Russia had but one Czar, but Obama has appointed a whole plethora. Glenn Reynolds discusses the galaxy of Czars in the new administration’s universe. Onward to progress, and here’s just the soundtrack to do it with.
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Onward to progress, and here’s just the soundtrack to do it with.
I must respectfully disagree, wretchard. THIS Red Army Choir appearance represents progress. Listen for the “Volga Boat Song” at the end.
The generally supposed reason for the numerous czars was so Obama could run policy from the White House without the congressional oversight that Cabinet officers would be under. And yet policy is produced neither in the White House, nor the several departments of the executive branch, but in Congress mostly.
I think the stuffing of the White House is just because he needed to reward many people from his campaign, and creating czarships and their staffs provided a lot of patronage jobs. We should probably be glad they don’t seem to be doing much.
Think like a Democrat. Americans assume we elect politicians to serve us, Democrats think they are elected to rule us. Czars make perfect sense in an empire. Why don’t we have a Czar for Afghanistan?
T/2; i couldn’t disgree more. There’s ample patronage places –just put ‘em in the cabinets as assistant deputy whatevers. No, these WH czars are the ‘action’ team. Look into it, you’ll see. I mean, look how the big moves have been made already. The new cabinet secretaries are the patronage, not the czars. Look at the big kahoona, Sec of State –a recent international poll puts her the 36th ‘most powerful woman’ (Merkel is #1) –a steeep drop for her, reflective of a sense of where the power is and isn’t.
To misquote Ulysses Grant, I only recognize two songs. One is “We are the World”, and one isn’t. This is!
Are they czars or just his tutors by another name. Someone has to bring him up to speed on the myriad of topics that he hasn’t quite mastered as of yet.
He really ought to appoint Joe Biden czar of something.
See the marchers! See the flags!
See the Czarmen marching strong
Dozens of them, no one lags
Marching to a Sousa song
‘Bamanation on display
Clad in their Brooks Brothers
Proud they are this proudest day
Prouder than all others
Swinging past the grandstands soon
Grinning oh so clever
As the band blares out the tune
Czars and Tripes Forever
I’d go with Shostakovich, albeit the movement that suggests eventually taking on the bureaucracy.
I think you nailed it. Czars are created to reward Obama donors and collect taxpayers money. Working in DC makes them feel important, even they have no clue what they were doing there in the first place. Maybe Obama is already hedging some money for his re-election through his Czars.
Democrats are known to spend others people’s money except their own. It runs in their genes.
Can’t get out, can’t stay in
what a mess we’re in my friend
all ‘cuz we played with hammer n sickle
and got our ass in a awful pickle
Burma Shaved!
Start an International Czar Registry, and offer to name a Czar after somebody.
Just in case there’s anybody who hasn’t seen the Red Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys singing “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Walt, “Czars and Tripes Forever” That made me smile.
Mr. Barsen, Shouldn’t that be “Boma shaved!”
For those who remember a certain saying about Dick Nixon’s untrustworthiness, I suggest an update:
Would you buy a used czar from this man?
The new czars’ salaries could be renamed Cash for Clunkers.
Tony@3: ”Think like a Democrat. Americans assume we elect politicians to serve us, Democrats think they are elected to rule us. Czars make perfect sense in an empire. Why don’t we have a Czar for Afghanistan?”
Richard Holbrooke.
True, Holbrooke is called “Special Advisor” rather than Czar, but his job is the same.
obama operates in the shadows, not in the transparent manner he lied about during the campaign. But are the Czar’s any more than a kitchen cabinet? While they do operate around the world with that world knowing they are doing obama the Kenyan’s bidding that is their only power…formidable as it is.
It’s also a way for obama to manage the effectiveness of those Cabinet Secretaries who must rail at playing second fiddle to true cronies. But why worry for by setting the Czars up and playing them up? obama is simply providing more proof of his ineptness and exposing the Czars to oversight where Executive Privilege is going to be hard to claim when the investigations begin.
(tangential) Biffett the “advisor czar}
Now a different tune,
Buffett: We’re Going to Be Crushed Under Mountain of Debt
Posted Aug 19, 2009 11:51am EDT by Henry Blodget in Investing, Media, Newsmakers, Recession, Banking
Related: tbt, tlt, udn, uup, brk-a, brk-b, spy
A highly influential American has finally hit the panic button about the tremendous mountain of debt the country is piling up.
Last year, Warren Buffett says, we were justified in using any means necessary to stave off another Great Depression. Now that the economy is beginning to recover, however, we need to curtail our out-of-control spending, or we’ll destroy the value of the dollar and many Americans’ life savings.
Some not-so-fun facts from Buffett’s editorial today in the New York Times:
Congress is now spending 185% of what it takes in
Our deficit is a post WWII record of 13% of GDP
Our debt is growing by 1% a month
We are borrowing $1.8 trillion a year
$1.8 trillion is a lot of money. Even if the Chinese lend us $400 billion a year and Americans save a remarkable $500 billion and lend it to the government, we’ll still need another $900 billion.
So, where’s it going to come from? Most likely the printing press. And, ultimately, Buffett says, that will destroy the value of the dollar.
If you spent 185% of what you take in would you be hurt’n?
Habu,
But are the Czar’s any more than a kitchen cabinet?
Unlike the Kitchen Cabinet this lot get paid and come with a horde of locusts that eat out of the public treasury. In FDR’s day connected people who had achieved prominence in industry considered it an honor to be offered a position as a “Dollar a Year Man.”
All of the records and proceedings of these people who are occupying offices that are outside of congressional oversight should be subpoenaed for public review. Remember the Hillarycare Health Care Task Force? That also was an effort to make policy in the dark and it was exposed.
Once again Yes Minister proves to be the true oracle. They called the people given responsibility outside of Cabinet responsibilities “Supremos.” When Jim Hacker became Transport Supremo he learned he was in trouble.
Jim: But I’m going to be Transport Supremo.
Sir Humphrey: I believe the Civil Service vernacular is Transport Muggins
The Bed of Nails, 1st of 3 parts.
#12 ForNow
Thanks for the link. I had no idea the Leningrad Cowboys existed.
0bama Czar Disambiguation:
0bama Czar => 0bama Crony
@17 Habu
[re: Buffett]
“Congress is now spending 185% of what it takes in
”Our deficit is a post WWII record of 13% of GDP
”Our debt is growing by 1% a month
”We are borrowing $1.8 trillion a year
”$1.8 trillion is a lot of money. Even if the Chinese lend us $400 billion a year and “Americans save a remarkable $500 billion and lend it to the government, we’ll still need another $900 billion.”
“So, where’s it going to come from? Most likely the printing press. And, ultimately, Buffett says, that will destroy the value of the dollar.”
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
Monetary Economics 101:
Run away expansionary monetary policy lead to devalued currency. And, it doesn’t have to come from the printing physical dollars – just increasing the outstanding debt increases the dollars outstanding. This usually leads to inflation of goods and deflation of the dollar – and economic disaster.
Returning to the “Czar” issue, how about a Litigation Czar?
[Satire from Scott Ott]:
With multimillion-dollar jury awards in medical malpractice suits driving up the cost of liability insurance for physicians — and thus the cost of health care to consumers — President Barack Obama today backed a health care malpractice reform plan that would create a “public option” law firm to sue doctors for “reasonable” damages…
The president said, “No one knows better than the U.S. Congress how desperately we need a public option malpractice firm to boost choice and competition. Most members are either lawyers like me, or got elected by befriending lawyers who became major campaign contributors. I’m sure they’ll be receptive to my plan…”
“By having one group of lawyers in the land who act with unquestioned integrity,” said the president, “we’ll force the private-sector bloodsuckers to drastically reduce their fees.”
See: Obama plan creates ‘Public Option’ malpractice law firm
http://tinyurl.com/lejw67
“…beware. Organizing For Americas’s health-care efforts are only the first of many community organizing projects to come. “Next is energy and then education, all before the new year….”
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzE0M2RjNTg1OGE3YTA0NDM4NDc3N2U4MGM2YTZmNzM=
18. Lifeofthemind
Good point on the $$ these folks are receiving.
I would point out one thing however. The Kitchen Cabinet didn’t work for free. They worked under what former Tammany ward boss George Washington Plunkett wrote about in his vary candid book on “honest graft” and how effective it was.
FDR rewarded the Kitichen Cabinet with “honest graft” and they grew even wealthier under his largess.
I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em!
luddy,
you haven’t lost a step even though your name slipped down the alphabet a few notches …hope all is well with you..been too busy on this end..Montana wilds were a tonic but buying two new homes in Fl and MT and a new Nissan 350Z convertible have me runn’n…next a Harley Fat Bob in April .. then a drunk driver can pull out in front of me and ….well Habu roadkill….but the Z and the Harley are going to Montana …the drunk state where saloons are day care centers.
Obama main job is to destroy the dollar, thereby destroying America as a world power.
Obama is just a front for other powers, domestic ansd foreign.
he Buffet note is interesting: seems he has been had. So it is with Corporatists that think they can ride the tiger of Leftism, or anticipate and utilize independent actors such that berserker Soros, and steer them all toward their own ends. It goes to show just how foolish people like Buffet really are; we listen to them at our peril.
The only way to stop/reverse this devaluation is to radically reduce the size of government and the taxation and regulation of business. Even then it will take a couple of decades to get us back on our feet. The only alternatives are either tyranny and poverty on one hand or all out war on the other.
This devaluation is going to happen. Again, this moment needs to be seized as a “teaching moment” for the American people. There is only one way out, and our enemies are ruthless–they wll not stop, they do not have any intention of ever doing “the right thing. They are not “misguided”, they are possessed of a deep and black evil, and they mean to destroy us and our civilization.
Please read this M. Malkin thread, ACLU/Gitmo jihadi lawyers questioned on blowing CIA officers’ cover.
Remember the thread we just had about a film exalting the lawyers who defended the war criminal Homma? Remember all the anguish from the Left during the Valerie Plame affair that got Scooter Libby railroaded for not remembering that Richard Armitage might have told Robert Novak about someone who was no longer a covert operative?
The underlaying WaPo article has another quote from the ACLU on the “courage” of lawyers.
Obama is the czar czar. To whom are the czars accountable? Could someone please tell me what ‘wee weed” means on the street? As in; “There is something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee weed up!”
Evidently some progressives are starting to grumble about the big pharma deal Team 44 recently cut.
Why use a commie/solcialist term, CZAR when you could go german with Kaiser or Fuhrer.
I think the Fuhrer of health or the Fuhrer of global warming would be an apt name such as The Fuhrer of Afganistan which would have a nice ring to it.
Personally I believe the term should be Supervisor.
“”"”12. ForNow:”"”"”
Thank you. “Sweet Home Alabama”
Right up there with “Sringtime for Hitler”
Priceles
Why use a commie/solcialist term, CZAR when you could go german with Kaiser or Fuhrer.
I think the Fuhrer of health or the Fuhrer of global warming would be an apt name such as The Fuhrer of Afganistan which would have a nice ring to it.
Personally I believe the term should be Supervisor.
Now, what’s wrong with the perfectly good “Duke”, “Count”, or “Crown Prince”?
Oh, and since someone already mentioned scrappleface, I can’t wait to see what he does with the news that the Court of Obama will end the cash for clunkers program on monday.
Let’s see, my effort:
Government to End Care for Clunkers Program.
The White House is indeed trying to run as much as possible from its offices. They send out directives and missives all the time that used to be routed through and from various agencies in previous administrations. I know this from first-hand experience.
Incidentally, I believe it was Wretchard himself who pointed out in a post last year that Obama broke with the Alinsky method a long time ago in one important regard: Alinsky was very much a bottom-up, grassroots kind of guy. Obama became a top-down believer after he came back to Chicago from Harvard. As I vaguely recall, he had a contentious relationship with community organizers of the classical kind, because they liked the traditional Alinsky approach. While Obama may use a shell of the “Alinsky method,” it is an artifice directed from the top.
Here’s my entry for the Obamaland theme song:
When you wish upon a Czar,
Makes no difference who you are.
When you wish upon a Czar,
Your dreams come true.
Habu:
Great posts as always.
Another way of looking at our deficits just for giggles.
If Obama keeps this up at his $1.8 trillion rate for four years, you could liquidate all the deposits in American Banks ( $6.8 trillion) and still come up short. Of course, you can’t liquidate all those deposits in the real world; besides the banks have already blown a lot of that money and have only $273 billion cash on hand. And the FDIC is broke.
Another way would be to liquidate the entire money market securities market ($3.6 trillion) and that would just about pay for 2 years of Obamadeficits.
Of course, we can’t really do those things. Karl at MarketTicker says we have completely hit the wall on foreign borrowing, so we’ll just have to rely on Helicopter Ben to print funny money from here on out.
I think we all need to congratulate Turbo Tax Timmy, Helicopter Ben and of course our Savior, Buraq Hussein, on a job well done.
#30 Roderick Reilly:
I wouldn’t call Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” a “Springtime for Hitler” kind of song. It’s a response to Neil Young’s songs “Southern Man” and “Alabama” because they thought that he went overboard in apparently condemning all Southern men. Ronnie Van Zant at the time: “We thought Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two.” People take it as having a pro-George C. Wallace line but the group said that it’s anti-Wallace.
In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo)
Now we all did what we could do.
meaning they tried to get Wallace out of there. In 1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd supported Jimmy Carter for President.
See the well-footnoted Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Home_Alabama , and kick back and enjoy the good music.
So, at this rate, how long before massive inflation – or other less obvious consequences that the financial wizards will be able to conceal for a while (e.g. debts are assets, no matter how large!) – sets in?
35. ForNow:
You misunderstood. It was hilarious, in the same vein as “Springtime.” I mean we are talking about the RED Army chorous here.
And I am familiar with the history behind the lyrics.
#6. blindman, they are not tutors, because there is no sign Obama is a tutee.
GOD BLESS JOHN DEERE AND COMPANY
We’d be screwed blue without Deere and Company.
The harvest here is late, late, late.
It’s almost September, and it’s just starting. Usually we are finished by now.
In the old days, this would have been a true disaster.
As it is, with these new monster combines most of the fellows have now, they will get it in, most of it anyway, with the big new machines, in this window of opportunity.
GOD BLESS JOHN DEERE AND COMPANY
bob from the farm front reporting
These new machines beat the old GODDAMNED 6602s that I used.
GODDAMNED 6602s taught a man how to swear.
These new machines, which never heat up, you can run ‘em 24 hours straight, quiet as your office, cool as a cucumber, are truly beautiful, an engineering marvel, God’s gift to farming folk.
GO AMERICA!
Well, at least the “Sweet Home Alabama” issues have been clarified for the young ‘uns reading this. Come to think of it, the young ‘uns probably don’t even know who Wallace was, and probably never saw The Producers either.
I didn’t even notice that this thread’s first post, by Salt Lick, linked to the Red Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys performing (what else) “Sweet Home Alabama.”
I must say, that sounds like terrific news from the farm front.
#29 Barry:
Czar & Kaiser have the same meaning – both being derived from ‘Caesar’.
Walt, #7: Czars and Tripes. Very good. That one may be canonical – in Walt’s top 20 or so.
Skookumchuk
Classic New Yorker rejection, Get your tripewriter fixed.
Is this the Punishment thread?
Just commented on Roger Kimball’s final wrap up of Yale (the other white meat Ivy) censoring the Motoons book.
http://tinyurl.com/mbu5pm
In moderation on PJM, deathless prose displayed on my blog.
If reducing everything to a rhyme in thing,
A little something Dylan might sing,
“The Times they are a changing” Dylan that is,
called “Something’s Burning, Baby” seems to capture the essence of Bamamania, lately.
“Something is burning, baby, are you aware?
Something is the matter, baby, there’s smoke in your hair
Are you still my friend, baby, show me a sign
Is the love in your heart for me turning blind?
“You’ve been avoiding the main streets for a long, long while
The truth that I’m seeking is in your missing file
What’s your position, baby, what’s going on?
Why is the light in your eyes nearly gone?
“I know everything about this place, or so it seems
Am I no longer a part of your plans or your dreams?
Well, it is so obvious that something has changed
What’s happening, baby, to make you act so strange?
“Something is burning, baby, here’s what I say
Even the bloodhounds of London couldn’t find you today
I see the shadow of a man, baby, makin’ you blue
Who is he, baby, and what’s he to you?
“We’ve reached the edge of the road, baby, where the pasture begins
Where charity is supposed to cover up a multitude of sins
But where do you live, baby, and where is the light?
Why are your eyes just staring off in the night?
“I can feel it in the night when I think of you
I can feel it in the light and it’s got to be true
You can’t live by bread alone, you won’t be satisfied
You can’t roll away the stone if your hands are tied
“Got to start someplace, baby, can you explain?
Please don’t fade away on me, baby, like the midnight train
Answer me, baby, a casual look will do
Just what in the world has come over you?
“I can feel it in the wind and it’s upside down
I can feel it in the dust as I get off the bus on the outskirts of town
I’ve had the Mexico City blues since the last hairpin curve
I don’t wanna see you bleed, I know what you need but it ain’t what you deserve
“Something is burning, baby, something’s in flames
There’s a man going ’round calling names
Ring down when you’re ready, baby, I’m waiting for you
I believe in the impossible, you know that I do”
Copyright ©1985 Special Rider Music
Not one of his better known efforts but it is now a classic in my heart.
34. Unsk..Thank you for the compliment…I only know and pass along what I read…which continues to put me in absolute awe of Aristotle.
Here’s whats coming next. Not mass inflation but a worldwide coordination of currency devaluation.
It’s a strategy that can ease the burden of ALL debts — by simultaneously
devaluing ALL currencies … and re-inflating ALL asset prices.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke … Treasury Secretary Geithner …
President Obama … former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson …
former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker … Warren Buffett … George
Soros and central bankers and politicians all over the world are
well aware of it, and in my opinion, are already working on it.
If you think I’m propagating some kind of conspiracy theory, then consider the historical precedent …
To end the Great Depression in
1933 Franklin Roosevelt, devalued
the dollar via Executive Order
#6102, confiscating gold and raising
its price 69.3%, effectively kick
starting asset reflation.
Only this time, it won’t be just the
U.S. that devalues its currency. The
world is too inter-related. Instead,
central banks and governments around
the world will participate in a simultaneous and universal
currency devaluation.
This time, they will NOT confiscate gold. There would be riots all over the globe if they even mentioned the “C” word.
But they don’t have to confiscate gold …
All they have to do is cease all gold sales and instead, raise the current official central bank price of gold from its booked value of $42.22 an ounce — to a price that monetizes a large enough portion of the world’s
outstanding debts.
That way, just like in 1933, the debts become a fraction of reinflated
asset prices (led higher by the gold price).
And this time, instead of staying with the dollar as a reserve currency, three new monetary units of exchange are likely to be issued, each with equal reserve status.
The three currencies will essentially be a new dollar, a new euro, and a new pan-Asian currency (The Chinese yuan may
survive as a fourth currency. But it will be linked to a basket of the three new currencies).
The new fiat monetary units will be worth less than the old ones. For instance, it could take 10 new units of money to buy 1 old dollar or euro. New names will be given to the new currencies to help rid the world of the ghost of a system that failed. Additional regulations and
programs will be designed and implemented to ease the transition to a new monetary system.
The IMF will implement the new financial system in conjunction with the world’s central banks and governments. The IMF is already set up to handle the transition, and has The IMF will be at the center
of the new monetary system had contingency plans allowing for it since the institution was formed in 1944.
Included in the design and transition to a new monetary system …
A new fixed-rate currency regime. Immediately upon upping the price of gold and introducing the new currencies, a
new fixed exchange rate system will be re-introduced. The floating exchange rate system will be tossed into the dust bin
along with the old currencies. This will kill any speculation about further devaluations in the currency markets, and drastically reduce market volatility.
Compensatory measures to protect savers (who suffer most from a currency devaluation). For instance, a one-time
windfall tax-free deposit will be issued by governments directly to citizens’ accounts, or, to employer-sponsored pensions, to IRAs, or Social Security accounts. Income taxes may subsequently be raised to pay for the giveaway,
or a nominal global type of sales tax will be enacted to help pay for the new system and the compensatory measures.
Additional programs will be designed to protect lenders and creditors. Lenders stand a much higher chance of getting
paid off under the new monetary system — but with currency whose purchasing power is now a fraction of what it was when
the loans were originated. So programs will be designed to help lenders offset the inflationary costs of their devalued loans, probably via the tax code.
Will it work to help alleviate the deflationary pressures of mountains of debt going bad?
Yes. I believe it will.
But don’t expect the new monetary system to put the U.S. or even the global economy back on track toward the high net real rates of growth that we’ve seen over the last several years. That’s simply not going to happen. Not for a while.
Instead, we’ll see massive asset price reflation, negative real economic growth in the U.S. and Europe — but continued real GDP gains in Asia.
That my friends is the current thinking of Geo Soros, Ben Bernecke, and other’s who control our lives through THEiR manipulation of OUR money. They already proved over the past two years they can create any “panic” to justify any shell game they desire.
habu/25; yep, BC turned me in on the ‘crash for monikers’ program it had running a few weeks back, and i had to slide down the alphabet to make a post –still do, it don’t like me as i yam.
man that Harley is gonna be a RIDE up there in Big Sky Country –hotdamn!
I forget who posted this (i think here @ BC) elsewhere –a few days ago –i being a part-Louisianian saved it but only looked at it just now. It’s the Rev. Manning on radio (atlah.org) really blasting down on Obama. He’s p*ssed OFF!
http://la-gun.com/manning/obama/
My kids started singing the volga Boatman song stanza with slightly different lyrics. I thought it was a may day celebratory sort of lilt, but they insist on singing it on the anniversary of my ending up on earth.
“Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday,
Misery is in the air,
death and dying everywhere
Happy Birthday.”
Given the above, the following seems somehow fitting.
Henry David Thoreau, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
Our graves are being prepared. It is said best in the Melian Dialogues…”the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
“If I were the king of the forrrrrrest!
Not a duke, or an earl, but a king………”
I think that link in #47 tried to send a pop-up for an anti-virus scan –beware –it’s worth seeing but not if has a nasty stuck to it. i’d erase it if i could.
Habu/46,
The really scary part is that it make sense that it will be done that way. Will China go along with it? Will FSR?
It completes the circle of how to turn the US into a socialist state without creating a huge hole in the planet’s surface. Still a measured act on such a large scale is bound to have some unforeseen residual “benefits” for a lot of folks, not just the grave diggers.
If they change the color of the new dollar, and one has to take one’s greenbacks to a physical exchange, the several dozen trillions of black market cash would be brought back under control and become less a threat to standing governments.
Put another way, underground criminal organizations would have to treat, and would lose some of the power they’ve built up. Power that may’ve finally gotten uncomfortable for the above-ground legits.
Wow, Bluddy, I was unfamiliar with that fellow until just now when I followed your link. I am not sure if I want to say thanks or Holy Bluddy sassafras.
LOL, Wade –yessir, that’s a PREACHER!
Habu:
Well all I can say is that Soros, et al., are kidding themselves if they think that the nations of the West will take this plan passively. They will not pull it off–there will be bloody revolt beyond what they can possibly anticipate. The notion that the “elites” can control this is absurd. Just look at the problems in the EU lately. The veil has been lifted on that diabolical hustle and it is fading fast. There is not trust in the populous over there, and not the muscle to subordinate the public either. They cannot even protect them from the “Yutes”. In just this case alone, the project is failing. I predict that the EU will morph into a just slightly more intrusive version of the OCED within a decade. It is just lunacy to imagine that this system that you are talking about can be implemented by fiat or can can be maintained for very long, and I mean by this that it cannot last even 5 years.
It is hard to see how this will work when they cannot even now get parts of the EU to join the Euro. Japan linking its fate to central bankers in Beijing and Seoul? Britain allowing Paris and Berlin to decide its fate? This is a notion that might fly in the cloak rooms of the Congress or Brussels or the Japanese Diet, but in the wild woolly world it is another matter altogether.
(I know that there are those in the USA that think the the Europeans are a flock of socialist sheep, but this is not really true; the tide is starting to turn over there, and the “common man” has had just about enough, It just does not make it into the media over here.)
It is far more likely that this will provoke populist and nationalist political moments as a backlash and these will oust the current “elites”. We must remember that this is not the 1930′s. We have as a world population, or at least in the West, a wholly different experience with prosperity and social mobility than did the people of that time. Folks will know that they are being lied too.
What is for certain is that Western Elites are possessed by a self loathing and a hatred for their civilization that defies precedent in all of history. They in fact do not seem to understand that civilization very much. They are fundamentally cowards, poseurs, opportunists, weasels and vipers. They are not worthy of the responsibilities that they bear and are not up to the challenges that they face. They will not last long in a realcrisis.
There is much more to our civilization than these perfumed villains. I imagine that when they discover this is will come as quite a surprise to them. They may not have much time to reflect on this surprise. I am not ready to abandon hope.
But beyond all that, the real problems have not been addressed: currency/debt/capital market issues are but an aspect of all this–really a symptom and not a cause. A decline in industrial might, a less skilled populace, socialist squandering of capital across generations, constant bubble creation (as opposed to real capital investment) and the debasement of the the spirit in the West are the chief culprits. Our very foundations have been under attack for generations. My goodness, Fannie and Freddie are still up and running, and the MBS are still be hawked in the money centers and through the hedge funds.
It is am matter of rolling back the depredations of the Left in the last century, not one of “fixing Bretton Woods”.
To blame it on the “currency system” (i.e.: Capitalism) is just immoral and indecent. It is a dodge and a hustle. It may work for a very small span of time, but not for an serious period.
It is this that is the problems the political rentiers cannot keep up their parasitic lifestyles if the proper fixes are made.
So all this does is destroy the wealth of the broad mass of people in the West and elevate a small elite in Asia (which I gather is rather the point).
It is in fact treason, not just to the USA, but to Western Civilization.
People are not half so stupid as not to see this, particularity when it is shoved in their faces. Moreover, it will be impossible for the elites to maintain their “wealth”. The elites seem completely oblivious as to the source from which that wealth springs. IN fat they have just stolen it. They will run out of things to steal soon enough.
It is of course, ridiculous to imagine that some legerdemain will keep whole poeple’s savings. What we are talking about here is the destruction of the wealth of the middle classes of the West. People will not stand for it. People will not ijust sit by while they are destroyed and the ChiComs are raised. They will be hanging FED bankers and officials in the Street.
Such hubris is beyond belief. Soros and Co. are not possessed with the sort of wisdom and insight to pull this off. It is wholly disconnected from the aspirations and expectations of the citizenry of the USA and the EU. It is much more likely to push to the for some sort of iron gloved populist.
I predict that should they try what you suggest, Habu, it is the elites world that shall come crashing down, and with in a generation, we will be back to a stronger Ameria and dollar dominated economies.
The think that we must remember is that this elite is esentailly self-appointed and parasitic. They are not required. They only came to power by political hustles.
If they were to vanish tomorrow, the whole of the sustem would not cease to function. There would not be chaos or anarchy. They over estimate themselves.
Aristotle had it wrong.
“Aristotle is primarily concerned with cosmology, the Perennial Philosophers are primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment: Aristotle is content to know about the unmoving mover, from the outside and theoretically; the aim of the Perennial Philosophers is to become directly aware of it, to know it intuitively, so that they and others may actually become the unmoving One.”
Huxley, Perennial Philosophy
tat tvam asi
Bob,Bob,Bob…
You’re funn’n right? I mean you’re not seriously gonna compare Huxley to Aristotle are you?
56. Mongoose:
Right on..I think if they are seriously thinking about attempting this then they better start digging their graves because hoi polloi will not allow anything like it to happen…I simply had read this was their plan, was actually being seriously considered and , jeez ..can you imagine how far remove from reality these guys must be?
Not funnin’, Habu.
I think he is right on that, wayward on some other matters.
I don’t know. When it comes to the Obama administration, the most fitting song I can think of is from Willy Nelson:
Turn out the lights
The party’s over
They say that
All good things must end
Call it tonight
The party’s over
And tomorrow starts
The same old thing again
But the crazy crazy party
Never seen so many people
Laughing dancing
Look at you you’re having fun
But look at me
I’m almost cryin’
That don’t keep her love from dyin’
Misery cause for me the party’s over
Turn out the lights…
Once I had a love undyin’
I didn’t keep it but I tried
Life for me was just one party
And then another
I broke her heart so many times
I had to have my parting wife
I had to have my party
Why broke her heart so many times
But one day she said
Sweetheart the party’s over
Turn out the lights…
Bob:
Are you not just talking about the difference between metaphysics and ethics? Aristotle was concerned with many branches of Philosophy. Besides, he had every reason for his focus, there were other focusing on other branches (ethics, ontology, etc).
Well Bob I’m sure you have your reasons for choosing to compare Huxley with Aristotle but that is a pretty lonely place.
Few, if any thinkers in history compare to Aristotle. His breath, depth , and scope defined philosophy forever.
Good luck on selling that one.
What are your feelings about Albert Einstein and say Cliff Claven?
o/t for those following the saga of the Arctic Sea.
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2009/0821.html
luddy barsen,
That is rather thin beer. All that we really have is that the ship was worked on in Kaliningrad and that the Russians got very excited.
Habu,
Richard McKeon and Mortimer Adler agreed.
Yep, LotM, the author himself disclaimed the story of the high seas action as possibly among the fantastics that arise around these things. But the heavy in Kiev really exists, and he’s making the claim –and that’s the info in the Nyquist article. Not necessarily the story the Kiev guy is telling, but that he’s telling it.
GOD BLESS JOHN DEERE AND COMPANY
bob from the farm front reporting
Bob, here are some pictures from our wheat farming comrades in Russia. http://englishrussia.com/?p=5001#more-5001
Maybe they don’t sell John Deere there. I didn’t even know what a combine was before last night. I will leave the CLAAS/Lexion vs John Deere comments to the more knowledgeable.