REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Americans have given up

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, March 4, 2024 12:10
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Sunday, January 3, 2016 12:07 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example). My observation is that we are CURRENTLY in a currency war, and have been for three or four years already, since nearly all of the major nations (except the USA) have been deliberately devaluing their currency to (hopefully) stimulate exports.

We are just BEGINNING our trade wars- the USA just slapped an ~250% tariff on Chinese steel.

As far as World War (hot/ shooting war) it seems to me that every major bloc is saber-rattling by now: the EU and the USA (via NATO) is pushing hard up against the Russian border and fomenting trouble (via its terrorist proxies) in the Mideast, China is building islands in the Spratlys and building up its navy, and Russia is militarily engaged in Syria. As Celente says ... Nobody is talking peace.

2) The other point, and for him it was a minor one but for me really captured the USA zeitgeist (literally "worldghost", but more like "spirit of the times", overall mood) is that Americans have given up.

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and any goals in the realm of improving our economy or setting our nation on a different, more peaceful, more productive, more equitable, more sustainable course have fizzled. The conversation has moved from jobs and debt to terrorism in the middle east, which is serving its intended purpose in distracting from the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing. The wealthy use war to get wealthier, and the vast majority as as clueless as ever.

Gerald is an old guy ... older than me. He just laughs about it.






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Sunday, January 3, 2016 10:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


The problem with wars in the US now is that nobody in the US stands to make any money funding them anymore. There was a time when the War Machine fueled tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs or more stateside, not including the soldiers deployed.

Now one can only assume we buy our ammunition from China or some other country since the bleeding hearts got most of our munitions plants shut down and it costs a fortune to load your guns up. Remember when the cops were asking citizens for spare bullets?


What exactly have American's given up Sigs?

The status quo has gone exponentially down since I first started posting here, that much is true. Life in general sucks more than it used to, but people somehow still have access to credit they don't deserve and buy a whole bunch of shit they can't afford with it.

People aren't any stupider than they've always been when generally speaking. Most people are stupid. Most people were stupid. I'm going to take a wild guess here that most people in the future will continue to be stuipid.



I've given up trying to talk any sense into anybody. Half of the people you talk to are too stupid to understand what you're saying, and most of the other half refuse to be brought down by all that negative shit or are so depressed by it as to be ineffective.


A Revolution in The Head don't count for nothing.

Name a single time in history when a Revolution happened when things were just "Okay"....

So long as American's still have access to credit to buy worthless shit and keep their sinking ships from taking on water, you'll never find anybody who wants to join up.

I for one hope that day never happens, but history shows that it always does.

On that day we will find out who the true heroes are. In the mean time, most of us just graze and willingly get fattened up...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, January 4, 2016 10:23 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

What exactly have American's given up Sigs?
The idea that we can even influence Washington DC.

We live in an oligarchy, pure and simple. People have thrown up their hands and quit trying for anything different.

Quote:

People aren't any stupider than they've always been when generally speaking. Most people are stupid. Most people were stupid. I'm going to take a wild guess here that most people in the future will continue to be stupid.
I disagree. All of the progress that was ever made in the USA ... and that goes back to FDR and before... was made because people were less stupid - and less cowardly- then. The reason why FDR came up with his patchwork of social security programs wasn't because he was a good-hearted guy who felt sorry for the populace, but because less-stupid, less-cowardly people were fomenting revolution. If he hadn't saved capitalism from itself, it might have been destroyed by the less-stupid people.

The last gasp of the less-stupid was the antiwar movement.

But we're now at the bread (government assistance) and circuses (iPhones/TV) stage, and people are content to ignore the world as long as they're in their comfy mental bubble, and wait for the building catastrophes (there are at least three or four pending) to come crashing down on them.



--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

There is a difference between THUGR is a genius., and THUGR is a "genius". And everyone knows it except THUGR, who is a "genius".

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Monday, January 4, 2016 11:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I disagree. All of the progress that was ever made in the USA ... and that goes back to FDR and before... was made because people were less stupid - and less cowardly- then. The reason why FDR came up with his patchwork of social security programs wasn't because he was a good-hearted guy who felt sorry for the populace, but because less-stupid, less-cowardly people were fomenting revolution. If he hadn't saved capitalism from itself, it might have been destroyed by the less-stupid people.

The last gasp of the less-stupid was the antiwar movement.

But we're now at the bread (government assistance) and circuses (iPhones/TV) stage, and people are content to ignore the world as long as they're in their comfy mental bubble, and wait for the building catastrophes (there are at least three or four pending) to come crashing down on them.

Good that you mentioned FDR. Churchill ought to be included. I think a better description of what happens now is “A generation of failed politicians has trapped the West in a tawdry nightmare”.

In one of his last interviews, the historian Tony Judt lamented his “catastrophic” Anglo-American generation, whose cossetted members included George W Bush and Tony Blair. Having grown up after the defining wars and hatreds of the west’s 20th century, “in a world of no hard choices, neither economic nor political”, these historically weightless elites believed that “no matter what choice they made, there would be no disastrous consequences”.

A member of the Bush administration brashly affirmed its arrogance of power in 2004 after what then seemed a successful invasion of Iraq: “When we act,” he boasted, “we create our own reality.”

The reality it made is mayhem in Asia and Africa now reaching European and North American cities.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/01/generation-failed-politi
cians-elite-liberal-values

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Monday, January 4, 2016 5:31 PM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example). My observation is that we are CURRENTLY in a currency war, and have been for three or four years already, since nearly all of the major nations (except the USA) have been deliberately devaluing their currency to (hopefully) stimulate exports.

We are just BEGINNING our trade wars- the USA just slapped an ~250% tariff on Chinese steel.

As far as World War (hot/ shooting war) it seems to me that every major bloc is saber-rattling by now: the EU and the USA (via NATO) is pushing hard up against the Russian border and fomenting trouble (via its terrorist proxies) in the Mideast, China is building islands in the Spratlys and building up its navy, and Russia is militarily engaged in Syria. As Celente says ... Nobody is talking peace.

2) The other point, and for him it was a minor one but for me really captured the USA zeitgeist (literally "worldghost", but more like "spirit of the times", overall mood) is that Americans have given up.

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and any goals in the realm of improving our economy or setting our nation on a different, more peaceful, more productive, more equitable, more sustainable course have fizzled. The conversation has moved from jobs and debt to terrorism in the middle east, which is serving its intended purpose in distracting from the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing. The wealthy use war to get wealthier, and the vast majority as as clueless as ever.

Gerald is an old guy ... older than me. He just laughs about it.








The reason you bring him up SIG is because it fits in with your agenda and allows you to criticize America. Again comrade troll, FUCK YOU and your Russian loving ass.


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Monday, January 4, 2016 9:15 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Celente

Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is an American trend forecaster,[1][2] publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant[3] and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Celente has described himself as a "political atheist" and "citizen of the world".[4] He has appeared as a guest on media outlets such as CNN, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, The Glenn Beck Show, NBC Nightly News, The Alex Jones Show, Coast to Coast AM and Russia Today.[5][6][7]




SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2016 12:07 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Americans have been dumbed down. I haven't figured out the watershed moment - was it when people believed 'greed is good'? Was it earlier when hippies assumed if enough people just 'dropped out' the system would magically change?

But I can't imagine a more naive last gasp of political action than the Occupy movement.

The following is not my analysis but I've come to agree with it: the people who have power aren't going to willingly give it up.

And certainly not because a few thousand people politely stood in the streets and slept in the parks for a few weeks. Yeah, 'the 1%' is now in the vernacular. But what Occupy TAUGHT people is that change isn't going to happen.

There was no discussion of political goals, or political tactics; there was no political education; there was no persistent political organization. Occupy didn't organize politically and enter the political fray, and it faded into an irrelevant death. So people look at the history of Occupy and say - look, we tried, we failed, and nothing can be done - and fold their hands and still their voices in mute acceptance of their powerless state. That's a VERY corrosive lesson in the power - or lack of it - of the masses.

And then we have the vote. Look, we voted for Obama and what did he do for us? voting is hopeless.

The only REAL power we legally have, we've never really tried to use.

How can you say people have given up when they haven't tried?




SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2016 9:57 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Interesting that you should mention Occupy bc it's already faded from my mind.

One of my Canadian friends - an NDPer that I'll call Bill- was totally entranced with Occupy. To him, it was an exercise in consensus democracy - everybody had to agree to a particular action, or it wouldn't happen. Just the feeling of being in such a direct, participatory democracy was a valuable political lesson, he believed. But as you say, it accomplished nothing. IMHO, it was an exercise in feel-goodism. The real lessons ... well, I don't think many people have figured those out yet.

You're right about the vote. We have the power in our hands. Which is why TPTB try so very hard to make sure that we DON'T exercise it in any way beneficial to our interests. Hence the billions of dollars spend on advertising: convince to "buy" something we don't need or really want, avoid something that's positive. If it wasn't so important, it wouldn't attract so much money. Yanno, we don't have to pick up a gun or blow up buildings. All WE have to do is think before we vote. Do you think we can manage that?

Instead, what I see are people BARGAINING WITH THEMSELVES. TPTB don't have to negotiate with us, because we (the people) do that to ourselves!

How much can I give up before I decide I wasn't represented? and

What is the least that I can accept, and then how much will I move the threshold when I don't get even that?

I'll let you in on a secret: There is no limit on how far most people will descend. Internally defending a system that is inherently unfair to them, without having the courage to just notice and accept that they're getting screwed, even by "their team". That is the last bastion of idiocy- dividing up the political spectrum into "my team" and "your team", and voting for "your team" no matter what.


--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, January 8, 2016 11:16 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The reason you bring him up SIG is because it fits in with your agenda and allows you to criticize America. Again comrade troll, FUCK YOU and your Russian loving ass.


Since your monomania about Russia appears in every single friggin' thread that you post in- relevant or not- maybe you should explain yourself here:

WHY I ABHOR RUSSIA
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60306




--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Friday, January 8, 2016 1:59 PM

WISHIMAY


I'd just like to say that an aluminum smelting plant a couple counties away from us is closing down. This thing has been iconic in my childhood. Every man I knew wanted to work there at some point because it was such a good job. Even through the crap economy they held on. Not any more...

If anything is a bad omen, it's that...

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Saturday, January 9, 2016 12:50 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by Wishimay:
I'd just like to say that an aluminum smelting plant a couple counties away from us is closing down. This thing has been iconic in my childhood. Every man I knew wanted to work there at some point because it was such a good job. Even through the crap economy they held on. Not any more...

If anything is a bad omen, it's that...



I know round about where you're from Wish, and I know that's a really bad thing for you and your folk. It's not on the level of Detroit losing the auto industry, but a Union Shop closing in an area where you could drive 15 miles in any direction and not get a cell phone signal is a travesty.

As bad as the economy has been for quite some time now, Aluminum has been at historic lows (relatively speaking)....

In a 5 year period since I've owned my house, for instance, the price of your regular 73% cheap ground beef while not on sale has risen from around 3.79 a lb to 4.99 a lb at local grocery stores. Meanwhile, the price to buy gutters for my home without labor has not risen a single cent in those same 5 years.

This isn't because the company selling the aluminum is run by kind hearted individuals. It's not even because the price of aluminum has been flat for the last 5 years. In fact, the prices on aluminum products for your home have gone up quite signifigantly at your average big-box store in the last 5 years because people are stupid and aluminum is a quick seller and WAY overpriced there....


Here's a chart for the average price of aluminum in the last 5 years per/lb...

http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/aluminum/5-year/

It peaked at about $1.25/lb back in 2011 and now it's just around $0.70....





How the hell is that even possible, Wish?

How could a company that hires nothing but Union workers and deals Exclusively in aluminum even compete with anything today when their CORE asset is so devalued as to make it impossible to make a profit with huge payroll costs in addition to ever increasing medical care insurance costs?


It's not as if you have a bunch of Aluminium mines down there....

There is some better run outfit a county or two away that will take the current hit and absorb that business. I'm sure they'd be happy to hire anyone you knew that lost there job 6 months or a year from now at half the salary they used to make :) and/or :(

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, January 9, 2016 9:52 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:


Here's a chart for the average price of aluminum in the last 5 years per/lb...

http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/aluminum/5-year/

It peaked at about $1.25/lb back in 2011 and now it's just around $0.70....

How the hell is that even possible, Wish?

China! It's a one word answer, but if you want more than words, there are numbers:

www.statista.com/statistics/264624/global-production-of-aluminum-by-co
untry
/
United States metric tons of aluminum smelter production per year
2010 1,726,000
2011 1,986,000
2012 2,070,000
2013 1,946,000
2014 1,720,000

China
2010 16,200,000
2011 18,100,000
2012 20,300,000
2013 22,100,000
2014 23,300,000

Wiki has a list of closed American aluminum smelters. The United States mined production of bauxite for primary aluminum production is insignificant. In 2013, the US mined only 1.3 percent of the bauxite it used, US mined production being less than 0.1 percent of world production. US production of primary aluminum peaked in 1980 at 4.64 million metric tons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_industry_in_the_United_States

You can also blame recycling scrap aluminum for American smelters closing.



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, January 11, 2016 6:48 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


Quote:

Originally posted by Wishimay:
I'd just like to say that an aluminum smelting plant a couple counties away from us is closing down. This thing has been iconic in my childhood. Every man I knew wanted to work there at some point because it was such a good job. Even through the crap economy they held on. Not any more...

If anything is a bad omen, it's that...



interesting vid here



pretty bad - former Bush Military Official talking
I don't think its too late to fix the corruption
and turn this around

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Monday, January 11, 2016 10:37 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

What exactly have American's given up Sigs?
The idea that we can even influence Washington DC.

We live in an oligarchy, pure and simple. People have thrown up their hands and quit trying for anything different.







Debt has gone throught the roof, its now TRILLIONS
poverty is very bad


but I think something can still be done

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Monday, January 11, 2016 2:56 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I'd just like to say that an aluminum smelting plant a couple counties away from us is closing down. ... If anything is a bad omen, it's that...

Yes, it's a bad omen for your local economy. Generally, when heavy-industry jobs go - steel, auto, coal, timber - they don't come back.




SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Sunday, January 17, 2016 6:47 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


taking it uptheass from the Saudi

Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries are scooping up farmland in drought-afflicted regions of the U.S. Southwest, and that has some people in California and Arizona seeing red.

Privately held Fondomonte California on Sunday announced that it bought 1,790 acres of farmland in Blythe, California — an agricultural town along the Colorado River — for nearly $32 million. Two years ago, Fondomont's parent company, Saudi food giant Almarai, purchased another 10,000 acres of farmland about 50 miles away in Vicksburg, Arizona, for around $48 million.

But not everyone likes the trend. The alfalfa exports are tantamount to "exporting water, because in Saudi Arabia, they have decided that it's better to bring feed in rather than to empty their water reserves, said Keith Murfield, CEO of United Dairymen of Arizona, a Tempe-based dairy cooperative whose members also buy alfalfa. "This will continue unless there's regulations put on it."

In a statement announcing the California farmland purchase, the Saudi company said the deal "forms part of Almarai's continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) to support its dairy business. It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources."

Alamarai did not respond to CNBC requests for an interview.

"We're not getting oil for free, so why are we giving our water away for free?" asked La Paz County Board of Supervisors Chairman Holly Irwin, who represents a rural area in western Arizona where food companies affiliated with the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates have come to farm alfalfa for export.

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Friday, January 22, 2016 7:25 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I'll post the link to the entire interview - but this is apropos of 'Americans have given up'. Or maybe of the 'what is society?' question. Or perhaps the 'Insurance' thread.

The observation comes from a highly experienced former GOP staffer:


How should we think about the deep state? Is it an elite conspiracy? A loosely defined social group? A network of specific institutions? How should we conceive of it?

Well, first of all, it is not a conspiracy. It is something that operates in broad daylight. It is not a conspiratorial cabal. These are simply people who have evolved [into] a kind of position. It is in their best interest to act in this way.

And given the fact that people would rather know about Kim Kardashian than what makes up the budget or what the government is doing in Mali or Sudan or other unknown places, this is what you get: a disconnected, self-serving bureaucracy that is … simply evolving to do what it’s doing now. That is, to maintain and enhance its own power.

In other words, he seems to think we are getting the government we deserve. The vote DOES work. It accurately reflects the ignorant, partisan, entitled, childish American psyche.


References and information:
Controlled by shadow government: Mike Lofgren reveals how top U.S. officials are at the mercy of the “deep state”
A corrupt network of wealthy elites has hijacked our government, ex-GOP staffer and best-selling author tells Salon
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/05/controlled_by_shadow_government_mike_l
ofgren_reveals_how_top_u_s_officials_are_at_the_mercy_of_the_deep_state
/

Mike Lofgren

WIKI - Mike Lofgren is an American who is a former Republican U.S. Congressional aide. He retired in May 2011 after 28 years as a Congressional staff member. His writings, roundly critical of politics in the United States, were published after his retirement and garnered widespread attention.
http://www.mikelofgren.net/ - Mike Lofgren spent twenty-eight years working in Congress, the last sixteen as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees, which gave him an insider’s look at the Bush tax cuts, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, the war on terrorism, debates on the Pentagon budget, and the various deficit-reduction commissions.





SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Friday, January 22, 2016 8:12 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The vote can work, if you work it. Unfortunately, because people are unwise consumers of media, they wind up being distracted away from REALLY IMPORTANT items in favor of titillation and staying in the comfort zone.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Thursday, March 17, 2016 7:52 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example).


There is reason for lack of repeated example - it is not a cause-effect.

The dependable trigger (for USA) is when the Defense Budget drops to record levels, we enter a War.
Loss of Defense Budget results from extended periods of liberalism. Likewise for the depression sequence above.
Therefore, the Depression sequence is not a serial cause-effect with World War, is is a coincidence or parallel with the Defense Budget, both resulting from extended liberalism combined with politicians ignoring the repetition of history.

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Friday, March 18, 2016 4:37 AM

SHINYGOODGUY


Americans haven't given up, they've been bludgeoned to death. You tend to get depressed when you keep getting hit over the head every time you're about to get up.

#BruteForce


SGG


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example). My observation is that we are CURRENTLY in a currency war, and have been for three or four years already, since nearly all of the major nations (except the USA) have been deliberately devaluing their currency to (hopefully) stimulate exports.

We are just BEGINNING our trade wars- the USA just slapped an ~250% tariff on Chinese steel.

As far as World War (hot/ shooting war) it seems to me that every major bloc is saber-rattling by now: the EU and the USA (via NATO) is pushing hard up against the Russian border and fomenting trouble (via its terrorist proxies) in the Mideast, China is building islands in the Spratlys and building up its navy, and Russia is militarily engaged in Syria. As Celente says ... Nobody is talking peace.

2) The other point, and for him it was a minor one but for me really captured the USA zeitgeist (literally "worldghost", but more like "spirit of the times", overall mood) is that Americans have given up.

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and any goals in the realm of improving our economy or setting our nation on a different, more peaceful, more productive, more equitable, more sustainable course have fizzled. The conversation has moved from jobs and debt to terrorism in the middle east, which is serving its intended purpose in distracting from the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing. The wealthy use war to get wealthier, and the vast majority as as clueless as ever.

Gerald is an old guy ... older than me. He just laughs about it.







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Sunday, March 20, 2016 8:18 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


Sometimes Luke Rudkowski is interesting, but he's often part of that tinfoil head David Icke and Alex Jones crowd

Russia will bomb to support Assad

He reports on Russia's 'Withdrawal From Syria'



Quote

In this video Luke Rudkowski goes over all the details of Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing the withdrawal of Russian forces inside of Syria and the real reason why this is happening right now.

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Sunday, March 20, 2016 8:38 AM

THGRRI


Quote:

Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Sometimes Luke Rudkowski is interesting, but he's often part of that tinfoil head David Icke and Alex Jones crowd

He reports on Russia's 'Withdrawal From Syria'


Quote

In this video Luke Rudkowski goes over all the details of Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing the withdrawal of Russian forces inside of Syria and the real reason why this is happening right now.




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Sunday, March 20, 2016 10:21 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/
I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:
1) The point he makes the most of is
depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war
In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example).- SIGNY

There is reason for lack of repeated example - it is not a cause-effect.

The dependable trigger (for USA) is when the Defense Budget drops to record levels, we enter a War. Loss of Defense Budget results from extended periods of liberalism. Likewise for the depression sequence above. Therefore, the Depression sequence is not a serial cause-effect with World War, is is a coincidence or parallel with the Defense Budget, both resulting from extended liberalism combined with politicians ignoring the repetition of history.- JSF



Except the Defense budget has NOT dropped to "record levels". Or may not have dropped to record levels, depending on how far back in the record you want to go.





It's possible that the military reacts to ANY reduction in budget, though.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, March 20, 2016 10:44 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

JAYNEZTOWN:
Sometimes Luke Rudkowski is interesting, but he's often part of that tinfoil head David Icke and Alex Jones crowd. He reports on Russia's 'Withdrawal From Syria'.
In this video Luke Rudkowski goes over all the details of Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing the withdrawal of Russian forces inside of Syria and the real reason why this is happening right now.



Interesting video. I "knew about" enough of the events to be able to validate what he was saying, but some of the items were new and I hadn't put them together that way.

What I got out of it is that - having done ENOUGH in Syria to keep its military bases- Russia is re-focusing its strategies on its alliance with China, and on its main enemy, the USA.

Along with its military goals, Russia and China are jointly working towards "de-dollarization". In the HILLARY thread, I mentioned that the USA is bankrupt and that the only thing holding up our dollar is our mighty military. Two of the nations that we destroyed - Iraq and Libya- were both oil nations that had threatened to go off the petrodollar, and I can't help but think that was at least part of the motivation for destroying them.

So, what happens when a major oil producer (Russia) goes off the dollar, and the USA can't destroy it militarily? They would try to isolate it economically from the west, of course.

That is one area where the USA and the Saudis (and indeed the Gulf Cooperation Council) have overlapping interests: Since the GCC collectively holds and crap-ton of Treasuries (denominated in dollars, of course) and the USA has a crap-ton of dollars, ALL of them want the dollar value to stay high. Which, come to think of it, is probbaly the reason why the USA has not entered into the currency war that everyone else is engaging in, which leads to other currencies falling relative to the dollar, keeping the dollar relatively afloat. That could be the reason why the Saudis are engaging in an oil price war with Russia.

Anyway, that was food for thought, thanks.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, March 21, 2016 7:17 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/
I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:
1) The point he makes the most of is
depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war
In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example).- SIGNY

There is reason for lack of repeated example - it is not a cause-effect.

The dependable trigger (for USA) is when the Defense Budget drops to record levels, we enter a War. Loss of Defense Budget results from extended periods of liberalism. Likewise for the depression sequence above. Therefore, the Depression sequence is not a serial cause-effect with World War, is is a coincidence or parallel with the Defense Budget, both resulting from extended liberalism combined with politicians ignoring the repetition of history.- JSF



Except the Defense budget has NOT dropped to "record levels". Or may not have dropped to record levels, depending on how far back in the record you want to go.





It's possible that the military reacts to ANY reduction in budget, though.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.


Using Washington Post as a source for unbiased information or graphs? Really? Really?

Note in the above graph the dip around 1965.
And around 1980.
And around 2001.
And in 1990 it was headed for the lowest level in the history of the graph, only bested by 1980.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016 9:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


I’ve heard that the American Dream is to own a home. Why does it seem impossible to buy your first home? From today’s Washington Post:
Quote:

A starter home is supposed to be an entry point into the market: a modest property, maybe a two bed, one-bath, a place a young couple could buy into before all the pets and kids and seldom used kitchen appliances come along.

Buy a starter home, if all goes well, and you position yourself later to trade up. A starter home helps make possible a second home, which makes possible maybe a third even grander one somewhere down the line.

But what happens when the most affordable entry-level housing on the market costs $700,000? Okay, that's an extreme example (it's from metro San Francisco). But across the country, the list prices of starter homes have been rapidly rising, running away from what would be remotely possible on the kind of incomes that could traditionally buy you such properties. In metropolitan Oakland, the median list price for a starter home is up 104 percent since 2012, according to a Trulia analysis. In Denver, it's up 78 percent. In Portland, 50 percent. In metro Washington, 37 percent. These prices are soaring, in part, because starter homes are some of the rarer creatures on the market now

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/22/why-it-seems-impossible
-to-buy-your-first-home
/

Why are the prices of starter homes rising faster than the average income? There is too much money chasing after too few houses. The too-much-money part is explained in article by a “Nobel Prize Economist”:
Quote:

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American “achievement.” That outsize inequality is not predestined offers reason for hope, but in reality it is likely to get worse. The forces that have been at play in creating these outcomes are self-reinforcing.

America’s current level of inequality is unusual. Compared with other countries and compared with what it was in the past even in the United States, it’s unusually large, and it has been increasing unusually fast. It used to be said that watching for changes in inequality was like watching grass grow: it’s hard to see the changes in any short span of time. But that’s not true now.


http://evonomics.com/nobel-prize-economist-says-american-inequality-di
dnt-just-happen-it-was-created
/

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016 3:08 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


My theory:

The Earth iz being harvested by alienz and we are doing the work.

Money iz the devise they uze to make us work. It gets us to spend our TIME on the job uv digging up metal and converting dirt & water to food.

Its all about getting the money to flow upward az efficiently az possible. Control the thingz peepl need and want and you can make them do anything.

We spend the majority uv our TIME working to hold on to cardboard shaks on patchez uv dirt. Morgaj or rent, either way = money flowing upward.

Everything else iz just to re-enfors the system, getting us to shovel money onto the big conveyor belt carrying the money up to the alienz.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016 4:05 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
My theory:

The Earth iz being harvested by alienz and we are doing the work.

Money iz the devise they uze to make us work.

Rather than assuming aliens, assume that society is NOT organized, either socially or economically, along egalitarian lines. That might be a difficult idea to wrap your mind around since it is the opposite of what you have been told, which is we are all equals. Then the distinction of classes is simply a given, even divinely ordained; it is the natural or­der of things. There is no need for alien overlords from outer space, but you have to assume you don't live in an egalitarian society, despite what parents, teachers, and higher authorities tell you.

See how easily I solved that confusing problem for you? Imagining aliens is a sure sign of mental confusion.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016 6:55 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
I’ve heard that the American Dream is to own a home. Why does it seem impossible to buy your first home? From today’s Washington Post:
Quote:

A starter home is supposed to be an entry point into the market: a modest property, maybe a two bed, one-bath, a place a young couple could buy into before all the pets and kids and seldom used kitchen appliances come along.

Buy a starter home, if all goes well, and you position yourself later to trade up. A starter home helps make possible a second home, which makes possible maybe a third even grander one somewhere down the line.

But what happens when the most affordable entry-level housing on the market costs $700,000? Okay, that's an extreme example (it's from metro San Francisco). But across the country, the list prices of starter homes have been rapidly rising, running away from what would be remotely possible on the kind of incomes that could traditionally buy you such properties. In metropolitan Oakland, the median list price for a starter home is up 104 percent since 2012, according to a Trulia analysis. In Denver, it's up 78 percent. In Portland, 50 percent. In metro Washington, 37 percent. These prices are soaring, in part, because starter homes are some of the rarer creatures on the market now

www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/22/why-it-seems-impossible
-to-buy-your-first-home
/

Why are the prices of starter homes rising faster than the average income? There is too much money chasing after too few houses. The too-much-money part is explained in article by a “Nobel Prize Economist”:
Quote:

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Market forces played a role, but it was not market forces alone. In a sense, that should be obvious: economic laws are universal, but our growing inequality— especially the amounts seized by the upper 1 percent—is a distinctly American “achievement.” That outsize inequality is not predestined offers reason for hope, but in reality it is likely to get worse. The forces that have been at play in creating these outcomes are self-reinforcing.

America’s current level of inequality is unusual. Compared with other countries and compared with what it was in the past even in the United States, it’s unusually large, and it has been increasing unusually fast. It used to be said that watching for changes in inequality was like watching grass grow: it’s hard to see the changes in any short span of time. But that’s not true now.


http://evonomics.com/nobel-prize-economist-says-american-inequality-di
dnt-just-happen-it-was-created/


During Obama's ACORN bubble, the unqualified homebuyers drove the prices down, and also starved out new home construction. Now the lack of under-decade old homes is raising the market values, plus the prices are returning to their normal range while no longer being artificially forced low.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016 11:18 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

During Obama's ACORN bubble, the unqualified homebuyers drove the prices down, and also starved out new home construction. Now the lack of under-decade old homes is raising the market values, plus the prices are returning to their normal range while no longer being artificially forced low.

I checked this at www.snopes.com/politics/obama/loans.asp and www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/alinsky.asp

Do you want to know what I learned? That you should be ashamed of yourself, JewelStaiteFan. You are spreading falsehoods.

To quote my source:
Quote:

This item seeks to dump much of the blame for America's current economic woes on Barack Obama by claiming that as a young lawyer, Obama filed a lawsuit requiring financial institutions to lend money to "poor people" and "others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back."

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016 6:34 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
See how easily I solved that confusing problem for you? Imagining aliens is a sure sign of mental confusion.



I red a story about a huje accumulation uv treasure being stolen during shipment way befor the A.D. era, never to be seen agen. Dont recall any detailz. I just wundered why it wuz being transported in the first plase.

That got me to thinking about alienz. Alienz explainz our so-called 'civilization' and wut we are doing to the planet very well. Sins I dont need to imajin alienz, I only need to explain why they are here.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016 9:16 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
See how easily I solved that confusing problem for you? Imagining aliens is a sure sign of mental confusion.



I red a story about a huje accumulation uv treasure being stolen during shipment way befor the A.D. era, never to be seen agen. Dont recall any detailz. I just wundered why it wuz being transported in the first plase.

That got me to thinking about alienz. Alienz explainz our so-called 'civilization' and wut we are doing to the planet very well. Sins I dont need to imajin alienz, I only need to explain why they are here.

I do hope you are not thinking of the space aliens coming to Earth to steal gold in the movie Cowboys and Aliens (2011) with Harrison Ford www.imdb.com/title/tt0409847/

Because if you are thinking Cowboys and Aliens you're not really thinking usefully. Didn't we want to know why Americans have given up? Aliens are never the answer, except in movies and the X-Files.

You might be thinking of the story of about how the US sent $12 billion in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish. www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
There is a more recent story that says less was stolen. I don't believe it, because it comes years too late and is too politically convenient for Obama.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/lost-iraq-cash-government-finally-ac
counts-6-billion_n_1052840.html


There were no aliens involved. There were US Army generals, now retired for 10 years, who are living very well on their pensions and whatever they stole. The American Dream lives!

To add a trite little moral to the story, retired generals are only a tiny number out of millions of Americans abusing their powerful positions to enrich themselves while ruining other Americans' dreams.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016 10:57 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

During Obama's ACORN bubble, the unqualified homebuyers drove the prices down, and also starved out new home construction. Now the lack of under-decade old homes is raising the market values, plus the prices are returning to their normal range while no longer being artificially forced low.

I checked this at www.snopes.com/politics/obama/loans.asp and www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/alinsky.asp

Do you want to know what I learned? That you should be ashamed of yourself, JewelStaiteFan. You are spreading falsehoods.

To quote my source:
Quote:

This item seeks to dump much of the blame for America's current economic woes on Barack Obama by claiming that as a young lawyer, Obama filed a lawsuit requiring financial institutions to lend money to "poor people" and "others who could not show proof that they could pay the money back."



Indeed. ANTHONY (who used to post here) worked at a bank processing mortgages, and what HE said about the situation is that the whole "must loan to poh people" never came up.

It was a frenzy of speculation built on rising real estate values fueled by speculation .... a typical "positive feedback loop" in which a driver causes more of itself to occur, kind of like a firestorm. And yes, it's a recipe for instability.

Banks were doing what banks do best: making loans. Because the banks had a ready buyer for these loans, no matter how execrable any individual loan was: The investment firms who would make a "meatloaf" of loans (made up of layers of good, bad, and terrible loans) and sell them in "tranches" (slices) to each other and to the unwary investor (pension funds), greased with insurance called "credit default swaps". That's why even insurers like AIG (who usually insure bonds) were caught in the collapse.
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-untold-story-of-how-aig-destr
oyed-itself-2010-3


Another favorite target of the right is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The right constantly claims that these institutions made bad loans. Sorry, but neither institution wrote mortgages. They were loan PURCHASERS, but because of their regulatory requirements they purchased far fewer bad loans, as a percentage of total, than their fellow free-wheeling investment firms.

Some people seem doomed to repeat the same story over and over, whether or not it's true.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016 11:01 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I red a story about a huje accumulation uv treasure being stolen during shipment way befor the A.D. era, never to be seen agen. Dont recall any detailz. I just wundered why it wuz being transported in the first plase.

That got me to thinking about alienz. Alienz explainz our so-called 'civilization' and wut we are doing to the planet very well. Sins I dont need to imajin alienz, I only need to explain why they are here.



Aliens

REALLY????

Well, it's a great example of the "circuses" used to amuse people, and with which people amuse themselves, and an indication that JO -along with countless other Americans- has given up on thinking seriously about wrenching our government into some semblance of representation.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016 4:20 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Not saying I believ it, just a hypothosis.

Wen most peeps think alienz, they think uv a single unified organization uv sum sort - a goverment like us humanz hav on a grand scale. Many planets, the entire galaxy or even many galaxyz.

Consider the possibilty that its a disorganized mix uv individualz, small groups and individual planetary sivilizationz.

Wen you raize the teknolojy level to where we will be by the end uv this sentury, include antigravity and immortality, you start to wunder about how an individual can spend hiz limitless time.

Taking control uv a bunch uv apes on a backwater rock coud be fun. 1 guy coud do it.

I dont know how you feel about UFOz, but the preponderans uv evidens makes it clear that they are real. If you luv to believ the Firefly future so much that you want every detail to be true, I can understand why you dont like advansed alienz. They ruin the story; makes the entire melieu impossible.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Thursday, March 24, 2016 4:00 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:

Not saying I believ it, just a hypothosis. . . . Taking control uv a bunch uv apes on a backwater rock coud be fun. 1 guy coud do it.

How about a hypothesis that has already been proven true by the Federal Reserve Board? That the richest 10% own most of America? You'll have to add a working hypothesis that they are incompetent owners. Remember: just because you own something complicated doesn't mean you read the operating manual.

The Top 10% of White Families Own Almost Everything


2013 Survey of Consumer Finances Federal Reserve Board


http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/scf/scfindex.htm

http://dqydj.net/net-worth-in-the-united-states-zooming-in-on-the-top-
centiles
/



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, March 24, 2016 5:42 PM

FREM


You think so, do you ?
Have you not looked at Michigan, ehe ?

Do you think that was a fluke ?
That it was some kind of accident, hrmm ?

Pfffth, morons, the lot of you.

-F5

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Thursday, March 24, 2016 7:02 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by FREM:
You think so, do you ?
Have you not looked at Michigan, ehe ?

Do you think that was a fluke ?
That it was some kind of accident, hrmm ?

Pfffth, morons, the lot of you.

-F5

Flint, Michigan? Did you see www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/flint
Quote:

The Flint water crisis is a story of government failure, intransigence, unpreparedness, delay, inaction, and environmental injustice. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) failed in its fundamental responsibility to effectively enforce drinking water regulations. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) failed to adequately and promptly act to protect public health. Both agencies, but principally the MDEQ, stubbornly worked to discredit and dismiss others’ attempts to bring the issues of unsafe water, lead contamination, and increased cases of Legionellosis (Legionnaires’ disease) to light. With the City of Flint under emergency management, the Flint Water Department rushed unprepared into full-time operation of the Flint Water Treatment Plant, drawing water from a highly corrosive source without the use of corrosion control.

Though MDEQ was delegated primacy (authority to enforce federal law), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) delayed enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), thereby prolonging the calamity. Neither the Governor nor the Governor’s office took steps to reverse poor decisions by MDEQ and state-appointed emergency managers until October 2015, in spite of mounting problems and suggestions to do so by senior staff members in the Governor’s office, in part because of continued reassurances from MDEQ that the water was safe. The significant consequences of these failures for Flint will be long-lasting. They have deeply affected Flint’s public health, its economic future, and residents’ trust in government.

The Flint water crisis occurred when state-appointed emergency managers replaced local representative decision-making in Flint, removing the checks and balances and public accountability that come with public decision-making. Emergency managers made key decisions that contributed to the crisis, from the use of the Flint River to delays in reconnecting to DWSD once water quality problems were encountered. Given the demographics of Flint, the implications for environmental injustice cannot be ignored or dismissed.

It is exactly what you would expect from a ruling class that does not understand the manual on how to run a safe water system. The ruling class could not see any benefit for themselves for competently running America. Incompetency is easier on their brains.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, March 25, 2016 12:26 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Herez sumthing to mull over: http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C53

The GWP (Gross World Product) wuz 77 trillion in 2011. Not a great year for any nation, but lets say that over the last 20 yirz its been sumthing in that nayborhood, say 50,000,000,000,000$ per yir.

Thats a quadrillion dollarz. Divide that by the current population and we woud hav about 140,000$ each.

Duznt sound totally unreazonable until you take all the zero and negativ welth peepl out uv the equation. I, for example am at sumthing like -250,000$. Not an unusual amount for middle classerz. So, do you add all the det for us or just mark it az zero? I dont no.

In either case, it seemz like it mite be difficult to find enuf billionairez and millionairez to account for a quadrillion dollarz. And thats only going back to 1996.

Then, if you just go yir to yir, totalling all the income suppozedly jenerated, subtracting all the food eaten, carz and other crap purchased, the suppozedly getting richer all the time rich peeps woud need to be spending all this money sumhow.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Friday, March 25, 2016 8:21 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:

Then, if you just go yir to yir, totalling all the income suppozedly jenerated, subtracting all the food eaten, carz and other crap purchased, the suppozedly getting richer all the time rich peeps woud need to be spending all this money sumhow.

When you do the arithmetic, you find out where the money is being spent. Check the Global Wealth Report 2015
https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425
415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E


The Global Wealth Report tells you what would happen if everybody sold everything they own, liquidated any investments they have, paid off all of their debts, and withdrew whatever cash they have in bank accounts.

You’d be standing on the street naked, with nowhere to go, holding a bunch of cash, and people would be looking at you.

But you would have $250,145 billion in dollar bills to cover your nudity.

Oh! I forgot you would have to divide that money with 7.4 billion people on Earth. That is $33,803 per person. Buy something with your money because clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

In more detail that is $4,352 per adult in India and $342,302 per adult in North America according to Credit Suisse Research.

The world ought not return to gold backing paper money because there is only $8.6 trillion in gold, but the world is worth $250 trillion.


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, March 25, 2016 11:46 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


The biggest threat to American workers is slowly starting to go away
http://wpo.st/fRgN1
By Matt O'Brien March 21, 2016

It turns out that the end of history was really the end of workers' bargaining power.

In other words, it wasn't just capitalism that won when the Berlin Wall came down. It was capital itself. That's what adding a billion new workers to the global economy all at once will do. Suddenly CEOs had the leverage to keep wages down in rich countries since they could always threaten to move jobs someplace cheaper like China—which they did.

And that's really what we're talking about when we talk about globalization. Sure, Latin America, eastern Europe, and southeast Asia have all become key cogs in the world economy in the past quarter century, but China has remade it. Manufacturers have moved their factories there, suppliers have too, and this whole ecosystem has helped pull more people out of poverty than at any other time in human history.

The flip side of this happy story, though, is that it's very much come at the expense of American workers. Now, I know: ask any economist, and they'll tell you that this isn't the way things work. That people who have their jobs outsourced will, for the most part, find new ones that pay just as much if not more. And, to be fair, that was a pretty accurate description of the world for a long time—but not right now. Economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson have found that, between 1990 and 2007, the American communities most exposed to Chinese competition saw their manufacturing workers pushed into persistent unemployment, their non-manufacturing workers pushed into accepting lower wages, and everyone pushed into relying on the safety net, whether that was welfare, disability, or food stamps, more than before. In all, trade with China alone was responsible for about a fifth of the manufacturing jobs we lost during this time—or 1.5 million to be exact.

The truth is that nobody knows why trade has hurt so much more now than it did before. Maybe it has something to do with low-skill workers being the hardest hit. Or maybe, as economist Adam Ozimek says, it's that people either can no longer afford or fathom moving somewhere else for work, so they get stuck in dying towns. Or maybe the simplest explanation is the right one: it's just that China is big. As in really, really big. The global economy has never seen a shock like China's rise, and never will again.

Now wait a minute. Don't Africa and India both have a billion workers who have or about to enter the wider economy themselves? Why yes, yes they do. What they don't have, though, is what has turned China into the workshop of the world. That's a single market, a single set of rules, and basically a single language. But maybe more important than all of that is that China has a government has invested in the infrastructure it needs to be integrated with the rest of the world. Think about it like this. It doesn't matter if you have the workers and the factories if you don't also have the roads and bridges and air and seaports to connect with the other parts of the global supply chain.

China does and these other countries don't. And the that fact that it does means that companies have not only moved their operations there, but the companies that supply those other ones have as well so they can give them what they need faster. It's what Paul Krugman calls the economics of agglomeration: specializing in a small thing can cause big changes, since companies that sell things to companies that sell things to companies that sell things to American customers will all cluster together. And that closeness will create cost advantages that pile up. So you end up being a lot better at something because you started out being a little better at it.

What we're saying, then, is that China had so many more workers and so much more infrastructure than any other country that has or possibly could join the global economy that it overwhelmed everybody else. It was too much too fast for, say, American factory workers to adjust to. After all, by the time they learned a new job, that one might have been outsourced too.

But there is some good news for American workers. What is that? Well, there's only one China, and even it is starting to disappear. Here's what I mean by that. Thirty years of a one-child policy has turned China's labor glut into a looming shortage. (That's why they just doubled it to a two-child policy). There aren't as many people moving to the cities as there were before, so companies are having to fight over workers by offering higher and higher wages. And that, in turn, is eroding China's cost advantage. Indeed, Chinese-made goods are now only 4 percent cheaper than American-made ones when you adjust for how much each worker produces. The result is that companies are starting to leave no-longer-low-cost China for, say, still-low-cost Vietnam—and sometimes even the United States. That doesn't mean, though, that manufacturing jobs are going to come back. They aren't. China took jobs that robots are taking now, just robots that run in the U.S. So where was that good news again? It's that higher wages in China means there's less downward pressure on wages in the U.S. It's true that other countries—in southeast Asia today and maybe Africa tomorrow—will keep wages from rising too much, but they just aren't big enough or have enough infrastructure to be anything like China.

So history might not end without people getting raises after all.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 12:26 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Uv course, that conclusion iznt taking 2 major factorz into account - droidz and essentialz depletion.



----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 9:09 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere.






" It takes a long time, to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " - John Dingell ( Democrat )

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 11:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

" It takes a long time, to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " - John Dingell ( Democrat )

I have no idea who Dingell is, but I know AURaptor and I know there is more to that quote than what was included. To listen to the whole quote will only take a second:



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 4:55 PM

THGRRI


Yep, knowing rappy and his agenda type posting. Nice post TWO

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 5:42 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

" It takes a long time, to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people. " - John Dingell ( Democrat )

I have no idea who Dingell is, but I know AURaptor and I know there is more to that quote than what was included. To listen to the whole quote will only take a second:


Do you keep your head in the sand, in order to remain oblivious to those taking away your rights like Dingell?

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 6:19 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Do you keep your head in the sand, in order to remain oblivious to those taking away your rights like Dingell?

You mean your right to die without health insurance. Because that is the right you're talking about. I have gotten to see that death up close and personal with people who had no insurance. The Emergency Room can't save them in the last few hours of their life, even though I have heard repeatedly from Republicans that nobody needs Obamacare when there is always an ER that must take the indigent patients. Medical science does not work the way Republicans keep claiming it works and doctors can't save them at the last second, when they haven't been to a doctor in years because they had no money.

For that quote from Dingell, Dingell was being questioned in 2010 about why Obamacare would not cover anybody until 2014. I can remember the Republicans in Texas in 2010 claiming that Obamacare would destroy American Medicine. Didn't happen, did it? I apologize to AURapture and JewelStaiteFan (by which I mean I feel sorry for you) if this is too hard for either of you to understand . . .

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 10:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

The biggest threat to American workers is slowly starting to go away
The reason why jobs are going away is because capitalists want them to go away. There was a study that came out recently that anyone who earns $20,000 or less per year has an 80% chance of losing their jobs due to automation.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 10:40 PM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I disagree. All of the progress that was ever made in the USA ... and that goes back to FDR and before... was made because people were less stupid - and less cowardly- then. The reason why FDR came up with his patchwork of social security programs wasn't because he was a good-hearted guy who felt sorry for the populace, but because less-stupid, less-cowardly people were fomenting revolution. If he hadn't saved capitalism from itself, it might have been destroyed by the less-stupid people.

The last gasp of the less-stupid was the antiwar movement.

But we're now at the bread (government assistance) and circuses (iPhones/TV) stage, and people are content to ignore the world as long as they're in their comfy mental bubble, and wait for the building catastrophes (there are at least three or four pending) to come crashing down on them.

Good that you mentioned FDR. Churchill ought to be included. I think a better description of what happens now is “A generation of failed politicians has trapped the West in a tawdry nightmare”.

In one of his last interviews, the historian Tony Judt lamented his “catastrophic” Anglo-American generation, whose cossetted members included George W Bush and Tony Blair. Having grown up after the defining wars and hatreds of the west’s 20th century, “in a world of no hard choices, neither economic nor political”, these historically weightless elites believed that “no matter what choice they made, there would be no disastrous consequences”.

A member of the Bush administration brashly affirmed its arrogance of power in 2004 after what then seemed a successful invasion of Iraq: “When we act,” he boasted, “we create our own reality.”

The reality it made is mayhem in Asia and Africa now reaching European and North American cities.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/01/generation-failed-politi
cians-elite-liberal-values

What can change that?

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Saturday, March 26, 2016 11:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

What can change that?


What "that"?

That politicians no longer respond to the people?

That people have given up trying to get these totally propagandized and corrupted politicians to do what they should?

That people have been totally pacified?

All of the above?

---------

IMHO, people in THIS culture (even TPTB) are short-term thinkers who only focus on their immediate and individual gratification: the very antithesis of a society. So assuming that you're asking about "all of the above", the only thing that will change the momentum is a complete economic breakdown that goes on and on until all of the current paradigms are burned out of people's psyches.

Most people seem to be struggling (if they are struggling) for pretty narrow-sector gains: the environment, gay rights, black lives matter, getting the Republicans (or Democrats) out of office, or what-have-you. What they don't seem to realize is that they need to fight the powers that be: remove their puppets from office, remove their levers of control. And in order to do that they need to work TOGETHER, not ameliorate a symptom but cure the disease.

How about simply seeing Hillary- that witch of international capital- indicted? Let's start with that, and make HER sing about who's pulling her strings, and work up from there.

----------

If you think that sounds bitter and angry, you're right.

I listen to NPR, that ever-faithful purveyor of the Democratic central committee, and they have their "foundations" remind us who's paying for the programming ... The Dunkypink Foundation, doing good for 35 year.

Wow, 35 years? But nothing has changed!

All of those do-gooder organizations ... religious, left-wing, right-wing, it hardly makes a difference. What has changed in the past 35 years?

Or what about those political Dem and Repub Punch and Judy shows that we're treated to every few years? For all of the sturm und drang - all of the drama and stress - has any mainstream politician ever done anything to move the needle in a positive direction?

For all of the chipping away at various causes, has the needle really moved on anything important, except as a one-way ratchet for the wealthy?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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