Early American colonists ‘were hit by severe drought‘ BBC
Econophysicist Accurately Forecasts Gold Price Collapse MIT Technology Review
Urgently needed: A global green New Deal Edward Barbier, VoxEU
Dying, dead marine wildlife paint dark, morbid picture of Gulf Coast following oil spill New York Daily News (hat tip reader Frank A)
In Memory of All That Is Lost Amy Goodman, TruthDig
A Plague Upon The World: The USA is a “Failed State” The Progressive Mind
Conservative pundits blame Obama for Israeli raid on flotilla Raw Story
Israeli Flotilla Raid: Details Emerge Of Bloodshed Aboard Gaza-Bound Ship Huffington Post
Ben Stein: I’m Responsible (In Part) For BP Kurt Denninger
BP Should Hold Dividend on Spill Costs, Senators Say Bloomberg
Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says New York Times
Worst-Case Scenario xkcd (hat tip reader John M)
Future in doubt for New York Fed chief with a ‘scarlet letter’ Gillian Tett, Financial Times
Charlie Gasparino Takes Negative View on Warren Buffett’s Ratings Agency Testimony Ed Harrison. Buffett also gets another whack for invoking the “hoocouldanode” defense for Moody’s performance.
Switzerland’s ‘Discontented’ Lawmakers Plan to Tackle Bank Rules Bloomberg
CDS, spreads etc, it is all getting worse again Eurointelligence. Be sure to scroll down to the mini-post on “brutal” Spanish adjustement
More on those USD swap lines… Tracy Alloway, Financial Times
Shanghaied: The Flip Side of China’s Economic Miracle Der Spiegel (hat tip reader Paul S). Today’s must read
Antidote du jour:
.jpg)
96 comments
Comments are closed.
RE: Econimist “accurately predicts gold price collapse:
Please forgive me for laughing into my cornflakes while ready that pap.
There has been NO collapse in the Gold price so the sholw premise of the article is flawed at the get-go.
Frankly I find that sort of psuedo science bull the same sort of crap coming out of the climate science community.
Yves, was it posted as a joke?
About that “crap” coming from the “climate sciencecommunity”,
Here’s an unreported-in North-America data point:
http://despardes.com/?p=16352
Here’s an exercise to help those who deny man-madeclimate change to help cope with reality.: put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and yell as loudly as you can: “La-la-la-la-la-la…..”
Keep it up as long & loud as you can: and then go look at another thermometer. If still feeling bad, repeat.
And what do those crap scientists know about the gulf oil spill…it’s never happened bewfore!
maybe it’ll turn out to be good for the environment.
I’m tired of all this crap science, that does not know what it is talking about…
like droughts and heatwaves have not occured before in history? You linking to that story as evidence of AGW is as stupid as sceptics who linked to all the freakishly cold weather as evidence against AGW.
Boring.
And the outliers are becoming quite common, all over the place:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/813958–extreme-weather-warning-as-toronto-creeps-towards-record-high
A few more years, and we have much huigher “averages”, too.
Science = facts + theories
I see some attack the theory, while others ignore the facts – or argue that there is no such thing as facts.
Still, very close to an all-time record high – for anywhere on the planet, ever – ought to count for something,eh?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/pakistan-record-temperatures-heatwave
But NO US MEDIA COVERAGE at all?
Oh sorry…I guess you are following my above advice as to how to react to global warming.
“la-la-la-la-la-la…I don’t hear you”
LOL
Too easy to find observational proof of global warming!
http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm
Check the variety and spread of all time temp records set in the past 12 months!
Even in the USA,just weeks ago:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/article_317e4a0c-558c-11df-a0bb-001cc4c002e0.html
But there is no arguing with the wilfully ignorant.
Over and out.
Lets get this straight so no confusion; i am agnostic on AGW. I dont say its not happening, and i dont say it is. Truth is no-one knows enough yet to be sure either way.
But you appear believe that record high temps (bearing in mind we’ve kept accurate temp records for very short time) are to be considered evidence of warming, but record lows are just a blip?
That sounds to me like the same absolutism that comes across from sceptics who totally refuse to even accept the possibility that AGW is a factor.
Coldcall,
You are not, let me repeat not, an “agnostic on AGW.”
You are a 24 ct, died-in-the-wool AGW denier, which has been amply demonstrated by your past comments here on NC.
You hail from the “Doubt is our product” brigades, and what you are peddling is anti-science, not skepticism as you falsely claim.
I support the “absolutism” which holds that 2 + 2 = 4, and only 4.
Coldcall, you are absolutely correct. AGW = anthropogenic global warming. Global. A data point here, a data point there, just confuses the issue.
We need to reexamine the global record. Reexamine the records from as many points on the globe as possible, without data massages like “homogenization,” and we need to look at individual weather stations to determine whether they are situated in such a matter that they are providing a representative raw temperature reading for that vicinity.
This all needs to be data-driven. But when I say data, I mean reliable raw data, not data that has been filtered through questionable algorithms (or is that Al Gore-ithms?) to “correct” (i.e. massage) it.
Look what happened when this was done in New Zealand.
“The official archivist of New Zealand’s climate records, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), offers top billing to its 147-year-old national mean temperature series (the “NIWA Seven-station Series” or NSS). This series shows that New Zealand experienced a twentieth-century warming trend of 0.92°C.”
“The official temperature record is wrong. The instrumental raw data correctly show that New Zealand average temperatures have remained remarkably steady at 12.6°C +/- 0.5°C for a century and a half. NIWA’s doctoring of that data is indefensible. ” (From Quadrant Online: http://tinyurl.com/26lsdhh )
This data double-check needs to be done for every country in the world, and for sea temps as well. Then we will really know the state of global warming. After that, we can argue about causes, but at this point I don’t think we can be confident about what official agencies are claiming for the magnitude of warming. Especially since Arctic ice is recovering to earlier levels and overall Antarctic ice is stable.
****
Side note: You can compare Arctic ice extent and thickness from 2000 and 2010 via US Navy data, and there is no dramatic decrease, if any.
May 30 2000: http://tinyurl.com/2cksagw
May 30 2010: http://tinyurl.com/2gxgol9
(The green areas are the thickest part.)
Too bad that you’re flat wrong when it comes to ice mass on the arctic ocean:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/365869main_earth2-20090707-full.jpg
But i suppose you know better than NASA.
And I trust not the tiny URL.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic_thinice.html
Apparently, although they are long, some yet lack the ears to hear.
eric anderson,
This all needs to be data-driven. But when I say data, I mean reliable raw data, not data that has been filtered through questionable algorithms (or is that Al Gore-ithms?) to “correct” (i.e. massage) it.
Look what happened when this was done in New Zealand.
“The official archivist of New Zealand’s climate records, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), offers top billing to its 147-year-old national mean temperature series (the “NIWA Seven-station Series” or NSS). This series shows that New Zealand experienced a twentieth-century warming trend of 0.92°C.”
“The official temperature record is wrong.”
And who is eric anderson’s “unbiased” source for this little jewel of sure truth? Why none other than Quadrant Online:
Quadrant Online Features Palin
Quadrant Online is one of the best online journals I have encountered for the serious reader over the years, with well-researched articles giving fearless commentary on the issues of our times.
–Real World Libertarian: The politics of liberty and the defence thereof
Now you’ve included NIWA into your conspiracy. The circle widens…
Oops!
Forgot the link to The Real World Libertarian
http://jimunro.blogspot.com/2010/04/quadrant-online-features-palin.html
Real World Libertarian. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
I followed Sornette closely around 2000-2005.
You could have lost quite a bit of money following his ‘predictions’ which he used to provide in real time, and not in secret.
He based his original work on the prediction of earthquakes, which he is also not able to do.
I think it is more a study in scientific hype than sound forecasting.
Hello Jesse…I want to take this opportunity to say that I read your blog each day and have enjoyed it for a long time. Thank you for providing the interesting commentary and educational content…Please keep up the good work and please do not take down the photo of ‘Madame Le Moderateur’. Sometimes, when I feel that the SOBs are beginning to get to me, I look at her for a few minutes, begin to laugh, and feel like it’s all going to turn out fine no matter what the hell happens. Best Regards, Bates
P.S…The food photos are also great!
I agree – I also love Jesse’s writings, and drool over the food porn – but what’s with this beef fetish lately? More appetizers!
I am a physicist so allow me give you a knowledgeable, reasoned description of “econophysics”: Barf.
Global warming is just the liberal’s (socialist’s, whatever) most popular unsolvable problem used to scare their dumbasses into voting for the “left” wing of the Republicrat Party.
Just like the perpetual war on trrrrrr is the popular unsolvable problem for the “right” wing of the Republicrat Party (and, of course, the perpetually popular “those people” – who are gonna git ya).
The smart amoral scumbags know that the peasant children will remember a simple scary story and will feel much better knowing that the Mommy or Daddy Party will take care of the problem and make everything better.
Don’t worry about the Banksters looting the country children, it’s the monsters under the bed – but we’re here to protect you from them; now sleep tight and have pleasant dreams of what you’ll be when you grow up.
RE: ‘Econophysicist Accurately Forecasts Gold Price Collapse’
This group’s last four predictions turned out to be 50% correct!
I can do that well with a coin toss.
The name of the guy is Sornette…in english it means (rough translation)
fiddlestick, bow of a fiddle, nonsense….
I like the flip of the coin also
Re More of this “green new deal” nonsense.
The observed fact is that the global kleptocracy has absolutely refused to enact a New New Deal to deal with joblessness. It has on the contrary chosen at every turn to bail out elites and step up the looting of the people, who are to be liquidated via “austerity” if the criminals have their way.
It’s clear that while the elites may be too cowardly in the end to directly kill the jobless, they’d rather see them dead than enact a true WPA-style job creation program.
(No, that’s not hyperbolic rhetoric. That’s my deliberative conclusion based on years of evidence.)
So given those facts, it’s clear that any large-scale “green” project would be intended primarily as another looting and rent-extraction scam. Any green energy it generates will not go to replace fossil fuels, and it won’t be equitable distributed. Instead it will go ONLY to prop up the luxury consumerism of the rich for as long as possible. And once there isn’t enough energy to afford luxury, what energy there is will go to propping up power.
I’ve previously called this plan “resource fascism”:
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2009/07/06/resource-fascism/
We have to rethink everything we ever thought sounded like a good idea in principle. Under kleptocracy all enacted ideas are enacted in a malevolent way.
Keep in mind, the green new deal has long been one of Tom Friedman’s pet ideas.
Not that I think they’d actually go this route. They’ll keep throwing whatever bad money they can down the fossil fuel rathole for as long as they can.
As for any theoretically good idea like a Green New Deal, it can only be one of the second-stage good ideas.
While we’re still in the time of Bailout America, the one and only primary good idea is getting rid of the kleptocracy. Until that’s done, even the cleanest water poured through the sieve will flow out as poison.
You speak as if there is somebody somewhere actually in control, and knowing how things will work out.
Truth is, when it comes to some things, no body really knows anything.
Skepticism never leaves a good scientist’s elbow: but not taking account of observations is plain stupid.
Yes, and for example I’ve observed that the only pseudo-green project that really took off (a pure corporate welfare racket, of course) was nothing to help transition to a post-fossil fuel economy, but instead biofuels, whose only two purposes were to generate publicly-funded rents and keep the stupid cars going.
Coldcall, I believe Yves is adding a bit of humor to the Links… and I do get a laugh out of it. Hat tip to Yves!
Re cranes in Shanghai: “What kind of a city is this,” Mouazzen asks, “where swindlers are simply allowed to go about their business?
Have people in New York ever thought about “crane derivatives” ? It would be a superior business model as one would not have to ship the false cranes around the world.
Very funny Hubert! But I guess that this is the socialist model (where you still have to pay for truck drivers, bribe mere law enforcement officers, etc.)
Well! That Mr Roberts certainly got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.
But he nowhere explains how Americans could have kept their high paid jobs when there are hundreds of millions of people elsewhere who will do them at much lower cost.
You mean people far away and over the sea?
Let’s put this myth to rest, shall we?
The outsourcing “paradigm” was, and still is a prime example of Wall Street telling Main Street how to run a business…or else! (Your stock options will take a nose dive…Don’t you who’s Da Boss???)
From a previous post by Yves: http://bit.ly/brkWeV
There we have it: hyperactive ADHD + testosterone-driven gonzo shitheads dictating to those who know how to do bushiness because they own the levers of capital.
RE: “a global green new deal”.
How about attacking real and tangible environmental problems which almost everyone can agree to.
For instance, why dont the enviros bang on about the disgstring island of plastic building up in the Pacific at an alarming rate? We dont need stupid models or appeals to ideology to see that it needs to be cleaned up immediately.
Its there for all to see, though i notice it hgets almost no mention in the media, in contrast to AGW theory.
Maybe once a year there is a new story and photo of this mass of plastic crap building up in our ocean, and it goes completely unmentioned by Obama or anyone in the US adminstration.
How many unesmployed Californians could be put to work by organising a shuttle of boats to slowly clear away that crap? It could be like an outreach program.
But hell no, lets not clean up the shit right under our nose and instead worry about some nebulolus global green pipe dream.
Tired of it.
Since that plastic is in International Waters, perhaps the Israelis should be responsible for the clean-up.
oh dear, a little obsessed with Israel are you? This is a thread on a completley different subject but you have to bring Israel into it. Speaks volumes.
But interesting you mention the plastic island being in international waters. I thought the idea was we tackle enviro problems internationally.
Indeed it is.
And that Israeli thing in my mind is a dispute between Turkey and Israel over a violation of Turkish Sovereignity: nothing more.
And certainly not a comment about the merits of that case.
Not my fight: but if anybody else had undertaken such an action….and smugglers aren’t so open and flagged….
So that analogy fails….
Just another example of the joys of “pre-emptive action”.
Good ol’ “defensive offense”…gee, ask the Iraqids about that.
so you rather moan about Israel, and completely ignore a major enviromnental issue which is in front of our very eyes. You waste a lot of time pulling links about record high temps, which may indiate you care about the environment, but when it comes to the plastic rubbish in the Pacific you arent interested.
To my mind you;ve just shown that you are driven by ideology instead of any actual concern for the environment.
Well it appears that America is more involved thann i thought:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060301931.html
Are all Americans henceforth to be qualified by their “ethnic origin”?
I hope not.
aet,
once again you completely ignore the actual subject of this thread and demonstrate just how perversely obsessed you are with Israel. You need help mate.
Though I think AGW is real, I am also tired of the way environmentalists have put all their eggs in that basket and de-emphasised other aspects of building a sustainable economy. That strategy isn’t going to work and is sadly likely to bring environmentalism into disrepute with many people.
I find the study of Didier Sornette and his team on speculative bubble behavior discussed in the MIT Technology Review blog interesting. Here’s the money section:
” . . . [Sornette] says these bubble markets display the tell signs of the human behaviour that drives them. In particular, people tend to follow each other and this result in a kind of herding behaviour that causes prices to fluctuate in a periodic fashion.
However, the frequency of these fluctuations increases rapidly as the bubble comes closer to bursting. It’s this signal that Sornette uses in predicting a change from superexponential growth to some other regime (which may not necessarily be a collapse).”
Now the blog writer pursues the wrong point, as is always the case when cyclical and systemic behaviors in financial markets are considered (or in anything else for that matter), getting caught up in ‘predictions.’ Now, if one makes an accurate prediction about a trend deflection in a financial trajectory, one stands to make a lot of money, so of course this is the sexy point. But the _interesting_ focus of study in quasi-periodic or chaotic systems is not the point of trend deflection but the point when stability or connectivity changes; that is a change of state not a change of trajectory. In essence, Sornette argues he markets during a late-stage bubble display a resonance function which can be isolated methodologically to analysis. I’d have to read published work on this, but just by the summary here, there’s an implied excalating correlation of behavior. This is what one would anticipate.
Now, I have never found cyclical/systemic behavior in financial markets of marked intellectual interest. Which is why I’m poor but intellectually engaged (one supposes). But I _have_ found cyclical systemic behavior in large groups and societies as a whole of very considerable interest. And it has been my working hypothesis for many years that, in essencece, herd behavior promotes resonance functions, with cyclicality the result, the model of which process is [also?] not ‘predictive’ per se of trajectory changes, to precise time points or even eventuation at all, but which does strongly suggest time points for state changes. I mention that because it is interesting to find suggestions in the work of this particular research team for similar kinds of systemic organization in another human-mediated activity. Hmmm.
I’m never letting you near my parallels, you would never come up for air.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain
Skippy…endless
Regarding this; ” . . . [Sornette] says these bubble markets display the tell signs of the human behaviour that drives them. In particular, people tend to follow each other and this result in a kind of herding behaviour that causes prices to fluctuate in a periodic fashion.”
More deeply now … human behaviors and viewpoints display the tell of the culture shaping propaganda.
Said another way, the viewpoints and behaviors created by the culture shaping propaganda are the bubble that THEN controls the markets.
To see where the ‘market’ is headed look at the viewpoint and behavior bubbles, created by state propaganda, as a tell.
The sea change macro orchestration of global propaganda over the last forty plus years, from one that celebrates and instills globally; love of the American dream, desire, opportunity, love and respect for one another, and love of family values, to one that celebrates and instills; heartlessness, fear, looking the other way, puckered assholes, being chicken shit, being an automaton, hate mongering, love of bottom line corporate values, and that preemptively killing one another simply for suspecting another of any abstract crime is OK, is the big tell bubble that will allow a look at the future.
The sea change global macro orchestration of culture shaping — that has created this new viewpoint and behavioral bubble — is the tell of where the ruling elite are heading ‘the market’ and what they really think of it. They are throttling it down intentionally. Global deflation is not an accident, it is a well planned and executed strategy of Full Spectrum Dominance. The recent Israeli (surrogate rat thug of scamerica) massacre is an integral part of that fear mongering macro orchestration. This is advertising (viewpoint and behavior shaping) on roids, with the promotional mix applied globally! The product for sale is your death and destruction by engaging you in perpetual conflict with each other.
This from attempter’s comment above;
“It’s clear that while the elites may be too cowardly in the end to directly kill the jobless, they’d rather see them dead than enact a true WPA-style job creation program.
(No, that’s not hyperbolic rhetoric. That’s my deliberative conclusion based on years of evidence.) it is a well orchestrated and planned elite move to effect a very serious herd thinning and reduction of global resource consumption.”
Attempter has got it! He has written some brilliant posts in the last few weeks, his site is well worth a visit.
We need to get out of the confining boxes of individual disciplines and nation state and focus on the global picture. This is the elite, Pernicious Greed, wealthy ruling class against the masses.
Solidarity of the common person is essential to overcoming it. We need to first recognize that we have been ‘sold’ (through deceptive culture shaping propaganda) our recently acquired divisive viewpoints and behaviors, our intentionally created ‘fear bubble’ meant to control and kill off our markets and us as well.
You are what you have been through but now and the future are up to you!
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
Exceptional comment. Thank you
Thanks! I guess we’re getting this stuff figured out, even if there’s nothing we can do about it for now except on the relocalization level.
Regarding the seizure of the Mavi Mamara, how dare those activists defend themselves when attacked! The cheek, the, the gall. Don’t they know they’ve supposed to be hauled off to the camps obidiently? They’re boarded illegaly ininternational waters on a humanitarian mission and someone wants you to think _they’re_ at fault for not singing ‘Kumbayah’ on key?
We still don’t know what happened here, other than that the attempted seizure was colossally badly planned. None of those on the ship deck involved in the fighting have reached contact with the media; presumably they were all killed or wounded by the description thus far. Taking pistols and firing back, supposing that that happened, is not in my mind a good idea. That said, we have multiple statements by those on board that there was fire from the boarders prior to commando assault. Israeli denials or ‘explanations’ are not to be taken at face value, or indeed at all without external confirmation given the massive and well-documented record of blatant lying from Israelis official sources down years too numerous to mention; better to take denial as confirmation, and work back from there methinks, but chose your own methodology by all means. Whether prior fire was live rounds or ‘rubber coated’ ones–which Israelis have a long record of aiming directly at headshots on those deemed disposable–doesn’t much matter. The details on that will doubtless come out before long.
What I am reminded most from this image, however, is again the end resistance in the Warszawa Ghetto, where a handful with a few pistols and homemade bombs resisted their subjugation to docility and extermination against a heavily armed elite military assault. Where is the difference? If one set are hailed as heros of a kind or entire, how not the other? Both groups were assaulted by fascists pursuing programs of ethnic removal ‘by all means necessary’ against any norms of law or human society. If one was justified resisting forcibly, both are: or neither. The moral judgment is the same. I’m with those who won’t climb into the cell and the grave docilely so as not to inconvenience the monstrous injustice done to them.
Regardless of the legal rights and wrongs it could be easy to feel some sympathy for the Israeli Commandos dropped onto the deck of this ship armed only with paint-ball guns, and perhaps accept Israel’s complaint that they were unjustifiably attacked by a mob armed with sticks and kitchen knives.
However I suspect the paintball guns Israeli propoganda wants us to think were those toys overweight executives play war-games with were something like the FN303. This fires a ball filled with paint and Bismuth metal, a brittle metal which is supposed to shatter on impact, at three times the power of the ‘fun’ paintball gun – 900psi as against 300psi.
Intended for riot control such a gun, fired by policeman, killed a girl after the Boston Red Sox world series victory in 2004 when she was hit in the eye. In 2007 the Boston Police destroyed their remaining FN303s, stating they were more powerful and lethal than had been anticipated.
This is a ‘sub-lethal’ weapon intended to be used on rioting crowds at ranges of 20 meters or more. In the crowded confines of a ship it is far more likely that it would be used at ranges of 4 meters or less, even down to point-blank.
Indeed the use of normal weaponry on a ship endangers both the user and his allies just as much as an opponent as bullets are liable to ricochet off steel decks, walls and roofs in any direction, so this use of a particularly nasty and potentially lethal ‘paintball gun’ was not necessarily a matter of being nice to the activists.
Looks to me that these “humanitarian” terrorists succeeded in their goal to “Capture” the media. You’ve been Had!
Ah, a very sophisticated response: the media are such fools!
Oh, really?
Just like the were “captured” by the pro-Iraq-War, pro-Iran-war, crowd?
For some people, the Devil is in the details.
The fact is there are 9 dead people from aboard the flotilla and no dead Israeli soldiers (I believe there are 10 injured). This report indicates that all the 9 dead died from gunshot wounds.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/3/headlines#1
So Richard Kline, it seems obvious by the lack of reference in your remarks (and your own explicit admission of ignorance when you write “We still don’t know what happened here.”) that you’ve neither read about what the Israelis were trying to do, nor understood it, nor care. As you have your agenda and that’s that, you’d do yourself a favor, not to speak of the rest of us, if you elected to refrain from commenting on a subject which you have yet to engage with.
[PS. I kind of feel like a moron writing such tripe. But I came across your response to Bates, below at 8:11…and figured…what the hell: Maybe it just might work.]
So much for Mr Kline.
To quote Dr. Smith: “Oh, the pain, Will Robinson!”
Sorry but what is your point here? You don’t agree with Mr Kline?
I’m afraid what he’s saying is true – we do not know what really happened because all we have is one side of the story. A side known to be biased and deceitful and pushing a particular political agenda.
I know you’re constantly bombarded with propaganda about how great the Israel `nation’ is over in the US, but for heavens sake, you could try opening your eyes to a little more objectivity for once.
Richard can take that advice as soon as you do! :-)
Dan D., you’ve demonstrated time and again that you’re a troll here, wound up in personal conflicts, and disinterested in facts, with which you have only a tenuous engagement; now we see that you can’t even generate your own lines. It’s typical of your remarks thay you have _nothing_ to say regarding the incident behind my comment, and want to flame over personalities with the soggy matchbook at your disposal. My response to you, my only one, is this: you’re not worth my time.
‘” . . . [Sornette] says these bubble markets display the tell signs of the human behaviour that drives them. In particular, people tend to follow each other and this result in a kind of herding behaviour that causes prices to fluctuate in a periodic fashion.’
If ‘fiddlesticks’ is right then oil prices must be in a bubble as well since there has been no change in the oil/gold exchange relationship back to the early 1960s.
I think the recent run up in gold prices over the last 10 years is simply a choice on the part of a few investors and central banks to include in their portfolios some amount of gold…and maybe growing fear of soverign defaults in some countries…and perhaps growing suspecion that some currencies might be printed to ‘death’ with an accompanying blow out of some central bank balance sheets.
Because the US has a very short history compared to many countries of the world, US investors have little awareness of gold or it’s long term status as money with a store of value feature…which is lacking in the US dollar and other fiat currencies. Older cultures that have experienced many fiat currency failures are not afflicted with such lack of historical fiat currency perspective.
Personally, I don’t care what fiddlesticks predicts or what others do with their portfolio allocations. It is ludicrous to say that such a small quantity of US investors are exhibiting ‘herd behavior’ by by allocating some gold to a portfolio. To qualify as herd behavior a large percent of the population of the US would be purchasing gold…which is definitely not the case.
On the other hand herd behavior is apparent in the US Treasuries markets…or, is that simply monitization by the Fed on display?
So Bates, it seems obvious by the lack of reference in your remarks that you’ve neither read what Sornette’s group is doing, nor understood it, nor care. As you have your agenda and that’s that, you’d do yourself a favor, not to speak of the rest of us, if you elected to refrain from commenting on a subject which you have yet to engage with.
I often refrain from commenting on many topics…otoh…you comment more than enough to discourage many that probably have someting of interest to say. Thats OK, there is at least one like you on every site.
I suggest you try a bit of your own prescription.
With the proviso that I’m not American, I have some sympathy with Dr. Paul Craig Robert’s diagnosis of the USA as a failed state, tho I think he takes it too far.
There is a smugness in the American psyche which comes both from a perceived invincibility which appears to confirm a divine destiny, and a too widespread ignorance of the world beyond the borders of the US.
History in the 20th Century, as Roberts describes, dealt Aces in Spades to the US: in addition to the ones he outlines I would add the inheritance of the British Empire – a newly-independent and large chunk of the world which spoke English, had an English-based legal system and which was keen to swap its natural resources for the means to modernise. The US found it easy to do business in these countries. (If I was snide and bitter I would also point out that the British gave the US radar, computers, the jet engine and other technologies for free during WW2 to aid the war effort – but I’m not snide and bitter so I won’t.)
Smug in its invincibility, uninterested in what was happening elsewhere and fascinated by its image as presented to it by Hollywood the US has stagnated while the world has changed. Europe, crucified by two wars, has embarked upon fundamentally changing the nation-state model of society. Britain, bereft of its Empire and its own sense of invincibility, is painfully re-inventing itself. The Arab world, on a wave of Islamic energy and buoyed by oil money, is developing a new confidence while Asia and particularly China are emerging from a millennium of paralysing social rigidity and torpor.
In the meantime the US is still entrammeled by a constitution and social ideas formulated during the collapse of a pre-industrial, aristocratic and feudal society 225 years or so ago, and regards any criticism of them as tantamount to treason.
The US is not a failed state in that the Rule of Law still applies there, but it is a stultified one in love with its own imagined image like the aged great beauty endlessly watching the movies she made forty years before but who cannot now look in the mirror.
I too am not American, but I have never inmy life yet met an individual American whom I did not like, and respect.
I think their only problem is that too many of them have come to believe their own propaganda.
To put it another way, they are in some respects simply too successful: and success always brings problems of its own.
Still better than the problems of failure, though.
As one my self, they just don’t realize what they project as a nation.
Skippy…most never leave the boarders and if they do it’s resort time.
Eh, the media gets an awful lot wrong by selection and omission.
Does it matter? Hell, no.
What a long, strange trip Paul Craig Roberts has gone on from Reagan era Supply-sider and free trader to being such a DFH that he pretty much echoes Noam Chomsky. But as Lord Keynes supposedly saied “when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?” And America and Americans are incredibly dumber than they were a generation ago. In fact, we seem to be working constantly at “stupefying” ourselves (see Carly Fiorina and the trajectory of her career as an example). In fact being extraordinarily stupid seems to be a career advantage in you are Republican politician since you are required to swallow whole intellecutal and moral idiocies daily. Hence the career of John Boehner, Mike Pence, Jim DeMint, John Esign, and the incomparable Sarah.
And why not, as we have an media business that is all about proving on a daily basis Mencken’s bon mot about “nobody going broke from underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” How else can one explain the success of such boors and charlatans as Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Palin, and, in his worse moments, Olberman? When Maureen Dowd’s and Peggy Noonan’s and David Brooks’s nonsense is considered the height of punditry? I would only point out that except for China and India, most Government around the world right now seems as incredibly stupid as our own.
Re: … Noam Chomsky ..
I’m always mystified how liberals (socialists, whatever) love to make government bigger – and then are shocked (SHOCKED) when the fascist use the same big government to further their own interests; such as eliminating constitutional rights and allowing regulatory capture.
Jeez, if this isn’t the ultimate failure of liberal “intelligence” I don’t know what could be.
Hey, Dude, I know the solution to this problem. Let’s make the government even BIGGER! Dude, like, totally dude, what can happen? Dude, this will be sooooo coool dude. When this program is implemented we’ll never lose another election dude. Dude, you are like, so smart dude.
@Tom Bradford
“Smug in its invincibility”
Not nearly as smug as its critics, who think they will have front row seats for an entertaining display of empire collapse. But the U.S. has outlasted every one of its critics thus far, and I rather suspect that it will outlast the current set. The U.S. may eventually collapse, but I rather suspect that its critics will not be around to enjoy it.
“Europe, crucified by two wars, has embarked upon fundamentally changing the nation-state model of society.”
Is that what they’re calling it these days? I always thought “bankruptcy” was a bit harsh, and “insolvency” too technical.
“Britain, bereft of its Empire and its own sense of invincibility, is painfully re-inventing itself.”
Well, “painfully” is correct, anyway.
“The Arab world, on a wave of Islamic energy and buoyed by oil money, is developing a new confidence”
I’m not sure where you’re getting this, other than possibly with reference to Iraq. The rest of the Arab world is simply going further down the dead-end of authoritarian statism supported by a toxic mix of mass welfare and propaganda. bin Laden was right on one crucial point: the Arab states are incredibly weak and absolutely ripe for takeover (think Latin America in the 1950’s); we can only hope it is not his movement which launches the inevitable.
” . . . while Asia and particularly China are emerging from a millennium of paralysing social rigidity and torpor.”
That I will agree with. Asia, including China and India, have done very well with major market reforms, deregulation, and a steady dismantling of socialist policies. Whether that success can be maintained is a different question.
@Peripheral Visionary:
“The U.S. may eventually collapse, but I rather suspect that its critics will not be around to enjoy it.”
Ummm. Sounds a bit smug to me. And I certainly wouldn’t enjoy any ‘collapse’ of the US or anywhere else. Unfortunately systems which don’t have the capacity to change to meet changing requirements, or which even resist necessary change, suffer increasing internal stresses and tend ultimately to fail suddenly and disastrously.
[“Europe, crucified by two wars, has embarked upon fundamentally changing the nation-state model of society.”
Is that what they’re calling it these days? I always thought “bankruptcy” was a bit harsh, and “insolvency” too technical.]
Again you display exactly the American myopia I refer to – Europe’s attempt to grow beyond the nation-state idea began 30 or more years ago and goes way beyond the current financial crisis.
[“The Arab world, on a wave of Islamic energy and buoyed by oil money, is developing a new confidence”
I’m not sure where you’re getting this, other than possibly with reference to Iraq.]
Dubai? Iran? (OK, Iran is not an Arab country but it’s part of the scene.) Qatar? (Highest GDP in the world and the home of Al Jazeera.) You make my point about American ignorance of the pace of change in the world.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your statement is far from correct. You may want to read more about US respect for the Rule of Law…it is deteriorating, and very fast.
A couple of salient examples of what I mean:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/23/courts/index.htm
This one is a doozy, yet, very few people in the US knows about it:
One can’t prosecute a crime it refuses to see:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/19/guantanamo/index.html
The US signed and ratified the Convention Against Torture, didn’t it? Yet it was, and still is practiced in a systematic way.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/19/guantanamo/index.html
Should detainees seek redress, they’ll get a nasty surprise.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/13/guantanamo/index.html
But, not to worry, since the 2nd Circuit of the US Court of Appeals, (one step below the Supreme Court) decided in Arar v. Ashcroft that such behavior has nothing to do with actual law, but is a matter of <government policy decision making! (Read on, I’m not making that up)
In other words, the majority on the Court told the US government: “All you have to do to escape anyjudicial scrutiny of your actions or policies is to categorize them under the “national security” label.
Gee! Does that remind anyone anything about some badass regimes we constantly criticize for their human rights abuses?
As anyone can see, Paul Craig Roberts is not engaging in far out hyperbole. If anything, he’s being downright sober in his assessment.
Depends what he means by “failure”. If America’s nobility can keep screwing the peasants without them noticing then this cannot be classified as “failure”.
What he’s complaining about is the “failure” of his fantasy about what he thought America was supposed to be.
The nobility has successfully transitioned the country to a single Party state (like China) and the peasants don’t even care (which, I guess, they wouldn’t as they are dumbass peasants). This truly is Mission Accomplished.
For Republican politicians like John McCain and Republican spinmeisters like Michael Savage to believe that “the Obama administration’s calls for a settlement freeze in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem set the stage for the deadly May 31 incident” must mean that they are either deep in the heart in of La-La Land or they are trying to outdo the Democrats and their political spinmeisters when it comes to securing the most campaign funds and most teevee dollars from the Zionist powers-that-be on Wall Street. This is just another reason why we must take all the profits out politics and we must do this before the Zionists use their vast amounts of wealth to turn America into an Israeli occupied territory. I don’t know about anybody else here, but I’m not looking forward to the day when Americans say, “we are all Gazans now!”
Re: the Ben Stein post — not a strong selection Yves. To make the argument that BP minority shareholders are complicit in the spill, the author writes in bold and underlined text:
“But the owners of the corporation are responsible for the selection of the members of the board, and as a consequence, they are and should be held fully responsible for the destruction of value that comes to themselves due to their willful and intentional choice to place members on the board who have demonstrated over time a willingness to place profit before safety.”
The argument is just uninformed. There is no discussion of corporate limited liability, and no thought of the issues with minority representation (or lack thereof) in BP’s onerous shareholder proxy system. Need I even mention the instrumental effects that criminal liability for shareholders would have on investment?
BP execs should not be able to take shareholders with them to prison, the Gulf spill is not a product of minority shareholder negligence on their ballots.
Downsouth,
“You are not, let me repeat not, an “agnostic on AGW.”
We can both play that game of insisting someone elses point of view is more extreme that it actually is.
So in that case you are an evangelical AGW lunatic :-)
You can call anything by any name you want.
That said, if you want to accurately communicate, I suggest you start choosing words more carefully.
Coldcall,
I plead guilty.
I am convinced that AGW exists.
But unlike yourself, I come to this conclusion by taking into consideration the findings of thousands of individual scientists, dozens of scientific societies, institutes and organizations, and hundreds of articles published in scientific journals.
I know you’ll never be convinced of this, but that is quite different from getting one’s information from libertarian journals like Quadrant Online. (see comment above)
A reluctance to recant, and thereby to demystify the priesthood, is not limited to theologians.
Not much commentary on today’s “must read,” Yves!!! I guess that’s what happens when you stir the gold bugs’ nest.
I don’t want to go all stereotypical or anecdotal on y’all’s asses, but the successful Chinese businessmen who’ve come over here to invest in real estate have been quite a treat for me personally.
Just from my own limited sample, each of these “businessmen” I’ve come across has no concept of limitation. They just do what they want, refuse to pay whomever they choose, and are simply flabbergasted when someone suggests that, you know, maybe you should honor your obligations. It’s like an extreme pathology. It’s not that I’ve been so fortunate to not encounter my fair share of scoundrels and liars and cheats among the native born here (I sure as heck have), but this is a phenomenon on an entirely different scale. I haven’t seen so many people stiffed in my whole career combined as I have in the past year by just a few Chinese hotel owners.
My own limited “theory” on the matter is that these people are so used to this apparatchik-style commerce in a country dominated by single party rule that they can’t understand our way of doing things. Probably they won’t have to, though. As we slowly turn our crony capitalism up to 11, the US will probably end up more like China than Chinese businessmen end up adhering to the rule of law.
Take it from someone who should have listened to the advice a year ago, tread carefully in these matters. The people who succeeded wildly in China probably did so for a very particular reason. And it seems that such reason is exactly why you should be very, very wary of what is going on at all times.
Might help if you haven’t already done so … good luck!
http://www.google.com/webhp?rls=ig#num=20&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&rls=ig&q=US+and+Chinese+intercultural+business+relationships&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=b8a3d25e1efe4b25
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
Anonymous Jones: “The people who succeeded wildly in China probably did so for a very particular reason.” That is broadly my view of the phenomenon you describe. This is ins some respects true of the first wave of post-Soviet Russian ‘capitalists.’ They were the kind of folks who prospered where the rule of law was absent, so their norms of behavior are not what one would or should expect in a functioning society. . . . Unfortunately.
Re Israeli Flotilla Raid:
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/06/fast-roping-101.html
(via Joseph Cotterill (jsphctrl) on Twitter)
No one has commented on the links related to the idea of nuking the oil spill. Michael Grier’s take on this is worth reading: thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
I’m not a gold bug, and I agree with the first comment about the scientist who predicted the collapse in gold prices. Since that collapse didn’t happen, I find this sort of stuff hard to take seriously. Now at some point there will be a dive in gold prices, but really this is like taking credit for accurately predicting that the Cubs would win the 2009 World Series.
On Paul Craig Robert’s comments, when I read about the political structures of what became the U.S. were like in the eighteenth century, I’m impressed by how much sovereignty the thirteen colonies had even under (what was really mostly nominal) British rule. During the debate over the Constitution, both sides envisaged essentially a federation where the thirteen retained most of their power, its just one side thought somewhat more centralization was needed to handle things like maintaining a standing army.
It seems the U.S. was uniquely poorly adapted to run a global empire, because U.S. political institutions were simply not set up for that task, they were sort of jammed into an imperial framework, plus because they lived in a continental country, Americans did not develop a culture that enabled even their elite to have a good understanding of the rest of the world. The continental power Russia ran into much the same problem.
So the isolationists may have wound up winning the debate in the long run, the sort of interventionist foreign policy adopted in the 1940s couldn’t have been sustained in the long term without a drastic reshaping of American political instutitions and culture of the sort most Americans simply didn’t want.
The US has never been “isolationist”. The US conquered the land to the west and, after running out of easy pickings, began expanding influence overseas.
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” … those destinations weren’t for R&R.
We are all isolationists. Tell me who is keeping extra-terrestials for friends secretly? We isolate ourselves from the rest of the universe, involuntarily or otherwise.
So Ed, I read the NYT piece on nukem-not, but didn’t feel compelled to remark, though it was of significant interest for the Blob in the Gulf.
I’m not going to remark further on Sornette’s work without actually reading a detailed discussion of it, but Hugh in comments below in this thread speaks again to the heart of the matter.
You raise a number of interesting questions concerning historical comparables from incipiently imperialist American behavior c.. 1900, too many too take up, here, now. But there is one thing which has held my attention concerning _how_ Americans went about this which doesn’t seem to me to be adequately weighted into the discussion, a point which wunsacon touches on here also. The US already had engaged in imperial behavior for _300_ years before beginning to acquire an actual offshore colonial empire. Make that 400 years, because the real process of occupy-disenfrancihe-colonize-remove had been developed in Ireland in teh 16th century before being applied to North America. The point being, policy actors at all levels in American society have developed a particular skill set and program, as it were, for taking control of territory currently occupied by other people. And this skill set didn’t transfer at all well offshore because few Americans desired to go to other places and colonize them. So the US was tied to its experience, and never developed an effective management regime for such offshore places. It’s all more complex than that, of course, but that is one salient factor, to me.
Wow, Sornette, what an unfortunate name for a would be prognosticator. It’s French and means silly, frivolous words.
I agree to some extent with Richard Kline. You have to understand what the nature of a prediction is. The idea that you can predict months out say when the stock market bubble will burst is nonsense. It fundamentally mistakes an event with a process.
Let’s review. Some mortgage underwriters had been experiencing increasing problems throughout 2006 and finally went bust in January 2007. Yet it was another 5 months before 2 Bear Stearns funds hit the wall in June 2007 and another month and a half after that before the bubble definitively burst on August 9, 2007 in a panic produced by Paribas freezing 3 of its funds heavily involved in subprimes.
For the meltdown, you had the housing bubble burst, the selling of Countrywide to BOA in January 2008, Bear Stearns collapsing (probably with help from JPM) in March, then a whole cascade of events in September: Fannie and Freddie going into receivership, AIG, and, of course, Lehman which blew everything up.
My point in relating all this is to show that the bursting of a bubble is a months long process, and during that time there are numerous events which can either accelerate or retard the inevitable burst. Wall Street and government had all of 2006 and most of 2007 to mitigate the consequences of a housing bubble burst. They did nothing, but it still took nearly a year for the first major cracks to show and another 7 months for things to go kerblooey. Similarly, for the meltdown there were 7 months between the housing bubble bursting and Bear Stearns and another 6 months after that to the meltdown.
Getting back to the stock market bubble (and the associated one in commodities). It began in March 2009 by late that year it had pretty much run its course. The bubble was mature. In November 2009 we saw the Dubai default threat, a harbinger of things to come. Recently we have seen Greece, the flash crash, SEC charges against Goldman, and FinReg. Any of these could have started a general stampede for the exits. So far they haven’t because of Bernanke sticking to the ZIRP and a hodgepodge of election year Administration efforts to keep the economy going until November. As with the other examples we are not looking at a cycle but a probability curve. We can talk about where the period of greater likelihood of a stock market collapse is, but we need to keep in mind that external events as well as random fluctuations (butterfly effects) trigger a burst, not the underlying trend. The underlying trend simply predicts that a bust up will occur and indicates where the conditions for such a bust up are most likely to occur.
So Hugh, I’m gratified to read at least one other person here who has thought, as opposed to opinionated, about the specifics of what is involved in the kind of modeling Sornette appears to be attempting. A shot of reason in all the fog above. I’m going to have to actually read substantive descriptions of their work to say anything further, but I would be interested to see in detail what they’re up to. Banal prediction is not the point, though, to me. Many have advanced predictive claims to the detriment of their credibility, which does not discredit the rather separate attempt to build better models, however.
Regarding, A Plague Upon The World: The USA is a “Failed State”:
So sad–but never surprising these days; in fact it’s expected–to see nine-eleven-was-an-inside-job conspiradroid-moonbat Paul Craig Roberts lent this kind of credence and being given this refuge.
Not to mention the pathetic site, GlobalFiction.ca (d/b/a GlobalResearch(dot)ca) which regularly pushes crap like nine-eleven-was-an-inside-job, the north american union, vaccines are plots for profit and control, and a host of other bullshit that would make The John Birch Society blush with pride.
Shame on NakedCapitalism.com (aptly named) for giving time to the despicable, unconscionable likes of Roberts and GlobalFiction.
May your conscience (what might be left of it) find you when you least expect it.
You could, of course, just come out of the moonbat closet in such regards and start a new section featuring home cancer remedies, bigfoot sightings, ufo abductions, new world order videos (Alex Jones is right up your alley), etcetera.
Be proud of your inner moonbat!
Don’t hide behind bylines from dodgy sites, become one yourself!
You’re already well on your way (and apparently darn proud of it).
As Yves would probably say, that’s an ad hominem attack. You need to engage the argument rather than just call names. In fact, merely criticizing the source is usually the refuge of those who cannot rebut the argument.
Agreed: motion seconded.
My god Yves! That is one MoFo squirrel Please don’t show a picture of the loser.
@aet “Too bad that you’re flat wrong when it comes to ice mass on the arctic ocean:”
Your link showed data from 2004 to 2008. My pictures (from US Navy) were from 2000 to 2010. The ice extent (and thickness) has recovered from 2007-2008. There is no contradiction.
As I said, our conclusions must be data driven.
@DownSouth “And who is eric anderson’s “unbiased” source for this little jewel of sure truth? Why none other than Quadrant Online:”
Look man, either they reported accurately, or they lied. Maybe they are libertarians. What difference does it make? Either the raw temperatures refute the official NIWA New Zealand claims or they do not. If you can impeach the data, I will listen. If you simply don’t like the political beliefs of the messenger, that’s too bad, but it is not relevant.
eric anderson,
How can I impeach the data?
We’re not given any data, nor does Quadranat Online do any data crunching. Instead, it makes claims like this:
The NSS is the outcome of a subjective data series produced by a single Government scientist, whose work has never been peer-reviewed or subjected to proper quality checking. It was smuggled into the official archive without any formal process. It is undocumented and sans metadata, and it could not be defended in any court of law. Yet the full line-up of NIWA climate scientists has gone to extraordinary lengths to support this falsified warming and to fiercely attack its critics.
As I said above, now you’ve included the full line-up of NIWA climate scientists into your conspiracy. The circle widens…
But meanwhile, “The Government has directed and funded a 6-month project to produce a new national temperature record, with published data and transparent processes. The replacement record is to be the subject of a scientific paper, which is to be peer-reviewed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.”
So we’ll see what this process yields. I’ve a strong suspicion, though, that you won’t like the outcome of the new national temperature record any better than you did the old one. So I suspect the circle of conspirators will have to be widened even further.
Reminds me of the mental trap some impose upon themselves in order to confirm their ideology[s], a singularity in search for objects to orbit and be orbited and observed by their total mass, with out thought too is composite structure.
just read hufpost report. it is incredible. it reads like propaganda. my reading suggest that captian of Turkish ship Mavi Marmara changed course away from coast that 1st causality took place prior to boarding. there report of young man shot in head four times execution style
another report strongly that EXF metadata indicate earlier date; also in contradistinction to Turkish authoties claims that all passengers were searched for weapons.
yet another report interviewing lawyer presented as expert on international maritime law et piracy on high seas said should have been radio warning; then shot across bow; next Turkish authority should been requested to command vessel to change course; et finally come along side to course change but *not* to board. this from Turkish source.
the above source states that as matter of law it is for Turkey to investigate, lay charges regardles whether act piracy or war. according to article assualt was state approved thus making it war.
i be giving hufpost a credibility rating: -3+/- -3.
remember not Alamo but USS Liberty.
i b just 0,
ZN
PS the fake visuals can b found on Rachel Corry site
PPS let’s end with aphorism of why Isaeli r eternally not to blame – Goldie: “i hate arabs because they made us kill their children.” in words puppets (^o’)
The faked visuals of alleged ‘weapons’ which are actually _years old and widely available ONLINE_ in some instances speaks volumes regarding the complete lack of credibility in any official Israeli announcements regarding any incident, anywhere, any time. And this is a long-time method of Israeli disinformation, too; they’ve been caught out time and again with faked ‘proof’ and wild claims flatly contradicted by multiple witnesses.
As I’ve said above, we don’t know exactly what happened on the Mavi Marmara’s top deck, yet, but we can be assured that nothing which the Israeli authorities provide initially will correlate with the truth.
addendum: for review of relationship between Zionists et NAZIs see: http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-francis-nicosia-and-zionist.html
*Warning# author is Zionist while reviewer is critical of conclusions. see also: uber orthodox theological criticisms based on obscure notions of sin et messiahship. (^_^)