backwardsevolution
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Dmitry Orlov, when asked if he’d been surprised by anything since the 2008 crisis, said that, yes, he had not seen something previous to this time, namely that there are not many nation-states anymore because most countries are all beholden to financial interests.
“So the countries we have are exactly as fragile as the financial system. That is not something that I initially realized. I knew that there was a lot of corruption. I knew that there was a lot of inbreeding between the financial and political elites, but I didn’t realize that the nation-state, as such, is pretty much gone.”
Both Romney and Obama are taking their orders from the financial elite. No matter who wins, the financial elite has got it covered.
Ilargi – another great piece. Thank you.
“To make him win, they need to cause or hasten an economic disaster. But that would cost them a lot of money…”
As you said, that’s a “big gamble” on their part. Why upset the apple cart if you don’t have to.
“Unless Mitt’s been a set-up patsy boy from the get-go. Hey, at least that would explain Romney’s non-campaign so far.” And: “They have nothing left to lose. That is, unless they’re patsies, and were set up to lose.”
You know, this is exactly what I was thinking. Both Romney and Obama are corporate employees – either one will do. It’s brilliant – if voters get angry at Obama, they can always vote for the other corporate puppet, Romney.
The status quo is maintained by appearing to give people a choice.
John Day – yes, between genetically modified foods, nuclear radiation (Fukushima), global warming, the central bankers who are crushing us with inflation, we are sitting ducks.
Great article on how Monsanto went into Iraq and India, how the farmers have suffered.
“The Canadian farmer argued that he had purchased no Monsanto canola seeds, had never planted Monsanto seeds, and was frankly horrified to find that the genetically modified crops had taken hold in his acreage. Perhaps, suggested Schmeiser, the plants in question were the product of a few rogue GM seeds blown from a truck passing by his land?
Monsanto was uninterested in Schmeiser’s theory on how the Roundup® Ready plants got there. As far as the company was concerned, Schmeiser was in possession of an agricultural product whose intellectual property belonged to Monsanto. And it didn’t matter much how that came to pass.
Monsanto’s interpretation of the impact of seed contamination is, of course, a good one if its goal is to eventually own the rights to the world’s seed supply. And that goal may well be in sight. In fact, a 2004 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that much of the U.S. seed pool is already contaminated by GM seeds. If that contamination continues unabated, eventually much of the world’s seeds could labor under patents controlled by one agribusiness or another.”
Ilargi – what a great article! The video was very well done too. Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” all over again.
Get everybody excited, employed, feeling fat. They then buy a house (of course, mortgage is in Swiss Francs). Whoops, economy goes down, Hungarian currency depreciates against the Swiss Franc, and now the people can’t pay.
IMF swoops in, provides country with a loan, infrastructure is privatized…..we’ve all heard this before.
So Orban taxed these privatizers, and he will pay for it. I feel for him too, but what can he do? Our Western media is and will continue to portray him in the worst light possible.
John Day – thanks for the Monsanto post! Great read. These guys have got to be stopped.
There’s so much going on in the world these days, you can hardly keep up with it all. Where do you start? It’s overwhelming at times.
Ashvin, you have always been a kind and understanding soul. I wish you all the best in your search, and look forward to reading more of your good articles. Thank you.
Looks like he’s really ticking the banking world off:
“Hungarians and others in Eastern Europe chose Swiss franc mortgages in the years leading up to the financial crisis because of their low interest rates. At the time, a Swiss franc could get 160 Hungarian forints, now its closer to 252.
Fearing defaults and the country’s exposure to foreign-currency debt, the government introduced a scheme that allows borrowers who make payments on time, the opportunity to pay a fixed rate of 180 Hungarian forint to a Swiss Franc. The catch? They only have till the end of the year to participate in the scheme, have to pay about 10% in interest and only have 60 days from the date of the application to borrow the funds or raise the money.
Earlier this year we reported that bankers were furious at Orban because the scheme would force banks to assume losses stemming from the difference between the artificial exchange rate of 180 Hungarian forint to a Swiss franc and the market rate. Austrian banks like UniCredit Bank Austria, Erste Group Bank and Raiffeisen Bank International are some lenders likely to take a hit.”
AND:
“Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is set on making banks share the burden with borrowers. In an interview with Metropol (via the Budapest Business Journal), he said the era of bankers had ruined Hungary and Europe and that it was time to end the practice of making borrowers take the hit on losses and risks. He blamed banks for making people believe they could borrow without consequences and creating the illusion of constant access to cheap credit.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/hungary-economy-swiss-franc-loans-2011-9
He wants to make the banks share the burden with borrowers. What, some common sense, fairness?
Great article, Ilargi. You are right, they will fry Orban and his country.
Monsanto needs to be stopped. Good for Orban for kicking them the hell out.
Chris Hedges interview, “Empire of Illusion”. Hedges says, “I think societies that lose that capacity to separate illusion from reality die.” He says America is “clinging to fantasy, to magical thinking.” It’s a great listen – 27 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHle_turjes&feature=player_embedded
Puff – “Why can’t you guys be positive for a change?” Perhaps because they live in reality, perhaps because they see that the people who are running this game show are narcissistic, short-term thinkers who sit squarely on the sociopathic end of the personality spectrum. It’s hard to be positive and feel secure when they have a choke hold on the world.
Ilargi – thank you for another brilliant article!
steve from virginia – “To defend nature in the future will require guns and killing…..the human way of doing business.”
I think you’re probably right about this. Corporate America – the killer of nature, the killer of the soul.
Ashvin – another great article! “Unleashing further development in the Amazon rainforest, an area seven times the size of France, is essential to maintaining the sort of economic growth that over the past decade lifted 30 million Brazilians out of poverty and made Brazil the world’s sixth-largest economy.”
And, oh, what a price they will pay for it in the end.
Ilargi – people are too split. The poor who receive welfare and food stamps aren’t going to complain too much; it could be worse, they think. The people living in homes without paying their mortgages aren’t going to say much because they’re benefiting from the elite not wanting to write off the loss. Speculators buying homes want to see the ponzi kicked back up again so they can unload like they did before. The traders and Wall Street scum certainly don’t want to see any change. The gold bugs are just itching for calamity/inflation, anything to make their play pay off.
The middle class who are living pay cheque to pay cheque are definitely being squeezed, but their life is so filled with raising children that they barely get a chance to lift their heads above water.
The populace have been fed so much propaganda that they don’t know “up” from “down,” and the elite make sure everything is good and confusing. The media is bought. Divide and conquer tactics are being used.
Right now there are too many groups of people “getting by” and no cohesiveness between them. Besides, when they do step up, the jackboots are there to kick them back into place.
Only great pain will unite them. There needs to be more suffering before they get off the couch.
Ashvin – thanks for the great article!
“Like Occupy Wall Street, the film insists that we must “take back” the American Dream. Like OWS, it never seems to grasp the fact that rather than recovering or restoring the A.D., we need to abolish it.”
Totally agree!
“The interest of the poor or the middle class has not been to have the sort of civilization Robert Crandall talks about, or (also interviewed in the movie) Bernie Sanders does, which would include concern for the environment, the welfare of society, the fairness of our institutions, and so on—not at all. Their goal has been, since the late sixteenth century, to get into that upper 1%. When Sinclair Lewis published Babbitt in 1922, a biting satire of the hustling way of life, the reaction to the book on the part of Americans was not to smirk at George Babbitt, but to speculate on how they might become George Babbitt.
There really are limits to the argument that a small cabal of the wealthy and powerful “did this” to us—the rape theory of American history, one might call it. It’s more likely that the process was one of consensual sex. It is hardly an accident that Mr. Reagan won the election in 1980 by one of the biggest landslides in American history, or that every year, when polls are taken of the “who’s-your-favorite-president” variety, Mr. Reagan comes out on top or close to it. Consider also the unrelenting popularity—for decades now—of a book such as Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. If Alan Greenspan was her protégé, so are we all; we all swim in the stagnant pool of her ideological pathology.”
A totally brainwashed society! The elite have done a stellar job on propaganda and marketing; I’ll give them that.
“Slightly more than two-thirds (65%) of U.S. households “own” a home. (The quotes denote the paucity of actual ownership if the mortgage exceeds the value of the home. In that case, it’s more like a lease with a balloon payment.) This super-majority is keenly interested in maintaining housing subsidies and any policies aimed at re-inflating the housing bubble: zero-rate interest policy (ZIRP), government-guaranteed mortgages to marginally qualified buyers, and so on.
The fact that this “changes the rules” so failure (the accepting of losses, bankruptcy, etc.) is voided or transferred to the public ledger is perfectly acceptable to the majority of homeowners pining for a return to bubblicious prices.
Their self-interest is misplaced, of course, because when you change the rules to protect yourself from losses, the market can never clear itself of rot and deadwood, and so the system becomes a zombie market dependent on a steady transfer of losses to the taxpaying public. This transfer of risk to the system eventually leads to systemic collapse.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune12/capitalism-democracy6-12.html
Ashvin – so the debts are wiped out in your scenario. People get to keep their degrees, their houses? That would certainly free up a lot of money, with inflation right around the corner.
Would the price of houses come down, or would they go up? Would people be able to turn around and sell their houses? If they did, what would stop them from levering up and buying several more?
If house debt is gone, how about current market prices? I imagine they would have to come down to zero. What are the chances this would happen?
Charles Hugh Smith has talked frequently about “vested interests”. The problem is that everyone has a “vested interest” in wanting something for nothing.
When the vast majority of people want something for nothing, is it any wonder you get the government you do? You get a government with a licence to steal.
The followers dictate who the leader is, not the other way around.
How is this any different than the jackasses who are raping the planet, those who say, “Oh well, it’s there for the taking, so let’s take it. I want it, so it’s mine. Let’s just go in and ROB another country, plunder the hell out of it, kill any who oppose us because, damn, WE really need those resources and we don’t feel like paying for them.”
Henry Blodget wrote an article entitled, “There’s an Easy, Fair Solution to the Global Debt Crisis – Too Bad No One Ever Talks About It”.
“It’s called ‘bankruptcy.’
The borrower says, “I can’t pay you back” and then the borrower surrenders his or her claim on any assets that he or she still possesses.
The lender, meanwhile, sifts through those assets and recoups what he or she can.
And in this normal, natural state of affairs, both parties get hurt by the experience, and they go home to nurse their wounds, having learned a harsh lesson that hopefully will help them avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
And that’s as it should be.
Because they’re both responsible for the mistake.
The borrower borrowed too much. And the lender loaned too much.
And they both paid the price for their optimism and/or greed.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-fix-debt-problem-2011-11
Otto Matic – I totally agree with you. How could Stoneleigh have predicted the level of fraud and corruption, the accounting rule changes, LIBOR rigging, and on and on? Who could have foreseen this unprecedented intervention?
Viscount, on an intuitive level, you know she’s right. If not for the intervention, she would have been right long ago.
Stoneleigh, another brilliant piece! Thank you.
“… his response was to call my boom and bust model “a bastardized form of monetarism that could only have been derived by a non-economist”. The audience was encouraged to laugh at the concept.”
He pulls rank and laughs – what a jerk!
Trivium – the Ultimate History Lesson is on my list of things to watch. Thanks for posting.
Ilargi – you are a wonderful writer. You have a way with words. Thank you.
The Chinese criminals are sucking the lifeblood from that country too.
China’s Fragile $2.2 Trillion Shadow Banking System:
1. The Investment Trust industry
2. Pawn shops
3. Guarantors
4. Underground banks
5. Wealth management products (WMP)Leverage upon leverage upon leverage, sliced and diced and ponzied. When this finishes unravelling, there will be nothing left.
The article highlights David Cui’s (Merrill Lynch China strategist) report.
“Given the shadow banking system’s enormous size, importance to the real economy in terms of the credit it provides, and the numerous feedback loops back into the traditional banking sector, China could face major issues if it starts to look like no one is able to pay anyone else back.”
Ilargi – thanks for the very interesting article. Hu Nu? Vancouver did, as a lot of the hot money has ended up here, pushing our prices (and Toronto too) into the stratosphere.
“Virtual money” and “a shell of a country” – and then the crooks quickly flee their homeland, to be greeted with open arms by Canada.
How sad for the peasants in China. Many have been forced off their land, they’ve had to deal with choking pollution, high inflation, and all so a certain segment of society could get rich.
What a world we live in.
Buddha and Tolle – living in the “here” and “now”: learning from our past mistakes, but not dwelling on them; looking forward to a bright future, but not getting locked into a particular route (being flexible, realizing some things will work out and some won’t).
Keynes, Hayek, Marx, Friedman – set in stone, inflexible. Disciples (i.e. Krugman) are too locked into a particular model, and when that model is no longer working, they can’t give it up.
YesMaybe, I think that’s what the author meant.
Great article! Thanks for sharing.
“Historically, financial speculators accounted for about 30 percent of oil trading in commodity markets, while producers and end users made up about 70 percent. Today it’s almost the reverse.
A McClatchy review of the latest Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates oil trading, shows that producers and merchants made up just 36 percent of all contracts traded in the week ending Feb. 14.
That same week, open interest, or the total outstanding oil contracts for next-month delivery of 1,000 barrels of oil (about 42,000 gallons), stood near an all-time high above 1.486 million. Speculators who’ll never take delivery of oil made up 64 percent of the market.”
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/21/139521/once-again-speculators-behind.html
Candace – my post got lost, so I’ll try again. First of all, I would never want to “do away” with anyone. I’m not talking about that.
Secondly, anyone making 35K is not in the top 1%, not even close. Try adding another zero. The top 0.01% are the ones who make the really big money.
Candace, I am not against anyone making money (I’ve done so too). There are many, many good citizens who make lots of money, legitimately. I’m talking about fraud, corruption, opacity, changing rules when it suits them, offloading bad assets onto the backs of the taxpayers, artificially suppressing interest rates, selling assets that they knew were bad to unsuspecting investors, etc. I could go on and on.
Bernie Madoff and a few others took the fall. They were just the very tip of the iceberg.
All central banks are acting in concert (whether they’ll be successful is another story). There is definitely engineering and top-down control. We shall see how it plays out.
Candace – first of all, nobody is talking about “doing away” with anyone. I’d never be part of that, and I don’t know where you got that from.
Secondly (and correct me if I’m wrong), but 35K does not put you even close to the top 1%. Add another zero. It is the 0.01% who really make the money.
I’m not against anyone making money (I’ve done so). I’m against fraud, corruption, opacity, changing rules when it suits them, offloading bad assets onto the backs of taxpayers, artificially suppressing interest rates, propping up assets, etc. Then they have the audacity to speak of the “free market”.
Most of your Congress is bought and paid for.
Candace – “If an historian says something happened most of the time, that gets conflated into 100% of the time.”
So because Quigley said that they “influenced” events in the past, he’d say it again? Maybe, maybe not. Certainly people like Bill Black and Janet Tavakoli believe there’s more than just influence going on. They call it “control fraud”.
“I am wary of the way some commenters on this thread wish to demonize groups labelled “bankers” or “elites”. If enough hatred gets going,how long will it be before someone who is educated or wears glasses is an elite? I think there are events in humanities recent past that shows how dangerous that can be.”
Wow, that’s a leap. You’re using your own argument, that it must happen 100% of the time.
So what, we just do nothing? We look the other way? Make excuses for their behaviour? Don’t go after them because that might lead to another French Revolution? Deregulate some more, just so it doesn’t appear we’re demonizing them?
Come on! Sometimes you have to stand back – really far back – and call a spade a spade!
Candace – “Perhaps he would say ” they were resuscitated and currently greatly influence political events. “
“Influence” is way too mild a word, like saying a punch is a slap, a slap is a wink. They had a windfall in their engineered boom, and they’re busy engineering now. To “engineer” is to exert some control over/to steer, because you are manufacturing.
No, there’s more than just influence going on.
Ash – “These are the people who could do well for themselves and for others by adopting completely different perspectives at multiple scales, because they will eventually be screwed over just as badly as everyone else by the policies they are helping to implement.”
Totally agree with you there. They know not what they do; they need to step back from the situation. Most likely they got in the positions they did because they were conforming types, obedient, and totally bought into the current belief system. They don’t see the danger ahead of them.
As for Dr. Quigley, he may have said that the influential Wall Street group ceased to exist about 1940, but I’ll bet, if he were alive today, he would surely say they took a deep breath and got resuscitated around the Thatcher/Reagan period, were nursed back to health by the Clinton administration, and that they ARE presently in control of the country, again.
In deer/reindeer populations and wolves, what happens when we get rid of the wolves (regulators, the bond market)? Who polices the ones who get too far out front (the big risk-takers), or the ones who straggle too far behind?
Where are the wolves?
@ Golden Oxen: “Let’s not get carried away with whales and ants, although most of what is said about different perspectives is certainly true.”
To me, when we get “carried away” and settle into a box is when we DO NOT SEE the whales and the ants. I don’t mean environmentally, but how their systems work.
From Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” – 1966:
“There does exist … an international Anglophile network … which we may identify as the Round Table Groups. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected … to a few of its policies … but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”
And:
“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.”
https://www.wanttoknow.info/articles/quigley_carroll.tragedy_hope_banking_money_history.shtml#quote2
THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY’RE DOING.
Some good fascism quotes cited by Charles Hugh Smith:
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group.”
–Franklin D. Roosevelt“Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units.”
–Carl Gustav JungAnd more…
“….. they are for now the best we can do, but hey, that’s not too bad, I hope.”
They are excellent! Thank you.
TPTB certainly knew the bubbles wouldn’t last; in fact, they even bet against them in some cases. Makes you just wonder if this world crisis wasn’t one big planned “shock doctrine” from the get go. Bailouts and rule changes for TPTB, austerity for the masses, assets picked up for a song, privatization wherever possible. It’s always easier to loot when there’s chaos and confusion.
Great article! How sad for Christchurch. These guys are always well-planned and they act quickly; the population doesn’t even see them coming until long after the damage is done.
viva zapata – the Corbett Report on Uganda and its oil (and of course China’s interest in that oil) is a good listen. When my children started to talk about Kony, I wondered what was up; why was he mainstream so quickly. Have a listen.
https://www.corbettreport.com/uganda-africom-and-the-kony-boogeyman/
As for Russia, I once heard a senator say that it was easier just to bankrupt Russia than to fight her, keep the arms race going until she was broken.
As for Japan attacking you, why did that happen? Oil embargo, anyone?
The whole world, listen up: you will follow our way of doing things, or be crushed! Which do you want? No different than a common neighbourhood bully!
For some reason, your posts are not showing up, jal. I see your name, but your two posts are empty. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Great article.
It is the “followers” who dictate the “leader,” not the other way around. People are always putting ideas out there, yet few take hold. As you say, the students must be ready for the message.
TPTB (politicians, media, police) have done a good job so far of portraying OWS as a radical group. But people are not stupid, they know the truth, yet I think TPTB are keeping them happy “enough” by providing food stamps, subsidized housing, extended unemployment, et cetera.
People move on pain/suffering, which apparently is not severe enough yet. So far they are hoping that everything returns to normal; in essence, their eyes are closed, they don’t want to see. Present, short-term thinking is their way of life, not long-term.
