Growing Crops With No Water, The Old-Fashioned Way Scientific American
U.S. Steel, USW union reach tentative labor deal MarketWatch
Union angst at Supervalu Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Murder Charges Lifted On South Africa Miners WSJ. Marikana strike.
The cold murder fields of Marikana Daily Maverick
Inquiry on Tax Strategy Adds to Scrutiny of Finance Firms Times. Well-timed backhander for Schneiderman?
NY probes private equity tax strategy FT. Pass the popcorn!
N.Y. attorney general opens probe into private equity firms, including Bain CBS. Not, apparently, when Romney was there.
Commodities Beating All Assets Again for First Time in 16 Months Bloomberg
Europe enters the witching month Macrobusiness
The Euro Crisis Is Back From Vacation Times Magazine
U.S. Companies Brace for an Exit From the Euro by Greece Times
Euro crisis on hold – till after US election John Dizard, FT
Why The ECB Got To Do What It’s Got To Do Seeking Alpha
Investors Test Riskier Debt Waters WSJ. Spanish and Italian bonds.
Rajoy Says Spain Can’t Finance Itself in Call For ‘Sacrifices’ Bloomberg
France seeks EU approval for bank rescue FT
US investor is Ireland’s biggest creditor FT. John Templeton.
Hiring Probably Limited by Cooling Demand: U.S. Economy Preview Bloomberg
GDP and Employment drag from State and Local Governments Calculated Risk
At Jackson Hole, a growing fear for Fed independence Reuters
Paper Criticizes Federal Reserve Approach, Suggests Radical Overhaul of Monetary Policy in the Crisis David Dayen, FDL. The undercard at Jackson Hole.
Robert Johnson: Audacious Oligarchy – Unmasking Wall Street and the Decline of Confidence Jesse’s Café Américain
Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan Only Works If Income Inequality Explodes Atlantic
A few remarks on Medicare’s administrative cost Incidental Economist
Online universities blossom in Asia AFP
3D Paintings Come to Life Bloomberg. China zeitgeist watch, big time, but I don’t know what the message is.
Are Our Transit Maps Tricking Us? Atlantic Cities. Even if we can’t change territories, we can reroute traffic by changing maps.
Diary of a Mad Fact-Checker Oxford American
Email stress test: Experiment unplugs workers for 5 days LA Times (Valissa)
Revealed: the grubby world of comment spam The Kernel
Fair versus equal Mathbabe. Interesting!
* * *
D – 4 and counting*
“We have a presidential election coming up. And I think the big problem, of course, is that someone will win.” –Barry Crimmins
DNCon. Police: “Busloads of officers rolled in to help Charlotte-Mecklenburg police patrol the DNCon, [most from NC but some] from as far away as Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta and Philadelphia.” …. Social media: “Obama’s campaign will turn to technology to get some of those [undecided voters in battleground states] voters engaged in the convention. The campaign will stream the entire event online, incorporate voter comments into the feed, and have convention attendees interact electronically with those watching on the Internet and mobile devices.” Campus voters, therefore wired, judging by campaign stops in VA, IA, and CO. … Statuary: “A 25-foot sand sculpture of Obama brings some of the beach to the Democratic National Convention’s host city. [P]erhaps the biggest hazards for the sculpture are periodic rains coming through Charlotte” (uh oh). Make up your own snark! … Weather: “[T]here’s no roof at the Bank of America Stadium — and some forecasts call for rain.” … The speech, small ball: “Obama will use his time in the spotlight on Thursday to focus on education, tax cuts for those making less than $250,000, energy, immigration and social issues, his advisers indicated.” … The speech, mush: “‘This speech is going to reflect the thinking of a leader* who has great confidence in this country and a … clear sense of what we need to do to continue to repair the damage that was done by the recession and to reclaim the economic security that many Americans have lost,’ Axelrod said.” [* A term beloved by authoritarian followers everywhere.”
DNCon protest. Protest: “All manner of protesters are gathering in Charlotte for the convention this week, so many that local officials had to hold a lottery to determine which groups would get prime protest spots.” … March: “The 80-plus groups that make up the Coalition to March on Wall Street South held a 3-mile (5-km) march on Sunday aimed at putting a spotlight on Charlotte as the United States’ second-largest financial center, behind New York. The protest organizers are seeking to distinguish their efforts from those of the anarchist movement, which in recent years has destroyed property and tried to disrupt activities at major political and government events.” Feh. … March: My favorite sign, in comments: “Resistance is fertile.”
RNCon. Wowsers: “Asked what kind of role abortion and social issues might play in the campaign, R pollster Kellyanne Conway complained, ‘Why do Ds always talk to women from the waist down? Rs are talking to women from the waist up.'” … Management problems: “Whoever designed those giant screens should be flogged for not testing to see how the speakers would look in TV closeups.” … Snark watch, “we built this”: “[T]he cadre of waiting-in-the-wings Republicans possess all the private sector experience of a Cuban five-year agricultural planner — but with a better taxpayer-funded health care plan.” Ouch! … Eastwood: “Disjointed, wondering, he got lost at points, he jumped topics, who knows what that chair was all about and he looked like he didn’t even comb his hair (It was sticking up all over in a BAD way)” (a TN R blogger and attendee). … Eastwood: “‘I think I just drank Clint Eastwood’s water,’ Rubio smiled.” Sharing the love for Romney, Marco!
Montreal. Election: “Pauline Marois’ Parti Quebecois is a statistical hair’s breadth away from forming a majority government, a Leger Marketing poll for the QMI news agency suggests. But if the numbers break right for [Quebec Solidaire] on election day, at some point a PQ minority government might be forced to negotiate for its support.” (This being the Gazoo, the agenda is to get the Anglos to the polls…)
AK. Labor: “I am honored to support the unions in this country, and it sure beats the hell out of shilling to race to the bottom.”
CO. Crowds: “[A]n estimated 13,000 people filled a campus green on Sunday at the University of Colorado, Boulder” to hear Obama speak. At 4:20PM?
IA. Coat tails: “[In his Sioux City rally, Obama] said nothing during his speeches to encourage people to vote for Ds all up and down the ballot. Speaking to Ds around the state this summer, I get the impression that for the most part, Obama organizers are not doing much to help down-ticket candidates.”
IN. Food: “None are better, despite their little size, those end-of-the-season beauties seem to have absorbed all the goodness and sweetness that summer represents.” Tomatoes…
IL. Food: “Dishes from the final week of [Charlie Trotter’s] menus include poached white asparagus with charred broccolini, manchego cheese and red pepper essence and root beer leaf ice cream with vanilla cremeaux and birch syrup-infused meringue.”
LA. Isaac: “Hurricane Season is kind of a mirror version of Carnival. National media focus on but largely misunderstand what’s happening in New Orleans while locals cluster in groups to overindulge in unhealthy food and liquor while ritualistically named entities parade through town spreading debris everywhere.”
ME. Corruption, charters:* “Documents expose the flow of money and influence from corporations that stand to profit from state leaders’ efforts to expand and deregulate digital education” (more players). [* Sorry for the redundancy] … Ron Paul: “The Maine R’s state committee passed four resolutions proposed by Paul supporters by wide margins Saturday. The first resolution denounces the RNC’s decision not to seat all 20 ME delegates pledged to Paul. Saturday’s meeting was followed by a show of unity in which Paul supporters who had been at odds with party leaders went door-to-door with them to campaign.”
MI. Police state: “A man suspected of fatally shooting two men and seriously wounding two others had to turn himself in twice before Detroit police would arrest him.’ An austere police state.
MN. Snark watch: “‘I challenge him to a contest of cow milking, butter carving or corndog eating – he can take his pick,’ said [D challenger Brian] Barnes in a statement. ‘If I had a voting record like his, I would be afraid to debate also.'” … Pipeline: “Howell Township officials sent a letter to Enbridge Energy last month, asking that the company comply with its 1999 pipeline ordinance during the replacement of a line that ruptured in 2010. But the community’s attorney does not think it has standing to enforce the ordinance.”
NC. Blue sky: “[American Economic Renaissance] would be chartered by Congress as a nongovernmental entity, like the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was in 1863. But with vastly more authority than the NAS, the AER would exclusively control all of the $37.5 trillion in royalty payments from the oil and gas under federal land such as the Green River Formation.” Makes the thinking in DC look small.
ND. Fracking: “A Facebook page called ‘Bakken Oilfield, Fail of the Day’ [here] has sprung up to document the madness from the front lines of an Internet-age resource rush going full bore.”
NJ. Police state: “The fatal shootings of two apparently emotionally disturbed men by police in separate incidences on Saturday demonstrates the need for better police training when dealing with the mentally ill, one of the state’s leading mental health advocates said Sunday.”
NY. Police state: Cryptome Tracks The NYPD Ring Of Steel (video) (bob).
OH. Fracking: “‘We don’t want any more injection wells. We know the trucks that are surrounding us are filled with hydrochloric acid, liquefied petroleum gas, potassium hydroxide solution,’ said Mary Greer of Shalersville.” … Bailout: “With many automobile manufacturers and parts makers, OH’s economy has benefited from the administration’s bailout of the industry.” Guess we should all move to swing states.
OR. Foreclosure: “Foreclosures will be moved to the courts, where borrowers can be held accountable for the entire deficiency instead of just turning over keys to the front door. It’s a change from ‘non-judicial’ to ‘judicial’ foreclosure proceedings.”
PA. Corruption: “‘Illegal conduct occurred,’ Bill Cluck, who serves on the board that runs Harrisburg’s incinerator, told me. “I think false statements were submitted under penalty of law to the state government in connection with the financing.’ All those advisers made hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from the loan” (furzy mouse).
VA. Landfills: “The amount of trash shipped to VA from other places for disposal remained relatively flat last year after increasing in 2010 for the first time since 2006. VA [is] the nation’s second biggest importer of trash, behind PA.” … Privatization: “[McDonnell presentation] provided further evidence that state officials are frantically working backward from a preferred solution [privatizing operations at the Port of VA], rather than methodically forward from underlying or organizational problems.”
WI. Capitol occupations: “‘Remember the team called the Washington Generals?” Walker said. ‘That’s the team that nobody remembers. That’s the traveling team [the Harlem Globetrotters] always beat. Well, the protesters are the Washington Generals.'” Ouch.
Outside baseball. Police state: “According to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, [Automated License Plate Readers] have become so pervasive in America that they constitute a “covert national surveillance grid.” …. Žižek: “The goal is not to arrive at a settled view, but to achieve greater clarity about what is really at issue, about what is really at stake in a given debate.”
Grand Bargain™-brand Cat Food Watch. David Maraniss: “If he wins a second term, the Obama I expect to emerge will more closely follow the lines of his 2004 speech. As a young man negotiating the shoals of race in America, as president of the Harvard Law Review, as a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago and as a state senator in Springfield, his instincts were to search for common ground. That is where he sees greatness.”
Robama vs. Obomney watch . Welfare: “[T]he real scandal here isn’t what Obama did or didn’t do to ‘workfare’; it’s that both parties have gutted the welfare system as a whole to conduct a cruel social experiment on impoverished families.”
The trail. Field offices: “Romney has no shortage of money, but Obama’s field offices outnumber Romney’s in each [of 11 swing states].” … What It Takes: “The big rule of American politics is party. Political parties offer our structure: intellectual and ideological coherence, an available pool of manpower and an electioneering apparatus, and an organizing principle for people who require shortcuts to navigate a complex mix of policy and leadership options. But primaries have no such readymade architecture. It is in primaries that candidates have a strategic imperative to indulge what Freud called the “narcissism of small differences.” …. Robocalls: “I received a robocall that purported to be from the head of the VA Delegation in Tampa. There was excited chatter in the background and I was told that the VA delegation was in the thick of all the fun and excitement. [Except later I found out that the] VA delegation was at that time actually being driven in the opposite direction apparently to avoid having them on the convention floor when the procedural votes were scheduled to come up. Seems that too many people from VA.” Ha ha. … Technology: “The DNC [has] a new open source web app that lets Americans register online. The app lets potential voters fill out a National Voter Registration Form on the web, which is then converted into a PDF that can be printed and submitted.” Great if you’re wired, have an ID, and own a printer, I guess. Would have been better to fight the registration fight before the Rs passed the laws, but n-o-o-o-o. … Republicans: “A New Guide to the Republican Herd: Libertarians, Tea Party Voters, Main Street Voters, Christian Conservatives, The Disaffected.” Candified graphic has Standard Bearers, Issues, but not Funders. … Democrats: “A New Guide to the Democratic Herd: Staunch Liberals, Blue Collar Bloc, Bootstrap Optimists, Younger Independents, Southern and Rural Democrats.” Same candy, same absence of Funders. …. Evil: “Black, the laid-off coal miner, is ready to give Romney a chance. ‘I’ve got to take the lesser of two evils,’ he said. ‘I know what Obama’s going to do. He’s already shown that.'” Cuts both ways…
Romney. Polls: No bounce for Romney in FL (PPP). … Ryan: “For those catching up, last week Ryan told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that his personal [marathon] best was “Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.” [Ryan] was fact-checked by, wait for it…Runner’s World magazine, [which finally] reported that the campaign told them that ‘that the R VP candidate has run one marathon. That was the 1990 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, MN, where Ryan, then 20, is listed as having finished in 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds.” Ouch! … Religion: “‘There has never been as much positive publicity about the [Mormon] church…thanks to the wonderful campaign of Mitt Romney and his family,’ J.W. ‘Bill’ Marriott, the chairman of Marriott International, said.” … Humanoid: “[Romney] raises his eyebrows when he says something he thinks is going to surprise you.” And more!
Obama. Forward: “‘Next week in Charlotte, we are eager to talk about where we’ve been and where we’re going,’ said David Axelrod, Obama’s senior strategist. ‘The country’s gone through a difficult journey together, but we’ve made — but we’ve made a difference.'” … Spine: “If Karl Rove was known as George W. Bush’s political brain, Ms. Jarrett is Mr. Obama’s spine.” … Citizens United: “[OBAMA:] I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it).” Just what we need. Another “mobilized” roach motel for progressive energy. … If only: “When I delivered my Nobel Lecture in acceptance of the Nobel Committee’s prize for peace on December 10 of 2009, I did so in the knowledge that I had not earned it and did not deserve it.”
* 4 days until the Democratic National Convention ends with toast and jelly for everyone on the floor of the Bank of America Panther Stadium, Charlotte. ID, ME, and RI all have 4 electoral votes.
* * *
Antidote du jour: Two cats in the wat, from my Bangkok expotition:
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broke from my normal weekly economic summary to summarize the quickly disappearing ice & snow pack in the northern hemisphere, with over a dozen links, if anyone’s interested:
http://marketwatch666.blogspot.com/2012/09/arctic-ice-july-income-outlays-2nd-qtr.html
after the first 2 paragraphs, the rest is my typical drivel…
rjs,
I feel you. I’m also broke from my normal weekly economic summary.
I guess that’s why they call it “Labor” Day.
No rest for the weary…
The charts tell the story… Labor Day, Income & The Middle Class http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/09/the-middle-class/
My God,
I do hope I’m not automated comment spam – will be looking in the bathroom mirror closely this evening to make sure I’m not some form of AI – or for that matter a mouthpiece for TPTB!!!!!!
re Commodities Beating All Assets Again for First Time in 16 Months:
A 100% reserve requirement would keep the banks from using their reserves to drive up the cost of living of their depositors.
He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, but Proverbs 11:26
What, Lambert? You trying to say there aren’t any dogs in Thailand?
I’m throwing down the species card. You’re discriminating against dogs again.
P.S. Thanks for all your work this weekend.
Lambert, I appreciate your work as well.
Thanks.
Re: Inquiry on Tax Strategy Adds to Scrutiny of Finance Firms
Of course, I get a kick out of Jack S. Levin, a finance lawyer whose firm has represented Bain on some matters.
“The I.R.S. has known that private equity funds have been doing this for 20 years,” he said.
What he’s really saying is “We never got cought on this thing before, so it’s OK now” Especially because the IRS won’t want to look THAT ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL.
My all time favorite “leader” is, of course, Fearless Leader. He would get my vote over Obama in a heartbeat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_Leader
Sr. Brindle;
A hearty concurrence with your choice! Fearless Leader would be a truer exemplar of the modern Republican Party than Romney. I cannot see Ann Romney as Natasha Fatale. Ryan as Badinov though, perfect! Also, the Wiki you linked to says that Fearless Leader usually carried the Pottsylvanian Treasury around with him; a Gold Bug!
Considering the “captured” nature of our political players, a cartoon character is the perfect metaphor.
Thanks for opening up this particular can of ‘creepy crawlies.’
Best news I’ve heard all year:
How could anyone trust a country that is reliably reported to possess over 200 nuclear weapons, but refuses to sign any nuclear treaties or permit any international inspections?
One of the few reasons to prefer Obomney over Robama is that Obama actually is demonstrating some statesmanship in the middle east, while Romney shamefully groveled for dirty campaign money in Jerusalem, giving the Israelis carte blanche to blow up the region and sow chaos for U.S. interests.
“The official explanation was budget restrictions.”
Haha! The neo-liberals are hoist by their own petard. Will they have to embrace MMT now?
You might want to be careful here, this is just the type of story they would accidentally on purpose leak out if an attack actually were planned for October. An element of surprise is critical in any operations against Iran, much more so than it was in Iraq or Afghanistan, where in both cases plenty of warning was given.
And as far as the choice of President is concerned; I’m quite sure the US foreign policy establishment decides policy direction and it’s the President’s job to then justify these initiatives to other nations and to the domestic public. So it makes absolutely no difference to the end product which President is elected; the only thing that will change is the sales pitch.
Mitt’s Israel trip was pandering to the whack Evangelical wingnuts of the Republican base, giving credence to the pastiche on Revelations they’ve imposed on Middle Eastern politics. Where most of us see a lot of brutal maneuvering, they see intimations of the Antichrist. Meh.
Barry’s going to do what he’s told. While the widespread opposition to Shrub’s 2003 invasion of Iraq has disappeared down the memory hole, it was loud enough and angry enough that this time around, even the best efforts of the MSM aren’t going to keep it out of the national mind. And of course, nobody is going to buy that 9/11 smokescreen, or salute the flag, or not see the Saudi interest in all this. So, ratcheting up the unprovoked aggression to military means might happen, but there will be consequences.
Mitt’s gestures mean no more than Barry’s promises in 2008. The Republican face of the Washington Consensus has no more interest in the Apocalypse than in the majority’s quality of life.
There’s more to successful dry land farming.
First to have to park your disk, when you disk a field you simply stir the weed seeds around allowing a new crop of weeds to grown. Instead of a disk you use a harrow, many modern farmers have never seen, much less used a harrow. You make a pass over the field fluffing up about 1 to 2 inches of soil. The weed seeds will germinate, however because the soil is fluffed up the weed seeds do not have access to the soil moisture below, so they die off.
When you plant your crop you use a seed drill that will reach the moist ground below the lose soil, this is called “planting to moisture”. The crop seed will germinate and push through the dry soil above.
The lose soil is also called a dust mulch, in that it keeps the soil moisture from evaporating.
Dry land farming works but it’s a lost art.
“Dust mulch,” what an interesting phrase but why not? Got any links? Because even if it is a “lost art” people might need to find it again.
I mean, if we don’t invade Canada and take their water.
Friend of mine grows wheat and barley in 20 inches of rain using dryland and biodynamic techniques. I use her wheat exclusively in my bread and use the tibetan purple barley in my beer. Hefeweizen coming this fall.
About 3D art in China. I’m not sure what the significance is either. Maybe that a gallery can be created using inside corners so that people can feel like they are inside the art? But this is not new.
But some of them are giant pieces of art in shopping malls!
Why not just charge a sensible price for water? Then the farmers will try different ways of coping.
Especially after fracking takes enough out of the water cycle to raise the price!
Dry land farming is still a way of life in west Texas south of Lubbock. It is not a lost art.
Re the FED Critique and the Radical Overhaul at JH.
Much Ado About Nothing.
When it comes to a discussion of economically-effective monetary policy, it seems like a distinction without a difference.
What difference does it make whether open-market operations, or paying interest on reserves or using QE for strategic asset purchases are the real driver to affect interest rates and the yield curve.
None of them do anything about the real economy and the real Money Supply.
If you want to positively affect the Money Supply, then ISSUE the money. Just like the greatest of monetary economists as Simons, Fisher and even Friedman advocated.
That’s what the Kucinich Bill now before the Congress does.
http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/need_act_final_112th.pdf
Pushing on the interest rate string – from any direction – does not move the money supply forward.
It’s the debt that is shrinking, and since ALL money is debt, the supply of the national circulating media, a.k.a. MONEY, that is shrinking along with it.
It’s time to break the connection between money and debt.
For the Money System Common.
If the Fed actually honored its dual mandate to protect against inflation and unemployment things might be working. We gave the Fed an absurd tool kit. It can do nothing about unemployment. Congress should not threaten the Fed with an audit, we know the path QE has taken. Congress should either give the Fed the means to directly stimulate employment, or Congress should cooperate closely with the Fed to do so. Work programs. Jobs. If the US Congress had paid proper attention to the need for full employment, as it did to deregulating finance, we wouldn’t be in this mess. As it is the “mandate” for maintaining the strength of the dollar, in the end, is useless too. I’ve always thought that the double mandate was just a trick to use unemployment at 6% to stave off “inflation.” That’s all it was/is/did.
Mathbabe. Fair vs Equal. That we are greedy when times get better and greediest when it looks like the good times are ending is what Minsky said too. In a way. Then we all fall down. What is it about good times?
Dear Sto;
“What is it about good times?” There are too few of them.
This is only my guess.
In good times, people are less intutive. Those who made it have more time to reflect, deduce and scheme; whereas at the begining, when people were barely surviving, they instinctly shared.
That’s why we need Stone Age Zen – simple (almost primitively simple, we concede a few modern necessities), intutive and cooperating/sharing way of life.
“Next week in Charlotte, we are eager to talk about where we’ve been and where we’re going,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s senior strategist, in the Friday briefing. “The country’s gone through a difficult journey together, but we’ve made — but we’ve made a difference.”
“Together”? WTF? Hasn’t Axelrod heard that the 1%ers have grabbed ca. 93% of income gain since the 2008 crash? Hasn’t he heard of rapidly increasing income inequality, not at all checked in Obama’s first term. Gedouddahere, schmuck!
Glad somebody noticed that. When I read it, I wanted to hurl.
And do you reckon that during the Demo Convention, somebody will mention the value of “jawb creators” in today’s economy, so let us not bash the rich!
If we are not addressing wealth/income inequality today, when will we?
People should ask, what happened to all the money printed?
From today’s Clusterfuck Nation column…Kunstler nails it –
These are desperate days in the republic. Between the two empty spectacles of the official party nominating conventions, a terrible nausea rises in the collective gorge of the swindled body politic. The putative contest of ideas is a dumbshow in a hall of mirrors. None of it avails to reduce, mitigate, or even acknowledge, the tensions that may tear this country apart, in particular the web of fraud that shrouds all the operations of money and banking – which is to say: the fate of everything the nation thinks it has invested in itself and its future. In the USA of 2012, anything goes and nothing matters. Reality has a different view of where this all ends and how it will work out.
Preach it, bro!
Powerfull and true.
re: RNCon. Wowsers: “Asked what kind of role abortion and social issues might play in the campaign, R pollster Kellyanne Conway complained, ‘Why do Ds always talk to women from the waist down? Rs are talking to women from the waist up.'”
I’ll settle this dispute… They both talk to women from the waist down.
12 Hilarious Reviews Of A Pen Just For Women http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/12-hilarious-reviews-of-a-pen-just-for-women
Why Do Americans Hate the Media? Just Watch the Conventions http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/why-do-americans-hate-the-media-just-watch-the-conventions/261879/
And if by some miracle anything unexpected and interesting does happen at a convention (like Clint’s now famous monologue), you can watch it on YouTube and skip the convention entirely.
Up the Ante: (to PPS) “..if the Rove-demon is not responded to correctly it will attempt to assume the aristocrat’s stance in relation to all who have ‘found him OUT!’. That is the essential burden I have given you. Do you recognize that need to define yourself. No time or space for petulant anonymous ‘Oh, my emotions have been hurtsed’.”
What I recognize is you obviously don’t get parody. Fine, no one’s holding a gun to your head forcing you to read my comments.
As politely as possible, I’ve offered a number of times to just let it drop. But you keep going.
Why not just avoid my comments? I stopped reading yours a long time ago because they bore the sh*t out of me.
However, unlike you, it would have never occurred to me to mention this to anyone, had you simply left me alone.
You say that I have to “define” myself for you. But I owe you nothing.
Why shouldn’t I invent some way, however fantastic and contrived, of talking about something, without someone telling me I have to define myself?
You write: “if the Rove-demon is not responded to correctly it will attempt to assume the aristocrat’s stance in relation to all who have ‘found him OUT!’. That is the essential burden I have given you.”
You’re not making any sense.
But even if you were, why does your particular version of “reality” have to come into it anyway? You’re a pretty unimaginative realist, so why do you bother reading my comments, if that’s how you feel?
You offer to help me write comments the way you would like to see them written. But I didn’t ask for your help, I owe you nothing, and I can do without your help.
So f*ck off.
PPS, your comments are first rate. Forget flack.
If the German constitutional court approves the ESM, Merkel et al might use the positive market buzz to push Greece out of the euro. The ESM may buy some time for Spain, but with the game plan for it being more austerity and deepening depression, the delay in Spain going over the cliff could be fairly short. This is true whether Draghi gets the ECB to do anything or not. At best, we are talking less than a year. At worst, a month or two.
People here or in Europe aren’t going to do much with a cliff ahead.
With respect to investing in non-core Europe, you’re going to need loans.
Let’s say you want to purchase something in Spain, financed 50% via debt. But you can’t secure Euros outside of Spain. But with the long-term “risk-free” rate in Spain at 6.80%, you’ll probably have to pay 16% interest on loans to purchase any asset.
Can you imagine the IRR required for the investment to be viable?