“Like a fire bell in the night”
Byron York describes the current battle over who controls the Census Bureau. Counting constituencies is one of the most sensitive undertakings in a political system. For centuries, and not just in the US, the question of how many belong what sides of the political fence has been key to determining legitimacy. In Lebanon’s confessional society, for example, there hasn’t been a census taken since 1932. In US history, the Missouri Compromise created an uneasy balance between free and slave states, but the balance did not survive as everyone knows. Once a zero-sum game had been set up, it was only a matter of time before a winner-take-all showdown emerged. As the nation expanded, the Compromise began to fail as the balance between slave and free states threatened to tip decisively in one direction or the other. The aged Thomas Jefferson, writing in 1820 to John Holmes Monticello forsaw the weakness in the Compromise, with all the political balance of terror that it implied and knew that it threatened the Union as nothing else.
I thank you, dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. It is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers, or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. …
I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self-government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it.
Of course, the US is nothing like Lebanon, nor are the issues today comparable to those faced either by the generations of 1776 or 1820 — yet. But a curious sense of two sides living in an uneasy truce is clearly in the air. Byron York describes the issues in terms of one side seeking permanent ascendancy over the other.
Rep. Darrell Issa is not working from a position of strength. As the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa wants to exercise some, well, oversight when it comes to the Obama administration’s controversial decision to transfer control of the Census Bureau from professionals at the Commerce Department to political aides in the White House. But as a member of the minority party on Capitol Hill, Issa doesn’t have the power to compel the administration to do anything.
So this week Issa wrote President Obama a tough-sounding letter, saying that placing the Census Bureau in the hands of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel — the hard-edged political operative who directed the Democrats’ successful 2006 campaign to win the House — is “a shamefully transparent attempt by your administration to politicize the Census Bureau and manipulate the 2010 Census.”
From the “other side” of the aisle, the proposed changes are seen as a process of ‘reform’. But here too there is an undertone of politics. The census must be ‘reformed’ because it prevents a nation waiting to be born from realizing its numbers. The census is to be the midwife of a new order, putting an end to the old. Mark Bailwrites:
“President Bill Clinton proposed changing the United States Census in 1998. Instead of relying just on actual head counts, which always undercount people, Clinton proposed using statistical sampling as well. His goal was a more accurate census in the year 2000. The National Academy of Sciences supported the idea. The GOP put the kibosh on it because the people most likely to go uncounted in the census were those least likely to support Republicans.”
Byron York says that some Republicans are deeply suspicious of the move to put the census under Rahm Emmanuel.
You can forget it if you think the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is going to do anything about the census controversy. So what happens now? Obama will do what he wants, with Democratic assent. But Republicans will continue to ask questions. … But if minority Republicans are the only ones asking, the White House won’t have to answer. Which means the census flap might well be an early test for congressional Democrats. Do they believe in accountability and oversight or not?
It’s an issue to watch.
Tip Jar
Good Gentlemen, The answer is plain as the nose on our faces, “0″ has yet to prove himself, his words are no better than the dirt we stand on, yet he is more likely to prove even worst then that! good men are still standing idle whilst evil merrily dances around, if history does go in cycles then the new dark ages must surely peeking over the horizon and soon to be upon us. The deceit and depth of our sin is only now starting to roost in our home, the sweet life become a mere dream of the dream we all wanted that was promised to us like the advertisement gimmicks used to sell us a product that would never do as sold.
“Which means the census flap might well be an early test for congressional Democrats.
Do they believe in accountability and oversight or not?”
I can only conclude Byron’s on Crack.
“It’s an issue to watch.””
I call it Preordained.
I think Victor Davis Hanson put his finger on the core issue, namely erosion of trust in our country’s central institutions as a result of the moral and ethical irresponsibility of those in power:
Most historians agree that earthquakes, droughts, or barbarians did not unravel classical Athens or imperial Rome.
More likely the social contract between the elite and the more ordinary citizens finally began breaking apart—and with it the trust necessary for a society’s collective investment and the payment of taxes. Then civilization itself begins to unwind. . . . Apparently, the institutions run by our elites aren’t trustworthy, so why should we put any faith in them?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjU5YjFjNmQ0MTk1ZjlhMTUxOGNkZmFmZjU5ZjA2ZDg=&w=MA==
Which is the reason I don’t trust the Dems one iota about the census. I don’t trust them about anything. And the present “uneasy truce,” as Wretchard puts it, fills me with the same foreboding that Jefferson described.
Please excuse the OT comment, but we have good news this AM.
Judd Gregg, BHO’s GOP pick for Commerce secretary has withdrawn.
Gregg had to realize that he would have been the ‘whippin boy’ for all the catastrophic events looming on the financial horizon.
It further illustrates this administration’s cluelessness. BHO will remind us that he has thousands of cabinet appointments. Makes one wonder how those will work out for US.
Well Done Mr Gregg!
Back on track…this falling out is exactly what happened in late 18th century France. Thomas Jefferson, who was living in Paris at the time gave many accounts of the very public displays of antipathy by the plebs.
Something else to ponder: The Fourth Turning…
http://seekingalpha.com/article/119927-the-great-awakening-boomers-your-crisis-has-arrived-part-1-of-3?source=wildcard
Gregg Ends Bid for Commerce Job
In recent days, Republicans have been upset by suspicions that the Obama administration sought to assert more direct control over the census, a prospect they called troubling given that the president’s chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel, is a former Democratic congressman who helped his party win a majority in the House.
“We respectfully request that you reconsider and reverse your administration’s plans to transfer control of the Census Bureau and the 2010 census to the White House staff,” the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, wrote Thursday in a letter to the president.
The census has huge implications social and political. It is used to distribute federal money to states and cities based on population, and to redraw Congressional districts — determining how many seats in the House that growing states will pick up at the expense of states with relatively stagnant populations.
I have found myself been lately, and for the first time in my life, thinking about ways to earn income in the underground, untaxed economy.
One can practically see the social compact tearing.
Like all large organizations, the government is inefficient, but one could think that the corruption and looting was occasional, marginal, and not very efficient. Its becoming harder to think that now.
I take highjacking the census a sign that the looting is inteded to be organized, systematic, and permanent – sort of like having a joint venture between Tony Soprano and Bain consulting move into your neighborhood.
It makes one feel a fool to play by the rules, pay taxes, and advise your children to do the same. One suspects fewer people will elect to do so.
To Mr. Byron York,
Regarding, “Which means the census flap might well be an early test for congressional Democrats. Do they believe in accountability and oversight or not?”
The answer is “No.” Always happy to help.
Remember that the administration intends to flood the census rolls with illegal aliens lured by the porkulus bill. These will be used to skew the reapportionment towards retaining Democratic districts. It is worth reviewing the Wiki regarding the 14th Amendments sec.1, that does not explicitly grant birthright citizenship to the children of illegals and sec. 2 that does explicitly address the need to tie apportionment to the number of citizens allowed to vote. Using non-citizens to increase a State’s representation dilutes the vote of citizens and should be actionable under the 14th Amendment. Is there a lawyer in the house who could please comment?
Dammit, I want a Preview function and decent formatting tools.
The Census is important, to be sure. But the big enchilada in this area is the gerrymander. The Census provides the raw data, but the gerrymander manipulates and distorts that data to create “safe” districts.
There are two problems with the gerrymander:
1. It protects incumbents.
Real redistricting – one that is based upon a mathematical principle like isoparametric inequality – would require incumbents to appeal to a redrawn district that is not stacked in the favor of the existing party, and therefore the incumbent. This fact is especially important to the party in control of the House.
2. It radicalizes the House.
Let’s assume that people’s political views are distributed along a spectrum from liberal to conservative, with 0 being the most liberal and 100 being the most conservative. Now let’s say there is a general election between two candidates, L (who is rated 45) and C (who is rated 55). In this model, people will vote for the candidate who is closest to their beliefs – if you’re a 53, you’ll vote for C because there are 2 points between you and C, while there are 8 points between you and L.
The winner in an election will be the candidate who appeals to the median voter, that is the voter who has an equal number of voters higher and lower than his rating. To prove this to yourself, let’s say there is a voter A who has a rating of 51.3 and there are 1,000 voters with higher ratings (i.e. more conservative) and 1,000 voters lower (i.e. more liberal).
Now let’s say there is a candidate X who has a rating of 51.3 and a candidate Y who has a rating of 51.2 (slightly more liberal). In this election, voter A will vote for candidate X (they have equal political views), as will the 1,000 voters with a higher rating, since they’re closer to X than Y. Y, on the other hand, will get the votes of the 1,000 voters with a lower rating. The result of the election will be 1,001 votes for X, and 1,000 votes for Y, so X will win – simply because X won the vote of the median voter.
This is called the Median Voter Theorem (MVT), and while it is simplified it illustrates the point.
Now, what happens when you add in a primary election?
Let’s take our same district above, and let’s assume that there are 800 Republicans, 700 Democrats, and 501 people with no party affiliation. During the primary, the MVT still applies, but it applies only the those who vote in the primary. The median Republican is 60 and the median Democrat is 40. This means, by the MVT, that the winner of the Republican primary will have a 60 rating and winner of the Democrat primary will have a 40 rating.
These two candidates meet in the general election. Since the median voter is our buddy voter A, the candidate who wins his vote will win, and the Republican will win his vote (60-51.3=8.7, while 51.3-40-11.3), and therefore the election.
Now, this gives the expected outcome, in that a Republican wins a conservative district. But the winner has a rating of 60, not 51.3, so their representative is more conservative than the outcome would be if there were a single, general election. But the minority party can fight this radicalization by moving closer to the median voter – thus you have the emergence of moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats, while tend to pull the majority party back toward the median.
Primary elections, then, have the effect of selecting candidates with more partisan views, but in competitive districts the minority party can fight back by selecting more moderate candidates. Fair enough.
But what happens if you design the district so strongly that only one party can win?
Let’s say we’re dividing an area into two districts. This area has 1,000,000 voters, 500,000 conservatives (>50) and 500,000 liberals (<50), evenly distributed across the area. If you divided the area by a some “random” process, you’d expect to end up with two districts which have roughly equal numbers of conservatives and liberals. If you had a general election in each district, you’d end up with representatives that each had a rating of about 50.
But let’s say that we created two “safe” districts: one Republican that contained 300,000 conservatives and 200,000 liberals, and one Democrat that had the opposite makeup. This means that the winner of the Republican district would be determined by the Republican primary, who will be someone who appeals to the median Republican – let’s say a rating of 60. The same thing would happen in the Democrat district, resulting in a rating of 40. The advantage for the majority party is so overwhelming that it doesn’t matter how moderate the minority party becomes; the electorate itself is partisan, so the election tends to result in partisan winners.
Instead of having two relatively moderate representatives from this area, you end up with two relatively radical ones.
Now, the parties love this, since it makes their primary much more important and therefore increases their power. But it also virtually guarantees that the House will be composed of more and more partisan members.
The Census provides the information necessary to create the gerrymander, but regardless of how the count is conducted, we’ll be stuck with a flawed system until the gerrymander is eliminated.
L3
POTUS’ chief of staff will have ACORN census takers that will coach answers and fabricate data. There is an agenda. They are not taking work load from Commerce for efficiency’s sake. Commerce is bad enough if you consider how they are pushing the guest worker program at a time when many Americans are out of work.
Sounds to me like the same computer modeling techniques that ordained “Global Warming” will now be used to ordain the American Progressive movement.
Issa is right to sound the alarm.
My dad always said, there is only one census that matters: the final ballot-count. “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”
My fear is, any attempt to control the census, and the urge to even have one in the first place, will trend towards one party using the contrived, manipulable poll as a proxy counterweight to the actual ballot-count in order to sway contested elections.
Emphasis on contested election: having plied this trade in Florida during election 2000 and lost, Obama’s party is particularly likely to employ cooked “dimpled chad” numbers in a controlled proxy forum (such as the census) as an adjunct to ACORN’s deliberate election-fraud and the expected legal tussle that the fraudulent count will stimulate.
The party that’ll roll-out the manipulated census during the contrived melee may be for-pay “advocacy” media, a local NGO “community organization,” a national political party, or a robust caucus within, like the Congressional
WhiteYellow, er, Black Caucus. The Left has all four in its pocket ready, willing and able.Once they cook the census, all that’s needed is a close election, and, Snap, they’ll play their “census” card.
As usual LL3 is spot on. In a former life I was involved with local government GIS cartography. One gets quite a bit of input and interest from various sources when re-mapping election districts.
“Once a zero-sum game had been set up, it was only a matter of time before a winner-take-all showdown emerged.”
Communists have always veiwed economies as zero-sum games, they are now in charge, prepare yourself and always remember: Some Pigs are More Equal than Others. You will soon be an “Other”.
This is nothing but a naked power-grab, the MSM should be howling, but instead sits on the side quite as a mouse. The Repubs need to make as big an issue as possible out of this. Better to go down swinging than go quietly into the night.
Back in 1990 I walked around for a few weeks doing census interviews. This is a process that should be treated as a sacred rite with multiple layers of inspection and extreme penalties for fraud, particularly if on the part of staff. The extraordinary casualness of the census and the voting process are the two greatest vulnerabilities in the American polity.
Maybe we should count everyone, dye their finger blue, and then verify that they have a secure ID, and finally verify Selective Service status, in the same process. Failure to register would result in the loss of citizenship rights.
The Left’s strongholds are the urban centers and universities, which tend to be in those same urban centers. The rest of the country is solidly red. Even in my state (New Hampshire)there is plenty of red on the really detailed maps, but in the cities and college towns, where the populations are denser, it is deep blue. Population trumps geography.
The coming conflict and conflagration will pit those of us who live in the countryside vs. the urban dwellers. Guess who is better armed with more military and shooting experience?
Seems to me that we are reaching a point of no return as far as the validity of the political process. Either it ends in tyranny and poverty for most of us, or it ends in civil war.We are qickly approaching the point were electoral politics is nothing but a theater: A grim parody of our heritage. The Democrats could not be clearer in their intent and agenda. It is preposterous to imagine that the Democrats will assert any decent, patriotic oversight at all on this.
They have gone completely over to Socialist Totalitarianism a long time ago. Why would they have a sudden moment of honor? Love of country? Fear of the voter?
This is just the beginning. When can expect all the depredations of a Communist dictatorship. Unless there is an immense shift in the public’s mind, I see no reasonable restoration of the the USA we have known and loved all these years.
This change of heart and mind would seem so radical, so abrupt a shift that it is hard to imagine it happening.
It is doubtful to that their could be a successful “revolution” either.
The future looks pretty grim for us, if you ask me.
wireline writes:
“Like all large organizations, the government is inefficient, but one could think that the corruption and looting was occasional, marginal, and not very efficient. Its becoming harder to think that now.”
Yes, Mr. Obama is quite efficient, ruthlessly so if one looks at his political career.
Joe Buzz writes:
“As usual LL3 is spot on.”
Indeed, as LL3 writes, “Instead of having two relatively moderate representatives from this area, you end up with two relatively radical ones.”
If anyone doubts the truth of this, tune in to Rep. Maxine Waters on C-SPAN. Her message, spewed out in interminable logorrhea, is that there should be no limit on the amount of deficit spending that Congress passes through to the poor, the oppressed, etc. The schools are crumbling, etc. There must be job training, and government should spend more to create more jobs . . . .
The great scholar Rene Girard describes the scapegoat mechanism as the foundation of civilization, for better and worse. He provides a subtle analysis of social development and interaction. He might say that we, having spent/discarded our civilizational capital, can expect to see new societal/civilizational crises triggering new culture-wide episodes of the scapegoat mechanism. Some already hear the fire bell in the night, but perhaps to some it still sounds kind of like a church bell.
[Is not scapegoating the foundation of Islam? There one sees the cycle of the victimizer proclaiming himself victim, etc. While the early recitations of Mohammed invited rejection of scapegoating, the later recitations required it.]
It’s a shame to see our President turn to scapegoating reflexively and deliberately in his dealing with opposition. We now see his method in establishing a majority, scapegoating the opposition.
Mimetic violence eventually ensues, as surely as the sun rises. Remember the video of the Obama youth, if you will, as the building of political and social capacities.
We need an L3 limerick to cheer things up!
I am becoming ever more persuaded by the idea that no one should be allowed to vote for an election at either level of government if they derive the bulk of their income from that same level of tax authority. The only exception that I can see would be for all enlisted members of the armed forces and officers called to active duty for periods of less than 3 years or during hostilities. I have heard the proposal to draw a distinction between regular civil servants and those engaged in public safety but do not believe that such a distinction could be practically retained.
Ya Fred, Hill folk always strangle the city folk when it comes to conflict, Country boy can survive….We ain’t there yet, lot more pain to go.
fed. I really doubt that rural populations can create and sustain a civil war against the power of the Federal State. If there is to be a successful confrontation, it would have to be across all levels of society, and it would have to occur simultaneously. It would have to be an organized civil war. It would also have to begin very soon.
The minute that this stimulus bill passes , the next step will be to disarm us and purge the military.
We could well find that in a couple of years time we view the Military as a threat to freedom, not its savior. That will be a terrifying moment that very few Americas are prepared for. Then there is the matter of all of these communist front agencies like ACORN, etc., and Obama’s proposed “Internal Security” force.
I think that the 2nd amendment crowd will be surprised at the speed at which they are disarmed.
Obama and crew really mean business. They mean to destroy America as a prosperous and free superpower. They intend to raise up countries like China as peer powers or better. They intent to ruin us.
They have thought this out, and done so long and hard. It is hard to imagine that there will be successful organized rural resistance to this.
In any event,they would not be facing “city dwellers” but the armed might of the Federal, State and Municipal security apparatus, and that would include the armed forces and the national guards. The only way it could work if for governors to use national guards to stand up to the Federal Government, or a substantial portion of the military to disobey orders. One can most certainly not count on this.
It would not take much to transform the military, particularly with a draft. Tow years and that is that, if it is done right.
It will not be a mass of brave, patriotic minute men out there at freeway overpasses with deer rifles that turn this around. It would most like require coup at the national level along the lines of Allende’s fall form power. But in the here and now, it seems like a great many of us welcome a communist dictatorship.
Real Elite patriots would be to cautious to act with violence. It is so outside of the American tradition, particularly the American military tradition.
It is practically unthinkable.
What Pelosi and her gang are doing is very similar to the way the academic leftists run committees. What I find so interesting that very few of the elected and academic leftists have read Marx and Lenin. Alinsky and his merry elves such as Hillary are side shows in the great battles between the forces a class warfare and ordinary decent people.
One day the electric pylons feeding juice to the DC area will have “accidents”. The lawyers and the political elites will issue orders to fix the problems. The response will be like Mexico. Tomorrow.
Mr Fernandez said: “Of course, the US is nothing like Lebanon, nor are the issues today comparable to those faced either by the generations of 1776 or 1820 — yet”
I must disagree. Passions are seriously stirred by these matters that are under threat by the present administration and congress:
Economic Freedom
Life – both before birth and the control of the end of it
Freedom of Speech
Property Rights
Now the question is; where is the tipping point? When does John Galt stand up? Is there a John Brown out here somewhere?
I fear for my country because I fear my government.
Team Obama is mounting the equivalent of a political blitzkrieg to consolidate power but like all frontal assaults it will run out of steam.
The Senate can be the bulwark against the most egregious abuses. All Democrats are not demons. Some certainly will find the way to preserve the Republic. There may even be a thoughtful major media editor or two out there.
FDR got slapped down when he reached too far. Obama is not as charismatic or as popular as FDR was either.
mark, I fail to see how “scapegoating” is the “foundation” of American Civilization i particular, or Western Civilization in general.
Our particular formal foundations are the founding believes and principles as articulated in the founding documents of this nation, and the institutions and traditions that have flowed out of them. These in turn are rooted in the judeo-christian heritage and the long, hard trek through history that it took to shape us and get us to where we are now.
Our social foundations have been faith, country and family.
I do not se a scapegoat out there at all.
I also wonder what “Cultural Capital” is. Is this faith in one’s civilization?
L3 is right. It’s not the Census, it’s the gerrymandering, stupid.
The U.S. Supreme Court case law on gerrymandering is confused, at best. The individual states draw their own federal districts. The DOJ (who controls that agency again, I forget?) has power to oversee these redistricting and gerrymandering schemes to make sure racial blocs are not disenfranchised or have their votes diluted.
Though the case law is almost hopelessly confused, there are a few basic principles:
1) States can draw their districts based on the U.S. Census
2) The U.S. Census factors in illegals and/or non-citizens in its population tallies
3) The DOJ is primarily tasked with oversight in this area
4) Voters living within those districts can have standing to bring Equal Protection claims or Voting Rights Act claims in federal court
5) To win in federal court, voters would probably need to show that the district was drawn primarily on the basis of race
6) Gerrymandering on the basis of “political allegiance,” however, is permissible
7) Gerrymandering is an incredibly powerful tool, and when used well can effectively disenfranchise target groups
It’s been said before, but all this economic stimulus handouts + gerrymandering based on a flawed Census looks like an attempt to give Democrats a permanent majority in Congress. Dark days.
founding BELIEFS^
I had hoped the “yet” would keep things just right: between overreaction and passiveness and in the place where people are act vigorously, within the democratic space, to meet what are real challenges. I’m not sure “Obama” is the problem. The long term trends are. When Bill Clinton recently remarked that they had just ‘won the culture wars’ he was referring to the same trends. If Obama didn’t exist, they would invent him.
But I don’t think that totalitarianism is around the corner because the situation is too unstable for the cement to set. The world is changing very rapidly, and it’s a fair bet that the very classes that are entrenching themselves in power are swallowing Kool-Aid by the bucket along with it. While I am not convinced totalitarianism lies around the corner, although I am convinced it will try, I am fairly sure we are in for unsettled times. I can’t even begin to guess how unsettled. But at all events, it’s the time to stay cool and focused.
Wretchard. I think it likely that when we here refer to “Obama”, we really mean the whole complex of the “Liberal” (read “Marxist”) Democrat Establishment and the tide of trends which they pull along with them. We do not imagine that it is all about one personality. Obama is a profound manifestation of thes trends and a useful handle for our thoughts and discussions. Certainly this “man” cannot not be the cause of all of this. I think that this goes without saying. The fact that such a man can be elected in such manner and that he con be so blantant and open in implementing such radical departures for our history and traditions should, however, signal to us that there is at least something unique about this moment and about him
I do not think the the metaphor of “around the corner” is as apt as the one of “tipping point”. There is not, however a simple reciprocal aspect to this. That Clinton could make such a public utterance tells us all we need know about the Liberal Establishment’s take on it all: We have definitely passed that tipping point as far as they are concerned; It is now merely a time to quickly run the ramparts and take the prize. The climax has passed
So the “yet” in your fomulation, that “democratic space”–more of a political space really–actually describes the interval between that awakening of the rest of us to action and acting, and the lefts final conslodation of power. There are two tipping points,as it were. The question is which one is the climax? Are we now just acting out the political dénouement of the victory of which Clinton speaks? If so than there is no room or time left to avert the destruction of our traditional political culture and insitutions. Again, we are quickly to the point of exhausting the political process and this seems sure to result in either the tyranny or civil war.
It could well be the former that is the outcome.
L3,
As usual, accurate and tempering insights. The gerrymandering casts a pox on both houses.
Your comment brings to mind that we have a huge problem with committee ethics in this country: our nation yields powers to minority caucuses (voting-minorities, not racial ones), over and above the generous allowances enshrined in everything from the US Constitution to Robert’s Rules of Order. And the fabric of regimes that used to check this franchise-creep, from voter-registration to strict libel laws, to “gentleman’s rules” and committee ethics provisions, don’t appear to work anymore.
It is natural for groups from any party that lose votes in democratically-administered forums to cast about outside the confines of their committees (or, go ex parte) for ways to revisit the vote, usually in other, superseding forums. But two things have changed over the last half-century: the avenues for ex parte conduct have proliferated, and the acceptability of the tactic has increased.
Recall that the entire Texas Democrat congressional delegation vacated to a Louisiana hotel rather than attend a committee vote that they’d lose – and that adults were seen on television later applauding this. Bad habits like filibustering, gerrymandering districts, taking out full page, libelous ads in major papers, accepting foreign contributions, erecting superseding forums like the E.U. or the U.N., and engineering fraudulent national elections: all are increasingly normal manifestations of the same “Vote-Loser’s” search for minority relief outside of committee.
The nub of the problem is, once this ex parte mechanism begins to deliver wins to its sponsors, the sponsors cease to see any benefit to good-faith participation in the lower elected committees that they originally sought election to. This results in such an unhealthy drop in fealty to local democratic bodies that it guarantees that eventually one or more losing caucuses will stoop to vandalizing committee-elections processes – or simply run out of superseding committees to appeal to.
But, in the meantime, faith in local elections melts, and rot sets in, and a de facto tax is levied on local civil society. On local school boards, county committees, university hiring committees, and even private corporate boards, the minority’s (again, not a racial one, hic!) never-ending campaign to do an end-run around majority caucuses costs us all.
I don’t see an end to it any time soon. As I write this, the same caucuses who could not win a Senate vote on the Kyoto Accords in the nineties has somehow gained all three branches of the government today.
I guess that, someday, after they’ve exhausted our terrestrial supply of committees, the “Minority Movement” will dream-up a new, higher, cosmic committee to hear its pleas of “oppression.” Until then, Obama’s election indicates to this down-home American taxpayer that the Progressive’s ex-parte end-run gambit works here on Earth, and that, at least for the vocal minority we call the Global Left, Davos and the United Nations will have to do for now.
I’m terrified at the options before me. As a mother of three, including two teen boys, I’m seriously thinking of leaving the country I so loved. I have no idea how to leave or where to go. Chile has a certain cachet or appeal — freer market, growing economy, away from the northern socialists — but we don’t speak Spanish and I’m not sure how to gain citizenship in a new country.
My hope, though, would be either 1) a thorough and quick repudiation of Obama’s socialistic policies, 2) secession, 3) civil war. I fear it may be past the point where repudiation, the first option, is possible, thus options two and three may only remain. Obviously, a peaceful secession of a portion of the country is preferable to civil war. But can/will it happen?
My older son is preparing to go to Berkeley to study engineering. After graduation, he wants to start a company and run it honestly and admirably. His goal. My concern is that his future would be so compromised by staying in this country. I’m afraid we should leave, soon after his graduation, so that he has a realistic opportunity to achieve his goal. Surely, I’m not the only parent on this board who is looking to the future fearfully, knowing that our country is greatly limiting the ability of our most hard-working young entrepreneurs?
Secession anyone? Is there serious planning in any part of the country, perhaps Texas? Does anyone think secession is viable?
Or, realistically, is it time to sell off tangible assets and get the heck out of here?
[This is a thread side-conversation. You'll save yourself some time by ignoring this down-the-rabbit-hole post.]
Mongoose writes:
“Our social foundations have been faith, country and family. I do not see a scapegoat out there at all.”
I completely agree with you regarding the foundations of our country. The question might be whether the foundations are secure or somewhat wobbly.
Rene Girard would say that misson of Christ was the defeat of scapegoating, even as scapegoating continually creeps back into any religion (e.g., Dostoevsky’s ‘Grand Inquisitor.’) Insofar as we preserve the Christian inheritance, e.g. genuine concern for victims, we preserve our cultural capital. Insofar as we corrupt that inheritance in a grotesque glorification of victims and ourselves as victims—and in an inevitable process of scapegoating—we invite cultural crisis. Predictable aberrations such as Nazism and Soviet Marxism come to mind.
Girard argues that the scapegoat mechanism allows for the primeval/Hobbesian “war against all” to be managed as a “war against one.” By expelling or sacrificing the scapegoat, the community creates a relative peace. (Bush hatred seems to serve this purpose in a small way.) In the “strongest” embodiments of this mechanism, the process triggers the divinization of the victim. I think this might be seen in our quasi-deification of American Indians and other victim groups in our past.
I am not subscribing to any kind of deterministic view of history; but on the other hand I would not want to bet against the anthropological tendencies of the species. Tipping points occur.
David Brooks column in the NYT today touches upon possible pathologies of societal crisis, but he can’t escape homage to the NYT world view. The comments on his column are interesting re. the discussion above.
I haven’t read yet Girard’s “I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning,” but that might be the book to read for elaboration of the argument. An Amazon reviewer writes: “Especially revealing is a late chapter on ‘the concern for victims,’ the absolute value of modern culture. But it is in the book’s final pages, where Girard finally postulates the existence of a power superior to violent contagion, that ‘I See Satan Fall Like Lightning’ becomes truly great. This is a work of superb intelligence, among the most powerful and thought-provoking I have ever read.”
Finis.]
LifeOfTheMind:
You sure about that? They’d vote not to drop! In WWII officers made it a point to refrain from voting.
I am convinced now more than ever that if we are to salvage what is left of this country we must force the states to call a constitutional convention and start over. We should enshrine the intent of the founders as much as possible, using updated and clear language. Witness the chicanery over the second amendment, all because some leftists like to pretend that the ‘State’ in the text referrers to the individual states, and not the general concept of a Free State.
One thing we should include in the new constitution is the actual algorithm used to calculate the boundaries of each district. Use post office data, and calculate the geographical population center for each new district. It’s extreme but I see no other tamper proof way to end gerrymandering.
On that note, I think a productive thing for us to do would be to setup a ‘new constitution wiki’ where we lay out the basic structure and let anyone propose a revision.
mark: Ok, gotcha. I thought you were going al cultrual marixst on me.
Captain Ramen:
Given that the Left would almost certainly dominate any constitutional convention, I think thats a really, really bad idea.
Hermeneutics:
Even a socialist US is likely to be better than most places. It will just be so much less than it could be, both in terms of indiidual freedoms and wealth.
I’d think carefully about moving out of the US. I think realistically, there is no place to go. If you are really serious, you might take a look at New Zealand.
More generally, I’d think about choosing to live outside of urban areas, and outside of the North, East Coast, and California. If you can arrange the financial side, life in a mid-size town in flyover country may not be a bad choice.
@31 Hermeneutics,
I think we’ll come through this intact.
Wretchard says it: “I don’t think that totalitarianism is around the corner because the situation is too unstable for the cement to set.” And check his line about them imbibing their own cool-aid too deeply. He’s nailed both.
I’ll add that American citizens are well-equipped to turn the tide. We are very literate and well-connected, exceedingly self-aware and well-equipped technologically. America is not like the seventies’ Poland under Breshnev, where freedom fighters struggled in the shadows without essential democratic tools like copiers and fax-machines.
I’m hopeful that we’ll see a gradual, political push-back from the grass-roots. Sites like Wretchard’s that stimulate these deeper policy discussions will prove indispensable to the effort.
@16 Fred
Be sure to teach me the secret handshake before the shooting begins. There’s a dedicated and growing 5th column here in the SF Bay Area. Actually it’s probably more like a 5th cairn, but we have ammo nonetheless.
Yes, gerrymandering–quite the hot topic, or at least it would be if we had a truly informed electorate. I recall it being on the ballot at least once here in California only to be shot down by the entrenched interest groups (i.e. public unions) using nothing short of outright lies. Prop 11, a watered down version, did pass last November with a yes vote of 50.9%. I reckon the reason it passed at all is because it removed all language regarding redistricting at the federal level, and I don’t think it will affect the 2010 census, but I could be wrong about that. The obvious question, and the one I have asked anybody I know who has been opposed to the abolishment of gerrymandering (always liberals towing the party line in my experience) is this: if your ideas are sound, what do you have to fear by allowing them to flourish (or wither) based on their objective merit and voted on in the marketplace of ideas? If the only way your party can cling to power is through the creation of safe districts, what does that say about the soundness of your political philosophy? The honest answer is always that it may be unfair, but at least it is unfair in their favor. I hold no illusions that the GOP would be anymore gracious in giving up power voluntarily were it they that were in the majority, but stopping bipartisan legislative reform because you might lose a little power is hardly what the Framers’ had in mind when wrote the rules of our nation.
Hey, that doesn’t mean we *accept* any revision. But in order for this to work the left has to participate, or else it would degenerate into civil war, which I hope is something we all want to avoid.
I’ve thought about moving the hell out of LA to a small town many times, but I don’t see it as realistic. The ports are here. My business is dependent on overseas trade. We ALL are. If we all fallback to small town America, how are we going to get anything when we can’t export anything? The libs will extort us even more (see how much longshoreman make now) to get our products to overseas markets.
There might be a way out if nanotechnology comes online, and all we will ever need is sunlight and dirt.
The surest way to ensure a violent reaction is to remove a persons option to effect change via peaceful means.
My own belief is that the Socialists will push to far, and get their hats handed to them. Like the Jihadists did on and after 9/11.
The smarter ones want to do the “frog in slowly brought to a boil” approach. But I doubt they can keep the hotheads under control.
Time will tell… and no matter which result, the process and end won’t be pretty.
@Captain Ramen,
As an O-3 myself I would not have been thrilled about not voting but the Old Service ethic I heard was clearly that officers had been expected to be ostentatiously apolitical. The nation has always had a deep suspicion of the officer corp as being the breeding ground of a European aristocracy. To this day retired senior officers (O-4 and above) are disadvantaged when seeking a position in the federal civil service. The troops would prove plenty conservative. One of life’s ironies I was told about is that the UCMJ specifies that an enlisted member can request that up to a third of a General Courts Martial board be from the ranks. That always results in some crusty Master Chief Boatswains Mate at the table who is more likely to say “Bullshit, hang him” than the more nuanced Captains.
As a former JAG (now many years ago), I can certainly vouch for the validity of LifeoftheMind’s warning about having senior enlisted on a court-martial panel. There’s no surer way to go to Leavenworth. As to officers being disadvantaged viz. the Civil Service, I’m not sure how he means that. There was a time when officers with regular commissions had to relinquish substantial portions of their retainer (retired) pay if they accepted a government job, but that’s not been the case for at least a decade. Ex-enlisted do have a vet’s point preference, but often lack the skills needed for the higher pay grades. In any event, the genuinely senior officers–those w/flag rank–seem to much prefer the corporate world, esp. in the defense sector. It pays much better, and they can continue to schmooze w/the same people they dealt with while they were on active duty.
33. Captain,
I think the fix is, for the Feds to use the 501(c) 3 statutes to model a series of enforcing regimes that state and local non-profits and corporate governing boards can adopt to put teeth in their board’s own regimes.
IOW: please leave the Constitution alone.
An example of a rule that would do a lot to fortify our local committees for the tussles ahead is, If you lose a vote, and no objections to the Chair’s conduct of the vote were raised and seconded in the committee, and yet your complaints then appear outside the committee, published or spoken, by you or your agents, you forfeit your office and an election will be announced immediately to fill the open position.
This would force the minority to stick to their committee’s own procedural channels for voicing opposition. And it would usher those members who simply don’t want to “do democracy” out the door.
@Clioman,
Thank you and well met. I didn’t know that the retired Colonels now get to keep their full pensions. More important I think is that the Federal system is so skewed towards internal promotion that even for a GS-15 level job with significant educational and skill requirements the former enlisted who came in with a point bonus as a GS-5 often has a better shot at working up to it than the retiring O-5. Given the current economy and BHO’s efforts to suppress corporate pay the Civil Service may be more attractive for a time. On the other hand many may feel bitter about the new regime and eager to get out of government service entirely. The ideal place for retiring military when the private sector is in free fall would be in Teaching. Efforts have been made to streamline opportunities for Veterans but the unions still make credentialling needlessly onerous and the atmosphere can be hostile to former military.
#39 Captain Ramen:
I don’t think you would have ANY control once that Pandora’s box was opened.
Jefferson and Adams won’t be there. The people who would show up, and dominate such a convention will be the equivalents of Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Chuck Shumer, and Dick Durbin. On “our” side will be such stalwarts as Orin Hatch and Arlen Specter. Plus there will be 2,000 ACORN goons in the parking lot every day, and they will be there long after the people with jobs have gone home. And 24 hour MSM propaganda.
It will, or course, all be very official and legal.
There will never be another point in our history were you will get people like that in a room again, and then be able to get the country to accept it.
We have to find away to strip out all the crap that has been added since FDR.
I do not think more than 40% of the country has any idea at all about the founding principles of the nation.
On the other hand, it was only about a thrid of the country that pulled it off the last time.
LofM, your point re: military retirees entering the teaching profession is well-taken. They have the people skills, the self-discipline, and in many more cases than the public would expect, they also have serious academic credentials. In today’s DoD, it’s becoming increasingly expected that a field grade officer should have a Master’s if he/she wants to make O-6, and even O-6s w/Ph.D.s are no longer rare.
The problem with going into teaching, as you correctly note, is a matter of having to play the union-imposed credential game. To their credit, some states have smoothed the way with waivers and so forth, but colleges and universities remain largely off-limits. Military officers simply don’t have the right mind-set. I’d argue that’s probably because in the military (and especially in the combat arms), the distance between one’s actions and the ensuing consequences are far less…elastic.
That’s just it. Other than civil war or fleeing to the earth-moon L2 point I can’t see another way to wipe the hard drive and reinstall our operating system other than a constitutional convention.
SteveAZ, Wireline, et alii,
There may be a time when exiting is no longer possible — think pre-Castro Cuba as a relatively recent and proximate example. As long as we can get out with our assets, I’ll wait and hope our country survives the Obama socialistic grab of power. Next week, I’ll be looking into offshore banks. It is perfectly legal to put my savings in another country for safe-keeping, right? I’ve obviously already paid taxes on it, etc.
I’m in AZ, Steve.
Hermy
Well captain, you are more optimistic than i am about that, we would come out with something that looked like the USSR if we hand a convention today. besides our constitution is spectaclar just the way it is if we would just stick to it. One could claim that we have had an ongoing constitutional convention the last 70 years. Guess who has won that one? The Democrats have contempt for the very idea of the constitution; no matter what we would pass tey would break it.
Really, if the broad mass of voters do not turn their backs on this, it is either tyranny and decline, succession or civil war.
The only hope that we have for change within the traditional political process is that the Democrats overreach and betray themselves. But we had better start getting it together to point this out when it happens.
We need to start Monday. It will be a hard battle.
What I find most shocking about what the President has just done is the audacity of it. His other moves and decisions too – and not all of them were the products of Pelosi and Reid (although those two no doubt approve). Something is afoot, because they seem very unhappy with the fact that they now control all branches of government by very comfortable majorities. You would think that they would be very satisfied with that, but such is not the case. This is a president (notice I did not capitalize the title in HIS case!)who seems to not tolerate opposition to his views and policies. That should be a very strong clue as to what’s up. Marx did say that the definition of peace is when there is no more opposition to socialism.
The presence of an active and informed opposition scares them to death, and they want to be rid of it. Maybe rid of us. Certainly duck tape over the microphone and our mouths would do, but even our muffled protestations are bothersome to this guy.
He has all the instincts of his Red Diaper Baby breeding. Mark my words.
I’m sure Billy Ayers is cheering all of this.
Ok, so what is the secret handshake? =D
They can’t get rid of us because we are the Milchkühe. Therein lies our strength.
I dream of a no nonsense conservative candidate who campaigns on ‘withhold your withholdings!’ If some [sic] congresswomyn can tell her constituents to stay in their houses despite foreclosure and eviction, why not?
@Clioman,
Remember that for teaching in the public schools getting serious academic credentials may mean a step up in pay but otherwise is besides the point. What is needed is usually some kind of Masters degree and more to the point certification by an approved program. In effect that means that you have to get a Masters in Teaching from the State University or a place like Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. For example two candidates show up to teach High School World History. One is a former Commanding Officer with a PhD in Political Science, fluent in 3 languages and years of dealing with young people. The second is a 24 year old who has a MEd in Social Studies from coursework that would compare unfavorably in intellectual rigor to that demanded by your typical Community College Sociology course. The second one gets the job. If the Veteran one does get in he could expect to harassed and referred to as a “baby killer.”
BTW, Former Seals are particularly good from what I have seen at teaching Junior High. They have the patience to tolerate early adolescent posturing.
secession^
@ LofM — Roger that.
I think many here (certainly not Fred) seriously underestimate the damage done by our schools, colleges, institutions (most run by the same strain that has infected DC) Hollywood, and Pop “Culture.”
Remember folks, Indianapolis has a NINETEEN PERCENT HIGHSCHOOL GRADUATION RATE, and illiteracy rates in similar areas are similarly astounding.
Not to mention the “curriculum” swallowed by those who do graduate, and you are left with a small minority coming from some exceptional circumstance, parental, or otherwise.
California has long had the politicians of the ilk L3 refers to.
In the past, they tended to be bifurcated, increasingly radical Dems and grandfathered Pubs.
Of late, subsets of super radicals have broken out, with Hispanic/Illegal/Mafia representatives in the south, along with diminishing numbers of Maxine Waters leftovers from the era before Hispanics became the chosen minority. (a process greatly aided by GWB, btw) In the North there are the Pelosi/Boxer/Feinstein liberals, the Silicon Valley Billionaire Capitalist/Socialists, and the interior, with their subsets that VDH now knows much better than I. (used to be some of the most patriotic, down-home friendly people in the country, but I have lost track.)
It is sad beyond words to observe the plight of people like the parents of murdered black teen Jamiel Shaw. They are understandably ignored by the administration of “ex” gang member Tony Villar (which pays out millions of taxpayer dollars in hush money to the ethnic gangs), but also by black ex-police chief/current council member Bernard Parks, and black “leaders” like Waters, Jackson, and Sharpton.
These black “leaders” now have all the credibility of Bill Clinton as a “Feminist” leader.
Bitter irony that Maxine Waters is the most prescient politician on record, with her “slip of the tongue” about Socializing the oil companies shortly before DC began the business in earnest.
None of this will match the spectacle to come, however, as watch our first “Black” President preside over and enable the political marginalization and ethnic cleansing of millions of Blacks in the Southwest.
Wretchard #28 – “But at all events, it’s the time to stay cool and focused.”
Yes, it is. Each of us needs to think very hard about where we individually will draw our own “line in the sand”. And we need to recognize that we may (and probably will be) alone when we see that line has been crossed. If we have no clear idea of what our own tipping point will be, then like a slowly boiling frog, it will be that much easier to keep backing away with some new justification each time. Eventually, in that mode, we will have no options and no choice (and no chance, if in fact we still have any). So we need to do that thinking now while not under immediate pressure. Unfortunately, many of us will probably fail the test of courage and resolve when the time comes.
For a politically incorrect point of view, but some good advice based on twentieth century history, check out http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/02/vanderboegh-classic-what-i-have-learned.html.
Jamiel Shaws mother, you should recall, was serving in Iraq when he was murdered near his home as he returned from school by an illegal gang member released from jail less than 48 hours before.
“Beyond90Seconds.com had learned from a source within law enforcement that the suspect in the Jamiel Shaw Jr. case had been previously arrested in Culver City. The Los Angeles Times had also reported that Shaw’s accused killer had served time for a November 18, 2007 arrest in which he was charged with exhibiting a firearm and resisting arrest.
According to a Los Angeles County Booking and Property Record obtained by Beyond90Seconds.com, Pedro Espinoza was initially charged with assault with a firearm when booked on November 18, 2007 at 3pm. His bail was set at $50,000.”
Jamiel was an A Student with scholarship offers from Stanford and several other major universities.
“Jamiel’s Law” petition falls short of making LA’s May ballot
yea Fred, I am with you. It is very odd the pressure put on the GOP. They do not technically require it at all. There is psychotic whiff hanging over the whole bunch. I too have noticed this.
Could it be perhaps somewhere deep inside, just for a moment, they recoil at their own treason? Or do they somehow, again deep inside, briefly recoil as they met their true selves coming back at them? Does the mask briefly drop and then they cannot in their own hearts maintain the lie that it was ever about anything but their own appetites, greed, hatreds, vanities and sloth?
Do they trepidate, if only for a second, on the threshold of their final treason? Does this need for complete agreement spring from some small voice in their suppressed consciences faintly crying out? Is it guilt they are trying to squash?
They may not even know what they do here. I wonder often how these people can hold in their hearts their betrayal of of all we have fought for and bled for and hoped for for generation. Most come from no different backgrounds than the rest of us. There must be a moment where they see the ghost of their grandparents weeping. It is firmly not the case that they revolt against centuries of oppression, rather just the opposite is the case. One cannot lie to oneself all the time.
But nonetheless, they are tyrants. They will shrug off that trepidation on their way to final power. Almost any just regular liberal I know, ones completely unconnected to politics, can be turned into to rabid, screaming Nazis with the exchange of three or four simple, reasonable sentences. And it is gotten worse since this Communist Coup. I am sure that they would harm me if they thought that they could get away with it. It is quite literally psychotic behavior.
But there is a new strangest with Obama, and it permeates all of the key player on his side now. Maybe it is just me, but Obama is completely alien, completely foreign to our history, traditions and culture. Even his speech patterns and cadences reflect this. And his thoughts; this this personality cult! Just chillingly foreign. FDR does not even come close. I do not even think he is aware of it. Rahm too is like this. This does not feel like an American administration at all. And in a certain sense so is Pelosi and even Reid, though surely these are more cases of willful self alienation then truly alien. They cannot not know us. They cannot understand us. We are not of the same nation. Perhaps this too is part of this need for agreement. America is just a set of abstractions to them–just inputs, behaviors. they cannot see her as a precious living thing.
But here is the kicker. For all this tactical audacity, his “positive” goals are so meager. He just wants to turn America onto one big experiment in corrupt Chicago ward politics. For all this amazing push to the left there is no real shining vision, not even in socialist terms. He is a “dispirited ideologue”. Deep inside he knows that Socialism can deliver nothing but poverty and tyranny. Maybe this despotic insecurity about disagreement has something to do with this too.
Even the most evil of us have souls, have consciences. Misery loves company.
I see a lot of good everywhere I go, Hermy. America’ll kick this. Stick it out!
Doug, @56, you had me all of the way up to “marginalization” and “ethnic cleansing.” Most people in modern America are of mixed racial background, and aren’t so easy to categorize as “this” or “that” anymore.
This, of course, makes the execution of any state-mediated race-based campaign a civil-liberties travesty, so let’s not go there. Everyone knows America is a “post-racial” society in 2009, so, please put it out of your mind.
Instead, focus on culture. I just watched Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, and the epic hilariously hints at the real question: must every foreign cultural expression demand Americans’ forbearance, and for how long?
Say whatever you want, Steve:
You are wrong.
It is documented in LA Media, including the Los Angeles Times.
I am not arguing “any state-mediated race-based campaign”
De facto ethnic cleansing is a reality whether you choose to believe it or not.
Ethnic Cleansing in L.A.
Acting on orders from the Mexican Mafia, Latino gang members in Southern California are terrorizing and killing blacks. —
What Prudhomme will never forget is that just past the snarling Doberman is the apartment on a hill where six years ago her 21-year-old son Anthony was shot in the face with a .25-caliber semi-automatic while lying on a futon she had purchased for him from IKEA. He died wearing a shirt that read, “Keep the Peace.”
Anthony Prudhomme was slain by members of the Avenues, a Latino street gang. But he was not a rival gang member, or a police informant, or a drug dealer. The Avenues did not target him for the content of his character, or even the contents of his apartment.
They targeted him for the color of his skin.
Prudhomme was murdered because he identified himself as black (he was in fact mixed-race) in a neighborhood occupied by one of the many Latino street gangs in Los Angeles County. Incredibly, even though these gangs are fundamentally criminal enterprises interested mainly in money, gang experts inside and outside the government say that they are now engaged in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” — racial terror that is directed solely at African Americans.
“The way I hear these knuckleheads tell it, they don’t want their neighborhoods infested with blacks, as if it’s an infestation,” says respected Los Angeles gang expert Tony Rafael, who interviewed several Latino street gang leaders for an upcoming book on the Mexican Mafia, the dominant Latino gang in Southern California. “It’s pure racial animosity that manifests itself in a policy of a major criminal organization.”
“There’s absolutely no motive absent the color of their skin,” adds former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Michael Camacho. Before he became a judge, in 2003, Camacho successfully prosecuted a Latino gang member for the random shootings of three black men in Pomona, Calif.
Mongoose,
Geithner is another of the bunch with no bedrock connection with the American Experience.
Doug: right. And there are these people that have just manufactured a unamerican life, and alien set of memories. Hillary, etc. It is a willful obtuseness. Her childhood wan no different than most American middle class girls. Weird how they have made themselves into foreigners. Does not seem superficial either.
#46 Mongoose,
“There will never be another point in our history were you will get people like that in a room again, and then be able to get the country to accept it.”
Sure there could be. It’s just that most of us (and 100% of the decent ones!) will go to great lengths to avoid the kind of disaster that would be required for us to be able to get back to that point. In fact I think Tommy Jeff put a few words in the declaration about that, didn’t he?
“Unlike the mothers of other victims like Bowser and Wilson, Louisa Prudhomme feels relatively safe on streets claimed by the Avenues Gang.
That’s because she’s white.
Her son Anthony had long, wavy hair and an auburn complexion. “As he grew up people thought that” he might have been some race other than black, says his stepfather Lavelle. “But you could tell by the way he dressed that he leaned more toward his African-American side.”“
Kirk: I really do not agree with you. It was a privileged moment. We need to strip away the collectivist barnacles on the old girl, not write a new one.
We could not even conceive of something as grand as the capitol building now. Our civilization is too decadent. Let’s conserve what is best in our past.
But as i said, it is not the constitution that is the problem, it is the contempt of the collectivists for it. Whatever was written, they would ignore if it suited the,. Can this be solved by political means alone? When and where has that ever been done before?
Watching Nancy Pelosi speak of the porkulus, I’m not usre which is more terrifying. Does she actually believe the BS, or is she just flat out lying?
geoffgo:
Heard Madam Pelosi on Ingraham.
Like Laura says, you might guess you were listening to the Oscars.
I add:
…listening to some has been on death’s doorstop.
usre = sure
Doug,
And if we are forced to resort to revolt, does anyone think the losers won’t hang? It seems Ben’s prescience about “hangin together” or “hangin alone” still holds.
When you say America is a post racial society, it depends which part of that society you are talking about. For your average educated professional, moderate liberal to conservative, the answer is yes.
But that is most certainly not the case when it comes to the masses of ignorant 3rd world peasants that are flooding in here every day. You just don’t understand the attitude that new hispanic immigrants have for blacks. Listen closely to a conversation in Spanish. They use words like negrito, mallete and chinito like it was nothing.
I’ve got mixed heritage, but because I sound educated people just make me honorary white. So they relax. My coworker (hispanic) straight up told me that black people are lazy. He’s a decent hard working guy, but he lives in a rough neighborhood, and probably doesn’t have a lot of positive experiences with blacks. Hell, if you and your whole village moved somewhere illegally, pushed out the natives, pushed their home values into the toilet, took their jobs away, for 20+ years, and their response was to do… nothing, would you have a high opinion of them? So I don’t blame him for harboring such attitudes.
The funny thing about illegal alien gang members is that their #1 victims are other illegal aliens! That our Pachuco mayor or the other nitwits on the city council can trash Jamiel’s law because illegals won’t report crime is absurd on its face.
HURRY, FELLAS, LET’S VOTE, I AM OFF TO ROME!
Rep. John Culberson, TX claims the “stimulus” bill must be urgently voted on today — because Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leaving at 6:00 PM for an 8 day trip to Europe! Culberson made the charge on Houston’s KSEV radio.
Pelosi is hoping to lead a delegation to Europe;
there’s a meeting with the Pope and an award from an Italian legislative group. Calls to Pelosi’s spokesman went unreturned.
In the rushing, Democrats have now broken their promise to have the public see the $790 billion bill for 48 hours before any vote.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) predicted that none of his Senate colleagues would ‘have the chance’ to read the entire final version of the 1,071-page bill before it comes up for a final vote.
—
Frigging Powermad Half-Senile Airhead!
72. Captain Ramen,
You can’t say the Shaw family hasn’t tried to do something about it.
Had everyone been as courageous as they are, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
The treatment they’ve gotten from The “Mayor” City Council, Police, and that crazy lady prosecutor is unbelievable.
Not really, just surreal,
all systems normal.
The people in control do not want this crisis fixed. The key is the SEC and the year 2007, where the fuse was lit on the bomb built in 2005 and 2006. The stim bill the senate is voting on today is to set up the economic Pearl Harbor. Geithner just got an announcement from China that altho they hate the bill, they will continue to finance it. Clearly (and according to Senator Burton) Geithner has promised them that rates will maintain purchasing power. But to do so will be to consign the fundamental root problem in housing to insolubility. The Big 8, the TARP banks, are the prize.
Sure enough, right on cue, the “card check” people went after ‘em today –the TARP money they took turns out to’ve been a bite from a poisoned apple. They’ll need to pay it back in a hurry or the unions –as per the threats made today –are gonna roast ‘em, gonna get the class action lawsuits going where the banks will be in the dock for everything everywhere.
So, the banks need to pay back TARP quick but they are under the rule, they need permission from federal regulators before they can pay back money. boy is THAT queer street. you owe me five bucks but you can’t pay me back without my permission?
anyhoo, as soon as we get long rates back up to Carter levels, the big 8 banks will be flush –even if they ARE by then in the hands of the preferred shareholders (the gov’t, which the gov’t calls “the taxpayers”) –due to the “spread”.
The big loser? Savers and small business. Liberty, IOW.
the bill has one billion dollars to set up “summer camps for kids”. The “kids” can be up to 24 years old.
I don’t know if anyone remembers John Titor. He made quite a splash in around 2000, on the web.
Claimed to be from the future, but my assessment was he was a borderline schizo, and those people often have quite a knack for discerning patterns. Whether the first or the second, I still don’t know.
But here is what he “predicted (there were probably some details I’ve forgotten, but here’s the the skeleton:
In 2006, root causes of the future conflict (e.g. civil war) will be put in place. The conflict would simmer as a “cold war” for several years. Sometimes after 2008, the civil war will get into more “hot” mode. The trigger, beside internal divide, would be a shameless behavior of US government towards Israel, something along Munich lines. That would be also a trigger of WWIII, which would come soon after. By 2010-2011 the civil war would be in full swing. He alluded that the warring sides would reflect the 2000 counties electoral map (pretty much the same as 2004/2008).
Sometimes in 2012-2013, the side that represents red counties would make some deals with Russians about arms supplies. That would finally irate the blue side which would retaliate by attacking Russians, nuking some high value targets. The Russians would retaliate by vaporizing some coastal US cities belonging to the blue side, approximately in 2014. That would essentially decimate the blue side and end the civil war, although the WWIII would rage on for several more years in different parts of the world.
He had interesting comments about society in 2036 (allegedly the time he came from). Due to WWIII and some pandemics, there would be far less people in the world than today. The society would look askance at leaches and selfish indulgent narcissist and that kind of behavior would not be tolerated and would elicit sanctions. Only people that would be contributing to the society (paying taxes) and who went through a service (military or civil), both–not one or another, would have the right to vote. The government would be based on local structures, with a small central government that would function as a coordinator.
Buddy, cannot they take that to court. They took the moey onder different conditions.
2×4: Yea and by 2138 they would hatch their own FDR, and off we go again.
Sounds great though…anyting in that stimulus about a time machine?
Buddy,
Think it would be a good time for our son to invest in Hawaii Real Estate on a fixed 30 year @ today’s rates?
@ 78. Mongoose
by 2138 they would hatch their own FDR
Unfortunately, you are onto something here.Seems like every 3 generations, people forget and/or don’t learn.
anyting in that stimulus
What stimulus package? Oh, you mean the patronage package. My prediction–it would be squandered, for the most part. The red side will win eventually, and a law would be enacted that all those who voted for 0 would be required to work out the debt (their taxes would be 60% — isn’t that what they all want, high taxes?), while all the normal people would pay maximum 24%. It would be a just world, finally.;-)
Buddy,
“[Someone] just got an announcement from China that altho they hate the bill, they will continue to finance it.”
If statements from Chinese officials are to be believed, this suggests America and China are caught a functional marriage, whereby, we save their bacon (ex. bailout of Asian “Tigers” in the nineties), and they’re stuck bailing us out now in the ‘aughts.”
I’m reminded of two eagles with their talons interlocked spiraling downward together: It appears our two economies have been Walmart-ized and are effectively one, wherever that may lead.
And, that is only if we can trust statements from Chinese officials. We still have our pants down, and trusting that the CCP to pull them up for us is a long row to hoe.
and a law would be enacted that all those who voted for 0 would be required to work out the debt (their taxes would be 60% — isn’t that what they all want, high taxes?), while all the normal people would pay maximum 24%. It would be a just world, finally.;-)
Funny, i was just having similar thoughts myself.
Problem is, what are we going to have them do to earn it? I mean the fouth or fifth order of business would be to ban NGO’s and Non-Profits. I assume that the universities go in the 4th or 5th wave of attacks. What to do? They cannot have many real skills.
I was thinking that if they could not come up with gainful employment, we could make then drive rickshaws around town. Then I thought that if there were anything left of the Ivy leagues we could use them on work gangs to haul away the rubble.
Then notion of auctioning off the chance to rough them around a little bit hit me, but I pulled off of that (for now). Seemed like a waste of human capital.
I am still kinda confused as to what we could actually use them for. I would not want them near food production, I can tell you that.
…………
Sad thing is, that the libs do not understand that that wealth is just destroyed. They think that if the stimulus was a bad idea, we can pass another law and get the wealth back. I was just trying to explain that this morning to one of those numskulls.
OT: watch all the government contracting go to the big firms. The small/medium guy will be frozen out, unless he is a minority, or a she.
I bet that not only will this be a economic disaster, it will really split this society.
Well there is not much else the Chinese can do.
Functional marriage?
Sound like a codependency to me: A drunk and his kid sister.
The CCP is a co-dependent…
Right now, the ‘family’ is going to try counseling.
In the meantime, she won’t cut off her compulsive spending hubby…
It’s got to really smart when the CCP realizes that they’ve been pimped.
Limbaugh says Lobbyists got a copy before anyone in Congress.
(none of whom will have read it before voting)
Also says it was published in NON-SEARCHABLE PDF FORM!
…so much for that promise to have things on the Web days in advance.
Doug: “Pirate Kings are we” What do you expect out of them.
Well we have just entered a new era in our history. Hope we get the republic back some day.
Doug, re son, probably is a good time to lock in a fixed rate. Tho with gov’t getting so, uh, whimsical with contract law, can you define what ‘fixed rate’ means?
Dunno whether to laugh or cry, just watching economist Donald Luskin on Kudlow’s show, asked what he thought about the stimbill, started off in normal voice “I don’t know. The government website is unreadable. No punctuation, typos everywhere,” then he loses it, throws up his hands and hollers “…THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT ADULTS!”
Luskin wans’t wearing his mickey mouse t-shirt when he erupted was he?
I kid. The Obama team is stumbling on the logistical stuff, which of course is for pros.
These people continually attack the system and then shoulder their way forward to run the defense against that same attack. They’re always just doing “…what the American people sent us here to do.” That’s the mantra on that side, and the mantra on the other side is “If only these people would get out of the way, we could fix this sh*t in no time.
“…THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT ADULTS!”
It is so apparent, innit?
Buddy. It will not stop until they are permanently taken out of power, and neer allowed anywhere near it again.
They are a virus in the system. They must go. I will not say how to do it. but it must be done.
The first step is to find away to explain it to people.
mongoose, you’re right, an enterprise cannot put its opposition into the exec suite and then not expect to be driven out of business.
What I am about to write should in NO WAY be taken to mean that I see in myself a similar situation with Rush Limbaugh. But in some way the dynamics seem timeless. The con artist (the Left) do not want their trick to be exposed in polite company. They resent conservative talk radio and have targeted Rush because he can and does expose the deceit. Even though they have the power, they still resent the fact that they are exposed, which is why he has become a target. And he’s not the only target, as all of you can well imagine.
Many others as faceless and unimportant as I am can attest to how this dynamic pertains to our experience. I am speaking of those, who like me, who have left the Left (the collectivist Borg realm). When we witness before others where socialist thought lurks and the many ways it is being inserted into our lives, our former comrades hate us with an unquenchable passion. We are shouted down and subjected to every sort of ad hominen. Our very existence is inconvenient to the community of Marxoids.
You see, we know that the most dedicated socialists are the ones who are often most hidden and who engage in the most subtle deceptions. They hate people like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity because these guys do not let them get away with it. But they despise people like me, in some ways even more fiercely, because we are traitors and we left with the playbook. Kudos to Rush, because even though he was never a member of the Left he knows their playbook.
Obama, Pelosi, Emanuel, Sanders, and Leahy must be enraged that somehow the con game was exposed before the play was made for “bi-partisanship” on the Hill. Once a lot of the details of what was being funded got “out there” there was no calling it back. Credit the blogosphere at places like here on PJM and others for getting the word out. So did Rush Limbaugh.
I wonder what happened to the decor and order in Pelosi’s office when this happened. I’m sure they had to call in the cleanup crew after she threw a fit.
Well i hope it is exposed, but i have my doubts. We have got to get beyond the people that read the internet. I do not know how.
I do not listen to Limbaugh much, mostly because i do not listen to the radio. But anyone that PO’s these jackals as much as he does has to one heck of a guy in my book. He is alright by me, that’s for sure. To me the mark of a man is the extent of loathing he draws from Liberals. Cheney has many wonderful points, but the loony hysteria he inspires in the :eft raises him to near sainthood in my reckoning.
Otherwise, I am in complete agreement.
I will say that, in some circumstances, I am completely out in the open about my beliefs (I live in NYC around uberlibs).
And I am a relentless intellectual adversary–just relentless, intense and ruthless. I do not even get close to showing this side of myself here on bc.
This is what I do for a living, think about things, and manage people who do the same.
Liberals just detest me, particularly the “intellectuals”. It is not just puncturing the fallacies and the muddeled thinking, but turning their sophistry and rhetoric back on them. All with smiles, little emotion and aplomb. I get rages out of them. I contend that they are more clever than intelligent, and strangely enough, they are not really that broadly educated (I am talking upper end libs here). More skills than knowledge, and no love of truth.
I am not shy about my religious faith either, and can defend it with the apologetics of the great theologians. Golly, do the hate be out-thought and out-argued by an intelligent Christian. I am not the liberal apostate that you are, but I have been around them all my adult live.
They are easy to take down. That is why they need the media shield.
That is why we must stop being passive and speak out at every opportunity we can.
We have to expose them in from of average, decent Americans at every turn. This is extremely important, even if it is just in the smaller confines of our own personal lives. It may be the most important thing that we can do in the public sphere.
I also agree that it is important now to speak out on the internet. To fight back.
@ Mongoose…
Here, here….
Brothers, take heart, call me starry-eyed, and one of them besides, but I believe with all my heart we are blessed to have been born into the only country in the world with a self-correctng system that is grounded in the idea of individual liberty. We will live through this. And our Republic will survive.
And as for any secret handshakes, this board will do. No, they cannot silence us. Not ever before and certainly not ever again.
Full disclosure (as if necessary): two martinis
Mark @18,
Sorry it took so long (darn job and family!). Your wish is my command:
——
By scapegoating R opposition
The Democrats risk our derision
Maxine plays the fool
She’s a socialist tool
In need of adult supervision
——
Obama’s vast army of troops
Are young and they hang out in groups
They seem cool and hip
As a Starbucks they sip
But in truth they are really just dupes
— —
Cheers.
L3
the card check demonstrations are ongoing in DC now –big labor striking hard while the iron is hot. Theyre using a certain of spokesman now –i’ve seen three of ‘em on the three interviews i’ve caught over the week. They’re very personable, young, white, middle-America circa 1965 haircuts, no tie or jacket but a nice ‘date’ shirt you’d take your gal to the movies or bowling in. the one this afternoon was going after the TARP banks (appartently some of them are on the Financial Roundtable, which policy of includes no support for ‘card check’). Anyhoo, the interview quickly revealed the FR had made no attack even worth characterizing –or young Mr. Clean would’ve surely treated us to a bumper sticker –but was in some vague way “union-busting on the taxpayer’s dollar” and they’d “better change their rules” or else “Americans all over the country struggling to keep food on the table are gonna be very angry to hear about lavish junkets where these bankers go to plan how to hold down workers’ wages.”
OK, now we know the drive to nationalize the banks is broadening. No surprise. I really only mention it in order to offer a counter meme, that these card-check people are also the people who drove these banks –or some of them (the others were forced to take TARP in order to keep ‘level playing field’ according to Treasury) –mad trying to keep earnings competitive with global competitors not being forced by the ACORN/F&F/Frank&Dodd/card check nexus to make liar loans.
Ok, now we see a mob ‘bustout’ process in progress. but, you might ask, so what, who can feel symp with bankers?
ok, how about this, for young Mr Clean, dauntless defender of worker’s rights: those banks’ stocks and bonds are owned by widows and orphans and retirees and pension funds all across the nation, and by people even more vulnerable than those workers the unions say they are protecting. These savers are all the old and all the young Americans, who directly or indirectly (by dependency) have been very nearly wiped out –and it ain’t over –by the shenanigans of young Mr Clean and the collection of powerful lies embodied by his organization and its allies right on up to the top of the government.
it’s disgusting. only in severity is it different than what Stalin did to the kulaks of Ukraine.
“…a certain type of spokesman”
(it’s me ADD –it’s called ‘tool blindness’)
@ 95. Mongoose
I would swear you must be a closet wolverine!
buddy- I agree it’s disgusting. At the same time, a phrase like “only in severity is it different than what Stalin did” makes me think OK snap out of it. Because when we start invoking Stalin in support of our opposition, we begin to risk the sin of hubris, do we not? It seems to me the greatest danger, and also the greatest weakness, of the present administration is its tendency to overreach itself, and we should not let our opposition to his policies prevent us from learning by his example
@ 102. marymcl
Well, no. Making historical comparison is a diff cup’o'coffe than 0′s admin overreach. It may be inaccurate or improper or misguided, take your pick, but it is not an overreach. Hubris is an expression associated with a position of power, BTW.
It’s true that the Stalin’s goal with Ukrainian kulaks was their annihilation. The goal of 0′s administration seems to be a stratification, a separation of a class of elites and the impoverished others, by the grand theft currently in making. Kind of gentler kinder stalinism. But make no mistake, if they encounter a resistance, they may decide that the kulak scenario would be expedient.
Therefore, yes, we are talking about a degree of severity, after all the ideology is the same.
good point, marymcl –maybe i should reserve such a comparison for something more extreme in that unlucky event. i was thinking along the lines of, Stalin obliterated lives to clear a block of politically opposing wealth, and these hedge-fund socialists, or transworld nazis, or tranzis, have so far only obliterated the accumulated production of lives, to clear a similar thwart.
Buddy, ferchristsakes! I go on offensive to defend your statement and you backtrack speaking softly. Darn!
twobyfour – Point taken. And certainly there is an element in the the Democratic agenda to divide us against ourselves. I am convinced of that beyond any doubt
money and life are not that different, tho, and the greater the want, the greater the similarity. a piece of money is a ticket to a piece of future food. for a person, or a person’s genes. maybe subconscious recall or visions of a scarce future are at the root of this whole otherwise-inexplicable-in-fields-of-plenty steelcage deathmatch. maybe not so dang subconscious elsewhere. whoever designed the dollar sign may have been thinking, stand up the infinity sign, then draw two parallel lines straight up and straight down through it, a fortified S, to symbolize that this bountiful land can always eat, if oppositions play it straight up, and, blink and switch vision, a broken future forever, a split S, if played straight down.
good point, twoby. ok, hey mary, yo momma wears combat boots!
I love you, Mongoose.
gee thanks, dephine
two X four
Just think of me as forward recon.
Spetsnaz.
Get a room you two…
New bumper sticker; Obama lied
My country died
Jim
These people continually attack the system and then shoulder their way forward to run the defense against that same attack. – buddy
The oblique point – abandoned because it is obvious? – that Bush’s “spending like a drunken sailor” didn’t prevent the collapse begs the question why more of the same. Krauthammer was right – the Republicans won the argument but lost the war – phyrric in the extreme.
I am moving away from the Whole Messy Thing. So. Just one more observation, the outlines of which appeared to me last week. Obviously the key to recovery is banking – fixing securitization and disposing of the mortgage debt – all within the context of Geithner ‘the only man who can do the job’ and Goldman’s (not so) secret meeting last week with ‘selected’ clients (as per Charlie Gasparino’s reporting.)
The entire process train of securitization could just disappear and life would go on**, but we are informed that what is essentially an alphabet soup of derivative-styled bets on performance (ownership optional!!) is necessary so rather than just eliminate these vehicles (or confine their use to specific tracks- ones that don’t rob middle class investment portfolios of ten years of work), because Goldman and their selected clients will not allow that, Geithner must develop a plan that retains the securitization vehicles while using public money to get private capital in the “legacy” debt markets. I feel like I have marbles in my mouth/fingers (the word securitization is quite eponymous actually) but the rubber-road space is with Geithner, securitization, disposal of over-leveraged mortgage debt, Goldman and their ‘selected’ clients.
While the public is being entertained with the populist diversion of Spend or not to Spend, starring The Usual Suspects, the long-term banking fix is being generated behind closed doors with eyes wide shut to the public who of course wouldn’t understand it. My view is that if It is too complicated to explain, It is too complicated to regulate and It (securitization) should be strictly confined to a limited set of investment tracks.
**In the 1970′s if you invested $2000 in an annuity, it would be sold at least three times within ten years max. How does this benefit the middle class individual invester?
Which all leads me to wonder, is the rush to pass the stimulus bill based on a true perception of emergency, or is it driven more by the need to do something before the economy heals itself (which is the only way the economy every recovers). – Coyote Blog
Exactly what I was thinking, which brings me full circle back to my original confusion – these folks are either very, very smart or just averagely stupid.
The point being, in my view and as per past disputes, an average recession is buried within a not so average failure of reserve banking brought to the brink with far from average securitization vehicles – scaled up to the global investment community. Some see all the components as petals on a (wilting) rose but I see a business cycle sent farther south than necessary by ‘systemic’ institutional and regulatory failures. The middle class is going to pay for this.
They already made a huge down payment.
slade, they’re splitting the project, one side is all ‘unemployment’, the other is the megabank capital. Unemployment rate, the 2nd derivative is falling nationwide and certainly they saw this before the public. Also retail sales were up 1% in January (largest gain in 14 months) and they would have known this early too. It would not have taken much headline to dim the emergency to the point that there’d been calls to take a weekend and read the bill before voting it into law.
Don’t get me started on the reading thing Buddy. I start to stutter.
RE the incompleteness of Geithner’s plan on Tuesday, the suggestion was raised at Marginal Revolution that Geithner knows the banks have to be nationalized which requires political preparation before the technical plan can be presented/implemented.
Nothing average about a solution that nationalizes the banking system.
Slade:The middle class is going to pay for this.
I think that that is rather the point.
Hope we survive at all.
Any practical ideas on how the real culprits could be made to carry the burdens?
Seems to me that changes in tax policy and a reduction and a deleveraging of government would do the trick. Fat Chance, I know.
Nationalize the Banks. We’re all Swedes Now. – Matthew Richardson and Nouriel Roubini
As free-market economists teaching at a business school in the heart of the world’s financial capital, we feel downright blasphemous proposing an all-out government takeover of the banking system. But the U.S. financial system has reached such a dangerous tipping point that little choice remains. And while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s recent plan to save it has many of the right elements, it’s basically too late.
Mongoose – I know that’s the point. I was responding to Washington rhetoric about saving the middle class.
The only practical idead I have is voting against every incumbant until I am buried six feet under. I also favor the letter-writing/phone campaign but it is limited by the lobby influence – limited but not obliterated. My hope is that technology will pull the economy up – in the nick of time but I expect the “legacy” burden of a tarnished economic reputation will be more difficult to repair. Congress can be replaced (signs that voters are already waking up with Dodd and Murtha) but finance, banking, non-bank mortgage providers, GSE’s, mortgage underwriting standards, reg agencies bought and sold like so much human paper on the (not so) open market – that’s tough. But one technical thing I would do is severely restrict the use of deriviatives as securities. I don’t see any good coming from them.
Slade: I read this before and I think that the bank data they are getting is just more scare stuff. Just more panicking to rush through the coup. (and to save their buddies in the big money center banks. We can get along fine with regional and local infrastructures, as we have for all but the last 20 years.)
As someone said (buddy?) save the depositors, and let the bad banks fail or be adsorbed. the only tricky thing is timing.
Change the accounting rules now.
I do not believe Roubini. They will never denationalize, I tell you that.
Are they even really in trouble.
The CEO;s stood up before congress and said that they did not need the money, the did nt want the money, and they were going to pay it banks ASAP.
Just who is lying? This “stress testing” business is starting to look ominous. I hope that these banks are will to take these people to court. Were are the constitution restraints on property?
You will have to be a Democrat big shot to get a loan soon enough the way this is headed.
It is maddening to hear this when they will not address the whole sub prime mess at all. They are so arrogant as to leave Freddie and Fannie standing, and CRA in place. Obama will quickly announce a way to limit foreclosures and save his ACRON stormtroopers.
It s just a complete joke as far as solving anything. Nobody is that incompetent.
I still am not convinced that the whole business is not manufactured.
idea
incumbent
etc.
Blanket mea culpa for all the typos lately. It’s been a rough decade. I’m rattled at the sheer scale of it all.
Mongoose@121:
I agree with every word especially the last sentence.Congress could immediately take some simple common-sense steps yet they do not. Why?
And reverse course once the roses bloom again. I don’t think so. What ever happened to Save The Day Super Brain Lawrence Summers? Where is his voice in all of this?
Slade: I am with you on the credibility issue. The tech stuff confuses me.
It certainly will not come out of information tech sector like the last two waves (2.5 waves?). It is too consumer driven now. There will be no taker at the consumer end. Bet even google will feel the pinch now , and i doubt biotech too.
Green tech? Makings of a bubble here, or two or three. They are going to throw money at connected insiders and I doubt that you will see much out of it tech wise.
I think that this is just moving the bubble around. It will alos crowd out cash from other tech sectors.
The jobs will go overseas too. Tech has a whole other structure than it was prior to 911. We wil not get a lot of jobs out of it stateside.
And it is so localized geographically and socially anyway.
As I said somewhere, we have to get Main St. back up on its feet, not Page Mill Road down in Palo Alto.
but even here, financing all this debt is really going to hurt startup fund raising.
And all there regulations? the tech sector is still hurting from the Enron fall out. Thre are more Ipo’s in the EU now.
And more regulation is coming. Will they try to unionize the tech world.
Seems to me it is an all out assault on america on all sectors to take her down to the level of the rest of the world. Could really work.
The people at the top in the pivate sector need put away the unicorn paperweights and start fighting for themselves and the nation. They need to wake up.
Are they even really in trouble.
That’s the $64 trillion dollar question. Did Kanjorski lie about the bank run of Sept 18? If the legal barriers can be removed, as per Barney Frank’s statement last week, can the banks recover without public TARP/TALF money?
My view – as the tea leaves scatter randomly through the rhetorical breeze of Washingtonian crises that never end – is that the large investment houses – now banks – are merely horsetrading with the government to minimize the over-leveraged securitization losses they must absorb. Where you see a coup, I see the green eyeshades adding up revenue streams to cut their losses. It was never about spending as stimulus. That was a diversion. It was always about minimizing the overleveraged bank losses. And furthermore, I think Charles is right that the unaccounted TARP I money went overseas to cool the flames.
Well I hope you a right , but….
1) nationalization of the financial sector? This seems like a coup to me. In Russia, sezie the oil. In a mixed economy, seize the banks. They will be out there controlling them down to the number of janitors. They will control investments, etc.
They will control size, relative to foreign competitors. Seems like a take down of America’s position in the world.
2) Stimulus may have the desired side effect of a smoke screen, but the primary effects are 1) Create a slush fund for 2010 and 2012; b) force nationalization of other sectors (e.g, health, energy, etc.) c) radically increase regulation. d) immiserate the middle calls; e) unionize the country.
It might be the finacial people that are being manipulated.
So I do not buy it. The street may be playing it this way, but if they are they are fools. So enough they will come for their lives and fortunes too.
The scope of the stimulus is much wider, I do not see how you can hold to the notion that they are just rearranging the furniture.
I think that it is an international plot to bring us down to every one else’s level or lower, and the dems are in on it.
You talk about trust. If what I say could be conclusively proven and the malefactors hauled out in the light, this would go a long way to relieve this.
Perhaps you have your nose to close to your work to see this? Just saying….
Mongoose -
My view is some combination of nanotech and biotech, with energy on the back burner. Nanotech will literally destroy many if not most of the traditional markets and usher in another ‘wave’. Biotech, in my view, remains a cipher but my guess – without getting into the singularity aspect – is that disease and genetic abnormalities will be eliminated. Many exciting developments on that front. I was pleased to see NIH get a couple billion from the stimulus bill. My view is that biotech will lead the way towards building new economic markets with assistance from energy developments that fall on a more predictable time line – 10 to 40 years out depending on the technology. But advances in nanotech will be a new ballgame.
At any rate, despite the arguments against, I don’t see why this country doesn’t build interim markets developing domestic energy such as coal for power and liquid fuel. USA has 25% of world deposits, etc etc. I’ve been here before. That’s a marketable industry with useul output that has been effectively killed.
The administration could not be bollixing this thing any better than it is now, if the intent WAS in fact to eventually replace the dollar in the world system and ‘level the playing field’ (a phrase no longer heard –like many others it must have become too revealing –but much used in the early Kyoto debate). i don’t think the Tranzi faction in the O brain trust is necessarily enamored of poverty per se, but as a way to break the US military’s power to influence it will leave no tracks for future voters to easily note.
I have no work Mongoose. I’m a Victim.
RE “rearranging the furniture”: $800B (billion) for TARP/TALF in the grand scheme of things is a big number but this country can work it through – and there will likely be some degree of Keynsian multiplier effect. The bank “bailout” is looking at an $11T (trillion) commitment, if the recent Bloomberg article (linked by Doug) is at all in the ballpark. It’s the numbers that speak to me.
as a way to break the US military’s power
I absolutely agree that the military is another target. No question in my mind. Obama and his people may get a pass from Americans for “legit disagreement” on spending stimulus but they will “over reach” with the military.
It just seems plain and clear that the normal order of 1] fix banks plan then 2] stimulate lending, was reversed –and deliberately, even to the point of announcing big announcements and then having to dissemble (last Tuesday, and to the tune of another 5% chopped out of the mkts last week). The stim bill apparently had to pass first, before the news of a bank fix could boom a thousand points of DJA and take the edge off the panic emergency hurry herry write it but don’t read it whoops-thru congress. Pure ward pay-off politics, at the certain cost of well, where to start THAT calculation.
RE “rearranging the furniture”: $800B (billion) for TARP/TALF in the grand scheme of things is a big number but this country can work it through – and there will likely be some degree of Keynsian multiplier effect. The bank “bailout” is looking at an $11T (trillion) commitment, if the recent Bloomberg article (linked by Doug) is at all in the ballpark. It’s the numbers that speak to me.
Just to keep the discussion kosher: that should read $800B TARP/TALF from Oct 2008 plus $800B stimulus bill from Feb 2009 plus $11T (??) bank bill from Treasury Sect. Geithner.
I doubt “interesting” is the right word but watching the markets play off this new administration is, well, nerve-racking. I listened to one or two pissy regulators last week scold the markets for demanding immediate gratification.
I just knew there was a tired old man peddling a bicycle behind a curtain somewhere getting peeved.
Where are the Men in Black when you need them?
It’s the CDOs at Citibank, Bank of America, and JP Morgan that are going to kill us if the owners –the three banks –won’t take the losses (go bust, yes, alas). These CDOs are “credit default swaps” –bets among the three that the other one or two will default first. The amounts are in the multi-trillions. none of the three can pay off anyway, but the CDOs are assets, that is, they have created capital, even tho they are known to be worthless. this is the ‘zombie’ creation we keep hearing of, and why the insanity of ‘mark-to-market’ continues, despite the 600 or 800 billion of other capital it has already irretrieveably destroyed (not counting opportunity costs and the destroyed confidence and its reflection in small-biz-critical money velocity), despite that suspension of the rule 157 would instantly turn around markets and the critically missing consumer confidence. and TARP has made sure that NONE of the three can privately take a chapter 11, without permission of the federal TARP regulator.
Kinda devilish, no? Create –or amplify and extend –the conditions for the stim bill –the Permanent Majority Bill, and pass same into Law first, and THEN get around to the root problem, which you had frozen in place at the convenience of your overall strategy.
Crocodile tears for the “American people” –a thousand times horse shit.
Slade: Gotcha…a long term view…I was talking more near term.
Yes, I am with you on that. you realize tht Bush really pumped up nanotech S & T funding during his tenure? His folks were on to this too. Did not hear about that one? If so wonder why? Those anti-science,bitter clingers from that backward state of Texas.
With you on the energy too, and if you want to know why I think we do not do it, I will tell you that it is because our “rulers” do not want it. The reasons?
Well it could be just their perverse antipathy to any intelligent and forthright idea whatsoever, but I’d bet that they are in someone’s pocket. either that or they just want to take us down. Or all three.
I would add in terms of sectors, that it is perfectly possible to bring American manufacturing back to full levels without tariffs or trade wars.
Automation, Quality Management and large firms acting as “System integrators” for an ecology of small and medium scale manufactures/subcontractors under a modern, computerized resource planning, just in time market scheme. Break the unions and put everyone in the whole works on profit sharing. Sit on the BRICs and the EU to get real fair trade, and do something about EU and Asian currency hustles. That would do it. In 5 year we would be back there.
Couple this with your energy market idea and we have a real winner.
Of course, this means giving the Democrats two black eyes, and the GOP one. Fat chance, again.
The whole singularity thing is hogwash. I am ashamed of Joy, I was actually running around the Valley and the Bay area at a time when he was a grad student could not get a date (just kidding, Bill); I met him at several bay area “institutions” a few times. (Knew Ray K. too.)
What is up with Joy, senility? Male menopause? Intellectual Cabin Fever?
A few bucks on the elite, techie, New Age, pseudo-Davos conferences magical mystery tour? (just kigging again, there William)
really weird, silly stuff. The narrowly but overly educated, barely civilized geek liberal idjits in the valley just eat this stuff up. Something to text about, I guess.
Ray is a lunatic, IMO. I assure you that Kurtzweil is going to die a decrepit old man, if he is lucky, just like the rest of us. He is just an extreme example of Boomer professional’s self absorption, self importance and denial. We all die. Some of us manage to get old first. His nonsense is just vainglorious wishful thinking and a narcissistic overemphasis on just one aspect of being, one which he happens to excel at and identify with. Our souls, our being, our intellect, our consciousness cannot be described by an algorithm or ever reside in a machine. Submarines do not swim. In medieval times, the clock was the model for human being. We do not work like macbooks either. The notion of consciousness in a machine amounts to a superposition. Machine intelligence? We cannot even get Wikipedia entries right. No one is headed for any “singularity” other than the face of God.
The machines that he will “live on in” are his wonderful musical instruments. And so should it be. A delightful legacy and monument they surely are. Ray K. is really an brilliant engineer, not even a scientist. He certainly is no priest. (incidentally, i worked on some of the signal processing stuff as applied to acoustics for this sort of thing back in the ’70′s, but not for him.)
That whole loopy crew in afflicted some just grandiose faith in computational approaches, Scientism and some really simplistic, narrow and poorly thought out notions of consciousness, intelligence and being in the world. They really carry a great of silly, unexamined and tacit metaphysical assumption around with them about science, engineering, intelligence, being and conciseness. Not much of it has much at all to do the true nature of the Human. They should listen to some (good) music. They should study some (good) philosophy. and theology. They should read the bible. They should get their backsides inside a church or a synagogue. They should pause and look at their real internal livee–watch their kids run across a meadowand see how their “consciousness” responds to that. Then they might remember what consciousness is, what the Human is. (And slade, I would like to tempt you into the bible, church or synagogue thing, myself. just sayin…)
Slade, not to be coy, but I come from some of the disciples involved in this stuff, on the cognitive science side–from the computation POV–AI too. I was part of the first AI wars, hype etc. and believe me, they have some serous disappointments in store for them. We have yet to deliver on some of the simplest promises we made back 40 or 50 years ago.
This is why I use a keyboard to type this.
(well >that was quite an excursion, sorry)
Well buddy, aren;t you just supporting my ideas? or am I not getting your point.
yes, where are those men in black? I thought i once had a savings account. huummm…
Roger that buddy.
Not only the investment arm but the credit card operations are crooked as a dog’s hind leg, as we used to say (see Dick Morris “Fleeced” for details). The average person can understand the credit card scams that are being run as legit business (Vikram Pandit at Citi – pay attention!!!) so by extrapolation I would suggest that the smell test for the larger investment operations that are too “complicated” to explain has failed just from guilt by association. If it’s too complicated to explain, it’s too complicated to regulate and it should be banned/confined to small investment space.
superposition=superstition (real Freudian slip…er..ah…wrap, there)
the credit default swaps are unregulated. They were created in yr 2000, as Clinton was tidying up before the election. Clinton pushed some legislation to defuse complaints about the new “dark funds” that sprang up along with Enron and Worldcomm and Oil-for-food and otheres, under his loving care. In this ‘good’ legislation was hidden the unregulated and clearly highly dangerous (indeed, as slade noted above, the danger seems to be the only function, as they re trades among “counterparties”)’credit default swap’. It was no problem until the crazy stuff went into gear ahead of the 2006 election.
BTW, the architect of the credit default swap is O’s new head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. Yep, the new regulator.
Recall Harry Marcopolos’ testimonty re SEC? The SEC which provided in 2007 the tools which allowed maximum damage in minimal time to our capital markets (i should say, maximum deletion of our capital), the suspended uptic rule, suspended naked shorting enforcement and, reinstated rule 157? Follow who sent who to do that, and you arrive at William Donaldson, who just joined O’s new economic recovery advisory board.
Now, warming up in the bullpen, is that new boss of the CFTC, the designer of the credit default swap, which a very small group of players managed to use to saddle our system with uncounted trillions of fake assets, jammed right into the guts of our accounting and credit system.
Devilish,PS: the credit default swaps need never be monetized, merely rolled over, unto the end of time, or until growth made them less and less dangerous. this is why they never rose into an issue big enough to elicit more than a greenspan grumble or two about ‘mispriced risk’.
Only one thing could turn them into terminators: a sudden nationwide collapse of house prices. Only that, and nothing more (and house prices had never fallen over a full year’s time, in our national history).
Enter Fannie and Freddie, the Democrat Party castles that, imho, the ignoring of (except for the annual half-hearted effort to make a new reg or two, beat to pieces immediately by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd as ‘attacks on poor people’ (whisper racism) was the price charged to Bush for barney n friends not amping up opposition to the war.
Enter laws forcing bad loans.
Enter a house national value going from 2 trillion to 10 trillion in 5 or 6 years, all under Bush, most of the gain in 2006 and 2007.
Bush, how could he complain, like the rest of us, suckers for a boom, our capitalist system turned against us, as per Lenin.
So we have to do something. We need to consider writing this up in some readable, organized form. I will pitch in.
You know that they left wll try a revisionist version of this.
Mongoose:
I don’t recall coming out on this before but if you’re reading between the lines, I’m agnostic, neither atheist nor believer, just feeling “outmatched” (No Country for Old Men) by da Man.
In my view, Quantum Chromodynamics is at a similar impasse faced by AI. The Brainiacs might well solve the mathematics but they are running out of templates that can be proven.
Kurzweil appealed to the David Brooks’ Bourgeouise Bohemians. A boutique lark into Fantasy Island. But I *think* that the fixation with all things new and smart and sleek and portable and computational and blingy is one of the obstacles blocking the common sense agenda – finacial fixes that are quick and easy (but neither grand nor comprehensive), developing a viable coal industry (and yes Virginia there IS TOO such a thing as clean coal), rebuilding passenger train service (instead of urban light rail).
I just read somewhere (Marginal Revolution I think) that the stimulus bill was in fact largely compiled by the Obama team in the White House, not Congress. The word is his people surveyed the mayors and governors for a list of “shovel ready” projects.
But as Desert Rat points out at the Elephant Bar, with a little blip from Reagan who rode out the end of Communism, this country has been trending left since FDR – half a century.
news just announced geithner is going to Paris in April to ‘get cooperation from europe’ re our coming new banking system.
Hedge funds are forming now to buy the deep discount mortgage-backed TARP assets. The ‘private’ money Geithner wants. Carlyle Group is the biggie, preparing to be the go-to vulture fund. Carlyle is headed by Sarkosy of France’s brother.
WTF, the masonic conspiracy? well, it WOULD have wanted the stim bill passed on a friday the 13th, right? and an announcement from the largest banks to suspend foreclosures (maybe a one-moral-hazard-too-far for the system to endure)? oh just kidding. really. just kidding.
Tin hats, tin hats NOW!
I recommend making a youtube video similar to the one created to explain the F/F collapse in spite of warnings. Best way to surgically insert a coherent “narrative” into the cacaphony of public debate.
Or dial up Dylan Ratigan.
mongoose 142, yes, see the CNBC “House of Cards” which in two hours never says ‘congress’, and news just announced Time Magazine’s new cover story “Who Did This?” –with Angelo Mozila of Countrywide listed as the top of the list. well, heh, in a bizarro world, yes, the gun is responsible for the shooting.
yes on the you tube. lets do it somehow. or get the info to some who will.
Seriously. We have a lot of chops hereabouts, seems to me.
Skade: ya, i was reading between the line…got it right too.
Offer still stands. (and i suggest not trying to match him, that is rather the point of the whole thing)
anyway…
Quantum Chromodynamics? right about that. But I am making a much deeper metaphysical argument (well physical too). I am dualist. To me it is impossible as imagining the a refridgerator can have sexual desires (and no remarks about Hillary, pls). We have souls, there is more than this veil of tears.
(I was a hard core,scoffing atheist for decades BTW)
Real AI is a superstition (and I used to be a true believer, a regular druid…believe me I know all the positions)
agree on the rest.
Buddy: so are we going to get the real deal out there. or what?
seriously.
Look at Instapundit, scroll down, something about a “memory hole”. read it, then flash to the stim bill alt’energy spend, then realize that GE is already in every one of the markets, and has been savaging the oppo for the tranzis for years now, thru its vast NBC and Universal media empire, and through its foundations and grants (and CEO Immelt’s personal involvement in) NGOs which are oddly giving large amounts of cash to ACORN (and La Raza too, in San Antonio, search and see).
So, small biz (see the instapundit) down the memory hole in favor of giant corporate/government combines? That, my friends, is the definition of the ‘fascist’ form of government.
this country has been trending left since FDR – half a century.
Accelerated rapidly when the Left took over education in the 60s and onward. You want to explain the people’s gullibility to Left-wing snakeoil, it’s simple enough: it’s the education, stupid.
Education has been feminized and emotionalized. The kiddies have been taught that what matters above all are their feelings and their little egos. Work? Achievement? Struggling for success? Battling with a tough math problem? Why that’s all just fascist nonsense, you know!
That, plus all the multi-culti the white-man-is-the-cancer-of-the-world stuff.
Back in the 80s I was an English teach for a while. It was a Catholic HS and not too far gone, but our department chair was a graduate (aka victim) of the Columbia School of Ed, and she subscribed to every crack-pot nostrum they pushed (“every child has a story to tell, so let’s all write in our little journals” — oh my lord). I recall being told not to mark up papers in red pen, because it’ll hurt their little feelings (these were 13-18 year olds!). I continued to mark in red, and quite savagely. I was known for writing things like “this is a really stupid comment” on papers.
Did I crush egos? Did it end in a veil of tears? Nope. The smartest of the kids would come to me and admit they had been getting away with half-assed crap for years. I was the first person who ever called them on it and made them actually have to think before they wrote. And they were 11th and 12th graders. Smart, sharp kids, completely untested their entire lives. Forget about the stupid kids. They were so hopelessly ignorant by age 16 that there was no saving them.
Thus are produced generations of Barnum’s suckers. Thus is Obama elected.
buddy: Paris? this is another dodge to wear down of sovereignty.
This just reinforces my notion that it is a foreign plot ith US tranzi Judas-goats.
A tranzi coup. This is just the tip of the iceberg. They will try for the whole thing.
UN stuff next. It has to be stopped, may take decades.
I said this over and over during the campaign cycls, that that is what Obama represents. Everyone called me a “bircher”. I was right. The speed that he is taking down the nation, taking away our rights and liberties. It is blinding. I never tought they would be this bold.
This s really evil stuff. The only thing that Hitler and Stalin has over these folks is the camps, and I bet that that is coming. We have to get the lights on these roaches straightaway. Audacity of hope indeed.
I hope there are enough patriots left. It may take mass rallies. Some national strikes
Where are the elites that really have something to loose. At least half of them are going down. Obama chose the financial world as the strategic heights. They can not have sleepers everywhere.
I mean the whole bunch of tranzi and their directs canmot be more that 250k people.
The inner circle is what, 20K?
it can be stopped. It must be stopped.
and Immelt is also on the new economic recovery advisory council. Along with the CEO of UBS, and and the CFO (or nearbouts) of Credit Suisse. So the Swiss banks are in, along with the Davos crowd. re Davos crowd, search [ maurice strong ] and read his 1990 interview with West magazine of Canada.
mongoose –that’s what i’m doing, trying to get it writ down. i’ll polish it later –or you or anyone can. there’s lots of ‘tells’ everywhere –i can’t watch the news anymore without bells clanging. i’m wondering if i’m looking into the face of evil –or just “seeing an organization working in the world”.
this country has been trending left since FDR – half a century.
Accelerated rapidly when the Left took over education in the 60s a
Well that does not mean that we have to surrender.
I seem to remember someone Ronald Reagan. Quite a respectful send off he had.
I still thing that the country is center right. the Muddle did not go for obama so he could make a communist coup. If the election where today, he would lose big time.
I am hoping that they have overreached.
well lets make a production out of it
get l3, slade, others. maybe we can run something through our host.
I do not have the technical knowledge, just a good brain.
I write ok though, and when i am not riffing on the BC jam of the day, i can actually spell (well use a spell checker).
Seriously.
I do not mean immediately. but let us add to all those flowers blooming, if you know what i mean.
let me know.
@ 83 Mongoose…
More on the co-dependency problem…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/14/china-we-hate-you-but-we-hate-everyone-else-more/
remember, this is the founder –or among the founders –of the World Economic Forum, Davos annual confab, attendies which now include the tops of many –most? –global large-enterprise entities, but in 1990 (when he shot off his mouth a little too much?), it was much less of an institution and more of a gathering of wealthy & powerful futurists.
RIght buddy, but it can be exposed.
I mean a couple of three day national strikes.
5 million people marching on Washington. twice.
It can be done.
mongoose, i’m trying to think of a way to compress it and include obvious evidence, and make it a two minute read –
I’ve got it –Claudia Rosett.
Blert, but how long will that last.
The BRICs are kidding themselves. There is no way around it.
I contend that this is a manipulation, that things are not that bad (for us).
It is high jinks coming out of the globalism crowd.
It is the first real cirsis of globals=sm, they saw it coming, and made plans.
They have to take us out. reduce us to a province. But things can gang agley, they often do I am told. How clever are they.
So we are in new territory here. It is up to the character of the American people. Can we turn it around?
What a challenge. That is why they are moving so fast–keep us from reacting. Plenty of room for them screwing up though.
We have to get data out there. The algorithm. Their screwup will add up, people need something to hang it on.
sounds good buddy. I am off now. will get back to you.
well lets make a production out of it[.] get l3, slade, others. maybe we can run something through our host.
Mongoose – Leo is not “on board” with my and buddy’s theories/connections (I throw the ball but Buddy rams it through the goal posts). In fact not too long ago Leo (politely of course because that is his manner) tried to disabuse this crowd of conspiracy, started by NahnCee who questioned the timing. Buddy is absolutely right that it is hard to judge one’s own sanity within the context of the global connections and the implicaions and the jinormous amounts of money/power at stake. I had an acquaintance once – a member of Intel the top 1% of Mensa – who told me there was no such thing as a coincidence. At the time (around 30 yrs old) I just gaped. I had no clue.
Back in the real world. This “conspiracy” for lack of a better word is not a done deal because the world is nothing if not surprise and disguise. But where money is involved it’s best to err on the side of suspicion.
And act accordingly.
Another “kosher” alert in case it’s required: Buddy is throwing, running, passing, and running this conspiracy ball re finance**. I am just on board with a couple salient observations and total agreement. And that’s enough of that.
**The story has an odd Jerry Springer feel for the financially inclined.
Fred said, “What I find most shocking about what the President has just done is the audacity of it.”
I may very well be sadly wrong but I’ve been viewing this Census thing in the same light as what happened when the Clintons tried to throw out the White House travel office and install their own people. I see it as a combination of the exhuberance of youth jumping the gun, and the stupidity of the newbie in not bothering to think through the repercussions.
I understand and had thought about the gerrymandering implications already. And those implications are absolutely there. But I wonder if either Obama or those people on his staff responsible for making this on-the-run snap decision are bright enough to have come up with such a plan so quickly.
And, if O and team *did* want to take over the Census for the purposes of redistricting and electing more Democrats, why on earth would he nominate a Republican to run Commerce and *then* announce the Census change?
No, I think it’s just a newbie’s mistake. THe latest of many since the Inauguration in January.
(However, the thought does occur that if you’re in charge of the Census, it would make it a lot easier to determine who lives where, and to then funnel taxpayer monies to the poor unemployed blacks who elected you, and have stated upfront that they expect you to provide them with free gas and mortgage payments.)
Slade: well what we are doing is asking questions. We are not making assertions. How could we do otherwise?
L3 is a great resource and his critique are worthwhile. I read iwhat you spoke of, and it was a great analysis about a particular event. It was quite qualified and I thought reasonable. It is one more voice in the stream of thought. I always look forward to hearing what l3 has to say. I find him concise, measured and sober. a good writer too. And always willing for a give and take. This is just what BC is all about.
I want to get the “notions” out there. I want to get people thinking.
(and counter the agitprop memes that are sure to follow).
Something in this stinks, and I just cannot feel it is merely incompetence or happenstance. It is the momentum, the velocity fo it all that raises my antennas. I feel that there is some sort of coordination, but would be glad to be proved wrong. But if so if there in none, then we have the stupidity in all round our highest actors. This would be good to know too.
Anyway, I was just throwing out thoughts and volunteering to help.
I do want buddy to get it written up and let us have a look. I think they are quite pertinent questions. if there are simple answers then all the more reason to go for it.
Slade,
I would not term it a “conspiracy” but a “confluence”. There are different interests at play, and some of particular agendas are not exactly in sync. I’ll try somewhat a clinical approach here.
In simplest terms, the interests of financial circles (FC – the top movers) coincide with the interests of political elite (as represented by the top movers of Donks – DP). There is no good heist scenario the FC would let pass by, and DP sees the opportunity to create a symbiosis of mutual benefit — which is to be able to finance its endeavors, mainly political entrenchment as the most pressing issue at hand. The scenario is not new and has been already invoked by one Mussolini. Sure, he was right of current leftist crop, but totalitarian socialist and totalitarian national socialist is a definition of a scope and ideological tools employed, they are of the same breed.
That does not mean these interest would be in agreement, always. Different circumstances (a global war or a disaster or a pandemic disease) may put these interests in a conflict. Even an economic downturn of a severe degree may dry up the streams of FC and they may realize that the route they picked was counterproductive. At the moment, they see it as easy picking and they do not want to spend pondering about consequences 10 years down the road. DP, on the other hand, is planning long term. But if circumstances change, their whole plan, that is dependent on the confluence of interests, may fall apart quickly under stress of circumstances. And these circumstances may be something that is not connected to financial aspect of things or global circumstances. If they try to pull off the consolidation of power and restriction of freedoms too quickly (and that seems to be the case, impatient and “results oriented” they are) a point would be reached when the stress would not be absorbed by the general population–even a segment of more libertarian lefties would feel that this is not what they envisioned–then there is a potential for a widespread revolt, by peaceful means at first. Something akin to hundreds of thousand Czech standing on Strahov Plane ringing their keys for several days and the regime understood that the toll is signaling their last days.
There is no big conspiracy out there of the Bilderbergers’ kind. Any agreements made today by different interest groups are subject to a wholesale revisions tomorrow. Even if tomorrow may be several years down the road.
Mongoose,
Yes, it stinks. It is a curious mix of stupidity, greed, con-job, street smarts, high-yield robbery and tribal relationships in a dog-eats-dog and some pigs are more equal than others narratives. Nothing good will come of it, short term. Long term, it may be a lesson, paid in various assets, even those most precious.
The Pareto Principle is especially applicable to the debt market, which is chiefly traded via Bloomberg quotations at the money center banks.
It’s extremely common for co-joined market moves when literally EVERY significant player is looking at the EXACT SAME SCREENS.
To increase the group-think even more: the players come from the same schools, and hold largely identical economic theories.
The worst sin imaginable is to leave the pack… and be wrong.
At all times the players are running other peoples money. The days of partnership based investment banking is gone. This was a major turning point in the market place, and needs to be re-visited.
Consequently, the whole edifice is rigged for ‘square-wave’ volatility. That is all moves are quantized and jerky straight up or down.
There is absolutely no such thing as a market making specialist to throttle swings. The closest thing to a shock absorber is the Fed’s Open Market Desk.
BTW, the President of the entire Federal Reserve is the head of the NY branch. By statue he is paid twice as much as the Chairman, who is normally based in Washington. The other eleven branches do not have presidents, they have governors, unless the titles have been changed a whole lot recently.
All Fed market action is performed exclusively at the Open Market Desk in NY. That is the sole branch that handles central bank business with the Fed.
And as movie goers know, the NY branch has the bulk of the physical gold for the entire planet.
It’s going to be very hard for the Fed to let Citicorp die: First National City Bank was it’s predecessor in the role of banker of banks and lender of last resort. Citicorp is bankrupt but letting it die is unthinkable to the officials.
Buddy @ 156
Damn My Lousy Excuses Buddy, but a few threads back you asked ” Where is Maurice Strong?” and I reflexively threw up my hand and said, “ooh ooh, I know this one!”
Discretion, however triumphed.
That was then.
He’s been slumming in the Peoples Republic of China lo these past few years, but in terms of the flow chart presented via the link, he is of course to be found pretty much in the middle of it all.
It is provided courtesy of Ezra Levant’s now defunct Western Standard magazine via Kate MacMillan’s Small Dead Animals blog archive.
I trust it may be of some assistance in your project.
http://smalldeadanimals.com/archives/connectingchart.jpg
Scroll down to March 14, 2005 “The Libranos: Connections
Regards
2×4: Two bones to pick,
1) Fascism is not “to the right” of socialism.
It is just socialism applied to race and the nation state as apposed to “class”.
This current “coup” has elements of both “traditional” international socialism and Fascism (the national version).
It is actually more like the latter than the former during this phase.
It is obscured by globalism and the tranzi crowd–the confusion is what element the national state takes in it all. In time it could well look like an amalgam of traditional international socialism and transnational corporatism. A sort of fascism stripped of the national state, or at least that aspect is attenuated.
2) I will point out that a conspiracy of opportunists is still a conspiracy.
Also, that enough “landmines” can be set out in the system to perturb it to crisis points is still a conspiracy. This is so even though the conspirators may not know what actual “landmines” will trigger crises which give rise to opportunities to further advance their conspiracy and agenda. This is the American Socialist way.
Perhaps it is less a case of happenstance offering a confluence of interests than it is a way of approaching conspriicy by a probablistic method. They have well planned the set of options available at any crisis point. They just sit and wait for something to happen (and collect the cash in the meantime.)
Other than that I completely agree with you.
It is also worth considering if the democrats got rolled by a third group of actors that just outmaneuvered them.
Blert, yes, but that does not explain the government enabling of these player.
The whole timing is a bit odd. The factors that you articulate could be more of a part than the whole of it.
I’m leaning towards Slade’s “Green Shades” summary (@ 125)
Bush appeared particularly involved in relations with Germany at the time TARP1 was distributed. The flurry of transatlantic activity suggests his administration was priming certain nations’ banks to receive the funds.
Here at home, to echo Mr. Larsen, the key banks are under pressure to avoid publicly naming individual sub-prime borrowers, which is what foreclosures do (making Barney Franks’ recent public appeal for banks to stop them a semantic feint). If the system works properly and holds the individual delinquent borrowers accountable (they are fiduciary adults, after all) then the entire CRA/Fannie/Freddie gambit falls apart.
If Law asserted the primacy of the original mortgage contract, then folks’d be asked to pay their own bills or forfeit their homes, which, while tough, is par for any normal home-loan and an option that all of the signers knew about up front. In addition to this, the sub-prime lending market may reveal some sticky racial favoritism in government-mediated lending that will need explaining if it sees the light: certainly not what Clinton, Raines, Gorelick et al had in mind when they lit the fuse on this thing.
Having the Census report to the White House is illegal. Not slightly illegal, not sort of illegal, but 100% bold faced, no doubt about it, black in white illegal.
If We the People let this slide, there is no doubt in my mind that we will have to shoot the bastards to get our country back. There will be no other recourse, for those of us in Red counties nation wide will be marginalized by gerrymandering and computer modeled Representative apportionment.
Loving the energy, the intelligence, the determination and the sheer ADULTNESS of the above conversations.
I think there are overseas players as well as domestic financial and political democratic ones, but other than that small caveat …
go Go GO GO!
More and faster, please.
Mongoose, meant somewhat right of communism, the type that was called “socialism” in Eastern Europe.
As conspiracy goes, maybe we are nit picking. In my view, the confluence has somewhat public face–it is happening more or less out in the open, while conspiracy is something cooked in utter secrecy.
Not saying confluence is totally transparent, it’s not and has it’s backroom deals, but the general features are not hidden and are for anyone to see who is not inflicted with blindness.
Mongoose,
It is also worth considering if the democrats got rolled by a third group of actors that just outmaneuvered them.
Cannot discount the possibility. 0 seems to be a sock puppet of sorts, he does not really have the wherewits and is stuck on adolescent patterns, as far as I can judge. He has enough narcissist pathology inside that he may have convince himself that he’s in charge, but if he displeases the puppeteers, he would be shredded faster than a classified document.
That is not to say the puppeteers are not Donks. High probability is they are and they prefer to push their agenda by a proxy as that is the safest modus operandi, if something goes awry they are intact.
Who the third actor may be… the only logical conclusion is that if such an actor exists, he would be someone (a group) involved in a very long term planning and have assets (or can easily acquire them on the fly) to back that up.
2×4 yes with you on that, but I think the third actor(s) is foreign. They may have a donk fronts inside the sanctum and are active, maybe another set that is dark (for the moment).
They sure are not from the Chicago crowd. They Illinois tribe is not that smart.
O was in someones pipeline way before those people got a hold of him.
Yes, they can can O anytime. Sometimes when I am in that tinfoil mood I think that there is a contingency plan to off O and then seize upon the unrest for some nefarious purpose. Someone somewhere in that cabal has got to have at least considered it.
Hopefully there will be extensive mapping of the inevitable recycling of a portion of the funds distributed as they flow back to the worthies that doled them out.
FBI has 180 agents on mortgage fraud, according to a Liz MacDonald report a few days ago. They’re just barely into individual mortgages, working upward, and have some 60,000 ‘problems’ already, involving 38 lenders, including the ‘very biggest’. If FBI isn’t politicized the USA may have a chance in this world. FBI, please, be what your country needs you to be.
Paul Gigot just mentioned that it was Lehman that led the way into the thicket, which we had figured out already. A major broker/dealer/investment bank as a sacrified pawn to put USA into a pre-election crisis is i admit a pretty james bond ish notion. but it did start the blowoff in September, and Soros was buying in heavily in August. I’ve got a couple URLs i need to put up, i’ll go chase ‘em down.
Fox has a panel on right now, Dagen McDowell abd Eric whazziz, they’re incredulous over geithner is sowing confusion –with example after examp;le of inexplicable mixed and crossed and flip flopped policy suggestions. A realtor is describing how the end user market is just frozenm waiting for the noise to abate. Geithner, who is a spitting image of Ted Bundy except less coherent, is ‘spose to reveal a “housing plan” this coming Wednesday.
blert @ 168 & steveaz @ 172 re gold & travelin potus, someone has found something funny –a change in gov’t language.
US Treasury moves to broaden its debt offerings
Announcing a record $67 billion quarterly debt refunding plan, the Treasury said it will reintroduce seven-year notes and double the number of 30-year bond auctions to eight per year.
The Treasury plans to announce in May whether to move to monthly 30-year bond auctions and will consider introducing other new benchmark securities.
The Treasury estimated it will need to borrow a record $1.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion in fiscal 2009 — even before funding the Obama administration’s proposed economic stimulus plan of nearly $900 billion and a still-developing financial stabilization program.
A senior Treasury official said that with the new debt issues and plans to increase issues of other maturities, the government can borrow enough to fund the stimulus.
“We feel prepared,” said Karthik Ramanathan, the Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for financial markets.
Ramanathan added that because it has a lower debt-to-gross domestic product ratio than other G7 nations, he sees little problem persuading investors to lend to the United States.
“If we can promote deep and liquid markets, we will continue to attract capital,” he said.
Here’s a clear & easy to read look at the credit default swaps at Citi, Bank of Am & the one that is (cough) supposed to be able to pick up the pieces if …well, just read it –esp below the fold, the part 2.
doug, if i can promote having no calendars, i can continue to not get older every year.
Boy, they were just fiddling away with their greasy, grubby fingers there, Buddy!
You can lose a lot of weight if they’ll let you adjust that scale to your liking, also!
I wonder what Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Sumner Redstone and other Americans with serious personal money which could be used as a counterbalance against these shenigans think of foreigners manipulating our stock market and buying the American Presidency. And if their accountants have filled them in yet about the possibility of “economic terrorism”.
Oprah and Spielberg, of course, helped crown Obama so presumably they’re fine with America going Marxist and bankrupt.
Does that bank article point more toward Fred’s deflationary scenario rather than your inflationary one?
At least Ophrah can find solace at the refrigerator.
f451 @ 169, thanks –the link goes to the jpg, but search got me to where i think you meant. jeez –i recall hearing bit and pieces about that octopus –i think in Claudia Rosett’s ‘oil-for-food’ reportage. Scroll down an inch or two to “Posted by: maz2 at August 25, 2008 1:49 PM”. Good lord. why have we been assuming that these people had just given up after the ‘oil-for-food’ scandal. no punishments, no accountability. for UN, crime is legal.
nahncee, Gates and Buffett are big O backers. Buffett has been suffering –his portfolio –goes to doug’s question about deflation, i think maybe deflation –basically a lack of demand –has caught everyone by surprise and all those big O finance guys ‘long’ as that’s what the O campaign needed –money where mouth is. Going forward MSFT will be writing the software for stimbill projects so there’s that. But Buffett’s ‘main street’ portfolio –well, all that consumer cyclical needs a bid bad –otherwise the downward pull has no reason to stop. Indexes –all three –were off 5% ish last week, when O’s big legislative victories should’ve run them all up –animal spirits –if anyone, anyone at all, believed that stimbill is anything but a raid on the Treasury with no regard whatsoever for the capital markets which create the bounty. There’s two possible explanations for the behavior, one, they’re so stupid they think the country is invulnerable, or two, that maz2 letter in my 189 lays it out. average jill and joe Dem congresspersons are doubtless clueless about where their marching orders come from.
Caution: Zombie Economy Ahead
The Japanese example must not be repeated.
Computer hackers managed to hijack a digital road sign in Austin, Texas, the other day and change its message to “Zombies Ahead.”
It was a whimsical warning for that stretch of Texas road, but could have served as a deadly earnest statement about the U.S. economy. “Zombie banks” was the term for Japanese financial institutions propped up by government in the 1990s despite their basic insolvency after a real-estate bubble. These unprofitable banks, in a financial revenge of the living dead, cast a decade-long pall over Japan.
At the time, American officials like Pres. Barack Obama’s economic guru Larry Summers urged the Japanese to give up on failed institutions. Instead, Japan pumped 12 percent of its gross domestic product into saving the banks and got a “lost decade” of economic stagnation in return. Economic analysts across the board agree that the Japanese example must not be repeated, even as our lawmakers stumble into repeating it.
Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down
Instead of moving toward greater transparency, the emirates seem to be moving in the other direction. A new draft media law would make it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000). Some say it is already having a chilling effect on reporting about the crisis.
There is a widespread misconception among those aware — and suspicious — of Mr. Strong that his public-service persona is somehow a cover for making money. Quite the reverse. Mr. Strong’s top priority has always been his self-professed socialist political agenda.” – maz2 @ smalldeadanimals link
That struck me as a succinct statement for the two-track disagreement on this thread, indeed the subject of what happened in 2008.
If I may suggest without bruising any egos, the storyline is strong and compelling (just need to ease up on the alphabet soup of derivatives – I can absolutely guarantee that close to everyone understands the (borderline) criminality of betting with an asset/security you don’t own – I could go on but the point is that this story IS accessible – widely so), but the context must be isolated and elevated from “small” and “dead” and “animals”. Any author who writes directly under his own name would be a good vehicle. In fact one could inquire about the feasibility of sponsoring guest editorials on PM. Get Glenn Reynolds to link and you’re half way there. I also suggest a two-part editorial starting with the financial story and using the quote above to segue into the transnational progressive movement sponsored by the UN.
Some say it is already having a chilling effect on reporting about the crisis.
It’s funny watching some of these progressive neanderthals try to live in the modern world.
Sad really, such stunningly beautiful architecture and engineering.
You want to explain the people’s gullibility to Left-wing snakeoil, it’s simple enough: it’s the education, stupid. … Education has been feminized and emotionalized. – Peterike@150
Without contradicting or invalidating the case against post-WWII education/academia – a case that has some merit – I make two somewhat obvious points. There was nothing frilly about the Ivy-dominated financial services sector – style or substance. THE world of Big Swinging Dicks. Second, the regional strength in this country has been ignored – state schools and regional businesses especially banks. Enough said. These people and the businesses they manage and staff are solid. It’s the upper crust that got soggy. It’s raw populism but there it is.
twobyfour@166:
Just a quick footnote on the sustainability of conspiracy. Timing is an obvious focal point for suspicion, as noted. I would also cite two additional elements that elevate “confluence” to the level of conspiracy: velocity and the complete absence of “circuit breaker” type control – both infrastructure and good old fashioned people.
Not.one.peep.
From.anyone.
Inside.the.industry.
To be considered in the context of buddy’s link to the sidewinder article (via smalldeadanimals) describing the brick wall encountered by Canadians trying to expose and prosecute Chinese corruption, which was “secured” at the highest levels of government and UN where Maurice Strong works as a tireless advocate for sustainable global development.
Mr. Larsen
My apologies for the inadvertent confusion and consequent frustration caused by my post of last evening.
To avoid just such an event, I test ran the link before posting and it sent me to a google page with of course many options, one of which contained the archived page for that date with the jpg embedded in a particular entry. Clicking on the relevent google entry, it provided me with the archive page for that day with multiple posts. The directions were to provide the reader with the location of the post with the embedded jpg within the page.
I then posted and slept the sleep of the just.
Today, on reading your post, clicked on the link and behold…a lone jpg.
“What the…” was and remains my response.
Regardless, the fault is mine.
Inadvertently, more was learned as a consequence but still, say it together..DamnYourLousyExcuses.
Regards
DamnYourLousyExcuses
Exactly.
good ideas, slade –note the UN, freshly exposed for us last night in that small dead animals thread –is this morning asking for 60 billion of the US bailout dough. For the poor. And it’s true, $60 billion would for sure help the poor, and as soon as UN defrays admin expense and delivers the balance, some poor person somewhere in the third world will get a Twinkie.
You are a pistol buddy. I have too much Scandinavian blood in me to be much of a laugh riot, coupled with my recent impoverishment, which I never saw coming for not paying attention so throw in a healthy measure of guilt, well, I’m not seeing a pot at the end of the rainbow – not even sure about the rainbow. But no doubt in my mind, almost overnight the UN has transformed from a corrupt but inncocuous “keep the feel-good crowd busy and off the streets” day care center into something decidely more sinister and potentially more lethal as the entrenced institutional arm of a political movement that aims at nothing more nor less than some arbitrary level playing field where the sun never sets and USA eats humble crow pie for the next millenium.
Not.one.peep.
Just so we’re all on the same page, we’re all talking about financial manipulation of the American economy and markets in 2008, with specific emphasis on the Presidential election, right?
Some appear to think the manipulation was an internal American phenomenon with Democratic Party insiders (mostly named Soros) involved and/or Wall Street elites in it for the money / power — am I understanding that theory correctly?
Others think overseas players with vast sums of money at their disposal were (1) trying to break America’s economy and cause a national bankruptcy, and/or (2) elect themselves their very own American President. These overseas players might include China, Russia and/or Saudi Arabia.
Now if that is the basic overall theory that’s being pursued, my next question is: WHY? If there was a plot then what did the plotters hope to accomplish? Can we agree on an answer to that at this point, or is it too soon because not enough threads have been followed back to the players to determine who they were/are?
It seems to me that there are three potential answers: (1) to cause enough short-term panic to get Obama elected, (2) long-term, to overthrow the government and the institutions of the United States of America, or (3) the hacker’s rush of seeing simply if it could be done. Does anyone think it was a Masters of the Universe raid on Wall Street done simply for personal greed and profit?
If some of you really smart persons would care to give me your versions of “why?” I’d love to hear them.
P.S. Agree with the suggestion that Glenn Reynolds needs to be roped in, and I would also suggest WSJ’s James Taranto, and the PowerLine guys who are known to have big readers in high places.
PPS – Do we think that Bush knew what was going on since it started on his watch? Although he was remarkably uncurious about a lot of things, it would not bode well if his advisors and government overseers didn’t clue him in about the massive funny-business starting to happen that would threaten the country every bit as much as beady-eyed Muslims hijacking airplanes.
nahncee, it could be all those things, in the sense of what Churchilll meant when he said the Stalin people were like a guy in a hotel trying every doorknob as he walked down the hall. This stuff is all in plain view, the dates, the players, all, there’s nothing to expose short of doing woodward & bernstein in the meat world and trying to get someone to ‘fess up the real reasons behind such thinly-justified and inexplicably maintained (despite the obvious effects and the people –such as cramer on tv continually–screaming) SEC ruling in mid to late 2007 And the staffing of the new privy councils in pertinent institutions –the associations of those people with similar mega-interbational insider-driven pump & dumps. and the new commodity futures commish –the same guy who sandbagged ”dark pool” reform in the late 90s and inserted the credit default swap into the legislation as specifically to be unregulated and uncleared (as all other instruments are daily), basically secret trading excepting some position had to show in the books as something. Questions of “why?” are all over the place screaming for answers –but in every case there’s no way to disprove the “just a mess up, happens all the time, people are funny,” etcetera. The “who sent ya to do it?” is the key and unless somebody hs a change of heart and talks (and even then, as half the new publishing every year is just that sort of thing and gets immediately debunked as shilling for a buck or a favor), well there’s no place to go with it. That CFTC guy can be contacted –he’s been a guest on Kudlow’s show –Gary Gensler –about the yr 2000 legislation and how his provision gave terminal cancer to the world’s accumulation of capital, but if he answers it’ll be in practiced & polished boilerplate.
Stimulus Details
Michael Ledeen
I certainly haven’t read everything (let alone the terrifying thousand-plus pages themselves), but the wonderful Veronique de Rugy (who reads a lot faster than I do, and is far better with numbers) seems to have done an excellent job here.
$1.2 billion for “youth activities” (for “youth” up to 24 years old)
$1 billion for Head Start Program
$8 billion for high-speed railways (This amount is 4 times higher than the one voted on Tuesday in the Senate bill)
$1.3 billion for Amtrak
Suspension of disbelief redux
[Victor Davis Hanson]
On her initial tour abroad, Sec. Clinton announced that she would follow an approach that “values what others have to say”:
“Too often in the recent past, our government has acted reflexively before considering available facts and evidence or hearing the perspectives of others.” And then she promised a policy “neither impulsive nor ideological.”
At some point the unifying, bipartisan Obama team should cease all this ad nauseam “Bush did it” since this perpetual campaign mode, when taken abroad, is not healthy for the country in all too many ways:
1) it assures enemies that their past problems with the U.S. were largely of our own making due to our impulsiveness or ideology, not the fault of their own, or intrinsic differences;
2) it assures allies that there are not so much honest differences in our relationship as much as agreement that Bush et al were toxic (as if Germany otherwise would have fought well in Afghanistan, and now of course will);
3) it has a short shelf life: we are into the second month of the Obama administration and have seen really nothing new abroad other than the “we’re not Bush”;
4) it only sets up more of the same hypocrisy of what we have seen—hubris leading to nemesis—as inevitably in the bad/worse choices to come, Ms. Clinton will find herself often simply continuing existing (Bush) policy, and so like Obama on rendition, FISA the Patriot Act, Iraq, etc. adopt what she trashed;
5) very quickly Team Obama is using up their good will, as the American people are now quite aware of the tired modus operandi—talk of unity, togetherness, bipartisanship, and then trash your predecessor to lower expectations and magnify your own agenda.
“youth activities” for the 24 year old children to include “summer camps”. I’d imagine the Robin Hood Foundation will send some of their children to summer camp to learn how to rob from the rich and give to the poor.
Maybe you could get inside that, doug. Draw up a curriculum for an assertiveness-training workshop –give it a catchy title (“Zen Mugging: Gimme ya Wallet Mother F**ker or Singing the Song of Freedom?) and you might can harvest some of that free $$$!
the railway is a Mag-Lev connecting VEGAS and DISNEYLAND. After that reality, where is the space left for symbol or parody?
“People of the world,”
But what happens when there’s no default setting? Rick Salutin is certainly right that the young Obamatrons do not identify with “the West.” On the other hand, they seem unaware that the multicultural frisson they get such a kick out of is a unicultural phenomenon. To discard “the West” with nary a thought is to reject not race but the civilization that built the modern world, and the even smaller group of countries within it that have demonstrated any sustained tradition of liberty. Like Ignatieff, Lee, and Gandhi, Obama is a product of that relatively narrow tradition, whether his squealing Obammysoxers know it or not.
Mr. Salutin is insouciant about a planet in which “Western civilization” is an archaism. Lee Kuan Yew thinks we are merely restoring the Euro-Asian balance of power as it existed before the rise of the European empires. And gloomier fellows like yours truly think that in the twilight of the West all kinds of malevolent forces will arise. Asked what he thought of “Western civilization,” Gandhi supposedly replied it would be a good idea.
Ha ha.
Wonder if it’ll sound as funny a few decades hence.
It’s about the Stimulative Effect of SPENDING, Buddy, the details are irrelevant.
(Like the fact that the environmental studies and permits alone will take 5 years, but who knows?
We’ll probly need plenty of stimulation, then, too.)
…I forgot the other option Barney mentioned.
“Would you rather be stimulated, or…?“
back to Area 51, interesting search:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_en&q=gary+gensler+cloward+piven
My friend Eleanor voted for Obama. She has deliberately kept herself totally clueless since 9/11/01 and is probably one of those females that Whiskey rails on and on about.
Her 20-something daughter also voted for Obama.
Said daughter has been laid off several months now, and Eleanor works for one of the banks getting Fed hand-outs, so I’m wondering how secure her job is, too.
IF national hanky-panky to hurt America and/or to elect Obama can be proven, the proof must be boiled down to where Eleanor can connect said hanky-panky with the person she voted for and then connect that to her daughter being laid off and her employer being in deep doo-dah. Eleanor also doesn’t read the internet but does read the LA Times and gets most of her world view from a community college political science professor who told me once that George Washington was a terrorist, too.
This theory has to somehow be boiled down the flashing typewriter letters that Charles Johnson used on LGF to sink Dan Rather.
If you insist on using initials and links and insider jargon to build the case of a premeditated hit on America, then it will prove your own expertise and erudition, BUT the Eleanors of the world will continue to think it’s all Bush’s fault, that Obama is Da Man, and will insist that it’s merely the GOP being at war with Obama. Because (1) she won’t have ever heard of it from the LA Times, and (2) she won’t understand what we’re talking about.
She needs to be able to connect directly and with anger the fact that her daughter is unemployed and heading for a life of welfare directly with Obama getting his skanky ass elected, and then ripping off the taxpayer to rebuild that old failed welfare program in the name of socialism.
Although it scares the hell out of me, I’m not sure the Eleanors of America would care if CHina or Saudi Arabia were proven to have tried to take over Wall Street. Bush might have tried to make them care, but you know Obama certainly will not, so somehow it would be nice if the information could percolate down and around the same way the news about the Octomom is being talked about by everyone.
Doug, they did stimbill-final behind closed doors (ron paul yesterday said he was sure the 120 banking pages were already written beforehand, ‘I am sure no senator or representative saw those pages before they were handed out’), gave pubs a few hours to read the 800 pages (Sen DeMint; ‘language obscure and difficult, references back and forth to other sections, deliberately written only on paper tho computerized is the long tradition so readers can search key words, iy goes on and on. We did our best to read some of it, but….’).
All this and more rationalized as due to emergency, not a second to lose!
then, before signing, O takes off for a three day vacation. Three days which with no loss of time could’ve been placed in front of, not behind, the vote.
good stuff, nahncee –you’re right (and well-put, too). The answer is –footnotes!
Doug, these people have no idea what western civilization is, when it is gone, the will wonder what has happened. It will be decent into the bee hive.
We’ll call it
“The Indecent Descent!“
i’ve always been decent toward bee hives, too. when they misbehave, the most i ever do is holler at ‘em.
“Behave, bee hive!” i holler.
except when i descend to Oz, then i have tew spoik Strine toom, “bee hive yirsef!”
RE: NahnCee’s point about making the connections
The tattered and worn remnants of ideological stereotypes and caricatures define and confine the public dialogue, such as it is. The sound bite of “Republican Deregulation” must be balanced against the very real fact that the financial community – as a group – believed that markets would self-correct under any risk profile. The Democratic demand for tighter regulatory control must be balanced against the death watch of the current regulatory environment.
The one event that can bring clarity is resolution of the banking issues. Whatever happens is going to be delivered with a punch comparable to the assault on the 401K/IRA portfolios. One figure I heard late last year was that the 8500 banks would consolidate in half, to 4000 or 5000. That’s big. If Geithner the Genius Wonderkind can build a plan that attracts private capital to purchase the junk, that will be a very positive move away from the kind of knee-jerk socialism that seems to be the sum total of the anti-Bush thematic movement embraced by the Obama team. If he can’t pull it off – and let’s face it, some sober and reputable people think nationalization is the only answer given the numbers – then people like Eleanor and her daughter (and her grand-daughter) will have to learn the slow hard way. I see a strong flirtation with extreme socialism, more likely fascism as noted above, in this country – the economic stress fractures are too intense to escape political intervention – before the world self-corrects and returns to Fukuyama’s thesis. Or else he was just flat out wrong. Anyway the point I was trying to make several posts above is that many demographic groups want government solutions – the state college graduates in flyover country as well as the upper crust schools.
Balancing the hatred of Bush against the popularity of Obama is going to require more than personal insults and school-yard vents (although I chuckle at “skanky” and let’s face it more than a few of the Washington distaff side could use some serious face-time on a treadmill.) It’s not my place to give homework assignments but I strongly encourage the publication of a 2-part piece that pulls it (mostly the bottom half of this thread) together – style half-way between Leo and Buddy.
well it will not be decent ot beehives either.
Slade: remind me again about that historical Fascist state that “corrected itself”.
We go down this path of completely shredding property rights and the Constitution, We will never get them back. Surely there are enough examples on history to show this, and in our times it has been a disaster. Look and the UK, the EU, Latin America, China.
You are taking the financial mess in isolation.
They will not stop with the financial sector, you will never get them out.
You are going to see millions of local programs. You can expect censorship and gun grabs. Look how long it took to get power back the last time they made this big a grab. Our liberty never fully recovered from it the last time around. You are talking about destroying the white middle class, and replacing them with essentially a large court, pretty muhc based on racial preferences.
Remember that it is the people that created this mess that will be managing it.
Never before in our history has a political class grabbed this much lot, this much power. It we let them start now, there wil be no end to it. now is the moment.
This is not about expediencies it is about principles. we are at a crossroads.
I really think that if they cannot be turned by 2010 we can kiss the Republic goodbye.
Personally I think we should be organizing some 10 million pariots marches, and some national stikes.
You are scaring me slade. It sound like you have gone over. Fight the god fight.
I loved in the USSR. beleive me, you have no idea what it was like. Go to the UK now. You will not recognize it . That nation and its civilization has been destroyed. It is gone for good, short of a civil war. That is what the Democrats really want, to destroy it. Not to fix anything.
Mongoose:
remind me again about that historical Fascist state that “corrected itself”. Point taken. By “self-corect” I mean war. And I do apologize for the cavalier euphemism. Very poor writing. I was trying to speak to the Fukuyama thesis, which if valid, faces serious obstacles this millenium.
It sound like you have gone over. No. The equivocation you hear is something else. I will think of a description. FWIW – I am reading the 2-part Ledeen piece on fascism now and that is making more sense to me, in terms of defining the present junction of long-term institutional threats to life, liberty, and pursuit. The corporate state is a failed experiment and yet – as I see it – the majority of people in this country at this time favor government intervention in business. Makes the events of 2008 look a little less innocent.
Time out for some informal and direct chit chat. My biggest problem right now is that the leaders and masters of the universe f^cked up big league big time huge. So I trust no one – not Paulson, Geithner, Obama or you. I’m back to basics which means I’m on my own dime – economically and intellectually.
Let’s continue this conversation after the banking crisis has been resolved. The spending bill was same-old same-old, as per 2×4, but the banking issues are mission critical. If WonderBoy Geithner pulls it off without nationalizing the banks, then we have a different set of boundary conditions.
I agree however, from my distance, that the state of UK is alarming/sad/bad.
@ Slade 220…
The banks are a train wreck…
Google Mish, Denninger, Calculated Risk and Martin Armstrong….
The PTB are completely at sea and are absolutely locked into a power dive.
The net effect of Geithner at the helm is like putting Smith in charge of the Titantic.
A little bit of Gerald Celente would also be advised.
Why the Stimulus Plan won’t Work
“Take the New Deal. According to the economists Christina Romer, chair of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, and David Romer, New Deal spending did not pull the economy out of recession. In a 1992 Journal of Economic History paper, the Romers examined the role that aggregate demand stimulus played in ending the Great Depression. They concluded: “A simple calculation indicates that nearly all of the observed recovery of the U.S. economy prior to 1942 was due to monetary expansion. Huge gold inflows in the mid- and late-1930s swelled the U.S. money stock and appear to have stimulated the economy by lowering real interest rates and encouraging investment spending and purchases of durable goods.”“
The PTB are completely at sea and are absolutely locked into a power dive. – blert
Apparently Jamie Dimon didn’t get the memo. That’s not snark, just wondering what he knows that we don’t, if anything.
RE: Doug
Then write it up Doug! I don’t have Leo’s vocabulary (or Buddy’s) or Buddy’s wit (or Leo’s). Make the case in a public forum.
Not.a.Peep
[aside from the small voice of Roubini, Markopolos, and a few others]
Mongoose,
I lived in the USSR. believe me, you have no idea what it was like.
I do. In Czechoslovakia, bare the far better economics (the commies did not have such a long time to ruin it completely and the black market was always alive and well), the life was not that dissimilar. The unbearable greyness of being…
If there was no USSR to hold it together, by the late sixties, Czechoslovakia would self-correct. In fact, it tried despite. The main reason was that a substantial segment still remembered the times before. And even majority of members of The Party were shopping for a second opinion.
Under normal circumstances even if the leftist offensive was a success, in 10 years, this whole leftist experiment would be gone. Scales would fall from eyes, the koolaid would taste like rotting fruit.
However, the Islamic factor is kind of a wrench in the cogwheel. It is hard to predict how that would play out, but it is almost assured that weakening of US would seem to them as an open invitation.
But perhaps even that is the part of a history lesson. You can explain all this, beforehand, to some people and they would see the light and understand. But they are a minority. The majority does not relate. They would only learn by direct experience.
You won’t be able to get 10 million people to march on Washington, DC. Not now. In 3-4 or even 6 years, that may be a different story. I know, a lot of collateral damage in the meanwhile… but American spirit is far from defeated or tired, as opposed to British spirit.
We need to see a bit into the future. and work on it. We have demographic trends on our side. We need to educate our children and grandchildren. Just like my “reactionary” grandpa was a major influence in my education.
We need to preserve all that represents our values, and start right now, before it starts being erased or “revised”, bit-by-bit. And we need to come up with something similar to samizdat. We have tools that our fathers couldn’t dream of. Anything forbidden will acquire a taste of forbidden fruit. Been there done that.
Maybe it won’t come that far. And the luck would have it that the 0′s administration f*ckups would be so apparent in a year and half that it would do the trick and a lot of people would find themselves awake. Maybe. But things may be tougher. And we should be prepared.
Some of you people need some serious training in Operational Security.
@ 226. Old Chief
Well, generalities don’t need OpSec. I were dealing with the everpresent shadow of StB (Czech State Security) for quite a chunk of my life, so I know the deal.
“The banks are a train wreck…
Google Mish, Denninger, Calculated Risk and Martin Armstrong….
The PTB are completely at sea and are absolutely locked into a power dive.
The net effect of Geithner at the helm is like putting Smith in charge of the Titantic.”
///
*If* this were a nefarious plot being plotted by those overseas, and *if* our new President were a sock puppet being manipulated by said nefarious plotters, and *if* you had America reeling and on the ropes … would not the next step be to install people in charge and at the helm of “recovery efforts” who would knowingly and with forethought make everything worse?
(OldChief — don’t you think there’s been too damned much secrecy already and that what we’re talking about should be headlined on all media so that everyone knows the games afoot? But we know the media is a huge part of the problem, so it won’t be … but really, the more people who know there’s a problem, the better. I have to believe you’re thinking old school.) [Either that, or you're one of "them" trying to tamp things down.]
Something I remember from my growing up. My father was in the CSA (Cz. Army) in the counter-intel section. When I were 14 (right after the “brotherly help”), he was bringing home raw intel, clippings from western press and minutes from KSC politbyro. I am sure he was blowing OpSec big time, but he said he considers us (me and my brother) in “need to know”.
What’s the moral? Ya figger it out.
@ 228. NahnCee
Today, you are right. Tomorrow, it may be a different story. Then would be the time establish channels that are away from big brother’s eyes. Anyway, keep my email handy, or send me a note.
And…
[Either that, or you're one of "them" trying to tamp things down.]
No. He’s just forward thinking and you are … inexperienced.
“Then write it up Doug! I don’t have Leo’s vocabulary (or Buddy’s) or Buddy’s wit (or Leo’s).”
1 + You = Two
y’all are very flattering but i gits performance anxiety whenever my alligator mouth overloads my mockingbird ass. here’s the deal. nothing can be done with internet research alone whenever there’s something you need and can’t find. I need to interview me some people face to face and use my antennae on their nonverbal sigs. however i can see making section B pg 28 below the fold “Incoherent man removed from congressman’s doorstep”. I need a credential. and a suit. and (horrors!) a tie. have found several refs to summer of 08 and rule 157, seems the oppo to suspension was from O’s economics HQ the Univ of Chicago.
I’m really glad mongoose and twoby got out that comm-mess over there, and am truly embarrassed that we have let the morlocs take over here, too, just when eastern europe is finally free. so now what else but to trade eastern europe back to the soviets so we can “send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan” –and have thus a German 6th Army/Stalingrad sized deployment. Hillary’s in PRC, Putin is meeting w/ Koizume (still in the gov’t), and a big US private delegation just arrived in NoKo, invited for a possible surprise announcement. however the NoKos still plan to fire that tapeidong (sounds like a hernia treatment) twards civilization.
How was I to know she was with the Russians Too?
I can absolutely guarantee that close to everyone understands the (borderline) criminality of betting with an asset/security you don’t own
Since when did short selling become borderline criminal?
doug, i fired up my short wave radio a little while ago and picked up edward r. murrow in London, June, 1940. he asked me, after i told him i was in 2009, if we were still flattening each other cities. i said, no, just each other’s digital pixels. he said, “Oh, well, lucky you.”
Bob Smith – It’s not but it should be (I kid only partially). As per the extraordinary short volume within the (ex) Big Five months before the house of cards collapsed (ref Cramer’s investigation).
http://www.resistnet.com/
Subscribe. Info on march on Washington DC, status of sovereignty declarations in many states, efforts to overcome fracturing and to organize and link numerous groups, etc.
however i can see making section B pg 28 below the fold “Incoherent man removed from congressman’s doorstep”.
I’d be lucky to get space next to the crossword puzzle solving the anagram world of securitization. Derive This! (using Doug’s post-modern math)
Seriously, the principled opposition to Obama and his nascent policies is being marginalized, particularly the editorializing emerging from blog space. I remain suspicious of the financial collapse – halfway between “confluence” and “conspiracy.” If Buddy is right about Univ of Chicago (Austin Goolsby) having the inside track (personal friend of yours?) then Summers is just window dressing and Geithner (god give me the strength to discipline myself from riffing off the Ted Bundy look-a-like theme which I know will be in bad taste if not funny as h^ll.)
OK, guys – you’ve now become so terse and secret and witty that you’re indecipherable.
2×4: Yea, I agree.
nahncee, i think what you’re picking up on is that events are galloping past worrying about what happened –the outlines are clear enough –and are moving on to what is going to happen next. we’re fortunate to have some folks with experience in deciphering the runes. Michelle Malkin’s comments section also is also mentioning resist net as per above #238.
How many times will Poland’s western friends betray her?
Didn’t someone blog a comment a week or three ago about how the black SUV’s would start to come in the middle of the night to start scooping people up and disappearing them … and then suddenly — lo! — there’s a place you can go and sign up to become officially anti-government to make it easier for the black SUV people to compile their lists of disappearees.
I think not.
@ 245. NahnCee
Be as anonymous on that site as you like.
But if it is yanked out at some point, I repeat, remember my email. I’ll have something in place, out of zombies’ reach.
Isn’t the a difference in degree of abstraction between classical short-selling and some of the arcane derivatives from the CDO era?
Typo corrected:
“Didn’t someone blog a comment a week or three ago about how the black SUV’s would start to come in the middle of the night to start scooping people up and disappearing them … and then suddenly — lol — there’s a place you can go and sign up to become officially anti-government to make it easier for the black SUV people to compile their lists of disappearees.”
—
Gotta have humor @ the Gallows.
Doug – I almost don’t want to go here but classical short selling is betting on a downturn and making profit from the buy-sell difference. Naked shorts are just that – ownership not required. Cox suspended naked shorts last Oct but I think the suspension was rescinded this year (?). The variety of derivatives blossomed when the banks started to use securitization to create investment paper that provided profit through buying and selling – the broad name was SIV (structured investment vehicles). A specific SIV was the collaterized debt obligation (CDO) or collaterized mortgage obligation (CMO). These became nasty because they bundled the bad and very bad loans with the medium and good loans to various degrees that were poorly risk-rated, often filed as AAA investment grade when in fact they were not. So bad mortgage-backed securities (MBS) as they were also called were distributed through the global financal system at 30:1 and 40:1 leverage ratios.
Then the industry got really clever by introducing credit default swaps (CDS) which were pure gambling bets – insurance against mortgage defaults – mortgages that were buried in the “tranches” of the MBS. When the mortgages started to go south, the insurance premiums came due.
It is obvious to me that Risk Management was non-existent (except Roubini and a few of hs colleagues who were politely but robustly ignored). I don’t object to complicated investment vehicles. I object to their compromising the financial system so severely that my little portfolio investments in diapers and cheese tanked along with real estate. “The fundamentals were sound”.
Until they weren’t.
These kind of vehicles – bundled paper, leveraged and backed with insurance – absolutely require risk management. If the financial community cannot be relied upon to be responsible then Congess should restrict their access to toys.
I think your outline covers plenty of “features” that render realistic risk assessment impossible – even tracking ownership became problematic.
re:
Diapers, Cheese, and fundamentals:
Limbaugh referenced a firm that rates companies based on the degree to which they invest in lobbying, there being a direct relationship between amount of lobbying and performance.
Fundamentals are a thing of the past.
Follow the (govt subsidized) money.
Naked shorts made sense to me in the context of individual accounts with limits on trading related to collateral.
Ahem – would that be the same Congress as is buying and selling Senate seats?
Ahem – would that be the same Congress as is buying and selling Senate seats?
Shorting the future of this country they are.
“features” that render realistic risk assessment impossible
That’s an interesting judgment call. Not in my assessment. From a practical view, yes, complicated SIV’s raise the probability that risk will be mis-valued (although Michael Milken did not seem to have that problem running his junk bond empire). From a technical view, whence spreadsheets? This type of investment product was only made possible by digital computation (not to mention the move from fractions to decimals which I consider a chimera) so I reject the proposition that risk management was compromised by the complexity of the vehicles.
Smokescreen
Not.a.peep.
Naked shorts made sense to me in the context of individual accounts with limits on trading related to collateral.
An individual ‘circuit breaker’, but not one designed to contain the(possibly contrived) mass market movements, which is where the uptick rule came in – suspended still.
Funny,
I wasn’t even thinking of the rating companies, which were central.
Nice to be able to view all this in a casual, abstract manner.
“When you ain’t got nuthin,
you got nuthin to lose.”
—
I think w/o spreadsheets many of the vehicles could have been judged
unsafe at any speed by an honest observer.
You + Bobby McGee = snake eyes
And if I hear the pejorative “narcissistic” one more time I’m going to
do something awful.
@ 258. slade
As a pejorative, I’d understand, and something awful may be a way to deal with it..
As a clinical diagnosis of you know who, though, you don’t have beef.
twoby,
She once scolded me for describing the one as a “Marxist.”
Perhaps she’s perjorphobic?
I was just trying to be accurate!
Well, Doug, some may argue he’s really a fascist (socialist corporatism), but then, Lenin also rolled out his NEP for a bit to get investments in that he could later “nationalize”, so marxist may be the best fit.
Funny, when I was a li’l kid, people were saying “I nationalized this” and “I nationalized that”, and I did not understand what they meant. Actually it did not take long and I realized they meant “wealth redistribution”.
LOL –that’s pretty telling –i recall my own lords of the flies era, we used “expropriated”. now that i think about it, that must’ve come from dads in the service in WWII. “Nationalized” –that’s a good’n.
Correction:
There’s usually somthin left to lose, whether you realize it or not:
Take a nite’s sleep,
and a hundred books or so,
two computers that I have hopes didn’t get wet enough to finish off,
shoes, paper products, etc etc.
Lucky we have tile floors,
else the three slightly flooded rooms would be a REAL mess.
…sprinkler system malfunction….
we’re thankful we’re not in Buffalo:
The poor workers there had to thaw blocks of ice from all the firefighting to separate the plane pieces from the house pieces, from the people pieces.
as we say here:
“Lucky we live Hawaii!”
(and now I can add, that I didn’t have to learn about communism growing up, thanks to two by)
…course they say it’s harder to teach an old Doug new tricks,
so we’ll see how I adapt, won’t we?
Iz he’s Not
…but still…
Leave My Monkey Alone
Zappa, “Wind up working in a gas station” & “I might be moving to Montana”