I need an internet enemy. Gary North misses Kunstler’s point entirely. People who think we really do have 100 years of cheap plentiful oil under our feet are idiots. Kunstler’s viewpoint that our suburban sprawl chain store dominated culture is coming to an end is correct. The financial results of the big box retailers and restaurant chains that I have been reporting for the last few weeks are proof that this facade is crumbling. The vacancy and space available signs you’ve been seeing are going to triple in the next few years as thousands of stores and restaurants are shuttered.
Reply To Gary North
By James Howard Kunstler on March 3, 2013 6:56 PM
Last week, extreme right-wing, hyper-patriot blogger and “Christian Reconstructionist” Gary North published a piece that bounced around the Web titled “James Howard Kunstler: Foul-Mouthed Apologist for the Good Old Boys.” Gary North was inflamed because I had put out a recent blog inveighing against the chain-store rape of local economies from sea to shining sea. North wrote:
Consider his [JHK's] most recent screed. It begins with an attack on the most successful free market retailing operation on earth, Walmart. He uses Walmart as a representative company for all of the low-price, high-volume box stores. He hates them all.In the United States, millions of customers return day after day to buy at stores like these. But Kunstler, who is an arrogant Leftie elitist, dismisses them as helpless rubes who need protection from price competitive retailers. And who will supply this protection? The Good Old Boys.
My point, of course was that the chain store business model, and WalMart in particular, has destroyed local Main Street economies all over America, as well as the networks of social relations that went with these economies, in which local business owners employed local people and had to take responsibility for how they treated them. The damage to American civic life ought to be self-evident in the desolation of thousands of crumbling traditional downtowns, the extermination of a whole class of local business owners (and the local institutions they cared for), the funneling of business profits out of every local community to a few corporate bank accounts in distant places, as well as the desecration of the once-rural landscape outside our towns, now a uniformly profaned wilderness of parking lots and the tilt-up warehouses of chain-store commerce.
My further point was that the WalMart model of business now faces its own demise as America contends with the realities of a what will prove to be a permanent energy and capital formation crisis, requiring us to downscale our activities and rebuild fine-grained local networks of economic interdependency.
Gary North’s intemperate response to these ideas illustrates everything that has become malignant and dishonorable in conservative politics lately. It also displays a brand of shocking stupidity that bodes darkly for America’s political future. There are many towns across America where WalMart is not just the only place to buy all goods, but the chief employer, too. How is it a good thing for anyone’s home town to be dominated by such a single despotic entity? How does it square with the rhetoric about “liberty” spouted by conservatives? How is it so different in kind from the tyrannical one-party rule of the old soviet system that is the pole star of conservative animus?
WalMart is the largest corporate employer in the USA and most of its rank-and-file store workers barely get paid enough to live on (those with children fall statistically below the official poverty line). They have no control over their working lives, are cruelly deprived of full-time status in order to avoid giving them health insurance, have been subject to lock-ins during late-shifts, and are forced to attend off-hour browbeating (“coaching”) sessions with no pay. WalMart trumpets “made-in-America” propaganda around its stores but buys the majority of its merchandise from foreign countries — over $20 billion in merchandise from China every year, and more from other overseas vendors.
For Gary North, the supposed benefits of “bargain shopping” trump the fantastic damage that this mode of commerce wreaks on the nation. It was some bargain to sacrifice all the local business enterprises in this land, and the careers that went with them, and the incomes they produced, and the choices they represented so that underpaid chain store serfs could save five bucks on a toaster-oven. Gary North writes:
Kunstler is merely one more hapless defender of local business oligopolies. He stands in front of the freight train of price competition, yelling: “Stop!” He will be run over, just as they all have been run over.
Gary North is not being ironic when he characterizes the Americans whose independent businesses, lives, and towns were destroyed by WalMart as “good ole boys.” The owners of all those shuttered mom-and-pop stores along the vacant Main Streets of America were oligarchs?
Gary North is exactly what I have in mind when I refer to the “corn-pone Nazis” who threaten the political future of this country. Either he’s a hostage to his own ideological rigor mortis or he is a genuine fool. He’s certainly a fake patriot. He literally knows not what he actually stands for. There is no precedent for such malign totalitarian nonsense in American history. But it matches the spell that Germany fell under in 1933. And it can happen here, too.
Mark says:
Kunstler never acknowledges the cause of suburban sprawl is white flight not cheap gas. White people would just as well ride bikes and move offices to the Berbs rather then send their kids to school to learn calculus with Shamika.
The problem with retail is the outlet store is local but the prices are national. Without those welfare subsidizes in big city areas where rent is expensive Walmart would have to relocate to the Berbs . So, Kunstler would either mail order catalog or have to fill up his tank.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 8:35 am
SSS says:
I don’t care for Kunstler’s comparison of North’s views to Nazi Germany. Good grief. We’re talking about big box stores and their impact on local economies, not the Waffen SS.
But Kunstler is largely correct. Wal Mart has killed Mom and Pop stores all over America. But I would submit that it started to happen long before Wal Mart was a gleam in Sam Walton’s eye. And I refer specifically to the grocery store business.
In the 1950s and for many decades before, towns and villages from coast to coast were dotted with corner grocery stores. I know my hometown was. A corner grocery store existed about every four to five blocks. All locally owned and operated with loyal customers who lived just a few houses or blocks away. These stores were everywhere!!!!
Then what happened? I’ll tell you. Along came national grocery chains like The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company aka A&P and Acme. Both hit my town at about the same time in the midlle to late 1950s, and one by one, the corner groceries started to fade and close. They simply could not compete with the national grocery companies in both price and selection.
Now, it’s damn near impossible to find one of these Mom and Pop stores anywhere. One such store still exists in my hometown and has actually EXPLODED in size in the past decade. But it is unique in that it is run by Mennonites and has unbelievably good, cheap, locally made fresh food.
So Kunstler is wrong to focus on Wal Mart as the villain. Today’s villain, maybe. But yesterday? How about K Mart, which did its part to destroy local economies and eventually got buried by Sam Walton and company?
This shit of big box stores has been going on for over half a century. If anyone has a “solution” to this aspect of the destructive nature of capitalism, I’m all ears.
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4th March 2013 at 8:39 am
Administrator says:
SSS
The big boxes are in the process of dying. Cheap oil is a requirement of the cheap labor manufacturing in Asia, debt financed, big box suburban existence.
As gasoline and deisel pass $4 a gallon on their way to $5 a gallon, the entire economic model fails. It is already failing as JC Penney, Sears/Kmart, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Radio Shack, etc. prove.
There is no solution. Times they are a changing.
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4th March 2013 at 8:46 am
sensetti says:
When the big box stores are gone this country will be better off.
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4th March 2013 at 8:53 am
flash says:
“First, ethically speaking, why should a town council be given the right to decide who sells what to whom on what terms? Kunstler objects to the outcome of the meetings, not to the meetings as such. He likes it when the Good Old Boys get the town council to pass a law against Walmart, thereby protecting their mark-ups.” Gary “SE” North
What North fails to admit or is possibly ignorant of is the corporate welfare that gives Wal-mart the competitive edge against the good ole’ boys” mark-ups…and to make matter worse the small mom and pops tax dollars are funding their own demise.. GNES
I can’t understand why Lew Rockwell lets this faux free trader North publish on an his site?
He starts shit with vastly superior intellects then runs off to cower like the flea bitten corporatist cur he is…
And JHK ain’t the only internet allegiance booting the morn North is his fickle fascist ass..
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2012/08/gary-north-still-hates-americans.html
Of course, Mr. North doesn’t hold himself accountable to the same standard as he flees from the obvious and inescapable conclusions that are logically dictated by his dogmatic free trade positions. Despite his challenge, I can almost guarantee he won’t address this argument for restricted trade, which transcends economics and applies to Americans, Frenchmen, and Chinese alike. Consider:
1. Free trade, in its true, complete, and intellectually coherent form, is not limited to the free movement of goods, but includes the free movement of capital and labor as well. (Note, for example, that the “invisible judicial line” doesn’t magically become visible when because human bodies are involved.)
2. The difference between domestic economies and the global international economy is not trivial, but is substantive, material, and based on significant genetic, cultural, traditional, and legal differences between various self-identified peoples.
3. Free trade is totally incompatible with national sovereignty, democracy, and self-determination, as well as the existence of independent nation-states with the right and ability to set their own laws according to the preferences of their residents.
4. Therefore, free trade must be opposed by every sovereign, democratic, or self-determined people, be they American, Chinese, German, or Zambian, who wish to preserve themselves as a free and distinct nation possessed of its own culture, traditions, and laws.
I invite Gary North or any other advocate of free trade to dispute or attempt to correct that argument. Now let’s consider the facts. Free trade advocates often claim that there is no reason for any difference between the U.S. domestic economy and the international economy. They believe there should be no more barriers between sovereign nation-states than there are between the several and united American States. And yet, look at the difference between labor mobility in the USA versus the European Union.
In the former EU15, only about 0.1% of the working age population changes its country of residence in a given year. Conversely, in the US, about 3% of the working age population moves to a different state every year,
These institutional and cultural differences suggest comparing internal geographical mobility in the US with the situation within EU Member States rather than between Member States. In doing so, the figures narrow the ‘mobility gap’ between Europe and the US. Between 2000 and 2005, about 1% of the working age population had changed residence each year from one region to another within the EU15 countries, compared to an overall interstate mobility rate of 2.8%-3.4% in the US during the same period of time.”
- Peter Ester and Hubert Krieger, “Comparing labour mobility in Europe and the US: facts and pitfalls”, 2008
What this means is that US workers are about 3x more willing to change their state of residence than European workers are willing to change their region of residence within national borders, and 30x more inclined to change their state of residence than Europeans are inclined to change their country of residence, even though the US state-to-state change likely involves a bigger geographic move than the EU country-to-country one.
It should be noted that increasing this country-to-country labor mobility rate within the EU is not only a major goal of the EU economic advisers, but the explicitly stated reason for this goal is their belief that increased labor mobility is required in order to increase economic growth.
Now, let’s look at what that annual 3 percent intra-US mobility translates to in terms of the overall population. The statistics are as follows for Americans between the ages of 25 and 44:
US overall 50.5 percent
East 54.3 percent
Midwest 65.0 percent
South 47.3 percent
West 40.2 percent
This is why the Midwest has changed much less over the last 40 years than either the East Coast or the West Coast; more Midwesterners stay in the Midwest and maintain their laws and cultural traditions. But more importantly, note what this signifies for the USA if the apostles of free trade were ever able to achieve their goal of permitting international trade to take place on the same terms as American domestic trade in a manner that realized the anticipated economic benefits: very nearly half of all American workers would be expected to leave the USA by the average age of 35!
This vast exodus of young Americans would say nothing, of course, of the hundreds of millions of non-American workers who would be expected to enter the USA, with all of the various consequences to be expected as a result of immigration that is an order of magnitude larger than the current wave.
The logic of free trade is inescapable. It amounts to a choice between a steadily declining living standard if free trade is limited to goods and capital versus the total destruction of the nation and the replacement of a majority of its population within a single lifetime if it is pursued to the full beneficial extent of the concept.
To paraphrase North, if you still refuse to give up the idea of free trade as a desirable means to increase the wealth of nations, then you should at least admit to yourself and others that you favor the total destruction of national sovereignty, the elimination of the U.S. Constitution, and the end of America and other historical nations. It’s time to come clean. You favor the politics of ein Welt, ein Recht, ein Volk.
In much the same way that those who support high tax levels cannot understand the counter-intuitive fact that the higher tax rates do not always lead to higher tax revenues, free trade advocates fail to understand that reducing national trade barriers will not always lead to increased wealth or liberty. If one believes that America was ever any sort of paragon of wealth and freedom, then it is obviously insane to advocate any policy that will cause America to return to the global average with regards to either, even if that policy would tend to raise the global average to some degree.
Labels: free trade, trainwreck
Friday, August 10, 2012
Gary North digs himself deeper
It’s amusing to see North continue flailing about, still avoiding the salient points while casting aspersions and lies on every side in a desperate attempt to distract the reader from the fact that his case is hopeless. And yet, a close reading shows that he knows his case is hopeless, as he is trying to respond to arguments that he dare not engage openly by name. Consider this interesting new assertion and the way it contradicts what he had previously written as well as what he later writes in the very same piece:
In my recent essays on tariffs, in which I have used the metaphors of badges and guns and invisible lines known as borders, I have been attempting to get people to think carefully about the underlying economic principles of free enterprise. I am asking people to think through the presuppositions and implications of their views regarding the way the economy really works and the way the economy ought to work.
Ah, so those invisible lines that are used to delineate the nonexistent nation are merely metaphorical now! He didn’t actually mean to say that nations don’t exist, after all, that would be entirely absurd and would prove my point that he is an intrinsically anti-American globalist.
But he’s lying again, and the only reason he’s trying to claim it is a metaphor is because it blows apart his entire argument… which is why he’s promptly forced to return to the “metaphor” only a few paragraphs later.
They say that they do not believe that the state is the same as the nation. The problem is, most of them still operate in terms of the collective entity known as the nation. They still cling to the idea of the nation-state as the final source of guidance for the economy….
What do you mean, “the nation”? What is this nation?
How does special-interest legislation favoring a handful of domestic manufacturers defend the vaguely defined entity called the nation?
There is a true bait-and-switch operation going on here. Defenders of tariffs present themselves as defenders of the nation, when in fact the nation, from the point of view of economics, is not a collective entity. The nation, from an economic standpoint, is simply a convenient name that we give to people inside invisible judicial lines known as national borders.
But wait a minute? Didn’t Mr. North just say that those invisible lines were metaphors? More importantly, it is clear that the only bait-and-switch taking place here is on North’s part, as he is desperate to conflate the nationalist argument with a statist one. He has the hammer of his anti-statist argument and therefore the problem must be a nail. But it is simply false to claim that the nation is the state, and indeed, only a myopic and untraveled American like North is liable to make such a mistake. Nations are more than judicial constructs or units of Samuelsonian economic calculation, they are genetic and linguistic and they are not only distinct from political states, they predate them.
North tells more porkies when he provides a list of propositions he erroneously claims to be false, which are particularly embarrassing given his claims to be a historian. Consider this one: “Badges plus guns plus sales taxes increase the wealth of nations.”
This isn’t a false proposition. History is perfectly clear on how Rome’s wealth, Great Britain’s wealth, and America’s wealth were all produced by badges, guns, and yes, taxes. Indeed, the observable decline of the USA traces back to the point when it had to begin competing in a world in which it was no longer the only state without a shattered industrial infrastructure. As I have pointed out before, Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy is not a fallacy so long as one breaks the windows in another town and shoots the glazier there. It is clear that North simply doesn’t understand the important difference between the collective wealth of nations and the wealth of an individual nation, much less the nature of the dynamic relationship between the two concepts. Nor does he understand that the free trade he advocates requires the end of the very nations that he simultaneously claims are a) nonexistent and b) the beneficiaries of the wealth produced by free trade.
Instead of addressing the substantive arguments that I and others have offered, such as my economic calculation that it will require the emigration of nearly fifty percent of the U.S. workforce under the age of 40 to generate the same benefits from international free trade that are derived from domestic free trade, North prefers to attack straw men and centuries-old mercantilist arguments. But note that even in the quote from Mises that begins his latest debacle, the roots of my argument can be detected: “International division of labor becomes suspect because it hinders the full use of national sovereignty.”
Translation: Free trade is incompatible with national sovereignty. And international labor mobility is incompatible with the very existence of nations.
Perhaps he’s senile, or perhaps he’s simply an intellectually overmatched coward, but either way, Gary North’s continued attempts to tar all economic nationalists with the statist brush are not only false, they are dishonest. Consider his conclusion, which demonstrates the extent to which he fails to grasp the salient issues:
I do not expect to change the mind of any protectionist. But I would like those people who are the targets of protectionists’ taxation program to recognize that the person making the argument for sales taxes on imports is a mercantilist and a welfare statist. The protectionist will not admit this to himself, and he surely will not admit it to anyone considering his arguments. He will staunchly deny that he is a mercantilist or a welfare statist, but his arguments are those of mercantilism and welfare state economics, so his denials should not be taken seriously.
Of course he would like the modern protectionists to do that… because then he’d have an argument against them! But the arguments being made are most certainly not “those of mercantilism and welfare state economics” as many of them have clearly never been made before! And in light of how feeble and dishonest his performance has been, it is more than a little amusing to see an unconfessed globalist utopian such as North trying to claim that anyone else’s denials should not be taken seriously.
Most of all, I want them to stop claiming that they are believers in Austrian school economics and are staunch defenders of libertarianism.
If belief in international free trade is a prerequisite to believing in Austrian School economics, I have no problem declaring myself a post-Austrian. Mises isn’t Holy Writ after all, and I suspect the Austrian School will be eventually seen as little more than a stepping stone that served as a useful contribution towards a more relevant and reliable post-Austrian economics. As for libertarianism, I will merely point out that liberty cannot exist in the absence of nations. The alternative to nations isn’t liberty, but global totalitarianism and the absolute rule of evil.
Labels: free trade
posted by Vox @ 8/10/2012 07:47:00 AM
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 8:53 am
sensetti says:
For every two jobs Walmart creates three local jobs are lost, its simple math. Walmart is a parasite on a local community.
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.140129#bmb=1
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4th March 2013 at 9:03 am
flash says:
Sorry kids..I didn’t realize I’d copied the entire VD blog post..
It just may be Mom and Pops corner shop could compete with Wal-mart if they had a Uncle Sam sugar teat subsidizing their “free market “operation.
The Federal government busts small business balls with thousands of pages of oppressive regulation then subsidizes their big box corporate competitions using their own tax moneys ..
http://ntdtv.org/en/news/business/2012-01-26/wal-mart-gauging-its-impact-.html
Subsidizing Wal-Mart
“A secret behind Wal-Mart’s rapid expansion in the United States has been its extensive use of public money,” according to an entry on the Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch website.
Direct subsidies to Wal-Mart include grants from local and state government, including over $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land use, and low financing costs.
Illinois ranked number one in the number and total amount of subsidies given to Wal-Mart, with 38 subsidies totaling $153.1 million. Number two was Texas, with 29 subsidies totaling $91 million, followed by Missouri, with 23 subsidies totaling $108.4 million.
Six states provided Wal-Mart with one subsidy, among them Maryland doled out $12.5 million, New Mexico handed out $6.7 million, and Wyoming extended $6.3 million over the past years.
Indirect subsidies are those that arise from Wal-Mart’s health insurance policy, as more than half of that company’s employees are on public assistance programs, such as Medicaid.
In October 2011, Wal-Mart, after having told the public for months that it had upgraded its health care benefits for employees, rolled back its health care program by curtailing coverage for part-time workers and increasing premiums for full-time employees, citing rising costs.
“Walmart has one of the worst policies for health insurance in corporate America. … Walmart encourages employees to get on public assistance, medicaid and public housing to compensate for low wages,” according to an article on the HubPages website.
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4th March 2013 at 9:04 am
dc.sunsets says:
When the Walmarts are gone, this country will BURN.
The only reason it’s not already alight is because food cost inflation has been suppressed by cheaper, poorer quality, bulk foods became available via the Walmart/Woodman’s model.
Proof? Go to a Whole Foods. The food there is probably closer to what Americans ate 40 years ago, and it is VERY expensive compared to the Great Value fodder at Wally World.
So go ahead and pine for Mom & Pop stores. Go ahead and believe you can have men cutting hair at barber shops (like they did when I was a kid) and raising families, owning homes, etc., just like engineers and middle-managers.
It ain’t gonna happen while the Fed colludes with your governing clowns (the ones who you want to enforce tariffs, legislate away Big Box stores, and use their marching boots to wash away the ills you see everywhere) to debase the currency in a con game that enriches the Fed’s owners.
This has been going on for 100 years yet most people scream at the SYMPTOMS, not the disease.
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4th March 2013 at 9:07 am
sangell says:
There are a lot of issues involved here with energy costs perhaps the least important. Financing costs are lower for big chains and they can not only navigate the regulatory maze better than small business but also add to it to keep competitors out.
To use SSS example of the supermarket, an independent store or even a small regional chain is not going to have in house real estate/developers expertise to develop and open new stores. Its access to and cost of financing will be OTOH less and OTOH more expensive than what a Kroger or Walmart faces. It cannot extract the same prices from suppliers. Thus even smaller supermarket chains are dying or being gobbled up by the goliaths.
Flash makes a good point too that ‘Free Trade” seldom applies to services and labor in the same way it does to manufactured goods. The same regulatory ‘friction’ that Charles Hugh Smith writes about is even more restrictive when it comes to services. Can a nurse practitioner write a prescription for a patient? In some states yes, in others no. While McDonalds and KFC can straddle the earth with their restaurants there are no multinational or even national plumbing or electrician companies even if shit flows downhill everywhere and Ohm’s law is universal.
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4th March 2013 at 9:20 am
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
There is no such thing as “free trade” in the FUSA any more. There is no such thing as “the free marketplace of ideas or competition”.
There is only an enlarging Leviathian created by the incestuous merging of the fed.gov and large corporate interests that squeezesout the all the “little people”, that would be you and me.
As just one more example of this, please note that Lord Ovamatoid is appointing Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be the White House Budget Chief. In case you didn’t know, SMB is the head of the WALMART Foundation as well as some experience in the CLINTON administration.
As a female, she adds some much needed “diversity” to the Obongo WH, so I guess she is a “three fer”.
Soooo….with that kind of access and power, just whom interests are going to be promoted here??? Wallmart?? The “little people”? The taxpayers?
Kunstler can yammer on all her wants about the “evils” of big corporate interests, or the rise of a “corn pone Nazi” but at the end of the day, it is the merging of an out of control federal government with huge business interests that is the real problem. This is call FASCISM and it is totally a creation of the LEFT, not the right, just so ya know.
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4th March 2013 at 9:42 am
Olga says:
I’m not sure how the “city managers” of long ago thought that allowing a corporate behemoth into town to siphon off any residual wealth while at best providing some low wage jobs was supposed to financially improve the local community’s picture – was the local component of the “win-win” based exclusively on corporate tax?
The profits from the retail sales – held in private hands – vanishes from the community – to be substituted with the corporate tax that are held in government hands, AFTER any tax breaks are allocated.
Corporate utility rates rarely stay local and the low paying service jobs may or may not be much different from before.
But people have low prices so they spend more – until there is no money left in circulation.
Bigger is always better – it’s the American way.
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4th March 2013 at 10:15 am
Novista says:
JHK has no concept of the South other than his bias. So GN is fair game for him, he reckons. I don’t agree with North some of the time but the makes a case sentence by sentence. Kuntster wears his ideology on his ass, good place for it, and takes the quick, cheap shots hoping no one else will note he is a metrosexual pussy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 10:26 am
harry p. says:
where kunstler misses the point is who is to blame.
any person who has shopped at walmart cannot complain about walmart “taking over.” If one doesn’t want to support the big-box store model then they need to choose to not shop there and be willing to pay more as a result.
one of the best southpark episodes ever makes outstanding points regarding the move away from mom-pop stores and the destructive nature of walmart in the episode “Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes.” I highly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it.
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4th March 2013 at 10:50 am
ernie says:
I guess I still can wrap my head around the inferred solution here. Tariffs on all imports. Not sure how the government stealing even more money from me through tariffs makes me better off. Secondarily, I have a problem with the government telling me who I can purchase from. Just smells like more erosion of freedom to associate with who I want. At end of the day, trade is just the sum of individual decisions. Freedom is the ability for me to make my own decisions whether others perceive as helpful for the Nation/State.
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4th March 2013 at 11:07 am
TeresaE says:
Yeah, I noticed that Hope. Amazing how Walmart went from 95% American made products at the beginning of Clinton’s term, then magically after his “free trade” (or fucking the middle class, which was an IMPLICIT and STATED goal of his administration), both WallyWorld and Clinton went skyhigh in wealth.
People (continue to) miss the point with Walmart. It ISN’T the “loss” of low-paid jobs from mom & pops to Wally’s payroll that has caused the most destruction. It absolutely IS the loss of HIGH PAYING manufacturing jobs (including their tech, freight, IT, accounting, so not “all” menial labor jobs as the politicians were claiming in the 90s) and their GROSSLY overweight local tax bill (federal & state too).
For Walmart, bankrupting the small manufacturers by funding their Chinese competitors whom SELL BELOW COST, was GREAT (for a time) for their bottom line. Nothing like millions of formerly well-paid Americans being FORCED to shop with you because they can’t afford anything else.
As we can see by the Big 3, the same strategy didn’t work out so well for an industry that NEEDS their fellow Americans to be able to afford to buy their foreign-sourced, overpriced, crap.
It amazes me how few people can see the forest through the the trees.
Anyway, Kunstler, bless his liberal, Utopian, snobbish, soul, at least has a symptom right.
Whatever, it has to be completely obvious to all except the most optimistic (or clueless) that NOTHING is going to be “fixed” and soon, the backpedaling and (continued/worse) bad political decisions that will pretend to “fix” it will only bring us down faster.
Between our debt, our “economy” of imports and unnecessary luxuries (like fresh fruit in the winter), our imploding “health” care system, the printing of money/federal spending, and our continuous war-mongering and murder world wide, I get the distinct feeling that much that is to come with be totally unexpected and probably even unimaginable to most.
We have bossed around a world based on our “might” and productive wealth. The productive wealth is gone and we off-shored our necessary defense (and life) suppliers. Of course we still believe that we could get China to produce our insulin and computer chips for us after we are involved in a war they won’t agree to.
JHK cracks me up, just how do we expect a return to “peaceful” living when the world figures out another way to live without us? We are reaching the end of the American consumer supporting the world, once it ends entirely (with Obamacare, entitlements & pensions, banks and regulations, it is only a matter of time now), we are going to find out how much goodwill this world has for our proud, loud, hubristic, narcissistic, disconnected, asses.
My guess is not much. Those that believe should be praying that Nuremberg isn’t revisited upon us, as I fear it will be. Too many babies and innocents killed, once broke, I doubt we will be allowed to sneak away without atoning for our (many and horrific) sins.
Happy Monday y’all.
ps to @Ernie, which would hurt more? A 20% increase in the video game, cell phone, or even Mott’s Apple Sauce, or another 50% decrease in the numbers of youth working and (attempting) to pay for seniors and retired government workers and teachers and firemen and roads?
The global elite, whom have OBVIOUSLY been the only ones to see their actual standard of living and wealth increase with the off shoring of our productive, have sure done a bang up job of perpetuating the propaganda that clouds most of our thinking.
Rather than continue to sit back and watch our country gutted from the productive middle down, I’d make the choice to spend more on only the (quality, safe, healthy, unlike cheap shit from Wallyworld) things I need, instead of sending 75% of our cash to foreigners and executives at the mega-corps and our government.
But, that is just me. Cheap socks are pretty damned important, I know.
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4th March 2013 at 11:36 am
JJ3 says:
I’m sorry but I read Gary North’s article and I agree with his premise. He is analyzing Wal Mart from a free market perspective. He was saying that Wal Mart became the giant that they are today because they were able to utilize their supply chain “vertical integration” strategy to offer the masses cheaper goods. I have shopped at Wal Mart as has everyone on this site. They do offer lower prices. Their store model may have put other Mom and Pop businesses out of business because they couldn’t compete against the lower prices Wal Mart had to offer, but he also points out that these Mom and Pop businesses tried to crowd out competition through their local contacts and their local government laws which were written to favor them. If the Mom and Pop businesses offered goods and services that people wanted at the best prices then they would not have gone out of business due to Wal Mart.
There are plenty of Mom and Pop businesses that survived because when they realized that they could not compete against Wal Mart on price along, they decided to emphasize service or offer products that Wal Mart did not. This is how the free market works, Sam Walton came up with a business strategy that was able to offer lower prices and people voted with their pocketbook. There is nothing inherently evil about Wal Mart.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for a bunch of high school dropouts and losers who cannot find work anywhere else than Wal Mart? Sorry but I don’t. If they don’t want to work for Wal Mart, guess what, they can do what I did and get a higher eduction or start their own business. Wal Mart does not mow lawns or paint houses last time I checked. If people want to work hard there is plenty of money to be made working at other places besides Wal Mart. Oh and they can move to a bigger city if they really want more options.
I don’t really shop at Wal Mart that much anymore, I like Target better as does my wife who does the majority of the shopping. Why? Because the service and atmosphere is better and the prices are fairly comparable on most items. Why is no one railing against Amazon.com? I guess because they utilize a business model where they allow smaller companies to be Amazon affiliaties and make money that way. I’m sure lots of Mom and Pop shops have used Amazon to compete against Wal Mart. The argument is that the free market is the best way to determine which business models are valid because it puts the ultimate decision in the hands of the individual who VOTE with their wallet.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 11:54 am
TeresaE says:
JJ3, you crack me up. If that were true then WHY did they lobby (and buy) Clinton to open up China?
If that were true, why didn’t they build where they were needed, versus where they are gifted decades of tax abatements and other incentives?
Walmart didn’t succeed and grow based on business principles.
They did it based on special favors and graft from (and to) the politicians.
You believe the propaganda the rich guys and their paid for politicians have spewed for years.
Which is why this country is so screwed, Even the smartest guys in the room believe most of the bullshit they are continuously fed.
Bernays underestimated the ability to snow the general public. By a long shot.
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4th March 2013 at 12:28 pm
Stucky says:
Very good comments here. I nice reprieve from that Joo-Mooslim thread!
All the good points have already been made. All I can add is that I divide Walmart Shoppers into 2 groups. Yup, I like things to be black and white …. just like our president.
1. Folks who live paycheck to paycheck. Poor people.
I won’t condemn the poor. As Tevye said, “There’s no shame in being poor, but it’s no great honor either.”. Saving two bucks on a gallon of milk means you have two bucks more for pork & beans. When you are struggling to survive, every penny counts.
2. Everybody else
If you can afford to shop elsewhere, but don’t, just so you can save a nickle …. and thus bring destruction as Kunstler describes so well ….. then you are a fucking douchebag. You are just as greedy as a fuckwad banker … only the scale differs. Shame on you, traitor.
(Yes, I have shopped at Walmart a couple times. Emergency purchases. I can assure you I have spent less than $200 there in my entire life.)
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4th March 2013 at 12:34 pm
AWD says:
What if Kunstler gets his way and the big box stores close down, including Wal Mart?
What if the mom and pop stores re-open?
Where will they get their goods? Not made in the U.S., you can’t buy made in the U.S products anymore. They’d import the same Chinese crap Wal Mart does, but it would be more expensive since they don’t have the economies of scale. The only way Kunstler’s system works is if we get back all the manufacturing we shipped to India, China, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Viet Nam, Bangladesh etc.
It took 25 years to ship 55,000 manufacturing plants out of the country, and will take 25 years to start manufacturing everything over again, and prices would double or triple thanks to unions. We committed to a “service economy” 30 years ago, and now most people have low-paying service jobs. Working at Wal Mart is a service job, sorry. Wal Mart doesn’t produce a damn thing.
Kunstler’s vision is a pipe dream. Until the U.S. produces the goods it consumes, $600 billion will be shipped out of the country every year (trade deficit), our economy will continue to contract, and the job market will continue to be wiped out.
There won’t be anybody with money left to “service”, except the rich people.
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4th March 2013 at 12:50 pm
AWD says:
And let’s not forget, 40% of Wal Mart’s money comes from food stamps/SNAP (taxpayers).
The “merging of an out of control federal government with huge business interests that is the real problem” that HZK talks about.
Pull the SNAP, and all of Kunstler’s wet dreams come true.
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4th March 2013 at 12:54 pm
TeresaE says:
AWD, exactly right.
With one caveat. Even if we manage to rebuild machinery and technology we sold/offshored to China, there are HUGE portions of resources that we can’t buy from anyone EXCEPT China.
American manufacturing of production scale CAN’T come back.
Especially once you throw in the taxes, regulation, legislation, environmental, interest, insurance and punitive punishments that American companies live with and our “competitors” don’t have.
Once Wallyworld goes (and it won’t, it will be the last big guy standing as long as our dollars are worth something), most of the things we consider daily necessities are going to go with it.
Like I said, no easy fixes, damned few viable hard ones either. The decision was made for us.
Enjoy
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4th March 2013 at 12:57 pm
Eddie says:
i see all these comments…Kunstler want this…what if Kunstler get his way….Kunstler misses the point.
Kunstler is calling it like he sees it. If you asked him, I’m pretty sure he would admit that he has no clue what the specifics are of our upcoming collapse. He’s just a guy who sees collapse as an inevitable consequence of the macro forces we have at work today, and he writes about that.
He does often say that he hopes that the collapse may have a silver lining, that we might someday get back some of what we lost, as local production becomes the ONLY production left. I don’t think he thinks that is going to happen in any kind of orderly way.
For those of you who see him as some kind of commie-pinko-fag, I’d invite you to read his novels. They have a strong libertarian bent, imho.
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4th March 2013 at 1:09 pm
Administrator says:
Stuck
Tell us where you shop for only locally produced products. We all want to know how you avoid supporting the global economy.
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4th March 2013 at 1:16 pm
Administrator says:
Everyone should wish Jimmy well.
He emailed me from pre-op in the Albany Medical Center as he was getting ready for cervical decompression surgery for bone spurs impinging on his spinal cord.
I emailed him back and told him to make sure the surgeon wasn’t a NASCAR fan.
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4th March 2013 at 1:20 pm
Huh? says:
Hey, am I crazy, or wasn’t Gary North left looking like a big idiot when all his doom-and-gloom predictions of the end of the world failed to come true in 2000?
Does anyone else remember when Gary North was a big Y2K guy and had a massive website with thousands of links to proof the world was going to end with Y2K? Or when he was on Art Bell declaring the global economy was going to collapse?
After Y2K +1, when nothing happened, his site quietly disappeared and no one heard from him for a long time. I guess he’s rehabilitated himself into a new expert on everything since then…
It’s funny to see him attacking Kunstler now for saying pretty much the same things HE was saying 13 years ago.
You can side with either Kunstler or North, but at least I know North was glaringly wrong on, quite literally, the issue of the century. Kunstler, on the other hand, has made several predictions in his recent books that have come true.
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4th March 2013 at 1:21 pm
Eddie says:
James K. should learn to stay away from doctors. They will be the death of him if he’s not. careful. Hope he has better luck this time than he did with his hip replacement.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, JHK. Mondays would just not be the same without you!
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4th March 2013 at 1:26 pm
Kill Bill says:
Gary North is a Rushdoony theonomist loony.
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4th March 2013 at 1:36 pm
AWD says:
I wonder how must Kunstler’s surgery is costing taxpayers?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 1:45 pm
Stucky says:
Admin
I can’t help it that America manufactures fewer and fewer items. If 90% of socks come from China, and most of the rest from some other Asian country, then of course, I am supporting the global economy.
And Ms. Freud drives a Honda. However, I have convinced her to look at a Buick when the lease is up next year. :mrgreen”
Other than that, one does as much as one can.
— 75% of our food purchases between May and October are made at the local Farmers Market here in town … not only veggies, but locally raised meats, eggs, and dairy products.
— In terms of other food purchases I read labels, every time, without exception. ALL Chink stuff goes back on the shelf. I have started to boycott all other foods of Asian origin. We’ll continue to buy specialty foods from Europe, especially German beer. I’m not perfect.
— When we bought a generator I first did research to find ones made in the USA
— When we replaced kitchen appliances we chose GE and Maytag. Hopefully, they were made mostly in the USA.
—- Clothes, shoes, electronics ….. damn near impossible to find “Made in America”. Not sure what to do about that. But even here, I am strongly anti-Chink. I’d rather buy something from Japan or Korea than China.
Is it enough? I doubt it. Without tring to be a snob, there aren’t enough people like me. Again, one does all one can do … and leave the rest to Obama to fix.
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4th March 2013 at 1:50 pm
Eddie says:
The corporations are all multinational. Even buying GE does nothing to make America great. I paid a lot more taxes last year than GE did.
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4th March 2013 at 1:58 pm
Administrator says:
GE and Maytag made in the USA – LOL!!!!
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4th March 2013 at 2:06 pm
Administrator says:
AWD
Why would you think the surgery on a millionaire would cost the taxpayer money?
I can’t wait for your fact based analysis.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 2:08 pm
Administrator says:
How about your Chinese salmon?
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4th March 2013 at 2:09 pm
Stucky says:
Admin
If you have workable suggestions / alternatives, I’d love to hear them.
Otherwise, Blow Me.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 2:09 pm
Stucky says:
I did not buy the salmon. Ms Freud did on one of her shopping trips without me present.
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4th March 2013 at 2:11 pm
Administrator says:
The solution is to go fuck yourself with your sanctimonious bullshit about saving America by buying your TVs from Target instead of Wal-Mart.
Where is your computer from? America?
Where is your TV from? America?
90% of the shit you use on a daily basis isn’t made in America. You’re pissing into the wind with your useless protest.
You should protest arab oil by only using shale oil from North Dakota.
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4th March 2013 at 2:14 pm
Administrator says:
You don’t know where the fuck your food is coming from.
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4th March 2013 at 2:15 pm
Stucky says:
“You don’t know where the fuck your food is coming from.”
I certainly do when I go to the Farmers Market.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 2:19 pm
Eddie says:
Stucky
I applaud your decision to buy your food at the local farmers market. That’s a start, and it’s a hell of a lot more than most people do. I just wouldn’t go out of my way to support US corporations. They don’t give a fuck about you or any other American.
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4th March 2013 at 2:19 pm
AWD says:
James Howard Kunstler (born on October 19, 1948, New York City, New York)
He will turn 65 in October. Being a millionaire doesn’t prevent you from using Medicare.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 2:22 pm
Stucky says:
“Where is your computer from? America? Where is your TV from? America?” —- Admin
Go buy some reading glasses. I already covered this;
“electronics ….. damn near impossible to find “Made in America”. Not sure what to do about that.”
—- me
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4th March 2013 at 2:22 pm
Administrator says:
AWD
I believe the operation is today, not in October. Don’t be a douchebag.
He most certainly has private medical insurance.
Just because you hate his guts, doen’t give you the right to make shit up without me kicking you in the balls.
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4th March 2013 at 2:26 pm
Stucky says:
” …. 90% of the shit you use on a daily basis isn’t made in America. You’re pissing into the wind with your useless protest. …”
OK, fine. I’ll do absolutely nothing from here on out. I won’t even try. It’s all completely and totally worthless.
What the fuck … I might as well go the OTHER way. If and when I do find the 10% item made in the USA, I’ll put THAT back, and buy some Chinese shit instead.
Any other suggestions?
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4th March 2013 at 2:27 pm
Administrator says:
Do you fill your tank at the local Farmer’s market with locally produced ethanol?
Just because you’re surrounded by 50 refineries spewing pollution doesn’t mean your fuel was made in America.
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4th March 2013 at 2:29 pm
AWD says:
He looks pretty old to me. But he is a millionaire.
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4th March 2013 at 2:29 pm
Maddie's Mom says:
@Stuck,
Yep, We do what we can.
From socks to furniture, I spend a good deal of time searching for US-made.
I’m looking to the Amish to custom build a lovely buffet and hutch for me. Knowing it was made by folks in this country will double the enjoyment of it for me.
So sorry, China, Viet Nam, etc…..
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4th March 2013 at 2:37 pm
TeresaE says:
Stucky says: “…OK, fine. I’ll do absolutely nothing from here on out. I won’t even try. It’s all completely and totally worthless. …”
Exactly Stuchenmeister.
This exactly illustrates a great point about human nature, the “all or nothing” approach.
I cannot avoid foreign made products, or foreign sourced products, or foreign natural resources, this isn’t 1900 and it IS (for now) the way of the world.
But I CAN choose to do SOMETHING anyway.
I CAN choose with whom I spend the money I earn.
It doesn’t
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4th March 2013 at 2:37 pm
TPC says:
I shop at Target instead of Wal-mart because the clientele is at least tolerable, as are the employees.
These days the prices are identical.
There is no silver bullet for this country’s economic woes, it would take a few decades to untangle the mess and begin righting the ship.
We don’t have 30 years.
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4th March 2013 at 2:38 pm
Stucky says:
“The solution is to go fuck yourself with your sanctimonious bullshit ” —– Admin
Wow.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 2:38 pm
Administrator says:
There is nothing that can be done to reverse the course of this country. The big box retailers are dying a slow methodical death. Eddie described the situation as Kunstler has laid out in his books. People will be forced to make a living of some sort within 10 miles of their homes. They will either succeed or die. There will be nothing coming from China once the cost of fuel rises to the point where it is no longer economical to ship shit from 10,000 miles away and transport it by trucks across the country.
There are no solutions. My suggestion is to stick your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.
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4th March 2013 at 2:44 pm
Administrator says:
Are you really offended after telling me to blow myself?
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4th March 2013 at 2:46 pm
TeresaE says:
Stucky says: “…OK, fine. I’ll do absolutely nothing from here on out. I won’t even try. It’s all completely and totally worthless. …”
Exactly Stuchenmeister.
This exactly illustrates a great point about human nature, the “all or nothing” approach.
I cannot avoid foreign made products, or foreign sourced products, or foreign natural resources, this isn’t 1900 and it IS (for now) the way of the world.
But I CAN choose to do SOMETHING anyway.
I CAN choose the corporations that I spend the money I earn.
My choices don’t need to “work” or have an “effect” (but it does, however little) or even mean a freaking thing in the big picture (like tuna and radioactive poisoning), for it to be the right thing for ME to do so that I can live with myself.
I once worked for a guy that was “all or nothing,” he turned down millions and millions in sales because he couldn’t force major companies to do what he wanted. So, complete failure versus smaller win. Bye-bye nose.
I’m a pragmatist, I will ALWAYS choose the smaller win. Winning for me is to not spend my money in Walmart unless I absolutely, positively, have no other choice. Winning for me is to eat out less, cook (or avoid it, I’m big on peanut butter sandwiches) more, trade my time and my money and avoid convenience and cheap and not shop in Walmart, or a number of other major corporations
I’m told I’m “stupid” for spending a little more and shopping elsewhere, whatever. I choose not to feed the beast and that makes my life happier.
The “doesn’t matter” argument reminds me of the morality versus religion argument. Just like those that think that if you don’t believe in religion, you can’t behave (or be expected to behave) morally. My hub’s Catholic family is always quick to point out that I can’t be “moral” because I refuse to bow to their 2000 year old rituals and belief system created by an entirely different culture and society for an entirely different era.
Do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do. Since I don’t allow myself an Ollie, Ollie, Oxenfree, that is what I believe. When I feel I’ve done the wrong thing (become enlightened), I CHOOSE to try and fix my wrong, but, since I don’t do nothing and go asking a third party for forgiveness, righting a wrong is somehow more amoral than doing nothing but saying, “sorry.”
Do what you can, don’t feel guilty about the things you can’t do. I know you do this.
kisses.
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4th March 2013 at 2:50 pm
Thinker says:
Stucky, not to burst any bubbles, but a lot of what you buy at a farmer’s market is purchased in bulk from produce aggregators/warehouses, repackaged into bushel baskets and then sold to the public as if it’s grown on the seller’s land. NOT ALL, mind you, but a majority of it. In some cases, the aggregators get it from farmer auctions, where real producers bring their wholesale lots to sell and the farmer’s market sellers buy a few boxes at a time. But a lot of it is also product that large stores like Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, etc. refuse to take due to age/quality, package weight issues, freight spills and inventory control.
It’s one way we make money in the off-season. Trucking companies give us a call that a shipment of ____ (limes, watermelons, tomatoes, whatever) was just rejected at the WM distribution center 10 miles away. Can we take it? If it’s an issue of packaging weight, we ‘rework’ the product, bringing each bag of limes or clam shell of strawberries (as an example) up to weight. The cases are restacked, palletized, shrink wrapped and redelivered the next day. We (and our employees) get paid for the labor and transportation, costs which go back to either the shipper, packer or grower, depending on where the problem occurred.
All the stuff that’s left over after repacking, or the product that WM refuses to take back because of decay, etc. gets sent to the produce aggregators, who sell to restaurants, processors and those little mom & pop operations who set them up on farmer’s market tables.
So check to see if the people you’re buying from actually grow the stuff. It may actually be from Mexico or Chile, just taken out of the box so you don’t know for sure.
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4th March 2013 at 2:53 pm
TeresaE says:
dammit, (partial) double post, first one ignore, sorry.
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4th March 2013 at 2:55 pm
JJ3 says:
TeresaE – you may be correct that Wal Mart got in bed with government to allow them to bend the rules to enhance their monopolistic ways. When I was a kid, their was K Mart, and then Wal Mart came along and put all of the Kmarts out of business. They just did Kmarts business model one better. So at first Wal Mart had to convince people to shop there instead of Kmart(at least in my neck of the woods) and once they did everyone loved it and went and shopped there.
This was in the early 90′s. There may have even been some American made goods left at that point, however once Wal Mart got big enough they used the government to help write laws that favored them I’m sure. That is what happens in all cases with government and big business, they get big enough to use the government to help prevent competition. I am an advocate for no government for this reason, amongst many.
I do not mean to defend Wal Mart, I am only trying to defend the free market. At one point, Wal Mart was an example of the wonders of the free market, that is no longer so. It seems to me that they put the Kmarts of the world out of business, not necessarily the Mom and Pop stores.
Yes, once they expanded into haircuts and eyecare, etc, they definitely put some local businesses out. Anyways, TeresaE I appreciate your comments, and I hear what you are saying, but I just prefer to defend the free market in any instance.
I don’t think this is the same Gary North that was worried about Y2K, I could be wrong, but I think this Gary North has been a staunch libertarian for a while. I read his articles on Lew Rockwell a couple of times a week.
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4th March 2013 at 2:56 pm
TPC says:
JHK to the south:
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4th March 2013 at 2:58 pm
TPC says:
” I am only trying to defend the free market.”
Where did you find that? A text book? Because it sure as fuck isn’t to be found in any country today.
The rich write the laws to benefit them, and drive out competition. That is not the fee market, or capitalism at work.
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4th March 2013 at 3:26 pm
AWD says:
He voted for Obama, and calls anyone who is conservative “corn-pone Nazis”. I’m sure he calls people racist at the drop of a hat. Therefore, a typical liberal. Yawn.
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4th March 2013 at 3:36 pm
Stucky says:
Admin
Offended? Just a little.
You tell me ‘blow me’ often enough … usually after I post a pic and some wise ass comment …. I think it’s funny. My ‘blow me’ was meant in a similar vein … not as a dirty nasty insult.
You’ve been grouchy lately. I think you’re stressed out. Aren’t we all?
You’re almost certaintly right. There’s’ nothing we can do to change course. We might as well bend over and take it up the ass.
Now Thinker tells me that what I purchase at the Farmers Market probably not even that is grown local. I’m tempted to tell him to go fuck himself. fuckit. Can’t win even when one tries.
I think I’ll just go jerk off to some well oiled big tiity pics whole moaning SAH’s name. shit. I think she’s out the West Coast. So even the 4-knuckle shuffle wouldn’t be local.
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4th March 2013 at 5:15 pm
Stucky says:
JJ3
The Y2k Gary North and this Gary North are one and the same.
They’re both assholes.
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4th March 2013 at 5:23 pm
llpoh says:
Admin? Cranky? Really? And here he is in his happy shirt:
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4th March 2013 at 5:30 pm
AWD says:
“You’ve been grouchy lately. I think you’re stressed out. Aren’t we all?”
Anger turned inward is depression. Anyone that is actually awake and processing the massive amounts of bullshit thrown our way daily can only become angry and/or depressed. Feeling like you’re unable to change what is happening makes your feel helpless, which leads to depression. Depression turned outward is anger. It’s a vicious cycle. Humor and exercise are the best antidotes. Unfortunately, most people turn to food, iphones booze and T.V. instead.
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4th March 2013 at 5:33 pm
AWD says:
Lipoh,
Nice picture of a typical baby boomer. No wonder we’re fucked.
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4th March 2013 at 5:34 pm
TPC says:
“Nice picture of a typical baby boomer. No wonder we’re fucked.”
Aw thats cute, AWD is trying to cheer stucky up by giving him something to be angry over, rather than just depressed.
This place is so warm and fuzzy, you guys make me sick.
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4th March 2013 at 5:43 pm
AWD says:
An example of the vicious cycle
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4th March 2013 at 5:53 pm
SSS says:
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone posts. I don’t give a flying fuck about the “reputation” of TBP. It’s a fucking blog that I don’t even want to run.”
—-Admin, on another thread preceding this one
“You’ve been grouchy lately.”
—-Stucky, in a comment above
What gave you your first clue, Stucky? I think we need to click on a few ads. Pardon me while I do so.
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4th March 2013 at 6:38 pm
Zarathustra says:
SSS, “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone posts. I don’t give a flying fuck about the “reputation” of TBP. It’s a fucking blog that I don’t even want to run.”
—-Admin, on another thread preceding this one
Grouchy? Perhaps although I haven’t noticed it. The above isn’t any change in policy. Months ago during a radio interview Admin described TBP as a “free for all” and he has never shown any interest in moderating it.
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4th March 2013 at 6:42 pm
Zarathustra says:
I fucking hate WalMart. Until last year I was very proud that I had never stepped foot on one. That ended when my gf and I were driving back from visiting her daughter in Seattle. There was a Walmart right off the freeway and she wanted to stop to replace some shitty chink snap-on sunglasses that broke under store warranty.
I hate shopping too.
So we went in and she immediately makes a bullseye for the bananas. “This is a really good price,” she said. I thought, “Fuck, I thought we were just going to exchange the sunglasses and had nightmare visions of following her around this huge fucking store that I so viscerally detest.”
I started to bitch about it. She got really pissed at me. Wouldn’t allow me to stand next to her. After that episode, I hated WalMart even more.
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4th March 2013 at 6:51 pm
SSS says:
Zara
Stucky and I are certified virtual mind readers. “It’s a fucking blog that I don’t even want to run,” states Admin. Something is amiss.
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4th March 2013 at 6:52 pm
AWD says:
“Something is amiss”
It took a spy to figure that out?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 6:56 pm
crazyivan says:
This is fucking great!
Everyone here is going fucking nuts.
FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCKERS
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4th March 2013 at 7:06 pm
Stucky says:
The REAL reason Admin is frustrated
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4th March 2013 at 7:16 pm
Stucky says:
One more ….. just for SAH ….. she loves this stuff
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4th March 2013 at 7:19 pm
Zarathustra says:
SSS, he was probably just irritated that he received several emails bitching about ‘lil ol’ me.
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4th March 2013 at 7:19 pm
Olga says:
At the NC Farmers Market the local farmers sell in bays in a particular building – the resellers sell their produce in another building – but it isn’t obvious until it’s pointed out.
I try to use the local book stores, hardware stores, gift and specialty shops – and of course the local pubs and restaurants – whenever possible to keep my money in the community.
I was told even if I used a card to pay for dinner/drinks it was best to leave the tip in cash if possible. I try to use as cash – versus a card – whenever practical.
These are small things to be sure but I believe it all helps.
Until I woke up in 2008 the bumper sticker “Think Global, Act Local” didn’t resonate like it does now.
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4th March 2013 at 7:29 pm
Zarathustra says:
Olga, “Until I woke up in 2008 the bumper sticker “Think Global, Act Local” didn’t resonate like it does now.”
That reminds me of another bumper sticker I used to see occasionally, “Eat the Rich.” I found it puerile and offensive back then. Less so now.
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4th March 2013 at 7:32 pm
taxSlave says:
This post made uncontrollable oily discharge come out my anus.
Something fishy is going on.
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4th March 2013 at 7:34 pm
llpoh says:
Let’s see, running TBP requires:
- lots of time to find and post articles
- money to keep it running
- patience with respect to all shit throwing that happens, some of it aired squarely at the Admin
- a cheerful disposition to offset the bleakness of the topics on discussion
- willingness to trudge along and do the best possible thing even knowing odds are slim that anything done will make even a smidgeon of difference
- relatively few posters given the huge readership, which must be disappointing at times
Gee, I wonder why the Admin must get down at times.
The only bit he wrote yesterday that I disagreed with even a little is the point he made about “not even knowing us”. I beg to differ. After all of this time, there are folks on here I believe I know. I know and like the Admin, and Stuck, and Muck, and SSS, and AWD and ragman and Yojimbo, although we have bitched slapped each other on occassion, as families are sometimes wont to do.
I have grieved for the loss of Smokey, and hope he is out there somewhere. I miss Punk and Colma and Newjunkie. I know RE, with mixed emotions. I admire Teresa and Mary and Hope and Pirate Jo and Maddie’s Mom, and of course Avalon, not the least for putting up with our shit. I watch for the relative newcomers Napari and leobeer and Chicago and TPC and others. I barely tolerate flash, but he is family – the black sheep of the family who farts at the table, but nonetheless is family.
There are some I am at times ambivalent about – Eddie, and CrazyIvan and Dave come to mind. They too are family, and make for interesting times.
Then there are those like Zarathustra and SAH – to whom I say a warm and sincere “go fuck yourselves”. But they are part of the place, too, much as every city has its slum.
It is an awful pain in the ass to run this blog. I have pissed the Admin off perhaps more than any other poster, and we have had some doozies. He is still wrong about the pinkie ring wearing OWS folks, but that will resume at another time.
But I would very much hate to see him abandon his good work. It is family around here, and I for one do no the people that post here. And I think the Admin does, too. Maybe not by sight, but by essence.
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4th March 2013 at 7:46 pm
Zarathustra says:
Leave it to Llpoh to make a sub-thread regarding Admin all about himself. Llpoh, nobody gives a fuck who you “think” you know on this site, much less like.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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4th March 2013 at 7:57 pm
Administrator says:
I’m cranky because I spent most of the weekend in the ICU at Phoenixville Hospital watching my father-in-law fighting for his life on a respirator while my wife tried to hold it together in front of my kids.
It makes our little disagreements on TBP seem somewhat inconsequential.
I’m sorry if I’ve offended any of the Big Dogs or little dogs.
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4th March 2013 at 7:57 pm
Olga says:
Yes – Eat the Rich – that one resonates more with each year.
The available wealth is no longer tied to nations – and no longer available to a nations’ citizens. The Wealth is global, the acquisition is about power and the nation states – and any attendant wealth – is a thing of the past.
Being lucky enough to be born into a rich country is no longer any sort of ticket – it’s just an opportunity to see that nation’s wealth strip mined by the powerful, well-connected individuals who look upon the world as their playground, their safety deposit box, their personal piggy bank – and to hell with what would in another day and time be considered their fellow citizens.
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4th March 2013 at 7:59 pm
llpoh says:
Admin – I thank you for your service, for all you do and have done. You never need think I hold you in anything but high regard and I have the utmost respect for what you are doing.
I am so sorry to here about what is happening. I am sure that I am not alone in passing best wishes and hopes to Avalon, you, and your entire family in this time of difficulty. My thoughts will be with you.
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4th March 2013 at 8:02 pm
llpoh says:
Z- you really are an ignorant cunt.
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4th March 2013 at 8:03 pm
Administrator says:
No need to click on the ads for me to earn money. I found a company where I sell them ad space for a fixed monthly fee. The advertisers are paying me between $20 and $30 per ad per month.
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4th March 2013 at 8:03 pm
AWD says:
What a nightmare. My condolences, whatever they’re worth. Watching somebody you know fight for life on a respirator blows. I hope your wife is okay. Maybe take some time off, it might help.
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4th March 2013 at 8:20 pm
Eddie says:
Really sorry about your father-in-law, Jim. Your family is in my thoughts.
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4th March 2013 at 8:27 pm
Stucky says:
Jim, me dear internet friend, I am so sorry and sad to read about Avalon’s dad. You all are in my thoughts,
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4th March 2013 at 9:28 pm
Stucky says:
Let’s help Jim with his TBP duties.
Those of us with posting abilities …. how about we each post at least one article per day? It’s not that hard.
Thx
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4th March 2013 at 9:32 pm
Stucky says:
Zara
My former internet hottie …. give it a rest for a while, please.
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4th March 2013 at 9:36 pm
SSS says:
Avalon
I hope everything works out for the best, whatever that may be, for your father. You are blessed with a strong family, to include your hubby. Count on them and use them.
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4th March 2013 at 9:38 pm
Stucky says:
llpoh
+100 for you post at 7:46
With ONE exception, I appreciate everyone here as family, even when I strongly disagree with them. Even, Zara. I truly miss some of the folks you mentioned who no longer post here. I hate it when people leave.
(I won’t mention the one exception …. but, you would approve)
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4th March 2013 at 9:44 pm
Spaceman says:
From a new comer:
This is why I come home after 10-12 hours of work and read the articles and comments on this site.
Because as near as I can tell, you’re real people, with real problems and real opinions..
That’s what real life is.
Admin, I’ll say a prayer for your family.
Yes, I do believe in a God, anybody got a problem with that?
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4th March 2013 at 11:32 pm
llpoh says:
Spacemen – glad to see you are a hypocrite. Your God must be so proud.
I distinctly remember you telling me that I should have died at birth. As much as I have battled with some folks, I would never suggest they should have died or been injured or wished them any bad personal outcomes whatsoever. Quite the contrary. But I am not a religious man, and do not have the high standards of one such as yourself.
I appreciate your kind words to the Admin and his, but you crossed a line with that sort of crack, and it will not be forgotten. You start shooting your mouth off without knowing the players, the history, the contributions, their general positions on the world, on the Constitution, on liberty and freedom, etc.
And then you come out with offering prayers “I do believe in God” after having wished someone dead.
So, yes, I have a problem with what you are saying. And I am sure if you hang around, I will have the opportunity to revisit your hypocracy in some detail.
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4th March 2013 at 12:14 am
llpoh says:
Spaceman — I almost forgot
Me, at my desk, talking to you.
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4th March 2013 at 12:42 am
flash says:
Wow..what a thread.
admin , avalon, I feel your pain and offer my sincerest sympathies for the suffering of your loved one.
I have a younger brother dying at this time and it’s pretty tough not to be able to do damn thing about it.
I’ll remember your family in my prayers and may God bless you and yours.
Loopy, thanks for the kinds words..In the future I’ll try to refrain form farting at the table.
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4th March 2013 at 7:03 am
TPC says:
” I watch for the relative newcomers Napari and leobeer and Chicago and TPC and others.”
Hmmmm, I’ve been here for a bit over a year (first posts were Anonymous), but I think given my age I’ll always be viewed as a newbie.
Dats OK!
Actual picture of TPC this weekend:
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4th March 2013 at 10:42 am
TPC says:
Now I know why admin is depressed.
WordPress sucks.
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4th March 2013 at 10:43 am
Eyeful says:
I believe there is a website, http://www.stillmadeinamerica.com. I got my cutlery, Rada Cutlery, through that site. Their knives worked a lot better than the cheap-o wallyworld PRC-made knives that broke apart upon use. Also, the Amish store, Lehmans, has some made in the USA stuff.
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4th March 2013 at 11:31 am
Spaceman says:
llpoh
If I was out of line with my comment, I apologise. I did not mean what I said about you dying in child birth to be taken literally.
I am honored to be on your shit list.
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4th March 2013 at 5:38 pm
lpoh says:
Spaceman – well alrighty then. Maybe there is hope for you.
Here is the thing – people here are multi-layered (except for Z who is just bitter and hate filled).
The issue that pissed you off was over Dorner. As a rule, I hate cops. Truly I do. Necessary evil and all that. and I hate them over-extending their power, which they do as a rule. And they should not be judge/jury/executioner. They have rights and all that.
But re Dorner ketting cornered, my view is based on the law. The law says, generally, that police can use lethal force to capture/kill a suspect that is using lethal force, so long as innocents are protected, if there is a chance he might escape and hurt someone, etc. So, best I can tell, and I am sure that courts will uphold this, the police were 100% within established law in doing whatever necessary to take down Dorner. The mistake they made was they lied about burning him out. If me, I would have shouted it from the rooftop – “Hell yeah, we burnt down that house. We wanted to arrest him and it seemed prudent”. But they thought, I am sure, it would have been bad PR.
So, perhaps we can bury the hatchet, at leat for the moment, although the site needs a few good flamefests to keep the monkeys entertained. I just will hold fire to see what you are about before I go all nasty and such. Thanks for the comment above.
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4th March 2013 at 5:50 pm
Spaceman says:
lpoh
I get the point you’re making. Whether the courts would agree or not, we’ll never know. All I’m asking for is a little honesty from them. Sure, they were pissed and scared of what Dorner was going to do next. But shooting at and wounding innocent civilians and trying to hide what they did just frustrates the hell out of me.
Enough said, you’re welcome.
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4th March 2013 at 6:20 pm
Stucky says:
Spaceman
You little pussy. llpoh says some shit and you fold like a cheap suit. You will never be a big dog.
llpoh
How do you like that pic I posted of you? I think ‘bulldog’ fits you just fine. But then I read your response to Spaceman … you know, where you go all Love&Forgiveness on him.
Updated most recent pic of llpoh
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4th March 2013 at 6:36 pm
Stucky says:
Updated most recent pic of llpoh
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4th March 2013 at 6:37 pm
llpoh says:
Stuck – I didn’t even notice it was a bulldog, as the likeness was near identical to the actual me. I did notice it was you who posted it tho, and revenge is a dish best served cold.
Glad to see wordpress is still causing problems.
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4th March 2013 at 6:43 pm
llpoh says:
Spaceman – you didn’t fold. You hndled things appropriately. Hwever, I would get some of Stuck while it is on offer – he is trying to trick you, and you really ned to show him wears the pants.
Actual photo of Stuck:
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4th March 2013 at 6:47 pm
Spaceman says:
Stucky
You shaved your beard off…!
Calling me a pussy is a little like calling the kettle black there sweety.
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4th March 2013 at 6:52 pm
Stucky says:
Spaceman
Calling me a pussy is unwise. Battling me and llpoh (he WOULD rush to my aid) would be the end of you.
However, I do have an irrational deathly fear of 1) all spiders 2) mice. I guess I’m 5% pussy, at best.
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4th March 2013 at 8:14 pm
AWD says:
Spaceman and great, unexplored universe (of moobs)
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4th March 2013 at 8:26 pm
llpoh says:
We old dogs do like to pile on a newbie. There is always that probability. Newbies just gotta survive a few pilings on, and the world then becomes their oyster. Survival rate varies in direct proportion to the size of the newbies balls. Newbies need a pair of these around here:
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4th March 2013 at 8:39 pm
llpoh says:
Hell, even old guard TBP squirrels are some kind of tough:
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4th March 2013 at 8:43 pm
llpoh says:
Admin Squirrel:
AWD Squirrel:
TPC squirrel and friends:
Stucky Squirrel:
SSS Squirrel:
LLPOH Squirrel:
AKA Squirrel:
flash Squirrel:
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4th March 2013 at 8:58 pm
llpoh says:
Newbie Squirrels:
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4th March 2013 at 9:16 pm
AWD says:
Zarathustra squirrel
Crazy Ivan squirrel
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4th March 2013 at 9:18 pm
avalon says:
Thanks very much for the kind words, thoughts, and prayers, I appreciate it.
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4th March 2013 at 7:17 am
ThePessimisticChemist says:
TPC squirrel:
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4th March 2013 at 10:27 am