Debt Rattle Feb 11 2014: Coups and Constitutions
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Dorothea Lange “Gas station road sign near Perry, Georgia” July 1936 There can be no doubt that the biggest story today comes courtesy of the Financia
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle Feb 11 2014: Coups and Constitutions]@Orlov:
“Hell, what a planet I landed in…..All the best, Ugo ”
I wake up to that thought every morning.
Desert
Great, great report, Ilargi! So glad the corruption and collusion that took place in Italy is surfacing. Hopefully the rest of the soft coups d’etat will become known. These guys should all be in jail. Martin Armstrong had this to say about Europe the other day:
“There is no all-powerful group who knows what the heck they are doing. Everything is purely ad hoc and it is far worse than anyone can even guess. Sure, there are conspiracies to manipulate a given market and make money short-term and then they troll for the next scheme. But to think someone is actually behind this mess mapping out the future for society as if this was part of a giant plan, well you are attributing the power of God to man. Sorry – you are so off base it isn’t even funny. This is total chaos and politicians simply respond to whatever event is immediately before their eyes without ANY concept of the long-term. This is one step at a time without any sense of where they are even headed.”
Europe is a Basket Case – Just Turnout the Lights Now & Save Energy
In light of the Alan Friedman’s revelations, I wonder if he would change his mind on that.
Charles Hugh Smith also had an interesting piece today entitled “The Middleman-Skimming Economy”:
“Humans avoid changing current arrangements until there is no choice left but to change them–usually when the arrangement collapses in a heap. Greece is an interesting example of just this dynamic: the political parties left, right and center are desperate to keep the corrupt Status Quo intact, while those whose slice of the swag has vanished have already moved on to new arrangements that no longer depend on Central State swag or the many layers of middlemen that skimmed off most of the wealth for various monopolies, cartels and Elites. Here’s the Status Quo arrangement: the Elites trying to take everything they can before their vast skimming arrangement finally collapses. […]
‘At the time, Mr. Kantas, a wiry former military officer, did not actually have the authority to decide much of anything on his own. But corruption was so rampant inside the Greek equivalent of the Pentagon that even a man of his relatively modest rank, he testified recently, was able to amass nearly $19 million in just five years on the job.'”
Not a bad haul, $19 million. We can all relate to that, can’t we?
The article goes on to tell a story of what happened to a journalist/environmentalist who dared hand out flyers and how he was visited by two FBI agents. They knew everything about him, and threatened to take away he and his girlfriend’s funding/grants.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb14/middlemen2-14.html
How tight is this vise really getting?
Re Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, “The Sixth Extinction”:
“It’s not something we’re doing because our species is greedy or evil. It’s happening because humans are human. Many of the qualities that made us successful — we are smart, creative, mobile, cooperative — can be destructive to the natural world.”
Smart? How smart are we when we build nuclear reactors on known fault lines (Japan)? When we continue to frack, taking up and then polluting much-needed water resources? And it’s not something we’re doing because our species is greedy and evil? Bullsh*t. Come on, the ones making the decisions ARE greedy and evil. They’re short-term thinking parasites who are doing it precisely for profit. Do you think they’d be doing it if there was no profit? Nope.
I laughed when I heard Jim Rogers say that he just lucked out when he started working on Wall Street. He said something like the job just fit him; he liked it and was good at it. I wonder whether he’d have liked it if he didn’t make an absolute fortune at it. I doubt it. Give him $25,000.00/year and put him behind a boring desk, and then ask him how much it fit, how much he liked it. (Not that Jim Rogers is a bad guy).
If we care about our children and grandchildren, we’re going to have to step up and stop these guys.
“Scary 1929 Market Chart Gains Traction”:
Lies, damn lies and statistics. When has authority ever not tweaked stats for political gain? CPI?
Of course, it is a congressional election year isn’t it?
Quinn is spot on there. GDP is a joke as an indication of the health of an economy. I mean, WW III would prolly set new GDP records in the seconds before the grid went down.
Collapse Timing? Good luck with that. The wild card of State owned, produced and distributed exchange medium can throw a monkey wrench into the most cosmic of soothsaying. And inflation is the most common form of “Stealth Taxation.”
El Nino? Better get the Shed roof replaced this summer. Last time it happened, most every Reservoir in California was filled and overflowing.
On Italy. Is that spectacle some sort of sequel to the movie Amarcord?
All said, good work here Ilargi, carry on.
1929 similarities? At the 1929 high, I don’t believe the Dow had just reached highs of 14 years previous, inflation adjusted, as this Dow has now.
I also don’t believe the Central Bankers of the earlier era held a candle to the profligate money manufacturers of today.
If, say, we were at 1982 on this chart, the beginning of the last major reset, who’s to say 16,000 isn’t a “nominal” low point before the next inflationary tsunami? https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia1900.html
Devaluations do these things. Maybe 28,000 could be considered more a parallel with ’29, given we are no longer on a gold standard, and Moral Hazard is out of the Genies Lamp? Not a prediction, just food for thought.
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