire has every motive in the world to
lie about the behaviors of a noncompliant government, and has an extensive and well-documented
history of doing exactly that. Hard, verifiable, publicly available proof is required.
Assertions are not evidence.
But even if there wasn't an extensive and recent history of disastrous US-led escalations
premised on lies advanced by spies, government officials and media pundits, the burden of proof
would still be on those making the claim, because that's how logic works. Whether you're
talking about law, philosophy or debate, the burden of proof is always on the party
making the claim . A group of spies, government officials and media pundits saying that
something happened in an assertive tone of voice is not the same thing as proof. That side of
the Russiagate debate is the side making the claim, so the burden of proof is on them. Until
proof is made publicly available, there is no logical reason for the public to accept the
CIA/CNN Russia narrative as fact, because the burden of proof has not been met.
This concept is important to understand on the scale of individual debates on the subject
during political discourse, and it is important to understand on the grand scale of the entire
Russia narrative as well. All the skeptical side of the debate needs to do is stand back and
demand that the burden of proof be met, but this often gets distorted in discourse on the
subject. The Sam Biddles of the world all too frequently attempt to confuse the situation by
asserting that it is the skeptics who must provide an alternative version of events and somehow
produce irrefutable proof about the behaviors of highly opaque government agencies. This is
fallacious, and it is backwards.
There are many Russiagate skeptics who have been doing copious amounts of research to come
up with other theories about what could have happened in 2016, and that's fine. But in a way
this can actually make the debate more confused, because instead of leaning back and insisting
that the burden of proof be met, you are leaning in and trying to convince everyone of your
alternative theory. Russiagaters love this more than anything, because you've shifted the
burden of proof for them. Now you're the one making the claims, so they can lean back and come
up with reasons to be skeptical of your argument. Empire loyalists like Sam Biddle would like
nothing more than to get skeptics like Aaron Maté falling all over themselves
trying to prove a
negative , but that's not how the burden of proof works, and there's no good reason to play
into it.
Until hard, verifiable proof of Russian election interference and/or collusion with the
Trump campaign is made publicly available, we are winning this debate as long as we continue
pointing out that this proof doesn't exist. All you have to do to beat a Russiagater in a
debate is point this out. They'll cite assertions made by the US intelligence community, but
assertions are not proof. They'll cite the assertions made in the recent Mueller indictment as
proof, but all the indictment contains is more assertions. The only reason Russiagaters confuse
assertions for proof is because the mass media treats them as such, but there's no reason to
play along with that delusion.
There is no good reason to play along with escalations between nuclear superpowers when
their premise consists of nothing but
narrative and assertions . It is right to demand that those escalations cease until the
public who is affected by them has had a full, informed say. Until the burden of proof has been
met, that has not even begun to happen.
* * *
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Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
The Russiagate conspiracy is exposed as a seditious fraud. The FISA warrant was attested
to by a who's who of these clowns. they swore the bogus, unvetted basis of the warrant had
been validated.
It no longer much matters what the MSM consumer, demo true believers think. It's headed to
prosecutions. The revocation of clearances threat is opening publicity shot on the
process.
We in the USSA live in what can rightly be called a target rich environment. I believe
that the corruption of not just the government (all levels) but the culture too -
particularly the MSM, Hollyweird, etc. - is so immense that pulling the plug on all the bad
guys would cause the country to crash. I keep hoping that it is simply a matter of picking
one target at a time and crushing it before moving on to the next one. Going along, for the
time being, with the "war on drugs" and lavishing $ on MIC could then be seen as a way of
mollifying certain opponents until the time to attack them rolled around.
If my suspicions are correct, there just aren't enough uncompromised good guys around to
tackle all the corruption at once. My big fear is that there are not enough uncompromised
good guys in positions to do anything at all.
"... The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers ..."
"... The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which everywhere
insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work or out of work,
we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power either. In the
name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy. ..."
I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe.
What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based
Society is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights
into what is happening to us and why.
We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every
society defines and shapes its own normality – and its own abnormality – according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make
people comply or to exclude them if they don't.
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is
that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better
off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control.
In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan
came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of
nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to
suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest,
leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
At the heart of this story is the notion of merit. Untrammelled competition rewards people who have talent, work hard, and innovate.
It breaks down hierarchies and creates a world of opportunity and mobility.
The reality is rather different. Even at the beginning of the process, when markets are first deregulated, we do not start with
equal opportunities. Some people are a long way down the track before the starting gun is fired. This is how the Russian oligarchs
managed to acquire such wealth when the Soviet Union broke up. They weren't, on the whole, the most talented, hardworking or innovative
people, but those with the fewest scruples, the most thugs, and the best contacts – often in the KGB.
Even when outcomes are based on talent and hard work, they don't stay that way for long. Once the first generation of liberated
entrepreneurs has made its money, the initial meritocracy is replaced by a new elite, which insulates its children from competition
by inheritance and the best education money can buy. Where market fundamentalism has been most fiercely applied – in countries like
the US and UK – social
mobility has greatly declined .
If neoliberalism was anything other than a self-serving con, whose gurus and
thinktanks were financed
from the beginning by some of the world's richest people (the US multimillionaires Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others), its
apostles would have demanded, as a precondition for a society based on merit, that no one should start life with the unfair advantage
of inherited wealth or economically determined education. But they never believed in their own doctrine. Enterprise, as a result,
quickly gave way to rent.
All this is ignored, and success or failure in the market economy are ascribed solely to the efforts of the individual. The rich
are the new righteous; the poor are the new deviants, who have failed both economically and morally and are now classified as social
parasites.
The market was meant to emancipate us, offering autonomy and freedom. Instead it has delivered atomisation and loneliness.
The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers . It destroys
autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. Through a magnificent paradox, it has led to
the revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta . It means falsification of statistics to meet the
diktats of unaccountable power.
The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which
everywhere insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work
or out of work, we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power
either. In the name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy.
These shifts have been accompanied, Verhaeghe writes, by a spectacular rise in certain psychiatric conditions: self-harm, eating
disorders, depression and personality disorders.
Of the personality disorders, the most common are performance anxiety and social phobia: both of which reflect a fear of other
people, who are perceived as both evaluators and competitors – the only roles for society that market fundamentalism admits. Depression
and loneliness plague us.
The infantilising diktats of the workplace destroy our self-respect. Those who end up at the bottom of the pile are assailed by
guilt and shame. The self-attribution fallacy cuts both ways: just as we congratulate ourselves for our success, we blame ourselves
for our failure, even
if we have little to do with it .
So, if you don't fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed
– it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.
"... Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. ..."
"... We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. ..."
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It
redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and
selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market"
delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should
be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective
bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a
natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility
and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more
equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that
everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired
their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and
class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their
failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's because you are
unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out,
you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing
field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall
behind become defined and self-defined as losers.
Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of
self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia.
Perhaps it's unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology has been most rigorously
applied, is the loneliness capital of Europe. We are all neoliberals now.
NATO's obsession with pulling in as many small, unstable and potentially extremist countries
in Eastern Europe as possible makes a world war inevitable rather than deterring one.
The reason for this could not be more simple or clear: Small countries start world wars and
destroy the empires and great nations that go to war to defend them. The Russian Empire, the
largest nation in the world in terms of area and the third largest after the British Empire and
China in terms of population at the time, went to war to defend Serbia from invasion by
Austria-Hungary.
This was a spectacularly unnecessary and catastrophic decision : Count Witte, the great
elder statesman of the czarist aristocracy was completely against it. So was the notorious, but
ultimately well-meaning mystic and self-proclaimed holy man Gregory Rasputin., He frantically
cabled Czar Nikolai II to not take the fateful decision.
Russia in truth owed Serbia nothing beyond a general feeling of solidarity for a fellow Slav
nation. The Serbian government's attitude towards Russia was far different. They were
determined to pull Russia into a full-scale war with Austria-Hungary to destroy that empire.
There is no sign that anyone in the Serbian government expressed any concern or regret then or
ever afterwards for the 3.4 million Russian deaths in the war, not to mention the many millions
who were killed in the Russian civil war, British, Japanese and French military interventions
and the terrible typhus epidemic of 1920 that followed.
Indeed, Serbia, in modern terms, was a terrorist state in 1914. Serbian Military
intelligence financed, organized and armed the Black Hand terrorist group that gunned down the
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Austro-Hungarian intelligence was so incompetent they were never able to prove the connection
at the time.
Britain's descent into the chaos of World War I was even more unnecessary than Russia's.
Britain had no treaty commitment to go to the aid of France but it did have a treaty
guaranteeing the security of tiny Belgium. However, that 1839 Treaty of London was 75 years old
– even older than the NATO alliance is today and the British were free to ignore it.
Instead, the British therefore went to war in 1914, amid an orgy of public sentiment to
defend "gallant, little Belgium."
But the kingdom of Belgium was not "gallant" at all. A mere four years before the outbreak
of war, international pressure had forced Belgium's King Leopold to end a 30 year genocide in
the heart of Africa, the Belgian Congo, later known as Zaire and today as the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
It was one of the worst genocides and examples of mass killing in human history. Leopold's
agents killed an estimated10 million people in the Congo over a 30 year period in order to
plunder it of all forms of natural resources and wealth.
Britain therefore went to war in 1914 to protect the successors to a truly genocidal regime
in tiny Belgium. Yet that conflict killed, crippled or led to the premature deaths from
injuries and hardships of one in three every male Britons between the ages of 18 and 45 when
the war started.
As the great British 20th century novelist C.S. Forester later observed in his book The
General, Englishmen through that conflict were dying at in greater numbers and at a faster rate
than at any time since the Black Death bubonic plague epidemic of the 1340s, 570 years
earlier.
The lesson that obsessive concerns about small and irresponsible countries needlessly pull
great nations and empires to their own destruction was retold a quarter century later when
Britain and France went to war with Nazi Germany to defend Poland in 1939.
1930s Poland, British historian Paul Johnson pointed out in Modern Times was a racist regime
whose systems of legal persecution against Russians, Ukrainians and Jews closely paralleled
that of Afrikaaner, white supremacist South Africa in the 20th century.
Yet the Poles, who had previously waged successful aggressions to seize territories from
Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and even from the Soviet Union in 1920, flatly refused to cooperate
with the Soviet Union, the only nation militarily capable at the time of deterring any Nazi
attack. The British and the French agreed with the Poles. Hence they failed to take the only
credible action that could have prevented the war.
Today, it is the United States that is treading down the fateful path that Czar Nikolai, the
British in 1914 and the Western Allies in 1939 all followed. The United States is committed to
defend Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It has recklessly extended serious commitments to
Ukraine and Georgia. In each case, the governments of these countries are often fiercely
anti-Russian and prone to extreme and irresponsible nationalist pressures. These are dangerous
commitments for a nuclear superpower to make.
Commitments to small nations by big ones are almost always dangerous. The tail wags the dog
and the greater nation sacrifices its own interests to maintain an empty prestige among small
countries that is not worth having.
Worse yet, large nations like Russia in 1914 or Britain and France in 1939 are drawn into
obscure local conflicts where they have no interests of their own and from which they can gain
no benefit. Yet they risk being pulled into world-spanning wars that can destroy their own
countries.
"Today, it is the United States that is treading down the fateful path that Czar Nikolai,
the British in 1914 and the Western Allies in 1939 all followed. The United States is
committed to defend Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia."
Really???!!!! That says it all about how full of shit this disingenuous this author
is....WHERE IS ISRAEL on this list???!!!
Although I agree with the premise that small nations can draw larger ones into conflict
they don't want, using Russia and Serbia during the first world war is a poor example to
prove that premise. The author, Martin Sieff is a globalist idiot who has no clue about
Russo-Serbia relations or the historical facts behind Russia's motives to enter the war.
Everything he said about Serbia goading Russia to come to their defense, Serbia being
ungrateful for Russian sacrifices made on their behalf and the Serbian government's
involvement or at least complicity as a "terrorist state" in the assassination of the Arch
Duke is baseless and false. His version of history can easily be debunked.
"Indeed, Serbia, in modern terms, was a terrorist state in 1914."
Yeah, because today when population fights occupying power it is called "terrorism". You
see, it is civilian population terrorizing soldiers, who are benevolently droning wedding
processions and funerals for civilians own good ... But then again, I am sure author would
also brand French resistance or Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as "terrorists in modern terms". What
is next, killing 100 civilians for every dead soldier like Nazis used to do?
Looking to force Moscow to stay on the sidelines, Austria turned to its ally, Germany. On
July 5, a week after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Kaiser Wilhelm II
gave Austria what it wanted: the promise of Germany's "
faithful support " if Russia came to Serbia's aid.
With the Kaiser's so-called
blank check in hand, Austrian officials began drafting an ultimatum to Serbia. The
rationale for the ultimatum was simple: attacking Serbia without warning would make Serbia
look like a victim. In contrast, an ultimatum would put the burden of avoiding war on
Belgrade.
"The ultimatum listed ten demands. The most significant were that Serbia accept
"'representatives of the Austro-Hungarian government for the suppression of subversive
movements" (Point 5) and that Serbia "bring to trial all accessories to the Archduke's
assassination and allow Austro-Hungarian delegates (law enforcement officers) to take part in
the investigation" (Point 6).
Perhaps. From the vantage point of 2014, the Austrian ultimatum looks far less insolent.
As Christopher Clark notes in
The Sleepwalkers , his magisterial history of the origins of World War I, Vienna's
demands in 1914 fell far short of the
demands NATO made on Serbia in 1999 over Kosovo . "
Funny how that "terrorists in modern terms" doesn't seem to apply to Albanian KLA, who
were actually branded as terrorists by FBI. Go figure...
Yeah, Serbs were just itching for the war, both in 1914 and in 1999, again nothing new
there...
"The Serbian Army
declined severely towards the end of the war, falling from about 420,000 [2]
at its peak to about 100,000 at the moment of liberation. The Kingdom of Serbia lost more
than 1,200,000 inhabitants during the war (both army and civilian losses), which represented
over 29% of its overall population and 60% of its male population . [13][14]
"
On December 13, 2017, the Italian news agency ANSA announced that 348 Italian soldiers who
were in the peacekeeping
mission in Kosovo and Metohija have died up to now
from the effects of uranium
radiation.
Sick soldiers died of various forms of malignant disease, and the Italian parliament
formed a special commission a couple of years ago, which undoubtedly found that the death of
soldiers came from various malignant diseases, leukemia, Hodgkin's syndrome and various
malignant tumors, without stating that their stay on Kosmet was crucial to their uranium
poisoning.
Thank you benevolent NATO, I guess?
PS:
14 women and children killed by US forces that in modern terms is not considered a
terrorist state.
An airstrike killed a number of Afghan civilians in the Kunduz province, where a family of
14 perished in the bombing. Local authorities said no one warned civilians about the coming
strike.
RT's Ruptly agency have filmed bombed-out houses in Chahar Dara district, Kunduz province,
that was hit by a Thursday airstrike Afghan authorities claim was carried out by the US-led
coalition. Footage shows a digger sifting through the debris at the site of the airstrike,
where 14 civilians, all said to be family members, had died.
Omerkhel, a local resident, described the scene, saying "their families are under the
earth, the machine is working to get them out of the damaged places." He added victims of the
bombing were women and children.
It really is not hard to destroy a country, and people's 3 personality traits, Id, Ego,
and Super-Ego can be used to spread false great ideas, and unnecessary grandiose moral
missions that boomerang on a country picking it apart at the seems. The bottom line is that
most people are hardly self aware, and are better used at cattle, because that's all their
good for.
What a non sense article, completely lacking any historical knowledge and facts. It are
the big countries fucking small countries over. Turkey and the Austrian Hungarian empire
fucked the Balkan countries over for centuries. Bosnia was illegally annexed by the Austrian
Hungarian empire. It was that that the Bosnian organization 'Young Bosnia' was opposing,
resulting in Gavril Princip killing the archduke. And Princip was a Yugoslav nationalist, not
a Serb nationalist. A big difference. They received their weapons from the Black Hand but the
Black Hand was a clandestine organisation in Serbia, a bit like rogue elements in the CIA
doing clandestine things. To suggest that Serbia lured Russia into war is bullshit. Austria
didn't even want to go to war with Serbia but was pushed so by Germany which had been
preparing for the great war for years. Serbia fought a defensive existential war in which it
almost lost half its male population. It is even bigger bullshit to suggest that Serbia or
Serbs were or are ungrateful. This author does not understand anything about Russian-Serbian
relations.
The big countries in Europe wanted to fight it out who was going to be boss in Europe and
the colonies and they used the argument of 'coming to the rescue of small countries' as a
reason.
Gratitude. Wish the West still knows meaning of the word...
Serbia entered WW2 by toppling it's government that signed non-aggression pact with
Germany. It was done in solidarity with Britain, France and also in line with Yugoslavian
communists goals. It caused delay in German operation Barbarossa, invasion of Russia, for 6
weeks that resulted in operation extending into Russian winter and the rest is history.
It is Hitler's diplomatic failure with Yugoslavia, which resulted in Operation 25 –
the invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941 – that is less recognized for its impact on
Barbarossa. Though a relatively small German army was deployed in Operation 25 and the
subsequent Greek campaign, it contained a disproportionate number of tanks. As Ewald von
Kleist, who would lead a panzer army in Barbarossa, later said, "The bulk of the tanks that
came under me for the offensive against the Russian front in Southern Poland had taken part
in the Balkan offensive, and needed overhaul, while their crews needed a rest."
So, why did Hitler reroute vital panzer units assigned to Barbarossa for a strategic
sideshow instead of securing a diplomatic solution? The truth was, he had reached a
diplomatic agreement with the Yugoslavian government – and it blew up in his face.
At the time Yugoslavia was a monarchy ruled by the regent Prince Paul on behalf of the
young King Peter II. Despite overwhelming popular support to remain neutral, with neighboring
Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria already in the German camp, Prince Paul felt he could no
longer hold out. A secret meeting between Hitler and the prince was held in Germany on March
4-5, 1941, and a deal was struck. On March 25, the Yugoslav premier and foreign minister
secretly arrived in Vienna and signed the treaty.
When Yugoslavia's nonaggression treaty with Germany was announced the next day in the
Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, Prince Paul and the government were promptly overthrown in a
popular uprising led by a number of Yugoslav Air Force officers with the support of the
Yugoslav Army. On March 27, King Peter II was officially installed as king, ending the
regency.
Hitler, meanwhile, was congratulating himself over his diplomatic victory with the
Yugoslavs. Then, at five minutes before noon on the 27th, as he was readying himself to meet
the Japanese foreign minister, he received a telegram from Belgrade informing him that the
ministers who had signed the treaty had been jailed and a new government had been installed.
At first Hitler thought the telegram was a joke. His disbelief quickly changed into what was
later called "one of the wildest rages" of Hitler's life.
The meeting with the Japanese foreign minister was postponed. Hitler called for a
conference with his top military leaders and Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop – one
ordered so hastily that some arrived late. Shouting that he had been "personally insulted,"
Hitler demanded that Yugoslavia be crushed with "unmerciful harshness and that the military
destruction be done in Blitzkrieg style." As for Barbarossa, he announced: "The beginning of
the Barbarossa operation will have to be postponed up to four weeks." It was a passage
underlined in the top-secret notes taken of the meeting.
Smart people, everywhere, are preparing for WWIII.
In the 1930s, my father, born 1916, and grandfather, born 1873, discussed which branch of
service he would, most likely, survive in, in the coming war. In the navy, my father built
roads and very large buildings. In CA, in 1943, they started a major building product and
were told, in 1945, the purpose was to invade Japan. Nagasaki and Hiroshima made that
unnecessary.
My father discussed what he had seen, in that war, and those, of you, who want war, should
have seen those things because sane people do not want those images in their heads.
You're wrong about this. Deep State and Alpha Predators enmesh guileless fools into
self-destructive wars. In the late 19th centuryThe British Monarchy wanted a new Thirty Years
war to destroy their rivals: Germany and Russia. They succeeded in that respect thanks to the
feckless Czar and Kaiser (each of whom were relatives of the Monarchy which suckered them
both into mobilization)... similar events occurred in WWII... Same with American genocidal
disasters, especially SE Asia, Central America and now the entire ME... culminating in
another possibly fatal conflagration, this time with Iran and possibly Russia/ China...
Anyone looking closely can see who is pulling the strings and for what purposes...
Regime Change Wars sap the life out of the aggressors, and that's what's happening to
America... The US is losing its Empire because of these contrived wars, just as the Brits
ultimately lost their creaky Empire despite the havoc Britain created.
The worst episode in human history beyond comparison is Islam´s unhinged rampage in
Asia, which brutally exterminated hundreds millions people and replaced their culture and
traditions by "a religion of peace". Browse Muslim invasion on India and you get a hint.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao were just Sunday school children.
"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope.
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars
and the losses in lives."
And we ignored it.
26 years later, in 1961
, President Dwight
Eisenhower - a retired
five-star Army general - gave the nation a dire warning
about what he described as a threat
to democratic government. He called it the
military-industrial complex
, a formidable
union of defense contractors and the armed forces.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
The potential for the
disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
"
In his remarks, Eisenhower also explained how the situation had developed:
"
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.
American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can
no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense;
we have been compelled to
create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions
."
57 years after that, we see exactly what they warned about...
and as far as we can
tell, only Ron and Rand Paul remain to argue against 'war' - even though President Trump talks of
'peace', the bombing continues -
and so here we are today, beholden to the US war machine...
Limited number of resources on planet pretty easy to explain endless wars.
Only so much arable land to feed the people on this earth. Is it a wonder why
rapefugees by the millions will come to places where they will be fed and
clothed for free. Its paradise for those backwards brownie turds. Not to
mention most of the drinking water of this planet is found in the Northern
Hemisphere
Things are so ass backwards that the same people who would send their
son to fight in wars overseas for bankers and who will salute the flag
as their son come homes with one leg, don't understand that the war they
are not fighting right now is on their home turf.
this time it's different, this time the useless eater idle worker bees don't
need guns to shoot each other. this time they can be humanely and quickly
vaporized to maintain our leaders' control
Why is it that I make a comment on ZH, like: "if the Deep-State were eliminated
somehow, the USA would enter into an economic depression!" Then a few days later I
see my argument writ-larger on ZH???
"War is a racket. It always has been... It is the only one in which the profits are
reckoned in dollars and the losses in [men's] lives." [there], fixed it for ya.
Men, being disposable, are a free commodity to the MIC which makes war the
profitable racket it is. Value men and war becomes obsolete want to make war
obsolete? Value men. Until then - welcome to perpetual war ~
"The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with
Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." 1984
A confidence game depends upon artificially induced confidence to elicit consent from the
conned. And the consent is almost always gained by convincing the conned they will receive an
unearned gain in exchange for their consent. In other words, the con plays off the conned
person's greed and vice.
Other more complicated cons (such as those played by the sociopath powers that be) may
introduce fear and anger into the equation. Regardless of the leverage applied, the conned
plays an integral part in the con. While we helpfully label the conned as an ego soothing
victim of a crime , the word ' victim' begs the question of what exactly is a
victim if the victim played into, and along with, the overall con.
Maybe we should say we were seduced. You know, change the name to make it more palatable. It
sounds so much better thinking we were compelled beyond our control by an irresistible force to
give our consent.
There is an implicit and (usually) unspoken agreement between those running the con and
those taken by the con which promises the conned will be rewarded for his, her or their
participation. And the word rewarded doesn't necessarily mean receiving a gain. The reward
could actually mitigate or remove an already expected or threatened loss, real or
imaginary.
If we were to give those last few sentences some deeper thought, the reader might begin to
understand how governments, multinational corporations and even so-called nonprofit
organizations, controlled by a few key sociopaths, manipulate our artificially inflated fears
along with our dreams (aka the carrot and the stick) to induce consent, or at least no
resistance, to their destructive (and profitable) socioeconomic policies.
Enjoyed the article. When someone expresses thoughts that I agree with so readily, I try
to find things that I would make clearer for me. It is almost like if someone thinks exactly
like me, I look for differences that declare my own individuality.
It is difficult to explain the way you think and feel about the world, and I appreciate
your efforts. My nature is to fight back against it all, arduous task as I get older. It is a
lot easier to say to yourself that you just don't care anymore.
""Life is crazy, people are strange, locked in tight but I'm out of range, I used to care,
but things have changed."
As Gloria Steinem used to say, "The truth shall set you free. But first, it will piss you
off."
Cog, I have tried to say what you said, in other fora, and it's always met with gasps of
disbelief. I tell them "So, you're saying you just don't like his management style, because
you didn't complain about Obama's lies, war crimes, corruption, etc." usually in reply to
someone's comment that the president is stipid, crazy, and/or generally wrong... I may
bookmark this for future reference on such occasions.
Here we are in the future. Now where did I leave my rocket belt?
Some more smallish impacts here, but now, with no spare capacity and stocks heading down,
everything is likely to be proportionally more important than before: Hibernia (130 kbpd
Brent like oil) looks set for 40 day turn around in September; Cameroon is heading for civil
war, which could hit its production (70 kbpd) and Chad's exports (130 kbpd); Phoenix field
FPSO in GoM (30 kbpd) will be off station for two months in early 2019. And what's the
biggest news story that some of the trade mags. could come up with this week: a 4000 bpd well
(and I'd guess very short lived) started up a couple of months early in the GoM.
Uh, Thomas, that is exactly why so many people, including and especially Democrats, did not
vote for Hillary. Because she was exactly that kind of clever creature. Even without having
both houses of Congress in her party, the damage she could have done would have been profound.
Her husband Bill did more to advance the deregulation of financial markets and neoliberalism
than many a Republican in his ruthless pursuit of self-interest.
And Hillary showed a ruthless disregard for the people in pursuit of power in the way in
which she manipulated the elite insiders in her party to crush progressives and the rising
populism which threatened the money flows to the corporate Democratic pockets from Wall
Sttreet's Big Money.
Not to mention how she and her crew, even while not in power, can whip up hysteria like
Russiagate to take the public eye off the shocking revelations in their emails. But the
credibility trap keeps so many people from accepting this.
And if you want to know who the members of the Deep State are, they are the ones against
whom no criticism, not even skeptical doubt, can be permitted or tolerated by the punditry
class.
It is unpatriotic not to trust them, blindly. No matter what they say, no matter how little
evidence they may provide to back it up. No matter what lies they have been caught in recent
memory.
And we are seeing quite a bit of that sort of establishment outrage at the very kind of
skepticism that keeps a democracy healthy, and secures it from the abuse of official power.
The Wall Street Journal
continues to counter the liberal
mainstream media's Trump Derangement Syndrome , dropping uncomfortable truth-bombs and
refusing to back off its intense pressure to get to the truth and hold those responsible,
accountable (in a forum that is hard for the establishment to shrug off as 'Alt-Right' or
'Nazi' or be 'punished' by search- and social-media-giants) .
And once again Kimberley
Strassel - who by now has become the focus of social media attacks for her truth-seeking
reporting - does it again this morning, as she points out - after his 'treasonous' outbursts,
that Obama's CIA Director John Brennan acknowledges that it was him egging on the FBI's probe
of Trump and Russia.
The Trump-Russia sleuthers have been back in the news, again giving Americans cause to
doubt their claims of nonpartisanship. Last week it was Federal Bureau of Investigation agent
Peter Strzok testifying to Congress that he harbored no bias against a president he still
describes as "horrible" and "disgusting." This week it was former FBI Director Jim Comey
tweet-lecturing Americans on their duty to vote Democratic in November.
But the man who deserves a belated bit of scrutiny is former Central Intelligence Agency
Director John Brennan . He's accused President Trump of "venality, moral turpitude and
political corruption," and berated GOP investigations of the FBI. This week he claimed on
Twitter that Mr. Trump's press conference in Helsinki was "nothing short of treasonous." This
is rough stuff, even for an Obama partisan.
That's what Mr. Brennan is -- a partisan -- and it is why his role in the 2016 scandal is
in some ways more concerning than the FBI's. Mr. Comey stands accused of flouting the rules,
breaking the chain of command, abusing investigatory powers. Yet it seems far likelier that
the FBI's Trump investigation was a function of arrogance and overconfidence than some
partisan plot. No such case can be made for Mr. Brennan. Before his nomination as CIA
director, he served as a close Obama adviser. And the record shows he went on to use his
position -- as head of the most powerful spy agency in the world -- to assist Hillary
Clinton's campaign (and keep his job).
Mr. Brennan has taken credit for launching the Trump investigation. At a House
Intelligence Committee hearing in May 2017, he explained that he became "aware of
intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons." The
CIA can't investigate U.S. citizens, but he made sure that "every information and bit of
intelligence" was "shared with the bureau," meaning the FBI. This information, he said,
"served as the basis for the FBI investigation." My sources suggest Mr. Brennan was
overstating his initial role, but either way, by his own testimony, he was an Obama-Clinton
partisan was pushing information to the FBI and pressuring it to act.
More notable, Mr. Brennan then took the lead on shaping the narrative that Russia was
interfering in the election specifically to help Mr. Trump - which quickly evolved into the
Trump-collusion narrative. Team Clinton was eager to make the claim, especially in light of
the Democratic National Committee server hack. Numerous reports show Mr. Brennan aggressively
pushing the same line internally. Their problem was that as of July 2016 even then-Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't buy it. He publicly refused to say who was
responsible for the hack, or ascribe motivation. Mr. Brennan also couldn't get the FBI to
sign on to the view; the bureau continued to believe Russian cyberattacks were aimed at
disrupting the U.S. political system generally, not aiding Mr. Trump.
The CIA director couldn't himself go public with his Clinton spin -- he lacked the support
of the intelligence community and had to be careful not to be seen interfering in U.S.
politics. So what to do? He called Harry Reid. In a late August briefing, he told the Senate
minority leader that Russia was trying to help Mr. Trump win the election, and that Trump
advisers might be colluding with Russia. (Two years later, no public evidence has emerged to
support such a claim.)
But the truth was irrelevant. On cue, within a few days of the briefing, Mr. Reid wrote a
letter to Mr. Comey, which of course immediately became public. "The evidence of a direct
connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues
to mount," wrote Mr. Reid, going on to float Team Clinton's Russians-are-helping-Trump
theory. Mr. Reid publicly divulged at least one of the allegations contained in the infamous
Steele dossier, insisting that the FBI use "every resource available to investigate this
matter."
The Reid letter marked the first official blast of the Brennan-Clinton collusion narrative
into the open. Clinton opposition-research firm Fusion GPS followed up by briefing its media
allies about the dossier it had dropped off at the FBI. On Sept. 23, Yahoo News's Michael
Isikoff ran the headline: "U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and
Kremlin." Voilà. Not only was the collusion narrative out there, but so was evidence
that the FBI was investigating.
In their recent book "Russian Roulette," Mr. Isikoff and David Corn say even Mr. Reid
believed Mr. Brennan had an "ulterior motive" with the briefing, and "concluded the CIA chief
believed the public needed to know about the Russia operation, including the information
about the possible links to the Trump campaign." (Brennan allies have denied his aim was to
leak damaging information.)
Clinton supporters have a plausible case that Mr. Comey's late-October announcement that
the FBI had reopened its investigation into the candidate affected the election. But Trump
supporters have a claim that the public outing of the collusion narrative and FBI
investigation took a toll on their candidate .
And as Strassel so poignantly concludes:
Politics was at the center of that outing, and Mr. Brennan was a ringmaster. Remember that
when reading his next "treason" tweet.
This all boils down to one simple thing: A failed coup d'état.
I really is just that. Once that very concept begins to take root in the populace, it'll
counter the 'conspiracy theory' mumbo jumbo dismissals the MSM keeps pushing.
This was a power grab that failed, and as each day unfolds, we see that the very top of
the power structure was attempting to subvert the will of the people, and destroy a duly
elected President. This is nothing short of sedition and treason. I cannot wait until the
tables turn on the pundits and powerful elites. When the ground swell accepts this very
simple fact, no amount of shit shoveling excuses and dismissals will be enough.
"we are headed for some Bladerunner style dystopian future Hitler could only dream of"
Good post, all true including Japan being forced to attack Pearl Harbour by Eisenhouwer's
economic sanctions, EXCEPT you need to seriously question your information on Hitler's role
in WWII.
Check out the amazing revisionist history series on WWII "HITLER: THE GREATEST STORY NEVER
TOLD" by Dennis Wise:
Mrs Clinton lost. That was the shot heard 'round the world. Everything before Nov 8 was
maneuvering for position in her administration, or buying a seat at the table. Since then
it's been outraged denial and maneuvering for an escape route.
Her not winning was the unspeakable thing. Bill knew though.
Bigger than sedition - it is massive conspiracy to use every branch of government &
MSM to reach Brennan's goals - as Schumer said - these guys get what they want -
John Dulles had Intel Agencies control for JFK's murder but not every branch of
government
Bobby was going to reopen the Warren Commission which Dulles was the defacto head and
controlled the discovery, data and conclusions - The Martin Luther King Murder was used a
diversion - back to back - from the single purpose to get Bobby stopped
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort or organization
through subversion, obstruction, disruption or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a
saboteur. (Wiki)
Brennan is the REAL SOURCE of the Russian Election meddling story. And Brennan is a water
boy for the British Royals, who still run everything behind the scenes along with their
banker buddies.
That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. "There's no big there there," Strzok
texted.
The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein
named special counselRobert Mueller to oversee an investigation into
alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.
Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to
the evidence against the Trump campaign.
This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say -- but Page, during a
closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the
message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple
eyewitnesses.
The admission is deeply consequential. It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome powers
of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving the
investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was "there."
By the time of the text and Mueller's appointment, the FBI's best counterintelligence agents
had had plenty of time to dig. They knowingly used a
dossier funded by Hillary Clinton 's campaign -- which contained
uncorroborated allegations -- to persuade the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
court to issue a warrant to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page (no relation to Lisa
Page).
They sat on Carter Page's phones and emails for nearly six months without getting evidence
that would warrant prosecuting him. The evidence they had gathered was deemed so weak that
their boss, then-FBI Director James Comey , was
forced to admit to Congress after being fired by Trump that the core allegation remained
substantially uncorroborated.
In other words, they had a big nothing burger. And, based on that empty-calorie dish,
Rosenstein authorized the buffet menu of a special prosecutor that has cost America millions of
dollars and months of political strife.
The work product Strzok created to justify the collusion probe now has been shown to be
inferior : A Clinton-hired contractor produced multiple documents accusing Trump of wrongdoing
during the election;
each was routed to the FBI through a different source or was used to seed news articles
with similar allegations that further built an uncorroborated public narrative of Trump-Russia
collusion. Most troubling, the FBI relied on at least one of those news stories to justify the
FISA warrant against Carter Page.
That sort of multifaceted allegation machine, which can be traced back to a single source,
is known in spy craft as "circular intelligence reporting," and it's the sort of bad product
that professional spooks are trained to spot and reject.
But Team Strzok kept pushing it through the system, causing a major escalation of a probe
for which, by his own words, he knew had "no big there there."
The answer as to why a pro such as Strzok would take such action has become clearer, at
least to congressional investigators. That clarity comes from the context of the other emails
and text messages that surrounded the May 19, 2017, declaration.
It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day was debating whether
they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant
director (AD) or join Mueller's special counsel team.
"Who gives a f*ck, one more AD like [redacted] or whoever?" Strzok wrote, weighing the
merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: "An
investigation leading to impeachment?"
Lisa Page apparently realized the conversation had gone too far and tried to reel it in.
"We should stop having this conversation here," she texted back, adding later it was
important to examine "the different realistic outcomes of this case."
A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: "You and I both
know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question. I hesitate
in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."
So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative -- as well as Rosenstein's
decision to appoint Mueller -- apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to
"nothing" and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of
impeachment.
Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional
investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation
forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional
training told them it had "no big there there."
And that, by definition, is political bias in action.
How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred
for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI
cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don't think occurred,
but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your
job.
Who directed, encouraged Rosenstein to authorize the probe? Did he do it on his own accord
based on previous investigations, was he pushed by Comey? Just where did the idea come from
and based upon what? (I forgot or never really knew)
It all starts with Brennan, and the people he answers to.
Then there's this:
'Intel Operative who Altered Obama's Passport Records Turned FBI Informant on Boss John
Brennan, Then Turned Up Murdered in D.C.'
"A key witness in a federal probe into Barack Obama's passport information stolen and
altered from the State Department was gunned down and killed in front of a District church in
D.C.
Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was
found late at night slumped dead inside a car. He was reportedly waiting to meet with FBI
agents about his boss John Brennan."
The other fascinating thing is, Strzoks dad , who he was, where he has been and doing in
the past.
He was in Iran when the revolution happened working for, ahem, Bell Helicopter. He was
also in Burkina Faso doing "charity work" just as he was the Director later on for Catholic
Relief Services in...now wait for it...Haiti....lol.
In the infamous words of Tom Brokaw & Charlie Rose "We really don't know who he is or
what he believes." ;-)
Y' all have good comments as usual and you're generally right, but there's a big problem
in that almost 60% of 'murica is not paying attention. Half of those are airheads more
worried about the minivan having enough gas to get to all the soccer games tomorrow and which
McDonald's is closer to the fields. They have four buttons on the radio set to NPR and thus
the resultant brain rot. The other half are libtards with no brains to rot. They could find
Hillary with a bloody knife in her hand standing over five dead children and convict her of
nothing more than having strange ideas about breakfast.
Brennan is pushing back for one reason - he's guilty as sin and doesn't want what he's
done found out. Trying to setup Trump with spies, spying on Trump's campaign, and covering up
for the hacking of Hillary's server, acts of treason, are likely his lesser sins.
Watergate times a billion: The use of a fully weaponized police state against a domestic
political opponent. They committed numerous serious crimes in the process, and being arrogant
pricks, left a wide paper trail....a trail that leads to the White House as well as Her Fury,
Hillary Clinton.
We need the meeting notes. Brennan ran the thing out of Langley. I'm sure they kept as
many notes as the Stasi did.
Jarrett and Rice, the most likely conduits to Obama and Biden.
The real question now is, Did Mueller get rid of the lovebirds because of their texts or
because they didn't think there was any there there and he need people that would be willing
to find a there where there was no there there?
Think two friends anywhere else in the USA discussed a Trump impeachment when news came
out on an investigation? Think they came to the conclusion there is nothing there and
impeachment wouldn't happen? I can testify it happened in my simple household.
Strozk's comment " If I thought it was likely, I'd be there no question." infers that he
wasn't "there". This conversation points to nothing except their personal distaste for Trump
which we already knew. I still see nothing showing any wrong doing. Think Elliot Ness was
happy whenever they got evidence on Capone? Think they never talked about getting him over
lunch with fellow agents? Prosecutors and investigators don't have to like the people they
are looking at and usually probably don't. It is only a problem if it caused them to be
impartial in the investigation which the IG says there is no evidence of in this case.
The bottom line i get from your side is that no one who is partisan should have any role
in investigating someone on the other side. Should we just limit it to people who support
that side? if we can find intelligent, fair people who are not partisan shouldn't we make
them our leaders and just let them decide everything?
Who should be able to investigate something like the NRA using a spy to funnel money to
someones campaign? Rudy?
I don't have a link and I don't think anyone here is going to doubt it, but I read today
where new emails indicate the Obama White House started illegally investigating Trump in
2015.
So many outrageous activities are being uncovered on an almost daily basis I doubt this
gets much traction but what an outrage.
I don't have a link and I don't think anyone here is going to doubt it, but I read today
where new emails indicate the Obama White House started illegally investigating Trump in
2015.
So many outrageous activities are being uncovered on an almost daily basis I doubt this
gets much traction but what an outrage.
The FBI M.O. is the use of Form 302 interrogations to entrap suspects. Using the threat of
prosecution to compel auxiliary parties to become witnesses for the DOJ. It's very simple:
interview several people about what was said or transpired at an earlier time. If there are
any disagreements you could prosecute any of them for lying to the FBI. Worse, as was seen
with McCabe/Flynn, the FBI will claim you said something, which you might deny at trial, but
the jury will believe the two FBI lying FBI agents who questioned you without a
recording.
Struck had been on the Trump Collusion Case for about a year before he said "there is no
there there."
About a year earlier (2016), he had just finished up clearing Hillary and was headed off
to London to start trying to hang Trump---probably to meet Steele, or maybe the fat turd
professor they hired to hustle the Trump hangers-on.
Then, he was excited then to be going after Trump. He texted Page then that "THIS
MATTERS"!
What did he find in that first year? NOTHING.
Same thing Mueller has found in the second year and into the third. NOTHING.
It is significant that Presidents Putin and Trump have both spoken out against "haters"
among America's political establishment who would rather see conflict between Russia and the
United States instead of a normalization of bilateral relations.
Following their landmark, successful summit this week in Helsinki, Putin and Trump
separately made public comments deploring the hostile hysterical reaction emanating from broad
sections of the US political establishment and its dutiful, controlled news media.
Speaking in Moscow to his diplomatic corps, President Putin warned that there were "powerful
forces" within the US which are ready to sacrifice the interests of their country and indeed
the interests of world peace in order to pursue selfish ambitions.
For his part, Trump also slammed opponents in the US who "hated" to see him having a good
meeting with Putin. "They would rather see a major confrontation with Russia, even if that
could lead to war," said the American president.
That's it in a nutshell. Rather than welcoming the opening of a cordial dialogue between the
US and Russia, the American political establishment seems to desire the deepening of already
dangerous tensions between the world's two nuclear superpowers. If that's not deranged, then
what is?
Significantly, the hostile reaction was overwhelmingly on the American side. Russians, by
and large, welcomed the long-overdue summit between Trump and Putin, and the potential
beginning of a new spirit of dialogue and partnership on a range of urgent global problems.
Problems including arms control, nuclear proliferation, and working out political settlement to
conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korea Peninsula.
Few people would believe that these problems can be resolved easily. But the main thing is
that the leaders of the US and Russia are at least attempting to open a dialogue for
understanding and political progress. That in itself is a breakthrough from the impasse in
bilateral relations which have frozen into a new Cold War since the previous US
administration.
We dare say that most citizens of the world would also endorse this effort by Trump and
Putin at improving the relations between the US and Russia.
Significantly too, according to recent polls, most ordinary Americans seem to be agreeable
or neutral about Trump's diplomatic engagement with Russia. According to a Gallup poll out this
week, the vast majority of US citizens are far more concerned by economic woes than they are by
anything untoward in American-Russian relations.
Thus, what we are seeing in the explosion of hostility towards the Trump-Putin summit is
twofold. It is an American phenomenon, and secondly, it is an angst that animates only the
political class in Washington and the news media corporations. This constituency, it is fair to
say, is an elite faction within the US, albeit extremely powerful, made up of Washington
politicos, the state intelligence apparatus, the corporate media and think tanks, and the deep
state establishment of imperial planners and strategists. In short, this constituency is what
some observers call the "War Party" that transcends the US ruling class.
Any reasonable person would have to welcome the friendly rapport engendered between Trump
and Putin, and at least their initial commitment to working together on major matters of global
security. The dangerous impasse of recent years in which dialogue was absent must be overcome
for the sake of world peace.
Nevertheless, what has become crystal clear this week following the Helsinki summit is the
"War Party" within the US is more determined than ever to sabotage any rapprochement with
Russia.
No sooner had Trump returned to the US, he was assailed with a tidal wave of vilification
for having met Putin in a mutual, agreeable manner. The most disturbing aspect was the
recurring slander denigrating Trump as a "traitor". The hysterical name-calling was conveyed by
all the major news media, citing former intelligence officials and politicians from both
Democrat and Republican parties.
Which again shows that in the US there is really only one party, the War Party.
President Trump was evidently forced into making an embarrassing U-turn over his views
expressed in Helsinki. He made an unconvincing disavowal of statements made alongside Putin.
Trump had been pilloried for appearing to dismiss allegations of Russian interference in the US
elections while he was in Helsinki. Within 24 hours, he was forced into making a retraction,
saying that he did – kind of – believe that Russia had meddled in US democracy.
What Trump was subjected to by the US establishment was akin to the worst years of
McCarthyite Red-Baiting as seen during the Cold War in the 1950s and 60s, when Americans were
mercilessly humiliated and ostracized for being "Communist sympathizers". Today, official
American paranoia is back with a vengeance. In truth, it never went away.
To be fair to Trump he has not completely capitulated to the American derangement syndrome.
He has since said that he is looking forward to holding a second meeting with his Russian
counterpart and continuing their promises of partnership as announced in Helsinki.
However, it is instructive that the American president is, in effect, being held hostage by
powerful elements in the US ruling class who view any kind of detente with Moscow as an
unforgivable betrayal.
Trump's instincts are correct that the whole so-called Russia-gate mania is a phony
contrivance. That has been orchestrated by the US establishment based on its refusal to accept
Trump's democratic mandate, as well as being based on an abiding hostility towards Russia as an
independent world power.
The object lesson here is that the scope for improving US-Russia relations is limited, in
spite of Trump's favorable personal inclinations.
An entrenched animosity towards Russia remains among the American War Party, and the current
president has evidently little room for implementing his avowed policy of normalizing
relations.
Russia therefore cannot place too much faith in making progress towards peaceful relations,
because all-too apparently President Trump has actually very little freedom to exercise his
democratic mandate. That is a damning indictment on the charade of American formal democracy. A
president is elected partly on the basis of peaceful engagement, but the unelected
powers-that-be have another agenda of conflict which they are pursuing come hell or high
water.
What's more, the American derangement syndrome is becoming even more virulent, as can be
adjudged from this week's hysterical backlash over the successful Helsinki summit.
Trump's willingness for dialogue with Russia is a welcome development. But the far more
disturbing development is the full-tilt belligerence and derangement on display among the
American political class. This American political chizophrenia is a clear and present danger to
world peace. American citizens are as much a victim of the madness as are Russians and the rest
of the world.
One positive aspect of the new phase of Cold War is that before it was largely concealed,
and deceived, as a simplistic bifurcated confrontation of Americans versus Russians. Today it
is evidently a situation of an American deranged elite versus the rest of the world, with the
latter including ordinary American citizens who have much more to gain from standing in
solidarity with Russian citizens.
The iron law became a central theme in the study of organized labour , political parties , and pluralist
democracy in the postwar era. Although much of this scholarship basically confirmed Michels's
arguments, a number of prominent works began to identify important anomalies and limitations to the
iron law framework. Seymour Lipset , Martin Trow,
and James
Coleman 's analysis of the International
Typographical Union (ITU), for example, showed that sustained union democracy was possible
given printers' relative equality of income and status, mastery of communication skills, and
generalized political competence, which underpinned the ITU's unusual history of enduring
two-party competition (Independents and Progressives), which mirrored the American two-party system . In the
party literature, Samuel Eldersveld argued that the power of organizational elites in Detroit
was not nearly as concentrated as the iron law would suggest. He found party power relatively
dispersed among different sectors and levels, in a "stratarchy" of shifting coalitions among
component groups representing different social strata.
Throughout the day before the
summit in Helsinki, the lead story on the New York Times home page stayed the same: "Just by
Meeting With Trump, Putin Comes Out Ahead."
The Sunday headline was in harmony with the
tone of U.S. news coverage overall. As for media commentary, the Washington Post was in the
dominant groove as it editorialized that Russia's President Vladimir Putin is "an implacably
hostile foreign adversary."
Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme.
Mainline U.S.
journalists and top Democrats often bait President Donald Trump in zero-sum terms. No doubt Hillary
Clinton thought she was sending out an applause line in her
tweet
Sunday night:
"Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: Do you know which team you play for?"
A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not
give it a second thought -- and that makes it all the more hazardous.
After President George
W. Bush declared "You're either with us or against us," many Americans gradually realized what was
wrong with a Manichean view of the world. Such an outlook is even more dangerous today.
Since early 2017, the U.S. mass media have laid it on thick with the rough political equivalent
of a painting technique known as chiaroscuro -- "the use of strong contrasts between light and dark,
usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition," in the words of Wikipedia.
The
Russiagate frenzy is largely about punching up contrasts between the United States (angelic and
victimized) and Russia (sinister and victimizer).
Countless stories with selective facts are being told that way.
But other selectively
fact-based stories could also be told to portray the United States as a sinister victimizer and
Russia as an angelic victim.
Those governments and their conformist media outlets are
relentless in telling it either way. As the great journalist
I.F.
Stone
observed long ago, "All governments lie, and nothing they say should be believed." In
other words: don't trust, verify.
Often the biggest lies involve what remains unsaid. For instance, U.S. media rarely mention such
key matters as the promise-breaking huge expansion of NATO to Russia's borders since the fall of
the Berlin Wall, or the
brazen
U.S. intervention
in Russia's pivotal 1996 presidential election, or the U.S. government's 2002
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or the more than 800 U.S. military bases
overseas -- in contrast to Russia's nine.
For human survival on this planet, an overarching truth appears in an open letter published last
week by The Nation magazine:
"No political advantage, real or imagined, could possibly compensate for the
consequences if even a fraction of U.S. and Russian arsenals were to be utilized in a
thermonuclear exchange. The tacit pretense that the worsening of U.S.-Russian relations does not
worsen the odds of survival for the next generations is profoundly false."
The initial 26 signers of the open letter "
Common
Ground: For Secure Elections and True National Security
" included Pentagon Papers whistleblower
Daniel Ellsberg, writer and feminist organizer Gloria Steinem, former UN ambassador Gov. Bill
Richardson, political analyst Noam Chomsky, former covert CIA operations officer Valerie Plame,
activist leader Rev. Dr. William Barber II, filmmaker Michael Moore, former Nixon White House
counsel John Dean, Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen, former U.S. ambassador to the USSR Jack F.
Matlock Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Alice Walker and Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Nation editor
Katrina vanden Heuvel, former senator Adlai Stevenson III, and former longtime House Armed Services
Committee member Patricia Schroeder. (I was also one of the initial signers.)
Since its release five days ago, the open letter has gained support from
a
petition
already
signed by 45,000 people
. The petition campaign aims to amplify the call for protecting the
digital infrastructure of the electoral process that is now "vulnerable to would-be hackers based
anywhere" -- and for taking "concrete steps to ease tensions between the nuclear superpowers."
We need a major shift in the U.S. approach toward Russia. Clearly the needed shift won't be
initiated by the Republican or Democratic leaders in Congress; it must come from Americans who make
their voices heard.
The lives -- and even existence -- of future generations are at stake in the
relationship between Washington and Moscow.
Many of the petition's grassroots signers have posted comments along with their names. Here are
a few of my favorites:
* From Nevada: "
We all share the same planet! We better learn how to do it safely or
face the consequences of blowing ourselves up!
"
* From New Mexico: "The earth will not survive a nuclear war. The weapons we have today are
able to cause much more destruction than those of previous eras. We must find a way to common
ground."
* From Massachusetts: "
It is imperative that we take steps to protect the sanctity
of our elections and to prevent nuclear war anywhere on the earth
."
* From Kentucky: "Secure elections are a fundamental part of a democratic system. But this
could become meaningless in the event of thermonuclear war."
* From California: "
There is only madness and hubris in talk of belligerence toward
others, especially when we have such dangerous weapons and human error has almost led to our
annihilation already more than once in the past half-century
."
Yet a wide array of media outlets, notably
the
"Russiagate"-obsessed
network
MSNBC
,
keeps egging on progressives to climb toward peaks of anti-Russian jingoism
. The line of
march is often in virtual lockstep with GOP hyper-hawks like Senators John McCain and Lindsey
Graham. The incessant drumbeat is in sync with what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of
militarism."
Meanwhile, as Dr. King said,
"We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence
or violent coannihilation."
My Father in law is one of the last of the Iwo Jima Marines...he is still of
sound mind, enough to say,
it takes far more courage for a man to solve a
conflict peacefully then to end it violently.
What sickness lies in the
hearts and minds of these people beating the drums of war is beyond me,
especially knowing none of them would ever risk their own lives. Add that to your
definition of Tyranny.
"... By Enrico Verga, a writer, consultant, and entrepreneur based in Milan. As a consultant, he concentrates on firms interested in opportunities in international and digital markets. His articles have appeared in Il Sole 24 Ore, Capo Horn, Longitude, Il Fatto Quotidiano, and many other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @enricoverga . ..."
"... Continuing flows of low-cost labor can be useful for cutting costs. West Germany successfully absorbed East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the dirty secret of this achievement is the exploitation of workers from the former East, as Reuters reports . ..."
"... The expansion of the EU to Poland (and the failed attempt to incorporate the Ukraine) has allowed many European businesses to shift local production to nations where the average cost of a blue or white collar worker is much lower ( by 60-70% on average ) than in Western European countries. ..."
"... The middle class is a silent mass that for many years has painfully digested globalization, while believing in the promises of globalist politicians," explains Luciano Ghelfi, a journalist of international affairs who has followed Lega from its beginnings. Ghelfi continues: ..."
"... I think unrestrained globalization has taken a hit. In Italy as well, as we have seen recently, businesses are relocating abroad. And the impoverished middle class finds itself forced to compete for state resources (subsidies) and jobs which can be threatened by an influx of economic migrants towards which enormous resources have been dedicated – just think of the 4.3 billion Euros that the last government allocated toward economic migrants. ..."
"... In all of this, migrants are more victims than willing actors, and they become an object on which the fatigue, fear, and in the most extreme cases, hatred of the middle class can easily focus. ..."
"... If for the last twenty years, with only occasional oscillation, the pro-globalization side has been dominant in the West, elections are starting to swing the balance in a new direction. ..."
"... "Klein analyzes a future (already here to some degree) in which multinational corporations freely fish from one market or another in an effort to find the most suitable (i.e. cheapest) labor force." ..."
"... never export their way out of poverty and misery ..."
By Enrico Verga,
a writer, consultant, and entrepreneur based in Milan. As a consultant, he
concentrates on firms interested in opportunities in international and digital markets. His
articles have appeared in Il Sole 24 Ore, Capo Horn, Longitude, Il Fatto Quotidiano, and many
other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @enricoverga .
International commerce, jobs, and economic migrants are propelled by a common force:
profit.
In recent times, the Western middle class (by which I mean in particular industrial workers
and office employees) has lost a large number of jobs and has seen its buying power fall. It
isn't true that migrants are the source of all evil in the world. However, under current
conditions, they become a locus for the exasperation of the population at twenty years of
pro-globalization politics. They are tragically placed in the role of the straw that breaks the
camel's back.
Western businesses have slipped jobs overseas to countries with low labor costs, while the
middle class has been pushed into debt in order to try to keep up. The Glass-Steagall law and
other brakes on American banks were abolished by a cheerleader for globalization, Bill Clinton,
and these banks subsequently lost all restraints in their enthusiasm to lend. The cherry on top
of the sundae was the real estate bubble and ensuing crash of 2008.
A damning picture of the results of 20 years of globalization is provided by
Forbes , capitalism's magazine par excellence. Already in 2016, the surprise victory of
Trump led to questions about whether the blond candidate's win was due in part to the straits
of the American middle class, impoverished as a result of the pro-globalization politics of
figures like Clinton and Obama.
Further support for this thesis is furnished by the
New York Times , describing the collapse of the stars-and-stripes middle class. Its
analysis is buttressed by lengthy research from the very mainstream
Pew Center , which agrees that the American middle class is vanishing.
And Europe? Although the European middle class has been squeezed less than its American
counterpart, for us as well the picture doesn't look good. See for example the
analysis of the Brookings Institute , which discusses not only the flagging economic
fortunes of the European middle class, but also the fear of prosperity collapsing that
currently grips Europe.
Migrants and the Shock Doctrine
What do economic migrants have to do with any of this?
Far be it from me to criticize large corporations, but clearly they – and their
managers and stockholders – benefit from higher margins. Profits (revenue minus costs and
expenses) can be maximized by reducing expenses. To this end, the costs of acquiring goods
(metals, agricultural products, energy, etc.) and services (labor) need to fall steadily.
In the quest to lower the cost of labor, the most desirable scenario is a sort of blank
slate: to erase ongoing arrangements with workers and start over from zero, building a new
"happy and productive" economy. This operation can be understood as a sort of "shock
doctrine."
The term "economic shock therapy" is based on an analogy with electroshock therapy for
mental patients. One important analysis of it comes from Naomi Klein , who became
famous explaining in 2000 the system of fashion production through subsidiaries that don't
adhere to the safety rules taken so seriously in Western countries (some of you may recall the
scandal of
Benetton and Rana Plaza , where more than a thousand workers at a Bangladesh factory
producing Benetton (and other) clothes were crushed under a collapsing building).
Klein analyzes a future (already here to some degree) in which multinational corporations
freely fish from one market or another in an effort to find the most suitable (i.e. cheapest)
labor force. Sometimes relocating from one nation to another is not possible, but if you can
bring the job market of other countries here in the form of a low-cost mass of people competing
for employment, then why bother?
The Doctrine in Practice
Continuing flows of low-cost labor can be useful for cutting costs. West Germany
successfully absorbed East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the dirty secret of
this achievement is the exploitation of workers
from the former East, as Reuters reports .
The expansion of the EU to Poland (and the failed attempt to incorporate the Ukraine) has
allowed many European businesses to
shift local production to nations where the average cost of a blue or white collar worker
is much lower (
by 60-70% on average ) than in Western European countries.
The migrant phenomenon is a perfect counterpoint to a threadbare middle class, given its
role as a success story within the narrative of globalization.
Economic migrants are eager to obtain wealth on the level of the Western middle class
– and this is of course a legitimate desire. However, to climb the social ladder, they
are willing to do anything: from accepting low albeit legal salaries to picking tomatoes
illegally (
as Alessandro Gassman, son of the famous actor, reminded us ).
The middle class is a silent mass that for many years has painfully digested globalization,
while believing in the promises of globalist politicians," explains Luciano Ghelfi, a
journalist of international affairs who has followed Lega from its beginnings. Ghelfi
continues:
This mirage has fallen under the blows it has received from the most serious economic
crisis since the Second World War. Foreign trade, easy credit (with the American real estate
bubble of 2008 as a direct consequence), peace missions in Libya (carried out by
pro-globalization French and English actors, with one motive being in my opinion the
diversion of energy resources away from [the Italian] ENI) were supposed to have created a
miracle; they have in reality created a climate of global instability.
Italy is of course not untouched by this phenomenon. It's easy enough to give an
explanation for the Five Stars getting votes from part of the southern electorate that is
financially in trouble and might hope for some sort of subsidy, but the North? The choice of
voting center right (with a majority leaning toward Lega) can be explained in only one way
– the herd (the middle class) has tried to rise up.
I asked him, "So in your opinion, is globalization in stasis? Or is it radically
changing?" He replied:
I think unrestrained globalization has taken a hit. In Italy as well, as we have seen
recently, businesses are relocating abroad. And the impoverished middle class finds itself
forced to compete for state resources (subsidies) and jobs which can be threatened by an
influx of economic migrants towards which enormous resources have been dedicated – just
think of the 4.3 billion Euros that the last government allocated toward economic
migrants.
This is an important element in the success of Lega: it is a force that has managed to
understand clearly the exhaustion of the impoverished middle class, and that has proposed a
way out, or has at least elaborated a vision opposing the rose-colored glasses of
globalization.
In all of this, migrants are more victims than willing actors, and they become an object on
which the fatigue, fear, and in the most extreme cases, hatred of the middle class can easily
focus.
What Conflicts Are Most Relevant Today?
At the same time, if we observe, for example in Italy, the positions taken by the
(pro-globalization?) Left, it becomes easier to understand why the middle class and also many
blue collar workers are abandoning it. Examples range from the unfortunate declarations of
deputy Lia Quartapelle on
the need to support the Muslim Brotherhood to the explanations of the former president of
the Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini, on how the status of economic migrant should be seen as a model for the
lifestyle of all Italians . These remarks were perhaps uttered lightly (Quartapelle
subsequently took her post down and explained that she had made a mistake), but they are
symptomatic of a certain sort of pro-globalization cultural "Left" that finds talking to
potential voters less interesting than other matters.
From Italy to America (where
Hillary Clinton was rejected after promoting major international trade arrangements that
she claimed would benefit middle-class American workers) to the UK (where Brexit has been taken as a sort of
exhaust valve), the middle class no longer seems to be snoring.
We are currently seeing a political conflict between globalist and nationalist forces.
Globalists want more open borders and freer international trade. Nationalists want protection
for work and workers, a clamping down on economic migrants, and rules with teeth aimed at
controlling international trade.
If for the last twenty years, with only occasional oscillation, the pro-globalization side
has been dominant in the West, elections are starting to swing the balance in a new
direction.
Meanwhile, many who self-identify as on the Left seem utterly uninterested in the concerns
of ordinary people, at least in cases where these would conflict with the commitment to
globalization.
If the distinction between globalism and nationalism is in practice trumping other
differences, then we should not let ourselves be distracted by bright and shiny objects, and
keep our focus on what really matters.
From the Forbes link:
"The first downside of international trade that even proponents of freer trade must
acknowledge is that while the country as a whole gains some people do lose."
More accurate to say a tiny, tiny, TINY percentage gain.
Nice how they use the euphemism "country as a whole" for GDP. Yes, GDP goes up – but
that word that can never be uttered by American corporate media – DISTRIBUTION –
that essentially ALL gains in GDP have gone to the very top. AND THAT THIS IS A POLITICAL
DECISION, not like the waves of the ocean or natural selection. There is plenty that could be
done about it – BUT it STARTS with WANTING to do something effective about it .
Nice how they use the euphemism "country as a whole" for GDP.
Fresno Dan,
You have identified one of my pet peeves about economists and their fellow traveler
politicians. They hide behind platitudes, and the former are more obnoxious about that.
Economists will tell people that they just don't understand all that complexity, and that in
the name of efficiency, etc, free trade and the long slide toward neo-liberal hell must
continue.
I think the assertion that all economic gains have gone to the very top is not accurate.
According to 'Unintended Consequences' by Ed Conard, the 'composition of the work force has
shifted to demographics with lower incomes' between 1980 and 2005. If you held the workforce
of 1980 steady through 2005, wages would be up 30% in real terms, not including benefits.
I think the author has highlighted some home truths in the article. I once remember
several years ago just trying to raise the issue of immigration* and its impact on workers on
an Irish so-called socialist forum. Either I met silence or received a reply along the lines:
'that when socialists rule the EU we'll establish continental wide standards that will ensure
fairness for everyone'. Fairy dust stuff. I'm not anti immigrant in any degree but it seems
unwise not to understand and mitigate the negative aspects of policies on all workers. Those
chickens are coming home to roost by creating the type of political parties (new or
established) that now control the EU and many world economies.
During the same period many younger middle and upper middle class Irish extolled the
virtues, quite openly, of immigration as way of lowering the power and wages of existing
Irish workers so that the costs of building homes, labour intensive services and the like
would be concretely reduced; and that was supposed to be a good thing for the material well
being of these middle and upper middle classes. Sod manual labour.
One part of the working class was quite happy to thrown another part of the working class
under the bus and the Left**, such as it was and is, was content to let it happen. Then
established Leftist parties often facilitated the rightward economic process via a host of
policies, often against their own stated policies in election manifestos. The Left appeared
deceitful. The Irish Labour party is barely alive and subsisting on die-hard traditionalists
for their support by those who can somehow ignore the deceit of their party. Surreaslist
stuff from so-called working class parties,
And now the middle-middle classes are ailing and we're supposed to take notice. Hmmm. Yet,
as a Leftist, myself, it is incumbent upon us to address the situation and assist all
workers, whatever their own perceived status.
*I'm an immigrant in the UK currently, though that is about to change next year.
** Whether the "Left", such as the Irish Labour Party, was just confused or bamboozled
matters not a jot. After the financial crises that became an economic crisis, they zealously
implemented austerity policies that predominantly cleared the way for a right wing political
landscape to dominate throughout Europe. One could be forgiven for thinking that those who
called themselves Leftists secretly believed that only right wing, neo-liberal economic
policies were correct. And I suppose, being a bit cynical, that a few politicos were paid
handsomely for their services.
I think its easy to see why the more middle class elements of the left wing parties never
saw immigration as a problem – but harder to see why the Trade Unions also bought into
this. Partly I think it was a laudable and genuine attempt to ensure they didn't buy into
racism – when you look at much trade union history, its not always pleasant reading
when you see how nakedly racist some early trade union activists were, especially in the US.
But I think there was also a process whereby Unions increasingly represented relatively
protected trades and professions, while they lost ground in more vulnerable sectors, such as
in construction.
I think there was also an underestimation of the 'balancing' effect within Europe. I think
a lot of activists understimated the poverty in parts of Europe, and so didn't see the
expansion of the EU into eastern Europe as resulting in the same sort of labour arbitrage
thats occurred between the west and Asia. I remember the discussions over the enlargement of
the EU to cover eastern Europe and I recall that there seemed to be an inbuilt assumption
(certainly in the left), that rising general prosperity would ensure there would be no real
migration impact on local jobs. This proved to be entirely untrue.
Incidentally, in my constituency (Dublin Central) in past elections the local Labour party
was as guilty as any of pandering to the frequent racism encountered on the doorsteps in
working class areas. But it didn't do them much good. Interestingly, SF was the only party
who would consistently refuse to pander (At least in Dublin), making the distinction between
nationalist and internationalist minded left wingers even more confusing.
Yes, one has to praise the fact that the Unions didn't pander to racism – but that's
about all the (insert expletive of choice) did correctly.
Your other points, as ever, are relevant and valid but (and I must but) I tend to think
that parties like Labour were too far "breezy" about the repercussions about labour
arbitrage. But that's water under the bridge now.
Speaking about SF and the North West in general, they have aggressively canvassed recent
immigrants and have not tolerated racism among their ranks. Their simple reasoning was that
is unthinkable that SF could tolerate such behaviour amongst themselves when they has waged a
campaign against such attitudes and practices in the six counties. (SF are no saints, often
fumble the ball badly, and are certainly not the end-all-be-all, but this is something they
get right).
It has to be understood that much of immigration is occurring because of war, famine,
collapsing societies (mostly due to massive wealth inequality and corrupt governments).
Immigration is not the cause of the economic issues in the EU, it's a symptom (or a feature
if you're on top). If you don't correct the causes – neo-liberalism, kleptocracy,
rigged game – what ever you want to call it, then you too will become an immigrant in
your own country (and it will be a third world country by the time the crooks on top are
done).
Don't get caught up in the blame the other poor people game. It's a means to get the
powerless to fight among themselves. They are not in charge, they are victims just like
you.
Having spent a lot of time in the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan and Iraq I have to
say that rampant overpopulation plays a big part. Anyone who can get out is getting out. It
makes sense. And with modern communications they all know how life is in Europe or the US in
contrast to the grinding horror that surrounds them.
But Conan tells me that Haiti is a tropical paradise! (my brother too spent a lot of time
in Afghanistan and Iraq working with the locals during his deployments)
"Twitter liberalism" is doing itself by not recognizing that much of the developing world
IS a corrupt cesspool.
Instead of railing against Trump, the Twitter-sphere needs to rail against the bipartisan
policies that drive corruption, and economic dislocations and political dislocations. and
rail against religious fundamentalism that hinders family planning.
But if you actually do that, rail against bipartisan neoliberal policies on social media
and IRL, the conservatives are far less hostile than the die-hard Dems. This is especially
true now, with all the frothing at the mouth and bloodlust about Russia. Its raised their
"it's ALL *YOUR* FAULT"-ism by at least an order of magnitude.
Actually, that's been true since the 18th C., at least for the US. TV may make it more
vivid, and Europe has changed places, but most Americans have immigrant ancestors, most often
from Europe.
However, it does seem that the policy of the EU, especially under the influence of Mutti
Merkel, signalled a free-for-all immigration stance over the last several years, completely
ignoring the plight of existing workers (many of whom would be recent immigrants themselves
and the children of immigrants). That the so-called Left either sat idly by or jumped on
Mutti's band wagon didn't do them any favours with working people. Every country or customs
union has and needs to regulate its borders. It also makes some sense to monitor labour
markets when unfavourable conditions appear.
It appears that only the wealthy are largely reaping the rewards of the globalist
direction trade has taken. These issues need to be addressed by the emerging Left political
parties in the West. Failure to address these issues must, I would contend, play into the
hands of the more right wing parties whose job is to often enrich the local rich.
But, bottom line, your are correct workers do not come out well when blaming other workers
for economies that have been intentionally created to produce favourable conditions for the
few over the many.
It's a blade with two sides.
There are push factors like the wars and poor countries. However neither of these causes can
be fixed. Not possible. Europe can gnash their teeth all they want, not even when they did
the unthinkable and put the US under sanctions for their warcrimes would the US ever stop.
First there would be color revolutions in western europe.
As important as the push factors are the pull ones. 90% or so of all refugees 2015 went to
Germany. Some were sent to other countries by the EU, these too immediately moved to Germany
and didn't stay where they were assigned. So the EU has to clean up their act and would need
to put the last 10 or so US presidents and administrations before a judge in Den Haag for
continued war crimes and crimes against humanity (please let me my dreams). The EU would also
need to clean up their one sided trade treaties with Africa and generally reign in their own
corporations. All that is however not enough by far and at most only half the battle. Even
when the EU itself all did these things, the poverty would remain and therefore the biggest
push factor. Humans always migrate to the place where the economy is better.
The pull factors is however at least as big. The first thing to do is for Germany to fix
their laws to be in sync with the other EU countries. At this point, Germany is utterly
alone, at most some countries simply don't speak out against german policy since they want
concessions in other areas. Main one here is France with their proposed EU and Euro reforms
but not alone by far.
Nationalists want protection for work and workers, a clamping down on economic
migrants, and rules with teeth aimed at controlling international trade.
Socialism in one country is a Stalinist theory, and falling back upon it in fear of
international capital is not only regressive but (assuming we aren't intentionally ignoring
history) relective of a defensive mentality.
In other words, this kind of thinking is the thinking of the whipped dog cringing before
the next blow.
Or perhaps they want to regulate and control the power of capital in their country. Which
is an entirely impossible proposition considering that capital can flee any jurisdiction and
cross any border. After all, transnational capital flows which were leveraged to the hilt in
speculative assets played an oversized role in generating the financial crisis and subsequent
crash.
It wouldn't be the first time I've been called a Stalinist though.
And why would we care whether it's a "Stalinist" theory? For that matter, although worker
ownership would solve some of these problems, we needn't be talking about socialism, but
rather about more functional capitalism.
Quite a leap in that last sentence; you haven't actually established anything of the
sort.
Personally, I believe capitalism needs to go away, but for it, or any other economic
system, to work, we would need a fair, equal, just, enforced rule of law that
everyone would be under, wouldn't we?
Right now the blessed of our various nations do not want this, so they make so that one
set is unfair, unequal, unjust, harshly enforced on most of their country's population while
they get the gentle rules.
For a society to function long term, it needs to have a fair and just set of rules that
everyone understands and follow, although the rules don't have to equal; people will tolerate
different levels of punishments and strictness of the rules. The less that is the case the
more dysfunctional, and usually the more repressive it is. See the Western Roman Empire, the
fall of just about every Chinese dynasty, the Russian Empire, heck even the American War of
Independence, and the American Civil War. In example, people either actively worked to
destroy the system or did not care to support it.
Thank you for the article, a pretty lucid analysis of the recent electoral results in
Italy and trends elsewhere. Although I would have liked to read something about people voting
the way they do because they are xenophobe fascist baby-eating pedophile racist Putin
friends. Just for fun.
Funny how the author's company promotes "Daily international job vacancies in UNDP, FAO,
UN, UNCTAD, UNIDO and the other Governative Organization, Non Governative Organization,
Multinationals Corporations. Public Relations, Marketing, Business Development."
Precisely the sort of jobs that infuriates the impoverishing middle classes.
As recently as 2015, Bernie Sanders defended not only border security, but also national
sovereignty. Asked about expanded immigration, Sanders flipped the question into a critique
of open-borders libertarianism: "That's a Koch brothers proposal which says essentially there
is no United States."
Unfortunately the ethnic division of the campaign and Hillary's attack seems to have led him
to change his mind.
That's probably due to the fact that just about everybody can't seem to differentiate
between immigration and mass migration. The latter issue is a matter of distributing the pain
of a collapsing order. state failure, and climate change while the former is simply engaging
in the comfortable rhetoric of politics dominated by the American middle class.
1 people vote they like. im not updated if the voters eat babies but i'll check and let u
know.
2 My company is not dream job. It is a for free ( and not making a penny) daily bulleting
that using a fre soft (paper.li) collect international qualified job offers for whoever is
willing to work in these sector.
i'm not pro or contro migrants. i actually only reported simple fact collating differents
point :)
Economic migrants seek prosperity and are justified in doing so, yet they can also be
seen as pawns in an international strategy that destroys the negotiating leverage of
workers. The resulting contradictions potentially render conventional political
classifications obsolete.
This appears on the homepage, but not here.
In any case, the 10% also seek prosperity. They are said to be the enablers of the 1%.
Until the left alters its thinking to reflect the crucial information presented in this
video, information more clearly and comprehensively spelled out in "Reclaiming the State" by
Mitchell and Fazi, resurgent rightwing nationalism will be the only outlet for those who
reject global neoliberalism's race to the bottom. It's that simple and sad.
To paint this as two pro-globalisation (within which you place the left) and
pro-nationalism is simplistic and repositions the false dichotomy of left vs right with
something just as useless. We should instead seek to speak to the complexities of the modern
political spectrum. This is an example of poor journalism and analysis and shouldn't have
been posted here, sorry Yves.
Thanks for your opinion. Check the format of this place: articles selected for information
or provoking thoughts, in support of a general position of driving toward betterment of the
general welfare, writ large.
The political economy is at least as complex as the Krebs or citric acid cycle that
biology students and scientists try to master. There are so many moving parts and
intersecting and competing interests that in the few words that the format can accommodate,
regarding each link, it's a little unkind to expect some master work of explication and
rhetorical closure every time.
The Krebs cycle is basically driven by the homeostatic thrust, bred of billions of years
of refinement, to maintain the healthy functioning and prolong life of the organism. There's
a perceivable axis to all the many parts of respiration, digestion, energy flows and such,
all inter-related with a clear organizing principle at the level of the organism. On the
record, it's hardly clear that at the level of the political economy, and all the many parts
that make it up, there is sufficient cohesion around a set of organizing principles that
parallel the drive, at the society and species level, to regulate and promote the energy
flows and interactions that would keep things healthy and prolong the life of the larger
entity. Or that their is not maybe a death wish built into the "cultural DNA" of most of the
human population.
Looks a lot to me that we actually have been invested (in both the financial and military
senses of the word) by a bunch of different cancer processes, wild and unregulated
proliferation of ecnomic and political tumor tissues that have invaded and undermined the
healthy organs of the body politic. Not so clear what the treatments might be, or the
prognosis. It is a little hopeful, continuing the biological analogy, that the equivalents of
inflammation and immune system processes appear to be overcoming the sneaky tricks that
cancer genes and cells employ to evade being identified and rendered innocuous.
Yes, "invested in a bunch of cancer processes" is a good description of allowing excessive
levels of predatory wealth. Thus you end up with a bunch of Jay Gould hyper capitalists whose
guiding principle is: I can always pay one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Divide and conquer rules.
It's mostly simply wrong. This doesn't describe the political views of almost anyone near
power anywhere as far as I can tell:
"Globalists want more open borders and freer international trade. Nationalists want
protection for work and workers, "
Most of the nationalist forces are on the right and give @#$# all for workers rights.
Really they may be anti-immigrant but they are absolutely anti-worker.
The middle class does not really exist, it was a concept invented by capitalists to
distract the workers from their essential unity as fellow wage slaves. Some make more wages,
some make less wages but they all have their surplus value, the money left over after they
have enough to take care of themselves, taken by the capitalist and used for his ends even
though he may not have worked in the value creation process at all.
Economic migrants are members of the working class who have been driven from their home
country to somewhere else by the capitalist system. While the article does mention capitalist
shock doctrine methods for establishing imperialism and correctly notes that economic
migrants are victims, it then goes on to try to lay a weak and insidious argument against
them. The author goes on citing multiple different cases of worker wages being driven lower
or stagnating, many of these cases have differing and sometimes complex reasons for why this
happened. But migrants and globalization are to blame he says and that our struggle is
nationalism vs globalism. He refuses to see what is staring him in the face, workers produce
surplus value for society, more workers produce more surplus value. If society finds itself
wealthier with more workers then why do workers wage fall or stagnate? He does note correctly
that this is due to the workers now having a weaker bargaining position with the capitalist,
but he seems to conclude from this without stating outrightly that we should then reject the
economic migrants because of this.
However, we could instead conclude that if more workers produce more surplus value but yet
their wages fall because the capitalist takes a larger share of the overall pot, that the
problem is not more workers but instead the capitalist system itself which was rigged to
exploit workers everywhere. Plus the workers bargaining position only weakens with a greater
number of them if they are all just bargaining for themselves, but if they were to bargain
togather collectively then there bargaining position has actually only grown even
stronger.
Also he falsly equates democratic party policies with leftists, instead of correctly
noting that the democratic party represents capitalist interests from a centrist position and
not the left. The strength of global capitalism can only be fought by a global coalition of
the working class. The struggle of Mexican and American workers are interrelated to each
other and the same goes for that of European and Middle Eastern workers. The time has come
for the left to raise the rallying cry of its great and glorious past.
You claim, as if it were obvious, that "economic migrants are members of the working class
who have been driven from their home country to somewhere else by the capitalist system."
Are all economic migrants therefore bereft of agency?
If the borders of the US were abruptly left completely open, a huge number of people would
enter the country tomorrow, for economic reasons. Would they all have been "driven" here, or
would they have some choice in the matter?
When you say, "he refuses to say what is staring him in the face, that [ ] more workers
produce more surplus value," you are not only taking a gratuitously pedantic tone, you are
actually not making a coherent critique. If economic migrants move from one country to
another, the total pool of workers in the world has not increased; while according to your
logic, if all the workers in the world were to move to Rhode Island, Rhode Island would
suddenly be swimming in the richness of surplus value.
When you say, "we could instead conclude that [..] the problem is not more workers but
instead the capitalist system itself which was rigged to exploit workers everywhere," you are
straw-manning the author but also making a purely rhetorical argument. If you think the
capitalist system can be replaced with a better one within the near future, then you can work
toward that; but in the meanwhile, nations, assuming that they will continue to exist, will
either have open borders or something short of that, and these decisions do affect
the lives of workers.
When you say he "falsly equates democratic party policies with leftists," the false
equivalence is coming from you. The article barely touches on the Democratic Party, and
instead draws most of its examples from Europe, especially Italy. In Italy, the public
figures he mentions call themselves part of the sinistra and are generally referred
to that way. You might perhaps feel that they are not entitled to that name (and in fact, the
article sometimes places "left" in quotation marks), but you should at least read the article
and look them up before discussing the matter.
From the article: "Meanwhile, many who self-identify as on the Left seem utterly
uninterested in the concerns of ordinary people, at least in cases where these would conflict
with the commitment to globalization."
To Be Fair, Verga clearly is skeptical about those claims to be "on the Left," as he
should be. Nonetheless, his initial mention of Democratic exemplars of globalization triggers
American reflexes.
Something before this failed to post; was rejected as a double post.
In brief: corporate globalization is a conservative, Republican policy that Bill Clinton
imposed on the Dems, where it has since become doctrine, since it pays. It's ultimately the
reason I'm a Green, not a Democrat, and in a sense the reason there IS a Green Party in the
US.
The author points to stagnant middle class income in USA and Western Europe but fail to
look the big picture. Middle class income has increased sharply in the past decades in Asia
and Eastern Europe. Overall the gain huge, even though life is tougher in richer
countries.
Overall the gain huge, even thought life is tougher in richer countries.
Please accept my apologies for saying this. I don't mean to offend. I just have to point
out something.
Many in the Democratic Party, as well as the left, are pointing to other countries and
peoples as well as the American 9.9% and saying things are great, why are you complaining?
With the not so hidden implications, sometimes openly stated that those who do are losers and
deplorables.
Saying that middle class incomes are merely stagnant is a sick, sick joke as well as an
untruth. As an American, I do not really care about the middle classes in Asia and Eastern
Europe. Bleep the big picture. The huge gains comes with a commensurate increase in homeless
in the United States, and a falling standard of living for most the of the population,
especially in the "wealthy" states, like my state of California. Most of us are using
fingernails to stay alive and homed. If those gains had not been caused by the losses, I
would be very please to see them. As it is, I have to live under President Trump and worry
about surviving. Heck, worry about the rest of my family doing so.
"Saying that middle class incomes are merely stagnant is a sick, sick joke as well as an
untruth."
+10,000
I mean I actually do care somewhat about the people of the world, but we here in "rich
countries" are being driven to homelessness at this point and told the goddamn lie that we
live in a rich country, rather than the truth that we live in a plutocracy with levels of
inequality approaching truly 3rd world. We are literally killing ourselves because we have to
live in this plutocracy and our one existence itself is not even worth it anymore in this
economic system (and we are lacking even a few of the positives of many other 3rd world
countries). And those that aren't killing ourselves still can't find work, and even if we do,
it doesn't pay enough to meet the most basic necessities.
1. It is unfortunate that Verga raises the rising cost of material inputs but fails to
meaningfully address the issue. One of the drivers of migration, as mentioned in Comments
above, is the population volcano currently erupting. Labor is cheap and globalization
possible in large part because the world population has grown from 2 Billion to over 7
Billion in the past 60-odd years. This slow-growing mountain of human beings has created
stresses on material inputs which are having a negative impact on the benefits derived from
declining labor costs. This becomes a death-spiral as capital seeks to balance the rising
cost of raw materials and agricultural products by driving down the cost of labor ever
further.
2. Verga touches on the interplay of Nationalism and Racism in the responses of political
parties and institutions in Italy and elsewhere. Voters appear to be abandoning Left and
left-ish parties because the Left have been unable to come up with a definintion of national
sovereignty that protects worker rights largely due to the importance of anti-racism in
current Left-wing thought. Working people were briefly bought-off with cheap consumer goods
and easy credit, but they now realize that low-wage migrant and off-shore workers mean that
even these goodies are now out of reach. The only political alternative currently on offer is
a brand of Nationalism defined by Racism -- which becomes acceptable to voters when the
alternative is Third-World levels of poverty for those outside the 1% and their 9%
enablers.
I don't see any simple solutions. Things may get very ugly.
I certainly see that policies tampering down free trade, both of capital and labor, can
benefit workers within a particular country. However, especially in the context of said
policies in "Western" countries, this can tend towards a, protect the working class within
the borders, leave those outside of it in impoverished squalor. Which doesn't mesh well with
the leftist goal of global class consciousness. Much like the racially segregated labor
policies of yesteryear, it's playing a zero-sum game with the working class while the
ownership class gets the "rising tide lifts all boats" treatment.
So how do we protect workers within the sovereign, while not doing so at the cost of the
workers outside of it? Schwieckart has an interesting idea, that tariffs on imports are used
to fund non-profits/higher education/cooperatives in the country of export. However, I think
we'd need something a bit more fine-tuned than that.
It has always baffled me that governments enable this global musical chairs game with the
labor market. Nearly all Western governments allow tax dodging by those who benefit the most
from their Navies, Armies, Patents, and Customs enforcement systems. However, it is the
working class that carries the brunt of that cost while corporations off-shore their
profits.
A simple-minded fix might be to start taxing foreign profits commensurate with the cost of
enabling those overseas profits.
Interesting that a corporation is a person just like us mortals when it is to their
advantage, but unlike us humans, they can legally escape taxation on much of their income
whereas a human being who is a US citizen cannot. A human citizen is generally taxed by the
US on all income regardless of its source. OTOH, corporations (among other means) routinely
transfer intellectual property to a non tax jurisdiction and then pay artificial payments to
that entity for the rights to use such property. It is a scam akin to a human creating a tax
deduction by transferring money from one pocket to another. Yes, proper taxation of
corporations is a simple-minded fix which is absolutely not simple to legislate. Nice try
though. Something else to ponder: Taxation without representation was said to be a major
factor in our war of independence from Britain. Today no one seems to be concerned that we
have evolved into representation without taxation. Doesn't see right to me.
"Klein analyzes a future (already here to some degree) in which multinational
corporations freely fish from one market or another in an effort to find the most suitable
(i.e. cheapest) labor force."
FWIW I don't think it's productive to talk about things like immigration in (or to) the US
in terms of just the here – as in what should/could we be doing here
to fix the problem. It's just as much if not more about the there . If we
view the global economic order as an enriched center feeding off a developing periphery, then
fixing the periphery should be first aim. #Wall or #NoBorders are largely incendiary
extremes. Ending Original Sin and creating some
sort of supranational
IOU/credit system (not controlled by World Bank or IMF!) will end the economic imbalance
and allow countries who will never export their way out of poverty and misery a way
to become equal first world nation states. With this equality, there will be less economic
migration, less peripheral poverty and potentially less political unrest. It's a gargantuan
task to be sure, but with rising Socialist sentiment here and abroad, I'd like to think we
are at least moving in the right direction.
If the rich were properly taxed then social tensions would be greatly reduced and if the
revenue raised were used to help the poorest in society much distress could be
alleviated.
I worry that debate on migration/globalisation is being encouraged to distract attention
from this issue.
I may indeed have taken a gratuitously pedantic tone and could have chosen a better one,
for that i apologise. I do however believe that much of my critique still stands, I will try
to go through your points one by one.
"Are all economic migrants therefore bereft of agency?"
Not all but many are, especially the ones that most people are complaining about. Many of
them are being driven from their home countries not simply for a better life but so they can
have something approaching a life at all. While to fully prove this point would require an
analysis of all the different migrants and their home country conditions, I do feel that if
we are talking about Syrian refugees, migrants from Africa risking their lives crossing the
Mediteranian sea, or CentralAmerican refugees than yes i do think these people to an extent
have had their agency taken from them by global events. For Syrians, by being caught in an
imperialist power struggle which while the civil war may not have been caused by it, it
certainly has been prolonged because of it. Not too mention America played a very significant
role in creating the conditions for ISIS, and western European powers don't have completely
clean hands either due to their long history of brutal imperialism in the mideast. Africa of
course also has an extensive past of colonization and suffers from a present of colonization
and exploitation as well. For Central Americans there is of course the voracious american
drug market as well as our politicians consistent appetite for its criminalisation to blame.
There is also of course global climate change. Many of these contributing conditions are not
being dealt with and so i believe that the migrations we have witnessed these last few years
are only the first ining of perhaps even greater migrations to come. How we deal with it now,
could determine whether our era is defined by mass deaths or something better. So to the
extent that i believe many of these migrants have agency is similiar to how a person climbing
onto the roof of there house to escape a flood does.
If the borders of the US were left completely open then, yes, there would most likely be a
rush of people at first but over time they would migrate back and forth according to their
needs, through the opening of the border they would gain agency. People often think that a
country not permitting its citizens to leave is wrong and immoral, but if most countries
close their borders to the people of a country going through great suffering, then it seems
to me that is essentially the same even if the rhetoric may be different. The likeliness of
this is high if the rich countries close there borders, since if the rich countries like the
US and Italy feel they can not take them in, then its doubtful countries on the way that are
much poorer will be able to either.
At the begining of your article you stated that "International commerce, jobs, and
economic migrants are propelled by a common force: profit." This is the capitalist system,
which is a system built upon the accumulation of capital, which are profits invested in
instruments of labor, aka machines and various labor enhancements. Now Rhode island is quite
small so there are geographical limitations of course, but if that was not an issue then yes.
Wage workers in the capitalist system produce more value than they consume, if this was not
the case they would not be hired or be hired for long. So if Rhode Island did not have the
geographical limitations that it does, then with more workers the overall pot of valuable
products and services would increase per capita in relation to the population. If the workers
are divided and not unified into cohesive and responsive institutions to fight for there
right share of the overall pie, which I believe should be all of it, then most of the gain to
society will go to the capitalist as increased profits. So it is not the migrant workers who
take from the native but instead actually the capitalist who exploits and trys to magnify
there difference. So if the capitalist system through imperialism helped to contribute to the
underlying conditions driving mass migration, and then it exploits there gratitude and
willingness to work for less than native workers, than I believe it follows that they will
wish to drive native anger towards the migrants with the ultimate goal of allowing them to
exploit the migrant workers at an even more severe level. This could be true within the
country, such as the US right now where the overarching result of anti-immigrant policies has
been to not get rid of them but to drive there exploitation more into the shadows, or through
mass deportations back to their home country followed by investments to exploit their
desperation at super low wages that will then compete with the rich country workers, it is
also possible they will all just die and everyone will look away. Either way the result will
still be lower wages for rich country workers, it seems to me the only way out of the impass
is for the native workers to realize their unity with migrant workers as exploited workers
and instead of directing that energy of hostility at each other instead focus it upon the
real root which is the capitalists themselves. Without the capitalists, more workers, held
withing certain geographic limitations of course, would in fact only enrich each other.
So while nations may indeed continue to exist for awhile, the long term benefit of native
workers is better served by making common cause with migrants against their mutual oppressors
then allowing themselves to be stirred up against them. Making this argument to workers is
much harder, but its the most beneficial if it can be made successfully.
This last point i do agree i may have been unfair to you, historically I believe the left
generally referred to anarchists, socialists and communists. So I often dislike the way
modern commentators use the left to refer to anything from a center right democrat like
Hillary Clinton all the way to the most hard core communist, it can make understanding
political subtleties difficult since anarchists, socialists and communists have radically
different politics than liberals, much more so than can be expressed along a linear line. But
as you point out you used quotes which i admit i did not notice, and of course one must
generally use the jargon of the times in order to be understood.
Overall i think my main critique was that it seemed that throughout your article you were
referencing different negative symptoms of capitalism but was instead taking that evidence
for the negatives of globalism. I may come from a more radical tradition than you may be used
to, but i would consider globalism to be an inherent aspect of capitalism. Capitalism in its
algorithmic quest for ever increasing profits generally will not allow its self to be bound
for long by people, nations, or even the physical and environmental limitations of the earth.
While one country may be able to restrict it for a time unless it is overcome completely it
will eventually reach out globally again. The only way to stop it is a prolonged struggle of
the international working class cooperating with each other against capitalism in all its
exploitive forms. I would also say that what we are seeing is not so much globalism vs
nationalism but instead a rearrangement of the competing imperial powers, Russia, China, US,
Germany and perhaps the evolution of multiple competing imperialisms similiar in nature to
pre- world war times but that may have to wait for later.
A great deal of your article did indeed deal with Italy which I did not address but I felt
that your arguments surrounding migrants was essentially of a subtle right wing nature and it
needed to be balanced by a socialist counter narrative. I am very glad that you took the time
to respond to my critique I know that putting analysis out there can be very difficult and i
am thankful for your response which has allowed me to better express and understand my
viewpoint. Once again I apoligise if I used some overly aggressive language and i hope your
able to get something out of my response as well.
I appreciate the more reflective tone of this reply. I believe there are still some
misreadings of the article, which I will try to clarify.
For one thing, I am not the author of the article! Enrico Verga is the author. I merely
translated the article. Enrico is Italian, however, and so for time zone reasons will be
unable to respond to your comments for a while. I am happy to write a bit on this in the
meantime.
You make two arguments.
The first is that many or most migrants are fleeing desperate circumstances. The article
speaks however consistently of "economic migrants" – there are some overlapping issues
with refugees, but also significant differences. Clearly there are many people who are
economically comfortable in their home countries and who would still jump at a chance to get
US citizenship if they could (look up EB-5 fraud for one example). Saying this does not imply
some sort of subtle critique of such people, but they are not a myth.
I actually found your second argument more thought-provoking. As I understand you, you are
suggesting something like the following. You support completely open borders. You acknowledge
that this would lead at first to massive shifts in population, but in the long run you say
things would stabilize. You acknowledge that this will lead to "lower wages for rich country
workers," but say that we should focus on the fact that it is only within the capitalist
system that this causality holds. You also suggest that it would probably lead, under current
conditions, to workers having their anger misdirected at migrants and therefore supporting
more reactionary policies.
Given that the shift to immediate open borders would, by this analysis, be highly
detrimental to causes you support, why do you favor it? Your reasons appear to be (1) it's
the right thing to do and we should just do it, (2) yes, workers might react in the way
described, but they should not feel that way, and maybe we can convince them not to feel that
way, (3) things will work themselves out in the long run.
I am a bit surprised at the straightforwardly idealistic tone of (1) and (2). As for (3),
as Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead. He meant by this that phenomena that might
in theory equilibrate over a very long time can lead to significant chaos in the short run;
this chaos can meanwhile disrupt calculations about the "long term" and spawn other
significant negative consequences.
Anyone who is open to the idea of radically new economic arrangements faces the question
of how best to get there. You are perhaps suggesting that letting global capital
reign supreme, unhindered by the rules and restrictions of nation-states, will in the long
run allow workers to understand their oppression more clearly and so increase their openness
to uniting against it. If so, I am skeptical.
I will finally point out that a part of the tone of your response seems directed at the
impression that Enrico dislikes migrants, or wants other people to resent them. I see nothing
in the article that would suggest this, and there are on the other hand several passages in
which Enrico encourages the reader to empathize with migrants. When you suggest that his
arguments are "essentially of a subtle right wing nature," you are maybe reacting to this
misreading; in any case, I'm not really sure what you are getting at, since this phrase is so
analytically imprecise that it could mean all sorts of things. Please try to engage with the
article with arguments, not with vague epithets.
There is a bit of a dissonance here. Human rights has been persistently used by
neoliberals to destabilize other regions for their own ends for decades now with little
protest. And when the standard playbook of coups and stirring up trouble does not work its
war and total destruction as we have seen recently in Iraq, Libya and Syria for completely
fabricated reasons.
Since increased migration is the obvious first consequence when entire countries are
decimated and in disarray one would expect the countries doing the destruction to accept the
consequences of their actions but instead we have the same political forces who advocate
intervention on 'human rights grounds' now demonizing migrants and advocating openly racist
policies.
One can understand one mistake but 3 mistakes in a row! And apparently we are not capable
of learning. The bloodlust continues unabated for Iran. This will destabilize an already
destabilized region and cause even more migration to Europe. There seems to be a fundamental
contradiction here, that the citizens of countries that execute these actions and who who
protest about migrants must confront.
Maybe they should pay trillions of dollars of reparations for these intervention so these
countries can be rebuilt and made secure again so migrants can return to their homes. Maybe
the UN can introduce a new fund with any country considering destabilizing another country,
for instance Iran, to first deposit a trillion dollars upfront to deal with the human
fallout. Or maybe casually destabilizing and devastating entire countries, killing millions
of people and putting millions more in disarray should be considered crimes against humanity
and prosecuted so they are not repeated.
So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was
stolen. But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is
nonexistent.
Notable quotes:
"... they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer 2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially reported. ..."
"... The importance of this contradiction, combined with earlier allegations of hacking the DNC made by Guccifer 2.0, cannot be overstated. ..."
"... " There were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0 published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta's inbox, according to a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press." ..."
"... By classifying Guccifer 2.0's claim to have obtained the Trump Opposition Report through a breach of the DNC as a sign of dishonesty, the Associated Press uses the Guccifer 2.0 persona's widely held claim as an example of contradiction with their new version of the 'official' Russian hacking narrative. In so doing, the AP makes the hacking allegations entirely nebulous: a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but easily edited and rearranged when convenient. Incredibly, the AP's article also contradicts the claims made by the DNC themselves, and so-called papers of record, including the Washington Post. ..."
"... [Fancy Bear] broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files,[Shawn] Henry said." ..."
"... "Investigators would have been able to rapidly determine if there were textual differences between Guccifer 2.0's document and the DNC's. If there were no textual differences, an initial determination might have been difficult, because Guccifer 2.0 went to some trouble to obscure internal metadata, known as Revision Save ID's (RSID's), which can be used to uniquely identify sections of text that have been changed and added into a Word document. However, when the Podesta emails were published in October 2016, investigators should have been able to source Guccifer 2.0's document to the Podesta emails quickly. They would have been able to do this before the 2016 election, a full year ahead of the AP report." [Emphasis Added] ..."
"... Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation - because the document did not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails. ..."
"... What is interesting here is that the AP admits that such elements of the document's publication had been fabricated, but did not then follow that realization by questioning other possibly fabricated elements of the documents, such as the Russian-language error messages. The AP certainly did not concern themselves with why a Russian state-sponsored hacker would benefit from airbrushing "confidential" onto such a report. Their claim that it was to attract media attention seems quite weak. ..."
"... AP surmised that Guccifer 2.0 "air-brush[ed]" the word "confidential" into the document to "catch the reporter's attention." Both Carter and the Forensicator have explained that Guccifer 2.0 used a complex process, involving an intermediate template document, to inject this "alluring" fake. The Forensicator told this author that they take the position that this intermediate template file (ostensibly needed to add "CONFIDENTIAL" to the document) had an additional purpose. ..."
"... The Forensicator explained that, for some readers and researchers, the copy/paste of an intermediate (RTF) copy of the Trump opposition report into a template document might be interpreted simply as an unconventional method for injecting "confidential" into 1.doc. However, the Forensicator added, it can also be interpreted as a "cover" for the final copy/paste operation which was a necessary step in the evolution of Guccifer 2.0's first document. It was needed to embed the Russian error messages into the final document (1.doc). ..."
"... In their full analysis, the Forensicator wrote that it was surprising that neither outlet reported on the easily viewed "Last Saved By" property, which listed "Феликс Эдмундович" (aka "Iron Felix") as the user who last saved the document. This unique name was noticed by various social media observers that same day and by Ars Technica the following day. How did the journalists miss this, and why? ..."
"... Both Gawker and The Smoking Gun published Guccifer 2.0's Trump opposition report in full as a PDF file. Their PDF files have the now infamous Cyrillic error messages in them; they appear in the last few pages of their PDF files. Ars Technica dubbed these error messages, "Russian fingerprints." ..."
"... Ars Technica reported on Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump Opposition Report the day after Guccifer 2.0 arrived on the scene. They quickly noted that there were Russian language error messages in the PDF file posted by Gawker. They also noticed that when they viewed 1.doc themselves, they didn't see the Russian error messages. The Forensicator told Disobedient Media that this was because Ars Technica used Word for Windows, which displayed the error messages in English. ..."
"... So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was stolen.But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is nonexistent. ..."
Disobedient Media recently reported on discoveries made by the Forensicator in their report,
Media Mishaps: Early Guccifer 2 Coverage . In our previous coverage of the Forensicator's work,
we discussed the essential role played by the media in ensuring that the Guccifer 2.0 persona
received wide recognition by successfully linking Guccifer 2.0's documents with the DNC's
claims that Russian state-sponsored hackers had breached their servers.
This report will focus on an unreported story: After the fact, the DNC quietly changed an
important theme in their Russian hacking narrative. Initially, the DNC passively supported the
notion that Guccifer 2.0 stole a copy of a Trump opposition report by penetrating the DNC at
the behest of the Russian state. Then over a year later, an un-named ex-DNC official tells us
that this document in fact came from Podesta's emails, not the DNC. This single statement by a
DNC official invalidated the circumstantial evidence that had been used to support the DNC's
Russian hacking claims, and represents a groundbreaking contradiction that has gone unobserved
by establishment press outlets.
This report will also discuss numerous mistakes made by various legacy press outlets in
their obsessive focus on the Russian hacking narrative and their rush to judgment in the
matter.
A Late (and Quiet) Change in the DNC Russian Hacking Narrative
In November 2017, the DNC changed their Russian hacking narrative via their proxies in the
legacy media. The Associated Press published, Inside story: How Russians hacked the
Democrats' emails ; they cite an anonymous former DNC official who asserts that Guccifer
2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not originate in the DNC as initially
reported.
The importance of this contradiction, combined with earlier allegations of hacking
the DNC made by Guccifer 2.0, cannot be overstated.
The Associated Press wrote in November 2017:
" There were signs of dishonesty from the start. The first document Guccifer 2.0
published on June 15 came not from the DNC as advertised but from Podesta's inbox, according to
a former DNC official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak to the press."
By classifying Guccifer 2.0's claim to have obtained the Trump Opposition Report through a
breach of the DNC as a sign of dishonesty, the Associated Press uses the Guccifer 2.0
persona's widely held claim as an example of contradiction with their new version of the
'official' Russian hacking narrative. In so doing, the AP makes the hacking allegations
entirely nebulous: a fantasy narrative that can be neither proven nor disproven but easily
edited and rearranged when convenient. Incredibly, the AP's article also contradicts the claims
made by the DNC themselves, and so-called papers of record, including the Washington Post.
By returning to the genesis of the Russian hacking narrative, we find that the AP's November
report runs contrary to the DNC's initial claims, as reported by The Washington Post , in an
article titled, Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC, Stole Opposition Research OnTrump . When reviewing this early history of the matter, it becomes clear that it is
logically impossible to separate the Guccifer 2.0 persona from the allegations of a
Kremlin-backed hack of the DNC. Critical statements in that initial report by the Washington
Post are highlighted below for emphasis:
"Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National
Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP Presidential
candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to
the breach
[Fancy Bear] broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research
files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files,[Shawn] Henry
said."
By taking this later (2017) stance, the Associated Press contradicts the "official" Russian
hacking narrative involving Guccifer 2.0 (as implied by the DNC's own security firm) and which
had, until that point, been characterized by the corporate press as
Russian-hacking-gospel-truth. By seamlessly excising Guccifer 2.0 from culpability within a new
timeline of events, the Associated Press makes the entire hacking story a fantasy narrative
that can be neither proven nor disproven but must not be questioned.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media:
"Investigators would have been able to rapidly determine if there were textual
differences between Guccifer 2.0's document and the DNC's. If there were no textual
differences, an initial determination might have been difficult, because Guccifer 2.0 went to
some trouble to obscure internal metadata, known as Revision Save ID's (RSID's), which can be
used to uniquely identify sections of text that have been changed and added into a Word
document. However, when the Podesta emails were published in October 2016, investigators should
have been able to source Guccifer 2.0's document to the Podesta emails quickly. They would have
been able to do this before the 2016 election, a full year ahead of the AP report."
[Emphasis Added]
The Forensicator then referred this author to a table in his report, depicting the metadata
for Podesta's version of the Trump opposition report:
As we can see, the document was saved by Tony Carrk, who worked as Research Director for
Hillary for America at the time. This document was attached to this Podesta email .
The Forensicator continued, saying: "We can see that Mr. Carrk made some change that took
less than one minute to complete. If investigators compared Carrk's version of the document to
the original DNC document, they should have been able to quickly determine that Guccifer 2's
document is sourced from Podesta's emails and not directly from the DNC. For this, an RSID
correlation would have probably been telling."
Why did the DNC, their security consultant firm Crowdstrike, and government investigators
wait so long to tell us that Guccifer 2.0 did not obtain their copy of the Trump opposition
report directly from the DNC? Why did Crowdstrike tell the Washington Post
that the opposition report files had been stolen specifically from the DNC network if that were
not the case?
The legacy press chorus had initially linked Guccifer 2.0's first document, and the "Russian
fingerprints" therein to the Trump opposition report that the DNC claimed to have been stolen
by Russian state-sponsored hackers. What prompted them to change their story, contradicting not
only Guccifer 2.0 but the DNC themselves? Should we now assess the DNC's claim that the
document had been taken by Russian hackers to be untrue?
Ultimately, it is the DNC's claim that they were breached by Russian hackers, who stole
the Trump opposition report, which directly belies their allegation - because the document did
not come from the DNC, but from John Podesta's emails.
Is it possible that Mueller's investigation may have taken a closer look into the origin of
Guccifer 2.0's initial document, realizing that it was sourced from Podesta's email? The DNC
and government investigators may have then decided that the best way to obscure the resulting
contradictory evidence was by letting it quietly leak via a "former DNC official who spoke on
the condition of anonymity," in the November 2017 article published by the Associated
Press.
Given the repeated contradictions from the DNC and corporate media in their description of
Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential race, how can the public be expected to
believe that their other claims have any legitimacy whatsoever?
The AP's November 2017 article also noticed that Guccifer 2.0's first published document
contained the word CONFIDENTIAL, while the original document did not. This was old news to
anyone who had been paying attention; Adam Carter analyzed this artifact nine months
earlier:
What is interesting here is that the AP admits that such elements of the document's
publication had been fabricated, but did not then follow that realization by questioning other
possibly fabricated elements of the documents, such as the Russian-language error messages. The
AP certainly did not concern themselves with why a Russian state-sponsored hacker would benefit
from airbrushing "confidential" onto such a report. Their claim that it was to attract media
attention seems quite weak.
AP surmised that Guccifer 2.0 "air-brush[ed]" the word "confidential" into the document to
"catch the reporter's attention." Both Carter and the Forensicator have explained that Guccifer
2.0 used a complex process, involving an intermediate template document, to inject this
"alluring" fake. The Forensicator told this author that they take the position that this
intermediate template file (ostensibly needed to add "CONFIDENTIAL" to the document) had an
additional purpose.
The Forensicator explained that, for some readers and researchers, the copy/paste of an
intermediate (RTF) copy of the Trump opposition report into a template document might be
interpreted simply as an unconventional method for injecting "confidential" into 1.doc.
However, the Forensicator added, it can also be interpreted as a "cover" for the final
copy/paste operation which was a necessary step in the evolution of Guccifer 2.0's first
document. It was needed to embed the Russian error messages into the final document
(1.doc).
Once again, establishment media failed to pursue their cited evidence with due diligence.
This is a grave mistake, especially given the way in which Guccifer 2.0's alleged 'hacking' has
been used as a major bolstering point for increased tensions between the United States and
Russia.
Initially, Gawker and The Smoking Gun Didn't Notice Iron Felix
Guccifer 2.0 made his noisy debut on June 15, 2016 (the day after the DNC publicly claimed
it had been breached by Russian state-sponsored hackers). It also appears that Guccifer 2.0
gave advanced copies of their doctored version of the Trump opposition report to two media
outlets, The Smoking Gun and Gawker.
In their full analysis, the Forensicator wrote that it was surprising that neither outlet
reported on the easily viewed "Last Saved By" property, which listed
"Феликс
Эдмундович" (aka "Iron Felix") as
the user who last saved the document. This unique name was noticed by various social media
observers that same day and by Ars Technica the following day. How did the journalists miss
this, and why?
Initially, Gawker and The Smoking Gun Didn't Notice the Russian Error Messages
Both Gawker and The Smoking Gun published Guccifer 2.0's Trump opposition report in full as
a PDF file. Their PDF files have the now infamous Cyrillic error messages in them; they appear
in the last few pages of their PDF files. Ars Technica dubbed these error messages, "Russian
fingerprints."
Although both outlets reviewed this document in some detail, neither outlet noticed the
Russian error messages in their first reports. The Forensicator suggests that, given their
choice of word processing applications, they would have seen the Russian error messages, if
only they had viewed the last few pages of each file. That is, unless (perhaps) they received
their PDF's directly from Guccifer 2.0 or another third party and they just passed them
along.
Ars Technica was Confused When They Didn't See the Russian Error Messages in Guccifer 2.0's
Word Document
Ars Technica reported on Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump Opposition Report the day
after Guccifer 2.0 arrived on the scene. They quickly noted that there were Russian language
error messages in the PDF file posted by Gawker. They also noticed that when they viewed 1.doc
themselves, they didn't see the Russian error messages. The Forensicator told Disobedient Media
that this was because Ars Technica used Word for Windows, which displayed the error messages in
English.
Ars Technica suggested that The Smoking Gun's PDF may have been generated by Guccifer
2.0 on a system that had Russian language settings enabled.
While this explanation appears reasonable, it is surprising (if that was the case) that
Gawker didn't tell us that their PDF came directly from Guccifer 2.0 . The Smoking Gun also
published a PDF with Russian error messages in it. Are we to believe that The Smoking Gun also
received their PDF from Guccifer 2.0 or a third party, and failed to report on this fact?
IVN: Did Gawker Outsource Their Analysis to Russia?
An obscure media outlet, Independent Voter Network , raised various theories on the initial
reporting done by The Smoking Gun and Gawker. One of their wilder theories suggested that
Gawker had outsourced their analysis to a Russian sub-contractor. The Forensicator evaluated
that claim, ultimately concluding that Independent Voter Network had gone on a wild goose chase
because the "clue" they followed pointed to Gawker's document management service known as
"DocumentCloud." DocumentCloud uses a technology that they call "CloudCrowd," which is what IVN
saw in the PDF that Gawker uploaded. The Forensicator referred to a DocumentCloud job
advertisement for confirmation of his conclusion.
The Forensicator told Disobedient Media: "We found CloudCrowd; it is not an outsourcing
company. Probably not Russian, either."
Business Insider: Did Guccifer 2.0 Photoshop "Confidential" Into his Document
Screenshots?
When Business Insider noted the presence of "CONFIDENTIAL" in Guccifer 2.0's document, they
claimed that Guccifer 2.0 might have "photoshopped" his screenshots (placed on his blog site)
to create the watermark and page footer with "confidential" in them.
The Forensicator countered that claim by pointing out that the Business Insider journalist
likely viewed the document with "Full-Screen Reading" selected.
This mode will disable the display of the watermark and page headers and footers when viewed
by the journalist, but they will be displayed when printed to PDF. No Photoshop required.
Conclusion
The close timing of the DNC announcement and Guccifer 2.0's publication of the Trump report,
as well as reports of "Russian fingerprints" in those documents, created a strong link between
Guccifer 2.0 and the Russian hackers who allegedly stole DNC files. Over a year later, the
Associated Press tells us that this first narrative was wrong, contradicting the DNC's claims
as well as much of the early legacy press reports on the issue. Must we concurrently accept the
narrative that Russians hacked the DNC if claims that they had done so were not only based on
flimsy evidence but have now been contradicted completely?
As far as documented evidence of election interference goes, one does not have to stray far
from the actors in the Russian hacking saga to discover that the DNC and establishment
Democrats were, instead of victims of meddling, the perpetrators of such abuse of the American
Democratic process. In 2017 the
NYC Board of Elections admitted that it had illegally purged hundreds of thousands of
Democratic voters from the election roles, preventing them from voting in the 2016 Democratic
primaries. This abuse of power represents just one in a constellation of legitimate examples of
abuse that took place at the hands of corporatized Democrats in order to unfairly and illegally
ensure a Clinton nomination.
This is too complicated for the average demon rat nitwit to follow. They don't want to
know this so showing them facts has to be dumbed down. Otherwise, all new revelations will be
ignored.
Really good work and reporting here that will never be understood by the masses.
Everything that's going on is far too complex, too many moving parts, too much
compartmentalization. Trump is doing a good job dumbing it down.
So the DNC announced Russia hacked them, and "proved" it with a file they say was
stolen.But that file was not the DNC's. So the "proof" of Russia hacking the DNC is
nonexistent.
Of course they don't that's why the imaginary oil glut was thought up. Let everyone else
think its glut, it drops the price allows U.S. to buy more. Then deliberate increase
inventory by buying more then claim inventory as a reason to drop the price?
Then take oil from the SPR through its bidirectional pipelines, designed just for that
purpose and pretend it is production, then of course at some stage as I mentioned ages ago, a
fictional drawdown sale of millions of barrels of crude from the SPR would have to be made to
keep the books straight for oil that's already gone!
Add to that the Ponzi shale still churning out oil costing them $100 to produce for them
to sell at $50 then CEO's shouting from rooftops about how profitable it will all be....with
none of them making profits, most of them passing dividends over and selling assets and
borrowing more and more that they will never be able to pay back and where the Fed did
everything possible to fund the at ZIRP or NIRP but failed miserable.
Then of course we get the same old same old Saudi pretending to raise production when its
own wells are falling apart and declining rapidly most subject to water flooding, including
the Super Giant Ghawar field.
"... " The spokesperson also added depending on the vehicle's configuration , Model 3 wait times are currently 1 to 3 months", but spokeshuman did not explain why no base models will ever be produced. ..."
"... " Tesla ditched reservations and opened up Model 3 sales to anyone for a $2,500 deposit." that's because reservations are refundable....as long as the cash holds out, sales deposits apparently not. ..."
Why Are "Thousands" of Teslas Sitting In a Field in California?
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 07/19/2018 - 16:14 129 SHARES
"There's so much inventory here, it's crazy."
When Tesla finally met its Model 3 production run rate target, astute investors and analysts
pointed out the use of the word "factory gated" in the company's press release: "Not only did
we factory gate 5000 Model 3's , but we also achieved the S & X production target for a
combined 7000 vehicle week!" Musk wrote in an email to his staff that week.
It was a term that Tesla hadn't used before.
Now, thanks to a couple of sleuths on Twitter, we may have just found out what the term
means. Twitter Tesla sleuth @ISpyTSLA, with the help of others, has been trying to figure out
exactly where all these vehicles are winding up. @ISpyTSLA found that it appears that
"thousands" of vehicles are being stored "in a field" 500 E Louise Ave, Lathrop, CA 95330.
Perhaps as a place to temporarily dump cars that should be 'off the books' or as some said,'
"There's so much inventory here, it's crazy."
The accompanying video appears to show "thousands" of Tesla vehicles just rusting in the
open air under the scorching California sun.
Additional video shows the Twitter users initial approach to the property, which appears to
have a gate with a warning sign that the premises are being video monitored.
The Twitter user notes that trucks seem to be bringing cars in, but not out. Follow up
Tweets noted that "there's no real
activity in the inventory lot" before noting that "some cars are coming out".
Meanwhile, as another Twitter user noted, another just as vast pile of Model 3s can be found
near the Burbank Hollywood Airport.
The reaction from Twitter was underwhelming.
Great News Lemmings! All of our 5K Burst week cars are sitting in a scrap heap. This is
GREAT news, we are going to make submarines out of them. Elon $TSLA
But why stash the cars there? Is it to optimize net working capital and give investors - and
auditors - the impression of more liquidity than is actually available?
Surely this will, or should, be one of the "boring" questions asked on the company's
conference, if PricewaterhouseCoopers doesn't ask first.
Meanwhile, Tesla already had to fend off a downgrade from Needham this morning, who warned
that Model 3 refunds were moving faster than deposits, something we documented
here over a month ago .
"Based on our checks, refunds are outpacing deposits as cancellations accelerate," wrote
analyst Rajvindra Gill in the note Thursday. "The reasons are varied: extended wait times,
the expiration of the $7,500 credit, and unavailability of the $35k base model."
"In August '17, TSLA cited a refund rate of 12%. Almost a year later, we believe it has
doubled and outpaced deposits. Model 3 wait times are currently 4-12 months and with base
model not available until mid-2019, consumers could wait until 2020," Gill added.
This morning Tesla refuted this, however, with the discovery of this new lot Tesla's PR
spin job for today may only be getting started.
There probably aren't any batteries in them. These cars are in various states of technical
completeness. Processes that were too time-consuming and parts that were not readily
available were skipped in order to complete their ridiculous publicity stunt. No one likely
knows the missing bits for any given car so they are junk. This is what happens when you are
able to do what you're doing because of lots of "other-people's money". 4th turning bitchez,
gross waste and abuse. All the big manufacturers are doing it, why shouldn't Tesla?
Elon Musk manufactures here in the USA. Most American car manufacturers, other than Ford, took bigly bailout money from American
taxpayers and then set up shop in racially homogenous, cheap-labor countries in China &
Latin America. Ford went straight to Mexico, bypassing the bailout cash.
"Profitable" American car manufacturers still do some production in the USA, mostly hiring
groups of young temps. They pay the youthful, blue-collar temp workers more than most
white-collar temp jobs around here offer.
About 5 years ago, a local car manufacturer was paying temps $17 per hour, as opposed to
the typical $10 per hour offered to white-collar non-college-grad office workers or $12 per
hour for white-collar college-grad office workers. I recently saw an article, suggesting that
the same American car manufacturer is now paying young temps even more, quite a bit more.
The article was adorned with a photo of an aging union worker, but no explanation was
provided about how this system really works, with the young temps hired to do the bulk of the
physically demanding labor. Due to senority, a small group of old union workers avoid that
work, doing the cushier tasks.
The liberal agenda pusher who wrote the article, sticking a photo on it with an especially
aged union worker, was probably promoting the faulty idea that America needs more immigration
to fill those jobs due to an aging population, when, in fact, the young Millennial generation
is BIGGER than the aging Boomer generation.
Furthermore, American citizens often get on lists to fill those high-paying temp jobs in
car manufacturing. Applicants often have six-month waiting periods due to the massive number
of job seekers, chasing those rare, high-paying TEMPORARY jobs.
Much like state jobs, US citizens must wait to get a good-paying temp job with those car
manufacturers, and if the person who wrote the article had talked to temps who actually
worked those jobs, s/he would know it. But it might not matter; advocates of mass-scale
immigration gonna advocate.
Tne Media helped establish Musk as a cult figure. Reality is catching up with a false god, that is what's happening. At what point will Musk throw a kool aid party for MuskCar employees under the tent.
No its not what other car manufacturers do if they have so many orders to fill? only car
manufacturers forward producing and estimating demand need store them but most adjust
manufacturing levels to avoid it now as its expensive to store, and even non registered
vehicles decline in value and are subject to damage.
Tesla with back orders should have no need at all to store cars, with such a professed
backlog, so the fact they have is highly suspicious.
It might suggest to some analysts that the vehicles are not completed not safe or
something else is awry.
It doesn't even look like "thousands" of cars to me. A quick drone flyover would clear
this question up. And sure, this is what all car manufacturers do. Transshipment, rework, whatever. I mean,
what else would you do? Put a tent over them? Everything about Tesla is stupid, and I'm enjoying their failure. But stories like this
give credence to Musk's paranoid assertions that the world is out to destroy him.
Back in the old days of software we called it 'shipping bricks'. The new version of the
software wasn't ready, but we booked orders, so we slapped labels on blank disks, but em in
boxes with manuals and sent em out. Customer called a few days later when the software was
ready, and we said, 'oh sorry, must have gotten a defective one, we are fed exing a new disk
in the mail.
These may look like Teslas, but they didn't pass tests or are unsellable for some reason,
so they count them as 'gated inventory' Same thing
The increase in TSLA market cap more than covered the few thousand "cars" Tesla needs to
hide that will never actually be sold, well until Elon called a hero a pedophile.
This is how the great publicly traded con economy works. You aren't producing product to
sell, you are only manufacturing a story to sell stock. Since stock based compensation makes
you a billionaire even if your company loses billions of dollars, what incentive is there to
turn a profit?
You end up with more scams than productive corporations. If there was no stock market,
Walmart would exist, but Amazon would not. Walmart is profitable in the billions of dollars,
Amazon is not. Bezos could not be worth $150billion without the scam of publicly traded
shares because it would take a few thousand years to pay out $150billion to Bezos from
Amazon's profit.
Meanwhile Walmart could pay a few executives $1 billion per year and have plenty of profit
left. Why is one company worth $250 billion, less than half revenue and the other near $850
billion with less than $200 billion in revenue?
Not only Tesla is "storing" cars. All the majors appear to be doing the same. I live near
Flint MI and you would NOT BELIEVE the number of lot's, fields, and empty spaces in the area
that are FULL of late model vehicles. I suspect most are lease returns that are being kept
out of the market to keep prices elevated. I have a 21 year old pick up truck. It is paid
for. I would buy a newer truck but they are way too expensive. We have a newer SUV, also paid
for. When the "big 3" decide to sell some of those lease returns at a reasonable price I MAY
look at buying one. I WILL NOT BUY ONE for the prices they want. I just purchased a nice home
for less than $40K so why would I buy a depreciating asset for the same amount?
Tesla delayed some deliveries until July, probably so that they could reach 200K cars sold
this quarter and have the $7500 tax credit until Q4. But now that they've sold 200K, it makes
no sense to hang onto them unless they don't have a buyer. Maybe that's why they opened the
Model 3 builder site to everyone? Could it really be that they've run through all of the
Model 3 preorders because most people who signed up to buy a $35K car aren't interested in
paying $49K minimum as it is now?
This is a reasonable interpretation. Best case for Musk. In islolation (lol) it doesn't
seem fatal.
But even so, he has higher inventory control costs. His labor costs have proven higher
too. Down the line these cars have no dealer network to service or repair them, and to
provide it is [would cost] billions.
Yea and the Tesla tards are all gaga over the 30% profit margin the 3 will bring as
indicated by those that tear down and analyze the vehicle. We're all gonna be rich when Tesla
stock hits 10,000 by the end of the year. Booya. What you delusional Musk lovers should do is
learn the difference between GROSS PROFIT, which is that touted 30%, and NET PROFIT. Gross
profit only includes the direct costs to produce the car, materials and labor, but does not
include selling, general, and administrative which will consume that 30% "profit" and then
some. General expenses such as warranty work, electricity, paying engineers and secretaries
and other non direct manufacturing personnel such as material handlers and plant cleanup and
trash disposal and maintenance people etc, "free charging", R&D, interest on the debt,
sales offices, etc etc. In the past your boy could brag about the cash pile on hand most of
which was accumulated for PR purposes by delaying payment to suppliers.
Not since "Who Killed the Electric Car" have so many with axes to grind began fueling this
bazaar anti-Tesla barrage. Musk is part of "those who do" while "those that can't" SHIT ALL
OVER EVERYBODY who can.
Behind this is a hedge fund with a heavy short position, oil industry think tanks, and
just plain shits parading on some fucking adolescent thing called "Twitter".
Have you dumb asses looked at the quantities of warehoused traditional cars by all other
manufacturers? Youtube it if you don't believe. As to you haters and inflammatory dickheads,
it's time to stop whacking it and eat the fucking cracker.
You really are delusional. "Who Killed the Electric Car' is nothing but a hit piece on GM.
GM killed their own electric not the electric industry like idiots want to believe. Their car
although state of the art at the time had little range with the old tech batteries that were
available at the time and would have been extremely expensive to build as it had no parts in
common with other vehicles in their line. Plus at the time there was absolutely no public
demand for electrics. The current flurry of electrics coming on the market is not because of
Tesla, as you cult members want to believe, but from the hugely funded enviros pushing for
the elimination of all ICE cars. In Germany and a few other countries they have passed or are
in the process of legislating no new ICE cars to be sold by a certain date, anywhere from
2025 to 2030 depending on country, and all ICE cars off the road by 2050 or other dates
depending on country.
Recently there was a complete fiction hit piece that oil companies outspend enviros by 10
to 1 on lobbying. Enviro organizations such as Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace,
Tom Steyer and other billionaires, and other enviro groups spend most of their budgets, which
is in the billions, on lobbying. Under Obama his EPA pursued a "sue and settle" policy to
encourage enviro groups to sue the EPA which would settle quickly as a way to get funds into
the enviros pockets. Not to mention the hundreds of billions given to enviros by governments
around the world. The Obama EPA refused to release to Congress the science on which their
rulings were made because most of that "science" was bullshit written by enviro activists.
The EPA advisors were all enviro activists. When Trump put Pruitt in charge of the EPA you
clowns claimed he was anti science when he shit canned the activist old boy network and set
up debates from all sides. Under Pruitt they took money destined for activists and used it
clean up real pollution in Superfund sites which the Obama EPA ignored.
The other manufacturers can afford to warehouse cars as they make real profits. They also
have to buy "pollution permits" to sell their cars in Commiefornia, which ends up in Tesla's
pockets even though they pollute worse the ICE though not directly. As it is your boy is no
different than the other manufacturers yet, except for ZH and other sites willing to print
the truth, the general media, especially tech sites, can't get enough of licking Musk's balls
and stroking his ego by wrongly calling him a genius who is going to change the world. Every
single market your boy is in from Powerwalls to solar panels to cars there is experienced and
well funded competition but yet the delusional refuse to believe it. His factory of the
future, which was going to change the way cars are built, was a huge failure as in many
procedures humans are better than robots which is why other car companies still employ
humans. Your boy who was going to change the way cars are sold is opening dealerships. Plus
Tesla is opening large numbers of repair shops contrary to the belief of many Tesla fanbois
that Tesla's run forever without any repairs.
Boy did I scratch off your scab! Feeling accused? BTW cut back on "enviro-whatever" ok,
'cus it really sounds stupid. Your writing is dense, machine like, staid, crystalized, like a
walking dead pedantic. Your reality is your own, there in your hermit crab shell, I wish you
a constant stream of nutritional plankton, return to your place on the coral wreath.
Notice you came back with nothing but name calling and a writing style critique. Another
content free liberal, once you scratch one layer deep past the talking points.
Production does not always mean demand. In today's' ideology, production pays the rent, as
long as the feds keep bailing you out. For years there have been photos of new car
graveyards. It gives the charts something good to say.
"We produced 7,000 cars this week" gives the illusion of high demand for product, while not
indicating who the buyers are. Part of the Sales illusion.
1 Problem. Tesla Vehicles Are Made From Aluminum and Aluminum Alloys. So They Do Not Rust
! This Tells Me Someone Didn't Do The Proper Research or Proof Reading .
Yeah, well if you actually DO proper research you'll find that only iron and steel rust.
Aluminum corrodes, forms a thin layer of oxidized aluminum over its surface which does
protect further surface corrosion. However, in a salt environment, even a teeny little bit of
salt and water, like say salt found in desert areas, will cause severe corrosion where the
aluminum turns to dust. If it rains in Lathrop followed by lots of wind, any and all
unprotected aluminum WILL turn to dust and that right quick if left that way. Ask any Navy or
Marine Corps pilot or any Navy or Marine Corps aircraft maintenance person whose served at
sea and flew or worked on any number of aircraft. So thanks for the "they do not rust"
warning so that "someone" could do Proper Research or Proof Reading. Good tip.
" The spokesperson also added depending on the vehicle's configuration , Model 3 wait
times are currently 1 to 3 months", but spokeshuman did not explain why no base models will
ever be produced.
" Tesla ditched reservations and opened up Model 3 sales to anyone for a $2,500 deposit."
that's because reservations are refundable....as long as the cash holds out, sales deposits
apparently not.
Probably not so much to short-circuit democratic process that was short-circuited long before
them, but clearly they acted as the guardians of the neoliberal state.
Which confirm the iron law of oligarchy in the most direct way: not only the elite gradually
escapes all the democratic control, they use their power as oranized minority to defend the
status quo, not stopping at the most dirty dirty methods.
Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages
between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous
girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end
of this article.)
Despite his former job as chief of the FBI's counterintelligence section, Strzok had the
naive notion that texting on FBI phones could not be traced. Strzok must have slept through
"Surity 101." Or perhaps he was busy texting during that class. Girlfriend Page cannot be happy
at being misled by his assurance that using office phones would be a secure way to conduct
their affair(s).
It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding
texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they
thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for
the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost
10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that.
We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were
trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context
the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to
rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community,
shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State.
... ... ...
Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has
been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of
breathless searching for "evidence" of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the
White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama
administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time
gumshoes used to call "means, motive and opportunity."
"... Both cases, the inclusive and the extractive, tend to reinforce themselves through time by a process known as institutional drift. This is an historical tendency for institutions to maintain, strengthen, and reproduce themselves over time similar to the biological processes involved in genetic drift. ..."
"... Importantly the authors also take the time to mention Robert Michel's seminal idea concerning the iron law of oligarchy ..."
"... Neo-Paternalism ..."
"... The Origins of Political Order. ..."
"... In short, much like the earlier Michel, Fukuyama sees present day democracies drifting towards ever more nepotistic patterns of behavior where elites seize power and reward and distribute the fruits of that power to their close associates within their networks of influence. ..."
"... In effect, both men, see, as did Marx before them, the "constitutional democracies" as a sham as a kind of theater behind which the levers of power are exercised authoritatively with little regard to the true interests of the masses below them. ..."
"... In such an environment of centralized elite control, "media openness" can do little to rout out the opaque workings of carefully, surreptitiously orchestrated power. ..."
What are the necessary elements for the success of a modern nation state?
According to one justifiably popular and well-written book, Why Nations
Fail , it all has to do with inclusive political and economic institutions which
foster technological change which in turn leads to increasing prosperity for the many.
Two key aspects upholding such institutions are a strong centralized state and the rule of
law. Without these two, a nation cannot hope to advance socially, politically, or
economically. The negative of this rosy picture are nations which maintain and promote extractive
political and economic institutions which serve the interests of a narrow elite.
Both cases, the inclusive and the extractive, tend to reinforce themselves through time by a
process known as institutional drift. This is an historical tendency for institutions
to maintain, strengthen, and reproduce themselves over time similar to the biological processes
involved in genetic drift.
Importantly the authors also take the time to mention Robert Michel's seminal idea
concerning the iron law of oligarchy which explains the historically documented
tendency that large, complex organizations of any kind (democratic, socialist, conservative)
fall under the sway of a small elite exercising absolute if cosmetically hidden power.
Our authors optimistically suggest that this law is not destiny and can be
sufficiently controlled by ever expanding democratic institutions in civil society.
Opposed to this buoyant idea of increasing mass prosperity and political participation is
Francis Fukuyama's discussion of Neo-Paternalism in his thought provoking magnum opus
The Origins of Political Order.
In short, much like the earlier Michel, Fukuyama sees present day democracies drifting
towards ever more nepotistic patterns of behavior where elites seize power and reward and
distribute the fruits of that power to their close associates within their networks of
influence.
In effect, both men, see, as did Marx before them, the "constitutional democracies" as a
sham as a kind of theater behind which the levers of power are exercised authoritatively with
little regard to the true interests of the masses below them.
In such an environment of centralized elite control, "media openness" can do little to rout
out the opaque workings of carefully, surreptitiously orchestrated power.
Thus, a superficial reading of history might lead us to believe that we live in an
increasingly "inclusive" society reflecting a rising tide of technological progress and
economic prosperity. However, a closer look, might reveal a modicum of beneficence bestowed
upon the many; while the Machiavellian few have managed behind a facade of democracy and
nationalism to achieve unheard of sums of wealth, power, and influence once only dreamed of by
despots, dictators, and demagogues of the past.
"... There are many modern myths. One of them is about the events of 1989 as being the culmination of a grand historical struggle for freedom and liberty. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For years prior to 1989 the West through a combination of both legal business and criminal activity had interpenetrated the Communist elites with lucrative deals and promises of all kinds. ..."
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
-- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
There are many modern myths. One of them is about the events of 1989 as being the
culmination of a grand historical struggle for freedom and liberty. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For years prior to 1989 the West through a combination of both legal business and criminal
activity had interpenetrated the Communist elites with lucrative deals and promises of all
kinds.
This situation was even more pronounced in "non-aligned" Yugoslavia who for years had
maintained CIA and American and West European business contacts.
In effect, the "cold war" witnessed a rapid convergence between the economic and power
interests of both Western and Communist elites.
The "Communists" (in name only of course) quickly realized the economic benefits available
to them through at times open at times clandestine cooperation with Western business/criminal
interests.
Eventually, Communist elites realized that they had an unprecedented economic opportunity on
their hands: state privatization made possible, in part, with active Western participation.
For them, "Freedom" meant the freedom to get rich beyond their wildest dreams.
And the 1990's were just that. A paradise for thieving on an unimaginable scale all under
the rubric of the rebirth of "capitalism and freedom".
The true outcome of that decade was that the old communist elites not only retained their
social and political power behind the scenes; they also were able to enrich themselves beyond
anything the communist dictatorships could ever hope to offer them in the past.
Yes, the price was to give up imperial, national, and ideological ambitions. But it was a
very small price to pay; since the East European elites had ceased to believe in any of those
things years earlier.
The only firm belief they still held was the economic betterment of themselves and their
families through the acquisition by any means of as many asset classes as possible. In effect,
they became the mirror image of their "enemy" the "imperialist capitalist West".
This was not a case of historical dialectics but historical convergence. What appeared as a
world divided was actually a world waiting to be made whole through the basest of criminal
business activity.
But being clever thieves they knew how to hide themselves and their doings behind
superficially morally impeccable figures such as Vaclav Havel and Lech Wałęsa, to
name just a few. These "dissidents" would be the faces they would use to make a good part of
the world believe that 1989 was a narrative of freedom and not outright pubic theft which it
was.
Yes, people in the east, even in Russia, are freer now than they were. But it should never
be forgotten that the events of 1989/1990 were not even remotely about those revolutionary
dreams.
It was about something much more mundane and sordid. It was about greed. It was about the
maintenance of power. And finally it was about money.
How deep has the Western nexus of power and wealth gone into the heart of the East? So far
indeed that one can easily question to what extent a country like Russia is truly a "national"
state anymore and rather just a territory open to exploitation by both local and global
elites.
For that matter, we can ask the same question about the USA.
The trouble with all this analysis is that it disregards one thing ... thermonuclear
weapons. None of these countries, US, Russia, China is a danger to any of the others. A war
between any of them is inconceivable and barring some unforeseen breakthrough will remain
that way for centuries to come.
These 3 nations are continental in size. None of them can be 'strangled' by the others.
You might be thinking of energy, but along with ending war, nuclear technology makes that
irrelevant as well. Nuclear power (despite the idiocy you hear constantly from 'anti-nukes'),
means that every country can have virtually limitless energy. There is a lot of uranium
around, and used in advanced reactors it will last so far into the future, that it might as
well be forever. The only reason the fossil-fuel age has not ended, is inertia. We are at the
beginning of the uranium age.
And what this means is that if any of these huge countries wants to turn to isolation to
whatever degree, it really doesn't matter.
As the Snowden documents and David Sanger's great new book and other books make plain, and
as U.S. officials are wont to brag, the U.S. intelligence services break into computers and
computer networks abroad at an astounding rate, certainly on a greater scale than any other
intelligence service in the world. Every one of these intrusions in another country violates
that country's criminal laws prohibiting unauthorized computer access and damage, no less
than the Russian violations of U.S. laws outlined in Mueller's indictment...
It is no response to say that the United States doesn't meddle in foreign elections,
because it has in the past - at least as recently as Bill Clinton's intervention in the
Russian presidential election of 1996 and possibly as recently as the Hillary Clinton State
Department's alleged intervention in Russia's 2011 legislative elections .
And during the Cold War the United States intervened in numerous foreign elections, more
than twice as often as the Soviet Union.
Intelligence history expert Loch Johnson told Scott Shane that the 2016 Russia electoral
interference is "the cyber-age version of standard United States practice for decades,
whenever American officials were worried about a foreign vote."
The CIA's former chief of Russia operations, Steven L. Hall, told Shane: "If you ask an
intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is
no, not at all." Hall added that "the United States 'absolutely' has carried out such
election influence operations historically, and I hope we keep doing it."
Nothing gets the phony "Resistance," corporate media and neocons more hysterical than when
Trump isn't belligerent enough while meeting with foreign leaders abroad. While the pearl
clutching was intense during the North Korea summit, the reoccurring, systematic outrage
spectacle was taken to entirely new levels of stupidity and hyperbole during yesterday's
meeting with Putin in Finland.
The clown parade really got going after compulsive liar and former head of the CIA under
Barack Obama, John Brennan, accused Trump of treason on Twitter -- which resistance drones
dutifully retweeted, liked and permanently enshrined within the gospel of Russiagate.
Some people hate Trump so intensely they're willing to take the word of a professional liar
and manipulator as scripture.
In fact, Brennan is so uniquely skilled at the dark art of deception, Trevor Timm, executive
direction of the Freedom of the Press foundation described him in the following manner in a
must read 2014
article :
"this is the type of spy who apologizes even though he's not sorry, who lies because he
doesn't like to tell the truth." The article also refers to him as "the most talented liar in
Washington."
This is the sort of hero the phony "resistance" is rallying around. No thank you.
It wasn't just Brennan, of course. The mental disorder colloquially known as Trump
Derangement Syndrome is widely distributed throughout society at this point. Baseless
accusations of treason were thrown around casually by all sorts of TDS sufferers, including
sitting members of Congress. To see the extent of the disease, take a look at the show put on
by Democratic Congressman from Washington state, Rep. Adam Smith.
"At every turn of his trip to Europe, President Trump has followed a script that parallels
Moscow's plan to weaken and divide America's allies and partners and undermine democratic
values. There is an extensive factual record suggesting that President Trump's campaign and
the Russians conspired to influence our election for President Trump," Smith, a top Democrat
on the House Armed Services Committee, said in an official
statement .
"Now Trump is trying to cover it up. There is no sugar coating this. It is hard to see
President Trump siding with Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence community and our
criminal investigators as anything other than treason."
Those are some serious accusations. He must surely have a strong argument to support such
proclamations, right? Wrong. Turns out it was all show, pure politics.
In an interview with The Seattle Times, Smith expanded on his "treason" comment, saying
Trump legally did not commit treason but has committed other impeachable offenses.
"Treason might have been a little bit of hyperbole," Smith
told The Seattle Times . "There is no question in my mind that the United States has the
need to begin an impeachment investigation."
It says a lot that the resistance itself doesn't even believe its own nonsense. They're just
using hyperbolic and dangerous language to make people crazy and feed more TDS.
Here's yet another example of a wild-eyed Democratic Congressman sounding utterly
bloodthirsty and unhinged. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee is openly saying the U.S. is at war
with Russia.
"No question about it," Cohen told Hill.TV's Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on "Rising" when
asked whether the Russian hacking and propaganda effort constituted an act of war.
"It was a foreign interference with our basic Democratic values. The underpinnings of
Democratic society is elections, and free elections, and they invaded our country," he
continued.
Cohen went on to say that the U.S. should have countered with a cyber attack on
Russia.
"A cyber attack that made Russian society valueless. They could have gone into Russian
banks, Russian government. Our cyber abilities are such that we could have attacked them with
a cyber attack that would have crippled Russia," he said.
This is a very sick individual.
While the above is incredibly twisted, it's become increasingly clear that Russiagate has
become something akin to a religion. It's adherents have become so attached to the story that
Trump's "wholly in the pocket of Putin," they're increasingly lobbing serious and baseless
accusations against people who fail to acquiesce to their dogma.
I was a victim of this back in November 2016 when
I was falsely slandered in The Washington Post's ludicrous and now infamous PropOrNot
article.
More recently, we've seen MSNBC pundit Malcom Nance (ex-military/intelligence) call Glenn
Greenwald a Russian agent (without evidence of course), followed by "journalist" David Corn
calling Rand Paul a "traitor" for stating indisputable facts .
Calling someone a traitor for stating obvious facts that threaten the hysteria you're trying
to cultivate is a prime example of how this whole thing has turned into some creepy D.C.
establishment religion. If these people have such a solid case and the facts are on their side,
there's no need to resort to such demented craziness. It does nothing other than promote
societal insanity and push the unconvinced away.
It's because of stuff like this that we're no longer able to have a real conversation about
anything in this country (many Trump cheerleaders employ the same tactics) . This is a deadly
thing for any society and will be explored in Part 2.
* * *
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"... US is a mess with so many derangement syndromes, even amongst the elite. Trump is something like a catalyst that causes the elite, and much of the US to separate into two distinctly different groupings of derangement syndrome. ..."
Daniel
I'm of a different mind when it comes to the elites/money. Was it you or somebody commented
some time back that the US elite is not a monolith? No matter, I think Trump is part of a
faction of the elite rather than a groomed puppet. There are a number of factions in the US,
who mostly act in unison, but now, As anywhere the factions will overlap in interests, as in
many with Iran derangement syndrome will overlap with those who have Russia derangement
syndrome and so forth. US is a mess with so many derangement syndromes, even amongst the elite. Trump is
something like a catalyst that causes the elite, and much of the US to separate into two
distinctly different groupings of derangement syndrome.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jul 17, 2018 11:35:02 PM |
188
Peter AU 1 @184. I have written, and do still absolutely believe that the 0.01% is not a
monolith, and that they do compete, sometimes with absolutely disastrous effects on
humans.
I just don't see this Trump vs. "Deep State" or whatever as an example of that. The 0.01%
and their MSM who we are told is "the resistance" helped create and bolster the Trump Brand,
and are profiting mightily from his Administration.
I just saw an article showing Goldman Sachs' profits have gone up 44% since Trump. Again,
not "The Grand Coincidence" that Trump stuffed the swamp with more GS creatures of the black
lagoon than any other President in history.
Or, are GS now anti-globalists, playing along with Trump's brilliant 5-D chess? ;-)
Seriously, what AZ Empire elitists have suffered under the Trump Administration?
The extraction industries are flying high. The MIC is raking it in. The supra-national
banksters.... well, they always do well, but they're obviously thrilled as is Wall Street in
general.
As I noted above, even the failing media of the NY Times and MSDNC are in boon times!
Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert were in the ratings cellar until Trump, now they're tops in
their slots. Michael frigging Moore and U2 are relevant again! ;-)
Seriously, I had asked who benefits. But the easier question has to be who suffers?
Daniel
Trump's swamp is very different from what most of us here at b's see as the swamp. Trump's
swamp is what Pat Lang at SST terms as the borg. It is the pidgins strutting around shitting
on the chessboard (Putin), the Zbig foreign policy 'ex-spurts' blinded by Russia derangement
syndrome.
Methinks the media pot is calling the Trump kettle black; or is it the other way around?
They're interchangeable; they're like a jacket that has two sides one can wear when the other
side looks too dirty.
Same thing with the Washington duopoly. When one starts to look transparent; the other one
takes over.
It's all a racket people. Stop buying into the media and duopoly system and it'll lose its
power. They exist on your desperation, your need for illusion and your insanity i.e. doing
the same thing over and over expecting a different result when you know it's clearly not
working!
Trump is the master illusionist du jour even topping Obama, who was like the charming
preacher minus the performing snakes. Perhaps the only true statement to come out of
Hillary's mouth was about her rival.: "The skies will open, the light will come down,
celestial choirs will be heard and the world will be perfect.
She should know; she peddles the same.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day...err...once.
Circe @| 173, why does the Zionist owned and controlled media in Israel LOVE Trump, but the
Zionist owned and controlled media in the US/EU HATE him?
And that is one of the (many) reasons why I do not believe the MSM narrative that Trump is
an outsider whom they hate. Trump fans know the MSM lies to us about everything, big and
small. And yet, they totally believe the MSM narrative about Trump and their relationship
with him.
I am reminded of the atheist challenge to believers in a monotheistic religion. "You are
atheistic about all the other gods except one. I am merely atheistic about one more god than
you."
Well, I disbelieve one more MSM narrative than most.
NOTE: Because "NATO" these days is little more than a box of spare parts out of which
Washington assembles "coalitions of the willing" , it's
easier for me to write "NATO" than "Washington plus/minus these or those minions".
Home Secretary Sajid Javid has called on Russia to explain "exactly what has gone on"
after two people were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent in Wiltshire. (
BBC )
The Russian state could put this wrong right. They could tell us what happened. What they
did. And fill in some of the significant gaps that we are trying to pursue. We have said they
can come and tell us what happened. I'm waiting for the phone call from the Russian state.
The offer is there. They are the ones who could fill in all the clues to keep people safe. (
UK security minister Ben Wallace )
Leaving aside their egregious flouting of the elemental principle of English justice, note
that they're uttering this logical idiocy: Russia must have done it because it hasn't proved it
didn't . Note also, in Javid's speech, the amusing suggestion that Russia keeps changing its
story; but to fit into the official British story "novichok" must be an instantly lethal
slow acting poison which dissipates quickly but lasts for months .
This is an attempt to manipulate our perception of reality . In a previous
essay I discussed NATO's projection of its own actions onto Russia. In this piece I want to
discuss another psychological manipulation – gaslighting .
The expression comes from the movie Gaslight in which the villain
manipulates her reality to convince his wife that she is insane. Doubt the official Skripal
story and it is you – you "Russian troll" – who is imagining things. Only Russian
trolls would question Litvinenko's deathbed accusation written in perfect English handed to us
by a Berezovskiy flunky; or the shootdown of MH17; or the invasion of Ukraine; or the cyber
attack on Estonia. Only a Russian troll would observe that the fabulously expensive NATO
intelligence agencies apparently get their information from Bellingcat. Argumentum ad trollem
is everywhere:
count the troll accusations here or admire the
clever anticipatory use of the technique there .
This is classic gaslighting – I'm telling the truth, you're the crazy one.
The Skripals were poisoned by an incredibly deadly nerve agent that left them with no
visible symptoms for hours but not so deadly that it killed them; at least not at Easter; nor
the policeman; a nerve agent that could only have been made in Russia although its recipe was
published in the
open media ; that poison having been administered on a doorknob that each had to have
touched at the exact same minute that no one else touched; a nerve agent so deadly that they
only bothered to clean up the sites 51 days later. And so on: a different story every day. But
your mind must be controlled by Putin if you smell a falsehood at any point. And, now we have
it all over again: apparently
the fiendishly clever Russian assassins smeared the doorknob and then, rather than getting out
of town ASAP, sauntered over into a park to toss the container . (Remember the fiendishly
clever Russian assassins who spread polonium everywhere?)
They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
Russians cheat at the sports you follow, scatter nerve agents and radioactive material in
places you could be in, sneak into the voting booth with you, blow up airplanes you might be on
and tear up the " very
fabric of our democracy ." Your favourite actor tells you " we are at war with Russia ".
They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.
There are direct rewards of course: cue Udo Ulfkotte ; many benefits to swimming with
the stream; swimming the other way, not so many. It's only after they retire that British
generals question the story, the cynic observes.
German generals too . Maybe even
US generals .
NATO exerts a continual pressure for unanimity. Again, the Skripal story is a good example:
London accused Russia and, "
in solidarity ", Russian diplomats were expelled all over the world. Allies took its word
for it. Now the doubts:
in Germany especially . Sanctions must be imposed on Russia because we must be in
solidarity with Kiev.
"Solidarity" on migrants . " Solidarity " is
perhaps the greatest virtue in NATOland. We will hear more pleas for solidarity as NATO dies : when mere
"solidarity" is the only reason left; there's no reason left.
An " existential
threat posed by digitally accelerated disinformation ". So no forgiveness to you, crazy
Putin trolls. And don't dare doubt that American democracy is so feeble that it can be directed
by a few Facebook ads. Never forget that NATO's opponents are crazy: Putin is a "
madman "; Qaddafi was "
crazy "; Saddam Hussein "
insane "; Milosevic " rabid ". Only crazy people would
defend crazy people.
I said it the last time: the USSR did lots of things in its time – influencing,
fiddling elections, fake news, gaslighting and so on. But, in those days the Communist Party
was the " leading and guiding
force " but today it's the opposition .
Things have changed in Moscow, but NATO rolls on.
Some hope, though.
While many people are still taken in by the gaslighters, there are hopeful signs. Once upon
a time Internet versions of the mass media allowed comments. Gradually, one by one, they shut
down their comments sections because of "trolls", "fake news" and offended "standards" but
really because of disagreement. Perhaps the most famous case is that of the Guardian:
an entire website , has been created by
people whose comments were rejected because they violated "community standards". I always read
the comments in the Daily Mail, especially the best rated, and on the Skripal stories, the
comments are very sceptical indeed of the official story.
For example .
This is rather encouraging: for gaslighting really to work, the gaslighter either has to be
in such a position of power that he can completely control the victim's surroundings or in such
a position of authority that the victim cannot imagine doubting what he says. Those days are
gone.
"... $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America ..."
"... Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America ..."
"... , is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author, most recently, of ..."
So effectively has the Beltway establishment captured the concept of national security that,
for most of us, it automatically conjures up images of terrorist groups, cyber warriors, or
"rogue states." To ward off such foes, the United States maintains a historically unprecedented
constellation
of military bases abroad and, since 9/11, has waged wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
and elsewhere that have gobbled up nearly
$4.8 trillion . The 2018 Pentagon budget already totals $647 billion -- four times what China, second
in global military spending, shells out and more than the next 12 countries combined,
seven of them American allies. For good measure, Donald Trump has added an additional
$200 billion to projected defense expenditures through 2019.
Yet to hear the hawks tell it, the United States has never been less secure. So much for
bang for the buck.
For millions of Americans, however, the greatest threat to their day-to-day security isn't
terrorism or North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China. It's internal -- and economic. That's
particularly true for the 12.7% of Americans
(43.1 million of them) classified as poor by the government's criteria : an income below $12,140
for a one-person household, $16,460 for a family of two, and so on until you get to the
princely sum of $42,380 for a family of eight.
Savings aren't much help either: a third of Americans have no
savings at all and another third have less than $1,000 in the bank. Little wonder that
families struggling to cover the cost of food alone increased from 11% (36
million) in 2007 to 14% (48 million) in 2014.
The Working Poor
Unemployment can certainly contribute to being poor, but millions of Americans endure
poverty when they have full-time jobs or even hold down more than one job. The latest figures
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that there are 8.6 million "working poor,"
defined by the government as people who live below the poverty line despite being employed at
least 27 weeks a year. Their economic insecurity doesn't register in our society, partly
because working and being poor don't seem to go together in the minds of many Americans -- and
unemployment has fallen reasonably steadily. After approaching 10% in 2009, it's now at only
4% .
Help from the government? Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare " reform "
program , concocted in partnership with congressional Republicans, imposed time limits on
government assistance, while tightening eligibility criteria for it. So, as Kathryn Edin and
Luke Shaefer show in their disturbing book, $2.00 a Day: Living on
Almost Nothing in America , many who desperately need help don't even bother to apply.
And things will only get worse in the age of Trump. His 2019 budget includes deep cuts in
a raft of anti-poverty programs.
Anyone seeking a visceral sense of the hardships such Americans endure should read Barbara
Ehrenreich's 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On
(Not) Getting By in America . It's a gripping account of what she learned when, posing
as a "homemaker" with no special skills, she worked for two years in various low-wage jobs,
relying solely on her earnings to support herself. The book brims with stories about people who
had jobs but, out of necessity, slept in rent-by-the-week fleabag motels, flophouses, or even
in their cars, subsisting on vending machine snacks for lunch, hot dogs and instant noodles for
dinner , and forgoing basic dental care or health checkups. Those who managed to get permanent
housing would choose poor, low-rent neighborhoods close to work because they often couldn't
afford a car. To maintain even such a barebones lifestyle, many worked more than one job.
Though politicians prattle on about how times have changed for the better, Ehrenreich's book
still provides a remarkably accurate picture of America's working poor. Over the past decade
the proportion of people who exhausted their monthly paychecks just to pay for life's
essentials actually increased from 31% to 38%. In
2013, 71%
of the families that had children and used food pantries run by Feeding America, the largest
private organization helping the hungry, included at least one person who had worked during the
previous year. And in America's
big cities , chiefly because of a widening gap between rent and wages, thousands of working
poor remain
homeless , sleeping in shelters, on the streets, or in their vehicles, sometimes along with
their families. In New York City, no outlier when it comes to homelessness among the working
poor, in
a third of the families with children that use homeless shelters at least one adult held a
job.
The Wages of Poverty
The working poor cluster in certain occupations. They are salespeople in retail stores,
servers or preparers of fast food, custodial staff, hotel workers, and caregivers for children
or the elderly. Many make less than $10 an hour and lack
any leverage, union or otherwise, to press for raises. In fact, the percentage of unionized workers in such
jobs remains in the single digits -- and in retail and food preparation, it's under 4.5%.
That's hardly surprising, given that private sector union membership has
fallen by 50% since 1983 to only 6.7% of the workforce.
Low-wage employers like it that way and -- Walmart being the
poster child for this -- work diligently to make it ever harder for employees to join unions.
As a result, they rarely find themselves under any real pressure to increase wages, which,
adjusted for inflation, have stood still or even decreased since
the late 1970s. When employment is " at-will
," workers may be fired or the terms of their work amended on the whim of a company and without
the slightest explanation. Walmart announced this year that it would hike its hourly wage to
$11 and that's welcome news. But this had nothing to do with collective bargaining; it was a
response to the drop in the unemployment rate, cash flows from the Trump tax cut for
corporations (which saved Walmart as much as $2
billion ), an increase in minimum wages in a number of states, and pay increases by an arch
competitor, Target. It was also accompanied by the
shutdown of 63 of Walmart's Sam's Club stores, which meant layoffs for 10,000 workers. In
short, the balance of power almost always favors the employer, seldom the employee.
As a result, though the United States has a per-capita income of $59,500
and is among the wealthiest countries in the world, 12.7% of
Americans (that's 43.1 million people), officially are impoverished. And that's generally
considered a significant undercount. The Census Bureau establishes the poverty rate by figuring
out an annual no-frills family food budget, multiplying it by three, adjusting it for household
size, and pegging it to the Consumer Price Index. That, many economists believe, is a woefully
inadequate way of estimating poverty. Food prices haven't risen dramatically over the past 20
years, but the cost of other necessities like medical care (especially if you lack insurance)
and housing have: 10.5% and 11.8% respectively between
2013 and 2017 compared to an only 5.5% increase for food.
Include housing and medical expenses in the equation and you get the Supplementary
Poverty Measure (SPM), published by the Census Bureau since 2011. It reveals that a larger
number of Americans are poor: 14%
or 45 million in 2016.
Dismal Data
For a fuller picture of American (in)security, however, it's necessary to delve deeper into
the relevant data, starting with hourly wages, which are the way more than 58% of adult workers are
paid. The good news: only 1.8 million , or 2.3% of
them, subsist at or below minimum wage. The not-so-good news: one-third of all workers earn
less than $12 an hour and
42% earn less than $15. That's $24,960 and $31,200 a year. Imagine raising a family on such
incomes, figuring in the cost of food, rent, childcare, car payments (since a car is often a
necessity simply to get to a job in a country with inadequate public transportation), and
medical costs.
The problem facing the working poor isn't just low wages, but the widening gap between wages
and rising prices. The government has increased the hourly federal minimum wage more than 20
times since it was set at 25 cents under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Between 2007 and
2009 it rose to $7.25, but over the past decade that sum lost nearly 10% of
its purchasing power to inflation, which means that, in 2018, someone would have to work
41 additional days to make the equivalent of the 2009 minimum wage.
Workers in the lowest 20% have lost the most ground, their inflation-adjusted
wages falling by nearly 1% between 1979 and 2016, compared to a 24.7% increase for the top
20%. This can't be explained by lackluster productivity since, between 1985 and 2015, it
outstripped pay raises, often substantially, in every economic sector except mining.
Yes, states can mandate higher minimum wages and 29 have,
but 21 have not, leaving many low-wage workers struggling to cover the costs of two essentials
in particular: health care and housing.
Even when it comes to jobs that offer health insurance, employers have been shifting ever
more of its cost onto their workers through higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, as
well as by requiring them to cover more of the premiums. The percentage of workers who paid at
least 10% of their earnings to cover such costs -- not counting premiums -- doubled
between 2003 and 2014.
This helps explain why, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics , only 11% of workers in the bottom 10% of wage earners even
enrolled in workplace healthcare plans in 2016 (compared to 72% in the top 10%). As a
restaurant server who makes $2.13 an hour before tips -- and whose husband earns $9 an hour at
Walmart --
put it , after paying the rent, "it's either put food in the house or buy insurance."
The Affordable Care Act, or ACA (aka Obamacare), provided subsidies to help people with low
incomes cover the cost of insurance premiums, but workers with employer-supplied healthcare, no
matter how low their wages,
weren't covered by it. Now, of course,
President Trump , congressional
Republicans , and a Supreme Court in which right-wing justices are going to be even
more influential will be intent on poleaxing the ACA.
It's housing, though, that takes the biggest bite out of the paychecks of low-wage workers.
The majority of them are renters. Ownership remains for many a pipe dream. According to a
Harvard study , between 2001 and 2016, renters who made $30,000-$50,000 a year and paid
more than a third of their earnings to landlords (the threshold for qualifying as "rent
burdened") increased from 37% to 50%. For those making only $15,000, that figure rose to
83%.
In other words, in an ever more unequal America, the number of low-income workers struggling
to pay their rent has surged. As the Harvard analysis shows, this is, in part, because the
number of affluent renters (with incomes of $100,000 or more) has leapt and, in city after
city, they're driving the demand for, and building of, new rental units. As a result, the
high-end share of new rental construction soared from a third to nearly two-thirds of all units
between 2001 and 2016. Not surprisingly, new low-income rental units dropped from two-fifths to
one-fifth of the total and, as the pressure on renters rose, so did rents for even those modest
dwellings. On top of that, in places
like New York City , where demand from the wealthy shapes the housing market, landlords
have found ways -- some within the law, others not -- to get rid of low-income tenants.
Public housing and housing
vouchers are supposed to make housing affordable to low-income households, but the
supply of public housing hasn't remotely matched demand. Consequently, waiting lists are
long and people in need languish for years before getting a shot -- if they ever do. Only a
quarter of those who qualify for such assistance receive it. As for those vouchers, getting
them is hard to begin with because of the
massive mismatch between available funding for the program and the demand for the help it
provides. And then come the other
challenges : finding landlords willing to accept vouchers or rentals that are reasonably
close to work and not in neighborhoods euphemistically labelled " distressed ."
The bottom line: more than 75% of "at-risk"
renters (those for whom the cost of rent exceeds 30% or more of their earnings) do not receive
assistance from the government. The real "risk" for them is becoming homeless, which means
relying on shelters or family and friends willing to take them in.
President Trump's proposed budget cuts will make life even harder for low-income workers
seeking affordable housing. His 2019 budget proposal slashes
$6.8 billion (14.2%) from the resources of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development's (HUD) by, among other things, scrapping housing vouchers and assistance to
low-income families struggling to pay heating bills. The president also seeks to slash funds
for the upkeep of public housing by nearly 50%. In addition, the
deficits that his rich-come-first
tax "reform" bill is virtually guaranteed to produce will undoubtedly set the stage for yet
more cuts in the future. In other words, in what's becoming the United States of Inequality,
the very phrases "low-income workers" and "affordable housing" have ceased to go together.
None of this seems to have troubled HUD Secretary Ben Carson who happily ordered a
$31,000 dining room set for his office suite at the taxpayers' expense, even as he
visited
new public housing units to make sure that they weren't too comfortable (lest the poor settle
in for long stays). Carson has
declared that it's time to stop believing the problems of this society can be fixed merely
by having the government throw extra money at them -- unless, apparently, the dining room
accoutrements of superbureaucrats aren't up to snuff.
Money Talks
The levels of poverty and economic inequality that prevail in America are not intrinsic to
either capitalism or globalization. Most other wealthy market economies in the 36-nation
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have done far better than the
United States in reducing them without sacrificing innovation or creating government-run
economies.
Take the poverty gap, which the OECD defines as the difference between a country's official
poverty line and the average income of those who fall below it. The United States has the
second largest
poverty gap among wealthy countries; only Italy does worse.
Child poverty ? In the World Economic Forum's
ranking of 41 countries -- from best to worst -- the U.S. placed 35th. Child poverty has
declined in the United States since 2010, but a Columbia University report estimates that
19% of American kids (13.7 million) nevertheless lived in families with incomes below the
official poverty line in 2016. If you add in the number of kids in low-income households, that
number increases to 41%.
As for infant mortality , according to
the government's own Centers for Disease Control, the U.S., with 6.1 deaths per 1,000 live
births, has the absolute worst record among wealthy countries. (Finland and Japan do best with
2.3.)
And when it comes to the distribution of wealth, among the OECD countries only Turkey,
Chile, and Mexico do worse than the U.S.
It's time to rethink the American national security state with its annual
trillion-dollar budget. For tens of millions of Americans, the source of deep workaday
insecurity isn't the standard roster of foreign enemies, but an ever-more entrenched system of
inequality, still
growing , that
stacks the political deck against the least well-off Americans. They lack the bucks to hire
big-time lobbyists. They can't write lavish checks to candidates running for public office or
fund PACs. They have no way of manipulating the myriad influence-generating networks that the elite uses to shape
taxation and spending policies. They are up against a system in which money truly does talk --
and that's the voice they don't have. Welcome to the United States of Inequality.
Rajan Menon, a
TomDispatch regular, is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of
International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and Senior Research
Fellow at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author,
most recently, of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention .
But Rajan ,the American can always " honor the military " at the fast food drive through,
even send a few pennies for the Wounded Warrior Project ,in addition to buying lotteries, and
writing the tithe to the Mega Churches seeking blessing for the military men and women in
uniform . They can sing with Trump"Make America Great Again " . They can come out of the
woodshed to support wars , say things against Mexican, listen to FOX,and gather around
Prospect park to celebrate birthdays , hop into a bus and continue texting to update the
status on social media . They can nod with MSNBC that they have the best freedom that any
corner of the world can afford . They if white can claim being discriminated by Asian
Americans,if black by Mexicans,if Latinos by whites .
Now it seems they could feel proud of the ability to guide China UK and Brazil/Argentina do
the right things .
Why do these experts fail to understand that our national security budget is twice that of
the Department of Defense? It is no secret, POGO runs a tally showing it's twice as much:
In past blog posts, I explained how illegal immigration is a form of slave labor. It seems
powerful people explained this to former President George W. Bush, but didn't tell him not to
repeat it in public and that Americans no longer pick cotton by hand. As a result, Bush said
this during a speech earlier this year:
"There are people willing to do jobs that Americans won't do. Americans don't want to pick
cotton at 105 degrees, but there are people who want put food on their family's tables and
are willing to do that. We ought to say thank you and welcome them."
Bush failed to note that millionaires pay only $10 an hour with no benefits for these
tough jobs, yet most field workers are US citizens or green card holders. Illegals are hired
to hold down wages and deter unions and strikes. If they would pay $20 an hour, plenty of
Americans would show up to work. Most Americans don't know that millions of white Americans
once picked cotton by hand, and picked more than Blacks or Mexicans.
Articles like this pop up here every now and then.
Something doesn't compute.
If the situation is as grim as the article says, why so many people do their best to
immigrate into USA?
Why more, just Westerners, try to immigrate into USA then Americans into those, just
Western, countries?
I've known some Americans around here where I live.
I've known many more locals who've gone to live in USA, let alone tried to get to live in
USA.
Something simply does not compute.
A simple question for an American:
If a person is prudent and sensible, is it really that hard to get by, unemployed, there?
Now, in similar topic an American did explain, some time ago, that there are so many ways
to help those unemployed/underpaid. That the social security net isn't worse, but actually
overall better, then in other Western countries.
Plus, of course, opportunities.
Again, all that data from the article I can't challenge. What doesn't make sense is net
migration, just within Western sphere.
I do know some people, several dozen I guess, who live in USA. They have been doing quite
well. From a bus driver to a top medical professional.
For a fuller picture of American (in)security, however, it's necessary to delve deeper
into the relevant data, starting with hourly wages, which are the way more than 58% of
adult workers are paid. The good news: only 1.8 million, or 2.3% of them, subsist at or
below minimum wage. The not-so-good news: one-third of all workers earn less than $12 an
hour and 42% earn less than $15. That's $24,960 and $31,200 a year. Imagine raising a
family on such incomes, figuring in the cost of food, rent, childcare, car payments (since
a car is often a necessity simply to get to a job in a country with inadequate public
transportation), and medical costs.
You forgot another expense poor communities have – governmental extraction forces
GEF. Local law enforcement target the poor with the many petty offenses(they've purposely
invented) to extract money for expanding and maintaining of their extortion racket. This no
secret or conspiracy theory, for they readily admit to it. They target the poor because they
understand that the poor do not have resources(lawyers, guns, and money) to fight back. They
target the poor because they're poor, and the poor understand this as just another bill to
pay – another added expense of living in their community.
Another indirect expense that makes all Americans a lot less rich – insurance.
Everything that moves and everything that doesn't is at least singular insured or often
double or tripled insured. Property is a good example of how one entity can be insured three
times over by the owner, renter, contractor, sub-contractor. Your body is another example of
how things "must be insured" ; no surprise when Obama care came along to do just that.
Trump makes clear statements, I too like them.
For me the USA is a third world country, the exceptions are oversized cars and gated
communities.
On one of my visits to the USA I was asked if a child could be medically treated in the
Netherlands, the choice for the parents was letting the child die, or sell their house.
In the Netherlands we have treatments that cost several hundred thousands of euro's per year,
paid for by our medical care system.
Per person we pay about € 100 per month.
Pensions, the same.
Though the EU is busy destroying the best pension systems in the world, those of the
Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, this has not yet succeeded.
A disaster as the ENRON pension fund cannot happen here.
The USA is a great country to live in if you're rich.
And, of course, if you're willing to have the illusion that the poor have only themselves to
blame for being poor.
USA society, terrible, in my opinion, 19th century, a moneycracy.
Eisenhower in his farewell speech warned for the military industrial complex, do not have the
impression that anything changed since then.
3 weeks after the US-NATO FAILED coup attempt in Georgia (more than 2000 died), the
petrodollar [i.e., the banks) "crashed" (and Bush gave more than additional weapons [for more
than $1 Billion) to Sakashviili] .
Moreover, as Mr Kucinich explain, massive transfers occurred between certain banks
:
The USA is a great country to live in if you're rich."
And if you hold large number of slaves known as immigrants from Central and S America
Immigrants serve same purpose the slaves did . It balances the poor middle class white's rage
that can tilt the anger and hatred against the rich ( mostly white ).
This situation goes right into the creation of US It missed the social and political and
religious changes of 18 th and 19 the centuries which gave birth to pre 2000 political system
and social systems of EU .
Implosion of Soviet lent more credence to the economic-political system of USA because the
blind and the deaf evaluated it for teh blind and the deaf who missed the success of the
system on the back of African Latin American and Asian poor newly independent ) confused )
countries. Those countries provided the ingredients- moral ,economic,emotional , – to
the working white class . It b;bolstered their hatred dismissive attitude to the foreigners
and cemented their love for a hateful system that hurt actually the interest of the middle
class and poor whites but gave them a sense of connection ,belonging,and partnerships through
color language and religion- all are false .
This is the same mindset that glues the the untouchables and the poor Hindus to the RSS- BJP
– Brahmanical system of oppression
This two part, excellent documentary on Russia in the 90's is all about VVP
and Major Russian Jewish Oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Boris took over the
Kremlin. Boris shot himself in the foot, but wound up saving Russia when
he picked Putin to succeed alchoholic Yeltsin. Putin took the country back.
Larry Summers, Harvard Jew American oligarch led the rape and looting
of Russia.
The Rise of Putin and The Fall of The Russian-Jewish Oligarchs (1/2)
Podesta failing to register as a foreign agent for Russia, Browder greasing the palms of
the Klintons with "illicit cash" purloined from Russia...lol...oh man, this is really getting
interesting!
Ahem...and just where in the world is...Mr.Mifsud? ;-)
After the collapse of the USSR, under Yeltsin, a large handful of
'oligarchs' grew immensely wealthy by buying Russian assets on the cheap.
This was part of a privitization drive largely overseen by American
economists.
The oligarchs were mostly Jews. The chief economic advisors were largely
Jews.
Responding to my thanks for granting me the audience at such a hectic
time, Boris Abramovich commented with a faint smile: "You would be writing
the book in any case ..."
I understood that my visit was somewhat imposed on him so I got right to
the point:
"Boris Abramovich, the real reason for writing this book is this. As you
probably know there is a television show called 'The Puppets.' Puppets of
Yeltsin, Yastrzhembsky, Chernomyrdin, Kulikov, and others perform. But the
main puppeteer is behind the scenes -- his name is Shenderovich. And in
real life there are Yeltsin, Kiriyenko, Fedorov, Stepashin and the others.
But the main puppeteer has a long Jewish name: Berezovsky-Gusinsky-
Smolensky-Khodorkovsky, and so on.
"This is to say that for the first time in a thousand years, since the
first Jews settled in Russia, we hold the real power in this country. I
want to ask you straight out: How do you intend to use it? What do you
intend to do in this country? Cast it into the chaos of poverty or raise it
from the mud? Do you understand that a chance like this comes only once in
a thousand years? Do you understand your responsibility to our [Jewish]
people for your actions?"
Boris Abramovich responded with some difficulty: "Of course, as you see,
financial power is in Jewish hands, but we have never looked at this from
the point of view of historical responsibility."
Putin stopped the fire sale, essentially by dividing the oligarchs,
leveraging some against others.
Browder was heavily involved in the looting. He is heavy in distributing
anti-Russian propaganda in a heavily Jewish controlled media, and he was all
in for Clinton.
And he wants Trump impeached
(I recommend reading the
article below if you read just 1 link)
Most readers will identify Bill Broder with Hermitage Capital, but few
will recall that the investment firm was also funded by one Beny Steimetz,
the Israeli oligarch and financier just arrested (August 14) by Israeli and
Swiss anti-corruption officials for widescale fraud and money laundering.
The Russia privatization shark who was once Israel's richest man is a
subject for another report. I only bring him up here to point at two facets
of this war on Putin. First, the Jewish connection in all this is something
that just needs to come out. Secondly, the ring of profiteers bent on
Putin's demise all have gigantic skeletons in their wardrobes. A story
citing one Putin hater, when investigated, always leads to ten more. This
is no coincidence.
Back to Browder, his Hermitage was at one time was the largest foreign
portfolio investor in Russia. That was before Vladimir Putin put a stop to
the rape of Russia's legacy and the theft of her assets. This is undeniable
fact, and even the lowliest of Russian peasants know it by now. Browder, a
Chicago Jew, set out to profit from Russian privatization after Yeltsin,
but was thwarted like other sharks when Putin's hammer fell on other
mafiosos. RICO suits, libel cases, tax evasion charges, and ties to some of
the seediest characters in world finance highlight the man who pushed the
now famous Magnitsky Act into US foreign policy play. It's no coincidence
that Browder has emerged as a central player in the ongoing investigation
of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The privateer who made
billions off Russia privatization turned into a human rights activist, and
now he's bent on seeing Donald Trump impeached!
The war on Russia is very heavily a product of Jews pursuing Jewish group
interests, internationally.
A man named Henry Ford once wrote a book on the topic. Of all the
criticism it received and receives, that it is 'hate,' one will seldom find
any effort to dispute its accuracy.
Terrific post I Am Jack. And also thank you for emphasising the unholy
convergence of vested interests in Putin Russia demonization - the Jewish
bankers raping Rusdia in the 90s on a scale not seen since the Mongols
hordes, and Western oligarchs seeing a chance to become even more insanely
wealthy (hence the London, Wall St, Pentagon, Fed, DC, Brussels etc
involvement).
Putin is an extraordinary and immensely intelligent and
brave individual who divided and knee-capped the world mafia. THIS is why
he is demonised, not because he is some evil Tsar of Mordor. That being
said he hasn't done it alone - the people of Russia made huge mistakes by
allowing communism in, and economic genocide in the 1990s was wilful
influcted upon them, but their resilience is extraordinary.
I hope they are all watching their backs. Putin if all people stated
that he is careful about cornering rats with now way out, so i have a
feeling that things are going to get unpredictable ...
Good article. Remember that Bill Browder's grandfather was head
of the American Communist Party in the 1930s ...
The Killing of William Browder is compulsory reading if you
want to sssure yourself about that lying theiving NPD sack of s***
Browder. Lots on him on Sott etc.
I did post about 3 months back that Browder and the trillion
dollar rape Russia in the 1990s , the Money Plane etc are the key
to understand current events, Putin and what is being covered up
now, in my opinion, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to get
traction.
I'd not seen the AP reporters question that triggered this before. It looks like the
reporter was trying to embarrass both Putin and Trump but wound up getting his ass, Clinton's
ass, and the asses of the intelligence community handed to him instead.
too right. If I remember correctly, it was in the context of Putin saying Russia is open
to have FBI guys come to question the 12 GRU guys indicted (no proof yet) by Mueller.
In return, he then said Russia would like to ask a few questions to the US officials
believed to have HELPED Browder funnel $400K to Clinton and probably avoid paying tax on 1.5
billion in Russia AND the US...
Browder has to be on top of the US wanted list in the not too distant future or there
really is no fuckin justice.
+50 Overbet. I posted before i read yours. I have tired of trying to convince people that
90s Russia and the thefts then and subsequent covering of crimes is STILL the key to
understanding the Deep States obsession and fear of Putin and Russia. Soros, Clinton's,
Chubias, the FED's off the books money printing, London money laundering , EU buying the
stolen movables etc - they are all there. Browder's animus is also driving much behind the
scenes with 'Russiagate'. Look people - you will see. Putin certainly didn't pluck that lying
idiot's name randomly.
I urge people to at least read the 90s chapter in the Killing of William Browder (free
online PDF) to begin to understand what is going on now.
The appendix on Jacob Rothschild alone and Yukos makes it worth the read. But if you read
nothing else, read the chapters on Browder's interrogation and Russia in the 1990s - easy
reads and give a great introduction to this orgy of psycopathy and mendacity. They are all
connected
Russophobia feeds considerable part of official Washington
(including monstrous intelligence agencies) and lion share of think tanks. As Upton Sinclair
quipped: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his
not understanding it."
Notable quotes:
"... Russophobia is a 24/7 industry, and all concerned, including its media vassals, remain absolutely livid with the "disgraceful" Trump-Putin presser. Trump has "colluded with Russia." How could the President of the United States promote "moral equivalence" with a "world-class thug"? ..."
"... As if this was not enough, Trump doubles down invoking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server. "I really do want to see the server. Where is the server? I want to know. Where is the server and what is the server saying?" ..."
"... Trump was unfazed. He knows that the DNC computer hard-drives -- the source of an alleged "hacking" -- simply "disappeared" while in the custody of US intel, FBI included. He knows the bandwidth necessary for file transfer was much larger than a hack might have managed in the time allowed. It was a leak, a download into a flash-drive. ..."
"... Additionally, Putin knows that Mueller knows he will never be able to drag 12 Russian intelligence agents into a US courtroom. So the -- debunked -- indictment, announced only three days before Helsinki, was nothing more than a pre-emptive, judicial hand grenade. ..."
"... No wonder John Brennan, a former CIA director under the Obama administration, is fuming. "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to exceed the threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin." ..."
"... No "grand bargain" on Iran seems to be in the cards. The top adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, was in Moscow last week. The Moscow-Tehran entente cordiale seems unbreakable. In parallel, as Asia Times has learned, Bashar al-Assad has told Moscow he might even agree to Iran leaving Syria, but Israel would have to return the occupied Golan Heights. So, the status quo remains. ..."
"... Putin did mention both presidents discussed the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action and essentially they, strongly, agree to disagree. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have written a letter formally rejecting an appeal for carve-outs in finance, energy and healthcare by Germany, France and the UK. A maximum economic blockade remains the name of the game. Putin may have impressed on Trump the possible dire consequences of a US oil embargo on Iran, and even the (far-fetched) scenario of Tehran blocking the Strait of Hormuz. ..."
US President stirs up a hornet's nest with his press conference alongside his Russian
counterpart, but it seems that no 'grand bargain' was struck on Syria, and on Iran they appear
to strongly disagree
"The Cold War is a thing of the past." By the time President Putin said as much during
preliminary remarks at his joint press conference with President Trump in Helsinki, it was
clear this would not stand. Not after so much investment by American conservatives in Cold War
2.0.
Russophobia is a 24/7 industry, and all concerned, including its media vassals, remain
absolutely livid with the "disgraceful" Trump-Putin presser. Trump has "colluded with Russia."
How could the President of the United States promote "moral equivalence" with a "world-class
thug"?
Multiple opportunities for apoplectic outrage were in order.
Trump: "Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed. As of
about four hours ago."
Putin: "The United States could be more decisive in nudging Ukrainian leadership."
Trump: "There was no collusion I beat Hillary Clinton easily."
Putin: "We should be guided by facts. Can you name a single fact that would definitively
prove collusion? This is nonsense."
Then, the clincher : the Russian president calls [Special Counsel] Robert Mueller's 'bluff',
offering to interrogate the Russians indicted for alleged election meddling in the US if
Mueller makes an official request to Moscow. But in exchange, Russia would expect the US to
question Americans on whether Moscow should face charges for illegal actions.
Trump hits it out of the park when asked whether he believes US intelligence, which
concluded that Russia did meddle in the election, or Putin, who strongly denies it.
"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be."
As if this was not enough, Trump doubles down invoking the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) server. "I really do want to see the server. Where is the server? I want to know. Where
is the server and what is the server saying?"
It was inevitable that a strategically crucial summit between the Russian and American
presidencies would be hijacked by the dementia of the US news cycle.
Trump was unfazed. He knows that the DNC computer hard-drives -- the source of an alleged
"hacking" -- simply "disappeared" while in the custody of US intel, FBI included. He knows the
bandwidth necessary for file transfer was much larger than a hack might have managed in the
time allowed. It was a leak, a download into a flash-drive.
No wonder John Brennan, a former CIA director under the Obama administration, is
fuming. "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to exceed the
threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were
Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin."
How Syria and Ukraine are
linked
However, there are reasons to expect at least minimal progress on three fronts in Helsinki :
a solution for the Syria tragedy, an effort to limit nuclear weapons and save the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
treaty signed in 1987 by Reagan and Gorbachev, and a positive drive to normalize US-Russia
relations, away from Cold War 2.0.
Trump knew he had nothing to offer Putin to negotiate on Syria. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA)
now controls virtually 90% of national territory. Russia is firmly established in the Eastern
Mediterranean, especially after signing a 49-year agreement with Damascus.
Even considering careful mentions of Israel on both sides, Putin certainly did not agree to
force Iran out of Syria.
No "grand bargain" on Iran seems to be in the cards. The top adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei,
Ali Akbar Velayati, was in Moscow last week. The Moscow-Tehran entente cordiale seems
unbreakable. In parallel, as Asia Times has learned, Bashar al-Assad has told Moscow he might
even agree to Iran leaving Syria, but Israel would have to return the occupied Golan Heights.
So, the status quo remains.
Putin did mention both presidents discussed the Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive
Plan Of Action and essentially they, strongly, agree to disagree. US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have written a letter formally rejecting an appeal
for carve-outs in finance, energy and healthcare by Germany, France and the UK. A maximum
economic blockade remains the name of the game. Putin may have impressed on Trump the possible
dire consequences of a US oil embargo on Iran, and even the (far-fetched) scenario of Tehran
blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
Judging by what both presidents said, and what has been leaked so far, Trump may not have
offered an explicit US recognition of Crimea for Russia, or an easing of Ukraine-linked
sanctions.
It's reasonable to picture a very delicate ballet in terms of what they really discussed in
relation to Ukraine. Once again, the only thing Trump could offer on Ukraine is an easing of
sanctions. But for Russia the stakes are much higher.
Putin clearly sees Southwest Asia and Central and Eastern Europe as totally integrated. The
Black Sea basin is where Russia intersects with Ukraine, Turkey, Eastern Europe and the
Caucasus. Or, historically, where the former Russian, Ottoman and Habsburg empires
converged.
A Greater Black Sea implies the geopolitical convergence of what's happening in both Syria
and Ukraine. That's why for the Kremlin only an overall package matters. It's not by accident
that Washington identified these two nodes -- destabilizing Damascus and turning the tables in
Kiev -- to cause problems for Moscow.
Putin sees a stable Syria and a stable Ukraine as essential to ease his burden in dealing
with the Balkans and the Baltics. We're back once again to that classic geopolitical staple,
the Intermarium ("between the seas"). That's the ultra-contested rimland from Estonia in the
north to Bulgaria in the south -- and to the Caucasus in the east. Once, that used to frame the
clash between Germany and Russia. Now, that frames the clash between the US and Russia.
In a fascinating echo of the summit in Helsinki, Western strategists do lose their sleep
gaming on Russia being able to "Finlandize" this whole rimland.
And that brings us, inevitably, to what could be termed The German Question. What is Putin's
ultimate goal: a quite close business and strategic relationship with Germany (German business
is in favor)? Or some sort of entente cordiale with the US? EU diplomats in Brussels are openly
discussing that underneath all the thunder and lightning, this is the holy of the
holies.
Take a walk on the wild side
The now notorious key takeaway from a Trump interview at his golf club in Turnberry,
Scotland, before Helsinki, may offer some clues.
"Well, I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to
us in trade. Now, you wouldn't think of the European Union, but they're a foe. Russia is a
foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that
doesn't mean they are bad. It doesn't mean anything. It means that they are competitive."
Putin certainly knows it. But even Trump, while not being a Clausewitzian strategist, may
have had an intuition that the post-WWII liberal order, built by a hegemonic US and bent on
permanent US military hegemony over the Eurasian landmass while subduing a vassal Europe, is
waning .
While Trump firebombs this United States of Europe as an "unfair" competitor of the US, it's
essential to remember that it was the White House that asked for the Helsinki summit, not the
Kremlin.
Trump treats the EU with undisguised disdain. He would love nothing better than for the EU
to dissolve. His Arab "partners" can be easily controlled by fear. He has all but declared
economic war on China and is on tariff overdrive -- even as the IMF warns that the global
economy runs the risk of losing around $500 billion in the process. And he faces the ultimate
intractable, the China-Russia-Iran axis of Eurasian integration, which simply won't go
away.
So, talking to "world-class thug" Putin -- in usual suspect terminology -- is a must. A
divide-and-rule here, a deal there -- who knows what some hustling will bring? To paraphrase
Lou Reed, New Trump City "is the place where they say "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild
side."
During the Helsinki presser, Putin, fresh from Russia's spectacular World Cup soft power PR
coup, passed a football to Trump. The US president said he would give it to his son, Barron,
and passed the ball to First Lady Melania. Well, the ball is now in Melania's court.
Comey and Senator Warner
basically are calling for a coup because of the FALSE claim that it is
'treason' to doubt the IC.
Honestly, it's past joking about. The rabid dogs are now snarling in
our front yard. Circling the house.
But it wasn't the Intelligence Community that said 'Russia hacked the
DNC'... a play that was about getting you to ignore the CONTENT of
Hillary/DNC emails. (Thus the quip 'Russia rigged our elections by exposing
how our elections are rigged.').
It was Brennan and Clapper and a dozen 'handpicked' analysts from just 3
agencies. Even then the NSA boys only said 'moderate confidence' which is
analyst speak for 'we have no real evidence.' The CIA and FBI analysts,
relying on the DNC-linked CrowdStrike analysis of a server they never
examined, said 'high confidence' which means 'we can't prove this but we
totally believe it was Russia's government because wouldn't it be just like
those aggressive Russkis?'
Trump needs to order a full intelligence agency review of
Clapper's report.
Someone lose to him needs to scream this
into his ear.
SCREAM IT.
Listen boys, that covers Trump from all directions. A full intelligence
agency review no matter what it says helps him. MOREOVER, as part of that,
any serious IC assessment of CLAPPER'S report will show that it was
contrived. Political. Not how such assessments are normally done.
So even if it's conclusions ended up being correct... the report itself
would be exposed as complete bullshit. Which points one to Clapper, and
Brennan... and Obama.
Hey listen, playtime is over. Comey and Brennan and the neocons and
media are basically using Trump's very reasonable doubt as 'treason' and
have turned the rhetoric up to 11. They are suggesting a coup based on
Deep State/Dem/MIC lies. This is intolerable and we may be at a point
where sending the Marines to CIA headquarters to take documents and arrest
some folks is in order. What would the media do - go nuts?
Why didn't Clapper invite DIA to the party?
If its military (SO/SF) versus the spooks - guess who wins?
The CIA is for the most part a collection of drig and guns mafias. They
operate outside the law with unlimited funding. Squeeze that funding -
grab some of their operators off the fucking street and interrogate
them...
You have Senator Cohen actually suggesting a coup because Trump doubts
the IC which Schumer said has many ways to 'get you.'
REPORTER AP: President Trump you first. Just now President
Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in
2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did...
So, this is a lie. It's the 'all intel agencies' lie even the NY
Times at least at one loint admitted was a lie.
This is super important.
It was a dozen or so 'handpicked analysts' - NOT a full IC review.
Now why wouldnt Obama, Brennan and Clapper want a full, actual Intel
Assessment?
And Clapper had final edit power. I mean its a fucking joke and the
complete lack of MSM scrutiny of the problems tells me the media is
truly, no kidding, captured by interests who can completely suppress
basic journalism (I know there's long been *bias* - this is deliberately
not reporting on a highly unusual intel assessment by a guy who hates
Trump relying on a private firm founded by a guy who hates Putin which
has extensive ties to the DNC.
It really isnt a Red Team Blue Team thing and you don't have to like
Trump. This is about whether a small group of spooks with ties to one
party and effective media cobtrol get to undo an election to pursue war
in Ukraine and Syria and to justify ever more spending by acting
aggressively toward Russia along its borders then framing every response
as 'Russian aggression.'
We are in an incredibly dangerous time eith senators and former fbi
and cia heads more or less openly calling for a coup because Trump
doubts Brennan/Clapper's horseshit report.
I know I repeat myself. I have to. I'm very alarmed by this stuff.
Trump
needs to order a full IC assessment of Clapper's report and of Russian
alleged **hacking** ASAP.
(the clickbait stuff is so silly
its frankly not worth addressing right now).
Secret Service should also detain and question Cohen and Comey over
their remarks. Trump needs to flex a little muscle now with people
talking coup.
I'd not seen the AP reporters question that triggered this before. It
looks like the reporter was trying to embarrass both Putin and Trump
but wound up getting his ass, Clinton's ass, and the asses of the
intelligence community handed to him instead.
too right. If I remember correctly, it was in the context of Putin
saying Russia is open to have FBI guys come to question the 12 GRU
guys indicted (no proof yet) by Mueller.
In return, he then said
Russia would like to ask a few questions to the US officials
believed to have HELPED Browder funnel 400 mill to Clinton and
probably avoid paying tax on 1.5 billion in Russia AND the US...
Browder has to be on top of the US wanted list in the not too
distant future or there really is no fuckin justice.
Everyone messes with everyone in their elections around the world. My first
question is why is the media on both sides still pounding the American
public with the "Russia did it" bullhorn. What exactly does Russia gain ?
They're 9 times smaller than NATO. China has the most to gain.
The
Ukrainians were working with Hillary against Trump. The Deep State has the
ability to make every act of espionage look like Russia did it. The DNC
didn't turn over their server to the FBI. The Awan server disappeared too.
Something smells terrible, like Kankles Huma hole.
jesus they can accuse you of being a putin puppet if you don't...
and how do you defend yourself.. "how dare you insult every branch of
our intelligence agencies"( and the lying james clapper!!!! )how dare
you...?
Hey Groot, I think these countries hack and spy on each other 24/7.
It's bullshit. They appoint a special prosecutor and with the
exceptions of the BS Flynn and Manafort charges the only others he's
charged are non-americans. Nothing about the elephant in the room, the
billion dollar + money laundering schemes and treason of the
Obama/Clinton and their lackeys.
Mish - Six Questions: (1) Is this a trial or a witch hunt? (2) Do we need to see the evidence or do we believe known liars? (3)
Is Trump guilty of treason? Before we even see proof Putin was involved? (4) Is the CIA incapable of fabricating evidence? (5) Even
if Russia interfered in the election, why should anyone have expected otherwise? (6) Has everyone forgotten the US lies on WMDs already?
Notable quotes:
"... Sending lethal arms to Ukraine, bordering Russia, is a really serious adverse action against the interest of the Russian government. Bombing the Assad regime is, as well. Denouncing one of the most critical projects that the Russian government has, which is the pipeline to sell huge amounts of gas and oil to Germany, is, as well. ..."
"... The United States funds oppositional groups inside Russia. The United States sent advisers and all kinds of operatives to try and elect Boris Yeltsin in the mid-1990s, because they perceived, accurately, that he was a drunk who would serve the interests of the United States more than other candidates who might have won. The United States interferes in Russian politics, and they interfere in their cyber systems, and they invade their email systems, and they invade all kinds of communications all the time. And so, to treat this as though it's some kind of aberrational event, I think, is really kind of naive ..."
"... And so, I would certainly hope that we are not at the point, which I think we seem to be at, where we are now back to believing that when the CIA makes statements and assertions and accusations, or when prosecutors make statements and assertions and accusations, unaccompanied by evidence that we can actually evaluate, that we're simply going to believe those accusations on faith, especially when the accusations come from George W. Bush's former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who repeatedly lied to Congress about Iraq and a whole variety of other issues. So, I think there we need some skepticism. ..."
For example, reader Brian stated " There is zero doubt now that Putin stole the election
from Hillary. So much so that she MUST be given the nomination again in 2020. All potential
challengers must step aside. To refuse her the 2020 nomination would be evidence of traitorous
activities with Putin."'
I congratulated Brian for brilliant sarcasm but he piled on. It now seems he was
serious. Mainstream media, the Left an the Right were in general condemnation. Numerous cries of treason emerged from the Left and the Right (see the above link)
It Happened - No Trial Necessary
A friend I highly respect commented " There is simply no question that they did it. You can
legitimately claim that it's not important or that there has been no tie to Trump shown. On the
Russians' side, they can say, screw off, we were pursuing our interests. But you can't take the
view it did not happen. It happened. "
There is a question who did it. Indictments are just that, not proof.
The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the
second war in Iraq. US intelligence had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US
meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously thought we could
control him.
They Are All Liars
It's a mystery why anyone would believe these proven liars. That does not mean I believe
Putin either. They are all capable liars. Let's step back from the absurd points of view to reality.
US Meddling
The US tries to influence elections in other countries and has a history of assisting the
forcible overthrow of governments we don't like.
Vietnam
Iran
Iraq
Libya
Drone policy
All of the above are massive disasters of US meddling. They are all actions of war,
non-declared, and illegal. I cannot and do not condone such actions even if they were legal.
911 and ISIS resulted from US meddling. The migration crisis in the EU is a direct
consequence of US meddling. The Iranian revolution was a direct consequence of US meddling.Now we are pissing and moaning that Russia spent a few million dollars on Tweets to steal
the election. Please be serious.
Let's Assume
Let's assume for one second the DNC hack was Russia-based. Is there a reason to not be thankful for evidence that Hillary conspired to deny Bernie
Sanders the nomination? Pity Hillary? We are supposed to pity Hillary? The outrage from the Right is amazing. It's pretty obvious Senator John McCain wanted her to win. Neither faced a war or military
intervention they disapproved of.
Common Sense
Let's move on to a common sense position from Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept.
GLENN GREENWALD : In 2007, during the Democratic presidential debate, Barack Obama
was asked whether he would meet with the leaders of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and
Iran without preconditions. He said he would. Hillary Clinton said she wouldn't, because it
would be used as a propaganda tool for repressive dictators. And liberals celebrated Obama. It
was one of his greatest moments and one of the things that I think helped him to win the
Democratic nomination, based on the theory that it's always better to meet with leaders, even
if they're repressive, than to isolate them or to ignore them. In 1987, when President Reagan
decided that he wanted to meet with Soviet leaders, the far right took out ads against him that
sounded very much just like what we just heard from Joe, accusing him of being a useful idiot
to Soviet and Kremlin propaganda, of legitimizing Russian aggression and domestic repression at
home.
GLENN GREENWALD : It is true that Putin is an authoritarian and is domestically repressive.
That's true of many of the closest allies of the United States, as well, who are even far more
repressive, including ones that fund most of the think tanks in D.C., such as the United Arab
Emirates or Saudi Arabia. And I think the most important issue is the one that we just heard,
which is that 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons are in the hands of two countries --
the United States and Russia -- and having them speak and get along is much better than having
them isolate one another and increase the risk of not just intentional conflict, but
misperception and miscommunication, as well.
JOE CIRINCIONE : Right. Let's be clear. Glenn, there's nothing wrong with meeting. I
agree with you. Leaders should meet, and we should be negotiating with our foes, with those
people we disagree with. We're better off when we do that. And the kind of attacks you saw on
Barack Obama were absolutely uncalled for, and you're right to condemn those.
JOE CIRINCIONE : What I'm worried about is this president meeting with this leader
of Russia and what they're going to do. That's what's so wrong about this summit coming now,
when you have Donald Trump, who just attacked the NATO alliance, who calls our European allies
foes, who turns a blind eye to what his director of national intelligence called the warning
lights that are blinking red. About what? About Russian interference in our elections. So you
just had a leader of Russia, Putin, a skilled tactician, a skilled strategist, interfere in a
U.S. election. To what? To help elect Donald Trump.
GLENN GREENWALD : I think this kind of rhetoric is so unbelievably unhinged, the idea that
the phishing links sent to John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee are the greatest
threat to American democracy in decades. People are now talking about it as though it's on par
with 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, that the lights are blinking red, in terms of the threat level. This
is lunacy, this kind of talk. I spent years reading through the most top-secret documents of
the NSA, and I can tell you that not only do they send phishing links to Russian agencies of
every type continuously on a daily basis, but do far more aggressive interference in the
cybersecurity of every single country than Russia is accused of having done during the 2016
election. To characterize this as some kind of grave existential threat to American democracy
is exactly the kind of rhetoric that we heard throughout the Bush-Cheney administration about
what al-Qaeda was like .
JOE CIRINCIONE : Why does Donald Trump feel that he has to meet alone with Putin? What is
going on there? I mean, that -- when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev at Reykjavik, at least he
had George Shultz with him. The two of them, you know, were meeting with Gorbachev and his
foreign minister at the time. This is -- it's deeply disturbing. It makes you feel that Trump
is hiding something, that he is either trying to make a deal with Putin, reporting something to
Putin. I tell you, I know U.S. intelligence officials -- I'm probably going right into Glenn's
wheelhouse here. But U.S. intelligence officials are concerned about what Donald Trump might be
revealing to the Russian leader, the way he revealed classified information to the Russian
foreign minister when he met privately with him in the Oval Office at the beginning of his
term. No, I don't like it one bit.
GLENN GREENWALD : I continue to be incredibly frustrated by the claim that we hear over and
over, and that we just heard from Joe, that Donald Trump does everything that Vladimir Putin
wants, and that if he were a paid agent of the Russian government, there'd be -- he would be
doing nothing different. I just went through the entire list of actions that Donald Trump has
taken and statements that he has made that are legitimately adverse to the interest of the
Russian government, that Barack Obama specifically refused to do, despite bipartisan demands
that he do them, exactly because he didn't want to provoke more tensions between the United
States and Russia.
Sending lethal arms to Ukraine, bordering Russia, is a really serious
adverse action against the interest of the Russian government. Bombing the Assad regime is, as
well. Denouncing one of the most critical projects that the Russian government has, which is
the pipeline to sell huge amounts of gas and oil to Germany, is, as well.
So is expelling
Russian diplomats and imposing serious sanctions on oligarchs that are close to the Putin
regime. You can go down the list, over and over and over, in the 18 months that he's been in
office, and see all the things that Donald Trump has done that is adverse, in serious ways, to
the interests of Vladimir Putin, including ones that President Obama refused to do. So, this
film, this movie fairytale, that I know is really exciting -- it's like international intrigue
and blackmail, like the Russians have something over Trump; it's like a Manchurian candidate;
it's from like the 1970s thrillers that we all watched -- is inane -- you know, with all due
respect to Joe. I mean, it's -- but it's in the climate, because it's so contrary to what it is
that we're seeing. Now, this idea of meeting alone with Vladimir Putin, the only way that you
would find that concerning is if you believed all that.
JOE CIRINCIONE : So, Trump knew that this indictment was coming down, before he went to
Europe, and still he never says a word about it. What he does is continue his attacks on our
alliances, i.e. he continues his attacks on our free press, he continues his attacks on FBI
agents who were just doing their job, and supports this 10-hour show hearing that the House of
Representatives had. It's really unbelievable that Trump is doing these things and never says
one word about it. He still has not said a word about those indictments.
GLENN GREENWALD : That's because the reality is -- and I don't know if Donald Trump knows
this or doesn't know this, has stumbled into the truth or what -- but the reality is that what
the Russians did in 2016 is absolutely not aberrational or unusual in any way. The United --
I'm sorry to say this, but it's absolutely true. The United States and Russia have been
interfering in one another's domestic politics for since at least the end of World War II, to
say nothing of what they do in far more extreme ways to the internal politics of other
countries. Noam Chomsky was on this very program several months ago, and he talked about how
the entire world is laughing at this indignation from the United States -- "How dare you
interfere in our democracy!" -- when the United States not only has continuously in the past
done, but continues to do far more extreme interference in the internal politics of all kinds
of countries, including Russia .
GLENN GREENWALD : The United States funds oppositional groups inside Russia. The United
States sent advisers and all kinds of operatives to try and elect Boris Yeltsin in the
mid-1990s, because they perceived, accurately, that he was a drunk who would serve the
interests of the United States more than other candidates who might have won. The United States
interferes in Russian politics, and they interfere in their cyber systems, and they invade
their email systems, and they invade all kinds of communications all the time. And so, to treat
this as though it's some kind of aberrational event, I think, is really kind of naive .
GLENN GREENWALD : It wasn't just Hillary Clinton in 2016 who lost this election. The entire
Democratic Party has collapsed as a national political force over the last decade. They've lost
control of the Senate and of the House and of multiple statehouses and governorships. They're
decimated as a national political force. And the reason is exactly what Joe said. They become
the party of international globalization. They're associated with Silicon Valley and Wall
Street billionaires and corporate interests, and have almost no connection to the working
class. And that is a much harder conversation to have about why the Democrats have lost
elections than just blaming a foreign villain and saying it's because Vladimir Putin ran some
fake Facebook ads and did some phishing emails. And I think that until we put this in
perspective, about what Russia did in 2016 and the reality that the U.S. does that sort of
thing all the time to Russia and so many other countries, we're going to just not have the
conversation that we need to be having about what these international institutions, that are so
sacred -- NATO and free trade and international trade organizations -- have done to people all
over the world, and the reason they're turning to demagogues and right-wing extremists because
of what these institutions have done to them. That's the conversation we need to be having, but
we're not having, because we're evading it by blaming everything on Vladimir Putin. And that,
to me, is even more dangerous for our long-term prospects than this belligerence that's in the
air about how we ought to look at Moscow.
Indictments and First Year Law
Mish : I now wish to return to a statement my friend made regarding the idea " No question
Russia did it ".
From Glenn Greenwald
As far as the indictments from Mueller are concerned, it's certainly the most specific
accounting yet that we've gotten of what the U.S. government claims the Russian government did
in 2016. But it's extremely important to remember what every first-year law student will tell
you, which is that an indictment is nothing more than the assertions of a prosecutor
unaccompanied by evidence. The evidence won't be presented until a trial or until Robert
Mueller actually issues a report to Congress.
And so, I would certainly hope that we are not at
the point, which I think we seem to be at, where we are now back to believing that when the CIA
makes statements and assertions and accusations, or when prosecutors make statements and
assertions and accusations, unaccompanied by evidence that we can actually evaluate, that we're
simply going to believe those accusations on faith, especially when the accusations come from
George W. Bush's former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who repeatedly lied to Congress about Iraq
and a whole variety of other issues. So, I think there we need some skepticism.
But even if the
Russians did everything that Robert Mueller claims in that indictment that they did, in the
scheme of what the U.S. and the Russians do to one another and other countries, I think to say
that this is somehow something that we should treat as a grave threat, that should mean that we
don't talk to them or that we treat them as an enemy, is really irrational and really quite
dangerous.
Mish - Six Questions
Is this a trial or a witch hunt?
Do we need to see the evidence or do we believe known liars?
Is Trump guilty of treason? Before we even see proof Putin was involved?
Is the CIA incapable of fabricating evidence?
Even if Russia interfered in the election, why should anyone have expected
otherwise?
Has everyone forgotten the US lies on WMDs already?
Irrational and Dangerous
I don't know about you, but I have no reason to believe known liars and hypocrites. I
disagree with Trump all the time, in fact, more often than not. The amount of venom on Trump
over this is staggering. Adding a missing word, I stand by my previous statement: " Nearly
every political action that generates this much complete nonsense and hysteria from the Left
and Right is worthy of immense praise."
If you disagree please provide examples. The only two I can come up with are Pearl Harbor
and 911. In both, the US was directly attacked. For rebuttal purposes I offer Vietnam, Syria,
Iraq, Russia, Iran, WWI, treatment of Japanese-American citizens in WWII, and McCarthyism.
Greenwald accurately assesses the situation as "really irrational and really quite dangerous."
Indeed. And if indictments and accusations were crimes, we wouldn't need a jury.
If the DNC servers were hacked, they are evidence, where is the fucking evidence now? At the bottom of the Hudson River with
concrete shoes that's where! Where are the Anwan servers, Podesta's, Wieners....where are Hillary's emails?
Fuck this is getting out of hand. All of the top spooks in the alphabet agencies are complicit, DOJ too, right up to the skinny
faggot in the rainbow house!
Getting close to the time for some real fucking justice in America!
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Here is an update to the map I posted yesterday about where not to be, not sure I agree one way or the other, you decide:
Even if it were found to be true that Russia (and not Seth Rich) was the source of the info that revealed to the American people
(and the world) that the DNC conspired to rig its own primary election, my response would be one of gratitude for shining a light
on the cockroaches.
the zeal with which MSN and especially CNN Wolf Blitzer now defend the 'Intelligence Community' as a singular infallible flawless
entity is incredible ...
... in the context of the war they waged on that very same 'Intelligence Community' in light of it being wrong about WMD in
Iraq
... or the Snowden-gate about it spying on Americans.
most two-faced biased blindly-agended-based manipulative thing I've ever seen on CNN
Russian hack? hahaha, as if. Everybody knows it was an inside job. That sort of thing with all the emails is inside -> Seth
Rich is a good place to look.
BESIDES! LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENT OF THOSE EMAILS!!!
This guy in the article above that says Hellary "must" be given the nomination because Russia 'hacked' the election. Great!
I'll be very happy to see that nasty bitch go down a second time, based on the substance of her twisted, hypocritical, and consummately
evil character.
" Deep State agent Bill Browder operated at the very nexus of the
U.S. and U.K. Intelligence Communities that conspired to produce
both the fake Russiagate and very real Spygate ."
***It is a tale, full of sound and fury, told by idiots, signifying nothing***
how can we be expected to take any of this shit seriously?
-- avowed globalist-communists opposed to any nation's sovereignty, repulsed at the faintest wiff of patriotism scolding us
for our lack of patriotism?
-- political parties, intelligence agencies, the media and much of the judiciary attempting to undermine the democratic process
for over a year and a half, delegitamize a Presidency, vilify half the nation, stoke the flames of enmity...now they kvetch about
our skepticism?
no, langley, we do not trust you. no, media, your agitprop has no currency.
of all the reasons for hillary's defeat, no one ever mentions the fact that she campaigned on a platform of war...WWIII, no
less. starting in May/June of 2016, cankles started pounding the war drums. in a scenario so stale and overused as to threadbare,
the left initiated the process of demonizing russia and russians.
Trump supporters are not only pro-American, they/we are anti-war. forever spinning in a manic and frenzied swirl of hysterics,
the left often loses sight of this...but as much is to be expected, in that the left doesn't think, they instead parrot the tropes
fed to them on a daily basis, forever unable to assemble the fragments of these disparate priorities into a cogent whole. but
if they were able to arrange this mess into coherence, the image would terrify them with its ghastliness. the left openly and
earnestly serves the forces of evil -- in fact, they are the forces of evil. they depend on the idiocy and credulity of their
minions to keep this reality obscured. fortunately for the left, their supporters are sufficiently dull and benighted to keep
the truth forever blighted.
maybe we should play the victoria nuland tapes again...as a refresher:
we not only interfered with Ukranian/Russian politics, we overtly overthrew a democratically elected government, attempted
to provoke Russia to respond militarily, started a civil war in the Ukraine, (downed a commercial airliner in a disgusting FF),
funded and trained Nazis and left the nation in shambles. these are the same people calling Trump a traitor. these are the same
forces who demand faith and fidelity.
it's gone...no one trusts (((you))) anymore...we know you're nothing but a bunch of bloodthristy satanists...your time is in
eclipse, the more you struggle, the tighter the constraints.
"fuck the EU (for balking at WWIII)" Victoria Nuland, Clinton apparatchik, globalists, communist, satanist, kike.
Zionists are a large part of the problem (and remember what Biden said) but not at all the whole problem. Don't hyperfocus
- the 'Deep State' is chock full of non-Jewish warmongers and traitors. In fact the top traitors are guys like Brennan, Comey,
McCabe, Clapper, Clinton, Obama, and Strozk.
" The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the second war in Iraq. US intelligence
had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously
thought we could control him."
YUP! AMEN.
It's amusing to me that the Leftist's NOW have a blind-faith trust in government, whereas during the Vietnam war, and at the
start of the Iraq war the opposite was (justifiably) the case.
And remember, the [neoliberal] Left was all OVER how we manipulated Russia into an Oligarchy:
There is nothing in either the dictionary definition of "Marxism," nor the social facts, which justifies using that label for
the ruling classes, the pyramidion people of the globalized social pyramid systems.
The root of the runaway "mass hysteria" is the long history of the control over the public money supplies being captured by
the best organized gangsters, the banksters. There is an overwhelming amount of historical evidence regarding how that happened.
See Excellent Videos on Money Systems .
Some of that evidence indicates some of those banksters were behind the promotion of messianic Marxism through the Russian
Revolution which resulted in the Soviet Union. (Less compelling evidence indicates similar factors were at play in the later Chinese
Revolution.)
The original Marxism was relatively scientific, for its time and place in history. However, it was messianic Marxism which
became the ideologies of so-called "communist" movements, all of which necessarily ended up being dominated by their own kinds
of best available professional hypocrites, resulting in even steeper social pyramid systems than previously.
It is RIDICULOUS to label the banksters as "Marxists." The comment posted above by HopefulCynical only begins to make some
sense AFTER one substitutes some label which refers to the banksters , rather than to some ideologies which those banksters used
to covertly advance their overall agenda.
Ideologies which become publicly significant are always systems of organized lies, which operate robberies. There is actually
only one political system: organized crime. Therefore, contemporary geopolitical events make more sense after one recognizes who
are the best organized gangsters , which are dominating civilization, including dominating the mass media's public presentation
of those events.
While President Trump is correctly presenting the degree to which the mainstream media is based on "fake news," President Trump
deliberately does not engage in deeper analysis of that phrase "fake news," but rather, used his oratory skill to capture that
phrase, and thereby turn it against those who originally intended to use that phrase against President Trump.
The comment above by HopefulCynical was overwhelmingly up-voted by its readers. Tragically, the indicates the degree to which
so many people want to believe in bullshit.
"The Marxists who've run America (and the rest of the world) into the ground for so many decades ..."
It was NOT "Marxists," but rather the banksters, who've run America (and the rest of the world) ... for so many decades. In
particular, since 1971, when the American Dollar lost its last connection with the material world, after the last vestiges of
money backed by precious metals were cut, the banksters have been able to astronomically amplify their frauds, as enforced by
governments, to become about exponentially more fraudulent.
That about exponentially increasing fraudulence, as demonstrated by debt slavery systems generating numbers which have become
debt insanities, is at the root of the runaway manifestation of "mass hysteria" in America (and the rest of the world.)
The debt slavery systems were made and maintained by the international bankers, as the best organized gangsters, the banksters,
whose persistent and prolonged participation in the funding of all aspects of the political processes (including schooling and
mass media) has resulted in the public powers of government being primarily used to back up the privatized interests of big banks,
and the big corporations that grew up around those big banks being able to issue the public money supplies out of nothing as debts.
Those real social facts do NOT correspond to the dictionary definition of Marxism, nor to any other goofy ideologies which
were popularized to conceal the real social facts, and permit public discussion of those facts to be drowned under the bullshit
of false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals.
There continues to be a lot of awful nonsense presented in articles and comments published on Zero Hedge , because of the degree
to which the authors of those like to continue to believe in their favourite kinds of impossible ideals, by mislabeling what they
do not like in erroneous ways, which ignore both the actual facts and definitions of those labels.
BANKSTERS' "psychopathic dreams of total control" require that it will be possible for systems based on being able to enforce
frauds can continue to become about exponentially more fraudulent. However, endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible.
Rising popular awareness and resistance to the banksters is manifesting through various political movements. However, so far,
those movements continue to mostly be forms of controlled "opposition." Anyone who continues to misuse the labels such as "capitalism
versus communism," or abuses the label "Marxist," etc., is still actually a form of controlled "opposition," because of the degree
to which their thinking and communication is still based on taking for granted the biggest bullies' bullshit, which has become
the banksters' bullshit .
After the banksters kicked the shit out of Russia during the 20th Century, Russia has returned having learned something from
those experiences. The results are that Russia is slightly more able and willing to advance its national interests against the
international banksters. That is the main reason why Russia is being demonized by those who are still almost totally the banksters'
puppets.
President Trump appears to be a relative anomaly, whose social successfulness was based on the apparently increasing anomalies,
due to the systems based on enforced frauds becoming about exponentially more fraudulent. It was that diffuse awareness of mass
media propaganda being systematic lying, serving the interests of the owners of those mass media, that was one of the factors
which enabled President Trump to win the election.
Some of his most significant campaign promises were to diminish the demonization of Russia, and thereby diminish the threat
of war with weapons of mass destruction spinning out of control, which continues to potentially be the greatest of threats, which
are somewhat under human control, but which look like those are going more and more out of control.
However, in my opinion, President Trump tends to NOT go beyond superficially correct analysis of the accumulating apparent
anomalies, whose root causes are the systems of enforced frauds being amplified by about exponentially advancing technologies
to become about exponentially more fraudulent, which factors are at the root of the accumulating "mass hysteria."
The best overall ways to approach understanding current geopolitical events are that the excessively successful applications
of the methods of organized crime through the political processes are resulting in civilization manifesting runaway criminal insanities,
which situation is so serious that people who attempt to reduce that insanity are attacked by those who want to increase that
insanity.
The deeper reasons for the underlying issues are that there must be some death control systems, precisely because endless exponential
growth is absolutely impossible, and therefore, death control systems develop to stop that happening, which drives those death
control systems to become murder systems which maximize maliciousness.
The longer term consequences of the social successfulness of maximized maliciousness are that the biggest bullies' bullshit
almost totally dominates civilization, including the layers of controlled "opposition" that surround the central core of the best
organized gangsters, which have become the banksters . Hence, most of those who believe that they are "resisting" continue to
think and communicate in ways which still take for granted most of that bullshit .
Mr Podesta, how
long have you used
"PASSWORD" as a password
for your access to the
DNC?
Ons24-%&@yy zfo-%78 -
password the day before the
hack, changed daily
Password - password use
the day of the hack
I can't even buy
something from amazon with
an account password
"Password". Yet he can
control the entire DNC
without one security
question?
Trusting the gov since
Reagan is laughable.
Thinking Bush didn't create
9-11 is inexcusable.
Simply Believing anything
said by Strozck, FBI, CIA,
DOJ Clinton clapper, comer
Brennen et al is idiotic to
the level of drinking
koolaid at the church
retreat. It just isn't
being done (successfully).
Frogs gonna boil.
Say goodbye to your Dem
friends or help them see
the light of reason.
Stupid does not last long
in Darwin's evolutional
theory.
Personally I'm getting fucking sick of all this. They call the hack the
equivalent of the Cuban Missile crisis but no one in government has seen
Hillary's server. This is like Kennedy going on tv and saying 'we are going to
threaten Russia with nuclear war over Cuba. No government agency has actually
seen the photos of missiles but we are told by a credible source of the
"Americans against Russia" group that they are there'
Even NBC can't find
verbal gymnastics to dispute this.
My favorite line in the FBI IG report was when the NYPD analyst mirrored
the Weiner laptop hard drive. They opened one email at random, looked
at it and said:
Perhaps it's the Mandala effect, but I recall watching Adlai Stevenson
laying out black-and-white pictures of Soviet missiles on some military
base which he claimed was in Cuba (Cuber in Kennedy-speak). He did this
while giving a speech to the UN Security Council in October 1962 berating
the Soviet Union and Nikita Khrushchev in particular for putting missiles
in Cuba. For those too young to remember or too lazy to look it up,
Stevenson was Kennedy's Ambassador to the UN.
Are you telling me that
Stevenson lied about where the military base was? Do we owe a posthumous
apology to Nikita, who incidentally transferred political control of Crimea
from the Russian portion of the USSR to the Ukrainian portion of the USSR
(where Khrushchev was from)?
History certainly is convoluted enough; I hope it's not changing on me.
I don't think you were catching my point. I was not disputing the basis
for the Cuban Missile crisis from the US side.
My point being that we
are willing to bare our teeth and threaten Russia on the basis of a 3rd
party review of the DNC server paid for by the DNC.
If we are going to raise the Russian hack to the equivalency of
Russia placing nuclear missiles off the coast of Florida...shouldn't the
basis for this be based upon an actual government agency review of the
hack?
A guy from a foreign country made a ton of money in Russia, rather than creating
businesses in his own country, and he neglected to pay taxes on it. The Clinton campaign was
fine with contributions from that source. The Clinton-supporting mainstream media was fine
with her having it since the ends justify the means.
Russia & China both have [different] political systems than the system that our
Founders created in the USA, but it is okay to maintain good relations with China since so
many elites, including the Clintons, have made a lot of money either directly off of
investing in the racially homogenous, cheap-labor market in China or via deep-pocketed
contacts there.
The media is horrified that Trump would talk to Putin, but was not horrified in the
Nineties, when the decision was made to give communist, mercantilist, dictatorial China MFN
trading status, thereby expediting the offshoring of millions of breadwinner jobs, plus the
forfeiting of millions of SS retirement fund contributions that would have been made if those
jobs with US-owned companies had stayed in the USA.
Some might say -- combined with all of the policies in the Nineties that facilitated the
offshoring of jobs to foreign countries with cheap labor markets, amounting to a grand total
of 5 million offshored jobs -- THAT was a betrayal of America's best interests, sapping our
national economic strength.
After 30 years of wanton offshoring and even more libertine immigration policies, the USA
now has 101 million working-age citizens out of the workforce, 78 million marginally
self-employed gig pieceworkers and 42 million EBT-eligible citizens and noncitizens with
US-born kids, holding only part-time jobs to stay under the income limits for the welfare
programs in traceable earnings.
Even though after all of that welfare-bolstered immigration we have a bigger working-age
young generation than the Boomers -- the Millennials -- they are so underemployed that the SS
trust find that we all pay into at either 7.65% or 15.3% of every dime we earn up to the
$128,400 cap is no longer running surpluses, threatening its solvency.
The USA was stripped of its economic strength by the America Last economic policies of the
Nineties, and the Clintons (and many other neoliberal politicians) were with the foreigners
at every turn, with Bill telling Americans to just stoically accept what Ross Perot called
the "giant sucking sound of jobs going across the border." Americans should just train for
the jobs of the future.
Forget about all of those breadwinner jobs (and SS contributions) lost to China, said
Bill, as he accepted campaign contributions from deep-pocketed Chinese sources.
That does not even count the technology transfers -- the intellectual property losses with
military implications, like when Bill Clinton's Administration reclassified a satellite
technology so that the Chinese could have access.
There is a double standard on human rights, too, since all of this resetting of the
relationship with China occurred less than 10 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre in
1989, when the Chinese government ran over students protesting for democracy with tanks.
It has been 30 years since the wall came down in Germany -- -- -- -30 years, not less than
a decade.
That said, Trump was not elected for foreign policy reasons. He was elected primarily to
get out-of-control illegal & legal immigration rates under control. He was elected so
that, at least, Americans are not undercut in the jobs left on US shores by immigrants with
instant-citizen US-born kids who qualify them for free EBT food, free rent, monthly cash
assistance and up to $6,431 in refundable child tax credits, making it easy for them to work
for beans, resulting in 40 years of falling wages for most US citizens.
As foreign policy goes, US politicians can have high standards for human rights, applying
those standards even to what happens within foreign countries, but not without the hypocrisy
being noted when those high standards only apply when the profits of US elites are not on the
line.
What Putin did in the Ukraine -- a country in close proximity to his own country, much
like Taiwan is with China -- was not the same thing, morally speaking, as China running over
students with tanks in 1989. Putin can argue that a country as close to Russia as the Ukraine
is the business of Russia, in the same way that the US POTUS could argue (successfully) that
Russian missiles close to our shores in Cuba were our business in the Sixties.
Instead of falling all over yourselves congratulating Putin for
outing the Clinton's you should peruse other mainstream news outlets
ABC, NBC, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, Yahoo, CNN and others. Except for Hannity
it's 100% condemnation of Trump selling out to the Russians and not a
single mention about the $400 million for the Clinton foundation.
The Washington Examiner printed an article full of the usual lies
about Russian aggression that if true would make the US look like a
saint compared to Russia. I imagine Wapo and the NY Slime were just
as bad.
As I stated the other day unless Trump crushed Putin, which was
never gonna happen even if the Donald wanted too, the knives would
come out and even Republicans would stomp on him.
If you saw Hillary's face you would see she is laughing her ass
off and dreaming of being president in 2020. The calls for
impeachment will come from all over the political spectrum and the
propagandized Americans, sheeple and the "well informed intelligent
people" who read the drivel in Wapo and NY Slime and there fellow
travelers and believe it 100%, will back it.
Those willing to print the truth will be drowned out by the
propaganda and be called Putin's bitches with renewed calls to shut
down the "fake news" that tells the truth.
All the news outlets bashing Trump Putin interview as "disgusting"
which is odd because I liked it because he called out the real
criminals---Comey, the fbi, DNC, Clinton, Strzok, etc.
Pretty much. This other bombshell from the conference, in which
Trump spilled entirely in the open that the whole Syria thing
hinged on Israel at the request of "Bibi" left
me jaw-dropped. Haven't seen a mention anywhere about this one...
It never fucking ends. I am watching all of my Dem friends howl about
Trump being owned by Puty Pute but not a darn mention about HRC sucking
bags of unethical dicks.
He didn't blame them - just said if you have no
specific evidence pointing to Russians, it could just
have easily been Ukranians, or Jews or??? which is
certainly true.
" The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the second war in Iraq. US intelligence
had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously
thought we could control him."
YUP! AMEN.
It's amusing to me that the Leftist's NOW have a blind-faith trust in government, whereas during the Vietnam war, and at the
start of the Iraq war the opposite was (justifiably) the case.
And remember, the [neoliberal] Left was all OVER how we manipulated Russia into an Oligarchy:
Everybody should watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9DMxfTGhY
Billy boy admitting Sergei Magnicky was not a lawyer. He was an accountant who was stealing
money with shitbag Bill Browder.
" Deep State agent Bill Browder operated at the very nexus of the U.S. and U.K.
Intelligence Communities that conspired to produce both the fake Russiagate and very real
Spygate ."
" The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on
the second war in Iraq. US intelligence had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US
meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously thought we could
control him."
YUP! AMEN.
It's amusing to me that the Leftist's NOW have a blind-faith trust in government, whereas
during the Vietnam war, and at the start of the Iraq war the opposite was (justifiably) the
case.
And remember, the [neoliberal] Left was all OVER how we manipulated Russia into an
Oligarchy:
Putin handed Trump a means of openly investigating Killary's/CIA's manipulation of US
politics via the Browder investigation, the crime of manipulating the DNC to remove Bernie
can also loop into the mix.
Let's hope Trump follows through and exposes the nest of vipers. The majority of people
are now seeing the light, only the people with skin the game or those far too controlled
through an excellent propaganda/mass mind control experiment do not.
Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebels could only dream that their methods would go this
far.
"But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain
politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news
sources."
― Edward L. Bernays ,
Propaganda
Putin handed Trump a means of openly investigating Killary's/CIA's manipulation of US
politics via the Browder investigation, the crime of manipulating the DNC to remove Bernie
can also loop into the mix.
Let's hope Trump follows through and exposes the nest of vipers. The majority of people
are now seeing the light, only the people with skin the game or those far too controlled
through an excellent propaganda/mass mind control experiment do not.
Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebels could only dream that their methods would go this
far.
"But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain
politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news
sources."
― Edward L. Bernays ,
Propaganda
Unless Herr fuckin Mueller comes up with some damn FUCKIN PROOF, and SOON, he should
hang.
Browder IS a major scumbag and there is plenty of fuckin proof of that. Putin knows. 400
millions to the Clinton campaign. The sooner she fuckin hangs the better.
$400,000,000 doesn't stay in a campaign, it is spent or transferred (if it made it that
far?). So where did it go, who received it? Surely it was reported if true? If
not................? Putin is not likely to put his questionable integrity out to dry in
front of the world. Mueller is all over it already?
Critical piece of the statement: " Intelligence agents funneled"
(Clinton>State>Embassy>CIA (Brennan).
divingengineer -> two hoots • Mon, 07/16/2018 - 17:34 Permalink
You are right, that was a PRETTY BIG STATEMENT, right in front of the world. I wonder what
was said in that two hour talk between him and Trump? Man, I would love to have been a fly on
the wall. Things are going to get spicy now.
Putin just nailed the US intelligence establishment. Up until now they've been cynically trying to limit Trumps freedom of action by laying out
allegations of Russian collusion. Now they're in a spot of bother when every time they start
to wind up the anti-Russia campaign someone points out that they've got a vested money
interest.
I'd love to see the FBI and CIA cleaned out from top to bottom over this, trials of
hundreds of sleazeballs with their assets confiscated and pensions cancelled. Although its
pretty obvious you'd need a lot of security on your side to deal with that.
If you've been watching Putin since the year 2000, you'd know he's not exactly known for
throwing around wild accusations. Less so, very precise accusations. He will be asked about that and he will not mumble words but likely expand. The Browder Affair is well known so I don't really know why anyone is remotely
surprised.
This is a perfect opportunity for the Social Justice Warriors to INSIST that all foreign
contributions to domestic US politicians or political parties be immediately outlawed or they
will march on Washington IMMEDIATELY!!
While they're at it....they should also include all contributions made by multi-national
corporations both public and private.
and while they're at it...they should also include all contributions made by foreign
governments or agents of foreign governments.
Browder, Rothschild, Clinton. Remember this back when Rothschild et al got their butt hurt from Putin? "As is known, despite the public promise not to engage in political activity after his
release from prison, former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been actively involved
in the financing of various media and political projects. The structures of Khodorkovsky
actively communicated with the international fraudster William Browder and helped to lobby
for the adoption of anti-Russian sanctions in the US Congress. However, the projects of
Khodorkovsky, as it turned out, have more high patrons and sponsorship streams than only the
means of the former oligarch."
Now we understand why some of the intelligence agencies are bending over backwards to
incriminate Russia along with Brennan, et al., crying treason when in reality it was those
people and agencies actually doing it. This is way beyond fucked up and the damn MSM is
ignoring every bit of it.
Trump needs to take some sort of action that draws this so far out into the open that it
can't be denied. The fucking GOP senators that were out today bad talking Trump need to be
indicted for their likely crimes as well. Fuck these creeps!
The Looking Glass warned us 2016 would be a pivotal election where the People would
finally realize the CIA (really MI6) runs our country with a complicated web of compromise,
corruption and illegal funding. Too bad it was off by a few years...
Putin has a thousand times more credibility and honor than Mueller. Mueller is a stinking
crook. He was instrumental as head of the FBI in certifying to the Bush administration that
Saddam had WMDs. He covered up the real (and known) anthrax terrorists while he went on a
witch hunt against Hatfield -which eventually resulted in the US Government paying Hatfield
$8 million for defamation of character. Mueller is pure scum -a fiend and traitor who belongs
in prison for the rest of his miserable life.
"... Fucking bought and paid for by her, just like everything else in America! ..."
"... Trump just broke a tabu by failing to do homage to the sacred cow of our intelligence community. ..."
"... From Strzok testimony we saw (what we knew already) that Shillary's server was compromised by a 'foreign actor' and Strzok and Comey did nothing. What about that?!?!?!? ..."
Our intel agencies ARE corrupt...they walk into DNC HQ and leave without the
server...cause of Hillary you know that right. Fucking bought and paid for by her, just like
everything else in America!
Lookit, Trump is on the up and up, and all the little fags are crying foul? fuck 'em!
Trump just broke a tabu by failing to do homage to the sacred cow of our intelligence
community.
From Strzok testimony we saw (what we knew already) that Shillary's server was compromised
by a 'foreign actor' and Strzok and Comey did nothing. What about that?!?!?!?
"... How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. ..."
"... Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did with the false narratives advanced in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence. ..."
As
we just discussed , some major news stories have recently dropped about what a horrible horrifying menace the Russian Federation
is to the world , and as always I have nothing to offer the breathless pundits on CNN and MSNBC but my completely unsatisfied skepticism.
My skepticism of the official Russia narrative remains so completely unsatisfied that if mainstream media were my husband I would
already be cheating on it with my yoga instructor.
I do not believe the establishment Russia narrative. I do not believe that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to
rig the 2016 election. I do not believe the Russian government did any election rigging for Trump to collude with. This is not because
I believe Vladimir Putin is some kind of blueberry-picking girl scout, and it certainly isn't because I think the Russian government
is unwilling or incapable of meddling in the affairs of other nations to some extent when it suits them. It is simply because I am
aware that the US intelligence community lies constantly as a matter of policy, and because I understand how the burden of proof
works.
At this time, I see no reason to espouse any belief system which embraces as true the assertion that Russia meddled in the 2016
elections in any meaningful way, or that it presents a unique and urgent threat to the world which must be aggressively dealt with.
But all the establishment mouthpieces tell me that I must necessarily embrace these assertions as known, irrefutable fact. Here are
five things that would have to change in order for that to happen:
1. Proof of a hacking conspiracy to elect Trump.
The first step to getting a heretic like myself aboard the Russia hysteria train would be the existence of publicly available
evidence of the claims made about election meddling in 2016, which rises to the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world. So
far, that burden of proof for Russian hacking allegations has not come anywhere remotely close to being met.
How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally
would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity.
Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did
with the false narratives advanced
in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around
a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence
is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding
assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence.
2. Proof that election meddling actually influenced the election in a meaningful way.
Even if Russian hackers did exfiltrate Democratic party emails and give them to WikiLeaks, if it didn't affect the election, who
cares? That's a single-day, second-page story at best, meriting nothing beyond a "Hmm, interesting, turns out Russia tried and failed
to influence the US election," followed by a shrug and moving on to something that actually matters.
After it has been thoroughly proven that Russia meddled in the elections in a meaningful way, it must then be established that
that meddling had an actual impact on the election results.
3. Some reason to believe Russian election meddling was unwarranted and unacceptable.
The US government,
by a very wide margin , interferes in the elections of other countries far, far more than any other government on earth does.
The US government's
own
data shows that it has deliberately meddled in the elections of 81 foreign governments between 1946 and 2000,
including Russia in the nineties.
This is public knowledge. A former CIA Director
cracked jokes about it on Fox News earlier this year.
If I'm going to abandon my skepticism and accept the Gospel According to Maddow, after meaningful, concrete election interference
has been clearly established I'm going to need a very convincing reason to believe that it is somehow wrong or improper for a government
to attempt to respond in kind to the undisputed single worst offender of this exact offense. It makes no sense for the United States
to actively create an environment in which election interference is something that governments do to one another, and then cry like
a spanked child when its election is interfered with by one of the very governments whose elections the US recently meddled in.
This is nonsense. America being far and away the worst election meddler on the planet makes it a fair target for election meddling
by not just Russia, but every country in the world. It is very obviously moral and acceptable for any government on earth to interfere
in America's elections as long as it remains the world's worst offender in that area. In order for Russia to be in the wrong if it
interfered in America's elections, some very convincing argument I've not yet heard will have to be made to support that case.
4. Proof that the election meddling went beyond simply giving Americans access to information about their government.
If all the Russians did was simply show Americans
emails of Democratic Party officials talking
to one another and circulate some
MSM articles as claimed in the
ridiculous Russian troll farm allegations , that's nothing to get upset about. If anything, Americans should be upset that they
had to hear about Democratic Party corruption through the grapevine instead of having light shed on it by the American officials
whose job it is to do so. Complaints about election meddling is only valid if that election meddling isn't comprised of truth and
facts.
5. A valid reason to believe escalated tensions between two nuclear superpowers are worthwhile.
After it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia did indeed meddle in the US elections in a meaningful way, and
after it has then been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia actually influenced election results in a significant way, and
after the case has been clearly made that it was bad and wrong for Russia to do this instead of fair and reasonable, and after it
has been clearly proven that the election meddling went beyond simply telling Americans the truth about their government, the question
then becomes what, if anything, should be done about it?
If you look at the actions that this administration has taken over the last year and a half, the answer to that question appears
to be harsh sanctions, NATO expansionism, selling arms to Ukraine, throwing out diplomats, increasing military presence along Russia's
border, a Nuclear Posture Review which is much more aggressive toward Russia, repeatedly bombing Syria, and just generally creating
more and more opportunities for something to go catastrophically wrong with one of the two nations' aging, outdated nuclear arsenals,
setting off a chain of events from which there is no turning back and no surviving.
And the pundits and politicians keep pushing for more and more escalations, at this very moment braying with one voice that Trump
must aggressively confront Putin about Mueller's indictments or withdraw from the peace talks. But is it worth it? Is it worth risking
the life of every terrestrial organism to, what? What specifically would be gained that makes increasing the risk of nuclear catastrophe
worthwhile? Making sure nobody interferes in America's fake elections? I'd need to see a very clear and specific case made, with
a 'pros' and 'cons' list and "THE POTENTIAL DEATH OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING" written in big red letters at the top of the 'cons' column.
Rallying the world to cut off Russia from the world stage and cripple its economy has been been a goal of the US power establishment
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, so there's no reason to believe that even the people who are making the claims against Russia
actually believe them. The goal is
crippling Russia to handicap China , and ultimately to shore up global hegemony for the US-centralized empire by preventing the
rise of any rival superpowers. The sociopathic alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies who control that empire are
willing to threaten nuclear confrontation in order to ensure their continued dominance. All of their actions against Russia since
2016 have had everything to do with establishing long-term planetary dominance and nothing whatsoever to do with election meddling.
Those five things would need to happen before I'd be willing to jump aboard the "Russia! Russia! Russia!" train. Until then I'll
just keep pointing to the total lack of evidence and how very, very far the CIA/CNN Russia narrative is from credibility.
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Local news differs because it is mixed with first-hand experience, as well as second-hand reports from witnesses–neighbors and
friends.
Gossip is one way of regulating this local flow of information. It provides details about who can be believed, and who might
embellish.
Locally, there is an organic structure of information flow. This alone doesn't make it accurate, but it gets closer by triangulating
from where you get your information.
And the further you get from the ability to triangulate from different sources, the faker news gets. I don't mean different sources,
as in, different news outlets. I mean first-hand knowledge mixed with historical context, access to first-hand accounts, information
about the reliability of witnesses and experts, and so on.
The further away the news gets from you, the harder it is to mix the news with other intelligence. At that point, it is easier
to manipulate the truth.
But even if a piece of news about a far-off event is not attempting to misconstrue the truth, it could do so inadvertently. Without
the full context of what is happening, events across the world can give the wrong impression.
The conflict in Syria is the perfect example of fake news. You have a complicated event with many different sides and no clear
good guys. There are few first-hand accounts from people we know personally. There are some entities who wish to purposely distort
the truth and others which want to hide the full extent of their actions.
All I can do to find out is trust various news sources. And that is what I mean when I say everything is fake news. Just picking
which events to report on truthfully can end up presenting a basically fake story.
The Same Old Story
Years ago it was easy to control the spread of information. There were only a handful of television networks and newspapers. All
news passed through the channels of official gatekeepers before making its way to the consumer.
But already the government was creating and disseminating fake news through programs like Project Mockingbird. The
CIA had thousands of journalists on its payroll to disseminate false news and
bury certain real reports.
So the government's problem is not fake news. Governments are concerned that they have lost their monopoly control of fake news.
They were the gatekeepers.
Social media "has made things much worse," because it "offers an easy route for non-journalists to bypass journalism's gatekeepers,
so that anyone can 'publish' anything, however biased, inaccurate or fabricated," says John Huxford, an Illinois State University
journalism professor.
"Journalism's role as the 'gatekeeper' of what is and isn't news has always been controversial, of course. But we're now seeing
just how bad things can get when that function breaks down."
Are we seeing how bad things can get? It seems that there was always fake news, but at one time, everyone believed it. Now there
is fake news, and no one trusts any news. That is a better situation to be in. It is the rejection of manipulation by the elites,
the gatekeepers.
Distrust in unverifiable news is better than blind trust in government propaganda. Better to hold agnostic beliefs about certain
national events, versus believing what the government feeds us.
My default position is distrust of the government. So whatever narrative they seem to be pushing, if not outright false, has a
purpose behind it. They are trying to shape the behavior of the masses and very rarely is this beneficially to individuals.
Huxford said many internet users are not adept at telling fake news from the real thing, making the role of major news organizations
critical.
"This is why Trump falsely labelling the mainstream media as 'fake news' is so toxic," he said.
"It means that, at a time when there is a lot of fabrication and falsehoods swirling through the system, the credibility of
the most reliable sources of news is being undermined."
As someone who believes in a grassroots approach to solving problems, starting with individuals, I am naturally averse to the
idea of controllers from on high making decisions for me.
And that is why I think it is beneficial to have more distrust in news the further it gets from you, and rather use what you can
confirm to live personally as you see fit.
Probably the best example of this is people signing up for the military directly after 9/11 to go kick some al-Qaida ass. They
trusted the national news to deliver accurate facts about what happened, and how to stop it from happening again. And they threw
themselves into the fight without having an accurate picture of why, or how the war they were signing up for would help.
In the end, they may have ended up supporting a worse regime than the one they were fighting.
Never knowing what you can believe is not ideal. But it beats a false sense of security that the news you get is real. It isn't.
And if people are finally waking up to that, perhaps they will stop lining up to fight other people's wars.
You don't have to play by the rules of the corrupt politicians, manipulative media, and brainwashed peers.
We have a Strzok in Iran, Peter Sr. We have a Strzok in Russia, Mark. We have a Strzok in
the SEC, Melissa. We have a Strzok in the FBI, Peter jr. We have a Strzok links to Russian
uranium mines that are apart of Uranium One. Enter Clinton, Obama & Mueller. Pay, Play
& Prosecute
The father of Peter Strzok is Peter Strzok Sr. The brother of Peter Strzok Sr is Mark
Strzok. The wife of Mark Strzok is Mariana Strzok. Mariana Strzok is the daughter of General
James Cartwright. General James Cartwright, was pardoned by Barrack Obama on his last day of
office.
The wife of Peter Strzok, Melissa Hodgman. Just so happens she was promoted to the role of
director of the SEC at the same time the FBI was drafting the exoneration letter for the HRC.
Peter Strzok was the last person on earth to see the deleted HRC emails. Nothing to see
here.
The father of Peter Strzok, Peter Strzok Sr, just happened to be in Iran in 1979, the year
that the Shan was removed from power & the 2,500 years of continuous Persian monarchy was
replaced with an Islamic Republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. CIA?
Dot-Dot-Dot.
You mean the indictments for crimes when Obama was president? The same Kremlin officers
that when Rice was briefed on Russian meddling, she gave a stand down order? You lie
@RepAdamSchiff Nothing today had anything to do with President Trump. Oh, I think we all know
who the coward is here.
"... How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. ..."
"... Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did with the false narratives advanced in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence. ..."
As
we just discussed , some major news stories have recently dropped about what a horrible horrifying menace the Russian Federation
is to the world , and as always I have nothing to offer the breathless pundits on CNN and MSNBC but my completely unsatisfied skepticism.
My skepticism of the official Russia narrative remains so completely unsatisfied that if mainstream media were my husband I would
already be cheating on it with my yoga instructor.
I do not believe the establishment Russia narrative. I do not believe that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to
rig the 2016 election. I do not believe the Russian government did any election rigging for Trump to collude with. This is not because
I believe Vladimir Putin is some kind of blueberry-picking girl scout, and it certainly isn't because I think the Russian government
is unwilling or incapable of meddling in the affairs of other nations to some extent when it suits them. It is simply because I am
aware that the US intelligence community lies constantly as a matter of policy, and because I understand how the burden of proof
works.
At this time, I see no reason to espouse any belief system which embraces as true the assertion that Russia meddled in the 2016
elections in any meaningful way, or that it presents a unique and urgent threat to the world which must be aggressively dealt with.
But all the establishment mouthpieces tell me that I must necessarily embrace these assertions as known, irrefutable fact. Here are
five things that would have to change in order for that to happen:
1. Proof of a hacking conspiracy to elect Trump.
The first step to getting a heretic like myself aboard the Russia hysteria train would be the existence of publicly available
evidence of the claims made about election meddling in 2016, which rises to the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world. So
far, that burden of proof for Russian hacking allegations has not come anywhere remotely close to being met.
How much proof would I need to lend my voice to the escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers? Mountains. I personally
would settle for nothing less than hard proof which can be independently verified by trusted experts like the Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity.
Is that a big ask? Yes. Yes it is. That's what happens when government institutions completely discredit themselves as they did
with the false narratives advanced
in the manufacturing of support for the Iraq invasion. You don't get to butcher a million Iraqis in a war based on lies, turn around
a few years later and say "We need new cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower but we can't prove it because the evidence
is secret." That's not a thing. Copious amounts of hard, verifiable proof or GTFO. So far we have no evidence besides the confident-sounding
assertions of government insiders and their mass media mouthpieces, which is the same as no evidence.
2. Proof that election meddling actually influenced the election in a meaningful way.
Even if Russian hackers did exfiltrate Democratic party emails and give them to WikiLeaks, if it didn't affect the election, who
cares? That's a single-day, second-page story at best, meriting nothing beyond a "Hmm, interesting, turns out Russia tried and failed
to influence the US election," followed by a shrug and moving on to something that actually matters.
After it has been thoroughly proven that Russia meddled in the elections in a meaningful way, it must then be established that
that meddling had an actual impact on the election results.
3. Some reason to believe Russian election meddling was unwarranted and unacceptable.
The US government,
by a very wide margin , interferes in the elections of other countries far, far more than any other government on earth does.
The US government's
own
data shows that it has deliberately meddled in the elections of 81 foreign governments between 1946 and 2000,
including Russia in the nineties.
This is public knowledge. A former CIA Director
cracked jokes about it on Fox News earlier this year.
If I'm going to abandon my skepticism and accept the Gospel According to Maddow, after meaningful, concrete election interference
has been clearly established I'm going to need a very convincing reason to believe that it is somehow wrong or improper for a government
to attempt to respond in kind to the undisputed single worst offender of this exact offense. It makes no sense for the United States
to actively create an environment in which election interference is something that governments do to one another, and then cry like
a spanked child when its election is interfered with by one of the very governments whose elections the US recently meddled in.
This is nonsense. America being far and away the worst election meddler on the planet makes it a fair target for election meddling
by not just Russia, but every country in the world. It is very obviously moral and acceptable for any government on earth to interfere
in America's elections as long as it remains the world's worst offender in that area. In order for Russia to be in the wrong if it
interfered in America's elections, some very convincing argument I've not yet heard will have to be made to support that case.
4. Proof that the election meddling went beyond simply giving Americans access to information about their government.
If all the Russians did was simply show Americans
emails of Democratic Party officials talking
to one another and circulate some
MSM articles as claimed in the
ridiculous Russian troll farm allegations , that's nothing to get upset about. If anything, Americans should be upset that they
had to hear about Democratic Party corruption through the grapevine instead of having light shed on it by the American officials
whose job it is to do so. Complaints about election meddling is only valid if that election meddling isn't comprised of truth and
facts.
5. A valid reason to believe escalated tensions between two nuclear superpowers are worthwhile.
After it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia did indeed meddle in the US elections in a meaningful way, and
after it has then been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia actually influenced election results in a significant way, and
after the case has been clearly made that it was bad and wrong for Russia to do this instead of fair and reasonable, and after it
has been clearly proven that the election meddling went beyond simply telling Americans the truth about their government, the question
then becomes what, if anything, should be done about it?
If you look at the actions that this administration has taken over the last year and a half, the answer to that question appears
to be harsh sanctions, NATO expansionism, selling arms to Ukraine, throwing out diplomats, increasing military presence along Russia's
border, a Nuclear Posture Review which is much more aggressive toward Russia, repeatedly bombing Syria, and just generally creating
more and more opportunities for something to go catastrophically wrong with one of the two nations' aging, outdated nuclear arsenals,
setting off a chain of events from which there is no turning back and no surviving.
And the pundits and politicians keep pushing for more and more escalations, at this very moment braying with one voice that Trump
must aggressively confront Putin about Mueller's indictments or withdraw from the peace talks. But is it worth it? Is it worth risking
the life of every terrestrial organism to, what? What specifically would be gained that makes increasing the risk of nuclear catastrophe
worthwhile? Making sure nobody interferes in America's fake elections? I'd need to see a very clear and specific case made, with
a 'pros' and 'cons' list and "THE POTENTIAL DEATH OF LITERALLY EVERYTHING" written in big red letters at the top of the 'cons' column.
Rallying the world to cut off Russia from the world stage and cripple its economy has been been a goal of the US power establishment
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, so there's no reason to believe that even the people who are making the claims against Russia
actually believe them. The goal is
crippling Russia to handicap China , and ultimately to shore up global hegemony for the US-centralized empire by preventing the
rise of any rival superpowers. The sociopathic alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies who control that empire are
willing to threaten nuclear confrontation in order to ensure their continued dominance. All of their actions against Russia since
2016 have had everything to do with establishing long-term planetary dominance and nothing whatsoever to do with election meddling.
Those five things would need to happen before I'd be willing to jump aboard the "Russia! Russia! Russia!" train. Until then I'll
just keep pointing to the total lack of evidence and how very, very far the CIA/CNN Russia narrative is from credibility.
* * *
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Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
Drop in the bucket to what is happening right now. US will be about 500k less than their
(IEA's) expectations into 2019 due to transportation constraints.
George thinks Venezuela
will approximate zero by 2019, as do others.
Give them the benefit of doubt and say a one
million decrease from 1.6 at the beginning of this year.
IEA is still using production vs
export capabilities, which has to change. Europe's refineries have largely stopped buying
Iran's oil, as has India. That's 1.1 million that has to be sold elsewhere, or not. On
shipping, insurance, and financing that is not affected by the restrictions. I count 2.6
million into 2019 that is not on IEA's plate.
Yeah, as said above, 2019 is going to be quite
interesting, most of which we will see the end of 2018. None of this takes into consideration
any increase in demand for 2019 that is over the US production projection for 2019 (.9). nor
any shortage carried over from 2018. Yeah, we should be hunky dory.
In the investment world, we will still be watching EIA weeklies, to determine what is
happening in the rest of the world for awhile. So increased cognitive function won't happen
soon.
"... "Conclusion. No matter what clever US energy independence calculations are out there, the fact remains that the US is physically dependent on around 8 mb/d of crude oil imports, 4.3 mb/d out of which come from countries where oil production has already peaked and/or where there are socio-economic or geopolitical problems. As of April 2018 US net crude imports were about 6 mb/d, far from oil independence." ..."
"... I note also that about 45% of USA imports come from Canada, as well depicted in in your Fig 1. Thus we are 'captives' of Canada (to use the terminology of trump), but don't seem to have much appreciation or respect for their position. ..."
US total (oil + products) inventories made a new low (from the high February 2017)
US ending stocks July 6th
Crude oil down -12.6 million barrels
Oil products down -0.7
Overall total, down -13.3 (shown on chart)
Natural Gas: Propane & NGPLs up +6.1 (not included in chart)
Chart: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dh1-upjXUBEOjvn.jpg
"Conclusion.
No matter what clever US energy independence calculations are out there, the fact remains
that the US is physically dependent on around 8 mb/d of crude oil imports, 4.3 mb/d out of
which come from countries where oil production has already peaked and/or where there are
socio-economic or geopolitical problems. As of April 2018 US net crude imports were about 6
mb/d, far from oil independence."
I note also that about 45% of USA imports come from Canada, as well depicted in in your
Fig 1. Thus we are 'captives' of Canada (to use the terminology of trump), but don't seem to
have much appreciation or respect for their position.
Local news differs because it is mixed with first-hand experience, as well as second-hand reports from witnesses–neighbors and
friends.
Gossip is one way of regulating this local flow of information. It provides details about who can be believed, and who might
embellish.
Locally, there is an organic structure of information flow. This alone doesn't make it accurate, but it gets closer by triangulating
from where you get your information.
And the further you get from the ability to triangulate from different sources, the faker news gets. I don't mean different sources,
as in, different news outlets. I mean first-hand knowledge mixed with historical context, access to first-hand accounts, information
about the reliability of witnesses and experts, and so on.
The further away the news gets from you, the harder it is to mix the news with other intelligence. At that point, it is easier
to manipulate the truth.
But even if a piece of news about a far-off event is not attempting to misconstrue the truth, it could do so inadvertently. Without
the full context of what is happening, events across the world can give the wrong impression.
The conflict in Syria is the perfect example of fake news. You have a complicated event with many different sides and no clear
good guys. There are few first-hand accounts from people we know personally. There are some entities who wish to purposely distort
the truth and others which want to hide the full extent of their actions.
All I can do to find out is trust various news sources. And that is what I mean when I say everything is fake news. Just picking
which events to report on truthfully can end up presenting a basically fake story.
The Same Old Story
Years ago it was easy to control the spread of information. There were only a handful of television networks and newspapers. All
news passed through the channels of official gatekeepers before making its way to the consumer.
But already the government was creating and disseminating fake news through programs like Project Mockingbird. The
CIA had thousands of journalists on its payroll to disseminate false news and
bury certain real reports.
So the government's problem is not fake news. Governments are concerned that they have lost their monopoly control of fake news.
They were the gatekeepers.
Social media "has made things much worse," because it "offers an easy route for non-journalists to bypass journalism's gatekeepers,
so that anyone can 'publish' anything, however biased, inaccurate or fabricated," says John Huxford, an Illinois State University
journalism professor.
"Journalism's role as the 'gatekeeper' of what is and isn't news has always been controversial, of course. But we're now seeing
just how bad things can get when that function breaks down."
Are we seeing how bad things can get? It seems that there was always fake news, but at one time, everyone believed it. Now there
is fake news, and no one trusts any news. That is a better situation to be in. It is the rejection of manipulation by the elites,
the gatekeepers.
Distrust in unverifiable news is better than blind trust in government propaganda. Better to hold agnostic beliefs about certain
national events, versus believing what the government feeds us.
My default position is distrust of the government. So whatever narrative they seem to be pushing, if not outright false, has a
purpose behind it. They are trying to shape the behavior of the masses and very rarely is this beneficially to individuals.
Huxford said many internet users are not adept at telling fake news from the real thing, making the role of major news organizations
critical.
"This is why Trump falsely labelling the mainstream media as 'fake news' is so toxic," he said.
"It means that, at a time when there is a lot of fabrication and falsehoods swirling through the system, the credibility of
the most reliable sources of news is being undermined."
As someone who believes in a grassroots approach to solving problems, starting with individuals, I am naturally averse to the
idea of controllers from on high making decisions for me.
And that is why I think it is beneficial to have more distrust in news the further it gets from you, and rather use what you can
confirm to live personally as you see fit.
Probably the best example of this is people signing up for the military directly after 9/11 to go kick some al-Qaida ass. They
trusted the national news to deliver accurate facts about what happened, and how to stop it from happening again. And they threw
themselves into the fight without having an accurate picture of why, or how the war they were signing up for would help.
In the end, they may have ended up supporting a worse regime than the one they were fighting.
Never knowing what you can believe is not ideal. But it beats a false sense of security that the news you get is real. It isn't.
And if people are finally waking up to that, perhaps they will stop lining up to fight other people's wars.
You don't have to play by the rules of the corrupt politicians, manipulative media, and brainwashed peers.
"... No doubt that the globalized elite want Friedman's "World is Flat" concept – profit maximizing world markets, world production, stateless corporations, free movement of labour and capital (without troublesome national identities) represented by an exclusive and vastly wealthy rootless elite ruling over a global worker hive. The "Empire" is only the military/enforcement side of this, with sanctions/wars against dissidents. ..."
"... Trump is in the strange situation of having been elected to fight the Empire while needing elite Imperial support to stay in his job. ..."
If history is any precedent, empires without economic foundations, sooner or later
crumble, especially when rising regional powers are capable of replacing them.
This is worth repeating. Empire and wars are expensive. For example the British world
trade network was doing fine until the "Imperial" idea came along with wars and economic
failure. The US is doing even worse in trying to fight its Imperial wars on credit.
The result is that Trump faces the real prospects of a decline in exports and popular
electoral support – especially from those adversely affected by declining markets and
deep cuts in health, education and the environment.
He may well be blindsided by a candidate who actually implements Trump's own election
platform 1) no more wars 2) domestic infrastructure spending 3) stopping mass immigration 4)
draining the swamp. Trumps electoral weakness is that didn't follow through on his
promises.
The electoral oligarchy and the mass media will force him to retreat from the trade wars
and surrender to the globalizing elites.
No doubt that the globalized elite want Friedman's "World is Flat" concept –
profit maximizing world markets, world production, stateless corporations, free movement of
labour and capital (without troublesome national identities) represented by an exclusive and
vastly wealthy rootless elite ruling over a global worker hive. The "Empire" is only the
military/enforcement side of this, with sanctions/wars against dissidents.
Trump is in the strange situation of having been elected to fight the Empire while
needing elite Imperial support to stay in his job.
House GOP members led by Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (NC) have drawn up articles of
impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, according to
Politico
.
Conservative sources say they could file the impeachment document
as soon as Monday
,
as Meadows and Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) look to build Republican support in
the House. One source cautioned, however, that the timing was still fluid. -
Politico
GOP legislators could also try to hold Rosenstein in contempt of Congress prior to actual
impeachment.
The knives have been out for Rosenstein for weeks, as Congressional investigators have
repeatedly accused the DOJ of "slow walking" documents related to their investigations. Frustrated
lawmakers have been given the runaround - while Rosenstein and the rest of the DOJ are hiding
behind the argument that the materials requested by various Congressional oversight
committees would potentially compromise ongoing investigations.
In late June, Rosenstein along with FBI Director Christopher Wray clashed with House Republicans
during a fiery hearing over an internal DOJ report criticizing the FBI's handling of the Hillary
Clinton email investigation by special agents who harbored extreme animus towards Donald Trump
while expressing support for Clinton. Republicans on the panel grilled a defiant Rosenstein on the
Trump-Russia investigation which has yet to prove any collusion between the Trump campaign and the
Kremlin.
"This country is being hurt by it. We are being divided," Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said of
Mueller's investigation. "Whatever you got," Gowdy added, "Finish it the hell up because this
country is being torn apart."
Rosenstein pushed back - dodging responsibility for decisions made by subordinates while
claiming that Mueller was moving "as expeditiously as possible," and insisting that he was "not
trying to hide anything."
"We are not in contempt of this Congress, and we are not going to be in contempt of this
Congress," Rosenstein told lawmakers.
Republicans, meanwhile,
approved a resolution on the House floor demanding that the DOJ
turn over thousands of requested documents by July 6
. And while the DOJ did provide
Congressional investigators with access to a trove of documents, House GOP said
the
document delivery was
incomplete
, according to
Fox News
.
That didn't impress Congressional GOP.
"
For over eight months, they have had the opportunity to choose transparency. But
they've instead chosen to withhold information
and impede any effort of Congress to
conduct oversight," said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a sponsor of Thursday's
House resolution who raised the possibility of impeachment this week. "
If Rod Rosenstein
and the Department of Justice have nothing to hide, they certainly haven't acted like it.
"
-
New
York Times
(6/28/18)
Rep. Meadows, meanwhile, fully admits that the document requests are related to efforts to quash
the Mueller investigation.
"Yes, when we get these documents,
we believe that it will do away with this whole
fiasco of what they call the Russian Trump collusion because there wasn't any
,"
Meadows said on the House floor.
Meanwhile, following a long day of grilling FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte blamed Rosenstein for hindering Strzok's ability to
reveal the details of his work.
"Rosenstein, who has oversight over the FBI and of the Mueller investigation is where the buck
stops," he said. "Congress has been blocked today from conducting its constitutional oversight
duty."
While Rosenstein's appears to be close to the chopping block, whether or not he will actually be
impeached is an entirely different matter.
I think this attempt to impeach Rosenstink is
ridiculous. First of all, it is bound to failure as it
would require a 2/3 majority in the Senate. Second, the
impeachment clauses in the constitution were designed for
a sitting president who was granted immunity from
traditional prosecution for committing crimes.
Rosenstink serves
at the pleasure
of Trump, who apparently, at least in "reality" shows, is
quite adept at firing people for incompetence and
malfeasance. Let Trump fire him and then impanel a grand
jury to indict him. I think upon conviction he should be
required to eat the 12 ham sandwiches which fellow
conspirator Mueller recently indicted.
On the matter of immigration, even many commentators who support ease of migration also
oppose the extension of government benefits to immigrants.
The idea, of course, is that free movement of labor is fine, but taxpayers shouldn't have to
subsidize it. As a matter of policy, many also find it prudent that immigrants ought to be
economically self sufficient before being offered citizenship. Switzerland, for instance,
makes
it harder to pursue citizenship while receiving social benefits.
This discussion often centers around officially recognized "welfare" and social-benefits
programs such as TANF and Medicaid. But it is also recognized that taxpayer-funded benefits
exist in the form of public schooling, free clinics, and other in-kind benefits.
But there is another taxpayer-supporter program that subsidizes immigration as well: the US
military.
Translation: the US government has begun laying off immigrants from taxpayer-funded
government jobs.
It's unclear how many of these jobs have been employed, but according to the Department of
Homeland security, "[s]ince Oct. 1, 2002, USCIS has naturalized 102,266
members of the military ."
The Military as a Jobs Program
Immigrants, of course, aren't the only people who benefit from government jobs funded
through military programs.
The military has long served as a jobs programs helpful in mopping up excess labor and
padding employment numbers. As Robert Reich noted in
2011 , as the US was still coming out of the 2009 recession:
And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The
Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and
personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and
Washington, D.C. -- because all three have high concentrations of military and federal
jobs.
He's right. While the private sector must cut back and re-arrange labor and capital to deal
with the new economic realities post-recession, government jobs rarely go away.
Because of this, Reich concludes "America's biggest -- and only major -- jobs program is the
U.S. military."
Reich doesn't think this is a bad thing. He only highlights the military's role as a de
facto jobs program in order to call for more de jure jobs programs supported by federal
funding.
Given the political popularity of the military, however, it's always easy to protect funding
for the military jobs programs than for any other potential jobs programs. All the Pentagon has
to do is assure Congress that every single military job is absolutely essential, and Congress
will force taxpayers to cough up the funding.
Back during the debate over sequestration, for example, the Pentagon routinely warned
Congress that any cutbacks in military funding would lead to major jobs losses, bringing
devastation to the economy.
In other words, even the Pentagon treats the military like a jobs program when it's
politically useful.
Benefits for enlisted people go well beyond what can be seen in the raw numbers of total
employed. As Kelley Vlahos
points out at The American Conservative , military personnel receive extra hazard pay "even
though they are far from any fighting or real danger." And then there is the "Combat Zone Tax
Exclusion (CZTE) program which exempts enlisted and officers from paying federal taxes in these
45 designated countries. Again, they get the tax break -- which accounted for about $3.6
billion in tax savings for personnel in 2009 (the combat pay cost taxpayers $790 million in
2009)– whether they are really in danger or not."
Nor do the benefits of military spending go only to enlisted people. The Pentagon has long
pointed to its spending on civilian jobs in many communities, including manufacturing jobs and
white-collar technical jobs.
This, of course, has long been politically useful for the Pentagon as well, since as
political scientist Rebecca Thorpe has shown in her book
The American Warfare State , communities that rely heavily on Pentagon-funded employment
are sure to send Congressmen to Washington who will make sure the taxpayer dollars keep flowing
to Pentagon programs.
Whether you're talking to Robert Reich or some Pentagon lobbyist on Capitol Hill, the
conclusion is clear: the military is both a jobs program and a stimulus program. Cut military
spending at your peril!
Military Spending Destroys Private Sector Jobs
The rub, however, is that military spending doesn't actually improve the economy. And much
the money spent on military employment would be best spent on the private, voluntary
economy.
This has long been recognized by political scientist Seymour Melman who has discussed the
need for "economic conversion," or converting military spending into other forms of spending.
Melman
observes :
Since we know that matter and energy located in Place A cannot be simultaneously located
in Place B, we must understand that the resources used up on military account thereby
represent a preemption of resources from civilian needs of every conceivable kind.
Here, Melman is simply describing in his own way what Murray Rothbard explained in
Man, Economy, and State . Namely, government spending distorts the economy as badly as taxation
-- driving up prices for the private sector, and withdrawing resources from private sector
use.
The military actually destroys jobs in the civilian economy. The higher profits from
cost-plus military manufacturing cause manufacturers to abandon more competitive civilian
endeavors; and the permanent war economy takes engineers, capital and resources away from
civilian production.
But, as a classic case of "the seen" vs. "the unseen," it's easy to point to jobs created by
military spending. How many jobs were lost as a result of that same spending? That remains
unseen, and thus politically irrelevant.
Military fan boys will of course assure us that every single military job and every single
dollar spent on the military is absolutely essential. It's all the service of "fighting for
freedom." For instance, Mitchell Blatt writes , in the
context of immigrant recruits, "I'm not worried about the country or origin of those who are
fighting to defend us. What matters is that our military is as strong as it can be." The idea
at work here is that the US military is a lean machine, doing only what is necessary to get the
job done, and as cost effectively as possible. Thus, hiring the "best" labor, from whatever
source is absolutely essential.
This, however, rather strains the bounds of credibility. The US military is more
expensive than the next eight largest militaries combined . The US's navy is ten times
larger than the next largest navy. The US's air force is the largest in the world, and the
second largest air force belongs, not to a foreign country, but to the US Navy.
Yet, we're supposed to believe that any cuts will imperil the "readiness" of the US
military.
Cut Spending for Citizens and Non-Citizens Alike
My intent here is not to pick on immigrants specifically. The case of military layoffs for
immigrants simply helps to illustrate a couple of important points: government jobs with the
military constitute of form of taxpayer-funded subsidy for immigrants. And secondly, the US
military acts as a job program, not just for immigrants but for many native-born Americans.
In truth, layoffs in the military sector ought to be far more widespread, and hardly limited
to immigrants. The Trump Administration is wrong when it suggests that the positions now held
by immigrant recruits ought to be filled by American-born recruits. Those positions should be
left unfilled. Permanently.
No you retarded fuck, the military is a taxpayer-funed merc army supporting the overseas
hegemonic goals of American-style Corporatism . That the military is full of the sons and
daughters of poor people is only because rich whites won't send their trustfund babies to
kill brown people for oil.
No, asshole. It's about money. About cash and gold. Profit. Markets. Growth. About cheap
or free resources. Access to labor. New customers.
War makes companies rich, it might be the ONLY way they can get rich. War is waged when GM
wants to sell trucks to the Pentagon. When Boeing wants to sell jets. When MIT wants money
for arms research. When NATO wants a reason to exist. The dogs of war are loosed when oil
gets tight. When countries won't "accept our cultural freedoms". When trade agreements aren't
enough to open up new markets.
Isreal has fleeting nothing to do with it, except maybe when war aligns with their
perceived need for hegemony in their own sphere. But by loading all this on Isreal you
encourage others to miss the real fox in the henhouse. You could wipe Isreal off the Earth
tomorrow and still have wars for profit for a thousand years to come.
This nation was born in war. It has practiced war since that day and will be at war with
the rest of the world until humans are killed to the last and the last ounce of profit from
war is had.
or from systematic corruption of all US Institutions and the politicization of all US
Institutions... you need a job, you want to work here, you say this, and you do this, ... tow
the line, no politics, no whistleblowing,... and we won't blackball your ass from the
industry... got it... u got debts, keep ur nose clean!
Yes the pay sucks but you get more done before 8am than most people do in a week. But
seriously its a pretty good gig in the long run. Medical care a decent retirement system,
travel a chance to meet and integrate with different cultures and kill them...its pretty
cool.
Excluding a small percentage, the military is much like the DMV. We have a cartoon vision
of all enlisted being GI Joe, ready to grab a gun and fight evil. This in not the case at
all. Most positions are very simple, repetitive bureaucratic positions. Really is a giant
Jobs program to keep people busy.
"The idea at work here is that the US military is a lean machine, doing only what is
necessary to get the job done, and as cost effectively as possible."
Looks like OPEC 14 peaked two years. Can they beat it?, perhaps by a small amount in a world
without chaos.
Today orange fatty called out Germany for being captive to Russia. I'm pretty sure he was
referring to German dependence on imported fossil energy from Russia.
As of 2015 Germany net energy imports are 64% of total [USA 12% for comparison]. If this
means 'captive', then perhaps we should acknowledge that 11 of our top 13 trading partners
are highly dependent on imported energy from either Russia or the big OPEC producers.
'Captives' so to speak. Better get used to that idea, and learn how to get along with
others. Only Canada and Mexico aren't 'captives', but we don't look to good at being friends
with them either.
The completed around 95 according to my data. The is lag in the data on confidential wells
that will show up next month in the final data. Also if the Bakken was to get and hold 1.4
million barrels a day the would need to complete around 1500 wells per year.
I managed to erase my own comment on this. And my comment was simple, the only true
measurement of market balance for oil going forward is global inventory level. Everything
else is perhaps manipulation or guesses.
I agree, with all the intentional and unintentional confusion it stays confused. I stay
confused trying to figure out what is confused. Inventory levels will be the only clear
measure of what is happening. US inventories should not be dropping fast, as we are about the
only country with increased production, but we dropped over 30 million last month. That's
really not small potatoes, as commercial stocks are just a little over 400 million. Though, I
think the US will be one of the last that would hit the danger zone.
Good point. My intention was not to give more confusion. These are forecasts from eia and, I
always like to remind this, they forecasted Brent averaging 105$ for 2015 in the STEO of
October 2014. They never forecast big surplus or deficit.
I messed with the numbers of the STEO from 2018 to guess when the are reliable. Inventory
levels are accurate for the US from the monthly report, which is 3 months old (april for July
STEO). Other inventory levels are less accurate, but stock changes are reliable from 4-5
month data.
Global inventories increased in April (0.74 Mb/d) and May (1.14 Mb/d). This would be quite
a change, as April would be a record inventory build since January 2017, and it would be
followed by another record. This have to be confirmed later.
So, now I know what I will look for in these STEO.
How does this fit with production and consumption?
I thought we have still increasing consumption of about 1.5 mb/year, and production in
April/May didn't jumped thad much – Opec flat and Permian already near it's pipeline
bottleneck.
As much as I know, many storages are unknown, especially Opec / China. There are these
satellite measurements, but there are additional deep storages.
Gathering all comsumption / raffinery input / production data would give an additional
picture. Still not easy.
With 1mb/day surplus we should go soon into the next oil price crash to 30-40.
Even if we haven't hit peak yet, the fact that production is likely to be going up by a
snail's pace the next 3 years is a problem. If consumption just goes up 0.75% a year we need
600K extra a year. That seems like a big challenge to a layman like myself.
Well what will happen is that the price of oil will hit $150-$200 a barrel to ration demand.
Which will cause much pain and ruction and gnashing of teeth among the voters, but Europe
has had those oil equivalent prices owing to taxation for quite some time and they manage
high living standards. $200/bbl probably destroys 10 million a day in superfluous 'Becky
driving by herself to the mall in a 3 ton SUV for no reason' kind of demand and incentivizes
quite a bit of production.
The transition period will be moody for sure, but at $200/bbl, the amount of economic EOR
targets in the US is somewhere in excess of 70 BBO from old conventional fields from the
industry reports I have seen – its just not economic to do since there isn't enough CO2
available to flood them, so you need to use more expensive techniques which require very high
prices (ethane flooding might be useful????). Worldwide its hundreds of billions. High prices
that encourage us to use the resource wisely and not waste the goddamn stuff liberally would
be a godsend, if we could quit wasting gigatons of plastic bullshit and 40% of our food
– i.e. if everything made from oil was more expensive as well.
It would be painful economically, but Mad Max isn't coming our way. After 5 years of pain,
we might actually finally get our shit together and research some goddamn alternatives.
I believe sugar cane ethanol is very competitive at $120 per barrel. This allows converting
grass cattle grazing ground to cane. I believe soy and palm will also become very attractive
crops. And I suspect countries like Haiti and Nicaragua will continue having riots.
Yes, I believe you are right. The future energy picture is complex, but authors writing books
about this say sugar cane ethanol could have EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of up
to 4. Even based on mechanised agriculture. And the big advantage of this crop is that it is
not very nitrogen intensive, the biggest fertilizer, currently energy intensive when it comes
to natural gas usage. Even when it comes to preindustrial crop rotation, the nitrogen
intensive main food crops were often rotated with legume crops which were not nitrogen
intesive in the hope to rebuild nitrogen content in the earth. So very long term, sugar cane
ethanol is a superb type of renewable energy. (that is what I read, no expert).
Brazil has the biggest potential out there when it comes to size, and it is not
inconceivable that they can cover much of domestic fuel demand with this outside aviation and
possibly shipping (no need for diesel and gasoline ;-)). It would be in competition with food
crops and concerns about deforestation, but still; a big potential there. Brazil is well off
in a more renewable future btw, having loads of hydro power, wind power, in addition to
biomass power (sugar cane the most promising).
"[Exxon's] approach is a gamble in a new era of energy breakthroughs such
as fracking and electric vehicles. Many of Exxon's competi-tors are
transforming their businesses to move away from oil exploration, and
have begun to spend carefully and diversify into renewable
energy ."
"'Most investors like Exxon, but they like other companies better,'
said Mark Stoeckle, chief executive of Adams Funds, which owns about $100
million in Exxon shares. 'The market is not willing to reward Exxon for
spending today in hopes that it will bring good returns
tomorrow.'
"Exxon has been pledging to produce more oil and gas for years, but its
output of about four million barrels a day is no higher today than it was
after its merger with Mobil Corp. in 1999. Even if Exxon succeeds in
doubling last year's earnings of $15 billion (excluding
impairments and tax reform impacts) by 2025, as Mr. Woods vowed in his
eight-year spending plan, it would still be making far less than in 2008, when it
set what was then a record for annual profits by an American
corporation, at $45 billion .
"Exxon's fracking prospects in the Permian basin in West Texas and New
Mexico, developed by its XTO unit, remain among its most profitable
opportunities, the company says. Still, its U.S. drilling
business has lost money in 11 of the last 15 quarters."
"... If the EIA is intentionally misrepresenting available supply, do they know better and are just trying to postpone some sort of economic panic? ..."
I did a more thorough analysis of the STEO using their excel tables. Just comparing dec 18
production with dec 19 production. I just corrected some inconsistency with UK data, as dec19
had a drop of 300kb/d.
non-OPEC 2018 increase: 2.8 Mb/d
US increase: 2 Mb/d,
of which 1.4Mb/d of crude, 0.6Mb/d of NGL. Offshore increase of 400kb/d (to 1.89 Mb/d).
Onshore increase of 1Mb/d.
Canada increase: 130 kb/d
Brazil increase: 176 kb/d
Russia increase: 211kb/d
So, indeed EIA doesn't forecast any constrains in US production. June to december growth
for onshore production is forecasted at 430kb/d. The 1.4Mb/d figure comes probably from the
monthly data. They are very optimistic, but there is nothing wrong.
When it says "crude" is that crude plus condensate, or is the condensate included in NGLs?
The reason I ask that, is that the monthlies include crude plus condensate. 1.4 million
increase does not tie into their summary page. 1 million crude per your spreadsheets does not
agree to 600 to the Permian, plus 600 from the rest of the US, including the GOM. The summary
analysis has 1.2 million. Adding onshore and GOM from the numbers you pulled is 1.4 million.
Adding 2 million from the US plus Canada gives 2.13 million, not 2.3 per the summary. Adding
400 to the ending monthly for the GOM for 2017, gives a lot more than 1.89. Nothing jives.
They are supposed to be just "optimistic" when the expect 430k to just magically appear in
Cushing or Gulf coast without the aid of pipelines, trains, or trucks? No, wait, 400k of that
is supposed to come from the Bakken and Eagle Ford, of which little has happened yet, nor
will much. So, most of it has already figured out a way to get teleported. Or, is the
optimism politically motivated.
NEB currently has Canada increase at about 250kbpd (for both yearly average and December exit
rate), that may come down as they incorporate the upgrader outage and East Coast turn
arounds.
The GoM is not going to add 400 kbpd, it's more likely to be negative on average (December
may be up slightly as 2017 had three major unplanned outages then (but at the moment EIA are
reporting about 30 kbpd which don't come from any reported wells or leases so they may know
something else). GoM has to replace about 20 kbpd per month of decline, which it isn't doing
at the moment, plus overcome any planned/unplanned outages, which seem to be getting more
frequent.
Brazil is going to struggle to get 180 kbpd increase. They were down 20 kbpd in May from
December. They have two FPSOs ramping up but are fighting 30+ kbpd decline per month (and
increasing). The are other FPSOs due but seem delayed and the ramp ups are slower than in the
past, principally because of lack of drilling capacity. Probably they need two new
development wells per month to keep level, given the normal delivery rate and that some are
for injection, they only have 8 rigs, not all on new developments, but there may be some
predrilled wells available.
Russia has more fields coming on stream, but it depends how much the mature fields decline
– there must be a limit some time on how much in-fill drilling can be done.
So, replacing the EIA estimates with our own, we get for non-OPEC growth:
650. US (550 from the Permian, 100 Bakken)
Eagle Ford may drop
250. Canada
180. Brazil
300. Russia being generous
1380. Total which is 1.42 short of their 2.8 million, or 2.6 (1.180) if you use their
summary page. Even adding another 350 to the US still is close to 1 million short. OPEC
contribution seems somewhat "optimistic", and does not factor in any Iranian drop. Yeah,
should balance out. Then, we have 2019, which is damn
scary. The only potential partial offset is demand. If part of demand is computed based on
funky supply numbers, then it is likely to be less than estimated. But not that much lower.
Half a million is an overestimation. This much is politically motivated. The latest monthlies
that will be posted before November will be August. Only four months to the end of the year.
Going to be tough to keep this up. Four more months of inventory drops before November. OMR
out, and indicates OPEC is stretched. I still find it easier to plug in my estimates with the
OMR report. I get 2 million a day draws through 2019, at a minimum using their June report,
and correcting. https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/currentreport/
Their first page graph pretty much depicts serious draws without adjustment. They have a 2
million a day increase in non-OPEC production for 2018, lowered to 1.97 in this report.
Misrepresenting is too strong a term. That would assume they are reporting the actual numbers
wrong, which they do not do. These are projections, and they can be manipulated to serve the
best purpose of keeping prices down until the elections. That's pure speculation.
Thanks. Yeah, it's much worse. Looking at that, one could guess 1380- 400 non-OPEC (less US
Canada and Russia) for 2018. But, because we were short in 2017, we've gone nowhere.
180 for Brazil is a stretch. Fort Hills and Horizon have finished ramping up so 250 for
Canada is also probably a stretch. US NGL may be a chunk to include but I wonder what the
global decline for NGL on mature gas developments is. North Sea looks not as good as
expected. The only place doing better than I thought is Mexico, and I think that could turn
the other way any time.
But i think there's a lot of NGPLs (i.e. butane and lighter) in the all liquids numbers, it's
not just condensate (C5+).
Are the details of OPEC, IEA and EIA reports getting more and more focussed on short term
issues, as if they have no idea how supply can meet demand longer term? Or am I missing
something.
Unless, EIA is using a double standard in their STEO report for US vs Non-OPEC, I believe it
would be crude plus condensate, only. It's crude plus condensate for US, for sure.
x Ignored says: 07/13/2018 at 7:37
am Just saw this looking for the release date of the next DPR report, on the EIA website:
"NOTE:
Productivity estimates may overstate actual production which could be limited by logistical
constraints."
So, EIA actually acknowledge these constraints, and admit they may be overstimating
production, without saying by how much. Reply
Guym x Ignored says: 07/13/2018
at 9:35 am
Reliable estimates of takeaway capacity for the Permian. Similar to Genscape, current
pipeline capacity is estimated to be about 2.8. Drilling info does not mention total takeaway
capacity, but Genscape estimates it at 3.3. Per the article, it was at 3.2 the end of May.
The ending production, the end of 2017, was 2.8 from the Permian, making the end of May
increase at 400k. I gave the projected increase 550k, because Genscape said 25k of additional
trucking, may happen. Note, Drilling info lists some very small additional capacity that
should come online this year, and soon, so it will probably wind up to be about 50k higher.
Maybe. The gathering terminal gets it from New Mexico and West Texas to the Midland terminal,
only, as I understand. The rest of the articles are mostly badly written press, but I think
you can rely on Genscape and Drillinginfo.
https://info.drillinginfo.com/permian-oil-and-gas-takeaway-capacity-improvements-on-horizon/
Sometime soon, there will be an odd mixture of increased production and shut ins.
Also, if I estimate Permian production at 600k (generously), it equals the new EIA
estimate. The remaining 600k US C&C production will have to come from other shales and
the GOM. Good luck with that, it's July, already, and prices are too up and down, to date.
Contrary to the EIA's and other analysts thoughts, $65 to $70 oil is pretty ho hum to
producers. Also, there is no allowance here for other declines, of which there are some.
So, an updated revision to US increases (liquids) would be:
700 c@c US (600 Permian, 100 Bakken and others, GOM 0)
400 US NGLs ? Seems real high for an increase
250 Canada
180 Brazil
300 Russia
Total 1.83 versus a projection of an increase by EIA in the non-OPEC section of the STEO of
2.6, and I think mine is very "optimistic". And, as Ron points out above, it does not include
roughly about 300 to 500k in declines that may happen to non-US, Russia and Canada non-OPEC
production. The EIA's STEO report can be found in the local library next to Mother Goose.
According to the EIA, we are pretty much finished with inventory declines.
I left our М3 parked in our driveway at the Jersey
Shore for the last 48 hours. Checked the app and had
only 62 miles of range! When I parked it Friday
afternoon it had about 180. What am I doing wrong!
It's been super hot here. Is this usual? Is there a
setting I need to look at?
"... Kevin Shipp, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, intelligence and counter terrorism expert, held several high-level positions in the CIA. His assignments included protective agent for the Director of the CIA, counterintelligence investigator searching for moles inside the CIA, overseas counter terrorism operations officer, internal security investigator, assistant team leader for the antiterrorism tactical assault team, chief of training for the CIA federal police force and polygraph examiner. Mr. Shipp was the senior program manager for the Department of State, Diplomatic Security, Anti-Terrorism Assistance global police training program. He is the recipient of two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations, three Exceptional Performance Awards and a Medallion for high risk overseas operations. Website/book: fortheloveoffreedom.net ..."
Fake News, Fake Money, How to Tell the Difference Posted on February
21, 2018 | Leave
a comment Why is it so hard these days to tell fact from fiction? Who can be trusted to
tell us what's really going on? Can the New York Times and Washington Post still be believed?
And what about money? Can we still trust the dollar, the euro, the pound sterling? What
supports national currencies, anyway? Is this Bitcoin thing real or fake money, and should I
buy some?
Here's a compelling presentation by Andreas Antonopoulos, that addresses all of these
questions. Antonopoulos is a technologist and entrepreneur and probably the most knowledgeable
and insightful expert on bitcoin, blockchain technology and the profound changes that lie just
ahead.
Now take a deep dive into the political realities of our time by watching this presentation
by CIA officer Kevin Shipp, in which he exposes the Shadow Government and the Deep State. If
you question his credibility here is a brief bio from Information Clearing House:
Kevin Shipp, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, intelligence and counter
terrorism expert, held several high-level positions in the CIA. His assignments included
protective agent for the Director of the CIA, counterintelligence investigator searching for
moles inside the CIA, overseas counter terrorism operations officer, internal security
investigator, assistant team leader for the antiterrorism tactical assault team, chief of
training for the CIA federal police force and polygraph examiner. Mr. Shipp was the senior
program manager for the Department of State, Diplomatic Security, Anti-Terrorism Assistance
global police training program. He is the recipient of two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations,
three Exceptional Performance Awards and a Medallion for high risk overseas operations.
Website/book: fortheloveoffreedom.net
Hi Steve, this is exactly what we have been talking about for the last 8 years. To make
matters worse there seems to be a completely irrational belief that Shale will save the day.
Outside of the fact that shale is not processable without heavier crude, and it is at best
energy neutral, and probably negative, it is also long term unaffordable. There are 1.7
million Shale wells in the US. Over the next 5 years 1.4 million of those wells will have to
be replaced to just keep production even. That will be $6.2 trillion even if done on the
cheap. $6.2 trillion is equal to the total cost of all the finished product that will be
consumed by the US for the next 12.8 years (@ $75/barrel). Expending 12.8 years of sales
revenue to produce 5 years of oil is just not going to happen!
There seems to be a black out on this terrible situation. Some of that may be just plain
ignorance, but I suspect that the main reason is that it is politically unspeakable. For that
reason nothing is being spoken. As I have been saying for some time no one should expect big
oil, big government, or big anything to come riding to the rescue. The individual is now
completely on their own. Chose your options with discretion.
Agreed. The U.S. Shale Oil Ponzi Scheme will likely begin to disintegrate within the next
1-3 years. Already, the Permian oil productivity per well has peaked.
Then when the next Shale Oil ENRON event takes place... watch as the dominos fall.
@SRSrocco, U.S. Tight Oil depends on cheap credit. Regardless of oil prices.
Once cheap credit dries up and the previous debts are unable to be paid by drilling new
wells, the entire scheme falls apart.
Oil prices do not drive U.S. Tight Oil as much as cheap credit from easy loans.
Eventually, U S. Tight Oil using new credit cards to pay debts on old credit cards will
catch up with a vengence. Rising interest rates will be the catalyst. Rising oil prices only
prolong the increasing debt.
Didn't the EIA publish something not long ago stating their concerns that we could see oil
shortages by 2020? And around the same time, I recall that the Saudi Oil Minister came out
and stated that without more investment, we would likely see oil shortages by 2020. And then
at the recent OPEC meeting, I believe it was the Oil Minister from UAE who stated that we
need to find a new North Seas equivalent oil field EVERY YEAR to meet projected demand, which
of course is not going to happen. It has been a long slow grind since 2008 to get to this
point, but from here on out I anticipate that things will start unraveling at an ever faster
pace. Big changes on the way. But one thing that will NEVER happen is that the POTUS or some
other world leader comes out and says we are running short on energy. Instead it will be
Trade Wars, the damned Russians or some other lame propaganda -- anything but the truth.
The mitigation section of the study was most telling. It simply stated that local
sustainable economies would replace the modern era. These economies included local food
production and energy production. As this process unfolds, I simply do not see how a high
rise is going to remain habitable.
Zero hedge put a news story a while ago where (I think 2016) the US oil industry lost more
in that it earned in the previous 7 years (mining in general), so more investment wouldn't
have been coming in the US anyway - the price wasn't high enough to justify it.
Worldwide we are going to see some almightly crunch, whether it will arrive after 2020
will be seen. Ironically it might save Trump anyway if the world is seen to be beset by a oil
supply crunch since its hard to blame that on him.
The U.S. needs to get off its dead ass and start developing better batteries, solar power,
and other alternative energy sources. This was talked about in 1973, during the Oil Embargo
days, and its just astonishing the U.S. has done little since to ween itself off of oil. And
now we now have a tariff against Chinese made solar panels. DUH!!! How dumb can you get?
Look at the energy density of those power sources. You'll never run an industrial
civilization off of them. Electric cars may be great for zipping a couple of people around
town from day to day, but you're never going to run the large mining and shipping equipment
needed for our society. If you want to do that, you're going to have to develop viable
breeder reactors and the technology to manufacture liquid fuels with that energy - and this
is doable.
Right. There is nothing.....NOTHING....that can replace oil and gas as it is used and
utilized by the modern industrial society. Nothing......
What needs to happen right now is a steady rise in prices that will condition our
population to start learning to do with less cheap, easy energy. We have got to curb usage to
give society a chance to begin to learn another way.
The major obstacle to doing this responsible, rational action? The egregious, criminal
banking system that has gotten the world awash in debt to feed their greed. Any cut back in
the use of energy will destroy the economy and their gravy train.
But the doozie in the minutes was about the flattening "yield curve."
The yield curve is formed by Treasury yields of different maturities: normally, the two-year
yield is quite a bit lower than the 10-year yield. Over the last several decades, each time the
yield curve "inverted" – when the two-year yield ended up higher than the 10-year yield
– a recession followed. The last time, the Financial Crisis followed.
So this has become a popular recession indicator that has cropped up a lot in the
discussions of various Fed governors since last year. Today, the two-year yield closed at 2.55%
and the 10-year yield at 2.84%. The spread between them was just 29 basis points, the lowest
since before the Financial Crisis.
The chart below shows the yield curves on December 14, 2016, when the Fed got serious about
raising rates (black line); and today (red line). Note how the red line has "flattened" between
the two-year and the 10-year markers, and how the spread has narrowed to just 29 basis
points:
In a prior
post,
we illustrated how in-country sales of US subsidiaries operating in China are almost
as large as Chinese exports to the US, leaving the US highly vulnerable to retaliation by China if
trade wars escalate. These trade tensions are just one part of the broader Chinese-US relationship;
some observers expect military conflict between the US and China as well
:
* In a 2017 survey by C100, 50% of Chinese citizens, 33% of Chinese business leaders and 35%
of Chinese policy experts responded that war with the US was "very likely" or "somewhat
likely". The percentages were only slightly lower amongst US respondents to the same question
*
Harvard's Thucydides's Trap Project found 16 cases over the last 500 years in which
a major nation's rise disrupted the dominant state. Twelve of these rivalries ended in war and
four did not.
The project is directed by political scientist and Presidential advisor
Graham Allison, whose recent book is entitled "
Destined for War: Can America and China
Escape Thucydides's Trap?
"
* The Chinese state-owned newspaper
Global Times
wrote in 2015 that "if the United
States' bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable
in the South China Sea"
Perhaps, but there's also enormous economic pressure on China and the US to find common
ground. Compared to adversaries of the past 100 years, economic linkages between the US and China
are much larger.
The chart below is something I've been working on for the last few
months. The idea is to measure the economic linkages between adversaries of the past and
present. To do this, we add the outstanding stock of bilateral foreign direct investment, the
amount of bilateral annual trade, and the amount of government bonds owned by the other country's
Central Bank. Compare China/US today to Europe and Asia in the 1930's, to US/Russia in the 1980's
and to India/Pakistan.
"... The world today is controlled by a small elite group that has been increasingly concentrating power and wealth in their own hands. There are many observable facets to this power structure, including the military security complex that president Eisenhower warned against, the fossil fuel interests, and the neocons that are promoting U.S. hegemony around the world, but the most powerful and overarching force is "the money power" that controls money, banking, and finance worldwide. It is clear that those who control the creation and allocation of money through the banking system are able to control virtually every other aspect of global society. ..."
"... Tragedy and Hope ..."
"... " the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."[ii] ..."
"... The End of Money and the Future of Civilization ..."
"... Thomas H. Greco, Jr . is an educator, author, and consultant dedicated to economic equity, social justice, and community empowerment. He specializes in the design and implementation of private and community currencies and mutual credit clearing networks. His latest book is The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. His main website is https://beyondmoney.net/ . He can be reached at [email protected] . ..."
"... A New Approach to Freedom ..."
"... The Essence of Money ..."
"... Disruptive Technologies Making Money Obsolete ..."
The world today is controlled by a small elite group that has been increasingly
concentrating power and wealth in their own hands. There are many observable facets to this
power structure, including the military security complex that president Eisenhower warned
against, the fossil fuel interests, and the neocons that are promoting U.S. hegemony around the
world, but the most powerful and overarching force is "the money power" that controls money,
banking, and finance worldwide. It is clear that those who control the creation and allocation
of money through the banking system are able to control virtually every other aspect of global
society.
Having taken control of the political leadership in North America and western Europe, they
are determined to use military force, if necessary, to create a unipolar world order in which
the power elite enjoy "full spectrum dominance." Based on a long established pattern of covert
and overt interventions, it is evident that they are willing to employ, either directly or
through proxies, a wide range of tactics, including propaganda, bribery, cooptation, deception,
assassinations, false-flag attacks and war. Large segments of the media and entertainment
industries, education, and the military power have been captured to help manufacture public
consent.
Be that as it may, I believe that the natural course of human evolution tends toward a
multi-polar world order based on honesty, openness, compassion, cooperation, and fairness, but
that requires a well-educated and informed populace and "broad spectrum" participation in the
political process. Fortunately, the internet and world wide web have enabled people to be
better informed than ever before and to engage with one another directly, bypassing
intermediaries that control and limit what people can share. On the other hand, the political
machinery has been so thoroughly taken over by the power elite that the will of the people has
thus far been of little consequence in deciding the course of world affairs.
So what can be done to turn the tide? How can we the people empower ourselves to effectively
assert our desires for a more fair, humane and peaceful world order? Is it possible to
influence the behavior of those in power? Or is it possible to install new leaders who will act
more responsibly and in accordance with the popular will? Or is necessary, or even possible, to
reinvent and deploy political and economic structures by which people can more directly assert
themselves?
It seems reasonable to assert that action must be taken on all levels, but I am inclined to
believe that the greatest possibility of bringing about the desired changes lies in economic
and political innovation and restructuring.
The monopolization of credit
I came to realize many years ago that the primary mechanism by which people can be, and are
controlled, is the system of money, banking, and finance. The power elite have long known this
and have used it to enrich themselves and consolidate their grip on power. Though we take it
for granted, money has become an utter necessity for surviving in the modern world. But unlike
water, air, food, and energy, money is not a natural substance -- it is a human contrivance,
and it has been contrived in such a way as to centralize power and concentrate wealth.
Money today is essentially credit, and the control of our collective credit has been
monopolized in the hands of a cartel comprised of huge private banks with the complicity of
politicians who control central governments. This collusive arrangement between bankers and
politicians disempowers people, businesses, and communities and enables the elite super-class
to use the present centralized control mechanisms to their own advantage and purpose. It
misallocates credit, making it both scarce and expensive for the productive private sector
while enabling central governments to circumvent, by deficit spending, the natural limits
imposed by its revenue streams of taxes and fees. Thus, there is virtually no limit to the
amounts of resources that are lavished on the machinery of war and domination.[i]
In today's world, banks get to lend our collective credit back to us and charge interest for
it while central governments get to spend more than they earn in overt tax revenues, relying on
the banking system to monetize government debts as needed. These two parasitic drains on the
economy, interest and inflationary monetization of government debts, create a growth imperative
that is destroying the environment, shredding the social fabric, and creating ever greater
disparities of income and wealth. At the same time, this scarcity and misallocation of money,
which belies the abundance that exists in the real economy, leads to violent conflicts and
provides the power elite with the means to pursue policies of domination, even at the risk of
global nuclear war.
What most people still fail to recognize is that regardless of the nominal form of their
government, their political power has been neutralized and exhausted by the political money and
banking system. Democratic government in today's world is more an illusion and a hope than a
reality. As Prof. Carrol Quigley wrote in his book, Tragedy and Hope (1966),
" the powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than
to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political
system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be
controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by
secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."[ii]
In the succeeding decades since Quigley's revelation, their control mechanisms have been
refined and extended to include the intelligence services and military power, political think
tanks, the media, and virtually every segment of society. The U.S. agenda of regime change over
the past several years[iii] is not so much about taking mineral and petroleum resources, that
is a side benefit. By examining the pattern of interventions by the U.S. and NATO powers, it is
clear that the primary objective is to force every country of the world into a single global
interest-based, debt-money regime. No exceptions will be tolerated. Thus, Saddam Hussein had to
go, Gaddafi had to go, Assad has to go, and Putin has to go (but deposing Putin will not be so
easy). The war against Islam is also related because a significant proportion of Islamists are
serious about eliminating riba (usury) which is an essential feature in the creation of all
political money throughout the world today. The United States military is the enforcer that is
used when threats, bribes, cooptation and covert operations prove insufficient. Thus, the
United States, Britain and their NATO allies have become the greatest perpetrators of
state-sponsored terror in the post-World war II era.
Fortunately, we the people have in our hands the means of our own liberation. It is
the power to allocate our credit directly without the use of banks or political money. How to
effectively assert that power is the main theme of my most recent book, The End of
Money and the Future of Civilization .
Over the years there has been a long parade of "reformers" who wish to take the power to
create money away from the banks. This is an admirable objective that I wholeheartedly endorse.
But the alternatives that they propose have been either to revert to commodity money, like
gold, which has proven to be inadequate, or to transfer the money-issuing power to the central
government -- what I call the "greenback solution." The latter harks back to Abraham Lincoln's
scheme for financing the Civil War. That proposal calls for the federal government to bypass
the Federal Reserve and the banks by issuing a national currency directly into circulation from
the Treasury. At first glance that may seem like a good idea, but there are many flies in that
ointment. First of all, the greenback solution does not propose to end the money monopoly but
merely to put it under new management. But it is a gross delusion to think that the Treasury
is, or might become, independent of the interests that now control the Federal Reserve and the
major banks. Consider the fact that most of the recent Treasury secretaries have been former
executives of Goldman Sachs, the most powerful financial establishment in the country. It is
naïve to expect that they will serve the common good rather than the money power that has
spawned them.
Second, central planning of complex economic factors has been shown to be unworkable. That
is especially true with regard to money. Neither the Fed nor the treasury is qualified to
decide what kind of money and how much of it is necessary for the economy to function smoothly.
The issuance and control of credit money should be decentralized in the hands of producers of
needed and desired goods and services. Thus the supply of money (credit) must automatically
rise and fall in accordance with the quantity of goods and services that are available to be
bought and sold. If private currencies and credit clearing exchanges are allowed to develop and
grow without interference from the vested interests in political money, their superiority will
quickly become apparent.
Third, the greenback solution does nothing to eliminate deficit spending and inflation which
are enabled by legal tender laws. As long as political currencies are legally forced to
circulate at face value, the abusive issuance of money, the debasement of national currency
value, and the centralization of power will continue. All government programs, including social
programs and the military budget, ought to be funded by legitimate government revenues, not by
the underhanded means of monetary debasement. Centralized control of credit money and the
imposition of legal tender laws enable the hidden tax that is called inflation. Salmon
P. Chase , who as Lincoln's Treasury Secretary presided over the issuance of greenbacks, argued
later as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that the issuance of greenback currency was
unconstitutional and exceeded the powers of the federal government. He said,
"the legal tender quality is only valuable for the purposes of dishonesty."
Finally, the political process has been so thoroughly corrupted and taken over by the power
elite that political approaches to solving the money problem have virtually no chance of
passage anyway.
... ... ...
*
Thomas H. Greco, Jr . is an educator, author, and consultant dedicated to economic
equity, social justice, and community empowerment. He specializes in the design and
implementation of private and community currencies and mutual credit clearing networks. His
latest book is The End of Money and the Future of Civilization. His main website is https://beyondmoney.net/ . He can be reached at
[email protected] .
Notes
[i] As E.C. Riegel put it in his book, A New Approach to Freedom , "
as long as our governments are vast counterfeiting machines, Mars can laugh at peace
projects."
[iv] An animated video that makes clear the credit nature of money and its sound basis is
The Essence of Money , https://youtu.be/uO7uwCpcau8 .
[v] My 15 minute video, Disruptive Technologies Making Money Obsolete , https://youtu.be/ty7APADAa8g , describes how
communities and businesses can escape the debt trap and become more resilient and
self-reliant.
The kookification of the "mainstream"
continues, with none other than Jonathan Chait – the most conventional sort of boring corporate
liberal –
producing
an
unhinged diatribe
purporting to prove
that Donald Trump has been a Russian agent since 1987
–
and that his path to the presidency was paved by his Russian handlers, who were planning it all
along.
And not to be outdone, formerly rational person Marcy Wheeler, whose investigations
as "emptywheel" won her some renown,
is
now claiming
that she not only has definitive proof of Trump's collusion with the Kremlin, but
that, as a result, she was forced to turn one of her sources into the FBI for some vague
cloak-and-dagger-ish reason.
I looked in on the Chait production, and came upon his reiteration of the Alfa Bank computer
link – this was a story, you'll recall, that
claimed there was a stream of communications
between this "Kremlin-connected" bank and the Trump organization.
This, we were told, was
almost certainly Vladimir Putin sending instructions to his zombie-agents in the Trump White House.
Yes, this was actually the story, backed up by several computer "experts" – except it turned out to
be
advertising spam
.
Chait repeats this story,
adding it on top of the several dozen other conspiracy factoids
he throws in the mix – but without mentioning that the computer signals were simply ad-bots.
On the basis of this, and a string of other "interactions" with Russians, we are supposed to
believe that the omnipotent Russian intelligence agencies hatched a plot 30 years ago to put Trump
into the White House. This is a conspiracy theory that's so shoddy and far-fetched that not even
Alex Jones would touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Which brings us to an interesting question: do these people really believe their
own craziness?
In some instances, it's
pure psychopathology.
That's the case, I believe, for
Marcy Wheeler, Louise Mensch, and the more active online Twitter-paranoids. These people have been
so shocked by the unexpected – the election of Trump – that they have been forced into a dubious
mental state bordering on insanity.
However, in the case of Jonathan Chait, it's pure viciousness and cynicism.
He
even says
of his own theory that it's "unlikely but possible."
It's just a show for
the suckers. The same is true for most of the other journalists who have enlisted in #TheResistance
and given up any pretense at objectivity: they are simply doing what they do best, and that is
taking dictation from their spookish sources. The treatment of Russia-gate in the media parallels
precisely what occurred with Iraq's storied "weapons of mass destruction" – reporters are taking it
all on faith, and they don't even necessarily believe it. Thus the biggest hoax since Piltdown Man
is reported as "fact." And of course all this is coming to the fore as Trump takes on NATO and our
European "allies."
For anti-interventionists, Trump's trip to Europe could not be more timely or
enlightening.
He went to the NATO meeting with a few admonitory
tweets
up
front
,
complaining that America pays far more than a fair share of the alliance's monetary costs, and no
sooner does he get off the plane than he
notes
that
for all the anti-Russian rhetoric coming out of our allies, the Germans are cuddling up to the
Russians on the energy front with the Nord Stream II pipeline. Merkel shot back that Germany is,
after all, an independent country and can do what it likes. True, but then why the weird
contradiction between claiming that Russia is a military threat and also setting up the mechanism
of energy dependence?
Before getting on the plane for his European sojourn, the President
reiterated
his
longstanding position:
"We pay far too much and they pay far too little. The United States is spending far more
on NATO than any other country. This is not fair, nor is it acceptable."
And the cost is not just measured in monetary terms: there's also the incalculable cost
of risking war, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which obligates us to come to the aid of a NATO
ally that's under attack, or at least that claims to be under attack.
In which case, the
government of tiny Montenegro, with a population of a bit over half a million, could declare that
the Russians are trying to pull off a coup, and US troops would be in country "defending" it
against an incursion that may not even exist.
Take a look
at the
Euro-weenies squirming in their seats at that "bilateral breakfast," which was turned into a
lecture by the President about why the burden of empire should not fall only on our shoulders.
Pompeo and Kay Bailey Hutchinson don't look happy, either, but that's just too bad, now isn't it?
The President is speaking truth to the once high-and-mighty – and more power to him!
Meanwhile, the main event is going to be in Helsinki: NATO is just a sideshow.
After all, militarily the alliance is really nothing but the United States and a few Brits: the
Europeans carry little actual weight. The really serious business will take place with Putin,
although there is a relentless propaganda campaign in progress to prevent Trump from making the
Helsinki summit a success.
What must be addressed in Helsinki is the backsliding of both countries when it comes to
preventing a nuclear catastrophe. The program to find and secure loose nukes, which became a
problem after the breakup of the Soviet Union, needs to be renewed, in addition to the mutual
disarmament agreements that have
fallen
by the wayside
, with the US and the Russians
re-arming
.
As tensions between Washington and Moscow rise, the possibility of a nuclear conflict increases,
along with the chances of an
accidenta
l nuclear exchange.
The nuclear death
machine is on automatic, with all kinds of scenarios where it could be set off by something other
than an enemy attack
: a terrorist strike in Washington, D.C., or anywhere, involving
nuclear material, or simply a computer software glitch. Americans would be horrified to learn just
how close we are to an extinction event.
The Trump-haters would rather the President fail than give him credit for securing
the peace.
They would much prefer to wage a new cold war with Russia than put an end
to the horrific threat of utter annihilation that's cast a dark shadow over the world for all this
time. In preferring universal ruin to the vindication of their enemies, they fit the very
definition of what it means to be evil.
Trump is out to transform US foreign policy by – finally! – recognizing the reality that's been
in place since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The old
structures that served us when Communism was thought to be a threat to Europe are no longer
functional, and haven't been for quite some time.
NATO today is nothing but a gigantic
subsidy to two major beneficiaries: our European "allies" and the big arms manufacturers such as
Boeing, Raytheon, etc. The current arrangements allow the European welfare states to huddle under
the US nuclear shield while dispensing all kinds of goodies to their citizens. It's quite a racket
for all concerned: as NATO countries must continually update their military equipment to meet
rising standards, American taxpayers are footing most of the bill.
I have a good friend. Intelligent, usually quite well balanced, but
a bad case of TDS. She keeps falling back on "where there is smoke
there must be fire....we keep hearing about Russia and Trump, so it
must be true."
I have yet to point out to her that is precisely
what was behind Goering's philosophy of "tell a lie often enough and
people will believe it to be true". After all, she is also jewish,
and the Goering reference might make her head explode.
RussiaGate was spawned as Trump was calling her out for her
crimes, the ties to the Uranium One scam were obvious and
public. So in typical fashion she paints her opponent with
the the false brush of her crimes to deflect the reality.
Besides the MI6 need to smear the Russians was first on the
agenda anyway, can't have the Russians looking good on
anything.
Thank Q for exposing all the closet zionists. When you
replace the word "Russiagate" with "Israelgate", then all
the 'fire & fury' over the Trump presidency actually
starts to make sense.
No it's just a hollow divide and conquer meme, to keep the
sheeple arguing about nonsense and keep the flow of fake
news at a high level. Don't give the sheeple a moment of a
break, they might start to think for themselves.
I think deep down these people know it's nonsense, they just hate
Trump so much they feel the need to be dishonest just to try and
hurt him.
It blows my mind because these are the same people who would
have a meltdown if a prosecutor went after a black man with these
tactics. Somehow they feel that a malicious prosecution is
acceptable just this one time.
Ancient hatred of ethnic Russians from the old Khazarian empire,
now known as 'Ukraine'...
It is no wonder, nor surprise that
Khazarian cockroaches who infest the halls of U.S. foreign policy
are apoplectic regarding any warming of common-sense relations
with Russia.
Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder induced hysteria. So, crazy. And
yet, many are some of the most cynical creatures you'll ever meet- true
misanthropes. So there's that.
how about something interesting.You know about dick eater McAffe and
the crypto world.We all know the dem/lib shit about Russia and Trump
is already complete bullshit.
Yes, the Libtards that think they're smarter than everyone else are
the most trapped by their ego.
Present fact, logic and reasonable
discourse and these geniuses lose their sheet and produce fallacy,
fake news, and eventually run away from the conversation or end up in
tears.
The anti-Russia hysteria comes from all over the Left as well as parts
of the Right...
But as with Chait, Mensch, Kristol, Appelbaum, Gessen
and on and on and on you find Jews wildly over-represented in the Putin
bashing (which is one thing - he's a politician in bed with some bad
hombres and not at all above criticism) and Russia itself.
It's a hell of a LONG list the evil bastards have going-to try to
destroy western civilization with cutesy little names to deflect from the
truth about what they REALLY support.
But hey, what do I know?
I'm sure there are a lot people who can easily add to my list. Have at
it.
I actually like Russia and hope for a good relationship with them, but the
US must fail and Russia is the best cheer-leading on this site has become
unbearable.
I see lots of folks here who want both the US and Russia to succeed.
That's one of the reasons we support the President and his policy of
peace, commerce and honest friendship with old Cold War enemies. It's
not 1949/1950 anymore.
So the Russians realized that US equipment is crap and can be handled by
what they already have.
No real surprise there. U.S. military equipment
is in many cases relying on electronic components from the 70's and 80's
rather than upgrading their electronic systems.
It seems that widespread suspicions that Tesla CEO Elon Musk resorted to cutting corners in
his pursuit of ramping up Model 3 production to meet his lofty production targets may be
valid.
Martin Tripp - the former Tesla engineer who on
June 20 was sued by Tesla for trying to "sabotage" the company - is alleging several
egregious safety violations that, if true, could destroy what remains of Musk's tattered
credibility.
In an email sent by Meissner Associates, a law firm which has represented whistleblowers to
the SEC and which was retained by the whistleblower, Tripp alleged that Tesla made
misstatements to investors about placing batteries with holes punctured in them into vehicles
to help pad out its Model 3 production numbers in pursuit of Musk's goal of producing 5,000
Model 3s a week.
He also alleged that Tesla placed battery cells too close together and didn't properly
secure them, raising the risk of future combustion, and that the company "systematically"
reused parts that had been deemed to be scrap or waste.
Tripp's claims remind us of some inconsistencies
highlighted by Vertical Group's Gordon Johnson , who pointed out that some of the
supposedly "finished" cars had been labeled "factory gated", meaning they still required
additional testing and quality inspections.
So far Tesla shares appear unaffected by the report.
I think we are seeing more and more the calling card of a sociopath / psychopath. Not
surprising to us here, but to the wider population. Again, as with several other examples -
simple honesty would have been smarter, yet the guy lies through his teeth. Hilary Clinton
syndrome. A pathological need to lie even when it will work out badly for you.
They certainly ger erratic and lash out when they get challenged. As the heat gets turned
up, especially when questioning their intelligence, the LOCO dial gets cranked.
Nothing new here. All great innovators have experienced the negative and disparaging
onslaught from the unwashed illiterate rabble who lash out in jealous fury accompanied by a
liberal dose of envy at those people who lead rather than grovel in the shit dropped by the
herd.
That's not innovation- it's marketing. A Nissan Leaf does the same thing for $35K but some
soulless Silicon Valley millionaire needs to buy a Tesla to feel validated. It's just a bunch
of batteries wired together to power an electric motor- it was done basically the same way
140 years ago.
Elon is blasting off a rocket next week and even offered a sub to the Thai Government to
assist with the rescue of those youngsters from that flooded cave.
Was your submarine in the shop?
I just think people are piling on a bit too heavy on the guy.
Interesting that you call him a visionary. Firstly as has been noted above that electric
cars were among some of the very first automobiles built. So nothing new there.
The United States government through the DOE were conducting research during Bush 43's
tenure in the area of fuel cells and fuel cell powered automobiles. Pretty visionary stuff
that. Yeah spare me the issues surrounding fuel cells, I know them all. However as soon as
Obama turned up guess who was first in line to see to it that the US Government subsidized
battery powered autos and stopped all work on fuel cell powered vehicles. Why that would be
Musk; visionary, savior of the planet, greenie all the way. Why then lobby Barry and his ilk
to kill off fuel cells. Musk wanted no part in a competitive alternative, some might argue a
better one.
By the way if you want an example of Musk's commitment to the environment take a look at
the Fremont factory via any of the mapping applications. It's very apparent that Telsa is
certainly only committed to the betterment of the climate through words and not deeds. No
recycling at that plant.
Whistle blowers - whom I refer to as honest, diligent employees - are the only real
protection consumers and investors have to defend themselves from a congress that caters to
corporations and banks. We can support them this fall by firing every complicit house member
and 1/3 of the senate. In January, we could have a house of representatives working for us.
In two years, we could have a majority of the senate truly representing the people of our
nation.
While Elon has various character defects that make him a grating personality, he has still
managed to create the first new car company to be seen in many decades. I am no fan, but it
is still impressive.
NATO is tool of the US empire. "Fuck EU" is a famous, expressed by Nuland ( who was US rep in NATO) slogan. So raising
spending is the way to improve the US btrade balance with EU.
President Trump is, rightly, stirring the pot in Europe today, reportedly demanding that
NATO leaders increase their defense spending targets from 2 to 4% , according to the Bulgarian
president.
"President Trump, who spoke, raised the question not just to reach 2%, today, but set a
new target – 4%," Bulgarian president Rumen Radev told reporters, according to Reuters,
citing BNR public radio.
"NATO is not a bourse a which one can buy security. But yes, on the other hand, President
Trump is right, as each country should build its effective capabilities, and the
unwillingness with which Bulgaria spends money on defense is obvious."
As a reminder, US only spends 3.57% of GDP (which is the most), and as one French official
noted, "it wasn't a demand, rather just a mention.".
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders confirmed that:
"During the president's remarks today at the NATO summit, he suggested that countries not
only meet their commitment of 2 per cent of their GDP on defence spending, but that they
increase it to 4 per cent," Sanders said after the closed-door meeting of NATO leaders.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was reluctant to endorse such a move.
"I will focus on what we have agreed and we have agreed that we committed to the pledge
increasing defense spending to 2 percent," he told reporters. "And let's start with that. We
have a way to go."
"We do have disagreements, but most importantly, we have decisions that are pushing this
alliance forward and making us stronger," Stoltenberg said.
"At the end of the day, we all agree that North America and Europe are safer
together."
And then President Trump doubled-down on his earlier shot at Germany:
"Germany, as far as I'm concerned, is captive to Russia because it's getting so much of
its energy from Russia," Trump told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a fiery
on-camera exchange that was among the harshest in the history of the post-World War II
alliance.
"We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that's being paid to the
country we're supposed to be protecting you against," Trump said, referring to European
purchases of Russian natural gas.
blasting "What good is NATO if Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars for gas and
energy?"
Trump then returned to the broader NATO membership, asking "Why are their only 5 out of 29
countries that have met their commitment? The U.S. is paying for Europe's protection, then
loses billions on Trade."
Trump ended with ALL CAPS: " Must pay 2% of GDP IMMEDIATELY, not by 2025. " As a reminder,
NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend at least 2 percent of their respective GDP on defense by
2024. The goals are also for each country's own defense budget, not payments into the
alliance.
One glance at the current spending levels and it is clear that Trump is right.
If Trump wants to sell more military hardware to the European deadbeats, he should stop
nagging them to death and, instead, promptly pull out of NATO.
Their militaries are almost non-existent and when they lose the Article V Umbrella, they
will come crawling, lining up around the block, and begging us to sell our hardware to
them.
Germany, France, and the UK do have a few shitty planes, tanks, and ships, but it would
take 15-20 years to mass-produce them.
We've been resting on our laurels since the fall of the Berlin Wall and our hardware ain't
much better than theirs – we just happen to have a lot of it.
So, Donald, pull the fuck out – show them (and us) that you can actually WALK AWAY.
Pretty please with a dingleberry on top? ;-)
All wars are bankers wars. The Cold War was fake and only created by both sides to control
their population and tax them. Listen to US colonel who delivered all US military patents and
the nuclear bomb to Stalin. Those decisions are made by a few, very powerful.
Seems to be a development of his idea that Mexico should pay for the wall to keep illegal
immigrants out of the US. This version is that the EU should pay for the costs of the US
bullying and interfering in other countries affairs even though it only benefits Israel.
Case in point the middle east where thanks to Israeli US meddling the EU has been saddled
with dealing with the refugees. Now Trump wants the EU to pick up the costs of the US
military meddling as well. Classis symptoms of a screw loose.
What is NATO supposed to be defending against anyway? The USSR fell a generation ago and
the current threat is third world Muslims flooding into the west but they welcome that.
I could see maybe if NATO was sinking ships in the med and gunning down packs of invaders
at the borders to Europe they would have a place but they are doing exactly the opposite of
this.
The problem is that many countries in Eastern Europe are useless economically. Without
being played like pawns by militant imperialists they cannot survive. So they accepts bribes
from the West and from the East, pretending they haven't made up their mind as to which side
they want to be on. And the truth is - they're on the side of money.
They don't care if there are radar stations or missile silos installed on their soil. They
don't care even about becoming a potential target in case a war breaks out. All they want is
to extort maximum buck out of rivaling factions. Some NATO members can afford to disband the
organizations. For smaller players it's a cash cow and a source of employment. Without NATO
they would be non-competitive economically.
You got my curiousity going... US bases in Germany are...
- leased out from Germany to US rent-free
- any improvements/extensions during US tenure paid by US
- PX sales exempt from German VAT
- when a base or other facility is closed, the property is returned to Germany as is.
What's not to know? Ever served in any military? It's all self evident in Europe for sure.
The U.S. has simply been biding time. Our over-priced bases are a waste of time. The land war
preparations of NATO are extinct for now.
Things change over time but technology has changed warfare. This world doesn't need
another war. Sure, it's easy to gang up on the U.S. for ventures into the Middle East but any
nation would do the same.
When is the last time ZH ran an article about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan?
Conveniently forgotten? It wasn't that long ago.
How many of those countries will now consider spending more, but for their indigenous
aircraft. Oh, and cancelling, finally, thej boondoggle of the F-35. Saab Grippen costs less
and is made for European skies.
As NATO is a tool of the American Empire, I'm somewhat bemused to see American opinion
manipulated toward seeing it as 'unfair'. Please, by all means, disband the North Atlantic
Terrorist Organisation, and perhaps that other tool of American Imperialism - the UN-
too.
Which America are you referring to? Seems like NATO is more aligned with the
.01%r's/CIA/CFR/NWO etc. clans. I for one would welcome the NATO divorce, except like the
rest of the 99.9%, I ain't in the Empire club.
Well, whoever runs the Evil Empire. Darth Soros, probably. Crying about having to pay for
Europeans is at odds with the realisation that keeping this shitshow alive past the cold war
was the Empire's fucking idea in the first place. If you don't think it's the Empire's party,
why are STANAG standards lead by the US?
The United States IS NATO. He has it all right. The economics of NATO are self-evident to
anyone possessing the skills of 1st grade mathematics.
Times have changed. The charm of a post WWII world is a distant memory. It is without
argument that the United States has been taken for granted since probably 1960. Life goes on
and we enter the turbulent 70's. The U.S. is still carrying the NATO weight for another 40
years.
NATO is probably somewhat an irrelevant throwback to another time. Some alliances are
natural so they won't necessarily "go away" with reductions of U.S. contributions.
The real problem with NATO is the uniquely "European" problem with filling everything with
over-paid bureaucrats. Therein lies the rub.
NATO is how the US keeps its Empire. Boston Tea Party was because Colonists did not pay
for defence but made money building warships for British Empire.......they wanted a free
ride
After building out Merrill's mortgage trading floor basically from scratch, then moving to the
buyside at Pimco, one year ago Harley Bassman, more familiar to Wall Street traders as the
"Convexity Maven" - a legend in the realm of derivatives (he helped design the MOVE Index, better
known as the VIX for government bonds) - decided to retire (roughly one year after his shocking
suggestion that the Fed should devalue the dollar by buying gold
).
But that did not mean he
would stop writing, and just a few days after exiting the front door at 650 Newport Center Drive in
Newport Beach for the last time, Bassman started
writing analyst reports as a "free man
",
in which the topics were, not surprisingly, rates, derivatives, cross asset interplay and, of
course, convexity.
And, in his latest note, Bassman takes on a topic that has become especially dear to the Fed and
most market observers: the continued flattening of the yield curve, the timing of the next
recession, and what everyone is looking but fails to see, or - as he puts it - what is truly
different this time.
Bassman's full thoughts below:
The Path Forward
Let me offer a follow-up comment related to "
Catch
A Wave
" from June 29, 2018.
The Yield Curve, as described as the difference between the
T2yr vs T10yr rates, will not invert until near the December FOMC meeting
. This is when
to start the clock for the typical 18-month lead-time to a recession (sometime in mid-2020).
Vote up!
34
Vote down!
2
Rather than assume the yield curve forecasts
what it would have forecast in 1970 or 1980 or 1990 or even 2000, why not
assume it's useless now due to world wide central bank rate management /
manipulation?
Why not assume it's a coiled spring and that rising short term rates are
stored energy that will cause long rates to spring and power up to
normalization? Perhaps 4% to start on the 10yr? Quickly when it hits?
Calling money pros dumber than a sack of rocks insults rocks.
BTW, quickly rising long rates = capital loss with long bonds = margin
issues = liquidity crisis = everything goes down fast.
Money pros, the smartest ones only - whistling past the graveyard.
Also, the story at the top is absolute gibberish. Really goofy and
unintelligible. Money pros are really stupid.
Did I not say that the Federal Reserve was
playing the movie "Get Trumpy"?????
Thus, similar to how WW1 was the unintended
conflict, a global trade war could be the unfortunate
result of clashing egos
Uh No. It was said at the Chosenite Banker
congress in the 1890's that there would be 3 world wars when
there had never been one before. How did they know this?
They all just had crystal balls right? The Private Central
Bankers made it happen. In addition in order to have WW1
the Chosenite Bankers knew they needed to monetize the vast
wealth of the USA to have their little shindig. That's why:
Federal Income Tax
Federal Reserve Bank - not Federal and has no
reserves. It is a private cartel.
were created. Rothschild horse traded getting
the USA into the war for the creation of Israel. See the
Balfour Declaration.
So do you really really still think that WW1 was
just some unhappy Murphy's Law accident?
FYI: The USA helped develop Japan and Germany
between the Civil War and 1900. Then all of a sudden we
ended up in a war with both of them. Do you think that is
an accident too?! For bankers broken window theory really
does work. Not so much for the rest of us.
As the world continues to burn energy like there is no tomorrow, global oil and gas discoveries
fell to another low in 2017. And to make matters worse, world oil investment has dropped 45% from
its peak in 2014. If the world oil industry doesn't increase its capital expenditures
significantly, we are going to hit the Energy Cliff much sooner than later.
According to Rystad Energy, total global conventional oil and gas discoveries fell to a low of
6.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (Boe). To arrive at a Boe, Rystad Energy converts natural
gas to a barrel of oil equivalent. In 2012, the world discovered 30 billion Boe of oil and gas
versus the 6.7 billion Boe last year:
"We haven't seen anything like this since the 1940s," says Sonia Mladá Passos, senior analyst
at Rystad Energy. "The discovered volumes averaged at ~550 MMboe per month.
The most
worrisome is the fact that the reserve replacement ratio in the current year reached only 11%
(for oil and gas combined) - compared to over 50% in 2012."
According to Rystad's
analysis, 2006 was the last year when reserve replacement ratio reached 100%.
The critical information in the quote above is that the world only replaced 11% of its oil and
gas consumption last year compared to 50% in 2012. However, the article goes on to say that the
last time global oil and gas discoveries were 100% of consumption was back in 2006. So, even at
high $100+ oil prices in 2013 and 2014, oil and gas discoveries were only 25% of global
consumption.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, global oil capital investment has fallen right
at the very time we need it the most. In the EIA's International Energy Outlook 2017, world oil
capital investment fell 45% to $316 billion in 2016 versus $578 billion in 2014:
In just ten years (2007-2016), the world oil industry spent $4.1 trillion to maintain and grow
production. However, as shown in the first chart, global conventional oil and gas discoveries fell
to a new low of 6.7 billion Boe in 2017. So, even though more money is being spent, the world
isn't finding much more new oil.
I believe we are going to start running into serious trouble, first in the U.S. Shale Energy
Industry, and then globally, within the next 1-3 years. The major global oil companies have been
forced to cut capital expenditures to remain profitable and to provide free cash flow.
Unfortunately, this will impact oil production in the coming years.
Thus, the world will be facing the Energy Cliff much sooner than later.
Yeah tHis article is ridiculous, resident ZH self-purported Mensa members
like Tmos' have proven beyond any doubt that 'abiotic oil' replenishes the
world's supply of easily accessed hydrocarbons every fifteen minutes or so,
regardless of increasing consumption rates; indeed regardless of any
veritable facts whatsoever.
Worked by whole life in the oil business. Depletion is real. Abiotic oil
replenishment is Magic unicorns dancing on rainbows. Oil won't run out
ever, but the energy required to extract the oil will make remaining oil
reserves uneconomic at some point.
Strange that the oil industry does not agree with you. And it's strange
that reserves all over the world are not stable but decreasing. Your
Mensa idol is full of shit.
It isn't rosy in all Wall Street research departments.
Citigroup analysts are predicting a "full-on bear market" within months based on historical
trends, according to a new note by equity strategist Robert Buckland. Here's how you can
protect your portfolio .
Assess Your Risk
Most everyone will suffer losses in a bear market ( short-sellers
are winners, of course), but investors can decide now for themselves how much they are willing
to risk says certified financial planner Alexander G. Koury of Values Quest, Inc.
"The first thing to do is check the current risk of the portfolio," Koury said. "This will
help the investor determine what would be the worst case scenario if the market were to go into
a bear market. That means an investor will know how much they're willing to lose of their
portfolio, and they can determine whether or not that is comfortable for them."
Investors who don't plan to make withdrawals from their portfolios for decades could leave
their investments be until the next bull market, but investors planning on retiring soon might
want to limit their exposure. Koury recommends that investors should seek the help of either a
financial planner or software to see if a reallocation is necessary to help them meet their
goals.
Set Aside What You Need To Live
In addition to limiting their exposure to equities, retirees and other investors living off
of their portfolio's returns also should prioritize their living expenses over investing when
the market's down.
"If you are taking income from your portfolio, always be sure you have a couple year's worth
of withdrawals in money market or short term bonds," said Edward Snyder, certified financial
planner at Oak Tree Advisors. "The rest of your portfolio should be diversified among major
asset classes, including intermediate term bonds. This should allow you to ride out a down
market without having to sell stock investments while the market is down."
Mentally
Prepare Yourself
Your own bad investment decisions can cost your portfolio as much as market losses,
certified financial planner Patrick Amey thinks.
"Prepare yourself emotionally to 'ride it out' and tune out the noise," Amey said. "Yes,
your portfolio will go down in value. But you have the cash you need so you can give your
portfolio the time it needs to recover. Stay consistent with you allocation and don't make knee
jerk decision."
The much anticipated resignation letter penned by the former UK Foreign Minister Boris
Johnson has been released, and in as expected, he does not mince his words in unleashing a
brutal attack on Thersa May, warning that "we have postponed crucial decisions -- including the
preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November -- with the result
that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in
the EU system, but with no UK control over that system ."
He then adds that while "Brexit should be about opportunity and hope" and "a chance to do
things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of
the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy", he warns that the " dream is dying,
suffocated by needless self-doubt. "
He then compares May's proposal to a submission even before it has been received by the EU,
noting that "what is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how
we see the end state for the UK -- before the other side has made its counter-offer . It is as
though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them."
And his punchline: the UK is headed for the status of a colony:
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony -- and many will struggle to
see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement
Explaining his decision to resing, he then says that "we must have collective
responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly
concluded that I must go."
It remains to be seen if his passionate defense of Brexit will stir enough MPs to indicate
they are willing to back a vote of no confidence, and overthrow Theresa May in what would be
effectively a coup, resulting in new elections and chaos for the Brexit process going
forward.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg adds, the fact that Boris Johnson, or those around him, made sure
his resignation statement came out in time for the evening news - before it was formally issued
in the traditional way by May's office, hints at his continued interest in leading the
Conservative Party.
His full letter is below (highlights ours):
Dear Theresa,
It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an
unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of
their democracy.
They were told that they would be able to manage their own immigration policy, repatriate
the sums of UK cash currently spent by the EU, and, above all, that they would be able to
pass laws independently and in the interests of the people of this country.
Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things
differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the
UK as an open, outward-looking global economy.
That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.
We have postponed crucial decisions -- including the preparations for no deal, as I argued
in my letter to you of last November -- with the result that we appear to be heading for a
semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK
control over that system.
It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not
actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since
the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London,
in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to
improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though
there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we
had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.
So at the previous Chequers session we thrashed out an elaborate procedure for divergence
from EU rules. But even that now seems to have been taken off the table, and there is in fact
no easy UK right of initiative. Yet if Brexit is to mean anything, it must surely give
Ministers and Parliament the chance to do things differently to protect the public. If a
country cannot pass a law to save the lives of female cyclists -- when that proposal is
supported at every level of UK Government -- then I don't see how that country can truly be
called independent.
Conversely, the British Government has spent decades arguing against this or that EU
directive, on the grounds that it was too burdensome or ill-thought out. We are now in the
ludicrous position of asserting that we must accept huge amounts of precisely such EU law,
without changing an iota, because it is essential for our economic health -- and when we no
longer have any ability to influence these laws as they are made.
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony -- and many will struggle to
see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement.
It is also clear that by surrendering control over our rulebook for goods and agrifoods
(and much else besides) we will make it much more difficult to do free trade deals. And then
there is the further impediment of having to argue for an impractical and undeliverable
customs arrangement unlike any other in existence.
What is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see
the end state for the UK -- before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though
we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them. Indeed, I
was concerned, looking at Friday's document, that there might be further concessions on
immigration, or that we might end up effectively paying for access to the single market.
On Friday I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail, and
congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. As I said then,
the Government now has a song to sing. The trouble is that I have practised the words over
the weekend and find that they stick in the throat.
We must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these
proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.
I am proud to have served as Foreign Secretary in your Government. As I step down, I would
like first to thank the patient officers of the Metropolitan Police who have looked after me
and my family, at times in demanding circumstances.
I am proud too of the extraordinary men and women of our diplomatic service. Over the last
few months they have shown how many friends this country has around the world, as 28
governments expelled Russian spies in an unprecedented protest at the attempted assassination
of the Skripals. They have organised a highly successful Commonwealth summit and secured
record international support for this Government's campaign for 12 years of quality education
for every girl, and much more besides. As I leave office, the FCO now has the largest and by
far the most effective diplomatic network of any country in Europe -- a continent which we
will never leave.
From comments "Tough to ween an entire community off its generational addiction to financial
heroin"
Notable quotes:
"... The Feds behaviour over the last decade has demonstrated institutional capture in its' purest form. Everything for the financial sector and nothing for the "Main Street" sector. ..."
So this has become a popular recession indicator that has cropped up a lot in the
discussions of various Fed governors since last year. Today, the two-year yield closed at 2.55%
and the 10-year yield at 2.84%. The spread between them was just 29 basis points, the lowest
since before the Financial Crisis.
The chart below shows the yield curves on December 14, 2016, when the Fed got serious about
raising rates (black line); and today (red line). Note how the red line has "flattened" between
the two-year and the 10-year markers, and how the spread has narrowed to just 29 basis
points:
... ... ...
So just in the nick of time, with the spread between the two-year and the
10-year yields approaching zero, the Fed begins the process of throwing out that indicator and
replacing it with a new indicator it came up with that doesn't suffer from these distortions.
And I have to agree that the Fed's gyrations over the past 10 years have distorted the
markets, have muddled the calculations, have surgically removed "fundamentals" as a
consideration for the markets, and have brainwashed the markets into believing that the Fed
will always bail them out at the smallest dip. And the yield curve, reflecting all those
distortions to some extent, might have become worthless as an indicator of anything other than
those distortions.
Isn't the Fed theoretically independent? Why then should they take cognizance of what the
President, or, for that matter, any politician wants? The Feds behaviour over the last
decade has demonstrated institutional capture in its' purest form. Everything for the
financial sector and nothing for the "Main Street" sector.
The Fed is carrying out a grand experiment. Do these 'Quaint Quant Quotients' have a
measurable relationship to the 'Real World' or do they not? My criteria for how well this
'realignment' amongst the 'Financial Stars' works out is going to be the severity of the next
"Recession."
I guess a possibility is the Fed let's the economy get really bad (not that we haven't
seen that recently even but it could be worse) in order to punish Trump. Yea but people are
going to suffer and die in the next recession, they not only already do in recessions anyway,
but there is literally no economic slack in most people's lives anymore. Yea this whole
economic system is screwy as can be, but if they produce mass unemployment we need a
guaranteed income at that point just to keep people from dying.
"(Don't Fear) the Yield Curve" is the title of the staff paper, riffing on "(Don't Fear)
the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult which evidently still exerts a powerful sway on the Fed's
balding eggheads 42 years on.
What distinguishes this model is its use of an interest rate dear to the hearts of
economists but absent from bond market quotes: the forward rate . Or as the Blue
Oyster Cult fanboys explain:
The current level of the forward rate 6 quarters ahead is inferred from the yields to
maturity on Treasury notes maturing 6 quarters from now and 7 quarters from now. In
particular, it is the rate that would have to be earned on a 3-month Treasury bill
purchased six quarters from now that would equate the results from two investment
strategies: simply investing in a Treasury note that matures 7 quarters from now versus
investing in a Treasury note that matures 6 quarters from now and reinvesting proceeds in
that 3-month Treasury bill.
Not a big deal to calculate -- so voracious is Big Gov's appetite for borrowing as we
approach the promised land of "trillion dollar deficits forever" that 2-year T-notes are
auctioned monthly, meaning there's always a handy pair of notes with maturities 18 and 21
months ahead whose yields can be used to derive the 6q7q forward rate for the long end of the
spread.
The joke is likely to be on the Fed, though. As their chart shows, the 0-6q forward spread
is volatile, and could well lurch down to meet the 2y10y spread any time. Moreover, despite
the June 28th date on the staff paper, the chart is stale, showing a 0.5%-plus value for the
2y10y spread which last existed several months ago.
In other words, prepare to hoist the Fedsters on their own forward-rate petard.
And they ran to us
Then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye
They had become like we are
From the WSJ's Treasury page, the yield on a note due 12/31/2019 is 2.470%, while the
3/31/2020 note yields 2.511%. Yield on the current 3mo T-bill is 1.951%.
Doing a little exponential maff, we can derive a 6q7q forward rate of 2.76%, for a spread
of 0.81% over the current 3mo T-bill. This compares to a 2y10y spread of only 0.28%.
So according to the Fed's shiny new moved goalpost, there's room for three more rate
hikes, whereas the old goalpost would've allowed just one.
It is well within the Fed's capabilities to sell Treasury and Agency bonds with maturities
concentrated in the long end of the yield curve. Were the Fed to do that, particularly
against a backdrop of deep corporate tax cuts and the resultant increased supply of Treasury
debt, what is likely to happen to mortgage rates, real estate and collateral values?
I suspect the people complaining loudest about this emergent Fed policy are those who have
benefited most from both longtime negative real interest rates and a positively sloping yield
curve. Those were lucrative monetary policy features for them over the past nine years.
I have long been annoyed by the way Fed staff / hobbyists blithely treat the yield curve
as just another "indicator", as if they were forecasting the weather from changes in
barometric pressure or temperature.
Seeking a forecasting crystal in a calculated "forward" rate, supposedly mirroring
"expectations" of (a representative?) investors reflects a world view that imagines economic
actors confidently act on expectations that they believe will be fulfilled. It is not taking
uncertainty seriously.
The yield curve has worked not thru magic, but because it reflects a fundamental mechanism
of sorts that drives credit and the transformation of maturities: that some key institutions
borrow short and lend long, to coin a phrase, in the creation of credit that typically drives
the expansion of business activity. Inverting the yield curve forces the contraction of
credit by institutions that hedge a borrow short, lend long strategy with Treasuries.
It probably is not lost on those with a memory of past cycles that speculation about
whether things will be different this time with regard to the yield curve qua indicator
emerges regularly from Fed hobbyshops near the end of very long expansions. If memory serves
the Cleveland Fed research shop circulated such speculation in the 2005-7 period.
Admittedly, I haven't had my coffee yet, but I think I may have reached a conclusion: a
country whose economic system can't be understood in an hour is doomed to failure.
"More than 1/2 of Jewish success is due to corrupt and criminal means."
Utter nonsense.
Jews own the Federal Reserve Bank and can hit some keys on their computer and create a few
trillion Federal Reserve notes just like *that* .
They've been injecting hundreds of billion$ into Jewish dominated Wall Street for decades
if not longer. Especially since the 2008 mass-looting of the American tax-slave. The big
banks like Goldman Sachs and Chase are all dominated by Jews, just like the Treasury. The
cash flows to other well connected Jews and gentiles, but Jews are MASSSIVELY
over-represented as the recipients of the swindled lucre.
It was rabbi Dov Zakheim who was the comptroller of the Pentagon when over two trillion
went missing. Do you suppose that cash ended up in the coffers of Presbyterian churches or
injected into the economy of Appalachia?
When some yeshiva decides they need a few tens of thousands or more for 'security'.
especially following 911, where 'lucky' Larry Silverstein collected his billions, they go to
the Treasury.
Madoff, Scott Rothstein. others.. are just the tip of the iceberg.
But the big one is the Federal Reserve Bank where they and they alone have their own
counterfeiting machine, and one thing you can say about Jews, is that they look after their
own.
There are very many hard working and intelligent Jews who earn their money, and they
deserve our admiration. But there is also a lot of graft and fraud and downright treason to
the success of many of them. The scum at Goldman Sachs and guys like Jon Corzine high on the
list.
"The scum at Goldman Sachs and guys like Jon Corzine high on the list."
I would not argue over your point that Jon Corzine is scum, but I would argue with your
insinuation that he is Jewish (otherwise why mention him in a paragraph dealing with Jews).
He's not. He's Protestant.
In a year we will know if this guy was paranoid or right ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Most agree the current market is due a pullback. The S&P 500 value remains the same as the beginning of this year. This is the same pattern as 2008 and I've been looking for a sell signal ..."
I once traded stocks. It was fun and I made some easy money, but the events of 2008 shook my
faith in the system. It has become a casino run by computers, so great companies with solid
profits can lose half their value in a few weeks. The collapse pattern starts when overhyped
companies that never made a profit quickly lose value, as they should. As speculative investors
see their balance sheet fall and need cash to meet margin calls, they sell their solid stocks
to book profits so they don't have to sell and book losses from their speculative ones. Index
funds are huge, so when investors sell shares all stocks get sold, even the healthy, profitable
ones. Other funds and investors decide to reduce their holdings and begin to sell all stocks,
and the downward momentum snowballs.
Speculative stocks aren't just small corporations. For example, s ince it went public eight
years ago, Tesla's share price has risen nearly 2000 percent and the company is still
unprofitable! CEO Elon Musk said he expects Tesla to turn a profit in the third and fourth
quarters of 2018. Tesla's stock market value is $56.7 billion, surpassing Ford's market value
of $43.2 billion and General Motors' value of $55.5 billion. This is despite the fact that Ford
and GM sell several times the number of cars Tesla does, and have consistently delivered
profits over the last several quarters. This means that if Tesla helps crash the market, Ford
and GMs stocks will fall too!
Most agree the current market is due a pullback. The S&P 500 value remains the same
as the beginning of this year. This is the same pattern as 2008 and I've been looking for a
sell signal , which should occur when bitcoin and it's related crypto
scams unravel. These imaginary coins are quickly losing value and
may
soon become worthless , wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in fantasy wealth. This
is a sign of a pending downturn, and Tesla may report another unprofitable quarter in August.
If I had stocks, I'd sell all and sit on cash the rest of this year.
Many critics say buybacks crimp investment. But the real problem is that - unlike dividends
- buybacks can be used to systematically transfer wealth from shareholders to executives..
There is a problem with share buybacks - but it isn't the one many critics and legislators
are obsessed with.
Some critics claim that repurchases starve firms of capital they could invest for the long
term, harming workers to enrich shareholders. Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and
Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin agree and have introduced legislation to "rein in" corporate stock
buybacks. The bill would give the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to reject
buybacks that, in its judgment, hurt workers. It also would require boards to "certify" that a
repurchase is in the "best long-term financial interest of the company." Sen. Baldwin has
introduced another bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), that goes even
further: It bans all open-market repurchases.
This criticism of buybacks is flawed; there is simply no evidence that the overall volume of
dividends and repurchases is excessive. The real problem with buybacks is that they tend to
enrich executives at the expense of shareholders. Fortunately, there is a simple
remedy.
Flawed argument
Buyback critics say S&P 500 firms don't have enough investment capital because dividends
and repurchases routinely exceed 90% of their net income. Between 2007 and 2016, for example,
these companies distributed $7 trillion to shareholders, mostly via repurchases. That was 96%
of total net income. But our research shows that public firms recover from shareholders -
directly or indirectly - about 80% of the capital distributed via repurchases. Shareholders
return this capital by buying newly issued shares, mostly from employees paid with stock, but
also directly from firms. Taking into account all types of equity issuances, net shareholder
payouts in S&P 500 firms during the decade 2007-2016 were only about $3.7 trillion, or 50%
of total net income .
At this level, net shareholder payouts don't appear to impair investment capacity . Indeed,
our research shows that total R&D expenditures by public firms are at the highest level
ever. A broader measure of investment intensity at public firms, the ratio of capital
expenditures and R&D to revenue, has been rising over the past 10 years and is near peak
levels not seen since the late 1990s.
One might argue that firms would invest even more if they had more cash at their disposal.
But there is no shortage of cash. During 2007-16, cash balances at S&P 500 firms also rose
by 50%, reaching around $4 trillion, providing ample dry powder for additional expenditures.
This astonishing level of idle cash suggests that net shareholder payouts may actually be too
low.
The real problem is that buybacks, unlike dividends, can be used to systematically transfer
value from shareholders to executives. Researchers have shown that executives
opportunistically use repurchases to shrink the share count and thereby trigger
earnings-per-share-based bonuses. Executives also use buybacks to create temporary additional
demand for shares, nudging up the short-term stock price as executives unload equity. Finally,
managers who know the stock is cheap use open-market repurchases to secretly buy back shares,
boosting the value of their long-term equity. Although continuing public shareholders also
profit from this indirect insider trading, selling public shareholders lose by a greater
amount, reducing investor returns in aggregate.
[ZH:
As a reminder, senior executives and directors of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google
parent Alphabet have dumped $4.58 billion of stock this year, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg . They're on track to exceed $5 billion for the first six months of 2018, the
highest since Facebook went public in 2012.]
Executives can use repurchases to enrich themselves because disclosure requirements are
woefully inadequate. When executives trade personally, they must publicly disclose the details
of each trade within two business days. The spotlight created by such real-time, fine-grained
disclosure helps curb trading abuses by executives. By contrast, the SEC only requires a firm
to report, in each quarterly filing, the number of shares repurchased in each month of the
quarter and the average price paid per share. Investors see this filing a month or so into the
next quarter, one to four months after the buybacks occur. And they never see individual
repurchases, just aggregate transaction data. Researchers can detect the existence of buyback
abuses across a large sample of public firms, but investors cannot easily identify the
particular executive teams using repurchases to line their own pockets.
A solution
A simple, common-sense regulatory change would curb such abuses. In particular, the SEC
should require a firm to disclose each trade in its own shares within two business days, as it
does for executives personally trading company stock. This two-day rule would shine a spotlight
on repurchases, discouraging executives from using them opportunistically . For example, if
such real-time disclosure leads investors to believe that executives are using a buyback to buy
underpriced stock, the stock price would start rising, reducing executives' indirect profits
from any subsequent repurchases, and thereby increasing public investors' returns.
Perhaps all we need is a modest regulatory tweak: subjecting firms to the same
trade-disclosure requirement as their own executives.
A two-day rule won't unduly burden firms' use of repurchases for proper purposes, just as
the rule doesn't unduly burden individual insiders. Indeed, some of the largest stock markets
outside the U.S. already require even more timely disclosure by firms trading in their own
shares. In the U.K. and Hong Kong, firms must report a repurchase to the stock exchange before
trading begins the next day. Japan requires same-day disclosure, and Swiss investors see these
trades in real-time.
Even if the two-day disclosure rule doesn't eliminate completely executives' abuse of
buybacks, it will generate fine-grained data about repurchases that can be used to decide
whether more aggressive regulation is desirable.
The regulatory reforms currently under consideration, such as empowering the SEC to block
buybacks, might curb these abuses even more. But they also could generate huge economic costs
by impairing the circulation of capital in the economy. It would be foolish to go straight to
such drastic measures rather than start with a modest regulatory tweak: subjecting firms to the
same trade-disclosure requirement as their own executives.
* * *
Prof. Fried is a professor at Harvard Law School, and Prof. Wang is an associate professor
at Harvard Business School.
The real point here is that this is malinvestment, pure and simple. If any of these
corporations had truly responsible (and responsive) boards, never mind activist shareholders,
this would not and could not happen. US (and to a large extent, worldwide) boards have become
rubber stamps for whatever senior management wants to do, which is always and forever now to
enrich themselves at the cost of the shareholders. This is not capitalism. It is sheer
thievery.
Buybacks are a clever way to avoid dividend taxes, but when companies start borrowing
money, cutting R&D, laying off employees, and so on to fund buybacks, that's called
FRAUD. If the SEC did anything but twiddle their thumbs and whistle past the graveyard, these
crooks masquerading as "executives" would be in prison.
Sorry, but it's not fraud or even illegal. Especially if the board approves it. Bad
management is not illegal. Becoming a top executive is the brass ring. Nobody else matters as
long as the rest of the people at the top get theirs.
Stealing inventory is illegal. Borrowing money to fund a stock buyback for the purpose of
enriching the people at the top is perfectly OK.
Later "eqality of means" was replaced by "equality of opportunity". Still huge discrepancy in
wealth typical for neoliberalism is socially destructive. And election of Trump was partially a
reaction on neoliberalism dominance for the last 40 ears.
"... The Founders rejected egalitarianism. They understood that no one is, literally,
"created equal" to anyone else. Certainly, each and every person is created with no less or no
more dignity, measured by his or her own unique potential before God. But this is not what most
contemporary writers mean today when they talk of "equality." ..."
"... by our own maximum possibilities and potential ..."
Notable quotes:
"... The Founders rejected egalitarianism. They understood that no one is, literally, "created equal" to anyone else. Certainly, each and every person is created with no less or no more dignity, measured by his or her own unique potential before God. But this is not what most contemporary writers mean today when they talk of "equality." ..."
"... by our own maximum possibilities and potential ..."
For many Americans the Declaration of Independence is a fundamental text that tells the
world who we are as a people. It is a distillation of American belief and purpose. Pundits and
commentators, left and right, never cease reminding us that America is a new nation, "conceived
in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Almost as important as a symbol of American belief is Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
It is not incorrect to see a link between these two documents, as Lincoln intentionally placed
his short peroration in the context of a particular reading of the Declaration.
Lincoln bases his concept of the creation of the American nation in philosophical
principles he sees enunciated in 1776, and in particular on an emphasis on the idea of
"equality." The problem is that this interpretation, which forms the philosophical base of both
the dominant "movement conservatism" today -- neoconservatism -- and the neo-Marxist
multicultural Left, is basically false.
... ... ...
Although those authors employed the phrase "all men are created equal," and certainly that
is why Lincoln made direct reference to it, a careful analysis of the Declaration does not
confirm the sense that Lincoln invests in those few words. Contextually, the authors at
Philadelphia were asserting their historic -- and equal -- rights as Englishmen before the
Crown, which had, they believed, been violated and usurped by the British government, and it
was to parliament that the Declaration was primarily directed.
The Founders rejected egalitarianism. They understood that no one is, literally,
"created equal" to anyone else. Certainly, each and every person is created with no less or no
more dignity, measured by his or her own unique potential before God. But this is not what most
contemporary writers mean today when they talk of "equality."
Rather, from a traditionally-Christian viewpoint, each of us is born into this world with
different levels of intelligence, in different areas of expertise; physically, some are
stronger or heavier, others are slight and smaller; some learn foreign languages and write
beautiful prose; others become fantastic athletes or scientists. Social customs and traditions,
property holding, and individual initiative -- each of these factors further discriminate as we
continue in life.
None of this means that we are any less or more valued in the judgment of God, Who judges us
based on our own, very unique capabilities. God measures us by ourselves, by our own
maximum possibilities and potential , not by those of anyone else -- that is, whether we
use our own, individual talents to the very fullest (recall the Parable of the Talents in the
Gospel of St. Matthew).
"All men are created equal" is a simply a rhetorical argument against the "divine right of
kings" used to revive an ancient, fascist, Roman-style Republic style government,
where men of equal political stature are bound together as a band of brothers into a "fasces"
to form a militia, necessary to a free state like Rome once had in its beginning. No king, no
standing army.
Which is why there are fascist symbols throughout the US government, including in the US
Senate. Watch CSPAN if you don't believe me. See those fasces?
And do study what the Founders said more. Like the author of the term "all men are created
equal." He wrote in the same document:
" the merciless Indian Savages " -- Declaration of Independence
Does that sound like he thought whites and Indians were equal? Nope.
He also wrote:
"Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same
government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between
them." (Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography)
Does that sound like he thought blacks and whites were equal? Nope.
So stop spouting false Leftist propaganda about what the term "all men are created equal"
means. All it does is make you sound extremely uninformed.
Yes, there is still an America, living and breathing, somewhat piled-on by Fake
Americans at the moment. Don't give up on the Comeback Kid . You do not want to be as
bitter and wrong as the defeatist Never Trumper" Cuckservatives. The Fake Americans will
have to go back. Just like the Fake Europeans are already going back. Viktor Orban
called Italy's decision to turn away rescue ship a "great moment." And the pendulum is just
beginning to swing. The trend is your friend. Why don't you jump on the team and come on in
for the big win?
Thank you for mentioning Jaffa. I had to look him up. Only Wikipedia so far but I found
something of interest that you might like to comment on. Mention is made of Lincoln rejecting
the Douglas arguments for states's rights on the ground that (majoritarian) democracy should
not be allowed to enslave anyone. Is it possible to say that America's original sin of
slavery ensured that there was an insoluble problem left behind by the original constitution
makers plus the extension of the franchise to all adult white males?
"..a careful analysis of the Declaration does not confirm the sense that Lincoln invests in
those few words. Contextually, the authors at Philadelphia were asserting their historic --
and equal -- rights as Englishmen before the Crown, which had, they believed, been violated
and usurped by the British government,.."
Thank you Mr Cathey. As a non American, I was always puzzled by the obvious falsehood of
the statement "all men created equal" -- particularly in a nation that still legalized
slavery -- and how it could still be repeated ad nauseaum. Interesting, how one victorious
man and one victorious teaching can have such profound consequences for the way people live
and think generations later.
'All men are created equal' is almost the opposite of that other common mistake, 'no pity
for the weak'. Yet both lead to oppressive regimes. A true anthropology will lead to
different healthy political systems. A twisted one, always to repressive institutions.
"All men are created equal" is a simply a rhetorical argument against the "divine right
of kings" used to revive an ancient, fascist, Roman-style Republic style government, where
men of equal political stature are bound together as a band of brothers into a "fasces" to
form a militia, necessary to a free state like Rome once had in its beginning. No king, no
standing army.
My take is a little different, but not incompatible with yours.
The Declaration's assertion is "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights "
So, to begin with, this is not a claim that all men are created equal in ability or
character. The Founders recognized that they were not, and that ordinary social and economic
inequalities, due to innate differences in ability or character, were natural, normal, and
inevitable. The Declaration is first and foremost a legal document. It claims equality of
rights – a legal claim, not a sociological, anthropological, or
psychological one. Moreover, the rights are unalienable – that is, they cannot
be alienated – sold, bartered, or given away – because someone entitled to them
shall have moved from old England to the New World.
The grievance of the colonists was that taxes – the stamp tax, the tea tax, etc.
– had been imposed upon them by the parliament at Westminster, an assembly in which
they were not represented. Hence the slogan, "no taxation without representation." It was a
principle based in the main non-religious issue of the English civil war (1642-1649). Charles
I had attempted to levy "ship money" by royal prerogative, without the consent of Parliament.
Unlike previous levies, which had been confined to coastal towns and were raised only in time
of war, he did so in peacetime and extended the tax to inland areas. This provoked strong
resistance; some local officials refused assistance to collection of the tax. The Petition of
Right, written by Sir Edward Coke, complained:
Your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to
contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge not set by common consent, in
parliament.
Extra-parliamentary taxation was effectively ended by the Long Parliament of 1640. After
the "Glorious Revolution" of 1689, it was formally prohibited by the English Bill of
Rights.
All of this history was much more familiar to the Founders in 1776 than it is to Americans
today. The point of the claim that "all men are created equal" was simply to argue that
Englishmen, under English law, were equally entitled to representation in any assembly that
levied taxes on them, whether they were resident in England or in its colonies.
The argument for levying taxes on the colonies was that they were needed to pay for the
defense of the colonies during what we call the French and Indian War, which was in fact just
the North American theatre of what in Europe is known as the Seven Years' War. That they may
have been needed for this purpose was not in dispute. Englishmen in England were taxed to pay
for the Seven Years' War, but they were represented in the Parliament that levied the tax.
Americans were not. From their point of view the taxes levied on them were as objectionable
as ship money had been to the people of England in the time of Charles I.
The Declaration is therefore a sort of American version of the Petition of Right.
Jefferson was an admirer of Coke and undoubtedly saw the parallel. His high-flown language
about equality was meant to make the case against George III on behalf of English subjects in
North America in the same way that Coke's Petition of Right made the case against Charles I
on behalf of English subjects in England. The colonists' objection was that English subjects,
wheresoever domiciled within English jurisdiction, should have equal rights under English
law.
Jefferson never intended to proclaim the equality of negro slaves or "Indian savages" with
free whites. Jefferson's observations in his Notes on the State of Virginia make quite
clear that he did not believe them to be equals with whites in ability or character. The
Indians he regards as primitives, having some admirable and some frightful qualities, but
above all, as formidable enemies. He despairs of the intelligence of blacks; he faults black
slavery because it brings out lamentable tendencies of laziness and petty tyranny among
whites. These remarks are striking for their candor and have the ring of truth even
today.
I appreciate Mr. Cathey's work here. On Tuesday the 3rd, one of the many overemployed
sycophants in the executive ranks of the corporation which employs me deemed it necessary to
bulk-email all of us peons with the message of how vital diversity and inclusion are
to proper celebration of the 4th. Right -- because reserving mid-January through February for
the blacks, March for women or Hispanics (I forget which), and June for the tutti-fruttis
isn't nearly enough
With the US and China contemplating their next moves in what is now
officially a trade war, a parallel narrative is developing in the world of energy where Asian
oil refiners are racing to secure crude supplies in anticipation of an escalating trade war
between the US and China, even as Trump demands all US allies cut Iran oil exports to zero by
November 4 following sanctions aimed at shutting the country out of oil markets.
Concerned that the situation will deteriorate before it gets better, Asian refiners are
moving swiftly to secure supplies with South Korea leading the way. Under pressure from
Washington, Seoul has already halted all orders of Iranian oil, according to sources, even as
it braces from spillover effects from the U.S.-China tit-for-tat on trade.
"As South Korea's economy heavily relies on trade, it won't be good for South Korea if the
global economic slowdown happens because of a trade dispute between U.S and China," said Lee
Dal-seok, senior researcher at the Korea Energy Economic Institute (KEEI).
Meanwhile, Chinese state media has unleashed a
full-on propaganda blitzkrieg , slamming Trump's government as a "gang of hoodlums", with
officials vowing retaliation, while the chairman of Sinochem just become China's official
leader of the anti-Trump resistance, quoting Michelle Obama's famous slogan "
when they go low, we go high. " Standing in the line of fire are U.S. crude supplies to
China, which have surged from virtually zero before 2017 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in
July.
Representing a modest 5% of China's overall crude imports, these supplies are worth $1
billion a month at current prices - a figure that seems certain to fall should a duty be
implemented . While U.S. crude oil is not on the list of 545 products the Chinese government
has said it would immediately retaliate with in response to American duties, China has
threatened a 25% duty on imports of U.S. crude which is listed as a U.S. product that will
receive an import tariff at an unspecified later date.
And amid an escalating tit-for-tat war between Trump and Xi in which neither leader is even
remotely close to crying uncle, industry participants expect the tariff to be levied, a move
which would make future purchases of US oil uneconomical for Chinese importers.
"The Chinese have to do the tit-for-tat, they have to retaliate ," said John Driscoll,
director of consultancy JTD Energy, adding that cutting U.S. crude imports was a means "of
retaliating (against) the U.S. in a very substantial way".
In an alarming sign for Washington, and a welcome development for Iran, some locals have
decided not to see which way the dice may fall.
According to
Japan Times , in a harbinger of what's to come, an executive from China's Dongming
Petrochemical Group, an independent refiner from Shandong province, said his refinery had
already cancelled U.S. crude orders .
"We expect the Chinese government to impose tariffs on (U.S.) crude," the unnamed executive
said. " We will switch to either Middle East or West African supplies ," he said.
Driscoll said China may even replace American oil with crude from Iran. " They (Chinese
importers) are not going to be intimidated, or swayed by U.S. sanctions."
Oil consultancy FGE agrees, noting that China is unlikely to heed President Trump's warning
to stop buying oil from Iran. While as much as 2.3 million barrels a day of crude from the
Persian Gulf state at risk per Trump's sanctions, the White House has yet to get responses from
China, while
India or
Turkey have already hinted they would defy Trump and keep importing Iranian oil. Together
three three nations make up about 60 percent of the Persian Gulf state's exports.
Under pressure from Washington, Seoul has already halted all orders of Iranian oil,
according to sources, even as it braces from spillover effects from the U.S.-China
tit-for-tat on trade.
According to Bank of America's
Mike Hartnett
, the "trade war" of 2018 should be recognized for what it really is: the
first stage of a new arms race between the US & China to reach national superiority in
technology over the longer-term via Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Hypersonic
Warplanes, Electronic Vehicles, Robotics, and Cyber-Security.
This is hardly a secret, as the China strategy is laid out in its "Made in China 2025"
blueprint: It aims to transform "China's industrial base" into a "smart manufacturing"
powerhouse via increase competitiveness and eroding of tech leadership of industrial trading
rivals, e.g. Germany, USA, South Korea; this is precisely what Peter Navarro has been raging
against and hoping to intercept China's ascent early on when it's still feasible.
The China First strategy will be met head-on by an America First strategy. Hence the "arms
race" in tech spending which in both countries is intimately linked with defense spending. Note
military spending by the US and China is forecast by the IMF to rise substantially in coming
decades, but the stunner is that by 2050, China is set to overtake the US, spending $4tn on its
military while the US is $1 trillion less, or $3tn.
This means that some time around 2038, roughly two decades from now, China will surpass the
US in military spending, and become the world's dominant superpower not only in population and
economic growth - China is set to overtake the
US economy by no later than 2032
- but in military strength and global influence as well.
And, as
Thucydides Trap clearly lays out
, that kind of unprecedented superpower transition - one
in which the world's reserve currency moves from state A to state B - always takes place in the
context of a war.
Which explains BofA's long-term strategic recommendation: " We believe investors should thus
own global defense, tech & cybersecurity stocks, particularly companies seen as "national
security champions" over the next 10-year s ."
And
in April
, an
unclassified
50-page transcript on Advance Policy Questions warned that Beijing has the capability and
capacity to control the South China Sea "in all scenarios short of war with the United
States."
In written testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Davidson said China is
seeking "a long-term strategy to reduce the U.S. access and influence in the region," which he
claims the U.S. must maintain its critical military assets in the area. He views China as "no
longer a rising power," but rather a "great power and peer competitor to the United States in
the region." Adm. Davidson agreed with President Trump's recent assessment on China, calling
the country a "rival."
In response to questions about how the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea should handle the
increased military presence in the region. Adm. Davidson advocated for a sustained U.S.
military approach, with the increased investment in new high-tech weaponry.
"US operations in the South China Sea -- to include freedom of navigation operations --
must remain regular and routine. In my view, any decrease in air or maritime presence would
likely reinvigorate PRC expansion."
And in regards to the type of weapons, Adm. Davidson outlined some critical technologies for
immediate investment:
" A more effective Joint Force requires sustained investment in the following critical
areas: undersea warfare, critical munitions stockpiles, standoff weapons (Air-Air,
Air-Surface, Surface-Surface, Anti-Ship), intermediate range cruise missiles, low cost / high
capacity cruise missile defense, hypersonic weapons, air and surface lift capacity, cyber
capabilities, air-air refueling capacity, and resilient communication and navigation systems.
"
Adm. Davidson's testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee, provided us with the
much-needed knowledge that American exceptionalism is quickly deteriorating in the South China
Sea after more than seventy years of control. The transcript reveals how America's military
will continue to drain the taxpayers, as it will need an increasing amount of investments and
military assets in the Eastern Hemisphere to protect whatever control it has left. The clash of
exceptionalism between Beijing and Washington is well underway, will war come next?
I am waiting for the typical response from the anti Jew ZH
crowd, to the effect that there won't be a wart in China until
Jews want authentic Chinese food on Sunday nights rather than
the American Chinese food.
More to the point, this article
is informative but looks at the trees without considering the
forest. China has a number of problems ahead in the not too
distant future that will sink their battleships and ruin their
plans for an expanded military that can fight wars.
First of all, they are in the early stages of seeing their
export empire get scaled back considerably. First the tariffs
will take a bite out of their income, then the inevitable
global recession, which will be as deep if not deeper than in
2009 and last longer as Central Banks don't have the bullets
this time to save the financial system. On top of that,
production costs inside China have been rising so much that
their huge price advantage over developed countries is
shrinking to the point where outsourcing to China does not
return an adequate enough amount of profit to justify the
outsourcing. In addition, China has some very large debts to
the external world, and the accruing interest over time will
take a progressively larger bite out of Chinese profits in the
future.
And then, in the final analysis, China's size precludes it
from getting involved in a war. Because of their huge
population, the only way to defeat the Chinese at war is to
nuke the rice out of them. As there are so many delivery
systems that can deliver nuclear payloads today, the Chinese
will not be able to defend against such an attack, and the
results would be horrific.
The Chinese are practical people who have little history as
war mongers. Its totally out of their character to be acting
in such a militaristic way. They are doing it to play the part
of the up and coming global power who uses its economic might
to project a military strength. Its all for show. The Chinese
do not want a large scale military war with a significant
world power, and they will not cause such to happen. The best
course for China is to take its export profits and start
developing the interior of its country.
I agree, this article doesn't discuss the increasing
fragility of the Chinese market. A great deal of fraud and
government manipulation underlies the Chinese economy,
including debts which are much greater than those of the
US. Throw in leverage that is based, oftentimes, on
nothing.
And there is always the Mandate of Heaven.
Empires rise and fall based on that and no Chinese leader,
not even the commies, ignore that.
From a purely military and strategic point of view, the USA is extremely vulnerable. It doesn't matter how much money Trump flushes down the toilet to the mega corp war machine, what is missing is a unified nation, under God (let's call it the Highest Good that each person seeks in all good faith on a daily basis). This nation is badly divided, and considerably weakened by the third world invasion. The niggas, la raza, antifa, the luciferians, the asians, they won't show up to fight, nor will the fairies and all their homosexual behaviorist sympathizers. And neither will the feminists and social justice warriors, and nor will the rank and file of the demonrat party. And neither will the hollyscum freaks, and all their sycophantic off shoots.
Did I miss anybody?
This nation has no soul. It is a place inhabited by narcissists, nihilists, the decadent and self indulgent, the immoral, and blasphemous, lovers of self and disloyal to everything and everyone except their carnal appetite.
The nation is overrun by the psychologically insane (definitely from a foreign power's point of view, whose mouths are drooling at the prospect of taking the nation for their own), and a government that promotes the insanity.
The only ppl left that might fight will be the handful of hired mercenaries already on the payroll, but they are only a few in number compared to the 2 billion Chinese. What's left of who else might fight are ppl who hate the government because it is a satanic institution riddled with jews who control it and wish for its total annihilation.
You can't save a country like this from an external attack.
And the US has no allies. Push come to shove, all those 'allies' will just step away and watch the destruction of the USA from afar. The jew can find another 'New York' to infest, or, like they did in Poland, made nice with Hitler once they saw Hitler was the man of the hour - the jew will do the same with the Chinese.
In a country where its own declaration of independence is determined to be 'hate speech' by an American corporation, where the nation is so weak as to not obliterate this corporation (fakebook), you tell me, exactly where is the core strength of the nation to defend itself?
I don't see it.
Don't be surprised to wake up one day to nukes and other sorts of bombs and missiles. Hated by all, totally divided within, controlled by lucifer, the USA is ripe for the picking - low lying fruit.
Which explains BofA's
long-term strategic
recommendation: "
We
believe investors should
thus own global defense,
tech & cybersecurity
stocks, particularly
companies seen as
"national security
champions" over the next
10-year
s
."
The Bankers recommend you
send them your money, so
you
can pay
for
their
war. Isn't that nice of
them.
Historically Japan is China's
rival. The US spends about 2.8X
more on the military, but it's
being wasted meddling in oppressive
countries civil wars. Our economy
(if Chinese numbers are believable)
is about 60% bigger than China's.
And as others have said, there's a
lot of corruption and debt in
China. They also have their MIC.
But most importantly, I don't
believe Xi wants to get into a war,
especially with the US. It's too
destructive, and they prefer to win
in the economic marketplace.
Maybe the US's military spending
is completely wasteful, but
maybe it isn't. What if the
reason for our invasion of
middle eastern countries served
a vital national interest (at
least, in the empire's eyes)
such that they were able to
shore up support for the current
global monetary paradigm (the
petrodollar) and also do the
bidding of Israel in the Middle
East? I mean, we must remember
back in the early aughts when
Saddam threatened to stop
accepting dollars and instead
accept euros and also gold I
believe. This was back when the
US was much more feared and
respected. We did this to
ourselves to some degree, but
also it is the cycle of empire.
Nothing is the same forever.
As bad as we may think the US's
global leadership is (and I'm
not making any apologies for it)
imagine when China assumes this
position how they would act? The
world under Chinese global
governance would probably be
much more authoritarian and much
less free. The US is trying to
continue the last vestiges of
it's republican heritage at home
while practicing Empire abroad.
Hoping to keep the current
global system intact. History
shows us that this is a losing
battle. I believe that the US
will always be a great power if
it's constituted the same as it
is now. Maybe after the mantle
of world hegemony is passed, the
US will revert back to how it
was pre-WW2. By all accounts,
economically, socially, in terms
of technological innovation, we
were the envy of the world and
everybody wanted to be part of
it. I would love to see us
return back to that state.
China's economy is fragile. Just the TALK
of tariffs has brought their stock market
down 25%. US still at record highs. Look
how every little tick up or down in their
currency causes instability. Yet simpletons
here think they can just wave their hands
and become the reserve currency. It's nuts.
China is still a turd world country with a
few showcase modern cities. They still have
600 million dirt poor slaves working for a
daily bowl of rice.
If they upgrade their military, in 2
decades they might challenge japan or south
korea. Right now either of them would stomp
china flat without US help. And Trump is on
to their tricks. The trade war will bring
back not only the jobs, but the investment
capital that they need for modernization.
China fucked up bigly by being too greedy
and arrogant. Now they will see their world
domination dreams fade away.
Stock market shmarket, given the
multicultural genetic crap flushing the
USA down the drain, my money is on the
Chinese long term. They have staying
power of a few thousand year history.
Bush-Clinton-Obama were happy to sell out to
the Chinese. That party is now over. There is a
new crew in charge. I don't know all the
players besides USA and Russia but China is not
invited.
The name of the game now is tech
isolation of the Dragon.
Would those leaks have been anything like the
US leaks, not so leaky. Leaks a way of making a
public statement, whilst neither confirming nor
denying the content of that statement.
The
way for the government of China to issue a
warning, without issuing a warning. No joke the
game they play is one of autocrats, they have
no qualms about taking out corporate leaders,
they are not a part of government in an
espionage assassination sense.
Many main land China businesses will have
little problem with paying bounties on the
random deaths of US troops when the US
interferes with their business via criminal
methods, fake terrorism et al. It will get
pretty messy and the message from China, yeah
they know the US will not attack them but use
terrorist like tactics to damage them and they
have no qualms about engaging in similar
tactics (not the government, just corporate
executives who know the government will not act
against them unless they fuck up in a big way).
They know more about what is going on in the
US deep state and US shadow government, than
those entities realise. Always keep in mind,
the punishment for failure at the high end of
town in China, is to be executed for
corruption, no fucking about, that is what they
do to their own, how do you think they will
treat others. They know, they absolutely know,
the US will not attack directly, as a result
the endless yapping dog screams about attacking
(played that card way, way too often) and when
it comes to a dirty war, China will win because
they will target the real heads of the snake,
not the sellout empty suit politicians or
equally worthless political appointees.
Honestly I am kind of comfortable with the
various psychopaths in suits running
corporations 'er' sanctioning each other (as
long as they avoid collateral damage), US
executives travelling abroad will need to be
quite careful if they are playing attack China
game for global domination, the only thing they
will end up dominating is a very tiny plot of
land. The Chinese are very skilled herbalists
be careful what you eat.
A society that never existed. America's great strength has always been
(and still is) geography. We have the best farmland in the world and
its dissected by a river system that allows us to ship production
anywhere. We have an ocean to the east, and ocean to the west, Canada
(the ultimate beta country) to the north and Mexico (dirt poor and
reliant on us) to the south. Freedom was the most useful concept in
the history of the world. Tell the serfs they own the land and they'll
work their asses off to make it better. When they do, we'll take it
back. I'm not wrong...
This isn't about who's nicer or least war prone. Countries act in their
own best interests, except The Anglo countries, which run chronic trade
debt for their parasitic banking sectors. Since so much of the world
depends on The American export market, they will align with The U.S. The
PRC won't buy their manufactured goods. If the author believes Europe and
East Asia will align with The PRC in a war, he has little experience with
East Asian people, and he ignores NATO.
whilst I agree on a lot of what you say about China, you'd have to
offset this with a state of the union analysis - what is so great about
the decaying US imperium and its zero crumbling infrastructure... on
the subject of debt, well the US has it all - domesric, national,
personal to the extent that unless it can carry on printing the dollar,
it more or less will collapse instantly. And this is really where the
danger is, I agree that China is definitely not interested in a war -
never has been. But Washington on the other hand is fast approaching
the point where war is the only option...
I pray this doesn't happen
but on the other hand, Washington will need to be brought to heel one
way or another for the world to become normal again. And for this, you
can count on China to deliver some strikes the likes of which America
has never seen if it comes to that. Destruction of major american
cities will very quickly bring America down if this war scenario
unfolds. Because america has never seen war on its own turf, it will be
totally unable to cope.
Is this kind of misleading and sensational headline
what's known as "click bait?"
The documents do NOT say "war is unavoidable" as per the headline.
Instead, the leaked documents say that at least someone in China
believes a strong military is the best way to "
escape the
obsession
that war is unavoidable between an emerging power
and a ruling hegemony".
Kayman Fri, 07/06/2018 -
21:36 Permalink Speaking of history
from comic books, when someone says "war mongers", one is not referring to the civil strife
that occurs during the internecine violence between landsmen, cousins and distant tribes, if
one of these minority groups of citizens is tired of you being in control and wants to be in
control; not you .
This is the way the CIA set it up in Syria in 2011. The CIA disguised as Syrian rebels tried
to make it look like a group of then tried and clearly failed to change the regime in Damascus.
To replace Assad with for a new, beholden leader who would allow the US to keep fucking up the
lives of those people unfortunate enough to live near where the West's greatest reserves of
other nation's crude oil is buried.
There can not be too many deaths of innocents to prevent the US from it's crusade to
demonstrate its exceptional ethics and morality. Ask Madeleine Albright. "The deaths of
innocent children are the bricks and mortar of the Holy American Empire.
This article will demonstrate how the United Kingdom has steadily become a police state over
the past twenty years, weaponizing its institutions against the people and employing Orwellian
techniques to stop the public from seeing the truth . It will demonstrate, contrary to official
narratives, that both overall levels of crime and violent crime have been increasing, not
decreasing, as the size of the state in the UK has gotten bigger. It will also expose how the
Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010, deliberately obscured
real crime data with estimated crime rates based on survey data as opposed to the real numbers.
I will demonstrate that, contrary to popular opinion perpetuated by progressive myths, life was
much safer in Britain during the era of classical laissez-faire from the 1850s to 1911.
In his 10 years in power from 1997 to 2007, Tony Blair passed an astonishing 26,849 laws in
total, an average of 2,663 per year or 7.5 a day. The Labour Party continued this madness under
Gordon Brown who broke the record in 2008 by passing 2,823 new laws, a 6% increase on even his
megalomaniac predecessor. In 2010, Labour's last year in power before handing over the reigns
to the Blairite social radical, David Cameron, there was a 54% surge in privacy cases brought
against public bodies, and the Cabinet were refusing freedom of information requests at a rate
of 51%. The vast number of new laws under Labour does not count the 2,100 new regulations the
EU passed in 2006 alone, which apparently is average for them.
Many of these vast changes under Blair and Brown were in the area of criminal law. By 2008,
Labour had created more than 3,600 new offences. Many of these, naturally, were red-tape
regulations. To give you an idea:
Creating a nuclear explosion
Selling types of flora and fauna not native to the UK, such as the grey squirrel, ruddy
duck or Japanese knotweed
To wilfully pretend to be a barrister or a traffic warden
Disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officer
Obstructing workers from carrying out repairs to the Dockland Light Railway
Offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day
Allowing an unlicensed concert in a church hall or community centre
A ship's captain may end up in court if he or she carries grain without a copy of the
International Grain Code on board
Scallop fishing without the correct boat
Breaking regulation number 10 of the 1998 Apple and Pear Grubbing Up Regulations
Selling Polish Potatoes
There are many more. However, there were also some more serious breaches of civil
liberty.
One common tactic of the Blair government was to use a moral panic to pass radical new
legislation. For example, in 2006, he passed the Terrorism Act that overturned habeas corpus
and gave the British police the right to detain anyone for any reason for 90 days. At the time,
this got widespread public support because of the recent 7/7 bombings in London. This means
that, in the UK, the police can arrest you without you necessarily having committed a crime if
they can brand your activities as "terrorist" or "extremist." Although these laws were
ostensibly brought about to combat Islamic terrorism, the ever-expanding definitions of "far
right" and "extremist" demonstrate how they can be weaponised against the British people.
Another area in which the Labour government used moral panic cynically to overturn
longstanding common law principles was the murder of Stephen Lawrence, which they used to
eliminate the double jeopardy rule and, as per the MacPherson report, to put an end to
colour-blind policing.
Recently there have been an increased number of cases in which the British state has
encroached on civil liberties in a near-openly tyrannical way. The Count Dankula case, for
example, in which a man was arrested for "hate speech," then tried and made to pay a fine for
telling off-colour jokes about the Nazis on Youtube. Then there was the young woman who was
found guilty of being "grossly offensive" for posting Snoop Dogg lyrics on her Instagram
account. And, most recently, the political activist Tommy Robinson was arrested and tried in
mere hours for recording outside a courtroom. In each of these cases, despite some protests
against the legal rulings, the media broadly sided with the courts, citing the technicalities
of the law – in the former two cases section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (another
Blair special) – and brand anyone who would protest "far right" or "extremist."
"Gaslighting" is a word from the world of psychology; it is a technique of manipulation to
achieve power. Here are eleven warning signs:
They tell blatant lies.
They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.
They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
They wear you down over time.
Their actions do not match their words.
They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.
They know confusion weakens people.
They project.
They try to align people against you.
They tell you or others that you are crazy.
They tell you everyone else is a liar.
The British state has become increasingly Orwellian in its gaslighting of the British public
since at least 1997 with near-total complicity from the media. In a recent article for
Quillette , I argued that this has been the case in both Britain and the USA for years.
This has especially been the case in the area of crime. During a period in which both the
Labour Party and the Conservative Party have become increasingly statist and interventionist on
both an economic and civil level, we have been continually told that one of the positive
effects of ever-increasing government control is that society is becoming more peaceful. This
is the narrative, for example, of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence
Has Declined . In 2005, The Guardian told us that since 1995 overall crime had decreased by
44%. Almost a decade later the same publication wondered out loud what could be causing the
continued decline in crime rates in the UK. And just a few years after that, they had changed
their tune completely decrying sudden increases in violent crime and blaming this on cuts in
police numbers. In the first few months of 2018, the shocking increases in instances of violent
crime in Sadiq Khan's London, which in the past year has seen rises of 31.3% in knife crime,
78% in acid attacks, 70% in youth homicides, 33.4% in robberies, 18.7% in burglaries, 33.9% in
theft and 30% in child sex crime. But this story told by The Guardian – of a general
trend down in crime over the past twenty years followed by a sudden and inexplicable spike
– is simply not true, as I will demonstrate in this paper.
In 1997, Tony Blair famously ran on a platform of being 'tough on crime, tough on the causes
of crime'. Unfortunately for him, the reality of empirical crime data had stubbornly refused to
comply with his anointed vision through his first years in power. "New Labour" were famous for
the efficiency of their propaganda machine. American readers will no doubt be aware of Mr.
Blair's complicity in making exaggerated claims about Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass
destruction" in the run up to the war in Iraq, but few readers – British, American, or
otherwise – will know that the Blair government was also lying about the extent of crime
in Britain. The Labour Party, who were so much about media perceptions and political spin,
needed to find a way to show on paper that their "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime"
agenda was making good on its promise. So, in 2003, Tony Blair permanently changed the way
crime is reported in the UK by introducing the National Crime Recording Standard' (NCRS). Up
until that point, crime in the UK was reported using hard data drawn from actual arrests and
convictions from the police. However, from that point onwards, the official statistics were to
be drawn from the British Crime Survey which estimates crime based on a survey of 50,000 people
aged 16 or over. This works much like how television companies produce estimates for their show
ratings. So that means that the statistics you see quoted in newspapers like The Guardian are
not hard figures, but estimates drawn from surveys. Whatever the merits of this method, it
produced a graph for the Blair government that looked like this:
This change ostensibly came about because – as part of the "tough on the causes of
crime" part of their pledge, Labour wanted to count victims as opposed to the total number of
offenders. Of course, this takes a huge number of crimes out of the data. For example, as it
was introduced in 2003, because only over 16-year olds could be interviewed, crimes against
minors were not registered in the official statistics. Also, because interviews had to take
place in private properties, street crime habitually would not show up in these numbers. Of
course, so-called "victimless" crimes – fraud or online crime – do not show up in
this data either. Once you start to account for some of these caveats, it becomes more obvious
why this extraordinary change in methodology would produce a downwards trend in the data. In
fact, it was explicitly designed so that, because of these changes, it could not be compared
with numbers before 2002.
In 2007, Ken Pease and Graham Farrell estimated that the survey data could be
underestimating violent crime by as much as 82%, with the real number of victims closer to 4.4
million than 2.4 million. This massive margin of error means that the real crime rate becomes a
matter for debate as opposed to a question of hard evidence. It seems to me that this was a
deliberate choice by the Blair government. Hence, we now find the BBC wondering about what the
real crime rate might be. And this is where the true extent of the Orwellian nightmare of the
Blair and Gordon Brown years dawns: by making the crime rate an estimate neither political
party can reliably point to the facts, and it always becomes a question of one difficult to
substantiate narrative against another. "Post-truth" did not start with Vladimir Putin or
Donald Trump – Tony Blair was doing it from the minute he stepped into office.
However, real numbers of convicted offenders are still recorded and kept, although they are
somewhat difficult to obtain. In the run-up to the 2010 British election, Conservative MP and
Shadow Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, requested the real numbers from the House of Commons
library which duly produced a series of independent reports. Incidentally, once the leader of
the Tories, David Cameron, became prime minister in 2010, Chris Grayling became the Secretary
for Justice and, to my knowledge, was happy to let this little detail slide and continue with
the survey-based methodology. It is funny how power can change the incentives for action.
In any case, the numbers that Grayling requested are damning for anyone who claims that
either overall crime or violent crime decreased in the UK between 1997 and 2010.
The population of the UK was about 58 million people in 1997. In 2008, that had increased to
62 million, an increase of 6.87%. In that same period male violent crime convictions in England
and Wales increased by around 63.92% from 49,153 in 1997 to 80,574 in 2008. So violent crime
convictions increased by more than ten times the growth of the population.
Increases like this can been seen across virtually every category of crime. Convictions for
persons under 18, for example, increased by 60.18% from 12,806 in 1997 to 20,513 in 2008, in
keeping with the average increase in violent crime, this is ten times the rate of population
growth in the same period. Knife crime practically doubled during the Blair years, from 3,360
offenders in 1997 to 6,368 in 2008. In 1998 there were 5,542 robberies, in 2008 there were
8,475. From the year 2000 to 2008, the total number of arrests for any offence went up from 1.2
million to 1.4 million, an increase of about 17%.
For the claim to be true that violent crime went down 44% during the 00s in the UK, it would
have to be at a time when violent crime convictions went up 64%. For the claim to be true that
overall crime went down in from 1997 to 2008, it would have to be at a time when overall
convictions for crime went up by 17%. Both claims seem extraordinary: how could there be a rise
in convictions without a corresponding increase in crime? The methodology that measures victims
through estimates from survey data clearly is not getting this correct.
If we use recorded convictions in this way, as opposed to estimates, we can make meaningful
comparisons to the past as Peter Hitchens does in The Abolition of Liberty . As we have seen,
the total number of convictions in England and Wales for 2008 was around 1.47 million for a
population of 62 million people, around 2.25% of the population. According to Hitchens the
comparable number in 1861 at the height of laissez-faire was 88,000 for a population of
20,066,224, or around 0.44% of the population. In 1911, before Leviathan and the welfare state
had really had a chance to grow, the number was 97,000 for a population of 36,075,269, or
around 0.27% of the population. The claim that crime has risen because of government cuts to
the numbers of police also cannot stand since in 1911 there were 51,203 officers whereas by
2009 there were 144,353 officers. The increase in police officers from 1911 to 2009 therefore
is 181.92% compared with an increase of 71.86% in total population. So the size of the
repressive apparatuses of the state have increased greatly, and with it the total number of
criminals.
It is clear that with less personal freedom and a bigger and more invasive state comes less
personal responsibility and greater lawlessness. It is also clear that as the British state has
become more top-down in orientation than in its common-law past, it has levied increased
coercive legislative power against the British people it supposedly serves. The state is now
behaving in an openly Orwellian manner with near-explicit contempt for the public.
People seem to mistake monarchy for a police state, unlike in a democracy a monarchy
doesn't need to pretend it's the sole ruler of the land and can therefore allow its
'subjects' more liberty in return and even has a vested interest in the well being of the
subject so that not only can they be productive but can also defend the monarch (hence be
armed) as well.
The more democratic the UK has become the more liberty it has lost.
The Rothschilds bought Reuters and UPI in the late 1800's. Jews, for centuries, have owned
most publishing houses. Freemasons used to have special books printed up for its members.
After Napoleon, Rothschild said "give me control of a nations money supply, and I care no
who sits on the thrown". The point is that (((BBC))) has been under kosher management since
its inception.
Really, perception management is about controlling those who control the others. The
Elites. And the jews have invaded London and interbred with British nobility for centuries.
These people ran British media right down to BBC for over a century, and through Judaism the
owned the British Elites.
The poor working British stiff never had a prayer. Boer War, Opium Wars, WWI, WWII, and
how many others? All to advance Judaism on behalf of Jewish owners.
England has become a police state because that is what its owners want.
It becomes clear why Boorish Johnson and Sea Hag Theresa May were desperately warning UK
football fans away from attending the World Cup. There was a risk that the carefully
constructed Russia-as-evil-empire narrative would collapse before the eyes of each fan that
made the trip. That is exactly what has been happening.
It should then come as no surprise that, as the anti-Russia narrative began to crumble,
there was a need to reanimate the novichok chimera. Note well that the Return of the Son of
Novichok incident comes not only just before the dreaded Trump-Putin summit, but also just
after the release of a certain report by Britain's parliamentary Intelligence and Security
Committee. Although the Committee's inquiry faced substantial obstruction and stonewalling,
the report was able to determine that, despite years of outright lying about it, the UK
government gleefully participated in the torture and rendition program initiated by the Dick
Cheney regime.
The leadership of every nation in Europe are globalist puppets.
The Brexit vote was 2 years ago and the British government is just now starting to work
out the details of what permissions they might negotiate with Brussels.
Sovereign nation you dipshits.
Permissions are not needed.
Our parents generation planned executed and exited WWII in 48 months.
I think The UK "became" an Orwellian state when George Orwell was writing his prescient
novels back in the 1940s. He saw then how his once great country had already fallen under the
thrall of its (((hidden satanic usury rulers))). Even the main traitor in "1984" was Emmanuel
Goldstein. Do ya think old Georgie was trying to tell us something?
Orwell was a member of the secret British spy system in Burma and saw some of the future
plans for the peeps then wrote about it as a "fictional state" of fully controlled automaton
people.
The key to creating a police state is creating the DEMAND for a police state. Allow an
influx of conflicting cultures, especially those overtly hostile, and then allow chaos to
reign. People will vote all day for a police state to restore ORDER.
Expendable...: yours is a very interesting comment.
If these carefully selected young people are the brightest and the best how come hardly
any of them fail to fall into the trap? How come so few of them realize that they are being
used? How come so few of them have any loyalty to their own nations? How come they do not
realize that what they are doing will lead to the enslavement not only of their own people
but also of themselves and their children? One must presume that they are promised wealth and
power and sell out, but Wilson, for example, never became wealthy. OTOH are even the most
intelligent among us so susceptible to indoctrination?
There must be some incredibly effective incentive, or some incredibly effective threat,
which can subvert them.
Young minds are impressionable and easily manipulated by satanic seductive coersion. Yet
both Dr Kitty Little (UK) and G Edward Griffin (US) rejected their indoctrination and EXPOSED
it publicly so no doubt others rejected it too. (But their efforts and others, are censored
by MSM).
Clearly there are many deviant personalities that are FLATTERED by their SPECIALNESS in
being an 'elite group' ABOVE the rest of us 'plebs' and some selected 'idealists' who swallow
the "end of all wars if we have a global government" meme.
Its not so surprising - look how corrupt the whole of US Congress/Senate is. Not one of
them UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION. And all of them SUBMIT TO ISRAEL, and bow and scrape to
satanyahoo, and ensure Americans' good young men DIE for The Greater Israel Project (of
expansionism and supremasism).
Having no 1st Amendment right to free speech, or constitutional separation of church and
state doesn't help. Then, again, we seem to be headed down the same path, at a more leisurely
pace,
Obama has used Espionage Act more than all previous administrations
You're right. It's down to the quality of the people.
Bullshit. Once again it's the MEDIA..... working in conjunction with the
establishment/Globalists to LIE, CHEAT, DECEIVE and generally fuck everyone over.
It can't be long before someone considers taking the media 'out' in a Charlie Hebdo
fashion for they sure as hell don't deserve any support from the people. Fake news, failure
to report on issues that really effect people (child abuse), instigating unrest (Russia,
poison gas etc), unquestioning support for Government policies (pro-EU, pro-immigration etc).
And I haven't even touched on specific US-related issues..... FFS.
Yeah, the politicians have a lot to answer for but the media have NO EXCUSE for kowtowing
to these traitors let alone pushing their twisted agenda. They either get with the
'populists' uprising or they set themself up for a fall. So, all you media outlets out there
- what's it to be?
Since the Great British Empire evaporated in 1931, under the Statute of Westminster, Great
Britain wanted to be more like its bastard child America, a police state. Just ask any Brit
today if America is just "Great". The only thing left to ask the British, when will they
become America's 51st state?(That should humiliate them even more).
Decay implies weakness. The ability of the State to easily erode civil rights makes clear
that is not the case. If you describe 'politics of fear' to mean agitating the public to want
more repressive laws to feel 'safe' then you could be correct.
Allowing the true levels of crime to be known would simply expose that these more
repressive laws are not having the promised effect. Quite the opposite effect because of
other causes. You can probably figure out what they are.
I'm no Leftie, but Britain became a police state because their internal apparatus for
colonial repression had nothing to do, no one to suppress after the end of colonialism, and
more recently the end of 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland and the end of the IRA,
sontheyvturned these tools of repression on their own people which is the way Empires alwaays
die.
This is History, this is reality, this is the explanation.
The only difference from the past, that unlike the Gladiator and other memes, there is no
exile, there is no place to go to retire and wait out the bastards.
And this from the peoples that gave the world Magna Carta, brought civilization to much of
the world, ended the fascism of the National Socialist German Workers' Party of the 1930's
and did the most to end human slavery.
Sadly, you get what you vote for and there were good reasons that voting was initially a
privilege granted only to those with a stake in the outcome.
Expecting SA to help supply the World's needs is perhaps going off the deep end. It's their
bread and butter for years to come. As years pass, they become more aware that those years
are limited. This is not the 1970's, it's 2018. They will supply what is profitable for them,
and wasting it early, doesn't sound real smart, does it? If we offered them massive support
to develop their nuclear capabilities, it would probably entice them. Or, jump out of the
pot, and into the frying pan. Iran May have more capacity for new oil.
If I have understood this correctly. When most of their fields are mature, the option they
have is to invest (almost overbuild) in facilities foremost to treat and inject the steadily
higher volume of water to keep oil production steady and at the same time overinvest in
infill drilling to keep the volume rising. All this to sustain or even increase oil output
from mature fields, so that the oil price can stay low. And then there is the extra gain in
extra barrels to consider as a result of the investments that adds to ultimate recovery at
each field. The gain from extra barrels could make up for a mediocre return on investment in
some cases and a questionable one in other cases. Given a relatively low oil price
assumption.
Why would they do that? Keeping the facilities as they are for mature fields, accepting
only small investments where they are highly profitable, limiting infill drilling to the best
locations, let the oil production fall and hope for prices to rise would be a superior
solution for them, would it not? Why rush investments in mature oil fields?
When most of their fields are mature, the option they have is to invest (almost overbuild)
in facilities foremost to treat and inject the steadily higher volume of water to keep oil
production steady and at the same time overinvest in infill drilling to keep the volume
rising. All this to sustain or even increase oil output from mature fields,
Well no, it does not usually increase production, it just drastically reduces the decline
rate. For instance, a very mature field may have a natural decline rate of 6 to 8% per year.
With infill drilling of horizontal wells along the top of the reservoir, they may reduce that
decline rate to 2% per year.
so that the oil price can stay low.
No, that's not why they are doing it. They are doing it to maintain their annual
production. Some do increase production but with oil from new fields. These new fields,
however, will have a much lower URR and will start to decline after only a few years. All the
giant and supergiant field have already been discovered.
The "so that the oil price can stay low" was a well hidden irony from my part. But you
have a point, they want to keep their long term customers supplied, not losing face in OPEC
and their long term allies happy. They stretch to keep everyone happy.
A field is creamed by massive infill drilling with horizontal wells that skim the very top
of the reservoir. The decline rate is the[n] drastically reduced while the depletion rate is
drastically increased. Things will go just great until the water hits those horizontal wells
at the top of the reservoir. Then production will drop like a rock.
I assume this is the money quote. These methods comprise the "game changer" that scuttled
peak oil predictions circa 2005.
By demurring a prediction as to when the stone might–will!–drop, you're
acknowledging the deplorable state of the data. This should give us pause. We might call this
the New Peak Oil Reticence.
Let's grant that what you say is true (I'm certainly not qualified to refute it). If you
know it (that is, that the rock will drop), then "they" know it, and by "they" I mean those
who are in the business of developing these "creaming" methods. They must know it.
No one producing country is looking at the global problem. They are only concerned with their
own country and the problems at home. Most are old men who realize that they will be long
dead if there is ever a catastrophe. And most, like the contributors to this blog, believe
that there will never be a catastrophe. They believe that renewables, or fusion energy, or
God, human ingenuity, or something else will save us from any type of collapse.
But the point is, the oil barons of each individual country, are not even remotely
concerned with the collapse of civilization as we know it. They believe God, or Allah, or
human ingenuity, will simply not allow that to happen.
"And most, like the contributors to this blog, believe that there will never be a
catastrophe. They believe that renewables, or fusion energy, or God, human ingenuity, or
something else will save us from any type of collapse."
But doesn't that require, like, planning? Plenty of planning?
I think Dr. Minqi Li put together an exceptionally well researched paper. The only one I have
a faintest glimmer of knowledge in is oil. 2021. Give or take a couple of years is a good
estimate of when peak oil occurs, based on current findings and technology. Improvements in
either would probably only affect the tail of the decline rate. Which, based on the immense
overstatement of EIA, and the creaming you mentioned, the tail should have much more of a
decline than depicted. I am tending towards 2022 to 2023 as the final peak, due to the little
over a year hiatus on the Permian final push due to pipeline and other constraints. We all
know 2042 is a bad projection for the US, it will get there as soon as it can. It will get
there as soon as it can, because the oil price will be high enough to beg, borrow, or steal
to get there. For that reason, all other sources will be staining to get there at the same
time. We are in the final stage, I do think.
Yes, I agree with you on Dr. Minqi Li's paper. I am not sure, however, that the Permian will
show enough yearly increase to hold off the peak until 2023.
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been
repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And
the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists
except an endless present in which the Party is always right."
― George Orwell, 1984
The reduction in corporate taxes from 440 billion to 280 billion is a staggering reduction
in tax liability. Corporations tend to be very rational actors. They want to maximize the value
of their firms and long term shareholder wealth. Corporate leaders, given this windfall, which
should be 1.6 trillion or more over the next ten years can
1. return the wealth to shareholders who then can make their own decisions about the
money
2. invest in personnel, capital equipment or other factors related to production. A sales
organization may want to increase the sales force, a research organization might want to hire
new researchers or they might invest in software or other information technologies to increase
productivity.
3. build their balance sheets for various strategic purposes
4. borrow money with the new capital formation from the tax reduction, i.e. combine equity
with new debt or recapitalize their institutions for strategic reasons and or shareholder
liquidity.
5. They can grow their companies through strategic acquisitions enabled by the new
money.
6. They can grow organically using the new capital to penetrate new markets and or develop
new products.
7. Potential benefits overall are stronger corporations and fewer weak companies. Everyone
should have seen the tax cut as incremental recapitalization. Len Charlap Princeton, NJ July
1
Here's the problem withe your argument Y. I agree that adding money to the privare sector is
good for the economy IF IT IS DONE RIGHT, What history has shown over and over when you give
money to corporation 1, happens, not all the other wished for possibilities. Since the
shareholders tend to be much wealthier than the general population, what you have done
INCREASES inequlaity.
Forget about fairness, inequality is BAD for the economy. Money going to the Rich is less
useful than money going to the non-rich. Economists would say it has lower velocity The Rich
spend a lower percentage of their money. What's a guy or gal who already has so many houses he
can't remember how many & an elevator for his horse gonna spend his money on? The answer is
he is going to use it to speculate.There is a correlation between inequality & financial
speculation. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1661746
Speculation is bad for the economy. That money has a very low velocity. AND it increases risk
which we have seen in 2008 ain't a good thing.
"... Recent SCOTUS decisions affecting organised labour will disenfranchise the worker even more. Anti union fervor might claim a short term battle, but the long term war of trade attrition will likely be lost as US companies lose their competitive edge by declaring employees liabilities rather than allies. Ludicrous. ..."
Most economic claims by the Republicans appear to be simply boneheaded assertions. They
would have us believe that tax savings for the wealthy trickle down to the less affluent. Now
they claim that the enormous slashing of government income caused by their tax cut for the
wealthy is leading to a significant decrease in the federal deficit. Apparently about a third
of the electorate are dumb enough to buy into their nonsense.
The trump tariffs are looking like the nixon tariffs of 1971. All trump, like Nixon in 1971,
cares about is the mid term election and next presidential election, and the votes of 'the
constituency of uneducated people' , as Nixon referred to them. Like Nixon, trump has total
contempt for the law and ethics. Nixon's tariffs and china visit produced his re-election in
1972, stagnation for a decade, and a loss of many millions of US jobs that we never recovered
from.
In 1970, before Nixon's China visit, Americans could get a decent job with a high school
education. After the flood of Chinese masters and PhD students that followed, encouraged by
Nixon and republican presidents since, and their dumb free but unfair market policies which made
their ultra wealthy donors unimaginably wealthy combined with Chinese protectionism to this
day-and stealing of US technology and property, currency manipulation, the neglect of US
students who pay very high fees and much more, many tens of millions of US jobs migrated to
china.
The same charlatans- the GOP and trump are manipulating uneducated white and rural
voters, who are going to pay the heaviest price for letting themselves be misled.
Trump works on the premise that MAGA is a desperately needed, long overdue, patriotic race
to save America from God only knows what. Harley Davidson, that most American of companies, has
proven the validity of this morose mantra. Like other corporations, HD has benefitted from
Trump's tax cuts while shedding American jobs: it purchased back tons of its stock then closed
a plant in Kansas. Then, following European tariffs being slapped on it, HD outsources jobs to Europe to avoid
them. What temerity!
To Trump, this is a vile act of disloyalty. He had championed Harley's cause, only to see it
abandon him. What he fails to comprehend is that very few corporations entirely buy into MAGA,
only his, apparently economically ignorant, base embrace it. Companies enjoy it where it suits
them, ignore or evade it when it doesn't. Corporations have too much power for Trump to curb.
The only thing he can do is threaten to punish them through the imposition of punitive domestic
taxes. That probably won't sit at all well with American workers, outpriced in their own
backyard. Essentially, Trump et al, through intransigence and ineptitude, have backed
themselves into a corner.
Recent SCOTUS decisions affecting organised labour will
disenfranchise the worker even more. Anti union fervor might claim a short term battle, but
the long term war of trade attrition will likely be lost as US companies lose their competitive
edge by declaring employees liabilities rather than allies. Ludicrous.
Economic propaganda has its place in promoting a healthy economy. However, it only goes so
far. Real wages will ultimately trump (no pun) a healthy consumer out -look. Trump propaganda
is a different breed all together. It promotes one thing only, a good out - look on Trump
himself. Adoration for a job well done, regardless of how "potemkin" it is, feeds the beast.
Economist, a notably disagreeable lot, do agree on at least two theories:
(1) Presidents
actually have little effect on the economy and;
(2) the policies that they do implement reach
the desired effect at least one and one half of a presidential term. Trumps tax plan, in the
short term, is as effective as a penny dropped in the ocean.
In the long term, it will blow up
the deficit and require major cuts in major governmental programs, such as Medicare and social
security. Major targets for destruction by Ryan republicans. Trumps deregulatory platform is a
"poor man's" economic policy. The long term cost of deregulation is unpredictable and
therefore, frightening. High concentrations of lead in our ground water. Atmospheric poison.
Toxic run off rears its ugly head.
Once eradicated illness and health concerns inundate a
heavily overburdened healthcare system. All the while, the Trump propaganda machine churns out
lies of triumph and facades of growth, worthy of the "Potemkin" villages.
40 years after FDR's New Deal America was humming right along; building a never before seen
middle class, thanks to the government's G.I. Bill that allowed a generation of entrepreneurs
to rise along with a generation of first time college graduates. We were building a huge
infrastructure in America, the interstate highway system, at the same time helping to rebuild
Europe and Japan. We were sending men to the moon.
40 years after Reagan and the republicans built a temple to "supply side" economics the U.S.
cannot fill her potholes.
Trump would have US hunkered down inside secure borders, quivering in fear of those brown skin
people invading US, sending our military instead of diplomats to be the face of the U.S. All
the while China is in Africa, South America, and South Asia helping to rebuild their
infrastructures and making friends and increasing their influence.
Their message isn't really Make America Great Again (MAGA) it is really Make America Hurt
(Muh).
Let's get to work and get out the vote this November or we are done.
Russia is certainly being creamed. The massive infill is visible from satellites and they
haven't found/opened anything new of size, yet have outlasted what everyone (including them)
calculated would be the start of their decline.
Russia needs the oil revenue badly. But is their ultimate decline going to look like
China? Very likely.
The implied increase in the Permian would be staggering. US onshore outside of fracking is in
terminal decline. US GOM is peak/decline. Eagle Ford is peak/decline. Bakken is close to
peak. Eagle Ford and Bakken have very high existing production decline rates, meaning they
will fall like a brick if drilling moves to the Permian.
There isn't anything new beyond the Permian. People have looked. No more plays.
And after covering all of that and its own existing production decline (not as extreme as
the other plays but large in absolute number), the Permian is supposed to add millions of
barrels per day?
I don't think that adds up no matter what the price of oil is.
2018-07-05 (Platts) While Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told Platts recently that "maximum
sustainable production" was 12 million b/d, industry experts believe Saudi Arabia will
struggle to pump more than 1 million b/d of additional output.
Yeah, I think that is pretty much what Ron and George have been saying. It is why all these
drops in production, and projected production that will not get out of the ground has to
cause demand to exceed supply within the next year by a substantial amount. Throw in Iran's
sabre rattling over the Homez, and oil prices should be through the roof. That it is not, is
mainly complacency built up over the past four years from the inventory overage. As Scarlet
O'Hara said, "After all tomorrow is another day".
MSNBC announced that the Aramco IPO may never happen. MSNBC didn't say why, however I suppose
those reserves that the Saudis have touted for so long could be very difficult to have
verified based on SEC rules. I think that much of the last two years of prep for their IPO
has been shopping for a exchange that would allow them to get their stock issued without
drastically revising their prior reserve disclosures.
You can also look at this development as an indication that the above discussed "rock" may
have already dropped.
Brent currently above $78 and heading up. A bad EIA twip stock report could mean it goes
above $80 and stays there. Iran is threatening to blockade the Straits or Hormuz and
Venezuela is threatening to invade the White House. The Saudis, Russians and E&Ps must be
hoping for some more "art-of the deal" Trump magic: a couple more contra-interventions for
lowering oil price on his part and we'll see $150 by Xmas.
"... I believe due to OPEC massively inflating their URR, and the inaccuracy of the Hubbert method due to the creaming of all giant fields, the expected peak dates here are highly inaccurate. ..."
In the table below I have converted the data Dr. Minqi Li presented in metric tons per year
to million barrels per day. Again, this is C+C plus natural gas liquids.
2017
At Peak
Year Peak
BPD Increase
us
11.47
15.08
2042
3.61
Saudi
11.29
12.17
2030
0.88
Russia
11.13
12.01
2033
0.88
Canada
4.74
7.85
2049
3.11
Iran
4.70
5.40
2039
0.70
Iraq
4.44
6.51
2042
2.07
China
3.S6
4.32
2015
UAE
3.53
4.38
2037
0.84
Kuwait
2.93
3.35
2040
0.42
Brazil
2.87
3.03
2025
0.16
Rest of W
27.13
33.22
2004
Total World
88.10
90.95
2021
2.85
The source for this chart is the same as the table above. I believe due to OPEC
massively inflating their URR, and the inaccuracy of the Hubbert method due to the creaming of
all giant fields, the expected peak dates here are highly inaccurate.
Well, all except three. The rest of the world did peak in 2004, China did peak in 2015, and
the world will peak by 2021 or before. Congratulations to Dr. Minqi Li, the most accurate
future peak there is the one that he calculated. Guym x Ignored says:
07/04/2018 at 8:10
am
I think Dr. Minqi Li put together an exceptionally well researched paper. The only one I have
a faintest glimmer of knowledge in is oil. 2021. Give or take a couple of years is a good
estimate of when peak oil occurs, based on current findings and technology. Improvements in
either would probably only affect the tail of the decline rate. Which, based on the immense
overstatement of EIA, and the creaming you mentioned, the tail should have much more of a
decline than depicted. I am tending towards 2022 to 2023 as the final peak, due to the little
over a year hiatus on the Permian final push due to pipeline and other constraints. We all
know 2042 is a bad projection for the US, it will get there as soon as it can. It will get
there as soon as it can, because the oil price will be high enough to beg, borrow, or steal
to get there. For that reason, all other sources will be staining to get there at the same
time. We are in the final stage, I do think.
Ron, many thanks for your very informative post about world oil (as always) and your
comments on my post.
However, like much of the peak oil community, having missed some of the previous peak
oil predictions, now I may err on the conservative side. Many have criticized the EIA
projections and OPEC reserves. But again, even with those projections/reserves, the world
oil production is still projected to peak in 2021. This suggests that world oil production
may indeed peak in the near future. As I promised, I will follow up with part 2 on
this.
Regarding China, China's oil consumption growth has re-accelerated as its oil production
is in decline. This development may have some major impact on global economy/geopolitics in
the coming years. On top of that, China is (or will soon become) the world's largest
natural gas importer.
Late to the party again, but as I read through all the comments, one thing that seems to be
missing, is realization that personal debt has again reached levels like those in 2008.
It seems consumers believe this fairy tale tax cut will improve the economy, and their
incomes. The average consumer has very little knowledge of economics, they hear various ideas
and theories, and accept those that sound best to their own perceptions, with little
understanding of any basic principles, or what is right or wrong about those views. They also
think the market is the economy, or a reflection of it.
I consider myself an investor, a small one, but most of my income comes from investments, so
I have to watch the market and the trends to protect that income. I am a follower of Benjamin
Graham, a buy and hold investor, who taught Warren Buffett to invest. Slow but steady growth
and continuing income. High consumer debt makes me nervous. In 2008 after the crash, I bought
Kellogg stock, reasoning that people would not be going out to breakfast as much,it pays well.
That is an example of consumer debts.
If the administration has to cut spending, we will see many more underwater consumers who
are spending because they believe people like Kudlow. Their spending makes the economy look
good, that can very well be one of the reasons for Kudlow's and tRumps lies.
Buffett once said that as an investor, it is wise to be "Fearful when others are greedy and
greedy when others are fearful."
Thanks, here is some additional reading material ..
The Unfortunate Fallout of Campus Postmodernism- The roots of the
current campus madness
"In a 1946 essay in the London Tribune entitled "In Front of Your Nose," George Orwell noted that "we are all capable of
believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as
to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on
it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
"Only you can see this post because it goes against our standards on hate speech ..."
To give you an idea of the kind of automation in play and what words and ideas are being identified as running contrary to the principles
of media aggregators and distributors, consider that Facebook recently banned America's founding document from being posted.
Since June 24, the Liberty County Vindicator of Liberty County, Texas, has been sharing daily excerpts from the declaration
in the run up to July Fourth. The idea was to encourage historical literacy among the Vindicator 's readers.
The first nine such posts of the project went up without incident.
"But part 10,"
writes
Vindicator
managing editor Casey Stinnett, "did not appear. Instead, The Vindicator received a notice from Facebook saying that the post
'goes against our standards on hate speech.'"
The post in question contained paragraphs 27 through 31 of the Declaration of Independence, the grievance section of the document
wherein the put-upon colonists detail all the irreconcilable differences they have with King George III.
Stinnett says that he cannot be sure which exact grievance ran afoul of Facebook's policy, but he assumes that it's paragraph
31, which excoriates the King for inciting "domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants
of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages."
The removal of the post was an automated action, and Stinnett sent a "feedback message" to Facebook with the hopes of reaching
a human being who could then exempt the Declaration of Independence from its hate speech restrictions.
This is likely the 'offending' text: "the
merciless
Indian savages
, whose known rule of warfare, is
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
conditions."
The truth is hate. I think everybody knows that by
now.
Thanks, here is some additional reading
material ..
The Unfortunate Fallout of
Campus Postmodernism- The roots of the
current campus madness
"In a 1946 essay in the London Tribune
entitled "In Front of Your Nose," George
Orwell noted that "we are all capable of
believing things which we know to be untrue,
and then, when we are finally proved wrong,
impudently twisting the facts so as to show
that we were right. Intellectually, it is
possible to carry on this process for an
indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up
against solid reality, usually on a
battlefield."
Anyone with a working brain cell can tell you that Facebook has been anti
Bill of Rights from the very beginning. They are actively collecting
information on everyone for the government. How does that coincide with
free people living in a free country? It doesn't. Throw Facebook on the ash
heap of history now.
Correction: "Over the last couple of years major social media, news and video
platforms have been
actively
engaged in the censorship
of what they believe to be [[fake news and
information]]
the truth
."
World cumulative oil production up to 2017 was 192 billion metric tons. The world's
remaining recoverable oil resources are estimated to be 276 billion metric tons and ultimately
recoverable oil resources are estimated to be 468 billion metric tons. By comparison, the BP
Statistical Review of World Energy reports that the world oil reserves at the end of 2017 were
239 billion metric tons.
World oil production is projected to peak at 4,529 million metric tons in 2021.
2017 Production and Peak Production are in million metric tons; Cumulative Production, RRR
(remaining recoverable resources or reserves), and URR (ultimately recoverable resources) are
in billion metric tons. For Peak Production and Peak Year, regular characters indicate
historical peak production and year and italicized blue characters indicate theoretical peak
production and year projected by statistical models. Cumulative production up to 2007 is from
BGR (2009, Table A 3-2), extended to 2017 using annual production data from BP (2018).
"It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes.
They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry
with you, for it was the illusion they loved."
-W. Somerset Maugham
(Originally published as [US Dollar Hegemony has to go] in AToL on
April 11. 2002)
There is an economics-textbook myth that foreign-exchange rates are
determined by supply and demand based on market fundamentals. Economics tends
to dismiss socio-political factors that shape market fundamentals that affect
supply and demand.
The current international finance architecture is based on the US dollar
as the dominant reserve currency, which now accounts for 68 percent of global
currency reserves, up from 51 percent a decade ago. Yet in 2000, the US share
of global exports (US$781.1 billon out of a world total of $6.2 trillion) was
only 12.3 percent and its share of global imports ($1.257 trillion out of a
world total of $6.65 trillion) was 18.9 percent. World merchandise exports
per capita amounted to $1,094 in 2000, while 30 percent of the world's
population lived on less than $1 a day, about one-third of per capita export
value.
Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon took the dollar off the
gold standard (at $35 per ounce) that had been agreed to at the Bretton Woods
Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has been a global monetary
instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by
fiat. The dollar, now a fiat currency, is at a 16-year trade-weighted high
despite record US current-account deficits and the status of the US as the
leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion
against a gross domestic product (GDP) of $9 trillion.
World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of
the world produces things that dollars can buy. The world's interlinked
economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in
exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts
and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their
domestic currencies. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their
currencies, the world's central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves
in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the
market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves
its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong
dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more
dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar
hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that
critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone
accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars
is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US
tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.
By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a
capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp
correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56
percent premium compared with emerging markets.
The Quantity Theory of Money is clearly at work. US assets are not growing
at a pace on par with the growth of the quantity of dollars. US companies
still respresent 56 percent of global market capitalization despite recent
retrenchment in which entire sectors suffered some 80 percent a fall in
value. The cumulative return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) from
1990 through 2001 was 281 percent, while the Morgan Stanley Capital
International (MSCI) developed-country index posted a return of only 12.4
percent even without counting Japan. The MSCI emerging-market index posted a
mere 7.7 percent return. The US capital-account surplus in turn finances the
US trade deficit. Moreover, any asset, regardless of location, that is
denominated in dollars is a US asset in essence. When oil is denominated in
dollars through US state action and the dollar is a fiat currency, the US
essentially owns the world's oil for free. And the more the US prints
greenbacks, the higher the price of US assets will rise. Thus a strong-dollar
policy gives the US a double win.
Historically, the processes of globalization has always been the result of
state action, as opposed to the mere surrender of state sovereignty to market
forces. Currency monopoly of course is the most fundamental trade restraint
by one single government. Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations in
1776, the year of US independence. By the time the constitution was framed 11
years later, the US founding fathers were deeply influenced by Smith's ideas,
which constituted a reasoned abhorrence of trade monopoly and government
policy in restricting trade. What Smith abhorred most was a policy known as
mercantilism, which was practiced by all the major powers of the time. It is
necessary to bear in mind that Smith's notion of the limitation of government
action was exclusively related to mercantilist issues of trade restraint.
Smith never advocated government tolerance of trade restraint, whether by big
business monopolies or by other governments.
A central aim of mercantilism was to ensure that a nation's exports
remained higher in value than its imports, the surplus in that era being paid
only in specie money (gold-backed as opposed to fiat money). This trade
surplus in gold permitted the surplus country, such as England, to invest in
more factories to manufacture more for export, thus bringing home more gold.
The importing regions, such as the American colonies, not only found the gold
reserves backing their currency depleted, causing free-fall devaluation (not
unlike that faced today by many emerging-economy currencies), but also
wanting in surplus capital for building factories to produce for export. So
despite plentiful iron ore in America, only pig iron was exported to England
in return for English finished iron goods.
In 1795, when the Americans began finally to wake up to their
disadvantaged trade relationship and began to raise European (mostly French
and Dutch) capital to start a manufacturing industry, England decreed the
Iron Act, forbidding the manufacture of iron goods in America, which caused
great dissatisfaction among the prospering colonials. Smith favored an
opposite government policy toward promoting domestic economic production and
free foreign trade, a policy that came to be known as "laissez faire"
(because the English, having nothing to do with such heretical ideas, refuse
to give it an English name). Laissez faire, notwithstanding its literal
meaning of "leave alone", meant nothing of the sort. It meant an activist
government policy to counteract mercantilism. Neo-liberal free-market
economists are just bad historians, among their other defective
characteristics, when they propagandize "laissez faire" as no government
interference in trade affairs.
A strong-dollar policy is in the US national interest because it keeps US
inflation low through low-cost imports and it makes US assets expensive for
foreign investors. This arrangement, which Federal Reserve Board chairman
Alan Greenspan proudly calls US financial hegemony in congressional
testimony, has kept the US economy booming in the face of recurrent financial
crises in the rest of the world. It has distorted globalization into a "race
to the bottom" process of exploiting the lowest labor costs and the highest
environmental abuse worldwide to produce items and produce for export to US
markets in a quest for the almighty dollar, which has not been backed by gold
since 1971, nor by economic fundamentals for more than a decade. The adverse
effect of this type of globalization on the developing economies are obvious.
It robs them of the meager fruits of their exports and keeps their domestic
economies starved for capital, as all surplus dollars must be reinvested in
US treasuries to prevent the collapse of their own domestic currencies.
The adverse effect of this type of globalization on the US economy is also
becoming clear. In order to act as consumer of last resort for the whole
world, the US economy has been pushed into a debt bubble that thrives on
conspicuous consumption and fraudulent accounting. The unsustainable and
irrational rise of US equity prices, unsupported by revenue or profit, had
merely been a devaluation of the dollar. Ironically, the current fall in US
equity prices reflects a trend to an even stronger dollar, as it can buy more
deflated shares.
The world economy, through technological progress and non-regulated
markets, has entered a stage of overcapacity in which the management of
aggregate demand is the obvious solution. Yet we have a situation in which
the people producing the goods cannot afford to buy them and the people
receiving the profit from goods production cannot consume more of these
goods. The size of the US market, large as it is, is insufficient to absorb
the continuous growth of the world's new productive power. For the world
economy to grow, the whole population of the world needs to be allowed to
participate with its fair share of consumption. Yet economic and monetary
policy makers continue to view full employment and rising fair wages as the
direct cause of inflation, which is deemed a threat to sound money.
The Keynesian starting point is that full employment is the basis of good
economics. It is through full employment at fair wages that all other
economic inefficiencies can best be handled, through an accommodating
monetary policy. Say's Law (supply creates its own demand) turns this
principle upside down with its bias toward supply/production. Monetarists in
support of Say's Law thus develop a phobia against inflation, claiming
unemployment to be a necessary tool for fighting inflation and that in the
long run, sound money produces the highest possible employment level. They
call that level a "natural" rate of unemployment, the technical term being
NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment).
It is hard to see how sound money can ever lead to full employment when
unemployment is necessary to maintain sound money. Within limits and within
reason, unemployment hurts people and inflation hurts money. And if money
exists to serve people, then the choice becomes obvious. Without global full
employment, the theory of comparative advantage in world trade is merely
Say's Law internationalized.
No single economy can profit for long at the expense of the rest of an
interdependent world. There is an urgent need to restructure the global
finance architecture to return to exchange rates based on purchasing-power
parity, and to reorient the world trading system toward true comparative
advantage based on global full employment with rising wages and living
standards. The key starting point is to focus on the hegemony of the
dollar.
To save the world from the path of impending disaster, we must:
#
promote an awareness among policy makers globally that excessive dependence
on exports merely to service dollar debt is self-destructive to any economy;
# promote a new global finance architecture away from a dollar hegemony
that forces the world to export not only goods but also dollar earnings from
trade to the US;
# promote the application of the State Theory of Money (which asserts that
the value of money is ultimately backed by a government's authority to levy
taxes) to provide needed domestic credit for sound economic development and
to free developing economies from the tyranny of dependence on foreign
capital;
# restructure international economic relations toward aggregate demand
management away from the current overemphasis on predatory supply expansion
through redundant competition; and restructure world trade toward true
comparative advantage in the context of global full employment and global
wage and environmental standards.
This is easier done than imagained. The starting point is for the major
exporting nations each to unilaterally require that all its exports be
payable only in its currency, so that the global finance architecture will
turn into a multi-currency regime overnight. There would be no need for
reserve currencies and exchange rates would reflect market fundamentals of
world trade.
As for aggregate demand management, Asia leads the world in both
overcapacity and underconsumption. It is high time for Asia to realize the
potential of its market power. If the people of Asia are to be compensated
fairly for their labor, the global economy will see its fastest growth
ever.
Just what have we learned over the years (or not)?
Unfortunately, economists seem to given more attention after they're deceased and it
appears Hyman P. Minsky (1919 -1986) is one in this category as well. As I read this book,
originally published in 1986, I was amazed at not only one, but the many, parallels to today
his synthesis of economic views, a blend of today's camps including the behavioral, had.
More valuable to you are his comments than mine, so I will quote Minsky as much as
possible in this review and highly suggest its reading to fill in the gaps he so well
articulates on his own. I decided to read this book because I'm not an economist and heard
how his theories may better apply today than ever.
Many years later, the preface to this edition provides an excellent summary of Minsky's
work. You do not need to be an expert to follow along. In the Introduction (8), Minsky points
out that the institutional arrangements we have today in response to the Great Depression
were set up pre-Keynes and with a pre-Keynesian understanding of the economy. ¨The
evidence from 1975 indicates that, although the simple Keynesian model in which a large
government deficit stabilizes and the helps the economy to expand is valid in a rough and
ready way, the relevant economic relations are more complicated than the simple model allows.
In particular, because what happens in our economy is so largely determined by financial
considerations, economic theory can be relevant only if finance is integrated in the
structure of the theory.¨
Minsky discusses Big Government and lender-of-last-resort (Federal Reserve or Fed) which
is enlightening is and of itself. The balance of Chapters two and three are devoted to how
these two interventions may work in theory. ¨To understand how Big Government stopped the
economy's free fall, it is necessary to delve into the different impacts of government
deficits on our economy ...¨ (24) He proceeds to define and then discuss three impacts:
income and employment effect; budget effect; and portfolio effect. The standard view only
incorporates one impact while Minsky argues and expanded view must incorporate all three
views. ¨As a result of the 1975 experience, the issues in economic theory and policy that
we should have to face are not about the ability of prodigious government deficit spending to
halt even a very sharp recession but about the relative efficiency of specific measures and
the side and after effects associated with particular policy strategies.¨ (24-25) I would
suggest this has not been done effectively in response to the 2007 recession (started in Dec
2007 and has not been declared over as of this review writing (google "nber recession dates"
for start and finish dates for this recession) which to date has had a more blind application
of Keynesian without much thought as Minsky suggested long ago. Of interest is his discussion
how Big Government entitlement programs impart an inflationary bias into the economy.
(29)
Minsky's lender-of-last-resort includes a discussion on the lack of understanding of the
inflationary side effects affects of intervention (51) and explosive growth of speculative
liability structures (52) are as applicable today as to then. ¨Unless a theory can define
the conditions in which a phenomenon occurs, it offers no guide to the control or elimination
of the phenomenon.¨ He discusses the open market and discount window functions of the Fed
and is instructive as to how the FOMC loses its power to affect member bank behavior, thus
the Fed is not acting on intimate knowledge of banking practices. (54) Wow! Wasn't that also
true this time! Minsky points out five causes of concern that the 1974 Chairman of the
Federal Reserve System had appear as relevant today as to then as well: ¨first, the
attenuation of the banking systems' base of equity capital; second, greater reliance on funds
of a potentially volatile character; third, heavy loan commitments in relation to resources;
fourth, some deterioration in the quality of assets; fifth, increased exposure to the larger
banks to risks entailed in foreign exchange transactions and other foreign
operations.¨
Minsky foresees how regulators (and politicians it seems) in imputing ¨...the
difficulties he sees to either a laxness of regulatory zeal or, perhaps, some rather trivial
mistake in how the regulatory bodies were organized, rather than to a fundamental behavioral
characteristic of our economy.¨ (58) Even today, we see more shuffling of regulatory
responsibilities and body creation rather than understand the behavior that causes the
problems first in order to develop solutions.
He also points out how real estate was a problem back then as well, as result from
explosive speculation. ¨The need for lender-of-last-resort intervention follows from an
explosive growth in speculative finance and the way in which speculative finance leads to a
crisis-prone situation.¨ (59) ¨Inasmuch as the successful execution of
lender-of-last-resort functions extends the domain of the Federal Reserve guarantees to new
markets and to new instruments there is an inherent inflationary bias to these operations; by
validating the past use of an instrument, an implicit guarantee of its future is
extended.¨ (58-59)
¨It is important to emphasize that ... any constraint placed on the Federal Reserve
flexibility (e.g. by mandating mechanical rules of behavior) attenuates its power to act.
Rules cannot substitute for lender-of-last-resort discretion.¨ Recall, the call by many
to constrain the Fed? Minsky suggests otherwise. He also states ¨Certainly the bank
examination aspects of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve should be integrated, especially if
inputs from bank examinations are to become part of an early warning system for problem
banks.¨ (64) This ties in with the idea above where the Fed has lost intimate knowledge
of the banking practices.
Minsky discusses how the behavior of many actors need to be considered in a cohesive
theory when he states ¨The dynamics of the financial system that lead to institutional
change result from profit-seeking activities by businesses, financial institutions, and
households as they manage their affairs.¨ (77) The problems that exist in the
hierarchical financial system between mainstream banks and fringe banks is also noticed by
Minsky years ago where a potential domino effect can cause serious disruptions as a result of
the lender-of-last-resort guarantee to the mainstream banks as discussed on page 58. (97)
So far Minsky has laid the groundwork for actor interactions and issues. He then proceeds
to theory. ¨In all disciplines theory plays a double role: it is both a lens and a
blinder.¨ "It is ironic that an economic theory that purports to be based on Keynes fails
because it cannot explain instability. ... Identifying a phenomenon is not enough: we need a
theory that makes instability a normal result in our economy and gives us handles to control
it." (111) "In what lies ahead, we will develop a theory explaining why our economy
fluctuates, showing that the instability and incoherence exhibited from time to time is
related to the development of fragile financial structures that occur normally within
capitalist economies in the course of financing capital asset ownership and investment. We
thus start with a bias in favor of using the market mechanism to the fullest extent possible
to achieve social goals, but with recognition that market capitalism is both intrinsically
unstable and can lead to distasteful distributions of wealth and power." (112) "The elements
of Keynes that are ignored in the neoclassical synthesis deal with the pricing of capital
assets and the special properties of economies with capitalistic financial institutions."
(114) Minsky goes on to deconstruct both pre-Keynesian and and after-Keynesian constructs and
synthesis. Minsky's "financial instability hypothesis" (127) addresses weaknesses he views in
the neoclassical model. "In the neoclassical view, speculation, financing conditions,
inherited financial obligations, and the fluctuating behavior of aggregate demand have
nothing whatsoever to do with savings, investment, and the interest rate determination."
(123) "In neoclassical theory, money does not have any significant relation to finance and
the financing activity." (124) Minsky addresses the point that Keynes thoughts came out after
government programs for reform and recovery were put into place, not the other way around and
many may think today. (134) Minsky then develops how cause and effect to lay the ground work
for his hypothesis throughout chapters 6 through 9 as he discusses in turn price relations
allowing for government, foreign trade, consuming out of profits and saving out of wages,
supply prices, taxes and government spending, financing of business spending, investment and
finance, capital asset prices, investment, cash flows, and three kinds of financing (hedge,
speculative and Ponzi: "The mixture of hedge, speculative, and Ponzi finance in an economy is
a major determinant of its stability. (232)). "The main reason why our economy behaves in
different ways at different times is that financial practices and structure of financial
commitments change." (219) He calls the economy existing always in a transitory state.
Minsky then builds a larger model by discussion Institutional dynamics in Part 4.
"Business cycles are `natural' in a investing capitalist economy, but to understand why this
is so it is necessary to deal with the financing of investment and positions in capital
assets explicitly." (249) He also recognized the distinction between commercial banks and
investment banks and that the distinction between the two were breaking down even back in the
80's. (249) "In a capitalist economy money is tied up with the process of creating and
controlling capital assets." (250) "Money is created as bankers go about their business of
arranging for the financing of trade, investment, and positions in capital assets."
(250).
Deposit (commercial banks) are emphasized in Chapter 10. Minsky's observation in the 80's
rings as true today as it did then when he says "The narrow view that banking affects the
economy only through the money supply led economists and policymakers to virtually ignore the
composition of bank portfolios." (252) The rest of Chapter 10 explains how bank portfolio
composition works and the economic effect this has.
Chapter 11 in about inflation. "My theory emphasizes the composition of financed demand
and the spending of incomes that are allocations of profits as the determinants of the prices
of consumption goods. It is compatible with the multiplier analysis in orthodox Keynesian
theory" (254) "The determination of employment, wages, and prices starts with the profit
calculations of businessmen and bankers. This proposition is in sharp contrast to the views
of neoclassical monetarist theory." (255) Milton Friedman is a monetarist that he discusses
next with this weakness in that theory in mind. Minsky develops his inflation theory by
discussing money wages, price-deflated wages, government as an inflation engine, and trade
union roles in inflation.
Part 5 is the culmination of his work where he discusses possible policy implications of
his theory through the lens of his financial instability hypothesis. "Even if a program of
reform is successful, the success will be transitory." (319) He continually reminds us that a
dynamic system will need continual monitoring, adjustment and trade offs in the attempt to
keep instability within reasonable bounds. An overarching agenda and approach should be
developed to do this. An employment strategy should be developed, financial reform should be
carefully crafted so as to not make matter worse.
**********
Conclusion:
As I mentioned at the beginning, I am not an economist. Minsky's description of the economy
as developed through his instability model appears to describe much of how the interactions
work, the inherent instability of a capitalist system, and his proposals to manage the
instability appear to have merit for consideration. Especially in light of the 2007
recession.
Minsky appears to be an interesting combination of Keynesians who look to mitigate busts,
and Austrians who look to prevent artificial booms.
For an easy read which builds a hypothetical economy, using an example of an island and
fish on up, to describe economic history through the lens of the Austrian economic model:
How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter D Schiff and Andrew J Schiff.
There is something we don't understand. We don't understand how the world works. We don't
understand who controls the US of A. We kept on believing in voting. They fuck us day in day
out and we got one chance every 4 years to vent our frustration in a carefully controlled
manner.
We elected Trump and he is POWERLESS to stop this in-your-face lawlessness committed by
none other than the Department of Obstruction of Justice.
There is no hope. I am this close to renouncing my citizenship and leave the US for good.
Cannot stand this tyranny any more.
The Department of Justice won't prosecute Imran Awan, a former IT administrator for Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz and dozens of other Democrats, for allegations of cybersecurity breaches, theft
and potential espionage, as part of a plea agreement one one count of unrelated bank fraud.
After the entry of your client's plea of guilty to the offense identified in paragraph 1
above,
your client will not be charged with any non-violent criminal offense in
violation of Federal or District of Columbia law which was committed within the District of
Columbia by your client prior to the execution of this Agreement
-Awan Plea Agreement
Awan withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars after lying on a mortgage application and
pretending to have a medical emergency that allowed him to drain his wife's retirement account. He
then wired large sums of money to Pakistan in January, 2017.
Awan and several family members worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz along with 20% of House
Democrats as IT staffers who held - as the House Inspector General called it - the "
keys
to the kingdom
," when it came to accessing confidential information on Congressional
computer systems.
And while ample evidence of potential crimes were found by the House Inspector General, the DOJ
says they found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Department of Justice said it "found
no evidence that [Imran] illegally removed
House data from the House network or from House Members' offices, stole the House Democratic
Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed
or transferred government information
."
That statement appears to take issue -- without explaining how -- with the findings of the
House's Nancy Pelosi-appointed inspector general, its top law enforcement official, the
sergeant-at-arms, and the statements of multiple Democratic aides.
In September 2016, the
House Office of Inspector General
gave House leaders
a presentation that alleged that Alvi, Imran, brothers Abid Awan and Jamal Awan, and a friend
were logging into the servers of members who had previously fired him and funneling data off the
network. It said
evidence "suggests steps are being taken to conceal their activity" and
that their behavior mirrored a "classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an
organization."
Server logs show, it said, that
Awan family members made "unauthorized access"
to congressional servers in violation of House rules by logging into the servers of members who
they didn't work for. -
Daily
Caller
Awan was arrested at Dulles airport while attempting to flee the country - one day after reports
emerged that the FBI had seized a number of "smashed hard drives" and other computer equipment from
his residence. While only charged with bank fraud,
there is ample evidence that the Awans
were spying on members of Congress
through their access to highly-sensitive information on
computers, servers and other electronic devices belonging to members of Congress.
Luke Rosiak of the
Daily Caller
has compiled the most comprehensive coverage of the
Awan situation from start to finish - and outlines exactly why the Awans' conduct warranted serious
inquiry.
On Feb. 3, 2017, Paul Irving, the House's top law enforcement officer,
wrote
in a letter
to the Committee on House Administration that soon after it became evidence, the
server went "missing."
The letter continued: "Based upon the evidence gathered to this point, we have concluded
the employees are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly
threatening the integrity of our information system
s."
Imran, Abid, Jamal, Alvi and a friend were banned from the House network the same day
Kiko sent the letter.
The alleged wrongdoing consisted of two separate issues.
The first was the cybersecurity issues. In an April 2018
hearing
spurred
by the Awan case, Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko
testified
: "The
bookend to the outside threat is the insider threat. Tremendous efforts are dedicated to
protecting the House against these outside threats, however these efforts are undermined when
these employees do not adhere to and thumb their nose at our information security policy, and
that's a risk in my opinion we cannot afford."
The second was a suspected theft scheme. Wendy Anderson, a former chief of staff for Rep.
Yvette Clarke,
told House investigators
she
believed Abid was working with ex-Clarke aide Shelley Davis
to steal equipment, and
described coming in on a Saturday to find so many pieces of equipment, including iPods and Apple
TVs, that it "looked like Christmas.
"
Meanwhile, as we
noted
i
n June, the judge in the Awan case, Tanya Chutkan, was appointed to the D.C. US District
Court by President Obama on June 5, 2014,
after Chutkan had contributed to him for years
.
Prior to her appointment to the District Court, she was a partner at law firm Boies Schiller &
Flexner (BSF) where
she represented scandal-plagued biotechnology company Theranos
-
which
hired Fusion GPS to threaten the news media
. Because of this,
Chutkan
had
to recuse herself from two cases
involving Fusion GPS
.
In short,
the Judge in the Awan case - appointed by Obama after years of contributing to
him, was a
partner
at a very Clinton-friendly law firm
. It should also be noted
that Obama appointed Chutkan's husband, Peter Krauthammer, to the D.C. Superior Court in 2011.
The left has, of course, seized upon the plea deal to suggest that there was no wrongdoing.
Then who goes down due to his deal? Was his deal just a freebie? Are there any
politicians or swampers (pardon my redundancy) who are not dirty?
Why can't
Trump supporters see how he goes along with these outrages? This ain't no
stinkin' 4D chess.
Just like Obama, who, even in his 2nd term, would read his teleprompter and
talk about a national issue and pretend that it was somebody else's fault.
Trump is no better than the rest of the puppets who have lived at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama = Trump = Clinton = The Shrubs... all alike.
The other thing to remember is that Trump and his puppetmasters knew that the
optics on this Awan deal would look bad. And they let it happen anyway. Folks,
the elites don't give a rat's hind end what we think. They think they've won.
They believe that we cannot resist. It's only going to get worse from here.
Therefore, prepare accordingly.
So, if the "deal" is to turn Awan against his former employers,
why would you pardon him of all previous "non-violent" crimes?
Seems to me, if the deal is not public and he refuses to
testify, they have nothing by which to motivate his testimony.
Is this not true? Else, it is exactly as it appears, the deep
state got their way and justice is again the victim.
Concerned about all
the news today about the
corruption of the FBI and
the Department of Justice?
This is the true legal
thriller that started the
firestorm. It tells the
inside story of the
corrupted prosecutions of
Arthur Andersen LLP, the
Merrill Lynch defendants in
the Enron Barge case, the
Ted Stevens case and many
others.
EDITORIAL
REVIEWS
"Licensed to Lie reads
like a cross between
investigative journalism
and courtroom drama. The
takeaway is that both
Bushies and Obamaites
should be very afraid: over
the last few years, a
coterie of vicious and
unethical prosecutors who
are unfit to practice law
has been harbored within
and enabled by the now
ironically named Department
of Justice." –William Hodes,
Professor of Law Emeritus,
Indiana University, and
coauthor, The Law of
Lawyering
"When you've finished
reading this fast-paced
thriller, you will want to
stand up and applaud
Powell's courage in daring
to shine light into the
darkest recesses of
America's justice system.
The only ax Powell grinds
here is Truth." –Patricia
Falvey, author of The
Yellow House and The Linen
Queen, and former Managing
Director,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP
"Last year four
government officials
demonstrably lied under
oath, and nothing has been
done to them–two IRS
officials, the Attorney
General, and James
Clapper-which caused Ed
Snowden to release the fact
that the US is spying on
its citizens and in
violation of the 4th
amendment. That our
government is corrupt is
the only conclusion. This
book helps the people
understand the nature of
this corruption-and how it
is possible for federal
prosecutors to indict and
convict the innocent rather
than the guilty." –Victor
Sperandeo, CEO and author,
Trader Vic: Methods of a
Wall Street Master
"This book is a
testament to the human will
to struggle against
overwhelming odds to right
a wrong and a cautionary
tale to all-that true
justice doesn't just exist
as an abstraction apart
from us. True justice is
us, making it real through
our own actions and our own
vigilance against the
powerful who cavalierly
threaten to take it away."
–Michael Adams, PhD,
University Distinguished
Teaching Associate
Professor of English
Associate Director, James
A. Michener Center for
Writers, University of
Texas–Austinor
"I have covered hundreds
of court cases over the
years and have witnessed
far too often the kind of
duplicity and governmental
heavy-handedness Ms. Powell
describes in her
well-written book, Licensed
to Lie." –Hugh Aynesworth,
journalist, historian,
four-time Pulitzer Prize
finalist, author, November
22, 1963: Witness to
History
just keep being
patient and
give this shit
more
time...they
have to take
down a whole
lot of powerful
monsters all
over the world
all at once and
it all has to
be air-tight.
All while
trying to keep
some kind of
peace without
these fuckers
creating a
world war.
Fake outrage over Russia hacking our
election as the Israhell & US
infiltrate and spur regime change
inside of Iran. It's the juice,
stupid...Always the lying parasitic
juice...
Was this one of Q Anus' unsealed unindictments?
Trust the plan?
Only the prosecution, i.e. the
DOJ, can sign off on a plea bargain. This POS
judge should have recused herself, but plea
bargains are essentially between a defendant and
the DOJ. Under the constitution, the president,
i.e. Trump, can hire and fire any level AG or
attorney (read prosecutor) in the DOJ. So
instead of tweeting in protest like one of us
useless eaters, why doesn't Trump kick some
ass. He could start by firing the prosecutor
who signed this POS plea bargain to set an
example.
Debbie is not going to say one word. Her brother Steve
Wasserman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, will keep her informed of
every step of the investigation, and if it looks like its getting
to hot, she'll be on the next flight to Tel-Aviv. This whole thing
will get buried, as it most likely involves the blackmail of, and
breach of US National Security by several dozen Idiotic democratic
members of Congress. No doubt these pakistani spies are somehow
tied to israeli intelligence.
###
*Attention - The Awans & Pakistani ISI are only "sub
contractors" for Hillary (CIA since young/operative/ratline field
commander) & Israeli Mossad (Debbie Wasserman, Weiner, Shumer &
any other affiliated Zionist Jews). Both the CIA
(Rockefeller>Kissinger down the line to CIA-op Hillary/all
presidents except Trump) + Israel (Rosthchild) & Mossad
(Rothschild private intel/military army) have compromised and
co-opted the White House/US Presidency, US Congress, US Senate and
much of state government.
Both CIA & Mossad farm out dirty work ops to other
international Intelligence agencies & military, as well as
criminal organizations in order to created a spider web of hard to
prove 3rd, 4th, 5th party connections to their illegal operations
in order limit their exposure to being outed by real journalists
like the dead Michael Hastings.
Pakistan ISI, the Muslim Brotherhood or any other seemingly bad
actors have 'not' infiltrated and taken over Congress nor anything
else. The Awans and the Pakistani ISI were 'invited' & brought
here by Mossad-Anthony Weiner & Mossad-Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
here to run operations for CIA-international-crime-boss-Hillary
Clinton.
Blackmail, compromise, threaten & Murder is the name of the
game with these Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious
Psychopaths.
the deal is so he does not testify that all of the democrat members
committed felonies. Can't arrest half the govt and the law enforcement
personnel that are supposed to arrest them. There are not enough FBI to
arrest all the FBI.
Despite your unwavering adulation and constant fawning,
Trump cares only for Trump. He is a narcassist and most
likely a 'path of some flavor. He doesn't give a fuck
about you or me. All he has ever wanted was power. His
supporters are largely tired of the US gov BS and wanted
it to change for the better. If he betrays that, he
betrays them and suddenly you go from being counted as a
supporter to being a domestic terrorist. Do you have more
than 3 days of food, anti-gov beliefs, and a gun? Welcome
to being the enemy.
Get your head out of your ass and
grow a fucking spine. While I'm being hyperbolic, it can,
and has, happened that fast before.
Everyone is trying to blame Sessions, the Judge, the democrates etc.
TRUMP Is Playing those who support him. The Dept of Justice is Under
Trump. The judge did not do this deal, but the Dept of Justice. So,
TRUMP did this deal and is now playing he supporters for fools with
his tweets about being upset (and being unable to do anything about
it).
Trump could force a real investigation and prosecution. Trump is a
zionist swamp creature. During the election Trump said he would
investigate the Clinton's. After the election Trump said the
Clinton's were good people and that he would NOT pursue them.
It is Trump who will make a major move to remove gun rights. While
crying out in protest.
(The jew cries out as he strikes you, type thing.)
Everyone in Congress including Trump on the red side acts like
a slack jawed faggot. I'm just stunned there isn't one fucking
set of brass balls on any of them. There has been a nonstop
treason and sedition show since before Trump was even elected
being perpetrated by the Democrats. Trump is probably happy
with the leaks coming out of the White House. It's more press
and tv time for him.
One fucking person has gone to jail !
One ! That stupid NSA dyke skank Reality Loser. Nobody else has
even gotten a jaywalking ticket. This falls squarely on Trump
and his abortion of an crooked administration.
Just like Obama,
who, even in his 2nd term, would read his teleprompter and talk
about a national issue and pretend that it was somebody else's
fault.
Trump is no better than the rest of the puppets who have lived
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama = Trump = Clinton = The Shrubs
The other thing to remember is that Trump and his puppetmasters
knew that the optics on this Awan deal would look bad. And they
let it happen anyway. Folks, the elites don't give a rat's hind
end what we think. They think they've won. They believe that we
cannot resist. It's only going to get worse from here. Therefore,
prepare accordingly.
1. Trump could have
sealed the US borders and put the military on them by Executive
Order.
2. Trump hasn't put up any resistance to 2nd Amendment rights
being eroded away in his year and a half in office.
3. His Attorney General Sessions is more useless than a set of
tits on a nun, and hasn't been fired for refusing to do his job of
prosecuting criminals and rooting out corruption.
4. Sessions has been increasingly vocal about increasing civil
asset forfeiture which is totally unconstitutional.
5. Trump hasn't pulled any troops out of Syria or Afghanistan.
6. Trump hasn't made Mexico pay for the wall when he could
easily do it by taxing wire transfers to Latin America.
7. Trump hasn't put any pressure on his own justice dept to
cooperate with Congress.
8. Trump still has done nothing to make NATO pay its fair share
of defense spending.
9. Cops are still being praised by Trump even though they
routinely stand down when Antifa are attacking his own supporters,
or showing total cowardice under fire when lives are at stake.
10. Only 1 person has been prosecuted for sedition, treason and
high crimes in the past year and half in spite of these crimes
being committed on a near daily basis.
The president is one man. One man's head can be blown apart in
front of a national audience with no repercussions.
What
might the Founders have meant when they said, "A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed?"
If Trump isn't able to do what he was elected to do maybe
instead of attacking him we should thank him for leading us as
far as he has and consider doing our own Constitutional duty.
We have the 'lost' server...now we have first-person, factual
witnesses and the technical perps to prosecute top swamp criminal
links most conclusively, without a shred of doubt even
unto fanatics and trolls. It's happening, it's coming down
worldwide...there will be no civil war. Ignore the fake news. They
are supremely desperate.
And Rosenstein, Wray, and as far down the line as you need to go to
get rid of all the traitors. This is complete bullshit. Some
fucking Pakistani comes and spys on that whore Wasserman and passes
intelligence to who the fuck knows who, and he get's a pass? Might
was well open up the doors to all of the BOP prisons becuase if
Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, etc. are still wandering out free
then no one in federal prison should be there. These fuckers have
done more damage than any drug dealer, spy, or muderer in federal
custody.
This plea deal is given because they are out to protect the democrat
party and all of the bureaucrats who run the government.... It would
show their ineptitude..... and we can't have that, can we......?
And the big issue is that they expected everyone to buy the
bullshit excuse of" We were just talking about grand kids, blah,
blah" And perhaps even bigger is that there is no actual
representative of the people who calls bullshit and has the power
to demand evidence and demand processing through the justice
system. I know that is the supposed job of the DOJ but if the DOJ
is part of the scam, there needs to be something like a full time
independent prosecutor who is not under anyone.
Bill: "Now, Miss
Lowretta, I know you
are
as
smart
as a whip,
and being that smart, you would know the
consequences
of Mr. Trump being elected...think of your grandchillens; you
want those lil piccaninnies to have a good life...and they will
not be so fortunate under Mr. Trump's administration."
Lowretta: "Yessah Mr Clinton, I do unnerstan' what you
saying. I sho' will work hard to stop that"
Bill: "Miss Lowretta, it's a pleasure meeting with you
again. I figure if you
work real hard
you may even get
to be a Justice in the Supreme Court"
Case settled in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing,
check
obama appointed judge, check
judge worked with clinton law firm, fusion gps, check
Dws protects Awan till the bloody end, check
hard to imagine how it can get much worse in these United States.
The prior administration and its holdover lackeys are making a
mockery of the criminal justice system
Allowed to take plea so the details of all the compromising info he
had on half of Congress would not come out. THIS is how the DEEP
STATE protects itself, and the DOJ goes along, because that's, simply
the deal. There is no possible explanation for this guy getting a
deal unless he is going to hand over the entire Dem leadership now.
Of course, he won't.
Gumint at work. Do some bad stuff, get paid,
investigate, quash, move on.
Isz next, SVIMVEAR!! (10 points for the attribution)
Rule by the elite is one of the cornerstones of government. When
has the elite not ruled us, except perhaps in times immediately
following the collapse of the then current government?
You can't
leave steaks sitting on the kitchen counter and not expect these
dogs to take the biggest one and leave scraps for the general
population.
Given that Trump is the chief law enforcement officer in the
government, how is it that his underlings are able to get away
with such egregious corruption?
now who gets to make an appeal about this seditious corrupt legal proceeding
that is a cover for the direct transmission of the secret workings of
congressional committees and private communications of congress members
DIRECT TO HOSTILE FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS like iran, via pakistan.
Just another day in bizarro world. The good guys are treated like
shit, the bad guys are treated like heroes. There's no rule of
law. There are no borders. This duplicitous scumbag should
be sent to prison, for a long time.
So, commit one crime, go to jail.
Commit several crimes, plead and walk.
But who are they going after by letting him plead?
Who's the bigwig up above who's so valuable that the Awan minions (if
they are minions) can be let go?
I wonder what they'll get HRC to plead
to in order to unlawfully ignore the rest of her crimes.
Announced on the eve of the nation's biggest holiday.
This has to be
the biggest "f**k you" by the DOJ to the American people in the history
of this country.
Note that the prosecuting attorney in this case had someone pinch
hit for him at the actual hearing:
"Only one person sat at the prosecutors' table: J.P. Coomey,
who...was only added to the case Monday. There was no sign of Michael
Marando, who had previously led the prosecution."
Hard to overcome the violent
atk of nauseous rage at this
headline. The stench from the
DOJ is overwhelmingly strong
on this one.
One must step
back and ask, WTF is going
on. Do we have a justice
system or not-I tthink the
answer is clear that it is
prob a two tiered system or
more.
I would guess the clintons
and mossad are in this big
time. DWS seems to be a
poster child for mossad and
the clintons.
Not being one to say 'I told you, blah-blah', but...
I have maintained all along the journey here regarding
Queen
Madame DeFarge
, that this is simply 'Too Big' to prosecute
for the simple reason that there are too many key individuals in .gov
and the business community for the nation to absorb the
socio-political fallout. This in no way infers that prosecution
shouldn't happen, only that the corruption is so deep & wide that
it was never a realistic view to begin with. That said, things
have a way ironing themselves out, and we're seeing it nearly
every day with the implosion of politics-as-usual.
Not only was he a spy but he probably opened the door to every
other entity which wanted to spy on the USA - wide open. There is
no country if this is not treason.
Whatever it is that this plea bargain is covering up, it must be
pretty bad for that cohort of criminals to accept that it's NOT A
GOOD LOOK either way! They're choosing the lesser of evils, but it
will put another nail in their coffin anyway, and they know it. Be
prepared for yet another flash of violent distraction or somesuch
to drive it out of the press. Wait for the mid-terms to find out
if this dodgy strategy pays off...or NOT!
Sorry but no. This is not a deal in exchange for
cooperation. This deal requires nothing of Awan. When you
are giving a deal in exchange for cooperation that deal is
in writing in "the deal" and the Judge decides after you are
finished cooperating if you met your end of the deal. This
is a get out of jail free deal.
Awan has a deal from a Bank Fraud case in DC. Awan is not the
target and Bank Fraud certainly isn't our big complaint. Huber
is
outside
DC and has a prosecution witness. Another
pawn moved into position.
Wait for it...
Look at what Ramenhead looks like these days. The horror of
it is eating her from within:
A couple of notes. First, here's the plea agreement as quoted
by Luke Rosiak at the Daily Caller:
After the entry of your client's plea of guilty to the
offense identified in paragraph 1 above, your client will
not be charged with any non-violent criminal offense in
violation of Federal or District of Columbia law which was
committed within the District of Columbia by your client
prior to the execution of this Agreement and about which
this Office was made aware by your client prior to the
execution of this Agreement, all of which is contained in
the attached Statement of Offense.
Note 1: While the federal government and Washington DC
government are restricted from prosecuting Awan for any
previous non-violent crime, other state jurisdictions can
prosecute him for these crimes. He could be prosecuted in
Florida, Virginia, Maryland or any other state. Remember, Awan
ran most of his money laundering operations (disguised as used
car businesses) outside of the Washington DC jurisdiction. In
fact, most of the evidence that was discovered by independent
investigators has been found at locations in both Maryland and
Virginia (both of which would still be free to prosecute per
this plea agreement).
Note 2: This seems to be an illegitimate plea deal which is
really just an immunity agreement by any other name. We'll see
how this all shakes out, but the plea deal accepted by this
judge will probably not stand up to even the weakest legal
scrutiny. I don't even know if there's any precedent for such a
deal in American law.
There is a lot that smells very funny about this
agreement. It does not provide any leverage to get him to
be a states witness and it does not prevent him from
claiming the 5th in any Grand Jury testimony because the
issue of State Charges remains. I sure hope sometime in
the future we say that Justice knew what they were doing
and people start going to jail. At the moment I don't see
it, I don't smell it and I don't believe it. I have no
problem with this slimeball skating if the Politicians
are prosecuted and convicted. If he spills all Hillary's
crew will punish him better than a jail cell ever will.
Q1671: "Plea: Deal - No Charges for NON-Violent crime."
Awan still liable for VIOLENT Crimes, either committed by
himself, or by being witness to Crimes, or while serving as a
hub in a Criminal Enterprise, where VIOLENT Crimes are
monetized???
Awan's Case is based on 18 U.S. Code § 1344 Bank Fraud.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan is the judge
presiding over Imran Awan's case. She is an Obama
appointee! But, she allowed the case to get really
ridiculous.
She was a Crony of Obama, and kept postponing
the Imran Awan trial, which allowed him to flee to Pakistan,
where co-defendant and wife Hina Alvi has already fled, with
the blessing of the FBI. It's really unheard of, for a
federal criminal 'bank fraud' case to be granted 5 or
6 delays and continuances, as she has in this case. Its
apparent she is running cover for the Democrats.
Records confirm, she was appointed to the federal bench
by Obama after she kicked thousands in campaign donations to
his presidential campaign when he was a U.S. Senator in
Illinois. Obama also appointed Chutkan's husband, Peter
Krauthamer, a judge to the bench in the District of Columbia
Superior Court in 2011.
She a prime example of why judges should never be
politically appointed, voted into office, or have any
political affiliation with any political party.
Now, we have some of the trashiest people on the bench.
Her and her husband needs their asses tossed into jail.
BTW ... neither Imran nor his wife were ever charged with
the most obvious and verifiable crime. Imran intended to
carry and his wife did carry more than $10,000 in undeclared
moneys onboard an international flight. Strangely (which
seems to be the theme of this case), neither was ever
charged with this felony crime.
Why is the DOJ protecting members of Congress or staff
members of Congress?? It appears to be outrageous, yet
whoever made this decision has a calculus. What is the real
reason for the DOJ to protect the illegal actions of the
Awans and those that hired him?
There is a logic behind
it. What is it? If we can find that out we can understand
why this crime was committed by the DOJ.
No no no no, fake news. Plea deal does not cover Federal
crimes.
From Awan plea
Your client further understands that this
Agreement is binding only upon the Criminal and Superior
Court Divisions of the United States Attomey's Office for
the District of Columbia. This Agreement does not bind the
Civil Division of this Office or any other United States
Attomey's Office, nor does it bind any other state, local,
or federal prosecutor. It also does not bar or compromise
any civil, tax, or administrative claim pending or that may
be made against your client.
Deep state manipulated the 2016 'election'. They had
corporate mass media pump Trump 247 as their 'populist'
candidate since their identity politics candidate Clinton
couldn't attract even fleas to her rallies. They wanted to
kill any attention to the masses of Americans countrywide
who were packing arenas & auditoriums to see the old
socialist Sanders.
This plea deal is really a burying of how much corruption
actually occurs on Capitol Hill to keep the phony 2 party
system intact.
we stress to our readers that just because TSLA
makes
a Model 3 car
–
with competition coming and buyers tired of "waiting"
– does not mean
demand
for that car exists.
I've been thinking / saying this for
months.
5000 a week is 250,000 units a year. There are only 6 models in North America
that sell >/= 250K units a year. They may be able to produce 5,000 units a week,
but they can't SELL 5,000 units a week. Pull it. This charade is getting really
old.
They will have to start a dealer network to park all those cars somewhere.
Then package all the dealer debt into some exotic debt instrument and sell it
to the Muppets as AAA asset-backed paper with above market yield!
Later the
Fed will have t buy that shit back to hide the crimes and stupidity of
government actions and "save the system".
Even with some churn in the list T is sustaining over 400,000 confirmed orders
on the books. At 5000 per week that is 80 weeks work to get to the last one.
The churn in orders is likely due to people maxing their wait time
expectations, but as the waiting list diminishes wait time will reduce and
more folk will decide to buy.
Try driving an electric car - you will never want a FF car again. Then it
becomes a case of which EV to get. If one has a choice and the money then a
Tesla is the best. If money-constrained then there are other choices. I
think T will be around for a while to satisfy the top end of the market.
Nissan Leaf, eGolf etc will work better for others but the Big T will stay
on top, IMHO.
The chief engineer is gone, and he was doing production
engineering. That is, the assembly line. Elon shoved him aside to do this hail
mary pass - assembling them by hand in a tent.
So now he's gone, and there are actually several top positions vacant.
Fortunately, one of them is in accounting so for a while here Musk can use some
not-so-GAAP ledgering.
Seeing the top production engineer leave during a period of rapid production
engineering overhaul... what could go wrong?
Musk cavalier attitude has resulted in Tesla becoming one of the world's
most-shorted stocks. Unfortunately, for the shorts, shares are up almost 30% in
the past month mainly as a result of Musk's antics and toying with those of
little faith. More about this in the article below.
This is way too optimistic. First of all in comparison with a
good hybrid like Camry hybrid Tesla is not that great. With 50 miles per gallon
you need 6 gallons for 300 miles. So at $32 you break even with Tesla (which
costs two time more) and at $3 you lose one dollar per gallon. You need to burn
30K gallons to break even with Tesla. That's 150K miles.
I have been a zero hedge reader for 9 years. I have at times been a fierce critic
of Elon Musk (especially with Solar City)
I have owned a Model 3 for 3 months..
you can ask me any question if you want... but my perspective:
- Handling is amazing. The car handles better than a BMW 3 series. Consumer
Reports compared it to a Porsche Boxter.
- Power is amazing. 0 to 60 time is 5.1 seconds. That is comparable to a BMW
340I
- Operaring cost are amazing. The cost to add 300 miles of range where I live
in SoCal (where electricity is expensive) is $10-$12 ($0.12 per kWh at night).
Again.. how much would it cost to drive 300 miles on a comparable gasoline car?
- there is pretty much no maintenance schedule (battery fluid every 60k mike
and brake fluid every 30k miles)
- Autopilot is amazing. I drive from LA to SD pretty much 100 percent on
autopilot. Is it self driving? No. Do you need to pay attention? Yes. Does it do
a damn good job at centering the car on its lane? It really does you would be
surprised. Are there limitations with it? Yes there are.. stationary objects are
one example. Are stationary objects a major problem when you use autopilot as
designed (on the freeway)? usually not.. and by keeping good following distances
and paying attention that is not a problem. All the instances of accidents
published in the media have been by people who were not paying attention at all.
I paid $57.5k + TTL for that. I intentionally left out tax incentives because
those will be phased out. Ask yourself.. is it really more expensive than a
comparable 3 series when you take into account the above? I don't think so.
That is my major criticism with tesla bears. You can't compare a model 3 to.
$18k focus. Not saying that everything that Elon musk does is good. Using tesla
as a piggy bank to Bail out Solarcity and SpaceX.. I certainly do not agree with
that.
Now let's talk about reliability. Well so far I have run into 2 issues:
electronics under the seat exposed l, and spontaneous crack on the pano roof
(know defects in earlier model), both issues were promptly resolved. It's too
early to tell but for now it's better than my Scion FRS.
The Opportunity Dodge, The American Prospect: We think of America
as the land of opportunity, but the United States actually has low rates of upward mobility relative to other advanced nations...
Creating more opportunity is therefore a worthy goal. However, when the goal of more opportunity is offered instead of addressing
income inequality, it's a dodge and an empty promise-because opportunity does not thrive amid great inequalities. ...
The opportunity dodgers .... ignore that income inequality and intergenerational mobility are closely linked..., one
of the most robust and long-standing social science research findings is that ... the circumstances in which children grow up
... greatly shapes educational advancement. So, promoting education solutions to mobility without addressing income inequality
is ultimately playing pretend. We can't substantially change opportunity without changing the actual lived circumstances of
disadvantaged and working-class youth. ...
Acknowledging that income inequality and poverty greatly affect schooling success means we need to improve the circumstances
of poor children's lives by providing stable, adequate housing and healthy, safe environments. Decent income for their parents
is essential. ...
Last, it is important to recognize that some people are always going to end up on the bottom and middle rungs since ... somebody
has to be below average. Economic policy must also be concerned that low- and moderate-income families have decent incomes,
health care, and retirement. The opportunity dodgers are really saying they do not care how low- and middle-income families
actually live.
djb
this is especially true when you see what a farce it is that ivy leagues and other top rated colleges are always trying to
find "worthy" poor kids to come to their school
and how little that actually happens
the little that it does is good
but it is mostly not really happening
because to get the qualifications you really need to go to a rich school with all sorts of supports and training on standardized
tests etc
DrDick
Indeed equal opportunity cannot exist in the presence of high inequality. It is a lie designed to divert the blame from the
rapacious rich to the supposed (and largely nonexistent) faults of the poor.
"... The implications for today are almost painfully straightforward: the current combination of deficit spending and tax cuts spells disaster for any hopes of shrinking America's striking inequality gap . Instead, credit-card war spending is already fueling the dramatic levels of wealth inequality that have led some observers to suggest that we are living in a new Gilded Age , reminiscent of the enormous divide between the opulent lifestyles of the elite and the grinding poverty of the majority of Americans in the late nineteenth century. ..."
"... Today's wars are paid for almost entirely through loans -- 60% from wealthy individuals and governmental agencies like the Federal Reserve, 40% from foreign lenders. Meanwhile, in October 2001, when Washington launched the war on terror, the government also initiated a set of tax cuts, a trend that has only continued. The war-financing strategies that President George W. Bush began have flowed on without significant alteration under Presidents Obama and Trump. (Obama did raise a few taxes, but didn't fundamentally alter the swing towards tax cuts.) President Trump's extreme tax "reform" package, which passed Congress in December 2017 -- a gift-wrapped dream for the 1% -- only enlarged those cuts. ..."
"... However little the public may realize it, Americans are already feeling the costs of their post-9/11 wars. Those have, after all, massively increased the Pentagon's base budget and the moneys that go into the expanding national security budget , while reducing the amount of money left over for so much else from infrastructure investment to science. In the decade following September 11, 2001, military spending increased by 50% , while spending on every other government program increased only 13.5%. ..."
Credit-Card Wars
Today's War-Financing Strategies Will Only Increase Inequality
By Stephanie
Savell
In the name of the fight against terrorism, the United States is currently waging "
credit-card wars " in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Never before has this
country relied so heavily on deficit spending to pay for its conflicts. The consequences are
expected to be ruinous for the long-term fiscal health of the U.S., but they go far beyond the
economic. Massive levels of war-related debt will have lasting repercussions of all sorts. One
potentially devastating effect, a
new study finds, will be more societal inequality.
In other words, the staggering costs of the longest war in American history -- almost 17
years running, since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 -- are being deferred to the
future. In the process, the government is contributing to this country's skyrocketing income
inequality.
Since 9/11, the U.S. has spent
$5.6 trillion on its war on terror, according to the Costs of War Project, which I co-direct, at Brown
University's Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs . This is a far higher number than the Pentagon's
$1.5 trillion estimate,
which only counts expenses for what are known as "overseas contingency operations," or OCO --
that is, a pot of supplemental money, outside the regular annual budget, dedicated to funding
wartime operations. The $5.6 trillion figure, on the other hand, includes not just what the
U.S. has spent on overseas military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria, but
also portions of Homeland Security spending related to counterterrorism on American soil, and
future obligations to care for wounded or traumatized post-9/11 military veterans. The
financial burden of the post-9/11 wars across the Greater Middle East -- and still
spreading , through Africa and other regions -- is far larger than most Americans
recognize.
During prior wars, the U.S. adjusted its budget accordingly by, among other options, raising
taxes to pay for its conflicts. Not so since 2001, when President George W. Bush launched the
"Global War on Terror." Instead, the country has accumulated a staggering amount of debt. Even
if Washington stopped spending on its wars tomorrow, it will still, thanks to those conflicts,
owe more than
$8 trillion in interest alone by the 2050s.
Putting the Gilded Age to Shame
It's hard to fathom what that enormous level of debt will do to our economy and society. A
new Costs of War study by political scientist and historian Rosella Capella Zielinski
offers initial clues about its impact here. She takes a look at how the U.S. has paid for its
conflicts from the War of 1812 through the two World Wars and Vietnam to the present war on
terror. While a range of taxes, bond sales, and other mechanisms were used to raise funds to
fight such conflicts, no financial strategy has relied so exclusively on borrowing -- until
this century. Her study also explores how each type of war financing has affected inequality
levels in this country in the aftermath of those conflicts.
The implications for today are almost painfully straightforward: the current combination
of deficit spending and tax cuts spells disaster for any hopes of shrinking America's striking
inequality gap . Instead, credit-card war spending is already fueling the dramatic levels
of wealth inequality that have led some observers to suggest that we are living in a new
Gilded Age , reminiscent
of the enormous divide between the opulent lifestyles of the elite and the grinding poverty of
the majority of Americans in the late nineteenth century.
Capella Zielinski carefully breaks down what effects the methods used to pay for various
wars have had on subsequent levels of social inequality. During the Civil War, for example, the
government relied primarily on loans from private donors. After that war was over, the American
people had to pay those loans back with interest, which proved a bonanza for financial elites,
primarily in the North. Those wealthy lenders became wealthier still and everyone else, whose
taxes reimbursed them, poorer.
In contrast, during World War I, the government launched a war-bond campaign that targeted
low-income people. War savings stamps were offered for as little as 25 cents and war savings
certificates in denominations starting at $25. Anyone who could make a small down payment could
buy a war bond for $50 and cover the rest of what was owed in installments. In this way, the
war effort promoted savings and, in its wake, a striking number of low-income Americans were
repaid with interest, decreasing the inequality levels of that era.
Taxation strategies have varied quite significantly in various war periods as well. During
World War II, for instance, the government raised tax rates five times between 1940 and 1944,
levying progressively steeper ones on higher income brackets (up to 65% on incomes over $1
million). As a result, though government debt was substantial in the aftermath of a global
struggle fought on many fronts, the impact on low-income Americans could have been far worse.
In contrast, the Vietnam War era began with a tax cut and, in the aftermath of that disastrous
conflict, the U.S. had to deal with unprecedented levels of inflation. Low-income households
bore the brunt of those higher costs, leading to greater inequality.
Today's wars are paid for almost entirely through loans -- 60% from wealthy individuals
and governmental agencies like the Federal Reserve, 40% from foreign lenders. Meanwhile, in
October 2001, when Washington launched the war on terror, the government also initiated a set
of tax cuts, a trend that has only continued. The war-financing strategies that President
George W. Bush began have flowed on without significant alteration under Presidents Obama and
Trump. (Obama did raise a few taxes, but didn't fundamentally
alter the swing towards tax cuts.) President Trump's extreme tax "reform" package, which
passed Congress in December 2017 -- a gift-wrapped dream
for the 1% -- only enlarged those cuts.
In other words, in this century, Washington has combined the domestic borrowing patterns of
the Civil War with the tax cuts of the Vietnam era. That means one predictable thing: a rise in
inequality in a country in which the income inequality gap is already heading
for record territory.
Just to add to the future burden of it all, this is the first time government wartime
borrowing has relied so heavily on foreign debt. Though there is no way of knowing how this
will affect inequality here in the long run, one thing is already obvious: it will transfer
wealth outside the country.
Economist
Linda Bilmes has
argued that there's another new factor involved in Washington's budgeting of today's wars.
In every other major American conflict, after an initial period, war expenditures were
incorporated into the regular defense budget. Since 2001, however, the war on terror has been
funded mainly by supplemental appropriations (those Overseas
Contingency Operations funds), subject to very little oversight. Think of the OCO as a
slush fund
that insures one thing: the true impact of this era's war funding won't hit until far later
since such appropriations are exempt from spending caps and don't have to be
offset elsewhere in the budget.
According to Bilmes, "This process is less transparent, less accountable, and has rendered
the cost of the wars far less visible." As a measure of the invisible impact of war funding in
Washington and elsewhere, she
calculates that, while the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense discussed war
financing in 79% of its hearings during the Vietnam era, since 9/11, there have been similar
mentions at only 17% of such hearings. For its part, the Senate Finance Committee has discussed
war-funding strategy in a thoroughgoing way only once in almost 17 years.
Hidden Tradeoffs and Deferred Costs
The effect of this century's unprecedented budgetary measures is that, for the most part,
the American people don't feel the financial weight of the wars their government is waging --
or rather, they feel it, but don't recognize it for what it is. This corresponds remarkably
well with the wars themselves, fought by a non-draft
military in distant lands and largely
ignored in this country (at least since the vast public demonstrations against the coming
invasion of Iraq ended in the spring of 2003). The
blowback from those wars, the way they are coming home, has also been ignored, financially
and otherwise.
However little the public may realize it, Americans are already feeling the costs of
their post-9/11 wars. Those have, after all, massively increased the Pentagon's base budget and
the moneys that go into the expanding
national security budget , while reducing the amount of money left over for so much else
from infrastructure
investment to science. In the decade following September 11, 2001, military spending
increased by
50% , while spending on every other government program increased only 13.5%.
How exactly does this trade-off work? The National
Priorities Project explains it well. Every year the federal government negotiates levels of
discretionary spending (as distinct from mandatory spending, which largely consists of Social
Security and Medicare). In 2001, there were fewer
discretionary funds allocated to defense than to non-defense programs, but the ensuing war on
terror dramatically inflated military spending relative to other parts of the budget. In 2017,
military and national security spending accounted for 53% of discretionary spending. The 2018
congressionally approved omnibus spending package allocates $700 billion for the military and
$591 billion for non-military purposes, leaving that proportion about the same. (Keep in mind,
that those totals don't even include all the money flowing into that Overseas Contingency
Operations fund). President Trump's proposals for future spending, if accepted by Congress,
would ensure that, by 2023, the proportion of military spending would soar to
65% .
In other words, the rise in war-related military expenditures entails losses for other areas
of federal funding. Pick your issue: crumbling bridges, racial justice, housing, healthcare,
education, climate change -- and it's all being affected by how much this country spends on
war.
Nonetheless, thanks to its credit-card version of war financing, the government has
effectively deferred most of the financial costs of its unending conflicts to the future. This,
in turn, contributes to how
detached most Americans tend to feel from the very fact that their country is now eternally
at war. Political scientist and policy analyst Sarah Kreps argues that Americans become
invested in how a war is being conducted only when they're asked to pay for it. In her
examination of the history of the financing of American wars, she
writes , "The visibility and intrusiveness of taxes are exactly what make individuals
scrutinize the service for which the resources are being used." If there were war taxes today,
their unpopularity would undoubtedly lead Americans to question the costs and consequences of
their country's wars in ways now missing from today's public conversation.
Pressing for a real war budget, though, is not only a mechanism to alert Americans to the
effects (on them) of the wars their government is fighting. It is also a potential lever
through which citizens could affect the country's foreign policy and pressure elected
officials to bring those wars to an end. Some civic groups and activists from across the
political spectrum have indeed been pushing to reduce the Pentagon budget, bloated by war,
corruption , and
fear-mongering . They are, however, up against both the power of an ascendant
military-industrial complex and wars that have been organized, in their funding and in so many
other ways, not to be noticed.
Those who care about this country's economic future would be remiss not to include today's
war financing strategy among the country's most urgent fiscal challenges. Anyone interested in
improving American democracy and the well-being of its people should begin by connecting the
budgetary dots. The more money this country spends on military activities, the more public
coffers will be depleted by war-related interest payments and the less public funding there
will be for anything else. In short, it's time for Americans worried about living in a country
whose inequality gap could soon surpass that of the Gilded Age to begin paying real attention
to our " credit-card
wars ."
2018-06-26 (Rudaw) When US sanctions were placed on Iran in 2012, the four Asian countries
were given a waiver, requiring them to reduce their business with Iran by 20 percent each six
months rather than halt trade immediately.
The Asian oil buyers are less likely to receive a similar waiver from the Trump
administration Iran may need to resort to a bartering system to continue selling its oil.
Under the 2012 US sanctions, India imported $10.5 billion worth of goods, mainly crude oil,
and exported commodities worth $2.4 billion.
The barter system will be inefficient, as Iran's oil sales are greater than the value of
what it imports from these countries. It also cannot use the currencies of these countries
for international business transactions. http://www.rudaw.net/english/business/250620181
2018-06-26 (Bloomberg) U.S. presses allies to cut Iran oil imports to *zero* by November
* U.S. isn't granting waivers on Iranian oil imports ban
(State Department Official)
"The global economy looks like the Titanic right now. The iceberg is the incoming oil price
spike and the complacent investment community won't even know what hits them. "
-Baby Domer
So, an important question for this board is, could we have reached peak oil production this
year? The Permian will increase substantially into 2020. However, that will be partially
offset by the Venezuelan drop. Add in other declines, and the drop could easily offset any US
production. At some point, OPEC will see that extra production will never meet demand, and
not just waste what they have.
It depends totally on political scenarios, not technical and not financial.
There's still a lot of growth potential to offset the declines:
– Permian
– Other US shales to a degree
– Kanada with it's vast heavy oil ressources
– Venezuela
– Russia
– Iraq
– Iran
– SA (nobody knows), at least they can call to their spare capacity
– Kuwait
– UAE
-Brasil
That's 10 locations, some are politically knocked out ( Ven, Iran partly) from growth.
The more important thing for world economy is: How long can they support the consumption
growth, additional to the decline of all other countries.
I think peak oil is somewhat more melodramatic: When Ghawar finally dries up, we have
reached peak oil. It will dry fast, due to all these horizontal tapping keeping the oil
flowing until the last feed of oil column. And replacing these 5 mb/d will require an
additional fully developed Permian – something not in sight at the moment.
Libya's Tripoli-based NOC Says Exports from Benghazi-based NOC in the east are "illegal"
2018-05-26 BENGHAZI, Libya/TUNIS (Reuters) – Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa
Haftar's forces have handed control of oil ports to a National Oil Corporation (NOC) based in
the east, a spokesman said on Monday, a move the internationally recognized NOC in Tripoli
dismissed as illegal.
If implemented, the transfer of control would create uncertainty for buyers of Libyan oil who
normally go through NOC Tripoli.
In comments later confirmed to Reuters, Ahmed Mismari, spokesman of Haftar's Libya National
Army (LNA), said on television that no tanker would be allowed to dock at eastern ports
without permission from an NOC entity based in the main eastern city, Benghazi.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-oil/east-libyan-forces-say-oil-ports-handed-to-eastern-based-noc-idUSKBN1JL2DQ
Tripoli-based NOC https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgkrEMeXUAADLGS.jpg
Some kind of summary with some details from Libya (from comments section in HFIR article
above – Game Over – Oil Prices Are Going Higher).
Nigeria and Libya are also becoming disruption hotspots. Three of Nigeria's main crude
streams (Forcados, Bonny Light and Qua Iboe) are either halted or severely disrupted, but
violence in Libya grabbed the recent headlines. Militias led by Ibrahim al Jathran, former
head of the local Petroleum Facilities Guard, attacked and briefly seized the 0.35 mb/d Es
Sider and 0.22 mb/d Ras Lanuf terminals from Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).
Although the LNA are back in control, Libyan oil output has collapsed from 0.95 mb/d to
around 0.55-0.60 mb/d because of the fighting and NOC has declared force majeure at the two
ports (along with apparently unrelated technical issues undermining production at AGOCO-run
fields in the east).
After around 10 days of fighting, the extent of the damage at the two terminals remains
unclear. There is currently no information about the status of Es Sider, which exported
around 0.30 mb/d in the previous three months. The destruction of two storage tanks at Ras
Lanuf, which was exporting around 0.10 mb/d before the clashes, has reduced storage capacity
from 0.95 mb to 0.55 mb. Seven tanks at the terminal had already been damaged in previous
clashes and the destruction of another two leaves only four tanks capable of operating. Once
the fighting is over (and there is a considerable risk of further clashes over the next few
weeks), it will take several days to evaluate the status of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf. This
would be followed by emergency repairs, which could take a week or two, with export capacity
recovering only gradually. Consequently, we expect output to remain at 0.55-0.60 mb/d until
early/mid-July, even as NOC studies options to bypass Ras Lanuf and possibly divert exports
to the Zueitina terminals.
In conclusion: Libya is good for no more than 0.8 Mb/d, but likely less than that in
2018.
The debate seems to be around what effect the risk of secondary sanctions from US
government for international companies will have. Some argue that the US allies and their
companies will not pick a fight over this with the US right now. In either case, it certainly
is not good for the Iranian economy which contracted after the last round of sanctions and
boomed when they were lifted afterwards. Also the Iranians want western equipment and
competence to develop their oil and gas fields (some of their oilfields are somewhat
complicated to develop), and it is not certain Lukoil and russian service companies can be a
good enough replacement.
There are some hurdles with switching customers for large oil volumes. Tanker freight and
insurance services now done by western companies afraid of sanctions will have to be replaced
or the obstacles overcome somehow. But I agree with you that China, while also having a
futures market trading in yuan, will look to Iran when shortage arrives. However the
perception of shortage has still not arrived in oil markets today. Some reduction of export
from Iran is likely both initially and for some time further. Hard to say how much, some
argue that it takes 6-12 months to see the full effects of US sanctions. And once sanctions
now are in place, even if it was untimely given the supply situation in the oil market, it
will not be practical and too confusing as a political move to see them lifted soon (less
than 1 year).
Fun to look at this analysis, and plug in a one million shortage from North America.
Obviously, there would not be a one million drop in Iran, as it would be sold somewhere.
We might be seeing similar articles about gas over the next couple of years. Driving a bit
less is maybe a good thing, pensioners and children freezing to death and industry shut down
with rolling blackouts is maybe less negotiable.
Suppose there is too little oil and the price doesn't change. Producing countries will be
sure their own countries have a sufficient amount so regardless of price, that oil isn't
leaving the country. It stays right there for consumption. External price is meaningless to
that country, as it should be.
There are countries that produce about what they consume. Mexico is one. Argentina. Their
oil isn't going anywhere. A higher price elsewhere tries to get it exported? Clearly the govt
will stop anything like that. Just as the US did with its export ban in the 70s. Price
doesn't matter if bans are in place.
Oh, and another annoying thing in that article. Something like . . . if supply shrinks,
only "demand destruction" can avoid some sort of catastrophe. This is absurd. Demand is not
destroyed. The desire for oil will grow with population. The population demands oil. It is
consumption that is destroyed by lack of supply. Can't consume what doesn't exist.
Besides which, if some level of "grim" is approached, then some decision is going to be
made to liberate that Orinoco heavy from the horrible popularly elected government that
controls it. As I noted before, there is a large ethnic Russian population in Venezuela. The
1917 revolution sent many people there, fleeing confiscation. Liberation may not go
smoothly.
Mexico doesn't use what it produces, it doesn't have the refining capacity – it exports
crude and imports products.
Invading Venezuela wouldn't necessarily stop the decline in production – their
equipment and wells are falling apart, to get back to where they were a couple of years ago
would require a five year occupation, probably with forced labour (or really high wages), and
the investment money all coming from the invading country, with no net returns for longer
than that.
Demand is usually defined with some relation to price, not assuming a commodity is free.
"... In 2015, suicides accounted for over 60 percent of gun deaths in the U.S., while homicides made up around 36 percent of that year's total. Guns are consistently the most common method by which people take their own lives. ..."
"... When veterans return home from chaotic war zones, resuming normal civilian life can present major difficulties. The stresses of wartime create a long-term, sustained "fight-or-flight" response, not only producing physical symptoms such as sweating, shaking or a racing heart rate, but inflicting a mental and moral toll as well. ..."
"... "Over the course of the year I was there, the units I was embedded with lost three men, and all of them were lost to suicide, not to enemy action," Van Buren said. "This left an extraordinary impression on me, and triggered in me some of the things that I write about." ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
At War With Ourselves: The Domestic Consequences of Foreign Policies June 25, 2018 •
72 Comments
There is a direct connection between gun violence and suicide rates in the United States and America's aggressive foreign policy,
argues Will Porter.
How America's Gun Violence Epidemic May Have Roots in Overseas War Zones
By Will Porter Special to Consortium News
In recent months a string of school shootings in the United States has rekindled the debate
over gun violence, its causes and what can be done to stop it. But amid endless talk of school shootings and AR-15s, a large piece
of the puzzle has been left conspicuously absent from the debate.
Contrary to the notion that mass murderers are at the heart of America's gun violence problem, data from recent years reveals
that the majority of gun deaths are self-inflicted.
In 2015, suicides accounted for
over 60 percent of gun deaths
in the U.S., while homicides made up around 36 percent of that year's total. Guns are consistently the
most common method by which people take their own
lives.
While the causes of America's suicide-driven gun epidemic are complex and myriad, it's clear that one group contributes to the
statistics above all others: military veterans.
Beyond the Physical
According to a
2016 study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, on average some 20 veterans commit suicide every single day, making
them among the most prone to take their own lives compared to people working in other professions. Though they comprise under 9 percent
of the American population, veterans
accounted for 18 percent of suicides in the U.S. in 2014.
When veterans return home from chaotic war zones, resuming normal civilian life can present major difficulties. The stresses of
wartime create a long-term, sustained "fight-or-flight" response, not only producing physical symptoms such as sweating, shaking
or a racing heart rate, but inflicting a mental and moral toll as well.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) accounts for some of the physiological effects of trauma, the "fight-or-flight" response,
but the distinct mental, moral and spiritual anguish experienced by many veterans and other victims of trauma has been termed "
moral injury ."
A better understanding of that concept and the self-harm it motivates could go a long way toward explaining, and ultimately solving,
America's suicide epidemic.
"Moral injury looks beyond the physical and asks who we are as people," Peter Van Buren, a former State Department Foreign Service
officer, said in an interview. "It says that we know right from wrong, and that when we violate right and wrong, we injure ourselves.
We leave a scar on ourselves, the same as if we poked ourselves with a knife."
While not a veteran himself, during his tenure with the Foreign Service Van Buren served for one year alongside American soldiers
at a forward operating base in Iraq. His experiences there would stick with him for life.
"Over the course of the year I was there, the units I was embedded with lost three men, and all of them were lost to suicide,
not to enemy action," Van Buren said. "This left an extraordinary impression on me, and triggered in me some of the things that I
write about."
Van Buren: A profound sense of guilt.
After retiring from the Foreign Service, Van Buren began research for his novel "
Hooper's War ," a fictional account set in WWII Japan. The book centers on American
veteran, Nate Hooper, and explores the psychological costs paid by those who survive a war. Van Buren said if he set the book in
the past, he thought he could better explore the subject matter without the baggage of current-day politics.
In his research, Van Buren interviewed Japanese civilians who were children at the time of the conflict and found surprising parallels
with the soldiers he served with in Iraq. Post-war guilt, he found, does not only afflict the combatants who fight and carry out
grisly acts of violence, but civilians caught in the crossfire as well.
For many, merely living through a conflict when others did not is cause for significant distress, a condition known as "survivor's
guilt."
"In talking with them I heard so many echoes of what I'd heard from the soldiers in Iraq, and so many echoes of what I felt myself,
this profound sense of guilt," Van Buren said.
'We Killed Them'
Whether it was something a soldier did, saw or failed to prevent, feelings of guilt can leave a permanent mark on veterans after
they come home.
Brian Ellison, a combat veteran who served under the National Guard in Iraq in 2004, said he's still troubled by his wartime experiences.
Stationed at a small, under protected maintenance garage in the town of ad-Diwaniyah in a southeastern province of Iraq, Ellison
said his unit was attacked on a daily basis.
"From the day we got there, we would get attacked every night like clockwork -- mortars, RPGs," Ellison said. "We had no protection;
we had no weapons systems on the base."
On one night in April of 2004, after a successful mission to obtain ammunition for the base's few heavy weapons, Ellison's unit
was ready to hit back.
"So we got some rounds for the Mark 19 [a belt-fed automatic grenade launcher] and we basically used it as field artillery, shot
it up in the air and lobbed it in," Ellison said. "Finally on the last night we were able to get them to stop shooting, but that
was because we killed 5 of them. At the time this was something I was proud of. We were like 'We got them, we got our revenge.'"
U.S. military poster. (Health.mil)
"In retrospect, it's like here's this foreign army, and we're in their neighborhood," Ellison said. "They're defending their neighborhood,
but they're the bad guys and we're the good guys, and we killed them. I think about stuff like that a lot."
Despite his guilt, Ellison said he was able to sort through the negative feelings by speaking openly and honestly about his experiences
and actions. Some veterans have a harder time, however, including one of Ellison's closest friends.
"He ended up going overseas like five times," Ellison said. "Now he's retired and he can't even deal with people. He can't
deal with people, it's sad. He was this funny guy, everybody's friend, easy to get along with, now he's a recluse. It's really weird
to see somebody like that. He had three young kids and a happy personality, now he's broken."
In addition to the problems created in their personal relationships, the morally injured also often turn to self-destructive habits
to cope with their despair.
"In the process of trying to shut this sound off in your head -- this voice of conscience -- many people turn to drugs and alcohol
as a way of shutting that voice up, at least temporarily," Van Buren said. "You hope at some point it shuts up permanently . . .
Unfortunately, I think that many people do look for the permanent silence of suicide as a way of escaping these feelings."
A Hero's Welcome?
By now most are familiar with the practice of celebrating veterans as heroes upon their return from war, but few realize what
psychological consequences such apparently benevolent gestures can have.
"I think the healthiest thing a vet can do is to come to terms with reality," Ellison said. "It's so easy to get swept up -- when
we came home off the plane, there was a crowd of people cheering for us. I just remember feeling dirty. I felt like 'I don't want
you to cheer for us,' but at the same time it's comforting. It's a weird dynamic. Like, I could just put this horror out of my mind
and pretend we were heroes."
"But the terrible part is that, behind that there's reality," Ellison said. "Behind that, we know what we were doing; we know
that we weren't fighting for freedom. So when somebody clings onto this 'we were heroes' thing, I think that's bad for them. They
have to be struggling with it internally. I really believe that's one of the biggest things that contributes to people committing
suicide. They're not able to talk about it, not able to bring it to the forefront and come to terms with it."
Unclear Solution
According to the 2016 VA study, 70 percent of veterans who commit suicide are not regular users of VA services.
The Department of Veteran Affairs was set up in 1930 to handle medical care, benefits and burials for veterans, but some 87 years
later, the department is plagued by scandal and mismanagement. Long wait times,
common to
many government-managed
healthcare systems, discourage veterans from seeking the department's assistance, especially those with urgent psychiatric needs.
An independent review was carried out in 2014 by the VA's Inspector General, Richard Griffin, which
found that at one Arizona VA facility, 1,700 veterans were on wait lists, waiting an average of 115 days before getting an initial
appointment.
"People don't generally seek medical help because the [VA] system is so inefficient and ineffective; everyone feels like it's
a waste of time," said a retired senior non-commissioned officer in the Special Operations Forces (SOF) who wished to remain anonymous.
"The system is so bad, even within the SOF world where I work, that I avoid going at all costs," the retired officer said. "I
try to get my guys to civilian hospitals so that they can get quality healthcare instead of military healthcare."
Beyond institutions, however, both Ellison and Van Buren agreed that speaking openly about their experiences has been a major
step on their road back to normalcy. Open dialogue, then, is not only one way for veterans and other victims of trauma to heal, it
may ultimately be the key to solving America's epidemic of gun violence.
The factors contributing to mass murders, school shootings and private crime are, no doubt, important to study, but so long as
suicide is left out of the public discourse on guns, genuine solutions may always be just out of reach.
Will Porter is a journalist who specializes in U.S. foreign policy and Middle East affairs. He writes for the Libertarian
Institute and tweets at @WKPancap.
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
"... By Philip E. Mirowski, Carl Koch Chair of Economics and the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... Inside Job ..."
"... Philosophy. The neoliberal PR campaign of 'the market is the ultimate and true arbiter of all' has all the appearance of a regression to what I can only call inverted marxist dialectical-materialism as espoused by the old soviets; where anything, even scientific findings, that threatened the supremacy of the doctrine's claim of economic inevitability, was suppressed. ( No wonder the old soviet finally collapsed. ) The neoliberals substitutes a sort of libertarian dialectical-materialism that requires suppression of any theory that contradicts their claim of 'market infallibility' and inevitability. This is dogma, not science or even economics. ..."
At the beginning of May 2018, there was a brief furor over donations from Koch
family-affiliated philanthropies to fund the Mercatus Institute and the newly-named Antonin
Scalia School of Law at George Mason University (GMU). Although articles concerning the
admirable efforts of the GMU student organization UnKoch My Campus appeared in many of
the prominent news outlets, the attention span of journalists seemed to barely outpace that of
interest in one of Donald Trump's tweets, with even less consequence. But more to the point,
the silence of the economics profession concerning the revelations was pretty deafening.
Briefly, I would like to revisit why this was so and why it matters.
The details of the controversy can be briefly summarized: the assortment of Koch family
foundations and allied charitable cutouts (which some libertarians have dubbed the "Kochtopus,"
but will henceforth here be shortened to 'the Kochs') have been making targeted donations to
more than 300 schools since 2005, predominantly to economics departments. But George Mason
University has been the most lavishly favored, garnering more than a third of the estimated
$150 million bequeathed to universities from 2005-2015. The event that stirred campus
resistance at GMU was a massive donation of $10 million from the Kochs tied to a $20 million
donation from an anonymous benefactor to rename the Law School after Antonin Scalia, "formally"
earmarked for "student scholarships." The first thing one notices was the budgetary legerdemain
which obscured the relationship between faculty selection and line items in budgetary terms.
Thus, the GMU Provost S. David Wu could tell his Faculty Senate in April 2016 that the bequest
came with "no strings attached The entire $30M is for scholarships for students and nothing
else." This narrative might have prevailed, if not for the document dump by UnKoch My
Campus at the end of April, [1]
a result of a FOIA suit by Transparency GMU , which detailed the series of negotiations
with the Kochs (including the overwhelming role of figures from the Federalist Society as
intermediaries: another Koch funded arm), including stipulations of how designated
representatives would have input into GMU hiring decisions. This forced GMU President Angel
Cabrera to reverse earlier statements that existing donor arrangements had not been allowed to
influence internal academic matters. This, in turn, was the trigger which attracted the
national press. As Inside Higher Ed put it: "academic values have long held that donors
don't get to pick who holds chairs, or evaluate them."
"It's now abundantly clear that the administration of Mason, in partnership with the
Mercatus Center and private donors, violated principles of academic freedom, academic control
and ceded faculty governance to private donors," said Bethany Letiecq, President of GMU's
chapter of the AAUP. But this reaction might underestimate the scope of the problem, reducing
it to a mere matter of moral integrity. I shall argue instead that this event has more
structural underpinnings, touching upon the very conception of education in relation to
markets, and involve some crucial aspects of economic theory.
Broadly speaking, economists greeted this controversy with a big yawn: this sort of thing
happens all the time, so don't get your panties in a twist. Indeed, the Kochs have been making
similar grants to many universities for more than a decade, as have other philanthropies. The
attitude was that the GMU case was nothing special.
How do economists justify the unflappable lightness of their nonchalance?
First off, many opine that the donors don't really interfere in academic matters; it
is just the optics that are less than optimal. There are some crucial details which mitigate
this pronouncement when it comes to the GMU case, which are dealt with in a footnote.
[2]
Nevertheless, in general, most economists are quick to denounce the idea that there are subtle
procedural moves attached to donations that substantially alter the practices of universities,
as well as the composition of what is taught and researched.
Secondly, for most economists, there are no such things as conflicts of interest, at least
when it comes to economic thinking. They regularly declare with ardor that no one is
compromising their pronouncements or perverting their beliefs for money. Years ago, I
documented this attitude with regard to the culpability of economists for the Great Crash of
2007-8, even in the face of embarrassments such as the scathing portrayal of certain figures in
the documentary Inside Job , or the prospect of a code of ethics for economists by the
American Economics Association (AEA), a point to which I will return. [3]
In the GMU case, the prescription for disclosure was rejected -- hence the need for FOIA
requests. The economists generally argued that the people involved had long ago settled upon
their personal political beliefs; they were just being selected by the donors to provide a
coherent curriculum in "free market doctrine." I shall argue below that this imprecision over
the criteria of which doctrines have been selected allow this sense that the ecology of
knowledge persists unaltered in the face of concerted Koch intervention.
Third, the orthodox economist would be inclined point out that all potential donors, just
like all fledgling academics, possess their own prior interests and convictions, which will be
subject to further selection one way or another. It is not the money that makes the
difference in the larger scheme of things. As the late Craufurd Goodwin of Duke University used
to say, "The only tainted money is the money that t'aint [ sic ] mine." In other words,
the sociology of knowledge pretty much works independently of the wishes of any funders
involved, since everyone is selfishly scrambling for support. Money as such never taints the
well of human inquiry, or so most economists postulate. Of course, one's appreciation for this
putative conservation rule might be qualified when one learns that Goodwin had himself been a
Program Officer for European and International Affairs under McGeorge Bundy at the Ford
Foundation during the Cold War. [4]
Finally, although they might not say this out loud in front of journalists, many economists
tend to suspect that all the complaints about the Kochs are just sour grapes, an ideological
reaction deriving from the wailers' disdain for the politics of the Koch brothers and their
minions. After all, what's so suspicious about wanting to "rectify the bias" of academics
hostile to free markets and freedom of speech? That sounds like something most economists would
voluntarily support in any event, independent of whomever was fronting the funding. But, just
as in the previous cases, this ignores the actual content of the doctrines that the Koch
brothers, as well as that of many of their fellow travelers and cooperating philanthropists,
[5]
seek to promote through their initiatives.
It will come as no surprise to realize that public education is being brutally weaned from
state support across the developed world in the recent past, and that private funding has been
touted as the deliverance for cash-strapped universities. In this regard, it is pivotal to
realize the significance of the fact that George Mason University is a public and not a
private university. Far from being a mere shifting of sources of sustenance, this trend itself
constitutes one of the prime prescriptions of the political doctrine that motivates the Kochs,
namely, neoliberalism. [6]
Neoliberalism shouldn't be confused with actual libertarianism; it is predicated upon
intervention to bring about the types of government and markets that the neoliberals believe
are necessary for the success of capitalism: it just won't happen by itself. One of their
central doctrines relevant to the current controversy is their belief that an efficient market
is one that processes and validates information, and conveys it to the appropriate agents when
and where they need it. Human knowledge is thus first and foremost a market phenomenon.
A direct consequence of this doctrine is that the state should not control public education:
the purpose of education is the personal accumulation of human capital, and not the
creation of the common denominator of an educated citizenry. Hence many of the major figures of
the Neoliberal Thought Collective -- Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Charles Koch -- long ago
proposed that education be "privatized" in most of its various manifestations. Knowledge is
paltry if not put up for sale, as they see it. This is the major consideration which dictates
that the points at issue at GMU and elsewhere are not merely some symmetrical offsetting
response to left wing donations to universities; rather, the whole point of the Koch brothers'
intervention is to produce a different kind of university , one which renders
government-run education much more responsive to market signals and market dictates. It is a
world where people of means can freely buy the kinds of doctrines that they wish to be conveyed
to the young, without being coy or ambagious about it. Hence the Koch's doctrines and their
philanthropic behaviors are tightly bound into a single package, displaying a coherence not
found in the motives of lesser philanthropists. This explains why the Kochs are willing to
conduct their negotiations with universities in secret, to carry out their stipulations through
cutouts and hard to trace intermediaries and foundations, to package their offers with other
rich (and anonymous) donors en banc and to impose conditions upon their bequests that
effectively neutralize all previous principles of academic freedom in the long run.
There is a different implication of neoliberal conceptions of knowledge, and that extends to
the ideas which constitute the microeconomic orthodoxy. Once information was introduced into
the standard pricing model, it was discovered there was no single correct way to formalize
epistemology. Through a sequence of different models, the profession moved from the agent as
capable of super-cognition, to the portrait of the agent as a flawed vessel for knowledge,
offset by a neoliberal notion of the market as super-information processor. [7]
Truth became a function of the skewed and arbitrary ability to pay; and consequently,
economists were deemed to have possessed superior wisdom concerning whom should get to know
what under which circumstances. As self-appointed Engineers of the Human Soul, this reinforced
their conviction that there was no need to worry about conflicts of interest, nor indeed, about
the increasing prevalence of unashamed mendacity and fake news. [8]
Thus, the Koch interventions were therefore regarded as essentially harmless.
Of course, economists would be most interested in the ways this promotes the careers of
other economists, but the ambitions of the neoliberal thought collective extends well beyond
the social sciences, even unto the realm of the natural sciences. Neoliberalism is supremely
hostile to expertise, which is the flip side of its hostility to old-school universities. Hayek
denounced intellectuals as 'second-hand dealers in ideas', and modern neoliberals extrapolate
that inclination to the limit. In their view, even natural scientists need to learn to
subordinate their own research to "the market," and accept that tomorrow the market might
devalue their own expertise in favor of the beliefs of less trained participants. "Freedom" is
in this instance made manifest as the ability to insert your own 2 cents at will; let the
market sort it out. This insight prompts another reconstruction of university life, this time
in the direction of so-called 'open science' and 'citizen science'. [9]
The literal construction of a 'marketplace of ideas' leads directly to the elevation of the
market as the ultimate validator of truth in most dimensions, and the subordination of
professional researchers to a less central role, surrounded by platforms that harvest the
unremunerated labor of the reserve army of the undereducated. This is creative destruction with
a vengeance, which further diminishes the role of the university.
Consequently, while economists tend to think they come equipped to understand all the
implications of a thoroughgoing marketplace of ideas, the four conventional ideas sketched
above reveal that they currently are far from having a comprehensive appreciation of the
"economics of information" as it plays out in the world.
An example of this inadequate approach is a very brief code of professional conduct ratified
in April 2018 by the AEA. Its actual wording is significant. It states, "Integrity demands
honesty, care and transparency in conducting and presenting research; disinterested assessment
of ideas; acknowledgement of the limits of expertise; and disclosure of real and perceived
conflicts of interest." [10]
There was nothing in the statement proposing that the AEA or any other institution should
promote or enforce disclosure, nor indeed define what should be disclosed; it says absolutely
nothing at all about "academic freedom." "Integrity" is apparently conceived as personal
virtue, although a subsequent paragraph promotes "a professional environment with equal
opportunity and fair treatment for all economists." This species of "environment" seems be more
concerned with employment of economists than the preservation of academic inquiry as such.
This is why the GMU incident deserves far more scrutiny than it has received from
economists, and academics in general.
[2]
Some sources report the document dump reveals that 'the Kochs' reserved the right of
designation of members on faculty selection committees and veto rights in earlier gifts to
Mercatus, but in the Scalia School case, the agreement stated that they would have no power
over retention or promotion. On this, see https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/washington-post-koch-brothers-scoop-falls-apart/
. However, the situation at GMU was far more complex than that, because the emails
independently stipulated whom among existing Koch-financed GMU faculty and the Federalist
society would make such decisions for the Law School; and furthermore, the Kochs reserved the
right to withdraw from the agreement without notice or just cause. Clearly, this Sword of
Damocles allowed them to veto any subsequent choices, all the while asserting formally in the
document that they unreservedly supported academic freedom. The Kochs, after decades of
experience, have gotten good at circumventing faculty who don't understand how the takeover of
universities actually works.
[3]
See Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste (Verso, 2013), pp.
218-223.
[5]
See, for instance, the fascinating case of BB&T: Douglas Beets, "BB&T, Atlas Shrugged,
and the ethics of corporation influence on college curricula," Journal of Academic
Ethics , 2015, (13):311-344.
[7]
This is described in detail in: Philip Mirowski and Edward Nik-Khah, The Knowledge we Have
Lost in Information , (Oxford, 2017).
[8]
See, for instance, Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse Shapiro, "Competition and Truth in the Market
for News," Journal of Economic Perspectives , (2008) 22:133-154. On his later work, "A
reader of our study could very reasonably say, based on our set of facts, that it is unlikely
that fake news swayed the election," said Gentzkow. At:
https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines-fake-news-2016-presidential-election
.
The New Golden Rule: "Them as has the gold (or money and influence) rules." (re-cast to
avoid any charge that I am a Gold Bug )
I recall other actions by many sociopathic malefactors of great wealth to control the
larger narrative and school curricula through history, like "supporting" the Catholic Church
in all its machinations. The Reformation opened the door, along with common understandings of
Darwin's notions, to Calvinism. I was bred up in the Presbyterian church, where TULIP
blossomed in the young minds of the catechism classes and was reinforced in every bit of the
Westminster Fellowship youth group's activities (the Total Depravity proven by all the
efforts of young hormone sufferers to get into each others; pants). A pretty sick set of
doctrines, http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/calvinism.html
, when one gets on a little bit in life, and sees how humans really interact, and how "the
Calvinist economics" actually work. https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/20/calvinist-economics-the-sin-of-our-times/
So the ho-hum economists and the media midgets are sort of right, at least in pointing out
that there's nothing new in what the Kochtopus and all the other wealthy individuals and
their "philanthropies" are about. Huge amounts are spent to control the content of Texas
lower-grade text books, because as those go, so goes all the curricula of most of the
country. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
"If only the people were aware of what is being done to them, they would
__________________."
The fact that the evergreen Glenn Hubbard interview from Inside
Job didn't make Hubbard a pariah
in the economics community tells us all we need to know about
the intersectionality of integrity and academic economics.
Oh, they don't argue that. They know that monetary incentives work. They just don't want
to agree that money isn't neutral in terms of what it 'incentivises' any more than does how
money is distributed in terms of macroeconomic 'growth'.
This allows them to pretend that money is neutral.
Back in day, our Economics faculty used to tell us that the study of economics was "value
free." What was presented was simply a reflection of real world conditions. No value
judgements were to be made. These fellows, like many of our parents, were all deeply scared
products of the Great Depression and committed Keynesians (public policy anyone?) to a man.
Of course, all we had to do was pick up a copy of Theory of the Leisure Class, and if
Veblen's prose didn't hurt our hair to badly, we knew this was a bunch of nonsense.
The worthy successors to this faculty now offer two different Bachelor of Science in
Economics degrees. Indeed, the profession has gone entirely through the looking-glass. If we
see the past (economic anthropology) or the future (post-capitalism), history will be
destroyed. Now we all know that the Red Queen has a cock-eyed head and the royal crown would
never fit her. Moreover, the Red Queen ate the stolen tart and is beyond redemption in any
case. Are we to believe the Jabberwocky? Is time itself in danger? Can we recapture the
Chronosphere? Can we get back through the looking-glass? And if we do, will we all wake up in
mental hospitals?
Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University
Hmm.. ASSoL at George Mason University.
Can these people be that stupid?
I'm enrolled in ASSoL at GMU, or
I'm an ASSoL Graduate
One could not have chosen a better name working for Monty Python.
Secondly, for most economists, there are no such things as conflicts of interest,
Because each item, pronouncement, thesis, or work product is to ensure the Economist's
Master that their view of the universe is correct, then, obviously there is no Conflict of
Interest.
"The Corruption of Economics" by Mason Gaffney dives deep into this. "False Education in
our Colleges and Universities" by Emil O. Jorgensen referenced within this gem gives an
example – ' in the 1924 Professor Richard T. Ely was the director of the Institute for
Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities at the University of Wisconsin at Madison but
relocated over questions of it being entirely financed by certain corporations and economic
groups seeking to have privilege and monopoly taxed less and industry and consumption taxed
more Although it was denied that the removal of Prof. Ely was in any way due to compulsion,
it is a curious fact that no sooner had Prof. Ely gone than the Board of Regents voted that
no more money "shall in the future be accepted by or in behalf of the University of Wisconsin
from any incorporated educational endowments or organizations of like character." But Prof.
Ely with his old-time shrewdness and skill had dodged the descending ax. Suspecting evidently
that such a resolution would sooner or later be passed, the Professor began in the early part
of the year to cast about for a safe place to escape and picked out as his refuge
Northwestern University in Evanston – a privately endowed institution noted for its
conservatism and its close affiliation with the powers that be Having definitely laid his
plans Prof. Ely then added Frank O. Lowden (former governor of Illinois) and Nathan W.
MacChesney (General Counsel for the National Association of Real Estate Boards as well as a
trustee of Northwestern University) to his own board of trustees Very grateful for the
welcome extended to him by Northwestern University, Prof. Ely commences his activities in
that institution with larger plans, wider ambitions and a harder determination than ever to
build up a great national machine that will promote, under the cloak of "disinterested
research," not the welfare of all, but the special interests of a few '
Ely had a complicated history. Business interests tried to drive him out of the Univ of
Wisconsin in the 1890s not because he was a corrupt neoclassical economist but because he was
argued to be a socialist. (He wasn't.) He was responsible for bringing JR Commons, one of the
great institutional economists, to Wisconsin and at least partly responsible for the quality
of the economics faculty at Wisconsin that developed in the 1910s many of the state programs
(unemployment insurance, workers compensation) that ultimately became models for the New
Deal.
But he became more right-wing as he got older. He campaigned to have Robert LaFollette
removed from the Senate because LaFollette was anti-WW1 and then went off to Northwestern as
a pretty conventional rightwing economist.
Interestingly, a number of pro-labor New Deal economists followed a similar trajectory.
For example, Leo Wolman.
Thanks very much for this post. This has been playing out at my uni for some time now.
2 thoughts:
Money. The Kochs certainly appear to hate taxes almost as much as regulation. Public
universities and colleges require adequate funding from the public(taxes) to support the
mission of education – as opposed to just training.
A good education requires good teachers; professors who are paid well enough to make a
career in academia – not a king's ransom but not a church mouse salary either –
and the freedom to research into all areas.
So, the neoliberals get a huge tax cut passed in states and at the federal level; then
claim there's not enough state/federal money to support higher ed (please, no MMT talk here,
I'm making a different point); as higher ed struggles financially, pretend to be a white
knight riding in with grant money to save the day. It's cheaper than taxes for the grantors,
since the "white knight" controls how much and how often they give money. And, it gives them
leverage over the curriculum. There are many tricks to claim a "chaired" position isn't
"really in the department", so the grants are "not changing the quality of education" they
will argue. It's a vicious financial circle for higher ed .
Philosophy. The neoliberal PR campaign of 'the market is the ultimate and true arbiter
of all' has all the appearance of a regression to what I can only call inverted marxist
dialectical-materialism as espoused by the old soviets; where anything, even scientific
findings, that threatened the supremacy of the doctrine's claim of economic inevitability,
was suppressed. ( No wonder the old soviet finally collapsed. )
The neoliberals substitutes a sort of libertarian dialectical-materialism that requires
suppression of any theory that contradicts their claim of 'market infallibility' and
inevitability. This is dogma, not science or even economics.
People who are paid to think, think what they are paid to think.
The Kochs, and those like them, seem to labor under under the delusion that reality will
conform to their beliefs. Since they are powerful, they are able to inflict this delusion on
society.
The return to the real world from the world of delusion is always extremely costly. We
will all pay.
"... The loss of middle class jobs has had a dire effect on the hopes and expectations of Americans, on the American economy, on the finances of cities and states and, thereby, on their ability to meet pension obligations and provide public services, and on the tax base for Social Security and Medicare, thus threatening these important elements of the American consensus. In short, the greedy corporate elite have benefitted themselves at enormous cost to the American people and to the economic and social stability of the United States. ..."
"... With the decline in income growth, the US economy stalled. The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan substituted an expansion in consumer credit for the missing growth in consumer income in order to maintain aggregate consumer demand. Instead of wage increases, Greenspan relied on an increase in consumer debt to fuel the economy. ..."
"... As a member of the Plunge Protection Team known officially as the Working Group on Financial Markets, the Federal Reserve has an open mandate to prevent another 1987 "Black Monday." In my opinion, the Federal Reserve would interpret this mandate as authority to directly intervene. ..."
"... As Washington's international power comes from the US dollar as world reserve currency, protecting the value of the dollar is essential to American power. Foreign inflows into US equities are part of the dollar's strength. Thus, the Plunge Protection Team seeks to prevent a market crash that would cause flight from US dollar assets. ..."
When are America's global corporations
and Wall Street going to sit down with President Trump and explain to him that his trade war is not
with China but with them?
The biggest chunk of America's trade deficit with China is
the offshored production of America's global corporations. When the corporations bring the products
that they produce in China to the US consumer market, the products are classified as imports from
China.
Six years ago when I was writing
The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism
, I concluded
on the evidence that
half of US imports from China consist of the offshored production of
US corporations.
Offshoring is a substantial benefit to US corporations because of much
lower labor and compliance costs.
Profits, executive bonuses, and shareholders' capital
gains receive a large boost from offshoring. The costs of these benefits for a few fall on the many
- the former American employees who formerly had a middle class income and expectations for their
children.
In my book, I cited evidence that during the first decade of the 21st century
"the US lost
54,621 factories, and manufacturing employment fell by 5 million employees. Over the decade, the
number of larger factories (those employing 1,000 or more employees) declined by 40 percent. US
factories employing 500-1,000 workers declined by 44 percent; those employing between 250-500
workers declined by 37 percent, and those employing between 100-250 workers shrunk by 30 percent.
These losses are net of new start-ups. Not all the losses are due to offshoring. Some are the
result of business failures"
(p. 100).
In other words, to put it in the most simple and clear terms,
millions of Americans lost
their middle class jobs not because China played unfairly, but because American corporations
betrayed the American people and exported their jobs.
"Making America great again"
means dealing with these corporations, not with China.
When Trump learns this, assuming anyone
will tell him, will he back off China and take on the American global corporations?
The loss of middle class jobs has had a dire effect
on the hopes and
expectations of Americans, on the American economy, on the finances of cities and states and,
thereby, on their ability to meet pension obligations and provide public services, and on the tax
base for Social Security and Medicare, thus threatening these important elements of the American
consensus. In short, the greedy corporate elite have benefitted themselves at enormous cost to the
American people and to the economic and social stability of the United States.
The job loss from offshoring also has had a huge and dire impact on Federal Reserve
policy.
With the decline in income growth, the US economy stalled. The Federal Reserve under Alan
Greenspan substituted an expansion in consumer credit for the missing growth in consumer income in
order to maintain aggregate consumer demand.
Instead of wage increases, Greenspan relied
on an increase in consumer debt to fuel the economy.
The credit expansion and consequent rise in real estate prices, together with the deregulation
of the banking system, especially the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, produced the real estate
bubble and the fraud and mortgage-backed derivatives that gave us the 2007-08 financial crash.
The Federal Reserve responded to the crash not by bailing out consumer debt but by
bailing out the debt of its only constituency -- the big banks.
The Federal Reserve let
little banks fail and be bought up by the big ones, thus further increasing financial
concentration. The multi-trillion dollar increase in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet was
entirely for the benefit of a handful of large banks. Never before in history had an agency of the
US government acted so decisively in behalf only of the ownership class.
The way the Federal Reserve saved the irresponsible large banks, which should have failed and
have been broken up, was to raise the prices of troubled assets on the banks' books by lowering
interest rates. To be clear, interest rates and bond prices move in opposite directions. When
interest rates are lowered by the Federal Reserve, which it achieves by purchasing debt
instruments, the prices of bonds rise. As the various debt risks move together, lower interest
rates raise the prices of all debt instruments, even troubled ones.
Raising the prices of
debt instruments produced solvent balance sheets for the big banks.
To achieve its aim, the Federal Reserve had to lower the interest rates to zero, which even the
low reported inflation reduced to negative interest rates. These low rates had disastrous
consequences. On the one hand low interest rates caused all sorts of speculations. On the other low
interest rates deprived retirees of interest income on their retirement savings, forcing them to
draw down capital, thus reducing accumulated wealth among the 90 percent.
The
under-reported inflation rate also denied retirees Social Security cost-of-living adjustments,
forcing them to spend retirement capital.
The low interest rates also encouraged corporate boards to borrow money in order to buy back the
corporation's stock, thus raising its price and, thereby, the bonuses and stock options of
executives and board members and the capital gains of shareholders. In other words, corporations
indebted themselves for the short-term benefit of executives and owners. Companies that refused to
participate in this scam were threatened by Wall Street with takeovers.
Consequently today the combination of offshoring and Federal Reserve policy has left us
a situation in which every aspect of the economy is indebted - consumers, government at all levels,
and businesses.
A recent Federal Reserve study concluded that Americans are so indebted
and so poor that 41 percent of the American population cannot raise $400 without borrowing from
family and friends or selling personal possessions.
A country whose population is this indebted has no consumer market. Without a consumer market
there is no economic growth, other than the false orchestrated figures produced by the US
government by under counting the inflation rate and the unemployment rate.
Without economic growth, consumers, businesses, state, local, and federal governments
cannot service their debts and meet their obligations.
The Federal Reserve has learned that it can keep afloat the Ponzi scheme that is the US economy
by printing money with which to support financial asset prices. The alleged rises in interest rates
by the Federal Reserve are not real interest rates rises. Even the under-reported inflation rate is
higher than the interest rate increases, with the result that the real interest rate falls.
It is no secret that the Federal Reserve controls the price of bonds by openly buying and
selling US Treasuries.
Since 1987 the Federal Reserve can also support the price of US
equities.
If the stock market tries to sell off, before much damage can be done the
Federal Reserve steps in and purchases S&P futures, thus driving up stock prices.
In recent
years, when corrections begin they are quickly interrupted and the fall is arrested.
As a member of the Plunge Protection Team known officially as the Working Group on
Financial Markets, the Federal Reserve has an open mandate to prevent another 1987 "Black Monday."
In my opinion, the Federal Reserve would interpret this mandate as authority to directly intervene.
However,
just as the Fed can use the big banks as agents for its control over the price
of gold, it can use the Wall Street banks dark pools to manipulate the equity markets.
In
this way the manipulation can be disguised as banks making trades for clients. The Plunge
Protection Team consists of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the SEC, and the Commodity Futures
Trading Corporation. As Washington's international power comes from the US dollar as world reserve
currency, protecting the value of the dollar is essential to American power. Foreign inflows into
US equities are part of the dollar's strength.
Thus, the Plunge Protection Team seeks to
prevent a market crash that would cause flight from US dollar assets.
Normally so much money creation by the Federal Reserve, especially in conjunction with such a
high debt level of the US government and also state and local governments, consumers, and
businesses, would cause a falling US dollar exchange rate.
Why hasn't this happened?
For three reasons.
One is that the central banks of the other three reserve currencies -- the Japanese central
bank, the European central bank, and the Bank of England -- also print money. Their Quantitative
Easing, which still continues, offsets the dollars created by the Federal Reserve and keeps the
US dollar from depreciating.
A second reason is that when suspicion of the dollar's worth sends up the gold price, the
Federal Reserve or its bullion banks short gold futures with naked contracts. This drives down
the gold price. There are numerous columns on my website by myself and Dave Kranzler proving
this to be the case. There is no doubt about it.
The third reason is that money managers, individuals, pension funds, everyone and all the
rest had rather make money than not. Therefore, they go along with the Ponzi scheme. The people
who did not benefit from the Ponzi scheme of the past decade are those who understood it was a
Ponzi scheme but did not realize the corruption that has beset the Federal Reserve and the
central bank's ability and willingness to continue to feed the Ponzi scheme.
As I have explained previously,
the Ponzi scheme falls apart when it becomes
impossible to continue to support the dollar as burdened as the dollar is by debt levels and
abundance of dollars that could be dumped on the exchange markets.
This is why Washington is determined to retain its hegemony.
It is Washington's hegemony
over Japan, Europe, and the UK that protects the American Ponzi scheme.
The moment one of
these central banks ceases to support the dollar, the others would follow, and the Ponzi scheme
would unravel. If the prices of US debt and stocks were reduced to their real values, the United
States would no longer have a place in the ranks of world powers.
The implication is that war, and not economic reform, is America's most likely future.
In a subsequent column I hope to explain why neither US political party has the awareness
and capability to deal with real problems.
Roberts is totally correct that Trump's trade war is with US
corporations and their offshoring. I think Trump knows this
and that's why he's cutting regulations and red tape at
home. We've gone too far left on regs. As for labor costs,
most factories are highly automated here but labor cost
includes disability, pensions, 'diversity' harassment
lawsuits, etc. This overhead doesn't exist in China or
Vietnam where my LL Bean t-shirts are made.
Trump's war is with the a corporate ideology that says
profit is primary to nationality or normal morality. He gave
the biggest corporations a huge tax cut. Now they need to
play ball with America's workers.
They need to acknowledge that we're all Americans and our
legal system, which protects their solvency, will not
survive if today's angry politics continues for two more
years.
The S&P500 needs to think about their future and getting
Bernie or worse in 2020. There's all these trade tirades
going on - good time to give Trump a win and then another to
let him feel some support. Then let the wise men of
government policy step in for a sit-down and determine the
best policy for America's survival. Is it either becoming
fascist or a pleading for a negotiated bankruptcy with all
the geopolitical implications? It can't be either extreme so
plan and do it. Otherwise, Mr. Roberts will be remembered as
a sage.
"To continue allowing these products into our country will
ultimately bring their standard of living here also."
This
is the most incisive comment I've seen on ZH in quite awhile. It's
like a balance beam scale that swings back and forth as weight is
added to or subtracted from one side or the other. Ultimately, the
scale will balance out as everyone attains the same standard of
living . Our government and economy has been surviving on borrowed
money (ie; paper fiat currency) since at least 1971, and now even
common people are living on borrowed paper fiat currency. Most of
the common people in China that I have known live in small rented
apartments and mostly eat the cheapest foods they can find; ie,
rice, vegetables, tofu, pumpkin, etc. At least the downward
trajectory of our economy will cure the obesity epidemic, but many
will likely starve. The big question is when? We are on the
downward slope already, but how steep it will be is a question no
one seems to be able to answer.
"when I was writing
The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism
,
I concluded on the evidence that
half of US imports from
China consist of the offshored production of US corporations"
Escaping government taxes and regulations has NOTHING to do with
Laissez Faire Capitalism, it's not even capitalism at that point!
Most of the people on this site already know what Roberts just
summarized. Other than referring to the Fed as a government agency
rather than a private corporation, he was mainly correct in what he
wrote. Most of the American sheeple do not. They do know that they
were sold out, but they don't know the details; how, why, by whom.
It's common knowledge that the people's gold was stolen by the Bush
and Clinton crime families along with Robert Rubin. There is a
persistent rumor out that Trump is in the process of successfully
recovering it. If China and Russia force the world back on a real
gold standard and Trump's recovery is unsuccessful, the USA will be
swimming naked when the tide goes out.
As to how long can the Fed
keep their Ponzi going. The answer would be a lot longer if they
still controlled the planet. But they no longer do and their bluff
is being called right now by Putin, Xi and others. As Göring wrote
at his Nuremberg trial, "Truth is the enemy of the State."
Roberts should be the one explaining. He makes sweeping assertions like:
" With the decline in income growth, the US economy stalled." When
exactly? What year are you talking about? And he seemingly leaves out
demographics completely in his analysis. He's just looking at everything
through the lens of central banking, and when all you have is a hammer,
everything tends to look like a nail. I'm thinking that, like Rudy
Giuliani, he lost his fastball a while back and maybe should just stick
to writing about 1987.
Finally, we have an
economist who reveals the ugly truth behind what the criminal corporate
class has done and is doing to America. See also Dr. Michael Hudson and
his work.
As for Trump, I suspect he understands what's really going on, but a
lot of his pals are billionaires involved in this corruption. Obviously,
he can't name names otherwise, the 1% elite would eliminate his
administration.
It may be that Trump is using the only "out" left in causing these
tariff wars. If you read other online reports in China, Russia, a seldom
few from the EU, you see enormous amounts of trade between China,
Russia, Iran, Germany, and other Asian nations. This American senses we
are being left in the dust by all this vitality.
It's recognized many multi-millionaire/billionaires in both the US &
other parts of the world are making lots of money from the system.
However, I'm beginning to sense that ALL these US elites recognize
the US financial system is deteriorating and there's no way to turn
back.
It happens to every "empire" throughout history, but, other than
about 10% of population who are informed, the real tragedy is about 80%
of the American public who haven't a clue.
"With the decline in income growth, the US economy stalled. The Federal
Reserve under Alan Greenspan substituted an expansion in consumer credit
for the missing growth in consumer income in order to maintain aggregate
consumer demand. Instead of wage increases, Greenspan relied on an increase
in consumer debt to fuel the economy."
"The credit expansion and
consequent rise in real estate prices, together with the deregulation of
the banking system, especially the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act,
produced the real estate bubble and the fraud and mortgage-backed
derivatives that gave us the 2007-08 financial crash."
"The Federal Reserve responded to the crash not by bailing out consumer
debt but by bailing out the debt of its only constituency -- the big banks."
Yes, It is wash, rinse, repeat but Glass Steagal is irrelevant. The
criminaliy is the actual issue. Rules and regs are meaningless when the
bankers are also in charge of the regulation. Another layer is the
multinational corporations / banks that operate in between nations. What
may be illegal in one jurisdiction is protected in another. Without a
will to enforce, the crime is unstoppable.
The bankers did the end run round Glass Steagal long before
Clinton and his banking pals killed it officially. Killing it was
simply the formality, making things all legal like.
I had to laugh when I read it given all the irreversible mistakes that have
been made for decades in that city given how vital it once was to the U.S.
economy. But it makes you want to cry given the delusion on display of it's
leadership that could have made Ford embarrass itself like this with that
announcement so late in our "game"!
PCR of course does not explain how a nation of 320 million people with bountiful
natural resources and extensive industrial, services, and education
infrastructure would *not* be a world power, save for the fact that he really
really wishes America wasn't.
I bet what happened was these same multinationals stoked the fire about
China because they were concerned about the China 2030 plan. They wanted
China for production and a market, not for competition. They poured lots
of money into lobbying.
When Trump was elected instead of acting how they
predicted he's off script now and could hurt them. The nuisance of being a
democracy.
Barter. Happens all the time. There is NO alternative so long as we
are going to continue to believe in fantasy. Specifically, the
fantasy that economies can grow exponentially and forever in a
biosphere with finite resources. The only solution is a monetary
system that remains attached to reality, period. Keeping in mind
that no system will ever be perfect, but a system that insures bad
behavior and bad management
suffer real consequences
would be a good start! Remind me, how many bankers/financiers went to
prison for those MBS that almost destroyed the world?
A great deal of the BS is being hidden away in an explosion of large
Public-Private Partnerships projects.
Over the years we have been
hearing a lot of good things about "Public-Private Partnerships" and how they
can propel forward needed projects by adding an incentive for the private
sector to undertake projects they might choose not to do alone. Often this is
because the numbers often simply don't work. The truth is that history is
littered with these failed projects.
Often their announcements are
accompanied by promises and hype but sadly the synergy these projects are
intended to create never occurs. These so-called, "bridges to nowhere" and
boondoggles tend to be forgotten and brushed aside each time public servants
and their cronies get together. The article below delves into this tool often
used to line the pockets of those with influence.
You've well penned an Excellent Summation Piece of
not so well known behind the scenes economic conditions and factors.
As I've said many times:
UNFORESEEN WAR IS THE ONLY THING THAT DISRUPTS THE AMERICAN PONZI KNOWN AS
THE COLLUSIVE BIG BANKSTERS AKA THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
There is one point, however, where you are mistaken:
"The way the Federal Reserve saved the irresponsible large banks, which
should have failed and have been broken up, was to raise the prices of
troubled assets on the banks' books by lowering interest rates"
Wrong.
Instead, this was accomplished by the Banksters paying off the American
Congress to suspend the accounting rule called "mark to market". It was very
simple. The banks went to the government and said:
"you can print $2 trillion to bail us out, OR you can suspend mark to
market and we can show that we have NO losses on our books."
The FASB under pressure from Congress chose the prudent (at that time) but
dishonest approach and allowed the banks to suspend the mark to market
accounting rule, which is a basic rule of financial accounting. The sacrifice
was in banking transparency, which of course, is an oxymoron in 2018.
But that action essentially robbed an entire group of market speculators in
risky securities like FAZ (a 3x inverse ETF play on the banks, essentially
shorting the big banks) who bet that the US Government would not break the law
and suspend mark to market for the banks.
They were wrong and a lot of those honest speculators lost a lot of money
very quickly.
It was an "Aha!" Epiphanous moment on Thursday, April 2, 2009 for many
American equities speculators as they quickly realized that the American
government was indeed provably in the pocket of the Banksters Cartel and
likely had been for a very long time.
Interest rates way up or the dollar is toast if not for the Euro and Yen. I
have always felt the Euro was established as a shield for the USD and not so
much some European union of countries. The union of those countries will
always be difficult but controlling the currency of all those countries is
very important to the USA. Imagine all the dollar sellers today if the Euro
was not established.
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who
makes it's laws" Roth
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is refusing to release intercepted material alleging that former
Attorney General Loretta Lynch conspired with the Clinton campaign in a deal to rig the Clinton
email investigation, reports Paul Sperry of
RealClear Investigations
.
The information remains so secret that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
had to censor it from his recently released 500-plus-page report on the FBI's investigation of
Clinton, and even withhold it from Congress.
Not even members of Congress with top secret security clearance have been allowed to see the
unverified accounts intercepted from presumed Russian sources
in which the head of the
Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, allegedly implicates the Clinton campaign
and Lynch in the scheme
.
"It is remarkable how this Justice Department is protecting the corruption of the Obama Justice
Department," notes Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, which is suing the DOJ for the material.
Wasserman Schultz, Lynch and Clinton have denied the allegations and characterized them as
Russian disinformation.
True or false, the material is consequential because it appears to have influenced former FBI
Director James B. Comey's decision to break with bureau protocols because he didn't trust Lynch.
In his recent book, Comey said he took the reins in the Clinton email probe, announcing Clinton
should not be indicted, because of a "development still unknown to the American public" that
"cast serious doubt" on Lynch's credibility – clearly the intercepted material.
If the material documents an authentic exchange between Lynch and a Clinton aide, it
would appear to be strong evidence that the Obama administration put partisan political
considerations ahead of its duty to enforce the law
. -
RealClear
Investigations
Then again, if the intercepts are fabricated, it would constitute Russia's most tangible success
in influencing the 2016 U.S. election - since Comey may not have gone around Lynch cleared Clinton
during his July 2016 press conference - nor would he have likely publicly announced the reopening
of the investigation right before the election - an act Clinton and her allies blame for her
stunning loss to Donald Trump.
The secret intelligence document
purports to show that Lynch told the Clinton campaign
she would keep the FBI email investigation on a short leash
- a suggestion included in the
Inspector General's original draft, but relegated to a classified appendix in the official report
and
entirely blanked out
.
What is known, based on press leaks and a letter Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck
Grassley sent Lynch, is that in March 2016,
the FBI received a batch of hacked documents
from U.S. intelligence agencies that had access to stolen emails stored on Russian networks
.
One of the intercepted documents revealed
an alleged email from then-DNC Chairwoman
Wasserman Schultz to an operative working for billionaire Democratic fundraiser George Soros
.
It claimed Lynch had assured the Clinton campaign that investigators and prosecutors
would go easy on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee regarding her use of a private
email server
while serving as secretary of state. Lynch allegedly made the promise
directly to Clinton political director Amanda Renteria. -
RealClear
Investigations
"T
he information was classified at such a high level by the intelligence community that
it limited even the members [of Congress] who can see it, as well as the staffs
," Horowitz
explained last week during congressional testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
which has oversight authority over Justice and the FBI.
Congressional sources told RealClearInvestigations
the material is classified
"TS/SCI," which stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information
. -
RealClear
Investigations
Horowitz said that he has asked Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to
work with the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to figure out if the
intercepted material can be rewritten to allow congress to see it. Once appropriately redacted to
protect "sources and methods," said Horowitz, he hopes that members of congress can then go to the
secure reading room in the basement of the Capitol Building, called the "tank," and view the
materials.
"We very much want the committee to see this information," Horowitz said.
For some strange reason, CNN, WaPo and the New York Times have uncritically taken Lynch, Clinton
and Wasserman Schultz's denials at face value, dismissing the compromising information as possibly
fake and unreliable. Horowitz even quotes non-FBI "witnesses" in his report describing the secret
information as "objectively false."
FBI Sandbagging
While the FBI apparently took the intercept seriously, it never interviewed anyone named in it
until Clinton's email case was closed by Comey in July 2016. In August, the FBI informally quizzed
Lynch about the allegations - while Comey also reportedly confronted the former AG and was told to
leave her office.
Comey said he had doubts about Lynch's independence as early as September 2015 when she
called him into her office and asked him to minimize the probe by calling it "a matter" instead
of an "investigation," which aligned with Clinton campaign talking points. Then, just days
before FBI agents interviewed Clinton in July 2016, Lynch privately met with former President
Bill Clinton on her government plane while it was parked on an airport tarmac in Phoenix. In a
text message that has since been brought to light, the lead investigators on the case, Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, made clear at the time their understanding that Lynch knew that "no
charges will be brought" against Clinton.
Renteria, the Clinton campaign official, who ran for governor of California but
failed to secure a top-two spot in the primary, insists the intelligence citing her was
disinformation created by Russian officials to dupe Americans and create discord and turmoil
during the election
. -
RealClear
Investigations
While Lynch has never been directly asked under oath by Congress about the allegation - she
swore in a July 2016 session in front of the House Judiciary Committee "I have not spoken to anyone
on either the [Clinton] campaign or transition or any staff members affiliated with them."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says he'll
issue a subpoena for Lynch
, but the panel's top Democrat Dianne Feinstein (CA) has to agree to
it per committee rules. Grassley also said he would be open to exploring immunity for Comey's
former #2, Andrew McCabe.
Feinstein may be hesitant to sign on, as she says she thinks Comey acted in good faith - which
means she thinks Congress shouldn't have a crack at questioning a key figure in the largest
political scandal in modern history.
"While I disagree with his actions, I have seen no evidence that Mr. Comey acted in bad faith or
that he lied about any of his actions," said Feinstein during a Monday Judiciary
panel hearing. Former Feinstein staffer and FBI investigator Dan Jones, meanwhile,
continues
to work with
Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS on a
$50
million investigation
privately funded by
George Soros
and other
"wealthy donors" to continue the investigation into Donald Trump.
Of interest, Amanda Renteria is also former Feinstein staffer. Also recall that
Feinstein leaked
Fusion
GPS founder Glenn Simpson's Congressional testimony in January.
Lynch was dinged in the IG report over an "ambiguous" incomplete recusal from the Clinton email
"matter" despite a clandestine 30-minute "tarmac" meeting with Bill Clinton
one
week before
the FBI exonerated Hillary Clinton
.
Interesting how a "dossier" full of falsehoods about Trump not only released to the public, but
was used by the FBI as part of an espionage operation on the Trump campaign - while an intercepted
communication from Russia is suddenly classified as so top-secret that even members of
Congressional intelligence oversight committees can't see it.
Vote up!
20
Vote down!
2
So the redacted emails, are those part of the
original Hillary server emails? If so, what about
the rest of the emails - I gotta know what kind of
yoga pants she prefers!
Or are they emails
between the russkies about stuff they saw in emails
exfiltrated from the DNC? Or from Podesta?
And why are the methods being protected? If
these documents are on a generically connected to
the internet server, there are plenty of ways those
could have been lifted. The only legitimate reason
behind protecting the method/source is that they
gleaned from official Russian networks behind
whatever firewalls/protections they employ for
classified information, otherwise this is the
$75,000 conference room table excuse.
My recent thought is they are all corrupt enough
that no one wants an out and out outing...... So
it drags along just threatening enough with hope
that Clintons die and then it just enough more
will be released to justify the whole drawn out
process....
Secret classification is intended to protect
national security.
Use of classification to
hide malfeasance or incompetence by
government agents is illegal.
When are we going to get a crackdown on
this? Justice should be rooting out those
who sign off on this classification and
putting them in jail, pure and simple.
Incarceration, felony stamp on the forehead,
cancellation of all government benefits and
pensions.
Purposefully withholding
the information won't sit
well with the population at
this point. With all
credibility at the Govt
level basically gone govt
officials can't block
public information without
taking a huge beating.
Someone needs to release
the info, if you don't
you'll be asking for a big
fight. This is not only
because of the Clinton
linkages but because it
involves how the whole case
against Hillary by Comey
was dismissed as
nothing...which we all know
now was not a nothing.
If people can't count on
equity in the judicial
system then you will have
angry mobs to deal with.
~One of the
intercepted documents
revealed an alleged
email from then-DNC
Chairwoman Wasserman
Schultz to an operative
working for billionaire
Democratic fundraiser
George Soros.~
Look this is not hard to understand. The NSA has
all the emails and data. If Trump wanted this to
come out he could order the military to seize
all the data and start the process for
prosecution. Ether in Military court or thru the
normal process.
It all goes to show, except
to trumptards that this is a charade. Theater
for the easily distracted to keep the peoples
eye's off the treason going on by those running
this shit show. Zionists of which Trumpenstien
is firmly in their grip.
Curious that Russian-sourced material against Trump is accepted as reliable
enough to go for a FISA warrant, but Russian-sourced material about Lynch
and other Clintonistas is presumed to be unreliable.
Curious that Russian-sourced material against Trump is accepted as
reliable enough to go for a FISA warrant, but Russian-sourced material
about Lynch and other Clintonistas is presumed to be unreliable.
Too bad we can't get the attention of the fickle public by bypassing the
corporate media's irresponsible coverage gaps on other issues, like the
mass underemployment of US citizens, the SS-retirement fund's shortfall
despite the fact that our welfare-buttressed workforce of
womb-productive citizens & noncitizens produced the biggest generation
of working-age youth in US history, global debt and all of these
currency issues that help to keep the rent too d****d high. Trump has
done pretty good, getting the ratings-only attention spans of the US
media focused back on the southern border and what a majority of not
just Deplorables, but American citizens at large, want done about [that
matter]. They have to cover the border in this histrionic way, with all
of the baby / mommy tear-jerking to raise their ratings. Trump and the
two Steves seem to be back on it. Wonder if it will last after the
midterms. Deplorables can only hope.
Trump could trump this by declassifying it all. The b.s. about it being so
top secret is just that. B.S. I am losing any hope that I had that the
swamp will be drained. The Dems control the narrative through their
constant crying and their control of the media. They also have their army
of unhinged brown shirts now roaming the streets looking for any
conservatives they can harass into submission. Soon it will come to the
point where conservatives will be too afraid to go out or speak out.
Republicans and their staffers are being advised to get conceal & carry
permits in D.C. now. Soon the body count will start. From what I see, the
left are the ones willing to do what it takes to take control. The right
just talks and talks and talks. Time for talking is just about past. The
left has declared open war (lead by crazy Auntie Max of all people)on
conservatives. Crickets from the other side.
From the Bloomberg article: "The U.S. plans to speak with the governments of Turkey, India
and China, all of which import Iranian oil, about finding other supplies."
Iranian condensate will most likely replace US condensate to China as much as possible.
China is the key to if/when this harsh "embargo" of Iran will ease. They have the strength to
stand up against the US and then others will follow suit (e.g. India). A barter system (goods
vs. goods trade) or payment in yuan could probably be a good enough way to avoid american
banking sanctions. But if China wants to stand up against US at this point is uncertain. If
this strangling of Iran is highly successful, it is hard to see the rewards. A high oil price
that will be the tipping point for the global economy in the wrong direction or indirectly
(hopefully not directly – who needs another war now?) overthrow the Iranian government
and thus the creation of new political problems in the country; a repeat of the Iraq
experience almost. I almost forgot that there is the nuclear issue there as well, maybe that
is also a driver
Yeah, we are setting ourselves up for creating a 2.5 million barrel a day shortfall by
sometime in 2019. The US is creating these surprises by far overestimating Permian output,
and the Iran sanctions. Now, Perry is saying the OPEC increase may not be enough. Really, ya
think? What do we do now, President "Not good!"?
Trump's master plan was written on the back of a business card with a crayon. Nobody, can
decipher it, it more difficult than the most complex code.
I think probably the most telling take of his presidency, is the aide in charge of keeping
Presidential documents complaining that he tore every sheet of paper on his desk into little
shreds, constantly. Sure sign of a serious mental disturbance. Captain Queeg.
Guym. I assume most of the small conventional producers are receiving a low price in the
Permian. Bad deal for them, situation not of their making. Hoping very much that does not
spread to the Midcontinent.
Anecdotally, zero rigs presently drilling in our little field. Drove the width of Kansas
twice recently, including OK and TX panhandles. Saw zero drilling rigs. Saw just three
workover rigs.
The shale plays appear to be the USA oil future. The rest are not big enough to draw
outside money.
Really have to wonder how many of the world's fields are "self sufficient" at $70-80 at
this point.
Not much at $70 to $80 anymore. Not very much of a profit, at those prices. But, you get what
you pay for, and soon the world will find out that the price they wanted to pay results in a
deficit to what they need.
Yes, market really overdid it dropping prices to the 2015-17 levels.
I still blame a lot of the overdone price crash on US shale CEO talk. Their true costs
were murky, and they continually talked the price down through 2015 by claiming they could do
well financially at those levels or below.
Those companies should be doing great now, given the claims of 2015-17. Lol.
2015-17 took a lot of the fun out of oil production investment for me. None of us have
much desire to do any drilling or other risk taking. Just feeling relief, but worried the
roller coaster prices will never end.
Watching Trump kill grain prices. If the Dems could find someone that could appeal to
Midwest, I'd say Trump will not win in 2020. Very conservative ag folks are upset. Suprsing
to me how vocal they are about it.
Maybe a trade war will kill oil demand. More roller coaster.
"... tier plays that have been a bust. With the seismic and visualisation technology improvements the E&Ps should know better where and where not to drill. They seem to be more selective with falling wildcat numbers (and that is not much of a function of price that I can see as it has been happening since 2010) and yet the commercial discovery rates are staying fairly low. I can only interpret that as indicating that there just isn't that much left. With Rystad indicating 6 to 8% decline rates in mature fields, and rising, and few new prospects how can there not be a peak? ..."
"... Saudi ministers spout out any thing that comes to mind to support flip-flop policies and their feud with Iran seems to be bubbling in the background of a lot that's going on; every year Iran and/or Iraq say they have a new plan and target for higher production, which is 100% guaranteed not to be met even remotely. ..."
I think if the world economy starts to drop, which is overdue and looking increasingly likely
every time Trump opens his mouth, and keeps the oil price down then it's likely we'll be in a
slow but accelerating decline. That might be a good thing – the further the peak is
pushed out the steeper the decline when it comes.
What has surprised my most recently has been the fall in discoveries for oil and, maybe
more so, gas, and with that the number of new fron tier plays that have been a bust. With
the seismic and visualisation technology improvements the E&Ps should know better where
and where not to drill. They seem to be more selective with falling wildcat numbers (and that
is not much of a function of price that I can see as it has been happening since 2010) and
yet the commercial discovery rates are staying fairly low. I can only interpret that as
indicating that there just isn't that much left. With Rystad indicating 6 to 8% decline rates
in mature fields, and rising, and few new prospects how can there not be a peak?
The oil drop might have been more expected than the gas, and was predicted by some when
peak oil was first mentioned, I think gas less so, but perhaps the price has had a bigger
effect there. Whatever the cause many countries have been banking on ever rising supplies,
either by pipeline or LNG, that might not be forthcoming.
Having said that simple economic arguments rarely seem to work as predicted, oil supplies
would have peaked well before now without, mostly non-proftable, LTO; Venezuela production
should be rising not a basket case; Saudi ministers spout out any thing that comes to
mind to support flip-flop policies and their feud with Iran seems to be bubbling in the
background of a lot that's going on; every year Iran and/or Iraq say they have a new plan and
target for higher production, which is 100% guaranteed not to be met even remotely.
At the moment the traders don't seem certain which way to turn – falling/rising
supplies, short/long term demand rise/fall – you can see why they tend to fixate on US
crude stocks, everything else is too complicated. The next few Wednesday/Thursday trading
patterns will be interesting.
(ps if anything highlights the state of the oil industry at the moment it's that Fram, a
two well, eight year life-cycle, gas condensate tie-back with about 10 mmboe reserves, has
been the main headline news on at least four of the trade magazines this week.)
A little short by over 2 million a day. Perry has to know the Permian is on a hiatus for
at least a year. That's probably over a million. Iran push is for another million. Yeah,
that's a little short. Idiocy reigns. Russia just called for tariffs against the US. Any
assistance from Russia ain't gonna happen.
The slow motion train wreck in progress. No one knows why the driver of the Lower for
Longer Train has picked up speed down the curving stretch .
Ok, I'll forgo the train wreck series. Yeah, it's serious. So was the ridiculous pricing
we've had for the past four years, and no one but the people who relied on oil income
complained. There was not enough for capex to get new oil. The trainweck happened already.
U.S. oil production is booming at record levels, and U.S. oil exports have also reached
new highs -- 3 million barrels a day in the last week, according to government data.
Those exports are more than most OPEC countries can produce each day and only lag two OPEC
countries, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, in terms of exports.
And if you read far enough down in that article they do mention imports, as if they hardly
matter.
As U.S. production has grown, U.S. imports have decreased. The U.S. imported a
relatively high 8.4 million barrels per day last week.
Okay, the US exported 3 million barrels per day and imported 8.4 million barrels per day.
Yet the headline says the US exported more oil than most OPEC countries. Is this Orwellian
Newspeak?
We all agree that 2+ 2 = 5, but what we don't know is which one belongs to the thought
police. I agree the Permian will produce 1.3 million this year, just take the rat cage off my
head.
"the US exported 3 million barrels per day and imported 8.4 million barrels per day. Yet the
headline says the US exported more oil than most OPEC countries. Is this Orwellian Newspeak?"
Four days before the Permian pacifier is removed. EIA monthly for April due out 5/29,
Friday. But, then if they are really intent on keeping oil prices down until November, they can
post an increase and correct it later. Or, slowly correct it until November. Do I really think
the Federal Government would mislead the public? Hell, yes, they have been. They have access to
much more information than I do, and they are still singing the Permian song.
Reply Guym x Ignored
says: 06/25/2018
at 11:16 pm
Second thought, I don't think it is possible for EIA to delay it much further. We crossed the
Rubicon. Singing Permian songs when there are reports of service employers cutting back,
wells shut in, and overall reports of slowdowns, creates a lot of cognitive dissonance.
Must be a slow news day for OilPrice. The headline is misleading – the predicted record
is only for deepwater total (oil and gas) production, not total GoM. It is almost certainly
going to be wrong – if nothing else the 50 kboepd dropped from the loss of Hadrian
South gas and the prolonged Enchilada and Delta house outages are impossible to make up, but
even without those there probably wouldn't be enough new, plateau production through this
year.
As to the industry having this great revelation and deciding not to go for big, bespoke
developments and use standard designs and tie backs – it's the other way round –
they ran out of larger developments that were affordable, so didn't need the bigger, on-off
designs. Also the standard designs come at a cost – they have less flexibility for
future tie-backs or changing reservoir conditions, and probably lower availabilities. Note
also the talk of ultra-deep-water and HPHT developments like Anchor, that's a switch back to
expensive bespoke design (actually almost research projects).
It also references that crap EIA paper without making any effort to check the facts.
The Asians are starting to shift away from the DNC, from what I can see. They built up
some actual wealth, and at this point they no longer receive the same minority protections as
other groups. The minute you are the target of theft, you stop hanging around the
thieves.
Aside from this, I was recently listening to an Asian libertarian who goes by
"Pholosopher" on Youtube, and she explained that as a "normie" she just thought of government
programs as "society helping the little guy." IMO, 80% of Democrats are in this very naive
space. Her mind changed in part because some of her family members were victims of the Khmer
Rouge, and this led to some actual thought about what would possess people to do the things
they did.
IMO, the crazier this gets, the more obvious it is that it is time to re-dedicate our
lives to rebuilding a sound culture, otherwise we will not see any culture rebuilt until we
go through another multi-century Dark Age.
lots of experience....waitree...bartending...."educator"...she is like a bad joke
Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Boston University in 2011, where she majored in economics and
international relations. After college, she moved back to the Bronx and supported her mother
by bartending at Flats Fix taqueria in Union Square, Manhattan, and working
as a waitress. She also got a job as an educator in the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute .
[11][12]
At least she is far cuter than her competition... Democrats need new blood anyway. Its a
party that seems to be going nowhere, has the Clinton mafia running it, and hasn't done
anyone any good since the time Jimmy Carter was president.
Bernie might have done better than Hillary against Trump. Will the kids get out and vote
for a Joe Biden? NO The Dems are going to have to go way way left on a hale mary. But Trump
is much much stronger now than in 2016. They lose. They got nothing and their divisions are
getting worse. We should support and encourage them to move further and further to the left.
We can drive them there.
If you live in an area that is Democrat controlled and your own preference is safe, then
register Democrat and vote for people like her.
If you simply divert all the money from the following socialist programs:
1) ZIRP
2) QE
3) Bank bailouts
4) Farming subsidies
5) Defense contract subsidies
6) Big pharma subsidies
Problem is Americans are too easily fooled that stuff which is to their benefits are
something they should not vote for and vise versa. Like all money channeled to MIC.
There is still no countervailing force to oppose neoliberalism. Instead we observe internal development of neoliberalism toward
national neoliberalism and the rejection of neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is the intensification of the influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode
of production, into an ethic, a set of political imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore,
or, in some cases, constitute anew the power of economic elites. ..."
"... It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse , Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all
of the other dimensions of modern economic, political, social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals,
and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state
imperatives until they are in harmony with its own. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency of
market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3) ..."
"... Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal state',
which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. ..."
"... 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' ..."
"... 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites ..."
"... another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal
aspects of the polity are decreased ..."
"... that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would be restricted
in favour of the freedoms of the few ..."
"... The focus on individual rights, the centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based
populism, all served as means by which the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past
two decades – were able to gain widespread support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic
liberalism. ..."
"... The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised
on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.' ..."
"... accumulation under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms
of ownership and economic power. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities. ..."
"... Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various opposition
movements that currently exist. ..."
"... While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to
be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities
of capitalism. ..."
...Marx, after all, according to Harvey, had shown that – unlike the liberal paradigm that was, and still is, predominant in the
social sciences – the split between fact and value had been overcome. No longerwas it sufficient to talk about social phenomena without
invoking political even practical evaluations of them.
Harvey's most recent book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism , dissects the inner workings of what has come to be one of
the most salient features of late 20thand early 21st century economic and social life: the gradual shift, throughout the nations
of the global economy, toward economic and social policies that have given an increased liberality and centrality to markets, market
processes, and to the interests of capital. If Harvey's enduring perspective – and one which admittedly| echoes orthodox Marxism
– has been to put the mechanics of the capitalist mode of production at the center of every aspect of modernity (and of postmodernity
as well), then his most recent contribution deviates little from that course.
<p>Harvey's contention is that we are witnessing, through this process of neoliberalisation, the deepening penetration of capitalism
into political and social institutions as well as cultural consciousness itself. Neoliberalism is the intensification of the
influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode of production, into an ethic, a set of political
imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore, or, in some cases, constitute anew the
power of economic elites. The essence of neoliberalism, for Harvey, can be characterised as a rightward shift in Marxian class
struggle.
This analysis stems from Marx's insight about the nature of capital itself. Capitalis not simply money, property, or one economic
variable among others. Rather,capital is the organising principle of modern society. It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse
, Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all of the other dimensions of modern economic, political,
social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals, and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation
to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state imperatives until they are in harmony with its
own.
Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics.
Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency
of market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3)
Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal
state', which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. 'The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests
of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations and financial capital.' (p. 7) The neoliberal state defends the
new reach and depth ofcapital's interests and is defined against the 'embedded liberalism' of the several decades following World
War II when 'market processes and entrepreneurial andcorporate activities were surrounded by a web of social and political constraints
and a regulatory environment that sometimes restrained but in other instances led the way in economic and industrial strategy.' (p.
11)
Neoliberalism and the neoliberal state have been able to reverse the various political and economic gains made under welfare state
policies and institutions. This transformation of the state is an effect of the interests of capital and its reaction to the embedded
liberalism of the post war decades. Taking the empirical analysis – and the hypothesis – from the French economists Gérard Duménil
and Dominique Lévy, and their important book Capital Resurgent, Harvey argues that 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning
a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' (p. 16) 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital
accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites .' (p. 19)
This notion of a revolution from above to restore class power is the basso ostinato of Harvey'sa nalysis, the bass line continuously
repeated throughout the book that grounds the argument.
He sees the first historical instance of this revolution from above in Pinochet's Chile. The violent coup against Salvador Allende,
which installed Pinochet to power, was followed by a massive neoliberalisation of the state. The move toward privatisation and the
stripping away of all forms of regulation on capital was one of the key aspects of the Pinochet regime. While the real grounding
of a neoliberal theory began much earlier with thinkers such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, among others, its first
real empirical manifestation was Pinochet's Chile.
Of course, this also allows Harvey to illustrate another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a
liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal aspects of the polity are decreased . It is Harvey's fear – along with Karl
Polanyi– that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would
be restricted in favour of the freedoms of the few .'(p. 70)
Insulating economic institutions such as central banks from majority rule is central, especially since neoliberalism – particularly
in developed economies –revolves around financial institutions. 'A strong preference,' Harvey argues, 'exists for government by executive
order and by judicial decision rather than democraticand parliamentary decision-making.' (p. 66)
America and England constitute Harvey's next two cases for his thesis. Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States were
both pivotal figures, not so much because of their economic policies, but, more importantly, because of their success in the 'construction
of consent.' The political culture of both countries began to accept neoliberal policies. The focus on individual rights, the
centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based populism, all served as means by which
the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past two decades – were able to gain widespread
support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic liberalism.
Another theme that Harvey explores – understandably, given his background inhuman geography – is the phenomenon of uneven spatial
development. In China, Harvey's fourth case, we see the rapid expansion of a neoliberal ethos. Markets were significantly liberalised
and an economic elite was reconstituted virtually overnight, in early 1980s, amid Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. The result has
been extreme inequality between regions.
Coastal urban areas, where industry and finance are concentrated, have become massive epicenters of economic power and activity,
sucking in surplus labor from agrarian hinterlands which, as a result of the economic growth of these metro regions, have begun sinking
into poverty. Harvey sees this reality in China being mirrored throughout the globe, and the results are common: a pattern of rising
economic and social inequality which increases the marginalisation of large sectors of national populations and concentrates ever
more sectors of capital within certain regions and among certain groups.
Neoliberalisation, therefore, effects a return to some of the most entrenched forms of social inequality and injustice that characterised
the industrial expansion during the late 19th century in the West. The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play
the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.'
This concept – developed more fully in Harvey's previous book, The New Imperialism (2003) – argues that accumulation
under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms of ownership and economic
power.
Harvey defines it best:
By [accumulation by dispossession] I mean the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated
of as 'primitive' or 'original' during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and
the forceful expulsion of peasant populations ; conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, |etc.)
into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China); suppression of rights to the commons; commodification
of labor power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and
imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly
of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating
of all the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. (p. 159)But it also includes – for working
people in developed nations – the 'extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property rights and the diminution or erasure
of various forms of common property rights (such as state pensions, paid vacations, and access to education and health care).'
(p. 160)
Neoliberalism, therefore, can only continue its process of accumulation by dispossessing people of what they own, or to what they
have always had rights. In the end, Harvey tells us, the way out of this situation – not surprisingly – is are connection of theory
and practice. But his analysis is, once again, subtle and takes stock of present political realities.
The plethora of social movements need to forma 'broad-based oppositional programme', which sees the activities of the economic
elites as fundamentally impinging on traditionally held beliefs about egalitarianism and fairness. Crisis, for Harvey as with any
orthodox Marxist, is always looming.
Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities.
Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various
opposition movements that currently exist. The dialogue between theory and practice is the only sure wayt o take advantage of
the moment when a new crisis – financial or otherwise –bursts forth onto the scene. The deepest hope is that such a moment will foster
a basis 'for a resurgence of mass movements voicing egalitarian political demandsand seeking economic justice, fair trade, and greater
economic security.' (p. 204)
Harvey's position is explicitly anti-capitalist, and his hope is that the rhetoric of neoliberalism will be unmasked by the various
realities – most specifically, massive economic inequalities – that it spawns. Only then will social movements be able to gain political
traction, and move society toward some form of social, economic and political transformation.
Harvey's logic is seductive, and his ruminations on 'freedom's prospect' are compelling. But political and cultural realities
cannot be simply reduced to the mechanisms of capital and accumulation. While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful
analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the
United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities of capitalism.
There is too little attention paid – and here the deficits of the orthodox Marxist approach can be sensed – to the way that the
culture of consent has found a deep affinity with American liberalism. Louis Hartz, in his classic, The Liberal Tradition in America
, was perhaps most correct when he predicted that the contours of American liberalism would lead to the acceptance of quasi-authoritarian
political and social norms.
China – lacking any democratic tradition – has not seen a mass movement arise to combat the inequality that has swollen over the
last two decades, either.
But the question of social movements remains open. There is no guarantee what you get with a mass movement of the disaffected
– one can think of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, in this regard. Harvey does not look into such issues, but they need to be considered
since history – even the history of capitalism – cannot be viewed as cyclical and politics does not spring mechanistically from economic
conditions.
But despite this, Harvey's book is deeply insightful, rewarding and stimulating. His ability to thematise the imperatives of the
most recent manifestation of capitalist accumulation – most specifically the recent trends in economic inequality, the shifts in
urban cultural and political life, and the economic logic that currently drives the process of globalization – is nothing short of
virtuosic and his ideas should become a central part of the current discourse on globalisation, economic inequality, and the erosion
of democratic politics throughout the globe. His history of neoliberalism may indeed be brief, but the richness and profundity of
this volume is without question.
Michael J. Thompson is an advisory editor of Democratiya and is also the founder and editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern
Society & Culture (www.logosjournal. com). He is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University. His next
book, Confronting Neoconservatism: The Rise of the New Right in America, is forthcoming from NYU Press. a journal of politics and
ideas
There is still no countervailing force to oppose neoliberalism. Instead we observe internal development of neoliberalism toward
national neoliberalism and the rejection of neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is the intensification of the influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode
of production, into an ethic, a set of political imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore,
or, in some cases, constitute anew the power of economic elites. ..."
"... It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse , Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all
of the other dimensions of modern economic, political, social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals,
and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state
imperatives until they are in harmony with its own. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency of
market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3) ..."
"... Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal state',
which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. ..."
"... 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' ..."
"... 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites ..."
"... another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal
aspects of the polity are decreased ..."
"... that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would be restricted
in favour of the freedoms of the few ..."
"... The focus on individual rights, the centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based
populism, all served as means by which the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past
two decades – were able to gain widespread support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic
liberalism. ..."
"... The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised
on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.' ..."
"... accumulation under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms
of ownership and economic power. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities. ..."
"... Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various opposition
movements that currently exist. ..."
"... While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to
be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities
of capitalism. ..."
...Marx, after all, according to Harvey, had shown that – unlike the liberal paradigm that was, and still is, predominant in the
social sciences – the split between fact and value had been overcome. No longerwas it sufficient to talk about social phenomena without
invoking political even practical evaluations of them.
Harvey's most recent book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism , dissects the inner workings of what has come to be one of
the most salient features of late 20thand early 21st century economic and social life: the gradual shift, throughout the nations
of the global economy, toward economic and social policies that have given an increased liberality and centrality to markets, market
processes, and to the interests of capital. If Harvey's enduring perspective – and one which admittedly| echoes orthodox Marxism
– has been to put the mechanics of the capitalist mode of production at the center of every aspect of modernity (and of postmodernity
as well), then his most recent contribution deviates little from that course.
<p>Harvey's contention is that we are witnessing, through this process of neoliberalisation, the deepening penetration of capitalism
into political and social institutions as well as cultural consciousness itself. Neoliberalism is the intensification of the
influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode of production, into an ethic, a set of political
imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore, or, in some cases, constitute anew the
power of economic elites. The essence of neoliberalism, for Harvey, can be characterised as a rightward shift in Marxian class
struggle.
This analysis stems from Marx's insight about the nature of capital itself. Capitalis not simply money, property, or one economic
variable among others. Rather,capital is the organising principle of modern society. It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse
, Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all of the other dimensions of modern economic, political,
social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals, and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation
to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state imperatives until they are in harmony with its
own.
Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics.
Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency
of market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3)
Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal
state', which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. 'The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests
of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations and financial capital.' (p. 7) The neoliberal state defends the
new reach and depth ofcapital's interests and is defined against the 'embedded liberalism' of the several decades following World
War II when 'market processes and entrepreneurial andcorporate activities were surrounded by a web of social and political constraints
and a regulatory environment that sometimes restrained but in other instances led the way in economic and industrial strategy.' (p.
11)
Neoliberalism and the neoliberal state have been able to reverse the various political and economic gains made under welfare state
policies and institutions. This transformation of the state is an effect of the interests of capital and its reaction to the embedded
liberalism of the post war decades. Taking the empirical analysis – and the hypothesis – from the French economists Gérard Duménil
and Dominique Lévy, and their important book Capital Resurgent, Harvey argues that 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning
a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' (p. 16) 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital
accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites .' (p. 19)
This notion of a revolution from above to restore class power is the basso ostinato of Harvey'sa nalysis, the bass line continuously
repeated throughout the book that grounds the argument.
He sees the first historical instance of this revolution from above in Pinochet's Chile. The violent coup against Salvador Allende,
which installed Pinochet to power, was followed by a massive neoliberalisation of the state. The move toward privatisation and the
stripping away of all forms of regulation on capital was one of the key aspects of the Pinochet regime. While the real grounding
of a neoliberal theory began much earlier with thinkers such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, among others, its first
real empirical manifestation was Pinochet's Chile.
Of course, this also allows Harvey to illustrate another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a
liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal aspects of the polity are decreased . It is Harvey's fear – along with Karl
Polanyi– that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would
be restricted in favour of the freedoms of the few .'(p. 70)
Insulating economic institutions such as central banks from majority rule is central, especially since neoliberalism – particularly
in developed economies –revolves around financial institutions. 'A strong preference,' Harvey argues, 'exists for government by executive
order and by judicial decision rather than democraticand parliamentary decision-making.' (p. 66)
America and England constitute Harvey's next two cases for his thesis. Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States were
both pivotal figures, not so much because of their economic policies, but, more importantly, because of their success in the 'construction
of consent.' The political culture of both countries began to accept neoliberal policies. The focus on individual rights, the
centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based populism, all served as means by which
the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past two decades – were able to gain widespread
support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic liberalism.
Another theme that Harvey explores – understandably, given his background inhuman geography – is the phenomenon of uneven spatial
development. In China, Harvey's fourth case, we see the rapid expansion of a neoliberal ethos. Markets were significantly liberalised
and an economic elite was reconstituted virtually overnight, in early 1980s, amid Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. The result has
been extreme inequality between regions.
Coastal urban areas, where industry and finance are concentrated, have become massive epicenters of economic power and activity,
sucking in surplus labor from agrarian hinterlands which, as a result of the economic growth of these metro regions, have begun sinking
into poverty. Harvey sees this reality in China being mirrored throughout the globe, and the results are common: a pattern of rising
economic and social inequality which increases the marginalisation of large sectors of national populations and concentrates ever
more sectors of capital within certain regions and among certain groups.
Neoliberalisation, therefore, effects a return to some of the most entrenched forms of social inequality and injustice that characterised
the industrial expansion during the late 19th century in the West. The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play
the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.'
This concept – developed more fully in Harvey's previous book, The New Imperialism (2003) – argues that accumulation
under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms of ownership and economic
power.
Harvey defines it best:
By [accumulation by dispossession] I mean the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated
of as 'primitive' or 'original' during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and
the forceful expulsion of peasant populations ; conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, |etc.)
into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China); suppression of rights to the commons; commodification
of labor power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and
imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly
of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating
of all the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. (p. 159)But it also includes – for working
people in developed nations – the 'extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property rights and the diminution or erasure
of various forms of common property rights (such as state pensions, paid vacations, and access to education and health care).'
(p. 160)
Neoliberalism, therefore, can only continue its process of accumulation by dispossessing people of what they own, or to what they
have always had rights. In the end, Harvey tells us, the way out of this situation – not surprisingly – is are connection of theory
and practice. But his analysis is, once again, subtle and takes stock of present political realities.
The plethora of social movements need to forma 'broad-based oppositional programme', which sees the activities of the economic
elites as fundamentally impinging on traditionally held beliefs about egalitarianism and fairness. Crisis, for Harvey as with any
orthodox Marxist, is always looming.
Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities.
Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various
opposition movements that currently exist. The dialogue between theory and practice is the only sure wayt o take advantage of
the moment when a new crisis – financial or otherwise –bursts forth onto the scene. The deepest hope is that such a moment will foster
a basis 'for a resurgence of mass movements voicing egalitarian political demandsand seeking economic justice, fair trade, and greater
economic security.' (p. 204)
Harvey's position is explicitly anti-capitalist, and his hope is that the rhetoric of neoliberalism will be unmasked by the various
realities – most specifically, massive economic inequalities – that it spawns. Only then will social movements be able to gain political
traction, and move society toward some form of social, economic and political transformation.
Harvey's logic is seductive, and his ruminations on 'freedom's prospect' are compelling. But political and cultural realities
cannot be simply reduced to the mechanisms of capital and accumulation. While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful
analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the
United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities of capitalism.
There is too little attention paid – and here the deficits of the orthodox Marxist approach can be sensed – to the way that the
culture of consent has found a deep affinity with American liberalism. Louis Hartz, in his classic, The Liberal Tradition in America
, was perhaps most correct when he predicted that the contours of American liberalism would lead to the acceptance of quasi-authoritarian
political and social norms.
China – lacking any democratic tradition – has not seen a mass movement arise to combat the inequality that has swollen over the
last two decades, either.
But the question of social movements remains open. There is no guarantee what you get with a mass movement of the disaffected
– one can think of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, in this regard. Harvey does not look into such issues, but they need to be considered
since history – even the history of capitalism – cannot be viewed as cyclical and politics does not spring mechanistically from economic
conditions.
But despite this, Harvey's book is deeply insightful, rewarding and stimulating. His ability to thematise the imperatives of the
most recent manifestation of capitalist accumulation – most specifically the recent trends in economic inequality, the shifts in
urban cultural and political life, and the economic logic that currently drives the process of globalization – is nothing short of
virtuosic and his ideas should become a central part of the current discourse on globalisation, economic inequality, and the erosion
of democratic politics throughout the globe. His history of neoliberalism may indeed be brief, but the richness and profundity of
this volume is without question.
Michael J. Thompson is an advisory editor of Democratiya and is also the founder and editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern
Society & Culture (www.logosjournal. com). He is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University. His next
book, Confronting Neoconservatism: The Rise of the New Right in America, is forthcoming from NYU Press. a journal of politics and
ideas
The corporate media is reporting intrepid crusader Robert Mueller is preparing to do a
Pontius Pilate on his special council investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign.
According to WaPo, Mueller has beefed up his team with a number of prosecutors and the job
of prosecuting Russian nationals for supposedly influencing the 2016 election will be fobbed
off on them.
"The Post reports that the new hires are the first indication of Mueller preparing for the
end of his investigation," WaPo reported.
The Trump component is in the process of performing a disappearing act in slow motion. The
investigation petered out months ago. Democrats continued to pound on it. Because it's all they
have. The establishment Resistance run by Pelosi and Schumer is treading water and looking
toward the midterms.
It's like simple math. There is no evidence Trump or his associates colluded with Putin and
the Russians to somehow - through the exaggerated influence of social media - throw the
election in his favor.
This nonsense was dispelled early on.
It's true. Enterprising Russians ran a lucrative clickbait scheme on social media - just
like hundreds of other entrepreneurs. It took the the Democrats - fresh off a humiliating
defeat to a casino and real estate windbag - to make up a fantasy deserving of a novel discount
bin.
Establishment Dems counted on the corporate media to whip up the required hysteria and
frenzy among already hysterical and frenzied liberals. Many apparently sought trauma counseling
after the election.
Even with the media lavishing coverage on the Mueller investigation, it has failed to do
much of anything except get Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and others in trouble - not for
working under Putin's direction to get the MAGA candidate elected, but for alleged bank fraud
and violation of campaign finance laws.
This is pretty routine stuff in Washington.
Mueller doesn't have a case and he knows it. Now he will save face by passing off the
investigation to underlings.
Meanwhile, the rest of us get respite - until the next drummed up load of horse manure
masquerading as high crimes and misdemeanors appears on the scene.
Not to worry. There are always stories of political intrigue to fascinate the proles - for
fifteen minutes at least - and distract from the real issues: endless war and a bankster rigged
economy slowly turning America into a third world cesspool.
I am celebrating this decision.
I am celebrating that it will mostly disappear from the news cycle.
I am celebrating petulant Democrats suffering another defeat and also celebrating denying
self-righteous Republicans a chance to climb up on their soapboxes.
Of course, they'll come up with something else, they always do.
The establishment political class is not about to stop rolling out distractions that are
poorly planned political theater stunts that could use better writing and managerial
skills.
Meet Mystery FBI "Agent 5" Who Sent Anti-Trump Texts While On Clinton Taint Team
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/22/2018 - 21:25 32.9K SHARES
A recently unmasked FBI agent who worked on the Clinton email investigation and exchanged
anti-Trump text messages with her FBI lover and other colleagues has been pictured for the
first time by the Daily Mail .
Sally Moyer, 44, who texted 'f**k Trump,' called President Trump's voters 'retarded' and
vowed to quit 'on the spot' if he won the election , was seen leaving her home early Friday
morning wearing a floral top and dark pants.
She shook her head and declined to discuss the controversy with a DailyMail.com reporter,
and ducked quickly into her nearby car in the rain without an umbrella before driving off. -
Daily Mail
Moyer - an attorney and registered Democrat identified in the Inspector General's report as
"Agent 5" is a veritable goldmine of hate, who had been working for the FBI since at least
September of 2006.
When Moyer sent the texts, she was on the "filter team" for the Clinton email investigation
- a group of FBI officials tasked with determining whether information obtained by the FBI is
considered "privileged" or if it can be used in the investigation - also known as a taint team
.
Moyer exchanged most of the messages with another FBI agent who worked on the Clinton
investigation, identified as 'Agent 1' in the report.
Moyer and Agent 1 were in a romantic relationship at the time, and the two have since
married , according the report. Agent 1's name is being withheld. -
Daily Mail
Some of Moyer's greatest hits:
"fuck Trump"
"screw you trump"
"She [Hillary] better win... otherwise i'm gonna be walking around with both of my guns.
"
Moyer also called Ohio Trump supporters "retarded"
"Agent 1" who is now married to Moyer, referred to Hillary Clinton as "the President" after
interviewing the Democratic candidate as part of the email investigation.
Another FBI official, Kevin Clinesmith, 36, sent similar text messages. A graduate of
Georgetown Law, Clinesmith - referred to in the Inspector General's report as "Attorney 2," -
texted several colleagues lamenting the "destruction of the Republic" after former FBI Director
James Comey reopened the Clinton email investigation.
In response to a colleague asking he had changed his views on Trump, Clinesmith responded "
Hell no. Viva le resistance ," a reference to the Trump opposition movement that clamed to be
coordinating with officials inside the Trump administration.
Two high-ranking FBI officials - Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page, were discovered by
the Inspector General to have sent over 50,000 text messages to each other - many of which
showed the two harbored extreme bias aginst Trump and for Hillary Clinton. Like Moyer and
"Agent 1," Strzok and Page worked on the Clinton email investigation.
Note, female plumbing and a law degree have been the only real qualifications Hillary
Clinton had. Anyone who backed such an obvious criminal and worked within the FBI has
questionable assets to be in the FBI.
They pushed Clinton on us because she was a woman and because there are hundreds, if not
hundreds of thousands of high powered hands that have been greased by her and Billy. The
server wasn't about national security.
It was about hiding dirty deals and treason. Did Hillary have a plan other than to
continue to turn the USA over to the UN and other international neofascist, socialist
organizations? We were always referred to her website for her plans. The Democratic Party no
longer cares for the Constitution. Which means they have no charter with which to order us
around.
Really need to get Mueller in front of a TV camera to explain why Strzok/Page were removed
from his investigation, but deemed not biased in the IG report. Like to see how he threads
that needle.
I'm beginning to think the IG report is intended to provide a firewall between all the
eager-to-please go-getters who stepped over the line and the upper levels of the DoJ and the
Obama White House. The theme that was leaked ahead of time was that Comey was insubordinate
and did what he wanted (looks to be partially true), gives a great background where the
higher ups can shake their heads and say 'we only wanted impartial investigations'. The
problem being Lowretta's tarmac meeting with Bill. She had to get something out of that
meeting - and nailing down what she got would really shake the house of cards. Wonder if she
suddenly had the cash for a beach front home.
Perhaps not. Loretta owes her existence to Bill, she's smart/dumb enough not to leverage
against anything he demands of her- she's seen up-close how it goes when you say "no" to the
Clintons.
The entire Clinton administration is loyal to Bill- that's his one power. I went to school
with a guy who worked in Bill's inner circle in the White House- a guy who I thought was
capable of critical thinking.... He told me Bill's charm with people was unreal- if he told
you to kill your mother to make him happy, you'd find a way to do it;
To this day, my friend still doesn't understand how, but he knows he was under that
Clinton spell. And no, his mother isn't around anymore....
After 9/11 Mueller decided to change the make up of the FBI, he wanted nerds. This was
written in many articles of how Mueller was staffing the FBI with a new FBI. Considering
Mueller's actions at the FBI, I would say he shouldn't be in charge of anything....
Old lost stories from the past are never correlated to the future events it causes. The
media refuses to tell the truth on anything. The media workers who lie are the same as the
FBI agents and the entire government that lies, it is accepted by the Deep State to lie
because they are the rulers, not congress and a president, that's for show.
Here's a good one, when Obama went to Harvard, it was a major program to bring people from
other countries and pay their way, it became Harvard's new method of operation to deflect and
to escape critical comments about Legacy, which means if a parent went to Harvard, then one
can get into Harvard ahead of everyone else. So the reason Obama will not release any data on
Harvard is because he said he was from Kenya to get in and to have his way paid because he
was considered a foreigner.
Very interesting and perceptive. I listen to talk show hosts in the independent media who
bemoan lack of accountability: "Why is nobody indicted? Why isn't [a particular sociopath] in
jail?" The answer is simple, and you just provided it.
Yes, this government is corrupt in its entirety, bloated and twisted beyond recognition.
Once an organization is hijacked by sociopaths, complete destruction is just a matter of
time, but the trouble is, unless their power is taken away, the sociopaths get to do much
more damage, as they take down everyone else with them. i know; I've witnessed in microcosm
(a medium-sized business). Small wonder that they want to disenfranchise and disempower the
electorate. Sociopaths fear a reckoning.
Will there BE a reckoning? Just look at what some of the worst scum are getting away with
over the last few decades. Does anybody seriously believe the time will come again when
crowds gather around lampstands?
USA used to be the most respectable and respected nation in the world. Talk to people
around the world now, and you find it's just an object of pity and scorn.
If the many managerial positions are assumed by individuals deprived of sufficient
abilities to feel and understand the majority of other people, and who also exhibit
deficiencies in technical imagination and practical skills - (faculties indispensable for
governing economic and political matters) - this then results in an exceptionally serious
crisis in all areas, both within the country in question and with regard to international
relations. Within, the situation becomes unbearable even for those citizens who were able
to feather their nest into a relatively comfortable modus vivendi. Outside, other societies
start to feel the pathological quality of the phenomenon quite distinctly. Such a state of
affairs cannot last long. One must then be prepared for ever more rapid changes, and also
behave with great circumspection. (2nd. ed., p. 140)
It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law . Ps 119:126, KJV
"USA used to be the most respectable and respected nation in the world. Talk to people
around the world now, and you find it's just an object of pity and scorn."
The world was taught that JFK was an anomaly cancelled out by Apollo and that Korea and
Vietnam were anomalies too.
Since then we have had the obvious false flag of 9/11 and the world learned the hard way
that Korea and Vietnam were the normal and peace was the anomaly, and that Apollo was also a
pack of lies, the world has also seen the US break every agreement it ever made including big
ones like the ABM. In breaking the Iran agreement and staying in Syria the world has learned
that the US supports ISIS and cannot be trusted at any level or at any time.
Parallel to the externally visible decline of the US the infrastructure was abandoned at
the same time as it's principals and morals: Bush junior, to have had 260,000 people ar
Oroville put into danger as a dam nearly collapsed due to lack of a basic and well known low
cost venturi fix to eliminate cavitation on the spillway from eating the containment.
Added to this the US is still making bad decision after bad decision (hosting the World
cup next is the latest - that will backfire badly) as all its decision making is overtly now
taken by Israel - it's not going to end well.
We've been Tyrannically Lawless for so long that when even the most logical laws are
broken, enforcing them becomes impossible with the constant barrage of Deep State PsyOp
carried out by their Presstitute appendages.
The Criminal actions of spying, Political Persecution & Espionage carried out by
highly Compartmentalized Levels of the CIA, FBI & DOJ on a Presidential Candidate should
be indicative of the absolute, complete, open, in your Faces Tyrannical Lawlessness the
Republic and The American People find themselves in today.
The National Security Elimination Act of 2018
The United States survived quite nicely for 130+ years with neither a Criminal FBI, CIA,
IRS nor the Federal Reserve. Let's return to those better days ASAP.
Would precisely achieve that objective & more by recentrailizing the "Intelligence"
Agencies. By Elimination of rouge Criminal Agencies such as the Pure Evil War Criminal
Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths at & in the CIA.
So what Criminals at large Obama, Clapper & Lynch have done 17 days prior to former
CEO Criminal Obama leaving office was to Decentralize & weaken the NSA. As a result, Raw
Intel gathering was then regulated to the other 16 Intel Agencies.
Thus, taking Centuries Old Intelligence based on a vey stringent Centralized British
Model, De Centralized it, filling the remaining 16 Intel Agenices with potential Spies and a
Shadow Deep State Mirror Government.
And, If Obama, Lynch & Clapper all agreed 17 days out to change the surveillance
structure of the NSA. What date exectly did the changes occur in relation to the first FISA
request for the Trump Wire Taps? (We now know that the Criminal FISA requests occurred in
October 2016.)
Elimination of the Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopaths in the Deep
State & CIA.
As easily as The National Security Act was signed in 1947 it can & must be
Eliminated.
Former Secret Serviceman, Gary Byrne, who filed rico against Clinton, Soros, Brock and
others a few days ago, said it best. The secret service doesn't work to protect the
President. It works to protect the Secret Service. So does the FBI, DOJ, HUD and all the
other Federal bureaucracies. They don't work for us, they work for them. They are aiding and
abetting the theft of trillions from us, people who work for a living. No one else pays
taxes, as the rich, many who work for a living very hard (witness our President, who at age
72 can work rings around about every bureaucrat in DC), get their money from those who work
for a living, directly or indirectly.
This begs the question, why so much resistance in Trump fixing trade and immigration? We
must ask also, why is the Constitution not being taught in schools? Not just the first
amendment, but the limitations of Washington DC, which seems to get its power from the
preamble, throwing all other limitations of the DC government contained in the body of
Article 1, 2 and 3 out the window. Who gets the bill for trade imbalances? Who gets the
money? The entire economy is a balance sheet. Is there so much debt around the world that it
requires the mortgaging of every piece of real estate and improvements to support it? What
about gold and silver coin, which kept debt in check along with trade? Bank runs were really
only bad for bankers. Massive supplies of unskilled labor merely keeps those jobs cheap and
the unskilled, who develop skills never get paid. The education system is a costly farce and
over 1/2 of Americans have no business in college, or for that matter, high school after
about the 8th grade. Why is the United States being drained of its capital?
Do you think it has stopped. The career management is still in place and will not rooted
out.
The FBI, and others IRS for example), have evolved into a political strong arm agency,
with an agenda. They will shield illegal activity they fell supports their agenda. They will
use selective enforcement to stomp down their political opponents. They will use false
persecution to destroy their political opponents, including the use of false evidence, false
"professional interpretation" of data/info while on the witness stand, entrapment, special
deals for those who provide the needed testimony and so on.
As far as I'm concerned the entirety of the 17 three-letter Gestapo* (Geheime
Staatspolizei) agencies are fucking domestic enemies. It's getting close to the point where
we all just say fuck it, kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out, if that is it's his day to
give a fuck, which I hope it isn't.
*The Gestapo was modeled on the FBI, not the other way around folks.
Good point. I'd forgotten about their good buddies in the Cheka and successors, OGPU, NKVD
People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del) and KGB
(Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti).
"... A Stigler Center panel examines the influence of Big Five tech firms over political discourse and the marketplace of ideas. ..."
"... "Our country has allowed the concentration of power in giant intermediaries -- Google, Facebook, and Amazon -- vastly more powerful than the original intermediary which we fought, which was the British East India Company." ..."
"... "We have reporters, editors, and publishers of our newspapers who live in fear every day. This is true of the people who publish our books and who write our books. They live in fear [that] Amazon is going to shut them down. Whose fault is that? It's the people in the antitrust community." ..."
"... "Google not only vanquished competition. What it did is it vanquished the antitrust enforcers who are supposed to protect the process of competition." ..."
"... "Basically, Section 230 was a libertarian's dream. They got what they wanted. I am a limited government conservative. What they wanted was a no-government world." ..."
At one point during Mark Zuckerberg's
Senate hearing in April , the Facebook CEO had the following peculiar exchange with Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC):
Graham: But you, as a company, welcome regulation?
Zuckerberg: I think, if it's the right regulation, then yes.
Graham: You think the Europeans had it right?
Zuckerberg: I think that they get things right.
Graham: . So would you work with us in terms of what regulations you think are necessary in your industry?
Zuckerberg: Absolutely.
Graham: Okay. Would you submit to us some proposed regulations?
Zuckerberg: Yes. And I'll have my team follow up with you so, that way, we can have this discussion across the different
categories where I think that this discussion needs to happen.
Graham: Look forward to it.
This telling bit of dialogue was part of an overall pattern: the hearing was meant to hold Facebook (and Zuckerberg himself, as
the company's founder, CEO, and de facto
single ruler ) accountable for the
mishandling of
millions of people's private data. Yet
one after
another , the senators were asking an evasive Zuckerberg if he would be willing to endorse their bills and proposals to regulate
Facebook. This mode of questioning repeated itself (to a somewhat lesser extent) during the House's
tougher questioning of Zuckerberg the following day.
Needless to say, most company CEOs grilled by Congress following a major scandal that impacts millions of people and possibly
the very nature of
American democracy are not usually treated in this way -- as private regulators almost on equal footing with Congress.
Facebook, however, is not a typical company. As
a recent Vox piece noted, with its vast reach of more than two billion users worldwide, Facebook is more akin to
a government or a "powerful sovereign," with Zuckerberg -- due to his unusual level of control over it -- being the "key lawgiver."
Zuckerberg acknowledged as much himself when he said, in a
much-quoted moment of candor
, that "in a lot of ways Facebook is more like a government than a traditional company." More than other technology companies,
he added, Facebook is "really setting policies."
The notion that corporations can become so powerful that they are able to act as a "form of private government" (to quote
Zephyr Teachout )
has long been part of the antitrust literature. Indeed, as the Open Market Institute's Barry Lynn and Matt Stoller recently noted
during a panel at the Stigler Center's Digital Platforms and Concentration antitrust conference, it is deeply rooted in the
rich tradition of antimonopoly
in America.
That digital platforms are major political
players has also been
well documented
.
Once disdainful of politics, in the past two years Google, Facebook, and Amazon have dramatically ramped up their lobbying efforts,
as the public and media backlash against their social, economic, and political power intensified. Google, which enjoyed
unprecedented access to the Obama White House, is now the
biggest lobbyist in Washington, with other tech platforms not far behind.
Market power begetting political power is
not new in itself. As the participants
of the Stigler panel noted, it is the immense power
that concentrated digital intermediaries like Google and Facebook wield over digital markets, human interaction and the marketplace
of ideas, particularly when it comes to the distribution of political information, that presents a unique challenge. As Lina Khan
(also of Open Markets)
recently
noted , the current landscape of Internet media is one in which a handful of companies "are basically acting as private regulators,
as private governments, over the dissemination and organization of information in a way that is totally unchecked by the public."
The latter part, at least, seems to be changing rapidly, as Americans (and millions more worldwide) grapple with
ongoing revelations showing the profound
impact that digital monopolies have on political opinions and outcomes, in the US and across the world. As Congressman John Sarbanes
(D-MD) said during Zuckerberg's House hearing
in April: "Facebook is becoming a self-regulated superstructure for political discourse."
Left to right: Scott Cleland, Ellen Goodman, Matt Stoller, Barry Lynn, Guy Rolnik
The exact nature of tech platforms' political power, its roots, and how to best deal with it -- all questions debated during the
Stigler Center panel -- are complex and varied. But the key question seems rather simple. As Sarbanes put it during the same Congressional
hearing: "Are we, the people, going to regulate our political dialogue, or are you, Mark Zuckerberg, going to end up regulating the
political discourse? ״
A Private Regulator of Speech
Facebook, said Rutgers Law School professor Ellen Goodman, operates as a private speech regulator. As such, much like public governments,
it "privileges some [forms of] speech over others." Unlike governments, however, which as regulators of speech purport to support
public good, Facebook has adopted a "First Amendment-like radical libertarianism" through which it has so far refused to differentiate
between "high- and low-quality information, truth or falsity, responsible and irresponsible press."
Facebook, famously, argues that it is not a media company, but a technology company. "It's not a player, it's not a [referee],
it's just the engineer who made the field," said Goodman, the co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law.
The purpose of Facebook's "First Amendment rhetoric," she noted, is "to maximize data flow on its platform," but by doing so, "it
implies, or even says explicitly, that it's standing in the shoes of the government."
Facebook and other platforms, said Goodman, have benefited from the process of deregulation and budget cuts to public media --
a process that has predated the Internet, and led to Washington essentially "giving up" on media policy. The government effectively
"exempted these platforms from the kind of ordinary regulation that other information intermediaries were subjected to." With "platforms
in the shoes of government, [and] government out of media policy," the concentration of platform power over information flows was
allowed to continue undisturbed.
The problem, however, is that much like fellow FAANGs Amazon and Google, Facebook is not just an impartial governor, but a market
participant interested in "monopolizing the time of its users," with a strong incentive to privilege its own products and business
model that "eviscerates journalism."
"It also tunes its algorithm to favor certain kinds of speech and certain speakers," added Goodman. "There's almost no transparency,
save for what it selectively, elliptically, and sometimes misleadingly posts on its blog."
"People Live in Fear"
In a seminal
1979 essay on what he termed the "political content" of antitrust, former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky argued that "political
values," such as "the fear that excessive concentration of economic power will foster anti-democratic political pressures," should
be incorporated into antitrust enforcement. In recent years, this view has been
echoed by a
growing number of
antitrust scholars
, who argue that the way antitrust enforcement has been conducted in the US for the past 40 years -- solely through the prism of
"consumer welfare" -- is ill equipped to deal with the new
threats posed by digital platforms.
The Unites States, remarked Lynn during the panel, was born "out of rebellion against concentrated power, the British East India
Company." The original purpose of antimonopoly in America, said Lynn, was the protection of personal liberty from concentrated economic
and political power: "to give everybody the ability to manage their own property in the ways that they see fit, manage their own
lives in the way that they see fit. To be truly independent of everybody else. To not be anybody else's puppet." Liberty and democracy,
he added, "are functions of antimonopoly."
A state in which Facebook and Google wield enormous influence over the flow of information -- where, to quote
a recent piece by Wired
's Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein, "every publisher knows that, at best, they are sharecroppers on Facebook's massive
industrial farm" -- is antithetical to this ethos, said Lynn, and is firmly rooted in the "absolute, complete failure" of antitrust
in the United States. "Our country has allowed the concentration of power in giant intermediaries -- Google, Facebook, and Amazon
-- vastly more powerful than the original intermediary which we fought, which was the British East India Company." These digital
intermediaries, he added, are "using their power in ways that are directly threatening our most fundamental liberties and our democracy."
"Our country has allowed the concentration of power in giant intermediaries -- Google, Facebook, and Amazon -- vastly
more powerful than the original intermediary which we fought, which was the British East India Company."
The blame for the outsize influence that Facebook and other digital platforms have over the political discourse, said Lynn, rests
squarely on the shoulders of the antitrust community: "For 200 years in this country, antimonopoly was designed to create freedom
from masters. In 1981, when we got rid of our traditional antimonopoly and replaced it with consumer welfare, we created a system
that has given freedom to master."
In today's concentrated media landscape, he contended, "people live in fear. We have reporters, editors, and publishers of our
newspapers who live in fear every day. This is true of the people who publish our books and who write our books. They live in fear
[that] Amazon is going to shut them down. Whose fault is that? It's the people in the antitrust community."
"We have reporters, editors, and publishers of our newspapers who live in fear every day. This is true of the people
who publish our books and who write our books. They live in fear [that] Amazon is going to shut them down. Whose fault is that?
It's the people in the antitrust community."
Lynn went on to quote from Thompson and Vogelstein's Wired piece: "The social network is roughly 200 times more valuable
than the Times . And journalists know that the man who owns the farm has the leverage. If Facebook wanted to, it could quietly
turn any number of dials that would harm a publisher -- by manipulating its traffic, its ad network, or its readers."
"This was hidden in the middle of the article," said Lynn. "[Thompson], as a journalist, felt obliged to put this out there He
was crying out to the people in this community, in the antitrust community. He's saying 'protect me, the publisher, the editor of
this magazine. Protect me, the reporter. Please make sure that I have the independence to do my work.'"
The "Code of Silence" Has Been Broken
Recent
changes
to Facebook's newsfeed have caused referral traffic from Facebook to media companies' websites to
sharply decline , once again raising concerns about the significant impact that the company has on the media industry. The satirical
news site The Onion , for instance, has launched a public war against Facebook, calling it "an unwanted interloper between
The Onion and our audience." "We have 6,572,949 followers on Facebook who receive an ever-decreasing amount of the content
we publish on the network," the site's editor-in-chief, Chad Nackers, told
Business Insider .
The
backlash by major news outlets and
politicians across
the
political spectrum against the power of Facebook and other tech platforms as de facto regulators of speech on the Internet is
a new phenomenon, said Guy Rolnik, a Clinical Associate Professor for Strategic Management at the University of Chicago Booth school
of Business, during the panel. Until not too long ago, he said, Internet monopolies were the "darlings of the news media." Less than
a year ago , he noted, Zuckerberg was even
touted
by several media outlets as a viable presidential candidate. "The idea that a person who has unprecedented private control over personal
data and the public discourse at large would also be the president of the United States was totally in the realm and perimeter of
what is legitimate," he said.
What has changed? "In many ways, what has changed is that many people associate Facebook today with the election of Donald Trump.
This is why we see so much focus on those issues that were very salient and important for years," Rolnik maintained. Trump's election,
and Facebook's role in the lead-up to it, broke the "code of silence."
Nevertheless, newsrooms today, he said, still do everything in their power "to make sure that everything is shareable on Facebook."
In the words of Thompson and Vogelstein, they are still "sharecroppers on Facebook's massive industrial farm."
Google has "Politically Hijacked the US Antitrust Enforcement Process"
Scott Cleland, president of the consultancy firm Precursor LLC and former deputy US coordinator for international communications
and information policy in the George HW Bush administration, has long warned that concentration among digital platforms will negatively
impact the US economy and society at large.
In 2007, Cleland testified
before the Senate on the then-proposed Google-DoubleClick merger, calling upon antitrust enforcers to block the merger and warning
that lax antitrust enforcement (of the kind that ultimately led the Google-DoubleClick merger to be approved) would allow Google
to become the "ultimate Internet gatekeeper" and the "online-advertising bottleneck provider picking content winners and losers"
-- both of which came true. In 2011, he published the book Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc . , in which he warned readers of Google's surveillance-based business
model and its "unprecedented centralization of power over the world's information."
US antitrust enforcers, he said, were initially "very tough" on Google during the first years of the George W. Bush administration.
Between 2008 and 2012, both the Bush II and Obama administrations brought "strong and consistent antitrust scrutiny and enforcement
to Google." Then, in 2013, the Federal Trade Commission decided to drop its case against the company, despite the
conclusion of its
staff that Google had used anticompetitive tactics. Following Obama's reelection, which Google at the time was credited with delivering,
antitrust enforcement against Big Tech firms essentially ceased. "They shut down all those investigations and they did nothing for
the last five years. DOJ went from very active -- four or five major antitrust actions -- to nothing. Crickets."
Back then, Google and Facebook were still "fiercely competing," he said. Google was going after Facebook's territory with Google
Plus, and Facebook countered by going after Google search with Yahoo and Bing. But then, in 2014, something happened: the large tech
firms "mysteriously stopped competing."
"Yahoo returned to working with Google. Apple dropped Bing for Siri and moved to Google search. Apple and Microsoft dropped their
patent suits, and then Microsoft and Google made peace after scratching each other's eyes out. Google went from 70 percent share
of search and search advertising in the PC market to 95 percent of that in both of those markets today," said Cleland.
What happened? Cleland points to the what he calls the "Google School of No-Antitrust," a narrative with which according to him
Google had been trying to "influence public opinion, the media, elected and government officials, and US and state antitrust enforcers,
to make the public believe Google (and other Internet platforms) have no antitrust risk or liability, because they offer free innovative
products and services, and to make conservatives believe that the Google School of No-Antitrust and the Chicago School's consumer
welfare standard and application are the same, when they are not."
Google, he asserted, "not only vanquished competition. What it did is it vanquished the antitrust enforcers who are supposed to
protect the process of competition." It did so, he argued, by "politically hijacking the most important market, which is information."
"Google not only vanquished competition. What it did is it vanquished the antitrust enforcers who are supposed to protect
the process of competition."
Cleland, who identifies as a free market conservative, argued that the current Internet is far from a free market. "Who thinks
it's a good idea that all of the world's information goes through one bottleneck?" he asked, adding that "all the bad things that
you're seeing right now are the result of policy."
One such policy is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provided Internet companies with legal immunity
for the content their users generated or shared and is
often
credited with enabling the creation of the Internet as we know it today. Cleland sees Section 230 as "market structuring" and
has compared it to the libertarian concept of creating artificial islands outside any governmental territory, known as "
seasteading ."
"Section 230 says -- I'm paraphrasing, but that's what it says -- that US policy recognizes that the Internet is a free market
that should be unfettered by federal and state regulations," said Cleland. "Basically, Section 230 was a libertarian's dream. They
got what they wanted. I am a limited government conservative. What they wanted was a no-government world."
"Basically, Section 230 was a libertarian's dream. They got what they wanted. I am a limited government conservative.
What they wanted was a no-government world."
Much of today's problems regarding the conduct of digital platforms, he said, results from this policy. "Twenty-two years ago,
we as a nation immunized all interactive computer services from any civil liability. We said, 'It is OK. There is no accountability,
no responsibility for you looking the other way, when your platform or things that are going on on your platform harm others.'"
Section 230, he maintained, "basically created 21 st -century robber barons. Those guys know they have the full weight
of the government. If they go to court, they're going to win, and they have almost all the time."
Antitrust Is "One Part of the Answer"
When it comes to addressing these threats to free speech and democratic discourse, said Goodman, antitrust is only "one part of
the answer." The other part, she asserted, is regulation.
"The First Amendment that we have, that we know and love today," she said, "was not born in 1789 in Philadelphia. It developed
in the latter part of the 20th century against a particular set of industrial and social practices that mitigated some of the costs
of free speech and spread the benefits."
Lawmakers and policymakers, she argued, should "retrieve and resuscitate the vocabulary of media policy," focusing on three core
values: "freedom of mind and autonomy; non-market values of diversity and localism/community; and a concept of the public interest
and fiduciary responsibility."
Whenever someone makes an argument for using antitrust or regulation as a way to structure markets of information, Stoller cautioned,
there are those who will argue that this amounts to censorship. When asked how to avoid censorship when discussing the use government
power over speech, Goodman was conflicted: "There is no way around that. There's a real tension here between absolute liberty of
speech and controls on speech," she said. We cannot have this whole conference with us fantasizing about various regulatory possibilities
that involve use restrictions -- limits on the flow of data, limits on the collection of data -- without acknowledging that under
our First Amendment doctrine right now, probably none of that passes muster."
However, Goodman pointed to the Northwest Ordinance as a possible roadmap. "Nobody would say, or maybe they did, that [the Northwest
Ordinance ] was an anti-private property rule. It was structuring the market so that more people could own property. That's what
the history of media regulation in this country has been: structuring speech markets so that more people can speak."
Disclaimer: The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts
represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its
faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket
Blog Policy .
the obsessive quality of the British establishment's paranoia about
Russia. That's probably because at the World Cup, the England soccer team is very
weak without its main asset, Sergey Skripal. ;-)
Can't wait until Trump invades the UK, deposes the royal family for treason,
kicks out the pakistani filth, dissolves parliament, seizes the City of
London, and restores the Stuarts to the throne.
Russiaphobes going bonkers. To damn funny. BTW Russian interference in US
elections has been internet postings only. What does that say about our
country's intelligence when some social media post sends the Snow Flakes into
a tizzy. What does that say about our future?
There sure seems to be a lot of factors pointing to a rather hard landing for this long
business cycle (10 years is a really long boom period). The central banks have a tendency to
print money when things go wrong; or use the low interest weapon if they have it. Where all
this will end up is difficult to predict just because of how complex it is.
To be more precise, after some reflection, what I fear is more stagflation. A rare historic
incidence which combines inflation with negative economic growth. That is what happens when
pouring money into an economy with scarce resources where oil is one of them. What is coming
is typically not like 2008-09 just because black swans are everywhere, and higher inflation
is the surprise coming forward in my opinion. Prices for fossil fuels will stay pretty high
in such a scenario, e.g. with the decline rates for oil overall rising steadily. Which I
think is a good thing due to the energy transition that has to happen. I think it is
realistic that we can come up with a halfway of a solution for our energy problems and that
it is good enough to secure a decent standard of living (or maybe halfway decent or okish
;-)) long into the future. But not an affluent one and it will be highly country specific.
Unless some kind of technology breakthrough is coming, but that is certainly a long time
project.
"... Houston, 11 June (Argus) Plains All American Pipeline, a prime mover of crude around and away from the Permian, reiterated last week that there is not enough trucking capacity to address skyrocketing production, and potential rail slots are limited. With most material pipeline capacity additions a year or more away, Plains said the logical solution is slowing output ..."
"... That's really kind of funny. The takeaway professionals have to tell them, "come on guys, put a brake on it. It can't be moved." Note, the article stated that the pipeline company said production is already slowing. Wonder if EIA will finally read the memo? Also, it may result in more little fish, being eaten by the bigger fish. ..."
"... The next 3 or 4 months for EF and Bakken might be interesting – they've both been steady or slightly declining with no pick up in drilling or, I think, permitting even as the price has risen, and the initial well production and ultimate recovery look to be declining on recent wells. If Permian is closed off I wonder if the operators will bother to move back to these. ..."
"... Yeah, I think they will. You just won't see growth just overnight from these areas, and the ones who had good areas in these, never left. EOG, Conoco and others are still doing their thing. Growth will mainly show up the first and second quarter of 2019. Maybe some the last quarter of 2018. My guess. It just won't ramp up like the Permian, EIA predicts a bunch, but they are smoking some strong stuff. They believe in teleportation of oil to the coast, and further teleportation to VLCCs off the coast. ..."
"... Wild guess on the 22nd. OPEC releases non-opec from the agreement. Increasing OPEC, at this point, will involve disintegration of OPEC, which it really is, anyway. But, a modest increase may hold them together for a little while. Although, for the Sauds part, I don't know why they would, except to keep up the illusion. ..."
That's really kind of funny. The takeaway professionals have to tell them, "come on guys,
put a brake on it. It can't be moved." Note, the article stated that the pipeline company
said production is already slowing. Wonder if EIA will finally read the memo? Also, it may
result in more little fish, being eaten by the bigger fish.
Energy News, you constantly amaze me with your finds of information. Everything is
extremely pertinent.
The next 3 or 4 months for EF and Bakken might be interesting – they've both been
steady or slightly declining with no pick up in drilling or, I think, permitting even as the
price has risen, and the initial well production and ultimate recovery look to be declining
on recent wells. If Permian is closed off I wonder if the operators will bother to move back
to these.
State of North Dakota came out with a new presentation a few weeks ago showing revised
predictions for Bakken oil output. They now have production likely reaching 1,900,000 BOPD
within the next decade while the best forecast offers better than 2,200,000 BOPD.
Yeah, I think they will. You just won't see growth just overnight from these areas, and
the ones who had good areas in these, never left. EOG, Conoco and others are still doing
their thing. Growth will mainly show up the first and second quarter of 2019. Maybe some the
last quarter of 2018. My guess. It just won't ramp up like the Permian, EIA predicts a bunch,
but they are smoking some strong stuff. They believe in teleportation of oil to the coast,
and further teleportation to VLCCs off the coast.
That not everyone believes the EIA is evident in the huge, many billions of dollars,
losses in stock value of the "Permian pure play" companies recently. EIAs and IEAs fairy
tales are coming unraveled. About the only section of the investment community that still
believes them, is that percentage of adults that still believe chocolate milk comes from
brown cows. What they are still unsure of, is how much excess capacity OPEC now has.
Wild guess on the 22nd. OPEC releases non-opec from the agreement. Increasing OPEC, at
this point, will involve disintegration of OPEC, which it really is, anyway. But, a modest
increase may hold them together for a little while. Although, for the Sauds part, I don't
know why they would, except to keep up the illusion.
"I think not, it's a lot cheaper to add a few more production wells than to add a couple of
million barrels of high pressure water injection capacity (topsides facilities and the wells
needed to inject it"
Water injection isn't the problem, its water cut. The don't need to inject more if they
keep the water cut stable. In order to keep the water cut, they have to perodically drill new
wells to keep the wells in contact with the Oil column. Over time the Water column push up on
the Oil column (ie Oil floats on Water). All the CapEx/Opex goes into drilling to keep in the
Oil Column Zone as well as add new wells to tap oil trapped in pockets. As the Oil column
continues to shrink and and as the water column become increasing contact with the cap rock
its going to required more and more drilling to maintain production.
My guess well know when SA starts running into problems when we start to see the rig count
increase and the production dropping over a period of a couple of years.
"The drilling of new oil wells is to maintain current production, not to increase it"
SA cannot increase Oil production much. They are working on extracting the remaining cream
(oil column) floating on a see of water. Increasing production would just increase the water
cut and also increase trapped oil that would later be more costly to extract. The only way SA
can increase production is to tap new fields or increase drilling for oil trapped in pockets.
But at some point these options will vanish over time as it will be increasing more difficult
to squeeze more oil out, like trying to squeeze trapped toothpaste out of a depleted
toothpaste tube.
I didn't say water injection was the problem I said it was the limit to increasing
production. It is. Water cut is the problem that leads to decline unless they keep drilling
new wells.
Two ways that increasing water cut is a problem are: 1) you have to inject more water for
the same amount of oil, which they don't have, 2) you have to treat more produced water,
which they don't have capacity for. Exactly what I said above. The third is that it reduces
overall well flow and, more so, oil flow; but that is easily got round if it easy to drill
new wells, as is the case for Saudi, even the offshore fields, which are shallow. That also
solves the first two problems because the individual field and overall country water cuts are
held steady.
The limits on surface facilities are much more expensive and long term (5 years at least)
to get round, but it could be done, therefore it is wrong to say that the only way to
increase production is to tap new fields.
(ps – I worked on water flood oil fields, including some minor studies for Saudi,
for at least 15 years through my career, the water is a bigger influence on the design and
operation than the oil.)
That all together sounds like it's completely senseless to keep some spare capacity for
fields like this.
This capacity will cost billions, hold back for not much. A big oil storage is better
there for satisfying demand peaks or temporary supply losses.
Reserve capacity is cheap to have when you are in primary recovery of a conventional
(giant) field.
The only illusion of reserve capacity would be in fields with tertiary recovery would be
to postpone maintainance for a few months to get that 5% more production.
Some spare is always needed, just to maintain production during maintenance or unplanned
outages. Sparing doesn't postpone maintenance, it means maintenance can be done without
taking the plant offline, or at least not for too long, so you get maximum returns on your
investment (when plants are taken down for major turn arounds it is to do work on items for
which there are no online spares).
Depending on the maturity of the field there is also always different amount of sparage in
the different project components – e.g. the wells, compression, power generation, oil
processing, export capacity, water injection, water processing – the limit is the
component with the least amount of sparage.
In Saudi also, at least for the heavy fields, they have been known to rest them completely
for a time, this allows the water contact to settle out and avoid excessive coning, which
provides a much better sweep of the oil and higher recoveries (I don't think any where else
has that luxury).
So when someone says "we have spare capacity" it can mean almost anything from
2×100% pumps on a particular duty to an entirely unused, ready for action oil
field.
From a modern capitalist approach with everything just-in-time and the next quarterly
statement being all important then excess sparing wouldn't please the shareholders, but Saudi
designed facilities with 50 year life times, so it might be different.
From looking at their recent production profiles, which seem to go up when they report a
new start-up and then decline, and stock draws, which have been consistent since January
2016, I find it hard to believe they have a large amount of "real" spare capacity –
i.e. that's easy to bring on line and that doesn't alter any of the performance of the fields
over the long term or compromise planned maintenance schedules – but I can't say for
sure. And, as I've said, the limit to expanding production (that means beyond just using up
the spare) is almost certainly with the surface facilities for water, so it's likely that is
also the part with the least spare capacity.
It sounds like you believe they might be able to maintain a plateau of 10 Mb/d for many
years, if they just drill more wells as needed. Though I may not be understanding
correctly.
There's the big question. Once the horizontal wells are at the top of the reservoir then you
can't drill any more and once the water contact hits them, even with intelligent completions,
then the decline will be fast (but even that is relative, huge fields take longer to decline
than small ones). There was a report in the Oil Drum some time ago that indicated that a lot
of Ghawar wells were near the limit but nothing much seems to have happened since to indicate
this turned into a problem, but then Saudi has a lot of other fields. On some of their
offshore fields they are replacing all the wellheads to add ESPs, that usually means they
have run out of new well options. Their rig count is declining, but maybe jus because they
are drilling much more productive MRC wells.
It's the difference between the size of the tank and the size of the tap (or for water
injection more like the size of the vent that lets air in to stop the tank collapsing under
suction). Might only know what's going on well after the fact.
I've told you that once you start down the Trade War path forever it will dominate your
destiny.
Well here we are. Trump slaps big tariffs on aluminum and steel in a bid to leverage Gary
Cohn's ICE Wall
plan to control the metals and oils futures markets . I'm not sure how much of this stuff I
believe but it is clear that the futures price for most strategically important commodities are
divorced from the real world.
But today's edition of "As the Trade War Churns" is about China and their willingness to
shift their energy purchases away from U.S. producers. Irina
Slav at Oilprice.com has the good bits.
The latest escalation in the tariff exchange, however, is a little bit different than all
the others so far. It's different because it came after Beijing said it intends to slap
tariffs on U.S. oil, gas, and coal imports.
China's was a retaliatory move to impose tariffs on US$50 billion worth of U.S. goods,
which followed Trump's earlier announcement that another US$50 billion in goods would be
subjected to a 25-percent tariff starting July 6.
It's unclear as to what form this will take but there's also this report from
the New York Times which talks about the China/U.S. energy trade.
Things could get worse if the United States and China ratchet up their actions
[counter-tariffs] . Mr. Trump has already promised more tariffs in response to China's
retaliation. China, in turn, is likely to back away from an agreement to buy $70 billion
worth of American agricultural and energy products -- a deal that was conditional on the
United States lifting its threat of tariffs.
"China's proportionate and targeted tariffs on U.S. imports are meant to send a strong
signal that it will not capitulate to U.S. demands," said Eswar Prasad, a professor of
international trade at Cornell University. "It will be challenging for both sides to find a
way to de-escalate these tensions."
But as Ms. Slav points out, China has enjoyed taking advantage of the glut of U.S. oil as
shale drillers flood the market with cheap oil. The West Texas Intermediate/Brent Spread has
widened out to more than $10 at times.
By slapping counter tariffs on U.S. oil, that would more than overcome the current WTI/Brent
spread and send Chinese refiners looking for new markets.
Hey, do you know whose oil is sold at a discount to Brent on a regular basis?
Iran's. That's whose.
And you know what else? Iran is selling tons, literally, of its oil via the new Shanghai
petroyuan futures market.
Now, these aren't exact substitutes, because the Shanghai contract is for medium-sour crude
and West Texas shale oil is generally light-sweet but the point remains that the incentives
would now exist for Chinese buyers to shift their buying away from the U.S. and towards
producers offering substitutes at better prices.
This undermines and undercuts Trump's 'energy dominance' plans while also strengthening
Iran's ability to withstand new U.S. sanctions by creating more customers for its oil.
Trade wars always escalate. They are no different than any other government policy
restricting trade. The market response is to always respond to new incentives. Capital always
flows to where it is treated best.
It doesn't matter if its domestic farm subsidies 'protecting' farmers from the business
cycle or domestic metals producers getting protection via tariffs.
By raising the price above the market it shifts capital and investment away from those
protected industries or producers and towards either innovation or foreign suppliers.
Trump obviously never read anything from Mises, Rothbard or Hayek at Wharton. Because if he
did he would have come across the idea that every government intervention requires an
ever-greater one to 'fix' the problems created by the first intervention.
The net result is that if there is a market for Iran's oil, which there most certainly is,
then humans will find a way to buy it. If Trump tries to raise the price too high then it will
have other knock-on effects of a less-efficient oil and gas market which will create worse
problems in the future for everyone, especially the very Americans he thinks he's
defending.
There is a narrative that oil demand will soon begin dropping due to widespread use of EV.
1 million EV just replaces 14,000 BOPD of demand. Conservatively assuming those one
million EV require $40K per unit of CAPEX, just to replace 14,000 BOPD of demand took $40
billion of CAPEX.
Likewise, to replace 1.4 million BOPD of demand via EV would take $4 trillion of
CAPEX.
Worldwide demand has been growing somewhere between 1.2-2.0 million BOPD annually,
depending on who one believes.
See where I am going with this? How do the EV disruption proponents explain away the
massive CAPEX required just to cause oil demand to flatten, let alone render it near
obsolete?
The average US car gets 25 mpg and travels 12,500 miles per year for 500 gallons of gasoline
per year.
Refineries in the US produce 20 gallons of gasoline per barrel of oil.
That gives 69,000 BOPD per day reduction per million EV cars in the US and 110,000 BOPD oil
equivalent energy due to the multiple energies put into gasoline and distillate
production.
At current rates of EV sales growth the US will reach 50 million EV cars by 2031. That should
put he US to being mostly independent of external oil for gasoline by mid 2030's and
It's tough to predict a complete transition in the US since cars as a service could greatly
reduce the numbers of cars needed, especially in dense population areas. That would mean a
much earlier transition.
If US ICE cars trend upward in mpg during that time, the demand for oil could be quite low
by the early 2030's.
All depends on continuation of trends, for which the auto manufacturers seem to be on board.
Just have to get the public charging infrastructure out ahead of the trend.
Here is an interesting article, from a couple of years ago, showing the trend and sales at
that time.
Cars get replaced all the time and the cost of new EVs will fall over time to the same
price as ICEV, so it's simply a matter of replacing the ICEV currently sold with EVs over
time, in addition cars can get better gas mileage (50 MPG in a Prius vs 35 MPG in a Toyota
Corolla or 25 MPG in a Camry.) There's also plug in hybrids like the Honda Clarity (47 miles
batttery range) or Prius Prime(25 mile range on battery) these have an ICE for when the
battery is used up.
If oil prices rise in the short term to over $100/b (probably around 2022 to 2030), there
will be demand for other types of transport besides a pure ICEV.
EVs and plugin hybrids will become cheaper as manufacturing is scaled up due to economies
of scale.
Surprising stuff. Huge oil consumption growth rates in Eastern Europe. 8+% growth %s in
Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Something weird going on because Romania and Slovenia
didn't show the same thing.
Western Africa grew consumption of oil 13% last year. I'll add a !!!!. East Africa about 6%.
Both are over 600K bpd, so that growth rate is not on tiny burn.
Poland's official oil consumption growth is caused by better fighting with illegal, and
unregistered fuel imports since mid 2016. When taxes are 50% of fuel price, there is big
incentive for illegal activities. Real oil consumption probably didn't increase much.
Poland, Czech and Slovakia are going through a huge economic boom now (I live in Slovakia and
party in Czech Republic). It's visible everywhere, there wasn't this much spending and
employment ever in the last 28 years
Oil demand is mostly determined by GDP growth, oil price has a minor influence on short term
demand. World GDP grew by about 5% from 2016 to 2017 according to the IMF, so oil demand
increased by 1.8% possibly less than one would expect. Real GDP (at market exchange rates)
grew by about 3% in 2017.
The idea behind peak demand is simply that oil supply may at some point become relatively
abundant relative to demand in the future (date unknown). When and if that occurs, OPEC may
become worried that their oil resources will never be used and will begin to fight for market
share by increasing production and driving down the price of oil to try to spur demand. That
is the theory, I think we are probably 20 to 40 years from reaching that point for
conventional oil.
Oil still contributes quite a bit to carbon emissions and while I agree coal use needs to
be reduced (as carbon emissions per unit of exergy is higher for coal than oil), I would
think it may be possible to work on reducing both coal and oil use at the same time. Using
electric rail combined with electric trucks, cars and busses could reduce quite a bit of
carbon emissions from land transport, ships and air transport may be more difficult.
It's better to sell half of your ressources for 90$ / barrel than all at 30$ / barrel.
The gulf states will always have cheap production costs at their side, they will earn more
at each price of oil. Why not make big money, especially when at lower production speed the
production costs are much lower (less expensive infrastructure).
And in the first case you can sell chemical feedstock for a few 100 years ongoing for a
good coin. Theocracies and Kingdoms plan sometimes for a long time. When you bail out
everything at sale prices, you end with nothing ( and even no profit).
You assume half the resource can be sold at $90/b, at some point in the future oil supply
may be greater than demand at a price of $90/b, so at $90/b no oil is sold and revenue is
zero.
In a situation of over supply there will be competition for customers and the supply will
fall to the point where supply and demand are matched. Under those conditions OPEC may decide
to drive higher cost producers out of business and take market share, oil price will fall to
the cost of the most expensive (marginal) barrel that satisfies World demand.
I don't think we are close to reaching this point, but perhaps by 2035 or 2040 alternative
transport may have ramped to the point where World demand for oil falls below World Supply of
oil at $90/b and the oil price will gradually drop to a level where supply and demand
match.
Drilling Productivity Report – what we need is a Permian Plumbing Report. EIA – NOTE: Productivity estimates may overstate actual production which could be limited
by logistical constraints. https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/#tabs-summary-2
Regarding Saudi Arabia, what seems certain is that they have increased crude exports in
parts of May and early June by either activating "spare capacity" or withdrawal from storage.
Coming into peak domestic demand season it will be hard for OPEC to compensate for Iran,
Venezuela, Libya and any other negative "surprises" coming along in 2H2018. It would be a
real surprise if not the solution is to agree to a moderate production increase due to quite
a few reasons (I can think of at least 5 reasons for this on top of my head). I can imagine
OPEC/Russia want a somewhat controlled price increase to let us guess 90-100 dollars before
the low demand season kicks in 1H2019. If demand growth is still not impacted too much the
supply problems start to become unsolvable in 2019 and in any case 2020. There is both a
potential for a great price spike and recessions in 2019 imho.
I don't think it is Khurais. The project is delayed, but for how long is uncertain.
A quick search on the internet:
"We see Opec building capacity over the coming five years, largely driven by Saudi Arabia
where we see the Khurais expansion in 2019 and the Marjan field start-up by 2021. Saudi
Arabia is pressing ahead with upstream investment as part of its Vision 2030 strategy,"
BofAML said.
I was thinking that the price of WTI is still cheap. But then countries such as Russia have
been complaining that product prices are too high and that their refinery margins are too
low, and so I don't know. I still think prices could spike higher, sometime, due to outages
and lack of long term investment.
It seems that OPEC is looking to prevent supply shortages during peak demand
2018-06-19 OPEC technical panel sees strong oil demand in H2 2018, implying that the
market could absorb additional production, according to 3 OPEC sources
With the most highly-anticipated
OPEC meeting since November 2014 taking place Friday in Vienna, Macrovoices host Erik
Townsend made this week's podcast all about oil. He started his three-part interview series
with Dr. Ellen Wald, the author of "Saudi Inc.", a book about Aramco. During their discussion,
Wald shares what she learned about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and - most importantly - how the
royals view both Aramco and the oil market. This perspective is important, she explains, in
interpreting why former Saudi energy minister Ali Al Naimi made the infamous decision back in
November 2014 to
keep OPEC oil production targets unchanged . That decision precipitated another leg lower
in oil prices, eventually sending them to $30 a barrel. Many observers criticized the Saudis
for shooting themselves in the foot by standing against production cuts. But the one thing that
these critics didn't understand, Wald said, is that the Kingdom has always treated Aramco like
a family business.
They have two twin objectives: long-term profit and power. And when they look at Aramco,
they're not concerned about meeting, say, what their quarterly reports are going to show or
their stock price. They're looking at this in the long term, in a generational
perspective.
And so in 2014 when it seemed as though oil production was increasing around the world
– there was lots of other sources – not just shale oil production in the United
States but we had really increasing from all over – they went into that OPEC meeting
and everyone thought oh, they have to cut production. If they don't they won't maintain the
price they need for the budget and this is what has to be.
Instead, they surprised everyone by basically walking out and saying to heck with it,
we're going to produce as much as we possibly can. And the reason, it seemed to me, was very
clear: They knew that no matter how low the oil price went it was going to be that much worse
for everybody else and not as bad for Saudi Arabia.
When Townsend asks about the decision to float 5% of Aramco in a foreign stock market (a
plan that is reportedly on hold, for now at least), Wald explains that the Saudis respect their
company's "American heritage" (the Saudis slowly nationalized Aramco in stages during the 1970s
and 1980s, buying it in stages) and they view the company as an international oil company like
Exxon.
But in another sense, I see this as a natural progression for a company that was an NOC
but has always seen itself as really a major international oil company. And it's expanding
its research, it's expanding its downstream operations, in order to have a profile similar to
that of an IOC. They are very, very proud of the patents that they've acquired and they
compare it to the number of patents that, say, Exxon gets. It's really very evident
throughout this.
Next, Townsend turned to energy analysts Anas Alhajji and Joe McMonigle for a three-way
discussion about what to expect From Friday's meeting. Earlier this month, we heard from fellow
"geological expert" Art Berman, who speculated that the current glut of oil created by the
shale boom in the US is a temporary anomaly
But the bigger factor here is Venezuela and how quickly Venezuelan crude has come off the
market. Venezuela was producing about 1.4 million barrels a day. It's probably 1.3 now, in
June. Under the OPEC agreement, they could be producing close to 2 million barrels a day.
Berman speculated that the global demand curve is growing at a pace much more quickly than
most market experts anticipate, and that - regardless of whether OPEC decides to raise or
maintain production - the world will inevitably find itself mired in a supply crunch. But
McMonigle asserted that the collapse of crude production in Venezuela has left a massive
production hole that should be filled by OPEC members. Because of this, Saudi Arabia doesn't
have a problem with higher prices, and even OPEC
itself is anticipating that demand will remain strong in the second half of the year.
So that's 600-700 thousand barrels extra that has really accelerated crude stock drawdowns
and I think has really supported higher prices quicker than most people thought. I was in the
camp, and I think others were, that in the second half of this year we would be around
between $70 and $75.
Obviously, we got there pretty quickly at $80. And most of that had to do with Venezuela.
And then, of course, you had the Iran sanctions – which we've been talking about for a
long time – that we expected to come. But there are a lot of people on the market that
just didn't think Trump would pull the trigger on it. Well, he did. And so that really pushed
things up to over $80. There isn't any crude yet coming off the market, but we certainly
expect that there will be.
[...]
First of all, I have to say I don't think OPEC is going to give up that easily on higher
prices. I think the Saudis are quite comfortable with prices around $80. They don't really
see a production problem. The physical oil markets are pretty well-supplied, as I think Anas
will talk about. But they really have a political problem instead of a production
problem.
And the political problem is this: You know, higher prices, you've got some calls for
action. Trump, of course, with his tweet a couple of weeks ago while the compliance committee
was meeting in Riyadh I think really took them by surprise. I think there is kind of an
implicit agreement to help because of the Iran sanctions. And that's something that Saudi
Arabia and UAE and all the other Gulf countries support.
However, the one thing that could change their minds, is a political issue concerning their
relationship with the US. Following Trump's aggressive Iran policy, there could be a consensus
forming among the Gulf countries to support higher production levels that would held rein in
prices. But this might not be in the long-term best interest of the Saudis.
Drop in the bucket to what is happening right now. US will be about 500k less than their
(IEA's) expectations into 2019 due to transportation constraints. George thinks Venezuela
will approximate zero by 2019, as do others. Give them the benefit of doubt and say a one
million decrease from 1.6 at the beginning of this year. IEA is still using production vs
export capabilities, which has to change. Europe's refineries have largely stopped buying
Iran's oil, as has India. That's 1.1 million that has to be sold elsewhere, or not. On
shipping, insurance, and financing that is not affected by the restrictions. I count 2.6
million into 2019 that is not on IEA's plate. Yeah, as said above, 2019 is going to be quite
interesting, most of which we will see the end of 2018. None of this takes into consideration
any increase in demand for 2019 that is over the US production projection for 2019 (.9). nor
any shortage carried over from 2018. Yeah, we should be hunky dory.
In the investment world, we will still be watching EIA weeklies, to determine what is
happening in the rest of the world for awhile. So increased cognitive function won't happen
soon.
250kbd – not shabby when it's for longer than a few days. A quarter of the Opec reserve
capacity, or all the russian reserve capacity.
Without fracking, the world would be in deep sh*** already. With e technic not advanced
enough and 150$+ oil – and more economic problems and instabilities.
"Without fracking, the world would be in deep sh*** already."
Are you kidding? Why? We can't car share, build vehicles that get 80 mpg or better, can't
conserve, can't innovate? There is nothing better (sadly) than economic stress to make fast
and lasting changes.
Let the oil go up to $150. All the countermeasures have been developed, in a decade we would
be well on our way to not needing oil ever again. Sure the military and some specialized
vehicles or systems might need to burn some oil but 90 percent of the demand would be gone in
a decade. Bring those prices up and keep them there. Things look ready now for a permanent
transistion.
Here in the US we are so wasteful, we would hardly know the difference if we cut demand by
50 percent. I cut my use of gasoline for transport down to 10 percent already. Didn't die or
anything like that. Many people could cut theirs by 50 percent or more with existing
technology. With some planning and minor lifestyle changes, down to 30 percent.
Businesses would go EV or hybrid with natural gas.
It's very dangerous to the oil industry to let the price rise. It's no longer a kidnapped
world, it's merely a matter of changing production to different types of vehicles and heating
systems. Oil lost out in power generation, it will lose out in transportation if prices go
high for very long.
People who can afford it will continue wasting gas – and US people have lots of
money or credit cards. Some will have to scale back, of cause.
The break comes in developing countries, where the "Arabian spring" was triggered by high
fuel prices, among other reasons. Or in other countries when the government can't keep up
fuel subsidies. Modern cities, even in the 3rd world, need gas to function.
This means public transport and goods transport, not private cars!
Buying smaller car is an option for developed countries, including China.
Other things:
Lybia – with higher prices, the war between war lords for the oil
perhaps heats up more – more weapons available. Nigeria: More oil price – more
money to get from government, so blow up more pipelines. Venezuela: The decline started
already at 100$+ due to socialistic waste, so no change here. Iraq: Perhaps more money for IS
& co by selling oil – so less production and more war. Iran: More money -> more
weapons to shoot out the proxy war with Saudi Arabia. Russia: More money -> no really need
to increase production, just earn.
And so on we need a transition, but not a chaotic one.
Just reading the existent system now. Dependence upon oil is by design and design can now
change. Economic stress is the only way to hasten the transistion.
If Iran wants to spend it's oil money on war instead of energy transistion, then it will end
up back on camels in the long run. Same with some other countries.
If the people of a country are more interested in war and destruction than helping
themselves, that will end badly. Same goes for the US, or any other big country, if it keeps
trying to run the world.
Venezuela is an example of bad leadership, nothing else.
People and governments often end up where they are aiming.
You don't understand, that this "wasting" of oil, and other energy sources IS the economy.
When your car burns more gas – people in oil extracion, and refining have jobs, and oil
exporting countires have revenue to employ it's citizens, and these citizens then buy
iphones, etc.
Oil can only be scaled down, when other energy source takes over.
The root of all employment in the world is using of energy sources. More energy used
worldwide, means more purchasing power of the population. It's true since hunter-gather
times.
Europe begs to differ. A number of European countries have twice the GDP/energy of the US.
The whole world has been increasing GDP/energy used for many years.
"Oil can only be scaled down, when other energy source takes over."
Efficiency and systems management has already scaled down the use of oil, otherwise we would
be using more than twice as much now.
Meanwhile, other energy sources are and have been taking over from oil for many years. From
electric trains to electric power, electric cars, gas heating. This trend will only
accelerate as oil becomes more expensive and more volatile in price.
Yep, it's scary for some. Two days work for a few guys or less puts enough PV on a house
to supply it's power and the power for an EV. Maybe another day or two for maintenance over
the next 20 to 30 years. That is all the work that is provided.
Another day or two to put in a battery backup system. Not much work there.
However, not to worry. There is a huge amount of work over the next few decades designing,
installing new energy systems. Houses and buildings need refits to be better insulated. Water
systems will have to be changed. Everything will change, meaning lots of work. Probably too
much, so automation will play a big part.
After that, who knows.
"Why? We can't car share, build vehicles that get 80 mpg or better, can't conserve, can't
innovate? There is nothing better (sadly) than economic stress to make fast and lasting
changes."
An 80 mpg vehicle is called a motorcycle. I don't expect many people to commute to work in
the middle of winter on a motorcycle. Nor can I see granny going to the grocery store on a
motor-bike. There are limits to improvement: You cannot squeeze blood from a stone. Law of
diminishing returns: further efficiency improvements are much smaller and much more expensive
to implement.
A lot of oil is consume to transport goods to consumers. That salad you bought at your
local grocer, likely traveled 1200miles in a refrigerated truck. Pretty much everything you
consume includes materials, parts that are manufactured in distant locations.
Most Westerners are now dead broke. They carry high amounts of debt, and have managed to
avoid going homeless because Central Banks dropped the interest rates to nearly zero. Since
then People have been increasing there debt and at some point rising interest rates &
increasing debt will trigger another crisis. That said, dropping the interest to near zero
probably won't work the second time since when the next crisis starts rates will be
significantly lower than during the 2008-2009 (ie law of dimishing returns applies to
interest rates too)
"Let the oil go up to $150. All the countermeasures have been developed, in a decade we
would be well on our way to not needing oil ever again"
It won't be sustainable. Recall that in 2008, Oil prices peaked at $147/bbl and it
triggered the biggest global recession since the Great Depression. Gov't turned to Money
printing (ie QE) to avoid a deflationary spiral. If Oil Spikes near $150/bbl is going to
trigger another global crisis. Which will lead to more war, Civil wars, revolutions, &
rioting. Recall that during 2009-2012, Developing world gov't collapsed, and there were
widespread riots in Europe (UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, etc).
"Oil lost out in power generation, it will lose out in transportation if prices go high
for very long."
Oil was never a major source for generating Electricity. Coal was, but that been outpaced
by NatGas. The think is that NatGas is much more valuable to use for spinning turbines. Its
used for heating and DHW in urban areas since it does not release emissions like Coal &
Oil would. I cannot fathom the costs of retro-fitting every home & business when NatGas
depletion hits.
It took the work about 140 years to build the economy and infrastructure which is
dependent on fossil fuels. Any transition off fossil fuels is likely to take nearly as
long.
Older wells are declining at about 8% per year. A 25 BOPD well with a 10 BOPD economic limit
should have 70,000 barrels of oil left to produce in about 12 years.
Is it safe to assume that newer wells will behave the same as older wells?
Some petroleum engineers that have commented at shaleprofile.com (Enno Peters wonderful
resource) that the high level of extraction from newer wells will likely lead to a thinner
tail.
illustrates this, notice how the 2014 and 2015 wells fall below the 2010 well profile
after 24 months, the same is likely to occur for 2016 and later wells. Also note that the
2010 well profile is representative (close to the mean) for 2009 to 2012 average well
profiles.
Dennis, i would say the decline rate (8%) is very safe to use for all LTO wells, i would
definitely apply it after the 6th year of well life, because by then what counts is rock
quality and fluid type. This is only good for a bulk projection.
By the way I tweaked my price model when I was preparing my CO2 pathway. I took into
account the Venezuela crash, the difficulties the Canadians have moving their crude, etc. The
price projection is $88 per barrel Brent for evaluating projects which start spending in
2019. I also prepared a different look for very long term projects which start spending in
2023: $110 per barrel.
Don't forget these aren't prices predicted for those particular years. They are prices one
can use to evaluate long term projects such as exploring in the Kara Sea, offshore West
Africa deep water, the African rifts, Venezuela heavy oil developments, etc. These prices are
plugged in and escalated with inflation for the 20-30 year project period. Real prices should
oscillate back and forth around these values.
Norwegian crude oil & condensate production (without NGLs) at 1,321
kb/day in May, down -223 m/m, down -297 from 2017 average or -18%. The main reasons that
production in May was below forecast is maintenance work and technical problems on some
fields. http://www.npd.no/en/news/Production-figures/2018/May-2018/ Almost down to the Sept 2012 low at 1,310 kb/day
This is what happens when there are no sizeable new fields coming online for 1/2 year and as
G.Kaplan has mentioned not enough allocation for supply disruptions are included in the
forecast.
A brutal decline, even if this month is an anomaly as NPD say.
Looking at the field numbers (only through April) it looks like Troll Oil is in decline a bit
earlier and a bit steeper than expected. It's the biggest oil producer still bu has dropped
fairly consistently and slightly accelerating from 161 kbpd in October to 121 in April. It's
all horizontal wells and requires continuous drilling to maintain production, it's close to
exhaustion with only 10% remaining at the end of 2017 (about R/P of 3 years) and had been
holding a good plateau around 150 for a few years. The gas is due to be developed starting in
2021 so the oil rim would need to be depleted by then, but maybe dropping a bit sooner than
expected – is a reservoir not behaving as modelled a "technical problem"?
I don't know about the price as it depends on the demand side and the global economy looks to
me increasingly rocky, but the supply side analysis looks pretty good, except as you say a
bit conservative. One thing missing was consideration of increasing decline rates on mature
fields, especially offshore, partly a result of accelerating production in the high price
years and partly because of an increasing ratio for deep and ultra deep water. Additionally I
think the lack of increase in non-US drilling rigs as the price has risen is relevant and
partly represents a shortage of in-fill prospects and short cycle appraisals.
If they are relying on GoM to add the 300 kbpb (or more into 2020) that EIA are predicting
then I think they are going to be short by 400 to 500 kbpd for a 2020 exit rate.
(I don't follow the chart showing new OPEC developments, the numbers can't be number of
projects, probably kbpd added, or maybe mmbbls reserves, and I'm betting they've mixed in gas
with the oil.)
As in all these investment type analyses they don't look too far ahead and there's a kind
of tacit assumption that everything will be sorted out with more investment later on, but
five years of low discoveries and accelerated development of the good ones means there's
actually not that much new to invest in, and if there is then ExxonMobil will be looking to
buy it.
Yeah, demand is always a big question. Hard to measure, even in the rear view mirror.
However, their constant increase of 1.2 million barrels in the US over a three year period,
should offset any question of demand. While 1.2 in 2020 is something I can't predict, 1.2
million for 2018 and 2019 is impossible without increased pipelines long before the second
half of 2019. So, I think it is way conservative.
They say "We believe we are 6-9 months ahead of consensus with our oil forecast. Why is no
one else seeing what we see?." Obviously they haven't been reading POB for the last two
years.
POB made it possible to piece together in my own way, otherwise I would be like most. Staying
confused with constant conflicting info. Predicting price is virtually impossible, as is
demand to a large extent. But, when supply is ready to fall off a cliff, then being exact is
not required.
A simple way to think about C+C demand is to assume over the long run that supply and
demand will be roughly equal (though of course there will be short term imbalances which
changes in the oil price over the short term will try to correct). From 1982 to 2017 C+C
output grew at an average annual rate of about 800 kb/d. It is probably safe to assume that
oil demand will continue to grow at roughly that pace in the absence of a severe global
recession and those are pretty rare. I define a "severe global recession" as one where real
World GDP (constant prices) based on market exchange rates decreases over an annual cycle for
one or more years. Since 1900 there have been two cases where this occurred, the Great
Depression and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008/2009. These have been on roughly a
60 to 70 year cycle (a previous crisis occurred in 1870, but this might have only been a US
crisis and possibly not a global one.)
In any case, my guess is that a Global economic crisis may result a the World tries to
adjust to declining (or stagnant) World Oil output after 2025, probably hitting around 2030
to 2035. If economists re-read Keynes General Theory and respond to the crisis with
appropriate policy recommendations, the economic crisis may be short lived. On the other hand
a World response similar to the European response to the GFC, where fiscal austerity is
considered the appropriate response to a lack of aggregate demand (this was also Herbert
Hoover's response to the 1929 Stock Crash), then a prolonged deep depression will be the
result.
The somewhat vast majority of countries say their reserves are flat in 2017 vs 2016. They
pumped billions of barrels, but no change to reserves for . . . lemme count . . . 36
countries (of which the US was one).
World as a whole reserves total declined 0.03%.
BP's flow report is "all liquids". Dunno if that is consumption, too. And if reserves . .
. reserves are in a footnote. Crude, Condensate AND NGLs. Probably excludes algae.
What? Me worry? Rystadt says US has 79 more years of oil still available. Of course, that
is the imaginary oil. They admit that commercially recoverable oil in the world only has 13
years left. Where did we pick up another 50 billion of imaginary oil in the US this year?
About the market in general:
Rapidly rising prices in recent months have raised doubts about the strength of demand
growth, and we have modestly downgraded our estimate for 2018. Prices are unlikely to
increase as sharply as they did from mid-2017 onwards and thus the dampening effect on demand
will be reduced.
About Non-OPEC production growth:
We think that in Texas by end-2019 there will be a net 575 kb/d of additional pipeline
capacity beyond our earlier number, albeit with most of it coming on line in the second half
of the year. In the meantime, capacity will likely remain tight but production will still be
able to grow strongly, by 1.3 mb/d this year and 0.9 mb/d in 2019. Our non-OPEC growth for
2019 includes a modest increase from Russia reflecting a possible contribution to
compensating for lost production from Iran and Venezuela.
About OPEC production:
To make up for the losses [from Venezuela and Iran], we estimate that Middle East OPEC
countries could increase production in fairly short order by about 1.1 mb/d and there could
be more output from Russia on top of the increase already built into our 2019 non-OPEC supply
numbers. However, even if the Iran/Venezuela supply gap is plugged, the market will be finely
balanced next year, and vulnerable to prices rising higher in the event of further
disruption. It is possible that the very small number of countries with spare capacity beyond
what can be activated quickly will have to go the extra mile.
As usual I disagree with their views, it seems like they have a stance that the market
will be in balance no matter what.
They now have an estimate ("scenario") of market balance in 2019. All assumptions are not
available in the public version. Deficit (stock draw or call on Saudi et al.) is between
1-1.6 mbd assuming lower exports from Iran and Venezuela. However, current decline in
Venezuela looks worse than I think they assumed and IEA continues to assume N America shale
oil on full throttle. 2019 is shaping up to be interesting.
The most likely trend for Venezuela is surely that it hits zero exports (or maybe total
production at worst) sometime in 2019, not that it flattens out or, more miraculously, starts
increasing again. Brazil is likely to take longer, and therefore have a lower peak, to
ramp-up its planned Santos FPSOs. Kazakhstan looks decidedly peaky (or plateau-y, except in
the past they've always shown decline after a peak); Tengiz expansion is in 2020 but I think
initially it just extends the plant plateau. North Sea will be declining until J. Sverdrup.
Nigeria and Angola are definitely showing signs of the big declines you get when deep water
FPSOs hit end of life, and not much drilling there showing yet.
It would be interesting to know how they factor in decline rates (which are accelerating);
in-fill drilling (which must be running out of the best prospects); and short cycle
developments of new discoveries (few to none of those at the moment). If they are using
predictions based on 2005 to 2014 experience the models are going to be a long way out, but
what data is available to do something better?
read deep into the article -- the best oil goes to China. Europe gets only what is left.
Haven't needed it, but the North Sea is dying. Iran is the next supplier but if sanctions
eliminate them, Russian oil of whatever quality will be the only choice.
Or Europe could ignore sanctions, if they have the courage.
I
wanted to make a comment about the OPEC(and Russia) meeting coming up and a possible production
increase. The speculation going around is that OPEC and Russia might increase production up to
1.80 mbpd. The minimum production increase would be around 500kbpd. What is the most likely
production increase based on past production?
The only four countries that have any ability to increase production are
1) Russia: Current production 10.9mbpd. High production 11.3mbpd Difference -400kbpd 2) Saudi Arabia: Current production 10.0mbpd. High production 10.6mbpd Difference -600kbpd 3) UAE: Current production 2.9mbpd. High production 3.10mbpd Difference -200kbpd 4) Kuwait: Current production 2.70mbpd. High production 2.8mbpd Difference -100kbpd
The high watermark in production for these countries happened from Mid 2016 to Mid 2017.
Currently these four countries are producing about 1.3mbpd below their all-time high production
limits. Ask yourself what is the likelihood that these four countries will increase production
to all-time highs and potentially surpass their highs which would be required to increase
production to 1.80mbpd? When OPEC did announce production cuts at the end of 2016 many believe
they had increased production to unsustainable levels to give each country a higher quota from
the production cuts. The guys a Core Labs believed they had to cut because it would have
threaten the long term integrality of their fields.
My guess is that the most OPEC and Russia can bring back for a sustainable period is about
half of the 1.30mbpd they reduced from their production highs .maybe about 600kbpd
India's oil consumption growth was only 2.9%. Derives from their monetary debacle early in
the year. We should see signs of whether or not that corrects back to their much higher norm
before next year.
China consumption growth 4%. Higher than India. Clearly an aberration.
KSA consumption actually declined fractionally, which allows Japan to still be ahead of them
in consumption.
US consumption growth 1%. So much for EV silliness.
Permian pipelines and steel tariffs – it's a good update but the article doesn't
give any clues as to how long it might take for US steel mills to make the type of pipes that
are now being imported.
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Major U.S. energy companies including Plains All American
Pipeline, Hess Corp and Kinder Morgan Inc are among many seeking exemptions from steel-import
tariffs as the United States ratchets up trade tensions with exporters including China, Canada
and Mexico.
The pipeline industry could face higher costs from tariffs as about 77 percent of the steel
used in U.S. pipelines is imported, according to a 2017 study for the pipeline industry.
Benchmark hot-rolled U.S. steel coil prices are up more than 50 percent from a year ago,
according to S&P Global Platts.
Significant. It may not prevent the pipelines being built, but it will, no doubt, delay the
timing of the start to completion timeline. Extended starts and stops on construction would
be extremely expensive. A 25% tariff on oil to China is also a game changer. That's about
600k a day that now has questionable outlets. India is going to have about 600k a day it
won't buy now from Iran, so that's a possibility. Not as big of a game changer as in the
future, when US production begins increasing, again. I could speculate that there is some
timing connection between India foregoing Iran purchases, and the China tariff decision.
Whole Permian scenario keeps shifting down. Pipeline completion dates are more questionable,
and the future export capabilities have a bigger question mark.
Goldman states that most of the producers have no plans to cut back in the Permian. What
else would they tell the investment bank who helps determine their stock price? Yeah, we are
screwed, and currently looking for a buyer?
"... So far in June, the outlook for Venezuelan production is grimmer. Venezuela was producing about 1.5mn b/d at the start of May, including roughly about 800,000 b/d in the Orinoco oil belt and a combined 700,000 b/d in the company's eastern and western divisions. But output in early June has dropped to 1.1mn-1.2mn b/d, according to three PdV officials. https://www.argusmedia.com/pages/N ewsBody.aspx?id=1697240&menu=yes?utm_source=rss%20Free&utm_medium=sendible&utm_campaign=RSS ..."
The basic problem is the General he put in charge did not understand Maduro's command. He
thought Maduro said oil production needs to decrease a million barrels a day.
They are losing workers especially the technical managers, don't have money for spares and
are going to shut down to repair (I note it says repair not just maintenance for two of them)
and restart all four of the most difficult operations in refining, all at the same time.
These are high temperature fluidised beds with some pretty horrible waste product (highly
viscous, toxic coke in heavy oil residue sludge which can block pipes and burners and corrode
all sorts of stuff). Shutting them down fro extended periods is not always a great idea at
the best of times. Planned maintenance for such things is usually phased so only one is down
at a time to ensure all the planning and purchasing can be completed and the experts are
available to go to each plant in turn. The plants need catalyst replacement which costs
money, and tends to be more frequent if the plant isn't in very good condition or isn't being
operated optimally (the operators need to be well trained). Be interesting to see how long it
takes and how many come back, it's quite possible the best case will be cannibalising a
couple to keep the others going.
As to: "If PDVSA cannot alleviate the shipping bottleneck, the company and its joint
ventures could be forced to slow or temporarily pause production at some Orinoco Belt
oilfields," that is already happening: they have dropped over half the rigs and might be down
to none by September at current rate, without new wells and workovers heavy oil can decline
pretty quickly.
There are some rumors that KSA has increased exports starting in May (about 0.5 m b/d more
than prior months) by drawing even more from storage. If we are to believe OPEC production
numbers from May which are steady, that must be the case. OPEC has essentially flooded the
market with exports before the meeting on Friday. The nearest month Brent future changed to
contango compared to closest month some weeks ago, but it has now all changed again to
backwardation. Point being, it seems the physical market is getting tighter again and that
the export flood may have something to do with the meeting. Or it could be that reduced
exports from Iran, Venezuela and Libya are starting to impact the market.
If the market balance overall is to change from a a deficit to near balanced, production
within OPEC has to be increased with almost maximum of whatever spare capacity available in
my opinion. The assumption is that spare capacity in reality is smaller than stated by the
agencies.
Says OPEC 90 day excess capacity is 3.47 million barrels a day. EIA says Sauds part of
that is 1.5 to 2. Not sure where IEA is saying the other 1.5 is coming from. Ok, we will soon
see the truth in that, over the next year.
The real Pollyanna lunacy, is that the Sauds want to see oil prices in the sixties. Lip
service, yes. Actually, why????
Or, come on guys, help us keep the prices down until election time, at least.
by Tyler Durden
Tue, 06/19/2018 - 17:53 454 SHARES
In the aftermath of the publication of the Inspector General's report on FBI abuse, if there
was one thing that was made abundantly clear, it was that FBI special agent Peter Strzok - who
was in charge of the Clinton email investigation and then probed Trump for "Russian collusion"
while texting his lover Lisa Page that "we'll stop" Trump from becoming president - was acting
out of pure, political bias and anger at Clinton's loss. It was certainly not lost on Trump,
who made his feelings on the subject abundantly clear on twitter:
Comey gave Strozk his marching orders. Mueller is Comey's best friend. Witch Hunt! (
source )
"The highest level of bias I've ever witnessed in any law enforcement officer." Trey
Gowdy on the FBI's own, Peter Strzok. Also remember that they all worked for Slippery James
Comey and that Comey is best friends with Robert Mueller. A really sick deal, isn't it? (
source )
The IG Report totally destroys James Comey and all of his minions including the great
lovers, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who started the disgraceful Witch Hunt against so many
innocent people. It will go down as a dark and dangerous period in American History! (
source )
FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who headed the Clinton & Russia investigations, texted to his
lover Lisa Page, in the IG Report, that "we'll stop" candidate Trump from becoming President.
Doesn't get any lower than that! ( source )
And while Lisa Page had the wits to quit shortly before the publication of the OIG report,
Strzok did not and in fact was still employed at the time of the report's publication last
Thursday. But maybe not much longer because as CNN
first reported , Strzok was escorted out of the FBI building on Friday, even though he is
still technically employed and, as we reported some time ago, he has been stationed in Human
Resources since dismissal from Mueller team.
Shortly after the report, Strzok's attorney confirmed the report saying that Strzok was
escorted from the building amid an internal review of his conduct.
"Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to
be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information
leaks," his attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement.
It gets better : in the layer letter, attorney Goelman writes that "Pete has steadfastly
played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of
unfounded personal attacks, political games and inappropriate information leaks."
But wait, it gets even better , because in the very next line Strzok's attorney complains
about the " impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears tainted by political
influence ." Yes, this coming from the "impartial" and "unbiased" FBI agent who led a failed
coup against the president, vowing to "stop" Trump , an act which in another time would have
much more serious consequences than simple termination and being expelled from the FBI.
And speaking of that, the lawyer next complained that "instead of publicly calling for a
long-serving FBI agent to be summarily fired, politicians should allow the disciplinary process
to play out free from political pressure." We are confident that everyone will be very
interested in watching the "impartial" disciplinary process play out fully in the coming
months.
Goelman's conclusion: "Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has
complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as part of the
ongoing internal proceedings." It was not clear how Pete could not have complied with being
escorted from the building but we'll leave it at that.
While Strzok's career at the FBI now finally appears over (with possible disciplinary
consequences to follow), many questions remain including some revelations made later in day by
the Inspector General Horowitz, who during a hearing on Tuesday said that he's no longer
convinced the FBI was collecting all of Strzok's and Page's text messages even outside the
5-month blackout period when it archived none of the texts due to a technical "glitch", which
means a number of other Strzok responses to Page likely missing.
Most importantly however, Horowitz ended an MSM talking point, clarifying that "we did NOT
find no bias in regard to the October 2016 events." Strzok's choice to make pursuing the Russia
espionage case a bigger priority than reopening the Clinton espionage case suggested "that was
a BIASED decision." In other words, as we noted last week, Strzok was clearly biased in his
pursuit of Trump and dismissal of Clinton: a perversion of the entire FBI process.
To all this, all we can add is that while there is still zero evidence that Trump "colluded"
with Russian, Strzok's expulsion from the FBI building is sufficient
"Despite being put through a highly questionable process, Pete has complied with every FBI
procedure ."
Get a good Lawyer and they can build a friendly face on Sedition ?
Now it's 'Pete', the friendly down home guy that used his position to try to Nobble an
Election and a Government ?
He will be in magazines doing a BBQ with crippled children from the orphanage next.
Pictures by the pool with a Cripple.
Pete, St Pete, is his Lawyer joking or something ? This guy has made himself an historical
figure in future American history, if their is any. Unfuckingbeleivable to be honest. Fuck
me! The people in the Goobermint can't possibly be this Stupid, can they ?
Hey, he was just THE HEAD OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE. Not just "a agent", the head, chief
domestic spy. And, as if he shouldn't be busy enough, what with those people who we will
never know their true motives, stabbing, running over, pressure cooker bombing, van truck and
car bombing, mowing down fags. ...nope he's got time to text like a ADD 14 year old
girl...AND...heroically investigate the Secretary of State, Presidential Cannidacandidate te.
Himself investigate. Yup, The big guy, corner office, G5 Gulfstream on call 24/7, body
guards. He stoops to does the leg work. Yup. Superman. If only Hoover was alive. Oh, oh( I
close fist punch my forehesd. Twice ) He has time to investigate DJT too! O-M-(fkn) God!Where
do we get some men? Head of counterintel. Texting like a Jap schoolgirl on meth, clears
Hillary of Rose Law firm, and finds Russians in Trumps tighty whiteys.
"... However, the truth – at least in retrospect – was that, in the Cold War years, the Soviets were actually doing Washington a strange, if unnoted, favor. Across much of the Eurasian continent, and other places from Cuba to the Middle East, Soviet power and the never-ending contest for influence and dominance that went with it always reminded American leaders that their own power had its limits. ..."
"... This, as the 21st century should have (but hasn't) made clear, was no small thing. It still seemed obvious then that American power could not be total. There were things it could not do, places it could not control, dreams its leaders simply couldn't have. Though no one ever thought of it that way, from 1945 to 1991, the United States, like the Soviet Union, was, after a fashion, "contained." ..."
"... In those years, the Russians were, in essence, saving Washington from itself. Soviet power was a tangible reminder to American political and military leaders that certain areas of the planet remained no-go zones (except in what, in those years, were called "the shadows"). ..."
"... The Soviet Union, in short, rescued Washington from both the fantasy and the hell of going it alone, even if Americans only grasped that reality at the most subliminal of levels. ..."
Think of it as the all-American version of the human comedy: a great power that eternally
knows what the world needs and offers copious advice with a tone deafness that would be
humorous, if it weren't so grim.
If you look, you can find examples of this just about
anywhere. Here, for instance, is a passage in The New York Times from a piece on the
topsy-turvy Trumpian negotiations that preceded the Singapore summit. "The Americans and South
Koreans," wrote
reporter Motoko Rich, "want to persuade the North that continuing to funnel most of the
country's resources into its military and nuclear programs shortchanges its citizens' economic
well-being. But the North does not see the two as mutually exclusive."
Think about that for a moment. The US has, of course, embarked on a trillion-dollar-plus
upgrade of its already massive nuclear arsenal (and
that's before the cost overruns even begin). Its Congress and president have for years proved
eager to sink at least a
trillion dollars annually into the budget of the national security state (a figure that's
still rising and
outpaces by far that of any other power on the planet), while its own infrastructure
sags and crumbles. And
yet it finds the impoverished North Koreans puzzling when they, too, follow such an extreme
path.
"Clueless" is not a word Americans ordinarily apply to themselves as a country, a people, or
a government. Yet how applicable it is.
And when it comes to cluelessness, there's another, far stranger path the United States has
been following since at least the George W Bush moment that couldn't be more consequential and
yet somehow remains the least noticed of all. On this subject, Americans don't have a clue. In
fact, if you could put the United States on a psychiatrist's couch, this might be the place to
start.
America contained
In a way, it's the oldest story on Earth: the rise and fall of empires. And note the plural
there. It was never – not until recently at least – "empire," always "empires."
Since the 15th century, when the fleets of the first European imperial powers broke into the
larger world with subjugation in mind, it was invariably a contest of many. There were at least
three or sometimes significantly more imperial powers rising and contesting for dominance or
slowly falling from it.
This was, by definition, the history of great powers on this planet: the challenging rise,
the challenged decline. Think of it for so many centuries as the essential narrative of
history, the story of how it all happened until at least 1945, when just two "superpowers," the
United States and the Soviet Union, found themselves facing off on a global scale.
Of the two, the US was always stronger, more powerful, and far wealthier. It theoretically
feared the Russian Bear, the Evil Empire , which it
worked assiduously to " contain " behind that famed Iron
Curtain and whose adherents in the US, always modest in number, were subjected to a mania of
fear and suppression.
However, the truth – at least in retrospect – was that, in the Cold War years,
the Soviets were actually doing Washington a strange, if unnoted, favor. Across much of the
Eurasian continent, and other places from Cuba to the Middle East, Soviet power and the
never-ending contest for influence and dominance that went with it always reminded American
leaders that their own power had its limits.
This, as the 21st century should have (but hasn't) made clear, was no small thing. It still
seemed obvious then that American power could not be total. There were things it could not do,
places it could not control, dreams its leaders simply couldn't have. Though no one ever
thought of it that way, from 1945 to 1991, the United States, like the Soviet Union, was, after
a fashion, "contained."
In those years, the Russians were, in essence, saving Washington from itself. Soviet power
was a tangible reminder to American political and military leaders that certain areas of the
planet remained no-go zones (except in what, in those years, were called "the shadows").
The Soviet Union, in short, rescued Washington from both the fantasy and the hell of going
it alone, even if Americans only grasped that reality at the most subliminal of levels.
That was the situation until December 1991 when, at the end of a centuries-long imperial
race for power (and the never-ending arms race that went with it), there was just one gigantic
power left standing on Planet Earth. It told you something about the thinking then that, when
the Soviet Union imploded, the initial reaction in Washington wasn't triumphalism (though that
came soon enough) but utter shock, a disbelieving sense that something no one had expected,
predicted, or even imagined had nonetheless happened. To that very moment, Washington had
continued to plan for a two-superpower world until the end of time.
America
uncontained
Soon enough, though, the Washington elite came to see what happened as, in the phrase of the
moment, " the end of
history ." Given the wreckage of the Soviet Union, it seemed that an ultimate victory had
been won by the very country its politicians would soon come to call "the last superpower," the
"
indispensable " nation, the " exceptional
" state, a land great beyond imagining (until, at least, Donald Trump hit
the campaign trail with a slogan that implied greatness wasn't all-American any more).
In reality, there were a variety of paths open to the "last superpower" at that moment.
There was even, however briefly, talk of a "peace dividend" – of the possibility that, in
a world without contesting superpowers, taxpayer dollars might once again be invested not in
the sinews of war-making but of peacemaking (particularly in infrastructure and the well-being
of the country's citizens).
Such talk, however, lasted only a year or two and always in a minor key before being
relegated to Washington's attic. Instead, with only a few rickety "rogue" states left to deal
with – like gulp North Korea, Iraq and Iran – that money never actually headed
home, and neither did the thinking that went with it.
Consider it the good fortune of the geopolitical dreamers soon to take the reins in
Washington that the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, which ended less than a year before the Soviet
Union collapsed, prepared the way for quite a different style of thinking. That instant victory
led to a new kind of militarized dreaming in which a highly tech-savvy military, like the one
that had driven Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in such short order, would
be capable of doing anything on a planet without serious opposition.
And yet, from the beginning, there were signs suggesting a far grimmer future. To take but
one infamous example, Americans still remember the Black Hawk Down moment of 1993
when the world's greatest military fell victim to a Somali warlord and local militias and found
itself incapable of imposing its will on one of the least impressive not-quite-states on the
planet (a place
still frustrating that military a quarter-century later).
In that post-1991 world, however, few in Washington even considered that the 20th century
had loosed another phenomenon on the world, that of insurgent national liberation movements,
generally leftist rebellions, across what had been the colonial world – the very world of
competing empires now being tucked into the history books – and it hadn't gone away. In
the 21st century, such insurgent movements, now largely religious, or terror-based, or both,
would turn out to offer a grim new version of containment to the last
superpower.
Unchaining the indispensable nation
On September 11, 2001, a canny global jihadist by the name of Osama bin Laden
sent his air force (four hijacked US passenger jets) and his precision weaponry (19
suicidal, mainly Saudi followers) against three iconic targets in the American pantheon: the
Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and undoubtedly the Capitol or the White House (neither of
which was hit because one of those jets crashed in a field in
Pennsylvania). In doing so, in a sense bin Laden not only loosed a literal hell on Earth, but
unchained
the last superpower.
William Shakespeare would have had a word for what followed: hubris. But give the top
officials of the Bush administration (and the neocons who supported them) a break. There had
never been a moment like it: a moment of one. A single great power left alone, triumphant, on
planet Earth. Just one superpower – wealthy beyond compare, its increasingly high-tech
military unmatched, its only true rival in a state of collapse – had now been challenged
by a small jihadist group.
To president Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, and the rest of their crew, it seemed like
nothing short of a heaven-sent opportunity. As they came out of the shock of 9/11, of that "
Pearl
Harbor of the 21st century ," it was as if they had found a magic formula in the ruins of
those iconic buildings for the ultimate control of the planet. As secretary of defense Donald
Rumsfeld would instruct an aide
at the Pentagon that day, "Go massive. Sweep it up. Things related and not."
Within days, things related and not were indeed being swept up. The country was almost
instantly said to be "at war," and soon that conflict even had a name, the Global War on
Terror. Nor was that war to be against just al-Qaeda, or even one country, an Afghanistan
largely ruled by the Taliban. More than 60 countries said to have "terror
networks" of various sorts found themselves almost instantly in the administration's potential
gunsights. And that was just to be the beginning of it all.
In October 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan was launched. In the spring of 2003, the
invasion of Iraq followed, and those were only the initial steps in what was increasingly
envisioned as the imposition of a Pax Americana on the Greater Middle East.
There could be no doubt, for instance, that Iran and Syria, too, would
soon go the way of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush's top officials had been nursing just such dreams
since, in 1997, many of them formed a
think-tank (the first ever to enter the White House) called the Project for the New American
Century and began to write out what
were then the fantasies of figures nowhere near power. By 2003, they were power itself and
their dreams, if anything, had grown even more grandiose.
In addition to imagining a political Pax Republicana in the United States, they truly
dreamed of a future planetary Pax Americana in which, for the first time in history, a single
power would, in some fashion, control the whole works, the Earth itself.
And this wasn't to be a passing matter either. The Bush administration's "unilateralism"
rested on a conviction that it could actually create a future in which no country or even bloc
of countries would ever come close to matching or challenging US military power. The
administration's National Security Strategy of 2002 put the
matter bluntly: The US was to "build and maintain" a military, in the phrase of the moment,
" beyond challenge
."
They had little doubt that, in the face of the most technologically advanced, bulked-up,
destructive force on Earth, hostile states would be "shocked and awed" by a simple demonstration of
its power, while friendly ones would have little choice but to come to heel as well. After all,
as Bush said at a Veterans of
Foreign Wars convention in 2007, the US military was "the greatest force for human liberation
the world has ever known."
Though there was much talk at the time about the "liberation" of Afghanistan and then Iraq,
at least in their imaginations the true country being liberated was the planet's lone
superpower. Although the Bush administration was officially considered a "conservative" one,
its key officials were geopolitical dreamers of the first order and their vision of the world
was the very opposite of conservative. It harkened back to nothing and looked forward to
everything.
It was radical in ways that should have, but didn't, take the American public's breath away;
radical in ways that had never been seen before.
Shock and awe for the last
superpower
Think of what those officials did in the post-9/11 moment as the ultimate act of greed. They
tried to swallow a whole planet. They were determined to make it a planet of one in a way that
had never before been seriously imagined.
It was, to say the least, a vision of madness. Even in a moment when it truly did seem
– to them at least – that all constraints had been taken off, an administration of
genuine conservatives might have hesitated. Its top officials might, at least, have approached
the post-Soviet situation with a modicum of caution and modesty.
But not George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and pals. In the face of what seemed
like the ultimate in possibilities they proved clueless when it came to the possibility that
anything on Earth might have a shot at containing them.
Even among their critics, who could have imagined then that, more than 16 years later,
having faced only lightly armed enemies of various sorts, still wealthy beyond compare, still
with a military funded in a way the next seven
countries couldn't cumulatively match,
the United States would have won literally nothing?
Who could have imagined that, unlike so many preceding imperial powers (including the US of
the earlier Cold War era), it would have been able to establish control over nothing at all;
that, instead, from Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq deep into Africa, it would find itself in a
state of "
infinite war " and utter frustration on a planet filled with ever more failed
states , destroyed
cities , displaced people , and
right-wing "populist" governments, including the one in Washington?
Who could have imagined that, with a peace dividend no longer faintly conceivable, this
country would have found itself not just in decline, but – a new term is needed to catch
the essence of this curious moment – in what might be called self-decline?
Yes, a new power, China, is finally rising – and doing so on a planet that seems
itself to be
going down . Here, then, is a conclusion that might be drawn from the quarter-century-plus
in which America was both unchained and largely alone.
The Earth is admittedly a small orb in a vast universe, but the history of this century so
far suggests one reality about which America's rulers proved utterly clueless: After so many
hundreds of years of imperial struggle, this planet still remains too big, too disparate, too
ornery to be controlled by a single power. What the Bush administration did was simply take one
gulp too many and the result has been a kind of national (and planetary) indigestion.
Despite what it looked like in Washington once upon a time, the disappearance of the Soviet
Union proved to be no gift at all, but a disaster of the first order. It removed all sense of
limits from America's political class and led to a tale of greed on a planetary scale. In the
process, it also set the US on a path to self-decline.
The history of greed in our time has yet to be written, but what a story it will someday
make. In it, the greed of those geopolitical dreamers will intersect with the greed of an ever
wealthier, ever more gilded 1%, of the billionaires who were preparing to swallow whole the
political system of that last superpower and grab so much of the wealth of the planet, leaving
so little for others.
Whether you're talking about the urge to control the planet militarily or financially, what
took place in these years could, in the end, result in ruin of a historic kind. To use a
favored phrase from the Bush years, one of these days we Americans may be facing little short
of "regime change" on a planetary scale. And what a piece of shock and awe that's likely to
prove to be.
All of us, of course, now live on the planet Bush's boys tried to swallow whole. They left
us in a world of infinite war, infinite harm, and in Donald Trump's America where cluelessness
has been raised to a new power.
"... However, the truth – at least in retrospect – was that, in the Cold War years, the Soviets were actually doing Washington a strange, if unnoted, favor. Across much of the Eurasian continent, and other places from Cuba to the Middle East, Soviet power and the never-ending contest for influence and dominance that went with it always reminded American leaders that their own power had its limits. ..."
"... This, as the 21st century should have (but hasn't) made clear, was no small thing. It still seemed obvious then that American power could not be total. There were things it could not do, places it could not control, dreams its leaders simply couldn't have. Though no one ever thought of it that way, from 1945 to 1991, the United States, like the Soviet Union, was, after a fashion, "contained." ..."
"... In those years, the Russians were, in essence, saving Washington from itself. Soviet power was a tangible reminder to American political and military leaders that certain areas of the planet remained no-go zones (except in what, in those years, were called "the shadows"). ..."
"... The Soviet Union, in short, rescued Washington from both the fantasy and the hell of going it alone, even if Americans only grasped that reality at the most subliminal of levels. ..."
Think of it as the all-American version of the human comedy: a great power that eternally
knows what the world needs and offers copious advice with a tone deafness that would be
humorous, if it weren't so grim.
If you look, you can find examples of this just about
anywhere. Here, for instance, is a passage in The New York Times from a piece on the
topsy-turvy Trumpian negotiations that preceded the Singapore summit. "The Americans and South
Koreans," wrote
reporter Motoko Rich, "want to persuade the North that continuing to funnel most of the
country's resources into its military and nuclear programs shortchanges its citizens' economic
well-being. But the North does not see the two as mutually exclusive."
Think about that for a moment. The US has, of course, embarked on a trillion-dollar-plus
upgrade of its already massive nuclear arsenal (and
that's before the cost overruns even begin). Its Congress and president have for years proved
eager to sink at least a
trillion dollars annually into the budget of the national security state (a figure that's
still rising and
outpaces by far that of any other power on the planet), while its own infrastructure
sags and crumbles. And
yet it finds the impoverished North Koreans puzzling when they, too, follow such an extreme
path.
"Clueless" is not a word Americans ordinarily apply to themselves as a country, a people, or
a government. Yet how applicable it is.
And when it comes to cluelessness, there's another, far stranger path the United States has
been following since at least the George W Bush moment that couldn't be more consequential and
yet somehow remains the least noticed of all. On this subject, Americans don't have a clue. In
fact, if you could put the United States on a psychiatrist's couch, this might be the place to
start.
America contained
In a way, it's the oldest story on Earth: the rise and fall of empires. And note the plural
there. It was never – not until recently at least – "empire," always "empires."
Since the 15th century, when the fleets of the first European imperial powers broke into the
larger world with subjugation in mind, it was invariably a contest of many. There were at least
three or sometimes significantly more imperial powers rising and contesting for dominance or
slowly falling from it.
This was, by definition, the history of great powers on this planet: the challenging rise,
the challenged decline. Think of it for so many centuries as the essential narrative of
history, the story of how it all happened until at least 1945, when just two "superpowers," the
United States and the Soviet Union, found themselves facing off on a global scale.
Of the two, the US was always stronger, more powerful, and far wealthier. It theoretically
feared the Russian Bear, the Evil Empire , which it
worked assiduously to " contain " behind that famed Iron
Curtain and whose adherents in the US, always modest in number, were subjected to a mania of
fear and suppression.
However, the truth – at least in retrospect – was that, in the Cold War years,
the Soviets were actually doing Washington a strange, if unnoted, favor. Across much of the
Eurasian continent, and other places from Cuba to the Middle East, Soviet power and the
never-ending contest for influence and dominance that went with it always reminded American
leaders that their own power had its limits.
This, as the 21st century should have (but hasn't) made clear, was no small thing. It still
seemed obvious then that American power could not be total. There were things it could not do,
places it could not control, dreams its leaders simply couldn't have. Though no one ever
thought of it that way, from 1945 to 1991, the United States, like the Soviet Union, was, after
a fashion, "contained."
In those years, the Russians were, in essence, saving Washington from itself. Soviet power
was a tangible reminder to American political and military leaders that certain areas of the
planet remained no-go zones (except in what, in those years, were called "the shadows").
The Soviet Union, in short, rescued Washington from both the fantasy and the hell of going
it alone, even if Americans only grasped that reality at the most subliminal of levels.
That was the situation until December 1991 when, at the end of a centuries-long imperial
race for power (and the never-ending arms race that went with it), there was just one gigantic
power left standing on Planet Earth. It told you something about the thinking then that, when
the Soviet Union imploded, the initial reaction in Washington wasn't triumphalism (though that
came soon enough) but utter shock, a disbelieving sense that something no one had expected,
predicted, or even imagined had nonetheless happened. To that very moment, Washington had
continued to plan for a two-superpower world until the end of time.
America
uncontained
Soon enough, though, the Washington elite came to see what happened as, in the phrase of the
moment, " the end of
history ." Given the wreckage of the Soviet Union, it seemed that an ultimate victory had
been won by the very country its politicians would soon come to call "the last superpower," the
"
indispensable " nation, the " exceptional
" state, a land great beyond imagining (until, at least, Donald Trump hit
the campaign trail with a slogan that implied greatness wasn't all-American any more).
In reality, there were a variety of paths open to the "last superpower" at that moment.
There was even, however briefly, talk of a "peace dividend" – of the possibility that, in
a world without contesting superpowers, taxpayer dollars might once again be invested not in
the sinews of war-making but of peacemaking (particularly in infrastructure and the well-being
of the country's citizens).
Such talk, however, lasted only a year or two and always in a minor key before being
relegated to Washington's attic. Instead, with only a few rickety "rogue" states left to deal
with – like gulp North Korea, Iraq and Iran – that money never actually headed
home, and neither did the thinking that went with it.
Consider it the good fortune of the geopolitical dreamers soon to take the reins in
Washington that the first Gulf War of 1990-1991, which ended less than a year before the Soviet
Union collapsed, prepared the way for quite a different style of thinking. That instant victory
led to a new kind of militarized dreaming in which a highly tech-savvy military, like the one
that had driven Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in such short order, would
be capable of doing anything on a planet without serious opposition.
And yet, from the beginning, there were signs suggesting a far grimmer future. To take but
one infamous example, Americans still remember the Black Hawk Down moment of 1993
when the world's greatest military fell victim to a Somali warlord and local militias and found
itself incapable of imposing its will on one of the least impressive not-quite-states on the
planet (a place
still frustrating that military a quarter-century later).
In that post-1991 world, however, few in Washington even considered that the 20th century
had loosed another phenomenon on the world, that of insurgent national liberation movements,
generally leftist rebellions, across what had been the colonial world – the very world of
competing empires now being tucked into the history books – and it hadn't gone away. In
the 21st century, such insurgent movements, now largely religious, or terror-based, or both,
would turn out to offer a grim new version of containment to the last
superpower.
Unchaining the indispensable nation
On September 11, 2001, a canny global jihadist by the name of Osama bin Laden
sent his air force (four hijacked US passenger jets) and his precision weaponry (19
suicidal, mainly Saudi followers) against three iconic targets in the American pantheon: the
Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and undoubtedly the Capitol or the White House (neither of
which was hit because one of those jets crashed in a field in
Pennsylvania). In doing so, in a sense bin Laden not only loosed a literal hell on Earth, but
unchained
the last superpower.
William Shakespeare would have had a word for what followed: hubris. But give the top
officials of the Bush administration (and the neocons who supported them) a break. There had
never been a moment like it: a moment of one. A single great power left alone, triumphant, on
planet Earth. Just one superpower – wealthy beyond compare, its increasingly high-tech
military unmatched, its only true rival in a state of collapse – had now been challenged
by a small jihadist group.
To president Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, and the rest of their crew, it seemed like
nothing short of a heaven-sent opportunity. As they came out of the shock of 9/11, of that "
Pearl
Harbor of the 21st century ," it was as if they had found a magic formula in the ruins of
those iconic buildings for the ultimate control of the planet. As secretary of defense Donald
Rumsfeld would instruct an aide
at the Pentagon that day, "Go massive. Sweep it up. Things related and not."
Within days, things related and not were indeed being swept up. The country was almost
instantly said to be "at war," and soon that conflict even had a name, the Global War on
Terror. Nor was that war to be against just al-Qaeda, or even one country, an Afghanistan
largely ruled by the Taliban. More than 60 countries said to have "terror
networks" of various sorts found themselves almost instantly in the administration's potential
gunsights. And that was just to be the beginning of it all.
In October 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan was launched. In the spring of 2003, the
invasion of Iraq followed, and those were only the initial steps in what was increasingly
envisioned as the imposition of a Pax Americana on the Greater Middle East.
There could be no doubt, for instance, that Iran and Syria, too, would
soon go the way of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush's top officials had been nursing just such dreams
since, in 1997, many of them formed a
think-tank (the first ever to enter the White House) called the Project for the New American
Century and began to write out what
were then the fantasies of figures nowhere near power. By 2003, they were power itself and
their dreams, if anything, had grown even more grandiose.
In addition to imagining a political Pax Republicana in the United States, they truly
dreamed of a future planetary Pax Americana in which, for the first time in history, a single
power would, in some fashion, control the whole works, the Earth itself.
And this wasn't to be a passing matter either. The Bush administration's "unilateralism"
rested on a conviction that it could actually create a future in which no country or even bloc
of countries would ever come close to matching or challenging US military power. The
administration's National Security Strategy of 2002 put the
matter bluntly: The US was to "build and maintain" a military, in the phrase of the moment,
" beyond challenge
."
They had little doubt that, in the face of the most technologically advanced, bulked-up,
destructive force on Earth, hostile states would be "shocked and awed" by a simple demonstration of
its power, while friendly ones would have little choice but to come to heel as well. After all,
as Bush said at a Veterans of
Foreign Wars convention in 2007, the US military was "the greatest force for human liberation
the world has ever known."
Though there was much talk at the time about the "liberation" of Afghanistan and then Iraq,
at least in their imaginations the true country being liberated was the planet's lone
superpower. Although the Bush administration was officially considered a "conservative" one,
its key officials were geopolitical dreamers of the first order and their vision of the world
was the very opposite of conservative. It harkened back to nothing and looked forward to
everything.
It was radical in ways that should have, but didn't, take the American public's breath away;
radical in ways that had never been seen before.
Shock and awe for the last
superpower
Think of what those officials did in the post-9/11 moment as the ultimate act of greed. They
tried to swallow a whole planet. They were determined to make it a planet of one in a way that
had never before been seriously imagined.
It was, to say the least, a vision of madness. Even in a moment when it truly did seem
– to them at least – that all constraints had been taken off, an administration of
genuine conservatives might have hesitated. Its top officials might, at least, have approached
the post-Soviet situation with a modicum of caution and modesty.
But not George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and pals. In the face of what seemed
like the ultimate in possibilities they proved clueless when it came to the possibility that
anything on Earth might have a shot at containing them.
Even among their critics, who could have imagined then that, more than 16 years later,
having faced only lightly armed enemies of various sorts, still wealthy beyond compare, still
with a military funded in a way the next seven
countries couldn't cumulatively match,
the United States would have won literally nothing?
Who could have imagined that, unlike so many preceding imperial powers (including the US of
the earlier Cold War era), it would have been able to establish control over nothing at all;
that, instead, from Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq deep into Africa, it would find itself in a
state of "
infinite war " and utter frustration on a planet filled with ever more failed
states , destroyed
cities , displaced people , and
right-wing "populist" governments, including the one in Washington?
Who could have imagined that, with a peace dividend no longer faintly conceivable, this
country would have found itself not just in decline, but – a new term is needed to catch
the essence of this curious moment – in what might be called self-decline?
Yes, a new power, China, is finally rising – and doing so on a planet that seems
itself to be
going down . Here, then, is a conclusion that might be drawn from the quarter-century-plus
in which America was both unchained and largely alone.
The Earth is admittedly a small orb in a vast universe, but the history of this century so
far suggests one reality about which America's rulers proved utterly clueless: After so many
hundreds of years of imperial struggle, this planet still remains too big, too disparate, too
ornery to be controlled by a single power. What the Bush administration did was simply take one
gulp too many and the result has been a kind of national (and planetary) indigestion.
Despite what it looked like in Washington once upon a time, the disappearance of the Soviet
Union proved to be no gift at all, but a disaster of the first order. It removed all sense of
limits from America's political class and led to a tale of greed on a planetary scale. In the
process, it also set the US on a path to self-decline.
The history of greed in our time has yet to be written, but what a story it will someday
make. In it, the greed of those geopolitical dreamers will intersect with the greed of an ever
wealthier, ever more gilded 1%, of the billionaires who were preparing to swallow whole the
political system of that last superpower and grab so much of the wealth of the planet, leaving
so little for others.
Whether you're talking about the urge to control the planet militarily or financially, what
took place in these years could, in the end, result in ruin of a historic kind. To use a
favored phrase from the Bush years, one of these days we Americans may be facing little short
of "regime change" on a planetary scale. And what a piece of shock and awe that's likely to
prove to be.
All of us, of course, now live on the planet Bush's boys tried to swallow whole. They left
us in a world of infinite war, infinite harm, and in Donald Trump's America where cluelessness
has been raised to a new power.
Murphy also included the District of Columbia in his research, and found it had a
psychopathy level far higher than any other state. But this finding is an outlier, as Murphy
notes, as it's an entirely urban area and cannot be fairly compared with larger, more
geographically diverse, US states. That said, as Murphy notes, "The presence of psychopaths
in District of Columbia is consistent with the conjecture found in Murphy (2016) that
psychopaths are likely to be effective in the political sphere."
Surprised? I didn't think so. But still, fun to get some scientific confirmation.
The personality traits generally corresponding to psychopathy are low neuroticism, high
extraversion, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness.
Of course, D.C. came in first by far. But as he notes, that this is not exactly a fair
comparison, as it is a city being compared to entire states. The study finds that urban areas,
in general, correspond to more psychopathic personality traits.
Another interesting finding is that a higher concentration of lawyers predicts higher
psychopathy prevalence. I kid you not.
So removing D.C. can you guess which states come in the top three? I bet you can.
Connecticut
California
New Jersey
New York ties for the fourth highest concentration of psychopaths among U.S. states.
Interestingly, it ties with Wyoming which I would not have expected. But the author notes there
was a relatively small sample surveyed from Wyoming.
The least psychopathic states are :
West Virginia
Vermont
Tennessee
North Carolina
New Mexico
And it should not be surprising that the main correlation was that state with the lowest
percentage of people living in urban areas also had the lowest concentration of
psychopaths.
Perhaps psychopaths need to be around more victims, or constantly switch out their friends
and acquaintances as they become wise to their antisocial behaviors. Note that antisocial does
not mean loner, it means lacking empathy, remorse, and
behaving in a manipulative way that hurts others .
But to be clear, the paper is not so much identifying where all the psychopaths live, as
much as identifying general population traits which correspond to psychopathy.
This certainly leads to a higher frequency of psychiatrically identifiable true psychopaths.
But it also means that a large percentage of the population behaves in a somewhat psychopathic
manner.
While a very small percentage of individuals in any given state may actually be true
psychopaths, the level of psychopathy present, on average, within an aggregate population
(i.e., not simply the low percentages of psychopaths) is a distinct research question. While
empirical operationalizations of psychopathy frequently treat it as a binary categorization,
the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (Hare 1991) treats it as a spectrum. The operationalization of
psychopathy found here is consistent with psychopathy as thought of as a spectrum.
The study concludes:
Areas of the United States that are measured to be most psychopathic are those in the
Northeast and other similarly populated regions. The least psychopathic are predominantly
rural areas. The District of Columbia is measured to be far more psychopathic than any
individual state in the country, a fact that can be readily explained either by its very high
population density or by the type of person who may be drawn [to] a literal seat of power (as
in Murphy 2016).
Hailing originally from Massachusetts, I can attest to the highest corresponding personality
trait being "Temperamental & Uninhibited." Where did you think the term Masshole came
from.
If you aren't a psychopath when you enter the state, you soon become one from the traffic
alone. And I wonder if just being in such close proximity to people makes it a necessary
adaptation to care a little less about how your actions affect others.
There are just too many variables, so you become numb to the plight of others, and just need
to get the hell out of this traffic jam before I go insane!
"... I encountered a wonderful concept the other day on the Keiser Report, where they said in passing that the great irony of the Hegemon's position was that it couldn't use its massive financial power because whenever it did, it simply forced alternatives to arise. ..."
"... This is why every financial move by Trump is producing the opposite result. Another ZH article says that the Russian sell-off of US Treasuries was a move to cover Rusal and the sanctions placed on its former CEO, Deripaska. Mr. Trump Attacks Aluminum, Russia Attacks The Debt . ..."
"... Every time the US flaunts its Dollar supremacy, it pushes customers away from the Dollar. ..."
"... The US has power left in the financial sector, but can't use it. The US has no power left in the military area, and cannot show it. Syria, Korea, the theaters are growing where the US has had to step down. ..."
"... Even the fog of propaganda is wearing increasingly thin. The US State Department just issued a warning to its people about traveling to Russia. It's risky, they say. But ticket sales for the World Cup are up by 25% from the US, the largest foreign customer ..."
The take away quote:
"
"What we've witnessed, since 2008, is the unbridled ability of the so-called people at the top to implement socialism for the
banks," Prins tells me. "If anyone had said we are going to give $21 trillion to the global banking sector, it would never have
happened – so we've had a backdoor process instead, under the pretense it would help ordinary people."
Excellent article, thanks for the link. Nomi knows all this stuff, and she's right. And Liam Halligan, a financial journalist
I greatly respect, wrote the article. Recommended.
~~
I encountered a wonderful concept the other day on the Keiser Report, where they said in passing that the great irony of the
Hegemon's position was that it couldn't use its massive financial power because whenever it did, it simply forced alternatives
to arise.
This is why every financial move by Trump is producing the opposite result. Another ZH article says that the Russian sell-off
of US Treasuries was a move to cover Rusal and the sanctions placed on its former CEO, Deripaska.
Mr. Trump Attacks
Aluminum, Russia Attacks The Debt .
The tariffs on aluminum compelled the Chinese to create a Yuan-denominated futures contract
on industrial metals - convertible to gold at Shanghai, of course. The instability of the overnight tariffs created a more enduring
stability than before, resting on gold, which satisfies concerns about transfers between nations.
Every time the US flaunts its Dollar supremacy, it pushes customers away from the Dollar.
~~
But it's not just Trump, nor just the financial markets. It's every theater and every plane of activity. Every use of bullying,
drives former allies away. Every posture of aggression runs the supreme risk that the US military will be exposed as ineffective,
and if that happens, the Pentagon is finished, and the generals know it.
The US has power left in the financial sector, but can't use it. The US has no power left in the military area, and cannot
show it. Syria, Korea, the theaters are growing where the US has had to step down.
Even the fog of propaganda is wearing increasingly thin. The US State Department just issued a warning to its people about
traveling to Russia. It's risky, they say. But ticket sales for the World Cup are up by 25% from the US, the largest foreign customer.
I'll have to stop, but fortunately, the examples go on and on.
Mate would have got the idea from Stephen Cohen, Russia expert, Nation contributor and husband of the Nation editor. But Cohen
has certainly got it from Alt-media - here or similar...
"... The net result will be more of the aluminum market will flow through the Yuan rather than the dollar, neatly avoiding sanctions and any future threats. Because with the insanity caused by the overnight chaos in April, any aluminum supplier/consumer will be wary of another such edict from the naked Emperor in D.C. ..."
"... Rusal will be one of the main beneficiaries since Russian banks are already sanctioned. ..."
"... Abusing your customers is never a winning marketplace strategy and that's exactly what Trump's sanctions policy is doing, abusing customers of the dollar. Trust has been the dollar's strongest attribute for a long time now and it is the primary reason why it has dominated trade and reserves. ..."
"... But there is a limit to how much your customers will take. And Trump is pushing well beyond that limit. And when the benefits of using the dollar are eclipsed by the liabilities, people will naturally shift away from it. ..."
"... Putin has and will use future mini-crises like this to further clean up the rot left over from the Yeltsin years, like Deripaska, while building a Russia insulated from future attacks like this. ..."
"... The struggle for most Americans regarding this issue is the fact that the Ministry of Truth has always told us "Russia Bad!" while "US Good!". The Ole good guy vs bad guy paradigm. I grew up in the 80's and am very familiar with that paradigm. I am an American through and through but our government has become the most corrupt bunch of whoring thieves on the planet. ..."
"... True Americans have awakened to realize the power of our corrupt government lies in the dollar hegemony. True Americans hate it, and hate the power and control it wields in our own lives. We see it at work around the world. We see DC squeeze our lives to subsidize it's world empire. An empire is seeks to maintain for various reasons that are debated regularly. ..."
"... The USA is drunk on power with their dollar as they see it as invincible. It will be their own undoing. The world is eager and preparing to drop/run/destroy the dollar. One day they'll all lick their wounds take their losses and forget the dollar completely. ..."
"... The US will have to do one of the hardest things in the history of the nation. She'll have to stop LYING to herself! All those recommending weaponization of the petrodollar, are charlatans. The USA cannot get through restructuring via antagonism, that only tightens the economic noose. ..."
"... What is needed, is bankruptcy protection, via honest cooperation with the emergent economic powers in the East. This comes with a price, retrenchment of imperium. This in turn, requires sobriety that, the game while not completely lost, as in national decomposition, is nevertheless, unwinnable, as in rebuilding can only follow retrenchment. ..."
Looking at the unfolding trade war between Donald Trump and the world the phrase that should
come to mind is "One good turn deserves another."
In the case of the insane sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and Russian Aluminum giant, Rusal,
back in April, we finally got some clarity as to how Russia can and will respond to future
events.
In yesterday's Treasury International Capital (TIC) report, we saw clearly that Russia
activated its nearly $100 billion in U.S. Treasury debt to buy dollars in April.
More than $47 billion in U.S. debt was dumped into the market to cover the chaos engendered
by Trump's overnight diktat for the world to stop doing business with Rusal.
Also of note, U.S. ally Japan continues to shed Treasuries at around 8-10 billion per month.
Ireland dumped $17 billion and Luxembourg nearly $8 billion.
While China dropped $5 billion this is noise, ultimately as its holdings of U.S. debt have
been stable for over a year now. What is interesting is Belgium, the home of Euroclear, seeing
a $12 billion inflow. Likely that's where some of the Russian-held debt was traded to.
The Russians likely sold from their balance on reserve with the Federal Reserve. Here's the
latest iteration of the chart I keep for just such an occasion.
Rusal's shares and bonds went bidless but the damage wasn't contained there as major
Russian banks like VTB and Sberbank were hit hard as well. So, while Rusal didn't have much
in the way of dollar-denominated debt. It did have major dollar-related obligations as accounts
receivable on its balance sheet because of the sheer size of its trade conducted in
dollars.
And that's why there was such an outflow from Russia's stock of Treasuries. But, here's the
thing. It didn't matter one whit. Why? It didn't undermine Russia's Foreign Exchange
Reserves.
No Dip in Russia's Foreign Exchange Reserves During Rusal Crisis
Russia just sold Treasuries into the market, raised dollars and swapped out Rusal's bonds,
holding them as collateral for a Repo.
The Bank of Russia Intervened to keep Rusal and Other Banks Solvent by Dumping U.S.
Treasuries
This mass dumping of U.S. debt caused the long end of the U.S. yield curve to blow out past
significant resistance points, like the 10 year pushing above 3.05% in sympathy with the Fed's
policy to dry up dollar liquidity. If this first-order analysis by Zerohedge is correct, then
we can assume Russia has been holding a lot of long-dated Treasuries versus say China which we
know has shortened up the average maturity of their massive bond portfolio.
In times past we may have not seen such a massive dump of U.S. debt by Russia. They may have
simply sold dollars directly or swapped euros or yuan for them. But, these are different times.
Trump has taken the use of sanctions to a level that hasn't been seen before.
Putin is the master of parallel aggression. You take an action against Russia, he will
generally hit you back along some other vector.
In this case it was a direct confrontation to Trump's bringing the full weight of U.S.
financial dominance down on its rivals and allies, who are all heavily exposed to
Rusal's market position.
Russia is not out of the water with this situation which is why Oleg Deripaska, the majority
owner of Rusal and the one targeted by the Trump administration, is looking still to find ways
to satisfy the U.S.'s demands on this issue.
Putin's Pivot
But, don't think this isn't working to Putin's advantage as Deripaska is not one of his
supposed favored oligarchs. This report from Bloomberg spelled out the situation well back in
April.
As for Deripaska, he will get help from the Russian government again. {which he did, see
above} Rusal has warned that the sanctions might mean a default on a portion of its debt.
That's most likely to happen to its more than $1 billion in dollar-denominated debt. But, as
ever, the company's biggest creditors are Russian state banks, and the Kremlin will keep
Rusal solvent one way or another as it reorients toward Asian markets. It won't be a huge
headache for Putin: He's seen worse, including with Rusal during the financial crisis.
And that's the most important part.
Once the current positions are wound down and the aluminum market adjusts to the new reality
of U.S. hyper-aggression to restart an industry we really don't need (smelting aluminum?
really?) just to satisfy Trump's outdated views on trade (which they are MAGA-pedes) Rusal's
business will not be so U.S.-centric.
And therefore the world will become less exposed, over time, to the depredations of U.S.
financial attack. I told you before that China has responded to this by issuing new
yuan-denominated futures contracts for industrial metals.
Why do you think they did that?
Will it create pain in the short-term? Yes. Europe will experience even more of this as will
Asia.
Will a lot of companies fear being sanctioned and fined by the U.S. for doing business with
Rusal? Yes. It's happening now. Will this exacerbate underlying economic conditions in Europe?
Of course.
But, if Deripaska submits, like it looks like he will, then the aluminum market will calm
down and Trump's sanctions will look silly.
Sanctions Bite Both Ways
The net result will be more of the aluminum market will flow through the Yuan rather than
the dollar, neatly avoiding sanctions and any future threats. Because with the insanity caused
by the overnight chaos in April, any aluminum supplier/consumer will be wary of another such
edict from the naked Emperor in D.C.
And, as such, they will diversify the currencies they buy and sell aluminum in. It won't be
a sea change overnight. Those least exposed will jump ship first. Rusal will be one of the main
beneficiaries since Russian banks are already sanctioned.
But it will be a trend, that once started will gain steam.
China can and will tie convertibility of its futures contracts to gold through the Shanghai
exchange to allay worries about getting money out of the country.
Abusing your customers is never a winning marketplace strategy and that's exactly what
Trump's sanctions policy is doing, abusing customers of the dollar. Trust has been the dollar's
strongest attribute for a long time now and it is the primary reason why it has dominated trade
and reserves.
But there is a limit to how much your customers will take. And Trump is pushing well beyond
that limit. And when the benefits of using the dollar are eclipsed by the liabilities, people
will naturally shift away from it.
Look at the TIC chart above and note the total. This is a $6.3 trillion synthetic short
position against the dollar. He's inviting countries to dump treasuries to defend their
currencies as the dollar strengthens while shifting their primary materials buying to the
biggest rival's currency.
This is why Russia continues to run a very tight financial ship while it leads the charge
away from the dollar. It's inviting customers into the ruble with both a strong national
balance sheet and relatively higher interest rates. This has the U.S. fuming.
Putin has and will use future mini-crises like this to further clean up the rot left over
from the Yeltsin years, like Deripaska, while building a Russia insulated from future attacks
like this.
Remember, even the U.S. has limits. It cannot sanction people for refusing to trade in
dollars. Even the U.S. doesn't have that power. It can try but it will fail. New systems, new
banks, new institutions can always be created.
... " ... in the case of the insane sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and Russian Aluminum
giant, Rusal, back in April, we finally got some clarity as to how Russia can and will
respond to future events .. . " ...
... most recently, Trump had been focusing on protecting steel and "aluminum" on world
trading ... could there be an underlying reason behind these sanctions? ... who is Trump
really protecting here? ...
... let's follow the money ... these links might let us connect the (((dots))) ...
Should the London Metal Exchange allow Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Glencore to own
aluminium warehouses even as they trade the metal?
GOLDMAN'S NEW MONEY MACHINE: WAREHOUSES ) ...
The struggle for most Americans regarding this issue is the fact that the Ministry of
Truth has always told us "Russia Bad!" while "US Good!". The Ole good guy vs bad guy
paradigm. I grew up in the 80's and am very familiar with that paradigm. I am an American through
and through but our government has become the most corrupt bunch of whoring thieves on the
planet.
True Americans have awakened to realize the power of our corrupt government lies in
the dollar hegemony. True Americans hate it, and hate the power and control it wields in our
own lives. We see it at work around the world. We see DC squeeze our lives to subsidize it's
world empire. An empire is seeks to maintain for various reasons that are debated
regularly.
The rub comes when we see that the only force capable of standing up to this corrupt
empire is a country that we have been told all our lives is evil. Russia wasn't always the
communist soviet union.....and is no longer that today. But in the minds of many Americans
that is all that it will ever be. Russia has the resources, military, intelligence, and skill
to control it's own destiny. It has everything it needs to tell the US empire, "No!" I
respect that....admire that.....cheer that....and wish them success in their stand. For those
of us looking for a way to bust the evil cabal now running our own country, Russia's
rebellion of US dominance is a ray of hope. It's not that we don't love our own country or
want to be Russians, but we don't care about supporting a world empire that requires wars,
taxes, and a strategy that strip us of our individual sovereignty by contaminating our
country with people that don't belong here and will never think like an American.
People need to put aside their "fan-boy" biases, drop the blind loyalty, and start dealing
with reality. We are not rooting for Putin and Russia, rather we are rooting for the downfall
of thus evil banking cartel that is slowly killing us all and taking more and more of our
freedoms. To those of you that say that will cause pain and we STILL have the greatest
country on earth, I say, somethings are worth the pain.....and we can be a lot better. We
have got to change direction....and the sooner we get off this road of empire destruction,
the better.
Maybe it is because The Aluminum Company of America (formerly ALCOA now Arconic an others)
is going broke. Check out their stock price for the last 10 years or so. Are they still part
of the DOW Index? Bonehead move to include them years ago.
Trump is worth what, a couple of billion? And those assets are encumbered by a lot of debt
held by US banks. That does not an oligarch make. When it comes to US oligarchs, Trump is a
piker compared to the massive family trusts that can move markets and voting results.
Trump is worth exactly the debt that the Israeli Sheldon Adelson holds over him IIRC. Far from being independent he is owned by America's biggest parasite and enemy:
Israel.
The USA is drunk on power with their dollar as they see it as invincible. It will be their
own undoing. The world is eager and preparing to drop/run/destroy the dollar. One day they'll all lick
their wounds take their losses and forget the dollar completely.
The USA and Israel aka banksters will start WWIII to prove literally they will destroy the
world if need be instead of lose their power over mankind
The US will have to do one of the hardest things in the history of the nation. She'll have
to stop LYING to herself! All those recommending weaponization of the petrodollar, are
charlatans. The USA cannot get through restructuring via antagonism, that only tightens the
economic noose.
What is needed, is bankruptcy protection, via honest cooperation with the emergent
economic powers in the East. This comes with a price, retrenchment of imperium. This in turn,
requires sobriety that, the game while not completely lost, as in national decomposition, is
nevertheless, unwinnable, as in rebuilding can only follow retrenchment.
Now, US policy wonks must be imbibing some real potent hallucinogens, to be unable to see
what's right in front of their noses that, no matter the strategy, if it's not one of
cooperation, the game is forfeit! The only strategy that helps the US retain great power
status, is one whereby clear eyed, hard nosed assessment of assets and liabilities, are
carried out.
The East is helping the USA buy time, the exceptionalists are once again, squandering the
opportunity, just like they did in 91. They somehow believe the US military can change the
trajectory of events. This is not possible any longer except humanity signs up for
civilizational extinction.
To cut a long story short, it's time to declare mea culpa, and request a recalibration of
goals, objectives, tactics, and critically, strategy. The strategy going forward? Honest
cooperation to resolve issues that are creating global tensions, foremost amongst them, the
one where the West gets to live like kings, at the expense of billions. This is the major
issue, and it cannot be resolved without humility on the part of the West, and indemnity on
the part of victims.
Humanity will only move forward through forgiveness, which cannot be activated without
contrition.
If Russia is selling Treasuries, it may be ahead of the market selling to prevent losses
down the road. There is a shift happening not just with Russia as the long-standing bankers
like the Rothschilds, etc. have been also selling their UST holdings and moving the money to
Asia as per their reports for the last year.
The other thing to watch is the Vienna OPEC meeting later this month. The Saudis and
Russia have now setup a long-term partnership to control the Oil market, including
speculation on the markets as of today's press, so a discussion of abandoning the Petrodollar
may not be off the table as there are portions of that deal that have been announced as
secretive and this may be part of the plan.
"The 2008 financial crisis was the
consequence of a loosely regulated banking system
in which power was concentrated in the hands of too limited a cast of speculators,
"
Nomi Prins tell me. "And after the crisis, the way the US government and the Federal Reserve
dealt with this corrupt and criminal banking system was to give them a subsidy."
Such strong, withering analysis is, perhaps, unexpected from someone who has held senior roles
at Wall Street finance houses such as Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. But Prins is no ordinary
former banker.
The US author and journalist left the financial services industry in 2001. She did so, in her
own words, "partly because life was too short", and
"partly out of disgust at how
citizens everywhere had become collateral damage, and later hostages, to the banking system".
Since then, Prins has chronicled the closed and often confusing world of high finance
through the 2008 crisis and beyond.
Her writing combines deep insider knowledge with
on-the-ground reporting with sharp, searing prose. Alongside countless articles for
New York
Times
,
Forbes
and
Fortune
, she has produced six books – including
Collusion:
how central bankers rigged the world
, which has just been published.
Her main target in the new work is "quantitative easing" – described by Prins as "a
conjuring trick" in which "a central bank manufactures electronic money, then injects it into
private banks and financial markets".
Over the last decade, she tells me when we meet in
London, "under the guise of QE, central bankers have massively overstepped their traditional
mandates, directing the flow of epic sums of fabricated money, without any checks or balances,
towards the private banking sector".
Since QE began, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, "the US Federal Reserve has produced a
massive $4.5 trillion of conjured money, out of a worldwide QE total of around $21 trillion", says
Prins. The combination of ultra-low interest rates and vast monetary expansion, she explains, has
caused "speculation to rage... much as a global casino would be abuzz if everyone gambled using
everyone else's money".
Much of this new spending power, though, has remained "inside the system", with banks
shoring up their balance sheets.
"So lending to ordinary firms and households has barely
grown as a result of QE," says Prins, "nor have wages or prosperity for most of the world's
population". Instead, "the banks have gone on an asset-buying spree", she explains, getting into
her stride, "with the vast flow of QE cash from central banks to private banks ensuring endless
opportunities for market manipulation and asset bubbles – driven by government support".
Prins describes "the power grab we've seen by the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank,
the Bank of Japan and other central banks".
Using QE, she argues, "these illusionists have
altered the nature of the financial system and orchestrated a
de facto
heist that has
enabled the most dominant banks and central bankers to run the world".
She says all this looking me straight in the eye, with the deadpan delivery, supreme confidence
and unflinching focus of the senior investment banker she was. But the words are those of an angry
and committed activist – someone who is absolutely determined to do what she can to reform global
finance, starting in her native country.
Nomi Prins deals in bold statements and fearless analysis. While often accused of hyperbole, her
deep research, financial expertise and former 'insider status' means only a fool would dismiss her.
She is just at home within academia as she is on the political front line – a regular on the
university lecture circuit, Prins was also a member of Senator Bernie Sanders' team of economic
experts, advising on central bank reform. Yet, such is her reputation that she commands a place
among those she chides – and is regularly consulted, formally and informally, by senior officials
at the Fed, the ECB and other major central banks.
Surveying the history of the response to the 2008 financial crisis, Prins tells me that explicit
bank bailouts were only a small part of the story. "First, there was the $700bn package agreed in
Congress to save the US banks that caused the crisis," she says.
"But the real bailout
was the trillions of dollars of QE produced by the Fed – a massive subsidy to banks and financial
markets, that has created an enormous bubble, a subsidy agreed by unelected officials and barely
debated or remarked upon."
After initiating QE in late 2008, the Fed then "exported the idea – and that required the
collusion of other major central banks", Prins argues. She points out that even though the Fed and
the Bank of England have currently stopped doing QE, new money amounting to hundreds of billions of
dollars a month is still being pumped out by central banks elsewhere, not least the ECB and the
Bank of Japan.
"When the asset bubble pops, the fragile financial system and the broader
economic environment could be thrown into deep depression and turmoil,"
she says.
"That's why the QE baton has been passed from the US to other nations, and why the
central banks are so desperate to collude."
I put to Prins the conventional wisdom: there was no alternative to QE, and without it, the
global banking system would have collapsed in 2008, causing untold economic and political damage.
While she accepts there was a need for immediate post-crisis action, she argues the time for
emergency measures has now long since passed. "If financial markets so much as wobble, the world's
leading central banks, between them, do more QE," she says. "The insiders maintain the status quo
of subsidies to the financial system – but there is no world war, aliens are not invading our
planet, this is totally unjustified."
Prins says that
QE has been "a massive deceit and a huge factor in driving inequality
– a dedicated effort by institutions with the ability to create money, deciding that it doesn't go
to ordinary people". While it was sold "as a massive trickle-down programme, helping the incomes of
regular households, the benefits have been focused at the very top".
Stock markets have benefitted, she acknowledges, "but a mere 10% of Americans own 85% of the
market". Prins also argues that low interest rates have harmed most Americans.
"We need
to normalise the rate environment, so ordinary people get some kind of return on their pensions and
savings,"
she says.
QE and low rates, says Prins, have also caused "a debt explosion" – as not only have governments
taken on more borrowing but financial institutions have too, keen to boost the scale of their
investments in QE-driven markets that look like a one-way bet. US government debt has soared from
$9 trillion to over $20 trillion since the financial crisis, Prins observes. "And public and
private debt combined amount to a staggering 225% of global GDP – much of it accumulated since the
financial crisis," she says.
"The next financial crisis will be sparked by a debt failure somewhere – then
this QE
bubble will pop very quickly,"
Prins predicts. "And
when the new crisis comes,
rates are already low and we have little in the way of fiscal ammunition, so mitigation will be
very tough – and it will be ordinary people who suffer the most".
In response to the financial crisis, Prins maintains it would have been far cheaper and more
effective for the state to intervene directly, providing explicit assistance to cash-strapped
householders struggling to service the distressed mortgages at the heart of the crisis. "There was
half a trillion dollars of sub-prime mortgages across the US in 2008," she recalls. "You could have
bought up these properties, or just temporarily covered the loans," she says. "That would have cost
much less than half a trillion, and would also have helped the banks by turning their junk assets
into performing loans."
Prins says the "banks and central banks together" instead concocted QE. "We've allowed a
grotesque $21 trillion global subsidy which has seen the bankers not only avoid punishment for the
huge mess they created, but then entrench their financial advantage even more."
What we need, she says, is "better regulation" – in particular, a return to the "Glass-Steagall
environment where investment banks can't leverage their balance sheets by so much and rely on
government support". Since the Depression-era separation between risky investment banking and
run-of-the-mill commercial banking was repealed by the Clinton administration in 1997, "a financial
crisis was unavoidable", she says.
"As long as the deposits of ordinary people and
companies can be used by investment bankers as fodder for reckless speculation, in the knowledge
those deposits are backed by the state, the world is at risk."
Prins is dismayed at how easily on-going QE, continuing years after the financial crisis, has
been accepted by the political and media classes. "There is joint approval across the middle of the
left-right spectrum," she says.
"The economics profession and almost all commentators
don't seem to care that this money is completely unaccountable and untracked – and has caused an
enormous bubble."
The reason, she observes, is that contemplating the end of QE is
too difficult. "The unwind will cause pain and could result in a meltdown, as the markets and the
debt mountain collapse."
In
Collusion
, Prins takes us on a whistle-stop tour of global finance, describing how
the leaders of the Banco de México tried to navigate their country's complicated relationship with
the Fed and how Brazil has led the charge in challenging the dollar's all-important "reserve
currency status".
The
book goes to China
, where we learn how Beijing is using "dark money" to upend dollar-hegemony,
helping to drive the country's ascent as a global superpower.
We read how Europe's response to the financial crisis has heightened tension between the ECB and
Germany – fuelling intra-EU resentments that have fuelled populism and help explain Brexit. Prins
describes how
Japan "leverages the rivalry between the US and China", while embarking on
"the most ambitious money-conjuring scheme to date".
But it is in the US where the bulk of the narrative is set and it is there the arguments Prins
makes will be most keenly read. The Federal Reserve has just lifted interest rates by a quarter
point, and signalled that two more increases are likely in 2018. As the world's most important
central bank continues the long, gradual march away from emergency measures, and with the ECB also
committed soon to ending QE, the warnings in this important book about extent of today's asset
price bubbles, and the role central banks have played in causing them, are about to be severely
tested.
"What we've witnessed, since 2008, is the unbridled ability of the so-called
people at the top to implement socialism for the banks,"
Prins tells me.
"If anyone had said we are going to give $21 trillion to the global banking sector, it
would never have happened – so we've had a backdoor process instead, under the pretense it would
help ordinary people."
Leaning forward for the first time, Prins ups the ante. "Well, real people don't believe that –
and they'll believe it even less as and when we have another crash, a crash off the back of ten
years of emergency measures that were supposed to fix the system."
"The issue isn't whether this money-conjuring game can continue," she says as she prepares to
leave. "The issue is that central banks have no plan B in the event of another crisis – and that's
going to create an even more massively negative view among ordinary people towards those who see
themselves as elites."
Listen to Liam Halligan's interview with Nomi Prins here:
One of her obfuscations is the concentrating on "asset bubbles" rather
than the fact that these Banksters are obtaining ownership of the worlds
real assets without having to pay for them. As if they didn't have
enough power.
Ownership of corporations (and control of them), is one
of the subjects carefully avoided by the Rotschild media machine.
There is only one group of people who it is illegal to question in a
good number of ethnic European countries.
Prins describes "the power grab we've seen by the US Federal Reserve,
the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other central
banks".
Replace "....the US Federal Reserve, the European Central
Bank, the Bank of Japan and other central banks" with "....the
Rothschild Crime Family" would be a more appropriate comment.
The Rothschild Crime Family own and control every central bank on
the planet except three, Iran, North Korea and Cuba, lending money at
interest to governments everywhere. Do you have debt, a home loan, a
car loan, student debt, credit card debt?! What about the debt your
Federal, State and Local governments have on behalf of you, your
children and grand-children? Just imagine that over 50% of all that
debt is owed and the interest continually paid to the Rothschild clan
and their tight knit group of international bankers. Do you feel good
about yourself still, being nothing more than a serf to them? Money
makes money, and in this case the biggest crime syndicate that will
ever exist, one that has the military of various countries continuing
their protection racket for them as well as IRS type institutions
doing their debt collecting, will never be satisfied until they have
everything!
Alternative thinking would suggest that Prins is spot on !
The reason she gets MSM 'coverage' is because she has not
revealed the true enormity of it !
The scenario's she suggests have definitely played out !
Although, she is withholding the TRUE scale of it - it's
MASSIVE !
I just received her new book "Collusion: how the central bankers rigged the
world" through special order with my library. She is by far the best writer on
central banks and the financial crisis. Her "It Takes a Pillage" is superb and
easily followed. The problem is, hardly anyone outside of the few who care (or
know) read it.
A 1950s outlook repeated for 6 books. We are not going anywhere near 20th Century
anything and this is populist. Glass-Steagall is DEAD but promoting its return
sells!
Now the money the Fed creates is "Outside Money" injected to the banking
system which creates the "Inside Money" that usually finances the economy. The
INTENTION of the "Outside Money" being injected into the banking system is to
prevent the banking system from dying after which it would no longer be able to
create the "Inside Money" you borrow.
The Fed is NOT going to send individual citizens their mortgage payments. This
is also populist tripe.
If this were to be done Congress would have to legislate it and the Fed would
assist in arranging the financing for such a deficit.
The Congress DOES send trillions to all the people through various transfer
and entitlement programs and this coming year will be 2.8T from the federal level
alone as well as arranging all the student and mortgage loans.
As long as it is taken to be entertainment any of this is fine. Oh yeah, NO
GOLD Standard, Bimetal money, or any sort of commodity currency EVER again.
"... I encountered a wonderful concept the other day on the Keiser Report, where they said in passing that the great irony of the Hegemon's position was that it couldn't use its massive financial power because whenever it did, it simply forced alternatives to arise. ..."
"... This is why every financial move by Trump is producing the opposite result. Another ZH article says that the Russian sell-off of US Treasuries was a move to cover Rusal and the sanctions placed on its former CEO, Deripaska. Mr. Trump Attacks Aluminum, Russia Attacks The Debt . ..."
"... Every time the US flaunts its Dollar supremacy, it pushes customers away from the Dollar. ..."
"... The US has power left in the financial sector, but can't use it. The US has no power left in the military area, and cannot show it. Syria, Korea, the theaters are growing where the US has had to step down. ..."
"... Even the fog of propaganda is wearing increasingly thin. The US State Department just issued a warning to its people about traveling to Russia. It's risky, they say. But ticket sales for the World Cup are up by 25% from the US, the largest foreign customer ..."
The take away quote:
"
"What we've witnessed, since 2008, is the unbridled ability of the so-called people at the top to implement socialism for the
banks," Prins tells me. "If anyone had said we are going to give $21 trillion to the global banking sector, it would never have
happened – so we've had a backdoor process instead, under the pretense it would help ordinary people."
Excellent article, thanks for the link. Nomi knows all this stuff, and she's right. And Liam Halligan, a financial journalist
I greatly respect, wrote the article. Recommended.
~~
I encountered a wonderful concept the other day on the Keiser Report, where they said in passing that the great irony of the
Hegemon's position was that it couldn't use its massive financial power because whenever it did, it simply forced alternatives
to arise.
This is why every financial move by Trump is producing the opposite result. Another ZH article says that the Russian sell-off
of US Treasuries was a move to cover Rusal and the sanctions placed on its former CEO, Deripaska.
Mr. Trump Attacks
Aluminum, Russia Attacks The Debt .
The tariffs on aluminum compelled the Chinese to create a Yuan-denominated futures contract
on industrial metals - convertible to gold at Shanghai, of course. The instability of the overnight tariffs created a more enduring
stability than before, resting on gold, which satisfies concerns about transfers between nations.
Every time the US flaunts its Dollar supremacy, it pushes customers away from the Dollar.
~~
But it's not just Trump, nor just the financial markets. It's every theater and every plane of activity. Every use of bullying,
drives former allies away. Every posture of aggression runs the supreme risk that the US military will be exposed as ineffective,
and if that happens, the Pentagon is finished, and the generals know it.
The US has power left in the financial sector, but can't use it. The US has no power left in the military area, and cannot
show it. Syria, Korea, the theaters are growing where the US has had to step down.
Even the fog of propaganda is wearing increasingly thin. The US State Department just issued a warning to its people about
traveling to Russia. It's risky, they say. But ticket sales for the World Cup are up by 25% from the US, the largest foreign customer.
I'll have to stop, but fortunately, the examples go on and on.
Mate would have got the idea from Stephen Cohen, Russia expert, Nation contributor and husband of the Nation editor. But Cohen
has certainly got it from Alt-media - here or similar...
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) revealed that in late September 2016,
"Good FBI agents" stepped forward as whistleblowers to tell them about additional Hillary Clinton
emails "sitting" on Anthony Weiner's laptop.
"I've never actually said this before," said Nunes.
"
We had whistleblowers that came to us in late September of 2016 who talked to us about
this laptop sitting up in New York that had additional emails on it."
In other words,
the New York FBI "rebelled"
- as Rudy Giuliani puts it - which former FBI
Director James Comey tried to quash,
twice
.
The FBI sat on the revelation that previously unknown emails from Hillary Clinton's
private server were recovered on the laptop of sex-crimes convict Anthony Weiner for just under
a month, according to a review by the Department of Justice's Inspector General.
The stated rationale was to prioritize the Russia investigation, which was a decision made by
Peter Strzok,
a top FBI agent involved in both investigations and who texted his lover
that he would "stop" Donald Trump from becoming president
. -
Daily
Caller
Appearing Friday on
Fox and Friends
, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said that FBI agents in the New York
office "rebelled" and "had a revolution" which Comey could not keep quiet - forcing him to reopen
the Clinton email investigation.
"
The agents in the NY office - we all know this, rebelled. They had a revolution.
And
Comey made two attempts to quiet them down and then realized "I can't do
that, I'm gonna look terrible here.
If she gets elected I'll look terrible, if she
doesn't.." -Rudy Giuliani
Recall that the DOJ Inspector General found that Andrew McCabe lied about
leaking a
self-serving story to Devlin Barrett of the
Wall Street
Journal
that he was not stalling (or "slow walking") the Hillary Clinton email
investigation
at a time in which McCabe had come under fire for his wife taking a
$467,500 campaign contribution
from Clinton
proxy
pal, Terry McAuliffe.
Last month we reported
that "rank and file" FBI agents want Congress to subpoena them
so that they can step forward and reveal dirt on Comey and McCabe
, reports the
Daily
Caller
, citing three active field agents and former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova.
"
There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by
[James] Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs
like [John] Brennan
–who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of
political intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," former federal prosecutor Joe
DiGenova told The Daily Caller Tuesday.
"
They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify
." -Joe
diGenova
DiGenova - a veteran D.C. attorney who President Trump initially wanted to hire to represent him
in the Mueller probe - only to have to step aside
due
to conflicts
, has maintained contact with "rank and file" FBI agents as well as a
counterintelligence consultant who interviewed an active special agent in the FBI's Washington
Field Office (WFO) - producing a transcript reviewed by
The Caller
.
These agents prefer to be subpoenaed to becoming an official government whistleblower
,
since they fear political and professional backlash, the former Trump administration official
explained to TheDC.
More than just Hillary's emails...
The FBI's whistleblowers didn't stop Weiner's laptop... In March of 2017, House Speaker Paul
Ryan said that Rep. Nunes revealed to him that a "whistleblower type person" had stepped forward
with information
about the surveillance of the Trump campaign
.
"He had told me that a whistleblower type person had given him some information that was new,
that spoke to the last administration and part of this investigation," Ryan said in late March.
"What Chairman Nunes said was he came into possession of new information he thought was valuable
to this investigation and he was going to go and inform people about it."
The week before Ryan made these statements,
Nunes revealed that an unidentified source
showed him evidence that the U.S. intelligence community "incidentally surveilled" Trump's
transition team
before inauguration day.
Of course, we now know it goes much, much deeper. As Rudy Giuliani also said on Friday:
Let's look at it this way ...
Peter Strzok was running the Hillary investigation.
That's a total fix
. That's a closed-book now, total fix.
Comey should go to
jail for that. And Strzok.
But then what does Comey do?
He takes Strzok -
who wanted to get Trump in any way possible - he puts him in charge of the Russia investigation
.
How come they're not finding any evidence of collusion?
Because
the President
didn't do anything wrong and
he's being investigated corruptly.
This is what you get under imperium, under a Republic, it's almost
impossible! Patriots will stand up, and answer to their pedigree but under
imperium, integrity is the first virtue to wither, after that the other
virtues quickly atrophy.
Let us my friends, determine with every fiber of
our being, fight to RESTORE THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC!!!...
Looking retrospectively I always thought that it was uncanny how the Trump
campaign parted with Carter Page and then Paul Manafort,brought in Kellyanne
Conway. They seemed to be dodging bullets.
99% are not cops, most wouldn't even make it as a cop. They are
lawyers, accountants, statisticians, analysts and scientists with
a basic gun qualification. They have a lot of cool forensic things
at their disposal and in some instances can be helpful in a major
investigation. Real cops (like the NYPD investigators that caught
the Weiner laptop fiasco and preserved the evidence) don't need
the FBI other than to access some of their whiz-bang shit.
They'll talk for hours over a two minute task. The rest in
higher echelons is politics, dirty politics.
That said. My biggest complaint is the lack of action taken by
the 'concerned agents'. Horseshit, cops get arrested 'in house'
for stupid shit they've done and the info doesn't get printed
because in local areas it can ruin families. This by no means
infers light treatment, for example DUI (misdemeanor level in CA)
will get you all the aspects of a first DUI that any citizen gets,
plus 30-60 days off with no pay, a 'work improvement contract' for
a year or two, and a stint in a dry out center. You will possibly
keep your job. Repeat offense, fired. Embezzlement, fires, lying
in an investigation, fired with a Brady Jacket.
Domestic Violence, fired. The Thin Blue Line is just that,
'thin'. If you think the old days of saying nothing still exists
or a partner will cover you, your not living in modern times. No
one will risk their pension for your sorry ass. You'll be advised
by old dogs, don't be a dumbass, dumbass.
The Democratic Party was founded in 1828. The Republican Party was founded in 1854.
Neither party serves the people. Both parties serve only themselves. They have morphed into
two sides of the same neoliberal coin. The primary reason Trump won the election was the
simple. Even though he ran on the Republican ticket, he was not a Republican. He was the best
choice open to the populist. Whether he is a populist or not does not matter. What matters is
that people want an America first, Populist Party. We are tired of the wars. We are tired of
the government. And, we are tired of the neocons...
"Ha ha ha ha ha the party of losers and users is OVER"
Instead of worrying who will fill the void, they should focus on the void of their ways.
As Nietzsche said, " And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. "
It's no wonder they are consuming themselves.
The people are starting to see through the lower end of their BS. Oddly enough, it's
figuring out the low end stuff that will create the most rage. Zombie awakening.
As for Obama, I think he realizes what's going on and probably wants no part of it.
Biggest rallies in US presidential history were for Bernie Sanders who ran as a Democrat.
Dems don't want him because they don't want to get off the corporate lobbyist gravytrain.
They would rather lose the presidency.
The republicans are the same. Crooks. All this bullshit on Zero Hedge comments about one
being better than the other is simpleton thinking.
the choice will always be between a douche and a turd sandwich.
the difference between trumps faults and clintons faults was a chasm.
if there ever was a leader for either party that halved the pentagon budget by making it
"smart", eliminating waste, repatriating troops, closing overseas bases AND came up with a
plan to make QUALITY portable and fungible across the country, AND found a way to educate
rather than indoctrinate children AND found a way to repay the national debt whilst funding
medicare/medicaid (both bankrupt) AND found a way to get the federal government completely
out of the housing market (get rid of fraudie and funny and the FHA) and, etc etc.. the
country would be back on track.
clinton wanted the opposite of all that, trump wants less of it and at least understands
what a fucking pain in the ass federal involvement in anything actually is.
Following a Monday report that President Obama is
"secretly" meeting
with top Democratic contenders for the 2020 election,
The
Hill
notes that desperate Democrats beset with
Clinton fatigue
are freaking out over the fact that the much "blue wave" appears to be
crashing
on the rocks
, and there's nobody around to salvage the party ahead of midterms and the 2020
election.
"
There's f---ing no one else
," one frustrated Democratic strategist said. "
Bill
Clinton is toxic, [former President] Carter is too old, and there's no one else around for miles
."
-
The
Hill
In the hopes of reinvigorating the DNC (of which up to 40 state chapters stand accused of
funneling up to $84 million
to the Clinton campaign), downtrodden dems are hoping that Obama
will get off the sidelines and help rally support.
"
He's been way too quiet
," said one longtime Obama bundler who rarely
criticizes the former president, according to
The Hill
. "
There are a lot of people who think he's played too little a role
or almost no role
in endorsing or fundraising and
he's done jack shit
in
getting people to donate to the party.
"
After the GOP made sweeping gains in the 2016 election, the DNC was left in disarray - and
anyone who might be able to lead the party, be it Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren, may run in 2020.
Bernie Sanders is of course out because he may run
and
he's not a Democrat.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among five possible contenders for the Democratic crown
attending the "We the People" conference in Washington on Wednesday. He received the loudest
applause and heard chants of "Bernie."
But he can't play the elder role for the party, both because he may run for president
and because he's not a Democrat.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), two other possibilities,
have mass followings but also may join the 2020 race.
-
The
Hill
That leaves the spotlight squarely on Barrack Hussein Obama - whose lack of endorsements during
the primary season and general absence has frustrated Democrats.
Bill Clinton, who is more radioactive than ever after making ill-advised comments over "what you
can do to somebody against their will," has endorsed several candidates since leaving office, yet
Obama has declined to do the same thus far.
"You have all these people running for office, some of them against other Democrats, and
his strategy has been to not endorse anyone and that's what's been so f---ing ridiculous because
not only are you not helping them, you're hurting them
," said the bundler.
Former aides and Democratic strategists said Obama has sought to maintain a lower profile not
only for his party to find new life, but also to avoid playing a foil to President Trump and
Republicans.
A source close to Obama said the former president is looking forward to hitting the campaign
trail, fundraising and issuing more endorsements closer to the midterms. But the source added
that
injecting himself into day-to-day politics would do the Democratic Party a
disservice by making it more difficult for other Democratic voices to rise to prominence.
-
The
Hill
Others say that Obama has remained the unofficial leader of the Democratic Party since leaving
office.
"He always wanted to help, without a doubt. He cares tremendously about our country and our
party. But I think he always intended to be a little more on the sidelines than he's been," said
one former Obama aide. "I think he realizes he is needed and needed badly."
Former Obama aides say that the ex-President is unsettled by policies flowing from the Trump
administration, along with the "tone and tenor" of the White House (but not enough to aggressively
help active Democrats fight, apparently).
According to Democratic strategist David Wade: "
It's certainly not the post-presidency
he might've preferred.
"
Maybe Obama is just having a good time hanging out?
The Neo-cons, excuse me Democrats better get moving. (its so hard to
tell them apart these days) The clock is ticking, November is coming
and more reports showing criminal behavior are on the way.
~"Many of you impatient
homos are whining about no arrests
or indictments have been made yet.
When will it happen? I'll tell you:
Early October."~
Bingo.
The dems have another problem and
appear too stupid to focus on it.
They apparently much rather worry
about having a figurehead to lead
them, but their real problem is
much, much larger. Simply put, they
have no message, save "Hate
Trump!!!" What exactly do they
promise voters these days? Trump
impeachment as an economic program?
Also curious is the fact they
want no part of Hillary. Do they
admit she's as tainted as a leper?
The problem with that will be people
will see through it as cheap,
partisan electioneering. The result
will be an EASIER time to motivate
Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.
There's as much chance of an
implosion of Democrats in 2018 as
there were back in 2006 when the GOP
was nearly blasted out of existence
then too. Remember how all the
predictions about the imminent doom
of the GOP were front and centre?
Journalists are so lazy, they're
just using Liquid Paper to
erase "Republican" to "Democrat" and
change the date from stuff they
wrote back in 2006.
Doesn't matter if Republicans or
Democrats win. In the end, everyone
else simply loses. How much you
lose is proportional to the distance
from the party elite you actually
are.
Rumors about the death of the US global neoliberal empire are probably slightly exaggerated.
Trump did damaged it, but the neoliberal system proved to be really resilient in 2008 and might
prove this again.
Notable quotes:
"... The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going on in the world in the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education system and spreading lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey, and to approve of persecution of those "black sheep" who are less ignorant and don't buy the lies of the MSM. Did we see any protests against "Patriot Act" that trampled the very foundations of our Constitution? Sheep don't protest, they just follow the leader. ..."
"... However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India. Bush junior was genuinely dumb, but would he become US President without his family's ill-gotten riches, or without his ex-CIA chief daddy becoming the President first? Of course not, most morons in the US never fly that high. The only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family. ..."
"... As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon Adelson. ..."
"... Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair global competition. ..."
Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some
crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair
global competition.
The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going on in the world in
the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education system and spreading
lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey, and to approve of persecution of those
"black sheep" who are less ignorant and don't buy the lies of the MSM. Did we see any
protests against "Patriot Act" that trampled the very foundations of our Constitution? Sheep
don't protest, they just follow the leader.
However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than
similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India. Bush junior was genuinely dumb, but would he
become US President without his family's ill-gotten riches, or without his ex-CIA chief daddy
becoming the President first? Of course not, most morons in the US never fly that high. The
only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family.
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in
the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
See comment 51:
The problem here and abroad are elites. Elites of any kind.
Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some
crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair
global competition.
some perhaps, but the middle class is dying (literally in the case of middle aged white
men), and the working class is languishing. It's true the 1% are gorging on a frenzy of corruption and graft, and a no doubt there are
a few who prosper by serving that class, but the Main Streets of America are not, in any way,
profiting off the exploitation of Africa or S. America or anywhere else. Indeed, it is them
that are being exploited.
The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going on in the world
in the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education system and
spreading lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey
no argument there!
However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than
similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India.
India and China (and Ethiopia and Somalia and Mexico and Brazil and so many other places)
are not poor due to the oppression of Americans. Sure, Goldman Sachs and a thousand other
vultures and thieves have done a lot of damage, but no more that the leadership of those
respective lands. Has India ever heard of birth control, (for God's sake!) Or Indonesia or a hundred other
places, like Haiti, that overbreed their finite resources and limited space until their
countries are reduced to shitholes.
If a coal miner in West Virginia is doing a little better than an Untouchable in India,
then trust me when I tell you I'm not going to blame the miner (or janitor or mechanic) in
America for the poverty in the corrupt and stupid third world.
As far as the suffering that the ZUSA has actually caused, and is causing in places like
Syria and Yemen, none of that is being done on behalf of the American people, but rather the
typical American is taxed to support these wars and atrocities on behalf of Israel or Saudi
Arabia, respectively.
The only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family.
recently I was ranting on the terrible folly of this very thing.
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews
in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
Yes, they're just as selfish and greedy, but they aren't as filled with genocidal
hatred.
It's because of Zionist Jews that Americans were dragged into both world wars.
It's because of Zionist Jews (and assorted corrupt Gentiles) that Israel (with help from
the CIA and ((media)), did 9/11, in order to plunge this century into horrors writ large like
the last Zio-century.
That there are legions of corrupt and soulless Gentiles willing and eager to jump on that
gravy train, is a shame and a sin, but it doesn't excuse the people who are the motivation
behind the wars.
The Kochs (and Chamber of Commerce and other Gentile scum) want massive immigration out of
pure, raw, insatiable greed.
Whereas the Jewish supremacist Zionists want it out of genocidal tribal hatreds.
The typical American middle and working class are ground into the dirt between these two
pillars of Satanic iniquity.
I agree with much of what you're saying, and it's true about the elites in general. But
the ZUSA is completely controlled by Zionist Jews, and I think that's pretty obvious.
This man knew that 9/11 was going to happen, if he wasn't part of the planning. And yet
look at how they abase themselves
Found an interesting article about some developments with Seth
Rich. Hard to make sense of. I noticed the DNC created a tiny
plaque above a crappy bike rack for him. They don't want anybody
to remember him. Probably Hillary's idea.
Seth uploaded the files into a DropBox (per Sy Hersh) and
also may have given others the password to it. He was trying
to make sure that the information got out. He very likely also
asked that he never be named as the leaker, for obvious
reasons.
His family could possibly confirm that he was the leaker if
they knew at the time, though I'm sure that they were heavily
pressured to do otherwise as soon as Seth Rich was murdered.
They would have simply been given a choice along with some
thinly veiled threats.
Bernie sold his mooing cow followers out last time. The DNC will make
him an offer he can't refuse. Biden is a tit grabbing corrupt
cartoon. I say Crusty the clown has a good chance. Do it for the
children!
"... As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon Adelson. ..."
"... JRL promoted a recent Kirchick piece: http://russialist.org/newswatch-the-soviet-roots-of-invoking-fears-about-world-war-iii-brookings-james-kirchick/ The rant of a coddled establishment chickenhawk, who is quite overrated, relative to the positions accorded to him (Nasty people don't deserve kindness.) ..."
"... A suggestive dose of McCarthyism that simplistic references the Cold War period with present day realities, which include a subjectively inaccurate overview of what has transpired in Syria and Crimea. Put mildly, James Kirchick is quite ironic in his use of "lazy". ..."
"... As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon Adelson. ..."
"... Agree entirely--a wholesale dumbing down of masses and even "elites" (both intentional and not) is a direct result of neoliberalism as a whole. ..."
"... However mad Bolton might be, most card-carrying Russophobs and neocons are not crazy: they are cynical people without scruples working for money. ..."
"... Say, Hillary Clinton or Mike Pompeo are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they are not too mad or too stupid to understand the reality. They are simply greedy scum paid to do the hatched job. ..."
"... The same applies to most current politicians involved in the smear campaign against Russia. ..."
The US elites (neocons are just one type of servants they hired)
ah, so it was Dubya all along! What a clever little schemer he was! Pretending
all that time to be dumb as a rock, and a tool of organized Zionism, while he was using the
neocons to his own advantage! So while ((Wolfowitz and Feith and Pearl and Kristol)) were
being schooled at the feet of ((Leo Strauss)), it was Dubya the college cheerleader all along
who was the mastermind behind the Project for a New American Century and 9/11 !
sure, Goldman Sachs and Hollywood get federal subsidies, but it's the (dying) American
middle class that has been exploiting the world's poor!
The hysterical US foreign policy in the last 10-15 years, with its mindless suicidal
aggressiveness, is in fact death throes of an Empire that resents going down the drain,
what's been going down the drain has been the blood and tears and future of
working class Americans, forced to suit up their children to go slaughter innocent Arabs and
others in a transparent and treasonous policy intended to bolster Israel - at the direct and
catastrophic expense of America and the American people.
I wonder, as the American people are taxed to the tune of billions every year, to send to
Israel as tribute, is that also a case of US elites using Israel to their own devices? As
Americas roads and bridges crumble, and veterans are denied care?
Or, is it just possible, that the ((owners)) of the Federal Reserve Bank, have used that
printing press as a weapon to consolidate absolute power over the institutions of the
ZUSA?
Do you suppose that when France bombs Libya or menaces Syria, that they're doing it to
benefit the French elite? And that Israel is their dupe, who give them a pretext for doing
so? Or that the French (and British and Polish and Ukrainian, etc..) elite are getting their
marching orders from Jewish supremacist Zionists who're hell bent on using Gentile Christians
to slaughter Gentile Muslims while they laugh and count the shekels? Eh?
Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some
crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair
global competition. The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going
on in the world in the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education
system and spreading lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey, and to approve of
persecution of those "black sheep" who are less ignorant and don't buy the lies of the MSM.
Did we see any protests against "Patriot Act" that trampled the very foundations of our
Constitution? Sheep don't protest, they just follow the leader.
However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than
similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India. Bush junior was genuinely dumb, but would he
become US President without his family's ill-gotten riches, or without his ex-CIA chief daddy
becoming the President first? Of course not, most morons in the US never fly that high. The
only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family.
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in
the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
See comment 51:
The problem here and abroad are elites. Elites of any kind.
Ralph Peters is one of the nuttiest neocons around, and Fox was smart to dump him. I
recall an article long ago where he suggested that the US Govt. should address the drug
addition problem in the USA by assassinating drug dealers on the streets in the USA.
He lives off scraps from neocons by selling his soul for BS talking points and collects a
monthly check from Uncle Sam after 20 years of sitting at a desk doing BS intel work, as I
once did for a year. It seems he missed his chance at killing commies in Nam by touring
Europe, as Fred Reed explained:
Nothing new in the above article. That such people are elevated to the stature of cushy
mainstream propping and ridicule by some non-mainstream others is a tell all sign on what's
wrong with the coverage.
Regarding this excerpt:
A prime example of this comes in a recent volume authored by prominent Neocon journalist
and homosexual activist (yes, the two traits often seem to go together), James Kirchick:
The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, 2017). In his jumble of
Neocon ideology and prejudice, Kirchick evaluates what for him seems to be happening
ominously in Europe. He is deeply fearful of the efforts to "close borders" against Muslim
immigrants from the Middle East. He blasts Marine Le Pen as a racist -- and most likely a
subtle "holocaust denier!" -- and attacks the attempts in places like Hungary and Poland to
reassert national traditions and Christian identity; for him these are nothing less than
attempts to bring back "fascism."
Russia comes in for perhaps his harshest criticism, and the reason is unmistakable:
Russia seems to be returning to its older national and pre-Communist heritage, to its
age-old Orthodox Christian faith. Russians are returning by the millions to the church and
the "old-time" religion. For Kirchick this can only mean one thing: the triumph of bigotry,
anti-semitism, and "extreme right wing" ideology, and the failure of what he terms "liberal
democracy and equality" (including, he would no doubt include, feminism, same sex marriage,
across-the-board equality, and all those other "conservative values"!).
Kirchick's critique, shared by many of the leaders of the national Republican Party and
dominating the pages of most establishment "conservative" publications and talk radio these
days, joins him arm-in-arm with globalist George Soros in efforts to undermine the Russian
state and its president all in the name of "democracy" and "equality." [See, "George Soros
Aghast as Collapsing EU, while Russia Resurgent," January 19, 2018]
But, just what kind of "democracy" and what kind of "equality" do Kirchick and Soros
defend?
A suggestive dose of McCarthyism that simplistic references the Cold War period with
present day realities, which include a subjectively inaccurate overview of what has
transpired in Syria and Crimea. Put mildly, James Kirchick is quite ironic in his use of
"lazy".
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews
in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
As I always say -- as repulsive and debilitating Jewish influence on US body
politic is, this influence, now transformed in almost complete "intellectual" dominance, it
wouldn't have been possible without willing accomplices from radical Christian Zionists and a
massive corruption in the highest echelons of power.
Agree entirely--a wholesale dumbing down of masses and even "elites" (both intentional
and not) is a direct result of neoliberalism as a whole. The crisis is systemic and Jews
are only one, however important, part of that. In the end, Bolton is a practicing Lutheran
but look at him -- the guy is completely mad. And I mean this in purely psychiatric terms --
he has some real serious demons haunting him and I even have suspicion about what some of
those are. Just an example.
Yes, sick ideology often attracts nutcases. I know a guy in Ukraine with a history of
mental illness who is a staunch supporter of current "president" Poroshenko.
However mad Bolton might be, most card-carrying Russophobs and neocons are not crazy:
they are cynical people without scruples working for money.
Say, Hillary Clinton or Mike Pompeo are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but
they are not too mad or too stupid to understand the reality. They are simply greedy scum
paid to do the hatched job.
The same applies to most current politicians involved in the smear campaign against
Russia. The greatest sin of Russia and Putin is that they got in the way of thieves who
wanted to loot the whole world but encountered resistance. Assad in Syria, Iran, North Korea,
China, and Venezuela committed the same sin: got between the thieves and their intended
loot.
"... Excellent piece, dexterously explaining the similarity between the IG's dilemma and Mueller's shot at obstruction. If Mueller claims Trump obstructed, and must be prosecuted, Comey must be prosecuted. ..."
James Comey once
described his position in the Clinton investigation as being the victim of a "500-year flood."
The point of the analogy was that he was unwittingly carried away by events rather than
directly causing much of the damage to the FBI. His "500-year flood" just collided with the
500-page report of
the Justice Department inspector general (IG) Michael Horowitz.
The IG sinks Comey's narrative with a finding that he "deviated" from Justice Department
rules and acted in open insubordination.
Rather than portraying Comey as carried away by his
biblical flood, the report finds that he was the destructive force behind the controversy. The
import of the report can be summed up in Comeyesque terms as the distinction between flotsam
and jetsam. Comey portrayed the broken rules as mere flotsam, or debris that floats away after
a shipwreck. The IG report suggests that this was really a case of jetsam, or rules
intentionally tossed over the side by Comey to lighten his load. Comey's jetsam included rules
protecting the integrity and professionalism of his agency, as represented by his public
comments on the Clinton investigation.
The IG report concludes, "While we did not find that these decisions were the result of
political bias on Comey's part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and
dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of
the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice."
The report will leave many unsatisfied and undeterred. Comey went from a persona non grata
to a patron saint for many Clinton supporters. Comey, who has made millions of dollars with a
tell-all book portraying himself as the paragon of "ethical leadership," continues to maintain
that he would take precisely the same actions again.
Ironically, Comey, fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe , former FBI agent Peter Strzok and
others, by their actions, just made it more difficult for special counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute Trump for
obstruction. There is now a comprehensive conclusion by career investigators that Comey
violated core agency rules and undermined the integrity of the FBI. In other words, there was
ample reason to fire James Comey.
Had Trump fired Comey immediately upon taking office, there would be little question about
his conduct warranting such termination. Instead, Trump waited to fire him and proceeded to
make damaging statements about how the Russian investigation was on his mind at the time, as
well as telling Russian diplomats the day after that the firing took "pressure off" him.
Nevertheless, Mueller will have to acknowledge that there were solid, if not overwhelming,
grounds to fire Comey.
To use the Comey firing now in an obstruction case, Mueller will have to assume that the
firing of an "insubordinate" official was done for the wrong reason. Horowitz faced precisely
this same problem in his review and refused to make such assumptions about Comey and others.
The IG report found additional emails showing a political bias against Trump and again
featuring the relationship of Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. In one exchange, Page
again sought reassurance from Strzok, who was a critical player in the investigations of both
Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump , that Trump
is "not ever going to become president, right? Right?!" Strzok responded, "No. No he won't.
We'll stop it."
The IG noted that some of these shocking emails occurred at that point in October 2016 when
the FBI was dragging its feet on the Clinton email investigation and Strzok was a critical
player in that investigation. The IG concluded that bias was reflected in that part of the
investigation with regard to Strzok and his role. Notably, the IG was in the same position as
Mueller: The IG admits that the Strzok-Page emails "potentially indicated or created the
appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations." This
includes the decision by Strzok to prioritize the Russian investigation over the Clinton
investigation. The IG states that "[w]e concluded that we did not have confidence that this
decision by Strzok was free from bias."
However, rather than assume motivations, the IG concluded that it could not "find
documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias,
directly affected the specific investigative decisions." Thus, there was bias reflected in the
statements of key investigatory figures like Strzok but there were also objective alternative
reasons for the actions taken by the FBI. That is precisely the argument of Trump on the Comey
firing. While he may have harbored animus toward Comey or made disconcerting statements, the
act of firing Comey can be justified on Comey's own misconduct as opposed to assumptions about
his motives.
Many of us who have criticized Comey in the past, including former Republican and Democratic
Justice Department officials, have not alleged a political bias. As noted by the IG report,
Comey's actions did not benefit the FBI or Justice Department but, rather, caused untold harm
to those institutions. The actions benefited Comey as he tried to lighten his load in heading
into a new administration. It was the same motive that led Comey to improperly remove FBI memos
and then leak information to the media after he was fired by Trump. It was jetsam thrown
overboard intentionally by Comey to save himself, not his agency.
The Horowitz report is characteristically balanced. It finds evidence of political bias
among key FBI officials against Trump and criticizes officials in giving the investigation of
Trump priority over the investigation of Clinton. However, it could not find conclusive
evidence that such political bias was the sole reason for the actions taken in the
investigation. The question is whether those supporting the inspector general in reaching such
conclusions would support the same approach by the special counsel when the subject is not
Comey but Trump.
Comey is simply two-legged pond scum. He did what he thought would preserve his privileged
position. No way a POS like him would go against the wishes of Barry, Loretta and Hillary.
The question I have is this: were those three acting in concert to beat Trump or did Barry
direct Jimmy to do in Hillary with that late-stage reopening of the inquiry? Barry would have
hated to have Hillary replace him, because - if she actually lived through it - she would
probably have reduced him to a minor historical footnote. His ego couldn't handle that. Heck,
I wouldn't even exclude the possibility that Bubba's meeting with Loretta, perhaps including
a phone call with Barry, was about keeping Hillary out of the White House. It might have
cramped Bubba's style, being first dude and all and under close scrutiny.
Although damning in many respects, the IG's report falls short in identifying prosecutable
actions on the part of FbI / DoJ officials... There may be some firings, but that's about
it...
Comey will get to skate with the $$$ from his book tour / Trump bashing tour, Stroczk
and Page sail off into the sunset and likely go to work for some Dim think tank, the rank and
file all go back to work thinking, phew, that one was close...
McCabe is going to be the
poster child that gets the stick, while at the same time the underlying bias in these two
agencies will continue unabated...
This report whitewashed the worst crimes.... The OIG reports recommendations and what they
chose to ignore is reminiscing of Comey's now infamous indictment and exoneration of Hillary Clinton from that 2016 press conference.
The FBI takes bribes from the media for secret insider information and used the media
connections for disinformation to twist the narrative for Clinton. Hundreds of interactions
with MSM, bribes being handed out. These jerks must feel their power to be the unnamed
sources, looks like they've dug their own grave. Literally hundreds of contacts, recorded
bribes and an extreme close relation with CNN and New York Times. This is the source of all
the disinformation, lies, rumors and destruction to our nation. The FBI is the enemy with
their unlawful alliance with communist and homosexuals in the media. I wonder how many FBI
agents are communist and homosexuals?
The key in all this is the political slush fund of over a $100 billion which everyone
ignores, the Clinton Foundation will make or break politicians for a corrupt elitist
communist agenda for the next generation. It's being protected from investigation because of
the previous crimes of Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein, and who knows how many others. The Clinton
Foundation was bribed by foreigners for access, favors and the plan to use the money to take
over the US government.
Uranium One is just one covert operation which ensnares all of these opportunist. The
Haitian relief money, remember Bush II sat right next to Clinton stating the reason or his
purpose was to prevent the Haitian money from being stolen. That was on national full
throated MSM. Are there murders connected to the Clinton Foundation? Considering
Congresswoman Wasserman Shultz most likely ordered an FBI agent to look into Seth Rich,
Pakistanis infiltrating the highest level of leadership, Iranian cocaine smuggling network
the FBI was prepared to take down stopped by Obama because it would interfere with the Iran
nuke deal. None of this is being added to the equation, incredible FBI and overall government
corruption.
It's worse than a swamp, it's an army aligned against us with no honor, decency or even
allegiance to this nation, only their gang, allegiance to an organization, a gang covering up
to continue to do the same. Each agency of the federal government is of this culture, the
break down in this country is apart of every aspect of the government.
Excellent piece, dexterously explaining the similarity between the IG's dilemma and
Mueller's shot at obstruction. If Mueller claims Trump obstructed, and must be prosecuted, Comey must be prosecuted.
Slow-walking an investigation resulting in no charges being filed despite clear evidence
of multiple crimes -- I would call THAT clear obstruction. McCabe and Comey have conspired to
try to dump this on Strzok. It would be funny if it weren't so despicable.
What can you expect from Comey, paid $7 million a year by HSBC, the bank that laundered
some $12 billion in narco trafficker (read CIA proxy) narcotic money? Lock him up in SuperMax
in a narrow cell next to jewboy Rosenstein.i
The thing is, Trump was his boss, and if he decided the Russia coup was a waste of FBI
time, he has every right to fire the head of the FBI, for continuing to waist time and money,
purposely trying to undermine the election.
Remember, this is before there was a special counsel, and if after a year of investigating
there's no there there, there sure as shit wasn't anything back then to investigate!
There is nothing illegal about the President telling Comey to knock it off, or else.
He should tell the press what they want to here. Of course the phony Russia scam played a
part in getting Comey fired, rightfully so. Then stand with his fist in the air shouting Fuck
the Prestitutes!
For a year now, they've been in a search for something, anything, to investigate.
He should fire Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller, TODAY, and watch their heads
explode!
There is an evil intent in all this, beyond the obvious.
Many believe WWG1WGA means, "Where we go one we go all".
A Ponzi always collapses the minute it stops growing, it's a 100% certainty. From the
start, ~100 years ago, the Oligarchs who gathered on Jekyll Island knew that their debt money
would grow right up to the day it suddenly collapsed, and planned it with all it's allure,
hooks, and traps, to consume everything, before that day, so that all would be in the same
boat when it collapses. They planned it to fail from the start. It's a mutual suicide Trap,
set up to consume the world, consolidate power, then collapse all the Nation's currencies in
one fail swoop!
For in a single hour such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!
They'll have their grand New World Order, and a knew single currency waiting in the wings,
to rescue the useful idiots from the disaster they've planned.
They'll attempt to number us all, track everything, and dictate how you buy and sell -
through them of course. But not just what you buy with, but what you buy, who you buy from,
how much you buy, and how much you will pay!
That is their plan. How far they'll get nobody knows. I suspect they'll fail miserably,
but the truth is, they're already a long way down this road.
It did not just impact perception. It factually altered the FBI protocol. Comey was high on power of co-running the deep state and subverting justice and the
Constitution. This is high treason, covering high crimes and attempting to unseat Trump at every
juncture.
The FBI isn't and you still think J.Edgar was an aberration ? The FBI is the swamps gamekeeper, nurturing the critters, weeding out the weak, until
only the foulest and strongest they can be unleashed on us. Take two red pills and report back in the morning.
Some reader are close: "It looks like Justice/FBI usurped the role of the vote by the electorate."
Notable quotes:
"... OK, so if Comey broke protocols and was insubordinate in the Clinton probe, then the "probe" and exoneration is bogus. She never really was investigated and cleared and It should be re-opened. Investigate and Prosecute Clinton for real. Make it a sting operation. Get wire tap and surveillance warrants for the entire DOJ, FBI, all courts and judges, heck the entire bureaucracy and all umpteen intelligence organizations, and all known Clinton associates. A dragnet for all the corruption and obstruction of justice by the deep state. Root out the corrupt Clinton crime organization once and for all. ..."
"... It looks like Justice/FBI usurped the role of the vote by the electorate. ..."
"... They live in a Matrix like false reality generated by the Fake media. ..."
"... The champagne is flowing -- they got off the hook. All of the FBI screwballs are probably well past the drunkard stage and well into the sleeping under the table and on park benches stage. ..."
"... This whole article is a one sided view of a complex situation. Nothing is mentioned about the OIG stating that Comey was insubordinate in disclosing that he is investigating Clinton, that too in a press conference. This is clearly against FBI policy and had the purpose of muddying up the race and giving Trump momentum. ..."
"... The government just got done investigating itself. It found after an exhaustive taxpayer funded audit that it made a few errors, but that it was generally well meaning. I mean, what did anyone really expect? ..."
"... These FBI weasels fell all over themselves to demonstrate fealty to te incoming Hillary Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee's interests. If they hoped to get anywhere in the next 4-8 years they had to be clearly "friendly" to the people at the top. Then Trump won instead. Fuck!!! ..."
"... Carreer-minded weasels entrenched in the Washington Deep State will happily show support for whatever "winning side" comes along. Romney, McCain, Bush, Clinton, Obama, it doen't matter who wins to them so long as they consider you "friendly" to their ambitions. ..."
As we digest and unpack the DOJ Inspector General's 500-page report on the FBI's conduct during the
Hillary Clinton email
investigation
"
matter
," damning
quotes from the OIG's findings have begun to circulate, leaving many to wonder exactly how
Inspector General Michael Horowitz was able to conclude:
"
We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations,
including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed"
We're sorry, that just doesn't comport with reality whatsoever. And it
really
feels
like the OIG report may have had a different conclusion at some point. Just read IG Horowitz's own
assessment that "These texts are "
Indicative of a biased state of mind but even more
seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the Presidential candidate's
electoral prospects
."
Of course,
today's crown jewel
is a
previously undisclosed exchange
between Peter Strzok and Lisa
Page in which Page asks "
(Trump's) not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
to
which Strzok replies "
No. No he's not. We'll stop it.
"
Nevermind the fact that
the FBI Director, who used personal emails for work
purposes, tasked Strzok, who used personal emails for work purposes, to investigate Hillary
Clinton's use of personal emails for work purposes
. Of course, we know it goes far
deeper than that...
1) Don't believe anyone who claims Horowitz didn't find bias. He very carefully says that he
found no "documentary" evidence that bias produced "specific investigatory decisions." That's
different
2) It means he didn't catch anyone doing anything so dumb as writing down that they took a
specific step to aid a candidate. You know, like: "Let's give out this Combetta immunity deal so
nothing comes out that will derail Hillary for President."
3)
But he in fact finds bias everywhere. The examples are shocking and concerning, and he
devotes entire sections to them. And he very specifically says in the summary that they "cast a
cloud" on the entire "investigation's credibility." That's pretty damning.
4)
Meanwhile this same cast of characters who the IG has now found to have made a hash of
the Clinton investigation and who demonstrate such bias, seamlessly moved to the Trump
investigation. And we're supposed to think they got that one right?
5)
Also don't believe anyone who says this is just about Comey and his instances of
insubordination. (Though they are bad enough.) This is an indictment broadly of an FBI culture
that believes itself above the rules it imposes on others.
6)
People failing to adhere to their recusals (Kadzik/McCabe). Lynch hanging with Bill.
Staff helping Comey conceal details of presser from DOJ bosses. Use of personal email and
laptops. Leaks. Accepting gifts from media. Agent affairs/relationships.
7)
It also contains stunning examples of incompetence. Comey explains that he wasn't aware
the Weiner laptop was big deal because he didn't know Weiner was married to Abedin? Then they
sit on it a month, either cuz it fell through cracks (wow) or were more obsessed w/Trump
8) And I can still hear the echo of the howls from when Trump fired Comey. Still waiting
to hear the apologies now that this report has backstopped the Rosenstein memo and the obvious
grounds for dismissal.
So, let's review more of the exchanges which had no bearing on the "unbiased" report:
"
OIG discovered texts and instant messages
between employees on the
investigative team, on FBI devices,
expressing hostility toward then candidate Donald
Trump and statements of support for then candidate Hillary Clinton.
"
Viva le resistance!
In one shocking exchange between two unnamed FBI employees which we assume to be Strzok and
Page, "Attorney 1" asks "Attorney 2" "Is it making you rethink your commitment to the Trump
administration?" to which "Attorney 2" replied "
Hell no
," adding "
Viva le
resistance
."
Some of Strzok and Page's greatest hits:
August 16, 2015, Strzok: "
[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump.
Figure they
cancel each other out."
February 12, 2016, Page: "I'm no prude, but I'm really appalled by this. So you don't have to
go looking (in case you hadn't heard),
Trump called him the p-word.
The man has no dignity or class
.
[texted the FBI
agents having an extramarital affair]
He simply cannot be president.
February 12, 2016, Strzok:
"Oh, [Trump's] abysmal
. I keep hoping the charade
will end and people will just dump him. The problem, then, is Rubio will likely lose to Cruz. The
Republican party is in utter shambles. When was the last competitive ticket they offered?"
March 3, 2016, Page:
"God trump is a loathsome human.
"
March 3, 2016, Strzok: "Omg
[Trump's] an idiot.
March 3, 2016, Page:
"He's awful."
March 3, 2016, Strzok:
"God Hillary should win 100,000,000-0."
March 3, 2016, Page: "
Also did you hear [Trump] make a comment about the size of his
d*ck earlier?
This man cannot be president."
March 12, 2016: Page forwarded an article about a "far right" candidate in Texas, stating,
"[W]hat the f is wrong with people?" Strzok replied, "That Texas article is depressing as hell.
But answers how we could end up with President trump."
March 16, 2016, Page: "
I cannot believe Donald Trump is likely to be an actual, serious
candidate for president
."
June 11, 2016, Strzok: "They fully deserve to go, and demonstrate
the absolute bigoted
nonsense of Trump
."
July 18, 2016, Page: "...
Donald Trump is an enormous d*uche
."
July 19, 2016, Page: "Trump barely spoke, but the first thing out of his mouth was 'we're going
to win soooo big.
'The whole thing is like living in a bad dream
."
July 21, 2016, Strzok: "Trump is a disaster.
I have no idea how destabilizing his
Presidency would be
."
August 26, 2016, Strzok: "Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart.
I could SMELL the
Trump support....
"
September 26, 2016, Page: Page sent an article to Strzok entitled, "
Why
Donald Trump Should Not Be President
," stating, "Did you read this? It's scathing. And
I'm scared."
October 19, 2016, Strzok: "I am riled up.
Trump is a fucking idiot
, is unable
to provide a coherent answer."
November 7, 2016, Strzok: Referencing an article entitled "
A victory by Mr. Trump
remains possible," Strzok stated, "OMG THIS IS F*CKING TERRIFYING."
November 13, 2016, Page: "I bought all the president's men.
Figure I needed to
brush up on watergate
."
Strzok also refers to having "unfinished business" and a need to "fix it"
-
while also admitting that "
there's no big there, there
" presumably regarding the
Trump-Russia investigation.
While there are
many
more damning revelations in the OIG report, one would
think that given the above, there was more than enough evidence to, at minimum, launch a special
counsel - especially when you consider the weak sauce used to justify Mueller's special counsel
probe.
FBI management in offices around the world will be having
their Friday poker and whiskey (this actually happens) and will lean
back and their chairs and say, "Give it a couple months, it'll blow
over," and back to business.
In fact, it's back to business right at this moment.
Let's just hope that in their brilliant incompetence, the DOJ
missed some real nuggets in those 500 pages. I'm hopeful (but
doubtful) that we we will find some more bombshells that will
prompt more outrage and uprising/waking of the sheep.
OK, so if Comey broke protocols and was insubordinate in the
Clinton probe, then the "probe" and exoneration is bogus. She
never really was investigated and cleared and It should be
re-opened. Investigate and Prosecute Clinton for real. Make it
a sting operation. Get wire tap and surveillance warrants for
the entire DOJ, FBI, all courts and judges, heck the entire
bureaucracy and all umpteen intelligence organizations, and all
known Clinton associates. A dragnet for all the corruption and
obstruction of justice by the deep state. Root out the corrupt
Clinton crime organization once and for all.
It looks like Justice/FBI usurped the role of the vote by
the electorate. I suggest the electorate go to DC and
usurp the role of Justice/FBI and vote on who to hang.
From the report...I'm going to pull a
ravolla-type spam ;-)
"Combetta was
interviewed subject to the terms of the immunity
agreement on May 3, 2016, by the same two FBI
case agents, this time in the presence of the
SSA, the CART examiner, all four line
prosecutors, and Combetta's attorneys. According
to the FD-302 and contemporaneous notes of the
two agents and the CART Examiner, Combetta
provided the FBI additional detail regarding his
removal of emails from the culling laptops,
stating that Mills had requested that he
"securely delete the .pst files" in November or
December 2014 but had not specifically requested
that he use "deletion software." He told the FBI
that he was the one who recommended the use of
"BleachBit" because he had used it for other
clients. He also acknowledged removing the HRC
Archive mailbox from the PRN server between
March 25, 2015, and March 31, 2015
,
and using BleachBit to "shred" any remaining
copies of Clinton's email on the server (Edit:
To include certain emails to Chelsea of all
people...lol...and the Egyptian Prime Minister
about yoga classes & wedding invitations that
happened the day before Sept 12 2012, no
doubt)...
...despite his awareness of
Congress's preservation order
and
his understanding that the order meant that "he
should not disturb Clinton's email data on the
PRN server."
So clearly no "obstruction"!
Addendum:
The May 22, 2015,
letter
from Under Secretary of State for Management
Patrick F. to Clinton attorney Kendall reads in
part:
I am writing in reference to the following
e-mail that is among the approximately 55,000
pages that were identified as potential
federal records and produced on behalf of
former Secretary Clinton to the Depatment of
State on
December 5, 2014: E-mail
forwarded by Jacob Sullivan to Secretary
Clinton on November 18, 2012 at 8:44 pm
(Subject: Fw: FYI- Report of arrests
-possible Benghazi connection).
Please be advised that today the above
referenced e-mail,
which previously
was unclassified
, has been
classified as "Secret" pursuant to Section
1.7(d) of Executive Order 13526 in connection
with a review and release under the Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA). In order to
safeguard and protect the classified
information, I ask – consistent with my
letter to you dated March 23 2015 – that you,
Secretary Clinton and others assisting her in
responding to congressional and related
inquiries coordinate in taking the steps set
forth below. A copy of the document as
redacted under the FOIA is attached to assist
you in your search.
****
Once you have made the electronic copy of
the documents for the Department, please
locate any electronic copies of the
above-referenced classified document in your
possession.
If you locate any
electronic copies, please delete them.
Additionally, once you have done that, please
empty your "Deleted Items" folder.
Because it just wouldn't do to have Hillary's
emails stating the obvious while Rice is out
saying something else so, we've classified it!
//////
Resuming...
"The agents asked Bentel about
allegations
by two S/ES-IRM staff members
that
they had raised concerns about Clinton's use of
personal email to him during separate meetings.
According
to the State IG report,
one of the staff
members told the State IG that Bentel told the
staff member that "the mission of S/ES-IRM is to
support the Secretary" and instructed the staff
member to "never speak of the Secretary's
personal email system again."94 .
According
to the FD-302 and agent notes,
the
agents showed Bentel documents that suggested
that he was aware that Clinton had a private
email server
that she used for official
business during their joint tenure. One of the
agents explained that the purpose of asking
Bentel about his knowledge of the server was to
assess whether Clinton's use of the server was
sanctioned by the State Department.
However,
Bentel maintained that he was unaware that
Clinton used personal email to conduct official
business until it was reported in the news and
denied that anyone had raised concerns about it
to him."
The staff are obviously lying Trumptards!
/////
"On April 9, 2016, Mills appeared with
Wilkinson for a voluntary interview concerning
Mills's tenure at State. According to a FBI
memorandum ("Mills Interview Memorandum"),
shortly before the interview
Strzok
advised the prosecutors
and Laufman
that the agent conducting the interview would be
making a statement at the start of the interview
"concerning the scope of [the] interview, the
FBI's view of the importance of the email
sorting process,
and the expectation of
a follow-up interview
once legal issues
had been resolved." Witnesses referred to this
statement as "the preamble."
Comey told the OIG that
he approved
of the preamble
but did not suggest it,
and McCabe stated that
he "authorized"
the
preamble. McCabe told us that he directed the
FBI team not to discuss the preamble with the
prosecutors before the day of the interview
because he was "concerned that if we raised
another issue with DOJ, we would spend another
two weeks arguing over the drafting of the
preamble to the interview, which I just was not
prepared to do."
The prosecutors told us that they
were surprised and upset because the preamble
was inconsistent with their prior
representations to Wilkinson and they believed
it was strategically ill-advised.
The
Mills Interview Memorandum states that the
prosecutors objected to the preamble but that
they were told that "the FBI's position was not
subject to further discussion." According to the
Mills Interview Memorandum, the interviewing
agents delivered the preamble at the outset of
the interview as planned. Witnesses told us...
Footnote 100:
Baker told us that he
had known Wilkinson for many years, and
documents show that she had previously reached
out to him in Midyear as part of a broad effort
to speak with senior Department and FBI
officials, up to and including Attorney General
Lynch. Lynch and other high level Department
officials told us that they did not speak with
Wilkinson during the course of the
investigation.
...that Wilkinson was visibly angered by the
preamble and that she and Mills stepped outside
the interview room after the agent delivered it.
The prosecutors stated that they convinced
Wilkinson and Mills to return for the remainder
of the scheduled interview concerning Mills's
tenure. However, according to Prosecutor 1,
Mills was "on edge the whole time."
Footnote 101: According to notes of the
interview, the prosecutors told Wilkinson that
they were
"sandbagged" by the FBI
and
that they did not know in advance about the
preamble. Additionally, according to the notes,
Wilkinson
informed the prosecutors of the call the
previous day from a "senior FBI official."
Baker or McCabe? I would say Baker, no wonder
she was blindsided & pissed, they'll screw
anyone & everyone over. Even "close confidantes"
at her (and the prosecutors) inferior levels,
just to muck up..."the process"
/////
Ah yes, here it is...
"Prosecutors and FBI agents told us that the
events surrounding the April 9 Mills interview,
including
both the preamble and Baker phone call
that
were planned without Department coordination,
caused significant strife and mistrust between
the line prosecutors and the FBI.
AAG Carlin told us that the prosecution team
asked him to call McCabe and "deliver a message
that this is just not an acceptable way to run
an investigation." Carlin told us that he
delivered this message to McCabe and also
briefed Lynch and Yates on the issues.
Witnesses told us that the strife between the
prosecutors and the FBI team culminated in a
contentious meeting
chaired by McCabe
a
few days later. On the Department side, this
meeting was attended by the line prosecutors,
Laufman, and Toscas. Prosecutor 2 told us that
during this meeting the prosecutors explained
that they were trying to be "careful" in their
handling of complicated issues, and that McCabe
responded that they should
"be careful
faster."
Laufman stated that McCabe's
comment "undervalued what we had been able to
accomplish to date investigatively through
negotiating consent agreements." According to
Laufman's notes, McCabe agreed that Baker's
unilateral contacts with Wilkinson should not
have happened, and Baker agreed not to have
further contact with Wilkinson. With respect to
the preamble, however, the prosecutors told us
that
McCabe stated that he would "do it
again."
"Be careful faster"...lol...I mean, what the
hell is the matter with you people! There's an
election on the line here and my wife Jill is on
the ballot
riding Hillary's
skirt while pocketing $675k from Hillary cronies
and...I would "do it again"...well, of course
you would.
/////
"On May 4, 2016, a few weeks before Mills and
Samuelson were voluntarily interviewed regarding
the culling process and a little over a month
before the FBI obtained the culling laptops,
Strzok and Page exchanged the following text
messages. The sender of each message is
identified after the timestamp.
8:40 p.m., Page: "And holy shit Cruz just
dropped out of the race. It's going to be a
Clinton Trump race. Unbelievable."
8:41 p.m., Strzok: "What?!?!??"
8:41 p.m., Page: "You heard that right my
friend."
8:41 p.m., Strzok: "I saw trump won, figured
it would be a bit."
8:41 p.m., Strzok: "Now the pressure really
starts to finish MYE "
8:42 p.m., Page: "It sure does. We need to
talk about follow up call tomorrow. We still
never have."
They ignored the political bias showing
us all the deep state is still in charge
Nothing will happen to hillary
They won't name the chosen scapegoats
thus showing us all the deep state is
running things
They doubled down on Trump and Jr with
an investigation into a charity they were
involved with and continue to ignore the
Clinton Foundation showing us all the deep
state's in charge
I hate to even say this, but reading and seeing
the self-righteous douchebags in DC who
sanctimoniously talk about the rule of law and
the interference in our system by Russian trolls
on the internet, I can not help but be struck by
what Comey, McCabe and Strzok have managed to do
by themselves. If there is no punishment for
these people, no punishment for Hillary
Clinton's gross malfeasance, then what
difference is there between Putin's regime and
our "Republic?" How is it that the law does not
apply to these people/
Hillary willfully
mishandled classified information. Seaman
Saucier did less, and spent a year in jail.
Hillary has done so much, so wrong for so long,
and gotten so wealthy through influence peddling
and payoffs she might as well be an oligarch -
in fact, she is a political oligarch. McCabe
lied under oath, and it is clear he and Comey
are covering for each other in their political
plot to see their padron elected. Comey wanted
to be AG, and McCabe Director. Hillary no doubt
promised them their dreams. Strzok likely would
move up into McCabe's job. So they obstructed
justice, but didn't write each other explicit
memos about it - and therefore there is no
case???? This is a cabal protecting their own,
just as they do in Russia and Syria and corrupt
South American banana republics.
If the trolls start calling for protest
rallies in the streets, they might get them.
This kind of blatant abuse of the system with no
consequences should get true Americans out in
the streets to protest. This is not about Trump.
This is about pure political corruption in law
enforcement and the Obama Administration.
Hilary writes "but my emails" about Comey -
as if. Hillary, STFU. You lost an election a
goddamn platypus could have won. Your utter
venality, your shrill self-righteousness, you
repugnant enabling of your pig husband... you
are personally responsible for Trump's election,
and you should be in jail. It feels as if the
Mueller investigation is another set up by your
boys to ensure the Administration is too
distracted to prosecute you.
The Fake News Liberal Media has everyone in that delusion. They live in a Matrix like false reality generated by the Fake media. All the magazines and papers follow the same editorial stance. It is a giant echo chamber. They are all zombies doing the bidding of the Deep state and elite interests.
Trump did just tweet after Singapore that enemy #1 is Fake News. Hopefully he will have action coming.
The champagne is flowing -- they got off the hook.
All of the FBI screwballs are probably well past the
drunkard stage and well into the sleeping under the
table and on park benches stage.
Any one in trouble for abusing information in any
way should keep all these proceedings handy for the
court hearing.
After all, if the vaunted FBI can get off the hook
for abusing national security information for sport,
why should anyone else get into trouble for less?
Any health professional who treats confidential
medical information for gossip or personal gain would
get fired, raked over the coals, and possibly
prosecuted.
But any smart defense lawyer can now refer to the
DoJ as the standard and precedent for dismissing the
charge of information abuse.
Any financial professional who treats confidential
financial information for gossip, or monetary gain for
him/her or his/her friends and associates would get
fired, raked over the coals, and possibly prosecuted.
But any smart defense lawyer can now refer to the
DoJ as the standard and precedent for dismissing the
charge of information abuse.
Any legal professional who treats confidential
legal information for gossip, jury and
evidence tampering, payoffs, bribes, etc., would get
fired, raked over the coals, and possibly prosecuted.
But any smart defense lawyer can now refer to the
DoJ as the standard and precedent for dismissing the
charge of information abuse.
Any professional or employee in any field has an
obligation to treat confidential information with
respect or at least according to protocol or face
being fired, raked over the coals, or possibly
prosecuted.
But thanks to the FBICIANSA psychos and
psychotic Swamp Dwellers anyone can now abuse
information of any kind and thank the DC Swamp for so
generously providing a precedent to get away with it.
Nothing will happen outside of McCabe and some low level losers.
This is a nightmare because if validates the use of the FBI/CIA/DIA,
etc. against the American people. I mean seriously, does anyone
think that a government agency which supported incinerating women
and children in Waco would actually go after their own vile souls?
That's exactly what needs to occur for the futile system of
Tyrannical Lawlessness & Political Police Surveillance State to
be accepted / instituted by State onto the Serfs.
The State
has to Gas Light the populace into thinking that even a sitting
President is "Guilty until proven innocent." And, if a
President is powerless against & can be removed by
a Totalitarian, Authoritarian, Tyrannical Lawless, Political
Police State, then anyone who poses a threat to said State can
be threatened, persecuted & or Eliminated.
President has to be set, that if a sitting President can be
taken down. Anyone can be taken, disappeared, droned,
Murdered, Tortured, Rendered & never seen from again.
The Slaves won't stand a chance.
Welcome to Serfdom.
This whole article is a one sided view of a complex situation. Nothing is
mentioned about the OIG stating that Comey was insubordinate in disclosing
that he is investigating Clinton, that too in a press conference. This is
clearly against FBI policy and had the purpose of muddying up the race and
giving Trump momentum.
These conspiracy theories are really the kind of
stuff that goes on in pakistan, middle east, north korea where they want to
blame everyone else but themselves for supporting the wrong people/clowns.
Life is complicated, learn to think thru issues and follow a chain of logic
thru multiple levels.
The government just got done investigating itself. It found after an
exhaustive taxpayer funded audit that it made a few errors, but that it was
generally well meaning.
I mean, what did anyone really expect?
Trump pulled a major political upset, defying all
the pre-election polls and predictions, and caught a lot of career-track
Federal employees completely off guard. Political contacts and friends
count a LOT when you work for a Federal cabinet-level organization and
hope to climb the career ladder to a high level position. They count
more than talent, devotion to Country, ethics, everything. That's how
it works.
These FBI weasels fell all over themselves to demonstrate
fealty to te incoming Hillary Clinton administration and the Democratic
National Committee's interests.
If they hoped to get anywhere in
the next 4-8 years they had to be clearly "friendly" to the people at
the top. Then Trump won instead. Fuck!!!
Carreer-minded weasels entrenched in the Washington Deep State will
happily show support for whatever "winning side" comes along. Romney,
McCain, Bush, Clinton, Obama, it doen't matter who wins to them so long
as they consider you "friendly" to their ambitions. Hell, they'd ardently support Hitler or Stalin if it would advance their
careers. No integrity whatsoever.
Whitewash.
Swamp wins again.
These cats haven't lost an hour of sleep worrying about consequences.
I say, oh well....games have new rules now. Do whatever it takes to get
ahead...and fuck em. Laws have no meaning anymore.
Oh no, I do believe Page is scared and Strzok is terrified, as they
predicted they would be. But like raccoons they just exist to fight and
kill you. They have to be criminally charged, and for that all that
matters is the evidence (in this version of the report and the more
secure ones) provided by the IG, not his carefully wordsmithed
conclusions.
So now we know Comey was really a drama queen and used private emails for
government business. (let that sink in) Now let's play along, the head of the
IRS did the same thing, the head of the EPA did the same thing and move on
down the line. Looks like more than a smidgen.
It's so ridiculous on its face (Trump inner circle guy hangs around
4-chan and then 8-chan to plant clues), that I suppose I can't blame
people for not wanting to admit how stupid they were for believing
it. Then again, it is that very "I won't admit I was wrong and I
believe anyone who supports my ideology" attitude that explains why
politician after politician gets away with literal murder.
The clues Q provides are interesting. Real time photos, etc.
Some of it involves the "Russia investigation", some about NK
stuff, some about other stuff. It's an interesting source of
news, like those photos.
For fucking starters, where is the criminal referrals for allowing Hillary to
smash her hard drives, wipe her server, and for not confiscating her server
and examining it?
Everyone knows Comey is not professional FBI nor an
investigator. He is a
political
appointee and he took the astounding
unprecedented step of taking the investigation away from professional
investigators in the field office to directly manage it and be fluffed in the
7th Floor Hoover Bldg.
Where's the scathing rebuke and criminal investigation into the obstruction
that ensued? That is not 'insubordination'.... that conspiracy.
IG's don't make criminal referrals. AG's and others do. That's why the
evidence Horowitz came up with, which we all see is damning, is
important. (Probably much better stuff in the LES and classified
parts.) His artfully worded conclusions, carefully stepping around
blaming anyone very much, don't matter.
Even WaPo sees this and isn't
downplaying the report or taking comfort in those conclusions.
Come to think of it, it's disappointing that apparently Horowitz didn't
follow the trails that led up to Obama. Maybe those were on private
servers, hence outside his scope. But not outside the scope of a criminal
investigation.
"
Also did you
hear [Trump] make a
comment about the
size of his d*ck
earlier?
This man
cannot be president.
"
Yet I guess it's OK
for you that the
Magic Negro
can make a video of
his erection while
flying on Air Force
One? That his
entourage is nothing
but a bacchanal of
drugs and a continuum
of sexual orgies and
illicit affairs
according to former
White House
stenographer Beck
Dorey-Stein's
upcoming memoir,
From
the Corner of the
Oval?
Lisa Page, you're
nothing but a
Hypocrite Ho!
"
Just went
to a southern
Virginia Walmart.
I could SMELL the
Trump support....
"
That's the smell
of hard working,
sweaty poorly paid
workers suffering
from illegal
immigration, the
forgotten American
people. You are just
like Marie Antoinette
and Hillary,
elitists who forgot
their roots and what
made this country.
"Comey explains that he wasn't aware the Weiner laptop was big deal because he didn't know Weiner was married to Abedin? "
Someone pointed out that this means that Comey believed Hillary's emails appeared on the computer of some random pervert, and didn't think twice about it. It's even more outrageous than the truth of the matter, that's how desperately this guy is lying.
Comey caught lying when he says he didn't know Weiner was married to
Abedin.
If this was true, why didn't he prosecute Weiner for owning a
laptop that had classified State Department emails on them? Weiner didn't
have any business having State Department emails.
Weiner and Abedin should have been charged for possessing these emails
but Comey's "investigation" found nothing new.
So, Strozk, what will you do to stop Trump from being POTUS?
Strzok also refers to having "unfinished business" and a need to "fix it"
What "unfinished business," Strzok? Tell us all here what sedition y'all
been plotting against POTUS. Amazing that this guy was
counter-intelligence (supposedly knowing that electronic communications are
all conveyed over an "uncovered wire.")
while also admitting that "
there's no big there, there
"
presumably regarding the Trump-Russia investigation. I have no doubt that
Strzok moved heaven and earth to find the "there there."
The OIG Report Drops Tomorrow On Trump's Birthday; Here's What To Expect
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/13/2018 - 19:05 205 SHARES
The highly anticipated OIG report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog will
hit tomorrow at 3pm EST , on President Trump's 72nd birthday. The 400-500 page document,
prepared by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, will specifically address the DOJ/FBI's conduct
surrounding the Hillary Clinton email investigation . It will not cover any of the FISA abuse /
surveillance on the Trump campaign - for which a separate OIG investigation was launched in
late March .
Here's what to look for:
Hillary Clinton's exoneration letter
In December, Congressional
investigators discovered that edits made to former FBI Director James Comey's statement
exonerating Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified info over an unsecured, private email
server went
far beyond what was previously known.
While Comey's original draft criminalized Clinton's behavior by using the term "gross
negligence" and other language supportive of criminal charges, the FBI's top brass passed the
draft around and neutered it. Instead of "grossly negligent," Clinton's conduct was
reclassified as "extremely careless" - a term which carries no legal significance.
According to an Attorney briefed on the matter, "extremely careless" is in fact a defense to
"gross negligence": "What my client did was 'careless', maybe even 'extremely careless,' but it
was not 'gross negligence' your honor." The FBI would have no option but to recommend
prosecution if the phrase "gross negligence" had been left in.
18 U.S. Code §
793 "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information" specifically uses the phrase
"gross negligence." Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary
had broken the law.
Involved in the edits were Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, E.W. "Bill" Priestap, Jonathan Moffa
and DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson .
Immunity agreements
The FBI granted immunity in June 2016 to top Obama advisor Cheryl Mills and aide Heather
Samuelson - who helped decide which Clinton emails were destroyed before turning over the
remaining 30,000 records to the State Department . Of note, the FBI agreed to destroy evidence
on devices owned by Mills and Samuelson which were turned over in the investigation.
The FBI also granted immunity to the guy who wiped Hillary's server with "BleachBit" , P
aul Combetta .
For those who "do not recall" the specific timeline leading up to Combetta wiping Hillary's
server,
here is a breif recap :
December 2014 / January 2015 – "Undisclosed Clinton staff member" instructs Combetta
to remove archives of Clinton emails from PRN server but he forgets.
March 4, 2015 – Hillary receives subpoena from House Select Committee on Benghazi
instructing her to preserve and deliver all emails from her personal servers.
March 25, 2015 – Combetta has a conference call with "President Clinton's
Staff."
March 25 – 31, 2015 – Combetta has "oh shit" moment and realizes he forgot to
wipe Hillary's email archive from the PRN server back in December which he promptly does
using BleachBit.
February 18, 2016 - Combetta meets with FBI and denies knowing about the existense of the
subpoena from the House Select Committee on Benghazi at the time he wiped Hillary's
server.
May 3, 2016 - Combetta has follow-up meeting with the FBI and admits that he "was aware of
the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb
Clinton's e-mail data on the PRN server."
McCabe's conflicts of interest
While an earlier IG report which led to former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's firing
focused on McCabe leaking self-serving information to the press and then lying about it (four
times), this portion of the IG report will focus on " [a]llegations that the FBI Deputy
Director should have been recused from participating in certain investigative matters," after
his, Jill McCabe, accepted $675,000 from "groups aligned with Clinton and McAuliffe" during her
unsuccessful Senate bid - which constituted nearly 40% of the campaign's total
funds.
In addition to discussing whether McCabe should have recused from the investigation,
Horowitz's report will likely discuss the FBI's ethics office
decision that recusal was not required, and the FBI's
creation of "talking points" to counter complaints about McCabe's participation in the
Clinton probe. -
The Federalist
Comey's higher loyalties
The report will also focus on Comey's conduct during the investigation - as IG Horowitz
outlined "Allegations that Department or FBI policies or procedures were not followed in
connection with, or in actions leading up to or related to, the FBI Director's public
announcement on July 5, 2016, and the Director's letters to Congress on October 28 and November
6, 2016, and that certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper
considerations ."
Also under investigation will be the FBI's decision to reopen the Clinton email
investigation on October 28, 2016 after additional emails were found on the laptop of Clinton's
top aide, Anthony Weiner - who is currently in prison for sex crimes involving a minor. After a
very fast review , Comey told Congress on November 6, 2016 that the FBI's assessment that
Clinton should not be charged had not changed.
"I think the report of Horowitz, the [inspector general], and the Justice Department will
confirm that Comey acted improperly with regard to the Hillary Clinton investigation," Trump's
lawyer Rudy Giuliani recently told New York radio host John Catsimatidis.
"Comey, really, has a chance of being prosecuted as a result of [this report], but we'll
see," Giuliani said.
Criminal prosecution?
While the IG has already issued a criminal referral for Andrew McCabe based on the earlier
report, tomorrow's release will similarly shed light on others who may receive (or have already
received) criminal referrals.
Anyone within the senior ranks of the FBI who was involved with the Clinton email
investigation is at risk - including James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bill Priestap,
Jonathan Moffa, Peter Kadzik and DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson .
A tipoff?
The OIG investigation will also cover "[a]llegations that the Department's Assistant
Attorney General for Legislative Affairs improperly disclosed non-public information to the
Clinton campaign and/or should have been recused from participating in certain matters."
In particular, the report will look at former Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik 's
role in the investigation and whether he " tipped off Clinton presidential campaign chairman
John Podesta about two issues: an upcoming hearing where a Justice Department official would be
asked about the Clinton emails, and the timing of the release of some Clinton emails"
Notably, Kadzik "previously worked for Podesta as an attorney."
That weird FBI twitter account
The OIG will also look at " [a]llegations that decisions regarding the timing of the FBI's
release of certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents on October 30 and November 1,
2016, and the use of a Twitter account to publicize same, were influenced by improper
considerations ."
This is related to a series of tweets issued by the largely dormant @FBIRecordsVault account
which began one day after Comey reopened the Clinton email investigation. On October 30 at 4
a.m., the account released a series of documents - including information on the Clinton
Foundation, and President Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich, along with several other
notable files.
Two days before the Clinton Foundation tweet, the @FBIRecordsVault account tweeted records
of Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, which referred to him as a philanthropist.
At the time, the FBI said that the timing reflected " standard procedure for FOIA " in
which records that requested three or more times are released publicly and processed on a "
first in, first out " basis.
Rod Rosenstein should be fired immediately after this report comes out.
There's no excuse for a government employee like Rosenstein to be illegally stonewalling
Congress's request for documents. Rosenstein is covering up the fact that it was Obama who
ordered FBI informants to spy on the Trump campaign!
I see nothing damning in any of these details... Nothing that the guilty won't be able to
explain away... There will be at least one fall guy and my bet it will be either McCabe or
Stroczk... Everyone else will walk, same as it always was...
Immunity deals are vacated if the person granted immunity is later found to have lied, or
found to have willfully omitted relevant information in their affidavits.
I expect the report to be heavily redacted, I expect it to be "for national security
reasons" I expect it to be un-redacted about a week or 2 later, I expect when comparisons of
the redacted to the less redacted ones is done we will again see the mass abuse of the use of
"for National security" reason and I expect this Muller's sudo investigation to come to a
close. I hope for indictments and arrest of ex-heads of the Intel agencies for treason. I
hope for Clinton to be in chains and many others. I want the people involved with the Iranian
deal (never signed) to also face criminal charges as it looks like it was a drug money
laundering operation. Watch this for some info on that https://youtu.be/Rri-Ngj8QoE
Preistap rolled without a doubt, Page got caught red handed conspiring to commit a crime
by having the FISA judge just happen to be at a cocktail party. She rolled, she is a woman
and it's in their natural to save themselves.
Every week the Kabuki theater has a new Act. I can remember when "Release the Memo" was
going to tell all and all the bad guys were going to prison and Trump would put on a big
white hat and all would be right in the world.
Well, that came and went.....what changed?.........crickets........that's right nothing!
The only thing that ever changes are the costumes....cause the players are all the same.
Every time we turn around there is a new villain out to get Trump.....but then there is
documentation to prove they were out to get Trump.....and the documentation shows they broke
the law trying to get Trump.....then there are Congressional subpoenas.....Congressional
hearings......George Soros is funding something....to get Trump.....all the people that work
for Trump....are hired by Trump.....are out to get Trump or obstruct him from doing his job
for the American people.....Trump can't fire them.....So Trump tweets out to the American
people as if we can solve his problems for him. And on and on and on it goes.......BUT
NOTHING CHANGES.
Brexit? Yeah I remember that. The British people should be happy they let them
vote....cause that is all they are going to get......NOTHING CHANGES.
Immunity deals are vacated if the person granted immunity is later found to have lied, or
found to have willfully omitted relevant information in their affidavits.
Well God only knows if what was written on the 302's has any resemblance to any reality at
all. Frankly at this point I am not sure if that increases or decreases their chances of
being shown to have lied in order to get immunity.
When the info is released [RR] no more.
When the info is released no more Russia investigation.
It will factually conclude the corrupt nature by which the entire false narrative was created
all to 1) prevent the election of POTUS 2) delay/shelter/mask/hide all illegal activities by
Hussein/others during past 8 years.
DOJ/FBI cleanse vital as primary.
Huber coming.
These people HATE America.
FBI granting immunity for Absolutely nothing in return = free ticket.
sooo much more. Internal conflicts galore. Closed loop CYA INSIDER destruction of evidence
all over the place. Their job is to preserve not destroy evidence.
The root is neoliberal government that came to power in 2015
Notable quotes:
"... Why is any of this still "surprising" ..."
"... Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term "ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now. ..."
"... Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little hope. Keynes' BANCOR was the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible. ..."
Thanks for the link. I will be spending some time thinking of what Argentina would best
employ as best practices from where it is.
Would they be best off if they stopped issuing such high paying bonds? Should they pay them
all off and stop with it. It does appear to me that issuing bond after bond is one of the
single most dangerous things you can do.
It would appear to me to be a superior practice to sell what you produce for the best price
you can get on the open markets and dictate the value of your currency.
I'll have to do some more study here.
Again, thanks for the link.
You're uttering the discourse of the most recalcitrant neo-liberal cum
austerity-fundamentalists around.
The US doesn't tax soybean exports. Argentina needs to maximize its exports to earn
foreign exchange.'
it's misleading to say the least to draw a comparison between how the US handles soybean
exports and Argentina does it. They're around a quarter of the latter's exports, barely a
hundredth of the latter's.
The US will never have forex issues, Argentina does have them, and they are very serious.
You make it as if simply exporting commodities will fill the country's economy with USD,
while in truth those dollars will be neatly parked in tax heavens. Eliminating tax and
controls over Argentina's biggest exports -agricultural commodities- is in practice as if
these commodities were produced not in this country but in some foreign territory over which
only the very few who hold most of the land are sovereign. Which is what the current
administration has been doing for the past two years.
You also make it as if the current situation where the value of the peso is given over
completely to whatever short-term speculators feel like doing with it whenever LEBACs are due
is more desirable than the capital controls imposed by the previous government. These
prevented the hurtful rapid rise we're seeing in the exchange rate and reduced the negative
consequences of the fiscal deficit thus allowing significant investment in and expansion of
the real economy.
Addressing the fiscal deficit through increased value added and income tax is something
that clearly benefits the owner over the working class and depresses private consumption. I
can only sarcastically wonder who would want such a thing.
I don't feel the need or the duty to defend the previous government, but victimization of
the Sociedad Rural is something I just lack the words to condemn strongly enough
Argentina is probably the most self sufficient country on earth. It has everything,
fertile land that produces an abundance of wheat, barley, oats, rye, wine grapes. As well as
oil, gas. uranium, silver, gold, lead, copper, zinc. Foreigners are well aware of the wealth
in Argentina and are more than willing to lend to Argentinian governments and companies. This
is why Cristina Kirchner refused to give in to the US vulture funds as it dissuaded
foreigners from believing that reckless lending would always be rewarded. Macri ponied up,
restarting the old familiar economic doom cycle. As always its the old dog for the long road
and the pup for the puddle. Macri is now in a place that he chose, the puddle. As long as
foreig lenders remain reckless Argentina will remain mired in the mud, well short of its
potential. I was last there in 2008 when the country was booming. When I heard of Macri's
plan to pay the vulture funds I knew they were headed for disaster. This is just the
beginning.
Those "foreign lenders" can't be called "reckless." Some, maybe most among them always
seem to profit from the looting, whether by "bailouts" or "backstops" from governments like
the US that for "geopolitical reasons" facilitate that lending, or by extortion after the
first-round lenders (who know the risks, of course -- they are big boys and girls after all)
have been forestalled.
Call them "wreckers," maybe. Like early denizens of the Florida Keys, and other places,
who set fires or put up lamps that resembled lighthouses to lure passing ships onto the sands
and rocks where their cargoes and the valuables of their drowned passengers and crews could
be stripped.
Why is any of this still "surprising" to anyone?! Most countries in the world
(non G7/G8) are forced to go into foreign debt in order to pursue their "development"
initiatives. They are told they can export themselves out of trouble but the "free
trade" (more like unfair trade!) mantra puts them at a distinct disadvantage –
"unequal
exchange" was the term Marx used for it.
Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term
"ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and
trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now.
Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little
hope. Keynes' BANCOR was
the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left
to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible.
Many Trump supporters, and even some on the left, like to talk about the "Deep State"
secretly having complete control of our government, thus rendering our elected leaders to be
nothing more than meaningless figureheads. Let's investigate.
Long before the term 'Deep State' became popular, the term "Military Industrial Complex" was
coined by President Dwight Eisenhower.
He gave his now famous Military Industrial Complex (MIC) speech on Jan 17, 1961.
During his ominous farewell, Ike mentioned that the US was only just past the halfway point
of the century and we had already seen 4 major wars. He then went on to talk about how the MIC
was now a major sector of the economy. Eisenhower then went on to warn Americans about the
"undue influence" the MIC has on our government. He warned that the MIC has massive lobbying
power and the ability to press for unnecessary wars and armaments we would not really need, all
just to funnel money to their coffers.
Jump to Ike's warning about the "unwarranted influence... by the Military-Industrial
Complex" at 8:41
His warning though proven correct, was sadly not heeded. Within a few years JFK was
assassinated shortly after giving his "Secret government speech" warning the American people
about "secret governments and secret organizations that sought to have undue control of the
government.
JFK was in his grave for less than 9-months before Gulf of Tonkin incident which was a
series of outlandish lies about a fictitious attack on a US naval ship that never happened,
which caused the US to enter the Vietnam war.
President Johnson lied his way into a war with North Vietnam and within less than a year
would joke that "maybe the attack never happened". By the time the war ended in 1973, Johnson's
bundle of lies had killed 2.45 million people.
The MIC however, saw the Vietnam war as a great victory and a template for the future
success to their objectives. Ever since the Vietnam War, the MIC has urged the government to
enter into as many ambiguous and unwinnable wars as possible, since unwinnable wars are also
never-ending. Never-ending wars equate to never-ending revenue streams for the war
industry.
Eisenhower warned us about the concept of one particular industry taking control of our
government, but sadly his predictions fell of deaf ears.
Since Eisenhower's time several other over "Industrial Complexes" have followed the MIC
example and taken control of our government to suit their needs as well. Their objective is to
buy out politicians in order to control the purse strings of Congress and they have been highly
successful.
The list of these ÏC industries includes, but is not limited to the companies
below:
1. The Drug Industrial Complex. (DIC)
The prescription drug industry has massive control of our government and our health care
system. A recent Mayo Clinic study concluded that 70% of Americans are on at least one
prescription drug.
The most tragic example is opioids, though similar arguments can also be made in reference
to the anti-depressant epidemic, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
The sicker America is, the better it is for the DIC.
The drug lobby is 8x larger than the gun lobby and is indirectly responsible for the deaths
of between 59.000 and 65,000 people in 2016 alone, but if we dig deeper, that number could
easily be 2 or 3 times higher, Since deaths related to opioids from infection related to opioid
related infections are extremely common Anti-depressants are being prescribed 400% more than
they were in the 1990's. They are commonly prescribed to adolescent women and we live up to the
name "Prozac Nation" when we realize that 1 in 5 women between the ages of 40 and 59 are taking
antidepressants. The list of other prescription medicines to enhance the DIC revenue streams is
extensive.
There are two primary industrial complex rules when it comes to prescription drug centric
treatment:
Firstly, no curing is allowed, ever. Treatment of conditions with temporary benefits is
allowed, but healing is not permissible, since it interrupts revenue streams.
And second, any and all "natural" or homeopathic treatment whether it be related to diet,
supplements vitamins, anti-oxidants or physical exercise/meditation should all be relegated
to "quackery." Doctors who do not adhere to the prescription drug method of treating patients
should also be referred to as adherents to "quackery" and should be reprimanded, fined and in
extreme cases have their medical licenses revoked.
2. Real Estate Industrial Complex. (RIC)
Goal: Keep housing prices rising as much as possible, year after year after year.
How this is implemented: Endorse the borrowing of money to entice people into buying
excessively large homes in order to promote the "dream" of home ownership. Once people buy into
this scheme, they are then saddled with massive home taxes to their city and the burden of the
taxes utilities that go along with owning an excessively large home. Stigmatize anyone who is
over the age of 25 and lives in the same domicile as a parent or grandparent.
Make sure all media channels repeat over and over incessantly that high real estate prices
are "signs of a great economy," while ignoring the crippling effect high home prices have on
working class families who can barely pay their mortgage.
3. College Industrial Complex
(CIC)
The average tuition in 1971-1972 was $1832.00 and now it is officially over $31,000.00.
There are over 60 colleges and universities where the tuition has already exceeded
$60,000.00 per/year.
A college education used to be something that people saved and paid cash for, but now there
has been a cultural shift where students are expected to take out loans that are often in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain a college degree.
Why is this all so expensive? When we look at our universities and colleges, we see an
obsession with elaborate new buildings and sports stadiums, more than actual learning.
There are several emerging/innovative ideas to make a college education better, faster and
far more affordable. Such concepts probably won't take hold until the inevitable collapse of
the entire educational system takes place.
4. Health Insurance Industrial Complex
(HIC)
Much of the US healthcare system is now governed by the "Healthcare Affordability Act"
passed by the Obama administration in 2010.
The HIC proved how powerful they were when Congress was not allowed to read the legislation
before voting for it, publicly displaying that the HIC who wrote the bill behind closed doors
is more powerful than Congress itself.
What transparent public committees were behind this important legislation?
In reality, there was no transparency at all, this is stated clear as day by Healthcare
Affordability Act primary architect Jonathan Gruber stated: "Lack of transparency is a huge
political advantage, Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically,
that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."
The Speaker of the House at the time was Nancy Pelosi, who famously said from the leadership
podium as House Speaker: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.'
Our elected officials were not allowed to read the most important legislation of the past 30
years before voting for or against it. There is no greater testimony to the level of
dysfunction in Congress than the Healthcare Affordability Act, formed by secret committees and
then not allowing Congress to read it before voting.
* * *
Let's think back to 1961 when Eisenhower warned us about what would become the Vietnam War.
The American people's ignoring his warning caused arms manufacturers and big business to assume
nearly complete control of US government.
If we had listened to Ike, millions of people would not have died in the wars of the last 57
years and we would have trillions of dollars less in debt. Perhaps we still have time to heed
his warning before our entire country collapses under the weight of corruption, crippling debt
and never-ending wars, let's hope so.
* * *
Kevin Paul is the founder of Alternativemediahub.com, which refers to itself as "The
megaphone of independent journalism." Born in MA, he came within 2% of winning the R party
nomination to oppose Ted Kennedy in 2006 and holds degrees in business and political
science.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a
Russian company he indicted in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election,
according to
Bloomberg .
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the
delivery of copious evidence to lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of
three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the firm of producing
propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters .
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into
the hands of foreign intelligence services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's
active "interference operations" against the United States.
"The substance of the government's evidence identifies uncharged individuals and entities
that the government believes are continuing to engage in interference operations like those
charged in the present indictment," prosecutors wrote.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates,
which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus
undermining ongoing and future national security operations ," according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with
crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and
co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors wrote. -
Bloomberg
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with
the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
And Concord Management decided to fight it...
As
Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn't see that coming - and the indictment itself was
perhaps nothing more than a PR stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would
appear in court to defend against the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have
obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying out the case for
interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the
Mueller Switch Project.
One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges.
In April two Washington-area attorneys -- Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith
firm -- filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management and Consulting . Josh
Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here
. -
Powerline Blog
Politico' s Gerstein notes that by defending against the charges, " Concord could force
prosecutors to turn over discovery about how the case was assembled as well as evidence that
might undermine the prosecution's theories ."
In a mad scramble to put the brakes on the case, Mueller's team tried to delay the trial -
saying that Concord never formally accepted the court summons related to the case , wrapping
themselves in a "cloud of confusion" as Powerline puts it. "Until the Court has an opportunity
to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial
appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea
entertained."
The Judge, Dabney Friedrich - a Trump appointee, didn't buy it - denying Mueller a delay in
the high-profile trial.
The Russians hit back - filing a
response to let the court know that " [Concord] voluntarily appeared through counsel as
provided for in [the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure], and further intends to enter a plea
of not guilty . [Concord] has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the
summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsel's motion is pettifoggery. "
And the Judge agreed ...
A federal judge has rejected special counsel Robert Mueller's request to delay the first
court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens
with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the
2016 U.S. presidential election.
In a brief order Saturday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich offered no
explanation for her decision to deny a request prosecutors made Friday to put off the
scheduled Wednesday arraignment for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three firms
charged in the case . -
Politico
In other words, Mueller was denied the opportunity to kick the can down the road, forcing
him to produce the requested evidence or withdraw the indictment , potentially jeopardizing the
PR aspect of the entire "Trump collusion" probe.
And now Mueller is pointing to Russian "interference operations" in a last-ditch effort
.
Of note, Facebook VP of advertising, Rob Goldman, tossed a major hand grenade in the
"pro-Trump" Russian meddling narrative in February when he fired off a series of tweets the day
of the Russian indictments. Most notably, Goldman pointed out that the majority of advertising
purchased by Russians on Facebook occurred after the election, were hardly pro-Trump, and they
was designed to "sow discord and divide Americans", something which Americans have been quite
adept at doing on their own ever since the Fed decided to unleash a record class, wealth,
income divide by keeping capital markets artificially afloat at any cost.
The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists
online and posting political content on social media in order to sow discord among American
voters .
...
"knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Wait a minute, hold on - what exactly is the 'crime' here? Facebook ads that said Clinton
sucks? That's a crime now? I'm missing something obviously - I just don't know what. Anyone
willing and able to shed light on the crime alleged here?
How about CNN and NYT absolutely slanted and biased coverage? [And no - 'the press' in the
1st Amendment meant and means still the written word, not news corporations].
So far as I know "meddling" isn't a crime outside of Scooby Doo cartoons and MSNBC
I believe that Mueller is, rightly, being told to "Put up or shut up"? The discovery phase
should be very interesting and the only way to avoid that is to drop the charges, which will
indeed completely destroy Mueller's PR strategy. And with it, what remains of his
credibility...
I can picture Mueller sitting at the poker table with a huge stack. As he looks over his
hand, with a sly look on his face and a wink, he goes all in. Surprise suprise, they call his
bet. Now we wait for the reveal except that Bobby is screaming, wait, no fair, it was an
accident, I didn't mean to go all in. Turn those machines back on! The dealer then looks him
dead in the eye and says "Tough shit" as he turns over Mueller's losing hand.
mueller, you are so screwed. so supremely and royally screwed. now your investigation is
coming to a crashing halt without POTUS having to step in. all that was ever needed is
transparency. and now the good guys will have the IG report, Session's investigation, the
declassification of spy-gate materials and discovery from your Keystone cop operation all at
once.
best timeline ever.
take it from janus, extracting a troll from the interwebs and thinking you can crush him
IRL ALWAYS blows up in your face.
the only way you can win the game is with the deck stacked like a tower in your favor and
warping the rules to effect a desired outcome. tptb, you are up against superior people with
superior minds animated by an indomitable will. devastating defeat is inevitable.
That is part of the defense's argument. Many are asking "what is the actual crime" being
charged. Mueller charged them with campaign finance violations and failing to register as a
foreign agent. These crimes have a high burden of proof in that they require the state to
prove that the defendant knowingly broke the laws. No foreign corporation has ever been
charged with these crimes before. And the defense argues that there is nothing in the
indictment to show that they knew they were breaking these laws - hence no way to prove the
case against them. They also raise the 1st Amendment as defense saying political speech is
protected.
Did/do these companies have any other function besides buying $500 worth of "I Like Trump"
ads like selling something? So only Americans can have free speech in America, unless you
identify you and your coworkers as foreign free speech speaker-people? It sounds too tricky.
Only a progressive could figure out the legalities involved, as they are the free speech
professionals. The rest of us must get permission first, and then it will only be grafted IF
we say things that are officially approved by the free speech Nazi party.
Just think if these Ruskies could have voted! It would have been 30-40 more Trump votes
and he would have really really won bigly.
Can't Mueller be prosecuted himself if he knows there is no collusion or whatever... No
Russian anything, yet he continues to steal tax payer monies to fabricate false leads? He has
no incentive to be honest or to limit the investigation and if having the case remain open
benefits his party affiliates and he himself financially. If I got hired to do a one day job
and lied to make it a one year job, wouldn't that be theft of services?? The cuss must show
or he must go!
Oh it's way more than that.
That is the kind of language Oliver Wendell Holmes would have used back in the
day. It also brings to mind Samuel Clemens. This is a very sharp team indeed.
Mule-er basically drew to an inside straight, and got busted. The Russkies
called his bluff, and his hand is 7-8-10-Jack-four. Sorry, Ereberto,
no nine, just a "nein." Discovery is a bitch! I suspect that further
developments are going to be highly entertaining. Judge: "can we see your
evidence of wrongdoing." Mule-er: "That's highly classified."
In its earliest English uses, "pettifogger" was two separate words: "pettie
fogger." "Pettie" was a variant spelling of "petty," a reasonable inclusion in
a word for someone who is disreputable and small-minded.
Who would have believed decent Americans would ever applaud Russians
kicking the shit out of federal law enforcement? Do I hear "The World
Turned Upside Down" in the distance? Should Mueller change his name
to Cornwallis?
How about "corrupt" shill? Remember, Mueller headed the FBI before and
after the 9/11 attacks. Did Mueller's FBI investigate? No; they covered up
for 9/11 perpetrators. Thanks a lot Mueller.
If I were the judge, I would refuse any motion Mueller makes to avoid
releasing evidence, and if he doesn't do it within a matter of hours, his
entire staff would be getting perp walked for contempt. Let Mueller manage
his investigation from a prison cell, like some drug kingpin.
The US government has already wasted $200 million on this stupid "pettifoggery".
Some one, any one, put an end to this ridiculous dog and pony show.
Mueller, and the Justice Dept. are now the laughing stock of the world. We
need to save a little face, and have this SOB shot for the good of the
nation. This Prick doesn't give two shits for the American people, or the
nation that he is paid to serve.
These guys were likely just pushing click-bait on Facebook. And since it is
election season, it is easy for them to riff off the candidates.
Mueller
giving it any legitimacy shows he is either out of touch with how the internet
works or has his own special case of Trump derangement syndrome.
Accuse others for which you are guilty is in the dnc handbook. The only
illegal activity involved the DNC, team Hillary, and operatives in the FBI,
CIA, DOJ, and the IRS.
This indictment is a total fujkin joke. In Mueller's world he can charge
you with a crime but refuse to show the evidence. Proves that he has no
interest in serving justice. His goals are to defame and bankrupt enemies
of the deep swamp.
When the truth comes out and i was Russian company or individual affected
by this assholes i would sue US for lost business and for defamation and
demand reparations and let THe black Jesus and Clinton Killer Gang and
their lackies pay for it.
Yes, very good links but, this is different in my opinion.
Mueller attempted to bring a criminal
domestic
case
against
international
personas that he is now
unwilling to go through the
discovery process with
(his claim) because of...wait for it...national security.
He never intended or wanted for
this case
to go to trial (but he had to show "something" for
his efforts) it is malpractice (at the American bar level)
and he knew it when he filed it.
When a prosecutor files charges against anyone (here) he
is in essence saying
"We have the evidence to
prosecute your honor and we are going to show it to you."
now he is saying he can't or will not produce that evidence
in the venue he chose to prosecute in.
Probably because he (and his crack Hillary lawyers)
didn't do the homework required until after filing charges
(idiot
fucktard that he and they are...lol)
as Concord's
new CEO is none other than one Dimitry Utkin, founder of the
Wagner Group, a Rodnover, for whatever thats worth ;-)
It's not just embarrassing it's criminal. He wants unlimited scope to
find "something". He indicts Russians knowing they won't show up for
court or so he thought and now he wants to limit the evidence because
he has no hand. Don't interfere with your enemy when he's mucking it
up. Mueller is going to be indicted for all of this, Uranium One
being the least of his problems. If Mr. Mueller wants to question me
the first thing I say is how much money did you give Whitey Bulger?
Muller got caught, tried to make headlines with Real Russians thinking they
would not show up and one did he is now in a PANIC - Muller needs to
produce the evidence or shut up and go away with his band of 13 anti Trump
staff.
"The indictment accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to
be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media
in order to sow discord among American voters."
Cough cough, none of that is illegal, 1st Amendment, even for
Russians
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to "subpoena" GOP members of the House
Intelligence Committee during a tense January meeting involving committee members and senior
DOJ/FBI officials, according to emails seen by
Fox News documenting the encounter described by aides as a "personal attack."
That said, Rosenstein was responding to a threat to hold him in contempt of Congress - and
the "threat" to subpoena GOP records was ostensibly in order for him to be able to defend
himself.
Rosenstein allegedly threatened to "turn the tables" on the committee's aggressive document
requests, according to
Fox .
" The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our
requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee's request to have DOJ/FBI do the
same when responding ," the committee's then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel
wrote to the House Office of General Counsel. " Going so far as to say that if the Committee
likes being litigators, then 'we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records
and your emails ,' referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and
Congress overall."
A second House committee staffer at the meeting backed up Patel's account, writing: " Let
me just add that watching the Deputy Attorney General launch a sustained personal attack
against a congressional staffer in retaliation for vigorous oversight was astonishing and
disheartening . ... Also, having the nation's #1 (for these matters) law enforcement officer
threaten to 'subpoena your calls and emails' was downright chilling." -
Fox News
The committee staffer suggested that Rosenstein's comment could be interpreted to mean that
the DOJ would " vigorously defend a contempt action " -- which might be expected. But the
staffer continued, " I also read it as a not-so-veiled threat to unleash the full prosecutorial
power of the state against us. "
But really - Rosenstein appears to have been warning the GOP Committee members that he would
aggressively defend himself.
G-Men Hit Back
A DOJ official said that Rosenstein "never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal
investigation," telling Fox that the department and bureau officials in the room "are all quite
clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false, " and that Rosenstein was
merely responding to a threat of contempt.
The FBI, meanwhile, said that they disagree with " a number of characterizations of the
meeting as described in the excerpts of a staffer's emails provided to us by Fox News. "
"The Deputy Attorney General was making the point -- after being threatened with contempt --
that as an American citizen charged with the offense of contempt of Congress, he would have the
right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages
and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false ," the official
said. "That is why he put them on notice to retain relevant emails and text messages, and he
hopes they did so. (We have no process to obtain such records without congressional
approval.)"
Details of the encounter began to trickle out in early February, as Fox News' Greg Jarrett
tweeted: "A 2nd source has now confirmed to me that, in a meeting on January 10, Deputy A-G
Rosenstein used the power of his office to threaten to subpoena the calls & texts of the
Intel Committee to get it to stop it's investigation of DOJ and FBI. Likely an Abuse of Power
& Obstruction."
Rosenstein, translated: "I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned
to the ground!"
Seriously, for the grown-ups here... Is there really ANY doubt what he said was anything
other than a threat? Didn't think so. If he had said "Come at me, bro!" it couldn't be any
more clear. He is ready to use the full resources of his office to respond to any attempt of
Congress to oversee his activities, regardless of the fact that they have a legal right and
responsibility to do so.
For anyone to think that this wasn't a threat is a fool. The only reason that he'd be
charged with contempt is because he didn't do his job and turn over the documents.
They're all dirty, and the banksters must be deeply regretting their policy of hiring
stooges just intelligent enough to foolow orders, but too stupid to question those orders.
They all think they have the backing of their bankster overlords, not realizing that they are
merely decoys. And the banksters are now seeing that enough of the populace is aware to the
point that too many people have figured out the hoax, for the exposition to be shouted down.
Complicate that with the fact that the only believers left are far too stupid to present a
coherent position, and it all equals meltdown. Going to be an interesting summer.
Seems like Comey was not the only insubordinate one? Congress has a constitutional
oversight duty over DOJ and yet, even though the applicable members have the necessary levels
of security clearance, DOJ is fighting them every step of the way, presumably because
something or someone(s) is being covered up. Rosenstein should be fired, although that should
have happened long ago. Where is Sessions?
There is a LOT that is being covered up, with the main - not the only - crime being an
attempted coup d'etat.
The 8chan Q Research board has 24/7 input on all these developments and those autists are
a colorful, talented bunch.
Huber is working with Horowitz and the 'flipping' - particularly with key players like
Priestap - will ensure as smooth and complete a demolition of the Deep State as possible.
A significant component of this process will be to have tens of millions of Americans who
loathe Trump accept these outcomes as both true and fair.
Obama is now strongly implicated in ALL the minutia of this plot.
The executive branch is only supposed to execute whatever the legislative branch, unless
it gets vetoed. And, the judicial branch is supposed to be the final check on those powers,
even though the judiciary is appointed by executive nomination with congressional approval.
So, the real question now is: was that 'strike three, you're out', or 'ball four: take a
walk'.
That this pissing contest is still going after Trump told the DOJ to turn over the
documents to congress really demonstrates the power of the Deep State.
According to Q, the IG report is going to be heavily redacted and Trump will use an EO to
declassify everything in due time. He will wait until after the IG report on the Clinton
Foundation is released. Catch everything at once. We shall see.
Your insight is an important one. He's snarling and showing teeth -- that means that he's
either 1) out of maneuvering room or 2) the larvae he protects are nearby and/or in
danger.
And you can't just bluff your boss- rosey HAS TO follow through. It's his only dominant
strategy.
Unless they're idiots, Congress must issue an asymmetrical response and do it
preemptively.
There are still quite a few people who trust and watch TV news stations like CNN, ABC,
MSNBC ect
None of those news stations report the truth, that the top of the DOJ, FBI and CIA were
corrupt.
Arresting the previous president within the first year of taking office is asking for
riots.
The only way to do it, and protect the public individuals as much as possible, is to allow
the information out piece by piece, remove bad actors one by one. There are a lot of people
who live with their head in the sand, and exposing them to something as shocking as arresting
a previous president for treason, it... might be too much all at once.
If, indeed, Rosenstein is the 'gatekeeper of the deep state' and the deep state has been
surveilling everything organic for years, then they have something on every tom, dick, harry
and jane, which means all 3 branches are compromised. I can just imagine the massive
blackmail that has gone on for years which is why Washington has turned into a cesspool. So
many turds floating in the piss, that a regular Sodom and Gomorra event may have to occur to
clean up this disgusting mess.
...he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant
emails and text messages...
OK, so as a "citizen" he claims to have the "right" to "request" from duly elected
officials what can legitimately be classified communications. Yet, he as a political
appointee and not directly answerable to an electorate claims the right to tell these same
individuals to pound sand when they request legitimate findings he is required by law to
provide them with?
The fact is, they are the ones, as elected officials that are in the position to tell him
as a mere appointee to pound sand. There are no "tables to turn", the fact is he is on the
end of the downhill slope. Now, if he has evidence that some legislators have appointed
personnel within their personal offices guilty of crimes, then put up or shut up.
This charade has gone on far too long. The best we can hope for is a real time lesson in
Constitutional law that will right this ship of state again and place all these imbeciles in
custody and out of circulation permanently. This clown show is disgusting!
"The US has a history of sabotage, violation and withdrawal with respect to bilateral and
multilateral international commitments." Iran's Foreign Ministry is urging Pyongyang to
"exercise complete vigilance" when the 34-year-old Kim negotiates with the 71-year-old Real
Estate tycoon who literally wrote a book on making
deals.
Kim Jong-un should watch out for Trump's "America First" agenda and Washington's tendency to
"betray international agreements and unilaterally withdraw from them," said a spokesman for
Iran's Foreign Ministry, Bahram
Qassemi .
"Tehran believes that the North Korean government should be quite vigilant as the US by
nature could not be judged in an optimistic way," Qassemi added.
"The US has a history of sabotage, violation and withdrawal with respect to bilateral and
multilateral international commitments," the spokesman said.
He also pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate deal - and is stoking international tensions
over a current trade war that has caused Britain, Germany and France to reassess the
transatlantic bond. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire wondered if Europe should continue
to be "vassals who obey decisions taken by the United States."
Trump imposed tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, while Mexico and Canada were hit with
similar tariffs on June 1. He refused to endorse the joint communique during the G7 summit in
Quebec - calling the hose, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, "very dishonest and weak."
... the Iranians, I'm quite sure, are hinting about this "conference" held more than 10
years ago as reported by the "Saker" ... and this conference was "planning" a war with Iran,
but perhaps the "agreement" with Iran (nullified recently by Trump) got in the way ... and
now, it would be too late for the empire to strike Iran, having Russia, China and, perhaps
other countries, supporting Iran ...
Take a guess: where would the Empire's puppeteers meet to finalize and coordinate their
plans to attack Iran?
Washington? New York? London? NATO HQ in Brussels? Davos?
Nope.
In Herzilia. Never heard of that place?
The Israeli city of Herzliya is named after Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism,
and it has hosted a meeting of the Empire's Who's Who over the past several days at the
yearly conference of the Herzilia Institute for Policy and Stragegy. For a while, Herzilia
truly became the see of the Empire's inner core of heavy hitters.
(Non-Israeli) speakers included:
Jose Maria Aznar Former Prime Minister of Spain, Matthew Bronfman, Chair of the Budget
and Finance Commission, World Jewish Congress, and member of the World Jewish Congress
Steering Committee, Amb. Nicholas Burns US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,
Prof. Alan Dershowitz Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Senator
John Edwards Head of the One America Committee and candidate for the 2008 Democratic
presidential nomination, Gordon England US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Marvin C. Feuer
Director of Policy and Government Affairs, AIPAC, Newt Gingrich Former U.S. Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Rudolph Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City and candidate for
the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, General the Lord Charles Guthrie of
Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE. Former Chief of the Defense Staff and Chief of the General Staff
of the British Army, Amb. Dr. Richard Haass President of the Council on Foreign Relations,
Stephen E. Herbits Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress, Amb. Dr. Robert Hunter
President of the Atlantic Treaty Association and Former U.S. Permanent Representative to
NATO. Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation in Washington (also serves as Chairman of the
Council for a Community of Democracies, Senior International Consultant to Lockheed Martin
Overseas Corporation), Amb. Dr. Richard H. Jones United States Ambassador to Israel (also
served as the Secretary of State's Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq Policy), Col.
(res.) Dr. Eran Lerman Director, Israel and Middle East Office, American Jewish Committee
(also served in the IDF Intelligence Directorate for over 25 years), Christian Leffler
Deputy Chief of Staff of the European Commissioner for External Relations and Director for
Middle East and Southern Mediterranean, European Commission, The Hon. Peter Mackay Canadian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator John McCain U.S. Senator (R) from Arizona and
candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Dr. Edward L. Morse Chief Energy
Economist, Lehman Brothers, Dr. Rolf Mützenich Member of the German Federal Parliament
(SPD) and member of the Committee on Foreign Policy of the Bundestag (and Board Member of
the "Germany-Iran Society"), Torkel L. Patterson President of Raytheon International, Inc.,
Richard Perle Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (previously served as
Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Policy), Amb. Thomas R. Pickering Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs (previously served as Senior Vice President of Boeing), Jack Rosen
Chairman of the American Jewish Congress (and member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC
and of the Council on Foreign Relations), Stanley O. Roth Vice President for Asia,
International Relations of the Boeing Company (member of the Council on Foreign Relations),
James Woolsey Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and many others.
Pretty much the entire Israeli "Defence" establishment (why does nobody call it
"Aggression establishment?) was present too.
Not bad for a "conference"?!
Of course, the main topic at the conference was the upcoming war with Iran. Richard
Perle, the "Prince of Darkness", delivered the keynote and conclusion: "If the Israeli
government comes to the conclusion that it has no choice but to take action, the reaction
of the U.S. will be the belief in the vitality that this action must succeed, even if the
U.S. needs to act with Israel in the current American administration".
Noticed anything funny in his words? It's the "world only superpower" which will have
the "belief" (?) in the action of a local country and, if needed, act with it. Not the
other way around. Makes one wonder which of the two is the world only superpower, does it
not?
Anyway – if anyone has ANY doubts left that the Empire will totally ignore the
will of the American people as expressed in the last election and strike at Iran, this
conference should settle the issue.
North Korea doesn't need this warning. They've experienced it. We promised to build them
non-proliferation reactors in exchange for de-nuclearization in the 90's, but Congress never
funded it.
Yeah, just ask any Native American Indian about the treaties the U.S. had ever signed and
reneged on. From 1778 to 1904, the United States government entered into more than 500
treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in
some way or outright broken by the US government. The list of treaties can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_treaties
.
Iran is very right in what it says, the U.S. is not a country to be trusted. And to think
that the U.S. will be anymore honest with North Korea! It will never happen.
"But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is
powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of
their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than
honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be
pharisees, if only they had -- power."
I am copying in the first 2 that show the economic clarity he brings to the subject and make
my point
Paul Krugman
It's normal to feel that people you disagree with politically are offering bad solutions to our
problems. But Trump has brought something new: his policy agenda is almost entirely directed at
problems we don't have -- problems that exist only in his warped imagination 1/
Paul Krugman
These include:
- A wave of violent crime by undocumented immigrants
- Massive illegal voting by the same
- Massive Canadian tariffs against US goods
- Conspiracy by the Elders of Zion to take over the world
OK, he hasn't actually gone after point #4, but give him time 2/
End of Paul Krugman tweet quote
So why did Krugman write about the Elders of Zion (What does he know and when did he find
out?..grin) and not about the proclivities of global private finance?.....that pays him nicely
to be part of propaganda central
"... Perhaps, Lin, by voluntarily entering an establishment in order to alter one's consciousness- whether in Vietnam or America- you are signaling your surrender and defeat in the war on the "true nature of reality." ..."
I would agree that the America of the neighborhood tavern is dying but would not characterize
our political leadership as a 'rootless, criminal cabal. Criminal they maybe but they are
rooted in the Ivy League, principally Yale and Harvard, and the ideology to gain admission to
those schools. I would say skills to gain entrance but, today, it is more a matter of
ideology. Stray too far from the Clinton/Bush crony capitalist model or Obama's identity
politics and your application goes into the garbage can and with it your chance of joining
our governing elite.
Indeed. I would say this from a slightly different angle: forget about the details of
politics: constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, a republic, democratic socialism,
even marxism, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, an independent central bank, a
written constitution all of these can be made to work, more or less, if the elites care about
the nation as whole. And none of these will matter if the elites no longer care, if they
value their own short-term profit over the long-term stability and strength of their nation.
Back under FDR etc., the elites of this nation were worried about communists, and
anarchists, and then Nazis. That made them care about this nation, they feared that if the
nation went down they would go down as well. So they cared about the working class. I am old
enough to remember when we used to celebrate that we had the highest wages in the world
– that was considered a magnificent joint accomplishment and proof of the greatness of
this nation. Now high American wages are routinely derided as evil, as proof that Americans
are selfish and lazy and they need to be replaced by all those wonderful third-world refugees
who have no alternative but to work for sub-poverty wages
I think the core of this rot is that the elites are no longer afraid. They no longer have
reason to care. They live in gated estates, they fly from private airports (even first class
in a public airport is not good enough/removed enough from the masses for them!), and if
things fall apart they will just sail away in their yachts, tut-tutting about how Americans
no longer deserve their presence
Perhaps, Lin, by voluntarily entering an establishment in order to alter one's
consciousness- whether in Vietnam or America- you are signaling your surrender and defeat in
the war on the "true nature of reality."
The alcohol delusion amplifies greed hatred bondage.
And is anathema to wholesome higher insights.
Whether alcohol or heroin these self- ingrained defilements are an obstruction to the
complete repose to the human spirit.
Exactly. America's leaders behave criminally because they're not scared of the population.
So there's nothing to constrain our leaders from behaving like grifters and conmen.
At some point, however, this will come to an end. Our massively skyrocketing national debt
is totally unpayable, so investors will eventually stop buying our bonds. When that happens,
our national economy and standard of living will collapse dramatically.
It's at that point when our leaders are either put in jail or flee the country.
So is capital, when the dollar will have only limited reserve currency status to the rest
of the world, the American locals will be proportionately ruled by Russian oligarchs and
Chinese priviledge.
American locals are just bulk humanity to these supranationals, they are defined by global
consumerism of the same crap the elites despise. They sweat corn syrup and palm oil and seem
to look "Pinker Steve" happy when digitally masturbating and being chemically subdued,
encased in concrete scenarios.
Now after consumerism, since it is offset by limited resources of our planet, it will be
real misery, as in plowing concrete. That must be mostly indifferent to our supranationals.
Bulk humanity is basically obsolete, and extra-ordinary lucky. If it were for the
supranational nuclei to have a long term policy, we the deplorables would be wiped away, say
three quarters of us.
They are though eagerly observing, if we not, as always, will do it ourselves to us. The
problem would die on itself. The ethnic White middle class down to the street is pointing the
way.
"... If Money=Debt, the battle over money can only be won by individuals wisely choosing whom they become indebted too. As the wise Michael Hudson points out, "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." ..."
"... Money is the creation of the elite to control the rest of the masses. It screws the rest of the masses by constraining what they can get their hands on while the elite can get their hands on anything they want. ..."
"... IMO the point of the article was to hint that objections (or refusal to engage with) MMT is largely political in nature. ..."
"... Skippy said it above: these are likely bad faith actors who disguise their classism and political desires with talk of "positive money" and the like. Debate clubs won't win this one. ..."
"... As I understand it, MMT is simply a more honest way of explaining the current reality, the problem being that the 1% would like to keep that a secret so that money is only created for the things that they can profit from, like war. ..."
"... MMT necessarily requires the exorbitant privilege of having the US dollar accounting for 60% of world trade & financial transactions with the US economy representing only 20% of world GDP. ..."
"... The Entrepreneurial State ..."
"... money and credit are used almost entirely for speculation, usury, and rent extraction ..."
"... In a normal economy, government spending is financed by taxes and borrowing, meaning that no new spending power has been created, as IS the case with new bank loans. ..."
"... You can fool part of the people all of the time, and all of the people part of the time. ..."
"... handing all credit creation to the central banks is not only technically impossible in a modern economy, it's a dangerous folly ..."
"... Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, 2nd edition. ..."
"... The Order of Time ..."
"... "The debts are owed to government banks. A government can do what the U.S. can't do. The government can forgive debts, at least those that are owed to itself, without creating a political backlash. If a viable corporation has run up too much debt, the government can forgive it. This is better than letting the debt close down a factory or force it be sold to a predatory asset management firm as occurs in the United States. That is the advantage of having public credit and why credit should be public. That's how it was in Babylonia. Rulers were able to cancel debts all the time in the 3rd millennium and 2nd millennium BC, because most debts were owed to the palace or the temples. Rulers were cancelling debts owed to themselves. ..."
"... China can cancel business debt owed to itself. It can proclaim a clean slate. It can minimize debt service to whatever it chooses. But imagine if Chase Manhattan and Goldman Sachs are let in. It would be much harder for the government to raise real estate taxes leading to defaults on the banks. It could save the occupants by making new loans to those who default – based on lower land prices. ..."
"... Well, you can imagine the international furor that would erupt. Trump would threaten to atom bomb Peking and Shanghai to save his constituency. His constituency and that of the Democrats are the same: Wall Street and the One Percent. So China may lose its ability to write down debts if it lets in foreign banks." ..."
"... that this is a Chicago School / Friedmanesque monetary policy is made clear by Positive Money ..."
"... It seems there are greater similarities between China and the US than may be visible at first glance. China builds real estate for a shrinking population, invests for an over-indebted client (the US, which even insists on a drastic reduction of the bilateral trade deficit) and finances all this with money it does not have ..."
The same money that went into TARP would have bought a whole lot of nonperforming
mortgages. You wouldn't have needed a large bailout if the money actually made it's way to
main street.
Slightly off-topic, but if its true that this is a right wing proposal using naïve
left/Green supporters to give a progressive fig leaf, it wouldn't be the first time this has
happened. You can see the same phenomenon with Brexit, where many supposed left wingers have
often bought unthinkingly into many right/libertarian memes about 'freedom' from the EU. The
core reason they could do this is the effective abandonment by the left of arguments about
money and capital to the conservative and libertarian right from the 1980's onward.
One of the many reasons I love NC so much is that it has tried to fill the gap left by so
much of the mainstream left and much of the Greens in analysing economics issues in forensic
technical detail. Articles like this are absolutely invaluable in building up a proper
intellectual program in understanding the central importance of macroeconomics in building a
fairer society.
God, country, apple pie, balanced budget, freedom, democracy, pay-as-you-go, ingredients
in the hash of right/libertarian memes, all supposedly 'common sense' but actually
nonsense, spread thick, intended to distract us while our ruling class steals everything not
tied down.
I think the left saw its audience washed away by a tidal wave of this clever, well-funded
nonsense, so they stopped arguing about money and capital because they found it embarrassing
to be caught talking to themselves.
Of course back in the 1970s, much of the working-class had was doing well enough that they
thought the argument about money had been settled, and in their favor. Little did they know
that their 'betters' were planning on clawing-back every penny of wealth that they'd managed
to accumulate in the post-war years.
So here we are, the working class that was formerly convinced that anyone could live well
if they just worked hard, are finding that you can tug on your boot-straps with all your
might, and get no where.
I think you're right in that the wrong narrative is now dominant.
I don't think this was done intentionally – I think the people pulling the strings
don't know for sure what will happen, either.
The 'common sense' you mention is the best explanation most people have available. They
look at macroeconomics through the lens of their own household budget. Of course a balanced
budget responsible application of money makes sense Most people don't have a money printer in
their basement.
The battle is for the soul of humanity. A leadership that is working toward reducing
inequality and injustice in the world will adopt policies reflecting a more positive outlook
on the human condition. Those implementing austerity revile the masses of humanity, wether
stated or not. The masses are to be controlled, not enlightened or cared for.
The West has gained supremacy in the world by using the strategy of Divide and Conquer.
This thought process is so engrained in the psyche, that it heavily influences every form of
problem solving by using outright war and financial oppression as primary tools to achieve
these ends.
There would need to be a fundamental shift in thinking from Western leadership in order to
bring about a change that would focus on wellbeing over profit, which does not seem
forthcoming.
If Money=Debt, the battle over money can only be won by individuals wisely choosing
whom they become indebted too. As the wise Michael Hudson points out, "Debts that can't be
paid, won't be paid."
The main problem I see is the definition of what "Winning" would be. The definition
determines the policy.
"There would need to be a fundamental shift in thinking from Western leadership in order
to bring about a change that would focus on wellbeing over profit, which does not seem
forthcoming."
Money is the creation of the elite to control the rest of the masses. It screws the
rest of the masses by constraining what they can get their hands on while the elite can get
their hands on anything they want. The tipping point will be when there are sufficient
numbers who understand money isnt necessary to live and have nice things, it actually exists
to deprive them of such.
We've been fighting this same 'war' for a very long time.
Everybody now just has to make up their mind. Is money money or isn't money money.
Everybody who earns it and spends it every day in order to live knows that money is money,
anybody who votes it to be gathered in as taxes knows money is not money. That is what
makes everybody go crazy. -Gertrude Stein – All About Money
As far as I can tell, about 1% of us believe that money is not money, and the rest of us
believe that money is money.
Most of us believe that money is money because as Gertrude Stein said: Everybody who earns
it and spends it every day in order to live knows that money is money
So here's the problem: the 1% of the people, the ones who believe that money is not money,
are in charge of everything.
It's not natural that so few people should be in charge of so much, and that they should
be in charge of 'everything' is truly crazy. (Please excuse the slight digression)
The people who are in charge of everything believe that it's right, proper, indeed
'natural' that they be in charge of everything because they believe that no one could do as
good a job of being in charge of everything because they think they are smarter than
everybody else.
The reason that the 1% of people believe they are smarter than everybody else is rooted
largely in what they believe is their self-evident, superior understanding of money; that is
to say, the understanding that money is not money.
The trouble is, the difference between the 1%'s understanding of money, and the common
man's understanding of money is not evidence of the 1%'s superior intellect, so much as of
their lack of a moral compass and their ability to rationalize the depraved indifference they
show to their fellow man.
Maybe this thought is callous, but perhaps it would be useful to have a real-world
demonstration that this is a bad idea. How systemically important is the Swiss economy? US
abandoned its monetarist "quantity of reserves" experiment after a relatively short time.
Again, it sounds callous, but perhaps a year or two of distress in a small test
environment
(that is starting from a pretty good place and has a good social safety net
would be helpful to the world at large in terms of deprecating a bad idea. Perhaps MMT
will be the last approach standing?
Could it be that Wolf's "we need experiments" rhetoric is actually opposed to "positive
money", but he recognizes that the idea won't go away until it is badly spanked? Even if not,
maybe there is something to the idea that experimentation could be used to distinguish bad
ideas from less bad (the good ideas won't be tested, I reckon, until all the various flavors
of "bad" have been tried and rejected).
IMO the point of the article was to hint that objections (or refusal to engage with)
MMT is largely political in nature. See Marriner Eccles and his observation regarding
the political enemies of full employment.
Skippy said it above: these are likely bad faith actors who disguise their classism
and political desires with talk of "positive money" and the like. Debate clubs won't win this
one.
If the Swiss go through with it and it inevitably fails there will always be an excuse.
They didn't do positive money "hard enough" or whatever.
What I'd like to know is if the Swiss go through with it and it fails, is there anything
other than central bank independence that needs to be changed? Fundamentally it's still fiat,
operating within a democracy. Does it not come down to who decides how much and for what
purpose?
Maybe I'm missing something, but it strikes me as the elites getting their revenge in
first. There go my people and all that. Maybe I am missing it.
the good ideas won't be tested, I reckon, until all the various flavors of "bad" have
been tried and rejected.
So, you don't think current conditions are convincing enough?
As for me, I'm more than convinced, that left to themselves, our elites have an endless
bag of bad ideas, and every one of them results in their further enrichment at our
expense.
I'm convinced; have been persuaded that MMT is the right way to think about "money" since
shortly after I encountered it almost a decade ago.
As I understand it, this is a referendum. If the people don't like the outcome, they
presumably would have power to reverse it. Throw the bastards out and replace with new
bastards who will try something different.
As I understand it, MMT is simply a more honest way of explaining the current reality,
the problem being that the 1% would like to keep that a secret so that money is only created
for the things that they can profit from, like war.
So the issue is that since enough money can be created for the needs of the rest of us,
why is that not happening?
It would appear to me that almost any efforts by the 1% to create a 'new' plan is in
reality, an effort to make sure that the 99% never reap any advantage even if we were to
unanimously come to understand the MMT is really the most realistic perspective.
It's almost as if the 1% has decided to change the rules because the rest of us are
starting to understand that there is no technical reason we can't finance a more equitable
economy.
It's good to explain the current reality more honestly.
Even more honestly would be to explain that reality, which is a man-made system, doesn't
have to be that way, unlike scientific explanations, for example, one for how gravity works.
That particular physics explanation comes with the understanding that we can't change how
gravity works.
The word 'theory' in the sense most people with more than 10 years of education associate
with it is that
1. You will fail to advance to the next grade, or the next class if you don't understand
it.
2. If you don't understand it, you are under pressure to show you agree with the theory, lest
you fail the exam.
3. The reality described by the theory is unalterable, which is often the case with natural
science theories, but not really the case with social/economic/political theories, unless
they deal with human nature, which is hard to change.
If I say there is a theory to explain that on Mars, you drive on the right side of the
road on odd-numbered days, and on the left side on even-numbered days, you would say, I
appreciate the clear explanation of your wonderful theory, but I don't like it, I don't like
how that system is designed. And I want to change it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, I watched one of many Mark Blyth videos on YouTube where he was talking about
why people hold on to stupid economic ideas. He offered a variety of interesting hypotheses,
most of which were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Even a theory that fails basic tests of correspondence with reality -- neoclassical
economics being the prime example -- may prove to be a reliable means of coordinating
behavior on a huge scale. That we indoctrinate people in colleges and business schools in
neoclassical economics has been the foundation for neoliberal politics; even if the theory is
largely rubbish by any scientific standard, the rhetorical engine is easy to operate once you
have a few basic concepts down. And, immunity to evidence or critical reason may actually be
politically advantageous.
Econ 101 is taught as a dogma. The student is under pressure to learn the answers for the
exam, as you say. All the rhetorical tropes -- not just deficit hysteria, but regulatory
burdens, tax incentives, "free markets" (you see many actual markets? no, I didn't think so)
and on and on -- are as easy to recite mindlessly as it is to ride a bicycle.
We have an ideology that prevents thinking or even seeing, collectively.
Well, your wish has been answered – about 160 years ago. Lincoln's issuance of
Greenback's allowed the Union Army to exist. No borrowing, no MMT debt incurred.
MMT experts point out regularly that the Federal government spends out of nothing. Issuing
bonds is a political holdover from the Gold Standard era, but separately, those bonds do have
some use because a lot of investors like holding a risk free asset.
The government spends by the Fed debiting the Treasury's account. That's it.
We don't go around worrying about issuing bonds to pay for the next bombing run in the
Middle East. The US has all sort of official off budget activity as well as unofficial (why
do you think the DoD is not able to account for $21 trillion of spending over time? No one
points out this $21 trillion mystery is proof the USG actually runs on MMT principles).
MMT necessarily requires the exorbitant privilege of having the US dollar accounting for
60% of world trade & financial transactions with the US economy representing only 20% of
world GDP.
Such impunity is changing as we speak so for that reason only (there are others) MMT
should soon find itself non-viable.
That is not correct. Any government that issues its own currency is a sovereign currency
issuer and operates on MMT principles. Canada, Japan, England, Australia, New Zealand .the
constraint on their ability to run deficits is inflation. They will never go bankrupt in
their own currencies. They can create too much inflation.
I have the same reaction to Positive Money ideas as I do to someone who talks about
"parallel currencies". They don't understand money, banking and central banking.
While I agree whole heartedly with Clive that establishing the mini-bot currency is
subject to the law of un-intended consequences and would no doubtedly have a bumpy start and
might not even survive; but it's just another currency. Yes it would likely be subject to a
discount versus the Euro, but so what. From a banking perspective there is nothing magical
about state money or central bank money. These are the dominate means of clearing and
settling payments today, but that's because it's currently cheaper, easier and less risky.
But banking predates central banks by at least one or two hundred years (if not more).
Thinking that if you put an iron fist on the usage of state/central bank money is going to
stop banking only shows you don't understand banking. Most economies already have dual
currencies – state money and bank money – but nobody thinks of them that way
because they trade one for one. But locking the banking system out of using state money to
clear and settle payments created by lending only forces the banking system to find a new
means of acquiring liabilities (I'd suspect they get called something other than "deposits"
of course) and clearing and settling payments. It wouldn't happen overnight but it most
certainly would happen – there's too much "money" to be made.
"Most economies already have dual currencies – state money and bank money" Give me
the ratio please. Other than feeding the parking meter or doing your laundry what else do you
use state money for?
It's not exactly the gold standard, but it would have the same impact, I think. You have
to give them credit, though – they keep finding new ways to dress up this very old
idea.
Hard to get to a new answer if you don't even start with the right question.
Wolf asserts his obvious and unquestionable truth: "Money is debt".
Really?
J. P. Morgan didn't think so. When he was asked:
"But the basis of banking is credit, is it not?" , Morgan replied: "Not always. That is an evidence of banking, but it is not the money itself. Money is
gold, and nothing else" .
Ah yes, the shiny rare metal that served mankind as money for millennia.
I have a gold coin in my hand. I can exchange it for goods and services. But I can't for the
life of me figure out whose debt it is.
And no less than The Maestro (Alan Greenspan) opined the following last month:
"The gold standard was operating at its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
a period of extraordinary global prosperity, characterised by firming productivity growth and
very little inflation.
But today, there is a widespread view that the 19th century gold standard didn't work.
I think that's like wearing the wrong size shoes and saying the shoes are uncomfortable! It
wasn't the gold standard that failed; it was politics. World War I disabled the fixed
exchange rate parities and no country wanted to be exposed to the humiliation of having a
lesser exchange rate against the US dollar than it enjoyed in 1913.
Britain, for example, chose to return to the gold standard in 1925 at the same exchange
rate it had in 1913 relative to the US dollar (US$4.86 per pound sterling). That was a
monumental error by Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. It induced a severe
deflation for Britain in the late 1920s, and the Bank of England had to default in 1931. It
wasn't the gold standard that wasn't functioning; it was these pre-war parities that didn't
work.
Today, going back on to the gold standard would be perceived as an act of desperation.
But if the gold standard were in place today we would not have reached the situation in which
we now find ourselves. We would never have reached this position of extreme indebtedness were
we on the gold standard, because the gold standard is a way of ensuring that fiscal policy
never gets out of line."
So let's start with a simpler definition of money: "Money stores labor so it can be
transported across space and time" .
I grew some wheat, and want to store my wheat-labor so I can use it later, or spend it
somewhere that is nowhere near my wheat pile.
But this points out why money that took no labor to produce cannot reliably store labor.
Our system materializes money from thin air. Which is precisely the point of gold: it takes
alot of labor to produce, so it has reliably stored labor for centuries. In A.D. 250 if I
wanted a good-quality men's costume (toga, sash, sandals) the cost was one ounce of gold.
Today one ounce of gold is +/-$1300, probably enough for a pretty good suit and pair of
shoes. That fact is incredible: every other currency, money, government, and country have
come and gone in the interim but gold reliably stored labor across the ages.
Cue the haters: "But gold money allows deadly deflation!!!". Yes, that scourge, when
people benefit from rising productivity (lower costs of goods and services) in what used to
be termed "Progress". Instead we're supposed to love being on a debt treadmill where
everything costs more every year, on purpose .
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that credit should somehow be abolished. Credit is
critical, and hence so is banking. But separating money and credit would mean that every
banking crisis (extending too much credit) is not automatically also a monetary crisis,
affecting everyone, including people who had nothing to do with extending or accepting too
much debt.
Yes, you are correct. No one in the monetary reform movement wants to abolish credit
– an agreement between two entities – but to have that "credit" backed by the US
government as real money – what a racket!
Of course it should be noted that if you dig up a gold coin from two thousand years ago or
even older, it still has value just for its metal content alone. It still holds value. This
is never true of fiat currencies. In fact, it had never occurred to me before, but when you
think about it – the history of money over the past century has been to get actual
gold, gold coins, gold certificates, silver coins, etc. out of the hands of the average
people and to give them pieces of paper and now plastic as substitutes. Even the coins in
circulation today are only cheap remnants of coins of earlier eras that held value in itself.
I would call that a remarkable achievement.
I think you should avail yourself wrt the history of gold and how humans viewed it over
time, then again you could look at say South America from an anthro observation and the
social changes that occurred between Jade and Gold eras.
As far as value goes that is determined at the moment of price taking which can get blurry
over time and space.
Gold was used as religious iconography for a reason imo.
Just from the stand point that gold was in one anthropological observation – a flec
of gold to equal weight of wheat means the gold got its "value" from the wheat and had
nothing to do with some concept of gold having intrinsic value.
Not particularly in love with gold nor am I a gold bug. My own particular prejudice is
that any money system needs an anchor that will set some sort of boundaries to its growth.
Something that will not blow through the physical laws of natural growth and will acknowledge
that resources can and will be exhausted by limitless credit and growth. Personally I don't
care if it is gold or Electrum or Latinum or even Tribbles so long as it is something.
Yet MMT clearly states that growth is restricted to resources full stop. So I don't
understand your issues with anchor points, its right there in black and white.
Look I think there is a huge difference between informal credit [Greaber] and formal
credit [institutional] and the risk factors that they present. This is also complicated by
not all economies are the same e.g. steady state. In facilitating up lift [social cohesion
with benefits of currant knowlage] vs putting some arbitrary limit on credit because it suits
the perspective of those already with claims on wealth.
In addition I would proffer that MMT is not supply side dependent, just the opposite.
Economics would be much more regional in reference to resources and how that relates to its
populations needs, especially considering the democratic governance of those finite resources
without making money the linchpin to how distribution is afforded.
OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL
How dare you submit such irreverent goldbuggery ?
Your line of thought is not politically correct Sir.
Something for nothing is easier to sell and to live by, don´t you know ? as long as it
lasts.
Problem is ( as HAL would say ? ) the 50 years are almost through, so it just can´t
last much longer no matter how much we pussyfoot around reality.
It has nothing to do with being 'politically incorrect'. It has to do with goldbuggery
being completely ignorant of actual history and facts. It ascribes to gold attributes which
it never truly had even in the West, much less globally.
Some examples from objective reality:
When the Conquistadors arrived in the 'New World', they discovered an entire continent
filled with easily accessible gold and silver, and yet neither was treated by the natives as
money. They were shiny trinkets. Money was cocoa beans and pieces of linen.
When the Vikings reached the Eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantines had a hard time getting
them to accept gold as payment. Before that, the only 'precious' metal they had any interest
in was silver.
Going eastward, in feudal Japan currency was based on rice, not precious metals. Gold and
silver were used as representative tokens of large values of rice. The source of value wasn't
felt to be the metal, it was what the metal represented.
If civilization were to end today, the most well off survivors aren't going to be the ones
who stockpiled gold. It's going to be the ones who stockpiled food and water (and/or the
weapons to protect/seize such stockpiles). Gold has exactly zero inherent value. It's a
luxury item at best, in the same way fine art is. No one in the post-apocalyptic wasteland is
going to be impressed by your lumps of heavy, soft metal.
There's plenty of information available from historians, archaeologists, and
anthropologists (but emphatically not from mainstream economists) on the history of money. If
you want to 'free your mind', you'd best start with one of these fields. Not some libertarian
cesspit, where the 'intellectuals' are even more delusional than mainstream
neoclassicals.
I'll probably get slammed here for this but to tell you the truth, I see no justification
for the shape and character of the present money system in use around the world. In fact, I
absolutely refuse to believe that There Is No Alternative. The present system is one that has
evolved over the centuries and for the greater part was designed by those with wealth to
either solidify or expand their wealth.
Yesterday, in a comment, I made the point that for an economic and financial system to work
it has to be sustainable. Call that General Order Number One. But a survey of the present
system shows a system that by its very nature is seeking to transfer the bulk majority of
wealth to about 1% of the population while pushing about 90% of the population into a
neo-feudal poverty. This is nothing short of self-destructive and is certainly not
sustainable.
We tend to think of money as something permanent but the different currencies in existence
today make up only a fraction of the currencies that have ever existed. All the rest have
gone extinct. I am given to understand that when the US Federal Reserve meets, it is in a
room whose walls are adorned with examples of these extinct currencies. In fact, I even own a
few German Reichsmarks from the hyperinflation era of the early 1920s for an occaisional bit
of perspective.
OK, maybe the Swiss referendum is being used, misused and abused but it is a sign of an
arising discontent. It certainly surprises me that it was the Swiss as when I visited that
country, they were the most conservative people that I have ever met as far as money was
concerned. In any case, perhaps it is time that we all sat down and designed a money system
from the ground up. Throw away the rule book and just take a pragmatic approach. Forget
theories and justifications, just look for stuff that works.
There is no need to "experiment" with other systems of money use: we just need to regulate
the system we have but, unfortunately at present, we are in the midst of de-regulating
everything–finance, environmental protections, healthcare, education, etc., and getting
rid of other groups such as unions. The undermining of many (public) institutions is well on
its way and I do not see it ending well. I think the rich have won this round just as they
planned in the 1970's.
I imagine you would want to start from value (a mental state of persons) and labor, things
persons do to achieve stuff which they value. It would be convenient to have tokens which
represented social agreement about value, valued stuff, and labor. The social agreement could
be brought about by cooperative voluntary institutions ('credit unions') which would oversee
and guarantee the issuance of tokens (debts) by members (persons). We already do this on a
modest scale by writing checks, so it's not unheard-of.
If you want a system which doesn't just feed the elites, you have to create one which
doesn't rely on institutions dominated by or entirely controlled by the elites, such as the
government, the major corporations, large banks, and so on. You want something egalitarian,
democratic, and cooperative. It's not impossible.
Indeed it is possible and has been done in the recent past.
A key insight behind credit unions, mutual insurance and savings and loans back in the day
was that these institutions were loaning people their own money savings and should be run
without assigning hotshot managers the dubious incentive of a profit-motive or talking up
"innovation".
One of the things I object to in Richard Murphy's rhetoric and that of more careless
MMT'ers is that they implicitly concede the premise that Money is usefully thought of as a
quantitative thing, a pile of tokena circulating at some velocity. Financial intermediaries
(and yes, Richard, they are intermediaries) do create "money" in the form of credit by
matching ledger entries. For a savings and loan, which gives a mortgage to a depositor or
just a checking account to a saver, this can be a key idea supporting mutual assistance in
cooperative finance.
But, if you insist that the bank is "creating" a quantity of money that is then set loose
to drive up house prices or some similar narrative scenario, I do not see that your
storytelling is doing anyone any good.
Credit from institutions of cooperative finance -- shorn as they must be of the incentive
toward usury and rent extraction -- is actually a very useful application of money, enabling
people to take reasonable risks over their lifetimes. For example, to enable a young couple
to form a household and buy a house and gradually build up equity in home ownership against
later days. This is sensible and prosaic, a standard use of money to insure by letting a bank
or similar institution help individuals or small businesses to transform the maturities of
their assets and prospects, while certifying their credit. If your understanding of money
does not encompass such prosaic ideas as leverage and portfolios or their application to
improving the general welfare, then the "left" is up a creek without a paddle.
"Financial intermediaries (and yes, Richard, they are intermediaries) do create "money" in
the form of credit by matching ledger entries. "
That is NOT what is meant by the term,"intermediaries" here. The common belief is that banks
merely take in a depositor's money and, as an intermediary, lend that money out. An
intermediary, by definition, does not create anything. That is the accepted meaning of the
term when discussing banking. You are free to use your own definition but it will lead to
confusion.
You are incorrect as to how banking works, and you have also jalbroken moderation, which
is grounds for banning, as is clearly stated in our Site Policies, which you did not bother
to read.
Per your comments on banking, you are also engaging in agnotology, another violation of
site Policies.
Banks do not intermediate. They do not lend out of existing savings. Their loans create
new deposits. Not only has MMT demonstrated, and this has been confirmed empirically, but the
Bank of England has endorsed this explanation as correct.
You are presenting the loanable funds fallacy, a pet idea of monetarists. It was first
debunked by Keynes and later by Kaldor.
Your idea of "accepted meaning" is further confirmation you are way out of your depth here
and are a textbook case of Dunning Kruger syndrome.
The matter of who or what controls money is actually secondary to the matter of what money
is used for. Positive Money correctly identifies the fact that under our present arrangements
in the USA, UK, and most of the West, money and credit are used almost entirely for
speculation, usury, and rent extraction (though they do not, so far as I know, use the
terms). If "the people" somehow were able to gain control of money and credit, and money and
credit continued to be used almost entirely for speculation, usury, and rent extraction,
society and the people would see no net advance economically.
That's the simple overview. Allow me to lay out a couple scenarios to show why just
solving the problem of who controls money and credit does not really address our most urgent
problems.
For the first scenario, assume that it is right wing populists who have triumphed in the
fight to seize control of money and credit. Recall that in the first and second iterations of
the bank bailout proposals in USA, Congress was deluged by overwhelming public opposition to
the bailout. But in the second iteration, the Democrats mostly folded, while on the
Republican side, the closer you got to the Tea Party extreme, the stauncher the opposition to
the bailout you found. So, under right-wing populist control, we would probably see
prosecutions and imprisonment of banksters, which would likely have the intended effect of
lessening rent extraction. But we would probably also see that right-wing populists are not
much concerned about speculation and usury, so those would continue relatively unscathed.
More importantly, we could expect right-wing populist control to result in severe cutbacks
to both government and private funding of scientific research, most especially on climate
change. We would be hurried forward on our course toward climate disaster, not turned away
from it.
For the second scenario, let us assume it is a left-wing populist surge that achieves
control over money and credit. In this scenario, speculation and usury would be suppressed as
well as rent extraction. On science, there would no doubt be a surge in funding for climate
research. But I would greatly fear what left-wing populists might do to funding of space
exploration and hard sciences such as the large Hadron collider at CERN. And what would
happen to funding for military research programs like DARPA?
Can you imagine the implications of cutting those kinds of science programs? Try to think
of doing without all the spinoffs from the NASA Apollo moon landing program and the original
ARPAnet, which includes much of the capability of the miniaturized electronics in the
computer, servers, modems, and routers you are now using.
The point is, that without restoring an understanding of republican (NOT capital R
"R"epublican Party) statecraft, its focus on promoting the general welfare, and the
understanding that promoting the general welfare ALWAYS involves identifying and promoting
the leading edges of science and technology, any success in seizing control of money and
credit away from bankers (whether private or central) does not necessarily result in victory.
For an extended discussion of science and republicanism, see my The
Higgs boson and the purpose of a republic .
There will always be right-wingers, left-wingers, progressives, imperialists, etc.
One or more of them will seize control.
It would seem, then, the first thing to do, is to work on human nature, and not
discovering new devices for them (or us, ourselves), because we can not guarantee no harm to
Nature will come from colliding high energy particles.
I don't really see the left as being anti-science, it seems to me that it's the right that
wants to deny scientific findings such as climate change, etc. There are exceptions of
course, such as new-age/anti-vaxers, chem-trail theorists, etc but they are a small minority,
and I find it hard to envision a scenario where a leftist government would cut science
funding. As it is now, many if not most scientific and technical advances have originated
from what was originally military funding, including the internet we are using at this
moment.
This is a model that needs to change IMHO, there is no reason that cutting-edge science
has to be tied to the military, science could just as easily be funded for its own sake,
without the pentagon getting the money first and then having the tech trickle down to the
rest of us.
I am trying to come up with some examples where technological advances were not induced or
misused by warriors and/or libido, from the dawn of humanity till now.
Stone tools – misused for war.
Bronze/iron tools – the same.
The wheel – war chariots.
Writing – to lord over the illiterate
The steam engine – how the west was won with buffaloes going extinct.
Gun powder – war, and above.
The internet – surveillance and libido.
The smart phone – above.
Aspirin – that's all good .maybe the example I am looking for except I'm allergic to
it.
money and credit are used almost entirely for speculation, usury, and rent
extraction
Certainly on the leading edge, that is what money and credit are used for, but
"entirely"??? In the main, money remains the great lever of coordination in an economy of
vastly distributed decision-making.
The forces of predation and fraud are seriously out-of-control and they use money for
anti-social ends, protected by neoliberal ideology and the cluelessness of what passes for
the political left. Like any normal bank robber, the banksters want the system of money to
continue to work and it does continue to work, in the main, even as they play Jenga with the
towering structures of finance.
Well, I did qualify it with "almost" : ). Still, in the late 1990s I found that there was
around $60 (sixty dollars) of trading in financial markets (including futures and forex) for
every one dollar of GDP. That compares to 1.5 to 1 in 1960. The ratio probably dropped in the
aftermath of the 2007-2008 crashes, but I's be surprised if it has not surpassed 60 to 1 by
now. Have mercy on me: I haven't looked at a BIS report for a few years now.
So your solution is to keep it in the hands of the elite?! Please note that the "central
bank" under the Vollgeld initiative is completely redefined, not a central bank at all but a
government institution controlled by a democratic process.
Many banks around the world started out as state-owned and have been privatised.
I admit it is simplistic, but having a state-run not-for-profit bank being this "government
institution controlled by a democratic process" has a lot of merit to me.
It would have lending guidelines to aid investment in productive endeavours, limit the risk,
and have no part in the insane fringe financial transactions that brought about the GFC, and
who know how many other things that have gone under the radar.
This brings all currency creation into a single place, so it needs transparency and a
(proper) democratic governance.
There would probably be fewer jobs I admit, but many of these would be the top levels
enjoying fat bonuses based on winning zero-sum games.
And as a final comment – should GDP include the transactions within the financial
sector at all? Given the zEro-sum games involved, and the creation of losers as part of that,
does it actually "produce" anything at aLL?
I hate to be a nay-sayer, but the reason there were once many state banks in the US and
there is now only one is that they became cesspools of corruption. And having arm-wrestled
with CalPERS for over four years, which is more transparent than a lot of places, good luck
with getting transparency and good governance.
Mind you, that does not mean they might not be worth trying, but the assumption that they
can just be set up and will work just fine "because democracy" needs to be taken with a
fistful of salt. There needs to be a ton of careful thought re governance and lots of checks
(an inspector general with teeth at a minimum, we can see from CalPERS that boards are very
easily captured).
Bank of North
Dakota has a fascinating history, being founded during the Progressive Era, when ND had a
governor who was a member of the Nonpartisan League, a populist political party, and intended
to save North Dakota's farmers and laborers from the predations of the big banks in
Minneapolis and Chicago.
It remains the only state-owned bank in the country.
The populist
Nonpartisan League remains the most successful third party in history, and had remarkable
impact on politics in North Dakota and Minnesota. It merged with the Democratic Party in the
50s.
Ahem, I acknowledged that. What you miss is that pretty much every other state had a state
bank and they were shuttered because they became embarrassingly corrupt. The fact that past
"state bank" experiments almost universally failed makes me leery of the naive view that
they'll be hunky dory. They could be but the sort of cavalier attitude that they'll be
inherently virtuous is the road to abuse and misconduct.
" Money is debt. It is only created by government spending and bank lending. " --
Richard Murphy
We've jumped through the looking glass. The former money, gold, is NOT debt. Debt-based
money is ersatz, a ghastly fraud on humanity.
In a normal economy, government spending is financed by taxes and borrowing, meaning that
no new spending power has been created, as IS the case with new bank loans.
Daniel Nevins' book Economics for Independent Thinkers discusses how modern
economists got misled into believing the money supply governs everything, whereas earlier
19th century economists understood that bank lending is what drives expansions.
Poor Murphy, starting out with a wonky premise, only succeeds in careering into a briar
patch and wrecking his bike. He should post his pratfall on YouTube.
Fiat money can also be created without debt. That's the whole point of MMT, but it makes
Haygood's head explode so he never acknowledges it (without muttering about hyperinflation,
which never actually happens outside of disasters on the scale of a major war).
When the federal government spends money into existence -- which can be on the basis of a
democratic agenda, in countries that have actual democracies -- there's no need for a
corresponding issuance of government debt. Hence, spending power is indeed created. If the
government does create debt, the bond is an asset on the ledger of whoever buys it, and the
government spends the interest into existence. Which creates additional spending power for
the private sector. The government can choose to, or not, collect a portion of this as taxes,
which extinguishes the money. If the government collected as taxes everything it ever spent
there would be no money in circulation.
> In a normal economy, government spending is financed by taxes and borrowing,
meaning that no new spending power has been created, as IS the case with new bank
loans.
Er, new bank loans also represent borrowing that has to be paid back. The spending power
that gets created is extinguished by paying back the bank loan.
the federal government spends money into existence
a
That's a choice made by the designers of the current system.
But not the only choice.
The people, for example, can be empowered (or perhaps inherit that power, on the basis of
the Constitution amendment clause* that any power not given explicitly to the federal
government is reserved for the people), to spend money into existence.
*The Tenth Amendment declares, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or
to the people."
So do you gold bugs want to dispense with double entry bookkeeping or keep it and adapt it
to gold (would that entail both counterfeit money and counterfeit debt?) – gold as both
credit and debt, or just what exactly? With the gold side weighing down the ledger it's gonna
get wobbly. Maybe have to start a war to fix it? The fog of positive money. Really, JH,
you've been the best voice against war. How do you reconcile all the social imbalance that
would follow with "positive" money?
Fiat money is war finance, made permanent. Even during the gold standard, governments
would suspend gold convertibility during wars. Lincoln's greenbacks and the UK's suspension
during WW I are noteworthy examples.
So the gold standard won't stop governments declaring national security exceptions --
they've always done so. But permanent war finance is what sustains the value-subtraction US
military empire, a gross social imbalance that already plagues us by starving the US
economy of investment.
Double entry bookkeeping doesn't require that every asset have an offsetting liability. A
balance sheet with no liabilities is all equity on the right-hand side. It's what a bank
would look like if it sold off its loan portfolio and paid off its depositors -- cash on the
left side, equity on the right. If the bank then bought some gold, it would be exchanging one
asset (cash) for another (gold), with no effect on the liability/equity side.
Just look up the mintage figures, here's $20 gold coins that contain just under 1 troy oz
of pure gold in content, from 1861 to 1865. You can follow links to other denominations.
There were over 8 million ounces alone in $20 gold coins struck during the Civil War, by
the Union.
We were never on a pure gold standard, nowhere close actually.
The most common money in the land until the Federal Reserve came along, FRN's not being
backed by gold?
Why, that would've been National Banknotes, which was the currency of the land from 1863
to 1935. There were over 10,000 different banks in the country that all issued their own
currency with the same design, but with different names of banking institutions, etc.
Very hard to argue with you, but I'm tripping over this: "If the bank then bought some
gold, it would be exchanging one asset (cash) for another (gold) with no effect o the
liability equity side." Because in my mind cash isn't an asset – it's just money
– a medium of exchange and a unit of account. Where we get all messed up is when the
unit of account starts to slip (due to mismanagement) and people start to demand that money
become a store of value. When the value is society itself. And blablablah.
Sure, the value is society itself, I agree with this. But OTOH, it is for example much
better to be a woman, black person, fill in the blank, even "working class" person with a lot
of money than not in a sexist, racist, etc society.
I can't necessarily compel the forces of sexism, racism, old farts who don't agree with
me, etc through the "political process," thereby bringing my will to bear on society. But I
can move things with my dollars, This is how money gets its magic power. If people played
nice with each other, we wouldn't need money.
What about paper bugs Susan ?
Has paper buggery helped any ever ?
Why do fiat currencies always self-implode (in average) every 50 years ?
" You can fool part of the people all of the time, and all of the people part of the
time. .."
8 white men control > 50% of the world's wealth. Let's just keep going in that
direction, to where it's down to one white guy, and with debt-based money everyone else owes
him all the "money" in the world. Then we can just strangle him in the bathtub and usher in
an era of peace and prosperity.
Richard Murphy says that " handing all credit creation to the central banks is not
only technically impossible in a modern economy, it's a dangerous folly "
What is QE then, Sir ?
Our "modern" economies don´t have business cycles any more, just distorting credit
cycles.
There are no "markets" as such today, nor prices only interventions.
Even interest rates (the price of supposed "money" remember ?) are not priced by markets any
more .
Help me. Gold is not money. And it does not have and never had immutable value. Even in
the days of the gold standard, countries regularly devalued their currencies in gold terms.
It was the money that was used for commerce, not the gold. When the US government devalued
the $ in gold terms by 5%, bread at the store didn't cost more the next day, which is what
your "gold is money" amounts to. It's not correct and you need to drop it.
"The former money, gold, is NOT debt. Debt-based money is ersatz, a ghastly fraud on
humanity."
You've been on NC for years. You have to know by now that this literally, objectively,
isn't true. It just simply isn't. History and anthropology do not at all support your version
of events. People like Hudson and Graeber have extensively documented where money came from.
Debt and credit came first, then money as a token to measure them. We have warehouses full of
the freaking Sumerian transactions tablets that show it! Money is debt, always has been.
Actually, I say you have to know this by now, but given how conspicuously absent you seem
to be in the comments of Michael Hudson articles about the history of debt hosted here, maybe
you just aren't reading them. Or you are and don't like what they say and how it clashes with
your pre-established worldview, so you just ignore them. Though even if the latter, it's
still telling how you don't even attempt to refute them. Perhaps because you can't.
It's not about money; its about creating and distributing wealth. That a trivial thing
like a double-entry bookkeeping operation should stand in the way of creating the wealth the
world and its people need to survive is, of course, insane. But it is also insane to expect
different results from turning over control of the process of money creation to a wholly
owned subsidiary of governments like those of the United States and Great Britain, bent as
they are on global hegemony ("full spectrum dominance") – at ANY cost.
Whether or not China and other developing nations realize it, genuine wealth creation
– not money as debt creation ('finance capitalism') – is THE source of national
power. It is more than a little amusing to watch the neoconservatives fret about the rise of
China after having joined with their neoliberal brothers in off-shoring US and Western wealth
creation potential (in what they must have thought was an oh so clever attack on Western
living standards by forcing 'their' people to compete with the world's most desperate workers
in a global race to the bottom so their 1% patrons would have an excuse to create more money
as debt).
So long as the West remains focused on 'the price of everything and the value of nothing'
(like the human potential of their own people, for example), the developing world is soon
likely to have a monopoly that will put OPEC and its Middle Eastern dictators to shame. In
summary this is about FAR more than just about how a few 'post-industrial' democracies create
their money. The definitive work on this topic remains Soddy's Wealth, Virtual Wealth and
Debt, 2nd edition.
Just as a few days ago Carlos Rovelli, author of " The Order of Time ", has
useful insights of the political significance of LSD, he has advice for this too in the same
book:
The entire evolution of science would suggest that the best grammar for thinking about
the world is that of change, not of permanence. Not of being, but of becoming.
We can think of the world as made up of things. Of substances. Of entities. Of something
that is. Or we can think of it as made up of events. Of happenings. Of processes. Of
something that occurs. Something that does not last, and that undergoes continual
transformation, that is not permanent in time. The destruction of the notion of time in
fundamental physics is the crumbling of the first of these two perspectives, not of the
second. It is the realization of the ubiquity of impermanence, not of stasis in a
motionless time.
In other (his) words:
"The world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones."
As long as I am feting physicists, this just came over the transom from Sabine
Hossenfelder of backreaction.blogspot.com fame. She's written a book, " Lost in Math
" and was informed that a video trailer is customary in this situation. As the first comment
there says:
"Hey, that is a GREAT statement! (And it applies to SO MUCH in life, not just
physics!)
We've all been focusing on the demand side of the Fed Reserve's liquidity pump: be it for
sound business needs. Or not (pirates).
But what happens when demand for that pump disappears because everyone is over-extended?
Because this is where Bernanke and Japan and the ECB have done "whatever it takes" to keep
that pump from going in reverse. Because in an empire created on naked shorts (currency
creation today is essentially a naked shorting process), the last thing you want is that pump
to go in reverse. That's not just creative destruction. That's house-on-fire destruction.
So Bernanke et. al. have figured out how to keep that pump from going in reverse. Simply
prop up asset prices, e.g. by reducing the asset float in treasuries, MBSs, etc. And it
worked. Yay! Right? If you're an asset holder, you're aces. If you're not an asset holder,
well you're not doing so well. In particular, if you're in that part of the economy which
depends on the velocity of money. Because velocity is at a stand still. As another blogger I
used to follow would say, price sans volume is not the right price. So from my perspective,
Bernanke (and Japan) had to destroy their economies by replacing them with zombie economies
to rescue certain players. Not just players, but playahs – the pirates that pushed us
to this end-game. So the pirates are rescued. And the average joe inherits the after effects.
But hey, those with 401Ks got rescued too, so it's not all bad. And since the 401Kers are
competitive, they generally found safe harbor in the job market too. Yay for them.
If we were not on a debt-based monetary pump, we would not end up with a zombie economy.
One which the Fed Reserve can't figure out how to solve except for creating even more demand
at the debt pump, even more over extension to mask the issue only to fall back within the
same trap again. From what I can tell, we are truly in a doom loop and at present I don't see
any creativity in getting us out of this doom loop.
So the vollgeld initiative would ostensibly be a way to extricate an economy from that
doom loop. I suspect the Swiss don't really need it as much as other nations. But why get in
the way of that type of creativity?
And I would just add that supplanting the federal reserve note with a Lincoln greenback
type of approach would work just as well. Even better since it gives the monetary powers to
the fiscal side of the Fed Gov.
I posted a version of this last night in the previous thread. But suspect nobody is going
to go to that thread anymore. So apologies for a repeat of sort. Not trying to spam.
The idea of a real estate pumped perpetual notion machine, combined with essentially an
interest free savings plan for the proles, persuaded them to come through and help rise all
boats, and who could have figured on vacation rentals helping out housing bubble deux, the
sequel.
Looking @ the real estate listings here in a vacation rental hotspot is indicative, in
that there are only a few $250k-$300k homes for sale now, whereas there used to be a dozen,
always.
Now, on the other hand, we're swimming in $500k to $1m homes that don't make the rental
cut.
You probably read the Bernank's naive confession yesterday that fiscal stimulus "is going
to hit the economy in a big way this year and next year, and then in 2020 Wile E. Coyote is
going to go off the cliff."
Three hundred shocked staffers in the Eccles Building cocked their heads to the side and
gasped, "He said WHAT?" So I wrote this song Technodammerung for rogue banker
Ben:
He was just a Harvard hand
Workin' the QE he planned to try
The years went by
Every night when the sun goes down
Just another lonely quant in town
And rates out runnin' 'round
It's another tequila sunset
Fed's old scam still looks the same
Another frame
Pardners in chime
proseytizing in real time
Preaching, if you can touch a dime
Why wont paper rhyme
But in their zeal and haste
And self-righteous aversion to waste
Recruit disciples in bling bling
Preaching money is a thing thing
While finger wagging the bloat
Preaching fix the rate, dont let it float
But beyond the noise
Preaching with poise
Its all about them
Their stuff, jewels and gem
Might the actions of a bank be restrained more easily by requiring all payments and stock
issuances to the executives and directors be put directly into escrow accounts to be metered
out in small amounts if the bank stays healthy over time? If the bank suffers major losses,
the escrow accounts would be the first source of funds to make up for them. No Federal
Deposit Insurance or other government payments would be made to the bank until the escrow
accounts have been reduced to zero.
Randall Wray could be made Sec Treasury, Stephanie Melton Fed Chairman and if the
plutocrats still run the rest of the political show that sets priorities, we would still be
screwed. The full employment guaranteed jobs could just as easily be strip mining coal from
national parks and forests as installing a national solar grid. It could be done with forced
low paid labor camps that maximize rent for the plutocrats. MMT seems morally neutral on how
the money is spent. For a good portion of the plutocrats, helping the poor is morally suspect
.if they consider it at all. That is the larger problem than acceptance of MMT.
I didn't see any comment here going in depth with ideas on the binding money creation
decisions with socially useful goals (saving TBTF I dont consider such a goal, except for
emergency purposes), by what type of process and stakeholders – to avoid driving us
toward becoming a 3rd world oligarchy.
The rest is just mechanics – but the most important thing is what is the social
control and social purpose of money creation. I am sure we could do just fine even with the
present system (of course since it is a MMT system), if there were some limits on speculation
with asset prices, less military spending, more democratic control of enterprises, including
banks, severe constraints on the FIRE sector, etc, etc.
In the end the problem of managing money well is a political problem. And not much is
changing there for the better, despite a growing awareness that "we have a problem" as a
society. Where are the politicians that will connect the dots and take on the responsibility
to fix the travesty that we have?
More questions than answers, I know. But what we need a change in politics – then
banking will follow.
This is a common fallacy, that MMT is bad because it isn't about communal barter tokens or
some other thing. MMT exists to empirically describe how money works in the existing economy
today. You can be any sort of ideology and embrace it, anyone can use it, just like anyone
can use science, it's not inherently biased toward any ideology unlike neoclassical economics
and its baked in neoliberalism. That doesn't make it bad, that just shows that it is what it
purports to be, an empirical description of money in our existing economy.
You want a brand new type of currency in a whole new economy, well, start organizing your
revolutionary army, because that's what that will take.
The Battle for Money -- that much, it seems to me, is true. Neoliberalism is going down,
brought down by its own (unfortunate in my view) success and hubris, and one consequence,
on-going, is the urgent political need to re-invent the institutions of money.
The institutional systems of monetary/payment/finance systems are always under a lot of
strategic pressure: they tend to develop and evolve quickly and they do not usually last all
that long -- maybe, the span of three or four human generations -- except in the collective
memory of their artifacts and debris.
There's a natural human wish that it could all be made safely automatic -- taken out of
corruptible hands and fixed with some technical governor. Whether you are a fan of democracy
or loyal to oligarchy really doesn't take anyone very far toward devising or understanding a
workable system of money.
As I said in a comment on the earlier Richard Murphy post, money is a language in which we
write (hopefully) "true" fictions to paper over uncertainty. Much of what passes for a theory
of money is just meta-fiction, akin to literary criticism of a particular genre or era. That
is certainly true of Quantity Theory (1.0 re: gold and 2.0 Friedman). It is true of related
fables, like Krugman's favorite, loanable funds.
When Murphy rejects the quantity theory of money and then turns around and talks about the
need to create "enough" money, I pretty much write him off. When he embraces the Truth of
MMT, I know he is hopeless.
It's been discussed on NC before, but despite all the theories and figures, it's really a
battle of values. I'm not pushing religion, just saying it has all the makings of a holy
war.
(come to think of it, isn't religion a big part of the history of monetary theory?)
China has yet to fall under the thumb of private banks the way the west has. State still
holds the reins of regulation tight and the government bank maintains a robust public sector.
Michael Hudson just came back from China and has this to say:
"The debts are owed to government banks. A government can do what the U.S. can't do.
The government can forgive debts, at least those that are owed to itself, without creating a
political backlash. If a viable corporation has run up too much debt, the government can
forgive it. This is better than letting the debt close down a factory or force it be sold to
a predatory asset management firm as occurs in the United States. That is the advantage of
having public credit and why credit should be public. That's how it was in Babylonia. Rulers
were able to cancel debts all the time in the 3rd millennium and 2nd millennium BC, because
most debts were owed to the palace or the temples. Rulers were cancelling debts owed to
themselves.
China can cancel business debt owed to itself. It can proclaim a clean slate. It can
minimize debt service to whatever it chooses. But imagine if Chase Manhattan and Goldman
Sachs are let in. It would be much harder for the government to raise real estate taxes
leading to defaults on the banks. It could save the occupants by making new loans to those
who default – based on lower land prices.
Well, you can imagine the international furor that would erupt. Trump would threaten
to atom bomb Peking and Shanghai to save his constituency. His constituency and that of the
Democrats are the same: Wall Street and the One Percent. So China may lose its ability to
write down debts if it lets in foreign banks."
There are advantages to restoring financial management to the nation-state, as former
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Frank Newman has pointed out in books and lectures. The
private banks have exhausted QE to the tune of $30 trillion, none of which was invested in
the industrial economy. Why blame the Swiss for wanting to be like China?
that this is a Chicago School / Friedmanesque monetary policy is made clear by
Positive Money
The Chicago Plan of the 1930s and the unrelated Friedman suggestion of 1948 were both
predicated on the false fractional reserve theory of banking. Given that individual banks
create credit unrestrained by reserves those plans would not have had the desired result.
Positive Money knows this, though they do sometimes carelessly use the term 'fractional
reserve banking'. They think their plan is different and, to the extent that it would
actually prevent banks creating credit, it is.
It is silly to suggest that Positive Money is some Neoliberal front. Neutering the banks
is the last thing Neoliberals want, and when they want something they don't bother with
democratic methods like public pressure groups, they use think-tanks and lobbying.
Murphy's main complaint is about handing the 'quantity' decision to the Bank. I don't
think Positive Money is wedded to that idea, it is just an attempt to defuse the 'profligate
politicians' argument.
Being that NC is the place I discovered MMT, and it's been explained and debated so for so
long here, I would have expected NC readers to more broadly understand that what we have
currently would work for everyone if only our masters would allow it.
IOW, it is not necessary to reinvent our system so much as insist that it be used to
finance material benefits for all, as opposed to endless war, political repression and
bail-outs for our criminal finance sector.
How can it be that we can we finance $trillions for war at the drop of a hat, but cannot
afford to 'fix' SS, or provide universal healthcare?
It seems to me that it's a political issue, not a technical problem, or am I missing
something here?
Cui bono?
The current mission of the custodians of our "money" is to keep banks afloat. It's not to
provide general benefit, or to even preserve the buying power of the scrip they issue,
despite what you might hear about the supposed "dual mandate" (which is now a "triple
mandate": prices, employment, and the stock market).
"Financing material benefits for all" could be a bank that extends credit to a small
business. Take a look at commercial credit creation to see how well that's been going. Take a
look at velocity.
The Fed gifted Citi $174 billion on a day when they could have purchased 100% of the Citi
Class A common stock for $4B. This is the difference Michael Hudson points about about China:
their instant ability to swap debt for equity because all banks are state-owned and
because they're Communists and nobody would blink an eye .
Most interesting in The Middle Kingdom are the moves to protect the state-owned banks.
They started about 18 months ago, when people were told they could only have one Tier 1
bank-linked e-commerce account. As a result 7.5 billion (with a B) accounts were closed. Next
they said all payments systems (including WeChat and Alipay) must clear through a new central
bank clearinghouse. Two weeks ago they said not only will everything clear through these but
the actual funds will need to be transferred to the new CB account .
Ant Financial announced that in the future they would be concentrating on services to
finance and e-commerce companies, and away from providing those services themselves. They
even anticipate a name change, from Ant Financial to Ant Lifestyle. All this makes perfect
sense: President Xi will see every financial transaction in the country, and presumably apply
a Social Score filter on whether he allows it to go through. 11 million people have already
been denied the right to purchase train tickets or buy a house because they spat on a
sidewalk, jaywalked, or made the wrong comments on social media.
Wow! We are clearly past the "First they ignore you.." stage and just on the other side of
" then they ridicule you.." phase. What a basket of slurs, gross omissions of fact and
outright falsehoods is this current blog post.
Anytime Milton Friedman is invoked to slur a concept developed before he was even born,
should be an indicator that there is no substance to the argument against the democratization
of money creation.
Thanks to the internet however, one can easily visit the Positive Money site, the American
Monetary Institute and International Movement for Monetary Reform sites to see those fake
progressives in action. While you're at it, go to the Vollgeld site yourself and read what
those wolves in sheep's clothing are really saying instead of the creative writing displayed
in the blog.
How can anyone who claims to be concerned over the excesses of capitalism prostrate
themselves in front of the current banking system, the driver of capitalism as it
rides off the rails.
I can't bring myself to respond to the stream of unsubstantiated assertions presented but
need to remind people that banks, MUST create money first for the most creditworthy. I won't
insult the readers any further by naming who that class represents. A child can see that
this, by definition, must lead to the accelerating inequality we see today.
As a challenge, I ask the author to show specifically in the US code where it permits the
Federal Government to spend before its accounts at the Fed are replenished either by
borrowing or taxing. Stay tuned to these pages for the evidence .
PM just wants OMF (Overt Monetary Financing) with ZIRP and a very small horizontal money
system. MMT analysis suggests OMF with ZIRP and a much more regulated horizontal system is
needed. There is actually very little difference in their policy prescriptions. They just
arrived at them from opposite sides of the track
I'll second that but for different reasons. Buried not far beneath the surface of this
issue (money's creation, how and how much) are hugely important issues. But the discussion
never seems to get beyond everyone's favorite system for creating money. The assumption seems
to run along the lines of: if we can just come up with some scheme for government or gold
backed money, those who possess or produce the real wealth for that money to buy will forever
be content to exchange it for the money we will forever create to pay for it. There seems to
be a belief countries like China or Russia can never escape the 'dollar trap' – or if
they try we can threaten and intimidate them back in line with our "full spectrum dominance"
military. Money IS debt – and sooner or later those who hold it are going to want to
call that debt in.
Both Positive Money and MMT appear to me to just be attempts to continue 'business as
usual', operating without a real definition of wealth and trusting / hoping 'the market' will
sort it out.
Money is debt, both functionally and conceptually. This is true for most of the money used
in the Main Street economy. It is created as debt – yours to a bank when you use your
credit card or borrow money; the bank's to you when you deposit money with one. In its role
as a medium of exchange money serves as a claim on society's goods and services, its real
wealth. You don't exchange real wealth for fiat or bank-created money without the expectation
you will at some future time be able to again exchange that money for real wealth at least
equivalent to what you had to give up in exchange for the money originally.
Rather than a claim on wealth, money could be viewed as a representation of value. Value
exchange is more like a giving/sharing economy, rather than debt-swapping. I think this
psychological improvement will lead to many physical/social/environmental improvements.
Of course, in any case, people need to be willing sellers/exchangers – it's not
automatic or universal; we need some freedom to choose, and the better the conditions are
generally, the better the freedom we will have.
OK but the term, "money is debt" is used too loosely and can be very misleading. Money
does not have to be issued as debt as claimed by MMT. In fact, money can first appear as
equity on the government's balance sheet with no counterbalancing debt. So this concept is
grossly misused to imply money must be issued as debt when, in fact, once issued it may
represent a claim on the wealth of society. Proponents of MMT first make the claim
that money is debt, and that the notion that money can be issued debt-free is therefore false
on its face. Pretty clever. They slyly blur the distinction between the creation of money by
a government and the role of that money once in the economy.
How can money first appear as equity? Isn't the other side of that the deficit? Granted I
am naive on these points but I thought money was a bond of zero duration.See skippy re time
and space
. A question for Paul: Unless it is 'privatized' is there even such a thing as 'government
equity'? The way the West's financial system works nothing that can't be sold appears to have
any value. What's missing from that system – and the discipline of economics (see
below) – is a definition of wealth.
steven –
I believe we know what wealth is – but I don't understand your claim that money needs
to be privatized to be considered equity. The government declares by fiat that the money it
creates can be used to purchase goods and services in the economy.
I don't believe this is anywhere nearly correct. From all over the political spectrum
commentators lament the lost of trillions of dollars (or euros or whatever) of wealth. At
least until the effects of a financial crisis start to take hold, no physical or intellectual
capital is lost. The only thing that is lost are a few zeros on some financial ledgers.
As for money as equity, you may be technically correct, i.e. the rules of accounting may
permit governments to count the stacks of paper currency they print (in any case, small
change in terms of the total money supply) as 'equity'. But for most of us the only thing
governments possess that we would count as equity are asset classes like public
infrastructure. And until the services they provide (or the assets themselves) are sold, that
infrastructure would, from a business accounting standpoint, technically be 'worthless'.
(that last is a question?)
tegnost – There is nothing in the accounting standards that prevents the inclusion
of equity on a balance sheet. If we were under the gold standard and you happened to find a
nugget of gold in your back yard, are you telling me that you would have to imagine some kind
of "debt" to balance your household balance sheet? When Lincoln issued the Greenbacks in the
1860's there was no bond or debt associated with it. It paid soldiers wages and goods and
services during he civil war.
Just as MMT states the government isn't a household, it also isn't a commercial bank either.
It has the constitutional power to coin money as needed, no debt involved.
presumably you bought the nugget of gold when you purchased the property and it's land use
rights so it's not a virgin birth, the debt is what you purchased the land for. Maybe one of
those diamonds in the outback that hardy souls find, but those may have some territorial
claim as well.
The gold nugget has no inherent value. It's just a lump of cold metal. It will only become
valuable when you go to someone else with it and try to exchange it for something, whether it
be a currency or some kind of good. And only if the other person agrees with you that it's
valuable. This is fundamentally what money is: a token of social interaction. The gold
becomes valuable when you go to exchange it for something else. In other words when a debt
comes into play. Money is debt. Or rather, it's a measurement of debt and credit. 'Store of
value' and all that econ 101 rot is so much gibberish.
Once you realize that, then a question arises: "Well, why bother with rare metals or
pressed coins? If it's just a token, you could literally just take a stick and carve marks
into it and it would be the same thing". Yes, exactly. Which is precisely the sort of thing
we see lots of in history.
Murphy sounds like one of those indecisive chaps who dispute with everyone but have no
ideas of their own. I shall ignore him. Good luck to Switzerland. They have the courage and
political system to try the experiment and we will all know the result in early course.
What am I missing? As far as I can tell, the proposal is just Modern Money with the
central bank substituted for the Treasury. Yes, that makes it less democratic.
MMT is inflation-limited, too. That's how you know you've overshot your resources. In
fact, MMT poses a technical problem: how do you know when you've reached resource limits,
EXCEPT by observing inflation? Because without that, you have a ratchet. Of course, that's
just what we have, usually, so maybe that's evidence for the theory.
"First, this puts inflation at the core of economic policy." – is a false claim. As
quoted, it treats inflation as a limitation. The core is promoting adequate economic
activity.
Finally, he treats "money is debt" as doctrine. he doesn't justify it and it makes little
sense, ESPECIALLY in MMT. How can you pay a debt with a debt? Someone's getting cheated. MMT
actually proposes free money, to a point. I've seen elaborations of the idea, but they use a
very extended sense of "debt." And I don't see how it's even relevant to his overall
thesis.
The Swiss are pretty conservative, so I doubt they'll pass it.
No, Positive Money is not remotely MMT. Wash your mouth out.
The Positive Money types want to limit the extension of credit and put it under the
control of what Lambert called "a magic board," a regular gimmick from his days back in
debate where someone needed to be in charge but no one wanted to think hard about who or how.
In practice, a central bank would be in charge. So how democratic is that?
MMT does not fetishize money the way the Positive Money does. MMT despite having Monetary
in the name is about the role of government spending in a fiat currency system. MMT argues
that (as Kalekci did) that businesses have strong incentive (not wanting workers to get
uppity) to keep the economy at less than full employment. So the government can and should
spend to mobilize resources. And it can because its role as the currency issuer means it can
never go bankrupt, it can only create too much inflation. Taxes are what contain inflation in
MMT.
By contrast, the Positive Money types want to do it by limiting credit creation. And thus
Murphy is correct. That means their priority is to preserve the value of financial assets,
not achieve full employment.
I don't believe it is accurate to say that Positive Money "fetishizes money". Irving
Fisher acknowledged his debt to Frederick Soddy for the concept of "100% Money", the
intellectual foundation for the Positive Money movement. Soddy's intent in limiting the
creation of money to the stock of wealth available for it to purchase was to retain
independence from the state in obtaining the means of subsistence. He compared the use of
monetary policy to goose the economy to a merchant putting his or her finger on the scale,
making it difficult to impossible for money to fulfill two of its primary functions: serving
as a medium of exchange and a store of value.
So long as there was wealth available for it to purchase, he – and presumably
Fisher's Positive Money crowd – would have no objection to creating as much money as
needed to keep the economy running. What he and every other respectable economist have been
trying to bring under control is the excess money creation fueling speculation and the
seemingly inevitable boom-bust cycle accompanying the private creation of money.
Rather than curbing that excess, however, the 'solution' that seems to have been adopted
is for the US and other Western governments to absorb the excess credit (money as debt)
creation by taking it on their (governments') own books. Government debt is I believe called
'near money' in the financial markets. But neither the governments nor the bankers of
countries that no longer create real wealth have any logical right to create the money to buy
it. Just retaining the right to 'print' more money or 'near money' doesn't change that,
except perhaps in an absurdly narrow legal sense.
There are, of course, some issues like globalization intimately connected with the
construction of a logical and fair monetary system. But underlying them all, including for
countries other than the US, is a logical definition of 'wealth':
a logical definition of wealth is absolutely needed for the basis of economics if it is
to be a science."
Frederick Soddy, WEALTH, VIRTUAL WEALTH AND DEBT, 2nd edition, p. 102
(Soddy might have added "if government is to be a science".)
Here in lies the rub economics will never be a Science.
Firstly the medium used by most economics – philosophy – does not even have a
functioning model of time and space and is prone to fads. Magnified by scale WRT elite tastes
or self dealing. Wealth or Capital is also a bit complicated by say the Cambridge Controversy
et al. So until some very fundamental flaws are sorted, that have nothing to do with –
money – the concept of "Science of Money" is going to be a non starter.
Worst is those that use such syntax and dialectal style are going to be called into
question – over it.
I mean we had political theory, then some bolted on science to it, and called it economic
science. Which then begat a whole time line of dominance front running the political process
regardless of political incumbents.
I think Scientists that dabble in monetary theory fall victim to the same dilemma that say
religious based views do – their optics are ground before looking.
Probably best to start with the first part of Soddy's (actually John Ruskin's)
observation, "a logical definition of wealth is absolutely needed ". "Most economics" may
indeed disguise its prostitution with a veneer of philosophy or mathematics. But I don't
think you can say that about Soddy's:
A definition of wealth must be based upon the nature of physical or material wealth, in
the sense of the physical requisites which empower and enable human life-that is, which
supply human beings with the means to live, and, as an after consequence of living, to
love, think and pursue goodness, beauty and truth.p. 108
(All citations are from Soddy's Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, 2nd edition- WVWD)
For that matter, according to Michael Hudson, you can not accuse the classical economists of
just dabbling in philosophy. They were ALL about freeing society from free-lunch economic
rent seekers, freeing up the resources so they could be devoted as completely as possible to
the development of "the physical requisites which empower and enable human life".
What we have to do to develop those physical requisites – and increasingly the
limitations imposed by the requirements of sustainability – is pretty well known.
Whether a science of money can be devised to help accomplish that goal or some other
mechanism for distributing the wealth made possible by advances in science and technology is
required is increasingly open to question.
Take a look at Soddy's –THE THREE INGREDIENTS OF WEALTH (DISCOVERY, NATURAL ENERGY
AND DILIGENCE). p. 61 The first two are firmly embedded in time and space.
I have read Soddy, more so I have talked with PM sorts for a long time, hence I'm not
ignorant of the camps views or actions during said time.
Onward
"a logical definition of wealth is absolutely needed ".
I did reference the Cambridge Controversy, are you informed WRT this aspect.
"A definition of wealth must be based upon the nature of physical or material wealth, in
the sense of the physical requisites which empower and enable human life-that is, which
supply human beings with the means to live, and, as an after consequence of living, to love,
think and pursue goodness, beauty and truth.p. 108"
Sorry but . "consequence of living, to love, think and pursue goodness, beauty and truth"
has nothing scientific about it.
I reiterate – Metaphilosophy has no scientific underpinnings and attempts to "brand"
it otherwise in only to burnish its credentials without any empirical satisfaction is just
rhetorical gaming.
"you can not accuse the classical economists of just dabbling in philosophy."
Hay I respect Hudson, that does not mean I worship him, hes been invaluable to the
discovery process, but, that does not mean everything he has to say is the word of dawg, nor
would I surrender my cognitive processes just because someone uses the term classical.
If I have to go that space I would favor say Veblen or Lars P. Syll where if your to own a
thing one must accept the responsibility from a social aspect and not one of atomistic
individualism.
But hay I regress . because I'm still waiting for someone to show me a few decades of a
labour market in "action".
"BTW it would be incumbent of you to redress my concerns above without forging a new path
which excludes them." – Sorry if I did that. It was not my intent. Wikipedia is my only
exposure to the Cambridge Controversy . As
I understand it, science is supposed to be all about observing the real world and then
drawing conclusions from those observations. It looks to me like the participants in the
debate were looking at their models and maybe the logic they used to construct them, not the
world they were supposed to be modeling.
"Most of the debate is mathematical, while some major elements can be explained as part of
the aggregation problem. The critique of neoclassical capital theory might be summed up as
saying that the theory suffers from the fallacy of composition;"
This kind of cant is a far cry from something like:
"Though it was not understood a century ago, and though as yet the applications of the
knowledge to the economics of life are not generally realised, life in its physical aspect
is fundamentally a struggle for energy , in which discovery after discovery brings life
into new relations with the original source. Evolutionary development has been parasitic,
higher and higher organisms arising and obtaining the requisite supplies of energy by
feeding upon the lower. But with man and the development of conscious reason, that process
as regards energy is being reversed. "
Sorry, but where does Positive Money , in any of the publications and articles, propose
any limitations on 'credit' ?
I never saw that.
Or AMI or any of these public money types for that matter?
Thank you.
You are completely correct, they don't. This is all made up propaganda against the
democratization of the money supply. What PM proposes is sound credit creation.
PM wants to establish a non democratic administration of government issuance and then
allow a return to the free banking period of the 1800s. All based on notions of EMH and QTM
contra to all the historical data from that period. So on one had PM wants to lay claim to
scientific methodology WRT money yet still cling to scientifically refuted EMH.
As far as I can discern PM proponents advance the belief that this would compel banks to
become investment entities for "productive" activities. Don't know how that would work out
considering how corporatism views society.
The positive money people have come at it from the other angle. People like Richard Werner
have been studying the problems with privately created money since the Japanese economy blew
up in the 1980s .
They have seen all the problems with privately created money and the positive money people
were very pleased when the BoE confirmed their beliefs in 2014.
The positive money people have come to the wrong conclusion through not understanding
publicly created money.
The MMT people can learn a lot about the problems of privately created money from the
positive money people.
The two camps should merge to get the big picture.
I started looking into all the problems of privately created money after 2008 and was a
latecomer to MMT.
The two merge nicely when you think about it and realise the why the positive money people
came to the conclusion they did. They just didn't understand the way publicly created money
works now.
In the case of Japan, unless I'm misunderstanding things there, presumably they've
embraced MMT out the wazoo, in that they're willing to leverage federal gov debt out the
wazoo. And yet I think the consensus still seems to be that their economy is still zombified
(still not really recovered from the debt overhang from their go go years). In which case,
why is that?
Has Japan been hamstringing their use of MMT, so it's less effective than it could be? Do
they need to up the ante, employ MMT-on-steroids to overcome the trap that they're in, say
like the US needed WWII to get out of its trap?
Withstanding MMT-on-steroids, should it be QE-on-steroids instead that get the animal
spirits rekindled? I don't have a strong sense of whether the US central bank has done more
in that department compared to the central bank of Japan. Or if indeed, the US central bank
has been more successful on that front. It's clear that animal spirits are certainly
rekindled in the US – the usual playahs are back at it. Though whether that's
unzombified our economy, I'm not so sure – I don't think it has.
If these hurdles are so difficult, seems to me we should have a monetary system that
doesn't result in a zombified economy to begin with, per the comment I was making further
above.
And yet I think the consensus still seems to be that their economy is still zombified
(still not really recovered from the debt overhang from their go go years). In which case,
why is that?
Debt Peonage. For it to work there has to be a debt jubilee (a forgiveness of peoples
debt).
" It seems there are greater similarities between China and the US than may be visible
at first glance. China builds real estate for a shrinking population, invests for an
over-indebted client (the US, which even insists on a drastic reduction of the bilateral
trade deficit) and finances all this with money it does not have ."
MMT has always stated to whom the debt is owed is the crux of the matter and in what form
denoted.
I have trouble understanding the dramas with bank issued credit when squared with say
equities, why all the focus on one and not to be inclusive of a wide assortment of other
mediums of exchange and how they are created and why.
So tell me why J – bonds are called the death trade e.g. shorters nightmare –
albeit they will tell you their shorts are being thwarted by ev'bal forces.
Couldn't resist this. That title has me intrigued so, with apologies to Winston
Churchill-
" What (neoliberals have) called the Battle of (Credit) is over the Battle of (Money) is
about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of (world) civilisation. Upon it
depends our own (western) life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our
(civilization). The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
(Neoliberals) knows that (they) will have to break us in this (idea) or lose the war. If we
can stand up to (them), all (the world) may be freed and the life of the world may move
forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have
known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and
perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves
to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the (United Nations) and its (Countries) last
for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." "
Yet then some say AET and Neoclassical economics just needs to implement PM and all will
be well.
I've yet to see any PM advocate or proponent criticize an executive or corporatism, only
banksters and some politicians. On the other hand I've seen many PM sorts back crypto based
on the argument of decentralization. So which is it, counterfeiting of national money with a
side of corruption or a case of counterfeiting ex nihilo via some arbitrary computational
source with a predominate side of corruption.
I am completely at a loss to understand how the debate about money proceeds things like
Marginalism, supply and demand as a monolith, rational agent models, theoclassical opinions
elevated to truisms [economic laws] and a reduction of human experience as a binary condition
set in stone.
I also have issues with PM advocates and their UBI agenda, due to its original proponents
views on the need to water down democracy more to keep the unwashed from just voting
themselves more money. It is in my opinion logically incoherent, that is just what has
occurred during the neoliberal period and corporatists via the democracy of money through
lobbyists – every dollar is a vote – et al.
In light of that I can only surmise that PM is actually pro elitist, not that I have
issues with some being elite, that is another story altogether, but money itself is not the
bar.
Nonetheless, you might have noticed that happy days aren't exactly here again. The real U.S.
unemployment figure -- all who are counted as unemployed in the "official" rate, plus
discouraged workers, the total of those employed part-time but not able to secure full-time
work and all persons marginally attached to the labor force (those who wish to work but have
given up) -- is 7.6
percent . (This is the "U-6" rate.) That total, too, is less than half of its 2010 peak and
is the lowest in several years. But this still doesn't mean the number of people actually
working is increasing.
Fewer people at work and they are making less
A better indication of how many people have found work is the "civilian labor force
participation rate." By this measure, which includes all people age 16 or older who are not in
prison or a mental institution, only 62.7 percent of the potential U.S. workforce
was actually in the workforce in May, and that was slightly lower than the previous month. This
is just about equal to the lowest this statistic has been since the
breakdown of Keynesianism in the 1970s, and down significantly from the peak of 67.3
percent in May 2000. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find a time when U.S. labor
participation was lower. This number was consistently lower in the 1950s and 1960s, but in
those days one income was sufficient to support a family. Now everybody works and still can't
make ends meet.
And that brings us to the topic of wages. After reaching a peak of 52 percent in 1969, the
percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product going to wages has fallen to 43 percent , according to research by
the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve. The amount of GDP going to wages during the past
five years has been the
lowest it has been since 1929 , according to a New York Times report. And within
the inequality of wages that don't keep up with inflation or productivity gains, the worse-off
are doing worse.
The Economic Policy Institute
noted , "From 2000 to 2017, wage growth was strongest for the highest-wage workers,
continuing the trend in rising wage inequality over the last four decades." The strongest wage
growth was for those in the top 10 percent of earnings, which skewed the results sufficiently
that the median wage increase for 2017 was a paltry 0.2 percent, the EPI reports. Inflation may
have been low, but it wasn't as low as that -- the typical U.S. worker thus suffered a de facto
wage decrease last year.
What this sobering news tells us is that good-paying jobs are hard to come by. An EPI
researcher, Elise Gould,
wrote :
"Slow wage growth tells us that employers continue to hold the cards, and don't have to
offer higher wages to attract workers. In other words, workers have very little leverage to
bid up their wages. Slow wage growth is evidence that employers and workers both know there
are still workers waiting in the wings ready to take a job, even if they aren't actively
looking for one."
The true unemployment rates in Canada and Europe
We find similar patterns elsewhere. In Canada, the official unemployment rate held at
5.8 percent in
April , the lowest it has been since 1976, although there was a slight decrease in the
number of people working in March, mainly due to job losses in wholesale and retail trade and
construction. What is the actual unemployment rate? According to Statistics Canada's R8
figure , it is 8.6 percent. The R8 counts count people in part-time work, including those
wanting full-time work, as "full-time equivalents," thus underestimating the number of
under-employed.
At the end of 2012, the R8 figure was 9.4
percent , but an analysis published by The Globe and Mail analyzing unemployment
estimated the
true unemployment rate for that year to be 14.2 percent. If the current statistical
miscalculation is proportionate, then the true Canadian unemployment rate currently must be
north of 13 percent. "[T]he narrow scope of the Canadian measure significantly understates
labour underutilization," the Globe and Mail analysis conclude.
Similar to its southern neighbor, Canada's labor force participation
rate has steadily declined, falling to 65.4 percent in April 2018 from a high of 67.7
percent in 2003.
The most recent official unemployment figure in Britain 4.2 percent. The true figure is
rather higher. How much higher is difficult to determine, but a
September 2012 report by Sheffield Hallam University found that the total number of
unemployed in Britain was more than 3.4 million in April of that year although the Labour Force
Survey, from which official unemployment statistics are derived, reported only 2.5 million. So
if we assume a similar ratio, then the true rate of unemployment across the United Kingdom is
about 5.7 percent.
The European Union reported an official unemployment rate of 7.1
percent (with Greece having the highest total at 20.8 percent). The EU's Eurostat service
doesn't provide an equivalent of a U.S. U-6 or a Canadian R8, but does separately
provide totals for under-employed part-time workers and "potential additional labour
force"; adding these two would effectively double the true EU rate of unemployed and so the
actual figure must be about 14 percent.
Australia's official seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 5.6 percent , according to the
country's Bureau of Statistics. The statistic that would provide a more realistic measure, the
"extended labour force under-utilisation" figure, seems to be well hidden. The most recent
figure that could be found was for February 2017, when the rate was given as 15.4 percent. As
the "official" unemployment rate at the time was 5.8 percent, it is reasonable to conclude that
the real Australian unemployment rate is currently above 15 percent.
Mirroring the pattern in North America, global employment is on the decline. The
International Labour Organization estimated the world labor force participation rate
as 61.9 percent for 2017, a steady decline from the 65.7 percent estimated for 1990.
Stagnant wages despite productivity growth around the world
Concomitant with the high numbers of people worldwide who don't have proper employment is
the stagnation of wages. Across North America and Europe, productivity is rising much faster
than wages. A 2017 study found that across those regions median real wage growth since the
mid-1980s has not kept
pace with labor productivity growth.
Not surprisingly, the United States had the largest gap between wages and productivity.
Germany was second in this category, perhaps not surprising, either, because German workers
have suffered a
long period of wage cuts (adjusted for inflation) since the Social Democratic Party
codified austerity by instituting Gerhard Schröder's "Agenda 2010" legislation. Despite
this disparity, the U.S. Federal Reserve issued a report in 2015 declaring the problem of
economic weakness is due to wages not
falling enough . Yes, the Fed believes your wages are too high.
The lag of wages as compared to rising productivity is an ongoing global phenomenon. A
separate statistical analysis from earlier this decade also
demonstrated this pattern for working people in Canada, the United States, Britain, France,
Germany, Italy and Japan. Workers in both Canada and the United States take home hundreds of
dollars less per week than they would if wages had kept up with productivity gains.
In an era of runaway corporate globalization, there is ever more precarity. On a global
scale, having regular employment is actually unusual. Using International Labour Organization
figures as a starting point, John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney calculate that the
"global reserve army of labor" -- workers who are underemployed, unemployed or "vulnerably
employed" (including informal workers) -- totals 2.4 billion. In contrast, the world's wage
workers total 1.4 billion. Writing in their book The Endless Crisis: How
Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China , they
write:
"It is the existence of a reserve army that in its maximum extent is more than 70 percent
larger than the active labor army that serves to restrain wages globally, and particularly in
poorer countries. Indeed, most of this reserve army is located in the underdeveloped
countries of the world, though its growth can be seen today in the rich countries as well."
[page 145]
Having conquered virtually every corner of the globe and with nowhere left to expand into
nor new markets to take, capitalists will continue to cut costs -- in the first place, wages
and benefits -- in their ceaseless scrambles to sustain their accustomed profits. There is no
reform that can permanently alter this relentless internal logic of capitalism. Although she
was premature, Rosa Luxemburg's forecast of socialism or barbarism draws nearer.
Looks like Trump adopted Victoria Nuland "Fuck the EU" attitude ;-). There might be nasty
surprises down the road as this is uncharted territory: destruction of neoliberal
globalization.
Trump proved to be a really bad negotiator. he reduced the USA to a schoolyard bully who
beats up his gang members because their former victims have grown too big.
As the owner of world reserve currency the USA is able to tax US denominated transactions both via conversion fees and
inflation. As long as the USA has dollar as a reserve currency the USA has so called "exorbitant priviledge" : "In the
Bretton Woods system put in place in
1944, US dollars were convertible to gold. In France, it was called "America's
exorbitant privilege"[219]
as it resulted in an "asymmetric financial system" where foreigners "see themselves supporting American living standards and
subsidizing American multinationals"."... "De Gaulle openly criticised the
United States intervention in Vietnam and the "exorbitant
privilege" of the United States dollar. In his later years, his support for the slogan "Vive
le Québec libre" and his two vetoes of Britain's entry into the
European Economic
Community generated considerable controversy." Charles de Gaulle -
Wikipedia
Notable quotes:
"... Errrr, that so-called "piggy bank' just happens to; ..."
"... have the world's reserve currency ..."
"... dominates the entire planet militarily since the end of the Cold War ..."
"... dictates "regime change" around the world ..."
"... manipulates and controls the world's entire financial system, from the price of a barrel to every financial transaction in the SWIFT system. ..."
"... And Trump has the ignorance, the arrogance and the audacity to be pleading 'poverty?' ..."
"We had productive discussion on having fair and reciprocal" trade and market access.
"We're linked in the great effort to create a more just and prosperous world. And from the
standpoint of trade and creating more prosperous countries, I think they are starting to be
committed to more fair trade. We as a nation lost $870 billion on trade...I blame our leaders
and I congratulate leaders of other countries for taking advantage of our leaders."
"If they retaliate they're making a tremendous mistake because you see we have a
tremendous trade imbalance...the numbers are so much against them, we win that war 1000 times
out of a 1000."
"We're negotiating very hard, tariffs and barriers...the European Union is brutal to the
United States....the gig is up...there's nothing they can say."
"We're like the piggy bank that everybody's robbing."
"I would say the level of relationship is a ten - Angela, Emmanuel and Justin - we have a very good relationship. I won't
blame these people, unless they don't smarten up and make the trades fair."
Trump is now making the 20-hour flight to Singapore, where he will attend a historic summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong
Un. We'll now keep our eye out for the finalized communique from the group. The US is typically a leader in the crafting of the
statement. But this time, it's unclear if the US had any input at all into the statement, as only the leaders from Britain,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan as well as the presidents of the European Commission and European Council remain at the
meeting. But regardless of who writes it, the statement will probably be of little consequence, as UBS points out:
Several heads of state will be heading off on a taxpayer-financed "mini-break" in Canada today. In all of its incarnations
(over the past four years, we've gone from G-8 to G-6+1) the group hasn't really accomplished much since an initial burst of
enthusiasm with the Plaza Accords and Louvre Accords in the 1980s.
By the way, Trump is right on the tariffs in my view, Europeans should lower their tariffs
and not having the US raising it.
Trump: "We're The Piggy Bank That Everybody's Robbing"
Isn't Trump great in catch phrases? Trump's base will now regurgitate it to death.
Now reconcile Trump's remarks with reality:
Professor Werner: Germany is for instance not even allowed to receive delivery of US
Treasuries that it may have purchased as a result of the dollars earned through its current
account surplus: these Treasuries have to be held in custody by the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, a privately owned bank: A promise on a promise. At the same time, German influence
over the pyramid structure of such promises has been declining rapidly since the abolition of
the German currency and introduction of the euro, controlled by an unaccountable
supranational international agency that cannot be influenced by any democratic assembly in
the eurozone. As a result, this structure of one-sided outflows of real goods and services
from Germany is likely to persist in the short and medium-term.
To add insult to injury:
Euro-federalists financed by US spy chiefs
The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist
organisation in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the
movement's funds.
Okay, everyone set your "team" aside for a few minutes and let's look at the facts and
reality.
Do you really believe the rest of the world has trade advantages over the US? Well, let's
consider major industries.
Agriculture.....maybe, but only sightly. Our farmers are the richest in the workd....by
far.
Manufacturers.....probably so....because we gave it away to countries with slave labor.
Manufacturers jobs were jobs where people could earn a decent living...and that had to
go..can't be cutting into corporate profits with all that high cost labor.
Defense.....need I go here? We spend more than the next 11 countries combined! We sell
more as well.
Energy.....we rule thus space because we buy it with worthless printed fiat
debt...whenever we want to....and nd if you deny us, we will bomb the hell out of you and
take it.
Technology. ....Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Amazon, Oracle, Dell, Cisco.....who can
touch that line up....not to mention all the on-line outfits like Facebook and Twitter.
Finance.....the best for last. We control the printing press that prints the dollar the
rest of the world needs. We control energy and foreign policy. Don't do what we like and we
will cut you off from SWIFT and devalue the hell out of your currency...and then move in for
the "regime" change to some one who plays ball the way we like it. 85% of all international
trade takes place in dollars everyday. We have the biggest banks, Wall Street, and infest the
world with our virus called the dollar so that we can Jeri their chain at will.
Now I ask you....just where the hell is the "trade imbalances"? Sure there are some
companies or job sectors that get a raw deal because our politicians give some foreigners
unfair trade advantages here and there, but as a whole, we dominate trade by far. The poor in
our country lives like kings compared to 5.5 billion of the world's population. Trump knows
this.....or he is stupid. He is pandering to his sheeple voting base that are easily duped
into believing someone is getting what is their's.
Hey, I am thankful to be an American and enjoy the advantages we have. But I am not going
to stick my head up Trump's ass and agree with this bullshit. It is misdirection (corporate
America and politicians are the problem here, not foreign countries) and a major distraction.
Because all the trade in the world isn't going to pull us out of this debt catastrophe that's
coming.
But, if we cut through all the verbiage, we will arrive at the elephant in the room.
American manufacturing jobs have been off-shored to low wage countries and the jobs which
have replaced them are, for the most part, minium wage service jobs. A man cannot buy a
house, marry and raise a family on a humburger-flippers wage. Even those minimum wage jobs
are often unavailable to Americans because millions of illegal aliens have been allowed into
the country and they are undercutting wages in the service sector. At the same time, the
better paid positions are being given to H-1B visa holders who undercut the American worker
(who is not infrequently forced to train his own replacement in order to access his
unemployment benefits.)
As the above paragraph demonstrates the oligarchs are being permitted to force down
American wages and the fact that we no longer make, but instead import, the things we need,
thus exporting our wealth and damaging our own workers is all the same to them. They grow
richer and they do not care about our country or our people. If they can make us all into
slaves it will suit them perfectly.
We need tariffs to enable our workers to compete against third world wages in countries
where the cost-of-living is less. (American wages may be stagnating or declining but our
cost-of-living is not declining.) We need to deport illegal aliens and to stop the flow of
them over our borders. (Build the wall.) We need to severely limit the H-1B visa programme
which is putting qualified Americans out of work. (When I came to the US in 1967 I was
permitted entry on the basis that I was coming to do a job for which there were not enough
American workers available. Why was that rule ever changed?)
You are making my point. China didn't "off shore" our jobs....our politicians and
corporations did. You can't fix that by going after other countries. You fix that by
penalizing companies for using slave labor workers from other countries. Tariffs are not
going to fix this. They will just raise prices on everyone.
I can't believe you Trumptards can't see this! Once again we will focus on a symptom and
ignore the real problem. Boy, Trump and his buddies from NYC and DC have really suffered
because of unfair trade practices, right? Why can't you people see that "government is the
problem" and misdirection your attention to China, Canada, Germany, Mexico, or whomever is
just that....misdirection.
I would tax the shit out of companies like Apple that make everything overseas with slave
labor and then ship it in here to sell to Americans at ridiculous prices.
Plenty of down votes but no one has proven that I am wrong on one point.
The EU countries have free college, health care, day care and just about everything else.
All paid for because they have no military spending.
It's all on the backs of the US tax payer. Or the fed, if you prefer.
Trump is working both angles. Forcing them to pay for their own defense. Forcing them to
allow US products with no trade disadvantages. Go MAGA and fuck the EU.
Dean
Baker at Beat-the-Press has pointed out (sorry, not able to link to it) that Associated Press
put out a tweet that presents an essentially hysterical story about future prospects for Social
Security following the recent release of the Trustees. This report says that as of 2026
Medicare and as of 2034 Social Security will face a "shortfall." However, the AP tweeted that
what they face is "insolvency." Needless to say, "insolvency" is much more serious than
"shortfall" and simply feeds the overblown hysteria that so many think about these programs,
feeding political pressures to mess with them.
The new report provides the latest update on what would happen if the forecast happens and
nothing is done. Given that the projection is that Social Security benefits are set to increase
by about 20% by 2034, if somehow nothing were done and benefits were set to be reduced so that
they could be paid by expected tax revenues, the benefit would be cut back by about that amount
to about what they are now in real terms. In short, this is not the hysterical crisis AP
suggested or that so many think is out there. We have seen this nonsense before.
Of course, Dean accurately points out that by law the benefits must be paid. This may also
be a time to remind everybody that the US is really in much better shape demographically in
terms of life expectancies, retirement ages, and expected population growth rates than most
other high income nations, with such cases as Japan and Germany in much worse shape than the
US. However, all these nations are making their public old age pension payments. In the case of
Germany the payments are higher than in the US, but the payments are being made, and its
economy is humming along very well. There simply is not basis for any of this hysteria in the
US regarding the future of Social Security.
"... Since the crisis, corporate debt has mushroomed 62% (from $5.3 trillion in 2007 to $8.5t). A record 37% of companies are now toting debt 5x or more their EBIDTA and 14.6% have debt service that exceeds EBIT. ..."
"... If my math is correct, that's $5.5T in debt that's going to get pretty hot to handle as the interest rate plates shift. ..."
"... To quote from Moody's again: "These companies are poised to default when credit conditions eventually become more difficult." ..."
Ahh... Moody's, ever the master of understatement! By now everyone is hopefully attuned to
the degradation of corporate balance sheets -- whether they choose to protect against it or
not. But here are the stats by way of gory recap:
Since the crisis, corporate debt has mushroomed 62% (from $5.3 trillion in 2007 to
$8.5t). A record 37% of companies are now toting debt 5x or more their EBIDTA and 14.6% have
debt service that exceeds EBIT.
Of the 500 companies that comprise the S&P, the top 25 companies hold 56% of the $1.9T
in index cash.
The top 50 companies hold 68%. And the bottom 250 companies have essentially ZERO.
The upshot of all this is that $1.5T in corporate debt is now rated 'junk', with another
$3T dangling one rung above it in the "IG".
Oh yes, and there's another $1T in levered loans with limited or no protections. If my
math is correct, that's $5.5T in debt that's going to get pretty hot to handle as the
interest rate plates shift.
To quote from Moody's again: "These companies are poised to default when credit
conditions eventually become more difficult."
U.S.
interest rates have been rising, and most likely will continue to do so. The target level of
the Federal Funds rate, currently at 1.75%, is expected to be
raised at the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee . The yield on 10-year U.S.
Treasury bonds rose above 3%, then fell as fears of Italy breaking out the Eurozone flared.
That decline is likely to be reversed while the new government enjoys a (very brief) honeymoon
period. What are the effects on foreign economies of the higher rates in the U.S.?
One channel of transmission will be through higher interest rates abroad. Several papers
from economists at the Bank for International Settlements have documented this phenomenon. For
example, Előd Takáts and Abraham
Vela of the Bank for International Settlements in a 2014 BIS Paper investigated the effect
of a rise in the Federal Funds rate on foreign policy rates in 20 emerging market countries,
and found evidence of a significant impact on the foreign rates. They did a similar analysis
for 5-year rates and found comparable results. Boris Hofmann and Takáts also
undertook an analysis of interest rate linkages with U.S. rates in 30 emerging market and small
advanced economies, and again found that the U.S. rates affected the corresponding rates in the
foreign economies. Finally, Peter Hördahl, Jhuvesh Sobrun and Philip Turner
attribute the declines in long-term rates after the global financial crisis to the fall in the
term premium in the ten-year U.S. Treasury rate.
The spillover effects of higher interest rates in the U.S., however, extend beyond higher
foreign rates. In a new paper, Matteo Iacoviello and Gaston
Navarro of the Federal Reserve Board investigate the impact of higher U.S. interest rates
on the economies of 50 advanced and emerging market economies. They report that monetary
tightening in the U.S. leads to a decline in foreign GDP, with a larger decline found in the
emerging market economies in the sample. When they investigate the channels of transmission,
they differentiate among an exchange rate channel, where the impact depends on whether or not a
country pegs to the dollar; a trade channel, based on the U.S. demand for foreign goods; and a
financial channel that reflects the linkage of U.S. rates with the prices of foreign assets and
liabilities. They find that the exchange rate and trade channels are very important for the
advanced economies, whereas the financial channel is significant for the emerging market
countries.
Robin Koepke , formerly of the Institute of International Finance and now at the IMF, has
examined the role of U.S. monetary policy tightening in precipitating financial crises in the
emerging market countries. His results indicated that there are three factors that raise the
probability of a crisis: first, the Federal Funds rate is above its natural level; second, the
rate increase takes place during a policy tightening cycle; and third, the tightening is faster
than expected by market participants. The strongest effects were found for currency crises,
followed by banking crises.
According to the trilemma
, policymakers should have options that allow them to regain monetary control. Flexible
exchange rates can act as a buffer against external shocks. But foreign policymakers may resist
the depreciation of the domestic currency that follows a rise in U.S. interest rates. The
resulting increase in import prices can trigger higher inflation, particularly if wages are
indexed. This is not a concern in the current environment. But the depreciation also raises the
domestic value of debt denominated in foreign currencies, and many firms in emerging markets
took advantage of the previous low interest rate regime to issue such debt. Now the combination
of higher refinancing costs and exchange rate depreciation is making that debt much less
attractive, and some central banks are raising their own rates to slow the deprecation (see,
for example, here
and
here and
here ).
Dani Rodrik of the
Kennedy School and Arvin Subramanian, currently Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of
India, however, have little sympathy for policymakers who complain about the actions of the
Federal Reserve. As they point out, "Many large emerging-market countries have consciously and
enthusiastically embraced financial globalization there were no domestic compulsions forcing
these countries to so ardently woo foreign capital." They go on to cite the example of China,
which " has chosen to insulate itself from foreign capital and has correspondingly been less
affected by the vagaries of Fed actions "
It may be difficult for a small economy to wall itself off from capital flows. Growing
businesses will seek new sources of finance, and domestic residents will want to diversify
their portfolios with foreign assets. The dollar has a predominant role in the global financial
system, and it would be difficult to escape the spillover effects of its policies. But those
who lend or borrow in foreign markets should realize, as one famed former student of the London
School of Economics warned, that they play with fire .
"... A lot of water muddying today - and it's being stirred from a lot of seemingly unrelated directions. Distract and confuse, great ploys - now who benefits more is the most likely source of today's leafletting. ..."
DOJ Watchdog Finds Comey "Defied Authority" And Was "Insubordinate"
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/06/2018 - 22:44 763 SHARES
The Department of Justice's internal watchdog has found that James Comey defied authority
several times while he was director of the FBI,
according to ABC , citing sources familiar with the draft of a highly anticipated OIG
report on the FBI's conduct during the Clinton email investigation .
One source told ABC News that the draft report explicitly used the word "insubordinate" to
describe Comey's behavior . Another source agreed with that characterization but could not
confirm the use of the term.
In the draft report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz also rebuked former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch for her handling of the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's
personal email server, the sources said. -
ABC
President Trump complained on Tuesday of "numerous delays" in the release of the Inspector
General's report, which some have accused of being slow
walked or altered to minimize its impact on the FBI and DOJ.
"What is taking so long with the Inspector General's Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery
James Comey," Trump said on Twitter. "Hope report is not being changed and made weaker!"
"It's been almost a year and a half and it is time that Congress receives the IG report,"
said Congressman Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has been on the front lines of the battle against
the DOJ and FBI's stonewalling of lawmakers requesting documentation. "This has gone on long
enough and the American people's patience is wearing thin. We need accountability," said
DeSantis.
Another congressional official, who's been fighting to obtain documents from the DOJ and
FBI, said it is no surprise that they are putting pressure on Horowitz. According to the
official, "They continue to slow roll documents, fail to adhere to congressional oversight
and concern is growing that they will wait until summer and then turn over documents that are
heavily redacted."
ABC reports that there is no indication Trump has seen - or will see - the draft of the
report prior to its release. Inspector General Horowitz, however, could revise the draft report
now that current and former officials have offered their responses to the report's conclusions,
according to the sources.
The draft of Horowitz's wide-ranging report specifically called out Comey for ignoring
objections from the Justice Department when he disclosed in a letter to Congress just days
before the 2016 presidential election that FBI agents had reopened the Clinton probe,
according to sources . Clinton has said that letter doomed her campaign.
Before Comey sent the letter to Congress, at least one senior Justice Department official
told the FBI that publicizing the bombshell move so close to an election would violate
longstanding department policy , and it would ignore federal guidelines prohibiting the
disclosure of information related to an ongoing investigation, ABC News was told. -
ABC
During an April interview, Comey was asked by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos "If
Attorney General Lynch had ordered you not to send the letter, would you have sent it?"
"No," replied Comey. "I believe in the chain of command."
Deputy Attorney General slammed Comey's letter to congress while recommending that Trump
fire Comey last year - saying it "was wrong" for Comey "to usurp the Attorney General's
authority" when he revealed in July 2016 that he would not be filing charges against Hillary
Clinton or her aides (many of whom were granted immunity).
"It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement," Rosenstein wrote in a
letter recommending that Comey be fired. "At most, the Director should have said the FBI had
completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."
The draft OIG report dings Comey for not consulting with Lynch and other senior DOJ
officials before making his announcement on national TV. Furthermore, while Comey said there
was no "clear evidence" that Hillary Clinton "intended to violate" the law, he also said that
Hillary Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her "handling of very sensitive, highly
classified information."
And as we now know, Comey's senior counterintelligence team at the FBI made
extensive edits to Clinton's exoneration letter, effectively decriminalizing her behavior
.
"I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice
or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say," Comey said on
live TV July 5, 2016.
By then, Lynch had taken the unusual step of publicly declaring she would accept the FBI's
recommendations in the case, after an impromptu meeting with former president Bill Clinton
sparked questions about her impartiality.
Comey has defended his decisions as director, insisting he was trying to protect the FBI
from even further criticism and "didn't see that I had a choice." -
ABC
"The honest answer is I screwed up a couple of things, but ... I think given what I knew at
the time, these were the decisions that were best calculated to preserve the values of the
institutions," Comey told ABC News. " I still think it was the right thing to do. "
Comey is currently on a tour promoting his new book, " A Higher Loyalty."
About that delay...
As many wonder just where the OIG report is after supposedly being "finished" for a while,
the Washington Examiner 's Chief political correspondent, Byron York, offers some keen insight
(tweeted before details of the draft were leaked):
• Byron York
A series of tweets on what to expect from the much-anticipated inspector general report on
DOJ/FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation... 1/
10:42 AM - Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
First, looks like it might be delayed yet again. Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a June
5 hearing to discuss IG report.
After delay, had to be rescheduled for next Monday, June 11.
Now looks like might be delayed again.
10:42 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Why delays? Feet are clearly being dragged. There are snags over classified information.
Also, and this is intriguing: appears in last several weeks IG got new information, interviewed
new witnesses. Could have contributed to delay. Don't know what it's about. 3/
10:43 AM-Jun6, 2018
Byron York
@ByronYork
Replying to @ByronYork
So, when IG report is finally released-looking like mid-June -- what will it cover? Don't
know its conclusions, but here are some subjects you can expect to be reading about: 4/
10:43 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of 6/27/16 Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton meeting on tarmac in Arizona. IG has
done extensive investigation.
What was said? What were the intentions of those involved? Expect it to be covered
carefully. 5/
10:44 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of James Comey's decision to begin drafting an exoneration memo for
Hillary Clinton long before the FBI had even interviewed her, or at least a dozen other key
figures in the case.
Also: Why hand out so much immunity? 6/
10:45 AM-Jun6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of Comey's intentions when he announced reopening of Clinton investigation
on 10/28/16, shortly before election day. Democrats specifically asked IG to investigate
that.
10:45 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of what Andrew McCabe did when he first learned about existence of Clinton
emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop in early October 2016. Did he sit on information? If so, why?
What did Comey know? 8/
10:46 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion on rationale for Comey's controversial 7/5/16 statement announcing no
charges would be filed against Clinton.
To say it was unorthodox would be an understatement. What was he doing? 9/
10:46 AM-Jun 6, 2018
• Byron York
Expect discussion of Lynch's refusal to recuse herself from investigation or to appoint
special counsel. Plus, look for discussion of why McCabe waited so long to recuse himself
even after public reporting of Clinton-related political contributions to his wife. 10/
10:47 AM-Jun6, 2018
• Byron York
Finally, don't expect to learn much new about McCabe 'lack of candor' situation re:
leaks.
Not clear whether IG will reveal much beyond what has already been released in wake of
McCabe firing. End/
10:48 AM-Jun 6, 2018
Also, and this is intriguing: appears in last several weeks IG got new information,
interviewed new witnesses. Could have contributed to delay. Don't know what it's about.
How many more new witnesses with new information will crawl out of the woodwork at the
most opportune moment to delay releasing the report. I'm guessing they interviewed McCabe's
hairdresser at Sport Clips to see which direction he combs.
If the strongest language in this report to describe Comey's actions is merely
"insubordinate" and "defied authority", then it's a big, fat, nothingburger... Not a GD thing
is going to happen, lift rug, sweep vigorously...
If the blue team leaked this, then they're trying to get ahead of damaging
information. If it's the red team, then you're right Keyser and a behind the scenes agreement has been
reached letting both teams off the hook for some unleaked transgression.
"Expect discussion of what Andrew McCabe did when he first learned about existence of
Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop in early October 2016. Did he sit on
information"
I wouldn't sit on anything related to Weiner or his LAPtop.
A lot of water muddying today - and it's being stirred from a lot of seemingly unrelated
directions. Distract and confuse, great ploys - now who benefits more is the most likely
source of today's leafletting.
Your lips to God's ears! This is ridiculous! Insubordinate? That's it? 90% of the people in DC need a good wearing out with a belt! This politically correct nonsense has to end. Call it what it is you lily-livered pansies!
It's treason and sedition. It's a den of snakes!
You want to see America bounce back as a strong and proud nation? START HANDING OUT REAL
PUNISHMENT! Otherwise, it will be the same old sleazy crap over and over again.
agree...that's why we need to stay diligent and demand the proper dissemination of the
impartial facts...
with McCabe seeking immunity...and Comey playing 'Patriot'...and Brennon being and old
lair...and Clapper portraying all previous actions were 'honorable'...we have to ask
ourselves a question...
Anything I hear/see involving Clapper and Brennan I figure is a fictitious psyop. Brian
Cox and Albert Finney already portrayed them in the Bourne films.
SEVERAL Ex FBI agents and current FBI Agents are BEGGING to be subpoenaed, WHY hasn't this
happened, THEY want this MESS OUT in the open, yet TRUMP does nothing?. I would have Congress
do it asap, under OATH and with Criminal repercussions. Horowitz is a EUNUCH.
Exactly. That's why Lockheed Martin paid him $6 million a year. Does anyone think they hired him for his abilities as an attorney when he lacked any
experience in corporate law? Then he went on to Ray Dalio's Bridgewater associates. Wonder how much they paid him
there. What experience did he have for working as an attorney for a hedge fund?
Then he leaves these extremely lucrative jobs to go back to government at $170,00 a
year.
I'd be insubordinate too if Satan's Slut Hillary was breathing hellfire down my neck.
Comey probably likes living as much as the rest of us. Now that the noose is getting tighter,
will he give up the slut???? Hopefully a few of these pukes will turn on her in unison. The
Magical Homo will be tougher to snare.
The former ever-so-sanctimonious FBI Director, classified document leaker and Clinton
water boy Jimmy Comey was "Insubordinate?" Who could have guessed? But remember, Trump fired
the asswipe in order to "obstruct justice." Jail Jimmy without delay.
While we are on the subject, this shows you the type of "friends" that Saint Mueller
keeps.
If reports are true, then IG Horowitz is fudging Coney-Lynch's real crimes; namely the
events leading up to the July whitewash of Killary which include drafting the exoneration
letter before interviewing Clinton, twisting the facts to decriminalize Clinton's offenses
and pressuring FBI agents to alter reports regarding the Clinton investigation.
If the IG brushes past these matters, whatever else he says is worthless. Just tarnishes
Comey's image a tad bit and will be forgotten.
This sounds like they are trying to decriminalize Comey's actions, not indict him. How the fuck does the headline equate
to a criminal charge? Maybe they (OIG) are trying to let this asshole off the hook? What's he going to get? A severe tongue
lashing because he was insubordinate?
"... You arrive at the Supercuts fresh from your stroll, but the nice lady who cuts your hair is looking stressed. You'll discover that she commutes an hour through jammed highways to work. The gas guy does, too, and the tile guy comes in from another state. None of them can afford to live around here. The rent is too damn high. ..."
From my Brookline home, it's a pleasant, 10-minute walk to get a haircut. Along the way, you
pass immense elm trees and brochure-ready homes beaming in their reclaimed Victorian glory.
Apart from a landscaper or two, you are unlikely to spot a human being in this wilderness of
oversize closets, wood-paneled living rooms, and Sub-Zero refrigerators.
If you do run into a
neighbor, you might have a conversation like this: "Our kitchen remodel went way over budget.
We had to fight just to get the tile guy to show up!" "I know! We ate Thai takeout for a month
because the gas guy's car kept breaking down!"
You arrive at the Supercuts fresh from your
stroll, but the nice lady who cuts your hair is looking stressed. You'll discover that she
commutes an hour through jammed highways to work. The gas guy does, too, and the tile guy comes
in from another state. None of them can afford to live around here. The rent is too damn
high.
From 1980 to 2016, home values in
Boston multiplied 7.6 times. When you take account of inflation, they generated a return of 157
percent to their owners. San Francisco returned 162 percent in real terms over the same period;
New York, 115 percent; and Los Angeles, 114 percent. If you happen to live in a neighborhood
like mine, you are surrounded by people who consider themselves to be real-estate geniuses.
(That's one reason we can afford to make so many mistakes in the home-renovation department.)
If you live in St. Louis (3 percent) or Detroit (minus 16 percent), on the other hand, you
weren't so smart. In 1980, a house in St. Louis would trade for a decent studio apartment in
Manhattan.
Today that house will buy an 80-square-foot bathroom in the Big Apple.
The returns on (the right kind of) real estate have been so extraordinary that, according to
some economists, real estate alone may account for essentially all of the increase in wealth
concentration over the past half century. It's not surprising that the values are up in the
major cities: These are the gold mines of our new economy. Yet there is a paradox. The rent is
so high that people -- notably people in the middle class -- are leaving town rather than
working the mines. From 2000 to 2009, the San Francisco Bay Area had some of the highest
salaries in the nation, and yet it lost 350,000 residents to lower-paying regions.
Across the
United States, the journalist and economist Ryan Avent writes in
The Gated City , "the best opportunities are found in one place, and for some reason
most Americans are opting to live in another."
It is well known by now that the immediate cause of the insanity is the unimaginable
pettiness of backyard politics. Local zoning regulation imposes excessive restrictions on
housing development and drives up prices. What is less well understood is how central the
process of depopulating the economic core of the nation is to the intertwined stories of rising
inequality and falling social mobility.
Real-estate inflation has brought with it a commensurate increase in economic segregation.
Every hill and dale in the land now has an imaginary gate, and it tells you up front exactly
how much money you need to stay there overnight. Educational segregation has accelerated even
more. In my suburb of Boston, 53 percent of adults have a graduate degree. In the suburb just
south, that figure is 9 percent.
This economic and educational sorting of neighborhoods is often represented as a matter of
personal preference, as in red people like to hang with red, and blue with blue. In reality,
it's about the consolidation of wealth in all its forms, starting, of course, with money.
Gilded zip codes are located next to giant cash machines: a too-big-to-fail bank, a friendly
tech monopoly, and so on. Local governments, which collected a record $523 billion in property
taxes in 2016, make sure that much of the money stays close to home.
But proximity to economic power isn't just a means of hoarding the pennies; it's a force of
natural selection. Gilded zip codes deliver higher life expectancy, more-useful social
networks, and lower crime rates. Lengthy commutes, by contrast, cause obesity, neck pain,
stress, insomnia, loneliness, and divorce, as Annie Lowrey reported in Slate . One study
found that a commute of 45 minutes or longer by one spouse
increased the chance of divorce by 40 percent .
Nowhere are the mechanics of the growing geographic divide more evident than in the system
of primary and secondary education. Public schools were born amid hopes of opportunity for all;
the best of them have now been effectively reprivatized to better serve the upper classes.
According to a widely used school-ranking service, out of more than 5,000 public elementary
schools in California, the top 11 are located in Palo Alto. They're free and open to the
public. All you have to do is move into a town where the median home value is $3,211,100.
Scarsdale, New York, looks like a steal in comparison: The public high schools in that area
funnel dozens of graduates to Ivy League colleges every year, and yet the median home value is
a mere $1,403,600.
Racial segregation has declined with the rise of economic segregation. We in the 9.9 percent
are proud of that. What better proof that we care only about merit? But we don't really want
too much proof. Beyond a certain threshold -- 5 percent minority or 20 percent, it varies
according to the mood of the region -- neighborhoods suddenly go completely black or brown. It
is disturbing, but perhaps not surprising, to find that social mobility is lower in regions
with high levels of racial segregation. The fascinating revelation in the data, however, is
that the damage isn't limited to the obvious victims. According to Raj Chetty's research
team , "There is evidence that higher racial segregation is associated with lower social
mobility for white people." The relationship doesn't hold in every zone of the country, to be
sure, and is undoubtedly the statistical reflection of a more complex set of social mechanisms.
But it points to a truth that America's 19th-century slaveholders understood very well:
Dividing by color remains an effective way to keep all colors of the 90 percent in their
place.
With localized wealth comes localized political power, and not just of the kind that shows
up in voting booths. Which brings us back to the depopulation paradox. Given the social and
cultural capital that flows through wealthy neighborhoods, is it any wonder that we can defend
our turf in the zoning wars? We have lots of ways to make that sound public-spirited. It's all
about saving the local environment, preserving the historic character of the neighborhood, and
avoiding overcrowding. In reality, it's about hoarding power and opportunity inside the walls
of our own castles. This is what aristocracies do.
Zip code is who we are. It defines our style, announces our values, establishes our status,
preserves our wealth, and allows us to pass it along to our children. It's also slowly
strangling our economy and killing our democracy. It is the brick-and-mortar version of the
Gatsby Curve. The traditional story of economic growth in America has been one of arriving,
building, inviting friends, and building some more. The story we're writing looks more like one
of slamming doors shut behind us and slowly suffocating under a mass of commercial-grade
kitchen appliances.
7. Our Blind Spot
In my family, Aunt Sarah was the true believer. According to her version of reality, the
family name was handed down straight from the ancient kings of Scotland.
Great-great-something-grandfather William Stewart, a soldier in the Continental Army, was
seated at the right hand of George Washington. And Sarah herself was somehow descended from
"Pocahontas's sister." The stories never made much sense. But that didn't stop Sarah from
believing in them. My family had to be special for a reason.
The 9.9 percent are different. We don't delude ourselves about the ancient sources of our
privilege. That's because, unlike Aunt Sarah and her imaginary princesses, we've convinced
ourselves that we don't have any privilege at all.
Consider the reception that at least some members of our tribe have offered to those who
have foolishly dared to draw attention to our advantages. Last year, when the Brookings
Institution researcher Richard V. Reeves, following up on his book Dream Hoarders ,
told
the readers of The New York Times to "Stop Pretending You're Not Rich," many of
those readers accused him of engaging in "class warfare," of writing "a meaningless article,"
and of being "rife with guilt."
In her incisive portrait of my people, Uneasy Street , the sociologist Rachel Sherman
documents the syndrome. A number among us, when reminded of our privilege, respond with a
counternarrative that generally goes like this: I was born in the street. I earned
everything all by myself. I barely get by on my $250,000 salary. You should see the other
parents at our kids' private school.
In part what we have here is a listening problem. Americans have trouble telling the
difference between a social critique and a personal insult. Thus, a writer points to a broad
social problem with complex origins, and the reader responds with, "What, you want to punish me
for my success?"
In part, too, we're seeing some garden-variety self-centeredness, enabled by the usual
cognitive lapses. Human beings are very good at keeping track of their own struggles; they are
less likely to know that individuals on the other side of town are working two minimum-wage
jobs to stay afloat, not watching Simpsons reruns all day. Human beings have a simple
explanation for their victories: I did it . They easily forget the people who handed
them the crayon and set them up for success. Human beings of the 9.9 percent variety also
routinely conflate the stress of status competition with the stress of survival. No, failing to
get your kid into Stanford is not a life-altering calamity.
The recency of it all may likewise play a role in our failure to recognize our growing
privileges. It has taken less than one lifetime for the (never fully formed) meritocracy to
evolve into a (fledgling) aristocracy. Class accretes faster than we think. It's our awareness
that lags, trapping us within the assumptions into which we were born.
And yet, even allowing for these all-too-human failures of cognition, the cries of anguish
that echo across the soccer fields at the mere suggestion of unearned privilege are too
persistent to ignore. Fact-challenged though they may be, they speak to a certain, deeper truth
about life in the 9.9 percent. What they are really telling us is that being an aristocrat is
not quite what it is cracked up to be.
A strange truth about the Gatsby Curve is that even as it locks in our privileges, it
doesn't seem to make things all that much easier. I know it wasn't all that easy growing up in
the Colonel's household, for example. The story that Grandfather repeated more than any other
was the one where, following some teenage misdemeanor of his, his father, the 250-pound,
6-foot-something onetime Rough Rider, smacked him so hard that he sailed clear across the room
and landed flat on the floor. Everything -- anything -- seemed to make the Colonel angry.
Jay Gatsby might have understood. Life in West Egg is never as serene as it seems. The
Princeton man -- that idle prince of leisure who coasts from prep school to a life of ease --
is an invention of our lowborn ancestors. It's what they thought they saw when they were
looking up. West Eggers understand very well that a bad move or an unlucky break (or three or
four) can lead to a steep descent. We know just how expensive it is to live there, yet living
off the island is unthinkable. We have intuited one of the fundamental paradoxes of life on the
Gatsby Curve: The greater the inequality, the less your money buys.
We feel in our bones that class works only for itself; that every individual is dispensable;
that some of us will be discarded and replaced with fresh blood. This insecurity of privilege
only grows as the chasm beneath the privileged class expands. It is the restless engine that
drives us to invest still more time and energy in the walls that will keep us safe by keeping
others out.
Perhaps the best evidence for the power of an aristocracy is the degree of
resentment it provokes. By that measure, the 9.9 percent are doing pretty well indeed.
Here's another fact of life in West Egg: Someone is always above you. In Gatsby's case, it
was the old-money people of East Egg. In the Colonel's case, it was John D. Rockefeller Jr.
You're always trying to please them, and they're always ready to pull the plug.
The source of the trouble, considered more deeply, is that we have traded rights for
privileges. We're willing to strip everyone, including ourselves, of the universal right to a
good education, adequate health care, adequate representation in the workplace, genuinely equal
opportunities, because we think we can win the game. But who, really, in the end, is going to
win this slippery game of escalating privileges?
Under the circumstances, delusions are understandable. But that doesn't make them salutary,
as Aunt Sarah discovered too late. Even as the last few pennies of the Colonel's buck trickled
down to my father's generation, she still had the big visions that corresponded to her version
of the family mythology. Convinced that she had inherited a head for business, she bet her
penny on the dot-com bubble. In her final working years, she donned a red-and-black uniform and
served burgers at a Wendy's in the vicinity of Jacksonville, Florida.
"... At this point, I'm wondering whether life was easier in the old days, when you could buy a spot in the elite university of your choice with cold cash. Then I remind myself that Grandfather lasted only one year at Yale. In those days, the Ivies kicked you out if you weren't ready for action. Today, you have to self-combust in a newsworthy way before they show you the door. ..."
"... Excellent Sheep ..."
"... The Price of Admission ..."
"... In the United States, the premium that college graduates earn over their non-college-educated peers in young adulthood exceeds 70 percent. ..."
"... All of this comes before considering the all-consuming difference between "good" schools and the rest. Ten years after starting college, according to data from the Department of Education, the top decile of earners from all schools had a median salary of $68,000 . But the top decile from the 10 highest-earning colleges raked in $220,000 -- make that $250,000 for No. 1, Harvard -- and the top decile at the next 30 colleges took home $157,000. (Not surprisingly, the top 10 had an average acceptance rate of 9 percent, and the next 30 were at 19 percent.) ..."
"... But the fact is that degree holders earn so much more than the rest not primarily because they are better at their job, but because they mostly take different categories of jobs. Well over half of Ivy League graduates, for instance, typically go straight into one of four career tracks that are generally reserved for the well educated: finance, management consulting, medicine, or law. To keep it simple, let's just say that there are two types of occupations in the world: those whose members have collective influence in setting their own pay, and those whose members must face the music on their own. It's better to be a member of the first group. Not surprisingly, that is where you will find the college crowd. ..."
"... The candy-hurling godfather of today's meritocratic class, of course, is the financial-services industry. Americans now turn over $1 of every $12 in GDP to the financial sector; in the 1950s, the bankers were content to keep only $1 out of $40. ..."
"... It isn't a coincidence that the education premium surged during the same years that membership in trade unions collapsed. In 1954, 28 percent of all workers were members of trade unions, but by 2017 that figure was down to 11 percent. ..."
"... Education -- the thing itself , not the degree -- is always good. A genuine education opens minds and makes good citizens. It ought to be pursued for the sake of society . In our unbalanced system, however, education has been reduced to a private good, justifiable only by the increments in graduates' paychecks. Instead of uniting and enriching us, it divides and impoverishes. ..."
"... If the system can be gamed, well then, our ability to game the system has become the new test of merit. ..."
My 16-year-old daughter is sitting on a couch, talking with a stranger about her dreams for
the future. We're here, ominously enough, because, she says, "all my friends are doing it." For
a moment, I wonder whether we have unintentionally signed up for some kind of therapy. The
professional woman in the smart-casual suit throws me a pointed glance and says, "It's normal
to be anxious at a time like this." She really does see herself as a therapist of sorts. But
she does not yet seem to know that the source of my anxiety is the idea of shelling out for a
$12,000 "base package" of college-counseling services whose chief purpose is apparently to
reduce my anxiety. Determined to get something out of this trial counseling session, I push for
recommendations on summer activities. We leave with a tip on a 10-day "cultural tour" of France
for high schoolers. In the college-application business, that's what's known as an "enrichment
experience." When we get home, I look it up. The price of enrichment: $11,000 for the 10
days.
That's when I hear the legend of the SAT whisperer. If you happen to ride through the
yellow-brown valleys of the California coast, past the designer homes that sprout wherever tech
unicorns sprinkle their golden stock offerings, you might come across him. His high-school
classmates still remember him, almost four decades later, as one of the child wonders of the
age. Back then, he and his equally precocious siblings showed off their preternatural verbal
and musical talents on a local television program. Now his clients fly him around the state for
test-prep sessions with their 16-year-olds. You can hire him for $750, plus transportation, per
two-hour weekend session. (There is a weekday discount.) Some of his clients book him every
week for a year.
Affirmative-action programs are to some degree an extension of the system
of wealth preservation. They indulge rich people in the belief that their college is open to
all.
At this point, I'm wondering whether life was easier in the old days, when you could buy
a spot in the elite university of your choice with cold cash. Then I remind myself that
Grandfather lasted only one year at Yale. In those days, the Ivies kicked you out if you
weren't ready for action. Today, you have to self-combust in a newsworthy way before they show
you the door.
Inevitably, I begin rehearsing the speech for my daughter. It's perfectly possible to lead a
meaningful life without passing through a name-brand college, I'm going to say. We love you for
who you are. We're not like those tacky strivers who want a back-windshield sticker to testify
to our superior parenting skills. And why would you want to be an investment banker or a
corporate lawyer anyway? But I refrain from giving the speech, knowing full well that it will
light up her parental-bullshit detector like a pair of khakis on fire.
The skin colors of the nation's elite student bodies are more varied now, as are their
genders, but their financial bones have calcified over the past 30 years. In 1985, 54 percent
of students at the 250 most selective colleges came from families in the bottom three quartiles
of the income distribution. A similar review of the class of 2010 put that figure at just 33
percent. According to a 2017 study, 38 elite colleges -- among them five of the Ivies --
had more students from the top 1 percent than from the bottom 60 percent . In his 2014
book, Excellent Sheep , William Deresiewicz, a former English professor at Yale,
summed up the situation nicely: "Our new multiracial, gender-neutral meritocracy has figured
out a way to make itself hereditary."
The wealthy can also draw on a variety of affirmative-action programs designed just for
them. As Daniel Golden points out in The Price of Admission , legacy-admissions
policies reward those applicants with the foresight to choose parents who attended the
university in question. Athletic recruiting, on balance and contrary to the popular wisdom,
also favors the wealthy, whose children pursue lacrosse, squash, fencing, and the other
cost-intensive sports at which private schools and elite public schools excel. And, at least
among members of the 0.1 percent, the old-school method of simply handing over some of Daddy's
cash has been making a comeback. (
Witness Jared Kushner, Harvard graduate .)
The mother lode of all affirmative-action programs for the wealthy, of course, remains the
private school. Only 2.2 percent of the nation's students graduate from nonsectarian private
high schools, and yet these graduates account for 26 percent of students at Harvard and 28
percent of students at Princeton. The other affirmative-action programs, the kind aimed
at diversifying the look of the student body, are no doubt well intended. But they are to some
degree merely an extension of this system of wealth preservation. Their function, at least in
part, is to indulge rich people in the belief that their college is open to all on the basis of
merit.
The plummeting admission rates of the very top schools nonetheless leave many of the
children of the 9.9 percent facing long odds. But not to worry, junior 9.9 percenters! We've
created a new range of elite colleges just for you. Thanks to ambitious university
administrators and the ever-expanding rankings machine at U.S. News & World Report ,
50 colleges are now as selective as Princeton was in 1980, when I applied. The colleges seem to
think that piling up rejections makes them special. In fact, it just means that they have
collectively opted to deploy their massive, tax-subsidized endowments to replicate privilege
rather than fulfill their duty to produce an educated public.
The only thing going up as fast as the rejection rates at selective colleges is the
astounding price of tuition. Measured relative to the national median salary, tuition and fees
at top colleges more than tripled from 1963 to 2013. Throw in the counselors, the whisperers,
the violin lessons, the private schools, and the cost of arranging for Junior to save a village
in Micronesia, and it adds up. To be fair, financial aid closes the gap for many families and
keeps the average cost of college from growing as fast as the sticker price. But that still
leaves a question: Why are the wealthy so keen to buy their way in?
The short answer, of course, is that it's worth it.
In the United States, the premium that college graduates earn over their
non-college-educated peers in young adulthood exceeds 70 percent. The return on education is 50
percent higher than what it was in 1950, and is significantly higher than the rate in every
other developed country. In Norway and Denmark, the college premium is less than 20 percent; in
Japan, it is less than 30 percent; in France and Germany, it's about 40 percent.
All of this comes before considering the all-consuming difference between "good" schools and
the rest. Ten years after starting college, according to data from the Department of Education,
the top decile of earners from all schools had a median salary of $68,000 . But the top decile from
the 10 highest-earning colleges raked in $220,000 -- make that $250,000 for No. 1, Harvard --
and the top decile at the next 30 colleges took home $157,000. (Not surprisingly, the top 10
had an average acceptance rate of 9 percent, and the next 30 were at 19 percent.)
It is entirely possible to get a good education at the many schools that don't count as
"good" in our brand-obsessed system. But the "bad" ones really are bad for you. For those who
made the mistake of being born to the wrong parents, our society offers a kind of virtual
education system. It has places that look like colleges -- but aren't really. It has debt --
and that, unfortunately, is real. The people who enter into this class hologram do not collect
a college premium; they wind up in something more like indentured servitude.
So what is the real source of this premium for a "good education" that we all seem to
crave?
One of the stories we tell ourselves is that the premium is the reward for the knowledge and
skills the education provides us. Another, usually unfurled after a round of drinks, is that
the premium is a reward for the superior cranial endowments we possessed before setting foot on
campus. We are, as some sociologists have delicately put it, a "cognitive elite."
Behind both of these stories lies one of the founding myths of our meritocracy. One way or
the other, we tell ourselves, the rising education premium is a direct function of the rising
value of meritorious people in a modern economy. That is, not only do the meritorious get
ahead, but the rewards we receive are in direct proportion to our merit.
But the fact is that degree holders earn so much more than the rest not primarily because
they are better at their job, but because they mostly take different categories of jobs. Well
over half of Ivy League graduates, for instance, typically go straight into one of four career
tracks that are generally reserved for the well educated: finance, management consulting,
medicine, or law. To keep it simple, let's just say that there are two types of occupations in
the world: those whose members have collective influence in setting their own pay, and those
whose members must face the music on their own. It's better to be a member of the first group.
Not surprisingly, that is where you will find the college crowd.
why do America's doctors make twice as much as those of other wealthy countries? Given that
the United States has placed dead last five times running in the Commonwealth Fund's ranking of
health-care systems in high-income countries, it's hard to argue that they are twice as gifted
at saving lives. Dean Baker, a senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, has
a more plausible suggestion : "When economists like me look at medicine in America --
whether we lean left or right politically -- we see something that looks an awful lot like a
cartel." Through their influence on the number of slots at medical schools, the availability of
residencies, the licensing of foreign-trained doctors, and the role of nurse practitioners,
physicians' organizations can effectively limit the competition their own members face -- and
that is exactly what they do.
Lawyers (or at least a certain elite subset of them) have apparently learned to play the
same game. Even after the collapse of the so-called law-school bubble, America's lawyers are
No. 1 in international salary rankings and earn more than twice as much, on average, as their
wig-toting British colleagues. The University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson, writing
for Forbes in 2016,
offered a blunt assessment : "The American Bar Association operates a state-approved
cartel."
Similar occupational licensing schemes provide shelter for the meritorious in a variety of
other sectors. The policy researchers Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles detail the mechanisms in
The Captured
Economy . Dentists' offices, for example, have a glass ceiling that limits what dental
hygienists can do without supervision, keeping their bosses in the 9.9 percent. Copyright and
patent laws prop up profits and salaries in the education-heavy pharmaceutical, software, and
entertainment sectors. These arrangements are trifles, however, compared with what's on offer
in tech and finance, two of the most powerful sectors of the economy.
By now we're thankfully done with the tech-sector fairy tales in which whip-smart cowboys
innovate the heck out of a stodgy status quo. The reality is that five monster companies -- you
know the names -- are worth about $3.5 trillion combined, and represent more than 40 percent of
the market capital on the nasdaq stock exchange. Much of the rest of the technology sector
consists of virtual entities waiting patiently to feed themselves to these beasts.
Let's face it: This is Monopoly money with a smiley emoji. Our society figured out some time
ago how to deal with companies that attempt to corner the market on viscous substances like
oil. We don't yet know what to do with the monopolies that arise out of networks and scale
effects in the information marketplace. Until we do, the excess profits will stick to those who
manage to get closest to the information honeypot. You can be sure that these people will have
a great deal of merit.
The candy-hurling godfather of today's meritocratic class, of course, is the
financial-services industry. Americans now turn over $1 of every $12 in GDP to the financial
sector; in the 1950s, the bankers were content to keep only $1 out of $40. The game is more
sophisticated than a two-fisted money grab, but its essence was made obvious during the 2008
financial crisis. The public underwrites the risks; the financial gurus take a seat at the
casino; and it's heads they win, tails we lose. The financial system we now have is not a
product of nature. It has been engineered, over decades, by powerful bankers, for their own
benefit and for that of their posterity.
Who is not in on the game? Auto workers, for example. Caregivers. Retail workers. Furniture
makers. Food workers. The wages of American manufacturing and service workers consistently
hover in the middle of international rankings. The exceptionalism of American compensation
rates comes to an end in the kinds of work that do not require a college degree.
You see, when educated people with excellent credentials band together to advance their
collective interest, it's all part of serving the public good by ensuring a high quality of
service, establishing fair working conditions, and giving merit its due. That's why we do it
through "associations," and with the assistance of fellow professionals wearing white shoes.
When working-class people do it -- through unions -- it's a violation of the sacred principles
of the free market. It's thuggish and anti-modern. Imagine if workers hired consultants and
"compensation committees," consisting of their peers at other companies, to recommend how much
they should be paid. The result would be -- well, we know what it would be, because that's what
CEOs do.
It isn't a coincidence that the education premium surged during the same years that
membership in trade unions collapsed. In 1954, 28 percent of all workers were members of trade
unions, but by 2017 that figure was down to 11 percent.
Education -- the thing itself , not the degree -- is always good. A genuine education opens
minds and makes good citizens. It ought to be pursued for the sake of society . In our
unbalanced system, however, education has been reduced to a private good, justifiable only by
the increments in graduates' paychecks. Instead of uniting and enriching us, it divides and
impoverishes. Which is really just a way of saying that our worthy ideals of educational
opportunity are ultimately no match for the tidal force of the Gatsby Curve. The metric that
has tracked the rising college premium with the greatest precision is -- that's right --
intergenerational earnings elasticity, or IGE. Across countries, the same correlation obtains:
the higher the college premium, the lower the social mobility.
As I'm angling all the angles for my daughter's college applications -- the counselor is
out, and the SAT whisperer was never going to happen -- I realize why this delusion of merit is
so hard to shake. If I -- I mean, she -- can pull this off, well, there's the proof that we
deserve it! If the system can be gamed, well then, our ability to game the system has become the new test of merit.
So go ahead and replace the SATs with shuffleboard on the high seas, or whatever you want.
Who can doubt that we'd master that game, too? How quickly would we convince ourselves of our
absolute entitlement to the riches that flow directly and tangibly from our shuffling talent?
How soon before we perfected the art of raising shuffleboard wizards? Would any of us notice or
care which way the ship was heading?
Let's suppose that some of us do look up. We see the iceberg. Will that induce us to
diminish our exertions in supreme child-rearing? The grim truth is that, as long as good
parenting and good citizenship are in conflict, we're just going to pack a few more violins for
the trip.
For months, Colonel Robert W. Stewart dodged the subpoenas. He was in Mexico or South
America, undertaking business negotiations so sensitive that revealing his precise location
would jeopardize the national interest, or so said his lawyer. Senator Thomas J. Walsh of
Montana at last dragged the lawyer to the stand and presented him with clippings from the
gossip columns of the Havana newspapers, complete with incriminating photographs. The Colonel,
always known to appreciate a good horse, was apparently quite the fixture at the Jockey Club.
His smile had also flashed for the cameras at an impressive round of luncheons and dinners, and
an evening ball at the Havana Yacht Club.
When the senators finally roped the Colonel in for questioning about those shell-company
bonds that had spread like bedbugs through the political ecosystem, he let them know just who
was in charge. "I do not think that the line of interrogation by this committee is within the
jurisdiction of the committee under the laws of the United States," he declared. Even so, he
added, as if proffering a favor, he did not "personally receive any of these bonds." Which was
not, on any ordinary construction of the English language, true.
The twilight of the fabled Stewart dynasty was not glorious. A fancy lawyer got the Colonel
"aquibbled" from charges of contempt, as one journalist sneered, but Rockefeller Jr. wasn't
ready to forgive him the public-relations fiasco. After an epic but futile battle for the
hearts of shareholders, the Colonel hung up his spurs and retreated for life to the family
compound in Nantucket.
None of which changed the reality that the Teapot Dome scandal, with its bribes and
kickbacks and sweetheart deals for rich oilmen, made plain. Under the immense pressure of the
Gatsby Curve, American democracy was on the ropes. The people in charge were the people with
the money. Ultimately, what the moneymen of the 1920s wanted is what moneymen always want. And
their servants delivered. The Calvin Coolidge administration passed a huge tax cut in 1926,
making sure that everyone could go home with his winnings. The rich seemed to think they had
nothing else to worry about -- until October 1929.
Where were the 90 percent during these acts of plunder? An appreciable number of them could
be found at Ku Klux Klan rallies. And as far as the most vocal (though not necessarily the
largest) part of the 90 percent was concerned, America's biggest problems were all due to the
mooching hordes of immigrants. You know, the immigrants whose grandchildren have come to
believe that America's biggest problems now are all due to the mooching hordes of
immigrants.
The toxic wave of wealth concentration that arose in the Gilded Age and crested in the 1920s
finally crashed on the shoals of depression and war. Today we like to think that the
social-welfare programs that were planted by the New Deal and that blossomed in the postwar era
were the principal drivers of a new equality. But the truth is that those efforts belong more
to the category of effects than causes. Death and destruction were the real agents of change.
The financial collapse knocked the wealthy back several steps, and war empowered labor -- above
all working women.
That gilded, roaring surge of destruction was by no means the first such destabilizing wave
of inequality to sweep through American history. In the first half of the 19th century, the
largest single industry in the United States, measured in terms of both market capital and
employment, was the enslavement (and the breeding for enslavement) of human beings. Over the
course of the period, the industry became concentrated to the point where fewer than 4,000
families (roughly 0.1 percent of the households in the nation) owned about a quarter of this
"human capital," and another 390,000 (call it the 9.9 percent, give or take a few points) owned
all of the rest.
The slaveholding elite were vastly more educated, healthier, and had much better table
manners than the overwhelming majority of their fellow white people, never mind the people they
enslaved. They dominated not only the government of the nation, but also its media, culture,
and religion. Their votaries in the pulpits and the news networks were so successful in
demonstrating the sanctity and beneficence of the slave system that millions of impoverished
white people with no enslaved people to call their own conceived of it as an honor to lay down
their life in the system's defense.
That wave ended with 620,000 military deaths, and a lot of property damage. It did level the
playing field in the American South for a time -- though the process began to reverse itself
all too swiftly.
The United States, to be clear, is hardly the most egregious offender in the annals of human
inequality. The European nations from which the colonists of North America emigrated had known
a degree of inequality and instability that Americans would take more than a century to
replicate. Whether in ancient Rome or the Near East, Asia or South America, the plot remains
the same. In The Great Leveler , the historian Walter Scheidel makes a disturbingly good
case that inequality has reliably ended only in catastrophic violence: wars, revolutions, the
collapse of states, or plagues and other disasters. It's a depressing theory. Now that a third
wave of American inequality appears to be cresting, how much do we want to bet that it's not
true?
The belief in our own novelty is one of the defining characteristics of our class. It mostly
means that we don't know our predecessors very well. I had long assumed that the Colonel was
descended from a long line of colonels, each passing down his immense sense of entitlement to
the next. Aunt Sarah's propaganda was more effective than I knew.
Robert W. Stewart was born in 1866 on a small farm in Iowa and raised on the early mornings
and long hours of what Paul Henry Giddens, a historian of Standard Oil of Indiana, politely
describes as "very modest circumstances." The neighbors, seeing that the rough-cut teenager had
something special, pitched in to send him to tiny Coe College, in the meatpacking town of Cedar
Rapids. It would be hard not to believe that the urgent need to win at everything was already
driving the train when the scholarship boy arrived at Yale Law School a few years later. The
flashbulbs at the Havana Yacht Club captured a pose that was perhaps first glimpsed in a
scratchy mirror somewhere in the silent plains of the Midwest.
We currently exist in a land of financial contradictions. US household incomes adjusting for
inflation are back to levels last seen in the late 1980s. However, holiday spending is going
strongly largely by people going
into big debt . Many are going to be paying for the holiday season of 2013 deep into years
to come. More troubling than spending via debt is the record level of wealth inequality in the
United States.
We would need to go back to the Gilded Age to find similar levels of wealth inequality.
The latest data shows that roughly 75 percent of the financial wealth in America is held in
the hands of the top 10 percent of households. Or to invert this, 25 percent of all US wealth
is divided up amongst the bottom 90 percent of the population.
Wealth is the true measure of financial stability. It used to be the case that housing was
the one safe store of wealth for Americans but Wall Street has hijacked this asset class and
has converted it to another commodity to speculate on. Yet by looking at spending habits and
financial behavior many Americans think they are simply
temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
They act against their own interests while wealth inequality rages on.
Images were deleted. Refer to the original link for full text.
Notable quotes:
"... According to Miles Corak, an economics professor at the City University of New York, half a century ago IGE in America was less than 0.3 . Today, it is about 0.5. In America, the game is half over once you've selected your parents. IGE is now higher here than in almost every other developed economy. On this measure of economic mobility, the United States is more like Chile or Argentina than Japan or Germany. ..."
"... Social Register ..."
"... Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and liver disease are all two to three times more common in individuals who have a family income of less than $35,000 than in those who have a family income greater than $100,000. Among low-educated, middle-aged whites, the death rate in the United States -- alone in the developed world -- increased in the first decade and a half of the 21st century. Driving the trend is the rapid growth in what the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton call "deaths of despair" -- suicides and alcohol- and drug-related deaths. ..."
"... Why can't they get their act together? ..."
"... This article appears in the June 2018 print edition with the headline "The Birth of a New American Aristocracy." ..."
At the end of each week, we would return to our place. My reality was the aggressively middle-class world of 1960s and '70s U.S.
military bases and the communities around them. Life was good there, too, but the pizza came from a box, and it was Lucky Charms
for breakfast. Our glory peaked on the day my parents came home with a new Volkswagen camper bus. As I got older, the holiday
pomp of patriotic luncheons and bridge-playing rituals came to seem faintly ridiculous and even offensive, like an endless birthday
party for people whose chief accomplishment in life was just showing up. I belonged to a new generation that believed in getting
ahead through merit, and we defined merit in a straightforward way: test scores, grades, competitive résumé-stuffing, supremacy in
board games and pickup basketball, and, of course, working for our keep. For me that meant taking on chores for the neighbors, punching
the clock at a local fast-food restaurant, and collecting scholarships to get through college and graduate school. I came into many
advantages by birth, but money was not among them.
The meritocratic class has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other
people's children.
I've joined a new aristocracy now, even if we still call ourselves meritocratic winners. If you are a typical reader of The
Atlantic , you may well be a member too. (And if you're not a member, my hope is that you will find the story of this new class
even more interesting -- if also more alarming.) To be sure, there is a lot to admire about my new group, which I'll call -- for
reasons you'll soon see -- the 9.9 percent. We've dropped the old dress codes, put our faith in facts, and are (somewhat) more varied
in skin tone and ethnicity. People like me, who have waning memories of life in an earlier ruling caste, are the exception, not the
rule.
By any sociological or financial measure, it's good to be us. It's even better to be our kids. In our health, family life, friendship
networks, and level of education, not to mention money, we are crushing the competition below. But we do have a blind spot, and it
is located right in the center of the mirror: We seem to be the last to notice just how rapidly we've morphed, or what we've morphed
into.
The meritocratic class has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other
people's children. We are not innocent bystanders to the growing concentration of wealth in our time. We are the principal accomplices
in a process that is slowly strangling the economy, destabilizing American politics, and eroding democracy. Our delusions of merit
now prevent us from recognizing the nature of the problem that our emergence as a class represents. We tend to think that the victims
of our success are just the people excluded from the club. But history shows quite clearly that, in the kind of game we're playing,
everybody loses badly in the end.
2.
The Discreet Charm of the 9.9 Percent
Let's talk first about money -- even if money is only one part of what makes the new aristocrats special. There is a familiar
story about rising inequality in the United States, and its stock characters are well known. The villains are the fossil-fueled plutocrat,
the Wall Street fat cat, the callow tech bro, and the rest of the so-called top 1 percent. The good guys are the 99 percent, otherwise
known as "the people" or "the middle class." The arc of the narrative is simple: Once we were equal, but now we are divided. The
story has a grain of truth to it. But it gets the characters and the plot wrong in basic ways.
It is in fact the top 0.1 percent who have been the big winners in the growing concentration of wealth over the past half century.
According to the UC Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman,
the 160,000 or so households in that group held 22
percent of America's wealth in 2012 , up from 10 percent in 1963. If you're looking for the kind of money that can buy elections,
you'll find it inside the top 0.1 percent alone.
A Tale of Three Classes ( Figure 1 ):
The 9.9 percent hold most of the wealth in the United States.
Saez / Zucman
Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in
the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group
held 35 percent of the nation's wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points -- exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1
percent rose.
In between the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent is a group that has been doing just fine. It has held on to its share
of a growing pie decade after decade. And as a group, it owns substantially more wealth than do the other two combined. In the tale
of three classes (see Figure 1), it is represented by the gold line floating high and steady while the other two duke it out. You'll
find the new aristocracy there. We are the 9.9 percent.
So what kind of characters are we, the 9.9 percent? We are mostly not like those flamboyant political manipulators from the 0.1
percent. We're a well-behaved, flannel-suited crowd of lawyers, doctors, dentists, mid-level investment bankers, M.B.A.s with opaque
job titles, and assorted other professionals -- the kind of people you might invite to dinner. In fact, we're so self-effacing, we
deny our own existence. We keep insisting that we're "middle class."
As of 2016, it took $1.2 million in net worth to make it into the 9.9 percent; $2.4 million to reach the group's median; and $10
million to get into the top 0.9 percent. (And if you're not there yet, relax: Our club is open to people who are on the right track
and have the right attitude.) "We are the 99 percent" sounds righteous, but it's a slogan, not an analysis. The families at our end
of the spectrum wouldn't know what to do with a pitchfork.
We are also mostly, but not entirely, white. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, African Americans represent 1.9 percent
of the top 10th of households in wealth; Hispanics, 2.4 percent; and all other minorities, including Asian and multiracial individuals,
8.8 percent -- even though those groups together account for 35 percent of the total population.
One of the hazards of life in the 9.9 percent is that our necks get stuck in the upward position. We gaze upon the 0.1 percent
with a mixture of awe, envy, and eagerness to obey. As a consequence, we are missing the other big story of our time. We have left
the 90 percent in the dust -- and we've been quietly tossing down roadblocks behind us to make sure that they never catch up.
Let's suppose that you start off right in the middle of the American wealth distribution. How high would you have to jump to make
it into the 9.9 percent? In financial terms, the measurement is easy and the trend is unmistakable. In 1963, you would have needed
to multiply your wealth six times. By 2016, you would have needed to leap twice as high -- increasing your wealth 12-fold -- to scrape
into our group. If you boldly aspired to reach the middle of our group rather than its lower edge,
you'd have needed to multiply your wealth by a
factor of 25 . On this measure, the 2010s look much like the 1920s.
If you are starting at the median for people of color, you'll want to practice your financial pole-vaulting.
The Institute for Policy Studies calculated
that, setting aside money invested in "durable goods" such as furniture and a family car, the median black family had net wealth
of $1,700 in 2013, and the median Latino family had $2,000, compared with $116,800 for the median white family. A 2015 study in Boston
found that the wealth of the median white family there was $247,500, while the wealth of the median African American family was $8.
That is not a typo. That's two grande cappuccinos. That and another 300,000 cups of coffee will get you into the 9.9 percent.
N one of this matters, you will often hear, because in the United States everyone has an opportunity to make the leap: Mobility
justifies inequality. As a matter of principle, this isn't true. In the United States, it also turns out not to be true as a factual
matter. Contrary to popular myth, economic mobility in the land of opportunity is not high, and it's going down.
Imagine yourself on the socioeconomic ladder with one end of a rubber band around your ankle and the other around your parents'
rung. The strength of the rubber determines how hard it is for you to escape the rung on which you were born. If your parents are
high on the ladder, the band will pull you up should you fall; if they are low, it will drag you down when you start to rise. Economists
represent this concept with a number they call "intergenerational earnings elasticity," or IGE, which measures how much of a child's
deviation from average income can be accounted for by the parents' income. An IGE of zero means that there's no relationship at all
between parents' income and that of their offspring. An IGE of one says that the destiny of a child is to end up right where she
came into the world.
According to Miles Corak, an economics professor at the City University of New York,
half a century ago IGE in America was less than 0.3 . Today, it is about 0.5. In America, the game is half over once you've selected
your parents. IGE is now higher here than in almost every other developed economy. On this measure of economic mobility, the United
States is more like Chile or Argentina than Japan or Germany.
The story becomes even more disconcerting when you see just where on the ladder the tightest rubber bands are located. Canada,
for example, has an IGE of about half that of the U.S. Yet from the middle rungs of the two countries' income ladders, offspring
move up or down through the nearby deciles at the same respectable pace. The difference is in what happens at the extremes. In the
United States, it's the children of the bottom decile and, above all, the top decile -- the 9.9 percent -- who settle down nearest
to their starting point. Here in the land of opportunity, the taller the tree, the closer the apple falls.
All of this analysis of wealth percentiles, to be clear, provides only a rough start in understanding America's evolving class
system. People move in and out of wealth categories all the time without necessarily changing social class, and they may belong to
a different class in their own eyes than they do in others'. Yet even if the trends in the monetary statistics are imperfect illustrations
of a deeper process, they are nonetheless registering something of the extraordinary transformation that's taking place in our society.
A few years ago, Alan Krueger, an economist and a former chairman of the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers,
was reviewing
the international mobility data when he
caught a glimpse of the fundamental
process underlying our present moment . Rising immobility and rising inequality aren't like two pieces of driftwood that happen
to have shown up on the beach at the same time, he noted. They wash up together on every shore. Across countries, the higher the
inequality, the higher the IGE (see Figure 2). It's as if human societies have a natural tendency to separate, and then, once the
classes are far enough apart, to crystallize.
The Great Gatsby Curve ( Figure 2 ): Inequality and class immobility go together.
Miles Corak
Economists are prudent creatures, and they'll look up from a graph like that and remind you that it shows only correlation, not
causation. That's a convenient hedge for those of us at the top because it keeps alive one of the founding myths of America's meritocracy:
that our success has nothing to do with other people's failure. It's a pleasant idea. But around the world and throughout
history, the wealthy have advanced the crystallization process in a straightforward way. They have taken their money out of productive
activities and put it into walls. Throughout history, moreover, one social group above all others has assumed responsibility for
maintaining and defending these walls. Its members used to be called aristocrats. Now we're the 9.9 percent. The main difference
is that we have figured out how to use the pretense of being part of the middle as one of our strategies for remaining on top.
Krueger liked the graph shown in Figure 2 so much that he decided to give it a name: the Great Gatsby Curve. It's a good choice,
and it resonates strongly with me. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel about the breakdown of the American dream is set in 1922, or right
around the time that my great-grandfather was secretly siphoning money from Standard Oil and putting it into a shell company in Canada.
It was published in 1925, just as special counsel was turning up evidence that bonds from that company had found their way into the
hands of the secretary of the interior. Its author was drinking his way through the cafés of Paris just as Colonel Robert W. Stewart
was running away from subpoenas to testify before the United States Senate about his role in the Teapot Dome scandal. We are only
now closing in on the peak of inequality that his generation achieved, in 1928. I'm sure they thought it would go on forever, too.
3.
The Origin of a Species
Money can't buy you class, or so my grandmother used to say. But it can buy a private detective. Grandmother was a Kentucky debutante
and sometime fashion model (kind of like Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby , weirdly enough), so she knew what to do when
her eldest son announced his intention to marry a woman from Spain. A gumshoe promptly reported back that the prospective bride's
family made a living selling newspapers on the streets of Barcelona. Grandmother instituted an immediate and total communications
embargo. In fact, my mother's family owned and operated a large paper-goods factory. When children came, Grandmother at last relented.
Determined to do the right thing, she arranged for the new family, then on military assignment in Hawaii, to be inscribed in the
New York Social Register .
Sociologists would say, in their dry language, that my grandmother was a zealous manager of the family's social capital -- and
she wasn't about to let some Spanish street urchin run away with it. She did have a point, even if her facts were wrong. Money may
be the measure of wealth, but it is far from the only form of it. Family, friends, social networks, personal health, culture, education,
and even location are all ways of being rich, too. These nonfinancial forms of wealth, as it turns out, aren't simply perks of membership
in our aristocracy. They define us.
We are the people of good family, good health, good schools, good neighborhoods, and good jobs. We may want to call ourselves
the "5Gs" rather than the 9.9 percent. We are so far from the not-so-good people on all of these dimensions, we are beginning to
resemble a new species. And, just as in Grandmother's day, the process of speciation begins with a love story -- or, if you prefer,
sexual selection.
The polite term for the process is assortative mating . The phrase is sometimes used to suggest that this is another of
the wonders of the internet age, where popcorn at last meets butter and Yankees fan finds Yankees fan. In fact, the frenzy of assortative
mating today results from a truth that would have been generally acknowledged by the heroines of any Jane Austen novel: Rising inequality
decreases the number of suitably wealthy mates even as it increases the reward for finding one and the penalty for failing to do
so. According to one study, the last time marriage partners
sorted themselves by educational status as
much as they do now was in the 1920s .
For most of us, the process is happily invisible. You meet someone under a tree on an exclusive campus or during orientation at
a high-powered professional firm, and before you know it, you're twice as rich. But sometimes -- Grandmother understood this well
-- extra measures are called for. That's where our new technology puts bumbling society detectives to shame.
Ivy Leaguers looking to mate with their equals can apply to join a dating service called the League. It's selective, naturally:
Only 20 to 30 percent of New York applicants get in. It's sometimes called "Tinder for the elites."
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It is misleading to think that assortative mating is symmetrical, as in city mouse marries city mouse and country mouse marries
country mouse. A better summary of the data would be: Rich mouse finds love, and poor mouse gets screwed. It turns out -- who knew?
-- that people who are struggling to keep it all together have a harder time hanging on to their partner. According to the Harvard
political scientist Robert Putnam, 60 years ago just 20 percent of children born to parents with a high-school education or less
lived in a single-parent household; now that figure is nearly 70 percent. Among college-educated households, by contrast, the single-parent
rate remains less than 10 percent. Since the 1970s, the divorce rate has declined significantly among college-educated couples, while
it has risen dramatically among couples with only a high-school education -- even as marriage itself has become less common. The
rate of single parenting is in turn the single most significant predictor of social immobility across counties, according to a study
led by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty.
None of which is to suggest that individuals are wrong to seek a suitable partner and make a beautiful family. People should --
and presumably always will -- pursue happiness in this way. It's one of the delusions of our meritocratic class, however, to assume
that if our actions are individually blameless, then the sum of our actions will be good for society. We may have studied Shakespeare
on the way to law school, but we have little sense for the tragic possibilities of life. The fact of the matter is that we have silently
and collectively opted for inequality, and this is what inequality does. It turns marriage into a luxury good, and a stable family
life into a privilege that the moneyed elite can pass along to their children. How do we think that's going to work out?
This divergence of families by class is just one part of a process that is creating two distinct forms of life in our society.
Stop in at your local yoga studio or SoulCycle class, and you'll notice that the same process is now inscribing itself in our own
bodies. In 19th-century England, the rich really were different. They didn't just have more money; they were taller -- a lot taller.
According to a study colorfully titled "On English Pygmies and Giants," 16-year-old boys from the upper classes towered a remarkable
8.6 inches, on average, over their undernourished, lower-class countrymen. We are reproducing the same kind of division via a different
set of dimensions.
Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and liver disease are all
two to three times more common in individuals who have a family income of less than $35,000 than in those who have a family income
greater than $100,000. Among low-educated, middle-aged whites, the death rate in the United States -- alone in the developed world
-- increased in the first decade and a half of the 21st century. Driving the trend is the rapid growth in what the
Princeton economists
Anne Case and Angus Deaton call "deaths of despair" -- suicides and alcohol- and drug-related deaths.
The sociological data are not remotely ambiguous on any aspect of this growing divide. We 9.9 percenters live in safer neighborhoods,
go to better schools, have shorter commutes, receive higher-quality health care, and, when circumstances require, serve time in better
prisons. We also have more friends -- the kind of friends who will introduce us to new clients or line up great internships for our
kids.
These special forms of wealth offer the further advantages that they are both harder to emulate and safer to brag about than high
income alone. Our class walks around in the jeans and T‑shirts inherited from our supposedly humble beginnings. We prefer to signal
our status by talking about our organically nourished bodies, the awe-inspiring feats of our offspring, and the ecological correctness
of our neighborhoods. We have figured out how to launder our money through higher virtues.
Most important of all, we have learned how to pass all of these advantages down to our children. In America today, the single
best predictor of whether an individual will get married, stay married, pursue advanced education, live in a good neighborhood, have
an extensive social network, and experience good health is the performance of his or her parents on those same metrics.
We're leaving the 90 percent and their offspring far behind in a cloud of debts and bad life choices that they somehow can't stop
themselves from making. We tend to overlook the fact that parenting is more expensive and motherhood more hazardous in the United
States than in any other developed country, that campaigns against family planning and reproductive rights are an assault on the
families of the bottom 90 percent, and that law-and-order politics serves to keep even more of them down. We prefer to interpret
their relative poverty as vice: Why can't they get their act together?
New forms of life necessarily give rise to new and distinct forms of consciousness. If you doubt this, you clearly haven't been
reading the "personal and household services" ads on Monster.com. At the time of this writing, the section for my town of Brookline,
Massachusetts, featured one placed by a "busy professional couple" seeking a "Part Time Nanny." The nanny (or manny -- the ad scrupulously
avoids committing to gender) is to be "bright, loving, and energetic"; "friendly, intelligent, and professional"; and "a very good
communicator, both written and verbal." She (on balance of probability) will "assist with the care and development" of two children
and will be "responsible for all aspects of the children's needs," including bathing, dressing, feeding, and taking the young things
to and from school and activities. That's why a "college degree in early childhood education" is "a plus."
In short, Nanny is to have every attribute one would want in a terrific, professional, college-educated parent. Except, of course,
the part about being an actual professional, college-educated parent. There is no chance that Nanny will trade places with our busy
5G couple. She "must know the proper etiquette in a professionally run household" and be prepared to "accommodate changing circumstances."
She is required to have "5+ years experience as a Nanny," which makes it unlikely that she'll have had time to get the law degree
that would put her on the other side of the bargain. All of Nanny's skills, education, experience, and professionalism will land
her a job that is "Part Time."
The ad is written in flawless, 21st-century business-speak, but what it is really seeking is a governess -- that exquisitely contradictory
figure in Victorian literature who is both indistinguishable in all outward respects from the upper class and yet emphatically not
a member of it. Nanny's best bet for moving up in the world is probably to follow the example of Jane Eyre and run off with the lord
(or lady) of the manor.
If you look beyond the characters in this unwritten novel about Nanny and her 5G masters, you'll see a familiar shape looming
on the horizon. The Gatsby Curve has managed to reproduce itself in social, physiological, and cultural capital. Put more accurately:
There is only one curve, but it operates through a multiplicity of forms of wealth.
Rising inequality does not follow from a hidden law of economics, as the otherwise insightful Thomas Piketty suggested when he
claimed that the historical rate of return on capital exceeds the historical rate of growth in the economy. Inequality necessarily
entrenches itself through other, nonfinancial, intrinsically invidious forms of wealth and power. We use these other forms of capital
to project our advantages into life itself. We look down from our higher virtues in the same way the English upper class looked down
from its taller bodies, as if the distinction between superior and inferior were an artifact of nature. That's what aristocrats do.
... ... ...
5.
The Invisible Hand of Government
As far as Grandfather was concerned, the assault on the productive classes began long before the New Deal. It all started in 1913,
with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. In case you've forgotten, that amendment granted the federal government the power
to levy a direct personal-income tax. It also happens that ratification took place just a few months after Grandfather was born,
which made sense to me in a strange way. By far the largest part of his lifetime income was attributable to his birth.
Grandfather was a stockbroker for a time. I eventually figured out that he mostly traded his own portfolio and bought a seat at
the stock exchange for the purpose. Politics was a hobby, too. At one point, he announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination
for lieutenant governor of Connecticut. (It wasn't clear whether anybody outside the clubhouse heard him.) What he really liked to
do was fly. The memories that mattered most to him were his years of service as a transport pilot during World War II. Or the time
he and Grandmother took to the Midwestern skies in a barnstorming plane. My grandparents never lost faith in the limitless possibilities
of a life free from government. But in their last years, as the reserves passed down from the Colonel ran low, they became pretty
diligent about collecting their Social Security and Medicare benefits.
There is a page in the book of American political thought -- Grandfather knew it by heart -- that says we must choose between
government and freedom. But if you read it twice, you'll see that what it really offers is a choice between government you can see
and government you can't. Aristocrats always prefer the invisible kind of government. It leaves them free to exercise their privileges.
We in the 9.9 percent have mastered the art of getting the government to work for us even while complaining loudly that it's working
for those other people.
Consider, for starters, the greatly exaggerated reports of our tax burdens. On guest panels this past holiday season, apologists
for the latest round of upwardly aimed tax cuts offered versions of Mitt Romney's claim that the 47 percent of Americans who pay
no federal income tax in a typical year have "no skin in the game." Baloney. Sure, the federal individual-income tax, which raised
$1.6 trillion last year, remains progressive. But the $1.2 trillion raised by the payroll tax hits all workers -- but not investors,
such as Romney -- and it hits those making lower incomes at a higher rate, thanks to a cap on the amount of income subject to the
tax. Then there's the $2.3 trillion raised by state and local governments, much of it collected through regressive sales and property
taxes. The poorest quintile of Americans
pays more than
twice the rate of state taxes as the top 1 percent does , and about half again what the top 10 percent pays.
Our false protests about paying all the taxes, however, sound like songs of innocence compared with our mastery of the art of
having the taxes returned to us. The income-tax system that so offended my grandfather has had the unintended effect of creating
a highly discreet category of government expenditures. They're called "tax breaks," but it's better to think of them as handouts
that spare the government the inconvenience of collecting the money in the first place. In theory, tax expenditures can be used to
support any number of worthy social purposes, and a few of them, such as the earned income-tax credit, do actually go to those with
a lower income. But more commonly, because their value is usually a function of the amount of money individuals have in the first
place, and those individuals' marginal tax rates, the benefits flow uphill.
Let us count our blessings: Every year, the federal government doles out tax expenditures through deductions for retirement savings
(worth $137 billion in 2013); employer-sponsored health plans ($250 billion); mortgage-interest payments ($70 billion); and, sweetest
of all, income from watching the value of your home, stock portfolio, and private-equity partnerships grow ($161 billion). In total,
federal tax expenditures exceeded $900 billion in 2013. That's more than the cost of Medicare, more than the cost of Medicaid, more
than the cost of all other federal safety-net programs put together. And -- such is the beauty of the system -- 51 percent of those
handouts went to the top quintile of earners, and 39 percent to the top decile.
The best thing about this program of reverse taxation, as far as the 9.9 percent are concerned, is that the bottom 90 percent
haven't got a clue. The working classes get riled up when they see someone at the grocery store flipping out their food stamps to
buy a T-bone. They have no idea that a nice family on the other side of town is walking away with $100,000 for flipping their house.
But wait, there's more! Let's not forget about the kids. If the secrets of a nation's soul may be read from its tax code, then
our nation must be in love with the children of rich people. The 2017 tax law raises the amount of money that married couples can
pass along to their heirs tax-free from a very generous $11 million to a magnificent $22 million. Correction: It's not merely tax-free;
it's tax-subsidized. The unrealized tax liability on the appreciation of the house you bought 40 years ago, or on the stock portfolio
that has been gathering moths -- all of that disappears when you pass the gains along to the kids. Those foregone taxes cost the
United States Treasury $43 billion in 2013 alone -- about three times the amount spent on the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Grandfather's father, the Colonel, died in 1947, when the maximum estate-tax rate was a now-unheard-of 77 percent. When the remainder
was divvied up among four siblings, Grandfather had barely enough to pay for the Bentley and keep up with dues at the necessary clubs.
The government made sure that I would grow up in the middle class. And for that I will always be grateful.
... ... ...
8.
The Politics of Resentment
The political theology of the meritocracy has no room for resentment. We are taught to run the competition of life with our eyes
on the clock and not on one another, as if we were each alone. If someone scores a powerboat on the Long Island waterways, so much
the better for her. The losers will just smile and try harder next time.
In the real world, we humans are always looking from side to side. We are intensely conscious of what other people are thinking
and doing, and conscious to the point of preoccupation with what they think about us. Our status is visible only through its reflection
in the eyes of others.
Perhaps the best evidence for the power of an aristocracy is to be found in the degree of resentment it provokes. By that measure,
the 9.9 percent are doing pretty well indeed. The surest sign of an increase in resentment is a rise in political division and instability.
We're positively acing that test. You can read all about it in the headlines of the past two years.
The 2016 presidential election marked a decisive moment in the history of resentment in the United States. In the person of Donald
Trump, resentment entered the White House. It rode in on the back of an alliance between a tiny subset of super-wealthy 0.1 percenters
(not all of them necessarily American) and a large number of 90 percenters who stand for pretty much everything the 9.9 percent are
not.
According to exit polls by CNN and Pew, Trump won white voters by about 20 percent. But these weren't just any old whites (though
they were old, too). The first thing to know about the substantial majority of them is that they weren't the winners in the new economy.
To be sure, for the most part they weren't poor either. But they did have reason to feel judged by the market -- and found wanting.
The counties that supported Hillary Clinton represented an astonishing 64 percent of the GDP, while Trump counties accounted for
a mere 36 percent. Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist at Zillow,
found that the median home value in
Clinton counties was $250,000, while the median in Trump counties was $154,000. When you adjust for inflation, Clinton counties enjoyed
real-estate price appreciation of 27 percent from January 2000 to October 2016; Trump counties got only a 6 percent bump.
The residents of Trump country were also the losers in the war on human health. According to Shannon Monnat, an associate professor
of sociology at Syracuse, the Rust Belt counties that put the anti-government-health-care candidate over the top were those that
lost the most people in recent years to deaths of despair -- those due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide.
To make all of America
as great as Trump country, you would have to torch about a quarter of total GDP, wipe a similar proportion of the nation's housing
stock into the sea, and lose a few years in life expectancy. There's a reason why one of Trump's favorite words is unfair
. That's the only word resentment wants to hear.
Even so, the distinguishing feature of Trump's (white) voters wasn't their income but their education, or lack thereof. Pew's
latest analysis indicates that Trump lost college-educated white voters by a humiliating 17 percent margin. But he got revenge with
non-college-educated whites, whom he captured by a stomping 36 percent margin. According to an analysis by Nate Silver,
the 50 most
educated counties in the nation surged to Clinton : In 2012, Obama had won them by a mere 17 percentage points; Clinton took
them by 26 points. The 50 least educated counties moved in the opposite direction; whereas Obama had lost them by 19 points, Clinton
lost them by 31. Majority-minority counties split the same way: The more educated moved toward Clinton, and the less educated toward
Trump.
The historian Richard Hofstadter drew attention to Anti-intellectualism in American Life in 1963; Susan Jacoby warned in
2008 about The Age of American Unreason ; and Tom Nichols announced The Death of Expertise in 2017. In Trump, the age
of unreason has at last found its hero. The "self-made man" is always the idol of those who aren't quite making it. He is the sacred
embodiment of the American dream, the guy who answers to nobody, the poor man's idea of a rich man. It's the educated phonies this
group can't stand. With his utter lack of policy knowledge and belligerent commitment to maintaining his ignorance, Trump is the
perfect representative for a population whose idea of good governance is just to scramble the eggheads. When reason becomes the enemy
of the common man, the common man becomes the enemy of reason.
Did I mention that the common man is white? That brings us to the other side of American-style resentment. You kick down, and
then you close ranks around an imaginary tribe. The problem, you say, is the moochers, the snakes, the handout queens; the solution
is the flag and the religion of your (white) ancestors. According to a survey by the political scientist Brian Schaffner, Trump crushed
it among voters who "strongly disagree" that "white people have advantages because of the color of their skin," as well as among
those who "strongly agree" that "women seek to gain power over men." It's worth adding that these responses measure not racism or
sexism directly, but rather resentment. They're good for picking out the kind of people who will vehemently insist that they are
the least racist or sexist person you have ever met, even as they vote for a flagrant racist and an accused sexual predator.
No one is born resentful. As mass phenomena, racism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, narcissism, irrationalism, and all other
variants of resentment are as expensive to produce as they are deadly to democratic politics. Only long hours of television programming,
intelligently manipulated social-media feeds, and expensively sustained information bubbles can actualize the unhappy dispositions
of humanity to the point where they may be fruitfully manipulated for political gain. Racism in particular is not just a legacy of
the past, as many Americans would like to believe; it also must be constantly reinvented for the present. Mass incarceration, fearmongering,
and segregation are not just the results of prejudice, but also the means of reproducing it.
The raging polarization of American political life is not the consequence of bad manners or a lack of mutual understanding. It
is just the loud aftermath of escalating inequality. It could not have happened without the 0.1 percent (or, rather, an aggressive
subset of its members). Wealth always preserves itself by dividing the opposition. The Gatsby Curve does not merely cause barriers
to be built on the ground; it mandates the construction of walls that run through other people's minds.
But that is not to let the 9.9 percent off the hook. We may not be the ones funding the race-baiting, but we are the ones hoarding
the opportunities of daily life. We are the staff that runs the machine that funnels resources from the 90 percent to the 0.1 percent.
We've been happy to take our cut of the spoils. We've looked on with smug disdain as our labors have brought forth a population prone
to resentment and ripe for manipulation. We should be prepared to embrace the consequences.
The first important thing to know about these consequences is the most obvious: Resentment is a solution to nothing. It isn't
a program of reform. It isn't "populism." It is an affliction of democracy, not an instance of it. The politics of resentment is
a means of increasing inequality, not reducing it. Every policy change that has waded out of the Trump administration's baffling
morass of incompetence makes this clear. The new tax law; the executive actions on the environment and telecommunications, and on
financial-services regulation; the judicial appointments of conservative ideologues -- all will have the effect of keeping the 90
percent toiling in the foothills of merit for many years to come.
The second thing to know is that we are next in line for the chopping block. As the population of the resentful expands, the circle
of joy near the top gets smaller. The people riding popular rage to glory eventually realize that we are less useful to them as servants
of the economic machine than we are as model enemies of the people. The anti-blue-state provisions of the recent tax law have miffed
some members of the 9.9 percent, but they're just a taste of the bad things that happen to people like us as the politics of resentment
unfolds.
The past year provides ample confirmation of the third and most important consequence of the process: instability. Unreasonable
people also tend to be ungovernable. I won't belabor the point. Just try doing a frequency search on the phrase constitutional
crisis over the past five years. That's the thing about the Gatsby Curve. You think it's locking all of your gains in place.
But the crystallization process actually has the effect of making the whole system more brittle. If you look again at history, you
can get a sense of how the process usually ends.
10.
The Choice
I like to think that the ending of The Great Gatsby is too down-beat. Even if we are doomed to row our boats ceaselessly
back into the past, how do we know which part of the past that will be?
History shows us a number of aristocracies that have made good choices. The 9.9 percenters of ancient Athens held off the dead
tide of the Gatsby Curve for a time, even if democracy wasn't quite the right word for their system of government. America's
first generation of revolutionaries was mostly 9.9 percenters, and yet they turned their backs on the man at the very top in order
to create a government of, by, and for the people. The best revolutions do not start at the bottom; they are the work of the upper-middle
class.
These exceptions are rare, to be sure, and yet they are the story of the modern world. In total population, average life expectancy,
material wealth, artistic expression, rates of violence, and almost every other measure that matters for the quality of human life,
the modern world is a dramatically different place than anything that came before. Historians offer many complicated explanations
for this happy turn in human events -- the steam engine, microbes, the weather -- but a simple answer precedes them all: equality.
The history of the modern world is the unfolding of the idea at the vital center of the American Revolution.
The defining challenge of our time is to renew the promise of American democracy by reversing the calcifying effects of accelerating
inequality. As long as inequality rules, reason will be absent from our politics; without reason, none of our other issues can be
solved. It's a world-historical problem. But the solutions that have been put forward so far are, for the most part, shoebox in size.
Well-meaning meritocrats have proposed new and better tests for admitting people into their jewel-encrusted classrooms. Fine --
but we aren't going to beat back the Gatsby Curve by tweaking the formulas for excluding people from fancy universities. Policy wonks
have taken aim at the more-egregious tax-code handouts, such as the mortgage-interest deduction and college-savings plans. Good --
and then what? Conservatives continue to recycle the characterological solutions, like celebrating traditional marriage or bringing
back that old-time religion. Sure -- reforging familial and community bonds is a worthy goal. But talking up those virtues won't
save any families from the withering pressures of a rigged economy. Meanwhile, coffee-shop radicals say they want a revolution. They
don't seem to appreciate that the only simple solutions are the incredibly violent and destructive ones.
The American idea has always been a guide star, not a policy program, much less a reality. The rights of human beings never have
been and never could be permanently established in a handful of phrases or old declarations. They are always rushing to catch up
to the world that we inhabit. In our world, now, we need to understand that access to the means of sustaining good health, the opportunity
to learn from the wisdom accumulated in our culture, and the expectation that one may do so in a decent home and neighborhood are
not privileges to be reserved for the few who have learned to game the system. They are rights that follow from the same source as
those that an earlier generation called life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, the kind of change that really matters is going to require action from the federal government. That which creates monopoly
power can also destroy it; that which allows money into politics can also take it out; that which has transferred power from labor
to capital can transfer it back. Change also needs to happen at the state and local levels. How else are we going to open up our
neighborhoods and restore the public character of education?
It's going to take something from each of us, too, and perhaps especially from those who happen to be the momentary winners of
this cycle in the game. We need to peel our eyes away from the mirror of our own success and think about what we can do in our everyday
lives for the people who aren't our neighbors. We should be fighting for opportunities for other people's children as if the future
of our own children depended on it. It probably does.
This article appears in the June 2018 print edition with the headline "The Birth of a New American Aristocracy."
Economics has a lot of similarities with Theology.
People can believe whatever interpretation fits with their own indoctrination.
The difference being there is a truth to economics that seems to be invisible to most people,
major economists included.
Your post highlights some of the stark realities that people just refuse to accept for some
inexplicable reason.
Maybe the better economic managers will come to the rescue or maybe there will be a
collective awakening when in a moment of clarity we start to realise how badly we have been
conned.
There are many societies that tolerate a certain degree of economic inequality, but still
provide decent living conditions, services and infrastructure for most citizens. The notion
that we either have extreme inequality or extreme poverty is empirically and morally empty.
"... By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... Jim Chanos, founder and managing partner of New York-based Kynikos Associates, has spent much of his career studying financial fraud. He shares his thoughts with the Institute for New Economic Thinking -- where he is a member of the ..."
"... Global Partners Council ..."
"... -- on cryptocurrency, fraud coming from China, and why fraudsters may currently be on the rise. Chanos teaches a course on the history of financial fraud at Yale University and the University of Wisconsin. ..."
Jim Chanos, founder and managing partner of New York-based Kynikos Associates, has spent
much of his career studying financial fraud. He shares his thoughts with the Institute for New
Economic Thinking -- where he is a member of theGlobal Partners Council-- on cryptocurrency, fraud coming from China, and why
fraudsters may currently be on the rise. Chanos teaches a course on the history of financial
fraud at Yale University and the University of Wisconsin.
Lynn Parramore: As someone who pays a lot of attention to financial fraud, you've noticed
that this activity has a connection to business cycles. Can you explain that and say where you
think we are right now?
Jim Chanos: I've found in my research and my teaching that what I would call the "fraud
cycle" -- instances of large-scale financial fraud over multiple platforms and companies in the
financial markets in the modern era (the last 500 years) -- follows the financial cycle with a
lag. That means that as business and particularly financial markets improve, peoples' sense of
disbelief and caution that they've often earned from the previous downturn begins to erode.
Schemes that before might have seemed too good to be true begin to be embraced.
LP: So people relax their financial vigilance.
JC: Exactly. The longer the cycle goes on, the easier it becomes for the dishonest and the
fraudsters to ply their trade because people will begin to believe in things that they
shouldn't financially. As cycles go on, we tend to see higher instances of fraud. In recent
memory, there were clearly, from a legal and prosecutorial point of view, more cases of fraud
after the dot-com bull market of the late '90s, which went from 1991 to 2000. Many of the
dot-coms turned out to be fraudulent. We then saw the Enrons and the WorldComs and the Tycos.
Frauds generally come to light after the financial cycle turns down. We saw this again after
the crisis following the bull market of 2003 to 2007.
What happens is that the new capital going into these things dries up. Many frauds are, by
their nature, Ponzi schemes that require new money and new investors to pay off the old
investors. When people want their money back, the insolvency of the venture is discovered. John
Kenneth Galbraith has this wonderful term called "the bezzle" [inventory of undiscovered
embezzlement]. That's the heart of the fraud, the nature of the fraud in the company. He points
out that in the up phase, there's this wonderful period where both the fraudsters and the
defrauded think they're getting richer. An interesting observation, right?
Of course, it works the other way on the down side. That's what I mean when I tell my
students to follow the cycles and be on guard the longer a financial and business cycle lasts
because people will get a little bit jiggy with their capital. They're willing to take risks,
willing to believe things. So today we've got bitcoin and ICOs [initial coin offerings], which
went ballistic in 2017. I suspect going forward we're going to see more and more evidence of
questionable companies as this bull market keeps advancing and aging. We're now nine years into
this bull market, same as the '90s, so I suspect that now things are starting to percolate. I
think bitcoin and the ICOs are just one manifestation of that.
LP: I just passed a huge crowd gathered around the New York Hilton Midtown for "Blockchain
Week NYC," a series of events put on to showcase the city as a hub for blockchain jobs. You
could feel the excitement in the air with all the attendees and reporters jostling on the
sidewalk. What's your take on all this hype?
JC: At one blockchain gathering there were a set of rented Lamborghinis parked outside to
entice the traders and day traders and retail investors: this, too, can be yours if you hop
aboard the blockchain and bitcoin bonanza!
I teach about a guy from the early 18th century called John Law. He was the architect of one
of the great financial frauds of all time -- the Mississippi scheme of 1718-20 in Paris. (He's
also the guy who founded New Orleans. He sent settlers there who named it after his benefactor,
the Duc d'Orléans).
Law was the first person to write about the need for foreign governments to have fiat
currencies and not be tethered to gold and silver. Because of the power of taxation and the
power of the governments through enforcement and force of arms, they could enforce their
currency to be used, and because of their ability to expand the monetary base and do all the
kinds of things that central banks now do, it was in their best interest to do so.
This was revolutionary back then. Law's failed experiment, which added lots of fraudulent
bells and whistles to that scheme in France, put the idea on the backburner for a while. But
economic historians have revisited it now and his early papers are genius. They're up there
with some of the stuff Keynes wrote in the 20th century in terms of the way he envisioned
monetary systems to work. Law points out sort of obliquely the positive ways in which the
citizenry would come to accept and trust paper money. Not only would the power of the state
compel you to accept it, but the power of the state also acted as a third party to adjudicate
problems, fraud and act as a lender of last resort in times of crisis instead of going down
into a deflationary spiral. That was the positive side.
In the new bitcoin and crypto-craze, the whole idea is that we need to get away from fiat
currencies by creating our own fiat currency for which there is no lender of last resort, no
third party adjudicator. For those who believe it's a store of value in the coming apocalypse,
the idea is that you're going to have to safeguard your key under a mountain with fingerprint
and eye scan security while the hordes are outside your bunker trying to get in to use it --
for what, I have no idea. Because for those who believe that you need to own digital currency
as a store of value in the worst-case scenario, that's exactly the case in which a digital
currency will work the least. Food would work the best!
LP: Sounds like a libertarian fantasy.
JC: That's exactly what it is. And if you say, well, fiat currency is going to bring the
world down, which could, of course, happen, then I say the last thing I'd want to own is
bitcoin if the grid goes down.
LP: It also sounds like the perfect realm for people looking to commit fraud.
JC: Well, there you go. Bitcoin is still the area for people who are trying to avoid
taxation or other examinations of their transactions. That's one thing where I think it
probably still has utility, but the governments have figured that out.
Last year, just as the mania was really going, an early convert who had gotten in early and
had made a lot of money wrote this humorous blog about trying to cash in his winnings, if you
will. He chronicled telling the exchange that he wanted to convert his bitcoins into U.S.
dollars and have them wired into his U.S. bank. It took something like eight or ten days and
numerous follow-ups and phone calls. The funniest part was his having to fax his passport to
Lithuania.
LP: That doesn't sound very high-tech or efficient.
JC: Exactly. Using a fax machine to Eastern Europe struck me as kind of the antithesis of
what you're trying to do here. So this is simply a security speculation game masquerading as a
technological breakthrough in monetary policy. Someone at Grant's interest rate conference
recently said that it was as if we had intentionally created a "monetary Somalia."
LP: So buyer beware.
JC: I think so.
LP: You recently appeared in a fascinating documentary, " The China Hustle ," which concerns the reverse
merger boom in which I believe 400 Chinese companies came to market on the U.S. stock exchange.
Can you say a bit about what these mergers are and how U.S. investors got conned?
JC: A reverse merger is simply when the company in question merges into a defunct,
U.S.-listed corporation, typically on NASDAQ, which has been moribund for years but has still
been filing with the SEC, so it may have a listing somewhere.
We can see these reverse mergers in the late '90s when they became dot-com companies, and
also in the late '70s, when gold was a hot asset and they became gold mining companies. In the
last ten years, they started to appear to take advantage of the growth of Asia and the growth
of China. It's very easy to sell small, retail investors on this idea. It sounds very
appealing.
What happens is you merge the Happy Flower High Tech Company into some defunct company and
you rename the old company with the Chinese name. Voila! The Chinese company is now public in
the U.S. without having to file an IPO [initial public offering] prospectus with the SEC. You
don't go through underwriters, a due diligence process, or a vetting process where the SEC asks
questions on the IPO. But you now have a company on NASDAQ or the U.S. Stock Exchange.
This is what "The China Hustle" was about -- this raft of companies that merged with
companies you've never heard of and created, instantaneously, reasonably large-capitalization
companies operating in China but trading in the U.S. Of course, therein lies the rub. How do
you really know what was going on in the operating company? How good was the accounting? How
good were the representations of the outside auditors and representatives of the boards? It
turned out that a lot of them were frauds.
LP: So I'm an investor and I hear that this Chinese company has come to market in the U.S.
and it has been audited by Pricewaterhouse, Deloitte, or some other well-known auditing firm. I
think it must be legit. What's wrong with this assumption?
JC: There are two big problems there. When people always ask me about the large frauds we've
dealt with, they ask, who were the auditors? And I say, who cares? Every great fraud was
basically audited, most of the time by major firms. In China it's even worse than that because
although the statements might say Pricewaterhouse, if you read the fine print it actually says,
"Pricewaterhouse reviewed the work by an affiliate in China." So it's often a smaller firm that
has a relationship with the big firm that actually does the auditing. Pricewaterhouse just puts
its stamp of approval on that.
LP: Sounds kind of like what the big credit ratings agencies did by giving triple-A ratings
to securities that were fraudulent in the lead-up to the financial crisis.
JC: Right. But you have to remember that auditors are not the financial check that most
people think they are. The financial statements are not prepared by auditors. The financial
statements in publicly traded firms are prepared by management and the auditors review the
statements. Unless they have reason to believe something is amiss or are pointed to something
being amiss by a whistleblower or short seller or journalist, they're not going to detect
anything most of the time.
LP: Auditors are not detectives.
JC: No they're not. They're really paid by the company to review the company's own financial
statements. So at the end of the day, this still comes back to the management and the board. Do
you trust them? Do you believe what they're telling you? What is your ability to check?
LP: In the case of the Happy Flower Company, I can't really check.
JC: Not only that, one of the points that the movie made very well was that even if you find
the smoking gun and the chairman runs off with all the money and you're left with nothing, the
recourse to western investors is virtually nil. None of these CEOs are prosecuted. The view of
the Chinese court system, which, I should point out, is an arm of the Communist Party, not the
Chinese state, is, "sorry, but no jurisdiction here. You're a western investor and you ought to
know better."
LP: Can the SEC do anything?
JC: The SEC did announce a crackdown after the fact, but besides monitoring companies'
ongoing disclosures and trying to halt trading in the securities if there is evidence of a
problem, there isn't a lot that the SEC can do. These are Chinese companies.
LP: How do you view the climate for financial fraud under the Trump administration? I note
that Trump's SEC nominee, who was sworn in as chair last May, was an Alibaba IPO advisor -- the
Silicon Valley lawyer Jay Clayton. You've expressed skepticism about Alibaba.
JC: I have, and so far I've been wrong, at least with respect to the stock price. But I
challenge anyone to explain to me cogently what Alibaba is doing with all its capital and
flipping companies back and forth to insider and revaluing the prices of companies upward.
Be that as it may, the real issue is, what is the sense of the administration? I'll say one
thing, when the George W. Bush administration started -- remember, he was the MBA president --
he came in on a pro-business platform and was seen as very pro-business and anti-regulation,
similar to the Trump administration. But when the wave of fraud started hitting in '01 and '02,
I have to give the John Ashcroft Justice Department a lot of credit. They did a 180 and went
after the bad guys hard.
I always joke that the two presidents who have put more executives in jail than all the rest
combined were both named Bush. W's father was instrumental in prosecuting the S&L [Saving
and Loan] crooks back in the early '90s and put about 3,000 of them in jail. I think they
realized that the public was losing money in the stock markets, not just because of the frauds,
but because the long dot-com bull market had ended. People were upset. Then when you had the
revelations of WorldCom and Enron on top of it, there was a sense that every corporation was
crooked and this was going to have exogenous impacts on the economy and the market as a whole.
I think they correctly realized that we've got to basically show that we're the cops on the
beat. And they did.
That did not happen, as you well know, after the GFC [Global Financial Crisis], for lots of
reasons, including a Justice Department that actually took the extraordinary step of admitting
that it considered economic and financial market factors in figuring out when, or if, to
prosecute a company. So justice now had an economic angle to it. We sort of know how we think
about the Trump administration -- I noted the other day that the Education Department seems to
have shut down its division investigating fraud at the for-profit education companies, which
are one of the biggest cesspools out there in terms of financial fraud and fraud upon the
taxpayer. So that's not a good sign. On the other hand, public opinion can move things quickly
as it did in the Enron case. We saw a real stepped-up effort to go after the bad guys.
I think a lot depends on circumstances at the time. We're still in the expansionary phase of
the financial cycle and, arguably, the fraud cycle, so we'll have to see what happens once that
rolls over.
LP: Let's talk about emerging markets. Do you think a big crisis could develop as investors
head back to the U.S. as the Federal Reserve raises rates here?
JC: The emerging markets are always sort of the end of the wick, right? They always go down
the most when fear is out there and they go up the most when people are euphoric. Emerging
markets had a really rough go of it from 2011 right on to 2015. They never really recovered a
lot from the GFC. Then someone hit the light switch and whether it was things changing in
Brazil or [former president] Jacob Zuma being ousted in South Africa or South America turning
the corner. I would note that Argentina issued a one hundred-year bond a year ago that was
oversubscribed, and this week Argentina went back hat in hand to the IMF [International
Monetary Fund], so we've had this amazingly quick shot across the bow in the emerging markets.
We'll see if it's the start of something bigger. But it's sort of amazing to me that after only
a two-year respite, places like Argentina and Turkey seem to find themselves in trouble again.
Time will tell.
LP: One thing you said in "The China Hustle" is that we've never seen a credit build-up like
the one we've seen in China today that hasn't been followed by a major financial crisis. That
sounds pretty worrisome.
JC: I'm always told confidently it won't matter because they owe it to themselves. Well, if
that was that were the case, then Zimbabwe would be one of the wealthiest countries in the
world today!
The build-up of China's debt and the speed of that build-up is nothing short of stunning.
There's a new book that I recommend, " China's Great Wall of
Debt ." It does a great job of chronicling just how massive this build-up has been in the
last ten years following China's stimulus in '09 to pull the world out of the GFC. You've heard
me call it the "treadmill to hell" because you have to put more and more debt on the books to
keep the growth going and this is where China is finding itself. If they don't increase the
debt, the economy hits stall speed and for all the talk about innovation and technology and
transferring to a consumer-driven, technology-driven economy, the evidence on that is kind of
scant. It's still basically an economy driven by debt-driven investment, which is still over
40% of GDP. I think when we started talk about China it was 46% and I think the most recent
number is about 43%. So it's improved slightly over the eight or nine years, but not much.
China is still basically a giant construction site and shows no signs of changing. In fact,
with the One Belt One Road Initiative [a project launched in 2013 to develop trade routes to
connect China to the world], they're trying to basically export their construction capabilities
and credit to countries along what we would call the Old Silk Road.
LP: In terms of the overall picture of fraud, are we any better off than we were after the
financial crisis?
JC: Personally, I think we're worse off. I think we were better off after the dot-com era.
Not because we enacted Sarbanes Oxley [passed by the U.S. Congress in 2002 to protect investors
from fraudulent corporate accounting activities] but because the public saw that there was
justice. The bad guys got caught and at least if I lost money, they paid the price of their
freedom. That never happened in '08 and '09 for a variety of reasons. We've just had a
continuation of the cycle and the cycle is still going.
LP: So fraudsters are emboldened?
JC: Right. And now we come back to bitcoin. What's your recourse if you lose money in an ICO
traded on an exchange offshore? If people lose lots of money, there will be an outcry, but no
recourse. So we're building into something. I suspect it's in front of us and it will be
interesting to see what happens.
LP: What happens in a capitalist system to good people who want to behave ethically? How can
they succeed in an atmosphere in which fraud and unethical behavior are constantly
happening?
JC: I think capitalism is still the best game in town, but the very best games have good
sets of rules, and, even more importantly, good umpires and referees. When the game becomes
tilted and the house has the advantage, people tend to stop playing.
When the system is seen as corrupt or dishonest, there's a political price. We saw this
after the GFC. People in New York and San Francisco and Boston might be fine with everything,
but in the South and Midwest, where you're from and where I'm from, there's still this general
sense that "the bastards got away with it and I'm still suffering." So there is an exogenous
cost to this where people don't feel that there was justice. They feel that they were taken
advantage of by those sharpies on the coasts. It brings out some of the worst in people, of
course, so that's one small step, then, away from social problems like anti-Semitism and
anti-immigrant feelings. It's us v. them. Nobody is looking after us.
Economists and financial analysts have a hard time quantifying all these things, but I think
that the point is that fair markets where there's a set of rules, where there's a cop on the
beat, where there are regulators making sure that people are adhering to the rules, are far
better markets than one in which caveat emptor is written above the casino. I think it behooves
us as a society to understand that capitalism is an amazing driver of progress and prosperity
and wealth, but it can be diverted. There's a dark side to it if we don't play by the rules and
if we don't encourage capital formation from all members of society who don't feel they're
getting a fair shake.
Everybody gets that capitalism involves risk-taking. But the asymmetric situation where
people who are dishonest get away with it while people who are honest and provide capital get
left holding the bag will really stunt capitalism. I think that's the issue which the vigilance
on fraud, why it's so important. It is part of the capitalistic system. There will always be
people trying to take advantage of other people. It's still better than when the whole system
is flawed, like totalitarian communism, where corruption starts at the very top in terms of the
planning itself. But on the other hand, the counterfactual is that it could be so much better
if everybody is participating and understands that there is a strong set of rules and penalties
when you break them and justice as well. That's what I think has been lacking in the last
generation.
Only in cryptocurrency can an enterprise that calls itself "ethical" be represented by
someone who is both an "award winning journalist" and "PR relations" pic.twitter.com/9lMcXPWSb3 -- Izabella Kaminska
(@izakaminska) June 5,
2018
Don't laugh so soon This came across my Twitter
feed a couple days ago, and I was a little taken aback.
I really like the idea of community currencies, but I'm wondering why on earth you'd want
to get them tangled up with blockchain for the purpose of trading/conversion ?
Just make a Global CC and have that be that or am I oversimplifying this?
#OrHaveIMissedSomething
PS: I also take exception to using the term Bancor as well, given what it's original purpose was. Not too sure
#JMK would be down with the blockchain .
Why wouldn't a Zimbabwe type country embrace cryptocurrency as money of the iRealm?
Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to get outsiders to believe in it, as long as it was
pretty vague, and most wouldn't know that the very same country issued $100 Trillion
banknotes not so long ago.
Zimbabwe didn't need printing facilities when they were cranking out oodles of currency,
as it was all printed in Germany. (who got stiffed on payment, if memory serves)
'John Law was the first person to write about the need for foreign governments to have
fiat currencies and not be tethered to gold and silver. Law's failed experiment, which added
lots of fraudulent bells and whistles to that scheme in France, put the idea on the back
burner for a while. But economic historians have revisited it now and his early papers are
genius.' -- Jim Chanos
This is bizarre historical revisionism. John Law didn't add "fraudulent bells and
whistles" -- fraud was the whole point of fiat currencies, then [1720 -- Mississippi
bubble] and now.
Fiat currencies were born in original sin, that is. When Bubble III blows like Kilauea,
the central banksters who engineered this global calamity may find themselves (like Law)
involuntarily expatriated by angry mobs of peasants with pitchforks.
Currency is born in sin, and may only be cleansed by the divine power of God, err, Gold.
Only by having supreme faith in its shininess will your economy be saved. Do not question how
or why, as Gold works in mysterious way. Au men.
I don't understand Jim . central banks have been staffed largely by monetarist and quasi
monetarists throughout the entire neoliberal period. Then you have the vast majority of the
politicians holding the same view.
But anyway I thought quality held true in both cases, so what agenda threatened the
quality of fiat – at onset. I mean what mob forwarded all the innovation [tm],
completely ignored poor or criminal underwriting standards, completely miss-priced risk, was
completely oblivious to obvious gaming everything for "personal" profit.
I really can't see how fiat forced some people to act in such an anti social manner by its
will alone. I mean that sort of broad social dominance is usually reserved for social
narratives.
Sorry but I really never understood the logic behind the money did it thingy .
I do wonder about folks who describe alternative forms of governance with a very clear
lack of understanding of political/economic arrangements.
You can't really have a totalitarian communism. Chanos should do some history homework on
what the USSR was, and why the system was doomed to fail starting all the way back with
Lenin. Lenin didn't believe that the Russians were ready for the revolution, he considered it
a holding pattern waiting for the revolution to happen in Germany.
Just because you (or an autocrat like Stalin) call something a communism or socialism,
doesn't make it so.
"But the asymmetric situation where people who are dishonest get away with it while people
who are honest and provide capital get left holding the bag will really stunt
capitalism."
Good. I can't think of any better evidence that the system is archaic and if left
unchecked eats itself. Chanos might think about re-reading some Marx.
"I'm always told confidently it won't matter because they owe it to themselves." Isn't
that the basis of MMT? Heck, that means Murica is heading towards eternal prosperity.
I'm still wondering if the long game is to use a crypto currency as a petro currency, to
supplant the US dollar. That way, countries (and corporations) with trade surpluses with the
US can hoard their surpluses in the crypto-cum-petro currency rather than US assets (bonds
and stocks). In an asset that has neutrality with respect to any nation state. Just like gold
used to have.
There's a book that suggests this line of thinking, but doesn't really seem to chase it
down adequately: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BPM3GZQ . See review
on Frances Coppola's website.
There is a 25 minute clip here that describes the creation of money and the recording of
transactions (the blockchain) and does not seem fraudulent in any way:
Russian president Vladimir Putin gave a tense interview to Austria's ORF television channel which
at times got so heated, he spoke in German to ask host Armin Wolf to let him finish his answers.
The interview was held ahead of Putin's Tuesday meeting with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and
Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache during a trip to Vienna, the first since Putin's March
inauguration to his second consecutive term (and fourth term in total).
After several interruptions by Wolf, Putin asked the host to "be patient," before switching to
Wolf's mother tongue of German to ask him to put a cork in it. "Seien Sie so nett, lassen Sie mich
etwas sagen (Please be so kind as to let me say something)," said Putin.
When the topic of troll farms came up, Putin said that Moscow "has nothing to do" with them,
adding that claims by Western media that a single Russian businessman, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was able
to influence the US election.
Prigozhin and Putin are associates, however Putin said he has no knowledge of his online
activities. The Russian president then brought up George Soros as an example of the double
standards being applied to those accused of meddling in foreign affairs.
"
There are rumors circulating now that Mr. Soros is planning to make the Euro highly
volatile,
" Putin said
quoted by RT.
"Experts are already discussing this. Ask the [US] State Department why he is
doing this.
The State Department will say that it has nothing to do with them - rather it
is Mr. Soros' private affair. With us, it is Mr. Prigozhin's private affair. This is my answer
.
Are you satisfied with it?"
* * *
MH17
Putin said that Russia has been blocked from participating in the ongoing international
investigation into the 2014 downing of flight MH17, which Russia has been recently blamed for.
Russian experts "have been denied access to the investigation," said Putin, while Russia's
arguments are "not taken into consideration" because nobody "is interested in hearing us out."
Ukraine, meanwhile, has been given access to the probe.
* * *
North Korea
On North Korea, Putin says that the prospect of a full-scale military conflict with Pyonyang
would be "dreadful," considering that the two nations are neighbors - and some North Korean nuclear
test sites are located near the Russian border.
Although Russia "pins great hopes on the personal meeting between [US] President
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un," the path to the denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula is a "two-way road,"
Putin explained. "
If the North Korean leader is
backing up his intentions with practical actions, for example, giving up new tests of ballistic
missiles, new nuclear tests, the other side should reciprocate in a tangible manner
,"
he said, calling regular US military drills in the area "counterproductive." -
RT
* * *
Crimea
During perhaps the most heated moment in the interview, Putin was asked under what conditions
Russia would hand Crimea back to Ukraine, to which the Russian president firmy stated: "There are
no such conditions and there can never be."
Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to rejoin Russia in a hotly contested 2014 vote that the West
considers illegitimate and rigged. Putin stressed that the annexation happened after an
"unconstitutional armed coup" in Kiev, and it was the Crimeans who decided their own fate.
"Crimea gained independence through the free will of the Crimeans, expressed in an open
referendum, not as a result of an invasion by Russian forces." -Vladimir Putin
Following the annexation, Putin said "the first thing we did was increase our contingent to
guard our Armed Forces, our military facilities, because we immediately saw that they were being
threatened," adding that the mostly Russian population in Crimea "
sensed danger, when
trains started bringing aggressive nationalists there, when buses and personal vehicles were
blocked, people naturally wanted to protect themselves.
"
"The first thing that occurred was to restore the rights that Ukraine itself had issued by
granting Crimea autonomy."
watching the full interview. i have noticed that Putin
always shifts his posture when he wants to call
someone a fucking idiot but restrains himself with
more appropriate words. He never gets nervous or
rattled...
I watched it too. If you compare his patient,
methodical answers, based on fact (IMO) to those of
every US/EU NATO leader, then you see why he is
demonized by the parasitoid corporate fascists and
their media. They covet Russia's resources and are
desperate to control them, having brought us to the
brink of nuclear war in threatening Russian with
troops, weapons, war games and missiles on its
border. Imagine what would have happened if the
geography were the borders of the US and Canada and
Mexico.
It is possible that Putin's patience will
be taken as weakness, especially in Syria and
Ukraine. At some point he will have to give an
order to respond militarily, if he doesn't respond,
then the parasitoid corporate fascists will commit
a full scale military assault in an area of
conflict of their choice.
Lord Jacob Rothchild HATES Putin. Just look at the
Yukos Oil case in the London courts. Try to find
(keeps getting scrubbed) online
The Sunday
Times article from November 2, 2003 "Rothschild is the
New Power Behind Yukos"
for a rare
glimpse behind the curtain.
Vladimir
Vladimirovich took back for the state £8,000,000,000
of shares, thought to be the property of Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, but actually it emerged were controlled
by Lord Rothschild.
This is just one
Rothchild-1990s-theft-repatriated that we know of.
There would be more i suspect.
The beauty of your comments shows that you are becoming a minority by
the day. So many people are waking up to the idiocy of the propaganda
spewed by you and your "highly educated" ilk - as I suppose you view
yourself.
"America" is an Israeli colony "controlled" by mostly
Jewish Zionists
Russian ads did not have anything to do with the election results. It
was a minuscule number of ads, compared to what both of the campaigns
ran. We all comment on foreign elections, and I am sure the people in
those countries take it with a grain of salt, thinking we do not know
what we are talking about.
We have a bunch of people in the USA who take quite an interest in
saving the global people, while their own country is full of major
underemployment, with another housing crisis of an even worse type
than the one in 2008 mounting. Despite all of that, these Anericans sink
all kinds of money into trying to control what happens in foreign
countries. They think they can take on famines and dictators in
countries with very different social structures, 8,000 miles away.
Some of it is likely naively sincere and arising from a natural
interest. It is also a common PR maneuver with money-motivated
people, with everyone from rock stars to politicians getting pretty
absorbed in what goes on in other countries for whatever reason.
It is not without plausibility that a businessperson launched that ad
campaign on his own.
No wonder all US official assets are fully engaged to discourage Americans
from listening to what foreign leaders actually say. We are to rely on
our apparatchiks -- and their clerical assistants in the ever-trusty US press
corp -- to tell us what they are "really" saying and doing.
The key
word Putin uttered in this interview is that they do what is
pragmatic
.
His political party specifically eschews any particular ideological basis for
policy. That's rather novel, when you think about it. If that attitude were to
sweep the world, it seems likely diplomacy would achieve a lot more tangible
progress and require a lot less frequent fallback on primitive kinetic
"negotiations".
I don't trust Putin on much of anything but I LOVE the way he was handling
himself during that interview. Cool as a cucumber. The man deserves credit
for being that smooth. He is a master of the art of being interviewed.
The handful of other
Russian elites present at Davos-among them the oligarchs Boris Berezovsky,
VladimirGusinsky, and MikhailKhodorkovsky, and the politician
Anatoly Chubais-watched in dismay, fearing a Communist takeover,
The American billionaire George Soros feared it too and reportedly tol
the bankers and businessmen over coffee, "Boys, your time is over,"
Chubais recalled, "I saw many of my good friends, presidents of maj
American companies, European companies, who were simply dancing
around Zyuganov, trying to catch his eye, peering at him. These were
the world's most powerful businessmen, with world-famous' names.
who with their entire appearance demonstrated that they were seeking
support of the future president of Russia, because it was clear to everyone
that Zyuganov was going to be the future president of Russia, an
now they needed to build a relationship with him. So, this shook me up!"
It
was at this moment, according to Hoffman, that Chubais and the
Russian tycoons "decided on the spot to try and save Boris Yeltsin."
Chubais phoned Moscow to alert others to the situation. He then heI,
a press conference in which he denounced Zyuganov's "classic Cornmunist
lie" and warned that his election would "lead to bloodshed and
civil war." The oligarchs set aside differences and held several private
meetings in Davos hotel rooms, where they strategized over how to
defeat the Zyuganov threat. The result was the "Davos Pact": an agreement
between Chubais and the oligarchs that he would lead the anti-
Communist campaign and they would fund it-and him-generously.
The subsequent months saw a massive media offensive as "money
poured into advertising campaigns, into regional tours, into bribing
journalists"-all supported by the oligarchs (who owned the major TV
stations and newspapers) and orchestrated by Chubais. Yeltsin's subsequent
victory over Zyuganov later that summer changed the course of
Russia and can be traced back in part to the events that took place in
an otherwise sleepy alpine village that February.
Excerpted from "Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are
Making"
At last some one with
BALLS
to take on the
Mother
Fucker SOROS
, if the Sicilians do not finish the Italian job,
Soros mother fucker already has pissed off the Italians.
I believe we are prisoners of so-called "democracy"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter which political party was in power,
or what name it went under, they all had one ruling instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless
appetite for taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and all kinds of entitlements.
In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse
all paid for by the compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
"... Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is quickly discovering. ..."
"... John Adams warned that democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." ..."
"... James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." ..."
"... Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred ..."
"... What we've got now is the tyranny of the ..."
"... minority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation. Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future policy. ..."
"... If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple: minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government, the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber stamp. ..."
"... One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity grows, the less self-governing it remains. ..."
Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is
quickly discovering.
Something has gone wrong with America's political institutions. While the United States is,
on the whole, competently governed, there are massive problems lurking just beneath the
surface. This became obvious during the 2016 presidential election. Each party's nominee was
odious to a large segment of the public; the only difference seemed to be whether it was an
odious insurgent or an odious careerist. Almost two years on, things show little signs of
improving.
What's to blame? One promising, though unpopular, answer is: democracy itself. When
individuals act collectively in large groups and are not held responsible for the consequences
of their behavior, decisions are unlikely to be reasonable or prudent. This design flaw in
popular government was recognized by several Founding Fathers. John Adams warned that
democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not
commit suicide."
James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale
democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in
general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise
government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public
down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred : "It is one of the
evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled,
must often feel before they can act right; but then evil of this nature seldom fail to work
their own cure," Washington wrote. "It is to be lamented, nevertheless, that the remedies are
so slow, and that those, who may wish to apply them seasonably are not attended to before they
suffer in person, in interest and in reputation."
Given these opinions, it is unsurprising that the U.S. Constitution contains so many other
mechanisms for ensuring responsible government. Separation of powers and checks and balances
are necessary to protect the people from themselves. To the extent our political institutions
are deteriorating, the Founders' first instinct would be to look for constitutional changes,
whether formal or informal, that have expanded the scope of democracy and entrusted to the
electorate greater power than they can safely wield, and reverse them.
This theory is simple, elegant, and appealing. But it's missing a crucial detail.
American government is largely insulated from the tyranny of the majority. But at least
since the New Deal, we've gone too far in the opposite direction. What we've got now is the
tyranny of theminority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation.
Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular
control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary
over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to
ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future
policy.
But now we confront a puzzle: the rise of the permanent government did coincide with
increased democratization. The administrative-managerial state, and its enablers in Congress,
followed from creative reinterpretations of the Constitution that allowed voters to make
decisions that the Ninth and Tenth amendments -- far and away the most ignored portion of the
Bill of Rights -- should have forestalled. As it turns out, not only are both of these
observations correct, they are causally related . Increasing the scope of popular
government results in the loss of popular control.
If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of
oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social
scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple:
minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is
true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government,
the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This
required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political
insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which
was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy
enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger
government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was
predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a
permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber
stamp.
The larger the electorate, and the more questions the electorate is asked to decide, the
more important it is for the people who actually govern to take advantage of economies of scale
in government. If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need
for a behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing
political projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become
essential for technocratic experts and career politicians.
One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is
unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity
grows, the less self-governing it remains. This is why an upsurge of populism won't cure
what ails the body politic. It will either provoke the permanent and unaccountable government
into tightening its grip, or those who actually hold the power will fan the flames of popular
discontent, channeling that energy towards their continued growth and entrenchment. We have
enough knowledge to make the diagnosis, but not to prescribe the treatment. Perhaps there is
some comfort in knowing what political health looks like. G.K. Chesterton said it best in his
insight about the relationship between democracy and self-governance:
The democratic contention is that government is not something analogous to playing the
church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping
the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at
all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own
love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if
he does them badly . In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important
things must be left to ordinary men themselves
The first step towards renewed self-governance must be to reject the false dichotomy between
populism and oligarchy. A sober assessment shows that they are one in the same.
Alexander William Salter is an assistant professor in the Rawls College of Business at
Texas Tech University. He is also the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU's Free
Market Institute. See more at his website: www.awsalter.com .
This was going fine until the author decided to blame civil servants for our nation's
problems. How about an electoral system that denies majority rule? A Congress that routinely
votes against things the vast majority want? A system that vastly overpriveleges corporations
and hands them billions while inequality grows to the point where the UN warns that our
country resembles a third world kleptocracy? Nope, sez this guy. It's just because there are
too many bureaucrats.
He avoids the 17th amendment which was one of the barriers to the mob, and the 19th that
removed the power of individual states to set the terms of suffrage.
Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Katy Stanton could simply have moved to Wyoming.
It might be useful to only have property taxpayers vote.
And the problem is the left. When voters rejected Gay Marriage (57% in California!) or benefits
for illegals, unelected and unaccountable judges reversed the popular will.
I find your use of the word populism interesting. Inasmuch the word is generally used when the
decisions of the populace is different from that which the technocrats or oligarchs would have
made for them. The author being part of the technocratic elite thinks that he and his ilk know
best. This entire article is just a lot of arguments in support of this false and self serving
idea.
Making the federal government "small" will not solve the problems the author describes or
really alludes to. The power vacum left by a receding federal government will just be occupied
by an unaccountable corporate sector. The recent dismantling of Toys R Us by a spawn of Bain
Capital is the most recent manifestation of the twisted and pathological thought process that
calls itself "free market capitalism." A small federal government did not end child labor,
fight the Depression, win WW II or pioneer space exploration. Conservatives love the mythology
of a government "beast" that must be decapitated so that "Liberty" may reign. There are far
more dangerous forces at work in American society that inhibit liberty and tax our personal
treasuries than the federal government.
1) The US is not and never has been a ' democracy ' It is a Democratic Republic ' which is not
the same as a ' democracy ' ( one person -- one vote period ) of which there is only one in the
entire world . Switzerland
2) A large part of what has brought us to this point is the worn out well past its sell by
Electoral College which not only no longer serves its intended purpose .
3) But the major reason why we're here to put it bluntly is the ' Collective Stupidity of
America ' we've volitionally become : addled by celebrity , addicted to entertainment and
consumed by conspiracy theory rather than researching the facts
It's time to end the pretension that we live in a democracy. It maybe useful to claim so
when the US is trying to open markets or control resources in 3rd world countries. It's at that
time that we're 'spreading democracy'. Instead it's like spreading manure.
The managerial state arose to quell the threat of class warfare. Ironically those who sought to
organize the proletariat under a vision of class-based empowerment clamored for the same. The
response over time was fighting fire with fire as the cliche goes becoming what the opposition
has sought but only in a modified form.
If we were able to devise a way for distributive justice apart from building a bloated
bureaucracy then perhaps this emergence of oligarchy could have been averted. What
alternative(s) exist for an equitable distribution of wealth and income to ameliorate poverty?
Openly competitive (so-called) markets? And the charity of faith-based communities? I think
not.
Democracy, like all systems requires maintenace. Bernard Shaw said that the flaw of pragmatism
is that any system that is not completely idiotic will work PROVIDED THAT SOMEONE PUT EFFORT IN
MAKING IT WORK.
We have come to think that Democracy is in automatic pilot, and does not require effort of
our part See how many do not bother to vote or to inform themselves.
Democracy is a fine, shiny package with two caveats in it "Batteries not included" And "Some
assembly required" FAilure to heed those leads to disaster.
I see where you are coming from, but I must disagree. We don't have a democracy in any real
way, so how can it have failed?
Despite massive propaganda of commission and omission, the majority of the American people
don't want to waste trillions of dollars on endless pointless oversees wars. The public be
damned: Trump was quickly beaten into submission and we are back to the status quo. The public
doesn't want to give trillions of dollars to Wall Street while starving Main Street of capital.
The public doesn't want an abusively high rate of immigration whose sole purpose is to flood
the market for labor, driving wages down and profits up. And so on.
Oswald Spengler was right. " in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the
preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it
the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the
franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune."
"If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need for a
behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing political
projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become essential
for technocratic experts and career politicians."
True, but this implies retarding government power as is will lead to an ultimate solution.
It will not. The sober truth is that a massive centralized national government has been
inevitable since the onset of the second world war or even beforehand with American
intervention in the colonoal Phillippines and the Great War. Becoming an empire requires
extensive power grabbing and becoming and maintaining a position as a world power requires
constant flexing of that power. Maintaining such a large population, military, and foreign
corps requires the massive public-works projects you speak of in order to keep the population
content and foreign powers in check. Failure to do so leads to chaos and tragic disaster that
would lead to such a nation a collapse in all existing institutions due to overcumbersome
responsibilities. These cannot be left to the provinces/states due to the massive amounts of
resources required to maintain such imperial ambitions along with the cold reality of state
infighting and possible seperatist leanings.
If one wishes to end the power of the federal government as is, the goal is not to merely
seek reform. The goal is to dismantle the empire; destroy the military might, isolate certain
diplomatic relations, reduce rates of overseas trade and reduce the economy as a whole, and
then finally disband and/or drastically reduce public security institutions such as the FBI,
CIA, and their affiliates. As you well know, elites and the greater public alike consider these
anathema.
However, if you wish to rush to this goal, keep in mind that dismantling the American empire
will not necessarily lead to the end of oppression and world peace even in the short term. A
power vacuum will open that the other world powers such as the Russian Federation and the PRC
will rush to fill up. As long as the world remains so interconnected and imperialist ambitions
are maintained by old and new world powers, even the smallest and most directly democratic
states will not be able to become self-governing for long.
Well, when, statistically speaking, half of the population has an IQ of less than 100 (probably
more than half now that USA has been invaded by the Third World) then a great number of people
are uninformed and easily manipulated voters. That is one of the great fallacies of democracy.
In an era when the word "democracy" is regarded as one of our deities to worship, this article
is a breath of fresh air. Notice how we accuse the Russians of trying to undermine our hallowed
"democracy." We really don't know what we mean when we use the term democracy, but it is a
shibboleth that has a good, comforting sound. And this idea that we could extend our
"democracy" by increasing the number of voters shows that we don't understand much at all.
Brilliant insights.
I believe we are prisoners of so-called "democracy"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter
which political party was in power, or what name it went under, they all had one ruling
instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless appetite for
taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and all
kinds of entitlements. In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his
entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse all paid for by the
compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
Sand is not a problem. The real question is how much oil is consumed getting this amount od
sand to their designation. 91,000 truckloads of frac sand using, on average say 5 miles per
gallon and 100 miles each way (200 miles roundtrip) would be 3,5 million gallons of fuel per
month. That means that one day a month is essentially lost to sand transportation costs.
The U.S. Shale Oil Industry utilizes a stunning amount of equipment and consumes a massive
amount of materials to produce more than half of the country's oil production. One of the vital
materials used in the production of shale oil is frac sand. The amount of frac sand used in the
shale oil business has skyrocketed by more than 10 times since the industry took off in
2007.
According to the data by
Rockproducts.com and
IHS Markit , frac sand consumption by the U.S. shale oil and gas industry increased from 10
billion pounds a year in 2007 to over 120 billion pounds in 2017. This year, frac sand
consumption is forecasted to climb to over 135 billion pounds, with the country's largest shale
field, the Permian, accounting for 37% of the total at 50 billion pounds.
Now, 50 billion pounds of frac sand in the Permian is an enormous amount when we compare it
to the total 10 billion pounds consumed by the entire shale oil and gas industry in 2007.
(charts courtesy of the EIA - U.S. Energy Information Agency)
As we can see in the graph above, the Permian Region is the largest shale oil field in the
United States with over 3 million barrels per day (mbd) of production compared to 1.7 mbd in
the Eagle Ford, 1.2 mbd at the Bakken and nearly 600,000 barrels per day in the Niobrara.
However, only about 2 mbd of the Permian's total production is from horizontal shale oil
fracking. The remainder is from conventional oil production.
Now, to produce shale oil or gas, the shale drillers pump down the horizontal oil well a
mixture of water, frac sand, and chemicals to release the oil and gas. You can see this process
in the video below (example used for shale gas extraction):
The Permian Region, being the largest shale oil field in the United States, it consumes the
most frac sand. According to BlackMountainSand.com Infographic , the
Permian will consume 68,500 tons of frac sand a day, enough to fill 600 railcars . This equals
50 billion pounds of frac sand a year. And, that figure is forecasted to increase every
year.
Now, if we calculate the number of truckloads it takes to transport this frac sand to the
Permian shale oil wells, it's truly a staggering figure. While estimates vary, I used 45,000
pounds of frac sand per sem-tractor load. By dividing 50 billion pounds of frac sand by 45,000
pounds per truckload, we arrive at the following figures in the chart below:
Each month, over 91,000 truckloads of frac sand will be delivered to the Permian shale oil
wells. However, by the end of 2018, over 1.1 million truckloads of frac sand will be used to
produce the Permian's shale oil and gas . I don't believe investors realize just how much 1.1
million truckloads represents until we compare it to the largest retailer in the United
States.
According to Walmart, their drivers travel approximately 700 million miles per year to
deliver products from the 160 distribution centers to thousands of stores across the country.
From the information, I obtained at MWPWL International on Walmart's distribution
supply chain, the average one-way distance to its Walmart stores is about 130 miles. By
dividing the annual 700 million miles traveled by Walmart drivers by the average 130-mile trip,
the company will utilize approximately 5.5 million truckloads to deliver its products to all of
its stores in 2018.
The following chart compares the annual amount of Walmart's truckloads to frac sand
delivered in the Permian for 2018:
To provide the frac sand to produce shale oil and gas in the Permian this year, it will take
1.1 million truckloads or 20% of the truckloads to supply all the Walmart stores in the United
States. Over 140 million Americans visit Walmart (store or online) every week. However, the
Industry estimates that the Permian's frac sand consumption will jump from 50 billion pounds
this year to 119 billion pounds by 2022. Which means, the Permian will be utilizing 2.6 million
truckloads to deliver frac sand by 2022, or nearly 50% of Walmart's supply chain :
This is an insane number of truckloads just to deliver sand to produce shale oil and gas in
the Permian. Unfortunately, I don't believe the Permian will be consuming this much frac sand
by 2022. As I have stated in several articles and interviews, I see a massive deflationary
spiral taking place in the markets over the next 2-4 years. This will cause the oil price to
fall back much lower, possibly to $30 once again. Thus, drilling activity will collapse in the
shale oil and gas industry, reducing the need for frac sand.
Regardless, I wanted to show the tremendous amount of frac sand that is consumed in the
largest shale oil field in the United States. I calculated that for every gallon of oil
produced in the Permian in 2018, it would need about one pound of frac sand. But, this does not
include all the other materials, such as steel pipe, cement, water, chemicals, etc.
For example, the Permian is estimated to use 71 billion gallons of water to produce oil this
year. Thus, the fracking crews will be pumping down more than 1.5 gallons of water for each
gallon of oil they extract in 2018. So, the shale industry is consuming a larger volume of
water and sand to just produce a smaller quantity of uneconomic shale oil in the Permian .
Lastly, I have provided information in several articles and videos explaining why I believe
the U.S. Shale Oil Industry is a Ponzi Scheme. From my analysis, I see the disintegration of
the U.S. shale oil industry to start to take place within the next 1-3 years. Once the market
realizes it has been investing in a $250+ billion Shale Oil Ponzi Scheme, the impact on the
U.S. economy and financial system will be quite devastating.
Check back for new articles and updates at the SRSrocco Report .
Sand, a material so abundant, you could not give it away, but now, it has worth, thanks
frackers. His article a week or so back was claiming that all the sand had to be shipped out
of michigan, a blatant lie, or perhaps he really is just that ignorant.
A fellow in west texas bought some sparse land a few years back for about $40,000, it was
10's of acres. He was offered $13,000,000 recently, which he lept at. then he found out the
people that bought it from him, flipped it to a sand company for $200,000,000. Now he wants
to sue.
the point being that technology can make formally useless things, worth more. This is the
fundamental reason that economies grow. Knowledge adds value, making the pie larger for
everyone.
Oil may be a ponzi scheme, who knows, if a trade war crashes the global economies and
energy usage plummets by 20-50%, I would expect the deflationary environment he is talking
about. On the other hand if that does not happen, and oil goes to $100 or $200 then we will
hear a bunch of whining, but everything will keep chugging along.
and if graphene filters allow for the energy efficient filtration of salts from produced
water, and those salts are then processed for the elements such as lithium found in them, and
produced water becomes net profit stream instead of a net cost stream, then the whole
equation changes, technology adding value.
A lot of if's, that is what makes the future interesting.
you are an idiot...all sand is not the same. sand runs the gamut of smooth and round to
rough course edged. sand isnt that easy to find when you have to have a particular kind of
sand.....
Permium 1.1 million truckloads per day and + 71 billion gallons of water per year!
People in North America will be in serious need of fresh water soon, however, with
fracking spoiling water nationally and the combined effect of increased earth
tremors/potholes in vast areas, well mother nature is calling in the cards.
Combine that with GM food hidden in most products plus the millions of pharmaceutical
lovers, poisoning their own water supplies and effecting most native species and perhaps a
little radiation from Nukes and the Sun and the cell towers and a few miles of chem trails i
don't give much hope for a sustainable North American future.
I was just telling the second head growing out of my back, the other day, 'man this is the
best it has ever been', and he said ' groik splish!' and bit me on the arm. So I would say we
are of two minds on the matter.
You can make fresh water from sea water for about $2000 per acre foot using expensive
california power. I think that comes to $60 per month for a family of 4 using the fairly high
rate of water consumption by california residents.
(desalination plants already exist in Santa Barbara and San Diego, CA and there are desal
plants all over the world)
80 gallons per day * 4 people * 365 days / 330000 gallons * $2000 / 12 months = $60
An acre foot of water is about 330,000 US gallons.
Reverse osmosis in the home runs about $75 per year and cleans up most of the
problems.
Now what about the cost of distributing that? See that the thing about getting water the
old fashioned ways. Water actually cost nothing to make. The cost is building a system to
distribute the free water. It also come with gravity assist moving water from high to low.
That way you use natural property of water to flow from high places to lower ones. Now in
your system you take sea water and have to move that up from sea level. That cost is addition
to cost of converting sea water to fresh water.
Maybe we could substitute illegal aliens, or Obama-ites convicted of felonies for much of
the frac-sand?
Think of how much money that would save vs incarceration costs!
If we moved up to insane Liberal idiots who were about to explode anyway because their
Liberal world is crashing down, we'd further save the environment from all the silly electric
cars they drive. Its a win-win!
Thanks for pointing out alternatives we never thought of before!
In an interview with
Bloomberg's
Tobin Harshaw published Saturday, Clapper - who is promoting his new book
"Facts and Fears," said "I guess the way I think about that is that
through our history, when
we tried to manipulate or influence elections or even overturned governments, it was done with the
best interests of the people in that country in mind
,' adding that the US has a "traditional
reverence for human rights."
According to a
February 2016
report
by Dov H. Levin, the United States has engaged in over 80 instances of election meddling or
regime change between 1946 and 2000, while a February analysis by the
New
York Times
notes that election meddling is hardly unprecedented.
"If you ask an intelligence officer,
did the Russians break the rules or do something
bizarre, the answer is no
, not at all," said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30
years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations.
The United States
"absolutely" has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, "and I hope
we keep doing it."
-
NYT
"
We've been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947
," said
Loch K. Johnson, a University of Georgia professor who began his career in the 1970s investigating the
CIA for the Senate.
"
We've used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners -- you name it.
We've planted
false information in foreign newspapers. We've used what the British call 'King George's cavalry':
suitcases of cash
."
Don't forget,
the United States has been supporting
Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria
- guys who were undoubtedly high-fiving on 9/11, in order to
overthrow Syrian President Bashir al Assad
(in the best interests of Syrian people, we're
sure).
And while the United States has been conducting regime change and election meddling for over 70
years, President Obama's stated foreign policy objectives as summed up in a November 2016 report in
the
Washington
Post
: "not every global problem has an American solution."
"Obama had run on a platform of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and regaining
the trust of the world.
Facing the most significant financial crisis in generations,
he stressed the importance of sharing more of the burdens and responsibilities of global
leadership with others.
"
In other words; the United States will meddle in elections and conduct regime change, but when it
comes to dealing with the fallout, not our problem. Hilarious.
Always interesting when they leave
a comment wide open for (mis)interpretation...
What people? Now now, before we immediately jump to "the joos!",
let's look at some possibilities.
The best interests of the people of the country they're manipulating?
No, that can't be it... what good would that do for the U.S.? Spread of
democracy? Meh... I doubt it.
Okay, so best interests of the people of the U.S.? Maybe if it's
getting the U.S. cheaper oil or other resources... but that never really
happens.
So, best interests of the elites? Sigh.... it always circles back to
the best interests of the joos....
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
That saying - often misattributed to Euripides - comes to mind most mornings when I pick
up The New York Times and read the latest "Russiagate" headlines,
which are frequently
featured across two or three columns on the front page above the fold. This is an almost daily
reminder of the hysteria that dominates our Congress and much of our media.
A glaring example, just one of many from recent months, arrived at my door on February 17. My
outrage spiked when I opened to the Times'
lead
editorial
:
"Stop Letting the Russians Get Away With It, Mr. Trump."
I
had to ask myself:
"Did the Times' editors perform even the rudiments of due diligence before they climbed on
their high horse in this long editorial, which excoriated 'Russia' (not individual Russians) for
'interference' in the election and demanded increased sanctions against Russia 'to protect
American democracy'?"
It had never occurred to me that our admittedly dysfunctional political system is so
weak, undeveloped, or diseased that inept internet trolls could damage it. If that is the case, we
better look at a lot of other countries as well, not just Russia!
The New York Times, of course, is not the only offender.
Their editorial
attitude has been duplicated or exaggerated by most other media outlets in the United States,
electronic and print. Unless there is a mass shooting in progress, it can be hard to find a
discussion of anything else on CNN. Increasingly, both in Congress and in our media, it has been
accepted as a fact that "Russia" interfered in the 2016 election.
So what are the facts?
It is a fact that some Russians paid people to act as online trolls and bought
advertisements on Facebook during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. Most of these were
taken from elsewhere, and they comprised a tiny fraction of all the advertisements purchased on
Facebook during this period. This continued after the election and included organizing a
demonstration against President-elect Trump.
It is a fact that e-mails in the memory of the Democratic National Committee's computer were
furnished to Wikileaks. The US intelligence agencies that issued the January 2017 report were
confident that Russians hacked the e-mails and supplied them to Wikileaks, but offered no
evidence to substantiate their claim. Even if one accepts that Russians were the perpetrators,
however, the e-mails were genuine, as the US intelligence report certified. I have always
thought that the truth was supposed to make us free, not degrade our democracy.
It is a fact that the Russian government established a sophisticated television service (RT)
that purveyed entertainment, news, and -- yes -- propaganda to foreign audiences, including those in
the United States. Its audience is several magnitudes smaller than that of Fox News. Basically,
its task is to picture Russia in more favorable light than has been available in Western media.
There has been no analysis of its effect, if any, on voting in the United States. The January
2017 US intelligence report states at the outset, "We did not make an assessment of the impact
that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election." Nevertheless, that report has
been cited repeatedly by politicians and the media as having done so.
It is a fact that many senior Russian officials (though not all, by any means) expressed a
preference for Trump's candidacy. After all, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had compared
President Putin to Hitler and had urged more active US military intervention abroad, while Trump
had said it would be better to cooperate with Russia than to treat it as an enemy. It should not
require the judgment of professional analysts to understand why many Russians would find Trump's
statements more congenial than Clinton's. On a personal level, most of my Russian friends and
contacts were dubious of Trump, but all resented the Clinton's Russophobic tone, as well as
those made by Obama from 2014 onward. They considered Obama's
public
comment
that "Russia doesn't make anything" a gratuitous insult (which it was), and were
alarmed by Clinton's expressed desire to provide additional military support to the "moderates"
in Syria. But the average Russian, and certainly the typical Putin administration official,
understood Trump's comments as favoring improved relations, which they definitely favored.
There is no evidence that Russian leaders thought Trump would win or that they could have a
direct influence on the outcome. This is an allegation that has not been substantiated. The
January 2017 report from the intelligence community actually states that Russian leaders, like
most others, thought Clinton would be elected.
There is no evidence that Russian activities had any tangible impact on the outcome of the
election. Nobody seems to have done even a superficial study of the effect Russian actions
actually had on the vote. The intelligence-community report, however, states explicitly, "the
types of systems we observed Russian actors targeting or compromising are not involved in vote
tallying." Also both former FBI director James Comey and NSA director Mike Rogers
have
testified
that there is no proof Russian activities had an effect on the vote count.
There is also no evidence that there was direct coordination between the Trump campaign
(hardly a well-organized effort) and Russian officials. The indictments brought by the special
prosecutor so far are either for lying to the FBI or for offenses unrelated to the campaign such
as money laundering or not registering as a foreign agent.
So, what is the most important fact regarding the 2016 US presidential election?
The most important fact, obscured in Russiagate hysteria, is that Americans elected
Trump under the terms set forth in the Constitution.
Americans created the Electoral
College, which allows a candidate with the minority of popular votes to become president. Americans
were those who gerrymandered electoral districts to rig them in favor of a given political party.
The Supreme Court issued the infamous Citizens United decision that allows corporate financing of
candidates for political office. (Hey, money talks and exercises freedom of speech; corporations
are people!) Americans created a Senate that is anything but democratic since it gives
disproportionate representation to states with relatively small populations. It was American
senators who established non-democratic procedures that allow minorities, even sometimes single
senators, to block legislation or confirmation of appointments.
Now, that does not mean that Trump's presidency is good for the country just because Americans
elected him. In my opinion, the 2016 presidential and congressional elections pose an imminent
danger to the republic. They have created potential disasters that will severely try the checks and
balances built into our Constitution. This is especially true since both houses of Congress are
controlled by the Republican Party, which itself represents fewer voters than the opposition party.
I did not personally vote for Trump, but I consider the charges that Russian actions
interfered in the election, or - for that matter - damaged the quality of our democracy ludicrous,
pathetic, and shameful.
"
Ludicrous
" because there is no logical reason to think that anything
that the Russians did affected how people voted. In the past, when Soviet leaders tried to
influence American elections, it backfired -- as foreign interference usually does everywhere. In
1984, Yuri Andropov, the then Soviet leader made preventing Ronald Reagan's reelection the
second-most-important task of the KGB. (The first was to detect US plans for a nuclear strike on
the Soviet Union.) Everything the Soviets did -- in painting Reagan out to be a warmonger while
Andropov refused to negotiate on nuclear weapons -- helped Reagan win 49 out of 50 states.
"
Pathetic
" because it is clear that the Democratic Party lost the
election. Yes, it won the popular vote, but presidents are not elected by popular vote. To blame
someone else for one's own mistakes is a pathetic case of self-deception.
"
Shameful
" because it is an evasion of responsibility. It prevents
the Democrats, and those Republicans who want responsible, fact-based government in Washington,
from concentrating on practical ways to reduce the threat the Trump presidency poses to our
political values and even to our future existence. After all, Trump would not be president if
the Republican Party had not nominated him. He also is most unlikely to have won the Electoral
College if the Democrats had nominated someone -- almost anyone -- other than the candidate they
chose, or if that candidate had run a more competent campaign. I don't argue that any of this
was fair, or rational, but then who is so naive as to assume that American politics are either
fair or rational?
Instead of facing the facts and coping with the current reality, the Russiagate
promoters in both the government and the media, are diverting our attention from the real threats.
I should add "dangerous" to those three adjectives. "Dangerous" because making an enemy of
Russia, the other nuclear superpower -- yes, there are still two -- comes as close to political insanity
as anything I can think of. Denying global warming may rank up there too in the long run, but only
nuclear weapons pose, by their very existence in the quantities that are on station in Russia and
the United States, an immediate threat to mankind -- not just to the United States and Russia and not
just to "civilization." The sad, frequently forgotten fact is that since the creation of nuclear
weapons, mankind has the capacity to destroy itself and join other extinct species.
In their first meeting, President Ronald Reagan and then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
agreed that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." Both believed that simple and
obvious truth and their conviction enabled them to set both countries on a course that ended the
Cold War. We should think hard to determine how and why that simple and obvious truth has been
ignored of late by the governments of both countries.
We must desist from our current Russophobic insanity and encourage Presidents Trump and
Putin to restore cooperation in issues of nuclear safety, non-proliferation, control of nuclear
materials, and nuclear-arms reduction. This is in the vital interest of both the United States and
Russia. That is the central issue on which sane governments, and sane publics, would focus their
attention.
Vote up!
8
Vote down!
2
A 20-page confidential letter from President Trump's legal team leaked to the New
York Times argues that President Trump could not have obstructed justice at any point
during his presidency due to his Constitutional authority, and that he cannot be compelled to
testify in front of Special Counsel Robert Mueller due to his Constitutional powers as
President.
The letter, crafted by Trump's legal team, reveals that the White House has been waging a
quiet campaign for several months to prevent Mueller from trying to subpoena the president -
contending that because the Constitution empowers him to "if he wished, terminate the inquiry,
or even exercise his power to pardon," Trump could not have illegally obstucted any aspect of
the investigation into potential collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 US
election.
Mr. Trump's defense is a wide-ranging interpretation of presidential power. In saying he
has the authority to end a law enforcement inquiry or pardon people, his lawyers ambiguously
left open the possibility that they were referring only to the investigation into his former
national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn , which he is accused of pressuring the F.B.I. to
drop -- or perhaps the one Mr. Mueller is pursuing into Mr. Trump himself as well.
Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow outlined 16 areas they said the special counsel was scrutinizing
as part of the obstruction investigation, i ncluding the firings of Mr. Comey and of Mr.
Flynn , and the president's reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions's recusal from the
Russia investigation. -NYT
"It remains our position that the president's actions here, by virtue of his position as the
chief law enforcement officer, could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute
obstruction because that would amount to him obstructing himself , and that he could, if he
wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired," writes
President Trump's former attorney John Dowd, who left the team in March.
The leaked letter effectively reveals Trump's trump card in the event Mueller proceeds with
a subpoena.
"We are reminded of our duty to protect the president and his office," wrote the lawyers,
who stressed that " Ensuring that the office remains sacred and above the fray of shifting
political winds and gamesmanship is of critical importance. "
Translation - this is a clown show, go pound sand.
Mueller's office has told Trump's lawyers they need to speak with the president to determine
whether he criminally obstructed any aspect of the Russia investigation. If Trump refuses to be
questioned, Mueller will be forced to choose whether or not to try and subpoena him - which, as
Trump's lawyers have made abundantly clear, will result in a Constitutional crisis.
They argued that the president holds a special position in the government and is busy
running the country , making it difficult for him to prepare and sit for an interview. They
said that because of those demands on Mr. Trump's time, the special counsel's office should
have to clear a higher bar to get him to talk. Mr. Mueller, the president's attorneys argued,
needs to prove that the president is the only person who can give him the information he
seeks and that he has exhausted all other avenues for getting it. -NYT
" The president's prime function as the chief executive ought not be hampered by requests
for interview ," they wrote. " Having him testify demeans the office of the president before
the world ."
Trump's attorneys also argued that the president did nothing to technically violate
obstruction-of-justice statutes.
"Every action that the president took was taken with full constitutional authority pursuant
to Article II of the United States Constitution," they wrote of the part of the Constitution
that created the executive branch. "As such, these actions cannot constitute obstruction,
whether viewed separately or even as a totality."
According to legal experts cited by the Times , the president wields broad authority to
control the actions of the executive branch, which includes the Department of Justice and the
FBI. The Supreme Court, however, has ruled that Congress can impose some restrictions on that
power, including limiting a president's ability to fire certain officials.
"As a result, it is not clear whether statutes criminalizing obstruction of justice apply to
the president and amount to another legal limit on how he may wield his powers ," notes the
Times .
About that Russia probe...
And while Trump's team works to make the case against testifying, media reports and
Congressional investigations have revealed what appears to be
grave misconduct by the FBI and Department of Justice in order to prevent Trump from
winning the 2016 US election, and then once he won - discredit him with a Russia allegations
fabricated by US Intelligence agencies, UK intelligence assets - in collusion with the Clinton
campaign and the Obama administration.
We now know that Trump campaign aides were likely
fed rumors that Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton, and then used as
patsies by Clinton-linked operatives in what appears to have been a set-up, something Trump
once again hinted in his latest tweet, in which he also asked if the Mueller team or the DOJ is
leaking his lawyers' letters to the "Fake News Media."
Trump's attorneys have also attacked the credibility of former FBI Director James Comey,
while also contesting what they believe are Mueller's version of significant facts.
Mr. Giuliani said in an interview that Mr. Trump is telling the truth but that
investigators "have a false version of it, we believe, so you're trapped." And the stakes are
too high to risk being interviewed under those circumstances, he added: "That becomes not
just a prosecutable offense, but an impeachable offense." -NYT
They argue that Trump couldn't have intentionally obstructed justice anyway based on the
fact that he did not know that Mike Flynn was under investigation when Trump spoke to
Comey.
"There could not possibly have been intent to obstruct an 'investigation' that had been
neither confirmed nor denied to White House counsel," the president's lawyers wrote, adding
that FBI investigations generally do not qualify as the type of "proceeding" covered by an
obstruction-of-justice statute.
"Of course, the president of the United States is not above the law, but just as obvious and
equally as true is the fact that the president should not be subjected to strained readings and
forced applications of clearly irrelevant statutes," wrote Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow.
The Times, however, suggests that their argument may be outdated, as a 2002 law passed by
Congress makes it a crime to obstruct proceedings that have not yet begun.
But the lawyers based those arguments on an outdated statute , without
mentioning that Congress passed a broader law in 2002 that makes it a
crime to obstruct proceedings that have not yet started.
Samuel W. Buell, a Duke Law School professor and white-collar criminal law specialist who
was a lead prosecutor for the Justice Department's Enron task force, said the real issue was
whether Mr. Trump obstructed a potential grand jury investigation or trial -- which do count
as proceedings -- even if the F.B.I. investigation had not yet developed into one of those .
He called it inexplicable why the president's legal team was making arguments that were
focused on the wrong obstruction-of-justice statute.
Regardless, it appears Trump's team is going to tell Mueller to take a hike if he tries to
subpoena the president, and that it will simply further embarrass the United States on the
world stage.
"We write to address news reports, purportedly based on leaks, indicating that you may have
begun a preliminary inquiry into whether the president's termination of former FBI Director James Comey
constituted obstruction of justice," the June 2017 memo from Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz to
Mueller reads - while a more recent memo outlines the 16 areas they believe Mueller is focusing
on (via
CBS News )
Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn -- information regarding his
contacts with Ambassador Kislyak about sanctions during the transition process;
Lt. Gen. Flynn's communications with Vice President Mike Pence regarding those
contacts;
Lt. Gen. Flynn's interview with the FBI regarding the same;
Then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates coming to the White House to discuss same;
The president's meeting on Feb. 14, 2017, with then-Director James Comey;
Any other relevant information regarding former National Security Advisor Michael
Flynn;
The president's awareness of and reaction to investigations by the FBI, the House and the
Senate into possible collusion;
The president's reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal from the Russia
investigation;
The president's reaction to former FBI Director James Comey's testimony on March 20,
2017, before the House Intelligence Committee;
Information related to conversations with intelligence officials generally regarding
ongoing investigations;
Information regarding who the president had had conversations with concerning Mr. Comey's
performance;
Whether or not Mr. Comey's May 3, 2017, testimony lead to his termination;
Information regarding communications with Ambassador Kislyak, Minister Lavrov, and Lester
Holt;
The president's reaction to the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel;
The president's interaction with Attorney General Sessions as it relates to the
appointment of Special Counsel; and,
The statement of July 8, 2017, concerning Donald Trump, Jr.'s meeting in Trump
Tower.
One interesting fact I don't see mentioned in this article, or the comments so far, is
that this letter from Trump's attorneys to Mueller was written and delivered to Mueller in
January, 2018. 5 months ago. One of the authors has since left the Trump team (Dowd). Mueller
does not appear to have shut up shop and left town.
The only new thing about this letter is that somebody, presumably from Team Trump, has
leaked it to the New York Times. Could easily be Giuliani.
This may very well end up at the Supreme Court. If that happens, I expect a 5-4 decision
to exempt the President of the United States from the rule of law. Won't that be fun when
somebody like Elizabeth Warren becomes President in 2, 6, or however-many years?
A lot of Republicans loved how George W. Bush amassed a lot of King-like powers, and then
bemoaned it when Barack Obama used those powers of the "Unitary Executive." That shoe cramps
badly on the other foot, doesn't it.
Uhm, so what you're saying is the Supreme Court, which IS the rule of law, will likely
interpret the Constitution correctly and UPHOLD the portions of the constitution that speak
to not allowing the President to be encumbered with frivolous, unfounded charges that render
him unable to execute the charge of his office while he is a sitting President, even though
those charges CAN be brought as soon as he steps down. So this RULING OF THE LAW would be
uncomfortable for you? Tough shit, you live in America where the Constitution reigns supreme.
Are you one of those that wants to toss the constitution into the garbage all based upon, but
but but we may not be able to bring our OWN unjustified, frivolous, unfounded charges on
Presidents we don't agree with and are SUPER angry they got elected?
CONGRESS amassed a bunch of King-like powers for Bush and Obama, ignorantly. The Supreme
Court does not give any powers to the President and I have no problem with that court being
the final word.
Mueller is assholes and elbows deep in his own stinky poo poo.
If the IG report is that damning, and a second council is appointed, Mueller should buy an
apple orchard, to feed his horse face, during his incarceration.
Trump should stay "light years" AWAY>from Mueller desperation's<
They remind me of roach nests where the vermin are always nesting cozy cozy together until
an opportunity arises that allows them to bug the s**t out of the rest of us.
And of course they produce nothing, and mooch off everybody else's work.
Except these DC Swamp roaches carry badges and guns.
Only the DC Swamp could produce such freaks.
They are a step below regular six legged roaches.
At least those roaches are better behaved than their DC cousins.
America doesn't need THEIR kind of protections if it requires a handful of people to run
amuck breaking every law they vowed to uphold simply because shits like YOU are so damn
stupid you couldn't even beat a clown like Trump. Why don't you people just admit it. You're
too damn stupid to accomplish anything anymore. You couldn't win what SHOULD have been the
easiest election to win in all of American history. THEN you couldn't even run an
intelligence op "intelligently". On top of THAT you all convict yourselves as you go on "book
tours" and "political commentary" junkets because your greed surpasses your stupidity.
You have no one but yourselves to blame for everything that upsets you.
"This entire case is built on a fake piece of information in the Dossier. Or multiple
pieces of information in a Fake Dossier, I should say to be more precise. Breaking yesterday,
Breanan has insisted that to multiple people by the way, that he didn't know much about the
Dossier. Wait till we play this audio. Get the Chuck Todd one ready Joe."
"This is Devastating audio. But hold on a minute. Why is Breanan doing this? Because
Breanan knows that the Dossier was his case. And, the minute he admits on the record. That as
a Senior Level, powerful member of the Intelligence Community. That John Breanan started a
Political Investigation based on Fake Information he may very well of known was not verified.
John Breanan is going to be in a World of trouble. So he has to run from this thing."
"Now I'll get to this Sberry piece in a second. And, why it's important. But just to show
you that Breanan has run from this Dossier. Despite the fact, we know he knew about it. And,
he Lied about it. Here's him basically telling Chuck Todd....listen to how he emphasizes on
the Dossier played no role, no, no, no role, no, no, no, no, no to the Dossier. Listen to him
with Chuck Todd:"
Chuck Todd Interview 3:30 Mark. Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Psychopath
John Breanan admits the Fake Dossier Played:
"and it did not play any role whatsoever in the Intelligence Community Assessment that was
done. That was presented to then...Pesident Obama & President Elect Trump."
Mueller reminds me of the 'preacher' character in the 'Right Stuff' movie. Death made
visible. A year and a half and the only result has been to damage a freely-elected president.
Mueller's end game is to drag this s - - - out until the midterms when it is hoped the Dems
can regain the House and impeach Trump.
Mueller should be issuing a subpoena to Comey for obstructing justice and the
theft/transference of classified government documents...lol...but of course, it is not in
"Muellers mandate" to pursue justice ;-)
You're correct. I just checked. CNN is hemorrhaging slobbering viewers.
Ow, my Ballz! Is still number one slot followed by Fox.
So the joy of CNN withering only goes so far when the only refuge is FOX and Ow, my
Ballz.
Fox and friends makes me violently ill - it's soooo saccharine sweet. Steve Docey is
tolerable but that dip shit Kilmeade is such a bloodthirsty war mongering chickenhawk and
airhead Ainsley reminds me of Barbies little sister Skipper who thinks every day is Summer
and wonderful. It seriously gives me the trots in the morning. Used to like Greta, super
smart but a face for radio so they ditched her. Still like Tucker but I seriously doubt he
will stay there long term.
The time has never been more ripe for someone to buck up and create a serious media
channel that is a red pilling machine gun. 100% Mockingbird and Sheeny free, too.
The Ukrainian government's staged assassination of anti-Putin journalist Arkady Babachenko has taken
an even stranger turn, as evidence has emerged that his would-be "Russia-ordered" assassin and the man
who supposedly hired him, both say they worked for Ukrainian counterintelligence, casting serious
doubt on the official story.
To review, Ukrainian authorities announced last Tuesday that Babachenko
had been assassinated after returning home from the store. On Wednesday, Babachenko appeared at a
press conference with Ukrainian authorities
who said that the faked assassination was an
elaborate sting to bust an actual hit planned by Russia
.
Only now we find that the hitman,
Oleksiy Tsimbalyuk
, is an outspoken critic of Russia who says he worked for Ukrainian
counterintelligence -
a claim Ukraine initially denied but later admitted to be true
.
Meanwhile the guy who supposedly hired Tsimbalyuk, Boris L. German, 50, also says he worked for
Ukrainian counter-intelligence, a claim Ukraine denies as its immediately destroys the carefully
scripted, if rapidly imploding, Ukrainian narrative meant to scapegoat Russia for what has been a
"fake news" story of epic proportions, emerging from the one nation that not only was the
biggest foreign donor to the Clinton foundation
, but has made fake news propaganda into an art
form.
Supposed "hitman" Oleksiy Tsimbalyuk
Boris German, suspected of organizing an attempted hit on anti-Putin Russian journalist Arkady
Babachenko sits in a cage during trial in Kiev, Ukraine
The
New
York Times
reports that Tsimbalyuk - a former Russia-hating priest was featured in a
10-minute documentary in January 2017 in which "
he called killing members of the Russian-backed
militias in eastern Ukraine "an act of mercy"
,
further calling into question why Russia
would hire him for the supposed assassination in the first place.
Facebook pictures also reveal Tsimbalyuk wearing a Ukrainian ultranationalist uniform from "Right
Sector," a group deemed to be neo-Nazis.
Given such strong and publicly avowed enmity toward Russia,
it is odd to say the
least that Mr. Tsimbalyuk would be selected to carry out the contract killing of a prominent
Kremlin critic
.
German claims he took orders from Moscow businessman Vyacheslav Pivovarnik - who he says works for
one of Putin's personal foundations.
Ukrainian officials also claim that German has a list of another 30 targets which Moscow wants
to wipe out - something he claims he has since passed onto Kyiv.
Prosecutors claimed German had been given a down payment of $15,000, half what he was promised
for carrying out the hit.
German said: 'I got a call from a longtime acquaintance who lives in Moscow, and in the process
of communicating with him it turned out that he works for a Putin foundation precisely to
orchestrate destabilization in Ukraine.' -
Daily
Mail
"
Six months ago, my old acquaintance contacted me, an ex-citizen of Ukraine, now living in
Moscow
," German told a Ukrainian court, adding "
He works in a personal foundation of
Putin's
- and is in charge of organizing riots in Ukraine and planned acts of terror at the
next presidential elections. He is called Vyacheslav Pivovarnik. This is not a fairy tale, there's
nothing mystical here, everything has been proved."
German's lawyer Eugene Solodko wrote on Facebook that his client was an executive director of
Ukrainian-German firm Schmeisser - the only non-state owned arms producer in the country.
Russia has denied German's claim, with a Putin spokesman saying "No such foundation exists in
Russia. Any allegations about Russia's possible complicity in this staging is just mudslinging. They
do not correspond to reality."
Meanwhile, senior Ukraine officials have been on the defensive since Wednesday, when the head of
security services announced they had staged the death of Babchenko so they could track his would-be
killers to Russian intelligence, a story the
International Federation of Journalists
slammed as idiotic, nonsensical and completely undermining
Ukraine's credibility.
I think that the Ukonazis must have been inspired by their friends at
MI6's and their brilliant execution of the Skripal father and
daughter hit. They needed Jihadi John Brennan to organize things for
them, but he seems to be tied up at the moment. And the Thai
Torturer is still getting comfortable in her new saddle. But I am
confident that she will be able to execute both fake and real
assassinations shortly.
Just when you thought that the US had become a banana republic.
The Ukrainian government, screws shit up as a US puppet that is
beyond belief. Putin is laughing so hard that he won't sleep for
days. Your right about Britain, they have been so influenced by
Soros that they screw everything up as well.
Is this the year that the left falls into the bottomless pit?
How can you screw everything up so bad and still live. Look at the
left in the US, failure upon failure. Their media proclaims
victory, yet know one believes them about anything. The
corporations are keeping them afloat. Not for long!
It's true though, the jews
never were really creative in the first place (that is why
there is no true innovation in the world, these fuckers hold
tight purse strings).
Because they
are
morons. The short-bus crowd seems to think that
every person on earth is as stupid as they; and that these are really smart,
fiendishly clever plots that in reality are Scooby-Do level theatrics at best.
Wouldn't shock me if some Ken doll™ wearing a blue ascot tore off this guy's
rubber mask to reveal Old Man Joe Biden who's scheme to set his idiot kid up
with the biggest Porsche dealership in Europe was foiled by 'those damn kids.'
"Why are so many people so desperately trying to make Russia look bad and
managing only to make themselves look like morons?"
Public is even dumber.
Just ask any joe or jane on the street. They think all this non-sense is
caused by the Russians, Assad uses chemical weapons, etc
Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all
major US news outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR) .
Established in 1921 as a private, bipartisan organization to
"awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities" , the CFR and its close to 5000 elite
members have for decades shaped U.S. foreign policy and public discourse about it. As a
well-known Council member once explained , the goal
has indeed been to establish a global Empire, albeit a "benevolent" one.
Based on official membership rosters, the following illustration for the first time depicts
the extensive media network of the CFR and its two main international affiliate organizations :
the Bilderberg Group (covering mainly the U.S. and Europe) and the Trilateral Commission
(covering North America, Europe and East Asia), both established by Council leaders to
foster elite cooperation at the international level.
In a column entitled
"Ruling Class Journalists" , former Washington Post senior editor and ombudsman Richard
Harwood once described the Council and its members approvingly as "the nearest thing we have to
a ruling establishment in the United States".
Harwood continued:
"The membership of these journalists in the Council, however they may think of themselves,
is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their
ascension into the American ruling class. They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign
policy for the United States; they help make it.
They are part of that establishment whether they like it or not, sharing most of its
values and world views ."
However, media personalities constitute only about five percent of the overall CFR network.
As the following illustration shows, key members of the private Council on Foreign Relations
have included:
several U.S. Presidents and Vice Presidents of both parties;
almost all Secretaries of State, Defense, and the Treasury;
many high-ranking commanders of the U.S. military and NATO;
almost all National Security Advisors, CIA Directors, Ambassadors to the U.N., Chairs of
the Federal Reserve, Presidents of the World Bank, and Directors of the National Economic
Council;
some of the most influential Members of Congress (notably in foreign & security
policy matters);
many top jounalists, media executives, and entertainment industry directors;
many prominent academics, especially in key fields such as Economics, International
Relations, Political Science, History, and Journalism;
many top executives of Wall Street, policy think tanks, universities, and NGOs;
as well as the key members of both the 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission
(JFK)
Eminent economist and Kennedy supporter, John K. Galbraith,
confirmed the Council's influence: "Those of us who had worked for the Kennedy election
were tolerated in the government for that reason and had a say, but foreign policy was still
with the Council on Foreign Relations people."
And no less than John
J. McCloy , the longtime chairman of the Council and advisor to nine U.S. presidents,
told the New York Times about his time in Washington : "Whenever we needed a man we thumbed
through the roll of the Council members and put through a call to New York."
German news magazine Der Spiegel once described the CFR as the "most
influential private institution of the United States and the Western world" and a "politburo of
capitalism". Both the Roman-inspired logo of the Council (top right in the illustration above)
as well as its slogan ( ubique – omnipresent) appear to emphasize that ambition.
"The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment
that guides our destiny as a nation.
[I]t rarely fails to get one of its members, or at least one of its allies, into the White
House. In fact, it generally is able to see to it that both nominees are men acceptable to
it."
Until recently, this assessment had indeed been justified. Thus, in 1993 former CFR director
George H.W. Bush was followed by CFR member Bill Clinton, who in turn was followed by CFR
"family member" George W. Bush. In 2008, CFR member John McCain lost against CFR candidate of
choice, Barack Obama, who
received the names of his entire Cabinet already one month prior to his election by CFR
Senior Fellow (and Citigroup banker) Michael Froman . Froman later negotiated the
TTP and TTIP free trade agreements, before returning to the CFR as a Distinguished Fellow.
It was not until the 2016 election that the Council couldn't, apparently, prevail. At any
rate, not yet.
"... Opinions expressed in FRBSF Economic Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of the management of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. ..."
Is GDP Overstating Economic Activity?, by Zheng Liu, Mark M. Spiegel, and Eric B. Tallman
: Two common measures of overall economic output are gross domestic product (GDP) and gross
domestic income (GDI). GDP is based on aggregate expenditures, while GDI is based on
aggregate income. In principle, the two measures should be identical. However, in practice,
they are not. The differences between these two series can arise from differences in source
data, errors in measuring their components, and the seasonal adjustment process.
In this Economic Letter , we evaluate the reliability of GDP relative to two
alternatives, GDI and a combination of the two known as GDPplus, for measuring economic
output. We test the ability of each to forecast a benchmark measure of economic activity over
the past two years. We find that GDP consistently outperforms the other two as a more
accurate predictor of aggregate economic activity over this period. This suggests that the
relative weakness of GDI growth in recent years does not necessarily indicate weakness in
overall economic growth.
Discrepancies between GDP and GDI
What drives the discrepancies between GDP and GDI is not well understood. The source data for
the components that go into GDP and GDI are measured with errors, which may lead to
discrepancies between the two. Further discrepancies can arise because those different
components are adjusted for seasonality at different points in time (see, for example, Grimm
2007).
The differences between these two series can be large. For example, in the last two quarters
of 2007, inflation-adjusted or "real" GDI was declining whereas real GDP was still growing.
The year-over-year growth rate of GDP exceeded that of GDI by almost 2.6 percentage points.
Over long periods, however, final measures of growth in GDP and GDI tend to yield roughly
equivalent assessments of economic activity. Since 1985, real GDP grew at an average annual
rate of about 3.98%, while real GDI grew at a similar average rate of 4.02%.
Since late 2015, the two series have diverged, with real GDP growth consistently exceeding
real GDI growth (Figure 1). The differences in growth are significant in this period. For
example, if we used GDI growth to assess overall economic activity since July 2015, then the
size of real aggregate output by the end of 2017 would be $230 billion smaller than if GDP
growth were used. This divergence between the two sends mixed signals regarding the strength
of recent economic activity.
Figure 1
Mixed signals from GDP and GDI growth
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Evaluating GDP, GDI, combination
Researchers often debate which of these series measures economic activity more accurately.
Nalewaik (2012) argues that GDI outperforms GDP in forecasting recessions. GDI does appear to
exhibit more cyclical volatility than GDP. One reason may be that GDI is more highly
correlated with a number of business cycle indicators, including movements in both employment
and unemployment (Nalewaik 2010). On the other hand, the Bureau of Economic Analysis has
resisted this conclusion, arguing that GDP is in general based on more reliable source data
than GDI is (Landefeld 2010).
To evaluate the relative reliability of GDP versus GDI for measuring economic output, we
compare their abilities to forecast a benchmark measure of economic activity. We focus on the
Chicago Fed
National Activity Index (CFNAI) as the benchmark, since it is publicly available. The
CFNAI is a monthly index of national economic activity, generated as the common component of
85 monthly series in the U.S. economy. These underlying series include a wide variety of data
covering production and income, employment and unemployment, personal consumption and
housing, and sales and orders. The CFNAI has been shown to help forecast real GDP (Lang and
Lansing 2010). We use the CFNAI as a benchmark activity indicator to evaluate the relative
forecasting performances of GDP and GDI and their combinations. Since the discrepancy between
these two series has persisted for several years, we focus on the final releases of the GDP
and GDI series.
Some have argued that, because the GDP and GDI series contain independent information, it may
be preferable to combine the two series into a single more informative activity indicator.
One series that uses such a combination is the Philadelphia Fed's GDPplus
series, which is a weighted average of GDP and GDI, with the weights based on the approach
described by Aruoba et al. (2016). As a weighted average, GDPplus indicates activity levels
between the two individual series. We therefore also consider the forecasting performance of
the GDPplus series over this period of extended discrepancy between reported GDP and GDI
growth.
To confirm the accuracy of our approach, we repeated our investigation with two alternative
series constructed using methodologies similar to the CFNAI. The first alternative is an
aggregate economic activity index (EAI) we constructed by extracting the common components of
90 underlying monthly time series. The EAI covers a broader set of monthly indicators than
the CFNAI, since we also include information from goods prices and asset prices.
The second alternative indicator we considered is an activity index constructed by Barigozzi
and Luciani (2018), which we call the BL index. Like our index, the BL index includes price
indexes and other measures of labor costs. The authors base their estimates on the portions
of GDP and GDI that are driven by common macroeconomic shocks under the assumption that they
have equivalent effects on GDP and GDI. This restriction implies that deviations between GDP
and GDI are transitory, and that the two series follow each other over time.
The EAI and the BL index are both highly correlated with the CFNAI and thus yielded similar
conclusions. We describe the source data and our methodology for constructing the EAI as well
as the analysis using both it and the BL index in an
online appendix .
Empirical results
To examine the relative performances of GDP, GDI, and GDPplus for forecasting the CFNAI, we
first estimate an empirical model in which the CFNAI is related to four lagged values of one
of these measures of aggregate output. Ideally, we would have used the full sample of postwar
data in our model, but there are some structural breaks in the data related to factors such
as changes in the monetary policy regime since the mid-1980s and the Great Moderation that
make this challenging. We therefore choose to focus on the sample starting from the first
quarter of 1985 in this discussion; our results using the full sample are similar, as we
report in the
online appendix .
To examine how well each of the measures of aggregate output are able to forecast the CFNAI,
we estimate the model using the sample observations up to the end of 2015, the period before
GDP and GDI diverged. Once we determine the estimated coefficients that describe each
relationship, we use those values to estimate forecasts for the period when discrepancies
developed, from the first quarter of 2016 to the end of 2017. We then calculate the
prediction errors, measured by the root mean-squared errors, for each measure of aggregate
output. The smaller the prediction error, the better the forecasting performance.
In addition to examining the forecasting performance of GDP, GDI, and GDPplus for predicting
the CFNAI economic activity indicator, we also examined their forecasting performance for the
unemployment rate as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 2 displays the prediction errors from 2016 to 2017 for each of the alternative output
measures -- GDP, GDI, and GDPplus -- estimated from our model for CFNAI and unemployment. For
ease of comparison, we normalize the prediction errors from the model with GDP to one. The
figure shows that the prediction errors over this period based on the GDP series are
substantively lower than those based on GDI or GDPplus. This finding holds true not just for
these proxies for economic activity but also for our EAI and the BL index (see the
online appendix ). Moreover, formal statistical tests of forecasting performance indicate
that the forecasts based on GDP are significantly better than those based on GDI or GDPplus
at the 95% confidence level. This result suggests that, in recent periods, GDP has been a
more reliable independent indicator of economic activity than either GDI or GDPplus.
Figure 2
GDP outperforms GDI, GDPplus in predicting activity
Note: Figure shows prediction errors with GDP indexed to 1.
Conclusion
While GDP and GDI are theoretically identical measures of economic output, they can differ
significantly in practice over some periods. The differences between the two series have been
particularly pronounced in the past two years, when GDP growth has been consistently stronger
than GDI growth. Based on this observation, some analysts have claimed that GDP might be
overstating the pace of growth and that GDI, or some combination of GDP and GDI, should be
used to evaluate the levels and growth rate of economic activity.
To evaluate the validity of this claim, we compared the relative performances of GDP, GDI,
and a combined measure, GDPplus, for forecasting the CFNAI, which we use as a benchmark
measure of economic activity over the past two years. We find that GDP consistently
outperforms both GDI and combinations of the two, such as GDPplus, in forecasting aggregate
economic activity during the past two years. In this sense, GDP is a more accurate predictor
of aggregate economic activity than GDI over this period. Therefore, the relative weakness of
GDI growth observed in recent years does not necessarily indicate weakness in overall
economic growth.
Zheng
Liu is a senior research advisor in the Economic Research Department of the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Mark M. Spiegel is a
vice president in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco.
Eric B. Tallman is a research associate in the Economic Research Department of the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
References
Aruoba, S. Boragan, Francis X. Diebold, Jeremy Nalewaik, Frank Schorfheide, and Dongho Song.
2016. "Improving GDP Measurement: A Measurement-Error Perspective." Journal of
Econometrics 191(2), pp. 384–397.
Landefeld, J. Steven. 2010. "Comments and Discussion: The Income- and Expenditure-Side
Estimates of U.S. Output Growth." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , Spring,
pp. 112–123.
Nalewaik, Jeremy J. 2010. "The Income- and Expenditure-Side Estimates of U.S. Output Growth."
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , Spring, pp. 71–106.
Nalewaik, Jeremy J. 2012. "Estimating Probabilities of Recession in Real Time Using GDP and
GDI." Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 44, pp. 235–253.
Opinions expressed in FRBSF Economic Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of
the management of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System.
Fine, "Vickrey macro," but every time that is asserted there needs to be a reference to a
clear summary statement of what that means. A Wikipedia reference would do, but the assertion
has almost no influence unless made immediately, simply meaningful.
Just one simple reference summary will do, continually repeated.
Fifteen Fatal Fallacies of Financial Fundamentalism
A Disquisition on Demand Side Economics
By William Vickrey
Much of the conventional economic wisdom prevailing in financial circles, largely
subscribed to as a basis for governmental policy, and widely accepted by the media and the
public, is based on incomplete analysis, contrafactual assumptions, and false analogy. For
instance, encouragement to saving is advocated without attention to the fact that for most
people encouraging saving is equivalent to discouraging consumption and reducing market
demand, and a purchase by a consumer or a government is also income to vendors and suppliers,
and government debt is also an asset. Equally fallacious are implications that what is
possible or desirable for individuals one at a time will be equally possible or desirable for
all who might wish to do so or for the economy as a whole.
And often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is
almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy
so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.
This might be justifiable in an economy at chock-full employment, or it might be validated in
a sense by postulating that the Federal Reserve Board will pursue and succeed in a policy of
holding unemployment strictly to a fixed "non-inflation-accelerating" or "natural" rate. But
under current conditions such success is neither likely nor desirable.
Some of the fallacies that result from such modes of thought are as follows. Taken
together their acceptance is leading to policies that at best are keeping us in the economic
doldrums with overall unemployment rates stuck in the 5 to 6 percent range. This is bad
enough merely in terms of the loss of 10 to 15 percent of our potential production, even if
shared equitably, but when it translates into unemployment of 10, 20, and 40 percent among
disadvantaged groups, the further damages in terms of poverty, family breakup, school truancy
and dropout, illegitimacy, drug use, and crime become serious indeed. And should the implied
policies be fully carried out in terms of a "balanced budget," we could well be in for a
serious depression.
Fallacy 1
Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals.
Fallacy 2
Urging or providing incentives for individuals to try to save more is said to stimulate
investment and economic growth. This seems to derive from an assumption of an unchanged
aggregate output so that what is not used for consumption will necessarily and automatically
be devoted to capital formation.
Fallacy 3
Government borrowing is supposed to "crowd out" private investment.
Fallacy 4
Inflation is called the "cruelest tax." The perception seems to be that if only prices
would stop rising, one's income would go further, disregarding the consequences for
income.
Fallacy 5
"A chronic trend towards inflation is a reflection of living beyond our means." Alfred
Kahn, quoted in Cornell '93, summer issue.
Fallacy 6
Fallacy 7
Many profess a faith that if only governments would stop meddling, and balance their
budgets, free capital markets would in their own good time bring about prosperity, possibly
with the aid of "sound" monetary policy. It is assumed that there is a market mechanism by
which interest rates adjust promptly and automatically to equate planned saving and
investment in a manner analogous to the market by which the price of potatoes balances supply
and demand. In reality no such market mechanism exists; if a prosperous equilibrium is to be
achieved it will require deliberate intervention on the part of monetary authorities.
Fallacy 8
If deficits continue, the debt service would eventually swamp the fisc.
Fallacy 9
The negative effect of considering the overhanging burden of the increased debt would, it
is claimed, cancel the stimulative effect of the deficit. This sweeping claim depends on a
failure to analyze the situation in detail.
Fallacy 10
The value of the national currency in terms of foreign exchange (or gold) is held to be a
measure of economic health, and steps to maintain that value are thought to contribute to
this health. In some quarters a kind of jingoistic pride is taken in the value of one's
currency, or satisfaction may be derived from the greater purchasing power of the domestic
currency in terms of foreign travel.
Fallacy 11
It is claimed that exemption of capital gains from income tax will promote investment and
growth.
Fallacy 12
Debt would, it is held, eventually reach levels that cause lenders to balk with taxpayers
threatening rebellion and default.
Fallacy 13
Authorizing income-generating budget deficits results in larger and possibly more
extravagant, wasteful and oppressive government expenditures.
Fallacy 14
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren.
Fallacy 15
Unemployment is not due to lack of effective demand, reducible by demand-increasing
deficits, but is either "structural," resulting from a mismatch between the skills of the
unemployed and the requirements of jobs, or "regulatory", resulting from minimum wage laws,
restrictions on the employment of classes of individuals in certain occupations, requirements
for medical coverage, or burdensome dismissal constraints, or is "voluntary," in part the
result of excessively generous and poorly designed social insurance and relief
provisions.
It is thought necessary to keep unemployment at a "non-inflation-accelerating" level
("NIARU") in the range of 4% to 6% if inflation is to be kept from increasing
unacceptably.
"Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals."
Except, we do not say a worker with $1000 a week income buying a $100,000 home first week
in May ran a $99,200 deficit (still needed food and gas) that week.
But government might run a $10 billion per week deficit from paying workers to build
infrastructure that will last a century plus with maintenance which will be repaid with
higher taxes over the next 50 years plus higher taxes for operations,....
Or the $10 billion per week deficit might be from ending all infrastructure building and
slashing spending on operations so a $11 billion per week tax cut could be implemented ($1
billion in taxes to repay and operate the infrastructure being built at $10 billion per
week).
Households and businesses maintain four ledgers, one pair is income and expense, and the
other is assets and liabilities. Buying a car, house, factory or car is not an expense, but
an addition to assets with offsetting liability. They are expensed over time as depreciation.
Excess income over expense is added to assets, in a cash account. Paying cash for an asset
moves the value from one part of the asset ledger, unless you have a separate fund for
emergency or retire and you borrow from it to pay for the car creating two new entries, a
liability for borrowing your money offset by the asset car.
I did this in the 60s and 70s with a ledger I then punched on IBM cards so I could create
multiple reports from one set of transactions, like a business. In the 90s, I did this for a
year or two with Quicken. It was not part of the "quick" entry and report which was more like
a check register, but it had all the options for asset and liability ledgers, with tied
entries between ledgers, mostly focused on investment accounts. It lacked a comprehensive
asset ledger function to tally house, car, truck, boat, home theater, cabin, and then
depreciate them, but I'm guessing QuickBooks has these functions.
For the Federal government, and State governments, many assets are on the books of local
government or government subunits, but finance by a bigger government. For example, NH State
government funds building most of new schools out of a cash account, while half a century
ago, a local government would hike a tax to fund issuing a bond, which means the State
mandated school was easy to fund for the rich towns, but almost impossible for poor towns
with very low tax base. Once moved to the conservative State level, issuing tax backed bonds
became politically difficult.
In the 60s, government debt was for building assets and bonds had tax revenue streams to
repay them. But conservatives hated the investment part of government because while it meant
jobs, it also required taxes.
For example, the highway trust fund was based on taxes to fill it to pay States to pay
workers. If a bunch of States wanted more jobs, that led to higher taxes.
Social Security Trust funds are based on an investment asset and liability model. The
assets are the current and future workers plus trust funds and the liabilities are current
and future beneficiaries being paid and to be paid. The Trustees report on these two ledgers
annually, along with income and expense. For a number of years, they have reported the
liabilities are growing slightly faster than assets.
But the rise of free lunch economics that basically rejects capitalism and it's
accounting, simply call liabilities the FICA revenue and the expenses and claim there are no
SS assets.
Progressives seem to live hand to mouth, rejecting capitalist principles.
You make claims like this all the time. Without a shred of evidence. Why don't you
SPECIFICALLY point to a time when you think pgl misrepresented something.
You did this for me once, and it became instantly clear that you cannot read - or at least
read things into comments that are not there. What did pgl misrepresent. Waiting.
Vickrey wrote on a wide range of topics besides macroeconomics. Now he also had certain
progressive Keynesian views, which I share. Of course I'm not into the mindless name dropping
that Paine is into. I would rather actually read what economists wrote. A couple of us
provided the 1996 Fifteen Fallacies paper he wrote which is an excellent read.
I do wonder if Paine himself ever bothered to read it as he sure has never bothered to
explain what it said.
Yes, I agree with the ideas of Vickrey and can use my abstract of the 15 fallacies as a
guide. I am pleased. The post below can then be linked to in future...
Last night found and read the Vickrey reference. Made a bet with myself that the toxic
troika's response would be to hurl low quality insults and disrupt.
Looking to housework in China, and how it has been radically changed with development, I
realize to my surprise that per capita GDP growth and distribution of income surely measures
housework. A house with electricity alone allows for a revolution in housework. Detergent
(non-phosphate) works wonders...
Neoliberal Economics being the creation of middle aged upper middle class men during the
1940's through the 1990's places value of zero on 'women's work'
Despite that much of it involves supporting current workers, birthing and raising next gen
workers.
The Socialist/Communist Critique is families require some amount of resources in order to
effectively perform that work. As such if you're going to have paid work then the state
should require that the level of pay is adequate.
The neoliberal response is to get the vapors and engage in gate keeping behavior.
As a child grows up and receives all forms of social training and other preparation to
participate in society ("get a job"), it is generally a quantity of "women's' work" that is
"spent" to do this. But it's not "spent" so much as "invested", as the product of the work is
a much improved human being. The young person embodies the investment. I guess we now call
this "human capital". In any event, it's an investment of women's work that creates it.
Now, one would think that someone possessing such capital might face better prospects than
one who does not, and that seems to be true. But it seems you can look at how competitive the
asset is by looking at how it faires in the market. In recent decades, look at the gain in
starting salaries. I have not seen a good series, but it seems they have lagged inflation,
let alone GDP per capita. Thus the real yield on the asset has been negative, or one could
say the yield has been on average entirely captured by employers. Others might make
statements using "exploitation".
The job market for young people has been a cruel game of musical chairs: make a lifetime
of investment just to join a circle for which there are too few chairs, and the employer gets
all the yield.
Fifteen Fatal Fallacies of Financial Fundamentalism
A Disquisition on Demand Side Economics
By William Vickrey
Much of the conventional economic wisdom prevailing in financial circles, largely
subscribed to as a basis for governmental policy, and widely accepted by the media and the
public, is based on incomplete analysis, contrafactual assumptions, and false analogy. For
instance, encouragement to saving is advocated without attention to the fact that for most
people encouraging saving is equivalent to discouraging consumption and reducing market
demand, and a purchase by a consumer or a government is also income to vendors and suppliers,
and government debt is also an asset. Equally fallacious are implications that what is
possible or desirable for individuals one at a time will be equally possible or desirable for
all who might wish to do so or for the economy as a whole.
And often analysis seems to be based on the assumption that future economic output is
almost entirely determined by inexorable economic forces independently of government policy
so that devoting more resources to one use inevitably detracts from availability for another.
This might be justifiable in an economy at chock-full employment, or it might be validated in
a sense by postulating that the Federal Reserve Board will pursue and succeed in a policy of
holding unemployment strictly to a fixed "non-inflation-accelerating" or "natural" rate. But
under current conditions such success is neither likely nor desirable.
Some of the fallacies that result from such modes of thought are as follows.
Fallacy 1
Deficits are considered to represent sinful profligate spending at the expense of future
generations who will be left with a smaller endowment of invested capital. This fallacy seems
to stem from a false analogy to borrowing by individuals.
Fallacy 2
Urging or providing incentives for individuals to try to save more is said to stimulate
investment and economic growth. This seems to derive from an assumption of an unchanged
aggregate output so that what is not used for consumption will necessarily and automatically
be devoted to capital formation.
Fallacy 3
Government borrowing is supposed to "crowd out" private investment.
Fallacy 4
Inflation is called the "cruelest tax." The perception seems to be that if only prices
would stop rising, one's income would go further, disregarding the consequences for
income.
Fallacy 5
"A chronic trend towards inflation is a reflection of living beyond our means." Alfred
Kahn, quoted in Cornell '93, summer issue.
Fallacy 6
It is thought necessary to keep unemployment at a "non-inflation-accelerating" level
("NIARU") in the range of 4% to 6% if inflation is to be kept from increasing
unacceptably.
Fallacy 7
Many profess a faith that if only governments would stop meddling, and balance their
budgets, free capital markets would in their own good time bring about prosperity, possibly
with the aid of "sound" monetary policy. It is assumed that there is a market mechanism by
which interest rates adjust promptly and automatically to equate planned saving and
investment in a manner analogous to the market by which the price of potatoes balances supply
and demand. In reality no such market mechanism exists; if a prosperous equilibrium is to be
achieved it will require deliberate intervention on the part of monetary authorities.
Fallacy 8
If deficits continue, the debt service would eventually swamp the fisc.
Fallacy 9
The negative effect of considering the overhanging burden of the increased debt would, it
is claimed, cancel the stimulative effect of the deficit. This sweeping claim depends on a
failure to analyze the situation in detail.
Fallacy 10
The value of the national currency in terms of foreign exchange (or gold) is held to be a
measure of economic health, and steps to maintain that value are thought to contribute to
this health. In some quarters a kind of jingoistic pride is taken in the value of one's
currency, or satisfaction may be derived from the greater purchasing power of the domestic
currency in terms of foreign travel.
Fallacy 11
It is claimed that exemption of capital gains from income tax will promote investment and
growth.
Fallacy 12
Debt would, it is held, eventually reach levels that cause lenders to balk with taxpayers
threatening rebellion and default.
Fallacy 13
Authorizing income-generating budget deficits results in larger and possibly more
extravagant, wasteful and oppressive government expenditures.
Fallacy 14
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren.
Fallacy 15
Unemployment is not due to lack of effective demand, reducible by demand-increasing
deficits, but is either "structural," resulting from a mismatch between the skills of the
unemployed and the requirements of jobs, or "regulatory", resulting from minimum wage laws,
restrictions on the employment of classes of individuals in certain occupations, requirements
for medical coverage, or burdensome dismissal constraints, or is "voluntary," in part the
result of excessively generous and poorly designed social insurance and relief
provisions.
Government debt is thought of as a burden handed on from one generation to its children
and grandchildren."
So, Trump, and the GOP starting with Reagan, but especially in the 21st century, have
created great fantastic wealth to lift away all burden from future generations!
Huge lifting of burden!
The future is life of ease in a huge hammock of debt!
I think Trump's victory broke the brains of the toxic trio (PGL, EMichael, kurt). They say
it's pure racism. America is racist. We knew that, but Obama won twice. Oh it was a
"backlash." Nah, Ben Rhodes knows.
How Trump's Election Shook Obama: 'What if We Were Wrong?'
By Peter Baker
May 30, 2018
WASHINGTON -- Riding in a motorcade in Lima, Peru, shortly after the 2016 election,
President Barack Obama was struggling to understand Donald J. Trump's victory.
"What if we were wrong?" he asked aides riding with him in the armored presidential
limousine.
He had read a column asserting that liberals had forgotten how important identity was to
people and had promoted an empty cosmopolitan globalism that made many feel left behind.
"Maybe we pushed too far," Mr. Obama said. "Maybe people just want to fall back into their
tribe."
His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another
term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama,
the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. "Sometimes I wonder whether I
was 10 or 20 years too early," he said.
In the weeks after Mr. Trump's election, Mr. Obama went through multiple emotional stages,
according to a new book by his longtime adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes. At times, the departing
president took the long view, at other points, he flashed anger. He called Mr. Trump a
"cartoon" figure who cared more about his crowd sizes than any particular policy. And he
expressed rare self-doubt, wondering whether he had misjudged his own influence on American
history.
[Obama's painfully slow recovery influenced history. Read Benjamin Friedman and Chris
Dillow]
...
Mr. Obama and his team were confident that Mrs. Clinton would win and, like much of the
country, were shocked when she did not. "I couldn't shake the feeling that I should have seen
it coming," Mr. Rhodes writes. "Because when you distilled it, stripped out the racism and
misogyny, we'd run against Hillary eight years ago with the same message Trump had used:
She's part of a corrupt establishment that can't be trusted to bring change."
Funny you call me toxic when you just posted a smear and a lie. I have NEVER said it was all
racism or only racism and you know it. What I have said is that 1. economic insecurity does
not appear - due to study as opposed to your feelings - to have been a primary factor in the
decision of Trump voters, and 2. that the studies show that the primary motivators were
racism, fear of cultural change, sexism, and fear of immigrants. Economic insecurity fell
several orders of magnitude below the primary motivators. In fact, you missed the "fall back
into tribalism" part of your own post. Then again, you have never displayed even the
slightest modicum of reading comprehension ability.
U.S. Foreclosure Activity Drops to 12-Year Low in 2017
But New York Foreclosure Auctions, New Jersey REOs Both at 11-Year High;
Biggest Backlogs of Legacy Foreclosures in New York, New Jersey, Florida
IRVINE, Calif. – Jan. 18, 2018 – ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation's
largest multi-sourced property database, today released its Year-End 2017 U.S. Foreclosure
Market Report, which shows foreclosure filings -- default notices, scheduled auctions and
bank repossessions -- were reported on 676,535 U.S. properties in 2017, down 27 percent from
2016 and down 76 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010 to the lowest level since
2005...
*
[When people that voted for Trump answer the question "Why" would it be too much to expect
that their answer might change over time with their perception of both the economy and Donald
Trump? There has always been a shortage of real world ceteris paribus in economics going back
before Adam Smith.]
You're being obtuse again. The effect of the center left liberal (see the Toxic Troika)
campaign to mock economic anxiety's explanatory power is to deny it had anything to with
Trump winning. They (you) deny he was populist when his rhetoric was very anti-elite and he's
a new kind of Republican whose dog whistles are out in the open. THAT's why Obama was alarmed
you obtuse moron!!!!
Benjamin Friedman and Chris Dillow are not hard to understand. A stagnating economy causes
people to retreat to tribalism and become susceptible to demagogues. Of course a lot of
people were already racist, but if the recovery had been good, had the last 40 years been
prosperous for your average voter Hillary would have won instead of Trump.
Yet just yesterday the Toxic Troika's hero Krugman tweeted this straw man:
Hey, Roseanne Barr is only worth $80 million, and was being paid only 250K per episode. So
her tweets were clearly driven by economic anxiety
1:49 PM - 29 May 2018
----------------------------------------
Does Krugman understand how dislike he is by the Left? I think he does. This kind of thing
is him lashing back at the Left.
-----------------------------
As Krugman blogged about Bernie Sanders's policies during the primary, he said they didn't
combat populism in Europe which is clearly wrong.
You can keep going about your stupid meaningless studies/paid propaganda but Krugman went
on to contradict himself by saying populism in Italy WAS CAUSED by economic anxiety!!!
If the European Central Bank hadn't forced slow growth on Italy maybe the new government
wouldn't be made up of populist parties who blame immigrants and the EU.
Not hard to understand but no doubt the Italian center left party Democrats (who nobody
voted for) sad it was all about anti-immigrant racism nothing more.
Wow you are thick. You are completely unable to understand the nuance of reality. You
continue to claim things that are not true - about what I posted and about what Krugman
posted. You cannot understand that what motivated Americans was different - substantively -
than what motivated Italians. You claim that Krugman was wrong, yet provide zero evidence.
Krugman provided evidence. Where is yours. Why do you deny study. Why do you deny rigor? I
think I know - it is because your entire world view comes crashing down in the face of
evidence. The world is not binary no matter how much you want it to be. It is complicated and
messy.
I think the Toxic Troika would agree on the bad effects of Fox news and conservative UK
tabloid media. This helps translate economic stagnation into conservative majorities.
[I always thought Thoma did the website as a way to combat this with free discussion among
experts and hobbyists. Banning people as the Troika wants isn't going to help.]
Saturday, 2 December 2017
If we treat plutocracy as democracy, democracy dies
by Simon Wren-Lewis
The snake-oil salesmen
There are many similarities between Brexit and Trump. They are both authoritarian
movements, where authority either lies with a single individual or a single vote: the vote
that bindsthem all. This authority expresses the movement's identity. They are irrational
movements, by which I mean that they cast aside expertise where that conflicts with the
movements wishes. As a result, you will find their base of supporters among the less well
educated, and that universities are seen as an enemy. Both groups are intensely
nationalistic: both want to make America or England great again.
It is easy to relate each group to familiar concepts: class, race or whatever. But I think
this classification misses something important. It misses what sustains these groups in their
beliefs, allows them to maintain their world view which is so often contradicted by reality.
Both groups get their information about the world from a section of the media that has turned
news into propaganda. In the US this is Fox, and in the UK the right wing tabloids and the
Telegraph.
A profound mistake is to see this media as a symptom rather than a cause. As the study I
spoke about here clearly demonstrates, the output of Fox news is not designed to maximise its
readership, but to maximise the impact of its propaganda on its readership. I think you could
say exactly the same about the Sun and the Mail in the UK. Fox and the Sun are owned by the
same man.
Even those who manage to cast off the idea that this unregulated media just reflects the
attitude of its readers, generally think of this media as supportive of political parties.
There is the Conservative and Labour supporting press in the UK, and similarly for the US. In
my view that idea is ten or twenty years out of date, and even then it underestimates the
independence of the media organisations. (The Sun famously supported Blair in 1997). More and
more it is the media that calls the shots, and the political parties follow.
Brexit would not have happened if it had remained the wish of a minority of Conservative
MPs. It happened because of the right wing UK press. Brexit happened because this right wing
press recognised a large section of their readership were disaffected from conventional
politics, and began grooming them with stories of EU immigrants taking jobs, lowering wages
and taking benefits (and sometimes much worse). These stories were not (always) false, but
like all good propaganda they elevated a half-truth into a firm belief. Of course this
grooming played on age old insecurities, but it magnified them into a political movement.
Nationalism does the same. It did not just reflect readers existing views, but rather played
on their doubts and fears and hopes and turned this into votes.
This is not to discount some of the very real grievances that led to the Brexit vote, or
the racism that led to the election of Trump. This analysis of today's populism is important,
as long as it does not get sidetracked into debates over identity versus economics. Stressing
economic causes of populism does not devalue identity issues (like race or immigration), but
it is the economics that causes the swings that help put populists in power. It was crucial,
for example, to the trick that the media played to convince many to vote for Brexit: that EU
immigrants and payments were reducing access to public services, whereas in reality the
opposite is true.
Yet while economic issues may have created a winning majority for both Brexit and Trump,
the identity issues sustained by the media make support for both hard to diminish. Brexit and
Trump are expressions of identity, and often of what has been lost, which are very difficult
to break down when sustained by the group's media. In addition both Trump and Brexit
maintain, because their proponents want it to be maintained, the idea that it represents the
normally ignored, striking back against the government machine in the capital city with all
its experts.
But to focus on what some call the 'demand' for populism is in danger of missing at least
half the story. Whatever legitimate grievances Brexit and Trump supporters may have had, they
were used and will be betrayed. There is nothing in leaving the EU that will help the
forgotten towns of England and Wales. Although he may try, Trump will not bring many
manufacturing jobs back to the rust belt, and his antics with NAFTA may make things worse.
Identifying the left behind is only half the story, because it does not tell you why they
fell for the remedies of snake-oil salesmen.
As I wrote immediately after the vote in my most widely read post, Brexit was first and
foremost a triumph for the UK right wing press. That press first fostered a party, UKIP, that
embodied the views the press pushed. The threat of that party and defections to it then
forced the Prime Minister to offer the referendum the press wanted. It was a right wing press
that sold a huge lie about the UK economy, a lie the broadcast media bought, to ensure the
Conservatives won the next election. When the referendum came, it was this right wing press
that ensured enough votes were won and thereby overturned the government.
Equally Donald Trump was first and foremost the candidate of Fox News. As Bruce Bartlett
has so eloquently written, Fox may have started off as a network that just supported
Republicans, but its power steadily grew. Being partisan at Fox became misinforming its
viewers, such that Fox viewers are clearly less well informed than viewers of other news
providers. One analysis suggested over half of the facts stated on Fox are untrue: UK readers
may well remember them reporting that Birmingham was a no-go area for non-Muslims.
Fox became a machine for keeping the base angry and fired up, believing that nothing could
be worse than voting for a Democrat. It was Fox News that stopped Republican voters seeing
that they were voting for a demagogue, concealed that he lied openly all the time, that
incites hatred against other religions and ethnic groups, and makes its viewers believe that
Clinton deserves to be locked up. It is not reflecting the views of its viewers, but moulding
them. As economists have shown, the output of Fox does not optimise their readership, but
optimises the propaganda power of its output. Despite occasional tiffs, Trump was the
candidate of Fox in the primaries.
We have a right wing media organisation that has overthrown the Republican political
establishment, and a right wing press that has overthrown a right wing government. How some
political scientists can continue to analyse this as if the media were simply passive,
supportive or even invisible when it brings down governments or subverts political parties I
do not know.
The plutocracy
Trump and Brexit are the creations of a kind of plutocracy. Politics in the US has had
strong plutocratic elements for some time, because of the way that money can sway elections.
That gave finance a powerful influence in the Democratic party, and made the Republicans
obsessive about cutting higher tax rates. In the UK plutocracy has been almost non-existent
by comparison, and operated mainly through party funding and seats in the House of Lords,
although we are still finding out where the money behind the Brexit campaign came from.
By focusing on what some call the demand side of populism rather than the supply side, we
fail to see both Trump and Brexit as primarily expressions of plutocratic power. Trump's
administration is plutocracy personified, and as Paul Pierson argues, its substantive agenda
constitutes a full-throated endorsement of the GOP economic elite's long-standing agenda. The
Brexiteers want to turn the UK into Singapore, a kind of neoliberalism that stresses markets
should be free from government interference, rather than free to work for everyone, and that
trade should be free from regulations, rather than regulations being harmonised so that
business is free to trade.
It is also a mistake to see this plutocracy as designed to support capital. This should
again be obvious from Brexit and Trump. It is in capital's interest to have borders open to
goods and people rather than creating barriers and erecting walls. What a plutocracy will do
is ensure that high inequality, in terms of the 1% or 0.1% etc, is maintained or even
increased. Indeed many plutocrats amassed their wealth by extracting large sums from the
firms for which they worked, wealth that might otherwise have gone to investors in the form
of dividends. In this sense they are parasitic to capital. And this plutocracy will also
ensure that social mobility is kept low so the membership of the plutocracy is sustained:
social mobility goes with equality, as Pickett and Wilkinson show.
It is also a mistake to see what is happening as somehow the result of some kind of
invisible committee of the 1% (or 0.1% and so on). The interests of the Koch brothers are not
necessarily the interests of Trump (it is no accident the former want to help buy Time
magazine). The interests of Arron Banks are not those of Lloyd Blankfein. Instead we are
finding individual media moguls forming partnerships with particular politicians to press not
only their business interests, but their individual political views as well. And in this
partnership it is often clear who is dependent on whom. After all, media competition is slim
while there are plenty of politicians.
What has this got to do with neoliberalism? which is supposed to be the dominant culture
of the political right. As I argued here, it is a mistake to see neoliberalism as some kind
of unified ideology. It may have a common core in terms of the primacy of the market, but how
that is interpreted is not uniform. Are neoliberals in favour of free trade, or against? It
appears that they can be both. Instead neoliberalism is a set of ideas based around a common
belief in the market that different groups have used and interpreted to their advantage,
while at the same time also being influenced by the ideology. Both interests and ideas
matter. While some neoliberals see competition as the most valuable feature of capitalism,
others will seek to stifle competition to preserve monopoly power. Brexiters and their press
backers are neoliberals, just as the Cameron government they brought down were
neoliberals.
I think there is some truth in the argument, made by Philip Mirowski among others, that a
belief in neoliberalism can easily involve an anti-enlightenment belief that people need to
be persuaded to subject themselves fully to the market. Certainly those on the neoliberal
right are more easily persuaded to invest time and effort in the dark arts of spin than those
on the left. But it would be going too far to suggest that all neoliberals are
anti-democratic: as I have said, neoliberalism is diverse and divided. What I argued in my
neoliberal overreach post was that neoliberalism as formulated in the UK and US had made it
possible for the plutocracy we now see to become dominant.
Nobody wants you banned because you provide alternative opinions. I actually enjoy having a
well considered argument with people who have differing opinions. We want you banned because
you lie - constantly - about other peoples positions and you constantly gaslight. You are an
expert propagandist, but not an expert in much else. In fact, you get most things wrong. Also
- you are obnoxiously rude all the time. And you are always on the side of the Alex
Jones/Rush Limbaugh types.
It's not so much that he lies but that he never defends his arguments when countered with
facts and logic, basically doubling down like Trump in attacks on liberals arguing with facts
and logic.
But most important, he never explains why an African economy or Cuba economy or
Chavez-Maduro economy would be so much better. If they have such great economies, why hasn't
he moved there?
Hey Cuba is close by. And the fact trade is been cut off by the US embargo should be a big
plus given global trade is horrible for workers. The US government trade embargoes on Cuba
are providing great benefits to Cuban workers who never lose their job from evil imports from
the US.
And workers in Cuba benefit from lack of competition.
As a reminder, Project
Maven was to use machine learning to identify vehicles and other objects from drone footage -
with the ultimate goal of enabling the automated detection and identification of objects in up
to 38 categories - including the ability to track individuals as they come and go from
different locations.
Project Maven's objective, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. "Jack" Shanahan,
director for Defense Intelligence for Warfighter Support in the Office of the Undersecretary
of Defense for Intelligence, " is to turn the enormous volume of data available to DoD into
actionable intelligence and insights. " -
DoD
Well, good for those employees. An computer program figuring out targets to kill? No
thanks, I've seen that movie before, several of them.
This does make sense from the pentagon's point of view, though. Drone pilots constantly
burning out and having substance abuse problems because of the things they do from the air is
bad for business. Just put a computer program in charge, solves that problem. Plus, you don't
have to worry about the computer program talking to the media or giving remorseful interviews
about the kids they've killed, etc.
Did they throw their custom coffee drinks on the floor, talked in squeaky voices to each
other, raised their hands in anger, made some incoherent threats toward management in their
private conversations, scotched a few more Dilbert cartoons on the outer walls of their
cubicles? This kind of revolt?
Google employees rock.
I doubt the management will risk it by doing it secretly. But the military might find ways to
reverse engineer whatever Google produces. If they get caught and have to pay damages...hey,
it's taxpayers' money anyway they use against the people/humanity. They don't care.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper - a central figure in the "Russiagate" spy
scandal, has earned quite the reputation for various misstatements, lies and even
perjury
.
Clapper appeared before the Senate to discuss surveillance programs in the midst of a
controversy over warrantless surveillance of the American public.
He was asked
directly, "Does the
NSA
collect any type of data
at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
There was no ambiguity or confusion and Clapper responded,
"No, sir. Not
wittingly." That was a lie and Clapper knew it when he said it.
-John
Turley
Since the 2016 election, Clapper has landed a job as a paid CNN commentator while peddling a new
book,
Facts and Fears -
all while trying to shift the narrative on the FBI spying on the
Trump campaign and pushing unfounded Russian conspiracy theories.
To that end, the
Wall
Street Journal
'
s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. asks:
Why does a former intelligence
chief make claims he can't back up?
***
Clapper Disinformation Campaign
James Clapper, President Obama's director of national intelligence, gained a reputation among
liberals as a liar for covering up the existence of secret data-collection programs.
Since becoming a private citizen, he has claimed that President Trump is a Russian "asset" and
that Vladimir Putin is his "case officer," then when pressed said he was speaking "figuratively."
His latest assertion, in a book and interviews, that Mr. Putin elected Mr. Trump is based on
non-reasoning that effectively puts defenders of U.S. democracy in a position of having to prove a
negative. "It just exceeds logic and credulity that they didn't affect the election," he told PBS.
Mr. Clapper not only exaggerates Russia's efforts, he crucially overlooks the fact that it's
the
net
effect that matters. Allegations and insinuations of Russian meddling clearly cost
Mr. Trump some sizeable number of votes. Hillary Clinton made good use of this mallet, as would be
clearer now if she had also made good use of her other assets to contest those states where the
election would actually be decided.
Mr. Clapper misleads you (and possibly himself) by appealing to the hindsight fallacy: Because
Mr. Trump's victory was unexpected, Russia must have caused it. But why does he want you to believe
that he believes what he can't possibly know?
There's been much talk about origins. Let's understand how all this really began. James Comey
knew it was unrealistic that Mrs. Clinton would be prosecuted for email mishandling but also knew
it was the Obama Justice Department's decision to make, own and defend. Why did he insert himself?
The first answer is that he expected Mrs. Clinton to win -- and likely believed it was necessary
that she win. Secondly he had a pretext for violating the normal and proper protocol for criminal
investigations. He did so by turning it into a counterintelligence matter, seizing on a Democratic
email supposedly in Russian hands that dubiously referred to a compromising conversation of
Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding the Hillary investigation.
Put aside whether this information really necessitated his intervention. (It didn't. This is the
great non sequitur of the Comey story.) Now adopted, Russia became the rationale for actions that
should trouble Americans simply on account of their foolishness.
Think about it: The FBI's original intervention in the Hillary matter was premised on apparent
false information from the Russians. Its actions against the Trump campaign flowed from an
implausible, unsupported document attributed to Russian sources and paid for by Mr. Trump's
political opponents.
In surveilling Carter Page, the FBI had every reason to know it was surveilling an
inconsequential non-spy, and did so based on a warrant that falsely characterized a Yahoo news
article. Its suspicions of George Papadopoulos were based on drunken gossip about Hillary's emails
when the whole world was gossiping about Hillary's emails.
The FBI's most consequential intervention of all, its last-minute reopening of the Clinton
investigation, arose from "new" evidence that turned out to be a nothingburger.
There is a term for how all this looks in retrospect: colossally stupid. Democrats now have a
strong if unprovable case that Mr. Comey changed the election outcome. Mr. Trump has a strong case
his presidency has been hobbled by unwarranted accusations. Americans harbor new and serious doubts
about the integrity of the FBI.
As an extra kick in the head, its partners in so much idiocy, and perhaps the real fomenters of
it, in the Obama intelligence agencies have so far gotten a pass.
If a private informant was enlisted to feel out the Russian connections of a couple of Trump
nonentities, this was at least a sensitive and discreet approach to a legitimate question when so
many FBI actions were neither.
It was
after
the election, with the outpouring of criminal leaks and planted
disinformation (see Clapper), that a Rubicon was crossed. Consider just one anomaly: Any
"intelligence community" worth the name would get to the bottom of foreigner Christopher Steele's
singular intervention in a U.S. presidential election, based as it was on the anonymous whisperings
of Russian intelligence officials. Not ours. Our intelligence community is highly motivated
not
to
know these answers because any finding that discredited the Steele dossier would also discredit the
FBI's actions in the 2016 campaign.
It practically goes without saying that all involved now have a stake in keeping the focus on
the louche Mr. Trump and threatening him with investigations no matter how far afield from Russia
collusion.
You can be a nonfan of Mr. Trump; you can believe he's peddling a conspiracy theory about FBI
and CIA actions during the campaign. But every president has a duty to fight to protect himself and
his power. And notice that his conspiracy theory is but the mirror image of the conspiracy theory
that his political, institutional, and media enemies have been prosecuting against him since
Election Day 2016.
Does anyone else think the major players in DC on this affair look -
just odd? Like plasticine, like not-quite-human, like they're just at
the cusp of the Uncanny Valley?
Most of them look so fucking weird
if one walked into my local pub I'd surreptitiously make sure I had a
round chambered, and if one walked into the playground I'd load the
kids up and head home
This looks like Ann Rand philosophy: "The people who needed protection were property owners,
and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of
voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a
Guarantor of Liberty (1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm
of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was
often more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece
them."
Notable quotes:
"... By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... Property as a Guarantor of Liberty ..."
"... Brown v. Board of Education ..."
"... Calhoun, called the "Marx of the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create "constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government ..."
"... She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability. ..."
"... Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge. ..."
"... MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems." ..."
"... Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional revolution." ..."
"... MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. ..."
"... With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable. ..."
"... At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the scholars considered it a socialist project. ..."
"... To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum." ..."
"... Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs. Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security. ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of The Vanishing Middle Class ..."
"... The One Percent Solution ..."
"... She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how destructive. ..."
"... MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power. ..."
Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual lynchpin of the Koch-funded attack on
democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean
Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped America's burst of radical right-wing
attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically
mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and
laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.
James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless you've taken several classes in
economics. And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just
fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students
have little understanding of his work.
The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even
young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively
sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what
Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their
noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even
want to imagine, much less accept.
That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book,
Democracy in Chains , a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans
grapple with Donald Trump's chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are
taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place,
there may be no going back.
An Unlocked Door in Virginia
MacLean's book reads like an intellectual detective story. In 2010, she moved to North
Carolina, where a Tea Party-dominated Republican Party got control of both houses of the state
legislature and began pushing through a radical program to suppress voter rights, decimate
public services, and slash taxes on the wealthy that shocked a state long a beacon of southern
moderation. Up to this point, the figure of James Buchanan flickered in her peripheral vision,
but as she began to study his work closely, the events in North Carolina and also Wisconsin,
where Governor Scott Walker was leading assaults on collective bargaining rights, shifted her
focus.
Could it be that this relatively obscure economist's distinctive thought was being put
forcefully into action in real time?
MacLean could not gain access to Buchanan's papers to test her hypothesis until after his
death in January 2013. That year, just as the government was being shut down by Ted Cruz &
Co., she traveled to George Mason University in Virginia, where the economist's papers lay
willy-nilly across the offices of a building now abandoned by the Koch-funded faculty to a new,
fancier center in Arlington.
MacLean was stunned. The archive of the man who had sought to stay under the radar had been
left totally unsorted and unguarded. The historian plunged in, and she read through boxes and
drawers full of papers that included personal correspondence between Buchanan and billionaire
industrialist Charles Koch. That's when she had an amazing realization: here was the
intellectual lynchpin of a stealth revolution currently in progress.
A Theory of Property Supremacy
Buchanan, a 1940 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University who later attended the
University of Chicago for graduate study, started out as a conventional public finance
economist. But he grew frustrated by the way in which economic theorists ignored the political
process.
Buchanan began working on a description of power that started out as a critique of how
institutions functioned in the relatively liberal 1950s and '60s, a time when economist John
Maynard Keynes's ideas about the need for government intervention in markets to protect people
from flaws so clearly demonstrated in the Great Depression held sway. Buchanan, MacLean notes,
was incensed at what he saw as a move toward socialism and deeply suspicious of any form of
state action that channels resources to the public. Why should the increasingly powerful
federal government be able to force the wealthy to pay for goods and programs that served
ordinary citizens and the poor?
In thinking about how people make political decisions and choices, Buchanan concluded that
you could only understand them as individuals seeking personal advantage. In interview cited by
MacLean, the economist observed that in the 1950s Americans commonly assumed that elected
officials wanted to act in the public interest. Buchanan vehemently disagreed -- that was a
belief he wanted, as he put it, to "tear down." His ideas developed into a theory that came to
be known as "public choice."
Buchanan's view of human nature was distinctly dismal. Adam Smith saw human beings as
self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged
social instincts like compassion and fairness. Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were
primarily driven by venal self-interest. Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve
others was "romantic" fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and
so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control
others and wrest away their resources: "Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves," he
wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty .
Does that sound like your kindergarten teacher? It did to Buchanan.
The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be
secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on
them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty
(1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers
(entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often
more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece them.
In 1965 the economist launched a center dedicated to his theories at the University of
Virginia, which later relocated to George Mason University. MacLean describes how he trained
thinkers to push back against the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate
America's public schools and to challenge the constitutional perspectives and federal policy
that enabled it. She notes that he took care to use economic and political precepts, rather
than overtly racial arguments, to make his case, which nonetheless gave cover to racists who
knew that spelling out their prejudices would alienate the country.
All the while, a ghost hovered in the background -- that of John C. Calhoun of South
Carolina, senator and seventh vice president of the United States.
Calhoun was an intellectual and political powerhouse in the South from the 1820s until his
death in 1850, expending his formidable energy to defend slavery. Calhoun, called the "Marx of
the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern
oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create
"constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government.
Economists Tyler Cowen and Alexander Tabarrok, both of George Mason University, have noted
the two men's affinities, heralding Calhoun "a
precursor of modern public choice theory" who "anticipates" Buchanan's thinking. MacLean
observes that both focused on how democracy constrains property owners and aimed for ways to
restrict the latitude of voters. She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly
founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of
corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.
Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer
prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the
goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the
power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.
Gravy Train to Oligarchy
MacLean explains that Virginia's white elite and the pro-corporate president of the
University of Virginia, Colgate Darden, who had married into the DuPont family, found
Buchanan's ideas to be spot on. In nurturing a new intelligentsia to commit to his values,
Buchanan stated that he needed a "gravy train," and with backers like Charles Koch and
conservative foundations like the Scaife Family Charitable Trusts, others hopped aboard. Money,
Buchanan knew, can be a persuasive tool in academia. His circle of influence began to
widen.
MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political
thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and
Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an
international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But
the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a
sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark
side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody
knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from
believing that government could be the alternative to those problems."
The Virginia school also differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on
abstract theory rather than mathematics or empirical evidence. That a Nobel Prize was awarded
in 1986 to an economist who so determinedly bucked the academic trends of his day was nothing
short of stunning, MacLean observes. But, then, it was the peak of the Reagan era, an
administration several Buchanan students joined.
Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and
the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that
his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better
to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional
revolution."
MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff
institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became
interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian
economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Koch, whose mission was to save capitalists like himself from democracy, found the ultimate
theoretical tool in the work of the southern economist. The historian writes that Koch
preferred Buchanan to Milton Friedman and his "Chicago boys" because, she says, quoting a
libertarian insider, they wanted "to make government work more efficiently when the true
libertarian should be tearing it out at the root."
With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much
bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and
deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through
incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was
extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make
his plans sound more palatable.
MacLean details how partnered with Koch, Buchanan's outpost at George Mason University was
able to connect libertarian economists with right-wing political actors and supporters of
corporations like Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors.
Together they could push economic ideas to public through media, promote new curricula for
economics education, and court politicians in nearby Washington, D.C.
At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan
and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law,
focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare,
expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill
public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the
scholars considered it a socialist project.
The Oligarchic Revolution Unfolds
Buchanan's ideas began to have huge impact, especially in America and in Britain. In his
home country, the economist was deeply involved efforts to cut taxes on the wealthy in 1970s
and 1980s and he advised proponents of Reagan Revolution in their quest to unleash markets and
posit government as the "problem" rather than the "solution." The Koch-funded Virginia school
coached scholars, lawyers, politicians, and business people to apply stark right-wing
perspectives on everything from deficits to taxes to school privatization. In Britain,
Buchanan's work helped to inspire the public sector reforms of Margaret Thatcher and her
political progeny.
To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom
Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal
judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had
participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to
a Koch-backed curriculum."
MacLean illustrates that in South America, Buchanan was able to first truly set his ideas in
motion by helping a bare-knuckles dictatorship ensure the permanence of much of the radical
transformation it inflicted on a country that had been a beacon of social progress. The
historian emphasizes that Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has
been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities,
Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military
junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required
balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs.
Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little
recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security.
The dictator's human rights abuses and pillage of the country's resources did not seem to
bother Buchanan, MacLean argues, so long as the wealthy got their way. "Despotism may be the
only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe," the economist had
written in The Limits of Liberty . If you have been wondering about the end result of
the Virginia school philosophy, well, the economist helpfully spelled it out.
A World of Slaves
Most Americans haven't seen what's coming.
MacLean notes that when the Kochs' control of the GOP kicked into high gear after the
financial crisis of 2007-08, many were so stunned by the "shock-and-awe" tactics of shutting
down government, destroying labor unions, and rolling back services that meet citizens' basic
necessities that few realized that many leading the charge had been trained in economics at
Virginia institutions, especially George Mason University. Wasn't it just a new, particularly
vicious wave of partisan politics?
It wasn't. MacLean convincingly illustrates that it was something far more disturbing.
MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a
hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the
society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of
The Vanishing Middle Class, as well as economist Gordon Lafer of the
University of Oregon and author of The One Percent Solution , have provided eye-opening analyses of where America is
headed and why. MacLean adds another dimension to this dystopian big picture, acquainting us
with what has been overlooked in the capitalist right wing's playbook.
She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like
privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a
preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head
around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to
radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power
and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing
the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be
held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how
destructive.
MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big
government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new
powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires
greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of
pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such
as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power.
Could these right-wing capitalists allow private companies to fill prisons with helpless
citizens -- or, more profitable still, right-less undocumented immigrants? They could, and
have . Might they engineer a retirement crisis by moving Americans to inadequate 401(k)s?
Done . Take away the rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by
making them sign forced arbitration agreements? Check . Gut public education to the
point where ordinary people have such bleak prospects that they have no energy to fight back?
Getting it done .
Would they even refuse children clean water? Actually, yes.
MacLean notes that in Flint, Michigan, Americans got a taste of what the emerging oligarchy
will look like -- it tastes like poisoned water. There, the Koch-funded Mackinac Center pushed
for legislation that would allow the governor to take control of communities facing emergency
and put unelected managers in charge. In Flint, one such manager switched the city's water
supply to a polluted river, but the Mackinac Center's lobbyists ensured that the law was
fortified by protections against lawsuits that poisoned inhabitants might bring. Tens
of thousands of children were exposed to lead, a substance known to cause serious health
problems including brain damage.
Tyler Cowen has provided an
economic justification for this kind of brutality, stating that where it is difficult to
get clean water, private companies should take over and make people pay for it. "This includes
giving them the right to cut off people who don't -- or can't -- pay their bills," the
economist explains.
To many this sounds grotesquely inhumane, but it is a way of thinking that has deep roots in
America. In Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005), Buchanan considers the charge of
heartlessness made against the kind of classic liberal that he took himself to be. MacLean
interprets his discussion to mean that people who "failed to foresee and save money for their
future needs" are to be treated, as Buchanan put it, "as subordinate members of the species,
akin to animals who are dependent.'"
Do you have your education, health care, and retirement personally funded against all
possible exigencies? Then that means you.
Buchanan was not a dystopian novelist. He was a Nobel Laureate whose sinister logic exerts
vast influence over America's trajectory. It is no wonder that Cowen, on his popular blog
Marginal Revolution, does not
mention Buchanan on a list of underrated influential libertarian thinkers, though elsewhere
on the blog, he expresses admiration for several of Buchanan's contributions and
acknowledges that the southern economist "thought more consistently in terms of 'rules of
the games' than perhaps any other economist."
The rules of the game are now clear.
Research like MacLean's provides hope that toxic ideas like Buchanan's may finally begin to
face public scrutiny. Yet at this very moment, the Kochs' State Policy Network and the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that connects corporate agents to conservative
lawmakers to produce legislation, are involved in projects that the Trump-obsessed media hardly
notices, like pumping money into state judicial races. Their aim is to stack the legal deck
against Americans in ways that MacLean argues may have even bigger effects than Citizens
United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling which unleashed unlimited corporate spending on American
politics. The goal is to create a judiciary that will interpret the Constitution in favor of
corporations and the wealthy in ways that Buchanan would have heartily approved.
"The United States is now at one of those historic forks in the road whose outcome will
prove as fateful as those of the 1860s, the 1930s, and the 1960s," writes MacLean. "To value
liberty for the wealthy minority above all else and enshrine it in the nation's governing
rules, as Calhoun and Buchanan both called for and the Koch network is achieving, play by play,
is to consent to an oligarchy in all but the outer husk of representative form."
This looks like Ann Rand philosophy: "The people who needed protection were property owners,
and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of
voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a
Guarantor of Liberty (1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm
of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was
often more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece
them."
Notable quotes:
"... By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst, Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... Property as a Guarantor of Liberty ..."
"... Brown v. Board of Education ..."
"... Calhoun, called the "Marx of the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create "constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government ..."
"... She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability. ..."
"... Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge. ..."
"... MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from believing that government could be the alternative to those problems." ..."
"... Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional revolution." ..."
"... MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. ..."
"... With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable. ..."
"... At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the scholars considered it a socialist project. ..."
"... To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to a Koch-backed curriculum." ..."
"... Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs. Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security. ..."
"... The Limits of Liberty ..."
"... MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of The Vanishing Middle Class ..."
"... The One Percent Solution ..."
"... She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how destructive. ..."
"... MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power. ..."
Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual lynchpin of the Koch-funded attack on
democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean
Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped America's burst of radical right-wing
attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically
mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and
laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.
James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless you've taken several classes in
economics. And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just
fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students
have little understanding of his work.
The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even
young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively
sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what
Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their
noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even
want to imagine, much less accept.
That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book,
Democracy in Chains , a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans
grapple with Donald Trump's chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are
taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place,
there may be no going back.
An Unlocked Door in Virginia
MacLean's book reads like an intellectual detective story. In 2010, she moved to North
Carolina, where a Tea Party-dominated Republican Party got control of both houses of the state
legislature and began pushing through a radical program to suppress voter rights, decimate
public services, and slash taxes on the wealthy that shocked a state long a beacon of southern
moderation. Up to this point, the figure of James Buchanan flickered in her peripheral vision,
but as she began to study his work closely, the events in North Carolina and also Wisconsin,
where Governor Scott Walker was leading assaults on collective bargaining rights, shifted her
focus.
Could it be that this relatively obscure economist's distinctive thought was being put
forcefully into action in real time?
MacLean could not gain access to Buchanan's papers to test her hypothesis until after his
death in January 2013. That year, just as the government was being shut down by Ted Cruz &
Co., she traveled to George Mason University in Virginia, where the economist's papers lay
willy-nilly across the offices of a building now abandoned by the Koch-funded faculty to a new,
fancier center in Arlington.
MacLean was stunned. The archive of the man who had sought to stay under the radar had been
left totally unsorted and unguarded. The historian plunged in, and she read through boxes and
drawers full of papers that included personal correspondence between Buchanan and billionaire
industrialist Charles Koch. That's when she had an amazing realization: here was the
intellectual lynchpin of a stealth revolution currently in progress.
A Theory of Property Supremacy
Buchanan, a 1940 graduate of Middle Tennessee State University who later attended the
University of Chicago for graduate study, started out as a conventional public finance
economist. But he grew frustrated by the way in which economic theorists ignored the political
process.
Buchanan began working on a description of power that started out as a critique of how
institutions functioned in the relatively liberal 1950s and '60s, a time when economist John
Maynard Keynes's ideas about the need for government intervention in markets to protect people
from flaws so clearly demonstrated in the Great Depression held sway. Buchanan, MacLean notes,
was incensed at what he saw as a move toward socialism and deeply suspicious of any form of
state action that channels resources to the public. Why should the increasingly powerful
federal government be able to force the wealthy to pay for goods and programs that served
ordinary citizens and the poor?
In thinking about how people make political decisions and choices, Buchanan concluded that
you could only understand them as individuals seeking personal advantage. In interview cited by
MacLean, the economist observed that in the 1950s Americans commonly assumed that elected
officials wanted to act in the public interest. Buchanan vehemently disagreed -- that was a
belief he wanted, as he put it, to "tear down." His ideas developed into a theory that came to
be known as "public choice."
Buchanan's view of human nature was distinctly dismal. Adam Smith saw human beings as
self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged
social instincts like compassion and fairness. Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were
primarily driven by venal self-interest. Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve
others was "romantic" fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and
so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control
others and wrest away their resources: "Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves," he
wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty .
Does that sound like your kindergarten teacher? It did to Buchanan.
The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be
secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on
them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty
(1993). MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers
(entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often
more stark, warning the alleged "prey" of "parasites" and "predators" out to fleece them.
In 1965 the economist launched a center dedicated to his theories at the University of
Virginia, which later relocated to George Mason University. MacLean describes how he trained
thinkers to push back against the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate
America's public schools and to challenge the constitutional perspectives and federal policy
that enabled it. She notes that he took care to use economic and political precepts, rather
than overtly racial arguments, to make his case, which nonetheless gave cover to racists who
knew that spelling out their prejudices would alienate the country.
All the while, a ghost hovered in the background -- that of John C. Calhoun of South
Carolina, senator and seventh vice president of the United States.
Calhoun was an intellectual and political powerhouse in the South from the 1820s until his
death in 1850, expending his formidable energy to defend slavery. Calhoun, called the "Marx of
the Master Class" by historian Richard Hofstadter, saw himself and his fellow southern
oligarchs as victims of the majority. Therefore, as MacLean explains, he sought to create
"constitutional gadgets" to constrict the operations of government.
Economists Tyler Cowen and Alexander Tabarrok, both of George Mason University, have noted
the two men's affinities, heralding Calhoun "a
precursor of modern public choice theory" who "anticipates" Buchanan's thinking. MacLean
observes that both focused on how democracy constrains property owners and aimed for ways to
restrict the latitude of voters. She argues out that unlike even the most property-friendly
founders Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of
corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.
Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer
prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions -- all these were tactics toward the
goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the
power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.
Gravy Train to Oligarchy
MacLean explains that Virginia's white elite and the pro-corporate president of the
University of Virginia, Colgate Darden, who had married into the DuPont family, found
Buchanan's ideas to be spot on. In nurturing a new intelligentsia to commit to his values,
Buchanan stated that he needed a "gravy train," and with backers like Charles Koch and
conservative foundations like the Scaife Family Charitable Trusts, others hopped aboard. Money,
Buchanan knew, can be a persuasive tool in academia. His circle of influence began to
widen.
MacLean observes that the Virginia school, as Buchanan's brand of economic and political
thinking is known, is a kind of cousin to the better-known, market-oriented Chicago and
Austrian schools -- proponents of all three were members of the Mont Pelerin Society, an
international neoliberal organization which included Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. But
the Virginia school's focus and career missions were distinct. In an interview with the
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), MacLean described Friedman and Buchanan as yin and yang: "Friedman was this genial, personable character who loved to be in the limelight and made a
sunny case for the free market and the freedom to choose and so forth. Buchanan was the dark
side of this: he thought, ok, fine, they can make a case for the free market, but everybody
knows that free markets have externalities and other problems. So he wanted to keep people from
believing that government could be the alternative to those problems."
The Virginia school also differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on
abstract theory rather than mathematics or empirical evidence. That a Nobel Prize was awarded
in 1986 to an economist who so determinedly bucked the academic trends of his day was nothing
short of stunning, MacLean observes. But, then, it was the peak of the Reagan era, an
administration several Buchanan students joined.
Buchanan's school focused on public choice theory, later adding constitutional economics and
the new field of law and economics to its core research and advocacy. The economist saw that
his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better
to focus on the rules themselves , and that required a "constitutional
revolution."
MacLean describes how the economist developed a grand project to train operatives to staff
institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became
interested in his work in the '70s and sought the economist's input in promoting "Austrian
economics" in the U.S. and in advising the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Koch, whose mission was to save capitalists like himself from democracy, found the ultimate
theoretical tool in the work of the southern economist. The historian writes that Koch
preferred Buchanan to Milton Friedman and his "Chicago boys" because, she says, quoting a
libertarian insider, they wanted "to make government work more efficiently when the true
libertarian should be tearing it out at the root."
With Koch's money and enthusiasm, Buchanan's academic school evolved into something much
bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanan's ideas -- transmitted through stealth and
deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents -- could help take government down through
incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was
extremely radical, even a "revolution" in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make
his plans sound more palatable.
MacLean details how partnered with Koch, Buchanan's outpost at George Mason University was
able to connect libertarian economists with right-wing political actors and supporters of
corporations like Shell Oil, Exxon, Ford, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and General Motors.
Together they could push economic ideas to public through media, promote new curricula for
economics education, and court politicians in nearby Washington, D.C.
At the 1997 fiftieth anniversary of the Mont Pelerin Society, MacLean recounts that Buchanan
and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law,
focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare,
expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill
public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too: the
scholars considered it a socialist project.
The Oligarchic Revolution Unfolds
Buchanan's ideas began to have huge impact, especially in America and in Britain. In his
home country, the economist was deeply involved efforts to cut taxes on the wealthy in 1970s
and 1980s and he advised proponents of Reagan Revolution in their quest to unleash markets and
posit government as the "problem" rather than the "solution." The Koch-funded Virginia school
coached scholars, lawyers, politicians, and business people to apply stark right-wing
perspectives on everything from deficits to taxes to school privatization. In Britain,
Buchanan's work helped to inspire the public sector reforms of Margaret Thatcher and her
political progeny.
To put the success into perspective, MacLean points to the fact that Henry Manne, whom
Buchanan was instrumental in hiring, created legal programs for law professors and federal
judges which could boast that by 1990 two of every five sitting federal judges had
participated. "40 percent of the U.S. federal judiciary," writes MacLean, "had been treated to
a Koch-backed curriculum."
MacLean illustrates that in South America, Buchanan was able to first truly set his ideas in
motion by helping a bare-knuckles dictatorship ensure the permanence of much of the radical
transformation it inflicted on a country that had been a beacon of social progress. The
historian emphasizes that Buchanan's role in the disastrous Pinochet government of Chile has
been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities,
Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military
junta deployed public choice economics in the creation of a new constitution, which required
balanced budgets and thereby prevented the government from spending to meet public needs.
Supermajorities would be required for any changes of substance, leaving the public little
recourse to challenge programs like the privatization of social security.
The dictator's human rights abuses and pillage of the country's resources did not seem to
bother Buchanan, MacLean argues, so long as the wealthy got their way. "Despotism may be the
only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe," the economist had
written in The Limits of Liberty . If you have been wondering about the end result of
the Virginia school philosophy, well, the economist helpfully spelled it out.
A World of Slaves
Most Americans haven't seen what's coming.
MacLean notes that when the Kochs' control of the GOP kicked into high gear after the
financial crisis of 2007-08, many were so stunned by the "shock-and-awe" tactics of shutting
down government, destroying labor unions, and rolling back services that meet citizens' basic
necessities that few realized that many leading the charge had been trained in economics at
Virginia institutions, especially George Mason University. Wasn't it just a new, particularly
vicious wave of partisan politics?
It wasn't. MacLean convincingly illustrates that it was something far more disturbing.
MacLean is not the only scholar to sound the alarm that the country is experiencing a
hostile takeover that is well on its way to radically, and perhaps permanently, altering the
society. Peter Temin, former head of the MIT economics department, INET grantee, and author of
The Vanishing Middle Class, as well as economist Gordon Lafer of the
University of Oregon and author of The One Percent Solution , have provided eye-opening analyses of where America is
headed and why. MacLean adds another dimension to this dystopian big picture, acquainting us
with what has been overlooked in the capitalist right wing's playbook.
She observes, for example, that many liberals have missed the point of strategies like
privatization. Efforts to "reform" public education and Social Security are not just about a
preference for the private sector over the public sector, she argues. You can wrap your head
around, even if you don't agree. Instead, MacLean contents, the goal of these strategies is to
radically alter power relations, weakening pro-public forces and enhancing the lobbying power
and commitment of the corporations that take over public services and resources, thus advancing
the plans to dismantle democracy and make way for a return to oligarchy. The majority will be
held captive so that the wealthy can finally be free to do as they please, no matter how
destructive.
MacLean argues that despite the rhetoric of Virginia school acolytes, shrinking big
government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new
powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This, as MacLean points out, requires
greatly expanding police powers "to control the resultant popular anger." The spreading use of
pre-emption by GOP-controlled state legislatures to suppress local progressive victories such
as living wage ordinances is another example of the right's aggressive use of state power.
Could these right-wing capitalists allow private companies to fill prisons with helpless
citizens -- or, more profitable still, right-less undocumented immigrants? They could, and
have . Might they engineer a retirement crisis by moving Americans to inadequate 401(k)s?
Done . Take away the rights of consumers and workers to bring grievances to court by
making them sign forced arbitration agreements? Check . Gut public education to the
point where ordinary people have such bleak prospects that they have no energy to fight back?
Getting it done .
Would they even refuse children clean water? Actually, yes.
MacLean notes that in Flint, Michigan, Americans got a taste of what the emerging oligarchy
will look like -- it tastes like poisoned water. There, the Koch-funded Mackinac Center pushed
for legislation that would allow the governor to take control of communities facing emergency
and put unelected managers in charge. In Flint, one such manager switched the city's water
supply to a polluted river, but the Mackinac Center's lobbyists ensured that the law was
fortified by protections against lawsuits that poisoned inhabitants might bring. Tens
of thousands of children were exposed to lead, a substance known to cause serious health
problems including brain damage.
Tyler Cowen has provided an
economic justification for this kind of brutality, stating that where it is difficult to
get clean water, private companies should take over and make people pay for it. "This includes
giving them the right to cut off people who don't -- or can't -- pay their bills," the
economist explains.
To many this sounds grotesquely inhumane, but it is a way of thinking that has deep roots in
America. In Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005), Buchanan considers the charge of
heartlessness made against the kind of classic liberal that he took himself to be. MacLean
interprets his discussion to mean that people who "failed to foresee and save money for their
future needs" are to be treated, as Buchanan put it, "as subordinate members of the species,
akin to animals who are dependent.'"
Do you have your education, health care, and retirement personally funded against all
possible exigencies? Then that means you.
Buchanan was not a dystopian novelist. He was a Nobel Laureate whose sinister logic exerts
vast influence over America's trajectory. It is no wonder that Cowen, on his popular blog
Marginal Revolution, does not
mention Buchanan on a list of underrated influential libertarian thinkers, though elsewhere
on the blog, he expresses admiration for several of Buchanan's contributions and
acknowledges that the southern economist "thought more consistently in terms of 'rules of
the games' than perhaps any other economist."
The rules of the game are now clear.
Research like MacLean's provides hope that toxic ideas like Buchanan's may finally begin to
face public scrutiny. Yet at this very moment, the Kochs' State Policy Network and the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that connects corporate agents to conservative
lawmakers to produce legislation, are involved in projects that the Trump-obsessed media hardly
notices, like pumping money into state judicial races. Their aim is to stack the legal deck
against Americans in ways that MacLean argues may have even bigger effects than Citizens
United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling which unleashed unlimited corporate spending on American
politics. The goal is to create a judiciary that will interpret the Constitution in favor of
corporations and the wealthy in ways that Buchanan would have heartily approved.
"The United States is now at one of those historic forks in the road whose outcome will
prove as fateful as those of the 1860s, the 1930s, and the 1960s," writes MacLean. "To value
liberty for the wealthy minority above all else and enshrine it in the nation's governing
rules, as Calhoun and Buchanan both called for and the Koch network is achieving, play by play,
is to consent to an oligarchy in all but the outer husk of representative form."
"... By Laura Basu, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... This ideology spread through the media from the 1980s ..."
"... Fast-forward to April 2009, barely 6 months after the announcement of a £500 billion bank bailout. A media hysteria was nowraging around Britain's deficit . While greedy bankers were still taking some of the blame, the systemic problems in finance and the problems with the free-market model had been forgotten. Instead, public profligacy had become the dominant explanation for the deficit. The timeline of the crisis was being erased and rewritten. ..."
"... These measures were a ramped-up version of the kinds of reforms that had produced the crisis in the first place. This fact, however, was forgotten. These 'pro-business' moves were enthusiastically embraced by the media, far more so than austerity. Of the 5 outlets analysed (The BBC, Telegraph, Sun, Guardian and Mirror), only the Guardian rejected them more frequently than endorsing them. ..."
"... "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ..."
"... This post is disheartening in so many ways. Start with "media hysteria" -- adding yet another glib coinage to hide a lack of explanation behind a simple but innapt analogy like the endless "addictions" from which personifications of various abstract entities suffer. ..."
"... This coinage presupposes a media sufficiently free to be possessed by hysteria. Dancing puppets might with some art appear "hysterical". And the strange non-death of Neoliberalsm isn't so strange or poorly understood in 2018 though the detailed explanation hasn't reached as many as one might have hoped, including the authors of this brief post. Consider their unhappy mashup of thoughts in a key sentence of the first paragraph: "This power has been maintained with the help of a robust ideology centred on free markets (though in reality markets are captured by corporations and are maintained by the state) and the superiority of the private sector over the public sector." The tail of this sentence obviates the rest of the post. And we ought not ignore the detail that Neoliberalism believes in the Market as a solution to all problems -- NOT the 'free market' of neoclassical economics or libertarian ideology. ..."
"... From "media hysteria" the post postulates "amnesia" of a public convinced of "greedy bankers" who need regulation. In the U.S. the propaganda was more subtle -- at least in my opinion. We were fed the "bad apples" theory mocked in a brief series of media clips presented in the documentary film "Inside Job". Those clips suggest a better explanation for the swift media transitions from banking reform to balanced budgets and austerity with more tax cuts for the wealthy than "amnesia" or "hyper-amnesia". The media Corporations are tightly controlled by the same forces that captured Corporations and -- taking the phrase "the superiority of the private sector over the public sector" in the sense that a superior directs an inferior [rather than the intended(?) sense] -- direct and essentially own our governments. ..."
"... The remarkable thing about public discourse and political and economic news reporting is how superficial it has become, so devoid of a foundation of any kind in history or theory. You can not have an effective critique of society or the economy or anything, if you do not see a system with a history and think it matters. Neoliberalism has become what people say when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise. ..."
"... "Neoliberalism has become what people say when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise." ..."
"... I also think that the crisis of neoliberalism echos a problem caused by capitalism, itself. I think David Harvey stated that "capitalism doesn't solve problems, it often just moves them around". ..."
"... Matt Stoller tweet from August 2017, as germane now as ever: "The political crisis we are facing is simple. American commerce, law, finance, and politics is organized around cheating people." ..."
"... George Orwell noted that the middle class Left couldn't handle dealing with real working class people, although there isn't the same huge gulf these days, I believe there is still a vestige of it due to the British class system. The Fabians set up shop in the East End around the turn of the last century & directly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Coster Mongers – a combination that led to a strike that was one of the first success stories in the attempt to get a few more crumbs than what was usually allowed to fall from the top table. ..."
"... If Neoliberalism is now being noticed I imagine that it is because of it's success in working it's way up the food chain. After all these same Middle classes for the most part did not care much for the plight of the poor during those Victorian values. Many could not wait to employ maids of all work who slaved for up to fourteen hours a day with only Sunday afternoon's off. The Suffragettes had a real problem with this as their relatively comfortable lives would soon descend into drudgery without their servants. ..."
"... Coincidentally, the NYT article on Austerity Britain is the closest I have read to an accurate picture that I have seen for a good while. ..."
"... It's also not a new thing. British media worship of neoliberalism has been growing since the 1980s, at the same time as newspapers have been closing and media sources of all kinds laying off their staff. 2008 was a temporary blip, and since the average journalist has the attention span of a hamster, it was back to usual a few months later. Once the crash stopped being "news" old patterns reasserted themselves. I wonder, incidentally, how many economics journalists in the UK actually remember the time before neoliberalism? ..."
"... Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience. Even something like the Trump scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation seems like the arrogant internecine warfare of corrupt factions of the establishment. Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly living out of their cars. ..."
"... 1. Oligarchs having captured thoroughly the media, the legislatures and the judiciary, (as well as large parts of what might be construed as "liberal" political organisations e.g. the Democratic Party of the USA) ..."
Posted on
May 29, 2018 by Yves Smith Yves here. I'm sure readers
could write a US version of this timeline despite the fact that we had a second crisis and
bailout, that of way more foreclosures than were warranted, thanks to lousy incentives to
mortgage servicers and lack of political will to intervene, and foreclosure fraud to cover up
for chain of title failures.
By Laura Basu, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and
Culture. Originally published at
openDemocracy
It hasn't escaped many people's attention that, a decade after the biggest economic crash of
a generation, the economic model producing that meltdown has not exactly been laid to rest.
The crisis in the
NHS and the
Carillion and Capital scandals are testament to that. Sociologist Colin Crouch wrote a book
in 2011 about the 'strange non-death of neoliberalism', arguing that the neoliberal model is
centred on the needs of corporations and that corporate power actually intensified after the
2008 financial meltdown. This power has been maintained with the help of a robust ideology
centred on free markets (though in reality markets are captured by corporations and are
maintained by the state) and the superiority of the private sector over the public sector. It
advocates privatisation, cuts in public spending, deregulation and tax cuts for businesses and
high earners.
This ideology
spread through the media from the 1980s , and the media have continued to play a key
role in its persistence through a decade of political and economic turmoil since the 2008
crash. They have done this largely via an acute amnesia about the causes of the crisis, an
amnesia that helped make policies like austerity, privatisation and corporate tax breaks appear
as common sense responses to the problems.
This amnesia struck at dizzying speed. My research carried out at Cardiff University shows
that in 2008 at the time of the banking collapse, the main explanations given for the problems
were financial misconduct ('greedy bankers'), systemic problems with the financial sector, and
the faulty free-market model. These explanations were given across the media spectrum,
with even the Telegraph and Sun complaining about a lack of regulation . Banking reform was
advocated across the board.
Fast-forward to April 2009, barely 6 months after the announcement of a £500
billion bank bailout.
A media hysteria was nowraging around Britain's deficit . While greedy bankers were still
taking some of the blame, the systemic problems in finance and the problems with the
free-market model had been forgotten. Instead, public profligacy had become the dominant
explanation for the deficit. The timeline of the crisis was being erased and
rewritten.
Correspondingly, financial and corporate regulation were forgotten. Instead, austerity
became the star of the show, eclipsing all other possible solutions to the crisis. As a
response to the deficit, austerity was mentioned 2.5 as many times as the next most covered
policy-response option, which was raising taxes on the wealthy. Austerity was mentioned 18
times more frequently than tackling tax avoidance and evasion. Although coverage of austerity
was polarized, no media outlet rejected it outright, and even the left-leaning press implicitly
(and sometimes explicitly) backed 'austerity lite'.
In 2010, the Conservative-Lib Dem government announced £99 billion in spending cuts
and £29 billion in tax increases per year by 2014-15. Having made these 'tough choices',
from 2011 the coalition wanted to focus attention away from austerity and towards growth (which
was, oops, being stalled by austerity). To do this, they pursued a zealously 'pro-business'
agenda, including privatisation, deregulation, cutting taxes for the highest earners, and
cutting corporation tax in 2011, 2012, 2013, and in 2015 and 2016 under a Conservative
government.
These measures were a ramped-up version of the kinds of reforms that had produced the
crisis in the first place. This fact, however, was forgotten. These 'pro-business' moves were
enthusiastically embraced by the media, far more so than austerity. Of the 5 outlets analysed
(The BBC, Telegraph, Sun, Guardian and Mirror), only the Guardian rejected them more frequently
than endorsing them.
The idea behind these policies is that what's good for business is good for everyone. If
businesses are handed more resources, freed from regulation and handed tax breaks, they will be
encouraged to invest in the economy, creating jobs and growth. The rich are therefore 'job
creators' and 'wealth creators'.
This is despite the fact that these policies have an impressive fail rate. Business
investment and productivity growth remain low, as corporations spend the savings not on
training and innovation but on share buy-backs and shareholder dividends. According to the
Financial Times, in 2014, the top 500 US companies
returned 95 per cent of their profits to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. Meanwhile,
inequality is spiralling and in the UK more than a million
people are using food banks .
Poverty and inequality, meanwhile, attracted surprising little media attention. Of my sample
of 1,133 media items, only 53 had a primary focus on living standards, poverty or inequality.
This
confirms other researchshowing a lack of media attention to these issues . Of these 53
items, the large majority were from the Guardian and Mirror. The coverage correctly identified
austerity as a primary cause of these problems. However, deeper explanations were rare. Yet
again, the link back to the 2008 bank meltdown wasn't made, let alone the long-term causes of
that meltdown. Not only that, the coverage failed even to identify the role of most of the
policies pursued since the onset of the crisis in producing inequality – such as
the bank bailouts, quantitative easing, and those 'pro-business' measures like corporation tax
cuts and privatisation.
And so it seems we are living with a hyper-amnesia , in which it is increasingly
difficult to reconstruct timelines and distinguish causes from effects. This amnesia has helped
trap us in a neoliberal groundhog day. The political consensus around the free market model
finally seems to be breaking. If we are to find a way out, we will need to have a lot more
conversations about how to organise both our media systems and our economies.
Tick-Tock.
It depends. Do you believe the worst can be avoided or do you believe the world is already
knee deep in all the things we're told to be afraid will happen? There is a big difference
between organizing for reform and organizing to break capture.
" Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand "
W.B. Yeats
I suppose we can take some succour from the fact that WWI (and the Spanish flu) seemed to
be a harbinger of worse to come but we're still here
The hyper-amnesia ground hog problem described in the post happens, in part, because the
'centre continues to hold'. It demonstrates the center can, and does, hold. We don't want the
centre to hold. We want it to disappear and get replaced by policies and perspectives keen on
an economy (and society) that works for all, not just some
I know what you're saying and I tend to agree. But the centre to Yeats (my interpretation,
anyway) is that there is a cultural centre both apart from but also part of the social
centre, and when that centre goes all hell breaks loose. Meaning of events becomes very
confused or impossible to understand on many levels.
Then, it's often the little people (and don't go making jokes about leprechauns) that get
crushed in the confusion.
We should reflect about the root causes of why our information is not informing us. How
can decades go by with the meme "smoking has not been conclusively proven to cause cancer" or
now "the science of climate change is inconclusive", not to mention countless similar horror
stories in pharma. Bullshit about the effectiveness of supply side economics is no
different.
Somehow we collectively need to expect and demand more objectivity from our information
sources. We fall for the fox guarding hen houses scam over and over, from TARP bailouts, to
FDA approvals to WMD claims. Not sure of the answer, but I know from talking with my boomer
parents, skepticism about information sources is not in the DNA of many information
consumers.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we
tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the
truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to
ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never
get it back."
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
One of Sagan's best, I loaned this out to a not terribly thoughtful acquaintance and I was
told it was "too preachy".
I guess Sagan proves himself correct time and time again.
It is also worth noting that a number of newspapers lauded Hitler's rise to power –
they overlooked violence against Jews because the trains ran on time. Nor should we ignore
disinformation campaigns, led by newspapers (e.g. Hearst and cannabis). In general, each
media outlet is a reflection of its owners, most of whom are rich and adverse to any
suggestion that we "tax the rich."
I've come to the conclusion that we don't have a media anymore. I was watching MSNBC this
AM discuss the "missing" 1500 immigrant children. The agency responsible says it calls the
people who now have the kids, but most of the people don't call back within the 30-day
requirement period.
Now the next logical questions to ask the rep would be: What happens after 30 days? Do you
keep calling them? Do send out investigators?" But are these questions asked? No. Instead we
get speculation or non-answers. It's the same with every issue.
The internet is not any better. Many articles are just repeating what appears elsewhere
with no one checking the facts, even on respected sites. I also got a chain email today
regarding petition for a Constitutional Convention. The impetus is a list of grievances
ranging from "a congressman can retire after just one term with a full pension" to "children
of congressmen don't have to pay back college loans." I already knew most of the claims
weren't true but the 131 recipients of the organization I belong to didn't. I did find out
that this chain email has been circulating on the internet for five years and it is the work
of a conservative groups whose real aim is to stop abortion and make Christianity the law of
the land. I was not surprised.
I have said for years that there is no news on the news. And I have repeated this meme for
just as long: There is a reason why America is called Planet Stupid.
Now the next logical questions to ask the rep would be: What happens after 30 days? Do
you keep calling them? Do send out investigators?" But are these questions asked? No.
Instead we get speculation or non-answers. It's the same with every issue.
Even competent reporting takes practice, time, and effort, even money sometimes. The same
with even half way competent governing. Neither is rewarded, and are often punished, for
doing nowadays; asking as a follow-up question "did you call the local police or send over a
pair of ICE officers just to politely knock on the door?" Police do people checks all the
time. "I haven't see so and so for a week", or "my relative hasn't returned my calls for a
month, can you?" It is possible that the paperwork just got lost and asking the
guardians/family some questions personally would solve.
But all that is boring bovine excrement, which is just not done.
This post is disheartening in so many ways. Start with "media hysteria" -- adding yet
another glib coinage to hide a lack of explanation behind a simple but innapt analogy like
the endless "addictions" from which personifications of various abstract entities suffer.
This coinage presupposes a media sufficiently free to be possessed by hysteria. Dancing
puppets might with some art appear "hysterical". And the strange non-death of Neoliberalsm
isn't so strange or poorly understood in 2018 though the detailed explanation hasn't reached
as many as one might have hoped, including the authors of this brief post. Consider their
unhappy mashup of thoughts in a key sentence of the first paragraph: "This power has been
maintained with the help of a robust ideology centred on free markets (though in reality
markets are captured by corporations and are maintained by the state) and the superiority of
the private sector over the public sector." The tail of this sentence obviates the rest of
the post. And we ought not ignore the detail that Neoliberalism believes in the Market as a
solution to all problems -- NOT the 'free market' of neoclassical economics or libertarian
ideology.
From "media hysteria" the post postulates "amnesia" of a public convinced of "greedy
bankers" who need regulation. In the U.S. the propaganda was more subtle -- at least in my
opinion. We were fed the "bad apples" theory mocked in a brief series of media clips
presented in the documentary film "Inside Job". Those clips suggest a better explanation for
the swift media transitions from banking reform to balanced budgets and austerity with more
tax cuts for the wealthy than "amnesia" or "hyper-amnesia". The media Corporations are
tightly controlled by the same forces that captured Corporations and -- taking the phrase
"the superiority of the private sector over the public sector" in the sense that a superior
directs an inferior [rather than the intended(?) sense] -- direct and essentially own our
governments.
The essayist complains that poverty and the manifest failures of neoliberalism get little
critical attention, but she leads off, "It hasn't escaped many people's attention . . ."
The remarkable thing about public discourse and political and economic news reporting is
how superficial it has become, so devoid of a foundation of any kind in history or theory.
You can not have an effective critique of society or the economy or anything, if you do not
see a system with a history and think it matters. Neoliberalism has become what people say
when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise.
Another thing to recall was how quickly talk of nationalizing banks evaporated. Even Paul
Krugman, among others were supporting the idea that "real capitalists nationalize".
Once LIBOR came down, and the lending channels began to reopen, the happy talk ensued and
the amnesia kicked in strongly.
I also think that the crisis of neoliberalism echos a problem caused by capitalism,
itself. I think David Harvey stated that "capitalism doesn't solve problems, it often just
moves them around".
The financial crisis and austerity have now manifested themselves into a media crisis of
elites and elite legitimacy (BREXIT, Trump's election, etc). The ability to manufacture
consent is running into increased difficulty. I don't think the financial crisis narrative
shift helped very much at all. A massive crime requires an equally massive cover-up,
naturally.
Why, it's almost as if 90% of all media outlets are owned by 5 multibillion dollar
conglomerates, controlled by the top 0.1%, for the purposes of protecting their unearned
parasitic power, and the employees making six-to-low-seven figures are on the Upton Sinclair
"paycheck demands I not understand it" model.
Or it's amnesia.
Matt Stoller tweet from August 2017, as germane now as ever: "The political crisis we are
facing is simple. American commerce, law, finance, and politics is organized around cheating
people."
A big thumbs up for that! Sobotka was a hero in very dark times.
As my brother-in-law puts it: The American Dream used to be "work hard in a useful job,
raise a family of citizens, retire with dignity, and hand the controls to the next
generation." Now? It's just "Win the lottery."
Problem is, "The Lottery" is right out of Shirley Jackson.
Agreed. The author is inclined to interpret at the level of cumulative effect -- apparent
forgetting -- and to ignore how fear -- of editors, of owners -- plays any role. Her proposed
unveiling of a coercive process becomes yet another veiling of it.
Sadly the narrative of details is lost to history The German landesbanks who had
guaranteed payments in loan pools in the USA were allowed to skirt thru crash and burn by the
agencies (moody s&p and your little fitch too) fake and shake ratings process But all
things German are magical Having lived thru NYC Mac Corp effective bankruptcy of man hat
tan..
it was amusing watching the hand wave given when the city of Berlin actually defaulted
.
My own view for what it is worth is that the Guardian pays some lip service to the plight
of the UK's " Deplorables ", but like most of it's readership does not really give a damn. A
state of being exacerbated by Brexit similar to the situation in the US with Trump. It's much
easier to imagine hordes of racist morons who inhabit places that you have no direct
experience of, than to actually go & take a look. It's also very easy to be in favour of
mass immigration if it does not effect your employment, housing & never likely to spoil
your early morning dawn chorus with a call to prayer.
Unfortunately it has been left to the Right to complain about such things as the Rotherham
abuse scandal, which involved a couple of thousand young girls, who I suspect are worth less
to some than perhaps being mistaken as a racist. There are also various groups made up of
Muslim women who protest about Sharia councils behaviour to their sex, but nobody in the
media is at all interested.
George Orwell noted that the middle class Left couldn't handle dealing with real working
class people, although there isn't the same huge gulf these days, I believe there is still a
vestige of it due to the British class system. The Fabians set up shop in the East End around
the turn of the last century & directly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Coster Mongers
– a combination that led to a strike that was one of the first success stories in the
attempt to get a few more crumbs than what was usually allowed to fall from the top
table.
As for Mirror readers, I suspect that the majority are either the voiceless or are too
busy fighting to avoid the fate of those who find themselves availing of food banks, while
being labelled as lazy scroungers all having expensive holidays, twenty kids, about thirty
grand a year, while being subjected to a now updated more vicious regime of that which was
illustrated by " I, Daniel Blake ".
If Neoliberalism is now being noticed I imagine that it is because of it's success in
working it's way up the food chain. After all these same Middle classes for the most part did
not care much for the plight of the poor during those Victorian values. Many could not wait
to employ maids of all work who slaved for up to fourteen hours a day with only Sunday
afternoon's off. The Suffragettes had a real problem with this as their relatively
comfortable lives would soon descend into drudgery without their servants.
Coincidentally, the NYT article on Austerity Britain is the closest I have read to an
accurate picture that I have seen for a good while.
It's also not a new thing. British media worship of neoliberalism has been growing since
the 1980s, at the same time as newspapers have been closing and media sources of all kinds
laying off their staff. 2008 was a temporary blip, and since the average journalist has the
attention span of a hamster, it was back to usual a few months later. Once the crash stopped
being "news" old patterns reasserted themselves. I wonder, incidentally, how many economics
journalists in the UK actually remember the time before neoliberalism?
"And so it seems we are living with a hyper-amnesia"
Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience. Even something like
the Trump scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation seems like the arrogant internecine
warfare of corrupt factions of the establishment. Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly
living out of their cars.
The corporate media forgets the causes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression,
and it put Trump in a position to be elected. Trump was the Republican nominee because he was
relentlessly promoted by the media -- because ratings, because neoliberal rigged markets.
Break up the media monopolies, roll back Citizens United, enforce the fairness
doctrine.
" Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience the Trump
scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation is nothing other than internecine warfare between
corrupt factions of the establishment."
I think there are several issues here for Americans, which can partially be applied to the
Europeans.
First, the American nation as whole only has short term memory. It is our curse.
Second, those with the money spend a lot of money, time and effort the late 19th century
covering up, massaging, or sometimes just creating lies about the past. American and British
businesses, governments, and even private organizations are masters at advertising and
propaganda. Perhaps the best on Earth.
Third, the people and the institutions that would counter this somewhat, independent
unions, multiple independent media, tenured professors at functioning schools, even
non-neoliberalized churches, and social organizations like bowling, crocheting, or heck, the
Masons would all maintain a separate continuing body of memory and knowledge.
Lastly, we are all freaking terrified somewhere inside us. Those relative few who
are not are fools, and most people, whatever their faults, truly are not fools. Even if they
act like one. Whatever your beliefs, position, or knowledge, the knowing of the oncoming
storm is in you. Money or poverty may not save you. The current set of lies, while they are
lies, gives everyone a comfortable known position of supporting or opposing in the same old,
same old while avoiding thinking about whatever catastrophe(s) and radical changes we all
know are coming. The lies are more relaxing than the truth.
Even if you are one of society's homeless losers, who would welcome some changes, would
you be comfortable thinking about just how likely it is to be very traumatic? Hiding behind
begging for change might be more comfortable.
"Even if you are one of society's homeless losers, who would welcome some changes, would
you be comfortable thinking about just how likely it is to be very traumatic? Hiding behind
begging for change might be more comfortable."
On the contrary, the upheaval the "losers" have been subjected to will be turned around
and used as a just cause for rectification. Trumatic consequences can be unpredictable and
this is why society should have socio-economic checks and balances to prevent an economic
system running amok. Commonsense that necessitates amnesia for neoliberalism to seem
viable.
1. Oligarchs having captured thoroughly the media, the legislatures and the judiciary, (as
well as large parts of what might be construed as "liberal" political organisations e.g. the
Democratic Party of the USA)
2. the seemingly inexorable trend to wealth concentration in the hands of said
oligarchs
..one asks oneself.."What is one to do?"
My own response, (and I acknowledge straight off its limited impact), is to do the
following:
1. support financially in the limited ways possible media channels such as Naked
Capitalism that do their level best to debunk the lies and deceptions perpetrated by the
oligarchs
2. support financially social organisations and structures that are genuinely citizen
based and focused on a sustainable future for all
3. Do very very limited monitoring of the oligarch's "lies and deceptions" (one needs to
understand one's enemies to have a chance to counter them) and try on a personal level, in
one's day to day interactions, to present counter arguments
We cannot throw in the towel. We must direct our limited financial resources and personal
efforts to constructive change, as, for the 99%..there are no "bunker" to run to when the
"proverbial" hits the fan..as it must in the fullness of time.
Yep. One has to go ahead and do what one can. It all makes a difference. Thanks for your
strategy, Peter Phillips. Limited impact is not no impact, and we don't have the luxury of
despairing because there is only a bit we can do.
Yet this has been going on forever – – this past Sunday, for the first time I
recall, I finally heard an accurate Real News story filed on the Bobby Kennedy assassination
(50th anniversary coming this June 6, 2018) by the BBC World Service.
They actually noted that there were multiple shooters, that Sen. Kennedy was shot from
behind, not the front where Sirhan was located, etc., etc.
I guess we do occasionally witness Real News – – – just that it takes 50
years or so to be reported . . .
"... By Laura Basu, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... This ideology spread through the media from the 1980s ..."
"... Fast-forward to April 2009, barely 6 months after the announcement of a £500 billion bank bailout. A media hysteria was nowraging around Britain's deficit . While greedy bankers were still taking some of the blame, the systemic problems in finance and the problems with the free-market model had been forgotten. Instead, public profligacy had become the dominant explanation for the deficit. The timeline of the crisis was being erased and rewritten. ..."
"... These measures were a ramped-up version of the kinds of reforms that had produced the crisis in the first place. This fact, however, was forgotten. These 'pro-business' moves were enthusiastically embraced by the media, far more so than austerity. Of the 5 outlets analysed (The BBC, Telegraph, Sun, Guardian and Mirror), only the Guardian rejected them more frequently than endorsing them. ..."
"... "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ..."
"... This post is disheartening in so many ways. Start with "media hysteria" -- adding yet another glib coinage to hide a lack of explanation behind a simple but innapt analogy like the endless "addictions" from which personifications of various abstract entities suffer. ..."
"... This coinage presupposes a media sufficiently free to be possessed by hysteria. Dancing puppets might with some art appear "hysterical". And the strange non-death of Neoliberalsm isn't so strange or poorly understood in 2018 though the detailed explanation hasn't reached as many as one might have hoped, including the authors of this brief post. Consider their unhappy mashup of thoughts in a key sentence of the first paragraph: "This power has been maintained with the help of a robust ideology centred on free markets (though in reality markets are captured by corporations and are maintained by the state) and the superiority of the private sector over the public sector." The tail of this sentence obviates the rest of the post. And we ought not ignore the detail that Neoliberalism believes in the Market as a solution to all problems -- NOT the 'free market' of neoclassical economics or libertarian ideology. ..."
"... From "media hysteria" the post postulates "amnesia" of a public convinced of "greedy bankers" who need regulation. In the U.S. the propaganda was more subtle -- at least in my opinion. We were fed the "bad apples" theory mocked in a brief series of media clips presented in the documentary film "Inside Job". Those clips suggest a better explanation for the swift media transitions from banking reform to balanced budgets and austerity with more tax cuts for the wealthy than "amnesia" or "hyper-amnesia". The media Corporations are tightly controlled by the same forces that captured Corporations and -- taking the phrase "the superiority of the private sector over the public sector" in the sense that a superior directs an inferior [rather than the intended(?) sense] -- direct and essentially own our governments. ..."
"... The remarkable thing about public discourse and political and economic news reporting is how superficial it has become, so devoid of a foundation of any kind in history or theory. You can not have an effective critique of society or the economy or anything, if you do not see a system with a history and think it matters. Neoliberalism has become what people say when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise. ..."
"... "Neoliberalism has become what people say when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise." ..."
"... I also think that the crisis of neoliberalism echos a problem caused by capitalism, itself. I think David Harvey stated that "capitalism doesn't solve problems, it often just moves them around". ..."
"... Matt Stoller tweet from August 2017, as germane now as ever: "The political crisis we are facing is simple. American commerce, law, finance, and politics is organized around cheating people." ..."
"... George Orwell noted that the middle class Left couldn't handle dealing with real working class people, although there isn't the same huge gulf these days, I believe there is still a vestige of it due to the British class system. The Fabians set up shop in the East End around the turn of the last century & directly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Coster Mongers – a combination that led to a strike that was one of the first success stories in the attempt to get a few more crumbs than what was usually allowed to fall from the top table. ..."
"... If Neoliberalism is now being noticed I imagine that it is because of it's success in working it's way up the food chain. After all these same Middle classes for the most part did not care much for the plight of the poor during those Victorian values. Many could not wait to employ maids of all work who slaved for up to fourteen hours a day with only Sunday afternoon's off. The Suffragettes had a real problem with this as their relatively comfortable lives would soon descend into drudgery without their servants. ..."
"... Coincidentally, the NYT article on Austerity Britain is the closest I have read to an accurate picture that I have seen for a good while. ..."
"... It's also not a new thing. British media worship of neoliberalism has been growing since the 1980s, at the same time as newspapers have been closing and media sources of all kinds laying off their staff. 2008 was a temporary blip, and since the average journalist has the attention span of a hamster, it was back to usual a few months later. Once the crash stopped being "news" old patterns reasserted themselves. I wonder, incidentally, how many economics journalists in the UK actually remember the time before neoliberalism? ..."
"... Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience. Even something like the Trump scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation seems like the arrogant internecine warfare of corrupt factions of the establishment. Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly living out of their cars. ..."
"... 1. Oligarchs having captured thoroughly the media, the legislatures and the judiciary, (as well as large parts of what might be construed as "liberal" political organisations e.g. the Democratic Party of the USA) ..."
Posted on
May 29, 2018 by Yves Smith Yves here. I'm sure readers
could write a US version of this timeline despite the fact that we had a second crisis and
bailout, that of way more foreclosures than were warranted, thanks to lousy incentives to
mortgage servicers and lack of political will to intervene, and foreclosure fraud to cover up
for chain of title failures.
By Laura Basu, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and
Culture. Originally published at
openDemocracy
It hasn't escaped many people's attention that, a decade after the biggest economic crash of
a generation, the economic model producing that meltdown has not exactly been laid to rest.
The crisis in the
NHS and the
Carillion and Capital scandals are testament to that. Sociologist Colin Crouch wrote a book
in 2011 about the 'strange non-death of neoliberalism', arguing that the neoliberal model is
centred on the needs of corporations and that corporate power actually intensified after the
2008 financial meltdown. This power has been maintained with the help of a robust ideology
centred on free markets (though in reality markets are captured by corporations and are
maintained by the state) and the superiority of the private sector over the public sector. It
advocates privatisation, cuts in public spending, deregulation and tax cuts for businesses and
high earners.
This ideology
spread through the media from the 1980s , and the media have continued to play a key
role in its persistence through a decade of political and economic turmoil since the 2008
crash. They have done this largely via an acute amnesia about the causes of the crisis, an
amnesia that helped make policies like austerity, privatisation and corporate tax breaks appear
as common sense responses to the problems.
This amnesia struck at dizzying speed. My research carried out at Cardiff University shows
that in 2008 at the time of the banking collapse, the main explanations given for the problems
were financial misconduct ('greedy bankers'), systemic problems with the financial sector, and
the faulty free-market model. These explanations were given across the media spectrum,
with even the Telegraph and Sun complaining about a lack of regulation . Banking reform was
advocated across the board.
Fast-forward to April 2009, barely 6 months after the announcement of a £500
billion bank bailout.
A media hysteria was nowraging around Britain's deficit . While greedy bankers were still
taking some of the blame, the systemic problems in finance and the problems with the
free-market model had been forgotten. Instead, public profligacy had become the dominant
explanation for the deficit. The timeline of the crisis was being erased and
rewritten.
Correspondingly, financial and corporate regulation were forgotten. Instead, austerity
became the star of the show, eclipsing all other possible solutions to the crisis. As a
response to the deficit, austerity was mentioned 2.5 as many times as the next most covered
policy-response option, which was raising taxes on the wealthy. Austerity was mentioned 18
times more frequently than tackling tax avoidance and evasion. Although coverage of austerity
was polarized, no media outlet rejected it outright, and even the left-leaning press implicitly
(and sometimes explicitly) backed 'austerity lite'.
In 2010, the Conservative-Lib Dem government announced £99 billion in spending cuts
and £29 billion in tax increases per year by 2014-15. Having made these 'tough choices',
from 2011 the coalition wanted to focus attention away from austerity and towards growth (which
was, oops, being stalled by austerity). To do this, they pursued a zealously 'pro-business'
agenda, including privatisation, deregulation, cutting taxes for the highest earners, and
cutting corporation tax in 2011, 2012, 2013, and in 2015 and 2016 under a Conservative
government.
These measures were a ramped-up version of the kinds of reforms that had produced the
crisis in the first place. This fact, however, was forgotten. These 'pro-business' moves were
enthusiastically embraced by the media, far more so than austerity. Of the 5 outlets analysed
(The BBC, Telegraph, Sun, Guardian and Mirror), only the Guardian rejected them more frequently
than endorsing them.
The idea behind these policies is that what's good for business is good for everyone. If
businesses are handed more resources, freed from regulation and handed tax breaks, they will be
encouraged to invest in the economy, creating jobs and growth. The rich are therefore 'job
creators' and 'wealth creators'.
This is despite the fact that these policies have an impressive fail rate. Business
investment and productivity growth remain low, as corporations spend the savings not on
training and innovation but on share buy-backs and shareholder dividends. According to the
Financial Times, in 2014, the top 500 US companies
returned 95 per cent of their profits to shareholders in dividends and buybacks. Meanwhile,
inequality is spiralling and in the UK more than a million
people are using food banks .
Poverty and inequality, meanwhile, attracted surprising little media attention. Of my sample
of 1,133 media items, only 53 had a primary focus on living standards, poverty or inequality.
This
confirms other researchshowing a lack of media attention to these issues . Of these 53
items, the large majority were from the Guardian and Mirror. The coverage correctly identified
austerity as a primary cause of these problems. However, deeper explanations were rare. Yet
again, the link back to the 2008 bank meltdown wasn't made, let alone the long-term causes of
that meltdown. Not only that, the coverage failed even to identify the role of most of the
policies pursued since the onset of the crisis in producing inequality – such as
the bank bailouts, quantitative easing, and those 'pro-business' measures like corporation tax
cuts and privatisation.
And so it seems we are living with a hyper-amnesia , in which it is increasingly
difficult to reconstruct timelines and distinguish causes from effects. This amnesia has helped
trap us in a neoliberal groundhog day. The political consensus around the free market model
finally seems to be breaking. If we are to find a way out, we will need to have a lot more
conversations about how to organise both our media systems and our economies.
Tick-Tock.
It depends. Do you believe the worst can be avoided or do you believe the world is already
knee deep in all the things we're told to be afraid will happen? There is a big difference
between organizing for reform and organizing to break capture.
" Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand "
W.B. Yeats
I suppose we can take some succour from the fact that WWI (and the Spanish flu) seemed to
be a harbinger of worse to come but we're still here
The hyper-amnesia ground hog problem described in the post happens, in part, because the
'centre continues to hold'. It demonstrates the center can, and does, hold. We don't want the
centre to hold. We want it to disappear and get replaced by policies and perspectives keen on
an economy (and society) that works for all, not just some
I know what you're saying and I tend to agree. But the centre to Yeats (my interpretation,
anyway) is that there is a cultural centre both apart from but also part of the social
centre, and when that centre goes all hell breaks loose. Meaning of events becomes very
confused or impossible to understand on many levels.
Then, it's often the little people (and don't go making jokes about leprechauns) that get
crushed in the confusion.
We should reflect about the root causes of why our information is not informing us. How
can decades go by with the meme "smoking has not been conclusively proven to cause cancer" or
now "the science of climate change is inconclusive", not to mention countless similar horror
stories in pharma. Bullshit about the effectiveness of supply side economics is no
different.
Somehow we collectively need to expect and demand more objectivity from our information
sources. We fall for the fox guarding hen houses scam over and over, from TARP bailouts, to
FDA approvals to WMD claims. Not sure of the answer, but I know from talking with my boomer
parents, skepticism about information sources is not in the DNA of many information
consumers.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we
tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the
truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to
ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never
get it back."
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
One of Sagan's best, I loaned this out to a not terribly thoughtful acquaintance and I was
told it was "too preachy".
I guess Sagan proves himself correct time and time again.
It is also worth noting that a number of newspapers lauded Hitler's rise to power –
they overlooked violence against Jews because the trains ran on time. Nor should we ignore
disinformation campaigns, led by newspapers (e.g. Hearst and cannabis). In general, each
media outlet is a reflection of its owners, most of whom are rich and adverse to any
suggestion that we "tax the rich."
I've come to the conclusion that we don't have a media anymore. I was watching MSNBC this
AM discuss the "missing" 1500 immigrant children. The agency responsible says it calls the
people who now have the kids, but most of the people don't call back within the 30-day
requirement period.
Now the next logical questions to ask the rep would be: What happens after 30 days? Do you
keep calling them? Do send out investigators?" But are these questions asked? No. Instead we
get speculation or non-answers. It's the same with every issue.
The internet is not any better. Many articles are just repeating what appears elsewhere
with no one checking the facts, even on respected sites. I also got a chain email today
regarding petition for a Constitutional Convention. The impetus is a list of grievances
ranging from "a congressman can retire after just one term with a full pension" to "children
of congressmen don't have to pay back college loans." I already knew most of the claims
weren't true but the 131 recipients of the organization I belong to didn't. I did find out
that this chain email has been circulating on the internet for five years and it is the work
of a conservative groups whose real aim is to stop abortion and make Christianity the law of
the land. I was not surprised.
I have said for years that there is no news on the news. And I have repeated this meme for
just as long: There is a reason why America is called Planet Stupid.
Now the next logical questions to ask the rep would be: What happens after 30 days? Do
you keep calling them? Do send out investigators?" But are these questions asked? No.
Instead we get speculation or non-answers. It's the same with every issue.
Even competent reporting takes practice, time, and effort, even money sometimes. The same
with even half way competent governing. Neither is rewarded, and are often punished, for
doing nowadays; asking as a follow-up question "did you call the local police or send over a
pair of ICE officers just to politely knock on the door?" Police do people checks all the
time. "I haven't see so and so for a week", or "my relative hasn't returned my calls for a
month, can you?" It is possible that the paperwork just got lost and asking the
guardians/family some questions personally would solve.
But all that is boring bovine excrement, which is just not done.
This post is disheartening in so many ways. Start with "media hysteria" -- adding yet
another glib coinage to hide a lack of explanation behind a simple but innapt analogy like
the endless "addictions" from which personifications of various abstract entities suffer.
This coinage presupposes a media sufficiently free to be possessed by hysteria. Dancing
puppets might with some art appear "hysterical". And the strange non-death of Neoliberalsm
isn't so strange or poorly understood in 2018 though the detailed explanation hasn't reached
as many as one might have hoped, including the authors of this brief post. Consider their
unhappy mashup of thoughts in a key sentence of the first paragraph: "This power has been
maintained with the help of a robust ideology centred on free markets (though in reality
markets are captured by corporations and are maintained by the state) and the superiority of
the private sector over the public sector." The tail of this sentence obviates the rest of
the post. And we ought not ignore the detail that Neoliberalism believes in the Market as a
solution to all problems -- NOT the 'free market' of neoclassical economics or libertarian
ideology.
From "media hysteria" the post postulates "amnesia" of a public convinced of "greedy
bankers" who need regulation. In the U.S. the propaganda was more subtle -- at least in my
opinion. We were fed the "bad apples" theory mocked in a brief series of media clips
presented in the documentary film "Inside Job". Those clips suggest a better explanation for
the swift media transitions from banking reform to balanced budgets and austerity with more
tax cuts for the wealthy than "amnesia" or "hyper-amnesia". The media Corporations are
tightly controlled by the same forces that captured Corporations and -- taking the phrase
"the superiority of the private sector over the public sector" in the sense that a superior
directs an inferior [rather than the intended(?) sense] -- direct and essentially own our
governments.
The essayist complains that poverty and the manifest failures of neoliberalism get little
critical attention, but she leads off, "It hasn't escaped many people's attention . . ."
The remarkable thing about public discourse and political and economic news reporting is
how superficial it has become, so devoid of a foundation of any kind in history or theory.
You can not have an effective critique of society or the economy or anything, if you do not
see a system with a history and think it matters. Neoliberalism has become what people say
when they think none of it really matters; it is all just noise.
Another thing to recall was how quickly talk of nationalizing banks evaporated. Even Paul
Krugman, among others were supporting the idea that "real capitalists nationalize".
Once LIBOR came down, and the lending channels began to reopen, the happy talk ensued and
the amnesia kicked in strongly.
I also think that the crisis of neoliberalism echos a problem caused by capitalism,
itself. I think David Harvey stated that "capitalism doesn't solve problems, it often just
moves them around".
The financial crisis and austerity have now manifested themselves into a media crisis of
elites and elite legitimacy (BREXIT, Trump's election, etc). The ability to manufacture
consent is running into increased difficulty. I don't think the financial crisis narrative
shift helped very much at all. A massive crime requires an equally massive cover-up,
naturally.
Why, it's almost as if 90% of all media outlets are owned by 5 multibillion dollar
conglomerates, controlled by the top 0.1%, for the purposes of protecting their unearned
parasitic power, and the employees making six-to-low-seven figures are on the Upton Sinclair
"paycheck demands I not understand it" model.
Or it's amnesia.
Matt Stoller tweet from August 2017, as germane now as ever: "The political crisis we are
facing is simple. American commerce, law, finance, and politics is organized around cheating
people."
A big thumbs up for that! Sobotka was a hero in very dark times.
As my brother-in-law puts it: The American Dream used to be "work hard in a useful job,
raise a family of citizens, retire with dignity, and hand the controls to the next
generation." Now? It's just "Win the lottery."
Problem is, "The Lottery" is right out of Shirley Jackson.
Agreed. The author is inclined to interpret at the level of cumulative effect -- apparent
forgetting -- and to ignore how fear -- of editors, of owners -- plays any role. Her proposed
unveiling of a coercive process becomes yet another veiling of it.
Sadly the narrative of details is lost to history The German landesbanks who had
guaranteed payments in loan pools in the USA were allowed to skirt thru crash and burn by the
agencies (moody s&p and your little fitch too) fake and shake ratings process But all
things German are magical Having lived thru NYC Mac Corp effective bankruptcy of man hat
tan..
it was amusing watching the hand wave given when the city of Berlin actually defaulted
.
My own view for what it is worth is that the Guardian pays some lip service to the plight
of the UK's " Deplorables ", but like most of it's readership does not really give a damn. A
state of being exacerbated by Brexit similar to the situation in the US with Trump. It's much
easier to imagine hordes of racist morons who inhabit places that you have no direct
experience of, than to actually go & take a look. It's also very easy to be in favour of
mass immigration if it does not effect your employment, housing & never likely to spoil
your early morning dawn chorus with a call to prayer.
Unfortunately it has been left to the Right to complain about such things as the Rotherham
abuse scandal, which involved a couple of thousand young girls, who I suspect are worth less
to some than perhaps being mistaken as a racist. There are also various groups made up of
Muslim women who protest about Sharia councils behaviour to their sex, but nobody in the
media is at all interested.
George Orwell noted that the middle class Left couldn't handle dealing with real working
class people, although there isn't the same huge gulf these days, I believe there is still a
vestige of it due to the British class system. The Fabians set up shop in the East End around
the turn of the last century & directly rubbed shoulders with the likes of Coster Mongers
– a combination that led to a strike that was one of the first success stories in the
attempt to get a few more crumbs than what was usually allowed to fall from the top
table.
As for Mirror readers, I suspect that the majority are either the voiceless or are too
busy fighting to avoid the fate of those who find themselves availing of food banks, while
being labelled as lazy scroungers all having expensive holidays, twenty kids, about thirty
grand a year, while being subjected to a now updated more vicious regime of that which was
illustrated by " I, Daniel Blake ".
If Neoliberalism is now being noticed I imagine that it is because of it's success in
working it's way up the food chain. After all these same Middle classes for the most part did
not care much for the plight of the poor during those Victorian values. Many could not wait
to employ maids of all work who slaved for up to fourteen hours a day with only Sunday
afternoon's off. The Suffragettes had a real problem with this as their relatively
comfortable lives would soon descend into drudgery without their servants.
Coincidentally, the NYT article on Austerity Britain is the closest I have read to an
accurate picture that I have seen for a good while.
It's also not a new thing. British media worship of neoliberalism has been growing since
the 1980s, at the same time as newspapers have been closing and media sources of all kinds
laying off their staff. 2008 was a temporary blip, and since the average journalist has the
attention span of a hamster, it was back to usual a few months later. Once the crash stopped
being "news" old patterns reasserted themselves. I wonder, incidentally, how many economics
journalists in the UK actually remember the time before neoliberalism?
"And so it seems we are living with a hyper-amnesia"
Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience. Even something like
the Trump scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation seems like the arrogant internecine
warfare of corrupt factions of the establishment. Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly
living out of their cars.
The corporate media forgets the causes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression,
and it put Trump in a position to be elected. Trump was the Republican nominee because he was
relentlessly promoted by the media -- because ratings, because neoliberal rigged markets.
Break up the media monopolies, roll back Citizens United, enforce the fairness
doctrine.
" Consuming corporate media is increasingly a bizarro-world experience the Trump
scandal/constitutional crisis/investigation is nothing other than internecine warfare between
corrupt factions of the establishment."
I think there are several issues here for Americans, which can partially be applied to the
Europeans.
First, the American nation as whole only has short term memory. It is our curse.
Second, those with the money spend a lot of money, time and effort the late 19th century
covering up, massaging, or sometimes just creating lies about the past. American and British
businesses, governments, and even private organizations are masters at advertising and
propaganda. Perhaps the best on Earth.
Third, the people and the institutions that would counter this somewhat, independent
unions, multiple independent media, tenured professors at functioning schools, even
non-neoliberalized churches, and social organizations like bowling, crocheting, or heck, the
Masons would all maintain a separate continuing body of memory and knowledge.
Lastly, we are all freaking terrified somewhere inside us. Those relative few who
are not are fools, and most people, whatever their faults, truly are not fools. Even if they
act like one. Whatever your beliefs, position, or knowledge, the knowing of the oncoming
storm is in you. Money or poverty may not save you. The current set of lies, while they are
lies, gives everyone a comfortable known position of supporting or opposing in the same old,
same old while avoiding thinking about whatever catastrophe(s) and radical changes we all
know are coming. The lies are more relaxing than the truth.
Even if you are one of society's homeless losers, who would welcome some changes, would
you be comfortable thinking about just how likely it is to be very traumatic? Hiding behind
begging for change might be more comfortable.
"Even if you are one of society's homeless losers, who would welcome some changes, would
you be comfortable thinking about just how likely it is to be very traumatic? Hiding behind
begging for change might be more comfortable."
On the contrary, the upheaval the "losers" have been subjected to will be turned around
and used as a just cause for rectification. Trumatic consequences can be unpredictable and
this is why society should have socio-economic checks and balances to prevent an economic
system running amok. Commonsense that necessitates amnesia for neoliberalism to seem
viable.
1. Oligarchs having captured thoroughly the media, the legislatures and the judiciary, (as
well as large parts of what might be construed as "liberal" political organisations e.g. the
Democratic Party of the USA)
2. the seemingly inexorable trend to wealth concentration in the hands of said
oligarchs
..one asks oneself.."What is one to do?"
My own response, (and I acknowledge straight off its limited impact), is to do the
following:
1. support financially in the limited ways possible media channels such as Naked
Capitalism that do their level best to debunk the lies and deceptions perpetrated by the
oligarchs
2. support financially social organisations and structures that are genuinely citizen
based and focused on a sustainable future for all
3. Do very very limited monitoring of the oligarch's "lies and deceptions" (one needs to
understand one's enemies to have a chance to counter them) and try on a personal level, in
one's day to day interactions, to present counter arguments
We cannot throw in the towel. We must direct our limited financial resources and personal
efforts to constructive change, as, for the 99%..there are no "bunker" to run to when the
"proverbial" hits the fan..as it must in the fullness of time.
Yep. One has to go ahead and do what one can. It all makes a difference. Thanks for your
strategy, Peter Phillips. Limited impact is not no impact, and we don't have the luxury of
despairing because there is only a bit we can do.
Yet this has been going on forever – – this past Sunday, for the first time I
recall, I finally heard an accurate Real News story filed on the Bobby Kennedy assassination
(50th anniversary coming this June 6, 2018) by the BBC World Service.
They actually noted that there were multiple shooters, that Sen. Kennedy was shot from
behind, not the front where Sirhan was located, etc., etc.
I guess we do occasionally witness Real News – – – just that it takes 50
years or so to be reported . . .
One practical issue is what is going to happen to European investments in Iran. The most
high profile example is French energy company Total's investment in a giant Iran gasfield.
Total said this month it would pull out of Iran and its development of the giant South Pars
gasfield unless it is specifically protected from US penalties and related sanctions (see
Financial Times article " Total threat to pull out of
Iran dents EU hopes of saving accord ", May 17, 2018).
Obviously, some form of compromise may be negotiated. But if Washington takes a hard line,
such as claiming US jurisdiction as regards dollar transfers between two sovereign countries as
was the case in 2014 with the US$9 billion fine levied on French bank BNP, then a confrontation
is seemingly inevitable and, as a result, a growing questioning of the US hegemony implied by
the US dollar paper standard, a concern which has long been shared by both China and
Russia.
QUESTIONING THE US' ROLE AS THE "ECONOMIC POLICEMAN OF THE PLANET"
In this respect, the most interesting reaction to the Iran issue since Donald Trump made his
announcement on May 8 was that of the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire when he said on
May 9 that it was not acceptable for the US to be the "economic policeman of the planet".
In this respect, France is the European country to watch since it has a history of being
willing to stand up to Washington in the post-1945 world. That cannot really be said of Germany
and certainly not of Britain.
POMPEO WARNS IRAN OF ESCALATING SANCTIONS
Staying on the subject of Iran, US Secretary of State and former CIA boss Mike Pompeo made
an ultra-aggressive speech on Monday threatening Iran with escalating sanctions. In his first
major foreign policy address as Secretary of State, Pompeo stated:
Sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming This sting of sanctions
will be painful if the regime does not change its course These will indeed end up being the
strongest sanctions in history when we are complete.
The above rhetoric hardly suggests a willingness to compromise with the European position.
The significance of all of the above is that Europe and the US remain on a collision
course.
IRAN'S EXPORTS BOOMING SINCE SANCTIONS ENDED
The importance of Europe for Iran can be seen in the fact that Iran's exports to Europe have
surged almost ninefold since the end of sanctions in January 2016.
Thus, Iran's exports to the EU have risen from US$1.3 billion in 2015 to US$11.4 billion in
the 12 months to January, according to the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (see following
chart).
There is also of course the growing trade between Iran and China. Iran's total trade with
China rose by 18%YoY to US$27.5 billion in the 12 months to January (see following chart). All
this makes Iran a good example of the increasingly multipolar world where American influence or
interests appear to be fading.
IRAN ANNUALIZED EXPORTS TO EU
Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics
IRAN ANNUALIZED TOTAL TRADE WITH CHINA
Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics
IRAN'S CURRENCY TAKES A HIT
Meanwhile, Iran's currency has been hit hard in recent months as a result of the uncertainty
created by Trump's previous repeated earlier threats to pull out of the nuclear deal and now
subsequent follow-through decision.
The rial has depreciated in the black market by 33% against the US dollar year-to-date (see
following chart). This followed a period of comparative stability where the currency traded in
a 13% range for two years, helped by the optimism created by the nuclear deal as well as by
very high real interest
rates . Iranian treasury bill yields peaked at 27% in early 2017 and bottomed at 16% late
last year. They are now back at 19% as a result of the market pressure created by the threat of
renewed American sanctions.
IRANIAN RIAL/US$ (INVERTED SCALE)
Note: Based on black market rate after Iran unified its dual exchange rates on 9 April.
Source: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, Bonbast.com
SUBSTANTIAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN IRAN
With a classic bullish emerging market demographic profile, in terms of a
population of 80 million, 60% of whom are under the age of 35, Iran has, naturally, attracted a
lot of foreign direct investment in recent years, most particularly following the 2015 nuclear
deal.
The biggest of late was the previously mentioned Total's US$4.8 billion investment signed in
July 2017. But Total says it has only invested under €40 million so far, according to the
above mentioned FT article, which is precisely why the French company wants to know if it can
get a specific waiver from the sanctions.
In terms of the aggregate data, Iran's actual FDI inflows surged by 64%YoY to US$3.37
biilion in 2016, according to United Nations data. While an Iranian government report published
last year disclosed that Iran has approved US$11.8 billion in FDI during the 12 months to
December 2016, with Spain and Germany accounting for US$3.2 billion and US$2.9 billion of that
total respectively.
IRAN FDI INFLOWS
Source: UNCTAD World Investment Report 2017
WILL WE SEE A RETREAT FROM PAX
AMERICANA?
The point, therefore, remains that a confrontation between the US and the Eurozone on this
issue is potentially a landmark development in the retreat from Pax Americana.
But for now it is probably the case that most of Europe, in the spirit of appeasement, will
be content to fudge the issue in the hope that Donald Trump may not be re-elected to the US
presidency for a second term and life will return to "normal".
IRAN'S ECONOMY
Turning away from geopolitical issues, Iran's economy and financial markets spring some
positive surprises. The country has an open capital account, while there is no tax on capital
gains or dividends. The Tehran Stock Exchange celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.
But if FDI has been coming into the country in recent years, foreign portfolio investment
activity has been much more limited, with estimates of only US$100 million invested in
aggregate. This is the consequence in terms of equities of both a lack of inclusion in
benchmark MSCI indices and, of course, of sanctions.
NO FOREIGN BANKS IN IRAN
There is still no foreign bank in Iran and therefore a lack of familiar custodians
acceptable to international portfolio investors. Indeed, despite the 2015 nuclear deal, it is
still not possible to use foreign credit cards to pay for hotel bills or any other
transaction.
Foreign credit rating agencies are also absent which may not surprise given the three
biggest are owned by the Americans. This is a pity for the Iranian Government given that, with
minimal foreign currency debt and total government debt to GDP of only 35% of GDP, it would
make a lot of sense to do a landmark sovereign bond issue. Total external debt is now only
US$10.8 billion or just 2.5% of GDP, according to the Central Bank of Iran (see following
chart).
So this geopolitical planning is unique To America? So... I would be shocked, shocked if China, Russia, or the Sunni/Shia diasporas
had similar plans.
Trump is non-establishment, both party establishments want him gone. He was against the Iraq War. I haven't seen evidence he
buys into expanding a US empire or joining a global one. Just another reason neocons want to get rid of him.
"... Holy fuck, do something! I heard a rumour that one of them was in a San Francisco bathhouse at the same time as Adam Schiff! Or was it sitting in the next booth at a McDonald's? ..."
I want to know what the FBI is doing about all the guys with suspicious names
playing hockey for the Washington Capitals: Orlov, Ovechkin, Kuznetsov,
Burakovsky...my God, man, they're playing for the CAPITALS in Washington DC!!
Holy fuck, do something! I heard a rumour that one of them was in a San
Francisco bathhouse at the same time as Adam Schiff! Or was it sitting in the
next booth at a McDonald's?
In his final report in a three-part series, Guccifer 2's West
Coast Fingerprint , the Forensicator discovers evidence that at least one operator behind
the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States.
The Forensicator's earlier findings stated that Guccifer 2.0's NGP-VAN files were
accessed locally on the East Coast, and in another analysis they suggested
that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 was created in the Central time zone of the United
States. Most recently, a former DNC official refuted the DNC's initial allegations that Trump opposition files
had been ex-filtrated from the DNC by Russian state-sponsored operatives.
So, if Guccifer 2.0's role was negated by the statements of the DNC's own former "official"
in a 2017 report by the Associated Press
, why do we now return our attention to the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as we reflect on the last
section of new findings from the Forensicator?
The answer: Despite almost two years having passed since the appearance of the Guccifer 2.0
persona, legacy media is still trotting
out the shambling corpse of Guccifer 2.0 to revive the legitimacy of the Russian hacking
narrative. In other words, it is necessary to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the
Guccifer 2.0 persona.
As previously noted, In his final report in
a three-part series, the Forensicator
discusses concrete evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked
from the West Coast of the United States. He writes:
"Finally, we look at one particular Word document that Guccifer 2 uploaded, which had
"track changes" enabled. From the tracking metadata we deduce the timezone offset in effect
when Guccifer 2 made that change -- we reach a surprising conclusion: The document was likely
saved by Guccifer 2 on the West Coast, US ."
The Forensicator spends the first part of his report evaluating indications that Guccifer
2.0 may have operated out of Russia. Ultimately, the Forensicator discards those tentative
results. He emphatically notes:
"The PDT finding draws into question the premise that Guccifer 2 was operating out of
Russia, or any other region that would have had GMT+3 timezone offsets in force. Essentially,
the Pacific Timezone finding invalidates the GMT+3 timezone findings previously
described."
The Forensicator's new West Coast finding is not the first evidence to indicate that
operators behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona were based in the US. Nine months ago,
Disobedient Media , reported on the Forensicator's analysis ,
which showed (among other things) that Guccifer 2.0's "ngpvan" archive was created on the East
Coast. While that report received the vast majority of attention from the public and legacy
media,
Disobedient Media later reported on another analysis done by the Forensicator, which
found that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 (on a different occasion) was probably created in
the Central Timezone of the US.
Adding to all of this, UK based analyst and independent journalist Adam Carter presented his own analysis which also showed
that the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter persona interacted on a schedule which was best explained by
having been based within the United States.
The chart above shows a box which spans regular working hours. It indicates that unless
Guccifer 2.0 worked the night shift, they were likely working out of the US. Though this last
data point is circumstantial, it is corroborated by the previously discussed pieces of
independently verifiable hard evidence described by the Forensicator.
When taking all of these separate pieces into account, one observes a convergence of
evidence that multiple US-based operators were behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona and its
publications. This is incredibly significant because it is based on multiple pieces of concrete
data; it does not rely on "anonymous sources within the government," nor contractors hired by
the DNC. As a result, much of the prior legacy press coverage of Guccifer 2.0 as a Russia-based
agent can be readily debunked.
Such tangible evidence stands in contrast to the claims made in a recently published
Daily Beast article, which reads more
like a gossip column than serious journalism. In the Daily Beast's recital, the outlet cites an
anonymous source who claims that a Moscow-based GRU agent was behind the Guccifer 2.0
operation, writing :
"Guccifer 2.0, the "lone hacker" who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen
emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia's military
intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It's an attribution that
resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the VPN
client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address
in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with
the government's Guccifer investigation.
Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU
officer working out of the agency's headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."
[The Daily Beast , March 22, 2018]
Clearly, the claim made in the Daily Beast's report is in direct contradiction with the
growing mound of evidence suggesting that Guccifer 2.0 operated out of the United States. A
detailed technical breakdown of the evidence confirming a West-Coast "last saved" time and how
this counters the claims of the Daily Beast can be found in the Forensicator's
work.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media that their discovery process was initiated
by the following Tweet by Matt Tait ( @pwnallthings ), a security blogger and journalist.
Tait noticed a change revision entry in one of the Word documents published in Guccifer 2.0's
second
batch of documents, (uploaded 3 days after Guccifer 2.0 first appeared on the scene).
The Forensicator corrects Tait, stating that the timestamp is in "wall time," (local time)
not UTC. The Forensicator explains that Tait's mistake is understandable because the "Z" suffix
usually implies "Zulu" (GMT) time, but that isn't the case for "track changes" timestamps. The
Forensicator writes that the document Tait refers to in his Tweet is named
Hillary-for-America-fundraising-guidelines-from-agent-letter.docx ; it has Word's "track
changes" feature enabled. Guccifer 2.0 made a trivial change to the document, using the
pseudonym, "Ernesto Che," portrayed below:
The Forensicator correlated that timestamp ("12:56:00 AM") with the document's "last saved"
timestamp expressed in GMT, as shown below courtesy of the Forensicator's
study :
Based on the evidence discussed above, the Forensicator concludes that Guccifer 2.0 saved
this file on a system that had a timezone offset of -7 hours (the difference between 0:56 AM
and 7:56 AM GMT). Thus, the system where this document was last changed used Pacific Timezone
settings.
The logical conclusion drawn from the preceding analysis is that Guccifer 2.0 was operating
somewhere on the West Coast of the United States when they made their change to that document .
This single finding throws into shambles any other conclusions that might indicate that
Guccifer 2.0 was operating out of Russia. This latest finding also adds to the previously cited
evidence that the persona was probably operated by multiple individuals located in the United
States.
Taken all together, the factual basis of the Russian hacking story totally collapses. We are
left instead with multiple traces of a US-based operation that created the appearance of
evidence that Kremlin-allied hackers had breached the DNC network. Publicly available data
suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is a US-based operation. To this, we add:
The Forensicator's
recent findings that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately planted "Russian fingerprints" into his first
document, as reported by
Disobedient Media.
A former DNC official's statement that a document with so-called "Russian fingerprints"
was not in fact taken from the DNC, as reported by Disobedient
Media .
In the course of the last nine months this outlet has documented the work of the
Forensicator, which has indicated that not only were Guccifer 2.0's "ngp-van" files accessed
locally on the East Coast of the US, but also that several files published by the Guccifer 2.0
persona were altered and saved within the United States. The "Russian fingerprints" left on
Guccifer 2.0's first document have been debunked, as has the claim that the file itself was
extracted from the DNC network in the first place. On top of all this, a former DNC official
withdrew the DNC's initial allegations that supported the "Russian hack" claim in the first
place.
One hopes that with all of this information in mind, the long-suffering Guccifer 2.0 saga
can be laid to rest once and for all, at least for unbiased and critically thinking
observers.
Snowden talked about the NSA or is it CIA, had the ability to leave Russian
fingerprints.
All of this was the "insurance" to frame Trump who they knew would win when they saw that
Hillary rallies had 20 people only showing up few old lesbians and nobody else.
Meanwhile, Snowden risked his life and liberty to show us evidence that the NSA developed
technology to make it appear even with expert analysis that NSA hacking originated from a
foreign power.
In his final report in a three-part series, Guccifer 2's West
Coast Fingerprint , the Forensicator discovers evidence that at least one operator behind
the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States.
The Forensicator's earlier findings stated that Guccifer 2.0's NGP-VAN files were
accessed locally on the East Coast, and in another analysis they suggested
that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 was created in the Central time zone of the United
States. Most recently, a former DNC official refuted the DNC's initial allegations that Trump opposition files
had been ex-filtrated from the DNC by Russian state-sponsored operatives.
So, if Guccifer 2.0's role was negated by the statements of the DNC's own former "official"
in a 2017 report by the Associated Press
, why do we now return our attention to the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as we reflect on the last
section of new findings from the Forensicator?
The answer: Despite almost two years having passed since the appearance of the Guccifer 2.0
persona, legacy media is still trotting
out the shambling corpse of Guccifer 2.0 to revive the legitimacy of the Russian hacking
narrative. In other words, it is necessary to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the
Guccifer 2.0 persona.
As previously noted, In his final report in
a three-part series, the Forensicator
discusses concrete evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked
from the West Coast of the United States. He writes:
"Finally, we look at one particular Word document that Guccifer 2 uploaded, which had
"track changes" enabled. From the tracking metadata we deduce the timezone offset in effect
when Guccifer 2 made that change -- we reach a surprising conclusion: The document was likely
saved by Guccifer 2 on the West Coast, US ."
The Forensicator spends the first part of his report evaluating indications that Guccifer
2.0 may have operated out of Russia. Ultimately, the Forensicator discards those tentative
results. He emphatically notes:
"The PDT finding draws into question the premise that Guccifer 2 was operating out of
Russia, or any other region that would have had GMT+3 timezone offsets in force. Essentially,
the Pacific Timezone finding invalidates the GMT+3 timezone findings previously
described."
The Forensicator's new West Coast finding is not the first evidence to indicate that
operators behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona were based in the US. Nine months ago,
Disobedient Media , reported on the Forensicator's analysis ,
which showed (among other things) that Guccifer 2.0's "ngpvan" archive was created on the East
Coast. While that report received the vast majority of attention from the public and legacy
media,
Disobedient Media later reported on another analysis done by the Forensicator, which
found that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 (on a different occasion) was probably created in
the Central Timezone of the US.
Adding to all of this, UK based analyst and independent journalist Adam Carter presented his own analysis which also showed
that the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter persona interacted on a schedule which was best explained by
having been based within the United States.
The chart above shows a box which spans regular working hours. It indicates that unless
Guccifer 2.0 worked the night shift, they were likely working out of the US. Though this last
data point is circumstantial, it is corroborated by the previously discussed pieces of
independently verifiable hard evidence described by the Forensicator.
When taking all of these separate pieces into account, one observes a convergence of
evidence that multiple US-based operators were behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona and its
publications. This is incredibly significant because it is based on multiple pieces of concrete
data; it does not rely on "anonymous sources within the government," nor contractors hired by
the DNC. As a result, much of the prior legacy press coverage of Guccifer 2.0 as a Russia-based
agent can be readily debunked.
Such tangible evidence stands in contrast to the claims made in a recently published
Daily Beast article, which reads more
like a gossip column than serious journalism. In the Daily Beast's recital, the outlet cites an
anonymous source who claims that a Moscow-based GRU agent was behind the Guccifer 2.0
operation, writing :
"Guccifer 2.0, the "lone hacker" who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen
emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia's military
intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It's an attribution that
resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the VPN
client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address
in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with
the government's Guccifer investigation.
Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU
officer working out of the agency's headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."
[The Daily Beast , March 22, 2018]
Clearly, the claim made in the Daily Beast's report is in direct contradiction with the
growing mound of evidence suggesting that Guccifer 2.0 operated out of the United States. A
detailed technical breakdown of the evidence confirming a West-Coast "last saved" time and how
this counters the claims of the Daily Beast can be found in the Forensicator's
work.
The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media that their discovery process was initiated
by the following Tweet by Matt Tait ( @pwnallthings ), a security blogger and journalist.
Tait noticed a change revision entry in one of the Word documents published in Guccifer 2.0's
second
batch of documents, (uploaded 3 days after Guccifer 2.0 first appeared on the scene).
The Forensicator corrects Tait, stating that the timestamp is in "wall time," (local time)
not UTC. The Forensicator explains that Tait's mistake is understandable because the "Z" suffix
usually implies "Zulu" (GMT) time, but that isn't the case for "track changes" timestamps. The
Forensicator writes that the document Tait refers to in his Tweet is named
Hillary-for-America-fundraising-guidelines-from-agent-letter.docx ; it has Word's "track
changes" feature enabled. Guccifer 2.0 made a trivial change to the document, using the
pseudonym, "Ernesto Che," portrayed below:
The Forensicator correlated that timestamp ("12:56:00 AM") with the document's "last saved"
timestamp expressed in GMT, as shown below courtesy of the Forensicator's
study :
Based on the evidence discussed above, the Forensicator concludes that Guccifer 2.0 saved
this file on a system that had a timezone offset of -7 hours (the difference between 0:56 AM
and 7:56 AM GMT). Thus, the system where this document was last changed used Pacific Timezone
settings.
The logical conclusion drawn from the preceding analysis is that Guccifer 2.0 was operating
somewhere on the West Coast of the United States when they made their change to that document .
This single finding throws into shambles any other conclusions that might indicate that
Guccifer 2.0 was operating out of Russia. This latest finding also adds to the previously cited
evidence that the persona was probably operated by multiple individuals located in the United
States.
Taken all together, the factual basis of the Russian hacking story totally collapses. We are
left instead with multiple traces of a US-based operation that created the appearance of
evidence that Kremlin-allied hackers had breached the DNC network. Publicly available data
suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is a US-based operation. To this, we add:
The Forensicator's
recent findings that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately planted "Russian fingerprints" into his first
document, as reported by
Disobedient Media.
A former DNC official's statement that a document with so-called "Russian fingerprints"
was not in fact taken from the DNC, as reported by Disobedient
Media .
In the course of the last nine months this outlet has documented the work of the
Forensicator, which has indicated that not only were Guccifer 2.0's "ngp-van" files accessed
locally on the East Coast of the US, but also that several files published by the Guccifer 2.0
persona were altered and saved within the United States. The "Russian fingerprints" left on
Guccifer 2.0's first document have been debunked, as has the claim that the file itself was
extracted from the DNC network in the first place. On top of all this, a former DNC official
withdrew the DNC's initial allegations that supported the "Russian hack" claim in the first
place.
One hopes that with all of this information in mind, the long-suffering Guccifer 2.0 saga
can be laid to rest once and for all, at least for unbiased and critically thinking
observers.
Snowden talked about the NSA or is it CIA, had the ability to leave Russian
fingerprints.
All of this was the "insurance" to frame Trump who they knew would win when they saw that
Hillary rallies had 20 people only showing up few old lesbians and nobody else.
Meanwhile, Snowden risked his life and liberty to show us evidence that the NSA developed
technology to make it appear even with expert analysis that NSA hacking originated from a
foreign power.
March 29, 2018: Ep. 687 Another Bombshell Revelation
"I've already told you there was some White House Involvement in
this. Now how do we know that? What we learn in Sara's piece according
to her sources, is that there was a meeting in August of 2016. Between
a lead FBI investigator by the name of Jonn Moffa. He had a key role by
the way folks, in the Hillary exoneration letter. Remember the speech
by Jim Comey? That exonerated Hillary. They laid all this stuff out and
then said, oh..and by the way, we're not going to prosecute."
"So this is an upper level manager in the FBI. Follow the time line
here. This'll be quick. In August, early August he meets with the
White House Chief of Staff. Dennis McDonough to talk about this case,
against Trump. Against the Trump Team & probably about Hillary too."
"White House Chief of Staff. You're now a breath away from the
President of the UNITED STATES. Moffa meets McDonough in August. Why
is this time line August of 2016. Why is this significant? Because what
happens in August of 2016 too?"
"John Breanan. Aaaaa Joe! What did we say that the master of puppets
here might be John Breanan. Again, on the Don Bongino show. Yep! John
Breanan, in August of 2016. What does he do? He waltz's his butt up to
Capital Hill and gives a briefing to the gang of eight there....Harry
Reid included. About this case. Includes in the briefing which is
highly likely based on the letter Reid produces just days later. Briefs
them in the Dossier. He said he know nothing about in December. Which
is after August. So, in August. Just to be clear about what we're
talking about."
"For those Liberals out there that listen to the show. That think
the White House has no attachment to this scandal at all. In August of
2016. Senior high level managers at the FBI. Who had a role in
drafting the exoneration letter for Hillary Clinton. Meet with White
House Officials. The White House Chief of Staff. A stone throws away
from the President. In that very same month. The President's CIA
Director. A noted Political Hack. And, a lair in John Breanan. Brief
members of the Senate & the Congress. On a Dossier. He claims he knew
nothing about. And, just days after that briefing. Harry Reid fires off
a letter to the FBI requesting that they investigate Trump. Of which, by
the way, right after that. Strzok texts Lisa Paige. "Here we go."
Insinuating in the text that this was all planned the whole entire time.
"
"This entire case is built on a fake piece of information in the
Dossier. Or multiple pieces of information in a Fake Dossier, I should say
to be more precise. Breaking yesterday, Breanan has insisted that to
multiple people by the way, that he didn't know much about the Dossier.
Wait till we play this audio. Get the Chuck Todd one ready Joe."
"This is Devastating audio. But hold on a minute. Why is Breanan doing
this? Because Breanan knows that the Dossier was his case. And, the
minute he admits on the record. That as a Senior Level, powerful member of
the Intelligence Community. That John Breanan started a Political
Investigation based on Fake Information he may very well of known was not
verified. John Breanan is going to be in a World of trouble. So he has to
run from this thing."
"Now I'll get to this Sberry piece in a second. And, why it's
important. But just to show you that Breanan has run from this Dossier.
Despite the fact, we know he knew about it. And, he Lied about it. Here's
him basically telling Chuck Todd....listen to how he emphasizes on the
Dossier played no role, no, no, no role, no, no, no, no, no to the
Dossier. Listen to him with Chuck Todd:"
Chuck Todd Interview 3:30 Mark. Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous
Seditious Psychopath John Breanan admits the Fake Dossier Played
"and it did not play any role whatsoever in the Intelligence
Community Assessment that was done. That was presented to then...Pesident
Obama & President Elect Trump."
They gave Obama their tepid approval, then poured millions into a three-year campaign to kill it -- and won.
By William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman
• Benjamin Netanyahu's April 30
presentation accusing Iran of lying about its nuclear program was clearly aimed at a Western audience, and at one man in particular
-- Donald Trump. Trump was already inclined to violate and exit the multi-party deal to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, but
Netanyahu's presentation offered a timely addition to the administration's rhetorical arsenal. His PowerPoint performance, filled
with misleading assertions and
stale information dressed up as new revelations, was referenced by Trump as part of the justification for abandoning the nuclear
deal.
While this garnered headlines, another U.S. ally -- Saudi Arabia -- had been orchestrating a quieter but equally effective lobbying
and public relations push to dismantle the deal. The Saudis' arguments were used just as much, if not more, by Trump in justifying
his decision for the U.S. to walk away from a carefully crafted agreement that even some of his own military leaders had
acknowledged was working.
The Saudi lobby's push began long before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was formally announced on July 14, 2015.
In fact, Saudi lobbyists had been working behind the scenes in the U.S. for years to ensure that the Kingdom's concerns were incorporated
into any deal Washington would agree to with Iran -- if there was to be a deal at all.
In total, the Christian Science Monitor
found that Saudi Arabia spent $11 million dollars on Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)-registered firms in 2015, and "much
of this spending relates to Iran." They were also assembling former policymakers like Senator Norm Coleman, whose FARA
disclosure mentions his work on "limiting
Iranian nuclear capability." More recently, Coleman penned an op-ed in The Hill applauding Trump for leaving the deal
without disclosing
that he was being paid by the Saudi government.
Despite their strong opposition to any deal with Iran, however, many of the Saudis' concerns were ultimately addressed by the
JCPOA, specifically their demands that "snapback" provisions be incorporated to quickly reinstitute sanctions if Iran violated the
agreement and that inspectors have access to military and other suspect sites. Above all, the Saudis wanted an assurance that the
deal would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The agreement provided this and President Obama
guaranteed it. This led to what many had thought impossible --
Saudi Arabia supporting
the Iran deal . Obama sealed the grudging support of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States in a May 2015 meeting at Camp David where
he offered "reassurances" that the deal would not jeopardize their security, underscored by a
promise to sell them even more weaponry.
But Saudi support for the deal was tepid and ephemeral at best. While publicly supporting it, the Saudis and their lobbyists in
D.C. were quietly working to undermine it. Their arguments largely centered on two points: that the funds freed up by the deal would
underwrite Iran's continued support for terrorist groups, and that the deal would do nothing to halt Iran's ballistic missile program.
While more than two dozen D.C. lobbying and public relations firms working for Saudi interests have registered under FARA since
the U.S. agreed to the Iran deal, none has been more aggressively pushing these anti-Iran talking points than the MSLGroup (which
acquired long-serving Saudi client Qorvis Communications in 2014). The MSLGroup, which has been paid more than
$6 million dollars by the Saudis
just since the U.S. agreed to the Iran deal, has distributed a variety of "informational materials" (formerly called
propaganda ) on each of
these topics, including a five-page fact sheet on "
Iranian Aggression in Yemen ,"
and a press release on Iran being the "
biggest state sponsor of terrorism
," among many others. And of course, the MSLGroup wasn't alone in spreading anti-Iran propaganda on behalf of the Saudi regime. For
example, as recently as March 2018, the Glover Park Group distributed information on Iran's "region," and Hogan Lovells distributed
" facts about the Houthis and Iran
," with a section on Iran's ballistic missiles.
With these talking points in hand, the Saudis saw an opportunity in the election of the neophyte Donald Trump to up the ante on
Iran, and they invested heavily in
courting him. Their efforts paid off handsomely as Trump made his first overseas visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, initially
supported them in their spat with Qatar (until he learned the U.S. has a rather large military base in Qatar), kept U.S. military
support and bombs flowing for a Saudi-led campaign in Yemen that has cost more than
10,000 civilians
their lives, and agreed to sell them billions of dollars in additional U.S. weaponry of all sorts, from more munitions to a costly
missile defense system. But Saudi Arabia still wanted more -- they wanted the U.S. out of the Iran deal.
While Saudi Arabia's most unlikely ally in this cause, Israel, took a very outspoken approach to move the president, which culminated
in Netanyahu's misleading presentation, the Saudis used their well-financed lobbying machine to disseminate their message into the
D.C. bloodstream. Their primary talking points found their way to the president's ears and became routine features of his justification
for abandoning the deal. The White House
statement justifying leaving the Iran deal is littered with Saudi lobby talking points, including that "The JCPOA failed to deal
with the threat of Iran's missile program," and Iran "continues to fund terrorist proxies In Yemen, the regime has escalated the
conflict and used the Houthis as a proxy to attack other nations." The president's
remarks on the day he announced that the U.S. was abandoning the deal are also rife with language that could easily have been
lifted from a Saudi-financed "fact sheet." In fact, Trump's second sentence, "the Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of
terrorism," is nearly verbatim off of an anti-Iran
talking point distributed by
the MSLGroup.
Why did the Saudis want the U.S. to abandon the Iran deal? A New York Timesanalysis
identified what is probably the primary reason -- a fear that the deal would be the first step towards a U.S. rapprochement with
Iran that would undermine the Saudi regime's power in the region in general and its campaign against Iran in particular. "Exiting
the deal, with or without a plan, is fine with the Saudis," the Times wrote. "They see the accord as a dangerous distraction
from the real problem of confronting Iran around the region -- a problem that Saudi Arabia believes will be solved only by leadership
change in Iran."
Former State Department official Jeremy Shapiro
underscored
this point when he noted that the Saudis and their Gulf allies "believe they are in this existential conflict with the Iranian regime,
and nuclear weapons are a small part of that conflict . If the deal opened an avenue for better relations between the United States
and Iran, that would be a disaster for the Saudis," he said. "They need to ensure a motivation for American pressure against Iran
that will last even after this administration."
One disquieting outcome of the trashing of the Iran nuclear deal is that Saudi Arabia has threatened to acquire a nuclear weapon
of its own if the end of the agreement leads Iran to revive its program. This is not the first time Saudi leaders have made such
threats. Just after Trump announced the U.S. would be leaving the deal, the Saudi foreign minister
said that if Iran now builds a nuclear weapon his country "will do everything we can" to follow suit. So on top of its implications
for increased conventional conflict in the region, the end of U.S. participation in the Iran deal could spark a nuclear arms race
in the Middle East -- an outcome that would have been far less likely if U.S. participation in the Iran deal had been maintained.
The potential for a Mideast nuclear arms race is yet another example of the disastrous consequences of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman's reckless foreign policy, which includes everything from his regime's brutal, counterproductive intervention in Yemen,
to the Saudi-led effort to impose a blockade on Qatar, to its promotion of regime change in Iran -- preferably carried out by the
United States.
In the wake of the U.S. pullout from the Iran deal, we can expect the Saudi lobby, working in concert with administration allies
ranging from Jared Kushner to newly appointed national security advisor John Bolton, to double down in its efforts to promote these
ill-advised, dangerous directions for U.S. foreign policy in the region. Countering Riyadh's blatant influence peddling should be
part of an expanded effort to distance the United States from its increasingly risky, counterproductive relationship with Saudi Arabia.
If Mohammed bin Salman's aggressive policies -- and Saudi advocacy for them in Washington -- continue, Riyadh is one "friend" the
United States should consider doing without.
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, and Ben Freeman
directs the Center's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative.
05/28/2018 Despite the 10-year yield's reluctance to hold above 3%, bond bears have been
reluctant to throw in the towel completely, with Bill
Gross recently changing his view to allow for a "hibernating" bear market in 2018 (he
expects the 10-year with fluctuate between 2.80% and 3.25% for the remainder of the year).
DoubleLine's
Jeffrey Gundlach has also backed away from his bearish outlook, recently declaring that the
10-year will remain "contained" if 3.22% isn't broken by the 30-year.
Meanwhile, Hoisington Investment Management's Dr. Lacy Hunt has been one of the few
unabashed Treasury bulls operating in the market, refusing to cut back on duration as his peers
warned that all hell would break loose as soon as the 10-year closed above 3%.
Of course, the aforementioned chaos hasn't materialized, and Hunt's view has been proven
correct again and again. At the root of Hunt's position is a bearish outlook for the US the
economy as it begins to buckle under the weight of rapidly rising indebtedness and demographic
headwinds like falling population growth.
While short-term fluctuations in interest rates are difficult to predict, Hunt points to the
work of Milton Friedman, which shows that reductions in monetary stimulus lead to lower
long-term interest rates as growth and inflation fall.
What Friedman had in mind is that, when the Fed engages in a tightening of monetary policy
– what he called a liquidity effect – this tends to raise the short-term rates,
but it begins to restrict the flow of money and credit. If this liquidity effect is repeated
several times, it will eventually produce a countervailing income effect in which the rate of
increase in interest will be slowed as the economy begins to moderate its rate of
expansion.
And if the monetary deceleration extends for a protracted period of time, ultimately the
inflation rate will fall. Hence Friedman's conclusion: Monetary decelerations ultimately lead
to lower interest rates, not to higher interest rates.
The problem with increasing debt, Hunt explains, is that it leads to diminishing returns. In
the beginning, debt can be a boon to growth, but as the debt burden expands, and a rising share
of national income is dedicated to servicing it, the benefits quickly begin to diminish.
Economic activity begins to weaken, causing growth to slow, inflation to recede, and long-term
interest rates to fall.
And so, while massive increases in debt can lead to a transitory boost in economic
activity, this effect is relatively short-lived. And, ultimately, higher debt undermines
economic growth. So over the longer term, extreme indebtedness leads to weaker economic
activity, which, of course, is consistent with lower inflation and lower long-term bond
yields.
Hoisington is a strict duration manager. Despite Hunt's bullish view, the fund isn't
presently positioned for maximum duration, though Hunt says they're already in excess of 20
years. However, his view has its limits. If the fund wanted to, it could go out and buy all the
no-coupon 30-year government paper in the market. But it hasn't, because, as Hunt explained
earlier, secular trends often take years to unfold.
The problem with the US economy is that forgiving debt, as some on the far left have
suggested, would destabilize the financial system. Meanwhile, allowing the Federal Reserve to
print money without restrictions - an attempt to inflate away the debt (as well as the
hard-earned savings of middle-class Americans) - would stoke inflation, but do little to
benefit growth, making life harder for most people.
Well, there are people who have called for a so-called debt jubilee. The problem is that
you bankrupt your financial institutions because they hold so much of it. There's really no
way to write it off. That's the bottom line. There is no way to do a reset. You could go down
the false road of changing the Federal Reserve Act allowing the Federal Reserve to print
money. But the only way money printing works is if you increase the use of debt capital,
which further triggers the law of diminishing returns. You will get a side effect of
inflation, but you won't boost real growth. And so, in essence, you're just going to make
people more miserable than they already are.
The only tenable solution to the debt problem, in Hunt's view, would be a prolonged period
of "living within our means." Of course, austerity measures have helped mitigate debt crises in
the European Union. But after so many years of deficit spending, it's unlikely that the US
would accept it.
In search of an answer, Hunt looked back on similar periods in US history: The US government
took on a massive amount of debt in the 1820s and 1830s while building the railways and canals.
Back then, it was the California Gold Rush that helped the US economy dig itself out of debt by
bolstering growth to such a dramatic degree.
And today, the federal government is busy slashing revenues - as the Trump tax cuts did -
while also increasing spending on the military and infrastructure. While these measures might
bolster growth in the short term, over the coming years the growing debt burden will strangle
the US economy, Hunt says.
And unless the US economy is lucky enough to experience another "gold rush," it will likely
continue to struggle with this intractable debt problem - that is, until something breaks.
Mark Karlin: How much money has gone to the U.S. war on terror and what has been the impact of this expenditure?
Tom Engelhardt: The best figure I've seen on this comes from the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project at Brown University and
it's a staggering
$5.6 trillion , including certain future costs to care for this country's war vets. President Trump himself, with his usual sense
of accuracy, has inflated that number even more, regularly speaking of
$7
trillion being lost somewhere in our never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East. One of these days, he's going to turn out
to be right.
As for the impact of such an expenditure in the regions where these wars continue to be fought, largely nonstop, since they were
launched against a tiny group of jihadis just after September 11, 2001, it would certainly include: the spread of terror outfits
across the Middle East, parts of Asia, and Africa; the creation -- in a region previously autocratic but relatively calm -- of a
striking range of failed or failing states, of major cities that have been turned into absolute
rubble (with
no money in sight for serious
reconstruction), of internally
displaced people and waves of refugees at levels
that now match the moment after World War II, when significant parts of the planet were in ruins; and that's just to start down
a list of the true costs of our wars.
At home, in a far quieter way, the impact has been similar. Just imagine, for instance, what our American world would have been
like if any significant part of the funds that went into our fruitless, still spreading, now nameless conflicts had been spent on
America's crumbling infrastructure , instead of on the rise
of the national security state as the unofficial fourth branch of government. (At TomDispatch , Pentagon expert William Hartung
has estimated that approximately $1 trillion annually goes into that security state and, in the age of Trump, that figure is
again on the rise.)
Part of the trouble assessing the "impact" here in the U.S. is that, in this era of public demobilization in terms of our wars,
people are encouraged not to think about them at all and they've gotten remarkably little attention. So sorting out exactly how they've
come home -- other than completely obvious developments like the
militarization
of the police, the
flying of surveillance drones in our airspace, and so on -- is hard. Most people, for instance, don't grasp something I've long
written about at TomDispatch : that Donald Trump would have been inconceivable as president without those disastrous wars, those
trillions squandered on them and on the military that's fought them, and that certainly qualifies as "impact" enough.
What makes the U.S. pretension to empire different from previous empires?
As a start, it's worth mentioning that Americans generally don't even think of ourselves as an "empire." Yes, since the Soviet
Union imploded in 1991, our politicians and pundits have proudly called this country the "last" or "lone" superpower and the world's
most "exceptional" or "indispensable" nation, but an empire? No. You need to go someplace off the mainstream grid -- Truthout or
TomDispatch , for instance -- to find anyone talking about us in those terms.
That said, I think that two things have made us different, imperially speaking. The first was that post-1991 sense of ourselves
as the ultimate winner of a vast imperial contest, a kind of arms race of many that had gone on since European ships armed with cannon
had first broken into the world in perhaps the fifteenth century and began to conquer much of it. In that post-Soviet moment of triumphalism,
of what seemed to the top dogs in Washington like the ultimate win, a forever victory, there was indeed a sense that there had never
been and never would be a power like us. That inflated sense of our imperial self was what sent the geopolitical dreamers of the
George W. Bush administration off to, in essence, create a Pax Americana first in the Greater Middle East and then perhaps the world
in a fashion never before imagined, one that, they were convinced, would put the Roman and British imperial moments to shame. And
we all know, with the invasion of Iraq, just where that's ended up.
In the years since they launched that ultimate imperial venture in a cloud of hubris, the most striking difference I can see with
previous empires is that never has a great power still in something close to its imperial prime proven quite so incapable of applying
its military and political might in a way that would successfully advance its aims. It has instead found itself overmatched by underwhelming
enemy forces and incapable of producing any results other than destruction and further fragmentation across staggeringly large parts
of the planet.
Finally, of course, there's climate change -- that is, for the first time in the history of empires, the very well-being of the
planet itself is at stake. The game has, so to speak, changed, even if relatively few here have noticed.
Why do you refer to the U.S. as an "empire of chaos"?
This answer follows directly from the last two. The United States is now visibly a force for chaos across significant parts of
the planet. Just look, for instance, at the cities -- from
Marawi in the Philippines to
Mosul and
Ramadi
in Iraq,
Raqqa and
Aleppo
in Syria,
Sirte in Libya, and so on -- that have literally been -- a word I
want to bring into
the language -- rubblized, largely by American bombing (though with a helping hand recently from the bomb makers of the Islamic State).
Historically, in the imperial ages that preceded this one, such power, while regularly applied brutally and devastatingly, could
also be a way of imposing a grim version of order on conquered and colonized areas. No longer, it seems. We're now on a planet that
simply doesn't accept military-first conquest and occupation, no matter the guise under which it arrives (including the spread of
"democracy"). So beware the unleashing modern military power. It turns out to contain within it striking disintegrative forces on
a planet that can ill afford such chaos.
You also refer to Washington D.C. as a "permanent war capital" with the generals in ascension under Trump. What does that represent
for the war footing of the U.S.?
Well, it's obvious in a way. Washington is now indeed a war capital because the Bush administration launched not just a local
response to a relatively small group of jihadis in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but what its top officials called a "Global War
on Terror" -- creating possibly the worst acronym in history: GWOT. And then they instantly began insisting that it could be applied
to at least 60 countries supposedly harboring terror
groups. That was 2001 and, of course, though the name and acronym were dropped, the war they launched has never ended. In those years,
the military, the country's (count 'em)
17
major intelligence agencies, and the
warrior
corporations of the military-industrial complex have achieved a kind of clout never before seen in the nation's capital. Their
rise has really been a bipartisan affair in a city otherwise riven by politics as each party tries to outdo the other in promoting
the financing of the national security state. At a moment when putting money into just about anything else that would provide security
to Americans (think health care) is always a desperate struggle, funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state
continues to be a given. That's what it means to be in a "permanent war capital."
In addition, with Donald Trump, the generals of America's losing wars have gained a kind of prominence in Washington that was
unknown in a previously civilian capital. The head of the Defense Department, the White House chief of staff, and (until recently
when he was succeeded by an even more militaristic civilian) the national security advisor were all generals of those wars -- positions
that, in the past, with rare exceptions, were considered civilian ones. In this sense, Donald Trump was less making history with
the men he liked to refer to as "
my generals " than channeling it.
What is the role of bombing in the U.S. war-making machine?
It's worth remembering, as I've written in the past, that from the beginning the war on terror has been, above all (and despite
full-scale invasions and occupations using hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops), an
air war . It started that way. On September 11, 2001, after all, al-Qaeda sent its air force (four hijacked passenger jets) and
its precision weaponry (19 suicidal hijackers) against a set of iconic buildings in the U.S. Those strikes -- only one of them failed
when the passengers on a single jet fought back and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania -- may represent the most successful use
of strategic bombing (that is, air power aimed at the civilian population of, and morale in, an enemy country) in history. At the
cost of a mere $400,000 to $500,000 , Osama
bin Laden began an air war of provocation that has never ended.
The U.S. has been bombing, missiling, and
drone-assassinating ever since. Last year, for instance, U.S. planes dropped an estimated
20,000 bombs just on the Syrian city
of
Raqqa , the former "capital" of the Islamic State, leaving next to nothing standing. Since the first American planes began dropping
bombs (and cluster munitions ) in
Afghanistan in October 2001, the U.S. Air Force has been in the skies ceaselessly -- skies by the way over countries and groups that
lack any defenses against air attacks whatsoever. And, of course, it's been a kind of rolling disaster of destruction that has left
the equivalent of World Trade Center tower after tower of dead civilians in those lands. In other words, though no one in Washington
would ever say such a thing, U.S. air power has functionally been doing Osama bin Laden's job for him, conducting not so much a war
on terror as a strange kind of war for terror, one that only promotes the conditions in which it thrives best.
What role did the end of the draft play in enabling an unrestrained U.S. empire of war?
It may have been the crucial moment in the whole process. It was, of course, the decision of then-president Richard Nixon in
January 1973 , in
response to a country swept by a powerful antiwar movement and a military in near rebellion as the Vietnam War began to wind down.
The draft was ended, the all-volunteer military begun, and the American people were largely separated from the wars being fought
in their name. They were, as I said above, demobilized. Though at the time, the U.S. military high command was doubtful about the
move, it proved highly successful in freeing them to fight the endless wars of the twenty-first century, now being referred to by
some in the Pentagon (according to the Washington Post ) not as "permanent wars" or even, as General David Petraeus put it, a "
generational struggle
," but as "
infinite war ."
I've lived through
two periods of public war mobilization in my lifetime: the World War II era, in which I was born and in which the American people
mobilized to support a global war against fascism in every way imaginable, and the Vietnam War, in which Americans (like me as a
young man) mobilized against an American war. But who in those years ever imagined that Americans might fight their wars (unsuccessfully)
to the end of time without most citizens paying the slightest attention? That's why I've called the losing generals of our endless
war on terror (and, in a sense, the rest of us as well) " Nixon's
children ."
17 major intelligence agencies. For fuck's sake! It's not seventeen – it is SIXTEEN! ;-)
Looney
P.S. I hate re-posting shit or using the same joke twice, but THIS is worth re-posting (from January 13, 2017): U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions All Democrats, from our own MDB to Hillary and 0bama, have been citing the "
17 intelligence agencies
" that agree with their ridiculous claims.
Here's the list of "The Magnificent Seventeen", but (spoiler alert!) there are actually only SIXTEEN INTEL AGENCIES, but who
counts? The highlighted agencies have nothing to do with Hacking, Elections, Golden Showers, or whatever sick lies the Libtards
have come up with.
Each Agency's responsibilities are very clearly defined by Law and 13 out of the "17 agencies" have absolutely nothing to do
with the DNC, Wikileaks, Elections, Hillary's e-mails, the Clinton Foundation, the Russian Hacking, etc.
Twenty-Fifth Air Force - Air Force Intel only
Intelligence and Security Command (US Army) – Army Intel only
Central Intelligence Agency is prohibited by Law to conduct any activities within the US!!!
Coast Guard Intelligence – Coast Guard, really?
Defense Intelligence Agency – Military Intel only
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Dept. of Energy) – Nukes, Nuclear Plants
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (Homeland Security)
Bureau of Intelligence and Research - State Dept. Intel
Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (Treasury) – Treasury and Hacking/Elections? Hmm
Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA) – Drug Enforcement, really?
Intelligence Branch, FBI (DOJ)
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity - Marine Corps Intel only
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Dept. of Defense) – Satellites, Aerial Intel
National Reconnaissance Office (Dept. of Defense) – Defense Recon Only
NSA
Office of Naval Intelligence Navy Defense – Navy only
On the rare occasions when the US halfheartedly admits that, somehow, mistakes might have been made, it cannot evade employing
important US citizenish "core values" like hypocricy and psychological projection.
Four days ago an outstanding example of this type of embarrassment,
Russia's Moral Hypocrisy , was posted by Colonel
James McDonough, US Army attaché to Poland. Its urgent bleatings display the inadequacy and extremely low level of cohesion to
which US propaganda has fallen. The short version: the US fights for all good against all bad, and the Russians disagree because
they are very bad and also mean people.
Two days ago, Colonel Cassad posted a response to McDonough's piece which skewered it like a kebab. Using a
nota bene format, each point is considered and then crushed
into a paste. Even via the Yandex machine translation, the well-deserved kicking to the curb comes through loud and clear.
Wars are always about money and control. The war machine supports so many jobs in the US from shipyards to consulting. It's
a way to pump cash into a system that essentially died after the 2001 crash.
During a memorial day conversation today, "But you live in the evil empire and reap the benefits, why are you complaining about
the democrats. Can't you see the black mark on your soul is more important because you support the Empire on either side of the
so called two party system."
More divide & conquer BS the commies are belching now that they've been caught "red handed".
If it was a family member resolve yourself that you will have to just deal with it. If only a friend or acquaintance, resolve
yourself that there may come a time in the not to distant future you will have to slit their throat lest they slit yours.
Morbid as it maybe, nmewn is still correct. It's kinda like the saying, " Two people can keep a secret, as long as one of them
is dead." You cannot truly depend on or trust anyone, except yourself. And often times family can be worse than friends.
Well, what do want me to say?...lol...I know we're all thinking the same thing, we've all had the very same conversations with
these assholes whether friends or family. They are unreachable.
Hey, don't kill the guy pointing out the elephant in the middle of the room ;-)
It's not sixteen either, it was three ...the CIA ( Brennan ) the FBI ( Comey at the time) and the NSA which in my opinion was
in a go-along-to-get-along position. Seventeen was a lie when Hillary first uttered it. "The [intelligence community assessment] was a coordinated product from three agencies: CIA, NSA and the FBI, not all 17 components
of the intelligence community," said former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper during a congressional
hearing in May. "Those three under the aegis of my former office."
He spoke the truth (that time) probably not wanting another perjury charge ;-)
It's the attitude. The American political leaders have this idea of righteousness and exceptionalism. They think they'll go
around the world telling everyone else what to do. I've got two words for them - Fuck-off:
This article could have been written by a second-year political science undergraduate at a U.S. public university. This adds
a sum total of zero to the public understanding of the rise of American imperialism.
To state the obvious; the CIA has deeply humiliated the American people in their attempt to tie the American people to be responsible
for the CIA's crimes against humanity across the world.
The CIA appears to be the world's greatest threat to peace and prosperity. It is the penultimate terrorist organization, being
the direct or indirect creator of all other terrorist organizations. It also appears to be the world's penultimate illegal drug
smuggler and pusher making all other illegal drug trading possible and instigating the horrors of addiction and suffering around
the world.
If I believed that the CIA was working in any way on behalf of the US government and the American people then it would be sad
and shameful indeed. However, it is my belief that the CIA instead was captured long ago, as was the secret military operations
and now works for a hidden power that wants to dominate or failing that, destroy humanity.
It's those Select Highly Compartmentalized Criminal Pure Evil Rogue Elements at the Deep State Top that have had control since
the JFK Execution that have entrenched themselves for decades & refuse to relinquish Control.
The Agency is Cancer. There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
The author seems comfortable finding fault with Bush and Trump but can't muster up a criticism of Obama (the Cal Ripken of
presidential war mongers), Clinton, Holder, et al.
What a dichotomy. On the one hand, America self-righteously proclaiming it is the one protecting everyone's freedom, while
at the same time making war and spying and oppressing others. On the other hand, seems like America is at war with everyone to
have such a large military and 17 spy agencies, and more people in prison than any other country in the world. Really sounds like
America has got some serious problems.
Note, a majority of the Muslims living close to Iraq still held a positive view of the U.S. even after the 1990-1991 attack
on Iraq. And after 12 years of starvation sanctions, even denying Iraq baby formula with the claim that it "can be used to make
weapons". And after the UK and US bombing Iraq on average once a week for those 12 years, targeting water refineries so Iraqis
had to drink dirty water, and power plants so there was no air conditioning in the blistering summer heat. Causing the death of
half a million children, as confirmed by the U.S. ambassador to the UN, which State Secretary Madeleine Albright said was "worth
it".
Even after that mass murder, 60% of Gulf residents were generally positive toward the U.S.
"Clash of cultures," right? There wasn't much Islamism at all, except the anger directed at thieving puppet rulers installed
after the European empires withdrew. Arabs, who were mostly secular, had always loved the U.S. as an anti-imperialist country.
Thus they couldn't understand when the U.S. backed the Zio invasion of Palestine. And then started sanctioning and attacking every
Middle Eastern nation that supported the Palestinians.
The U.S. used to have many "Arabist" diplomats, those who wanted to work with Arab nationalists, especially against the Soviets.
But the pro-Arab diplomats were sidelined by the media-backed neocon line, where everything was about who were for or against
the Palestinians. Saddam Hussein in Iraq had been secular and pro-American, but he gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide
bombers - these families saw their homes razed with all their possessions, with just an hour's notice, by the Israelis. For the
crime of giving these destitute people some money, all of Iraq was targeted.
No wonder the Arabs started hating the U.S. Still even after the Iraq invasion in 2003, most Arabs just want to be left alone
by the U.S. But that is not allowed. Arab nationalism was destroyed in favor of puppet regimes.
Memorial Day should be a time of sober reflection on war's horrible costs, not a moment to
glorify war. But many politicians and pundits can't resist the opportunity...
Originally published on 5/24/2015
How best to show respect for the U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and for their
families on Memorial Day?
Simple: Avoid euphemisms like "the fallen" and expose the lies about what a great idea it
was to start those wars in the first place and then to "surge" tens of thousands of more troops
into those fools' errands.
First, let's be clear on at least this much: the 4,500 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far and
the 2,350 killed in Afghanistan [by May 2015] did not "fall." They were wasted on no-win
battlefields by politicians and generals cheered on by neocon pundits and mainstream
"journalists" almost none of whom gave a rat's patootie about the real-life-and-death troops.
They were throwaway soldiers.
And, as for the "successful surges," they were just P.R. devices to buy some "decent
intervals" for the architects of these wars and their boosters to get space between themselves
and the disastrous endings while pretending that those defeats were really "victories
squandered" all at the "acceptable" price of about 1,000 dead U.S. soldiers each and many times
that in dead Iraqis and Afghans.
Memorial Day should be a time for honesty about what enabled the killing and maiming of so
many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and the
senior military brass simply took full advantage of a poverty draft that gives upper-class sons
and daughters the equivalent of exemptions, vaccinating them against the disease of war.
What drives me up the wall is the oft-heard, dismissive comment about troop casualties from
well-heeled Americans: "Well, they volunteered, didn't they?" Under the universal draft in
effect during Vietnam, far fewer were immune from service, even though the well-connected could
still game the system to avoid serving. Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, for example,
each managed to pile up five exemptions. This means, of course, that they brought zero military
experience to the job; and this, in turn, may explain a whole lot -- particularly given their
bosses' own lack of military experience.
The grim truth is that many of the crëme de la crëme of today's Official
Washington don't know many military grunts, at least not intimately as close family or friends.
They may bump into some on the campaign trail or in an airport and mumble something like,
"thank you for your service." But these sons and daughters of working-class communities from
America's cities and heartland are mostly abstractions to the powerful, exclamation points at
the end of some ideological debate demonstrating which speaker is "tougher," who's more ready
to use military force, who will come out on top during a talk show appearance or at a
think-tank conference or on the floor of Congress.
Sharing the Burden?
We should be honest about this reality, especially on Memorial Day. Pretending that the
burden of war has been equitably shared, and worse still that those killed died for a "noble
cause," as President George W. Bush liked to claim, does no honor to the thousands of U.S.
troops killed and the tens of thousands maimed. It dishonors them. Worse, it all too often
succeeds in infantilizing bereaved family members who cannot bring themselves to believe their
government lied.
Who can blame parents for preferring to live the fiction that their sons and daughters were
heroes who wittingly and willingly made the "ultimate sacrifice," dying for a "noble cause,"
especially when this fiction is frequently foisted on them by well-meaning but naive clergy at
funerals. For many it is impossible to live with the reality that a son or daughter died in
vain. Far easier to buy into the official story and to leave clergy unchallenged as they gild
the lilies around coffins and gravesites.
Not so for some courageous parents. Cindy Sheehan, for example, whose son Casey Sheehan was
killed on April 4, 2004, in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, demonstrated uncommon grit when
she led hundreds of friends to Crawford to lay siege to the Texas White House during the summer
of 2005 trying to get Bush to explain what "noble cause" Casey died for. She never got an
answer. There is none.
But there are very few, like Cindy Sheehan, able to overcome a natural human resistance to
the thought that their sons and daughters died for a lie and then to challenge that lie. These
few stalwarts make themselves face this harsh reality, the knowledge that the children whom
they raised and sacrificed so much for were, in turn, sacrificed on the altar of political
expediency, that their precious children were bit players in some ideological fantasy or pawns
in a game of career maneuvering.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is said to have described the military
disdainfully as "just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." Whether or
not those were his exact words, his policies and behavior certainly betrayed that attitude. It
certainly seems to have prevailed among top American-flag-on-lapel-wearing officials of the
Bush and Obama administrations, including armchair and field-chair generals whose sense of
decency is blinded by the prospect of a shiny new star on their shoulders, if they just follow
orders and send young soldiers into battle.
This bitter truth should raise its ugly head on Memorial Day but rarely does. It can be
gleaned only with great difficulty from the mainstream media, since the media honchos continue
to play an indispensable role in the smoke-and-mirrors dishonesty that hides their own guilt in
helping Establishment Washington push "the fallen" from life to death.
We must judge the actions of our political and military leaders not by the pious words they
will utter Monday in mourning those who "fell" far from the generals' cushy safe seats in the
Pentagon or somewhat closer to the comfy beds in air-conditioned field headquarters where a
lucky general might be comforted in the arms of an admiring and enterprising biographer.
Many of the high-and-mighty delivering the approved speeches on Monday will glibly refer to
and mourn "the fallen." None are likely to mention the culpable policymakers and complicit
generals who added to the fresh graves at Arlington National Cemetery and around the
country.
Words, after all, are cheap; words about "the fallen" are dirt cheap especially from the
lips of politicians and pundits with no personal experience of war. The families of those
sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan should not have to bear that indignity.
'Successful
Surges'
The so-called "surges" of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan were particularly gross examples
of the way our soldiers have been played as pawns. Since the usual suspects are again coming
out the woodwork of neocon think tanks to press for yet another "surge" in Iraq, some
historical perspective should help.
Take, for example, the well-known and speciously glorified first "surge;" the one Bush
resorted to in sending over 30,000 additional troops into Iraq in early 2007; and the
not-to-be-outdone Obama "surge" of 30,000 into Afghanistan in early 2010. These marches of
folly were the direct result of decisions by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to prioritize
political expediency over the lives of U.S. troops.
Taking cynical advantage of the poverty draft, they let foot soldiers pay the "ultimate"
price. That price was 1,000 U.S. troops killed in each of the two "surges."
And the results? The returns are in. The bloody chaos these days in Iraq and the faltering
war in Afghanistan were entirely predictable. They were indeed predicted by those of us able to
spread some truth around via the Internet, while being mostly blacklisted by the fawning
corporate media.
Yet, because the "successful surge" myth was so beloved in Official Washington, saving some
face for the politicians and pundits who embraced and spread the lies that justified and
sustained especially the Iraq War, the myth has become something of a touchstone for everyone
aspiring to higher office or seeking a higher-paying gig in the mainstream media.
Campaigning in New Hampshire, [then] presidential aspirant Jeb Bush gave a short history
lesson about his big brother's attack on Iraq. Referring to the so-called Islamic State, Bush
said, "ISIS didn't exist when my brother was president. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out the
surge created a fragile but stable Iraq. "
But suffice it to say that Jeb Bush is distorting the history and should be ashamed. The
truth is that al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before his brother launched an unprovoked invasion
in 2003. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" arose as a direct result of Bush's war and occupation. Amid the
bloody chaos, AQI's leader, a Jordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pioneered a particularly
brutal form of terrorism, relishing videotaped decapitation of prisoners.
Zarqawi was eventually hunted down and killed not during the celebrated "surge" but in June
2006, months before Bush's "surge" began. The so-called Sunni Awakening, essentially the buying
off of many Sunni tribal leaders, also predated the "surge." And the relative reduction in the
Iraq War's slaughter after the 2007 "surge" was mostly the result of the ethnic cleansing of
Baghdad from a predominantly Sunni to a Shia city, tearing the fabric of Baghdad in two, and
creating physical space that made it more difficult for the two bitter enemies to attack each
other. In addition, Iran used its influence with the Shia to rein in their extremely violent
militias.
Though weakened by Zarqawi's death and the Sunni Awakening, AQI did not disappear, as Jeb
Bush would like you to believe. It remained active and when Saudi Arabia and the Sunni gulf
states took aim at the secular regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria AQI joined with other
al-Qaeda affiliates, such as the Nusra Front, to spread their horrors across Syria. AQI
rebranded itself "the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" or simply "the Islamic State."
The Islamic State split off from al-Qaeda over strategy but the various jihadist armies,
including al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, [then] seized wide swaths of territory in Syria -- and the
Islamic State returned with a vengeance to Iraq, grabbing major cities such as Mosul and
Ramadi.
Jeb Bush doesn't like to unspool all this history. He and other Iraq War backers prefer to
pretend that the "surge" in Iraq had won the war and Obama threw the "victory" away by
following through on George W. Bush's withdrawal agreement with Maliki.
But the crisis in Syria and Iraq is among the fateful consequences of the U.S./UK attack 12
years ago and particularly of the "surge" of 2007, which contributed greatly to Sunni-Shia
violence, the opposite of what George W. Bush professed was the objective of the "surge," to
enable Iraq's religious sects to reconcile.
Reconciliation, however, always took a back seat to the real purpose of the "surge" buying
time so Bush and Cheney could slip out of Washington in 2009 without having an obvious military
defeat hanging around their necks and putting a huge stain on their legacies.
Cheney and Bush: Reframed the history. (White House photo)
The political manipulation of the Iraq "surge" allowed Bush, Cheney and their allies to
reframe the historical debate and shift the blame for the defeat onto Obama, recognizing that
1,000 more dead U.S. soldiers was a small price to pay for protecting the "Bush brand." Now,
Bush's younger brother can cheerily march off to the campaign trail for 2016 pointing to the
carcass of the Iraqi albatross hung around Obama's shoulders.
Rout at Ramadi
Less than a year after U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi forces ran away from the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving the area and lots of U.S. arms and equipment to ISIS, something
similar happened at Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar. Despite heavy U.S.
air strikes on ISIS, American-backed Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi, which is only 70 miles
west of Baghdad, after a lightning assault by ISIS forces.
The ability of ISIS to strike just about everywhere in the area is reminiscent of the Tet
offensive of January-February 1968 in Vietnam, which persuaded President Lyndon Johnson that
that particular war was unwinnable. If there are materials left over in Saigon for reinforcing
helicopter landing pads on the tops of buildings, it is not too early to bring them to
Baghdad's Green Zone, on the chance that U.S. embassy buildings may have a call for such
materials in the not-too-distant future.
The headlong Iraqi government retreat from Ramadi had scarcely ended when Sen. John McCain,
(R-AZ), described the fall of the city as "terribly significant" which is correct adding that
more U.S. troops may be needed which is insane. His appeal for more troops neatly fit one
proverbial definition of insanity (attributed or misattributed to Albert Einstein): "doing the
same thing over and over again [like every eight years?] but expecting different results."
As Jeb Bush was singing the praises of his brother's "surge" in Iraq, McCain and his Senate
colleague Lindsey Graham were publicly calling for a new "surge" of U.S. troops into Iraq. The
senators urged President Obama to do what George W. Bush did in 2007 replace the U.S. military
leadership and dispatch additional troops to Iraq.
But Washington Post pundit David Ignatius, even though a fan of the earlier two surges, was
not yet on board for this one. Ignatius warned in a column that Washington should not abandon
its current strategy:
"This is still Iraq's war, not America's. But President Barack Obama must reassure Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi that the U.S. has his back, and at the same time give him a reality
check: If al-Abadi and his Shiite allies don't do more to empower Sunnis, his country will
splinter. Ramadi is a precursor, of either a turnaround by al-Abadi's forces, or an Iraqi
defeat."
Ignatius's urgent tone was warranted. But what he suggests is precisely what the U.S. made a
lame attempt to do with then-Prime Minister Maliki in early 2007. Yet, Bush squandered U.S.
leverage by sending 30,000 troops to show he "had Maliki's back," freeing Maliki to accelerate
his attempts to marginalize, rather than accommodate, Sunni interests.
Perhaps Ignatius now remembers how the "surge" he championed in 2007 greatly exacerbated
tensions between Shia and Sunni contributing to the chaos now prevailing in Iraq and spreading
across Syria and elsewhere. But Ignatius is well connected and a bellwether; if he ends up
advocating another "surge," take shelter.
Keane and Kagan Ask For a Mulligan
Jeb Bush: Sung his brother's praises. (Sun City Center, Florida, on May 9, 2006. White House
photo by Eric Draper)
The architects of Bush's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 troops into Iraq, former Army General Jack
Keane and American Enterprise Institute neocon strategist Frederick Kagan, in testimony to the
Senate Armed Services Committee, warned strongly that, without a "surge" of some 15,000 to
20,000 U.S. troops, ISIS would win in Iraq.
"We are losing this war," warned Keane, who previously served as Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army. "ISIS is on the offense, with the ability to attack at will, anyplace, anytime. Air power
will not defeat ISIS." Keane stressed that the U.S. and its allies have "no ground force, which
is the defeat mechanism."
Not given to understatement, Kagan called ISIS "one of the most evil organizations that has
ever existed. This is not a group that maybe we can negotiate with down the road someday. This
is a group that is committed to the destruction of everything decent in the world." He called
for "15-20,000 U.S. troops on the ground to provide the necessary enablers, advisers and so
forth," and added: "Anything less than that is simply unserious."
(By the way, Frederick Kagan is the brother of neocon-star Robert Kagan, whose Project for
the New American Century began pushing for the invasion of Iraq in 1998 and finally got its way
in 2003. Robert Kagan is the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the 2014 coup that brought "regime change" and bloody chaos to
Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis also prompted Robert Kagan to urge a major increase in U.S.
military spending. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's " A Family Business
of Perpetual War. "] )
What is perhaps most striking, however, is the casualness with which the likes of Frederick
Kagan , Jack Keane, and other Iraq War enthusiasts advocated dispatching tens of thousands of
U.S. soldiers to fight and die in what would almost certainly be another futile undertaking.
You might even wonder why people like Kagan are invited to testify before Congress given their
abysmal records.
But that would miss the true charm of the Iraq "surge" in 2007 and its significance in
salvaging the reputations of folks like Kagan, not to mention George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
From their perspective, the "surge" was a great success. Bush and Cheney could swagger from the
West Wing into the western sunset on Jan. 20, 2009.
As author Steve Coll has put it, "The decision [to surge] at a minimum guaranteed that his
[Bush's] presidency would not end with a defeat in history's eyes. By committing to the surge
[the President] was certain to at least achieve a stalemate."
According to Bob Woodward, Bush told key Republicans in late 2005 that he would not withdraw
from Iraq, "even if Laura and [first-dog] Barney are the only ones supporting me." Woodward
made it clear that Bush was well aware in fall 2006 that the U.S. was losing. Suddenly, with
some fancy footwork, it became Laura, Barney and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen.
David Petraeus along with 30,000 more U.S. soldiers making sure that the short-term fix was
in.
The fact that about 1,000 U.S. soldiers returned in caskets was the principal price paid for
that short-term "surge" fix. Their "ultimate sacrifice" will be mourned by their friends,
families and countrymen on Memorial Day even as many of the same politicians and pundits will
be casually pontificating about dispatching more young men and women as cannon fodder into the
same misguided war.
[President Donald Trump has continued the U.S.'s longest war (Afghanistan), sending
additional troops and dropping a massive bomb as well as missiles from drones. In Syria he has
ordered two missile strikes and condoned multiple air strikes from Israel. Here's hoping, on
this Memorial Day 2018, that he turns his back on his war-mongering national security adviser,
forges ahead
with a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un rather than toy with the lives of 30,000
U.S. soldiers in Korea, and halts the juggernaut rolling downhill toward war with Iran.]
It was difficult drafting this downer, this historical counter-narrative, on the eve of
Memorial Day. It seems to me necessary, though, to expose the dramatis personae who played such
key roles in getting more and more people killed. Sad to say, none of the high officials
mentioned here, as well as those on the relevant Congressional committees, were affected in any
immediate way by the carnage in Ramadi, Tikrit or outside the gate to the Green Zone in
Baghdad.
And perhaps that's one of the key points here. It is not most of us, but rather our soldiers
and the soldiers and civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan and God knows where else who are Lazarus at
the gate. And, as Benjamin Franklin once said, "Justice will not be served until those who are
unaffected are as outraged as those who are."
"... Back to Turkey. The largest net backstabbing of Turkish economy could be the slowdown of investments from the Gulf, where Erdogan bravely sided with Qatar. Erdogan engineered de facto confiscation of media assets owned by tycoons sympathetic to the opposition, to be purchased by Qataris, now Qatar is to Turkey what Adelson is to Israel. ..."
"... Add the effect of Iran sanctions -- it increased prices of oil and gas, but no associated increase the demand from the Gulf, on the northern shore there is a prospect of tightened belts, on the southern shore anti-Turkish policies, and Qatar alone is too small ..."
...Rusal,
the dominant aluminum maker in Russia recently was sanctioned by USA, while a while ago it
gained control of a large portion of alumina production -- aluminum ore, bauxite, has to be
processed into more pure feedstock for smelting factories, called alumina. Now aluminum
producers in many areas, notably, Europe, have a shortage of alumina that may lead to
mothballing of some smelters; the largest alumina facility in Europe is in Ireland and it is
owned by Rusal. Perhaps great for American smelter owners, but there has to be some teeth
gnashing in Europe.
Back to Turkey. The largest net backstabbing of Turkish economy could be the slowdown of
investments from the Gulf, where Erdogan bravely sided with Qatar. Erdogan engineered de facto
confiscation of media assets owned by tycoons sympathetic to the opposition, to be purchased by
Qataris, now Qatar is to Turkey what Adelson is to Israel.
Siding with Qatar would eliminate
investments from KSA and UAE, and draconian treatment of Saudi princes and other tycoons
probably led to their assets being under the control of the Crown Prince.
This is not
particularly recent, but financial markets tend to have delayed fuse. Add the effect of Iran
sanctions -- it increased prices of oil and gas, but no associated increase the demand from the
Gulf, on the northern shore there is a prospect of tightened belts, on the southern shore
anti-Turkish policies, and Qatar alone is too small.
Plus Erdogan himself promised to "pay more
attention to Turkish central bank", and justifiably or not, that is a very strong sell signal
for the currency.
We don't blame the British people anymore than the world should blame the
American people. It is these political machines filled with antisocial
sociopaths and psychopaths that gravitate to government. These people have
the following tendencies
- Power Monger - Regularly break or flouts the law
- Politician - Constantly lies and deceives others
- Conquer - Is impulsive and doesn't plan ahead
- Warlike - Can be prone to fighting and aggressiveness
- Destructive - Has little regard for the safety of others
- Deadbeat - Irresponsible, can't meet financial obligations
- Repressive - Doesn't feel remorse or guilt for what is done to people
They are all, first and foremost EXPLOITATIVE, manipulative, gas
lighting, lacking EMPATHY, regret remorse or guilt, grandiose, haughty
arrogant behavior, an overwhelming sense of entitlement, power addicted,
ruthless (however every psychopath will describe this as 'determined'),
pathological liars. Most psychopaths are NOT physically violent, the
most successful ones pass in society and sit in positions of power over
a few or millions of people. Psychopaths will only put out as little
energy as it takes to exploit and manipulate a potential partner whether
romantic or business but it's a succession of cronies and hangers on
that do the work for them as psychopaths are notoriously LAZY.
Psychopaths hurt people because it gives them a sense of overwhelming
power. The more the victim REACTS, the better for the psychopath. They
are emotionally rewarded by the pain they cause.
Imagine the psychopath who has the ability to cause reactions in
millions of people.
I see Wiki as MSM "fact checking" disinfo propaganda. VERY
important to the MSM machine.
I have--and know others who have
repeatedly contributed content which was promptly removed from
Wiki entries.
Even Snopes has been compromised.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-sno
Snopes was founded by a couple who ran it as an authentic
grass-roots research and information platform. A few years ago it
was infiltrated, the couple was split up and it's now part of the
propaganda machine.
It was discovered the Snopes was partly funded by an entity
associated with
CIA's Psych Hop
operation that
sends a flock of people to sites like Wiki to control information
that is placed there, which is entirely the opposite of the "open
source" that Wiki advertises itself to be.
Ironically but not unsurprisingly, Snopes partnered
with Facebook in it's fake anti-"fake news" campaign, which is
really just shutting down anything that disagrees with the
establishment's official narrative, which involves YouTube and
Twitter other social media platforms.
A recent literacy project is an effort to help teach students
how to distinguish what's real and what's fake in the age of
digital communications.
"That was a time when students used the internet to do research
and struggled with recognizing truth from fiction. It was well
before "fake news" was mentioned and the country found itself
facing real questions about whether "fake news" existed, what it
was or if it affected the results of the 2016 presidential
election." For those who pay attention only to MainStreamMedia,
the "fake news" noise during the 2016 election was their
introduction to "fake news".
Countries all over the world have recently enacted legislation
against fake news with high fines and prison sentences (Malaysia,
Egypt, Brazil, Honduras, Italy, Germany, France, UK).
We are now told that "fake news," specifically in the form of
alternative media (and primarily "alt-right" media) is the great
new danger facing the public.
A signal to us is the extreme campaign against the alternative
and inconvenient "fake" media. But the charges of "fake news" are
being used as an excuse to tighten censorship in the US and all
over the world.
Dolan's pieces on censorship and hate speech in the vid above
are also really great.
"... The panel showcased the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to 2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in the 1990s. ..."
"... obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government: its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said. ..."
"... Read also: Is (or can be) the western Far (Hard) Right a friend of Russia? The Ukrainian Test ..."
"... To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a Cold War." ..."
"... Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice, deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American intervention in Ukrainian politics. ..."
"... Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan. And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man, do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons and chaos." ..."
"... The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern -- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military strategy. ..."
The Northwestern University Buffett Institute for Global Studies hosted a roundtable event
in the Chicago area on May 23 titled, "The Kremlin's Global Reach," moderated by Medill
journalism professor and Washington Post veteran Peter Slevin. The panel showcased
the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state
in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to
2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in
the 1990s.
Also present were political science professor Jordan Gans-Morse, public opinion pollster
Dina Smeltz, lecturer and former US ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly and historian John
Bushnell.
The event took place amid a steady escalation of US militarism against Syria, Iran and
Russia. Just two days earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an ultimatum to Iran
demanding a capitulation to the US in the face of additional sanctions. This followed on the
heels of the Trump administration's scrapping of a nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between
Iran and the P5+1 group, the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia. Earlier this month, the
US relaunched a naval force, the Second Fleet, in the North Atlantic in preparation for
military confrontation with Russia.
The political perspective of the event was clear from Slevin's opening questions: "What is
to be done? How do you solve a problem like Vladimir Putin?"
Str obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government:
its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic
world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with
China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty
that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said.
To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold
War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a
Cold War."
In line with this reactionary narrative, Talbott presented the conflict between the US and
Russia as one between "democracy" and "tyranny," while some of the other panelists admitted
that is not the way the conflict is viewed in Russia and Europe.
Later, Talbott emphasized the challenge to US hegemony posed by the Balkans, particularly
Serbia, citing their cultural and religious affinities with Russia. In 2015, Montenegro entered
NATO.
Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State
Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I
think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There
was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice,
deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American
intervention in Ukrainian politics. "
A number of the panelists interrupted at this point, some laughing nervously, others
strongly protesting.
Slevin, in concluding the discussion, posed the question of regime change in Russia,
stating, "How does this end? How does Putin fall? Retire? Get replaced? What is the fate of
Vladimir Putin?"
The main obstacle to regime change in Russia was, according to the panelists, the chaos it
would inevitably unleash. Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there
is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan.
And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man,
do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their
regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of
management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear
weapons and chaos."
However, expressing the position of significant sections of the Democratic Party, aligned
with the US state-military-intelligence apparatus, Talbott concluded, "Putin has presided over
Russia in a way that is very, very much like the Soviet Union. That didn't work. This won't
work. He will be an aberration. It would also help if we had a different president in the
United States."
A notable feature of the event was its casual militarism. In introducing himself, Kelly
noted that the US has recently provided both Georgia and Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank
weaponry.
In line with the propaganda pumped out about the US media and political establishment, the
panel speakers presented a picture of reality turned upside down: Russia was presented as an
aggressive, expansionist power, and a growing threat to the American way of life. In fact, it
is the US government and its imperialist allies which have increasingly encircled Russia via
NATO expansion, crippled its economy with sanctions and sought to provoke a military
conflict.
As US Defense Secretary James Mattis noted in releasing the Pentagon's new National Security
Strategy, "Great power competition -- not terrorism -- is now the primary focus of US national
security."
Before the audience assembled by this national security institute, which appeared to include
only a handful of undergraduate students, these leading political figures spoke more bluntly
about imperialist foreign policy than they would normally do on national television or in
supposedly democratic arenas like the US Congress.
The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern
-- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of
billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to
transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military
strategy.
At the time of the Buffett Institute's founding, university students and faculty protested
the appointment as its head of former the US commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl
Eikenberry, whose qualifications were based on military rank and bellicose politics, rather
than any academic credentials. Northwestern faculty members charged that he "advocates
instrumentalizing the humanities and social sciences research to advance US soft power."
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality are leading the opposition
internationally to the transformation of colleges and universities into think tanks for
imperialism and militarism. Contact the Socialist Equality
Party to start an IYSSE chapter on your campus.
"... There is in the US a concerted effort to praise capitalism as some sort of god-given system and to defame all other systems. ..."
"... "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." ..."
"... "The problem this essay addresses can be framed in terms of two quotations from Alexis de Tocqueville. The first comes from his famous speech in the French Chamber of Deputies just prior to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848: "We are sleeping on a volcano .do you not see that the earth is beginning to tremble. The wind of revolt rises; the tempest is on the horizon." The second is from Democracy in America: "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness." ..."
"... "These fools in Wall Street think they can go on forever! They can't!" ..."
"... "a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped" ..."
By Rob Johnson, Institute for New Economic Thinking President,
Senior Fellow and Director, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Thomas Ferguson, Director of Research, Institute for New
Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
...
The problem this essay addresses can be framed in terms of two quotations from Alexis de Tocqueville. The first comes from his famous
speech in the French Chamber of Deputies just prior to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848: "We are sleeping on a volcano .do
you not see that the earth is beginning to tremble. The wind of revolt rises; the tempest is on the horizon." The second is from
Democracy in America : "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."
In 2018, the darkness is all too palpable: A chain of economic reverses that no prominent economists, central bankers, or policymakers
anticipated has combined with other shocks from technology, wars, and migrations to produce the political equivalent of the perfect
storm. The world financial meltdown of 2008 set the cyclone spinning. As citizens watched helplessly while their livelihoods, savings,
and hopes shriveled, states and central banks stepped in to rescue the big financial institutions most responsible for the disaster.
But recovery for average citizens arrived only slowly and in some places barely at all, despite a wide variety of policy experiments,
especially from central banks.
The cycle of austerity and policy failure has now reached a critical point. Dramatic changes in public opinion and voting behavior
are battering long entrenched political parties in many countries. In many of the world's richest countries, more and more citizens
are losing faith in the very ideas of science, expertise, and dispassionate judgment -- even in medicine, as witness the battles
over vaccines in Italy, the US, and elsewhere. The failure of widely heralded predictions of immediate economic disaster when the
UK voted to leave the European Union and Donald Trump became President of the United States has only fanned the skepticism.
Placing entire responsibility for this set of plagues on bad economic theory or deficient policy evaluation does not make sense.
Power politics, contending interests, ideologies, and other influences all shaped events. But from the earliest days of the financial
collapse, reflective economists and policymakers nourished some of the same suspicions as the general public. Like the Queen of England,
they asked plaintively, "Why did no one see it coming?"
Answers were not long in arriving. Critics, including more than a few Nobel laureates in economics, pointed to a series of propositions
and attitudes that had crystallized in economic theory in the years before the crisis hit.
[1] Economists had closed ranks as though in a phalanx, but the crisis showed how fragile these tenets were. They included:
A resolute unwillingness to recognize that fundamental uncertainty shadows economic life in the real world. Neglect of the roles
played by money, credit, and financial systems in actual economies and the inherent potential for instability they create. A fixation
on economic models emphasizing full or nearly complete information and tendencies for economies either to be always in equilibrium
or heading there, not just in the present but far into the indefinite future. A focus on supply as the key to economic growth and,
increasingly after 1980, denials that economies could even in theory suffer from a deficiency of aggregate demand. Supreme confidence
in the price system as the critical ordering device in economies and the conviction that getting governments and artificial barriers
to their working out of the way was the royal road to economic success both domestically and internationally.
Initially, debates over this interlocking system of beliefs mostly sparked arguments about the usefulness of particular tools
and analytical simplifications that embodied the conventional wisdom: Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models; notions of a
"representative agent" in macroeconomics and the long run neutrality of money; icy silence about interactions between monetary rates
of interest and ruling rates of profit, or the failure of labor markets to clear.
Increasingly, however, skeptics wondered if the real problems with economics did not run deeper than that. They began to ask if
something was not radically wrong with the structure of the discipline itself that conduced to the maintenance of a narrow belief
system by imposing orthodoxies and throwing up barriers to better arguments and dissenting evidence.
The empirical evidence now seems conclusive: Yes.
"Top 5" Dominance for Promotion and Tenure
Studies by James Heckman demonstrate the critical gatekeeping role of five so-called "top journals" in recruitment and promotions
within economics as a field.
[2] Four of the journals -- the American Economic Review , the Journal of Political Economy , the Quarterly
Journal of Economics , and the Review of Economic Studies -- are Anglo-American centered and published in the US or
the UK as is the fifth, Econometrica , though it is sponsored by the Econometric Society, which has long involved scholars
from Scandinavia and other countries.
Heckman's research shows that the number of Top 5 (T5) articles published by candidates plays a crucial role in the evaluation
of candidates for promotion and tenure. This is true not only in leading departments but more generally in the field, though the
influence of the count weakens in lower ranked institutions.
The Great Disjunction
Heckman compares citations in Top 5 journals with articles frequently cited by leading specialists in various fields and with
publication histories of Nobel laureates and winners of the Clark Medal. He is crystal clear that many important articles appear
in non-T5 journals -- a finding supported by other studies.
[3] This evidence, he argues, highlights a "fundamental contradiction" within the whole field: "Specialists who themselves publish
primarily in field journals defer to generalist journals to screen quality of their colleagues in specialty fields."
Citations as Pernicious Measures of Quality in Economics
Heckman draws attention to the increase in the number of economists over time and the relative stability of the T5. He argues
that his findings imply that the discipline's "reluctance to distribute gatekeeping responsibility to high quality non-T5 Journals
is inefficient in the face of increasing growth of numbers of people in the profession and the stagnant number of T5 publications."
Other scholars who have scrutinized what citations actually measure underscore this conclusion. Like Heckman, they know that citation
indices originated from efforts by libraries to decide what journals to buy. They agree that transforming " journal impact
factors" into measures of the quality of individual articles is a grotesque mistake, if only because of quality variation
within journals and overlaps in average quality among them. Counts of journal articles also typically miss or undercount books and
monographs, with likely serious effects on both individual promotion cases and overall publication trends in the discipline. As Heckman
observes, the notion that books are not important vehicles for communication in economics is seriously mistaken.
Analytical efforts to explain who gets cited and why are especially thought provoking. All serious studies converge on the conclusion
that raw counts can hardly be taken at face value.
[4] They distort because they are hopelessly affected by the size of fields (articles in bigger fields get more citations) and
bounced around by self-citations, varying numbers of co-authors, "halo effects" leading to over-citation of well-known scholars,
and simple failures to distinguish between approving and critical references, etc. One inventory of such problems, not surprisingly
by accounting professors, tabulates more than thirty such flaws.
[5]
But cleaning up raw counts only scratches the surface. Heckman's study raised pointed questions about editorial control at top
journals and related cronyism issues. Editorial control of many journals turns over only very slowly and those sponsored by major
university departments accept disproportionately more papers from their own graduates.
[6] Interlocking boards are also fairly common, especially among leading journals.
[7] Carlo D'Ippoliti's study of empirical citation patterns in Italy also indicates that social factors within academia figure
importantly: economists are prone to cite other economists who are their colleagues in the same institutions, independently of the
contents of their work, but they are even more likely to cite economists closer to their ideological and political positions.
[8] Other research confirms that Italy is not exceptional and that, for example, the same pattern shows up in the debates over
macroeconomics in the US and the UK after 1975.
[9]
Other work by Jakob Kapeller, et al., and D'Ippoliti documents how counting citations triggers a broad set of pathologies that
produces major distortions.
[10] Investing counts with such weighty significance, for example, affects how both authors and journal editors behave. Something
uncomfortably close to the blockbuster syndrome characteristic of Hollywood movies takes root: Rather than writing one major article
that would be harder to assimilate, individual authors have strong incentives to slice and dice along fashionable lines. They mostly
strive to produce creative variations on familiar themes. Risk-averse gatekeepers know they can safely wave these products through,
while the authors run up their counts. Journal editors have equally powerful incentives: They can drive up their impact factors by
snapping up guaranteed blockbusters produced by brand names and articles that embellish conventional themes. Kapeller, et al. suggest
that this and several other negative feedback loops they discuss lead to a form of crowding out, which has particularly pernicious
effects on potential major contributions since those are placed at a disadvantage by comparison with articles employing safer, more
familiar tropes.
[11] The result is a strong impetus to conformism, producing a marked convergence of views and methods.
These papers, and George Akerlof in several presentations, also show that counting schemes acutely disadvantage out-of-favor fields,
heterodox scholars, and anyone interested in issues and questions that the dominant Anglo-Saxon journals are not.
[12] This holds true even though, as Kapeller et al. observe, articles that reference some contrary viewpoints actually attract
more attention, conditioning on appearance in the same journal -- an indication that policing the field, not simply quality control,
is an important consideration in editorial judgment. One consequence of this narrowing is its weirdly skewed international impact.
Reliance on the current citations system originated in the US and UK, but has now spread to the rest of Europe and even parts of
Asia, including China. But T5 journals concentrate on articles that deal with problems that economists in advanced Anglo-Saxon lands
perceive to be important; studies of smaller countries or those at different stages of development face higher publication hurdles.
The result is a special case of the colonial mind in action: economics departments outside the US and UK that rely on "international"
standards advantage scholars who focus their work on issues relevant to other countries rather than their own.
Oh wait, Fourcade and her colleagues are sociologists, not economists, so no reason to consider their research and thinking.
Also, and not for nothing, she and they are French, and read Pierre Bourdieu who has done a lot of work on the sociology of academics,
focused on France but widely applicable.
And here's something interesting; there is no mention of the funding of economics at universities and colleges. So, no mention
of the hundreds of millions the filthy rich have poured into the field. Of course, they heatedly deny that matters. A recent tweet
from a Geroge Mason/Mercatus prof was livid at the very suggestion that Koch money influenced hiring decisions.
And that's before we get into the gendered nature of economics, or it's political usage by ideologically-driven politicians
looking for "experts" to support their preconceptions.
There is a lot more and someone needs to say it out loud in clear, uncoded language.
Just a thought line here. I have heard and read conservatives say that "Politics is downstream from culture" and I get what
they are saying. You change the culture and that predetermines the politics that you get. In reading this article, the thought
struck me that perhaps the reason that economics as a profession has been corrupted so badly is that maybe conservatives consider
government to be downstream of economics. Thus you control what economics theories are permitted to be discussed and that gives
them the governments that they want.
I support your contention. There is in the US a concerted effort to praise capitalism as some sort of god-given system and
to defame all other systems. Venezuela's current problems are due to socialism, not bad management, of course. Of course, since
the wealthy are doing oh so well under the status quo, they are bound to favor it, but they are not just favoring it, they are
nailing it down onto our culture.
There is in the US a concerted effort to praise capitalism as some sort of god-given system and to defame all other
systems.
The Marxist economist Richard Wolff made the claim that economists are simply cheerleaders for capitalism in an interview on
Chapo Trap House, He elaborated and substantiated this claim by saying that business schools had to be founded because economics
departments were useless as a method of educating a cohort of business specialists.
Very succinct and thoughtful indeed. Remember Ronald Reagan's now infamous, "Government is the Problem" mantra. The real cultural
warriors were the neoliberal terrorists who are hell bent on commodifying the entire planet for their own exploitation- masked
in the language of "freedom" and "democracy".
This line of thought is also important in that your framing cuts to the core of the cognitive problem attempting to deal with
economics, namely, it is a religion. I would define a religion as a system of faith and worship that is driven by a particular
interest. All the wordy-ness and arm waiving is just an attempt to obfuscate this simple truth. Persecution of the unfaithful
is also a dead giveaway.
This whole notion that the current reigning economics profession is ready, or attempting to "see the light" is somewhat amusing,
or in another sense should be insulting considering the social damage they have caused, and are continuing to inflict on the broader
citizenry. Burning at the stake is more appropriate, and maybe these slight rumblings of contrition are a sign that some might
be getting worried that their "economic" program has gone too far.
When what goes on in the human mind looses connection to events in the real world, changes must be made in order to remain
sane. The current orthodoxy is also ultimately doomed to failure in that what is the point of creating and maintaining a deluded
and demoralized citizenry? That is a recipe for internal stagnation and external conquest. It would only be a successful strategy
if the elite are able to move on after the broader society falters and fails. That thought is almost too cynical to contemplate.
But that might explain why the .001% remains the .001%. The current economic priests are starting to feel the pressure because
their flocks are beginning to realize that their everyday experience no longer matches the sermons they receive.
Following Rev Kev's point and Ed Walker's third paragraph, have there been any studies of the sources of gifts, underwriting,
and other purchases of academic work at the most "influential" economics and business economics departments?
In the academic side of the economics profession, it would seem to be prudent to "go with the flow."
Even the economists who recognized problems in 2008, such as Steve Keen and Dean Baker, are not celebrated.
In our society, it seems more likely that some powerful group or individual wants to do something and then proceeds to find
an economist to support that action, via an editorial or media appearance, perhaps it is "free" trade, more immigration, easy
money, tight money, quantitative easing, outsourcing, insourcing, charter schools, or austerity.
I suspect there are economists who attempt to accurately anticipate economic events.
But they work for hedge funds and private wealth management firms.
And what is the incentive for a prominent public economist to warn of economic problems that may have been caused by government
and well-connected interests?
If someone, such as Alan Greenspan, gave early notice of sub-prime/mortgage backed security issues how would he have been better
off?
It suggests a central banker career strategy that, if one observes a large economic problem brewing, retire and publish your
book before the SHTF.
If the career central banker actually warned/took actions to circumvent a financial bubble and the bubble popped anyway, they
could be tagged as a goat for causing the crisis.
Maybe the economics profession is functioning as one would expect?
One has to wonder, if the elite economists who have defined the parochial and narrow scope of what capitalism is, how it works,
and who wins and loses in the system, and maybe in particular it's late 20th Century form, neroliberalism, had maybe expanded
their self-serving views to include a Marxian critique and analysis of they might not had been so stupid?
That's not to say the Marx had all the answers, but is only to say that if you presuppose the outcome you want and buttress
it with only the information that supports (no matter how poorly) those outcomes, you end up with crisis and the contradictions
within capitalism resulting in the failures described above.
Universities and Econ departments don't allow the wide critical view needed into their schools, and no matter what you think
of Marx and his ideas, they should at least be the starting point in the discussion when approaching economic policy. The right
wing shift in the governments and the people's of the world is not some unexpected outcome but is directly related to a system
that builds in economic disparity, short-term planning (due to emphasis on next quarters profits and stock price), and an emphasis
on winner take all rather than human needs.
It's not "the economy, stupid." It"s the stupid system.
The problem with the American system is that its founding principles, that all men are created equal, and are endowed with
certain, God given, unalienable rights, runs in contradiction to the chosen economic models of building society. Slavery and Capitalism
are antithetical to these sentiments. Capitalism might be workable if restrained and heavily regulated, but why bother with that
because human corruption will always find a way to undermine such a system; it is inherently weak and guarantees suffering will
be born by the masses- Brexit will provide the perfect example as predicted by Yves.
A heavily regulated capitalism is socialism by another name.
The same, self-serving arguments are also made about war. The thought that humans could live in peace is treated as some unrealistic
and insane idea. Instead of selecting from the human population for cooporation and peace-loving sensibilities, the minority sociopathic
murders are allowed to run wild.
Real human "progress" will be made when the peace faction gains supremacy. But that is impossible as long as the economic system
upon which all human subsistence depends remains entrenched in competition and striving to hoard against fears of scarcity.
FDR had it right, although imperfect, society was moving in the right direction. We live in a world of abundance that is being
squandered. The only way to avoid ultimate destruction is to embrace this abundance as stewards and conservators instead of fearful
exploiters.
Conserve the world by embracing sustainable living. Now that is a powerful political message. So powerful, it will be met with
the full force of the sociopathic murders currently in charge of human societies.
The equality stuff is in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The latter is specifically devoted to protecting
the interests of property holders, specifically including slavers. This is not surprising. The Founders were heavily influenced
by John Locke. Locke was a slaver himself
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709512?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
. And remember that Lockean ideas are based on protecting private property from the random predation of absolute monarchs.
That's an amazing slip of the keys. It explains a ton too. I love that it combines the term which the people discussed in this
article usually deride with the name of the last Roman emperor who is renowned for extravagance and tyranny.
I agree with your comment whole heartedly.
But:"the name of the last Roman emperor who is renowned for extravagance and tyranny."(& please forgive my quibble) Nero was certainly
not the last emperor to have had such characteristics.
(Elagabalus springs to mind)
It's been said that you can tell how dominated economics is by a particular minority of society, by the economists' word for
phenomena where workers are paid more for their labor being "disease". As in Baumol's Disease for example.
Both sides of the political divide often go awry simply because they refuse to acknowledge the role of human nature. We mere
mortals know this as we are the full recipients of the "free market," the good, the bad, and the extremely ugly. The likes of
Alan Greenspan in the rarified air strata were shocked, shocked, shocked! I bring you a small excerpt from Mr. Greenspan's testimony
before the Government Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives. Still clueless, he does acknowledge a flaw:
Pressed by Waxman, Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root
of a superior economy.
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they
were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," Greenspan said.
Waxman pushed the former Fed chief, who left office in 2006, to clarify his explanation.
"In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working," Waxman said.
"Absolutely, precisely," Greenspan replied. "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going
for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."
In many of the world's richest countries, more and more citizens are losing faith in the very ideas of science, expertise,
and dispassionate judgment – even in medicine, as witness the battles over vaccines in Italy, the US, and elsewhere.
Might be believed by some, others might believe that more and more citizens are sceptical about the practioners ability to
provide expertise and dispassionate judgment. From my own perspective I do believe in science, expertise and dispassionate judgment
but I don't believe that many professional economists have much expertise (outside of knowledge of basic statistics and statistics
software) or that they practice dispassionate judgment.
Pharmaceutical companies are not in business to heal people, they are in business -> They do whatever they legally can to make
money and they even put pressure on the legislative to get more opportunities to legally make more money.
The article contains this link to the Lancet relating to "the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research": https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960696-1/fulltext
The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted
by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together
with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.
If we looked and any other (social) scientific discipline, we'd get the same result.
The articles from medium and The Lancet you link highlight the problems well enough, the system is corrupt from top to bottom.
Another examples of where misguided emphasis on juicing "metrics" (for personal gain) rather than taking one's time to develop
expertise and do things correctly is literally killing people, or simply ruining lives (as if that is some consolation).
Economies are inherently cyclical. Keynesianism, in its original incarnation, envisaged surpluses during economic expansions
to offset the fiscal deficits provoked by recessions. But surpluses are a distant memory -- now it's pedal to the metal all the
time, just to keep a becalmed, debt-choked economy treading water.
Credit is also procyclical. It was severely rationed during and after the 2008 meltdown. Now covenant-lite bonds prevail for
corporate financing, while individuals can get 3 percent down FHA loans to buy houses at prices that exceed the 2006 peak, with
33 times leverage. Prudent!
What role can academics play in this endless sisyphean tragedy? None, probably. Warning of recession invites career risk for
economists, so most of them just won't do it. Like the Hazmat team, economists show up after the train wreck to help with the
cleanup. Federal Reserve economists are engineering that crack-up right now, with their fruitcake bond dumping campaign.
By 2020, they'll be tanned, rested and ready for their next exciting outing. :-)
As others have stated, there are economists out there who have already seen through the current dogmas.
Michael Hudson is one and another that comes to mind is Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef. A transcript of an interview with
him from 2010:
"I worked for about ten years of my life in areas of extreme poverty in the Sierras, in the jungle, in urban areas in different
parts of Latin America. And at the beginning of that period, I was one day in an Indian village in the Sierra in Peru. It was
an ugly day. It had been raining all the time. And I was standing in the slum. And across me, another guy also standing in the
mud -- not in the slum, in the mud. And, well, we looked at each other, and this was a short guy, thin, hungry, jobless, five
kids, a wife and a grandmother. And I was the fine economist from Berkeley, teaching in Berkeley, having taught in Berkeley and
so on. And we were looking at each other, and then suddenly I realized that I had nothing coherent to say to that man in those
circumstances, that my whole language as an economist, you know, was absolutely useless. Should I tell him that he should be happy
because the GDP had grown five percent or something? Everything was absurd.
So I discovered that I had no language in that environment and that we had to invent a new language. And that's the origin
of the metaphor of barefoot economics, which concretely means that is the economics that an economist who dares to step into the
mud must practice. The point is, you know, that economists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics,
make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don't understand poverty.
And that's the big problem. And that's the big problem. And that's why poverty is still there. And that changed my life as an
economist completely. I invented a language that is coherent with those situations and conditions."
It's a good interview of someone developing an alternate view.
(There are critiques and studies of wealth that I think we need more of as well, only poverty is thought of as pathological –
a subject which he tackles.)
And just maybe, human goodness and human evil have a cyclical nature too and we are just in the bad part of the cycle right
now. However, it may be true also that the time period of 1950 to 1970 was an anomaly that may not recur, and that the true nature
of human beings is to lie, to cheat, to steal, to commit fraud and practice multifarious corruptions and violence. When you look
at the widest version of history, human nature is not so benign.
1950 to 1970 the rest of the industrial world was decimated after 2 world wars.
And more countries wanted independence from colonialism (less loot spread around, however thinly, back home – though not totally
disappeared).
Psychology turns into sociology. Either the system is making everyone prosperous and happy or it is making everyone desperate.
Desperation is the American way. The comfort of misery seen as pathological in the individual is a more general pathology. Too
much bile in the system.
"The Sticky Floor." is the phrase my cousin invented. She is a leader in Women's Studies. It may well apply more correctly that
"The Glass Ceiling". Overall the turn in the article to the dearth of women economists threw me.
As science enables engineering, economics enables financial engineering. The predominant financial engineer of our times is Meyer
Lansky. Organized business, the "real" economy of General Motors and Dow & Dupont & General Dynamics & Raytheon, ITT, Apple, Google,
Microsoft all now have adopted Meyer Lansky Financial Engineering.
It was made legal as economic theory and practice under Clinton Unit 1's reign.
The preeminent financial engineer is David Cay Johnston. He called Dean Baker a "real" economist as opposed to Michael Hudson.
I prefer Hudson to Dean myself. Nobody knows everything. This is why all you really have to know is the goal. "You cannot go wrong
if your goals are correct." is what Einstein said.
The main reason for misery is poverty, which is not having enough to operate the household without debt peonage.
The United States and the EU as run by Central Banks have it so only the selected have infinite access to currency. The States
don't have enough money so the System prefers they deny their people things like education and healthcare, and sell bonds.
It is okay for the Federal Government to tax or not tax but the States must tax to fill their treasuries.
Alan Greenspan's philosophy came from Ayn Rand whose world view encouraged the exclusive access and economic security to have
and do whatever they, the rich, people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, envisioned as ideal for them, and them only. (They live in
airport land with a pond.)
It came from Russian Dystopian Objectivism and produces Dystopia.
The American Philosophy, that which made America loved is American Eclectic Pragmatism.
The wrong goal is to make only those in Finance rich. The right goal is to make everyone as much a jet setter as the jet setters.
Until the goal of Economists is blatantly aimed at relative equality of life, the discipline is simply on the wrong track and
is never going to be worth doing.
Thanks.
Approved economics has nothing to do with actually understanding or solving anything except be a useful smokescreen for wealthy
special interests. I have gotten a more accurate and functional understanding of overall economics from classes, and books in
anthropology, political science, and history than in any classes labeled as "economics."
That is really sad. It is also very deliberate. Those who say modern economic studies have been stripped of anything but neoliberal/libertarian
economic ideas are right. Even then, it seems that it has been either further simplified, or abstracted, to further channel any
thoughts away from real life.
Let's put it this way. Philosophy can be used to actual ask and study questions or it can be used to debate how many angels
can fit on the head of a pin. Guess what what modern mainstream economics does?
There are inherent flaws in neoclassical economics that have already been discovered.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great
Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private
debt, neoclassical economics.
The two elements of neoclassical economics that come together to cause financial crises.
1) It doesn't consider debt
2) It holds a set of beliefs about markets where they represent the rational decisions of market participants; they reach stable
equilibriums and the valuations represent real wealth.
Everyone marvels at the wealth creation of rising asset prices, no one looks at the debt that is driving it.
The "black swan" was obvious all along and it was pretty much the same as 1929.
1929 – Inflating US stock prices with debt (margin lending)
2008 – Inflating US real estate prices with debt (mortgage lending)
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher 1929.
An earlier neoclassical economist believed in price discovery, stable equilibriums and the rational decisions of market participants,
and what the neoclassical economist believes about the markets means they can't even imagine there could be a bubble.
The amount of real wealth stored in the markets becomes apparent once the bubble has burst.
The debt overhang (ref. graph above) is dragging the US economy down and is the cause of Janet Yellen's inflation mystery,
but they don't know because they don't consider debt. It's called a balance sheet recession.
The problems that led to 2008 come from private debt in the economy and the problems now come from the overhang of private
debt in the economy, but they are using an economics that doesn't consider private debt.
"The problem this essay addresses can be framed in terms of two quotations from Alexis de Tocqueville. The first comes
from his famous speech in the French Chamber of Deputies just prior to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848: "We are sleeping
on a volcano .do you not see that the earth is beginning to tremble. The wind of revolt rises; the tempest is on the horizon."
The second is from Democracy in America: "When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."
How about this quote ..
"These fools in Wall Street think they can go on forever! They can't!" President Theodore Roosevelt 1909.
The US has just forgotten its own history; this is what it was like at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
Capitalism was running wild, but the difference was there used to be a critical press.
Catch up on US history.
"PR! A Social History of Spin" Stuart Ewen
Finding out what the private sector uses PR for also helps you understand their motivations, it's worth reading.
Our Esteemed Elites are mostly college educated which hopefully includes American history. But maybe it's become like modern
college economics. Stripped of inconvenient information.
I agree that beyond the normal American nation's ultra short memory, there is a regular effort by some to eliminate any inconvenience
ones. If history is a career or even a hobby you will likely know much about America history bad (and good too!) that goes zooop
into the memory hole. It becomes a boring national hagiography. Sanitized. But that shouldn't be.
But STEM courses are so much more important than fluff like history.
As with a few other commenters here, the essay puts me in mind of historiography, to wit E.H. Carr whose 'before studying history,
study the historians' became the fighting slogan for the radical history movement of the 1960s:
"The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes
inaccessible ocean; and what [facts] the historian catches will depend, partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean
he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use."
"Economists had closed ranks as though in a phalanx, but the crisis showed how fragile these tenets were. They included:
1. A resolute unwillingness to recognize that fundamental uncertainty shadows economic life in the real world."
. And for this one, do I even need to requote Upton Sinclair?!
Economists and central bankers are our modern day priest-astrologers. We *need* them to know! to appease Bel-Marduk and Istar,
to ensure a fruitful harvest, the birth of worthy sons
.and also, for a small commission, to manage our tax collections/ debts/ alehouses/ brothels [hat tip to Prof Hudson].
This is about the UK, but applies equally to the US as we are all doing the same neoliberal things.
Why isn't the economy growing?
We shouldn't get side tracked with productivity as productivity is GDP per hour worked and we need to grow GDP.
What is GDP?
The amount of money spent into the economy by consumers, businesses and the Government plus the income we receive from the
trade balance with the rest of the world.
Now we know what GDP is we can immediately see why austerity is contractionary. The cut in Government spending comes straight
off GDP (someone tell Macron).
The aim is to increase the amount of goods and services within the economy at the same rate as the demand for those goods and
services, whilst increasing the money supply to allow those extra goods and services to be purchased.
Milton Freidman understood the money supply had to rise gradually to grow the economy with his "Monetarism". He thought that
central bank reserves controlled the money supply and this is why it didn't work.
The economists focus on supply (neoclassical economics) or demand (Keynesian economics) until the balance of supply and demand
gets out of step. The economy stagnates due to either insufficient supply (1970s stagflation) or insufficient demand (today's
ultra low inflation).
Money needs to enter the economy to increase the supply of goods and services, while at the same time; the increased money
supply enables the demand for those goods and services.
Banks and governments create money and this is now well understood outside the mainstream.
The banks have been creating money to lend into real estate and inflate financial asset prices. This is not what you want;
they should be creating money to increase the supply of goods and services by lending into business and industry. Their lending
hasn't been increasing GDP.
It all started going wrong when with financial liberalisation and a 1979 policy decision. The UK eliminated corset controls
on banking in 1979 and the banks invaded the mortgage market. This is the start of the real estate frenzy.
You can let bankers do what they want, but they have no idea how to grow the economy with bank credit.
Supply had outstripped demand by the 1920s in the US and they used bank credit to maintain demand, but this can never work in
the longer term as this money needs to be paid back. Government created money has to fill the gap as it doesn't need to be paid
back.
Governments can create money, jobs and wages in the public sector, building the infrastructure for the economy and looking
after the health and education of the population to provide the economic framework necessary for the private sector who can't
make a profit doing these things.
The magic number is GDP, we need to focus on what increasing that number means.
Our main problem is an ideological Left who think the answer always lies on the demand side and an ideological Right who always
think the answer lies on the supply side.
The Left think Government is the answer and the Right think the private sector is the answer.
You need both, due to the increased productivity of the private sector that cannot create the necessary demand for those goods
and services through private sector wages alone.
Understanding money is critical and this is something central bankers monitor, but they don't appear to know what it means
The flow of funds within the economy.
This helps us understand why Government surpluses precede finical crises and why balanced budgets and Government surpluses
push the private sector into debt
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use, the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
Government assets + corporate assets + household assets + transfers from/to the rest of the world = zero
They can't all be positive.
The US runs a large trade deficit and this money needs to come from somewhere.
It is the Government that should run the big deficit to fund the other three and if you clamp down on government spending your
economy can't grow unless it starts running on bank debt. The corporate sector and households have to get into debt to balance
this zero sum equation.
A Government surplus requires an indebted private sector unless you are Germany and run a trade surplus.
Clinton was proud of the Government surplus but he didn't realise that this meant the private sector had to go into debt. The
last Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, it precedes crises.
Richard Koo's video shows the Japanese Government ran a surplus just before the Japanese economy blew up.
Neoclassical economics doesn't focus on GDP because it predates it. It was put together before they knew how to measure economic
activity.
It lets the wealthy accumulate all the money until the economy falls over though a lack of demand.
Mariner Eccles, FED chair 1934 – 48, passes comment the last time they used neoclassical economics in the US in the 1920s.
"a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth.
This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied
themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new
plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could
stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped"
This time it's global.
2014 – "85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world"
2016 – "Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world's population"
2017 – World's eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%
Lying, cheating, and stealing is what we human beings seem to do best, so when the pot becomes big enough, the elite [those
willing to do whatever it takes] do what the elite have done, lie, cheat and steal with reckless abandon.
Those who choose to live a noble life must always be grounded by the notion that the reward for doing such is in achieving
good night's sleep, and little more. You truly can not have your cake and eat it too, not then, not now, not ever
One and a half years after Russia and Turkey signed a deal to build the strategic "Turkish
Stream" gas
pipeline in October 2016 , putting an end to a highly contentious period in Russia-Turkish
relation which in late 2015 hit rock bottom after the NATO-member state shot down a Russian jet
over Syria, on Saturday Russian state energy giant Gazprom and the Turkish government
reached a deal on the construction of the land-based part of the Turkish Stream branch that
will bring Russian gas to European consumers.
According
to Reuters , the two counterparts signed a protocol that would allow the construction,
which was stalled by a legal rift over gas prices, to go forward. Gazprom and Turkey's
state-owned BOTAS agreed on the terms and conditions of the project, Gazprom said in a statement ,
adding that the deal "allows to move to practical steps for the implementation of the project."
The actual construction would be carried out by a joint venture called TurkAkim Gaz Tasima
which will be owned by Gazprom and BOTAS in equal shares, Gazprom said.
Earlier on Saturday, Turkish president Erdogan said that Gazprom and BOTAS resolved a
long-running legal dispute over import prices in 2015-2016, and as a result Turkey would gain
$1 billion as part of the gas-price settlement reached with Gazprom, in which Turkey and the
Russian natgas giant agreed on a 10.25% price discount for gas supplied by Russia in 2015 and
2016.
"We agreed on a 10.25% reduction in the price of natural gas in 2015-2016," Erdogan
announced while speaking at a rally on Saturday. "We got our discount. We get about $ 1 billion
worth of our rights before the election," the Turkish President said, as cited by Anadolu
Agency.
BOTAS had refused to approve the building of the land-based part of the pipeline until the
import price issue was resolved. Until now, it only permitted Gazprom to construct the undersea
part of the line. The construction is currently underway.
Russia and Turkey officially agreed on the project, which consists of two branches, in
October 2016. The first branch will deliver gas to Turkish consumers, while the second one will
bring it to the countries in southern and south-western Europe. The European leg is expected to
decrease Russia's dependence on transit through Ukraine. Each of the lines has a maximum
capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters a year.
Gazprom finished the construction of the deep-water part of the first line of the Turkish
Stream in April. The first Russian gas could start flowing through both legs of the Turkish
Stream by December 2019.
The greenlighting of the Turkish Stream project is sure to infuriate the US which previously
announced it was
considering sanctions of European firms that would participate in the Nothern Stream
Russian gas pipeline.
President Trump went as far as to threaten
Angela Merkel two weeks ago , telling her to either drop the Russian gas pipeline or the
trade war with the US was set to begin.
How Europe reacts to US threats involving the Northern Stream and, soon, the Turkish Stream,
will determine whether Europe will once again find itself a subservient vassal state to US
military and energy lobbying powers, or if Brussels will side with Putin in this growing
conflict, resulting in an unprecedented breach within the so-called " democratic west. "
"... The panel showcased the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to 2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in the 1990s. ..."
"... obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government: its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said. ..."
"... Read also: Is (or can be) the western Far (Hard) Right a friend of Russia? The Ukrainian Test ..."
"... To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a Cold War." ..."
"... Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice, deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American intervention in Ukrainian politics. ..."
"... Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan. And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man, do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons and chaos." ..."
"... The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern -- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military strategy. ..."
The Northwestern University Buffett Institute for Global Studies hosted a roundtable event
in the Chicago area on May 23 titled, "The Kremlin's Global Reach," moderated by Medill
journalism professor and Washington Post veteran Peter Slevin. The panel showcased
the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state
in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to
2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in
the 1990s.
Also present were political science professor Jordan Gans-Morse, public opinion pollster
Dina Smeltz, lecturer and former US ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly and historian John
Bushnell.
The event took place amid a steady escalation of US militarism against Syria, Iran and
Russia. Just two days earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an ultimatum to Iran
demanding a capitulation to the US in the face of additional sanctions. This followed on the
heels of the Trump administration's scrapping of a nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between
Iran and the P5+1 group, the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia. Earlier this month, the
US relaunched a naval force, the Second Fleet, in the North Atlantic in preparation for
military confrontation with Russia.
The political perspective of the event was clear from Slevin's opening questions: "What is
to be done? How do you solve a problem like Vladimir Putin?"
Str obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government:
its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic
world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with
China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty
that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said.
To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold
War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a
Cold War."
In line with this reactionary narrative, Talbott presented the conflict between the US and
Russia as one between "democracy" and "tyranny," while some of the other panelists admitted
that is not the way the conflict is viewed in Russia and Europe.
Later, Talbott emphasized the challenge to US hegemony posed by the Balkans, particularly
Serbia, citing their cultural and religious affinities with Russia. In 2015, Montenegro entered
NATO.
Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State
Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I
think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There
was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice,
deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American
intervention in Ukrainian politics. "
A number of the panelists interrupted at this point, some laughing nervously, others
strongly protesting.
Slevin, in concluding the discussion, posed the question of regime change in Russia,
stating, "How does this end? How does Putin fall? Retire? Get replaced? What is the fate of
Vladimir Putin?"
The main obstacle to regime change in Russia was, according to the panelists, the chaos it
would inevitably unleash. Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there
is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan.
And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man,
do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their
regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of
management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear
weapons and chaos."
However, expressing the position of significant sections of the Democratic Party, aligned
with the US state-military-intelligence apparatus, Talbott concluded, "Putin has presided over
Russia in a way that is very, very much like the Soviet Union. That didn't work. This won't
work. He will be an aberration. It would also help if we had a different president in the
United States."
A notable feature of the event was its casual militarism. In introducing himself, Kelly
noted that the US has recently provided both Georgia and Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank
weaponry.
In line with the propaganda pumped out about the US media and political establishment, the
panel speakers presented a picture of reality turned upside down: Russia was presented as an
aggressive, expansionist power, and a growing threat to the American way of life. In fact, it
is the US government and its imperialist allies which have increasingly encircled Russia via
NATO expansion, crippled its economy with sanctions and sought to provoke a military
conflict.
As US Defense Secretary James Mattis noted in releasing the Pentagon's new National Security
Strategy, "Great power competition -- not terrorism -- is now the primary focus of US national
security."
Before the audience assembled by this national security institute, which appeared to include
only a handful of undergraduate students, these leading political figures spoke more bluntly
about imperialist foreign policy than they would normally do on national television or in
supposedly democratic arenas like the US Congress.
The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern
-- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of
billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to
transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military
strategy.
At the time of the Buffett Institute's founding, university students and faculty protested
the appointment as its head of former the US commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl
Eikenberry, whose qualifications were based on military rank and bellicose politics, rather
than any academic credentials. Northwestern faculty members charged that he "advocates
instrumentalizing the humanities and social sciences research to advance US soft power."
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality are leading the opposition
internationally to the transformation of colleges and universities into think tanks for
imperialism and militarism. Contact the Socialist Equality
Party to start an IYSSE chapter on your campus.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper - who much like former FBI Director
James Comey is peddling a book right now, accused President Trump of twisting his words after a
bizarre interview on The View on Tuesday.
When Clapper was asked if the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign, he replied " They were
spying on - a term I don't particularly like, but on what the Russians were doing ." (By
sending a spy to perform espionage on several members of the Trump campaign)
In response to Clapper's statement, President Trump tweeted: "Clapper has now admitted that
there was Spying in my campaign.
Large dollars were paid to the Spy , far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the
biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE - a terrible thing!" When asked by
Axios about Trump's Tweet, Clapper said that the President "deliberately spun it,"
likening it to " George Orwell - up is down, black is white, peace is war."
But the punchline was Clapper's "explanation" of what really happened: " I took aversion to
the word spy, it was the most benign version of information gathering ."
The important thing is the whole reason the FBI was doing this was concern over what the
Russians were doing to infiltrate the campaign, not spying on the campaign . Of course, he
turned that completely upside-down in his tweet, as he is wont to do." -James Clapper
We're not sure if Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, was trying to be
humorous or if he just doesn't understand what the word "spy" means - as it encompasses all
forms of covert information collection, including the use of human intelligence, upstream data
collection and all forms of espionage in between.
One who secretly collects information concerning the enemies of a government or
group.
One who secretly collects information for a business about one or more of its
competitors.
One who secretly keeps watch on another or others.
v. spied (spīd), spy·ing , spies (spīz)
v.tr.
To watch or observe secretly: was sent to spy out the enemy camp.
To discover by close observation: "[They] are continually prowling about on all three
decks, eager to spy outiniquities" (Herman Melville).
To catch sight of; see: spied the ship on the horizon.
v.intr.
To engage in espionage .
To investigate or observe something, especially in secret: spying into the neighbor's
activities.
Here's an even simpler explanation: 73-year-old Cambridge professor, Stefan Halper was
notably outed as the FBI's "informant" last Friday following weeks of speculation, after the
New
York Times and
Washington Post published easily identifiable information about the U.S. citizen and
Cambridge professor. Their reports matched a March 25 article by the Daily Caller
detailing Halper's outreach to several low-level aides to the Trump campaign, including Carter
Page, George Papadopoulos, and a cup of coffee with campaign co-chair Sam Clovis.
These contacts are made even more significant by the fact that Halper's infiltration of the
Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI's
Operation Crossfire Hurricane - in which the agency sent counterintelligence agent Peter
Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of 2016 with former Australian diplomat
Alexander Downer - who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had
Hillary Clinton's emails.
***
Halper also secured contracts for
over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense for "research" projects dating back to
2012. The most recent award to Halper for $411,575 was made in two payments, and had a
start date of September 26, 2016 - three days after a September 23
Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information
fed to Isikoff by "pissgate" dossier creator Christopher Steele. The FBI would use the Yahoo!
article along with the unverified "pissgate" dossier as
supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page.
"The important thing is the whole reason the FBI was doing this was concern over what the
Russians were doing to infiltrate the campaign , not spying on the campaign. Of course, he
turned that completely upside-down in his tweet, as he is wont to do." -James Clapper
Mr.Clapper, several questions if I may because you are clearly a better propagandist than
Joy Behar but nowhere near a better liar.
1) Are we to assume by your statement that the government spy (Halper) found no Russians
trying to infiltrate the Trump campaign?
2) If the answer is no to the first question, how did your suspicion of Russians trying to
infiltrate the campaign become Trump "colluding with Russians" when no evidence of them even
trying was found? Does not the word infiltrate imply someone is not colluding with the
infiltrators?
3) Why were you only concerned with Russians infiltrating the Trump campaign and not the
Hillary campaign? The Podesta Group was actively engaging in lobbying for Russian banks and
John Podesta (Hillary's campaign Manager) had actually failed to register as a Russian
foreign agent during the 2016 campaign whether by intent or not?
4) Why did you openly and repeatedly lie to Chuck Todd on national TeeeVeee (Meet the
Press) when you categorically denied there was any FISA warrant (and subsequent renewals of
that warrant) when Chuck Trotsky, errr, Todd asked you?
If he wasn't a rep he could be charged with obstruction for all the dissembling BS he's
been spouting.
But I just find it incredible that Clapper would even attempt to justify the FBI planting
a spy in the opposition party campaign, at the same time he knows that a FISA warrant is
ongoing and thats even after Lowrenta granted a visa waiver to a "Russian government lawyer"
(lol) who's sole purpose was (I believe) to meet with Trump.
All we need now for an entrapment charge is for Natalia Veseinitskaya to verify just who
paid her, my money's on Hillary ;-)
As much as their criminal excuses are hysterically funny (as they supposed to be
"professionals of their craft"...lol)...it has now become very apparent they are also
mentally deranged as well as just partisan hypocrites.
Podesta was involved with the Russians, up to his beady little eyeballs in fact, as an
unregistered foreign agent until he registered after the fact. Hillary's "foundation" did
financially gain from Uranium One, just like Podesta did with his Joules shares which he
tried to hide from public scrutiny of his ownership in them through his family members. These
partisan hypocrites of the DoJ & FBI did take an unsourced, unverified, politically
motivated, Hillary/DNC paid for "intel dossier" compiled by a known foreign spy into a US
federal court to gain access to the federal governments surveillance apparatus to spy on the
party out of power to the benefit of their preference, the Hillary campaign. They did
"unmask" private citizens & government officials and then report their names to the
Alinsky Nuuuz Networks as being under surveillance by the state as possible treasonous
citizens , when it was they themselves who are the traitors to everything we are as
Americans.
It's open & shut.
And they didn't care how many innocent lives they destroyed in that process. The gallows
would be too quick in my opinion.
And Mrs.Sunstein's new gig may very well be the official toilet swabby &
bitch-go-get-this in a federal penitentiary for women unless she can correct or clarify her
testimony as to just who was making HUNDREDS of unmasking requests in 2016 using her log in
credentials.
Unless of course she committed perjury, which is business as usual for the Obama
administration ;-)
U.S. threats to crush Iran and North Korea may yet work, but as of now neither Tehran nor
Pyongyang appears to be intimidated.
Repeated references by NSC adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence to the "Libya
model" for denuclearization of North Korea just helped sink the Singapore summit of President
Trump and Kim Jong Un. To North Korea, the Libya model means the overthrow and murder of Libya
strongman Col. Gadhafi, after he surrendered his WMD.
Wednesday, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui exploded at Pence's invocation of
Libya:
"Vice-President Pence has made unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end
like Libya I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks.
"Whether the U.S. will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear
showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States."
Yesterday, Trump canceled the Singapore summit.
Earlier this week at the Heritage Foundation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out our
Plan B for Iran in a speech that called to mind Prussian Field Marshal Karl Von Moltke.
Among Pompeo's demands:
Iran must end all support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hamas
in Gaza, withdraw all forces under Iranian command in Syria, and disarm its Shiite militia in
Iraq.
Iran must confess its past lies about a nuclear weapons program, and account publicly for
all such activity back into the 20th century.
Iran must halt all enrichment of uranium, swear never to produce plutonium, shut down its
heavy water reactor, open up its military bases to inspection to prove it has no secret
nuclear program, and stop testing ballistic missiles.
And unless Iran submits, she will be strangled economically.
What Pompeo delivered was an ultimatum: Iran is to abandon all its allies in all Mideast
wars, or face ruin and possible war with the USA.
It is hard to recall a secretary of state using the language Pompeo deployed:
"We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the
world and crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle
East."
But how can Iran "dominate" a Mideast that is home to Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and
Egypt, as well as U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and
Syria?
To Iran's east is a nuclear-armed Pakistan. To its west is a nuclear-armed U.S. Fifth Fleet
and a nuclear-armed Israel. Iran has no nukes, no warships to rival ours and a 1970s air
force.
Yet, this U.S.-Iran confrontation, triggered by Trump's trashing of the nuclear deal and
Pompeo's ultimatum, is likely to end one of three ways:
First, Tehran capitulates, which is unlikely, as President Hassan Rouhani retorted to
Pompeo: "Who are you to decide for Iran and the world? We will continue our path with the
support of our nation." Added Ayatollah Khamenei, "Iran's presence in the region is our
strategic depth."
Second, Iran defies U.S. sanctions and continues to support its allies in Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Yemen. This would seem likely to lead to collisions and war.
Third, the U.S. could back off its maximalist demands, as Trump backed off Bolton's demand
that Kim Jong Un accept the Libyan model of total and verifiable disarmament before any
sanctions are lifted.
Where, then, are we headed?
While our NATO allies are incensed by Trump's threat to impose secondary sanctions if they
do not re-impose sanctions on Tehran, the Europeans are likely to cave in to America's demands.
For Europe to choose Iran over a U.S. that has protected Europe since the Cold War began and is
an indispensable market for Europe's goods would be madness.
Vladimir Putin appears to want no part of an Iran-Israel or U.S.-Iran war and has told
Bashar Assad that Russia will not be selling Damascus his S-300 air defense system. Putin has
secured his bases in Syria and wants to keep them.
As for the Chinese, she will take advantage of the West's ostracism of Iran by drawing Iran
closer to her own orbit.
Is there a compromise to be had?
Perhaps, for some of Pompeo's demands accord with the interests of Iran, which cannot want a
war with the United States, or with Israel, which would likely lead to war with the United
States.
Iran could agree to release Western prisoners, move Shiite militia in Syria away from the
Golan Heights, accept verifiable restrictions on tests of longer-range missiles and establish
deconfliction rules for U.S. and Iranian warships in the Persian Gulf.
Reward: aid from the West and renewed diplomatic relations with the United States.
Surely, a partial, verifiable nuclear disarmament of North Korea is preferable to war on the
peninsula. And, surely, a new nuclear deal with Iran with restrictions on missiles is
preferable to war in the Gulf.
Again, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good.
The FBI Wasn't Spying On Trump, It Was "Benign Information Gathering"
Vietnam wasn't a war, it was "a police action"
Our politicians and judges don't accept bribes, they "receive campaign contributions"
Waterboarding isn't torture, it is "enhanced interrogation"
Our Al-Qaeda fighters we arm and train in Syria aren't terrorists, they are "moderate
rebels"
Affirmative action isn't racist, it is "embracing diversity"
Israeli soldiers aren't shooting unarmed protesters, they are "defending Israel from
terrorist attacks"
Social Security isn't a Ponzi scheme, it is "old age survivors and disability
insurance"
Abortion isn't killing an unborn baby, it is "a woman's choice"
Saudi Arabia isn't a barbaric kingdom, it is "the leader of the UN Human Rights
Council"
Representative Kevin Brady isn't a prostitute for the banks, he is "a proven
conservative"
Afghanistan isn't the longest war in American history, it is "Operation Enduring
Freedom"
The NSA isn't violating the Fourth Amendment, it is "Defending our Nation. Securing the
Future."
The National Firearms Act doesn't infringe on our right to bear arms, it is "a statutory
excise tax on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms"
Possessing nuclear weapons while sanctioning North Korea for the same is not hypocritical,
it is "exceptional"
Seth Rich wasn't murdered for leaking Podesta's emails to Wikileaks, he was "fatally shot
in a botched robbery"
Several FBI agents would like Congress to subpoena them so that they can step forward and
reveal dirt on former FBI Director James Comey and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, reports the
Daily Caller , citing three active field agents and former federal prosecutor Joe
DiGenova.
" There are agents all over this country who love the bureau and are sickened by [James]
Comey's behavior and [Andrew] McCabe and [Eric] Holder and [Loretta] Lynch and the thugs like
[John] Brennan –who despise the fact that the bureau was used as a tool of political
intelligence by the Obama administration thugs," former federal prosecutor Joe DiGenova told
The Daily Caller Tuesday.
" They are just waiting for a chance to come forward and testify ."
DiGenova - a veteran D.C. attorney who President Trump initially wanted to hire to represent
him in the Mueller probe - only to have to step aside
due to conflicts , has maintained contact with "rank and file" FBI agents as well as a
counterintelligence consultant who interviewed an active special agent in the FBI's Washington
Field Office (WFO) - producing a transcript reviewed by The Caller .
These agents prefer to be subpoenaed to becoming an official government whistleblower ,
since they fear political and professional backlash, the former Trump administration official
explained to TheDC.
The subpoena is preferred, said diGenova, " because when you are subpoenaed, Congress then
pays for your legal counsel and the subpoena protects [the agent] from any organizational
retaliation . they are on their own as whistleblowers, they get no legal protection and there
will be organizational retaliation against them."
DiGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing have long represented government whistleblowers.
Most recently, Toensing became council for William D. Campbell, the former CIA and FBI
operative that was
deeply embedded in the Russian uranium industry - only to be smeared by the Obama
administration when he gathered evidence of two related bribery schemes involving Russian
nuclear officials, an American trucking company, and efforts to route money to the Clinton
Global Initiative (CGI) through an American lobbying firm in order to overcome regulatory
hurdles, according to reports by The Hill and Circa .
diGenova told the Daily Caller that asking for a Congressional subpoena is "an intelligent
approach to the situation given the vindictive nature of the bureau under Comey and McCabe . I
have no idea how to read Chris Ray who is not a leader and who has disappeared from the public
eye during this entire crisis. You know he may be cleaning house but if he's doing so, he's
doing it very quietly."
"I don't blame them," added diGenova. " I don't blame the agents one bit. I think that the
FBI is in a freefall . James Comey has destroyed the institution he claims to love. And it is
beyond a doubt that it is going to take a decade to restore public confidence because of Comey
and Clapper and Brennan and Obama and Lynch."
Meanwhile, the agent from the Washington field office says that rank and file FBI agents are
"fed up" and desperately want the DOJ to take action, according to transcripts of the
interview.
"Every special agent I have spoken to in the Washington Field Office wants to see McCabe
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They feel the same way about Comey," said the
agent.
"The administrations are so politicized that any time a Special Agent comes forward as a
whistleblower, they can expect to be thrown under the bus by leadership . Go against the Muslim
Brotherhood, you're crushed. Go against the Clintons, you're crushed. The FBI has long been
politicized to the detriment of national security and law enforcement."
The special agent added, " Activity that Congress is investigating is being stonewalled by
leadership and rank-and-file FBI employees in the periphery are just doing their jobs . All
Congress needs to do is subpoena involved personnel and they will tell you what they know.
These are honest people. Leadership cannot stop anyone from responding to a subpoena. Those
subpoenaed also get legal counsel provided by the government to represent them."
Meanwhile, the former Trump administration official who spoke with The Caller explained that
the FBI's problems go way beyond Comey and McCabe.
" They know that it wasn't just Comey and McCabe in this case. That's too narrow a net to
cast over these guys. There's a much broader corruption that seeped into the seventh floor at
the bureau ."
" They ruined the credibility of the bureau and the technical ability of the bureau, so
systemically, over the past several years, they're worried about their organizational
reputation and their professional careers."
While it is stupid to argue that neoliberalism does not exist: it exits both as ideology, economic theory and politicl
pratice (much like Marxism before it; yet another "man-made" ideology -- actually a variation of Trotskyism, this discussion does
illuminate some interesting and subtle points.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is a time-limited global system sustained by coercive imposition of competitive behaviour, parasitic finance & privatisation. ..."
"... But it's better to think of neoliberalism as a bunch of arrangements ("system" if you remove connotations of design) rather than as an ideology. Ed has a point when he says that almost nobody fully subscribes to "neoliberal ideology": free market supporters, for example, don't defend crony capitalism. ..."
"... Perhaps the texts of transnational trade treaties might be the best place to search for a de facto definition of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Whether or not the present neoliberal system is the result of a single coherent ideology, it emerged from the 70s on as a set of related (if not deliberately coordinated) responses to the structural crises of the older postwar Keynesian system. And there was definitely a cluster of policy-making elites in the early 70s making similar observations about the failure of consensus capitalism. ..."
"... It is possible to have 'hard' and 'soft' neoliberalism depending on whether the state employs 'carrots' or 'sticks', but essentially almost the entire UK political system agreed that 'There Is No Alternative' until Corbyn became Labour leader. ..."
"... I think Will Davies has hit the spot with his definition of neoliberalism as "the disenchantment of politics by economics". In other words, neoliberalism is first and foremost a political praxis, not an economic theory. It is about power, hence the continuing importance of the state. ..."
"... That is the Great Transformation and neoliberalism as its current phase are about turning institutions into businesses (including marriage), and part of this is "managerialism". This is not done because businesses are inherently better for every purpose than institutions, but because businesses are better vehicles than institutions for tunnelling (looting) by their managers. ..."
"... Neo-liberals are not opposed to all types of government intervention. But like neo-classical economists, they believe ultimately in the price mechanism to allocate resources - in the long run, if not the short. ..."
"... In terms of sincerity, Milton Friedman asserted in "Capitalism and Freedom" that the more a society was "free market," the more equal it was. Come the preface to 50th anniversary edition, he simply failed to mention that applying his own ideology had refuted his assertion (and it was an assertion). ..."
"... Neo-liberalism never been about reducing "the State" but rather strengthening it in terms of defending and supporting capital. Hence you see Tories proclaim they are "cutting back the state" while also increasing state regulation on trade unions -- and regulating strikes, and so the labour market. ..."
"... Somewhere along the line neo-liberalism got associated with austerity and small-government policies. The latter I think was because they are (correctly) associated with promoting privatisation and deregulation policy. ..."
"... But the market is the creation of man. It has no power, no judgement, other than that bestowed on it by us. My problem with neoliberalism is the belief that decisions can be made on the basis of a money metric whereas we know that money is not necessarily a good measure of value. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is real, but only describes background theoretical claims. It is wrong to apply the term to the broader political movement it supported. The political movement was dedicated to maximizing the power and freedom of action of large-scale capital accumulators. Lots of ideas from neoliberal intellectual argumentation were used to increase the power of capital accumulators, and neoliberal economists tended to ignore many aspects of the political movement they supported (strongr state power, crony capitalism, monopoly power) not strictly part of neoliberal theory ..."
"... usually the theory was just a weapon used in internal battles or as a PR tool to mask less savory political objectives. ..."
"... Repeating the message: "neoliberalism" has a pretty much official definition, the "Washington Consensus". And the core part of the "Washington Consensus" is "labour market reform", that is in practice whichever policies make labour more "competitive" and wages more "affordable". ..."
"... The "free markets" of neoliberalism are primarily "free" labour markets, that is free of unions. ..."
"... I would argue that, in terms of practical working definitions, Max Sawicky's definition of neo-liberalism seems to work well, at least in the U.S. context (second half of post): https://mikethemadbiologist.com/2017/04/28/remember-the-victims-of-the-nebraska-public-power-district/ ..."
Is neoliberalism even a thing? This is the question posed by Ed Conway, who
claims
it is "not an ideology but an insult." I half agree.
I agree that the economic system we have is "hardly the result of a guiding ideology" and more the result of "happenstance".
I say this because neoliberalism is NOT the same as the sort of free market ideology proposed by Friedman and Hayek. If this were
the case, it would have died on 13 October 2008 when the government bailed out
RBS .
In fact, though, as Will
Davies
and Adam Curtis
have said, neoliberalism entails the use of an active state. A big part of neoliberalism is the use of the state to increase the
power and profits of the 1% - capitalists and top managers. Increased managerialism, crony capitalism and tough benefit sanctions
are all features of neoliberalism. In this respect, the EU's treatment of Greece was neoliberal – ensuring that banks got paid at
the expense of ordinary people.
I suspect, though, that measures such as these were, as Ed says, not so much part of a single ideology as uncoordinated events.
Tax cuts for the rich, public sector outsourcing and target culture, for example, were mostly justified by appeals to efficiency,
and were not regarded even by their advocates as parts of a unified theory. To believe otherwise would be to subscribe to a conspiracy
theory which gives too much credit to Thatcher and her epigones.
Neoliberalism is a time-limited global system sustained by coercive imposition of competitive behaviour, parasitic finance
& privatisation.
I'm not sure about that word "system". Maybe it attributes too much systematization to neoliberals: perhaps unplanned order would
be a better phrase. But it's better to think of neoliberalism as a bunch of arrangements ("system" if you remove connotations
of design) rather than as an ideology. Ed has a point when he says that almost nobody fully subscribes to "neoliberal ideology":
free market supporters, for example, don't defend crony capitalism.
And it's useful to have words for economic systems. Just as we speak of "post-war Keynesianism" to mean a bundle of policies and
institutions of which Keynesian fiscal policy was only a small part, so we can speak of "neoliberalism" to describe our current arrangement.
It's a better description than the horribly question-begging "late capitalism".
This isn't to say that "neoliberalism" has a precise meaning. There are varieties of it, just as there were of post-war Keynesianism.
Think of the word as like "purple". There are shades of purple, we'll not agree when exactly purple turns into blue, and we'll struggle
to define the word (especially to someone who is colour-blind). But "purple" is nevertheless a useful word, and we know it when we
see it.
If neoliberalism is a system rather than an ideology, what role does ideology play?
I suspect it's that of post-fact justification.
Put it this way. In the mid-80s nobody argued that the share of GDP going to the top 1% should double. Of course, many advocated
policies which, it turns out, had this effect. Some of them intended this. But those policies were justified on other grounds, often
sincerely. Instead, the belief that the top 1% "deserve" 15% of total incomes rather than 7-8% has mostly followed them getting 15%,
not led it. A host of cognitive biases – the just world illusion,
anchoring
effect and status quo bias underpin
an ideology which defends inequality. John Jost calls this system
justification (pdf) . You can gather all these biases under the umbrella term "neoliberal ideology" if you want. But it follows
economic events rather than is the creator of them.
So, I half agree with Ed that neoliberalism isn't a guiding ideology. But I also agree with Paul, that it is a way of describing
a particular economic system.
I don't, however, want to get hung up on words: I'd rather leave such pedantry to the worst sort of academic. What's more important
than language is the brute fact that productivity and hence real incomes for most of us have
stagnated for years. In this sense, our existing economic system has
failed the majority of people. And this is true whatever name you give it.
Perhaps the texts of transnational trade treaties might be the best place to search for a de facto definition of neoliberalism.
There's not much room to blur, obfuscate (beyond the natural impenetrability of legalese) or wreath around with dubious ethicism
in these documents I'd imagine.
if it's a way of describing the prevailing economic system, does it make sense to describe people as neoliberals? Does that imply
that everyone who is not a radical revolutionary (i.e. anyone who if they got their way in government would still be within normal
variation in policies from a USA Republican administration to the Danish Labour party?). So the Koch brothers are neoliberals
and Brad De Long is a neoliberal despite them disagreeing vehemently about most things?
I know we have lots of other words that are used in wildly inconsistent ways (capitalism, socialism) but I can't help being
irked by the sheer incoherence of the things that neoliberals are accused of. Most recent example to come to mind, somebody in
conversation with Will Davies on Twitter claimed neoliberals oppose redistribution (and Will did not correct him). FFS.
'But, despite the fact that neoliberalism is frequently referred to as an ideology, it is oddly difficult to pin down. For
one thing, it is a word that tends to be used almost exclusively by those who are criticising it - not by its advocates, such
as they are (in stark contrast to almost every other ideology, nearly no-one self-describes as a neoliberal). In other words,
it is not an ideology but an insult.'
Well political science and history uses models too. What is the problem of say David Harvey's definition in, A Brief History
of ...that which doesn't exist (2007)?
Rather I think he means it upsets 'main stream' economics professors, to be called this term, and rather than opt for Wren
Lewis gambit (there is such a thing as 'Media Macro' or 'Tory Macro', or 'Econ 101', which I found interesting as it happens)
Conway has gone for pedantry and first year Politics student essentialism, ie what is Democracy? type stuff.
Neoliberalism, at least in the UK, was in part a reaction by Thatcher & Co to the excesses of previous Labour administrations:
excesses in the form of "if an industry looks like going bust, let's pour whatever amount of taxpayer's money into it needed to
save it". Thatcher & Co's reaction was: "s*d that for a lark – the rules of the free market are better than industrial subsidies
(especially industrial subsidies in cabinet ministers' constituencies)"
Whether or not the present neoliberal system is the result of a single coherent ideology, it emerged from the 70s on as a
set of related (if not deliberately coordinated) responses to the structural crises of the older postwar Keynesian system. And
there was definitely a cluster of policy-making elites in the early 70s making similar observations about the failure of consensus
capitalism.
"if it's a way of describing the prevailing economic system, does it make sense to describe people as neoliberals?"
Yes, these are largely people who reacted to the 'series of events' that occurred in the global economy in the 1970s by essentially
accepting a certain set of policies and responses, many of which involved seeking to insulate the state against collective popular
demands, intervening against organised labour, deregulating finance and targeting state intervention towards private business.
It is possible to have 'hard' and 'soft' neoliberalism depending on whether the state employs 'carrots' or 'sticks', but essentially
almost the entire UK political system agreed that 'There Is No Alternative' until Corbyn became Labour leader.
Many of these people were hardly hardcore ideologists but rather pragmatic
or unimaginative types that were unwilling to challenge the 'status quo' or the prevailing economic system, just as there were
very few classical liberals from WWI onwards.
I think Will Davies has hit the spot with his definition of neoliberalism as "the disenchantment of politics by economics". In
other words, neoliberalism is first and foremost a political praxis, not an economic theory. It is about power, hence the continuing
importance of the state.
This instrumentality echoes Thatcher's insistence that "Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul",
which shows that there was more in play in the late-70s and early-80s than simply responding to the "structural crises of the
older postwar Keynesian system".
You should be reading Philip Mirowski instead. The economist and historian of science Philip Mirowski is considered the foremost expert on this subject, he has written many
books on this the latest is:
"The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information: The History of Information in Modern Economics":
Neoliberalism is a philosophy based on the metaphor/idea that the "market" is an information process ad it is quasi-omniscient,
that "knows" more than any and all of us could ever know. It makes certain claims about what "information" is and what a "market"
is. It's mostly started with the Mont Perelin Society think-tank.
"productivity and hence real incomes for most of us have stagnated for years."
But for many, usually people who vote more often or more opportunistically, they have been years of booming living standards.
The core of the electoral appeal of thatcherism is that thatcherites whether Conservative or New Labour have worked hard to
ensure that upper-middle (and many middle) class voters collectively cornered the southern property market, creating a massive
short squeeze on people short housing.
So many champagne leftists of some age talk about policies and concepts, but for the many the number one problem for decades
has been managing to pay rent.
"neoliberalism is first and foremost a political praxis, not an economic theory. It is about power, hence the continuing
importance of the state."
That's a very good point, but I would rather say that's a good description of New Right/thatcherite (and "third way" clintonian/mandelsonian)
politics, and neoliberalism is the economic policy aspect.
There is after all something called "The Washington consensus" that is a "standard" set of neoliberal economic policies.
"Neoliberalism is a philosophy based on the metaphor/idea that the "market" is an information process"
Written that wait it evokes Polanyi's "Great transformation" where markets mechanisms have displaced social mechanisms in many
areas.
But Just yesterday I realized that Polanyi was subtly off-target: it is not markets-vs-society (two fairly abstract concepts)
but instead institutions-vs-businesses.
That is the Great Transformation and neoliberalism as its current phase are about turning institutions into businesses
(including marriage), and part of this is "managerialism". This is not done because businesses are inherently better for every
purpose than institutions, but because businesses are better vehicles than institutions for tunnelling (looting) by their managers.
"the "market" is an information process ad it is quasi-omniscient, that "knows" more than any and all of us could ever know"
There have been a few books arguing that "the market", being omniscient, all powerful, and just in judging everybody and giving
them exactly what they deserve, has replaced God, and today's sell-side neoliberal Economists are its preachers:
Economists started using the term neo-liberalism a bit later, after it became a derogatory term - and after 2008 began to disassociate
from it (a few, and very few, did after the Asian Financial Crisis).
It is important to realise I think that it is a term that closely linked to political science -- and in particular a branch
of international relations. The person most associated with Neo-liberalism is Francis Fukuyama. What he did was link capitalism
and democracy; both he said had triumphed and because they respect the freedom of individual liberty and they allowed markets,
which are the most efficient way of allocating resources, to operate liberally. Its heyday was at the time of the collapse of
the Berlin Wall - "the end of history" as FF famously said.
Political scientists see neo-classical economics and neo-liberalism as very compatible, because of the formers basic construct
of individual optimisation, rational choice and market efficiency. Often they are grouped together and contrasted with radical
and realist (realpolitik) approaches. For neo-liberals and neo-classicists, markets get prices right, whether they do so with
a lag is a minor point.
Neo-liberals are not opposed to all types of government intervention. But like neo-classical economists, they believe ultimately
in the price mechanism to allocate resources - in the long run, if not the short.
They have no problem with welfare states. Like neo-classical economists they accept the second welfare theorem.
They are pro-globalisation: they don't like international trade, capital or immigration controls. Why? Because they impact
on individual liberty and distort market prices.
International relations were often guiding reasons behind economic policy that were pro-globalisation. By encouraging globalisation,
you were encouraging international capitalism and thereby the spread of democracy (a la Francis Fukuyama). International relations
policy was close to the PM, and run from the Cabinet Office.
I would argue that Blair and Jonathan Portes are prime examples of neo-liberals. And indeed the Clinton/Blair years were quintessentially
neo-liberal in the formerly correct use of the term. Thatcher, as a strong opponent of the welfare state, was not.
One further point. Neo-liberals are progressively and socially liberal, as well as economically liberal. They believe in cosmopolitanism
and diversity and put much emphasis on minority and women's rights.
"In fact, though, as Will Davies and Adam Curtis have said, neoliberalism entails the use of an active state."
It has always been like that -- Kropotkin was attacking Marxists for suggesting otherwise over a hundred years ago.
"In the mid-80s nobody argued that the share of GDP going to the top 1% should double. Of course, many advocated policies which,
it turns out, had this effect. Some of them intended this. But those policies were justified on other grounds, often sincerely."
Yes, different rhetoric was often used -- but the net effect was always obvious, and pointed out at the time. But you get better
results with honey than vinegar...
In terms of sincerity, Milton Friedman asserted in "Capitalism and Freedom" that the more a society was "free market," the
more equal it was. Come the preface to 50th anniversary edition, he simply failed to mention that applying his own ideology had
refuted his assertion (and it was an assertion).
Neo-liberalism never been about reducing "the State" but rather strengthening it in terms of defending and supporting capital.
Hence you see Tories proclaim they are "cutting back the state" while also increasing state regulation on trade unions -- and
regulating strikes, and so the labour market.
"intervening against organised labour" China bans unions, doesn't it? Are they in this tent too?
"targeting state intervention towards private business" not quite sure what that means but pre-1970 import substitution industrial
policy is what?
am I a neoliberal because I think markets do process dispersed information and that competition does some good things (I am
worried about monopolies, I would be worried about non-competitive government procurement) or am I not a neoliberal because I
am nowhere near thinking markets are omniscient and could write long essays on how markets fail?
am I a neoliberal because I think the Washington Consensus is broadly sensible (with some reservations) or not a neoliberal
because I'd like to see far more social housing?
Somewhere along the line neo-liberalism got associated with austerity and small-government policies. The latter I think was
because they are (correctly) associated with promoting privatisation and deregulation policy.
But neo-liberals have never been against welfare states in principle or counter-cyclical policy in principle.
Key-neo-liberals, however, were pro-austerity policy after the Asian Financial Crisis - but this included most of the mainstream
economics establishment (most crucially of all Stanley Fischer at the IMF). Their rational (naturally enough) related to consistency,
credibility, incentives and moral hazard arguments. There were a few who protested (eg Stiglitz). But they were exceptions.
@ Luis Enrique
I don't think you'd make the grade as a 'true' neo-liberal unless you'd be happy for your social housing to be less then optimal
and only for the destitute. Do you see moral hazard if the housing market is once again sidestepped in favour of decent homes
for average every-day heroes, or do you subscribe (explicitly) to the view that the state must sanction and hurt in order that
individuals strive?
"There have been a few books arguing that "the market", being omniscient, all powerful, and just in judging everybody and giving
them exactly what they deserve, has replaced God...."
But the market is the creation of man. It has no power, no judgement, other than that bestowed on it by us. My problem with neoliberalism is the belief that decisions can be made on the basis of a money metric whereas we know that
money is not necessarily a good measure of value.
'"intervening against organised labour"
China bans unions, doesn't it? Are they in this tent too?'
Well yes. They have taken it further than most countries, stripping back their welfare system while increasing state promotion
of capitalist development.
'"targeting state intervention towards private business" not quite sure what that means but pre-1970 import substitution industrial
policy is what?'
Import substitution industrial policy is protectionism, not neoliberalism. I'm referring to governments' privatisation and
outsourcing of public services and industries, taking them out of political responsibility and collective provision, while at
the same time providing them with subsidies and guaranteed markets.
Ben, ok protectionism is a different tactic than outsourcing but it's intervention towards private business so maybe that's not
a defining characteristic of neoliberalism?
And if the Chinese Communist party is neoliberal and also the Koch brothers I am not convinced this is a useful nomenclature
Is Productivity Growth like Evolution ?
Is it possible that productivity growth is like evolution: It can be a fortitous accident or it can happen due to competitive
pressure. The fortuitous accidents are the new technologies whose advantages are so obvious they are quickly adopted.
The competitive pressures can be constraints on profits or resources that force greater efficiency. Perhaps, now, in the UK, there is no shortage of reasonably priced personnel, infrastructure and goods. So, if productivity growth is low, you can be certain neither requirement has been met.
If neither requirement has been met, then, it may well be that there is excessive unused capacity and, if that is the case,
GDP growth has been suboptimal.
Which leads to the best question: Is greater GDP growth the result of greater efficiency or is greater efficiency the result
of greater GDP growth?
The conclusion is that it may be a mistake to guide policy under the assumption that GDP growth must he preceded by productivity
growth. Failing to realize this may be a cause of unnoticed suboptimal GDP growth.
.
1. Neoliberalism is real, but only describes background theoretical claims. It is wrong to apply the term to the broader political
movement it supported. The political movement was dedicated to maximizing the power and freedom of action of large-scale capital
accumulators. Lots of ideas from neoliberal intellectual argumentation were used to increase the power of capital accumulators,
and neoliberal economists tended to ignore many aspects of the political movement they supported (strongr state power, crony capitalism,
monopoly power) not strictly part of neoliberal theory
2. The overlap and confusion between neoliberal theory and the political movement for unfettered freedom for capital accumulator
is consistent with the broader history of movement conservatism. After WW2, conservatives (broadly defined) had a fixation with
developing an intellectual foundatation/justification for their policy preferences. Partly as a reaction to the perception that
FDR-LBJ era liberalism was based on theories published by Ivy League professors. The Mont Pelerin intellectual thread that Mirowski
and others describe was part of this process. But (even for the liberals) it was always a mistake to claim that intellectual/ideological
theorizing lead to political policy and action. It was sometimes the opposite; usually the theory was just a weapon used in internal
battles or as a PR tool to mask less savory political objectives.
3. Democratic neoliberalism (Brad DeLong) was always a totally different animal. It was a reaction to the economic crises of the
70s/80s--New Deal policies written in 1934 didn't seem to be working; maybe would should incorporate market forces a bit more.
At the same time Republican neoliberalism had abandoned all pretense of detached analysis and was now strictly a tool supporting
the pursuit of power.
"Put it this way. In the mid-80s nobody argued that the share of GDP going to the top 1% should double. Of course, many advocated
policies which, it turns out, had this effect. Some of them intended this. But those policies were justified on other grounds,
often sincerely. Instead, the belief that the top 1% "deserve" 15% of total incomes rather than 7-8% has mostly followed them
getting 15%, not led it. "
This is just not true. People did argue that, did announce the intent of these policies in public. Bill Mitchell's former student
Victor Quirk is great on such declarations of war on the poor from the rich throughout history. Mitchell himself wrote that he
was surprised how many and how blatant these declarations were.
"But the market is the creation of man. It has no power, no judgement, other than that bestowed on it by us."
But the neoliberal thesis is that it is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-judging. "vox populi vox dei" taken to an extreme.
"My problem with neoliberalism is the belief that decisions can be made on the basis of a money metric"
That to me seems a very poor argument, because then many will object that ignoring the money metric means that you want someone
else to pay. Consider the statement "everybody has a right to healthcare free at the point of use": it is mere handwaving unless you explain
who and how to pay for it.
The discussion in the money yes/no terms is for me fruitless, because there are two distinct issues in a project: the motivation
for there being the project, and the business of doing the project.
Claiming that the *only* motivation for a project should be money seems to me as bad a claiming that given a good motivation
how to pay for a project does not matter.
Projects don't reduce to their motivation any more than they reduce to the business of doing them.
An extreme example I make is marriage: for me it is (also) a business, as it requires a careful look at money and organization
issues, but hopefully the motivation to engage in that business is not economic, but personal feelings.
That's why I mentioned a better-than-Polanyi duality between businesses and institutions: institutions as a rule carry out
businesses but for non-business motivations, while "pure" businesses have merely economic motivations.
For example a university setup as a charity versus one setup a a business: both carry out business activities, but the motivation
of the former is not merely to do business.
Repeating the message: "neoliberalism" has a pretty much official definition, the "Washington Consensus". And the core part
of the "Washington Consensus" is "labour market reform", that is in practice whichever policies make labour more "competitive"
and wages more "affordable".
The "free markets" of neoliberalism are primarily "free" labour markets, that is free of unions.
@ Blissex "ignoring the money metric means that you want someone else to pay."
Not sure I follow. If payment is made via money then that is not ignoring the money metric, i.e. money as a measure of value.
Do we want someone to do the project and is someone willing and able to do it? If, yes, then money is not (or at least does not
need to be) the constraint. It is a mechanism to facilitate the project. If we want universal healthcare, money is not the constraint,
the constraint is the ability of society to train and sustain (feed and house) the required expertise.
Neo-liberalism is an economic idea based on the conjecture that by reverting the level of state spending and regulation of an
economy to that which existed at an earlier stage of its economic development will produce the same level of economic growth which
the economy experienced then.
But the level of output of an economy is a reflection of the level of the efficiency of that economy, the level of economic
growth therefore reflects the rate of increase in its efficiency in terms of increased economic output as the economy develops,
a measure which inevitably reduces in its order as an economy approaches its maximum level of efficiency and output. So the rate
of economic growth of an economy will inevitably be progressively reduced as an economy matures as the opportunities for efficiency
improvements are exploited and the number that remain diminish.
The level of state spending and regulation typical of economically developed societies are responses to the social change which
economic development itself has brought about. Abolishing those responses therefore is likely only to serve to reintroduce the
social problems which led to their introduction and to make the social consequences of economic development more arduous for the
lower social and economic groups disfavoured by that process of social change.
Neo-liberalism is, like other materialist ideology of the progressive left and right, a predominantly economic idea which is
a product of the affluent and intellectual classes who themselves, being a product of their elevated economic condition, being
dependent upon it and therefore having a vested interest in its continuance, are imbued with a bias which sees the improvement
in the general economic condition as a natural unmitigated good and are therefore oblivious or apathetic to its non-material consequences
as material progress causes a society and its population to diverge from its native and surviving character as it adapts to the
historically exceptional conditions of modernity and undermines its cultural foundation and ultimately threatens its long term
cultural future.
It seems clear from the above posts that there is no clear consensus about what neo-liberalism actually is.
I suggest the use of the term is little more than a cloak used to cover up an uncomfortable reality for those on the left.
Traditional left wing policies, such as nationalisation, state intervention in the economy such as rent controls, high marginal
tax rates, and strong trade unions systematically failed to deliver prosperity. States which moved to economic models involving
more reliance on markets to shift labour and capital to new activities seemed to prosper far better. Rather than say that conservatives
such as Friedman were proved right about the fundamental propositions about how an economy should be organised, the soft left
adopted conservative policies, and have dressed it up as 'neo-liberalism' to save face.
Indeed, some on the left, such as 'filthy rich' Mandelson, embraced the market economy with the zeal of converts, and have
ignored its faults and problems, and have failed to seek to mitigate or remedy these faults and problems.
The best thing to do is consult a first or second year undergraduate political science or international relations text. Burchill
"Theories of International Relations, Palgrave is a good one, and used in many UK universities. There will be a chapter on neo-liberalism
in them. These texts give you the standard blurb on what neo-liberalism really is (as well as what the other major schools of
thoughts are together with critiques of all of them).
Neo-liberalism is very much a coherent (but by no means flawless) theory.
Neo-liberalism comes from the subject of international relations. Fukuyama is the most representative neo-liberal. Important
is the notion of 'soft power': the spread of capitalism and western culture and other forms of globalisation spreads western notions
of democracy and human rights. It was important to integrate countries into the international capitalist (and engage them in the
multilateral) system. At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall this seemed to be a convincing theory. It was very much adopted
as a key foreign policy strategy in the UK and the US. One of its biggest blows, however, is the lack of political reform we have
seen in China. What this showed was that democratisation does not necessarily follow capitalism and globalisation.
Just to qualify what I said above - the would not use the term "western notions". Ie they would not associate democracy or human
rights with being western. They are very cosmopolitan, and believe in the notion of universal, (not relative), values.
""ignoring the money metric means that you want someone else to pay."
... then money is not (or at least does not need to be) the constraint. It is a mechanism to facilitate the project. If we want
universal healthcare, money is not the constraint,"
Oh please, this is just two-bit nominalism: "money" then is just the mechanism by which "you want someone else to pay" and
indeed:
"the constraint is the ability of society to train and sustain (feed and house) the required expertise."
That is the *physical* aggregate constraint, regardless of whoever pays, the practical constraint, given that physical stuff
is purchased with money, creating or obtaining that money.
The question is then distributional, who is going to pay the money to "train and sustain (feed and house) the required expertise".
Unless there are ample unused resources, someone will have to pay.
What right-wingers object to is the idea that "universal health care" is paid for as a percent of income, so that someone on
£100,000 a year pays £8,000 a year for exactly the same level of service that someone on £10,000 a year pays £800 a year for.
@Luis Enrique: Correct - you are not a neoliberal as you'd like to see far more social housing? A neoliberal believes in more
economic freedom, so you achieve the aim of housing people who need state help for housing, food, energy etc by giving them the
money to buy a basic level of those things. The State should not be in the business of saying this house here is not a social
housing one, but this next that gets built is.
Blissex: "Oh please, this is just two-bit nominalism: "money" then is just the mechanism by which "you want someone else to pay""
Umm, no. In real terms, the someone else who is paying in health care is mainly the health care professional treating you.
"Unless there are ample unused resources, someone will have to pay."
But in all modern capitalist countries there are ample unused resources as far as the eye can see. Medicine is one way to use
them up, nearly cost-free, and all benefit. Most people value "not being dead" highly. As Paul Samuelson said responding to stupid
worries about the cost of the US health care system, so it's 15% (or whatever). It's the best 15% of the economy.
The real problem is that "socialized medicine" is too efficient in real terms, and doesn't create corrupt and powerful satrapies
to demand public money, as the US health system does. Since the UK has the most efficient health care system, it has the least
real resource "someone has to pay" problem, but it causes the biggest demand gap, the true longterm, macro problem. The opposite
for the USA. The real right wing concern is that the underpeople get health care at all, not some smokescreen triviality about
nominal taxation.
Most written about health care, as about war, follows the backwards, mainstream way. C Adams is following the correct, MMT/Keynesian
way. If that is two-bit nominalism, we need more of it.
Until recently I haven't been closely following the controversy between Wikipedia and
popular anti-imperialist activists like John Pilger, George Galloway, Craig Murray, Neil Clark,
Media Lens, Tim Hayward and Piers Robinson.
Wikipedia has always been biased in favor of
mainstream CNN/CIA narratives, but until recently I hadn't seen much evidence that this was due to
anything other than the fact that Wikipedia is a crowdsourced project and most people believe
establishment-friendly narratives. That all changed when I
read
this article by Craig Murra
y, which is primarily what I'm interested in directing people's
attention to here.
The article, and
this one which
prompted it by
Five Filters
, are definitely worth reading in their entirety, because
their contents are jaw-dropping. In short there is an account which has been making edits to
Wikipedia entries for many nears called Philip Cross. In the last five years this account's
operator has not taken a single day off–no weekends, holidays, nothing–and according to their time
log they work extremely long hours adhering to a very strict, clockwork schedule of edits
throughout the day as an ostensibly unpaid volunteer.
This is bizarre enough, but the fact that this account is undeniably focusing with
malicious intent on anti-imperialist activists who question establishment narratives and the fact
that its behavior is being aggressively defended by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales means that
there's some serious fuckery afoot.
"Philip Cross", whoever or whatever that is, is absolutely head-over-heels for depraved Blairite
war whore Oliver Kamm, whom Cross mentioned as a voice of authority
no
fewer than
twelve times
in an entry about the media analysis duo known collectively as
Media Lens. Cross harbors a special hatred for British politician and broadcaster George Galloway,
who opposed the Iraq invasion as aggressively as Oliver Kamm cheered for it, and on whose Wikipedia
entry Cross has made an astonishing 1,800 edits.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of constant malicious editing, as well as outright admissions
of bias by the Twitter account linked to Philip Cross, Jimmy Wales has been extremely and
conspicuously defensive of the account's legitimacy while ignoring evidence provided to him.
"Or, just maybe, you're wrong,"
Wales
said
to a Twitter user inquiring about the controversy the other day. "Show me the diffs or
any evidence of any kind. The whole claim appears so far to be completely ludicrous."
"Riiiiight,"
said
the
totally not-triggered Wales in another response. "You are really very very far from the facts of
reality here. You might start with even one tiny shred of some kind of evidence, rather than
just making up allegations out of thin air. But you won't because trolling."
"You clearly have very very little idea how it works,"
Wales
tweeted
in another response. "If your worldview is shaped by idiotic conspiracy sites, you
will have a hard time grasping reality."
As outlined in the articles by Murray and
Five Filters
, the evidence is there
in abundance.
Five Filters
lays out "diffs" (editing changes) in black and white
showing clear bias by the Philip Cross account, a very slanted perspective is clearly and
undeniably documented, and yet Wales denies and aggressively ridicules any suggestion that
something shady could be afoot. This likely means that Wales is in on whatever game the Philip
Cross account is playing.
Which means the entire site is likely involved in some sort of
psyop by a party which stands to benefit from keeping the dominant narrative slanted in a
pro-establishment direction.
A 2016 Pew Research Center report found that Wikipedia was getting some
18
billion page views per month
. Billion with a 'b'. Youtube
recently
announced
that it's going to be showing text from Wikipedia articles on videos about conspiracy
theories to help "curb fake news". Plainly the site is extremely important in the battle for
control of the narrative about what's going on in the world. Plainly its leadership fights on one
side of that battle, which happens to be the side that favors western oligarchs and intelligence
agencies.
How many other "Philip Cross"-like accounts are there on Wikipedia?
Has the site always functioned an establishment psyop designed to manipulate public perception of
existing power structures, or did that start later? I don't know.
Right now all I know
is that an agenda very beneficial to the intelligence agencies, war profiteers and plutocrats of
the western empire is clearly and undeniably being advanced on the site, and its founder is telling
us it's nothing. He is lying. Watch him closely.
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reading the "talk" tab page background on ANY wiki page is ALWAYS
recommended - it shows the content war by different editors. - Anything on
Israel / Palestine for example.
Post or edit anything on that shit site that goes against the
ziomaster's narrative and you will be blocked. Wikipedia just rehashes
all the bullshit from the corporate media on Television.
Metabunk and Rationalwiki are the exact same thing too.
Does the pope shit in the woods after playing with little boys?
95% of things placed in top 3 of
Google search
are PSYOP. The remaining 5% are those pesky old
school blackhat SEO guys that know how to game the search engine.
Wikipedia is as fake as WWE is. But at least WWE has some juicy
stuff:
The Zionist side is ALWAYS the side that is
presented.
Eustace Mullins was a
truly kind individual. His only crime was to not
swallow the hogwash Koolaid of the ZioNAZI. For that
he was followed by the FBI for 30 years.
But of course all the standard tropes are
trotted out on Wikipedia. I suspect that Wiki / Wales
gets a lot of funding from YOU KNOW WHO. Same people
who has the Germans put people in jail for thought
crimes.
You are only safe when you are looking at a
page regarding theoretical mathematics. But not
mathematics about global warming.
among scientists, wiki is well known for utility
and accuracy of boring stuff like the thermal
conductivity of copper. any controversy involved,
and it is worthless.
Wikipedia is completely unreliable. Especially when it comes
to politics.
You can find LIES GALORE. You can edit the Lies out,
document them and backup with sourced justification; but within
an hour they will have reset the Lie.
Aaaand finally: James Corbett of Corbettreport.com, a prolific documentary
filmmaker--whose docs are always top rated on topdocumentaryfilms.com, doesn't
have a wikipedia page, despite MANY people trying to create one for him. Why is
that, you ask? Because they are extremely subversive to the CIA and the
established globalist order, and therefore that fact of suppression of Corbett
suggests coordination between Wikipedia and the globalist thalassocracy of the
empire of the city
How much 'filtering' is being done, and through what channels do filtering
requests arrive? (if any)
Lots of news outlets have changed over the last few years. Formerly respected
papers have been reduced to tabloids. The Washington Post is now the Bezos Blog,
for example. Twitter is popping up 'warnings' about 'fake news'. All the radio
and TV channels run identical bullshit war stories within minutes of each other.
And Wikipedia has been going downhill for years.
So, is ZH immune to the effluvia from the ministry of truth?
Nice article, but there is a much better way of proving that Wikipedia=CIA. It's
true, everybody can edit Wikipedia, but not everyone gets to keep their edits.
Here is an experiment that everyone can carry out
:
If
you edit well or create a new informative page on something of no interest to the
FBI or CIA, say astronomy or physics, no problem, your contribution stays. But
try to provide evidence--and there is plenty--that the government was involved in
the assassinations of MLK, JFK, RFK or the demolitions of 9/11, and you'll be
"reverted" (their term) within FIVE minutes. Try to quote Russia's version of
the Crimeans' overwhelming vote to join Russia, and you'll be "reverted" lickety
split. Provide evidence that Winston Churchill--lionized by our rulers--was an
imperialist, a racist, a champion of inequality, and the contribution will
disappear while you pause your honest labors for a cup of tea! Our rulers are
masters of propaganda, and Wikipedia is just one of their brilliantly vicious
outlets--created, controlled, and edited to brainwash us!
The reason we are not given a straight answer as to why we're meant to want our institutions
fighting an information war on our behalf (instead of allowing us to sort out fact from fiction
on our own like adults) is because the answer is ugly.
As
we discussed last time , the only real power in this world is the ability to control the
dominant narrative about what's going on. The only reason government works the way it works,
money operates the way it operates, and authority rests where it rests is because everyone has
agreed to pretend that that's how things are. In actuality, government, money and authority are
all man-made conceptual constructs and the collective can choose to change them whenever it
wants. The only reason this hasn't happened in our deeply dysfunctional society yet is because
the plutocrats who rule us have been successful in controlling the narrative.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. This has always been the case. In many
societies throughout history a guy who made alliances with the biggest, baddest group of armed
thugs could take control of the narrative by killing people until the dominant narrative was
switched to "That guy is our leader now; whatever he says goes." In modern western society, the
real leaders are less obvious, and the narrative is controlled by propaganda.
Propaganda is what keeps Americans accepting things like the fake two-party system, growing
wealth inequality, medicine money being spent on bombs to be dropped on strangers in stupid
immoral wars, and a government which simultaneously creates steadily increasing secrecy
privileges for itself and steadily decreasing privacy rights for its citizenry. It's also what
keeps people accepting that a dollar is worth what it's worth, that personal property works the
way it works, that the people on Capitol Hill write the rules, and that you need to behave a
certain way around a police officer or he can legally kill you.
And therein lies the answer to the question. You are not being protected from
"disinformation" by a compassionate government who is deeply troubled to see you believing
erroneous beliefs, you are being herded back toward the official narrative by a power
establishment which understands that losing control of the narrative means losing power. It has
nothing to do with Russia, and it has nothing to do with truth. It's about power, and the
unexpected trouble that existing power structures are having dealing with the public's newfound
ability to network and share information about what is going on in the world.
Economic analysis often uses the term ceteris paribus -- all other things being equal -- but all other
things are not equal. The worker Tesla employed might have found employment elsewhere; it may have
even been more stable, safer employment that did not entail payment in Tesla equity, that is
subject to some uncertainty as to its ultimate value.
To highlight this point, it may be helpful
to consider the economic activity generated by Tesla's competitors in California. These
competitors' operations are being impaired by Tesla's sale of deeply subsidized cars in the state.
While Tesla's competitors do not manufacture cars in the state, they account for
1,366 dealerships
employing 140,596 jobs (that pay cash),
accounting for $8.56 billion in wages,
paying $9.38 billion in taxes, and
making $50 million of charitable contributions per year.
On a more minor point, the IHS Markit report assumes that the $2.1 billion in "wages" paid to
Tesla workers is spent in the California economy. As discussed above, the report includes in these
"wages" Tesla equity granted to employees without quantifying what percentage of wages this equity
represented. We are skeptical as to how many employees spent their Tesla stock to boost local
economic activity.
Thanks to Friday's carefully crafted deep-state disclosures by WaPo and the Times , along
with actual reporting by the Daily Caller 's Chuck
Ross, we now know it wasn't a mole at all - but 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor
Stefan Halper, a US citizen, political veteran and longtime US Intelligence asset enlisted by
the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election
.
the "American academic who teaches in Britain" described by The Times,
Seems like Carter Page knew what he was talking about in this May 11 tweet.
Carter Page, Ph.D. @carterwpage
No @JackPosobiec, not me. But if what I'm hearing alleged is correct, it's a guy I know
who splits most his time between inside the Beltway and in one of the other Five Eyes
countries.
And if so, it'd be typical: swamp creatures putting themselves first.
4:17 AM - May 11, 2018
I think Rudy's flipped seeking redemption for his role in 911.
The deep state is not going down quietly or without a fight and they are in full attack
mode. Multiple questionable instances yesterday to change news cycle, plus a week worths of
leaks by major media mouthpieces justifying their crimes.
What's great is they are so caught up in their nest of lies, each new lie just contradicts
previous ones and exposes more of the truth.
Now the question is: How do you bring these people to justice without starting a violent
backlash / Civil War?
The cognitive dissonance is very strong on the left and they've fallen victim to hive
mentality, simply regurgitating talking points they hear through pop culture and media. We
are so afraid of not fitting in (as a society) that we will willingly accept completely
contradicting "facts", defend them, and deride those who disagree. Further, there is no room
for disagreement, for they are the party of tolerance, and if you disagree with them, you are
intolerant, which cannot be tolerated in an open and free society (see how that works?).
The real hope is people are able to break the spell and think for themselves again. But I
worry it's too late. A generation of children assaulted with excessive vaccination are now
adults and it shows...
People in the USA better get a grip real fast and realize that it's not Russia, China or
Iran that is the real enemy of Americans, it's the British . . . the money gnomes in London
and the "Queens men". They've caused more problems for the USA in the last 100+ years than
the other three combined many times over.
Let's see. Money was exchanged, foreign govt agents and contractors hired. The FBI knew
about Hillary's criminal enterprises and illegal dissemination of classified documents and
apparently has been complicit in helping or protecting her. The NYT and WaPo along with the
network media regurgitated much of the anti-Trump rhetoric together in sync with the tsunami
of fake news, either in creating it or knowingly participating in it. No wonder the news
media in a sudden shift have been trying to paint themselves as now being on the other side
of this Russkie Fubar after they promoted it 24/7 for two years without let-up. What's the
penalty for trying to overthrow the President of the United States? Lots of folks here are
sitting on potential indictments for treason. Enough talk. With all they got from the
Congressional hearings, and now this, it's time!!!... for Trump to start draining.
Because that is what (((they))) want. Do a little research on how that came about in the
US you will find that the same ole (((culprits))) got the law changed to their benefit of
course.
Lemmings get what they deserve.
Almost always as the iron law of oligarchy implies. Period of
revolution and social upheaval are probably the only exceptions.
In 2018 there is no doubt that Trump is an agent of Deep State, and
probably the most militant part of neocons. What he the
agent from the beginning or not is not so important. He managed to
fool electorate with false promises like Obama before him and get
elected.
Ask yourself why Sessions ordered Rosenstein to resign and Trump
declined his resignation? Likely because Sessions was recused from
Russia investigation and could not be told Rosenstein was working for
Trump from day 1.
(Mueller also met with Trump the day before Rosenstein appointed him
SC.)
Also relevant, Rosenstein is Republican and in 2007/8 was blocked
from getting a seat on appeals court by Dems. Doesn't seem he would be
loyal to the Obama crowd and trying to take down Trump with a phony
investigation.
You better
believe it. What's happened to the NYC detectives who viewed
the "insurance policy" on Weiner's laptop? The kiddie stuff is
the real hot potato here. The power "elite" are pure
unadulterated filth.
Yes....when you start to add up various facts coming from this
investigation it is easy to argue that the prime beneficiary has
been Trump. Why would Trump even consider firing this guy? The
more Mueller digs the more crap surfaces about the Dems, and they
are in full support of it without any seeming awareness of the
results. They are so blinded by their hatred they cannot see
reality.
The info from Weiner's computer is really going to make for
major popcorn sales. All Hitlery's "lost" emails are in there. All
the names in his address book will also make for some interesting
reading. Just a guess but there are a lot of very nervous NYC
elected officials and pedos making sure their passports are up to
date. The Lolita Express to Gitmo....
You guys see everything through Trump colored glasses. Trump is dirty and just
because the evidence hasn't been shown to you doesn't mean it isn't there.
Mueller has the dirt on Trump. It will show. Does everyone here forget that
Watergate took 2 1/2 years to play out?
Being in the business he is in, there is little doubt that Trump has paid
out millions of dollars over the years in bribes and payoffs to greedy
politicians, regulators, and zoning commissioners given to filthy lucre in
return for building permits, zoning variances, and law changes.
I know he
is but what are they? This could be one reason the politicians, regulators,
and zoning commissioners hate him so much. He knows what they know.
Trump is no dirtier than other politicians and much less than some.
He is just dirty in a way (he was usually the payer, they were the payees)
that bothers the other ones.
There is no man or
woman who has or ever will run for office that is not dirty.
As Dershowitz so acutely pointed out, every one of them with an
opposition Special Counsel on his case, can find at least 3 crimes they
committed.
The only reason theBamster wasn't probed at all is because no one dared
go after the only black man to ever run and win for POTUS. HE instead, was
protected from any probes.
You're an idiot that doesn't know anything about what this is really all
about. Or pretending to. Or a troll. Fuck you for being any of them.
Obama has a history of taking out his opponents in their personal life, so
that he doesnt have to meet them in the political arena, just look at his
state campaigns, and then his senate campaign. Look at how he used the
bureaucracy during his admin to preempt opposition, not allowing opposition
groups to get tax exempt status and sending osha/fbi/treasury etc to harrass
people that were more than marginally effective.
With that context set I would like to know the following.
1. Did the brennan/comey/clapper cabal have investigations running on all
the gop primary front runners?
2. Did they promote Trump to win the GOP primary, to eliminate those
rivals from consideration, just to attempt to destroy him in the general with
the russian collusion narrative and his own words.
3. Was Comey's failure to ensure Hillary's victory due to incompetence or
arrogance? I say arrogance, because his little late day announcement of the
new emails was obviously ass covering so that he could pass whatever senate
hearing that would be required for his new post in the hillary administration.
Having to learn how to deal with mobbed-up lawyers and unions in NYC turns out
the be pretty damned good preparation to be President Of The United States. I
love watching this guy work.
The illegitimate liberal MSM is sucking all the oxygen out of the room for
legitimate criticism of Trump. This Russian Collusion stormy daniels stuff is
a bunch of bologna, and it's making a smokescreen for Trump to carry out his
zio-bankster agenda.
Hegelian dialectic, Divide and conquer, kabuki
theater
For the most part I like Peter Schiff. I don't think he talks
enough about the criminal manipulation of commodities by the
banksters and the seemingly endless reluctance by our glorious
leaders to prosecute them.
On this topic: The lawlessness of
the 17 agencies is beyond the pale. They have set themselves
apart and for this they will have to pay eventually. I have no
doubt that in the minds of the Bureau principals there was motive
and there was opportunity. I don't believe anything that comes
out of their mouths. Robert Mueller is a three letter word for a
donkey. He is a criminal and a totally owned puppet of the deep
and dark state. Last I heard, the FBI planted a mole in the Trump
campaign. Iff true, that speaks volumes...
It is amazing that President Trump is still standing on his feet and still out
there swinging. The man is no coward. I'm glad I voted for him, although I am
disappointed in some of his failings.
"although I am disappointed in some of his failings."...
Yeah I know
just what ya mean...
The treason of war crimes he's committed exceeding all of his
predecessor(s) in his short assed existence as President and threatening
war on two nuclear superpowers that could easily wipe his office and 4
thousand square miles of CONUS "
off the map
"!...
Endorsing a torturer murder to head the CIA condoning her efforts in
public "thumbing his nose" at Article 3 Geneva the U.S. Constitution and
for his military to tacitly continue disobeying the UCMJ as a response
to that "selection"!...
Telling the parasitic partner that owns him through blackmail that
Jerusalem is the Capital of IsraHell as over 200 Palestinians are
murdered and 3 thousand others injured in joyous celebration of that
violation of international law which is the equivalent of pouring
"gasoline" on a building that has already been reduced to "ash"...
They didn't really think things through when they plotted against Trump and
figured Hillary would win and they could sweep this under the rug and then she
lost. Funnier is that many expected her to lose as she never won an election
in her life despite her being "The Most Qualified" candidate as her parrots in
the media lovingly called her. Now Trump and his team will stomp them all into
the ground. My guess is that he'll pinch others in her gang who have big egos
so that they'll talk and drop a dime which they will. The libtards are turning
on themselves in every area now. Look at Hollywood and the sexual harassment
cases in the pipeline.
It's just so pleasurable watching your enemy fall on their sword while you
sit back and enjoy life and smile....
Was the Trump campaign "Set-up"? It's just another way the oligarchy
is deflecting what the real problem is. Americans are fed up with the
political status quo in this country, and wanted a change. Neither political
party offers any change for the better. It is also why Bernie Sanders had a
huge following, but no one is calling his campaign a "set-up", and he would
have been the more likely choice the Russians would have helped.
It really doesn't make any sense why the Russians would have selected
Trump, but it makes a lot of sense why the oligarchy would want to discredit
Trump any means availble to them. And since they have always hated Russia so
much, that is the big tip-off of who comes up with these stupid stories about
Russians meddling in our elections.
We voted against the powers that be. With Truman, we got a decent man that
was manipulated by the Deep State. With Trump, we got a not-so-decent man,
but still manipulated by the Deep State. Sigh.
there needs to be a schedule drawn up of charges against individuals. it's
all very well talking and talking anf talking around the water cooler, but
until the charges are drawn up and a grand jury empowered, it is all
pissing into the wind.
the individuals range from obama through clinton,
through the loathsome slimebags in the alphabet soup, through foundations,
through DNC leaders/politicians, through Weiner, Abedin, Rice and the
witches cabal (Wasserstein Schulz etc), UK intel agencies, awan brothers,
pakistan intel supplying Iran with classified documents and so on.
there are charges (of treason, sedition, wilful mishandling of classifed
documents, bribery, corruption, murder, child trafficking, election
rigging, spying for/collusion with foreign powers, funding terrorism, child
abuse, election rigging/tampering, misappropriation of federal funds, theft
etc as well as general malfeasance, failure to perform duties and so on)
that are not being brought that are so obvious, only a snowflake would miss
them.
what charges can be brought against the MSM for propaganda,
misdirection, lying, fabrication and attempting to ovetthrow a legitimately
elected president using these techniques to further their own ends? there
is no freedom of the press to lie and further civil unrest.
a list of charges against individuals in the DNC/alphabet soup is what
is needed. if the DoJ is so incompetent or corrupt that it is unable to do
its job, private law suits need to be brought to get all the facts out in
the open.
someone needs to write the book and make it butt hole shaped to shove up
all those that try to make a living out of making up gossip in the NYT,
WaPo, CNN, BBC, Economist, Madcow, SNL, Oliver and so on.
these people are guilty of being assholes and need their assholes
(mouths) plugged with a very think fifteen inch book.
Trump might become a deep stater but he definitely wasn't one of
them. Google "offer to pay trump to drop out of election" and see
how many stories there were. Here is one of them.
I hope someone writes a book on this with all of the timing and all of the
"little" things that happened on the way to the coronation of Hillary.
Comey "interviews" Hillary on 4th of July weekend. Wraps up case by 9am
Tuesday after 4th of July. By noon, Hillary and Obama are on Air Force 1
to begin campaign. Within a few weeks Seth Rich is dead and DWS avoids
being "killed in an armed robbery gone bad" when she steps down as head of
DNC. Above article forgets to mention that GPS also hired the wife of
someone in the government as part of the "fact gathering" team.
"... On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in 14 questions pertaining to "actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." ..."
"... On September 26, 2017 , The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview. ..."
"... And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together - as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel. ..."
"... Who cares how many task forces, special prosecutors, grand juries, commissions, or other crap they throw at this black hole of corruption? We all know the score. The best we can hope for is that the liberals and neo-cons are embarrassed enough to crawl under a rock for awhile, and it slows down implementation of their Orwellian agenda for a few years. ..."
As we reported on
Thursday , a long-awaited report by the Department of Justice's internal watchdog into the Hillary Clinton email investigation
has moved into its final phase, as the DOJ notified multiple subjects mentioned in the document that they can privately review it
by week's end, and will have a "few days" to craft any response to criticism contained within the report, according to the
Wall Street Journal .
Those invited to review the report were told they would have to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to read it , people
familiar with the matter said. They are expected to have a few days to craft a response to any criticism in the report, which
will then be incorporated in the final version to be released in coming weeks . -
WSJ
Now, journalist Paul Sperry reports that " IG Horowitz has found "reasonable grounds" for believing there has been a violation
of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ's handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal
misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution ."
Who is Huber?
As we
reported
in March , Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed John Huber - Utah's top federal prosecutor, to be paired with IG Horowitz
to investigate the multitude of accusations of FBI misconduct surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The announcement came
one day after Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed that he will also be investigating allegations of FBI FISA abuse .
While Huber's appointment fell short of the second special counsel demanded by Congressional investigators and concerned citizens
alike, his appointment and subsequent pairing with Horowitz is notable - as many have pointed out that the Inspector General is significantly
limited in his abilities to investigate. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) noted in March " the IG's office does not have authority to compel
witness interviews, including from past employees, so its investigation will be limited in scope in comparison to a Special Counsel
investigation ,"
Sessions' pairing of Horowitz with Huber keeps the investigation under the DOJ's roof and out of the hands of an independent investigator
.
***
Who is Horowitz?
In January, we profiled Michael Horowitz based on thorough research assembled by independent investigators. For those who think
the upcoming OIG report is just going to be "all part of the show" - take pause; there's a good chance this is an actual happening,
so you may want to read up on the man whose year-long investigation may lead to criminal charges against those involved.
Horowitz was appointed head of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April, 2012 - after the Obama administration hobbled
the OIG's investigative powers in 2011 during the "Fast and Furious" scandal. The changes forced the various Inspectors General for
all government agencies to request information while conducting investigations, as opposed to the authority to demand it. This allowed
Holder (and other agency heads) to bog down OIG requests in bureaucratic red tape, and in some cases, deny them outright.
What did Horowitz do? As one twitter commentators puts it,
he went to war ...
In March of 2015, Horowitz's office
prepared
a report for Congress titled Open and Unimplemented IG Recommendations . It laid the Obama Admin bare before Congress - illustrating
among other things how the administration was wasting tens-of-billions of dollars by ignoring the recommendations made by the OIG.
After several attempts by congress to restore the OIG's investigative powers, Rep. Jason Chaffetz successfully introduced H.R.6450
- the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016 - signed by a defeated lame duck President Obama into law on
December 16th, 2016 , cementing an alliance between Horrowitz and both houses of Congress .
1) Due to the Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, the OIG has access to all of the information that the target agency
possesses. This not only includes their internal documentation and data, but also that which the agency externally collected and
documented.
See here for a complete overview of the
OIG's new and restored powers. And while the public won't get to see classified details of the OIG report, Mr. Horowitz is also big
on public disclosure:
Horowitz's efforts to roll back Eric Holder's restrictions on the OIG sealed the working relationship between Congress and the
Inspector General's ofice, and they most certainly appear to be on the same page. Moreover, FBI Director Christopher Wray seems to
be on the same page
Which brings us back to the OIG report
expected by Congress a week from Monday.
On January 12 of last year, Inspector Horowitz announced an OIG investigation based on " requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking
Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations (such as Judicial Watch?), and members of the public ."
The initial focus ranged from the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation, to whether or not Deputy FBI Director Andrew
McCabe should have been recused from the investigation (ostensibly over
$700,000 his wife's campaign took from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe around the time of the email investigation), to potential
collusion with the Clinton campaign and the timing of various FOIA releases. Which brings us back to the
OIG report expected by Congress a week from
Monday.
On July 27, 2017 the House Judiciary Committee called on the DOJ to appoint a Special Counsel, detailing their concerns in
14 questions pertaining to "actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey,
and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."
The questions range from Loretta Lynch directing Mr. Comey to mislead the American people on the nature of the Clinton investigation,
Secretary Clinton's mishandling of classified information and the (mis)handling of her email investigation by the FBI, the DOJ's
failure to empanel a grand jury to investigate Clinton, and questions about the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, and whether the
FBI relied on the "Trump-Russia" dossier created by Fusion GPS.
On September 26, 2017 , The House Judiciary Committee repeated their call to the DOJ for a special counsel, pointing out that
former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress when he said that he decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton
until after she was interviewed, when in fact Comey had drafted her exoneration before said interview.
And now, the OIG report can tie all of this together - as it will solidify requests by Congressional committees, while also
satisfying a legal requirement for the Department of Justice to impartially appoint a Special Counsel.
As illustrated below by TrumpSoldier , the report will go from the Office of the Inspector General to both investigative committees
of Congress, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and is expected within weeks .
Once congress has reviewed the OIG report, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees will use it to supplement their investigations
, which will result in hearings with the end goal of requesting or demanding a Special Counsel investigation. The DOJ can appoint
a Special Counsel at any point, or wait for Congress to demand one. If a request for a Special Counsel is ignored, Congress can pass
legislation to force an the appointment.
And while the DOJ could act on the OIG report and investigate / prosecute themselves without a Special Counsel, it is highly unlikely
that Congress would stand for that given the subjects of the investigation.
After the report's completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis,
the DOJ can take various actions regarding " Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about
everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded). "
Meanwhile, recent events appear to correspond with bullet points in both the original OIG investigation letter and the 7/27/2017
letter forwarded to the Inspector General:
... ... ...
With the wheels set in motion last week seemingly align with Congressional requests and the OIG mandate, and the upcoming OIG
report likely to serve as a foundational opinion, the DOJ will finally be empowered to move forward with an impartially appointed
Special Counsel.
"To save his presidency, Trump must expose a host of criminally cunning Deep State political operatives as enemies to the Constitution,
including John Brennan, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, James Comey and Robert Mueller - as well as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton."
Killing the Deep State , Dr Jerome Corsi, PhD., p xi
I've been more than upfront about my philosophy. I have said on more than one occasion that progs will rue the day they drove
a New Yorker like Trump even further to the right.
Now you see it in his actions from the judiciary to bureaucracy destruction to (pick any) and...as I often cite... some old
dead white guy once said ..."First they came for the ___ and I did not speak out. Then they came for..."
Now I advocate for progs to swim in their own deadly juices, without a moment's hesitation on my part, without any furtive
look back, without remorse or any compassion whatsover.
Forward! ...I think is what they said, welcome to the Death Star ;-)
There have been (and are) plenty on "our side"...Boehner, Cantor, McCain, Romney and the thinly disguised "social democrat"
Bill Kristol just to name several off the top of my head but the thing is, they always have to hide what they really are from
us until rooted out.
That's what I try to point out to "our friends" on the left all the time, for example, there was never any doubt that Chris
Dodd, Bwaney Fwank and Chuck Schumer were (and are) in Wall Streets back pocket. But for any prog to openly admit that is to sign
some sort of personal death warrant, to be ostracized, blacklisted and harassed out of "the liberal community" so, they bite their
tongue & say nothing...knowing what the truth really is.
Hell, they even named a "financial reform bill" after Dodd & Frank...LMAO!!!
It's just the dripping hypocrisy that gets me.
For another example, they knew what was going on with Weinstein, Lauer, Spacey, Rose etal but as long as the cash flowed and
they towed-the-prog-BS-line outwardly, they gladly looked the other way and in the end...The Oprah...gives a speech in front of
them (as they bark & clap like trained seals) about...Jim Crow?
Jim Crow?!...lol...one has nothing to do with the other Oprah! The perps & enablers are sitting right there in front of you!
"After the report's completion, the DOJ will weigh in on it. Their comments are key. As TrumpSoldier points out in his analysis,
the DOJ can take various actions regarding " Policy, personnel, procedures, and re-opening of investigations. In short, just about
everything (Immunity agreements can also be rescinded). "
Rescind Immunity, absolutely damn right, put them ALL under oath and on the stand! This is huge! Indeed this goes all the way
to the top, would like to see Obama and the 'career criminal' testify under oath explaining how their tribe conspired to frame
Trump and the American people.
Hell, put them on trial in a military court for Treason, what's the punishment for Treason these days???
Also would like to see Kerry get fried under the 'Logan Act'!
As are half of their fellow travelers in the GOP. Neocon liars. Talk small constitutional govt then vote for war. Those two
are direct opposites, war and small govt. The liars must be exposed and removed. The Never Trumpers have outed themselves but
many are hiding in plain sight proclaiming they support the President. It appears they have manipulated Trump into an aggressive
stance against Russia with their anti Russia hysteria. Time will tell. The bank and armament industries must be removed from any
kind of influence within our govt. Most of these are run by big govt collectivists aka communists/globalists.
Who cares how many task forces, special prosecutors, grand juries, commissions, or other crap they throw at this black
hole of corruption? We all know the score. The best we can hope for is that the liberals and neo-cons are embarrassed enough to
crawl under a rock for awhile, and it slows down implementation of their Orwellian agenda for a few years.
"... "The main difficulty with choosing an investment adviser is that by the time you know enough to choose a good one, you probably know enough to do your financial planning and asset management on your own." ..."
There is no substitute to self-education. Those unwilling to learn are destined to repeat
these same mistakes. The financial-advice industry is too rife with conflicts of
interest for you to enter without equipping yourself with knowledge.
Maybe the best summation is by Dr. James M. Dahle in his book "
The White Coat Investor ." He says: "The main difficulty with choosing an investment
adviser is that by the time you know enough to choose a good one, you probably know enough to
do your financial planning and asset management on your own."
You can find
extensive information here to help you become a DIY investor. There are plenty of others
dedicated to demystifying the process of investing as well.
Take time and educate yourself. Then, if you still think you still need help with your
investments and financial planning, go out armed with knowledge and find a financial adviser
that fits your needs.
Chris Mamula used principles of traditional retirement planning, combined with
creative lifestyle design, to retire from a career as a physical therapist at age 41. This was
first published on the blog site Can I
Retire Yet?
"... Another defect of neoliberal economics is the doctrine's denial that resources are finite and their exhaustion a heavy cost not born by those who exploit the resources. Many local and regional civilizations have collapsed from exhaustion of the surrounding resources. Entire books have been written about this, but it is not part of neoliberal economics. Supplement study of Hudson with study of ecological economists such as Herman Daly. ..."
Readers ask me how they can learn economics, what books to read, what university economics
departments to trust. I receive so many requests that it is impossible to reply individually.
Here is my answer.
There is only one way to learn economics, and that is to read Michael Hudson's books. It is
not an easy task. You will need a glossary of terms. In some of Hudson's books, if memory
serves, he provides a glossary, and his recent book "J Is for Junk Economics" defines the
classical economic terms that he uses. You will also need patience, because Hudson sometimes
forgets in his explanations that the rest of us don't know what he knows.
The economics taught today is known as neoliberal. This economics differs fundamentally from
classical economics that Hudson represents. For example, classical economics stresses taxing
economic rent instead of labor and real investment, while neo-liberal economics does the
opposite.
An economic rent is unearned income that accrues to an owner from an increase in value that
he did nothing to produce. For example, a new road is built at public expense that opens land
to development and raises its value, or a transportation system is constructed in a city that
raises the value of nearby properties. These increases in values are economic rents. Classical
economists would tax away the increase in values in order to pay for the road or transportation
system.
Neoliberal economists redefined all income as earned. This enables the financial system to
capitalize economic rents into mortgages that pay interest. The higher property values created
by the road or transportation system boost the mortgage value of the properties. The
financialization of the economy is the process of drawing income away from the purchases of
goods and services into interest and fees to financial entities such as banks. Indebtedness and
debt accumulate, drawing more income into their service until there is no purchasing power left
to drive the economy.
For example, formerly in the US lenders would provide a home mortgage whose service required
up to 25% of the family's monthly income. That left 75% of the family's income for other
purchases. Today lenders will provide mortgages that eat up half of the monthly income in
mortgage service, leaving only 50% of family income for other purchases. In other words, a
financialized economy is one that diverts purchasing power away from productive enterprise into
debt service.
Hudson shows that international trade and foreign debt also comprise a financialization
process, only this time a country's entire resources are capitalized into a mortgage. The West
sells a country a development plan and a loan to pay for it. When the debt cannot be serviced,
the country is forced to impose austerity on the population by cutbacks in education, health
care, public support systems, and government employment and also to privatize public assets
such as mineral rights, land, water systems and ports in order to raise the capital with which
to pay off the loan. Effectively, the country passes into foreign ownership. This now happens
even to European Community members such as Greece and Portugal.
Another defect of neoliberal economics is the doctrine's denial that resources are
finite and their exhaustion a heavy cost not born by those who exploit the resources. Many
local and regional civilizations have collapsed from exhaustion of the surrounding resources.
Entire books have been written about this, but it is not part of neoliberal economics.
Supplement study of Hudson with study of ecological economists such as Herman Daly.
The neglect of external costs is a crippling failure of neoliberal economics. An external
cost is a cost imposed on a party that does not share in the income from the activity that
creates the cost. I recently wrote about the external costs of real estate speculators.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/26/capitalism-works-capitalists/
Fracking, mining, oil and gas exploration, pipelines, industries, manufacturing, waste
disposal, and so on have heavy external costs associated with the activities.
Neoliberal economists treat external costs as a non-problem, because they theorize that the
costs can be compensated, but they seldom are. Oil spills result in companies having to pay
cleanup costs and compensation to those who suffered economically from the oil spill, but most
external costs go unaddressed. If external costs had to be compensated, in many cases the costs
would exceed the value of the projects. How, for example, do you compensate for a polluted
river? If you think that is hard, how would the short-sighted destroyers of the Amazon rain
forest go about compensating the rest of the world for the destruction of species and for the
destructive climate changes that they are setting in motion? Herman Daly has pointed out that
as Gross Domestic Product accounting does not take account of external costs and resource
exhaustion, we have no idea if the value of output is greater than all of the costs associated
with its production. The Soviet economy collapsed, because the value of outputs was less than
the value of inputs.
Supply-side economics, with which I am associated, is not an alternative theory to
neoliberal economics. Supply-side economics is a successful correction to neoliberal
macroeconomic management. Keynesian demand management resulted in stagflation and worsening
Phillips Curve trade-offs between employment and inflation. Supply-side economics cured
stagflation by reversing the economic policy mix. I have told this story many times. You can
find a concise explanation in my short book, "The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalsim." This
book also offers insights into other failures of neoliberal economics and for that reason would
serve as a background introduction to Hudson's books.
I can make some suggestions, but the order in which you read Michael Hudson is up to you. "J
is for Junk Economics" is a way to get information in short passages that will make you
familiar with the terms of classical economic analysis. "Killing the Host" and "The Bubble and
Beyond" will explain how an economy run to maximize debt is an economy that is
self-destructing. "Super Imperialism" and "Trade, Development and Foreign Debt" will show you
how dominant countries concentrate world economic power in their hands. "Debt and Economic
Renewal in the Ancient Near East" is the story of how ancient economies dying from excessive
debt renewed their lease on life via debt forgiveness.
Once you learn Hudson, you will know real economics, not the junk economics marketed by
Nobel prize winners in economics, university economic departments, and Wall Street economists.
Neoliberal economics is a shield for financialization, resource exhaustion, external costs, and
capitalist exploitation.
Neoliberal economics is the world's reigning economics. Russia is suffering much more from
neoliberal economics than from Washington's economic sanctions. China herself is overrun with
US trained neoliberal economists whose policy advice is almost certain to put China on the same
path to failure as all other neoliberal economies.
It is probably impossible to change anything for two main reasons. One is that so many
greed-driven private economic activities are protected by neoliberal economics. So many
exploitative institutions and laws are in place that to overturn them would require a more
thorough revolution than Lenin's. The other is that economists have their entire human capital
invested in neoliberal economics. There is scant chance that they are going to start over with
study of the classical economists.
Neoliberal economics is an essential part of The Matrix, the false reality in which
Americans and Europeans live. Neoliberal economics permits an endless number of economic lies.
For example, the US is said to be in a long economic recovery that began in June 2009, but the
labor force participation rate has fallen continuously throughout the period of alleged
recovery. In previous recoveries the participation rate has risen as people enter the work
force to take advantage of the new jobs.
In April the unemployment rate is claimed to have fallen to 3.9 percent, but the
participation rate fell also. Neoliberal economists explain away the contradiction by claiming
that the falling participation rate is due to the retirement of the baby boom generation, but
BLS jobs statistics indicate that those 55 and older account for a large percentage of the new
jobs during the alleged recovery. This is the age class of people forced into the part time
jobs available by the absence of interest income on their retirement savings. What is really
happening is that the unemployment rate does not include discouraged workers, who have given up
searching for jobs as there are none to be found. The true measure of the unemployment rate is
the decline in the labor force participation rate, not a 3.9 percent rate concocted by not
counting those millions of Americans who cannot find jobs. If the unemployment rate really was
3.9 percent, there would be labor shortages and rising wages, but wages are stagnant. These
anomalies pass without comment from neoliberal economists.
The long expansion since June 2009 might simply be a statistical artifact due to the
under-measurement of inflation, which inflates the GDP figure. Inflation is under-estimated,
because goods and services that rise in price are taken out of the index and less costly
substitutes are put in their place and because price increases are explained away as quality
improvements. In other words, statistical manipulation produces the favorable picture required
by The Matrix.
Since the financial collapse caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall and by financial
deregulation, the Federal Reserve has robbed tens of millions of American savers by driving
real interest rates down to zero for the sole purpose of saving the "banks too big to fail"
that financial deregulation created. A handful of banks has been provided with free money -- in
addition to the money that the Federal Reserve created in order to take the banks' bad
derivative investments off their hands -- to put on deposit with the Fed from which to collect
interest payments and with which to speculate and to drive up stock prices.
In other words, for a decade the economic policy of the United States has been run for the
benefit of a few highly concentrated financial interests at the expense of the American people.
The economic policy of the United States has been used to create economic rents for the
mega-rich.
Neoliberal economists point out that during the 1950s the labor force participation rate was
much lower than today and, thereby, they imply that the higher rates prior to the current
"recovery" are an anomaly. Neoliberal economists have no historical knowledge as the past is of
no interest to them. They do not even know the history of economic thought. Whether from
ignorance or intentional deception, neoliberal economists ignore that the lower labor force
participation rates of the 1950s reflect a time when married women were at home, not in the
work force. In those halcyon days, one earner was all it took to sustain a family. I remember
the days when the function of a married woman was to provide household services for the
family.
But capitalists were not content to exploit only one member of a family. They wanted more,
and by using economic policy to suppress pay while fomenting inflation, they drove married
women into the work force, imposing huge external costs on the family, child-raising, relations
between spouses, and on the children themselves. The divorce rate has exploded to 50 percent
and single-parent households are common in America.
In effect, unleashed Capitalism has destroyed America. Privatization is now eating away
Europe. Russia is on the same track as a result of its neoliberal brainwashing by American
economists. China's love of success and money could doom this rising Asian giant as well if the
government opens China to foreign finance capital and privatizes public assets that end up in
foreign hands.
The economist John Maynard Keynes said "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do
you do, sir?" But many students continue to be deceived by their professors who, even
after the great financial crisis, refuse to change their mind and continue to actively peddle
theories that are plain wrong. So on the show we ask if the academics are failing us, how do we
begin to reverse such a heavily entrenched education system? Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by
Professor Steve Keen and the author and economist Steven Payson.
Geologist Arthur Berman, who has been skeptical about the shale boom,
warned on Thursday that the Permian's best years are gone and that the most productive U.S.
shale play has just seven years of proven oil reserves left.
"The best years are behind us," Bloomberg quoted Berman as saying at the Texas Energy
Council's annual gathering in Dallas.
The Eagle Ford is not looking good, either, according to Berman, who is now working as an
industry consultant, and whose pessimistic outlook is based on analyses of data about reserves
and production from more than a dozen prominent U.S. shale companies.
"The growth is done," he said at the gathering.
Those who think that the U.S. shale production could add significant crude oil supply to the
global market are in for a disappointment, according to Berman.
"The reserves are respectable but they ain't great and ain't going to save the world,"
Bloomberg quoted Berman as saying.
Yet, Berman has not sold the EOG Resources stock that he has inherited from his father
"because they're a pretty good company."
The short-term drilling productivity outlook by the EIA estimates that the Permian's oil
production hit 3.110 million bpd in April, and will rise by 73,000 bpd to 3.183
million bpd in May.
Earlier this week, the EIA raised its forecast for total U.S. production
this year and next. In the latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), the EIA said that it
expects U.S. crude oil production to average 10.7 million bpd in 2018, up from 9.4 million bpd
in 2017, and to average 11.9 million bpd in 2019, which is 400,000 bpd higher than forecast in
the April STEO. In the current outlook, the EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production will end
2019 at more than 12 million bpd.
Yet, production is starting to outpace takeaway capacity in the Permian, creating
bottlenecks that could slow down the growth pace.
Drillers may soon start to test the Permian region's geological limits, Wood Mackenzie has
warned. And if E&P companies can't overcome the geological constraints with tech
breakthroughs, WoodMac has warned that Permian production could
peak in 2021 , putting more than 1.5 million bpd of future production in question, and
potentially significantly influencing oil prices.
The takeaway bottlenecks have hit WTI crude oil priced in Midland, Texas, which declined
sharply compared with Brent in April, the EIA said in the May STEO.
" As production grows beyond the capacity of existing pipeline infrastructure, producers
must use more expensive forms of transportation, including rail and trucks. As a result, WTI
Midland price spreads widened to the largest discount to Brent since 2014. The WTI Midland
differential to Brent settled at -$17.69/b on May 3, which represents a widening of $9.76/b
since April 2," the EIA said.
Attention
Hookers : Special Counsel urgently needs your stories. We pay top dollar. Big tits, role-play,
and lying required. Television experience preferred. No drug screening. No background check.
Transportation included.
Call 1-800-George-Soros or contact the Law Offices of Wray, Mueller, and Rosenstein,
LLC.
"... Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website , so you'll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , checking out my podcast , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . ..."
"... People are not turning to the MSM, they are heading straight to: MoA, ZH, PCR, RT... this is where people now turn to find the truth! The two most frequent, each appearing in six out of seven datasets? ZeroHedge and RT. ..."
"... I have never been a Trump supporter, but IMO the one positive I saw back in the elections is that his character would bring about exactly this loss of trust. Not "He's bad and we can't trust him," so much as the fact that he's polarizing, and will fight everyone, and has inadvertently caused a lot of bad people to expose themselves. ..."
I sometimes try to get
establishment loyalists to explain to me exactly why we're all meant to be terrified of this
"Russian propaganda" thing they keep carrying on about. What is the threat, specifically?
That it makes the public less willing to go to war with Russia and its allies? That it makes us
less trusting of lying, torturing, coup-staging intelligence agencies? Does accidentally catching a
glimpse of that green RT logo turn you to stone like Medusa, or melt your face like in
Raiders
of the Lost Ark
?
"Well, it makes us lose trust in our institutions,"
is the most common
reply.
Okay. So? Where's the threat there?
We know for a fact that we've been lied to
by those institutions. Iraq isn't just something we imagined
. We should be skeptical of
claims made by western governments, intelligence agencies and mass media. How specifically is that
skepticism dangerous?
When you try to get down to the brass tacks of the actual argument being made and demand
specific details about the specific threats we're meant to be worried about, there aren't any to be
found. Nobody's been able to tell me what specifically is so dangerous about westerners being
exposed to the Russian side of international debates, or of Russians giving a platform to one
or
both sides
of an American domestic debate. Even if every single one of the allegations about
Russian bots and disinformation are true (
and
they aren't
), where is the actual clear and present danger? No one can say.
In an absolutely jaw-dropping
article
that you should definitely read in its entirety
, Elizabeth Braw took it upon herself to finally
answer the question of why Russian propaganda is so dangerous, using the following hypothetical
scenario
:
What if Russia suddenly announced that its Baltic Fleet had dispatched an armada towards
Britain? Would most people greet the news with steely resolve in the knowledge that their
governments would know what to do, or would constant Kremlin-influenced reports about the
incompetence of British institutions make them conclude that any resistance was pointless?
I mean, wow. Wow! Just wow. Where to even begin with this?
Back to the aforementioned excerpt. Braw claims that if Russian propaganda isn't shut down or
counteracted, Russia could send a fleet of war ships to attack Britain, and the British people
would react unenthusiastically? Wouldn't cheer loudly enough as the British Navy fought the
Russians? Would have a defeatist emotional demeanor? What exactly is the argument here?
That's seriously her only attempt to directly address the question of where the actual
danger is. Even in the most cartoonishly dramatic hypothetical scenario this Atlantic Council
member can possibly imagine, there's
still
no tangible threat of any kind.
Even
if Russia was directly attacking the United Kingdom at home, and Russian propaganda had somehow
magically dominated all British airwaves and been believed by the entire country, that still
wouldn't have any impact on the British military's ability to fight a naval battle. There's
literally no extent to which you can inflate this "Russian propaganda" hysteria to turn it into a
possible threat to actual people in real life.
Such responses to disinformation are like swatting flies: time-consuming and ineffective. But
not addressing disinformation is ineffective, too. "Western media still have this thing where
they try to be completely balanced, so they'll say, 'the Russians say this, but on the other
hand the Americans say this is not true,' They end up giving a lie and the truth the same
value," noted Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia.
I just have so many questions. Like, how desperate does a writer have to be for an
expert who can lend credibility to their argument that they have to reach all the way over to a
former president of Estonia?
And on what planet are these people living where Russian
narratives are given the same weight as western narratives by western mainstream media? How can I
get to this fantastical parallel dimension where western media "try to be completely balanced" and
give equal coverage to all perspectives?
Braw argues that,
because Russian propaganda is so dangerous (what with the
threat of British people having insufficient emotional exuberance during a possible naval battle
and all), what is required is a "NATO of infowar", an alliance of western state media that is
tasked with combatting Russian counter-narratives.
Because, in the strange
Dungeons
& Dragons
fantasy fairy world in which Braw penned her article, this isn't already happening.
And of course, here in the real world, it
is
already happening. As
I
wrote recently
, mainstream media outlets have been going out of their minds churning out attack
editorials on anyone who questions the establishment narrative about what happened in Douma. A BBC
reporter
recently
admonished a retired British naval officer
for voicing skepticism of what we're being told
about Syria on the grounds that it might "muddy the waters" of the "information war" that is being
fought against Russia. All day, every day, western mass media are pummeling the public with stories
about how awful and scary Russians are and how everything they say is a lie.
This is because western mass media outlets are owned by western plutocrats, and those
plutocrats have built their empires upon a status quo that they have a vested interest in
preserving,
often to the point where they will
form
alliances with defense and intelligence agencies
to do so. They hire executives and editors who
subscribe to a pro-establishment worldview, who in turn hire journalists who subscribe to a
pro-establishment worldview, and in that way they ensure that all plutocrat-owned media outlets are
advancing pro-plutocrat agendas.
The western empire is ruled by a loose transnational alliance of plutocrats and
secretive government agencies. That loose alliance is your real government, and that government has
the largest state media network in the history of civilization. The mass media propaganda machine
of the western empire makes RT look like your grandmother's Facebook wall.
In that way, we are being propagandized constantly by the people who really rule us. All this
panic about Russian propaganda doesn't exist because our dear leaders have a problem with
propaganda, it exists because they believe only
they
should be allowed to propagandize us.
And, unlike Russian propaganda, western establishment propaganda actually
does
pose a
direct threat to us. By using mass media to manipulate the ways we think and vote, our true rulers
can persuade us to consent to
crushing
austerity measures and political impotence
while the oligarchs grow richer and medicine money
is spent on bombs. When we should all be revolting against an oppressive Orwellian oligarchy, we
are instead lulled to sleep by those same oligarchs and their hired talking heads lying to us about
freedom and democracy.
Russian propaganda is not dangerous. Having access to other ways of looking at
global geopolitics is not dangerous. What absolutely is dangerous is a vast empire concerning
itself with the information and ideas that its citizenry have access to.
Get your
rapey, manipulative fingers out of our minds, please.
If our dear leaders are so worried about our losing faith in our institutions, they
shouldn't be concerning themselves with manipulating us into trusting them, they should be making
those institutions more trustworthy.
Don't manipulate better,
be
better. The fact that an influential think
tank is now openly advocating the former over the latter should concern us all.
* * *
Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is
to get on the mailing list for my
website
,
so you'll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely
reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking
me on
Facebook
,
following my antics on
Twitter
, checking
out my
podcast
, throwing some
money into my hat on
Patreon
or
Paypal
,
or
buying my new book
Woke:
A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers
.
People are not turning to the MSM, they are heading straight to: MoA, ZH, PCR, RT... this is where people now turn to find
the truth! The two most frequent, each appearing in six out of seven datasets? ZeroHedge and RT.
"Well, it makes us lose trust in our institutions," is the most
common reply.
I have never been a Trump supporter, but IMO the
one positive I saw back in the elections is that his character would
bring about exactly this loss of trust. Not "He's bad and we can't trust
him," so much as the fact that he's polarizing, and will fight everyone,
and has inadvertently caused a lot of bad people to expose themselves.
Why should you trust people who think they have the right to take
whatever amount of your money they want, use it for any purpose they
want, and also who believe they have the right to harass, torture,
stalk, or kill whoever they want, on any pretext they feel like thinking
up?
The Atlantic Council is just another tentacle of the Soros Squid. The man should
have been dealt with as a Nazi collaborator in the aftermath of World War 2.
Unfortunately for humanity, he evaded accountability for his crimes against
humanity during the war.
Judge Mulls Dismissal Of Manafort Charges, "Sharply Questioned" Mueller Overreach
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 05/04/2018 - 11:39 4.1K SHARES
Like most motions to dismiss, Paul Manafort's was initially viewed as a long-shot bid to win
the political operative his freedom and get out from under the thumb of Special Counsel Robert
Mueller.
But after today's hearing on a motion to dismiss filed by Manafort's lawyers, it's looking
increasingly likely that Manafort could escape his charges - and be free of his ankle bracelets
- because in a surprising rebuke of Mueller's "overreach", Eastern District of Virginia Judge
T.S. Ellis, a Reagan appointee, said Mueller shouldn't have "unfettered power" to prosecute
over charges that have nothing to do with collusion between the Trump campaign and the
Russians.
Ellis said he's concerned Mueller is only pursuing charges against Manafort (and presumably
other individuals) to pressure them into turning on Trump. The Judge added that the charges
brought against Manafort didn't appear to stem from Mueller's collusion probe. Instead, they
appeared to be the work of an older investigation into Manafort that was eventually
dropped.
"I don't see how this indictment has anything to do with anything the special prosecutor is
authorized to investigate," Ellis said at a hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia,
concerning a motion by Manafort to dismiss the case.
It got better: Ellis also slammed prosecutors saying it appeared they were using the
indictment of Manafort to pressure him to cooperate against Trump. Manafort, 69, has pleaded
not guilty and disputes Mueller's assertion that he violated U.S. laws when he worked for a
decade as a political consultant for pro-Russian groups in Ukraine.
"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud," Ellis said. "You really care about
what information he might give you about Mr. Trump and what might lead to his impeachment or
prosecution. "
According to Bloomberg, Ellis is overseeing one of two indictments against Manafort.
Manafort is also charged in Washington with money laundering and failing to register as a
foreign agent of Ukraine.
* * *
Manafort's lawyers had asked the judge in the Virginia case to dismiss an indictment filed
against him in what was their third effort to beat back criminal charges by attacking Mueller's
authority. The judge also questioned why Manafort's case there could not be handled by the U.S.
attorney's office in Virginia, rather than the special counsel's office, as it is not
Russia-related . A question many others have asked, as well.
Ellis has given prosecutors two weeks to show what evidence they have that Manafort was
complicit in colluding with the Russians. If they can't come up with any, he may, presumably,
dismiss the case. Ellis also asked the special counsel's office to share privately with him a
copy of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein's August 2017 memo elaborating on the scope of
Mueller's Russia probe. He said the current version he has been heavily redacted.
At that point, should nothing change materially, Manafort may be a free man; needless to
say, a dismissal would set precedent and be nothing short of groundbreaking by potentially
making it much harder for Mueller to turn other witnesses against the president.
... hedging contracts could result in
US$7 billion in losses if WTI prices were to stabilize at $68 a barrel this year, Wood
Mackenzie analyst Andrew McConn told Bloomberg in an interview.
Just when during WW1 the British determined they were going to be backstabbed by their American cousins is unknown to me, but
hopefully my unfinished research into that era will provide an answer. Clearly, Keynes knew what would occur as he observed the
proceedings at Versailles, which prompted him to go to Marseilles to write Consequences. I greatly disagree with most of
Wikipedia's discussion of
Consequences except for this bit in the intro:
"In his book, he argued for a much more generous peace, not out of a desire for justice or fairness – these are aspects of
the peace that Keynes does not deal with – but for the sake of the economic well-being of all of Europe, including the Allied
Powers, which the Treaty of Versailles and its associated treaties would prevent. [My Emphasis]
Thanks to Wilson's stroke, we'll never know how he really felt about the last months of his administration; his wife becoming
the first de facto female president of the USA. One of the better indicators about the nascent Deep States's feeling about Versailles
is their behavior during the 1920s as it laid the ground work for the Great Depression's onslaught with Dollar Diplomacy and Teapot
Dome exemplifying its moral compass. Prohibition's gangsters and coppers provided the required distraction of the masses until
the money vanished. Then came radio, the beginnings of mass media and onset of media conglomeration.
i think what is missing in your analysis "how governments that print their own currency such as US, UK and China can print
as much as they want and use it as they like" is the key acknowledgement that the us$ has been used as world currency.
and Canada.
The US $ is the World Currency because the US is the only country in the World that exports it's currency more than $0.5 Trillion/year.
Like a virus really. It's that simple if the US didn't export $ it wouldn't be the reserve currency.
The other part about sovereigns being able to "print all they want" is a falsehood without context.
First of all, when people refer to "printing" it usually means "spending" although I'm not sure they think of it in those terms.
The actual printing of physical currency/coins moves money from checking accounts in the banking system to petty cash accounts.
No new money is created by that kind of "printing". About 2% of US $ is coins or currency, the rest exists only on balance sheets.
Secondly, a sovereign is able to buy anything for sale in it's own currency as long as the resource being bought exists and
is for sale. You can't buy something that doesn't exist. The constraint on money creation is resources not arithmetic, which is
the most widely misunderstood characteristic of fiat currencies.
Further, a sovereign that HAS NO DEBT IN A FOREIGN CURRENCY has zero risk of insolvency there is no liability (in it's own
currency) a sovereign cannot satisfy. The US holds no foreign debt. Nor does Canada, Australia, Japan, UK, etc. as far as I know.
Every member in the Eurozone is a de-facto holder of foreign debt (the Euro member countries cannot freely create Euro's. They
are more like private borrowers).
gov'ts were in a position to print their own money and not have to pay interest thru the private banking sector for it.
James, this is another myth unless you are talking about the Eurozone. The US Federal government does not pay interest to the
banking sector, it pays interest to holders of Treasury securities. To do so was a CHOICE not a requirement. Paying interest on
previously created monies was voluntary. Congress created the banking system (for the US) through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913,
which created and governs the banking system, and chose to pay interest later after WWI I believe (probably as a give-away to
bankers who didn't think they made enough money off of WWi). MRW knows a lot more about this history if he's around.
Interest paid on the "debt" (all money is debt, interest or not by definition) is a net transfer of funds to the private sector
(those who hold Treasury securities). Those funds increase the money supply. Anyone can hold Treasury securities, not just banks.
They are a risk-free investment vehicle (the only one).
Further, it is the Fed that sets interest rates, not the bond-holders ("bond vigilantes") as they are referred to. 10 years
of zero-interest rates post 2008 should be proof enough of that.
Treasury securities (bonds) move $ from a checking account at the Fed to a savings account at the FED. They are $ that earn
interest. This is all explained in the Mosler pdf I linked to.
In double-entry accounting a National Debt™ for the government is NATIONAL SAVINGS for the citizens, as are the interest payments.
All this worry about sovereign debt is silliness. Without sovereign debt the currency of issue wouldn't exist. Sovereign debt
is our money (although the elites won't let us acquire much of it).
Of course the Marxist critique of and challenge to Capitalism was central in all this ! The West was competing with the East (
simplifying)and when this situation changed with Anglo Hegemony 1990 , these balances that had seen overall development towards
the 'welfare state ' disintegrated .
Once the U S got its opportunistic run at this situation, crudely grasping for further power we rapidly reached the present
situation , with its repeat of World War scenarios , as competing economic / militarised blocs do exactly that !
Yes, Mosler not being an economist is a feature, not a bug. I agree, economists are idiots, but I suspect they're paid idiots.
What's the Upton Sinclair quote ?
From where I sit MMT savvy economists are not idiots. They are however outcasts. If your not an insider you're an outsider,
and outsiders don't get to make the big money, if they don't starve.
Here's a video excerpt regarding our pre-eminent economist Paul Krugman lest you think he isn't in on the con:
@176 paulmeli.. thanks.. i had to read your comment a few times, and it still isn't sinking in fully.. i am getting some of it,
but maybe it is my conspiracy run brain that wants to know how we've been screwed over by the banks.. that is what i believe has
happened...MRW.. haven't seen him in a good while.. every time he would come all my negative stereo types about the private banking
sector were put on hold, as i recall!
i think a lot of this has to do with exporting / importing between countries... especially the part about holding foreign debt..
how does another country pay for something? this is why we read today of how russia, china and iran are getting into financial
arrangements whereby they don't have to go thru the us$.. wasn't this a good part of the reason the usa went to war in iraq, or
libya? iraq and libya wanted to trade in euros, as opposed to us$.. well - hopefully MRW can come and bring me back to reality!
it seems the world financial markets are one big ponzi scheme... think of the derivative markets.. one is not trading in some
actual commodity.. it is increasingly opaque and shrouded in speculation, while run on computers...
i am sorry paul, but i can only go so far in my understanding here.. as i understand it, something is very wrong in the financial
system at present.. it is also the reason these financial sanction games are typically a lead up to war... one group has undue
power and influence over the worlds finances - the usa - and they exercise this clout via sanctions, and if that doesn't work
- war / regime change - etc. etc... obviously i am missing something here, but i will be damned if i buy the official hokum from
an economist! thanks for trying to educate me.. n
I despise Netanyahu but please change the headline from Netanyahoo as Yahoo was used as an antisemtic slur in the past. I'm sure
the author was not aware of this outdated meaning but it does the cause harm. Thank you.
something is very wrong in the financial system at present..
I think it's always been this way but now the corruption is so out in the open it seems like it's worse. I'm not sure it is.
The way finance corrupts is that obscene riches are offered to state leaders to sell out their own citizens for pennies on
the dollar. And they do it, because if they don't regime change will follow. It's similar to the way corporate raiders take over
businesses, sell off the assets and load the business up with debt, then sell what's left. With all of that debt said business
has no chance of success. A handful of financial guys (parasites of the worse kind) walk away with the cash.
Corporate strip-mining - the business plan is simple and it's always the same - no matter if it's a business or a country.
Something to keep in mind about all of this Iran business is that Trump can now move full speed ahead with Bolton and Pompeo in
place. I find it oddly comforting that, generally speaking, Trump and his administration make no attempt to cloak their psychopathy
in coded language. I thought these remarks from Pompeo yesterday as he addressed the lackeys at Foggy Bottom yesterday particularly
illuminating in this regard:
"I talked at my hearing about the fact that this nation is so exceptional, and so incredibly blessed and the facts that derive
from that are that it also creates a responsibility, a duty for America all across the world. And I know for certain that America
can't execute that duty, can't achieve its objectives absent you all. Absent executing America's foreign policy in every corner
of the world with incredible vigor and incredible energy. And I look forward to helping you all advance that."
Money supply increases with debt creation and decreases with debt payment. Wipe out all debt and money supply is zero. Taking
out a loan is an example of money creation. The money does not exist in the system till its deposited into your account. Paying
off the mortgage depletes the money supply.
Its true that the government does not pay interest on money the Fed loans them. Thats why so little is loaned directly to the
government until the last crash. Money is not created by interest. That money does not exist without new debt. The government
borrows the money to pay the interest.
A key reason the US is the reserve currency is OPEC. OPEC serves Big Oil interests which is interlocked with Big Banking and
requires purchases of Oil to be in USD. Hence the name Petro Dollar. OPEC may produce the oil but its The Big Oil (4 sisters)
that transports most of it to market, refines much of it and provides the equipment for OPEC members to get the oil out of the
ground.
We also export a tremendous amount of food that requires payment in USD, and US manufacturing is now in China and consumer
debt allows us to purchase a great amount of goods from China in USD. Manufacturers in China need to pay expenses in RMB so sell
USD to Chinese banks. Chinas Central Bank Prints up RMB at no interest to buy the USD and then loans it to the US at interest.
Its a perfect system and is basically why the USD will never fail unless those in control want it to.
Comey, who was FBI chief from 2013 to 2017, was quoting a line reputedly uttered by
Martin Luther in 1521, when he told Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that he would not recan t his sweeping criticisms of the Catholic
Church. Comey's quotation of himself quoting the father of the Reformation is par for the self-reverence of his new memoir, A Higher
Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership .
MSNBC host Chris Matthews recently declared,
"James Comey made his bones by standing up against torture. He was a made man before Trump came along."
Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria , in a column declaring that Americans should be "deeply grateful" to lawyers like Comey,
declared, "The Bush administration wanted to claim that its 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were lawful. Comey believed they
were not... So Comey pushed back as much as he could."
Martin Luther risked death to fight against what he considered the heresies of his time. Comey, a top Bush administration policymaker,
found a safer way to oppose the worldwide secret U.S. torture regime widely considered a heresy against American values. Comey
approved brutal practices and then wrote some memos and emails fretting about the optics.
Rather than ending the abuses, Comey repudiated the memo. Speaking to the media in a not-for-attribution session on June 22, 2004,
Comey declared that
the 2002 memo was "overbroad," "abstract academic theory," and "legally unnecessary ." Comey helped oversee crafting a new memo
with different legal footing to justify the same interrogation methods.
In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee finally released a massive report, Americans learned grisly details of the CIA torture
regime that Comey helped legally sanctify - including
death via hypothermia, rape-like rectal feeding of detainees, compelling detainees to stand long periods on broken legs, and dozens
of cases of innocent people pointlessly brutalized. Psychologists aided the torture regime, offering hints on how to destroy
the will and resistance of prisoners. The only CIA official to go to prison for the torture scandal was courageous whistleblower
John Kiriakou.
If Comey had resigned in 2004 or 2005 to protest the torture techniques he now claims to abhor, he would deserve some of the praise
he is now receiving. Instead, he remained in the Bush administration but wrote an email summarizing his objections, declaring that
"it was my job to protect the department
and the A.G. [Attorney General] and that I could not agree to this because it was wrong." A 2009 New York Times analysis noted
that Comey and two colleagues "have largely escaped criticism [for approving torture] because
they raised questions about interrogation
and the law." In Washington, writing emails is "close enough for government work" to convey sainthood.
Fl*ck Comey. OMG. I've been wanting to puke into a wastebasket over all of Comey's crap lately. Actually, wanting to puke is
one of my best bullshit barometers. He's a lying sack of shit, strutting his sanctimonious arrogance all over the tee-vee. Meanwhile
back home his family of women wear pink hats to protest Trump. Wonder if James the Great told his family members he approved torture?
After seven years of utter devastation and bloodletting, a consensus has emerged among all
the belligerents of the Syrian war to de-escalate the conflict, except Israel which wants to
further escalate the conflict because it has been the only beneficiary of the carnage in
Syria.
Over the years, Israel has not only provided medical aid and material support to the
militant groups battling the Syrian government – particularly to various factions of the
Free Syria Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate al-Nusra Front in Daraa and Quneitra
bordering the Israel-occupied Golan Heights – but Israel's air force has virtually played
the role of the air force of the Syrian jihadists and has conducted more than 100 airstrikes in
Syria and Lebanon during the seven-year conflict.
Washington's interest in the Syrian proxy war is mainly about ensuring Israel's regional
security. The United States Defense Intelligence Agency's
declassified report of 2012 clearly spelled out the imminent rise of a Salafist
principality in northeastern Syria (Raqqa and Deir al-Zor) in the event of an outbreak of a
civil war in Syria.
Under pressure from the Zionist lobby in Washington, however, the Obama administration
deliberately suppressed the report and also overlooked the view in general that a proxy war in
Syria will give birth to radical Islamic jihadists.
The hawks in Washington were fully aware of the consequences of their actions in Syria, but
they kept pursuing the ill-fated policy of nurturing militants in the training camps located in
the border regions of Turkey and Jordan to weaken the anti-Zionist Syrian government.
The single biggest threat to Israel's regional security was posed by the Shi'a resistance
axis, which is comprised of Iran, the Assad administration in Syria and their Lebanon-based
surrogate, Hezbollah. During the course of 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired hundreds of
rockets into northern Israel and Israel's defense community realized for the first time the
nature of threat that Hezbollah and its patrons posed to Israel's regional security.
Those were only unguided rockets but it was a wakeup call for Israel's military strategists
that what will happen if Iran passed the guided missile technology to Hezbollah whose area of
operations lies very close to the northern borders of Israel.
In a momentous announcement at an event in Ohio on March 29, however, Donald Trump said,
"We're knocking the hell out of ISIS. We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the
other people take care of it now."
What lends credence to the statement that the Trump administration will soon be pulling
2,000 US troops out of Syria – mostly Special Forces assisting the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces – is that President Trump has recently sacked the National Security
Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
McMaster represented the institutional logic of the deep state in the Trump administration
and was instrumental in advising Donald Trump to escalate the conflicts in Afghanistan and
Syria. He had advised President Trump to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan from
8,400 to 15,000. And in Syria, he was in favor of the Pentagon's policy of training and arming
30,000 Kurdish border guards to patrol Syria's northern border with Turkey.
Both the decisions have spectacularly backfired on the Trump administration. The decision to
train and arm 30,000 Kurdish border guards had infuriated the Erdogan administration to the
extent that Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin in
Syria's northwest on January 20.
After capturing Afrin on March 18, the Turkish armed forces and their Free Syria Army
proxies have now cast their eyes further east on Manbij, where the US Special Forces are
closely cooperating with the Kurdish YPG militia, in line with the long-held Turkish military
doctrine of denying the Kurds any Syrian territory west of River Euphrates.
It bears mentioning that unlike dyed-in-the-wool globalists and "liberal interventionists,"
like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who cannot look past beyond the tunnel vision of
political establishments, it appears that the protectionist Donald Trump not only follows news
from conservative mainstream outlets, like the Fox News, but he has also been familiar with
alternative news perspectives, such as Breitbart's, no matter how racist and xenophobic.
Thus, Donald Trump is fully aware that the conflict in Syria is a proxy war initiated by the
Western political establishments and their regional Middle Eastern allies against the Syrian
government. He is also mindful of the fact that militants have been funded, trained and armed
in the training camps located in Turkey's border regions to the north of Syria and in Jordan's
border regions to the south of Syria.
According to the last year's March 31
article for the New York Times by Michael Gordon, the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley
and the recently sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had stated on the record that
defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq was the top priority of the Trump administration
and the fate of Bashar al-Assad was of least concern to the new administration.
Under the previous Obama administration, the evident policy in Syria was regime change. The
Trump administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different
perspective because Donald Trump regards Islamic jihadists as a much bigger threat to the
security of the US than Barack Obama.
In order to allay the concerns of Washington's traditional allies in the Middle East, the
Trump administration conducted a cruise missile strike on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs
governorate on April 6 last year after the alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun.
But that isolated incident was nothing more than a show of force to bring home the point that
the newly elected Donald Trump is an assertive and powerful president.
More significantly, Karen De Young and Liz Sly made another startling revelation in the last
year's
March 4 article for the Washington Post: "Trump has said repeatedly that the US and Russia
should cooperate against the Islamic State, and he has indicated that the future of
Russia-backed Assad is of less concern to him."
Mindful of the Trump administration's lack of commitment in the Syrian proxy war, Israel's
air force conducted an airstrike on Tiyas (T4) airbase in Homs on April 9 in which seven
Iranian military personnel were killed. The Israeli airstrike took place after the alleged
chemical weapons attack in Douma on April 7 in order to convince the reluctant Trump
administration that it can order another strike in Syria without the fear of reprisal from
Assad's backer Russia.
Despite scant evidence as to the use of chemical weapons or the party responsible for it,
Donald Trump, under pressure from Israel's lobby in Washington, eventually ordered another
cruise missiles strike in Syria on April 14 in collaboration with Theresa May's government in
the UK and Emmanuel Macron's administration in France.
What defies explanation for the April 14 strikes against a scientific research facility in
the Barzeh district of Damascus and two alleged chemical weapons storage facilities in Homs is
the fact that Donald Trump had already announced that the process of withdrawal of US troops
from Syria must begin before the midterm US elections slated for November. If the Trump
administration is to retain the Republican majority in the Congress, it will have to show
something tangible to its voters, particularly in Syria.
The fact that out of 105 total cruise missiles deployed in the April 14 strikes in Syria, 85
were launched by the US, 12 by France and 8 by the UK aircrafts shows that the strikes were
once again nothing more than a show of force by a "powerful and assertive" US president who
regards the interests of his European allies as his own, particularly when he has given a May
12 deadline to his European allies to "improve and strengthen" the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise
he has threatened to walk out of the pact in order to please Israel's lobby in Washington.
Finally, the Trump administration will eventually realize at its own risk that placating the
Zionist lobby is unlikely if not impossible because Israel has conducted another missile strike
in Aleppo and Hama on Sunday (April 29) in which 26 people, including many Iranians, have been
killed and 60 others wounded.
According to NBC , the blast at the Brigade 47 base in Hama which serves as a warehouse for
surface-to-air missiles was so severe that it caused 2.6 magnitude earthquake and shockwaves
were felt as far away as Lebanon and Turkey. This seems like a last-ditch attempt by Israel to
further escalate the conflict and to force the Trump administration to abandon its plans of
withdrawing US troops from Syria.
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused
on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism
.
With Russia neutralized by upcoming football World championship due to Putin's love for large
sport events, there are preparation of something similar to Sochi events (EuroMaydan color
revolution in Ukraine)
Notable quotes:
"... This can all be easily followed all the way back to before the Iranian nuclear deal and a policy paper out of Brookings on how to set up Iran for war. Basically, it states make a deal with Iran then prove that although the West did its best, Iran broke the deal in whatever manner. Appears they have all the actors lined up. Now it begins. The war of words then war. Like we haven't seen this before. ..."
"... I'd missed this: US-led jets bombed pro-Assad forces advancing on Deir Ezzor: Report http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-jets-bomb-pro-government-fighters-syria-operation-1276052674 International law anyone? Its dead in the west. ..."
"... doesn't make sense ...FUKUS does war on Iran, Iran closes the Gulf ...oil goes to 200/ barrel ....US does a superb imitation of a Dead Fly. ..."
"... Looks to me like Trump is groveling before the Saudis for keeping the petrodollar. ..."
"... Putin who sees only the reality that the US remains both enviably rich and powerful cannot understand how unstable and dangerous it has become. ..."
Netanyahoo To Again Cry Wolf - But Something Bigger Is Up
(Updated)
Updated below
---
U.S. President Trump wants to end the nuclear agreement (pdf) with Iran
and wants to eliminated Iranian forces in Syria which support the Syrian government. Something
is being prepared to make that happen.
Last week General Joseph Votel, commander of CENTCOM - the U.S. military command for the
Middle East, was in Israel. It was the first ever visit of a CENTCOM commander to Israel which
usually works with the European command EUCOM.
Yesterday former CIA director and now Secretary of State Pompeo visited Israel. A few hours
later Israel bombed two ammunition depots in Syria which are supposedly related to Iran. This
was a clear attempt to provoke Iran into some reaction.
The Israeli defense minister Lieberman just visited Washington DC and only today came back
to Israel.
Now the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahoo loudly announced that he will
hold a press conference to present a "huge amount of new
and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program". He will allege that Iran cheats on
the nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
Netanyahoo is a notorious liar and warmonger. In September 2002 he lied (vid)
to the U.S. congress:
There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing
towards the development of nuclear weapons – no question whatsoever"
Only yesterday he
promoted a false story that claimed Arabs in Israel had disrupted a minuted of silence for
some people killed in a flash flood.
The IAEA
says that Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA. If there were any serious intelligence
about any Iranian deviation from the nuclear agreement it would be presented to the IAEA and
the six signature powers of the agreement. The IAEA would investigate and report back. If Iran
cheated it would be put back under serious international sanctions. That Netanyahoo wants to
present something publicly makes it very likely that he has nothing of relevance.
We
hear that the documents he is said to present were compiled
by one Christopher Steele and assembled with the help of one Sergej Skripal and his MI6 handler
[redacted]. They will show that Iran attempts to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger .
This new comedy stunt by Netanyahoo is tightly coordinated with the Trump administration.
Trump's national security advisor John Bolton
has worked with the Zionists since early 2000 to push for a war on Iran:
During multiple trips to Israel, Bolton had unannounced meetings, including with the head of
Mossad, Meir Dagan, without the usual reporting cable to the secretary of state and other
relevant offices. Judging from that report on an early Bolton visit, those meetings clearly
dealt with a joint strategy on how to bring about political conditions for an eventual U.S.
strike against Iran.
Behind Trump, Netanyahoo and Bolton is one financier, the militant Zionist and casino
magnate Sheldon Adelson. He financed Trump's and Netanyahoo's election campaigns and the
various think tanks that create anti-Iranian propaganda and paid Bolton.
Trump wants to leave the nuclear agreement but the other signers, China, Russia, the UK,
France and Germany want to keep it up. Just leaving the JCPOA without cause will increase doubt
over any agreement the U.S. wants to make on other issues. The allegations Netanyahoo will put
forward, no matter how ridiculous they may be, could give Trump some excuse to put new
sanctions on Iran without actually leaving the agreement.
But even that does not explain all the recent meetings and visits by the various Israeli and
U.S. officials. French soldiers and mercenaries from the UAE have entered north-east-Syria. What
for? The Saudis are on board with any operation against Iran.
Something big is up and we do not know yet what it might be.
---
Update
That was lame. Netanyahoo just finished his show (vid). He claimed that Israel got
access to an Iranian archive of its former nuclear program dating from 1999 to 2003. In 2007 a
U.S. National Intelligence Estimate found
that Iran stopped all nuclear weapon research in 2003 after the U.S. had destroyed Iran's then
arch-enemy Iraq. In 2011 the IAEA reported
in detail of Iran's former "structured program". It agreed that it had stopped in 2003.
All that Netanyahoo now claims to have acquired is old and known stuff. He refers to an AMAD
plan Iran had as if that was some new intelligence. But the IAEA documented AMAD and its
development in 2011 (PDF, Annex, page 5). He uses the archive documents of known former
programs to declare that Iran has cheated and is not trustworthy. He says that gives Trump
reason to disavow the nuclear agreement the U.S. and others had signed with Iran. That is
bullshit.
I had expected better from him. Some well forged documents or something more dramatic. This
was just nonsense.
My feeling is that this was a diversion from an upcoming military(?) operation against Iran
or its assets in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq.
Absolutely correct b. Something's cooking and it won't take long for the world to find out
what it was.
Also, when responding to the Iranian threats to re-start their nuclear program, Mr Trump
appears to have an answer pretty resolute i.e "They won't be starting anything, you can bank
on that"
One more thing I like to add. If Mr Trump withdraws US from the deal which is also
endorsed by the UNSC, US will loose to IRAN in the war that follows-up.
OH no! not the yellow cake saga again. Well, if they can get away with the Syrian chemical
weapons attack that the white helmets can fix with a hose pipe, then anything goes. It looks
as though the Skripal affair has lots more secrets to reveal. This story just keeps on giving
and giving, although if you looked for it in MSM you wouldn't find anything on it. I don't
understand why the missile defense system doesn't appear to activate for the Iranian
contingent in Syria. Is it because this was a surprise attack and the Syrians?Russians were
caught off guard, or are the Iranians left to fend for themselves as far as air bombardment
is concerned? I get the feeling that the West is probing and poking the bear a bit at a time
with a stick to get a reaction. They may well be sorry what they wish for.
Doesn't look like fake anti-establishment, swamp-drainer, poseur Trump has given himself ANY
leeway...
with which he might counter or to move away from the numerous neocon nut cases hell-bent
for WW3 whom he has permanently invited to his war cabinet golden shower party.
Netanyahu is probably the most dangerous leader in this world, the raw lying and propaganda,
its heinous. Not to mention this sick lunatic in Israel have some 300 nukes already
themselves, IN SECRET!
Now he have come up with fake documents, trying to justify a war!
Same jewish state that whine about antisemitism, this people are not sane...
Hopefully west dont accept this blatant sicko, because as usual, its not Israel that want
to wage the war, no, the war must be fought by
goyim europeans and especially americans.
With ugly pack of morons as Trump, POmpeo, Bolton, it doesnt look good.
This war hysteria just come weeks after the illegal and dangerous bombing of Syria.
Netanyahu clarly is a psychopath.
What is going on with those s300s? Russia needs to give Syria/Iran the means to defend
themselves from these repeated acts of Israeli aggression. It should not be so easy for
Israel to take out Iranian forces.
The only way to kick the legs out of Iran in a manner that Israel cares about which would
also hurt Assad would be to destroy Hezbollah. The only chance of doing that would be to go
full war crime mode and use the most vicious thermobaric or possibly tactical nuclear
weapons.
If we did that or enabled the Israelis to do that then we will have reached total
depravity. At this point I believe the U.S. public is okay with bombing anyone as long as
U.S. lives are not lost. If the Israelis do it we cheer, if we do it then it shows the rest
of the world who is boss.
This can all be easily followed all the way back to before the Iranian nuclear deal and a
policy paper out of Brookings on how to set up Iran for war. Basically, it states make a deal
with Iran then prove that although the West did its best, Iran broke the deal in whatever
manner. Appears they have all the actors lined up. Now it begins. The war of words then war.
Like we haven't seen this before.
Nuttyyahoo is dangerous BECAUSE he is thoroughly enabled by the FUKUS, but especially the US
in EVERY way - politically, monetarily, morally, and and he is promoted on every television
network and mainstream media outlet.
Trump has become increasingly dangerous because he has surrounded himself with Pompeo,
Bolton, Nikki Haley, Nuttyyahoo...
US/UK/Israel are not even trying for convincing narratives now.
Sounds like F-35 was used to hit the ammo dumps in Syria. Maybe the zionists figure they have
F35 bugs ironed out and its time to put it to work against Iran.
Actually Iran has a long-time investment in uranium mines in Namibia, from the Shah's time,
and Ahmadinejad even visited Niger in Apr 2013 while that country was looking to diversify
its uranium sales away from the French Areva. There's nothing "secret" about any of this,
uranium is a fuel for reactors.
...
What I like about this story is that, even though smearing Iran doesn't make any sense,
narratives that don't make sense are 'normal' for that bloodthirsty experiment in social
engineering known as "Israel". One wonders whether, if the "Israelis" are serious about
attacking Iran, then shouldn't they be encouraged to give it a try, just to see what
happens?
If they're not worried about blowback from Iran and Hezbollah, why should anyone else lose
any sleep over it?
When Medvedev was President of Russia he said in an interview (with Zacharia) on a US network
that ab attack on Iran would create an "unimaginable refugee catastrophe". Ironically (or
Russian-ly), he didn't say for whom it would be catastrophic...
Also, there was actually never any evidence of a nuclear weapons research program prior to
2003 either. The IAEA has specifically gone on record stating in 2009 that it has "no
concrete proof that this is or has been a nuclear weapons program in Iran". Gareth Porter has
written more about the 2003 allegations and Israel's later attempts to undermine the NIE by
insisting that there was evidence of "continued" nuclear weapons work. The worst that the
IAEA could ever say it actually found in Iran, were "fragmented and incomplete feasibility
studies" that were "relevant to" nukes -- none of which is in any way a violation of the NPT
which actually ENCOURAGES the sharing of technology "relevant to" nuclear weapons including
data from nuclear test explosions.
Wow! The anti-corruption probe into Nuttyyahoo's activities must be coming close to arresting
him; so, to avoid arrest, he must start an actual war of aggression. Only problem is the
Zionists like their Outlaw allies are incapable of actually defeating anyone they might
attack.
What the Zionists are scared to death of is becoming irrelevant; their Airstrip 1
existence no longer of any value to the Imperialist Empires that created the Zionist state
for their own geopolitical machinations. Is there any real reason to militarily attack the
Zionists beyond reclaiming Golan? If Lebanon becomes strong enough--I'd argue it's
already--then a simple containment policy coupled with the international BDS movement will be
more than enough to facilitate internal political change within the Apartheid State over
time--containment will take several years to work as it did on South Africa. Zionist racism
has destabilized itself. Talk about a state ripe for being Color Revolutionized. Those are
the reasons for the easily seen and rebutted lies of a very desperate politico wanting very
much to avoid prison for crimes he committed against his own nation, not the many War Crimes
against others.
B.: I had expected better from him. Some well forged documents or something more dramatic.
This was just nonsense.
______________________________________________
This is another example of a trend I've been on about lately. You're quite right; the
quality of the Western/ME hegemony's Big Lies is deteriorating markedly before our eyes. But
only the minority who are willing and able to keep their eyes wide open seem to notice.
It's hard to tell if the proliferation of weak and incredible fabrications is based on the
Big Liars' belief that the public is, or has become, so benighted and bamboozled that they'll
swallow anything, or if it's an indication that they are running on empty. But, whether it's
due to hubris or degenerate incompetence, it indeed looks as if they aren't even
trying any more.
Then again, as you also point out, Bibi's anticlimactic histrionics are on a par with his
comical September, 2012 performance at the UN, where he produced that cartoon drawing of a
"bomb" in order to flog the typically mendacious and hysterical claim that the noble,
harmless State of Israel was in imminent danger of destruction from the "Iranian bomb".
It's one thing when zealous Hasbarists, amateur or professional, troll/spam Internet
comments boards with their rigidly fatuous, fantastic, Zionist Israel-serving talking points.
One expects unsophisticated, fully-indoctrinated True Believers to spew rote talking points
and dogma that insult the intelligence of anyone outside the Zionist Hive Mind.
But the fact that Israel's leaders and authorities shamelessly rely on such childish props
to sell their genocidal policies and actions suggests both hubris and abiding contempt for
the rest of the world.
It's hard to believe that Bibi and his allies and supporters don't know that they're
insulting the rest of the world's intelligence. I think there's a word for this. Chutzpah,
maybe?
This is an absolutely stunning breaking interview of the Syrian independent member of
parliament Fares Shehabi by the BBC hardtalk program. The MSM typically try to aggressively
browbeat non-western interviewees that they disagree with. Unfortunately, most of the
interviewees either get cowed or they get emotional and angry.
Fares Shehabi instead is factually and rationally aggressive, fact by fact,
counter-argument by counter-argument, not allowing the BBC interviewer to shut him up. It is
a model of how to deal with the MSM.
The MSM have already managed to get the interview wiped off youtube. but it is still
available here
@Peter AU 1 16 Sounds like F-35 was used to hit the ammo dumps in Syria
What's your reason for saying this. We established at the previous threat that GBU-39 glide
bombs were used. They are a stand-off weapon and I believe that the F-35 is incapable of
carrying them.
"unhinged" = arrogance turns into stupidity? The latest in the continuing Net-job
droning on and on "war with Iran" might not go as well as he expects, given resistance to
withdrawal from the JCPOA. A more easily applied application of "arrogance turns into
stupidity" is the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend roasting Press Sec Sanders.
James Woods' response did it nicely at "low class trash." More of this sort of thing will
indeed be "a gift" to the Republicans in the upcoming elections.
Israel will not risk Jews so they will stick to launching air strikes from Lebanon. All of
the characters will be happy to use another mercenary army of goys to attack the Syrian gov
and it's allies. Especially attractive might be to use these to buttress the SDF to hold onto
eastern Syria or to attack Turk aligned forces.
unfortunately the majority only read headlines. In a world where evidence matters not,
details of Bibi Nuttuyahoo's claim 1999-2003 is a side show. Bibi is setting the stage for his managing director, D. J. Trump, to "honourably" withdraw
from the JCPOA on May 12 and to pressure the other signatories.
There are somethings larger - I do hope someone (Russia or China) will grant Iran their
nuclear umbrella. And Kim, do make a note to self. The Anglo-Zionists are deep in pretexts to coverup:
the black swan flying under heavy wings with $230 trillion global debt must be brought
down. Not nearly enough in the ESF.
Revelations on the recent 100 missiles hoax to retaliate for the 'chemical attack' that
was not. Can't disappear Robert Fisk's expose - he is widely read..
Christoper Steele's Case on the dock wherein he will be deposed. Oh wait, where is he
in hiding with the Skripals?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@ 8, re Russia delivery of S-300s to Syria. Don't count on it as Israel's and Russia's
militaries "have an arrangement to avoid aerial conflict over Syria." Last week Russia's
Ambassador to Israel made that clear.
Looks to me like Trump is groveling before the Saudis for keeping the petrodollar. Hence he
is walking out of the Iran deal despite its geopolitical risk, and trying to show some
fireworks in Syria. What's the half life of this show? More, or less than Trump's average
ejaculation time?
I've no doubt that for a lot of people the question of F-35 usage anywhere near a combat zone
is a so-what issue, but for those of us who have struggled for years to bring some truth
about this fault-filled much-delayed program through the fog of corruption, it's important to
maintain that the current fleet of expensive pre-production F-35 prototypes is truly
worthless.
@ 8, re Russia delivery of S-300s to Syria. Don't count on it as Israel's and Russia's
militaries "have an arrangement to avoid aerial conflict over Syria." Last week Russia's
Ambassador to Israel made that clear.
Uh, that is the reason Russia should use S300. Then, there wouldnt be any "aerial
conflict" over Syrian sovereign airspace to begin with.
@ frances 48 US&Co . . will hit Iran before the football playoffs
And how might they "hit Iran?" Do you mean hit the country itself with a military attack?
I think the World Cup is playing a big role in the decision making as you have said. There
is a lot at stake: investments already made and international exposure also. I can't wait for
it to be finished so we can get back to war !! (sarc)
Israel could start its assassination program, carry out sabotage, airstrikes, there is no
limit to the sick regime and the sick western media acceptance of the same unhinged behavior
by Israel.
the hero of hebrew history above is a great man did obaama not give him 30 billion in war
arms.
did germany not give him 5 free dolphin class submarines for samson option.
does german public funds pay compensation cover amounting to a trillion euros by the year
2070.
the man is a god he can drop and fire depleted uraniun ,drop dialed down nuke bombs kill
president,primeminister sell usa top secret files to china and russia via operation talpiot
can he not listen and blackmail the world.
who else can kill gaza semites by the 10s of thousands and then call critic anti-semite
this man benji is a king maker bow down for you are not fit to lick his precious fingers
Russia began its Syria intervention with an S-400 deployed in Latakia and has introduced
several more since, one being in
Sept 2017 . Syria also has the BUK-M2E AA system and the Pantsir to go with its older and
upgraded S-200 systems along with who knows what else. Just what was off loaded from Russian
supply vessels under the cover of smoke last week (don't know if such veiling's continuing)?
My guess is more AA systems of the type causing Zionists on both sides of Atlantic to
freakout.
As for the Zionists attacking Iranian military bases, those Iran uses in Syria are
joint-use with Syria regardless of what's said by Zionists; so, any such attack will need to
be aimed at Iran proper. The consequences for the region would be horrible--particularly for
Zionists and Saudis: Dimona would be leveled as would Saudi oil infrastructure. The fallout
and other pollution would be appalling. If the Zionists want to keep their skin, they'll
arrest Nutty before he gets his get-out-of-jail war started.
Zionists know they've lost and are contained and constrained, so they're moving into
desperation mode. Too bad they lack the courage to put a pistol to their head and pull the
trigger.
I have trouble in believing that Trump will really attack Iran, just because of some new fake
evidence from Netanyahu. N's been trying this forever. The basic point is that Trump's electorate don't want real war, with American deaths. So
far, it's been like that, 102 missiles following 59 Tomahawks, and no effect.
Trump is dumb enough, Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, I mean you cant get worse, these are the most
sick hawks and Trump have already showed that he could attack states illegally Syria, with no
proof whatsoever. Stop hoping on Trump.
Israel is in a position to attack, but not to defend. Israel's problem is not Iran but the
Palestinians. John Helmer seems to think that
Russia has decided on electronic warfare , that would be reason for panic as Israel's
(and US) stuff is completely dependent on electronics.
There were a number of reasons for the Balfour Declaration, but one of the major ones was
defense of the Suez Canal, vital for communications to India. The Turks had already attacked
the canal twice by 1917. The Brits wanted a local group on the spot that would help to defend
the canal. A Jewish settlement filled the bill.
@Cyrus | Apr 30, 2018 2:20:01 PM | 20
As background knowledge that most overlook, Iran is one of the top sources for uranium ore,
unfortunately it is contaminated with molybdenum making it almost useless for high grading.
That is a primary reason for their investment in uranium in Africa.
There is nothing new about Netanyahu's nonsense-as everyone seems to realise: the only
justification for his party and his particular brand of fascism is the belief that there can
be no peace for Jewish people generally, and Israelis in particular until all potential
opponents have been wiped out or terrorised into slavery. And he has managed to convince most
Israelis of this-something which means that in moral and political, and probably clinical
terms too, they are insane- beyond the reach of reason.
What is new and makes the situation very dangerous is that the US is going along with this
for the ride. It has run out of ideas on how to deal with the gathering storm of consequences
from eighty years of arrogance and careless neglect of the inevitable fall out from its self
indulgent policies. And Trump, under constant pressure from the idiots running the Deep
State, has no conception of the implications of the little games that he is playing and
encouraging others (see Netanyahu above) to play. In his mind he is starring in an extempore
version of the Godfather.
Way down at the bottom of things worth mentioning is the fact that the UK government is in an
even bigger crisis. It is clearly doomed unless the world ends first, which is something it
is happy to consider. May and her allies (who include the Blairite Labour party and almost
all the political class including the SNP and the Liberals) will (as the recent attacks in
Syria showed) go along with Trump whatever happens, which means that the other 'eyes' the
White Commonwealth of Canada, Australia etc will do the same.
This is the problem with empires in decline, they become suicidal. And having reconciled
themselves with death they lose any inhibitions.
Poor old Putin just doesn't understand that: for years it has been clearer and clearer that
Russia and China were rational, legalistic and diplomatic while the 'west' reverted to its
barbaric ways, defying rules, breaking treaties, laughing at international law, drunken
berserkers running amok employing the weapons that they have been accumulating for decades
because fearing that the end is near they fear nothing else. The future holds no hope for
them.
Putin who sees only the reality that the US remains both enviably rich and powerful cannot
understand how unstable and dangerous it has become.
As to China, nothing surprises its leadership any more which is why it spends all day lifting
weights and eating high protein foods, ready to defend itself and studiously avoiding
involvement.
I'm still in shook Putin didn't place 300s in Syria long, long ago. He really can be behind
the curve at times. How could have thought the Empire would not grow more brazen in
aggression?
Here is a well thought out thread that analyses Bibi's claims. Including that Israel probably
hacked into the IAEA systems to get some of the data, in particular a photo of the 'new'
storage site.
Here is former Sweden foreign minister Carl Bildt, in a tweet immediately after
Netanyahu's remarks: "Nothing really new in @netanyahu Iran speech. Confirms that Iran closed
down nuclear weapons program in 2003. Continued technology efforts. In principle all of this
well known. No allegation that Iran cheats on 2015 nuclear deal."
No, for the money. The simple fact is that AIPAC and Israel have an iron grip on each and
every member of the US Congress. It's been established that Israel rules, and Congressmembers
get "contributions" and trips to Israel and other perks. On the other hand, if any Congress
member who gives a slight little anti-Israel (i.e. anti-Semitic) peep will become an
ex-Congressmember. It's happened, with highly-financed opposition to a deviant's
transgression at the next biannual election. One example is Cynthia McKinney (links broken.
@52 I don't understand that argument, Don.
The Russians can unload any S-300 delivery at Tartus. There is zero chance that the
Israelis will bomb them while they remain inside a Russian military base.
And those missiles can stay there while the Russians train up the Syrians in their use.
Again, attacking while they remain inside Tartus is a no-go. And the S-300's are road-mobile. They can be driven out of Tartus to their eventual
operational deployment, which means that they leave the protection of Tartus only when they
are capable of defending themselves.
Or, in short: Israeli plans are predicated on taking out those missiles before they can be
made operational. But they can be made operational while they are still inside a Russian
military base protected by S-400 defences, and by the time they leave that protection the
Syrians are already able to shoot down any attackers.
It is hard to lose money on a bet that the US and its Anglosphere and EU vassals will double
down on stupid. The US heaps one disaster on top of another, it causes the suffering and death of
millions, and Americans don't shed a tear.
Stormy Daniels' legal team - led by lawyer Michael Avenatti - must be getting bored since a federal judge in Los Angeles
ordered a 90-day delay of her lawsuit against President Trump and his former personal attorney Mike Cohen (who has promised to
plead the fifth during the proceedings). Because Stormy has filed another defamation lawsuit, this time exclusively against
President Trump, as
Reuters
reports.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New York on Monday, seeks damages from Trump for a
tweet he sent earlier this month where he criticized a composite sketch that, Daniels said,
depicted a man who had threatened her in 2011. He reportedly demanded that she stay quiet about her
sexual encounter with Trump. That would've been around the time she gave an interview about her
affair with Trump to In Touch magazine which wasn't published until recently.
Her previous lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, sought to have her released from an NDA she signed
shortly before the 2016 vote where she also accepted a $130,000 "hush money" payment from Cohen.
"A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job,
playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!," Trump
said.
According to the filing, cited by the
Associate Press
and Reuters, the tweet was "false and defamatory"
arguing that Trump knew what he was saying out Daniels' claim was
false and also disparaging.
The lawsuit also claims Daniels has been exposed to death threats
and other threats of "physical violence."
Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking a jury
trial and unspecified damages.
"We intend on teaching Mr. Trump that you cannot simply make
things up about someone and disseminate them without serious
consequences," Avenatti said.
As the
Associated Press
points out, Daniels, aided by Avenatti, has
sought to keep her case in the public eye. She revealed the sketch
that Trump mocked during an appearance on the View earlier this
month. Trump is facing another defamation lawsuit in New York, this
one filed by Summer Zervos, a former "The Apprentice" contestant who
says Trump made unwanted sexual contact with her in 2007. She sued
him after Trump dismissed her claims.
0
" Now, that your tastes at this time should incline
towards the juvenile is understandable; but for you to marry
that boy would be a disaster. Because there's two kinds of
women. There are two kinds of women and you, as we well
know, are not the first kind. You, my dear, are a slut. "
"We intend on teaching Mr. Trump that you cannot simply make things up about
someone and disseminate them without serious consequences," Avenatti said.
"We intend on teaching
THE PRESS
that you cannot simply make
things up about someone and disseminate them without serious consequences,"
Avenatti said.
With just days left until the May 1 deadline when a temporary trade waiver expires and the
US steel and aluminum tariffs kick in, and after last-ditch attempts first by Emmanuel Macron
and then Angela Merkel to win exemptions for Europe fell on deaf ears, the European Union is
warning about the costs of an imminent trade war with the US while bracing for one to erupt in
just three days after the White House signaled it will reject the bloc's demand for an
unconditional waiver from metals-import tariffs .
"A trade war is a losing game for everybody," Belgian Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveldt
told reporters in Sofia where Europe's finance ministers have gathered. " We should stay cool
when we're thinking about reactions but the basic point is that nobody wins in a trade war so
we try to avoid it at all costs. "
Well, Trump disagrees which is why his administration has given Europe, Canada and other
allies an option: accept quotas in exchange for an exemption from the steel and aluminum
tariffs that kick on Tuesday, when the temporary waiver expires. "We are asking of everyone:
quotas if not tariffs," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Friday. This, as
Bloomberg points out , puts the EU in the difficult position of either succumbing to U.S.
demands that could breach international commerce rules, or face punitive tariffs.
Forcing governments to limit shipments of goods violates World Trade Organization rules,
which prohibit so-called voluntary export restraints. The demand is also contrary to the
entire trade philosophy of the 28-nation bloc, which is founded on the principle of the free
movement of goods.
Adding to the confusion, while WTO rules foresee the possibility of countries taking
emergency "safeguard" measures involving import quotas for specific goods, such steps are rare,
must be temporary and can be legally challenged. The EU is demanding a permanent, unconditional
waiver from the U.S. tariffs.
Meanwhile, amid the impotent EU bluster, so far only South Korea has been formally spared
from the duties, after reaching a deal last month to revise its bilateral free-trade agreement
with the U.S.
Europe, on the other hand, refuses to reach a compromise, and according to a EU official,
"Trump's demands to curb steel and aluminum exports to 90 percent of the level of the previous
two years are unacceptable." The question then is whether Europe's retaliatory move would be
painful enough to deter Trump and lift the sanctions: the official said the EU's response would
depend on the level of the quotas after which the punitive tariffs would kick in; meanwhile the
European Commission continues to "stress the bloc's consistent call for an unconditional,
permanent exclusion from the American metal levies."
"In the short run it might help them solve their trade balance but in the long run it will
worsen trade conditions," Bulgarian Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said in Sofia. "The
tools they're using to make America great again might result in certain mistakes because free
world trade has proven to be the best solution for the development of the world so far."
Around the time of his meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron made it clear that the EU
is not afraid of an escalating trade war and will not be intimidated, saying " we won't talk
about anything while there's a gun pointed at our head. "
He may change his opinion once Trump fires the first bullet.
Adding to Europe's disappointment, during her visit to the White House on Friday, Angela
Merkel said she discussed trade disputes with Trump and that she failed to win a public
commitment to halt the tariffs.
Meanwhile, Merkel's new bffs over in France are also hunkering down in preparation for a
lengthy conflict. French economy minister Bruone Le Maire told his fellow European bureaucrats
Sofia during a discussion on taxation: "One thing I learned from my week in the U.S. with
President Macron: The Americans will only respect a show of strength."
Coming from the French, that observation is as accurate as it is delightfully ironic.
And now the real question is who has the most to lose from the imminent Transatlantic trade
war, and will surrender first.
With the still largely ignored Saudi slaughter in Yemen now in its fourth year, RT's
In The Now
has resurrected a
forgotten clip from a 2016 CNN interview with Senator Rand Paul, which is currently going
viral.
In a piece of cable news history that rivals Madeleine Albright's infamous words during a
1996
60 Minutes
appearance
where she calmly and coldly proclaimed of 500,000 dead Iraqi children that
"the price is
worth it,"
CNN's Wolf Blitzer railed against Senator Paul's opposition to a proposed $1.1
billion US arms sale to Saudi Arabia by arguing that slaughter of Yemeni civilians was worth it
so long as it benefits US jobs and defense contractors.
At the time of the
2016 CNN interview
, Saudi
Arabia with the help of its regional and Western allies -- notably the U.S. and Britain -- had
been bombing Yemen for a year-and-a-half, and as
the
United Nations noted
, the Saudi coalition had been responsible for the majority of the
war's (at that point) 10,000 mostly civilian deaths.
At that time the war was still in its early phases, but now multiple years into the
Saudi-led bombing campaign which began in March 2015,
the
U.N. reports at least
"5,000 children dead or hurt and 400,000 malnourished."
... ... ...
Senator Paul began the interview by outlining the rising civilian death toll
and massive refugee crisis that the U.S. continued facilitating
due to deep military assistance
to the Saudis
:
There are now millions of displaced people in Yemen. They're refugees. So we supply the
Saudis with arms, they create havoc and refugees in Yemen. Then what's the answer? Then we're
going to take the Yemeni refugees in the United States? Maybe we ought to quit arming both
sides of this war.
Paul then narrowed in on the Pentagon's role in the crisis: "We are refueling the Saudi
bombers that are dropping the bombs. It is said that thousands of civilians have died in Yemen
because of this."
CNN's Blitzer responded, "So for you this is a moral issue. Because you know, there's a lot
of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes,
other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there's going to be a significant loss of jobs,
of revenue here in the United States. That's secondary from your standpoint?"
Paul countered, "Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question." And
noted that Obama had partnered with the Saudi attack on Yemen without Congressional approval:
"Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go
to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I'm doing."
* * *
For further context of what the world knew at the time the CNN interview took place, we can
look no further than the United Nations and other international monitoring groups.
A year after Blitzer's statements,
Foreign Policy published a bombshell report
based on possession of a leaked 41-page draft
UN document, which found Saudi Arabia and its partner coalition allies in Yemen (among them the
United States) of being guilty of horrific war crimes, including the bombing of dozens of
schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure.
The U.N. study focused on child and civilian deaths during the first two years of the Saudi
coalition bombing campaign - precisely the time frame during which the CNN Wolf Blitzer and
Rand Paul interview took place.
"The killing and maiming of children remained the most prevalent violation" of children's
rights in Yemen , according to the 41-page draft report obtained by Foreign Policy.
The chief author of the confidential draft report, Virginia Gamba, the U.N. chief's
special representative for children abused in war time, informed top U.N. officials Monday,
that she intends to recommend the Saudi-led coalition be added to a list a countries and
entities that kill and maim children , according to a well-placed source.
The UN report further identified that air attacks "were the cause of over half of all child
casualties, with at least 349 children killed and 333 children injured" during the designated
period of time studied, and documented that, "the U.N. verified a total of 1,953 youngsters
killed and injured in Yemen in 2015 -- a six-fold increase compared with 2014" - with the
majority of these deaths being the result of Saudi and coalition air power.
Also according
AP reporting at the time
: "It said nearly three-quarters of attacks on schools and
hospitals -- 38 of 52 -- were also carried out by the coalition."
But again, Wolf Blitzer's first thought was those poor defense contractors:
...Because you know, there's a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense
contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there's
going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States.
* * *
This trip down memory lane elicited suitable responses on Twitter:
Honestly, with all these drug addicts, pedos, government dependents,
and fraudulent finance and advertising pieces of shit at home, I'd
really like to see some infighting here. No need to sell abroad.
With the release of the House Intelligence Committee's
report finding no evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign, Congressional
Republicans have seemingly dealt a death blow to the "Russian collusion" narrative which was
already hurtling toward irrelevance. Indeed, the special counsel himself has publicly stated
that he has "pivoted" toward investigating financial crimes and allegations of obstruction of
justice.
But with President Trump threatening to take a more "hands on" role at the Department of
Justice, Mueller has found himself in a bind. How can he continue to justify the probe if the
original premise has been found to be completely invalid?
Fortunately, Mueller received some badly needed assistance on Friday from a major Russian
opposition figure: former
oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky
. Somehow, an organization called Dossier, which was
established and financed by Khodorkovsky - a former oil tycoon and longtime nemesis of Russian
President Vladimir Putin who turned into one of Russia's most vocal dissidents - managed to get
its hands on emails stolen from the inbox of Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, the same
lawyer who arranged the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. after
promising through an intermediary to supply the Trump campaign with "dirt" on Trump's erstwhile
rival, Hillary Clinton.
The emails reveal that Veselnitskaya worked closely with the Russian Ministry of Justice to
help thwart a US Department of Justice probe into allegedly ill-gotten money being invested by
corrupt Russian oligarchs in New York City real estate. And according to the
New York Times
, which was obtained the emails from Dossier, the communications undercut
Veselnitskaya's claims of impartiality.
That said, the communications revealed in the emails took place years before Veselnitskaya
set foot in Trump Tower. What's more alarming than the emails claims is the notion that Russian
opposition figures are stepping up to independently assist Mueller and the Democrats in keeping
the "Russia collusion" narrative alive is certainly...interesting.
Veselnitskaya acknowledged her work for the Russian government in an interview with NBC News
set to air Friday.
Shown copies of the emails by Richard Engel of NBC News, Ms. Veselnitskaya acknowledged
that "many things included here are from my documents, my personal documents." She told the
Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday that her email accounts were hacked this year by
people determined to discredit her, and that she would report the hack to Russian
authorities.
[...]
The exchanges document Mr. Chaika's response to a Justice Department request in 2014 for
help with its civil fraud case against a real estate firm, Prevezon Holdings Ltd., and its
owner, Denis P. Katsyv, a well-connected Russian businessman.
Federal prosecutors say Ms. Veselnitskaya was the driving force on Mr. Katsyv's defense
team, a description she has echoed in court filings. In a declaration to the court, she
identified herself as a lawyer in private practice, representing Mr. Katsyv and his firm.
The Justice Department prosecutors charged Mr. Katsyv's firm in 2013 with using real
estate purchases in New York to launder a portion of the profits from a tax scheme in Russia.
They were seeking Russian bank, tax and court records, the type of documents that typically
form the crux of civil money-laundering cases. The Justice Department asked the Russian
government to keep the matter confidential, "except as is necessary to execute this request,"
according to court documents. Russia and the United States have a mutual legal assistance
treaty governing law-enforcement requests.
According to the
Times
, the leaked documents refute Veselnitskaya's claim that she was acting in a "private
capacity" when she initiated contact with the Trump campaign, even though the activities
detailed in the documents took place years earlier.
Ms. Veselnitskaya had long insisted that she met the president's son, son-in-law and
campaign chairman in a private capacity, not as a representative of the Russian
government.
"I operate independently of any governmental bodies," she wrote in a November statement to
the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I have no relationship with Mr. Chaika, his representatives
and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer."
But while the
Times
details the contents of the documents in detail, it failed to highlight an obvious
irony: that in exposing alleged machinations by the Russian government to interfere in the US
election, it used the same alleged strategy pursued by shadowy Russian hackers and Wikileaks,
the two biggest boogeymen in the ongoing Russian collusion saga.
This isn't the first time a Russian opposition figure has sought to aid Mueller. Earlier
this year, Aleksei Navalny released videos that he said included evidence that Oleg Deripaska -
who has since been targeted by US sanctions - attempted to meddle in the US political
process.
And despite President Trump's insistence that everybody should "get over" the collusion
narrative now that the Intel Committee report has been released, it appears his foreign enemies
have other plans.
The question now is: Will Trump respond to the leaked emails, or is Trump convinced that his
latest bombing raid on Syria plus the sanctions targeting "Putin ally" Oleg Deripaska will be
sufficient to demonstrate to Mueller that he is not in bed with the Kremlin. A parallel
question is whether this is the start of a coordinated campaign by Russian dissidents to weaken
President Vladimir Putin using anti-Trump US intermediaries, and what will Putin's reaction
be.
Foreigners money laundering ill-gotten gains in New York City real estate? Incredible and
unbelievable according to the US Department of Justice. As long as these foreigners buy from
approved sellers of real estate.
The meeting with Veselnitskaya looks like it was part of the
Brennan/Clapper/Clinton set up to try to create 'collusion' where there
was none.
But lest we forget, there was also no Russian 'hack.'
Shouldn't the real scandal be
1. efforts by obama, clinton, fbi, doj, and cia to overturn the
election via fraud and perjury and leaks to a select few establishment
agitprop rags, and
2. the US/UK/Saudi/Qatari/Turk/Israeli support for Al Qaeda and IS?
I think so, which is yet more reason why I think Mueller needs to be
made to narrow his focus, and be given some date by which to finish -
at least a month before November.
That's what our banker dominated government wants. Sure, real estate
becomes too expensive for for the non parasitic working poor, but it
keeps their dollar high for more pointless war spending.
"... This effort was originally revealed in February and reported on by The Federalist , after a series of leaked text messages between Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and lobbyist Adam Waldman suggested that Daniel J. Jones - an ex-FBI investigator and former Feinstein staffer, was "intimately involved with ongoing efforts to retroactively validate a series of salacious and unverified memos published by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, and Fusion GPS." ..."
"... In short, Jones is working with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to continue their investigation into Donald Trump, using a $50 million war chest just revealed by the House Intel Committee report. ..."
"... In a bizarre twist Waldman, the lobbyist, notably represents Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, head of Russian aluminum giant Rusal and who was the target of Trump's recent sanctions, as well as Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. He met with Jones on March 16, 2017 according to the Daily Caller. ..."
"... Jones, meanwhile, runs the Penn Quarter Group - a "research and investigative advisory" firm whose website was registered in April of 2016, days before Steele delivered his first in a series of Trump-Russia memos to Fusion GPS. Jones also began tweeting out articles suggesting illicit ties between the Trump campaign and Russia as early as 2017. ..."
"... The recently released House Intel Report notes that in March 2017, Jones told the FBI that he was working with Steele and Fusion GPS, with funding to the tune of $50 million. ..."
"... "[Redacted] further stated that PQG had secured the services of Steele, his associate [redacted], and Fusion GPS to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election," reads the report, which adds that Jones " planned to share the information he obtained with policymakers and with the press ." ..."
"... And now Jones has a $50 million war chest - from a group of mysterious "7 to 10" donors - to continue the grande Trump-Russia witch hunt with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS - coordinated in part by a guy (Waldman) who represents Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Seems somewhat collusive, no? ..."
by Tyler Durden
Sat, 04/28/2018 - 13:50 193 SHARES
The House Intelligence Committee's just-released report on Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election reveals in a footnote that an ongoing,
private investigation into Trump-Russia claims is being funded with $50 million supplied by
George Soros and a group of 7-10 wealthy donors from California and New York.
This effort was originally revealed in February and reported on by
The Federalist , after a series of
leaked text messages between Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and lobbyist Adam Waldman suggested
that Daniel J. Jones - an ex-FBI investigator and former Feinstein staffer, was "intimately
involved with ongoing efforts to retroactively validate a series of salacious and unverified
memos published by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, and Fusion
GPS."
In short, Jones is working with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to continue their
investigation into Donald Trump, using a $50 million war chest just revealed by the House Intel
Committee report.
In a bizarre twist Waldman, the lobbyist, notably represents Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch
Oleg Deripaska, head of Russian aluminum giant Rusal and who was the target of Trump's recent
sanctions, as well as Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. He met with Jones on March 16,
2017 according to the Daily Caller.
Jones, meanwhile, runs the Penn Quarter Group - a "research and investigative advisory" firm
whose website was registered in April of 2016, days before Steele delivered his first in a
series of Trump-Russia memos to Fusion GPS. Jones also began tweeting out articles suggesting
illicit ties between the Trump campaign and Russia as early as 2017.
Steele's work during the 2016 election culminated in the salacious and unverified 35-page
"Steele dossier" used to obtain a FISA warrant against then-President Trump (which, as we
reported on Friday, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
leaked the details to CNN 's Jake Tapper prior to the seemingly coordinated publication by
BuzzFeed ).
The recently released House Intel Report notes that in March 2017, Jones told the FBI that
he was working with Steele and Fusion GPS, with funding to the tune of $50 million.
"In late March 2017, Jones met with FBI regarding PQG, which he described as 'exposing
foreign influence in Western election,'" reads the House Intel report. "[Redacted] told FBI
that PQG was being funded by 7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and
California, who provided approximately $50 million ."
"[Redacted] further stated that PQG had secured the services of Steele, his associate
[redacted], and Fusion GPS to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S.
Presidential election," reads the report, which adds that Jones " planned to share the
information he obtained with policymakers and with the press ."
As the Daily Caller 's
Chuck Ross notes, Jones "also offered to provide PQG's entire holdings to the FBI" according to
the report, citing a "FD-302" transcript of the interview he gave to the FBI.
Of note, during Congressional testimony last year when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) asked Glenn
Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, if he was still being paid for work related to the dossier ,
Simpson refused
to answer . And while the dossier came under fire for "
salacious and unverified " claims, a January 8 New York
Times profile of Glenn Simpson confirmed that dossier-related work continues.
Sean Davis of The Federalist
reported in February that Jones' name was mentioned in a list of individuals from a
January 25 Congressional letter from Senators Grassley and Graham to various Democratic
party leaders who were likely involved in Fusion GPS's 2016 efforts. The letter sought all
communications between the Democrats and a list of 40 individuals or entities, of which Jones
is one.
Some of those communications - at least according to the encrypted text messages between
Warner and Waldman, (and leaked to Fox News) , discuss efforts by Warner to secure a testimony
from Steele.
"I spoke w Steele," Waldman wrote on April 25, 2017. "He repeated the same position which
is that he wants to be helpful but is fearful of the triumvirate of cost, time suck and
reputation."
"He asked me what your concern was about a letter first and I explained it but he would
still like as a first protective step from you and [Sen. Richard] Burr asking him and his
partner to assist w the investigation by answering questions," Waldman added . "He [Steele]
said he will also speak w Dan Jones whom he says is talking to you ."
"I pointed out there is no privilege in that discussion although Dan [Jones] is a good guy
and very trustworthy guy. I encouraged him again to engage with you for the sake of the truth
and of vindication of the dossier," he wrote. - Adam Waldman to Mark Warner
Meanwhile, Federal disclosures required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act show that
Waldman collected nearly $1.1 million from Deripaska in2016an d 2017
. Some questions:
Why would Waldman, a Russian oligarch's foreign agent, be the official cutout for both a U.S. senator
and Christopher Steele?
Why would he recommend Daniel Jones - a former top Feinstein aide who worked for the FBI
- as a point of contact and an information broker?
And now Jones has a $50 million war chest - from a group of mysterious "7 to 10" donors - to
continue the grande Trump-Russia witch hunt with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS -
coordinated in part by a guy (Waldman) who represents Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Seems somewhat collusive, no?
"... How about a poll that really matters. Let's see how popular this war mongering scag is with her peers at the U.N.(and Kool-aid drinking nations don't count) ..."
"... Lack of a fully functional brain, for starters. Smart dresser though. ..."
"... She is dire, but looking on the bright side, it could have been a Clinton appointee instead. Who would have been automatically crooked, and paid to play (for the high level jobs in every department, of course). ..."
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is America's most popular politician according to a
study by Quinnipiac University, CNN reported yesterday.
Haley is viewed positively by some 63 per cent of US voters, while only 39 per cent gave
their approval of US President Donald Trump. Haley's popularity also stretched to both sides of
the political spectrum, with 75 per cent of Republicans, 55 per cent of Democrats and 63 per
cent of Independents supporting the former South Carolina governor. She was only exceeded by
former president Barack Obama, who was still held in high regard by some 66 per cent of
voters.
The UN envoy has taken strong stands in favour of Israel, particularly in the aftermath of
the US' recognition
of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in December. When the UN General Assembly
voted to condemn the Trump administration's decision, Haley slammed the global forum as
ungrateful for US contributions to the organisation.
"No vote in the UN will make any difference to that [the decision]. But this vote will make
a difference to how the Americans see the UN. This vote will be remembered," she concluded,
echoing her previous
comments that the delegation would be taking names of those who voted against the
recognition.
Last month, Haley gave another unrestrained speech at the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, where she again condemned the UN for its alleged
anti-Israel bias.
"In the real world, Israel is a strong country with a strong military," she said. "But at
the UN, it's a different story. Israel does get bullied there."
Haley was met with thunderous applause as she argued that the UN had "long undermined peace
by encouraging an illusion that Israel will simply go away." But Israel, she stressed, "is not
going away. When the world recognises that, then peace becomes possible."
She also responded to the criticism that the US shows favouritism for Israel: "There's
nothing wrong with showing favouritism towards an ally, that's what being an ally is all
about."
The UN envoy's speech was noted as the most enthusiastically received by the thousands of
attendees at the event, as she received multiple standing ovations during her speech and shouts
of "we love you" from the crowd.
Haley has also taken a strong stance over the conflict in Syria,
threatening to strike the Assad regime during the bombardment of Eastern Ghouta last month.
The Russian delegation
condemned her comments, stating that "such thunderous and irresponsible statements by the
American envoy cause resentment and great anxiety."
How about a poll that really matters. Let's see how popular this war mongering scag is
with her peers at the U.N.(and Kool-aid drinking nations don't count)
There is likely a correlation between the percentage of the polled who gave her the nod,
and this woman herself.
Lack of a fully functional brain, for starters. Smart dresser though. That rig the French granny was wearing the other day? Eek.
She is dire, but looking on the bright side, it could have been a Clinton appointee
instead. Who would have been automatically crooked, and paid to play (for the high level
jobs in every department, of course).
serotonindumptruck -> The First Rule • Sat, 04/28/2018 - 16:38 Permalink
For all those who thought the anorexic Samantha (Skeletor) Power was a horrific warmonger, the Deep State hereby doubles
down and offers up the neocon dot-head Nikki Haley.
"... Clapper and Brennan are perjurers, so it seems is Comey. Lynch tanked the prosecution by not reminding FBI that its up to the DOJ, not FBI, to decide to prosecute or not ((how has that gotten lost in all this))... its crooks all the way down to the dark corners of the Shadow State, where drug sales, murder, and terror are the red blood cells of the beast. ..."
"... Strzok and Page are sacrificial pigs who have apparently only convicted themselves of gross stupidity. There is no evidence of crimes being committed in emails. That is why both are still employed. No evidence either one was having an affair, either. Going to lunch is not a crime. ..."
Jim Comey DOES get to arbitrarily judge
what is and what is not classified! As
the head of the FBI, he clearly has the
role of 'Originating Authority' on
determining classification of ANY
document. What it says is, that if
there's ANY doubt, whether it is
classified or not, it shall be
SAFEGUARDED at the higher level of
classification. And the ultimate
authority, is the President of the
United States, if the Originator is
Comey. So Comey took it upon himself
to declassify, classified documents
without the permission of the President
of the United States, who happens to be
his boss.
(c)
If there is
reasonable doubt about the need to
classify information, it shall be
safeguarded as if it were classified
pending a determination by an original
classification authority, who shall
make this determination within thirty
(30) days. If there is
reasonable doubt about the appropriate
level of classification, it shall be
safeguarded at the higher level of
classification pending a determination
by an original classification authority
,
who shall make this determination
within thirty (30) days.
Executive Order
12356--National security information
Source:
The
provisions of Executive Order 12356
of Apr. 2, 1982, appear at 47 FR
14874 and 15557, 3 CFR, 1982 Comp.,
p. 166, unless otherwise noted.
10) other categories of
information that are related to the
national security and that require
protection against unauthorized
disclosure as determined by the
President or by agency heads or
other officials who have been
delegated original classification
authority
by the President
.
Any
determination made under
this subsection shall be reported
promptly to the Director of the
Information Security Oversight
Office
.
(b) Information that is
determined to concern one or more
of the categories in Section
1.3(a
) shall be
classified when an original
classification authority also
determines that its unauthorized
disclosure, either by itself or
in the context of other
information, reasonably could be
expected to cause damage to the
national security.
(c) Unauthorized disclosure
of foreign government
information, the identity of a
confidential foreign source, or
intelligence sources or methods
is presumed to cause damage to
the national security.
(d)
Information classified
in accordance with Section 1.3
shall not be declassified
automatically as a result of any
unofficial publication or
inadvertent or unauthorized
disclosure in the United States
or abroad of identical or similar
information.
[!!!!!!]
Comey is no different than any of those low lifes
you used to see get busted on Cops. He's a
confidence man. A crack head, high on his own
power. He's worse in fact because he betrayed his
fellow Americans en masse.
What nails him is over
confidence. Obama has it, Clinton has it. They all
think that they they're winners at the table and
that it's gonna go on forever. They are the worse
type because they think they deserve it. There is
not a gram of humility in the lot. Prisons are full
of these guys.
Interestingly enough, all these these players
use the same excuses those addicts with smack in
the center console use as they were getting cuffed.
"What? We were just talkin"
"I had no idea that was there"
"I don't remember"
"Some guy told me it was okay"
"I don't know"
"The other guy started it"
"That's my personal stuff. You got no right"
"Those aren't mine"
"Wasn't me"
"I'm not me I'm my younger brother" (nod to Ike
Turner for that one)
It's the sheer weight of these tired old answers
that makes it so obvious that Comey is scum. He has
an answer for everything. Put them all together and
you get a figure eight. He's a punk in the first
order and a henchman of a crime family. I'm hoping
he ends up somebody's punk when this is over.
Hey Cornholius, When you say "these pigs are as dirty as
they get" are you talking about Jeff "Reefer Madness"
Sessions? Because, if you are, I will agree with you.
I'm talking about all the fucknuts who steal the
fruits of your labor and claim to be "serving the
public". Sessions is definitely one of those pigs.
Taxpayers enable and support his behaviour.
This is a constitutional republic. They like
"democracy" because they can claim their crimes
legitimate as "mandates". Their actions are
unconstitutional. That is the law. Be nice if the
next time the military conducts exercises in a
domestic population center the local militia takes
them all prisoner. Train for this.
Maybe ideologically it is a constitutional
republic, but since March 9, 1933 when FDR
signed the Emergency Banking Act the United
States has been a private institution managed by
foreign investors.
"Since March 9, 1933 The
United States has been in a state of Declared
National Emergency ... Under the powers
delegated by these statutes the President may:
seize property, organize and control the means
of production, seize commodities, order military
forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and
control all transportation and communication,
regulate the operation of private enterprise,
restrict travel, and in a plethora of ways
control the lives of American citizens. ... A
majority of the people in the United States have
lived all of their lives under emergency rule.
For forty years, freedoms and governmental
procedure guaranteed by the Constitution have in
varying degrees been abridged by laws brought
into force by national emergency." In Reg. US
Senate report No. 93-549 dated 11/19/73
Why Trump allows this, I can't figure out...either it's
part of a bigger plan, he's a dumb-ass, or he's being
forced to allow this shit-show to go into it's second
season.
Clapper and Brennan are perjurers, so it seems is Comey. Lynch tanked the
prosecution by not reminding FBI that its up to the DOJ, not FBI, to decide to
prosecute or not ((how has that gotten lost in all this))... its crooks all
the way down to the dark corners of the Shadow State, where drug sales,
murder, and terror are the red blood cells of the beast.
And of course Hillary... decades of lies, murders, theft, and the
deliberate arming of terrorists in Syria, per her emails, to 'help Israel.'
These people aren't merely criminals, but domestic terrorists and traitors.
Trump and Sessions' failure to indict these people merits your attention
regardless of what you think of Trump these days.
The lack of prosecutions means a DOJ afraid of what dark secrets may be
revealed in the harsh light of investigation and prosecution.
We would likely, even as cynics, absolutely marvel at the thoroughness of
Washington's corruption if we saw it.
Maybe we'd think about treating DC as a zio/globalist occupied territory
that presents a clear and present danger to the several States.
Strzok
and Page are sacrificial
pigs who have apparently
only convicted
themselves of gross
stupidity. There is no
evidence of crimes being
committed in emails.
That is why both are
still employed. No
evidence either one was
having an affair,
either. Going to lunch
is not a crime.
The real action is
who and what else is
being concealed from the
world.......
FBI are all a bunch
of depraved FUCKS.
If FBI secrets were
to come out for everyone
to see, every criminal
prosecution in which FBI
Fucks were involved
could be dismissed,
overturned, reversed, or
withdrawn from Fed
Court. Gov does not have
enough $$$$$$ to pay the
damages.
So we all get fucked
and FBI cunts stay
employed.
Sso corrupt it is
UNIMAGINABLE !!!!
Close down the FBI
!!!! End the fucking
contest. Do it NOW !!!
Did his crack legal team tell him to shut the fuck up? He's basically cross
examining himself in a public forum.
The Clinton email thing is still
amazing. It's de jure illegal to handle the information the way they did
regardless of intent. No interview was necessary. No immunity to an
unnecessary interview needed to happen either. This is a miscarriage at its
most benign.
Only a boob would believe this "aw schucks" nonesense.
It is amazing he ran the FBI. He is completely delusional. Has no sense of the
rule of law or how to apply it. Has no sense of how the law applies to him. He
cannot see the consequences of his actions on people or how they would
interpret it. Complete narcissist that lacks any empathy. Truly a psychopath.
The level of absurdity of the former head of the nation's purportedly premiere
law enforcement agency giving unlimited interviews to promote a tell-all book
on still active investigations in which he was involved is so high that it
would it wouldn't even be fodder for satire. Sanctimonious "Cardinal" Comey
has become a caricature of himself. He is either bringing shame and disgrace
to the FBI that he purportedly loves, or conclusively demonstrating that it is
more politically corrupt than under Hoover; but without the competency it
displayed under Hooveresque directors. People like Comey, McCabe, Strzok and
Page sent scores of people to prison, ruining untold lives. How many of these
people would have been found guilty if even a fraction of this information had
been available to defense attorneys as exculpatory evidence? Manafort's
lawyers are going to have a field day with all of this (at least in the DC
case where Judge Berman Jackson - a former defense lawyer and ostensibly fair
jurist - is presiding; I pity Manafort's lawyers in front of Judge Ellis in
Alexandria). Every time that Comey opens his mouth, he is making multiple
inconsistent statements of varying degrees. His narcissism and greed are so
monumental that he doesn't even see the damage that he did, is and will
continue to do to his credibility. I do, however, have to end by commending
him for appearing on Fox, though I think that it was more his inability to
turn down a forum for self-promotion than out of any particular
bravery.
Comey said, "it was unlikely to end in a case that the prosecutors at DOJ
would bring."
That doesn't mean the hundred-plus FBI agents who actually
worked the case didn't believe Clinton should be prosecuted. Comey betrayed
FBI agents by not supporting them. Instead, he sided with politicize
prosecutors, including Attorney General Lynch, who weren't going to indict
Clinton no matter what the evidence showed. Comey is a limpid coward and a
disgrace to law enforcement officers throughout the land.
Does Bezos have Comey's book "Riding My High Horse" at number one on
Amazon, like he did with Clinton's book "What The Fuck Happened?" even
though it had only sold 62 copies?
Classified is classified, unless you work for a Clinton.
SO if you put classified information in your book, it is no longer
classified??????
Shit, a whole lot of ex CIA guys need to write books. How about, "Well
we knew that the most murderous and despicable Nazi was in Argentina all
along and lived there for 30 years after WWII but we never went and got
him, because he really didn't do most of the things we claimed he did."
forget the dossier. forget that she destroyed evidence. forget that she
fleeced world leaders for her little foundation. forget the outrageous
speaking fees of her disgraced ex president husband. forget the meeting on
the tarmac with the AG. forget that her campaign was laundering
contributions.
SHE SET UP A FUCKING ILLEGAL EMAIL SERVER IN HER HOME AND
REDIRECTED GOVERNMENT TOP SECRET EMAIL TO THAT SERVER IN AN ATTEMPT TO HIDE
ALL HER CRIMES.
God these people are dirtier than a small time local politician. Jail
em all.
I have learned that there is a gaping deep and wide crevasse between a
'fact' and a 'truth'.
A 'truth' is, e.g., That tall oak out there is a
tree.
A 'fact' is, that depending on where you are standing, you can attest to
seeing less than a half of a tree, (unless you have developed the ability
to see around bends).
So when someone like the weasel Comey is says something is a fact, you
have every reason to doubt that he is telling you a truth.
I have a larcenous heart. I regret that I did not get into government,
seeing how much money can be made and how risk free the jobs are. Few----
compared to the many millions who have literally gotten away with murder,
gathered immense fortunes, and awesome behind the scenes power that is
invisible----have ever been arrested let alone accused, prosecuted and sent
to jail. You can count them on your fingers and toes.
So I have no objections to people buying his pack of lies and him making
some serious money on the advances, the book, and the eventual movie,
starring George Clooney as the hero, Comey.
The Department of "Justice", lost its way long ago. To persist in
calling it the DOJ when it is nothing of the sort, just another
disreputable, bureaucratic fuckup of a government agency, is a total lie.
Comey lies in the interview exposed plus the new Peter Strzok and Lisa
Page emails. Even what must be a very tiny percentage of their emails
during the covered time span have some very revealing contents which the
censors missed:
Interestingly, Comey said Republicans financed the Steele dossier before
Democrats. What if he's telling the truth? Trump is an Independent with an
"R" next to his name-Trump isn't their "Boy". Many Lifer Republicans in
fact are leaving office including House Speaker Ryan. If a Republican is
responsible for financing the dossier, my guess for one is Senator John
McCain.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-mccain-associate-subpoena
I could not watch more than 25% of the first video without projectile
vomiting. This fucker should be shot for treason, as all the rest of the
swamp leaders. The one sailor went to jail for accidentally releasing a
pic in an engine room, and Petras went to prison for so much less.
It's time to water the tree of Liberty with the blood of traitors to the
Republic...
"... The revelation that Clapper was responsible for leaking details of both the dossier and briefings to two presidents on the matter is significant, because former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey wrote in one of four memos that he leaked that the briefing of Trump on salacious and unverified allegations from the dossier was necessary because "CNN had them and were looking for a news hook." - The Federalist ..."
"... Comey's account of Trump's briefing on the dossier suggested that it was a setup from the beginning - and that it was only done in order to legitimize the story and justify leaking the unverified and salacious details to journalists. ..."
"... This briefing, and the leaking of it, legitimized the dossier, which touched off the Russia hysteria. That hysteria led to a full-fledged media freakout. During the freakout, Comey deliberately refused to say in public what he acknowledged repeatedly in private -- that the President of the United States was not under investigation. He even noted in his memos that he told the president at least three times that he was not under investigation. Comey's refusal to admit publicly what he kept telling people privately led to his firing. - The Federalist ..."
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) turned CNN commentator James Clapper not only
leaked information related to the infamous "Steele dossier" to CNN's Jake Tapper while Clapper
was in office - it appears he also lied about it to Congress, under oath.
Clapper was one of the "two national security officials" cited in CNN's
repor t -published minutes after Buzzfeed released the
full Steele dossier .
The revelation that Clapper was responsible for leaking details of both the dossier and
briefings to two presidents on the matter is significant, because former Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) director James Comey wrote in one of four memos that he leaked that the
briefing of Trump on salacious and unverified allegations from the dossier was necessary
because "CNN had them and were looking for a news hook." -
The Federalist
So Comey said that Trump needed to be briefed on the Dossier's allegations since CNN "had
them" - because James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence at the time, provided that
information to the same network he now works for .
And who's idea was it to brief Trump on the dossier? JAMES CLAPPER - according to former FBI
Director James Comey's memos:
"I said there was something that Clapper wanted me to speak to the [president-elect] about
alone or in a very small group ," Comey wrote.
The revelations detailing Clapper's leak to CNN can be found in a 253-page report by
the House Intelligence Committee majority released on Friday - which also found "
no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian
government."
As Sean Davis of The
Federalist bluntly states: " Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to
then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN's Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and
was rewarded with a CNN contract a few months later ."
From Clapper's Congressional testimony:
MR. ROONEY: Did you discuss the dossier or any other intelligence related to Russia
hacking of the 2016 election with journalists?
MR. CLAPPER: No.
Clapper later changed his tune after he was confronted about his communications with
Tapper:
"Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the 'dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,'
and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists about the same topic," the report
reads. "Clapper's discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017, around the time IC
leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump, on 'the Christopher Steele
information,' a two-page summary of which was 'enclosed in' the highly-classified version of
the ICA," or intelligence community assessment.
As Jack Posobiec
adds , " To be clear: CNN's Jake Tapper participated in a leak of highly classified
information from James Clapper and knowingly participated in a cover-up of it that has gone on
for months, during which time CNN hired Clapper as a paid contributor ."
The Daily Caller' s Chuck Ross notes that Clapper also denied speaking to the media in a
March conversation with CNN's Don Lemon.
And let's not forget, Jake Tapper has been participating in the lie .
Indeed it is Don - as The Federalist' s Mollie Hemmingway
wrote in January - Comey's account of Trump's briefing on the dossier suggested that it was
a setup from the beginning - and that it was only done in order to legitimize the story and
justify leaking the unverified and salacious details to journalists.
Let's bring it home with Mollie Hemmingway's summary from January which hits the nail on the
head:
So Comey, at Clapper's expressed behest, told Trump that CNN was "looking for a news hook"
to publish dossier allegations. He said this in the briefing of Trump that almost immediately
leaked to CNN, which provided them the very news hook they sought and needed.
This briefing, and the leaking of it, legitimized the dossier, which touched off the
Russia hysteria. That hysteria led to a full-fledged media freakout. During the freakout,
Comey deliberately refused to say in public what he acknowledged repeatedly in private --
that the President of the United States was not under investigation. He even noted in his
memos that he told the president at least three times that he was not under investigation.
Comey's refusal to admit publicly what he kept telling people privately led to his firing. -
The Federalist
We look forward to James Clapper talking his way out of this on CNN during carefully
scripted conversations with fellow talking heads. Tags
"... The ultimate goal of the new world order as an ideology is total centralization of economic and governmental power into the hands of a select and unaccountable bureaucracy made up of international financiers. This is governance according the the dictates of Plato's Republic; a delusional fantasy world in which benevolent philosopher kings, supposedly smarter and more objective than the rest of us, rule from on high with scientific precision and wisdom. It is a world where administrators become gods. ..."
"... Large corporations receive unfair legal protection under limited liability as well as outright legislative protection from civil consequences (Monsanto is a perfect example of this). They also receive immense taxpayer funded welfare through bailouts and other sources when they fail to manage their business responsibly. All this while small businesses and entrepreneurs are impeded at every turn by taxation and legal obstacles. ..."
"... Only massive corporations supported by governments are able to exploit the advantages of international manufacturing and labor sources in a way that ensures long term success. Meanwhile economic models that promote true decentralization and localism become impractical because real competition is never allowed. The world has not enjoyed free markets in at least a century. What we have today is something entirely different. ..."
"... The fact is, globalist institutions and central banks permeate almost every corner of the world. Nations like Russia and China are just as heavily tied to the IMF and the Bank for International Settlements and international financial centers like Goldman Sachs as any western government. ..."
"... The first inclination of human beings is to discriminate against ideas and people they see as destructive and counter to their prosperity. Globalists therefore have to convince a majority of people that the very tribalism that has fueled our social evolution and some of the greatest ideas in history is actually the source of our eventual doom. ..."
"... As mentioned earlier, globalists cannot have their "new world order" unless they can convince the masses to ask for it. Trying to implement such a system by force alone would end in failure, because revolution is the natural end result of tyranny. Therefore, the new world order has to be introduced as if it had been formed by coincidence or by providence. Any hint that the public is being conned into accepting global centralization would trigger widespread resistance. ..."
"... This is why globalism is always presented in the mainstream media as a natural extension of civilization's higher achievement. Even though it was the dangerous interdependency of globalism that helped fuel the economic crisis of 2008 and continues to escalate that crisis to this day, more globalism is continually promoted as the solution to the problem. It is spoken of with reverence in mainstream economic publications and political discussions. It receives almost religious praise in the halls of academia. Globalism is socioeconomic ambrosia -- the food of deities. It is the fountain of youth. It is a new Eden. ..."
"... Obviously, this adoration for globalism is nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever that globalism is a positive force for humanity, let alone a natural one. There is far more evidence that globalism is a poisonous ideology that can only ever gain a foothold through trickery and through false flags. ..."
When globalists speak publicly about a "new world order" they are speaking about something
very specific and rather sacred in their little cult of elitism. It is not simply the notion
that civilization shifts or changes abruptly on its own; rather, it is their name for a
directed and engineered vision - a world built according to their rules, not a world that
evolved naturally according to necessity.
There are other names for this engineered vision, including the "global economic reset," or
the more general and innocuous term "globalism," but the intention is the same.
The ultimate goal of the new world order as an ideology is total centralization of economic
and governmental power into the hands of a select and unaccountable bureaucracy made up of
international financiers. This is governance according the the dictates of Plato's Republic; a
delusional fantasy world in which benevolent philosopher kings, supposedly smarter and more
objective than the rest of us, rule from on high with scientific precision and wisdom. It is a
world where administrators become gods.
Such precision and objectivity within human systems is not possible, of course . Human
beings are far too susceptible to their own biases and personal desires to be given
totalitarian power over others. The results will always be destruction and disaster. Then, add
to this the fact that the kinds of people who often pursue such power are predominantly
narcissistic sociopaths and psychopaths. If a governmental structure of high level
centralization is allowed to form, it opens a door for these mentally and spiritually broken
people to play out their twisted motives on a global stage.
It is important to remember that sociopaths are prone to fabricating all kinds of high
minded ideals to provide cover for their actions. That is to say, they will adopt a host of
seemingly noble causes to rationalize their scramble for power, but in the end these
"humanitarians" only care about imposing their will on as many people as possible while feeding
off them for as long as time allows.
There are many false promises, misrepresentations and fraudulent conceptions surrounding the
narrative of globalism. Some of them are rather clever and subversive and are difficult to pick
out in the deliberately created fog. The schemes involved in implementing globalism are
designed to confuse the masses with crisis until they end up ASKING for more centralization and
less freedom.
Let's examine some of the most common propaganda methods and arguments behind the push for
globalization and a "new world order"
Con #1: Globalism Is About "Free Markets"
A common pro-globalism meme is the idea that globalization is not really centralization, but
decentralization. This plays primarily to the economic side of global governance, which in my
view is the most important because without economic centralization political centralization is
not possible.
Free markets according to Adam Smith, a pioneer of the philosophy, are supposed to provide
open paths for anyone with superior ideas and ingenuity to pursue those ideas without
interference from government or government aided institutions. What we have today under
globalism are NOT free markets. Instead, globalism has supplied unfettered power to
international corporations which cannot exist without government charter and government
financial aid.
The corporate model is completely counter to Adam Smith's original premise of free market
trade. Large corporations receive unfair legal protection under limited liability as well as
outright legislative protection from civil consequences (Monsanto is a perfect example of
this). They also receive immense taxpayer funded welfare through bailouts and other sources
when they fail to manage their business responsibly. All this while small businesses and
entrepreneurs are impeded at every turn by taxation and legal obstacles.
In terms of international trade being "free trade," this is not really the case either. Only
massive corporations supported by governments are able to exploit the advantages of
international manufacturing and labor sources in a way that ensures long term success.
Meanwhile economic models that promote true decentralization and localism become impractical
because real competition is never allowed. The world has not enjoyed free markets in at least a
century. What we have today is something entirely different.
Con #2: Globalism Is About A "Multipolar World"
This is a relatively new disinformation tactic that I attribute directly to the success of
the liberty movement and alternative economists. As the public becomes more educated on the
dangers of economic centralization and more specifically the dangers of central banks, the
globalists are attempting to shift the narrative to muddy the waters.
For example, the liberty movement has railed against the existence of the Federal Reserve
and fiat dollar hegemony to the point that our information campaign has been breaking into
mainstream thought. The problem is that globalism is not about the dollar, U.S. hegemony or the
so-called "deep state," which in my view is a distraction from the bigger issue at hand.
The fact is, globalist institutions and central banks permeate almost every corner of the
world. Nations like Russia and China are just as heavily tied to the IMF and the Bank for
International Settlements and international financial centers like Goldman Sachs as any western
government.
Part of the plan for the new world order, as has been openly admitted by globalists and
globalist publications, is the decline of the U.S. and the dollar system to make way for one
world financial governance through the IMF as well as the Special Drawing Rights basket as a
mechanism for the world reserve currency. The globalists WANT a less dominant U.S. and a more
involved East, while the East continues to call for more control of the global economy by the
IMF. This concept unfortunately flies over the heads of most economists, even in the liberty
movement.
So, the great lie being promoted now is that the fall of the U.S. and the dollar is a "good
thing" because it will result in "decentralization," a "multi-polar" world order and the
"death" of globalism. However, what is really happening is that as the U.S. falls globalist
edifices like the IMF and the BIS rise. We are moving from centralization to
super-centralization. Globalists have pulled a bait and switch in order to trick the liberty
movement into supporting the success of the East (which is actually also globalist controlled)
and a philosophy which basically amounts to a re-branding of the new world order as some kind
of decentralized paradise.
Con #3: Nationalism Is The Source Of War, And Globalism Will End It
If there's one thing globalists have a love/hate relationship with, it's humanity's natural
tribal instincts. On the one hand, they like tribalism because in some cases tribalism can be
turned into zealotry, and zealots are easy to exploit and manipulate. Wars between nations
(tribes) can be instigated if the tribal instinct is weighted with artificial fears and
threats.
On the other hand, tribalism lends itself to natural decentralization of societies because
tribalism in its best form is the development of many groups organized around a variety of
ideas and principles and projects. This makes the establishment of a "one world ideology" very
difficult, if not impossible. The first inclination of human beings is to discriminate against
ideas and people they see as destructive and counter to their prosperity. Globalists therefore
have to convince a majority of people that the very tribalism that has fueled our social
evolution and some of the greatest ideas in history is actually the source of our eventual
doom.
Nationalism served the globalists to a point, but now they need to get rid of it entirely.
This requires considerable crisis blamed on nationalism and "populist" ideals. Engineered war,
whether kinetic or economic, is the best method to scapegoat tribalism. Every tragedy from now
on must eventually be attributed to ideas of separation and logical discrimination against
negative ideologies. The solution of globalism will then be offered; a one world system in
which all separation is deemed "evil."
Con #4: Globalism Is Natural And Inevitable
As mentioned earlier, globalists cannot have their "new world order" unless they can
convince the masses to ask for it. Trying to implement such a system by force alone would end
in failure, because revolution is the natural end result of tyranny. Therefore, the new world
order has to be introduced as if it had been formed by coincidence or by providence. Any hint
that the public is being conned into accepting global centralization would trigger widespread
resistance.
This is why globalism is always presented in the mainstream media as a natural extension of
civilization's higher achievement. Even though it was the dangerous interdependency of
globalism that helped fuel the economic crisis of 2008 and continues to escalate that crisis to
this day, more globalism is continually promoted as the solution to the problem. It is spoken
of with reverence in mainstream economic publications and political discussions. It receives
almost religious praise in the halls of academia. Globalism is socioeconomic ambrosia -- the
food of deities. It is the fountain of youth. It is a new Eden.
Obviously, this adoration for globalism is nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever that
globalism is a positive force for humanity, let alone a natural one. There is far more evidence
that globalism is a poisonous ideology that can only ever gain a foothold through trickery and
through false flags.
We live in an era that represents an ultimate crossroads for civilization; a time of great
uncertainty. Will we seek truth in the trials we face, and thus the ability to create our own
solutions? Or, will we take a seemingly easier road by embracing whatever solutions are handed
to us by the establishment? Make no mistake -- the globalists already have a solution
prepackaged for us. They have been acclimating and conditioning the public to accept it for
decades now. That solution will not bring what it promises. It will not bring peace, but
eternal war. It will not bring togetherness, but isolation. It will not bring understanding,
but ignorance.
When globalists eventually try to sell us on a full-blown new world order, they will pull
out every conceivable image of heaven on Earth, but they will do this only after creating a
tangible and ever present hell.
* * *
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Several of the parties being sued by the DNC have expressed their excitement over the
discovery process , by which they may get their hands on even more evidence which might
incriminate or exonerate various actors. President Trump, Roger Stone, and Wikileaks (which is
countersuing the DNC) have all noted that they're looking forward to checking out the
controversial "DNC Servers" which were allegedly hacked by Russia .
In response to the DNC
lawsuit, Trump tweeted that it could be good news that " we will now counter for the DNC Server
that they refused to give to the FBI," along with the "Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and
Documents ."
Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This can be good news in
that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie
Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton
Emails.
The Trump campaign also says the lawsuit will provide an opportunity to " explore the DNC's
now-secret records ."
And as we reported on Monday, WikiLeaks is
counter-suing the DNC - setting up a donation fund and noting "We've never lost a
publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun."
The Democrats are suing @WikiLeaks and @JulianAssange for revealing
how the DNC rigged the Democratic primaries. Help us counter-sue. We've never lost a
publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun: https://t.co/E1QbYJL4bB
DNC chair Tom Perez defended the lawsuit as "necessary," telling Meet the Press that they
had to file before the statue of limitations ran out, and that "it's hard to put a price tag on
preserving democracy."
David Pepper, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party is totally cool with the DNC lawsuit. "I
don't think it hurts," said Pepper. "If you have credible claims, you have a responsibility to
pursue legal action. I think you have a day or two where [the suit] is the story, but that's
different from your overall message."
" I wouldn't have our candidates spending the fall talking about Russia or the suit or
anything like that ," Pepper said.
"They should be focused on health care, education, student debt. We shouldn't divert the
message from those topics to talk about Russia. "
And yet, that's exactly what's going to happen as the DNC lawsuit plays out in the six
months and change before midterms.
"... First, we need to accept that there is no such thing as "value-free" analysis of the economy. As I've explained, neoclassical economics pretends to be ethically neutral while smuggling in an individualistic, anti-social ethos " – Howard Reed ..."
"... Fundamentally, economics is a religion, with priests, high priests, creed, dogma, punishment for heretics, and all the other trappings of a religion. But the pay is good, so Clive's rule for middle class jobs applies. ..."
Economics conducted
a curriculum review of 174 modules at 7 Russell Group universities -- rightly or wrongly
considered the 'top' universities in the UK -- and we found that the uncritical acceptance of
one type of economics begins with education. Under 10% of modules even mentioned anything other
than mainstream or 'neoclassical' economics; in econometrics, over 90% of modules devoted more
than two-thirds of their lectures to linear regression. Only 24% of exam questions required
critical or independent thinking (i.e. were open-ended); this dropped to 8% if you only counted
the compulsory macro and micro modules that form the core of economics education.
We have
previously called this 'indoctrination', and while this may seem dramatic the dictionary
definition of indoctrination is to "teach a person or set of people to accept a set of beliefs
uncritically", which we think adequately characterises the results of the review, as well as
our own experience and many widely used economics textbooks. Given this education, it is no
wonder that economists remain wedded to the fundamental precepts of choice models and linear
regression no matter where they turn their attention. By putting the method first, the implicit
assumption becomes that answering a question using this framework is prima facie
interesting, and critical evaluation of these tools against others is made unthinkable.
For nearly thirty years after the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) became received gospel
in the mid-1960s, the claim that stock prices exhibited momentum (which shouldn't be true in
a perfectly efficient market) was roundly mocked by mainstream economists.
Then in 1993, Jegadeesh and Titman published a paper titled "Returns to Buying Winners and
Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency" in the Journal of Finance .
Its evidence for a momentum effect was impossible to refute.
So economists bolted en masse to the opposite side of the boat. Today there are
thousands of papers on momentum, often presenting some fairly trivial arithmetic that
home-based amateurs have long used. But it's formulated into equations with Greek letters,
and a [totally boring] statistical panel appears in the Appendix to prove some statistical
significance.
A few professors actually exploited their discoveries to get rich. Cliff Asness, a U of
Chicago PhD (but a practitioner, not a professor) offers some light-hearted commentary on his
mentor Eugene Fama:
Of course the book The Fama Portfolio also contains contributions by other
authors (or how the heck did I get in there?) that reflect, directly or indirectly, on
Gene's work.
Being able to read Gene's originals and some of the major papers by others that explore
his work in one volume is both a treat and incredibly useful (these contributors, unlike
John Liew and myself, are themselves serious academic luminaries!).
OK, enough shilling. If you love finance and don't immediately pine for this book, I
can't help you any further☺
Where the police were call off their pursuit, when within a finger nail of – helping
– their subject. Because the economic perimeters their models produced, with the help of
computational machines, gave a ridged defined view of the operation. Seems the subject was
operating outside the econometric perimeters due to mental illness – was a patient whom
escaped at the time.
Alas we never get to see what he saw when he popped out on the surface, save a blinding
orb.
In retrospect did they do the underground thingy to better control, could nature itself be a
threat to the model, hence the need to control every aspect of environment for behavioral
reasons.
Anywho I'll just leave this on my way to work:
"If we accept that we need fundamental reform, what should the new economics --
"de-conomics" as I'm calling it -- look like?
First, we need to accept that there is no such thing as "value-free" analysis of the
economy. As I've explained, neoclassical economics pretends to be ethically neutral while
smuggling in an individualistic, anti-social ethos " – Howard Reed
Linear regression is economists' preferred empirical technique
That's really a powerful tool in a world which is chaotic.
The trouble with embracing chaos and catastrophe theory is the "chaos" part of predicting
the future. But economists, being human and liking their paychecks, are not interested in any
predictions which do not cater, or pander, to the needs of their bosses or paymasters.
Why, that might suggest the boss is wrong! Such heresy leads to a quick execution!
Fundamentally, economics is a religion, with priests, high priests, creed, dogma,
punishment for heretics, and all the other trappings of a religion. But the pay is good, so
Clive's rule for middle class jobs applies.
Disclaimer: My view of Religion is similar: Why?
1. You'll get your reward in the afterlife, after you are dead!
2. We know this is true, because we've never had a complaint.
Linear regression certainly is a powerful tool for examining linear distributions, but it
essential to first confirm that the distribution is linear, and to remember that on occasion,
samples drawn from random (unrelated) distributions can show a spurious correlation.
but it essential to first confirm that the distribution is linear
Very true, but how is this proven? In nature and economics are there any linear
distributions? If so over what range?
I notice a preponderance of using straight lines instead of growth curves. I also notice
chaos, or noise, in behaviors, coupled with a complete non-understanding of entropy.
In nature linear behavior is unlikely. If it were linear we'd see straight branches on
trees, rainfall evenly distributed and the wind would always blow at constant speed, with
predictable eddies.
I suppose a rock dropped would exhibit linear behaviors until it hits the ground, and at
that point in time the "dropping rock" system become decidedly chaotic, from stuck in the mud,
to bouncing in a random direction, to bursting into pieces, pieces who's destiny is completely
uncertain.
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one
takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability,
they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man."
Nassim, I think covers all this better than anyone else. Would love to hear of
similarly comprehensive works.
Stumbling and Mumbling has a good riff on this topic:
". Economics, for me, is not about armchair theorizing. It should begin with the facts, and
especially the big ones. The facts are that share buy-backs do usually matter, so thought
experiments that say otherwise are wrong from the off. Similarly, the fact that wage
inflation has been low for years (pdf) is much more significant than any theorizing about
Phillips curves."
The comments are good as well:
"That's a category error: you don't define "Economics", tenure committees define it, and they
award tenure to people who have a long record of publishing "internally consistent"
("armchair theorizing") papers."
"I found myself sitting next to a very likable young middle-aged academic tenured at an elite
British university, whom henceforth I will refer to as Doctor X and whose field is closely
associated with this blog. Every year I publish papers in the top journals and they're pure
shit." Doctor X, who by now had had a glass or two, felt bad about this, not least because
"students these days are so idealistic and eager to learn; they're really wonderful."
Furthermore Doctor X could and would like "to write serious papers but what would be the
point?" "
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2018/04/facts-vs-hand-waving-in-economics.html#comments
Yeah. I'm inclined to think the author needs to curb his enthusiasms and take up dejected
drinking.
The nub of his presentation was a model in which consumers, due to cognitive
limitations, were unable to fully examine every single product they purchased. The result
was that regulations guaranteeing a certain standard of safety, quality and the like could
improve competition by giving people more time to shop around instead of having to devote
so much time to investigate specific products. Thus, regulation would improve markets and
competition
This is Nobel-level work? It amounts to finding a way to pitch a product to
anti-regulation dogmatists. I'm sure that you could find similar arguments being made during
the Progressive era regulatory push. Only they would have been framed more as "people will
have more time to shop around if they're not killed by previous ingestion of the
product."
What I mean by 'mathemagics' is the misuse of mathematics –even simple
mathematics -- to create the illusion that 'utility' or 'indifference curves' actually
pertain to real concepts. In reality, they 'mathematize' gobbledygook passed off as coherent
concepts. There is nothing so conceptually barren as 'utility' or 'indifference curve'
analytics. The notion that one can derive any coherent 'demand' analysis for any one consumer
that is individual human being (or life form of any kind) for any product, or that one can
aggregate these up is mathematical junk.
The Classical Economists used the broader political economy rather than today's narrow
economics.
The Washington Consensus dreamed of a world run by the laws of economics.
The laws of economics worked in China's favour and the Western economies got hollowed
out.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Maximising profit required minimising wages.
The minimum wage is set when disposable income equals zero.
The minimum wage = taxes + the cost of living
China had it made and the West had tilted the playing field against itself.
The US eventually woke up the geopolitical consequences of a world governed by the laws of
economics that had worked in China's favour.
Trump has just made things worse with his tax cuts.
Theory:
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy they will create more jobs and wages.
Reality:
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy they will create more jobs and wages in Asia where they can
make more profit. They can then ship the stuff back here increasing Western trade
deficits.
In February, 16 of 20 major cities experienced home price growth of 5.4% or higher: double
the average wage growth.
And then there was San Francisco
...
"Brennan/CIA democrats" can't talk about about anything else because they sold themselves under Bill Clinton to Financial oligarchy.
And stay sold since then.
Notable quotes:
"... do they honestly think that people that were just laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don't have a frickin' job? ..."
Democrats in midwestern battleground states want the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to back off the Trump-Russia rhetoric,
as state-level leaders worry it's turning off voters.
"The DNC is doing a good job of winning New York and California," said Mahoning, OH Democratic county party chair David Betras.
"I'm not saying it's not important -- of course it's important -- but do they honestly think that people that were just
laid off another shift at the car plant in my home county give a shit about Russia when they don't have a frickin' job? "
Betras says that Trump and Russia is the "only piece they've been doing since 2016. [ Trump ] keeps talking about jobs and the
economy, and we talk about Russia. "
The Democratic infighting comes on the heels of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the DNC against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks
and several other parties including the Russian government, alleging an illegal conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in a "brazen
attack on American Democracy."
Many midwestern Democrats, however, are rolling their eyes.
"I'm going to be honest; I don't understand why they're doing it," one Midwestern campaign strategist told BuzzFeed. "My sense
was it was a move meant to gin up the donor base, not our voters. But it was the biggest news they've made in a while."
The strategist added "I wouldn't want to see something like this coming out of the DNC in October."
Another Midwest strategist said that the suit was "politically unhelpful" and that they havent seen "a single piece of data that
says voters want Democrats to relitigate 2016. ... The only ones who want to do this are Democratic activists who are already voting
Democratic."
Perhaps Midwestern Democrats aren't idiots, and realize that a two-year counterintelligence operation against Donald Trump which
appears to have been a coordinated "insurance policy" against a Trump win, might not be so great for optics, considering that criminal
referrals have been submitted to the DOJ for individuals involved in the alleged scheme to rig the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.
The gloves are off in the multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks and several other parties including the
Russian government, alleging an illegal conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in a "brazen
attack on American Democracy."
Many have suggested the lawsuit is a tactical error by the DNC, as it may expose or confirm
claims against the organization - such as whether they rigged the primary against Bernie
Sanders , the level of coordination between the DNC and the Clinton Campaign, and the details
surrounding the funding of the "Steele dossier," paid for in part by both the Clinton campaign
and the DNC .
The defendants - from President Trump, to Wikileaks - and now Roger Stone - are excited at
the prospect of examining the DNC servers which cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike determined were
victims of Russian hacking in advance of the 2016 elections. Notably, the DNC would not allow
the FBI or anyone else to inspect said servers .
To that end, Stone's attorneys have slapped the DNC with a notification to preserve evidence
related to the case with a "standard pre-discovery notice." Discovery is a pre-trial process by
which one party can obtain evidence from the opposing party relevant to the case.
My lawyers and I will demand to examine the DNC's servers and expose them to real forensic
analysis, not merely accepting the claims of the DNC's paid contractor , to finally
extinguish this bogus Russian hacking claim, once and for all . My lawyers have served the
DNC with standard pre-discovery notice directing the DNC of their obligation under law to
preserve all possible evidence, including their servers, for ultimate inspection and exposure
to critical review . As Julian Assange wrote on Twitter, via the WikiLeaks feed, " Discovery
is going to be fun ." - Roger Stone
Stone notes that "Former CIA experts like Bill Binney and Ray McGovern examined the basic
data available about the copying of DNC data and concluded that there is more forensic evidence
that the material was downloaded to a portable drive , meaning it had to be someone with
physical access to DNC computers ."
"Having made their computer systems the subject matter of multi-million dollar demands for
judicial relief, the DNC has now exposed them to the discovery process ," writes Stone.
In February, New Zealand entrepreneur Kim Dotcom responded to a tweet by President Trump,
claiming that "the DNC hack wasn't even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick." Dotcom
says he knows "who did it and why," adding "Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my
evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied."
Stumbling and Mumbling has a good riff on this topic:
". Economics, for me, is not about armchair theorizing. It should begin with the facts, and
especially the big ones. The facts are that share buy-backs do usually matter, so thought
experiments that say otherwise are wrong from the off. Similarly, the fact that wage
inflation has been low for years (pdf) is much more significant than any theorizing about
Phillips curves."
The comments are good as well:
"That's a category error: you don't define "Economics", tenure committees define it, and they
award tenure to people who have a long record of publishing "internally consistent"
("armchair theorizing") papers."
"I found myself sitting next to a very likable young middle-aged academic tenured at an elite
British university, whom henceforth I will refer to as Doctor X and whose field is closely
associated with this blog. Every year I publish papers in the top journals and they're pure
shit." Doctor X, who by now had had a glass or two, felt bad about this, not least because
"students these days are so idealistic and eager to learn; they're really wonderful."
Furthermore Doctor X could and would like "to write serious papers but what would be the
point?" "
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2018/04/facts-vs-hand-waving-in-economics.html#comments
Yeah. I'm inclined to think the author needs to curb his enthusiasms and take up dejected
drinking.
The nub of his presentation was a model in which consumers, due to cognitive
limitations, were unable to fully examine every single product they purchased. The result
was that regulations guaranteeing a certain standard of safety, quality and the like could
improve competition by giving people more time to shop around instead of having to devote
so much time to investigate specific products. Thus, regulation would improve markets and
competition
This is Nobel-level work? It amounts to finding a way to pitch a product to
anti-regulation dogmatists. I'm sure that you could find similar arguments being made during
the Progressive era regulatory push. Only they would have been framed more as "people will
have more time to shop around if they're not killed by previous ingestion of the
product."
What I mean by 'mathemagics' is the misuse of mathematics –even simple
mathematics -- to create the illusion that 'utility' or 'indifference curves' actually
pertain to real concepts. In reality, they 'mathematize' gobbledygook passed off as coherent
concepts. There is nothing so conceptually barren as 'utility' or 'indifference curve'
analytics. The notion that one can derive any coherent 'demand' analysis for any one consumer
that is individual human being (or life form of any kind) for any product, or that one can
aggregate these up is mathematical junk.
The Classical Economists used the broader political economy rather than today's narrow
economics.
The Washington Consensus dreamed of a world run by the laws of economics.
The laws of economics worked in China's favour and the Western economies got hollowed
out.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Maximising profit required minimising wages.
The minimum wage is set when disposable income equals zero.
The minimum wage = taxes + the cost of living
China had it made and the West had tilted the playing field against itself.
The US eventually woke up the geopolitical consequences of a world governed by the laws of
economics that had worked in China's favour.
Trump has just made things worse with his tax cuts.
Theory:
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy they will create more jobs and wages.
Reality:
If we reduce taxes on the wealthy they will create more jobs and wages in Asia where they can
make more profit. They can then ship the stuff back here increasing Western trade
deficits.
"... First, we need to accept that there is no such thing as "value-free" analysis of the economy. As I've explained, neoclassical economics pretends to be ethically neutral while smuggling in an individualistic, anti-social ethos " – Howard Reed ..."
"... Fundamentally, economics is a religion, with priests, high priests, creed, dogma, punishment for heretics, and all the other trappings of a religion. But the pay is good, so Clive's rule for middle class jobs applies. ..."
Economics conducted
a curriculum review of 174 modules at 7 Russell Group universities -- rightly or wrongly
considered the 'top' universities in the UK -- and we found that the uncritical acceptance of
one type of economics begins with education. Under 10% of modules even mentioned anything other
than mainstream or 'neoclassical' economics; in econometrics, over 90% of modules devoted more
than two-thirds of their lectures to linear regression. Only 24% of exam questions required
critical or independent thinking (i.e. were open-ended); this dropped to 8% if you only counted
the compulsory macro and micro modules that form the core of economics education.
We have
previously called this 'indoctrination', and while this may seem dramatic the dictionary
definition of indoctrination is to "teach a person or set of people to accept a set of beliefs
uncritically", which we think adequately characterises the results of the review, as well as
our own experience and many widely used economics textbooks. Given this education, it is no
wonder that economists remain wedded to the fundamental precepts of choice models and linear
regression no matter where they turn their attention. By putting the method first, the implicit
assumption becomes that answering a question using this framework is prima facie
interesting, and critical evaluation of these tools against others is made unthinkable.
For nearly thirty years after the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) became received gospel
in the mid-1960s, the claim that stock prices exhibited momentum (which shouldn't be true in
a perfectly efficient market) was roundly mocked by mainstream economists.
Then in 1993, Jegadeesh and Titman published a paper titled "Returns to Buying Winners and
Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency" in the Journal of Finance .
Its evidence for a momentum effect was impossible to refute.
So economists bolted en masse to the opposite side of the boat. Today there are
thousands of papers on momentum, often presenting some fairly trivial arithmetic that
home-based amateurs have long used. But it's formulated into equations with Greek letters,
and a [totally boring] statistical panel appears in the Appendix to prove some statistical
significance.
A few professors actually exploited their discoveries to get rich. Cliff Asness, a U of
Chicago PhD (but a practitioner, not a professor) offers some light-hearted commentary on his
mentor Eugene Fama:
Of course the book The Fama Portfolio also contains contributions by other
authors (or how the heck did I get in there?) that reflect, directly or indirectly, on
Gene's work.
Being able to read Gene's originals and some of the major papers by others that explore
his work in one volume is both a treat and incredibly useful (these contributors, unlike
John Liew and myself, are themselves serious academic luminaries!).
OK, enough shilling. If you love finance and don't immediately pine for this book, I
can't help you any further☺
Where the police were call off their pursuit, when within a finger nail of – helping
– their subject. Because the economic perimeters their models produced, with the help of
computational machines, gave a ridged defined view of the operation. Seems the subject was
operating outside the econometric perimeters due to mental illness – was a patient whom
escaped at the time.
Alas we never get to see what he saw when he popped out on the surface, save a blinding
orb.
In retrospect did they do the underground thingy to better control, could nature itself be a
threat to the model, hence the need to control every aspect of environment for behavioral
reasons.
Anywho I'll just leave this on my way to work:
"If we accept that we need fundamental reform, what should the new economics --
"de-conomics" as I'm calling it -- look like?
First, we need to accept that there is no such thing as "value-free" analysis of the
economy. As I've explained, neoclassical economics pretends to be ethically neutral while
smuggling in an individualistic, anti-social ethos " – Howard Reed
Linear regression is economists' preferred empirical technique
That's really a powerful tool in a world which is chaotic.
The trouble with embracing chaos and catastrophe theory is the "chaos" part of predicting
the future. But economists, being human and liking their paychecks, are not interested in any
predictions which do not cater, or pander, to the needs of their bosses or paymasters.
Why, that might suggest the boss is wrong! Such heresy leads to a quick execution!
Fundamentally, economics is a religion, with priests, high priests, creed, dogma,
punishment for heretics, and all the other trappings of a religion. But the pay is good, so
Clive's rule for middle class jobs applies.
Disclaimer: My view of Religion is similar: Why?
1. You'll get your reward in the afterlife, after you are dead!
2. We know this is true, because we've never had a complaint.
Linear regression certainly is a powerful tool for examining linear distributions, but it
essential to first confirm that the distribution is linear, and to remember that on occasion,
samples drawn from random (unrelated) distributions can show a spurious correlation.
but it essential to first confirm that the distribution is linear
Very true, but how is this proven? In nature and economics are there any linear
distributions? If so over what range?
I notice a preponderance of using straight lines instead of growth curves. I also notice
chaos, or noise, in behaviors, coupled with a complete non-understanding of entropy.
In nature linear behavior is unlikely. If it were linear we'd see straight branches on
trees, rainfall evenly distributed and the wind would always blow at constant speed, with
predictable eddies.
I suppose a rock dropped would exhibit linear behaviors until it hits the ground, and at
that point in time the "dropping rock" system become decidedly chaotic, from stuck in the mud,
to bouncing in a random direction, to bursting into pieces, pieces who's destiny is completely
uncertain.
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
I've debated many economists who claim to specialize in risk and probability: when one
takes them slightly outside their narrow focus, but within the discipline of probability,
they fall apart, with the disconsolate face of a gym rat in front of a gangster hit man."
Nassim, I think covers all this better than anyone else. Would love to hear of
similarly comprehensive works.
Lyapanov's work on the inherent instability of complex systems which was used as a basis
of Chaos Theory, is enough in itself to relegate predictions based on a linear model when
applied to the complex to be thrown into the dustbin of history.
LTCM L.P. Was I believe wiped out due to a combination of the 90's Asian & Russian
crisis' ( karma in the case of the latter ? ). It would be impossible to discover which tiny
flap of the butterfly's wings initiated the tipping point or to predict it beforehand.
Nudge was the title of a book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein on how to manipulate
people in their supposed best interest, like in cafeteria lines, to put whole fruit before
desserts made with sugar.
If you liked Nudge , you'll love " cognitive infiltration ":
Conspiracy Theories
Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 08-03
Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled
epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best
response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas,
such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to
ignore them, are explored in this light.
Keywords: conspiracy theories, social networks, informational cascades, group
polarization https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
Is not this what discerning MIC's all do these days, via FBI FB?
And of course we mopes have been "nudged" into pretty much that blind serfdom alluded to.
Back in the Cave, with not much chance of dispelling the belief in and subjection to the
shadows projected on the wall we are forced to face
I rather detest the notion of someone or entity 'nudging' me in the direction of some
behavior, especially in a paternalistic mode where the assumption is that they know better
than I what I 'should' be doing or thinking.
On one level, isn't that a working definition of advertising? On another, it smacks of
authoritarianism. Don't we have enough of this kind of thing already? Worse, what's the first
reaction one naturally has when they realize they're being manipulated? Seems to be a
strategy fraught with risk of getting exactly the wrong response.
If I'm to be encouraged to behave in a given way, show me the respect of offering a
conscious, intelligent argument to do so on the merits, or kindly go (family blog)
yourself!
In economics, the single most important thing to understand is debt.
If you understand debt; you won't have any debt.
Debt and freedom are the antithisis of each other.
Without debt; nudges have no influence.
While it is
undeniable that neoliberals routinely disparage the state, both back then and now, it does not
follow that they are politically libertarian or, as David Harvey would have it, that they are
implacably opposed to state interventions in the economy and society. Harvey's error is
distressing, since even Antonio Gramsci understood this: "Moreover, laissez-faire liberalism,
too, must be introduced by law, through the intervention of political power: it is an act of
will, not the spontaneous, automatic expression of economic facts." 6
From the 1940s onward, the distinguishing characteristic of neoliberal doctrines and practice
is that they embrace this prospect of repurposing the strong state to impose their vision of a
society properly open to the dominance of the market as they conceive it. Neoliberals from
Friedrich Hayek to James Buchanan to Richard Posner to Alexander Rüstow (who invented the
term Vitalpolitik , which became Foucault's "biopolitics") to Jacques Rueff, not to
mention a plethora of figures after 1970, all explicitly proposed policies to strengthen the
state. 7
Friedman's own trademark proposals, like putting the money supply on autopilot, or replacing
public schools with vouchers, required an extremely strong state to enforce them. While
neoliberal think tanks rile up the base with debt clocks and boogeyman statistics of ratios of
government expenditure to GDP, neoliberal politicians organize a host of new state activities
to fortify their markets. They extravagantly increase incarceration and policing of those whom
they deem unfit for the marketplace. They expand both state and corporate power to exercise
surveillance and manipulation of subject populations while dismantling judicial recourse to
resist such encroachments. Neoliberals introduce new property rights (like intellectual
property) to cement into place their extensions of market valuations to situations where they
were absent. They strengthen international sanctions such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and
investor-state dispute settlement schemes to circumvent and neutralize national social
legislation they dislike. They bail out and subsidize private banking systems at the cost of
many multiples of existing national income. And they define corporations as legal persons in
order to facilitate the buying of elections.
The blue-sky writings of neoliberals with regard to the state are, if anything, even more
daunting. In the imaginary constitution proposed in Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty
, he suggests that politicians be rendered more powerful : in the imagined upper
legislative house, Hayek stipulates, only men of substantial property over age forty-five would
be eligible to vote or be elected; no political parties would be allowed; and each member would
stand for a hefty fifteen-year term. 8
This illustrates the larger neoliberal predisposition to be very leery of democracy, and thus
to stymie public participation through the concentration of political power in fewer hands.
James Buchanan proposed something very similar. 9
This is just about as far from libertarianism as one could get, short of brute
dictatorship.
So here is the answer to my first question: people think the label "neoliberalism" is an
awful neologism because the neoliberals have been so good at covering their tracks, obscuring
what they stand for, and denying the level of coherence which they have achieved in their long
march to legitimacy. Back when some of these proposals were just a gleam in Hayek's eye, they
did explicitly use the term "neoliberalism" to describe the project that, back then, did not
yet exist -- even Milton Friedman used it in print! 10
But once their program looked like it would start to jell, and subsequently start reshaping
both the state and the market more to their liking, they abruptly abjured any reference to that
label, and sometime in the later 1950s, following the lead of Hayek, they began to call
themselves "classical liberals." This attempt at rebranding was an utter travesty because, as
they moved from reconceptualization of one area of human experience to another, the resulting
doctrines contradicted classical liberalism point by point, and term by term. It might be
worthwhile for us who come after to insist upon the relevance of things that put the
neo- in neoliberalism.
What's New about Neoliberalism?
In a nutshell, classical liberalism imagined a night watchman state that would set the
boundaries for the natural growth of the market, like a shepherd tending his flock. Markets
were born, not made. The principles of good governance and liberty would be dictated by natural
rights of individual humans, or perhaps by the prudent accretion of tradition. People needed to
be nurtured first to find themselves, in order to act as legitimate citizens in liberal
society. Society would be protected from the disruptive character of the market by something
like John Stuart Mill's "harm principle": colloquially, the freedom of my fist stops at the
freedom of your face. The neoliberals were having none of that, and explicitly said so.
Far from trying to preserve society against the unintended consequences of the operations of
markets, as democratic liberalism sought to do, neoliberal doctrine instead set out actively to
dismantle those aspects of society which might resist the purportedly inexorable logic of
"catallactics," and to reshape it in the market's image. For neoliberals, freedom and the
market would be treated as identical. Their rallying cry was to remove the foundation of
liberty from natural rights or tradition, and reposition it upon an entirely novel theory
concerning what a market was, or should be. They could not acknowledge individual natural
rights, because they sought to tutor the masses to become the agent the market would be most
likely to deem successful. The market no longer gave you what you wanted; you had to capitulate
to what the market wanted. All areas of life could be better configured to behave as if they
were more market-like. Gary Becker, for example, a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society,
proposed a market-based approach to allow for a socially optimal level of crime, and advocated
a revolutionary extension of marginal calculus to include the "shadow costs" and benefits
associated with "children, prestige or esteem, health, altruism, envy, and pleasure of the
senses." Becker even proposed an economic model of the "dating market," one consequence of
which was the proposition that polygamy for successful, wealthy men could be politically
rationalized. And voilà! The Sunday New York Times produced an article saying
just that, as if it were real news. Classical liberals like Mill or Michael Oakeshott would be
spinning in their graves. 11
The intellectual content of neoliberalism is something that warrants sustained discussion,
but this can only happen once critical historians can admit they are no longer basing their
evaluations on the isolated writings of a single author. There is no convenient crib sheet
describing what the modern neoliberal thought collective (for brevity, NTC) actually believes.
Nevertheless, neoliberalism does have certain themes that are regularly sounded in emanations
from the NTC:
(1) "Free" markets do not occur naturally. They must be actively constructed through
political organizing.
(2) "The market" is an information processor, and the most efficient one possible -- more
efficient than any government or any single human ever could be. Truth can only be validated by
the market.
(3) Market society is, and therefore should be, the natural and inexorable state of
humankind.
(4) The political goal of neoliberals is not to destroy the state, but to take control of
it, and to redefine its structure and function, in order to create and maintain the
market-friendly culture.
(5) There is no contradiction between public/politics/citizen and
private/market/entrepreneur-consumer -- because the lat ter does and should
eclipse the former.
(6) The most important virtue -- more important than justice, or anything else -- is
freedom, defined "negatively" as "freedom to choose," and most importantly, defined as the
freedom to acquiesce to the imperatives of the market.
(7) Capital has a natural right to flow freely across national boundaries.
(8) Inequality -- of resources, income, wealth, and even political rights -- is a good
thing ; it prompts productivity, because people envy the rich and emulate them; people who
complain about inequality are either sore losers or old fogies, who need to get hip to the way
things work nowadays.
(9) Corporations can do no wrong -- by definition. Competition will take care of all
problems, including any tendency to monopoly.
(10) The market, engineered and promoted by neoliberal experts, can always provide solutions
to problems seemingly caused by the market in the first place: there's always "an app for
that."
(11) There is no difference between is and should be : "free" markets both
should be (normatively) and are (positively) the most efficient economic system,
and the most just way of doing politics, and the most empirically true
description of human behavior, and the most ethical and moral way to live -- which in
turn explains, and justifies, why their versions of "free" markets should be and, as
neoliberals build more and more power, increasingly are universal. 12
No wonder outsiders are dazed and confused. The neoliberal revolutionaries, contemptuous of
tradition, conjured a fake tradition to mask their true intentions. They did this while
explicitly abjuring the label of "conservative." But there is one more reason that outsiders
tend to think it a mistake to posit an effective intellectual formation called "neoliberalism."
Nowadays we doubt that ideas, and particularly political ideas, are the product of the
concerted efforts of some thought collective stretching over generations, engaging in critique
and reconstruction, fine-tuning and elaborating doctrine, while keeping focused upon problems
of implementation and feasibility. Indeed, that doubt is evidence of neoliberal preconceptions
having seeped into all of our thought processes. Yet that is an exact description of how
neoliberalism developed, in the manner (as I insist on calling it) of a thought collective:
sanctioned members are encouraged to innovate and embellish in small ways, but an excess of
doctrinal heresy gets one expelled from participation. Central dogmas are not codified or
dictated by any single prophet; no one delivers the Tablets down from the "Mont"; and you
cannot adequately understand neoliberalism solely by reading Hayek or Milton Friedman, for that
matter. While we can locate its origins in 1947, it has undergone much revision since then, and
is still a hydra-headed Gorgon to this very day.
"... The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers. ..."
"... Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues," in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history with fake history. ..."
PCR's latest is really good. I love it when he gets to ripping, and doesn't stop for 2000+ words or so. It reads a lot better
than Toynbee, fersher.
The working class, designated by Hillary Clinton as "the Trump deplorables," is now the victimizer, not the victim. Marxism
has been stood on its head.
The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups
and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming
at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers.
The ruling elite favors a "conversation on race," because the ruling elite know it can only result in accusations that will
further divide society. Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues,"
in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history
with fake history.
All of America, indeed of the entire West, lives in The Matrix, a concocted [and false] reality. Western peoples are so
propagandized, so brainwashed, that they have no understanding that their disunity was created in order to make them impotent
in the face of a rapacious ruling class, a class whose arrogance and hubris has the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
History as it actually happened is disappearing as those who tell the truth are dismissed as misogynists, racists, homophobes,
Putin agents, terrorist sympathizers, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists. Liberals who complained mightily of McCarthyism
now practice it ten-fold.
The United States with its brainwashed and incompetent population -- indeed, the entirety of the Western populations are
incompetent -- and with its absence of intelligent leadership has no chance against Russia and China, two massive countries
arising from their overthrow of police states as the West descends into a gestapo state. The West is over and done with. Nothing
remains of the West but the lies used to control the people. All hope is elsewhere.
"... The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers. ..."
"... Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues," in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history with fake history. ..."
PCR's latest is really good. I love it when he gets to ripping, and doesn't stop for 2000+ words or so. It reads a lot better
than Toynbee, fersher.
The working class, designated by Hillary Clinton as "the Trump deplorables," is now the victimizer, not the victim. Marxism
has been stood on its head.
The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups
and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming
at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers.
The ruling elite favors a "conversation on race," because the ruling elite know it can only result in accusations that will
further divide society. Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues,"
in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history
with fake history.
All of America, indeed of the entire West, lives in The Matrix, a concocted [and false] reality. Western peoples are so
propagandized, so brainwashed, that they have no understanding that their disunity was created in order to make them impotent
in the face of a rapacious ruling class, a class whose arrogance and hubris has the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
History as it actually happened is disappearing as those who tell the truth are dismissed as misogynists, racists, homophobes,
Putin agents, terrorist sympathizers, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists. Liberals who complained mightily of McCarthyism
now practice it ten-fold.
The United States with its brainwashed and incompetent population -- indeed, the entirety of the Western populations are
incompetent -- and with its absence of intelligent leadership has no chance against Russia and China, two massive countries
arising from their overthrow of police states as the West descends into a gestapo state. The West is over and done with. Nothing
remains of the West but the lies used to control the people. All hope is elsewhere.
After waiting eight months for the DOJ to turn over the "electronic communication" (EC) -
the document which the FBI used to launch the original counterintelligence investigation
against the Trump campaign, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Fox
News that upon review - the EC reveals that no intelligence was used to launch the probe .
Nunes also touched on the fact that Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal pushed
anti-Trump memos to the
Obama State Department , written by Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer and passed to
Jonathan Winer, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.
" We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this
investigation. We know that Sidney Blumenthal and others were pushing information into the
State Department . So we're trying to piece all that together and that's why we continue to
look at the State Department ," Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning
Futures."
Nunes noted that no intelligence was shared with the U.S. from any of the members
of the "Five Eyes" agreement - that being Canada, the UK, Australia , New Zealand and the USA.
" We are not supposed to spy on each other's citizens, and it's worked well ," he said. "And
it continues to work well. And we know it's working well because there was no intelligence that
passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government . And that's why we had to see that
original communication ."
This is relevant because the FBI says that the Trump investigation was kicked off after
Australian diplomat Alexander Downer told the FBI that Trump campaign associate George
Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted in a London pub that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary
Clinton. The New York Times reported last
December that " Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their
American counterparts , according to four current and former American and foreign officials
with direct knowledge of the Australians' role."
This was clearly not true according to the EC, which states that no intelligence passed
through Five Eyes official channels.
Many have also raised questions over the fact that Alexander Downer, the source of the
intelligence which launched the Trump investigation (and not through official channels) is
absolutely a friend of the Clintons .
According to information provided by Australian policeman-turned investigative journalist,
Michael Smith - the Clinton Foundation received some $88
million from Australian taxpayers between 2006 and 2014, reaching its peak in 2012-2013 -
which was coincidentally (we're sure) Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's last year in
office. Smith names several key figures in his complaints of malfeasance, including Bill and
Hillary Clinton and Alexander Downer .
The materials Smith gave to the FBI concern the MOU between the Clinton Foundation's
HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI) and the Australian government.
Smith claims the foundation received a " $25M financial advantage dishonestly obtained by
deception " as a result of actions by Bill Clinton and Downer, who was then Australia's
minister of foreign affairs.
Also included in the Smith materials are evidence he believes shows " corrupt October 2006
backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15
million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian
government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or
associates."- Lifezette
And during the various Russia probes, Congressional investigators weren't told about
Downer's connection to the Clinton Foundation .
"Republicans say they are concerned the new information means nearly all of the early
evidence the FBI used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive
of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier," reports
The Hill .
"The Clintons' tentacles go everywhere. So, that's why it's important," said Rep. Jim Jordan
(R-Ohio) chairman of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. " We continue to get
new information every week it seems that sort of underscores the fact that the FBI hasn't been
square with us. "
State Department in the Crosshairs
Nunes then told Fox' s Maria Bartiromo that the House Intel Committee is now honing in on
the State Department due to signs of "major irregularities " in how the alleged Papadopoulos
comments reached U.S. intelligence agencies.
"We know a little bit about that because of what some of the State Department officials
themselves have said about that," Nunes said, adding that "We have to make sure that our
agencies talk and they work out problems. We have to make sure that they don't spy on either
Americans citizens or that we're not spying on British citizens."
Still, Nunes doesn't know whether former secretary of state, and then-Democratic challenger
to Trump in the election, was pulling the strings of the investigation launched against her
political opponent. However, he said it is known that two long-time Clinton associates –
including Sidney Blumenthal – were "actively" giving information to the State Department,
which "was somehow making its way to the FBI." -
Fox Business
Meanwhile, as we reported in
February , a former official in President Obama's State Department has confirmed a claim by
the Senate Judiciary Committee, that former British spy Christopher Steele and Hillary Clinton
confidant Sidney Blumenthal gave him intelligence reports claiming that President Trump had
been compromised by the Russians.
Jonathan Winer, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, confirmed the Judiciary
Committee's claims in an op-ed for the
Washington Post titled "Devin Nunes is investigating me: Here's the Truth."
"While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele's reports. He showed me
notes gathered by a journalist I did not know, Cody Shearer, that alleged the Russians had
compromising information on Trump of a sexual and financial nature," writes Winer.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known
as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the
hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had
compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
Winer's op-ed corroborates the series of events outlined in a criminal referral for Steele
issued by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC),
which asks the DOJ to investigate Steele for allegedly lying to the FBI about his contacts with
the media.
Winer then gave Steele various anti-Trump memos from Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal,
which originated with Clinton "hatchet man" Cody Shearer . Winer claims he didn't think Steele
would share the Clinton-sourced information with anyone else in the government.
" But I learned later that Steele did share them -- with the FBI, after the FBI asked him to
provide everything he had on allegations relating to Trump, his campaign and Russian
interference in U.S. elections ," Winer writes.
Comey Memos
Nunes then said that the release of the Comey memos was significant in that they would seem
to exonerate President Trump of collusion.
The mainstream media and the dems have been running around talking about collusion,
collusion, collusion. when they realized there was no collusion, they moved on to obstruction
of justice, obstruction of justice, obstruction of justice.
" Once you read all of the Comey memos, it becomes Exhibit A in the defense that there was
no obstruction of justice ."
The Chairman also noted that the Comey memos reveal Trump actually wanted his campaign
investigated, telling Bartiromo " when you have the President of the US saying "Look,
investigate all of my people. If anyone in my campaign was colluding with the Russians, I wanna
know and they need to be brought to justice, " Adding "Something of that nature is in the Comey
memos."
Nunes also pointed out that Comey and Andrew McCabe are probably both in quite a bit of
trouble:
Nunes: When you match up Mr. Comey's memos with what's in his book, with the interviews
that he's giving I think he's got a lot of problems coming in the future as it relates to
what the IG is looking at into his behavior during the Clinton email investigation.
Bartiromo: What kind of problems? We know that the IG has recommended criminal charges
against his former deputy Andrew McCabe.
Nunes: " His lawyer has said no, Mr. Comey is lying - is essentially what Mr. McCabe is
saying , that Comey did give him the right to go to the press... Clearly the IG believed Mr.
Comey that he did not give Mr. McCabe the ability to go to the press .
Nunes then went into Comey's conduct - positing that the former FBI Director "laundered"
classified memos to a friend, who leaked them to the New York Times - and that others may have
received them as well .
The memos that he wrote - the seven memos that he wrote on President Trump, noting that
Comey hadn't written memos on anyone else - four of them were classified. He decided to then
launder them to a friend, who leaked them to the New York Times . If those memos contained
classified information, he purposely did that, he purposely leaked them to get a Special
Counsel started after he was fired. He leaked pieces of these, so we need to figure out
exactly what is it he leaked. Who did he give these memos to? Was it just the friend that
leaked them to the New York Times, or were there others? I believe there were others , I
believe these Comey memos were actually given to several people - that contained classified
information. The irony is - the very thing that Mr. Comey cleared Mrs. Clinton of .
All of that said - whether or not the noose is actually tightening around anyone's neck is
up to the DOJ, as they can simply ignore the various criminal referrals made against McCabe and
others. What can't be denied, at this point, is that both the Mueller investigation and the
original counterintelligence investigation launched against Donald Trump and his campaign - and
the complicit narrative-shaping performed by the MSM - appear to have been a highly coordinated
effort to prevent Hillary Clinton from losing the White House.
Trump advisors Joe diGenova and Alan Dershowitz discussed just Hannity Saturday - with
Dershowitz somehow coming to the conclusion that the entirety of the ongoing against Trump are
nothing more than coincidence.
A wonderful example of how strong the programming is within us is the fact we must
constantly tell ourselves the matrix is an illusion.
The primary purpose of 'official' propaganda is to compel those who oppose it to
constantly assert that the propaganda is false.
The secondary purpose is to let everyone know if you want employment within the matrix
you're going to need to sing the same tune, regardless how ridiculous it might be.
This is the official tune. Now sing you motherfuckers....sing for your supper.
"... RT's Arabic service also tracked down an 11-year old boy filmed in the "attack," and found him in completely good health and able to answer questions of the RT reporter. He told her he was with his mother when they were urged to enter the clinic. "We were outside," the boy said, and they told all of us to go into the hospital. I was immediately taken upstairs, and they started pouring water on me." ..."
"... US still paying White Helmets despite $200mn-aid freeze for Syria recovery, State Dept. confirms | 20 April 2018 ..."
"... This shit just keeps getting deeper, and so many questions to ask, but the main question is why would Trump ever believe any intelligence agency was telling him the truth? The last time I looked, it was the intelligence agencies that lied, leaked, and this time set Trump up. ..."
The celebrated White Helmets of Oscar
fame appeared to have made their own feature film in Duma on the night of the alleged chemical
attack...
At the center of the controversy over an alleged chemical attack in the Damascus suburb
of Duma on April 7 are the White Helmets, a self-described rescue operation about whom an
Oscar-winning documentary was made.
Reporter and author Max Blumenthal has
tracked
the
role of the White Helmets in the Syrian conflict. He reported that the White Helmets were created
in Turkey by James Le Mesurier, a former British MI5 agent. The group has received at least $55
million from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from the U.S. Agency for International
Development as well as millions from the Kingdom of Qatar, which has backed a variety of extremist
groups in Syria including Al Qaeda.
Blumenthal writes,
"When Defense Secretary James Mattis
cited
'social
media' in place of scientific evidence of a chemical attack in Duma, he was referring to video shot
by members of the White Helmets.
Similarly, when State Department spokesperson Heather
Nauert sought to explain why the US bombed Syria before inspectors from the OPCW could produce a
report from the ground, she
claimed
,
'We have our own intelligence.' With little else to offer, she was likely referring to social media
material published by members of the White Helmets.
"
The reference to social media as evidence in the most serious decision a leader can make -- to
engage in an act of war -- is part of a disturbing trend. Then Secretary of State John Kerry pointed
to "social media" as evidence of the Syrian government's guilt in a 2013 chemical attack in the
same Damascus suburb. But as Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of this site,
pointed
out
in numerous reports, Syrian government guilt was far from a sure thing.
Rather than wait for the arrival of a team of experts from the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to assess whether chemicals had even used in this latest incident,
Trump gave the order to bomb.
Gas!
The possible role of the White Helmets in the latest alleged chemical attack was first
revealed by veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk,
writing for
The Independent
.
In "The Search for Truth in the Rubble of Douma-And One Doctor's Doubts Over the Chemical
Attacks," Fisk
reported
that
he tracked down 58-year-old Syrian doctor Assim Rahaibani.
A White Helmet (Photo: whitehelmets.org)l
The doctor told Fisk that he learned from fellow physicians who were on duty at the clinic the
night of the attack. Rahaibani said patients were brought in by "jihadi gunmen of Jaish el-Islam
[the Army of Islam]" in Duma and that
the patients appeared to be "overcome not by gas
but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a
night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm."
Rahaibani told Fisk,
"I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres
from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by
government forces] and aircraft were always over Duma at night – but on this night, there was wind
and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived.
People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss."
Rahaibani continued:
"Then someone at the door, a 'White Helmet,' shouted 'Gas!', and a panic began.
People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine,
but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning."
Fisk writes that,
"
There are the many people I talked to amid the ruins of the town
who said they had 'never believed in' gas stories – which were usually put about, they claimed, by
the armed Islamist groups.
These particular jihadis survived under a blizzard of shellfire
by living in other's people's homes and in vast, wide tunnels with underground roads carved through
the living rock by prisoners with pick-axes on three levels beneath the town. I walked through
three of them yesterday, vast corridors of living rock which still contained Russian – yes, Russian
– rockets and burned-out cars."
Significantly,
Fisk reported that locals told him that White Helmets left with jihadists
bused out of Duma in a deal made with the Syrian government and Russia, which provided security for
the transfer.
Other Reports
Other reporters have corroborated what Fisk found. Reporter Pearson Sharp of One America News, a
conservative Christian TV network and supporter of President Trump,
interviewed
doctors
and witnesses at the clinic.
They also said there was no chemical attack and that strangers
came into the clinic and shouted "Gas!" and filmed the reaction.
RT's Arabic service also tracked down an 11-year old boy filmed in the "attack," and found him
in completely good health and able to
answer
questions
of the RT reporter. He told her he was with his mother when they were urged to enter
the clinic.
"We were outside," the boy said, and they told all of us to go into the
hospital. I was immediately taken upstairs, and they started pouring water on me."
* * *
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She was
also a US diplomat and was in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US government in March
2003 in opposition to the lies the Bush administration was stating as the rationale for the
invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq. She is the co-author of "Dissent: Voices of
Conscience."
Tags
Politics
The director of the OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu, a former career
diplomat with the Turk foreign ministry – a former Turk
ambassador to the Zionist Apartheid State (7-28-1999 to
6-30-2002). He was also, amazingly, Turkey's former
representative to NATO. Being a Turk with qualifications like
this would make anyone suspect that his credibility was fragile
to nil.
This shit just keeps getting deeper, and so many questions to ask, but the
main question is why would Trump ever believe any intelligence agency was
telling him the truth? The last time I looked, it was the intelligence
agencies that lied, leaked, and this time set Trump up.
Since his son in law enjoys parties out on the Hampton with George
Soros, perhaps ol' George can fill him in and carry the "facts" back to
Trump....first hand. CNN waits.
Trump is a huckster, and is all in for anything related to scamming
Americans and anyone else who would believe what he says or does. It
has nothing to do with 'Intelligence'.
I noticed on the previous alleged gas attack the oppo seemed to look
for the whitest kids possible. I guess they couldn't find enough this
time, but dress them up nice for the cameras lol.
Ha! That's what I was saying before the tomahawk strike... is there a way to
target the white helmets first? Save us from their lies in the future.... I guess
we'll be forced to leave that heavy lifting to Assad and Putin.
"jihadi gunmen of Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam]" Galloway posed a question to the British Government and people that
deserves an answer from the likes of their PM.
'Why are we supporting a group that calls itself the Army of Islam?'
Well maybe because they stink on ice and everyone thats pulled their head
out of their ass noticed. Even taken at face values both of these stories
and many others defy basic logic.
That's especially embarrassing since, if this was a staged fake event, the
official experts fell for it or more likely pretending they fell for it.
I'm not sure but MSM might still be pretending to fall for it*.
A good
journalist would be there finding out about the "White Helmets" for
example, who is in charge and by what authority they have being there.
* long list of pretenders includes congress and the dotard.
The possible role of the White Helmets in the latest alleged chemical
attack was first revealed by veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk,
writing
for
The Independent
. Actually, Vanessa Beely reported it almost a week
before the honorable Mr. Fisk
"Rogers did not respond to either email, according to journalist Max
Blumenthal, who obtained the messages. Instead of giving the stage to the White
Helmets during his Barcelona concert, Waters denounced the organization.
"The White Helmets is a fake organization that exists only to create
propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.""
RW, despite his Jewish Heritage, has loooooong been outspoken against
Israeli fuckery in Syria, Palestine, Lebanon etc etc
Not to the same
scale/degree as Norm Finkelstein, but he's an intellectual and does it for
a living; not that RW's isn't real smart.
Fact is, due to his music he can reach so many more ordinary people.
Shows you how fucking dumb Clooney & his White Helmets are approaching
Waters, oblivious to the fact he's been calling out Zionists/Others for
decades.
We need more great people like him in the struggle.
An unusual triple alliance is emerging from the Syrian war, one that could alter the balance
of power in the Middle East, unhinge the NATO alliance, and complicate the Trump
administration's designs on Iran. It might also lead to yet another double cross of one of the
region's largest ethnic groups, the Kurds.
However, the "troika alliance" -- Turkey, Russia and Iran -- consists of three countries
that don't much like one another, have different goals, and whose policies are driven by a
combination of geo-global goals and internal politics. In short, "fragile and complicated"
doesn't even begin to describe it.
How the triad might be affected by the joint U.S., French and British attack on Syria is
unclear, but in the long run the alliance will likely survive the uptick of hostilities.
But common ground was what came out of the April 4 meeting between Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meeting
in Ankara, the parties pledged to support the "territorial integrity" of Syria, find a
diplomatic end to the war, and to begin a reconstruction of a Syria devastated by seven years
of war. While Russia and Turkey explicitly backed the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva, Iran was
quiet on that issue, preferring a regional solution without
"foreign plans."
"Common ground," however, doesn't mean the members of the "troika" are on the same page.
Turkey's interests are both internal and external. The Turkish Army is currently conducting
two military operations in northern Syria, Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield, aimed at driving
the mainly Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) out of land that borders Turkey. But those
operations are also deeply entwined with Turkish politics.
Erdogan's internal support has been eroded by a number of factors: exhaustion with the
ongoing state of emergency imposed following the 2016 attempted coup, a
shaky economy , and a precipitous fall in the value of the Turkish pound. Rather than
waiting for 2019, Erdogan called for snap elections this past week and beating up on the Kurds
is always popular with right-wing Turkish nationalists. Erdogan needs all the votes he can get
to imlement his newly minted executive presidency that will give him virtually one-man
rule.
To be part of the alliance, however, Erdogan has had to modify his goal of getting rid of
Syrian President Bashar Assad and to agree -- at this point, anyhow -- to eventually withdraw
from areas in northern Syria seized by the Turkish Army.
Russia and Iran have called for turning over the regions conquered by the Turks to the
Syrian Army.
Moscow's goals are to keep a foothold in the Middle East with its only base, Tartus, and to
aid its long-time ally, Syria. The Russians are not deeply committed to Assad personally, but
they want a friendly government in Damascus. They also want to destroy al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State, which have caused Moscow considerable trouble in the Caucasus.
Russia also wouldn't mind driving a wedge between Ankara and NATO. After the U.S., Turkey
has NATO's second largest army. NATO broke a 1989 agreement not to recruit former members of
the Russian-dominated Warsaw Pact into NATO as a quid pro quo for the Soviets withdrawing from
Eastern Europe. But since the Yugoslav War in 1999 the alliance has marched right up to the
borders of Russia. The 2008 war with Georgia and 2014 seizure of the Crimea were largely a
reaction to what Moscow sees as an encirclement strategy by its adversaries.
Turkey has been at
odds with its NATO allies around a dispute between Greece and Cyprus over sea-based
oil and gas resources , and it recently charged two
Greek soldiers who violated the Turkish border with espionage. Erdogan is also angry that
European Union countries refuse to extradite Turkish soldiers and civilians who he claims
helped engineer the 2016 coup against him. While most NATO countries condemned Moscow for the
recent attack on two Russians in Britain, the
Turks pointedly did not .
Turkish relations with Russia have an
economic side as well. Ankara want a natural gas pipeline from Russia, has broken ground on
a $20 billion Russian nuclear reactor, and just shelled out $2.5 billion for Russia's S-400
anti-aircraft system.
The Russians do not support Erdogan's war on the Kurds and have lobbied for
the inclusion of Kurdish delegations in negotiations over the future of Syria. But Moscow
clearly gave the Turks a green light to attack the Kurdish city of Afrin last month, driving
out the YPG that had liberated it from the Islamic State and Turkish-backed al-Qaeda groups. A
number of Kurds charge that Moscow has betrayed
them .
The question now is, will the Russians stand aside if the Turkish forces move further into
Syria and attack the city of Manbij, where the Kurds are allied with U.S. and French forces?
And will Erdogan's hostility to the Kurds lead to an
armed clash among three NATO members?
Such a clash seems unlikely, although the Turks have been giving flamethrower speeches over
the past several weeks. "Those who cooperate with terrorists organizations [the YPG] will be
targeted by Turkey," says Turkish Deputy Prime Minister
Bekir Bozdag said in a pointed reference to France's support for the Kurds. Threatening the
French is one thing, picking a fight with the U.S. military quite another.
Of course, if President Trump pulls U.S. forces out of Syria, it will be tempting for Turkey
to move in. While the "troika alliance" has agreed to Syrian "sovereignty," that won't stop
Ankara from meddling in Kurdish affairs. The Turks are already appointing governors and mayors
for the areas in Syria they have occupied.
Iran's major concern in Syria is maintaining a buffer between itself and a very aggressive
alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia, which seems to be in the preliminary stages of
planning a war against the second-largest country in the Middle East.
Iran is not at all the threat it has been pumped up to be. Its military is miniscule and
talk of a so-called "Shiite crescent" -- Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon -- is pretty much a
western invention (although the term was dreamed up by the King of Jordan).
Tehran has been weakened by crippling sanctions and faces the possibility that Washington
will withdraw from the nuclear accord and re-impose yet more sanctions. The appointment of
National Security Advisor John Bolton, who openly calls for regime change in Iran, has to have
sent a chill down the spines of the Iranians. What Tehran needs most of all is allies who will
shield it from the enmity of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, Turkey and
Russia could be helpful.
Iran has modified its original goals in Syria of a Shiite-dominated regime by agreeing to a
"non-sectarian character" for a post-war Syria. Erdogan has also given up on his desire for a
Sunni-dominated government in Damascus.
War with Iran would be catastrophic, an unwinnable conflict that could destabilize the
Middle East even more than it is now. It would, however, drive up the price of oil, currently
running at around $66 a barrel. Saudi Arabia needs to sell its oil for at least $100 a barrel,
or it will very quickly run of money. The on-going quagmire of the Yemen war, the need to
diversify the economy, and the growing clamor by young Saudis -- 70 percent of the population
-- for jobs requires lots of money, and the current trends in oil pricing are not going to
cover the bills.
War and oil make for
odd bedfellows . While the Saudis are doing their best to overthrow the Assad regime and
fuel the extremists fighting the Russians, Riyadh is wooing Moscow to sign onto to a long-term
OPEC agreement to control oil supplies. That probably won't happen -- the Russians are fine
with oil at $50 to $60 a barrel -- and are wary of agreements that would restrict their right
to develop new oil and gas resources. The Saudi's jihad on the Iranians has a desperate edge to
it, as well it might. The greatest threat to the Kingdom has always come from within.
The rocks and shoals that can wreck alliances in the Middle East are too numerous to count,
and the "troika" is riven with contradictions and conflicting interests. But the war in Syria
looks as if it is coming to some kind of resolution, and at this point Iran, Russia and Turkey
seem to be the only actors who have a script that goes beyond lobbing cruise missiles at
people.
The father of Imran Awan - a longtime IT aide from Pakistan who made "unauthorized access" to the
House computer network -
reportedly transferred a USB drive to the former head of a
Pakistani intelligence agency
, alleges the father's ex-business partner, Rashid Minhas.
Imran Awan and wife Hina Alvi
Minhas told the
Daily Caller News Foundation
(DCNF) - which traveled to Pakistan to
interview those involved - that Haji Ashraf Awan, Imran Awan's father, had been giving information
to Rehman Malik - former head of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and current senator.
Malik was appointed to Interior Minister in early 2008, only to step down in 2013 after he lost a
Supreme Court hearing over holding dual UK citizenship.
Minhas told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Imran Awan's father, Haji Ashraf Awan, was
giving data to Pakistani official Rehman Malik, and that Imran bragged he had the power to "
change
the U.S. president.
"
Asked for how he knew this, he said that on one occasion in 2008 when a
"USB [was]
given to Rehman Malik by Imran's father, my brother Abdul Razzaq was with his father
."
-
DCNF
"After Imran's father deliver (sic) USB to Rehman Malik, four Pakistani [government
intelligence] agents were with his father 24-hour on duty to protect him," he said - however Minhas
did not say what was on the USB.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague (left), Rehman Malik
The House watchdog, Inspector General Michael Ptasienski, charged in September 30, 2016 that
data was being
siphoned off
of the House Network by the Awans as recently as two months before the US
presidential election.
The Awan family had virtually unlimited access to Democratic House members' computers, including
classified information.
Nearly Imran's entire immediate family was on the House payroll working as IT aides
to one-fifth of House Democrats
, and he began working for the House in 2004. The
inspector general, Michael Ptasienski, testified this month that "
system administrators
hold the 'keys to the kingdom' meaning they can create accounts, grant access, view, download,
update, or delete almost any electronic information within an office. Because of this high-level
access, a rogue system administrator could inflict considerable damage
." -
DCNF
According to Minhas - "Imran Awan said to me directly these words: '
See how I control
White House on my fingertip
' He say he can fire the prime minister or change the U.S.
president," Minhas said. "
Why the claiming big stuff, I [didn't] understand 'till now
."
"
I was Imran father's partner in Pakistan,
" Minhas said, in two land deals
in Pakistan so big that they are often referred to as "towns."
In 2009, both men were
accused of fraud
, and
Haji was arrested but then released after Imran flew to
Pakistan
, "allegedly exerting pressure on the local police through the ministry as
well as the department concerned," according to local news. Minhas and multiple alleged victims
in Pakistan also told TheDCNF
Imran exerted political influence in Pakistan to extricate
his father from the case
. -
DCNF
Minhas is currently sitting in US federal prison for fraud, and the
Daily Caller
says
they can not confirm whether Minhas' claims about the USB is true. That said,
Minhas says
that neither the DOJ nor the FBI ever interviewed him about the Awans
, which is odd
considering that he's available and connected to Imran Awan.
He is also one of many people with past relationships with the Awans who have said
they believe they are aggressive opportunists who will do
anything for money
.
And parts of Minhas's story correlate with observations
elsewhere. Haji's wife, Samina Gilani -- Imran's stepmother -- said in
court documents
that Imran used his IT skills to wiretap her as a means of exerting pressure
on her.
Haji would frequently boast that Imran's position gave him political leverage, numerous
Pakistani residents told TheDCNF. "
My son own White House in D.C.
," he would
say, according to Minhas. "
I am kingmaker
."
Senator Malik has denied any relationship with the parties reportedly involved, saying "I am
hearing their names for the first time. I am in public and people always do name-dropping."
Imran Awan's attorney Chris Gowen says Minhas's claims are
"completely and totally
false."
The Awans were banned from the congressional network on Feb 2, 2017 by House Seargant-At-Arms,
Paul Irving - after the IG report concluded that the Awans had been making "unauthorized access" to
House servers. The Awans
were logging in using Congressional members' personal usernames
,
as well as breaching servers for members they did not work for.
After several members fired
them, the Awans continued to access their data
, says the IG.
The behavior mirrored a "classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an
organization,"
and "steps are being taken [by the Awans] to conceal their activity," reads
the report.
Shortly before the 2016 election, the House Democratic Caucus server was breached by Awan - who
authorities believe secretly moved
all the data
of over 12 House members' offices onto the caucus server.
The server may have been "
used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that
individuals could be reading and/or removing information,
" an IG presentation said.
The Awans logged into it 27 times a day, far more than any other computer they
administered
.
Imran's most forceful advocate and longtime employer is Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, who led the DNC until she resigned following a hack that exposed committee
emails. Wikileaks published those emails, and they show that
DNC staff summoned Imran
when they needed her password
. -
DCNF
Shortly after the IG report came out,
the House Democratic Caucus server - which the
Awans were funneling data onto,
was physically stolen
according to three
government officials. During the same period of time, the Awans were shedding assets at a rapid
pace.
In January 2017 they took out a loan intended for home improvement, falsely claimed a medical
emergency in order to cash out their House retirement account, and
wired $300,000
overseas
, according to an FBI affidavit. -
DCNF
The FBI arrested Imran Awan at Dulles Airport in July 2017 while trying to flee to Pakistan with
a wiped cell phone and a resume that listed a Queens, NY address. Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi,
were indicted last August on charges of bank fraud - which prosecutors contend was hastened
after the Awans had likely learned that authorities were closing in on them for various other
activities
.
That said, neither Imran nor Hina have been charged over the unauthorized access
concluded
by the House's own Inspector General,
after reviewing server logs. Three other suspects,
Jamal and Abid Awan, and Rao Abbas, have faced no charges whatsoever.
Eleven GOP members of Congress led by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) have written a letter to Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, Attorney John Huber, and FBI Director Christopher Wray -
asking
them to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, Hillary Clinton and others - including FBI
lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
, for a laundry list of potential crimes surrounding
the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Recall that Sessions paired special prosecutor John Huber with DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz - falling short of a second Special Counsel, but empowering Horowitz to fully investigate
allegations of FBI FISA abuse with subpoena power and other methods he was formerly unable to
utilize.
The GOP letter's primary focus appears to be James Comey, while the charges for all include
obstruction, perjury, corruption, unauthorized removal of classified documents, contributions and
donations by foreign nationals and other allegations.
The letter also demands that Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein "be recused from any
examination of FISA abuse
," and recommends that "
neither U.S. Attorney John Huber
nor a special counsel (if appointed) should report to Rosenstein.
"
The letter refers the following individuals for the following conduct:
"Comey's decision not to seek charges against Clinton's misconduct s
uggests improper
investigative conduct
, potentially motivated by a political agenda."
The letter calls Comey out for leaking his confidential memos to the press. "
In
light of the fact that four of the seven memos were classified, it would appear that former
Director Comey leaked classified information when sharing these memos...
"
Comey "circulated a draft statement" of the FBI's decision to exonerate Hillary Clinton for
mishandling classified information - a conclusion reached before the agency had interviewed key
witnesses. "At that point, 17 interviews with potential witnesses had not taken place, including
with Clinton and her chief of staff..."
The letter also seeks clarification on "material inconsistencies between the description of
the FBI's relationship with
Mr. Steele
that you [then FBI Director Comey] did
provide in your briefing and information contained in Justice Department documents made
available to the Committee only after the briefing."
Hillary Clinton - contributions and donations by foreign nationals
"A lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid
Washington firm Fusion GPS to conduct research that led to the Steele dossier..."
"Accordingly, for disguising payments to Fusion GPS on mandatory disclosures to the
Federal Election Commission, we refer Hillary Clinton to DOJ for potential violation(s) of 52
USC 30121 and 52 USC 30101"
Loretta Lynch - obstruction, corruption
"We raise concerns regarding her decision
to threaten with reprisal the former FBI
informant who tried to come forward in 2016 with insight into the Uranium One deal
."
Of note, this refers to longtime CIA and FBI undercover informant
William D. Campbell
, who came forward with evidence of bribery schemes
involving Russian nuclear officials, an American trucking company,
and efforts to route
money to the Clinton Global Initiative
(CGI).
Andrew McCabe - false statements, perjury, obstruction
"During the internal Hillary Clinton investigation, Mr. McCabe "lacked candor -- including
under oath -- on multiple occasions," the letter reads. "That is a fireable offense, and Mr.
Sessions said that career, apolotical employees at the F.B.I. and Justice Department agreed that
Mr. McCabe should be fired."
"The DOJ Office of the Inspector General recently released a February 2018 misconduct
report... confirming four instances of McCabe's lack of candor, including three instances under
oath, as well as the conclusion that McCabe's decision to confirm the existence of the Clinton
Foundation Investigation through an anonymously sourced quite violated the FBI's and DOJ's media
policy and constituted misconduct."
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - obstruction, corruption,
"We raise concerns regarding their interference in the Hillary Clinton investigation
regarding her use of a personal email server."
Referring to a
Wall Street Journal
article from January 22, 2018 - "The report
provides the following alarming specifics, among others: "
Mr. Strzok texts Ms. Page to
tell her that, in fact, senior officials had decided to water down the reference to President
Obama to 'another senior government official
." By the time Mr. Comey gave his public
statement on July 5, both references - to Mr. Obama and to "another senior government official"
had disappeared."
"Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI personnel connected to the compilation of documents
on alleged links between Russia and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump known as the "Steele
dossier."
This section of the letter calls out Comey, McCabe, former acting AG Sally Yates, and former
acting Deputy AG Dana Boente regarding the Steele dossier.
"
we raise concerns regarding the presentation of false and/or unverified information
to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in connection with the former Trump aide Carter
Page"
"Former and current DOJ and FBI leadership have confirmed to the Committee that
unverified information from the Steele dossier comprised an essential part of the FISA
applications related to Carter Page"
"Accordingly
we refer to DOJ all DOJ and FBI personnel responsible for signing the
Carter Page warrant application that contained unverified and/or false information"
The criminal referrals for the group allegedly responsible for FISA abuse include:
obstruction,
deprivation of rights
under color of law, corruption.
Count on an inverted yield curve and Treasury Department derivative losses in the trillions
on interest rate swaps sold to Wall Street banks.
Wall Street banks have been buying surplus US government debt that the world doesn't want
to finance huge budget deficits over the last 10 years and the Treasury Department sold them
insurance protection against capital loses on that debt.
A lot of malinvestment in fracking and share buybacks with borrowed money has
overleveraged corporations. Personal debt, corporate debt and government debt compared to GDP
are at 1929 levels and a lot of that debt will be uncollectible.
The USA has kicked the financial can down the road for 10 years. It created a huge asset
inflation bubble with borrowed money ie all malinvestment via interest rate suppression by
the Fed that will blow up when the yield curve goes inverted signifying a financial panic is
underway. That is the demand for short-term money(to borrow) is greater than the supply of
money to short-term borrow.(to lend)
All I have to do is look at the SPX chart of the SP500 to know the US is FUKUS. The bull
market that started in 2008 has started a head&shoulders topping pattern. In 2019 I
expect 52-week lows to be hit and a bear market worse the 2008 financial crisis to be
underway.
People keep tossing out "The US economy is tanking, it is going to implode/explode/crumble
sooner or later" etc., etc. Such beliefs may be soothing to hold but they do not rest on
knowledge or economic literacy. Briefly, here is why.
Economies do not tank because of massive credit. Money Supply = M1 + M2 + M3, where M3 is
the outstanding credit in the economy. The US M3 is huge because the economy itself is huge.
Modern economies have moved away from paper notes and in future all money supply will
essentially be M2 + M3. M2 (total outstanding bank deposits) and M3 are in turn fusing into
one as credit card payments replace the practice of mailing out cheques.
Nor is high foreign indebtedness in itself a sign of future imminent collapse. Yes, it is
worryingly high presently, but no it is not imminent that some sort of disaster will befall
the US Treasury. No one forces the rest-of-the world to buy US treasuries, bonds, and stocks.
Yet governments, corporations, and individuals from all over the world line-up to buy these.
Ask yourselves why. The answer is: Money and Capital flows to low risk and high return zones.
This is how it always has been, and this is how it always will be. Why do Alibaba and the
other Chinese majors seek listing on American stock exchanges?
Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with the USA, and yes it may end up paying a dear
price for its arrogance, aggression, and cruelty all over the world (not to talk of its
collapsing morality, ethics and social cohesion at home) but there is nothing the matter with
its economy. Those who wait for its supposedly "Ponzi scheme" to collapse will wait to
eternity, I am afraid.
@guest. I think your conclusion that the US economy is not tanking is blinkered. The US
economy tanked in 2008 and would had crashed into a worse depression had not the Chinese held
up the US economy (the Chinese also held up Europe by holding up the German economy). Alibaba
is not the biggest Chinese company to list in the US. The biggest which is twice as
profitable, twice the market capitalisation of Alibaba(more than USD500 billion) and listed
on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is Tencent.
The US economy and the US dollar was viewed as safe haven becuase there was no
alternative. The US dollar and the US economy became a bubble because of the global demand
for the US dollar resulting from there being no alternative. Besides the use of the USD is
enforced by the US military.
But, if you have been following the latest economic development, that had changed. The US
economy is no longer the biggest, certainly not the strongest. The US dollar is no longer
indispensable. It's value is now perched on the edge of a sharp slippery slope due to US
financial mismanagement and profligacy ala the late great USSR!
Its stupendous, useless, egoistic and hubristic military spending and other factors will
push the US economy down that very slippery slope to oblivion.
But China will be waiting at the bottom of that slope to cushion the fall!
No, it's not over Saker, but compared to 2007 victory is in sight.
First, my opinion is that the Russia/China asymmetric attack on US dollar hegemony will
create a second financial crisis next year, worse than the one in 2008.
Second, in my opinion, Russia and China are winning on the most important Grand
Strategic/Moral level of warfare for global public opinion. The UN votes are illustrative of
that moral victory. Also, Qatar, Turkey and the Philippines switching sides are examples of
moral victory.
"Facts simply don't matter. And neither does logic. All that matters are perceptions!"
That's the perfect strategy to defeat yourself.
"Those who defeat others are strong, those who defeat themselves are mighty." Lao Tzu
Napolean marched into Russia in 1812 with lot's of allies but left several months later
with none.
I agree with MK Bhadrakumar assessment of the strike on Syria over your assessment. It's a
moral defeat for the F#$%ing stupidest, exceptional nation on the face of the earth.
Well, I'm not sure what old Lao was smoking on that day but if we replace the word
"mighty" with "exceptional" then perhaps Trump fits the bill in a modern context.
Putin the Great vs Trump the Mighty (and Exceptional) who managed to defeat
himself.
Russia and China have stopped buying US Treasuries, in fact are selling down for gold. The
deficit if 1.3T will be more costly to fund, and the debt impossible to service. And China
with the petro-yuan has tolled the death knell. Added to that is the dysfunction of the US
political system. The mid-terms will be very interesting. I doubt Trump will see out 1 term,
never mind 2.
And yes, the so-called US allies are fair weather friend.
Rob is right: the coming economic crisis will be nothing like 2007, or like any depression
that occurred over the past century for that matter. It is the first time a cycle is ending
with interest rates so low, so the trick of lowering them further cannot be used this
time.
Even though hyperinflation is not happening because of globalised and cheap offer (Richard
Duncan), Western economies are slowly collapsing under the burden of debt (Prof Steve Keen,
Prof Michael Hudson).
The global Ponzi scheme will soon end, with major geopolitical consequence. The US, being
given their history, will probably go to full blown war where this can bring most economic
gains. The Chinese are fully aware of that, and are preparing for it All of their plans ( the
OBOR initiative, the petro-yuan) depend on a strong Russia, The Chinese will not let Russia
go down, their own survival depend on Russia.
All the best.
"... Prior to becoming the DNC's most wanted, Comey and his team notoriously let Hillary Clinton off the hook for her private server and mishandling of classified information - having begun drafting Clinton's exoneration before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been "forgotten" in his book. ..."
"... You left out the fact that he was instrumental in the formation of the Clinton Foundation. ..."
Current and former FBI agents are furious after former Director James Comey gave his first interview
since President Trump fired him last year to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday night, reports the
Daily Beast
- which was privy to a play-by-play flurry of text messages and other
communications detailing their reactions.
Seven current or former FBI agents and officials spoke throughout and immediately after the
broadcast.
There was a lot of anger, frustration, and even more emojis -- featuring the
thumbs-down, frowny face, middle finger, and a whole lot of green vomit faces
.
One former FBI official sent a bourbon emoji as it began; another sent the beers cheers-ing
emoji.
The responses became increasingly angry and despondent as the hourlong interview
played out.
-
Daily
Beast
"
Hoover is spinning in his grave
," said a former FBI official. "
Making
money from total failure
," in reference to Comey plugging his book,
A Higher Loyalty
.
Jana Winter of
The Beast
adds that when a promo aired between segments advertising Comey's
upcoming appearance with
The View
, the official "grew angrier." "
Good lord, what a self-serving self-centered jackass
," the official said. "
True
to form he thinks he's the smartest guy around
."
... ... ...
Comey was fired by President Trump on May 9, 2017, after which he
leaked memos he claims
document conversations with Trump
to the
New York Times,
kicking off the special
counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller - whose team started out looking at Russian influence
in the 2016 election, and is now investigating the President's alleged decade-old extramarital affairs
with at least two women. Truly looking out for national security there Bob...
... ... ...
Prior to becoming the DNC's most wanted, Comey and his team notoriously let Hillary Clinton off the
hook for her private server and mishandling of classified information - having begun
drafting Clinton's exoneration
before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been
"forgotten" in his book.
I would rather have RP if he had the
charisma/gusto and also tactical genius of
DT. However, I worry that Ron, as a guy that
delivered babies and educated people on
nonagression, as opposed to running a
something-billion dollar cutthroat RE empire,
might be more at risk of A) being unable to
overcome political roadblocks and
destabilization, and B) something bad
happening to him.
Comey was always the most enigmatic figure to me in this
sad, troubling series of events involving the FBI.
THE
GOOD NEWS: Everyone hates him now. The Rs hate him, the Ds
hate him. Who's Christmas party did he get invited to last
year? I'm guessing the invitations were few. His own ego
has turned him into plutonium. And he deserves even worse
than that.
Every agency has a Jim Comey in it... you know the guy.
Their CV just has an implied "team skills and natural
ability to get a deep brown nose" at the very top of it.
Comey was the FBI Director when warrants
were issued to spy on Trump and his associates. Warrants
gained in part or in whole by, false evidence (the Steele
dossier) presented to a FISA court judge(s), gathered by,
a foreign national former spy (Steele) who was in contact
with his old Kremlin pals, who (Steele) was then paid by
the DNC, Fusion GPS via Perkins Coie to give Hillary
Rodham Clinton (affectionately known here as The Bitch of
Benghazi) some distance from the fake "evidence".
Now besides Comey knowing the source of "the dossier"
one of his deputies (McCabe) was at the same time
"colluding" with a couple FBI agents (Strzok & Page) in a
"counter-intel operation" (on the taxpayers dime) to
gather dirt on candidate Trump. McCabe's wife (we might
recall) got a sizable "donation" from Terry McAuliffe
(another Klinton sleezebag) for her political run in
Virginia.
And we haven't even touched on Comey's theft of
government documents or his turning over those documents
to his friend so the friend could turn them over to the
Alinsky NYT's for the purposes of...getting his mentor
Grand Inquisitor Mueller a gig as "special prosecutor"
(as he admitted to under oath).
Mueller's investigation is tainted with fruit of the
poisonous tree and the entirety of seized evidence
will be unceremoniously thrown out by a 5-4 US Supreme
Court.
There is only one thing keeping Comey out of Prison:
Jeff Sessions.
If we someday get a real AG, who is willing to man
up and appoint a second special prosecutor, Comey is
finished. But for the moment, Mr. Magoo is saving his ass.
Don't hold your breath. The clock on the statute of
limitations is ticking away. I wish someone could
provide me with an honest rational as to why Trump
hasn't fired Jeff Sessions.
Problem is that a sizable portion of the US population
view Comey's actions in the 'if you could go back in
time and kill baby Hitler...' perspective. Yes it's
illegal, yes it's unconstitutional...but was trying to
save the 'World' so it's justified.
I think you
framed it similar...this is the same as injecting
bleach into our veins in the hope in clears up a
pimple on our nose.
The Russian envoy to the chemical weapons watchdog group, OPCW, said that non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) funded by the UK and US carried out the April 7 chemical attack in the
Damascus, Syria suburb of Douma.
Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, said Russia has irrefutable evidence that there was no
chemical weapons incident in Douma .
"Therefore, we have not just a "high degree of confidence ," as our Western partners
claim, but we have incontrovertible evidence that there was no incident on April 7 in Douma
and that all this was a planned provocation by the British intelligence services, probably,
with the participation of their senior allies from Washington with the aim of misleading the
international community and justifying aggression against Syria," he stated. -
Sputnik
Shulgin added that the US, UK and France are not interested in conducting an objective
investigation of the attack site. " They put the blame on the Syrian authorities in advance,
without even waiting for the OPCW mission to begin to establish the possible facts of the use
of chemical weapons in Syria ," he said.
The nine-member OPCW mission people has yet to deploy to the city of Douma according to the
organization's Chief, citing pending security issues.
"The Team has not yet deployed to Douma. The Syrian and the Russian officials who
participated in the preparatory meetings in Damascus have informed the FFM Team that there
were still pending security issues to be worked out before any deployment could take place .
In the meantime the Team was offered by the Syrian authorities that they could interview 22
witnesses who could be brought to Damascus ," OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said as
quoted by the organization.
The Russian Envoy says that the controversial "
White Helmets " were one of the anti-Assad "pseudo-humanitarian NGOs" which staged the
event. As Disobedient Media and others have reported, the White Helmets are funded in large
part by the United States.
"The Syrian Civil Defense Force (aka the White Helmets) is funded in part by United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) . Included here are two links showing contracts
awarded by USAID to Chemonics International Inc. (DBA Chemonics). The first award was in the sum of $111.2 million and has a Period of
Performance (POP) from January 2013 to June 2017. It states that the purpose of the award will
be to use the funds for managing a " quick-response mechanism supporting activities that pursue
a peaceful transition to a democratic and stable Syria ." The second was in the sum of $57.4 million and has a POP from
August 2015 to August 2020. This award was designated to be used in the " Syria Regional
Program II " which is a part of the Support Which Implements Fast Transitions IV (SWIFT IV)
program."
Via Disobedient Media
Moscow says they have confirmed that " these structures [NGOs] on a fee-based basis
cooperate with the governments of the United States, the UK and some other countries ."
Russian experts who conducted the verification of reports on the use of chemical weapons
in the Syrian city of the Douma, found participants of video filming, presented as evidence
of the supposedly occurring chemotherapy, according to the Russian Envoy to OPCW . -
Sputnik
"Everything has been developing according to the script that was prepared in Washington.
There is no doubt that Americans are playing the 'first violin' in all of this . The United
States, the United Kingdom, France and some other countries after the "fake" addition from the
White Helmets and their ilk in Douma, immediately pounced upon the Syrian authorities with
accusations," Shulgin said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has alerted the OPCW that Russia "may have tampered" with the chemical
attack site in Douma ...
"It is our understanding the Russians may have visited the attack site," U.S. Ambassador
Kenneth Ward said at a meeting of the OPCW in The Hague on Monday.
" It is our concern that they may have tampered with it with the intent of thwarting the
efforts of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission to conduct an effective investigation ," he said. His
comments at the closed-door meeting were
obtained by Reuters .
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shot back in a BBC interview, saying " I can
guarantee that Russia has not tampered with the site ."
Earlier, Britain's delegation to the OPCW accused Russia and the Syrian government of
preventing the international watchdog's inspectors from reaching Douma.
The inspectors aim to collect samples, interview witnesses and document evidence to
determine whether banned toxic munitions were used, although they are not permitted to assign
blame for the attack. -
Reuters
"Unfettered access is essential," the British delegation said in a statement. "Russia and
Syria must cooperate."
Moscow says the OPCW delay is due to the Western air strikes. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said the British accusation that Russia was to blame for holding up the inspections was
"groundless".
"We called for an objective investigation. This was at the very beginning after this
information [of the attack] appeared. Therefore allegations of this towards Russia are
groundless ," Peskov said.
***
On Friday we reported that Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow has
"irrefutable evidence" that the attack - which allegedly killed over 40 people, was staged with
the help of a foreign secret service.
" We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret
services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved
in this staged event ," he said during a press conference according to AFP.
According to defense ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Kremlin has
evidence that Britain was behind the attack.
Quoted by
Reuters , he said: " We have... evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in
organising this provocation ."
As RT
further adds , the Russian Defense Ministry presented what it says is " proof that the
reported chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged." It also accused the British government
of pressuring the perpetrators to speed up the "provocation." During a briefing on Friday, the
ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said, are medical professionals working in
the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus.
During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said,
are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the
Syrian capital, Damascus.
During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said,
are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the
Syrian capital, Damascus.
In the interviews released to the media, the two men reported how footage was shot of
people dousing each other with water and treating children, which was claimed to show the
aftermath of the April 7 chemical weapons attack. The patients shown in the video suffered
from smoke poisoning and the water was poured on them by their relatives after a false claim
that chemical weapons were used, the ministry said.
"Please, notice. These people do not hide their names. These are not some faceless claims on
the social media by anonymous activists. They took part in taking that footage," said
Konashenkov.
"The Russian Defense Ministry also has evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in
arranging this provocation in Eastern Ghouta," the general added, referring to the neighborhood
of which Douma is part. " We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called
White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were
preparing ."
According to Konashenkov, the group, which was a primary source of photos and footage of the
purported chemical attack, was informed of a large-scale artillery attack on Damascus planned
by the Islamist group Army of Islam, which controlled Douma at the time. The White Helmets were
ordered to arrange the provocation after retaliatory strikes by the Syrian government forces,
which the shelling was certain to lead to, he said.
The UK rejected the accusations, with British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce calling them
"grotesque," "a blatant lie" and "the worst piece of fake news we've yet seen from the Russian
propaganda machine."
So when will Moscow release their evidence for the whole world to see? Or is it maybe
waiting for the US to first release its own proof that Assad launched the attack?
The blast area of just ONE cruise missile is 150ft/2 = 7000m/2
How many hit this target allegedly? You can even see the matrix caused by the layering of
the photo shopping software when you zoom right in (its not present on the first photo)
Fucking amateur hour LMAO
There really is not even a conspiracy theorist out there who would suggest it was a Syrian
government operation any way. Only batshit crazy raving lunatics have suggested it was the
Syrian government. This is clearly the stupidest thing Trump has done. It makes the USA look
like a bunch of circus freak losers. Very sad and shockingly insane. This is the stupidest
piece of propaganda in modern history. The USA looks very, very bad. It looks like, from any
reasonable perspective, that they are actively aiding terrorists on purpose. Wow. Interesting
cosmetics. Interesting optics.
Its almost as if the USA government hates itself and actually wants a nuclear war where
everyone dies. I think the only thing that should be considered is whether the nutty freaks
in charge are actually humans. Humans are a great disappointment, so likely, yes, human
beings really can be that mentally deficient. Trump really is such a level of mental retard
that he hates himself and wants to be nuked, so he bombs Syria knowing full well they have
nothing to do with it. He hates his career now and wants out.
chlorine gas is no big deal. Sarin is destroyed by fire.... There is a reason everyone
stores these away from People. Not saying Orange is right, by any means in fact the opposite,
but this story is a bit of a reach.
Not necessarily. There is no magic way to make this stuff go away. Incineration doesn't
solve the problems of the metal containers. All of this stuff would be making its way into
their environment, causing illness and death in the coming years. It takes decades to
properly neutralize this stuff. Lighting it up with Tomahawks definitely isn't the best way,
and without a doubt some of it would be immediately released into the surrounding area.
However small or not so small that amount is:
I used to manage a small apartment complex swimming pool. Dry Chlorine was mixed into a
40gal concentrated tank and a small squirt was pumped into the filter circulation all day
long. A newbee once lifted the top off the tank to have a look inside. Lucky I was there
(telling him, don't do thattttttt) I about had to carry him out of the room. There would be
reports all over that area if a few hundred gallons or more of Chlorine had been blasted into
the air.
I emailed the OPCW yesterday. I asked for the location of the Douma inspection
team at precisely the time the research center was attacked. I heard that they
were at the airport and only hours away from the site. I thought this would
give credence to the theory that the site was attacked just so it would
interfere with a proper inspection. They declined to release any info for the
protection of their workers and the integrity of their work. I guess we will
have to wait for the report.
US officials and the presstitutes tell us that the illegal US missile attack on Syria
destroyed chemical weapons sites where chlorine and sarin are stored/manufactured.
This
satellite image, taken Monday morning, shows the Barzah Research and Development Center in
Damascus after it was struck by coalition forces.
If this were true, would not a lethal cloud have been released that would have taken the
lives of far more people than claimed in the alleged Syrian chemical attack on Douma?
Would not the US missile attack be identical to a chemical weapons attack and thus place
the US and its vassals in the same category as Washington is attempting to place Assad and
Putin?
What about it, you chemical weapons experts?
Do chemical weapons only release their elements when they explode from intended use but not
when they explode from being militarily attacked?
There is no evidence in Syria of chemical residue from the chemical weapons facilities
allegedly destroyed by US missiles.
No dead victims.
No reports of hospitals treating Syrian casualties of the American chemical attack.
The OPCW said there was no chlorine and sarin there.
Remember when....March 31, 2005 - The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction reports that the intelligence community
was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before
the US invasion.
the lendman article suggests that missiles deliberately targeted and destroyed
non-chem-weapons sites that were being used to develop anti-cancer drugs.
that information is completely mistaken because otherwise the official reports would be
incorrect.
And on the left here you'll see our chemistry lab cleverly disguised as an office
building. We have no need for any of the essential components such as reasonable delivery
methods, power supply, storage tanks, pipes, etc. We're cutting edge, unlike all those
American plants:
I suggest that Russia act as "marginal producer" and refuse to sell oil,
gas or raw petroleum products for less than double the price of other
suppliers.
All of a sudden... thing will change.
After the treatment Russia has gotten for the past year or more, they
are more than justified to adopt this policy.
What's going on?
Read this:
"In late March, the U.S. State Department warned European corporations that
they will likely face penalties if they participate in the construction of
Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, on the grounds that "the project
undermines energy security in Europe"
The Nord Stream 2 project and the
denial of pipelines through Syria territory is what's eating at the zio-cons.
This is power politics and Russia / China are too much of a threat.
The Russian central bank opened its first overseas office in Beijing
on March 14, marking a step forward in forging a Beijing-Moscow alliance
to bypass the US dollar in the global monetary system, and to phase-in a
gold-backed standard of trade.
Apr 3 2017 - Europe approves Nordstream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany
April 6 2017 - need to attack Syria.
Coincidentally, with a new government a gas pipelin can be run from
Qatar to Europe and cut-off Russian gas revenue.
*Three Mediterranean EU countries and Israel agreed on Monday to
continue pursuing the development of a gas pipeline ... EU countries and
Israel ... April 3, 2017 ...*
EU, Israel agree to develop Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline
The Optics of the Inter National Geo Political Crises would suggest
that The Criminal Oligarch Cabal Bankster Intelligence Deep State Crime
Syndicate are going "All In."
The petroyuan project is the key. It will smash the petrodollar zio-world.
Saddam Hussien thought of doing that in the 80's by consolidating
Arab oil into a basket of currencies backed by gold. The problem for
him was he was a disposable puppet and not able to defend that
project. China and Russia are a different matter. It's driving the
zios batty.
And, the Yuan is now in the IMF basket of SDR's. Ultimately, the
Petro Dollar will meet its demise & it will be decided by which is
the cleanest, dirtiest shirt to put on among the SDR's.
Great, I voted for Trump in the hopes he would not be a warmonger since Hillary certainly
was. Looks like I should not have bothered after all.
I can only imagine what Putin et al are thinking. They know they and Assad were not behind
that attack, and they know we know, or should know. What this means is that they will have to
come to view our government the same way America used to view the Communists. As dangerous,
fanatical lunatics.
Once you come to view someone not as a rational actor, but as deranged, the dynamics
change, and in very dangerous ways. You cannot appease or come to terms with a lunatic. All
reasonable options begin to disappear, leaving behind only the last resorts.
The reason we voted for Trump is because we are tired of this sanctimonious hypocritical horse shit. Instead we get more of
what we didn't vote for. All Russia did was kindly not sink any of our war ships when we attacked Syria on an assumption.
You got exactly what you voted for... because if you were dumb enough to think you could actually get an outsider maverick
anywhere near the white house I have to think you are too dumb to figure out how to turn on a computer.
Trump's in deep over his head. It was an open question whether he posed any genuine obstacle to the pathocracy, but it seems
more clear now that, one way or another, he has been brought more tightly under their control. THAT, much more than any individual
false-flags or other deceptions or wrongs, should be cause for the rational world to fear. The psychopaths are still on the march,
and Trump is at least paying lip service to their chicanery. The further out on a limb he goes, the more reluctant and then helpless
he will be to backtrack as pathology becomes more extreme and events escalate under their own momentum. With markets looking more
precarious than ever, how long will it be before the psychopaths commit more and bigger false flags?
Cornered animal; that sounds like Trumps modus operandi. Notice that
anyone who criticizes him gets lambasted with personal attacks
instead of a reasoned response.
We need a President who
understands freedom and who is a reasonable person, neither of which
traits are possessed by Trump. He didn't win the election on his own
qualification but on Hillary's lack of qualification. This speaks to
the point, "The lesser of two evils is still evil".
"... This is very clear path toward a confrontation with Russia. America is not going to stop . Russia continues to be punished because does not leave Syria and does not bow to America. ..."
Russia knows that this diplomatic, economic, and military aggression will never stop. These military strikes and economic sanctions from the West represent the death throes of a dying empire. A dying empire is like a gravely wounded, cornered animal.
This is an extremely dangerous animal, because it is willing to arbitrarily kill anyone and anything before it dies.
I still believe that the USA and its European allies will be the
first to use nuclear weapons.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping no
doubt recognize the grave circumstances, and they are using the
utmost restraint to avoid the provision of a military pretext that
the West/USA is seeking in their effort to greatly escalate
hostilities.
The US will only use nukes to secure their dominance. The
people in change aren't beholden to any country or continent
being filthy rich and/or dual citizens. So the plan is to deny
the US an excuse to use nukes while cutting the empire off at
the knees.
Otherwise, I agree it'll be a NATO country that
nukes first. That's part of the desire to make smaller nukes.
"Small" nukes are seen as a way to nuke but not start a global
exchange. Fucking insane people gambling with all higher life
forms.
Russia will tolerate it as long as possible. The delay only
weakens the US and allies. All have serious issues domestically
and even alliances are strained. Don't interrupt when your enemy
is making a mistake
True, but look around us. There is no need to nuke cities
and military targets in the US. Shut down the electrical
grid and the population would lose it in a matter of hours.
Within days it would be chaos on so many levels that it
would take a long time to recover. We really are our own
worst enemies because we are so fractured and polarized of
the stupidest shit.
If limited global depopulation is the ultimate goal, then
yes, the USA will suffer the most due to the prevalence
of firearms and the general hostility that is clearly
evident within its citizenry.
That's obviously
not
the main objective for the warmongers and neocons in DC.
The ultimate objective is global dominance, and the
complete and total subjugation of humanity.
Like I said, criminal insanity is the paradigm that
rules the West.
Cornered animal; that sounds like Trumps modus operandi. Notice that
anyone who criticizes him gets lambasted with personal attacks
instead of a reasoned response.
We need a President who
understands freedom and who is a reasonable person, neither of which
traits are possessed by Trump. He didn't win the election on his own
qualification but on Hillary's lack of qualification. This speaks to
the point, "The lesser of two evils is still evil".
This is very clear path toward a confrontation with Russia. America is not
going to stop . Russia continues to be punished because does not leave
Syria and does not bow to America.
This recent American
fiasco in
Syria is just the opening overture.
In May we have the moving of American embassy to Jerusalem and the
unilateral withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal.
I think we will not reach the end of the year without a big war :
America is losing power and needs it.
Actually the terrorists were sent by Israel and more specifically, the
Mossad, who trained them. Israel wants to expand its territory by
committing a GENOCIDE.
The chemical weapons organisation in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria
found NO chemical weapons at the site the USA UK And FR bombed for that.
The only chemical weapons are those found in the tunnels in East Ghouta
after Syria bussed the militant occupiers away. The 40 tons of chemicals
have manufactuer names, serial numbers and addresses eg Porton Down
Salisbury.
Cui Bono? Trump says he's going to pull out of Syria -- Things
never looked better for Assad -- and he gets the bright idea, to turn the world against him by gassing
gassing his own people? I'm not buying it. I-F-F (Israeli False Flag)
The west wants to destroy the world cup for Russia so that things will heat up before June
to the point of war. So much money was invested in the stadiums that Russia expects the
visitors to help pay. The US will deny this through false flags and lies. I am so ashamed of
this nation that has changed to the point that I do not recognize it from my childhood.
What happened right after the second direct U.S.-missiles invasion of Syria, which had
occurred on the night of April 13th, could turn out to have momentous implications - far bigger
than the attacks themselves...
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons headlined on April 14th, in the
wake of this U.S.-UK-France invasion of Syria that was allegedly punishing Syria's Government
for allegedly having used chemical weapons in its bombing in the town of Douma on April 7th,
"OPCW
Fact-Finding Mission Continues Deployment to Syria" , and reported that:
The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) will continue its deployment to the Syrian Arab Republic to establish facts
around the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma.
The OPCW has been working in close collaboration with the United Nations Department of
Safety and Security to assess the situation and ensure the safety of the team.
The OPCW is not part of the U.N., nor of any country; it, instead (as introduced by
Wikipedia
):
is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons
Convention, which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 192 member states,
has its seat in The Hague, Netherlands, and oversees the global endeavour for the permanent
and verifiable elimination of chemical weapons.
In conformity with the unchallenged international consensus that existed during the 1990s
that there was no longer any basis for war between the world's major powers, the Convention
sought and achieved a U.N. imprimatur, but this was only in order to increase its respect
throughout the world. The OPCW is based not on the U.N. Charter but on that specific treaty,
the Chemical Weapons Convention, which was formally approved by the U.N.'s
General Assembly on 30 November 1992 and was then opened for signatures in Paris on 13
January 1993. According to the Convention's terms, it would enter into effect 180 days after 65
nations signed it, which turned out to be on 29 April 1997.
So, although the treaty itself received U.N. approval, the recent Russian-sponsored
resolution at the U.N.'s Security Council to have the U.N. endorse the OPCW's investigation of
the 7 April 2018 Douma incident, did not receive U.N. approval. It was instead blocked
by the U.S. and its allies . Nonetheless, though without a U.N. endorsement, the OPCW
investigation into the incident will move forward, despite the invasion.
This fact is momentous, because a credible international inspection, by the world's top
investigatory agency for such matters, will continue to completion, notwithstanding the effort
by the U.S. and its allies on the U.N. Security Council, to block it altogether. This decision
was reached by the OPCW -- not by the U.N.
Among the 192
signers of the Chemical Weapons Convention are U.S., Russia, and Syria, as well as China,
Iran, and Iraq, but not Israel, nor North Korea and a very few other countries. So: all of the
major powers have already, in advance, approved whatever the findings by the OPCW turn out to
be. Those findings are expected to determine whether a chemical attack happened in Douma on 7
April 2018, and, if so, then perhaps what the specific banned chemical(s) was(were), but not
necessarily who was responsible for it if it existed. For example, if the 'rebels' had stored
some of their chemical weapons at that building and then Syria's Government bombed that
building, the OPCW might not be able to determine who is to blame, even if they do determine
that there was a chemical attack and the chemical composition of it. In other words: science
cannot necessarily answer all of the questions that might be legal-forensically necessary in
order to determine guilt, if a crime did, in fact, occur, there.
If the investigation does find that a banned chemical was used and did cause injuries or
fatalities, then there is the possibility that its findings will be consistent with the
assertions by the U.S. and its allies who participated in the April 13th invasion. That would
not necessarily justify the invasion, but it would prove the possibility that there had been no
lying intent on the part of the U.S.-and-allied invaders on April 13th.
However, if the investigation does not find that a banned chemical was used in the Syrian
Government's bombing of that building, then incontrovertibly the U.S.-and-allied invasion was a
criminal one under international laws, though there may be no international court that
possesses the authority to try the case .
So: what is at stake here from the OPCW investigation is not only the international
legitimacy of Syria's Government, but the international legitimacy of the Governments that
invaded it on April 13th. These are extremely high stakes, even if no court in the world will
possess the authority to adjudicate the guilt -- either if the U.S. and its allies lied, or if
the Syrian Government lied.
For us historians, this is very important. And, for the general public, the significance
goes much farther: to specific Governments, to their alleged news media, and to the question
of: What does it even mean to say that a government is a "democracy" or a "dictatorship"? The
findings from this investigation will reverberate far and wide, and long (if World War III
doesn't prevent any such findings at all).
These people are delusional and extremely dangerous. There's been zero proof of who
actually used the chemical weapons (if there were chemical weapons at all?) and they're
making statements about it as if it were a verified and universally recognized fact.
We are entering the psyops and propaganda phase of a war. In this phase we are ordered to
only say what they want us to, and this goes for both sides. They don't care about the truth,
just where and when the shooting will start.
Here we go again- the ever-plotting West trying to create reality on the fly- attempting to make the alleged chemical weapons
attack into a
fait accompli
, painting the tape of reality with the shadow-puppets of the operation
mockingbird-controlled, corporate (MIC) media!
Any good reason we shouldn't just start calling the 5(+1)-eyez media environment the Oceania State News Network (OSNN)
right now?
Folks, like some alien abductors, the Deep State has taken the Donald hostage, and with
ball-and-chain finality. Whatever pre-election predilection he had to challenge the Warfare
State has apparently been completely liquidated.
Trump's early AM tweet yesterrday, in fact, embodies the words of a man who had more than a
few screws loose when he took the oath, but under the relentless pounding of the Imperial
City's investigators, partisans, apparatchiks and lynch-mob media has now gone stark raving
mad. To wit:
"....Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia,
because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!" You shouldn't be partners with a Gas
Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
Yes, maybe Wall Street has figured out that the Donald is more bluster than bite. Yet when
you consider the broader context and what the Russian side is now saying, it is just plain
idiotic to own the S&P 500 at 24X. After all , earnings that have been going nowhere for
the past three years (earnings per share have inched-up from $106 in September 2014 to $109 in
December 2017), and now could be ambushed by a hot war accident in Syria that would rapidly
escalate.
Indeed, did the robo-machines and boys and girls down in the casino not ponder the meaning
of this message from the Kremlin? It does not leave much to the imagination:
# Russian ambassador in beirut : "If there is a strike by the Americans on #Syria ,
then... the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired,"
Zasypkin told Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, speaking in Arabic.
Sure, the odds are quite high that the clever folks in the Pentagon will figure out how to
keep the pending attack reasonably antiseptic. That is, they will bomb a whole bunch of places
in Syria where the Russians and Iranians are not (after being warned); and also deploy
stand-off submarine platforms to launch cruise missiles and high-flying stealth aircraft to
drop smart bombs, thereby keeping American pilots and ships out of harm's way.
Then, after unleashing the Donald's version of "shock and awe" they will claim that Assad
has just received the spanking of his life and that the Russians and Iranians have been
messaged with malice aforethought.
But our point is not that Douma is Sarajevo, and, besides, this is still April, not August.
What should be scaring the daylights out of Wall Street is that we are even at the point where
the two tweets quoted above are happening.
For crying out loud, there is a brutal, bloody and barbaric civil war raging in Syria where
both sides are bedecked in black hats; both sides have committed unspeakable atrocities; and
where it is a documented fact that the rebels possess chemical weapons and have launched false
flag gas attacks in the past---even as 1,300 tons of Assad's inventory, which may or may not
have been the totality of it, was destroyed according to the certification of the Organization
for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In that context, who can tell whether the alleged chlorine gas release last Saturday in
Douma originated in a bomb dropped by Assad's air force or came from a rebel stockpile that was
hit by a bomb? Or whether it was another deliberate false flag attack staged by the jihadists
or perhaps that it never happened at all.
The evidence comes mainly from rebel forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. One
of these was the Violations Documentation Center, a virulent anti-Russian organization funded
by George Soros. Another was the White Helmets, a completely comprised operation financed by
the US and UK and which has operated only in rebel held territories--- often check-by-jowl with
the al-Nusra Front and other terrorist elements.
Indeed, Washington's fabled spies in the sky and taps on every node of the worldwide web can
read your email and spot a rogue camel caravan anywhere in a Sahara sandstorm. But they can not
tell whether dead bodies are the victims of bullets, bombs, collapsing buildings or chlorine
gas. You need to be on the ground and perform chemical tests for that, and Washington just
plain isn't there.
Besides, even if a careful investigation--like the one proposed by Sweden and which the US
and UK vetoed at the UN---were actually completed, why is it Washington's prerogative to
administer a spanking to the culprit?
For one thing, if you are in the spanking business owing to bad behavior, then just within
the region you would also need to administer the rod to al-Sisi in Egypt and Erdogan in Turkey;
and also to Washington's on and off wards in Baghdad and to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
for his genocidal attacks on Yemen. While you were at it, why would even Bibi Netanyahu be
spared the birch---given his periodic "lawn mowing" exercises on the Gaza strip?
The point is, Assad has never attacked, threatened or even looked cross-eyed at the United
States. So you would have thought that administering spankings to international malefactors is
the business of Washington's permanent War Party, not the leader of America First.
To be sure, the only evidence we have to date is the gruesome images posted on the internet
by the "Douma Revolution", which we don't credit because it is a tool of the good folks of
Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), who were holding 3,200 pro-Assad hostages in cages when the
attack happened. But even if Assad is culpable, why is the Donald getting out the birch switch
if he doesn't mean to effectuate regime change?
Yes, inconstancy is his middle name. But how in god's name could even the Donald have
rearranged the modest amount of gray matter under his great Orange Comb-Over so quickly and
completely with regards to Syria?
As a reminder, this is what the Donald said just last week:
"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon," Trump said on Thursday, "Let the other
people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon, we're coming out....We're going to get back
to our country, where we belong, where we want to be."
The fact is, it's way too late to drag Bashar Assad behind the Moammar Khadafy Memorial Jeep
to be ritually sodomized by his enemies. That's because he's already won the civil war (red
area in map below).
What's left is not remotely conducive to regime change because the majority Arab population
of Syria (regardless of Alawite, Shiite, Sunni, Christian, Druse etc. religious affiliation)
would never consent to be ruled by the small minority of Kurds (who control the yellow, largely
desert areas). And besides, a Kurdish Syrian state in part or whole would guarantee a Turkish
invasion and a blue (Turkish controlled areas surrounding Afrin in the northwest) versus yellow
war where Washington would be on both sides.
Indeed, the only thing that a regime change attempt at this late date would accomplish is a
resurrection of the remnants of ISIL (small black specs) or an upwelling of chaos from the
three or four islets (green areas) that warring gangs of rebels, jihadists, salafists and
blood-thirsty warlords now nominally control.
So the map below, in fact, tells you what is really going on. To wit, the neocons and deep
staters around Trump--with the Walrus Mouth (Bolton) now literally shouting in his ear----are
really about picking a fight with Iran and Russia. These are really Imperial Washington's
designated enemies, and the purpose of the impending attack on Syrian military installations is
to intimidate them into backing down----even as they issue hostile warnings and rhetorical
fulminations (especially the Iranians) against America.
Stated differently, the Orange Comb-Over is being lured not so much into an Assad spanking
exercise or regime change maneuver as into a Proxy War with Iran and Russia. The latter is
literally manna from heaven for the Warfare State.
Indeed, with the defense budget already cranked up to the absurd level of $720 billion , the
Deep State and its military/industrial/surveillance/congressional complex allies would like
nothing better than maximum rhetorical belligerence (and occasional provocative acts) from
Russia and Iran in order to keep the national security gravy train inflating toward the $1
trillion funding mark.
Needless to say, the contractual droppings from these staggering budget levels will keep the
beltway think tanks, NGOs and pro-war lobbying apparatus in clover for years to come, thereby
fueling the ugly secret of Imperial Washington.
Namely, since America lost its only real enemy in 1991, Washington has become an unhinged
war capital. It is now endangering the entire planet in a doom-loop of expanding military
muscle, multiplying foreign interventions and occupations, intensifying blowback from the
victims of Washington's aggression and an ever greater chorus of Empire justifying experts,
apparatchiks and politicians getting fat on the banks of the Potomac.
Mattis said that the U.S. aim in Syria is to defeat Islamic State, not "to engage in the civil war itself." But referring to the
use of chemical weapons, Mattis said that " some things are simply inexcusable, beyond the pale " and require a response. -
Bloomberg
The Wall St. Journal reports that Mattis "brought those concerns
directly to the White House on Thursday, where White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the national security team
didn't agree on a response."
Exactly two weeks ago Mattis met Bolton - telling the bemoustached bringer-of-death "I heard you're actually the devil incarnate,
and I wanted to meet you."
... ... ...
"If these strikes start, it could end very tragically and it's impossible to predict the outcome -- that's the nature of military
actions," said Russian Senator Frants Klintsevich in a phone interview, adding that there are "no madmen" among Trump's top military
advisors. " These are professionals who aren't populists and know what this could lead to. "
Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia issued a stark warning on Thursday that there was a danger the war
could escalate beyond Syria because of Russia's military presence.
"We cannot exclude any possibilities [of war between Russia and the U.S.] unfortunately because we saw messages that are coming
from Washington," Mr. Nebenzia said. " They were very bellicose. "
In an attempt to settle things diplomatically, Russia asked for an open Security Council emergency meeting on Friday morning,
calling for UN Secretary-General António Guterres to brief the council, according to the Wall St. Journal .
Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says they are sending a team of investigators to Syria
on Saturday to collect samples from the site of the alleged chemical attack last weekend.
Mad props to Mattis for calling him the devil incarnate to his face even if couched tactfully.
But remember, Bolton is just a scare tactic, he isn't really a demented bloodthirsty demon. He wants to go balls out against
a nuclear power over a false flag but it's a bluff. /s
Mad props to Mattis for calling him the devil incarnate to his face even if couched tactfully.
But remember, Bolton is just a scare tactic, he isn't really a demented bloodthirsty demon. He wants to go balls out against
a nuclear power over a false flag but it's a bluff. /s
Let's see. Who's responsible for toppling (or trying to) one strong man after another in the Middle East and leaving the place
in a shit storm? USA! USA! USA!
while President Trump told reporters on Thursday "We're looking very, very seriously, very closely at that whole situation,
and we'll see what happens, folks, we'll see what happens. It's too bad that the world puts us in a position like that."
The lack of self awareness and the victim mentality in this cry-bully statement is breathtaking. Akin to projectile vomiting
on someone them blaming them for smelling disgusting. Extraordinary .
"It was very disconcerting when I saw that an attack is planned on Mosul, an attack is planned. ... Why do we have to talk
about it? Why? I never saw anything like this. Every time we are going to attack somebody, we explain. We're going to attack,
we'll be attacking at three, noon on March 25. I don't know, unless you disagree with me, wouldn't it be better if we were going
to go after Mosul to not say anything and do it, as opposed to announcing -- they're announcing all over television they're planning
to attack Mosul." -- Donald J. Trump
The context of the entire Russia mania is ludicrous and the fake news is so ridiculous
that war must be close.
A) Congress votes unanimously to sanction Russia for tampering the election by hacking and
everybody in DC makes believe they've never heard of the dead staffer.
B) Putin decides to poison some guy right before their election using a special poison
only Russia has. Their involvement in the "investiagtion" is forbidden,
C) The maverick outsider says the US will be pulling out of Syria and ~ a week later Assad
decides to shoot chemicals at people like no one will ever find out. Trump calls Assad an
animal and blames Putin.
There are a few possibilities. Trump could truly be a dotard moron and believe this shit
or he's being strong-armed.
It's either that or some sort of wacko plan. Even the most ardent deplorables are having a
hard time with this.
"... U.S. government documents declassified in October 2017 admitted that a very high-level 1962 meeting of U.S. government officials – separate from the Joint Chiefs of Staff – also discussed: The possibility of U.S. manufacture or acquisition of Soviet aircraft . There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack U.S. or friendly installations in order to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention. ..."
Unless you've been living under a rock, by now you know that the British government falsely claimed
that irrefutable evidence proved that the Russian government was behind the poisoning of a former
Russian double agent and his daughter using a "Novichok" nerve agent.
In response, the UK and US
carried out the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats in history.
Now that the wheels have come off this farce, it is interesting to note previous examples of the
West falsely blaming Russia for bad acts.
Official German intelligence service documents show that, in 1994, the German intelligence
services
planted
(original
German
)
plutonium on an airplane coming from Russia, as a way to
frame
Russia for exporting dangerous
radioactive materials which could end up in the hands of terrorists and criminals.
This frame-up job was so successful at
whipping up fear
that it
got German Chancellor Kohl re-elected, and the U.S. used it as an excuse to "help" secure Russia's
nuclear facilities, as a way to get access to Russian nuclear secrets.
While everyone "knows" that the Kremlin poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with
radioactive polonium, a very
high-level
French counterterrorism official, Paul Barril, alleges that French, US and UK intelligence worked
together to kill Litvinenko and to frame Russia:
And
see
this
.
U.S. government documents declassified in October 2017
admitted
that
a very high-level 1962 meeting of U.S. government officials – separate from the Joint Chiefs of
Staff – also discussed: The possibility of U.S. manufacture or acquisition of Soviet aircraft .
There is a possibility that such aircraft could be used in a deception operation designed to
confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a
provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack U.S. or friendly
installations in order to provide an excuse for U.S. intervention.
Newsweek
ran
an article headlined (all caps in original Newsweek title):
U.S. GOVERNMENT PLANNED FALSE FLAG ATTACKS TO START WAR WITH SOVIET UNION, JFK DOCUMENTS
SHOW
The article notes:
The U.S. government once wanted to plan false flag attacks with Soviet aircraft to
justify war with the USSR or its allies, newly declassified documents surrounding the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy show.
***
False flag attacks are covert operations that make it look like an attack was carried out
by another group than the group that actually carried them out.
Indeed, falsely blaming other countries for terrorism or violence is
the oldest way
to create a "justification" for war.
The governments have certainly learned how to mess with the thinking gear of people.
I spent most of my life working with inanimate objects not spending much time
figuring out how people think. Most of the people that I did try to figure out were
personally known to me. It was only in the last few years of my career that I paid
any real attention to how people are manipulated. I knew people were easily
manipulate for years, just think about how the war in Iraq in 2003 was so popular
amoung most people.
Hi, I am from the government. I am here to lie to you. I have so many lies on
top of other lies that sometimes they are true. Even the government has lost
track. I am not sure if even MIC or Israel knows anymore.
Someone didn't RTFA: " President Trump recently announced his intention to pull US troops
out of Syria - although the neocons that now dominate the Trump national security team have
been aghast at such a suggestion, and have managed to convince the president to slow-roll
this. It remains unclear if they staged the false flag chemical attack in Syria with the help
of Israel, or on their own. "
Despite President Trump
adopting his harshest rhetoric yet
to condemn Russia and the government of Syrian leader Bashar
al-Assad for an alleged chemical attack in rebel-held eastern Ghouta, a missile strike carried out
overnight on a Syrian airfield was not the US's doing.
Instead, Russia and Syria have accused Israel of carrying out the strike on Syria's T-4 airfield,
situated about halfway between Homs (Syria's third-largest city) and Palmyra (famously the site of
ancient ruins).
RT
reports that
two Israeli F-15 jets fired eight guided missiles at the airfield from Lebanese airspace. The jets never
entered Syria.
Of these, Syrian air defenses intercepted five. The attack left roughly 14 people dead, including
Iranians and Syrians, the
Associated Press
reported.
Russia and the Syrian military blamed Israel for a pre-dawn missile attack Monday on a
major air base in central Syria
, saying Israeli fighter jets launched the missiles from
Lebanon's air space.
A war-monitoring group said the airstrikes killed 14 people, including
Iranians active in Syria.
Russia's Defense Ministry said two Israeli aircraft targeted the T4 air base in Homs province,
firing eight missiles. It said Syria shot down five of them while the other three landed in the
western part of the base. Syrian state TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying that Israeli
F-15 warplanes fired several missiles at T4. It gave no further details.
Israel's foreign ministry had no comment when asked about the accusations.
Since 2012,
Israel has struck inside Syria more than 100 times,
mostly targeting
suspected weapons' convoys destined for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has been fighting
alongside Syrian government forces.
Most recently,
Israel hit the same T4 base in February, after it said an Iranian drone that
had violated Israeli airspace took off from the base.
The base, which was used as a launching
pad for counter offensive attacks against Islamic State militants who were at one point stationed
close by, is near the Shayrat air base, which was targeted by U.S. missiles last year in response to a
chemical weapons attack.
Monday's missile attack came hours after President Donald Trump warned there would be a "big price
to pay" after a suspected poison gas attack Saturday on the last remaining foothold for Syrian rebels
in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
At least 40 people were killed in that assault, including
families found in their homes and shelters, opposition activists and local rescuers said.
Eight missiles were launched by two Israeli Air Force F-15 jets at the T-4 airfield located about
halfway between Homs and the ancient city of Palmyra. Israel previously launched a strike against the
base back in February after an Iranian drone ventured into Israeli airspace, provoking an alarmed
response.
This isn't Israel's first unprovoked attack on a Syrian military installation: most recently,
Israel launched an attack
against a government installation near Damascus almost exactly two months
ago. Before that, the Israelis launched another unprovoked attack
back in September.
Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen reported Monday that Israeli reconnaissance aircraft had been spotted close to
the border with Syria during the attack. The missiles crossed Lebanese airspace over Keserwan and Bekaa
before heading toward Syria.
France, which we had initially suspected might be behind the attack, along with Israel...
While the US was quick to pin the chemical attack in Ghouta - the last rebel stronghold in what's
considered suburban Damascus - on Russia and Assad, the US jumped to a similar conclusion a year ago when
Trump authorized a fusillade of tomahawk missiles to strike a Syrian airbase. It was later learned that
the US had no proof to suggest that attack was orchestrated by Assad's government.
As for Israel's
desire to provoke another regional war, it is understandable in light of growing Iranian influence on its
border, while President Trump recently announced his intention to pull US troops out of Syria - although
the neocons that now dominate the Trump national security team have been aghast at such a suggestion, and
have managed to convince the president to slow-roll this. It remains unclear if they staged the false
flag chemical attack in Syria with the help of Israel, or on their own.
Meanwhile, the Guardian says the IDF views the chaos in the West Wing as the latest sign that it must
take matters into its own hands, and not wait for explicit US approval. However, with a UN Security
Council meeting scheduled for Monday over recent events in Syria, we now wait to see what kind of
response Russia and Assad will decide on, and how Moscow will respond to this provocation by Netanyahu,
who has been friendly - at least superficially - with Putin in recent months.
The natural regional powers are Iran, Turkey
and Egypt. Just look at any population map
and/or economic activity indicators.
Israel has only technology and
'influence' to create a temporary, brittle
form of power. Saudis have only oil and
'influence', ditto.
Hence, by a short-term accident, Israel
and KSA can effectively create death and
destruction in the region, killing babies for
their own greed and power.
BUT ONLY IF THE US HELPS.
The IDF is essentially useless on
the ground, ditto the Saudis, and neither can
handle Russian intel and air superiority on
their own.
So this populist insurrection is
indeed a pivotal moment,
coming as it
does when the global balance is shifting
toward Eurasian integration, global peace and
prosperity. A 'Chinese Peace' with Russian
muscle. The main idea being to not blow up
shiny new Chinese ports, roads, etc.
So the tiny, tiny minority of
war-mongering, globalist traitors in these
very, very few countries (Israel, KSA, and
the 'Five Eyes') has essentially NO other
cards to play. Use WMDs against civilians,
false flags, try to get their own killed to
trigger war fever.
The very best part right now is: we're
already past the tipping point. No one
cares, and almost no one believes them.
Pretty much game over, but a very
dangerous end game.
I think we
should round up all these sociopaths pronto
before they murder more babies.
Take it one step farther. The US public
is on to the con. BUT the US economy
still depends on the MIC. And the MIC
depends on maintaining the constant state
of little brush wars around the globe to
sell their hardware. Every Israeli or KSA
plane, missile, and bomb is stamped "Made
in the USA". As China and Russia step in
to impose peace in Eurasia and the Saudi
oil runs out, the petrodollar ceases to be
the world reserve currency. The US has
two economic pillars: the MIC and Big Ag.
With a failing currency and no customers
for war toys, it becomes locked into the
position of being a global commodity
supplier: pork, wheat, corn, soybeans,
peanuts. Historically, agricultural
commodity suppliers are third-world
nations, forced to accept low prices on
highly-competitive products while paying
high prices for monopolized industrial
goods.
This is the END for global US
dominance. One can understand why the PTB
are desperate to keep going no matter what
the resistance at home or abroad. A major
war is likely. Victory is not.
And if the Syrian Air Force launched missiles from Jordanian
air space against an Israeli Air Base nothing would happen?
By the way, the Golan Heights does not belong to Israel so
they launched from Syrian territory.
Whatever......hopefully no U.S. Ships are in the way.
Five missiles out of eight shot down - by Syrian (old) defense
systems. Not too bad. Russia is not there to stop Israel. It's
there to stop Daesh, which it's done. Smart, patient, focused
strategy.
"... Nikki Haley claims that the US "Will Respond" To Syria Gas Attack Regardless Of Security Council's Decision ..."
"... Last year, the US destroyed more than a dozen aircraft, as well as oil storage facilities and other structures, and killed at least seven people when it fired 59 missiles at Syria's Shayrat Airbase following a chemical weapons attack that the US also pinned on the Syrian government. ..."
"... Both the UK and France have suggested they're considering military action in Syria. UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he and his French and US allies agree there should be "no impunity for those that use such barbaric weapons." ..."
"... However, Johnson added that Monday's emergency meeting of the UN Security Council would be "an important next step in determining the international response" and that "a full range of options should be on the table." ..."
Nikki Haley claims that the US "Will Respond" To Syria Gas Attack Regardless Of Security Council's Decision
Update (4:15 pm ET): US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said during an emergency meeting of
the UN Security Council on Monday that the US would retaliate against the attack in Syria
regardless of what the UN Security Council decides.
"History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its
duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either
way, the United States will respond."
She described the victims in graphic terms.
"I could hold up pictures of babies lying dead next to their mothers, in their diapers,
all lying together, dead, ashen blue, open eyed and lifeless, white foam bubbling from their
mouths and noses."
Haley added that "the world must see justice done" in Syria.
* * *
Before heading into his Monday afternoon cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump condemned a
chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, Syria during an impromptu press conference. The president
said "even with the world as bad as it is, you just don't see things like that" before saying
he'd decide on a response "probably by the end of today."
And while the US was "having trouble getting people in" to the town, Trump added that he
would definitively determine which states were involved in the attack - be it Syria, Iran,
Russia (or presumably all three).
With Trump and his most trusted advisors still debating the proper response, several
anonymous Pentagon officials have told the
Washington Examiner that the US is considering several options including a missile barrage
similar to the strike carried out on a Syrian air base last year.
The Israeli F-15s launched a lethal strike on a Syrian airbase early Monday, killing 14
people with
the US's tacit approval .
The options being considered now are similar to the options that were provided to the
president before last year's strike. The US has several ships armed with tomahawk cruise
missiles stationed in the region - including the USS Donald Cook, a guided-missile destroyer
that just completed a port call in Cyprus and got underway in the eastern Mediterranean. The
ship is within range of Syria and could presumably strike at any target the president
orders.
Last year, the US destroyed more than a dozen aircraft, as well as oil storage facilities
and other structures, and killed at least seven people when it fired 59 missiles at Syria's
Shayrat Airbase following a chemical weapons attack that the US also pinned on the Syrian
government.
But according to one official who spoke with
the Examiner , Trump could be considering a "more robust" strike this time around,
considering that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad didn't quite get the message last time.
Both the UK and France have suggested they're considering military action in Syria. UK
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he and his French and US allies agree there should be "no
impunity for those that use such barbaric weapons."
However, Johnson added that Monday's emergency meeting of the UN Security Council would be
"an important next step in determining the international response" and that "a full range of
options should be on the table."
The Brits blinked and did not punish the criminal liar Blair. Since then, the war
profiteering based on false flag operations has become a national British pastime.
Notable quotes:
"... The problem for governments using false flag operations like this is many more people are no longer trusting their own governments and quite rightly so. ..."
Hi, I am from the government. I am here to lie to you. I have so many lies on top of other
lies that sometimes they are true. Even the government has lost track. I am not sure if even
MIC or Israel knows anymore.
The problem for governments using false flag operations like this is many more people are
no longer trusting their own governments and quite rightly so. Human minds are reinforcing
the concept of untrustworthy governments that actually lasts far longer than the elected
period of time of those who purport to represent the population we now know to be a
deceit.
As example, take Blair ex-UK prime minister who concocted the whole Iraq dodgy dossier in
the UK who most people I know now call him a war criminal but nobody will put on trial in the
Hague. He has not been PM since 2007 but nobody forgets the criminal acts he instigated and
supported and will be remembered for a long time for this. So how do you make Blair appear
human again to the population?
You can apply this concept to so many elected criminals in the west ... join it up those
that rule us are in fact criminals not ordinary people. The psychos rule over us and to them
we are no more than dead meat.
The big game is the eradication of Western sponsored terrorists and ending of the Syrian
civil war.
This is on schedule and nothing can stop it. It will be over soon.
Russia sees EVERYTHING flying over the entire theatre and in due course the SAA will be
supplied with the means to destroy the IDF over Lebanon also.
The IDF attacks are nothing more than an irritation and will be dealt with in the fullness
of time. 5 from 8 is nothing to brag about at all. In mission planning terms its a disaster
really and will lead to failure in a full war.
Only a direct attack on the Russian military will elicit a direct response from Russia. It
has been stated publicly enough times.
Any response from Russia in that instance will come from missile launches from Russia
(hundreds of them at that) The antagonists know this.
Syria is winning its war and that's all that matters.
Assad is fighting Sunni Insurgency, their all RADICAL. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Gulf
States are funding them. AL-Qaeda, ISIS, and all the other groups, all SUNNI's. This pocket
in SYRIA is filled with Sunni's, their fighting force are all RADICALS.
Look at one of the groups that USA supported a Jihadist Sunni Division, who went to
KITCHEN grab a cooking knife and cut off the head of 10 year old KID.
THE USA, FRANCE, UK, are all in BED with Sunni's, Ironically, It's Sunni's that are also
committing TERROR attacks in EUROPE. Yet Jew Boss's in USA and EUROPE want make Sunni the
Allies and SHIA the enemy.
"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate
that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners
quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the
uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of
completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar
Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."
Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD
REASON being there other than this BS.
The US Congress has not approved the US being in Syria.
The UN Security Council has not approved the US presence in Syria.
President Assad of Syria did not invite the US or approve the US presence in
Syria.
Only the US deep state neocons have approved the US presence in the context of "regime
change".
Dammit Trump! Get control of your staff and get out of Syria leaving the Kurds all the AA
stinger missiles they need to take out Turk aircraft. And on the way out, rip the Turk
invasion force to shreds, then just say, "oops, sorry."
one reason Israel remained silent even though it seems clear they had advanced knowledge
of the 9-11 attack; and allowed them to proceed. Israelis Agents filming the attacks were
arrested and later deported, more than 70 of them.
Fortunately, Bibi was ready to take the microphone minutes after the 9-11 attack and
define the enemy for the American public, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American
service men and $7 Trillion wasted in the shit hole middle east.
The Anglo Jewish Alliance continues to try to provoke a war between the US and Russia,
Iran, and Syria.
Trump is right to get the US out of the shit hole as fast as possible, months not
years.
Former CIA Steele claims that the Epstein Compromise Kiddie Sex tapes from the Lolita
Express, the palm beach estate and probably six other Epstein properties are in Israel for
Control-Blackmail purposes. The next time Bibi calls Trump, Trump should tell Bibi to fuck
off. What happened on the 300ft yacht ?????
CFR and AIPAC and all Globalist and Foreign lobbyist organization must be registered as
Foreign Agents, and forced to meet at the State Dept, and cut off from contact with the rest
of the US govt.
The plan is for Israel to conduct however many cowardly missions it takes until their
murderous ways are considered normalized behavior.
Someday in the not so distant future, israel hopes conversations such as "did you hear
Israel told an incidious lie then killed a bunch of innocent people?" to which a typical brow
beaten dufus responds "yes, but it had to be done," become as common place as banter about
the weather.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly threatened to quit in late
March after a blow up with Trump in a meeting in the Oval Office, reports
Axios .
Kelly was reportedly heard muttering about quitting as he stormed back to his office after
the March 28 argument - however sources say it wasn't related to the firing of former Secretary
of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin which happened the same day.
A senior administration official said that calling it a threat was "probably too strong,
it was more venting frustration." Kelly often says he doesn't have to be there and didn't
seek the job originally. - Axios
Details (via Axios ):
Kelly packed up some personal belongings , though I'm told that wasn't necessarily
because he was walking out.
He was fired up enough that colleagues got allies to call in to calm him down .
At one point DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen -- perhaps the person in the administration
he trusts most -- came over to talk him off the ledge .
Meanwhile, President Trump has reportedly been sidestepping Kelly of late - telling one
confidant that he's " tired of being told no " by Kelly, and has instead opted to simply not
include his Chief of Staff in various matters, according to CBS News
, citing a person who was not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations and spoke on
condition of anonymity.
When President Donald Trump made a congratulatory phone call to Russian leader Vladimir
Putin, White House chief of staff John Kelly wasn't on the line . When Mr. Trump tapped John
Bolton to be his next national security adviser, Kelly wasn't in the room.
And when Mr. Trump spent a Mar-a-Lago weekend stewing over immigration and trade, Kelly
wasn't in sight .
Kelly, once empowered to bring order to a turbulent West Wing, h as receded from view, his
clout diminished , his word less trusted by staff and his guidance less tolerated by an
increasingly go-it-alone president. - CBS News
Kelly had made it a practice for months to listen in on many of the president's calls -
particularly with world leaders. He also reportedly advocated against the hiring of John
Bolton.
"It's not tenable for Kelly to remain in this position so weakened," said Chris Whipple,
author of "Gatekeepers," a history of modern White House chiefs of staff. "More than any of his
predecessors, Donald Trump needs an empowered chief of staff to tell him what he does not want
to hear. Trump wants to run the White House like the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and it's simply
not going to work ."
In
December we reported that President Trump had been calling White House aides to his private
residence in the evening where he would give them new assignments - asking them not to tell
Kelly .
" John has been successful at putting in place a stronger chain of command in the White
House , requiring people to go through him to get to the Oval Office," said Leon Panetta, a
White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton who worked with Mr. Kelly, a
four-star Marine general, in the Department of Defense. " The problem has always been whether
or not the president is going to accept better discipline in the way he operates. He's been
less successful at that. " - WSJ
" This is all just inevitable ," said one person close to Mr. Trump. " It's not that Mr.
Kelly is wrong -- we all know he's terribly competent. "
Meanwhile, frustrated friends of the President have also reportedly gotten around Kelly's
"do not call" list by calling Melania Trump in order to pass messages to her husband ,
according to two people familiar with the matter.
"[S]ince she arrived in the White House from New York in the summer, the first lady has
taken on a more central role as a political adviser to the president."
" If I don't want to wait 24 hours for a call from the president, getting to Melania is
much easier ," one person said. - WSJ
Melania Trump's office issued a harsh rebuke to the Wall St. Journal, stating " This is more
fake news and these are more anonymous sources peddling things that just aren't true. The First
Lady is focused on her own work in the East Wing ."
Trump's Twitter feed is still off limits to Kelly, who's been rolling his eyes at questions
over potential diplomatic quagmires such as the time he called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
"short and fat." Asked about the incident, Kelly shrugged it off - saying " Believe it or not -
I don't follow the tweets ," adding that he has advised White House staff to do the same. " We
develop policy in the normal traditional staff way ."
As one White House official told the WSJ, despite what appears to be an equilibrium between
Kelly and Trump, they may never see eye to eye. " Kelly is too much of a general, and Trump is
too much Trump ," adding that Trump continues to hold Mr. Kelly in high regard - often praising
him during public appearances.
Meanwhile in March, Kelly was reportedly so furious over the way the press was covering
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's Tuesday firing that he shouted at the television on Air
Force One as the President and his staff took off for California, according to
Politico .
Accounts of Kelly's involvement in Tillerson's ouster have varied. While some reports
describe Kelly only telling Tillerson to watch Trump's twitter account "over the next few
days," others have said it was a much more direct conversation in which the Secretary of State
was given a heads up. In that version, Tillerson implored Kelly to hold off on any decisions
until he returned to the U.S. on Monday.
Tillerson, meanwhile, would only say that he received a "lunchtime call" from Trump during
the President's flight to California, and a separate call from Kelly - both after Trump's
tweet.
Kelly's consternation over the press coverage came on the heels of former Trump staff
secretary Rob Porter's ouster in February after the Daily Mail published accounts from his two
ex-wives accusing him of domestic abuse. Kelly took fire for not getting rid of Porter earlier,
after it emerged that the FBI had alerted the White House several times in 2017 that the
allegations were holding up Porter's security clearance. When the allegations against Porter
began to fly, Kelly put out a statement calling Porter a "man of true integrity and honor," and
"a trusted professional."
With Trump playing musical chairs in the West Wing seemingly every other week, one has to
wonder exactly how much longer Kelly will last.
The mainstream media deflects attention from where power resides: corporations, not with the
leaders of the free world. The arguments posed by Chris Hedges, that the U.S. is neither a
democracy nor a republic but a totalitarian state that can now assassinate its citizens at
will, are pertinent ones. Scary ones. Especially as consecutive governments seem equally as
impotent to invoke any real change for the States. If the media won't stand up to the
marionettes who pull the strings of the conglomerates causing deep, indelible polarisation in
the world abound; then so we must act. Together.
Listen to the full interview in our weekly Newsvoice Think podcast.
We were delighted to have Chris Hedges on an episode of the Newsvoice Think podcast as we seek to broadcast
perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum. Right, left, red, blue and purple.
In our interview with Chris, we discussed a range of topics facing the U.S. today as the
Trump administration looks back at a year in power, and forward to the November '18 midterms
where Democrats will be looking to make gains. Chris was scathing of that party describing them
as a "creature of Wall Street, which is choreographed and ceased to be a proper party a long
time ago." As a columnist with Truthdig, and a big advocate of independent media. Chris Hedges
was the perfect interviewee for us to draw on the benefits of crowdsourced journalism and the
challenges facing sites at the mercy of Facebook, Google and Twitter algorithms.
Chris's ire against the corporate interest of Facebook et al didn't let up saying dissident
voices were being shut down and that corporate oligarchs were only too happy to let them. The
neutralisation of the media platforms that seek to provide independent opinion on U.S. current
affairs is in full pelt.
North Korea was the hot topic in 2017. Commentators said it was like a return to the days of
the Cold War. But Hedges pointed that we need to remember what happened during the Korean
War -- how the North was flattened by U.S. bombs -- and that as a
result they, as a nation, suffer from an almost psychosis as a result. Trump, he said, is an
imbecile and only deals in bombast, threats and rhetoric.
Not surprisingly, Trump got it hard from Hedges. Describing his administration as a
"kleptocracy" who will seek to attack immigrants and up the xenophobia stakes as it distracts
and covers for the unadulterated theft of U.S. natural resources.
As young people look to estimable journalists, activists and politicians in the States to
help give them a voice, Hedges sees the democratic system as utterly futile. Encouraging mass
civil disobedience instead, the ex-NY Times foreign correspondent states that railroads should
be blocked and shutting down corporate buildings, for example, is the only way forward.
The perennial argument between Republicans and Democrats is just that; is the U.S. a
Republic or a Democracy? Hedges thinks neither. He told Newsvoice that the States is an
inverted totalitarian country where the government regards the public as "irrelevant".
Unlike Ben Wizner from the ACLU who sees hope in delaying Net Neutrality, at least until a
new administration is in power, Chris feels it is hopeless -- that it is a dead
duck, and as Net Neutrality slows down independent media platforms, the public will be at the
behest of corporate social media sites such as Facebook who'll increasingly deem what you do
and don't read or see.
You can read more of Chris' work at Truthdig where he has a weekly
column every Monday.
Neoliberalism as a social system is self-destructive -- similar to Trotskyism from which it was derived.
World leaders urged to act as anger over inequality reaches a 'tipping point'
Typical neoliberal mantra "need to rise productivity" is a typical neoliberal fake: look at Amazon for shining example here.
Notable quotes:
"... The real focus of our taxation system should be to tax wealth and recipients of silly amounts of annual income. ..."
"... Ur talking about something called "Reagan-nomics" or what was commonly and lovingly referred to as "trickle down economics". After the destruction of unionized labor, years of globalization, record profits for corporations & wall street and a high octane doze of Reagan / Thatcher Neoliberalism, "trickle down" has obviously been a complete failure. ..."
An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were
to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world's wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring
their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth.
Since 2008, the wealth of the richest 1% has been growing at an average of 6% a year – much faster than the 3% growth in wealth
of the remaining 99% of the world's population. Should that continue, the top 1% would hold wealth equating to $305tn (£216.5tn)
– up from $140tn today.
The population of third world countries is skyrocketing. The population of developed countries, outside the importation of poor
immigrants, is static. The top 1% of world population will continuously become comparatively richer as long as this is the case.
That means 6.75m households are in the top 1% of the world, At 1.94 adults per household, that's 13,000,000 people.
However, assuming households are not 'legal people' but the adults within them are, then you'd have to divide household income
by the number of adults (1.94) to get the wealth per person. So to reach £550,000 per person, a household would have to
have net wealth of £1.067m, and only 10% of households have that wealth.
10% of 27m is 2.7m and that equates to only 5,240,000 people.
So in terms of households we easily reach 10m mark, but in terms of individual people, you are correct, it is 'only' 5.24m.
Still and awful lot of people though.
A single mother get £20k on benefits per years. Over 18 years that is £360,000. She has two kids, so that iwill cost £3,000 in
education per years. 2 kids x 14 years x £3,500 per years = £98,000. We pay for child birth costs, free vaccinations, anti-natal
care, free prescriptions, free eye care, free dental care, free school meals, we pay her countal tax bil. Plus if she is lucky,
she get a free £450,000 council home.
Even if she works for a few years, it will never be enough to pay what she has received from the state. PLus we have to make
provisions for her pension and her elderly care, meals on wheels, elderly health care etc...
That is easily £1m to £2million per single mother....
The plebs are well on the way to figuring it out alright and so have the 1%. That's we now live under a militarized surveillance
state which serves the elites.. Think again if voting will ever change this.. Bernie was doomed from the getgo.
I think the principle here is that the longer this goes on and the greater inequality becomes then the more extreme will be the
countervailing force.
It is in everybody's interest that the world becomes fairer. That governments govern in the interests of as many people as
possible. That public services like health and education are available to all regardless. That taxes are progressive and that
governments have international treaties to deal with tax avoidance and evasion. That our democratic processes are as robust as
possible and that all our organs of state are as transparent as possible and open to scrutiny to the public.
If the accumulation of wealth on this scale continues unabated it will end in tears... inevitably.
Furthermore I believe that there is a relationship between inequality - and all the things that go with it and follow from
it - and environmental degradation.
Greater fairness between individuals and between countries is, in my opinion, one of the essential requirements for us to surmount
the epic problems that we face in the world today.
I think most of us have are aware of what really happens at Davos. The wealthy and powerful are cooking up more schemes to screw
the 99% over. Your Bono's and your Bill Gates are no friends to the working class or the working poor. Take Jeff Bezos for example.
He has a mass of wealth totaling $112 Billion.
To end global hunger - $30 Billion
To end homelessness in the USA - $20 Billion
Jeff Bezos, or even Bill Gates could do that in an instant and still have Billions to spare. The super rich don't care about
"regular" people, and never have.
Peter Rabbit ComfortablyPlumb 7 Apr 2018 14:25
This is the Osborne analogy regurgitated.
If you live in a £2.5 million house, you are wealthy, not average or poor. To be wealthy is not some form of human rights entitlement,
especially if it is at the cost of the overwhelming majority. This concept is known as "greed" and "selfishness". Obviously your
mantra is that of Gordon Gekko "greed is good".
The real focus of our taxation system should be to tax wealth and recipients of silly amounts of annual income.
All these arguments are dated and are applicable to the Thatcher era of the early 1980s which has long gone and is not going
to return. The problem facing our society currently is run away social and economic inequality and the entrenchment of substantial
wealth for a very small number of people which is fuelling generational social and inequality.
TakoradiMan BrotherLead 7 Apr 2018 14:24
I presume that most those living in the U.K. will fall within top 1% which the Guardianista loath so much.
I'm sorry but this post is utterly clueless.
To be in the top 1% you need to have a household income of well over £50k per annum (closer to £100k I suspect - no one here
has yet given very authoritative figures); only a fraction of the UK population are that well off.
AnneK1 Landlord52 7 Apr 2018 14:24
Except that they don't and the charities have to come along and ask us for more money because the public sector haven't used
tax revenue efficiently. I would say Britain's ineffective public sector are the greatest threat to Corbyn's chances of forming
the government we need to rid us of these dangerous Tories.
PeterlooSunset 7 Apr 2018 14:24
The richest 1% own the corporate media (including the private equity firms keeping the Guardian afloat) that keep telling us
we have to focus our attention on identity politics while they loot all the wealth.
prematureoptimsim -> Inthesticks 7 Apr 2018 14:23
Ur talking about something called "Reagan-nomics" or what was commonly and lovingly referred to as "trickle down economics". After the destruction of unionized labor, years of globalization, record profits for corporations & wall street and a high octane doze of Reagan / Thatcher Neoliberalism, "trickle down" has obviously been a complete failure.
U need proof ? Just examine recent history of presidential elections. . . .
Barack Obama - ( Mr. Hope and Change )
Donald Trump - ( Mr. Make America Great Again ).
And in the end it's the same as it ever was. The rich get richer and. . . . Well u know the rest. Good luck to u. Enjoy ur crumbs.
The United Kingdom is headed for a break-up.
Not
today or tomorrow, mind you but, sooner than anyone would like to handicap, especially in this age of
coalition government at any cost.
By responding to the alleged poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughter Yulia with histrionics normally reserved for The View, Theresa May's government has set the
stage for its own collapse.
Government's fall when the people lose confidence in them. May has bungled everything she has
touched as Prime Minister, from Brexit talks and her relationship with Donald Trump to her response
(or lack thereof) to the escalating level of domestic terrorism and her pathetic campaign during last
year's snap election.
When I confront such obvious ineptitude it's not hard to believe that wasn't the plan to begin
with.
Since her initial meeting with Donald Trump after his election where it looked like the two would
get along, May has become more and more belligerent to both him and his base. While he continues to
affirm our special relationship "The Gypsum Lady" as I like to call her makes mistake after mistake.
The latest of which is pushing everyone east of the Dneiper River in Ukraine to denounce the
Russians and President Vladimir Putin personally for this alleged poisoning in Salisbury a month ago.
The result of which was the largest round of diplomatic expulsions in a century, if not ever.
And now that the whole "Russia did it" narrative has been skewered by May's own experts at Porton
Downs, she stands alone along with her equally inept and embarrassing Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
and Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson.
The calls for their jobs will only intensify here.
Tinker, Tailor, Traitor, Spy
The whole thing felt from the beginning like a bad Ian Fleming novel. I said from the beginning
this this was a classic false flag to gin up anti-Russian fervor while May's negotiator betrayed
Brexit and pushed to remove Russian businesses from doing business in London.
I'm sorry but it's not a stretch to think this whole thing was cooked up by MI-6. In fact, that's
been my operating assumption for a month now.
The problem was, until a few days ago, I didn't have a good enough reason why.
Putting diplomatic pressure on Russia on behalf of the U.S.'s crazed neoconservative Deep State
just didn't seem like a big enough reward. Neither did cutting Russian businesses out of European
banks to stop contractor and creditor payments associated with the Nordstream 2 pipeline.
Those things felt like nice bonus objectives but not main goals.
And it wasn't until the lead scientists at Porton Downs left May, Johnson and Williamson out to
hang on Monday that the full operation became clear.
By stating that they could not confirm the
origin of the Novichok nerve agent used in the attack on the Skripals the Porton Downs officials
destroyed the credibility of The Gypsum Lady's government.
Therefore, this operation was always about undermining May's government to the point of a
no-confidence vote. This would then be the ultimate betrayal of Brexit in order to preserve the
U.K.'s position in the European Union, which is favored by the political and old-monied British elite.
In short, this was a coup attempt.
And don't think for a second that this is not plausible. Remember it was Margaret Thatcher's own
most trusted people who betrayed her to get the U.K. into the European Union in the first place. This
was why they brought down The Iron Lady.
So, here's the scene:
May and Johnson both get told by trusted advisors that there is incontrovertible proof of Russia's
hand in this. They go with this information with confidence to parliament, the U.N., high-level
meetings with foreign leaders and the press.
They convince their allies to stand strong against the evil Russians who is everyone's bid 'baddie'
at this point.
Trump has to go along with this nonsense even though he is obviously skeptical otherwise there will
be an uproar in the U.S. press about him betraying our most trusted ally for his puppet-master Putin.
To be honest, I don't think these bozos, May and Johnson, were in on the plan. I think they were
being played all along and now will be the patsies.
Just like May was played last year, calling for snap elections. The minute she called them there
were terror attacks all over London, marches against her over public safety. A media campaign which
puffed up Jeremy Corbyn, who they are now destroying for his rightful trepidation about this fairy
tale MI-6 is spinning.
The goal was to weaken May and get Labour back in charge. Corbyn would then be cast aside and a
Tony Blair clone installed as Prime Minister to scuttle Brexit and restore order to
the galaxy,
Europe.
Unfortunately, the DUP got enough of the vote to re-elect a very weakened May and things have limped
along for nearly a year.
Crisis on Infinite Empires
The problem with this however, is like all plans of those desperate to cling to vestiges of former
glory (and the U.K. is definitely the poster child for that), is the crisis of confidence it will
engender.
Make no mistake, Brexit was no mistake.
It's what the people of Britain wanted and they want it more now than in 2016. So, they don't dare
call for a new referendum. But, they are also looking at a third parliamentary vote in as many years.
And that doesn't scream confidence no matter how much markets would prefer the legal status quo.
Opposition to Brexit comes from the entrenched monied power, not from any adherence to globalist
ideology.
But, if Brexit is betrayed through this hackneyed farce of a spy thriller, it won't sit
well with the British people.
Scotland's call for a second referendum will continue to grow
and the Pound will fall alongside the competitiveness of British labor still trapped within a
euro-zone that has done nothing but choke the life out of the economy.
The Pound will begin to sink into irrelevancy as this unfolds. It won't happen overnight, but we
will look back on these events and see them as the trigger points for the path of history.
Between these things and the toxic levels of political correctness as it pertains to Muslim
immigration, the insanity of London liberals and the de facto police state the U.K. has become and you
have a recipe for political unrest that will not be pretty.
Brexit was meant to be the peaceful revolution that put the nail in the coffin of the march to one
world government. It is about to be nullified.
When it is the sun will finally set on what's left of the British Empire.
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The revelation that the
animals had died caused
considerable reaction on social
media with many wondering why it
had taken officials so long to
find the animals despite so much
police activity at the home.
The EUSSR will be
destroyed, there were
attempts by UKIP and
various others to
democratize it a decade or
two ago and they were
unsucessful, the protocols
says that all states must
be democratic before world
government can be
implemented, both the EUSSR
and PRC stand in their way.
"In another major
misjudgement by the US in
January, the supposedly
moderate Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson announced
that the US would be
keeping its forces in Syria
after the defeat of Isis,
and intended to get rid of
President Bashar al-Assad
and roll back Iranian
influence. This ambition
was largely
fantasy
, but
the Russian and Turkish
reaction was
real
. Four
days after Tillerson's
arrogant declaration, the
Turkish army poured into
northern Syria with Russian
permission and within two
months had eliminated the
enclave of Afrin, inhabited
by Kurds who are the only
US ally in Syria. "
As Skripal-Gate Collapses, Will May's
Government Be Next?
My response:
ENGLAND is CORRUPT and an UNGODLY place to
live. If you have been paying attention, it
was these S.O.B.s who were spying on TRUMP
under the direction of the "OBOZO"
administration.
This kind of thing really angers the SHIT
out of me. Since when does ENGLAND have any
input into AMERICA's POTUS election process.
BASTARDS!!!
I HOPE THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY CRASHES and
BURNS. JAMES BOND can go pound salt.
More
than seven years ago , we reported on the wide-ranging financial conspiracy involving
almost every single prominent US-based hedge fund and a Canadian firm called Fairfax Financial
Holdings that they schemed to short - and then crush by spreading dubious research and shoddy
accounting.
Around the time that a
Reuters report on recently declassified court document from 2008, which outlined details of
the plot, including Cohen's alleged role.
Now, a New Jersey judge has put an end (for now, at least) to the 12-year-long legal saga by
ruling that the lawsuit didn't belong in his court. A state appeals court revived Fairfax's
claims last April after they were previously dismissed in 2011 and 2012. Judges have already
thrown out claims against Dan Loeb's Third Point and Jim Chanos's Kynikos Associates LP,
according to the
New York Post .
Billionaire Steven A. Cohen has won the dismissal of an $8 billion lawsuit accusing him
and his former firm SAC Capital Advisors LP of conspiring with other hedge funds to spread
false rumors about Fairfax Financial Holdings, hoping to "crush" or "kill" the insurer.
In a decision last week, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Frank DeAngelis said the nearly
12-year-old case did not belong in that state's courts because there was no evidence SAC
expected or intended to cause injury there while "conspiring to drive down the share price of
a Canadian company."
According to
Reuters , Fairfax said it was victimized in a coordinated raid.
Fairfax claimed it was victimized by a four-year "bear raid" by hedge funds that
engineered bogus accounting claims and biased analyst research, and persuaded reporters to
write negative stories about the Toronto-based insurance and investment management
company.
It said the funds did this to profit from short sales, or bets its stock price would fall.
Fairfax claimed that hedge fund operatives ran the bear raid from New Jersey.
Cohen, whose four-year ban from the securities industry ended in January, is also facing
another lawsuit from a former female employee alleging a culture of harassment and "hostility
toward women" at Point72.
"... Bin Salman's affair with academia isn't a fluke – it's a result of the neoliberal logic by which universities increasingly operate. As the journalist David Dickson noted in 1984, American universities and corporations have "teamed up to challenge the democratic control of knowledge" by delegating control over academic research to "the marketplace". ..."
Bin Salman's affair with academia isn't a fluke – it's a result of the neoliberal logic by which universities increasingly operate.
As the journalist David Dickson noted in 1984, American universities and corporations have "teamed up to challenge the democratic
control of knowledge" by delegating control over academic research to "the marketplace".
This market rationality extends even to the way research is evaluated – which the Saudi government has been gaming. To give one
example, it paid highly cited mathematicians at universities around the world to list
King Abdulaziz University as an affiliation,
thereby making it the seventh "best" mathematics department worldwide in the
2014 US
News and World Report university rankings .
Here, the Saudi government is only playing by the rules of a game designed by western elites. This is the same logic that has
been used to allow corporations, nonprofits and the military to steadily buy out chunks of academia to the point where it makes little
sense to presume clear boundaries exist between these entities. As a result, numerous partnerships entangle MIT researchers with
Bin Salman. On his Boston tour, he also visited IBM's Cambridge research facility, which recently partnered with MIT to form an artificial
intelligence research laboratory in exchange for a $240m commitment to the university.
Boston Dynamics , an MIT partner that builds robots for the US military, also offered a demonstration. Such alliances ought to
cast doubt on MIT's promise to understand the "societal and ethical" implications of AI and build socially beneficial technologies.
The terms of all of these partnerships are essentially opaque, while the secrecy that surrounds them denies the community the
chance to deliberate and take action. The growth of unaccountable university partnerships, like other crises facing educational institutions,
stems from the absence of democratic engagement. When universities decide to sell themselves to the highest bidder, they become deaf
to the interests of their students and the wider societies in which they operate. Subservience to war criminals and corporate overlords
tends to follow.
If he fails to keep his mouth shut I wouldn't be surprised to learn in
the tabloids in the near future of his (sadly fatal) penchant for
auto-erotic asphyxiation.
""Johnson also said that "none of us have forgotten" about the "barbaric"
chemical weapons attack in Syria a year ago.""
Translation: "none of us have
forgotten" about the "barbaric" chemical weapons attack in Syria a year ago
"which was done by our Al Qaeda and ISIS proxies with the help of our special
forces stationed in Syria."
that's all they learn in boarding schools - how to lie and lie and be good
psychopaths: charming, fake, easy to bribe and natural traitors, obsessed
with money and status.
And above all how to develop that exhagarated
catatonic accent so valued by Anglosheeple
I know many of these Public school boys - from Malborough, Harrow etc
Look no further than you local electric and gas suppliers who
are likely publicly traded with a monopoly on the most traded
commodities in the world. Why does a human necessity have a monopoly -
follow the money.
"... Earlier this month, we celebrated the fact that WSJ had finally caught up to the topic, admitting that the combination of stagnant wages, rising interest rates and rising consumer debt could have potentially explosive consequences for the US economy. ..."
As we've pointed out
time and
time again , rising consumer-debt levels are one of the most overlooked risks to the US
economy, especially as household debt levels (excluding mortgages)
climb to record highs and credit-card charge-offs at smaller banks have surged in recent
months.
Earlier this month, we celebrated the fact that
WSJ had finally caught up to the topic, admitting that the combination of stagnant wages,
rising interest rates and rising consumer debt could have potentially explosive consequences
for the US economy.
And now,
Bloomberg has also jumped on the band wagon, warning that rising credit card debt could
cause problems in the not-too-distant future once baseline interest rates have had time to
rise.
US consumers have accumulated an aggregate $1.04 trillion credit card debt.
Or, as
Bloomberg put it, "a healthy economy can be a dangerous thing."
"When consumers are confident, or over-confident, is when they get into credit-card
trouble," said Todd Christensen, education manager at Debt Reduction Services Inc. in Boise,
Idaho. The nonprofit credit counseling service has seen a noticeable uptick in people looking
for help with their debt, he said.
Spending on US credit cards climbed 9.4% last year to $3.5 trillion, according to industry
newsletter Nilson Report. And as we've pointed out, student
loan and subprime
auto debt are also poised to wreak havoc on the economy.
"There are warning signs out there," said Kevin Morrison, senior analyst at the Aite
Group. Especially concerning is a surge in student and auto loans over the past decade, he
said.
Meanwhile, the steadily rising Libor (another risk that we were early to spot but that the
rest of the financial press has largely written off), could create problems for corporations -
particularly those with lower credit ratings. Approximately $350 trillion of contracts are
based on Libor, according to ICE.
"... In over half of states, the share was higher. In Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware and Pennsylvania, over 70 percent of higher education funding came from tuition dollars last year. ..."
State colleges and universities are relying more on tuition dollars to fund their operations even as state funding rises
and colleges come under pressure to keep tuition low.
Last fiscal year, for the first time, tuition revenue outpaced government appropriations for higher
education in the majority of states, according to the annual higher education finance report from the State
Higher Education Executive Officers Association. The association represents chief executives of statewide
governing, policy and coordinating boards of postsecondary education.
Tuition dollars are becoming a more important revenue source as more students head to college, tuition
prices rise, and state lawmakers struggle to return higher education funding to the per-student levels seen
before the Great Recession.
The report looked at net tuition revenue, which it defined as tuition and fees minus medical student
tuition, state and institutional financial aid and other waivers and discounts. It found that tuition dollars
paid by families -- a figure that includes federal grants and loans -- made up 46 percent of funding for U.S.
public colleges and universities in fiscal 2017, almost double tuition's share of higher education funding in
1990.
In over half of states, the share was higher. In Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware and Pennsylvania, over
70 percent of higher education funding came from tuition dollars last year.
Nationwide, net tuition revenue peaked as a funding source for public higher education in 2013, after the
collapsing economy sent a wave of students back to school at the same time as state lawmakers were cutting
funding for colleges. Since then, enrollments have fallen and state investments in higher education and
financial aid have increased.
It takes a lot of courage for an addict to recover and stay clean. And it is sadly not news that drug addiction and high levels
of prescription drug use are signs that something is deeply broken in our society. There are always some people afflicted with deep
personal pain but our system is doing a very good job of generating unnecessary pain and desperation.
Mady Ohlman was 22 on the evening some years ago when she stood in a friend's bathroom looking down at the sink.
"I had set up a bunch of needles filled with heroin because I wanted to just do them back-to-back-to-back," Ohlman recalled. She
doesn't remember how many she injected before collapsing, or how long she lay drugged-out on the floor.
"But I remember being pissed because I could still get up, you know?"
She wanted to be dead, she said, glancing down, a wisp of straight brown hair slipping from behind an ear across her thin face.
At that point, said Ohlman, she'd been addicted to opioids -- controlled by the drugs -- for more than three years.
"And doing all these things you don't want to do that are horrible -- you know, selling my body, stealing from my mom, sleeping
in my car," Ohlman said. "How could I not be suicidal?"
For this young woman, whose weight had dropped to about 90 pounds, who was shooting heroin just to avoid feeling violently ill,
suicide seemed a painless way out.
"You realize getting clean would be a lot of work," Ohlman said, her voice rising. "And you realize dying would be a lot less
painful. You also feel like you'll be doing everyone else a favor if you die."
Ohlman, who has now been sober for more than four years, said many drug users hit the same point, when the disease and the pursuit
of illegal drugs crushes their will to live. Ohlman is among at least
40 percent of active
drug users who wrestle with depression, anxiety or another mental health issue that increases the risk of suicide.
Measuring Suicide Among Patients Addicted To Opioids
Massachusetts, where Ohlman lives, began formally
recognizing
in May 2017 that some opioid overdose deaths are suicides. The state confirmed only about 2 percent of all overdose deaths as suicides,
but Dr. Monica Bhare l, head of the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said it's difficult to determine a person's true intent.
"For one thing, medical examiners use different criteria for whether suicide was involved or not," Bharel said, and the "tremendous
amount of stigma surrounding both overdose deaths and suicide sometimes makes it extremely challenging to piece everything together
and figure out unintentional and intentional."
Research on drug addiction and suicide suggests much higher numbers.
"[Based on the literature that's available], it looks like it's anywhere between 25 and 45 percent of deaths by overdose that
may be actual suicides," said
Dr. Maria Oquendo
, immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association.
Oquendo pointed to one study of overdoses
from prescription opioids that found nearly 54 percent were unintentional. The rest were either suicide attempts or undetermined.
Several large studies show an increased risk of suicide among drug users addicted to opioids, especially women. In
a study of about 5 million veterans, women were eight
times as likely as others to be at risk for suicide, while men faced a twofold risk.
The opioid epidemic is occurring at the same time suicides have
hit a 30-year high , but Oquendo said few doctors
look for a connection.
"They are not monitoring it," said Oquendo, who chairs the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. "They are
probably not assessing it in the kinds of depths they would need to prevent some of the deaths."
That's starting to change. A few hospitals in Boston, for example, aim to ask every patient admitted about substance use, as well
as about whether they've considered hurting themselves.
"No one has answered the chicken and egg [problem]," said
Dr. Kiame Mahaniah , a family physician who runs the
Lynn Community Health Center in Lynn, Mass. Is it that patients "have mental health issues that lead to addiction, or did a life
of addiction then trigger mental health problems?"
With so little data to go on, "it's so important to provide treatment that covers all those bases," Mahaniah said.
'Deaths Of Despair'
When doctors do look deeper into the reasons patients addicted to opioids become suicidal, some economists predict they'll find
deep reservoirs of depression and pain.
In a seminal paper published in 2015, Princeton economists
Angus Deaton and
Anne Case tracked falling marriage rates,
the loss of stable middle-class jobs and rising rates of self-reported pain. The authors say opioid overdoses, suicides and diseases
related to alcoholism are all often "deaths of despair."
"We think of opioids as something that's thrown petrol on the flames and made things infinitely worse," Deaton said, "but the
underlying deep malaise would be there even without the opioids."
Many economists agree on remedies for that deep malaise. Harvard economics professor
David Cutle r said solutions include a good education, a steady
job that pays a decent wage, secure housing, food and health care.
"And also thinking about a sense of purpose in life," Cutler said. "That is, even if one is doing well financially, is there a
sense that one is contributing in a meaningful way?"
Tackling Despair In The Addiction Community
"I know firsthand the sense of hopelessness that people can feel in the throes of addiction," said
Michael Botticelli , executive director of the Grayken Center
for Addiction at Boston Medical Center; he is in recovery for an addiction to alcohol.
Botticelli said recovery programs must help patients come out of isolation and create or recreate bonds with family and friends.
"The vast majority of people I know who are in recovery often talk about this profound sense of re-establishing -- and sometimes
establishing for the first time -- a connection to a much larger community," Botticelli said.
Ohlman said she isn't sure why her attempted suicide, with multiple injections of heroin, didn't work.
"I just got really lucky," Ohlman said. "I don't know how."
A big part of her recovery strategy involves building a supportive community, she said.
"Meetings; 12-step; sponsorship and networking; being involved with people doing what I'm doing," said Ohlman, ticking through
a list of her priorities.
There's a fatal overdose at least once a week within her Cape Cod community, she said. Some are accidental, others not. Ohlman
said she's convinced that telling her story, of losing and then finding hope, will help bring those numbers down.
Russia's embassy in London has sent a list of questions, 14 to be specific, to the British Foreign
Ministry on the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal – which include a demand to clarify whether
samples of the nerve agent "Novichok" have ever been developed in the UK.
The Russian embassy's statement calls the incident that started the
recent diplomatic row
a "
fabricated case against Russia."
The
questions published
by the Russian Foreign Ministry's official website have been translated below:
Why has Russia been denied the right of consular access to the two Russian citizens, who came
to harm on British territory?
What specific antidotes and in what form were the victims injected with? How did such antidotes
come into the possession of British doctors at the scene of the incident?
On what grounds was France involved in technical cooperation in the investigation of the
incident, in which Russian citizens were injured?
Did the UK notify the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) of France's
involvement in the investigation of the Salisbury incident?
What does France have to do with the incident, involving two Russian citizens in the UK?
What rules of UK procedural legislation allow for the involvement of a foreign state in an
internal investigation?
What evidence was handed over to France to be studied and for the investigation to be
conducted?
Were the French experts present during the sampling of biomaterial from Sergey and Yulia
Skripal?
Was the study of biomaterials from Sergey and Yulia Skripal conducted by the French experts
and, if so, in which specific laboratories?
Does the UK have the materials involved in the investigation carried out by France?
Have the results of the French investigation been presented to the OPCW Technical Secretariat?
Based on what attributes was the alleged "Russian origin" of the substance used in Salisbury
established?
Does the UK have control samples of the chemical warfare agent, which British representatives
refer to as "Novichok"?
Have the samples of a chemical warfare agent of the same type as "Novichok" (in accordance to
British terminology) or its analogues been developed in the UK?
The Duran's Alexander Mercouris
added
some
necessary points to the growing mystery and confusion of the Skripal poisoning:
These theories have included claims that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were (1) sprayed with the
supposedly deadly chemical by a passer-by; (2) sprayed with the supposedly deadly chemical by an
aerial drone; (3) contaminated by the supposedly deadly chemical which was brought from Russia in
Yulia Skripal's suitcase where it had been hidden by some third party; and (4) were poisoned by
having the supposedly deadly chemical somehow inserted into Sergey Skripal's car.
The British and other critics of Russia have recently taken to citing as 'proof' of Russian
guilt the fact that the Russians have supposedly been proposing various theories about
who
might
have poisoned Sergey and Yulia Skripal.
The British – who unlike the Russians have control of the crime scene and samples of the poison
– have however been at least as busy proposing various theories about
how
Sergey
and Yulia Skripal were poisoned.
In both cases the fact that the Russian media and the British media – though not it should be
stressed the Russian or British governments – have been busy engaging in their respective
speculations about who who and how Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned is not proof of guilt.
Rather it suggests ignorance, which if anything (especially in Russia's case) is an
indicator of innocence.
As I have said on many occasions, it is the guilty who so far from engaging in a variety of
different speculations tend to come up with a single alternative narrative to explain away the
facts, which they then pass off as the truth in order to provide themselves with an alibi.
As to the present theory – that Sergey and Yulia Skripal came into contact with the chemical
agent on their front door – note the following:
(1)
The British police have not said whether the chemical agent was smeared on
the outside of the door or on the inside of the door.
If it was smeared on the outside of the door, then it was an extremely reckless act which might
have easily poisoned a delivery person to the house such as a postman.
If it was smeared on the inside of the door, then whilst it might have been placed there by a
burglar, the greater probability must be that it was placed there by a visitor.
If so then it is likely that either Sergey or Yulia Skripal or possibly both of them have some
knowledge of the identity of this person. That might make the fact that Yulia Skripal is said to
be recovering and is now conscious a matter of great importance for the solution of this mystery.
(2)
If Sergey and Yulia Skripal really were poisoned with the chemical agent by
coming into contact with it because it was smeared on their front door, then that would mean that
the chemical agent took 7 hours to take effect.
Russian ambassador to Britain Alexander Yakovenko has claimed that the British authorities have
told him that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by nerve agent A-234, a Novichok type agent
which is supposedly "as toxic as VX, as resistant to treatment as soman, and more difficult to
detect and easier to manufacture than VX".
I am not a chemist or a chemical weapons expert, but such a slow acting poison seems at variance
with the descriptions of
A-234
and
VX
which
I have read.
(3)
The suggestion that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by coming into
contact with the chemical agent on their front door must for the moment be treated as no more than
a theory. It does however appear to confirm the presence of the chemical agent in the house.
If the latest theory that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by coming into contact with a
chemical agent smeared on their front door begs many questions, then the news that Yulia Skripal
is
apparently
recovering well
from the effect of her poisoning, and is now conscious and speaking and is no
longer in intensive care, though extremely welcome, in some ways adds further to the mystery.
even if the lies are proven, 90% of the
popualation won't see the proof...
And they know it.
Hell, first time they said "Russia" in the investigation, I knew it was
a hoax.
And then they started blasting Russia in every TV show, comedy show,
news... you name it.
They really really really want a war.
And if we don't have a WOIII in the next 10 years, the world population
will be to big to be fed. Yep, there's actually a timer that says there's
an endgame.
Yes these morons are playing with 7 billion lives and yes it is time to
pray,to pray for their demise ,but dont live in fear if your numbers up its up
dont let them manage you through fear.
The biggest problem the Russians have, and have had in a number of situations, is
that they present well formed arguments and questions that, unfortunately, require a
modicum of intelligence and effort to follow. The UK and US governments are simply
appealing to the lowest denominator with jingoistic, shallow, junk - as usual; but
it works!
How could the emergency doctors so quickly identify this as a particular chemical
agent and its source, when no Brit doctors have never seen such poison or its
effects? Who identified the agent so quickly?
I confess to an immediate bias in this matter. The entire charade has false flag
written all over it and has been obvious since a week after the incident.
What
interests me here is the insistence on the French involvement. I confess an
immediate bias against Macron, by the way.
The furor is all about the "illegitimate" victories of Brexit and Trump's campaign. Does the average user care if s/he is micro-targetted
by political advertisements based on what they already believe?
No, because they already believe they're right, so what's wrong with a little confirmation bias? Most of us spend significant
amounts of energy seeking out sources of information confirming what we already believe; micro-targetting just makes our lives
that little bit less effortful.
An aging football stadium in Michigan. A decrepit paper mill in Minnesota. A sun-bleached patch of
desert in California.
These are the lots where Volkswagen is storing the hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles
that included software to help them cheat US emissions testing as the company races to buyback a huge
chunk of its inventory ahead of a deadline agreed to as part of its settlement with the US government
,
per
Reuters.
Under the terms of its landmark settlement with the US government,
if 85% of the 500,000
cars VW promised to repurchase haven't been bought back or fixed by then, the company will face higher
punitive payments.
Luckily for VW,
the company says it has already repurchased 83% of these vehicles.
Back in 2015, the company admitted to one of the biggest corporate scandals of the millennium:
Installing software in its diesel cars to cheat US emissions test.
The company later pleaded guilty to several felonies, agreed to three years probation, an paid more
than $4 billion in fines.
Meanwhile, it was also required to buy back any car that had been affected by its strategy.
According to a court filing, as of Dec. 31, Volkswagen had repurchased 335,000 diesel
vehicles, resold 13,000 and destroyed about 28,000 vehicles.
As of the end of last year, VW was storing 294,000 vehicles around the country. The company has
sent more than 400,000 letters offering buybacks and reimbursements.
Tags
They have a bunch of them at the Silverdome in Pontiac. I've been working to
get one of the passats (or a bunch) out of there, but I've been unsuccessful
so far. I don't give a shit about emissions... I've been trying to fake
paperwork to say the cars are a year or two newer. I don't live in a city, so
I don't have to do emissions testing, and those passats go about 50 miles to
the gallon. Plus they're high quality German engineering.
Those were pretty nice engines. Forty miles to the gallon and cleaner
burning than the average American truck or SUV. But I guess gubbermint
had to set an example.., they can lie but you best not.
Facebook's problems are just getting worse, and now investors can add worker morale to the (bucket)
list of problems as the
New York Times
reports that employees furious over a
leaked 2016 memo
from a top executive seeking to justify the company's relentless growth and
"questionable" data harvesting - even if it led to terrorists attacks organized on the platform.
VP Andrew "Boz" Bosworth - one of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's most trusted executives, wrote that
connecting people is the greater good even if it "
costs someone a life
by exposing
someone to bullies.
"Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools."
On Friday, the fallout from Bosworth's leaked memo - following several weeks of outrage over the
company's data harvesting practices,
has Facebook employees in an uproar
, according to
The
Times
.
According to two Facebook employees,
workers have been calling on internal message boards
for a hunt to find those who leak to the media
. Some have questioned whether Facebook has
been transparent enough with its users and with journalists, said the employees, who asked not to be
identified for fear of retaliation.
Many are also concerned over what might leak next and are
deleting old comments or messages that might come across as controversial or newsworthy
, they
said. -
NYT
One former Facebook employee, Alex Muffett, wrote on Twitter that Bosworth's memo was a "significant"
part of his decision to leave the company.
"Between overwork and leadership direction evidenced thusly, I could never stay,"
wrote Muffett.
"There are some amazing engineers working at Facebook, folks who care deeply about user privacy,
security, and how people will use the code that they write," Mr. Muffett said later in a message. "Alas
this episode may not help" to achieve more transparent internal product discussion, he said.
Buzzfeed article suppressed?
Following Buzzfeed's Thursday's publication of the "growth at any cost" leak, BuzzFeed reporter Ryan
Mac suggested Facebook was censoring the article - tweeting "Interesting that only about 14k views (about
2% of total) for our story have come through Facebook referrals. Facebook's users should be aware of
this, so feel free to share it on Facebook."
When
Vox
's Matthew Yglesias chimed in to corroborate Mac's observation, Facebook head of news
feed Adam Mosseri chimed in to say that the social media giant "
100% do not take any action on
stories for being critical of us.
"
Mark Zuckerberg responded to Bosworth's letter in a statement essentially disavowing the Boz, while
also noting that Facebook
changed their entire corporate focus
to connect people
and
"bring
them together"...
Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at
Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly.
We've never believed the ends justify the
means
.
We recognize that connecting people isn't enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people
closer together.
We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year
.
Meanwhile, Facebook is rapidly becoming radioactive, inside and out.
The question is when will investors - and especially hedge funds, for whom FB was the second most
popular stock as of Dec. 31 - agree, and do what Mark Zuckerberg has
been aggressively doing in recent weeks
: dump it.
This is not a coordinated and concerted effort by Facebook execs to 'grow' the
company at any and all costs because stock options must be vested 'in the
money' and obscene amounts of 'compensation' are their god given right.
Nope, this is the work of a lone wolf exec VP who was drunk on power and out
of control.
<Well, it works for the CIA to explain away their latest domestic
terrorism operation or Presidential assassination attempt.>
Today Mark Zuckerberg announced the official name change of
FaceBook to GoëbbelsBook.
"Today marks the official change of our corporate name from
FaceBook to GoëbbelsBook in honor of the German NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) Reich Minister of Propaganda
(1933-1945) Dr. Joseph Goëbbels (29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945).
Dr. Goëbbels revolutionary and visionary dream was that of the
total surveillance state. We have successfully implemented his
concept of the total surveillance state."
"When a client downloads the GoëbbelsBook application it
vacuums up everything from their computer and mobile devices.
It gobbles up everything they write, all their contacts, their
"likes"; in short every action they perform. The application
also digitizes all telephone conversations for upload. The
application then uploads everything to our corporate servers.
We then upload all user data to the "Five Eyes" Gestapo (Geheime
Staatspolizei) agencies that are our true original investors
and beneficial owners."
"It is truly a proud day for me and all of my servants here
at GoëbbelsBook that we have implemented the revolutionary
total surveillance state vision of Dr. Joseph Goëbbels. I'm
sure that he would be justifiably proud of our accomplishment."
It's a little more complex than just Gramma giving
up some data that she volunteers via a form. It's
sucking in everything that a user does or says and
selling that...everything. Same as Google.
In
many cases you will find people who weren't aware
that FB was selling user data, it's not really
clear, unless you read the TOS fine print it's not
clear. Even in the fine print what they do is
obscured by the way they write it.
If the announcement of what they do with the
data was in big bold letters at the top of FB every
time you logged in the participation would be
different.
This is one reason that although I've got a FB
account I've never provided anything more than the
de minimus information to have that account, and I
don't spend much if any time on it. It's been weeks
since I've logged in to FB.
You may be enjoying the mockery of FB users, but
your line of argument ignores reality.
FB users
indeed knew that the company was "selling
something": advertising. Advertising in the form
of "sponsored posts," newsfeed videos,
solicitations to "like" an advertiser's page,
notifications that someone in your network had
liked an advertiser's page, and on and on and on.
Every user viewed such advertising while using the
service.
And indeed, selling targeted advertising is the
dominant business model for providers of free
content, messaging, email, webhosting, and a host
of other internet services. It is exactly what a
reasonable person would expect FB to be doing,
based on its public disclosures and statements to
the business community, and consistent with privacy
laws. Even educated users would not expect the
company to be selling its user data to third
parties, let alone to government three-letter
agencies. No one would expect the phone app to
illegally log or record phone and message data for
communications outside the app.
Jumanji, I live in heart of silicon valley and the goobook
employees are so self important and associate working for the
goobook surveillance tracking digtal advertising monopolies as
a virtuous thing.
Let's call goobook what they are a
surveillance tracking company that doesn't share any of the
profits from your data with the owner: you.
My solution to these corporate pricks is to cut off their
oxygen: digtal advertising and refuse to let them monetize me
and others promoting using adblocking on mobile.
My solution is for everybody to immediately download brave
browser or equivalent adblocker solution (depending on your
tech knowledge).
Brave blocks advertising malware and tracking by DEFAULT on
any device and operating system rendering digital advertising
model useless.
Whoever controls the browser controls the money.
I use YouTube daily but run it out of brave browser. Zero
ads and you can listen with screen off or while browsing other
content.
We can destroy the value of digtal advertising by mass
adoption of brave browser.
What is digtal advertising worth if ads can't be sent,
viewed or tracked?
Let's take down the goobook surveillance tracking censorship
monopolies. Install brave or equivalent mobile adblocker
immediately.
I created a fake FB account, then 'deleted' it when FB demanded
I prove who I wasn't.
LOL
Does anyone wonder why FB only wants 'real' accounts? Data
mining is so much more profitable when you can assure the
purchaser the 'data' are grade A number one bleeders/spenders.
Which ties in nicely with the US demanding social media account details
with visa applications. You haven't said whether your work is us government
based, but it would be pleasingly ironic if it were.
I'm still confused
by that, actually: allegedly the NSA has all data, from everywhere, so why
ask for the visa applicant's data? Is it too hard to connect physical and
digital people, or are they just seeing if you will admit to your online
indiscretions?
14 day waiting period on facebook account deletes.
Some years ago I created a
facebook account and then deleted it. Deleting it was not easy. When I did the
final delete, it stated that all my data would be deleted, and would not be
recoverable ever. I was also told I would have to **not** log into my account for
14 days after which everything would be gone. If I did log in during that period
the account delete would not occur.
It has been some years and I still live in fear that if I was to "check" if my
account still exists by attempting to log into it I will get a "Welcome back"
message.
I suppose there are worse things. The account could be active and "owned" by
someone else.
The CIA put way too much time, money and effort into Facebook to just
let it fade away. Hell no, they will double down and figure out a way
to keep the concern going, if under a different guise.
But but but...they are listening! They even reformatted so their victims can moar
easily delete private information themselves instead of having to dig
down through twenty two screens to find it!
And Fuckerberg has a mansion. In
Hawaii. With a wall. Because he cares!
They even reformatted so their victims can moar easily delete
private information themselves.....
The funniest part of your comment is the fact people will actually believe
their information was 'deleted' because they push a button that said doing so
would delete the information.
Riiiiiight. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale that you can get for a
steal.
"people will actually believe their information was 'deleted' "
Well,
aside from birth and school records, most data will become 'stale' and
worthless to advertisers and agencies. I suspect that your 'old' data will
eventually become 'archived' in a storage array somewhere, essentially,
statistically more worthless as time goes by. Perhaps, adding to a
historical perspective on some future Documentary, about the collapse of
Facebook.
Info on your birth, school, medical, jobs, driving record ... the
authorities already have all that. Facebook is essentially worthless, other
than as a phone book with pictures.
It's amazing that FB employees were THIS NAIVE about what was going on in that
company, thinking it was just about "connecting people." Anyone on the street
with half a brain could see what was going on. Grow up and see the world for
what it is, people.
I think it is more "being ignorant". To me, being naive implies being "an
innocent". These people are hard core coders, computer scientists, network
engineers, etc. What they do is figure out how to do outrageously complex
technical things, and they are very successful at it. Like most scientists
and engineers however, they never stop to ask "should we be doing these
things". They stand on the shoulders of the scientist and engineers who
came before them and continue to progress the state of their art, but never
consider the ethics. I see it all the time at work. Can we develop this
new thing? Sure. Should we develop this new thing? That's not my problem
- management wants this new thing. They are no different than the guards
at a concentration camp herding people to the ovens. I was only following
orders.
Alphabet (the parent company of Google) spent the most as a company on
Lobbying. Facebook's spend on lobbying increased 5500% since 2009. They spent
most lobbying on changes to data privacy.
Have Zuckerberg and the rest of the asseclowns over there realized how
fuccked they really are? It is only a matter of time before class action and
individual lawsuits are filed not only against Facebook (fuck that) but them
personally, for intentionally and willfully creating a data mining operation
disguised as a social network. They will get sued for every penny they have
and will be lucky if they don't end up doing time.
The people who use this tripe are addicts, and like all addicts need rehab.
They couldn't say how many articles are in the US Constitution yet practically
know what Oprah eats for breakfast - and it ain't a Weight Watchers diet!
I got into the dotcom world in 97 got out in '11. Worked for a bunch of big
and small dotcoms. They are all so badly run its hard to describe. rampant
greed zero morality.. The VCs just want their 100:1 return. VCs are idiots.
some are just stupid many are just illegal accounting fraud capitalizing
expenses accelerating revenue recognition over stating audience. People
forget that Fb has already had a bunch of exposed numbers "mistakes". Hope it
goes to zero.
From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are extemely adapted to hiding
feelings, thoughts, plans, motivations, and intentions. This has enabled our
survival for millenia. Our ears don't move toward what or who we're listening
to, and we don't have tails or bristling fur or feathers that would display
our emotions. Facebook causes us to post all this stuff, then takes ownership
and uses it to make a profit any way they can. Social media is not something
that we are adapted to, and we're getting stomped on by the companies that
engineer it.
To me, what is really sad about this whole story is that there is nobody at
Facebook - now or previously - who doesn't know that their company makes its
money by harvesting data and selling it to anyone with a few bucks in their
hand. I believe these employees are all lying when they deny this plain fact.
I believe the same to be true of Google, but of course, Google at least has
never denied it, like Facebook is trying to do now that someone in the MSM has
bothered to report about it.
Anyone here ever work with chickens...the henhouse/chicken analogy is often
used with the facebook...when you walk into the henhouse sometimes the hens
they aren't expecting visitors and they get all fussy and show their agitation
through clucking and squawking and fussing about...but then after a few
moments they go back to what they were doing as if nothing ever happened. That
about what is going on here. Facebook users and employees will go back to work
for their owners in a few more days and it will have been all forgotten.
Since most users of Facebook are gossiping women and deeply closeted
homosexuals, I don't see this having a material impact on user growth. It may
even suck more of them in.
According to Thomas Paine, all the Facebook, Amazon, Google and Tesla are
products of the DOD and are losing their hidden government support. That is
the real reason that people like Zuckerberg and Soros are divesting.
People will forget about any Facebook scandal after another scandal surfaces
elsewhere in 3, 2, 1 and....... There goes the school of ADHD zombie fish-head
people onto another hook, the scandal of the next week. The next scandal will
hit the top of the pond and sink, and the fish-head school of people-fish will
swim over to it and stare at the scandal to see if it moves. People are
grotesquely simple minded.
fb will not recover from massive spying vs people will once again log on to
say something snarky, see another picture of their neighbor's cat and above
all else get a "like". OMG I'm important!
Soros has billions to funnel
through the resistance that is fb for the furtherance of his global agenda.
They may be down, but certainly not out.
So now the FB employees finally see what the bloodsucking Vampire
Zuckerberg and Frankenstein Bosworth really are: the enemy of the people.
Time for a mass revolt, pitchforks and torches to burn down the platform.
The Facebook Wall photograph is Photoshoped. While everyone else has
written in freehand in chalk, the "Maybe someone dies!?". "Why We Spy So
Much?" and "WTF?" posts are set in perfect computer type.
Facebook is a
monster of deceit. Why does this article need to lie with Photoshopped
photographs? If Facebook thinks we're rubes and yokels, so does this
article.
"We've never believed the ends justify the means
." ~
Zuckerfucker
Bull-EFFIN-Shit.
The Liberal Credo is
"THE ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS"
I can't tell you how many Liberals I've asked this very question and they
will flat out tell you that if you have to throw babies into a branch
chipper to get what you want,
YOU DO IT
. Lefties/Communists have
always believed in mass murder to get what they want - so - spying on a few
million people certainly doesn't give the pause.
Those companies are way too connected with intelligence agencies (some of then are
essentially an extension of intelligence agencies) and as such they will be saved in any case.
That means that chances that it will be dot com bubble burst No.2 exist. but how high they are is
unclear.
Trump is after Amazon, Congress is after Facebook, and Apple and Google have their problems
too. Should the world's top tech firms be worried?
rump is going after Amazon; Congress is after Facebook; Google is too big, and Apple is
short of new products. Is it any surprise that sentiment toward the tech industry giants is
turning sour? The consequences of such a readjustment, however, may be dire.
Trump lashes out at Amazon and sends stocks tumbling
Read more
The past two weeks have been difficult for the tech sector by every measure. Tech stocks
have largely driven the year's stock market decline, the largest quarterly drop since 2015.
Facebook saw more than $50bn shaved off its value after the Observer revealed that Cambridge
Analytica had harvested millions of people's user data for political profiling. Now users are
deleting accounts, and regulators may seek to limit how the company monetizes data, threatening
Facebook's business model.
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed it was investigating the company's data
practices. Additionally, Facebook said it would send a top executive to London to appear in
front of UK lawmakers, but it would not send the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, who is
increasingly seen as isolated and aloof.
Shares of Facebook have declined more than 17% from the close on Friday 16 March to the
close on Thursday before the Easter break.
Amazon, meanwhile, long the target of President Trump's ire, saw more than $30bn, or 5%,
shaved off its $693bn market capitalization after it was reported that the president was
"obsessed" with the company and that he "wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after
Amazon with antitrust or competition law".
Shares of Apple, and Google's parent company Alphabet, are also down, dropping on concerns
that tech firms now face tighter regulation across the board.
For Apple, there's an additional concern that following poor sales of its $1,000 iPhone X.
For Google, there's the prospect not only of tighter regulation on how it sells user date to
advertisers, but also the fear of losing an important Android software patent case with the
Oracle.
Big tech's critics may be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude. But for shareholders and
pension plans, the tarnishing of tech could have serious consequences.
Apple, Amazon and Alphabet make up 10% of the S&P 500 with a combined market
capitalization market cap of $2.3tn. Add Microsoft and Facebook, with a combined market value
of $1.1tn, and the big five make up 15% of the index.
Overall, technology makes up 25% of the S&P. If tech pops, the thinking goes, so pops
the market.
"We're one week into a sell-off after a multi-year run-up," says Eric Kuby of North Star
Investment Management. "The big picture is that over the past five years a group of mega cap
tech stocks like Nvidia, Netflix, Facebook have gone up anywhere from 260% to 1,800%."
The post office is a service for citizens. It operates at a loss. Being able to send a letter
across the country in two days for fifty cents is a service our government provides. Amazon
is abusing that service. It's whole business model requires government support.
Amazon's spending power is garnered simply from its massively overalued stock price. If that
falls, down goes Amazon. Facebook is entirely dependent on the postive opinion of active
users. If users stop using, down goes Facebook's stock price, and so goes the company. It's
extremely fragile. Apple has a short product cycle. If people lose interest in its newest
versions, its stock price can tank in one year or so. Google and Microsoft seem quite solid,
but are likely overvalued. (Tesla will most likwly go bankrupt, along with many others.) If
these stocks continue to lose value, rwtirement funds will get scary, and we could enter
recession again almost immediately. Since companies such as Amazon have already degraded the
eatablished infrastructure of the economy, there may be no actual recovery. We will need to
change drastically in some way. It seems that thw wheels are already turning, and this is
where we are going now - with Trump as our leader.
'Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley said: "We do not think attacking Amazon will be
popular."'
Lloyd Walmsley hasn't spent much time in Seattle, apparently. The activities of Amazon and
Google (but especially Amazon) have all contributed to traffic problems, rising rents and
property prices, and gentrification (among other things) that are all making Seattle a less
affordable, less attractive place to live. That's why Amazon is looking to establish a
'second headquarters' in another city: they've upset too many people here to be able to
expand further in this area without at least encountering significant resistance. People here
used to refer to Microsoft as 'the evil empire'; now we use it to refer to Amazon. And when
it comes to their original business, books, I and most people I know actively avoid buying
from Amazon, choosing instead to shop at the area's many independent book stores.
Dear Guardian,
why do you still sport the FB, Twitter, Google+, Instagramm, Pinterest etc. buttons below
every single article? Why do you have to do their dirty work? I don't do that on my webpages,
you don't need to do neither. Please stop it.
Not being a Trump supporter, however there is a lot of sense in some of the comments coming
from Trump,. Whether he carries through with them , is another subject.
His comment on Amazon:- " Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state or local
governments, use our postal system as their delivery boy (causing tremendous loss to the US)
and putting many thousands of retailers out of business."
Who can argue against that? Furthermore, the retailers would have paid some
tax!
Talk about elephants in the room. What about the elephants who were let out of the room
to run amuck ? Should it not have been the case of being wise before the event , rather than
after the event?
A quasi-battle of the billionaires. With Bezos, there's the immediate political element in
Bezos' ownership of the clearly anti-Trump Washington Post, which has gone so far as to
become lax in editorial oversight (eg, misspelling and even occasional incomplete articles
published in an obvious rush to be first to trash POTUS), but there are other issues.
Amazon's impact on physical retail is well-documented, and not so long ago (ie, before Trump
"attacked" Amazon"), it was sometimes lamented by those on the American left, and Trump is
correct in that critique, provided one believes it is valid in the first place. Amazon does
have a lot of data on its customers, including immense expenditure information on huge
numbers of people. What kinds of constraints are there in place to protect this data, aside
from lawyer-enriching class action suits? Beyond that, there's also online defense
procurement, worth hundreds of billions in revenue to Amazon in the years to come, that was
included in the modified NDAA last year. Maybe that is on Trump's mind, maybe not, but it
should probably be on everyone's mind. Maybe the Sherman Antitrust Act needs to be
reinvigorated. It would seem that even Trump's foes should be willing to admit that he gets
some things right, but that now seems unacceptable. I mean, look at the almost knee-jerk
defense of NAFTA, which way back when used to be criticized by Democrats and unions, but now
must be lionized.
If Amazon can get cheaper shipping than anyone else and enable manufactuers to sell direct,
they can sell more than anyone else as long as consumers only buy according to total price.
This means two things. One, all retailers as well as distributors may be put out of business.
Two, the success of Amazon may rely almost entirely on shipping costs. American consumers
also will need to forego the shopping experience, but if they may do so if they're sarisfied
with remaining in their residences, workplaces, and cars most of the time. This is the case
in many places. People visit Starbucks drive thrus and eat and drink in their cars. If Amazon
owns the food stores such as Whole Foods and Starbucks, it's a done deal. Except for one
thing. If this happens, the economy will collapse. That may have already happened. Bezos is
no rocket scientist.
But IMHO Amazon may have a ton of exposure on privacy issues.
Didn't they start a cloud business because they were already keeping so
much data on users that they figured they should offer the service to others
as well?
First FB gets cremated over a few months - drip drip drip of all the
problems - maybe all the way down to fair value of $1.95 (VS the high of
$195).
But when news hits that Amazon not only does the same shit as FB - but on a
larger scale and worse it will drop like a rock.
That will also bring Apple and Google down.
Always wondering what causes the next market crash - it could be this.
Remember when Faceberg was below it's IPO price and heading to zero , when
magically it started to go higher and higher. Yeah, so do I. Time to go back
where it belongs Zero
The furor is all about the "illegitimate" victories of Brexit and Trump's campaign. Does the average user care if s/he is micro-targetted
by political advertisements based on what they already believe?
No, because they already believe they're right, so what's wrong with a little confirmation bias? Most of us spend significant
amounts of energy seeking out sources of information confirming what we already believe; micro-targetting just makes our lives
that little bit less effortful.
This hypothesis about JFK preserves currency for along time: "When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the
Cold War with the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past). "
Notable quotes:
"... The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets. It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion of the Middle East. ..."
"... The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators. ..."
"... However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front. ..."
The usual self-serving swill from the Best and the Brightest of the Predator Class out of the CFR via Haas.
The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets.
It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion
of the Middle East.
The fact that there has not been a catastrophic nuclear war is pure dumb luck. The Deep State came within seconds of engineering
a nuclear cataclysm off the waters of Cuba in 1962. When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the Cold War with
the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past).
The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created
political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators.
However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically
support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front.
So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile
the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control.
Russia's embassy in London has sent a list of questions, 14 to be specific, to the British Foreign
Ministry on the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal – which include a demand to clarify whether
samples of the nerve agent "Novichok" have ever been developed in the UK.
The Russian embassy's statement calls the incident that started the
recent diplomatic row
a "
fabricated case against Russia."
The
questions published
by the Russian Foreign Ministry's official website have been translated below:
Why has Russia been denied the right of consular access to the two Russian citizens, who came
to harm on British territory?
What specific antidotes and in what form were the victims injected with? How did such antidotes
come into the possession of British doctors at the scene of the incident?
On what grounds was France involved in technical cooperation in the investigation of the
incident, in which Russian citizens were injured?
Did the UK notify the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) of France's
involvement in the investigation of the Salisbury incident?
What does France have to do with the incident, involving two Russian citizens in the UK?
What rules of UK procedural legislation allow for the involvement of a foreign state in an
internal investigation?
What evidence was handed over to France to be studied and for the investigation to be
conducted?
Were the French experts present during the sampling of biomaterial from Sergey and Yulia
Skripal?
Was the study of biomaterials from Sergey and Yulia Skripal conducted by the French experts
and, if so, in which specific laboratories?
Does the UK have the materials involved in the investigation carried out by France?
Have the results of the French investigation been presented to the OPCW Technical Secretariat?
Based on what attributes was the alleged "Russian origin" of the substance used in Salisbury
established?
Does the UK have control samples of the chemical warfare agent, which British representatives
refer to as "Novichok"?
Have the samples of a chemical warfare agent of the same type as "Novichok" (in accordance to
British terminology) or its analogues been developed in the UK?
The Duran's Alexander Mercouris
added
some
necessary points to the growing mystery and confusion of the Skripal poisoning:
These theories have included claims that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were (1) sprayed with the
supposedly deadly chemical by a passer-by; (2) sprayed with the supposedly deadly chemical by an
aerial drone; (3) contaminated by the supposedly deadly chemical which was brought from Russia in
Yulia Skripal's suitcase where it had been hidden by some third party; and (4) were poisoned by
having the supposedly deadly chemical somehow inserted into Sergey Skripal's car.
The British and other critics of Russia have recently taken to citing as 'proof' of Russian
guilt the fact that the Russians have supposedly been proposing various theories about
who
might
have poisoned Sergey and Yulia Skripal.
The British – who unlike the Russians have control of the crime scene and samples of the poison
– have however been at least as busy proposing various theories about
how
Sergey
and Yulia Skripal were poisoned.
In both cases the fact that the Russian media and the British media – though not it should be
stressed the Russian or British governments – have been busy engaging in their respective
speculations about who who and how Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned is not proof of guilt.
Rather it suggests ignorance, which if anything (especially in Russia's case) is an
indicator of innocence.
As I have said on many occasions, it is the guilty who so far from engaging in a variety of
different speculations tend to come up with a single alternative narrative to explain away the
facts, which they then pass off as the truth in order to provide themselves with an alibi.
As to the present theory – that Sergey and Yulia Skripal came into contact with the chemical
agent on their front door – note the following:
(1)
The British police have not said whether the chemical agent was smeared on
the outside of the door or on the inside of the door.
If it was smeared on the outside of the door, then it was an extremely reckless act which might
have easily poisoned a delivery person to the house such as a postman.
If it was smeared on the inside of the door, then whilst it might have been placed there by a
burglar, the greater probability must be that it was placed there by a visitor.
If so then it is likely that either Sergey or Yulia Skripal or possibly both of them have some
knowledge of the identity of this person. That might make the fact that Yulia Skripal is said to
be recovering and is now conscious a matter of great importance for the solution of this mystery.
(2)
If Sergey and Yulia Skripal really were poisoned with the chemical agent by
coming into contact with it because it was smeared on their front door, then that would mean that
the chemical agent took 7 hours to take effect.
Russian ambassador to Britain Alexander Yakovenko has claimed that the British authorities have
told him that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by nerve agent A-234, a Novichok type agent
which is supposedly "as toxic as VX, as resistant to treatment as soman, and more difficult to
detect and easier to manufacture than VX".
I am not a chemist or a chemical weapons expert, but such a slow acting poison seems at variance
with the descriptions of
A-234
and
VX
which
I have read.
(3)
The suggestion that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by coming into
contact with the chemical agent on their front door must for the moment be treated as no more than
a theory. It does however appear to confirm the presence of the chemical agent in the house.
If the latest theory that Sergey and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by coming into contact with a
chemical agent smeared on their front door begs many questions, then the news that Yulia Skripal
is
apparently
recovering well
from the effect of her poisoning, and is now conscious and speaking and is no
longer in intensive care, though extremely welcome, in some ways adds further to the mystery.
This hypothesis about JFK preserves currency for along time: "When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the
Cold War with the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past). "
Notable quotes:
"... The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets. It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion of the Middle East. ..."
"... The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators. ..."
"... However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front. ..."
The usual self-serving swill from the Best and the Brightest of the Predator Class out of the CFR via Haas.
The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets.
It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion
of the Middle East.
The fact that there has not been a catastrophic nuclear war is pure dumb luck. The Deep State came within seconds of engineering
a nuclear cataclysm off the waters of Cuba in 1962. When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the Cold War with
the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past).
The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created
political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators.
However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically
support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front.
So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile
the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control.
"... And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped." ..."
"... Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev, who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. ..."
"... Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding ..."
"... Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. ..."
"... america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon. ..."
"... The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators. ..."
"... However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front. ..."
"... So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control. ..."
Haass writes: " Liberalism is in retreat. Democracies are feeling the effects of growing populism. Parties of the political extremes
have gained ground in Europe. The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the EU attested to the loss of elite influence.
Even the US is experiencing unprecedented attacks from its own president on the country's media, courts, and law-enforcement institutions.
Authoritarian systems, including China, Russia, and Turkey, have become even more top-heavy. Countries such as Hungary and Poland
seem uninterested in the fate of their young democracies
"We are seeing the emergence of regional orders. Attempts to build global frameworks are failing."
Haass has previously made alarmist statements , but this
time he is employing his rhetoric to point to the global nature of this phenomenon. Although between the lines one can easily read,
first of all, a certain degree of arrogance -- the idea that only we liberals and globalists really know how to administer foreign
policy -- and second, the motifs of conspiracy.
"Today's other major powers, including the EU, Russia, China, India, and Japan, could be criticized for what they are doing,
not doing, or both."
Probably this list could be expanded by adding a number of Latin American countries, plus Egypt, which signs arms deals with North
Korea while denying any violation of UN sanctions, and the burgeoning Shiite axis of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
But Haass is crestfallen over the fact that it is Washington itself that is changing the rules of the game and seems completely
uninterested in what its allies, partners, and clients in various corners of the world will do.
" America's decision to abandon the role it has played for more than seven decades thus marks a turning point. The liberal
world order cannot survive on its own, because others lack either the interest or the means to sustain it. The result will be
a world that is less free, less prosperous, and less peaceful, for Americans and others alike."
Richard Haass's colleague at the CFR, Stewart Patrick, quite agrees with the claim that it is
the US itself that is burying the liberal world order . However, it's not doing it on its own, but alongside China. If the US
had previously been hoping that the process of globalization would gradually transform China (and possibly destroy it, as happened
to the Soviet Union earlier), then the Americans must have been quite surprised by how it has actually played out. That country modernized
without being Westernized, an idea that had once been endorsed by the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Now China is expanding its influence in Eurasia in its own way, and this is for the most part welcomed by its partner countries.
But this has been a painful process for the US, as it is steadily and irrevocably undermining its hegemony.
"Its long-term ambition is to dismantle the U.S. alliance system in Asia, replacing it with a more benign (from Beijing's perspective)
regional security order in which it enjoys pride of place, and ideally a sphere of influence commensurate with its power.
China's Belt and Road initiative is part and parcel of this effort, offering not only (much-needed) infrastructure investments
in neighboring countries but also the promise of greater political influence in Southeast, South, and Central Asia. More aggressively,
China continues to advance outrageous jurisdictional claims over almost the entirety of the South China Sea , where it continues
its island-building activities, as well as engaging in provocative actions against Japan in the East China Sea," writes Patrick.
And as for the US:
"The United States, for its part, is a weary titan, no longer willing to bear the burdens of global leadership, either economically
or geopolitically.
Trump treats alliances as a protection racket, and the world economy as an arena of zero-sum competition. The result is a fraying
liberal international order without a champion willing to invest in the system itself. "
One can agree with both authors' assessments of the changed behavior of one sector of the US establishment, but this is about
more than just Donald Trump (who is so unpredictable that he has
staffed his own team with a member of the very swamp he was preparing to drain) and North American populism. One needs to look
much deeper.
"Today, American democratic exceptionalism is defined by a system that is dysfunctional in all the conditions that are needed
for settlement and loyalty...
Capitalism has collapsed into crisis in an orgy of deregulation. Money is transgressing into politics and undermining democracy
itself ."
And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by
the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic
and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are
aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped."
Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev,
who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. Although it must be conceded that if Hillary Clinton had become president, the
US collapse would have been far more painful, particularly for the citizens of that country. We would have seen yet more calamitous
reforms, a swelling influx of migrants, a further decline in the nation's manufacturing base, and the incitement of new conflicts.
Trump is trying to keep the body of US national policy somewhat alive through hospice care, but what's really needed is a major restructuring,
including far-reaching political reforms that would allow the country's citizens to feel that they can actually play a role in its
destiny.
These developments have spread to many countries in Europe, a continent that, due to its transatlantic involvement, was already
vulnerable and susceptible to the current geopolitical turbulence. The emergence of which, by the way, was largely a consequence
of that very policy of neoliberalism.
Stein Ringen continues on that score:
"Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political
power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding
"
It is interesting that panic has seized Western Europe and the US -- the home of transatlanticism, although different versions
of this recipe for liberalism have been employed in other regions -- suffice it to recall the experience of Singapore or Brazil.
But they don't seem as panicked there as in the West.
Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political
activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. Therefore, the destruction of the current
system entails the loss of all those dividends previously enjoyed by the liberal political elites of the West that were obtained
by speculating in the stock market, from the mechanisms of international foreign-exchange payments (the dollar system), and through
the instruments of supranational organizations (the UN, WTO, and World Bank). And, of course, there are the fundamental differences
in the cultural varieties of societies.
In his book The Hidden God, Lucien Goldmann draws some interesting conclusions, suggesting that the foundations of Western culture
have rationalistic and tragic origins, and that a society immersed in these concepts that have "abolish[ed] both God and the community
[soon sees] the disappearance of any external norm which might guide the individual in his life and actions." And because by its
very nature liberalism must carry on, in its mechanical fashion, "liberating" the individual from any form of structure (social classes,
the Church, family, society, and gender, ultimately liberating man from his very self), in the absence of any standards of deterrence,
it is quite logical that the Western world was destined to eventually find itself in crisis. And the surge of populist movements,
protectionist measures, and conservative policies of which Haass and other liberal globalists speak are nothing more than examples
of those nations' instinct for self-preservation. One need not concoct conspiracy theories about Russia or Putin interfering in the
US election (which Donald Trump has also denied, noting only that support was seen for Hillary Clinton, and it is entirely true that
a portion of her financial backing did come from Russia). The baseline political decisions being made in the West are in step with
the current crisis that is evident on so many levels. It's just that, like always, the Western elites need their ritual whipping
boy(although it would be more accurate to call it a human sacrifice). This geopolitical shake-up began in the West as a result of
the implicit nature of the very project of the West itself.
But since alternative development scenarios exist, the current system is eroding away. And other political projects are starting
to fill the resultant ideological void -- in both form as well as content.
Thus it's fairly likely that the current crisis of liberalism will definitively bury the unipolar Western system of hegemony.
And the budding movements of populism and regional protectionism can serve as the basis for a new, multipolar world order.
Oh, Wicked Witch of the West Wing, the cleansing fire awaits thy demise! Those meds can only keep you standing for so long.
Keep tripping. Keep stumbling. Satan calls you to him. The day approacheth. Tick tock tick tock. 👹😂
Democracy ultimately melts down into chaos. We have a perfectly good US Constitution, why don't we go back to using it as written?
That said, I am for anything that makes the elites become common.
Democracy is a form of government. Populism is a movement. Populist movements come about when the current form of government
is failing ... historically it seems they seldom choose wisely.
Ridiculous cunt Hillary thinks after getting REJECTED by the voters in the USA that somehow being asked to "go the fuck away
and shut the fuck up" makes her a women's leader. The cocksucker Soros and some of these other non-elected globalist should keep
in mind that while everybody has a right to an opinion: it took the Clinton Crime Family and lots of corruption to create the
scandals that sets a Clinton Crime Family member aside, and why Soros was given a free pass on election meddling and not others
requires congressional investigation and a special prosecutor. And then there is that special kind of legal and ignorant opinion
like David Hogg who I just disagree with, making him in my opinion and many fellow NRA members a cocksucker and a cunt. I'd wish
shingles on David Hogg, Hillary Clinton, and Soros.
america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit
does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon.
all i see is a bunch of fleeting old people who found facebook 10 years late are temporarily empowered since they can now connect
with other equally impotent old people.
The usual self-serving swill from the Best and the Brightest of the Predator Class out of the CFR via Haas.
The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets.
It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion
of the Middle East.
The fact that there has not been a catastrophic nuclear war is pure dumb luck. The Deep State came within seconds of engineering
a nuclear cataclysm off the waters of Cuba in 1962. When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the Cold War with
the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past).
The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created
political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators.
However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically
support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front.
So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile
the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control.
Liberalism is anything but liberal... and I suppose that is the problem with it. It aims to do to the western world what Mao
did to China and Stalin did to Russia. Many people were murdered or imprisoned and people had no rights, just obligations to dictators
and their cronies.
I think this world is past the point where any benefit is gained from having "owners of the people", benevolent or otherwise.
And we certainly do not benefit from perverted demonic entities even if they come bearing technology. The price is too high.
Populism goes along with essential freedoms for the human race.-
As I told the idiotic retards who argued with me on Prodigy fucking 27 years ago, China will not change because of increased
trading and the West making them wealthier. In fact, just the opposite. I wonder if they have caught on yet?
"... what purpose does Nato serve? it seems like a perfect wedge serving the USA's foreign policy objectives in isolating Russia.. what amazes me is the willingness of the poodles to go along with this.. obviously the military industrial complex is well served by this as well.. what would happen if Russia was to have good relations with the rest of Europe on all levels? would this somehow interfere with the role the usa has had with these same countries since ww2? at this point nato seems very redundant and only of value as i have stated above.. ..."
"... The deciders have been weeding out the intelligent, principled, honest, and patriotic individuals from the positions of influence in order to ensure that only the mediocrities and pliable opportunists were "elected" for the important governmental positions in the "rest of Europe." ..."
"... Part of the background to Gorbachev's approach at the time was the advice he was getting -- very bad advice, it now seems clear, with hindsight wisdom -- in particular from Georgy Arbatov, the long-serving head of the Institute of the USA and Canada. ..."
"... As it happened, Arbatov was completely and utterly wrong. The liquidation of the security posture inherited from the Stalinist period, followed by the break-up of the Soviet Union and the abandonment of communism, in no ways decreased Western hostility to Russia. The seething and near unanimous hatred of Putin is greater by far than that towards any of the leaders of the old Soviet Union. ..."
"... The truth, it turned out, was that people like Gorbachev and Arbatov were naive fools. ..."
Not only was there a pledge to halt any eastward expansion of NATO. It was clearly
understood that Ukraine would be a permanent buffer state between NATO and Russian borders.
During the early days of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. launched the Partnership for
Peace, which was presented as an alternative to NATO expansion. Russia was promised membership
in the new security structure.
While some American officials, including military flag officers, called for the dismantling
of NATO at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, others argued that
NATO had an important mission: To assure that there was no new outbreak of war on the European
continent. NATO was the only treaty organization under which the United States maintained a
presence in Europe. There was legitimate concern that, after two world wars in the 20th century
broke out in Europe, it was appropriate to maintain a watchful eye that no new conflict erupted
among the contending European states. Given the Balkan Wars of the early 1990s, this was not an
outlandish concern. Ultimately, according to the logic of those promoting a continuation of
NATO, Russia could be incorporated in a new security architecture. In effect, under a revived
American-Russian cooperation, war in Europe would be a permanent thing of the past.
This narrative may seem absurd by today's circumstances. But there is now a growing body of
declassified documents that confirm that there was a gentlemen's agreement that there would be
no further eastward expansion of NATO, and that the Partnership for Peace would be the anchor
of a new Eurasian security architecture to prevent the outbreak of future wars, and to build
new cooperative relations in the economic and political spheres as well.
The National Security Archive, hosted at George Washington University ([email protected])
has recently obtained and posted a number of documents from U.S. and Russian files from the
early 1990s, recounting this story. They can be found under the headline "NATO Expansion: What
Yeltsin Heard." They are well-worth reading for anyone looking for a way out of the current
madness New Cold War rhetoric coming from Washington, Berlin, London, Paris and Moscow.
"... there is now a growing body of declassified documents that confirm that there was a
gentlemen's agreement that there would be no further eastward expansion of NATO..."
Harper, Thanks very much for posting this piece. Somehow, I always thought (probably
naively), that the agreement was always a well known fact. I often wondered why our esteemed
leaders broke it. Why the desire to reduce the Russians to total insignificance?
thanks harper.. this "gentlemen's agreement" story seems to rear it's ugly head every so
often.. as an outsider it would seem to me that there has been an ongoing concerted effort to
not let any friendly relationships between russia and the rest of europe develop.. i can only
think that this has been the intent of nato, especially since the changes in the russia from
89 onward...
what purpose does Nato serve? it seems like a perfect wedge serving the USA's foreign
policy objectives in isolating Russia.. what amazes me is the willingness of the poodles to
go along with this.. obviously the military industrial complex is well served by this as
well.. what would happen if Russia was to have good relations with the rest of Europe on all
levels? would this somehow interfere with the role the usa has had with these same countries
since ww2? at this point nato seems very redundant and only of value as i have stated
above..
Harper, this has been the lonely argument of Harald Kujak and a select few public others for
a longtime over here in Germany.
Yesterday I witnessed a debate under the header: Who is more dangerous Trump or Putin? on
German TeVe.
The British representative invited, the expert on British intelligence, argued he couldn't
understand in the least the German public. Seems 'poll wise' the vast majority of Germans
considers Trump more dangerous then Putin. There were phases in his talk were he seemed to
get exhausted and tried to address us more directly via our conscience/soul: We have to stand
up bold against Russian aggression, since it does not necessarily mean war, but if you do it
in a united fashion the other side will fold.
Meanwhile on another public channel a day earlier, second vs. first, a prominent German
economist seemingly joined Trump*. Strictly this is only to
Strictly it was part of the promotion of his latest book, something in like in search of
the truth. As economist he is obviously aware of matters that lately were alluded to here via
OECD. In fact it was the context of the first question to him.
*****
concerning European foreign policy, by now it feels the east dictates it to a large extend,
led by Poland.
I seem to remember that Yeltsin specifically asked that Russia be allowed to join NATO and
was turned down. The creation of an alternate organization was suggested, probably the
Partnership for Peace.
I was unaware of the "gentlemen's agreement," but it makes sense, and Matlock's testimony is
good enough for me. NATO was a cold war construct, and with the end of the cold war, NATO
could have been dismantled as the relic of a previous age. But institutions die hard and
those vested in them seek to maintain their budgets and find new missions to justify their
existence. European countries have indeed had a long history of conflict, and the alliance
did seem effective at maintaining the peace in Europe. Many of the new post-Communist
governments in the former Soviet Bloc also wanted in. It wasn't all our own doing.
The Partnership for Peace was another post-cold-war construct that gave the old school in
Garmish a new mission and something else to do. I think it might have been possible to bring
Russia in, but was that the purpose of an expanded NATO and the Partnership for Peace, or was
it aimed at isolating Russia and ensuring a perpetual western domination?
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine seems to have been the tipping point Did we play a
clandestine role in that? I frankly don't know, but I suspect we did. Then came Putin's
assertion of Russian interests in the Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine. And here we are,
witnessing the revival of populist nationalisms in many places, including the USA.
These pose a challenge to the post-cold-war "new world order" (I'm citing President #41)
which likely will be less and less pretty as it gains momentum. It might have been easier to
have abided by that "gentleman's agreement," and the issues we face to day might have been
avoided. But then there would have been other issues. We are humans after all and seem to
like "issues."
"...what would happen if Russia was to have good relations with the rest of Europe on
all levels?"
The non-obedient leaders of such countries in the "rest of Europe" would have been
compromised and removed from the positions of power by the deciders. Take a closer look at
May, Johnson, and, particularly, Gavin Williamson. Do they look like the persons of integrity
and able leaders? Was not Macron competitor conveniently (and fraudulently) compromised
during the last elections? Were not the Swedes ordered to keep the ridiculous lawsuit against
Assange?
The deciders have been weeding out the intelligent, principled, honest, and patriotic
individuals from the positions of influence in order to ensure that only the mediocrities and
pliable opportunists were "elected" for the important governmental positions in the "rest of
Europe."
"Did we play a clandestine role in that? I frankly don't know, but I suspect we did. Then
came Putin's assertion of Russian interests in the Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine."
Why don't you do some minor research on the "clandestine role?' The materials are in
abundance and are widely available on the internet.
For example:
There has been innumerous stories circulating about the West's broken promises towards
Russia. To be honest I thought most of them was fake and the russians were making them up to
to ease their pain felt about the loss of an empire.
Now based on the above the opposite seems to be true.
I just dont come to understand at all how can a once superpower with 1000s of nuclear
warheads can downplayed for decades. I just don't get it.
The ignorant western elite should heed the old szekler saying: "The bear is not a
toy!"
Yes, a very worthwhile reminder, thanks. It should be run every day on the front page of
major news outlets for the next year. Ignorance of NATO's failure to sustain that accord
becomes a Pandora's box of bear-filled nightmares.
"Why the desire to reduce the Russians to total insignificance?"
Your question provides the answer. The US and NATO aimed for a Russian government run by
natural resource-vending oligarchs. China would have been raised from its understudy role to
serve as an excuse for big ticket military spending.
Anna
@11
...The deciders have been weeding out ...that is very important observation. The other half
of that sentence is ´..who is weeded in..´ for example, in Germany, the current
new government has a social democrat at minister of finance, but he nominated a guy from
Goldman Sachs - Jörg Kukies. What more can be said?
I remember some bigwig, I want to say Scowcroft but can't really remember, said the reason
Russia wasn't allowed in to NATO is that they would be an alternate power centre to the US
within NATO. NATO is really there to assert US primacy over Europe. The Russia nonsense keeps
Europe divided and under the thumb, reconciliation between Germany and Russia is an abiding
fear for some.
NATO expansion was largely the result of extensive lobbying of the US Senate by American
arms and manufacturers in the 1990s, exposed by the New York Times at the time, as well as
for domestic political reasons to make Clinton look tough. Now it has all become a self
fulfilling prophesy by creating an adversary in Russia.
Prior to the 'Briefing Book' to which 'Harper' linked, the National Security Archive
published, last December, one entitled 'NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard.'
A crucial point not mentioned in the -- generally excellent -- introduction to this series
of documents is that Gorbachev did not even ask for the verbal assurances he was given to be
put in writing.
This, incidentally, is a matter which Putin raised in his interviews with Oliver Stone. In
these, his comments on almost all the people discussed -- up to and including John McCain --
are restrained and emollient. His contempt and distaste for Gorbachev, however, shine
through.
Part of the background to Gorbachev's approach at the time was the advice he was
getting -- very bad advice, it now seems clear, with hindsight wisdom -- in particular from
Georgy Arbatov, the long-serving head of the Institute of the USA and Canada.
In a letter to the 'New York Times' in December 1987, in response to a column by William
Safire, which was headlined 'It Takes Two to Make a Cold War', Arbatov made clear that
Gorbachev was intended to, as it were, 'walk away', from the Cold War. And he wrote:
'And here we have a "secret weapon'" that will work almost regardless of the American
response -- we would deprive America of The Enemy. And how would you justify without it the
military expenditures that bleed the American economy white, a policy that draws America into
dangerous adventures overseas and drives wedges between the United States and its allies, not
to mention the loss of American influence on neutral countries? Wouldn't such a policy in the
absence of The Enemy put America in the position of an outcast in the international
community?'
As it happened, Arbatov was completely and utterly wrong. The liquidation of the
security posture inherited from the Stalinist period, followed by the break-up of the Soviet
Union and the abandonment of communism, in no ways decreased Western hostility to Russia. The
seething and near unanimous hatred of Putin is greater by far than that towards any of the
leaders of the old Soviet Union.
The truth, it turned out, was that people like Gorbachev and Arbatov were naive
fools.
What however then becomes material is that if Western behaviour makes clear that those who
sought good relations with us were indeed such, it really is very foolish to expect that
Russians will vote for such people.
Something that saddens me somewhat is that, as became clear if one probed, a strong
undercurrent in the thinking of people like Arbatov was the belief that, although this had
not been Stalin's intention, his post-war policies had gratuitously wrecked the relationship
with the United States built up during the wartime 'Grand Alliance.'
I have difficulty thinking of any more promising way causing people to abandon such
beliefs than allying with those who venerate Stepan Banderistas in an attempt to bring the
Crimea into NATO. One thought people might be aware that Sevastopol is the scene of two great
sieges, by the French, Ottomans and British in 1854-5, and by the Germans, Romanians and
Italians from December 1941 to July 1942.
In both cases, the city fell. In the latter, however, the defenders tied up Erich von
Manstein -- one of the greatest exponents of mobile warfare -- and the German Eleventh Army
for seven crucial months, which among other things made a major contribution to the fact that
Stalingrad did not fall, and the Germans were decisively defeated there.
I am certainly aware of the role that Nuland and the State Department and the Obama
administration in general played in supporting the Orange Revolution. What I don't know is
what "clandestine" efforts--cash payments, secret promises, etc.--other elements of our
government may or may not have played. I suspect we did, but I don't know and for this, open
research is difficult to conduct.
anna - we see this much the same.. this is an organized move on the part of the west to
isolate Russia... i don't think it is working.. they have resorted to dirty tricks to get the
same result.. it isn't working either..
Now that matters are heating up in Europe-Russia relations, strictly along the lines of the
representative in the political talksshow circle, I talked about above, was Prof. Glees, he
speaks German has a semi-German background. Apparently was more frequently present on German
media, got glimpses. DW? Didn't take a closer look.
Strictly two of his arguments stuck out for me. One challenged how it would be challenged
here, Iraq, anyway:
a) it is no doubt significant that it only happened 7 km/?miles? from Porton Down. What
was he doing there?
b) if the Foreign Minister speaks he has relevant intelligence information.
Anna, re #11. There is very little 'weeding out from positions of influence' as you suggest.
The political preselection process ensures that such people do not actually get started on
the train, but in most cases they have already left as soon as they arrived, having seen, to
them, the nauseous and noxious collection of people with whom they would otherwise spend
years rubbing shoulders.
You will not find a Teddy Roosevelt or a George Washington in the current era.
I think you are underestimating the demand side of NATO expansion; many Eastern European
states wanted to be included in NATO - for reasons of both security and prestige (of being
associated with the dominant civilization on Earth and the Winners of the Cold War). In fact,
EU membership, NATO, and Plato went together - it was an act of joining (or re-joining) the
"Civilization".
I seem to recall that the purely European WEU (Western European Union) was touted as
replacement for NATO that would be purely European and built up, so there would have been at
least some discussion. I wonder what the dynamics of that fail were and if there are any
public documents that highlight it?
Stalin promised free elections in these exact same eastern European countries now conquered
by Nato only 45 years earlier. Instead he delivered murder, gulags, rape and ethnic
cleansing. Because of his total obliteration of any opposition, the postwar history today is
still corrupted with Stalin's and the Bolshevic's lies. Not to mentioned all those falsely
charged and executed at Nuremburg.
Take Stalin himself. Many Russians would claim that his continuing murder of millions
after the war was already won cannot be blamed on Russia or Russians. They claim it was the
USSR that perpetrated these deeds. But many of these same Russians suffer from nostalgic
delusions about the good old days under "Uncle Joe".
Yeah, I'd say they're moving from worse to as bad as it gets, as Mr. Global sets up a
coordinated, simultaneous, four-front attack (Syria, Ukraine, Iran, DPRK) on Rus allies,
along with their various false-flag absurdities. We'd better hope any adults left in the room
put Mr. Global in the psych ward, and real soon.
A handshake agreement to limit the eastward expansion of NATO ? This handshaking was going on
while Western commercial interests were penetrating, en-masse, the newly de-Sovietised
economies of Russia and the CIS states and that alone should have been a hint of what was to
come. I'd suggest that Putin was not one to miss that hint.
Power depends on domination and monopolisation of resources, people and ground, or at least
in an interim period denying their exploitation by competitors such as their contemporary
owners. Control of or denial of use of the wealth of Eurasia, the greatest land mass on the
planet, is the key to hegemonic control of the planet for an inestimable time interval, and
numerous routes have and will be tried to achieve this objective.
With that in mind, could anyone really express surprise at some long ago handshakes and
broken agreements made to Boris Yeltsin and a bunch of bewildered former Soviet bureaucrats ?
The Chinese has long since learned the lesson.
"[...] Anders Fogh Rasmussen said alliance members must be willing and able to exercise
military power "beyond our borders" to combat threats such as terrorism and missile
attacks."
"[...] By contrast, Britain and the US believe that to remain relevant, Nato must be
prepared to tackle potential security threats beyond its members' borders."
"[...] Afthanistan could serve a template (sic) for future threats and Nato's response to
them."
No mention of course of who defines what may or may not represent a threat.
Note also the author's opinion that Afghanistan is to be held up as a model of how to go
about things. The MIC's dream come true.
Whatever aliby is offered to explain whatever promise ever made by the US and Western allies
on whatever issue is difficult to take into account, since their very way of procceed have
been consistently always the same.
On historical facts on inteventions by US Imperialism in Russian sphere of influence and
everywhere, I bring in this Spanish translation of 56 chapter of the book "Killing
Hope" by Wiliam Blum, currently discontinued, with the following comment by the editor of
the blog which made the effort:
The recent American Empire (chapter 56 of Assassinating Hope, by William Blum)
"The way Bush and his people managed to deflect America's anger from Bin Laden to
Saddam Hussein is one of the greatest public relations sorcery tricks in history." John
le Carré, quoted by Blum.
Note from the blog editor : We offer the last chapter of William Blum's book on
interventions by the CIA and the US Army since the end of World War II. In this chapter
that closes his book, Blum tells us about the recent American "Empire", from 1992 to 2002.
It is obvious that between 2002 and 2016 many events have taken place in the world, linked
to US imperialism. The last 13 years are not reflected since Blum's book was finished
writing in 2003 and published in 2004. Even so, it is a chapter that we can extrapolate
perfectly to understand US imperialism. since then. Perhaps, everything that Blum describes
has been accentuated more and more in recent years. It is, then, a text that maintains its
relevance.
The term "Empire" applied to the United States it began being used by critics of
imperialism. However, as Blum tells us, more and more apologists of US foreign policy are
using it proudly; recognize and defend such imperial reality.
"The American Empire" is the last chapter of Blum's book. It closes a magnificent and
indispensable work whose knowledge and diffusion are required if we want to understand the
contemporary world. It is not possible to understand international relations, peaceful or
violent, outside of imperialism, just as it is not possible to understand capitalism
outside of the latter.
Documentary reference: William Blum: "The North American Empire from 1992 to the
present" , in "Killing Hope. Interventions of the CIA and the United States Army
since the Second World War" , chap. 56, pp. 460 to 471. Editorial Oriente, Santiago de
Cuba (Cuba), 2005 (original in English: William Blum, "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and
CIA Interventions Since World War II" , Common Courage Press, 2004).
Digitization source and corrections (cite and keep the hyperlink): Blog Del Viejo Topo.
Images, captions and bold: they are our addition.
Other chapters of the book: to access other chapters published on the blog, see the index
at the end and click on the hyperlinks that are active."
David, I am familiar with the argument you refer to in the last paragraph. It surfaced in
looks at the larger ideological battle at the time as far as the more then extreme Nazi
propaganda was 'echoed' or found supporters for historical reasons e.g. in Hungary and/or the
Ukraine, arbitrarily. The larger "Judeo-Bolshevik" complex. I have a deep inner resistance to
where it feels it would end theoretically. Had they taken a different route they could have
made it? Seriously? They should have?
Along these lines, I am not sure either, if I want to reduce Ukrainians collectively to
Banderistas. Fact seems that obviously everyone in Russia is anti-Nazi, which includes the
extreme right.
*******
Prof Glees alluded to several people beyond the more spectacular cases in the UK. Eight, I
seem to remember. Only three were mentioned: Litvinenco, Skripal and Berezovsky's (suicide)*.
Not sure if Glees does include him in this list. unfortunately no one asked him for a list.
Who else does he have in mind?
david, it is always interesting and informative reading your comments.. thanks for making
them.. i struggle with the idea that anyone is is idealistic is being naive.. this is how it
would appear gorbachev has to be taken, but i struggle with it regardless, as i am attached
to the idealism that is built into his way of thinking as you outline here.. at what point
does humanity seek an alternative to war and the build up and preparation for war which is
the basis for NATO? as john lennon said 'give peace a chance'.. i think gorbachev did this..
would the usa ever let europe drop nato? would europe ever recognize how it is a block to
greater peace in europe? or, do bigger fences make better neighbours?
pat mentioned you might do a thread on the skripal / uk dynamic at some point.. i hope you
do... thanks..
Actually, the bezirk of which I am a citizen and taxpayer was once the oldest Republic in
Europe. Some Alemeni hill volk and some lake dwellers managed to purchase their freedom from
the Habsburgs in about 1350. This Free Republic existed for centuries until its
representatives arrived late at the Congress of Vienna in 1817. Our Republic was lost in the
same way that Switzerland was lost when it joined the UN.
Switzerland had a long history of preventing rulers and powerful cliques from gaining a
monopoly on power. Unfortunately, that history has been discarded in favor of giving up
sovereignty to globalist agendas like refugee settlement, global warming, tax law, and here
specifically: to NATO empire building (Switzerland is active in "defending" Kosovo).
"... And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped." ..."
"... Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev, who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. ..."
"... Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding ..."
"... Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. ..."
"... america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon. ..."
"... The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators. ..."
"... However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front. ..."
"... So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control. ..."
Haass writes: " Liberalism is in retreat. Democracies are feeling the effects of growing populism. Parties of the political extremes
have gained ground in Europe. The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the EU attested to the loss of elite influence.
Even the US is experiencing unprecedented attacks from its own president on the country's media, courts, and law-enforcement institutions.
Authoritarian systems, including China, Russia, and Turkey, have become even more top-heavy. Countries such as Hungary and Poland
seem uninterested in the fate of their young democracies
"We are seeing the emergence of regional orders. Attempts to build global frameworks are failing."
Haass has previously made alarmist statements , but this
time he is employing his rhetoric to point to the global nature of this phenomenon. Although between the lines one can easily read,
first of all, a certain degree of arrogance -- the idea that only we liberals and globalists really know how to administer foreign
policy -- and second, the motifs of conspiracy.
"Today's other major powers, including the EU, Russia, China, India, and Japan, could be criticized for what they are doing,
not doing, or both."
Probably this list could be expanded by adding a number of Latin American countries, plus Egypt, which signs arms deals with North
Korea while denying any violation of UN sanctions, and the burgeoning Shiite axis of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
But Haass is crestfallen over the fact that it is Washington itself that is changing the rules of the game and seems completely
uninterested in what its allies, partners, and clients in various corners of the world will do.
" America's decision to abandon the role it has played for more than seven decades thus marks a turning point. The liberal
world order cannot survive on its own, because others lack either the interest or the means to sustain it. The result will be
a world that is less free, less prosperous, and less peaceful, for Americans and others alike."
Richard Haass's colleague at the CFR, Stewart Patrick, quite agrees with the claim that it is
the US itself that is burying the liberal world order . However, it's not doing it on its own, but alongside China. If the US
had previously been hoping that the process of globalization would gradually transform China (and possibly destroy it, as happened
to the Soviet Union earlier), then the Americans must have been quite surprised by how it has actually played out. That country modernized
without being Westernized, an idea that had once been endorsed by the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Now China is expanding its influence in Eurasia in its own way, and this is for the most part welcomed by its partner countries.
But this has been a painful process for the US, as it is steadily and irrevocably undermining its hegemony.
"Its long-term ambition is to dismantle the U.S. alliance system in Asia, replacing it with a more benign (from Beijing's perspective)
regional security order in which it enjoys pride of place, and ideally a sphere of influence commensurate with its power.
China's Belt and Road initiative is part and parcel of this effort, offering not only (much-needed) infrastructure investments
in neighboring countries but also the promise of greater political influence in Southeast, South, and Central Asia. More aggressively,
China continues to advance outrageous jurisdictional claims over almost the entirety of the South China Sea , where it continues
its island-building activities, as well as engaging in provocative actions against Japan in the East China Sea," writes Patrick.
And as for the US:
"The United States, for its part, is a weary titan, no longer willing to bear the burdens of global leadership, either economically
or geopolitically.
Trump treats alliances as a protection racket, and the world economy as an arena of zero-sum competition. The result is a fraying
liberal international order without a champion willing to invest in the system itself. "
One can agree with both authors' assessments of the changed behavior of one sector of the US establishment, but this is about
more than just Donald Trump (who is so unpredictable that he has
staffed his own team with a member of the very swamp he was preparing to drain) and North American populism. One needs to look
much deeper.
"Today, American democratic exceptionalism is defined by a system that is dysfunctional in all the conditions that are needed
for settlement and loyalty...
Capitalism has collapsed into crisis in an orgy of deregulation. Money is transgressing into politics and undermining democracy
itself ."
And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by
the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic
and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are
aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped."
Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev,
who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. Although it must be conceded that if Hillary Clinton had become president, the
US collapse would have been far more painful, particularly for the citizens of that country. We would have seen yet more calamitous
reforms, a swelling influx of migrants, a further decline in the nation's manufacturing base, and the incitement of new conflicts.
Trump is trying to keep the body of US national policy somewhat alive through hospice care, but what's really needed is a major restructuring,
including far-reaching political reforms that would allow the country's citizens to feel that they can actually play a role in its
destiny.
These developments have spread to many countries in Europe, a continent that, due to its transatlantic involvement, was already
vulnerable and susceptible to the current geopolitical turbulence. The emergence of which, by the way, was largely a consequence
of that very policy of neoliberalism.
Stein Ringen continues on that score:
"Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political
power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding
"
It is interesting that panic has seized Western Europe and the US -- the home of transatlanticism, although different versions
of this recipe for liberalism have been employed in other regions -- suffice it to recall the experience of Singapore or Brazil.
But they don't seem as panicked there as in the West.
Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political
activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. Therefore, the destruction of the current
system entails the loss of all those dividends previously enjoyed by the liberal political elites of the West that were obtained
by speculating in the stock market, from the mechanisms of international foreign-exchange payments (the dollar system), and through
the instruments of supranational organizations (the UN, WTO, and World Bank). And, of course, there are the fundamental differences
in the cultural varieties of societies.
In his book The Hidden God, Lucien Goldmann draws some interesting conclusions, suggesting that the foundations of Western culture
have rationalistic and tragic origins, and that a society immersed in these concepts that have "abolish[ed] both God and the community
[soon sees] the disappearance of any external norm which might guide the individual in his life and actions." And because by its
very nature liberalism must carry on, in its mechanical fashion, "liberating" the individual from any form of structure (social classes,
the Church, family, society, and gender, ultimately liberating man from his very self), in the absence of any standards of deterrence,
it is quite logical that the Western world was destined to eventually find itself in crisis. And the surge of populist movements,
protectionist measures, and conservative policies of which Haass and other liberal globalists speak are nothing more than examples
of those nations' instinct for self-preservation. One need not concoct conspiracy theories about Russia or Putin interfering in the
US election (which Donald Trump has also denied, noting only that support was seen for Hillary Clinton, and it is entirely true that
a portion of her financial backing did come from Russia). The baseline political decisions being made in the West are in step with
the current crisis that is evident on so many levels. It's just that, like always, the Western elites need their ritual whipping
boy(although it would be more accurate to call it a human sacrifice). This geopolitical shake-up began in the West as a result of
the implicit nature of the very project of the West itself.
But since alternative development scenarios exist, the current system is eroding away. And other political projects are starting
to fill the resultant ideological void -- in both form as well as content.
Thus it's fairly likely that the current crisis of liberalism will definitively bury the unipolar Western system of hegemony.
And the budding movements of populism and regional protectionism can serve as the basis for a new, multipolar world order.
Oh, Wicked Witch of the West Wing, the cleansing fire awaits thy demise! Those meds can only keep you standing for so long.
Keep tripping. Keep stumbling. Satan calls you to him. The day approacheth. Tick tock tick tock. 👹😂
Democracy ultimately melts down into chaos. We have a perfectly good US Constitution, why don't we go back to using it as written?
That said, I am for anything that makes the elites become common.
Democracy is a form of government. Populism is a movement. Populist movements come about when the current form of government
is failing ... historically it seems they seldom choose wisely.
Ridiculous cunt Hillary thinks after getting REJECTED by the voters in the USA that somehow being asked to "go the fuck away
and shut the fuck up" makes her a women's leader. The cocksucker Soros and some of these other non-elected globalist should keep
in mind that while everybody has a right to an opinion: it took the Clinton Crime Family and lots of corruption to create the
scandals that sets a Clinton Crime Family member aside, and why Soros was given a free pass on election meddling and not others
requires congressional investigation and a special prosecutor. And then there is that special kind of legal and ignorant opinion
like David Hogg who I just disagree with, making him in my opinion and many fellow NRA members a cocksucker and a cunt. I'd wish
shingles on David Hogg, Hillary Clinton, and Soros.
america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit
does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon.
all i see is a bunch of fleeting old people who found facebook 10 years late are temporarily empowered since they can now connect
with other equally impotent old people.
The usual self-serving swill from the Best and the Brightest of the Predator Class out of the CFR via Haas.
The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets.
It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion
of the Middle East.
The fact that there has not been a catastrophic nuclear war is pure dumb luck. The Deep State came within seconds of engineering
a nuclear cataclysm off the waters of Cuba in 1962. When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the Cold War with
the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past).
The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created
political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators.
However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically
support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front.
So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile
the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control.
Liberalism is anything but liberal... and I suppose that is the problem with it. It aims to do to the western world what Mao
did to China and Stalin did to Russia. Many people were murdered or imprisoned and people had no rights, just obligations to dictators
and their cronies.
I think this world is past the point where any benefit is gained from having "owners of the people", benevolent or otherwise.
And we certainly do not benefit from perverted demonic entities even if they come bearing technology. The price is too high.
Populism goes along with essential freedoms for the human race.-
As I told the idiotic retards who argued with me on Prodigy fucking 27 years ago, China will not change because of increased
trading and the West making them wealthier. In fact, just the opposite. I wonder if they have caught on yet?
Andrew McCabe lied four times to the Department of Justice and the FBI - including two times while under oath with Inspector General
Michael Horowitz, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) appearing on Fox News .
This is the first time the public has heard more detail of the circumstances behind the decision to fire McCabe just over
one day
before
he qualified for his full pension.
JORDAN: " McCabe didn't lie just once, he lied four times . He lied to James Comey. He lied to the Office of Professional Responsibility
and he lied twice under oath to the Inspector General . Remember, this is Andrew McCabe, Deputy Director of the FBI. This is Andrew
McCabe, the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page talking about Andy's office, the meeting where they talk about the
insurance policy in case Donald Trump is actually President of the United States Four times he lied about leaking information
to the Wall Street Journal ."
Specifically, McCabe authorized an F.B.I. spokesman and attorney to tell Devlin Barrett of the
Wall St. Journal
, just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not
put the brakes on a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation - at a time in which McCabe was coming under fire for his
wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton
proxy
pal, Terry McAuliffe.
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau
investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according
to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case . The probe of the foundation began more
than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.
...
Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity , these people said. Others
involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious
fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case .
So McCabe leaked information to the WSJ in order to combat rumors that Clinton had indirectly bribed him to back off the Clinton
Foundation investigation, and then lied about it four times to the DOJ and FBI, including twice under oath.
Meanwhile - let's not forget, the FBI had evidence from undercover informant William D. Campbell, who recently told Congressional
investigators that he collected smoking gun evidence of Russia
routing millions of dollars
towards a Clinton charity in advance of Clinton's State Department approving the Uranium One deal.
Which McCabe was supposed to be investigating... and which the Little Rock field office took over in
January of
this year
.
Also recall that McCabe's team, under Director Comey,
heavily altered
the language of the FBI's official opinion concerning Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information
- effectively "decriminalizing" her conduct . Comey's original draft - using the term "grossly negligent" would have legally required
that the FBI recommended charges against Clinton. Instead, McCabe's team changed it to "extremely careless," - a legally meaningless
term.
According to documents produced by the FBI, FBI employees exchanged proposed edits to the draft statement. On May 6, Deputy
Director McCabe forwarded the draft statement to other senior FBI employees, including Peter Strzok, E.W. Priestap, Jonathan Moffa,
and an employee on the Office of General Counsel whose name has been redacted. While the precise dates of the edits and identities
of the editors are not apparent from the documents, the edits appear to change the tone and substance of Director Comey's statement
in at least three respects . -
Letter from
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)
President Trump noted in a March 16 tweet that Comey "made McCabe look like a choirboy," despite the former FBI Director knowing
" all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels. "
At the time McCabe was fired, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement at the time that he had "made an unauthorized
disclosure to the news media and lacked candor - including under oath - on multiple occasions."
"Confused and Distracted"
After he was fired, McCabe said he was "confused and distracted" when he was talking to investigators - four separate times as
we've come to learn.
"I answered questions as completely and accurately as I could. And when I realized that some of my answers were not fully accurate
or may have been misunderstood, I took the initiative to correct them ," McCabe wrote in a
Washington Post op-ed
.
So it was all just a big misunderstanding, you see.
In the meantime, people feeling sorry for ol' Andy have set up an "official" Gofundme donation campaign for McCabe's "Legal Defense
Fund," which raised almost $400,000 in 10 hours for McCabe.
Hilariously, the description of the campaign starts off: " Andrew McCabe's FBI career was long, distinguished, and unblemished
."
...which ended when McCabe lied four times about leaking to the press in order to appear unbiased after his wife took nearly half-a-million
dollars from a Clinton crony .
OK, I'm willing to believe McCabe lied. Anybody who only figured out within the past 2 years that the FBI is a political
police force is beneath my contempt, actually.
I'm also pretty seasoned at reading these politicized reports, going back well over 40 years. It's clear this McDonald guy,
the undercover FBI "whistleblower," is at best full of shit, and at most a malicious political mole.
It's been clear for quite some time that the Clinton Foundation, like all the other "charitable foundation" tax dodges
used nearly universally by the wealthy and powerful, is a scam. Just like the Trump Foundation, which is supposedly being shut
down to avoid trouble from the obvious and pervasive fraud that entity engaged in.
So McCabe is a political hatchetman, dealing with and fighting against other political hatchetmen with different affinities,
loyalties and priorities. And the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was a complete charade, because the whole problem
with all these foundations isn't nearly so much what they do illegally but what they do that's perfectly lawful.
And when McCabe answered questions to some people, they approved of his responses, and when he answered questions to other
people, they classified his responses as lies and made an example of him to anyone else who might be insufficiently loyal one
way or the other.
The end result is a bunch of dirty operators are having their usual battle over pecking order.
The good thing is, the way the Executive Branch is tearing itself apart recently, nobody with any better options will have
anything to do with them. We're getting rid of the noxious, anti-American worship of authority figures which masquerades as "Respect
For The Office." Nobody with any sense is joining the military. Attorneys won't get involved in these partisan mud fights.
All this is very good news for those of us who recognize the decline of Empire when we see it. Of course we all hope, out
of compassion for our fellow man, that we would all recognize the historical trend and take considered action accordingly, but
it's clear by now that we won't do that, and we're all going to have to endure collapse. OK then, let's bring it on, have it out,
and get on with our lives going forward.
With that in mind, the destruction of our institutions is a good thing. This whole McCabe/FBI debacle is a good thing; now
that right-wingers have discovered what the Left has always known, right-wingers are going to destroy the Department of Justice
as lefties have never had the power to do. All the hookers suing the President is a good thing; worship of a King is something
we fought a war to end some 242 years ago. And America's Empire has brought the vast majority nothing but Oligarchy and misery.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, McCabe and all the rest.
I'm going to take a big risk and assume that you can actually read without moving your lips and sliding your finger along the
page. If you can't read, being a product of government schools, I'll give you some good news: There are a lot of BOOKS that you
can have read TO you, i.e. digital books. In any case, you might just want to read (or listen to) THE DICTATOR'S HANDBOOK by
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
and
Alastair
Smith
.
In this tome you will find the truth about the ultimate purposes of all of this infighting are. They have nothing to do with
Truth, Justice, and the American Way (whatever the hell THAT is!). My take is A POX ON ALL OF YOUR HOUSES! The REAL "problem"
with Donald Trump is that he either can't be or has yet to be BOUGHT by your masters.
They have NOTHING to offer him that he doesn't already HAVE! Just remember, though...if you idiots DO manage to bring him down,
the him low, run him off...or eliminate him (Don't pretend that you haven't considered that one!)...the societal societal dislocation...disintegration...and
just good old gunfire and club swinging...will sweep YOU away along with our civilization. You've managed to bring America to
the brink already....all we need for total disaster is a little more of your BS!
One common thread and indication an empire is in decline is a massive growth in crony capitalism and corruption. Sometimes
a system morphs or evolves towards its end and in other situations, a single event can act as the catalyst to bring a system to
its knees.
Looking back to the economic crisis that gripped the world in 2008 we find an excellent example of shifting and adjusting
just enough to delay the day of reckoning. Many people see growing inequality as a sign that America's financial and political
systems are broken. The article below delves into how and why great empires collapse.
http://How Great Empires Collapse.html
Geez, if I could up vote you and Giant Meteor a hundred times I would. The joke is that McCabe will never go to jail and Comey will make millions for his book deal. Then there is McCabe's "go fund me" joke. The guy is reportedly worth $11 million and needs stupid libtards to fund him?? Really??? I want to see jail time and executions - start with Brennan and work your way down to Comey.
Fuck jail time. Taxpayers, myself included don't want to have to support this piece of government shit along with all of his
co-conspirators for the next 20 years in some federal luxury resort. Fucking execute them all on the South White House lawn at
dawn by firing squad.
Right now we're a nation without laws except for the little people. My patience is seriously running out with Trump and that
little Hobbit motherfucker Sessions and his jail-blocking shenanigans. Sessions wants to increase civil asset forfeiture, let
him start with McCabe's, Comey's, Clapper, and Brennan's bank accounts and houses for a start. Then take the entire Clinton Crime
Foundations assets down to the last dime.
Try using that excuse yourself and see how far it goes, as they put the cuffs on your 'little people' wrists. As for that GoFundMe page -give me a break. How much of that cash is laundered Clintoon money? No way 'average' Americans are
donating to that criminal POS, and definitely not to the tune of $388K. Investigate that .
The trouble as I see it, these folks by the very nature of what they do, tacit within their very job description, requires
lying on a fairly regular basis. It is requisite to their their employment. Lying becomes a way of life, and is a perfect fit
for those with sociopathic, narcissistic personalities.
One must also understand incentives .. 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.' Upton Sinclair
And this is seen in every aspect of human affairs, from top to the bottom. Especially pervasive, and venal within the so called
"main stream media" but certainly not limited to ..
Add to this the outright bought and paid for politicization of these 3 letter alphabet soup agency sycophants, not to mention
their political enablers / handlers, the fact they they by and large consider themselves immune in their official capacities,
immune from normative consequences, rule of law, bad acts, and as is now well established, whom play by an entirely different set
of rules.
In short, they believe in their own bullshit, and that the end justifies the means. Of course all of this leads to the inescapable
conclusion, the republic no longer a nation of laws but rather, a nation of men.
In the words of the Clintons: Hey, that's OLD news...and we "...(can't) stop thinking' about tomorrow...." Lies were told,
hundreds of millions stolen, murders committed, and so on." But, having said that, let's just move on and in the words of that
GREAT AMERICAN, Rodney King "...just get along...."
I would suggest neoliberals and neoconservatives get along just fine. These two groups have different styles, but nonetheless, worship the same techno globalist agenda of war, money and power.
Which is why they've quite often been photgraphed together with broad smiles and warm embraces .. Two sides, same coin ...
War mongering, money grubbing, technocrat elites, bending the minds of citizen "consumers" toward the will and agenda of their
overlords, the corporate fascists.
These groups above all else pledge allegiance to king mammon. Others act as their enforcers. The primary vision of these liked
minded groups is to create an all knowing, all powerful centralized state of consequences for thee and none for me. They continue
faithfully to do the bidding of the money changers ..
Concur. They all lie. From top of the Federal Reserve and the repressive apparatus (C!A,FB!,Pentagram ,NSAyy and other assorted
3 letter scum agencies) to the bottom of the hired actors posing as politicians in Congress, Senate and the White House.
Do you remember any politician , president who kept his campaign promises lately? how about the Donald? Let's take only the
last example: the Skripal case ,where the Donald does not need evidence and expels 60 Russian diplomats and closes down a consulate
based on very ,very fake news. And risks a war with Russia ,based on a false flag done by US/UK.
Maria Zakharova said that Russia has no doubt that this was a coordinated attack done by US/UK. She should know something
There is no honor among the thieves and crooks and criminals in the US ,especially when the pie is shrinking and they have
to fight among them for it. Because this is what this low grade show is all about = thugs fighting among them for the disappearing
American pie.
This spectacle is disgusting . I don't care at all ,at this point in time if they impeach the Donald. He deserves it. Whoever
comes after him can not be worse. And I don't think this can continue for too long . The AAZ Empire is done.
I have no respect for the Donald and his continuous lies and fake news. And the tired "he's better than Hillary" does not satisfy
me anymore. I voted for him based on this ,as a vote against Hillary . I am sorry I did. Maybe Hillary would have been better,collapsing
sooner this failed experiment .
Hey,the Donald:
Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you. Confucius
There's also a practical reason not to do it...yet anyway. Put McCabe's nuts in a vice and start turning the screw
(figuratively). Claim the 5th all you want, Mr McCabe. Failure to cooperate only compounds your troubles.
The fired FBI apparatchiks are in a prisoner's dilemma. If they stay quiet, they might walk, but they dont know who else might
be singing or what tune they're singing. So it is to each person's advantage to sing, and the nice thing is, it only takes one
of them to do so (and I suspect, someone[s] already has).
BTW, $400K (taxable) is a far cry from his inflation-indexed pension that Im guessing would be between $8K and $12K per month,
plus a nice health insurance plan for the rest of his (and his wife's) life. Sucks to be him, but...
should have been worked out during the eight years of Obama.
Obama and his so called "national security" apparatus is primarily responsible for
destroying Russian-American relations . Obama also allowed, in fact helped, Al Qaeda and
ISIS to unleash a mayhem in Syria. Libya also happened on his watch. Trump, for all his major
faults, from the go was sabotaged by Obama (and HRC) establishment especially on the account
of relations with Russia. I will reiterate--we literally, be it Obama or Trump Admin, have
people who have no clue of Russia nor of US situation vis-a-vis Russia.
Take out few sober and professional US military people out of Trump Admin and there is a
chance it all goes kaboom because people literally have no clue. In fact, track record and
overwhelming empirical evidence support my simple thesis.
Russia can deal with Trump or they can face his wrath because sans Trump they will
face the One Worlders' wrath.
This is precisely an example of what I am talking about. And what this wrath could be
against Russia? Another Hollywood movie? You evidently have no idea what happened culturally
in Russia over the last four years. I will omit purely economically and militarily. Nobody is
afraid of NATO or US be it economically let alone militarily. It seems this simple fact goes
constantly missing on anyone in US political top. It is no surprising -- the only sources in
Russia which they have is a narrow strata of Russian so called "liberals" who, apart from
being totally incompetent in any serious military-political or economic matter, tell only
what their Western benefactors want them to say thus echo-chamber for non-stop delusion. But
that is also why it is so dangerous.
"If putting down the big stick and playing nice/diplomacy is the answer, then all of the
international issues should have been worked out during the eight years of Obama."
Perhaps you could check with the people of Ukraine, of Libya, or Yemen about how Obama put
down the big stick. Or maybe the thousands whose relatives were assassinated by drones
throughout the world. The foreign policy of the current resident is the same as the policy of
the Obama administration, which was a continuation of the policy of the lesser Bush
Administration. Mr. Trump promised a different policy on the campaign trail, but has chosen /
been maneuvered into continuity.
Skripal never defected - he was caught spying for Britain in Russia in 2004, judged and
sentenced and then exchanged in 2010. He is a traitor who got caught. Not a defector.
The fraud was not so much the selling of user data. I mean who did not know that that was
going on?
The big fraud is the ads. Advertisers paying fortunes for nothing.
About 20 years ago both the US military and infrastructure (power, rail, water, agri)
companies all published articles about the coming brain drain. All the smart people were
getting old and dying and the there were no young smart people coming up the ranks. This was
both in engineering and in management.
Well now we are here. They are all dead. And the machines are being run by people who
simply hope they keep running.
When advertisers starting buying ads with clicks and impressions as measures of success I
cried foul. Sales is the measure of success. It is the only measure of success that matters.
And yet everyone moved to clicks and impressions.
This allowed for the fraud of fake clicks and impressions, which is all that the major
social media players sell these days.
In the old days, you presented the public with commercial A with 800 number B, and
commercial C with a different 800 number D.
Based on which 800 # people were calling to order product you knew which commercial was
more effective.
This A/B testing through to sales was thrown overboard by the "smart", young guys coming
out of school. They new better than the old guys in this new Internet age. Then the companies
started getting defrauded by the billions and still are. I look at both the "smart" guys and
the mega-tech corps as in on the fraud.
One day Proctor & Gamble woke up and redirected around $100 million per year of their
digital ad spend in a blanket attempt to measure digital ad effectiveness. After about 2
years it looks like digital ads were generating no revenue while the money redirected into
more conventional (older) sales strategies generated a 10% increase in sales. Oh those damn
foolish old codgers, what do they know?
And that is what scares me the most. The old codgers really are gone, and the "smart",
young guys running the companies have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
Facebook's dirty tricks have been exposed, they will never completely regain the trust of
users.
Alternatives are set to cannibalize the social media model, pioneered by Facebook.
Costs of security features, auditing information, and loss of ad revenue will make
Facebook less profitable.
Finally, Facebook ( FB )
has been exposed for the fraud that it is. There has never been such an inflated market cap
based on nothingness, just hype. Steve Jobs successfully hyped up Apple ( AAPL ) but unlike Fakebook, Apple actually
makes products, and they have a huge following. Here we will elaborate on several key points
that we've been saying for years, but now maybe the market is listening:
Facebook ( FB ) has a
weak underlying business model. Users do not like to see advertisements therefore management
will be driven to measures such as grey hat (or even black hat) methods to obtain data and
use data in ways in conflict with users.
Facebook ( FB ) is
ultimately and primarily a tool of the intelligence agencies (primarily but not exclusively
the CIA) and furthers a larger agenda as part of the DOD's "Information Awareness" program,
more than it is a hot business model.
There are thousands of social media networks , in fact Ning offers users a platform to create their own social network.
The only thing unique about Facebook ( FB ) is that it is the most used and trusted
network, but that all is hanging on the thin thread of users trust, which has now completely
evaporated.
Mark Zuckerberg is an unethical tricky leader that cannot change , he is detached from
reality, has no vision, no understanding of what his customers want, and perhaps most
importantly; stole Facebook ( FB ) from Winkelvoss .
Facebook became spammy in 2010 , the amount of bot manipulation is highly under-reported.
Fake accounts are bought and sold in a black market, software is sold that can create fake
accounts by the hundreds, thousands.
Based on the above, we believe the real value of Facebook ( FB ) is about $10 - $20 per share. Let's use the
'toplist' format as promoted by Facebook ( FB ) itself:
So if this trend continues - what should investors do? Sell , that's for starters. Contact
an attorney who knows Securities if you are a shareholder. That's the good news. Finally,
unless you like being tracked in your every move, delete your Facebook ( FB ) account. Because that's the only real
remedy. You can't block Zuck:
Remember one thing, Facebook ( FB ) users - you use FB with your consent. This author
deleted FB years ago, as have millions of others. If you really like the idea of social network
there are hundreds of others. Or set one up yourself for sharing family photos with Grandma.
JomSocial can turn any Joomla site into a
social media site.
The point here is investors that this is the beginning of a crap storm that has been brewing
for years but it didn't metastasize until now.
Facebook is going to zero. If you're long get out now before it drops further. There's
nothing supporting the stock except hopers and hot air.
One last thing, Fake News started on Facebook ( FB ) see articles here ,
here , and
here
. Since the Trump election there has been a backlash on 'Fake News' sites, which Facebook is #1
. It's a platform for Fake News!
News existed before Fakebook and will continue to exist. Facebook is to the internet was the
Laser Disc was to the home movie industry. It's outdated, it's bloated, it's hype - there's
nothing there. Move on, drones. Nothing to see here.
In response to the Facebook data harvesting scandal, Mozilla has launched an
extension for its Firefox Browser
which
helps you segregate your web activity from Facebook's prying eyes by isolating your identity into a separate "container." This makes
it far more difficult for Facebook to track your activity on other websites using third-party cookies.
Upon installation, the extension deletes your Facebook cookies and logs you out of Facebook. The next time you visit the social
media giant, it will open in a special blue browser "container" tab - which you can use to safely log in to Facebook and use it like
you normally would. If you then click on a link that takes you outside of Facebook, it will load outside of the container.
Should you click on any Facebook Share buttons on other browser tabs it will load them within the Facebook container. You should
know that when you're using these buttons information will be sent to Facebook about the website that you shared from .
If you use your Facebook credentials to create an account or log in using your Facebook credentials, it may not work properly
and you may not be able to login. Also, because you're logged into Facebook in the container tab, embedded Facebook comments and
Like buttons in tabs outside the Facebook container tab will not work. This prevents Facebook from associating information about
your activity on websites outside of Facebook to your Facebook identity. So it may look different than what you are used to seeing.
-
Mozilla.org
Think of it as a condom for Facebook.
Mozilla notes that it "does not collect data from your use of the Facebook Container extension," adding "We only know the
number of times the extension is installed or removed."
One Reddit user asks "why not just make every tab an isolated container? "There should be NO REASON for one tab to know or read
what another tab (aka cookies) are doing from another domain," states
/u/Pro2U
Lo and behold, the Mozilla programmer who created the extension popped into the thread and answered the question:
So there you have it - if you don't want Facebook harvesting most of your data and tracking you around the web, strap on the
Firefox extension and go to town.
In Firefox Options - Privacy section you can setup to
delete cookies and clear history at every browser exit.
Same with Internet explorer. Not sure about Chrome.
You can also accept or deny third party cookies.
Ghostery is a must, especially for ZH
C Cleaner is a nice utility for getting rid of excess crap.
What a difference two months makes. Back in January, with jobs aplenty and Americans
spending like drunken sailors (sending their savings rate to the lowest on record), average
hourly earnings suddenly spiked, unleashing the February VIXplosion over concerns that the Fed
is behind the curve and will be forced to hike much more aggressively.
Well, fast forward to today, when all those "green shoots" are either dead or on the verge,
and after today's Personal Income and Spending report, it appears that it is stagflation that
is once looming.
First, core PCE, the Fed's favorite inflation gauge, rose 1.6%YoY in February 2017; the
biggest gain since April 2017. Meanwhile, the PCE deflator rose by 1.8%, coming hotter than
expected, just as the cellular service price collapse falls out of the Y/Y data, sending annual
inflation higher by 0.3%, and is set spook the next set of CPI data. In other words, inflation
is here.
Then there is the US consumer's reaction, and while until just a few months back the US
savings rate was at all time lows, it has since jumped to 3.4%, the highest since August 2017,
as households are no longer spending more than they can afford, a theme we observed at the end
of 2017. This also means that spending is lagging income for 3 consecutive months, as something
appears to have spooked American consumers.
That something may be wages and salaries themselves, because while the BLS' statistical
approximation of average hourly wages is just that, the BEA's personal income actually carries
wages and salaries data for both private and government workers. What it found is that after
peaking in December, wage growth for these two worker groups has declined for 2 consecutive
months, confirming what many have warned, namely that the recent period of benign wage increase
is over, and now the slowdown begins.
Speaking candidly to a Columbia University audience comprised largely of College Republicans
and a few hecklers expecting a debate, Coulter broke down her bitter disappointment with Trump
- recounting one instance in which she and the President engaged in a "profanity-laced shouting
match" in the Oval Office last year over what she felt was his weak follow-through on
immigration promises made during the campaign.
" It kind of breaks my heart, " Coulter acknowledged of her disappointment with the
president, and she recounted a profanity-laced shouting match she had with Trump in the Oval
Office last year over what she saw as his lackluster follow-through on immigration policy. "
He's not giving us what he promised at every single campaign stop ." -
Daily Beast
That said, Coulter still says that Trump was the best house in a bad neighborhood when it
came to voting for the 2016 lineup of candidates.
"I regret nothing. I'd do the exact same thing," said Coulter. "We had 16 lunatics being
chased by men with nets running for president -- and Trump. So of course I had to be
pedal-to-the-metal for Donald Trump. I'd been waiting 30 years for someone to say all these
things " -- i.e., that illegal immigration is hurting low-income American citizens and carries
with it high rates of crime. " I went into this completely clear-eyed ."
"I knew he was a shallow, lazy ignoramus, and I didn't care," said the conservative
pundit.
At one point in the evening, Coulter dispatched a heckler after she blamed income inequality
in California on immigration.
We are bringing in immigrants who are good for the very rich, " she said. "They don't live
in their neighborhoods. They don't fill up their schools or their hospital emergency rooms.
And, oh boy, you should see how clean Juanita gets the bathtub. You can eat off of it after
she's done. "
"You're a racist! " shouted a young man from back.
" No, I'm sorry, the people bringing in Juanita, the maid, and underpaying her, are the
racists, " Coulter fired back. " You are a moron! " she added, to fervent applause. " You're
very stupid. I can't argue with stupid people ."
On Wednesday evening, Coulter joined Fox Business Network 's Lou Dobbs to discuss her
"ignoramus" comment. When Dobbs called her out on it, she said " A switch changed with him ,"
adding "An elegant person would have said the things he was saying. It was precisely that he
was so coarse that allowed him to say these incredibly courageous things. He didn't care what
Manhattan elites thought of him ."
" Now all he wants is for Goldman Sachs to like him ," she continued. "I don't know what
happened. But that's a different president. I haven't changed. He has."
"Affirmation complexes are never attractive and unfortunately I believe there is some truth
to the fact that there are those in the White House who would like to guide him toward this
liberal fantasy that is a nightmare for America and has proved to be such for our middle class
which has been dwindling for the past 20 years," Dobbs said, to Coulter's hearty agreement.
"Under this president, they're starting to grow and money is starting to come in and we're
starting to see housing prices rise."
The crux of Phil Giraldi's call for the investigation of Brennan centers on the intelligence
provided by allied intel services concerning contact between Russian officials and some of
Trump's people. Did the allies share this kind of information as standard practice or did
Brennan somehow induce them to collect and report it? I agree that this question would fall
within the scope of Mueller's investigation. Whether Mueller investigates the provenance of
this allied intelligence is unknown. I hope he has already done so. If Brennan really thought
those contacts between Russian officials and Trump's people posed a potential CI risk, he
would have been derelict if he did not pursue the matter. After all, three Russian
intelligence officers were already convicted of trying to recruit Page who became one of
Trump's people.
Beyond L'Affaire Russe, there is much that needs to be investigated concerning the CIA's
capture-kill MO during the entire GWOT era. Brennan was in the thick of that, but that is not
a subject for Mueller.
I would respectfully disagree. My impression is that the internal dynamic of development
of such a large and well financed intelligence service as CIA is directed toward "liberation"
from any civil control.
And at some point the tail start wagging the dog. At this point we have national security
state and this transition is permanent and can't be reversed.
So at some point CIA became the government, not "an instrument of US government." And Church Committee stated this
explicitly and tried (unsuccessfully) to curb the level of CIA influence on the US society.
Looks like existence of powerful intelligence agencies is incompatible with the idea of
democratic society. At some point the most powerful of them becomes the Big Brother. Welcome to 1984 dystopia or
some variation of it.
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approved by the site owner.
I don't think that "deep state" is a correct term or that "unelected officials" are so
crucial.
What you got here is typical of any country: power elite . This elite is, in most
modern countries, comprised of big money (different sources in different lands), dominant
media & controllers of intellectual discourse through academia, military infrastructure
plus professional politicians, various intelligence agencies etc.
Only, the power elite is not eternally homogeneous & can be engaged in internal
warfare, and sometimes collapse.
One day after
he correctly warned that equities have not yet bottomed - just hours before the Dow Jones
tumbled from up over 200 to down over 400 points at one point as the tech sector imploded -
this morning former Lehman trader and current Bloomberg macro commentator Mark Cudmore issues
another warning, this time about Treasuries, which he thinks may be poised for a sharp spike
higher as yields tumble. He explains why in his latest Macro View column below:
Treasuries Jump May Be the Start of Something Bigger : Macro View
The probability of Treasury 10-year yields collapsing is much higher than most investors
seem to realize. The readjustment in pricing may be just getting started.
It's not going to take too much for serious discussion to begin over the possibility the
Fed's hiking cycle may be at an end, or near an end, already.
This doesn't even need to become the base case for yields to slump, it just needs to
become a plausible- enough outcome for the market to squeeze out the large speculative short
position in Treasuries.
The building blocks for this narrative are already in place. Thursday's PCE inflation data
may provide the required catalyst.
Financial conditions have tightened considerably in the last two months. Libor spreads
have widened significantly -- because of structural issues -- but that still acts as
effective policy tightening.
Trade, politics and commodities are all going to start weighing on the growth outlook .
The slump in equities may soon be significant enough to be a concern for the Fed because of
the impact on consumer sentiment, which has remained a bright spot in U.S. data, and the
wealth effect.
As the manufacturing center for so much that the U.S. consumes, China's PPI has had an
excellent correlation with U.S. CPI in recent years. The former is still trending down after
both measures peaked in February 2017. The March data for both is due April 11. Given how
industrial metals and agricultural prices have slumped this month, there are strong reasons
to expect China PPI to slide again.
The technical break lower in yields was made Tuesday . Fundamentals are supportive of the
move. Positioning is offside and therefore any related corrective adjustment will quickly add
downside momentum to yields.
Tomorrow brings February's PCE data, supposedly one of the Fed's preferred inflation
measures. The consensus forecast is for the core number to climb to 1.6% year-on-year. That
paltry rate of inflation would still be the highest since since March last year.
A miss of just 0.1 of a percentage point and investors will start considering the
possibility that inflation may already have peaked, and hence perhaps so has the Fed's
rate-hiking cycle. That would put the cat amongst the short Treasury pigeons (positions).
"... As Curran points out, people would be outraged if they discovered the government was monitoring them to this extent. But when Google does it? People hardly bat an eye. ..."
"... Need to ditch Microsoft operating system soon also. Something about giving away Windows 10 felt like Microsoft's in bed with government spying. The automatic updates blow. ..."
"... I've done a lot of hardening, and extensive work on the registry, services and task manager for windows 10. I also use "Windows Firewall Control". Nice program. Catches all connection attempts to internet and a log file so you can see what is connecting and what address and port. The program is an interface for the system firewall. Cortana, explorer, all microsoft office applications, error reporting, back ground task host are the busiest trying to connect. Some exe files that I've deleted, show up again, so now I just block the connection for the. ..."
"... Windows 7 has telemetry and also patches that install telemetry during updates. ..."
"... The real problem is with the smartphone. Unless you are going to go flip phone, you are freaking screwed. Those things suck up your whole life, and if you have an android phone, google play services is basically big brothering all your apps. I'd be highly surprised if our phones aren't logging EVERYTHING that is typed into the virtual keyboard. ..."
The Cambridge Analytica scandal was never really about Cambridge Analytica.
As we've pointed out, neither Facebook nor Cambridge Analytica have been accused of doing anything
explicitly illegal (though one could be forgiven for believing they had, based on the number of
lawsuits and official investigations that have been announced).
Instead, the backlash to these revelations - which has been justifiably focused on Facebook - is so
severe because
the public has been forced to confront for the first time something that
many had previously written off as an immutable certainty
:
That Facebook, Google
and the rest of the tech behemoths store reams of personal data, essentially logging everything we do.
In response to demands for more transparency surrounding user data, Facebook and Google are
offering users the option to view all of the metadata that Google and Facebook collect.
And as Twitter user Dylan Curran pointed out in a comprehensive twitter thread examining his own
data cache,
the extent and bulk of the data collected and sorted by both companies is
staggering.
Google, Curran said, collected 5.5 gigabytes of data on him - equivalent to some 3 million
Microsoft Word documents. Facebook, meanwhile, collected only 600 megabytes - equivalent to roughly
400,000 documents.
Another shocking revelation made by Curran: Even after deleting data like search history and
revoking permissions for Google and Facebook applications, Curran still found a comprehensive log of
his documents and other files stored on Google drive, his search history, chat logs and other
sensitive data about his movements that he had expressly deleted.
What's worse, everything shown is the data cache of one individual. Just imagine how much data
these companies hold in total.
... ... ...
Google even saves a log of every log a user has ever viewed or clicked on, every app they've every
opened and every image they've every searched for - and every news article they've ever read.
... ... ...
Curran, who joked that he's "probably on an FBI watchlist" following his twitter thread, explained
that the data he highlighted - while some of it might seem obscure - could have thousands of
potentially compromising applications, including blackmailing a rival or spying on a spouse.
... ... ...
The question now is: Will this transparency actually change user's behavior? Or will Facebook's
hollow promises to change be enough to lull its legions of users back into a passive ignorance. As
Curran points out, people would be outraged if they discovered the government was monitoring them to
this extent. But when Google does it? People hardly bat an eye.
Honestly though, aside from a well deserved arresting of Zuck and dragging him
through the streets for treason, you people using FB have only yourselves to blame
if this privacy-attack thing of Facebook's is a surprise to you. It's like suing a
cigarette company for the holes in your cheeks and throat.
OK, final edit: I should not have said "you people", I should have said "those
people", since most of you ZHers are probably way too smart to have ever been on
FB.
I ain't freaked out because I don't use these voyeuristic platforms. Boycotts
work, folks. Starve the beasts. It's the only effective weapon we have at this
time. Other weapons will come into our hands as our power increases.
Dude discovered the moon.
I would advocate NOT deleting anything from
now on. Just put
fake information
on your accounts.
Just
poison the well
.
Destroy their data
quality
.
Isn't selling advertising their business model?
Don't they collect personal data so they can target market
advertising?
Don't they bury "opt-in consent" deep inside their user agreements
that nobody reads?
Haven't they published their methods which have been known for years?
Why is all this such a surprise?
Oh! I get it now.
All that was perfectly fine until Trump became POTUS.
It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the
formation of public opinion.
- Joseph Goebbels
All right - I'm gonna fess up....I use facebook. I
know we all bash on it, and everybody here claims to
have never used it, but probably half of you are
lying. I have never loaded the facebook ap on my
android, and don't play games. (I also don't post
pictures of my breakfast....I use it for a few very
good groups that share information about hiking and
such, and I post a lot of photos of my hikes, sort of
like in the old days when you'd invite friends over to
show slides).
I downloaded the info zipfile. Yes, it was huge,
yes it had every photo and every comment I've ever
made on facebook, and yes, they even stored all the
messages I send and receive through facebook. But
so what, I wasn't surprised by that.... No, they did
not have records of my phone calls or
phone-text-messages, or any other information that I
hadn't given them. So - if you are judicious in what
you share, and expect that everything you put on line
is fully public (in spite of promises), you are likely
ok.
Edit:
Wow - even split on up/down votes. I didn't think
I actually said anything controversial, not sure what
the downvotes are for....
I'll add a bit more. In my opinion, facebook is
like a fairly boring 24/7 cocktail party. Everybody
is jabbering and only half-aware, and it goes on far
too long. The best thing to do in a cocktail party
is to find somebody who i've been wanting to talk to
anyhow, and sit and talk with them. Facebook can
serve the same purpose. ALSO - I avoid all the
political ranting on facebook....I find it to be
inappropriate...leave that for...er...zerohedge. My
daddy taught me long ago that you don't discuss
religion or politics at a cocktail party, and he was
right, so I don't discuss either on facebook.
You forgot to mention Apple. Pretty sure they
are doing the same. FB has info on everyone
unless you have never communicated with a FB
user. Same with Google.
Why the fuck
anybody
is on
Facebook is beyond me.
I value my
privacy, which is why I use an avatar and
phony name for my relatively small online
footprint. Most people don't do that.
They seem to want to spill their guts to any
and all, as if that gives their life meaning.
Idiotic.
All this such a surprise? NO.
Shouldn't be. It's part of their
business model and has been since
inception. It's been staring
everyone in the face all along.
Most of the sheeple have played
right into it. I can remember when a
typical American's attitude toward
attempts to get even the most benign
personal info was "none of your damn
business." Now everyone shares all
of their private lives in massive
public view, hoping for a "hit" of
attention to satisfy cravings
brought on by their Social
Validation Addiction.
zactly - same goes for the rest of
the social media top dogs which are
really just shadow guv front
companies. That is how they got to
be top dogs - playin ball with da
man.
Da Man: "You job is to be
our front man and we'll fund you
until we bust our all the legit
competition. Then we'll tell our 98%
owned media to endlessly tout you as
a genius. "
Da bitches : "Der...Ok"
Proof? All those "titans" of
industry that magically survived
years of burning cash somehow
managed to avoid "the hidden hand of
the market." Now the fuckers stand
atop the "capitalist" system and
lecture us about how to run a
company. Yeah right. Fuckem.
It can help people though. For example,
when my friends go through the passing of
a loved one, human or pet, the feedback
can help ease the pain, and I have seen
that numerous times in the last 8 years.
Since 2010 I have had 6 pets pass away,
and "spilling my guts" and getting
feedback did help ease the pain. So there
are positive aspects to it also. And like
with most things in life, moderate usage
is best.
Used the wife"s account a couple of times for the
marketplace part of it. As for anything else, NO I
don't have an account, nor plan on every making
one.
Google, that's a different story. Used it
quite extensively, although I'm starting to move
away from it slowly.
As far as search engines, google is king.
DuckDuckGo.com is my alternative with Firefox as
the browser.
Need to ditch Microsoft operating system soon
also. Something about giving away Windows 10 felt
like Microsoft's in bed with government spying. The
automatic updates blow.
I've done a lot of hardening, and extensive work
on the registry, services and task manager for
windows 10. I also use "Windows Firewall
Control". Nice program. Catches all connection
attempts to internet and a log file so you can
see what is connecting and what address and
port. The program is an interface for the system
firewall. Cortana, explorer, all microsoft
office applications, error reporting, back
ground task host are the busiest trying to
connect. Some exe files that I've deleted, show
up again, so now I just block the connection for
the.
Windows 7 has telemetry and also patches
that install telemetry during updates.
Got Google Chrome? Get rid of it. FireFox is
better and Tor Browser even better.
I second your comments. I've never used
Facebook, but Google has invaded everything. I'm
working on getting de-googled, particularly
after their recent youtube BS, but that is a
tough.
In some cases the alternatives are good. Protonmail is excellent and affordable. Signal
is a great messenger app.
Opera with scriptsafe
and ghostery works well. On a home PC you can
use install a good linux distro in a virtual PC
and browse through a VPN (Torguard takes crypto
as does Primary Internet Access). But I'm still
using gdrive (gestapo drive as I like to call
all google stuff) because alternatives aren't as
good and probably have the same privacy issues.
The real problem is with the smartphone.
Unless you are going to go flip phone, you are
freaking screwed. Those things suck up your
whole life, and if you have an android phone,
google play services is basically big brothering
all your apps. I'd be highly surprised if our
phones aren't logging EVERYTHING that is typed
into the virtual keyboard.
A co-worker went on vacation and I showed him
a site where he could see his trail in DC,
places he went. He acknowledged that is
exactly the places he visited. Red lines on a
map with his travels.Too funny.
Take my advice and delete ghostery. It is
compromised. And Adblock Plus is too memory
intensive. Get uBlock instead and adguard and
customize the filters. Much more lightweight
and gets the job done.
pretty much.
i used it, and I'm OK with the risk
of this. it's a free website that needs to make
money.
use it at your own risk. (e.g. have never used
my real name associated with any of those accounts;
I never use them to instant message; I have a rule
that I never ever use an 'app within an app' if an
app interests me I'll download the direct .exe for
a different laptop or device (that doesn't have any
Google or FB account on it). other small things,
that -- sure i'm sure they probably suspect my name
and track some info -- but it's mostly pointless
shit. especially no app or chat histories tho.
the real idiots are the people mad about this.
not Zuck. of course Zuck is gonna Zuck or Google is
gonna Google.
p.s. the fact that Twitter thread is 'news'
(despite being known for years) shows just how
blind and stupid people are.
p.s.s. and to be fair there are some benefits to
some of those features. the geo-location stuff can
be nefarious, but it also makes searching for local
businesses a lot easier, and provides security
(e.g. it's helpful that Google knows you always
log-in from a certain State cuz then it can block a
log-in attempt from Nigeria). again. not saying
it's WORTH IT (Don't like it, don't use it) but
there is a practical reason for it too.
You are ignoring the venality of the sorts of
people who will attempt to exploit this information
(governments, insurers, real estate agents, HR
fucktards - the whole shebang of parasites and
ticket-clippers... who are almost entirely made up
of C-students).
And you're ignoring Richelieu's
maxim:
Give me six lines written by the most honest
man: in them, I will find something with which
to hang him
I still have my flip phone so I can't received
texts, can't google to find anything & have to call
411 to get a number.
I too have Facebook but its
on an old windows 7 computer that I also go to just
for a group, similar to you but I've never posted a
personal picture. Even my kittykat that I had at
one time as my icon is one that I've got from
bing.com images. Its close enough.
As for Google? They're a search engine. They
have your IP address. Of course they're going to
keep track of everything you do from that IP
address/phone number if you use it. And before
bing.com outsourced their search to Google they
were a Microsoft search engine. Guess they got
lazy. When they did so I went to DuckDuckGo and
Yahoo. I know you can't do that on the android
phone because its almost hardwired in for Google so
the only advice I can give is go back to the flip
phone if you want any privacy because sadly....
Google will go out of business selling your
information before it never sells your information
& then the government will come in and declare
Google too big to fail with all that info & sweep
it into the NSA late one Friday night while
everyone is watching a version of Stormy & her 2
sisters
Some of you don't get it. If you communicated with a
Facebook or Google user, they got all your
communications as well.
And they probably have
Hillary's deleted emails.
And if you have a Smart TV, they can watch and
listen to you and your kids.
No.
If you communicate with a Facebook user, then FB
has your
email address or your phone number
.
That's not "all your communications". Not your
contacts, not your other email addresses, not your
other phone numbers.
Don't get me wrong: that's more than I want them
to have, but it ain't much in the grand scheme of
things.
You forgot to mention that they have the text of
your communications. I never said they had
everything if you did not have an account. I
don't have Facebook, but family members and
family do. They have posted photos and I have
communicated via text, email and phone. They
have those text messages and emails, and any
photos I texted and emailed, even though I never
clicked a little box to consent to their
terms.
just did some digging here myself. What I found:
minimally 8 Gb of data of all sorts. As a footnote:
I don't have/use: android phone, smart tv,
whatsapp/other messenger, almost always use
hooktube instead of youtube, VPN, mostly protonmail
(especially for personal info), no 'social' media
hardly ever login via 'social/google account (hand
full of exceptions).
I was a bit surprised they had this much (and
kept that much (even though have been a long time
skeptic of them)).
tmosley - I'm gonna guess "deletion" doesn't really get rid
of the data. Should have asked for it to be wiped with a
cloth. Posting all the stuff facebook collected about
one's self on twitter - did he do that just to be sure
everyone everywhere had seen his laundry.
In 1994, Wired magazine ran a short story entitled "Hack the spew" . This was back when Wired was
actually cutting edge and not the insufferable Silicon
Valley stroke job it became after Conde Naste acquired it. In it our antihero "Stark" finds
himself inexplicably recruited as a kind of data scout, looking for viable consumer trends
emerging from the fully immersive, all encompassing data field known as "The Spew".
"When a schmo buys something on the I-way it goes into his Profile, and if it happens to
be something that he recently saw advertised there, we call that interesting, and when he
uses the I-way to phone his friends and family, we Profile Auditors can navigate his social
web out to a gazillion fractal iterations, the friends of his friends of his friends of his
friends, what they buy and what they watch and if there's a correlation."
The Spew of course, was the near future analogy of where the internet was headed, and when I
went looking to link to it for this post, the piece turned out to be written by none other than
Neal Stephenson. That means I read "Hack The Spew" and it made an impression on me before I
even knew who Stephenson was or perhaps was on his way to becoming. Few would argue that
Stephenson has a gift for seeing the general ambience of our oncoming future. Cryptonomicon uncannily anticipated the impetus
toward crypto-currencies; the current systemic dysfunction of national sovereignty worldwide
was foretold in Snow Crash; so it follows
that all this will likely culminate in something that resembles The Diamond Age .
Today, "The Spew" is not equivalent to the Internet itself, but it is more accurately
analogous to say the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, especially when combined
with the twin monopolies of Google and Amazon, collectively are: The Spew.
It is like a global garbage pile of digital flotsam and jetsam, over which peasants scurry
around and scour, looking for some morsel here, a crumb there, which can be monetized. If a
trend or a trait is detected, even better. Those can be aggregated, syndicated, federated, even
rehypothecated and at scale that can yield staggering financial payoffs and perhaps, even steer
the course the history.
At least that's the narrative since the Cambridge Analytica scandal blew up in Facebook's
face. After a long string of successive privacy fails (a.k.a a pattern of abuse?) this time
feels different, as if the chickens are finally coming home to roost for
Facebook.
Cambridge Analytica is not uniqueEver heard of Kareem Serageldin?
Probably not.
To date, he is the only banker to
have been sent to prison in connection with the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis for
his role in issuing fraudulent mortgage-backed securities (at least outside of
Iceland ). To be sure, he was a fall guy, a token sacrifice to demonstrate contrition for
what was a systemic, institutionalized effort to inflate a bubble whose implosion nearly
crashed the entire global financial system.
In this case while Facebook attempted to throw water on this crisis by ceremonially
banishing Cambridge Analytica from its system, the longstanding pattern of abuse remains, and
is perhaps now, finally, awareness of that is reaching critical mass with the public:
And while there were
key differences in the way data was used , (not to mention more informed consent) the
2012 Obama re-election campaign used the same data mining features and accessed the same data
as the Cambridge Analytica app
In fact it may be veritably baked into their ecosystem to such a degree that it is almost
impossible to develop and create an app on Facebook
that doesn't harvest your data
"At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new
stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure
users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and usually
reintroduce similar features at a later date when people seem more ready for it."
It becomes clear, as Futurist (and easyDNS member) Jesse Hirsh made this point on
Steve Pakin's "The Agenda" over the weekend: "Facebook ships with all privacy enhanced
settings disabled" -- further, my personal findings are that they use obfuscation
to make it harder to disable data sharing settings. You have to jump through hoops to do
it.
WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, who became a billionaire when Facebook bought his company
hasn't let that dissuade him from telling the world what he thinks of all this:
Should you? Should easyDNS? Here's my take on it:
If you are a business: keep your
page but don't be reliant on it
There is a difference between a business who uses Facebook as an antennae to provide
additional ways to stay in touch with customers and those whose business model is completely
dependent on Facebook. We started our Facebook page when we were pulled into the
Wikileaks Crisis as a way to stay in touch with our customers while that entire fiasco
played out. We maintain it today for the same reason, and people do frequently contact us
through that page looking for support.
You have to credit the guy with dominating his niche but I couldn't help wondering what
would happen to his business if something substantial changed at Facebook, or if some of his
readers would feel "used" if they understood some of the myriad tactics some of these sites
routinely use, via Facebook, to drive their own affiliate revenues.
It brings to mind 2 things:
My late friend and one of the original easyDNS customers Atul Chitnis who was among the first to
observe "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product"
My own maxim, which I introduced in the
Guerrilla Capitalism Overview that there are two kinds of companies, those that feed on
customer ignorance compared to those who prosper via customer savvy . I think it is obvious
to all, at least now, that Facebook needs customer ignorance to survive.
(Or as Zuck eloquently observed it back in his dormroom days)
YMMV on your personal
pages
I read a long time ago "don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want to read in
the newspapers the next day", and that has served me well as a guide over the years.
My basic assumption is that everything I post to Facebook, including "private" messages are
wide open, being harvested, data mined, aggregated, used to target and retarget ads to me,
build a profile and otherwise compile a comprehensive dossier, even stuff I've "deleted". (If
you've ever watched "Terms and Conditions May
Apply" you'll know that Facebook actually keeps the stuff you "delete").
So I never say anything on Facebook or put anything on there that is remotely confidential
or proprietary. It's strictly a water cooler. I like it because it enabled me to reconnect with
various groups of my friends and peers over the years, from the kids I grew up and went to high
school with in Galt, Ontario to the misfits from the London underground music scene in college,
to the tech entrepreneurs from the mid-90's on.
Would I use it to send anything to anybody that I found myself hoping that it's never going
to leak or be used against me? Uh, no. That would be terribly naive.
So to that end, I'll probably keep my personal Facebook page, even though I sometimes catch
myself spending too much time arguing stupid pointless crap (like politics) with people I'd
otherwise never associate with. But that's a self-discipline issue, not a data soveriengty
issue (although it is
now also common knowledg e that Facebook deliberately codes the platform itself to be as
addictive as possible)
All that said
At least #deleteFacebook from your mobile devices
Facebook harvests your contact lists from your mobile devices (don't believe me, go here )
There are people in that list that I do not know. There are phone numbers from people who work
for my competitors in there. My daughter's (age 11) cell phone number is in there.
You can "delete" all this here : (but as you know Facebook never
actually deletes anything).
Then when you go to "delete" all your contacts you get a message
"We won't be able to tell you when your friends start using Messenger if you delete all
your uploaded contact info."
They say that like it's a bad thing. But there is also this curious sentence:
"If you have Continuous Uploading turned on in the Messenger app, your contact info will
be uploaded again the next time the app syncs with Facebook servers."
I had deleted the Facebook mobile app from my phone a long time ago. I kept messenger
installed because sometimes customers would contact easyDNS or Zoneedit via our Facebook pages
for support.
But Writing this I wanted to turn off "continuous uploading" in the app. Despite this Facebook help article
not explaining how to do it, while this third party
article from 2016 did.
It turned out I had already disabled continuous uploading but I was surprised to find that
the messenger app had defaulted permission to access my phone's microphone.
After this exercise I simply deleted the Messenger app from my phone as well.
Personal
Data Sovereignty is an idea who's time has come
I think it would be safe to assume, that barring some widespread public pushback (such as
the one happening right now), this is The New Normal.
People who may have been complacently oblivious to the fact that their social network was
pimping them as mere data points are realizing that they don't like it as they have their faces
rubbed in one data breach and privacy violation after another.
Given the outrages of Equifax, Facebook et al, we may have arrived at the crossroads and we
may only get this choice once.
Do we push back and say "NO", I own my own data, I control who gets it and what happens with
it. ?
Or, do we calm down after a few days, or weeks and then it's business as usual. Next year
Zuck will apologize for some other new breach of trust ahead of his 2020 presidential bid,
while us "shmoes" go ahead and vote for him.
Doesn't the entity we fear most already have access to all our data? Who is it that we
think we are hiding anything from? Just don't be stupid and put any new sensitive info out
there, anywhere, if you don't have to... but worrying about the info the the govt already has
on you? What would be the point?
res ipsa loquitur although as one wag said, this news tidbit does seem to disprove the claim that young people aren't
risk takers. But it may establish that they are innumerate or more specifically, bad at statistics.
One of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's
recommendations about investing boils down to "Be paranoid" and "Don't be greedy" and leveraged cryptocurrency speculation is the
opposite of that.
This sort of thing does not help the image of student borrowers, although it does strengthen the case for regulating cryptocurrencies
far more strictly. Given the decline in the status of cab drivers, who historically have been indicators of market peaks (when cab
drivers talk about their stocks, it's usually sign of a bubble), this finding may also be a proof of Peak Cryptocurrency.
According to a study by The Student Loan Report, over one-fifth of current university students with student loan debt indicated
that they used their student loan money to invest in digital currency such as bitcoin.
The student loan news and information website found that 21.2% of the 1,000 students they surveyed indicated that they used
their borrowed cash to gamble on the highly volatile digital currency market. While school administrators may look down upon the
practice of using borrowed funds for non-school expenses, Student Loan Report indicates that there are currently no rules against
it. College students are able to use loans for "living expenses," a flexible category that covers a wide range of potential necessities.
Given that 70% of retail investors in futures lose money, there's not a strong reason for thinking that latecomers to the cryptocurrency
party would be stellar traders. I wonder how many students who lose so much money on bad cryptocurrency wagers that it undermines
their ability to finish their course of study (presumably they really did need at least some of that "living expense" money for bona
fide living expenses) will be willing to 'fess up to that fact.
I guess that means that almost 4/5ths of students did NOT use "loan" proceeds (which are part of the whole Casino enterprise,
after all) to gamble invest "expose themselves to market risk" by moving those bits representing "money" into
the block chain spurt
And I also guess that means that the Puritans among us, and the mopes who want to make sure everyone else gets as screwed by
"the system" as they have been by so diligently paying off those student loans/debt millstones, will now have a new line of argument
about why the Banksters and the scum among the legislators and "loan servicers" and kickback-collecting higher-education administrators
should be fully armed to go after mope students and graduates-without-portfolios-but-with-lots-of-"credentials" and their parents
and other "guarantors" to extract that last full measure of blood from the turnipheads who signed on the dotted line without much
of a clue that the "contract" was drafted by some Shylock named "Mephistopheles "
Say it loud, say it clear -- "#juststoppaying. No other way to end the game, is there? And yes, there will be blood, economically
speaking, in the Street
But think how it helped stimulate the economy. Except that unlike other Fed Gov spending, the Fed Gov wants this money back.
D'oh! And as we know, it's very difficult to discharge student loans through bankruptcy (which at least gives the economy more
slack for other debt to be paid off).
So ultimately it doesn't stimulate the economy. It just feeds various maws: the education industry and its bubble, the corporations
and their inflated requirements for hiring for jobs. Edit: And the cryptocurrency bubble who knew? While subtracting from other
maws: housing starts, family starts, etc.
I doubt you could find 20% of college students who even know where to buy crypto. Maybe, maybe you could find
20% who are more aware than "heard about it on the news".
res ipsa loquitur although as one wag said, this news tidbit does seem to disprove the claim that young people aren't
risk takers. But it may establish that they are innumerate or more specifically, bad at statistics.
One of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's
recommendations about investing boils down to "Be paranoid" and "Don't be greedy" and leveraged cryptocurrency speculation is the
opposite of that.
This sort of thing does not help the image of student borrowers, although it does strengthen the case for regulating cryptocurrencies
far more strictly. Given the decline in the status of cab drivers, who historically have been indicators of market peaks (when cab
drivers talk about their stocks, it's usually sign of a bubble), this finding may also be a proof of Peak Cryptocurrency.
According to a study by The Student Loan Report, over one-fifth of current university students with student loan debt indicated
that they used their student loan money to invest in digital currency such as bitcoin.
The student loan news and information website found that 21.2% of the 1,000 students they surveyed indicated that they used
their borrowed cash to gamble on the highly volatile digital currency market. While school administrators may look down upon the
practice of using borrowed funds for non-school expenses, Student Loan Report indicates that there are currently no rules against
it. College students are able to use loans for "living expenses," a flexible category that covers a wide range of potential necessities.
Given that 70% of retail investors in futures lose money, there's not a strong reason for thinking that latecomers to the cryptocurrency
party would be stellar traders. I wonder how many students who lose so much money on bad cryptocurrency wagers that it undermines
their ability to finish their course of study (presumably they really did need at least some of that "living expense" money for bona
fide living expenses) will be willing to 'fess up to that fact.
I guess that means that almost 4/5ths of students did NOT use "loan" proceeds (which are part of the whole Casino enterprise,
after all) to gamble invest "expose themselves to market risk" by moving those bits representing "money" into
the block chain spurt
And I also guess that means that the Puritans among us, and the mopes who want to make sure everyone else gets as screwed by
"the system" as they have been by so diligently paying off those student loans/debt millstones, will now have a new line of argument
about why the Banksters and the scum among the legislators and "loan servicers" and kickback-collecting higher-education administrators
should be fully armed to go after mope students and graduates-without-portfolios-but-with-lots-of-"credentials" and their parents
and other "guarantors" to extract that last full measure of blood from the turnipheads who signed on the dotted line without much
of a clue that the "contract" was drafted by some Shylock named "Mephistopheles "
Say it loud, say it clear -- "#juststoppaying. No other way to end the game, is there? And yes, there will be blood, economically
speaking, in the Street
But think how it helped stimulate the economy. Except that unlike other Fed Gov spending, the Fed Gov wants this money back.
D'oh! And as we know, it's very difficult to discharge student loans through bankruptcy (which at least gives the economy more
slack for other debt to be paid off).
So ultimately it doesn't stimulate the economy. It just feeds various maws: the education industry and its bubble, the corporations
and their inflated requirements for hiring for jobs. Edit: And the cryptocurrency bubble who knew? While subtracting from other
maws: housing starts, family starts, etc.
I doubt you could find 20% of college students who even know where to buy crypto. Maybe, maybe you could find
20% who are more aware than "heard about it on the news".
I am flattened that view me as an expert on those topics but I do not know much about either
CIA or Russia. IMHO right now the situation looks like a prewar situation. So all bets are
off.
Also it is not clear how CIA can stop its covert operations. A leopard can't change its
spots.
Russia still is weakened by economic rape of 1991-2000 and by neoliberalism. So this is a
country with pretty low standard of living and mass of internal problems. In many respects it
is still a third world country (and under Yeltsin it was a vassal of the USA, with all
negative consequences of such a position.)
Also I think the level of penetration of CIA into Russia intelligence services after
Yeltsin years remains very high (look at Skripal case; he essentially sold the whole Russian
intelligence network for $100K ).
Being a weaker party Russia will probably thread very carefully in the current situation
and try to avoid any moves that increase the level of confrontation. That includes covert
operations. False flag operation with Skripal poisoning, which run so smoothly and became so
damaging for Russia tells them a lot about what dangerous, treacherous and ruthless enemy
they face (and this is not only Perfidious Albion in this particular case.)
They need time to recover from the economic rape of 1991-2000, say, another ten to twenty
years. So it is not in their interests to rock the boat.
With his political power secure, Putin can turn his attention to rebuilding Russia as a
great power. The lesson that Putin and the Kremlin elite have drawn from the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the chaos of the 1990s when Moscow was weak is that Russia must be
strong. "[Putin] is saying Russia needs to be strong," Beebe said. "If I were to boil this
down to one sentence, it would be 'the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what
they must.'"
The problem for Russia, Beebe said, is that there is tension between its various goals.
To have a strong economy, the Kremlin must relax its grip on society, which weakens the
power of the state, Beebe said. But a strong military requires a strong economy, which
means that Russia will have to make those reforms. And a strong military is a part of
Russia's self-image as a great power. "That's a balancing that he's going to have to
perform and there is no easy way of doing that," Beebe said.
Given Russia's circumstances, those competing factors are pushing Putin towards a more
nationalistic stance that emphasizes military power, Beebe said. That in turn is driving
Russia to be more confrontational. Thus, in Kofman's view, if there is some sort of crisis
that develops where Washington and Moscow are facing off against each other, the Russians
are not willing to meekly stand aside and defer to the United States. While Russia was weak
in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, those days are long gone.
Today's Russia, with its modernized military, is far more confident than it was during the
1990s and is willing and eager to push back against the United States.
So there is a kind of Melian Dialogue ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dialogue
'the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.') between the USA and
Russia right now and Russia's position is not that strong. West already squeezed them and
this process started in full force around 2012, not now:
"I don't think many of us would question that we do face a new Cold War," Dimitri Simes,
Center for the National Interest president and chief executive officer, said during a
lunchtime panel on March 26. "Now a new Cold War might be different in many respects than
the old one. First of all, a very different balance of forces. Second, the absence of an
attractive international ideology on the Russian side. Third, obviously, Russia is much
more exposed to the West than during the original Cold War, but also, fewer rules and, I
think, perhaps more emotions on both sides and increasingly hostile emotions on both
sides."
The Possibility of a Conflict
Simes, who recently returned from a trip to Russia, said that while the Kremlin is held
in low regard by Washington, those feeling are mirrored in Moscow. Indeed, tensions between
the two nuclear-armed great powers are so high that analysts are openly wondering if there
could be some sort of military confrontation between Washington and Moscow. Asked by Simes
to grade the likelihood of any sort of potential military clash (though not necessarily
nuclear) in Syria or elsewhere on a scale of one to ten -- where ten would mean that a
conflict was all but certain -- a panel of experts on Russia concluded that there is a
serious possibility of a military confrontation between Washington and Moscow.
"I'll go with a six," George Beebe, director of intelligence and national security
studies at the Center for the National Interest, told a lunchtime audience.
The key here is "the absence of an attractive international ideology on the Russian side."
So while the crisis of neoliberalism hit the USA (and led to election of Trump, which Brennan
faction of CIA is trying to depose), it simultaneously, but in a different way, weakened
Russia too.
That's why Putin's attempt to play a weaker hand as equal might not succeed in a long
run.
I have known both Brennan and Giraldi for a long time. They are examples of the worst
(Brennan) and the best (Giraldi) that the CIA has produced although I will remind that Giraldi
started in the Army and was lured to Langley when already a well known and respected person in
the intelligence community.
Brennan, at the beginning of his career was judged by CIA to be unsuited to be a field man
and was made an analyst. I first knew him when I was Defense Attache in Jiddah and he was
attached to Alan Fiers office. It was clear to me from the beginning that he was someone whom
you should not trust or turn your back on.
Giraldi here lays out the case for Brennan's turpitude. Let Sessions act on this! Let him
act! pl
1. That will undermines further the US political system (which already is weakened by
this slash and burn anti-Trump campaign, or color revolution, if you wish) and might open a
can of worms. For example, Brennan was a really big player in Obama administration and
probably was behind Nulandgate (UNZ comment):
JR says:
March 27, 2018 at 6:24 am GMT
Within a week after Brennan's 'routine' visit in April 2014 to the Ukraine the Ukrainian
army launched a civil war. That was within 2 weeks of the CIA instigated coup an the end
of February 2014.
2. Who might be able to do it ? Definitely not Trump Justice Department. They appointed
Mueller to investigate Trump. Which is an action in the opposite direction.
3. Brennan probably is the key person behind Russiagate and color revolution against
Trump that still is running unabated. And that means that he has influential friends in
high places. Including UK (the origin of Steele dossier, in which he was probably
personally involved too ). Attacking Brennan might be viewed as an attack of this trusted
ally. UNZ has several insightful comments on the topic. As Art said:
Art says:
March 27, 2018 at 8:38 pm GMT • 200 Words
How Brennan came to power, should draw questions. Was the dethroning of Gen. David
Petraeus, as CIA chief, a palace coup? Was Brennan spying on Petraeus? Was the NSA
tapping his phones? Did the idea that a military man was heading the CIA, anathema to the
institution – so they got rid of him?
Just how much actual power does the CIA have in the American permanent Deep State?
Congress is NO check on the CIA – all the politicians on the intel security
committees are handpicked dedicated worshipers.
The CIA is the most anti democracy organization on the planet. From its beginning, it
has played with, subverted, and toppled democracies and sovereign governments. Today it
assonates, tortures, and bombs people around the world. (Has Trump given them a free
hand?)
The commie cold war is over – let's not start another one. The CIA's covert
activities must stop.
(Spying is rational.)
4. After a short initial period intelligence agencies become untouchable and the tail
start wagging the dog (from the Art comment above): "Congress is NO check on the CIA
– all the politicians on the intel security committees are handpicked dedicated
worshipers. " Here we return to q.2 "Who might be able to do it ? " and we know the
answer.
Humans are primates. Thus, they are stupid, ignorant, malicious and fearful - mostly the
latter. Pretty much explains everything in human history.
I subscribe to the concept of survival at any cost. But in a rational society that would
entail being aware of the long-term consequences. This, however, is not a rational
society.
Off topic - or maybe not given the topic of human heartlessness - here we have John
Bolton:
Apparently he told the M.E.K. cult that the US would end Iran's leadership before the 40
year anniversary which is February 11, 2019.
That of course is absurd unless somehow the US manages to decapitate the Iranian
leadership with an airstrike or nuclear attack. What actually will happen if the US attacks
Iran is that Iran will fight for the next several decades until the US backs off. There is no
chance short of nuclear bombardment for the US to "defeat" Iran. The US couldn't even
"defeat" Iraq in less than five years and hasn't defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 17
years. Iran will be a far harder nut to crack than either of those.
There are a few ways to interpret those numbers. First, it seems like two years has
resulted in staggeringly little progress in encouraging storefronts to shift from magnetic
stripe to chip-embedded cards, given that in early 2016, 37 percent of US storefronts were able
to process chip cards. On the other hand, fraud dropping 70 percent for retailers who install
chip cards seems great. Chip-embedded cards aren't un-hackable, but they do make it harder to
steal card numbers en masse as we saw in the Target's 2013 breach.
I agree with Stephen Lendman (below) that the Russian government's efforts to deal with the
West on the basis of evidence and law are futile. There is only one Western foreign policy and
it is Washington's. Washington's "diplomacy" consists only of lies and force. It was a
reasonable decision for Russia to attempt diplomatic engagement with the West on the basis of
facts, evidence, and law, but it has been to no avail. For Russia to continue on this failed
course is risky, not only to Russia but to the entire world.
Indeed, nothing is more dangerous to the world than Russia's self-delusion about "Western
partners." Russia only has Western enemies. These enemies intend to remove the constraint that
Russia (and China) place on Washington's unilateralism. The various incidents staged by the
West, such as the Skirpal poisoning, Syrian use of chemical weapons, Malaysian airliner, and
false charges, such as Russian invasion of Ukraine, are part of the West's determined intent to
isolate Russia, deny her any influence, and prepare the insouciant Western populations for
conflict with Russia.
To avoid war Russia should turn her back, but not her eyes, on the West, stop responding to
false charges, evict all Western embassies and every other kind of presence including Western
investment, and focus on relations with China and the East. Russia's attempt to pursue mutual
interests with the West only results in more orchestrated incidents. The Russian government's
failure to complete the liberation of Syria has given Washington Syrian territory from which to
renew the conflict.
The failure to accept Luhansk and Donetsk into Russia has provided Washington with the
opportunity to arm and train the Ukrainian army and renew the assault on the Russian
populations of Ukraine. Washington has gained many proxies for its wars against Russia and
intends to use them to wear down Russia. Israel has demanded that Washington renew the attacks
on Iran, and Trump is complying. Russia faces simultaneous attacks on Syria, Iran, and the
Donatsk and Luhansk Republics, along with troubles in former Central Asian republics of the
Soviet Union and intensified accusations from Washington and NATO.
The crazed neoconservatives, such as Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton, think
that Russia will buckle under the strains, sue for peace, and accept US hegemony. If this
assumption is incorrect, the outcome of Washington's hostile actions against Russia is likely
to be nuclear war. The side that Stephen Lendman and I are talking is neither the side of
Washington nor Russia, but the side of humanity and all life against nuclear war.
How the Russian government could ignore the clearly stated US hegemony in the 1992 Wolfowitz
Doctrine is a mystery.
The Wolfowitz doctrine states that the US's primary goal is "to prevent the re-emergence of
a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a
threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union." The doctrine stresses that
"this is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires
that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would,
under consolidated control, be sufficient to general global power." In the Middle East and
Southwest Asia, Washington's "overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in
the region and preserve US and Western access to the region's oil." The doctrine also states
that the US will act to restrain India's alleged "hegemonic aspirations" in South Asia, and
warns of potential conflicts requiring military intervention with Cuba and China.
By "threat" Wolfowitz does not mean a military threat. By "threat" he means a multi-polar
world that constrains Washington's unilateralism. The doctrine states that the US will permit
no alternative to US unilateralism. The doctrine is a statement that Washington intends
hegemony over the entire world. There has been no repudiation of this doctrine. Indeed, we see
its implementation in the long list of false accusations and demonizations of Russia and her
leader and in the false charges against Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen,
Venezuela, China, Iran, and North Korea .
If Russia wants to be part of the West, Russia should realize that the price is the same
loss of sovereignty that characterizes Washington's European vassal states.
Pompeo at State and Bolton as Trump's national security advisor completed the neocon
takeover of Trump's geopolitical agenda. Wall Street is running domestic affairs.
The combination represents a major setback for world peace and stability. Greater aggression
is likely, along with the triumph of neoliberal harshness over social justice, presenting a
dismal and frightening state of affairs.
What to expect ahead? War in Syria is more likely to escalate than wind down, an unthinkable
US/Russia confrontation ominously possible.
The Iran nuclear deal is either doomed, or likely to be gutted by Washington, accomplishing
the same thing -- with only tepid, ineffective opposition from P5+1 countries Britain, France
and Germany.
The EU most often bends to Washington's will when enough pressure is applied.
A relatively quiet Ukraine period could explode in greater Kiev war on Donbass, US-supplied
heavy weapons and training aiding the aggression.
A Kim Jong-un/Trump summit is likely to fail to step back from the brink on the Korean
peninsula, falsely blaming the DPRK for hostile US actions.
It'll prove again Washington can never be trusted, its commitments are consistently breached
when conflicting with its imperial objectives.
A possible trade war with China would be hugely destabilizing, along with being economically
harmful to both countries and the global economy.
Further EU/US sanctions and other harsh measures are likely to be imposed on Russia over the
Skripal affair, an escalated attempt to isolate the country and inflict economic harm --
despite Western nations knowing Moscow had nothing to do with what happened.
Theresa May-led Tories are considering tough actions against Russia over the incident. So
are other EU countries and Washington.
On Friday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Trump administration is
considering a range of options against Moscow over the Skripal affair -- "both to demonstrate
our solidarity with our ally and to hold Russia accountable for its clear breach of
international norms and agreements."
No breach occurred. Neocons running US foreign policy don't let facts and rule of law
principles compromise their imperial objectives.
Theresa May provided Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron with cooked results of Britain's
investigation so far into the Skripal affair -- "convincing" them the false accusations are
"well-grounded," despite knowing UK claims are pure rubbish.
Macron issued a deplorable statement, saying "there is no plausible explanation" for what
happened to the Skripals other than Kremlin responsibility -- abdicating to US/UK-led
Russophobic hostility.
On the world stage, Trump is hostage to neocon dark forces controlling him. Relations with
Russia, China, and other sovereign independent nations are likely to worsen, not improve.
Unthinkable nuclear war remains an ominous possibility. Russia's only option is building on
its alliance with China and other allies, staying committed to respond firmly to US-led Western
harshness against its sovereignty.
Virtually no possibility for improved Russian relations with Washington and Britain exists.
It's fruitless pursuing it.
German and other European dependence on Russian energy, mainly gas, offers only slim hope
for improving things with these countries.
Looking ahead, prospects for world peace and stability are dismal. US-led Western hostility
toward Russia could erupt in open conflict by accident or design.
The unthinkable could become reality. Preparedness should be Moscow's top priority given the
real danger it faces.
"... What matters is the referenced "aide memoire" which the Russian MFA produced for distribution to the ambassadors for conveyance to their capitals. That document is here: Official Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the "Skripal Case" http://thesaker.is/official-statement-of-the-russian-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-on-the-skripal-case/ ..."
"... The document raises a number of questions about the case which the British appear to be avoiding answering and also points out that there is a procedure under the Convention For The Prohibition of Chemical Weapons" which Russia alleges the British are not following. ..."
"... Mercouris believes the intent of Britain was to get a UNSC Resolution blaming Russia (which Russia would veto) and then getting NATO to impose wide-ranging sanctions against Russia under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty and that this isn't going to happen. ..."
"... It's important to note that the language Theresa May has been using blames Russia for a "chemical attack on Britain" which is an act of war and can be used to invoke NATO Article 5. ..."
"... But it seems most of the parties decided to duck that serious step and left May hanging. Depending on what new details come out about the Skripal attack, I suspect the whole affair may end back-firing against Britain. ..."
"... The role of May & Johnson was so obvious and it defied the human dignity to such extend that others did not dare to participate in the provocation. ..."
Movement on the Skripal case from Russia. They called together ambassadors from numerous
nations to the Foreign Ministry and held a two-hour meeting to discuss the British
allegations against Russia. The video of that is here:
Russian MFA summons all ambassadors to a meeting on Skripal case (MUST WATCH!!!)
Although the headline says "Must watch", I wouldn't bother. I watched it and it was mostly
a waste of time. There was one statement bringing up the point that all that is known about
the alleged "Novichok" agent comes from one Russian defector to the US who is working for the
US and what that means for the validity of any statement about those agents.
The document raises a number of questions about the case which the British appear to
be avoiding answering and also points out that there is a procedure under the Convention For
The Prohibition of Chemical Weapons" which Russia alleges the British are not
following.
Alexander Mercouris at The Duran analyzes the EU response to the British allegations in a
UNSC meeting which occurred on March 14th.
Although the EU publicly claims (and repeated these claims in the Russian MFA meeting
referenced above) solidarity with Britain, the UNSC meeting was considerably more muted in
terms of ascribing the Skripal attack to Russia. Mercouris believes the intent of Britain
was to get a UNSC Resolution blaming Russia (which Russia would veto) and then getting NATO
to impose wide-ranging sanctions against Russia under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty and that
this isn't going to happen.
It's important to note that the language Theresa May has been using blames Russia for
a "chemical attack on Britain" which is an act of war and can be used to invoke NATO Article
5.
In other words the British referral to the UN Security Council had the purpose of
preparing the ground for an emergency NATO summit at which Britain would invoke Article
5.
But it seems most of the parties decided to duck that serious step and left May
hanging. Depending on what new details come out about the Skripal attack, I suspect the whole
affair may end back-firing against Britain.
It is hard to wrap one's mind around the stupidity of the Skripal affair, considering that
the UK (or perhaps the Friends of Israel in the UK) decided to use the case of poisoning of a
Russian citizen Julia Skripal (and her father) during her visit to the UK, as a ground for
Article 5 -- before any evidence is collected and before a thorough investigation is
conducted.
The role of May & Johnson was so obvious and it defied the human dignity to such
extend that others did not dare to participate in the provocation.
"... TL;DR – the entire post by James is one gigantic propaganda pastiche of myths and slander, that no serious historian would ever repeat with clean conscience – only propagandists with a clear and present agenda. ..."
"... It's impossible to understand Stalinism without reference to world economic developments during the interwar period (collapse of the balance-of-power in Europe, the demise of the liberal economic order, the agrarian depression which affected the terms of barter between town and countryside unfavorably leading to huge antagonism of the peasantry to the rule of the urban workers in Russia)(see Polanyi, 1944: 255-256 for details). ..."
"What emerges is a horrifying character that began as a bank robber and ended as a mass
executioner and the instigator of man- made famines that killed millions."
It is good to know that supposedly "accurate" historical documentary made in the West are
completely useless propaganda drivels, because:
a) Stalin never robbed banks. So-called "Tiflis's' expropriation" of 26 June 1907 had been
carried out by the group under Simon "Kamo" Ter-Petrosyan. Stalin was arrested in 1908 and
back then the Czarist authorities did not accuse him of bank robbing – he was
"political prisoner". There is absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that Stalin was a
bandit.
b) Stalin was not a "mass executioner". The state wields the monopoly over violence.
c) Man-made nature of the so-called Holodomor is a myth, disproved many times over.
Good to know, that propaganda quality of the Western "blue screen" is effective enough to
convince people of the "correct" narrative and switch off any critical thinking. Useful for
the current times.
"There are no official reports about the height of Joseph Stalin because Stalin was
sensitive about it; he went to great lengths to conceal his lack of stature from the Soviet
people and the world because he stood only at 5 feet 4 or 5 feet 5"
Please, explain – how he "concealed" it? Was the state officials back in 1920-50
required to post their height somewhere for everyone to see?
"He was an un-attractive man with his pockmarked face, bad teeth, his limp, and his
withered left arm yet his deepest ambition was to develop his country, weaken or kill rivals
and have his image plastered on every public building."
How do YOU know what Stalin wanted ? That's a speculation. And as badmouthing his
appearance – yeah, kudos to you! You did it!
"But from those things he learned little. He lacked refinement, elegance, social
polish, and compassion."
Again, I have to ask – who's claiming this? Who do you know that he "learned
little"? How do you know that "his selfish self-worship led his soul by the nose"? You are
passing soundbites from that show for the facts
"But Stalin was a spiritual primitive. He lived in a society where having a conscience
was seen as a vulnerability, not a strength."
First of all – define the term "a spiritual primitive". Next – what society
are you talking about here? The Soviet Union?
"That's how Stalin's mind worked."
You keep saying this. How do you, James, know how Stalin's mind worked? Are you ESPer?
TL;DR – the entire post by James is one gigantic propaganda pastiche of myths and
slander, that no serious historian would ever repeat with clean conscience – only
propagandists with a clear and present agenda. A person who can repeat with a straight face a
clear and many times disproven lie that:
"Of course, the day after Hitler invaded his country, June 22, 1941, Stalin broke down
and for several days was so drunk on brandy and vodka that he was not able to
function."
becomes guilty of lying himself. You, James, are no better than all those propagandists
and no-brains that you were decrying in your past blogposts. Instead of thinking and
researching, instead of trying to find the truth, you repeat lies and suppress any urge in
others to see the reality as it is.
P.S. Oh, and one more thing:
"Communism reduced people to animals: they were merely food."
What about capitalism then? Or maybe you are projecting here?
Agree with many of Harper's observations on the sociopathic personality, and on the
importance of empathy, but then he loses me at "When President Reagan said that the Soviet
state was an "evil empire" many objected, including me. But the more I learn, the more I
endorse that judgment. Communism reduced people to animals."
But did communism had anything to do with it? Was Hitler a communist? Woodrow Wilson?
Christopher Columbus? Churchill? Jefferson Davis? Was life wonderful in pre-Soviet
Russia?
Today many Russians view Stalin positively. He industrialized the USSR, defeated the
fascists, and made Russia a world power. While the West was mired in the Great Depression,
Russia's economy hummed. We should acknowledge Stalin's mistakes, but we should also
acknowledge that the poor and the working class may have been better off under Stalin than
they had been before. Admittedly that may not be saying much.
The way I see it, thinking of Stalin as a heartless beast in order to understand the
developments in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century does two things for
us:
It provides a simple answer to the question: how could these horrific evil atrocities
take place?
It puts our mind at ease, thinking that if only people would be more moral or good,
everything would be different.
The question why things developed as they did in Russia is not a trivial one, however it
is also not a question that's beyond our understanding. In fact, plenty of serious answers
have been provided over the years.
It's impossible to understand Stalinism without reference to world economic developments
during the interwar period (collapse of the balance-of-power in Europe, the demise of the
liberal economic order, the agrarian depression which affected the terms of barter between
town and countryside unfavorably leading to huge antagonism of the peasantry to the rule of
the urban workers in Russia)(see Polanyi, 1944: 255-256 for details).
If you want an answer that can explain the path towards the horrors of Stalinism and also
fit into a tweet, here is one:
autarchy >> New Economic Policy >> crises and global depression >>
Stalinism
It is still a bit longer than the usual - Stalin was a murderous lunatic thirsty for
blood.
P.S. He was a murderer but definitely not a unattractive one. Google any picture of Stalin
in his youth and you will be convinced :)
Stalin was certainly unattractive as a person, ruthless and cynical but not stupid. However
rotten his methods (and they were rotten) I think you have to make allowances for the
environment Stalin and the Bolsheviks faced in governing Russia.
Their driving need was to transform a huge backward country that had been largely
populated by illiterate serfs - slaves less that Sixty years before the revolution that
replaced an imperial government which itself was dissolute, corrupt and almost as brutal as
Stalin. Desperate times called for desperate measures. There were no "democratic traditions'
as we like to call them, brutality was the usual form of regulation in Russia and social
institutions of government were not strong. Russian infrastructure was generations behind the
West.
We could catalogue for hours the stupid inhuman brutality of the Bolshevik regime before
WWII and the personal foibles of Stalin (his devotion to the crackpot agricultural theories
of Lysenko - "vernalisation", etc. were responsible for starvation), we can endlessly examine
the crimes of Beria and company, but we cannot obtain a full picture of Stalin without
considering the challenges he faced.
This essay is a very primitive attempt to promote "cult of personality" myths.
The author does not understand the history and the role of personalities in history. Thus
he can't properly evaluate key historical figures such as Stalin. His treatment of Stalin is
simply petty.
Stalin was a monumental historic figure for several reasons but first of all as a
representative of a new political force on the historical scene. I think that this was not
workers -- that was partially a smoke screen -- but some kind of mafia-style organized gang
of middle-class intellectuals hell-bent on acquiring state power.
Also, Stalin was the first to build a new theocratic state were Bolshevics ideology became
a new state religion. This model proved to viable and later was replicated elsewhere. It
currently exists not only in China and Cuba, but also in Islamic variations ("Political
Islam" of Muslim Brotherhood, etc.)
Under Stalin, Bolshevism became an official religion and heretics were burned at stake.
Like popes before him, Stalin and his followers felt that the killing (and sending to Gulag)
of heretics was just.
Therefore, it is more proper to view Stalin was a representative of a historically new
political force which demonstrated the possibility of acquiring state power by a small group
of intellectuals powered by ideology (In case of Bolsheviks with some minimal financial and
organizational help of hostile for this particular state foreign powers -- Germans military
intelligence )
The same fit was later replicated by neoliberalism (aka "Trotskyism for the rich", which
replaced the Party with the network of think tanks).
Neoliberals also were a small, tightly knit circle of intellectuals which came to power
via stealth variant of coup d'état ("quite coup" as Johnson called it) displacing the
New Deal capitalism.
And Bolsheviks as a political force made a profound impact on the course of human history
and should be viewed as such. BTW the existence of the USSR was a hugely positive development
for people outside the USSR.
For example, in the USA it helped to suppress cannibalistic instincts on the US financial
elite, which returned to the scene in full glory after the USSR collapse after neoliberalism
won in the USA and elsewhere.
Due to the existence of the USSR, two post-war decades were and probably will be forever
considered as a golden age for US workers and the USA as a country.
diGenova has been on of Trump's most ardent defenders - speaking in January of a "
Brazen
plot
" by the deep state to exonerate Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
The FBI used to spy on Russians. This time they spied on us
. what this story is
about - a brazen plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton from a clear violation of the law with regard to
the way she handled classified information with her classified server.
Absolutely a crime,
absolutely a felony.
It's about finding out why - as the Inspector General is doing at the
department of justice -
why Comey and the senior DOJ officials conducted a fake criminal
investigation of Hillary Clinton. Followed none of the regular rules, gave her every break in the
book, immunized all kinds of people, allowed the destruction of evidence, no grand jury, no
subpoenas, no search warrant. That's not an investigation, that's a Potemkin village. It's a
farce.
-Joe diGenova via
Daily Caller
Does Mueller realize he is now doing more harm to the country than
any foe? His 10 month investigation of "got cha" is dividing us
and has uncovered little stuff the DOJ could have found without
the continuous spotlight of his "specialness counsel". It is time
he turns his findings over to DOJ and cease this unfortunate,
seemingly now, self-serving hunt. The nation is facing more
daunting task.
In the court of public opinion, treason is better.
Let Mueller argue the difference once Trump starts
using his name in the same tweet with treason. That
will be amusing.
Plus, with Mueller, it may well
be treason. Can you say Uranium One? That is the
deal he has to worry about. First, there is the I.G.
report due soon. Then, there is the real possibility
of another special investigation into the
investigators of the entire FBI/Clinton affair, and
Mueller will for sure be in the cross hairs. What a
great time to be a lawyer in DC.
This is a battle between 2 giants. One is going
down bigly, or maybe both.....or, Mueller has already
copped a plea, and is actually part of the I.G.'s investigation
of the FBI. Who knows? Right now, just about
anything is possible.
I believe it is actually sedition.
Treason would
involve another country.
Regardless Mueller is known for acting like a petulant
child.
I also note the budget just passed looks like a war
budget, so all this may not matter much into the future.
If you step back and try to look at the bigger picture you
have a better chance in seeing what is really going on. It
is clear that from the beginning, there was never any real
substance to the Russia collusion thing. Anyone with any
common sense could see that all of it was being orchestrated
by the deep state with the amplification and BS of the MSM
using the DNC and various hack politicians to keep things
going. The only relevant question was why?
To
impeach Trump? No. They knew from the get go there was no real substance
to the allegations.
To destabilize Trump's governance by keeping
him on the defensive with their constant MSM BS
collusion allegations?
Only a partial reason, because the groundless and totally
farfetched allegations were eventually bound to discredit
the perpetrators.
Mainly to bash Russia to prolong any attempts
by the new administration from a rapprochement with Moscow?
Again only a partial reason and clearly not enough to
justify the prolonged flogging of the dead horse
of Russian-collusion. Within the first few months we saw
Trump doing the bidding of the US-Zio deep state,
by appointing neocon pro-Israel, anti-Russian, anti-Iran,
anti-Syrian deep-state war hawks to his cabinet; ordering
a missile attack on a Syrian government installation;
threatening Iran; increasing economic sanctions
against Russia; deploying more US forces and military
equipment to Russian borders, etc. etc.
Mainly to discredit Russia
and
to divert American attention from the major hot spot in the
world - Syria?
Most likely. As long as the US deep state can keep
focusing its hostility towards Russia as separate as
possible from their own wrongdoings and aggression in Syria,
they can more easily continue with their escalation efforts
to fragment and partition that nation. Hence, the deep-state
efforts to distract the US and Western populations with fake
allegations of election interference, poisoning ex spies,
and whatever other false flags or vilifications against
Russia, or the Syrian government are to come. The last
thing the US deep state wants at the present time and
especially before the midterm elections is to make the US
support for their war against Syria a major political issue,
leading to an uncontrollable electorate directly opposing
their war effort. Russia is the backbone of the Syrian
defence. Constantly vilifying Russia with false allegations
and false flags deflects attention from the heinous
wrongdoings of Israel, the US, the UK, and NATO forces and
their terrorists and mercenary proxies in Syria.
Presently, US deep state operatives from the military and
the intelligence agencies are filling in slots in the
Democratic party to be candidates for the upcoming midterm
elections. This is clearly an indication that the US is
preparing for war, not only for an escalation in Syria but
more likely for some much greater conflict against Iran and
Russia. The sociopathic US deep state will no doubt not be
satisfied until they try out all their toys no matter how
much blood they shed and destruction they cause. That is
their history and they are a scourge against the entire
world.
Your first three observations are correct. Unfortunately,
the 4th premise being massaged merely by "The Deep
State." The US financial/military hegemony is faltering.
It stands up only because the central banks are in
collusion with each other. Those and Wall Street
manipulate and massage the financial markets in trying to
maintain their own hegemony.
But, many honest
economic/financial experts know it's only a matter of
time before the American empire cracks. Happens every
time throughout history. In this case it's China who is
moving away from the US$ and linking its trade/currency
with 50% of the world's population found in Asia/Eurasia,
and Latin American. A laborious exercise, for sure, but
watch carefully as the US continues its toxic downfall
via the military budget and the corrupt world of
finance/currency. It's only a matter of time.
Trump Unable To Hire diGenova, Toensing Over Conflicts, Mueller Strategy In
Limbo
My response
: This development is a disappointment.
I was looking for some honorable people to go into Washington DC and kick
some MUELLER BUTT and END the SPECIAL COUNSEL CHARADE that has been going
on for over a year.
Where the HELL is "OBOZO" these days? This circus in Washington DC needs
to be shutdown.
Amazing that they(diGenova & Toensing) admit to conflicts of interest but then
nearly the entire Mueller team is rife with people showing bias and COI and
they're still at it a year later. Hell, the bulk of the FBI top tier is
littered with biased assholes. If you went in and tried to clean house it'd be
like shooting fish in a barrel...with an RPG
.
but also why is this President & his team being help to a far
superior standard than the last. The conflicts in Muellers' team are too
innumerable to count, Sessions recusal, Rosenstein appointing special counsel,
Trump's clan being stymied with piss ant caught mis remembering lying to FBI
charges. diGenova is the shit as his wife too, since when have lawyers ever
given a rat's ass about conflict or even integrity, Gloria Aldridge comes to
mind. Is anyone tired of winning yet? Seems all by design. We are constantly
told it's 4D chess and yet Schumer gets 60 Billion for a tunnel and Donald
"the art of the deal" Trump get 1.6 B for paint & maintenance and specific
language prohibiting a wall. Tired of winning yet?
You do
realize that whoever
Trump names to
replace him REQUIRES
Senate
Confirmation....which
can be slow walked
for months.
Meanwhile the assy
AtG---Rosenstein with
be the ACTING ATTNY
GEN"
ANSWER: Not if
he puts someone from
a different cabinet
position who's
already been
confirmed in (aka
Scott Pruitt).
Pruitt can take
Sessions place, and
he wouldn't be
recused; which means
he takes over the
investigation from
that crooked Deep
Date scumbag
Rosenstein. Mueller
can then be fired
(and not a damn thing
Congress can do about
it other than b!tch
and whine to Libtard
news media).
Better still,
Pruitt can appoint a
second special
counsel to go after
the Deep State.
Mind you, there
are Mountains and
Mountains of evidence
of all the crimes
these Deep State
people committed.
All its going to take
is a second special
council, and its game
over.
Look at this great interview with Adam Garrie. This is a must watch video.
This scandal is HUUUGE
He discusses Cambridge Analytica involvement in basically all elections, involvement of
Facebook and its Sugar daddy, UK ,US gov. How they tried to co-opt Mr.Assange and he said
FO.
How UK tries to cover it up . There is a whistleblower and soon more ,it seems
by Tyler Durden
Sun, 03/25/2018 - 13:00 371 SHARES
Julian Assange fired off a tweet Friday afternoon reminding people of the time Mark
Zuckerberg called his users "Dumb fucks" because they trusted him with their private
information.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
The exchange,
originally published by Business Insider 's editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson in 2010, was
an early instant messenger conversation then 19-year-old Zuckerberg had with a college friend
shortly after he launched "The Facebook" in his dorm room.
At the time Business Insider published the exchange, Facebook had "faced one privacy flap
after another, usually following changes to the privacy policy or new product releases."
But the company's attitude toward privacy, as reflected in Mark's early emails and IMs,
features like Beacon and Instant Personalization, and the frequent changes to the privacy
policy, has been consistently aggressive: Do something first, then see how people react.
And this does appear to reflect Mark's own views of privacy, which seem to be that people
shouldn't care about it as much as they do -- an attitude that very much reflects the
attitude of his generation.
After all, here's what early Facebook engineering boss, Harvard alum, and Zuckerberg
confidant Charlie Cheever said in David Kirkpatrick's brilliantly-reported upcoming book The
Facebook Effect.
"I feel Mark doesn't believe in privacy that much, or at least believes in privacy as a
stepping stone. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong."
Kirkpatrick had this to say about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in his book:
"Mark really does believe very much in transparency and the vision of an open society and
open world, and so he wants to push people that way . I think he also understands that the
way to get there is to give people granular control and comfort . He hopes you'll get more
open, and he's kind of happy to help you get there. So for him, it's more of a means to an
end . For me, I'm not as sure."
Zuckerberg reportedly hacked into people's email using their TheFacebook passwords...
At one point early on on Facebook history, Zuckerberg - nervous about an upcoming report in
the Harvard Crimson , used "TheFacebook" login data of Crimson staff to crack into their
Harvard email accounts to see if the paper was going to include a claim that he had stolen an
idea for a TheFacebook feature called "Visualize Your Buddy."
Tim and Elisabeth decided to drop John's claims from the story. But, this time, they
decided to go ahead and publish a story on ConnectU's claims against Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg was not content to wait until the morning to find out if the Crimson would
include John's accusations in its story.
Instead, he decided to access the email accounts of Crimson editors and review their
emails. How did he do this? Here's how Mark described his hack to a friend:
Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified
themselves as members of the Crimson . Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any
of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the
cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson
members' Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them.
In other words, Mark appears to have used private login data from TheFacebook to hack into
the separate email accounts of some TheFacebook users.
In one account he accessed, Mark saw an email from Crimson writer Tim McGinn to Cameron,
Tyler, and Divya. Another email Mark read was this one, from Crimson managing editor
Elisabeth Theodore to Tim McGinn:
From: Elisabeth Susan Theodore
To: Timothy John McGinn
Subject: Re: Follow-up
OK, he did seem very sleazy. And I thought that some of his answers to the questions were
not very direct or open. I also thought that his reaction to the website was very very weird
. But, even if it's true so what? It's an [redacted] thing to do but it's not illegal, right?
- Business
Insider
Lo and behold, Mark's cavalier attitude towards Facebook user data is costing him billions
at a time he's actively shedding shares as part of a $12 billion liquidation which started
last
September .
"... So in the end the question boils down to: what will Russia do? Putin has a tendency to make asymmetric moves before committing to military action, and these are by definition hard to predict. While he is also cautious, he is also firm - so if Turkey manages to annex large portions of Syria, he is likely to respond to the exact degree that he sees these acts damaging Russian interests, if not so much Syria's interests. So the question will be how much does Putin think Turkey annexing parts of Syria actually damages Russian interests? ..."
"... Getting to politics for a moment, I read a lot of anti-Trump comments from people who were his supporters, angry over the recent spending. Bolton is not popular amongst the Trump base, actually that's a bit of an understatement. These mid-terms are set to give surprising results IMHO Americans do NOT want another war, they don't want more Neocons, and they don't want Socialists either. The Democrats have no clear direction (when they are asking Biden of all people to make a run for President you know they have run right out of ideas). I expect to see a rise of alternative candidates flowing into the political vacuum... probably isolationist, anti-immigration, anti-war, and perhaps even anti-deficit. ..."
"... The trouble with "simplistic pragmatism" is that humans and their motivations are not simple and their actions are seldom as simple as posited by economic determinism. Economic determinism as a badly flawed tool in analysis. ..."
"... Neutralizing the Kurds would be one more minority eliminated. Only more powerful nation states can stop him. Since Israel's and the USA's intention is permanent tribal warfare to divide Muslims; that leaves Russia or an Iraq and Iran alliance which both have Kurd problems themselves. ..."
"... The USA is sitting on an oil field in the middle of the Syrian desert by itself with Kurds heading home for the final battle with Turkey and the Euphrates Valley full of true believers that can only be controlled by a legitimate even-handed secular national police and army. We are in a World War right now. The world is one mistake or one first strike away from a nuclear war. ..."
"... The tribe is driven far more by the emotions, and sometimes by economic determinism, but rarely by reason. ..."
"... If we invaded Iraq for the oil, we sure f'd up. We surely didn't invade Iraq to remove Iran's main enemy, but we managed that too. ..."
The author of this piece agrees with my position that Turkey will not be leaving northern
Syria unless forced to do so. Any number of crafty ploys are available to insure an indefinite
presence leading in the end to a request from a puppet government for annexation to Turkey. The
same thing is very likely to occur in northern Iraq.
What will Russia, Iran and the US do about such a progression of events? They are likely to
do nothing. Inaction is always probable when larger issues of international economics and great
power rivalries are barriers to action. pl
pat, that sounds like how turkey got hatay province in a roundabout way... it sure seems like
ottoman dreams in sultan erdogans head, supported by a number of voters in apk..
i don't know that russia will be happy with erdogans 'moderate headchoppers' still acting
on behalf of turkey either... the usa will probably remain happy so long as turkey doesn't
try to interfere in project east of the euphrates kurdistan although i had seen an article
they are in manjib at present, to show there support for the kurds/israel, lol..
The US won't act because they'd prefer to see Syria broken up. Iran doesn't have the standing
to act and no capability to act militarily. Syria won't try to use military force because it
can't compete with Turkey's military might.
That leaves Russia, which is supposedly committed to insuring the sovereignty of Syria.
Russia can bring the issue up in the UNSC, but the US is likely to veto anything they
propose. Russia doesn't want a war with Turkey (and vice versa), so military action is likely
to be very much a last resort.
However, Putin has some leverage in Turkey, such as the S-400 sales as well as sanctions
such as were taken after the shoot down of the Russian jet by Turkey. Whether this can be
enough to force Turkey out of Syria is unclear, and perhaps unlikely.
Iraq is in a different position. There, Iran might have some say, albeit again not
militarily, unless Iran tries to use Iraq's military against the Turks, which I find
unlikely. I suspect Iran doesn't really care if Turkey takes over northern Iraq and puts down
the Kurds since Iran has its own conflicts with those Kurds, having shelled them in the
past.
Iraq will care because of the lost oil revenue if the Turks seize the northern oil fields
and may try some military action, but that is likely to merely force Turkey to commit more
troops. The US is likely to try to persuade Iraq not to turn this into full-scale war.
The real issue with Syria is how things play out after ISIS and Al Qaeda have finally been
reduced to a minor terrorist group status. The question is what moves can Russia and to a
lesser degree Syria and Iran make to force Turkey out. While there are probably a number of
harassing moves they can make (what I mean by harassing moves are things like Russian
sanctions.), in the end there are only three possible outcomes:
1) Harassing moves become expensive for Turkey, so it retreats.
2) Turkey does not retreat and the Three Amigos forego military action and give up harassing
moves.
3) The Three Amigos ramp up full-scale military action forcing Turkey either into retreat or
full-scale regional war.
In the latter case, I think Russia, Syria and Iran could make things hot enough for Turkey
to retreat, if not actually defeat Turkey militarily. However, Turkey being a NATO member,
this gives the US another shot at intervening on Turkey's side against Syria, which the US
would be happy to do, depending on how much direct conflict with Russia that might
entail.
So in the end the question boils down to: what will Russia do? Putin has a tendency to
make asymmetric moves before committing to military action, and these are by definition hard
to predict. While he is also cautious, he is also firm - so if Turkey manages to annex large
portions of Syria, he is likely to respond to the exact degree that he sees these acts
damaging Russian interests, if not so much Syria's interests. So the question will be how
much does Putin think Turkey annexing parts of Syria actually damages Russian
interests?
Owning Kurdish territory is really about getting rich from oil revenue and Turkey has
excellent infrastructure to achieve that, so yes they have every reason to stay. Put that
together with Erdogan's self aggrandizing and he will not be able to resist the lure of both
fame and fortune. He'll never give it back.
As a side effect, this also creates a unified Kurdistan. A wise Sultan could offer this as
a bargaining chip: Kurds get sufficient autonomy and democratic elections within their own
cultural group; while the Sultanate takes a largish share of the oil revenue. An uneasy but
stable truce could come out of this. In the short term, let us see how well Turkish troops
are respecting Kurdish civilians in Afrin. The news has been uncomfortably dark since the
Turks took over. If the Kurds believe they will be massacred like the Armenians were, then
they have no choice but to keep fighting to the bitter end, which could get ugly.
Iran would flip out if Turkish troops cross the border into Kurdish parts of Iran, so I
don't expect such provocation (at least, not soon, perhaps later).
Baghdad will no doubt be angry about losing oil revenue to Turkey, but what can they do
about it? They will complain, maybe move some troops around as a show, try not to lose too
much territory but otherwise put up with it.
As for the USA... well if US troops ever clash with Turks that would be a perfect time for
Trump to declare the finish of NATO. He talked about it, the Turks have done nothing to
endear themselves with either America or Europe, and the EU has become pretty much a
deadweight drain on US resources. Maybe better for everyone.
Getting to politics for a moment, I read a lot of anti-Trump comments from people who
were his supporters, angry over the recent spending. Bolton is not popular amongst the Trump
base, actually that's a bit of an understatement. These mid-terms are set to give surprising
results IMHO Americans do NOT want another war, they don't want more Neocons, and they don't
want Socialists either. The Democrats have no clear direction (when they are asking Biden of
all people to make a run for President you know they have run right out of ideas). I expect
to see a rise of alternative candidates flowing into the political vacuum... probably
isolationist, anti-immigration, anti-war, and perhaps even anti-deficit.
In a random universe, all strategies are as good as each other because no matter what you do
the result is still completely random.
I don't believe in a random universe. There are some monks and ascetics who would walk
past a pile of money on the table, uninterested in taking it up. Perhaps there are some
retired old men who have come to value peace and quiet more than anything else. Erdogan is
none of those things, he is attracted to both wealth and power.
On the topic of determinism, not specifically the Middle East, but does explain a lot about
what goes on in the Middle East, and a great general purpose framework as well:
I know there's additional nuance you can add to that, but even if you don't like the
simplistic pragmatism you can't avoid some of the basic conclusions here. It also explains
why Trump's pivot towards the Neocons is largely a sign of weakness.
"some retired old men" Yes, I have long been senile and other worldly. I am well known to
be so. Actually, my objection is not that you think money and greed are important but that
you think it determines the fate of nations. Have you taken the MBTI? Be honest. pl
The trouble with "simplistic pragmatism" is that humans and their motivations are not
simple and their actions are seldom as simple as posited by economic determinism. Economic
determinism as a badly flawed tool in analysis.
Was the VN War about a US attempt to seize the rubber plantations and fish sauce factories
of VN? I suppose you think the US invaded Iraq for its oil. Your remark about Trump and the
neocons is incomprehensible. pl
The Middle East is engulfed by tribal-mob wars sponsored by the Superpowers. Since the
coup attempt and German withdrawal; joining Europe is not an option for Turkey. Recep Tayyip
Erdogan will take and keep what he can. Neutralizing the Kurds would be one more minority
eliminated. Only more powerful nation states can stop him. Since Israel's and the USA's
intention is permanent tribal warfare to divide Muslims; that leaves Russia or an Iraq and
Iran alliance which both have Kurd problems themselves.
The USA is sitting on an oil field in the middle of the Syrian desert by itself with
Kurds heading home for the final battle with Turkey and the Euphrates Valley full of true
believers that can only be controlled by a legitimate even-handed secular national police and
army. We are in a World War right now. The world is one mistake or one first strike away from
a nuclear war.
The Western Empire directed by corporate oligarchs is intent on flushing nation states
down the drain. Yet, the Apocalypse can only be prevented by a Global Peace Treaty signed by
the Middle East Nations and the Superpowers including Russia, China, European Union and the
United States.
"Yes, I have long been senile and other worldly." If your current sharp wit and understanding
of the world represents you in your dotage, I should not have to liked to spar with you when
your were younger and more aware....
On the larger point which you are making, I have come to realize that we are ruled far
more by our emotions than by the rationality we pretend to follow. Individuals act for
personal reasons, which can include venality and emotion, as well as rationality. The
tribe is driven far more by the emotions, and sometimes by economic determinism, but rarely
by reason.
If we invaded Iraq for the oil, we sure f'd up. We surely didn't invade Iraq to remove
Iran's main enemy, but we managed that too.
The masses don't care about Stormy Daniels. Of course, Trump used his "art of the deal" to
score with likely a hundred of bimbos. Who cares? It preceded him being Prez.
Is like the Facebook article about privacy... most people know the truth and don't need
the media view. We know Trump cheated. We know FB is corrupt. By far, Trump is better than
the corrupt criminal Clinton's.
Tonight at 7pm ET/PT,
60 Minutes
will air a controversial interview with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, the
adult-film star who says she had an affair with Donald Trump. Daniels will talk to Anderson Cooper
about the relationship she says she had with Trump in 2006 and 2007, unveiling details that bring her
story up to the present. It will be the first - and so far only - television interview in which she
speaks about the alleged relationship.
The 60 Minutes interview will include an examination of the
potential legal and political ramifications of the $130,000 payment that Trump's attorney Michael
Cohen says he made to Daniels using his own funds. Daniels accepted the money in return for signing a
confidentiality agreement, although she recently violated the CA, claiming Trump never signed it.
The president has denied having an affair with Daniels, while Trump's legal team - in this case led
by Charles Harder who won a $140MM verdict for Hulk Hogan against Gawker - is seeking to move the case
to federal court and claims that
Stormy is liable
for up to $20 million in damages. This in turn prompted Daniels to launch a
crowdfunding
campaign to fund her lawsuit
against Trump, which at last
check had raised over $290K
.
Cooper conducted the interview earlier this month, shortly after Cohen obtained a temporary
restraining order against Daniels. Meanwhile, Daniels is seeking a ruling that the confidentiality
agreement between her and the president is invalid, in part because Mr. Trump never signed it. The
president's attorneys are seeking to move the case to federal court and claim Daniels is liable for
more than $20 million in damages for violations of the agreement.
On Thursday, the lawyer representing Daniels fired off a tweet with a picture of what appeared to
be a compact disc in a safe - hinting that he has video or photographic evidence of Clifford's affair
with President Trump.
"If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth?????" tweeted lawyer
Michael Avenatti.
Avenatti has been a frequent guest on cable news as he promotes Stormy's upcoming 60 minutes
tell-all about her alleged affair with President Trump. When CBS Evening News' Julianna Goldman asked
Avenatti if he had photos, texts or videos of her alleged relationship with Trump, he replied "No
comment," adding that Clifford just "wants to set the record straight." (which you can read more about
in her upcoming book, we're sure).
Previewing today's 60 Minutes segment, Avenatti purposefully built up the suspense, tweeting that,
among other things,
"tonight is not the end – it's the beginning"
And while it is highly unlikely that the Stormy Daniels scandal will escalate into anything of
Clinton-Lewinsky proportions, not to mention that Trump has enough other headaches on his hands, here
according to The Hill
, are seven things to watch for in tonight's interview:
1. Will she give details about the nondisclosure agreement?
Daniels has never spoken publicly about the nondisclosure agreement that purportedly bars her from
speaking about her alleged affair with Trump. But a lawsuit filed by Daniels earlier this month
confirmed the existence of such a document, arguing that it is invalid because it was never co-signed
by Trump himself.
Whether Daniels will discuss the details of the agreement in the "60 Minutes" interview remains to
be seen. Her lawsuit seeking to void the contract is still pending, and NDAs often prohibit
signatories from speaking about the agreements.
Daniels has hinted that is true of her NDA. During an interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel
in January, Kimmel pointed out that Daniels would likely be barred from discussing the agreement if
it, in fact, existed. "You're so smart, Jimmy," was her cagey response.
2. Will she talk openly about the alleged affair?
Daniels has implied she was paid $130,000 by Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen weeks before
the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about the alleged affair.
Speaking openly about
her claims would certainly violate the terms of the disputed NDA, and could subject Daniels to legal
penalties.
In court papers filed earlier this month, Trump's lawyers said that Daniels could face up to $20
million in damages for violating the terms of the agreement. One question that remains is whether
Daniels could toss out the NDA completely in her "60 Minutes" interview, and provide details about her
alleged relationship with the president. The last time she spoke about it was 2011, when she gave an
interview to In Touch magazine that wasn't published until this year.
3. Will she mention possible video or photographic evidence?
Avenatti has repeatedly hinted that video or photographic evidence of Daniels's alleged affair with
Trump exists. The March 6 lawsuit filed by Daniels to void the nondisclosure agreement with Trump
refers to "certain still images and/or text messages which were authored by or relate to" the
president. While the NDA reportedly required her to turn over such material and get rid of her own
copies, Avenatti has suggested that Daniels may have retained it.
Avenatti hinted this week that he may be in possession of such material, tweeting a cryptic photo
of a compact disc inside of what appeared to be a safe. "If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how
many words is this worth?????" he wrote on Twitter.
4. Will she address whether she was physically threatened?
Avenatti prompted questions earlier this month when he said that Daniels had been threatened with
physical harm in connection with the alleged affair with Trump. Asked on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" whether
Daniels had been physically threatened, Avenatti bluntly replied, "yes." Exactly who may have
threatened Daniels or what the nature of those threats may have been is unclear, and Avenatti has
declined to discuss the matter in greater detail. Daniels herself has not addressed any potential
physical threats that she may have gotten, leaving open whether she will discuss the topic in the "60
Minutes" interview.
5. Will she discuss whether Trump knew about the $130K payment?
Cohen himself has acknowledged making the payment to Daniels, but has insisted that the money came
from his personal funds and that Trump was never made aware of the transaction. White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said she does not believe Trump knew about the payment. But
Avenatti has argued otherwise, saying the fact that Cohen used a Trump Organization email address
backs up his claim that the real estate mogul was aware of the transaction. In an interview on
"Morning Joe" last week, Avenatti also suggested that he had more evidence that Trump knew about the
payment. Asked by Willie Geist if his "belief that the president directed this payment is based on
more than a hunch," Avenatti simply replied, "yes," but declined to provide any evidence.
6. Why does she want to talk about the affair now?
Daniels's lawsuit claims she expressed interest in discussing the alleged affair publicly in 2016
after The Washington Post published a 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape in which Trump could be heard
boasting about groping and kissing women without their permission. It was at this point that Cohen and
Trump "aggressively sought to silence Ms. Clifford," according to the lawsuit, which claims that the
$130,000 payment and nondisclosure agreement soon followed. But for more than a year after that,
Daniels was silent about the alleged affair, and it was only in recent months that the accusations
resurfaced. One thing to watch for is whether Daniels addresses her motives in the "60 Minutes"
interview, or answers questions about what she hopes will happen next.
7. What happens next?
There may be hints of what Daniels's next steps are in the interview. A planned court hearing for
Daniels's lawsuit is still months away. However, whatever Daniels reveals in the interview may force
the hand of Trump's own legal team. After news broke that CBS intended to air the "60 Minutes" segment
with Daniels, speculation swirled that Trump's lawyers would take legal action seeking to block the
broadcast. Such legal action would have been unlikely to proceed, because courts rarely allow such
prior restraint of speech, particularly regarding the news media.
But Trump's legal team has already signaled they're willing to fight Daniels on her claims. They
reportedly asked for a temporary restraining order against her last month and have asked to transfer
the lawsuit from California state court to a federal court in Los Angeles. But how Trump and his
lawyers respond to the interview after it airs will be closely watched.
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Glasses, Spectacles & Contact lenses
Initially, this ridiculous scandal was mildly amusing.
Now, it
has become a tedious circus sideshow that serves to distract the
masses from much more important issues.
The disgusting fact that Trump chose to throw his dick into
this cum-dumpster skank is bad enough, but now that her lawyer
apparently has a Trump dick-pic or some other pornographic
evidence, he intends to exploit and extort as much publicity and
money that he can in an effort to embarrass the POTUS.
Is it any wonder that the USA has become the laughing stock of
the world?
There is a chance of alternative candidates who will pick up main postulates of Trumpism: end
of neocolonial wars for the expansion of the empire, reverse of neoliberal globalization,
creation of decent jobs within the country, end of unchecked and illegal immigration.
Notable quotes:
"... I read a lot of anti-Trump comments from people who were his supporters, angry over the recent spending. ..."
"... Bolton is not popular amongst the Trump base, actually that's a bit of an understatement. ..."
"... I expect to see a rise of alternative candidates flowing into the political vacuum... probably isolationist, anti-immigration, anti-war, and perhaps even anti-deficit. ..."
Getting to politics for a moment, I read a lot of anti-Trump comments from people who
were his supporters, angry over the recent spending.
Bolton is not popular amongst the Trump base, actually that's a bit of an
understatement.
These mid-terms are set to give surprising results IMHO Americans do NOT want another war,
they don't want more Neocons, and they don't want Socialists either.
The Democrats have no clear direction (when they are asking Biden of all people to make a
run for President you know they have run right out of ideas).
I expect to see a rise of alternative candidates flowing into the political vacuum...
probably isolationist, anti-immigration, anti-war, and perhaps even anti-deficit.
"... We request that China immediately halt implementation and revise these measures in a manner consistent with existing international standards for trade in scrap materials, which provide a global framework for transparent and environmentally sound trade in recycled commodities," the US spokesperson noted at the WTO Council for Trade in Goods session in Geneva. ..."
"... And china quietly continues to sell off US bonds(debt)...this could turn into a serious problem for the US...If China wont buy our junk debt bonds who will? ..."
We request that China immediately halt implementation and revise these measures in a
manner consistent with existing international standards for trade in scrap materials, which
provide a global framework for transparent and environmentally sound trade in recycled
commodities," the US spokesperson noted at the WTO Council for Trade in Goods session in
Geneva.
Love to see international-law-breaking US teaches other countries to abide internation
laws with self-righteousness and entitlement. What an exceptional country!
would be nice if the world body demanded to those people buying plastic to figure out an
alternative... apparently there is a lot of it the size of texas situated in the pacific
ocean at present... or - 3 times the size of france...
And china quietly continues to sell off US bonds(debt)...this could turn into a serious
problem for the US...If China wont buy our junk debt bonds who will?
Things will go sideways fast when the credit card is maxxed out...
I was quite surprised when I heard what Brennan said. To me, it seemed mostly an angry
response to the election that had meant he would no longer have a position of power as he
might have had under HRC. And I felt he had been entirely too emotional and bitter about
that.
I guess I didn't think ahead to legal ramifications in regard to what he said. I just felt
as I might have if I had heard a friend or a student spout angry nonsense when they had lost
a job or had earned a low grade from another teacher.
But, you are absolutely correct. He should be sued. Furthermore, the people who paid him
to make those statements without themselves questioning what he said or countering him in any
way should also have to face repercussions.
I am so sick of the inability of the Democrats to accept that they lost to Trump and
"their" political officials' Whiny and mean-spirited pronouncements. They are all
pathetic.
Their behaviors makes it hard for some of us who aren't' always thrilled with Trump's
Tweets and his counter-punching, etc., to criticize him as we hope for more civility and
reason in our political discussions.
Brennan committed 'Sedition' against the Unites States when he used his lock-lips (called
foot in mouth syndrome) and actions behind the scenes, and stepped over the line. Sedition is
under the Treason Statute and there is no time limitations regarding prosecution for the act.
Brennan, anytime of the POTUS's choosing can be legally detained and sent to GITMO and
arranged before a Military Tribunal, and if found guilty taken out in the exercise yard and
shot by firing squad.
Colonel,
It looks it's official that Trump is replacing McMasters with Bolton as his advisor on the
NSC. Now we have one more pain-in-the-ass blockhead to worry about with Bolton on the NSC and
having the President's ear.
Col:
I would love to see Brennan and Clapper and Comey and McCabe and Strozk and all the rest of
the dimwits tried and convicted.
Its just that I don't have any faith in the swamp to do the right thing.
Take a look at this recent budget - all Democrat wins, Republicans bend over as usual.
Democrats - the evil party.
Republicans - the stupid party.
And all joined in the brotherhood of the "imperial city."
Clapper lied to Congress and nothing happened. Brennan should get sued so it can prove once
again that the private sector can generally do things better than the public sector.
Brennan, "A windbag and a fool."
-- Perhaps a claim to dementia will be the strongest point in his defense strategy. He is
more than a fool - he has been a dangerous and potent warmonger and the major rot that let to
violations of the US Constitution in the upper echelons of the US national security
apparatus.
There is also a grave issue of competence: Where had they been when Awans had an open access
to the classified documents on the congressional computers? Cooking the grandiose intrigues
while being "guided" by the Lobby?
Looking at Brennan and Clapper the question needs asking "why after esteemed careers (in
their minds) in govenment service rising to the pinnacle of their professions do they then
move on as commentators on CNN and NBC where whatever credibility they may have had is now
lost in being shown as just political hacks?
The President does seem to spend much Twitter time on Brennan which indicates Brennan is
either not worth that time or the President knows what Brennan has done and is waiting for
Justice to do its job.
Brennan certainly seems to be deflecting quite a bit so it means the onion is being peeled
back getting closer to him. His actions and statements indicate a lack of discipline.
Sue him, I would wait and let him run his mouth further then pounce.
Trump gave Brennan enough rope to hang himself, and Brennan with his foot-in-mouth-symdrome
has done just that. Brennan has committed Sedition which is under the Treason Statute, with
no statue of time limitations for prosecution. Trump has a treasure trove of evidence against
Brennan, and Trump knows it.
Trump is letting the rest of the nation see just how much of a dumb-ass Brennan really
is.
lol... americans are sore losers.. as b mentions in the syria post - they will keep
dispensing tows to the saudis for those moderate headchoppers in daraa and etc... bolt-on
might be able to grow a mustache like a russian, but he can't play chess like a russian!
In other words, neither men nor women have gained anything from this otherwise-well-intended
campaign against sexual improprieties. However, this is not the first time the West has allowed
raw emotions to knock the train of progress right off the tracks. History books are replete
with examples of Western campaigns rising out of sheer mass hysteria. But at least in those
wild times there was still some semblance of justice, complete with trials and investigations.
Now compare that with our 'modern' times, when all it took for the United States to win
approval for an illicit attack on Iraq was for Colin Powell to shake a vial of faux anthrax in
front of the UN General Assembly.
With these historical hiccups in mind, it is possible to argue that the West has truly
forgotten the lessons of history because they are certainly repeating them today.
By way of example, consider where the great bulk of US troops are encamped today – in
and around the Middle East – and then ask yourself how they got there.
The answer is by hook and by crook, and not a little public manipulation and chicanery. That
is because, in our insatiable desire to defend victims – the good guys, we are told
– we are allowing ourselves to ignore crucial evidence while placing blind faith in what
we are being told is the truth. Clearly that has not been the case to date.
From the accusations that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction to launch against
innocent people, to the current claims that the Syrian government of Bashar Assad is using
chemical weapons against his own people, the West is gambling that claims based on zero
evidence will always work to fulfill ulterior motives. So far, the ploy seems to be working
with the gullible public, but sooner or later truth will catch up, indeed, as truth usually
does.
Just this month, for example, an assassination attempt was made against Sergei Skripal
– a former double agent who had moved to Salisbury, England following a spy-swap in 2010.
Any guesses as to who the British authorities have ruled – without a
trial, evidence or motivating factor – is the main culprit? Yes, Russia. Yet, even the
usually loyal British press has started
expressing reservations over the dubious claims.
This should come as no surprise since the UK, a member of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), has staunchly refused to provide samples of the alleged
nerve agent to Russia for analysis. Why would it do that? Would anyone be surprised if this
investigation goes the same way it did for all those Russian athletes who were, unjustly,
banned from the
Winter Olympic Games this year?
Or perhaps the same way it went following the 2016 US presidential elections, when Russia
was accused of meddling on behalf of Donald Trump – zero evidence to back up the
slanderous accusations , which are responsible for putting US-Russia relations into a free
fall.
In conclusion, the unsightly spectacle of Western capitals backtracking on legal precedent
– from domestic cases to international – makes it all the more clear why it is so
anxious to win back the media mountaintops – it has no evidence whatsoever to support the
reasons behind its increasingly illicit behavior. It is therefore incumbent upon them to own
the narrative, as well as the justice system. How long this democratic charade can last is
anybody's guess.
John Bolton is in all likelihood a Zionist asset due to the Israelis having some very
powerful kompromat on him.
Numerous sources allege that Bolton forced his wife (now ex-wife) into group sex at a
swinger's club. Did someone get it on film, tape, or some other recording media?
Given the extreme fervor of Bolton's Zionism, the answer seems obvious.
Bolton, to me, is worse than McMaster, is decidedly a neocon, and may well end up being the
intellectual impetus behind a shiny new war in the ME or the Korean peninsula.
Although Trump the candidate offered a sketch of his FP views, including his well known
declaration about the catastrophic Iraq war, today one can itemize where the US military is
currently robustly engaged.
If Bolton can dial back his hawkishness with respect to Russia, not mention--too
much--Iraq, he and POTUS may likely find alignment about which will be the first regime to be
targeted by our standoff capabilities. imao
I agree, people shouldn't imply, they should say straight out what they think.
So allow me.
It appears that the uber Israeli Sheldon Adelson who was the largest campaign donor to
Trump and Nikki Haley and also employs John Bolton is dictating US policy to Trump.
If it trots and barks like an Adelson, then its a Adelson poddle.
Basically McMaster started clearing out the Israel Zios in the department ...including
several who violate security rules on top secret info. The report list person after person
McMaster canned and the ZOA is furious all their inside boys were turned out.
Very cleverly the report is presented to Trump as McMaster firing all the 'Pro Trumpers"
because McMasters is ''anti Trump''.
So the ZOA are now Trump Loyalist..lol...just pledge your loyalty to Trump and he'll
follow you like a puppy.
I am beginning to wonder though if there is a small but growing number of upper rank
military that are trying to weed out the bomb Iran Zionist.
I have to laugh at the people trying to portray Bonkers Bolton as somehow less insane than he
is.
Yesterday in my Youtube recommended list was at least half a dozen channels with headlines
expressing horror at the appointment of Bolton as National Security Adviser. Clearly there
has been a backlash in quite a few quarters that this appointment is simply lunatic - of a
lunatic.
So naturally today we see people trying to play down the absolute stark insanity of Trump
appointing this clown.
The only thing we can hope for is that before Bolton does too much damage that Trump gets
tired of him, as he has everyone else in his administration, and fires him. But given Trump's
history, all we can expect then is that he appoints Nikki Haley to the same post.
Russia, ever patient, issued a statement saying they're ready to work with Bolton.
Privately they must be wondering why they didn't develop Novichok so they could use it on
him.
Meanwhile the Democrats are trotting out all the hot women they claim had affairs with
Trump. Hello, Democrats! Anyone remember Bill Clinton? At least Trump has a wife good-looking
enough to maybe keep him home at night.
"... When the relevant analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) refused to agree with Bolton's language, the undersecretary summoned the analyst and scolded him in a red-faced, finger-waving rage. ..."
"... The director of INR at the time, Carl Ford, told the congressional committee considering Bolton's nomination that he had never before seen such abuse of a subordinate ..."
> The most egregious recent instances of arm twisting arose in George W. Bush's
administration but did not involve Iraq. The twister was Undersecretary of State for Arms
Control and International Security John Bolton, who pressured intelligence officers to
endorse his views of other rogue states, especially Syria and Cuba. Bolton wrote his own
public statements on the issues and then tried to get intelligence officers to endorse
them.
According to what later came to light when Bolton was nominated to become ambassador to
the United Nations, the biggest altercation involved Bolton's statements about Cuba's
allegedly pursuing a biological weapons program. When the relevant analyst in the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) refused to agree with Bolton's
language, the undersecretary summoned the analyst and scolded him in a red-faced,
finger-waving rage.
The director of INR at the time, Carl Ford, told the congressional committee
considering Bolton's nomination that he had never before seen such abuse of a
subordinate -- and this comment came from someone who described himself as a
conservative Republican who supported the Bush administration's policies -- an orientation I
can verify, having testified alongside him in later appearances on Capitol Hill.
> When Bolton's angry tirade failed to get the INR analyst to cave, the undersecretary
demanded that the analyst be removed. Ford refused. Bolton attempted similar pressure on the
national intelligence officer for Latin America, who also inconveniently did not endorse
Bolton's views on Cuba. Bolton came across the river one day to our National Intelligence
Council offices and demanded to the council's acting chairman that my Latin America colleague
be removed.
A modern fellow of genus Homo protests his innocence. "I don't work because I worked much
harder before", says he. "I labored for ten years at a crap job earning $30,000 per year and
that earned me the right to live in miserable conditions in which the loss of my job would
have made me destitute in weeks. But, I was not content to labor as my fellows. I got a
second job at $20,000 per year and I was so thrifty that I spent not a penny of it but banked
it all so that at the end of my time I had $300,000, a princely sum. I invested it wisely at
10% and now I can live for the rest of my life, if modestly, off the proceeds of only my own
sweat, my own thriftiness, and my own discipline. And, if there was any luck to it - in my
not facing misfortune or ill health or any other calamity - that was the product of my own
luck too. I owe nothing to anyone. What I have is due to myself alone, and those who have
much more than I, it seems to me that they must have arrived at it the same as I, perhaps
over generations. What is this social power you speak of when it is only individual labor and
individual property that stems from it? It seems to me that you merely envy that which you
are too lazy to earn for yourself."
"My dear independent fellow" says we, "let us understand the simple arithmetic of your
claims. If your story is as you say and we ignore all else that you report, still at the end
of ten years, we see only $200,000. And, if you continue to live at this admittedly low
level, nevertheless, you will have run through your entire accumulated proceeds in only 6
years and eight months. More than this, by your accounting, it would take one and a third
lifetimes to create a single lifetime without labor, and this at the exceedingly low
standards and exceptionally favorable circumstances that you assume. How then are we to
explain those who live without labor for generations, and this at a thousand or ten thousand
times times the level that you report? How many generations of 'thrift' and 'hard work' would
this require? What you claim is impossible for you and beyond impossibility for those who
live above you. Where is this magic of 'individual labor and individual property' that you
speak of?"
"But you forget interest", protests our friend. "My money makes money, and simply by the
act of having some which is not consumed in day to day living, that which I save is
augmented. It is this which grants me my independence."
"We forget as much as your money 'makes'," answers we, "which is nothing at all. Set your
money on the table and leave it there for as long as you like. Nothing happens to it. It
remains the same. It is only by setting it in motion as capital that anything whatever is
'made' and that 'making' is the product of labor, the same as your own. Your interest
comes from the command of the labor of others, just as your own was once commanded and
after 6 years and eight months not a speck of 'hard work', 'thrift', 'good luck' or 'wisdom'
is left. Neither is there any trace of 'independence' or 'personal property' You now live by
the labor of others... by the transformation of your pitiful 'savings' into Capital, no
matter how small the sum. It is your ability to command the labor of others as a social
power that gives you your ability and that you have a poor man's caricature of that
process changes nothing other than to lay fraudulent your claims to the right. You might as
well claim innate superiority or the right of the sword as did the slave master or the
god-given hierarchy of obligations of the lord or even the phases of the moon, if you like.
You eat without working because you have maneuvered yourself into a position in which others
work to feed you. You are the opposite of what you claim."
"You're just trying to make me feel bad.", says our friend.
"We don't give a shit how you feel", says we. "It is modest enough what you do... just as
you claim. It is your willingness to ignore what is closer to your face than your nose that
we tire of. "
Our friend orders another beer and pretends to watch the hockey game though he would be
hard pressed to name two players on either team.
Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.
"Doom porn" argument aside it was almost 10 years since the last financial crisis. And
neoliberalism tend to produce financial crisis with amazing regularity. This is the nature of the
beast. So timing might be wrong, but the danger is here.
Tendrils of evidence point to a coordinated campaign that included the Obama White House and
the Democratic National Committee starring Hillary Clinton. Robert Mueller even comes into the
picture both at the Uranium One end of the story and the other end concerning the activities of
his old friend, Mr. Comey. Most tellingly of all, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not shoved
out of office but remains shrouded in silence and mystery as this melodrama plays out, tick,
tick, tick.
None of this makes President Trump a more reassuring figure. His lack of decorum remains as
awesome as his apparent lack of common sense. But he has labored against the most intense
campaign of coordinated calumny ever seen against a chief executive and his fortitude, at
least, is impressive. What is unspooling for him, and the body politic, are the nation's
finances, and the dog of an economy that gets wagged by finance. Yesterday's 724-point dump in
the Dow Jones Industrial Average is liable to not be a fluke event, but the beginning of a
cascade into the pitiless maw of reality - the reality that just about everything is grossly
mispriced.
There is plenty of dysfunction in plain sight to suggest that the financial markets can't
bear the strain of unreality anymore. Between the burgeoning trade wars and the adoption in
congress this week of a fiscally suicidal spending bill, you'd want to put your fingers in your
ears to not be deafened by the roar of markets tumbling. A 40 to 75 percent drop in the equity
markets will leave a lot of one-percent big fish gasping on the beach as the tide rolls out.
But the minnows and anchovies will suffer too, as regular economic activity declines in
response to tumbling markets. And then the Federal Reserve will ride to the rescue with QE-4,
which will very sharply drive the dollar toward worthlessness. The result: a nation with a
sucking chest wound, whirling around the drain en route to political pandemonium.
Look on the bright side Kuntsler ~ You'll keep selling doom porn articles &
newsletters so you can keep playing the $2 exacta & daily double tickets at the Saratoga
Springs late summer meet.
President Donald Trump's national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster will resign
and be replaced by John Bolton.Trump later confirmed the news in a tweet, saying Bolton
will take over on April 9.
Bolton is known for his hard-line views on Iran and North Korea, and previously served
as United States ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush.
From Slope of Hope: Way back in 2014, I suggested shorting Rent-a-Center, partly because the chart was a disaster, and partly
because the company was evil. In spite of a completely fake, propped-up-by-trillions bull market, RCII has lost the vast majority
of its market cap since that post.
I didn't really know what kinds of stuff RCII was pulling, so just out of the blue, I clicked the very first thing I saw to
witness what kind of deal these guys were offering. So let's say you wanted a laptop. Here's what they offer:
All right, so you've got a piece-of-shit little laptop, ostensibly retailing at $785, which they'll "rent to own" at $25 per
WEEK, and in seventy-one short weeks, you'll own it. Of course, by that time, it'll be absolutely worthless, but you'll still own
this totally outdated door stop. That comes to an annual interest rate of about 90%.
But it gets worse. without even trying, I looked to see the price of this product (ignoring the "retail price" RCII claims)
and - - - again, without even making an effort - - here's what I found:
So if you're such a sorry son of a bitch that $320 is out of the question, you can instead send the scumbags at RCII $25 a
week for 71 weeks, spending $1765 on something which costs about one-SIXTH that price. So something like 450% interest.
It's heartening to see these shameless exploiters crumble:
Relax, guys. What normally happens is that the laptop is repossessed after the
first missed payment (typically about a month after the contract is signed), and RAC
puts it back on the shelf and re-rents it. In the meantime, they've made $75 and
spent nothing.
Basically, RAC makes out by having its inventory in people's dens
instead of having to maintain expensive warehouses. Furniture retailer called
Heilig-Meyers yoosta have the same business model: Rent it, repossess it, rent it
again. Friend of mine was an accountant for them, and he had to learn a whole
'nother level of math.
Ebay has business class refurb, off lease DELL HPE Lenovo units for like $150. yeah,
it's a few years old and not a cool guy macbook air but good enough, if you want a
better processor you can go up $20 or $30 bucks. Not horrendous.
I had a friend who was living in a 2 br apt with his Dad with no furniture, poor
as fuck basically. He used FOIA to get contact info for soldiers at most of the
large bases in the US and started mailing out little 3x5 postcards advertising cheap
financing on desktop PCs. This was early 90s when puters were not yet ubiquitous.
Same biz model as Rent a Center. Over priced up front cost and a ridiculous interest
rate. All done with military allotments so the default rate was near zero. He made
millions before state attorney generals started suing him. He setlled out of court
by paying some money to TPTB and kept his ill gotten gains. I asked him why these
folks don't save for 4 months and go pay cash for a puter, he replied "they want it
right the fuck now". Greed. He used it against them.
$319.99 is the true retail price. But, if these scumbags are doing any volume,
they're probably picking them up wholesale for around $200/ea. That makes the
effective interest rate about 750%.
So, either their potential customers turned
out to be smarter than they thought or,
Someone is doing a lot of skimming off the books (i.e., their investors were even
bigger fools than their prospective customers).
The reason Hillary Clinton did not win despite the media and social media companies
doing everything they could to rig the election in her favor is because Facebook double
dipped and allowed Cambridge Analytica to use their surveying tools to collect user data on
tens of millions of users. This data was then used to target tens of millions of users with
political advertising using Facebook's ad platform based on psycholgoical profiles from
data they bought or acquired from Facebook.
Facebook is basically responsible for feeding the analytics system that enabled
Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign to be so targeted and effective with a minimal
budget.....
That's what happened, that's how Trump won. It wasn't the Russians, it was our own
social media companies who sold our data to the Trump campaign which they then likely used
to convince liberals not to vote in swing states.
It's both horrifying, and cleverly brilliant at the same time.
The funny thing is, Obama did something similar in 2012 and liberals celebrated. Not
so funny when the other team takes your trick and executes it more effectively now is
it?
"Before accounting for taxes and transfers, the U.S. ranked 10th in income inequality; among
the countries with more unequal income distributions were France, the U.K. and Ireland. But
after taking taxes and transfers into account, the U.S. had the second-highest level of
inequality, behind only Chile. "
" The five countries with the worst income inequality -- Chile, Mexico, Turkey, the United
States, and Israel -- also had the five highest poverty rates in the OECD. The relationship is
not perfect, however. The United Kingdom fell just outside the five worst countries for income
equality, but its poverty rate was 13th lowest among developed nations."
I've been thinking about this as well. I went looking for a graph of median income in China
and the US over the last 20 years ... and could not find one. What I would really like to see
is a graph of median income increases over the last 20 years - I would argue this is more
relevant than the easy to find graphs of GDP increases.
Median income in Russia increased something like 270% in inflation adjusted terms during the
first 10 years that Putin was in power. The Economist claims this was solely due to the
increase in oil prices. I went looking at countries that had comparable
oil-production-per-person and found that Canada (whose oil production per person is essentially
identical to Russia) saw its median income increase only 9% in the same period.
This isn't to say that Putin's leadership is necessarily good in the long term, but the
western press are clearly ignoring important economic statistics regarding both China and
Russia. Reply
21 March 2018 at 03:10 PM Fred said in reply to Terry... Terry,
"by some measures" If you torture the data long inenough it confesses. So the US is one of
the five worst in income inequality? Maybe those Chineese imigrants should all stay in China to
enjoy their "percentages". Of course they might first ask just what the 400% increase in
Chineese income means. Oh, that's right, the 400% increase from almost nothing to 4 times
almost nothing. The negative 1% reduction in bottom 50% of income distribuiton in the US over
that 4 decades resulted in:
"Median individual income for all earners in the workforce was $37,610.00, and the
breakpoint to be a one-percenter (99th percentile) was $300,800.00."
So the 50% percentile in the US has a 37K icome. What is it for China, it certainly isn't
37K. That's right, acording to the link you provided it's 14,600 USD. In China, with the
official exchange rate.
James T,
"but the western press are clearly ignoring important economic statistics regarding both
China and Russia."
Yes indeed, they ignore the actual data and repeat out percentages with no idea of the
underlying facts of how those percentages were created and not bothering to ask how they were
calculated. Reply
21 March 2018 at 09:11 PM
I am not a fan of LNG. If I was a Euro there is no way I would allow LNG in, whether
from Sabetta in Russia or from Sabine Pass in the US.
Being fan or no fan of specific type of energy hardly factors into economic reality of
Europe and coercing it into buying American LNG. If Europe continues to buy Russian gas --
that will be bad news for US. The US, however, may yet succeed in sabotaging Nord Stream II
and thus, in a long run, kill European industrial competitiveness thus opening European
market for US products. At least that is the plan. Here is a small taste of what is at
stake.
Turkish press is reporting that 'TurkStream' , the pipeline to bring natural gas from
Russia to Turkey, is now 80% complete and to be in operation by later this year. It is
expected to deliver close to 16 billion cubic meters per year from Gazprom to Turkish gas
distribution networks. A second phase scheduled for next year will reportedly deliver an
equal amount to Greece and other points in southern Europe.
This is in addition to the existing 'BlueStream' pipeline from Russia to Turkey,
operational since 2005, that also has a 16 billion cubic meter per year throughput.
Why the Western concern about NordStream pipeline but none about TurkStream? Are there no
sanction problems for the Swiss company working with GazProm? Plus I wonder if this is one of
the reasons why Russia has lately become paranoid regarding US Navy FON operations in the
Black Sea?
Why the Western concern about NordStream pipeline but none about TurkStream? Are there no
sanction problems for the Swiss company working with GazProm? Plus I wonder if this is one of
the reasons why Russia has lately become paranoid regarding US Navy FON operations in the
Black Sea?
The main concern has the name Sabetta--it is the port and a hub to a largest Liquid
Natural Gas operation, which also happened to be (in relative terms) next to Europe's LNG
ports. I usually don't do this but I apologize, here is a link to my blog's piece on
that:
LNG is precisely a commodity which is counted by US as a major component in possibly (and
most likely not very probable) US re-industrialization. For that, the US has to sell her LNG
to Europe. This implies removing Russian LNG from the EU market which dwarfs that of Turkey
and some South European nations. Germany, France, UK, Holland among others are the prize
here. Russian LNG must be verboten, in US mind, or at least pushed back. As per FON--it has
nothing to do with FON but has everything to do with:
1. Flag demonstration--that is presence and Fleet In Being.
2. Signals collection from Sevastopol, Novorossyisk and, in general, all Russia's Southern
Military District emitters.
"... China, Russia, et. al. realized that the debt-saturated U.S. was propped up by the fact that the U.S. "dollar" was the reserve banking and trading currency of the entire world and that the "Petrodollar" was one of the main pillars of it, and that this system was the main source of U.S. influence and power around the world and allowed the U.S. and friends to impose financial sanctions on other countries. They also saw that the U.S. was not using gold or silver as a type of support or backup for the financial system. Therefore, they developed their own computer servers to route orders between banks and financial companies that will operate outside of the SWIFT system dominated by the U.S. It is now operational and is called CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System)-- ..."
In addition to the common desire of some (or many) human beings to exercise authority over
other groups of people, I think Xi Jinping and his supporters want to complete the large and
complex economic and financial projects they have started. It is not just the road and
railroad and other infrastructure projects tied to the regional trading structure China has
been working on, but a financial structure independent of the existing banking and financial
system that was put together by the U.S. and Britain.
It is my opinion that China, Russia, Iran, and probably additional countries decided to
make a move after the brazen 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and others, and the massive
financial fraud partly exposed in the U.S. and Britain in 2008 and afterwards, which fraud
was not stopped and the perpetrators were bailed out and none were prosecuted.
China, Russia, et. al. realized that the debt-saturated U.S. was propped up by the
fact that the U.S. "dollar" was the reserve banking and trading currency of the entire world
and that the "Petrodollar" was one of the main pillars of it, and that this system was the
main source of U.S. influence and power around the world and allowed the U.S. and friends to
impose financial sanctions on other countries. They also saw that the U.S. was not using gold
or silver as a type of support or backup for the financial system. Therefore, they developed
their own computer servers to route orders between banks and financial companies that will
operate outside of the SWIFT system dominated by the U.S. It is now operational and is called
CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System)--
In addition, they are moving to break the Petrodollar. In the early 1970's, the U.S. made
a non-treaty deal with Saudi Arabia that if they got the rest of OPEC to sell oil and gas to
the whole world only in U.S. dollars and would plough some of the money back into U.S.
government debt and into the stock market casino, the U.S. would protect the Saudi ruling
family so it could run the entire country as its private business. This forced the whole
world to get U.S. dollars in order to buy oil and gas, which further put the dollar in as
banking reserves around the world, which further pushed the dollar into being used to settle
much of the trade between countries.
However, now some contracts are being made to buy and sell oil and gas not in the U.S.
dollar, but in other currencies, especially the Chinese renminbi (a/k/a yuan). Also, both
China and Russia have been buying large amounts of gold for several years. To get around some
of the U.S. sanctions prior to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran sold oil
and gas in exchange for gold. Since gold is not a government created and ordered "fiat"
money, it cannot be choked off by the SWIFT system or controlled through numbers on computer
hard drives in banks.
Russia also remembers what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the U.S.
financial "experts" [sic] went there to set up a "wonderful" market-based economy, but what
happened of course was the creation of a system to loot Mother Russia and establish a new
oligarchy tied in with the U.S., Britain, and Israel.
In the early 1990's when the Soviet Union pulled out of eastern Europe, the U.S. had a
chance to help the world be a safer and more peaceful place. The methods of medical diagnosis
and surgical technology developed in the U.S. could have been the basis of a new foreign
policy that would have voluntarily opened doors across the world.
But it was not to be. The desire of some to be king of the world pushed the chance of
improvement aside. Nevertheless, today even autocratic governments see that having financial
and governmental options can be a beneficial thing.
And to our immediate south, a movement has been going on for a while in Mexico to
establish a money based on silver, promoted by Hugo Salinas Price and others--
For obvious reasons, I am not optimistic about Mexico, the deterioration of which has been
a sad thing to see. It needs a new and real revolution.
Xi's move is not a unilateral thing. He had to have the support of the ruling committees
in China. Keep your eye on the financial structure, gold, and silver.
I've been waiting to see what happens with the SDR (Special Drawing Right). The IMF
(International Monetary Fund) added it to the SDR basket in October 2016 after a lot of foot
dragging by the US. The AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) was setup largely as a
Chinese alternative to the US dominated IMF and World Bank because they were not being given
an appropriate "place at the table" in the IMF, which was founded as part of the Bretton
Woods Agreement at the end of WWII.
I see the global monetary reset currently underway as the slowly moving, but
unstoppable, glacier that is forcing all other events.
Hours after the
resignation of John Dowd , President Trump's lead attorney handling the special counsel
investigation, Trump said he "would like to" testify in Robert Mueller's ongoing probe - a move
panned by some, including Fox's Judge Napolitano, as a
bad move .
The President's 180 comes after the White House legal team had reportedly been considering
ways that President Trump might be able to testify - including giving written answers - with
Trump's attorneys reportedly having been split on the terms of such a deal, reported the
Wall Street Journal earlier this
month.
But that's not Trump's style... After bringing on former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova on
Monday - a former Special Counsel himself who went after both the Teamsters and former NY
Governor Elliot Spitzer, Trump is reportedly taking the gloves off according to Vanity
Fair 's Gabriel Sherman.
Earlier this month, Mueller crossed one of Trump's stated "red lines" when he subpoenaed
Trump Organization business records. According to four Republicans in regular contact with
the White House, the move spurred Trump to lose patience with his team of feuding lawyers.
"Trump hit the roof," one source said. Today, Trump's personal lawyer John Dowd resigned
under pressure from Trump.
diGenova - who
said in January that the Obama administration engaged in a " brazen plot to exonerate
Hillary Clinton " and " frame an incoming president with a false Russian conspiracy, " is
married to Victoria Toensing - who, as we've mentioned, is a former Reagan Justice Department
official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"She's a killer," one Republican who knows the couple told Sherman.
Toensing also happens to represent FBI whistleblower
William D. Campbell - who claims to have gathered evidence of a Russian "uranium dominance
strategy" which included millions of dollars routed to a Clinton charity. Campbell testified
before three Congressional committees in February.
The Campbell connection makes it all the more interesting since Trump is reportedly
considering adding Toensing to his legal team. In other words, Trump would be teaming up with
two veteran bulldog D.C. attorneys - one of whom ostensibly has evidence in the Uranium One
scandal. As Sherman points out in Vanity Fair , " The hiring of Toensing would be a sign that
Trump wants to flip the script and investigate his investigators . Appearing on Fox News,
Toensing has called for a second special prosecutor to investigate Mueller, the logic being
that he was F.B.I. director at the time that the Uranium One acquisition was approved. "
Following Mueller's subpoena of the Trump organization, Trump has been fuming. Last weekend,
Trump encouraged John Dowd to call for an end to the Russia probe, according to Sherman. "On
Sunday, Trump blasted Mueller as partisan, tweeting: " Why does the Mueller team have 13
hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans ?""
And with the hire of Joe diGenova - it's obvious that Trump is bringing out the big guns for
a direct confrontation with Mueller , after souring on his legal team's more diplomatic
strategy:
Trump's new offensive is a sign that he's unilaterally abandoning the go-along, get-along
strategy advocated by Dowd and Ty Cobb , the White House lawyer overseeing the response to
Mueller. Cobb's standing with Trump has been falling for months, after Cobb made the
now-infamous prediction that the Russia probe would be over by Thanksgiving 2017. Dowd
assured Trump that he had a "great relationship with Mueller" and could manage him ,
according to sources. That obviously hasn't happened. " Trump just wants something to change
and nothing was changing, " the outside adviser said. The genial and mustachioed Cobb has
always been somewhat of an odd fit for Trump, whose mental picture of a lawyer is Roy Cohn,
his early mentor. Sources said Trump reluctantly conceded to allow Cobb to play good cop .
"Trump is looking at this saying, I did it your way for months, now I'm fucking doing it my
way ," a former West Wing official said. (The White House did not respond to a request for
comment.) - Vanity Fair
diGenova was reportedly recommended to Trump by Dave Bossie and Jeanine Piro - both of whom
are outside advisors to Trump. That said, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Napolitano
thinks Dowd's resignation and the decision to put Trump in front of Mueller's team would be a
"disaster" for the President.
''SJ Res 54, the Senate's War Powers Act challenge to the US military involvement in the
Yemen War, was killed Tuesday by the Senate, meaning it will not get a direct floor vote. The
bill noted that Congress never authorized the Yemen War, and would've compelled the US to
withdraw its participation. The vote was 55-44.''
''Merkel stressed that a U.S. withdrawal would divide the west. According to the German
official, Merkel said to Netanyahu: "It will put us, the Brits and the French on the same
side with Russia, China and Iran when the U.S. and Israel will be on the other side. Is this
what you want?"
Merkel must know the answer to her question to Netanyahu...Israel will use the US as a
battering ram against the entire world until it falls into splinters.
The part about Porton Down getting creative with sarin samples' chain of custody has been
alleged before, and I suppose State could have asked Britain to use its mercs to pull off an
event.
However, since Sy Hersh points out embedded people were explicitly warned about the Apr '17
conventional attack ahead of time for their own safety (and the Syria plane cleared its mission
with the Deconflict folks, and knew all along it was being tracked), the likelihood that a
different group pulled the current sandbagging job must be considered.
So, fair question: Does State have its own intel / black operations team? Thought it was a
consumer not producer.
"Russia did it" is a meme designed to scapegoat Russia to cover the Democrat's Asses for
losing the 2016 election, and to enable continuation of the Forever Wars since the fall of
Raqqa.
Facebook user data was fed into the analytics system that enabled Cambridge Analytica and the
Trump campaign to effectively target voters at a minimal budget. They won Donald Trump the
swing states and the election.
It wasn't the Russians, it was our own social media companies who sold user data to the
Trump campaign which convinced liberals not to vote in swing states.
From what I learned about this Skripal affair and what we're expected to believe -- i.e., the
official U.K. government version -- is ludicrous. Farcical. I'm talking Fargo and
Burn After Reading kind of farcical. And is anyone a little alarmed that the same
Monty Python-esque goofball is behind the attempted subversion of Trump's election in
collusion with U.S. Deep State with a ludicrous 'Golden Showers' dossier was also the U.K.'s
weapon to subvert FIFA and Russia in the World Cup and was an associate of Skripal.
It appears the Russians are losing their patience with the proof-less accusations from The
UK.
Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko has held press conference in London, denying the
Kremlin was involved in the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using
military-grade nerve agent.
"Britain has without any evidence blamed Russia for poisoning three people and continues
to refuse to cooperate," he said.
The UK authorities are violating Vienna Convention by not giving Russia access to Skripals,
because Skripal has dual citizenship (the UK and Russia), Russian Ambassador to the UK
Alexander Yakovenko said.
The Russian embassy has immediately requested details and materials of the case, the envoy
stated.
While 10 days have passed, Moscow has received no response, while London has refused to pass
samples of the poisonous substance allegedly used to attack Skripal.
Then Yakovenko turned a little darker, seemingly indicating concerns that this was nothing
but a false-flag operation... (via
SputnikNews )
The envoy called for checking how could British experts find out the exact type of the
nerve gas used to poison Skripal.
Commenting on the death of former top manager of Russian Aeroflot airline Nikolai
Glushkov, the ambassador stated that "we cannot take Britain's words on trust."
Alexander Yakovenko said that Britain has provided no proof of Russia's alleged
involvement in the nerve agent attack.
He suggested that the samples of the so-called Novichok nerve gas could have already been
in possession of a labaratory , which is located just miles away from Salisbury.
"We have been refused consular access to our Russian citizen Yulia Skripal," Russian
Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko said.
The UK is ignoring requests on case of Russian businessman Glushkov who died in London,
ambassador stated.
Russian experts puzzled how UK managed to determine type of nerve gas in Skripal case, in
days, but not weeks or months.
The UK has a long record of misdoings, he said, including the support of coup in Ukraine
and the invasion of Iraq.
UK Prime Minister May is set to warn at a summit in Brussels that Vladimir Putin's brazen
flouting of international law represents a threat democracies across the continent.
And then the ambassador turned his attention to the shocking comments from UK foreign
secretary Boris Johnson who compared the Russian World Cup to Hitler's 1939 Olympics...
Johnson recently raised the bar for the UK government's barrage of accusations against
Moscow to a new level. The British foreign minister compared Russia's hosting of this year's
World Cup to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.
"I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right. It is an emetic prospect to think of
Putin glorifying in this sporting event," he told a receptive Foreign Affairs Committee on
Wednesday.
"This statement is totally disgusting, it is not appropriate for any foreign minister,"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"Undoubtedly, [this remark] is offensive and unacceptable."
Additionally, Mr Yakovenko condemned the comments today, saying:
"Nobody has the right to insult the Russian people, who defeated the Nazis.'"
But The UK's propaganda is not just for adults, they are indoctrinating the kids too...
In case pupils in the UK don't understand the headlines on Russia and its president, a
special publication for kids explains how "toxic Putin" is poisoning the Wes t, without
bothering to distinguish between fact and allegation.
The Day, a news website that produces short articles about current affairs meant to be used
as teaching aids in British schools, has offered students two alternatives to believe about
Vladimir Putin: he is either Europe's "most dangerous leader since Hitler," or a puffed up
figure attacking other nations out of weakness.
"... Richard Wolff is an outstanding speaker. His articulation on very complex subjects is sine qua non towards understanding much of the scam in economics in my estimation. ..."
Richard Wolff is an outstanding speaker. His articulation on very complex subjects is
sine qua non towards understanding much of the scam in economics in my estimation.
After attending one of his lectures locally, here in Sonoma, I was inspired to attend a a
peace conference in Modragon, Spain which was very interesting in itself(Mondragon operates
the largest worker cooperative with worldwide sophisticated products from high-tech to
supermarkets).
At the conference I met Nick St Clair who has just produced an outstanding documentary
entitled "Uberland". It tells the story of" the race to the bottom" through the eyes or 4
Uber drivers and Richard Wolff is one of the narrators.
The rapid rise of oligarchy and wealth and income inequality is the great moral, economic, and political issue of our time. Yet,
it gets almost no coverage from the corporate media.
How often do network newscasts report on the 40 million Americans living in poverty, or that we have the highest rate of childhood
poverty of almost any major nation on earth? How often does the media discuss the reality that our society today is more unequal
than at any time since the 1920s with the top 0.1% now owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%? How often have you heard the
media report the stories of millions of people who today are working longer hours for lower wages than was the case some 40 years
ago?
How often has ABC, CBS or NBC discussed the role that the
Koch brothers and other billionaires play in creating
a political system which allows the rich and the powerful to significantly control elections and the legislative process in Congress?
We need to ask the hard questions that the corporate media fails to ask
Sadly, the answer to these questions is: almost never. The corporate media has failed to let the American people fully understand
the economic forces shaping their lives and causing many of them to work two or three jobs, while CEOs make hundreds of times more
than they do. Instead, day after day, 24/7, we're inundated with the relentless dramas of the Trump White House, Stormy Daniels,
and the latest piece of political gossip.
We urgently need to discuss the reality of today's economy and political system, and fight to create an economy that works for
everyone and not just the one percent.
We need to ask the hard questions that the corporate media fails to ask: who owns America, and who has the political power? Why,
in the richest country in the history of the world are so many Americans living in poverty? What are the forces that have caused
the American middle class, once the envy of the world, to decline precipitously? What can we learn from countries that have succeeded
in reducing income and wealth inequality, creating a strong and vibrant middle class, and providing basic human services to everyone?
We need to hear from struggling Americans whose stories are rarely told in newspapers or television. Unless we understand the
reality of life in America for working families, we're never going to change that reality.
Until we understand that the rightwing Koch brothers are more politically powerful than the Republican National Committee, and
that big banks, pharmaceutical companies, and multinational corporations are spending unlimited sums of money to rig the political
process, we won't be able to overturn the disastrous US supreme court decision on Citizens United, move to the public funding of
elections and end corporate greed.
Until we understand that the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and that people cannot make it on $9
or $10 an hour, we're not going to be able to pass a living wage of at least $15 an hour.
Until we understand that multinational corporations have been writing our trade and tax policies for the past 40 years to allow
them to throw American workers out on the street and move to low-wage countries, we're not going to be able to enact fair laws ending
the race to the bottom and making the wealthy and the powerful pay their fair share.
Until we understand that we live in a highly competitive global economy and that it is counterproductive that millions of our
people cannot afford a higher education or leave school deeply in debt, we will not be able to make public colleges and universities
tuition free.
Until we understand that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all and that we spend far more
per capita on healthcare than does any other country, we're not going to be able to pass a Medicare for all, single-payer program.
Until we understand that the US pays, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because pharmaceutical companies
can charge whatever price they want for life-saving medicine, we're not going to be able to lower the outrageous price of these drugs.
Until we understand that climate change is real, caused by humans, and causing devastating problems around the world, especially
for poor people, we're not going to be able to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into sustainable forms of energy.
We need to raise political consciousness in America and help us move forward with a progressive agenda that meets the needs of
our working families. It's up to us all to join the conversation -- it's just the beginning.
Britain has yet to identify the assassin who tried to murder the double agent Sergei Skripal
and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England.
But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knows who ordered the hit.
"We think it overwhelmingly likely that it was (Russian President Vladimir Putin's)
decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K."
"Unforgivable," says Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov of the charge, which also defies "common
sense." On Sunday, Putin echoed Peskov: "It is just sheer nonsense, complete rubbish, to think
that anyone in Russia could do anything like that in the run-up to the presidential election
and the World Cup. It's simply unthinkable."
Putin repeated Russia's offer to assist in the investigation.
But Johnson is not backing down; he is doubling down.
"We gave the Russians every opportunity to come up with an alternative hypothesis and they
haven't," said Johnson. "We actually have evidence that Russia has not only been
investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purposes of assassination but has also
been creating and stockpiling Novichok," the poison used in Salisbury.
Why Russia is the prime suspect is understandable. Novichok was created by Russia's military
decades ago, and Skripal, a former Russian intel officer, betrayed Russian spies to MI6.
But what is missing here is the Kremlin's motive for the crime.
Skripal was convicted of betraying Russian spies in 2006. He spent four years in prison and
was exchanged in 2010 for Russian spies in the U.S. If Putin wanted Skripal dead as an example
to all potential traitors, why didn't he execute him while he was in Kremlin custody?
Why wait until eight years after Skripal had been sent to England? And how would this murder
on British soil advance any Russian interest?
Putin is no fool. A veteran intelligence agent, he knows that no rival intel agency such as
the CIA or MI6 would trade spies with Russia if the Kremlin were to go about killing them after
they have been traded.
"Cui bono?" runs the always relevant Ciceronian question. "Who benefits" from this criminal
atrocity?
Certainly, in this case, not Russia, not the Kremlin, not Putin.
All have taken a ceaseless beating in world opinion and Western media since the Skripals
were found comatose, near death, on that bench outside a mall in Salisbury.
Predictably, Britain's reaction has been rage, revulsion and retaliation. Twenty-three
Russian diplomats, intelligence agents in their London embassy, have been expelled. The Brits
have been treating Putin as a pariah and depicting Russia as outside the circle of civilized
nations.
Russia is "ripping up the international rulebook," roared Defense Secretary Gavin
Williamson. Asked how Moscow might respond to the expulsions, Williamson retorted: Russia
should "go away and shut up."
Putin sympathizers, including Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, have been silenced or
savaged as appeasers for resisting the rush to judgment.
The Americans naturally came down on the side of their oldest ally, with President Donald
Trump imposing new sanctions.
We are daily admonished that Putin tried to tip the 2016 election to Trump. But if so, why
would Putin order a public assassination that would almost compel Trump to postpone his efforts
at a rapprochement?
Who, then, are the beneficiaries of this atrocity?
Is it not the coalition -- principally in our own capital city -- that bears an endemic
hostility to Russia and envisions America's future role as a continuance of its Cold War role
of containing and corralling Russia until we can achieve regime change in Moscow?
What should Trump's posture be? Stand by our British ally but insist privately on a full
investigation and convincing proof before taking any irreversible action.
Was this act really ordered by Putin and the Kremlin, who have not only denied it but
condemned it?
Or was it the work of rogue agents who desired the consequences that they knew the murder of
Skripal would produce -- a deeper and more permanent split between Russia and the West?
Only a moron could not have known what the political ramifications of such an atrocity as
this would be on U.S.-British-Russian relations.
And before we act on Boris Johnson's verdict -- that Putin ordered it -- let us recall:
The Spanish, we learned, did not actually blow up the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in
1898, which ignited the Spanish-American War.
The story of North Vietnamese gunboats attacking U.S. destroyers, which led to the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution and 58,000 dead Americans in Vietnam, proved not to be entirely
accurate.
We went to war in Iraq in 2003 to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction we later
discovered Saddam Hussein did not really have.
Some 4,500 U.S. dead and tens of thousands of wounded paid for that rush to judgment. And
some of those clamoring for war then are visible in the vanguard of those clamoring for
confronting Russia.
Before we set off on Cold War II with Russia -- leading perhaps to the shooting war we
avoided in Cold War I -- let's try to get this one right.
As it turns out, Ulbricht's lawyers were on to something.
In a blockbuster report published Tuesday in
the Intercept, reporter Sam Biddle cited several documents included in the massive cache of
stolen NSA documents that showed that the agency has been tracking bitcoin users since 2013,
and has potentially been funneling some of this information to other federal agencies. Or, as
Biddle puts it, maybe the conspiracy theorists were right.
It turns out the conspiracy theorists were onto something. Classified documents provided
by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the National Security Agency indeed worked urgently
to target Bitcoin users around the world - and wielded at least one mysterious source of
information to "help track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins," according to a top-secret
passage in an internal NSA report dating to March 2013. The data source appears to have
leveraged the NSA's ability to harvest and analyze raw, global internet traffic while also
exploiting an unnamed software program that purported to offer anonymity to users, according
to other documents.
Using its ability to siphon data directly from the fiber-optic cables, the NSA managed to
develop a system for tracing transactions that went well beyond simple blockchain analysis. The
agency relied on a program called MONKEYROCKET , a sham Internet-anonymizing service that,
according to the documents, was primarily deployed in Asia, Africa and South America with the
intention of thwarting terrorists.
The documents indicate that "tracking down" Bitcoin users went well beyond closely
examining Bitcoin's public transaction ledger, known as the Blockchain, where users are
typically referred to through anonymous identifiers; the tracking may also have involved
gathering intimate details of these users' computers.
The NSA collected some Bitcoin users' password information, internet activity, and a type
of unique device identification number known as a MAC address, a March 29, 2013 NSA memo
suggested. In the same document, analysts also discussed tracking internet users' internet
addresses, network ports, and timestamps to identify "BITCOIN Targets."
...
The NSA's budding Bitcoin spy operation looks to have been enabled by its unparalleled
ability to siphon traffic from the physical cable connections that form the internet and
ferry its traffic around the planet. As of 2013, the NSA's Bitcoin tracking was achieved
through program code-named OAKSTAR, a collection of covert corporate partnerships enabling
the agency to monitor communications, including by harvesting internet data as it traveled
along fiber optic cables that undergird the internet.
...
Specifically, the NSA targeted Bitcoin through MONKEYROCKET, a sub-program of OAKSTAR,
which tapped network equipment to gather data from the Middle East, Europe, South America,
and Asia, according to classified descriptions. As of spring 2013, MONKEYROCKET was "the sole
source of SIGDEV for the BITCOIN Targets," the March 29, 2013 NSA report stated, using the
term for signals intelligence development, "SIGDEV," to indicate the agency had no other way
to surveil Bitcoin users. The data obtained through MONKEYROCKET is described in the
documents as "full take" surveillance, meaning the entirety of data passing through a network
was examined and at least some entire data sessions were stored for later analysis.
Naturally, once the NSA got involved, the notion of anonymity - whether with bitcoin, or
even some of the privacy-oriented coins like Zcash - was completely crushed.
Emin Gun Sirer, associate professor and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies
and Contracts at Cornell University, told The Intercept that financial privacy "is something
that matters incredibly" to the Bitcoin community, and expects that "people who are privacy
conscious will switch to privacy-oriented coins" after learning of the NSA's work here.
Despite Bitcoin's reputation for privacy, Sirer added, "when the adversary model involves the
NSA, the pseudonymity disappears. You should really lower your expectations of privacy on
this network."
Green, who co-founded and currently advises a privacy-focused Bitcoin competitor named
Zcash, echoed those sentiments, saying that the NSA's techniques make privacy features in any
digital currencies like Ethereum or Ripple "totally worthless" for those targeted.
While bitcoin appeared to be the NSA's top target, it wasn't the agency's only priority. The
NSA also used its unparalleled surveillance powers to take down Liberty Reserve - a kind of
proto-ICO that was involved in money laundering. Though the company was based in Costa Rica,
the Department of Justice partnered with the IRS and Department of Homeland Security to arrest
its founder and hand him a 20-year prison sentence.
The March 15, 2013 NSA report detailed progress on MONKEYROCKET's Bitcoin surveillance and
noted that American spies were also working to crack Liberty Reserve, a far seedier
predecessor. Unlike Bitcoin, for which facilitating drug deals and money laundering was
incidental to bigger goals, Liberty Reserve was more or less designed with criminality in
mind. Despite being headquartered in Costa Rica, the site was charged with running a $6
billion "laundering scheme" and triple-teamed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Homeland
Security, and the IRS, resulting in a 20-year conviction for its Ukrainian founder. As of
March 2013 -- just two months before the Liberty Reserve takedown and indictment -- the NSA
considered the currency exchange its No. 2 target, second only to Bitcoin. The indictment and
prosecution of Liberty Reserve and its staff made no mention of help from the NSA.
Of course, several of the agency's defenders argued that the notion that the NSA would use
these programs to spy on innocuous bitcoin users is "pernicious", according to one expert
source.
The hypothesis that the NSA would "launch an entire operation overseas under false
pretenses" just to track targets is "pernicious," said Matthew Green, assistant professor at
the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Such a practice could spread
distrust of privacy software in general, particularly in areas like Iran where such tools are
desperately needed by dissidents. This "feeds a narrative that the U.S. is untrustworthy,"
said Green. "That worries me."
But forget bitcoin: the notion that the NSA has been illegally feeding intelligence to other
federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been a watershed issue for civil
libertarians, with implications far beyond cryptocurrency money laundering . The process, known
as "parallel construction", would, if definitive proof could ever be obtained by a defense
attorney, render an entire case as inadmissible.
Civil libertarians and security researchers have long been concerned that otherwise
inadmissible intelligence from the agency is used to build cases against Americans though a
process known as "parallel construction": building a criminal case using admissible evidence
obtained by first consulting other evidence, which is kept secret, out of courtrooms and the
public eye. An earlier investigation by The Intercept, drawing on court records and documents
from Snowden, found evidence the NSA's most controversial forms of surveillance, which
involve warrantless bulk monitoring of emails and fiber optic cables, may have been used in
court via parallel construction.
The timing of the Intercept's report is also interesting.
We reported last year that a Russian national named Alexander Vinnick, the alleged
mastermind of a $4 billion bitcoin-based money laundering operation, had been arrested
following an indictment that levied 21 counts of money laundering and other crimes that could
land him in a US prison for up to 55 years.
And given the justice system's treatment of other cryptocurrency-related criminals, the
notion that Vinnick might spend multiple decades in prison is not beyond the realm of
possibility. Of course, if the case against him is built on illegally obtained evidence, one
would think his defense team would want to know.
Heavily redacted versions of the Snowden documents
are available on the Intercept's website.
"NSA Has Been Tracking Bitcoin Users Since 2013, New Snowden Documents Reveal"
Yep, I knew it! I've been trying to tell the crypto-enthusiasts that the gov't is on their
trail, but they are in utter denial. They think their tech is superior. Sad mistake.
So again I ask... can you say... "Poof it's gone!"
I don't believe the NSA knows the content of crypto transactions due to packet data
encryption. They do likely know the identities of frequent Bitcoin users via traffic
tracking. Infrequent users very unlikely. That's what the IT programmer in me says. But we're
talking Ed Snowden who knows a lot about networks and encryption. This suggests that NSA has
a man-in-the-middle attack.
Nobody cracked TOR and the code is open source. Identities were determined via the host
site communications not in TOR transit. The govt does have https keys - isp told me. But
software encrypted data in packets - no they don't. TOR and OpenPGP are very good to have
with govts and social media getting more abusive collecting/selling any data that will bring
a buck.
"... Not to mention that we are currently on version #5 (poisoned in the car, where apparently a British cop and more than 30 other people rode with him, if we are to believe previous statements). Only a hopeless moron can stage a provocation without inventing a coherent set of plausible lies beforehand. He did it, right in the middle of Britain in Salisbury, next to the British chemical weapons facility. Credo quia absurdum. ..."
"... Actually, having no definite story, and constantly updating the narrative with ridiculous red herrings, is probably the best way to go with a fake terror attack. With a different herring to pursue each day, the truth seeking citizen soon becomes exhausted and relapses back into the normal pattern of going to work and feeding a family, but with a reinforced sense of their own lack of power to either control, or even understand the world in which they live. ..."
"... This is the end time of democracy. We are now entering an age of psycho-totalitarianism. People do what the elite require because their brainwashed friends, neighbors, and children otherwise turn against them. They are demonized and humiliated as racists, anti-Semites, dog whistlers and all the rest of the bullshit lexicon of political correctness not for their actions but merely for their thoughts. ..."
Anon from TN
Yes, this is the British version of Russiagate, no doubt: no evidence, numerous versions
that contradict each other, lots of hot air and finger pointing. At the moment we do not
know what Skripal was poisoned with or by whom, we can't even be sure that anyone was
poisoned with anything. All we have is hot air, just like with Iraq WMD. From the same very
"reliable" sources: British intelligence services and British PM. Neither ever lies, just
ask Tony Blair. Not to mention that we are currently on version #5 (poisoned in the
car, where apparently a British cop and more than 30 other people rode with him, if we are
to believe previous statements). Only a hopeless moron can stage a provocation without
inventing a coherent set of plausible lies beforehand. He did it, right in the middle of
Britain in Salisbury, next to the British chemical weapons facility. Credo quia
absurdum.
Actually, having no definite story, and constantly updating the narrative with
ridiculous red herrings, is probably the best way to go with a fake terror attack. With a
different herring to pursue each day, the truth seeking citizen soon becomes exhausted and
relapses back into the normal pattern of going to work and feeding a family, but with a
reinforced sense of their own lack of power to either control, or even understand the world
in which they live.
This is the end time of democracy. We are now entering an age of
psycho-totalitarianism. People do what the elite require because their brainwashed friends,
neighbors, and children otherwise turn against them. They are demonized and humiliated as
racists, anti-Semites, dog whistlers and all the rest of the bullshit lexicon of political
correctness not for their actions but merely for their thoughts.
For an extra funny, at one time, the United States was happy to supply fuel cycle capable
breeder reactors to Iran, before the 1979 Revolution intervened.
No less a personage than Dick Cheney, who was President Ford's Chief of Staff at the time,
commented at the time that he could figure out what those reactors would be used for. The
same Dick Cheney who insisted that non-fuel cycle capable reactors were somehow proof of
Iran's bad intentions.
Source: "The Silk Roads" by Professor Peter Frankopan.
"... The Iranians know how that cartoon ends, so they'd refuse, unlike Mr Saddam. And then the US would call on the client states in the EU to join them in tightening sanctions. Eventually provocation could be arranged and the US would "have no choice but to respond." - some patrol boats being shot at by Iranians as has happened. We all will recall how Obama was cast as a creampuf appeaseer when 'our boys' were caught zooming around Iranian waters. ..."
"... Too many powerful actors on the American political stage have determined hat Iran must be collapsed (It was on the famous hit-list after all) for them to let this go. ..."
What had been happening and what I expect to see is that, as during the George II
Administration, the US would loudly accuse Iran of breaking faith with agreements and demand
unlimited access for 'inspectors'.
The Iranians know how that cartoon ends, so they'd refuse, unlike Mr Saddam. And then
the US would call on the client states in the EU to join them in tightening sanctions.
Eventually provocation could be arranged and the US would "have no choice but to respond." -
some patrol boats being shot at by Iranians as has happened. We all will recall how Obama was
cast as a creampuf appeaseer when 'our boys' were caught zooming around Iranian
waters.
Too many powerful actors on the American political stage have determined hat Iran must
be collapsed (It was on the famous hit-list after all) for them to let this go.
Barely a day after President Trump outraged his political opponents by calling out Special
Counsel Robert Mueller by name in a series of angry tweets,
the Washington Post is reporting that the president's legal team has provided written
descriptions of certain key moments to the Mueller probe as they push to limit the scope of a
presidential interview, should they agree to one.
According to the
report, Trump has reportedly told aides that he's "champing at the bit" to sit for an
interview. But his lawyers, who are carefully negotiating terms, have sought to restrain the
president, worried he might inadvertently perjure himself or - worse - accidentally walk into a
perjury trap.
Given the time-sensitive nature of the investigation (Trump and his allies would like it to
end as swiftly as possible) Trump on Monday
added storied Washington lawyer Joseph diGenova, the husband of former Reagan Justice
Department official and former Senate Intelligence Committee chief counsel Victoria Toensing,
to his legal team.
Various readers, fans, blog commenters, Facebook trolls, and
auditors twanged on me all last week about my continuing interest in the RussiaRussiaRussia hysteria,
though there is no particular consensus of complaint among them -- except for a general "shut up,
already" motif. For the record, I'm far more interested in the hysteria itself than the
Russia-meddled-in the-election case, which I consider to be hardly any case at all beyond 13 Russian
Facebook trolls.
The hysteria, on the other hand, ought to be a matter of grave concern,
because it
appears more and more to have been engineered by America's own intel community, its handmaidens in the
Dept of Justice, and the twilight's last gleamings of the Obama White House, and now it has shoved
this country in the direction of war at a time when civilian authority over the US military looks
sketchy at best.
This country faces manifold other problems that are certain to reduce the
national standard of living and disrupt the operations of an excessively complex and dishonest
economy,
and the last thing America needs is a national war-dance over trumped-up grievances
with Russia.
The RussiaRussiaRussia narrative has unspooled since Christmas and is blowing back badly
through the FBI,
now with the firing (for cause) of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe hours short
of his official retirement (and inches from the golden ring of his pension). He was axed on the
recommendation of his own colleagues in the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, and they may
have been influenced by the as-yet-unreleased report of the FBI Inspector General, Michael Horowitz,
due out shortly.
The record of misbehavior and "collusion" between the highest ranks of the FBI, the
Democratic Party,
the Clinton campaign, several top political law firms, and a shady cast of
international blackmail-peddlars is
a six-lane Beltway-scale evidence trail compared to the
muddy mule track of Trump "collusion" with Russia.
It will be amazing if a big wad of criminal cases are not dealt out of it, even as
The
New York Times
sticks its fingers in its ears and goes, "La-la-la-la-la ."
It now appears that Mr. McCabe's statements post-firing tend to
incriminate his former
boss, FBI Director James Comey
-- who is about to embark, embarrassingly perhaps, on a tour
for his self-exculpating book,
A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
.
A great aura of sanctimony surrounds the FBI these days.
Even the news pundits
seem to have forgotten the long, twisted reign of J. Edgar Hoover (1924 – 1972), a dangerous rogue who
excelled at political blackmail. And why, these days, would any sane American take pronouncements from
the CIA and NSA at face value?
What seems to have gone on in the RussiaRussiaRussia matter
is that various parts of the executive branch in the last months under Mr. Obama gave each other tacit
permission, wink-wink, to do anything necessary to stuff HRC into the White House and, failing that,
to derail her opponent, the Golden Golem of Greatness.
The obvious lesson in all this huggermugger is that the ends don't justify the means.
I suspect
there are basically two routes through this mess
.
One is that
the misdeeds of FBI officers, Department of Justice lawyers, and Intel
agency executives get adjudicated by normal means,
namely, grand juries and courts. That
would have the salutary effect of cleansing government agencies and shoring up what's left of their
credibility at a time when faith in institutions hangs in the balance.
The second route would be for the authorities to ignore any formal response to an evermore
self-evident trail of crimes, and to
allow all that political energy to be funneled into
manufactured hysteria and eventually a phony provocation of war with Russia
.
Personally, I'd rather see the US government clean house than blow up the world over an engineered
hallucination.
Tags
Politics
Semiconductors - NEC
Having rejected a plan for imposing $30 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports last week,
saying they weren't big enough
; President Trump is
reportedly
planning to
unveil by Friday, a package of $60 billion in annual tariffs
against China
.
Trump is following through on a long-time threat that he says will punish China for
intellectual property infringement and create more American jobs,
and, as
The Washington Post reports
, the timing of the tariff package, which Trump plans to unveil by
Friday, was confirmed by four senior administration officials.
The package could be applied to more than 100 products,
which Trump argues were
developed by using trade secrets the Chinese stole from U.S. companies or forced them to hand over in
exchange for market access.
WaPo also notes
that
many of the financial ministers at the G-20 meeting have also alleged
that China should make changes to its trade policies
, but so far most have tried to cajole
Beijing multilaterally, a strategy that Trump has said doesn't work.
Trump this month announced 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent for aluminum
and they will also take effect Friday.
As Bloomberg reminds us, Canada and Mexico are already excluded from the levies, and the Trump
administration has left the door open for Australia and possibly other allies to win a similar
concession if they can show they are trading fairly and are national-security partners. Planned
retaliation from the European Union to China has triggered concerns over a global trade war.
And as we warned previously
,
the recently announced global steel and aluminum tariffs
(with various exemptions) by the Trump administration were just a (Section 232) preview of the main
event
:
Trump's imminent trade war with China
, which as Credit Suisse
previews, will be unveiled any moment in the form of tariffs and restrictions on trade with China,
reportedly in retaliation for Chinese IP violations.
First, a reminder on the all-important Section 301:
What is Section 301?
Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act allows the President
to, among other things, "
impose duties or other import restrictions on the products of [a]
foreign country," if the President determines that that country is violating a trade agreement or
"engages in discriminatory or other acts or policies which are unjustifiable or unreasonable and
which burden or restrict United States commerce
." The U.S. relied heavily on the provision
during the Reagan era (an administration in which the current USTR Robert Lighthizer served as
Deputy USTR) into the early 1990s, but it has been used infrequently since the World Trade
Organization was formed in 1995 and provided a forum for dispute resolution.
How will Section 301 figure in the upcoming US-Chinese trade war, and what are the key points:
Last August, President Trump instructed his U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer
to initiate a Section 301 investigation into China's forced technology transfer policies.
While the results of the 301 investigation are not due until August 2018,
the President
appears poised to act on the issue in the coming weeks.
The President is reported to be seriously considering a package of tariffs on Chinese
imports
(targeting between $30BN and $60BN worth).
Reports have stated that Administration officials have used China's manufacturing roadmap,
"Made in China 2025," in deciding what goods to impose tariffs on.
This will likely further
concern Chinese leaders
.
In addition, the Administration has discussed rescinding licenses for Chinese businesses and
employing other such methods to restrict Chinese investment in the United States
. The
President's recent decision to block a Singaporean company's bid to takeover a U.S. company
underscores his aversion to Chinese direct investment
(the company had Chinese
affiliations).
As part of the 301 action, the Administration has also reportedly discussed visa
restrictions and a mandate that U.S. stock exchanges limit who can list in a U.S. market.
It remains unclear whether the restrictions will go this far, but the President has, to date, been
hawkish in his trade policy and there seem to be fewer and fewer moderating voices in the White
House.
The 301 investigation and potential actions resulting from it seem to complement
congressional efforts to restrict Chinese investment
through legislation broadening the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). We believe this
legislation is on track to be signed into law in Q3 2018.
What to expect? here are some high-level thoughts from Credit Suisse:
The Chinese will likely respond in kind, beginning a succession of tit-for-tat trade
policies between the two countries.
The United States has the option to take a multilateral approach and work with allied nations
to initiate their own WTO dispute regarding Chinese technology transfer policies.
However,
at this point, the U.S. appears more likely to instead take unilateral retaliatory action without
WTO authorization, which may run afoul of the U.S.'s WTO obligations.
If the U.S. acts unilaterally (as it appears it will),
China will likely bring a
challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The President appears committed to maintaining his "tough on China" stance. Even after losing
top advisor Gary Cohn after the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs
, the President
appears steadfast in his campaign against China's trade practices and Chinese investment in the U.S,
and we expect continued restrictive trade policies with respect to China.
The President's actions may not receive the congressional backlash that his steel and aluminum
tariffs did. Many U.S. corporations are frustrated with China's policy requiring foreign companies
to turn over source code and other proprietary technology in exchange for access to the Chinese
market.
However, if the President takes this as far as he currently seems to be planning
to, punitive measures by China coupled with the chilling of foreign investment could be a major
concern for U.S. corporations.
In terms of specifics, the US trade deficit last year hit an all time high of $375BN.
The Trump administration is planning imposing tariffs on up to $60bn of Chinese goods, or roughly
13% of goods import from China ($505BN), and 2.75% of total US goods import according to Danske Bank;
the tariffs will target tech products, telecoms & clothing.
A snapshot of the key aspect of the US-China trade relationship:
the US exports soybeans, pharmaceuticals, vehicles and aircraft.
the US imports textiles,clothing, manufactures of metals,electronics and toys.
How to trade it?
As noted
last week
, when discussing which industries and companies would be impacted, we said that there
are some obvious sectors such as industrials (cars, planes), agriculture, and technology. Below,
courtesy of Strategas,
is a list of US companies which derive the largest percentage of their
total revenue from China.
As trade war looms, it would be prudent for investors to start
thinking about potential risks to the companies they own if they have sufficient business in China.
We're witnessing classic psychopathic warfare. Psychopaths play mind games. They make
outrageous accusations and force you to spend thousands of hours spinning your wheels in an
attempt to Prove A Negative.
I know because I worked for a psychopath who did it frequently, maintaining a culture of
fear even among the executive board members. One nice fellow was so affected by the stress
that he developed cancer and died. (The manipulative SOB didn't have the balls to attend the
funeral. Too bad.)
Again, this is classic psychopathy. I was singled out at one point for something special,
being accused in front of the Board of something "Too Horrible To Describe" (those exact
words), but if I apologized for "it" then there would be an opportunity to make amends.
Obviously, I had no idea, and got so rattled (I was a stupid kid) that I nearly burst into
tears. A few minutes after I left, I heard them all laughing about it. People are not human
beings to a psychopath, they're instruments to be manipulated.
I agree with you about the psychopaths. I have worked for and with several. They are
emotionless pathological liars devoid of empathy and live each day trying to focus attention
on themselves in any way possible to feed their ego. They are born with flawed genes but
usually breed the most which is why there are so many out there, you can't avoid getting near
them.
Psychopaths enjoy the thrill of lying and sowing discord amongst anyone they can bully,
i.e. Staff in lower positions, (yes the chief burger flipper can be a psychopath to the
junior burger flippers - it's not all about CEO's). They also bully anyone smaller, weaker or
less fortunate than themselves. A lot of them do get locked up, but too many roam free.
The end of the petrodollar effectively cancels the MIC's fiat credit card. They will be
rummaging their sofas for spare change. Expect them to use whatever they can scrape together
for their own last gasp battle of the bulge.
the bulk of the article withstanding, i can't understand how someone who would put
together this article would use a sequitur such as:
Novichok (the inventor of which, by the way, lives in the US),
what fucking difference does it make where he lives? he is russian. and when he invented
the stuff he was working for the soviet union intelligence services. spots leopards. and said
inventer makes the highlighted claim from the link below. so why bring the inventer of this
stuff into the discussion. bad choice of research.
You think that someone that can reproduce this nerve agent who is now under full control
of the CIA no doubt is someone that shouldn't be mentioned? You jest!!! Oh and he knows Putin
ordered it!!! ROFLOL!!! You are full of shit up to your eyeballs!
NSA whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden slammed Facebook in a Saturday
tweet following the suspension of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and its political
data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, over what Facebook says was imporoper use of
collected data.
In a nutshell, in 2015 Cambridge Analytica bought data from a University of Cambridge
psychology professor, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, who had developed an app called
"thisisyourdigitallife" that vacuumed up loads of information on users and their contacts.
After making Kogan and Cambridge Analytica promise to delete the data the app had gathered,
Facebook received reports (from sources they would not identify) which claimed that not all the
data had been deleted - which led the social media giant to delete Cambridge Analytica and
parent company SCL's accounts.
"By passing information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge Analytica and
Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, he violated our platform policies. When we learned
of this violation in 2015, we removed his app from Facebook and demanded certifications from
Kogan and all parties he had given data to that the information had been destroyed. Cambridge
Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all certified to us that they destroyed the data." - Facebook
Of note, Cambridge Analytica worked for Ted Cruz and Ben Carson during the 2016 election
before contracting with the Trump campaign. Cruz stopped using CA after their data modeling
failed to identify likely supporters.
In response to the ban, Edward Snowden fired off two tweets on Saturday criticizing
Facebook, and claimed social media companies were simply "surveillance companies" who engaged
in a "successful deception" by rebranding themselves.
Snowden isn't the first big name to call out Silicon Valley companies over their data
collection and monitoring practices, or their notorious intersection with the U.S.
Government.
In his 2014 book:
When Google Met WikiLeaks
,
Julian Assange describes Google's close relationship with the NSA and the Pentagon.
Around the same time, Google was becoming involved in a program known as the "Enduring
Security Framework" (ESF), which entailed the sharing of information between Silicon Valley
tech companies and Pentagon-affiliated agencies "at network speed." Emails obtained in 2014
under Freedom of Information requests show Schmidt and his fellow Googler Sergey Brin
corresponding on first-name terms with NSA chief General Keith Alexander about ESF Reportage
on the emails focused on the familiarity in the correspondence: "General Keith . . . so great
to see you . . . !" Schmidt wrote. But most reports overlooked a crucial detail. " Your
insights as a key member of the Defense Industrial Base," Alexander wrote to Brin, "are
valuable to ensure ESF's efforts have measurable impact." -
Julian Assange
Kim Dotcom has also opined on social media's close ties to the government, tweeting in
February "Unfortunately all big US Internet companies are in bed with the deep state. Google,
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. are all providing backdoors to your data."
In 2013, the
Washington Post
and
The Guardian
revealed that the NSA has backdoor access to all major Silicon Valley social
media firms, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and
Apple - all through the notorious PRISM program which began in 2007 under the Protect America
Act. PRISM's existence was leaked by Edward Snowden before he entered into ongoing asylum in
Moscow. Microsoft was the first company to join the PRISM program.
The NSA has the ability to pull any sort of data it likes from these companies, but it
claims that it does not try to collect it all. The PRISM program goes above and beyond the
existing laws that state companies must comply with government requests for data, as it gives
the NSA direct access to each company's servers -- essentially letting the NSA do as it
pleases. -
The Verge
After PRISM's existence was leaked by Snowden, the Director of National Intelligence issued
a statment which stated that the only people targed by the programs are "outside the United
States," and that the program "does not allow" the targeting of citizens within US borders.
In 2006,
Wired
magazine published
evidence from a retired AT&T communications technician, Mark Klein, that revealed a secret
room used to "split" internet data at a San Francisco office as part of the NSA's bulk data
collection techniques used on millions of Americans.
During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabins were being
installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego, he
said.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet
backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network
to or from other domestic and international providers , Klein said. -
Wired
"They are collecting everything on everybody," Klein said.
Well look on the bright side, only idiots are placing their most vital thoughts,
and innovations on Facebook or any social media for that matter. So basically
big brother has acres of databases full of idiotic things. Believe me, if it can
take humans a step into the future, its not on the web. So basically big brother
is mining through vast amounts of useless data. Here's your sign!
If you actually worked for the Navy for
any period of time, you should know that this government cannot tie its
own shoes. No way are any of your whacked-out conspiracy theories even
remotely possible.
Yes, Zuckerberg and the Winkelvoss twins came up with Facebook for
social reasons. The government spy agencies, who know a good opportunity
to use someone else's invention to serve their own ends when they see one,
co-opted it. It really doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
The fact of WHO did this is irrelevant. What matters is that we should
have understood what this meant from the begining. Many did, many more
did not. We complain of being treated like sheep, bleeting all the way
to our pens.
What we must accept is that there are many who could
care less about liberty, happy to live in a cell, as long as th
econveniences continue to poor in.
I wonder how livestock feel about living in a pen while receiving
free food and healthcare? I wonder if given the choice of freedom or
feed lot, which way they would go. I think we see the answer in the
inner cities of our nation (and others).
It's all well and good to be disgusted by surveillance, but it's
ever-encroaching, and soon you won't be able to function without complying.
Privacy will be impossible, except for the elite for whom privacy will be
another luxury that they get which you don't. Sort of like a gun.
I initially thought Snowden was a traitor. But over careful examination, he
exposed lying by Brennan and Clapper, unwarranted surveillance of Americans
and lot of complete lies told by the government to We The People.
Well look on the bright side, only idiots are placing their most vital
thoughts, and innovations on Facebook or any social media for that matter. So
basically big brother has acres of databases full of idiotic things. Believe
me, if it can take humans a step into the future, its not on the web. So
basically big brother is mining through vast amounts of useless data. Here's
your sign!
Tape over the user facing camera, don't use finger print to unlock, and dont
do voice search, it will buy you a bit more time before they can profile u
completely. Of course, stay away from FB. Install no script addon to your
Firefox browser.
That's where I'm counting on. Years of showing middle finger for every
potential partner related to potential use of this surveillance media. I
wanna piss everyone off big time, make myself active target, and to see what
happens.
Picture this: a civilization muzzled for decades upon decades by political
correctness, the pressures building inside people not being able to spout off
at the mouth. Then along comes the internet and socials where people can
imagine they're anonymously blabbing away at the keyboard. My point is that
most people mean very little of what they put on the web, it's just that the
dam broke with the onset of the web. That's another reason data collection is
useless.
Things more or less moved from the Points and in the Direction and Pivots I expected and
commented under the Colonels 'time-to-clean-up-the-homs-desert-pocket' Update in February,
the biggest Hurdles to advances in Ghouta remains two Fold - the prospect of brutal Urban
Warfare and the search for a more diplomatic Solution.
Whilst Idlib will no doubt fall under a similar Fate to a degree (Diplomacy will be
necessary whilst low hanging Turkish Fruit remain). I do however propose a different
conclusion which is possible that then simply acceptance of a divided Syria, at least in its
current form.
Turkish Observation Posts largely at current prevent or more, Influence R+6 Activities in
Eastern Idlib and Aleppo Province, the Door is still open in the South and West - Hama and
Latakiya Provinces...
Through the 'Desert Hawks' previously the Syrian Government has demonstrated capability to
advance through the Mountainous Warfare that Latakia demands, Ghouta far from simply securing
the Syrian Heartland may be an action designed to free up large numbers of maneuver Units
which should enable them not only to squeeze the North West but more seriously threaten Jisr
Al Shugur... Likewise an advance in the South could force Opposition out of Hama Province
ensuring Hama Cities security.
The ultimate goal depending on Force Ratios and scale of advance could be to render many
of the Turkish Positions in East Idlib and Aleppo redundant, inducing a withdrawal from
current Positions, or a negotiated Settlement....
The fact that Towns such as Kafarya and Foua remain isolated forces the R+6 to mount some
Operation to ensure or negotiate their Position and indeed the Mountains of Latakia would
position R+6 suitably to overlook much of Idlib to support where further advances can be
made.
Colonel, I would respectfully suggest that War is a Combination of Factors - Economic
being one along with Ideological Factors, this all weighs heavily on the Calculations for
War, In Syria Case I suspect that those arguing for it not only included the Zionists, but
also got consensus from those whom could argue its benefits in Economics and wider
Geopolitics (EU relieved of Russian Energy for example)
By now I suspect the latter Advocates have ideally given up, but the Zionists are
incapable of doing so, because unlike Economics they have literally made a Situation worse
for the cause they serve.
"... CUI BONO ? Who Benefits? MIC, NeoCons, Zionists, Rothschilds banking cartel. ..."
"... Why the HELL would Russia, or anyone else, bother to use such a messy, traceable and complicated method to kill this guy? Especially when there are SO MANY WAYS it could have been done that wouldn't have garnered all the attention, and that would have left no traces? They could have sent someone to shove him in front of a train or something, or staged a 'botched robbery'. ..."
You're not "just sayin'", you're just babbling. Just as Assad would never be stupid enough
to use chemical weapons when he's already winning bigly, Russia would never be stupid enough
to use chemical weapons on a has-been spy, when there's a hundred other ways to kill him.
Anybody who insists on the chemical weapons narrative in either of these cases is pushing a
narrative, not having a discussion. Why are you pushing this narrative, I wonder, my little 5
month old "Warrior for freedom."?
Seriously...I think these 'conspiracy theorists' have been watching too many Hollywood
movies.
This is what I want to SCREAM every time I hear this shit...Why the HELL would Russia, or
anyone else, bother to use such a messy, traceable and complicated method to kill this guy?
Especially when there are SO MANY WAYS it could have been done that wouldn't have garnered
all the attention, and that would have left no traces? They could have sent someone to shove
him in front of a train or something, or staged a 'botched robbery'.
Reminds me of the stupid assassination methods the CIA wanted to use on Castro...poisoning
his beard? Really? Well, aside from the fact that it is just too 'Wile E. Coyote' to be taken
seriously, did anyone ask, if such an assassin could get close enough to poison his beard,
why he wouldn't go with a more dependable method?
Well we know that. But the real point I want to make is that Russia always reacts to such
nonsensical and outright false accusations; Russia always responds, rejects of course the
accusations but usually with lengthy explanations, and with suggestions on how to come to the
truth – as if the UK and the west would give a shit about the truth – why are they
doing that? Why are you Russia, even responding?
That is foolish sign of weakness . As if Russia was still believing in the goodness of the
west, as if it just needed to be awakened. What Russia is doing, every time, not just in this
Skripal case, but in every senseless and ruthless attack, accusations about cyber hacking,
invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and not to speak about the never-ending saga of Russia-Gate,
Russian meddling and hacking into the 2016 US Presidential elections, favoring Trump over
Hillary. Everybody with a half brain knows it's a load of crap. Even the FBI and CIA said that
there was no evidence. So, why even respond? Why even trying to undo the lies, convince the
liars that they, Russia, are not culpable?
Every time the west notices Russia's wanting to be a "good neighbor" – about which the
west really couldn't care less, Russia makes herself more vulnerable, more prone to be accused
and attacked and more slandered.
Why does Russia not just break away from the west? Instead of trying to 'belong' to the
west? Accept that you are not wanted in the west, that the west only wants to plunder your
resources, your vast landmass, they want to provoke you into a war where there are no winners,
a war that may destroy entire Mother Earth, but they, the ZionAnglo handlers of Washington,
dream that their elite will survive to eventually take over beautiful grand Russia. That's what
they want. The Bashing is a means towards the end. The more people are with them, the easier it
is to launch an atrocious war.
The Skripal case is typical. The intensity with which this UK lie-propaganda has been
launched is exemplary. It has brought all of halfwit Europe – and there is a lot of them
– under the spell of Russia hating. Nobody can believe that May Merkel, Macron are such
blatant liars that is beyond what they have been brought up with. A lifelong of lies pushed
down their throats, squeezed into their brains. Even if something tells them – this is
not quite correct, the force of comfort, not leaving their comfort zone- not questioning their
own lives – is so strong that they rather cry for War, War against Russia, War against
the eternal enemy of mankind. – I sadly remember in my youth in neutral Switzerland, the
enemy always, but always came from the East. He was hiding behind the "Iron Curtain".
The West is fabricating a new Iron Curtain. But while doing that, they don't realize they
are putting a noose around their own neck. Russia doesn't need the west, but the west will soon
be unable to survive without the East, the future is in the east – and Russia is an
integral part of the East, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), that encompasses
half the world's population and controls a third of the world's economic output.
Mr. Putin, you don't need to respond to insults from the west, because that's what they are,
abusive insults. The abject slander that Johnson boy threw at you is nothing but a miserable
insult; you don't need to respond to this behavior. You draw your consequences.
Dear President Putin, Dear Mr. Lavrov, Let them! Let them holler. Let them rot in their
insanity . – Respond to the UK no longer with words but with deeds, with drastic deeds.
Close their embassy. Give all embassy staff a week to vacate your country, then you abolish and
eviscerate the embassy the same way the US abolished your consulates in Washington and San
Francisco – a bit more than a year ago. Surely you have not forgotten. Then you give all
Brits generously a month to pack up and leave your beautiful country (it can be done –
that's about what Washington is forcing its vassals around the globe to do with North Korean
foreign laborers); block all trade with the UK (or with the entire West for that matter), block
all western assets in Russia, because that's the first thing the western plunderers will do,
blocking Russian assets abroad. Stealing is in their blood.
Mr. Putin, You don't need to respond to their lowly abusive attacks, slanders, lies. You and
Russia are way above the level of this lowly western pack. Shut your relation to the west. You
have China, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russia is part of the OBI –
President Xi's One Belt Initiative – the multi-trillion development thrive, emanating
from China, connecting continents – Asia, Africa, Europe, South America – with
infrastructure, trade, creating hundreds of millions of decent jobs, developing and promoting
science and culture and providing hundreds of millions of people with a decent life.
What would the west do, if suddenly they had no enemy, because the enemy has decided to
ignore them and take a nap? China will join you.
Everything else, responding, justifying, explaining, denying the most flagrant lies, trying
to make them believe in the truth is not only a frustrating waste of time, it's committing
political suicide. You will never win. The west doesn't give a hoot about the truth –
they have proven that for the last two thousand years or more. And in all that time, not an
iota of conscience has entered the west's collective mind. The west cannot be trusted.
Period.
Putin is all too happy to see West tirelessly attack and insult Russia as this kind of
antagonism solidifiers Russian people unity and support for the Czar Vladimir. He does not
need to lift a finger, just report the news from abroad. All economic and social problems are
now secondary in Russia with this vicious anti-Russia campaign in the West and its weekly
russophobic hysteria.
If you would listen to Putin who does give long interviews regularly you see that he
understands that all of the money and energy being directed toward war is retarding the
growth he and his people want to see in Russia.
That country has paid dues we can't get our minds around between the soviet overthrow of
the government and WW2, never mind Stalin's years of the gulag. There is a free Russian movie
with English titles on Youtube and it's called The Chekist. Strongly think it's worth your
time to watch it.
The governments of these "big player" countries put on kabuki theater, because behind
closed doors and through back channels, they are working together to enslave the peoples.
That's why Russia keeps responding.
We're witnessing classic psychopathic warfare. Psychopaths play mind games. They make
outrageous accusations and force you to spend thousands of hours spinning your wheels in an
attempt to Prove A Negative.
I know because I worked for a psychopath who did it frequently, maintaining a culture of
fear even among the executive board members. One nice fellow was so affected by the stress
that he developed cancer and died. (The manipulative SOB didn't have the balls to attend the
funeral. Too bad.)
Again, this is classic psychopathy. I was singled out at one point for something special,
being accused in front of the Board of something "Too Horrible To Describe" (those exact
words), but if I apologized for "it" then there would be an opportunity to make amends.
Obviously, I had no idea, and got so rattled (I was a stupid kid) that I nearly burst into
tears. A few minutes after I left, I heard them all laughing about it. People are not human
beings to a psychopath, they're instruments to be manipulated.
The average American zombie may still be clueless to this, but Russian officials
understand, surely. America and its vassals are a Pathocracy. The directives and messaging
coming out of Washington and other corners are going to get a lot more zany, because
psycohpaths are nothing if not imaginative when it comes to rationalization and avoidance of
responsibility.
I'm convinced of 2 things: 1) Russia's strategy is to document everything like crazy for
the purpose of providing a chronicle when SHTF (letting the psychopaths dig their own hole,
in other words), and 2) When SHTF, it will not involve Russia directly at all. Things are
going to get so loony that rational Americans will rise up. In other words, Revolution is
inevitable as long as pscyhopaths are allowed to continued to grind everything that's good
about the West into the dirt.
Psychopaths: Expect no sympathy when it all comes down. For all the terror and death that
you have rained upon the rest of the world since WW2, you deserve everything coming to
you.
Psychopaths enjoy the thrill of lying and sowing discord amongst anyone they can bully,
i.e. Staff in lower positions, (yes the chief burger flipper can be a psychopath to the
junior burger flippers - it's not all about CEO's). They also bully anyone smaller, weaker or
less fortunate than themselves. A lot of them do get locked up, but too many roam free.
Agreed. I think the author is missing the point. In my opinion, the Russians are speaking
to western people, not the corrupt leaders, when they expose the truth, and they're gaining
credibility in the process. With the constant barrage of lies the West receives from the
media and the imperialistic misdeeds constantly committed by the U.S. govt, Russia's best
propaganda campaign is simply stating the truth.
"... As long as there is no help from the outside Putin can keep these forces at bay. But had Syria been turned into some sort of Caliphate there would have been real trouble in Russia´s southern regions. That is why I believe Putin felt he had no choice but to intervene. ..."
"... To my mind Russia's intervention is wholly defensive in nature. Should the US decide to nevertheless effect regime change in Syria all bets are off. ..."
Visiting Russia at least two times a year since 1992 and speaking the language. Talking to
anybody I meet, knowing journalists, historians ordinary people I think that Russia has found
some sort of equilibrium. It is a deeply conservative place afraid of any sudden changes.
Living standards might be slowly eroding for many people but that is not the matter. People
want stability above anything else. And are quite willing to tolerate a certain amount of
corruption and misbehavior by the authorities. In fact both these amounts have not been
going up but rather decreasing.
The crazies (the Russian equivalent of their Nazi brethren on the Ukrainian side) might
howl about how Putin is a weakling and an appeaser but in vast Russia the majority
doesn´t give a damn about Ukraine.
The main problem of Russia internally is the Caucasus. Putin has in effect allowed
Chechnya to be independent (even FSB agents have been hindered to do their job by Kadyrow) as
long as she toes the overall line and doesn´t conduct her own foreign policy. But
Chechnya is only a small part of Muslim Russia. You have a much higher birth rate there then
in "real" Russia and a strong religious resurgence.
As long as there is no help from the outside Putin can keep these forces at bay. But had
Syria been turned into some sort of Caliphate there would have been real trouble in
Russia´s southern regions. That is why I believe Putin felt he had no choice but to
intervene.
To my mind Russia's intervention is wholly defensive in nature. Should the US decide
to nevertheless effect regime change in Syria all bets are off. I don't think it will
come to that.
Sometime in the future Europe will just have to accept that chaos in the name of democracy
is no solution. The pressure is building in Germany day by day. There are about 15 million in
the age bracket of 20-25. BY the end of this year there will be 2 million refugees in this
age bracket of which the majority are young men. Young men who´ve seen war and have not
been effeminated by a PC education system. But who are completely useless in a high tech
country like Germany.
The temperature on the streets is constantly rising and there is no police force able to
deal with such numbers of potentially violent young men. The media is sweeping daily
occurrences of violence under the carpet. But the discontent among ordinary Germans is
steadily rising. Many people get the connection between the havoc the West is creating in the
middle east and the rising chaos in Europe. Apart from the fact that Germany is already
paying as much for defense as for housing refugees.
It would be much cheaper to send the people back, buy into Russia´s peace plan in
Syria and fund reconstruction. In the end the pain will be to great and there will be a
rupture one way or another. Sooner than people think.
Having warned it would retaliate proportionately, this morning Russia did just that when it
expelled 23 British diplomats - the same number as the UK kicked out a few days earlier as
punishment for Moscow's alleged poisoning of a former double agent. It also ordered the closure
of the UK consulate in St Petersburg and the Moscow British Council, a cultural and educational
organization.
Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the British ambassador to Moscow and told him
that the measures are "in response to the provocative actions of the British side and the
unsubstantiated accusations" against Russia, the ministry said. Russia gave the British
diplomats one week to leave. "If further actions of an unfriendly nature are taken against
Russia, the Russian side reserves the right to take other retaliatory measures," the ministry
said.
You like my comments on the Team of Sycophants? You have not seen what I will write about
the Democrats. Pelosi? She is a self centered wretch enriched by her silicon valley admirers
through no merit of her own who despises the people her father fought for. HC? I hope she is
a drunk. I could like her better if she is. Her contempt for ordinary Americans who do not
share her adolescent utopian revolutionary ideals is laughable. Perhaps Wellesley did that to
her. My uncle endowed a chair there but I never liked him. pl
Trump seems unable to manage and keep a team of people of exceptional ability because he
fears a cabal forming that will 'capture' him and steal his glory?
Hannity and Bolton are definitely his type of sycophants, distrusted by the establishment
and desperate for power.
When will someone/something put a halt to this AIPAC/Israel/Neo-con march to war with Iran
and possibly Russia?
I consider myself a Progressive who hates the establishment Democratic Party. The Russia
hate is off the rails and dangerous. WTF is going on in this country? Have they lost their
friggin minds?
Hear! Hear! Even NPR agrees with.... Donald J. Trump:
"The claim Black and Hispanic unemployment are at or near record lows. The short answer
Trump's numbers are right," ...... "Trump is right that African-American unemployment hit a
record low in December. The unemployment rate for black Americans is currently 6.8 percent,
the lowest level recorded since the government started keeping track in January 1972..... And
he's also right that the Hispanic unemployment rate is down a point over the last year"
Larry Wilkerson writes:
"Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's defense minister, is scheduled to give the keynote address at
the Jerusalem Post's conference in New York in April. The title of his address is published
as "The Coming War With Iran." Any American citizen who believes this White House team will
not involve the U.S. in Israel's war needs to check into a mental ward." http://lobelog.com/the-most-important-hearings-of-the-young-century/
Colonel Lang I think our president wants and demands admirers and not advisers. With what I
have experienced back here in Lotus Aters town, that self centred mentality fits with Beverly
Hills star types, and Goldman Sachs fund managers
which the combination of this two personality brings to mind a CAA agent.
McCabe has been fired today....48 hrs before he was due to retire and be able to collect his
20 year pension....seems a little too vengeful to me.
Was there ever any real investigation into his alleged favoring of Hillary in the FBI
investigation? I don't remember the details.
Former U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey says, "Reluctantly I have concluded that President
Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US
interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason
under the sway of Mr Putin." https://twitter.com/mccaffreyr3/status/974748724176941056
And now, apparently on this Friday night, the Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who
is at this time perhaps not the official deputy director any more but who was on the payroll
with accumulated vacation or sick leave or a similar such thing, was officially fired from
the Bureau.
This is two days before he could retire with full benefits, as he turns 50 years of age on
Sunday. Since he is most likely a civil service employee, even at his job as the number two
person at the FBI, he would be covered by federal civil service law. I am not familiar with
the federal process, but a civil service employee can usually contest the termination of
employment, although it is in an "administrative proceeding", which has different rules than
a lawsuit. The result of an administrative hearing can be appealed into a regular trial court
in Texas, but with restrictions and limits on the rules of evidence and procedure that govern
civil lawsuits. The federal rules regarding the appeal of an administrative ruling may be
similar.
The battle lines with the "special counsel" Mueller are being more clearly drawn, as
McCabe is quoted in the article as saying--
"This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me
personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more
generally. It is part of this Administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the
Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign
only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel's work."
The situation creates the classic case of McCabe as a "disgruntled former employee".
Everybody knows what that means....
I remember well Powell's performance at the UN with CIA director literally backing him up. I
knew he was lying, it was clear to anyone who bothered to read Knight Ridder.
Wilkerson's role was never clear to me, but I accept your evaluation.
If the Boss surrounds himself with sycophants, were are told what to expect:
Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state,
and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those
things of which he inquires, and of none others; but he ought to question them upon
everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions. With
these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way
that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be
preferred; outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and
be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers,
or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.
Come on, all you people. This has been the most entertaining soap opera in Washington since
Bill Clintons zipper trouble. There has not been any real damage to the country (and maybe a
few benefits) and may not be in the future.
Pat, us Democrats are not bad people, we just have shitty leaders and no vision, but in
that regard, the Republicans are catching up.
McCabe is brutally fired a day short of his 20 years, Sessions is humiliated on a daily
basis, Tillerson was shafted everytime he went overseas trying to fix Trump's mistakes. Now,
how many in the Trump administration and in government are going to 'work for the president'
as opposed to 'working for themselves'.
Fear is not the tool of the effective manager.
There may be plenty of irony, but that does not make it implausible. We have witnessed a
progression of lamer and lamer ducks in this administration. Why not just use a video
substitute and let Fox News take over White House operations?
The firing of McCabe shows how petty Trump is and his lack of a moral code. It is true
that not all Republicans are bad. My wife, until recently, was one all her adult life.
I went to my monthly science lecture last evening, conducted by a neighbor, and he will
rejoin the federal government this fall as a Senior Science Advisor.( He spent 30 years
before retirement in that capacity) I would wish that more people as capable as he is would
help run the country, regardless of the dumb people that get elected.
The good news about the dismal current condition is that standards may be raised in the
future in an effort to make this just an educational interlude.
Wilkerson told me (through a mutual friend) well be fore the UN debacle that he and Powell
had the situation under control and that I should shut up. It was also Wilkerson who
persuaded Powell not to take any intel analysts to CIA when they went to be briefed by Tenet
and company. why did he do that? Hey! Why would such semi-divine beings as he and Powell need
expert help? pl
I am no big fan of Pelosi but she has been a very effective leader as this Atlantic article
states. Just one example, she very effectively stopped Bush junior's Social Security
privatization plan.
Ah, but firing him days before his pension vested is beautiful. Too vengeful? I think not;
it's exactly what he deserved. Why let a DB like that glean the rewards of double or even
triple dipping?
So Wilkerson had/has no conscience. WH Favors? How shallow can a person be? WH Favors? Blink,
blink? Why Powell didn't slap the dog shit out of Wilkerson I'll never understand.
Back to Mattis, what was he waiting for (saying he needed more 'intel' for extraction of
the wounded/dying?), a note sent through Fedex or UPS? To leave men to die in the field the
way Mattis did. Arghhh.
I also have not seen anywhere where Mattis experienced combat except from a 'comfortable'
position. That explains a lot why Mattis seems to be so gung ho on getting U.S. into another
unnecessary war.
Former/Retired CIA Director John O. Brennan says, "When the full extent of your venality,
moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as
a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will
not destroy America...America will triumph over you." https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/974978856997224448
Spare me the adjectives......he'fired. And if, significant if, he is guilty of what the
published reports say is, if that is confirmed by an independent inspector general's report,
and the text of that report matters here, then to hell with him he deserves to be fired.
If Sessions had not (wrongly, it turns out) recused himself and cleaned out the DOJ (as
expected) Trump would not have been riding him.
If Tillerson had followed Trump's direction on Iran, he probably would still be in his
job.
As for McCabe, that's life in the fast lane.
He was too clever by half and got in over his head.
If anything, this whole McCabe/Strozk/Page and whoever else attempt at "plotting" shows the
incompetence of these pinheads.
If Strozk was the FBI's top CI guy (texting like a teenage girl), no wonder the Chinese and
Russians are running wild.
But to truly drain the swamp Trump has to get rid of hundreds, maybe thousands, more of the
self-enriching parasite class.
For years Wilkerson spent great effort providing Colin Powell 'cover' on the allegations
that he was in the loop on all the 'enhanced interrogation tactics' (torture), while Powell
himself was quiet on the issue. And when CP was pushed he was vague e.g. stating that he
didn't have "sufficient memory recall" about the meetings referenced; that he had
participated in " many meetings on how to deal with detainees "; and that he was not "aware
of anything that we discussed in any of those meetings that was not considered legal "
Of course it later came out that he was at the meetings, knew exactly what was going on,
but said nothing. The bottom line? Wilkerson lied and lied...
Well, if all the reports of her liquor bills for supplying the plane on tax-paid trips back
and forth to California when she was speaker of the House are true, she IS a drunk. And on
top of that I worry that all the Botox is now really affecting her brain.
She and Hillary really give being a woman something to cringe about. I, as a woman, would
like her better if she joined the transgender movement so as to prove they aren't just voting
as their husbands tell them to.
Brennan, Comey, Clapper; McCabe, Strzok, Page and others unknown politicized the Intelligence
community through incompetence and malfeasance and left it a smoking wreck. They are
delusional if they think that their contemptible bit of work has not been recognized for what
it is by both active and retired members of that community.
It has almost nothing to do with Trump. John Brennan is an ass. In fact Trump's flailing
around and leadership by tweet has only delayed the day of reckoning for the FBI with the CIA
hiding in the tall grass and still unscathed. Lay that on Trump and Pompeo. Wray, a Trump
appointment...wait, who is Wray and where is he?
I would call Trump's swamp draining efforts thus far a piss poor job and his FP efforts have
been plagued by piss poor appointments and piss poor performance. He himself is more in the
swamp than out of it and a Bolton appointment would put him in it over his ears.
Trump right now has one thing going for him: he's not Clinton; and that advantage is rapidly
disappearing. He either stops behaving like a NY real estate lout with a pinky ring or he's
going to blow himself and who knows what else to kingdom come.
I despise the leftists that are attempting to take control of the country and, to the extent
that the Democrat party has aligned with them (a large extent), I despise them too. Tucker
Carlson is doing a fantastic job countering the left and I guess Hannity plays an important
role in keeping anti-lefty outrage at the boiling point. We need people like him to keep
morale high for the foot soldiers in the culture war. He isn't supposed to be a source of
input for the generals.
That said, at a personal level, Hannity is, to me, an ignorant blow hard and he gives me a
headache every time I listen to him for more than a minute or two. That is what politics in
the USA has come down to; escalating rhetoric and counter rhetoric. If one side became more
circumspect then the other side would drown them out with wild rants. So they all rant on
with increasing fury. That is Hannity's role in all of this.
People here defending McCabe need to have their heads and moral compasses examined. I see
how it goes. No one in DC can ever be punished for breaking the law because one of the
parties will declare it to be politically motivated and 50% of the country (+/-) will buy
into that narrative. I have seen several comments by former FBI stating that McCabe got what
he deserved.
There are other ways to interpret the departure of McMaster (if it's real). The Boss and
the section chief have some differences of opinion or style, but they aren't hostile to each
other at a fundamental level. The section chief agrees to depart amicably and goes to work in
a different area to which he carries and propagates the vision of the Boss. Post departure,
the Boss and Chief maintain communications. I've seen this happen in private sector
companies. I think this approach is unsettling to those with traditional views of how a
bureaucratic career works.
Thank you Colonel. Your most recent short hand about POTUS being a boss, and being so
absolutely, mixes well with the previous and pithy, 'that the deal is everything, and there
are no fouls in service to achieving that everything.'
It would be interesting to learn how that classic boss=god top down approach mixes with
the military approach of the various 21st century generals who have come into the
administration. There are a number of different and basic top down approaches in the private
sector.
Isn't retired Army General 'Jerry' Boykins available?
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes
known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.
You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over
you."
My. my so Totsky of him.
If Evil Tzar Vladimir IV is selected again on Sunday, the Cruelly Clueless Crew better
hope and pray he doesn't drop the Doomsday Dime or when "America" sees what they were a part
of on July 17th 2014, well, "...America will triumph over you" will become a prophetic
fulfillment.
Why are you quoting the words of a Traitor named John Brennan? He committed 'Sedition'
against a duly elected/sworn in POTUS called Trump. Sedition is under the 'Treason' Statute
which upon conviction is punishable by death, and there is no statute of time limitations.
What Brennan did, he can be incarcerated for up until his dying day! Brennan hung himself
with his own rope, and he's too narcissistic arrogant to realize it.
On another note it appears that the Trump dossier was created, financed, and orchestrated
by MI6, which is (if I'm not mistaken) a U.K. 'Governmental Agency', which by defination the
British Government actively conspired to overthrown a sitting U.S. President.
So.....do we now get to squash MI6 for the arrogant gnat they really are?
May owes Trump an formal official apology for MI6's actions of war.
There are rumors that the double agent GRU Colonel Skripal was offering the Russian
Government to turn states evidence against MI6 and provide the Russian Government with all
the 'stuff' about the MI6 created Trump Dossier in return for his being able to return to
Russia to see his daughter married.
All signs point to Skripal's poisoning was orchestrated and performed by the British
Government (spelled MI6/MI5) to hide the fact that the Trump Dossier was created by the
British Government (spelled MI6) to overthrow a sitting U.S. President.
The Russian Government had already convicted/incarcerated/realeased Skripal of Treason,
they would have had nothing to gain by poisoning British MI6 Asset double agent GRU Colonel
Skripal.
My bad, not only does British PM May owe U.S. President Trump a formal apology for the
British Government's (spelled MI6) attempted overthrow of a sitting U.S. President with their
Trump Dossier, but also the Queen of England Queen Elizabeth herself and British King
Apparent Prince William himself, as May acts as their formal agent. The sitting Queen/King of
England rules England, not the PM as the PM are nothing more than their face persona
agents.
The fellow at Conservative Treehouse described the Mattis/Trump row (several days before it
blew over) as a "Black Hat Hunting" exercise. Trump and Mattis put out the row story in a
compartmentalized fashion in order to barium meal the leaker in the NSC. Sounds plausible.
I really thought that Andrew McCabe would be allowed to retire and disappear into
obscurity. Instead Jeff Session just took a shot at the FBI, Five Eyes intelligence community
and the Media Mogul coup plotters. All Clinton, Bush and Obama appointees and supporters must
go to the ground. The federal government will seize up. Anyone who thinks their future is at
risk has a reason to assist invoking the 25th Amendment. The Trump Family will fight back.
This is the start of an oligarch mob war fought by Deplorables against the ruling
credentialed Consiglieres.
Meanwhile, even the NewsHour reports on the threat of a new Hezbollah-Israel conflict
which will inevitably escalate into a shooting war with Iran and then draw in nuclear armed
Russia.
Ah if only the USA were Florence in the 1400's.
While many have read and excoriated the Prince, few have studied the sources from whence that
little handbook was drawn.
Enjoy: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Discourses_on_Livy
In my own little library is one of his lesser works:'
https://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Niccolo-Machiavelli/dp/0226500403/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1521313961&sr=8-12&keywords=machiavelli+war
Given the evidence of his career, it is obvious that Pres. Trump is well versed in the art of
manipulating sycophants. Rich men attract parasites like magnets attract iron filings. Since
Pres. Trump was still rich when he won the presidency after 40+ years being a sycophant
magnet, I think he is able to fluster them now as he has for decades. It is also obvious over
his career that he picks good people for the job he wants done and when it is done he moves
on to the next job and the next batch of appropriate people.
Granted this is not the norm for politicians, but it is for builders. You don't use the
foundation or utilities contractor for the stucco work nor the stucco contractor for the
interior decoration work. These things should be obvious but the talking heads insist on
trying to put Pres. Trump into a politician pigeonhole. He doesn't because he isn't.
It is enjoyable that the talking heads still insist on taking his every word literally while
simultaneously refusing to allow that he is a serious man with an excellent control of
language and nuance when it serves him.
"Provocation will be used as pretext by #US & allies to launch strikes on military and
govt infrastructures in #Syria, we are registering the signs of the preparations. Strike
groups of the cruise missile carriers been formed in Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Red Sea" -
@mod_russia
You mean Black and Hispanic unemployment were great under Barack? Why oh why did those
voters abandon the democratic candidate. I'm sure the Russians make African American's stay
home on election day. Hilary 2020!
''These things should be obvious but the talking heads insist on trying to put Pres. Trump
into a politician pigeonhole''
Well he's sort of like a political pigeon playing chess...he struts onto the board, knocks
over all the pieces, sh-ts on the board and declares himself the winner.
But the game continues.
Trump says Mueller better not cross his red line and get into his business.
So Mueller crosses Trump's red line:
2 days ago - WASHINGTON -- The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the
Trump Organization business records in recent weeks to turn over documents, including some
related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter. The order is the first
known instance of the special counsel demanding records ....
So yesterday Trump's attorney says :
''"I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous
example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
and bring an end to alleged Russia collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe's boss
James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier,"
I think we are all past the "there is no difference between the parties" rhetoric. There IS a
difference...and the consistent damage across the board being done by the GOP. I have no
doubt...and, as a historian, NO doubt...that the Democrats can screw up just as badly. They
do, however, come from a very different place---and it has the virtue of being much more
protective of the people and land of the USA.
I know we come from different life experiences, Pat, but our country is seriously at risk
and it will be the differences between the parties that will count from here on out until
that day when we can all start pulling in the same direction.
There is a certain amount of demographic inevitability going on here. All to the good for
some of the marginalized Americans. I don't think Trump (or anyone) can really claim
credit....although I do find Trump being factually correct about something, quite refreshing.
Remember---"coincidence is not causation."
By Craig Murray, former British intelligence officer, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan,
and Rector (i.e. Chancellor) of the University of Dundee. Originally published at CraigMurray.org.uk .
As recently as 2016 Dr Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at the UK's only
chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, a former colleague of Dr David Kelly, published in an
extremely prestigious scientific journal that the evidence for the existence of Novichoks was
scant and their composition unknown.
In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents,
'Novichoks' (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the
'Foliant' programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive
countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly
originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent
confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published.
(Black, 2016)
Robin Black. (2016) Development, Historical Use and Properties of Chemical Warfare Agents.
Royal Society of Chemistry
Yet now, the British Government is claiming to be able instantly to identify a substance
which its only biological weapons research centre has never seen before and was unsure of its
existence. Worse, it claims to be able not only to identify it, but to pinpoint its origin.
Given Dr Black's publication, it is plain that claim cannot be true.
The world's international chemical weapons experts share Dr Black's opinion. The
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is a UN body based in the Hague. In
2013 this was the report of its Scientific Advisory Board, which included US, French, German
and Russian government representatives and on which Dr Black was the UK representative:
[The SAB] emphasised that the definition of toxic chemicals in the Convention would cover
all potential candidate chemicals that might be utilised as chemical weapons. Regarding new
toxic chemicals not listed in the Annex on Chemicals but which may nevertheless pose a risk
to the Convention, the SAB makes reference to "Novichoks". The name "Novichok" is used in a
publication of a former Soviet scientist who reported investigating a new class of nerve
agents suitable for use as binary chemical weapons. The SAB states that it has insufficient
information to comment on the existence or properties of "Novichoks". (OPCW, 2013)
OPCW: Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on developments in science and technology for
the Third Review Conference 27 March 2013
Indeed the OPCW was so sceptical of the viability of "novichoks" that it decided –
with US and UK agreement – not to add them nor their alleged precursors to its banned
list. In short, the scientific community broadly accepts Mirzayanov was working on "novichoks"
but doubts he succeeded.
Given that the OPCW has taken the view the evidence for the existence of "Novichoks" is
dubious, if the UK actually has a sample of one it is extremely important the UK presents that
sample to the OPCW. Indeed the UK has a binding treaty obligation to present that sample to
OPCW. Russa has – unreported by the corporate media – entered a demand at the OPCW
that Britain submit a sample of the Salisbury material for international analysis.
Yet Britain refuses to submit it to the OPCW.
Why?
A second part of May's accusation is that "Novichoks" could only be made in certain military
installations. But that is also demonstrably untrue. If they exist at all, Novichoks were
allegedly designed to be able to be made at bench level in any commercial chemical facility
– that was a major point of them. The only real evidence for the existence of Novichoks
was the testimony of the ex-Soviet scientist Mizayanov. And this is what Mirzayanov actually
wrote.
One should be mindful that the chemical components or precursors of A-232 or its binary
version novichok-5 are ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical
companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides.
Earlier today
we reported that the world got that much closer to a second Cold War after Russia said it
would expel UK diplomats in retaliation to Theresa May's decision to kick out 23 Russians,
while expanding its "blacklist" of US citizens in response to yesterday's Treasury sanctions.
That's when things turned south fast because roughly at that time, the U.K.'s top diploma,
Boris Johnson, directly accused Vladimir Putin, saying it was " overwhelmingly likely " that he
personally ordered the nerve-agent attack on British soil.
In a dramatic escalation of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, the Foreign
Secretary said the U.K.'s problem was not with the Russian people but with the Russian
leader.
"Our quarrel is with Putin's Kremlin and with his decision - and we think it
overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision - to direct the use of a nerve agent on the
streets of the U.K., on the streets of Europe, for the first time since World War II,"
Johnson said in London.
Predictably, the Kremlin was furious, said that blaming Putin personally for Skripal's
poisoning is "shocking and unforgivable."
Speaking to Interfax, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that "We have said on
different levels and occasions that Russia has nothing to do with this story" and added that
"any references to our president is nothing but shocking and unforgivable diplomatic
misconduct."
Johnson's statement was a "diplomatic blunder" on the part of the UK foreign secretary,
Peskov said, adding that the Kremlin remains "puzzled" by the conduct of the British
authorities during the Skripal crisis.
The diplomatic tension increased further Friday afternoon when London's Metropolitan Police
said it is treating as murder the death of Nikolai Glushkov, a close associate of Putin
opponent Boris Berezovsky -- a one-time billionaire who was himself found hanging dead in 2013
in his house outside London.
The Kremlin's press secretary also expressed belief that "sooner or later the British side
would have to present some kind of comprehensive evidence of Russia's involvement, at least, to
their partners France, the US, Germany, who declared solidarity with London in this situation."
Moscow earlier asked the UK to provide materials in the Skripal case, but received a negative
answer.
Johnson's claims of Putin's personal involvement weren't the only example of over-the-top
rhetoric by UK officials during the Skripal crisis. UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said
on Thursday that Russia "should go away and shut up" when asked about Moscow's possible
response to British sanctions.
In response, Russia's Defence Ministry said Williamson was an "intellectual impotent" and
Lavrov said he probably lacked education. "Well he's a nice man, I'm told, maybe he wants to
claim a place in history by making some bold statements," Lavrov said. "Theresa May's main
argument about Russia's guilt is 'Highly probable', while for him it's 'Russia should go and
shut up'. Maybe he lacks education, I don't know."
The False Flag nerve agent attack on Skripal and his daughter merely presents the
opportunity to distract the British people from the Brexit imperative.
The British government/Parliament has no desire to separate from the EU, and they have
nothing but contempt for the commoners, so they must call upon British intelligence services
to fabricate a False Flag terrorist attack against two Russian ex-pats who represent
absolutely no value to international espionage and attempt to kill them with poorly
engineered chemical weapons.
Then the international community conveniently blames Russia.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the
political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the
mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the
State.
Seems the Deep State is getting desperate. Obama interferes in the Brexit vote..Johnson is
interfering in the Russian vote. Bumper stickers back in the 60's.."What if they gave a war
and nobody came?" Unfortunately, nukes negate that question. We are all invited and going to
participate. Idiots are running the asylum. Duck and cover..ha!
During the latest debate between Russian presidential candidates, Zhirinovsky literally
erupted about Theresa May's absurd nerve gas psychodrama. Seriously, I've never seen so much
fire packed into a two-minute clip.
A couple of choice excerpts (but you really should watch):
"If they give us an ultimatum our Commander-in-Chief should deploy the Baltic Fleet to
the shores of Britain. They might respond, but Khrushchev once told the UK: 'A couple of my
missiles can eliminate your isles.' It shut them up for twenty years."
"Someone poisoned a filthy turncoat spy, and they blame entire Russia. They threaten to
bomb our whole country of 150 million. A cyber-attack, a war - they're nuts. British Prime
Minister Mey, May, or whatever, has gone mad. The lady who's never been to war. Like
Thatcher, who'd never been to war, but started one over the Falkland Isles in Argentina.
And, this one is starting a war in Europe."
The Brits are genuinely good people. My wife much enjoyed herself there on a trip three
years ago - except with being threatened with arrest for possessing some Walmart pepper
spray. They are much dependent on a warfare economy. Caught between the EU and DC with
economic pressure from China, they hooked their wagon to Washington and must play the phony
"it was a Russian assassination" game. It's a matter of survival. They are experts at war and
torment having run the world or been top dog for well over two centuries. America could help
Britain by eliminating all neocons from our government. All this fuss over Hillary's crimes
and Comey etc - small potatoes. We have to go after Bush Jr. and make him answer for 9/11.
That's the core issue festering in our national soul. Few will talk about it. We need to pull
Bush from his hidey-hole and get him on trial. Everything else will then resolve.
When an event occurs that that fundamentally changes the dynamics of global geopolitics,
there is one question above all others whose answer will most assuredly point to its
perpetrators. That question is "Cui bono?" If those so indicted are in addition found to have
had both motive and means then, as they say in the US, it's pretty much a "slam-dunk" .
Discounting the Official Narrative as the absurdity it
so clearly is, there are just two organisations on the entire planet with the expertise,
assets, access and political protection necessary to have both executed 9/11 and effected its
cover-up to date (ie the means). Both are Intelligence Agencies - the CIA and the Israeli Mossad whose motives were arguably the most
compelling. Those motives dovetailed perfectly with the NeoconPNAC agenda, with it's explicitly stated need for
"...a catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" [1] in order to
mobilise US public opinion for already planned wars, the effects of which would be to destroy
Israel's enemies.
That's a fantasy: "It is important to lock this agreement in, quickly, before my account is sold to a third-party collection
agency, which is nowhere near as likely to accept such a deep discount" Many hospitals sells you to collection immediately.
Mostly this is a cheap self-promotion of a yet another snake oil salesmen... Some more tidbit still might be useful You
are warned.
If you try to fight medical-industrial complex alone most of the time you will be crushed. As a minimum you need a legal help.
Often you need insurance too: at the end it is cheaper to have insurance then to fight astronomic bills. But those bottom feeders
still can get to you via balance billing. and in most case, when you stay in hospital they do get back to you with the
additional biils. That's why you will need a lawyers to fight this.
The usual trick of this scammers is to get "out of the network" ambulance and bill you $5K or more. Even the transfer from
one hospital to another via ambulance can cost you tons of money.
Unnecessary procedures is another important danger. Stents is one such danger, in case of suspicion for the heart attack.
You can get several several of them even if do not need them as a courtesy of those greedy jerks ;-)
And they will never agree for Medicare rates. Forget about it.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have already learned, all healthcare services have been assigned a code by the AMA, a five digit CPT code. So, if you trip and fall off your patio, you might get a doctor's bill like the following table located in your handouts: ..."
"... You may receive other bills from several doctors such as anesthesiologists and radiologists, as well as laboratory services, therapists, and the ambulance company. The bills all look similar, and the strategy and tactics I am presenting, today, should work for each of them as well. ..."
"... The purpose of this overpricing by the medical providers is to force the insurance companies to the negotiating table. The insurance company is bringing a large volume of patients to the medical providers, the members in their network, so they are able to negotiate a lower discounted allowable fee from the medical providers. However, if the insurance carrier is not able to negotiate a contractual allowable fee schedule, then they will end up paying the higher billed charges of the out-of-network provider for the members that still end up being treated by that medical provider in emergencies when precertification is not required. ..."
"... Now, on to where you can find these prices. Well, if you have insurance, then after you receive medical care and the healthcare providers send their claims to the insurance carrier, you should receive from the payer an Explanation of Benefits (EOB), or you probably can go online and view an Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA). For every CPT code that the providers billed , you will see both a billed charge and allowable. ..."
"... Fortunately, as you will now learn, there is a much more simple and better way to be 100% certain of your diagnosis, diagnosis code, procedure, procedure code, and even the medications the physician will offer you, at least for elective conditions. Here it is. If it isn't an emergency, then make a doctor's appointment! ..."
"... Does this sound unlikely? Too good to be true? Then consider this: Medical providers are highly incentivized to give the patients they treated huge discounts. Why? Because they know that collecting money from patients foments malpractice litigation. They would rather have you pay them pennies, than have you sue them for millions. ..."
"... I recently had breakfast with a pharmacist friend of mine that has worked as a manager for Walgreens for more than a decade. mrs_horseman is probably smiling when she hears that I have a pharmacist friend, because she knows how I feel about most of the people in that industry. Nonetheless, I told him about this presentation I am making, and asked if he had any advice for negotiating directly with the pharmacies for medications. It turns out, he does, and I would have never guessed the tactic he described. ..."
Approximately 63% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000
emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a survey released Wednesday of 1,000
adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com, up slightly from 62% last year. Faced with an
emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (23%), borrowing
from family and/or friends (15%) or using credit cards to bridge the gap (15%).
You are going to need five things, which I am going to give to you, today, free of
charge!
Some absolutely critical industry vocabulary
A clear understanding of how healthcare is priced in the USA
Insight into to actual pricing
A proven negotiation strategy, including:
a. The point of contact
b. Foreknowledge of what prices medical providers will usually agree to
c. A sample offer and agreement
The confidence to successfully negotiate
Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with a better way to impart to you an understanding of the
industry lingo, other than these simple handouts. However, this information is so important for
you to be able to understand any negotiation strategy that I simply must slog through each term
with you now. Please, I ask that you hold your questions and comments until I get through the
vocabulary. Many of the terms are cross-referenced, and will become more clear after we here
them all.
Premium: The monthly amount enrollees pay the insurance company to be covered.
Deductible: The amount paid by the member before insurance will begin to reimburse services.
It is reset annually, and based on the level of benefits or amount of premium paid. For
example, with a $1,000 deductible the patient must pay medical providers for the first $1,000
of allowable expenses incurred by the patient each year, after which costs may be split
according to a coinsurance arrangement, and/or may be limited to the patient's out of pocket
expenses.
Coinsurance: A cost-sharing requirement of some insurance plans where the patient assumes a
percentage of the costs for covered services after the amount of the deductible has been met.
Coinsurance is described as a ratio, for example 30/70, meaning the patient is responsible for
paying 30% and the insurance will pay 70% of the allowable.
Copayment (co-pay): The amount to be paid to a physician by or on behalf of the patient in
connection with the services rendered by the physician. It is due at the time of service, is a
fixed dollar amount determined by the insurance company based on the level of benefit, and is
usually found printed on the patient's insurance card.
Out of Pocket Expense: The total of covered health care expenses that are paid for by the
member or patient, not including any premium. This is typically the total of the deductible and
any coinsurance paid during a year. It may be a maximum amount where after 100% of allowable
expenses are paid by the insurance company.
Explanation of Benefits (EOB or ERA: Electronic Remittance Advice): The insurance company's
explanation of the benefits they have, or have not, paid to a medical provider, along with any
remaining amounts for which the patient is responsible, if any.
CPT code: Current Procedural Terminology codes maintained by the American Medical
Association. These five digit codes describe most medical, surgical, and diagnostic services
and are used for administrative, financial, and analytical purposes such as on fee schedules
and bills. These CPT codes are also known as Level 1 HCPCS codes, with Level 2 HCPCS codes
being for non-provider medical services like ambulances and prosthetic devices. The CPT code is
equivalent to a part number, SKU Stock Keeping Unit, or UPC Universal Product Code.
Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS): A system of payment for the operating costs of
acute care hospital inpatient stays under Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance). Under IPPS,
each case is categorized into a diagnosis-related group (DRG). Each DRG has a payment weight
assigned to it, based on the average resources used to treat Medicare patients in that DRG.
Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG): a system to classify hospital visits into similar groups. Its
intent is to identify the products that a hospital provides, such as an appendectomy. DRGs are
assigned by group based on diagnosis (ICD code). DRGs may be further grouped into Major
Diagnostic Categories (MDCs). DRGs are used to determine how much Medicare and some insurance
plans pay hospitals and other services like home health.
ICD code: The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health
Problems provides codes to classify diseases and a wide variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal
findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes of injury or disease.
Supposedly, every health condition can be assigned to a unique category and given a code.
Billed charges (usual and customary fees): The undiscounted fees a healthcare provider lists
on the bill (list price, or retail). These fees are usually set well above the highest
allowable of all the provider's contracts, sometime as much as 800% or even 1,000%. The purpose
of this overpricing is to force the insurance companies to the negotiating table.
Allowable: The discounted fee for service a healthcare provider has contractually agreed to
accept from an insurance company. It is listed by CPT code on the EOB or in a fee schedule
available from your insurance company, Medicare, or Medicaid. UNDERSTANDING THIS TERM IS THE
KEY TO UNDERSTANDING HEALTH INSURANCE AND TO NEGOTIATING DIRECTLY WITH MEDICAL PROVIDERS.
Global Period: The number of days after a medical procedure when the fee for office visits
is included, contractually, in the allowable for the procedure. It is typically 30, 60, or 90
days.
Elective: For our purposes, care for any medical condition that is not an emergency.
Emergency: A medical condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity,
which may include severe pain, such that the absence of immediate medical attention could
reasonably be expected to result in serious jeopardy to patient health, and/or serious
impairment to bodily functions, and/or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.
EMTALA: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that
requires anyone coming to an emergency department of a hospital with an emergency condition to
be stabilized and treated, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
Insurance Verification: the process where a healthcare provider contacts the financially
responsible party (usually an insurance company, Medicare, or an employer) and verifies that
coverage is in effect and the information current. This generally includes the amount of the
deductible met by the patient, copayment amounts, and coinsurance terms.
Precertification: The process of obtaining approval from insurance, in advance, for a
proposed treatment or diagnostic test, and is NEVER required for emergency care.
Medicaid: The United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low
incomes. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the states and federal
government, and is managed by the states. Generally is the lowest allowable fee for medical
care.
Medicare: a social insurance program funded by taxes and administered by vendors hired by
the United States government. Medicare provides health insurance coverage to people who are
aged 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria such as a disability. Generally it
reimburses close to the average allowable fee for medical care. It is the easiest fee schedule
to access at: www.CMS.gov
Tricare: Health insurance for military personnel and their dependents.
Workers Compensation: Insurance that provides medical care for employees who are injured in
the course of employment. It is usually has the highest allowable fees for medical care.
... ... ..
To begin to understand how healthcare is priced, we are going to look at
the doctor's
bill given to a patient,
the claim forms the doctor and hospital send to the insurance
carrier, and
ERAs that the insurance carrier then send back to the patient and the
providers.
As we have already learned, all healthcare services have been assigned a code by the AMA, a
five digit CPT code. So, if you trip and fall off your patio, you might get a doctor's bill
like the following table located in your handouts:
On the hospital's bill you might see something like this:
It is important to understand that the amounts shown on both of these bills are
un-discounted Billed Charges (Usual and Customary Fees). They are the highest price the
provider might ever hope to receive for the service, also known as full retail, or MSRP. Don't
panic when you get these bills, because as everyone knows, "Never pay retail."
You may receive other bills from several doctors such as anesthesiologists and radiologists,
as well as laboratory services, therapists, and the ambulance company. The bills all look
similar, and the strategy and tactics I am presenting, today, should work for each of them as
well.
If you have insurance, the providers will send your carrier a claim with essentially the
same data as is on the bill they will provide to you if you are not insured, or if you simply
request a copy.
An important fact is that Federal Law, as a requirement for the medical provider's
participation in Medicare, requires that a medical provider charge every patient the same
amount for a given CPT item. What it does not require, however, is that a medical provider
accept the same payment amount from every patient for a given CPT item. This allows insurance
companies, government payers, and you to negotiate a discounted fee, known as a contracted
allowable, and not be in violation of the law.
The purpose of this overpricing by the medical providers is to force the insurance companies
to the negotiating table. The insurance company is bringing a large volume of patients to the
medical providers, the members in their network, so they are able to negotiate a lower
discounted allowable fee from the medical providers. However, if the insurance carrier is not
able to negotiate a contractual allowable fee schedule, then they will end up paying the higher
billed charges of the out-of-network provider for the members that still end up being treated
by that medical provider in emergencies when precertification is not required.
This creates a tiered-pricing structure for medical services that looks very much like this
table in your handouts:
At this point, if you are paying close attention, then it should start to dawn on you where
I am leading you with this talk, which, after all, is titled: How to negotiate directly with
physicians and hospitals.
Spoiler Alert: You are learning how to negotiate for Medicare rates, at worst, and Medicaid
rates, at best. In our example, a bilateral elbow fracture patient in Texas received surgeon
and hospital bills totaling $179,219. Medicare allows $30,542 and Medicaid $22,600, which means
the government negotiated an 83% or 87.4% discount, respectively. You can too!
Before we move on to providing you with access to these fee schedules, and then a
negotiation strategy, do you have any questions about how healthcare is priced in the USA?
Now, on to where you can find these prices. Well, if you have insurance, then after you
receive medical care and the healthcare providers send their claims to the insurance carrier,
you should receive from the payer an Explanation of Benefits (EOB), or you probably can go
online and view an Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA). For every CPT code that the providers
billed , you will see both a billed charge and allowable.
Quick show of hands: how many of you have received a medical bill, or an EOB, and threw it
away because you could not understand it? That is intentional! They want you to be confused.
However, after today, I doubt that you will ever do that again.
What if we do not have insurance, or we want to know the allowable, because we think this is
important information to know so that we can negotiate before receiving healthcare? Think
having a baby or elective surgery. Do not worry! The federal government provides us with the
Medicare rates online, and I believe that each state provides its Medicaid fee schedules
online.
You would soon discover, however, that it is much easier to determine the allowable for a
physician service than a hospital service, for which you will likely need to look up the DRGs
for the ICD codes and then try to cross-reference them with the IPPS Fee Schedule, at a
minimum, or you may even need to look up and calculate conversion factors. It is not easy,
again, intentionally so!
Regardless, we would first need the CPT codes for the services you are seeking from the
physician, and probably the ICD codes, too, in order to price hospital services. You could try
to guess at the diagnosis and the services you think the doctor is going to provide to you, and
then try to use a search engine to determine the ICD codes and CPT codes, or buy a coding
book.
"I know I need a hip replacement. My trainer at the gym told me so. I'll just Google,
hip replacement ICD and CPT code."
Good luck with that! The odds of you guessing the correct diagnosis and appropriate
procedures (without going to medical school) are incredibly slim, especially with the new
ICD-10 diagnosis codes. Also, chances are good that your athletic trainer doesn't know what the
hell she is talking about when it come to medicine, and in reality, you probably just need a
new athletic trainer, and not a new hip.
Is your head spinning, yet? Good! Now, stop it, because you will see that we don't need to
do any of that! It's all just a red herring designed to keep us confused and the health
insurers in business and profitable. Sounds a lot like our banking system, no?
Fortunately, as you will now learn, there is a much more simple and better way to be 100%
certain of your diagnosis, diagnosis code, procedure, procedure code, and even the medications
the physician will offer you, at least for elective conditions. Here it is. If it isn't an emergency, then make a doctor's appointment!
You may be thinking, "Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? Don't we want to know
the costs in order to negotiate the fees before the services are provided?" The surprising answer is, no! Why? Well, because we only need to negotiate the fee schedule, specifically, Medicare or
Medicaid, and not the exact fee. This is very important. Think back to the tiered-pricing
structure.
Eventually, we may want to know the actual (or sometimes estimated) allowable amounts in
order to budget for elective procedures, but this occurs after, or at the time of the
physician's office visit, when they can provide us with the ICD codes, CPT codes, and usually
the allowable amount, too! Later, we may choose to audit the allowable amount they give us, to
make sure it is correct, and we were not over charged, but this is seldom done, as most people
still trust their doctor, and the discounts you will be receiving are so HUGE you may feel a
little guilty. Also, I will tell you, the auditing process is very tedious, not to mention the
appeal process.
Therefore, we are now going to start talking about a negotiating strategy before we even
attempt to access any pricing data. Again, we first need to know the diagnoses and proposed
treatments. So, the solution is to start with a simple negotiation with the physician's office,
probably just for the cost for the initial office visit, at the very least, and maybe some
expected diagnostic tests. This is best done over the telephone, is easier and more successful
than you might think, and is analogous to finding a mechanic to, "just take a look," at your
car and tell you what is wrong with it, and then getting an estimate to repair it. Just like we
expect to pay a little bit for the mechanic to diagnose our car, we should expect to pay a
little bit for the doctor to diagnose us. The funny thing is that my mechanic and Medicare both
charge or allow about $100 for a diagnosis. This is not so funny if you are the surgeon that
spent 13 more years in school than the auto mechanic with a high school diploma.
Here we go, step by step:
1) I usually prefer to skip the added expense of going to a GP or family practice
intermediary just to get a referral to a specialist that can actually help, especially when I
can determine what medical specialty is likely to be most helpful for by medical condition by
visiting the website of the American Board of Medical Specialties. (Is your ignition system
acting up, your suspension riding a little rough, need new tires, brakes squeaking,
transmission grinding?)
2) Use the links on abms.org to visit the appropriate specialty board's website, and then
use their "find a physician" with the sub-specialty likely to be most helpful for the
condition
3) Start calling the sub-specialty physician offices listed, tell them you are a prospective
new patient, and ask to speak to the Business Office Manager. Ask him or her the following
questions:
a) "Do you accept Medicare and/or Medicaid insurance?" If yes, then...
b) "Super! Do you accept cash payment at the time of service?" If yes, then...
c) "Great! Then, of course, you will accept as payment in full, the Medicaid allowable, but
paid in cash by me to you, directly, at the time of service? Correct?" If yes, then (e). If no
then (d).
d) "I guess I understand. Well, then surely you will at least accept as payment the
Medicare allowable, paid in cash by me to you, directly, at the time of service? If yes,
then (e). If no then conclude the call, because you cannot fix stupid.
e) "Thank you! Can you please tell me what the estimated amount is for an office visit,
using this fee schedule, so I can know how much money to bring, and please make a note on my
account that we have negotiated a Single Case Agreement for me to pay these rates to you, in
cash, at the time of service?
f) Tell him or her your specific reason for the visit (I am leaking red fluid on the floor
of my garage) and that you want to be fully prepared for the visit. Ask what diagnostic tests,
if any, are usually required for this type of problem, lab, X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, etc.,
and which ones would probably need to be done outside the physician's clinic?
g) Make sure to get the BOM's name and contact information, and the appointment time and
date.
After your office visit, if it turns out that you need a procedure such as day surgery at an
Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC), an inpatient admission at a hospital, a diagnostic test like
an MRI or CT, or a series of treatments such as physical therapy, then you simply repeat the
above negotiation, starting with the facility your physician recommends, and in the case of a
hospital or ASC, always where he or she has privileges. ASC's allowable rates are always much
lower than a hospital, so act accordingly. When telling the BOM that you are a prospective new
patient, make sure to give the name of your physician. Instead of just making a note of any
negotiated agreement in your account, the BOM and you should execute a written Single Case
Agreement. It is usually a one-page agreement that looks something like this sample found in
your handouts:
It should be obvious to you why, when possible, these negotiations should occur before
treatment, which is more often than you might imagine. In general, elective conditions are
negotiated in advance in this manner. Next, we are going to look at emergency conditions, which
are more than likely negotiated after examination and treatment.
Before we do, are there any questions?
Ok, so I experience some kind of true medical emergency, where my life or limb is in
jeopardy, like a heart attack. mrs_horseman puts me in an ambulance that rushes me to the
Emergency Room at the hospital, and they run all kinds of tests, and give me some very
expensive medications. Fortunately for me, a long enough timeline has not yet passed, my
survival rate has not dropped to zero, and I don't even get to go to the cath lab or have
emergency heart surgery. However, we do get several large medical bills from the hospital, ER
doctor, ambulance, laboratory, and cardiologist. I either have no insurance, am self-insured,
or I have a catastrophic insurance plan with a very high deductible that I am not likely to
meet with this event, or this year. What do I do?
When I receive each bill, I immediately call each provider and get the name and address of
the BOM. I then draft a Single Case Agreement Offer and Acceptance, and I offer to pay the
estimated Medicaid allowable clearly labeled as such (by using the tiered-pricing structure I
covered earlier) and expiring 10 days after it is received. I may also include some horseshit
narrative about how I just received a small windfall, and was advised by my attorney to settle
my hospital bill before I piss it away on fast women and slow horses, or worse, squander it. I
send this to the BOM, Certified Mail-Return Receipt Requested , with my attorney copied on the
bottom of the offer. The BOM may argue the accuracy of my Medicaid estimate, and make a counter
offer with a more accurate Medicaid allowable, but the odds are very, very, high that he or she
either agrees to the Medicaid allowable, or counters with something like a Medicare allowable.
Either way, at this point I have successfully negotiated somewhere around an 83% - 87% discount
on average, less for doctors, more for hospitals.
It is important to lock this agreement in, quickly, before my account is sold to a
third-party collection agency, which is nowhere near as likely to accept such a deep discount,
and far better than a healthcare provider at actually getting blood from a turnip. Medical
providers are now turning their accounts over to collections as soon as 90 days from the date
of service, which can mean that you are still being treated for this condition when this
happens! Do not let this happen to you! Open the bills! Mail the offer! Maybe they say no, but
that is not likely. On the other hand, the collections agencies are working very hard to get
you on a payment plan for Billed Charges, with interest, for the rest of your life!
Does this sound unlikely? Too good to be true? Then consider this: Medical providers are
highly incentivized to give the patients they treated huge discounts. Why? Because they know
that collecting money from patients foments malpractice litigation. They would rather have you
pay them pennies, than have you sue them for millions.
There it is. I said it. Think about that for a moment.
Now, considering the minimal risk of negotiating, and the large potential reward, do you now
have the confidence to successfully negotiate directly with physicians and hospitals?
Before I spend just a few more minutes talking about pharmacies, and then finally some
self-insurance goals, are there any questions or comments?
I recently had breakfast with a pharmacist friend of mine that has worked as a manager for
Walgreens for more than a decade. mrs_horseman is probably smiling when she hears that I have a
pharmacist friend, because she knows how I feel about most of the people in that industry.
Nonetheless, I told him about this presentation I am making, and asked if he had any advice for
negotiating directly with the pharmacies for medications. It turns out, he does, and I would
have never guessed the tactic he described.
Are you ready? Coupons and free discount cards. He explained that if one simply goes online and searches for Walgreens coupons, it is
usually possible to save between 5% and 60%. He specifically recommends Good Neighbor Pharmacy
Prescription Savings Club.
He says that when you purchase medications, then you have 5 days to return to the same
location Walgreens and bring a coupon for reimbursement of any savings. He says that if you are paying cash, then you must be sure to request a generic, if
available. For long term meds, he explains that the drug manufacturer's web sites will often offer a
free co-pay assistance card. If you have insurance, then you can present the free card from the
manufacturer to the Walgreens pharmacy, and it will cover your co-pays. In closing, I want to talk just a bit about insurance and one of the situations where we
would want to be able to negotiate directly with physicians, hospitals, and pharmacies.
As we have discussed, today, one of the primary benefits of having health insurance is to
take advantage of the discounts negotiated by the insurance company or government. However, we
just learned that providers are usually willing to accept similar discounted rates from cash
pay patients.
The other big benefit of health insurance is to share with other people the risk of having
to pay large bills that are the result of serious and unexpected injuries or illnesses. This is
the traditional role of insurance. However, the costs and benefits of sharing risk are directly
related to the health and healthcare consumption habits of all the members of the risk pool. As
the post-vasectomy head of a healthy household, do I really want to be swimming in the
Obamacare risk pool with millions of morbidly obese, perpetually pregnant, HIV infected drug
abusers? No. It is too expensive!
What to do? Well, what do many smart employers in Texas do to save money with Worker's Compensation
Insurance? They self-insure! They have money put away in case of an emergency. If they have an employee
that is injured, then they negotiate directly with the healthcare providers, and pay deep
discounts well below the statutory Worker's Compensation allowable, which we learned earlier is
usually the highest allowable. They pay themselves a premium each month, which is effectively a
forced savings plan. Sometimes, these companies may also purchase a relatively inexpensive
health insurance plan called catastrophic, just in case a really big and expensive event
occurs, like the whole oil refinery blows up and puts a few hundred employees in the hospital.
However, if nothing happens, and the employees don't have any accidents, the company gets to
keep most of the money, instead of giving it all to the insurance companies!
Hmmm. I wonder. Could I do that for my health insurance? Yes, and in fact mrs_horseman and I
do exactly this. We have a high-deductible catastrophic health insurance plan and a $600
savings line item in our budget that we pay ourselves every month. We bet on ourselves to be
healthy, unlike an HSA, where you bet on yourself to be unhealthy. This is true, and why we
simply refuse to take the pre-tax bait of an HSA.
Well, it appears that Assad is a relentless glutton for punishment, because not even a year
later, the
WaPo reported two weeks ago that the US is considering a new military action against Syria
for - what else - retaliation against Assad's latest chemical attack, which took place several
weeks earlier.
How do we know Assad (and apparently, Russia) was behind the attack? We don't: in fact,
former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a moment of bizarre honesty,
admitted that he really doesn't know much at all about "whoever conducted the attacks. "
But hey: just like it is " highly likely " that Russia
poisoned the former Russian double agent in the UK - with no proof yet - so it is "highly
likely" that a clearly irrational Assad was once again behind an attack which he knew would
provoke violent and aggressive retaliation by the US, and once again destabilize his
regime.
And so we now wait for that flashing, red headline saying that US ships in the Mediterranean
have launched a missile attack on Syria, just like a year ago. Only this time Russia - which is
allied with the Assad regime - is not planning to be on the defensive, and according to
Russia's Defense Ministry, "US instructors" are currently training militants to stage false
flag chemical attacks in south Syria, i.e., the catalyst that will be used to justify the US
attack on Assad. The incidents, the ministry said, will be used a pretext for airstrikes on
Syrian government troops and infrastructure.
"We have reliable information at our disposal that US instructors have trained a number of
militant groups in the vicinity of the town of At-Tanf, to stage provocations involving
chemical warfare agents in southern Syria," Russian General Staff spokesman General Sergey
Rudskoy said at a news briefing on Saturday.
According to the Russian, "early in March, the saboteur groups were deployed to the southern
de-escalation zone to the city of Deraa, where the units of the so-called Free Syrian Army are
stationed."
"They are preparing a series of chemical munitions explosions. This fact will be used to
blame the government forces. The components to produce chemical munitions have been already
delivered to the southern de-escalation zone under the guise of humanitarian convoys of a
number of NGOs."
And, using the exact same worn out narrative as last April, and every prior "chemical attack
by the Assad Regime", the "planned provocations will be widely covered in the Western media and
will ultimately be used as a pretext by the US-led coalition to launch strikes on Syria",
Rudskoy warned.
"The provocations will be used as a pretext by the United States and its allies to launch
strikes on military and government infrastructure in Syria."
Confirming the WaPo's report from early March, it now appears that an attack is
imminent.
"We're registering the signs of the preparations for the possible strikes. Strike groups of
the cruise missile carriers have been formed in the east of the Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf
and Red Sea."
Rudskoy also warned that another false flag chemical attack is being prepared in the
province of Idlib by the "Al-Nusra Front terrorist group, in coordination with the White
Helmets." The militants have already received 20 containers of chlorine to stage the incident,
he said.
Moscow and Damascus have repeatedly warned about upcoming chemical provocations, and have
highlighted that banned warfare agents have been used by the militants. Of course, none of that
matters to the Western press which has its marching orders to expose the bloodthirsty killer
Assad as an irrational despot who will use the exact same military method month after month and
year after year, knowing well the response he will get from the US.
Meanwhile, just a few days ago, Syrian government forces reportedly captured a well-equipped
chemical laboratory in Eastern Ghouta. Footage from the facility has been published by the
SANA news agency .
The installation contained modern industrial-grade hardware of foreign origins, large
amounts of chemical substances as well as crude homemade munitions ad their parts. It was
unclear if the chemical lab was capable of synthesizing the novachok nerve gas used in the
attempted murder of the Russian agent in the UK that has resulted in the latest diplomatic
scandal involving Russia and the west.
Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said today that a highly anticipated report from
the DOJ's Inspector General Michael Horowitz will contain " some pure TNT. " Horowitz has been
investigating the conduct of the FBI's top brass surrounding the 2016 election for over a year.
He also uncovered over 50,000
text messages between two anti-Trump / pro-Clinton FBI employees directly involved in the
exoneration of Clinton and the counterintelligence operation launched against the Trump
campaign.
Swecker: " The behavior if it's manifested in the action with your thumb on the scale of a
particular investigation, one way or the other, that's borderline criminal behavior --
manipulating an investigation. I think this IG report is going to be particularly impactful,
more so than any of these useless congressional investigations. I think you're going to see
some pure TNT come out in this IG report."
The Inspector General's report is thought to include evidence of outgoing Deputy FBI
Director Andrew McCabe ordering agents to alter "302" forms - the paperwork an agent files
after interviewing someone.
Horowitz is also reportedly homing in on McCabe's handling of the Anthony Weiner laptop
after reports emerged that he wanted to avoid taking action on the FBI's findings until after
the 2016 election.
The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, has been asking witnesses why FBI leadership
seemed unwilling to move forward on the examination of emails found on the laptop of former
congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)until late October -- about three weeks after first being
alerted to the issue , according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss the sensitive matter. A key question of the internal investigation is whether McCabe
or anyone else at the FBI wanted to avoid taking action on the laptop findings until after
the Nov. 8 election , these people said. It is unclear whether the inspector general has
reached any conclusions on that point. - WaPo
In January, Fox's Sean Hannity sat down with journalist Sara Carter - who shed light on the
McCabe situation, saying that FBI Director Christopher Wray was "
shocked to his core " after reading the GOP-authored "FISA" memo describing FBI malfeasance
surrounding the 2016 U.S. election:
Carter: What we know tonight is that FBI Director Christopher Wray went Sunday and
reviewed the four-page FISA memo. The very next day, Andrew McCabe was asked to resign.
Remember Sean, he was planning on resigning in March - that already came out in December.
This time they asked him to go right away. You're not coming into the office. I've heard
rep[orts he didn't even come in for the morning meeting - that he didn't show up.
Hannity: A source of mine told me tonight that when Wray read this, it shocked him to his
core.
Sara Carter: Shocked him to his core, and not only that, the Inspector General's report -
I have been told tonight by a number of sources, there's indicators right now that McCabe may
have asked FBI agents to actually change their 302's - those are their interviews with
witnesses. So basically every time an FBI agent interviews a witness, they have to go back
and file a report.
Hannity: Changes? So that would be obstruction of justice?
Carter: Exactly . This is something the Inspector General is investigating. If this is
true and not alleged, McCabe will be fired. I heard they are considering firing him within
the next few days if this turns out to be true .
Meanwhile, several Republican Senators are asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order a
special counsel to probe the FBI's conduct during its investigation into Russian meddling in
the 2016 presidential election - including the use of the "Steele dossier" in seeking a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against former Trump Campaign advisor Carter Page.
The letter marks the second formal request by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The request comes amid controversy over Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe's pension - which
is in jeopardy after the Department of Justice's internal watchdog found enough evidence of
malfeasance to recommend firing McCabe immediately.
The letter also notes that Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who
they have the "utmost confidence" in, " does not have the tools that a prosecutor would to
gather all the facts, such as the ability to obtain testimony from essential witnesses who are
not current DOJ employees ."
Senators Chuck Grassley Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and
John Cornyn (Texas), signed a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions as well as Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to name a special counsel who can "gather all the facts."
"We believe that a special counsel is needed to work with the Inspector General to
independently gather the facts and make prosecutorial decisions, if any are merited. The
Justice Department cannot credibly investigate itself without these enhanced measures of
independence," wrote the senators.
See the letter below, and click on the tweet for more background on the ongoing
investigation from Nick Short of the Security Studies Group.
As Chuck Ross of the
Daily Caller points out, the letter also "broke a bit of news":
It reveals that Bruce Ohr, the former deputy assistant attorney general, was interviewed
12 separate times by the FBI in 2016 and 2017.
Ohr was in contact with Steele prior to the 2016 election. And shortly after the election,
Ohr was in contact with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS , the opposition research
firm that hired Steele to investigate Trump.
Ohr's wife, a Russia expert named Nellie Ohr, also happened to be working as a contractor
for Fusion GPS for its Trump investigation.
Senate Judiciary Republicans want to know whether the FBI and DOJ were aware of that
relationship.
The committee letter lists all of Ohr's FBI interviews, which were summarized on what's
known as a FD-302 document. The first interview with Ohr was conducted on November, 22, 2016.
The most recent occurred on May 15, 2017. -
Daily Caller
The DOJ's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced in January that it was opening a
probe of the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation. Meanwhile, Attorney General
Jeff Sessions asked the OIG to explore whether FBI officials abused their authority when they
used an unverified and salacious dossier from Fusion GPS to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter
Page.
That said, Sessions has resisted repeated calls for a second Special Counsel.
Graham and Grassley also asked the OIG to look into the FBI's conduct while handling the
Russia probe, writing in a February letter:
"We respectfully request that you conduct a comprehensive review of potential improper
political influence, misconduct, or mismanagement in the conduct of the counterintelligence and
criminal investigations related to Russia and individuals associated with (1) the Trump
campaign, (2) the Presidential transition, or (3) the administration prior to the appointment
of Special Counsel Robert Mueller."
The Senators also noted in their Thursday letter that if the DOJ declines to appoint a
second special counsel, they want " a detailed reply explaining why not. "
It is about bankrupting Russia and also trying to get European
nations to turn the Russian gas tap off, and so Europe will have to resort
to buying gas through Western controlled natural gas resources, liquid gas
shipments, and a proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline through Syria. Once most
Western people discover the actual history of our wars and what ruthless,
unconscionable bastards our Western power brokers actually are, they will
automatically want to support Russia.
This is the May-Johnson excuse for not going through with Brexit. Now they
will say they need their partner in the EU to protect them. Good luck with
that one.
I wouldn't write NATO off just yet. Rothschild bought Naftogaz which has an
office in Egypt. Igor Kolomoisky has some interesting ties also the
temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia. And who is Genie Energy?
"... Sessions noted that both the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as well as the FBI's disciplinary office had found "that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor - including under oath - on multiple occasions. " ..."
"... Horowitz found that McCabe had authorized two FBI officials to talk to then-Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for a story about the case and another investigation into Clinton's family foundation. Barrett now works for The Washington Post. - WaPo ..."
"... Former FBI officials tell CNN that McCabe could also lose out on future health care coverage in his retirement , but the "most significant 'damage' to a separated FBI employee is: loss of lifetime medical benefits for self and family," tweeted CNN law enforcement analyst James A. Gagliano, a retired FBI supervisory special agent. ..."
"... McCabe responded to his ouster, saying that his firing, along with negative comments by President Trump were meant to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, reported the New York Times . ..."
"... The Inspector General's report is thought to include evidence of outgoing Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe ordering agents to alter "302" forms - the paperwork an agent files after interviewing someone. ..."
"... Plenty of very hard-working Americans working in private industry have put in years and years and been fired or "downsized" or "rightsized" or "reorganized out of a job" for no reason other than the organization wanted to decrease costs and show a quarterly profit. ..."
"... Bet Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are wondering about their jobs, not to mention prison... ..."
"... What McCabe did should be taken to court; however, Session was trying to save his neck and made a wrong decision. ..."
"... Firing a person 1 day before retirement is dead wrong. Why? Because Session's ass is a target. The whole Trump administration has no plan to win against Germany and China. Now, his team has lost support from the majority of the Government employees. ..."
After a long day of what seemed like the swamp protecting one of their dirtiest creatures,
Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, just over 24
hours before he was set to retire and claim his full pension benefits.
McCabe turns 50 on Sunday - the earliest he would have been eligible for his full retirement
benefits.
Sessions noted that both the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz as well
as the FBI's disciplinary office had found "that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure
to the news media and lacked candor - including under oath - on multiple occasions. "
So, McCabe was involved in leaks and he lied under oath.
Horowitz found that McCabe had authorized two FBI officials to talk to then-Wall Street
Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for a story about the case and another investigation into
Clinton's family foundation. Barrett now works for The Washington Post. -
WaPo
" I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately ," said Sessions,
who said he based his decision on the findings.
While the move will probably cost McCabe a significant portion of his retirement benefits ,
he could challenge it in court.
Former FBI officials tell
CNN that McCabe could also lose out on future health care coverage in his retirement , but
the "most significant 'damage' to a separated FBI employee is: loss of lifetime medical
benefits for self and family," tweeted CNN law enforcement analyst James A. Gagliano, a retired
FBI supervisory special agent.
The FBI's OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary
proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded
that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor -
including under oath - on multiple occasions.
The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity,
and accountability. As the OPR proposal stated, "all FBI employees know that lacking candor
under oath results in dismissal and that our integrity is our brand."
Pursuant to Department Order 1202, and based on the report of the Inspector General, the
findings of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, and the recommendation of the
Department's senior career official, I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe
effective immediately.
McCabe responded to his ouster, saying that his firing, along with negative comments by
President Trump were meant to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,
reported the New York
Times .
"The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong," said McCabe, adding, " This is part of an
effort to discredit me as a witness. "
Mr. McCabe was among the first at the F.B.I. to scrutinize possible Trump campaign ties to
Russia. And he is a potential witness to the question of whether Mr. Trump tried to obstruct
justice. Mr. Trump has taunted Mr. McCabe both publicly and privately, and Republican allies
have cast him as the center of a "deep state" effort to undermine the Trump presidency. -
NYT
While McCabe's firing is directly related to the disclosure of sensitive information to the
media about the Clinton email investigation, the former Deputy Director took a leave of absence
in January amid a heated controversy over the FBI's conduct surrounding the 2016 election.
In December, The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has discovered
that edits made to former FBI Director James Comey's statement exonerating Hillary Clinton for
transmitting classified info over an unsecured, private email server
went far beyond what was previously known - as special agents operating under McCabe
changed various language which effectively decriminalized Clinton's behavior.
McCabe's team also conducted a counterintelligence operation to investigate the Trump
campaign, in which they used an unverified dossier and were not forthright with the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) over its political origins,
in violation of FBI policy.
As revelations of FBI misconduct spiraled out of control last year, President Trump noted
that McCabe was "racing the clock to retire with full benefits."
The Inspector General's report is thought to include evidence of outgoing Deputy FBI
Director Andrew McCabe ordering agents to alter "302" forms - the paperwork an agent files
after interviewing someone.
18 U.S. Code § 1622 - Subornation of perjury
Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Plenty of very hard-working Americans working in private industry have put in years and
years and been fired or "downsized" or "rightsized" or "reorganized out of a job" for no
reason other than the organization wanted to decrease costs and show a quarterly profit.
So....McCabe breaks the law and does all this slimey stuff and then wants a full pension ,
starting at age 50 .....hmmmm...... it's hard to find a lot of sympathy for this guy.
Jeff Sessions has long stated he believes in the "Law of the Land". We can't have
two-tiered justice in America yet we do see it. The below link lays out the timeline pretty well through discovery by JW suit.
What McCabe did should be taken to court; however, Session was trying to save his neck and
made a wrong decision.
Firing a person 1 day before retirement is dead wrong. Why? Because Session's ass is a
target. The whole Trump administration has no plan to win against Germany and China. Now, his
team has lost support from the majority of the Government employees.
Good luck getting people to do things. And he better hopes because those employees know
more that one covert way to stress out the process.
...UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said on Thursday that Russia "should go away and
shut up" when asked about Moscow's possible response to British sanctions.
...Lavrov said he probably lacked education. "Well he's a nice man, I'm told, maybe he wants
to claim a place in history by making some bold statements," Lavrov said. "Theresa May's main
argument about Russia's guilt is 'Highly probable', while for him it's 'Russia should go and
shut up'. Maybe he lacks education, I don't know."
"... I am no longer a great admirer of McMaster, someone who is suffering Russia and Iran Derangement Syndrome (RIDS), but Bolton? Bolton? My god! Not Bolton! ..."
"... At one time I had the chore given to me of visiting the State Department from DIA to explain various events. In the round table discussions at Foggy Bottom John Bolton seemed ever present. He was a brooding, glowering, presence seemingly filled with free floating hostility towards alien populations in the lands of the Saracens. We had a few snarling exchanges. ..."
The rumor is widespread that DJT is seriously thinking of making Ambassador (recess
appointment) John Bolton his National Security Adviser if LTG HR McMaster departs the job.
I am
no longer a great admirer of McMaster, someone who is suffering Russia and Iran Derangement
Syndrome (RIDS), but Bolton? Bolton? My god! Not Bolton!
At one time I had the chore given to me of visiting the State Department from DIA to explain
various events. In the round table discussions at Foggy Bottom John Bolton seemed ever present.
He was a brooding, glowering, presence seemingly filled with free floating hostility towards
alien populations in the lands of the Saracens. We had a few snarling exchanges.
"... The FAZ angle (and therefore the angle of Germans in Washington) is, that Tillerson was displaced because he was too bellicose towards Russia. Pompeo is seen as moderate towards Russia but as a hawk regarding Iran. The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is then nothing more but another attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility towards Russia. ..."
For what its worth: there was a very long and detailed analysis by the Frankfurter Allgmeine
Zeitung yesterday regarding Tillersons dismissal. You can take this analysis as something
like the "official" German position as FAZ journalists are the equivalent of Pravda
journalists. That is fully in the know but only writing what is desired.
The FAZ angle (and therefore the angle of Germans in Washington) is, that Tillerson was
displaced because he was too bellicose towards Russia. Pompeo is seen as moderate towards
Russia but as a hawk regarding Iran. The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is
then nothing more but another attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility
towards Russia.
Interestingly enough today Germany´s defense minister who is a close confident of
Merkel echoed the outrage about the alleged nerve gas attack but called for a "UN
investigation". That is she didn´t endorse the British claim.
Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t
blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of
course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2.
This post suggest that one of the motivation fro the attack can be connected with imlications
for GB of Steele dossier fiasco.
Notable quotes:
"... Ironically, while I think the notion that the Russian authorities would have organised this kind of attack now is peculiarly preposterous, I think there are a very large number of suspects -- including both state actors and some non-state. So, for example, Ukrainian oligarchs would very likely be in a position to organise such an operation. ..."
"... A possible element in the story is that both 'BuzzFeed' and Christopher Steele face very serious potential problems in lawsuits relating to the 'dossier.' Both have been sued by Aleksej Gubarev and XBT, while the former also has to face actions from the Alfa oligarchs, Michael Cohen, and Carter Page. ..."
"... The best way of avoiding a disaster for both 'BuzzFeed' and Steele -- which could have large knock-on implications -- may be to reinforce the already prevalent climate of hysteria, so that even the most preposterous claims in the dossier can be made to seem reasonable. ..."
Ironically, while I think the notion that the Russian authorities would have organised
this kind of attack now is peculiarly preposterous, I think there are a very large number of
suspects -- including both state actors and some non-state. So, for example, Ukrainian
oligarchs would very likely be in a position to organise such an operation.
Moreover, if they did, the British authorities would have very little option but to cover
up for them.
One thing which is striking me forcibly is the way that the claims about a long history of
assassinations of 'dissidents' in the UK in the 'investigation' by 'BuzzFeed' last June, of
which the centrepiece was a long piece entitled 'From Russia With Blood' are now being
recycled all over the place.
A possible element in the story is that both 'BuzzFeed' and Christopher Steele face very
serious potential problems in lawsuits relating to the 'dossier.' Both have been sued by
Aleksej Gubarev and XBT, while the former also has to face actions from the Alfa oligarchs,
Michael Cohen, and Carter Page.
The best way of avoiding a disaster for both 'BuzzFeed' and Steele -- which could have
large knock-on implications -- may be to reinforce the already prevalent climate of hysteria,
so that even the most preposterous claims in the dossier can be made to seem reasonable.
I think the problem goes well beyond the foreign policy establishment and most definitely
includes the generals and a variety of other people and institutions in and out of
government.
While BHO did restrain some of the aggression that we are now seeing, I suspect that the
Deep State was confident that HRC or some Team R muppet (Jeb!) would win the next election,
so all they had to do was bide their time.
"... The UK will promptly expel 23 Russian diplomats without waiting for the end of the investigation. Which means that from now on the investigation is highly politicized and tainted in a sense that it will be conducted by people who proved the existence of Iraq WMD in the past: ..."
"... This is one step further from the "self-indictment as a formal proof" used in Show Trials. Now it looks like "suspicion is the formal proof." ..."
"... Both cyberspace and poisoning with exotic chemical agents proved to be a perfect media for false flag operations designed to poison relations between nations and fuel war-style demonization. ..."
The UK will promptly expel 23 Russian diplomats without waiting for the end of the investigation. Which means that from now
on the investigation is highly politicized and tainted in a sense that it will be conducted by people who proved the existence
of Iraq WMD in the past:
Moscow refused to meet Mrs May's midnight deadline to co-operate in the case, prompting Mrs May to announce
a series of measures intended to send a "clear message" to Russia.
These include:
Expelling 23 diplomats
Increasing checks on private flights, customs and freight
Freezing Russian state assets where there is evidence they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals
or residents
Ministers and the Royal Family boycotting the Fifa World Cup in Russia later this year
Suspending all planned high-level bilateral contacts between the UK and Russia
Plans to consider new laws to increase defences against "hostile state activity"
Mrs May told MPs that Russia had provided "no explanation" as to how the nerve agent came to be used in the UK, describing
Moscow's response as one of "sarcasm, contempt and defiance".
The use of a Russian-made nerve agent on UK soil amounted to the "unlawful use of force", she said.
So it looks more and more like a well planned multi-step propaganda operation, not an impromptu action on the part of GB. Kind
of replica of Russian election influence witch hunt in the USA with the replacement of cyberspace and elections with chemical
agents and poisoning.
So inconsistencies that were pointed in this thread (such as the mere fact that three people exposed are still alive) do not
matter anymore.
The verdict now is in.
This is one step further from the "self-indictment as a formal proof" used in Show Trials. Now it looks like "suspicion
is the formal proof."
Both cyberspace and poisoning with exotic chemical agents proved to be a perfect media for false flag operations designed
to poison relations between nations and fuel war-style demonization.
"... If your country becomes a haven for dodgy people, like Berezovsky, then dodgy things are likely to happen. ..."
"... In some ways on the political right the neocons are more dominant than they are in the US. The Murdoch empire controls a huge chunk of the right leaning media and pumps out the usual tropes, with the added hysteria of the tabloid press of this country. Sadly we saw the replacement of Emily Blunt's uncle Crispin as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, a realist replaced by fellow Conservative but Zionist Tughendat. The neocons and the Blairites have the numbers in the Commons. ..."
"... On the left they have been traumatised by the election of Trump and the vote for Brexit. They have dutifully followed the Russia smokescreen of the Democrats in the US. ..."
"... Here, the 1914 analogy can be seen in the rapid insistence that friends and allies of Britain must also stand tall and denounce the Russians - evidence be damned - lest the alliance crumble. ..."
"... This will permit the "unlawfull chemical weapon attack" meme to grow just as Russiagate has done, with unproven allegations presented as settled fact, requiring "action" in response. ..."
"... Further, by this reaction, the British government has assured the investigation into whatever happened will be politicized, and that any information countering the government's charges will be suppressed so to prevent a loss of face. ..."
There are more unsavoury types who have fallen foul of the law and/or the Kremlin who then
base themselves in London. If your country becomes a haven for dodgy people, like
Berezovsky, then dodgy things are likely to happen.
In some ways on the political right the neocons are more dominant than they are in the
US. The Murdoch empire controls a huge chunk of the right leaning media and pumps out the
usual tropes, with the added hysteria of the tabloid press of this country. Sadly we saw the
replacement of Emily Blunt's uncle Crispin as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select
Committee, a realist replaced by fellow Conservative but Zionist Tughendat. The neocons and
the Blairites have the numbers in the Commons.
On the left they have been traumatised by the election of Trump and the vote for
Brexit. They have dutifully followed the Russia smokescreen of the Democrats in the US.
Crucially though Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour party and continues to poll well.
Blairites, the press and the Israelis have launched an unrelenting campaign to unseat him and
damage him electorally. This has not worked, Israel looks to have lost the political left. If
you thought Trump was pro Russia, anti-interventionist and NATO skeptical then Corbyn is even
mores so, with the added bonus of being fiercely critical of Israel.
Finally we have also seen continuing cuts to the defence budget, The military industrial
complex has been eagerly jumping on the Russia bandwagon to try to stop this.
Add in the Saudi/Arab lobby and Syria and it is a perfect storm. The hysteria is because
they are losing, not winning.
I'll add two articles on the Skripal affair that I like.
May's British government is in a weak position domestically, with the fear and loathing of
Corbyn motivating a certain hysteria since last years snap election. What has transpired this
week appears direct from the Thatcher playbook. What is stunning is, for all the bluster,
they have reached a verdict without a trial, without any evidence at all of an "attempted
murder", without even being able to explain what happened. To then wrap their denunciations
in the banner of standing tall for "our values" and sticking up for the "rules-based system"
while trampling on the logic and procedure of the basic justice system - that's just crazy
and rather thoughtless.
Here, the 1914 analogy can be seen in the rapid insistence that friends and allies of
Britain must also stand tall and denounce the Russians - evidence be damned - lest the
alliance crumble.
This will permit the "unlawfull chemical weapon attack" meme to grow just as
Russiagate has done, with unproven allegations presented as settled fact, requiring "action"
in response.
Further, by this reaction, the British government has assured the investigation into
whatever happened will be politicized, and that any information countering the government's
charges will be suppressed so to prevent a loss of face.
Unfortunately, although the pieces by both Séamus Martin and Craig Murray to which
you link are much better than most MSM coverage, among many problems with them is the rather
basic one that both accept without question an unproven assumption that is fundamental to the
whole British case against Russia over Skripal – that a class of lethal CW called
'Novichoks' actually exists.
A relevant post has just appeared on the site of a 'Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and
Media' recently set up by a group of British academics. It is co-authored by Paul McKeigue,
Professor of Statistical Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology at Edinburgh University, and Piers
Robinson, Professor of Politics, Society and Political Journalism' at Sheffield University,
and is entitled 'Doubts about "Novichoks".'
In the Commons on 12 March, Theresa May claimed that 'world-leading experts at the Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down have established that Skripal was poisoned
with one of a 'group of nerve agents known as Novichok,' developed by Russia.
Until recently the head of the detection laboratory at Porton Down was Dr Robin Black. As
McKeigue and Robinson note, back in 2016 this 'world-leading expert' on chemical weapons
– he really is that – published a chapter in a book on 'Chemical Warfare
Toxicology' entitled 'Development, Historical Use and Properties of Chemical Warfare
Agents.'
The link to this at the site of the Royal Society of Chemistry is at the end of the piece
by McKeigue and Robinson – a free download if one registers. I would very strongly
recommend the whole chapter to anyone seriously interested in getting to grips with issues to
do with chemical weapons, as it provides an authoritative account accessible to those without
a scientific background.
Of particular interest in relation to May's accusations against Russia is the fact that
Black specifically states that the existence of the Russian programme to which she refers was
unconfirmed as of his writing:
'In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve
agents, 'Novichoks' (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of
the "Foliant" programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive
countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly
originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent
confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published.'
What he is suggesting is that in the course of the – OPCW-monitored –
destruction of the Russian chemical weapons programme, no evidence emerged confirming the
claims by Mirzayanov. For this to be consistent with the Prime Minister's claims, some pretty
radical assumptions have to be introduced.
As McKeigue and Robinson also note, a similar scepticism was expressed in a March 2013
report by the Scientific Advisory Board on the OPCW – again, the link is in the
'Working Group' document:
'[The SAB] emphasised that the definition of toxic chemicals in the Convention would cover
all potential candidate chemicals that might be utilised as chemical weapons. Regarding new
toxic chemicals not listed in the Annex on Chemicals but which may nevertheless pose a risk
to the Convention, the SAB makes reference to "Novichoks". The name "Novichok" is used in a
publication of a former Soviet scientist who reported investigating a new class of nerve
agents suitable for use as binary chemical weapons. The SAB states that it has insufficient
information to comment on the existence or properties of "Novichoks".'
Of course, it is possible that, since Dr Black wrote, both Porton Down and the OPCW have
received conclusive evidence vindicating the claims by Mirzayanov. It is even just remotely
conceivable – very remotely conceivable – that all these people are part of a
conspiracy to cover the devastating information revealed by Mirzayanov. But those who want to
argue this owe us at least an attempt to provide a coherent account of how this might be
so.
And then, it has to be born in mind that there is a long history of people in the West
accepting, without critical examination, claims from 'dissidents' and 'defectors' from the
former Soviet Union and now Russia.
In this connection, I would refer people to two reports from Judith Miller. One, from 1999
in the 'New York Times', is entitled 'U.S. and Uzbeks Agree on Chemical Arms Plant Cleanup'.
It both accepts Mirzayanov's claim's at face value, and suggests American officials also did
this.
Another, published yesterday in the 'City Journal' is entitled 'Chemical Weapons are Back,
Thanks to Russia; The banned agents are increasingly being used for assassination and
terror.'
The 'City Journal' is an outlet with which I was unfamiliar. At first glance, and
particular in the light of their publishing Judith Miller, it seems to me it might usefully
be retitled 'Still useful idiots, after all these years, and proud of it', or 'Inside the
bubble, and terrified of having it pricked.'
If this seems extreme, have a look at her article.
Compounding the confusion is the fact that various Russians quoted repudiating Theresa
May's accusations have not denied that the 'Novichoks' programme existed. In general, these
seem to me to be people who could not be expected to have a grasp of the detailed history of
the Soviet chemical weapons programme, and this would not be the first time that such figures
have opened their big mouths in response to questionable accusations and in so doing given
these unmerited credibility.
However, these are not matters which need to be prejudged. What we clearly need is
clarification about the actual state of the evidence about 'Novichoks' from people who are
well-informed, both on the Western and Russian sides. Maybe if some people in the Western MSM
actually did some journalism, as it used to be understood, we might get it.
It would not be sufficient to establish Russian responsibility to establish that the
programme to create 'Novichoks' actually existed, but it would seem rather close to a
necessary condition. Until the problems raised by McKeigue and Robinson are cleared up, it
really is premature to conduct any discussion of the Skripal poisoning on the basis of the
assumption that it did.
Meanwhile, it is difficult to see what possible grounds there can be for the apparent
reluctance of the British to supply the Russians with samples for testing.
An intriguing question is raised by the arguments made by McKeigue and Robinson. Clearly
something was tested at Porton Down, and some kind of results produced. If in fact
'Novochoks' do not exist, what was it that was tested, and what were the results?
As with the test results from Porton Down and other laboratories on samples from incidents
where CW have been used in Syria, one comes back to the urgent need to have the actual test
results in the public domain, and the obvious implausibility of claims that 'sources and
methods' considerations mean that this cannot be done.
Incidentally, Professor McKeigue is also the author of what I take to be a highly cogent
demolition of the report of the UN/OPCW 'Joint Investigative Commission', issued last
October, which blamed the Syrian government for the Khan Sheikhoun sarin atrocity, to which I
have referred in earlier comments.
Among other things, his argument provides very strong reasons to suspect that intense
pressure was put on people at the OPCW to collaborate in the cover-up of a 'false flag.' It
thus becomes perfectly natural to ask whether similar pressure may have been put on people at
Porton Down.
The fact that Theresa May simply assumed away the possibility of a 'false flag' would seem
reason at least to a range of possibilities regarding her role – ranging from very
great naivety to actual collusion in a cover-up of a 'false flag.'
If she wants to prove such suspicions are groundless, she should order the disclosure of
the kind of information I have suggested needs to be made public – just as General
Mattis should order the disclosure of the test results relevant to Syrian CW incidents which
publicly available evidence indicates must be available to him.
In all these cases, what we most of all simply need are the charts showing the 'spectra'
of the various compounds identified by the testing processes. It is difficult to see any
cogent 'sources and methods' grounds for not disclosing these. Once they were disclosed, an
informed discussion by people with relevant scientific competence would become possible.
Until they are disclosed, suspicion will be unavoidable that those who do not want to see
them disclosed are afraid of what such informed discussion would reveal.
"... But of course the investigation is a side show in this piece of orchestrated political theater - in much the same way as is Mueller's indictment of Russian trolls, who have no prospect of being brought to trial. God forbid they should actually catch the perpetrator. I'd put money on their being a state actor, just not that state. ..."
Even if Novichok exists, it seems unlikely that it was used here. Supposedly these things are
10x more toxic than VX, in which case anyone exposed to even the smallest quantity of it
would be as dead as a doornail. Yet by some miracle no-one has actually been killed in this
incident.
Thanks for the link to the 'Doubts about "Novichoks"' article, this is very
encouraging. The second point made by the authors is that
"..any organic chemist with a modern lab would be able to synthesize bench scale quantities
of such a compound."
Now Theresa May is not a scientist and may believe that a chemical compound can
be 'Russian'. But you are right to speculate about pressure having been put on the boffins at
Porton Down, as they will know better and seem to be choosing not to say so.
Given that the means in this crime now seems to be open to a far wider range of suspects,
I would hope that the investigation would give at least some consideration to motive and
opportunity. But of course the investigation is a side show in this piece of orchestrated
political theater - in much the same way as is Mueller's indictment of Russian trolls, who
have no prospect of being brought to trial. God forbid they should actually catch the
perpetrator. I'd put money on their being a state actor, just not that state.
i will just say this.. as for dr. robin black - perhaps he is not at liberty to say that
porton down followed the instructions in Mirzanjaov's book 'state secrets' - as b so aptly
puts it ""Russia did it", says Mirzanjaov, "OR SOMEONE WHO READ MY BOOK"... either that, or
he knows and is unwilling to state this openly.. i don't know, but what i really want to know
is how does porton down verify it is this novichuk, without ever having been familiar with
it? that part is hard to fathom... and, if it can be reproduced, how can the uk ascertain
with such certainty that it was produced in russia? too many questions remain and the rush to
a conclusion seems really shoddy on the part of the uk leadership...
The hysteria that Russia did it is so total I completely missed that the victims are still
alive. Like CP, I remember Basic Training, with nerve gas, if you didn't get the protective
gear on; you died. This is very very strange. "Newcomer" nerve agents are binaries that are
relative non-toxic but when mixed highly toxic; five times greater than VX. The policeman was
exposed at the house. Yet the victims left home, drove into town, dined and collapsed on the
park bench. I don't see how one mixes Russian military grade nerve agents without chemical
protective gear and respirator and not die instantly. Perhaps someone mixed together an
organophosphate compound in a clandestine laboratory that the victims were exposed to; but,
that completely destroys the PM's narrative.
"... Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2. ..."
...The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is then nothing more but another
attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility towards Russia.
Interestingly enough today Germany´s defense minister who is a close confident of
Merkel echoed the outrage about the alleged nerve gas attack but called for a "UN
investigation". That is she didn´t endorse the British claim.
Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t
blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of
course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2.
"... One might hope that an encrypted channel (that had been cracked) would provide a few minutes warning for our sailors to get overboard - the fact that carrier groups are useless against a peer power is accepted in naval circles since the 80s. ..."
That sounds like a Russian strategy. It seems Russia has managed to get revenge for
actions that targeted its assets in Syria (I read an article that suggests the E. Ghouta push
is hitting also US SF advisors) but they do not brag about it on twitter.
For example, I assess that the poor performance of the Tomahawk attack was EW (the other
explanation being they are crap missiles), but in either case, Putin did not brag on
twitter.
Also consistent with the Putin story about the rat per Luke8929.
One might hope that an encrypted channel (that had been cracked) would provide a few
minutes warning for our sailors to get overboard - the fact that carrier groups are useless
against a peer power is accepted in naval circles since the 80s.
"... A Rare Glimpse into the Inner Workings of the American Empire in the Middle East - The U.S. foreign policy elite still wants the Middle East for its oil and its strategic location. http://fpif.org/rare-glimpse-inner-workings-american-empire-middle-east/ ..."
"... Currently, all signs indicate the United States is increasing its hold over the Middle East ..."
"... Although the U.S. has constructed a kind of informal American empire, they believe that U.S. actions and polices are creating blowback that is bringing more conflict and violence to the region. ..."
"... Jeffrey insisted that it would be necessary to accept more death and violence if the United States was going to achieve its strategic objectives. This kind of trade-off, he believed, was simply how things worked in the area. Citing recent retaliatory actions by the Israeli and Saudi government against missile attacks, Jeffrey said that the high civilians death tolls that resulted from such operations had simply become one of the costs of military engagement in the region. ..."
In recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, four former U.S. diplomats
provided remarkably candid commentary on recent U.S. involvement in the Middle East,
revealing a number of the most closely guarded secrets of U.S. diplomacy.
The four former diplomats emphasized the importance of the region's oil, spoke critically
about the weaknesses of U.S. strategy, made a number of crude comments about U.S. partners,
displayed little concern about ongoing violence, and called for more "discipline" throughout
the region.
... Currently, all signs indicate the United States is increasing its hold over the
Middle East .
The only problem, according to the former diplomats, is that the United States continues
to face significant resistance. Although the U.S. has constructed a kind of informal
American empire, they believe that U.S. actions and polices are creating blowback that is
bringing more conflict and violence to the region.
...Indeed, Jeffrey insisted that it would be necessary to accept more death and
violence if the United States was going to achieve its strategic objectives. This kind of
trade-off, he believed, was simply how things worked in the area. Citing recent retaliatory
actions by the Israeli and Saudi government against missile attacks, Jeffrey said that the
high civilians death tolls that resulted from such operations had simply become one of the
costs of military engagement in the region.
--------------
"anything for israel..." http://politicalhotwire.com/world-politics/57199-american-soldiers-dying-israel.html
"Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack
Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. ... According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of
the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11
Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the 'real threat' from Iraq was not a
threat to the United States. The 'unstated threat' was the 'threat against Israel', Zelikow
told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. 'The American government,'
he added, 'doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular
sell.'
That was then Today with have this situation: http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=5814
"Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel
with missile defense in times of war according to Haimovitch [Israeli IDF Brig. Gen.] "I am
sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our
deployment and team to defend the state of Israel"
General Clark, the US Army: "We are ready to commit to the defense of Israel and anytime
we get involved in a kinetic fight there is always the risk that there will be casualties
"
Jeepers Cripes, y'all need to get a room and ass-hammer it out!
Latter Day America, there are no pristine people to choose from to populate any goddamned
post in government, period! Everybody has baggage, everybody is compromised.
This is the latter days of Rome 2.0 dipshits, got it? It is why one batch of clowns find
it impossible to see one thing Trump (or anybody in any country...except Czar Valdimir Putin
in Russia...for whatever reason...default/nobody else to pick...when the real answer even
there is none of the above though many people refuse to see it) can do right and while the
other batch is mystified at those incapable of seeing (albeit sometime thin) distinctions
between evils in the era of this-is-as-good-as-it'll-get. Cue the inevitable endless circle
jerk.
Trump, and all of DC have as much power to affect what is coming as a flea does trying to
bench press 300 lbs. Those of them who are aware of the true situation are scared shit less.
Pompeo's appointment is just validating what is really about to come down! When they can't
intimidate the public into submission, they will try using a club.
Thanks for saying that. I detest Clinton and I want JUSTICE for what the evil treasonous
psychopaths did in 2016, but I also know Bibi and MBS have Trump on a short leash and
Islamaphobes fill his home and cabinet.
The soft coup is now complete and a war with Iran inevitable.
Hmmmm.....let's see. Pompeo hates Julian Assange. Assange has told us a lot of truth but
won't even consider that 911 was an inside job. Pompeo hates Iran and Assad, but he's not
about 911 truth at all either. The 911 myth is the basis for all US foreign policy. Trump
hates Rosie O'Donnell, who seems to be about the only media figure who'll admit that the
Trade Centers came down by controlled demolition. In the midst of all these powerful world
leaders, if Rosie O'Donnel is the only person speaking the truth, i'd say we are royally
fucked. And I don't even especially like Rosie O'Donnell. Doesn't seem likely we will avoid a
catastrophic war. What a world.
Trump hates Rosie O'Donnell, who seems to be about the only media figure who'll admit
that the Trade Centers came down by controlled demolition.In the midst of all these
powerful world leaders, if Rosie O'Donnel is the only person speaking the truth, i'd say we
are royally fucked.
One Donald J Trump was interviewed on TV on the day of 9/11. He said that's not the way
planes hit buildings. There were explosives of some sort involved. Moreover, the same Donald
J Trump as a contender for the Republican nomination in the debate in South Carolina in
February 2016 stated that if he won the presidency he would publish the secret documents
about 9/11.
You have to be paying attention to figure out who Trump really is. Why is that? It is
because Judaia as a conscious policy of that quasi-state has for long had total control of
the minds of the whole West. The brains of Americans have been turned to oatmeal (as Russians
put it) and most of what Trump says has to be oatmeal-to-oatmeal. Trump's brilliance is never
challenging directly the memes (such as 9/11 or the Holocaust or false flag shootings) that
Judaia has so laboriously constructed. That would be foolish. Rather, he takes one strand of
received discourse and short circuits it with another under high voltage. Only rarely and
briefly does Trump address clued-in supporters directly (perhaps he's doing it indirectly
through Q Anon). You have to be paying attention.
A lot of Trump administration double-talk is a game, his way of strongly playing a weak
hand. The anti-Iran bit seems to be a key gambit, going all the way back to Flynn
co-authoring an anti-Iran book with Neocon Ledeen. But Tillerson seems to have turned traitor
by taking over the script. Declaring that America was going go hang on to territory in Syria
was not a 'globalist' gambit in the script. Trump had to tweet that defeating ISIS was
America's only aim in Syria and that had been almost accomplished. Similarly, a limited
anti-Russia posture is necessary to deal with the Muller caper. But supporting the Empire's
Russian poisoning absurdity seems not to be where Trump wants America to be. Tillerson had to
go.
If Pompeo is talking a load of shit, and sounding surprisingly uneducsted for someone who
was number one at West Point and an editor (unlike Obama, under his own steam) at the Harvard
Law Review, be sure there is a game involved.
I instinctively like Trump, and have over a long period, Maybe Trump is at the head of a
huge world-historical change. It's looking good, actually, and I'm willing to wait and
see.
"... The problem is that this would have some semblance of solubility were it not for Israel. Israel desperately, repeat desperately, wants the U.S. to go to war in a very big way in the ME. That could tip the scales. ..."
"... I hope you are wrong, but Trump sees very clearly what "Wartime President" did for the cipher Bush. It's the only straw left for him to grasp at ..."
This post was about Mattis being the only "grown-up in the room".
I'm not sure that's something to be reassured about. Brian Cloughley is a seasoned
military writer and analyst. A few years ago he wrote a piece on Mattis that was not very
complimentary. If even half of it is right, we should all be worried.
Trump's mojo has evaporated. He has no coattails. He has negative coattails. So it is time
for war.
The problem is that this would have some semblance of solubility were it not for
Israel. Israel desperately, repeat desperately, wants the U.S. to go to war in a very big way
in the ME. That could tip the scales.
I hope you are wrong, but Trump sees very clearly what "Wartime President" did for the
cipher Bush. It's the only straw left for him to grasp at .
I can't figure out what the hell is going on these days in UK, are they looking are they
looking to exit the Europe only or the rather exit out of the world. What do they really
want? Do they really think they can isolate Russia out of Europe?
Would that bring more
security for UK? IMO, they must be crazy if they think American population will allow or come
to protect them again, while the two-ocean security no longer is viable in era of ICBMs.
As
colonel predicts a pre-war condition is forming on the two far ends of our outdated two ocean
protection.
"No British outlet will work in Russia if London shuts down RT - Foreign Ministry"
Trump is President today because in the Republican primaries he faced a fractured slate, many
of whom, like Trump, had no business thinking they should be President; and in the election,
he faced a corrupt government grifter without political talent whose only salient asset was
that she was the wife of a former President, the one who destroyed the bully pulpet. Without
the Clintons, there is no Trump.
Trump assumed office with no political friends, with some good ideas that resonated with
old line Democrats and people who were tired of 16 years of a disastrous over militarized
foreign policy and aimless failing or failed interventions; but unfortunately he had neither
tactics, strategy, or personnel to carry those ideas forward; and as if these deficits
weren't enough, through some combination of misfeasance and malfeasance, the outgoing
Administration, the Intelligence swamp, and the Democratic Party extremists combined to
cripple him with a hastily concocted crisis in our relations with Russia. Finally, Trump did
not help himself by surrounding himself with Generals and family members, something he had
not signaled he would be doing during the campaign.
Trump tapped Tillerson for State precisely because it was reasonable at the time to
believe that Tillerson could be instrumental in restoring correct relations with Russia.
Alas, it was not to be: neither Trump nor Tillerson were up to steering out of the maelstrom.
Still, Trump did not serve himself well by the chickenshit way he got rid of Tillerson.
So how are things now lining up: Trump; Mattis; Pompeo; a career bureaucrat from an
undistinguished time frame (to say the least) at CIA: and the perfectly awful, hopelessly
unqualified, ranting fool, Nikki Haley.
Over in GB, Theresa May lays down a 24 hr ultimatum: does this idiot know what an
ultimatum is and what it means and where it leads? Is there a .300 hitter in the bunch?
The UK and Israeli elites undoubtedly count among the second order "influencers" that I
mentioned, but in the end the US can't use them as excuses. They are only allowed to
"influence" the US so strongly because it suits so many powerful people in the US for them to
do so, and the "influence" certainly goes both ways, in Britain's case at any rate.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". Israel has been manipulating US
policy and culture for decades, and Britain has been doing so for a century and more.
However, it's a bit absurd to pretend that the scope and scale of British "influence" has
even approached that of Israel and its lobbies, certainly in recent decades. British
"influence" is nowadays mostly just being useful for particular factions within US politics
and government.
In a disturbing echo of the runup to the housing crisis,
a recent study has
revealed that the practice of flipping homes in the US is back in vogue - with the number of
houses flipped rising to its
highest level in 11 years.
Pompeo is in for a rude awakening in the diplomatic arena if he tries to spar with Lavrov.
Lavrov IMO will bloody Pomepo's nose before he knows what hit him.
J,
Haspel isn't alone in her views on torture - according to your link Mattis, Trump and Pompeo
also think waterboarding is an excellent intelligence tool.
According to your article Pompeo answered to Feinstein's torture criticism that agents who
had tortured people were " heroes, not pawns in some liberal game. "
*sob* ... poor heroes ... *sob*
Apparently it was all that heroism that made Haspel destroy evidence about the CIA torture
site in Tailand which she led.
One of the men, known as Abu Zubayda, was waterboarded 83 times in one month and was
slammed into walls by the head. He was deprived of sleep and kept in a coffin-like box.
Interrogators later decided he didn't have any useful information.
ProPublica found that Haspel personally signed cables to CIA headquarters that detailed
Zubayda's interrogation.
CIA videos of the torture were destroyed in 2005, on the orders of a cable drafted by
Haspel.
Indeed, apparently these heroes (and their leaders) needed to be protected from that odd
and unpleasant "liberal game" called 'prosecution for crimes'.
In a lengthy TV interview March 11, Putin spoke of an episode of his early years in St.
Petersburg when he was chasing a rat from an apartment block house where he lived with his
parents.
"So I cornered the rat," Putin recollected, "and it suddenly turned back on me. I was
scared and fled all the way back up to my apartment, but the rat continued to chase me."
The lesson Putin said he learned from that incident was, "Never corner your opponent" to
the point where they turn back and bite.
Sir,
My favorite mole in all of this is the slippery Doug Feith. He is continnues to be more
slippery than the Teflon Don, who by the way died in jail.
Another former Aipac analyst, Steve Rosen, has been accused of handing over top-secret
American documents to foreign officials and journalists. Both plead not guilty.
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY REPORTS THAT REPRESENTATIVE JANE HARMAN WAS CAUGHT ON TAPE
PROMISING TO LOBBY FOR REDUCED CHARGES AGAINST TWO ACCUSED SPIES, IN EXCHANGE FOR HELP
SECURING THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE:
"... If the US strikes Syria, Russia has to choose whether to let it pass (as it did Trump's previous crime) or to respond. If the US misjudges the scale of its attack and Russia responds with actions that kill US military personnel, then the US regime faces the same choice, and open war is an easy outcome. On each occasion, there is a clear cost to not retaliating, and a psychological inclination not to just turn the other cheek. This is a profoundly dangerous situation, and parallels with 1914 are absolutely not out of place. ..."
Yes & no to Aug'14. I'd go for July; the 'black swan event' has occurred, now what
will the major powers do?
I note that the Russian threat came not from the Pres or the Prime Minister, or the FM. It
came from the CDS. I think the orders for Russian air defense staff in Syria have been cut;
shoot on launch. The Russians seem sure the attack will be on Damascus, in response to an
imagined gas attack in East Ghouta. So probably air launched cruise missiles.
My black swan is Russian air defense knocking down a couple US strike a/c. In 1914,
starting with Austro Hungary, everyone (Rus, Ger, Fra) then reacted instead of looking at how
bad it could get. The Brits were the last in, reluctantly. Brit FM Grey said "The lights are
going out in Europe, I don't know when we shall see them lit again".
Colonel. Unfortunately you are perfectly right again with your analysis,for consequences of
trending current affairs. My hunch is in this new west east war, Europe (except for UK) and
east Asia, none of US main allies will side with US in a meaning full way, and that
unwillingness to share will be the final nail in coffin of US centered world order based on
UN, NATO and BW dollars.
I've been fearing that Syria is looking more and more like that for some time now.
The unimaginative ridicule the suggestion that open war between the US and Russia could
result from events in Syria, because it is just too big a change in the world for them to
comprehend it as a real possibility. But there is a clear route for escalation, and now the
US regime has suggested how the initiation might occur.
If the US strikes Syria, Russia has to choose whether to let it pass (as it did Trump's
previous crime) or to respond. If the US misjudges the scale of its attack and Russia
responds with actions that kill US military personnel, then the US regime faces the same
choice, and open war is an easy outcome. On each occasion, there is a clear cost to not
retaliating, and a psychological inclination not to just turn the other cheek. This is a
profoundly dangerous situation, and parallels with 1914 are absolutely not out of place.
I believe we would have been here a year ago if Clinton had won the presidency. Trump gave
hope that it could be avoided, but it seems that hope was vain, whether because Trump lied or
because he has been putty in the hands of the usual suspects around the US regime.
Fortunately, there will probably be many opportunities for either party to step off the
escalation process before it reaches a nuclear exchange, and the prospect of that tends to
concentrate even the minds of the powerful.
Let's be absolutely clear here, though - the US is wholly the party at fault here in
creating this situation. Syria is a longstanding Russian/Soviet ally and it is the US
regime's determination to overthrow the Syrian government that is creating the danger we now
face. Granted, after that you can look at other parties involved in "influencing" the US
regime towards war in Syria for their own self-serving ulterior motives, but in the end the
US government and nation must be held responsible for its own choices and for allowing itself
to be "influenced".
"... So the US is willing to risk escalation that in gaming always seems to lead to a nuclear weapons exchange for an action with zero strategic benefit! ..."
"... May God keep Mattis safe. ..."
"... Regarding that, SAA have cleared access now for reporters to a very dodgy looking plant in Shifuniyah, SE of Douma. One of them was Mrs Narwani here who shot a few photos on-site: ..."
"... I seem to recall that the usual suspects were hollering about how "chlorine barrel bombs" or whatever was used in Shifuniyah when it had already been taken by SAA at that point... ..."
Stripping away all the claptrap about unicorn rebels and chemical weapons and human
rights, the US is publicly and clearly stating that it will directly militarily intervene in
defense of its demonstrably failing Syria policy; however, not with a ground invasion - there
is no stomach for that. This is moronic (to use Rex's lexicon) - a missile attack on Syria
will have no strategic effect on the Syrian conflict.
Is it coincidence that Russia just very clearly signaled that it has the capability and
will to counter the US military strategy directly? Whereas one suspects few in the
administration believe that history has any relevance, Russia is very history aware. Russia
practices, every year, a nationwide, civilian response to a major nuclear attack. One cannot
imagine such an exercise in the US (it would interfere with our duty to shop).
I cannot see how the US de-escalates if a US carrier group is sunk. Winds of 1914 indeed.
Perhaps after a few metropolitan areas are nuked in each country (and probably someone
glasses the chosen people's country, Israel) saner minds in the US will pull back. Or
not.
So the US is willing to risk escalation that in gaming always seems to lead to a nuclear
weapons exchange for an action with zero strategic benefit!
"Will CNN praise Trump for his new appointments, just like they praised the US cruise missile
attacks on Syria in April 2017 after the alleged chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun?"
Regarding that, SAA have cleared access now for reporters to a very dodgy looking plant in
Shifuniyah, SE of Douma. One of them was Mrs Narwani here who shot a few photos on-site:
and wonders out loud where her colleagues from "Western" agencies are. There's also a video shot by Sama TV, with subtitles added by this Syrian Digital Media
account here:
I seem to recall that the usual suspects were hollering about how "chlorine barrel bombs"
or whatever was used in Shifuniyah when it had already been taken by SAA at that point...
Perhaps a small nuclear exchange against non-civilian targets is just what the world needs to
realize this endless warmongering is not rational. If I were Putin, I would nuke the Ghawar
field in KSA.
"... But it seems Trump intends Syria to be the next target. So the question remains how far will he go to attack Syria and how far will Russia go to defend Syria. If I were Putin, I'd be on the phone with Trump today reminding him that Russia has cruise missiles that can sink the entire US Med fleet (not in those terms, of course, but you get the idea.) He might also remind Trump that half the previous cruise missiles never reached their target even without Russian S-300's and Pantsirs being involved. This time, they might be. ..."
I predicted Tillerson would be out by end of last year. So I was off by three months...
Rumor has it that Trump is looking for an excuse to launch an attack on Syria which will
be "bigger" than the last one, and apparently Ghouta and alleged "chlorine attacks" will be
the excuse.
As I noted yesterday, some believe Putin explicitly mentioned attacks on Russia's allies
as a reason to use nuclear weapons. Whether Putin considers Syria an "ally" justifying the
use of nukes is unlikely in my opinion. North Korea and the implicit threat to China if China
intervenes probably would qualify.
So hopefully Trump will go to meet Kim. Yesterday's Crosstalk pointed out that there's a
lot the Deep State could do to derail that, assuming Trump is even truthful about his
intentions. Personally I suspect Kim is using the talks between NK and SK as a means to drive
a wedge between SK and the US. This would be to the good. Yesterday's Crosstalk suggested the
best outcome would be to get the US "out of the room" and let the two Koreas work it out. The
problem with that is that Kim wants US forces out of SK and while SK might agree to that,
they'll have to talk it over with the US which will be highly resistant since those forces
are there not just for NK but for China. Mark Sleboda suggested Trump might well be going to
Korea not to make things better but to reinsert the US into the SK/NK negotiatons to sabotage
them. We'll see.
But it seems Trump intends Syria to be the next target. So the question remains how
far will he go to attack Syria and how far will Russia go to defend Syria. If I were Putin,
I'd be on the phone with Trump today reminding him that Russia has cruise missiles that can
sink the entire US Med fleet (not in those terms, of course, but you get the idea.) He might
also remind Trump that half the previous cruise missiles never reached their target even
without Russian S-300's and Pantsirs being involved. This time, they might be.
The last cruise missile attacks was around 50 missiles. So if Trump wants a "bigger"
attack this time, will it be 100 missiles? Airstrikes by US jets against the SAA since the
cruise missiles might be ineffective against ground troop positions? What happens if the
Syrian air defenses - even without Russian help - shoot down a US jet attacking SAA forces a
la the Israeli incident earlier? How does Trump react to that?
A very meaningful head line by Izvestia on Potomac, WP. For WP editors, a victory for legal
army of Syria in their own country' is defying the INTERNATIONAL order. One wonders who are
these International community, are Russians, Chinese, Iran and many others part of this
community? Or this so-called community is another of US' international country clubs. Too
bad, i think the international community should just STFU and live with it.
"Syrian military pushes for victory in Ghouta, defying international outcry" https://goo.gl/StPpjp
Military Contractors have 400 lobbyists, revolving doors with military officers and
civilian officials, jobs in congressional districts; plus, corporations and their employees
contribute to election campaigns. Most importantly, they are part of the connected elite. You
are groomed to succeed and are paid handsomely if you belong to their exclusive club.
Unfortunately, today the system is corrupt and the global establishment has absolutely no
concern for the well-being of American citizens.
Blaming Russia for the 2016 election and Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening U.S. troops in
Manjib Syria are signs of the House of Cards collapsing around us.
"... At the same time Russia has made it clear that they will fight to protect their ally and interests in Syria. They have been quite plain spoken about that and they included both US aircraft and ships in the threat. I note that the Admiral Essen, a Russian missile shooting frigate sortied from Sebastopol today. ..."
"... How long until Mattis is shown the door? ..."
"... Russia is another ball game altogether and as much as I'd like to see Trump and the US come out on top he's way out of league in this and the heavy pro Israel leaning is going to be trouble. ..."
"... Hopefully some smarter and cooler headed diplomats will keep things on an even keel ..."
"... How will he get along with Nikki, since in the past he has called a Punjabi-American a 'turban topper'? ..."
"... Pompeo's close relationship with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies -- a louder bunch of war mongers you would have a hard time finding -- makes the danger that much more palpable, I think. ..."
"... rkka , 13 March 2018 at 03:41 PM ..."
"... I have noted the smell of gunpowder in the air since the Kiev coup, though it is almost unbearably intense now ..."
"... Yes I remember Al Qaida. That several consecutive US administrations decided to threaten Russia in order to protect these terrorists was one of the reasons why I lost my trust in the US government and their political appendices here in Europe. ..."
"... Will CNN praise Trump for his new appointments, just like they praised the US cruise missile attacks on Syria in April 2017 after the alleged chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun? ..."
"... Just my view on things but something is just so very wrong in this country. ..."
"... In 2005 Satterfield was named as having provided classified information to an official of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. According to documents, Satterfield had discussed secret national security matters in at least two meetings with AIPAC official Steven J. Rosen, who was subsequently indicted by the U.S. Justice Department (later quashed over the objections of the FBI ..."
"... As for Israel, they should be aware that if this ends up in a US vs Russia WW3, they will be wiped out - if not nuked by Russia, others will seize the opportunity offered by such chaos. There's simply no way that they're coming out of this war in a comparatively better situation, compared to the sorry state of other Western countries, than they are now - they'll be hit just as badly, and probably worse than some. ..."
"... If the US strikes Syria, Russia has to choose whether to let it pass (as it did Trump's previous crime) or to respond. If the US misjudges the scale of its attack and Russia responds with actions that kill US military personnel, then the US regime faces the same choice, and open war is an easy outcome. On each occasion, there is a clear cost to not retaliating, and a psychological inclination not to just turn the other cheek. This is a profoundly dangerous situation, and parallels with 1914 are absolutely not out of place. ..."
"... I believe we would have been here a year ago if Clinton had won the presidency. Trump gave hope that it could be avoided, but it seems that hope was vain, whether because Trump lied or because he has been putty in the hands of the usual suspects around the US regime. ..."
"... Let's be absolutely clear here, though - the US is wholly the party at fault here in creating this situation. Syria is a longstanding Russian/Soviet ally and it is the US regime's determination to overthrow the Syrian government that is creating the danger we now face. Granted, after that you can look at other parties involved in "influencing" the US regime towards war in Syria for their own self-serving ulterior motives, but in the end the US government and nation must be held responsible for its own choices and for allowing itself to be "influenced" ..."
"... I think Putin made his point(s) crystal clear on March 1st. Continually poking the bear only ends one way. What might the neocon/Trump reaction be to a carrier being taken out? Or closing of the Straits by air/sea denial? ..."
"... I do not wish to have either of these questions answered in any reality - simply because our government has come to believe they are invincible, and apparently, our military as well. ..."
"... The Russians seem sure the attack will be on Damascus, in response to an imagined gas attack in East Ghouta. So probably air launched cruise missiles. ..."
"... My black swan is Russian air defense knocking down a couple US strike a/c. In 1914, starting with Austro Hungary, everyone (Rus, Ger, Fra) then reacted instead of looking at how bad it could get. The Brits were the last in, reluctantly. Brit FM Grey said "The lights are going out in Europe, I don't know when we shall see them lit again". ..."
"... meanwhile, may and the uk want to frame russia without proof... this is a reoccurring theme, whether it is from the usa, uk or whoever.. it gets very tiring and not very believable or trustworthy.. ..."
At the UN Nikki Haley has now specifically threatened Syria and Russia with attack if the
Syrian government does not halt its offensive in East Gouta and the Yarmouk camp. Both are near
Damascus. These two places are mainly defended by jihadis, the largest group of which is Hayat
Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, the Al-Qa'ida branch in Syria. You remember Al Qa'ida. They were the
people who attacked us on 9/11. Her threat is for retaliation for use of chemical weapons
(chlorine)or just plain old "inhuman suffering" inflicted on the "Syrian People."
This does not seem an idle threat given the number of times she has repeated it. Someone is
telling her to say this. She works for State and it probably is not Tillerson telling her to do
this so my guess would be David Satterfield, the Assistant secretary of State for the Near
East. He is someone who now runs with the wolves. That is how he got the job.
At the same time Russia has made it clear that they will fight to protect their ally and
interests in Syria. They have been quite plain spoken about that and they included both US
aircraft and ships in the threat. I note that the Admiral Essen, a Russian missile shooting
frigate sortied from Sebastopol today.
I think that Pompeo's nomination and his eventual confirmation brings the world closer to a
US-Russia war. If that happens it will be difficult if not impossible to keep the war from
escalating toward the use of nuclear weapons. Israel wants war, a wrecking war with Iran.
Israel wants the US to win that war for Israel. IMO Israel would be wrecked in such a war
whatever the outcome. This is an August, 1914 moment. pl
Yes absolutely an August 1914 moment...
That was my first thought when I heard the news.
I think the tone on the Russian side has also markedly changed recently. They are losing
patience
The No Ko thing was bluff and bluster against a 3rd rate disfunctional regime at the kiddie
end of the statecraft pool.
Russia is another ball game altogether and as much as I'd like to see Trump and the US
come out on top he's way out of league in this and the heavy pro Israel leaning is going to
be trouble.
Hopefully some smarter and cooler headed diplomats will keep things on an even keel.
A pox on both Pompeo and Haley I say. I have never trusted Pompeo. How does a Californian run and win a Congressional election
in Kansas? Carpetbagger? Plus he got his Doctorate of Law degree from Harvard, which is
another strike against him IMO.
How will he get along with Nikki, since in the past he has
called a Punjabi-American a 'turban topper'? And I note that Nikki had a brother who served
in Desert Storm while Pompeo reportedly sat it out.
I don't know anything about Satterfield. But I thought that Haley's job as United States
Ambassador to the United Nations was a Cabinet level post and that she worked directly for
the White House and not for the State Department. When did that change?
Pompeo's close relationship with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies -- a
louder bunch of war mongers you would have a hard time finding -- makes the danger that much
more palpable, I think.
With what has been occurring recently in Syria, now may make or break time for the US. If it
loses to Russia in Syria/Iraq, US would most likely start losing in many places.
Yes I remember Al Qaida. That several consecutive US administrations decided to threaten
Russia in order to protect these terrorists was one of the reasons why I lost my trust in the
US government and their political appendices here in Europe.
Will CNN praise Trump for his new appointments, just like they praised the US cruise
missile attacks on Syria in April 2017 after the alleged chemical attack on Khan
Shaykhun?
Reminds me of a murder that happened near Charlottesville some years back. Two middle aged
brothers who shared a home in the country got into an argument over the use of the air
conditioner and one shot the other. Afterwards he was grief stricken and couldn't believe
what he'd done. Alcohol was involved. So the thing was tragic and the more so because it was
quite unnecessary.
Just my view on things but something is just so very wrong in this country. Yeah,
this has been par for the course for so long that i am used to it but who the hell is in
charge and what is the agenda?
" In 2005 Satterfield was named as having provided classified information to an
official of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. According to documents,
Satterfield had discussed secret national security matters in at least two meetings with
AIPAC official Steven J. Rosen, who was subsequently indicted by the U.S. Justice Department
(later quashed over the objections of the FBI ."
I agree. This is August 1914 being replayed again. The end of the second Gilded Age. Only
the true believers and the Generals are left. The VA Secretary has to guard his office suite.
EPA Administrator flies first class. Larry Kudlow, the rumored new economic czar, was fired
from Bear Stearns for his cocaine habit.
Donald Trump wants the three Generals gone. Anything becomes possible even a Korean Peace
Treaty. Correct me if I am wrong. But, without the Generals the President loses military and
contractor backing. The 25th Amendment becomes a real possibility. The God of War is
chuckling; if not a World War; then, at least, another American Civil War.
"Frighteningly, Mattis is now the adult and saner one in the whole administration" was
exactly my thought a few hours ago...
As for Israel, they should be aware that if this ends up in a US vs Russia WW3, they
will be wiped out - if not nuked by Russia, others will seize the opportunity offered by such
chaos. There's simply no way that they're coming out of this war in a comparatively better
situation, compared to the sorry state of other Western countries, than they are now -
they'll be hit just as badly, and probably worse than some.
I think you are being too pessimistic, still a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Trump is instinctively opposed to another war and knows it would be politically disastrous.
The Iran deal being further undermined is more likely the middle path that will be trod.
I was very enthusiastic about Tillerson but he really hasn't looked up to it, the idea was
better than the reality. Pompeo I don't know, superficially looks poor but I think he is
cleverer than he lets on, and a lot is just rhetoric.
Colonel. Unfortunately you are perfectly right again with your analysis, for consequences of
trending current affairs. My hunch is in this new west east war, Europe (except for UK) and
east Asia, none of US main allies will side with US in a meaning full way, and that
unwillingness to share will be the final nail in coffin of US centered world order based on
UN, NATO and BW dollars.
I've been fearing that Syria is looking more and more like that for some time now.
The unimaginative ridicule the suggestion that open war between the US and Russia could
result from events in Syria, because it is just too big a change in the world for them to
comprehend it as a real possibility. But there is a clear route for escalation, and now the
US regime has suggested how the initiation might occur.
If the US strikes Syria, Russia has to choose whether to let it pass (as it did
Trump's previous crime) or to respond. If the US misjudges the scale of its attack and Russia
responds with actions that kill US military personnel, then the US regime faces the same
choice, and open war is an easy outcome. On each occasion, there is a clear cost to not
retaliating, and a psychological inclination not to just turn the other cheek. This is a
profoundly dangerous situation, and parallels with 1914 are absolutely not out of
place.
I believe we would have been here a year ago if Clinton had won the presidency. Trump
gave hope that it could be avoided, but it seems that hope was vain, whether because Trump
lied or because he has been putty in the hands of the usual suspects around the US
regime.
Fortunately, there will probably be many opportunities for either party to step off the
escalation process before it reaches a nuclear exchange, and the prospect of that tends to
concentrate even the minds of the powerful.
Let's be absolutely clear here, though - the US is wholly the party at fault here in
creating this situation. Syria is a longstanding Russian/Soviet ally and it is the US
regime's determination to overthrow the Syrian government that is creating the danger we now
face. Granted, after that you can look at other parties involved in "influencing" the US
regime towards war in Syria for their own self-serving ulterior motives, but in the end the
US government and nation must be held responsible for its own choices and for allowing itself
to be "influenced" .
With NATO right on their border and Alaska on their other - there isn't anywhere for Russia
to retreat to. They have ONE overseas base, and we wish to contest that, per our mouthpieces.
I think Putin made his point(s) crystal clear on March 1st. Continually poking the
bear only ends one way. What might the neocon/Trump reaction be to a carrier being taken out?
Or closing of the Straits by air/sea denial?
I do not wish to have either of these questions answered in any reality - simply
because our government has come to believe they are invincible, and apparently, our military
as well.
Colonel,
Yes & no to Aug'14. I'd go for July; the 'black swan event' has occurred, now what will
the major powers do?
I note that the Russian threat came not from the Pres or the Prime Minister, or the FM. It
came from the CDS. I think the orders for Russian air defense staff in Syria have been cut;
shoot on launch. The Russians seem sure the attack will be on Damascus, in response to an
imagined gas attack in East Ghouta. So probably air launched cruise missiles.
My black swan is Russian air defense knocking down a couple US strike a/c. In 1914,
starting with Austro Hungary, everyone (Rus, Ger, Fra) then reacted instead of looking at how
bad it could get. The Brits were the last in, reluctantly. Brit FM Grey said "The lights are
going out in Europe, I don't know when we shall see them lit again".
thanks for sharing your perspective pat..i agree things look ominous.. it is a shame it has
gotten to this point, but with individuals like nikki haley and etc, doing all the talking
points for israel and happily moving along in this relentless path, it is hard not to
envision a confrontation that results in a wider war...
the usa is responsible for this is as @ 3 johnsonr points out and yes, in spite of the
influences on the usa, it will be the usa that will be held responsible for it too... i
wasn't around for 1914, but things don't look very good here..
meanwhile, may and the uk want to frame russia without proof... this is a reoccurring
theme, whether it is from the usa, uk or whoever.. it gets very tiring and not very
believable or trustworthy..
good question/s harper.. it looks like a positive development.. maybe some american
politicians are coming to their senses? wishful thinking, but it is possible!
the fact the usa is in syria, under the pretext of going after isis is laughable.. very
recently putin asked that the rubble city now known as raqqa, has many dead bodies still
under the rubble.. perhaps aside from leveling raqqa, the usa could consider cleaning up the
mess it is responsible for too..i guess that is too much to ask.. at present usa actions look
like an attempt at partitioning syria.. so yes - someone in political office in the usa can
ask about altering the course and direction of the usa has been on for a good number of
years, especially now with this demonizing of russia on so many levels.. that would be really
great..
i read need to read my posts before posting... oh well.. putin asked the usa to clean up and
bury the dead they are responsible for..maybe that falls to the 'free democratic syrian army'
that are busy running off to afrin at the moment...
I think some in the deep state or the people who really run pax-amaericana might of just got
the message fromPutin's last address to the douma. Fuk with us or any of our allies IE
IRAN,SYRIA,CHINA we will screww you six way of SUNDAY Hypersonic style.
I would love to think that this is Congress waking up to its responsibility, but I suspect it
is nothing more than a move to take a swipe at President Trump; to reduce his power and/or
weaken him politically.
If I remember correctly it was Saudi who set up Syria to begin with and sent Prince Bandar to
organize and finance the anti Assad rebels. Pretty sure they were counting on the Israel
Lobby to bring the US onboard given Syria was second leg after Iraq in their march to Iran
per the Israeli 'Clean Break' plan.
Despite the total FUBAR Iraq turned out to be I don't see the Israelis giving up on their
plan for Iran---all their propaganda says..''we are fighting Iran in Syria''. Since our
congress is basically Israeli occupied territory I don't have any faith in their war
decisions.
Yemen is another story...equally insane.
I welcome Russian involvement in the ME ....it might turn out to be the 'balancing act' the
realist like Stephen Walt have talked about for years
except not quite the 'offshore balancing' they recommend. Both Russia and the US are now
'onshore' instead. imo the US should bow out...nothing in the ME is a'threat' to the US and
we have zero benefits to gain in Syria or Iran.
I'm inclined to believe that this is an anti-Trump project but it may well have elements of
concern about war with Russia. After all, most of Trump's detractors assume he is
unpredictable and could start WWIII over an incident. Whether true or not, some people think
so.
Witness the cruise missile attack on the Syrian airbase over bogus intel which DID result
in a confrontation with Russia as Russia downed most of the cruise missiles using ECM
according to reports (and despite a Pentagon denial which was clearly bogus given pictures of
the airbase not being heavily damaged.)
And then we have the Russian contractors killed.
There was an article over at Russia Insider today that suggests the reason Putin announced
the new Russian weapons systems was not just for Russian election PR (since Putin is going to
win anyway) but was in reality because Russia feared an American attack in Syria. Putin
explicitly said in his March 1st speech:
Quote
I should note that our military doctrine says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear
weapons solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack with other weapons of mass
destruction against the country or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with the
use of conventional weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This all is very
clear and specific.
As such, I see it is my duty to announce the following. Any use of nuclear weapons against
Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a
nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant
consequences.
End Quote
Note the phrase "or its allies" - which at the moment is fairly limited to China, Syria,
and maybe Iran (as well as lesser states like Belarus.)
I think it might be possible to include North Korea in the list, if Russia believes a US
attack on North Korea - which would quite possibly involve nuclear weapons - might threaten
to escalate against China, an ally.
Perhaps this is why someone convinced Trump to talk to North Korea. Did some Pentagon
analysts or CIA analysts decide that Putin might be serious about Syria or North Korea based
on some intel and then the Pentagon decided to back down on North Korea or some planned
action against Syria?
I note Mattis seems to have bowed out on answering questions about North Korea, stating
that the State Department is handling that.
Like many high demand cults neoliberalism is a trap, from which it is very difficult to escape...
Notable quotes:
"... A large, open-border global free market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism. ..."
"... Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant in nations where interventions are staged. ..."
"... The enduring lie is that there is no democracy without economic democracy. ..."
This 'Washington Consensus' is the false promise promoted by the West. The reality is quite
different. The crux of neoliberalism is to eliminate democratic government by downsizing,
privatizing, and deregulating it. Proponents of neoliberalism recognize that the state is the
last bulwark of protection for the common people against the predations of capital. Remove the
state and they'll be left defenseless .
Think about it. Deregulation eliminates the laws. Downsizing eliminates departments and their
funding. Privatizing eliminates the very purpose of the state by having the private sector take
over its traditional responsibilities.
Ultimately, nation-states would dissolve except perhaps for armies and tax systems. A large, open-border global free
market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the
whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism.
Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined
by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher
neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes
no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly
address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the
globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant
in nations where interventions are staged.
The enduring lie is that there is no democracy
without economic democracy.
What matters to the one percent and the media conglomerates that disseminate their worldview is
that the official definitions are accepted by the masses. The real effects need never be known.
The neoliberal ideology (theory) thus conceals the neoliberal reality (practice). And for the
masses to accept it, it must be mass produced. Then it becomes more or less invisible by virtue
of its universality.
"... In a short span of time in the 1970s, dozens of think tanks were established across the western world and billions of dollars were spent proselytizing the tenets of the Powell Memo in 1971, which galvanized a counter-revolution to the liberal upswing of the Sixties. The neoliberal economic model of deregulation, downsizing, and privatization was preached by the Reagan-Thatcher junta, liberalized by the Clinton regime, temporarily given a bad name by the unhinged Bush administration, and saved by telegenic restoration of the Obama years. ..."
"... Today think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute, Stratfor, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, Carnegie Endowment, the Open Society Foundation, and the Atlantic Council, among many others, funnel millions of dollars in donations into cementing neoliberal attitudes in the American mind. ..."
"... The ideological assumptions, which serve to justify what you could call neocolonial tactics, are relatively clear: the rights of the individual to be free of overreach from monolithic institutions like the state. Activist governments are inherently inefficient and lead directly to totalitarianism. Markets must be free and individuals must be free to act in those markets. People must be free to choose, both politically and commercially, in the voting booth and at the cash register. ..."
"... This conception of markets and individuals is most often formulated as "free-market democracy," a misleading conceit that conflates individual freedom with the economic freedom of capital to exploit labor. So when it comes to foreign relations, American and western aid would only be given on the condition that the borrowers accepted the tenets of an (highly manipulable) electoral system and vowed to establish the institutions and legal structures required to fully realize a western market economy. ..."
In Christopher Nolan's captivating and visually dazzling film Inception, a practitioner of
psychic corporate espionage must plant and idea inside a CEO's head. The process is called
inception, and it represents the frontier of corporate influence, in which mind spies no longer
just "extract" ideas from the dreams of others, but seed useful ideas in a target's
subconscious.
Inception is a well-crafted piece of futuristic sci-fi drama, but some of the ideas it
imparts are already deeply embedded in the American subconscious.
The notion of inception, of hatching an idea in the mind of a man or woman without his or
her knowledge, is the kernel of propaganda, a black art practiced in the States since the First
World War. Today we live beneath an invisible cultural hegemony, a set of ideas implanted in
the mass mind by the U.S. state and its corporate media over decades. Invisibility seems to
happen when something is either obscure or ubiquitous. In a propaganda system, an overarching
objective is to render the messaging invisible by universalizing it within the culture.
Difference is known by contrast. If there are no contrasting views in your field of vision,
it's easier to accept the ubiquitous explanation. The good news is that the ideology is
well-known to some who have, for one lucky reason or another, found themselves outside the
hegemonic field and are thus able to contrast the dominant worldview with alternative opinions.
On the left, the ruling ideology might be described as neoliberalism, a particularly vicious
form of imperial capitalism that, as would be expected, is camouflaged in the lineaments of
humanitarian aid and succor.
Inception 1971
In a short span of time in the 1970s, dozens of think tanks were established across the
western world and billions of dollars were spent proselytizing the tenets of the Powell
Memo in 1971, which galvanized a counter-revolution to the liberal upswing of the Sixties.
The neoliberal economic model of deregulation, downsizing, and privatization was preached by
the Reagan-Thatcher junta, liberalized by the Clinton regime, temporarily given a bad name by
the unhinged Bush administration, and saved by telegenic restoration of the Obama years.
The
ideology that underlay the
model saturated academia, notably at the University of Chicago, and the mainstream media,
principally at The New York Times. Since then it has trickled down to the general populace, to
whom it now feels second nature.
Today think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings
Institute, Stratfor, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign
Relations, Carnegie Endowment, the Open Society Foundation, and the Atlantic Council, among
many others, funnel millions of dollars in donations into cementing neoliberal attitudes in the
American mind.
The ideological assumptions, which serve to justify what you could call neocolonial tactics,
are relatively clear: the rights of the individual to be free of overreach from monolithic
institutions like the state. Activist governments are inherently inefficient and lead directly
to totalitarianism. Markets must be free and individuals must be free to act in those markets.
People must be free to choose, both politically and commercially, in the voting booth and at
the cash register.
This conception of markets and individuals is most often formulated as
"free-market democracy," a misleading conceit that conflates individual freedom with the
economic freedom of capital to exploit labor. So when it comes to foreign relations, American
and western aid would only be given on the condition that the borrowers accepted the tenets of
an (highly manipulable) electoral system and vowed to establish the institutions and legal
structures required to fully realize a western market economy.
These demands were supplemented
with notions of the individual right to be free of oppression, some fine rhetoric about women
and minorities, and somewhat more quietly, a judicial understanding that corporations were
people, too. Together, an unshackled economy and an unfettered populace, newly equipped with
individual rights, would produce the same flourishing and nourishing demos of mid-century
America that had been the envy of humanity.
It's an unfortunate irony of the times in which we live that politicians are happy to bask
in the glory of Law & Order when it comes to intensifying punishments for the general
public yet simultaneously nowhere to be found when it comes to prosecuting those who commit
crimes involving corruption, fraud or abuse of power. When ratcheting up the incarceration
rate among minorities, the poor and those living in the nation's crumbling urban ghettos,
they dutifully repeat the same weary, disproved bromides about deterrence while stuffing
their campaign coffers with contributions from one of neoliberalism's most amoral sectors:
the for-profit carceral state.
Generally, then, I would reject such arguments – higher sentences, mandatory
minimums, decreasing the independence of the judiciary to decide on punishments are all
failed policies that have, under the aegis of the War on Drugs, left a trail of destruction,
generational poverty, and heartbreak. When it comes to white-collar crimes, political
corruption and abuse of power, though, I suspect that hefty sentences actually would serve as
a deterrent. If the architects of the Global Financial Crisis were currently sitting
alongside Bernie Madoff in Butner (or ADX Florence), you suspect it might cause some of their
successors to think twice about indulging in the same wanton speculation.
If the ghouls of the DoD, Pentagon and intelligence community had found themselves where
they belonged, in the dock, for their gross abuses of power and war crimes following 9/11,
one wonders whether the near-equal ghouls of the Sainted Obama's Administration would have
drawn up their illegal kill lists or celebrated the flouting of international law with quite
such levity.
All of which, of course, means that we won't ever see it happen – but it does make
me think that in some cases it is entirely justified to pursue and forcefully punish those
who break the law. It's just unfortunate that the ones whose punishment would be most
effective in deterring others are the ones who invariably get off scott free.
JEHR
What I don't understand is how Michael Shkreli, CEO, is found guilty of financial fraud against
investors in 2018 but not one CEO of a bank–not Goldman Sachs's CEO, not Citigroup's CEO, not JP Morgan
Chase's CEO, not Wells Fargo's CEO and not Lehman Brothers' CEO–was found guilty of committing Accounting
Control Fraud and/or mortgage fraud after the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-8. Amazing! But there's not
much satisfaction in such a small price to pay for fraud (7 years) that ruins other people's lives
permanently. What is also amazing is that it is not illegal to price a drug out of the reach of most users
just for the sake of making a huge profit!
perpetualWAR
Obama said "actions on Wall Street weren't illegal only immoral." And that set the tone. No one was
going to be found guilty of unlawful actions ..even though what Wall Street conducted was a racketeering
operation.
It's not the legality, or even the morality, it's not being blatantly scoffed at.
Shkreli is a slimy narcissitic toad that used, back stabbed, insulted, and annoyed everyone
which is why he got the shiv; just think of the former head of Wells Fargo, Tim Sloan, who did the
same and not only to his customers, and low level employees, but also to Congress.
Who me robbing you? Really, no, I know nothing I see nothing really! Your eyes, they must be lying
to you! And you're too stupid to see that!
That is why they got nailed. People might not like being robbed, but they really don't like being
insulted in the doing. Had they done the usual mea culpas, faux apologies, and even token restitution
of some kind, one would not be in prison, and the other still CEO.
DHG
Shkreli stupidly challenged the powers that be in public to do something and they did.
Andrew Cockburn
Surely, for the big banks the most significant part of this legislation is the provision allowing them
to count municipal bonds as "liquid assets" thus boosting their capital ratio. In reality, of course, these
are highly illiquid. Therefore, come the next crash, authorities will be faced with the prospect either of
JPM, Citi, etc, attempting to dump said bonds thereby tanking the municipal finance system of the country –
unacceptable – or yet again bailing out the banksters to the tune of $trillions. Will the guilty parties be
called to account? Don't ask.
Like many high demand cults neoliberalism is a trap, from which it is very difficult to escape...
Notable quotes:
"... A large, open-border global free market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism. ..."
"... Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant in nations where interventions are staged. ..."
"... The enduring lie is that there is no democracy without economic democracy. ..."
This 'Washington Consensus' is the false promise promoted by the West. The reality is quite
different. The crux of neoliberalism is to eliminate democratic government by downsizing,
privatizing, and deregulating it. Proponents of neoliberalism recognize that the state is the
last bulwark of protection for the common people against the predations of capital. Remove the
state and they'll be left defenseless .
Think about it. Deregulation eliminates the laws. Downsizing eliminates departments and their
funding. Privatizing eliminates the very purpose of the state by having the private sector take
over its traditional responsibilities.
Ultimately, nation-states would dissolve except perhaps for armies and tax systems. A large, open-border global free
market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the
whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism.
Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined
by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher
neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes
no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly
address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the
globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant
in nations where interventions are staged.
The enduring lie is that there is no democracy
without economic democracy.
What matters to the one percent and the media conglomerates that disseminate their worldview is
that the official definitions are accepted by the masses. The real effects need never be known.
The neoliberal ideology (theory) thus conceals the neoliberal reality (practice). And for the
masses to accept it, it must be mass produced. Then it becomes more or less invisible by virtue
of its universality.
"... In a short span of time in the 1970s, dozens of think tanks were established across the western world and billions of dollars were spent proselytizing the tenets of the Powell Memo in 1971, which galvanized a counter-revolution to the liberal upswing of the Sixties. The neoliberal economic model of deregulation, downsizing, and privatization was preached by the Reagan-Thatcher junta, liberalized by the Clinton regime, temporarily given a bad name by the unhinged Bush administration, and saved by telegenic restoration of the Obama years. ..."
"... Today think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute, Stratfor, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, Carnegie Endowment, the Open Society Foundation, and the Atlantic Council, among many others, funnel millions of dollars in donations into cementing neoliberal attitudes in the American mind. ..."
"... The ideological assumptions, which serve to justify what you could call neocolonial tactics, are relatively clear: the rights of the individual to be free of overreach from monolithic institutions like the state. Activist governments are inherently inefficient and lead directly to totalitarianism. Markets must be free and individuals must be free to act in those markets. People must be free to choose, both politically and commercially, in the voting booth and at the cash register. ..."
"... This conception of markets and individuals is most often formulated as "free-market democracy," a misleading conceit that conflates individual freedom with the economic freedom of capital to exploit labor. So when it comes to foreign relations, American and western aid would only be given on the condition that the borrowers accepted the tenets of an (highly manipulable) electoral system and vowed to establish the institutions and legal structures required to fully realize a western market economy. ..."
In Christopher Nolan's captivating and visually dazzling film Inception, a practitioner of
psychic corporate espionage must plant and idea inside a CEO's head. The process is called
inception, and it represents the frontier of corporate influence, in which mind spies no longer
just "extract" ideas from the dreams of others, but seed useful ideas in a target's
subconscious.
Inception is a well-crafted piece of futuristic sci-fi drama, but some of the ideas it
imparts are already deeply embedded in the American subconscious.
The notion of inception, of hatching an idea in the mind of a man or woman without his or
her knowledge, is the kernel of propaganda, a black art practiced in the States since the First
World War. Today we live beneath an invisible cultural hegemony, a set of ideas implanted in
the mass mind by the U.S. state and its corporate media over decades. Invisibility seems to
happen when something is either obscure or ubiquitous. In a propaganda system, an overarching
objective is to render the messaging invisible by universalizing it within the culture.
Difference is known by contrast. If there are no contrasting views in your field of vision,
it's easier to accept the ubiquitous explanation. The good news is that the ideology is
well-known to some who have, for one lucky reason or another, found themselves outside the
hegemonic field and are thus able to contrast the dominant worldview with alternative opinions.
On the left, the ruling ideology might be described as neoliberalism, a particularly vicious
form of imperial capitalism that, as would be expected, is camouflaged in the lineaments of
humanitarian aid and succor.
Inception 1971
In a short span of time in the 1970s, dozens of think tanks were established across the
western world and billions of dollars were spent proselytizing the tenets of the Powell
Memo in 1971, which galvanized a counter-revolution to the liberal upswing of the Sixties.
The neoliberal economic model of deregulation, downsizing, and privatization was preached by
the Reagan-Thatcher junta, liberalized by the Clinton regime, temporarily given a bad name by
the unhinged Bush administration, and saved by telegenic restoration of the Obama years.
The
ideology that underlay the
model saturated academia, notably at the University of Chicago, and the mainstream media,
principally at The New York Times. Since then it has trickled down to the general populace, to
whom it now feels second nature.
Today think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Brookings
Institute, Stratfor, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign
Relations, Carnegie Endowment, the Open Society Foundation, and the Atlantic Council, among
many others, funnel millions of dollars in donations into cementing neoliberal attitudes in the
American mind.
The ideological assumptions, which serve to justify what you could call neocolonial tactics,
are relatively clear: the rights of the individual to be free of overreach from monolithic
institutions like the state. Activist governments are inherently inefficient and lead directly
to totalitarianism. Markets must be free and individuals must be free to act in those markets.
People must be free to choose, both politically and commercially, in the voting booth and at
the cash register.
This conception of markets and individuals is most often formulated as
"free-market democracy," a misleading conceit that conflates individual freedom with the
economic freedom of capital to exploit labor. So when it comes to foreign relations, American
and western aid would only be given on the condition that the borrowers accepted the tenets of
an (highly manipulable) electoral system and vowed to establish the institutions and legal
structures required to fully realize a western market economy.
These demands were supplemented
with notions of the individual right to be free of oppression, some fine rhetoric about women
and minorities, and somewhat more quietly, a judicial understanding that corporations were
people, too. Together, an unshackled economy and an unfettered populace, newly equipped with
individual rights, would produce the same flourishing and nourishing demos of mid-century
America that had been the envy of humanity.
"... the four largest banks in America are on average 80% bigger today than they were before we bailed them out because they were "too big to fail". Incredibly, the six largest banks in America have over 10 trillion dollars in assets, equivalent to 54% of the GDP of this nation . This is wealth, this is power, this is who owns America. ..."
"... Very conservative, anti-regulatory people hold the White House and key positions in the House and the Senate, and the first thing the industry does is gut regulation. Why? Because it makes the CEOs so wealthy to run these frauds and predation. It's not necessarily good for the banking industry, but it is extremely good for the most senior leaders and they are the ones, of course, who hire and fire the lawyers and the lobbyists, and effectively hire and fire key members of Congress. ..."
"... Apparently, our memories are indeed so short that we have learned nothing from the 2008 Wall Street crash. Bernie Sanders (and probably Elizabeth Warren to some extend), are left alone again to fight against the Wall Street mafia because, apparently, the rest of the US political class has been bought from it. ..."
The six largest banks in America have over 10 trillion dollars in assets,
equivalent to 54% of the GDP of this nation. This is wealth, this is power, this is who owns
America.
Ten years after the big crash of 2007-08, caused by the Wall Street mafia, sending waves of
financial destruction around the globe, the awful Trump administration that literally put the
Goldman Sachs banksters in charge of the US economy, wants to reset the clock bomb of another
financial disaster by deregulating the financial sector! And guess what: the corporate
Democrats followed again!
Putting aside that Russiagate fiasco, Bernie Sanders was one more time the only voice of
resistance against the Wall Street mafia in a hypnotized by the banking-corporate money US
senate.
As Bernie stated:
Just ten years ago, as a result of greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street,
this country was plunged into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The official unemployment rate soared up to 10% and the real unemployment rate jumped to over
17%. At the height of the financial crisis more than 27 million Americans were unemployed,
underemployed or stopped working altogether because they could not find employment. 15 million
families - as a result of that financial crisis - lost their homes to foreclosure, as more and
more people could not afford to pay their mortgages. As a result of the illegal behavior of
Wall Street, American households lost over 13 trillion dollars in savings. That is what Wall
Street did 10 years ago.
Believe it or not - and of course we are not going to hear any discussion of this at all -- the four largest banks in America are on average 80% bigger today than they were before we
bailed them out because they were "too big to fail". Incredibly, the six largest banks in
America have over 10 trillion dollars in assets, equivalent to 54% of the GDP of this
nation . This is wealth, this is power, this is who owns America.
If any of these financial institutions were to get into a financial trouble again, there is no
doubt that, once again, the taxpayers of this country will be asked to bail them out. Except
this time, the bail out might even be larger than it was in 2008.
Bernie is right, the facts are all there, except that, again, he is the only one who speaks
about it.
Recall that according to chapter 20 conclusions of the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, "As a result of the rescues and consolidation of financial institutions through failures
and mergers during the crisis, the U.S. financial sector is now more concentrated than ever in
the hands of a few very large, systemically significant institutions."
Recall
also that in December 1, 2010, the Fed was forced to release details of 21,000 funding
transactions it made during the financial crisis, naming names and dollar amounts. Disclosure
was due to a provision sparked by Bernie Sanders. The voluminous data dump from the notoriously
secret Fed shows just how deeply the Federal Reserve stepped into the shoes of Wall Street and,
as the crisis grew and the normal channels of lending froze, the Fed effectively replaced Wall
Street and money centers banks in terms of financing. The Fed has thus far reported, without
even disclosing specifics of its lending from its discount window, that it supplied, in
total, more than $9 trillion to Wall Street firms, commercial banks, foreign banks,
corporations and some highly questionable off balance sheet entities. (Much smaller amounts
were outstanding at any one time.)
Bill Black, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri, states:
In the savings loan debacle, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, George Akerlof and Paul Romer, who
until recently was Chief Economist to the World Bank, wrote that economists didn't realize -
because they lacked any theory of fraud - that deregulation was bound to create widespread
fraud and a crisis. Now, we know better if we learn the lessons of this crisis, we need not
recreate it.
Very conservative, anti-regulatory people hold the White House and key positions in the House
and the Senate, and the first thing the industry does is gut regulation. Why? Because it makes
the CEOs so wealthy to run these frauds and predation. It's not necessarily good for the
banking industry, but it is extremely good for the most senior leaders and they are the ones,
of course, who hire and fire the lawyers and the lobbyists, and effectively hire and fire key
members of Congress.
Apparently, our memories are indeed so short that we have learned nothing from the 2008 Wall
Street crash. Bernie Sanders (and probably Elizabeth Warren to some extend), are left alone
again to fight against the Wall Street mafia because, apparently, the rest of the US political
class has been bought from it.
"... he Dems disgust me with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations). ..."
"... Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this around and I doubt it's even possible. ..."
"... The Real Reason Establishment Frauds Hate Trump and Obsess About Russia https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/02/20/the-real-reason-establishment-frauds-hate-trump-and-obsess-about-russia/ ..."
"... Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party. ..."
jsn @16 & 40, in complete agreement with you. Great comments! T he Dems disgust me
with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out
their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in
waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations).
Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and
it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a
basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a
form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the
personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the
wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this
around and I doubt it's even possible.
Back when I used to subscribe to STRATFOR, founder George Friedman always made a point of
evaluating the elites of whatever country he was analyzing and how they operated amongst
themselves and relative to the people and how effective they were or were not in governing a
country. But he never did that for the US. I would have paid extra for that report! But of
course he could not stay in business if he did such a thing as those people are his
clients.
I think Mike Krieger over at Liberty Blitzkrieg nails it from another perspective with this
post:
Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various
defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war
based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched
reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly,
for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the
Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before
Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party.
By throwing every problem in Putin's lap, the entrenched bipartisan status quo can tell
themselves (and everybody else) that it wasn't really them and their policies that voters
rejected in 2016, rather, the American public was tricked by cunning, nefarious Russians.
Ridiculous for sure, but never underestimate the instinctive human desire to deny
accountability for one's own failures. It's always easier to blame than to accept
responsibility.
That said, there's a much bigger game afoot beyond the motivations of individuals looking to
save face. The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united against
Trump has nothing to do with his actual policies. Instead, they're terrified that -- unlike
Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for empire. This sort of Presidential instability threatens
the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train. Hillary Clinton was a
sure thing, Donald Trump remains an unpredictable wildcard.
... Obama said all the right things while methodically doing the bidding of oligarchy. He
captured the imagination of millions, if not billions, around the world with his soaring
rhetoric, yet rarely skipped a beat when it came to the advancement of imperial policies. He
made bailing out Wall Street, droning civilians and cracking down on journalists seem
progressive. He said one thing, did another, and people ate it up. This is an extraordinarily
valuable quality when it comes to a vicious and unelected deep state that wants to keep a
corrupt empire together.
Trump has the exact opposite effect. Sure, he also frequently says one thing and then does
another, but he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's
simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability
to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable
hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit.
------------
I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as I am
not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's
probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much
better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and
disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all.
My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg
The Iron Law of Oligarchy and the Iron Law of Institutions.
All institutions are corruptible and all institutions eventually will be corrupted, because institutions = power and power
is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats.
Some corollaries of this are:
The people who want power the most are the most inclined to abuse that power.
The principal function of any institution is to keep sociopaths out of power as much as possible for as long as possible.
There are no political or economic systems that work everywhere or at all times. Rather, a system works in a given time
and place, to the extent that they further the above principles.
the crash of intra-bank
lending portends mucho ugliness in the markets(imminently?) and consequently, the greater
economy. Bottom line: the element of trust (collusion), critical for fiat money
stability, seems to be going the way of the dodo.
i'm waiting for a similar phenomenon to explode in the world of fiat journalism...when all
of these scumbag stenographers get to test their swimming skills as the ship goes down.
PoliticsTaxes/regulationUS/Global EconomicsJeffrey
Sachs on Trump's Trade Fallacies I heard on some news show an incredibly stupid statement
from our President earlier today and in utter disbelief fired off this comment on some blog:
Trump equates our trade deficit with us being ripped off. Let's do this as a simple
example. You walk into Best Buy and purchase a $1000 computer but do not have cash. So you
put it on your credit card incurring a $1000 liability. Even though you now have the computer
and Best Buy does not – Best Buy just ripped you off as you have a $1000 financial
obligation. An odd statement from someone who routinely defaulted on his financial
obligations!
Never mind that as on Friday
Jeffrey Sachs beat me to this:
But don't expect an impulsive and ignorant man like Trump to heed the lessons of economic
history, logic of retaliation, and the basics of trade. His actions are based on three
primitive fallacies. First, Trump thinks that America runs trade deficits with countries like
China and Germany because the US is being swindled by them. The real reason is that the US
saves too little and consumes too much, and it pays for this bad habit by borrowing from the
rest of the world. The Trump theory of international trade is like a man in deep debt who
blames his creditors for his spendthrift behavior. Come to think of it, that is precisely how
Trump has spent his whole business career: over-borrowing, going bankrupt, and blaming his
creditors.
Check out his discussion of the other two primitive fallacies! I guess Trump would argue
that it was very unfair to me when Best Buy gave me a credit card.
"... The maximum monthly social security benefit is $3,538. caught my eye, though. ..."
"... The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees). ..."
"... I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was .well .interesting. You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still Plenty of those, apparently, vets. ..."
Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime contributions and what age you choose
to begin taking them. So a higher earner will get more benefits (up to the cap, around $106k
if memory serves) than a modest earner–simply because he paid more into the system.
You can elect to take benefits as early as 62, or as later as 70.5.
The system was designed with psychological, political intent. The idea was that the
program would be impossible for conservatives to eliminate because all wage earners would
feel entitled to pensions that they themselves had paid for (though strictly speaking it is a
pure tax and your taxes are paid to current retirees).
In act early economists recommend the system be funded out of general revenues and said
there was no need for a payroll tax. FDR said he wanted people to take ownership in the
system so no one could ever destroy the system.
It is remarkably effective. It's remarkable effective and neither Ronald Reagan nor George
W Bush lasted more than a few weeks when they tried to roll back the system.
The only wins conservatives have scored against it are taxing some of the benefits (began
in the 80s) and making some changes to cost-of-living inflation adjustments in the 90s. It's
called the third rail of politics here and every old person is outraged by any suggestion
that benefits should be reduced. There is however a lot of propaganda about the alleged
future unaffordability of the system, and it now strikes me that there is an elite consensus
in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.
It's "known" that the US "social safety net" is the worst in West.
I mean, with that amount of available money provided by the State , how do we see all
that visible homelessness and poverty in US? I know that drugs and alcohol, with general
stupidity, can do that.
I guess my question is:
A family of four, breadwinner losing his/her job (offshoring, outsourcing, downsizing)
getting on that "net", renting would they lose their accommodation and effectively have
problem with food, shelter and medical help, while on that net while finding another job?
And, how long can they be on that net?
I know I can read about that a lot, but condensed info from a person on the ground there
would be much more helpful.
As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class,
whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems intended
to cover everyone regardless of income. Healthcare is an obvious one across the West, and
much ink has been spilled about the outrageous cost of college in America. The government's
safety net here is simply to allow young folks to go into unlimited state-guaranteed
debt.
Something of a stealth middle class safety net is provided by the corporate sector in the
form of health insurance, pensions, maternity leave, etc. This has been reduced since the 80s
but still exist, and government tax policy encourages it. As an example if you leave your
employer you have the right to keep your employer-sponsored health insurance through
something called COBRA.
A number of programs also exist to provide tax-deferred investment accounts for various
social purposes. These are available for retirement, healthcare, and higher education. The
programs cost the government nothing in expenditures, but reduce tax revenue (probably by
less than the public benefit however).
There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of thumb
many of these programs run through women since they're dependent on the number of children
you have (and, of course, household income). If you're a single man or your baby mamma
doesn't want you around anymore, tough luck.
Programs that exist for the poor include:
Additionally some of the states have additional welfare programs.
Actual cash transfers to the poor have largely been abolished since the 90s, though the
Obama Administration revived them in stealth form by greatly expanding disability
payments.
As far as the homeless go, if you see them in the winter in cold cities they're probably
mentally ill.
If they're somewhere warm that's still possible, though then there are other factors such
as a lifestyle choice, temporarily down on luck, single man unable to find any work or
charity, etc.
Type of beneficiary
Beneficiaries
Total monthly benefits (millions of dollars)
Average monthly benefit (dollars)
Number (thousands)
Percent
Total
61,984
100.0
79,988
1,290.46 Average Benefit
The table format does not paste correctly. See the table here:
Comprehensive and informative.
Didn't know a couple of things.
there is an elite consensus in favor of modifying the system to reduce benefits.
Of course. It's the in their nature.
As a general rule of thumb the safety net is very weak for those in the middle class,
whereas in many other Western countries there are universal social insurance systems
intended to cover everyone regardless of income.
Interesting re former and true around here re later. The level of "assistance" depends on
assessed needs of a person/family, not on their previous income.
There is much more of a safety net for the poorer classes, but as a general rule of
thumb many of these programs run through women since they're dependent on the number of
children you have (and, of course, household income). If you're a single man or your baby
mamma doesn't want you around anymore, tough luck.
And
single man unable to find any work or charity, etc.
Interesting too. I will sound simplistic and naive, but it's really hard to reconcile those extremes in
US.
I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just lucky,
having all those zillions. Good on them.
But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.
Yes, I've heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don't even understand
(stupid me), but , still
I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was .well .interesting.
You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time
all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still
Plenty of those, apparently, vets.
I haven't got the slightest how to fix that, or even is it possible, but, still
..something simply does not compute.
Still, a couple of things are eluding me.
I'll use an example:
A man, single, late 20s, professional, worked in, say, corporate environment, got
"restructured/downsized/outsourced". Salary at the time of being "let go" around 80K. Worked
in similar capacity for, say, 6 years. Renting, of course. No savings (kid likes to
travel).
So, where I am, well, he does get an "assistance" which will pay for a rent, 3 decent meals
per day and he'll have a (state, not private, of course), medical help. Especially in
emergencies. And this can last for quite a while, actually.
Bottom line, no need to be homeless, no need to be hungry, and he'll get the basic and
emergency medical help.
All the rest, well, that's precisely the initiative to get a job, and do it fast. I mean, not
much fun living like that. But, at the same time, no need to sleep rough, beg and go through
trash cans.
I will sound simplistic and naive, but it's really hard to reconcile those extremes in
US.
I mean, I have no problem with capable, talented, or just ruthless and greedy, or just
lucky, having all those zillions. Good on them.
But, at the same time, in the same place, people who are going through the trash cans.
Yes, I've heard all the explanations, all sound very reasonable, some don't even understand
(stupid me), but , still
It's a political choice, pure and simple. And some of the political choices are unrelated
to the welfare state–some municipalities have statutes against vagrancy and enforce
them. Others don't.
I was in Hawaii recently and watching that was .well .interesting.
You walk around and see extraordinary opulence, often gluttony really, and at the same time
all those homeless. Yes, I do know the story about them, but, still
Plenty of those, apparently, vets.
Hawaii, for obvious reasons, is a place with a lot of voluntary homeless. The state has
been trying to get rid of them by buying them tickets to the mainland.
Many other voluntary homeless are found in California, Colorado, and Las Vegas. The
California ones may be quasi-involuntary as it seems many arrived from the Midwest to get
into paid rehab programs, then after running out of money moved into tent cities. But they
weren't homeless in the Midwest and panhandling enough for a Greyhound bus ticket is not hard
(though embarrassing, or at least it would be for me).
Bear in mind that Americans also donate a lot to charity, both in absolute and per capita
terms. So almost every community (besides rich-only suburbs) has a food bank which people
donate to, even if there's no social need for it. My secretary for instance is a very kind
person and as such is always trying to organize canned food drives for the food bank. The
many users of the food bank are what Victorians would call the undeserving poor who are
already on the federal SNAP program. The food bank lets them increase their purchases of
marketable commodities (such as soda), which can then be traded for supplies not covered by
the SNAP program (alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs).
Note that my community does not have homeless people as it's a rural small town.
Lots of churches, including here, will also do things such as offer free Thanksgiving and
Christmas dinners to the indigent and purchase toys for their children.
Larger cities have a mix of public and private homeless shelters. There generally isn't
enough capacity for all homeless, but that works as many homeless don't like the rules these
shelters impose.
So.. the same guy in US, how would that look like?
First, you are dealing with 50 different systems. Only Social Security is uniform
throughout the country.
As a general rule an able-bodied male would receive no permanent assistance in a state
like mine (Alabama).
He could get unemployment compensation for 26 weeks provided he complied with the job
search rules.
Other than pregnant women, adults in Alabama do not receive Medicare so if he was unable
to pay his Cobra insurance premiums he would have no insurance. There are public health
clinics but the availability varies by county.
Many that are under 62 try to get approved for Social Security Disability. It is a bit of
a racket. The rate goes up during times of high unemployment and is trending higher even
though most jobs are less physically demanding. "Mental" disability is one of the best
tickets available. This is the route most druggies take.
Playing it straight is a real disadvantage. As a general rule people lose assistance as
they earn more. As was pointed out, the ones who do not work and have no "income," wink,
wink, do best with regard to the available assistance.
Many of the "homeless" have mental, alcohol or drug problems (or all three) plus the
charitable organizations devoted to providing services for the homeless are extensive. Around
the cities free meals are widely available.
Guest Contribution: "The February Stock Market Correction"
20 Replies
Today, we present a guest post written by
Jeffrey Frankel
,
Harpel Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of
Economic Advisers. This is an extended version of
a column
that appeared at
Project
Syndicate
on February 22nd.
Much has been written about the stock market correction in the short time since the US market peaked on January
26 and abruptly fell 10 % (as of February 8, followed by a partial bounce-back). Some of what is said is useful,
some is not. Three pronouncements concern advice to investors, the role of machines, and the connection to the
real economy.
Is it time to sell?
First, how should an intelligent investor react? "Don't be scared into selling stocks in reaction to a
short-term plunge," they say. "Think longer term." They are right. That stocks fell in early February is not a
reason to sell.
Rather, the reason to sell stocks is that they are too high in a longer term perspective. Prices are very elevated
relative to fundamentals such as earnings. The Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings, for example, is still at a
level that has only been surpassed twice in the last century: the peaks just before the stock market crashes of
1929 and 2000-02, respectively. The implication is that the rate of return to stocks is likely to be substantially
lower over the next 15 years than over the last 15 years.
When I suggest that investors should sell stocks, I refer to those who are fully invested in the stock market
or, worse yet, have leveraged themselves to a position that is more than 100% into stocks. But of course an
appropriately diversified portfolio will still have a large allocation to equities.
The uprising of the machines
A second declaration that one suddenly hears everywhere runs along the lines, "The market has been made more
volatile because
machines
are taking over the trading."
They say that algorithmic trading means that when stocks start to fall, computers kick in, selling more and
driving the price down further. This can happen. And I am not one of those who believe that automated or
high-speed trading accomplishes a useful social purpose. But neither do I think that it is necessarily
destabilizing. Human beings are as likely to be stampeded into unwise decisions as are machines.
It all depends on how the algorithm is designed (which is ultimately done by humans, needless to say). A computer
that has been instructed -- whether directly or indirectly -- to instantly "buy on the dip," will generate demand
for falling stocks and thus tend to stabilize prices, not destabilize them.
We have always had "stop-loss orders," whereby an investor leaves instructions with his or her stock broker to
sell if the price falls to a pre-specified level. They are de-stabilizing, in that they generate sell orders in
response to an incipient price fall, thereby working to exacerbate the price fall. Or the investor can leave
instructions to buy when the price falls to a certain pre-specified level, which is stabilizing. It doesn't matter
whether the order is executed by a human broker or a machine. What matters is whether the instruction is
stabilizing or destabilizing.
If anything, perhaps when a human being programs a computer he or she is more likely to think about it calmly than
when a human watches a plunge on his or her monitor in real time, susceptible to a sense of panic and to jumping
on the bandwagon.
I make an exception for intra-day volatility. A flash crash such as occurred on May 6, 2010 – when the Dow Jones
fell and rose over 1,000 points within 15 minutes – almost certainly would not have been possible without
high-speed algorithmic trading. This sort of volatility matters to those who make their living by intra-day
trading; but it is not clear why it should matter to the rest of us.
Wall Street vs. Main Street
One also encounters a third wisdom which goes, "The stock market is not the economy." Yes, this one is very
true. The market can crash while the economy is doing well, and vice versa. Three reasons.
For one thing, stock market busts (and booms) can be driven by rises (and falls) in interest rates,
(respectively), which in turn are often the result of economic expansions (and recessions), respectively, rather
than the other way around. The bits of news that seem to have precipitated the February market correction were
reports of a strong job market in the US (hourly earnings up 2.9% in the year to January, announced February 2);
inflation in the US, UK and some other countries; and correspondingly stronger anticipations of future increases
in interest rates on the part of the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. On February 7, the Bank of England
announced that rates "could be tightened somewhat earlier and by a somewhat greater extent" than had previously
been forecast. Inflation news in the US made it near-certain that the Fed will raise interest rates in March.
In the second place, there is a lot of randomness in the markets, including cases where market prices depart
from economic fundamentals, as in true speculative bubbles. People buy because everyone else is buying, and then
all sell at once when the bubble bursts. The "risk on" mood in financial markets last year comprised unnaturally
low perceptions of future volatility. When the VIX hit all-time lows in 2017, it was not based on fundamentals. It
was not hard to think of substantial risks that were lying in wait, such as the inflation-plus-interest-rate
shock. But it was
predictable
that the VIX would not adjust until the shock materialized
and securities prices fell from their
heights
. As of the third week of February, the VIX has indeed adjusted to more normal levels – the stock
market correction having served as a useful "wake-up call" for complacent investors. But the securities prices
themselves probably still have a substantial distance to fall. After all, the S&P 500 is still higher than it was
in 2017.
In the third place, even in pure textbook theory, stock prices represent the profits accruing to corporations --
current and expected future profits – not the income of all of us. In the past, there was a high correlation
between profits and the economy because a relatively stable share of national income went to workers versus owners
of capital. But that stability has broken down in the last decade or so. The share of GDP going to capital has
increased remarkably, probably as a result of what economists call rents – increased monopoly power and decreased
competition in many sectors. It is noteworthy that the markets are down from where they were after December's
Republican bill to slash corporate taxes. Some part of last year's stock market boom may have been attributable to
anticipation of the possible tax cut. If so, this reflected a policy that will almost certainly redistribute the
pie away from labor and toward capital, more than it expands the size of the pie.
Still, having reminded ourselves that Wall Street is not Main Street, there are of course important connections
between the stock market and the real economy. If the market goes down, consumption and investment spending fall:
a household that holds stocks becomes less wealthy and so may cut back, while a corporation that had been
considering building a factory may be less inclined to do so if it becomes harder to raise new capital.
One can't predict when the next market plunge will occur or whether it will be coincide with the next
recession. But one can predict that the unusually low financial and economic volatility of last year is over.
This post written by
Jeffrey Frankel
.
This entry was posted on
February 25, 2018
by
Menzie Chinn
.
20 thoughts on "Guest Contribution: "The February Stock Market Correction""
I could use all the help I can get, I am unsophisticated in matters of the market and am completely invested
in the stock market through mutual funds, and at my age that is not the best of ideas But I am also caught in
the where else problem because of the meager interest rates and the fight that the FED put up all these past
years to keep them so.
So I try to become less unsophisticated and google Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings i.e. CAPE to read what
others say. And what I read very much agrees with Jeffrey Frankel.
On Fri, 24 Feb 2017 With the CAPE at 28.66, For his own part, (Robert) Shiller grants that "the CAPE ratio
has been relatively high for 20 years now, so you might imagine that something has changed," but added, "on the
other hand, maybe not -- it's been a fairly reliable indicator."
"My general thought is that I think it's quite reasonable to have an investment in U.S. stocks as part of a
diversified portfolio," Shiller said Thursday. "Just don't go overboard on it." Dow Jones Average that day
20821.76
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/24/robert-shiller-with-stock-valuations-high-its-time-to-reduce-your-holdings.html
On Feb 23, 2018, the day after the Frankel article above the CAPE was 33.25. Dow Jones Average that day
25309.99
I see a pattern. It made sense to follow the advice when DJA was 18119.78, when DJA was 20821.76, and now
when DJA is 25309.99, but at what cost.
CAPE is very bad at telling you exactly when to buy or sell. More importantly CAPE has undergone a shift
recently that makes all the "it's never been this high" stuff out-of-context.
For the last 25 years, the average CAPE is 25. Today's level: 28. Is that too high? You decide.
@EdHanson
What you have said here shows you have the very lowest of financial educations -- I have to tell you that you
definitely are unsophisticated about market matters.
You cannot tell us that you are "completely
invested in the stock market" in one sentence, and in the very next sentence b*tch about low interest rates.
Do you have
ANY
idea what would have happened to your stocks, if Bernanke or Yellen had raised rates,
to say 5% in 2015, or even for the sake of your argument 4% in 2015?? Your mutual funds would have been
clobbered, and not only clobbered, but clobbered to the point of shear mass market panic to the point
"clobbered" would sound sweet. At that point
decimated
would have been the preferred descriptor.
Had "The Fed" gone down that road of raising rates, as per your personal wishes, I'm not sure,
even
then,
that you would have understood the reason your mutual funds would have been decimated. Unless,
some CNBC J*ck *ff like Larry Kudlow or Jim Cramer spoonfed the reason to you. But I am 100% sure who you
would have
blamed.
The base reason why Bernanke and Yellen kept rates low (in essence,
by necessity)
was to stop the
stock market hemorrhaging that your best pal "W" Bush, Hank Paulson, and TBTF bankers had unleashed.
Anon3: Would you say the same for Alan Greenspan who maintained the overnight rate at 1% for a long period
following the September 11th blowback against the USA?
John Taylor who served in W's reign is NOW saying he kept interest rates too low for too long. Taylor was
not saying that when W was President. Anon3 reminds me of a gold bug troll over at Mark Thoma's place named
JohnH.
pgl: Senator Kristen Gillibrand and other leftie womyn are NOW saying Bill Clinton is a serial sexual
predator and that he should have been forced from office for using Monica Lewinsky, an intern in the WH,
as his personal humidor. She and the other leftie womyn (like you) were NOT saying that when Willie was
President. The left, especially trolls like you, always stand by their predator . proving there is no
hypocrisy like liberal hypocrisy.
@ Anon3
Curious if Trump bragging about molesting women's vaginas (as a married man) or Trump paying off porn
girls he was committing adultery with bothers you
at all
?? Or is it macho and manly when your
mancrush Republican does it and "disgusting" when a Democrat does it?? How does that work for you
exactly??
I suppose you also think Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly should be beatified by the Catholic church
this year??
Wrong., Greenspan didn't maintain the Federal Funds rate at 1% for a long time. The economy was in
recession in 2001, so the Fed steadily lowered the rate from 5% in Jan 2001 to around 1.7% by Jan 2002. It
didn't hit 1% until June 2003–almost 2 years after 9-11–and it remained at 1% until June 2004. One year is
not a 'long time'. By June 2005, the rate was back over 3% on its way to 5+% by June 2005. Sorta your
typical counter-cyclical monetary policy..
During Yellen's tenure at the Board, by contrast, the rate remained well below 1%–about 1/4 of 1%–for
nearly EIGHT years . crushing ordinary retired Americans who saw the return to savings plummeted to near
zero. As the standard of living for retired Americans was under attack, we got nothing but "cheers for
Obama" from sycophants like you. Obama did more than any President to crush the middle class. Sadly, he got
a lot of help from that 'true public servant' Janet Yellen. Bernanke started the war on retired Americans,
Yellen won it.
"Greenspan didn't maintain the Federal Funds rate at 1% for a long time."
A distinction that makes no difference. You note that he lowered interest rates over this period. So
interest rates were not a constant – so what? Erik's point still stands. Your sad detailing of this does
not address the question he asked you.
"During Yellen's tenure at the Board, by contrast, the rate remained well below 1%–about 1/4 of 1%–for
nearly EIGHT years".
Aha – the interest rate was not constant for this period either. Yes – it has been low for a long
time. I guess you have no clue how deep and sustained the output gap was since the Great Recession! BTW –
Bernanke was the FED chair for the 1st four years. I know – that is not all that relevant to this
discussion but neither is your rants on this topic.
Anon3
A "war on retired Americans"??? Kind of over-the-top, isn't it? To begin with, low
interest rates were not just a US phenomenon, they were global. Secondly, the Fed was only setting the
very short-run overnight rate, not the long-run rate. In fact, the Fed tried without much success to
lower the long-run rate. Remember all those QE efforts? The Wicksellian clearing rate was strongly
negative. Far from setting short-term rates too low, the central problem was that the Fed bumped up
against the ZLB and couldn't get them low enough. Interest rates should have been lower, not higher.
That's why we needed fiscal policy deficits. Third, those retirees that were already holding bonds or
saving certificates that they bought before the Great Recession made out like bandits. The value of their
bonds increased. Fourth, the value of other assets, such as their home, steadily increased due to low
interest rates. Of all the people affected by the Great Recession, retirees were probably the one group
that was least adversely affected by the Fed's policies. But then again, that's the same demographic that
always whines about everything. The greedy geezers. The demographic that got hit the hardest was young
working age families. They saw rising house prices, effectively negative interest rates on checking and
savings accounts,and wage growth less than the CPI.
Another way of looking at equity values suggests that high equity prices reflect low equity financing costs
and lower equity prices reflect higher equity costs.
The Obama era was marked by very low capital financing and borrowing costs. It will be interesting to
observe to what extent those financial costs increase during the rest of the Trump mandate. If US real growth
ever attains Trump's 4% target, borrowing costs will likely ramp up. In the ideal preferred scenario, the US
dollar drops due to increased investment flows going to Europe and emerging markets and offsets the higher real
costs of capital.
In the case of this recent mild correction, I suspect that two factors were at play. One, the market took a
while to recognize and act upon increasing US 10-year yields and LIBOR rate increases in late 2017. Two, the
expectations of the Trump tax cuts had already been built into share prices over 2017.
All the belligerent trade war rhetoric may have also had a negative impact on investor perceptions but that
could be me talking my policy book and looking well beyond the horizon of the typical fund manager.
I would put this blog post under the "yes I agree with most of this". "This makes sense and rings true"
category. But
NOT
terribly insightful. But still could be educational to those that rarely read I
guess -- but then again, what are the odds that someone who rarely reads comes to this blog site often?? Oh wait,
I forgot PeakIgnorance visits here a lot. Maybe Peakignorance learned something today??
Neoliberal economists are a new type of clergy. As simple as this. Neoliberal God is great that's what they are preaching to students.
Notable quotes:
"... Bronze Age: Greatest Age EVAH! ..."
"... It's surprising economists feel the need to engage in happy talk, considering that markets are supposed to be natural, just, and efficient. Like clergy preaching to a perpetually backsliding laity about the one true God, Whom only a fool would doubt. If God were so great, there'd be no need to harp on it. In any case, this goes some way toward accounting for Bennet's statement. ..."
"... It takes a half-educated person to say something like that. First you get the ideas by way of a certain education, and then you don't think about them, in part because the educators discourage that kind of thing. ..."
"[Capitalism] has been the greatest engine of, it's been the greatest anti-poverty program
and engine of progress that we've seen."
I can almost smell the economics section of my local bookstore. Strange science,
economics. Judging from the titles, much of it consists of cheerleading. Very different from
history, anthropology, or sociology.
I never see history titles like Bronze Age: Greatest Age EVAH!It's
surprising economists feel the need to engage in happy talk, considering that markets are
supposed to be natural, just, and efficient. Like clergy preaching to a perpetually
backsliding laity about the one true God, Whom only a fool would doubt. If God were so great,
there'd be no need to harp on it. In any case, this goes some way toward accounting for
Bennet's statement.
It takes a half-educated person to say something like that. First you get the ideas by
way of a certain education, and then you don't think about them, in part because the
educators discourage that kind of thing.
"... he Dems disgust me with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations). ..."
"... Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this around and I doubt it's even possible. ..."
"... The Real Reason Establishment Frauds Hate Trump and Obsess About Russia https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/02/20/the-real-reason-establishment-frauds-hate-trump-and-obsess-about-russia/ ..."
"... Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party. ..."
"... he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit. ..."
"... I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all. ..."
"... My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg ..."
jsn @16 & 40, in complete agreement with you. Great comments! T he Dems disgust me
with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out
their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially
in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations).
Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and
it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a
basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a
form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the
personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of
the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns
this around and I doubt it's even possible.
Back when I used to subscribe to STRATFOR, founder George Friedman always made a point of
evaluating the elites of whatever country he was analyzing and how they operated amongst
themselves and relative to the people and how effective they were or were not in governing a
country. But he never did that for the US. I would have paid extra for that report! But of
course he could not stay in business if he did such a thing as those people are his
clients.
I think Mike Krieger over at Liberty Blitzkrieg nails it from another perspective with
this post:
Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various
defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed
war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their
torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy.
Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching
on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine
before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party.
By throwing every problem in Putin's lap, the entrenched bipartisan status quo can tell
themselves (and everybody else) that it wasn't really them and their policies that voters
rejected in 2016, rather, the American public was tricked by cunning, nefarious Russians.
Ridiculous for sure, but never underestimate the instinctive human desire to deny
accountability for one's own failures. It's always easier to blame than to accept
responsibility.
That said, there's a much bigger game afoot beyond the motivations of individuals looking
to save face. The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united
against Trump has nothing to do with his actual policies. Instead, they're terrified that --
unlike Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for empire. This sort of Presidential instability
threatens the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train. Hillary
Clinton was a sure thing, Donald Trump remains an unpredictable wildcard.
... Obama said all the right things while methodically doing the bidding of oligarchy. He
captured the imagination of millions, if not billions, around the world with his soaring
rhetoric, yet rarely skipped a beat when it came to the advancement of imperial policies. He
made bailing out Wall Street, droning civilians and cracking down on journalists seem
progressive. He said one thing, did another, and people ate it up. This is an extraordinarily
valuable quality when it comes to a vicious and unelected deep state that wants to keep a
corrupt empire together.
Trump has the exact opposite effect. Sure, he also frequently says one thing and then does
another, but he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's
simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability
to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable
hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit.
------------
I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as
I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's
probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much
better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and
disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all.
My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg
"... he Dems disgust me with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations). ..."
"... Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this around and I doubt it's even possible. ..."
"... The Real Reason Establishment Frauds Hate Trump and Obsess About Russia https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/02/20/the-real-reason-establishment-frauds-hate-trump-and-obsess-about-russia/ ..."
"... Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party. ..."
"... he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit. ..."
"... I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all. ..."
"... My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg ..."
jsn @16 & 40, in complete agreement with you. Great comments! T he Dems disgust me
with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out
their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially
in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations).
Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and
it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a
basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a
form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the
personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of
the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns
this around and I doubt it's even possible.
Back when I used to subscribe to STRATFOR, founder George Friedman always made a point of
evaluating the elites of whatever country he was analyzing and how they operated amongst
themselves and relative to the people and how effective they were or were not in governing a
country. But he never did that for the US. I would have paid extra for that report! But of
course he could not stay in business if he did such a thing as those people are his
clients.
I think Mike Krieger over at Liberty Blitzkrieg nails it from another perspective with
this post:
Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various
defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed
war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their
torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy.
Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching
on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine
before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party.
By throwing every problem in Putin's lap, the entrenched bipartisan status quo can tell
themselves (and everybody else) that it wasn't really them and their policies that voters
rejected in 2016, rather, the American public was tricked by cunning, nefarious Russians.
Ridiculous for sure, but never underestimate the instinctive human desire to deny
accountability for one's own failures. It's always easier to blame than to accept
responsibility.
That said, there's a much bigger game afoot beyond the motivations of individuals looking
to save face. The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united
against Trump has nothing to do with his actual policies. Instead, they're terrified that --
unlike Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for empire. This sort of Presidential instability
threatens the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train. Hillary
Clinton was a sure thing, Donald Trump remains an unpredictable wildcard.
... Obama said all the right things while methodically doing the bidding of oligarchy. He
captured the imagination of millions, if not billions, around the world with his soaring
rhetoric, yet rarely skipped a beat when it came to the advancement of imperial policies. He
made bailing out Wall Street, droning civilians and cracking down on journalists seem
progressive. He said one thing, did another, and people ate it up. This is an extraordinarily
valuable quality when it comes to a vicious and unelected deep state that wants to keep a
corrupt empire together.
Trump has the exact opposite effect. Sure, he also frequently says one thing and then does
another, but he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's
simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability
to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable
hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit.
------------
I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as
I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's
probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much
better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and
disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all.
My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg
"... In fact not only do most Americans shy away from finding out about the truth in a country that has pushed division of labour to the maximum, they are trigger happy to be totally controlled by corporate media in a repetition of 'Iraq's weapons of mass destruction' to 'Russia and Putin the source of all evil'. ..."
"And this is why economic policy cannot not be decided by popular opinion. A typical Russian is ignorant about economics and
government finance. A typical Russian doesn't want responsibility for these decisions anyway. He would rather let someone else
(some authority figure) make these choices for him. This is why real democracy cannot work in Russia."
If you had not specified the word 'Russian', I could have guessed you were talking about the USA.
In fact not only do most Americans shy away from finding out about the truth in a country that has pushed division of labour
to the maximum, they are trigger happy to be totally controlled by corporate media in a repetition of 'Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction' to 'Russia and Putin the source of all evil'.
Beyond some truly enlightened Americans whose opinions I am honored and glad to read on this site, the majority of the
American public still go about their struggle for survival trusting the American politicians and American military are doing the
right thing.
Pure propaganda. The level of incompetence of the author can compete only with boldness of
his predictions. That article shames NAtionalinterest as yellow publication ;-)
The author does not understands that the USA is net oil importer, not exporter and will
remain in t his position in foreseeable future. The USA has to export condensate at bargain
basement prices, as the USA refineries do not want it, but it is valuable for dilution of heavy
oil and some foreign refineries which specialize in light oil.
With the United States as the new emergent superpower, OPEC is presented with an
unprecedented challenge; if they cut production shale drillers
boost output , which undermines OPEC's market share and manipulates OPEC and
Russian budgets inherently dependent on higher oil prices.
Additionally OPEC and Russia have to continue artificially restricting supply and raising
prices, which benefits U.S. shale drillers and hope the shale 2.0 revolution slows down.
Russian then has to befriend Saudi Arabia upsetting their alliance with Iran over the Syrian
intervention while
monetarily keeping their economy at lower rates of growth, "to finance aggressive foreign
intervention from Ukraine to Syria."
But this new reality also means China, Japan and Southeast Asia have become more dependent
on the United States than on the Middle East. The post World War II balancing that has taken
place and benefited the world for over seventy years is on the verge of breaking down over U.S.
shale production. Depending on your vantage point that is either positive or negative, but the
United States can now argue the global order they have ensured should become a shared burden
financially and militarily for global shipping lanes and economic access. The U.S. Navy no
longer makes sure goods are safeguarded in the Middle East, Africa and the South China Sea
since its Permian basins have enough natural gas and oil for America first and foremost.
Todd Royal is an author and consultant specializing in global threat assessment,
energy development and policy for oil, gas and renewables based in Los Angeles,
California.
Espionage would possibly be Steele's indictment. But nobody was 'formally' spying for another country. He was simply fed leaked
info and he put it into a document and sent it back. Is that a crime?
Notable quotes:
"... The facts are there but I see this as an incredibly difficult case to prosecute. ..."
The Obama spying is politically terrible but when I consider what is laid out I am not seeing very many crimes that would put
people in prison.
Having contractors use FISA 702 search queries – not a crime?
The president disseminating his PDB – not a crime
Unmasking people – not a crime
Submitting fraudulent info to a FISA court – probably a crime (10 yrs?), but tough to prove because submitters can just
say they believed the dossier
Using someone else's name to unmask – probably a crime (but good luck finding out who did it
Leaking FISA 702s to a british spy – probably a crime
Leaking the unmasked intel from president's PDBs – a crime (but leak crimes are tough to catch and won't end up punished
that severely.)
Consipracy/Racketeering – a crime, but a tough case to prove and even put together. That is why tax fraud is the litigator's
preferred indictment, there are just so many moving parts with a conspiracy.
This is most likely why this is taking such a long time – and I worry that most if not all conspirators will skate. They will
probably be fired and collect their retirement pensions but that may be the end of it.
Though with the next democrat president, they will make sure that all those lose ends that got them caught this time will be
perfectly legal. We have only witnessed the beginning of our own homegrown Stazi
We have already seen some of their defense through the dem memo. I am outraged at the spying scheme, but you have to recognize
that all these people involved are lawyers. They will have made sure to have possible exits when the shtf. There are still plenty
of black hats in all our gov bureaus and there will be a constant tit for tat throughout the process. The facts are there
but I see this as an incredibly difficult case to prosecute.
Sundance has summarized the scheme quite nicely. Even so, blog posts are very different than an actual indictment. I suppose there
must be more substantial crimes if they have been able to get people to flip – crimes we have not been told (I hope).
You say there are many other cases but fail to name any other crimes that have come to light. You could have enlightened me
rather than just make accusations against me and told me to 'do my homework'.
I am simply saying they have created a scheme where it is nebulously legal. They could have just leaked the 702 queries but
they laundered it through the PDB. This is all done to make it technically legal.
So far I am only seeing leaking, FISA fraud, and conspiracy/racketeering (which is next to impossible to prove). If there are
only indictments along leaking, that would easily be seen as political prosecution (dems live under a different rule book than
Trump/GoP being hounded by corrupt prosecutors ala Mueller). The Dem memo is trying to politicize the FISA fraud because they
recognize that that is the next closest to an open and shut case.
So here is my personal conclusion: democracies are political systems in which the real
ruling elites hide behind an utterly fake appearance of people power.
"what we see is that western democracies are run by gangs of oligarchs and bureaucrats who
have almost nothing in common with the people they are supposed to represent."
So here is my personal conclusion: democracies are political systems in which the real
ruling elites hide behind an utterly fake appearance of people power.
"what we see is that western democracies are run by gangs of oligarchs and bureaucrats who
have almost nothing in common with the people they are supposed to represent."
"... "Liberals" stopped caring about those things after Clinton showed them the "third way," which was really just a way to be kinder, gentler conservatives. ..."
"... the best and most well-founded causations history I've come across directly relating to "Divide & Rule". ..."
" liberals are concerned about minorities and the poor."
What a joke. "Liberals" stopped caring about those things after Clinton showed them the "third way," which was really just
a way to be kinder, gentler conservatives.
LEFTISTS still care about minorities and the poor, which is why liberals do everything in their power to keep them from ever
getting elected and would rather throw an election to someone like Trump than let Bernie Sanders be president.
Longtooth , February 22, 2018 8:04 pm
Here's paper that economistsview just linked to today. It traces the events leading to Trump -- or shall I say leading to the
recognition by those that have been economically disenfranchised which led to Trump. http://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6868.pdf
In it's composite as well as most (though not all) causes the paper describes, it is the best and most well-founded causations
history I've come across directly relating to "Divide & Rule".
"... The market crash of 1987, you may recall, was followed by a gradual weakening of growth; but that weakening took nearly three years before the US economy finally began to shrink (recession didn't commence until the latter half of 1990). Needless to say, if the US economy manages another three years of GDP expansion, Trump will very likely be reelected, as that would mean the next US recession doesn't begin until after the November election in 2020. ..."
"... I hate to be in the position of cheering on the arrival of recession, but if we're going to have one (and we will), far better to have it arrive in such a way as to ensure Trump is sent packing. Optimal timing would probably be some time between the second half of 2019 and the mid way point in 2020. ..."
"... The over-expansion of credit by greedy capitalists recently resulted in more goods being sold than can be bought from income and savings. The result? Widespread debts, straitened circumstances (think coarse toilet paper) and happy days for repo men (boo!). ..."
"... This falls when capitalism exhausts its capacity for growth. Also, as technology improves and productivity rises, more goods are produced, which are worth less ..."
Well, sure: 2018 certainly has an "end of expansion" vibe to it (at least with respect to the
US): scarcer and more expensive workers, the whiff of inflation, rising rates, a weakish
dollar, ultra-low (or negative) savings rates, overvalued markets ripe for correction. The US
would appear to be at or near the peak of a cycle. But for America and the world's sake I
hope it's more like the year 2000 (when the 90s expansion in the US gradually began to slow
en route to recession) than 1987.
The market crash of 1987, you may recall, was followed by a gradual weakening of growth;
but that weakening took nearly three years before the US economy finally began to shrink
(recession didn't commence until the latter half of 1990). Needless to say, if the US economy
manages another three years of GDP expansion, Trump will very likely be reelected, as that
would mean the next US recession doesn't begin until after the November election in 2020.
I
hate to be in the position of cheering on the arrival of recession, but if we're going to
have one (and we will), far better to have it arrive in such a way as to ensure Trump is sent
packing. Optimal timing would probably be some time between the second half of 2019 and the
mid way point in 2020.
A large amount of that extra debt was paying for the misdeeds of the Republicans. Very costly
wars and a massive economic downturn. If you properly apply the costs Bush incurred then
there is a perfect record of massive spending and debt under republicans going back to the
mid-70s.
What was really telling is when I was watching republican talking heads say that the economic
downturn and the wars were all Obama's. Why should anyone think differently? Trump had the
largest crowds, largest viewership, greatest tax cut, had the majority of the popular vote,
racists are fine people, Sessions didn't talk to the Russians, none of his people lied to the
FBI, he is going to release his tax returns, etc etc.
There will be a very big economic bump in the road before the next presidential election.
It's a shame that Obama was so unwilling to rock the boat in 2009. He simply did whatever his
Wall St revolving door advisors suggested. Elected to bring "hope and change" but the latter
never came. He was just a safe pair of hands for Citigroup et al, with Summers and Geithner
working to restore the status quo ante.
Last week's jobs report showed unemployment at 4.1% – its lowest for 17 years
– and average hourly earnings rising at an annual rate of 2.9%, their highest in
eight years.
It beggars belief that after the 1987 crash, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, and then in
2008 the worst financial crisis in memory, that there are people in power - and in the City -
who want less regulation, not more.
"The default position in the markets is that last week was just a squall that will
quickly blow over. Economic fundamentals, it is said, are good and there will be no real
inflationary threat from rising earnings provided productivity also picks up.
But the Goldilocks scenario – not too hot, not too cold but just right –
doesn't really stack up. Investment and productivity have both been poor since the
financial crisis of a decade ago. Household debt is high and consumers have only been able
to fund their spending by dipping into their savings or by borrowing more. "
"6. Crises. Capitalists aren't especially interested in accumulating commodities (once you've
got a hot tub for your Lear jet, it's hard to decide what else to spend it on) and the
incessant drive to amass capital causes crises. The over-expansion of credit by greedy
capitalists recently resulted in more goods being sold than can be bought from income and
savings. The result? Widespread debts, straitened circumstances (think coarse toilet paper)
and happy days for repo men (boo!).
7. Profit. This falls when capitalism exhausts its capacity for growth. Also, as
technology improves and productivity rises, more goods are produced, which are worth
less."
"... It just occurred to me that there seems to be a financial crisis of some sort once every 10-12 years over the last 30 years. 1987, 1998-99, 2008.... ..."
"... Probably wise not to sink too much money into investments at this point...at least not until the market "normalizes" or goes down somewhat. ..."
"... It's looking like 1987 again for the US economy," why Brexit cult followers as Larry are ignoring the lessons learnt from the Black Monday? ..."
"... There is not such thing as a free market, or free trade. Time and again de-regulation has hit and run economies worldwide. If, our cousins over the pond are sneezing, that's a sure sign that will catch the cold soon enough, too. ..."
"... In the early 20th century, the Russians and Germans showed the 0.000001% what can happen when their greed goes too far. ..."
Very insightful. It just occurred to me that there seems to be a financial crisis of some
sort once every 10-12 years over the last 30 years. 1987, 1998-99, 2008....
If the trend
continues there is a real possibility of a crisis in the next year or two (maybe sooner). The
author of the article might be onto something.
The real estate market here in Southern
California has been on a nearly continuous upward rise for the last 8 years. Despite the high
demand, low inventory and stable (for now) economy, this trend simply is not sustainable due
to incomes remaining relatively flat and historically low savings rate amongst the general
population.
Probably wise not to sink too much money into investments at this point...at
least not until the market "normalizes" or goes down somewhat.
Well, Larry is right: history has a strange way of repeating itself. Having said that, if it
is is a case of "Deja vu? It's looking like 1987 again for the US economy," why Brexit cult
followers as Larry are ignoring the lessons learnt from the Black Monday?
Circuit breakers, otherwise known as "trading curbs" were developed then, but it
seems to me, that not many lessons have been learnt.
There is not such thing as a free market, or free trade. Time and again de-regulation has
hit and run economies worldwide. If, our cousins over the pond are sneezing, that's a sure
sign that will catch the cold soon enough, too.
We should be blooming worried about Brexit's knock-on effects, but tell that to Mrs May
and Dr Fox, both freshly returned from their successful trip to China.
Shouldn't we keep an eye on Hong-Kong and China, instead of simply having a go at
Trump?
"1987, 1997, 2007... 2017? HONG KONG'S CURSE OF UNLUCKY SEVEN
Good diagnosis. What is the cure? In the early 20th century, the Russians and Germans showed
the 0.000001% what can happen when their greed goes too far.
Things did not end well for Tsar
Nicholas. And Hitler's Nazi's posed an existential crises to European old money. Significant
capitulations followed. But there is nothing to hold the oligarchs back now...
Brad DeLong asks whether his latest on fiscal policy and long-term growth belongs in the
next edition of Martha Olney's and his macroeconomics textbook? While I say it should, permit
me to quote the relevant passages after I inform these clueless White House economists about
fiscal policy during the 1960's and under Reagan as I noted over at Brad's place:
We did get that 1964 tax cut right after Kennedy died and we did ramp up defense spending
for Vietnam. In December 1965 Johnson's CEA had the good sense to tell him that we had gone
overboard with fiscal stimulus. Alas we got the 1966 Credit Crunch anyway followed by an
acceleration of inflation when the FED backed off on its restraint. Reagan gave us a similar
fiscal policy but the Volcker FED did not back off its tight monetary policy so we got the
mother of all crowding out – high real interest rates for years and a massive currency
appreciation. Glad to see that Trump's CEA has compared this fiscal fiasco to the previous
mistakes. Oh wait – Kevin Hassett thinks this is good fiscal policy. It seems the
current CEA is as stupid as the President it advises!
OK – now that I'm done with my rant and little history lesson, let's hear from
Brad:
In late 2017 and early 2018 the Trump administration and the Republican congressional
caucuses pushed through a combined tax cut and a relaxation of spending caps to the tune of
increasing the federal government budget deficit by about 1.4% of GDP. These policy changes
were intended to be permanent. Not the consensus but the center-of-gravity analysis by
informed opinion in the economics profession of the effects on long-run growth of such a
permanent change in fiscal policy would have made the following points: 1. The U.S. economy
at the start of 2018 was roughly at full employment, or at least the Federal Reserve believed
that it was at full employment and was taking active steps to keep spending from rising
faster than their estimate of the trend growth of the economy, so a long-run Solow growth
model analysis would be appropriate. 2. The economy's savings-investment effort rate, s, has
two parts: private and government saving: s=sp+sgs=sp+sg. 3. The private savings rate spsp is
very hard to move by changes in economic policy. Policy changes that raise rates of return on
capital -- interest and profit rates -- both make it more profitable to save and invest more
but also make us richer in the future, and so diminish the need to save and invest more.
These two roughly offset. 4. Therefore, when the economy is at full employment, changes in
overall savings are driven by changes in the government contribution:
Δs=ΔsgΔs=Δsg. 5. And an increase in the deficit is a reduction in the
government savings rate.
Brad continues using the Solow growth model to demonstrate how the latest fiscal fiasco
would lead to less capital per worker over time reducing steady state output, which is what we
witnessed in the 1980's. We have been asking the same question since 1981 – how can
anyone argue that a fall in national savings is good for long-term growth? We still have not
received a coherent answer.
Longtooth , February 24, 2018 1:02 am
pgl,
In the 1980's halving the marginal income tax rate & limiting unearned income
taxes (held > 1 year) to 20% put the first dagger in gov't savings
Off hand I can't think of any Repub admin since Reagan that didn't reduce taxes and/or
increase Defense spending to increase the debt, all the while hollering about gov't
welfare spending (entitlements)..
So keep asking "how can anyone argue that a fall in national savings is good for
long-term growth?". Wake me from my grave when you get a coherent answer.
There is no coherent answer possible from an ideology that is hell-bent on reducing
the federal gov't's role. Why would anybody think so?
Longtooth , February 24, 2018 1:15 am
I did a little analysis a year ago where I looked at each admin's change in national debt
from year 2 of their admin to year 1 of the next admin (since 1st year of admin can do little
to change anything in that year)
As I recall, every Repub admin increased the national debt and the accumulated sum of those
admin's far, far outweighed the national debt created by the cumulative sum of all Dem admin's
-- of which as I recall, Obama' contributed the most by far and outweighed the decreases in
national debt by all the other Dem admins. (and if I were being less objective, Obama's
national debt increase was all or 90% a direct result of Bush Jr's admin)..
That isn't a statistical anomaly.. it's systematic.
I think I started with Ike's admin he may have been the only Repub admin that didn't
increase he national debt (but I can't recall now).
Pay growth for middle class workers in the US has been abysmal over recent decades – in real terms, median hourly compensation
rose only 11% between 1973 and 2016. 1 At the same time, hourly labour productivity has grown steadily, rising by 75%.
This divergence between productivity and the typical worker's pay is a relatively recent phenomenon. Using production/nonsupervisory
compensation as a proxy for median compensation (since there are no data on the median before 1973), Bivens and Mishel (2015) show
that typical compensation and productivity grew at the same rate over 1948-1973, and only began to diverge in 1973 (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Labour productivity, average compensation, and production/nonsupervisory compensation 1948-2016
Notes : Labour productivity: total economy real output per hour (constructed from BLS and BEA data). Average compensation:
total economy compensation per hour (constructed from BLS data). Production/nonsupervisory compensation: real compensation per hour,
production and nonsupervisory workers (Economic Policy Institute).
What does this stark divergence imply about the relationship between productivity and typical compensation? Since productivity growth
has been so much faster than median pay growth, the question is how much does productivity growth benefit the typical worker?
2
A number of authors have raised these questions in recent years. Harold Meyerson, for example, wrote in American Prospect
in 2014 that "for the vast majority of American workers, the link between their productivity and their compensation no longer exists",
and the Economist wrote in 2013 that "unless you are rich, GDP growth isn't doing much to raise your income anymore". Bernstein
(2015) raises the concern that "[f]aster productivity growth would be great. I'm just not at all sure we can count on it to lift
middle-class incomes." Bivens and Mishel (2015) write "although boosting productivity growth is an important long-run goal, this
will not lead to broad-based wage gains unless we pursue policies that reconnect productivity growth and the pay of the vast majority".
Has typical compensation delinked from productivity?
Figure 1 appears to suggest that a one-to-one relationship between productivity and typical compensation existed before 1973, and
that this relationship broke down after 1973. On the other hand, just as two time series apparently growing in tandem does not mean
that one causes the other, two series diverging may not mean that the causal link between the two has broken down. Rather, other
factors may have come into play which appear to have severed the connection between productivity and typical compensation.
As such there is a spectrum of possibilities for the true underlying relationship between productivity and typical compensation.
On one end of the spectrum – which we call 'strong delinkage' – it's possible that factors are blocking the transmission mechanism
from productivity to typical compensation, such that increases in productivity don't feed through to pay. At the opposite end of
the spectrum – which we call 'strong linkage' – it's possible that productivity growth translates fully into increases in typical
workers' pay, but even as productivity growth has been acting to raise pay, other factors (orthogonal to productivity) have been
acting to reduce it. Between these two ends of the spectrum is a range of possibilities where some degree of linkage or delinkage
exists between productivity and typical compensation.
In a recent paper, we estimate which point on this linkage-delinkage spectrum best describes the productivity-typical compensation
relationship (Stansbury and Summers 2017). Using medium-term fluctuations in productivity growth, we test the relationship between
productivity growth and two key measures of typical compensation growth: median compensation, and average compensation for production
and nonsupervisory workers.
Simply plotting the annual growth rates of productivity and our two measures of typical compensation (Figure 2) suggests support
for quite substantial linkage – the series seem to move together, although typical compensation growth is almost always lower.
Figure 2 Change in log productivity and typical compensation, three-year moving average
Notes : Data from BLS, BEA and Economic Policy Institute. Series are three-year backward-looking moving averages
of change in log variable.
Making use of the high frequency changes in productivity growth over one- to five-year periods, we run a series of regressions to
test this link more rigorously. We find that periods of higher productivity growth are associated with substantially higher growth
in median and production/nonsupervisory worker compensation – even during the period since 1973, where productivity and typical compensation
have diverged so much in levels. A one percentage point increase in the growth rate of productivity has been associated with between
two-thirds and one percentage point higher growth in median worker compensation in the period since 1973, and with between 0.4 and
0.7 percentage points higher growth in production/nonsupervisory worker compensation. These results suggest that there is substantial
linkage between productivity and median compensation (even the strong linkage view cannot be rejected), and that there is a significant
degree of linkage between productivity and production/nonsupervisory worker compensation.
How is it possible to find this relationship when productivity has clearly grown so much faster than median workers' pay? Our findings
imply that even as productivity growth has been acting to push workers' pay up , other factors not associated with productivity
growth have acted to push workers' pay down . So while it may appear on first glance that productivity growth has not benefited
typical workers much, our findings imply that if productivity growth had been lower, typical workers would have likely done substantially
worse.
If the link between productivity and pay hasn't broken, what has happened?
The productivity-median compensation divergence can be broken down into two aspects of rising inequality: the rise in top-half income
inequality (divergence between mean and median compensation) which began around 1973, and the fall in the labour share (divergence
between productivity and mean compensation) which began around 2000.
For both of these phenomena, technological change is often invoked as the primary cause. Computerisation and automation have been
put forward as causes of rising mean-median income inequality (e.g. Autor et al. 1998, Acemoglu and Restrepo 2017); and automation,
falling prices of investment goods, and rapid labour-augmenting technological change have been put forward as causes of the fall
in the labour share (e.g. Karabarbounis and Neiman 2014, Acemoglu and Restrepo 2016, Brynjolffson and McAfee 2014, Lawrence 2015).
At the same time, non-purely technological hypotheses for rising mean-median inequality include the race between education and technology
(Goldin and Katz 2007), declining unionisation (Freeman et al. 2016), globalisation (Autor et al. 2013), immigration (Borjas 2003),
and the 'superstar effect' (Rosen 1981, Gabaix et al. 2016). Non-technological hypotheses for the falling labour share include labour
market institutions (Levy and Temin 2007, Mishel and Bivens 2015), market structure and monopoly power (Autor et al. 2017, Barkai
2017), capital accumulation (Piketty 2014, Piketty and Zucman 2014), and the productivity slowdown itself (Grossman et al. 2017).
While we do not analyse these theories in detail, a simple empirical test can help distinguish the relative importance of these two
categories of explanation – purely technology-based or not – for rising mean-median inequality and the falling labour share. More
rapid technological progress should cause faster productivity growth – so, if some aspect of faster technological progress has caused
inequality, we should see periods of faster productivity growth come alongside more rapid growth in inequality.
We find very little evidence for this. Our regressions find no significant relationship between productivity growth and changes in
mean-median inequality, and very little relationship between productivity growth and changes in the labour share. In addition, as
Table 1 shows, the two periods of slower productivity growth (1973-1996 and 2003-2014) were associated with faster
growth in inequality (an increasing mean/median ratio and a falling labour share).
Taken together, this evidence casts doubt on the idea that more rapid technological progress alone has been the primary driver of
rising inequality over recent decades, and tends to lend support to more institutional and structural explanations.
Table 1 Average annual growth rates of productivity, the labour share and the mean/median ratio during the US' productivity booms
and productivity slowdowns
The 70s was when the ideology of free lunch economics was born and then rose to take over virtually the entirety of economics.
Even Krugman adopts a lot of free lunch economics.
In free lunch economics, costs are dependent on price, not price dependent on costs. And profits rising on maximum efficiency,
maximum factor utilization, not profits going to zero when factor utilization and efficiency are maximized.
Free lunch economics is the opposite of Keynesian principles. Free lunch economists prescribe the opposite of what Keynes prescribed
in similar circumstances.
Keynes called for maximizing aggregate labor costs. Free lunch economists call for minimizing aggregate labor costs.
As all real economic costs are labor costs, everything else being profits and rents, when Bernie bros call for lower costs,
or oppose higher costs, they are arguing for lower labor costs, lower wages. Economics is zero sum.
Food costs are low because of government subsidies and government policies promoting low labor costs, low wages.
Progressives should be opposed to SNAP and food banks which are directly or indirectly government funded/subsidized. The solution
is to ensure jobs are available than pay wages high enough to buy food that farmers sell at high prices which allow them to pay
all their bills.
FDR and Congress set price floors for many goods, and paid workers living wages to do productive work. Conservatives fought
these measures to increase costs. Note Hoover was very interested in building capital assets, but he wanted workers to be paid
as little as possible, and as few as possible. He promoted working workers to death to cut costs, even when the assets built would
certainly generate high returns over their useful lives.
Friedman created the intellectual free lunch theory to justify Hoover's business theory applied to government policy.
Friedman invented the free lunch welfare handout to make the free lunch economy work, because he knew economies are zero sum.
Instead of SNAP which is restricted cash, he called for unrestricted cash so labor costs could be cut to increase profits, with
government free lunch handouts given to workers to pay the high profits on the goods they were paid to produce.
Again, this is contrary to Keynes and FDR.
Yet Bernie progressives call for Friedman's free lunch economics subsidy of profits in consumer spending subsidies to enable
low wages and high profits.
This research and paper merely provide evidence that Friedman's free lunch economics have driven public policy and private
sector investment.
Milton Friedman's free lunch economics principles have successfully driven lower productivity growth as he intended, based
on his Newsweek articles circa 1970, and based on other 70s era statements and lectures.
OMG- how many understatements can be written, without acknowledging basic facts and truth.
A good place to start would be a similar, I mean really similar, and use CEO pay. Come on lets see a CEO pay VS productivity
- the CEO's sure aren't doing the work, and neither are the midline managers. Come on lets see some real good charts on "divergence"
factors starting in 1973. Quit the BS. The economy is presently increasing based on human predation. Ignore it, til it stares
you in the face, upfront and personal.
From cited link- for those who want the reason why, I even posted a link on banking, when this article is on labor divergence
etc. etc.
5.4.1. Implications for economic theory
The empirical evidence shows that of the three theories of banking, it is the one that today has the least influence and that
is being belittled in the literature that is supported by the empirical evidence. Furthermore, it is the theory which was widely
held at the end of the 19th century and in the first three decades of the twentieth. It is sobering to realise that since the
1930s, economists have moved further and further away from the truth, instead of coming closer to it. This happened first via
the half-truth of the fractional reserve theory and then reached the completely false and misleading financial intermediation
theory that today is so dominant. Thus this paper has found evidence that there has been no progress in scientific knowledge in
economics, finance and banking in the 20th century concerning one of the most important and fundamental facts for these disciplines.
Instead, there has been a regressive development. The known facts were unlearned and have become unknown. This phenomenon deserves
further research. For now it can be mentioned that this process of unlearning the facts of banking could not possibly have taken
place without the leading economists of the day having played a significant role in it. The most influential and famous of all
20th century economists, as we saw, was a sequential adherent of all three theories, which is a surprising phenomenon. Moreover,
Keynes used his considerable clout to slow scientific analysis of the question whether banks could create money, as he instead
engaged in ad hominem attacks on followers of the credit creation theory. Despite his enthusiastic early support for the credit
creation theory (Keynes, 1924), only six years later he was condescending, if not dismissive, of this theory, referring to credit
creation only in inverted commas. He was perhaps even more dismissive of supporters of the credit creation theory, who he referred
to as being part of the "Army of Heretics and Cranks, whose numbers and enthusiasm are extraordinary", and who seem to believe
in "magic" and some kind of "Utopia" (Keynes, 1930, vol. 2, p. 215).33
Needless to mention, such rhetoric is not conducive to scientific argument. But this technique was followed by other economists
engaged in advancing the fractional reserve and later financial intermediation theories. US Federal Reserve staffer Alhadeff (1954)
argued similarly during the era when economists worked on getting the fractional reserve theory established:
"One complication worth discussing concerns the alleged "creation" of money by bankers. It used to be claimed that bankers could
create money by the simple device of opening deposit accounts for their business borrowers. It has since been amply demonstrated
that under a fractional reserve system, only the totality of banks can expand deposits to the full reciprocal of the reserve ratio.
[Original footnote: 'Chester A. Phillips, Bank Credit (New York: Macmillan, 1921), chapter 3, for the classical refutation of
this claim.'] The individual bank can normally expand to an amount about equal to its primary deposits" (p. 7).
The creation of credit by banks had become, in the style of Keynes (1930), an "alleged 'creation'", whereby rhetorically it was
suggested that such thinking was simplistic and hence could not possibly be true. Tobin used the rhetorical device of abductio
ad absurdum to denigrate the credit creation theory by incorrectly suggesting it postulated a 'widow's cruse', a miraculous vessel
producing unlimited amounts of valuable physical goods, and thus its followers were believers in miracles or utopias.
This same type of rhetorical denigration of and disengagement with the credit creation theory is also visible in the most recent
era. For instance, the New Palgrave Money (Eatwell et al., 1989), is an influential 340-page reference work that claims to present
a 'balanced perspective on each topic' (Eatwell et al., 1989, p. viii). Yet the financial intermediation theory is dominant, with
a minor representation of the fractional reserve theory. The credit creation theory is not presented at all, even as a possibility.
But the book does include a chapter entitled "Monetary cranks". In this brief chapter, Keynes' (1930) derogatory treatment of
supporters of the credit creation theory is updated for use in the 1990s, with sharpened claws: Ridicule and insult is heaped
on several fateful authors that have produced thoughtful analyses of the economy, the monetary system and the role of banks, such
as Nobel laureate Sir Frederick Soddy (1934) and C.H. Douglas (1924). Even the seminal and influential work by Georg Friedrich
Knapp (1905), still favourably cited by Keynes (1936), is identified as being created by a 'crank'. What these apparently wretched
authors have in common, and what seems to be their main fault, punishable by being listed in this inauspicious chapter, is that
they are adherents of the credit creation theory. But, revealingly, their contributions are belittled without it anywhere being
stated what their key tenets are and that their analyses centre on the credit creation theory, which itself remains unnamed and
is never spelled out. This is not a small feat, and leaves one pondering the possibility that the Eatwell et al. (1989) tome was
purposely designed to ignore and distract from the rich literature supporting the credit creation theory. Nothing lost, according
to the authors, who applaud the development that due to
"the increased emphasis given to monetary theory by academic economists in recent decades, the monetary cranks have largely disappeared
from public debate " (p. 214).
And so has the credit creation theory. Since the tenets of this theory are never stated in Eatwell et al. (1989), the chapter
on 'Cranks' ends up being a litany of ad hominem denigration, defamation and character assassination, liberally distributing labels
such as 'cranks', 'phrase-mongers', 'agitators', 'populists', and even 'conspiracy theorists' that believe in 'miracles' and engage
in wishful thinking, ultimately deceiving their readers by trying to "impress their peers with their apparent understanding of
economics, even though they had no formal training in the discipline" (p. 214). All that we learn about their actual theories
is that, somehow, these ill-fated authors are "opposed to private banks and the 'Money Power' without their opposition leading
to more sophisticated political analysis" (p. 215). Any reading of the highly sophisticated Soddy (1934) quickly reveals such
labels as unfounded defamation.
To the contrary, the empirical evidence presented in this paper has revealed that the many supporters of the financial intermediation
theory and also the adherents of the fractional reserve theory are flat-earthers that believe in what is empirically proven to
be wrong and which should have been recognisable as being impossible upon deeper consideration of the accounting requirements.
Whether the authors in Eatwell et al. (1989) did in fact know better is an open question that deserves attention in future research.
Certainly the unscientific treatment of the credit creation theory and its supporters by such authors as Keynes, who strongly
endorsed the theory only a few years before authoring tirades against its supporters, or by the authors in Eatwell et al. (1989),
raises this possibility.
5.4.2. Implications for government policy
There are other, far-reaching ramifications of the finding that banks individually create credit and money when they do what
is called 'lending money'. It is readily seen that this fact is important not only for monetary policy, but also for fiscal policy,
and needs to be reflected in economic theories. Policies concerning the avoidance of banking crises, or dealing with the aftermath
of crises require a different shape once the reality of the credit creation theory is recognised. They call for a whole new paradigm
in monetary economics, macroeconomics, finance and banking (for details, see for instance Werner, 1997, 2005, 2012, 2013a,b) that
is based on the reality of banks as creators of the money supply. It has potentially important implications for other disciplines,
such as accounting, economic and business history, economic geography, politics, sociology and law.
5.4.3. Implications for bank regulation
The implications are far-reaching for bank regulation and the design of official policies. As mentioned in the Introduction,
modern national and international banking regulation is predicated on the assumption that the financial intermediation theory
is correct. Since in fact banks are able to create money out of nothing, imposing higher capital requirements on banks will not
necessarily enable the prevention of boom–bust cycles and banking crises, since even with higher capital requirements, banks could
still continue to expand the money supply, thereby fuelling asset prices, whereby some of this newly created money can be used
to increase bank capital. Based on the recognition of this, some economists have argued for more direct intervention by the central
bank in the credit market, for instance via quantitative credit guidance (Werner, 2002, 2003a, 2005).
5.4.4. Monetary reform
The Bank of England's (2014b) recent intervention has triggered a public debate about whether the privilege of banks to create
money should in fact be revoked (Wolf, 2014). The reality of banks as creators of the money supply does raise the question of
the ideal type of monetary system. Much research is needed on this account. Among the many different monetary system designs tried
over the past 5000 years, very few have met the requirement for a fair, effective, accountable, stable, sustainable and democratic
creation and allocation of money. The view of the author, based on more than twenty-three years of research on this topic, is
that it is the safest bet to ensure that the awesome power to create money is returned directly to those to whom it belongs: ordinary
people, not technocrats. This can be ensured by the introduction of a network of small, not-for-profit local banks across the
nation. Most countries do not currently possess such a system. However, it is at the heart of the successful German economic performance
in the past 200 years. It is the very Raiffeisen, Volksbank or Sparkasse banks – the smaller the better – that were helpful in
the implementation of this empirical study that should serve as the role model for future policies concerning our monetary system.
In addition, one can complement such local public bank money with money issued by local authorities that is accepted to pay local
taxes, namely a local public money that has not come about by creating debt, but that is created for services rendered to local
authorities or the community. Both forms of local money creation together would create a decentralised and more accountable monetary
system that should perform better (based on the empirical evidence from Germany) than the unholy alliance of central banks and
big banks, which have done much to create unsustainable asset bubbles and banking crises (Werner, 2013a,b).
AND, be sure to read why a lot of present economist's are so OFF "talking points" that they don't know they are even off the fundamental
talking points, and way off track! You have to start reading the Werner article from the beginning to understand that preceding
exclamatory sentence.
Why I have my doubts about whether Trump colluded with Moscow.
By BLAKE HOUNSHELL February 18, 2018
f, like me, you've been following every twist and turn of the Russia investigations, you've probably wrestled with the same
question that has been gnawing at me for more than a year now: What if there's nothing there?
No, I'm not denying the voluminous evidence that Russia, at Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin's personal direction, sought to
meddle in the 2016 election, and that Donald Trump was clearly his man. The indictment on Friday of 13 Russians -- and the incredible
forensic detail in the 37-page complaint filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team -- ought to have convinced any reasonable
person that the Russia investigation is definitely a somethingburger. But what kind of somethingburger is it?
President Trump has seized on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's statement that "there is no allegation in the indictment
that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity" to say that the special counsel has vindication his oft-repeated
refrain that there was "NO COLLUSION" between Russia and the Trump campaign. This is obviously nonsense -- the key words in Rosenstein's
remarks being "in the indictment," which in any case dealt only with a sliver of Russian efforts to tilt the election in Trump's
favor.
Of course, Mueller has put some serious points on the board. In addition to the 13 Russians and three Russian organizations
from Friday's indictments, we've also seen two indictments of Trump associates thus far -- former Trump campaign chairman/manager
Paul Manafort and his wingman Rick Gates -- and two plea bargains, from sometime national security adviser Michael Flynn and volunteer
campaign adviser George Papadapoulos. There is also other stuff hanging out there -- most of all Donald Trump Jr.'s infamous meeting
in Trump Tower, the one he enthusiastically scheduled after being told the Russians on offer had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Mueller's
team has had nothing to say -- yet? -- about the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee or Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta. And there is no indication, despite the professed optimism of White House lawyer Ty Cobb, that they are wrapping
up anytime soon.
There are, of course, odd aspects of Trump's behavior that arouse suspicions. His obsequious praise of Putin. The aborted effort
to roll back the old Russia sanctions, and the failure to enforce the new ones. His refusal to accept that Moscow meddled in the
election, despite the conclusions of his own staff, the intelligence community and pretty much everyone looking at the evidence
in good faith. Firing his FBI director and reportedly ordering the firing of the special counsel. His constant fulminations against
the "Russia hoax." The fact that he hasn't directed any effort to safeguard the 2018 midterms. If Trump is guilty, he sure is
acting like it.
And there is the fact Trump aides have repeatedly lied about the fact, and extent, of contact between campaign officials and
Russia. If the Trump Tower meeting was as innocuous as Donald Jr. says it was, for instance, why the misleading claim that it
was about "adoptions"?
I keep coming back the slapdash nature of Trump's 2016 operation, and the chaos and dysfunction that everyone who covered that
campaign saw play out each day. Like the Trump White House, the Trump campaign was a viper's nest of incompetence and intrigue,
with aides leaking viciously against one another almost daily. So much damaging information poured out of Trump Tower that it's
hard to believe a conspiracy to collude with Moscow to win the election never went public. If there was such a conspiracy, it
must have been a very closely guarded secret.
Then there's the Trump factor to consider. Here's a man who seems to share every thought that enters his head, almost as soon
as he enters it. He loves nothing more than to brag about himself, and he's proven remarkably indiscreet in the phone calls he
makes with "friends" during his Executive Time -- friends who promptly share the contents of those conversations with D.C. reporters.
If Trump had cooked up a scheme to provide some favor to Putin in exchange for his election, wouldn't he be tempted to boast about
it to someone?
And there are aspects of the Russia scandal, too, that don't quite add up for me. Take Flynn's plea bargain. As Preet Bharara,
the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, noted after the deal became public, prosecutors usually prefer
to charge participants in a conspiracy with charges related to the underlying crime. But Flynn pleaded guilty only to lying to
the FBI, which Bharara surmised suggests might mean Mueller didn't have much on him. It certainly seems unlikely that any prosecutor
would charge Flynn for violating the 219-year-old Logan Act, a constitutionally questionable law that has never been tested in
court, for his chats with the Russian ambassador. It's not even clear if the (stupid) idea of using secure Russian communications
gear, as Flynn and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly considered doing, would have been a crime.
Then there is Papadopoulos, the hapless campaign volunteer who drunkenly blabbed to the Australian ambassador to London that
the Russians were sitting on loads of hacked emails. He, likewise, confessed only to lying to the FBI. Papadopoulos desperately
tried to arrange meetings between Trump or top Trump officials and Russians, which apparently never happened. Papadopoulos has
been cooperating with Mueller for months, but how much does he really have to offer? He seems like an attention-seeking wannabe
-- the kind who puts "Model U.N. participant" on his resume.
Speaking of attention-seeking wannabes, Carter Page was another volunteer campaign adviser who was enthusiastic about collaborating
with Russia. His writings and comments suggest he has been a Putin apologist for years. But anyone who has seen Page's TV interviews
or read through his congressional testimony can tell that there's something not quite right about him. He's apparently broke,
doesn't have a lawyer, and has issued lengthy, bizarre statements comparing himself to Martin Luther King, Jr. Back in 2013, when
a Russian agent tried to recruit Page, he described him as too much of an "idiot" to bother with. This is the mastermind of the
Russia scandal?
As for Manafort and Gates, the charges against them are serious and detailed. They stand accused of failing to register as
foreign agents for their overseas work, as well as various offenses related to money laundering. But Mueller has yet to charge
them with any crimes related to their work on the Trump campaign. Gates is reportedly working out a cooperation deal with Mueller's
team -- perhaps he has stories to tell. And we can't rule out the idea that Mueller is prepared to file superseding charges against
either or both of the two men. But so far, their alleged crimes seem unrelated to 2016.
There is, of course, plenty of public evidence that Trump was all too happy to collude with Putin. "Russia, if you're listening,
I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," springs to mind, not to mention Trump's endless invocation of
WikiLeaks in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign. What's particularly eerie, too, is how Trump's divisive racial rhetoric and
claims about how the election was going to be "rigged" in favor of Hillary Clinton echoes the messages described in Mueller's
latest indictment. Not to mention the voluminous fodder Trump has given Mueller for a (very) hypothetical obstruction of justice
case.
Mueller's team doesn't leak, and he's repeatedly surprised us, as he did again on Friday. But I'm still waiting for a smoking
gun -- and the special counsel hasn't shown us one yet, assuming he ever will.
We'll see when Mueller finally wraps up his investigation, but we know that garbage people like you and Yggies are taking this
opportunity to attack the Left even though there is on evidence for it.
Bernie and Jill Stein supporters aren't implicated at all and only scum like you would suggest so. No doubt you are paid by
DNC Super PACs.
Russiagate Targets the Left
BY
BRANKO MARCETIC
Liberal conspiracy theorists are using Russiagate to smear Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. How long until they come for you?
id Russia conspire to put its thumb on the scales for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein in 2016?
If you've paid any attention to mainstream coverage of Robert Mueller's indictment of the Russians involved in running an online
troll farm that opposed Hillary Clinton's campaign, then you're probably certain the answer is "yes." There's been no shortage
of headlines declaring that the accused -- typically referred to simply as "Russians" -- "tried to help" or "aimed to help" the
two left-wing candidates, or that they "appear to have been helped by Russian election interference." Even the New York Times,
the paper of record, declared that the company, Internet Research Agency, aimed to "bolster" Sanders and Stein's candidacies.
You'll find this same narrative on the nominally liberal MSNBC. Stein was grilled on MSNBC about the Russian attempt to "boost"
her campaign. Meanwhile, Ari Melber, one of the network's pundits, seemed to suggest there was something fishy going on between
Sanders and the Russian trolls with an innuendo-laden question to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
"It says in here that Donald Trump was the main intended beneficiary, and Bernie Sanders was the other major party candidate
who was a beneficiary," said Melber. "Neither of them have clearly stood up today and said: 'I don't want that help from the Russians,
please don't do that kind of thing for me, and anything that happened, I disclaim.'"
It all sounds pretty damning. Until you read the actual indictment.
Fast and Loose
The sole reference to Stein in the nearly 10,000-word document is a sentence that mentions one single Instagram post from Blacktivist,
an account controlled by the company, saying: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."
Sanders, meanwhile, appears twice. The first mention is when the document states the company's work was "primarily intended
to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump." The
second is a few lines down, when it provides an example of this support: an outline of themes for future content that was circulated
around the company, urging employees to "use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump -- we
support them)." The indictment doesn't specify anything else, including any examples of material support for Sanders's campaign.
These scant references comprise the sole basis for headline after headline about the Kremlin-backed trolls working for Sanders
and Stein's campaigns. Some Clinton backers such as Joy-Ann Reid uncritically spread the narrative that "Russia was helping Jill
Stein and Sanders," while others used it as a launching pad to suggest Sanders was knowingly in cahoots with the Russian efforts.
MSNBC's Melber has been particularly dogged in pushing this narrative. Despite the lack of evidence in the indictment, Melber
claimed on his show that "Mueller has shown that [the Russians] spent 2016 pushing another campaign to elect Bernie Sanders."
When Sanders, appearing on Meet the Press, said that the trolls only began flooding pro-Sanders Facebook pages with anti-Clinton
content after she had already won the nomination -- a claim backed up by previous reporting -- Melber pushed back.
"That may be how Sanders remembers it," said Melber. "But now we know it began much earlier with those February marching orders,
and the very next month a Sanders volunteer, John Mattes, says a 'huge wave of fake news stories' slamming Clinton from abroad
targeted Sanders supporters."
The quote that Melber is referring to -- "huge wave of fake news stories" -- comes from this Guardian piece from July 2017.
It also happens to have been wildly misrepresented by Melber.
For one, the words were never uttered by Mattes, a Sanders campaign volunteer in California and investigative journalist who
played a role in bringing the Iran-Contra scandal to light in the 1980s. Rather, the phrase was used by the Guardian article's
author, Julian Borger. Secondly, at no point is it stated that this "wave" was targeting Sanders supporters. In fact, reading
the whole passage it's clear that neither Borger nor Mattes was saying that the "wave" had anything to do with Sanders at all.
Here is the passage in full:
A huge wave of fake news stories originating from eastern Europe began washing over the presidential election months earlier,
at the height of the primary campaign. John Mattes, who was helping run the outline campaign for the Democratic candidate Bernie
Sanders from San Diego, said it really took off in March 2016.
"In a 30-day period, dozens of full-blown sites appeared overnight, running full level productions posts. It screamed out to
me that something strange was going on," Mattes said. Much of the material was untraceable, but he tracked 40 percent of the new
postings back to eastern Europe.
In fact, publicly available interviews with Mattes make this clear, such as this NBC 7 interview in which Mattes explains what
led him to look into the troll activity in the first place.
"Hundreds and hundreds of people were joining Bernie Sanders pages on Facebook for a campaign that was over. It made no sense,"
he told the network.
I spoke to Mattes, who confirmed as much.
"I did not do that, at all," he said about the claim that he looked into troll activity on pro-Sanders pages during the primaries.
"Anybody who says that I knew what was happening in March 2016 is misconstruing what I've said publicly."
Mattes, who says he was never consulted by MSNBC about Melber's use of his quote, adds that he has "not seen any reporting
that there was material assistance that would have helped" Sanders during the primaries. While he does say that he found Sanders
page administrators around the country complaining about fake news sites being posted on their pages, that was in May, and was
largely haphazard. The trolls didn't appear to target California, for instance, even though it was clear by at least mid-May that
the state was the Sanders's campaign's last hope.
"Had there been an outrageous blasting of Hillary Clinton on our Facebook pages in the outrageous manner that occurred after
the convention, I would've noticed it," says Mattes. "If the Russians had really wanted to help Bernie, our last stand was in
California, and I didn't see it."
As of the time of writing, Melber's segment is still available for viewing online on the MSNBC website, even though Mattes
says he contacted MSNBC to register his objections regarding the misquote. I reached out to Melber and MSNBC and asked them if
they plan on issuing a public retraction. This story will be updated with their response.
It appears, then, that the widespread claim that "the Russians" were helping Sanders's campaign, and did so during the primaries,
is fake news -- much like the kind that those advancing this narrative accuse the Kremlin of spreading to subvert American democracy.
What appears to have happened here is a marked collapse of basic journalistic standards. Various news outlets and pundits have
created a narrative about Russian material support for left-wing presidential candidates based on precisely three references in
a thirty-seven-page document that don't actually provide evidence of such a thing. Ari Melber, meanwhile, misattributed and misrepresented
a quote from a year-old article and never bothered to speak to the individual he was supposedly quoting -- all for the purposes
of quickly and falsely debunking Sanders's defense of his campaign.
A less charitable interpretation is that the media -- unfriendly towards Sanders, uncritical of the national security establishment,
and predisposed to run sensational stories about Russian interference -- ran headfirst into a story that seemed to be an ideal
blend of these two trends, facts be damned.
Who's Next?
The widespread adoption of this narrative as a cudgel wielded against prominent left-wing political figures, often by liberals,
shows the danger of the current political climate, in which liberal anchors openly speculate whether their political opponents
are foreign agents. The moment such accusations are turned leftward is never far away.
Look at what's happening in the Mexican presidential race. The current front-runner is a left-wing, anti-Trump populist running
on a platform promising to renegotiate NAFTA, establish a universal pension, pump billions into infrastructure spending, and undo
the current president's privatization of gas and oil fields. One Bloomberg op-ed charged he would be an ideal beneficiary of a
Putin-backed disinformation campaign. Another, this time at the Washington Post, asserted that Putin "may" be working to help
him, an unsupported charge repeated by one of his opponent's aides in January.
Those hostile to left-wing causes have also made use of the accusation of Russia meddling. Texas Republican Lamar Smith, a
man saturated with the fumes of fossil fuel industry money, has accused anti-fracking environmental groups and Facebook ads of
being funded by the Kremlin. Others have also hyped up the work of Russian troll farms in promoting black activism and the Dakota
Access Pipeline protests. It brings to mind the intelligence assessment released by the Directorate of National Intelligence last
January, which, in lieu of detailing evidence for the Russian hacking of the DNC, instead cited Russia Today's coverage of US
wealth inequality, police brutality, mass surveillance, corruption, fracking, and more as examples of Russian propaganda.
And in the future, such attacks can easily be turned on the liberals now weaponizing Russiagate. What would happen if and when
a Kremlin-backed disinformation campaign appeared to come to the aid of the Democrats in a future election? It's not so far-fetched:
the legal analysis website Law & Crime recently reported that the pundit most retweeted by the trolls indicted by Robert Mueller
was MSNBC's very own Joy-Ann Reid, who received around ten times more retweets than Sanders from the same trolls. It remains to
be seen if news outlets will claim that Reid was being "helped" by the Russian disinformation campaign, or if Ari Melber will
ask for her to renounce their aid.
Liberals should be wary of continuing to use Russiagate for partisan purposes, and of abandoning reporting standards to punish
their ideological challengers, whether consciously or not. Weapons, after all, have a way of getting into other people's hands.
Employers have spent a lot of effort understanding their processes in greater and greater detail over the past 25 years. "Labor
productivity" is very, very gross measure and does not have much meaning to the employer. What exactly in the process is generating
improvements and can an employee effectively withhold their contribution to the improvement are key questions that are pursued
very aggressively. If the new layout of the fabrication cells drives a lot of extra productivity or if a redesign of the product
itself increases producibility, the human labor in the process is not going to be compensated very much regardless of the aggregate
shift in labor productivity. If you can hire someone out of a fast food restaurant and hit the 95% productivity target by the
close of his/her first shift, well the incumbent worker in the position is not going to be getting a big slice of general productivity
measures. On the whole, firms are assessing situations accurately and taking actions that are in their profit interests. If they
were getting this wrong a lot they would make changes. Employers are usually very pragmatic and if higher compensation makes them
more money, they do not hesitate. But it usually does not make them more money.
I don't know whether other commenters have already made this observation, but in case they haven't:
The paper can be summarized by the relationship of median wage growth to productivity growth as the sum of two variables A
& B:
c(3)W = c(1)A + c(2)B
where c(i) are the coefficients of the relations of each term to productivity growth.
What the authors implied is that c(1) is positive and c(2) is negative by a much greater absolute value than c(1), resulting
in a very low but positive c(3).
For this to be the case, then variable B must be the composite weighted sum of all factors besides those with positive coefficients
included in A.
The authors did not identify those factors the sum of which are B.
But, that identification only matters to identify what if any of those factors can be adjusted, eliminated, or substantially
modified. And since they are each related to Productivity growth but still sum to a composite weighted negative coefficient c(2)
they must adjustable, or eliminatable, or modifiable such that in composite the coefficient c(2) sums to near zero.
The simple fact that the coefficient of B has increasingly become more negative over time strongly suggests that many or most
or even all of these factors that sum to B may not in fact be adjustable, eliminatable, or modifiable to any appreciable degree,
since otherwise they would have already been identified and adjustments, etc. made (1973 to 2018 is nearly two generations of
time).
In other words the coefficients of factors B that sum to c(2) must clearly also have strong positive weighted coefficients
that relate to other than productivity growth but which are each still related to productivity growth.
It is obvious then that the other relationships (non-productivity growth) of factors B weigh positively (since 1973 and increasingly
so since then) far more than those that sum to coefficients c(2) which only relate to productivity growth.
Simply stated the other relationships of B to non-productivity growth terms have had increasingly greater priority than those
related to productivity growth .. enough so to fully counteract them at an increasingly greater rate with time.
I submit that Summers et.al. know this already and even what the major drivers are, but intentionally left them in their Posted
"economics" as unknowns to keep from upsetting the apple cart.
"This divergence between productivity and the typical worker's pay is a relatively recent phenomenon.."
Only if you consider 46 years (1973 to 2018) "recent". Most economists would reject that assertion. Most non-economists would
reject that assertion. Most laypersons would reject that assertion.
So on what basis can Summers et.al. possibly assert it as true?
The period since the end of WWII completely changed global and domestic economies and that period is 73 years of time, so that
the most recent 45 years comprises 61% of it or well over half the period since WWII's end has been in effect.
Basically the most recent 45 years begins a few short years after LBJ's administration and the Nixon's failed admin -- but
which was followed by Ford, Carter, and Reagan's.
I'm not indicting the presidential administrations only using them to show that "recent" begins in the post LBJ / Nixon time-frame.
I don't know anybody that would refer to Nixon's presidency as a "recent" administration, including me (and I was born in 1945).
My 40 something offspring and their cousins and all their friends refer to that as "ancient history". Summers was born nearly
a decade after I was, and so must be using a hugely different concept of "recent" than I do or than my children and their generation
do.
Historians have a different concept of "recent" since their operating time frames cover at least from the Industrial revolution
and more often than not several centuries more.
"On the link between US pay and productivity" is more a matter of the link between Anna Stansbury and Larry Summers than a matter
of analytical elegance. OTOH, Anna is quite elegant.
Fed Staff Pondered Inflation Puzzle and Came Away None the Wiser
By Matthew Boesler
February 22, 2018, 12:00 AM EST
Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has called low inflation a bit of a "mystery." So it was appropriate that at her
final Fed meeting, she and her colleagues received a special briefing on what had gone wrong with the computer models they use
to forecast price pressures.
The conclusion of the briefing: The models aren't great for forecasting, but alternative options aren't obvious either. Perhaps
even more troubling for policy makers is that inflation appears to be anchored below the Fed's 2 percent target.
The presentations by Fed staff economists were described in the minutes of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee's
Jan. 30-31 meeting published Wednesday. The failure to anticipate last year's decline in inflation, despite a tightening labor
market, was chalked up to transitory factors like a one-time drop in the price of cell-phone services.
No alternative frameworks for understanding inflation beyond the Fed's reliance on the decades-old Phillips Curve relationship
-- which relies on the level of the unemployment rate and household inflation expectations -- were uncovered.
"The staff found little compelling evidence for the possible influence of other factors such as a more competitive pricing
environment or a change in the markup of prices over unit labor costs," according to the minutes of the gathering, which took
place just before Jerome Powell succeeded Yellen as chairman. "The prediction errors in recent years were larger than those observed
during the 2001-07 period but were consistent with historical norms."
On one hand, the findings arm Fed officials with ammunition in the debate about whether inflation will pick up again this year
as unemployment remains low. "Almost all" FOMC participants continued to see the Phillips Curve relationship between unemployment
and inflation as a useful guide, according to the minutes, which reinforces the case for gradually raising interest rates even
with relatively slow price increases.
But the news was not all good.
"Two of the briefings presented findings that the longer-run trend in inflation, absent cyclical disturbances or transitory
fluctuations, had been stable in recent years at a little below 2 percent," according to the minutes.
Evans Dissent
The findings echoed a concern that led Chicago Fed President Charles Evans to dissent against the FOMC's most recent rate hike
in December. After that meeting, he explained his decision on the grounds that U.S. households' expectations for inflation may
have fallen below 2 percent, which may make it harder for actual inflation to rise.
Fed officials' preferred inflation gauge has been below 2 percent throughout most of the last six years. Prices rose 1.7 percent
in the 12 months through December, according to the Commerce Department index.
But in the discussion among FOMC participants that followed the briefings, there was no indication that Evans's concerns were
becoming more widespread, despite the staff's findings. Only "a few" said inflation expectations appeared to have fallen below
2 percent, though "a number" noted the importance of stressing the symmetric nature of the Fed's inflation goal.
Dorian Bon reviews a collection of essays by socialist authors and journalists, many of them SW contributors, that asks tough
questions about Trumpism--and answers them.
...............................................
Trump and the crisis that caused him
...................................
"In 2008, Obama rode a wave of popular enthusiasm into the White House. "Two years later," Selfa writes, "the formerly discredited
and out-of-touch Republican Party scored a historic landslide in the 2010 midterm election. In the largest congressional midterm
victory since 1938, the Republicans captured sixty-three seats, ending the four-year Democratic majority in the House of Representatives."
"How did this happen? When Obama took office two years before, with the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, his
administration quickly proceeded to appoint Bush-era officials to top positions in the Treasury and Pentagon.
The fiscal stimulus law passed weeks after Obama's inauguration, while significant, excluded jobs programs to ease rising unemployment.
The administration imposed sweeping concessions on unionized workers through the auto industry bailout, even while corporate executives
continued to be rewarded with lavish payoffs.
As the business elite found a willing partner in the new White House, poll after poll showed that Americans had begun to associate
Obama and the Democratic Party with big finance."
In an uninformed America, fake news organization like NYT, Wapo and Economist can peddle
fake news about fake news with nary a question of its accuracy. A dangerous time for the world.
MORONS R/U$
"I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, ... The man
that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money
supply."
Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Bearing mind that the US Federal Reserve is a private consortium of Rothschild-linked
banks and it was another Rothschild that basically wrote the Balfour Declaration...
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost
always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you
superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority." Lord Acton
Add in Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment) and Milgram (Shock Experiments) revealing how
the influence machine operatesand you have the schema behind what passes for crony capitalism
that infests the world. The icing on the oligarchic system is Bernays-inspired
propaganda.
well octopi are very intelligent as i understand it.. so they got that right!
i agree with @2 ger and @3 A P.. this constant mantra to get russia is a real interesting
set up if you ask me... someone hopes to make a ton of money off war.... these same people
don't care about the death of others either... not pretty..
Sigh, nothing but racism against Russians, MSM really wants ww3 with Russia and unfortunately
they will probably get it if their hatred, hysteria soar coming months, years.
As b said earlier this week, all for the click-bait.
Russiagate is the means the USA are using to manufacture consent for war.
A war that is not based on any real cause - just the Neo cons agenda. That is what the
Meuller enquiry is designed to with the cooperation of the media - to make Americans hate
Russia enough for war to be on the agenda
Putin is demonised - like with Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden and Ghaddafi
It started with obama and the demonisation of Putin.
Hillary was meant to continue this - Trump (Macmasters, Haley, Tillerson and the gang) are
following the plan set out by the Neo-cons.
The question is will Europe follow - the UK and France and Poland may the Baltic's are
dumb enough but I am not so sure about the rest of Europe.
Octopus ist a Symbol like any other, depicting for example methods of surveilance states. If
Sueddeutsche got attacked for using nazi symbolism, this is mosty due to the strong influence
of zionist groups in germany, showing off on their power. Bruce schneier likely confirms
this, even he though he uses a slightly different symbol: the squid.
"The question is will Europe follow - the UK and France and Poland may the Baltic's are dumb
enough but I am not so sure about the rest of Europe".
Unfortunately you are misinformed, the anti-russian hatred is probably worse in europe
than in america. Remember economist is a brittish/european news magazine.
Who most likely resembles an octopus, and acts more likely as one, is George Soros. Have
never seen his likeness mocked in any publication. It is far overdue.
This is amazing Big Lie projection by the elite. It shows their current weakness when they
project their ability onto others as b clearly shows.....has private banking been reeled in
since 1894 or has it grown to project more power and control?
Please remember folks that it is our social contract that needs to change rather than
punish some individuals and leave finance in private hands. Have we "evolved" enough to be
able to manage finance as a public utility? Like with gun (aggression) control, if we can get
some adults to lead the discussion and evolution instead of the psychopaths leadership we
have currently, there shouldn't be a problem.
the anti-russian hatred is probably worse in europe than in america. Remember economist is
a brittish/european news magazine.
Not in whole Europe. In Southern/Mediterranean Europe for example you do not find hatred
towards Russia. And how much Britain is European anyways, they call us 'continentals' after
all.
james @ 4 said:"i agree with @2 ger and @3 A P.. this constant mantra to get russia is a real
interesting set up if you ask me... someone hopes to make a ton of money off war.... these
same people don't care about the death of others either... not pretty.."
The picture of Putin as meddling octopus attacking democracies is of course dumb nonsense.
There is no evidence that the Russian government was in any way involved in the U.S.
election..."
No evidence either that the US, where electors choose between Trump and Clinton, Democrat
neo-cons and republican neo-cons, is a democracy.
Perhaps The Economist is re-cycling Karl Marx's old, 1848, charge against 'that power, whose
head is in Moscow and whose hand is in every cabinet in Europe' a charge that today fits the
arbiter of all wannabe, whose head is in Washington. to a tee.
I cant see any difference between southern states like Spain, France vs northern like
Holland and Norway.
The media is even more hawkish than the folks also.
The famous british weather forecast in never a past thing:
", ladies & gentelment a heavy thick mist this morning covers the Channel, thus isolating
the European continent...''
@ mauisurfer with the english translation of the Soros and INET piece....Thanks!
Most of my undergraduate study was in macro economics which showed the myth behind the
religion of private finance/property and ongoing inheritance. I was one of the folks in class
that asked too many questions and would never get invited to an INET gathering but was a
computer nerd by then anyway.
The point that struck me about the situation is that to overturn private finance also
means dealing with the excesses of patriarchy ....sigh We are a species that has advanced
amazingly so in so many ways and yet here we are with a multi-century pattern of private
finance controlling the lifeblood of human commerce like a vampire. This may have made some
sense in the feudal era but we are past that aren't we?
I hope we don't destroy ourselves trying to evolve.
Putin works for the Rothschilds. Putin is the bankers' faithful employee. Putin was just a
low-level KGB member and suddenly he becomes Russia's president? Just like Obama the unknown
became the US president?
In one sense it's certainly projection. I imagine the text is full of falsifications and
allegations offered with no facts to back them, which is what we've seen from all other media
and linked governments. Clearly, Russia is seen as an easier target than China thanks to the
years of Cold War brainwashing. But when we're confronted with such excrement, what's the
message we see being sent? I see an elaborate Ponzi Scheme built on a slowly disintegrating
foundation of lies in the process of imploding. The so-called Masters of the Universe no
longer hold any Truths and must thus rely on their seemingly infinite lies broadcast via the
Propaganda System. Meanwhile, The Resistance holds all the Truths and refutes the lies
easily. The Resistance rapidly gains the credibility the Masters once wielded.
The Hydra in Greek Mythology is killed in several differing ways. But the most important
aspect of its being is the reason for its existence: Hera raised it specifically to kill
Heracles--it's a tool of the Elite made to kill one of the Elite's main challengers. Yet, it
was a member of the Elite--Athena--who provides Heracles with the ultimate weapon to slay the
Hydra. Yes, Truth is stranger than Fiction; and it must be recalled that Mythology always is
constructed around a core of Truth.
What? No cognitive dissonance? Look closely again! Rothschild is exactly what your
"Private Finance" looks like. I would have thought you would highly approve. Are you sure you
took Economics 101? or just had a bad reaction to a pizza?
It is interesting that the host "b", who is scrupulous about anti-semitic biases, has now to
acknowledge at least tangentially that the anti-semites got some things right. The
anti-semites may have gone overboard with their accusations, but as always there is a kernel
of truth. The Jewish opinion-makers have no sense of moderation, or fairplay and that has
always turned off anyone who thinks about these things. I myself have turned away from being
a raging 110% Zionist to total indifference now.
Whose tentacles control the world?
From the Iran Deputy FM on the nuclear deal :
The world will be plunged into a new nuclear crisis if Donald Trump continues to sabotage
the Iran nuclear deal, the country's deputy foreign minister has warned. Abbas Araghchi, a
deputy foreign minister, accused Mr Trump's administration of violating the agreement by
threatening to reimpose sanctions and said Tehran could walk away from the deal if it did
not begin to see economic benefits from the deal.
" I don't think the deal can survive in this way, if the atmosphere of confusion
continues, if companies or banks will not cooperate with Iran . We cannot stay in a
deal in which there is no benefit for us," he said. "That's a fact." . . .
here
countries that are parties to the JCPOA--
China
European Union
France
Germany
Iran
Russian Federation
United Kingdom United States .. .The meddler
So Trump, not Putin, menaces Western democracies. Change the head on that octopus.
U.S. Mainstream news television and print has become boring predicable relentless propaganda
nonsense, pure hype. Half is pure hype propaganda and the other is mostly advertisement
selling products like pharmaceuticals any news item is product placement, LOL. It is
Frightening at the same time hard to believe that the American Public is still falling for
the same shell game, evil dictator, etc. This Defraud of the American Public, relentless and
diabolical misinformation mind control, and Mr. Obama and his ilk insist they will decide
what is true or not, fake news or not. And they will marginalize criminalize or physically
damage the outliers.
i live on rothschild street it is very nice and safe already no arab spring here as we
removed them and sent them to munchen,garmischpartenkirken,scotland,wales london and norway
sweden barbera lerner spector sorted the shipping out for us super better thsn dhl logistics
already.
"The great Ideal of Judaism is ...that the whole world shall be imbued with Jewish teachings,
and that in a Universal Brotherhood of Nations - a greater Judaism, in fact -- all the
separate races and religions [and nations] shall disappear."
Mythology contains its core of truth because, I submit, events and symbols both arise from
the same source, and share the same pattern.
In plain terms: we are too self-important to think we put the connections together. The
connections come already made, we just ascertain them.
In useful terms: the mythologies contain patterns of existence that remain alive even if
we only see the patterns from mythologies that owe their fame to past events. Whatever a
story evokes, it also invokes. It can happen again because it never went away. The pattern is
universal, enduring, primordial. Plus ca change...
Karlofi @ 24: In a way, the Hydra did kill Heracles (the mortal part of him). Heracles shot a
centaur who was menacing his second wife Deianira with one of his arrows (which he had
previously dipped in the Hydra's blood). The centaur told Deianira to dip a shirt into his
blood (the centaur's blood, that is), falsely claiming that his blood could be used as a love
potion. Some time in the future, Heracles' eye starts to wander and Deianira remembers the
centaur's last words. She gives Heracles the bloodstained shirt to wear. The Hydra poison in
the shirt starts killing Heracles and he cannot take it off.
It is vital to acknowledge that animus towards zionists is culturally driven rather than
racially motivated. Saturday morning Hebrew classes - frequently instructed by fresh outta
the IDF young israelis, has been an essential part of the indoctrination of jews into
zionism. Without that it would have been impossible to develop the cohort of fervently
pro-Israeli jews. Wind the clock back 5 or 6 decades and you will find that among the wider
jewish population zionists were outnumbered by a mixture of secular jews who wanted
integration and those orthodox jews who believed zionism to be contrary to established
teaching. Not now.
However there is another major downside to the accepted indoctrinations. Spend time with a
third generation arab american, italian- american or Greek-american and you will find that
aside from the surname they appear just as any amerikan would. Not so for Amerikan jews,
whose brainwashing has served to seperate them from the wider population.
This is particularly apparent in attitudes towards women. Over the early years of emigration
to the "New World" there have been numerous instances of recent migrants from Italy Greece
and the ME being involved in some dreadful activities against local women. Now, these have
frequent been used by a racist media to persuade fools that the particular nationality in
question is deviant, violent and will 'steal our womenfolk'. After a couple decades of local
Italian-amerikans, Greek-amerikans and Arab-amerikans it all settles down into a crime rate
within the usual boundaries of citizens.
That hasn't prevented race-baiting by third generation feminists, the worst example being
englander
Labour Party MP Sarah Champion claiming that all muslims were misogynist after a gang of
1st & 2nd generation Pakistani-englanders were convicted of grooming 'young white girls'.
The link which certainly doesn't represent my view on this gives a flavour of how the
englander media published racist tropes while pretending to be opposed to racism.
I mention the Champion case because one group of englanders and amerikans are always given
a free pass on sexism, even though they, unlike descendants of xtian and islamic immigrants,
continue with their belief in gender based oppression into all subsequent generations of
amerikans.
Take a look at the primary perpetrators in the #ME TOO tweeting? Harvey Weinstein, Woody
Allen, Roman Polanski to name a tiny percentage of the Hollywood "heavy Hitters" who have
been accused of sexual harassment and/or rape and who happen to be Jews.
I have always held that the combination of "we are the chosen people" rhetoric combined with
the "all goy women are easy" [I mean to say married goyim don't even wear a
sheitel ) nonsense has
encouraged jews to hang on to gender based prejusices long after the societies which other
migrants came from ditched such tosh.
Yet there have been no articles on the rate of Judaism amongst sex pests and rapists. Why
not?
I'm not highlighting this because I reckon the world needs more racist propaganda, but
because a well-researched article which considered all the issues properly could put these
'hebrew classes' that let's face it, are the judaic equivalent of wahabi Madrasa
brainwashing, under pressure to reform the curriculum away the anti-=women, anti-islam - hell
anti anyone/anything which isn't judaic- and into less socially divisive anti-hate speech
stuff.
Looking at any of the problems across this rock in 2018 with a race-based mindset is
wasteful and untrue. amerikans of all colours and creeds cheer on the destruction of the
'undeveloped' world not because of their hair or skin colour, but because they have had their
minds filled with garbage ever since someone first turned on a vid tube to 'distract'
them.
"Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what
on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral
responsibility." –Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Credit Slips informs us of an important new study, "Life in the Sweatbox," by Pamela
Foohey, Robert M. Lawless, Katherine M. Porter, and Deborah Thorne, forthcoming from the
Notre Dame Law Review , and available for download now at
SSRN . Foohey summarizes the article:
"Sweatbox" refers to the financial sweatbox -- the time before people file bankruptcy,
which is when they often are on the brink of defaulting on their debts and lenders can charge
high interest and fees. In the article, we focus on debtors' descriptions of their time in
the sweatbox.
Based on CBP data, we find that people are living longer in the sweatbox before filing
bankruptcy than they have in the past. Two-thirds of people who file bankruptcy reported
struggling with their debts for two or more years before filing. One-third of people reported
struggling for more than five years, double the frequency from the CBP's survey of people who
filed bankruptcy in 2007. For those people who struggle for more than two years before filing
-- the "long strugglers" -- we find that their time in the sweatbox is marked by persistent
debt collection calls, the loss of homes and other property, and going without healthcare,
food, and utilities. And although long strugglers do not file bankruptcy until long after the
benefits outweigh the costs, they still report being ashamed of needing to file.
Foohey concludes:
Our results suggest that the bankruptcy system, at present, cannot deliver its promised
"fresh start" to many of the families that seek its protection.
In this brief post, I'll look at one aspect of how the bankruptcy system came to be as it
is: The narrative that debtors perform a "utilitarian calculus" in deciding whether or not to
seek bankruptcy. This narrative is false, based the results of "Life in the Sweatbox." Since it
will crop up again if bankruptcy reform efforts gain traction -- as they should -- it's
important to debunk it now. This subject matter is new to me, so I will primarily quote from
and contextualize Foohey, Lawless, Porter, and Thorne.
First, let's define the "sweatbox.' Foohey et al., page 1:
The time before a person files bankruptcy is sometimes called the financial "sweatbox."
People in the financial sweatbox are on the brink of defaulting on their debts, which is when
their lenders can charge high interest rates and fees and otherwise profit from their
customers' financial misery.
Ka-ching.
Although the term "sweatbox" often is connected with bankruptcy, how long people spend in
the sweatbox before filing and what it means to live in the sweatbox has yet to be carefully
examined. Understanding what people endure while in the sweatbox is crucial to evaluating the
longstanding belief that people decide to file bankruptcy based on a strategic, financial
calculation.
Second, current personal bankruptcy law is premised on the narrative that people seek
personal bankruptcy out of self-interest (the "utilitarian calculus"). Foohey et al., page
2:
The term "financial sweatbox" came out of the debates leading to the 2005 passage of the
Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), a major amendment to the
Bankruptcy Code designed to decrease consumer bankruptcy filings by making filing more
difficult, expensive, and timeconsuming. The consumer credit industry insisted that changes
to bankruptcy were needed because bankruptcy courts were full of deadbeat, "can-pay" debtors
who filed "bankruptcies of convenience" to try to escape their rightful obligations and who
felt no shame in "abusing" the system. This story contradicted the overwhelming expert
consensus that the bankruptcy system functioned well, abuse was rare, and there was no need
for drastic overhaul.
And from page 12:
To make its case for restricting access to bankruptcy and thus extend the time consumers
spend in the sweatbox, the consumer credit industry painted a picture of profligate spending
and uninhibited use of bankruptcy. This picture was not new. Rather, it was updated and
embellished for more than a decade. Proponents of this picture argued that reforms were
necessary because the "rising tide of bankruptcy filings" cost every moral, bill-paying
family $400 a year, a figure that made for "the best sound-bite in the debate."
Proponents further linked people's supposed propensity to file at the first sign of financial
trouble to a purported drastic decline in bankruptcy's stigma.
None of proponents' claims were supported by evidence . Proponents never
substantiated the often-cited "fact" that bankruptcy was costing every American family $400 a
year. The claim that bankruptcy courts were filled with "can-pay" debtors was contradicted by
decades of robust empirical evidence that people file bankruptcy after experiencing exogenous
shocks, such as decline in income, increased expenses, job loss, divorce, and medical
problems. Based on this evidence, the related claim that bankruptcy's stigma had disappeared
became suspect. If anything, comparing levels of consumer debt and the number of bankruptcy
filings, the stigma of filing may have increased over past decades.
Nonetheless, lured by tales of a $400 bankruptcy "tax," Congress embraced the consumer
credit industry's assertion that restricting eligibility to and otherwise making it harder to
file bankruptcy was the best policy.
(The politics of bankruptcy legislation, it seems, make the
politics of
health care law look like deliberations at Aristotle's Lyceum .) So now you have
been inocculated against the talking points from the credit "industry" (so-called), especially
that virulent "$400 a year" one. I'm about to give the article's internal logic on why these
talking points are false, but the article is lavishly footnoted and you can run down plenty of
additional material for yourself.
Third, the struggle to avoid bankruptcy involves immense suffering. Page 39:
To squeeze a few more dollars out of their lives, people work overtime, forego basic
necessities, face serious health consequences, deal with persistent debt collection calls,
end up in court, lose homes, and sell what little they own .
Financial misery hurts families. For couples, financial distress is "complicated by the
internal dynamic of the household." Struggling with unmanageable debts can strain marriages
and relationships. Fights over how to make ends meet, shifting of responsibilities for
dealing with ever-worsening finances, and watching loved ones deal with the emotional
distress that comes with money troubles may lead to separation and divorce. Splitting one
household into two only worsens the financial problems .
For parents, financial troubles are compounded with worries over how the kids cope with
the hardships. If homes are foreclosed, children are displaced along with their parents, and
may switch schools, possibly more than once as their parents find a workable living
situation. Home loss is linked with educational regression. Even if children are not
displaced, they notice their parents' financial distress. Schedules change, diets change, and
activities are scaled back as parents cut spending. Such changes can confuse children,
resulting in behavioral and emotional problems. The effects of prolonged financial problems
extend beyond families to workplaces and communities. Existing in a state of money scarcity
damages people's ability to lead productive lives. Merely determining how one will survive
day to day depletes people's mental resources. This leaves little energy for attending to
anything else, including one's job, threatening people's livelihoods and leading to further
economic drain. People withdraw from society, adding to their isolation. And the costs of
life in the sweatbox are magnified by people's reported underutilization of health-related
services and insurance, which can permanently harm people's health.
Fourth, many prolong the struggle to avoid bankrupcty long after it's in their interest to
do so. Page 3:
[T]wo-thirds of people who file bankruptcy report that they seriously struggled with their
debts for more than two years prior to bankruptcy. Almost one-third report that they
seriously struggled for more than five years, double the frequency from the CBP's survey of
people who filed bankruptcy in 2007. For those people who struggle for more than two years
before filing bankruptcy -- the "long strugglers" -- their time in the sweatbox is
particularly damaging, distinguishing them from other debtors. They lose their homes to
foreclosure, sell other property, report going without food and other necessities, all while
employing multiple tactics to try to make ends meet and dealing with persistent debt
collection calls and lawsuits. When long strugglers finally file, they enter bankruptcy with
fewer assets than other debtors and overwhelming unsecured debts. Long strugglers would
have benefitted financially from filing months or years before they did . Yet seven out
of ten long strugglers say they felt shame upon filing bankruptcy. These debtors' reports
about their prebankruptcy lives suggest a model of deciding to file based on something
beyond just dollars and cents .
Finally and finally, QED. Debtors, especially long strugglers, cannnot be presumed to perfom
a "utilitarian calculus." Page 42:
Debtors' presumed utilitarian calculation that underlies debates about access to
bankruptcy supposes more knowledge about law and shrewdness about timing than our data
suggest people have. People's willingness to file is diminished further by feelings of shame
about using bankruptcy even when filing is clearly financially beneficial. Combined, the
bankruptcy system is severely hampered in delivering the fresh start it is assumed to bestow
on struggling families.
And from page 38:
Far from being a first resort, bankruptcy is the last refuge for struggling families, and
their decisions to file do not reflect the utilitarianism bankruptcy law .
At this point, I'm thinking that the situation in bankruptcy is so hellish that that
loveable goof, Joe Biden, actually did student debtors a favor by not allowing them to file for
it [hollow laughter].
It also occurs to me that since it's not obvious that our elites are likely to feel shame,
and it's quite obvious that they're adept at utilitarian calculus (ka-ching), perhaps they're
projecting their own values and behavior onto the rest of us?
This is an excellent article, far richer in data, ideas, and policy concepts than I've
sought to convey here. Recommended reading . Grab a
cup of coffee!
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."
Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point
the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing
capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become
bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture,
herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation.
In anticipation of increasing Crude Oil imports, Nixon stopped the convertibility of
Dollars into Gold, thus making the Dollar entirely fiat, allowing them to print as much of
the currency as they needed.
They also began a system of obscuring oil production data, involving the DoE's EIA and the
OECD's IEA, by inventing an ever-increasing category of Undiscovered Oilfields in their
predictions, and combining Crude Oil and Condensate (from gas fields) into one category (C+C)
as if they were the same thing. As well the support of the ethanol-from-corn industry began,
even though it was uneconomic. The Global Warming problem had to be debunked, despite its
sound scientific basis. Energy-intensive manufacturing work was off-shored to cheap
labour+energy countries, and Just-in-Time delivery systems were honed.
In 2004 the price of Crude Oil rose from $28 /barrel up to $143 /b in mid-2008. This
demonstrated that there is a limit to how much business can pay for oil (around $100 /b).
Fracking became marginally economic at these prices, but the frackers never made a profit as
over-production meant prices fell to about $60 /b. The Government encourages this destructive
industry despite the fact it doesn't make any money, because the alternative is the end of
Industrial Civilisation.
Eventually though, there must come a time when there is not enough oil to power all the
cars and trucks, bulldozers, farm tractors, airplanes and ships, as well as manufacture all
the wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as the upgraded
transmission grid. At that point, the game will be up, and it will be time for WW3. So we
need to line up some really big enemies, and develop lots of reasons to hate them.
Thus you see the demonisation of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela for reasons that don't
make sense from a normal perspective.
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."
Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point
the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing
capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become
bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture,
herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation.
In anticipation of increasing Crude Oil imports, Nixon stopped the convertibility of
Dollars into Gold, thus making the Dollar entirely fiat, allowing them to print as much of
the currency as they needed.
They also began a system of obscuring oil production data, involving the DoE's EIA and the
OECD's IEA, by inventing an ever-increasing category of Undiscovered Oilfields in their
predictions, and combining Crude Oil and Condensate (from gas fields) into one category (C+C)
as if they were the same thing. As well the support of the ethanol-from-corn industry began,
even though it was uneconomic. The Global Warming problem had to be debunked, despite its
sound scientific basis. Energy-intensive manufacturing work was off-shored to cheap
labour+energy countries, and Just-in-Time delivery systems were honed.
In 2004 the price of Crude Oil rose from $28 /barrel up to $143 /b in mid-2008. This
demonstrated that there is a limit to how much business can pay for oil (around $100 /b).
Fracking became marginally economic at these prices, but the frackers never made a profit as
over-production meant prices fell to about $60 /b. The Government encourages this destructive
industry despite the fact it doesn't make any money, because the alternative is the end of
Industrial Civilisation.
Eventually though, there must come a time when there is not enough oil to power all the
cars and trucks, bulldozers, farm tractors, airplanes and ships, as well as manufacture all
the wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as the upgraded
transmission grid. At that point, the game will be up, and it will be time for WW3. So we
need to line up some really big enemies, and develop lots of reasons to hate them.
Thus you see the demonisation of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela for reasons that don't
make sense from a normal perspective.
Is the bond bull market of the past 30-years over? Are we seeing just the start of a trend
higher in interest rates or are they about to blast off? This isn't the million dollar
question, its the "Trillion Dollar" question as U.S. Government debt continues to
skyrocket.
Below takes a long-term look at the yield on the 10-year note (TNX ) as well as a look at how
large of an increase in rates have taken place over the past 84-weeks CLICK ON CHART TO
ENLARGE
The yield on the 10-year note is up 110% over the past 84-weeks, which is the largest yield
rally in this short of a time period in a couple of decades. This sharp rally now has yields
testing the top of a 25-year falling channel as well as at the top of its 5-year trading range
at (2). Is the just the beginning in a rate rise of a short-term ending?
Below takes a peek at what hedgers are doing in the 10-year Treasury Note from Sentimentrader.com
... ... ...
With the U.S. Government debt now exceeding $20 Trillion, what the 10-year note does at the
top of its 25-year rising channel, is very important friends!!!
This past week, Wednesday's data on consumer prices showed that inflation pressures appear
to be building in the U.S. economy. The consumer price index rose 2.1% over last year in
January, more than expected by economists. Excluding the cost of food and energy -- which the
Federal Reserve focuses more closely on -- prices were up 1.8% in January, also more than
expected. This data initially sent stock prices lower and bond yields higher.
Recall that last week's stock market sell-off was initially seen by markets as having grown
out of investor concerns about rising inflation, and thus more quickly rising interest rates.
Producer prices and import prices were also shown to accelerate in January in reports out on
Thursday and Friday, respectively.
But alongside Wednesday's inflation data, retail sales for January were released. And they
were ugly. Sales fell 0.3% in the first month of 2018 and December's increase of 0.4% was
revised down to show there was no growth compared to the prior month.
"The weaker tone of the January retail sales report, which showed a stagnation in underlying
sales and downward revisions to previous months, suggests that real consumption growth is set
to slow in the first quarter," said Andrew Hunter, an economist at Capital Economics.
"Accordingly, we wouldn't be surprised to see retail spending pick up again over the next
couple of months. And even if first quarter consumption growth is weaker than we had initially
anticipated, this is unlikely to mark the start of a sustained downturn."
"Stock market gyrations were dominated by rising incomes, employment growth, and by net
favorable perceptions of the tax reforms," said Richard Curtin, chief economist for the
survey.
"When asked to identify any recent economic news they had heard, negative references to
stock prices were spontaneously cited by just 6% of all consumers. In contrast, favorable
references to government policies were cited by 35% in February, unchanged from January, and
the highest level recorded in more than a half century."
Tax cuts, then, are really the most important factor seeming to drive consumers. And, in
turn, the economy.
The Financial
Times' Matt Klein has illustrated how U.S. recessions come about. And essentially, it all
comes down to whether consumers are still willing to spend money on stuff -- homes, cars,
furniture, appliances. These are big ticket purchases that require both time to plan for and a
confidence that the household's economic picture won't deteriorate in the years ahead.
This past week's data, then, appears to be something of a mixed bag for the U.S. economic
picture. On the one hand, spending from households to start 2018 appears soft and were this to
begin a trend it would certainly muddy the economic outlook. On the other hand, consumer
confidence appears undeterred by market gyrations and focused on the gains from tax cuts.
Both pieces of data can support positive or negative outlooks for the economy. One of them
will be right.
"... In addition, financial capital leads to inequality, and that inequality, as you've seen in the United States and in Europe and many other places, it increases. And suddenly, not suddenly, but bit by bit, people begin to realize that they aren't getting their share and that means that the government, to protect capitalism, must use force to maintain the order of financial capital. And I think Trump is the fulfillment of that, and I think there are other examples too which I can go into. So, basically, my argument is that with the rise of finance and its unproductive activities, you've got the decline in living standards of the vast majority, and in order to maintain order in such a system where people no longer think that they're sort of getting their share, and so justice doesn't become, a just distribution doesn't become the reason why people support this system, increasingly it has to be done through force. ..."
"... I think that as The Real News has pointed out, that many of Trump's policies appear just to be more extreme versions of things that George Bush did, and in some cases not that much different from what Barack Obama did. ..."
"... The difference with Trump is, he has complete contempt for all of those constraints. That is, he is an authoritarian. I don't think he's a fascist, not yet, but he is an authoritarian. He does not accept that there are constraints which he should respect. There are constraints which bother him, and he wants to get rid of them, and he actually takes steps to do so. ..."
"... Erdoğan so infamously said? "Democracy is like a train. You take it to where you want to go and then you get off." No. Progressive view is that democracy is what it's all about. Democracy is the way that we build the present and we build a future. ..."
"... I think that the struggle in the United States is extremely difficult because of the role of the big money and the media, which you know more about than I do. But it is a struggle which we have to keep at, and we have to be optimistic about it. It's a good bit easier over here, but as we saw, and you reported, during the last presidential election, a progressive came very close to being President of the United States. That, I don't think was a one-off event, not to be repeated. I think it lays the basis for hope in the future. ..."
"... The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions of their wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools. ..."
"... Any hierarchic system will be exploited by intelligent sociopaths. Systems will not save us. ..."
"... What I gleaned from my quick Wikiread was the apparent pattern of economic inequality causing the masses to huddle in fear & loathing to one corner – desperation, and then some clever autocrat subverts the energy from their F&L into political power by demonizing various minorities and other non-causal perps. ..."
"... Like nearly every past fascism emergence in history, US Trumpismo is capitalizing on inequality, and fear & loathing (his capital if you will) to seize power. That brings us to Today – to Trump, and an era (brief I hope) of US flirtation with fascism. Thank God Trump is crippled by a narcissism that fuels F&L within his own regime. Otherwise, I might be joining a survivalist group or something. :-) ..."
Yves here. This Real News Network interview with professor emeritus John Weeks discussed how economic ideology has weakened or
eliminated public accountability of institutions like the Fed and promote neo[neo]liberal policies that undermine democracy.
SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. The concept of the [neo]liberal democracy
is generally based on capitalistic markets along with respect for individual freedoms and human rights and equality in the face of
the law. The rise of financial capital and its efforts to deregulate financial markets, however, raises the question whether [neo]liberal
democracy is a sustainable form of government. Sooner or later, democratic institutions make way for the interests of large capital
to supersede.
Political economist John Weeks recently gave this year's David Gordon Memorial Lecture at the meeting of the American Economic
Association in Philadelphia where he addressed these issues with a talk titled, Free Markets and the Decline of Democracy. Joining
us now is John Weeks. He joins us from London to discuss the issues raised in his lecture. You can find a link to this lecture just
below the player, and John is, as you know, Professor Emeritus of the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies
and author of Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy. John, good to
have you back on The Real News.
JOHN WEEKS: Thank you very much for having me.
SHARMINI PERIES: John, let me start with your talk. Your talk describes a struggle between efforts to create a democratic
control over the economy and the interest of capital, which seeks to subjugate government to the interest, its own interest. In your
assessment, it looks like this is a losing battle for democracy. Explain this further.
JOHN WEEKS: Yeah, so I think that Marx in Capital, in the first volume of Capital, refers to a concept called bourgeois
right, by which he meant that, you said it in the introduction, that in a capitalist society there is a form of equality that mimics
the relationship of exchange. Every commodity looks equal in exchange and there is a system of ownership that you might say is the
shadow of that. I think more important, in the early stages of development of capitalism, of development of factories, that those
institutions or those factories prompted the growth of trade unions and workers' struggles in general. Those workers' struggles were
key to the development, or further development of democracy, freedom of speech, a whole range of rights, the right to vote.
However, with the development of finance capital, you've got quite a different dynamic within the capitalist system. Let me say,
I don't want to romanticize the early period of capitalism, but you did have struggles, mass struggles for rights. Finance capital
produces nothing productive, it doesn't do anything productive. So, what finance capital does basically is it redistributes the income,
the wealth, the, what Marx would call the surplus value, from other sectors of society to itself. And it employs relatively few people,
so that dynamic of the capital, industrial capital, generating its antithesis So, that a labor movement doesn't occur under financial
capital.
In addition, financial capital leads to inequality, and that inequality, as you've seen in the United States and in Europe
and many other places, it increases. And suddenly, not suddenly, but bit by bit, people begin to realize that they aren't getting
their share and that means that the government, to protect capitalism, must use force to maintain the order of financial capital.
And I think Trump is the fulfillment of that, and I think there are other examples too which I can go into. So, basically, my argument
is that with the rise of finance and its unproductive activities, you've got the decline in living standards of the vast majority,
and in order to maintain order in such a system where people no longer think that they're sort of getting their share, and so justice
doesn't become, a just distribution doesn't become the reason why people support this system, increasingly it has to be done through
force.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, John. Before we get further into the relationship between neo[neo]liberalism and democracy, give
us a brief summary of what you mean by neo[neo]liberalism. You say that it's not really about deregulation, as most people usually conceive
of it. If that's not what it's about, what is it, then?
JOHN WEEKS: I think that if you think about the movements in the United States, and as much as I can, I will take examples
from the United States because most of your listeners will be familiar with those, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century,
in the United States you have reform movements, the breaking up of the large monopolies, tobacco monopoly, a whole range of Standard
Oil, all of that. And then of course under Roosevelt you began to get the regulation of capital in the interests of the majority,
much of that driven by Roosevelt's trade union support. So, that was moving from a system where capital was relatively unregulated
to where it was being regulated in the interests of the vast majority. I also would say, though, I won't go into detail, to a certain
extent it was regulated in the interest of capital itself to moderate competition and therefore, I'd say, ensure a relatively tranquil
market environment.
Neo[neo]liberalism involves not the deregulation of the capitalist system, but the reregulation of it in the interest of capital. So,
it involves moving from a system in which capital is regulated in the interests of stability and the many to regulation in a way
that enhances capital. These regulations, to get specific about them, restrictions on trade unions, as you, on Real News, a number
of people have talked about this. The United States now have many restrictions on the organizing of trade unions which were not present
50 or 60 years ago, making it harder to have a mass movement of labor against capital, restrictions on the right to demonstrate,
a whole range of things. Then within capital itself, the regulations on the movement of capital that facilitate speculation in international
markets. We have a capitalism in which the form of regulation is shifted from the regulation of capital in the interest of labor
to regulation of capital in the interest of capital.
SHARMINI PERIES: John, give us a brief summary of the ways in which neo[neo]liberalism undermines democracy.
JOHN WEEKS: Well, I think that there are many examples, but I'm going to focus on economic policy. For an obvious case
is the role of the Central Bank, in the case of the United States' Federal Reserve System, in which reducing its accountability to
the public, one way you can do that is by assigning goals to it, such as fighting inflation, which then override other goals. Originally,
the Federal Reserve System, its charter, or I'll say its terms of reference, if you want me to use that phrase, included full employment
and a stable economy. Those have been overridden in more recent legislation, which puts a great emphasis on the control of inflation.
Control of inflation basically means maintaining an economy at a relatively high level of unemployment or part-time employment, or
flexible employment, where people have relatively few rights at work. And that the Central Bank becomes a vehicle for enforcing a
neo[neo]liberal economic policy.
Second of all, probably most of your viewers will not remember the days when we had fixed exchange rates. We had a world of fixed
exchange rates in those days that represented the policy, which government could use to affect its trade and also affect its domestic
policy. There have been deregulation of that. We now have floating exchange rates. That takes away a tool, an instrument of economic
policy. And in fiscal policy, there the, here it's more ideology than laws, though there are also laws. There's a law requiring that
the government balance its budget, but more important than that, the introduction into the public consciousness, I'd say grinding
into the public consciousness, the idea that deficits are a bad thing, government debt is a bad thing, and that's a completely neo[neo]liberal
ideology.
In summary, one way that the democracy has been undermined is to take away economic policy from the public realm and move it to
the realm of experts. So, we have certain allegedly expert guidelines that we have to follow. Inflation should be low. We should
not run deficits. The national debt should be small. These are things that are just made up ideologically. There is no technical
basis to them. And so, in doing that, you might say, the term I like to use is, you decommission the democratic process and economic
policy.
SHARMINI PERIES: John, speaking of ideology, in your talk you refer to the challenge that fascism posed or poses to neo[neo]liberal
democracies. Now, it is interesting when you take Europe into consideration and National Socialist in Germany, for example, appeal
mostly to the working class, as does contemporary far-right leaders in Poland and Hungary, that they support more explicit neo[neo]liberal
agendas. Why would people support a neo[neo]liberal agenda that exasperate inequalities and harm public services that they depend on,
including jobs?
JOHN WEEKS: I think that to a great extent it is country-specific, but I can make generalizations. First of all, I'm talking
about Europe, because you raised a case in some European countries, and then I'll make some comments about the United States and
Trump, if you want me to. I think in Europe, a combination of three things resulted in the rise of fascism and authoritarian movements
which are verging on fascism. One is that the European integration project, which let me say that I have supported, and I would still
prefer Britain not to leave the European Union, but nevertheless, the European Union integration project has been a project run by
elites.
It has not been a bottom-up process. It has been a process very much run by elite politicians, in which they get together in closed
door, and they make policies which they subsequently announce, and many of the decisions they come to being extremely, the meaning
of them being extremely opaque. So, therefore, you have the development in Europe of the European Union which, not from the bottom
up, but very much from the top down. You might suggest from the top, but I'm not sure how much goes down. That's one.
The second key factor, I would say, for about 20 years in European integration, it was relatively benign elitism because it was social
democratic, it had the support of the working class, or the trade unions, at any rate. Then, increasingly, it began to become neo[neo]liberal.
So, you have an elite project which was turning into a neo[neo]liberal project. Specifically, what I mean by neo[neo]liberal is where they're
generating flexibility rules for the labor market, austerity policies, bank, balanced budgets, low inflation, the things I was talking
about before.
Then the third element, toxic, the most toxic of them, but the other, they're volatile, is the legacy of fascism in Europe. Every
European country, with the exception of Britain, had a substantial fascist movement in the 1920s and 1930s. I can go into why Britain
didn't sometime. It had to do with the particular class struggle of the, I mean, class structure of Britain. Poland, ironically enough,
though, is one of them. It was overrun by the Nazis, and occupied, and incorporated into the German Reich. Ironically, it had a very
right-wing government with a lot of sympathies towards fascism when it was invaded in the late summer of 1939.
France had a strong fascist movement. Of course, Italy had a fascist government, and Hungary, where now you have a right-wing
government, a very strong fascist movement. The incorporation of these countries into the Soviet sphere of influence, or the empire,
as it were, did not destroy that fascism. It certainly suppressed it, but it didn't destroy it. So, as soon as the European project
began to transform into a neo[neo]liberal project, and that gathered strength in the early 1990s, I mean, the neo[neo]liberal aspect of the
European Union gathered strength in the early 1990s, exactly when you were getting the "liberation" of many countries from Soviet
rule. And so, when you put those together, it led to, It was a rise of fascism waiting to happen and now it is happening.
SHARMINI PERIES: John, earlier, you said you'll factor in Trump. How does Trump fit into this phenomena?
JOHN WEEKS: I think that as The Real News has pointed out, that many of Trump's policies appear just to be more extreme
versions of things that George Bush did, and in some cases not that much different from what Barack Obama did. Now, though I
wouldn't go too deeply into that, I think that that is the most serious offenses by Obama that have been carried on by Trump have
to do with the use of drones and the military. But at any rate, but there's a big difference from Trump. For the most part, the previous
Republican presidents, and Democratic presidents, accepted the framework of, the formal framework of [neo]liberal democracy in the United
States. That is, formally accepted the constraints imposed by the Constitution.
Now, of course, they probably didn't do it out of the goodness of their heart. They did it because they saw that the things that
they wanted to achieve, the neo[neo]liberal goals that they wanted to achieve were perfectly consistent with the Constitution's framework
and guarantees of rights and so on, that most of those rights are guaranteed in a way that's so weak that you didn't have to repeal
the first 10 Amendments of the Constitution in order to have repressive policies.
The difference with Trump is, he has complete contempt for all of those constraints. That is, he is an authoritarian. I don't
think he's a fascist, not yet, but he is an authoritarian. He does not accept that there are constraints which he should respect.
There are constraints which bother him, and he wants to get rid of them, and he actually takes steps to do so. What you have
in Trump, I think, is a sea change. You have a, we've had right-wing presidents before, certainly. What the difference with Trump
is, he is a right-wing president that sees no reason to respect the institutions of democratic government, or even, you might say,
the institution of representative government. I won't even use a term as strong as "democratic." That lays the basis for an explicitly
authoritarian United States, and I'd say that we're beginning to see the vehicle by which this will occur, the restriction on voting
rights. Of course, that was going on before Trump, it does in a more aggressive way. I think the, soon, we will have a Supreme Court
that will be quite lenient with his tendency towards authoritarian rule.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, John. Let's end this segment with what can be done. I mean, what must be done to prevent neo[neo]liberal
interests from undermining democracy? And who do you believe is leading the struggle for democracy now, and what is the right strategy
that people should be fighting for?
JOHN WEEKS: Well, one thing, I think, where I'd begin is that I think progressives, as The Real News represents, and Bernie
Sanders, and all the people that support him, and Jeremy Corbyn over here, I'll come back to talk about a bit about Jeremy. We must
be explicit that we view democracy, by which we mean the participation of people at the grassroots, their participation in the government,
we view that as a goal. It's not merely a technique, or a tool which, what was it that Erdoğan so infamously said? "Democracy
is like a train. You take it to where you want to go and then you get off." No. Progressive view is that democracy is what it's all
about. Democracy is the way that we build the present and we build a future.
I'm quite fortunate in that I live in perhaps the only large country in the world where there's imminent possibility of a progressive,
left-wing, anti-authoritarian government. I think that is the monumental importance of Jeremy Corbyn and his second-in-command, John
McDonnell, and others like Emily Thornberry, who is the Foreign Secretary. These people are committed to democracy. In the United
States, Bernie Sanders is committed to a democracy, and a lot of other people are too, Elizabeth Warren. So, I think that the
struggle in the United States is extremely difficult because of the role of the big money and the media, which you know more about
than I do. But it is a struggle which we have to keep at, and we have to be optimistic about it. It's a good bit easier over here,
but as we saw, and you reported, during the last presidential election, a progressive came very close to being President of the United
States. That, I don't think was a one-off event, not to be repeated. I think it lays the basis for hope in the future.
"A lot of money" in those days- Some say JI "bought land" with the shekels. An early form of asset swap? A precursor to current
financialist activities?
Good article. If it were any bleaker, I'd suspect Chris Hedges having a hand in writing it.
The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions
of their wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools.
There it is, the Gorgon Thiel, surrounded by terror and rout.
"Altman felt that OpenAI's mission was to babysit its wunderkind until it was ready to be adopted by the world. He'd been reading
James Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention for guidance in managing the transition. 'We're planning a way to allow
wide swaths of the world to elect representatives to a new governance board,' he said."
I was having trouble choosing which of the passages in this article to provide a mad quote from. Some other choices were
Altman's going to work with the Department of Defense, then help defend the world from them.
Or:
OpenAI's going to take over from humans, but don't worry because they're going to make it (somehow) so OpenAI can only terminate
bad people. Before releasing it to the world.
Or:
Altman says 'add a 0 to whatever you're doing but never more than that.'
But if this sort of wisdom (somehow) doesn't work out well for everybody and the world collapses, he's flying with Peter Thiel
in the private jet to the New Zealand's south island to wait out the Zombie Apocalypse on a converted sheep farm. (Before returning
to the Valley work with more startups?)
I think it's revealing that the only type of democracy discussed, in spite of the title, is "[neo]liberal democracy", which the
host describes as "based on capitalistic markets along with respect for individual freedoms and human rights and equality in the
face of the law."
I've always argued that [neo]liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms, and you can see why from that quotation. [neo]liberalism (leaving
aside special uses of the term in the US) is about individuals exercising their personal economic freedom and personal
autonomy as much as they can, with as little control by government as possible.
But given massive imbalances in economic power, the influence
of media-backed single issue campaigns and the growth of professional political parties, policy is decided by the interventions
of powerful and well-organised groups, without ordinary people being consulted. At the end, Weeks does start to talk of grassroots
participation, but seems to have no more in mind than a campaign to get people to vote for Sanders in 2020, which hardly addresses
the problem. The answer, if there is one, is a system of direct democracy, involving referendums and popular assemblies chosen
at random.
This has been much talked about, but since you would have the entire political class against you, it's not going to
happen. In the meantime, we are stuck with [neo]liberal democracy, whose contradictions, I'm afraid are becoming ever more obvious.
"Contradictions?" One question for me at least would be whether the features and motions of the current regime are best characterized
as "contradictions." If so, to what? And implicit in the use of the word is some kind of resolution, via actual class conflict
or something, leading to "better" or at least "different." All I see from my front porch is more of the same, and worse. "The
Matrix" in that myth gave some comforting illusions to the mopery. I think the political economy/collapsed planet portrayed in
"Soylent Green" is a lot closer to the likely endpoints.
At least in the movie fable, the C-Suite-er of the Soylent Corp. as the lede in the film, was sickened of what he was helping
to maintain, and bethought himself to blow his tiny little personal whistle that nobody would really hear, and got axed for his
disloyalty to the ruling collective. I doubt the ranks of corporatists of MonsantoDuPont and LockheedMartin and the rest include
any significant numbers of folks sickened by "the contradictions" that get them their perks and bennies and power (as long as
they color inside the lines.)
I hope I am way off the mark, but within that genre & in terms of where we could be heading, the film " Snowpiercer " sums
it up best for me- a dystopian world society illustrated through the passengers on one long train.
Thanks for the Real News Network for covering issues that never see the light of day on the corporate media and never mentioned
by the Rachel Maddow's of the "news" shows.
I actually like the term and find it useful, insofar as it describes an ideology -- as oposed a real political-economic arrangement.
The presence of "free markets" may not be a characteristic of the neo[neo]liberal phase, but the belief in them sure is.
(Which is not to say there aren't people who don't believe in free markets but do invoke them rhetorically for
other ends. That's a feature of many if not most successful ideologies.)
' Originally, the Federal Reserve charter included full employment and a stable economy. Those have been overridden in more
recent legislation, which puts a great emphasis on the control of inflation.
Eh, this is fractured history. The Fed was set up in 1913 as a lender of last resort -- a discounter of government and private
bills.
In late 1978 Jimmy Carter signed the Humphrey Hawkins Act instructing the Fed to pursue three goals: stable prices, maximum
employment, and moderate long-term interest rates, though the latter is rarely mentioned now and the Fed is widely viewed as having
a dual mandate.
The Fed's two percent inflation target it simply adopted at its own initiative -- it's not enshrined in no Perpetual Inflation
Act.
' We had a world of fixed exchange rates which government could use to affect its trade and also affect its domestic policy.
We now have floating exchange rates. That takes away a tool. '
LOL! This is totally inverted and flat wrong. The Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system prevented radical monetary experiments
such as QE which would have broken the peg. Nixon unilaterally suspended fixed exchange rates in 1971 because he was unwilling
to take the political hit of formally devaluing the dollar (or even more unlikely, sweating out Vietnam War inflation with falling
prices to maintain the peg).
Floating rates are a new and potentially lethal monetary tool which have produced a number of sad examples of "governments
gone wild" with radical monetary experiments and currency swings. Bad boys Japan & Switzerland come readily to mind.
To render history accurately requires getting hands dirty with dusty old books. Icky, I know. :-(
Yes but globalisation meant that all central banks and finance ministers had to act concertedly as in G-20 and similar meetings.
While we may talk of floating exchange rates, each country fixes its interest rate to maintain parity with the others. Isn't that
so?
I think that the key piece of info is that the Federal Reserve was created on December 23rd, 1913. That sounds like that it
was slipped in the legislative back door when everybody was going away for the Christmas holidays.
===== quote =====
Second of all, probably most of your viewers will not remember the days when we had fixed exchange rates. We had a world of fixed
exchange rates in those days that represented the policy, which government could use to affect its trade and also affect its domestic
policy. There have been deregulation of that. We now have floating exchange rates. That takes away a tool, an instrument of economic
policy. And in fiscal policy, there the, here it's more ideology than laws, though there are also laws. There's a law requiring
that the government balance its budget, but more important than that, the introduction into the public consciousness, I'd say
grinding into the public consciousness, the idea that deficits are a bad thing, government debt is a bad thing, and that's a completely
neo[neo]liberal ideology.
===== /quote =====
This makes absolutely no sense and seems to have the case exactly backward. Our federal government has no rule that the budget
must be balanced. Fixed exchange rates were not a tool that could be used to affect trade and domestic policy in a good way.
I enjoyed John Weeks' point of view. He's the first person I've read who refers to the usefulness of a fixed exchange rate.
Useful for a sovereign government with a social spending agenda. We have always been a sovereign government with a military agenda
which is at odds with a social agenda.
Guns and butter are a dangerous combination if you are dedicated to at least maintaining
the illusion of a "strong dollar." That's basically what Nixon finessed. John Conally told him not to worry, we could go off the
gold standard and it wasn't our problem since we were the reserve currency – it was everybody else's problem and we promptly exported
our inflation all around the world. And now it has come home to roost because it was fudging and it couldn't last forever.
Much
better to concede to some fix for the currency and maintain the sovereign power to devalue the dollar as necessary to maintain
proper social spending. I don't understand why sovereign governments cannot see that a deficit is just the mirror image of a healthy
social economy (Stephanie Kelton).
And to that end "fix" an exchange rate that maintains a reasonable purchasing power of the
currency by pegging it to the long term health of the economy. What we do now is peg the dollar to a "basket of goods and services"-
Ben Bernanke. That "basket" is effectively "the market" and has very little to do with good social policy.
There's no reason we
can't dispense with the market and simply fiat the value of our currency based on the social return estimated for our social investments.
Etc. Keeping the dollar stubbornly strong is just tyranny favoring those few who benefit from extreme inequality.
" Democracy is not under stress – it's under aggressive attack, as unconstrained financial greed overrides public accountability
."
I request a lessatorium* on the term 'democracy', because there aren't any democracies. Rather than redefine the term, why
not use a more accurate one, like 'plutocracy', or 'corporatocracy'.
-- -- -- -
* It's like a moratorium, you just do less of it.
I had not given much thought to "Fascist" until the term was challenged as a synonym for "bully." So, I started reading Wikipedia's
take on Fascismo. What I discovered was the foremost, my USA education did not teach jack s -- about Fascism – and I went to elite
high school in libr'l Chicago.
Is Fascism right or left? Does it matter? What goes around comes around.
What I gleaned from my quick Wikiread was the apparent pattern of economic inequality causing the masses to huddle in fear
& loathing to one corner – desperation, and then some clever autocrat subverts the energy from their F&L into political power
by demonizing various minorities and other non-causal perps.
Like nearly every past fascism emergence in history, US Trumpismo is capitalizing on inequality, and fear & loathing (his capital
if you will) to seize power. That brings us to Today – to Trump, and an era (brief I hope) of US flirtation with fascism. Thank
God Trump is crippled by a narcissism that fuels F&L within his own regime. Otherwise, I might be joining a survivalist group
or something. :-)
Neoliberalism involves not the deregulation of the capitalist system, but the reregulation of it in the interest of capital.
So, it involves moving from a system in which capital is regulated in the interests of stability and the many to regulation in
a way that enhances capital.
Prominent politicians in the US and UK have spent their entire political careers representing neoliberalism's agenda at the
expense of representing the voters' issues. The voters are tired of the conservative and [neo]liberal political establishments' focus
on neoliberal policy. This is also true in Germany as well France and Italy. The West's current political establishments see the
way forward as "staying the neoliberal course." Voters are saying "change course." See:
'German Politics Enters an Era of Instability' – Der Speigel
The U.S. Commerce Department has recommended that President Donald Trump impose steep
curbs on steel and aluminum imports from China and other countries ranging from global and
country-specific tariffs to broad import quotas, according to proposals released on
Friday.
The long-awaited unveiling of Commerce's "Section 232" national security reviews of the
two industries contained global tariff options of at least 24 percent on all steel products
from all countries, and at least 7.7 percent on all aluminum products from all countries.
The Section 232 provisions are described in this Econofact article , which asks a key question:
The question is whether the threats posed to national security are genuine, or merely a
means of protecting domestic industries under the guise of national security.
Even granting a legitimate national security rationale, two further questions arise:
Will national security be enhanced or diminished by these measures? Higher input costs
might reduce the competitiveness of upstream industries.
Will the implementation of fairly rarely invoked Section 232 measures spark retaliation
and/or a trade war?
The Commerce Department announcement and two memoranda are
here . I find the reports unconvincing. For instance, in the
steel memo , it's noted:
The Department found that demand for steel in critical industries has increased since the
Department's last investigation in 2001. The 2001 Report determined that there was 33.68
million tons of finished steel consumed in critical industries per year in the United States
based on 1997 data.7 The Department updated that analysis for this report using 2007 data
(the latest available) and determined that domestic consumption in critical industries has
increased significantly, with 54 million metric tons of steel now being consumed annually in
critical industries.
The 2017 annualized U.S. capacity is estimated at 113.3 million metric tons, production at
81.9 mmt. By this accounting -- accepting the Commerce Department's definition of critical
industries -- it's not clear a Section 232 action is justified.
Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the President could implement a
broad set of import restrictions with very
little procedural oversight.1
While there are national security exceptions embodied in the WTO agreement -- in
particular, GATT Article XXI -- countries have rarely invoked them, mostly out of systemic
concerns. Suppose a trading partner with exporters adversely affected by such restrictions
were to file a formal WTO challenge. Losing such a dispute would be bad systemically; it
provides an aggrieved trading partner license to invoke the exception itself whenever it had
a protectionist inclination. America's invocation of the national security exception on steel
invites China to invoke it on soybeans or the European Union to invoke it on digital or
Internet services. But winning such a dispute could be worse; such a ruling against the
United States could provide the Trump administration with just the political justification it
seeks to abandon the agreement altogether.
"... I'm also having a hard time not feeling somewhat sorry for Howe, who is the star witness. He was arrested, again, during the trial. He's been accused of any number of pejoratives, by everyone involved. He also seems to be the only one who has really lost anything -- lots of money and a career. ..."
"... They stole over 100 million dollars. Howe lied about one night at a hotel. Howe gets a jumpsuit. Cuomo is still in his office. The COR execs are still being represented by very high priced lawyers, paid for with millions that were stolen. The press gets lots of clickbait about 'ziti' and the 'fat man', that never, ever really gets anywhere near the people who should most be in jail. They have lawyers, you understand. ..."
"... I grew up in NYS and I still know one of the reporters following the trial. Even for me, the scale of the sleaziness is mindboggling. And the evidence seems quite compelling to me. I mean, the wife had a no-show job, nobody even disputes that! Will be interesting to see if guilty verdicts, if there are any, taint Cuomo. Or change anything. ..."
One story I think is very relevant that it not getting nearly enough press is the Cuomo
aide corruption trial.
It is hard to follow. The corruption is so deep and systemic that it's producing its own
gravity and realities.
I'm also having a hard time not feeling somewhat sorry for Howe, who is the star witness.
He was arrested, again, during the trial. He's been accused of any number of pejoratives, by
everyone involved. He also seems to be the only one who has really lost anything -- lots of
money and a career.
The rest of the filth are just fine. They were all more than fine to start with, and most
of that fine is in no jeopardy of ever being taken away, stolen fine included.
They stole over 100 million dollars. Howe lied about one night at a hotel. Howe gets a
jumpsuit. Cuomo is still in his office. The COR execs are still being represented by very
high priced lawyers, paid for with millions that were stolen. The press gets lots of
clickbait about 'ziti' and the 'fat man', that never, ever really gets anywhere near the
people who should most be in jail. They have lawyers, you understand.
I grew up in NYS and I still know one of the reporters following the trial. Even for me,
the scale of the sleaziness is mindboggling. And the evidence seems quite compelling to me. I
mean, the wife had a no-show job, nobody even disputes that! Will be interesting to see if
guilty verdicts, if there are any, taint Cuomo. Or change anything.
Taking oil price to 30th or 40th is a strategic goal of the USA in relation to Russia. Listen at 3:30.
Notable quotes:
"... Appeasing interview with a shockingly cheap incompetent former CIA head Woolsey. If this man seriously represents the intellectual level of the CIA, then the USA will implode even faster than in ten years. ..."
"... You are exactly right. U$ politicians are uninformed, stupid, detached from reality, selfish and they think like schoolyard kids do. ..."
"... They are the product of the US society as a whole. ..."
"... Craig Murray nailed this issue stone dead for all time a few years ago, when he wrote:"[neo]liberal interventionism, the theory that bombing brown people is good for them". ..."
"... In the former The Ukraine, the Jewish Quisling oligarch dictator, Poroshenko, has been appointing foreigners to positions of power (SackOfShvilli is but one). He supported this by stating: "Ukrainians are too corrupt to rule themselves." When will we in America hear such a statement from our leaders to justify the appointment of Jews and paid Judaeophiles to all positions of power? ..."
"... I'm just waiting for Yevgeny Prigozhin to hold a press conference in Russia to claim that Hillary Clinton paid him to run the Internet Research Agency to besmirch her opponent- watch the fireworks :) It's all a hall of mirrors. ..."
"... The Internet Research Agency couldn't have possibly been more ineffective, which points to it's main purpose being to besmirch Trump (more more likely it was just an unimportant hobby of Prigozhin). ..."
"... Sure the United States has, they have been doing it since 1953 with the overthrow of Iran, to as recently as 2012 Russian Election, 2014 Ukraine Election, the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 on Brexit and currently trying to overthrow it this year. These are just a few and there is a very long list of other countries also. The United States in now in Russia and Hungry today meddling it their elections. Got to get the right people in office so they will cow-tow to the United States. ..."
"... What an admission! trump doesn't want more drilling for oil to Americans to use. It is for export and for foreign interference ..."
"... and if the price of oil would go down to 30/40$ that would make a unhappy input and so would be the saudis and you fracking industry would go down the toilet and thy will drag the banks with them. What a moron. And US oil companies would like that alot too ..."
Another tiresome, butthurt yank/wank? Between the new One Belt, One Road Chinese initiative, the Russians taking control of
ME oil production and the fact that america has NO answers to help it's declining empire, it would seem to the non-partisan observer
that america is well and truly f***ed. You must be talking about their debt expansionism, $20 TRILLION and rising by the second.
Thank you Mario......let's not forget Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia, the entirety of eastern Europe, the entirety of northern Africa,
Rwanda, the Congo, Venezuela, Chili, Guatemala, Panama, Jeeeeeeeze etc......
Russia condemned and defined as the enemy of America with laughably little evidence (effing Facebook posts being about the
extent of it) .... not a word about JEWISH MONEY controlling the entire political system in the USA. When Netanyahu gets 29 standing
ovations from Congress should that not have triggered an FBI "Investigation"? Nah ... nothing happening there. It is breathtaking
that THIS is the Alice-In-Wonderland world we inhabit.
Appeasing interview with a shockingly cheap incompetent former CIA head Woolsey. If this man seriously represents the intellectual
level of the CIA, then the USA will implode even faster than in ten years.
Craig Murray nailed this issue stone dead for all time a few years ago, when he wrote:"[neo]liberal interventionism, the theory that bombing brown people is good for them".
Yeah, that's hilarious. Join the murdering creep in a giggle, Laura, that's cute. Here's a global criminal who should have
been hung years ago for crimes against humanity. No one in their right mind would treat this creep with anything but contempt
and horror, let alone find him funny.
In the former The Ukraine, the Jewish Quisling oligarch dictator, Poroshenko, has been appointing foreigners to positions of
power (SackOfShvilli is but one). He supported this by stating: "Ukrainians are too corrupt to rule themselves." When will we
in America hear such a statement from our leaders to justify the appointment of Jews and paid Judaeophiles to all positions of
power?
My profound and sincere condolences. You are getting the 'Democracy Treatment' by the West. I hope some of you survive to tell
the tale and take revenge.
Are those ears or bat-wings? WOW! Yet another Jewe, pretending not be be. I guess he would say that the USA murdered all the
Indians and enslaved Africans 'for their own good' as well.
Talmudo-Satanism is the pernicious underlying ideology of the people who have taken over, not just the USA, but, lets face it,
the entire West.
Lets not forget that the U.$.A. meddled in Australia's election of the Whitlam Government. (And several governments there after
as soon as they realised they could get away with it an nothing would happen to them). The United States are a bunch of sick puppies;
really sick puppies the way they have treated Australia.
So much for being allies. With allies like the United States you don't need enemies (Unless the U.$. doctors them up for you
to force you to pay them more money for weapons and protection).
And it makes me sick that so many 'naive' people around the world keep falling for the SH*T that comes out of their mouths.
When dealing with the United States there are a few rules to follow. (Apologies to the innocent Americans out there but 'they'
allow their government to do some unspeakable horrors to the world.)
Rule One: If an American politician is speaking, then they are lying to you.
Rule Two: If an American Politician is quiet, they they want you to believe a lie.
Rule Three: If you have relations with the United States, you will be lied to.
And that goes for the entire planet no matter who the United States is speaking to.
Worst part is the our Gov can't think ahead, if they keep antagonising China on behalf of the Seppo's China will eventually
pull their mineral imports and our economy will crash overnight.
Yes, nobody doubts that the US interferes with elections in other countries - we're the good guys, so this is ok :)
I'm just waiting for Yevgeny Prigozhin to hold a press conference in Russia to claim that Hillary Clinton paid him to run the
Internet Research Agency to besmirch her opponent- watch the fireworks :) It's all a hall of mirrors.
The Internet Research Agency couldn't have possibly been more ineffective, which points to it's main purpose being to besmirch
Trump (more more likely it was just an unimportant hobby of Prigozhin).
Sure the United States has, they have been doing it since 1953 with the overthrow of Iran, to as recently as 2012 Russian Election,
2014 Ukraine Election, the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 on Brexit and currently trying to overthrow it this year. These are just
a few and there is a very long list of other countries also. The United States in now in Russia and Hungry today meddling it their
elections. Got to get the right people in office so they will cow-tow to the United States.
Frederick the Great concluded that to allow governments to be dominated by the majority would be
disastrous: "A democracy, to survive, must be, like other governments a minority persuading a majority to let itself be led by
a minority."
and if the price of oil would go down to 30/40$ that would make a unhappy input and so would be the saudis and you fracking
industry would go down the toilet and thy will drag the banks with them. What a moron. And US oil companies would like that alot too
...and the US bombed half of the world's countries for their own good too. US made Libya a slave market for humanity's good
as well. Oboomer even got the Nobel Peace Prize for it.
some day Edwards will be right but people who followed his advice in 2016 probably are not that happy.
Notable quotes:
"... The Neo-Liberal ideal is unregulated, trickledown Capitalism. We had unregulated, trickledown Capitalism in the UK in the 19th Century. We know what it looks like. ..."
"... Immense wealth at the top with nothing trickling down, just like today. The beginnings of regulation to deal with the wealthy UK businessman seeking to maximise profit, the abolition of slavery and child labour. To see the wealthy as generous benefactors would be to ignore the lessons of history. It was collective labour movements that got the majority a larger slice of the pie, again well documented historically ..."
"... Neo-Liberalism has smashed the power of collective Labour movements and everyone wonders why wages don't rise. ..."
"... The Neo-Liberal ideology has swept the world and now its inherent flaws are coming home to roost. It was carefully vetted by the rich and powerful to ensure it looked after their interests, which unfortunately is the reason it is just so wrong. ..."
"Can it get any worse? Of course it can," said Edwards, the most prominent of the stock market bears – the terms for analysts
who think shares are overvalued and will fall in price. "Emerging market currencies are still in freefall. The US corporate
sector is being crushed by the appreciation of the dollar."
The Soc Gen strategist said the US economy was in far worse shape than the country's central bank, the US Federal Reserve,
realised. "We have seen massive credit expansion in the US. This is not for real economic activity; it is borrowing to finance
share buybacks."
Edwards attacked what he said was the "incredible conceit" of central bankers, who had failed to learn the lessons of the
housing bubble that led to the financial crisis and slump of 2008-09.
"They didn't understand the system then and they don't understand how they are screwing up again. Deflation is upon us and the
central banks can't see it."
Edwards said the dollar had risen by as much as the Japanese yen had in the 1990s, an upwards move that pushed Japan into
deflation and caused solvency problems for the Asian country's banks. He added that a sign of the crisis to come was the
collapse in demand for credit in China.
The Federal Reserve did print $ 4 trillion since 2008. Classic economists expect inflation,
since the money supply outstrips significantly the goods & services provided. However,
there is no inflation whatsoever, on the contrary – signs of deflation.
How come?? Where did the money go??
There could have been inflation if, and only if, the money went to ordinary people, who
would then start paying more for goods & services provided.
However, since the money did not go to ordinary people, and they have less money to spend,
we see no inflation and even deflation.
Then, where is the money?
Banks got the money and put it all in the stock market.
Now we have an extra $ 4 trillion invested in stock market , while ordinary people
have the same purchasing power as it was before 2008. In other words, against the same goods
& services that people can purchase there are an extra $ 4 trillion in the stock market.
However, businesses can not sustain inflated share price without massive increase in the
demand for their goods and services. As there is no increase in the demand due to less
purchasing power of ordinary people, the ONLY thing that can be corrected is the share price.
Businesses should be happy if it goes down by 50%, as it can easily go much further down.
So, the advice from RBS is correct.
SELL, SELL, SELL as quickly as possible in order to get something (anything) now, as later
it might come to getting nothing.
The Neo-Liberal ideal is unregulated, trickledown Capitalism. We had unregulated, trickledown Capitalism in the UK in the 19th Century. We know what it looks like.
1) Those at the top were very wealthy
2) Those lower down lived in grinding poverty, paid just enough to keep them alive to work
with as little time off as possible.
3) Slavery
4) Child Labour
Immense wealth at the top with nothing trickling down, just like today. The beginnings of regulation to deal with the wealthy UK businessman seeking to maximise
profit, the abolition of slavery and child labour. To see the wealthy as generous benefactors would be to ignore the lessons of history. It was collective labour movements that got the majority a larger slice of the pie, again
well documented historically.
Neo-Liberalism has smashed the power of collective Labour movements and everyone wonders
why wages don't rise.
The Neo-Liberal ideology has swept the world and now its inherent flaws are coming home to
roost.
It was carefully vetted by the rich and powerful to ensure it looked after their
interests, which unfortunately is the reason it is just so wrong.
Neo-Liberal economics believes in the polar opposite of reality in most cases and is just
wrong in many others.
1) It is based on supply side, trickledown economics. There was an approximation to this when bank credit was almost un-limited prior to 2008.
Now we are seeing the problems with lack of demand everywhere and businesses won't invest
until they see a rise in demand, they don't believe the supply side nonsense either.
Every system is designed to benefit those that put it in place. To think anyone is going to design a fair system would totally ignore human nature. Capitalism is the dominant system today because it is works on greed and self-interest
(human nature). Every social system since the dawn of civilization has been set up to support a Leisure
Class at the top who are maintained in luxury and leisure through the economically
productive, hard work of the middle and lower classes.
(The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, by Thorstein Veblen.
The Wikipedia entry gives a good insight. It was written a long time ago but much of it is as
true today as it was then. This is the source of the term conspicuous consumption.)
In the UK we call our Leisure Class the Aristocracy and they have been doing very little
for centuries.
The UK's aristocracy has seen social systems come and go, but they all provide a life of
luxury and leisure and with someone else doing all the work.
Feudalism - exploit the masses through land ownership
Capitalism - exploit the masses through wealth (Capital)
Today this is done through the parasitic, rentier trickle up of Capitalism:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
The system itself provides for the idle rich and always has done from the first
civilisations right up to the 21st Century.
For 5,000 years the rich have been taking from the poor, now there is some flow the other
way they don't like it, they don't like it at all.
Trickledown, are they insane?
2) No differentiation between "earned" and "unearned" wealth. The parasitic, unproductive, rentier, FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sectors are
destroying the real economy. Michael Hudson "Killing the Host"
3) Ignores the true nature of money. One of the fundamental flaws in the economists' models is the way they treat money, they
do not understand the very nature of this most basic of fundamentals. They see it as a medium enabling trade that exists in steady state without being created,
destroyed or hoarded by the wealthy. They see banks as intermediaries where the money of savers is leant out to borrowers.
When you know how money is created and destroyed on bank balance sheets, you can immediately
see the problems of banks lending into asset bubbles and how massive amounts of fictitious,
asset bubble wealth can disappear over-night.
When you take into account debt and compound interest, you quickly realise how debt can
over-whelm the system especially as debt accumulates with those that can least afford it.
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
Add to this the fact that new money can only be created from new debt and the picture gets
worse again.
With this ignorance at the heart of today's economics, bankers worked out how they could
create more and more debt whilst taking no responsibility for it. They invented
securitisation and complex financial instruments to package up their debt and sell it on to
other suckers (the heart of 2008).
Neo-Liberal dogma is so wrong it could never work.
It did function well for a while by allowing bankers to flood the world with almost
unlimited supplies of money through debt.
Debt just borrows from the future to spend today and the repayments are now due.
Serfs were the lowest social class of the feudal society. Serfs were different from
slaves. Serfs could have property. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the
land, and if the land was sold, they were sold with it.
Are they not Serfs to Government and Debt.......?
And Australia ... a former convict colony of England will become a convict colony of
Australia.
Before, ... POME ... anytime soon, ... Prisoner of Mother China.
no, your a hypocrite for pretending that you would love to live through a fall of
civilization -- in reality, you would be staining your trousers and begging for a return to
the past.
and point out where i said the system was equitable and fair -- reading comprehension not
your strong suit, eh? That is ok - the post apocalyptic world that you feign a desire for
will probably still need shoe shiners.
Agreed. We certainly could - but there is no point increasing wages or social payments if it
immediately translates into higher living costs in excess of income gains.
Reason calls for the elimination of windfall profit and economic rent - the core of
present-day capitalism and centuries of oppression. A tough nut to crack unless and until the
whole mad house of cards self-destructs.
Ironically, the elimination of windfall profit and economic rent is also the core of the
proffered moral justification for unfettered markets.
I was playing on the term 'man in the street', and being literal at the same time. Flat not a
house (above the street), owned outright (not average - esp for my age), and half a family -
that was kind of a joke/reference to divorce/only ever having one income.
This is true. All complex systems cycle back and forth unless stressed to the point where
they break irrevocably. Then they must be replaced in toto since repair is not possible.
Homeostasis is the norm - but in the end, everything dies.
Well, the media is owned by only a few companies, in turn owned by the very wealthy, so they
do have to put on a pretense of impartiality and truth-telling. But it's only a pretense.
I think you have to look at the credibility of RBS as an institution and Societe Generale.
Neither are mainstream investment banks. The main risk is seen as the deflationary impact of
the rise in the US $ on emerging market economies. Terms of trade in the US will be effected
leading to a depreciation in the US currency and a rebalancing. By mid-year the oil market is
expected to rebalance. There are too many Jeremiah's around at the moment.
If you're on the inside of the banking world, most likely. Are you?
This couldn't come at a worse time though really, could it? You know with the world's nations
at each others throats all the time.
Looks like all that Iraqi oil is finally paying off! I'm sure the warmongers in our
government are proud of themselves.
Of course the elite will make money out of another financial crisis: buying up bust
companies, worthless stocks and shares and biding their time until the recovery when they
will make billions.
Back in the real world, this is very worrying for genuine businesses. In 2008 we lost a lot
of big time companies and the impact on small businesses was even worse. Financial insiders
are saying this may be worse than the 1930's. Personally I think if we do have another crash,
we should stop printing money and recall many of the notes in circulation to prevent this
never ending inflation. Quality of life is important and the poorest people are losing out.
Let's help our people, not kill them off.
Mortgage debt was a major feature of the US and Uk crisis but actually the reason the
crisis has rolled on is because of sovereign debt issues.
A tad assertive, methinks. As I understand it, the problem, of massive and
unsustainable private debt, known popularly as "bad debt", was not solved at all but
rather "salved" by massive government borrowing. The problem remains.
Your original point was that debtors are to blame for being greedy and not taking
responsibility. This is untrue
Assertive again. Greed is clearly driving Buy To Let, etc. It is so obvious.
In the ancient world where people held similar views to yourself people unable to pay
their debts were forced into slavery.
So the logical extension of your views would be some form of modern servitude.
Serfs were the lowest social class of the feudal society. Serfs were different from slaves.
Serfs could have property. In most serfdoms, serfs were legally part of the land, and if the
land was sold, they were sold with it.
The Trust have a distinguished rollcall of patrons including
scientists,academics,environmentalists etc. Sir David Attenborough is a prominent
supporter.
The Eugenics Society had a distinguished roll call of supporters too: H G Wells, Keynes,
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and even the father of the welfare state, William Beveridge,
etc.
Erm they of they often did. There might be the odd caveat in there but they essentially
claimed they would be able to see an event like the GFC coming but wouldn't be able to say
exactly when. In the end they didn't even see it coming and were taken totally off guard.
Can we finally admit that the Keynesian/Monetarist policies introduced to tackle the GFC
have been a complete failure and that we would have been better off without all that
government stimulus
You do know that Keynesian and monetarist policies are very, very different, don't
you?
"... The long-established formula has been 8 to 2, that is $8 in federal money for $2 in state or local money in infrastructure construction projects. Trump's plan proposes to completely reverse this to a 2 to 8 formula, $2 in federal money for $8 in state or local money. Anyone who thinks this is going to provide any actual infrastructure activity that would not have otherwise is simply completely delusional. ..."
"... The American Society of Engineers has identified about 50,000 bridges in the nation that need repair. However they also estimate that only about 100 of those are reasonably suitable for private tolling. This is another not-going-anywhere part of the proposal. ..."
"... Trump is apparently hoping to raise money by outright selling off some publicly owned infrastructure assets. The Washington Post reports today that in the Washington area this includes the two main airports, Dulles and Reagan National, as well as the George Washington Memorial Parkway (currently not tolled). I can hardly wait and am curious what else around the country is going to be put on the block for a grand fire sale leading to all kinds of tolls and other nonsense. ..."
Most observers have figured out that the Trump infrastructure spending plan seems to be weirdly lopsided in an unrealistic way, with
$200 billion in federal spending somehow supposed to inspire a total of $1.5 trillion in spending by state and local sources along
with private ones. What has not been made all that clear publicly is how this plan upends decades of established practice in fiscal
relations between the federal and the state and local governments. The long-established formula has been 8 to 2, that is $8 in
federal money for $2 in state or local money in infrastructure construction projects. Trump's plan proposes to completely reverse
this to a 2 to 8 formula, $2 in federal money for $8 in state or local money. Anyone who thinks this is going to provide any actual
infrastructure activity that would not have otherwise is simply completely delusional.
Of course it is well known that the private sector input will involve tolls or other payment methods to make sure the private
interests make a positive rate of return. One important area many want to see work done is on fixing bridges. The American Society
of Engineers has identified about 50,000 bridges in the nation that need repair. However they also estimate that only about 100 of
those are reasonably suitable for private tolling. This is another not-going-anywhere part of the proposal.
However, Trump is apparently hoping to raise money by outright selling off some publicly owned infrastructure assets. The
Washington Post reports today that in the Washington area this includes the two main airports, Dulles and Reagan National, as well
as the George Washington Memorial Parkway (currently not tolled). I can hardly wait and am curious what else around the country is
going to be put on the block for a grand fire sale leading to all kinds of tolls and other nonsense.
Barkley Rosser
sammy , February 14, 2018 7:42 pm
A good example of an underutilized government asset sale is here in Portland OR. The Post Office had a large hub facility (about
4 square blocks) located in a formerly light industrial area just north of downtown. Well the light industrial failed and the
area became a wasteland ripe for redevelopment.
Well redevelop it did. Now known as the "Pearl District" the area is now packed with luxury apartments, multi million dollar
condos, leading edge companies, and all the accoutrements. The Post Office built another hub in a much less congested, more suitable
location. The entire 4 block former Post Office was virtually empty for 10+ years, maybe a dozen people worked there.
Recently the was parcel was sold, I would guess about $25 million per block. So that's $100 million in money to the Federal
government (thru the Post Office), picked up off the ground, to be used for infrastructure, reduce debt, cut taxes, preserve benefits,
whatever, in return for a passport office and truck storage. What is there to possibly criticize?
Yeah, putting a toll on the GW would be just ridiculous.
Sammy,
Yes, apparently Trump did OK with a small skating rink in NYC. Do you want to have the Trump Org do all of this? I do note
they have numerous bankruptcies.
Your example of the P.O.in Portland is hilarious. What that shows is that in fact the feds are selling off unused assets right
now, in some cases making money doing so. I think you overstate what can be made from this. The issue of this plavn is to have
private sector taking over running stuff, but most of the highways they have tried to do so have ended up being either financial
or practical or both messes, such as the mess regarding the Indiana Toll Road. In the 1800s there were 254 private companies running
roads. They all went bust, all, and those roads were taken over by one level of government.
ilsm,
Sorry, that data does not show what you think it does. The formula involves joint projects and has been 8 to 2 feds locals
on joint projects. But the vast majority of that state and local spending is not on joint projects. I hope you understand that
state and local governments spend lots of money on transportation and other infrastructure with no fed in put. It is clearly inadequate.
But now we have Trump coming in with this screwball proposal. Sorry, you are out to lunch on this one.
Longtooth , February 14, 2018 10:01 pm
Sammy,
Your Portland, Or. example sounds to me like the Fed's investing in property at low property prices and selling at high prices,
no? Several major private enterprises in Silicon Valley have been doing that for years. It's a pretty standard way of investment
letting time and population growth do it's thing on limited land.
The company I worked for bought a ranch 100 or 200 acres at the furthest outreaches of San Jose in the South (then county property).
opposite direction of where the growth was going in 1950's. Most of it was orchards leased to farmers and a huge spread of small
buildings (individual little rooms) and park with a large lake used occasionally for high spending client sales and "education"
on using our products.
They sold it for multiple millions now a huge area of high rise apts, and retail at the cross-roads of the only southbound
State Highway, a a major cross-town freeway and light rail intersection.
A major Health Care (not-for-profit) bought a large portion of it rom the company in the late 1960's, and built a huge hospital
complex on it before there was much else around. The company made millions of profit off that sale as well.
They also bought part of another ranch even further south out in the boonies and 20 years later built their western Research
facility in a swale at the top of the hills, unseen from anywhere -- nobody even knew it was there. A little winding ranch road
led to it. They still own that ranchland it will be worth millions upon millions in profits when the sell that land.
You can ask why the company did this? The company had a real-estate division the sole job of which was to identify long term
future population growth into virtually uninhabited ranch land and buy it up on the cheap at any possible future location where
the company might eventually want to build more facilities -- pure speculation on land prices .. then either just hold it (leased
back to ranchers) or eventually build on it for the company's own growth.
You try to make it sound like the Fed intended on losing money or didn't have a clue. Of course that's the standard anti-federalist's
claim by the laissez-fair set isn't it?
Longtooth , February 14, 2018 10:25 pm
Sammy,
I'll add this too. When the military decides it no longer has good use for military land the close the bases (after Congress
finally lets them) and sells the land to cities or private developers for huge profits, even after taking out old military buildings,
finding and eliminating old unexploded munitions, and soil contamination.
In the bay area that includes the
– SF Presidio (prime land now developing million dollar homes, shops, and city park in the toney (sp?) Marina district,
– Fort Baker right across the bay at the Golden Gate doing the same, – Coast Guard Air base in Alameda,
– Treasure Island in the middle of the Bay between SF and Oakland, and
– Monterey's Fort Ord, now housing a new State University and the rest being developed by private enterprises.
These were real – estate profits just like the PO in Portland not necessary fro defense since the end of the Vietnam war mid-1970's.
sammy , February 14, 2018 10:30 pm
Longtooth,
Absolutely I agree. There are a lot of federal assets just begging to be monetized. If only we had a real estate guy in charge
. oh wait ..
"... By Servaas Storm, Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty TPM, Delft University of Technology and co-author, with C.W. M. Naastepad, of Macroeconomics Beyond the NAIRU (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), which has just won the Myrdal Prize of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... Banks have long had undue influence in society. But with the rapid expansion of a financial sector that transforms all debts and assets into tradable commodities, we are faced with something far worse: financial markets with an only abstract, inflated, and destabilizing relationship with the real economy. To prevent another crisis, finance must be domesticated and turned into a useful servant of society. ..."
Posted on
February 14, 2018 by Yves Smith Yves here. Get a cup of
coffee. This is an important, one-stop treatment of how financialization has harmed the real
economy and increased inequality.
By Servaas Storm, Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty TPM, Delft University of
Technology and co-author, with C.W. M. Naastepad, of Macroeconomics
Beyond the NAIRU (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), which has just won the Myrdal
Prize of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy. Originally published at
the Institute for New Economic Thinking website
Banks have long had undue influence in society. But with the rapid expansion of a
financial sector that transforms all debts and assets into tradable commodities, we are faced
with something far worse: financial markets with an only abstract, inflated, and destabilizing
relationship with the real economy. To prevent another crisis, finance must be domesticated and
turned into a useful servant of society.
The Financialization of Everything
Ours is, without a doubt, the age of finance -- of the supremacy of financial actors,
institutions, markets, and motives in the global capitalist economy. Working people in the
advanced economies, for instance, increasingly have their (pension) savings invested in mutual
funds and stock markets, while their mortgages and other debts are turned into securities and
sold to global financial investors (Krippner 2011; Epstein 2018). At the same time, the
'under-banked' poor in the developing world have become entangled, or if one wishes,
'financially included', in the 'web' of global finance through their growing reliance on
micro-loans, micro-insurance and M-Pesa-like 'correspondent banking' (Keucheyan 2018; Mader
2018). More generally, individual citizens everywhere are invited to "live by finance", in
Martin's (2002, p. 17) evocative words, that is: to organize their daily lives around 'investor
logic', active individual risk management, and involvement in global financial markets.
Citizenship and rights are being re-conceptualized in terms of universal access to 'safe' and
affordable financial products (Kear 2012) -- redefining Descartes' philosophical proof of
existence as: 'I am indebted, therefore I am' (Graeber 2011). Financial markets are opening
'new enclosures' everywhere, deeply penetrating social space -- as in the case of so-called
'viaticals', the third-party purchase of the rights to future payoffs of life insurance
contracts from the terminally ill (Quinn 2008); or of 'health care bonds' issued by insurance
companies to fund health-care interventions; the payoff to private investors in these bonds
depends on the cost-savings arising from the health-care intervention for the insurers. Or what
to think of 'humanitarian impact bonds' used to profitably finance physical rehabilitation
services in countries affected by violence and conflict (Lavinas 2018); this latter instrument
was created in 2017 by the International Red Cross in cooperation with insurer Munich Re and
Bank Lombard Odier.
Conglomerate corporate entities, which used to provide long-term employment and stable
retirement benefits, were broken up under pressure of financial markets and replaced by
disaggregated global commodity-chain structures (Wade 2018), operating according to the
principles of 'shareholder value maximization' (Lazonick 2014) -- with the result that today
real decision-making power is often to be found no longer in corporate boardrooms, but in
global financial markets. As a result, accumulation -- real capital formation which increases
overall economic output -- has slowed down in the U.S., the E.U. and India, as profit-owners,
looking for the highest returns, reallocated their investments to more profitable financial
markets (Jayadev, Mason and Schröder 2018).
An overabundance of (cash) finance is used primarily to fund a proliferation of short-term,
high-risk (potentially high-return) investments in newly developed financial instruments, such
as derivatives -- Warren Buffet's 'financial weapons of mass destruction' that blew up the
global financial system in 2007-8. Financial actors (ranging from banks, bond investors, and
pension funds to big insurers and speculative hedge funds) have taken much bigger roles on much
larger geographic scales in markets of items essential to development such as food (Clapp and
Isakson 2018), primary commodities, health care (insurance), education, and energy. These same
actors hunt the globe for 'passive' unearthed assets which they can re-use as collateral for
various purposes in the 'shadow banking system' -- the complex global chains of credit,
liquidity and leverage with no systemic regulatory oversight that has become as large as the
regulated 'normal' banking system (Pozsar and Singh 2011; Gabor 2018) and enjoys implicit state
guarantees (Kane 2013, 2015).
Pressed by the international financial institutions and their own elites, states around the
world have embraced finance-friendly policies which included reducing cross-border capital
controls, promoting liquid domestic stock markets, reducing the taxation of wealth and capital
gains, and rendering their central banks independent from political oversight (Bortz and
Kaltenbrunner 2018; Wade 2018; Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2018). What is most distinctive about
the present era of finance, however, is the shift in financial intermediation from banks and
other institutions to financial markets -- a shift from the 'visible hand' of
(often-times relationship) regulated banking to the axiomatic 'invisible hand' of supposedly
anonymous, self-regulating, financial markets. This displacement of financial institutions by
financial markets has had a pervasive influence on the motivations, choices and decisions made
by households, firms and states as well as fundamental quantitative impacts on growth,
inequality and poverty -- far-reaching consequences which we are only beginning to
understand.
Setting the Stage
Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1934, p. 74), the Austrian-American theorist of capitalist
development and its eventual demise, called the banker "the ephor of the exchange economy"
[2] -- someone who by creating
credit ( ex nihilo ) to finance new investments and innovation, "makes possible the
carrying out of new combinations, authorizes people, in the name of society as it were, to form
them." This same banker has, in Schumpeter's vision, "either replaced private capitalists or
become their agent; he has himself become the capitalist par excellence. He stands between
those who wish to form new combinations and the possessors of productive means." This way, the
banker becomes "essentially a phenomenon of development", as Schumpeter (1934, p. 74) argued --
fostering the process of accumulation and directing the pace and nature of economic growth and
technological progress (Festré and Nasica 2009; Mazzucato and Wray 2015). Alexander
Gerschenkron (1968) concurred, comparing the importance of investment banks in 19th-century
Germany's industrialization drive to that of the steam engine in Britain's Industrial
Revolution:
" the German investment banks -- a powerful invention, comparable in its economic effects
to that of the steam engine -- were in their capital-supplying functions a substitute for the
insufficiency of the previously created wealth willingly placed at the disposal of
entrepreneurs. [ ] From their central vantage point of control, the banks participated
actively in shaping the major [ ] decisions of individual enterprises. It was they who very
often mapped out a firm's path of growth, conceived farsighted plans, decided on major
technological and locational innovations, and arranged for mergers and capital
increases."
Schumpeter and Gerschenkron celebrated the developmental role played by bank-based
financial systems, in which banks form long-run (often personal) relationships with firms, have
insider knowledge and (as they are large creditors) are in a position to exert strategic
pressure on firms, impose market rationality on their decisions and prioritize the repayment of
their debts. However, what Schumpeter left unmentioned is that the absolute power of the
'ephors' could terribly fail: When the wrong people were elected to the 'ephorate', their
leadership and guidance did ruin the Spartan state. [3] Likewise, the --
personalized relationship-based -- banking system could ruin the development process: it could
fatally weaken the corporate governance of firms, because bank managers would be more reluctant
to bankrupt firms with which they have had long-term ties, and lead to cronyism and corruption,
as it is relatively easy for bank insiders to exploit other creditors or taxpayers (Levine
2005). Schumpeter's relationship-banker may be fallible, weak (when it comes to disciplining
firms), prone to mistakes and errors of judgment and not necessarily immune to corruptible
influences -- in short: there are reasons to believe that a bank-based financial system is
inferior to an alternative, market-based, financial system (Levine 2005; Demirgüc-Kunt,
Feyen and Levine 2012).
This view of the superiority of a 'market-based' financial system rests on Friedrich von
Hayek's grotesque epistemological claim that 'the market' is an omniscient way of knowing, one
that radically exceeds the capacity of any individual mind or even the state. For Hayek, "the
market constitutes the only legitimate form of knowledge, next to which all other modes of
reflection are partial, in both senses of the word: they comprehend only a fragment of a whole
and they plead on behalf of a special interest. Individually, our values are personal ones, or
mere opinions; collectively, the market converts them into prices, or objective facts" (Metcalf
2017). After his 'sudden illumination' in 1936 that the market is the best possible and only
legitimate form of social organisation, Hayek had to find an answer to the dilemma of how to
reformulate the political and the social in a way compatible with the 'rationality' of the
(unregulated) market economy. Hayek's answer was that the 'market' should be applied to all
domains of life. Homo œconomicus -- the narrowly self-interested subject who,
according to Foucault (2008, pp. 270-271), "is eminently governable ." as he/she "accepts
reality and responds systematically to systematic modifications artificially introduced into
the environment -- had to be universalized. This, in turn, could be achieved by the
financialization of 'everything in everyday life', because financial logic and constraints
would help to impose 'market discipline and rationality' on economic decision-makers. After
all, borrowers compete with another for funds -- and it is commercial (profit-oriented) banks
and financial institutions which do the screening and selection of who gets funded.
Hayek proved to be extremely successful in hiding his reactionary political agenda behind
the pretense of scientific neutrality -- by elevating the verdict of the market to the status
of a natural fact, while putting any value that cannot be expressed as a price "on an equally
unsure footing, as nothing more than opinion, preference, folklore or superstition" (Metcalf
2017). Hayek's impact on economics was transformative, as can be seen from how Lawrence Summers
sums up 'Hayek's legacy':
"What's the single most important thing to learn from an economics course today? What I
tried to leave my students with is the view that the invisible hand is more powerful than the
[un]hidden hand. Things will happen in well-organized efforts without direction, controls,
plans. That's the consensus among economists. That's the Hayek legacy." (quoted in Yergin and
Stanislaw (1998, pp. 150–51))
This Hayekian legacy underwrites, and quietly promotes, neoliberal narratives and discourses
which advocate that authority -- even sovereignty -- be conceded to (in our case: financial)
'markets' which act as an 'impartial and transparent judge', collecting and processing
information relevant to economic decision-making and coordinating these decisions, and as a
'guardian', impartially imposing 'market discipline and market rationality' on economic
decision-makers -- thus bringing about not just 'socially efficient outcomes' but social
stability as well. This way, financialization constitutes progress -- bringing "the advantages
enjoyed by the clients of Wall Street to the customers of Wal-Mart", as Nobel-Prize winning
financial economist Robert Shiller (2003, p. x) writes. "We need to extend finance beyond our
major financial capitals to the rest of the world. We need to extend the domain of finance
beyond that of physical capital to human capital, and to cover the risks that really matter in
our lives. Fortunately, the principles of financial management can now be expanded to include
society as a whole."
Attentive readers might argue that faith in the social efficiency of financial markets has
waned -- after all, Hayek's grand epistemological claim was falsified, in a completely
unambiguous manner, by the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-8 which brought the world economy to
the brink of a systemic meltdown. Even staunch believers in the (social) efficiency of
self-regulating financial markets, including most notably former Federal Reserve chair Alan
Greenspan, had to admit a fundamental 'flaw in their ideology'.
And yet, I beg to disagree. The economic ideology that created the crash remains intact and
unchallenged. There has been no reckoning and no lessons were learned, as the banks and their
shareholders were rescued, at the cost of about everyone else in society, by massive public
bail-outs, zero interest rates and unprecedented liquidity creation by central banks. Finance
staged a major come-back -- profits, dividends, salaries and bonuses in the financial industry
have rebounded to where they were before, while the re-regulation of finance became stuck in
endless political negotiations. Stock markets, meanwhile, notched record highs (before the
downward 'correction' of February 2018), derivative markets have been doing rather well and
under-priced risk-taking in financial markets has gathered steam (again), this time especially
so in the largest emerging economies of China, India and Brazil (BIS 2017; Gabor 2018). In the
process, global finance has become more concentrated and even more integral to capitalist
production and accumulation. The reason why even the Great Financial Crisis left the supremacy
of financial interests and logic unchallenged, is simple: there is no acceptable alternative
mode of social regulation to replace our financialized mode of co-ordination and
decision-making.
Accordingly, instead of a long overdue rethinking of Hayek's legacy, the economics
profession has gone, with renewed vigour, for an even broader push for 'financial inclusion'
(Mader 2018; Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2018). Backed by the international financial institutions,
'social business' promotors (such as the World Economic Forum) and FinTech corporations, it
proposes to extend financial markets into new areas including social protection and poverty
alleviation (Lavinas 2018; Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2018) and climate change mitigation (Arsel
and Büscher 2015; Keuchyan 2018). Most economists were already persuaded, by a voluminous
empirical literature (reviewed by Levine (2005)), to believe, with ample qualification and due
caution, that finance and financial markets do contribute to economic growth -- a proposition
that Nobel Laureate financial economist Merton Miller (1998, p. 14) found "almost too obvious
for serious discussion". But now greater financialization is argued to be integral to not just
'growth' but 'inclusive growth', as World-Bank economists Demirgüc-Kunt, Klapper and
Singer (2017) conclude in a recent review article: "financial inclusion allows people to make
many everyday financial transactions more efficiently and safely and expand their investment
and financial risk management options by using the formal financial system. This is especially
relevant for people living in the poorest 40 percent of households." The way to extend the good
life to more people is not to shrink finance nor restrain financial innovation, writes Robert
Shiller (2012) in a book titled Finance and the Good Society , but instead to release
it. Shiller's book celebrates finance's 'genuine beauty' and exhorts idealistic (sic)
young students to pursue careers in derivatives, insurance and related fields.
'Really-Existing' Finance Capitalism
Financialization underwrites neoliberal narratives and discourses which emphasize individual
responsibility, risk-taking and active investment for the benefit of the individual
him-/herself -- within the 'neutral' or even 'natural' constraints imposed by financial markets
and financial norms of creditworthiness (Palma 2009; Kear 2012). This way, financialization
morphs into a 'technique of power' to maintain a particular social order (Palma 2009; Saith
2011), in which the delicate task of balancing competing social claims and distributive
outcomes is offloaded to the 'invisible hand' which operates through anonymous, 'blind'
financial markets (Krippner 2005, 2011). This is perhaps illustrated clearest by Michael Hudson
(2012, p. 223):
"Rising mortgage debt has made employees afraid to go on strike or even to complain about
working conditions. Employees became more docile in a world where they are only one paycheck
or so away from homelessness or, what threatens to become almost the same thing, missing a
mortgage payment. This is the point at which they find themselves hooked on debt
dependency."
Paul Krugman (2005) has called this a 'debt-peonage society' -- while J. Gabriel Palma
(2009, p. 833) labelled it a 'rentiers' delight' in which financialization sustains the
rent-seeking practices of oligopolistic capital -- as a system of discipline as well as
exploitation, which is "difficult to reconcile with any acceptable definition of democracy"
(Mann 2010, p. 18).
In this regime of social regulation, income and wealth became more concentrated in the hands
of the rentier class (Saith 2011; Goda, Onaran and Stockhammer 2017) , and as a result,
productive capital accumulation gave way before the increased speculative use of the 'economic
surplus of society' in pursuit of 'financial-capital' gains through asset speculation (Davis
and Kim 2015). This took the wind out of the sails of the 'real' economy, and firms responded
by holding back investment, using their profits to pay out dividends to their shareholders and
to buy back their own shares (Lazonick 2014). Because the rich own most financial assets,
anything that causes the value of financial assets to rise rapidly made the rich richer
(Taylor, Ömer and Rezai 2015).
In the U.S., arguably the most financialized economy in the world, the result of this was
extreme income polarization, unseen after WWII (Piketty 2014; Palma 2011). The 'American
Dream', writes Gabriel Palma (2009, p. 842), was "high jacked by a rather tiny minority -- for
the rest, it has only been available on credit!" Because that is what happened: lower- and
middle-income groups took on more debt to finance spending on health care, education or
housing, spurred by the deregulation of financial markets and changes in the tax code which
made it easier and more attractive for households with modest incomes to borrow in order to
spend. This debt-financed spending stimulated an otherwise almost comatose U.S. economy by
spurring consumption (Cynamon and Fazzari 2015). In the twenty years before the Great Financial
Crash, debts and 'financial excess' -- in the form of the asset price bubbles in 'New Economy'
stocks, real estate markets and commodity (futures) markets -- propped up aggregate demand and
kept the U.S. and global economy growing. "We have," Paul Krugman (2013) concludes, "an economy
whose normal condition is one of inadequate demand -- of at least mild depression -- and which
only gets anywhere close to full employment when it is being buoyed by bubbles."
But it is not just the U.S. economy: the whole world has become addicted to debt. The
borrowings of global households, governments and firms have risen from 246% of GDP in 2000 to
327%, or $ 217 trillion, today -- which is $70 trillion higher than 10 years ago. [4] It means that for every
extra dollar of output, the world economy cranks out more than almost 10 extra dollars of debt.
Forget about the synthetic opioid crisis, the world's more dangerous addiction is to debt.
China, which has been the engine of the global economy during most of the post-2008 period, has
been piling up debt to keep its growth process going -- the IMF (2017) expects China's
non-financial sector debt to exceed 290% of its GDP in 2022, up from around 140% (of GDP) in
2008, warning that China's current credit trajectory is "dangerous with increasing risks of a
disruptive adjustment." China's insatiable demand for debt fueled growth, but also led to a
property bubble and a rapidly growing shadow banking system (Gabor 2018) -- raising concerns
that the economy may face a hard landing and send shockwaves through the world's financial
markets. The next global financial catastrophe may be just around the corner.
How Finance Is Reshaping the 'Rules of the Game'
To understand this debt explosion we must comprehend what is driving the financial
hyper-activity -- and how this is changing the way our economies work. For a start, the growth
of the financial industry, in terms of its size and power, its incomprehensible complexity and
its penetration into the real economy, is inseparably connected to the structural increase in
income and wealth inequalities (Foster and McChesney 2012; Storm and Naastepad 2015; Cynamon
and Fazzari 2015; Goda, Onaran and Stockhammer 2017). Richer households have a higher
propensity to save and are more likely to hold financial wealth in risky assets (such as mutual
funds, shares and bonds) and hence, more money ends up in the management of institutional
investors or 'asset managers' (Epstein 2018; Gabor 2018). As a result, a small core of the
global population, the so-called High Net Worth Individuals (Lysandrou 2011; Goda
2017), controls an increasingly larger share of incomes and wealth (Palma 2011; Saith 2011;
Piketty 2014; Taylor, Ömer and Rezai 2015). This trend was strengthened by the shift
towards capital-based pension schemes (Krippner 2011) and the structural increase in the
liquidity preference of big shareholder-dominated corporations, which came about under pressure
from activist shareholders wanting to 'disgorge the cash' within these firms (Lazonick 2014;
Epstein 2018; Jayadev et al. 2018). However, with few sufficiently profitable
investment opportunities in the "real economy", cash wealth -- originating out of a higher
profit share, dividends, shareholder payouts and capital gains on earlier financial investments
-- began to accumulate in global centrally managed 'institutional cash pools', the volume of
which grew from an insignificant $100 billion in 1990 to a systemic $6 trillion at the end of
2013 (Pozsar 2011, 2015). [5]
OTC derivative trading requires the availability of cheap liquidity on demand
(Mehrling 2012) and this means that the 'asset management complex' cannot invest the cash pools
into long-term assets, but has to keep the liquidity available -- ready to use when the
possibility for a profitable deal arises. But doing so poses enormous risks, because the global
cash pools are basically uninsured: they are far too big to fall under the coverage of normal
deposit-insurance schemes offered by the traditional banking system (Pozsar 2011). Securing
'principal safety' for the cash pools under their management thus became the main headache of
the asset managers -- which proved to be a far greater challenge than generating adequate rates
of return for the cash-owners. The reason was that the traditional way of securing principal
safety of one's cash was by putting it in very short-term government bonds which were
credit-rated as being 'safe' ( e.g. U.S. T-Bills or German Bunds ).
This way, the cash pool became 'collateralized' -- backed up by sovereign bonds. But as
inequality increased and global institutional cash pools expanded, the demand for safe
collateral began to permanently exceed the availability of 'safe' government bonds (Pozsar
2011; Lysandrou and Nesvetailova 2017).
The only way out was by putting the cash into newly developed privately guaranteed
instruments: asset-backed securities . These instruments were secured by collateral
(Lysandrou and Nesvetailova 2017) -- that is, the cash pools were lent, on a very short term
basis (often over-night), to securitization trusts, banks and other asset owners in exchange
for safe and secure collateral -- on the agreement that the borrower would repurchase the
collateral some time later (often the next day). This is called a repurchase or 'repo'
transaction (Gorton and Metrick 2009) or an 'asset-backed commercial paper' deal (Covitz, Lang
and Suarez 2013). Normally, the cash loan would be over-collateralized, with the cash provider
receiving collateral of a higher value than the value of the cash; the basic workings of the
'repo' market are further explained in Storm (2018). These (short-term) deals are generally
done within the shadow banking system, the mostly 'self-regulated' sphere of the financial
sector which arose in response to the growing demand for risk intermediation on behalf of --
and the prioritization of a 'safe parking place' for -- the global institutional cash pools
(Pozsar 2011; Pozsar and Singh 2011). The repo lender and the securities borrower -- each lends
cash and gets back securities -- can re-use those securities as collateral to get repo loans
for themselves. And the next cash lender, which gets the same securities as collateral, can
re-use them again as collateral to get a repo loan for itself. And so on. This creates a
'chain' in which one set of securities gets re-used several times as collateral for several
loans. This so-called re-hypothecation (Pozsar and Singh 2011) means that these
securities were increasingly used as 'money', a means of payment in inter-bank deals, within
the shadow banking system.
It should be clear that 'securities', which are privately 'manufactured' and guaranteed
money market instruments, form the feedstock of this complex and opaque 'profit-generating
machine' of inter-bank wheeling and dealing -- both by providing 'insurance' to the global cash
pools and by acting as an (privately guaranteed) means of payment in OTC trading.
'Securitization' is the most critical, yet under-appreciated, enabler of financialization
(Davis and Kim 2015). What then is securitization? It is the process of taking 'passive' assets
with cash flows, such as mortgages held by commercial banks, and commodifying them into
tradable securities. Securities are 'manufactured' using a portfolio of hundreds or thousands
of underlying assets, all yielding a particular return (in the form of cash flow) and carrying
a particular risk of default to their buyers. Due to the law of large numbers, the payoff from
the portfolio becomes predictable and suitable for being sliced up in different 'tranches',
each having a different risk profile. Storm (2018) provides a simple but illustrative numerical
example of how a security is manufactured using a two-asset example. As Davis and Kim (2015)
argue, securitization represents a fundamental shift in how finance is done. In the old days of
'originate-and-hold' (before the 1980s), (regulated) commercial banks would originate mortgage
loans and keep them on their balance sheets for the duration of the loan period. But now in our
era of 'originate-and-distribute', (de-regulated) commercial banks originate mortgages, but
then sell them off to securitization trusts which turn these mortgages into 'securities' and
vend them to financial investors. Securitization thus turns a concrete long-term relationship
between a bank ( i.e. Schumpeter's 'ephor') and the loan-taker into an abstract
relationship between anonymous financial markets and the loan-taker (in line with Hayek's
legacy). Commercial banks are now mere 'underwriters' of the mortgage (which is quickly sold
and securitized), while households which took the mortgage, are now de facto 'issuers
of securities' on (global) financial markets. This is the essence of the shift in financial
intermediation from banks to financial markets (Lysandrou and Nesvetailova 2017). Kane (2013,
2015) explains how this system is enjoying the implicit back-up of central banks and states and
how it is leading to predatory risk-taking by mega-banks.
This securitization fundamentally transformed the 'rules of the capitalist game', often in
rather perverse directions. For one, as finance expanded, the demand for 'investment-grade'
(AAA-rated) securities grew -- and the result was a hunt for additional collateral akin to
earlier gold rushes, write Pozsar and Singh (2011, p. 5): "Obtaining collateral is similar to
mining. It involves both exploration (looking for deposits of collateral) and extraction (the
"unearthing" of passive securities so they can be re-used as collateral for various purposes in
the shadow banking system)." Collateral is the new gold -- and this explains why banks (before
the Great Financial Crisis) gave loans to non-creditworthy (sub-prime) customers (Epstein 2018)
and why these same banks are now eager to include the poor in the financial system (Mader 2018)
and to enclose ever new spaces for profit-making (Arsel and Büscher 2012; Sathyamala 2017;
Keucheyan 2018). Mortgage loans (sub-prime or prime) or micro-credit deals derive their
systemic importance from the access they provide to the underlying collateral -- either in the
form of residential property or of high-return cash flows on micro-loans, made low-risk by peer
pressure.
This systemic importance (to the financial system, that is) by far exceeds the value of
these loans to the actual borrowers and it has led to and is still leading to an overdose of
finance -- with ruinous consequences. Likewise, one cannot understand what is going in
commodity and food markets unless one appreciates that trading in 'commodities' and 'food' is
not so much related to (present and future) consumption needs, but is increasingly dictated by
the market's alternative collateral, store-of-value, and safe-asset role in the global economy
(Clapp and Isakson 2018). That is, the commodity option or futures contract derives its value
more from its usefulness as 'collateralized securities' to back-up speculative shadow-banking
transactions than from its capacity to meet food demand or smoothen output prices for farmers.
We can add a fourth law to Zuboff's Laws (2013), namely that anything which can be
collateralized, will be collateralized. This even includes 'social policies', because the
present value of future streams of cash benefits for the poor can serve as collateral (see
Lavinas 2018). And because the major OTC markets require price volatility and spreads, exchange
rate volatility and uncertainty, which are 'bad' for the economic development of countries
attempting to industrialize (Bortz and Kaltenbrunner 2018), constitute a sine qua non
for the profitability of major OTC instruments including forex swaps and credit default swaps
(to 'hedge' the risks of the forex swaps). [7]
Perverse incentives, excessive risk-taking, fictitious financial instruments -- it appears
finance capitalism has reached its nadir. "In the way that even an accumulation of debts can
appear as an accumulation of capital," as Marx (1981, pp. 607-08) insightfully observed, "we
see the distortion involved in the credit system reach its culmination."
A 'One-Foot' Conclusion
The shift in financial intermediation from banks to financial markets, and the introduction
of financial market logic into areas and domains where it was previously absent, have not just
led to negative developmental impacts, but also changed the 'rules of the game', conduct and
outcomes -- to the detriment of 'inclusive' economic development and in ways that have helped
to legitimize -- what Palma (2009) has appositely called -- a 'rentiers' delight', a
financialized mode of social regulation which facilitated rent-seeking practices of a
self-serving global financial elite and at the same time enabled a sickening rise in
inequality. Establishment (financial) economics has helped to de-politicize and legitimize this
financialized mode of social regulation by invoking Hayek's epistemological claim that
(financial) markets are the only legitimate, reliably welfare-enhancing foundation for
a stable social order and economic progress.
It is this complacency of establishment economics which led to the global financial crash of
2008 and ten dire years of economic stagnation, high and rising inequalities in income and
wealth, historically unprecedented levels of indebtedness, and mounting uncertainty about jobs
and incomes in most nations. The crisis conditions crystalized into a steadily increasing
popular dissatisfaction of those supposedly 'left behind by (financial) globalization' with the
political and economic status quo; a dissatisfaction which amplified into a 'groundswell of
discontent' -- to use the words of the IMF's Managing Director Christine Lagarde (2016). Angry
and anxious electorates were transformed by demagogues into election-winning forces, as the
British 'Brexit' vote, Trump's (2016) and Erdogan's (2017) election victories in the U.S. and
Turkey, and recent political changes (toward authoritarianism) in Brazil, Egypt, the
Philippines and India all attest (see Becker, Fetzer and Novy (2017) for an analysis of the
Brexit vote; and Ferguson, Jorgenson and Chen (2018) for an assessment of the Trump vote).
We have to confront the Panglossian logic and arguments of (financial) economists, used to
legitimize the current financialized global order as the 'best of all possible worlds". We must
lay to rest the Hayekian claim that unregulated market-based finance is socially efficient --
as the macro- and micro-economic impacts of the rise to dominance of financial markets on
capital accumulation, growth and distribution have overwhelmingly been deleterious (Epstein
2018). Market-based finance is no longer funding the real economy (Epstein 2018; Jayadev, Mason
and Schröder 2018), but rather engages in self-serving strategy of rent-seeking
(Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2018; Mader 2018), looting the 'fisc' (Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2018;
Mader 2018), exchange rate and global stock market speculation (Bortz and Kaltenbrunner 2018),
OTC derivatives speculation (Keucheyan 2018; Clapp and Isakson 2018) and collateral mining
(Gabor 2018; Lavinas 2018) -- asphyxiating economic development.
This does not mean, however, that Schumpeter and Gerschenkron were wrong in calling the
banker the 'ephor' of capitalism and a 'phenomenon of development'. Finance can
positively contribute to economic development, something which indeed is "almost too obvious
for serious discussion" as Miller wrote, but only when the 'ephor' is 'governed' and 'directed'
by state regulation to structure accumulation and distribution into socially useful directions
(Epstein 2018; Jayadev, Mason and Schröder 2018). The East Asian miracle economies prove
the point that finance can be socially efficient if bankers can be made to work within the
'developmental mindset', the institutional arrangements and political compulsions of a
'developmental state', as argued by Wade (2018) -- China's recent move to (securities)
market-based finance may be the beginning of unravelling of its growth miracle (Gabor 2018; BIS
2017).
Rather than letting financial markets discipline the rest of the economy and the whole of
society, finance itself has to be disciplined by a countervailing social authority which
governs it to act in socially desirable directions. One famous account in the Talmud tells
about Rabbi Hillel, a great sage, who when he was asked to explain the Torah in the time that
he could stand on one foot, replied: "Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to you.
Everything else is commentary." If there is a one-foot summary of the literature reviewed in
this introduction, it is this: "Finance is a terrible 'ephor', but, if and when domesticated,
can be turned into a useful servant. Everything else is commentary."
"... The pro-Hillary warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding' with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really can explain what that 'interference' means. ..."
"... They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would push against that degradation ..."
"... Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator, " Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? " ..."
"... And by the way, if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has become a commonplace. We are degraded. ..."
"... We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory. That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. ..."
"... Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days, the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative. ..."
"... Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the conclusion that war is coming. ..."
"... The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia. ..."
How Russiagate fiasco destroys Kremlin moderates, accelerating danger for a hot war with Russiaglobinfo freexchange
Corporate Democrats can't stop pushing for war through the Russiagate fiasco.
The party has been completely taken over by the neocon/neoliberal establishment and has nothing to do with the Left. The pro-Hillary
warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of
this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding'
with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really
can explain what that 'interference' means.
But things are probably much worse, because this completely absurd persistence on Russiagate fiasco that feeds an evident anti-Russian
hysteria, destroys all the influence of the Kremlin moderates who struggle to keep open channels between Russia and the United States.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies, history, and politics at NY University and Princeton University, explained
to Aaron Maté and the RealNews
the terrible consequences:
They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However
much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American
political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would
push against that degradation.
Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture
and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive
wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator,
" Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? "
I think all of us need to focus on what's happened in this country when in the very mainstream, at the highest, most influential
levels of the political establishment, this kind of discourse is no longer considered an exception. It is the norm. We hear it daily
from MSNBC and CNN, from the New York Times and the Washington Post, that people who doubt the narrative of what's loosely called
Russiagate are somehow acting on behalf of or under the spell of the Kremlin, that we aren't Americans any longer. And by the way,
if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy
was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence
of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study
it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has
become a commonplace. We are degraded.
The new Cold War is unfolding not far away from Russia, like the last in Berlin, but on Russia's borders in the Baltic and in
Ukraine. We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory.
That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. Meanwhile, not only do we not have a discussion of
these real dangers in the United States but anyone who wants to incite a discussion, including the President of the United States,
is called treasonous. Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism
in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days,
the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and
its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called
Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative.
Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains
who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the
conclusion that war is coming. They can't think of a single thing to tell the Kremlin to offset hawkish views in the Kremlin. Every
day, there's something new. And these were the people in Moscow who are daytime peacekeeping interlockers. They have been
destroyed by Russiagate. Their influence as Russia is zilch. And the McCarthyites in Russia, they have various terms, now
called the pro-American lobby in Russia 'fifth columnists'. This is the damage that's been done. There's never been anything like
this in my lifetime.
The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party
has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions
in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia.
And, unfortunately,
even the most progressives of the Democrats are adopting the Russiagate bogus, like Bernie Sanders, because they know that if they
don't obey to the narratives, the DNC establishment will crush them politically in no time.
"... The pro-Hillary warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding' with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really can explain what that 'interference' means. ..."
"... They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would push against that degradation ..."
"... Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator, " Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? " ..."
"... And by the way, if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has become a commonplace. We are degraded. ..."
"... We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory. That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. ..."
"... Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days, the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative. ..."
"... Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the conclusion that war is coming. ..."
"... The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia. ..."
How Russiagate fiasco destroys Kremlin moderates, accelerating danger for a hot war with Russiaglobinfo freexchange
Corporate Democrats can't stop pushing for war through the Russiagate fiasco.
The party has been completely taken over by the neocon/neoliberal establishment and has nothing to do with the Left. The pro-Hillary
warmongering media, the ones that pushed for war in Iraq and elsewhere, through big lies and false evidence, are the vanguard of
this ugly machine that supports the most terrible Trump administration bills, yet, this machine can't stop accusing him for 'colluding'
with Russia that 'interfered' in the 2016 US election. Of course, no evidence presented for such an accusation and no one really
can explain what that 'interference' means.
But things are probably much worse, because this completely absurd persistence on Russiagate fiasco that feeds an evident anti-Russian
hysteria, destroys all the influence of the Kremlin moderates who struggle to keep open channels between Russia and the United States.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies, history, and politics at NY University and Princeton University, explained
to Aaron Maté and the RealNews
the terrible consequences:
They're accusing the President of the United States of being a Russian agent, this has never happened in American history. However
much you may loathe Trump, this is a whole new realm of defamation. For a number of years, there's been a steady degradation of American
political culture and discourse, generally. There was a time when I hoped or thought that it would be the Democratic Party that would
push against that degradation.
Now, however, though I'm kind of only nominally, a Democrat, it's the Democratic Party that's degrading our political culture
and our discourse. So, this is MSNBC, which purports to be not only the network of the Democratic Party, but the network of the progressive
wing of the Democratic Party, is now actually because this guy was a semi-anchor was asking the question to an American senator,
" Do you think that Representative Nunes, because he wants the memo released, has been compromised by the Kremlin? "
I think all of us need to focus on what's happened in this country when in the very mainstream, at the highest, most influential
levels of the political establishment, this kind of discourse is no longer considered an exception. It is the norm. We hear it daily
from MSNBC and CNN, from the New York Times and the Washington Post, that people who doubt the narrative of what's loosely called
Russiagate are somehow acting on behalf of or under the spell of the Kremlin, that we aren't Americans any longer. And by the way,
if people will say, " Well, it's a weak capitulation of McCarthyism, " I say no, it's much more than that because McCarthy
was obsessed with Communist. That was a much narrower concept than being obsessed with anybody who might be under Russian influence
of any kind. The so-called affinity for Russia. Well, I have a profound affinity for Russian culture and for Russian history. I study
it all the time. This is something new. And so, when you accuse a Republican or any Congressman of being a Kremlin agent, this has
become a commonplace. We are degraded.
The new Cold War is unfolding not far away from Russia, like the last in Berlin, but on Russia's borders in the Baltic and in
Ukraine. We are building up our military presence there, so the Russians are counter-building up, though within their territory.
That means the chances of hot war are now much greater than they were before. Meanwhile, not only do we not have a discussion of
these real dangers in the United States but anyone who wants to incite a discussion, including the President of the United States,
is called treasonous. Every time Trump has tried with Putin to reach a cooperative arrangement, for example, on fighting terrorism
in Syria, which is a necessary purpose, literally, the New York Times and the others call him treasonous. Whereas, in the old days,
the old Cold War, we had a robust discussion. There is none here. We have no alert system that's warning the American people and
its representatives how dangerous this is. And as we mentioned before, it's not only Nunes, it's a lot of people who are being called
Kremlin agents because they want to digress from the basic narrative.
Meanwhile, people in Moscow who formed their political establishment, who surround Putin and the Kremlin, I mean, the big brains
who are formed policy tankers, and who have always tended to be kind of pro-American, and very moderate, have simply come to the
conclusion that war is coming. They can't think of a single thing to tell the Kremlin to offset hawkish views in the Kremlin. Every
day, there's something new. And these were the people in Moscow who are daytime peacekeeping interlockers. They have been
destroyed by Russiagate. Their influence as Russia is zilch. And the McCarthyites in Russia, they have various terms, now
called the pro-American lobby in Russia 'fifth columnists'. This is the damage that's been done. There's never been anything like
this in my lifetime.
The Democrats couldn't had downgrade their party further. This disgusting spectacle would make FDR totally ashamed of what this party
has become. Not only they are voting for every pro-plutocracy GOP bill under Trump administration, but they have become champions
in bringing back a much worse and unpredictable Cold War that is dangerously escalating tension with Russia.
And, unfortunately,
even the most progressives of the Democrats are adopting the Russiagate bogus, like Bernie Sanders, because they know that if they
don't obey to the narratives, the DNC establishment will crush them politically in no time.
Seventy five year old Wall Street investor and financial analyst Jim Rogers says he's expecting another
harsh bear market to come our way – and soon.
His reasoning for anticipating that it will be of catastrophic proportions lies in the fact that the
global economy has accumulated such a large amount of debt since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The recent
correction in the stock market, with the Dow Jones industrial average posting its worst week in two years.
Earlier in the session, the index was on track for its worst week since October 2008, during the financial
crisis.
As Bloomberg reports
:
While Rogers isn't saying that stocks are poised to enter bear territory now -- or making any claim to
know when they will -- he says he's not surprised that U.S. equities resumed their selloff Thursday and he
expects the rout to continue.
"When we have a bear market again, and we are going to have a bear market again, it
will be
the worst in our lifetime
," Rogers, the chairman of Rogers Holdings Inc., said in a phone
interview. "
Debt is everywhere, and it's much, much higher now
."
The plunge in equity markets resumed Thursday, as the S&P 500 Index sank 3.8 percent, taking its rout
since a Jan. 26 record past 10 percent and meeting the accepted definition of a correction. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average plunged more than 1,000 points, while the losses continued in early Asian trading
Friday as the Nikkei 225 Stock Average dropped as much as 3.5 percent.
Bear Markets
Rogers has seen severe bear markets before. Even this century, the Dow plunged more than 50 percent
during the financial crisis, from a peak in October 2007 through a low in March 2009. It sank 38 percent
from its high during the IT bubble in 2000 through a low in 2002.
"Jim has been talking about severe corrections since I started in business over 30 years ago," said
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. President Mike Evans, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker. "So I'm sure
he'll be right at some point."
Rogers predicts the stock market will experience jitters until the Federal Reserve increases borrowing
costs. That, he says, will be the point when stocks go up again. He said he'll buy an agriculture index
today, reiterating his view that prices of such commodities have been depressed for some time.
"I'm very bad in market timing," Rogers said. "But maybe there will be continued sloppiness until
March when they raise interest rates, and it looks like the market will rally."
Turbulence is rocking the U.S. stock market as investors fear a strong economy will send
interest rates higher. However Yale economics professor Robert Shiller said Thursday, while
higher rates could tip the housing market the real issue is inflation.
"Obviously interest rates it's the price of time. It's a fundamental factor in our economy.
And people watch it. A lot of people think the stock market is overpriced, but what's the
alternative?" Shiller asked. "If you go into debt, it has not been a very good return either.
But that's all changing now and maybe that's the new narrative."
The Federal Reserve in January during its' first policy meeting of 2018 left its benchmark
interest rate unchanged in a range of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent -- citing continued job
growth an stronger inflation and setting the stage for a rate hike in March.
Despite acclimation for a low interest rates, Shiller pointed out how homebuyers have gotten
used to a no-inflation environment.
According to the latest employment report, wage growth rose 2.9% compared to the same period
a year earlier. Investors fear the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates faster than
anticipated due to stronger-than-expected wage growth data, which has caused the 10-year
Treasury yield to rise to 2.85%. Increasing bond yields impact the housing market, as mortgage
rates tend to follow the same path.
But in Shiller's opinion, the latest data isn't "alarming."
"That's not necessarily inflationary," Shiller said. "But if the economy stays full tilt as
it has been, a pickup of inflation would not be a surprise and some people wouldn't mind it so
much."
One of the more prescient remarks Hussman has been making in the past few months is the
tendency for the speculatively frenzied mindset, to fail to recognise the synergistic effects
of its own speculation on the resulting market valuations, but instead wants to presume that
some other deep integral factor must be responsible for the rising valuation levels, the
miracle of the grassy uplands, which they keep seeing, and which keeps them speculating all
the more.
"This could go on ... and on ... and on ...", and then it doesn't.
Hence the classic tendency to sharp rises and even sharper falls near the top of the
cycle.
Same occurred in China in 2015/2016, but almost no one ever seems to remember this, it's
always "different this time".
And never is.
And you're currently thinking that it just ain't so ... this time around ... this could go
on ... and on ...
"... 'By the way, Treasury auctions will increase this year from the current projection of $583 billion to almost $1 trillion. Relative to recent auction sizes, Treasury auctions will be higher by $500 billion next year and by $545 billion in 2020. And, secondly, the Congressional Budget Office's long-term projection for our debt/GDP will eclipse that of Japan at its peak, possibly making us the most indebted country in the world by 2033.'" ..."
Legendary macro trader Paul Tudor Jones predicted that tax reform would have huge
implications on the markets.
Jones, who rarely makes public comments on the markets, sent an investor update on February
2 just ahead of this week's wild swings in the market with the S&P 500 moving into
correction
territory.
In the letter, he highlighted how President Trump's State of the Union address on Jan. 30
touting "the biggest tax reforms in American history" should frighten investors who've amassed
more than $3 trillion in bonds into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds since 2008.
"This statement probably brought the loudest cheer of the night this week as all the
Republicans jumped to their feet and offered a chorus of huzzahs. No doubt the tax cut has had
a profound impact on the economy in the short-term and that will continue," Jones wrote. "But I
wonder if they would have remained cheering if President Trump had followed with, 'By the way,
Treasury auctions will increase this year from the current projection of $583 billion to almost
$1 trillion. Relative to recent auction sizes, Treasury auctions will be higher by $500 billion
next year and by $545 billion in 2020. And, secondly, the Congressional Budget Office's
long-term projection for our debt/GDP will eclipse that of Japan at its peak, possibly making
us the most indebted country in the world by 2033.'"
Brand attracted interest because of her potential to assume a key role in the Trump-Russia
investigation. The official overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,
the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, has been repeatedly criticized by Trump. If
Rosenstein had been fired or quit, oversight would have fallen to Brand. That job would now
fall to the solicitor general, Noel Francisco.
"She felt this was an opportunity she couldn't turn down," her friend and former colleague
Jamie Gorelick said. Walmart sought Brand to be head of global corporate governance at the
retail giant, a position Gorelick said has legal and policy responsibilities that will cater
to her strengths.
"It really seems to have her name on it," Gorelick said.
"... The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively. ..."
"... These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." ..."
"... If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective self image as warrior chieftains. ..."
"... In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them. ..."
"... Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers ..."
"... Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs. ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case. ..."
"... Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/ ..."
"... A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security? ..."
"... God help the poor people of Syria. ..."
"... thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point... you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass... ..."
"... Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups ..."
"... A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that they are born for greatness and can do no wrong. ..."
"... The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser) than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous. ..."
"... They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of ignorance but of wilful disregard. ..."
"... So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into social learning ..."
"... Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well. ..."
"... I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc. ..."
"... This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box. Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces. John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards describes this very well. ..."
"... Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking) organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks). ..."
"... In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous mix. ..."
"... That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries to bring it up risks being ejected from the group. ..."
"... "The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through 2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country. This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and deep. ..."
"... Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing it." I tried to encourage them to "think backwards". ..."
"... Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII. ..."
"... We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization. The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and so it goes. ..."
"... I just finished reading Command & Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far. ..."
The Borgist foreign policy of the administration has little to do with the generals. To comprehend the generals one must understand their collective mentality and the process that raised them on high as a collective
of their own. The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically
thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively.
These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of
their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board."
If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for
more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective
self image as warrior chieftains.
In Obama's time they were asked what policy should be in Afghanistan and persuaded him to reinforce their dreams in Afghanistan
no matter how unlikely it always was that a unified Western oriented nation could be made out of a collection of disparate mutually
alien peoples.
In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the
leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose
Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they
see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them.
Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War
College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they
are a collective of narrow thinkers. pl
IMO, this conformism pervades all institutions. I saw when I worked in banking and finance many moons ago how moving up the
ranks in any large organization meant you didn't rock the boat and you conformed to the prevailing groupthink. Even nutty ideas
became respectable because they were expedient.
Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of
going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs.
You remind me of an old rumination by Thomas Ricks:
Take the example of General George Casey. According to David Cloud and Greg Jaffe's book Four Stars, General Casey, upon learning
of his assignment to command U.S. forces in Iraq, received a book from the Army Chief of Staff. The book Counterinsurgency Lessons
Learned from Malaya and Vietnam was the first book he ever read about guerilla warfare." This is a damning indictment of the degree
of mental preparation for combat by a general. The Army's reward for such lack of preparation: two more four star assignments.
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers."
I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they
have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case.
Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have
been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America
Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/
" in 2000-2001
the Taliban government –with the support of the United Nations (UNODC) – implemented a successful ban on poppy cultivation. Opium
production which is used to produce grade 4 heroin and its derivatives declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. The production
of opium in 2001 was of the order of a meager 185 tons. It is worth noting that the UNODC congratulated the Taliban Government
for its successful opium eradication program. The Taliban government had contributed to literally destabilizing the multibillion
dollar Worldwide trade in heroin.
In 2017, the production of opium in Afghanistan under US military occupation reached 9000 metric tons. The production of opium
in Afghanistan registered a 49 fold increase since Washington's invasion. Afghanistan under US military occupation produces approximately
90% of the World's illegal supply of opium which is used to produce heroin. Who owns the airplanes and ships that transport heroin
from Afghanistan to the US? Who gets the profits?"
---A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production
and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and
Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security?
There needs to be a 're-education' of the top, all of them need to be required to attend Green Beret think-school, in other
words they need to be forced to think outside the box, and to to think on their feet. They need to understand fluid situations
where things change at the drop of a hat, be able to dance the two-step and waltz at the same time. In other words they need to
be able to walk and chew gum and not trip over their shoe-laces.
By no means are they stupid, but you hit the nail on the head when you said 'narrow thinkers'. Their collective hive mentality
that has developed is not a good thing.
thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or
only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point...
you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends
with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass...
i like what you said here "conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They
actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." - that strikes me as very true
- conformist group thinkers... the world needs less of these types and more actual leaders who have a vision for something out
of the box and not always on board... i thought for a while trump might fill this bill, but no such luck by the looks of it now..
As a young person in eighth grade, I learned about the "domino theory" in regard to attempts to slow the spread of communism.
Then my generation was, in a sense, fractured around the raging battles for and against our involvement in Vietnam.
I won't express my own opinion on that. But I mention it because it seems to be a type of "vision thing."
So, now I ask, what would be your vision for the Syrian situation?
Westmoreland certainly, Macarthur certainly not. This all started with the "industrialization" of the armed forces in WW2.
we never recovered the sense of profession as opposed to occupation after the massive expansion and retention of so many placeholders.
a whole new race of Walmart manager arose and persists. pl
The idea of the Domino Theory came from academia, not the generals of that time. They resisted the idea of a war in east Asia
until simply ordered into it by LBJ. After that their instinct for acting according to guidance kicked in and they became committed
to the task. Syria? Do you think I should write you an essay on that? SST has a large archive and a search machine. pl
I am talking about flag officers at present, not those beneath them from the mass of whom they emerge. There are exceptions.
Martin Dempsey may have been one such. The system creates such people at the top. pl
Your usual animosity for non-left wing authority is showing. A commander like the CENTCOM theater commander (look it up) operates
within guidance from Washington, broad guidance. Normally this is the president's guidance as developed in the NSC process. Some
presidents like Obama and LBJ intervene selectively and directly in the execution of that guidance. Obama had a "kill list" of
jihadis suggested by the IC and condemned by him to die in the GWOT. He approved individual missions against them. LBJ picked
individual air targets in NVN. Commanders in the field do not like that . They think that freedom of action within their guidance
should be accorded them. This CinC has not been interested thus far in the details and have given the whole military chain of
command wide discretion to carry out their guidance. pl
"I am not sure that I understand what makes a Borgist different from a military conformist." The Borg and the military leaders
are not of the same tribe. they are two different collectives who in the main dislike and distrust each other. pl
Anna. Their guidance does not include a high priority for eradicating the opium trade. Their guidance has to do with defeating
the jihadis and building up the central government. pl
Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function
demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups. pl
Trump would like to better relations with Russia but that is pretty much the limit of his attention to foreign affairs
at any level more sophisticated than expecting deference. He is firmly focused on the economy and base solidifying issues like
immigration. pl
The medical profession comes to mind. GP's and specialists. Many of those working at the leading edge of research seem much wider
thinking and are not locked into the small box of what they have been taught.
Combat Applications Group and SEALS don't even begin to compare, they're not in the same league as 'real deal' GBs. The GBs are
thinkers as well as doers, whereas Combat Applications Group and SEALs all they know is breach and clear, breach and clear.
There is more to life than breach and clear. Having worked with all in one manner or another, I'll take GBs any day hands down. It makes a difference when the brain is
engaged instead of just the heel.
A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that
they are born for greatness and can do no wrong.
The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think
up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser)
than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous.
They are indeed "narrow thinkers", but I think the problem runs deeper. They seem to be stuck in the rut of a past era. When
the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to accept the
reality of the world as it is now.
Of course, these policies ensure that they continue to be well-funded, even if the US is bankrupting itself in the process.
They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of
ignorance but of wilful disregard.
I've been reading this blog for some time. My question was facetious and written with the understanding of your statement about
the generals not having a good grasp of "the vision thing" on their own.
So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into
social learning. Chimps are on average more creative and have better short term memory than humans. We gave up some short term
memory in order to be able to learn quickly by mimicking. If shown how to open a puzzle box but also shown unnecessary extra steps
a chimp will ignore the empty steps and open the box with only the required steps. A human will copy what they saw exactly performing
the extra steps as if they have some unknown value to the process. Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and
taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well.
I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness
along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change
the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc.
One nice feature of the internet allows creative thinkers to connect and watch the idiocy of the world unfold around us.
"A natural desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown."
The military by definition is a rigid hierarchical structure.
It could not function as a collection of individuals.
This society can only breed conforming narrow leaders as an "individual" would leave or be forced out.
That part of our brain responsible for the desire to be part of the 'in crowd' may affect our decision-making process, but it
is also the reason we keep chimps in zoos and not the other way around. Or, to put it another way; if chimps had invented Facebook,
I might consider them more creative than us.
This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable
to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box.
Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces.
John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards
describes this very well.
Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking)
organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks).
In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's
Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous
mix.
Homogeneity is the main culprit. A specialists tends to try to solve problems with the same knowledge-set that created these.
Not all (parts of) organizations and people suffer this fate. Innovations are usually done by laymen and not by specialists.
The organizations are often heterogeneous and the people a-typical and/or eccentric.
(mainly the analytical parts of ) intelligence organizations and investment banks are like that if they are worth anything.
Very heterogeneous with a lot of a-typical people. I think Green Berets are also like that. An open mind and genuine interest
in others (cultures, way of thinking, religion etc) is essential to understand and to perform and also to prevent costly mistakes
(in silver and/or blood).
It is possible to create firewalls against tunnel-vision. The
Jester performed such a role. Also think of the
Emperors New Clothes . The current trend
of people with limited vision and creativity prevents this. Criticism is punished with a lack of promotion, job-loss or even jail
(whistle-blowers)
IMO this is why up to a certain rank (colonel or middle management) a certain amount of creativity or alternative thinking
is allowed, but conformity is essential to rise higher.
I was very interested in the Colonel's remark on the foreign background of the GB in Vietnam. If you would like to expand on this
I would be much obliged? IMO GB are an example of a smart, learning, organization (in deed and not only in word as so many say
of themselves, but who usually are at best mediocre)
Would you then say that a rising military officer who does have the vision thing faces career impediments? If so, would you
say that the vision thing is lost (if it ever was there) at the highest ranks? In any case, the existence of even a few at the top, like Matthis or Shinseki is a blessing.
"When the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to
accept the reality of the world as it is now."
That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at
odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries
to bring it up risks being ejected from the group.
I forget an important part. I really miss an edit-button. Comment-boxes are like looking at something through a straw. Its easy
to miss the overview.
Innovations and significant new developments are usually made by laymen. IMO mainly because they have a fresh perspective without
being bothered by the (mainstream) knowledge that dominates an area of expertise.
By excluding the laymen errors will continue to be repeated. This can be avoided by using development/decision-making frameworks,
but these tend to become dogma (and thus become part of the problem)
Much better is allowing laymen and allowing a-typical people. Then listen to them carefully. Less rigid flexible and very valuable.
Apparently, according to the last US ambassador to Syria Mr. Ford, from 2014-17 US has spent 12 Billion on Regime change in Syria.
IMO, combinedly Iran and Russia so far, have spent far less in Syria than 12 billion by US alone, not considering the rest of
her so called coalition. This is a war of attrition, and US operations in wars, are usually far more expensive and longer than
anybody else's.
"The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through
2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country.
This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after
war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD
It may "demand" it - but does it get it? Soldiers are just as human as everyone else.
I'm reminded of the staff sergeant with the sagging beer belly who informed me, "Stand up straight and look like a soldier..."
Or the First Sergeant who was so hung over one morning at inspection that he couldn't remember which direction he was going down
the hall to the next room to be inspected. I'm sure you have your own stories of less than competence.
It's a question of intelligence and imagination. And frankly, I don't see the military in any country receiving the "best and
brightest" of that country's population, by definition. The fact that someone is patriotic enough to enter the military over a
civilian occupation doesn't make them more intelligent or imaginative than the people who decided on the civilian occupation.
Granted, if you fail at accounting, you don't usually die. Death tends to focus the mind, as they say. Nonetheless, we're not
talking about the grunts at the level who actually die, still less the relatively limited number of Special Forces. We're talking
about the officers and staff at the levels who don't usually die in war - except maybe at their defeat - i.e., most officers over
the level of captain.
One can hardly look at this officer crowd in the Pentagon and CENTCOM and say that their personal death concentrates their
mind. They are in virtually no danger of that. Only career death faces them - with a nice transition to the board of General Dynamics
at ten times the salary.
All in all, I'd have to agree that the military isn't much better at being competent - at many levels above the obvious group
of hyper-trained Special Forces - any more than any other profession.
That is well put.most important is the grading system that is designed to fix a person to a particular slot thereby limiting his
ability to think "outside the box" and consider the many variables that exist in one particular instant.
Creative thinking allows
you to see beyond the storm clouds ahead and realize that the connectedness of different realities both the visible and invisible.
For
instance the picture of the 2 pairs of korean skaters in the news tells an interesting story on many levels. Some will judge them
on their grade of proffiency, while others will see a dance of strategy between 2 foes and a few will know the results in advance
and plan accordingly
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and
deep. STEM is enormously useful to us but seems to be a risky when implanted in shallow earth.
These narrow "but deep" thinkers were unable to grasp the nature of the Iraq War for the first couple of years. They thought
of it as a rear area security problem, a combat in cities problem, anything but a popular rebellion based on xenophobia and anti-colonialism
The IED problem? They spent several billion dollars on trying to find a technology fix and never succeeded. I know because they
kept asking me to explain the war to them and then could not understand the answers which were outside their narrow thought. pl
War College selectees, the national board selected creme de la creme test out as 50% SJs (conformists lacking vision) in Myers-Briggs
terms and about 15% NTs (intellectuals). To survive and move upward in a system dominated by SJs, the NTs must pretend to be what
they are not. A few succeed. I do not think Mattis is an intellectual merely because he has read a lot. pl
Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing
it."
I tried to encourage them to "think backwards".
My favorite example was a Japanese fisherman who recovered valuable ancient Chinese
pottery. Everyone knew where an ancient ship had sunk, but the water was too deep to dive down to the wreck. And everyone knew
the cargo included these valuable vases. And the fisherman was the first to figure out how to recover them. He attached a line
to an octopus, and lowered it in the area, waited awhile, and pulled it up. Low and behold, the octopus had hidden in an ancient
Chinese vase. The fisherman was familiar with trapping octopuses, by lowering a ceramic pot (called "takosubo") into the ocean,
waiting awhile, then raising the vase with octopus inside. His brilliance was to think backwards, and use an octopus to catch
a vase.
the original GBS were recruited in the 50s to serve in the OSS role with foreign guerrillas behind Soviet lines in th event
of war in Europe. Aaron Bank, the founder, recruited several hundred experienced foreign soldiers from the likely countries who
wanted to become American. By the time we were in VN these men were a small fraction of GBs but important for their expertise
and professionalism. pl
Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck
me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of
industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII.
We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization.
The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big
Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and
so it goes.
I note many Borgs... Borgism if you will. An organizational behavior that has emerged out of human nature having difficulty adapting
to rapidly accelerating complexity that is just too hard to apprehend in a few generations. If (as many commenters on STT seem
to...) one wishes to view this in an ideological or spiritual framework only, they may overlook an important truth - that what
we are experiencing is a Battle Among Borgs for control over their own space & domination over the other Borgs. How else would
we expect any competitive, powerful interest group to act?
In gov & industry these days, we observe some pretty wild outliers... attached to some wild outcomes. Thus the boring behavior
of our political industries bringing forth Trump, our promethean technology sector yielding a Musk (& yes, a Zuckerberg).
I find it hard to take very seriously analysts that define their perspective based primarily upon their superior ideals & opposition
to others. Isn't every person, every tribe, team or enterprise a borglet-in-becoming? Everybody Wants to Rule the World ... &
Everybody Must Get Stoned... messages about how we are grappling with complexity in our times. I just finished reading Command
& Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far.
Unfortunately, I would
not be amazed if reckless, feckless leaders changed the status quo. I was particularly alarmed hearing Trump in his projection
mode; "I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity, without a major event where people pull together,
that's hard to do.
But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing." It
strikes me that he could be exceptionally willing to risk a Major Event if he felt a form of unity, or self-preservation, was
in the offing. I pray (& I do not pray often or easily) that the Generals you have described have enough heart & guts to honor
their oath at its most profound level in the event of an Event.
As a time traveler from another age, I can only say that for me it means devotion to a set of mores peculiar to a particular
profession as opposed to an occupation. pl
Another springs to mind: James Lovelock (of Gaia hypothesis fame) was once part of the NASA team building the first probe to
go to Mars to look for signs of life. Lovelock didn't make any friends when he told NASA they were wasting their time, there was
none. When asked how he could be so sure, he explained that the composition of the Martian atmosphere made it impossible. "But
Martian life may be able to survive under different conditions" was the retort. Lovelock then went on to explain his view that
the evolution of microbial life determined the atmospheric composition on Earth, so should be expected to do the same if
life had evolved on Mars. Brilliant backwards thinking which ought to have earned him the Nobel prize IMHO (for Gaia). Lovelock,
a classic cross-disciplinary scientist, can't be rewarded with such a box-categorized honor, as his idea doesn't fit well into
any one.
Another example of cross-disciplinary brilliance was Bitcoin, which has as much to do with its creator's deep knowledge of
Anthropology (why people invented & use money) as his expertise in both Economics and Computer Science.
This is they key to creative thinking in my view - familiarity with different fields yields deeper insights.
"... The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively. ..."
"... These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." ..."
"... If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective self image as warrior chieftains. ..."
"... In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them. ..."
"... Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers ..."
"... Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs. ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case. ..."
"... Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/ ..."
"... A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security? ..."
"... God help the poor people of Syria. ..."
"... thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point... you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass... ..."
"... Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups ..."
"... A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that they are born for greatness and can do no wrong. ..."
"... The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser) than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous. ..."
"... They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of ignorance but of wilful disregard. ..."
"... So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into social learning ..."
"... Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well. ..."
"... I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc. ..."
"... This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box. Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces. John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards describes this very well. ..."
"... Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking) organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks). ..."
"... In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous mix. ..."
"... That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries to bring it up risks being ejected from the group. ..."
"... "The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through 2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country. This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and deep. ..."
"... Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing it." I tried to encourage them to "think backwards". ..."
"... Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII. ..."
"... We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization. The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and so it goes. ..."
"... I just finished reading Command & Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far. ..."
The Borgist foreign policy of the administration has little to do with the generals. To comprehend the generals one must understand their collective mentality and the process that raised them on high as a collective
of their own. The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically
thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively.
These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of
their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board."
If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for
more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective
self image as warrior chieftains.
In Obama's time they were asked what policy should be in Afghanistan and persuaded him to reinforce their dreams in Afghanistan
no matter how unlikely it always was that a unified Western oriented nation could be made out of a collection of disparate mutually
alien peoples.
In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the
leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose
Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they
see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them.
Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War
College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they
are a collective of narrow thinkers. pl
IMO, this conformism pervades all institutions. I saw when I worked in banking and finance many moons ago how moving up the
ranks in any large organization meant you didn't rock the boat and you conformed to the prevailing groupthink. Even nutty ideas
became respectable because they were expedient.
Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of
going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs.
You remind me of an old rumination by Thomas Ricks:
Take the example of General George Casey. According to David Cloud and Greg Jaffe's book Four Stars, General Casey, upon learning
of his assignment to command U.S. forces in Iraq, received a book from the Army Chief of Staff. The book Counterinsurgency Lessons
Learned from Malaya and Vietnam was the first book he ever read about guerilla warfare." This is a damning indictment of the degree
of mental preparation for combat by a general. The Army's reward for such lack of preparation: two more four star assignments.
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers."
I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they
have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case.
Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have
been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America
Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/
" in 2000-2001
the Taliban government –with the support of the United Nations (UNODC) – implemented a successful ban on poppy cultivation. Opium
production which is used to produce grade 4 heroin and its derivatives declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. The production
of opium in 2001 was of the order of a meager 185 tons. It is worth noting that the UNODC congratulated the Taliban Government
for its successful opium eradication program. The Taliban government had contributed to literally destabilizing the multibillion
dollar Worldwide trade in heroin.
In 2017, the production of opium in Afghanistan under US military occupation reached 9000 metric tons. The production of opium
in Afghanistan registered a 49 fold increase since Washington's invasion. Afghanistan under US military occupation produces approximately
90% of the World's illegal supply of opium which is used to produce heroin. Who owns the airplanes and ships that transport heroin
from Afghanistan to the US? Who gets the profits?"
---A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production
and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and
Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security?
There needs to be a 're-education' of the top, all of them need to be required to attend Green Beret think-school, in other
words they need to be forced to think outside the box, and to to think on their feet. They need to understand fluid situations
where things change at the drop of a hat, be able to dance the two-step and waltz at the same time. In other words they need to
be able to walk and chew gum and not trip over their shoe-laces.
By no means are they stupid, but you hit the nail on the head when you said 'narrow thinkers'. Their collective hive mentality
that has developed is not a good thing.
thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or
only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point...
you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends
with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass...
i like what you said here "conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They
actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." - that strikes me as very true
- conformist group thinkers... the world needs less of these types and more actual leaders who have a vision for something out
of the box and not always on board... i thought for a while trump might fill this bill, but no such luck by the looks of it now..
As a young person in eighth grade, I learned about the "domino theory" in regard to attempts to slow the spread of communism.
Then my generation was, in a sense, fractured around the raging battles for and against our involvement in Vietnam.
I won't express my own opinion on that. But I mention it because it seems to be a type of "vision thing."
So, now I ask, what would be your vision for the Syrian situation?
Westmoreland certainly, Macarthur certainly not. This all started with the "industrialization" of the armed forces in WW2.
we never recovered the sense of profession as opposed to occupation after the massive expansion and retention of so many placeholders.
a whole new race of Walmart manager arose and persists. pl
The idea of the Domino Theory came from academia, not the generals of that time. They resisted the idea of a war in east Asia
until simply ordered into it by LBJ. After that their instinct for acting according to guidance kicked in and they became committed
to the task. Syria? Do you think I should write you an essay on that? SST has a large archive and a search machine. pl
I am talking about flag officers at present, not those beneath them from the mass of whom they emerge. There are exceptions.
Martin Dempsey may have been one such. The system creates such people at the top. pl
Your usual animosity for non-left wing authority is showing. A commander like the CENTCOM theater commander (look it up) operates
within guidance from Washington, broad guidance. Normally this is the president's guidance as developed in the NSC process. Some
presidents like Obama and LBJ intervene selectively and directly in the execution of that guidance. Obama had a "kill list" of
jihadis suggested by the IC and condemned by him to die in the GWOT. He approved individual missions against them. LBJ picked
individual air targets in NVN. Commanders in the field do not like that . They think that freedom of action within their guidance
should be accorded them. This CinC has not been interested thus far in the details and have given the whole military chain of
command wide discretion to carry out their guidance. pl
"I am not sure that I understand what makes a Borgist different from a military conformist." The Borg and the military leaders
are not of the same tribe. they are two different collectives who in the main dislike and distrust each other. pl
Anna. Their guidance does not include a high priority for eradicating the opium trade. Their guidance has to do with defeating
the jihadis and building up the central government. pl
Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function
demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups. pl
Trump would like to better relations with Russia but that is pretty much the limit of his attention to foreign affairs
at any level more sophisticated than expecting deference. He is firmly focused on the economy and base solidifying issues like
immigration. pl
The medical profession comes to mind. GP's and specialists. Many of those working at the leading edge of research seem much wider
thinking and are not locked into the small box of what they have been taught.
Combat Applications Group and SEALS don't even begin to compare, they're not in the same league as 'real deal' GBs. The GBs are
thinkers as well as doers, whereas Combat Applications Group and SEALs all they know is breach and clear, breach and clear.
There is more to life than breach and clear. Having worked with all in one manner or another, I'll take GBs any day hands down. It makes a difference when the brain is
engaged instead of just the heel.
A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that
they are born for greatness and can do no wrong.
The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think
up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser)
than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous.
They are indeed "narrow thinkers", but I think the problem runs deeper. They seem to be stuck in the rut of a past era. When
the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to accept the
reality of the world as it is now.
Of course, these policies ensure that they continue to be well-funded, even if the US is bankrupting itself in the process.
They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of
ignorance but of wilful disregard.
I've been reading this blog for some time. My question was facetious and written with the understanding of your statement about
the generals not having a good grasp of "the vision thing" on their own.
So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into
social learning. Chimps are on average more creative and have better short term memory than humans. We gave up some short term
memory in order to be able to learn quickly by mimicking. If shown how to open a puzzle box but also shown unnecessary extra steps
a chimp will ignore the empty steps and open the box with only the required steps. A human will copy what they saw exactly performing
the extra steps as if they have some unknown value to the process. Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and
taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well.
I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness
along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change
the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc.
One nice feature of the internet allows creative thinkers to connect and watch the idiocy of the world unfold around us.
"A natural desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown."
The military by definition is a rigid hierarchical structure.
It could not function as a collection of individuals.
This society can only breed conforming narrow leaders as an "individual" would leave or be forced out.
That part of our brain responsible for the desire to be part of the 'in crowd' may affect our decision-making process, but it
is also the reason we keep chimps in zoos and not the other way around. Or, to put it another way; if chimps had invented Facebook,
I might consider them more creative than us.
This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable
to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box.
Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces.
John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards
describes this very well.
Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking)
organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks).
In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's
Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous
mix.
Homogeneity is the main culprit. A specialists tends to try to solve problems with the same knowledge-set that created these.
Not all (parts of) organizations and people suffer this fate. Innovations are usually done by laymen and not by specialists.
The organizations are often heterogeneous and the people a-typical and/or eccentric.
(mainly the analytical parts of ) intelligence organizations and investment banks are like that if they are worth anything.
Very heterogeneous with a lot of a-typical people. I think Green Berets are also like that. An open mind and genuine interest
in others (cultures, way of thinking, religion etc) is essential to understand and to perform and also to prevent costly mistakes
(in silver and/or blood).
It is possible to create firewalls against tunnel-vision. The
Jester performed such a role. Also think of the
Emperors New Clothes . The current trend
of people with limited vision and creativity prevents this. Criticism is punished with a lack of promotion, job-loss or even jail
(whistle-blowers)
IMO this is why up to a certain rank (colonel or middle management) a certain amount of creativity or alternative thinking
is allowed, but conformity is essential to rise higher.
I was very interested in the Colonel's remark on the foreign background of the GB in Vietnam. If you would like to expand on this
I would be much obliged? IMO GB are an example of a smart, learning, organization (in deed and not only in word as so many say
of themselves, but who usually are at best mediocre)
Would you then say that a rising military officer who does have the vision thing faces career impediments? If so, would you
say that the vision thing is lost (if it ever was there) at the highest ranks? In any case, the existence of even a few at the top, like Matthis or Shinseki is a blessing.
"When the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to
accept the reality of the world as it is now."
That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at
odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries
to bring it up risks being ejected from the group.
I forget an important part. I really miss an edit-button. Comment-boxes are like looking at something through a straw. Its easy
to miss the overview.
Innovations and significant new developments are usually made by laymen. IMO mainly because they have a fresh perspective without
being bothered by the (mainstream) knowledge that dominates an area of expertise.
By excluding the laymen errors will continue to be repeated. This can be avoided by using development/decision-making frameworks,
but these tend to become dogma (and thus become part of the problem)
Much better is allowing laymen and allowing a-typical people. Then listen to them carefully. Less rigid flexible and very valuable.
Apparently, according to the last US ambassador to Syria Mr. Ford, from 2014-17 US has spent 12 Billion on Regime change in Syria.
IMO, combinedly Iran and Russia so far, have spent far less in Syria than 12 billion by US alone, not considering the rest of
her so called coalition. This is a war of attrition, and US operations in wars, are usually far more expensive and longer than
anybody else's.
"The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through
2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country.
This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after
war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD
It may "demand" it - but does it get it? Soldiers are just as human as everyone else.
I'm reminded of the staff sergeant with the sagging beer belly who informed me, "Stand up straight and look like a soldier..."
Or the First Sergeant who was so hung over one morning at inspection that he couldn't remember which direction he was going down
the hall to the next room to be inspected. I'm sure you have your own stories of less than competence.
It's a question of intelligence and imagination. And frankly, I don't see the military in any country receiving the "best and
brightest" of that country's population, by definition. The fact that someone is patriotic enough to enter the military over a
civilian occupation doesn't make them more intelligent or imaginative than the people who decided on the civilian occupation.
Granted, if you fail at accounting, you don't usually die. Death tends to focus the mind, as they say. Nonetheless, we're not
talking about the grunts at the level who actually die, still less the relatively limited number of Special Forces. We're talking
about the officers and staff at the levels who don't usually die in war - except maybe at their defeat - i.e., most officers over
the level of captain.
One can hardly look at this officer crowd in the Pentagon and CENTCOM and say that their personal death concentrates their
mind. They are in virtually no danger of that. Only career death faces them - with a nice transition to the board of General Dynamics
at ten times the salary.
All in all, I'd have to agree that the military isn't much better at being competent - at many levels above the obvious group
of hyper-trained Special Forces - any more than any other profession.
That is well put.most important is the grading system that is designed to fix a person to a particular slot thereby limiting his
ability to think "outside the box" and consider the many variables that exist in one particular instant.
Creative thinking allows
you to see beyond the storm clouds ahead and realize that the connectedness of different realities both the visible and invisible.
For
instance the picture of the 2 pairs of korean skaters in the news tells an interesting story on many levels. Some will judge them
on their grade of proffiency, while others will see a dance of strategy between 2 foes and a few will know the results in advance
and plan accordingly
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and
deep. STEM is enormously useful to us but seems to be a risky when implanted in shallow earth.
These narrow "but deep" thinkers were unable to grasp the nature of the Iraq War for the first couple of years. They thought
of it as a rear area security problem, a combat in cities problem, anything but a popular rebellion based on xenophobia and anti-colonialism
The IED problem? They spent several billion dollars on trying to find a technology fix and never succeeded. I know because they
kept asking me to explain the war to them and then could not understand the answers which were outside their narrow thought. pl
War College selectees, the national board selected creme de la creme test out as 50% SJs (conformists lacking vision) in Myers-Briggs
terms and about 15% NTs (intellectuals). To survive and move upward in a system dominated by SJs, the NTs must pretend to be what
they are not. A few succeed. I do not think Mattis is an intellectual merely because he has read a lot. pl
Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing
it."
I tried to encourage them to "think backwards".
My favorite example was a Japanese fisherman who recovered valuable ancient Chinese
pottery. Everyone knew where an ancient ship had sunk, but the water was too deep to dive down to the wreck. And everyone knew
the cargo included these valuable vases. And the fisherman was the first to figure out how to recover them. He attached a line
to an octopus, and lowered it in the area, waited awhile, and pulled it up. Low and behold, the octopus had hidden in an ancient
Chinese vase. The fisherman was familiar with trapping octopuses, by lowering a ceramic pot (called "takosubo") into the ocean,
waiting awhile, then raising the vase with octopus inside. His brilliance was to think backwards, and use an octopus to catch
a vase.
the original GBS were recruited in the 50s to serve in the OSS role with foreign guerrillas behind Soviet lines in th event
of war in Europe. Aaron Bank, the founder, recruited several hundred experienced foreign soldiers from the likely countries who
wanted to become American. By the time we were in VN these men were a small fraction of GBs but important for their expertise
and professionalism. pl
Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck
me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of
industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII.
We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization.
The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big
Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and
so it goes.
I note many Borgs... Borgism if you will. An organizational behavior that has emerged out of human nature having difficulty adapting
to rapidly accelerating complexity that is just too hard to apprehend in a few generations. If (as many commenters on STT seem
to...) one wishes to view this in an ideological or spiritual framework only, they may overlook an important truth - that what
we are experiencing is a Battle Among Borgs for control over their own space & domination over the other Borgs. How else would
we expect any competitive, powerful interest group to act?
In gov & industry these days, we observe some pretty wild outliers... attached to some wild outcomes. Thus the boring behavior
of our political industries bringing forth Trump, our promethean technology sector yielding a Musk (& yes, a Zuckerberg).
I find it hard to take very seriously analysts that define their perspective based primarily upon their superior ideals & opposition
to others. Isn't every person, every tribe, team or enterprise a borglet-in-becoming? Everybody Wants to Rule the World ... &
Everybody Must Get Stoned... messages about how we are grappling with complexity in our times. I just finished reading Command
& Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far.
Unfortunately, I would
not be amazed if reckless, feckless leaders changed the status quo. I was particularly alarmed hearing Trump in his projection
mode; "I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity, without a major event where people pull together,
that's hard to do.
But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing." It
strikes me that he could be exceptionally willing to risk a Major Event if he felt a form of unity, or self-preservation, was
in the offing. I pray (& I do not pray often or easily) that the Generals you have described have enough heart & guts to honor
their oath at its most profound level in the event of an Event.
As a time traveler from another age, I can only say that for me it means devotion to a set of mores peculiar to a particular
profession as opposed to an occupation. pl
Another springs to mind: James Lovelock (of Gaia hypothesis fame) was once part of the NASA team building the first probe to
go to Mars to look for signs of life. Lovelock didn't make any friends when he told NASA they were wasting their time, there was
none. When asked how he could be so sure, he explained that the composition of the Martian atmosphere made it impossible. "But
Martian life may be able to survive under different conditions" was the retort. Lovelock then went on to explain his view that
the evolution of microbial life determined the atmospheric composition on Earth, so should be expected to do the same if
life had evolved on Mars. Brilliant backwards thinking which ought to have earned him the Nobel prize IMHO (for Gaia). Lovelock,
a classic cross-disciplinary scientist, can't be rewarded with such a box-categorized honor, as his idea doesn't fit well into
any one.
Another example of cross-disciplinary brilliance was Bitcoin, which has as much to do with its creator's deep knowledge of
Anthropology (why people invented & use money) as his expertise in both Economics and Computer Science.
This is they key to creative thinking in my view - familiarity with different fields yields deeper insights.
"he provided a "very rough first guess" that the over-all effect of the tax bill and the
spending deal would be about 1.25 per cent of G.D.P. for this calendar year, and two per cent
for the next.
> That would be a substantial stimulus. It would be larger, for example, than the
Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which George W. Bush's Administration introduced to try to
head off a slump following a big fall in the real-estate market. That stimulus, which came in
the form of a tax rebate, amounted to about one per cent of G.D.P. (It wasn't enough to head
off a recession. In fact, the National Bureau of Economic Research subsequently said that the
recession had already begun in December, 2007.)
> The Trump stimulus isn't as big as the Obama stimulus of 2009 through 2011, which
most Republican senators and congressmen vigorously opposed. That package, which consisted of
a mix of spending and tax cuts, totalled about two per cent of G.D.P. each year. But, in
February, 2009, when it was enacted, the economy was suffering through the deepest recession
since the nineteen-thirties. The unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent, and G.D.P. was
plummeting. If ever there was a textbook case of an economy crying out for a stimulus, that
was it.
>> Today, by contrast, the economy is in the ninth year of an economic recovery that
began in 2009. G.D.P. is growing at an annual rate of close to three per cent, and the
unemployment rate stands at 4.1 per cent. Many economics textbooks say this is the sort of
environment in which the government should be balancing its books, and perhaps even paying
down debt, like a family salting away money for a rainy day. That's what the Clinton
Administration did during the late nineteen-nineties, when the national debt was much smaller
than it is today.
> The Republicans and Trump are embarked on the opposite course -- confirming that the
G.O.P.'s devotion to deficit reduction, which in 2011 prompted members of the Party to refuse
to raise the debt ceiling, is purely cynical. Of course, we already knew this. The Reagan
Administration and the George W. Bush Administration both raided the public purse to finance
big tax cuts, and left the deficit much higher than they found it. The Trump Administration
is merely following suit."
I am posting this info. to this site, as part of personal approach as a US citizen to try to
get some REAL FACTS out into the supposedly professional platforms of economists. This
platforms are woefully lacking in good, factual information to communicate to anyone, even
amongst themselves, and especially to Joe living on an street, or hopefully any house on any
street in the US.
Now, what am I posting? The information that I am posting is an example of confusing
information that is extremely invalid and should NOT be posted by so-called reliable sources,
of professional, or "expertise" information. The reason I am posting an article that is
confusing is because this article by Krugman is also confusing, and just as unreliable as the
"confusing article" that was written by Alan Harkin at INVESTOPEDIA.
If you can't believe Investopedia's information, then who can you believe? I am posting
the article as an article that the reader can NOT believe. The linked article is absolutely
mis-stating IRS facts. This article is one of many that confuse the message about corporate
taxation.
Personally, I think it is deliberate. The title of the article: http://bit.ly/2Eof6eM
basically leads the reader "to believe" the article is about how much US corporations such as
APPLE, GOOGLE etc. "actually" bottomline- deliver to IRS. BUT, wait, when the reader "really
reads" the reader then notes, that the "charts" ONLY reflect the "tax rate". Now, that's a
whole different story. Tax rate is not bottomline taxes paid.
So, now if my "logic" and conclusion is "faulty", please enlighten me. The IRS data and
this article don't jive in the real world of statistical data. Here is link to STATISTA that
is THE data base that is used by top researchers worldwide.
This link shows the REAL data and percentage of corporate TAX PAID, AND FUTURE projections
for US etc. etc. I have selected the most obvious and easy to read chart.
The following link presents reliable fact VS The article from INVESTOPEDIA as garbage.
I am writing that the article in Investopedia by Aaron Hankin is BS. The content of the
article also attempts to establish correlations to S/P action that has absolutely NO
plausible fact to make any correlation about anything. I am also writing that most of the
media reports about "corporate tax" is BS. I also am writing that this article by Krugman is
a fluff, nonsense piece that is also BS. If Krugman were an economist that had any concern
about the US economy, he would have, and would be posting this link everywhere on earth.
All that I definitely am trying to do is to get "reasonable data" out there to influence
the public mindset to counter BS and try to present FACTS, just like a lot of other
intelligent readers are trying to do.
Basically, I am saying that the political posturing, and propaganda strategies of so many
different monied groups is demanding that any "serf" needs to present any comment as if the
"serf" is writing some sort of thesis. Really, all the "Talking Faces" are the ones who
should be doing that as they present messages to the public"serfs". Otherwise, there should
be public disclaimers as to who is paying the "Talking Faces" for delivering their
"propaganda". The "sponsored message" dynamics is so convoluted, that any viewer sure can't
presume anything. Basically, It just looks like a lot of "Talking Faces" are just making
themselves into asses, based on their assumption, and presumptions.
Why do you think anyone associated with investors is an economist rather than a snake oil
salesman in the medicine show that is extremely boring?
What to understand economics? Pay attention to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos.
They pay US workers to build productive assets like factories, transportation products,
energy harvesting products, information you want products, all of which can be matched only
by competitors paying hundreds of billions to millions of US workers just to catch up in a
decade.
But should we be worried about something worse than a mere downshift in growth?
Well, asset prices do look high: A widely used gauge of stock valuations puts them at a
15-year
high , while a conceptually similar measure says that housing prices have retraced
a bit
less than half the rise that culminated in the great housing bust.
Individually, these numbers aren't that alarming: Stocks, as I said, don't look nearly as
overvalued as they did in 2000, housing not nearly as overvalued as it was in 2006. On the
other hand, this time both markets look overvalued at the same time, at least raising the
possibility of a double-bubble burst like the one that hit Japan at the end of the 1980s.
And if asset prices take a hit, we might expect consumers -- who have been spending heavily
and saving very
little -- to pull back.
Still, all of this would be manageable if key policymakers could be counted on to act
effectively. Which is where I get worried.
I certainly noticed that the market incurred an enormous rise in the first month of 2018, and
anyone would have expected a correction, perhaps one less spectacular. So be it.
Lets hope buying (& selling) will be a lot less frantic, now that tax-cut euphoria is
behind us.
What is the stock market telling us with its precipitous drop over the last several days?
In all likelihood, not much of anything.
That's because the stock market, though crucial in the long run for individuals
accumulating wealth and companies raising capital, is so erratic as to be useless in
providing information about the short run. The 8.5 percent drop in the S.&P. 500 through
Monday's close (before a 1.7 percent rebound on Tuesday) could signify the onset of a global
recession. But it could just as well mean only that some trading algorithms at a big hedge
fund collided in weird ways.
For what really matters -- the well-being of the economy and the ability for individuals
and companies to prosper in the years ahead -- look first to fundamental economic data,
especially those that tend to be leading indicators. Second, look to the bond market and
other financial market indicators that are more reliable measures of investors' expectations
than stock prices.
There is good news on both fronts, as both point to a global economy that will continue
growing steadily in the months and years ahead, perhaps with inflation that is a bit higher
than in the recent past. That contrasts this market sell-off with drops in 2011, 2015 and
2016, which coincided with pessimistic signals in both economic data
and the bond market.
The stock market can, when looked at in concert with these other indicators, provide some
useful insight. Right now it appears to be more noise than signal.
The economic data has been solid in recent weeks. Just Friday, the Labor Department
reported that the United States added a robust 200,000 jobs in January. The Federal Reserve
Bank of Atlanta tracks incoming economic data to estimate current growth of gross domestic
product, and its indicator is pointing toward robust economic expansion -- a 4 percent annual
rate.
Of course, there is plenty of statistical error built into those numbers, and they may
turn out to be incorrect. But even many of the real-time indicators that tend to work as
early warnings of an economic slump are looking just fine. The Conference Board's index of
leading economic indicators ticked up in its most recent release, and weekly claims for
unemployment insurance benefits have hovered near record lows in recent weeks.
Just Monday, the Institute for Supply Management said its index of activity at service
companies rose sharply in January, which made it one of those curious days when good economic
news coincided with a steep market sell-off.
The bond market is also looking optimistic about the future, with prices suggesting that
continued growth -- without inflationary overheating -- is the most likely future.
The stock market has lost ground since the start of the year, thanks to the sharp sell-off
Monday. But the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds is up in that span, from 2.4 percent to 2.8
percent at Tuesday's close. That suggests bond investors think that continued steady recovery
will allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates gradually.
Bond investors are pricing in higher inflation than the United States has experienced in
recent years, but roughly in line with the 2 percent the Federal Reserve aims for. Prices for
inflation-protected bonds imply 2.09 percent annual inflation over the coming decade, up from
1.98 percent at the start of the year.
Other market indicators that might signal global economic troubles, like the price of oil,
instead point to a steady-as-she-goes global economy.
None of this makes a case for economic complacency. There are plenty of things that could
go wrong in the world, from conflict on the Korean Peninsula or in the Middle East to
destructive trade wars. But if the stock market was actually giving us any insight into the
likelihood of those outcomes, we would expect to see moves in bond and commodity markets that
just aren't happening.
Think of it this way. The economy is like a horse race -- and what we really care about is
which horse wins, places or shows. The bond market is the equivalent of the people betting
directly on the race. And while of course gamblers get it wrong sometimes, the market is
efficient enough that there's a fairly direct relationship between the odds a horse pays and
its probability of victory.
The stock market, by contrast, is like a weird side game in which people bet one another
on which gambler is going to have the best day. It's erratic, volatile and a couple of
degrees removed from the underlying horse race on which it is all based.
And that's why the best way to make sense of the drop in the stock market is to think of
it as a sideshow to the broader trajectory of the United States and global economy, which for
now look perfectly fine.
[Although I immediately agreed with this article that you posted, I took the time to do a
little background research on its author before replying. Neil Irwin authored the book "The
Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire" devoted to the subject of central
bankers role in dealing with the 2008 financial crisis. The review of this book linked with
conclusion excerpted below says that it is "a squarely centrist account, echoing conventional
wisdom" and that Irwin had done his homework thoroughly. For the topic at hand, the meaning
of this week's stock market dip, then that is a glowing testimonial to his relevant
abilities. It's not like we are picking the chairman of the CEA here.]
...So, Mr. Irwin writes, their triumph is what didn't happen: "As ugly as the global economy
looked five years after the onset of crisis, no war had broken out among the great global
powers. Europe remained united. There had been no confidence-shattering hyperinflation or,
outside of perhaps Greece and Spain, economic depression. None of this was a certainty." As
he puts it: "It may seem like damning with faint praise, but a catastrophe averted is no
small thing."
"When talking about stock markets, there are three rules you have to remember. "
Krugman is brain damaged by free lunch economics.
The most important three things to remember:
Market cap is not wealth.
Wealth can be created only by paying workers.
Wealth will always be less than labor costs.
If wealth is not created by paying workers, then wealth can be created by everyone selling
and reselling their old cars to each other at twice the price paid a week earlier.
All this ideas are good for "more or less"
stable market. If S&P500 drops 50% then it is completely another story. The idea that stocks will go up all the time is
questionable if we view stocks as private currencies.
The problem with the statement "How do you deal with market declines? Stop looking at the market as if it were a casino and
start treating stocks as businesses that you are trying to buy at a discount to fair value" is that there is no fair value in stocks
as they are in essence paper currencies. Stockholders stand far in the like after several other classes of creditors. So more
correctly fair value of any stock as fair value of any currency including dollar is zero. In other words like currencies this
is a confidence game.
Also in bear market fear is predominant and to buy on the cheap is very, very risky as market can drop further and
further. In no way you should buy stocks on dive. It make sense to buy it only on established upswing. The problem is what
metric you should use to judge that this "established" upswing.
Notable quotes:
"... Morgan Stanley's Wilson warns investors not to buy the dip. ..."
"... Stop looking at the market as if it were a casino and start treating stocks as businesses that you are trying to buy at a discount to fair value. Stock price is an opinion of what the market is willing to pay for this business right now ..."
"... If you treated stocks like a business every business would be out of business gone chapter 11. Paying 6 times fair market value for stocks and stock indexes is a great business model... to avoid. ..."
I've been asked to comment on the most recent market decline. My initial reaction was, markets go
up and they go down. America is a great country but the US Constitution doesn't guarantee
always-rising markets. I sat down and I wanted to write a reassuring message. I wanted to express my
empathy. Somehow, I found that my reservoir of empathy was empty: After recent decline the market is
still up twenty-something percent from the beginning of 2017.
And then I stumbled on Dalio and
Wilson predicting what the market will do next, and I have to confess, I started writing and could not
stop. (I apologize ahead of time for the rantiness of this message.)
Ray Dalio
: Cash on the sidelines will pour in to stem the bleeding in this market.
Morgan Stanley's
Wilson
warns
investors not to buy the dip.
Two contradictory headlines on the MarketWatch home page, right next to each other.
Do you listen to Dalio or Wilson? I want to let you in on a small Wall Street secret: Neither Dalio
nor Wilson knows what the stock market will do next. Don't be fooled by their fancy pedigrees, the
gazillions of dollars they manage, the eloquence of their logic, the myriad of data points they
marshall. Nobody but nobody knows what the stock market will do tomorrow, next week or next year.
Stock market behavior in the short term is completely random. Completely!
You'll have a better
luck predicting the next card at a black jack table than guessing what the stock market will do next.
The media of course needs to fill pages and rack up views, and so there are gazillions of
explanations (I'm trying to use the word gazillion at least three times in this article) for why the
stock market does this or that. The explanations always sound rational, but for the most part they are
worthless because they have zero forecasting power. A strong jobs report sent stocks up. Explanation:
The economy is doing great. A strong jobs report sent stocks down. Explanation: Investors are worried
about higher interest rates. I can give dual spin to any news, maybe only short of nuclear war.
My biggest problem with "The stock market will do this" headlines is that they turn investors
into degenerate gamblers.
I see people trying to treat the stock market like a casino. They get
lucky at times and catch the wave of randomness (especially if the market marches higher every single
day). Success goes to their heads, the feel like they've got this whole stock market thing figured
out. Stocks are just bits of data that are priced on the exchanges gazillions of times a day. This is
not investing – I don't even want to insult gambling by calling it gambling. At least gamblers don't
gamble with their life savings and 401k's (unless they are degenerate gamblers).
What will the stock market do next?
It's the wrong question. It's the question that should never be asked, and if asked should never be
answered. Asking this question shows that you believe there is some kind of order to this random
madness. There is not. And if you answer with any answer other than "I don't know," you're a liar.
How do you deal with market declines? Stop looking at the market as if it were a casino and start
treating stocks as businesses that you are trying to buy at a discount to fair value. Stock price is
an opinion of what the market is willing to pay for this business right now. Yes, it's an opinion, not
a final judgement. The stock market is going to be a miserable place for you in the long run if you
take market opinions on any given day seriously and treat them as final judgements.
If you start treating stocks as businesses and you start analyzing them and valuing them as such,
then market drops stop being a source of pain and turn into a source of pleasure. I read somewhere
that most money is made during bear markets (when you buy stocks on the cheap) – it just doesn't feel
that way at the time. Even if you are fully invested (we are not) why does it really matter that
the market decided to price your stocks lower today (unless you believe the market is right)? Will
it matter three, five years from now? If you own undervalued companies, they may get more undervalued
before they become fully valued. As long as you've got the valuation right, you'll eventually be
proven right.
Let me tell you what we did when the market took a dive. We looked at stocks we owned and asked
ourselves a question: Had their values changed? They had not. Then we asked if we wanted to increase
our positions in any of them. Then we looked through our long watch list to see if any stocks had hit
our buy-price targets. That was it. That is the only rational way to invest. Anything else is
The long-term general uptrend in stocks is primarily just a reflection of the
Fed's degradation of the value of the dollar/inflation. Physically holding
gold and silver keeps you at least even with that trend, over the long-term,
in a way that can't easily be taken from you. It also provides great peace of
mind for those who value that.
Wonderful article with the only caveat being
it neglects to accept how much power the Fed wields over the markets. Guessing
what the Fed will or won't do has become too important to ignore. To me
personally, it's hard to believe that the Fed will really be able to increase
interest rates another percentage point this year, while simultaneously
selling hundreds of billions of US treasuries off its balance sheet, and
issuing a trillion or so in new bonds to finance the national debt, without
popping the stock market bubble. On the other hand, these humongous issues of
new debt are not positive for the value of the dollar, and coupled with the
ongoing international move away from the dollar, it seems likely that the Fed
will need to keep interest rates rising in order to make sure the dollar
doesn't fall too fast, so they are in a very difficult situation and are
probably hoping to make sure this a managed pop, something like Japan had in
1990.
Of course, the Fed totally flubbed it in 2007-2008, so God only knows how
this one will shake out. One thing's for sure, the dollar as we know it will
not last. It was designed to fail, after all.
"Start treating stocks as businesses and start analyzing them and valuing them
as such."
Wow, it's refreshing to hear statements like this about stocks from
an Investment Manager. Most fund runners these days are just into the latest tricked
out vehicle that will take their customers for a ride.
If you treated stocks like a business every business would be out of business gone
chapter 11. Paying 6 times fair market value for stocks and stock indexes is a great
business model... to avoid.
Well, allow me to "argue" that this is BULLSHIT. First, let's examine what "value"
means. OH, is it this BULLSHIT that the companies report, and I mean HEADLINE
REPORT, called, NON-GAAP.
Some of us here might be smarter than others and will spend the time to read the
NON-SPUN bullshit. That will MAYBE give us an edge.
However, take it from a Guy who WAS ON THE INSIDE of Corporate THINK. WE ALL
LIED about our forecasts to create a sense of value and ALL COMPANIES LIE.
Remember, guys and gals, ALL Of the value is in FUTURE earnings, and
PRE-ANNOUNCEMENTS and the trick is to KNOW the market in which you might want to
invest in....and that means you must be, by definition, an INSIDER.
OH, and only CONGRESS gets to "invest as insiders" legally---right? THEY PUT
MARTHA in jail for the very thing that they do daily. If this Country ain't a
stinking asshole of a shit hole, then I am not understanding those terms.
I have said it here over over:
1. THEY WANT US to argue over shit they do not care about.
2. They want us to NOT DO THE MOST LUCRATIVE things which are outlawed, only to
then turn around and do those things themselves, and:
3. THEY GET OFF THE HOOK.
If this ain't a crock of shit, I am not sure what is. WE ARE FUCKED.
After a long and slow recovery from the recession that began a decade ago, the US economy is
poised for robust growth this year. But, although the economy currently is healthy, it is also
fragile, owing to a decade of excessively low interest rates, which have caused investors and
lenders to bid up asset prices and make risky loans.
"... Jimmy it doesn't make sense because its all lies! Ask the workers if they have had any type of increase. They haven't. There hasn't been 200 000 jobs created, more like lost. The rich are pulling out because they know the truth. Not to mention the stock market that has been manipulated for so long its a fraud like the rest of it. ..."
The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture
featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster. With over 5
million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the
country. It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.
As Hegel so rightful said: "We learn from history that we do NOT learn from history." No
where is this more true than in the financial sector. Every steep rise in the market is
always followed by any equally sharp fall. This is why it amazes me when people, even those
seasoned veterans of the stock market, get giddy when they see such a dramatic uptick in the
market. They should see such a rapid increase as a harbinger of bad things to come, and not
persist in a delusion that things will be smooth sailing for a long time. This happens time
and time again, and people still just don't seem to get it. In fact, in almost any area of
life, an uncharacteristically rapid change, leads to predicable failure. If you see someone
lose weight faster than they should, on some fad diet, chances are they will fail and gain it
back, with additional weight, just as quickly. We have so many people who have the knowledge
to make short term gains, but lack the wisdom to see the folly in such a approach.
I'm not an economist either, but here's basically what my economy professor said when I
took the class a couple of years ago: "The stock market is entirely arbitrary. The numbers
put up are determined by a bunch of men in suits who randomly decide what the value is based
on whatever they feel might in some way affect it. It bounces up and down completely at the
whim of people making what they believe are educated guesses." The example I gave in class
was Pixar. The stock for Pixar dropped dramatically when Up was announced because the stock
market investors looked at it and said, "How can this make money? It can't be merchandised
and an animated feature that can't be merchandised can't succeed. Tell all the investors to
sell." And then Up turned out to be Pixar's most successful film up to that point and
immediately all those investors who sold off decided to buy back in. The stock market is
completely guesswork.
Market success and the success of the working class are not aligned with one another. We
are heading towards a crash similar to the great recession because these corporate tools
WON'T LEARN THEIR LESSON.
THe stock market is a giant Ponzi scheme. The stock market original was made for us to
make money from interest, but people now try to make money off of speculation. Really, in the
end, if you make money in stocks, someone else loses. The money from stock value does not
come from the company, with exceptions, other than the IPO, it is from someone else buying
the stocks from you. The reason the rich has gotten so rich, is they are making money from us
being forced to invest in 401k. Before CLinton, we were told to put our retirement in the
bank, and teh bank has to find safe investments, but Clinton dropped the interest rate so
banks don't want our money.
Take a look at the M2, velocity of money. It has been falling off a cliff for a decade.
The last Fed report showed a sharp uptick. While in order to have a robust economy where the
99% are doing well we NEED a much higher velocity, too much of a rise too quickly could cause
rapid inflation and all that money has been horded to be spent. this would cause hyper
inflation if the US dollar's future value is ever perceived as lower than its present value.
Wiemar USA, because that is pretty much what happened in Germany. People hoarded money and
velocity dropped off a cliff. Once inflation happened, the dam broke and everyone wanted to
spend their hoarded money. It is a myth that Germany devalued its money to pay off war
reparations. What happened was rapid inflation set in once velocity of money took off like a
rocket. People scrabbled to buy gold, art, luxuries other tangible assets to store value.
This made the value of gold skyrocket in German marks. Adding to this inflationary pressure
was the Allies demanding gold for payment of reparations. It was a spiral after that, that
could not possible be stopped.
Fundamentals are excellent. Interest rates still low. This is a normal correction. SM went
up too high too fast. Smart investors buy the bottom of this correction. The smartest
investors already took some profits and have cash on the sideline, waiting for the
correction.
By your logic Jimmy, if jobs and wages are up and are causing this slump in most listed
companies, then the outliers should be stocks in consumer goods companies which should be
sky-rocketing against the Dow trend, like P&G and Unilever, because they will reap a huge
benefit from higher wages and more jobs. If not, then the fall in confidence has other deeper
origins. Maybe someone has done their research and knows lower taxation shrinks an economy
that is still in recession.
Who should I blame if everything goes to shit in the next month Obama or Trump because the
Dems and MSM keep saying the economy has been doing great because of Obama.
the market literally went straight up for 10,000 points. no one said anything about that
being unusual. we corrected a tiny bit and everyone that doesnt watch the market freaks out
because they dont question anything if it goes up. totally right though, the market has
nothing to do with the economy.
Basically what is good for the stock market is bad for workers, and vice versa. Think
about it: publicly traded corporations make stock market growth by: merging (and laying off
workers) with other companies; keeping wages down (so more profit can go into the companies
profits, which raises their stock value); cutting benefits for workers (so the company can
post higher profits which then raises their stock value). If a company gives workers pay
raises, then their stock will be degraded because they are making less of a profit. Etc.
Most good economists (Joseph Stiglitz, Richard Wolff) have been predicting this for at
least year or more... Inflation adjusted wages have not gone up for 40 years...
So if you're on a realistic retirement plan ...which is next to nothing...should you
support the whole wall street crap shoot - or - put a down payment on property and rent it
out to someone who is willing to pay your mortgage but risk being called a 'rent seeker' or
say fuck it and go off grid and live in a van down by the river?
The answer to the question 'Where else to put your retirement beside Wall Street' is Gold
& Silver. No Gold & Silver won't make you rich, but it will keep up with inflation
and keep you out of the Wall Street Casino. And do not put all your money in Gold &
Silver, but 10% is my target. Everyone else has a different target that meets their needs
based on their situation.
Jimmy it doesn't make sense because its all lies! Ask the workers if they have had any
type of increase. They haven't. There hasn't been 200 000 jobs created, more like lost. The
rich are pulling out because they know the truth. Not to mention the stock market that has
been manipulated for so long its a fraud like the rest of it.
The news is the FED handed Wells Fargo the first of many more to come sanctions and has
put all Wall Street Banks on notice that the Fed has every intention of leveling the playing
field between them and smaller regional banks who are more community based. Our side
(Progressives) will be the benefactors of Wall Street reforms that are coming because the
Politicians who are in the pocket of Wall Street will show their stripes trying to defend
their donors interests. Hopefully, voices like Jimmy's will show both Parties hypocrisy to
the true interests of the American workers. Yes, it's true American business got the best
deal with the new tax law and are already taking advantage of cash on hand to buy back their
debt which reduces their dependency on Wall Street. This is a fight we can win but it's going
to take the voice of the people to carry on the fight that's coming.
Jimmy, what you have inadvertently stumbled upon is Marx's conception class interest as it
relates to surplus value. What does this mean? An employer only hires a worker because that
worker will make more money for the employer then the employer will pay the worker. The
difference between value that the employee generates(more) and the amount that the employee
receives in wages(less) is referred to as surplus value. Workers and capitalists fight over
this surplus - they both want more of it. When a workers wage goes up, the worker gets more
of the surplus and the capitalist gets less and visa versa. Marx uses this as one example to
explain that the class dichotomy is capitalism is between the worker and the capitalist.
Their interests are diametrically opposed in relation to the surplus.
The investor class is disciplining the working class even more. They wanted them tax cuts
so they could control even more of our economy and tip the scales for another recession
(which is a double to triple dip recession for the rest of us). They used our government to
force us to give them all of our tax dollars, placing the burden of the government they have
captured squarely on us. Now they have even more money and more power and can crash their
crazy casino which screws us, even though they reap all the benefits of the casino and we
always bail them out. Hold on to your panties everyone, here they go!
"... Yes, fundamentally, a lot of flaws are built in to how the markets operate in a "financially engineered" manner, but it blew for the simple reason that interest rates nudged upward at the end of January as soon as the Federal Reserve got serious about its quantitative squeezing. That strongly supports my central thesis of this blog that this economy, built on caverns of debt and riddled with market design flaws, is too fragile to absorb any reduction in the Fed's balance sheet. ..."
"... Carl Icahn says he expects stock markets to bounce back after the massive sell-off Friday and Monday, while warning that current market volatility is a harbinger of things to come . The volatility of recent weeks is cause for concern, Icahn said, adding that he doesn't remember a two-week period as turbulent as this one. He said the problem is that too much money is flowing into the index funds, where investors don't know what they're actually investing in. ..."
"... "Passive investing is the bubble right now, and that's a great danger," he said. Eventually, that will implode and could lead to a crisis bigger than in 2009, he added. ..."
"... Risk parity funds. Volatility-targeting programs. Statistical arbitrage. Sometimes the U.S. stock market seems like a giant science project, one that can quickly turn hazardous for its human inhabitants. ..."
"... You didn't need an engineering degree to tell something was amiss Monday. While it's impossible to say for sure what was at work when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 1,597 points, the worst part of the downdraft felt to many like the machines run amok. For 15 harrowing minutes just after 3 p.m. in New York a deluge of sell orders came so fast that it seemed like nothing breathing could've been responsible. ..."
"... The result was a gut check of epic proportion for investors . "We are proactively calling up our clients and discussing that a 1,600-point intraday drop is due more to algorithms and high-frequency quant trading than macro events or humans running swiftly to the nearest fire exit ." ..."
"... "What was frightening was the speed at which the market tanked," said Walter "Bucky" Hellwig, Birmingham, Alabama-based senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management . " The drop in the morning was caused by humans, but the free-fall in the afternoon was caused by the machines. It brought back the same reaction that we had in 2010, which was 'What the heck is going on here?" ..."
"... Particular suspicion landed on trading programs tied to volatility , mathematical measures of which exploded as the day progressed . ( Newsmax ) ..."
"... The machines that now run the stock market are out of control. They do the bidding for us, but their algorithms have been designed by college sprouts who have never seen a falling market. ..."
"... Most dangerous of all, they're self-programming. They rewrite their own algorithms based on their successes and failures so that even their programmers no longer know why the machines are doing what they are doing. Even if one group of programmers does know exactly what its own algorithms are doing, they certainly don't know what is in all the others and, therefore, how they might interact to self-reinforce wrong actions. ..."
"... They don't exist in one room where you can pull a circuit breaker and disconnect them from the market. They exist in office buildings by the hundreds of thousands all over the world. Even the decisions and bids that are made by humans doing their own thinking are placed through the machines, so there is usually no way to know if a single bid coming through is by a human or is machine generated. ..."
"... The fifteen-minute, 900-point drop on Friday was a mere foreshock of that, too. We've already had a few flash-crash foreshocks that none of the experts can understand, but it hasn't slowed us from moving deeper and deeper into the machines' labyrinth. Nor have we even begun to try to work out some of the design flaws that caused those initial flash crashes. ..."
"... If the market technowizards have actually managed to get all the robo-traders unplugged or quickly reprogrammed, maybe the slide will stabilize before it becomes an all-out crash. They attempted that with some success today by stopping all volatility trading before the market opened, which I'll get into below. But, even if they've gotten the ill-programmed robots off to the side or have fixed their sizzling little heads, the market that opens tomorrow will be a whole new market -- no longer one that hyperventilates on the fumes of hope, but one that has relearned how to fear risk. ..."
Yes, fundamentally, a lot of flaws are built in to how the markets operate in a "financially
engineered" manner, but it blew for the simple reason that interest rates nudged upward at the end of
January as soon as the Federal Reserve got serious about its quantitative squeezing.
That strongly
supports my central thesis of this blog that this economy, built on caverns of debt and riddled with
market design flaws, is too fragile to absorb any reduction in the Fed's balance sheet.
And that's why I was able to time when the first crash would be likely to hit. It's simple: When is
the Fed scheduled to start getting serious in its Great Unwind? January. What week did they actually
do it in? The last week of January. Kaboom!
The Fed cannot ever unwind. It will try because it believes it can, but kaboom! We'll find ways to
recover from this first shock over what happens to interest when they stop rolling over government
debt. The government will adapt. It will find other buyers. But the cost will go up. And the kabooms
will keep happening. I've always maintained that the failure of the recovery is baked in by design and
will show when the Fed's artificial life support is actually withdrawn. (Whether it is there by
intentional design or design flaw, I'll leave up to one's conspiratorial imagination, as it doesn't
matter to me; both get you to the same place: kaboom!)
Some bigger voices than mine are saying the same thing:
Carl Icahn says he expects stock markets to bounce back after the massive sell-off
Friday and Monday, while warning that current market volatility is a harbinger of things to come .
The
volatility of recent weeks is cause for concern, Icahn said, adding that
he doesn't remember a
two-week period as turbulent as this one.
He said the problem is that too much money is
flowing into the index funds, where investors don't know what they're actually investing in.
"Passive investing is the bubble right now, and that's a great danger," he said. Eventually,
that will implode and could lead to a crisis bigger than in 2009, he added.
The fact that the market has completed its de-evolution into a casino, rather than a place to buy
ownership in a company, is part of the rickety framework I've described for our economy -- part of what
makes it easy to shove over with a nudge in interest because the entire economy has been made utterly
dependent on low interest.
... ... ...
The mechanized meltdown -- machines rule and drool
"Dow Drops 900 Points in 10 Minutes as Machines Run Amok on Wall Street"
Risk parity funds. Volatility-targeting programs. Statistical arbitrage. Sometimes the U.S.
stock market seems like a giant science project, one that can quickly turn hazardous for its human
inhabitants.
You didn't need an engineering degree to tell something was amiss Monday. While it's
impossible to say for sure what was at work when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as
1,597 points, the worst part of the downdraft felt to many like the machines run amok.
For
15 harrowing minutes just after 3 p.m. in New York a deluge of sell orders came so fast that it
seemed like nothing breathing could've been responsible.
The result was a gut check of epic
proportion for investors . "We are proactively calling up our clients and discussing that a
1,600-point intraday drop is due more to algorithms and high-frequency quant trading than macro
events or humans running swiftly to the nearest fire exit ."
"What was frightening was the speed at which the market tanked,"
said
Walter "Bucky" Hellwig, Birmingham, Alabama-based senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management .
"
The drop in the morning was caused by humans, but the free-fall in the afternoon was
caused by the machines.
It brought back the same reaction that we had in 2010, which
was 'What the heck is going on here?"
It may never be clear what accelerated the tumble
-- people still aren't sure what caused the flash crash on May 6, 2010.
Unlike then,
most of the theorizing about today's events centered not on the market's plumbing or
infrastructure, but on the automated quant strategies that gained popularity with the advent of
electronic markets last decade.
Particular suspicion landed on trading programs tied to
volatility
, mathematical measures of which exploded as the day progressed . (
Newsmax
)
There is some basis for saying, "this looks like a technically driven selloff," but this is another
problem for which there is no solution, and one I've written about here in the past. No solution
because they cannot even identify the problem back in 2010! You cannot solve what you cannot identify.
The machines that now run the stock market are out of control. They do the bidding for us, but their
algorithms have been designed by college sprouts who have never seen a falling market. They try to
trick each other, and try to bid the market up. They're an accelerant. Most dangerous of all, they're
self-programming. They rewrite their own algorithms based on their successes and failures so that even
their programmers no longer know why the machines are doing what they are doing. Even if one group of
programmers does know exactly what its own algorithms are doing, they certainly don't know what is in
all the others and, therefore, how they might interact to self-reinforce wrong actions.
They don't exist in one room where you can pull a circuit breaker and disconnect them from the
market. They exist in office buildings by the hundreds of thousands all over the world. Even the
decisions and bids that are made by humans doing their own thinking are placed through the machines,
so there is usually no way to know if a single bid coming through is by a human or is machine
generated. Therefore, there is not really any way to shut the machines entirely off if they get out of
control because their disjointed, convoluted, false-bidding, intentionally tricking, interacting and
over-reacting zillions of intercommunications per second all around the world add up to a sum that is
far more evil than its innumerable mischievously and deviously conceived parts. The system is built
from the core out factious parts intended to trick each other upward, but what happens if this
amalgamated beast starts tricking itself downward? Who has the authority or the controls to stop the
collapse in the microseconds in which it may originate and climax?
So, FUNDAMENTALLY, the market system, itself, is deeply and inexorably flawed by intentional human
design. It wasn't designed to destroy the world. It was merely designed with its own sinful
machinations because of the flaws of its designers. The whole beastly thing is of a corrupted nature
because of all the people who hoped to use their machines to out-game all the other people's machines.
It is a network of sparks and tricks. However, because it can multiply its devilish intentions
millions of times per nanosecond, we have no idea how much market carnage it might create if all the
algos one day just happen to line up in the wrong direction (wrong direction for humans, anyway).
The fifteen-minute, 900-point drop on Friday was a mere foreshock of that, too. We've already had a
few flash-crash foreshocks that none of the experts can understand, but it hasn't slowed us from
moving deeper and deeper into the machines' labyrinth. Nor have we even begun to try to work out some
of the design flaws that caused those initial flash crashes.
Other problems with the machines emerged when trading became so frantic that the sheer volume was
frying the brains of many computer networks, causing the financial services of several trading
companies to go offline.
Investment firms T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Vanguard Group apologized to customers for
sporadic outages on their websites during the Dow industrials' 1600-point downturn . Online
brokerages TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab also experienced issues. (
Newsmax
)
The computers couldn't handle all the other computers.
If the market technowizards have actually managed to get all the robo-traders unplugged or quickly
reprogrammed, maybe the slide will stabilize before it becomes an all-out crash. They attempted that
with some success today by stopping all volatility trading before the market opened, which I'll get
into below. But, even if they've gotten the ill-programmed robots off to the side or have fixed their
sizzling little heads, the market that opens tomorrow will be a whole new market -- no longer one that
hyperventilates on the fumes of hope, but one that has relearned how to fear risk.
So far haven't seen anything that makes me expect US 10's to break the top of the
30-year yield downtrend channel (driven by 30+ dis-inflationary years of borrowing
growth from the future).
So if no break-out on US 10s, then what happened in previous years when US 10s
touched the top of the channel?
Equities break down, slowly at first then OMG faster. Bonds rally.
The Fed makes noises about cutting rates but markets ignore.
Fed cuts rates and markets ignore. US 10s test previous yield lows again.
Fed goes "all in" with Helicopter money. End of $ and US Treasury market.
Everything will hit the wall. Try to 'time' it if you must, but just be aware that
those last few yards come up on you real quick...that's why people always get nailed
by these events. (I'm always amused by the ones who seem to think that they can and
will time it right...do they really believe all the folks who got nailed in the past
were just stupid?...What kind of over-inflated ego would even entertain that idea?)
If it WERE possible to do that, there would BE no downturns, ever. These things do
the damage they do because you CAN'T time them. Predict, yes, but not time.
Regardless of what marky is doing, Dave's quite correct. The longtime flooring of
interest rates has created a world dependent on it continuing. Maybe if it had
something more going for it things would be different. The unwinding of the fed
balance sheet was always just a theory. No one knew if or when it would happen. Or
more important if it was even possible. But the car has no reverse gear and many
people have spoken about this. That we will only hear a grinding noise if they
try to shift into reverse. For myself, I'm certainly no expert, but I know enough
about the housing market to know that somewhere around 2.80 on the ten year the
increase will certainly be felt. And that once margin interest rates reaches parity
with dividend yields, or sooner, that one goes pear shaped as well. The engine that
has propelled housing prices to several times their real value ( granted,
not everywhere ) is now in reverse. And that, as Dave has noted, is only the tip of
the iceberg of total debt. And even if they reverse course, the debt saturation is
so widespread the patient would only barely limp forward from here. There also are
likely pension funds and others in the ICU. We won't know about everything right
away.
Yes HS, Dave called it out correctly IMHO. Here is what he wrote in three
sentences that is the sum of the whole article, and why the seeds of our
destruction as a country, and world have been fervently watered since 2008.
"No, the fundamentals do not provide reason for optimism. They provide reason
for grave concern. As I've been writing all along, the greatest fundamental
that is exerting pressure right now is the massive debt that the entire global
economy is built on."
The steam train is on the track, clickety-clack, clickety-clack,
Picking up speed as it heads down the mountain, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
People are hanging on for dear life, clickety-clack, clickety-clack,
Won't matter none when the train runs out of track, clickety-clack,
clickety-clack.
Market participants could easily be forgiven for their early-year euphoria. After a solid
2017, key macroeconomic data – on unemployment, inflation, and consumer and business
sentiment – as well as GDP forecasts all indicated that strong growth would continue in
2018.
The result – in the United States and across most major economies – has been a
rare moment of optimism in the context of the last decade. For starters, the macro data are
positively synchronized and inflation remains tame. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund's
recent upward revision of
global growth data came at precisely the point in the cycle when the economy should be
showing signs of slowing.
Moreover, stock markets' record highs are no longer relying so much on loose monetary policy
for support. Bullishness is underpinned by evidence of a notable uptick in capital investment.
In the US, gross domestic private investment rose 5.1% year on year in the fourth quarter of
2017 and is nearly 90% higher than at the trough of the Great Recession, in the third quarter
of 2009.
This is emblematic of a deeper resurgence in corporate spending – as witnessed in
durable goods orders. New orders for US manufactured durable goods beat expectations, climbing
2.9% month on month to December 2017 and 1.7% in November.
Other data tell a similar story. In 2017, the US Federal Reserve's Industrial Production and
Capacity Utilization index recorded its largest calendar year gain since 2010, increasing 3.6%.
In addition, US President Donald Trump's reiteration of his pledge to seek $1.5 trillion in
spending on infrastructure and public capital programs will further bolster market
sentiment.
All of this bullishness will continue to stand in stark contrast to warnings by many world
leaders. In just the last few weeks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned that the current
international order is under threat. French President Emmanuel Macron noted that globalization
is in the midst of a major crisis, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated that
the unrest we see around the world is palpable and "isn't going away."
Whether or not the current correction reflects their fears, the politicians ultimately could
be proved right. For one thing, geopolitical risk remains considerable. Bridgewater Associates'
Developed World Populism index surged to its highest point since
the 1930s in 2017, factoring in populist movements in the US, the United Kingdom, Spain, France
and Italy. So long as populism lingers as a political threat, the risk of reactionary
protectionist trade policies and higher capital controls will remain heightened, and this could
derail economic growth.
Meanwhile the market is mispricing perennial structural challenges, in particular mounting and
unsustainable global debt and a dim fiscal outlook, particularly in the US, where the price
of this recovery is a growing deficit. In other words, short-term economic gain is being
supported by policies that threaten to sink the economy in the longer term.
The Congressional Budget Office, for example, has forecast
that the US deficit is on course to triple over the next 30 years, from 2.9% of GDP in 2017 to
9.8% in 2047, "The prospect of such large and growing debt," the CBO cautioned, "poses
substantial risks for the nation and presents policymakers with significant challenges."
The schism in outlook between business and political leaders is largely rooted in different
time horizons. For the most part, CEOs, hemmed in by the short termism of stock markets, are
focused on the next 12 months, whereas politicians are focusing on a more medium-term
outlook.
As 2018 progresses, business leaders and market participants should – and undoubtedly
will – bear in mind that we are moving ever closer to the date when payment for today's
recovery will fall due. The capital market gyrations of recent days suggest that awareness of
that inevitable reckoning is already beginning to dawn.
Dambisa Moyo, an economist and author, sits on the board of directors of a number of
global corporations. She is the author ofDead Aid,Winner Take All,
andHow the West
Was Lost.
Might be harbinger of things to come. It's 12 years since the financial crash of 2007. And
neoliberalism can't exist without stock market crashes.
Notable quotes:
"... Everyone who's asking "why did the stock market crash Monday?" is asking the wrong question; the real question, Keen exclaims, is "why did it take so long for this crash to happen? " ..."
Everyone who's asking "why did the
stock market crash Monday?" is asking the wrong question; the real question, Keen exclaims, is
"why did it take so long for this crash to happen? "
The crash itself was significant - Donald Trump's favorite index, the Dow Jones Industrial
(DJIA) fell 4.6 percent in one day. This is about four times the standard range of the index -
and so according to conventional economics, it should almost never happen.
Of course, mainstream economists are wildly wrong about this, as they have been about almost
everything else for some time now. In fact, a four percent fall in the market is unusual, but
far from rare: there are well over 100 days in the last century that the Dow Jones tumbled by
this much.
Crashes this big tend to happen when the market is massively overvalued, and on that front
this crash is no different.
It's like a long-overdue earthquake. Though everyone from Donald Trump down (or should that
be "up"?) had regarded Monday's level and the previous day's tranquillity as normal, these were
in fact the truly unprecedented events. In particular, the ratio of stock prices to corporate
earnings is almost higher than it has ever been.
More To Come?
There is only one time that it's been higher: during the DotCom Bubble, when Robert
Shiller's "cyclically adjusted price to earnings" ratio hit the all-time record of 44 to one.
That means that the average price of a share on the S&P500 was 44 times the average
earnings per share over the previous 10 years (Shiller uses this long time-lag to minimize the
effect of Ponzi Scheme firms like Enron). The S&P500 fell more than 11 percent that day, so
Monday's fall is minor by comparison. And the market remains seriously overvalued: even if
shares fell by 50 percent from today's level, they'd still be twice as expensive as they have
been, on average, for the last 140 years.
After the 2000 crash, standard market dynamics led to stocks falling by 50 percent over the
following two years, until the rise of the Subprime Bubble pushed them up about 25 percent
(from 22 times earnings to 28 times). Then the Subprime Bubble burst in 2007, and shares fell
another 50 percent, from 28 times earnings to 14 times.
This was when central banks thought The End of the World Is Nigh, and that they'd be blamed
for it. But in fact, when the market bottomed in early 2009, it was only just below the
pre-1990 average of 14.5 times earnings.
Safe Havens
That valuation level, before central banks (staffed and run by people with PhDs in
mainstream economics) decided that they knew how to manage capitalism, is where the market
really should be. It implies a dividend yield of about six percent in real terms, which is
about twice what you used to get on a safe asset like government bonds -- which are safe, not
because the governments and the politicians and the bureaucrats that run them are saints, but
because a government issuing bonds in its own currency can always pay whatever interest level
it promises. There's no risk that it can't pay, and it can't go bankrupt, whereas a company
might not pay dividends, and it can go bankrupt.
Now shares are trading at a valuation that implies a three percent return, as if they're as
safe as government bonds issued by a government which owns the bank that pays interest on those
bonds. That's nonsense.
And it's a nonsense for which, ironically, central banks are responsible. The smooth rise in
stock market prices which led to the levels that preceded Monday's crash began when central
banks decided to rescue the economy by "Quantitative Easing (QE)." They promised to do
"whatever it takes" to drive shares up from the entirely reasonable values they reached in late
2009, and did so by buying huge amounts of government bonds back from private banks and other
financial institutions (pension funds, insurance companies, etc.). In the USA's case, this
amounted to $1 trillion per year -- equal to about seven percent of America's annual output of
goods and services (GDP or "gross domestic product"). The Bank of England brought about
£200 billion worth, which was an even larger percentage of GDP.
With central banks buying that volume of bonds, private financial institutions found
themselves awash with money, and spent it buying other assets to get yields - which meant that
QE drove up share prices as banks, pension funds and the like bought them with money created by
QE.
Blind Oversight
So this is the first central bank-created stock market bubble in history, and central banks
have just had the first stock market crash where the blame is entirely theirs.
Were this a standard, private hysteria and leverage driven bubble, we could well be facing a
further 50 percent fall in the market -- like what happened after the DotCom crash. This would
bring shares back to the long-term average of 17 times earnings.
Instead, what I believe will happen is that central banks, having recently announced that
they intend to end QE, will restart it and try to drive shares back to what think are "normal"
levels, but which are at least twice what they should be.
As I said in my last book
'Can we avoid another financial crisis ?' QE was like Faust's pact with the Devil: once you
signed the contract, you could never get out of it. They'll turn on their infinite money
printing machine, buy bonds off financial institutions once more, and give them liquidity to
pour back into the markets, pushing them once more to levels that they should never rightly
have reached.
This, of course, will help to make the rich richer and the poor poorer by further increasing
inequality. Which is arguably the biggest social problem of the modern era. So, as well as
being incompetent economists these mainstreamers are today's Marie Antoinette. Let them eat
cake, indeed.
New figures published this week on obscene inequality show how the capitalist economic
system has become more than ever deeply dysfunctional. Surely, the depraved workings of the
system pose the greatest threat to societies and international security. Yet, Western leaders
are preoccupied instead with other non-existent threats – like Russia.
Take British prime minister Theresa May who this week was
speaking at a posh banquet in London. She told the assembled hobnobs, as they were sipping
expensive wines, that "Russia is threatening the international order upon which we depend".
Without providing one scrap of evidence, the British leader went to assert that Russia was
interfering in Western democracies to "sow discord".
May's grandstanding is a classic case study of what behavioral scientists call "displacement
activity" – that is, when animals find themselves in a state of danger they often react
by displaying unusual behavior or making strange noises.
For indeed May and other Western political leaders are facing danger to their world order,
even if they don't openly admit it as such. That danger is from the exploding levels of social
inequality and poverty within Western societies, leading to anger, resentment, discontent and
disillusionment among increasing masses of citizens. In the face of the inherent, imminent
collapse of their systems of governance, Western leaders like May seek some relief by prattling
on about Russia as a threat.
This week European bank Credit Suisse published figures showing that the wealth gap between
rich and poor has reached even more grotesque and absurdist levels. According to the bank, the
world's richest 1% now own as much wealth as half the population of the entire planet. The
United States and Britain are among the top countries for residing multi-millionaires, while
these two nations have also emerged as among the most unequal in the world.
The data calling out how dysfunctional the capitalist system has become keeps on coming. It
is impossible to ignore the reality of a system in deep disrepair, yet British and American
politicians in particular – apart from notable exceptions like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie
Sanders – have the audacity to block out this reality and to chase after risible
phantoms. (The exercise makes perfect sense in a way.)
Last week, a
report from the US-based Institute of Policy Studies found that just three of America's
wealthiest men – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – own the same level of
wealth as the poorest half of the entire US population. That is, the combined monetary worth of
these three individuals – reckoned to be $250 billion – is equivalent to that
possessed by 160 million citizens.
What's more, the study also estimates that if the Trump administration pushes through its
proposed tax plans, the gap between rich elite and the vast majority will widen even further.
This and other studies have found that over 80% of the tax benefits from Trump's budget will go
to enrich the top 1% in society.
All Western governments, not just May's or Trump's, have over the past decades overseen an
historic trend of siphoning wealth from the majority of society to a tiny elite few. The tax
burden has relentlessly shifted from the wealthy to the ordinary workers, who in addition have
had to contend with decreasing wages, as well as deteriorating public serves and social
welfare.
To refer to the United States or Britain as "democracies" is a preposterous misnomer. They
are for all practical purposes plutocracies; societies run by and for a top strata of obscenely
wealthy.
Intelligent economists, like the authors at the IPS cited above, realize that the state of
affairs is unsustainable. Morally, and even from an empirical economics point of view, the
distortion of wealth within Western societies and internationally is leading to social and
political disaster.
On this observation, we must acknowledge the pioneering work of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels who more than 150 years ago identified the chief failing of capitalism as being the
polarization of wealth between a tiny few and the vast majority. The lack of consumption power
among the masses owing to chronic poverty induced by capitalism would result in the system's
eventual collapse. Surely, we have reached that point in history now, when a handful of
individuals own as much wealth as half the planet.
Inequality, poverty and the denial of decent existence to the majority of people stands out
as the clarion condemnation of capitalism and its organization of society under private profit.
The human suffering, hardships, austerity and crippled potential that flow from this condition
represent the crisis of our time. Yet instead of an earnest public debate and struggle to
overcome this crisis, we are forced by our elites to focus on false, even surreal problems.
American politics has become paralyzed by an endless elite squabble over whether Russia
meddled in the presidential elections and claims that Russian news media continue to interfere
in American democracy. Of course, the US corporate-controlled news media, who are an integral
part of the plutocracy, lend credibility to this circus. Ditto European corporate-controlled
media.
Then we have President Donald Trump on a world tour berating and bullying other nations to
spend more money on buying American goods and to stop cheating supposed American generosity
over trade. Trump also is prepared to start a nuclear war with North Korea because the latter
is accused of being a threat to global peace – on the basis that the country is building
military defenses. The same for Iran. Trump castigates Iran as a threat to Middle East peace
and warns of a confrontation.
This is the same quality of ludicrous distraction as Britain's premier Theresa May this week
lambasting Russia for "threatening the world order upon which we all depend". By "we" she is
really referring to the elites, not the mass of suffering workers and their families.
May and Trump are indulging in "perception management" taken to absurdity. Or more crudely,
brainwashing.
How can North Korea or Iran be credibly presented as global threats when the American and
British are supporting a genocidal blockade and aerial slaughter in Yemen? The complete
disconnect in reality is testimony to the pernicious system of thought-control that the vast
majority of citizens are enforced to live under.
The biggest disconnect is the obscene inequality of wealth and resources that capitalism has
engendered in the 21 st century. That monstrous dysfunction is also causally related
to why the US and its Western allies like Britain are pushing belligerence and wars around the
planet. It is all part of their elitist denial of reality. The reality that capitalism is the
biggest threat to humanity's future.
Do we let these mentally deficient, deceptive political elites and their media dictate the
nonsense? Or will the mass of people do the right thing and sweep them aside?
Two interesting points in this nice synopsis full of nuggets;
" much of what looks like inflation occurs in selected sectors (health care, broadband
prices, higher education) as a result of aggressive use of pricing power."
I would argue all three inflated sectors have different origins. Escalating healthcare
costs are largely due to the perverted incentives for healthcare cost control. When there is
no real incentives for patients (through utilization) or insurance companies to control costs
(they themelves would actually make less money if they significantly controlled costs) but
rather to pass on the costs through higher premiums, you get the year over year increases
there.
Escalating cable/broadband prices are most likely due to monopolies or duopolies in
service areas which allow for pricing power.
Out of control tuition costs in higher education are a combination of student loans,
acting as the fuel, to allow for students to be less price sensitive to rising tuition which
goes to pay for everything but education such as excess administrative costs, fancy dining
and athletic/gym facilities, etc.
Two;
People have been wondering for so long about how long China can keep its debt-fuelled
growth going that the worry-warts look a lot like the boy who cried "wolf".
I wonder if there is a parallel with what happened in the US were deregulation in lending
(credit card and mortgage) in the late sixties and early seventies (after we fully went off
the gold standard) created the greatest debt bubble known. That took about 40 years to
finally pop with the Global Financial Crisis.
Appreciated your final sentence and paragraph in this post before the Update, as well as
your observations on the Fed's obsession with suppressing wage growth beginning with Volcker,
which you have mentioned before. But I expect the QE-ZIRP Welfare Queens will soon enough
have their way with their former capo and new Fed Chair, if they haven't already. They will
make every effort to restore order and keep market prices elevated. Gotta have those stock
buybacks that make CEO stock options so lucrative and have fueled political contributions by
the One Percent under their Orwellian-named Citizens United decision. Too bad this has
been so mismanaged and gotten so frothy. As usual, I expect the wrong people will get
hurt.
As an additional piece of news. Beijing did just announce an end to bitcoin in the PRC.
They had previously chosen to block domestic exchanges and as of this week they plan to block
access to all foreign exchanges as well. While that is not a direct assault on the shadow
banking system it will tighten one mechanism by which those banks route their money out of
the country or otherwise conceal it. Whether that counts as a serious cleanup or just
eliminating competition is another matter. Either way it isn't good for the price of a
BTC.
The FRED
weekly earnings data don't show even the raise that the hourly data purport to show.
Average weekly hours down, more than enough to wipe out the small rise in hourly wages.
Hourly wage growth for production workers is actually near a low point for the post-2009
expansion.
This wailing about wage inflation looks like certain policymakers and media types
deliberately amplifying statistical noise to serve their own agendas.
the real danger is that the neoliberal model is increasingly under stress, as the
consequences of rising inequality and unheard-of low levels of the benefits of growth going
to laborers undermines the legitimacy of the system and is producing bad outcomes ranging
from political fracture to falling life expectancy and an opioid crisis that is in large
measure the result of the collapse of typically rural communities. The last thing the US
needed was more transfers to the rich in the form of the Trump tax bill. So while Mr.
Market may recover his sunny mood, the foundations of the economy continue to rot.
For news in the same vein, this soon to be published book should be quite interesting
"But another way to read it is that this particular downdraft is a symptom of how much
owners of securities think that what is good for workers is bad for them."
The logical conclusion is that Corporate Profits will be maximized when Wages hit
zero.
Uh..yeah .can someone explain how that will work please.
Sure, I'll have a go. Logical doesn't necessarily mean maximal. The lines intersect at a
nonzero point. If they took wages to zero, who would cook and clean and mow and so on for
them? They're damn near helpless without us.
Pretty revealing curves, too. How much human can we be at a given wage level? Starvation
level, subsistence level, on up through housing wage to, dare I dream? Living wage.
Pity the poor PTB, terrified that we might get up from our knees.
ISTM us "modern" workers work way more than our Stone Age ancestors likely did. I doubt
they had only 2 days off a month, like I do. It's my understanding that, in "primitive"
cultures, people spent most of their time being people. And still spend, since they're not
all dead yet.
If work we must, I wish everyone had a livelihood, not just a job. The difference is, the
more you give a livelihood, the more it gives you back.
And my understanding is that as long as food was relatively plentiful, "Primitive"
cultures actually had a fair amount of free time on their hands as one's daily nutritional
needs could be met with a few hours of effort.
No wonder so many Westeners went "Native" at times. Whether it was living with Native
American's or British sailors in the South Pacific. Frankly hanging out on the beach in
Tahiti seems preferable to me.
And most natives who were not turned into slaves reverted back to thier roots when they
got home. Fitzroy, of the Beagle and Darwin had brought some of the residents of Tierra del
Fuego home to England with him. When returned they tried to teach them to farm, but upon
their return, years later. The natives had abandoned the hard work of farming to become
hunter gatherers again. When found one of them replied, "why do that when there is Plenty
Fishies, Plenty Birdies?, etc" -Probably not an exact quote, but along those lines.
As to zero wages, that would be slavery, the base of one of those curves perhaps, but
today's base is better, because their is no responsibility that comes with being a slave
owner, or a feudal lord I suppose. People can be left to die, preferably quietly.
>> So this is pretty rich. The Fed and the investor classes are getting worried
that the labor markets might be getting too tight
Didn't Marx say that after a boom the rate of profits starts to fall and capitalism
experiences a contraction (apology to Marx for the very rough paraphrase but I think that was
the gist)? Labor costs eat into profits. The party of record profitability and record share
prices is threatened by the first clouds on the labor horizon so there. Mr Market is very
finely attuned to any whiff or rising labor costs.. Marx explained it all, what – 170
years ago
Jimmy Dore has an interesting take on this meltdown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUmjZVwvYnQ
and ties in the growing signs of wage growth to Wall Street's reaction to this trend.
"... the top 1% own >40% of the nation's wealth (v. 25% in 1980). >70% of their wealth is in stocks/bonds v. 13% for the middle class. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/how-the-top-1-keeps-getting-richer ..."
"... thanks to income inequality the wealthy and the death of the traditional pension plan, the wealthy don't have a chump to unload their overvalued ZIRP-inflated assets unto. ..."
From September, but the last 1/3 of the article talks about a what-if scenario that seems
to be happening now
Interestingly the article predicts a flat VIX term structure in advance of the short vol
trade blowing up, as that takes away the easy money from the trade, and verily last week the
VIX curve from what I saw on the interwebs, was flat
That's a great article, Steak – thanks for posting –
The bottom line is that the Big (Volatility) Short is an excellent trade that takes
advantage of an upward sloping term structure in the $VIX futures. If that term structure,
however, flattens or begins to slope downward, bad things happen to the Big (Volatility)
Short trade. The rapidity with which the term structure makes that change will have a lot
to do with just how bad the losses are that are incurred by the volatility shorts. Most
smart players – hedge funds, family offices, etc. – are quite leery of the
short volatility trading strategy right now, because of the extremely low levels of $VIX
and because it's such a crowded trade. However, it seems that "everyone" is warning against
the trade right now, so it will probably continue to work for quite some time before
– unexpectedly – a problem explodes on the scene.
So a doubling in one trading session – yesterday – of a VIX which has been
long-term depressed by the same monetary policies which blew the MoAB, Bubble 3.0, would seem
to have qualified as 'unexpectedly'. And 'some time' in this case turned out to be a mere 5
months, pretty damn good in "the market can stay irrational longer " terms.
thanks to income inequality the wealthy and the death of the traditional pension plan, the
wealthy don't have a chump to unload their overvalued ZIRP-inflated assets unto.
And paper wealth is meaningless without a liquid market to convert that stock ledger line
item into cash when the central banks take away the punch bowl.
Good coverage Yves. I think you covered all the major strands of explanation. My open
question is this: will the strains of falling markets reveal structural fault lines in the
shadow banking system that have not been apparent? So far, no, but we are in the early
downhill phase.
Trying to get to underlying causality in the real economy and its relations to the great
stock market run-up is a humbling, daunting assignment. Thanks for making the effort.
This article talks of the economic "boom" before the crash of '87 and keeps perpetrating the
right wing propaganda of the "good old days of Reagan." Maybe for those who were working in
the stock market. But my memories of that time before the crash were of massive unemployment
in the midwest, union jobs being lost to "right to work" schemes in the south, cities boarded
up with no business in their downtown areas, people struggling to put food on the table and
no prospects for the younger generation. (Remember, the 80's of Reagan is when we Gen X'ers
were teenagers.) You've created a lovely story - but it is the story of the 1%. Because
honestly, the crash of '87 didn't affect anyone beyond the stock market as we were already
suffering at the bottom. The thing I find hilarious is that everyone was shocked that Trump
got elected and we talk endlessly of how do people vote against their interests. But to me,
Trump is just Reagan in another form. Same propaganda - different suit. History does repeat
itself - particularly in how people still believe the same old lies told by those who adore
the stock market.
The US Savings and Loan deregulation mess the 2007/8 melt down and the many Madoff ponzi
scams have taught most people especially politicians little or nothing.
The huge US deficits from this tax gift just like the three Trillion Obama gave Wall
Street shows Democrats and Republicans think and act the same, selfishly feeding friends and
family and peeing on the idle masses of Falling Rome.
As AI continues to eliminate millions of jobs and increasing problems for a growing
population, the next Boston Tea Party may make the Vegas shooting by one derranged individual
look like a pac man game ...............................eating up the financial
aristocrats
"Unregulated capitalism = boom and bust"
"If Keynes, the governments of the 40s and the public after WW2 worked this out, why can't
we?"
Associated with the switch to worshipping the false gods of the monetarism and unfettered
capitalism we have globalisation accompanied by free flowing capital. This makes it more
difficult for the UK government to pursue any economic policy that is much different from
other major trading countries and our trading partners. Furthermore, the multiplier effect is
now much lower than it was in Keynes' time. (Whether that trend has reversed with less
progressive taxation I don't know.)
I still think the obsession with *unfettered* free markets and disregard for basic truths
underlined by Keynes is wretchedly short sighted, but it's not as simple as turning back the
clock.
The massive growing US debt is a major world concern that eventually will force a further
devaluation of the US currency and increased pressure on China to convert huge bond holdings
into 100% ownership of real hard assets, like mines, agricultural processing, real estate,
transportation and technology.
The US will need to push up fed interest rates to 3% in the next twenty-four months to slow
the conversion and asset buy up of the Chinese. Many US multi national corporations will sell
overseas assets to the Chinese who would prefer them over Mainland US based assets that can be
politically control by Washington.
The New York stock market is very over priced relative to returns and a lot of the
artificial assets are the Googles, Amazons ,Facebooks that are easily copied by big pocket
China.
"... Consider those who in their late forties got hit by the last bank-owned/Wall Street crash. They lost a good chunk of their 401ks...and had to cash out the remainder to just cover former obligations. Then they were told to go back to school (again involving, at least here in the US, major debt to do so). Who benefited.. the same bank and Wall Street loan sharks. So now in their early fifties and competing against much younger people, they struggled to pay off their incurred re-training/education loans, with nary a penny to spare to invest for what they had after years of saving lost. It's a mugs game, with the only ones winning are the top 1-2% who are able to bet against their own investments. ..."
Both sides of Congress serve the wealthy with the intention of gaining wealth for themselves.
Trump is not much different than the dems (that's why Obama told Bernie to leave). The US is
purely capitalistic. Money is everything. People without money are nothing, but if you toss
them in prison you can make money (and make them work for free). After eight years of Obama
the US is still the world's top prison state and there's more poverty than ever. Trump,
Obama, Hillary. All very similar. I just see dollar signs.
Consider those who in their late forties got hit by the last bank-owned/Wall Street crash.
They lost a good chunk of their 401ks...and had to cash out the remainder to just cover
former obligations. Then they were told to go back to school (again involving, at least here
in the US, major debt to do so). Who benefited.. the same bank and Wall Street loan sharks.
So now in their early fifties and competing against much younger people, they struggled to
pay off their incurred re-training/education loans, with nary a penny to spare to invest for
what they had after years of saving lost. It's a mugs game, with the only ones winning are
the top 1-2% who are able to bet against their own investments.
Sunday, January 21, 2018Blockchain: what it is, what it does, and why you
probably don't need one
Dilbert - by Scott Adams
Interest in blockchain is at a fever pitch lately. This is in large part due to
the eye-popping price dynamics of Bitcoin --the original bad-boy cryptocurrency--which
everyone knows is powered by blockchain ...whatever that is. But no matter. Given that
even big players like Goldman Sachs are getting into the act (check out their super slick
presentation here: Blockchain--The New Technology of
Trust ) maybe it's time to figure out what all the fuss is about. What follows is based on
my slide deck which I recently presented at the Olin School of Business at a Blockchain
Panel (I will link up to video as soon as it becomes available)
Things are a little confusing out there I think in part because not enough care is taken in
defining terms before assessing pros and cons. And when terms are defined, they sometimes
include desired outcomes as a part of their definition. For example, blockchain
is often described as consisting of (among other things) an immutable ledger. This is
like defining a titanic to be an unsinkable ship.
So what do people mean when they bandy about the term blockchain ? I recently had a
chance to learn about the project from a corporate perspective as represented by Ed Corno of
IBM (see IBM Blockchain ), the
other member of the panel I mentioned above. From Ed's slide deck we have the following
definition:
Blockchain: a shared, replicated, permissioned ledger with consensus, provenance,
immutability and finality.
Well, if this is what blockchain is, then maybe I want one too! The issue I
have with this definition (apart from the fact that it confounds descriptive elements with
desired outcomes) is that it glosses over what I consider to be an important defining
characteristic of blockchain: the consensus mechanism. Loosely speaking, there are two
ways to achieve consensus. One is reputation-based (trust) and the other is
game-based (trustless).
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the corporate versions of blockchain are likely to stick to
the standard model of reputation-based accounting. In this case, the efficiency gains of
"blockchain" boil down to the gains associated with making databases more synchronized across
trading partners, more cryptographically secure, more visible, more complete, etc. In short,
there is nothing revolutionary or radical going on here -- it's just the usual advancement of
the technology and methods associated with the on-going problem of database management.
Labeling the endeavor blockchain is alright, I guess. It certainly makes for good
marketing!
On the other hand, game-based blockchains--like the one that power Bitcoin--are, in my view,
potentially more revolutionary. But before I explain why I think this, I want to step back a
bit and describe my bird's eye view of what's happening in this space.
A Database of Individual Action Histories
The type of information that concerns us here is not what one might label "knowledge," say,
as in the recipe for a nuclear bomb. The information in question relates more to a set of
events that have happened in the past, in particular, events relating to individual actions.
Consider, for example, "David washed your car two days ago." This type of information is
intrinsically useless in the sense that it is not usable in any productive manner. In addition
to work histories like this, the same is true of customer service histories, delivery/receipt
histories, credit histories, or any performance-related history. And yet, people value such
information. It forms the bedrock of reputation and perhaps even of identity. As such, it is
frequently used as a form of currency.
Why is intrinsically useless history of this form valued? A monetary theorist may tell you
it's because of a lack of commitment or a lack of trust (see Evil is the Root of All
Money ). If people could be relied upon to make good on their promises a priori ,
their track records would largely be irrelevant from an economic perspective. A good reputation
is a form of capital. It is valued because it persuades creditors ( believers ) that more reputable agencies are
more likely to make good on their promises. We keep our money in a bank not because we think
bankers are angels, but because we believe the long-term franchise value of banking exceeds the
short-run benefit a bank would derive from appropriating our funds. (Well, that's the theory,
at least. Admittedly, it doesn't work perfectly.)
Note something important here. Because histories are just information, they can be created
"out of thin air." And, indeed, this is the fundamental source of the problem: people have an
incentive to fabricate or counterfeit individual histories (their own and perhaps those of
others) for a personal gain that comes at the expense of the community. No society can thrive,
let alone survive, if its members have to worry excessively about others taking credit for
their own personal contributions to the broader community. I'm writing this blog post in part
(well, perhaps mainly) because I'm hoping to get credit for it.
Since humans (like bankers) are not angels, what is wanted is an honest and immutable
database of histories (defined over a set of actions that are relevant for the community in
question). Its purpose is to eliminate false claims of sociable behavior (acts which are
tantamount to counterfeiting currency). Imagine too eliminating the frustration of discordant
records. How much time is wasted in trying to settle "he said/she said" claims inside and
outside of law courts? The ultimate goal, of course, is to promote fair and efficient outcomes.
We may not want something like this creepy Santa Claus technology , but
something similar defined over a restricted domain for a given application would be nice.
Organizing History
Let e(t) denote a set of events, or actions (relevant to the community in question),
performed by an individual at date t = 1,2,3,... An individual history at date t is denoted
Aggregating over individual events, we can let E(t) denote the set of individual actions at
date t, and let H(t-1) denote the communal history, that is, the set of individual histories of
people belonging to the community in question:
Observe that E(t) can be thought of as a "block" of information (relating to a set of
actions taken by members of the community at date t). If this is so, then H(t-1) consists of
time-stamped blocks of information connected in sequence to form a chain of blocks. In this
sense, any database consisting of a complete history of (community-relevant) events can be
thought of as a "blockchain."
Note that there are other ways of organizing history. For example, consider a cash-based
economy where people are anonymous and let e(t) denote acquisitions of cash (if positive) or
expenditures of cash (if negative). Then an individual's cash balances at the beginning of date
t is given by h(t-1) = e(t-1) + e(t-2) + ... + e(0). This is the sense in which "
money is memory ." Measuring a person's worth by how much money they have serves as a crude
summary statistic of the net contributions they've made to society in the past (assuming they
did not steal or counterfeit the money, of course). Another way to organize history is to
specify h(t-1) = { e(t-1) }. This is the "what have you done for me lately?" model of
remembering favors. The possibilities are endless. But an essential component of
blockchain is that it contains a complete history of all community-relevant events. (We
could perhaps generalize to truncated histories if data storage is a problem.)
Database Management Systems (DBMS) and the Read/Write Privilege
Alright then, suppose that a given community (consisting of people, different divisions
within a firm, different firms in a supply chain, etc.) wants to manage a chained-block of
histories H(t-1) over time. How is this to be done?
Along with a specification of what is to constitute the relevant information to be contained
in the database, any DBMS will have to specify parameters restricting:
1. The Read Privilege (who, what, and how);
2. The Write Privilege (who, what, and how).
That is, who gets to gets to read and write history? Is the database to be completely open,
like a public library? Or will some information be held in locked vaults, accessible only with
permission? And if by permission, how is this to be granted? By a trusted person, by algorithm,
or some other manner? Even more important is the question of who gets to write history. As I
explained earlier, the possibility for manipulation along this dimension is immense. How to
guard against to attempts to fabricate history?
Historically, in "small" communities (think traditional hunter-gatherer societies) this was
accomplished more or less automatically. There are no strangers in a small, isolated village
and communal monitoring is relatively easy. Brave deeds and foul acts alike, unobserved by some
or even most, rapidly become common knowledge. This is true even of the small communities we
belong to today (at work, in clubs, families, friends, etc.). Kocherlakota (1996) labels H(t-1) in
this scenario "societal memory." I like to think of it as a virtual database of individual
histories living in a distributed ledger of brains talking to each other in a P2P fashion,
with additions to, and maintenance of, the shared history determined through a consensus
mechanism. In this primitive DBMS, read and write privileges are largely open, the latter being
subject to consensus. It all sounds so.. . blockchainy.
While the primitive "blockchain" described above works well enough for small societies, it
doesn't scale very well. Today, the traditional local networks of human brains have been
augmented (and to some extent replaced) by a local and global networks of computers capable of
communicating over the Internet. Achieving rapid consensus in a large heterogeneous community
characterized by a vast flows of information is a rather daunting task.
The "solution" to this problem has largely taken the form of proprietary databases with
highly restricted read privileges managed by trusted entities who are delegated the write
privilege. The double-spend problem for digital money, for example, is solved by delegating the
record-keeping task to a bank, located within a banking system, performing debit/credit
operations on a set of proprietary ledgers connected to a central hub (a clearing agency)
typically managed by a central bank.
The Problem and the Blockchain Solution
Depending on your perspective, the system that has evolved to date is either (if you are
born before 1980) a great improvement over how things operated when we were young, or (if you
are born post 1980) a hopelessly tangled hodgepodge of networks that have trouble communicating
with each other and are intolerably vulnerable to data breaches (see figure below, courtesy Ed
Corno of IBM).
The solution to this present state of affairs is presented as blockchain (defined
earlier) which Ed depicts in the following way, Well sure, this looks like
a more organized way to keep the books and clear up communication channels, though the details
concerning how consensus is achieved in this system remain a little hazy to me. As I mentioned
earlier, I'm guessing that it'll be based on some reputation-based mechanism. But if this is
the case, then why can't we depict the solution in the following way?
That is, gather all the agents and agencies interacting with each other, forming them into a
more organized community, but keep it based on the traditional client-server (or hub-and-spoke)
model. In the center, we have the set of trusted "historians" (bankers, accountants, auditors,
database managers, etc.) who are granted the write-privilege. Communications between members
may be intermediated either by historians or take place in a P2P manner with the historians
listening in. The database can consist of the chain-blocked sets of information (blockchain)
H(t-1) described above. The parameters governing the read-privilege can be determined
beforehand by the needs of the community. The database could be made completely open--which is
equivalent to rendering it shared. And, of course, multiple copies of the database can be made
as often as is deemed necessary.
The point I'm making is, if we're ultimately going to depend on reputation-based consensus
mechanisms, then we need no new innovation (like blockchain) to organize a database. While I'm
no expert in the field of database management, it seems to me that standard protocols, for
example, in the form of SQL Server 2017 , can
accommodate what is needed technologically and operationally (if anyone disagrees with me on
this matter, please comment below).
Extending the Write Privilege: Game-Based Consensus
As explained above, extending the read-privilege is not a problem technologically. We are
all free to publish our diaries online, creating a shared-distributed ledger of our innermost
thoughts. Extending the write-privilege to unknown or untrusted parties, however, is an
entirely different matter. Of course, this depends in part on the nature of the information to
be stored. Wikipedia seems to work tolerably well. But its hard to use Wikipedia as currency.
This is not the case with personal action histories. You don't want other people writing your
diary!
Well, fine, so you don't trust "the Man." What then? One alternative is to game the
write privilege. The idea is to replace the trusted historian with a set of delegates drawn
from the community (a set potentially consisting of the entire community). Next, have these
delegates play a validation/consensus game designed in such a way that the equilibrium
(say, Nash or some
other solution
concept ) strategy profile chosen by each delegate at every date t = 1,2,3,... entails: (1)
No tampering with recorded history H(t-1); and (2) Only true blocks E(t) are validated and
appended to the ledger H(t-1).
What we have done here is replace one type of faith for another. Instead of having faith in
mechanisms that rely on personal reputations, we must now trust that the mechanism governing
non-cooperative play in the validation/consensus game will deliver a unique equilibrium outcome
with the desired properties. I think this is in part what people mean when I hear them say
"trust the math."
Well, trusting the math is one thing. Trusting in the outcome of a non-cooperative game is
quite another matter. The relevant field in economics is called mechanism design . I'm not going to get
into details here, but suffice it to say, it's not so straightforward designing mechanisms with
sure-fire good properties. Ironically, mechanisms like Bitcoin will have to build up
trust the old-fashioned way--through positive user experience (much the same way most of us
trust our vehicles to function, even if we have little idea how an internal combustion engine
works).
Of course, the same holds true for games based on reputational mechanisms. The difference
is, I think, that non-cooperative consensus games are intrinsically more costly to operate than
their reputational counterparts. The proof-of-work game played by Bitcoin
miners, for example, is made intentionally costly (to prevent DDoS attacks ) even though
validating the relevant transaction information is virtually costless if left in the hands of a
trusted validator. And if a lack of transparency is the problem for trusted systems, this
conceptually separate issue can be dealt with by extending the read-privilege communally.
Having said this, I think that depending on the circumstances and the application, the cost
associated with a game-based consensus mechanism may be worth incurring. I think we have to
remain agnostic on this matter for now and see how future developments unfold.
Blockchain: Powering DAOs
If Blockchain (with non-cooperative consensus) has a comparative advantage, where might it
be? To me, the clear application is in supporting Decentralized Autonomous
Organizations (DAOs). A DAO is basically a set of rules written as a computer program.
Because it possesses no central authority or node, it can offer tailor-made "legal" systems
unencumbered by prevailing laws and regulations, at least, insofar as transactions are limited
to virtual fulfillments (e.g., debit/credit operations on a ledger).
Bitcoin is an example of a DAO, though the intermediaries that are associated with Bitcoin
obviously are not. Ethereum is a platform that permits the construction of more sophisticated
DAOs via the use of smart contracts . The comparative advantages
of DAOs are that they permit: (1) a higher degree of anonymity; (2) permissionless access and
use; and (3) commitment to contractual terms (smart contracts).
It's not immediately clear to me what value these comparative advantages have for registered
businesses. There may be a role for legally compliant smart contracts (a tricky business for
international transactions). But perhaps the potential is much more than I can presently
imagine. Time will tell.
What was most worrying about the crash of ten years ago was how we, the people who would end
up paying for it, never even heard about the it until we were at the cliff edge and Bush was
telling everyone the 'sucker's going down'. When it happens again, we'll only find out in the
seconds before it happens.
Yet there must be literally THOUSANDS of people closer to the bubble who can see where
it's going.
600,000 homeless in the wealthiest country in history. More on the way: stats show that not
one country in the US has sufficient # of affordable housing. 43 Million of us live on below
15,000 per annum. 48.8 million Americans , including 16.2 million children, live in
households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis. I puke from
that, actually.
I suspect that in the end the Democrats will lose heart when they really cannot find any
Russians under the bed.
The investigation has been going on for over a year and so far the only criminal charges
seem to be one person telling a few lies to Congress. The worst case, so far is one person
may serve a year or two
Bill Clinton had more people go to jail from associates dealing with a number of shady
investment deals during his time in office and so far I don't think any Presidential aids
have been found under Trump's desk.
Particularly when regulations are dismantled..... The thing about the stock market is that
the financial elite makes loads of money during busts as well as booms. Do you remember how
big those golden parachutes were in 2008?
Incidentally the way employment stats are compiled in the US if you work 6 hours a week
you're considered employed. No wonder footnotes to stats on rise in employment do mention
rise in inequality. So many people work at 2 or 3 part time jobs without any benefits and
paid day off and overtime. The system is so totally exploitative.....
Nice article and perhaps another plug for Janet Yellen. The 1987 crash followed the Savings
and Loan Crisis which also was the result not only of deregulation, but a change in tax law.
The change in accounting for passive losses in real estate was the final straw. At this point
I would like to restate the obvious, the tax law that has just been passed is far more
reaching.
I am not an economist, but the current environment reminds me more of the dotcom. bubble.
It began in 2001 and the market tanked in the latter part of 2002 and 2003. This was also a
time of not only financial deregulation, the Financial Modernization Act, but also a time of
high expectation for the technology sector. Many of the dotcom start-ups failed and
technological innovation sometimes takes years to come to fruition.
We did not seem to learn anything from this over speculation and deregulation and we
experienced the financial melt down of 2007-2008.
Many baby boomers want this last bit of "exuberance" to pad their portfolios for
retirement. As the past shows us, these frenzied times are hard to control. Hopefully, the
new FED chair will not feed the monster.
Another financial crash like the one in 2008 will be even more catastrophic because many
invertors are nearing retirement, if not already retired. I believe that the demographics
will greatly compound another crash.
Finally, I don't know why big business doesn't worry more about the disappearing engine of
consumption.
IMF and World Bank forecast plus 3% growth for US in 2018 and perhaps more in 2019 (both
are usually very conservative).
The EU has not seen these growth rates ever. The US has not seen these growth rates since
Ronald Reagan
Real wages rose 2.9% in the latest US Jobs data.
The stock market is due a 15% correction so people can take profits (many have to do so to
pay their record taxes from 2017).
Sorry I do not see doom and gloom. For me I have put my money where my mouth is and
approximately 70% of my investments are in stocks and most are US stocks. I have adjusted my
portfolio to reflect a more defensive position,but I think the next three years are going to
be really good for me and perhaps beyond.
Big risk would be going back to Obama policies and another crash, but that is at least
three years away. During that time I hope to increase my wealth at least 50%.
Vanity Fair has a great write up on the 2008 situation: The Week Goldman Almost Died
I suggest all you guys opining about what Obama should have done, read it.
Obama took over a sinking ship, a basket case.
It was Bush not Obama who 'said this sucker could go down and began the bail outs of GM
etc.
To paraphrase that ole line: 'It's hard to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in
alligators'
BTW: it's a bit ironic if anyone in the UK thinks Obama and the Fed should have taken a
hard line and let banks go to the wall. It was the UK that had the first run on a major bank.
It was, and arguably is. much less prepared for a really tough Paul Volcker style Fed than
the US.
Look in this space in the rest of 2018 for whining about a heartless Fed.
Historic CD rates (yes, actual money actually used to make actual money):
1984: 9.86
1987: 7.07
1988: 7.57 (thing were much different, 2018 is not 1987)
1990: 8.10
1994: 3.08
2000: 5.01
2003: 1.05 (Bush)
2007: 3.78
2009: 1.15
2010 to Present: well below 1 percent, almost zero.
I see some parallels with 1989, but I think the real parallel is with the Vlocker shock from
1979. During the 70s the US $ weakened after the collapse of Bretton Woods when the $ was
pegged to the price of gold and other countries pegged to the $. The exorbitant cost of the
Vietnam and cold war and the great society to quell popular discontent at home and a crisis
of over-production as other countries (such as Germany and Japan) caught up with the US after
WW2, led other countries to doubt the soundness of the $ and doubt whether the US could or
would covert their $ denominated assets into gold. The French sent a destroyer to demand
payment in gold for their $ denominated assets. This led Nixon to come off the gold standard,
this and the two oil crisis led to inflation and a weakening $. The overproduction and the
crisis of profit led to an increasingly zero sum game as growth and profit internally and
externally could only be at another's expense. Paul Vlocker appointed treasury secretary in
1979 implemented eye watering interest rate rises to control inflation. The problem with this
as well as destroying US manufacturing was that 3rd world countries had borrowed in $ to
industrialise, this was initially affordable debt but the oil crisis and the jacking up of US
rates made these $ debts unaffordable, particularly as the $ appreciated making these debts
even more unaffordable, leading to the south American debt crisis with other countries
affected.
This would make 1979 a better parallel than 1989, a weakened $ leading to premature
tightening of US interest rates to counter inflation and counter the fall of the $. Countries
still not recovered from the financial crisis with large levels of $ denominated public and
private debt could be tipped over into full default with increasing US interest rates and an
appreciating $. Given that most countries have not recovered from the crisis with high levels
of public and private debt, this could be the trigger to the next world economic crisis as
their has been no serious attempt at financial regulation and another serious 3rd world
default would make the banks insolvent again.
Time for another banking bailout/bail in and some more austerity?
But you do have plenty of real poverty in the UK. Most young people being underpaid, unable
to buy houses and barely hanging on while the rich gets richer and richer, causing asset
bubbles everywhere in the UK.
Is that not the classic definition of a 3rd world economy?
They are reborn as a new Empire.
Rome=>Britain=>USA for example.
Each founded on new technology that produced better ways to destroy the natural environment
for the benefit of the ruling class
Central banks did enough in 2008-09 to prevent the collapse of capitalism.
Central banks didn't do anything to prevent the collapse of capitalism. It was fiscal
stimulus (government spending) that prevented it. The countries that spent the most recovered
the most. This is why the eurozone, with its arbitrary and economically illiterate
constraints on member states' fiscal policy-making, languished behind countries like the US
and UK, who don't needlessly (and stupidly) subject their governments to credit markets.
Speculation has thrived in recent years because central banks pumped money into the
financial system through record-low interest rates and quantitative easing. This prevented
the banks from going bust and ensured that the recession of 2008-09 was not as severe as
the Great Depression of the 1930s, but at a cost.
I don't think so. First, central banks didn't really pump money into the financial system.
They swapped interest-bearing treasury bonds that banks held for reserves. This didn't
prevent banks from going bust. It couldn't have. It just changed the asset portfolio of
banks.
Nor did it ensure that the recession was not as severe as the Great Depression. The
central bank's making borrowing cheap didn't affect much of anything, because nobody wanted
to borrow. The financial crisis was caused by over-leveraging in the private sector. With
corporations and households de-leveraging after the crisis hit, the price of money didn't
matter much.
What helped make the crisis less severe (in both the UK and US) was fiscal stimulus
(treasury spending) that both countries engaged in after the crash. What made the recover
needlessly long and underwhelming is that both country stopped their fiscal stimulus, and
even reversed course way too soon, and never spent enough in the first place.
America is two countries in one due to income inequality. One the one hand, the rich are
getting richer and the so-called middle class is, at best, treading water. On the other hand,
as the Guardian reported some weeks ago, the US has crushing poverty equal to or worse than
most any third-world country. That assessment came from an Australian doing a study on behalf
the UN. He was particularly horrified by Alabama.
In the meantime, the economy seems to be doing well, but it's as much illusion as anything
given the staggering levels of debt the Republican governments--plural--have imposed on the
country. This will all come back to bite the US and the Doddering Dotard in the ass and when
it does, it'll likely crash most everyone else's economy as well...just like 2008/2009.
We know for sure no one in finance knows anything. Infinite resources flow into the business
of predicting the future value of assets. And yet 2000 Swiss gnomes can not do better than
50/50 with their recommendations.
If anyone could do a bit better the casino would have to close. But they cant. QED.
Poverty is hidden in the UK and US, or simply looks like business as usual. We have much
better infrastructur. But that is deceptive. We have poverty hidden away behind walls.
Although some US cities are wastelands, and were so under Obama, but we ignore that.
Well, Dow futures are down a few hundred points at the current time, should be an interesting
couple of days considering the US Government might be shut down before next Friday because
the Republicans cannot write and pass a budget. They simply want blank checks.
The Greatest Economic Disasters ARE ALL GOP !!!
-
Great Depression---GOP---Hoover
Savings & Loan Disaster--GOP--Reagan
Financial Crises--GOP--Bush---( costing the average worker OVER 100K in lost home values
& 401K's )
Tax Plan----GOP-----Moron Trump ( adding 1.5 TRILLION to a 20 TRILLION natinal debt,
making sure our Great, Great,Great, Great Grandkids will still be paying this bill for the
rich )
Who spends out tax dollars? Congress does.
Who has controlled Congress the last 20 of 26 years and spent most of our tax dollars
leading to a 21.5 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT ? That would be the GOP !!!!
Trump says he has got ridden of regulations faster than anyone,
how many regulations are in the 1100 pages of the tax bill,
he and moron GOP members passed ???
Empires are built on plunder. When there is nothing more to plunder, or it becomes difficult
to do so, they decline and collapse. The American empire has plundered all it could, native
peoples' land, slave labor, resources everywhere, and last oil. Now you can give it some of
these things for free and still it will not manage to remain standing. Plunder as a national
business model has been waning.
No sense of proportion. After 9/11, they were comparing individuals who pricked other
individuals with umbrella tip points to the mass killers, and alarming people with threats of
terrorism. It is the same here.
Is this the same America where the national minimum wage will remain stuck at shithole levels
, due to a President who is part of , paid for and acts in the interests of the 1% ?
Where is the evidence for the rise in working class wages ? Is it the $ 1.50 per week pay
rise which Paul Ryan remarked upon this week ? ( just wait until their health care is further
stripped away .. that rise will be more than stripped away )
Trump also despises trade unions ( so much for the blue collar billionaire bullshit peddled
by Trump ) , and will do nothing to address the declining membership of trade unions .
According to the well qualified economist Robert Reich ( as opposed to the bellicose buffoon
Donald Trump ) economic crashes are historically preceded by low levels of trade Union
involvement .
The market is overvalued due to all that free money that had to go somewhere. Asset inflation
is what these higher stock markets indicate, its not a sign of increasing real wealth being
produced. The tax give away to the rich is only adding fuel to the fire
Bailouts WILL be required just as 2008, to prevent a total collapse. When they didn't require
the firm's to retire the consumer debt they held it left the domestic market in an
unprecedented position with debt at higher levels than yearly earnings. Now the credit
driving consumer spending is going to evaporate. The next bubble will hurt worse and still
nothing has been done to fix the problems that caused the last crash. Wall Street expects a
bailout so will not try to avoid overextending. The rules are setup to encourage catastrophe.
Congress and the White House are criminally negligent and must be held to account or we will
be well and truly fucked people.
Presidents are selected to play their parts(We get a choice between "Pepsi" or "Coke" to vote
for).
Obama seems to be cast as the progressive,in that time way back when before Trump
destroyed the country, but he wasn't. He is affable and articulate, and has a lovely family,
and his genes go back to the slaves that were stolen from Africa.These characteristics made
him a good choice in his time, when people were getting mildly restive during the Bush the
Lesser administration. Obama's chief legacy is that he normalized endless war. He continued
to reveal to the people of the country how close the association between corporations and the
US government, normalizing that arrangement The people were made quiet again, and became even
more easily distracted by the ubiquitous use of smartphones and such, in everyone over the
age of one.
Now, the jack boot is starting to be visible for middle-class white Americans. But we
unsee it. We are accustomed to these ideas now. We have, after all, a Department of Homeland
Security( I mean, how Stasi can you get?) These days, people are entertained and outraged and
frothing and throwing slippers at their teevees about a reckless, take-no-prisoners,
out-mafioso casino owner, a reality star, completely intertwined with transnational
corporations.
This arrangement has already been normalized by the last three administrations. The goal
is the same--increase US military hegemony(best business ever, war), exploit natural
resources as much as the people will tolerate, reduce civil liberties and civil rights to
every person, not just 'minorities", and now, so obviously, taking away the remaining legal
opportunities Americans have to redress their government.
is August 1987 and the US economy is humming along. Memories of the deep recession earlier in the decade are
fading fast. Tom Wolfe is about to publish
The Bonfire of the Vanities
, which captures perfectly Wall Street's greedy bullishness.
The financial
markets have Paul Volcker to thank for rising share prices. As chairman of America's central bank, the
Federal Reserve
, Volcker had given the US economy shock treatment to rid it of its inflationary excesses.
Record-high interest rates triggered the worst recession in the US since the 1930s, but once inflation started to
come down borrowing costs were cut sharply and the economy recovered.
The president at the time, Ronald Reagan, showed little gratitude for the boom that won him a second term with
a landslide victory in 1984. Volcker, who had been appointed by Reagan's predecessor, the Democrat Jimmy Carter,
was seen as insufficiently keen on Reagan's plans for financial deregulation, so he was replaced by someone deemed
to be more on message: Alan Greenspan. Two months later, in October 1987, there was a market meltdown.
Sound familiar? As in 1987, the US economy has been growing at a fair lick.
Unemployment is low
and signs of inflation are starting to appear. As in 1987, the dollar is weak and share
prices have been on a sustained upward run. And as in 1987, a Republican president has just replaced an old hand
at the Federal Reserve with someone new. Janet Yellen presided over her last meeting as chair in the middle of a
week that saw wobbles in both the stock and bond markets. Trump got rid of her for the same reasons that Reagan
got rid of Volcker, She was a Democrat and not wild about deregulation.
As it happens, Yellen may just have got out in time
after helping to give Trump the dream start to his presidency
, a year in the Oval office that has seen solid
growth, more people in work and Wall Street breaking records on a regular basis. Jerome Powell, her replacement,
has been put there by the White House to provide more of the same, something that is going to be a lot more
difficult than Trump appears to think.
For a start, Wall Street is starting to worry about rising inflation. Last week's jobs report showed
unemployment at 4.1%, its lowest for 17 years, and average hourly earnings rising at an annual rate of 2.9%, the
highest in eight years. The weakness of the dollar makes imports dearer, while Trump's tax cuts will kick in at
the worst possible moment, toward the end of a long cyclical upswing when there is a danger of the economy
overheating.
Up until now, the Fed has been acting with extreme caution. Interest rates have been raised in baby steps and
with ample warning. Wall Street thought Yellen had got her strategy just about right. Stimulus was being removed
in order to forestall any pickup in inflation, but not so rapidly as to choke off growth.
"... Cooks at restaurants routinely work in similar heat with similar levels of exertion. I know, because I was a cook at multiple restaurants. ..."
"... The reason OSHA doesn't care is because working people in extreme heat is SOP for scores of industries that you may not even realize. ..."
"... In an earlier generation, that would be an excellent question. But since then, we've seen the distribution and adoption of the neoliberal memo that such things are always and everywhere bad. Nor would they be high on the current administration's to do list. ..."
"... Amazon doesn't employ the workers. It employs temp agencies who supply the workers. This is a standard procedure these days for high-turnover workplaces, because in the end no one is responsible for what happens to the workers. ..."
"... A service business that gives crappy service will not prosper. ..."
"... I spent 25 years in the grocery business with 20 of them in management. The expectations stated above were industry standards (except the minutiae of sales goals). Only in Whole Foods was this model ignored. When the industry wide profit margin of grocers is less the 3cents on the dollar you have to be a TIGHT operator to turn a profit or you are doomed. As a department manager my entire job depended on how I managed my P&L report on a quarterly basis .. if I was over on payroll hours I DAMN well better be cutting back on other areas such as shrink, supplies or payroll mix (high paid FT vs low paid PT) ..."
"... Thanks for bringing up the industry baseline! Bezos' intense exploitation of labor merits a spotlight, but what's happening off in the shadows in other corporations? I recall seeing Costco held up as a + example, but what about others? ..."
"... It seems to me that Amazon are a one trick company (albeit, a very good trick), and they are likely to get burned very badly if they extend their predatory model to high value brands.. ..."
"... "When the industry wide profit margin of grocers is less the 3cents on the dollar" This figure is complete nonsense. It means nothing. It's the "profit margin" after paying themselves rent, which is where the profits in grocery stores end up.. No one is in business for a 3% return. It does make good for PR though. ..."
"... Its not clear to me that OTS originated with Amazon. Amazon only completed the Whole Foods purchase around Labor Day in 2017. It usually takes more than a month or two to come up with an entire computer-based software system and roll it out company-wide. ..."
"... Corporate America is capable of coming up with bone-headed implementations of what could be good ideas without the need to get Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Apple to push them to it. Wells Fargo was able to come up with "Eight is Great" for new account generation even with the guidance of Warren Buffet instead of Jeff Bezos. ..."
"... At any rate, I won't be frequenting Whole Foods any longer as I find worker abuse nauseating. ..."
"... So much paperwork that there's no time to deliver the food, hence empty shelves. A situation instantly recognizable to anyone who ever lived in the USSR. ..."
"... You didn't hear it from me, but from a friend who was a cashier at a grocery store, a small way to fight back against self checkout is to be creative in naming your produce to get a 95% discount ..."
"... Wal-Mart can man-up with a new ad campaign – Our Employees Don't Cry, they get food stamps. ..."
"... "I'm amazed at how many people choose to simply ignore the fate of Amazon's employees in order to receive free shipping." ..."
"... (Suggesting that AMZ is a sh*t business.) ..."
"... fast forward 1-2 years ..."
"... fast forward 1-2 more years . ..."
"... Rinse. Repeat. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum . ..."
Posted on
February 2, 2018 by Yves Smith As we've said, Jeff Bezos
clearly hates people, except as appendages to bank accounts. All you need to do is observe how
he treats his workers.
In a scoop, Business Insider reports on how Amazon is creating massive turnover and
pointless misery at Whole Food by imposing a reign of terror impossible and
misguided productivity targets.
Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to Amazon will see its abuse of out of Whole
Foods workers as confirmation of an established pattern. And even more tellingly, despite Whole
Foods supposedly being a retail business that Bezos would understand, the unrealistic Whole
Foods metrics aren't making the shopping experience better.
As we'll discuss below, we'd already expressed doubts about how relevant Bezos' hyped Amazon
model would be to Whole Foods. Proof is surfacing even faster than we expected.
But first to Bezos' general pattern of employee mistreatment.
It's bad enough that Bezos engages in the worst sort of class warfare and treats warehouse
workers worse than the ASPCA would allow livery drivers to use horses. Not only do horses at
least get fed an adequate ration, while Amazon warehouse workers regularly earn less than a
local living wage, but even after pressure to end literal sweatshop conditions (no air
conditioning so inside temperatures could hit 100 degrees;
Amazon preferred to have ambulances at ready for the inevitable heatstroke victims rather than
pay to cool air ), Amazon warehouse workers are, thanks to intensive monitoring, pressed to
work at such a brutal pace that most can't handle it physically and quit by the six month mark.
For instance, from a 2017 Gizmodo story, Reminder:
Amazon Treats Its Employees Like Shit :
Amazon, like most tech companies, is skilled at getting stories about whatever bullshit it
decides to feed the press. Amazon would very much prefer to have reporters writing some
drivel about a discount code than reminding people that its tens of thousands of engineers
and warehouse workers are fucking miserable. How do I know they're miserable? Because (as the
testimony below demonstrates) they've told every writer who's bothered to ask for years.
Mind you, Amazon's institutionalized sadism isn't limited to its sweatshops. Amazon is also
cruel to its office workers. The New York Times story that Gizmodo selected, based on over 100
employee interviews, included:
Bo Olson lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring
image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. "You
walk out of a conference room and you'll see a grown man covering his face," he said. "Nearly
every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk."
While that paragraph was the most widely quoted from that story, some reporters reacted
strongly to other bits. For instance, from The
Verge :
Perhaps worst of all is Amazon's apparent approach when its employees need help. The Times
has uncovered several cases where workers who were sick, grieving, or otherwise encumbered by
the realities of life were pushed out of the company. A woman who had a miscarriage was told
to travel on a business trip the day after both her twins were stillborn. Another woman
recovering from breast cancer was given poor performance rankings and was warned that she was
in danger of losing her job.
I have yet to hear of anyone who has actually enjoyed working for Amazon. I know several
people who have worked on building out their data centers, and it's the same type of
experience – demanding, long hours, must be responsive to calls and emails 24×7.
Even people who are otherwise highly skilled, highly competent workers are treated as
disposable items. It's no surprise that they treat grocery workers the same.
According to
this Business Insider article the OTS inventory management system was something brought
in by whole foods management; not amazon. Employees are actually hoping amazon fixes the
issues created by OTS.
Things are definitely bad when workers are hoping things will get better with Bezos in
charge.
I can't remember where I read an article in which an amazon employee said people at the
company joked that amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves.
If working conditions are so bad at the warehouses (heatstrokes from lack of air
conditioning), then why hasn't the Department of Labor gone after them? Surely the DoL or
some local labor bureau most have gotten hundreds if not thousands of complaints?
Where are the unions? The Teamsters or UFCW should be all over this. Their complete
absence from the story is telling. When the first three conclusions to be drawn from this
story are:
1. That boss (and company culture) are awful
2. Why doesn't the government do something?
3. Maybe the workers can do a class action
then it's really not surprising that things are this bad.
Where are the unions? They've been systematic eradicated or are being led by
"pro-business" stooges. About the only union worth a damn and bucking the system is the
Nurses Union led by Rose Ann DeMoro. If you have the inclunation, take a look at labor during
the first Gilded Age (late 1800s early 1900s) to see what it took to get the modest reforms
of the New Deal enacted -- the very policies that are almost extinct now.
Efforts to get Amazon to change its labor practices have been unsuccessful thus far.
Randy Korgan, the business representative and director of the Teamsters Local 63, which
represents the Stater Brothers employees, told me that his office frequently gets calls
from Amazon employees wanting to organize. But organizing is difficult because there's so
much turnover at Amazon facilities and because people fear losing their jobs if they speak
up. Burgett, the Indiana Amazon worker, repeatedly tried to organize his facility, he told
me. The turnover was so high that it was difficult to get people to commit to a union
campaign. The temps at Amazon are too focused on getting a full-time job to join a union,
he said, and the full-time employees don't stick around long enough to join. He worked with
both the local SEIU and then the Teamsters to start an organizing drive, but could never
get any traction. He told me that whenever Amazon hears rumors of a union drive, the
company calls a special "all hands" meeting to explain why a union wouldn't be good for the
facility. (Lindsey said that Amazon has an open-door policy that encourages associates to
bring concerns directly to the management team. "We firmly believe this direct connection
is the most effective way to understand and respond to the needs of our workforce," she
wrote, in an email.)
This is a common anti-union trick among low-wage jobs these days -- intentionally abuse
your workers as much as possible to ensure the highest possible turnover (and even better,
turnover in the form of voluntary quits, which do not qualify for unemployment benefits or
impact the employer's UI tax). Workers who have zero investment in their jobs and who intend
to quit at the earliest possible opportunity are less likely to go through the trouble and
risk of supporting a union effort.
As a bonus, the high turnover results in many of the workers not ever becoming eligible
for benefits. Most common tax-advantaged benefit plans, like health insurance and 401(k), are
required to be offered to all employees with only a few limited exceptions. The permitted
exceptions differ depending on the benefit type, but usually include criteria like length of
service (often no more than 12 months or so) and in some cases, minimum work hours. The plan
will lose its tax-advantaged status if it excludes more employees than the law permits, which
can cost the employer back taxes and penalties. Firing employees for the purpose of
interfering with their ERISA-regulated benefits is illegal , but treating them so poorly
from day 1 that they are unlikely to last long enough to qualify for benefits is not.
From a policy perspective, we need to realize the instability created by high-turnover and
fissured work environments
and penalize it accordingly. A beneficial side effect of this is that it would likely
incentivize employers to train and promote low-level workers upwards; low-level jobs like
warehouse workers probably inherently have higher turnover than average, just because most
workers don't want to do that for the rest of their lives (and some are successful in finding
a way out), but when there's
a path for the janitor to become CTO you can reduce that turnover.
I found these just by Googling "OSHA amazon". Keep in mind, the low amounts of the fines
doesn't necessarily reflect the severity of the underlying issues–my understanding is
that OSHA has relatively weak abilities to fine violators in the first place.
Government regulation and enforcement? In an earlier generation, that would be an
excellent question. But since then, we've seen the distribution and adoption of the
neoliberal memo that such things are always and everywhere bad. Nor would they be high on the
current administration's to do list.
Amazon doesn't employ the workers. It employs temp agencies who supply the workers. This
is a standard procedure these days for high-turnover workplaces, because in the end no one is
responsible for what happens to the workers.
To quote: "the beatings will continue until morale improves"
A service business that gives crappy service will not prosper. There is a high touch rate
between customers and employees in this industry. Also, this is an industry with many options
and competition; unlike airlines for example. We shop at WF from time to time, partly due to
the experience being more pleasant. We have no issue moving (and no love of Amazon).
A service business that gives crappy service will not prosper.
if and only if there are preferable alternatives. If that business is cheaper, a monopoly, or if all other businesses deliver crappy service
too, then it may well prosper. Case in point: the telecommunications market in the USA.
This is an important reason why the notion that market competition will increase social
welfare isn't inherently true. It's long been understood that in concentrated markets
(oligopolies) the market actors might implicitly coordinate their prices without a price
increase. For example, Companies A, B, and C sell widgets; Company A announces a price
increase via press release; B and C follow with similar increases a week later.
But companies can also implicitly coordinate on the quality of goods. If Company A pursues
crapification, that can cover B and C for doing the same.
It's akin the the Greesham's Dyamic that Professor Black has written about extensively on
this blog and in other places in connection with finance creating a criminogenic environment.
Under the right circumstances, cheap bad quality can drive out good quality, leaving only
bad.
Indeed. A "market" focusing solely on profitability would consider human values an
inefficiency. It would remove them, along with what produced them, from the system, using
routine failure modes and effects analysis. (An interesting point for promoters of AI.)
California witnessed considerable consolidation in its grocery business ten years or so
ago. Similar, if somewhat less draconian conditions, resulted. I don't believe the "market"
will generate a different result this time.
In addition, there's the question of Jeff Bezos's purposes in buying WF. It would not be
to learn from another industry; I don't imagine Bezos values that concept. It would more
likely be to expand his own methodologies and priorities to another industry, one that gives
him access to a human activity outside the already extensive reach of his current
business.
WF may be an experiment, whose survival might not be dictated by immediate notional
profitability. Besides, the utility and profitability of the data flow from this experiment
might never be visible.
This is an important reason why the notion that market competition will increase social
welfare isn't inherently true. It's long been understood that in concentrated markets
(oligopolies) the market actors might implicitly coordinate their prices without a price
increase.
I agree, except that the situations you describe are not "market competition". Any
marketplace with fewer than about 7 truly independent competitors is not a competitive
market.
But as you say, when there are few participants there is a lot of implicit signaling and
coordination, which work to benefit the few participants at the expense of the general
welfare.
We have a lot of faux markets, and a lot of faux competition. This is not helped by the
prevalence of multiple "brands" owned by the same small number of large conglomerates. You
could shut down just 2 or 3 companies in each product line and the supermarket shelves would
lose 90% of their items. That ain't a competitive marketplace, even though the proliferation
of brands provides the illusion of freedom of choice.
We need a populist wave to take back our democracy.
Yes it's not textbook competition, but while textbook competition with many small players
may be good for the consumer, there is no evidence that it is good for the worker. In fact I
suspect it's bad for the worker as super competitive industries will nearly kill their
employees just to stay in business. I'd rather work for an oligopoly (but it all depends on
which one) as the freedom from relentless competition enables better working conditions in
theory (again does not always materialize).
I spent 25 years in the grocery business with 20 of them in management. The expectations
stated above were industry standards (except the minutiae of sales goals). Only in Whole
Foods was this model ignored. When the industry wide profit margin of grocers is less the 3cents on the dollar you have
to be a TIGHT operator to turn a profit or you are doomed. As a department manager my entire
job depended on how I managed my P&L report on a quarterly basis .. if I was over on
payroll hours I DAMN well better be cutting back on other areas such as shrink, supplies or
payroll mix (high paid FT vs low paid PT)
I guess the Whole Foods employees are learning this now.
Thanks for bringing up the industry baseline! Bezos' intense exploitation of labor merits
a spotlight, but what's happening off in the shadows in other corporations? I recall seeing
Costco held up as a + example, but what about others?
To me, it doesn't make sense to penny pinch if you're a quasi-monopolistic supplier due to
a special brand position. Whole Foods was associated with high quality goods, and was clearly
able to charge a substantial price premium. Changing its operations as described above
appears to reduce the justification for the price premium and destroy the company's unique
market position.
It is almost like McDonald's deciding that beef patties cost too much, and that it would
only serve chicken going forward.
It seems to me that in the grocery business (like many), you either make money by being
more efficient and cheaper than your competitors, or by having a unique selling point that
allows you charge a premium (high quality, great service, etc).
If you look at the car industry, when mass market brands have bought high value brands
(for example, Ford buying Jaguar), the sensible companies have been very cautious about
ensuring that the brand aura (and hence high profit margin per car) is not tarnished by
crudely cutting costs. Mercedes made that mistake in the 1980's with excessive cost cutting
and it took them more than a decade, and billions of DM in investment, to win back their
brand value when it became apparent that their cars were often less reliable than cheap Asian
compacts.
It seems to me that Amazon are a one trick company (albeit, a very good trick), and they
are likely to get burned very badly if they extend their predatory model to high value
brands..
In scale, WF is a hobby business for Bezos, little more than a personal tax deduction. If
it does not go as Bezos intends, it is not likely to have an effect on his primary
business.
"When the industry wide profit margin of grocers is less the 3cents on the dollar" This figure is complete nonsense. It means nothing. It's the "profit margin" after paying themselves rent, which is where the profits in
grocery stores end up.. No one is in business for a 3% return. It does make good for PR
though.
A 3% margin isn't the same thing as a 3% return. Maybe think about it this way, 26 turns
on a 3% margin (once every 2 weeks). Without compounding that's a 78% return on average
inventory level, before fixed and variable costs, interest expense and equity returns. You're
right nobody is in the business for a 3% return!
"A 3% margin isn't the same thing as a 3% return." I know this. But the way that figure is trotted out, relentlessly, is to leave the masses,
and employees, with the idea that they only 'make' 3%, which is nonsense. Whatever they
"make" is carefully chosen in accounting fairytale land.
The point about rents still stands. Most grocery stores/chains are REITs with captive
retailers. No one ever sees the REIT side of things. Rite Aid is well know for being the
captive retailer in this practice. Rite Aid doesn't 'make' any money (118M 'income' over 25
billion in sales = .004 Less that half a percent).. They 'make' the landlord LOTS of money.
Tax dodge or money laundering, which does it better fit the definition of?
Agreed. I think they trot out the 3% meme so nobody pushes them too hard on their
"providing a public good" nature.
And on rent and landlord's, I absolutely agree. Regrettably it seems most of us are making
our commercial landlords a lot of money (before we ever get to equity returns). So many small
business owner's would loose their minds if they thought about that thoroughly. And to answer
your last question, "I'll take Tax Dodge for $500, Alex"
The way I read it way back when was that that 3% markup is on fresh produce and what not.
So the turnover is necessarily high. So their return on invested capital might get as high as
3%/day, if they're lucky.
bob, can you direct me to an article and/or site which backs your claims. I would be most
interested to read it. Perhaps my information is incorrect, but multiple Google searches have
articles in which independent grocery business analysts confirm my number.
Its not clear to me that OTS originated with Amazon. Amazon only completed the Whole Foods
purchase around Labor Day in 2017. It usually takes more than a month or two to come up with
an entire computer-based software system and roll it out company-wide.
My guess is that Whole Foods was able to conceive of this all by themselves and since it
fits into the Amazon way of doing things, they didn't stop them.
Corporate America is capable of coming up with bone-headed implementations of what could
be good ideas without the need to get Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Apple to push them to it.
Wells Fargo was able to come up with "Eight is Great" for new account generation even with
the guidance of Warren Buffet instead of Jeff Bezos.
Does this 3% margin count the rent that is extracted from manufacturers for prime real
estate in the stores? ( End caps for example).
Slotting fees are rent extraction. Customers pay for this with higher prices for the items.
Oh please. I shop at two of the major branded grocery chains, and while the staff is
generally good and competent, they exhibit none of the hyper-awareness expected under
OTS.
If you run into an employee and ask them where certain items can be found, they'll usually
know and usually direct you to an aisle that has the item. But they will generally not know
the exact location in the aisle, shelf, blah blah.
And the stupidity of corporate management is beyond belief. Due to niche marketing, items
can be found in 3, 4 or even 5 different places. (My favorite is canned beans – organic
and other high-end brands in the specialty fancy food aisle, a bunch in the
Mexican/international/Spanish aisle, run of the mill murican brands and the same Goya brands
that are in the international aisle in the general canned vegetable aisle, sale displays at
the end of any random aisle. And dont even get me started on gluten-freeness).
At stop and shop they replaced the end of the checkout counters with a carousel for
bagging, meaning a) that checkers had to bag each item as they went, b) no more baggers c)
customers couldn't help bag stuff, and, my favorite, d) making it nearly impossible to use
reusable bags. Talking to workers about it is simultaneously hilarious and enraging. "They
said it was supposed to make it easier for us, but *shrug*". Everyone understands that it's
designed to fail, slow things to a crawl, and piss customers off so they'll use the
self-check line.
So spare us the tight-ship, low margin
Whole-Foods-and-Amazon-are-just-just-learning-how-intense-the-business-really-is-and-too-bad-for-those-whiney-workers
old school macho bullshit. Yes, it's not the most profitable industry in the world. But
amazon is a whole other level of abusive monitoring of workers everywhere it goes.
Makes me wonder what's happening at Washington Post. Quick search results are that Post
has been "revived." Note that Bezos stays out of editorial process, but is heavily involved
in tech ops.
I happened to stop by the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle, NYC yesterday for some produce
and something is definitely different there.
It was around 4 pm, the store was packed, and apparently management had people out there
with brooms and dustpans sweeping up what appeared to be clean floors. Between the crowds,
the sweeping employees, and the boxes of stock on the floor it was much harder to move in
there.
After navigating the aisles, I grabbed a bottle of cold beer for my subway ride home, and
then proceeded to the in-house ramen/draft beer spot. The employees there seemed absolutely
miserable and kept wandering away to talk in hushed voices about what was clearly some sort
of work problem in the store from what I could gather. To the employees' credit however, they
treated me with courtesy and respect even though their body language and demeanor screamed
misery.
Following my mediocre Ramen and yummy draft beers, I wandered back over to the beer aisle
to exchange my now warm subway subs for a cold bottle. I was shocked to find that the entire
cold reach-in beer shelves had been re-stocked while I was in the ramen bar. After several
moments of digging through freshly stocked warm beer I found a cold one, paid, and departed
Whole Foods.
Thanks for this article, as it ties together all the oddities I observed today. It is
really sad what happened to Whole Foods, particularly that location. I used to work on the
Time Warner Center maintenance staff and frequently interacted with employees in that
particular store and they used to be a jolly bunch.
At any rate, I won't be frequenting Whole Foods any longer as I find worker abuse
nauseating.
So much paperwork that there's no time to deliver the food, hence empty shelves.
A situation instantly recognizable to anyone who ever lived in the USSR.
Funny that. It was only a coupla months ago that a big story making the rounds was that
Walmart shelves ( http://theweek.com/articles/466144/why-walmarts-shelves-are-empty
) were constantly empty. I suppose you have to be a mega-corporation to make blunders like
this but still get away with it for a few months running.
Interesting you mention Wallmart. I live in central AZ and our local Wallmarts (3 ea) for several years had empty shelves,
few workers – and they did not know where anything was, the greeters were gone,
literally 1-2 actual cashiers – they were trying to force you to the
self-checkout. Recently the stores are almost like they used to be with more workers, greeters back,
still not enough cashiers though, and better stocking.
Has anyone else noticed this. It does seem to coincide with the Amazon purchase of WF.
Correlation is not causation and all that but it might be a reaction to some extent.
I'm probably one of the few people around here that shops at Walmart and yes they have
cleaned up their act although it depends on the store. I'd say the thing people don't get
about Walmart is that they are responsive to public opinion and customer gripes even if they
supposedly treat their employees like disposable parts, easily replaced (but then they have
lots of company in that department). For example a few years ago they took the clutter out of
the aisles and did away with the craft/sewing section–trying to be more like
Target -- and then reversed all those changes because their customers hated it.
Seems to me Bezos is taking on a much bigger challenge trying to reinvent brick and mortar
than he did by innovating mail order. Here's betting he's not up to it. Perhaps his top
honchos–meditating in their new waterfall equipped Seattle biosphere–will prove
me wrong.
You didn't hear it from me, but from a friend who was a cashier at a grocery store, a
small way to fight back against self checkout is to be creative in naming your produce to get
a 95% discount
Yeah, that one was 5 year old but I chose it because it gave a bit more info in it. There
are plenty more from last year. Just go to Google and punch in the search term Wal-Mart
shelves empty and see what come back, especially Google images. This means that this problem
is not a one-off but has been a running theme for at least a four year period. Amazing.
People who shop at Whole Foods want to look at employees with that NPR vegan faux-hippy
gaze. Not a lot of difference from the evangelical gaze, imo. Some sort of self hypnosis
involved? Now that gaze will be replaced with the look of a desperate near homeless employee
all Wal-Mart shoppers have grown accustomed to ignoring, Wal-Mart can man-up with a new ad
campaign – Our Employees Don't Cry, they get food stamps.
If I were a rich man I would give everyone of these people a T-shirt which says – I
am not a robot.
I wonder if Wal-Mart will discover increasing in-store staff, as well as an upgraded store
experience, will actually improve its competitive position versus online retailers. That's
pretty much what Best Buy has to do.
Is this just an Amazon/WF issue or something larger for grocer chains? I find myself
shopping at a Meijers (big Midwest chain) superstore whilst visiting my mother and noticed
the same kind of strangeness with not just employee morale (they are clearly miserable) but
stocking issues. Items that were ALWAYS available are no longer there. I needed pasta shells
the other day. They had none. How can a super grocer NOT have pasta shells. Larger than
normal sections of shelves are bare. Pallets haphazardly placed. Meijors used to be a
somewhat pleasant and orderly experience with happy workers now approaching a WalMart
experience.
Re the NPR vegan faux-hippy gaze, The WF near me in suburban Philadelphia, has a very
upscale clientele. Once, in the produce section, they had set up a booth where a Hispanic
woman would mix guacamole using just the ingredients the customers wished, without any
extraneous chatter on her part. Wow! Your guac would be mixed by an ACTUAL MEXICAN PERSON!
Just gotta be good, eh? Conservatives might say she was happy to have such a nice job. I
thought it was downright creepy, like those catalogues where people beam as they demonstrate
expensive vacuum cleaners. Yuk.
Our Soviet style master planners hard at work. At least the Soviets had 5 year plans that
they would abandon after 5 years. How many years of failure can we tolerate? What ever happened to profit?
Not a fan of Bezos, Amazon, or their practices, but strict planogram scorecarding is not
uncommon in grocery, auto parts and similar retail orgs. The only part of that section of the
article that strikes me as out of the ordinary is the employee's reaction to it.
The framing of the article suggests this is Amazon-ian behavior. Just pointing out that I
don't believe that's accurate because the practice is commonplace in the industry.
I've got more than a few friends who have worked in grocery stores recently, and while
they had many complaints, having to know last week's best selling item or this week's sales
goals weren't among them. Just sayin' .
Thank you for highlighting Amazon's continued abuse of its employees. I'm amazed at how
many people choose to simply ignore the fate of Amazon's employees in order to receive free
shipping. My favorite people are the type that by books on late stage capitalism and
plutocracy through their Amazon prime accounts.
"I'm amazed at how many people choose to simply ignore the fate of Amazon's
employees in order to receive free shipping."
Sad but true, Chuck. My daughter, who's a total Social Justice Warrior type (speaking as a
progessive, I'm proud of her for that) and her long-time boyfriend are proud Amazon
customers. They have Amazon technobuttons on the walls of the house they bought so that all
they have to do to re-order toilet paper and kitty litter is touch the device.
(Suggesting that AMZ is a sh*t business.) A day or two later, it's delivered, for
free, because they are Primes! Daughter's BF, who luuuuuvs him some tech, revels in this
because it's so futuristic. When I suggest going to the store to buy some -- it's quicker --
or simply thinking ahead and purchasing stuff before they run out, I get the eye-roll given
to Olds who old-splain oldways. They're Jellbylically concerned about the plight of abused
North Koreans and the like. When I mentioned why I was buying their Christmas book gifts via
Barnes & Noble rather than Amazon due to its mistreatment of workers, their ears glazed
over. I'll forward this post to her, but I doubt it will get read, since it wasn't on her
Fakebook feed.
I like the cut of your jib: " to Olds who old-splain oldways."
Grampa Simpson classic – One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere – like the time I caught the
ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to
Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my
belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those
days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd
say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was
the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you
could get was those big yellow ones
Local co-ops are a great idea but (sorry for the but) in much of the country wholesale
food distribution has been decimated or wiped out over the years due to competition from
Wal-Mart, Target, Whole Foods, the legacy grocers or Sysco (on the restaurant side).
Geographically, few areas in the US are fortunate enough to have an independent and
thriving food/produce wholesale market which helps bring down price and bring up quality to
be competitive with the vertically integrated big boys.
Well, here's Slim from drought-stricken AZ. And I'm about to rain on that co-op
parade. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I worked at a food co-op that was the lone survivor after its
main competitor went under. And we got REAL busy. We also had a bit of a management problem. Ours was a drunk who often came to work
hungover. All the better way to abuse the rest of us. After a staff revolt (yes, I took part in it), he left and took a job as manager of the
regional co-op warehouse in Columbus, Ohio. Where he treated the warehouse gals as his harem
and got one of them pregnant.
To our utter and total amazement back in Pittsburgh, he took responsibility for his son
and tried to be the best father he could. I have no idea what happened with the drinking
problem.
The manager who succeeded him was even worse. He even called himself a martinet, and he
was. After less than a year of his BS, I bailed out of the co-op and got a sit-down job in an
office. Yeah, there was another lousy boss there, and I've talked about her on other
threads.
But there was further fun and merriment back at the co-op. I was still friendly with the
people who worked there, and guess what? Another staff revolt! They ran Mr. Martinet outta
there too! Go staff! Mr. Martinet went to a yuppie grocery store in North Carolina. From there, he went on to
become one of the original senior executives in Whole Foods.
Bummer about the food co-op, Slim. Some of us "in the movement" are trying to work out how
to provide accountability for guys like the drunk manager you mention, so that they don't end
up doing like he did, and just sliding around from one co-op to another. Open to
suggestions
Unfortunately, the co-op name doesn't necessarily imply that everything is groovy for the
workers. Hence, REI workers in Seattle trying to unionize, and why UFCW has had such success
in organizing every single food co-op in Minneapolis-St. Paul (and there are quite a few).
The history of consumer co-ops seems pretty clear – workers in them need union
representation just as much as workers in regular businesses.
For those who need examples, there is an excellent co-op in Ocean Beach, San Diego. Its
customer/members are devoutly loyal. By design, each is small and adapted to its local
culture and food ecosystem. Michael Pollan is a good resource for ideas on this topic and on
real food in general.
American businesses might prefer home runs, but singles and bunts are more common and
sustainable. Besides, co-ops are harder to buy up or put out of business in the manner
reputed to be practiced by, say, some retail coffee companies.
Except Jeff Bezos has sold the Ayn Rand way of life to the 'progressive' intelligensia who
would happily rant over John Galt if you gave them your ear and a glass of Bordeaux.
Not just at Amazon, but I'm seeing an anecdotal trend of "get people to quit within a year
or two of starting". Not just with ridiculous requests from above, but even with good ol'
passive-aggressiveness.
I can't remember if this article was tipped off to me by NC but here it is anyway: https://www.ft.com/content/356ea48c-e6cf-11e6-967b-c88452263daf
(paywall, or websearch for "how employers manage out unwanted staff")
Don't you all get it? First they took away their freedom to form unions with others. Now
they want to take away your freedom to form a union with you own bodies actions. This will crush the idea of sabotage and work slowdowns as an expression of labor
power.
Waste is inherent to selling fresh food. Trimmings, dry, damaged meats, fish, fruits,
vegetables, breads, prepared foods. That's especially true of anything organic and not
engineered to be harder, more colorful, durable and less tasty than their natural analogs.
Whole Paycheck's intended customers – really, most shoppers anywhere – do not
want to buy adulterated, processed versions of eggs, beakless turkeys, caged hens, and
drugged industrially raised cows and pigs.
Fresh food, especially organic, does not last as long as industrial bread, fruits and
vegetables or highly sugared packaged foods. It is the antithesis of such foods. The reason
chicken soup made the way it was c.1940 is tastier and nutritionally better than soup made
from a caged, medicated, neurotic fowl today is not great Grandma's recipe: it's the
chicken.
Local sourcing, environmentally safe, animal friendly methods of raising require a wider
supplier net. What Michael Pollan would call real food costs more. It should. But real food
and real people are ripe for the cruel "more efficient" methods of production, distribution
and sale that seem part of Jeff Bezos's DNA. Besides, what he really wants is probably the
data flow. WF is simply a way to get it.
Typical uber-"capitalist" idiocy -- seen this happen in a lot of different industries over
the years (esp techs):
CEO: "Our product sucks. We've grown too big, lost our innovative edge, we need to get
back to our roots!"
Toady: "Uh, tried that already, boss. No can do. Too much bureaucracy now."
CEO: "Shit! Any ideas?"
Toady: "Actually, yes! We can buy out and take over one of the smaller competitors that's
eating our lunch now, and steal their latest ideas and projects."
CEO: "Brilliant! Make it so!"
fast forward 1-2 years
CEO: "How's that takeover working out?"
Toady: "Well, it's taken a while, but we've fully integrated the company in with ours --
all of our corporate policies and procedures etc etc are in place there now."
CEO: "Excellent!"
fast forward 1-2 more years .
CEO: "Our product sucks! What happened to all those great ideas coming from that company
we took over?"
Toady: "Well, most everyone working there when we bought it out are gone now. The founders
and senior management cashed out the takeover premium and bailed immediately, and everybody
else got frustrated with our corporate style and policies and eventually quit. Our people
took over their projects, and promptly fucked them up beyond all belief. Instead of a cash
cow, we got a dead cow on our hands now."
CEO: "Shit! Any ideas?"
Toady: "Yeah. We can either spin it off to the public again or just shut the whole fucking
thing down and take a huge earnings write-off."
CEO: "Hmmm,..decisions, decisions . By the way, are there any other small competitors out
there that we can buy out to rejuvenate our stale product line, toady?
Amazon corporate sounds like a sweatshop. Their treatment of warehouse staff is nothing
short of an abomination.
But I can't help feeling that some of the employee comments at WholeFoods are less about bad
management and work conditions and more about Millenials and a lack of ability handle
criticism and work pressure. (The average age of a Whole Food employee at my store is easily
28yo.)
To call working on an inventory system "punitive". It's called business, and yes, it is
difficult and takes a lot of effort. Punitive, though. To use an inventory system. Sorry. Not
buying the whole story.
If it's common for people to actually cry at work, and to have nightmares, with massive
turnover, decreasing quality of service, product, and cleanliness blaming millennials is an
inadequate response. Apparently Amazon wants to run Whole Foods with inadequate staff, fails
to reward good good work, unfailingly punish not only poor work, but honest mistakes, and
makes no allowance within the system for reality. If you did animal training this way, you
would see the same results, I promise. The management "techniques" described will destroy any
company, or at least reduce productivity massively.
You are straw manning the post and the underlying article. The staff is grilled very
frequently and graded, and much of what they are graded on isn't relevant to customer
service. The shelves are supposed to be "leveled" all day, which is a ridiculous standard.
The testing and insane shelf appearance standards are not normal to the industry and minor
deviations are the basis for firing.
I have yet to met a single "Millennial" that fits that ridiculous stereotype – and I
know a lot of people in that age bracket even though I was born in 1970. The very few who
even seem to have tendencies in those directions seem more influenced by being from wealthy
families than by their year of birth and I can think of at least as many Boomers and Gen
X'ers that are like that too.
When I think of the high-school age or university age jobs the people I grew up with had
and compare them to the jobs I've seen my "Millennial" friends doing the younger people have
had it substantially worse over all.
A college friend of my mother went on to run the Secret Service detail for the White
House. Very demanding position, but one that Mom's friend was quite proud of.
Lordy, Yves, please put a warning sign on that video! It's still breakfast time here in
Seattle, and I clicked on it. No, it didn't offend my 'sensibilities.' But it encapsulated
all the frustration and anger and helplessness I feel against our system. As well as being a
powerful metaphor for 'late stage capitalism.'
Share your sentiments, Eclair. Having breakfast? The observations about employee abuse
also pair well with a video of a 10 minute bike ride through the homeless encampments along
the Santa Ana River near Angels Stadium and Disneyland in Anaheim: https://mobile.twitter.com/Dalrymple/status/953739188050059265
Whole Foods employees still outnumber these Amazon creatures checking up on them, I
presume. If the WF workers and others at Amazon are so universally tormented and humiliated,
shouldn't they be taking some kind of collective action?
Twice during WWII German officers tried to get rid of Hitler. I guess American workers
don't measure up to even that standard.
I suspect Jeff Bezos would view unions at WF or Amazon the way Reagan viewed unionized Air
Traffic Controllers. Or Wal-Mart, which has abandoned markets whose employment laws provide
for unions or simply too many protections for employees.
Bezos is extracting resources from his employees with the same thought and in the same
manner that early California hard rock miners used massive water hoses (monitors) to
liquidate mountains in search for a few gold nuggets. (h/t Gray Brechin)
Which is why I Q-U-I-T the food co-op job mentioned above. Did the same in that office
job, which was my second-to-last full-time job.
Have I ever had a good job? Yup. Working in a hot, dark, and greasy bike shop. Place
closed in 2000 and I still miss the camaraderie with my fellow mechanics -- and the pride of
accomplishment that came with fixing the customers' bikes.
When arguing with my boss about crap we were required to do, he finally got frustrated and
told me "Shit flows downhill", "DEAL WITH IT!". To which my response was "Yep, right onto the
customer!"
It made him so angry I was lucky I wasn't fired on the spot, though in hindsight it would
have been a blessing. Looks like nothing has changed 30 years later.
I think it's gotten worse as the whole retail industry specifically and perhaps most
industries gradually, have had the slowly MBA'd management reorganized, streamlined,
outsourced and efficiencied it into a monetized Hades.
I was lucky to work in a couple of well run, or at competently run, businesses. So I know
one can be profitable without brutalizing people. It's depressing to see what has
happened.
Wonder what would happen if a customer started handing out union brochures to Whole Foods
employees in one of their stores. What are they going to do? Kick you, a customer, out of the
store?
They probably would. It's private space. But it would make for good news stories. You
would need to actually shop in fact handing them out to all the cashiers when you are
checking out would be the best move, since you'd be out the store before management would
catch on.
As the articles in the Business Insider series explicitly point out, this hated new system
preceded the acquisition by Amazon.
Amazon is terrible. The way Whole Foods is now treating its workers is terrible. But
Amazon simply did not develop or implement the policies at Whole Foods that this article is
ascribing to it.
Good for your saboteurs! Amazon is trying to stop shrinkage but they'll lose more through
deliberately missed scans. Oh, and a freezer door left open or temperature mysteriously reset
would wreak even more havoc.
I was in a Whole Foods last night, where I shop a few times per month, here in central
California. Lots of unfamiliar faces working there. Produce section definitely looking worse
than usual -- empty shelves, low quality items. At checkout, the cashier was a young woman
I'd never seen before, who looked tired and dispirited. I asked how she was doing that
evening. Smirking wearily, she said, "Hangin' in there " (Which is about how I feel these
days, too.) When it came time to pay, it was the first time in my life that the
total at Whole Foods was less than I was expecting. Wow, I thought, I didn't think
Amazon changed the prices that much? After I got home and looked at the receipt, I realized
why -- she hadn't charged me for all the items! Bless her.
I don't believe Amazon and Whole Foods were ever a good match for each other, and with
unhappy employees and other problems, I expect this particular branch of WF to be gone in a
few years. And I really couldn't care less. There are other good places to shop.
"... Dimon can afford to be brazen. JPMorgan Chase is now the second most profitable company in the country. Why should he be worried about what might happen in another crisis, given that the Trump administration is in charge? With pro-business and pro-bailout thinking reigning supreme, what could go wrong? ..."
"... Rules Don't Apply ..."
"... At the Federal Reserve, Trump's selection for chairman, Jerome Powell (another Mnuchin pick ), has repeatedly expressed his disinterest in bank regulations. To him, too-big-to-fail banks are a thing of the past. And to round out this heady crew, there's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head Mick Mulvaney now also at the helm of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), whose very existence he's mocked. ..."
"... As for Joseph Otting, though the Senate confirmed him as the new head of the OCC in November, four key senators called him "highly unqualified for [the] job." He will run an agency whose history snakes back to the Civil War. Established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 , it was meant to safeguard the solidity and viability of the banking system. Its leader remains charged with preventing bank-caused financial crashes, not enabling them. ..."
Amid a roaring stock market and a planet of
upbeat CEOs , few are even thinking about the havoc that a multi-trillion-dollar financial system gone rogue could inflict upon
global stability. But watch out. Even in the seemingly best of times, neglecting Wall Street is a dangerous idea. With a rag-tag
Trumpian crew of ex-bankers and Goldman Sachs alumni as the only watchdogs in town, it's time to focus, because one thing is clear:
Donald Trump's economic team is in the process of making the financial system combustible again.
Collectively, the biggest U.S. banks already have their get-out-out-of-jail-free cards and are now sitting on
record profits
after, not so long ago, triggering sweeping unemployment, wrecking countless lives, and elevating global instability. (Not a single
major bank CEO was given jail time for such acts.) Still, let's not blame the dangers lurking at the heart of the financial system
solely on the Trump doctrine of leaving banks alone. They should be shared by the Democrats who, under President Barack Obama, believed,
and still believe, in the perfection of the
Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 .
While Dodd-Frank created important financial safeguards like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, even stronger long-term
banking reforms were left on the sidelines. Crucially, that law didn't force banks to separate the deposits of everyday Americans
from Wall Street's complex derivatives transactions. In other words, it didn't resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 (axed in
the Clinton era).
Wall Street is now thoroughly emboldened as the financial elite follows the mantra of Kelly Clarkston's hit song: "What doesn't
kill you makes you stronger." Since the crisis of 2007-2008, the Big Six U.S. banks -- JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup,
Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley -- have seen the share price of their stocks significantly outpace those of the S&P
500 index as a whole.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank (that's paid
$13 billion in settlements for various fraudulent acts), recently even pooh-poohed the chances of the Democratic Party in 2020,
suggesting that it was about time its leaders let banks do whatever they wanted. As he
told Maria Bartiromo, host of Fox Business's Wall Street Week , "The thing about the Democrats is they will not have
a chance, in my opinion. They don't have a strong centrist, pro-business, pro-free enterprise person."
This is a man who was basically gifted two banks,
Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual , by the U.S government during the financial crisis. That present came as his own company
got cheap loans from the Federal Reserve, while clamoring for billions in bailout money that he swore it
didn't need .
Dimon can afford to be brazen. JPMorgan Chase is now the
second most profitable
company in the country. Why should he be worried about what might happen in another crisis, given that the Trump administration is
in charge? With pro-business and pro-bailout thinking reigning supreme, what could go wrong?
Protect or Destroy?
There are, of course, supposed to be safeguards against freewheeling types like Dimon. In Washington, key regulatory bodies are
tasked with keeping too-big-to-fail banks from wrecking the economy and committing financial crimes against the public. They include
the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
(an independent bureau of the Treasury), and most recently, under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(an independent agency funded by the Federal Reserve).
These entities are now run by men whose only desire is to give Wall Street more latitude. Former Goldman Sachs partner, now treasury
secretary, Steven Mnuchin caught the spirit of the moment with a selfie of his wife and him
holding reams of newly printed money "like a couple of James Bond villains." (After all,
he was a Hollywood producer and even appeared in the Warren Beatty flick Rules Don't Apply .) He's making his mark on
us, however, not by producing economic security, but by cheerleading for financial deregulation.
Despite the fact that the Republican platform in election 2016
endorsed reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, Mnuchin made it clear that he has no intention of letting that happen. In a signal
to every too-big-not-to-fail financial outfit around, he also released AIG from its regulatory chains. That's the insurance company
that was at the epicenter of the last financial crisis. By freeing AIG from being monitored by the Financial Services Oversight Board
that he chairs, he's left it and others like it free to repeat the same mistakes.
Elsewhere, having successfully spun through the revolving door from banking to Washington, Joseph Otting, a
former colleague of Mnuchin's, is now running the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). While he's no household name,
he was the CEO of OneWest (formerly, the failed California-based bank
IndyMac) . That's the bank Mnuchin and his billionaire posse picked up on the cheap in 2009 before
carrying out a vast set of foreclosures on the homes of ordinary Americans (including active-duty servicemen and -women) and
reselling it for hundreds of millions of dollars in
personal profits .
At the Federal Reserve, Trump's selection for chairman, Jerome Powell (another
Mnuchin pick ),
has repeatedly
expressed
his disinterest in bank regulations. To him, too-big-to-fail banks are a thing of the past. And to round out this heady crew, there's
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head Mick Mulvaney now also at the helm of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),
whose very existence he's mocked.
In time, we'll come to a reckoning with this era of Trumpian finance. Meanwhile, however, the agenda of these men (and they are
all men) could lead to a financial crisis of the first order. So here's a little rundown on them: what drives them and how they are
blindly taking the economy onto distinctly treacherous ground.
Joseph Otting , Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
The Office of the Comptroller is responsible for ensuring that banks operate in a secure and reasonable manner, provide equal
access to their services, treat customers properly, and adhere to the laws of the land as well as federal regulations.
As for Joseph Otting, though the Senate
confirmed him as the new head of the OCC in November, four key senators
called him "highly unqualified for [the] job."
He will run an agency whose history snakes back to the Civil War. Established by President Abraham Lincoln
in 1863 , it was meant
to safeguard the solidity and viability of the banking system. Its leader remains charged with preventing bank-caused financial crashes,
not enabling them.
Fast forward to the 1990s when Otting held a ranking position at Union Bank NA, overseeing its lending practices to medium-sized
companies. From there he transitioned to U.S. Bancorp, where he was tasked with building its middle-market business (covering companies
with $50 million to $1 billion in annual revenues) as part of that lender's expansion in California.
In 2010, Otting was hired as CEO of OneWest (now owned by CIT Group). During his time there with Mnuchin, OneWest foreclosed on
about
36,000 people and was faced with sweeping allegations of abusive foreclosure practices for which it was
fined $89 million . Otting received
$10.5 million in an employment contract payout when terminated by CIT in 2015. As Senator Sherrod Brown
tweeted all too accurately during his
confirmation hearings in the Senate, "Joseph Otting is yet another bank exec who profited off the financial crisis who is being rewarded
by the Trump Administration with a powerful job overseeing our nation's banking system."
Like Trump and Mnuchin, Otting has never held public office. He is, however, an enthusiastic
proponent
of loosening lending
regulations . Not only is he against reinstating Glass-Steagall, but he also wants
to weaken
the "Volcker Rule," a part of the Dodd-Frank Act that was meant to place restrictions on various kinds of speculative transactions
by banks that might not benefit their customers.
Jay Clayton, the Securities and Exchange Commission
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1934, in the wake of the
crash of 1929 and in the midst of the Great Depression. Its intention was to protect investors by certifying that the securities
business operated in a fair, transparent, and legal manner.
Admittedly, its first head, Joseph Kennedy (President John F. Kennedy's father), wasn't exactly a beacon of virtue. He had helped
raise contributions for Roosevelt's
election campaign even while under suspicion for alleged
bootlegging and other illicit activities.
Since May 2017, the SEC has been run by Jay Clayton, a
top Wall Street
lawyer . Following law school, he eventually made partner
at the elite legal firm Sullivan & Cromwell. After the 2008 financial crisis, Clayton was deeply involved in dealing with the companies
that tanked as that crisis began. He advised Barclays during its acquisition of Lehman Brothers' assets and then
represented
Bear Stearns when JPMorgan Chase acquired it.
In the three years before he became head of the SEC, Clayton
represented eight of the 10 largest Wall Street banks, institutions that were then regularly being investigated and charged with
securities violations by the very agency Clayton now heads. He and his wife happen to
hold assets valued at between $12 million and $47 million in some of those very institutions.
Not surprisingly in this administration (or any other recent one), Clayton also has solid Goldman Sachs ties. On at least
seven occasions between 2007 and
2014, he advised Goldman directly or represented its corporate clients in their initial public offerings. Recently, Goldman Sachs
requested that the SEC release it from having to report its lobbying activities or payments because, it claimed, they didn't
make up a
large enough percentage of its assets to be worth the bother. (Don't be surprised when the agency agrees.)
Clayton's main accomplishment so far has been to significantly reduce oversight activities. SEC penalties, for instance,
fell by 15.5% to $3.5 billion during the first year of the Trump administration. The SEC also issued enforcement actions against
only 62 public companies in 2017, a 33% decline from the previous year. Perhaps you won't then be surprised to learn that its enforcement
division has an estimated
100 unfilled investigative and supervisory positions, while it has also
trimmed its wish list for new regulatory provisions.
As for Dodd-Frank, Clayton insists he won't "
attack " it, but thinks it should be "looked" at.
Mick Mulvaney, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget
As a congressman from South Carolina, ultra-conservative Republican Mick Mulvaney, dubbed "
Mick the Knife ," once even labeled himself a "
right-wing nut job ." Chosen by President Trump in November 2016 to run the Office of Management and Budget, he was confirmed
by Congress last
February
.
As he
said during his confirmation hearings, "Each day, families across our nation make disciplined choices about how to spend their
hard-earned money, and the federal government should exercise the same discretion that hard-working Americans do every day." As soon
as he was at the OMB, he
took an axe to social programs that help everyday Americans. He was instrumental in creating the GOP tax plan that will add up
to
$1.5 trillion to the country's debt in order to provide major tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals. He was also
a key figure in
selling
the plan to the media.
When Richard Cordray resigned as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in November, Trump promptly selected Mick the
Knife for that role, undercutting the
deputy director Cordray had appointed to the post. After much debate and a
court order in his favor, Mulvaney grabbed a box of
Dunkin' Donuts and headed over from his OMB office adjacent to the White House. So even though he's got a new job, Mulvaney is
never far from Trump's reach.
The problem for the rest of us: Mulvaney loathes the CFPB, an agency he
once called "a joke." While he can't unilaterally
demolish it, he's already obstructed its ability to enforce its government mandates.
Soon after Trump appointed him, he imposed a 30-day freeze on hiring and similarly
froze all further rule-making
and regulatory actions.
In his latest effort to undermine American consumers, he's working to defund the CFPB. He just sent the Federal Reserve a letter
stating that, "for
the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, the Bureau is requesting $0." That doesn't bode well for American consumers.
Jerome "Jay" Powell, Federal Reserve
Thanks to the Senate confirmation of his selection for chairman of the board, Donald Trump now owns the Fed, too. The former number
two man under Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell will be running the Fed, come Monday morning, February 5th.
Established in 1913 during President Woodrow Wilson's administration, the Fed's official
mission is to "promote a safe, sound, competitive, and accessible banking system." In reality, it's acted more like that system's
main drug dealer in recent years. In the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, in addition to buying trillions of dollars in bonds
(a strategy called "quantitative easing," or QE), the Fed supplied four of the biggest Wall Street banks with an injection of
$7.8 trillion in secret loans. The move was meant to stimulate
the economy, but really, it coddled the banks.
Powell's monetary policy undoubtedly won't represent a startling change from that of previous head Janet Yellen, or her predecessor,
Ben Bernanke. History
shows that Powell has repeatedly voted for pumping financial markets with Federal Reserve funds and, despite displaying reservations
about the practice of quantitative easing, he always voted in favor of it, too. What makes his nomination out of the ordinary, though,
is that he's a trained lawyer, not an economist.
Powell is assuming the helm at a time when deregulation is central to the White House's economic and financial strategy. Keep
in mind that he will also have a role in choosing and guiding future Fed appointments. (At present, the Fed has the smallest number
of sitting governors
in its history
.) The first such appointee, private equity investor Randal Quarles, already approved as the Fed's vice chairman for supervision,
is another major
deregulator .
Powell will be able to steer banking system decisions in other ways. In recent Senate testimony, he
confirmed his deregulatory
predisposition. In that vein, the Fed has
already announced that it seeks
to loosen the capital requirements big banks need to put behind their riskier assets and activities. This will, it claims, allow
them to more freely make loans to Main Street, in case a decade of cheap money wasn't enough of an incentive.
The Emperor Has No Rules
Nearly every regulatory institution in Trumpville tasked with monitoring the financial system is now run by someone who once profited
from bending or breaking its rules. Historically, severe financial crises tend to erupt after periods of lax oversight and loose
banking regulations. By filling America's key institutions with representatives of just such negligence, Trump has effectively hired
a team of financial arsonists.
Naturally, Wall Street views Trump's chosen ones with glee. Amid the present financial euphoria of the stock market, big bank
stock prices have soared. But one thing is certain: when the next crisis comes, it will leave the last meltdown in the shade because
our financial system is, at its core, unreformed and without adult supervision. Banks not only remain too big to fail but
are
still growing , while this government pushes policies guaranteed to put us all at risk again.
There's a pattern to this: first, there's a crash; then comes a period of remorse and talk of reform; and eventually comes the
great forgetting. As time passes, markets rise, greed becomes good, and Wall Street begins to champion more deregulation. The government
attracts deregulatory enthusiasts and then, of course, there's another crash, millions suffer, and remorse returns.
Ominously, we're now in the deregulation stage following the bull run. We know what comes next, just not when. Count on one thing:
it won't be pretty.
This is a problem because, at 4.1 percent last month, U.S. unemployment is at the lowest
level since 2000 and companies from Dallas to Denver are struggling to find the right
workers. In some cases this is constraining growth, the Federal Reserve
reported last week.
Corporate America's search for an exact match is "the number-one problem with hiring in
our country," said Daniel Morgan, a recruiter in Birmingham, Alabama, who owns an Express
Employment Professionals franchise. "Most companies get caught up on precise experience to a
specific job," he said, adding: "Companies fail to see a person for their abilities and
transferable skills."
U.S. employers got used to abundant and cheap labor following the 2007-2009 recession.
Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, and didn't return to the lows of the
previous business cycle until last year. Firms still remain reluctant to boost pay or train
employees with less-than-perfect credentials, though recruiters say that may have to change
amid a jobless rate that's set to dip further.
The way the article is cut off with the wage gains chart makes it seem that the article is
on the Dean Baker theme of "pay higher wages and they will come," in which he argues that
there is no shortage because you can hire workers away from your competitor, thereby merely
moving the deficit from one place to another without eliminating it and unintentionally
suggesting that there is actually is a shortage after all.
Immediately after that chart, however, the article segues into a pretty intelligent
discussion of employers learning to ascertain "how can your experience be used in my
application," making it unclear why the wage chart is even there.
The "lack of trained workers" complaint has long annoyed me, with its implication that it
is the public sector's responsibility to train workers for the private sector. Why? If a
company needs welders, why should that company not train its own welders?
J.Goodwin , January 29, 2018 11:39 am
Last week we were reviewing a job description we were preparing for a role in Canada. It
was basically a super senior description, they wanted everything, specific experience, higher
education, what amounts to a black belt project management certification but also accounting
and finance background.
At the bottom it says 5 years experience.
I almost fell off my chair. That's an indicator of the pay band they were trying to fill
at (let's say 3, and the description was written like a 10-15 years 6).
I tried to explain it to the person who wrote it and I said hey if we put this out there,
we will get no hits. There is no one with this experience who will take what you are
offering. I'm afraid we're going to end up with another home country expat instead. They're
often not up the same standard you could get with a local if you reasonably scoped the job
and gave a fair offer.
I think companies have forgotten how to compete for employees, and the recruiters are
completely out of touch. Or maybe they are aware of the conditions and HR just won't sign on
to fair value.
Mona Williams , January 29, 2018 1:09 pm
Before I retired 12 years ago, on-the-job training was much more common. Borders Books
(remember them?) trained me for a week with pay for just a temporary Christmas-season job.
Employers have gotten spoiled, and I hope they will figure this out. Some of the training
programs I hear about just make me sigh. Nobody can afford to be trained while not being
paid.
axt113 , January 29, 2018 1:26 pm
My Wife works as a junior recruiter, the problem she says is with the employers, they want
a particular set of traits, and if there is even a slight deviation they balk
She says that one recent employer she worked with wanted so many particulars for not
enough pay that even well experienced and well educated candidates she could find were either
unwilling to accept the offer, or were missing one or two traits that made them unacceptable
to the company.
rps , January 29, 2018 3:58 pm
This is exciting news for many of us who've been waiting for the pendulum to swing in
favor of potential employees after a decade of reading employers help wanted Santa wish list
criteria for a minimum wage job of 40+ hours. I'd argue the unemployment rate is not 4.1%;
rather, I know of many intelligent/educated/experienced versatile people who've been cut out
of the job market and/or chose not to work for breadcrumbs.
HR's 6 second resume review rule of potential candidates was a massive failure by
eliminating candidates whose skills, experience and critical thinking abilities could've
cultivated innovation across many disciplines. Instead companies looked for drone replacement
at slave wages. HR's narrow candidate searches often focused on resume typos or perceived
grammatical errors (highly unlikely HR recruiters have an English Ph.D), thus trashing the
resume. Perhaps, HR will be refitted with critical thinking people who see a candidate's
potential beyond the forgotten comma or period.
"... "And while the short-term growth picture looks rosy, the prognosis for the long term -- as defined by the prospects for potential growth -- is sobering." ..."
"... "As the World Economic Forum this past week released an assessment of risk factors featuring a survey of 1,000 experts, it found that 93 percent of respondents saw increased threat of political or economic confrontations. Some 79 percent fretted about heightened likelihood of military conflict and 73 percent saw rising risks of an erosion of world trading rules." ..."
I continue to read about the coverage of Davos. Most stories say everything is doing great
and the CEOs are happy. But when I follow stories about individual industries, I see lots of
concern about the future. The one organization at Davos warning about 2019 and beyond is the
IMF.
Also, there is this.
"And while the short-term growth picture looks rosy, the prognosis for the long term -- as
defined by the prospects for potential growth -- is sobering."
"Many economists are skeptical that the benefits of growth will reach beyond the educated,
affluent, politically connected class that has captured most of the spoils in many countries
and left behind working people whose wages have stagnated even as jobless rates have
plunged."
"As the World Economic Forum this past week released an assessment of risk factors
featuring a survey of 1,000 experts, it found that 93 percent of respondents saw increased
threat of political or economic confrontations. Some 79 percent fretted about heightened
likelihood of military conflict and 73 percent saw rising risks of an erosion of world
trading rules."
This has a good chart showing how global indebtedness has been rising when comparing 1997 to
2007 to 2017.
I understand the argument that debt is not a problem if you can pay it back, but I fear
that debt has been used to further consumption rather than to improve productivity and fund
new scientific and technological advancements. In other words, the world has been borrowing
to finance a sugar high that won't serve us well.
I am also not concerned that world civilization will collapse if debt isn't paid back.
What does concern me, however, is that the current cheery global growth figures might be
masking an unsustainable global economy.
Below is the World Bank numbers for GDP growth – ten year trailing average. The World
Bank uses dollars and I realise there are lots of arguments about per capita, local
currencies, GDP being meaningless for many real life purposes, etc. but the overall trend is
really unremittingly down except for the jump in the early 80s and the China pump earlier
this century, with the OECD hitting zero somewhere in the mid twenties, possibly earlier if
there is a big energy price spike on the way. Debt has gone from about one for one to six for
one in terms of debt to growth (I think since about when Reagan and Thatcher took over). At
zero growth it will be infinity and then negative, at which point, or a bit earlier, some
different sort of economic theory surely has to take over. Maybe it already has, currently it
doesn't seem like proper capitalism to me as markets are being set by government and central
bank policy for the benefit of the rentiers, not by intrinsic asset value.
There's different sort of debt – financial institution debt doesn't seem a big deal
as they just owe each other the money, government debt not so much either as they can just
create what they want, but private debt seems the thing that can just destroy a country if it
goes wrong.
I don't know much about it though – I've tried reading some macro economic books and
most seem to start with an implicit economic framework which has almost nothing to do with
the world I see that is driven primarily from extraction of resources (including space to
dump waste), and secondarily by individual equality and property rights. All those things are
gradually going from most countries, assuming they originally existed, so it doesn't really
surprise me that GDP growth is declining.
Government and financial institution debt is not a problem as long as everyone is doing it.
If one single country goes on a debt binge like this they would be punished by international
currency and bond markets. If they all do it – where can you go to escape it? Might
help explain cryptocurrency rise and (still going!) australia and canada housing bubbles.
probably the only two mildly worrying things for the global masters – dollar weakness
could create unforeseen currency disruptions; oil price rise could make flow of payments
difficult even with infinite money creation.
twocats wrote:
"global capitalism has been untenable since 2009, what makes anyone think it would be more
feasible AFTER the popping of the largest bubble ever created in the history of humanity (and
that is not at all an exaggeration)?"
The current bubble is much much bigger than the 2008 bubble. You think after creating two
bubbles: 2000 dot-com and the 2008 housing bubble that people would have learned about
consequences. Nope: Let's shoot for an even bigger bubble!
Quote: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
results."
twocats wrote:
"I would like to think the debt bubble has consequences dear enough that it would force them
to stop, but no one has given me an argument other than"
Considering that the previous two bubbles (2000 & 2008) had dramatic consequences, I
would think it would be self evident by now. But it appears you & most of the world,
haven't connected the dots yet. Perhaps the third crisis will provide enlightment?
In the end, its going to lead to another World War, just as it did in the 1930's. This
time won't be different.
twocats wrote:
"to think cryptocurrencies haven't had a massive, accelerated drive is to be blind."
Tulip mania! When people start taking out second mortgages to buy BTC, there is a problem.
Ditto for Stocks with Margin debt at an all time high. Cryptos will are the digital version
of Ponzi/Pyramid schemes. A few people will become very wealthy while leaving millions of
speculators impoverished. Most people are speculating in Cryptos hoping to become wealthy (ie
Get Rich quick without doing anything)
twocats wrote:
"3) your recreational drug use analogy is not convincing ."
re-read your own #3 reponse entirely & carefully. You self answered why the analogy is
a perfect fit.
The simplest explanation is the necessarily slow but consistent recovery from the crushing
financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. After all, a financial crisis of that magnitude leads to
lawsuits, bankruptcies, career disruptions and other economic events that muddy a recovery, and
they take a long while to clear up.
There is some truth to that explanation, but it is insufficient. It omits a critical yet
elusive factor: animal spirits. John Maynard Keynes popularized that term in 1936, referring to
a psychological state in which people get a consumerist and entrepreneurial bug that allows
them to forget their worries and let their optimism guide their economic decision-making. In
homage to Keynes, the economist George Akerlof and I used "Animal Spirits" as the title of a book in 2009 .
Flourishing animal spirits involve complacency, a playful mood, a "
damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead " feeling of confidence.
That kind of exuberance now seems to be fueling the stock market, where prices have
outstripped fundamental valuations. Real (inflation-corrected) corporate earnings per share for
the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index were, for the third quarter of 2017, only 6 percent
higher than they were in the second quarter of 2007, just before the financial crisis. In
contrast, real stock market prices were 39 percent higher. That disproportionate increase is
based much more on how earnings are being valued than on how the level of earnings has
increased.
Such surges have happened before. The four major confidence indexes took a long ride up
between 1990 and 2000, again after a recession. From the bottom of the Michigan index in
October 1990 to a peak in February 2000, real S.&P. 500 price per share rose 256 percent
while real earnings per share rose only 78 percent.
Why did share prices rise so much in that period? A traditional explanation is that
investors had a "rational expectation" of future earnings increases, but it is clear that they
were grossly mistaken. The S&P 500 lost just over half its real value from its peak on
March 24, 2000, to its trough on Oct. 9, 2002. No concrete event caused this plunge, though we
can point to the bursting of the dot-com bubble and a recession. Both were plausibly caused by
a drop in overinflated confidence.
The critical question, then: What drives these decade-long swings in confidence, including
the upsurge that is still underway?
Take the current confidence cycle. While Donald J. Trump's presidency may have exerted some
impact on animal spirits in the last year, it doesn't explain the preceding eight years of
slowly improving confidence. And I am skeptical that the upward swing can be entirely explained
by standard factors like government and central bank stabilization policy or technological
innovation.
Scholars are working on this problem. At the American Economic Association annual meeting in
Philadelphia this month, I chaired a session on "
Confidence, Animal Spirits and Business Cycles ." All three researchers presented papers
describing how animal spirits are helping to drive the economy in the United States and across
the world.
Ayhan
Kose , director of the World Bank Group's work on global macroeconomic outlook and
forecasts, summarized work by the bank's researchers on confidence indexes and the business
cycle. They compiled a new database of such survey-based indexes and measures of economic
activity in 95 countries. Much of their data goes back before 2000, and in some cases to the
early 1960s. The researchers found that consumer and business confidence tended to start
declining before the peak of the business cycle, and to start recovering
before recessions ended.
In short, confidence indexes are indeed leading indicators in a vast array of countries, and
these individual country confidence indexes are driven by a global cycle, though how this cycle
is synchronized still isn't clear. Fluctuations in animal spirits remain an essential mystery
for economists, though it is encouraging to see that quantitative studies of the issue are
underway.
The United States, the world's largest economy, is into its ninth year of growth, with the
International Monetary Fund lifting expectations for expansion to 2.7 percent this year from
2.3 percent because of the tax cuts.
China has diminished fears of an
abrupt halt to its decades-long growth trajectory. Europe, only recently dismissed as anemic
and hopelessly vexed by political dysfunction, has emerged as a growth leader. Even Japan ,
long synonymous with grinding decline, is expanding as well.
Rising oil prices have lifted Russia and
Middle
East producers , while Mexico has so far transcended fears that menacing trade rhetoric
from the Trump administration would dent its economy. Brazil, still suffering the effects of a
veritable depression, is flashing
tentative signs of recovery.
The result is a hopeful albeit fragile recovery, one vulnerable to the increasingly
unpredictable predilections of world leaders.
Some banks blew out the mortgage market, [and] they blew out technology investment two
decades ago. What are they doing now? They are financing energy investments, and they are
financing consumer debt. This is an almost brainless approach.
Via
Marketwatch
Jamie Galbraith states his thoughts on a how the current US economy functions. Here are a
few snippets:
University of Texas economist Galbraith, the son of the famous Harvard economist John
Kenneth Galbraith, believes mainstream economists and the Federal Reserve are too wedded to
old ideas to see what is really going on in the economy. Specifically, Galbraith is worried
that the consumer is the only game in town -- and that can't last.
Galbraith used his latest book "The End of Normal" to lay out his case that
the 2007-08 financial crisis wasn't just a brief interruption in the life of an otherwise
healthy economy but instead the latest crisis for an economy that lost its footing back in
the 1980s.
At the American Economic Association meeting in Philadelphia, MarketWatch asked Galbraith
to share his views on the economic landscape.
(On inflation and labor) There is no Phillips Curve, and there hasn't been for decades.
The supply of labor is not a constraint. If you wish to pay people higher wages, you could
lure people back out of retirement. Net immigration has basically stopped. If you needed
more workers, it would start up again. So we don't have a real labor-force constraint. We
are not going to get inflationary pressure from the labor markets. It has been 40 years.
Economists are slow learners, and central bankers are a slow-learning subset. They should
recognize that things did change in the 1980s.
(Losing ground in global trade) I think that is clearly the case in the wider world. The
Chinese have engaged in an extraordinary exercise in engineering in recent years
domestically, building 12,000 miles of high-speed rail. They now have vast engineering
capacity, and they are applying it to their periphery -- a One Belt One Road network that
will orient commerce across Eurasia and into Africa as well that is in the interest of
furthering Chinese development. This is on a scale which dwarfs anything that is being
conceived of in the United States. (Dan here This statement is before the sh**hole
storm)
(On infrastucture)Trump came in with the idea that we should be investing heavily in
infrastructure. He got no traction from the Republican Congress. Why is that? Because the
immediate beneficiaries of an infrastructure program are people who live in cities, people
who live in the expensive coastal areas of the country -- and these people don't vote
Republican. So a political obstacle that prevented the one sensible or necessary element of
Trump's political framework from getting any traction at all.
(Role of banks) You have to have a situation where banks, which are publicly chartered
institutions, serve a public purpose with some common objectives. Some banks blew out the
mortgage market, [and] they blew out technology investment two decades ago. What are they
doing now? They are financing energy investments, and they are financing consumer debt.
This is an almost brainless approach.
"... As it is, the "middle" 59% can replenish their pockets at the expense of top 1% income whose share has ballooned from 10% to 22.5% over recent (de-unionizing) decades. Just reintroduce confiscatory taxation of the kind existing in the Eisenhower era. Say, 90% over $2 million income -- and this time we really mean it -- very top incomes (CEOs, news anchors, er, quarterbacks) now 20X what they were since per capita income only doubled. I predict any social inertia (it's only human nature) on the part of the 59% to jack upper taxes up will be overcome by the friendly persuasion on the part of the 40% -- who want to jack up the price of that burger just a bit more. ..."
"... NY Times' Nate Cohn found that Trump won by trading places with Obama. Obama ran as the black guy (presumably working folks oriented -- were we wrong) against Wall Street Romney; Trump ran as blue collar-acting guy against Wall Street Hillary. True progressive Bernie would have stomped Trump. (Bernie hasn't caught on to re-stocking union density as the only real way to help working people yet -- but at least he won't get in the way while waiting to catch on.) ..."
"... I remember reading an interview of an older person. The interviewer asked what life was like during the Great Depression. And they replied that it wasn't bad if you had a job. ..."
"... This is similar to our situation today. It is not bad if you have a good paying full time job. In that case you have almost no understanding of what some others are complaining about. Income inequality is a sterile term for what happens to other people ..."
"... Candidate Trump addressed the major concern of those 'others', which was their declining spending power. He did that by addressing the economic threats posed by illegal immigration and free trade treaties which allowed companies to move production overseas. ..."
"... The businessman Mohamed El-Erian rejects the populist label for the current multi national voter rebellions, he prefers anti-establishment. And so do I. ..."
"We all know that that the widely touted unemployment rate overstates the strength of
the labor market given so many having dropped out of the labor force, and upward pressure on
wages has remained weak, despite some improvement on that front recently."
Barkley, this understates (too typically I'm afraid) the depth of the "Great Wage
Depression." Everybody (everybody progressive anyway) eternally points to economic growth
benefiting only the upper few percent for decades -- then -- whenever they assess the effect
of the economy upon voters (not you here) they skip right over sink hole wage rates and
keyhole focus right on the unemployment rate (or if we're lucky the real employment rate)
when what voters want is $20/hr jobs plain and simple: high (or at least really livable)
wages.
[cut-and-paste]
Simply put, if fast food can pay $15/hr at 33% (!) labor costs, then, other retail should be
able pay $20/hr at 10-15% labor costs, and, Walmart (God bless it) may be able to pay $25/hr
at 7% labor costs. If this means shifting 10% of overall income to the bottom 40%, that means
scratching 14% of their income from the "middle" 59% (who get roughly 70% of overall income)
-- in higher prices. Which may mean we have been paying the 40% too little for too along. But
if the 40% get labor union organized (where this little speech is going) we may find
ourselves willing to up if we want them to show up at work.
I have always been willing to tell any gang banger (not that I ever run into any) that
side-ways guns and gang signs and all that would look pretty funny in, say, Germany where
they pay people to work. And, that if Walmart were paying $25/hr we wouldn't be hearing about
any of this here.
As it is, the "middle" 59% can replenish their pockets at the expense of top 1% income
whose share has ballooned from 10% to 22.5% over recent (de-unionizing) decades. Just
reintroduce confiscatory taxation of the kind existing in the Eisenhower era. Say, 90% over
$2 million income -- and this time we really mean it -- very top incomes (CEOs, news anchors,
er, quarterbacks) now 20X what they were since per capita income only doubled. I predict any
social inertia (it's only human nature) on the part of the 59% to jack upper taxes up will be
overcome by the friendly persuasion on the part of the 40% -- who want to jack up the price
of that burger just a bit more.
* * * * * *
Super easy way back [ONLY WAY BACK] is restoring healthy labor union density (6%
unions outside gov equates to 20/10 bp). When Democrats take over Congress, we must institute
mandatory union certification and re-certification elections at every work place (stealing a
page from the Republican's anti-union playbook -- see Wisconsin gov workers). I would add the
wrinkle of making the cycle one, three or five years -- plurality rules -- take a lot of
potential rancor out of first time votes in some workplaces.
PS. NY Times' Nate Cohn found that Trump won by trading places with Obama. Obama ran as
the black guy (presumably working folks oriented -- were we wrong) against Wall Street
Romney; Trump ran as blue collar-acting guy against Wall Street Hillary. True progressive
Bernie would have stomped Trump. (Bernie hasn't caught on to re-stocking union density as the
only real way to help working people yet -- but at least he won't get in the way while
waiting to catch on.)
JimH , January 11, 2018 10:39 am
First, I agree with your assessment that President Trump is claiming credit for things
which he has not caused. But this economy is awful for those at the low end of the income
scale. Low pay, high rent, and rising food costs. (Sometimes by subterfuge.)
I remember reading an interview of an older person. The interviewer asked what life was
like during the Great Depression. And they replied that it wasn't bad if you had a job.
This is similar to our situation today. It is not bad if you have a good paying full time
job. In that case you have almost no understanding of what some others are complaining about.
Income inequality is a sterile term for what happens to other people.
Others like those who have not dropped out of the labor force but who are no longer
counted as looking for work because they exhausted their unemployment benefits. (No one
contacts them to see if they are still looking for work.)
Others like those who have full time employment but their wages are low and static.
Others like those who need a full time job but a part time job is all they can get.
Others like those who work but only get by because they applied for food stamps. (SNAP)
Others like those living on Social Security and seeing pitifully tiny COLAs.
Others like older Americans with savings which pay almost no interest.
And others, like all of the above, who see the prices of the things that they consume going
up while the CPI is showing little inflation.
Some of those others live in the rust belt states where they have seen an extended
economic decline.
Neither of the two major political parties addresses those 'others' issues. And because
they are almost completely disconnected from their voters' issues, they did not perceive the
building anger.
Candidate Trump addressed the major concern of those 'others', which was their declining
spending power. He did that by addressing the economic threats posed by illegal immigration
and free trade treaties which allowed companies to move production overseas.
President Trump lost in the polls and won the election. It doesn't really surprise me that
he is continuing to score low in the polls.
Of course, the two major parties can continue on their current paths. And they can blame
their losses on flawed voters. And eventually they will do their complaining from their
homes.
The businessman Mohamed El-Erian rejects the populist label for the current multi national
voter rebellions, he prefers anti-establishment. And so do I.
Varsovian , January 11, 2018 12:14 pm
Oh no, not another extrapolation based on the false economic stats Poland pumped out
pre-2015!!
No-one takes the drastic choice of emigration lightly – especially if you know you're
going to be bottom of the heap in the new country. Can't you find an American to talk about
his forbears escaping poverty in Europe only to face hard times in the New World?
Two million Poles fled Poland's much touted "Economic Miracle". Funnily, they stopped
emigrating when REAL economic growth, wage growth and the setting up of a welfare state
started!
Hard Right crony capitalism with illegal fuel import deals with Putin and falsified public
accounting didn't cause happiness. Despite the figures, Poland wasn't a world leader in the
export of cellphones, for example.
Rosser continues to bark up the wrong tree! Worse – he's making some sort of social
philosophy out of it.
You and I have already been around on this, but I shall point out that the credibility of
sources in Poland that you like to cite have collapsed since the Law and Justice Party you
shill for took over.
The most believable data is that there has been no major economic change in the state of
the Polish economy from before and after the political change, although some minor changes
(which you have hyped while ignoring others not fitting your party line). The big bottom line
is no noticeable change in overall GDP growth in Poland, basically chugging along
unspectacularly in the 1-2% annual range with mild quarterly fluctuations.
So, sorry, I am going to stick with calling this the Poland problem." You folks are the
poster boys for this. Tough, and good luck getting any world leader not also an authoritarian
liar supporting your embarrassing government.
Deneen argues that [neo]liberal democracy has betrayed its promises. It was supposed to
foster equality, but it has led to great inequality and a new aristocracy. It was supposed to
give average people control over government, but average people feel alienated from government.
It was supposed to foster liberty, but it creates a degraded popular culture in which consumers
become slave to their appetites.
Many young people feel trapped in a system they have no faith in. Deneen quotes one of his
students: "Because we view humanity -- and thus its institutions -- as corrupt and selfish, the
only person we can rely upon is our self. The only way we can avoid failure, being let down,
and ultimately succumbing to the chaotic world around us, therefore, is to have the means
(financial security) to rely only upon ourselves."
... ... ...
When communism and fascism failed in the 20th century, this version of [neo]liberalism
seemed triumphant. But it was a Pyrrhic victory, Deneen argues.
[Neo]Liberalism claims to be neutral but it's really anti-culture. It detaches people from
nature, community, tradition and place. It detaches people from time. "Gratitude to the past
and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate
gratification."
Once family and local community erode and social norms dissolve, individuals are left naked
and unprotected. They seek solace in the state. They toggle between impersonal systems:
globalized capitalism and the distant state. As the social order decays, people grasp for the
security of authoritarianism. " A signal feature of modern totalitarianism was that it
arose and came to power through the discontents of people's isolation and loneliness ," he
observes.
I appreciate your sentiment and the disappointment (which we all share). Probably the best
description of the pre-election promises versus post-inauguration realities was a
zero-hedgers joke: yes, Trump has drained The Swamp, but just one little piece of it enough
to build a hotel for Jared and Ivanka.
Where you are almost certainly wrong is your conclusion:
"This entire economy is a soap bubble that is about to burst and it's going to happen
on Dump's watch "
This is an exaggeration. The moment of US failure (the financial tsunami from the
accumulated fixing and rigging of absolutely all "markets") is hard to predict, but I would
give it more than three remaining years (yes, a one term president). Trump is for US what
Brezhnev was for Soviet Union -- the Dotart in Chief signalling the end. It took nine
years after Brezhnev's death for SU to collapse, whilst US is a bigger economic system and
thus should be more resilient (although it is also much more rotten).
Regarding Saker, I made exactly the same point to a friend -- the misfortune of US was the
terrible choice between evil and stupid, or as someone quipped, the worst candidate in US
history lost to the second worst candidate in US history . But unlike Saker, I do think
that US people amply deserved it even if not aware of the death, destruction and chaos their
compatriots were sowing around the World, for profit and for Israhell.
So. The US economy is just fine. The
post-recession 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation has cured all. Banks have lots of cash. Congress is
your friend and that certain-to-pass Tax Cut and Jobs bill will finally allow you, your family
and America to MAGA.
Really?!
... ... ...
Oh, those evil banks! The shadowy corporatist denizens of New York, London, and Brussels,
all guilty of a staggering set of every-expanding frauds couched in the beneficent language of
greedy short-term materialistic gain. Financial "crimes of the decade," like the Savings and
Loan meltdown, the Enron Collapse, and the Great Recession are nowadays reported almost
monthly. With metered US justice amounting only to a monetary fine for the offending criminal
bank – usually a small fraction of the money it previously stole, hypothecated, leveraged
or manipulated – and with criminal prosecution no longer a possibility, these criminals
continue to shovel trillions – not billions – into off-shore, non-tax paying
accounts of the already uber-rich. There is never enough.
Just in time for Christmas, Americans received the "Tax Cut and Jobs Bill 2017" that, of
course, contains not one word about jobs, but sounds so good to the ignorant who are still
transfixed on the false mantra of MAGA.
LIBOR, FOREX, COMEX, which used high-speed program securities trading combined with insider
manipulation, were the first serious examples of recent bank frauds. Since the Great Recession
magically became the Great Recovery, Wachovia and HSBC banks plead guilty to laundering money
for Mexican drug cartels, dictators, and terrorists. Wells Fargo and Bank of America were also
guilty of defrauding 10's of thousands of homeowners of their properties during the
"robo-signing" scandal; that was a scandal until Wells and BA paid the
mortdita and all returned to business as usual. Example: In July 2017 it was revealed
that more than 800,000 customers who had taken out car loans with Wells Fargo were charged for
auto insurance they did not need. Barely a month later, Wells was forced to disclose that the
number of bogus accounts that had been created was actually 3.5 million, a nearly 70 percent
increase over the bank's initial estimate. Why not? When the predictable result will be a small
percentage fine and keep the rest. Now that's MAGA!
If the individual retail – Mom and Pop – investor actually had a choice of where
to put their cash money, then no one with better than a fifth-grade education would put a penny
into the major stock markets. However, the goal of the many banking manipulations have had one
goal: eliminate financial investment choices to one – stocks.
One choice, Gold and silver, the previous historical champion alternative in preserving
one's wealth, was deliberately eliminated from short-term, private investment. The banks,
issued and sold massive amounts of worthless certificate gold and derivative gold (not
bullion), and the same in silver, at a current ratio of 272 paper instruments to one measly
ounce of real physical gold. All this has been leveraged against real precious metals, and next
used to influence the price of gold-down- by selling huge tranches of these ostensibly
worthless gold contracts (1 contract=100 paper ounces) within seconds when the spot price of
gold begins to rise. The banks have done this so often that gold has not risen to levels it
would likely reach without this manipulation. This has driven massive liquidity that would have
gone to precious metals towards stocks. This is likely evidenced by the advent of the meteoric
rise in the price of BitCoin, one that-like gold- escapes the bank's control and a
super-inflated stock market.
Similarly, thanks to the economic trickery that has been three rounds of Quantitative
Easing, the other two conventional options; the bond market and personal bank savings accounts,
have been manipulated to also produce a very low rate of return, driving these cash funds to
stocks. It is this entire package of criminality – providing no other place for liquidity
to go – that has performed as the plot to push a surging world stock market to obscene
levels that have no basis in factually-based accounting or economic methods or
history.
Banks Are Ready for the Next Crash – You're Not!
The banks know the next crash is coming. Like 2007, they have set in motion the next
great(est) recession. Predator banks know that most people, thanks to the aforementioned
financial control, media omission and an inferior education system, are "stupid,"
especially regarding the nuances of financial fraud. As the majority of Americans and Europeans
live in the illusion that their financial institutions will protect their savings, they miss
their bank's greedy preparations for the next stock market crash slithering through the halls
of their Parliament or Congress. This already completed legislation states in plain English,
and the language of endemic corruption, that your bank intends to steal your money directly
from your savings account. And your government will let them do this to you.
30,000 pages make up the Dodd-Frank post-recession legislation, authored by the banks in the
aftermath of the Great Recession. The Dodd-Frank legislation was touted as eliminating the
massive bail-outs the US gave virtually every ill-defined too big to fail worldwide bank and US
corporation in 2008-9. In reality, Dodd-Frank was as much a fraud against Americans as LIBOR or
COMEX manipulation, et al .
Title II of the media-acclaimed 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
Act provides the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) with new powers and methods to
again guarantee – first and foremost – the massively leveraged derivatives trade
once this massive leverage plummets as it did with AIG in 2007-09. However, that collapse was
singular. The next will include all banking sectors.
The bank's paid-for politicians made sure a post-crash congress did not regulate derivatives
via Dodd-Frank, and thereby encouraged a further increase in this financial casino betting,
despite it being the root cause of the original problem. Thanks to Dodd-Frank and its
predecessor, the 2005 Bankruptcy Act, Congress made sure these new fraudulent bets on stock
market manipulation would surely be paid. But, not to worry; there would be no more "Bail
Outs." Next time, these banks would use their depositors' savings, including yours. Meet:
the "Bail-In."
Really?!
All Americans recall the massive "Bail-Outs" of 2007-9 and how their corporately
controlled Federal Reserve Bank and an equally controlled US Congress threw several trillions
of US taxpayer dollars at US banks, dozens of foreign banks, and any corporation with enough
political pull to be defined as "Too Big To Fail" (TBTF). In the aftermath a year later, the
banks understood that Americans and European citizens had lost enthusiasm for any future
government Bail-Out, most preferring instead that any institution suffering
self-inflicted financial duress should enjoy the fruits of their crimes next time, via the
reality of formal bankruptcy proceedings.
The will or financial safety of the public is, of course, no concern to criminal
corporations, and so easily circumvented via congress and the president. So, the banksters have
redefined their criminality using two newly defined methods, both rebranded to be far more
palatable to the public.
Currently, "Too Big to Fail," (TBTF) has a very fraudulent and elitist connotation
just like, "Bail-Out." To millions across the world who have lost their homes, pension
funds, retirement plans, and dreams, this decade-old moniker for financial oppression and fraud
has now been conveniently re-branded. The bailed-out TBTF banks now have a far more magnificent
definition: TBTFs are now, "Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial
Institutions" (G-SIFI).
This sounds so much better.
But, "Bail-Out"? No No. Would you not prefer a "Bail-In"? Not if you know
the details. "Bail-Outs," may have also lost their flavour but in the new world of the
G-SIFI, the next one is actually just a "Bail-In," away.
Yes, Bail-Ins, the new "systemically" correct term for publicly guaranteed bank
fraud are already named as such in new national policies and laws, appearing in multiple
countries. These finance laws, such as Dodd-Frank and its pending UK and European Union
version, make upcoming Bail-Ins legal. These Bail-Ins allow failing G-SIFI banks to legally
convert the funds of "unsecured creditors" (that's you) into bank capital (that's
them). This includes "secured" creditors, like state and local government funds.
Really?!
With this in mind, I entered the main branch of Wells Fargo. The two checks in hand. On the
way in I was greeted warmly, one after the other, by three more fresh-faced and eager proteges,
all smartly uniformed to match the Wells décor, and who proffered, "Good morning,
Sir!," again, and again and again. Certainly, these little fish were not in possession of
authority enough to cash my mammoth checks, so I asked for bigger game, the Branch Manager.
Thus, I explained my plight to a very lovely lass who predicted she "would be glad to
help me."
"Cheryl," patiently explained that I had come to the right place and she would be
glad to cash both checks. Regarding my previous polite banking experience, she admitted that it
was indeed bank policy to have limits on the availability of cash for withdrawals and that
different branches had different limits. This was the main branch so my request here was
meritorious. Further, she admitted that whatever daily cash coming into the branches in the
form of deposits was not available for withdrawal, but was sent from the main branch for daily
accounting at a central point common to all area Wells bank branches. Only a prescribed amount
of cash was provided with each bank for daily customer cash withdrawals.
Really?!
"A couple of times your current request," was her cautious response to my question about her
branch's limits on check cashing. Not to be put-off, I asked about a hypothetical US$25,000
check. She admitted this would be beyond her branches authority. "But," she smiled,
"Today, you've come to the right place."
The financial law firm Davis Polk estimates the final length of Dodd-Frank, the single
longest bill ever passed by the US government, is over 30,000 pages. Before passage, the six
largest banks in the US spent $29.4 million lobbying Congress in 2010 and flooded Capitol Hill
with about 3,000 lobbyists prior to Obama predictably signing its final unread version. No US
congressman or senator had read it. But, the bank's congressional minions were told to vote for
it. And dutifully they did.
The major cause of the upcoming financial meltdown, as with the pre-2008 conditions, is
globally systemic gambling against national economies, called derivatives. Derivatives are sold
as a kind of betting insurance for managing fraudulent banking profits and risk. So, why fix
systemic banking fraud when the final result allowed these same banks to make even more money
in the aftermath of the national and personal financial destruction they originated in the
first recession?
Instead, thanks to Dodd-Frank, derivatives suddenly have "super-priority" status in
any bankruptcy. The Bank for International Settlements quoted global OTC derivatives at $632
trillion as of December 2012. Naked Capitalism states that $230 trillion in worthless
derivatives are on the books of US banks alone. Applied to Dodd-Frank this means that all these
bad bank bets on derivatives will be paid-off first before you may have your savings
cash. If there's actually any cash left once you get to the teller's counter.
Normally in a capital liquidation or bankruptcy proceeding, secured creditors such as a
bank's personal depositors are paid off first because these are hard assets, not investments,
and thus normally have a mandated priority. Under these new "Bail-In" Dodd-Frank
mandates, your government has re-prioritized your bank's exposure and your cash deposit.
Derivatives and other similar banking high-risk ventures are now more highly protected than
bank depositor's savings. In the 2013 example of Cyprus, Germany and the ECB also made
depositors inferior to other bank holdings leaving depositors with, after many months, a small
fraction of their deposits.
And then came Greece.
Selling the lie while using the language of Dodd-Frank, we are told by media whores that
banks will not be given taxpayer bailouts next time. True. The preamble to the Dodd-Frank Act
claims "to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts." But how, then, to Bail-In the
G-SIFIs without another taxpayer Bail-Out? No problem.
Enter the FDIC and another new banking term, "cross-border bank resolution." As the
sole US agency required to pay back depositors who lose savings up to $250,000, FDIC is armed
with a paltry US$25 billion war chest to pay depositors. Under Dodd-Frank, the FDIC will be the
mechanism to replace deposits lost or squandered by bank fraud. The public, however, has an
estimated total US cash deposits of US$7.36 trillion so, once the banks steal your savings,
FDIC will be just a little bit short of funds. How to fix this mathematical shortfall? With, of
course, more of your money via emergency taxes or a massive new round of Quantitative Easing
(QE). Either way, by the time this happens your money is long gone. And it gets worse.
Really?!
Say, "Goodbye" to your Savings- Two Greedy Methods
It's [FDIC] already indicated that they will confiscate [savings] funds .
-- US congressman Ron Paul
On December 10, 2012, a joint strategy paper was drafted by the Bank of England (BOE) in
conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) titled, "Resolving
Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions." Here the plot to steal
depositor savings is clearly laid out.
The report's "Executive Summary" states:
the authorities in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) have been working
together to develop resolution strategies These strategies have been designed to enable
[financial institutions] to be resolved without threatening financial stability and without
putting public funds at risk.
Sounds good until you read the fine print; i.e., whose risk are they actually
protecting?
While claiming to protect taxpayers, Title II of Dodd-Frank gives the FDIC an enforcement
arm, the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) which is similar to its British counterpart the
Prudent Regulation Authority (PRA). Both now have the authority to punish the personal
depositors of failing banking institutions by arbitrarily making their savings deposits
subordinate – actually tertiary – to bank claims for the replacement value of their
derivatives. Before Dodd-Frank savings deposits were legally senior and primary to these same
claims in a routine bankruptcy.
With the US banks holding only $7 trillion in personal cash savings deposits compared to
$230 trillion is US derivative obligations, FDIC's $25 billion will not be enough. The creators
of Dodd-Frank knew this before it was signed. As John Butler points out in an April 4, 2012,
article in Financial Sense :
Do you see the sleight-of-hand at work here? Under the guise of protecting taxpayers,
depositors are to be arbitrary, subordinated when in fact they are legally senior to those
claims Remember, its stated purpose [Dodd-Frank] is to solve the problem namely the existence
of insolvent TBTF institutions that were "highly leveraged with numerous and dispersed
financial operations, extensive off-balance-sheet activities, and opaque financial
statements.
Oh, but bank depositors can rest easy in the knowledge that replacing their savings will not
come out of their pockets via another bank Bail-Out. Thanks to Dodd-Frank, the first line of
defence will allow Congress to instead replace personal savings with a government paid for $7
trillion bail-in to FDIC to "replace" these savings.
But, that's the good choice.
Worse, Dodd-Frank gives new powers to FDIC and its OLA that allow an even more powerful and
draconian resolution: any deposited funds in a bank, from $1 to $250,000 (the FDIC limit), and
everything above, can instead be converted to bank stock! FDIC has provisions so this can be
done, via OLA, quite literally overnight.
Really?!
An FDIC report released in 2012 ago reads:
An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector
would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from
the original creditors of the failed company [meaning the depositor's cash] into equity [or
stock].
Additionally, per April 24, 2012 IMF report, conversion of bank debt to stock is an
essential element of Bail-Ins included in Dodd-Frank.
The contribution of new capital will come from debt conversion and/or issuance of new
equity, with an elimination or significant dilution of the pre-bail in shareholders. Some
measures might be necessary to reduce the risk of a 'death spiral' in share prices.
Really?!
For affected depositors to retrieve the value of what was formerly the depositor's account
balance, the stock must next be sold. When Lehman Brothers failed, unsecured creditors
(depositors are now unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar.
This type of conversion of deposits into equity already had another test-run during the
bankruptcy reorganization of Bankia and four other Spanish banks in 2013. The conditions of a
July 2012 Memorandum of Understanding resulted in over 1 million small depositors becoming
stockholders in Bankia when they were sold without their permission -- "preferences"
(preferred stock) in exchange for their missing deposits. Following the conversion, the
preferences were converted into common stock originally valued at EU 2.0 per share, then
further devalued to EU 0.1 after the March restructuring of Bankia.
Canada has also stated they are planning a similar "Bail-In" program. The Canadian
government released a document titled the Economic Action Plan 2013 which says, "the Government
proposes to implement a "Bail-In" regime for systemically important banks."
However, don't be getting cute by hiding your cash, precious metals, or passport in a bank
safe deposit box. There are no longer safe either. Dodd-Frank took care of that, too.
Under Dodd-Frank the FDIC, using the auspices of Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) can
legally, without a warrant, enter the bank vault, have the manager secretly open any and/or all
safe deposit boxes and inventory, or seize the contents. Further, if the manager is honest
enough to inform the depositor of the illegal incursion he is subject to criminal charges and
termination from bank employ. Independent reports reveal that all of America's safe deposit
boxes have already been invaded and inventoried for future confiscation.
This already happened in Greece. Depositors who removed their jewellery or precious metals
were met at the bank's door by security, a metal detector and confiscation.
Really?!
The power of the now remaining G-SIFI banks and FDIC was further evident when, cash finally
in hand, I headed to my bank, JP Morgan Chase, right next door to Wells Fargo. The manager
confirmed that the cash withdrawal policy at Chase was in keeping with that at Wells; very
little cash available on demand. I posed a slight untruth and inquired as to what I should do
about my upcoming need for $50,000 in hard cash. No, her bank would not do that on demand, but
arrangements could be made to have the cash transferred to her bank. That would only take
"about two days." Of course, I would need to fill out a few forms.
What a Difference a Congress Makes!
With the American and UK public again on the hook by law for the anticipated loss of the
banks a distressed depositor might think the plot to defraud them now complete. Au
Contraire .
In its rush to transfer further wealth upwards to off-shore bank accounts, US president
Trump and his recently re-aligned republican bootlickers have left no stone unturned. First,
Trump issued a memorandum that sets in motion his plan to scale back the provisions of
Dodd-Frank and repeal the Fiduciary Rule.
It should be noted that the only voice of economic reason at the White House, Former Fed
Chairman, Paul Volker, divorced himself from this growing scandal of basic mathematics very
publicly. As head of Obama's recession inspired, President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board,
Volker ran into the headwinds of fiscal insanity for too long, resigning in January of 2011 in
disgust. His departure thus coincided with the renewal of the litany of criminal financial
manipulation already discussed here. And now
The House approved legislation on February 2, 2017, to erase a number of core financial
regulations put in place by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, as Republicans moved a step closer to
delivering on their promises to eliminate rules that they claim have strangled small businesses
and stagnated the economy. Said Trump:
I have so many people, friends of mine, with nice businesses, they can't borrow money,
because the banks just won't let them borrow because of the rules and regulations and
Dodd-Frank.
Poor banks!
Never mind, of course, that these poor banks are holding derivative exposure thirty-five
times the total cash deposits of US savers nor that their ill-gotten riches – such as the
UBS, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, RBS multi-billion dollar frauds – were taken
off-calendar in Federal court for approximately 15% of the total crime. The banks kept the
rest.
And they want more?!
"We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank," Trump said further defining the
mantra of MAGA. This will likely see the deterioration of the newly created Financial Stability
Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) since these
agencies curb further excessive risk-taking and the existence of too-big-to-fail institutions
on Wall Street.
Well, depositors, your extreme caution is required. The wording of these new, bank-inspired
sets of legislation is silently waiting to be used by many nations to prioritize banks before
their citizen's. When the time comes, the race to the bank will be a short-lived event
indeed.
With this in mind, I stepped into the bright sunshine outside the walls of JP Morgan/Chase
bank, all but $100.00 of my day's take stuffed deep- and securely- in my pocket, its final
outcome no one's business but my own.
However, for almost everyone else? Well when YOUR bank fails, don't walk, run!
YOU do not want to be second in line.
Really!
Brett Redmayne-Titley is an Independent Journalist, Photographer/ World Citizen. He is a
former columnist: PRESS TV/IRAN; writer and contributor to: Earth First! Journal; Zero Hedge;
Veterans Today; Activist Post; Off-Guardian; Western Journalism; Intellihub; UK Progressive;
Fars News Agency; Russia Insider; Mint Press News; State of the Nation; News of Globe;
Blacklisted News; Before It's News; Common Dreams; Shift Frequency; etc
There has been talk of higher interest rates for 10 yrs.
The US debt is $20 Trillion. 1% rise in rates would be $200 billion that must be serviced.
US deficit this year will be almost 500B. 1% rise would be about 50% of the deficit. 2%
doubles it.
"Controlling the narrative" is politically correct term for censorship.
Notable quotes:
"... I suspect most of the people who write all that furious invective on the Internet, professional polemicists and semiliterate commenters alike, are lashing out because they've been hurt -- their sense of fairness or decency has been outraged, or they feel personally wounded or threatened. ..."
"... "controlling the narrative" by neoliberal MSM is the key of facilitating the neoliberal "groupthink". Much like was in the USSR with "communist" groupthink. This is a step in the direction of the theocratic society (which the USSR definitely was). ..."
"... In other words "controlling the narrative" is the major form of neoliberal MSM "war on reality" as the neoliberal ideology is now completely discredited and can be sustained only by cult-style methods. ..."
Maybe this is the same kind of clinical detachment doctors have to cultivate, a way of distancing oneself from the subject,
protecting yourself against a crippling empathy. I won't say that writers or artists are more sensitive than other people, but
it may be that they're less able to handle their own emotions.
It may be that art, like drugs, is a way of dulling or controlling pain. Eloquently articulating a feeling is one way to avoid
actually experiencing it.
Words are only symbols, noises or marks on paper, and turning the messy, ugly stuff of life into language renders it inert
and manageable for the author, even as it intensifies it for the reader.
It's a nerdy, sensitive kid's way of turning suffering into something safely abstract, an object of contemplation.
I suspect most of the people who write all that furious invective on the Internet, professional polemicists and semiliterate
commenters alike, are lashing out because they've been hurt -- their sense of fairness or decency has been outraged, or
they feel personally wounded or threatened.
"controlling the narrative" by neoliberal MSM is the key of facilitating the neoliberal "groupthink". Much like was in the
USSR with "communist" groupthink. This is a step in the direction of the theocratic society (which the USSR definitely was).
In other words "controlling the narrative" is the major form of neoliberal MSM "war on reality" as the neoliberal ideology
is now completely discredited and can be sustained only by cult-style methods.
They want to invoke your emotions in the necessary direction and those emotions serve as a powerful filter, a firewall which
will prevents you from seeing any alternative facts which taken as whole form an "alternative narrative".
It also creates certain taboo, such as "don't publish anything from RT", or you automatically become "Putin's stooge." But
some incoherent blabbing of a crazy neocon in Boston Globe is OK.
This is an old and a very dirty game, a variation of method used for centuries by high demand cults:
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best
that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.
Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood.
But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works
the same way in any country."
– Hermann Goering (as told to Gustav Gilbert during the Nuremberg trials)
You need to be able to decipher this "suggested" set of emotions and detach it from the set of facts provided by neoliberal
MSM. It might help to view things "Sine ira et studio" (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_ira_et_studio
)
That helps to destroy the official neoliberal narrative.
Here skepticism (whether natural or acquired) can be of great help in fighting groupthink pushed by neoliberal MSM.
We are all guilty of this one sidedness, but I think that we need to put some efforts to move in direction of higher level
of skepticism toward our own views and probably provide at least links to alternative views.
Where will the economy be at the end of 2018
I HAVE NO CLUE!
too many variables for me:
Reasons for crash:
Personal debt rising starting to cause problems. Credit card debt up/Car loan defaults up
US debt rising.
US balance of trade continuing
Fed says it will quit increasing QE & may raise interest rates.
China and bricks completing parallel monetary trade and movement systems to stop US financial
monopoly. Ie chinese SWIFT replacement system, Chinese credit cards, Russian increasing gold
holdings compared to US$
Rents and housing most expensive compared to wages ever.
US health care costs rising
Reasons for good times
Central banks printing money and buying stocks.
Tax laws brings money back to US (more stock buybacks)
US debt ceiling seems to be an illusion
Trump great spokesman for business
Trump may use new tools to fight recession (helicopter money etc.)
Trump says he likes cheap US$
Momentum of stock markets
Trump has started no new wars. Military $$ stay mostly inside the USA
Trump gets huge infrastructure bill passed
Wild cards
Crypto currencies?
Interest rates?
Job outsourcing or coming back to USA?
Economic Black Swan from outside USA
I tend to agree that the economy is due for a crash to the limited degree I read economics
news and opinion (I used to be much more interested but after forty years of waiting for the
"Big Depression" which hasn't come, I've become tired.) But hoping it will happen in the next
year is clearly speculative.
Bottom line is Democrats have no plan for 2018 - and therefore are likely to lose big
again.
Of all the components of the tax bill (many of which are problematic--but that's mostly b/c
it's a tax bill, not necessarily for ideological reasons), I thought putting a lot of tax
onus on wealthy bicoastals was a stroke of genius. Having said that, things are looking in a
lot of mixed directions: many people are uneasy for all sorts of reasons about Trump, but the
bottom line (esp on economic matters) does not look too bad, to say the least.
In many ways, actually, the overall situation looks like Bill Clinton 2.0: people had all
sorts of issues with WJC--Democrats were uneasy with him and Republicans absolutely hated
him. But things were looking OK or better in general and voters weren't going to punish him
for nothing that was particularly off track. I see the Democrats trying some of the same
tricks. Maybe even all the way to impeachment. Unless things come apart at the seams very
visibly, none of them will stick on DJT.
The stock market and financial asset prices in general drive perceptions of the strength
of the economy. As long as financial assets prices remain in melt-up mode it will benefit the
incumbents. While the Fed and the other major central banks are slowly reducing liquidity by
either reducing the rate of growth of their balance sheet or reducing it outright as in the
case of the Fed, there's no knowing when speculation peaks. The one thing that bulls should
watch is the flattening of the yield curve.
Alan Greenspan famously quipped that a bubble can only be recognized after it bursts.
As you note reducing regulatory burdens and reducing taxes stimulates the economy. So we
can expect improved economic performance.
Financial asset prices however, don't necessarily need an improving economy. What it needs
is the perception that asset prices will increase prospectively. We have seen asset prices
rise substantially after the GFC even with the weakest economic recovery since WW II. A
partial explanation is the growth in liquidity by expansion of central bank balance sheets
and the perception that central banks can always reflate asset prices.
The major central banks now are either contracting their balance sheet or reducing the
growth rate. Increased economic activity also puts pressure on interest rates and businesses
use more capital for economic activity than financial engineering. These factors will apply
brakes on financial speculation. When psychology changes the smart money will start reducing
exposure. What we don't know is when psychology changes and when asset prices correct.
Your ability to see through and clarify the opaque is amazing. If the economy stays the
course and if Deplorables' lives get better; yes, Donald Trump will have seven more years in
the White House. The bottom of the half full glass for Donald Trump is that he must avoid a
war with Iran or North Korea, a cabal of globalists led by the richest man in the world, Jeff
Bezos (owner of the Washington Post), is out to get him and his Secretary of State described
him as a moron.
I wish you were right but believe you are wrong.
Reasons:
1. The disastrous GOP showing in the November 2017 Virginia election.
Not only did the GOP lose all the state-wide contests,
but shockingly their control of the lower house of the VA legislature (the House of
Delegates)
was cut from 66-34 to 51-49 (with some ongoing uncertainty due to recounts, etc.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates_election,_2017
No one expected/predicted that, and it surely indicates a general dissatisfaction with the
GOP brand.
George HW Bush was correct when he described Reagan's Supply-side Trickle-Down economic
policy as - "Voodoo Economics"
Practically all of the gains in the economy for the last 40 years have gone to the top.
It's one of the reasons why Trump was able to appeal to the suffering working-class, much
like Bernie Sanders did, to win the Presidency. Unfortunately for them, they got suckered by
the flim-flam con-man in the WH.
An unnecessary tax give-away to the already individually wealthy and rich corporations
will do nothing to raise wages of working people, especially when the meager "tax-cut" for
them expires and they are left holding the debt bag along with Republican Party calls to cut
Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans don't give a shit about anything except their donor class.
The economy can continue to improve and do even better with the recent actions of Trump
& the GOP in Congress. The stock market however need not continue to rise at the rate it
has over the past years.
You are correct that we don't see public participation in a frenzy as we have at the tail
end of other speculative cycles. Crypto-currencies are the only asset class with that type of
frenzied activity and price acceleration. We do see however price distortions - like
Euro-area junk bonds yielding less than US Treasury bonds - but that can continue for some
time.
the left is starting to burn out under the constant anticipation 'once X happens, Gronald
Grumph will be gone.'
there's also a systemic tension mounting between the thin line of WASPs and Jews holding
off, excuse me, 'representing' the coalition of the ascendant. If those factions of the party
base gain control, they'll drive the Dems off the cliff (through alienating the whites the
Dems still require to win elections). The agitprop the Dems are pushing through their
sympathizers in the media regime are only serving to undermine them long term.
I too am perplexed by the expectations of the Democratic Party in the 2018 elections.
Wasn't it a mere 18 months ago that we were hearing not only of an overwhelming Presidential
victory but also a likely takeover of the Senate and the remote possibility of the House as
well?
A few contributing thoughts:
1) You can't beat something with nothing. The Democratic Party believes that the populace
so loathes DJT that they will turn out to vote them into power to do -- well I'm not exactly
sure WHAT they propose to do. The expectation of the "wave" is solely that they are not DJT.
Maybe they take the Senate. But even in the best of circumstances, it's a close race.
2) Gerrymandered House districts. Several years ago I looked up the margin of victory in
every Congressional race. Any race with less than a 5 percent spread between candidates was
"competitive" (IOW one candidate received 48 percent and the other received 52 percent for a
4 percent spread). Roughly 40 races were "competitive". Most districts are OVERWHELMINGLY
drawn to favor one party or the other -- to the degree that one party will receive 65,75, or
even 80 percent of the vote. Loathing DJT doesn't change that math
3) Impeachment/25th amendment/etc. Not. Gonna. Happen. The popular media has been at
Russia!! Russia!! Russia!! for 14 months but there is NO evidence of any collusion or
interference.
5) Marginal voters matter and there has to be something to get them to go out of the house
on Election Day. "We're not Trump" isn't going to do it. Yes, I've said it twice because as
far as I can tell, it's the only Democratic issue.
6) Democratic bench strength. There isn't any. They need to have appealing candidates and
are taking the Jones victory in Alabama to be a sign of an impending sweep. But Jones ran
against an amazingly unappealing candidate and barely squeaked out a victory. There are NO
"young" Democrats in the places that matter for them to take the House.
My apologies for the long comment, Colonel. I think your absolutely right and simply
wanted to add a few personal thoughts
That is something I really disagree with. But if the bubble bursts during the first half of
this year or next year, it may still not damage Trump. It's also not clear to me that any
damage to Trump would automatically translate into political benefit for the Democrats to the
degree they seem to hope for. There is historical precedent for a president not being
lethally wounded by a massive stock market downturn on his watch. It's from pretty far back
in the past, though (Kennedy).
Thanks. Our portfolio is well balanced and managed by Burke and Herbert Bank and Trust.
nevertheless, I do not think the markets represent a bubble. pl
The J-left is trying to meme a "blue wave" into existence.
White women will be the key to this effort, so watch for a lot of 2nd wave feminism
culture war stuff.
Trump, unfortunately, will likely react poorly to this, taking every piece of bait laid
out for him.
But so long as he adheres to an Immigration and Infrastructure campaign, this ought to be
pretty straightforward.
The Dems may indeed take the House but their chances of taking the Senate are very low
this cycle.
Joe Manchin will almost certainly be vaporized in West Virginia and there are many red
state Democrats who are going to have to go against the party's coastal owners when it comes
to immigration.
DES @ #26: "VARIOUS INCOME STRATA IN THIS COUNTRY ... AT EACH OTHER'S THROATS."
sounds like received opinion -- CorpsMedia's version of How-Things-Are - possibly
reinforced by a personal view from within some department. Everybody else is busy holding the
world together and keeping things going locally - at the moment here in the East by the
neighborly clearing of snow.
I wish you and other investors no ill, so please don't misunderstand what I am saying
here.
What did you think was happening in 2008?
Were you confident then as you are now?
As for supply side economics, again I recommend reading David Stockman, he is the grandfather
of that concept.
And he NOT optimistic today.
Here's a taste of Stockman's latest:
best of all his 2013 book,
The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, a scathing indictment of the
twin scourges of crony capitalism and massive governmental debt.
quote
How did the war on Vietnam, the First Gulf War to save the Emir of Kuwait's oil wealth, the
futile 17-year occupation of Afghanistan, the destruction of Iraq, the double-cross of
Khadafy after he gave up his nukes, the obliteration of much of civil society and economic
life in Syria, the US-supplied Saudi genocide in Yemen and the Washington sponsored coup and
civil war on Russia's doorstep in Ukraine, to name just a few instances of Washington's
putative "world leadership", have anything to do with preserving "order" on the planet?
And exactly how did the "benefits" of these serial instigations of mayhem outweigh the
"burdens" to America's taxpayers – to say nothing of the terminal costs to the dead and
maimed citizens in their millions who had the misfortune to be domiciled in these traumatized
lands?
Likewise, have the refugees who have been flushed out of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and
elsewhere in the middle east by Washington's wars done anything for the peace and stability
of Europe, where Washington's victims have desperately fled in their millions?
. . .
So when candidate Trump said the Iraq invasion was a stupid mistake, that Hillary's war on
Khadafy was misbegotten, that he would like to cooperate with Putin on pacifying Syria and
that NATO was obsolete, he was actually calling into question the fundamental predicates of
the American Imperium.
And that gets us to the Russian threat bogeyman, the War Party's risible demonization of
Vladimir Putin and the cocked-up narrative about the Kremlin's meddling in the 2016
election.
. . .
At the end of the day, we are supposed to believe that a country with a puny $1.3 trillion
GDP, which is just 7% of the US' $19.5 trillion GDP, and which consists largely of aged
hydrocarbon provinces, endless wheat fields, modest industrial capacities and a stagnant
Vodka-favoring workforce, is actually a threat to America's security.
And we are also supposed to fear the military capacity of a country that has no blue water
Navy to speak of and no conventional airlift and air-attack capacity which could remotely
threaten the New Jersey shores, and that spends less in a full year than the Pentagon
consumes every 35 days.
endquote
Retirements shine spotlight on GOP term limits for chairs
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/359044-retirements-shines-spotlight-on-gop-term-limits-for-chairs
The surprise retirements of several veteran Republicans are reigniting a debate about the
GOP's self-imposed term limits for committee chairs. Some argue that term limits create a
brain drain in Congress, with the most experienced committee leaders more inclined to head
for the exits once they're done holding a gavel. But while many Republicans acknowledge the
potential downsides to limiting chairmanships, they maintain that it's far better than the
alternative facing their Democratic colleagues: frustration about not being able to rise in
the ranks.
"You can certainly make the argument about keeping people around longer, about the value
of institutional knowledge," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chairman of a House Appropriations
subcommittee, told The Hill. "But the reality is, for most of our members, they're willing to
run those kinds of risks in order to have the potential for upward mobility."
The term-limit policy, put in place by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in 1994, was
designed to keep the party from growing stale by regularly injecting new blood and fresh
ideas into the mix. The term limits have offered an opportunity for younger members to climb
the leadership ladder far more quickly than if the rules weren't in place. Lawmakers can get
a waiver from the rules, though they are rarely granted. The thinking is that if a chairman
can't achieve major policy goals within six years, then it's time to let someone else give it
a try.
Discontent has been brewing among rank-and-file Democrats, who have been unable to crack
the leadership ranks and feel shut out of important decisionmaking. The frustration in the
caucus, and concern about the future of the party, has only grown since last year's Election
Day drubbing. "If you don't have term limits, people stay forever. That's what you're seeing
on the Democratic side," Mackowiak said. "They don't give the young and up-and-coming members
that same leadership opportunities. There's nowhere to go." There have been some past efforts
by Democrats to impose term limits on committee leaders, but powerful groups like the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have remained opposed to the idea, arguing that seniority is
the best way to ensure that their members can move up in the ranks.
--------------
Looking at the deep structural problems the Dems have, it is clear they have some major
reorganizing to do if they want to start winning elections. The Republicans actually have a
50 state plan. They appear to know how to strategize better than their opponents. That's why
they have so many governorships and majorities in so many state congresses.
Can't find the article just now, but another problem the Dems have is that the leadership
refuses to listen to the red state democrats as to how to win more elections in red states.
The arrogance combined with the ineffectiveness of thy Dem leadership never cease to amaze
me.
Howard Dean was right (though maybe not the right person for the job) but the party
refused to listen to him. Just look at the people who have headed the Democratic party in
recent years. In addition, the base has been rendered impotent by the top down authoritarian
propagandist fashion by which the Democrat party runs itself now. [Note: I refuse to call
them the Democratic party anymore because they aren't.] After all, the Dems are just as much
of the plutocratic oligarchy as the Repubs are.
I wish I dared tell my friends (all liberal Dems) that if they took even 50% of the time
& energy now spent on hating Trump and put that into improving their party or into
volunteering for a cause they care about and can have some impact on, then they might be able
to make the world a tiny bit better of a place. One friend did this on her own. She lives in
Florida and decided to take up some local Dem issues like getting ex-felons the right to
vote. She goes out in grass roots fashion and gets signatures, etc., despite having a 50+
hour a week job.
I am happy that you mean no ill will to me for being an investor. I have always been that
while trying to emulate Robert Edward Lee who always required his wealthy wife to live on his
army pay and still save money. We rode out the the great wall street disaster with steadfast
hearts and would do so again. Do you have a treasure chest full of Golden Grickels buried
somewhere? BTW Qathafy had no nuclear weapons program. What he had was a quiescent chemical
weapons program with his two plants shut down and a warehouse or two full of still crated
equipment that would have been useful in a nuke weapons program if the Libyans had known what
to do with it. GWB Bush and his clowns built the image of that up, used him as an example of
how well things could go if you surrendered to the US and then the US betrayed him. I loathed
Qathafy. pl
The answer to this question is simple: the USA geopolitical interests. But if natgas prices
go up so will the price of oil.
Cold spell in the USA means increased oil consumption, especially in heating oil. Due to gas
shortage some electrical ganerators in affected areas were switched from gas to oil.
In other words, investors are bidding up prices even as the underlying fundamentals point to
questions regarding the balancing process. Oil might push higher as inventories fall, but in
the near-term there is downside risk to prices. Moody's Investors Service said on January 2
that oil prices will probably bounce around in a range between $40 and $60 per barrel for much
of this year.
The risk is that with so much money currently going long, a bit of negative news sparks a
sudden selloff. "The expectation is that the rebalance will continue," Gene McGillian, a market
research manager at Tradition Energy, told Bloomberg. "We've approached an area where we really
need to see a steady diet of positive information."
Trump's campaign to return manufacturing to America and repatriate profits held overseas
makes good business sense. The ravaging of America's once mighty industrial base to boost
corporate profits was a crime against the nation by unscrupulous Wall Street bankers and
short-sighted, greedy CEO's.
The basis of industrial power is the ability to make products people use. Shockingly, US
manufacturing has shrunk to only 14% of GDP. Today, America's primary business has become
finance, the largely non-productive act of paper-passing that only benefits a tiny big city
parasitic elite.
Trump_vs_deep_state is a natural reaction to the self-destruction of America's industrial base. But the
president's mania to wreck international trade agreements and impose tariff barriers will
result in diminishing America's economic and political influence around the globe.
Access to America's markets is in certain ways a more powerful political tool than
deployment of US forces around the globe. Lessening access to the US markets will inevitably
have negative repercussions on US exports.
Trump has been on a rampage to undo almost every positive initiative undertaken by the Obama
administration, even though many earned the US applause and respect around the civilized world.
The president has made trade agreements a prime target. He has targeted trade pacts involving
Mexico, Canada, the EU, Japan, China and a host of other nations by claiming they are unfair to
American workers. However, a degree of wage unfairness is the price Washington must pay for
bringing lower-cost nations into America's economic orbit.
This month, the Trump administration threatened new restrictions against 120 US trade
partners who may now face much higher tariffs on their exports to the US.
Trump is in a hurry because he fears he may not be re-elected. He is trying to eradicate all
vestiges of the Obama presidency with the ruthlessness and ferocity of Stalinist officials
eradicating every trace of liquidated commissars, even from official photos. America now faces
its own era of purges as an uneasy world watches.
"... It does, after all, have deep roots in the Manifest Destiny ethos that spurred the Mexican War, drove continental and trans-Pacific expansion, and emerged as a paternalistic justification for voluminous military interventions in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. As Dick Cheney suggests, "the world needs a powerful America." In this unilateral missionizing zeal Clinton proves most typical. ..."
"... she wants the United States to be the dominant power in the world, so she doesn't question the massive sums spent on the military and on the other branches of the national-security state. ..."
"... But Clinton's brand of American exceptionalism goes beyond the issue of American military dominion and into the policy potentials of mid-century social liberalism and, more specifically, the neoliberalism that has since replaced it. Indeed, since George McGovern's failed presidential bid of 1972, neoliberals, moving decidedly rightward on economic issues, have consistently employed exceptionalist code to fight off movements, ideas, and challengers from the left. ..."
"... She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism. ..."
...It's hilarious how cocky and
confident the neoliberals were throughout the election. It's amazing how wrong they were.
Trump's victory is almost worth it.
Published on
Friday, February 26, 2016
by Common Dreams
"We Are Not Denmark": Hillary Clinton and Liberal American Exceptionalism
by Matthew Stanley
Several months removed, it now seems clear that the Democratic debate on October 13
contained an illuminating moment that has come to embody the 2016 Democratic Primary and the
key differences between its two candidates. Confronting Bernie Sanders's insistence that the
United States has much to learn from more socialized nations, particularly the Nordic Model,
Hillary Clinton was direct: "I love Denmark. But we are not Denmark. We are the United States
of America."
The implication behind this statement-the reasoning that ideas and institutions (in this
case social and economic programs) that are successful in other nations are somehow
practically or ideologically inconsistent with Americans and American principles-speaks to a
longstanding sociopolitical framework that has justified everything from continental expansion
to the Iraq War: American exceptionalism. Rooted in writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and the
mythology of John Winthrop's "City Upon a Hill," the notion that the history and mission of
the United States and the superiority of its political and economic traditions makes it
impervious to same the forces that influence other peoples has coursed through Abraham
Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," the Cold War rhetoric of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson,
and the foreign policy declarations of Barack Obama.
Despite particular historical trends-early and relatively stable political democracy,
birthright citizenship, the absence of a feudal tradition, the relative weakness of class
consciousness-historians have critiqued this "American exceptionalism" as far more fictive
than physical, frequently citing the concept as a form of state mythology. Although different
histories lead naturally to historical and perhaps even structural dissimilarities, America's
twenty-first century "exceptions" appear as dubious distinctions: gun violence, carbon
emissions, mass incarceration, wealth inequality, racial disparities, capital punishment,
child poverty, and military spending.
Yet even at a time when American exceptionalism has never been more challenged both by
empirically-validated social and economic data and in public conversation, the concept
continues to play an elemental role in our two-party political discourse. The Republican Party
is, of course, awash with spurious, almost comically stupid dialogue about a mythic American
past-"making America great again"-the racial and ethnic undertones of which are unmistakable.
Those same Republicans have lambasted Obama and other high profile Democrats for not believing
sufficiently in their brand of innate, transhistoric American supremacy.
But this Americentrism is not the sole province of the GOP. We need look no further than
bipartisan support for the military-industrial complex and the surveillance state to see that
national exceptionalism, and its explicit double-standard toward other nations, resides
comfortably within the Democratic Party as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa censured Obama's use of the term in the fall of 2013, with
the latter likening it to the "chosen race" theories of Nazi Germany. Hyperbole
notwithstanding, academics often do associate American exceptionalism with military conquest.
It does, after all, have deep roots in the Manifest Destiny ethos that spurred the
Mexican War, drove continental and trans-Pacific expansion, and emerged as a paternalistic
justification for voluminous military interventions in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle
East. As Dick Cheney suggests, "the world needs a powerful America." In this unilateral
missionizing zeal Clinton proves most typical.
As historian Michael Kazin argues in a
recent piece for The Nation: "Hillary Clinton is best described as a liberal. Like every
liberal president (and most failed Democratic nominees) since Wilson,
she wants the United
States to be the dominant power in the world, so she doesn't question the massive sums spent
on the military and on the other branches of the national-security state.
"
But Clinton's brand of American exceptionalism goes beyond the issue of American
military dominion and into the policy potentials of mid-century social liberalism and, more
specifically, the neoliberalism that has since replaced it. Indeed, since George McGovern's
failed presidential bid of 1972, neoliberals, moving decidedly rightward on economic issues,
have consistently employed exceptionalist code to fight off movements, ideas, and challengers
from the left.
The victims include leftist efforts toward both American demilitarization and the expansion
of a "socialistic" welfare state. Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have
denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American
capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone
explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully
explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her.
She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty,
unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that
she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United
States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the
Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism.
It also
revealed a more clandestine strain of American exceptionalism common among liberals and the
Democratic Party elite in which "opportunity" serves as a stand-in for wider egalitarian
reform. As Elizabeth Bruenig highlighted in The New Republic: "Since getting ahead on one's
own grit is such a key part of the American narrative, it's easy to see how voters might be
attracted to Clinton's opportunity-based answer to our social and economic woes, though it
leaves the problem of inequality vastly under-addressed. Indeed, a kind of American
exceptionalism does seem to underpin much opportunity-focused political rhetoric."
This preference for insider politics (rather than mass movements involving direct action)
and limited, means-tested social programs speaks to a broader truth about modern liberalism:
it functions in a way that not only doesn't challenge the basic tenets of American
exceptionalism, it often reinforces them. Whether vindicating war and torture and civil
liberties violations, talking past the War on Drugs and the carceral state, or exhibiting
coolness toward the type of popular protest seen during of Occupy Wall Street, with its direct
attacks on a sort of American Sonderweg, establishment Democrats are adept at using a more
"realistic" brand of Americentrism to consolidate power and anchor the party in the status
quo. Now the 2016 Democratic Primary has seen progressive ideas including universal health
care, tuition-free college, and a living minimum wage, all hallmarks of large swaths of the
rest of the developed world, delegitimized through some mutation of liberal exceptionalist
thinking. These broadminded reforms are apparently off limits, not because they are not good
ideas (though opponents make that appraisal too), but because somehow their unachievability is
exceptional to the United States.
All this is not to exclude (despite his "democratic socialist" professions) Sanders's own
milder brand of "America first," most evident in his economic nationalism, but to emphasize
that American exceptionalism and the logical and practical dangers it poses exist in degrees
across a spectrum of American politics. Whatever his nationalistic inclinations, Sanders's
constant reiteration of America's need to learn from and adapt to the social, economic, and
political models of other nations demonstrates an ethno-flexibility rarely seen in American
major party politics. "Every other major country " might as well be his official campaign
slogan. This bilateral outlook does not fit nearly as neatly within Clinton's traditional
liberal paradigm that, from defenses of American war and empire to the, uses American
exceptionalism tactically, dismissing its conservative adherents as nationalist overkill yet
quietly exploiting the theory when politically or personally expeditious.
In looking beyond our national shores and domestic origin-sources for fresh and functional
policy, Sanders seems to grasp that, from the so-called "foreign influences" of the Republican
free soil program or Robert La Follette's Wisconsin Idea or even Lyndon Johnson's Great
Society, American high politics have been at their most morally creative and sweepingly
influential not only when swayed by direct action and mass movements, but also when they are
less impeded by the constraints of ethnocentrism and exceptionalism. The "We are not Denmark"
sentiment might appear benign, lacking as it does the bluster of Republican claims to national
supremacy and imaginary "golden age" pasts and what economist Thomas Picketty has termed a
"mythical capitalism." But it is the "seriousness" and very gentility of liberal Americentrism
that underscores the power, omnipresence, and intellectual poverty of cultural dismissal. "I
still believe in American exceptionalism," Clinton has proclaimed in pushing for U.S. military
escalation in Syria. Indeed she does, and it is by no means relegated to the sphere of foreign
policy.
Trump's "tax cuts" are going to accelerate the deficit spending trend that Obama (and Bush
before him) initiated. The Fed's machinations over the last 100+ years are utterly irrelevant
because all of them are in fact driven by Congress. The Fed is a creature that operates at
the behest of Congress, as a creation of Congress, and every single dollar it has "printed"
it has "printed" because Congress spent money it did not have.
In other words, Congress ran a deficit.
The Fed has its share of detractors and I'm among them. But those who refuse to place
responsibility where it belongs are fraud-running jackasses, and while I'm happy to try to
educate folks those who refuse to learn and cling to that which is trivially disproved
mathematically wind up on my "ignore" list.
The bottom line: It is Congress, which is elected by you, that has destroyed the
purchasing power of the currency and enabled all of the fraud and force in our economy
today.
Karl Denninger
Trump has now publicly acknowledged that McCabe violated several federal laws, not the
least of which is the Hatch Act. Yet he now proposes to allow McCabe to retire next year,
keeping his federal pension and benefits.
Not only that but Congress has that evidence now too -- but note that the House Judiciary
Committee is not issuing a single word about the fact that such actions are violations of
several federal laws.
What Trump should do is have Sessions immediately indict him - after firing McCabe for
cause, which terminates his right to any sort of federal pension or benefit. If McCabe wants
to sue for his pension let him, because that will force into the public record all of the
evidence on exactly what he did as he will have to defend the claim that his firing "for
cause" wasn't actually for cause.
Good luck with that.
But Trump isn't going to do that. Instead he's going to let McCabe walk off with your
money America. Money he will steal from you for the rest of his life after having taken
actions that, the President has good reason to believe, were felony violations of the law and
abuses of his office, effectively using the FBI as a political weapon in a Presidential
contest.
Nationalism really represent a growing threat to neoliberalism. It is clear the the rise of
nationalism was caused by the triumph of neoliberalism all over the globe. As neoliberal
ideology collapsed in 2008, thing became really interesting now. Looks like
1920th-1940th will be replayed on a new level with the USA neoliberal empire under stress from
new challengers instead of British empire.
Rumor about the death of neoliberalism are slightly exaggerated ;-). This social system still
has a lot of staying power. you need some external shock like the need of cheap oil (defined as
sustainable price of oil over $100 per barrel) to shake it again. Of some financial crisis similar
to the crisis of 2008. Currently there is still
no alternative social order that can replace it. Collapse of the USSR discredited both socialism even
of different flavors then was practiced in the USSR. National socialism would be a step back from
neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade. This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests are now between what the west would consider conservatives: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html ..."
"... What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to as "two wings of the same bird of prey." ..."
"... Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization is less important than short-term profits and power. ..."
"... Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House. Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way. Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers. ..."
"... It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc. ..."
"... If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008). ..."
"... And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free trade". ..."
"... The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism), as shown by the last US Presidential election. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders. Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations, as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency. ..."
"... But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin in liberal interventionism. ..."
Asked to name the defining attributes of the America we wish to become, many liberals would answer
that we must realize our manifest destiny since 1776, by becoming more equal, more diverse and more
democratic -- and the model for mankind's future.
Equality, diversity, democracy -- this is the holy trinity of the post-Christian secular state
at whose altars Liberal Man worships.
But the congregation worshiping these gods is shrinking. And even Europe seems to be rejecting
what America has on offer.
In a retreat from diversity, Catalonia just voted to separate from Spain. The Basque and Galician
peoples of Spain are following the Catalan secession crisis with great interest.
The right-wing People's Party and far-right Freedom Party just swept 60 percent of Austria's vote,
delivering the nation to 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, whose anti-immigrant platform was plagiarized
from the Freedom Party. Summarized it is: Austria for the Austrians!
Lombardy, whose capital is Milan, and Veneto will vote Sunday for greater autonomy from Rome.
South Tyrol (Alto Adige), severed from Austria and ceded to Italy at Versailles, written off by
Hitler to appease Mussolini after his Anschluss, is astir anew with secessionism. Even the Sicilians
are talking of separation.
By Sunday, the Czech Republic may have a new leader, billionaire Andrej Babis. Writes The Washington
Post, Babis "makes a sport of attacking the European Union and says NATO's mission is outdated."
Platform Promise: Keep the Muslim masses out of the motherland.
To ethnonationalists, their countrymen are not equal to all others, but superior in rights. Many
may nod at Thomas Jefferson's line that "All men are created equal," but they no more practice that
in their own nations than did Jefferson in his
... ... ...
European peoples and parties are today using democratic means to achieve "illiberal" ends. And
it is hard to see what halts the drift away from liberal democracy toward the restrictive right.
For in virtually every nation, there is a major party in opposition, or a party in power, that holds
deeply nationalist views.
European elites may denounce these new parties as "illiberal" or fascist, but it is becoming apparent
that it may be liberalism itself that belongs to yesterday. For more and more Europeans see the invasion
of the continent along the routes whence the invaders came centuries ago, not as a manageable problem
but an existential crisis.
To many Europeans, it portends an irreversible alteration in the character of the countries their
grandchildren will inherit, and possibly an end to their civilization. And they are not going to
be deterred from voting their fears by being called names that long ago lost their toxicity from
overuse.
And as Europeans decline to celebrate the racial, ethnic, creedal and cultural diversity extolled
by American elites, they also seem to reject the idea that foreigners should be treated equally in
nations created for their own kind.
Europeans seem to admire more, and model their nations more, along the lines of the less diverse
America of the Eisenhower era, than on the polyglot America of 2017.
And Europe seems to be moving toward immigration polices more like the McCarran-Walter Act of
1950 than the open borders bill that Sen. Edward Kennedy shepherded through the Senate in 1965.
Kennedy promised that the racial and ethnic composition of the America of the 1960s would not
be overturned, and he questioned the morality and motives of any who implied that it would.
Liberalism is the naivete of 18th century elites, no different than today. Modernity as you
know it is unsustainable, mostly because equality isn't real, identity has value for most humans,
pluralism is by definition fractious, and deep down most people wish to follow a wise strongman
leader who represents their interests first and not a vague set of universalist values.
Blind devotion to liberal democracy is another one of those times when white people take an
abstract concept to weird extremes. It is short-sighted and autistically narrow minded. Just because
you have an oppressive king doesn't mean everyone should be equals. Just because there was slavery/genocide
doesn't mean diversity is good.
The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their
backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade.
This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests
are now between what the west would consider conservatives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html
Good riddance. The idea that egalitarianism is more advanced than hierarchy has always been
false, and flies against the long arc of history. Time for nationalists around the world to smash
liberal democracy and build a new modernity based on actual humanism, with respect to hierarchies
and the primacy of majorities instead of guilt and pathological compassion dressed up as political
ideology.
"Liberalism" is not dying. "Liberalism" is dead, and has been since at least 1970.
What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied
to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to
as "two wings of the same bird of prey."
Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from
ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number
of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization
is less important than short-term profits and power.
Its been dead for nearly 20 years now. Liberalism has long been the Monty Python parrot nailed
to its perch. At this point, the term is mainly kept alive in right-wing attacks by people who
lack the imagination to change their habitual targets for so long.
To my eye, the last 'liberal' politician died in a susupicious plane crash in 2000 as the Bush
Republicans were taking the White House by their famous 5-4 vote/coup and also needed to claim
control of the Senate. So, the last authentic 'liberal' Senator, Paul Wellstone of MN was killed
in a suspicious plane crash that was never properly explained.
Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House.
Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting
and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way.
Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers.
And, at the root, that is the key. The 'Liberals' that the right now rails against are strongly
backed and supported by the Wall Street Banks and other corporate leaders. The 'Liberals' have
pushed for a government Of the Bankers, By the Bankers and For the Bankers. The 'Liberals' now
are in favor of Endless Unconstitutional War around the world.
Which can only mean that the term 'Liberal' has been so completely morphed away from its original
meanings to be completely worthless.
The last true Liberal in American politics was Paul Wellstone. And even by the time he died
for his sins, he was calling himself a "progressive" because after the Clintons and the Gores
had so distorted the term Liberal it was meaningless. Or it had come to mean a society ruled by
bankers, a society at constant war and throwing money constantly at a gigantic war machine, a
society of censorship where the government needed to control all music lyrics, the same corrupt
government where money could by anything from a night in the Lincoln Bedroom to a Presidential
Pardon or any other government favor.
Thus, 'Liberals' were a dead movement even by 2000, when the people who actually believed in
the American People over the profits of bankers were calling themselves Progressives in disgust
at the misuse of the term Liberal. And now, Obama and Hillary have trashed and distorted even
the term Progressive into bombing the world 365 days a year and still constantly throwing money
at the military machine and the problems it invents.
So, Liberalism is so long dead that if you exumed the grave you'd only find dust. And Pat must
be getting senile and just throwing back out the same lines he once wrote as a speechwriter for
the last Great Lefty President Richard Nixon.
Another question is whether this is wishful thinking from Pat or some kind of reality.
I think that he's right, that Liberalism is a dying faith, and it's interesting to check the
decline.
It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under
Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk
eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc.
If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation
were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008).
And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the
US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans
for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free
trade".
In fact, the borderless global "world is flat" dogma is now seen as enabling a rootless hyper-rich
global elite to draw on a sea of globalized serf labour with little or no identity, while their
media and SWJ activists operate a scorched earth defense against any sign of opposition.
The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism),
as shown by the last US Presidential election.
A useful analogy might be Viktor Orbán. He started out as a leader of a liberal party, Fidesz,
but then over time started moving to the right. It is often speculated that he started it for
cynical reasons, like seeing how the right was divided and that there was essentially a vacuum
there for a strong conservative party, but there's little doubt he totally internalized it. There's
also little doubt (and at the time he and a lot of his fellow party leaders talked about it a
lot) that as he (they) started a family and having children, they started to realize how conservatism
kinda made more sense than liberalism.
With Kurz, there's the possibility for this path. However, he'd need to start a family soon
for that to happen. At that age Orbán was already married with children
Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders.
Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is
explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations,
as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as
has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency.
Richard Nixon was a capitalist, not a corporatist. He was a supporter of proper competition
laws, unlike any President since Clinton. Socially, he was interventionist, though this may have
been to lessen criticism of his Vietnam policies. Anyway, his bussing and desegregation policies
were a long-term failure.
Price Control was quickly dropped, as it was in other Western countries. Long term Price Control,
as in present day Venezuela, is economically disastrous.
Let's hope liberalism is a dying faith and that is passes from the Western world. If not it will
destroy the West, so if it doesn't die a natural death then we must euthanize it. For the evidence
is in and it has begat feminism, anti-white racism, demographic winter, mass third world immigration
and everything else that ails the West and has made it the sick and dying man of the world.
But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after
Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint
chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin
in liberal interventionism.
What Pat refers to as "liberalism" is now left wing totalitarianism and anti-white hatred and
it's fanatically trying to remain relevant by lashing out and blacklisting, deplatforming, demonetizing,
and physically assaulting all of its enemies on the right who are gaining strength much to their
chagrin. They resort to these methods because they can't win an honest debate and in a true free
marketplace of ideas they lose.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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It doesn't matter whether you
provide storage or increase the number of refineries, shale production is relatively dead at
these prices. The prices just need to stay ridiculously low for awhile to stop the EIA and
IEA from producing more imaginary oil, and face reality. Yeah, that would affect my wells,
but I would hope for a better price, later.
22,361 CLICK TO READ
A Couple More Points To Consider 
More likely is a gradual increase in
oil prices as we approach peak oil, the futures strip is likely to be wrong on oil price
(today's future strip). For Brent futures the current strip goes from $73/b (Jan 2019) to $61
(Dec 2026). By Contrast the EIA's AEO 2018 reference oil price scenario for Brent crude has
the spot price at $87.50/b in 2026, chart below has their scenario (which I think may be too
low.)
Saudi Update October 2018
http://crudeoilpeak.info/saudi-update-october-2018