Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes.

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

If this doesn’t piss you off, nothing will.  Let’s just solve all our problems by making the BIG LIE official policy of the Government (as if it isn’t already!).  Now the FED is going to set it QE4EVA policy based on unemployment – which figures are just as big lies as the “official” CPI rate which understates inflation by a minimum of 7%  (Official CPI year over year: 2%, true year over year is 9%).  So what do we do?  Modify the way the CPI is figured, yet once again, so any adjustments to payments made based on the “official” CPI will be lower – saving the Goobermint money and putting the greased pole to anyone receiving benefits.

Now benefits from Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, Obamaphones, SNAP and Social Security are going to have to be reformed and probably cut.  But WHY IN HELL CAN’T THE GOVERNMENT BE HONEST AND SAY, “Hey guys and girls, we’re going broke and can’t afford these entitlements.” instead of LYING about it, not reducing Gooberment spending, fraud and abuse, cut Federal salaries (especially the automatic pay raises CONgress awarded themselves) and everyone share the pain?  

This “suggestion” sucks and John Rubino calls them on it..

 

Hat tip to  John Rubino

 

By the age of 12 or so, most people have learned through bitter experience that dishonesty is hard to pull off, because one lie tends to require more lies, until the complexity of the situation exceeds the liar’s ability keep everything straight.

This is just as true for governments as for individuals, especially when it comes to money. A currency that holds its value over long periods of time is nice but restrictive, because it limits a government’s ability to fight multiple wars and buy votes with generous social programs. So every government eventually resorts to monetary inflation, which is a combination of theft and deceit – or fraud, as it’s known in legal circles. By creating large amounts of new currency, a country lowers the value of each piece of currency in the hands of citizens, thus secretly taxing them to run the government. Then, to mask the effects of this stealth tax, governments distort their reported economic statistics to portray a world that’s healthier than the one most people experience. The goal is to siphon off as much wealth as possible while keeping the victims docile for as long as possible. The longer the con runs, the richer the people at the top become.

Eventually the gap between government reports and individual experience grows so wide that the lie is revealed and the scam ends, either through some sort of revolution or a financial collapse or both. A sign that we’re approaching that point is the following article, in which Time Magazine advocates making a heretofore-unspoken part of the con explicit government policy:

Fixing Inflation Adjustments Is the Smart Way to Shrink the Deficit

Let’s face it: There’s no way to reduce America’s budget deficit that won’t hurt someone, and that pain can’t be limited only to the rich. A payroll tax, passed in 2010, is scheduled to expire at the end of this year, for example, and that will cost middle-class households anywhere from $600 to $1,200. In addition, more than 20 million taxpayers could become subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), adding several hundred dollars to their annual tax bills on average. On the spending side, budget cuts would not only reduce government services but could also eventually cost tens of thousands of Americans their jobs.

But there are other ways to make progress on the deficit over the long term that would be a lot less painful and would also be politically viable. In my last column, I wrote about the estimated $30 billion a year that the Federal government could save by getting really tough on fraud. Even more could be done, though, by changing the inflation adjustments for government spending.

Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) are used throughout the U.S. economy – for union contracts and income tax brackets, as well as for government entitlements. It may seem only fair to adjust contracts and government programs for inflation – otherwise recipients would see their standard of living steadily erode over time. But there are a lot of ways to adjust for inflation. Moreover, the most commonly used gauge, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), may overstate the adjustment needed. Switching to a more conservative measure could save as much as $200 billion over the coming decade.

The most commonly proposed change is to replace the CPI with another index called the “chained CPI.” Basically, inflation is calculated based on putting together a basket of commonly bought goods and services and then tracking the price increases for them. In reality, though, people don’t consistently buy the same things. If one particular item – steak, for example – gets very expensive, people will typically buy something cheaper instead, such as chicken. The chained CPI takes into account the substitution of cheaper items for things that get too expensive, and is therefore arguably more accurate than the regular CPI. It also rises a little bit more slowly.

The result of replacing the regular CPI with the chained CPI would be slightly slower increases in monthly Social Security payments and some other government benefits. The new measure would also modestly boost tax revenues. The reason: tax brackets are indexed to inflation and would ratchet up more slowly if the chained CPI were used to adjust them. For many taxpayers, that would mean that some of their income would fall in a higher bracket.

Further savings could come from changing the formula used to calculate initial Social Security benefits. Because Social Security was originally designed to mimic a pension plan rather than look like a welfare entitlement, initial benefits are pegged to retirees’ earnings over their working lives. Because the general standard of living improves over time, wages and salaries normally outpace inflation – and so do initial Social Security benefits. (After benefits have begun, further increases are based on a more usual cost-of-living adjustment.) Some economists have long argued for altering the formula for initial benefits. Keeping the current more generous earnings-based calculation for lower-income retirees but switching to an inflation-based calculation for the more-affluent half of the population could eliminate half of the Social Security deficit over the next 75 years.

Such fixes to benefit plans are not uncontroversial. When a recent Republican budget proposal included changes to the way the Federal government calculates inflation, the idea was swiftly rejected by some Democrats. Opponents of the idea objected that retirees face higher inflation than the average American because of health-care costs and that some of the tax increases would fall on the middle class. It’s true, of course, that altering inflation adjustments will limit future benefit increases and cause an upward creep in income taxes. But the idea that the Federal deficit can be brought down to sustainable levels without anyone giving up anything is simply unrealistic. Hiking tax rates on the rich alone will raise enough revenue to cut the deficit only by about 8%. In the end, simple arithmetic ensures that the bulk of deficit reduction will come from the middle class – the challenge is to minimize the pain.

Unfortunately, tinkering with inflation adjustments will be little help with other runaway costs – most significantly health care, which presents even greater long-term budget problems than Social Security does. Advances in medicine often make treatment more expensive. In addition, health care is labor intensive, and in all service sectors it’s hard to offset rising labor costs with the sort of productivity gains that can be achieved in manufacturing. Doctors can only see so many patients an hour, teachers can only correct so many papers, and there’s a limit to how fast a pianist can play the minute waltz.

But where rising costs are chiefly the result of inflation adjustments, fine-tuning those mechanisms may be the least painful way to start bringing down the long-term deficit. The spending cuts that are currently scheduled to go into effect next year in the absence of a budget deal look horrific and could result in 7% to 9% reductions in a broad range of Federal programs. Surely it seems more rational to minimize the need for such sudden, deep, and indiscriminate cuts in the near term by accepting smaller increases in government spending over the coming decades.

Some thoughts:
This is a perfect example of how lying sometimes corrupts both liar and victim. The honest approach to a situation where there’s not enough wealth would be to explain that everything from the military empire to the welfare state will henceforth have to live smaller. But that’s both hard to say and hard to hear, which makes the lie relatively painless for both sides. Just keep telling citizens that they’ll get everything they expect, while actually giving them a little less each year. Government gets the inflation-generated resources it wants, and the recipients of government spending get to pretend for a while longer that they’re taken care of. The problem is pushed into the future for tomorrow’s leaders and the children of today’s recipients to deal with.

Put more clearly, US voters are enabling the liars because – despite the mounting evidence that the lies are coming at our expense – we prefer the comfort of those lies to the harsh reality of no more free money for the lifestyles we thought were our birthright.

The result of dishonest public policy being enabled by voters in denial is a corrupt society, where lying – as in the article reprinted above – becomes acceptable public policy. We’re not far from the old Soviet joke, “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”

IS MONEY THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL???

 

There was an opinion stated on the TBP in the last day or two about “Money being the root of all evil.” and all that crap. Here are a few musings on the matter.

 

Actually, money is a very useful invention and lies at the base of our “barely is” and “slowly shrinking” prosperity. The bad part is the human tendency to foul its’ own nest, which we are doing in so many and varied ways from printing fiat money and spending it first (that’s the 1st Rule of Government – spend it first!) to polluting any and everything we touch with oil, waste heat products, feces, fertilizer and plastic crap to using up antique aquifer water (a few hundred million years old) so fast that within the lifetimes of our great grand children, farmers’ wells in the corn and wheat belts will be dry, dry, dry. Maybe whatever the “money” is then will be sufficient to pipe in water from Canada. Or perhaps things will be warm enough by then to do the farming in Canada, who knows..

The human animal is just a remarkably shrewd, not very smart, upright ape with very selfish tendencies. Of course, there are exceptions to the “not so smart” but, in all, as a race, our IQ’s have been dropping for 4,000 years. This produces an entire world wide population of beings who, in general, only think of today – maybe tonight as well – especially if sex is involved — but absolutely no farther. The short term, instant gratification mode is glaringly present in all aspects of human behavior from shoplifting to politics to excessive extraction of natural resources.

That’s why “kick the can” is universally preferred to really fixing anything when it’s gone wrong.

Paint over it, move it over, rearrange the chairs, weld that broken strut (poorly), just fill it with putty and so on and so on.

But “money” is not the cause of all this present and coming agony. We are the cause of it. Now how is that?

The 2012 elections should have plainly written in the sky in all CAPS for everyone to see that cares to look up from their video game is that some 200 years ago a thrifty Scottish fellow by the name of Alexander Fraser Tytler, had a startling insight into the nature of short term human thinking, so well proved out today. Right now, in fact.. It goes as follows:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

I’m not so sure about the “monarchy” conclusion reached at the end – but a dictatorship or fascist form of government is obviously the most likely as civil order finally implodes when the Free Shit stops — as it mathematically must at some point when lack of resources, technology and productivity fail to keep us even with the “Take from the productive and give to the non-productive” proclivity that exists in broad reaches of the world today – especially in the USA and the EU.

Another fellow – a bit later in time – Alexis de Tocqueville by name, had a slightly different view of corruption via political pollution of money:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the publics’ money”.

And then we have Will Rodgers who summed it all up, “A fool and his money are soon elected.”

Ending with Margaret Thatcher, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”

Put them all together and you have been provided sufficient foresight into the simple fact that money is not the root of all evil but that man is all root, trunk and branch; through his actions, the functions of money are distorted and once distortion (i.e. fiat inflation of any ilk) has gained a foothold, eventual debasement and collapse of the fiat money are inevitable.

Please remember: unbacked credit and money created out of thin air are exactly the same thing and the collapse of the debt it “finances” which will happen simply depends on the confidence of those people, wherever and whomever they are, who accept the fiat money/credit in exchange for real property, goods and services.

When the people and producers, in their inimitable fashion, lose confidence in the fiat credit/money to purchase real goods and services in an orderly fashion, the immediate response is to try and find something else to use for money – in a black market..

Gresham’s Law (well proven) states, “Bad money drives out good money.” and makes the good money vanish from view into the black market where some great bargains can be had. But you must be careful the Government doesn’t catch you because by then, the Government has installed draconian currency controls, confiscatory taxes and other robber baron methods to fleece businesses, the sheeple and outlaw anything but their own fiat garbage as a medium of exchange!.. You take their worthless money at the point of a gun or be mightily punished for not doing so. Be advised that this is the true path into penury and has happened throughout history time and time again.

History is exceptionally cruel in this respect in that when debasement of money, fiat and unbacked “fantasy credit” is issued that will never be repaid begins to happen, there is no historical incidence or record of it ever ending except in disaster. NEVER.

It always collapses just like any other Ponzi scheme, even when done on a worldwide multinational basis. We are watching the twisting and turning of Central Banks and Governments world wide trying frantically to get out of debt by going deeper into debt, papering over default by selling themselves bonds they printed themselves and all other varieties of kinky fiscal idiocy that will eventually blow away in the wind, leaving all concerned dead and dying at the end of the rope they strung for themselves to hang by.

This fiscal exercise in futility is then followed by a general lowering of living standards, a die off of significant proportions and, in a burst of glory, the fabled Man on The White Horse barges in (with his loyal troops) to the “rescue” and we all find ourselves living under martial law at a much, much lower living standard and with a Military fascist promising to liberate us from our own folly. Same old, same old. This has played out time after time down the tortuous trail of history and our situation will be no different this time either.

The bitch is in the timing. My comment on a thread elsewhere about it being a long and agonizing scream of misery followed by a “Bang” applies.

In the l-o-n-g run, if anyone is interested in it, we are totally screwed as a race – humanity that is, not some subset of it – and money has nothing to do with it. We, however, are smarter than the dinosaurs and other “less intelligent” species that have vanished before us through accident, cosmic indifference or climate change. We are currently engineering our own extinction ourselves which will have the exact same effect as enjoyed by all those species preceding us to extinction. We, in our particularly twisted ways, are hurrying other lesser species to extinction every day as we continue to rape and pillage various environments for greater “economic” glory.

Think about this: 98% of all documented species that ever dwelled on the planet are now extinct.  What makes anyone think we’re “too special” to trot right along after the other 98%, especially since we are destroying our own ecosystem?

There isn’t a chance in Hell that the human race, in all its’ glory, varied self-centered goals, wants and perceived “needs” will be willing as a world wide group to agree on anything, much less coordinated action to prevent or mitigate what is roaring down the pike toward us all. Which is a planet 2-6 degrees Celsius hotter than today with all the misery that will cause from draughts, extreme hurricanes, violent monsoons and a huge rise in ocean levels that will flood a billion people from their homes and cities. But that’s day after tomorrow and of no interest to the teeming masses of sheeple that cannot even understand it, much less bring any pressure on ruling bodies to arrest the trend..

But “money” is not to be blamed for any of it.

Our own distortion, misuse, over use and stupid use of so many things in Nature, both the human sort and that belonging to Mother’s Nature is to blame for every bit of it and as Pogo said, “We have found the enemy and he is us!”.

 

End

A Surrender of Sorts

Hat tip to Fred on Everything

 

We are doomed, saith the preacher, and should accommodate ourselves to it. In times of growing governmental power, protestation at some point becomes futile. Little is served by standing in front of a charging Mongol army and shouting, “No! You should reconsider! Perhaps some other course would be advisable. Let’s parley….”

Complaint is useless. It is too late. It booteth not. We are done. The Mongols ride. America comes apart at the seams. The country turns into something altogether new, new for America.

In high school, I read Shirer, first Berlin Diary and then The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I had little idea what I was reading. A naval base in rural Virginia is not a hotbed of historical understanding, or any understanding. I knew nothing of Weimar or the Spartacists or the Treaty of Versailles. Still, I dimly grasped that a theretofore civilized country with great rapidity turned into something horrible. It was not an evolutionary change, like the Industrial Revolution. Brahms to Goebbels in a decade.

Something alike happens in America, and one wonders—I wonder, anyway—how can this be? In little more than a decade, the Constitution has died, the economy welters in irreversible decline, we have perpetual war, all power lies in the hands of the executive, the police are supreme, and a surveillance beyond Orwell’s imaginings falls into place.

These observations are now commonplace. It is almost boring to read of them—yet they proceed apace. Where we go, we go fast. Already against the authorities there is no recourse. Should you talk back to the police, you will spend the night in jail.

I sometimes wonder whether there is not some malign force in play, some diabolical miasma with a sense of humor that, having brought the Soviet Union down, amuses itself by turning the United States into the same thing. Or maybe it is just that if any state that can become totalitarian, it will.

Or maybe it was just a chance simultaneity of enabling events. Communism died in China and thus ceased to protect America from the withering competition of a populous, intelligent, and industrious race. The internet and easy transportation allowed American companies to abandon ship and head for cheaper climes. They did. Huge countries unexpectedly began a meteoric rise (if meteors rise), chiefly the BRICs. Big once-American corporations became free-floating transnational beings, loyal only to themselves. Open an apparently American laptop and you find that the screen and memory come from Korea, the hard drive from Malaya, the CPU from an Intel fab in Ireland, the whole thing assembled in Taiwan. America cannot stanch the bleeding. Corporations rule the country, and go whither they will.

Have you ever thrown a stick for a dog, which loves to chase it but, when he comes back with it, cannot bring himself to give it to you to throw again, although that is what he wants? The United States cannot let go of its empire. It fights war after war, constantly losing, bleeding money it doesn’t have, because—because it can’t let go. The military itself, an upgraded WWII force, badly unsuited to modern war, cannot let go of its glorious carriers and obsolescent combat aircraft. Governments too can suffer from arteriosclerosis.

And now the Pentagon growls fiercely at China, like an aging terrier at a Rottweiler pup. The world changes. Minds do not. Some minds do not.

Domestically, the storm likewise approaches. Desperation encourages desperate measures, a hard line, and invites the notorious Man on a Horse.

Economically, the country has trapped itself. It is bankrupt in all but admission, but it cannot spend more prudently. If it cuts welfare in the cities, riots will ensure and elections be lost. If it cuts the bloated federal bureaucracy, a form of welfare, the dismissed will add to an already dangerously high number of the unemployed. And elections will be lost.

Cut the military? It and its parasitic industries are so large, so deeply embedded in the fabric of the country, so rife with influential people with families to feed, that reductions are not possible. The suggestion of even minor and usually fraudulent cuts is greeted by predictions of dire but unspecified consequences. Minor cuts are not what are needed.

The dog cannot let go.

It is said that democracy depends on an informed public. This is to say that democracy is impossible. In the American case, blank ignorance of anything outside the borders leaves people easily manipulable. The genius of the American political system is that it is not necessary to suppress inconvenient information, but only to keep it off television. So few people will encounter it as not to matter.

Giving people the choice between Candidate A and Candidate A, neither of whom addresses the real problems of the nation, is to grant them the influence they would have had in the Habsburg Empire. But it keeps them quiet.

It would be interesting to ask the general public: “Which of the following Arab countries is suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons? (1) Turkey (2) Pakistan (3) Iran (4) Afghanistan (5) None of the above.”

Nonsense is ever a firm basis for politics. The American public believes itself to be free, to have a spirit of rugged individualism, to live in a democracy admired by the world. In fact Americans are not particularly free and becoming less so by the minute, are not individualists but herd consumers formed by a controlled press, and do not live in a democracy.

And totalitarianism comes. This is no longer the assertion of those dropped on their heads as children. Daily we read of more weaponry for the police, more surveillance authorized by courts, more unlegislated powers for Homeland Security. Currency controls fall into place to prevent people from fleeing the country with their assets.

In this direction, I think, lies the future. It is perfectly possible to store every email sent, every purchase made except by cash, every withdrawal of cash; to institute airport-style “security” for trains and buses; to monitor any conversation by telephone; automatically to track cell phones and read license plates and store it all. We are close. We are very close.

Protesting is pointless. No governmental mechanism prevents the headlong progress of things that would have sickened Thomas Jefferson. In the presidential debates neither Candidate A nor Candidate A has said, so far as I know, a word about the tightening watchfulness.

The only reasonable approach is to lie down and enjoy it. Which I shall do.

A World of Hurt

Our debt crises.. Our welfare crises. You hear it every day.. How do we deal with it? What can we do to solve it? What will we do to get it behind us? Even temporarily?

What will save us from a Supreme Court that has legalized “elections to the highest bidder” and a President and Congress that has trashed the Constitution at every turn? Who will save us from a spiral of every higher unemployment? Since the Government can’t “fix” anything, only one thing can.

In one word, WAR.

Will going to war truly solve our economic malaise? Our exceptionally negative Debt to GDP ratio? The counterfeiting of currency and credit by the Federal Reserve? The continued trashing of our Constitutional rights?

Of course not, but it will accomplish one critical thing. It will frighten the vast majority of the non-thinking (ever poorer people) into getting behind the Federal Government in a “patriotic” manner that convinces and coerces the same uninformed non-thinking mass of middle and lower class American citizens that “sacrifice” and “doing without” is both the appropriate and least thing they can do in order to support America’s efforts to fight a War.. This will be encouraged and demanded in all the old fashioned ways by the Federal Government.

Who we fight is totally unimportant and not germane to the point (but I’ll speculate later). The fact is that the Federal, State and local governments of this country have over spent and promised themselves into a totally non-tenable position of being completely unable to fulfill commitments made to the general public, retirees, union members, government, private and public employees and welfare recipients. With 47% (probably 50% now) of the general population receiving some sort of Governmental assistance or payments how could they cover the bill other than print money to do it? Who else would pay for it? How about 50% of the population works full time, if they could find a job, to pay the other 50%?? I don’t think so..

These promises include Medicare with unfunded liabilities of $39 trillion(1), Medicaid at $84 trillion(2), a mere $74 billion for some 150 plus programs for “school aid”- a real bargain that(3), unfunded Federal Employee retirement fund equal to $1.6 trillion(4), and it doesn’t count the over 30% of the Federal budget that is spent supporting a military that is multiples in size of all the other nations of the world! (PS: That 30% also does not include the multitude of huge corporations that feed off the military to perform R&D, build weapons and ammunition and drones and such for the military’s use!)..

This cash is furnished, in a significant part, by the Federal Reserve which purchases – today – more than 40% of the Treasury Bonds and Bills issued by the U. S. Treasury to fake the assets (in the Fed books) to back our fiat currency in order to pay all those unfunded liabilities, military budgets, contractors, federal employee salaries, foreign aid, educational loan guarantees (that are about to default as the next bubble), bailouts to banks who would fail without them and everything else you can possibly think of. But don’t want to think about.

I’d say things are far beyond control. These small insignificant sums are just a sample of the few hundred $trillions of the total unfunded liabilities of the Federal, State and local governmental entities of these sorry wrinkled, scabby, busted United States. When you add them ALL UP, it totals over $120 trillion and climbing. This does not count the liabilities of mortgage backed securities (which are being purchased monthly a $90 billion rate by the Federal Reserve from Zombie banks) or the literally hundreds of $trillions of credit default swaps and other phantom securities issued by those zombie banks and insurance companies, who collect fees with every sale and know, that, if the counter-party can’t pay off, well, the Federal Reserve will! After all, they’ve paid off on everything else the crooked the banks have done, right? Anyone in jail or prosecuted? Nope! I hope Eric Holder sleeps well at night.

Can this absolutely obscene pile of debt ever be paid off? Of course not. It’s a Grand Oversized Cancerous Ponzi Scheme of massive proportions and is doomed to collapse upon itself sooner than later.

Ah, you say! Collapse is never going to happen in our America! We are too smart, too industrious, too vigorous and besides, the Federal Government is way too intelligent and too powerful to ever allow that to happen!

Ha! The jokes on you! It not only can collapse, it will collapse. The only question is when, not if. We, as a nation of “consumers” are no longer too smart, too industrious, too vigorous, too responsible or too self-reliant to fall on our collective faces.

History is literally stuffed full of fiat money collapse (debt default) from ancient Roman coin clipping to Zimbabwe’s 6.5 sextillion percent inflation rate in November, 2008. There is no historical exception to the rule that once a currency is converted to a fiat instrument (i.e. printed with no commodity backing), it ends up being inflated and depreciated to its’ intrinsic value; i.e. the value of the paper it’s printed on, or less.

The U. S. Dollar is a fiat currency, backed by nothing and will indeed end up being worth the paper it’s printed on.

It matter not one whit whether you use the term “printed” money or “credit” money, it’s all the same. Digital, paper or plastic, anything that is used to purchase real hard goods of any kind from land to toilet paper is “money”. As the money supply expands and loses value and everything costs more to bring home in a bag or stake out as a house foundation, you are being taxed, continuously and stealthily with nothing you can do about it. How do you vote “NO” on inflation? How do you vote “NO” on the subject of your purchasing power being reduced day after day, week after week, year after year? Why does the American public put up with such fraud and outright stealth stealing and dishonesty by the Federal Government?

#1. Because most of the uninformed “general” public has as much knowledge of economics as a tick. All they know is the price of gasoline, beer and their smart phone bill. Sorry, but the truth hurts sometime.

#2. The American public can no longer agree on the time of day, much less take sides on a vital issue such as printing money! Almost half of the “public” gets handouts from the Federal Government anyhow, so why should they grump? What they really deserve is going to be what they get.

So it’s tough to defend yourself. You can purchase real assets (like agricultural land, gold or silver) or you can get mad. Sooner or later, there will be a sufficient number of citizens of this totally busted United States who get mad that it will attract the attention of the Powers That Be.. The Elite. Those who pull the puppet strings that make the President, Congresspeople and the Judicial System dance.

Then comes trouble. Cars burn, store fronts get windows broken, tires are lit off in the street, a few banks are knocked over and Walmart closes some stores because the shop lifting gets too much to bear on their bottom line. The natives grow restless and torch a few houses and buildings. We look Greek to the rest of the world. Horrors!

The Elite does not appreciate nor desire more than a few percent of the citizens to get upset – after all, about 10% of the population drove the American Revolution back in 1776 – the rest being either Loyalists to the Crown or just typical disinterested people who wanted to be left alone to get on with it. 10% was not a lot of people back in 1776. Today, 10% would be about 3.3 million rabble-rousers that could make a lot of noise, break a lot of windows, roll over a whole bunch of cars and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

So, as far as The Powers that Be are concerned, “something” must be done.

Since the country is bankrupt to start with, we now have reached the point of no return. Inflation is probably running higher than tolerable (or the 10% wouldn’t be ticked off!), cities are weeping about their budgets and many are “bankruptured”, perhaps a state or two is busted and awaiting bailouts that will never come.. What to do? What to do?

Ah Haa! The Power’s That Be come upon a solution that has provided a psuedo-bail out for many a country throughout history that was high and dry and flat broke (think Germany in 1933). Think America in 1939. History begins to echo.

Let’s start a War! Lot’s of targets out there. Syria’s still being a pain in the butt but we can’t touch Russia or China – they’re nuke city. But we need to find someone who is beatable “over there”, after all, we sure don’t want to fight a war on United States’ soil. After all, the last time we did that, we killed over a half million citizens and it took almost three generations to get over it and, by the way, we’re still suffering the aftermath of that civil war today.

I know! Let’s go after Iran and Syria both! That way, we can perhaps drag Turkey into it and not really tick off anyone else over there that we haven’t already made froth at the mouth! Saudi Arabia, being Wahabi Muslim anyhow, and everyone else in the area being Sunni Muslim, no one will object too strenuously if we kill off some Shiites if we’re careful not to blow up too many mosques..

Perhaps a few “false flag” situations are staged to get the American public’s attention and suitable propaganda is broadcast to them that makes a convincing case that “if we don’t fight this war, civilization is lost” or some such baloney.

Plus, the Powers That Be figure, this kind of WAR can capture the imagination of the millions of the unthinking masses that dwell in the middle reaches of the U. S. A. . If we tell them often enough and loud enough and long enough, they will believe that this WAR is necessary for their own wellbeing as well as freedom of the poor and oppressed, those who are persecuted for their religion, human rights, women’s freedom and education, blah, blah, blah ( shhhh!Never mention gasoline or oil or the fact we’re broke!). We can rally the ignorant dummies into accepting gas rationing, food rationing, perhaps a few brown outs here and there for good measure and make sure that all the Main Street Media stress that anyone not for this WAR is unpatriotic and not deserving of any handouts from the Federal Government. Besides, if you’re not for us, you’re against us and we just might throw you under the jail using NDAA to imprison you as a terrorist! Not to mention monitoring what TV channels you watch and who you talk to about what on the telephone!

Also, as a good upstanding citizen of the U. S. A., don’t forget that saying anything or doing anything that leads the Government to believe that you are not 100% behind this Just and Necessary Military Action will result in great displeasure upon you – far beyond an ordinary grope at the airport – and you will be labeled non-patriotic and banned from most of the rationed goodies we’ve let everyone else have. Bad on you if you don’t think like your Government does!

Oh, and by the way, because of the WAR EFFORT, we’ll have to cut down on Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, also Welfare, Unemployment, Education Assistance, School Lunches (and about a thousand other give-aways) in order to support our military in fighting this just and righteous WAR. You may also have to put up with gas rationing (since no one will take dollars for oil any more — shhhhh!) and grocery rationing (Chile just said “No dollars for grapes!” shhhhh!) but it’s all for a great NATIONAL CAUSE of WAR which we have to win because (1) “because” and (2) “because” and (3) “because” this too!

Do you think this is all too far fetched to believe? Sure you do! Just like the German’s believed in 1933 that when Hitler came to power, well, he wouldn’t do anything that went against fairness and goodness. Oh, he might toss a few Jews into jail to fulfill a campaign promise – but nothing evil, right?

I’m sorry to disabuse you of your belief, but Governments at all levels and all times has one thing in mind; their continued survival and command of power to control you and you and you. Once in power, power is what they care about and power is the dope that intoxicates those Elites and Powers That Be because power is the thing that allows those same Elites and Powers That Be to rape and pillage the financial and industrial systems to their benefit.

Their only desire, upon getting such power is to dictate to all those below them on the hierarchical ladder, as much as possible, what they do, how they do it, when they do it and even why they can’t do it and, oh by the way, pay me while you do it.

If you don’t believe this or understand it, you have not been living in these United States for the past 40 years. Ever since 1971 when “Tricky Dick” Nixon slammed the international gold window shut, defaulting on United States international obligations to redeem our dollars in gold, we have been on the ever steepening slope to insolvency. That one 1971 default (check the charts!) has led to our downfall, removing the very last limiting factor for spending more than we produce that Congress and the Executive Branches of Government has taken advantage of to the extreme ever since.

Debt started to accumulate in 1972 and has increased at an exponential and hence unsustainable rate ever since. At the moment, it rises almost vertically and will, in the near future, S-T-O-P. At that point comes civil unrest and a knee-jerk reaction leading to WAR to distract the masses. “Shared” sacrifice (and reduction of “freebies”) will be the word and while men die, the can will be kicked down the road just a little further.

 

And that will fail too.

End

(1)http://cnsnews.com/news/article/medicare-faces-unfunded-liability-386t-or-328404-each-us-household
(2)http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/16/report-federal-unfunded-liabilities-total-84-trillion/
(3) http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/k-12-education-subsidies
(4) http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-11/federal-retirement-pension-benefits/50592474/1
(5)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe

COINTELPRO Techniques for Dilution, Misdirection and Control of an Internet Forum

Hat tip to George Washington and Zerohedge for this one..

To be informed may allow you recognize the techniques when they’re used on blog you are interested in.

_______________________________________________________________________

We have repeatedly addressed the topic of disruption of logical debate on the Internet.

An anonymous writer posted an important new report on disruption at Pastebin. It is in the style of a leaked law enforcement memo, although we cannot vouch for its authenticity as a document produced by a whistleblower. However, we have seen these techniques repeatedly used to disrupt Internet debate, and so – even if only copying the style of a real memo – it contains valuable information which all web user should know.

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum.

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a ‘uncontrolled forum.’

Technique #1 – ‘FORUM SLIDING’

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum – it can be quickly removed from public view by ‘forum sliding.’ In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to ‘age.’ Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a ‘forum slide.’ The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a ‘forum slide’ and ‘flush’ the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then ‘replying’ to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting ‘slides’ down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

Technique #2 – ‘CONSENSUS CRACKING’

A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at www.abovetopsecret.com) is ‘consensus cracking.’ To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made – but the critical point is that it has a VERY WEAK PREMISE without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is IMPERATIVE that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger ‘evidence’ or disinformation in your favour is slowly ‘seeded in.’ Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then ‘abort’ the consensus cracking by initiating a ‘forum slide.’

Technique #3 – ‘TOPIC DILUTION’

Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a ‘RESOURCE BURN.’ By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a ‘gossip mode.’ In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to ‘drive in the wedge.’ By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator.

Technique #4 – ‘INFORMATION COLLECTION’

Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a ‘show you mine so me yours’ posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your ‘favourite weapon’ and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite ‘technique of operation.’ From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

Technique #5 – ‘ANGER TROLLING’

Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes – without the requirement to ‘stage’ a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to ‘lead’ the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you ‘do not care what the authorities think!!’ inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution.

Technique #6 – ‘GAINING FULL CONTROL’

It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings – and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the ‘ultimate victory’ as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a ‘honey pot’ gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes.

CONCLUSION

Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ.

END

Thoughts on Roman Circuses (and ours)

From history, we can glean more than just the bare facts of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. First, one has to understand that before Rome slowly toppled into dust, it was a very prosperous place. There was distinct upper, middle, lower and slave classes and, all in all, there was more than enough to eat and time to spare for numerous sports. Also, the Roman Legions were the largest and strongest, best trained and fed, best equipped with hardware aplenty of any nation-state-empire in the world at that time. Very similar, in fact to the U.S.A. (less a lot of technology).

roman empire america

Like all civilizations, once in a position of being fairly rich, having food aplenty and the good life, the better classes of Roman citizens got bored with it all. I mean how often can you discuss the latest conquest of some unknown and barbaric place, long removed from Rome or a new and flavorsome dish imported for some outpost of the Empire, or the latest dalliance of the current Emperor with some Egyptian babe.

So, what to do. A bored lower, middle and upper class of citizens tend to get into mischief when not productively employed and, with having slaves in good supply, can afford a minimal workload. As time progressed and the spoils of Empire Building and Conquering, Inc. flowed into Imperial Rome, there was a natural impulse on the part of the ruling elite to pass along a bit more of the spoils to the populous lest they become jealous or perhaps a bit rowdy at the obvious top-heavy distribution of the goodies. The elites lived very well in Imperial Rome.

But food and trinkets will stretch only so far—ah, what to do after you’ve eaten your fill, tummy full and had a nap? Well, you play, that’s what. You need something to fill those idle full-stomached hours and so the elite once again come to the rescue.

Let’s have some circuses come to town. Starting out with traveling entertainment groups, shows were put on of many sorts from dancing and singing to – ah – traveling trollops who entertained in their own inimitable way.

And another thing. We’ve got plenty of captured enemy soldiers, why don’t we built a pit, toss a few into it – well armed with, perhaps, some novel weapons like nets and forks and cudgels and see who comes out alive! What a wonderful idea. While we’re at it, there are a few pesky Christians we have to house and feed, perhaps they might like to play with some of those marvelous feline creatures our Legions have captured and sent back from places afar. We’ll starve the kitties for a few days, put a small group of trouble making religious bigots into the pit and see if they can play with a hungry cat or two. Such fun!

The smell of blood, guts and glory in the afternoon would be just the thing to entertain those bored citizens and keep their mind off the fact that we (the elite) are robbing them blind while doling out just enough for the lesser classes to keep them quiet, satiated and out of trouble.

And so the grand Colosseum and other assorted playgrounds were constructed to provide a location for circuses while markets were built to provide free food and handouts to those of lower wealth and standing.

roman colosseum

Does anything about this description ring a faint bell?

Let’s pop our trusty time machine forward a few thousand years to, let’s say, 2012 CE. (for those who wonder about the “C.E.”, that’s scientific notation for “Current Era”. Prior to year zero, it becomes “B. C. E.” for “Before Current Era” thereby erasing any Christian influence from our dating system. This is in wide and accepted use now in scientific circles.)

In 2012 in the Nation called “America”, we have some interesting and disturbing parallels to ancient Rome.

Such as, you ask? Oh, let us do a few comparisons.

In America, as in Rome, the elites are promising the middle and lower classes more and more bribes (food stamps, welfare, disability, housing subsidies, unemployment checks, social security, free medical care and so on and so on) to stay quiet and behave.

As with Rome, this was only successful until the food, circuses, graft, and thievery caused such a drain on the treasury that the Roman Legions found themselves running short of funding and consequently shrank a bit, thereby reducing the booty shipped back home. This, in turn, reduced the freebies to be distributed to the “needy”. A viscous circle was then in place in which each cut to the military caused a drop in booty that caused the military to shrink and Rome itself to become a Lesser Power with Lesser Influence on its world. After all, we can’t cut the freebies to the “needy” so money is diverted from other activities (can you spell “clipping” and dilution of gold and silver from the coinage or as we might say, “inflation”?) to cover the ever increasing costs of bread and circuses and military.

In our miserable case, American elites can only promise and pay for freebies to the masses as long as other nations of the world keep buying Treasury debt and the purchases of Federal debt by the Federal Reserve do not become so excessive that the rest of the world (and American citizens) lose confidence in our veracity and begin to think of the U.S. Government as merely a group of thieves and knaves, unworthy of their further donations of hard earned (or printed) cash. Which, of course, they already are and just are not branded as such. But they are about to be.

At the same time, American circuses are in full swing across the land of the not-so-free and the home of the responsible-no-more.

Thanks to the ever advancing thing called technology, clever humans have invented virtual circuses; circuses that require no tents, no clowns, no bearded ladies, no strong men or midgets, no motordrome with motorcycles roaring, no ferris wheel or tilt-a-whirl or cotton candy or too heavy bottles to knock over with a too light a ball. Real gladiators need not apply.

Oh no!! Our circuses are virtual in that you carry them around with you, by the hundreds, in your pocket or purse or have it on your desktop. You are now – whether rich, middle class or poor, working or not – always within instant reach of your virtual circus.

Within that virtual circus lies unlimited feasts of every kind: games, blogs, movies, tweets and books of faces, bank accounts and grocery stores, every retailer on the planet, Russian TV and – horrors – blogs (for those who yearn for news not to be found on our toothless and pap-filled U.S. mass media), maps and translators, idiots and morons, sages and teachers of every level and veracity.

It is an infinite circus, running 24 hours a day, 8 days a week and you can spend an infinite amount of time browsing the sweet and bitter end of it at no charge. (Those sites that have the temerity to charge admission can safely be ignored.)

Now, does that beat a Christian being munched by a tiger or two hulks beating each other to the death? Well, perhaps not the later as professional wrestling is one of the most popular events for the masses to gobble – so maybe even totally fake and choreographed gladiators still have a place in the proletariat heart.

I personally believe that the ever evolving circus (next comes 3D! and perhaps a touch screen that works in reverse?) beats the living bejeebus out of a Roman version and is, as a consequence, contributing to the destruction of the human spirit. Why work when your food and cave are furnished to you by a benevolent nanny Government which leaves you to be entertained by your virtual circus (access to which is probably paid for by that nanny caregiver as well)???

Why become self-sufficient and independent amid all this largess? Paid for, of course, by borrowing from foreigners and a generation or two down the line who won’t know what hit them until far too late. Such fun!

Perhaps we are indeed on the cusp of a Romanesque disaster, a slow motion collapse that took Rome several hundreds of years to do, getting poorer and poorer and more violent and less populated as time goes on.

History will certainly repeat, but never the same way twice.

This time, the very framework of those circuses – what they exist on and in – will enable the fall of the current empire(s) to be much swifter and just as violent and deadly. Our ability to communicate worldwide in a flash at the the speed of light enables information – both good and bad – to be heard and seen round the Earth in mere milliseconds and the only delay is the relative slowness of citizens to find, read or watch and comprehend the disaster that will tip it all into the pit.

So here we stand, on the edge, citizens mostly well fed, clothed, housed and most of all, thoroughly entertained.

What happens to all of us when the plug is pulled?

The Positive Power of Crisis

by Charles Hugh Smith..

Only in crisis do human beings actually change anything.


If there is any demarcation with profound implications going forward, it isn’t the line between the 1% and the 99% or the line dividing the Status Quo into two safely complicit ideological camps: it is the divide between those who squarely face the burden of knowing the present is unsustainable and those who flee into the comforts of denial. Those who accept the burden of knowing are part of the solution, those who cling to denial are part of the problem.

Those who accept the burden of knowing do not necessarily have answers, but they are alert to alternatives and potential solutions. Those in denial can only hope that reality can be buried for a while longer

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[img]http://imagesize.financialsense.com/http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u567/images/2012/exponential-crisis.jpg[/img]

Thus we have pronouncements that “the euro is irreversible,” that progress is being made, and so on. Nothing has been fixed, but those clinging to denial are comforted that crisis has been pushed forward once again.

Pushing problems under the rug doesn’t solve them; they only get worse. This is the positive power of crisis: only in crisis do human beings actually change.

As long as “enablers” are around to protect them from the consequences of their actions and choices, addicts are free to pursue their destructive (to themselves and others) ways. The addicts can be sociopaths or they can be “normal;” the unifying characteristic is their terror in facing the end of the Status Quo, even when the Status Quo is patently destructive and unsustainable.

In the Status Quo, the “enablers” include everyone who gains if the Status Quo continues unchanged, as they are hoping to collect their share of the unpayable promises that have been issued to buy political support or silence, i.e. complicity.

The “handlers and enforcers” of the neofeudal Status Quo–the political and financial Elites and their Upper Caste of managers and apparatchiks–are consciously shoving problems under the rug, in the hopes that some sort of unknown magic will restore the elixir of “growth” that has reliably bailed out the corrupt, increasingly fragile skimming operation (the Status Quo).

The Internet boom bailed it out in the 1990s, and the global housing bubble bailed it out in the 2000s. Now the skimming operation has run out of miracles, and its true nature–it is fundamentally a cargo-cult–has been revealed. Central bankers and their political toadies are in effect praying for a miraculous return of prosperity by painting radio dials on rocks and dancing around the campfire late at night.

The process of shoving structural problems under the rug takes two forms: one is to manipulate data and news flow to “manage perceptions” that all is well, that the Elites have the will and power to force the system back to “set point.” The Machine’s visible failure to do so after four years of ceaseless “fixes,” stopgaps, reassurances, pronouncements and increases in complexity suggests not that it has the power to do so, but that it has lost the ability to repair the boilers with policy/intervention duct-tape.

The other is propaganda: announcing that the latest “fix” will do the trick, or more perniciously, that the present crisis is not an “unrecognized Depression” but merely another “business cycle” recession. Human habituate rather quickly to a range of “normal,” and so the substitution of manipulation for accountability becomes “normal” over time.

The “new normal” isn’t just a decline in purchasing power and employment; it is the slow loss of institutional legitimacy as the lies and obfuscations pile up.

But since the underlying dynamics are continuing to expand, masking the problems only increases the fragility and vulnerability of the system as the extremes are pushed ever farther out the curve.

For example: if too much leverage is the problem, the Status Quo solution is to increase leverage and hide the increase in opaque derivatives, offshore banking accounts and “dark pool” trading.

Now that collateral has vanished, the leverage in the system is near-infinite. The Status Quo “solution” is to issue new phantom assets to replace the assets which have become recognized as illusory.

How many iterations of the game can be run before some non-linear second-order effect causes the sandpile to collapse?
Rather than fear the crisis, we should embrace it, for it is only in crisis, when all the lies, half-measures, excuses and backstops have broken down, is positive transformation possible.

End

Free Speech – a threatened commodity….

“Free speech”, such a simple two word phrase.. What is it? Do we really have it? Can we keep it?

Does free speech mean anything exactly? The ability to offend anyone we please, any time we please? The opportunity to spread religious dogma to any and all that will listen? Do we have the ability to force others to listen despite their wishes? Do we have the “right” to do that? What is a “right”?

Let’s look at the last, first.

A “right” is something we feel entitled to (like the FSA – they have a perceived “right” to their free shit). We have a right to this or that, be it a land title, a copyright, a car we “own” or something called “free speech”. We own these things because a whole lot of men, women and children have died in the defense of or earning and keeping that “right”. A lot of the women and children were peripheral casualties thereof but the cost to them was the same as for the men and women who fought the wars and died in battle.

There is an old saw that says, “Freedom is not free” and that includes free speech. It must be defended or earned as the case may be and it is also very easily lost if taken for granted. (for those interested in trivia, it was coined by Colonel Walter Hitchcock (USAF Retired)).

Unfortunately, here in the “Land of the Free”, our Federal Government is dallying with the idea of limiting free speech in the interest of something called “International respect of religion” whatever in hell that means. How is it so dallying?

The idiot who made the recent bad (from quality and taste) video “Innocence of Muslims”, posted it on YouTube is a good example of Federal knee jerk in the direction of not-so-free-speech. They made the attempt to get Google to remove it from YouTube.. Epic Fail. This led to riots in Egypt and Pakistan and the eventual death of a US Ambassador and three other Americans in our Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Did we, as a country, react any better this time to the murder of our citizens and destruction of internationally recognized American territory than Peanut Jimmy did in Iran so many years ago? No, we did not and more significant American “face” not to mention international legal “rights” were trashed. The incident has since been blamed on, of course, Al Quida who is a convient whipping boy for any attack anywhere these days, whether they did it or not.

[As an aside, Al Quida is now defunct as an organization except in NE Pakistan. Al Quida is an idea and a vicious cause, connecting many small, totally independent groups, acting mostly on their own, under one fearful name. At least our Federal Government wants Al Quida to be fearful as they are the “enemy” now in our perpetual war against “terror”. I personally call BULLSHIT on the whole idea of a war on terror. Instead, we should be laughing at their pitiful efforts because since 9/11/2001, they have not accomplished diddly here in this country and are only as effective as an occasional snake bite elsewhere. Almost every arrest for “terrorism” made in this country sind 9/11 has been made by a “sting” operation of the Feds planting agents among fools and facilitating some “act of terror” which is a sorry anti-real terrorism tactic. I’d be in more danger walking about naked in a severe Florida thunderstorm with a lightning rod raised above my head and a ground wire trailing from my poor old ass than I am from “Al Quida” !]

The real terrorist here is Islam. Echos of history abound as the Crusades and Inquisition come to mind – which were terroristic as any Al Quida operation, just operating with lesser tools and scope. Same old Shit… My religion is the only true religion and if you don’t believe in it and do as I say, I’ll kill you to make sure you do.

Idiocy.

Islam is a religion of poverty, ignorance, savagery, subjugation of women and death itself. There is no life itself here on Earth for it is all in paradise, promised to those who serve Islam and die doing it. Such crap.

Islam’s goal is world dominance of their religion and behavior, including their blasphemy and Sharia laws. Islams’ behavior does not include free speech and our current kiss-ass Federal Government is leaning ever more so backwards to accommodate this view by sniffing about the possibility of censoring publication of anything calculated (by them) to offend any religion, organization or peoples anywhere on the face of the globe. This is a very bad idea and worse policy on the part of the U.S. Federal Government.

They should, of course, be doing the exact opposite. Instead of sending a high ranking military group to attempt to silence the Florida backwoods preacher who wanted to burn the Koran (I’d have lit the match), they should toss a few extras on the fire and say in no uncertain terms the following:

“Free speech is the bed rock of our country, our way of life and our prosperity. The free and unfettered exchange of ideas and opinions has resulted in what became the most prosperous and power Nation the world has ever known. It could not have happened without free speech.”

That’s why is Free Speech is protected as the very first item in the Bill of Rights. Why was it first? I suspect because our founding fathers found that without the ability to freely communicate, everything from productive ideas and gossip to insults and ridicule, none of the other nine items were worth the parchment they were written on. That’s the way I feel too, in spades.

So the next time you hear Hillary Clinton try and pacify the United Nations or anyone else by blathering about “offensive language against religions everywhere” do us all a favor and write her a letter (with a cc: to Obummer) and tell her to stuff her attempts to limit our Free Speech up her not so tiny little butt. Anyone, anytime, at any level of Government from local thru State to Federal that tries to muzzle or limit free speech needs to be slapped down very quickly and very thoroughly and my multitudes of freedom loving Americans.

Free speech is America and America is the best “keeper of the light” as far as free speech and we should not risk losing even a shaving from it..

MA

SOME CURRENT COMMENTS ON MAKING MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET

For the first time in a long time (since 12/2010 for gold: March 2011 for the general stock market) we have a simultaneous “Buy It ALL” situation on our hands. (Actually I call it “The Big Hedge”)

Remember, usually, the general stock market and the precious metals move in opposite directions. The DOW goes up and XAU goes down and vice versa.

Precious metals and the general stock market march to different drummers most of the time and while it is very true that should the general stock market take a nose dive, it will also drag down precious metals stocks, miners and metal alike – although that set of circumstances doesn’t last long. If the general markets continue to show weakness, very shortly, general market positions will start to be liquidated and funds moved into “safe haven” areas such as gold, silver, miners, foreign currency, etc..

 XAUWeeklyChart.jpg?t=1330045086

As you can see from the VTI chart (VIPER – represents the entire general market), the general market gave a sale back in August of 2010 and had a good run through March of 2011 where it entered a corrective phase, eventually falling back to a low of 60 in September/October of 2011. Since October, 2011, it has been on a tear and one never “fights the tape” or argues with Mr. Market when he’s on a rip!  Just quietly take a long position and add to it as things keep going up.

 

XAU (precious metals index proxy) has been doing just fine from October, 2008 to December, 2010 when it entered a correction. Note that this correction was not a big downer for the index but a correction that has worked it way out by moving sideways with ever lower highs and ever lower lows.  This is a perfectly valid technical correction and tends to show great underlying strength with very few sellers.

You will please note that XAU has now  penetrated the UP trend running back to 10/08 and promptly climbed right back to its’ current position above the trend line in quite a bullish show of strength.

 

XAU gave a short term BUY in late December and has generated a steeper uptrend in addition to piercing the long term uptrend going back to 2008. It has just given a further “strength” signal in both of the last two days.

So we are in a most interesting situation where both the VTI and the XAU (plus all of the other precious metals, miners, most commodities) are also on a BUY.

So what does one do in this rather odd situation?

You hedge, that’s what.. “Hedge” in this case means buy the broad PM ETFs or mutuals (GDX, PHYS, PRPFX and so on) while at the same time taking a position in those stocks considered general market (VTI, QQQ, some stronger specialized ETFs like XLE, XLK).

Just for your information, the list below is part of my current open positions. I run charts daily on each one and several positions are based on other market forces than just “hedge” possibilities.

VTI
QQQ
FCX
GDX
PRPFX
PHYS
PSLV
TBF
UDN
USO

TBF is a short against long term US Treasuries and will be expanded when 20 year Treasuries climb above 3.22%

UDN is a VERY SPECULATIVE bet against the dollar. This one has made me a pile of money trading in and out between UDN and UUP but is subject to instant sale if the default of Greece/et al causes a run out of the Euro.  A run out of the Euro can’t help but be mostly in the direction of the Dollar and when that happens, the dollar will strengthen significantly until things calm down and buyers realize the Dollar is in worse shape than the Euro.  Then it will be rush to the door from more and more currencies until there’s no other door except those labeled “Gold” and “Silver” or other assets such as farmland (which – if you didn’t know, has risen 30% in Nebraska over the past year!)

USO is self explanatory and with what’s going on in the ME, everyone should have a position in Oil.. It has nowhere to go but up and benefits from every rumor, car bomb, and hijacked tanker.

We don’t get many chances to be long PMs and long hedges in the general market that are also in full BUY modes but when we get the chance, it would be dumb to ignore the chance.

Just remember, these are (with the exceptions of my core PM positions) short term positions and subject to dumping on any signs of extended weakness of the general market.

There are a LOT of market bears out there right now who expect a general market crash and are preaching even more gloom and doom than usual. Please remember that bull action “climbs a wall of worry” with everyone preaching a fall and yet the markets just keep moving up. When everyone turns bullish, then take some of your profits and watch out!



 

Hear all about it! Hear all about it!

Just a Saturday funny for my buds on TBP..
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A Harley Biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, ‘Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I’ve seen a man do in my whole life.’

The Harley rider replies, ‘Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.’

The reporter says, ‘Well, I’ll make sure this won’t go unnoticed. I’m a journalist, you know, and tomorrow’s paper will have this story on the front page… So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?’

The biker replies, I’m a ex-U.S. Marine and a Republican

The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page:

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

…and THAT pretty much sums up the media’s approach to the news these days…

I feel so safe now!!

Having just listened to the mumblings of our President, listening closely as he said out of one side of his mouth that the markets have confidence in the good ole’ USA (as they collapsed even more as he spoke) and then spent about half his speech on a panegyric in tribute to those poor guys killed yesterday in the shot down chopper near Kabul, I can say one thing with assurance.

He wanted to get off the subject of the economy and debt downgrade as quickly as he could possibly do it and, even more importantly, he never – not even a single time – mentioned what the real problem is.

He did not say a single word that would indicate even to the most attentive listener, that he even knows what the unsolvable problem is both here and in Europe.

His suggestimonious speech only mentioned more spending (unemployment for the masses, lower taxes for the masses, perhaps an “adjustment” to medicare), plus “We’ll keep kicking ass all over the world!” which, of course, equals more spending too.

What word did he neglect to say? “DEBT“, that’s what. Trillions and Trillions of MBS, CDS, BULLShitPaper, dollars, pounds, euros, pesos, reals, yuan, rememberme’s (or how ever you spell it in Chinese), rubles and every other currency denominated debt you can add to the list that are hanging out there, needing to be “rolled over”, interest paid promptly and eventually – here’s the kicker – repaid or retired or otherwise cleared off the books.

He didn’t mention that Europe and the USA are so deep in debt, unfunded liabilities and swamps full of sharp toothed derivatives of a dozen sorts.

He skipped the simple fact that it is now a mathematical certainty that we are so deep in debt that more debt does not increase GDP – IT REDUCES IT! Fact: The more debt a country has, the slower it can grow because funds needed for growth must instead be paid as interest and fees to roll over the debt.  At some point (we’ve passed it in 2000), the debt is beyond the ability of the country to cope without resorting to the printing press (which we are/have).

It has taken us over 40 years to fuck this up as bad as it is (since Tricky Dick removed the last link between gold and the dollar for international settlements) but now we are to the point where there is so much debt, we cannot pay the interest on it without borrowing the money to do it. Oh I know, several non-Austrian economists say the Federal tax income is sufficient to pay the interest payments therefore we would never be in default – and that is almost true. Of course, if the Feds ever did that without borrowing, there would not be anything left to spend on more than funding breadlines for the 52% of the people who get checks from the Feds now. And if you think that’s bad, wait a while..

So our humble Chief Executive somehow “forgot” to mention the real trouble lurking just outside the unlatched door.  Debt. Or perhaps he did not forget to mention it.  He did not bring it up on purpose because of the simple reason that neither he, nor the RepuDemoTea party (nor the commies, whigs, greenback party, or any other political organization) can fix it.  If you can’t fix it, if you’re a politician, for goodness sake, don’t mention it!  And they don’t.  And except for a few like Ron Paul, you never will.

The only way it will get fixed is the old filter trick called “through the eye-of-needle” otherwise called default.  Re-structuring the debt won’t do it.  When you go through the eye-of-the-needle solution, you slough off everything except things that have value.  Debt that will never be paid has no value.  Gold and silver and farmland (unmortgaged), tools, guns, ammo, food, even houses (unmortgaged) have value.  So you pile everything up on one side of the eye-of-the-needle, push really hard and when you’re done, all the BS and worthless stuff is in a rotting, smelly pile on one side and on the other side is a much smaller and sweet smelling mound of value.

Doing that is kind of rough on who ever own all the non-valuable trash that is now in that rotting, stinking pile.  In fact, sorting out value from garbage is very rough on everyone even if you are a reader of TBP and only have valuable things in your small neat pile on the far side of the eye-of-that-damned-needle.  You’re going to get dinged by some of the fall out, fart-flares, burning bits of trash, ricocheting rubbish and other cast off pieces of junk that get flung on the wall as it is filtered by that damned-miserable-too-small-eye-of-the-needle.

Part II

This will be a short part..

You may now be assured – as you were aware of anyhow – that whatever actions our Chief Executive Officer of the USA takes to “fix” things (note! I did not say “problems”, I said “things”) his actions will be diametrically opposed to that which would be needed to fix the “problem”.

The markets of the world were just waiting for a trigger to go berserk. It wouldn’t have mattered a tiny bit if that trigger had been a bail out of a Eurobank, the Japanese yen falling out of bed unexpectedly, Grease catching on fire (forgive the pun), or whatever.  All the markets needed was a “ding!” and with last weeks havoc already having wound up the bears like a new rubber band,  that “ding” was all it took to trip the unwinding.  Of course, it helps that the USA has NEVER had a debt downgrade in the history of the Union.  But I suspect Fitch and Moody will follow along like little dummies since they look pretty stupid sitting there with their thumbs stuffed up their butt while the markets fall apart around them.

Won’t matter.

The bond markets haven’t been given a vote yet – after all, with ka-jillions of dollars in Treasury Trash, if they were all to be sold at once, where would they all go?  Right now, this minute, hour, day, ?? , the world perceives the U.S. $$ to be safer than Euros or most other currencies.  They are, of course, stupid and wrong as the dollar is only worth $0.04 of what it could buy before the Federal Reserve was created.  It will, one day, be worth nothing and something else will come along to be put in its place. But, for right now, even though the dollar is dying, it is still thought of by those people living in countries that are (and have been) in far worse condition than we are, as a safe haven in time of fear, war, famine, TEOTWAWKI and so on.

It’s not but it is still perceived so and so it is.  Sooner or later, an alternative to the dollar will pop up (gold? silver? Obviously already has! Dog food? Maybe later) and bond yields will go straight up.  Not quite yet.

To protect this temporary situation, the next step is to insure law and order is maintained throughout our fair land.   In spite of the Posse Comitatus Act, this will be mostly achieved by the military of which the President praises so well and who is honored daily in some part of the country or another.  I served in it myself.  I wonder how long that will last.

When the Free Shit Army starts going hungry or their free shit stops flowing – as it will – the local para-military police forces scattered around the country will not be able to handle it except in fits and spurts.  Things can get out of hand very rapidly when the Free Shit Army gets pissed and goes on the warpath.  Half of them serious about it and the other half along for the fun and looting.

So the military will be used.  Count on it. Whether the elite pull the military into it via the States activating National Guard units or the Feds just taking it over remains to be seen.  But it will happen.  At that point, we will see what the majority of the American people are made of and the exact point at which they may or may not stand up and be counted.

Time will tell and it will be an interesting, if unpleasant trip from here on in.  Good luck to us all because we’re going to need it.

End