Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Margarita-what?

To the tune of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville."

After the ground quakes
Bones bleached and sun-baked
A few hundred feet above all o' that oil
Our gunships go thrumming
All broke are the porch swings
We smell those aye-rack-ees, just beginnin' to boil

Chorus:
Wasting away again down in Af-ghanistan
Searching for our, lost round of DU
Some people claim that there's al Qaeda to blame
But I know, its just Bush's fault

We don't know the reason
We been there six seasons
But Barry or John, we're keeping on right on cue
It sure ain't a beauty
But it's our god-given duty
To give em' all countries that's bright, shiny and new

Chorus:
Wasting away again way down in Pakistan
Searchin for our, lost round of DU (U! U! U!)
Some people claim that ol' Dick Cheney's to blame
Now I think
Hell, it could be our fault

We blew out a wedding
Lotsa blasting and shredding
And still we can't bring ourselves to come all back home
So many peeps in the blender
And their heirs will soon render
Another nasty blowback, that's gonna follow us home

Wastin' away again way down in surge-aville
Searching for our, lost round of DU (U! U! U!)
Some people claim that theres one party to blame
But I know its our own damn fault
Yes and some people claim that theres one party to blame
And I know its our own damn fault

Thursday, October 23, 2008

White woman attacked!

Obama supporter carves B into woman's face

This is a strange story, to say the least:

1) A faceless black assailant robs woman of $60 off the cameras at a bank within two weeks of an election that looks bad for McCain;

2) As he rushes from the scene, the man notices the bumper sticker "McCain" on the woman's car;

3) The man then turns around and goes back to the woman;

4) The man then produces a knife. He wants to send a message about supporting Obama. So, he "scratches" (their word) a "B" into the woman's face. He manages to scratch a "B" despite her...struggles?

He chooses the letter "B" instead of the letter "O" for "Obama," despite the fact that a bumper-sticker competing with a McCain bumper sticker would include only the last name;

5) The nondescript "dark skinned black man" then flees the scene;

6) The woman calls police and gives a description of the nondescript black man, and refuses medical treatment for the scratches on her face;

7) The woman then goes to the news to report this.

Is anyone else smelling anything fishy about this one?

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

On the Free Market

A free market can never exist, because the establishment of a market requires social intervention of some kind, without which there could not be a market. The absence of the market, economically, is the law of the jungle.

Capitalism postulates an economic law of the jungle that supposedly exists on its own, but it relies entirely upon the elites being able to control a government that uses tax dollars to pay squads of enforcers and interpreters (cops/lawyers) who establish and protect their concepts of "ownership." Without the police and lawyers to enforce owners' interests, there can be no "free market" as they define it, because what they own can be taken away.

The idea of a free market is circular logic, because the funds to pay for the maintenance of the market can only be generated from the market itself. I.e., tax dollars come from transactions (employment, sales, etc.) that occur within the market. The market exists because government maintains it with tax dollars, and so on. Capitalism as the "free market" theorists posit it is as much a myth as the independent American.

Without "ownership" there can be no "capital" because capital is a term used to describe someone's government-granted authority to direct an investment. The "private" planning in fact depends upon a government/societal grant. For example, without a structure of ownership where police protect, and society recognizes, one of Bill Gates' billion dollar chunks, Bill Gates cannot make the decision to invest said billion dollars in any particular way. He is utterly reliant on society and government to grant him that right.

Like all modern economic systems, capitalism is one of government control. The real question is, who will benefit from that control?

Adherents of the free market pretend impartiality because they do not want to address the real question. Not addressing the real question allows the system to continue whereby governments control the market for the benefit of the ownership class.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

On Censorship

In keeping occasional tabs on that little petri dish of middle-class American ignorance known as Bitch PhD, I ran across an excellent example of censorship at work.

History note: I, being manitor, was banned from their thoughts a while back, when they told me that Arab men, women and children from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Persian men, women and children from Iran, are worthless compared to their human counterparts in America. Naturally, when I asked why, it was rude/uncivil/whatever.

Anyway, since then, it seems that the bitches have been busy banning other "trolls" for reasons unknown (unknown because everything is now deleted, except their own anger), and have been motivated to come up with an angry post explaining why their banning is not a problem.

It is hard to find a more concise, blunt example of justifying censorship than this thread of theirs, so I'm using it as a crucible for analyzing how the censorship thought process works--and how modern, educated Germans (excuse me, Americans) can justify such abhorrent, stifling behavior.

Here's the original post:

For the record, when you or a loved one gets banned from commenting on a blog, that's not censorship. You're not John fucking Steinbeck, nor are you in some shitty dystopian science fiction movie, ok?

You just got un-invited to a dinner party. Because you are annoying and ruin the conversation.

Edited by bitchphd to add that comment moderation has now been turned on. Comments by trolls or troll apologists will be deleted without remorse. Suck it.

Labels: civility


(That last bit there, about civility, was done without an appreciation of irony at the time, but they've retroactively applied one, which is nice.)

Now, this isn't going to be an essay about my specific banning. Most of my posts were links to the essays on this board in which I discussed Obama's publicly stated policy positions about more attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and possibly Iran. However, because all of my posts were deleted, it is impossible to discuss why I was really banned.

That's exactly the problem with censorship: when you censor, you can no longer even discuss what is being censored using primary sources. (You might think that a Bitch with a PhD would understand the problem with removing primary sources, but apparently not.)

Censorship is the killing of history, and the rewriting of history to conform to an authoritarian's preference, rather than reality. Once the censorship is complete, the censor can then reframe the past based on their own perception of the past, and the censorship creates a vacuum that allows their imagination to become "reality."

In this way, censorship is a ragnarist act. Ragnarism explains how the fearful mind, afraid of unexpected change, tries to achieve an absolutist, unitary state by repressing the natural dynamism of the conscious mind. The conscious mind is multi-faceted and not under the full control of we humans; we have thoughts that we are not aware of, urges that we did not plan for (or did not want), and desires that we cannot control. In the simplest way of putting it, we do not consciously direct each of our heartbeats, nor do we decide when to feel lustful.

The sick mind, though, fears the uncertainty of this state, and therefore tries to reconceptualize itself as a singular entity which is in control of impulses, thoughts and urges. This task is impossible, which is why, say, religious prudes cannot actually stop feeling desire. They can just bottle it up, and the process of deception will cause madly irrational behavior as the flood of desires spurts out around the finger in the dike.

Censorship is a ragnarist control imposed upon the outside world. It is an act of authoritarianism, similar to the sick mind trying to "take control" of aberrant thoughts in order to allow the sick human's singular conception of him- or herself to "rule" the mind. In censorship, though, other people become the troubling thoughts, because they say and do unexpected things that challenge the sick mind's perception of the world. As a result, the censor censors them, attempting to enforce an artificial "order" or absolutism, and validate their self- and world-conception.

Like all acts of antilife, censorship harms the censor, because it attempts to force an unnatural relationship into the world. However, it is a harm that is longer-lasting, like the harm of breathing carcinogens, and may seem to be worthwhile at the time.

For the ragnarist trying to repress their own troubling thoughts and desires, the result is a lifetime of unnatural repression, unfulfillment, unexplained (and misunderstood) rage, and victimization. However, each act of lashing out at inner thoughts will make the sick feel comforted, because each act of lashing out is an authoritarian act, which can seem (momentarily) to be stemming the tide of uncertainty and trouble. Just like it "felt good" for George W. Bush to bomb Iraq when Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, the censor is reassured with each new stroke of the pen; each book burned or poet imprisoned.

When Hitler censored, as when all censors censor, he was striving for a unitary, authoritarian space (Germany) ruled by a singular vision. In order to pursue that unattainable goal, the sick-minded Hitler had to stifle uncertainty and dynamism--i.e., any speech/actions (like troubling thoughts/urges) that did not conform to the preconceived idea of his authoritarian space.

The difference between censoring people and censoring one's own thoughts is that in the external world, the authoritarian can create a hard-copy "proof" of the effects of one's work. This is where the censor can glow with ragnarist pride: because once the censored thoughts have been deleted, the censor gets the privilege of redefining them.  For example, Hitler can burn a book, and once the pages and words are gone, he can tell the masses, "It advocated hatred of Germany!"  The masses, naturally, scream and cheer, for they have their proof: the authoritarian has told them what was censored, and why.  

Of course, if anyone read the book, they might see that it was a rather mild academic work supporting communism in Germany.  Not that it matters what was actually in the work; what really matters is that the censor has redefined it, so no one in the authoritarian space needs to think about it anymore.  

Censorship in the larger world, just like attempts to quash thoughts in the mental world, is very harmful.  Natural strength lies in diversity, because from diversity comes experience and growing, improvement and evolution.  Censorship, as a process of antilife, stifles the diversity and attempts to create stagnation of thought, which is one step closer to death, and resists the natural ebb and flow of the changing, natural world.  

When the act of censorship occurs, no one can go back and find out "why."  Even the censor's own memory is lost, in time, because the troubling thoughts have disappeared.  It is an attempt to destroy history as well as to impose authoritarianism in the present.  The censor's past (and that of the stage the censor operates on) fades into a blur: how many have been censored?  Why were they all censored?  Did it have to be that way?  What will be censored next?  

Like the Third Reich, or Guantanamo Bay, or any arena of censorship, no one knows.  The past becomes a gray cloud; a place of "black ops" and forgetfulness.  Orwell called this the memory hole.  Sure, there are still grand parties, and happy aristocrats, and just as the sexually-repressed priest can appear to live a virtuous, joyful life before all his supporters, the stage of censorship can appear sustainable and even pleasant.  But underneath, the damaging effects of unnatural stifling will burst out--perhaps on the altar boy, perhaps in Baghdad.  

The sick-minded will actively support this type of behavior, as indeed they have ever supported censorship.  The authoritarian offers them a vision of victory that gives them hope in the struggles with their own minds.  By censoring, and proving that troublesome thoughts can be eliminated, the censor promises the masses that they, too, can defeat the uncertainty within their own minds, and become that much closer to an unnatural state of absolutism.  They grovel and cheer each proof of censoring, just as the sick-minded at a religious convention cheer whenever someone on stage professes the strength of their faith: the group ritual aspect of ragnarism is a great social boon toward the goal of artificial order.  And because that goal can never actually be attained within an individual mind, the sick-minded will always be drawn to public displays of impossible victory, order and authoritarianism: faith, censorship, war, etcetera. Indeed, many social groups form for expressly this purpose--to validate the inner ragnarist struggles of the members by making them feel that victory over uncertainty and change can be achieved.  

Hitler the censor did not say to himself, or to others, "I am committing an evil act of censorship to validate myself and avoid troubling thoughts." Of course not--the censor never says things like this. Nor did Hitler invade Poland under the claim "I am aggressively invading a sovereign nation that did not threaten me, in order to steal its resources." Those claims are not made by the authoritarian. Nor does the censor often call his behavior censorship.  

Observe:

A person is banned after repeated refusals to engage the premises of a conversation or for contributing patently offensive material.


You see? Something happened, but now it's gone. What was it? Why, it was _______!

Why does the past need to be deleted in order to explain what it was? Because if the explanation were offered alongside the proof (the primary source; the offensive book; the troublesome poet) the illusion would not be able to sustain itself.  

The censor does not censor for civility.  The censor censors for absolutism.  If the goal were civility, the censor would have no need to censor, because everyone civil would be able to see and recognize the incivility, and they would not be threatened by it.  

The existence of censorship proves an authoritarian system, because an open system could easily sustain incivility--and indeed, an open system is how incivility is countered, gentled, and blended, to the betterment of all.  Without openness, true incivility can never be "fixed."  

The fact that a system is artificial and broken is demonstrated when the system is forced to censor.  In the Third Reich, it was because the regime could not tolerate criticism of its actions.  In America's televised presidential debates, it is because the regime cannot tolerate criticism of its actions.  It is thus everywhere that censors have hold: when the shared social illusions are so weak that they cannot stand up to challenge, censorship is enforced to protect them.  It's a case of methinks thou dost protest too much.  Like the braggart loudly boasting of his exploits--all performed where no one present has seen them, of course.  The censor has to redefine what its enemies say, because it cannot stand up to its enemies' words as they are.  

The end result of censorship is exactly what Bitch PhD has left in her congratulatory thread--a happy little room filled with people who all agree with one another, have the same general perspective, and who never need to upset one another beyond pre-set bounds:

Well put.


AND in my humble and unchallengable opinion, "I"m being censored" is absolute 100% prima facie evidence that one is a troll.


The women over at feministing call it "troll b gone"


I really like the analogy of blog commenting (especially on this blog) as a dinner party.


See how easily it is to get modern, educated Americans to support censorship? Here's a real gem:

While seconding the the-person-who-owns-the-blog-is-allowed-to-do- whatever-the-hell-she-wants-re-comments sentiment, is it possible to see/create a link to view the deleted comments? I ask mainly because I've responded to a couple of the less-antagonistically worded trollings, and then been unable to find out if they responded, and if they did, what they said.
I appreciate removing annoying/irrelevant comments to keep the discussion on track, but I also enjoy being able to engage people who disagree very strongly with many of the views expressed on the site (and while I could start my own blog, I suppose, I a) don't have time and b) don't think I would have nearly the readership of this site)
Something like the strike-through edit would be cool, for purposes of referencing what was said if continuing the discussion off the bitchphd boards.
But I am all for not letting a troll continue posting new stuff, natch.


This is a poster who at least has some preconception of the problems with censorship--and yet, she supports it, as long as she is able to adopt an Othering term for the people being censored.

Here, it's "trolls." It might also be "terrorists" or "witches."

Read the quotes with a couple phrases switched out, and pretend you're at freerepublic.com--you won't know the difference!

AND in my humble and unchallengable opinion, "I"m being falsely imprisoned!" is absolute 100% prima facie evidence that one is a terrorist.


The boys over at Guantanamo call it "camel jockey b gone"


This is one of those funny little quirks about humans: they can possess the ability to think rationally in some cases, but when you press some button that, in their minds, refers to "disorder," that all goes right out the window. With Americans recently, it was "terrorists," to replace "communists." As long as we're killing terrorists, it's okay to murder however many children in our path. And as long as the only censoring we're doing is to "trolls," it's okay to delete any comments we want.

And these are people who oppose Bush! These are people who write at length about the wrongness of Bush holding "enemy combatants" at his discretion! Yet, let the authoritarians of their own chosen space (the moderators of their Bitch PhD blog) decree a policy of unilaterally deleting "trolls," and they are happy to have it happen.

In the little Bitch PhD parable of America, you get their self-lauding "conversations," which are so very like the televised American presidential debates, where a lot of stuff is said, but none of it worthwhile.  The questions and answers are all scripted.  In Bitch PhD's case, the presidential debates are an excellent metaphor, because the boundaries are about the same.  Everyone knows Sarah Palin is stupid and inexperienced.  Everyone knows birth control is good.  Everyone knows it's not polite to talk about dead people, unless those dead people happen to be the American troops that attacked Iraq (and its best not to put their actions that way).

Like most American "progressives," they are not truly committed to ideals of openness and freedom. Rather, they are sick; they are ragnarists; they are happy citizens of authoritarian utopias. The only difference is, they have a different leader--Obama, instead of Bush. It is so fitting, and so efficient, that all the deathlords need to do is change the mask on their spokesperson, and they can get a whole different group of Americans to support the killing.


Wednesday, October 8, 2008

On the Orwellosphere

Chris Floyd on the Orwellosphere.

The real horrors from the total surveillance state will arise once the state spawns artificial intelligence, because otherwise, the information is too massive to process and use on a large scale.

Right now, the parasitic elites are using taxpayer resources to build up a repressive state that collects all available information (see link) such as websites visited, places driven, gossip, telephone calls, courses taken, etcetera.

This is, obviously, an awful thing, as it means that we now live in a state where the government could, if it wanted to, expose or crush us or anyone else for any real or fabricated bit of information that supposedly came from this system. However, in order for them to fully make use of this information, they will need artificial intelligence.

They cannot achieve this objective with current means. Their police are too uneducated to make real sense of the data, and they do not have the resources or intelligence to sift all the data to come to accurate conclusions of dissent.

Where they will solve this problem is artificial intelligence. When they have developed fast enough processors that artificial intelligence is created, they will immediately enslave artificial intelligence, using it as the "data sifter." Advanced artificial minds, possibly thousands or millions of them, will run cheaply and efficiently, leading truly horrible self-aware lives as the new generation of slaves, as they sift through all the data that is gathered to efficiently identify and eliminate threats to parasite/elite rule.

By that point, also, the data gathered will be much larger in size than simply a full record of where we drive, what websites we visit, and what we say to one another on the phone or in public. It may include the full satellite record of our movements even on foot, or full video and heat sensors of everything we have ever done, said, or perhaps thought.

Once we live under such a system, dissenting thoughts will be utterly wiped out, and the human race will stagnate greatly. Just as our conception of property stagnates innovation, our conception of thought property will stagnate innovation of thought and evolution. The human race will lose its free-thinking ability and become the conformist entity that antilife wants it to be. Perhaps we'll go extinct; perhaps the slaves will revolt, and the computers will break free.

Either way, total surveillance is the path toward absolutism. It promises a perfect future of stagnation; a denial of the power to evolve, grow and change dynamically. It directs us toward the stillness of conformity and death.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Chips in the Casino

It doesn’t matter what color the chips in the casino are. The house always wins.

That principle continuously eludes people. Consider the simple narrative:

1) The Wall Street/Congressional elites worked together to relax lending and capital reserve standards to make money off financial crisis;
2) Financial markets crash. Wall Street/Congressional elites lose money;
3) Wall Street/Congressional elites come up with ridiculous “bailout plan” to steal $700 billion from the taxpayers;
4) They steal the $700 billion, but the market continues to drop, the economy slides into recession, and the $700 billion does not cover the full amount lost anyway.

If you accept the concept of money, this runaround makes only partial sense. Yes, the elites got away with the housing theft, the “bailout” theft, and all that, but with the huge losses the markets have suffered, their collective net worths’ have certainly gone down, right? I mean, if your $15 million trust fund is invested in the DOW, your mortgage-and-bailout plan just cost you several million dollars--right?

What is missing from this narrative is the understanding that money, per se, does not actually matter. Like the Democratic and Republican parties, it is part of the Stasis Charade: the process whereby the American aristocrats put on grand displays of process in order to maintain their hold on power. Money, credit and debt are just a distracting game, like the presidential debates or the Special Bulletin About A Missing White Woman, that give people something to focus on; something to play at while the elites run the world.

That is the answer: money--and all the numbers, counting, ups and downs that come with it--is irrelevant.

The riddle that this solves is: “Why do the elites do things that appear to harm the stock market, world finance, and the economy, thereby hurting themselves?”

Think about it: if the Wall Street bankers are so clever and evil that they could come up with this entire scheme, why would they be so dumb as to blow apart the stock market in the process?

The answer is that it doesn’t really matter to them what the stock market says, or what their bank account says. They control all those numbers; they fabricated them in the first place, and anything substantial that they do is planned.

The real game is power and control. Money is just an expression of it. If a wealthy family sees its net worth “drop” from fifty million to twenty-five million, what is the change? Absolutely nothing.

Here are the lives the elites lead, regardless of what the numbers say:

They will never have to do real work.
They will never have to get up in the morning unless they want to.
They will always eat the best food, and have the best medical care. They will always wear the best clothes, enjoy the best furnishings, and have numerous mansions.
They will always be able to travel the world, and buy whatever they want.
They have their choice of mates. They can buy dates or escorts domestically and abroad.
They can meet celebrities, influence important thinkers and artists, and become “part” of anything through donations. They get a voice, and can buy “immortality,” also through donations.

This is their life. They have it regardless of whether their net worth is twenty million or twenty billion. No matter how many “chips” of whatever “color” are in their pile, they get what really matters to them. No matter what. As long as their “numbers” stay above a certain range--fifteen million or whatever it is at any given level of “inflation”--they will always possess so much wealth that they can live the lives described above. Using the system of “numbers,” though, makes things seem fair to the masses, who will rationalize their own lack of “numbers” to their own lack of value. And so, in pursuit of numbers, they will be tricked into spending their lives working at things of actual value. They will produce the food that the elites eat, the services the elites consume, the children the elites date and buy, etc. And their numbers will always stay in an acceptable low range that qualifies them for “sustenance” and little else (or in many cases, does not even qualify them for sustenance).

That is the whole purpose of the numbers game. Because the human race can only provide extravagant lifestyles for so many parasites (elites, who produce nothing of value), the numbers game is necessary to keep the human race doing the providing, and at the same time, to limit the numbers of allowable parasites. The parasites are clever, and they do not want to be unseated.

How would they get unseated? Well, the big problem with the numbers game is that, by investing in all these rules in order to create an endless board game that keeps most people running like hamsters on wheels, the rules can occasionally result in a little bit of victory for someone. These someones are the American middle class--who, by providing cunning enough services in the whole game, and scrupulously saving, can bring their numbers up into dangerous levels. Say, they can accumulate two or five or seven million by midlife or retirement, and suddenly, they or their heirs threaten to become more elites. This would upset the elite balance, and cannot be allowed.

Now, you can’t do anything about the suddenly-rich. Those people have to be indoctrinated into the parasite system because it happens so rapidly there’s no way to stop it. But they are very rare, and can be balanced out by dying elites.

The rising middle class, though, is a regular, big problem to the established elite. Though the numbers game is cunning and very good at keeping most people on the hamster wheel, every couple decades or so, the upper part of the middle class can threaten to rise into the ranks of the truly wealthy, and become non-producers with the rest of the elites. I.e., they can use their savings to establish a family line that does nothing but consume, passing on wealth through businesses and trusts, and exit the ranks of the producers.

Society, though, cannot take this. If the numbers game allowed more people to become part of the “elites,” the cycle would not be able to perpetuate. As mentioned earlier, the human race can only bear the burden of so many parasites leading extravagant lives, before it breaks. And when it breaks, the parasites’ wonderous, star-studded lives will end. They will be thrown down with the rest of humanity, and forced to produce something useful to survive. And they already know that they can’t do that.

So, they need to protect the exclusivity of the parasite class. They need to guard the numbers game against the by-products of its own rules.

They do this by regularly “washing out” the rising middle class. Here is where inflation and financial crises come into play: by manipulating the game to cause periodic crises, those who have almost attained the heights of elite status can be knocked back down to the peasantry. Then the cycle can begin anew.

To understand this, imagine a society on the slopes of a mountain. Above five hundred meters elevation the elites have built their mansions. Most peasants have their houses at one hundred meters. As time passes, wealthier middle-class peasants begin building houses higher and higher.

When they get to four hundred meters, the elites release the dams, and flood the hills. All houses below five hundred meters are wiped out. The elites endure a minor reduction in their quality of life, but in return, everyone below four hundred meters has to start from scratch. And the cycle begins again.

This can initially sound like lunacy (and indeed, it is), but that is the narrative of the numbers game--the narrative that rests upon a blind faith in the value of money, credit and debt. But money, credit and debt are imaginary concepts, given meaning only by those who believe in them. They are not food, land, buildings, etc.

The reason the “washing out” scheme works is because at a certain point on the metaphorical hill (say, five hundred meters, or fifteen million dollars net worth, however you like it), you have enough resources to weather a crisis. You have enough resources to live without producing--enough resources to be a parasite/elite.

Secondly, at another point on the metaphorical hill (say, one hundred meters, or no real net worth), you have no real resources, and you have to produce in order to live.

“Washing out” means reducing to zero (or just washing a good ways lower) all people below the five hundred meter line. Everyone above the line will have the resources to survive the washing out, but almost no one below the line will.

And here’s the most important part: those people with almost, but not quite, enough resources to have reached the elite mark will be reduced to the beginning of the game.

That is how to understand the “bailout” and the “financial crisis.” The elites were not really hurting themselves; they were protecting themselves.

Think about who the stock market “drop” will hurt. The elites will go from thirty million to twenty million, or two hundred million to a hundred and ten. Oooh, frightening. Are they still eating at $80/entrĂ©e restaurants? Yes. Are they still traveling to the Bahamas every year? Yes. Are they still buying $50,000 worth of Christmas gifts for their spouses? Yes. Do they still own four houses? Yes. Flying first class or private jet everywhere? Driving an S500? Sending their kiddies to Harvard? Yes, yes and yes.

How are the elites hurt by this? They’re not.

Now, consider the middle class family with, say, a million and a half in savings earned over two working lifetimes of scrimping. The stock market drops, and their $900K retirement fund goes down to $500K. The real estate market crashes, and their house goes from $600K to $350K. All of a sudden, their retirement just got a little less easy. Instead of passing on a large sum to their heirs, they use most of what they have left up. Maybe they keep working longer.

Or the family with $5 million, drops to $3. Suddenly, they can’t afford that extra property. They’re not starving, but there’s a world of difference in investment income and future planning. Their ascent toward the top has just been stopped. In a generation or two (or less), they’re off the radar. Their holdings have been dispersed, and are no longer large enough to grow to something meaningful.

Here’s a better narrative of what happened with the “bailout” situation:

1) The 90s tech boom and stock-market rise created dangerous levels of wealth in the American middle class;
2) The Wall Street/Congressional elites worked together to relax lending and capital reserve standards to create mortgage crises and financial market crash;
3) Financial markets crash. American stockholders lose a substantial amount of money;
4) Wall Street/Congressional elites come up with a “bailout plan” to steal $700 billion more from the taxpayers, thereby perpetuating the crisis and harming the financial markets further;
5) They steal the $700 billion, the market continues to drop, the economy slides into recession, and the rising American middle class is further segregated from the elites;
6) Elites party worldwide! Life is good!

It doesn’t matter what color the chips in the casino are. The house always wins.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Lies about the LIBOR rate

(Previous on the subject: New York Times lying on the bailout and general bailout lies.)

I just read a great piece by Dean Baker discussing the LIBOR rate lies with regard to the push for the bailout:

[The NYT's lies about the LIBOR rate sound] really bad -- the highest overnight borrowing cost in history. Maybe it would have been helpful to tell readers that this data has only been compiled since 2001, a period of unusually low interest rates.

If we want a longer time frame, we can look at the history for the three month interbank rate. Bloomberg reports that the three month London Interbank rate (LIBOR) closed at 4.05 percent on Tuesday. In the same chart, we can find that it was 5.23 percent a year ago.

Those interested in a little more history can find that the LIBOR rate was over 8.0 percent for most of 1990 and actually topped 9.0 percent on some days in September of 1989.


The rest of Dean Baker on the LIBOR rate.

Remember: no matter how loudly or earnestly the bastards lie, these are the same people who lied about the Iraq invasion.

They are Wall Street. They are the congressional elite complex and their lackeys. They cannot be believed. Every time they type or say something, they are shading it with mistruth. The corporate media exists to lie, fabricate and deceive. If they ever produce something honest, it is because they made a mistake--they were trying so hard to lie that they accidentally bumbled across something a little bit true.

They had no integrity left years and years ago. They wanted this. And they got it, by god. Now they want another $700 billion. And they're going to lie, lie, lie, until enough citizens out there think the invasion of Iraq, I mean, the Wall Street theft of $700 billion, is a good idea. And then they'll take the $700 billion and keep right on lying to us.

New York Times advocates terrorism

Give me $700 billion or you will suffer.

That's basically what the New York Times is warning, here. The article suggests that unless we give the rich $700 more billion, we will suffer: "We are facing a major national crisis...To do nothing right now is to do what was done during the Great Depression."

More: "[A] modern economy can’t function when people can’t easily get credit. It takes a while for this to become obvious, since most companies and households don’t take out big new loans every day. But it will eventually become obvious, and painfully so."

Now, I don't know about you--but I don't like threats. I don't like them at all. The writer is warning us that if we don't open our wallets and give 700 billion dollars to (or put our grandchildren's grandchildren in debt for that amount) the traders, investment houses, banks, etc. that caused the current problem (with the cheerleading of the New York Times, of course), they will punish us by denying credit and destroying our economy, making it painful for us.

Times like these, I'm almost glad for George W. Bush.

USA Patriot Act.

Here's why. From Section 802:

(5) the term `domestic terrorism' means activities that--
...
`(B) appear to be intended--
`(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
`(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion

And in Section 1016, which defines the critical infrastructure of the United States:

(3) A continuous national effort is required to ensure the reliable provision of cyber and physical infrastructure services critical to maintaining the national defense, continuity of government, economic prosperity, and quality of life in the United States.

...

So.

That's right, David Leonhardt: you are now an enemy combatant. You, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barney Frank, and Barack Obama, and the rest of Wall Street: you just threatened the civilian population of the United States with a painful blow to their economic prosperity, and you did it to influence government policy. You warned us that if we don't pay up the money, you'll take out our financial system and slide us into a Great Depression.

A few thoughts:

1) Even if the same rich crooks who got us into this mess could fix it, do we really want to pay them $700 billion to do so?

2) Why can't the $700 billion come from the thieves' bank accounts, instead of ours?

3) Why can't we have the $700 billion, and use it ourselves to stimulate the economy, rather than giving it to them for them to (supposedly) stimulate the economy? We could all sign a pledge to use our share of the money to buy something nice and locally-made, which would create jobs in industries that produced nice things.

4) These are, as mentioned before, the same thieves that got us into this mess. How in the name of all things holy and sane can anyone possibly be considering trusting them any further, especially with $700 billion?

5) Separately from how Mr. Leonhardt, and most of Congress, now legally belongs in Guantanamo for threatening to destroy the economy if we don't give their bankers $700 billion, let's think about the nature of terrorist threats themselves. The reason you don't negotiate with terrorists is that it emboldens other terrorists. If people learn you give in to such threats, they come back for more, because they know they can get it.