Debt Rattle Jun 1 2014: The Illusionary Economy Revives The Home ATM
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Library of Congress Maya Angelou, Caribbean Calypso Festival, New York 1957 In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal uncovers a big problem in the
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle Jun 1 2014: The Illusionary Economy Revives The Home ATM]Just a quick question:
A quote from the article:
“To summarize, if that’s still necessary, home prices, like prices for all assets, are way higher than they would have been without QE.”
The following question may sound a bit snarky, it is not intended that way; Does that statement apply to precious metals like gold and silver?
These seem to be artificially surpressed, I would be more than interested in your views on this
Re: US Gasoline Consumption Plummets By Nearly 75% (Jeff Nielsen)
As always, one must be careful with the definitions used in order to understand data. From the EIA definitions link:
“Retail Outlet – Any company-owned outlet (e.g., service station); selling gasoline, on-highway diesel fuel, or propane for on-highway vehicle use which is under the direct control of the firm filing the EIA-782 by virtue of the ability to set the retail product price and directly collect all or part of the retail margin. This category includes retail outlets: (1) being operated by salaried employees of the company and/or its subsidiaries and affiliates, and/or (2) involving personnel services contracted by the firm.”
“Total sales to end users includes sales through retail outlets as well as all direct sales to end users that were not made through company-operated retail outlets, e.g., sales to agricultural customers, commercial sales, and industrial sales. ”
In my area, BP used to sell thru several company branded stations. They have all been changed to CITGO stations. Thus, the data given likely represents a steep drop in sales thru “company-operated retail outlets” and thus does not represent a drop in total sales of gasoline to the US consumer, as the article implies.
It’s worth noting that the latest EIA release last Thursday for “Product Supplied” indicates an increase in YoY amounts of gasoline (+2.2%) and distillate (diesel) fuel (+5.4%) in the latest 4 week averages. These data do not include the full impact of the Memorial Day holiday, which is the traditional start of the summer driving season. I would not be surprised to see these trends continuing thru the summer…
E.S.,
I think the article explains the writer’s point of view quite well. US gasoline usage hasn’t dropped 75%, but if you focus on certain metrics, it has. It’s about the ways data are being distorted by the US government more than anything else, I’d say.
“the government chooses to measure U.S. gasoline consumption in a very odd manner: by measuring the amount of gasoline entering the domestic supply-chain rather than by measuring actual consumption at the other end of the supply-chain – i.e. “at the pump”.”
Degringolade
My guess is not necessarily, though it’s hard to predict what happens once deleveraging and deflation take off. While many people will say that when stocks plummet, everyone will move into gold, they’d still need to have something left to purchase it with. As for PM being suppressed, it looks that way, but where I differ from gold bugs is I don’t see why it wouldn’t continue to be going forward.
Ilargi: Thank you you the kind (and rapid!) reply.
I tend to wonder sometime if the whole charade that you discuss so eloquently can’t “continue to be going forward”?
Sometimes I despair at trying to understand money and the economy. I wrote this piece five years ago
https://mightaswellliebackandenjoyit.blogspot.com/2009/03/sentient-thing.html
I might want to update it about all the new things that confuse me.
thanks again, be well.
John
The elephant in the middle of the room is that the monetary system itself is a fraud.
Debt money systems are a fraud. Period.
Money lent into existence means that society rents its money, and pays a portion of the proceeds, to people who can create debt (money) out of thin air.
As Ben and Jerry have popularized on a money stamp, “The system isn’t broken, it is fixed.”
Fixed as in rigged. The table is tilted.
When society (including government) borrows $20 billion @ 5% that JP Morgan conjured out of thin air (a gig better than actualize alchemy which is limited by the amount of available lead), society will owe JP Morgan $21 billion in one year’s time.
Since all money (save the relatively negligible coinage) has this same fundamental problem, ALL THAT IS LEFT FOR SOCIETY IS DEBT.
That’s why…
People are bankrupt.
Localities are bankrupt.
Cities are bankrupt.
Counties are bankrupt.
States are bankrupt.
Nations are bankrupt.The wealth of the money power oligarchs IS, BY DEFINITION, THE INEXTINGUISHABLE WEALTH OF THE MASSES.
Debt based money balances… it is a ZERO SUM GAME – even if by artifical construct.
If you can’t vote on the very nature of your money, YOU AREN’T IN A DEMOCRACY, LET ALONE A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
You live in a Money Power controlled fascist system where the Money Power rules, not the powerless nescient / ignorant citizen.
15,000 hours of oligarch operant conditioning in “school” is enough to make most people defend their captors and deny their anagnorisis to the bitter end.
That denial is every bit the root cause of our current situation as the clothesless “emperors” running this criminal debt based monetary system enterprise.
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on [in rationalized denial] and do nothing [about the root cause of the problem].” ~ Albert Einstein
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on [in rationalized denial] and do nothing [about the root cause of the problem].” ~ Albert Einstein
Sorry, Albert, but until vigilantism becomes an accepted way to “solve problems,” there is no way to transfer the accountability for evil from “those who do evil” to “those who look on.” No way. Blame Hitler’s mother for the Reichstadt fire why don’t you. Besides, most people don’t even have the time to “look on,” much less do something about it.
And that assumes we’re able to “look on” in the first place. There is such a lack of information and so much misinformation that the vast majority of people are running completely blind even when they try to pay attention (which appears to be rarely). Even where there is a will, there isn’t enough time and money, much less a method, for a way.
A chief problem in life is figuring out how to correctly gauge the reliability and veracity of your sources. How do you know a seemingly ridiculous article on the cover of National Enquirer is wrong? How do you know an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal is right? Will you place all of your retirement funds on that bet? The vast majority of people on this planet will lose that bet because their trusted sources misled them.
The best we can hope for is a deflationary depression of such epic proportions that the entire elitist / government / corporatist / Rothschild / military edifice crumbles completely to the ground with the rest of us. We’re nearly six years overdue. Bring this motherfucker on already for Christ’s sake.
That said, please don’t take anything I’ve said here seriously, Mr. NSA, Mr. IRS, Mr. Soetoro, Mr. FBI, Mr. CIA, Mr. MSM, Mr. MIC, Ms. Yellen, Mr. Eric Holder, Mr. Mainstream Media. I was just kidding. Nothing personal. Please keep robbing me, lying to me, spying on me, concealing the truth from me and sending your criminal cops to spray, beat and shoot me. Standing still for my gang rape is the least I can do for my country. You guys are such winners. I’m such a loser. That is, right up to the point that changes.
And it will. I just hope I’m not too old by then to enjoy it.
DS, your points are well taken.
I take it you “get” that the very foundation of debt based money is prima fascie fraud, then. After all, you didn’t contest that assertion.
Do you know why I like to start off with the 5th grade math proof beyond all doubt that debt based money is a fraud and a con game. It is because there is no source – it is based on 5th grade math.
There appears to be some kind of mental block to where people can’t talk about the big, fat, fluorescent white elephant in the middle of the room.
I noticed you side stepped it completely, as do most. I don’t sense any effort was made to do so, but it always seems to happen.
The actions of the victims do matter. For one, casting a vote for Debt Money Bankster financed Puppet #1 or Puppet #2 and expecting different results… is insanity… and I don’t care how good the Bankster financed media layers on those sheep suits. Are you making a connection between all these entities?
As for other things one ought to consider to resist this tyranny, as opposed to doing nothing and greasing the implimentation skids, are listed on the 2nd page of this Debt Money Tyranny PDF:
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/4768883/debtmoneytyranny-6-1-pdf-60k?tr=77
The Debt Money Emperor has no clothes, yet everyone pretends that Debt Money Tyranny is a legitimate system.
“In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.”
― Ezra PoundDarn near the whole planet gets a 0% in applied 5th grade math. It is the most bizarre thing ever.
PS – I don’t know if you talk to people and explain this stuff, but I do – face to face. Most people cower, enter cognitive denial and change nothing. The few that get it and understand mostly can’t be bothered to change their lives either. Slather more grease on the skids of evil. This opens the door to this evil. The schooled professionals are often so confused that they can’t understand the 5th grade math. Who said Rockefeller operant conditioning, aka schooling, isn’t very effective?
Your view is that people are powerless observers… if true, they would have no power or responsibility.
My view is that people have individual power to determine for themselves whether they want to “dance with the devil,” as it were, or make a decent effort to opt out and invest their energy and effort on the side of good.
This empowers people, but it also means they are responsible when they don’t give a crap to make even the smallest changes in their life for the better.
As an activist, I feel empowered. If everyone chose to do what I did, well, the tanks would already be in the streets and the time for elections would be over (the crew in charge isn’t about to walk away once their “jig is up.”).
But, alas, they don’t. They choose to be powerless and, in essence, support the system. Lenin called these people “useful idiots.”
My vision is for something better.
@Diogenes Shrugged,
“Besides, most people don’t even have the time to “look on,” much less do something about it.”
Well, that sounds like rational denial if I’ve ever heard it. I guess African Americans were far too busy working during the period of American slavery to “look on” and do anything about it, the Germans during WWII were too busy with their lives to do anything about the imprisonment of marginalized peoples (Jews, homosexuals, etc.), the people of energy-rich America were far too busy to do anything about illegal/immoral wars during the Vietnam-era and/or Iraq-era, etc.
The information is out there for people who want to find it and understand it. The sad truth is that a) they’d rather not, or b) they prioritize everything else in their lives as being more important to use what time they do have in their lives.
I disagree there isn’t time/money or a “way” to look on – it’s happening right now, slowly as as cheaply as possible, through the dissemination of information (some of it disinformation, as you’ve rightly pointed out), and thousands if not millions of people adding their viewpoints/understanding to the collective conscious. Basically, an additive but frustratingly slow process.
But all roads lead to Rome, and eventually everyone will stand on their own personal precipice of realizing the degree of financial rigging/illegal & immoral wars/energy depletion/etc. in our society. Only those with the highest degree of mental willpower (who weren’t the first trailblazers to push themselves to see something was wrong with the system) will be able to resist these realities through self-inflicted mental gymnastics, lying to themselves, and embracing delusional fantasies.
All that being said, I do sympathize for the frustration you feel for how long this giant lie is taking to unravel. The waiting is the hardest part.
Cheers,
-Variable@Trivium
“The wealth of the money power oligarchs IS, BY DEFINITION,
THE INEXTINGUISHABLE WEALTH OF THE MASSES.”You must mean “the inextinguishable debt of the masses.”
Apart from acknowledging the inextinguishable debt which is the monetary system, it also seems important to believe that your inextinguishable wealth does exist, and can be freely produced by virtuous ways of living, but never consumed. One wonders what forms it might have. Certainly such wealth could not be taxable, monetized or traded for profit on any market. Wisdom would seem inextinguishable wealth, but there must be more substantial forms.
I’ve had some success in denouncing the inequities of the system by defining central banking as “the privatised exploitation of the public money supply; private entities issuing costless credit for private profit at public expense.”
This definition is not entirely valid, since the asset side of the money supply is itself privately owned by a central banking cartel. But accruing interest payments on the public debt liability can only ever come from tax revenues, which are supposedly levied to service the public good.When a country must perpetually borrow new money at interest merely to service the interest on the old, the public debt tends to accumulate with mathematical inevitability until >100% of tax revenue is needed to service interest payments. When countries must borrow at interest from monopolistic private entities who have somehow appropriated exclusive rights to issue credit at no utility costs to them, for their own private profit, the monetary system can then only perpetuate a state of global transfinite usury.
The private ownership of the FED’s banking stock does yield 6% annual dividend at public expense, apparently accruing to interest payments on (public) debt (whither do these payments elsewhere derive?).
Apart from this stock being deliberately undercollateralised in 1913, so that the FED has always been technically insolvent, and the dividend payments always unjustly earned, it also seems an unreasonably high return on investment considering the unnaturally low risk inherent in ownership of said stock. It has historically proved to be the lowest risk investment with the most reliable profitability ever to exist, while promoting structural inflationary disadvantages for everyone in the economy, except for those owners whose assets are rigged to appreciate at some rate above the general inflation they promote.There have been incidental synergistic effects between banking profitability, growth trajectories and expanding public wealth in the past centuries, but the long-term conditions for such mutual advantages are no longer present (and the advantage of banks in this arrangement was always greater than that of the general public). Banking profitability has now become a wholly parasitic function on the greater economy. Therefore the monetary system must be reconfigured away from using privately issued debt-derivatives as public currency.
Might it become possible to transfer by confiscation all privately owned central banking stock (and associated assets) into public hands without collapsing the global financial superstructure and triggering cascading logistical collapse?
@Raúl
The comment protocol has been altered to only allow one single edit for submitted posts instead of three edits previously. One edit is often not enough to amend my dyslexic fumbling and stylistic misjudgments, could the edits be increased to two?@ TheTrivium4TW:
I agree with your posts; just picking a fight with Al Einstein is all. Shows what afternoon tequila on a hot day can do. I was for the most part just venting.I’m retired and spend over eight hours every day on the Internet, and have for well over a decade now. I send friends and family members select articles and videos, and do so sparingly (one link every few days). I receive no feedback except an occasional brief comment from just one recipient. Yesterday I was told outright that nobody has the time for my links.
I’m surrounded by “useful idiots,” but so is nearly everybody else. Employed people tend to want to find a little happiness and meaning in their lives during the little bit of free time they’ve earned. Choosing to remain aware of all the alarmism and drama in the alternative media takes a lot of time, and they’re not happy with the opportunity costs associated with that. We all know that living in a republic with a Constitution means they shouldn’t have to spend eight hours a day on the Internet, otherwise what standard would you set for those people trying to stay informed before 1990? Back then it was MSM or nothing.
We can blame everything the Fed does, for example, on people who “choose” to remain unaware, but I really don’t think that’s fair. Those of us who have the time to attempt to discover what’s really happening in the world should handle the Fed problem, and thus my comment on vigilantism. As long as those of us who KNOW fail to hang the thieving, psychopathic parasites from lamp posts (or similar recourse), we have no business bitching at those who don’t yet understand the gravity of the situation. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO SOLVE THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS BY VILIFYING RETARDED PEOPLE. I put that in all cap’s so I wouldn’t have to repeat it.
> Ignorance is bliss.
> Ignorance is dangerous.For years, I sent money to get Ron Paul re-elected to the House in Texas. Then I spent heavily on his Presidential campaigns. I figure I’m out something north of twenty thousand dollars with not a single thing to show for it except a baseball cap. Before that, it was Harry Browne. My god, how I loved Harry Browne. Short of driving all the way to D.C. with something that will leave me in prison for the rest of my life, I’m not sure I can be of any help any more. I’m frustrated that I can’t talk about anything that matters to anybody (because they won’t know what I’m talking about). So I comment (happily, without edit) here, after TAE articles, to feel sorry for myself, I guess. ZeroHedge isn’t as consistently good as TAE, but that’s just my opinion.
I expect everybody reading this TAE website is pretty much aware of things. But then, I’ve over-estimated bright people in the past. You all know nobody died at Sandy Hook, right? Nobody lost his legs in the Boston Marathon, right? You all know why, right? You all know about chemtrails and HAARP, that CO2 has NOTHING AT ALL to do with climate change, right? Considering that we don’t all agree on those issues, what does “remaining aware” mean? If you don’t already know those things for FACTS, I can’t possibly regard you as being aware. That puts you right back in the camp of “unaware,” or even worse. Sorry. That’s just the way it is.
Please don’t come back with something along the lines of, “you don’t know everything.” No, I’m a long way from that, and I have all too often formulated assessments of things that are entirely, and nearly unforgivably, wrong.
Anyway, I HOPE Ellen Brown gets into office in California, and I HOPE that brings a lot of positive changes, but I’m afraid she’ll actually be BLAMED for the big deflation that’s bound to happen during her term. So I’m not donating, and neither are the teeming millions who never even heard her name, much less read her articles. And how about you?
You wrote, “Your view is that people are powerless observers… if true, they would have no power or responsibility.” Actually, I don’t think most people qualify as observers at all. And as to responsibility, I’ll tell you specifically what I think some other time, because this has already gotten too long. But you are my friend and I do sincerely thank you for your observations.
@ Variable81:
It’s too difficult and long-winded to conjure clever rejoinders to all your comments, so I hope this will suffice.
Let’s play a thought game. Can you think of a single genetic trait that is the same for all human beings? No variation allowed. Everybody identical in that particular regard.
No?
Now, in an enormous population, would you suppose that there are environmental pressures that might affect how often certain traits get passed on?
Yes?
Can you imagine the genetic changes that might occur in a population over a span of hundreds of millions of generations?
Yes?
Then you embrace “evolution by means of natural selection” as THE explanation for your existence, right?
Don’t get me wrong here. I’d “fight to the last ditch” to prevent anybody, especially government, from persecuting you for your answer, whatever it is. But if you don’t embrace natural selection as the explanation for your presence here on Earth, then you mustn’t ever lecture me on topics having to do with being informed.
I saw a video recently where a famous MSM guy (can’t recall his name) was interviewing G.W. Bush. He asked Georgie whether he thought Christians, Jews and Muslims worshipped the same god. Georgie-boy said he thought they did, but that the Taliban worshipped a “false god.” What utter, unbelievable horse shit. It’s effectively the same as asking, “Do you think the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus both love you?” Georgie-boy: “Yes, I do. But I think Frankenstein’s monster loves the Taliban.”
Those of us who understand will have to handle this (the world situation) or it won’t get handled, that’s all. Change will not come democratically. It makes no difference at all whether a majority of people understands things. No difference at all. Sorry. I hope we can live up to the challenge in some meaningful way, but I’m really quite uncertain at this point.
Anyway, now that you’ve shown yourself to be an evolutionary biologist and atheist, don’t you wish everybody else would embrace the available information explaining things – – especially things as fundamental as the glorious improbability of their very existence? After all, religion has always been about the torture and killing of non-believers, not some kind of insipid “love” fantasy. Or maybe I should say it’s been about both.
You are my friend, and I was speaking to some general, faceless person here, as I know nothing about you personally. Just lamely trying to make a point or two within the severe limitations of an Internet comment. Which makes me wonder why anybody Tweets. But that gets back to my statement about retarded people.
@ Gravity:
Consider using a text editor to write your comments, and then copy them over to TAE. Take your time, then post your final draft and live with the results. I suggest this because I’ve so often embarrassed myself writing comments directly.
Diogenes Shrugged said “I’m retired and spend over eight hours every day on the Internet, and have for well over a decade now. I send friends and family members select articles and videos, and do so sparingly (one link every few days). I receive no feedback except an occasional brief comment from just one recipient. Yesterday I was told outright that nobody has the time for my links. ”
Yep, could have been written by me. I’ve never received any feedback either, except to quit sending links. So I rarely send anything anymore. People are busy with their own priorities and interests.
Diogenes S.
I will try to remember, it is some strange off-program that works with wordpress. I can’t for the life of me remember what it is right now. As for the picture, it is a shot of a fossil that I dug up at Stonerose fossil bed in Republic, Washington. It is a fern from the Eocene. A fossil mascot for another old fossil.
@Diogenes Shrugged,
Not sure I completely understood everything from your response, but I will touch on this:
“Change will not come democratically. It makes no difference at all whether a majority of people understands things. No difference at all. Sorry.”
I would agree that change won’t come about through the “democratic” system we have today, or through any means of peaceful voting. When push comes to shove, people will vote with their fists and blood will run in the streets.
But the point is that change will come. It absolutely matters that people understand things; they will not act until they understand that they must. As long as they continue to harbour some delusion that government will save them if they maintain their complacency, nothing will change. That’s not to suggest that trend will continue forever.
Also, those of us who “understand” have no responsibility to change the system forcefully – it would be a form of coercion or tyranny to try to force people to think the way we do, regardless if they understand or not. All we can do (or are responsible for) is be good stewards of our vision for the future and hope people will come to the realizations we have in due time.
Cheers,
VariableSometimes people don’t act or react, until forced to. Example, we live near a small creek that usually is less than a foot deep, except during flash floods when it rises to overflow 6-7 foot banks plus merging into nearby ponds creating a huge lake, and flooding streets. Two weeks ago, there was a horrible flash flood. This time, the people on the north side of the creek got flooded in their houses such that they are having to remove carpet, throw away stuff and repair walls. On the south side, we were lucky, this time, but it was close.
It is now major purge time for me too. I ask myself, would I miss this if it got wet from a flood or blown away in a tornado? If not, purge it or give it away.
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