SAVE THE F$#KING PLANET!!!! « The Burning Platform

41 Comments

Eddie says:

Much wisdom, much humor. Thank you George for helping me rid myself of guilt for saying the word “shit”. RIP.

He had a way of putting it all in perspective.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 5 0

10th February 2013 at 4:34 pm
flash says:

The environment cause is so yesterday…today the liberal raison d’être is to
save the ghetto pitbull….they’re only killers because they’re misunderstood.

Dog “breeds” are a social construct. The pitbull is just like any other dog! The pitbull is misunderstood! The pitbull is a victim of the caninarchy! The pitbull just needs the right training. You’re a pitbullist! Gross, pitbullist! Look at the pitbullist! Point at him! Isn’t he evil? Evil evil EVIL PITBULLIST! Now watch, gross evil pitbullist, how tolerant I am. See how I benevolently guide the pitbull through medical school, out from under your pitbullist oppressive bigotryprejudicefearinsecuritynarcissism…

http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/pasty-spotted-ass-chipmunk-cheeked-herbling-swpls-and-pitbulls/

Like or Dislike: 1 4

10th February 2013 at 5:34 pm
printmemoney says:

Thanks for an irrelevant comparison Flash.

Like or Dislike: 3 0

10th February 2013 at 5:49 pm
KaD says:

http://www.dogbitelaw.com/dangerous-vicious-dogs/serial-attacks-and-rampage-attacks.html

This is the quintessential study on pit bulls. This is telling as well: http://www.dogbitelaw.com/dangerous-vicious-dogs/canine-homicides-july-2006-to-present.html

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 6:03 pm
AWD says:

Does anyone really care about the environment anymore?

I wish Smokey was still around. He was the only person around here who was interested in China. He said China “was the country of the 21st century”. Did you hear that sound? It’s the sound of defeat; it official now “China Surpasses U.S. As Number One Global Trading Power”
We’ve been surpassed by China, they hold $1.3 trillion of our debt. No big surprise there. Did you hear anything about it on the MSM today? NO?

They are moving ever closer to replacing the dollar as reserve currency. They are mobilizing military equipment and “locking on” Japanese ships. A war gets closer every day, part of the reason being Japan’s reluctance to ditch the dollar. Very interesting stuff indeed.

Of course, behind Japan is the U.S., and we have 70,000 military personnel in Japan/Korea. Our days are numbered, and the showdown is rapidly approaching with China. Winner take all, only we aren’t favored to win this war. China knows they have us beat before a shot is fired. The debt, of ours, they hold. Maybe we’ll go out with a bang, not a whimper. We don’t have enough drones to kill 1.4 billion Chinese, but we do have enough nukes.

Anyway, I wish Smokey was here to provide his perspective. Nobody else seems to take China seriously. Nobody seems to give a shit, at their own peril. Smokey understood.

China Surpasses U.S. As Number One Global Trading Power
Submitted by Brandon Smith from Alt-Market

….China is flooding the system with Yuan! This means only one thing; China is no longer seeking to maintain the traditional trade relationship it has had with the U.S.

To make my case even more clear, I would point out that China has not only become the world’s largest gold producer, but also its largest BUYER, recently surpassing India. Official estimates place Chinese gold purchases in 2012 at around 800 tons; an astonishing increase in their stockpile.

The U.S. and the Federal Reserve can’t even deliver gold it is supposed to be holding for others, including Germany.

China has also recently quadrupled imports of rice and tripled wheat and corn imports in only one year. Why? Again, I ask, what do they know that we are not being told?

As I have stated for many years, China is being groomed as an alternative economic engine in opposition to the U.S., and that this will lead to an eventual dump by them of the Greenback. This scenario is not only based on my opinion, it has also been spoken of openly by elitist financiers, including George Soros. (Who has also divested hundreds of million into gold holdings).

In my early analysis, I felt it possible that Japan would be inducted willingly into the new ASEAN trading bloc and that they would swiftly fall in line with a dump of the dollar, mainly because their export markets were suffering greatly due to the decline in American purchases. Now it appears that Japan has not been as pliable as the globalists wanted, and so, a war may be on the table in the Pacific.

Rhetoric in Chinese newspapers has been very heated and provocative, and the tensions surrounding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is reaching a boiling point. The two countries have done everything so far EXCEPT shoot at each other, and that will be happening in due course now that China is allegedly locking offensive radar onto Japanese ships. Even Chinese films released in the past two years have been soaked with anti-Japan propaganda, most of them usually set during WWII around the brutal invasion and subjugation by the Japanese in Chinese provinces.

The recipe is one of inevitable disaster, with the U.S. at the center of a boiling pot. As I pointed in my last economic piece, we must now look to events rather than numbers to gain insight into where we are headed. The time has come. China is nearly ready for IMF inclusion. Volatility around the world is high. Our government has a final decision to make on the Fiscal Cliff in March, not to mention the sudden push for possible gun registration and confiscation. My instincts tell me that so many explosive aspects coalescing together at the same tenuous moment is not a coincidence. The next few months call for hyper-vigilance and every ounce of energy we can muster to educate as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.

I say again, China has surpassed the U.S. in global trade. A drop of the dollar is the obvious next step…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-10/guest-post-china-surpasses-us-number-one-global-trading-power
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-09/china-mobilizing-war-japan

Like or Dislike: 4 1

10th February 2013 at 6:07 pm
flash says:

printmemoney , I gave you the thumbs up.I just hope it wasn’t your time of month.

Like or Dislike: 0 1

10th February 2013 at 6:09 pm
flash says:

AWD, will there be General Tsu’s Chicken in the New Republic of China?… boy, I hope so ,else those commie bastard can take their treasury debt and stick it up DC sideways..

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 6:13 pm
Administrator says:

China the huge success story. Their reported economic numbers are a complete fraud. They make the BLS look honest.

Beijing is a great city, as long as you don’t breath.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 18 0

10th February 2013 at 6:20 pm
Eddie says:

Sort of what I was thinking. If China is the future, just gimme a big hit of the past. Think I’ll go have a beer and use one of the kid’s Netflix accounts to watch The Big Chill.

Like or Dislike: 3 0

10th February 2013 at 6:22 pm
AWD says:

“U.S. exports and imports last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China’s customs administration reported last month that the country’s total trade in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion. China had a $231.1 billion annual trade surplus while the U.S. had a trade deficit of $727.9 billion”

So, we put $727 billion dollars in shipping containers and sent it out of the country.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-09/china-passes-u-s-to-become-the-world-s-biggest-trading-nation.html

Like or Dislike: 3 1

10th February 2013 at 6:24 pm
AWD says:

You ever been to Los Angeles? Denver? Albuquerque? They get smog almost that bad. I grew up in Denver, we used to call it “pea soup”. It tasted like a combo of sulfur and spent fireworks.

BTW, China doesn’t owe anybody $16.4 trillion, or have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 200% like Japan. No wonder there’s going to be a fucking war or some worthless islands. The U.S. and Japan got nothing left but war.

Like or Dislike: 4 1

10th February 2013 at 6:35 pm
AWD says:

Smokey used to say China would pass us, but it would take 10 years (and that was a little more than a year ago he said it).

Like or Dislike: 3 1

10th February 2013 at 6:43 pm
Administrator says:

Don’t believe the China hype. Their system is racked with bad debt from a decade of malinvestment. Their system is corrupt to its core. They report GDP growth of 8% when it is really 2%. How can their GDP be soaring when the U.S., Europe and Japan are all in recession? Building ghost cities doesn’t create wealth. Their demographics are much worse than the U.S. due to their one baby policy. A peasant revolution is simmering below the surface. China is a fucked up communist nation. Maybe you can move to one of their ghost cities.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 8 1

10th February 2013 at 6:45 pm
Administrator says:

Why China Might Be the Biggest Fraud Ever Perpetrated

Steve Mauzy
February 8, 2013

Forget Bernie Madoff, forget Enron, forget WorldCom. Forget all the Wall Street banks circa 2008. That’s micro-potatoes fraud compared to the potential massive macro fraud that could be lurking on the other side of the Pacific.

I’m speaking of China – the “eighth wonder” of the economic world whose unrelenting gross domestic product (GDP) growth has attracted trillions of dollars of foreign investment over the past two decades.

Contrasting China’s annual GDP growth rates with that of the United States over the past decade, it’s easy to see why so many investors are enthralled with China’s prospects.

In 2011, the U.S. economy grew to $15.1 trillion from $10.9 trillion in 2003, while China’s grew to $7.1 trillion from $1.6 trillion. Should the past remain prologue, the International Monetary Fund predicts China will soon overtake the United States as the world’s number one economy.

At least a few analysts (and I’m one) have serious doubts that China’s reported GDP growth rates reflect reality. For one, the numbers are generated by the government. In addition, GDP measures spending, not value created. The distinction matters, because China is likely creating much less value than the numbers indicate.

I say that because China is largely a centrally planned economy – one much more centrally planned than the United States. China’s government directs a large percentage of spending that’s reflected in its GDP numbers.

Central planners are hardly the best capital allocators. If money is spent on goods or services few people want, capital is wasted. GDP fails to capture that distinction.

Most of us are aware that China’s central planners have committed immense amounts of capital to infrastructure – roads, bridges, housing, power plants, etc. These massive projects are easy to identify and imply economic progress, which is why bureaucrats love them.

Not surprisingly, more money continues to flow into infrastructure. China Development Bank increased lending to urbanization projects last year, in response to Beijing’s directives to boost economic growth. Loans were directed to coal-oil transport, water conservation, agriculture, forestry, telecommunications, power networks and public infrastructure.

So is the money well-spent?

It’s looking more doubtful. Data from the China Banking Regulatory Commission show non-performing loans (NPLs) are on the rise. NPLs among Chinese lenders have increased four consecutive quarters (through the third quarter of 2012) – the longest period of asset-quality deterioration since 2004.

What’s more, the private sector appears to be bearing the cost of public works. A recent article at Minyanville.com offered an insightful quote to the plight of the non-bureaucrat:

“When there is only so much money to go around, bank branch officials will lend to the large, state-owned companies first and the others have to fight over what is left,” says David Chow, head of the principal investment group at Taiwanese bank CDIB and a former managing director at Beijing government-owned China Development.

China is also frequently lauded as an exporting powerhouse. Indeed, exports accounted for 31% of China’s GDP in 2011.

But again, China’s export model was developed under the supervision of central planners.

Many bureaucrats (and many economists for that matter) believe a sale outside the country is more meaningful than a sale within the county. This is mercantilism – the belief that a positive balance of trade (more money related to goods and services) is preferable to a negative balance of trade.

It’s a false, discredited belief, but one China has paid a steep price for adhering to. If the cost of China’s export policy were properly accounted for, it would become evident that many of its exports that appear profitable in fact aren’t.

I say that because of the government’s manipulation of its currency (sound familiar?). What the Chinese call export-driven growth is really a policy of holding the currency exchange rate below the market rate in order to reduce the domestic monetary costs of Chinese exports.

Just like in the United States, China’s spending binge has been fueled by a rapid increase in the money supply. China’s central bank announced last month that M2, a broad measure of money supply, grew by 13.8% year-over-year to 97.42 trillion yuan ($15.71 trillion) in 2012.

That figure is 1.5 times the total M2 in the US, which stood at $10.4 trillion in 2012, and 1.3 times that in the euro area.

Rapid expansion of the money supply nearly always leads to investment bubbles, which never burst benignly.

Now, combine monetary expansion with reports of the efficacy of China’s central planner and the country’s impending ascension to economic superpower, and an insightful quote from 18th-century economist Adam Smith comes to mind:

“When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, overtrading becomes a general error.” And rate of profit, Adam Smith said, “is always highest in the countries that are going fastest to ruin.”

High profits are associated with high growth, and growth is a siren song to many investors. I won’t be surprised to see a lot ruin of come out of China in coming years, which is why I have no intention of investing there anytime soon.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 6 0

10th February 2013 at 6:51 pm
AWD says:

Okay,
Bad debt? How about $16.4 trillion? or $54 trillion when you take into account consumer debt?
Corrupt? How can any system be more corrupt than our banksters, Justice department and criminal politicians?
GDP? They have a trade surplus. What would our GDP be in Bernanke wasn’t printing $80 billion per month and the government borrowing $1.2 trillion per year?
Ghost cities? Like Detroit? E. St. Louis? Camden? Oakland?
Demographics? 1.4 billion people? We have 100 million people that get paid not to work.
Peasant revolution? Maybe, the people aren’t debt serfs like here.

China is a fucked up communist nation. We’re just fucked, and quickly becoming communist.

And, China is hell bent on becoming the most powerful nation in the world, replacing the dollar as reserve currency, and kicking the shit out of the Japanese that raped and murdered millions of Chinese in WW2. Yet, we keep shipping them $600-$700 billion per year so SNAP and welfare FSA can load up their carts at Wally World. How long can that last?

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 10 1

10th February 2013 at 6:58 pm
Administrator says:

The whole world is fucked up. Only Iceland has done the right thing. All the dominoes will fall and China will go down as hard as the U.S. and Europe. There will be no survivors.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 11 0

10th February 2013 at 7:04 pm
AWD says:

“Why China Might Be the Biggest Fraud Ever Perpetrated”

I disagree

Like or Dislike: 5 1

10th February 2013 at 7:06 pm
AWD says:

“There will be no survivors”

Amen to that

I hear Iceland is pretty nice in the summer. And hot women too.

They’re Scandinavian (of course)

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 9 2

10th February 2013 at 7:11 pm
Zarathustra says:

It would be totally insane for China and Japan to go to war over a few tiny, uninhabited islands. Japan has invested billions in China and China is one of Japan’s largest trading partners. The closest parallel would be the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over some worthless desert, a war that was described as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 9 0

10th February 2013 at 7:22 pm
Eddie says:

Hot springs, geothermal power, great sailing in the summer. Iceland would be okay. Not a good place to be homeless, though. Bring your gold.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 5 0

10th February 2013 at 7:26 pm
AWD says:

China and Japan are no longer trading partners. China has run many Japanese businesses out of the country and halted Japanese imports.

They aren’t going to war over the islands, obviously.

Like or Dislike: 1 1

10th February 2013 at 7:27 pm
SSS says:

Speaking of species going extinct, which George Carlin did, I’ll repeat my comment on another thread about Fred, a hummingbird in my backyard whom I was grooming to be my friend and flew into a picture window at my house and killed himself. I only got a sympathy card from Zara, you heartless assholes.

Well, in just two days, the hummingbird feeder in my backyard has a new guardian. Hummingbirds are extremely territorial and will chase off other hummingbirds who violate their space. The new kid on the block looks a lot like Fred. How ironic. I think I’ll call him SSS. And there’s a bigger, fatass ruby-throated hummingbird trying to invade SSS’ airspace, and SSS will have none of it. I think I’ll call him Admin.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 7 0

10th February 2013 at 8:05 pm
AWD says:

“there’s a bigger, fatass ruby-throated hummingbird trying to invade SSS’ airspace, and SSS will have none of it. I think I’ll call him Admin”

Too many beers and cheesesteaks from Pat’s.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 8 2

10th February 2013 at 8:11 pm
Administrator says:

SSS at Fred the hummingbird’s funeral

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 9 0

10th February 2013 at 8:17 pm
sangell says:

Debt isn’t really a relevant metric as between the US and China. We owe Japan a lot of money too. Almost as much as China. If we don’t pay China what are they going to do about it? Germany tore up its WW1 debt obligations and France couldn’t do anything about it except surrender.

Look at the world from the Chinese point of view. Japan, until very recently the second largest economy in the world and more technologically advanced than China, is America’s close ally. The entire Pacific Rim with the sole exception of North Korea, a bankrupt dictatorship with an economy the size of and prospects of JC Penny, is in the US security orbit. Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and now even Vietnam will either actively resist or deny China support for any military adventures aimed at any other country in the Pacific littoral.

China postures and bluffs but it knows its armed forces aren’t ready for prime time against the most combat hardened military on the planet. It has no ability to project power and yet it must rely on imported raw materials and access to markets the US can deny overnight.

Like or Dislike: 2 0

10th February 2013 at 8:17 pm
sangell says:

@SSS

I had a Mulberry bush once and the birds would feast on the berries that fell off. Unfortunately the berries would ferment and get the birds intoxicated. Some would get so plastered they would just fly straight into my sliding glass door with tragic consequences for them. I found if I closed the drapes I could stop the incidents of FUI or flying under the influence after mulberry happy hour.

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 6 0

10th February 2013 at 8:28 pm
Administrator says:

Like or Dislike: 2 0

10th February 2013 at 8:32 pm
Administrator says:

FUI

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 6 0

10th February 2013 at 8:35 pm
AWD says:

Russia, like China, is getting out of U.S. dollars

Russia Flips Petrodollar On Its Head By Exporting Crude, Buying Record Gold
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/10/2013

China has been a very active purchaser of gold for its reserves in the last few years, as we extensively covered here and here, but another nation has taken over the ‘biggest buyer’ role (for the same reasons as China). Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, and as Bloomberg reports, IMF data shows Russia added 570 metric tons in the past decade.

Putin’s fears that “the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly,” are clearly being taken seriously as the world’s largest oil producer turns black gold into hard assets. A lawmaker in Putin’s party noted, “the more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency.” It appears Russia-China is now the ‘hard-money’ axis and perhaps, to some extent, it is the relative price of oil that defines their demand for the barbarous relic.

Like or Dislike: 3 1

10th February 2013 at 8:58 pm
sangell says:

Russia is running a $200 billion plus trade surplus so its likely buying its own gold production as part of this accumulation of gold reserves. Putin, obviously, does not want to support Western economic growth as he is still, at heart, a KGB irredentist, who longs for the the resurrection of the USSR and superpower status, so he will do nothing to reduce this surplus through increased imports.

Unfortunately for him, because of the nature of his government, few talented or wealthy Russians want to assist him in his ambitionos.

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 9:15 pm
Novista says:

In 2005, Japan was the numero uno holder of U.S. Treasuries. Did anyone notice?

Last figures I saw, beginning of this year:
$1.15 Trillion, China
$1.13 Trillion, Japan

China has been going down in their purchases, maybe Ben beat them to the auction.

Meanwhile 2/3 of that debt is held domestically.

U.S. savings bonds
Pension funds – private
Pension funds – state and local governments
Insurance companies
Mutual funds
State and local governments
Foreign and international institutions
Other investors

China dropped the dollar peg in 2005, since then the renmenbi has gained 30% against the dollar. (Butler) Of course they’re currency manipulators, isn’t everyone?

Like or Dislike: 3 0

10th February 2013 at 9:17 pm
Eddie says:

SSS

One of the most unusual things that ever happened to me was when one of our hummingbirds flew into the house through an open terrace door and then became entangled in a bit of cobweb in the very peak of my living room, which has 20 ft ceilings. I was able to rescue it, but I had to hold it in my hand to clean it off. It wouldn’t move, I thought it might be injured. It weighed less than a bug. I finally tossed it up in the air outside….it took off like nothing had happened. Very strange little creatures. Ours are gone for the winter at the moment. They don’t hit the glass so much..but we have mourning doves that sound like a rock when they hit the glass doors on the deck.

Like or Dislike: 4 0

10th February 2013 at 10:03 pm
printmemoney says:

Admin – can you post a link to the China world biggest fraud story ?

Thanks.

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 10:25 pm
SSS says:

“It (the hummingbird) weighed less than a bug.”
—-Eddie

Hummingbirds weigh about 1/10 of an ounce, less than a penny. And 25% of their body weight is breast muscle (as opposed to 5% in humans) because of the requirement to flap their tiny wings at more than 50 beats a second. I had a hummingbird jump on my finger at the Arizona Desert Museum, and I honestly could NOT sense anything was there other than my eyes saying, “Yes, you have a hummingbird on your finger.”

The only species of hummingbird found east of the Mississippi is the ruby-throated. Arizona has the most species of all the states, and Madeira Canyon south of Tucson is hummingbird heaven.

Thus endeth today’s tutorial on hummingbirds.

Like or Dislike: 3 0

10th February 2013 at 11:17 pm
Zarathustra says:

I’ll just say this. Pound for pound, parakeets are the most vicious creatures on the planet.

Like or Dislike: 2 0

10th February 2013 at 11:22 pm
backwardsevolution says:

SSS: Sorry for your loss.

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/0/0/2/5/1/6/7/4/1/Dead-Bird-71693738868.jpeg

Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 6 0

10th February 2013 at 11:26 pm
flash says:

Zarathustra says:

It would be totally insane for China and Japan to go to war over a few tiny, uninhabited islands. Japan has invested billions in China and China is one of Japan’s largest trading partners. The closest parallel would be the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea over some worthless desert, a war that was described as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

Eric Margolis for a hundred ?

Will There Be a US War on China?

by Eric Margolis

http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis326.html

Like or Dislike: 0 0

10th February 2013 at 6:52 am
Administrator says:

printmemoney

http://www.wyattresearch.com/article/why-china-might-be-the-biggest-fraud-ever-perpetrated/29391

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 8:45 am
AKAnon says:

Admin said: “The whole world is fucked up. Only Iceland has done the right thing. All the dominoes will fall and China will go down as hard as the U.S. and Europe. There will be no survivors.”

Oh, bullshit-economic collapse and war will end mankind? Everyone (at least the bright scientists) know that climate change will END ALL LIFE ON THIS PLANET by 2050. At the latest! Har har.

Like or Dislike: 2 0

10th February 2013 at 10:57 am
Bob says:

AWD, I agree that China’s economy may someday overtake the US in the aggregate, but which China(s), and when? Both China and the US may splinter apart into 3 or 4 distinct political entities in coming years as the financial mess unravels in each area. Europe has a little advantage in that regard, because they never really consolidated physically or culturally. Some signs point to India taking the economic lead in asia at some point, though India may also break up. It’s not looking like a clean transition of economic leadership like what happened between the US and Great Britain.

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 7:10 pm
Eugend66 says:

@AWD,

Hi, Doc. Check this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCM7Qj6W_wQ&feature=player_embedded

Peter Schiff: Why Canada Will Divorce The US And Marry China, 30 mins.
Topics: US and the USD, Japan and the yen. Canada and raw materials.

Like or Dislike: 1 0

10th February 2013 at 8:12 am

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