And now for something completely different.
I finally ran into a photoblog which accurately conveys something of the landscape in certain scenes of my novel, No Way In. The My Sari-sari Store site is a treasure-house of images that capture a world that very few people, least of all the better sort of indigenes, will ever know. The photoblog is subtitled Happyland: a look into the world of the utterly, utterly poor. That is a title of genius which could only have been generated by somebody who truly “knows” that millieu and can be used to describe the entire civilization of the islands. It is not entirely facetious. The people who live in Happyland feel the same sorrow, but also the same joy that every human being feels.
“Sa Tondo man, ay may langit din” is code phrase which means that “we too can reach heaven” and is often uttered in an undertone to assert a fundamental equality of humanity with those who zip by in automobiles. It is the key to deciphering the us versus them dynamic of a Third World society of which the diplomatic set usually knows only the upper crust. The people eating the food salvaged from dumpsters, or living off the trash are brothers in their own way, to the poor in Cairo and those who want a better life. That is the half we should get to know if we want to understand what the societies of our “allies” are really built on. There is value to running around with the English speaking elite, and swap stories of common memories at Georgetown, but it is the people of Happyland, who, in whatever language, make up the bulk of those who are aspirational.
Better is a relative term. To inhabitants of Happyland, a tarpaper shack would be a mansion. Half a sandwich that wasn’t pulled out of a trashcan would be a feast. I remember being shown around Harlem in 1982. I found it hard to feign shock. Maybe there was unhappiness and sorrow there too, but no more or less than in Happyland.
To some extent the readers of the Belmont Club and those who’ve read the novel have gotten a glimpse into a world which some native born Filipinos don’t even know exists, in the asides of the comments or sometimes in the subject of the posts themselves. Not that it matters, but it’s interesting. And the novel itself is a reminder of how effective an operator who can move naturally among the lowest of the low can be. The baleful influence of the Belmont Club has apparently extended even to the redoubtable Ed Driscoll, whose latest blog is titled — wait for it – Sigue-sigue Sputnik.
Ed Driscoll’s post is about the Sputnik moment in the President’s State of the Union Speech. But I guess it is a hat tip to the Sigue-sigue, which as some of you readers may remember, were the street gang that was happy to call me one of their own. They were divided into two factions, the Sigue-sigue Commando, whose symbol was the Wildcat, and the Sigue-sigue Sputnik, whose heraldry runs to a planet rampant on a field of dirty skin. “Texas” — which was what they called me — was a Wildcat having the distinction of being cuerna — there, that’s another word — meaning able to get by with no tattoo.
The photos are great. They are not compositions of pity, but depictions of people whose sufferings while not to be underestimated have a humanity that is not undervalued. I am particularly grateful to Happyland photos for depictions of scavenging, which readers will remember from the book. Note this scavenging is the genteel stuff, not the hard core demonic scene that characterized Smokey Mountain.
For those of the readers of my novel who wondered how much of the Tondo I described was real, the answer is that it was all real. Even the Boteng Umiilaw. You may remember the scene:
As they crossed the walkway over the rusty bridge, she glanced down at the meat works below. The stench of decaying flesh rose from it. There was a small building to one side of the abattoir from which jangling music still issued, even at that late, stormy hour. A door opened in the side of the building and in the flare of red light some men could be seen stumbling out.
“That’s the Boteng Umiilaw – the Blinking Bottle – a bar for slaughterhouse workers and petty criminals,” Alex said. He scarcely gave it a glance. “They drink mostly Marca Demonyo gin down there, the one with the label showing St. Michael and Satan fighting for the soul of man.”
Justine looked back down at the Boteng Umiilaw and wondered how Alex knew about it. “Have you ever been there?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said, “and didn’t quite fit in. Maybe I’ll keep coming back until I do.”
And of course Alex always did fit in, but he didn’t know it then. And that jangling music that he heard, the one blaring from jukebox under a 25-watt incandescent bulb? I found even that. On YouTube.
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Heinous pics dude. For some reason it made me go to KiddofSpeed website and look at Chernobyl pics taken by a girl on a motorbike all these years later.
Thanks for the link!
Not sure who all the guys with facial tats are (heinous indeed), but I was referring to this MTV-era group.
Another thought: I recently moved into a very small apt back in my home town. It is utilities included and rent is very manageable. I have no bed, no furniture, no pots or pans. I have one cup, one bowl, one plate, and a set of silverware. I went to goodwill and purchased a very large tv for $30.00. I was going to go back to goodwill this weekend and pick up some pots and pans but on the way to work tonight my “check engine” light came on. Well, I know where this weeks paycheck is going now. I was feeling a little depressed about the whole situation until I read this post. I don’t want to be condescending and pity those poor people but seeing the abject poverty they live in I am going to go home, in the morning after work, wrap up in my sleeping bag on the floor on which I lay my head, and sleep like a baby.
well I just dunno. as a boomer brought up by parents who made it thru the depression, and having at least some exposure to most of the levels of society in the US then and now (read VDH’s recent writeups of the disintegrating California central valley), I look at this and go, “yeah?” Even modern Los Angeles probably has – I dunno, 100,000 or more people with no more connection to a productive role in society than these have. With even a smidgen of effort and luck they get more support, but I’m not talking just about homeless, not just about illegal immigrants, but welfare families living the most marginal lives, quietly. like Ashen above, they can have very large tvs and no pots and pans. it’s like a supposedly surreal scene out of some scifi future, but it’s here now. people can live in the oddest circumstances, right down to naked in the forest. though the naked savage has a place in our pantheon, I only wish I felt more of a remove from it. that this should live side by side with modern, consumer-class populations doesn’t shock me. a trip to the 99 cent store and I’m there again, and voluntarily, that’s where I pick up these reading glasses, and even Jay Leno pops in there to find bits for a regular schtick.
just musings …
I only bought the tv because of the price. I’m trying to pay off my truck and save for a house by the end of the year. I’ll get some cookware later. Don’t really need it right now. Im happy with a cold sandwich and a coke. I hate paying a lot of money in rent. It’s such a waste. I also saw a George foreman grill at goodwill I’m gonna pick up. One of the big ones, didn’t price check it as I cruised on by down the aisle, but I love those things. So, those are my circumstances.
Opportunity Cost. That’s the phrase iwas looking for. Thank you Mr. Smith. Free Enterprise teacher in high school.
Ashen @ 3:
Being a penny-pinching scrounger in this technological age takes knowing some tricks. Before you take the vehicle to a shop, do this. Think back: was it running normally when the light come on? No funny noises? Anything obvious under the hood, loose fluids, dangling hoses/wires? If not, check that all fluids are at sorta normal levels, then disconnect the negative terminal on the battery (the black or bare one, not the red one). Leave it off for a few minutes: this dumps the trouble code out of the computer. Check the oil filler and the gas cap (yes, the gas cap: codes will set for the most trivial of things) to make sure they’re sealed. Then replace the battery terminal and start it up. If the light doesn’t come back on, you’re good to go.
From one scrounger to another: Good luck…
Thx scrounger. No funny noises that I noticed but itz due for an oil change and I’ve had the gascap leak on me before. Could be it needs a new one. Thx for the tips
When it comes to buying a house, if you can’t buy it outright it belongs to the bank not you. Even if it is paid for the local government can take it away from you. They can also change a zoning regulation near your house and destroy half of its value. You can’t be to careful these days. I notice in the apartments that I’m in that people will drop furniture and suff by the dumpsters when they have to move out. A lot of it is junk but some of it is pretty good. The price is getting someone to help haul it up stairs or loaded into a pickup. There’s a guy in the complex that scavanges non-working computers that people abandon. He says you can get power supplies, and other parts from them to resell at a flea market. Often you can use two junked ones to build one working one that is good enough for internet use.
I remeber a story from the Watt’s riot. A guy from some third world country was watching the coverage with some friend on TV and he said, “Those are the fattest “poor” people I’ve ever seen.”
http://www.youfixcars.com/auto-scanner-reviews.html
This site has some reviews on auto diagnostic scanners at different price points. Don’t get me to lying, but some models of Jeep products had the scanner built in, and would display trouble codes through an LCD on the dash. If you had the trouble code list you could find all sorts of things bad oxygen sensor etc. I’ve been snake bit when it comes to Chrysler products over the years and I’d only touch one if someone gave it to me so I’m not real knowledgeable about them anymore.
Hi Richard,
Thank you for the visit. Glad you recognize some scenes from your book “No Way In” which I will try to order from Amazon.
Gratuitous Manuel Quezon Quote:
“I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans, because however a bad Filipino government might be, we can always change it.”
You have a Sari Sari site, W?
I need four LuzViMinda phone cards, some Chippy, a Manny Pacquiao t-shirt, some Eskinol, some Maxx cough drops, and a medium Dinuguan with rice.
Kinch: “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans, because however a bad Filipino government might be, we can always change it.”
Not so. The Philippines is rotted through-and-through with corruption on every level, exactly like Mexico or Venezuela. In fact, the Philippines is really a Latin American country that was sawed off, floated across the Pacific, and anchored in the South China Sea. It will be a First World country someday, but it’s taking the hard road.
I can remember the smell from the mountains of fermenting and smouldering trash, and streams of black water in Africa.
Strange thing is, after a month or so of acclimatizing, I stop noticing it.
The meat from the local chickens and pigs does have an interesting flavour though…
Thanks for sharing.
Teresita:
‘Gratuitous’ was meant to suggest an ironic tone. Personally I cannot imagine Phils ever becoming a first world country. Culture Being King, and all.
And yet,
Poverty is one thing. Innate human worth is another thing. Squalor is a thing, too. And then we get to abject degradation.
How did this happen? Was it this bad in 1950? Was it all Marcos’ fault? Who did this?
Toiling Far From Home for Philippine Dreams
MABINI, the Philippines — Mediterranean-inspired, pastel-colored houses dot the coast and hills of this rural town in the Philippines, dwarfing their traditional counterparts made of unpainted concrete blocks under roofs of corrugated zinc. The larger houses, barely inhabited, many of them empty, belong to overseas workers who plan to return here one day.
Despite their absence, the workers have contributed money to help build roads, schools, water grids and other infrastructure usually handled by local governments. They pay for annual fiestas that were traditionally financed by municipalities, churches and local businesses. Thanks to their help, Mabini became a “first class” municipality last year in a government ranking of towns nationwide, leaping from “third class.”
In one village nicknamed Little Italy, where a quarter of the 1,200 residents are working in Italy, the overseas workers paid 20 percent of the cost to construct a public hall.
“We couldn’t have finished it without the O.F.W.’s,” the village head, Raymundo Magsino, 64, said in an interview inside the building, referring to “overseas Filipino workers.”
Remittances, which the government says have been rising sharply — from $7.6 billion in 2003 to $17.3 billion in 2009 — now account for more than 10 percent of the Philippines’ gross domestic product. The payments are also the main factor driving the country’s recent economic growth, which would have otherwise remained stagnant.
But critics, including many overseas workers, say the government has developed an unhealthy dependence on the remittances, turning a blind eye to their social costs, especially divided families and the reliance on them to pay for services while failing to build a sound economy that produces good jobs at home.
—
Iraq calls for lifting of Philippine travel ban
Iraq’s ambassador called Tuesday on the Philippines to lift its travel ban to Iraq, saying Filipinos can benefit by taking part in his war-damaged country’s reconstruction.
Ambassador Wadee Al-Batti was reacting to a recent Philippine government reiteration of a travel and workers’ deployment ban to high-risk countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Lebanon, Jordan and Somalia.
He said peace and order has greatly improved in Iraq since the Philippines first imposed the ban in 2004, but that no country can guarantee against terrorist attacks.
As a kid in class, because I was bored usually, I used to read under the desk. Remember reading a short story about a group of teenage street hawkers & the choices they made. Either stay out or join the Bahala Na. The one who switched allegiance after his incarceration to a rival gang (don’t recall the name, their symbol was 2 circles) was immediately hit.The poison of choice was gin.
That is about how I imagined it looking but for some strange reason my version was not in color….and the faces of those having to mine their next meal out of the garbage were not pretty and smiling.
Thanks for your work Sidney. “Sa Tondo man, ay may langit din” indeed they will be the first through the gate.
Speaking of poverty:
Marxist (Collectivist) economic class struggle is managed by the Pigs of Animal Farm who collectivize property into their own hands. The Marxist (Collectivist) Pigs steal from the laboring middle class – feather their own nest (prime objective) – and give leftovers to the lazy proletariat class in return for votes – winning “the battle of democracy” – all in the name of “economic equality” – a big Orwellian lie. Management of economic class struggle is the ticket to their wealth – where “economic inequality has been made permanent.”
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property” (Communist Manifesto) meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… In the years following the Revolution it (The Socialist Party of Oceania) was able to step into this commanding position almost un-opposed because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
“The proletariat (lazy animal class) will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie (working animal class – the laboring middle class), to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state (Marxist Pigs)… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property… We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the (non) working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Once Marxists are in power they must, from time to time, supplement internal economic class struggle with manufactured external wars realizing that it will be viewed by the little people (the proles – consisting of the original proletariat class plus the newly impoverished former middle class) as a justification for the presence of a ruling class – “to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.” These wars have the benefit – in addition to economic ruin caused by Marxist economic class struggle – of keeping people in a state of “poverty and ignorance.”
“It was possible no doubt to imagine a society in which wealth… should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged cast; but in practice such a society could not long remain stable, for if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves, and when once they had done this they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function and they would sweep it away… In the long run a hierarchical society was only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance… The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced but they need not be distributed, and in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare… The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing over of all power to a small cast seem the natural unavoidable condition of survival. War it will be seen not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way… All that is needed is that a state of war exists… Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure; the same worship of a semi-Divine leader; the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up like three sheaves of corn… The war therefore… is merely an imposture… For though it is unreal it is not meaningless; it eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War it will be seen is now a purely internal affair… In our own day we are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects; and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.” George Orwell – 1984
W: And of course Alex always did fit in, but he didn’t know it then. And that jangling music that he heard, the one blaring from jukebox under a 25-watt incandescent bulb? I found even that. On YouTube.
There is Realism, which depicts people the way a camera does, which is exactly how they are, and there is Romanticism, which depicts people the way a good painter does, which is how they ought to be.
“There is Realism, which depicts people the way a camera does, which is exactly how they are, and there is Romanticism, which depicts people the way a good painter does, which is how they ought to be.”
And then, there’s me.
Signed,
Walter Mitty
Sorry to be OT,
3. Ashen:
From an old shadetree, most auto parts stores will read the ‘codes’ from your cars computer and either tell you or give you a printout of what they indicate at no charge. They want to sell you parts…
tomw
Well, my personal experience was certainly not Tondo. It was another portion of Manila where most Filipinos do not go, at least not routinely. Sanitation was (barely) maintained due to a lack of infrastructure and services, Necessities of life were
just adequate with the tiniesst bit of safety margin. So forth and so on. An American such as myself was an ambiguity to put things mildly. I was in the midst of personal conflicts some of which have come back 40 years later to haunt me in recent months.
Yet, for a brief three-week period of time, I was happy. I knew a temporary level of contentment I have not experienced since.
Now that was the essence of life and love as they always should be.
ashen: I slept on a door on two milk crates for several years. It kept me out of the near floor dust and saved me from the allergies. (New Mexico is dusty!)
I spent an excess of time as a starving student because I lept breaking my knee (three times just to be sure!). I was able to camp off and on and spend alot of time hanging out with the rock climbing community. That was where I learned that there is a liesure class at either side of the socio-economic spectrum.
I guarantee the “mountain men” poor were having much more fun than the “TV watching” city poor. The outdoorsmen even look healthier and sport smiles that prove it. Not to mention the physical strength to go with it. Sure, they didn’t have any money, but they didn’t have anyplace to spend it either…
I remember the Band Sigue-Sigue Sputnik from the new wave era, I even had one of their tapes. It was silly fun and dance-able.
Ashen: Go to pepBoys or Autozone or most any parts house and they’ll read the code for you. You may be able to fix it yourself.
Dupe’s somebody else above.
Kinch,
Replace the word ‘Americans’ with the word ‘Singaporeans’, and it’ll be a lot more accurate.
No wonder so many pinoys love to stay and work in my country. But there’s a fear amongst the locals that they’ll transplant to our shores their culture, the same failed culture that gave us Happy Land.
Democracy, freedom. They are not the answers to corruption and poverty. What is? Personal example. The rule of law. Meritocracy.
Despite the squalor in the photos, I cannot help but observe that most are clothed in clean garments, even white ones. And the young lady has painted toenails. So what’s with that?
A Happyland World
It is difficult to look at the pictoral essay on poverty W has served us today because for many children, in the future, in this country similar pictures will be taken and similar storied told.
Right now in Davos, Switzerland the world bankers are celebrating thier alacrity in kicking the can down the road knowing the bill will eventually rest on the common man, not on them.
The BRIC countries and now several others are on the road to Happyland. The bankers know it because they are the ones that orchestrated the latest worldwide financial holocaust. Debt bondage from which no nation can escape without finding a parking spot in the lot of Happyland. The US included.
Between now and the end of the year, most likely in the fall, we’ll see major financial and economic problems in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Those events will sorely test Germany, France, Holland and Austria.
Over and over we hear announcements from Brazil of trade wars. Brazil is deliberately reining in their currency, the real, due to its strength. They have imposed reserve requirements on domestic banks’ foreign exchange positions. These are taxes on investments and de facto currency controls. Such actions are very good moves that cause indirect higher gold prices.
Ireland is now printing its own money. The EU is failing.
While the above troubles manifest themselves the US goes merrily on its way like nothing was wrong. Americans have been pre-propagandized, as they were under stimulus – one into believing a recovery is in progress. The Irish and others understand their problems, but Americans cannot come to grips with them. Just as we see now in the US the banks have at least temporarily been bailed out and depositors guaranteed that their savings are safe. There are also the stimulus programs everyone else has tried as well, that we have seen ultimately don’t work.(Read “This time It’s Different, Eight Centuries of Financial Folly….http://tinyurl.com/4afnkbt) Summation: NO nation has EVER printed it’s way out of economic debt.
That is because they are geared to bail out the financial sector and not the economy.
This rocky year in Europe that could end in bankruptcies. The efforts to bailout Greece and Ireland and now Portugal and Spain, will increase debt throughout Europe and lead to all nations having problems. There is no effort of debt restructuring because the banks refuse to take losses. This attitude and policy is carried forward in all governments via fellow Bilderberg connections.(read the folks in Davos now) The system has to be changed and purged, but they won’t hear of that. Everyone should be reminded it was the banks that were and are responsible for the condition that the Western world is in today and now they want the public to bail them out. The banks are an extension of the Fed in the US and the Fed was the moving party. They lowered interest rates eventually to zero and it was they who increased money and credit by 17% to 18% for an extended period of time. The Fed created the debt bubble and all the damage you see is a result of that. They are now using tactics, which they know will not work, but they do not know what else to do. It is all about buying time and covering up what they have done. As a result not only did banks over leverage, but so did corporations and individuals, not to mention speculators. Now that bank leverage is down from 70 to 1 to 40 to 1, when 9 to 1 is normal. They are getting a high enough return from the Fed that they have cut lending by 25% or more to small and medium sized businesses. Such antics can only impede recovery. We have been told since last June that lending would increase. By the Fed’s own admission it has increased by a very small amount. The conclusion is that the Fed is deliberately restricting lending in order to keep banks away from risky loans.
QE1 and QE2, as well as TARP and other programs were only designed to bail out the financial sector in Europe as well as the US. As predicted last May there would be QE2 and then QE3. The aggregate spending $2.5 trillion each time, as we saw in QE1. In QE2 the pork laden extension of the Bush tax cuts supplied the $868 billion to assist the fed in keeping the economy and the financial sector afloat. After expenses the Fed returns its profits back to the Treasury. That then isn’t a major problem. What is the problem is that the owners of the Fed control all aspects of financial and economic life. They do not get inside information; they create it. What these banks and brokerage houses do is make mega-money because they really control the system. That is what the Fed is all about – control. Can you imagine trading departments at major brokerage firms and banks for months never have a losing day trading? That is simply impossible unless it involves illegal activity. The owners of the Fed have a license to steal. They created the credit crisis and the taxpayer now is subsidizing them so they can make even more wealth. All this happens because people do not understand fractional banking and the true role of the Fed, which is to loot America.
The Fed from its inception usurped the power of the Constitution and the US Treasury. The IOU’s, Treasury bonds, are sold to the Fed for a digital entry, the value of which is created out of thin air. For this the Fed receives interest paid by US taxpayers, and the FED is a closed Corporation ,not any part of the US Governemnt save for an Act pushed through from 1Am to 6AM on Dec22 and signed by Woody Wilson. Funds are used by the Fed on a fractional basis multiplying profits. That means interest is paid indefinitely unless the bonds are redeemed.
The banks are buying sovereign debt (our tax dollars) at 30 cents on the dollar. They engineered it to be that way and they are driving us all to HappyLand…..enjoy being duped.
goh 28: “Despite the squalor in the photos, I cannot help but observe that most are clothed in clean garments, even white ones. And the young lady has painted toenails. So what’s with that?”
All people are endowed by their Creator with an unquenchable urge or instinct to creatively pursue happiness – to labor creatively – to clean their garments – some to paint their toenails.
All people are therefore endowed by their Creator with an unalienable right to creatively pursue happiness – to keep the fruit of their own labor.
#28 Goh. The clothes look clean because people in dire straits who have self respect, will be as clean as they are able to be. Contrast that with some rich N. American kids who, lacking self respect, purposely make themselves look like something that has been dug up.
Habu #29: Your gloom and doom is Completely Inept and Assinine.
C. I. A. The high-profile squalor of Happyland is not caused by financial/monetary concerns. It is caused by incessant obstructionism in making goods and services readily available and to all portions of society.
The difficulties we face in the USA today *might* result in instances of individual deprivation but not in anything commonplace. The absolutely worst case scenario would be the
printing of enough banknotes as to effect a currency destruction a’ la’ Weimar Republic. Panic buying would deplete the shelves of necessities until alternative currencies were circulating but then a large degree of normalcy would return. Ditto for the Yurps. Only those without faith——and a grasp of Austrian principles——- are in mortal danger.
Wobbly Guy: As Teresita noted, it is the Filipino political culture that is flawed. They need King Log but compulsively
perpetuate King Stork. That political culture does not transplant elsewhere so don’t fret about Singapore. Now if you have an influx of Buddy Larsens, Leo Linbbecks and Yours Truly, then Lee Kuan Yew can kiss his posterior goodbye. We are the contagious ones——and Stamford Raffles would approve!
Stormrider: May I refer you to #24? The feelings I describe are what happens when eros and agape become one and the same.
Dave 34,
“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Sigmund Freud
I disagree with Freud on some things, but he was right on this one. Our pursuit of happiness depends on loving our family – loving our neighbors – and I would also say it depends on loving our God – our Creator. Happiness also requires gratitude for the love of others – and the love of God. Happiness requires creativity – it requires creative labor and the fruit of labor. Happiness also requires gratitude for our creativity and the fruit of our labor.
Happiness first requires life and liberty, then it requires love and creativity, and then it requires gratitude for all of the above.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the [creative] pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson
Steeple here with your crop report for today. Sugar up another 4% in price, with rice, oats, corn and wheat up another 2-3% today. Tying this piece to our discussion on China and food inflation of this week, the pressure on the resource poor nations just continues to ratchet up.
Teresita @ 13:
And what do the Philippines and those Latin American nations have in common? Former colonies of Spain (I know. I know. America had it last, but I think the previous 350 years trump the last 50). I’m sure this has been explored before, but what is it about Spain’s tenure as colonial master over these territories that set them on such a difficult path?
I don’t know anything about the Philppines. I have known a few people who were from there and they seemed like decent people to me. My paternal grandfather was there during the insurrection. He was in the army and served, as I recall, in an Oregon regiment. He brought back two things: amoebic dysentary and an abiding hatred for the Catholic Church. He died before I was old enough to want to know what he did there and how it changed him.
Some of the most cutting edge of technologies being worked out today have to do with converting garbage, sewage, farm waste and what have to energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste-to-energy
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/garbage-energy/
The Philippines is utterly hopeless as a Westphalian State. It’s a culture without a country; a people without the much of hope of a government.
Yet there is something “there”, even though it doesn’t fit into any neat categories. The best way to relate to a society like the Philippines is to take it, day by day. Don’t ever try to fix Happyland. Any fix has got to come from within. Just do your little bit of good, even if it is swallowed up by a wave of filth and trash. And then forget about it. Don’t worry, be hapi.
33; Dave, thanks –that’s what my ex says, ‘he’s contagious, don’t go near him’.
Jim Rogers the commodity guru (and ex-Soros Quantum Fund partner but he says that’s long over) has some time ago moved with his family to Singapore. He says he wants his children to learn Chinese culture and the Mandarin lingo. He says ‘those people work hard, dawn to dusk, the way Americans used to when I was a kid’. He says ‘nobody, country or company or person, can come intact out of too much debt’. He says USA still has a chance to come out okay, but that a whole lot has got to change in a hurry.
But that’s Jim Rogers, who has been a bear for a long time on the American political economy. What? You ask, why the ‘But’ and not an ‘And’?
***
I was wondering what the Wobbly Guy meant a few threads back when he said something about prices keeping him awake at night. I had meant to ask –if he wished to say more, then please do.
Whitney: I’m sure this has been explored before, but what is it about Spain’s tenure as colonial master over these territories that set them on such a difficult path?
It has to do with the existence of the middle class, defined as those who own a home, have an education, and a profession. The gateway to this status is birth control. Two children, not nine. In countries dominated by the Catholic Church, birth control is forbidden. What middle class exists today in the Philippines largely works as Overseas Filipino Workers. There is some benefit through remittances, but the OFWs have little direct influence on the society.
32. Dave
Dave , spare me the lecture on my doom and gloom. That offering was taken from the source I cited, the Financial Times, NYT, and other sources. You obviously know little about finance or you are doing exactly what was pointed out and that is ignoring the problem. No doubt you have little if any answers or true arguments’ on the FED and its machinations.
Simple question: Do you believe it is possible for a country to get out of debt by issuing more debt that fewer countries are buying?
Dave, I recommended a book (refer to posting for IP address) entitled This Time It’s Different..Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. It’s readable for most people. Here is what the financial press is saying about it, and take the time to read the major names who have made these statements: I would suggest also reading “Secrets of the FED” by Eustice Mullins.
Here just take a look:
The authors use copious amounts of data . . . to make the compelling case that any well-informed person should have seen the Great Recession coming. The essence of their book is that while financial crises come in different varieties, they are not mysteriously born of undersea earthquakes, but frequently occurring events that can be spotted and even controlled if politicians and regulators know what to look for. — Devin Leonard, New York Times
[A] terrific book. — Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
This Time is Different takes a Sergeant Friday, just-the-facts-ma’am approach: before we start theorizing, let’s take a hard look at what history tells us. One side benefit of this approach is that the current book manages to be both extremely useful to professional economists and accessible to the intelligent lay reader. The Reinhart-Rogoff approach has already paid off handsomely in making sense of current events. — Robin Wells and Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books
Reinhart and Rogoff have compiled an impressive database, which covers eight centuries of government debt defaults from around the world. They have also collected statistics on inflation rates from every country where information is available and on banking crises and international capital flows over the past couple of centuries. This lengthy historical study gives what they call a ‘panoramic view’ of the unending cycle of boom and bust, showing how claims that ‘this time is different’ are invariably proven wrong. . . . This Time Is Different doesn’t simply explain what went wrong in our most recent crisis. This book also provides a roadmap of how things are likely to pan out in the years to come. . . . This Time Is Different is an important addition to the literature of financial history. — Edward Chancellor, Wall Street Journal
Professor Rogoff and his longtime collaborator Carmen Reinhart . . . know more about the history of financial crises than anyone alive. The pair have just published their broad survey of financial crises, This Time is Different. In an era when most ‘analysts’ rely on maybe 30 or 40 years’ worth of financial history–and then only that of the U.S.–the authors’ knowledge of financial crises and government bond defaults going back to the Spanish empire and before offers a richer perspective. — Brett Arends, Wall Street Journal
[O]ne of the most important economic books of 2009. — Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal
[T]he definitive book on financial crises. — Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
Two top-notch economists provide a clear and interesting explanation of why economic crises keep occurring. Broadly speaking, downturns such as the one we are recovering from are historically associated with characteristics that should sound quite familiar to today’s investors. — David Schwartz, Financial Times
[A] masterpiece. — Martin Wolf, Financial Times
[E]ssential reading . . . both for its originality and for the sobering patterns of financial behaviour it reveals. — Economist
The four most dangerous words in finance are ‘this time is different.’ Thanks to this masterpiece by Carmen Reinhart at the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard, no one can doubt this again. . . . The authors have put an immense amount of work into collecting the data financial institutions needed if they were to have any chance of making quantitative risk management work. — Martin Wolf, Financial Times
Everyone working on economic policy should own This Time is Different and open it for a bracing blast of sobriety when things seem to be going well. — Greg Ip, Washington Post
Here’s a deep and rewarding assignment for all of you, young and old, poor and rich, bullish and bearish. Retire to a quiet spot with a copy of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. — Bob Lenzner, Forbes.com
[A] fine new history of financial debacles. — Daniel Gross, Newsweek
Wouldn’t it be nice to have $1,000 for every time a pundit proclaims an era of endless prosperity, consigning booms and busts to the dumpster of history? The next time you hear that canard (and you will) pour yourself a single malt and dip into Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff’s landmark study, This Time Is Different. Wherever you open the book, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for hundreds of years. . . . The result is a visual history laid out in beguilingly simple graphs and tables, making the book both definitive–a must read for professors and investors–and accessible to a wider audience. — James Pressley, Bloomberg News
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have delivered a powerful and eloquent statement. . . . Reinhart and Rogoff have done an extraordinary job in putting together statistics on government debt–a task that economic historians should have done long ago but shied away from because of the difficulties of defining ‘government’, which is often complex and multi-layered. — Harold James, The American Interest
Unlike prior narrative accounts of market panics from such finance writers as Charles Kindleberger and Edward Chancellor, Reinhart and Rogoff give us a data-driven study that is global in sweep but also a model of clarity. The authors package their notably nonhysterical analysis of the latest crisis in a large, self-contained section of the book inviting harried readers to skip right ahead to it. — Daniel Akst, CNNMoney.com
A tour de force of quantitative analysis covering financial crises affecting 66 countries over the past 800 years, the book identifies pre-crisis patterns that recur with eerie consistency. This Time is Different is a must-read for anyone on the lookout for canaries in coal mines. –
Barron’s
This is certainly one of the must-read books of the year. — Arnold Kling, Econlog.com
Rogoff and Reinhart . . . provide an eye-opening look at the cycles of boom and bust and how governments deal with those cycles. — Arkansas Business
Having studied mountains of economic data during the past eight centuries, the authors insightfully point out the highly repetitive nature of financial crises resulted from a dangerous mix of hubris, euphoria and amnesia. — Shanghai Daily
This Time is Different . . . is an unusually powerful bull detector designed to protect investors and taxpayers alike–eventually, at least, and provided the spirit is willing. . . . The book’s most memorable passages–what the authors call its ‘core life’–are to be found not in colorful stories about long-ago personalities, but rather in its various tables and figures. They take some time to comprehend, but any responsible citizen can and ought to consider they evidence they present. It is overwhelming The FED is to be watched.. — David Warsh, Harvard Magazine
Financial folly, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff show in this groundbreaking book, knows no boundaries and has no expiration date. . . . For a book built around numbers, This Time is Different makes for surprisingly good reading. The authors are well aware that human nature is at the heart of the disasters they document, and they enliven the text with brief and amusing accounts of charlatans and cheats. — Paul Wiseman, USA Today
The credit crunch of 2007 became the financial crash of 2008 and the recession of 2009. But there has been much debate about the scale of this crisis, and how it ranks against previous events. Reinhart and Rogoff have produced the most detailed study yet of financial crises, going back as far as 12th-century China. . . . [This Time is Different] will be a vital source of reference in debates on the causes and consequences of financial crises. By cataloguing so thoroughly every known instance of financial crisis, it performs a significant service and opens up new lines of inquiry. — Andrew Gamble, New Statesman
[T]his is the kind of economics we desperately need, as it is relevant, fact-based and replete with wisdom from the past–and lessons for the future. — Irish Times
For those who want to relearn the forgotten lessons of the past, This Time is Different, by economics professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, is an excellent place to start. . . . These are lessons worth learning. — Liaquat Ahamed, National Interest
This book’s distinctive strength is that it’s built around a massive international database going back as far as twelfth-century China and medieval Europe. — Harvard Business Review
[S]uperb. — Neil Reynolds, Globe & Mail
Reinhart and Rogoff have compiled an encyclopedic analysis of the history of financial crises over the last 750 years. But their volume is not merely of historical interest. Rather, it has great relevance for anyone interested in understanding how the current financial crisis is likely to unfold. — Choice
Reinhart and Rogoff present a sobering reminder that financial crises are a serial phenomenon–caused in no small part by the seductive ‘this-time-is-different syndrome,’ the prevalent belief that to us, here and now, old economic laws of motion no longer apply. Their ambitious quantitative history of financial crises draws out sweeping parallels between financial crises, across times and continents; and between inflating away domestic debt, currency debasements, and defaults on external debt. — Finance & Development
[I]nstant classic tome on debt crises. — Alen Mattich, Dow Jones Newswires
One book in particular has been circulating among economists and market insiders. This Time is Different analyzes vast amounts of historical data on financial debacles, including state failures around the world, bank crises, currency woes and high inflation. The title satirizes those who fail to learn from past blunders and repeat them while insisting, ‘This time is different.’ — Hideo Tsuchiya, Nikkei Weekly
Reinhart and Rogoff have produced a splendid book detailing the massive self-destructive behavior that all states have been undergoing over the past several centuries. . . . Reading this excellent book on the paths of previous economic cycles could help avoid some of the worst results of our self-destructive financial acts. — Lloyd Demause, Journal of Psychohistory
Anyone looking for a more academic take on where this meltdown places in the history of financial folly should turn to This Time is Different, a magisterial work on the causes and consequences of crises stretching back 800 years. — Matthew Valencia, Economist.com
[A] classic. — Nouriel Roubini, Forbes.com
I couldn’t put it down until I had gone all the way through it, and then I immediately ordered it as an assigned text for my Spring 2010 MBA course, ‘The Development of Financial Institutions and Markets.’ My students are finding it useful and engaging. — Richard Sylla, EH.Net
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
ADDITIONALLY
Dave, here is a bit more info to support my position verses your what one or two paragraphs that offer simply zero.
Here you go, learning time again.
HERE COMES THE 576 PAGE LIE
US Panel Blames Banks for ’08 Meltdown, but not Central Banks
From various sources.WSJ FT,NYT and others.
Financial Crisis Was ‘Avoidable,’ Inquiry Panel Finds … The panel appointed by Congress to investigate the causes and consequences of the financial crisis has found that there is plenty of blame to go around. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s nearly two-year examination of the 2008 crisis lays blame on two presidential administrations, an alphabet soup of regulatory agencies and big players on Wall Street … The full report is expected to be released as a 576-page book on Thursday. It was based on 19 days of hearings and interviews with more than 700 witnesses. – NY Times
The hue and cry of the power elite is “Wall Street did it.” When it comes to financial meltdowns and the myriad of other disasters that afflict central banking economies, the best defense is perhaps a finger pointed at fat cat bankers and their firms. It worked after the Great Depression and that’s been the playbook ever since.
Now comes yet another attempt at casting blame on Wall Street for the 2008 financial crisis Featured yesterday in both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission are right out of the elite playbook. No matter what the economic destruction, the mechanism of central banking must not be blamed. And apparently the Commission has managed to avoid doing so.
It is the Anglo-American elite that has the most to lose if central banks are identified as the main culprit of the 2008 meltdown. For the past 100 years, a small group of wealthy banking families has busily propagated central baking’s debt-based money system around the world. But the damage they cause has been concealed and reports like the one that the Commission has just come up with are part of a larger strategy of damage control.
Central banks, coordinated by the secretive Bank for International Settlements (BIS), constitute the financial spine of the global economy. But the booms and busts that inevitably occur as a result of central banking tend to ruin small businesses and further concentrate financial power in the hands of a few. ( this is in the attempt to establish a NEW WORLD ORDER and devalue our currency) This is the desired result from the point of view of the power elite, but it is a conclusion that is neither to be explained nor endorsed.
There is some truth to the idea that Wall Street was responsible, at least partially. But Wall Street…… at root, is merely a transactional mart that creates liquidity for securities. In the 20th century, and now the 21st, Wall Street has served as an adjunct to central banking credit expansion and even facilitated it. Wall Street is in the money-service business. It makes financial widgets and markets them. ( I worked for BAC, Bank of American, in the Strategic Initiatives Group whose sole purpose was to develop financial widgets, test them , and take them bank wide)
It is central banking that caused the 2008 meltdown – and as the largest and most powerful central bank, the Federal Reserve must shoulder the most blame. This is not the Commission’s conclusion, however. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Commission’s draft report “says that ‘the prime example’ of the system’s shortcomings was ‘the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages’ over the past decade.”
This is nonsense. It wasn’t “stemming the flow of toxic mortgages” that caused the meltdown but artificially low interest rates and the over-printing of money-from-nothing. The Fed’s ever-generous production of fiat currency caused a great euphoric boom that led to all sorts of irrational financial behavior, including offering low-rate mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them.
It is amazing that this sort of finger-pointing is still taken seriously in an era when the Fed’s leading critic Congressman Ron Paul is assuming oversight of the Federal Reserve for the House of Representatives. Ron Paul has been exceedingly blunt about the damages resulting from central bank money printing. One cannot now argue that Paul’s argument is a “fringe” one – but it receives little play in the Democrat-driven Commission conclusions. You go Ron Paul, hang the FED.
It should. In the 20th century, establishment critiques of central banking practices were rare. In the 21st century, the advent of the Internet has exposed the mechanics of modern finance and made its fraudulent elements clear. In concert with Congress – and Wall Street – the Federal Reserve creates money at the touch of an electronic button and transfers those electronic digits to its commercial bank currency-distribution network. It is a mad system that has replaced gold and silver with electronic digits and paper currency.
None of this critique – which is widely known today – apparently finds its way into the Commission’s conclusions, set for release tomorrow. This is not for lack of effort. According to the Journal, “The panel interviewed hundreds of witnesses over its year-long investigation and collected millions of pages of documents.” Obviously effort was expended, but the results are no different than conclusions of, say, the 1930s, when bankers and Wall Street tycoons were generously blamed for the failures of the Fed. Here’s some more from the Journal summary:
The draft report says “dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management at many systemically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis.” It also points to “stunning instances of governance breakdowns and irresponsibility,” including at American International Group Inc., which made giant bets on the mortgage market, and Fannie Mae.
The report cites burgeoning mortgage fraud around the country in the years running up to the meltdown and notes that major financial institutions packaged loans into securities that they had reason to suspect didn’t meet their standards. It also cited the proliferation of exotic securities such as derivatives and the rise of a lightly regulated shadow banking system. The draft report says that the failures were widespread, even including the public.
In fairness to the panel, there were tensions between the Democratic majority and the GOP minority. The Journal reports that Republicans wished to be more forceful about allocating blame to the global credit bubble, though it as yet unclear whether the Fed itself would be blamed for creating the bubble. Both sides apparently, blamed financial institutions’ excessive leverage and credit-rating agencies that graded issues optimistically.
What is most ironic about this report is that central banks have issued another US$20 to US$50 TRILLION into the market in the past two years in order to try to salvage the world’s essentially unsalvageable dollar-reserve system. This is money that cannot be “sterilized” or otherwise fully removed no matter what Ben Bernanke maintains.
The currency apparently is beginning to circulate now and this will cause tremendous price inflation. Food riots are already beginning in Africa and the Middle East over high food prices. The damage is just beginning, even as the US Commission is gravely determining who is to blame – and missing badly.
The Commission has arrived at misguided conclusions. It may be said that such terrible conclusions are purposefully misguided, or perhaps they are merely the result of willful ignorance. What is clear – in our humble opinion – is that the Commission misjudges the mood and knowledge of the average American. Many people are well aware now of how the money system operates and where the money comes from that has been lavished on ruined companies – trillions and trillions of dollars.
Conclusion: The anger is growing as times grow tougher. Efforts at deflecting blame from central banks will likely not have any significant effect in the 21st century. Too many know too much. It seems to me a change is coming.
Teresita @ 42:
Then how does one explain the prosperity frequently attributed to Mormons (with their enormous families)?
Is having children really a cause in attaining middle class status or is it a symptom? I tend to think it is the latter.
Teresita 42: “It has to do with the existence of the middle class, defined as those who own a home, have an education, and a profession. The gateway to this status is birth control.”
Destruction of the middle class is primarily a function of government confiscation of the fruit of middle class labor – first and foremost for redistribution to themselves – with leftovers to the so-called proletariat class – in return for votes.
“The proletariat (lazy, tax-eating, non-disabled poor) will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital (property) from the bourgeoisie (laboring, tax-paying middle class), to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state (tax-eating Marxist Government)… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible… Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois (middle class) family, based? On capital, on private gain….The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Folks the problem — at a strategic level — is in clear sight.
Manilla has one of the largest US embassies in the world. It processes — at last look — more visas than any other embassy.
The Smart Fraction of a population drives the whole of the society.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm
Urban flight by those able to and consequences are detailed mathematically here:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/city.htm
—–
After studying the above one can understand what is going on.
BRAIN DRAIN.
Further, way back in the day the locals didn’t get around much. So much so that they became inbred. This causes an IQ impairment of 15 points. When enough of this occurs the entire society breaks down into smaller units and just scrapes by.
There is no accumulated human capital nor physical plant. All energies are directed at extremely short term needs.
A slice of such game-logic was vividly illustrated on a most recent episode Gold mining in Alaska. For the amusement of the nation five families have been subsidized so as to permit gold prospecting and mining on the Porcupine River in Alaska. As shown in the latest broadcast they’ve run out of cash and credit.
So they stop everything and pull their equipment apart! They are scrambling like idiots to at least get enough gold dust to carry them another week. Even though they’ve got scores of ‘concentrate’ buckets standing unprocessed the ‘management’ has them plowing through the sluice!
That they are incompetent is made plain. Instead of operating as a team under wise management they keep breaking down in the face of emotions and incompetence.
To sum up: they’re missing the ONE person with enough brains and dominance to drive the whole team to success.
I’ve had plenty of experience driving teams to a goal — and it isn’t easy. Most of your time is spent running around directing their efforts and solving their problems for them. Problems that I can solve in 5 seconds completely stump many. This is where experience is critical human capital. I have enough experience in the matter at hand to permit me to proffer a solution in the blink of an eye.
I belong in the Smart Fraction. And the above thumbnail details how human capital in the trenches makes for astounding progress.
———
By shipping out her Smart Fraction Manilla is crippled. In a prior era it happened to Ireland.
———
The anti-colonial movement was jump-started by our Revolution. What no one understood ( then and now ) is Smart Fraction Theory. Populations crippled by low intelligences really do benefit from imported brains. Smart people make the engine run.
As Ashkenazi Jews, Northern Europeans and Northern Orientals show the impact is vast. America has a critical Smart Fraction advantage. Something that is forbidden to speak of.
When Hitler initiated the Shoah he ruined Europe as a guiding light. It was the Ashkenazi that was making Europe the wonderland. That baton has jumped the pond — permanently. Even the Orientals will find America a handful. We’ve had the good fortune to absorb many of their best and brightest.
If America wants to stabilize the world she needs to stop any further immigration from dull populations. Immigrants with IQs below 110 should be shunned. We’ve got plenty of dummies here already.
—–
Mexico entirely blocks bright Americans from immigrating — unless it can’t be helped. Even then your stay is term limited. Thusly Mexico stays critically short of Smart Fraction human capital. This is why Mexico is entirely breaking down. The open border up north is bleeding all of her talent and hope. Without enough Smart Fraction talent the ENTIRE society breaks up.
—–
The East Germans realized that they were losing Smart Fraction talent during the Ike years. Once the General was out of the White House they erected the Berlin Wall to STOP losing the rest of Communist Germany’s Smart Fraction to the West.
Imagine the problem — Hanz and Gruber cross over and the assembly line has to do without its tool and die makers. It comes to a complete halt in short order. Now multiply such a scene by thousands. Worse yet, the brighter the fellow the quicker he leaves.
One saw that phenomenon when Hitler became Chancellor: the geniuses were on the boat the next day — en masse!
Within a year German universities were crippled. So much for German atomic projects!
I have only spent time in Makati City–it was very civilized and the shopping malls were just like you would find in places like Short Hills NJ.
The also have a good MBA school there
The Asian Institute of Management
http://www.aim.edu/
I realize there is a lot of corruption — but there is also corruption in India, China, France, Italy etc.
American high tech firms have off- shored some manufacturing and call centers there
and most educated people speak English
Why has it not taken off?
Well if you are really determined to improve Happyland, the real problems are the lack of property rights and the role of the public sector.
Birth control is not the major issue. You can buy condoms anywhere. But poor have kids because the kids are insurance. They are your Facebook network and your social security.
There are no liabilities to having lots of kids. Poor men have many children with multiple wives. And one reason they can do that is because they have no property. As in the West, once you are poor enough then divorce holds no terrors. Nothing for the ex to get. So you just sow them wild oats left and right.
Which brings us to property rights. Half the country belongs outright to government. This is “inalienable land” and not even the tribes who have lived in it since time immemorial can title it. Then there are the lowlands. Here the struggle for property rights goes by the name “land reform”. But ideology has conspired to make property rights even more untenable. Land reform means giving a person some form of crippled title that you can’t take to the bank and often ties him to the farm forever.
Both the “inalienability” of “national patrimony” and “land reform” which “prevents the tiller from selling the land back to the landlord” or “borrowing against the land” are wonderful examples of completely pointless solutions which appeal to the left and the nationalists but which only conspire to make everyone, except the elites, poorer. that brings us to the next problem. Government.
Government believes that it is the solution. It is the solution because it is open to the right people. There are two kinds of government in Happyland, both of them dominated by the elites. There is the official government which is run by dynasties, some better than others. The other kind of government is the shadow governments (of which there are actually several). And they run by the revolutionary scions of either the Muslim or Marxist variety.
You can always tell who’s a leftist in Happyland because they tend to run in families and pass things down through the generations, like the Kims in Korea. And the real reason why Islamic factions proliferate is as expansion businesses for clans left out of the gang the government has already bought off. Start your own rebellion, get your own peace treaty. That’s the way it works. But it’s feudal at its heart.
As I put it once to a Party member, even the comic book bad guys were hereditary. “Anak ni Zuma and anak ng jueteng, what’s the difference?” Sorry if I can’t convey the meaning of that too well, it would take too long to explain.
But basically you’ve got a feudal system, half in the Marxist camp, have in the “capitalist” camp, running a kind of crony capitalism for their own benefit.
Once I was up in the Cabadbaran watershed to look at some forest projects and found our way to a logging camp blocked. The guard explained that the Communist New People’s Army was up there, cutting some wood for their share of revolutionary taxation.
“What about the army?” I asked.
“Oh they come next month for their turn at logging,” the guard answered.
That’s the way it works.
Essentially the middle class and the gringos (of all shapes and sizes) are dhimmis within this system. They just want to be left alone. So the middle class in Happyland tiptoe around until they can get a job in Saudi Arabia or a Green Card.
As for the poor, they are on the plantation of both the Leftist elites or the “capitalist” elites, served in places by a “leftist” clergy or a “capitalist” clergy. My advice to those who want to clean up Happyland is the same Bogarts: go back to Romania.
But it won’t last forever. One day the sheer dysfunction of the feudal elites and the growing competence of the middle class will create a leak in the dike phenomena. There already numerous ways to break out of the rotting chicken-wire fence the elites have put around everything.
The good news is that the inhabitants of Happyland have a genuine aversion to inconvenient bloodshed and gloomy revolutions. If it ain’t fun they won’t do it. Don’t worry. Be hapi.
v/47; Marcos? You were in the Marcos/Aquino no-man’sland, and investors want durability of the rule of law –so the answer to your question is probably “Marcos”.
Whitney: Then how does one explain the prosperity frequently attributed to Mormons (with their enormous families)?
I don’t accept your premise.
Utah’s per-capita personal income in 2007 was $29,831, ranking 48th among the states.
blert 46. “Further, way back in the day the locals didn’t get around much. So much so that they became inbred. This causes an IQ impairment of 15 points. When enough of this occurs the entire society breaks down into smaller units and just scrapes by. ”
This is not the most astonishing thing I’ve ever heard, but it is a contender. Right up there with T.’s too many kids theory.
The Philippines have had waves of new blood wash through them for centuries, they are one of the major centers, for one, of Chinese emigration.
Poop P.I. suffers from the same disease that afflicts Latin America and other Asian societies. The Western tradition tends to see everything outside the family as resources to cultivated for the sake of the family. That is, my work creates value which enriches me and my family. In the Latin & most Asian cultures everything outside the family is seen as potential plunder for me and the family. This is the root of corruption.
t/50; now norm it against age –the large families, remember.
***
tam/51 is right –work in s america awhile and you’ll note the flabbiness of contract law –and commercial agreements in general –IOW our ‘force majeure’ principle is much more expansive, formally and not.
43. Habu,
That was comprehensive!
I’ll be spending more time on it, but it appears you might have missed one additional fly in the ointment -
The trillions of dollars held overseas (other than the usual suspects, the Chinese and Japanese Govts.) over which the Fed has no control:
When the writing on the wall becomes even more apparent, and folks rush to cash in those crumbling dollars before they become worth even less, the Fed will have nothing to do about it other than to observe the carnage of this run on the dollar.
w @ 48: But it won’t last forever. One day the sheer dysfunction of the feudal elites and the growing competence of the middle class will create a leak in the dike phenomena. There already numerous ways to break out of the rotting chicken-wire fence the elites have put around everything.
But that’s the answer, Thomas Kuhn says so, nobody changes but the new development is all elsewhere, the last Japanese soldier from WWII never surrenders but by his last days he’s a curiosity not really a warrior anymore.
What makes your Happyland a topic is that it is self-sustaining to some degree, again I presume something like the US welfare class, which I take it is nothing compared to the UK welfare class. The US culture mitigates against it, we’re (still mostly) protestant work ethic to one degree or another, but the UK is still in the grip of that hideous strength.
–
But I came wondering if there was a chance here at another topic, so OT from Happyland that it almost makes it OnTopic – in Obambus’ SOTU last night (if that’s what it was), … “sputnik”? WTF kind of resonance does that have with the current American populace? I’ll bet half the population under 40 thinks it’s something to eat, or perhaps a medical condition, or the rock and roll hit of the month in Happyland.
Where’s my edit function? That should be “Poor P.I.” in 51.
Buddy,
This might help out a few folks
Here’s what the government isn’t telling us…..their figures are ALWAYS revised and still inaccurate.
Here are some things UNSAID which some politely call ‘spin’ and others call ‘lying by omission’ (just NOT telling us):
- QE-1 didn’t work and spending $1.75 trillion dollars did not accomplish a thing.
- The $12.3 trillion dollars the FED spent or loaned since the 2008 meltdown accomplished nothing (unless you’re Citi, B of A, or Goldman, Morgan et. al.).
- QE-2 (continuing monetization of US debt) never identified a maximum but only a minimum of $600 billion in additional FED purchases of Treasurys, and it never identified June 2011 as the end of QE-2…it was only said that a target of $600 billion would be spent BY that date, not that this was an end date or they would stop buying/spending.
Here is some more:
Shadow Stats calculates the REAL numbers the way they were done by the USG in the 1980′s-1990′s before O.D.D.I. (official data distortion and intervention) and M.O.P.E. (management of perception economics) became Government Policy and practice. [for kool-aid drinkers read: BOGUS numbers, lies]
BOGUS/ REAL
1.5%/ 8.91% …..annual Consumer Price Index
9.4% /22.4% …..unemployment (only 47% of working-age Americans have a full-time job today)
3.25% / 1.44%….. GDP annual (shown as ‘growth’ when it is in ‘decline’ ….negative)
George Orwell was a genius ahead of his time.
Both U.S. political parties amply demonstrate Orwellian double-speak (freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, etc.) and the sheeple continue to be told everything is getting better and going to get better. Double-plus GOOD!
The populi thus convinced, the rape of the common tax-payer by the taxs-penders on behalf of the tax-eaters merrily continues unabated.
More Government and more freeloaders will NOT solve this problem. Having spent all of our money, we are now spending OPM (other people’s money) at a parabolic rate which cannot be sustained.
- Maragaret Thatcher had it absolutely correct when she commented that the only problem with Socialism was that eventually you run out of other people’s money. Uncle Sam is broke and borrowing heavily, what happens when ‘other people’ quit loaning this deadbeat their money?
ALSO, Dave or anyone who cares to answer.
Simple question:
Do you believe it is possible for a country to get out of debt by issuing more debt that fewer countries are buying?
I suspect few read my post but perhaps this simple question will draw some comments.
Plus if you read this right now you can make an easy 70% profit (or around that figure.)
“With each passing day,” we observed last week, “inflation seems less and less a theoretical fiction, and more and more a genuine threat… No self-respecting economist or self-aggrandizing central banker is acknowledging any inflationary risk whatsoever,” we continued. “But the indifferent data points of real-world prices testify to the contrary.”
Shortly after airing these remarks we learned that import prices soared 1.2% during the month of December alone – lifting the year-over-year surge in import prices to 4.7%. The following day we learned that producer prices jumped 3.8% year-over-year. A few days after that, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia announced that producer prices in the Philadelphia region had jumped to their highest levels since July 2008.
These data points do not prove that an inflationary threat is stirring, but they do offer compelling testimony. Meanwhile, commodity prices are providing ample corroborating evidence. During the past eight months, the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of commodity prices has soared 32% – far outpacing the stock market over that timeframe. The grain complex, in particular, has been on a tear, as the prices of both wheat and corn have nearly doubled since last summer.
These eye-popping gains may be exceptional, but they are hardly unique. All but one of the 19 commodities in the CRB Index has advanced during the last two years.
All the smart folks on CNBC are calling this a bubble. The rest of us are calling it a bull market. The smart folks say, “Sell commodities, especially gold.” The rest of us keep buying the stuff because we can’t think of anything better to do…and can’t think of any better way to protect ourselves from the toxic inflationary plume that is spewing from Ben Bernanke’s Marvelous Money Machine.
The longer Ben’s machine churns out dollar bills, the greater the imperative to trade dollar bills for hard assets…or nickels.
Yes, it’s true; the value of a nickel is soaring, even as the value of a dollar is slumping. That’s because every nickel that rolls out of the US Mint contains about 3.75 grams of copper and about 1.25 grams of nickel. Current metallic value: 6.8 cents per nickel. Yes, Habu bought 2k worth of nickles. Does anyone care to venture a guess as to why nickel is going up in melt value? Because the government this year is changing the metal composition of nickle, thus nickel will become more valuable.
We present this illustration merely to underscore the obvious: A small piece of imprinted paper contains less real-world value than a small piece of copper and nickel.
Furthermore, as your editor pointed out in an ancient edition of The Rude Awakening, “a US dollar is a poor conductor of electricity and combusts near an open flame. It contains no measurable quantity of any element on the Periodic Table, nor any resource whatsoever that could contribute to any industrial application. Rather, a dollar contains little more than a politician’s IOU.”
The nation that issues both dollars and nickels is the same nation that spends more than it earns, that imports more than it exports and that relies upon massive foreign borrowing to sustain its bizarre breed of prosperity.
If current trends continue, a nickel might soon buy more than a dollar.
Eric Fry
for The Daily Reckoning
Take a look at…. Coinflation.com
There is a huge shift in the internet marketing business away from India to the Philippines currently because the Indians pulled up their prices in recent years but more importantly — Phillipine English is more understandable to Americans.
56. Habu said…
“Simple question:
Do you believe it is possible for a country to get out of debt by issuing more debt that fewer countries are buying??
—
The Fed won’t be able to keep interest rates artificially low forever:
Debt service at that point will be completely unmanageable, to put in mildly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnSnfiUI54
Tanquam @51…
Thanks for your emotional response.
The Chinese are genetically clannish. I got a real chuckle out of your assertion. The idea of poverty stricken families — with low IQ — ever getting a chance at immigrant genes = 0.
BTW, I can’t even figure out what “Poop P.I.” quite means — even if it’s a typo. It comes off as snark.
The nature of the archipelago is to strand genes. Especially in the smaller islands, village after village tends to live a genetically isolated profile. As late as the 20th Century back-woods clans were discovered that had stayed in stone-age mode! How genetically isolated can you get?
Yes, we’re talking the Philippines.
——-
Obviously, inbreeding is breaking down over time. But the legacy is still there.
——-
Marcos drove out tremendous amounts of human capital. I know of two men who both had to flee because Marcos had hit squads after them. One was born to wealth — and Marcos was stealing the family’s wealth. They all had to flee. The other was a Jesuit. He was caught running an underground railroad for political refugees.
——
It is true that property rights and in particular LAND rights are not respected all over the third world. It’s a chicken or egg issue. Unlike America — which cleanly wiped out all native claims to the best land and kicked them out — these nations have very large native populations with inchoate claims going back forever in time.
Their governments have never addressed land rights — starting with proper surveys. When you dig into the bowels of their bureaucracy you find that their records are trash.
A lot of this is the direct result of not having enough Smart Fraction talent to run a system in the manner that we think is normal and proper. And, of course, the top dogs are so alienated from their fellow man that they arrogantly devolve into despotism.
To understand this think of a parent-child dynamic. At some point the parent just starts laying down the law — even if it means the rules have changed since yesterday. Despots operate under the same game-rules: revision can come at any time. Much of this arbitrariness is due to management overload.
When one is overwhelmed by citizen-petitioners any leadership devolves into a snappy, impulsive order mode. Unintended consequences be damned.
But it’s a trap. It leads to ever worse economic results and ever more petitioners and hangers-on.
——-
You can’t play the game if the vast majority of the ‘players’ are so afflicted that they can’t even comprehend the rules. Like a college basketball team — you can’t fake talent. Even a great coach and clear cut rules won’t get the ball in the hoop if the team has broken arms.
——-
W is certainly on to something inre land reform. I saw an American variation of land ownership abuse in Hawaii — too much land held by too few and the government permitting this to go on and on forever.
The solution is to convert such land ownership into leasehold rights — with the government taking over the fee simple interest. The current ownership becomes a mere leaseholder at a stroke. They do get government bonds for their interest. The term of these bonds should be 180 months.
Next, the lease rent due should be re-adjusted for value and inflation on the land every 3 years.
Portions of such leaseholds can be sold off to the small guys at any time to raise money. All such sales will be monitored by the government to prevent price gouging and other gambits by the savvy leaseholders.
Every time a parcel is kicked loose the lease rent goes to zero and the new leaseholder is converted to fee simple. From that point further, the new owner pays land taxes.
The numbers will be fought over, but the sequence is rigged such that the current owners are stepwise being cashed out at viable prices while land ownership is spread throughout the society.
It is to be expected that the smaller plots — still of viable size start to return higher outputs under the control of fee simple capitalist-agrarians.
A staged transfer permits the current operators to invest correctly.
Ideally, for some crops, a full sale to a co-op by the current owners could be effected.
And in all of this fresh surveys are made and titles are made clean. All land transfers require fresh surveys unless ‘plotted.’
Well, it’s just a thumbnail.
I guess Dave left the building.
Anyway, for those who learn more easily by visual rather than reading input this might interest you. NINE minutes. And although it is one mans conjecture we already see the seeds as I have previously pointed out.
WATCH IF YOU CARE TO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2HfjR9oPM
Doug #53 the answer is there. Also thank you for answering the question.
Tamquam: The Western tradition tends to see everything outside the family as resources to cultivated for the sake of the family. That is, my work creates value which enriches me and my family. In the Latin & most Asian cultures everything outside the family is seen as potential plunder for me and the family.
I object to your exclusion of Latin cultures from the Western tradition. In fact, I would characterize the Roman and Byzantine elements of European culture to be the Western tradition par excellance. When Dan’l Boone was going around plinking squirrels, the Jesuits were operating universities in Mexico City. What I think you mean is the Northwestern tradition, and more specifically, the emphasis on capitalism that came out of the Calvinist side of the Reformation.
Habu, what does 2000 bucks worth of nickels look like?
blert/60 –and really everybody, this is John Stossel interviewing Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto –re HdS’s landmark (!) work on poverty vs property rights –or, really, the larger topic of our fundamental structures such as church and state and what precisely in them can institutionally impede the individual drive for a measure of dignity on the earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-da3CFh5g
***
steeple/63, without resort to calculating, i’m going to guess, a refridgerator? If stacked that way, o course?
64. buddy larsen:
I keep mine in an Abe Lincoln piggybank, with access through his screw on hat.
Originally contained pancake syrup, if memory serves.
woops doug –now the whole world knows, it’s the screw-on hat
63. steeple
Well it takes up some room but your bank or CU doesn
t charge a commission and if you happened to look at coinflation.com you saw the value of some of our coins.
Here’s an example:
1909-1982 Cent (95% copper) * $0.01 $0.0281093 281.09%
1946-2011 Nickel $0.05 $0.0683546 136.70%
1982-2011 Cent (97.5% zinc) * $0.01 $0.0060815 60.81%
1965-2011 Dime $0.10 $0.0245384 24.53%
1965-2011 Quarter $0.25 $0.0613489 24.53%
1971-2011 Half Dollar $0.50 $0.1226987 24.53%
1971-1978 Eisenhower Dollar $1.00 $0.2453988 24.53%
1979-1981, 1999 SBA Dollar $1.00 $0.0876414 8.76%
2000-2011 Sacagawea Dollar $1.00 $0.0736887 7.36%
2007-2011 Presidential Dollar $1.00 $0.0736887 7.36%
As you can see the lowly penny gives you 281.09%
in melt value…enjoy the site it’s cool and an easy way to make a profit.
Teresita 62. You are correct, Northern European is what I should have said. Latin American countries are in the Western Tradition. Thank you for the clarification.
buddy larsen
the nickels came in boxes, heavy boxes, that are about 5 inches by 12 inches …= xxxxxx nickels cost 2k but melt value of 136.70% = xxxxxnickles = instant $xxx dollar profit without paying a penny in commission.
Next year the value will go up ….. how high..don’t know but it’s an economic law that the less of something that is needed the higher the price.
Habu
“Next year the value will go up ….. how high..don’t know but it’s an economic law that the less of something that is needed the higher the price.”
I hope that’s just a snarky quip about gold…
The real law of gold is the more it appreciates the more the market wants it. There is no market limit in the short term for an item whose incremental supply is so limited vs above ground stocks.
I still expect to see the greatest move in Silver — not Gold. Silver is destined to be re-monetized and the numbers only work if it skyrockets from here.
Time was to earn an ounce of silver took a days wages. Today that would mean about $200 per ounce.
70. blert
In my view, the most powerful argument to justify today’s high price of gold is the dramatic emergence of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East into the global economy. As legions of new consumers gain purchasing power, demand inevitably rises, driving up the price of scarce commodities.
At the same time, emerging-market central banks need to accumulate gold reserves, which they still hold in far lower proportion than do rich-country central banks. With the euro looking less appetizing as a diversification play away from the dollar, gold’s appeal has naturally grown.
So, yes, there are solid fundamentals that arguably support today’s higher gold price, although it is far more debatable whether and to what extent they will continue to support higher prices in the future.
Indeed, another critical fundamental factor that has been sustaining high gold prices might prove far more ephemeral than globalization. Gold prices are extremely sensitive to global interest-rate movements. After all, gold pays no interest and even costs something to store. Today, with interest rates near or at record lows in many countries, it is relatively cheap to speculate in gold instead of investing in bonds. But if real interest rates rise significantly, as well they might someday, gold prices could plummet.
Over the last five years I have purchased 100k of silver and 150k of gold,,,the nickles were kinda just a lark.
I have twice that amount of money in cash which with the trillions recently printed and the trillons more in the pipeline to be printed I have begun to buy Canadian dollars. I own NO stocks even though I was a broker for fifteen years.
Right now “the recovery ” is totally synthetic, bloated by the FED.
I’m feeling ok. but I have to keep a very sharp eye on the gold due to it’s extreme volitility. But as I mentioned today there has NEVER been the amount of money we’re printing that hasn’t lead to iinflation which will drive gold. The hole in theory is what the world bankers do..if they force a world currency on us my gold will take a hit. The silver is the best bet going right now in my opinion.
I’m pulling for the EU breaking up and BRIC not using US currency as their reserve, which they have already stated. If that happens I’m looking at a bundle.
And here in the US the train is coming off the tracks .. two years max.
I’m still long the same stocks -petro E&P, metal miners, assorted divvy DOWs and some godawful German thingie called frgox
Habu: I will again belabor my point: The conditions of Happyland
do not come about because of monetary systems, or because of monetary reasons.
As to your persistent question: One way to control and reverse
the public debt spiral is to issue new bonds solely for the purpose of paying for goods delivered and/or projects completed.
(I prefer zero coupons with partial annual redemptions.) Doing this will show an increasing amount of principal owed but will also force the government to cease and desist from running up debt blindly. That in turn makes current income available to
go into the open market and buy back existing bonds at a discount
from face value. Certain existing taxes can be diverted to special accounts for this purpose. “Nuff said.
Now the private debt structure of these United States (a) dwarfs the public sector and (b) is shrinking fast for the past couple or three years. Thus the toital debt burden on the individual is easing and making him or her much more capable of getting through the rough times. No doomsday in all of that.
BTW: A good indicator to monitor is the ratio Between Peacemaker and Double Eagles. Original price of the thumbuster was $16. That 80% ration remained consistent (except for some panic-driven/speculative run-ups in the price of gold) until the mid to late 1980s. Then things reversed and today, the Double Eagle is but 80% of the Peacemaker. Reason is that the old Colt has a much greater use value. Most especially if one were to find oneself in the midst of a State of Nature. And same thing applies in keeping such a state from occurring. A bluesteel CD beats the Yellow Metal.
Finally, I am constrined to inform you that banking is an industry. Every industry that I know of has a whole lot of people in it that have the same family names/family background. Hate to spook you, but I see no conspiracy there.
Hey Buddy, I think I met your ex down at the stock market. She said she would teach me how to strip, strap, spread, straddle and we would do it on the floor. How was I to know she was talking about options?
Dave…
Pass your Series 7 license and you’d know those moves.
I take Eskrima, the martial art of the central phillipines. When we are lackadaisical in our practice, our instructor will urge us to speed by saying, “Sigue-sigue!”
He wants to go back and visit, but even though he speaks Tagalog and Ilocano very well he says he’ll never be taken for a native. “One look at my teeth and they’ll call me an American.”
29. Habu
I am with you, in an effort to find a way to rescue my retirement I stopped listening to my “financial advisor” and started doing research on my own. The picture is dark indeed and the little guy is just grist to the mill as far as the Banksters are concerned. I found zerohedge.com , they have a decidedly dim view of the financial elites. The commentariat is rather more coarse than you will here at BC,, but is very well informed. You may wish to look in (that is if you haven’t already)
LOL –there’s an easy test fer if it was her or not –feel back there and see if you still got your eye teeth
73. Dave
You make many fine points but there is way way too much evidence that the investment bankers are colluding to manipulate various markets illegally.
Conspiracies do indeed exist and if you can ignore Enron and Worldcom et. al. then I think that’s dandy. If you can ignore the few who own the FED,a good deal of whom are foreigners then I’m sure you’re in a blissful state of harmonic balance.
I hope Ron Paul can put the heat on the FED and destroy it’s monopoly.
George Soros and his minions toil 24/7 in their
War Against Conspiracies.
I read it @ Media Matters.
Better is a relative term. To inhabitants of Happyland, a tarpaper shack would be a mansion. Half a sandwich that wasn’t pulled out of a trashcan would be a feast. I remember being shown around Harlem in 1982. I found it hard to feign shock. Maybe there was unhappiness and sorrow there too, but no more or less than in Happyland. Tom Clancy made a similar point via the character of (IIRC) Felix Cortez in Clear and Present Danger. Felix was the Cuban running the drug lord character’s intelligence operations and noted how the poor of Cuba can not protest, but the poor of American not only protest but drive their cars to the protest.
The first I visited Manila I was taken aback by what I saw and I do not recall driving around Tondo-Smokey Mountain or any other such place. However, it was abundantly clear the children did not need an XBox to have fun, they figured it out on their own. On my last trip, I was drinking New Year’s days beers and singing karoke around about Mexico City in Pampanga and our host chatting with me made it abundantly clear they may not have as much stuff as my wife and I did, but him and his family enjoyed their lives every bit as much as the next person.
I have to disagree with those who view children as an obstacle to prosperity. I take the view Wretchard notes, that having large families is a social security system. Large numbers of children is not so much a cause as it is a symptom of poverty.