Grr. Google Reader has not been loading for HOURS.
Solar X-Flare Blasts Directly Toward Earth Slashdot
THE AMAZING AMNESIA-INDUCING SPIDERMAN eXiled
Judge blasts colleagues for defying SCOTUS, allowing financial patent ars technica
London Calls Out the Troops Donald Cohan, Huffington Post. Good observations about the pitfalls of government contracting.
Liborfest!
Libor: They all knew – and no one acted Independent
Sir Mervyn left to flounder in a Libor can of worms Telegraph
Banking inquiry a whitewash, says MP Independent
Late Night: The Season of Dueling Gaffes Begins Swopa, Firedoglake (Carol B)
Romney’s ‘Free Stuff’ Speech Is a New Low Matt Taibbi (Doug Terpstra)
Judge halts ‘debtors prison’ by Harpersville city court, calls it ‘judicially sanctioned extortion’ Birmingham News (Deontos)
The Weaponization of Economic Theory Michael Hudson (p78)
JPMorgan refuses to hand over emails in energy manipulation case Reuter (LucyLulu). JPM’s conduct has been really shameless.
JPMorgan traders may have hidden derivatives losses Reuters (LucyLulu)
New Fraud Inquiry as JPMorgan’s Loss Mounts New York Times
DELAWARE AG BIDEN SETTLES WITH MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS (MERS) 4ClosureFraud. Another disappointment.
Visa, MasterCard, banks in $7.25 billion retail settlement Reuters. Lambert: Once again nobody goes to jail.
Former investment banker: ‘I saw many people cry’ Guardian. He does not mean clients.
CEO Of Collapsed Future Brokerage’s Suicide Note: ‘I Embezzled Millions Of Dollars From Customer Accounts’ Clusterstock
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lambert here:
D – 56 and counting*
The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species. — Thomas Jefferson
Occasional word of the day: Pleonaxia (via Susie).
Occupy. Tinpot tyrants: “Just after dawn on July 10, Seattle police officers raided a Central District apartment looking for goggles, bandannas, and other evidence of politically motivated vandalism from this year’s May Day protests.” Protest paraphernalia, eh? What isn’t? Or perhaps that’s the point.
CA. Tinpot tyrants, ArtWalk fiasco: “Ask yourself if riot gear and rubber bullets were the proper response to a sidewalk chalk demonstration during art walk.”
CO. Fracking: “[O]nce a gas and oil company gets into your valley, they own you. They own the hospital. They own the commissioners. They own your mountains, and they will do what they want” (MR) Business Week. … County commissioner: “Protecting our water quality is a local concern. The (Oil and Gas Commission) has not helped us protect the water (wells) of Milner, which is why we are having to do it” by defying the Commission and imposing water quality monitoring on an oil well permit (MR).
FL. Water: “The South Florida Water Management District governing board … approved another step allowing Florida Power and Light to advance its new nuclear power in the lowest lying land in South Florida despite voluminous data that FPL existing cooling canals are doing great damage to the aquifer underlying Homestead.”
IA. Legitimacy crisis: “IA Rs plan to choose another candidate to run in Senate District 34 against D Liz Mathis, after Randi Shannon bailed on the race to pursue leadership in an alternate form of government.” … Water: “The EPA informed the IA Department of Natural Resources yesterday that a preliminary report finds the state of IA does not adequately enforce the Clean Water Act with respect to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).” … Voting: D Sen. Harkin on Branstad’s felon voting rights restoration policy (including a credit check (!!)) is — shocker — so prolix, flaccid, and wussy I’m not even going to bother to quote it.
IL. Jesse Jackson, Jr. imbroglio: “‘Let it go!’ [Former Sen. Roland Burris] yelled. ‘I’ve got enough seniority around here to tell you media people to cool it [Huh?]. You did it to me. Now you’re going to try to do it to Jesse Jr. You’re just hounding people. Go on and get a life.'” If Jackson is suffering from clinical depression, that’s a terrible, sorrowful thing. The wonder is there aren’t more cases in DC. Diagnosed cases.
NC. DNCon: “Two miles of concrete barriers. More than five miles of 9-foot ‘anti-scale’ steel fence. … These are some of items the Secret Service is seeking to protect the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.” So, how many mercs?
PA. Ruling class: “Conversations with sources, along with documents obtained by City Paper, portray an expanding network of pro-charter-school organizations close to, and in many cases funded by, [the William Penn Foundation], coordinating with the state-controlled School District to map out the future of Philly public education. Says one observer of city schools: ‘It is a shadow school district that’s being bankrolled by people who don’t even live in the city.'” … Ruling class: “No one disputes that the Philadelphis schools have been horribly, horribly mismanaged. But the solution we’ve hit on is to hand control to the meritocracy — a small cadre of unelected and unaccountable elites (so often intersecting with hedge-fund Captains of the Universe, who have the money to fund these ventures) who worship the power of the free-market — as well as their own intellect. Isn’t that the kind of thinking that crashed Wall Street?” Will Bunch, one of the great Philly bloggers. …. Ruling class: “[Penn State] intends to remodel the football team shower and locker room area as a direct result of Sandusky’s crimes.” Alrighty then. …. Open records: “There is nothing that is public from Penn State,’ [Sara Ganim, who broke Sandusky story, said]. ‘Everything is what you get from people, and there is such a degree of loyalty that prosecutors have even been thrown off by it.’ Some reporters, she said, call Penn State ‘the Kremlin.'”
TN. Guns: “R leaders in Nashville infuriated the NRA this year by refusing to go along with a bill to prevent businesses from banning guns on their property, and now the group is using its deep pockets to try to unseat one of them.”
TX. ObamaCare: “They can whine all they want about ‘getting it crammed down their throats’, but this is a good deal for the state and a better one for Texans, and even this worthless batch of Republicans isn’t stupid enough to turn [$100.1 billion over 10 years] down.” … Extractive economy: Slideshow of Midland. … Famine in Egypt: “A scourge of grasshoppers is chomping through gardens, orchards, pastures and urban landscapes across a wide swath of Texas this summer.”
WI. Voting: “Command Central is a private corporation with offices in a strip mall near St. Cloud, MN who are the vendors of election machines and all of the programing and tabulation that goes with them. The digital totals held on memory cards and used to determine the outcome of the June 5 recall election will be ‘burned’ this weekend even though they are the subject of several FOIA requests. Why are clerks sending your vote totals to be burned? Because if they do not comply with Command Central’s July 16 deadline, the counties will be charged sums approaching $10,000.” Privatized voting. What could go wrong? … Fracking: “Amish teach humility and avoid actions that draw attention to themselves… That’s why it’s a big deal that members of the St. Charles Amish community are voicing concerns publicly about the proposed [fracking sand] rail facility.” … Recall: “[FEINGOLD:] I wouldn’t have won either. That election, unfortunately, was about one thing. It wasn’t even about money. [Voters] didn’t think a recall was appropriate. [People] weren’t against collective bargaining, it’s just the recall mechanism was the problem.”
The trail. Remarkable factoid: “Joe Biden once ran under the wheels of a moving dump truck on a dare.”
Policy. Fracking: “[NATIONWIDE:] From an underwriting standpoint, we do not have a comfort level with the unique risks associated with the fracking process to provide coverage at a reasonable price.” Fracking often occurs in residential areas.
Robama vs. Obomney. Christopher Caldwell, of all people: “But Mr Romney is not the candidate of the rich. He is a candidate of the rich. So are most candidates in American politics, very much including Mr Obama.” D’oh!
Greens. Time: “Stein and Honkala are trying to occupy a space left by voters, particularly left-leaners, who are fed up with Obama and uninterested in Romney. They expect to be an alternative option on the ballot in 40 states. And they said they bring a different kind of politics to the table, though it doesn’t appear to be a less divisive brand.” Yeah, Americans Elect tried that. Petraeus, government of national unity? … Green National Convention opens in Baltimore, MD: Schedule.
Libertarian Party. Media critique: “Gary Johnson supporters in the Atlanta, GA area will hold a demonstration outside CNN … The demonstration is to draw public awareness that all the public opinion polls that CNN sponsors or co-sponsors invariably include only President Obama and Mitt Romney.”
Bain flap. Obama goes all in: “[OBAMA:] Now, my understanding is that Mr. Romney attested [legalese!] to the SEC, multiple times, that he was the chairman, CEO and president of Bain Capital and I think most Americans figure if you are the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what that company does.” … DeLong amplifies, without, oddly, or not, analytical value add. …”[ROMNEY:] I had no role whatsoever in managing Bain Capital after February of 1999. This is all an effort on the part of the president’s campaign to divert attention from the fact that the president has been a failure when it comes to reigniting America’s economy.” True, and it’s working! … “[ROMNEY:] Is that what’s really expected from the campaign of the sitting president of the United States?” Yes, and your point? … Romney TV blitz: ABC transcript; CBS transcript; Romney sounds a little upset. … Stay tuned: “Obama campaign lawyer Bob Bauer’s response to whether there was proof that Romney still actively participated in Bain dealings post-1999[:] ‘I would stay very much tuned on that.'” … It’s a beautiful, Rovian, strength-into-weakness ploy. But best left to a surrogate? … Ed Rendell: “All these attacks may be hurting the president’s brand a little bit. I think our supporters may have went too far with the felony business.” … Jonathan Bernstein: “How vetted is Mitt Romney? … [W}e usually have a process that can reassure his party that whatever’s out there has probably been uncovered, and I’m not sure that’s the case this time.” Just… Ouch. Meaning, Romney’s primary opponents weren’t strong enough to do serious oppo. Unlike Obama. Time for a Checkers speech from Mitt! Or, as MoDo would no doubt say, a Seamus speech.
From the Barcalounger: Still with the semantics: “left” Bain, and “actively participated” vs. “no role whatsoever in managing.” What the Obama campaign is frothing and stamping about is the intricate network of influence that surrounds any person of Romney’s wealth and profession; board seats, titles, meetings, paperwork, fiduciary responsibilities, “entities,” etc. I don’t mind the Axelrovians hanging that kleptocratic network round Romney’s neck like the stinking albatross that it is — especially since Romney takes his privileges for granted and gets huffy — if only Obama wasn’t milking the exact same kind of network, albeit with different kleptocrats, to fund his own campaign. The plague on both their houses can’t come soon enough for me. I mean, what’s Obama’s problem, here? That Romney wasn’t a “savvy” enough businessman? Such a shame he can’t run on his record!
* 56 days ’til the Democratic National Convention ends with locally sourced rubber chicken on the floor of the Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. The Declaration of Independence had 56 signers.
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Antidote du jour (YY). Backstory here. Got a lot of good antidote material in the last couple of days, so please be patient if I haven’t posted it yet.
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Visa etc. suit filed in 2005, settlement price in 2012 $7.2B, now promise to “reduce swipe fees by the equivalent of 10 basis points for eight months for a total consideration to stores valued at about $1.2 billion” (or 1.8B/y in lowered profits).
So basically, they lose the equivalent of 10bp for 4 years after a period of 7 years between suit and ‘settlement’ (during which they presumably continued to extract these higher fees), and then they only have to promise to lower the fees by 10bp for 8 months? Nice power imbalance there.
Anyone have a clue as to the likelihood of the banks being forced to lower their fees to such a point that they’re now losing money on every transaction? Because if they’re not.. Utility banking, where art thou?
Ahh Bastille Day! Just imagine the possibilities!
Bastille day?
It’s Woody Guthrie day to me — the 100th birth anniversary of this native son of Oklahoma, Texas, Los Angeles and Brooklyn — whose guitar was labeled ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.’
You can stream a retrospective of Woody’s music from 4 to 8 pm:
http://www.wfuv.org/blog/wonderful-world-woody
Yesterday was John Clare Day —
John and Woody would have liked each other I think:
I’m going to suppose you disagree with the idealogy of “property rights”? (however broadly one chooses to *define* that (winkwink to ‘Susan the other’))
;-)
Love
I’m with the tree, and love, and community:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself
http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1113/4729114538_4ea7e107f7_z.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pshab/292400600/
“It is doubly lucky in that, unlike most property holders, it pays no taxes and is beloved by local citizens…. Although the deed has never been tested in the courts, its legitimacy seems irrelevant. Local residents not only acknowledge the tree’s ownership of itself, but actually take it as an obligation to see that the oak is protected.”
@just me;
without going into a long diatribe, allow me to just say;
Last time i checked, trees aren’t “spiritual beings having a human experience”, however i am very conservative in my approach to preserving nature, and all that entails. Just to note, the American Indians certainly had a way with controlling the undergrowth in big wooded forest areas, and their sacred burnings gave way to new life — that said; I have no idea why this kook (self-proclaimed) colonel thinks this one tree is any more special than any other tree. ..and i also think nobody knows; it’s an inherent problem (as to motivations) when we look back into history, even when there are writings, unless also outlined/detailed, it’s all just guesswork and speculation …most times designed to fit an agenda, or bolster ulterior motives. I try extremely hard not to presume (as to M.O.), but it’s hard to maintain that state of bliss. ;-)
Love
@enouf: Who said trees have to prove to you that they are “spiritual beings having a human experience”? Can you say that corporations do? It’s laughable, yet the Supreme Court can’t tell them apart from a person, and that’s talking legal.
Your “kook” — William Jackson — was the father of Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice James Jackson, which makes those two and that tree very interesting to me (*), and I wish they could talk, as well as all the Atlantans who have protected that tree and its child all these years since ca 1832.
There’s actually quite a history of legal debate on the question of the rights of nature, not restricted to trees, but animals, birds, fish, seas, lakes, rivers, mountains, I expect the planet itself. For example, see Christopher Stone’s Should Trees Have Standing? / Law, Morality and the Environment.
As for the Indians, I’m thinking Seven Generations, and I’m thinking Chief Seattle, for whom sacred and duty to protect were at odds with personal, exclusive ownership.
I appreciate your interest, and on my part would be especially interested in your take on the John Clare article, which is what intrigued me to begin with. I never heard of him and had not thought of a time of not-enclosure for Europeans, nor the changeover, and what that meant to our history or could mean to our future. Maybe we’re witnessing the global natural Ponzi collapse of money and ownership, along with the environment, and maybe there’s another choice to consider, something to learn from the past, and a path to change.
Thanks.
*famous San Diego example of failed tree protection here — this is what I weigh that against: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP03JhFEoGQ — if MERS touches those trees, does no one own them, and could their community now declare that they own themselves?
re: The Weaponization of Economic Theory
Brilliant.
The result must be economic polarization, above all between creditors and debtors as in Rome. So the end stage of neoliberalism threatens a Dark Age of poverty/immiseration – most characteristically, one of debt peonage. And just as Rome’s creditor class and its predatory imperial expansion brought down the Roman Empire and reduced it to mere subsistence, so the combination of neoliberalism and neo-conservatism today seeks to globalize itself, spreading austerity even as it brings technological progress to sovereign debtors
All hail Janus, the god of global debt-based capitalism. He knows your past (to the penny), and holds the mortgage on your future. Heads he wins, tails you lose.
Dr. Michael Hudson, the Oracle of Just Finance for a Just Real Economy.
See, Randi Shannon understands parallel government. They got that from the left. It’s been in the toolkit at least since the French revolution. Why the hell is the contemporary left so scared of parallel government? It works for the CIA, when they want to knock over a state that has forfeited its sovereignty, like ours. It would work just as well for the public.
I was amazed to see a “parallel government” approach the mainstream. No doubt a SWAT team will be breaking down Shannon’s door any day now. Not.
yerp .. and as well as;
http://dev.republicoftheunitedstates.org/introduction/
http://www.uscivilflags.org/articles-admiralty.html
is another that goes hand-in-hand in attempting to regain control using parallel gov’t – heck, with fija.org too, we might have a fighting chance! …
Love
p.s. I’d vote for randi (on her stance about alone on all this) if i could
Ahhhhh!
YVES!
I found this posted by a friend on facebook.
http://m.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=38268
Everything that could be wrong with the article is. Please blast!
WOW… he and beardo could hang out. Between the two the world would be SAVED… snicker.
Skippy… Ph.D student? Faint….
I have a problem with Baptists because they claim to take the Bible seriously but don’t. Claiming that Jesus drank grape juice instead of wine is a prime example.
And don’t forget, skippy, a universal bailout (actually restitution for theft) would go to everyone, not just Christians.
Not trying to save the world, just don’t want it to end on my shift or the next two shifts (for the sake of my non-existent grand-children).
And remember, Christians are hedged – that Rapture thingy, ya know. If the world as we know it does end, it won’t be Christians who suffer some very tough love* down here.
But just in case Christianity is not true, I also happen to care for the human race. Ethical capitalism is our best hope for survival.
*See Book of Revelation.
Just in case?
Are we talking about Pascal’s wager here?
Ecclesiastes 11:2
F. Beard said; “.. Ethical capitalism ..”
You must be joking my brother/sister
Love
BTW .. did you get my reference to “1 Cor 9:1-18” F. Beard as it pertained to the discussion with LeonovaBR (about “definitions”) in another thread? (re: Deut 25:4 about not muzzling oxen … and threshing v. tread out?)
just curious — seems it never went through …sigh
Love
Sorry F. Beard .. but to drive-the-point home about a nonsensical theoretical “Ethical Capitalism”; I must ask you to *define* both those words — for now, i’ll focus on just ‘capitalize’ —
To;
a) Take advantage of
b) To monopolize
c) To exploit
take your pick — or disagree .. thanks
Love
1 Cor 9:1-18 is interesting because Paul asks rhetorically:
God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.
Yet God IS concerned about oxen as well as about men. The Bible just avoids contradiction here but a miss is as good as a mile.
Capitalism as currently practiced is unethical because of credit creation – the means by which the so-called “credit-worthy” and the banks have dispossessed and dis-employed the workers with their own stolen purchasing power.
I think we have enough problems without injecting religious arguments.
@Mac… the driving force in any civilization is its foundation myth[s. Economics – politics began as a foundation myth debate, whom is the boss and why. Beardo asserts his his bosses position (beardos unique reading) and if it is not followed, it is unethical.
Skippy… much of the hill is infested with this sort of baseline positioning (various baseline positions). We are soaking in its results.
PS. still waiting for him to read ‘5000 years of Debt’ like he said, personally, to the author himself. Funny how this stuff works… eh.
Skippy,
I would think “Thou shalt not steal”, especially from the poor, would be non-controversial.
PS: I put Graeber’s book on the top of my stack but I’m not much into reading these days. Between bad eyes and (untreated, thanks to neo-Purtitan drug-warrior busybodies) ADHD it’s not so much fun.
Beardo your inability to engage in debate past the few talking point axioms (the preponderance sourced from the NSAB*), is tiresome or worse futile. [*Copyright and trademark to the NASB text are – owned – by the Lockman Foundation].
Remember the prisoners dilemma post a wee bit back. Well prisons are built upon a blueprint, under operational guidelines, by folks thinking that they are doing the right thing for the right reasons. When if fact their making it worse, down the road, for everyone.
“Thou shalt not steal” – beardo.
Skip… Ummm how about the time and space from the future potential. Stealing from that seems to be the most criminal of all.
Skippy… America seems to be one big prison complex for profit these days.
PS… FYI indigenous people don’t fair well in prisons, not used to the indoctrination westerners et al receive from birth. Funnily enough their law is tougher, more stringent, pasted on from the elders – old’s too the young in an ongoing learning experience. But – no – prisons.
Ok @mac and @F. Beard — i’m replying way down here to not keep cluttering up that subthread above — *and* i’m responding to mac and F. Beard prior to reading skippy’s comments;
a) @mac
While i concur that we might do better “without injecting religious arguments”, i don’t see these as ‘religious’, but as ‘philosophical’ if anything (though i understand your comment was in reply to F. Beard’s initial one concerning Christianity).. but your point is well taken — plus, i had brought up some other stuff from another thread which i’ll briefly address and clarify below (concerning F. Beard, Definitions, and Metaphors).
—
b) @ F. Beard
(Metaphor #1) –> “Not to beat a dead horse” here, but concerning the text;
(Metaphor #2) –> “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain” [NKJV] is exactly that IMHO, and Paul understood this all too well.
IOW, One should not stop/impede another when one is attempting to do ‘Good Works’, whilst they are in the midst of performing their ‘Good Works’ (threshing out) by “muzzling” them, or, …a better human analogy might be to not place them in a “straight-jacket”, or “hamstringing” them.
i.e.; Concerning separating the wheat from the chaff;
a) Oxen ‘tread out’
b) Humans ‘thresh’
It’s my opinion that in *both* Deuterotomy and in 1 Cor, that that text is used and understood as a *metaphor* even though in Deut, it’s used moreso to describe administrating Justice, and in 1 Cor it’s used moreso to describe a Disciple performing Good Works.
That’s how i read it anyways (and i’m open to critique), .. just wanted to get that all out in the open — AND, i don’t want to clutter up this whole thread with any more talking points about the aforementioned “.. You shall not muzzle an ox ..” via Deut and 1 Cor text.
—
Now – with all that said F. Beard;
You still haven’t defined “Capitalize” … and perhaps you won’t, but that’s why i brought up this whole line of reasoning (and referred back to the other thread); … I’m doing so to ‘thresh out’ ..for clarity, and to make the point: How we define our words is paramount to great communication and progress ;-)
Thanks for listening,
Love
p.s. I’d also like to add that IMHO definitions of the same word(s) *can* indeed have differing meanings when used in different contexts — that I accept, but i also think that much miscommunication and misunderstanding comes from intertwining …or rather, (many times) working from “precepts” during discourse.
But – no – prisons. Skippy
The Torah does not have imprisonment either as a punishment.
That is not applicable, it still had other forms of binding. Never mind the constant loop of slavery – freedom every 7 years. Talk about not seeing the fail inherent, oh yeah, its an economists thingy…
Skippy… BTW how do you feel about the NASB being – owned – as a piece of property.
How are Penn State football coaches like fine caviar?
They come on little white crackers.
TNS, wicked good.
With all the fraud allegations regarding JP Morgan, its amazing that their stock was up more than 5% after earnings beat expectations.
The oxymoron lexicon adds “bankers trust” to “military intelligence”.
Good one.
Bankers Trust.
Military Intelligence.
Smart Humans.
Mish rained on Keen’s debt jubilee. Steve bites back, politely. I’m with him:
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/07/14/mish-steve-debate-steve-says-i/
I agree that Mish generally keeps things civil and has some good insights and ideas.
But I can’t stand his visceral hatred for working class folks. Imo, behind the intellectual aspect of his opinions is puritan morality that diminished his arguments.
I get emotional too about some of my arguments but he really pisses me off sometimes . . . just Charles Hughes Smith.
They both go farther than their Austrian counterparts in that they claim they want to reign in the power of the private sector. But in practice they would get rid of the state protection for these criminal private actors but then do nothing to prevent the criminal private actors from colluding and controlling without the government.
Tl;Dr: I’m with Keen too.
Mish is an engineer. Engineers have to learn a lot of math and science but in general are probably not as talented as physicists otherwise that is what they would be. So engineers have to work hard to get their degrees. And they are not that well paid either after they graduate. So it tends to make them angry that union members with far less education might be paid better than they are. Of course the real problem is that engineers and most everyone else are UNDERPAID because of our parasitic finance system.
Hold your horses! You’re suggesting that the reason people become engineers is because they’re not smart enough to make it as physicists? That’s simply not true, except maybe in a small minority of cases. I say this having known many people who went into these two fields. Do you also believe experimental physicists only go into that because they’re not smart enough for theoretical physics? And that physicists only go into it because they’re not smart enough to do pure math (or the other way around, if you think physics is harder than math)?
You’re suggesting that the reason people become engineers is because they’re not smart enough to make it as physicists? YesMaybe
Oh, engineers are definitely more practical (in general) than scientists. I suppose that is the point I should have made. Their (engineers’) practicality would tend to make them care more about wealth than a scientist and thus resent union members more.
Should we see the complete list of your generalizations about others?
Generalities are generally true, general speaking.
generally
Engineers are a “special breed”–very smart, but limited in a particular way.
Engineers get to wear those striped caps and toot the horn at crossings!
@mac — you have this uncanny knack of making me feel “railroaded”!
:-P
Love
Many engineers are autistic, and have problems with empathy.
Wow, my brother is an engineer and that describes him to a T. Not autistic, but no empathy. He’s brillian, I used to respect him but his lack of empathy for anyone drives me away from him.
Agreed. I have engineers on both sides of my family.
right: *my mafia* –or– *your mafia* .. whom shall rein supreme?
All i know is; all forms of so-called 1st-world western republics/democracies are nothing more than a Mafiaso. A veritable Cartel.
Love
agreed. his anti-union screeds almost shake my confidence in his otherwise strong commentary and analysis and leave me shaking my head in bewilderment.
my theory is most economic thinkers are a little nuts. they seem to have some ideational construct, some kink in their their interpretation of reality, that betrays a Manichean mania, divorced from reason or logic in its descent to the realm of absolute dogmatic drivel. Of course, many of us do too. haha.
GC, Who’s our friend? Keen carries the day, every day.
Keen doesn’t seem to grasp the true irrevocable and unavoidable dead-end of capitalism or of interest-based money. He seems to think these phenomena have only been recently ill-served in particular, and can be kept on life-support by focusing on “flows”.
At least that is what I gathered when I heard him speak here:
http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-16T20_01_57-08_00
You can skip to about 17:00…
Sadly, an academic’s contempt for laymen’s questions shone through for me.
He’s got a lot of good things to say, but he seems to truly believe that “flows” themselves generate wealth, which to my mind is completely deluded.
AT around 24:00 on, he acknowledges the work of the Limits to Growth team, at the same time as he asserts that “the big error that people have in how they try to think about society, they use very simple direct analogies, so: a household should balance its budget therefore a government should, for example”… derides the opinion that “you shouldn’t print money that will cause inflation”… (25:39)
He seems to have one foot in reality and the other not.
NC commenter paulj also cottened on to Keen’s blind spots:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/anonymous-the-fable-of-moral-arithmetic.html#comment-719901
Seconded.
Skippy… Rome is alive! Embrace the pluming! Does Keen say?
I don’t want to do Keen an unfair disservice–now that I re-heard him, he was actually not bad with the interviewer in the clip I linked. It was another podcast I had in mind where he came across as condescending when talking about “flows”, but I can’t find it now.
Lidia, Keen is not perfect, nor is his plan. But do you think the transition can be made into the New Real Economy by Michael Hudson alone? Radical Transitions are messy and difficult always, requiring a high degree of tolerance and critical co-operation; and this means that YOUR input (seeing red flags) is valuable also.
Of course, it is a given that Academics tend to dismiss “others,” and I have seen that Keen can lose his cool from time to time, demonstrating that it is risky to place an Academic on a high horse. The only clear and consistent exceptions to this rule of thumb are William K. Black and Michael Hudson, both truly humble men to the marrow, speaking from and for the Revolutionary Heart of America.
In fairness, It must be said that Paul Krugman, despite his Academic Nobel Princeton Standing, has shown great humanity, and remarkable humility, in dealing with the public as “teacher at large” (via NYT blog & TV appearances). He has even borne the “sharp arrows” of rival Steve Keen with professional good humor, as quite an American Good Sport, to his credit. His “captivity” does color his pronouncements, but from that frame he has won the attention of the multitudes, engaging their minds in a serious consideration of “Economics” at the heart of The American Experiment since 1776.
Yes I’ll be watching this with interest (no pun intended) — and I am pleased they debate with civility and with minds open to the possibility of their own ability to learn from each other. They is both smart dudes and have a lot of good stuff to say.
It got ridiculous with Professor Krugman and Professor Keen — although to be fair, Professor Keen first referenced “arse and tit” and only then did Professor Krugman reference the function of the buttocks. That is my recollection. And then it got a little mean spirited after that. As the bodily functions were foisted into the discourse.
The scatological association of money, however, is not at all off topic. In fact “filthy lucre” indicates the unconscious association. And the fertilizing power of both excrement and money are quite forceful correspondences for anyone attuned to metaphorical energetic relationships. It is not childish at all to examine these associations, as they illuminate the reality of what money is. Like feces fertilizes gardens and brings forth fruits and vegetables, money fertilizies imagination and cooperation, and brings forth the fruits of labor and the nourishment of the community.
On that note, I believe Dr. Keen and Mr. Shedlock are both equally ignorant. Mr. Shedlock’s belief that gold is more “real” than fiat, and that fractional reserve lending is somehow a form of fraud, is indicative of a less-than-probing understanding of what money is as a social construct that catalyzes group imagination. As we all know and many have commented, gold is no more “real” than paper or magnetic states of molecules in a storage medium — all are simply referents for a deeper form mutual agreement between human actors. Dr. Keen is on firm ground with his jubilee idea, but (as Mish says) that would not entirely solve the more abstract problem of the pre-existing corrupted structures of social cooperation that only foment class division and enflame the arbitrarily imbalanced access to the necessities of sane living (althouth Mish does not, I think, fully relate the implications of that deficiency to a larger analysis and more insightful assessment of the reality that money as catalyst for elimination of social domination by entrenched elites REQUIRES there to be a continual expansion of its quanity THROUGH interest-bearing loans, or at least some other form where its expansion in quanitity is not constricted entirely by one actor, such a government. for all its faults, the banking system offers a multi-sourced expansion where competition at least offers a plurality of source points for monetary emanation. Otherwise, it stagnates at a level that cannot flow to those without it, and catalyze their own asset structures that they invent through their own ethical imagination and labor — quite possibility sustaining and enhancing the social good. QED. –Profeser Delerious T. Tremens, NFL, GED, University of Magonia, Department of Contemporary Analysis
of the reality that money as catalyst for elimination of social domination by entrenched elites REQUIRES there to be a continual expansion of its quanity craazyman
Correct.
THROUGH interest-bearing loans craazyman
Not necessarily. Common stock as private money requires no borrowing, much less interest.
, or at least some other form where its expansion in quanitity is not constricted entirely by one actor, such a government. craazyman
Indeed! We need something in addition to “Caesar’s money.”
for all its faults, the banking system offers a multi-sourced expansion where competition at least offers a plurality of source points for monetary emanation. craazyman
True but even the go-getters and innovators should not be allowed to steal from the rest of us even if it has increased the general welfare. And has it really increased the general welfare when one looks at Detroit?
c, you mean Keen’s “Debt Jubilee” must walk with guillotinage: “for example.”
I’d be very interesting in any references you’ve got on the scatological associations of money.
If you think for a moment about M-C-M’ you realize that at some point C, considered as a relation must pass through a human or at least an animal body — otherwise, no use value, right? So with money on the consumption and the excretion side, it seems that M’ is in some sense our sh*t, which Our Betters are eating; a fact that Our Betters do well to conceal or exalt through mechanisms described by Lynn Parramore in her piece on 50 shades of grey…
.. and that fractional reserve lending is somehow a form of fraud, …
well .. it is ;-)
…nay, i’ll take it one step further, IMHO *any* lending of anything truly valuable (IMHO – defined == true value/wealth is derived from one’s ability to produce (individually), and or tangible and fungible assets (i.e., privately *physically* held commodities ala gold/silver/copper/.. /grains/pork bellies/cow patties/etc), either;
— Individually, (usually the Savers/Hoarders and Producers – i.e., Farmers)
…or
— Collectively, (WeThePeople’s “Resources” (‘stuff’ still in the ground, yet to be extracted) – the Sovereigns’ stake of a Geographical location’s “resources” (yea, those fictionally drawn lines/boundaries which we call Nation States)
..of which, All ‘Peoples’ should benefit from — not some private fictional entity!
Unless you mean that we each, as individuals, run our own printing presses in our basements, and lend money to others (that cannot afford the Printers, Pulp, Ink, etc??) based on their indebtedness/servitude to us. ..which then perpetuates the spiraling downwards.
..yet, above scenario would obfuscate (most) any need for anyone to want/need to ‘borrow’, especially to ‘borrow, with interest’. …especially if they’re given the “starter kit” to begin the saving/hoarding of assets (value)
Future claims on saving/hoarding is nothing more than horse-track betting .. gambling ..as is all trading of Futures; ..don’t even get me started on Shadow banking, Naked short selling, and Derivatives!
Love
p.s. Corporations are not people, nor are they lawful entities, IMHO
@craazyman et al;
Note how i didn’t say Legal/Illegal — i said “Unlawful” (rather, not lawful)
“Statute Law” (as defined by others) is an abomination of mankind… and is all just legal fiction, nothing “Lawful” about it.
Natural Law and Spiritual Law (and to some degree Common Law) all have a place in our promulgated humongous societies. Statutes/Acts/Codes/Regs/Ordinances have no place in our society, and IMHO is what leads to all our ills — take a look at USC, and UCC-1 crap, and you’ll hopefully start to see what i mean.
— in another recent thread here at the NC blog (which referenced this URL; http://thegazette.com/2012/07/13/state-senate-candidate-drops-out-says-she-will-be-part-of-alternate-government-2/ ), ..these links below start to describe what i’m getting at;
http://dev.republicoftheunitedstates.org/introduction/
http://www.uscivilflags.org/home.html
Love
whoops; I left out one link;
http://www.1215.org/index.html
click ‘Start Here’ .. (if you dare)
Love
hahaha .. didn’t even notice this; If you click/hover on the “image” of the BluePill v. Red Pill (directly below the ‘Start Here’ link) ..it redirects to whitehouse.gov !!
Please don’t do that ;-)
Love
Re Taibbi’s article on Romney:
He wonders why Romney went to this hostile venue and is befuddled.
Uh, it’s not that hard to figure out.
It’s like professional wrestling. Romney, being a professional wrestler, is paid to exacerbate conflict and get people riled up. He’s paid to get people mad at him.
The campaign is not getting much attention so the candidates will increasingly up the tribal hatred by doing things like this.
Actually, Bush, who has the same incentives, never went.
This partially confirms my observation, that Romney is a hand picked dud, an attempt to throw the election by making sure an absolute loser will run and not campaign that hard to win. As in the Philadelphia Political Arrangement where the Rs never put up a candidate to win much of anything ever in exchange for traffic court. PS: the court brings in 10s of millions in fines and has a fixed tribute payment to make to the city. They keep the rest and the jobs. See cable show parking wars/Philly. However, Romney is not a passive dud, but seems to actively campaign to lose. The brutality of elite aloofness usually does not come with spit in yr face in yr house upon being an invited guest. It seems he has internalized a new breed of ruling elite sense of entitlement, breaking the main principles of Machiavelli’s Prince. Who Knew?
PT, ENTER the GREEN Stein-Honkaly fraudbusters to settle the score: GREENS to WIN, Dems to place, Reps to show.
I agree with the broad perspective, with a couple of caveats: (1) the candidates have a degree of “relative autonomy” and are players in their own right. (It would be possible for Romney to defect and attempt to win, for example.) (2) Both candidates are acceptable to the powers that be. There are marginal differences, to be sure, which may even be relevant to us peasants, but any such differences only exist to be taken away later (for example, the Immigration foofra is entirely a personal grant from Obama).
* * *
I think McCain was also such a “Potemkin” candidate. One has only to contrast the ferocity of the Bush 2004 attack on Kerry with the tame-ness of the McCain 2008 campaign (where was the swiftboating? The October surprise?) to see the difference between serious and unserious campaigns. The McCain and Obama were neck and neck until the entirely coincidental fall of Lehman shows what a rotten candidate Obama really was and is.
I also think that Obama doesn’t want a big majority, because that would mean he’s beholden to more voters, and he wants to be as beholden to as few voters as possible. Hence the constant rhetoric of a tight race and a razor thin margins. Having the election come down to a few swing counties and a few swing states is just fine with them, and no doubt the data mining in Chicago is focused on that. They’ll keep it as close as they can, and pull a little bit ahead when needed. (You have only to look at the pictures of Romney to see that the press is clearly on Obama’s side this time — “creative class” tribalism — so that helps OBama and is a constant headwind for Romney.) On the other hand… that the polls aren’t moving at all, with a candidate as rotten as Romney clearly is, must be causing them to sweat just a bit.
Who knows. They’re all as twisty as corkscrews and “a week is a long time in politics.” I also feel that the political situation is unusually fluid, though perhaps that’s just an effect of having left the legacy party system entirely.
* * *
All subject to change, of course, as I continue to educate myself. Most often, I fail to be cynical enough.
Lambert, that was Smokin’ — we gettin’ DOWN now.
Aha. Good point.
But . . . .
I do recall some drama with NAACP. Did Bush cancel a speech or fail to go or something?
So this is like in professional wrestling when the drama isn’t taking place in the ring but outside it. Like one wrestler challenging another wrestler in an interview calling him a wimp for not showing up in his preferred venue. They make sure the actor puffs up his chest and spits when he talks and then this gets the people riled up.
Now that you piqued my interest I will have to find that similar created drama with Bush.
And Bush did go NAACP Annual conference: http://fora.tv/2006/07/20/President_George_W__Bush
Just watched a couple minutes and Bush seems to be in good cocky form.
Bush already had the 2nd term locked up, so he could be more cocky than his usual cocky. What good would it have done for the NAACP to boo him at that point?
I actually hear a smattering of boos as Bush is introduced. Wonder if Bush paid some ringers to sit in the audience . . . there was some clapping in the part I saw in addition to some scowling.
Oops! My bad. Personal recollectio #FAIL plus a second hand reading recently.
Keep it in your pants boys.
(For the Rmoney-Obamas)
So the bottom line here is that eliminating “Fractional Reserve Banking” does nothing to eliminate the capacity for banks to create money: that will exist in a purely free market system just as much as it does today.
There are also very good arguments, from a very good Austrian—Joseph Schumpeter—that this capacity to create money is a necessary part of the entrepreneurial process that makes capitalism a dynamic system. My other proposals, Jubilee Shares and “The PILL”, are intended to minimize the dangerous use to which bank money creation is put—financing Ponzi Scheme bubbles in asset prices—and maximize this creative use of that power. Steve Keen from http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2012/07/14/mish-steve-debate-steve-says-i/ [emphasis added]
So private money creation is good according to Keen. I agree. The question is how to do it ethically. That’s where abolishing all government privileges for the banks comes in and allowing genuine private money alternatives for private debts only. Of course government money creation without borrowing is good too, that’s where MMT come in.
Anyway, it’s great to see Steve Keen and Mish debate. I think they are both good eggs at heart.
There is a way out of this mess if we’ll just put our heads together. It’s only money.
Off Topic Question which of these claims is true? On Twitter yesterday this guy https://twitter.com/JimPethokoukis
was tweeting that the wealthy pay 94% of the taxes
Top 20% pay 94% of income taxes. Bottom 40%? Nada, zilch, zippo
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/07/top-20-pay-94-of-income-taxes-bottom-40-nada-zilch-zippo/
I recalled a couple years ago that actually the middle class pay the majority of the taxes and I responded with this article but it is a couple years old. Which claim is true? I was hoping if you had time you could clear this up. I would really appreciate it!
Middle Class–Not the Rich or the Poor–Pay Majority of Taxes
http://cnsnews.com/node/68094
We are ALL taxed by the government enforced/backed usury for stolen purchasing power cartel, the banking system, which primarily benefits the rich. Let them pay for it then if taxes are necessary.
the more they earn, the higher will be the fraction they pay. It’s bait&switch that assumes current pay levels are justified.
Good point. If the rich were not allowed to steal in the first place (primarily by banking) then there would be far less need for progressive taxation.
The top 20% own something like 93% of the country. So no matter how you cut it, the rich pay most of the taxes because they have almost all the money in the country.
The thing is the poor and middle class pay a greater slice of their income overall in taxes than the rich. It’s not just that the rich can hide their wealth in tax shelters or pay at the lower capital gains rate. It’s that the poor and middle class pay a lot of regressive taxes, like sales tax and taxes on gasoline.
And too you have to consider that while many states have a flat income tax, the effects of the tax are not the same on all payers. Take 6% from a household that makes $30,000 a year and it can have a noticeable impact. Take the same 6% on a household making $300,000 and while the amount is 10 times larger, the impact is minimal.
Hugh, correct: the RATIO of tax/wealth and tax/income is what counts.
There is a hypothesis out there that says we have not been genetically equipped to handle more resources than we can each consume.
It’s those millions of years of eating what you could gather.
Basically, this is another argument for personal limits (age and gender dependent) of wealth.
James P is one of those writers who leaves you less well informed. I don’t have time to read the AEI report, but AEI is notorious re presenting data dishonestly to support its agenda.
From the FOIA request for George Hartzman’s NC State filing: “Wachovia FAs Get New Name, But No Traditional Retention Plan”
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-foia-request-for-george-hartzmans_13.html
From the FOIA request for George Hartzman’s NC State filing: Marketing and Sales Presentations – FINRA Conduct Rule 2210
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-foia-request-for-george-hartzmans.html
Forwarded to Michael Mashburn, SEC and Daniel Stefek, FINRA- both of whom recieved NC Securities Division File No. 12 SEC 84, in late June, who spoke with George Hartzman during the second week of July
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/forwarded-to-michael-mashburn-sec-and.html
From a public records request of George Hartzman’s Wells Fargo NC whistleblower filing
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-public-records-request-of-george.html
From an email sent to xxxyyy
http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-email-sent-to-xxxyyy.html
George Hartzman is a Patriot, walking the walk.
New Robama ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud3mMj0AZZk
Seems like it would be one of the more effective of the ads I’ve seen. I particularly like the singing Obomney in the background.
Disclaimer: I don’t support either Robama or Obomney in any way, and don’t condone their propaganda tactics or the advertising industry. Just saying this one–unlike most advertising–is well thought out for what it is.
This reminds me of the Jedi’s approach to political ads – put a waste basket over your head to tune out the outside world and go with your intuition…hopefully holdind a lightsaber.
Looks like the Dems finally took the training wheels off, huh? You’re right. Very effective messaging. In the days of yore only the Repubes had that much gumption. Of course they still haven’t lost their touch either, so should be a “spirited” election season coming up.
On second thought, though, maybe counting on viewers to read what’s on the screen is a mistake. So I don’t know if having him singing in the background is that great an idea when it means not having a voice-over making the accusations.
That’s an excellent example of partial truths!
“Mitt Romney’s the problem” is beautiful. It encapsulates and personalizes the “Blame Republicans” strategy.
Of course, last I checked, Romney didn’t blow any American citizens to red mist with a drone strike, or put the capstone on the destruction of the public land title system while putting a price on fraud in the “mortgage settlement,” so I guess it all depends on what your definition of “problem” is, but thanks to our famously free press, nobody cares about the first, and nobody knows about the second.
So, good ad! This commenter sums it up:
One could argue that the birthers are today’s “kick ’em in the balls” R strategy, but for whatever reason the birthers never mainstreamed (unlike the Kerry windsurfing ad or swiftboating for example).
That this ad is floating about, and that there’s nothing like it from Romney — contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama has never been vetted… although maybe people feel that they “know” him, so it’s too late — is very telling. Watching the Rs this year is like watching the Oakland Raiders after they sank into mediocrity.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/raul-menendez-99.php
The new Call of Duty game features a villain labeled as the ‘Messiah of the 99%.’ Comedy site somethingawful.com points out that we’re all the bad guy now. Freekin’ sweet!
Lambert, re Green Party. If Jill Stein is NOT running to win, then it’s time for her to switch places with her running mate, Cheri Honkala, who proved her unmitigated intestinal fortitude in Pennsylvania and WON.
If it’s not possible for them to “flip” their roles, then Jill ought to let Cheri be her DRIVING FORCE for WINNING the general election for “We the People-We the Others-We the 99%-We the Original Americans.
Let CHERI Honkala be the REVOLUTIONARY HEART OF AMERICA, while Jill Stein is the TEMPERED BRAIN. Let Cheri appeal to the Revolutionary Heart of “We the People, the Others, We the Working Americans, We the People of Earth” in a GREEN DRIVE to Justice for Mother Earth and her People of Earth.
On July 12, 2012 at 10$0 am, in a comment to the NC Links of that day, I listed several books that Donald A. Yates (Panther-Yates) had written, which REVEAL ancient genetic links that We the Others share, as our ancestors moved to “America” freely or in chains, to join with Native American tribes of the North American Continent (not including Central and South America). I raised the question: “Is it possible that Jill and Cheri can UNITE and LEAD the descendants of Colonial Americans, including …?”
The list of those included is below. But today, based on Lambert’s cues, we enlarge the tent to include the descendants of the Colonial Amish, of the Colonial Mennonites, of the Colonial Quakers, Shakers, and others who FLED OLD EUROPEAN 1% DESPOTS and their Roman Catholic Henchmen, in order to practice their religion freely in America, among others listed below:
“Colonial American ‘Israelites;’ Colonial American ‘Africans’/Afro-Caribbeans/Free People of Color;’ of Colonial ‘Free Blacks’ who found a home among the Native American Tribes; of Native Americans still living on ‘reservations’ and elsewhere; of Acadians in the diaspora; of French Huguenots in the diaspora; of ‘assimilated Jews’ and ‘culturally assimilated Jews’ in the diaspora.” And, I must add, “We the Women of Independent Mind.”
WE are today’s disfranchised Americans, We the People of Earth, We the farmers, the workers, the humble homemakers, the public school teachers, the civil servants, We the Free People Become Indentured Serfs to the Global “Nobility” 1% Rentier Class from whose tyranny our ancestors fled.
And WHO are our best teachers for our peaceful co-existence with our Mother Earth, who our wise Leaders of the People the 99%, as we face extinction because of the untold avarice of the Global 1% the Rentier Class? They are the the descendants of our Native Americans and African/Caribbean Slaves.
As we behold the future of ALL of us in the Angola Plantation Penitentiary model of the “Extraction Capitalist Prison for Profit System” in AMERICA, It is NOT TOO LATE the harken to the wise, just advice of Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Robert St. Martin Westley, Dr. Preston T. King; Dr. Charles Elmore, and Dr. Na’im Akbar in the Documentary, “Stubborn As a Mule!” (Directed by Miller Bargeron, Jr. and Arcelious J. Daniels; 2011) — in order to begin to set the world aright.
Moreover, the leadership of Miller Bargeron, Jr.–a “Dreamer” on the order of the Joseph–is living proof of the supreme qualifications of a male descendant of slaves and in America to connect us with FULLY HUMAN PURPOSE as we embrace the NATURAL PURPOSE of MOTHER EARTH. His work promises to turn UPSIDE DOWN “The World According To the Scorched Earth Policies” of the Global 1% Rentier Class. His good works bring the promise of “The Beatitudes” into grounded REALITY ON EARTH. His “JOURNEY OF A SUCCESSFUL DREAMER”–still in manuscript–tells his story and his vision; His book, “To Redeem A Generaton: African-American Male Crisis” (1995, Second Printing, Boanerges, Inc., Brentwood Christian Press, Columbus GA), addresses his American brothers in C.21, through the Voice of Experience, in the Christian Salvation terms of earlier eras of “Slavery By Another Name,” in this America’s most egregiously “sinful” product of post-modern times: the Prison-for-Profit System.
Even as Mr. Bargeron holds down his day job as a public civil servant, he has placed his latest Documentary project-in-the-can on Kickstarter: “A Legacy Forgotten: Blue & Gold Pride” — “the story of the African-American High School basketball team that broke through the wall of segregation to win the first integrated state basketball championship of Georgia. Among those brave basketball team members proving the fearless-while-benevolent leadership skills while Jim Crow still reigned in Georgia, is “Larry ‘Gator’ Rivers, the Legendary Harlem Globetrotter,” now deceased! Must all of the team members die before the Documentary can demonstrate to America why the descendants of slaves in America are so eminently qualified to LEAD We the Real Americans, We the Others the 99%, We the Green Americans of Earth?
On Friday, 13 July 2012, on NPR, a program was devoted to the erection of a marble monument in Georgia to the “glory” of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “mixed race” ascendancy, featuring the Master Class Plantation DNA paternity and Slave Class maternity of the lineage of the First Lady. The result? A White man now boasts of his and his progeny’s connection to the First Lady’s ancestor, claiming: “I always wanted to reach out to slaves…” Well, is this Mr. Shields ready to put his money where his mouth is? Will Mr. Shields now leave his PROPERTY to the C.21 descendants of the Slave side of that carnal ledger, so as to atone and to MAKE AMENDS to those “slaves” he “always wanted to reach out to?” Is this not a more deeply personal way for Americans to make good on the promise of reparations to African & Afro-Caribbean Slaves in C.21? Are only the Native Americans and the Japanese to be recompensed?
Will Miller Bargeron, Jr.’s All American Voice be lifted to the level being established by Chris Hedges and Dr. Cornel West, unto a higher level yet for We the People the 99%, so as to lead us into the Promised Land of our imaginations, and of the imaginations of our American ancestors? Will Jill Stein and Cheri Honkaler avails themselves of the leading power of these great men, who show the way to Male Leadership Without Dominance, so that American men, women, and children of the 99% can WIN the Nation in 2012?
So LARGE is the tent of the Green Party to WIN in 2012! Let the VOICE of We the People the 99% RESOUND: Let Freedom Ring!
Error: Larry “Gator” Rivers is NOT dead. He’s not even past.
Please see records of AMERICAN HISTORY below:
“A Guide to the Acadians in Maryland in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” by Gregory A. Wood (Baltimore, MD; Gateway Press, Inc.; 1995) –“Maryland, My Maryland,” indeed;
“DICTIONNAIRE GENEALOGIQUE DES FAMILLES ACADIENNES” by Stephen A. White, “Premiere Partie 1636 a 1714” – “VOLUME I A-G [and] VOLUME II H-Z” (Centre d’Etudes Acadiennes-University de Moncton, 1999);
“A GREAT AND NOBLE SCHEME: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians From Their American Homeland” by John Mack Faragher (New York, London; W.W. Norton & Company, 2005);
— And re that “OTHER AMERICAN Colony, Louisiana”- the Louisiana Territory from the Gulf of Mexico to Minnesota to Quebec, unto the State of Louisiana, of which NEW ORLEANS always has been the “METROPOLE”–which Hurricane Katrina and the Great Man-Made Flood of 2005, and the Bush “Republican” Dynasty have sought to make an outpost of “The Ango-American Raj Empire.”
“A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF FRENCH LOUISIANA, 1699 and 1762: The Journals of Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Jean-Jacques-Blaise d’Abbadie” – Translated, edited, and annoted by Carl A. Brasseaux (Lafayette, LA; Center for Louisiana Studies : University of Southwestern Louisiana , rev. 1981, 1979);
“LOUISIANA AND QUEBEC: Bilateral Relations and Comparative Sociopolitical Evolution, 1673-1993” by Alfred Olivier Hero, Jr. (Tulane Studies in Political Science; University Press of America: Lanham, New York, London; 1995);
“Louisiana in French Diplomacy: 1759-1804″ by E. Wilson Lyon” (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1934);
FRANCOIS VALLE AND HIS WORLD: Upper Louisiana Before Lewis and Clark” by Carl J. Ekberg (Columbia and London, University of Missouri Press, 2002);
“FRENCH COLONIAL LOUISIANA and the ATLANTIC WORLD” Edited by Bradley G. Bond (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2005);
“IN SEARCH OF EMPIRE: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730” by James Pritchard, Queen’s University (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004);
“FRENCH ROOTS IN THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY: The Mississippi River Frontier in Colonial Times” by Carl J. Ekberg (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1998);
“A COLONY OF CITIZENS: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804” by Laurent Dubois (Published for the Omahundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 2004);
“the Impact of the HAITIAN REVOLUTION in the Atlantic World” Edited by David P. Geggus (Columbia, SC; University of South Carolina Press, 2001);
“THE ROAD TO LOUISIANA: The Saint-Dongue Refugees: 1792-1809” edited and annotated by Carl A. Brasseaux and Glenn R. Conrad with translations by David Cheramie (Lafayette, LA; The Center for Louisiana Studies: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1992);
“Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century” by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (Baton Rouge and London, Louisiana State University Press, 1992).
My fellow Americans, keep your memory GREEN.
Edit: “THE ROAD TO LOUISIANA: The St. Domingue Refugees : 1792-1809”
Oh, and for fun “mixing it up” with the Scottish-French-Micmac-Merovingian Dynasty-Knights Templar connection in AMERICA:
“THE LOST TREASURE OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR: Solving the Oak Island Mystery” by Steven Sora (Rochester, VT, Destiny Books, 1999).
My fellow Americans, keep your memory GREEN.
More: “THE PIRATES LAFFITE: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf” by William C. Davis (Orlando, etc., HARCOURT, INC., 2005);
“LAFITTE THE PIRATE” by Lyle Saxon, Illustrated by E.H. Suydam (New York and London, The Century Co., 1939);
“JEAN LAFFITE: Gentleman Rover” by Stanley Clisby Arthur (New Orleans, LA., Harmanson, Publisher, 1952);
“PIRATES & THE LOST TEMPLAR FLEET: The Secret Naval War Between the Knights Templar & the Vatican” by David Hatcher Childress (Kempton, IL; Adventures Unlimited Press, 2003);
Rebellion against Despotic Imperial Regimes of the Global .01% DNA is good.
My fellow Americans, keep your memory GREEN.
Leona,
Among you Yves and the gang,
I don’t get much done,
thanks.
Believe Harry Shearer would specify “Great Army Corps of Engineers Made Flood of 2005”
http://thebiguneasy.com/
just me, thanks for the record.
jm, NOW that U.S.ArmyCorps of Engineers will see the Savannah River dredged according to its specifications, devil take the hindmost! WHY? For Profit to .01% Global Reich interests in China, the Panama Canal, Global Shipping, WalMart, the Military-Industrial/Political/Finance Elite Bosses of Georgia, and the corrupt United States Port of Savannah, serving also the Elites of Charleston and other “Low Country” Elites in Collusion for Private Profit–the same Gangstas that run the Georgia Plantation Prision System-for-Private-Profit to the Master Class.
iirc, part of the insanity of MR-GO was that after the Army Corps of Engineers straightened out and dredged the mouth of the Mississippi, it was barely used for the commercial shipping purpose it was intended for, while wrecking the environment and natural hurricane defusing ability of the original course. They did it all for nothing basically, or worse than nothing.
jm, Well, then maybe the Corps dredging of the Savannah River is Charleston’s Revenge! Will the dredging alter the wetlands, to Charleston’s benefit?
diffusing
I don’t know, I just expect the worst from the Army Corps of Engineers. Their system is engineered to fail. Immunity — no accountability, no consequences, no learning. I think they mostly just funnel contracts to private contractors now? Diminishing in-house capability? It’s been a year since I saw The Big Uneasy.
regarding the (super cute) antidote:
I think maybe those lion cubs are going to turn out to be Siamese, not white. Look how dark their ears and noses are. Siamese cats are born white, too, then darken as they get older.
If they are Siamese that would be cool. Haven’t seen that on a big cat before.
Antidote leads to Economist leads to article entitled: “Rice would make ‘wonderful VP’- enough with Republican Uncle Toms already! Are “Blacks” in America taken in by these Steppin Fetchit Agents for the .01%?
More: “CREOLE NEW ORLEANS: Race and Americanization” Edited by Arnold R. Hirsch and Joseph Logsdon (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1992);
The remnant of Other American population discussed above is what the British Imperil Raj Holy Roman Nobility .01% AGENT BOBBY JINDAL seeks to destroy in “Republican” New Orleans. Search JINDAL STEEL in Neoconlib India. Bobby Jindal is no more “brown” than Barack Obama is “black.” They are Agents of the British (East India Company) Global Empire–the instigator of “THE OPIUM WARS” of the past and “THE SHOCK DOCTRINE” of the present, represented Stateside by the CIA Bush Dynasty of Russell’s YALE.
Rice is apparently pro-choice, so likely a non-starter. Plus I think she ruled out any sort of electoral run. Lacking in moral stature as she is, I still can’t see her taking memos from Romney. Bush knew she was his intellectual better; Romney, as a malignant narcissist worse that Sarah Palin, will never acknowledge anyone as his better.
RICE is Chevron/Stanford/Bushie ULTRACONSERVATIVE Uncle Tom for the .01%
condi rice needs to be shackled – wearing leg irons and a nice bright orange jumpsuit within a nice damp cold concrete and steel cage.
Love
WTF WI??!
(Couldn’t they just burn to CDs and pass the CDs out to all the FOIA requesters?)
Yes, that is a good question.
The fact that this Romney/Bain SEC story has legs is strong evidence of the mainstream media’s support for Obama and thus the power structure is also in the Obama camp. This election is a total charade with Obama the sure winner in November. The ruling class has already voted, and the rest is for show. Expect some purely manufactured “drama” of a “close” race but the media will feed the public the Romney as plutocrat line just enough to put the stink on him, without being horribly obvious. They could destroy Obama anytime, just as they could’ve in ’08, but they won’t because he is their man.
YF, don’t repeat the meme: “Obama the sure winner” — your repetition of what is “ordained” for We the People” the Global .01% Reich and its .99% Agency du jour is all but evidence of your brainwashing.
Never say die: GREEN to WIN 2012.
Edit: “for We the People BY the Global…”
No, its not evidence of brainwashing. Its evidence that the powerful want Obama. Between Obama and Romney, it will be Obama. And who is that Green Party candidate again? Jack somebody?
But when you REPEAT their meme, it serves to encourage the sense of “inevitability” of their Agent in Office again in 2012, as if “TINA” – “There Is No Alternative.” Every time their “inevitable” meme is repeated, their interests are served. Goebbels understood this perfectly.
I don’t think we need to propagandize the NC readership do we? And frankly, it is inevitable. Sure, the Green party candidate, on the ballot in only 40 states, is gonna win!! Yay! Please. There is realistic and there is cynical. Let’s face it — until we change somethings more fundamental than elections, elections are rigged affairs. Pretending we can win on the current playing field is a recipe for failure. We have to change the underlying playing field — campaign finance reform, breaking up media trusts, etc. That is the real battle now. Not rigged elections that we CAN’T win.
YankeeFrank, I think I might be near the top of the list for CYNICISM at NC, as an ole time New Orleanian from the BigOil/Chem1% Colony of Louisiana, trained in “la politique de Richelieu” — cognizant of Politics as Genealogy.
“The ruling class has already voted, and the rest is for show. ”
They’ve voted in an essential milieu of this,
“– HOME DEPOT CO-FOUNDER BERNIE MARCUS: “Who gives a crap about some imbecile? Are you kidding me?” ”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/20/393090/one-percent-call-occupy-imbeciles/?mobile=nc
Job Creators and imbeciles
“.. said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” ”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-20/bankers-join-billionaires-to-debunk-imbecile-attack-on-top-1-percent
Another American Patriot, Deborah P. Brunt, has set a Christian atonement movement in motion with her leadership via Freedom of the Press:
“WE CONFESS: THE CIVIL WAR, THE SOUTH AND THE CHURCH” (2011, WestBow Press/division of Thomas Nelson, Bloomington, IN): and blogs at:
http://www.keytruths.com/weconfess.html
http://www.keytruths.com/keytruths.html
Are AMERICANS from every quarter beginning to see the light?
Lambert, Romney is the BAIN of our existence. GREEN to WIN.
Also, if Romney “wasn’t managing” BAIN, he was extracting profits; and, after all, “the buck stops” with the “man at the top.” Sarbanes-Oxley tells us so.
Re: London Calls Out the Troops Donald Cohan, Huffington Post:
Cohan quotes the Guardian:
Which are… Craig Murray explains:
Ah. Bring on the troops then.
just me, Can Blackwater by any name be far behind? I mean, what with the Qatar .01% Nobility SHARD looming over London and all, won’t Blackwater of “The Middle East” square the circle for Summer in the City?
A “Blackwater by any other name” stinks as much apparently…
From Cohan’s article:
That puts London’s security choices as either private contractors or British Army. Good cop bad cop? Or bad cop bad cop? Why couldn’t they just hire and train British citizens to be civilian British bobbies for the duration of the Olympics? It’s not like there isn’t a wealth of people who need jobs, and the British people are on the big hook anyway the way it’s working out.
“Externalizing liability” is the name of the Great Game today.
This is us: “PARIS, TEXAS” – A Film by Wim Wenders, Screenplay by Sam Shepard.
Don’t you wonder what’s happening today in Paris, France?
Happy Bastille Day! Remember what it’s all about. Get Razor Sharp!
German Constutional court yesterday: I want to work in those robes and hats! Bugs would run from me wimpering! I would be Lord Of The Flies!
Has anybody been here yet?
Arguably the best thing going on the web for market analytics..
http://onlypricesmatter.wordpress.com/
Can there be any doubt that Ayn Rand was a Psycopath, and that her worshippers in Finance have followed suit?
Yves and Lambert, please NOTE:
“The Trick of the Psychopath’s Trade: Make Us Believe that Evil Comes from Others” by Silvia Cattori SoTT.net (31 Jan 2008) — which, well into the piece, describes our society and our “government” in a nutshell:
“The 6% group constitute the Pathocratic nobility and the 12% group forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is most advantageous.”
From the piece, we comprehend that he form of our government today is “PATHOCRACY”–which We the People have been led to believe is “normal,” thanks to the propaganda of the University of Chicago School of Economics from Leo Strauss to Milton Friedman as High Priests of the Religion of Rockefeller and the British Empire. The propaganda campaign for EveryAmerican began in film and TV with “The Fountainhead” through “Dallas” through “The Sopranos” which made Organized Crime “sexy.”
The Pathocratic Nobility’s chief exponents in High Finance include Lloyd Blankfein, the Model of the Macher “doing God’s work,” with Corzine, Diamond, and Dimon practicing that ole time religion of the .01% Reich and their .99% Agents du Jour, including our Pathological Presidents, most lately in the Minstrel Show roles played by Barack Obama.
The vital focus of the piece is the mesmerizing content of a book devoted to the study of “Evil”–“POLITICAL PONEROLOGY,” published by Red Pill Press. It covers a lot of ground, and is well worth studying.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/148141-The-Trick-%20of-the-Psychopath-s-Trade-Make-Us-Believe-that-Evil-Comes-from-Others
Was Ayn Rand a Secret Agent of the CIA “power behind the throne?” Surely she is the face of Psycopathy during “The Cold War” on We the People.
The Sopranos was attempting to make just about exactly the opposite point, but American people being what they are, they missed it. But I get your point, and it could be reasonably construed that that WAS the point of it all along. HBO marketers being who they are and all.
J, “The Sopranos” was like “Wall Street” was like “All in the Family” — with “ambiguous” morality for a strategic reason. See Tavistock Institute for Projects with Purpose driven by the two-edged sword of vicious propaganda.
Always and ever: “The Medium Is the Message.”
For my part, I think Taibbi hit it out of the park (yet once again!) with his analysis of the Romney NAACP speech. Pure political theater served up for the Repube (aka: rich, white) base. Let’s not put too much thought into this folks. Racism and classism are both fairly primitive constructs.
Bravo to Romney for having the balls to walk into the lion’s den and attempt to pull it off, and Bravo to all the right wing FOX News outlets for having the nuts to carry and applaud it all, and BRAVO most of all to all the right wing “wing nuts” out there in middle America who watch and support this kind of thing. For it has truly been said, “It’s better the devil you know…”
And to liberal America, who seems preoccupied with expressing faux “outrage” with such events, perhaps I would suggest that it’s time to get busy and quit worrying about the already dead and extinct “middle class,” and start worrying about the all too real and present “debt-based lower (all other) class.” Cause one thing’s for DAMN sure: if there’s any question in your mind WHATSOEVER as to which side of the line you fall, you DAMN SURE don’t want to hear the answer!
WikiLeaks wins case against VISA
http://www.rt.com/news/wikileaks-visa-court-case-040/
Nice Bastille Day lyric from Taupin and John:
Take all you need to live inside
Deep in the woods the squirrels are out today
My wife cried when they came to take me away
But what more could I do just to keep her warm
Than burn, burn, burn, burn down the mission walls
Now everybody now bring your family down to the riverside
Look to the east to see where the fat stock hide
Behind four walls of stone the rich man sleeps
It’s time we put the flame torch to their keep
Burn down the mission
If we’re gonna stay alive
Watch the black smoke fly to heaven
See the red flame light the sky
Burn down the mission
Burn it down to stay alive
It’s our only chance of living
I generally lurk without comment, but wanted to share with the NC readership a masterful takedown of the EU austerity regime from today’s ROAR magazine…
http://roarmag.org/2012/07/italy-in-crisis-the-rise-of-super-mario-technocracy/#comment-17087
SP, thanks. Photo shows Merke’s “special” handshake: a tell.
Isn’t it time the French Masons joined with the Americans to oust the Anglo-Teutonic Masonic Hegemony in the West?
*I said* ; i’m replying way down here to not keep cluttering up that subthread above …
Ok — I have obviously failed miserably, heh..
Love