[Formerly T-Bear]

An interesting posting at The Vineyard of the Saker.

https://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/the-european-central-bank-ecb-invented.html

Look what’s going on whilst distractions divert attention. That <strike>Nice Treaty</strike> Lisbon Treaty needs be rescinded, the Irish Republic was correct the first time, the French, as usual have theirs up their nether regions in their reconstruction of that failed attempt at constituting the EU.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Boogaloo – 5 November 2014 – #16356

A question: And just how is this going to work out in a population inflicted with cultural, historical and intellectual Alzheimer’s dementia?

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Golden …

Your § 1: That certainly states an opinion, where did you find it?

Your’s again § 2: Sounds like the beginning of another conspiracy theory with the universal bad-guys, the progressives taking over the lead from the liberals – Oh! wait, you did get in a shot at those evil liberals at the end. How very Libertarian can you ever get. I don’t know Piketty gets almost everything wrong; I do know you do.

Finally your § 3: Not so sure what Piketty’s claims are, most references seem to be making claims for or about the author as you are. Certainly the inequality in an economy is nothing new and at present is only beginning to resemble that of the opening of the 20th century. Wasn’t that a glorious time to be working class? Not everybody had the resources to put together a railroad and rape the benefits as is your dimensionless imagination.

What your comment provides is a collection of opinion, nothing more, none of which is original, nary a hint of useful, but linked to another opinion (Forbes! Really!) that reflects your own – how nice you were able to find such in the vastness of the internet. Have you ever had an original thought of your own? However it did refresh an old opinion as well. Nothing has changed with The Golden Bollix.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Raúl Ilargi Meijer #16237

In Thomas Piketty’s “Capital … Twenty First Century” (Chapter 10)he reports the growth rates (estimated) from antiquity (A.D.). Nowhere until the establishment of manufacturing did that growth rate exceed about 0.1% or 0.2%, manufacturing increased economic growth to about 0.5 % and the further development of industrialization to about 1.5 to about 2.0 %. At the higher growth rate, gold had become incapable of providing the resources needed then, fiat currency was developed in parallel to supply the required liquidity for commerce. Beginning with the buildup that led to WW 1, gold lost its utility other than an accounting device, even the British Empire abandoned gold in about 1931 after severe problems crippled that economy, leaving France and the U.S. as the sole major hoarders of gold as supporting their currencies. Breton Woods (as written by Washington) established the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency as a substitute for the direct hoarding of gold. Nixon, faced with growing debts from Viet Nam and Chas. de Gaulle’s willful conversion of dollars to gold put an end to the gold connection of the dollar. It also fully liberated the American economy from monetary constraints imposed by the gold standard. Only the imposition of the OPEC embargoes upon the economy put a serious constraint upon economic growth but that was blowback from the slight of hand policies that freedom from gold allowed. The effects of those days are still reverberating in the world markets today. Had gold remained standard, the economic instability that would cause would be incalculable, just the rate of growth needed to recover from the world wars and great depression would assure that. Listen to the gold buggers at your existential peril.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Paraphrasing a well known observation concerning insanity:

Believing repeated deceptions to be true, expecting truth each time, is a form of insanity

How long will it take for people to immediately react to such deceptions as being just another lie not worth the air it arrived on, or the bog-paper it was written on.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ Raleigh
@ V. Arnold

Acknowledging your responses:
Although both Ebola and AIDS are horrific diseases, neither is an existential threat, other than to individuals and it is not beyond the range of possibility that some manipulation has happened, nonetheless, nature is still capable of producing what is observed. More information is needed to arrive at judgment, I’d fear conjectures only add to doubts and confusion.
No traditional media remains trustworthy per se, this includes much appearing on the internet, the integrity of much has been compromised by the basic needs of economic survival. That is not to say there are certain sources about specific issues that on the balance tend to retain their integrity. These have to be sought, evaluated and assessed. The numbers of such founts of information in the western media are diminishing at an alarming rate nearing negligible (with occasional commission of information). This gathering void is somewhat tempered by heterodox reporting through internet and social medias in haphazard fashion. After that becomes compromised, few options remain to be discovered and utilized, that future has great fogs obscuring those possibilities.

Both these comments address to differing degree and manner an issue that has definite existential threat. That threat has become the credibility of governing institutions to manage their political/social economies. Once the ability to competently manage complex networks is lost, it is near impossible to reestablish those networks using status quo methods without employing ever increasing compulsion, either through artificially manufactured consent or through brute force of authority. Neither bodes happiness. The (now) Ancien Régime will not surrender power until it is taken from their cold dead hands and all that implies and entails. Your milage may vary.

[Formerly T-Bear]

The progressive Firedoglake has a post by a operationmindcrime with a number of links to the MH-17 assassination/murders. I recall one photo showing the purported cockpit floor completely awash with blood. Since the voice and flight recorders ended up in CGHQ/MI6 custody, figure on missing minutes of recording no less important than Nixon’s 18+ minutes. Count on the relevant Ukrainian ATC tapes never seeing the light of day as they would verify whatever radio transmissions occurred after the cockpit voice recorder’s recording went missing.

Just to think Russia published whatever information they held within days of the incident, the Oaf in the White House is still lying like a poorly woven carpet, and the msm is fixated on unwitnessed, non-existant BUKs (but provides a superb marker for there being propaganda spewed therein).

It is beyond comprehension that the Government of the Netherlands is complicit with the murder of (NATO) so many Dutch citizens and coverup of this crime. About the only redeeming factor may be it’s only a short taxi ride to the ICC The Hague for those responsible.

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ venuspluto67 16097

It is forbidden to notice it’s perfectly fine to print money for whatever suits our leaders and what they want to do with it. It is totally another matter when printing money is not for something the great ones have an interest in. You are not to look behind that particular curtain, ever! If this happens again, it’s room 101 for you.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Ilargi, methinks you are onto something with:

“The something else that is going on is that our brains have been kidnapped …”

evidenced by the absence of any economic education and the destruction of historical memory. Without these and a common language, the likelihood of resolving the complex of problems now presented is far less than a room full of monkeys on typewriters coming up with “Hamlet”. So much of your fearsome debt isn’t debt but a debit. Not knowing this, it becomes impossible to apply the appropriate credit to cancel out the balance. Even at global scale, economics is a closed system that accounting means are applicable to, that means all credits are directly related to debits. If the public hasn’t the dimmest idea about economics, how on earth are they to competently choose amongst the various schemes they are presented with. As for history, …

[Formerly T-Bear]

There is an old cave in Northern Spain that dates back as much as 20,000 years ago, decorated by people from time to time as they felt the need. A copy of this cave has been erected in fine fidelity to the original so that the greater public can partake of experiencing the cave without endangering the original. Attached to this exhibition is a museum elaborating upon some of the contemporaneous artifacts found that still exist, mostly of bone and stone. At that early date, economic man can be discerned, incompletely; furthermore, social organization can be implied – must be implied for such organization to operate. Not much has changed since, that is the way the world still operates; why get rid of something that works, has worked? About the only thing that has changed from those times is that those of the group have lost the run of themselves; have chosen the flickering flame of belief as opposed to the steady clear light of fact; have learned myth instead of the minutiae of their history, have succumbed to temptations of passively living rather than ceaselessly striving for excellence, for those, there is no future past their present delusions and distortions – cry not for such heathen of the herd, some will surely survive.

When, in the future, the ideological fantasy that passes as economics of this era is studied to understand the driving causes leading to failure, one of the central causes will have been the failure of language itself to provide necessary communication to maintain a desired level of complexity. The record will also show that communication had become restricted to those acolytes proving themselves ‘true’ by their willing ability to accept contradiction without question, being devout believers of their catholic orthodoxy (look at the political leadership of the EU and the politicians of the countries comprising, say it isn’t so, the reactionary status quo doesn’t do self-correction).

The Augean stables of edifice economics will require the labours of multiple Hercules to rid the shite that now passes as economics. Language does have the ability to remove the detritus the abuse of language leaves behind. It will be for those of the future to decide how this will come to pass, if at all, and define their language to meet their needs. Power cannot be bad nor wealth evil, if the species is to survive – they are how survival is accomplished.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Since there is obviously nothing of substance in your lengthy cut and paste cheetodust screed, it will remain unread. It is presented by a charlatan, filled with opinion, substantiated by opinions of other ignorants, and glorified by reams of self reference. It would be amusing if it weren’t so sad. Sadder still, all such rantings do is divert others from the good information provided by the site’s hosts and quality observations of qualified commentators. Everything you have ever produced here has been shite, give it a rest.

Note to hosts: As long as this charlatan and several others are supported by this site, please understand why no further donations will be forthcoming from this quarter. How does one log out after submitting?

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ #7050
Can I ask about the fall in savings and investment (similar to your first graph) occurred that brought down Japan and the other Asiatic Tiger economies, was this vanishing of capital the culprit in devastating all those economies?. Was the only tiger economy to recover the only one to install capital controls? Should reassessment of World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Washington Consensus policies be undertaken? If not, cui bono?

[Formerly T-Bear]

@ #7047
What a magnificent display of ignorance you have presented. Another of your long winded diatribes insisting on conspiracy, keep repeating and your comments are soon to be known as Triatribe4TWTripe. You are a waste of space and bandwidth and contribute absolutely nothing to any discussion at this site. Those subscribing to conspiracy theories are to be found almost exclusively among those whose lives are factually deficient and knowledge free, conspiracy is the only coherent part of their lives. That is what your persistent follies here announce whenever your nom-de-blog appears. Sometimes it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool rather exposing your mind and remove all doubt.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Put the fork in the EMU, its done.
The creation of the Euro was a landmark achievement on the par with landing men on the moon. Consider what a common currency amongst seventeen divergent national sovereign economies entails. For the first time prices for labour, goods and services have a common measure and a common value in a political association of some 503 millions population, the monetary union is itself of greater population than the United States by some tens of millions population. The European Monetary Union is by far the wealthiest group in the world. And all that is being wasted by political incompetency well into the region of criminal. The display of economic ignorance is itself world class, there being nary a PhD amongst the leaders nor their advisors that is worth the sheepskin upon which their diplomas are inscribed. This lot reflect quite poorly upon the academic institutions responsible for their education, funding for such academic failures should be reduced to the lowest levels until they clean their stables and again produce the excellence they once were capable. Their production of economic morons must be brought to a stop.

Each country originally joining the EMU had sovereignty of their currencies in common. It is inconceivable that these countries could consider complete surrender of that control over currency without there being that same ability in the institutions being created unless these negotiations contained a fraudulent flaw that went unnoticed. For some forty years a pseudo economic gospel has been in vogue, a theology camouflaged under empty and deceptive rhetoric of neoliberalism, its acolytes legion and ensconced in every conceivable position to promulgate their received economic wisdom. As the generations changed and experience gave way to subsequent leaders, TINA (There IS NO Alternative) offered removed all option from consideration. Neoliberalism became the only option and poorly educated politicians had no choice.

The prospect now being faced has two basic options. It can continue with the program as it is being presented and will completely destroy the economy and wealth for generations. Or it can return to the drawing boards and redesign the existing institutions in a manner which restores each national economy a semblance of control of the currency used in each economy. No mandarin sitting in Brussels is capable of such control, no number of mandarins are capable either. To insist that they can is to invite failure at the first opportunity. The choice is now, does Europe go down the toilet, or do the leaders pull their heads out of their asses (or be replaced by real economic competence) and work out a policy that allows the body of nations of the EMU to control their economies and currencies in a common rational manner. The clock is ticking… and peons don’t buy Mercedes, very often.

[Formerly T-Bear]

So it’s been five years of The Automatic Earth, tempus fugit.

What would that be in Yankee Years?

Thank you for all your efforts, they are truly appreciated.

All the best……….

[Formerly T-Bear]

Seldom does one find such an undistorted view of what is, comprehensive, cohesive and consistent.

One possible addition: There has not been a legitimate government of the United States since the election of 2000 when the constitution was shredded by the Supreme Court in electing a president. Usually coup d’état is the term used but media propaganda altered the language and camouflaged the act. An ill educated and economically abused population was none the wiser, the corruption of government was complete and matched the corruption of the law, all to polled public approval, or so the story goes.

History is an independent creature in the long run although victors are allowed short term privileges in the writing of it. ‘Too big to fail’ is not ‘too big to fall’ and gravity has not surrendered its effects upon mass; what is in store is going to hurt – big-time.

About the only institution remaining connected with facts (of necessity) is the military and they have massive appetites. The longer the governance that feeds that appetite is in functional deadlock, the more likely it becomes the military will presume control of power, nature abhorring power vacuums. Not even the billions of the wealthy are enough to feed the new boss for long and they too will be swallowed into that insatiable maw. As force becomes less effective over time, military power will evaporate until it too is replaced. By what, will be anyone’s guess. It may come to pass that knowledgeable intelligence will come to the fore, but that is a hope (sure liked the hopium remark), not a prognosis; a working understanding of the complexities of economic process needs be constructed and widely understood, nothing likely is on the horizon. But the world will probably have baked by then.

[Formerly T-Bear]

A troika was a three horse drawn vehicle that provided greater stability on slippery surfaces, one horse slipping would certainly bring down the other if there were only two and not so likely when three are drawing, the economic entity so named hasn’t the hope of creating stability, troika is singularly a poor reference. Otherwise a fit word for this economic group may come from China, the TRIAD, in reference to *Chinese secret societies, some now associated with criminal activities, esp. heroin trading* which may be a better view of the IMF, ECB, and the Euro Commissioners. Just a thought.

** from Chambers Maxi Paperback Dictionary 1992

[Formerly T-Bear]

How geranium is it that tulips aren’t rosy?

Have you a supply of brain-bleach after offering Geert Wilders picture twice? His Mom should be only so proud of that one.

Are there any requirements for relevancy in comments, looking at Trivial4TW’s last offering which detract from the value of TAE. Fluoride poisoning indeed, went out with the John Birch Society, recommend getting a life and stifling until that is accomplished. Next thing on such agenda is ‘trickle down economics’ is something other than some cheating eejit higher than you on the social ladder pissing down on you.

[Formerly T-Bear]

The ECB still got it wrong, bless their pea-pickin’ souls. The ECB should not be BUYING bonds, they and the national central banks should be the ones SELLING bonds to the markets, bonds contracted for specific periods and SPECIFIC rates. The buyers (the market) have the choice to buy or not, as befits a truly free market. Any change desired before the period or rate is completed, the bonds can be sold on some secondary markets at the buyers will at the buyer’s risk. This would put a good measure of sovereignty back into the control of the issuing state. There is nil chance this will happen as long as incredible debt can be mass produced to stuff the vaults of a handful of creditors as income producing assets.

[Formerly T-Bear]

Did I just see the Spanish debt is now nearly 100% of GDP?

Rajoy has been in office about 6 Months, his predecessor Zapatero left office with a debt ratio of about 64% but with later information that has gone to about 66%.

GDP of Spain is about €1,500 Billions but falling now about 7% per year (€105 Billions). 33% of €1.5 Trillions is about €500 Billions added to the country’s debt in just 6 months. Just to whom does Rajoy have allegiance? Is anybody keeping score, other than the troika bankers? This will not end well, Spain will be the bridge too far for the EMU.

The value of the Euro in the EMU was the proof that a common unit of accounting could be adopted across national boundaries and accepted by those various populations. The failure of the experiment may cloud this happening again if the elites do not exercise great caution, when the Euro fails so too will be any postulated world currency and may blow-back against the US dollar in its role as reserve currency given the US inability to govern itself in a stable manner. If that is the case, the passing of the Euro will be a dear disaster of epic consequence.

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