During George W. Bush's presidency, due to my stance on the Iraq war, I often found myself siding with Democrats. Now that Obama has been elected, the true nature of the Democratic party has been revealed.
Democrats didn't want real change. They wanted power. To run things.
Obama is pushing to have all provisions of the patriot act extended.
The war on drugs not only continues, it's escalating.
We're not leaving Iraq.
We're not leaving Afghanistan.
We've opened up a new front in Pakistan.
Surveillance on American citizens without warrant, torture, and other civil rights violations perpetrated by the previous administation have been covered up and probably continue unabated, hidden from view.
The executive branch appears a willing party to continuing obfuscation of financial activities by the Fed and Geithner's treasury department. Obama's promised transparency does not exist.
Big banks, finance companies and predatory megacorporations have found a friend in the Democratic party; their crimes have been hidden and they've been bailed out with tax payer money, despite obvious fraudulent activity. Creditors got a bailout, debtors got fucked.
This is more and I mean MORE of the same old shit.
Henceforth:
Fuck George W. Bush.
Fuck Barack Obama.
And fuck the Democratic leadership in the house and the Senate.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Automatic Earth
Ilargi and Stonleigh at the Automatic Earth routinely post stuff worthy of your consideration from the deflation camp.
I make a practice of checking in with them. Not that it really matters in my case; I don't have gold or dollars to lose. But I do have friends and family.
I make a practice of checking in with them. Not that it really matters in my case; I don't have gold or dollars to lose. But I do have friends and family.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Contrabando, up against the wall red neck mother
Day before yesterday, I received a couple of copies of Contrabando, the original hard-backed version. For whatever reason, I picked up the book and began reading. It's been long enough that it was almost, (but not entirely), like reading the work of another.
I felt like I needed a marking pencil. The writing is stilted and disjointed in places. I found repititions. Inaccuracies. But the story behind the words still has value. It's a flawed depiction taken from the front lines of this so-called war on drugs which is really a war on people. A flawed version of one that has actually been there is better than a well written version of those that have not.
Stephen King compared the skills needed to write a book to a box of tools. He went on to say if a person has a good story, they can write a decent book with a minimal amount of tools
I wrote Contrabando with a hammer, a crescent wrench, a pair of vice grips and a single slot bladed screw driver. I needed more tools.
I won't try to rewrite the book. Life has moved on; I've better and more timely subjects to address.
Ray Wylie Hubbard once said, be careful about the song you write because you might still be singing it thirty years later. To this day, Ray gets requests to sing up against the wall red-neck mother, quite possibly the worst song he ever wrote.
I know how he feels.
I felt like I needed a marking pencil. The writing is stilted and disjointed in places. I found repititions. Inaccuracies. But the story behind the words still has value. It's a flawed depiction taken from the front lines of this so-called war on drugs which is really a war on people. A flawed version of one that has actually been there is better than a well written version of those that have not.
Stephen King compared the skills needed to write a book to a box of tools. He went on to say if a person has a good story, they can write a decent book with a minimal amount of tools
I wrote Contrabando with a hammer, a crescent wrench, a pair of vice grips and a single slot bladed screw driver. I needed more tools.
I won't try to rewrite the book. Life has moved on; I've better and more timely subjects to address.
Ray Wylie Hubbard once said, be careful about the song you write because you might still be singing it thirty years later. To this day, Ray gets requests to sing up against the wall red-neck mother, quite possibly the worst song he ever wrote.
I know how he feels.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
China and the US dollar
Holiday music
I've penned a piece on the Sumner Brothers for Lonestar Music Magazine. You'll have to wait until next month to read it. This however, you can watch today.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Bill of responsibilities
After watching the clips of a Hopi prophet that inspired my last piece, I went on a hunt for more of the same and I found good stuff. One Indian elder pointed out that he sees all kinds of people advocating bills of rights, but almost none pushing bills of responsibility.
That’s the problem with many that call themselves free-market thinkers. With private ownership of property, low tax rates, and the other freedoms we aspire to, comes a responsibility to be good stewards of the land, water, air, plants, animals and other people in our domain. It is our failure to acknowledge and accept those responsibilities that creates the need for government.
Not only do we have a reponsibility to care for those in our charge, we also are responsible for protecting the needs and rights of our neighbors when selfish, abusive, predatory entities, whether they be governmental or corporate, steal or abuse basic rights of life and freedom God intended for all his creatures to enjoy.
The old man pointed out that of the top 100 economic entities on this planet, 49 are governments and 51 are corporations.
Given a choice between Communism and Fascism, I choose neither.
And those are the only two choices I’m given if I restrict my responsibility as a citizen of this land to casting votes in rigged elections.
I find myself trapped by a very effective system; evil has been perfected over the centuries and I honestly don’t know how to fight effectively anymore. They had a big head start on me before I breathed my first breath. It appears that divine intervention is the only hope, but history has proven that we have to take the first step for such things to come about.
It’s going to get really dark before the new dawn. I’d say it already is pretty damn dark. But I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it by a long shot.
We owe it to our children, and their children and the children of generations to come to do something. We are the people we’ve been waiting for.
That’s the problem with many that call themselves free-market thinkers. With private ownership of property, low tax rates, and the other freedoms we aspire to, comes a responsibility to be good stewards of the land, water, air, plants, animals and other people in our domain. It is our failure to acknowledge and accept those responsibilities that creates the need for government.
Not only do we have a reponsibility to care for those in our charge, we also are responsible for protecting the needs and rights of our neighbors when selfish, abusive, predatory entities, whether they be governmental or corporate, steal or abuse basic rights of life and freedom God intended for all his creatures to enjoy.
The old man pointed out that of the top 100 economic entities on this planet, 49 are governments and 51 are corporations.
Given a choice between Communism and Fascism, I choose neither.
And those are the only two choices I’m given if I restrict my responsibility as a citizen of this land to casting votes in rigged elections.
I find myself trapped by a very effective system; evil has been perfected over the centuries and I honestly don’t know how to fight effectively anymore. They had a big head start on me before I breathed my first breath. It appears that divine intervention is the only hope, but history has proven that we have to take the first step for such things to come about.
It’s going to get really dark before the new dawn. I’d say it already is pretty damn dark. But I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it by a long shot.
We owe it to our children, and their children and the children of generations to come to do something. We are the people we’ve been waiting for.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A matter of sovereignty
I recently took part in an economic discussion that evolved, or should I say devolved, into one of those tell-me-what-you-really-think moments. As I’ve said before, I avoid predicting events in the future for a variety of reasons. I consider predictions, prophecies. Those that make them, prophets. Those that falsely predict, false prophets. God hasn’t spoken to me through a burning bush.
However, there are plenty of prophecies that have been made throughout the ages and I study them when they come along. Not only Christian prophecies but those from other religions, cultures, and even those from secular backgrounds. And sometimes I see and hear prophecies that seem to coincide with current events.
A couple of days ago, I watched a youtube video, made in the mid 1980’s of a Native American prophet. I seem to remember having watched this previously, but perhaps just a segment of it. This time, I watched the whole thing, all five clips worth.
Some of the things the guy suggests are new to me. But they make sense when weighed against my experience. An example: he points out how Native Americans have been marginalized or totally left out of the picture where American policy decisions are concerned. There’s a segment that deals with race and geographic origin; he speaks of an understanding of the earth (land) that Indian (Native American) people have. A tie to water that the black race has. An oriental tie to the air. And how those from the north have a connection with fire (that’d be white folks).
The Indian prophet describes how many former Indian prophecies have been fulfilled, at least by his interpretation, and then goes on to predict how another prophecy will manifest itself. He calls this event the third shaking.
How does this relate to economic discussions, you ask. I’ve stepped off into it; I’m already covered in shit, so I might as well slog on through and get to the other side.
A man without debt, owner of his own land, is free to a degree to act as he wishes on his own property. He plants what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, or he doesn’t plant at all if he doesn’t want to. But when that man borrows money from a bank, he becomes beholden to the bank. A country is not unlike that man.
When we conduct business with other countries, they send us goods and we send them dollars. They use dollars to buy goods from us. When they sell us more stuff than they buy from us, then they’re left holding our money. Our money is nothing more than an IOU, a promise to pay in goods or services. A loan. They hold a note on our land.
We cede sovereignty of our nation when we allow trade deficits to build. And we have been doing this (ceding our sovereignty) for over 20 years now.
This pisses me off. You goddamned motherfuckers have sold and continue selling off our country.
In your arrogance, you think you can now print more money and pay off loans in a devalued currency, dilute the debt. But those holding vast sums of our dollars now have the fucking factories we tore down and shipped off shore, you know, the ones that make all that crap in our Wal Mart stores. And we need more of that crap, because it’s disposable junk without replacement parts and we no longer have a way to build things here. Remember the goddamned factories you closed, the jobs you sent away?
Fucking cock suckers.
So China and other countries holding our debt have called us in and warned us about printing too much money, (monetizing debt), thereby devaluing their holdings. Obama sent Geithner to assure them we’d do no such thing, and then did it when the Fed bought a bunch of treasury notes off of the books. And that is why the Fed is so adamantly resisting a congressional audit of their activities.
And then Obama himself was called in by our Chinese bankers. He once again lied to them, I’m guessing.
China told us if we’ll not monetize debt, they’ll not dump dollars. In fact, they’ll continue to buy more treasuries, loan us more money or goods, so we can keep up this farce, maintain this unrealistic lifestyle as the world’s consumer. We’ve become little more than livestock in the feedlot, eating and shitting, eating more and shitting more.
But China knows we lied, and they lied too. They told us that if we didn’t monetize debt, they would hold on to our dollars and even buy more of them. Instead, China recently bought all of Ecuador’s oil. They’re vying for Canada’s oil. They’ve cut deals with Venezuela’s Chavez. Bolivia’s Morales. Cuba. Iran. Former Soviet protectorates. African nations. They’re buying gold. Copper. The Hummer division of General Motors. They want to buy small US banks. Why?
Because small US banks hold notes on land, businesses, factories and other real assets that can be foreclosed on. The claim to real assets. Your land, your house, your car, your business. They’re surreptitiously getting rid of dollars in exchange for real assets.
China is short natural resources and long on labor. Natural resources are diminishing around the world. When China vies for more oil, the only place they can get it is from a country now an exporter of oil to the United States or other industrialized nations. So when they buy oil from Canada, Canada sells oil to them instead of us. China has already cut us out of Ecuador. They’re working hard to cut us out of Venezuela, which happens to be the third largest exporter of oil to the United States. On and on goes the list.
The economic jousting between our countries is like the buildup to a gang war. China is encroaching into territory we once controlled. We’ve had a big advantage here in the United States, because oil is traded in dollars and nothing but dollars. It’s like playing poker and owning the casino. And the rest of the world is tiring of playing this rigged game.
Cutting to the chase. I think a polarization has begun. China, Russia, Iran, maybe North Korea, portions of Africa, Pakistan, Venezuela and most of the rest of Latin America aside from Northern Mexico and Colombia line up on one side. Britain, Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US on the other side. I don’t know the geo-politcal details, just generalities.
The Middle East will be the focal point, the spark that starts the fire that will grow into the worst war this world has seen. It probably begins between Iran and other Middle Eastern nations. And then the rest of us get sucked in. (This may have begun with the Iraq/Iran war).
I’m guessing the shit hits the proverbial fan within the next ten years.
And I, like this Indian prophet, figure we here in the US most likely are going to get nuked (raptured, for you of Christian persuasion. The lucky ones will be at ground zero). New York City is toast. Perhaps other places as well. The Indian prophet spoke of the Mississippi River boiling.
Say goodbye to your country. It was fun while it lasted.
There was a time when I read a bible verse that said, paraphrased, areas where thorns and thistles grow are in danger of being cursed by God and will be burned. I left Texas (late 70’s), after having read that verse. I came back.
I figure much of this state gets burned.
So, why am I here? I guess you could say I’m going down with the ship. (I know, mixing metaphors.) This is my home. I love this place and its people. I have land, animals and people that need tending, so that’s what I am doing, each and every day. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.
The people running this country, governing this state, are imposters to the throne.
And we, in the true sense of the word, we are Goddamned.
It didn't have to be this way.
PS. December 1, 2009
China didn't buy all of Ecuador's oil. But they did prepay for $12 billion worth.
However, there are plenty of prophecies that have been made throughout the ages and I study them when they come along. Not only Christian prophecies but those from other religions, cultures, and even those from secular backgrounds. And sometimes I see and hear prophecies that seem to coincide with current events.
A couple of days ago, I watched a youtube video, made in the mid 1980’s of a Native American prophet. I seem to remember having watched this previously, but perhaps just a segment of it. This time, I watched the whole thing, all five clips worth.
Some of the things the guy suggests are new to me. But they make sense when weighed against my experience. An example: he points out how Native Americans have been marginalized or totally left out of the picture where American policy decisions are concerned. There’s a segment that deals with race and geographic origin; he speaks of an understanding of the earth (land) that Indian (Native American) people have. A tie to water that the black race has. An oriental tie to the air. And how those from the north have a connection with fire (that’d be white folks).
The Indian prophet describes how many former Indian prophecies have been fulfilled, at least by his interpretation, and then goes on to predict how another prophecy will manifest itself. He calls this event the third shaking.
How does this relate to economic discussions, you ask. I’ve stepped off into it; I’m already covered in shit, so I might as well slog on through and get to the other side.
A man without debt, owner of his own land, is free to a degree to act as he wishes on his own property. He plants what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, or he doesn’t plant at all if he doesn’t want to. But when that man borrows money from a bank, he becomes beholden to the bank. A country is not unlike that man.
When we conduct business with other countries, they send us goods and we send them dollars. They use dollars to buy goods from us. When they sell us more stuff than they buy from us, then they’re left holding our money. Our money is nothing more than an IOU, a promise to pay in goods or services. A loan. They hold a note on our land.
We cede sovereignty of our nation when we allow trade deficits to build. And we have been doing this (ceding our sovereignty) for over 20 years now.
This pisses me off. You goddamned motherfuckers have sold and continue selling off our country.
In your arrogance, you think you can now print more money and pay off loans in a devalued currency, dilute the debt. But those holding vast sums of our dollars now have the fucking factories we tore down and shipped off shore, you know, the ones that make all that crap in our Wal Mart stores. And we need more of that crap, because it’s disposable junk without replacement parts and we no longer have a way to build things here. Remember the goddamned factories you closed, the jobs you sent away?
Fucking cock suckers.
So China and other countries holding our debt have called us in and warned us about printing too much money, (monetizing debt), thereby devaluing their holdings. Obama sent Geithner to assure them we’d do no such thing, and then did it when the Fed bought a bunch of treasury notes off of the books. And that is why the Fed is so adamantly resisting a congressional audit of their activities.
And then Obama himself was called in by our Chinese bankers. He once again lied to them, I’m guessing.
China told us if we’ll not monetize debt, they’ll not dump dollars. In fact, they’ll continue to buy more treasuries, loan us more money or goods, so we can keep up this farce, maintain this unrealistic lifestyle as the world’s consumer. We’ve become little more than livestock in the feedlot, eating and shitting, eating more and shitting more.
But China knows we lied, and they lied too. They told us that if we didn’t monetize debt, they would hold on to our dollars and even buy more of them. Instead, China recently bought all of Ecuador’s oil. They’re vying for Canada’s oil. They’ve cut deals with Venezuela’s Chavez. Bolivia’s Morales. Cuba. Iran. Former Soviet protectorates. African nations. They’re buying gold. Copper. The Hummer division of General Motors. They want to buy small US banks. Why?
Because small US banks hold notes on land, businesses, factories and other real assets that can be foreclosed on. The claim to real assets. Your land, your house, your car, your business. They’re surreptitiously getting rid of dollars in exchange for real assets.
China is short natural resources and long on labor. Natural resources are diminishing around the world. When China vies for more oil, the only place they can get it is from a country now an exporter of oil to the United States or other industrialized nations. So when they buy oil from Canada, Canada sells oil to them instead of us. China has already cut us out of Ecuador. They’re working hard to cut us out of Venezuela, which happens to be the third largest exporter of oil to the United States. On and on goes the list.
The economic jousting between our countries is like the buildup to a gang war. China is encroaching into territory we once controlled. We’ve had a big advantage here in the United States, because oil is traded in dollars and nothing but dollars. It’s like playing poker and owning the casino. And the rest of the world is tiring of playing this rigged game.
Cutting to the chase. I think a polarization has begun. China, Russia, Iran, maybe North Korea, portions of Africa, Pakistan, Venezuela and most of the rest of Latin America aside from Northern Mexico and Colombia line up on one side. Britain, Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US on the other side. I don’t know the geo-politcal details, just generalities.
The Middle East will be the focal point, the spark that starts the fire that will grow into the worst war this world has seen. It probably begins between Iran and other Middle Eastern nations. And then the rest of us get sucked in. (This may have begun with the Iraq/Iran war).
I’m guessing the shit hits the proverbial fan within the next ten years.
And I, like this Indian prophet, figure we here in the US most likely are going to get nuked (raptured, for you of Christian persuasion. The lucky ones will be at ground zero). New York City is toast. Perhaps other places as well. The Indian prophet spoke of the Mississippi River boiling.
Say goodbye to your country. It was fun while it lasted.
There was a time when I read a bible verse that said, paraphrased, areas where thorns and thistles grow are in danger of being cursed by God and will be burned. I left Texas (late 70’s), after having read that verse. I came back.
I figure much of this state gets burned.
So, why am I here? I guess you could say I’m going down with the ship. (I know, mixing metaphors.) This is my home. I love this place and its people. I have land, animals and people that need tending, so that’s what I am doing, each and every day. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.
The people running this country, governing this state, are imposters to the throne.
And we, in the true sense of the word, we are Goddamned.
It didn't have to be this way.
PS. December 1, 2009
China didn't buy all of Ecuador's oil. But they did prepay for $12 billion worth.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Long Emergency
James Howard Kunstler's book, The Long Emergency, remains one of the most important books I've read. And his Monday morning blogs usually deliver timely and prescient updates describing the condition of our condition.
Here's a link to JHK's blog for today, November 23, 2009.
And his words. Hopefully he doesn't sue me for posting the whole thing, but I know a bunch of you will be disinclined to follow the link and you need to read this:
Courting Convulsion
By James Howard Kunstler
on November 23, 2009 6:52 AM
How infantile is American society? Last night's CBS "Business Update" (in the midst of its "60 Minutes" program) featured three items: 1.) The New Moon teen vampire movie led the weekend box-office receipts; 2.) Cadbury shares hit an all-time high; 3.) Michael Jackson's rhinestone-studded white glove sold at auction for $350,000. Some in-house CBS-News producer is responsible for this fucking nonsense. How does he or she keep her job? Is there no adult supervision at the network?
Meanwhile, over at The New York Times this morning, Paul "Nobel Prize" Krugman writes:
"Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts; the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence."
Disclosure: I'm not one of the economists that Mr. Krugman talks to (nor am I an economist). But it's sure interesting to know that the ones palavering with Mr. Krugman imagine that that the US can possibly return to an economy based on the fraudulent securitization of reckless debt. Does Mr. Krugman think that the production housing industry can resume paving over the nether exurbs with half-million-dollar houses (to be bought with no money down loans by the sheet-rockers working inside them)? Does he think all those people receiving cancellation notices from their credit card issuers are in a position to flash their plastic at the Gallerias this Friday? Or ever will be again? Is he perhaps misusing the term "recovery?" After all, that is generally taken to mean resuming a prior state, which is, in turn, presumed to be a healthy prior state. Is that what the economy of the past decade was? And, incidentally, what exactly is a "consumer?" And why, at the highest levels of journalism in this land, do we refer to citizens that way? As if the American people have no other purpose except to buy things? Or is that that the only way an "economist" can imagine them?
I'm sorry to burden the reader with so many questions, but the idiots running the mainstream news media in this land are not doing it and somebody has to.
If a "recovery" is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?
What's going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy. The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.
The main "historic circumstance" mandating these changes goes under the heading of "peak oil." We've come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine "growth" in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible. Offsetting this decline in oil energy "input" with "alt.energy" is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera - the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.
We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life - in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other's dangerous fantasies.
If we don't attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate - and I use the word "dis-integrate" with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.
At the moment, banking is disintegrating. It's happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in "Wile E. Coyote" suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.
It's important to remind readers that so-called "capitalism" is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology. It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil. All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it. In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild - just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.
We're now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first. They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that "globalism," in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement - making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. "Globalism" now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.
At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America's leadership has dedicated itself to worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what's embodied in the foolish term "recovery." The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don't want to be crushed by history. Go back to the top of this blog and look at the things we pay attention to. Aren't you ashamed?
Here's a link to JHK's blog for today, November 23, 2009.
And his words. Hopefully he doesn't sue me for posting the whole thing, but I know a bunch of you will be disinclined to follow the link and you need to read this:
Courting Convulsion
By James Howard Kunstler
on November 23, 2009 6:52 AM
How infantile is American society? Last night's CBS "Business Update" (in the midst of its "60 Minutes" program) featured three items: 1.) The New Moon teen vampire movie led the weekend box-office receipts; 2.) Cadbury shares hit an all-time high; 3.) Michael Jackson's rhinestone-studded white glove sold at auction for $350,000. Some in-house CBS-News producer is responsible for this fucking nonsense. How does he or she keep her job? Is there no adult supervision at the network?
Meanwhile, over at The New York Times this morning, Paul "Nobel Prize" Krugman writes:
"Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts; the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence."
Disclosure: I'm not one of the economists that Mr. Krugman talks to (nor am I an economist). But it's sure interesting to know that the ones palavering with Mr. Krugman imagine that that the US can possibly return to an economy based on the fraudulent securitization of reckless debt. Does Mr. Krugman think that the production housing industry can resume paving over the nether exurbs with half-million-dollar houses (to be bought with no money down loans by the sheet-rockers working inside them)? Does he think all those people receiving cancellation notices from their credit card issuers are in a position to flash their plastic at the Gallerias this Friday? Or ever will be again? Is he perhaps misusing the term "recovery?" After all, that is generally taken to mean resuming a prior state, which is, in turn, presumed to be a healthy prior state. Is that what the economy of the past decade was? And, incidentally, what exactly is a "consumer?" And why, at the highest levels of journalism in this land, do we refer to citizens that way? As if the American people have no other purpose except to buy things? Or is that that the only way an "economist" can imagine them?
I'm sorry to burden the reader with so many questions, but the idiots running the mainstream news media in this land are not doing it and somebody has to.
If a "recovery" is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?
What's going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy. The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.
The main "historic circumstance" mandating these changes goes under the heading of "peak oil." We've come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine "growth" in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible. Offsetting this decline in oil energy "input" with "alt.energy" is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera - the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.
We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life - in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other's dangerous fantasies.
If we don't attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate - and I use the word "dis-integrate" with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.
At the moment, banking is disintegrating. It's happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in "Wile E. Coyote" suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.
It's important to remind readers that so-called "capitalism" is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology. It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil. All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it. In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild - just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.
We're now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first. They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that "globalism," in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement - making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. "Globalism" now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.
At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America's leadership has dedicated itself to worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what's embodied in the foolish term "recovery." The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don't want to be crushed by history. Go back to the top of this blog and look at the things we pay attention to. Aren't you ashamed?
Saturday, November 21, 2009
And now... the important stuff
Saturday night, November 21, 2009. Leah’s gone for a week. I’m home alone. We’ve had rain and there’s not much that can be done outside as wet as things are. I put pinto beans on to boil after sorting through them to remove deformed and damaged beans, rocks and debris. The beans were grown in our spring garden.
I shelled ten ears of white corn, also grown in our spring garden and added it to a large stainless steel pot containing 4 quarts of water and 5 tablespoons of lime. I skimmed off the kernals and debris that floated to the top with a slotted spoon and I’m waiting for the water to return to a boil. I’ll cut off the flame when the water boils and allow the corn to soak overnight. This process is known as nixtamalization and has been practiced for centuries on the North American continent, certainly long before any white man stepped foot here. Nixtamalization does more than soften the grain; it changes the flavor of the final product and also makes the grain more nutritious. Eaten with a legume, you get the whole array of necessary amino acids (you don’t if your corn is dry ground without being cooked and soaked in lime water).
Tomorrow, I hope to thorougly rinse the corn and grind it in a hand-cranked mill. I then will add a little water to the wet-ground corn and use the masa to make tortillas. This is only the second time I have done the whole process from start to finish.
The value of the tortillas I’ll end up with is hardly worth the effort, measured in dollars and cents. The value of knowing how to do this may be priceless someday.
Perhaps sooner than you think.
Perhaps it's just my imagination, but I think the tortillas taste better, done this way.
I shelled ten ears of white corn, also grown in our spring garden and added it to a large stainless steel pot containing 4 quarts of water and 5 tablespoons of lime. I skimmed off the kernals and debris that floated to the top with a slotted spoon and I’m waiting for the water to return to a boil. I’ll cut off the flame when the water boils and allow the corn to soak overnight. This process is known as nixtamalization and has been practiced for centuries on the North American continent, certainly long before any white man stepped foot here. Nixtamalization does more than soften the grain; it changes the flavor of the final product and also makes the grain more nutritious. Eaten with a legume, you get the whole array of necessary amino acids (you don’t if your corn is dry ground without being cooked and soaked in lime water).
Tomorrow, I hope to thorougly rinse the corn and grind it in a hand-cranked mill. I then will add a little water to the wet-ground corn and use the masa to make tortillas. This is only the second time I have done the whole process from start to finish.
The value of the tortillas I’ll end up with is hardly worth the effort, measured in dollars and cents. The value of knowing how to do this may be priceless someday.
Perhaps sooner than you think.
Perhaps it's just my imagination, but I think the tortillas taste better, done this way.
The critical unraveling of US society
Here's a really good article concerning wealth inequality and the destruction of America as we know it. Also covers the Obama myth. An excerpt:
Obama is a national tragedy. He is a symbol of the times. He is not a leader, just a symbol. He projects the change we need. He was our shortcut to correcting our diseased political system, a way to rid it of corruption. He symbolized the change millions so desperately need. People came out in the millions for the first time “hoping” if they could work and organize to put him in office, we would have some representation to defend against the economic elite that have put the overwhelming majority of US politicians on the payroll and brought humanity to a breaking point.
People just need to research how the Obama myth was hatched. Goldman Sachs saw Obama early on and said, “He’s our guy!” When Obama became THE MAN in Iowa, he was on the Goldman Sachs pay roll. Goldman financed the psychological operation that is the Obama myth, the Illusion of HOPE - something to keep a suffering nation pacified just a little bit longer. Obama is truly a national tragedy. His failure and inaction has disillusioned millions upon millions of desperate citizens who turned to him as their best chance for justice.
As further evidence of Obama’s duplicity — beyond repeatedly signing his name to documents covering up the Bush Adminstration’s highest crimes and increasing an already bloated military budget — in one of his very first moves as President he put Goldman Sachs’ criminal mastermind Tim Geitner in charge of the treasury.
A new report from the TARP Inspector General further exposes Tim Geithner’s role “in overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.”
Which brings us to the ultimate theft of wealth in history, and to the root cause of our current crisis.
Read much more at the link.
Obama is a national tragedy. He is a symbol of the times. He is not a leader, just a symbol. He projects the change we need. He was our shortcut to correcting our diseased political system, a way to rid it of corruption. He symbolized the change millions so desperately need. People came out in the millions for the first time “hoping” if they could work and organize to put him in office, we would have some representation to defend against the economic elite that have put the overwhelming majority of US politicians on the payroll and brought humanity to a breaking point.
People just need to research how the Obama myth was hatched. Goldman Sachs saw Obama early on and said, “He’s our guy!” When Obama became THE MAN in Iowa, he was on the Goldman Sachs pay roll. Goldman financed the psychological operation that is the Obama myth, the Illusion of HOPE - something to keep a suffering nation pacified just a little bit longer. Obama is truly a national tragedy. His failure and inaction has disillusioned millions upon millions of desperate citizens who turned to him as their best chance for justice.
As further evidence of Obama’s duplicity — beyond repeatedly signing his name to documents covering up the Bush Adminstration’s highest crimes and increasing an already bloated military budget — in one of his very first moves as President he put Goldman Sachs’ criminal mastermind Tim Geitner in charge of the treasury.
A new report from the TARP Inspector General further exposes Tim Geithner’s role “in overpayments that put billions of extra tax dollars in the coffers of major Wall Street firms, most notably Goldman Sachs.”
Which brings us to the ultimate theft of wealth in history, and to the root cause of our current crisis.
Read much more at the link.
This is it
I'm going to destroy the image some of you have of me with this one. I went to see This is it, Michael Jackson's post-mortem film, a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
If you're looking for someone to blame, blame Sean McConnell. He performed an absolutely credible version of Dirty Diana and it's been stuck in my head since. I know damn well I couldn't live this life. Don't guess Michael could either:
If you're looking for someone to blame, blame Sean McConnell. He performed an absolutely credible version of Dirty Diana and it's been stuck in my head since. I know damn well I couldn't live this life. Don't guess Michael could either:
Friday, November 20, 2009
Harvest time
Henry Ford, for all his faults, once stated that he needed to pay his workers enough that they would be able to buy the cars they manufactured. I guess globalists thought such laws don’t apply when you ship the jobs to a foreign land.
Now I hear people say that a cheaper dollar will make American products more competitive to foreign buyers. Who exactly is going to buy these “cheaper” American goods? Some Chinese guy earning $2 a day? Now out of a job because there’s an ongoing depression in the United States?
Rather than bring the rest of the world’s workers up to some sort of decent living standard, global financial players and manufactuers raced toward the lowest common denominator: workers earning slave wages, receiving no benefits, toiling in unsafe conditions, exploited to produce a bunch of cheap disposable products then sold in our big box stores.
Then one day a new reality hit us right between the eyes; not everyone can have a job sitting on his ass, doing nothing. Our own economy imploded.
So now we’re going to devalue the dollar and start producing something to sell once again. That’s the plan.
Who are your going to sell to? Americans don’t have jobs. Meaning they can’t buy things. And those poor bastards that have been making our goods overseas have no money, (aside from a few that became fabulously wealthy, selling out their own and they can't eat much).
Better yet, what’s going to happen when the next leg of this collapse cuts off the supply of that cheap made shit, for which there are no replacement parts, or destruction of the dollar raises the price of that cheap made shit to the level of unaffordability? We already tore down and hauled off all our goddamned factories, people.
I recently read that the United States now has the greatest disparity between rich and poor of any country on earth. I have no way of verifying such a statement, but I find the fact that’s even plausible shocking and reprehensible.
Time to reap what we’ve sown.
Now I hear people say that a cheaper dollar will make American products more competitive to foreign buyers. Who exactly is going to buy these “cheaper” American goods? Some Chinese guy earning $2 a day? Now out of a job because there’s an ongoing depression in the United States?
Rather than bring the rest of the world’s workers up to some sort of decent living standard, global financial players and manufactuers raced toward the lowest common denominator: workers earning slave wages, receiving no benefits, toiling in unsafe conditions, exploited to produce a bunch of cheap disposable products then sold in our big box stores.
Then one day a new reality hit us right between the eyes; not everyone can have a job sitting on his ass, doing nothing. Our own economy imploded.
So now we’re going to devalue the dollar and start producing something to sell once again. That’s the plan.
Who are your going to sell to? Americans don’t have jobs. Meaning they can’t buy things. And those poor bastards that have been making our goods overseas have no money, (aside from a few that became fabulously wealthy, selling out their own and they can't eat much).
Better yet, what’s going to happen when the next leg of this collapse cuts off the supply of that cheap made shit, for which there are no replacement parts, or destruction of the dollar raises the price of that cheap made shit to the level of unaffordability? We already tore down and hauled off all our goddamned factories, people.
I recently read that the United States now has the greatest disparity between rich and poor of any country on earth. I have no way of verifying such a statement, but I find the fact that’s even plausible shocking and reprehensible.
Time to reap what we’ve sown.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Free trade ain't always free
Don't know if you've noticed
But sometimes, I am a self-righteous, sanctimonious pig.
Joe Bageant wrote two pieces concerning smokers and fat people worth your time (and mine):
Shoot the fat guys; hang the smokers in response to a letter he received.
And then the followup from this morning:
Buddy, can you spare me a Lek?
an excerpt:
This morning's mailbox was the usual wonderful variety of letters, mostly responding to the current post, "Shoot the fat guys, hang the smokers." Many offered heartfelt smoking cessation advice, all of it from personal experience, honest and eminently more sensible than anything I've read elsewhere.
As to the strange new politicizing of behaviors such as smoking and overeating, some brilliant insights came in, along with the prescient observation from Spain that "the fat gays will be the first to go." We should all watch out for that particular canary in the coal mine in which we all toil.
A couple of emails objected, though not meanly or with excessive vehemence, to my calling the Democratic leadership a bunch of fickle, sleazy, traitorous "cunts." I'm not gonna defend such language. Heavens no! It's downright loathsome and detestable. This is why I use it. Then too, I have called the Democratic leadership dicks and dickheads and pussies scores of times, and there were few options left. In passing I will add that I do not believe that any words or terms whatsoever should be beyond the reach of a writer or anyone else for reasons of political correctness. The masses are controlled through controlling their language, which in turn controls the concepts they are capable of grasping.
I try to remember that it was during the most brutally repressive period of communist China that the Communist Party came up with the concept of "political correctness of language." I have always been amazed that Americans could bring themselves to even use the term "politically correct," given the murdering bastards who coined it and perfected its implementation as a social control tool. As we have seen here in America with the exclusion or purposeful demonization of words such as liberalism, socialism, welfare state, controlled economy, once words are demonized or made off limits something is lost, no matter what the word. And once the people are sufficiently indoctrinated to ideology, they will police the language among themselves in the name of political correctness. If the language used by writers such as Mark Twain or Hunter S. Thompson were stripped of politically correct words such as nigger, faggot, etc. -- their chronicles of their times would not convey the full mood and ambiance of the world they saw around them. But enough of that.
My point exactly. Sometimes a nigger is a nigger. A cracker, a cracker, and a queer a faggot. Sometimes an arrogant son-of-a-bitch like myself is an arrogant son-of-a-bitch like myself. And I need to be able to use those words to best convey what I'm trying to say.
Hence, this site.
Joe Bageant wrote two pieces concerning smokers and fat people worth your time (and mine):
Shoot the fat guys; hang the smokers in response to a letter he received.
And then the followup from this morning:
Buddy, can you spare me a Lek?
an excerpt:
This morning's mailbox was the usual wonderful variety of letters, mostly responding to the current post, "Shoot the fat guys, hang the smokers." Many offered heartfelt smoking cessation advice, all of it from personal experience, honest and eminently more sensible than anything I've read elsewhere.
As to the strange new politicizing of behaviors such as smoking and overeating, some brilliant insights came in, along with the prescient observation from Spain that "the fat gays will be the first to go." We should all watch out for that particular canary in the coal mine in which we all toil.
A couple of emails objected, though not meanly or with excessive vehemence, to my calling the Democratic leadership a bunch of fickle, sleazy, traitorous "cunts." I'm not gonna defend such language. Heavens no! It's downright loathsome and detestable. This is why I use it. Then too, I have called the Democratic leadership dicks and dickheads and pussies scores of times, and there were few options left. In passing I will add that I do not believe that any words or terms whatsoever should be beyond the reach of a writer or anyone else for reasons of political correctness. The masses are controlled through controlling their language, which in turn controls the concepts they are capable of grasping.
I try to remember that it was during the most brutally repressive period of communist China that the Communist Party came up with the concept of "political correctness of language." I have always been amazed that Americans could bring themselves to even use the term "politically correct," given the murdering bastards who coined it and perfected its implementation as a social control tool. As we have seen here in America with the exclusion or purposeful demonization of words such as liberalism, socialism, welfare state, controlled economy, once words are demonized or made off limits something is lost, no matter what the word. And once the people are sufficiently indoctrinated to ideology, they will police the language among themselves in the name of political correctness. If the language used by writers such as Mark Twain or Hunter S. Thompson were stripped of politically correct words such as nigger, faggot, etc. -- their chronicles of their times would not convey the full mood and ambiance of the world they saw around them. But enough of that.
My point exactly. Sometimes a nigger is a nigger. A cracker, a cracker, and a queer a faggot. Sometimes an arrogant son-of-a-bitch like myself is an arrogant son-of-a-bitch like myself. And I need to be able to use those words to best convey what I'm trying to say.
Hence, this site.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A tale of two turkeys
Consider two turkeys. One is a wild turkey, part of a flock that lives in our pecan bottom along the banks of the Guadalupe River. She finds food, shelter, water, protection from predators and all the other things she needs to survive in her environment.
The second turkey lives across the road, not more than a mile from the first, in a house full of domestic turkeys being fattened for market. This turkey has a roof over her head, climate controlled air, is never too hot, never too cold. Food and water is automatically dispensed at all hours of the day and night for her consumption. The walls keep predators at bay.
One day a storm comes along and knocks down the house that the second turkey lives in. She and the rest are now out in the world, freed from their confines and a certain date with death in a slaughter house.
But the second turkey will die along with all or nearly all the rest of her kind in a place where everything she needs is there for the taking.
The average American citizen is a whole lot like that second turkey. They've grown up in a sheltered environment and haven't a clue how to make it in the real world.
And the storm is coming. Exactly when, I don't know. But it will come.
If you're one of those caged birds, now might be a good time to make friends with one of your wild cousins and begin to learn a thing or two about the planet where you live: where your food comes from, how to recognize predators, shelter, clothe and defend yourself. You need to lose some weight, strengthen your body, and break your addictions or you're not going to survive.
The second turkey lives across the road, not more than a mile from the first, in a house full of domestic turkeys being fattened for market. This turkey has a roof over her head, climate controlled air, is never too hot, never too cold. Food and water is automatically dispensed at all hours of the day and night for her consumption. The walls keep predators at bay.
One day a storm comes along and knocks down the house that the second turkey lives in. She and the rest are now out in the world, freed from their confines and a certain date with death in a slaughter house.
But the second turkey will die along with all or nearly all the rest of her kind in a place where everything she needs is there for the taking.
The average American citizen is a whole lot like that second turkey. They've grown up in a sheltered environment and haven't a clue how to make it in the real world.
And the storm is coming. Exactly when, I don't know. But it will come.
If you're one of those caged birds, now might be a good time to make friends with one of your wild cousins and begin to learn a thing or two about the planet where you live: where your food comes from, how to recognize predators, shelter, clothe and defend yourself. You need to lose some weight, strengthen your body, and break your addictions or you're not going to survive.
Trickle down economics
Who'd a thought that Obama believed in trickle down economics? Because, despite the rhetoric and campaign promises, that's the plan in play at the moment:
Obama supporters suffer while elites thrive
Democrats, Republicans. What the fuck's the difference?
Same lobbyests write their speaches.
Obama supporters suffer while elites thrive
Democrats, Republicans. What the fuck's the difference?
Same lobbyests write their speaches.
Hyperinflation, deflation or green shoots
There are three arguments currently circulating in economic discussions. The first would be those like Peter Schiff in the video below that say we will see dollar destruction and hyperinflation.
The second are deflationists, like this one. They more or less say that bad debt is so large that there will be no recovery and that despite attempts to create new money, debt defaults will be so massive that all the money ascribed to bailout attempts will be consumed.
The third think we are on the road to recovery. In my opinion they've been smoking too many green shoots.
The first two scenarios could be compared to a large tree whose base has been chopped at until only a small sliver of wood supports the weight of the tree. The tree is evenly balanced and must soon fall, but the direction of that fall remains unclear.
Either way the tree must fall.
(Picture Geithner, Bernanke and Obama at the base of the tree, running from one side to the other, pushing one way, then the other and praying a puff of wind doesn't come along.)
The second are deflationists, like this one. They more or less say that bad debt is so large that there will be no recovery and that despite attempts to create new money, debt defaults will be so massive that all the money ascribed to bailout attempts will be consumed.
The third think we are on the road to recovery. In my opinion they've been smoking too many green shoots.
The first two scenarios could be compared to a large tree whose base has been chopped at until only a small sliver of wood supports the weight of the tree. The tree is evenly balanced and must soon fall, but the direction of that fall remains unclear.
Either way the tree must fall.
(Picture Geithner, Bernanke and Obama at the base of the tree, running from one side to the other, pushing one way, then the other and praying a puff of wind doesn't come along.)
Peter Schiff
I don't always agree with Peter Schiff. But I think he'll probably be proven right in the long run. Watch as the media tries to marginalize his message:
Monday, November 16, 2009
First blog
I decided to create my own blog because there are times when things I believe depart from mainstream narrative. To date I've always posted on someone else's territory and felt the need to consider how my words would affect the owner of the blog or how they'd be received by other users.
More and more I find that things I believe put me in a minority. I think the world is headed for destruction. Say that long enough, hard enough, and you wear out your welcome.
So here it is, a blog where I can say what I want when I want. My own turf.
Welcome one and all,
Don Henry Ford Jr.
More and more I find that things I believe put me in a minority. I think the world is headed for destruction. Say that long enough, hard enough, and you wear out your welcome.
So here it is, a blog where I can say what I want when I want. My own turf.
Welcome one and all,
Don Henry Ford Jr.
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