A tired mind...

Greetings good citizen,

Once again I apologize to my faithful readers for the scant postings of late but adjusting to this 3rd shift schedule at my age is proving quite the feat.

You don’t know what to do when (and you pay dearly for your mis-steps) you are also perpetually playing catch-up in the sleep department. (No matter how much you get you still wake up addled!)

I thought I had outgrown the wish that someone would bottle ‘rest’ but there it is!

This constant state of fatigue isn’t conducive to writing coherently and I deal in that which is barely coherent on a good day!

I am tempted to throw in the towel but after two decades I refuse to let a small thing like a change of shift defeat me.

That said, I am praying for your forbearance as I adjust my internal clock to its new schedule.

But enough with the ‘excuse shirt’, my inability to remain lucid does nothing to alter the predicament faced by our civilization.

Although some curious ‘background music’ has come to mind and it makes one reflect upon the world stage with a renewed sense of alarm.

IF we ‘assume’ a global capitalist take over (a coup if you will) then the world’s nuclear arsenal is all in the hands of a single ‘team’ so to speak.

This goes a long ways towards explaining the nuclear ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ (aside from the ‘useful idiot’ argument we are currently expected to swallow.)

So what does Putin’s third term say to us?

Odd how we immediately return to the ‘useful idiot’ argument, don’t we?

Even more disturbing is the question of who is behind these ‘meat-puppets’?

Undoubtedly the one percent but who among them has the clout (to both remain anonymous AND push these otherwise powerful leaders buttons as well?)

Naturally the quick response would be to point out that NO ONE on the world stage is what we could traditionally call a ‘leader’.

And the one calling the shots is too smart to step into the limelight. (It means instant death.)

(See what I mean regarding the product of an exhausted mind? But these are the thoughts that occupy my weary head of late…)

So, are the men with their finger on the button really so spineless as to defy their lord and masters?

I suppose you’d be chicken too considering what these entities are capable of.

Which brings me to the darker still side of my musings…do these fools realize what they are unleashing upon themselves if they continue on their current course?

Even anonymity won’t save them! (Because the beast is mindless and can’t be reasoned with once it is loose!)

So these fools are relying on ‘luck’ (or worse, money) to save their sorry backsides.

We can only hope Darwin was right…(the stupid will eliminate themselves from the gene pool!)

How sad is it that these fools will take a lot of good people with them?

On that note my feeble powers of elucidation are giving it up…so I will (once again) thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

For Dummies

Greetings good citizen,

This night shift thing is kicking the crap out of me and posting is suffering. Again I apologize for slacking but at the end of the day health comes first (and I’ve gotta sleep!)

Anyway, one of the seldom touched upon topics…I don’t point to it often because if YOU visit THIS site (regularly and habitually) it doesn’t apply to YOU.

What doesn’t apply to you? The fact that a shockingly large percent of the adult population is STUPID.

Not just here in that ‘Awesome bastion of freedom and liberty, the good ol’ USA but around the globe, the hopelessly gullible are the rule rather than the exception.

As This article from Alternet points out:

In sum and all averaged out, it’s safe to say about 37 percent of Americans are just are not very bright. Or rather, quite shockingly dumb. Perhaps beyond reach. Perhaps beyond hope or redemption. Perhaps beyond caring about anything they have to say in the public sphere ever again. Sorry, Kansas.

Did you frown at that last paragraph? Was it a terribly elitist and unkind thing to say? Sort of. Probably. But I’m not sure it matters, because none of those people are reading this column right now, or any column for that matter, because reading anything even remotely complex or analytical is something only 42 percent of the population enjoy doing on a regular basis, which is why most TV shows, all reality shows, many major media blogs and all of Fox News is scripted for a 5th-grade education/attention span.

OMG LOL kittens! 19 babies having a worse day than you. WTF is up with Justin Timberlake’s hair?!?

It is this bizarre, circular, catch-22 kind of question, asked almost exclusively by intellectual liberals because intellectual conservatives don’t actually exist, given how higher education leads to more developed critical thinking (you already know the vast majority of university professors and scientists identify as Democrat/progressive, right?) which leads straight to a more nimble, open-minded perspective. In short: The smarter you are, the less rigid/more liberal you become.

And if you aren’t a meat puppet of the bloviating right wing noise machine, you already knew this…which is why you’re here, reading my blog.

The typical conservative can’t get through two paragraphs here without their heads exploding.
Seriously.

If we were to seek out this massive cognitive dissonance we’d need look no further than the invisible economic recovery that only exists in the corporate owned media.

We usually assume that economically distressed areas exist only in inner-city slums or rural backwaters. But areas plagued by persistent high unemployment almost never fit into conventional categories. Distressed areas share characteristics that make them unlikely to recover if the remedies offered rely only on the standard approaches to boosting the economy.

In distressed areas , government aid provides nearly one-third of residents’ incomes, compared to 17 percent nationwide. Upwards of 40 percent of the population in these areas lives on $30,000 a year or less, and the workforces there have low educational-achievement rates, with more than half possessing just a high-school degree or less. Most jobs are in low-end service industries, especially prisons, casinos, nursing homes, and retail. Such jobs offer few chances for upward mobility or skill enhancement.

For instance, unemployment in Yakima, Washington, has averaged 4 percentage points above the national average over the past 20 years—57 percent of its adult residents have only a high school degree or less. Similarly, in Rockford, Illinois, where the average unemployment rate has been 2.4 percentage points above the national standard for over 10 years, 53 percent of the population has no education past high school. To take one more example, a staggering 62 percent of the population in Danville, Virginia, has only a high school degree or less, and its unemployment rate has hovered 2.1 percentage points above the national average over the past five-plus years. In the country as a whole, by comparison, 43.3 percent of the adult population has no post-secondary education; in some thriving areas, the figure is much lower—for instance, Cambridge, MA (22.7 percent) and Seattle, WA (25.8 percent).

Oddly today’s headlines were crowing about a ‘building boom’ that has taken contractors ‘by surprise’.

This is (once again) a total ‘mis-reading’ of the housing situation. The few who can afford it want to buy ‘new’ houses, which has absolutely nothing to do with economic recovery and everything to do with economic outliers!

Time presses good citizen so I have to wrap this up, as disjointed as it may read.

I promise to do better come the weekend (although I have another ‘mandatory Saturday’ this week so my weekend is (virtually) non-existent.

I (once again) laud my readers mental alacrity and ability to read between the lines…if you couldn’t do that you wouldn’t be here (nor would you keep returning.)
Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

The Rub

Greetings good citizen,
The, er, ‘stress’ of acclimating myself to a reversed schedule has rendered me more ‘incoherent’ than usual.

Doesn’t help that my perspective is contrary to the BS you’ve had hammered into your head since childbirth. [A phenomenon I find extremely curious because once it is confirmed, you should see it for the ‘self-serving tripe’ that it is without my coaching.]

For those of you not so quick on the uptake I will be more specific, I’m talking about that illusion that increasingly makes less and less sense, money.

I was reading an article online the other night where this professional ‘money manager’ was telling his readers that he charges his kids ‘rent’ (forcing them to ‘save’) so they will learn about the ‘value’ of money.

Understand dipstick’s ‘lesson’ is centered on the no longer viable idea that money pays interest (although that wasn’t the ‘example’ he used, he was using his ‘savings’ to buy stocks!)

So he equated spending money with ‘firing’ his personal money making ‘robots’ (what he referred to them as.)

He went on to claim that he had ‘earned’ $3,000 in annual ‘dividends’ from his holdings.

Do you know how few stocks pay dividends or that companies are under no ‘obligation’ to pay a dividend AT ALL? (Even if they’re crazy profitable.)

Well if you didn’t you weren’t about to be ‘educated’ by this idiot’s article!

Which is to reflect just how ‘unreliable’ professional monetary advice can be.

Worse, the most prominent ‘risk’ when it comes to investing is listening to advisors peddling their own self-interest!

Naturally, you’d expect ‘financial advisors’ to focus on the traditional ‘backbone’ of investment, that of ‘savings’. These days ‘ordinary’ savings vehicles don’t pay spit, which is why chucklehead is ‘speculating’ in the market WITHOUT telling you…although he does ‘volunteer’ what stocks HE invested in (hoping YOU will be STUPID enough to buy them!)

Now, back to reality. Markets around the globe are bleeding from the eyesockets today (which has nothing to do with nothing. Wall Street is so far divorced from Main Street as to be on a different planet, as disturbing as that realization and what it implies means to the average citizen.)


Which leads us to this headline:

To Reassure Investors, Fed Stresses It Will Not End Stimulus
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Concerns about the effects of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus policy can dilute the policy’s impact by causing investors to doubt that rates will remain low.

What do you suppose the Fed is going to do when people realize the Fed is inflating away their purchasing power?

Can you say Banana Republic?

How are our two stories ‘related’?

Note the extremely poor ‘quality’ of what passes for ‘investment advice’ these days and how shamelessly the pundit uses his (probably already grown and gone) ‘kids’ as a ‘teaching tool’?

How bizarre is it good citizen that this is a perfect example of ‘what you don’t know’ causing insurmountable harm?

Once again your (deliberate) ‘ignorance’ only aids the grifters the government has failed to protect you from.

Not that ‘government the concept’ failed, it was (of course) the humans running it that have failed.

We’re back to ‘weakest links’…as you well know.

How can ‘The Bernank’ maintain this false façade?

Let us return to lesson one shall we?

ALL MONEY IS FUNNY!

I don’t mean just paper or coins, I mean ALL of it!

How ‘astonished’ would you be if I told you our financial system is based on Unicorns?

You’d probably think I was kidding but think about it.

You’ve seen money but you’ve never seen a unicorn so how can this be?

The whole concept of ‘debt’ is imaginary; that’s the first thing you need to wrap your head around!
The next step is really simple…there is absolutely zero difference between debt and unicorns…so there you are!

Even more disturbing is how prevalent the belief in Unicorns (debt) is.

Do you honestly believe Ben Bernanke has an endless supply of dollars at his disposal? (Especially after his masters have hollowed out the US economy?)

Of course you don’t!

But it works today because the price of disbelief is too stiff.

And there’s the rub!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

What?

Greetings good citizen,

Once again we have the corporate owned media using trivia to distract us from the real issues at hand.

JPMorgan Ignored Warnings in Loss, Inquiry Finds
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and BEN PROTESS 49 minutes ago

JPMorgan Chase ignored risk controls and withheld information from regulators during big trading losses last year, a Senate inquiry found.

A Senate panel report says that Jamie Dimon, chief of JPMorgan Chase, withheld details about the bank's daily losses.

Then our ‘guardians of society’ double up the information, attempting to confuse the matter even worse than it already is.

How inconvenient the very next article points to the real issue?

Pearl Brady of Brooklyn worries that it will be years before she will be able to put money away.
Younger Generations Lag Parents in Wealth-Building
By ANNIE LOWREY 49 minutes ago

A study finds that younger working adults are not doing better financially than the previous generation.

With ‘wealth management experts' opining we need to set aside at least a half a million dollars to retire ‘safely’ and with most workers earning less than 25 to 30 thousand dollars annually, the only way the majority can retire ‘comfortably’ is magic.

They’d fall short of the mark even if they saved every penny they ever earned!

In order to be a low wage drone for corporate USA, retirement must be an impossibility. (Not that this is news to the people being compared in this article.)

We have been saying all along we’d have to work ‘til we drop’ (IF we were lucky enough to find work after being ‘churned’ into pauper-dom!)

But the 4th Estate knows thinks YOU are STUPID.

How pathetic is it good citizen that a majority of the corporate owned media’s Blarney is insulting to the average person’s intelligence?

If we back up to our first post we have to scratch our heads and wonder what anyone is supposed to make of the banking sectors alleged ignorance.
Which is to point to what ‘everybody knows’. The crash of the financial system was deliberate and these clowns drove it off a cliff KNOWING the taxpayer was going to ‘bail them out’!

So what’s this nonsense about the banks ‘ignoring warnings’?

We’re talking the biggest heist of all time here!

It sure takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend (never mind actually assert) that they had no idea this whole situation was going to end in bankruptcy.

Sort of like this next headline…where once again we are played for ignorant chumps powerless to stop what’s going to happen next:

The drilling rig Kulluk was grounded in January 40 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska.
Interior Dept. Warns Shell on Arctic Drilling
By JOHN BRODER 8:32 PM ET

The government wants a detailed plan on how the company plans to address safety issues before allowing it to resume exploration.

A REAL government would never have permitted this nonsense in the first place but we all know the political lapdogs are ‘going through the motions’ of pretending to protecting the public while they allow private enterprise to doom our civilization.

We don’t need MORE fossil fuels, we need to use what little there is left much more judiciously.

But the >One Percent doesn’t do privation well (if at all.) Isn’t it bad enough they have to ‘put up with’ the rest of us using THEIR stuff?

Speaking of which:

DealBook
Fed Rebukes Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase Over Capital Plans
By PETER EAVIS

The Federal Reserve cited “weaknesses” in capital plans of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, while Citigroup and Bank of America got a green light.

Doesn’t God ‘rebuke’ people? The rest of us get called on our baloney. How sad is it that the other two thieves got away with their ‘plans’?

We’re back to the ‘appearance of propriety’ as opposed to actual legal oversight.
If YOU were this incompetent you’d be on the outside looking in already!

BUT if this clowns did what they were elected to do they’d be ‘pushing up Daisy’s’ in a remote field somewhere.

You are right to fear a government that has suspended both your right to a fair trial along with any prohibition against executing you out of hand but you SHOULD fear the MEN who made this possible even more!

But I digress, what do you suppose the deal is with this story?

The Galaxy S IV.
Samsung Introduces New Galaxy Phone
By BRIAN X. CHEN and NICK WINGFIELD 7:31 PM ET

Increasing the stakes in the smartphone battle, the South Korean manufacturer showed off the Galaxy S IV, the latest version of its flagship device.

comment iconPost a Comment | Read (1)

Since this is YESTERDAY’S Business section you won’t be able to ‘backtrack’ any of this but there was an article this morning’s news about Samsung being a giant ‘pretending’ to be a scrappy start-up like Research in motion. Or that other tiny company…Apple.

Seriously, good citizen…

New Jobless Claims at a 5-Year Low
By REUTERS 7:38 PM ET

The report on unemployment added to a range of data that suggested higher taxes were having a limited impact on the economy.

Like the whole theme of today’s reporting is ‘insult their intelligence!

The most prosperous time the US have ever known came when the marginal tax rate was at over 90% of income over a million dollars…so employers paid their people instead of handing it over to Uncle Sam.

And what we’re seeing today is the ‘blow-back’ of that policy.

Which is to opine that there is going to be a whole lot of ‘punishment’ going on before we get this ship back on an even keel.

Last but not least we have a token of open rebellion on display!

Media Decoder
Editor Charged With Aiding Hackers Group
By AMY CHOZICK 8:51 PM ET

Matthew Keys, a 26-year-old social media editor, was charged with assisting the hacking collective Anonymous in an attack on The Los Angeles Times Web site.

Perhaps someday we will be able to give Mr. Keys the medal he richly deserves for standing up to our tyrannical overlords.

But for now he’s going to have to live with being black-balled by an industry that insults your intelligence.

Maybe this one is a net win from a realist perspective.

How this landed in the business section remains a mystery but it is the ‘re-surfacing’ of ‘old news’.

Hoping to Save Bees, Europe to Vote on Pesticide Ban
By DAVID JOLLY 4:08 PM ET

European officials plan to vote on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of chemicals that have been implicated in the decline of global bee populations.

Once again good citizen we are witnessing the side effects of failing to prosecute the corporate guilty for playing God recklessly.

What do you suppose this ban on pesticide is going to accomplish?

Most likely it will result in a plague of pests! Then they’ll be spraying twice as much pesticide!

But you (evidently) aren’t smart enough to figure that one out…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Rope Burns

Greetings good citizen,

Contrary to the Happy Talk being spewed by the Corporate Owned Media, the destruction of our civilization proceeds apace (to better protect the guilty from prosecution.)

Ironically our first headline is yet another exercise in ‘misdirection/manipulation’:

U.S. Retail Sales Jump
By REUTERS 8:44 AM ET

The Commerce Department said retail sales increased 1.1 percent, the largest rise since September, after a revised 0.2 percent gain in January.

Shares Slip Despite Economic Data

Given a how our entire economy (these days) is based solely upon ‘creative accounting’ it is somewhat disturbing to see the totally fabricated stock markets tanking in light of this alleged ‘good news’.

Can’t these people get on the same page?

But the whole ‘teamwork’ thing doesn’t work for the ‘rugged individuals’ these shills take their marching orders from.

More curiously, we have this bizarre headline focused on a topic that mostly affects the One Percent’s minions…seriously?

Europe Seeks Update of Law on Fliers’ Rights
By NICOLA CLARK 8:57 AM ET

For flights originating in Europe, new rules would clarify passengers’ rights to compensation for delayed or canceled flights.

How will this face-off between two One Percenter’s play out? (One who is picking up the tab for airfare and the other who owns the airlines…)

We may never know.

But this story is increasingly ‘in the news’

Chinese Solar Panel Maker on Financial Brink
By KEITH BRADSHER 8:10 AM ET

Suntech Power, a U.S.-listed company that is closing its Arizona plant, is poised to be taken over by the government of its hometown in China.

Where are the conservo-loonies (that basically chased this US company into the waiting arms of the Chinese?)

The management of this company should be drawn and quartered for treason…but that’s beside the point. Where are you going to sell Chinese made solar panels if you can’t sell them in the US?

And if you try to sell them here, a hundred million unemployed US citizens will tear them apart (along with whoever buys them!)

Then we have the point/counterpoint exercise that follows in two separate headlines:

Blessings of Low Taxes Remain Unproved
By EDUARDO PORTER

Paul Ryan of Wisconsin recycled an argument for lower taxes that surfaced in the ’80s and ’90s, but recent history suggests that higher taxes might help the economy.

The very definition of ‘insane’ is doing the same act repeatedly and each time expecting a different outcome…like conservo-loonies (by definition insane) for steadfastly advocating tax cuts for the rich as a vehicle for ‘prosperity for all.’

Is hasn’t worked in the past yet they somehow think it will work if we give it just one more try!

But wait, the conservo-whackos aren’t done!

We have one last headline from an arch Dumbo!:

Today's Economist
Hidden Costs of the Minimum Wage
By CASEY B. MULLIGAN

The federal minimum wage should be lowered, not raised, so as not to compound the damage it causes.

Lower the minimum wage so as not to ‘compound’ the damage to the economy presumably caused by the US’s ‘uncompetitiveness’

Is this dolt crazy?

You know it is a rhetorical question good citizen, Bobo is a conservative so it stands to reason that things like logic and truth are meaningless to him.

He expects Leprechauns to bring pots of gold to all of the good employers who make their workers suffer the most to better insure ‘class purity’.

How twisted is it good citizen that a certain segment of our society believes there are ‘good people’ who ‘own things’ and needy-greedy people who demand things like living wages and enough to eat.

These same people feel the needy greedy people have to be taught their proper place, that they are ‘entitled’ to nothing.

While those of us condemned to the One Percent’s dung heap think shills like this guy belong at the knotted end of a stout rope with their feet at least twelve inches off the pavement.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Dirty Deeds

Greetings good citizen,

Most of us (now graybeards) draw a straight line from our current troubles to the ‘Imperial Presidency’ of ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon and his hapless follow-up act, Ronnie Reagan (a lifelong ‘paid corporate shill’.)

What disturbs us (graybeards) most is the ignorance surrounding the criminal activities of both administrations

The corporate owned media still lionizes both men as ‘great (albeit misunderstood) leaders’ serving during ‘difficult times.’

But the evidence shows otherwise:

Indeed, newly disclosed documents have put old evidence into a sharply different light and suggest that history has substantially miswritten the two scandals by failing to understand that they actually were sequels to earlier scandals that were far worse. Watergate and Iran-Contra were, in part at least, extensions of the original crimes, which involved dirty dealings to secure the immense power of the presidency.

Shortly after Nixon took office in 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover informed him of the existence of the file containing national security wiretaps documenting how Nixon’s emissaries had gone behind President Lyndon Johnson’s back to convince the South Vietnamese government to boycott the Paris Peace Talks, which were close to ending the Vietnam War in fall 1968.In the case of Watergate – the foiled Republican break-in at the Democratic National Committee in June 1972 and Richard Nixon’s botched cover-up leading to his resignation in August 1974 – the evidence is now clear that Nixon created the Watergate burglars out of his panic that the Democrats might possess a file on his sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968.

The disruption of Johnson’s peace talks then enabled Nixon to hang on for a narrow victory over Democrat Hubert Humphrey. However, as the new President was taking steps in 1969 to extend the war another four-plus years, he sensed the threat from the wiretap file and ordered two of his top aides, chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, to locate it. But they couldn’t find the file.

What do you suppose happened to that (and countless other) ‘files’, good citizen?

Everybody knows the rubric of ‘National Security’ is regularly abused to shield the guilty from prosecution.

Can you think of a more bullet-proof office than that of the presidency?

When your justice system breaks down to the point of protecting criminal wrongdoing as a subset of guarding the faux‘honor’ of elected office, then your justice system is indeed FUBAR.

When national security trumps justice you find yourself living in an ‘anything goes’ society…where the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of man.

I don’t think I sit on my ‘high horse’ when I opine that most of us want no part of an unjust society.

Especially one that favors the criminal element so brazenly (in the interests of commerce [and against the interests of our species!])

While our first ‘anecdote’ points to Nixon’s mischief as ‘commander in chief’ even before he was one, let’s look at how Saint Ronnie’s ‘handlers’ manipulated the voting public to elect an ‘unlikely’ candidate:

At the start of the Iran-Contra investigation, Attorney General Edwin Meese had set the time parameters from 1984 to 1986, thus keeping outside of the frame the possibility of a much more serious scandal originating during Campaign 1980, i.e., whether Reagan’s campaign undermined President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages in Iran and then paid off the Iranians by allowing Israel to ship weapons to Iran for the Iran-Iraq War.

So, while congressional and federal investigators looked only at how the specific 1985-86 arms sales to Iran got started, there was no timely attention paid to evidence that the Reagan administration had quietly approved Israeli arms sales to Iran in 1981 and that those contacts went back to the days before Election 1980 when the hostage crisis destroyed Carter’s reelection hopes and ensured Reagan’s victory.

The 52 hostages were not released until Reagan was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1981

If you didn’t live through these times and these particular incidents, you are likely ignorant of them. Worse, it plainly shows evidence that ‘somebody’ had control they shouldn’t have had BEFORE either (hand-picked meat puppet) was elected.

(In case any of you were ‘wondering’ where I come up with some of my crazier sounding ideas! [Like the entrenched wealthy ‘conspiring’ to kill off as many of us as they can get away with.] We’re dealing with some first class, above the law ‘sickos’ here good citizen!)

But the corporate owned media maintains its silence regarding this conspiracy that hides ‘in plain sight.’

If we don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist.

Which is to ask, do you really need to be told (by Oprah) that the bear poops in the woods?

With that chilling thought I leave you to yours...

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Uncommonly Good

Greetings good citizen,

I have no idea what we’re going to do when this fine fellow moves on from our midst.

He has consistently expressed with unusual (and enviable) clarity the real issues facing our civilization and done so unflinchingly.

Look up the word courage and you’d find his picture next to it.

To say he is an ‘inspiration’ is an understatement.

Even his opening paragraphs cut right to the point:

Whether public education contributes to the Common Good depends, of course, on what kind of education it is, to whom it is available, and what we take to be the Common Good. There’s no need to tarry on the fact that these are highly contested matters, have been throughout history, and continue to be so today.

One of the great achievements of American democracy has been the introduction of mass public education, from children to advanced research universities. And in some respects that leadership position has been maintained. Unfortunately, not all. Public education is under serious attack, one component of the attack on any rational and humane concept of the Common Good, sometimes in ways that are not only shocking, but also spell disaster for the species.

All of this falls within the general assault on the population in the past generation, the so-called “neoliberal era.” I’ll return to these matters, of great significance and import.

The ‘liberalization’ of trade relations that has effectively ended global capitalism (turning it into a global monopoly) and crucified the global economy.

Um, he points to (without specifically saying so) the twin ‘illusions’ of liberty and prosperity and how the corporate owned media dispenses ‘dis-information’ (which benefits the oligarchs.)

Two crucial changes were financialization, with a huge explosion of speculative financial flows, and de-industrialization. Production didn't cease. It just began to be off-shored anywhere where you could get terrible working conditions and no environmental constraints, with huge profits for the Masters. Within the US that set off a vicious cycle, leading to sharp concentration of wealth, which translates at once to concentration of political power, increasingly in the financial sector. That in turn leads to legislation that carries the vicious cycle forward, including sharp tax reduction for the rich and deregulation, with repeated financial crises from the ‘80s, each worse than the last. [The Reagan ‘revolution’] The current one is so far the worst of all. And others are likely in what a director of the Bank of England calls a “doom loop.”

There are solutions, but they do not fit the needs of the Masters, for whom the crises are no problem, they are bailed out by the Nanny State. Today corporate profits are breaking new records and the financial managers who created the current crisis are enjoying huge bonuses. Meanwhile, for the large majority, wages and income have practically stagnated in the last 30-odd years. By today, it has reached the point that 400 individuals have more wealth than the bottom 180 million Americans.

In parallel, the cost of elections has skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into the pockets of those with the money, corporations and the super-rich. Political representatives become even more beholden to those who paid for their victories. One consequence is that by now, the poorest 70% have literally no influence over policy. As you move up the income/wealth ladder influence increases, and at the very top, a tiny percent, the Masters get what they want.

Or as I like to phrase it, the deliberate mismanagement of our planet’s resources for the benefit of the privileged few.

How we remove these parasites from our midst is simple, we unite and purge them…but they will endeavor to use our lack of information against us.

Yes, the oligarchs have been ‘careful’ not to show their faces and only the faces of their proxies are in jeopardy.

It will take a lot of ‘sifting’ to ferret out the guilty. Removing their hands from the levers of power is the easy part, stopping them from committing further atrocities will be the difficult part.

Thanks to the human proclivity for stupidity, the guilty will enjoy the use of their proxies long after they’ve lost the ability to reward them.

This is the danger of ‘entrenchment’. The name alone will be enough to compel otherwise good people to perform treacherous acts…as we see repeatedly in Harry Potter.

Thus we must be ruthless in rooting out the turncoats who would risk the stability of civilization itself to curry favor with those who would cheat even them.

Funny how the ‘proclivity for stupidity’ is a self-fulfilling loop.

The sad part is how the greedy conspire to strengthen this ‘failure of reason’.

If we were all ‘born smart’ we wouldn’t be having this sad discussion.

Perhaps that is the last obstacle for natural selection to overcome. Oddly we are born with the ‘seed of wisdom’ (or at least most of us are…it is what the conservo-whackos are trying to snuff out via ‘quibbling’.)

We instinctively know the difference between right and wrong. Yet ‘political expedience’ twists our inborn views to favor the unscrupulous.

Throw ‘spirit in the sky’ into the mix and pretty soon even otherwise ration adults no longer know which end is up…

Once you realize you are parroting the words of those who would stick it to you in a heartbeat, you somewhat regain your bearings.

But if they fool you into thinking they are your ‘friends’…then you’ve got trouble…possibly bigger than you know.

With that chilling thought, thank you for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Holes

Greetings good citizen,

I am still struggling to adapt to a work routine (two years of being a slug doesn’t help) I am, er, ‘worried’ by this first sure sign of ‘economic recovery’.

Unemployment at 4-Year Low as U.S. Hiring Gains Steam
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The joblessness rate sank to 7.7 percent as 236,000 positions were added across a broad range of sectors, but analysts warned that federal budget cuts could slow the recovery.

Jobs Fuel Stock Rally
Economix: The Rise of Part-Time Work | Shrinking Government

Why would I be ‘worried’ good citizen? Because I’ve seen this before…many times.

They ship work overseas and the ‘customer base’ collapses. (The unemployed can’t afford your product.) As local economies ‘adjust’ (the unemployed pull up stakes and head to where the work is) ‘recovery’ is declared and they start farming out work again!

As you can see, the so-called ‘recovery’ is the final stage of this cycle.

Now how much longer can they keep this up is unknown, they’ve almost completely hollowed out the US and Japanese economies (and completely destroyed the Real Estate markets in both countries in the process.)

Now, I count myself as fortunate. I landed a ‘real job’; 40 hours with full benefits and not the part-time/no insurance or benefit purgatory that most of the ‘inexperienced’ find themselves condemned to.

And the looming energy crisis seems to be driving a movement to restore some local capacity in basic industries while there is still some talent who remembers how to do it!

Whether or not this movement can sustain itself when a renewed contraction strikes remains to be seen.

But we’re talking patterns here.

Now the ‘new normal’ can form the basis for a real recovery BUT you need to ‘let it ride’ and establish itself.

Why don’t I think this is what they have in mind for us good citizen?

Would that it were that we have finally reached the end of the global race to the bottom that was completely 'unnecessary’ in the first place.

But you know as well as I that this thing won’t be over until the oligarchy can protect itself from prosecution.

And short of wiping out an entire generation I don’t see how they can do that.

But it’s not stopping them from trying:

Blocked Bids to Fill Judgeships Stir New Fight on Filibuster
By CARL HULSE

Republican senators have so far kept President Obama from filling any of the four vacancies on the nation's most important appeals court, reviving talk of a change in Senate rules.

Graphic Graphic: Filling the D.C. Appeals Court

Our best, er, ‘indicator’ of social health has been our badly broken political system. The very fact that most of the commerce system is in private hands contradicts the precepts of a ‘democratic’ society.

We even have our ‘activist’ (conservo-loony) judges to prove this argument.

No civilization can stand without justice…sometimes they take a long time to fall but in the end the final destination remains unchanged.

The bad apples use the ‘holes’ left in the legal system by the founders to drive civilization off a cliff.

Why do those holes exist?

Because the founders didn’t want to leave themselves open to prosecution!

No society founded on theft can survive for long so how sad is it that the backbone of capitalism is the ‘fake ownership’ of that which belongs to us all?

Understand good citizen, the ‘well, it’s not yours’ argument leads directly back to the ‘why don’t I kill you where you stand?’ question.

Were I writing this for the firewalled version, there would be some mighty choice expletives employed here.

Especially surrounding the argument as to whether or not lynching someone for being a greedy blockhead is ‘justifiable’…

Or perhaps just for being a blockhead as we can observe in our final offering:

Law Backs Guns in Class for Teachers in South Dakota
By JOHN ELIGON

South Dakota became the first state to enact a law explicitly authorizing school employees to carry guns on the job, under a measure signed Friday by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

Um, as I commented repeatedly and I’m sure you have noticed the same phenomenon in your own local news organs, the local rag exists to highlight the bad behavior of people in positions of public trust.

No doubt this is sometimes ‘witch hunts’ like the recent attack [by Fox News] on a local animal control officer but half of the stories center on malfeasance and inappropriate behavior of wide range of, er, ‘public servants’.

Now we hire (and supposedly psychologically screen) our police forces to carry guns…and our most recent nation headline shows once again that the ‘screening process’ isn’t ‘infallible’. [re: the Park Ranger who blew away the reality show host for being in the company of his wife while he was elsewhere.]

The ‘green-eyed monster’ is probably the most powerful of them all but it still provides an case in point. Kids are designed to frustrate you, even if you’re taught to deal with that, kids can ‘get under your skin and push your buttons’ because you’re in the protectors role.

They trust you not to harm them.

They even have the chutzpah to give you that knowing little smirk after they’ve twisted the knife and you’ve retaliated by suspending them (although you’d prefer to have had them drawn and quartered!)

Do you really want to add handguns into that volatile environment?

Not that we humans are overly smart…like the young lady who wanted to ‘play with the kitty’…what part of ‘wild’ didn’t she understand…because she sure understands it now!

Mother Nature is VERY ‘unforgiving’ and we need to respect that…or we will pay.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Poison Pill

Greetings good citizen,

As we, er, ‘enjoy’ the calm before the storm (with the Dow setting ‘new highs’ to fall from.) We have some time to reflect upon the ‘sequester’, the Republican sponsored ‘poison pill’ designed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Ironic that this could be viewed as the ultimate ‘win-win’ scenario as far as the conservo-whackos are concerned.

They already have all of the tax cuts they want for the uber-wealthy. They know if they keep pushing, they risk having the carefully built loopholes currently in the system slammed shut.

So how do they achieve their ‘true goal’ of killing off a significant portion of the ‘entitled rabble' and show them who’s boss?

Enter The Sequester.

Note El Sequester only cuts the social safety net and initially only cuts the direct programs that assist the ‘truly needy’.

Meals on wheels was the very first bird to have its wings clipped…and it wouldn’t exist if those senior/disabled individuals had a choice!

Perhaps a bad analogy there but a majority of the people on mobile meals programs lack the ability/mobility to secure/prepare their own food. It’s meals on wheels or starve!

Now our heartless conservo-whackos have labeled the recipients of this benefit as ‘the entitled’ (as opposed to what they really are, ‘needy’) and acted to ‘correct’ this costly problem by ‘unfunding’ the program.

Left unsaid is what will happen to the money saved by not performing this social service (often prepared and delivered by VOLUNTEERS!)

What do you think will happen, good citizen?

Will it be diverted to more ‘corporate welfare’ so the financial sector can pay their executives even larger bonuses? (Or will the ‘savings’ be consumed by the added cost of moving these formerly independent meals on wheels recipients into an ‘assisted living facility’ AT THE TAXPAYER’S EXPENSE!)

Did I mention the CONSERVO-WHACKOS were behind this?

You know, the ‘nothing go up top’ crowd?

Not that it helps but what’s the difference between one of these facilities and those other taxpayer funded institutions we call prisons?

Cute(r) nurses?

The Daily Show’s host Jon Stewart ran a piece the other day lambasting BOTH political parties (that you can no longer tell apart) for failing to ‘derail’ the sequester.

It really would have been simple…but it seems the ‘political will’ didn’t exist…in either (alleged) party…is this ‘true bipartisanship’ at long last (or is it a brazen example of our ‘captive government’ at work?)

So WHOSE ‘representative’ did you elect last November? Certainly wasn’t YOURS!

(Yet another prime example of how badly broken the, er, ‘original system’ was and is.)

What’s the point in dragging yourself down to the polls every November if the ballot you cast does you zero good?

It’d be a different story if you voted directly on the laws. (Where you’re supposed to have ‘your say’.) [But that’s not how our ‘elitist’ founders saw things. We were all a bunch of ignorant sodbusters, barely worthy of consideration. That’s how the ‘invitation only’ crowd who gathered in Philadelphia to draft the constitution thought! They thought YOU’D mess things up!]

But I digress, that’s all water over a long ago dam.

It is important you understand that this is where the revolution was hijacked by the soon to be ‘privileged few’.

One despot for another, same as it ever was. Still, it would be interesting to know which one of them had their hand up Washington’s backside…

But again I digress…We are on this path BECAUSE the system we were saddled with long ago is now in such a state of disrepair that it must be replaced.

How sad is it that the ‘truly ignorant’ will die defending ‘original intent’ that was totally against their children’s ‘best interests’?

Riddle me this, would YOU trust a new system openly operated by the SAME PEOPLE who (through their ineptitude) brought the previous system crashing down?

Heck no!

Which is why YOU won’t have a choice in the matter good citizen.

In other news Hugo Chavez died yesterday causing capitalists everywhere to rejoice. The thought running through the back of my head is what will become of the poor people up in the frozen north that benefited from Hugo’s generosity?

Will they freeze to death? Will the capitalists cheer this development too?

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

We're Saved!

Greetings good citizen,

Looks like today’s top story is yet another slap in the face to intelligence of the public.

How much of this tripe are you expected to swallow?

Dow Average Surpasses Record High as Market Opens
By PETER EAVIS 39 minutes ago

Since a low point in March 2009, the Dow Jones industrial average has more than doubled, stunning even the most seasoned stock market watchers.

Economically speaking, the past five years have been a train wreck in slo-motion for the 99% while the >One Percent has waxed ever richer, largely due to their control of ‘paper wealth’.

The higher the Dow goes, the poorer YOU get!

The curious part is YOU aren’t expected to notice the connection here. You see the shares in your IRA/401k rising and you cheer up…until you realize you’re ‘running in place’.

Actually you continue to fall behind because the rise in share price only partly compensates for the fall in purchasing power YOU’RE being ‘hammered’ with.
(THEY have a lot more shares so they’re making up for the ‘shortage’ with ‘volume’.)

Did I mention that the >One Percent has declared ‘Open Season’ on peasants?

We have long ago determined that the stock market is utterly divorced from anything to do with the economy; yet our corporate owned media still uses it as ‘barometer’ of economic health.

And ‘Once upon a time’ it used to be.

But how do you make sense of the Dow’s record high in a job market plagued by record unemployment?

The ONLY answers are FUNNY MONEY and/or COOKED BOOKS!

(Probably a combination thereof.)

Which begs the question of how long can our civilization survive these levels of dishonesty?

We’re back to the old sod about the stock market remaining irrational longer than you can remain solvent. (BECAUSE all MONEY is FUNNY!)

Perhaps now would be a good time to address this distressing charge I keep pointing to.

Why bother working if money is largely ‘meaningless’?

And that would be to take away the ‘wrong message’ from my very true insistence that (all) money IS ‘funny’.

Money only works for the individual. Society itself doesn’t ‘need’ it. (In fact it has proven quite harmful in the, er, ‘wrong hands’.)

We all know that money or ‘representative wealth’ can be manipulated. This is especially true under legal systems that are purposefully designed NOT to prevent this.

Sure we have laws AGAINST ‘counterfeiting’ but we have a very poor definition of what is or isn’t ‘counterfeit’.

Today’s top headline is a classic example of ‘counterfeiting’ but we don’t have a mechanism under which to prosecute this kind of ‘manipulation’ of the money supply.

Raising share prices arbitrarily is NOT illegal…although it SHOULD BE.

UNDERSTAND there is no basis in reality for the Dow (now largely comprised of financial sector stocks) to be at the highest level in history.

Can you say, “Stick ‘em up!” good citizen?

Because you now NEED to earn more to obtain the same level of purchasing power you had before the Stock Market robbed you. Money the already too rich to spend it didn’t need in the first place.

So why are they taking it?

What answer do you arrive at good citizen?

Are you think along the lines of how they intend to flush as much of the surplus population down the toilet BEFORE it rises up and demands its fair share?

You really don’t need to look too far for a motive, the old ones work just fine.

Oddly, the old ones have become ‘preventative maintenance’ at this stage in the game.

The ‘relatively well-armed’ US civilian population is the ONLY factor keeping our new oligarchs in check.

If not for an armed citizenry, I’d be in a gulag right now…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Self-Defense

Greetings good citizen,

Does anyone else find it curious that these clowns understand economics (some of the time) but do things they know will hurt (what’s left of) the economy anyway?

Let’s start with our top story from today’s NY Times:

Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

Experts estimate so-called budget sequestration could cost the country about 700,000 jobs, but Wall Street doesn’t expect the cuts to substantially alter corporate profits or threaten stock markets.

.7 percent of the much-modified workforce will lose their income source but this WON’T affect the ‘bottom line’ of US based corporations?

Which is to point out that 700k is in fact a much smaller percentage of ‘working aged citizens’ but the workforce isn’t measured ‘rationally’ considering the bizarre idea of if you don’t have a job you don’t count skews the whole picture…

Is Wall Street ‘right’ about this assessment?

Sadly yes. Your job was exported and you were made ‘redundant’ to the new global economy. The individual they gave your job to ‘replaced’ you as a customer as well…making you totally superfluous.

The only reason there hasn’t been blood in the streets is because our ‘globalization is good’ cheerleaders haven’t been telling YOU the whole story.

They concentrate on the ‘lower prices’ part of the story (won through lower wages/benefits) as a ‘win-win’ situation.

The part where you lose is the few hundred million competitors who (completely) took YOUR place via the heavily manipulated ‘funny money market’ (which is about to collapse!)

In this respect it is more than a little amazing to see the corporate owned media laying this fact out in a way that shows everyone what capitalism has done!

How else can the US workforce lose such a large percentage of its workforce and not affect profits an iota?

This is where the rubber meets the road good citizen, If you have never considered yourself as ‘surplus’ before…it’s time to LOOK AGAIN!

Did I not point out that the policies of the past three decades point directly towards an effort to kill off as much of the 'surplus population' as possible?

Headlines like today’s TOP STORY should leave you with NO DOUBT who the cannon is pointed at…

It points at YOU!

If you aren’t a bona-fide member of the >One Percent, you’re toast.

Like things weren’t desperate enough, it gets more interesting:

Chinese Stocks Fall on Steps to Curb Property Prices
By DAVID BARBOZA 5:13 AM ET

China’s cabinet, or State Council, said home sellers would soon pay a 20 percent capital gains tax.

You don’t suppose Chinese equity prices are being ‘propped up’ by a ‘real estate bubble’ do you?

What do you suppose is going to happen when that little episode plays itself out?

Can you say ‘cascading systemic collapse’?

I knew you could!

For our last installment of ‘belaboring the obvious’ (seems to be the day for it.):

As Hacking Against U.S. Rises, Experts Try to Pin Down Motive
By NICOLE PERLROTH, DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Motives for a cyberattack, which could range from industrial spying to disabling the power grid, remain obscure.

Given what we have already discussed, especially the part where it becomes obvious that YOU are being played for a patsy however you slice it, are YOU ‘mystified’ as to why ‘the capitalists’ are under heavy attack from the cyber-warriors?

I’d say it was ‘self-defense’.

The curious part of this unforeseen development is just how far will they let it go?

You know they’ve been looking for an ‘escape hatch’ for quite some time…could this be it?

Get out of dodge under the cover of a crippling (and likely self-inflicted) cyber attack?

We all know today’s capitalist/opportunists are a little light in the honesty department so I’d opine that it wouldn’t ‘surprise’ me.

But the corporate owned media is repeatedly astonished by such mundane occurrences as sunrise.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Sequester

Greetings good citizen,

How fitting to say, ‘another week down the drain?’

Which is what it will look like to the survivors of our collapsed civilization.

Did they really need to flush everything down the drain?

And the answer is yes; (if they wanted to escape prosecution then they ‘had to do it’.)

While it is unlikely that the collapse will be traced back to this particular incident (The actual ‘trigger’ is forty years in the past…far too late to stop or change course.) This ‘budget madness’ (brought on largely by political psychosis) will be viewed as one of the shoves that knocked civilization over the edge.

Note how the media is still ‘pretending’ that there are two parties. It makes you wonder whom they think they’re fooling? The half dozen or so Republican ‘true believers’ perhaps?

Today’s headline reads:

TOP NEWS
As Cuts Arrive, Parties Pledge to Call Off the Budget Wars
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JONATHAN WEISMAN

As a deal to break a budget impasse failed to emerge on Friday, both the president and his Republican adversaries said they would not carry the fight over the cuts into the coming effort to finance the government.

Since ‘neither party’ (and it’s become impossible to tell one from the other as they are both the lapdogs of the ‘One Percent’) blocked the dreaded ‘sequester’ the only logical conclusion to be reached is the One Percent WANTED the draconian budget cuts.

(Less money the government needs translates directly into more in THEIR pockets, right?)

How long do you think it will be before they (the One- Percent) abandons the pretense and starts issuing ‘royal decrees’?

I suspect it won’t be too much longer as the psychosis deepens with each passing day.

We can only assume the beatings will continue until moral improves…

One of the factors ignored by the corporate owned media (and they know its there) is what the ‘sudden discharge’ of hundreds of thousands of soldiers is going to do to the job market.

Only a tiny portion of these guys have ‘civilian jobs’ to return to. If it weren’t for the military they’d be unemployed too!

What do you suppose their sudden return (en masse) to civilian life is going to do to an already staggering job market?

Because that’s what the ‘sequester’ is going to do. It will slash the military budget and the generals aren’t going to take it in the shorts… so this leaves?

Now, veteran-hiring preference will put yet another obstacle to an already reeling over 50 crowd, desperate to save what they’ve spent their whole lives building.

But what the heck, the over fifty crowd has proven to be both passive and complacent, unwilling to ‘rock the boat’ even to save themselves…(or their kids) from oblivion.

Because in a cosmic karmic kick in the pants, the kids who are throwing their parents on the scrap heap today will see the same thing happen to them in the not too distant future.

Where does this stop?

When the safety net gives way…which actually means it is unlikely that karmic retribution will be visited upon the blind children of the privileged.

While civilization has taken some incredible punishment recently it doesn’t mean it will tolerate abuse indefinitely.

Eventually the switch will flip and the words on everybody’s lips will be ‘death to the tyrants!’

(Because we are ‘herd animals’ after all, despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary. The ‘rugged individual’ is a [downright dangerous] myth perpetuated by the ‘more for me’ crowd.)

The interesting thought experiment here is you WILL NOT FIND ANYONE who professes to ‘love capitalism’ after it causes the collapse of society.

It will make you wonder why, if everyone hated it so much, did they put up with it all of their lives?

Should you be impertinent enough to ask, you won’t get an answer, at least not a straight one out of the average sheeple.

Instead you’ll hear what you hear today, the ancient ‘bad advice’ about going along to get along.

Evil flourishes whenever honest people do nothing and that’s the ‘net yield’ of the go along to get along rubric.

Unquestioned is the fact that no one will (openly) oppose the destruction of our civilization.

Those elected to ‘uphold the law’ have failed utterly and deserve what’s coming to them.

I suspect it is more than just my opinion that our politicians won’t be judged kindly by those they have rendered destitute…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Bucket

Greetings good citizen,

Nothing is more poignant than the daily headlines for driving home the point that our civilization is scroomed!

We need look no further than the top story in the business section for proof:

DealBook
Obama’s Nominee for S.E.C. Tries to Allay Skepticism
By BEN PROTESS

Mary Jo White, President Obama’s choice to lead the agency, is telling Congress she can avoid conflicts of interest despite her Wall Street clients.

I’m not kicking the poor woman in the shins but who do you place in a sensitive position like that who ISN’T an ‘insider’?

My ‘problem’ with this choice is not the chosen but the chooser, who has proven to be Wall Street’s boy from day one.

We have already witnessed some well qualified appointees resign in frustration…and if this woman has integrity it is likely she too will go the way of her predecessors.

But it gets better:

The budget cuts scheduled to start taking effect on Friday would affect all facets of the federal budget, including aviation and military spending.
Austerity Kills Government Jobs as Cuts to Budgets Loom
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The federal government is cutting back at a pace exceeded in the last half-century only by the military demobilizations after the Vietnam War and the cold war.

Graphic: Austerity Is Here

Um, that last headline is a bit deceptive considering the government has been spending at an ‘unprecedented clip’ since this whole ‘War on Terra’ thing got started.

How ironic is it that if they were serious about reducing ‘terrorism’ in the world they’d make their most promising progress by slashing their own budget?

Not only has the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan lasted TWICE AS LONG as WWII but it has also been TWICE AS COSTLY!

Yet you don’t hear the conservo-whackos screaming to cut the Pentagon’s budget, do ya?

No, instead we get headlines like this:

Durable Goods Orders Drop as Aircraft Demand Falls
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 47 minutes ago

A sharp drop in demand for commercial aircraft caused overall durable goods orders to drop 5.2 percent last month, but orders for core capital goods like machinery, equipment and software rose 6.3 percent.

How ironic is it that the same sort of ‘phenomenon' accounts for the recent ‘surge’ in home prices (after years of flat lining.)

When the whole economy is deader than a door nail, a 5% reduction in orders for commercial aircraft really spanks you in the bottom (line that is.)

Housing prices are up ‘relative to what they were last year’ (and not 6 years ago when things were booming.

It may be ‘the biggest increase’ SINCE then but what are they really saying?

I saw some twit last night proclaim that if they could keep up the pace the current ‘inventory’ would be ‘sold out’ in just 4 months.

What a crock! Guess who’s buying all of the houses?

Why it’s our old pal Flipper, (betting he’s finally going to find renters at long last!)

Guess what?

Flipper is…WRONG AGAIN!

And like the last ‘bubble’, Flipper is going to ‘walk away’ when the renters fail to materialize.

But our next headline shines a light on the current state of economic affairs:

DealBook
Regulators Block Ryanair’s Latest Attempt to Buy Aer Lingus
By JAMES KANTER 19 minutes ago

As the European Commission blocked the attempt by Ryanair for competitive reasons, the Irish carrier reiterated that it would appeal the decision in court.

In a ‘saturated market place’ the most you can do to boost the bottom line is ‘buy market share’ (by buying our the ‘competition’…then sticking it to the customers!)

Turning down this merger is the right thing to do…however, it isn’t over yet.

If you can’t soak the public you can always take the sure route of soaking the government:

EADS Profit Soars 19 Percent
By NICOLA CLARK 7:28 AM ET

The company says it made about $1.56 billion in 2012 thanks to commercial aircraft sales, even though its military segment struggled amid budget troubles in the United States and Europe.

What’s the old saying, ‘war is good business.’

Wrecking stuff then getting paid to rebuild it…can’t beat that racket.

It’s a ‘self-reinforcing circle’.

Better shake a leg here, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.

Fed Defends Stimulus in Testimony to Senate
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

Ben S. Bernanke told senators that the central bank saw its campaign as necessary and effective, reassuring them that its benefits outweighed any risks.

Economix Blog: Does Bernanke Have the Best Inflation Record? | By Unemployment, Not So Good
Home Sales and Bernanke Calm Market

How does Helicopter Ben justify bailing out the world’s financial system (to the tune of 22, we don’t have ‘em, trillion) to a financially incompetent legislative body?

If there were a half a brain between the 500 plus of ‘em, they’d know the system was bankrupt without even asking ‘the Bernank’…

The only reason the home sales are calming the market is because they (the corporate owned media) believes the average citizen is too stupid to figure out there is no ‘recovery’ in the housing market (nor will there ever be!)

And again we are expected to be shocked by this latest revelation:

News Analysis
Italian Deadlock Rekindles Anxiety About Euro Zone
By LIZ ALDERMAN and JACK EWING

The apparent political gridlock signaled by its elections raises new fears that the euro crisis may be far from over.

European Markets Dip Amid Uncertainty
Italian Parties Maneuver After Electoral Split

Does ANYONE truly believe the Euro-zone crisis is over, seriously?

Then we have this ‘gem’:

Officials have recommended that nuclear plants like Nine Mile Point in New York install new safety equipment.
Post-Fukushima, Arguments for Nuclear Safety Bog Down
By ERIC LIPTON and MATTHEW L. WALD

A dispute is developing between the nuclear industry and regulators, and among the regulators themselves, about the necessity of more safeguards at power plants.

Graphic: Tasks Remain for the American Nuclear Industry

Let’s ‘cut to the chase’…the only ‘safe’ nuke is a cold one…but if you shut down the nukes without first installing adequate renewables the entire grid would shut down in less than a day.

Better to let the candle remain lit than to curse the darkness.

And finally:

DealBook
Wall Street Pay Rises, for Those Who Still Have a Job
By SUSANNE CRAIG 6:39 AM ET

The average cash bonus for people employed in New York City in the financial industry rose by roughly 9 percent, to $121,900, in 2012, the New York State comptroller said.

U.S. Banks in 2012 Posted Highest Profits Since 2006,

The Litany of Woe was quite detailed today, a rather good ‘capture’ if I must say so myself.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Land of Broken Promises

Greetings good citizen,

The rubric of ‘gradualism’ crept into public awareness during the (largely fabricated) ‘Red Scare’.

The analogy of a frog in a pot of water was used to exemplify how ‘gradualism’ worked (by the time you realized you were being boiled alive it was too late.)

We’d go about out lives and the insidious ‘commies’ would be infiltrating American Institutions and ‘contaminating’ them with their evil socialist poison!

(Which is what capitalists call every social ‘protection’ you have that they are required to fund.)

At the end of the day Bubba, it’s not their money but yours! But they still ‘view’ your social welfare as money THEY could have kept.

Who gives a fig what happens to you when you stop working? (Or at least that’s how the typical capitalist thinks.)

How disturbing is it that you can easily exchange the word capitalist for the word Republican? Even more disturbing is how the label Republican is now synonymous with the notorious >One Percent!

Now let’s bring the two concepts home

Water Torture, as American as Apple Pie
What does it mean when torture, already the definition of “cruel,” becomes usual?
February 24, 2013 |

[To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.]

Try to remain calm -- even as you begin to feel your chest tighten and your heart race. Try not to panic as water starts flowing into your nose and mouth, while you attempt to constrict your throat and slow your breathing and keep some air in your lungs and fight that growing feeling of suffocation. Try not to think about dying, because there’s nothing you can do about it, because you’re tied down, because someone is pouring that water over your face, forcing it into you, drowning you slowly and deliberately. You’re helpless. You’re in agony.

In short, you’re a victim of “water torture.” Or the “water cure.” Or the “water rag.” Or the “water treatment.” Or “ tormenta de toca.” Or any of the other nicknames given to the particular form of brutality that today goes by the relatively innocuous term “waterboarding.”

How evil is it that you are being denied your RIGHT to ‘due process’ while the (hijacked rogue) government reclaims the right to torture its ‘enemies’ with impunity?

Even more disturbing is how even you might come to find yourself on the ‘enemies list’.

The question creeping through the back of everybody’s mind these days is whether or not, somewhere in their murky past, they may have (unknowingly) befriended a current Enemy of the State…and how that accident of fate has made YOU a ‘Person of Interest’.

Put two and two together. Let’s suppose this ‘old acquaintance’ that you haven’t laid eyes on IN DECADES is blamed for some act of civil disobedience. For the sake of argument let’s say this act resulted in the loss of a multi-million dollar facility and some first responders were injured will doing their job…but nobody died.

Guess who becomes a lightening rod if they can’t find a more recent ‘acquaintance’ of the suspect?

Let’s make it even more interesting…let’s suppose you never said a word to this geek, the only thing you’re guilty of is being a member of the same high school class as he/she was.

They’re not about to water board you…unless the suspect was one of those people you stayed in touch with after leaving school.

Now it gets more ‘interesting’…guilt or innocence is irrelevant, so is the, er, ‘intensity’ with which they pursue clues to the suspects whereabouts.

You get to take a ride on the government’s new toy whether you know anything of not!

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Your lawyer can’t get you out of this because you won’t be allowed to contact him…yes good citizen, in the name of ‘national security’ you’ve lost that right too.

Counsel will be advised he/she will be disbarred if he/she files any action against the torturers…and that should be the end of your search for ‘legal representation’.

Welcome to the NEW U.S.A. good citizen, (if you’re smart you’ll find the nearest exit before you’re trapped here and can’t escape!)

THIS is what those commie hating, capitalism loving patriots were trying to create to block the insidious spread of ‘socialism’.

Sort of puts the >One Percent thing in a whole new light, doesn’t it?

Bad enough they made you struggle through seven years of college and didn’t even offer you a job. Now you’re supposed to be ‘happy’ they’re not water-boarding you!

Yessiree Bob, the good ol’ U.S.A. has become precisely what the Native Americans called it long ago, “The land of broken promises.”

With that chilling thought in mind good citizen, I’d be extremely careful about who you cross.

The point of a gun is the only ‘law’ these psychos understand.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Terrorists

Greetings good citizen,

The ‘nonsense markets’ are off to a fine start, you can’t explain/justify the Dow being over 14,000 but it’s there regardless.

Which only sends up one more ‘red flag’ concerning the stability of our civilization.

So it is that today’s offering once again asks the question of ‘why are they telling us this?’

On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors.

The building off Datong Road, surrounded by restaurants, massage parlors and a wine importer, is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence — confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the army unit for years — leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.

Further along the article explains how Coca-cola was hacked by these, er, ‘professionals’…which might give us a clearer picture of why our ‘proxy’ in the Far East is ‘keeping an eye on the competition’.

Yes, the conspiracy to destroy our civilization is global but no, it is not (yet) universal…and you’d think the guys at Coke would be on board but I guess some companies were too successful to suborn quickly and quietly…thus the subterfuge.

But it still doesn’t explain why they are pointing to this particular situation.

Does our shadowy global elite ‘own’ the Chinese government? Of course it does! (At least the parts that matter.)

So why give the unwashed rabble a ‘peek under the skirt’?

So when the ‘surprise’ cyber-attacks begin we can rule the Chinese out…because everybody knows about them?

Um, it is disconcerting to sit here and ‘speculate’ about an obvious global conspiracy but there is NO OTHER ‘explanation’ for what’s going on.

History’s ‘accidents’ are anything but.

It if waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s not a mongoose!

But that’s not what the conspirator owned media is going to tell you.

In fact the ‘truth challenged media’ has become a standing joke among anyone paying attention, making us all ‘conspiracy theorists’.

We all know something nasty is afoot and it’s not ‘state sponsored terrorism’ as our truth challenged media would have you believe.

While the pundits sit and complain about the effects of money in politics, we have done nothing to reign in this ‘loose cannon’ on civilization’s decks.

(Because the conspirators OWN the media!)

Here’s a news flash to no one: we won’t enjoy ‘factual reporting’ until NOBODY ‘owns’ a media outlet!

The owner has an agenda and gets to decide what is and isn’t news!

Until that stops we are all well and truly…

So why did the ‘conspirators’ decide to share the source of cyber attacks on US companies?

I suspect it is so they can hide ‘in plain sight’…or more sinisterly, so when someone reports an attack they can pooh-pooh it pointing to the news article and saying, would they do that since we know they’re doing it?

And the answer is YES!

Just because we know doesn’t mean they are going to stop!

Just as the ‘war on terror’ is being executed by the world’s largest terrorist group!

No irony should be lost on that (bad) joke!

When a recruiting commercial for the Armed forces comes on do you look in the face of that earnest young person and imagine it barking at you to lay down or I’ll blow your head off from the other side of your living room window?

Just as YOU can’t make informed decisions without accurate information, neither can they.

So what do you think they are going to do when their superiors ORDER them to arrest innocent civilians whose only crime is to protest their abusive treatment at the hands of some corporation?

What would YOUR kid do if he or she were on the team that comes to get YOU?

Talk about ‘scarred for life’…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Exceptional

Greetings good citizen,

As the snow flies outside (first serious storm of the season) the stock markets of Fantasyland have resumed their relentless upward march.

Besides someone sneezing, it appears those who cook our nation’s economic books have outdone themselves:

U.S. Trade Deficit Shrinks
By REUTERS 8:58 AM ET

The trade gap shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years, the government said, suggesting that the economy did better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Chinese Imports and Exports Soar in January 6:11 AM ET

I’m guessing the intention is to confuse the average reader but the headline tells us our trade deficit is shrinking while the footnote tells us our trade partner is going gangbusters…

I guess it makes sense if you flip it over and ignore the first part.

Which is to point out that the Chinese are NOT back on track for double digit growth, which drove them into the number two spot globally a couple of years ago.

The part that, er, puzzles me is how stupid the corporate owned media thinks the rest of us are? (We know it’s pretty dang stupid but the average clown on the street knows China’s double-digit growth was due to the capitalists of this country ‘exporting’ our jobs to the world’s most populous labor pool.

Once that stopped, the ‘growth’ disappeared’…so today’s decidedly false claim is once again a matter of ‘context’…

So no good citizen, it is just plain foolishness to claim the ‘economy’ (anywhere on the planet) is ‘booming’.

The Chinese economy may be doing ‘better than expected’ but you need to temper that with ‘expectations’ barely exceeded ‘death warmed over’.

Which brings us to our second offering of this snowy Friday

The continuing saga of American Exceptionalism!

America Is Far from #1

The latest Global Competitiveness Report comparing 144 countries shows the sorry state of our country's development.
February 7, 2013 |

"The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013,” by the World Economic Forum, is the latest annual ranking of 144 countries, on a wide range of factors related to global economic competitiveness .

On each of their many rankings, #1 represents the best nation, and #144 represents the worst nation.

Gross Domestic Product is the only factor where the U.S. ranks as #1, which we do both on "GDP” and on “GDP as a Share of World GDP.”

Health Care has the U.S. ranking #34 on “Life Expectancy,” and #41 on “Infant Mortality.”

Education in the U.S. is also mediocre. On “Quality of Primary Education,” we are #38. On “Primary Education Enrollment Rate,” we are #58. On “Quality of the Educational System,” we are #28. On “Quality of Math and Science Education,” we are #47. On “Quality of Scientific Research Institutions,” we are #6. On “PCT [Patent Cooperation Treaty] Patent Applications [per-capita],” we are #12. On “Firm-Level Technology Absorption” (which is an indicator of business-acceptance of inventions), we are #14.

Trust is likewise only moderately high in the U.S. We rank #10 on “Willingness to Delegate Authority,” #42 on “Cooperation in Labor-Management Relations,” and #18 in “Degree of Customer Orientation” of firms.

Corruption is apparently a rather pervasive problem in the U.S.

On “Diversion of Public Funds [due to corruption],” the U.S. ranks #34. On “Public Trust in Politicians,” we are #54. On “Irregular Payments and Bribes,” we are #42. On “Judicial Independence,” we are #38. On “Favoritism in Decisions of Government Officials” (otherwise known as governmental cronyism), we are #59.

On and on it goes, good citizen.

The whole article makes rather disturbing reading although it isn’t particularly ‘shocking’. I am far from being the sole ‘voice in the wilderness’ decrying the downfall of our hijacked and badly mismanaged civilization…

And you won’t ever see the criminals stepping aside and offering up the controls with a sarcastic ‘think you can do better?’ They know they’ve got it wrong…but they’re getting filthy rich doing it.

Which is why they’re disinclined to stop…until they break something important or we make them stop (and it will probably take a combination of both. Because once the machine stops giving milk the new ‘top priority’ will be ‘covering their tracks’.)

Considering they’re being none too careful about how they loot, the obvious solution will be to ‘destroy’ the record keeping equipment.

Now how would you go about a monumental task like that?

Let me give you a hint, it also produces a flash that is said to be ‘brighter than a thousand suns’.

Put a few of those puppies into the hands of the criminals who kill with drones and let me know what you come up with…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS: We need a ‘hero’ who can put a few megaton ‘frag’ on Washington DC AND Wall Street.

If not, the senseless deaths worldwide will continue.

Truthiness

Greetings good citizen,

Nonsense (stock) markets around the globe are bleeding red this morning (while the sneaks on Wall Street managed to ‘paint the tape’ and cause the Dow to have a positive finish at the very end of trading yesterday…

So much for ‘truth’ in financial transactions…in fact it is the prevalence of ‘truthiness’ in today’s business headlines that caught my eye:

E-Mails Suggest JPMorgan Knew Flaws of Some Loans
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG

E-mails and employee interviews filed as part of a lawsuit show that JPMorgan Chase flouted quality controls as it bundled mortgages into financial instruments.

A trove of internal e-mails at JPMorgan Chase, filed as part of a lawsuit, offers a glimpse into how the bank bundled mortgage securities.

Are you ‘shocked’ by this ‘revelation’ good citizen or are you like the majority of the public and more than a little steamed that it’s been five years since this obvious fraud and NOBODY has swung for it…yet.

Which is not a declaration of the people’s justice so much as the Devil will indeed ‘take the hindmost’.

Who may not be particularly ‘guilty’ of anything except of being in the wrong place at the wrong time…like so many of society’s victims.

In yet another (non) shocker, we have the following:

European Central Bank Leaves Interest Rate Unchanged
By JACK EWING 10 minutes ago

The strength of the euro is a sign of confidence, the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, said after the announcement. There have been concerns about the rising value of the currency.

Bank of England Leaves Interest Rate Unchanged
Wall Street Takes a Step Backward 9:49 AM ET

The Euro zone is flatter than a pancake so I will remind you that we are discussing the ‘relative strength’ of the Euro as compared to other ‘lackluster’ currencies.

Which tells you something about what Mr. Bernanke is doing to the dollar (to make our stock market rise ‘senselessly’.)

Which is just what it looks like good citizen, the people who ‘own’ the world see their purchasing power increase while the people who work for them see their purchasing power, er, ‘watered down’.

This explains why there are 7 million people who call themselves ‘self-employed’. (It’s better to be the employer than the employee.)

European Leaders Gather for a Trillion-Euro Budget Debate
By JAMES KANTER 9:47 AM ET

The budget represents only about 2 percent of total public spending in the European Union. But it still involves furious horse trading.

The ‘debate’ (such as it is) must be over how long they can keep the shell game of propping up the banking system using the taxpayer’s money?

There is an ‘urgent need’ to return banking to profitability but it’s not going to happen in this generation.

Not much to debate really. Maybe they’ll discuss what might happen to them if they are found out but there really isn’t much point on dwelling upon such unpleasantness.

If the ‘jig were up’ good citizen I’d say the environment is ripe for a ‘hostile takeover’, something similar to how the Nazis swept to power.

I’m also going to predict that it is exactly what will happen…but none of my predictions come to pass. Not yet anyway.

DealBook
K.K.R.'s Earnings Rise 22% on Investment Gains
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 25 minutes ago

K.K.R. said on Thursday that it earned $347.7 million in the fourth quarter, as all of its businesses showed strong gains. For the year, the firm reported earning $2.1 billion.

DealBook: Lazard's Profit Surges as Deal Assignments Pick Up 9:17 AM ET

You know as well as I good citizen that there’s nothing ‘new’ under the sun so what we’re witnessing here is the simple consolidation of market share resulting in the consumer being squeezed ever tighter, while their purchasing power sinks into the basement.

You don’t suppose these guys could be on to something?

DealBook
Ireland to Liquidate Anglo Irish Bank
By MARK SCOTT 8:59 AM ET

The government passed emergency legislation to liquidate Anglo Irish Bank, one of the country’s largest, as part of a plan to restructure debt payments.

What do you suppose would happen if we tried that will ALL of the ‘troubled banks’?

If we listen to the pundits it would mean the end of banking as we know it! I, for one, would not be ‘upset’ by the demise of ‘modern banking’.

If I slip my swami turban back on for a moment I see that ultimately there will only be one bank and they will dictate to us how much it will cost to do business.

And if you can’t afford it, tough!

Or our next story:

Weaker Yen Helps Sony Trim Losses for Quarter
By HIROKO TABUCHI 7:13 AM ET

The earnings at Sony reflect a revival in the fortunes of other struggling Japanese electronics manufacturers, and its shares have surged almost 60 percent in 2013.

Funny how currency devaluation can be a two-edged sword, depending on how you ‘cook the books!’

Finally:

Alcatel-Lucent Chief Resigns as Company Posts Loss
By KEVIN J. O’BRIEN 8:10 AM ET

The telecommunications equipment maker said it lost $1.85 billion in 2012, and announced the resignation of Ben Verwaayen, its chief executive since 2008.

DealBook
Credit Suisse Returns to Profit and Plans More Cost Cuts
By JULIA WERDIGIER 28 minutes ago

The chief executive, Brady W. Dougan, is targeting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cost reductions after Credit Suisse reported a profit of $436 million for the fourth quarter.

Okay so I snuck two in there. The first tells of what ‘globalization’ has done to the former ‘sole source’ of telecommunications equipment in the world.

Bet you’re all pleased as can be that hundreds of thousands of jobs and our future prosperity have been replaced with cheesy plastic phones that won’t stay on the table when you pick up the handset!

Oh and don’t forget, those old indestructible phones that stayed put were free with the service!

But the free market chuckleheads felt you needed to ‘buy’ your equipment!

Which leaves our final story and one comment...do you suppose they can return to profitability if they fire everybody? (It's the 'free-market way!')

Long live the free markets! (Read: death to capitalism!)

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Degradation

Greetings good citizen,

Seems the so-called ‘alternative press’ isn’t completely dominated by clueless libertarians. Some of the so-called ‘progressives’ do indeed cling to traditional liberal values.

(and Anarchists are nothing if not liberals!)

So it is that I present to you this argument as further evidence of the destruction of our society.

Laws that restrict panhandling are designed to target poor people living on the street. Other examples of laws that apply almost exclusively to the unhoused include bans on sitting or lying down on the sidewalk, eating in public, setting up camp or sleeping in a park or other public places. Advocates say these laws are used as a tool to drive the homeless out of sight.

Take the case of Gary Williams. Williams just spent 30 days in jail, because on two occasions a San Francisco police officer found him slumped over, asleep, on a milk crate. He did not have any camping gear with him -- not even a blanket -- yet he found himself charged with public nuisance, unauthorized lodging, and obstructing the sidewalk, his lawyer, Andrea Lindsay, tells AlterNet. The first two are misdemeanors, which carry up to a year of jail time each. On Monday, Williams pled guilty to one count of unauthorized lodging after the judge warned him that he could end up in jail for two years. The plea deal Williams opted for means he's banned from the two blocks where he used to reside and will be on probation for three years.

"This is a dude who ended up in jail for the heinous crime of sitting," Paul Boden, organizing director for the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) tells AlterNet. "When poor people stand for their rights, they sit in jail."

Your typical conservative believes the homeless and destitute are ‘well provided for’ and the people you see in the street ‘choose to be there’.

You see, good citizen, it is ‘inconceivable’ to the conservative mind that capitalism can fail anyone.

If you fail at capitalism (so conservative wisdom goes) it’s YOUR FAULT!

This, as most of us know, is a boldfaced lie.

Truth be told the first few times capitalism was tried it failed miserably…to the point where ‘the survivors’ had to be rescued from those who, er, ‘played the game by their own rules’.

Which is to point out (once again) that capitalism isn’t designed to meet the needs of our whole society, it only ‘takes care of’ those who control society…

And the short definition of cheating others to help yourself is a word those who indulge in this practice dislike passionately.

Do you know what word it is?

Sort of synonymous with the term ‘hang ‘em high’ is the word ‘treason’.

So what do we do with the ‘just doing my job’ crowd (in this case the cops)?

Cops don’t make the laws though, do they? (Well they do on the streets but that’s not the topic at hand…) it’s the politicians who can’t manage resources (the capitalists) keep cutting from them.

Yes, good citizen, campaign contributions do have a ‘cost’ and most times that cost is lower taxes (for the business community.)

After ‘giving away the store’ to the wealthy few, those who rely (somewhat) on public opinion for their jobs begin to fret that if one of ‘those people’ makes trouble, the incumbent will be viewed as ‘weak on crime’.

So we end up with the BS described in this article.

The difference is Mr. Politician can always find ready funding for more policing, he can’t get more than his share of ‘alms for the poor’.

As we all know, life under the ‘corporate agenda’ is far less safe (for everyone involved) than when life was ‘more equitably’ managed. (You may now shed a silent tear for FDR.)

Worse, good citizen, at the end of the crazy train, who do we find?

Why by gosh, by gum, it’s the shareowner!

All of this (madness) is occurring to, er, ‘produce’ (boost/maximize) ‘profits’ for the poor, hapless shareowner…

Which is to once again ask that rhetorical question, isn’t it time we take capitalism (along with those who control it) and throw it on the scrap heap?

In fact we are long overdue for a major overhaul of our ‘proven defective’ economic system.

I’d even accept the task of changing it over, knowing full well that I won’t get anything for my trouble except a far more equitable and humane society.

Even I, the new system’s creator, would be unable to ‘cheat’ the system. (Under the new system even the creator would not be ‘above the law’.)

But I digress…

It should be interesting to follow the rest of this series (not that I intend to devote my future posts to them) to examine the ‘decay’ in the leadership of our society.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

Entertaining

Greetings good citizen,

As oil remains stuck in the $96 dollar a barrel range, the Dow has dropped a hundred and fifteen points in just a shade over an hour’s trading.

Which is to point out that the destruction of our civilization proceeds ‘on schedule’.

I have selected three headlines from today’s business section for your, er, ‘amusement’:

News Analysis
A scene from the 1954 film “Tobor the Great.”
Raging (Again) Against the Robots
By CATHERINE RAMPELL

Robots have once again gripped the nation’s imagination, stoking fears of displaced jobs and perhaps even a displaced human race.

Many is the story about ‘machine intelligence’ and a robotic ‘takeover’ of our planet, or even our galaxy since robots aren’t subject to the same narrow band of operating conditions organic life is restricted to.

Like time travel this is a bogeyman that will remain a staple of the fiction writer. While we have already created machines that can ‘learn’, we have yet to imbue one with ‘a sense of purpose’ nor has one developed this uniquely human trait on its own (yet.)

Our ‘problem’ with a ‘pile of bolts’ is limited to the capitalists love of a tireless worker that you only pay once.

This ‘displacement’ of humans from the fabrication of commodities severely damages the economy (all of which are local!)

Not that the robot is to blame. It is the, er, ‘skewing’ of the distribution process robots cause (profits go up because prices DON’T go down, yet you have significantly reduced the number of people able to buy the product!)

Cost to produce has gone down but the number of buyers has also shrunk…so where’s the ‘win’?

The CEO grabbed it because he’s paid based on ‘production efficiency’!

The rest of your civilization LOSES!

Did I mention that the serious mismanagement of our civilization is rapidly reaching ‘critical mass?’ The people making decisions are getting paid to act AGAINST the interests of society at large?

And the owners don’t care because the books (which are thoroughly cooked) look fine.

Which leads us to their puzzlement over why their employees are ‘unhappy’.

A job has become its own reward in our resource scarce environment…(if you can’t live on what it pays tough!)

No need to hand out pay increases when your workers are thankful to be getting a paycheck at all while so many of their peers aren’t.

Beginning to see the problem? It’s not the robots at all…it’s the crazy capitalists and their gross incompetence!

Which provides an excellent segue to our next article:

Vast Oil Reserve May Now Be Within Reach, and Battle Heats Up
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Monterey Shale deposits, which could turn California into the nation’s top oil-producing state, is stirring conflict between drillers and environmental interests.

Map Map: California’s Hydraulic Fracturing Hotbed

Did the first thing that popped into my head also pop into yours? Which is to ask is it a particularly wise idea to be ‘fracking’ in a ‘seismically sensitive’ area like the Island just off the coast of Los Angeles?

But apparently the capitalist don’t care! Or worse, we are a lot closer to the end of our energy rope than media would have you believe.

Can you imagine the ‘Wile E. Coyote moment’ when the gas pumps go dry and the public sits there dumbfounded because they didn’t know we were close to running out?

Which brings us to the age old question if the world was going to end tomorrow would they tell us?

Probably not…imagine the chaos if they did! (And no, it would NOT be ‘anarchy’.)

Even this, the expansion of the wasteland that passes for ‘entertainment’ speaks volumes regarding the mindset of those in charge (and their endless incompetence.)

The Media Equation
Shunning the Safe, FX Indulges Its Dark Side
By DAVID CARR

Behind FX’s recent success is its willingness to give its shows creative freedom.

Between decidedly reckless ‘reality programming’ (that plays fast and loose with the facts) and the merging of the fantasy world with the real world via computer graphics…the ‘credibility gap’ is growing enormous!

Which is to point out that shows no longer ‘entertain’ as much as they tax the imagination.

There are several shows out there now that have what can only be called incredible ‘plot holes’ in them…and this is due to the ‘failure of imagination’ coupled with capitalist censorship.

Yes good citizen, TV has become a vapid wasteland because of the zero tolerance policy the corporate owned media has towards anything that challenges the ‘supremacy’ of capitalism.

When you are confined to a very narrow and contradictory box, the creative process is either stifled or it increasingly defies logic.

If Bram Stokers original demon had half of the powers he is currently endowed with (by hack writers) we’d ALL be vampires!

But the things impressionable young girls believe should never be confused with reality…

So why is dumbbell ‘praising’ Fox?

Could it be that ‘corporate owned media’ thing (that cuts HIS paycheck too?)

Something to ponder while you wait for a vampire to grant you the invincibility you’ve longed for your whole life!

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner