This picture about says it all
This picture about says it all, it comes from Juan Coles blog, which is a very good place to start looking for news about Iraq. News that is, that goofey is not writing for the disney fairy tale that is the official storyline out of the reichwingnut crazies department washington has become as of late. Hell even Monty Python probably would have thought the snark and hubris a bit much even for one of their skits. But then again, they were writing comedy, NOT the tradegy we have being orchestrated daily out of the Pentagon and White House. When the SS Bushite finally sinks, and it will sink, we survivors will have to man the lifeboats to attempt to reassemble the nation which was created in 1776, and try to wash the stain off it's image for the next couple of decades.The repugs and neo-cons have had their day and have screwed up, there is no other way to put it. Either by design or incompetence, or both, they have failed in almost all areas they endevoured. Yes they have slopped at the truogh for a while and are fatter for it, but in doing so they have damaged the fabric of our democracy, destroyed the military readiness of the country, and threatened the fiscal health of this country which will loom as a very real problem for a long time, and will have to be address by our children. Bush has a program of "leave no child behind", and he made sure that all of them have to carry his burden for a good portion of their lives. I'm sure they will appreciate it.
History probably will record Bush as the worst President ever, and I'm sure they will be the ones to make it a MEME they hold for their lives just as the "greatest generation" did Hoover. November is a commin' and it is time we TOOK back our democracy from these sycophants and morons, who pretend to knowe what they are doing.
posted by clif at 9:35 AM
9 Comments:
Yup!!! He's heading right straight for the iceberg full steam ahead and all we hear from him and his supporters on the ship is, "Hey, can you switch the deck chairs around and make sure if someone speaks too loudly to give them some crackers to muffle their voices?!".
Spit.
Hey Clif, Kaye, Larry etc.., Saturday night I was playing cards with and hanging out with a younger crowd about 25 years old, and they really blew me out of the water and surprised me, we got into a discussion about gas prices going down and EVERYONE there stated that prices were only going down as an election ploy to keep the repugs in power and that they would go right back up after the election, these kids were actually angry about it and fed up with the repug leadership and said they were going to actually vote and vote democrat.
Why is that significant you might ask, its signifificant because these were average joes who didnt even think about politics who became motivated to take a stand, most 25 year olds, my self included at that age dont even give politics a second thought, their main concern is getting laid, money for beer, cards, concerts, riding motorcycles etc... not politics.
See the repugs thought that if gas prices came down right before the election people would kiss theie a$$ and say what a great job they are doing, just like in Iraq how they ASSumed the irai's would greet them as liberators and throw rose petals at their feet, this just shows how out of touch with reality their delusional expectations are, they never thought people would get angry when gas prices came down and say "hey this is just an election ploy, why were prices high for SO LONG to begin with. Everyone thinks this is an election ploy and that prices will shoot right back up after the election.
This just shows that repugs have no credibility with the average joe, they are losing the under 30 crowd that they won over with their tough guy talk in 2002 and they are losing the military as well, the repugs will be done in Novemver and may very well be done for a generation, their arrogance blinds them to reality, and reality wont be too kind to them in November.
9:36 AM
A cautionary view of the current milieu
In times like this, when it seems as though madness abounds and one feels out of sync for noting problems that seem so serious and tangible, it's interesting to see comments from other people who agree with you yet travel in completely different circles.
In this case, it's a Sept. 7 interview with Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin that was just released by Citigroup's (C, news, msgs) Global Economic & Market Analysis group. While he doesn't specifically talk about a dislocation, Rubin's comments do echo what I have been saying:
"Most people seem to think that the problem is somewhere down the road. I think the markets are remarkably complacent. It's curious to me that economists, with an exception here or there, are as sanguine as they seem to be. They talk about a cooling off or a soft landing or whatever it may be, but generally seem to attach very low probabilities to really serious, adverse developments. Most of the people I know in the national security world, and there are many, seem deeply troubled about a variety of matters: nuclear proliferation, Islamic radicalism, the endgame in Iraq, instability in countries that mean a great deal to us in the Middle East, what's going to happen in Pakistan and many other issues as well. And the markets do not reflect this."
I'm sorry for being a broken record, but at some point, all of this lunacy -- exacerbated by the combination of wanton premium-selling in options and "financial dark matter" derivatives, as well as 10,000 hedge funds -- will end in a dislocation, and no other way. Just because it hasn't happened thus far does not mean that the odds have diminished. In fact, as the reckless behavior continues, the risks have only increased.
When 'Bubbleonians' roamed the Earth
I suspect that when the history books are written on this particular moment in time -- and, for what it's worth, right now "feels" to me like a cross between September 1987/early 2000 -- people will look back and shake their heads in wonderment at how the market could have done what it did. Just as anyone would think, looking back to the autumn of 1973 or any other inflection point: Wow, how could market operators have been so blind?
Well, that's what the madness of crowds is all about: always wrong at the inflection points but driving you nuts as you try to exploit the opportunity.
At the time of publication, Bill Fleckenstein did not own or control shares of companies mentioned in this column.
10:31 AM
THE COMING CORRECTION
Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin
Tout passé, tout casse say the French. Everything goes away. Everything breaks down. Nothing is born that does not die. Nothing begins that does not end. There is no morning without an evening, and no silver lining without a cloud. Empires come. Empires go.
In the financial markets, the "going" phase is called a correction. It is intended to correct the excesses and mistakes of the expansion phase. In a bull market, there are corrections that bring extraordinary gains down to more modest ones. In a bear market, corrections - which soften extraordinary losses into more ordinary ones - are known as rallies.
Generally, the force of a correction is equal and opposite to the trend that precedes it. And the pain it causes is directly proportional to the pleasant deception that went before it.
As a practical formula, this does little to help us. We still do not know when or how the correction will come. And, to borrow an idea from Lord Keynes, the deception can last a lot longer than you can remain solvent betting against it. And yet, it is even more dangerous to bet on it.
America's empire of debt rests on many huge deceptions that we have described in this book:
That one generation can consume - and stick the next with the bill.
That you can get something for nothing.
That the rest of the world will take American IOUs forever - no questions asked.
That house prices will forever go up.
That American labor is inherently more valuable than foreign labor.
That the American capitalist system is freer, more dynamic, and more productive than other systems.
That other countries want to be more like America, even if it is forced on them.
That the virtues that made America rich and powerful are no longer required to keep it rich and powerful.
That domestic savings and capital investment are no longer necessary.
That the United States no longer needs to make things for export.
The deception that sent credit expansion soaring between 2001 and 2005 came eagerly from America's own central bank. By setting its key lending rate below the current inflation rate, the Fed misled almost everyone.
Throughout the boom years of 2002 to 2005, the Great Deceiver, Alan Greenspan, appeared before the U.S. Senate and dissembled. Not only did inflation present no clear and present danger, neither did Americans' debt loads, nor did the negative numbers in the current account. Mr. Greenspan, who surely must have known better, found nothing to dislike and nothing to worry about.
So, we stop, draw breath, and wonder.
The deception is so large, we wonder how it could ever be fully corrected. We speak not merely of Mr. Greenspan's perjury before Congress, but of the larger deception, in which Mr. Greenspan plays a leading role.
The promise of American capitalism is that it makes people richer, freer, and more independent. But since the introduction of the Fed and the rise of the empire, the currency in which Americans keep score has so addled the figures, we scarcely know if we are winning or losing. The dollar we knew as a child - in the 1950s - is only worth a tenth as much today.
The average household today has far more of them than we did. In 1950, U.S. household debt to disposable income, which is basically after-tax income, was 34 percent (if disposable income was $10,000, households had $3,400 in outstanding debt). Today, the average American household has learned to live large - on an imperial scale. Its house is worth more dollars.
It has a bigger car. It eats out more often. It has a wider TV screen with a clearer picture. It has more employment insurance. More health insurance. More Social Security Insurance. More protection offered by more government employees than ever before. It has many more credit cards, with much larger lines of credit. It has more clothes. More toys.
More gadgets, gizmos, and whatchmacallits. It has more debt. More obligations. More chains.
Almost every American believes he is richer. Certainly, compared with the Old World, Americans have no doubt that the rise of their empire improved every subject's life. Is it true?
We pause to deliver a shocking update.
People love myth, fraud, and claptrap - especially when it flatters them. Maybe their food, life expectancy, crime rates, transportation, liquor, women, and architecture are nothing to brag about, say Americans to each other, but when they grub for money, they grub good. "Old Europe," they say, making a comparison, "is too rigid, fossilized, hidebound...a museum."
And yet, even this is a fraud. Despite Laffer's curve, Greenspan's Bubbles and Reagan's revolution, the U.S. economy has done no better than Europe.
The Economist examined the evidence. Everybody believes that America grew a lot faster than Europe over the past 10 years. But the figures, in terms of GDP/person are very close - 2.1 percent per year for America against 1.8 percent for Europe. Take out Germany - which has struggled with absorbing its formerly communist cousins from the East - and the two regions are exactly the same.
And productivity? A study by Kevin Daly, an economist at Goldman Sachs, finds that, after adjusting for differences in their economic cycles, trend productivity growth in the euro area has been slightly faster than that in America over the past 10 years.
What about jobs? America is the greatest jobs machine on the planet, right? Again, excluding Germany, jobs in the rest of Europe grew at the same pace as in America. And more jobs have been created in the euro.
It's true that Americans earn more and spend more than Europeans...but they work a lot more hours. Europeans simply enjoy leisure more.
But what about the post-2001 "recovery?" Hasn't it been much more vigorous in America than in Europe? Well, only on the surface. Spiked up by the biggest dose of fiscal and monetary juice in history, America's economy has slightly outpaced Europe's.
But the figures are hard to compare. Europe calculates GDP growth more conservatively than America...and understates the truth, rather than overstates it, as they do at the Labor Department. More importantly, America's jolt of growth has come at great cost. While Europe got no net stimulus, America has gotten enough to give it the shakes.
"Super-lax policies of the past few years have left behind large economic and financial imbalances that cast doubt on the sustainability of America's growth," says the Economist. "From a position of surplus before 2000, the structural budget deficit (including state and local governments) now stands at almost 5 percent of GDP, three times as big as that in the euro area.
America has a current-account deficit of 5 percent of GDP, while the euro area has a small surplus. American households now save less than 2 percent of their disposable income; the savings rate in the euro area stands at a comfortable 12 percent. Total household debt in America mounts to 84 percent of GDP, compared with only 50 percent in the euro zone."
Barely has the twenty-first century begun and America finds itself in a remarkable position. It has, what it believes is, the world's most powerful economy . . . and the world's most powerful military force. Like the defunct Soviet Union, it has a sickle in one hand and a hammer in the other. The sickle, alas, has an awkward bend in it.
Since 1990, income for the average American household has risen only 11 percent while average household spending has jumped 30 percent. How could people spend so much more money without earning more?
Outstanding household debt doubled to more than $10 trillion between 1992 and 2004, even adjusted for inflation. And in Utah last year, 28 of every 1,000 households declared bankruptcy, almost three times the rate of a decade earlier.
People are determined to live large and live better than they can afford. They do this by what economists call smoothing income. Anticipating higher incomes in the future, young families spend the money now (e.g., buying bigger houses than they can afford). Nationwide, house sizes have grown 30 percent since 1980, says Cornell economist Robert Frank.
And now even people in their 50s and 60s look forward to either higher incomes or miracles. Some economists refer to the whole phenomenon as the "democratization of credit." "Innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes," says the Fed chief. He did not mention his own role in this democratic revolution. He is too modest. He is a Danton and Robespierre put together.
The Fed chairman accomplished more than all the nation's innovators and deregulators put together. Dropping the price of credit below the inf lation rate, he offered the entire world something for nothing. Now, everyman could get himself into financial trouble, not just kings, speculators, and financiers. He made it possible for lending institutions to extend such a long rope of credit to the common man that millions are sure to hang themselves.
We don't know what to make of it, so we turn to the dead for an opinion. But it is hopeless, the corpses know even less than we do. They can't even imagine what is happening. Borrow against your house when you don't have to? Buy a house as an "investment?" Take out "equity?" "Depend on foreigners to balance your budget?" "Live beyond your means and expect Third World wage earners to make up the difference?" The ideas that Americans once took for absurd, they now take for granted.
What was wrong with our parents, grandparents, and long-dead ancestors? Why weren't they smart enough to realize that they could have a brand-new house with all the modern conveniences without paying for it? Why didn't they figure out that they could all get rich by buying each others' houses? But now, thank God, we are all geniuses.
The baby born when the empire began in 1913 came into the world with nothing. But he owed nothing. Now, he comes into the world owing his share of 37 trillion; that's about $128,560 with his name on it. Is he richer? Is he better off? What would the dead say? That doesn't include his share of Federal obligations and commitments that he'll have to pay, which could add $100,000 more.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning
www.dailyreckoning.com
13 October 2006
Militarism
Don Stott
As America goes down the drain economically, and the buck loses ever more value and purchasing power, there are many reasons for it. We have discussed the huge problem of overseas jobs, and how some of it comes about by tinkering with tariffs. But there are other serious things, which debilitate the dollar, causing it to shrink in value. Among them is the fact that America has become an extremely militaristic nation.
Many are now comparing us to the Roman Empire, which self bankrupted itself by means of expansionism and militarism, which the Romans could not pay for, and which caused them to fail and fall. Chalmers Johnson's book, "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," illustrates the situation very clearly, and he especially takes it out on the military. Economics is the thing which we all live and die by, and economics is the main thrust of "Militarism." According to the Federation of American Scientists, since the beginning of WW II, America has used military force in other nations, 201 times, and in most cases we were the instigator of the use of force. We have never succeeded in creating a single democratic institution in any of these forays. This leads the rest of the world to believe that we are an imperialist power, a new Rome, an out of control military society, fully determined to dominate the rest of the world.
40% of the military budget is "black," or secret, even from most members of Congress. The Black Budget, as an example, constructed a $300 million National Reconnaissance Office building without anyone knowing about it, even though it was plainly visible on Route 28, west of D.C. Elegant Lady, Tractor Rose, Forest Green, Senior Citizen, island Sun, and Black Light, White Cloud, and Classic Wizard, are all black budget items, which few outside of the military know how much they cost, or what they are. They cost hundreds of millions of paper dollars, all run off the printing presses, which decay the dollar. Johnson says, "We don't manufacture that much in this country any more, are the largest single weapons manufacturer on earth, and will sell weapons to practically anyone who wants them. We like to pretend that this is capitalism, but it isn't. It has only one customer, and the industry is extremely concentrated. According to the Pentagon's own count, we currently have 737 American military bases located in other countries. It took 300 years for the Roman Empire to succumb. In my lifetime, I've seen the collapse of the Nazi, Imperial Japanese, British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Soviet Empires. If you and I were talking in 1985, and I said to you that four years from now, the Soviet Union would disappear, you'd have thought he's probably daydreaming, but now it's gone." Very observant fellow.
America today, thanks to trade imbalances, welfare expenditures of various types, huge military expeditions, and the various black budget items, has unfunded but committed expenditures of $70 TRILLION DOLLARS, which obviously are un-payable. We have become dependent on foreign nations to buy our debt, in order to keep us trading with them. China knowingly holds hundreds of millions of US debt paper, and it well knows we are bankrupt. China and other nations keep buying our debt because we spend the dollars with them, which fosters their development and liquidity with un-backed pieces of paper. Both sides are participating in a game of musical chairs, except the public doesn't know the game is on-going. The public, thanks to the bought and paid for media, keep telling us that the economy us wonderful, and Bush has announced that he has cut the deficit by 50% as he promised. The "official" government figures on everything to do with economics are fairy tales, but everyone believes them.
SUDDENLY
That was a '50s movie with Frank Sinatra, and well worth a rent and watch, but has nothing to do with today. Suddenly, is how things can happen, be it an auto accident, explosion, or collapse. Think about it and remember how suddenly the World Trade Center thing happened, school shootings, blowing up a US ammunition dump in Iraq two days ago, A Yankee Pitcher slamming his plane into a NY upper east side apartment building, or a collapse of a nation's economy. Boom! And it's over, sometimes in an instant. Not to again mention a thing past, but the reichsmark was worth a quarter in 1922, and two years later, it was a ratio of 5 million to one US dollar, at which point it was used to start fires or wipe one's behind. If China, or some other sucker nation decided that they no longer needed to prop up the US fragile economy, and stopped buying our irrational debt, we would come down just like Humpty Dumpty's falling off the wall. Remember when the stock market took its dive in just a few days? The mighty Soviet Union collapsed like a deck of cards in a very short period of time, and all of its subservient nations became independent immediately.
How many marriages have instantly dissolved, when one of the mates discovered that the other had been cheating, maybe for years? America has been cheating for years by printing un-backed dollars with no limits of any kind, and spending itself into obscurity, but like the cheating mate, no one has exposed it. When the truth was found, the marriage dissolved instantly, and the Soviet was no more. The Soviets had been bankrupt for years, just like America, and they had been cheating, and deceiving for a long time, but when the truth came out, they were suddenly kaput. It is not difficult to think of 'suddenly' things. A slip of a hammer or saw, a miscount of dollars, a bad check, a falling building, a fire or explosion, a car wreck, a bankrupt retail chain, or a host of other unexpected, but in retrospect, obvious faults. Chains or retail establishments often hide debts and cook the books to hope that they can pull themselves out of the fire. When it is no longer possible, all the stores close immediately, everyone is fired, and the creditors can only hope for the best.
Why is it so difficult to realize that the U.S. economy is far worse than any chain of retail establishments, failing marriages, or a firetrap building. The U.S. economy is holding together by the sheerest of threads. The Dow rushes ahead to new highs, while its P/E ratio is 22 to 1, or double what it should be, and the black budget items continue to grow and steal. With a $70 trillion debt which is committed and unavoidable, and the presses running night and day, why does it take a few truthful people such as myself to point this out, while the media ignores it completely? Are we in error? Are we exaggerating? Are we lying? Is Stott's law, which states that the more of anything there is, the less they are worth, including dollars, a falsehood?
Ike warned about the military-industrial complex, but then he partook by feeding it lavishly while he was in office. Succeeding presidents and Congress have fed and fed and fed that complex, and we are now on the bankrupting, militaristic path which Rome, Greece, Egypt, and all previous world powers and empires have trod, with their inevitable and unavoidable collapse. There's no way the citizenry can correct what the D.C. Gang has wrought for decades, even by voting correctly The least thing informed people can do is protect themselves by not saving any surplus assets in the currency of the failing nation, but rather by saving in historic money, which is silver and gold. It makes so much sense, but it is impossible for the average public school graduate to contemplate, and especially when the gods of the media are either ignorant of the facts, or are in league with the D.C. Gang, and hope to prop it up as long as possible. It all looks so nice now. The fall is upon us, and the leaves are brilliant in their colors. The stock market is up, and all are happy, except for the record bankruptcies, foreclosures, and job losses to China and Mexico. A client just bought gold from me as I am writing this, and a news broadcast he just heard, said that there are over 400,000 illegals in Houston, not counting the refugees from Katrina. Is this a sign of insolvency, with the illegals getting free medical and many social benefits, plus breeding new babies which are automatically citizens? Can America print to feed and care for the lazy, illegal, and worthless forever, without officially declaring what it is, and that is bankrupt? How long can a falsehood be maintained? You tell me, but in the mean time, protect yourself.
October 12, 2006
Mike, the tide is turning and it's heading straight for the republican party. Their lies, deceits, and distortions no longer work on the American people. Hell, as you pointed out, even the 25 year olds in this country who spend their day thinking about their own needs are now seeing the light when it comes to the Pigs in Washington! No one is fooled anymore!
Give your friends a thumbs up. :-)
Lets face it Mike, even the younger people see that Bush is heading for wars all over the mideast.
The younger people don't want to be drug into this mess, and if Bush keeps going, 40 year olds will be drafted as well.
Wanna see really just how bad it is gonna be for the repugs;
Check this out
2004 very well could have been the repugs swan song, and 2006 the begining of a decades long trend.....too sweet.
Yeah, what they said.
PS -- The fourth exhaust pipe on the Titanic never had smoke coming out of it (here's a picture, even though it's of a jigsaw puzzle box). Amazing, huh? Not really, I know.
Post a Comment
<< Home