Verizon, Microsoft, Windows 10

I've been getting notices, more like demands that I upgrade to Windows 10.

I hate to mess with something that is working so I have avoided doing so, but I also know that when computer software manufacturers move on they abandon old platforms which eventually cease to be compatible with newer versions. I also suspect that each successive version of these devices is a more effective surveillance tool so "my government can protect me against terrorists". Yeah, team.

I got a notice from Verizon the 15th saying we had used 75% of our allotted data for the month and that it was due to reset on the 16th. Our phone and internet use all is applied to the same account.

Leah had done the upgrade without any apparent complications, so yesterday I decided to give in.

I started the download. It seemed to be slow loading so I decided to eat some breakfast. When I came back, I noticed that the attempt had failed. I tried again.

My phone alerted me that we had used 90% of our monthly data.

Second attempt failed.

My phone alerted me that we had used 100% of our data, and each additional gig would cost us $15.

By the time I got the goddamned thing shut down we went at least two of these increments over for the month, meaning an additional $30 charge.

I still have not successfully downloaded Windows 10.

Fuck Microsoft. Fuck Verizon. Fuck you very much.

The thirteenth apostle

I recently bought and am currently reading a book called Christ's Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity, written by Eric Zuesse.

The premise of the book is this: Modern Christianity is based largely on the teachings of the Apostle Paul, (or is it the self-appointed (un)apostle Paul) rather than the teachings of Jesus.

Zuesse suggests that James, Jesus’ brother was left to take the place of Jesus after the demise of Judas Iscariot. He points out that a rift developed between James and the remaining original apostles and Paul, who claimed apostleship after being struck and temporarily blinded by something approximating a bolt of lightning while pursuing his job of killing heretical followers of Jesus the Jewish Rabbi. And that, in the end, Paul won.

Zuesse proffers that Jesus did not intend to start a new religion, that instead he came to fix an ancient but flawed one, that of Abraham. 

Left out of Zuesse’s argument (at least to the point I have read) is the story of Matthias, chosen by Peter and a group of believers to replace Judas as described in the Acts of the Apostles.

Some might ask why any of this matters. Other books, including the book of Revelations describe the New Jerusalem. It is said to have 12 gates, each to be manned by one of the 12 apostles. Not 13, or 26. 12.

So is the 12^th apostle Judas? James? Paul? Mathias? Who mans that 12^th gate?

Allow me to further muddle the equation.

There could be another, none of the above.

A woman.

Mary of Magdala: Perhaps, Jesus’ closest confidant. Perhaps also his wife.

Her book was excluded from the Bible. Most Christians don’t even know the book exists.

According to her, the remaining Apostles could not accept that Jesus would return first to a woman, and furthermore, to instruct her with teachings that appear to supersede their own understanding.

It was Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Mary of Magdala to which Jesus first appeared, according even to the books accepted into the Bible.

The more I learn, the less I know.

Gluten intolerance

Some 12 years or so ago, I developed acid reflux disease and then a couple of patches of skin rash on my ankles and my hips.

I controlled the acid reflux with acid blockers, but got to the point where I could not afford to go a single day without taking them.

I tried everything I could find for the rash. About the only thing that helped was diaper rash medicine.

Some 7 years ago, my dad was diagnosed with Coeliac (Celiac) disease. Gluten intolerance. Celiac Sprue

Thinking that I might also have inherited the condition, I quit eating foods containing gluten. The acid reflux went away. As did the rash.

I just found a link (pdf)  between the rise of gluten intolerance and the use of glyphosate. Damn it.

Politics

When I was a kid, I'd see carnival games. They looked easy to win. Throw a ball into a basket. Toss a ring over a bottle. Shoot out all the colored portion of a star with a bb gun.

Over time, I learned the game was rigged. I'd ignore the con artists as they tried to wave me in and keep walking.

Politics has become the same for me as an old man.

My Ancestry

My brother Bill sent off a DNA sample to Ancestry(dot)com and shared the results with me.

For a brief moment, I wondered if I should also.

Sorry, mom.

But I know better. This is the people from which I descend. And before you tell me we're all African--obviously this test doesn't go back that far. (And I'd submit that it's highly possible that white Europeans carry Neanderthal blood, unlike the more highly evolved African strain....)

I don't offer this to make any point, or to express any kind of pride in a matter of which I had absolutely no choice.

But it is what it is and the facts dispel some family myths:

Results as follows:

100% European (damnit).
39% British Isles (damnit).
28% Irish
17% Scandinavian
5% Roman/Greek (Italian)
5% Iberian (Spanish)
4% Western Europe
<1 br="" eastern="" europe=""><1 br="" finnish="" ussian="">0% European Jewish
0% African
0% Asian
0% American Indian
I think he also said 0% Middle Eastern as well, but I failed to write it down.

Pretty much pure white trash, I suppose.

I had absolutely nothing to do with this.

I hope to rise above it.

Matt Savinar interview

Last year. In case you missed it:

Coup d'etat: Radical realignment of power

I was among those watching for some sort of catastrophe at the end of the shmita/beginning of the jubilee last month.

The season came and went with no apparent difficulties, aside from the norm (which happen to be quite serious if you're paying attention).

However, I am seeing something unfold now.

There has been a radical realignment of power in world politics.

For some time, the United States has taken a position of leadership in world affairs.

During the meeting of the United Nations held last month, a notable group of leaders addressed the assembly, among them the pope, President Obama, and Russian President Putin.

Obama reminded the world that the United States has the most powerful military and the largest economy of any nation on earth and then began to describe current events filtered through his prism. In other words, he lied his ass off and everyone in the room knew it, despite the bobbing of heads.

Putin presented a rational view of the world and politics, if you count yourself among those that believe a thinking body of adults from around the world should be in charge.

Shortly thereafter, Russia began an intervention in Syria, where we (the United States) have been supporting Islamic terrorists fighting the Assad regime.

Today I learned, if Sputnik is to be believed, that even Israel was consulted before attacks began.

There are those that say Russia and Putin stand against the New World Order.

I suspect quite the opposite.

Putin has become the new de facto leader of that body.

Meaning Obama and the US have become odd man out.

Don't be surprised to see an attack on this nation within the next year, whether militarily, or economically (both, in my opinion).

This will prove quite a convenient reset; by trashing the reserve currency, which happens to be the dollar and creating a new world currency, the worlds gets the debt relief it needs.

Blame will then be piled upon the burning trash heap left of the American Empire. It was all our fault, don't you know.

The friends you thought you had in Europe will dance with a new partner and look from a distance at the smoke, lamenting the loss of their old lover.

And Putin will not be your friend on that day.

Terry Allen: Emergency human blood courier

Limpieza Social

Molly Molloy and Julian Cardona attended the screening of Kingdom of Shadows in El Paso Friday night. Both were Chuck Bowden's friends, confidants and co-conspirators.

Julian was there when I first met Chuck in the flesh and traveled with us to Piedritas, Coahuila. Chuck was on a mission, first to see if I was real, and then if that panned out, to write a story for GQ magazine. Long story short: he determined that I was real, that my story checked out. And despite his best effort, he could not write a story about me they were interested in publishing. Not quite the meterosexual stereotype....

Julian was the principal photographer for Chuck's brilliant compilation and essay, Juarez: the laboratory of our future, Chuck's first effort in book form to bring light to the ongoing wreck that Juarez had become as a result of globalization. Julian became Chuck's go-to-guy and sounding board for all things Mexico, as well as his guide and protector when he traveled the country.

Molly is a librarian and also teaches Latin American studies at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She has dedicated much time to documenting the ongoing violence in Mexico and Latin America through what she calls the Frontera list, sent out via email to a substantial number of subscribers, myself included. I met Molly during the pre-publication days of Contrabando in 2003 or 4. Molly was Chuck's wife, though I'm not sure either would confess to that. She was also his closest confidant. 

Both Molly and Julian worked side by side with Chuck on Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields. Molly attended the interviews that became the book, El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin, which she co-wrote with Chuck.

All of this say: these people have credentials, serious credentials.

I called Molly from my garden yesterday to get her reaction to the film. The film, she enjoyed, the question and answer session afterward: not so much.

You have to understand Murder City to know why.

In 2007 or 8, at the height of the killings in Juarez, Chuck decided to see who it was that was getting killed. He set to the ambitious task, along with Julian and Molly, of documenting all the murders in Juarez for a year. All of them. 

He lasted less than six months before total exhaustion, desperation and despair overcame and overwhelmed him.

The results of those investigations revealed inconvenient facts. Most of the victims had no connections to the cartels at any appreciable level. Almost no cops lost their lives, unless it was a rival cop that killed them. And the number of cops that were killed was a very low percentage of the total.

Many of the killings made no sense when an attempt to reconcile them with the narrative that they were the result of a turf war between rival cartels. That is not to say that war wasn't ongoing, just that most of the victims had no apparent connections to the cartels in any significant way.

About that time, I learned from a trusted source that a deal had been cut between the Sinaloa cartel and unspecified government insiders. It went something like this. We (the cartel) will assist you in efforts to kill, capture, eliminate rival groups, such as the Zetas. We pledge not to prey on legitimate businesses. We will not prey on migrants, nor will we bother Mexican citizens returning remittances to friends and family. We will not sell our products (drugs) domestically, unlike these other upstart groups....

Now to the part that stretches credulity.

Domestic use had become so rampant and ingrained in Mexico that it could not be stopped. Demand was too great.

Until those selling small scale or using drugs were assassinated in the most spectacular and awful of ways.

Like in drug rehab centers.

In houses, neighborhoods.

Young folks, mostly.

Limpieza social. Social cleansing.

It's a story both Molly and Julian know well. A story that can't be told.

A story that when told falls on deaf ears. Illicits denial, then anger, and sometimes, even retribution.

So, while most walk off satisfied with the official explanation, people like Molly and Julian walk off dejected.

Understandably so.

Approaching jubilee: The wait is over

As we approach the end of the shmita and the beginning of the New Year according to the Hebrew calendar, the cloud that has hung over my head for the last year seems to have lifted.

A few prophets with a track record justifying merit predict dire events. I have been in a state of mourning for my people, my country and the world at large. Damn near paralyzed by it. Why mourn after the loss; it’s when the patient is ill that the pain is so intense.

But now that the event draws near, it’s time for action.

To get off the ass and do something. Even if the seed I plant is to be harvested by another or my life is to be lost in the fray.

I got a late start on a fall garden. We had a wet spring, but now have gone over a month with no measurable rain. Temperatures have been hovering around the 100 degree mark; the forecast now calls for ten consecutive days of heat approaching 106 degrees. It was late getting here, but it is here.

For whatever reason, I don’t function well when all is well. Comfort kills. During times of chaos, when a bad choice means loss of life and or severe consequences, well, then, it’s easier to pay attention and stay engaged.

I was made for this day.

For those with ears, the season is at hand.

Wake up.

Do something.

Prophets of Doom with four year's hindsight

Back in 2011, the History channel presented a film called Prophets of Doom. Several people whose opinions I had studied and respected participated, each with a slightly different area of expertise.

With four year's hindsight, if the film can be faulted, it's that there were other parallel events that did not get covered. Also, each of the participants was so stunningly intelligent in their own field of expertise that they tended to be dismissive of each other's opinion.

In light of the fact that we just had the hottest June ever recorded, I suppose a climate scientist probably should have been part of the event.

It isn't that one was right. They all were right. (Even the A.I. guy, whose opinion I dissed at the time).

These concurrent events don't add up--they amplify each other exponentially. Throw in resulting migrations and wars, man's reaction to changing global events, and it gets beyond my ability to assimilate.

Michael C. Ruppert was a friend and a mentor, now dead by a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head. I followed Nate Nathan John Hagenswhen he wrote at the Oil Drum. And James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency changed the way I see this world.

Watch the film, here:

Don't forget

I've spent a lot of time investigating two seminal crimes, so large and powerful in scope that they have contributed to the death of this country (I tend to mourn the loss before the final gasp).

Both were false flag events, involving people with high level access, by necessity and definition, when an honest look at the evidence is taken into account (and I have no time to argue the point with cocksuckers with heads buried in their own asses).

Those crimes are the killing of John F. Kennedy. And the attacks on 9-11-01.

Some things can't be fixed without first recognizing the truth.

So, in light of that, which of the current line up of presidential candidates will authorize and fund an independent and thorough investigation of these crimes?

I didn't fucking think so.

Back to mourning.

You can't trust them

Waiting on a thorn bush

Here's a problem I routinely face: I consider current forms of government(s) impostors to the throne, so I must maintain distance and accept no position in their hierarchy. They are my among those I consider adversaries. I do, as a human on this planet have the right, the duty to resist evil and unfair treatment of my fellow citizens, much of which emanates from government(s). Despite what you may think, these entities will not be fixed until they are first destroyed. You're not going to vote your way out of this shit.....

You can spend your whole life waiting for a thorn bush to produce figs.

Limited Freedom

I’ve noticed a lot of my facebook friends flying a new flag, that of a rainbow. You may note that I am not.

I seem to be skirting the issue. Perhaps.

I’d say the situation is delicate.

Tolerance and advocacy are not one and the same by my way of thinking.

I live in a land where freedom to practice your own religion is the law, up until the point that your freedom infringes upon the next person’s right to do the same.

So, there are limits.

If your religion is hatred and involves killing your neighbors, or unbridled greed which involves stealing your neighbor’s property or possessions, then your religion can’t be legally practiced.

Perhaps you like to drink alcohol. OK. But don’t get in your car and imperil others. And if you’re working with or for me, don’t let your habit endanger me, your co-workers, or the property you take care of, (this has been an ongoing problem for me—to the point that I pretty much detest drunkenness).

I ascribe to religious doctrine and personal practices others, most of you, would find offensive in some way. There are elements of my lifestyle, my beliefs, deemed illegal by the law of the land. No need to go into detail here. Other than to say….

I don’t feel the need to force you to believe as I do.

So I ask for your tolerance, but not necessarily your approval.

In return, I offer the same.

Where homosexuality is concerned, that’s the best I can manage.

Practice it in your home if you wish. Get gay married, if you wish.

Public displays are OK also, within reason, but then, you may notice I avoid places where I have to see those displays, (heterosexual or homosexual).

Stage a march, if you wish, but I ain’t going to march in your parade. Have a gay party, but please don’t invite me. It ain’t my thing and I am not going to come anyway.

I’d prefer if you didn't bring the practice into the confines of my home. I’ve allowed this in the past, but I have never really been comfortable with it. It’s a damn big world. I don’t take up much space.

That’s just me, exercising the limited freedom I enjoy in this country.

The world would be a boring place if we all were the same.

Be who you are. Afford me the same luxury.

Countdown

I didn't buy into the year 2000. Nor 2012.

But I am buying September of 2015.

End of the current Jewish shmita.

Beginning of the jubliee.

I don't know what will happen, but I see and sense too many converging signs to remain ignorant of the season.

If all the stuff about 9-11 doesn't curdle your milk, spend about ten hours watching and listening to what his lady has to say. I guess this has been out there for some time, but it's new to me.

I mentioned a man named Robert in Ruminations from the Garden. He told tales of sexual abuse as a kid and later, extreme harassment when he tried to reveal his stories as an adult.

His father was a full colonel, and to hear Robert tell it, involved in the homosexual rape of young men. Part of a much larger group of cocksuckers involved in that kind of activity. Men in very high places. An exclusive club of sorts.

I didn't necessarily disbelieve Robert. But I damn sure did not want to believe him, and listened with a jaundiced ear.

I wish I knew where he is today so I could apologize.

Coincidence theorists. Explain me this

Perry for president

Believe it or not, kiddos, there was a time when people got married before they get divorced.

Wonder if we should impeach a president before he gets elected.

Ex-Texas-governor Rick Perry announced he's running.

Last I heard, he was under criminal indictment (and it was a bipartisan group that filed the charges).

He did, however, announce that the charges were ridiculous and move on.

Good enough, I guess. Rick Perry for president.

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford on monetary reform

Excerpt from this article.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) held over 1,000 US patents for his inventions and is considered among the most brilliant minds in American history. Edison understood the engineering of our monetary system and actively spoke for monetary reform. These seven paragraphs are from an interview with the New York Times in 1921 [29] from a publicity tour Edison took with his friend and fellow inventor Henry Ford to discuss monetary reform:

“That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way.

… if the Government issues currency, it provides itself with enough money to increase the national wealth at Muscles Shoals without disturbing the business of the rest of the country. And in doing this it increases its income without adding a penny to its debt.

It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.

Look at it another way. If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people’s credit in interest-bearing bonds?

Certainly there is a complete set of misleading slogans kept on hand for just such outbreaks of common sense among the people. The people are so ignorant of what they think are the intricacies of the money system that they are easily impressed by big words. There would be new shrieks of ‘fiat money,’ and ‘paper money’ and ‘green-backism,’ and all the rest of it – the same old cries with which the people have been shouted down from the beginning.

But maybe we have passed beyond the time when the thoughtful 2 per cent – you know, I gather from my questionnaire that only 2 per cent of the people think,” and Mr. Edison smiled broadly. “Maybe they can’t shout down American thinkers any longer. The only dynamite that works in this country is the dynamite of a sound idea. I think we are getting a sound idea on the money question. The people have an instinct which tells them that something is wrong, and that the wrong somehow centers in money. They have an instinct, also, which tells them when a proposal is made in their interests or against them.”

Globalization

I heard a left-leaning socialist advocate a $15/hour minimum wage, nationwide.

The idea was greeted with applause.

It sounds good. It would help restore income equality.

Or, would it?

The cost of making a burger would go up.

There’d be no more beef, no more bread. No additional burgers to go around.

You’d have the same number of people competing over the same amount of material.

My guess is the rich figure out a way to ensure you keep getting the same amount of burgers, continue to live in the same house and get the same gallons of gasoline for your same old car.

But, maybe I am wrong. Assuming this is a good idea, let’s apply the formula to a world-wide model, for there are those who’d like to see implementation of such a plan.

How much does a fast food worker in India earn?

Or Somalia?

What happens when we discover that someone making minimum wage here in the US earns more than a substantial majority of the citizens of this planet? $34,000 a year places you in the top one per-cent of earners, worldwide. Median income world-wide is $1,225 a year. Per year, not per month.

So, most of you are the 1%. Are you now prepared to take less than half of what you currently earn to help someone else in a third world country achieve a better life, or do you want someone to insure that you continue to get more than your share?

We’ve reached limits on this planet. There is no additional oil to be produced. Not everyone can have a car or fly around in airplanes.

We have passed a point of diminishing returns on food production; almost all arable land is in use and in essence being mined by extractive industrial methods which fail over time.

How do you like having meats, grains, fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world in your grocery store the year round?

Just about all essentials are scarce and in diminishing supply.

I know many dispute these facts. I have no time to argue the point.

Currently, the US is the largest debtor nation in the world, due to perennial trade imbalances made possible by the dollar’s special status.

Worldwide debt has reached critical levels. Money is debt; 2/3 of the world’s money is denominated in dollars.

The Federal Reserve is insolvent. They hide this fact, but word gets out.

We scammed the rest of the world. Gave them paper for real goods. They’re tired of a system that perpetuates current inequalities.

A reset is on the way; plans are in place to kill the dollar. A new reserve currency will be established.

When your dollars are redeemed, you will lose most of the wealth you think you have.

You wanted globalization….

You may be about to get the fair treatment you think you desire.

Conversely, we decide to keep the advantages we have and go to war.

Which will prove worse.

I see no easy way out.

Mexico, then and now

The story goes, that was then, this is now.

Then cops took bribes and were connected to illegal activities. Now a new group has come into power and done away with the old.

Only, I am old enough to remember that is what was being said some thirty-odd years ago, and with each successive administration since.

It was bull shit then. It’s bull shit now.

A friend from San Luis Potosi tells stories about a family member who tried to bring others to the border, planning to cross illegally without paying off the Zetas.

After clearing the official military checkpoint just south of Matamoros they arrived at another informal checkpoint, were stopped, extracted from their vehicle at gunpoint and taken to a compound.

They were tortured, interrogated and then told they had one week to come up with ten thousand dollars.

If they failed to produce the money, they died.

Their vehicle and their possessions were taken.

They say the compound was full of people, including women and children.

Prisoners were given a single cup of beans a day and minimal amounts of water. Nothing else.

Each day, new prisoners arrived, extracted from the same check point.

Others left, to unknown fates.

Payment was made, the men were released.

They were told they must make arrangements with Zetas before leaving their home with migrants. Should they fail to do so, they’d be killed.

I ask my friend how this could go on without coming to the attention of the authorities.

He tells me the authorities are involved.

Payment was made to the military commander in charge of the official checkpoint.

PS. There are differences between then and now. Then, authorities were interested only in drugs and guns, not shaking down businesses or preying on migrants.

America the beautiful

The phone rings.

I answer.

In Spanish: "I’m Fulano etal (Mexican John Doe). Mario’s friend. You remember the guy that bought the horse? I have a really big favor to ask."

“I need a place to stay. Things are bad for me now. I just got out of jail.”

“I’m living in a car. But I got a job.”

“What happened to the restaurant?”

“I sold it. My wife got the money. I married another woman. We fought. She called the cops.”

Another call. Another friend.

“I need to borrow money. The truck I use to come to work—the finance company is looking for it. My grandmother reported it stolen. A friend has a car for sale. $1,200. He needs the money, but it has to be today.”

The phone, again.

“Your diesel bill for the month of March has not been paid….”

More calls.

A horse is colicking.

Abraham is drunk. Has been since Sunday.

Bearing went out on a disc.

Tractor tire, flat again.

Manuel thinks it’s sabotage.

I know better.

Shit happens.

You have a bull out on my place. Big spotted Brahman.

I have a bull out of his pen on my own place. Holstein-Jersey cross. Along with some dairy heifers.

Guess I left the gate unlatched last night. Got to catch that motherfucker.

The immigration lawyer wants more money. I’ll pay you back man.

All of this before milking.

I encounter a man at a nearby trailer park. A new neighbor. Ex-special forces.

Trying to kick the drugs the government uses to chemically lobotomize him. Handfuls of pills with names I don’t recognize. He quit all of them.

Can’t sleep. Killed kids sent into the mine fields. Shot them in the fucking head. 50 cal.

The way he moves, acts: rapid fire speech, jittery movements; looks, smells, tastes like meth to me.

This gang controls this, that gang controls that. Another over there.

More gangs than I can keep up with. I don’t want to know.

There’s dope everywhere. So much dope they’re burying the shit…

Everyone has dope, everyone’s the dealer. Who’s the John with a fucking job to sell the shit to?

Meanwhile, cops watch. Listen. Wait.

I best be moving along.

I call to check on the one horse I have left in training.

My trainer answers, from the emergency room.

Heart, again.

Horse is fine. He isn’t.

Fuck.

Time for lunch.

America the beautiful.

We've been lied to

Posting shit like this is not the way to make friends or garner support.

Fuck it.

Truth is truth.

And evil is evil.

Hurt

When the man comes around

Jade Helm

Best I can tell, most American citizens are now in some stage of an unannounced austerity program.

You needn't manage details to create crisis when you have the ability to suck money out of circulation. Do the deed, sit back and watch.

I hear people dissing Jade Helm 15 critics, calling them lunatic conspiracy theorists.

Given context and timing of the event, I think there's cause for concern:

Washingtonsblog expounds

Ourland, a brief history lesson by Terry Allen

John McAfee on surveillance, smart phones and more

John McAfee speaks on surveillance and much more, here.

Take time to watch the video at the end.

Everybody knows

We are told that the economy is in recovery. Things are getting better. Facts and figures bolster the argument: Lower unemployment figures. Higher GDP numbers. Affordable health care for all.

I look at my personal world and it doesn’t reconcile with the narrative.

Is it just me?

I expand the circle and take at those around me.

They don’t seem to be doing so well either.

Local oil companies, (the majors, anyway, which aren’t the majors that come to mind), continue to operate, but everyone knows the current price of crude does not come anywhere near the cost of exploration and exploitation.

The large outfits lay off a portion of the help and speak of hedged oil prices that allow them to continue for six more months.

The little guys did not hedge their oil. So, they lay everybody off, aside from perhaps a skeleton crew to keep remaining assets from being stolen. The service companies don’t get paid.

Hotels, recently booked two years in advance, sport vacancies, and even more soon-to-be-new hotels have yet to open their doors.

The truck that sold tacos to passing oil field trucks quit coming.

Pickup truck salesmen watch nervously through shiny glass windows for non-existent buyers, worrying about bills at home, knowing their only income is derived from commissions; the trucks don’t sell.

Farmers plant crops, hoping government subsidy programs bridge the widening gap between production costs and the current price of grain, knowing that without this assistance, they lose money for their efforts.

Bankers watch accounts dwindle as clients pilfer retirement reserves to pay bills; the day arrives when the retirement account is retired and those bills go unpaid.

Then it’s, I can’t pay you because he didn’t pay me, only he tells the same story about another.

A scene from the movie, Cinderella Man, comes to mind: The Depression era boxer Jim Braddock, (played by Russell Crowe), arrives at an upscale apartment of a believed-to-be wealthy associate, looking for a loan, only to discover a cold, empty home, devoid of furniture, sold to maintain the appearance of wealth.

Cattle are high. But many places no longer have cows, which were sold during the droughts. Truth be known, just about everyone raising cattle has a day job to support the habit, and it has been this way for the last 40 years.

Today’s beef prices are necessary to break even, not to make a profit, just to pay expenses.

There’s no way in hell this endeavor justifies the supposed value of the land those cattle are raised on.

Meanwhile, meat has become inaccessible for many consumers due to current prices.

A few years back, I received a windfall.

I distrust and dislike banks and lending institutions.

So, rather than place money in a bank account, which would then be lent out to others, others not of my choosing, I decided to lend money to friends and associates I thought had viable enterprises in need of funding.

The recipients covered a wide array, from farmers and ranchers, here and abroad, to musicians and even a start-up insurance salesmen. There was a flower salesman and even a medical marijuana guy in a state where such is legal.

One guy trained race horses.

My wife opened a business, built from scratch from raw land.

We restored an old store from ruins.

Bought a small irrigated farm in West Texas.

And, bought way too many fine Thoroughbred horses.

None of the people I loaned money to were able to pay me back. All are decent, hard-working people; all made honest efforts, yet none could repay their loan, aside from one of minimal value and he sold a house his grandfather gave him before dying to do so.

Most of these people continue to work, vigorously. Some have a few remaining assets; most don’t.

Those assets could not be sold for a fraction of the money it cost to buy them.

I can’t throw a rock at anyone, because my personal situation is similar.

While I don’t owe money to any institution, I have borrowed money and goods from my father and have been unable to repay him.

Both of us are in essence, broke. Not yet insolvent, but broke. We got no cash. Or maybe we are insolvent and don’t yet know it.

What happens when the value of assets becomes zero?

Nearly all the horses I bought were acquired at pennies on the dollar from their previous value, some of which arrived from other failing operations—high scale operations.

To this day I receive calls from yet others, offering to sell me horses, good horses, cheap.

And there’s no shortage of decent mares to be had for free.

I decline.

I'm already overstocked.

For those that advise selling the horses I own to fix my own situation, I ask: To whom?

It’s not like there are people lined up at my door with money waiting to buy a horse.

Aside from that, they’re worth more than money to me.

They’re living creatures. They know me. They trust me.

They’re magnificent.

They cost money to maintain.

I’ve made mistakes for lack of money I needed to provide proper care.

Recently I fed hay we grew containing Klein grass, good for cattle, but potentially dangerous to a horse. Times past, I got away with this.

This year, I lost three foals. I suspect Klein grass was the culprit.

We had the hay and I didn’t have money to buy something better without allowing some other obligation to go unmet.

In river bottoms, the shit encroaches from places upstream, whether you plant it or not.

Try explaining this to an anxious mare watching over a foal that won’t get up to eat because it died.

And if I sell the horses to someone else that can’t care for them (whether they realize it or not), or send them to slaughter, then where do the people in my employ that care for these animals go?

These are tough times.

To any and all that owe me money:

Your debt is forgiven.

Circumstances beyond your control created your demise.

I know you tried. I've been watching. Struggling alongside you.

Lord, have mercy.