Airbus is moving all of its production to China. So are many, many corporations. England is giving up on building ships. Hitler tried sinking the British Navy and failed thanks to US shipyards. But now, the British have sunk their own navy, all by themselves. China also got the only oil contract so far, in the Iraqi oil bidding. Yoiks. Are we in trouble. We just spent nearly a trillion dollars to gain ‘control’ of Iraq and all we get is a bunch of funerals and lots of brain damaged fighters.
Concerns over future of shipyards – Yahoo! News UK
Reports claim the memo was sent from the chief executive of the Govan and Scotstoun yards in Glasgow, to senior executives at owners BVT Surface Fleet which also has an operation in Portsmouth.
The memo is said to show BVT Surface Fleet’s chief executive Alan Johnston forecasting savings of as much as half a billion pounds from the closure of two out of the three yards after the contract for two aircraft carriers is completed in 2014.
It is also is reported to state that the Ministry of Defence is willing to finance redundancies in order to scale down Britain’s capacity for building warships.
The Queen and her spawn and hanger-ons still roam restlessly about the planet, spending many millions on moving hither and thither but the last fingers of the UK imperial hold on ship building is about to let go and the corpse of Hail Britannia will splash into the deep blue sea and drown. This is going to be a historic moment. Like when the Empire of Knossos, Crete, finally fell, when Venice ceased to be an empire and became a tourist trap in 1700, when the Emperor of China burned all deep-ocean ships and built decorative jade ships instead: this is the Last Gasp of a once mighty empire.
We must all pause and look in wonder. Despite the tremendous palaces built during the Hey-nonny-nonny hay days of the Sun Never Sets ruling clique, Britain is now officially poor. It will now slowly fade away to ruins, at least, the very expensive palaces. Great English poets wrote poems about this sort of thing, the unseeing eyes of great statues erected in honor of great kings, turned to dust.
This is also very stupid. England is schizophrenic. They have a very expensive and extremely useless family living as if they rule an empire, not a dead zone. Just like the US will have to soon give up pretending to be a world power, certainly, England is very much overdue, surrendering the illusions of power.
Sterling Crisis Looms as U.K. Unraveling Points to Budget Cuts – Bloomberg.com
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said on April 22 that this year’s government deficit would hit 12.4 percent of GDP. Alan Clarke, a London-based economist at BNP Paribas SA, expects it to reach 17 percent of GDP in 2010…
This is not overall debt, this is budget overruns per annum. The US is doing the exact same thing. The US seems addicted to following exactly in Britain’s footsteps.
Britons can expect to face spending cuts in coming years in all areas, including social security and health care, says Nigel Lawson, who was chancellor of the Exchequer under Margaret Thatcher from 1983 to 1989….
The government must sell about 900 billion pounds of gilts over five years, Clarke says. He estimates that the Bank of England will buy a third of these gilts to pump money into an economy mired in its worst recession since World War II. The government may struggle to find buyers for the rest, he says….
Everyone will be selling trillions in debt. There are virtually no customers outside of one: the Chinese Empire. This is actually very funny. Maybe the royal family can return all the Pekinese pups that were stolen from the Chinese 150 years ago? Except, they ruined the breed totally.
Bad as it is, the fiscal mess is unlikely to end in disaster, says Ben Broadbent, U.K. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “We had debt of over 200 percent of GDP after World War II and we didn’t default,” he says. “I don’t look at the public borrowing numbers alone and think there’s a big risk of default or a currency crisis.”
Of course, the pirates and gnomes of Goldman Sachs, who are getting filthy rich off of these debts, feel that there is nothing wrong with going bankrupt. Gah. Britain did ‘default’, by the way, after WWII. Actually, the first default was after WWI when Germany refused to pay reparations and England had to drop the gold peg which was an early warning sign, the end was near. After WWII, the US propped up the British Empire. Still didn’t save it from near-total collapse. By 1972, the US was also off the gold peg and Britain was a basket case needing an IMF-style bail out. Then, a miracle happened: they found oil in the North Sea. So the rump empire kept afloat on this oil. Which is now running out, fast.
Airbus rides the Chinese dragon – Telegraph
Once a month, an Airbus A320 passenger jet rolls out of an airy hangar on the outskirts of northern port city of Tianjin, China’s window to Western ideas for a century and a half.
Starting in 2005, I have written a great deal about the aviation industry. This is because our #1 industrial profit center is Boeing aircraft. A great deal of diplomacy flows into selling these things. In return, the crafty Chinese who understood all this stuff many years ago, slowly and relentlessly forced the US and Europe to relocate more and more industrial production to China.
The goal is simple: China wants very much to be in total control of its own air fleets. After the US sent to China a Boeing jet laced with spy devices, China made it utterly clear, they will no longer buy any jets from us. They did this only for a while, in view of luring over all production. They will achieve their goal of sucking down all of European production by 2015 which is well within the 50 Year Plan.
Within two years these $72m (£43m) twin-engine jets will be emerging once a week. The number of French, German, British, and Spanish engineers “shadowing” the local work force will be down to a handful.By then production of identical models of the A320 workhorse will be tapering off slowly at the Airbus sister plants in Hamburg and Toulouse, starting with a cut from 36 to 34 this Autumn.The European workers figured out they are being screwed. But so many make a living flooding the US with goods, they support free trade. Free trade is a poison, as we can see.
The Chinese engineers learn fast. This factory kicked off nine months ago, a nano-second in aviation time. It takes longer in Britain to complete the paper-work for planning permission….
The advantages of dictatorships are obvious. The weakness are also obvious. Like the collapsed building we saw this week.
It is an odd arrangement. The Tianjin plant is a joint venture with China’s Aviation Industry Corp (AVIC), the 430,000-strong speahead of China’s drive to be an aeronautics superpower.
I once took the Chinese delegation to Coney Island on the 4th of July. I knew the Blue Angels would be flying there that day. I didn’t tell the Chinese. Suddenly, several blue jets came screaming over our heads and began elaborate moves. The Chinese ducked and yelled at first.
Then, as I laughed, they began to watch with intensity. Finally, one of them said, ‘I want one of those.’ I said, ‘Impossible.’ He said, ‘Never impossible.’ Well, he is getting his jets at last. Intensity of concentration pays off.
AVIC in turn holds a stake in the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) which has already launched its own Chinese-designed regional jet, the 90-seat ARJ-21. Under the Communist Party’s 13th “Five-Year Plan”, it now aims to challenge the West head on with a 180-seat jet.
The 50 Year Plan had 20 steps. Like climbing to a temple on a mountainside. The Chinese started off way, way below the US. They are already well past the half way point in their climb.
“We believe after six to eight years development, our aircraft will over take Boeing and Airbus,” said COMAC chairman Zhang Qinqwei last year. Airbus is taking a big gamble. It is clearly sharing technology with an octopus-like network of state-led enterprises (some linked to the military) that openly boast rival ambitions. Yet it is a risk that Europe’s planemaker believes it must take to win the aviation jackpot of the next twenty years, an estimated market for 2,800 big jets and 470 freighters worth $300bn.
Europe will get $300 billion and end up with no industries. The Chinese said they would spend a trillion dollars to win industrial dominance. They read history very carefully and noted that all empires that lose their industrial base all end up dead. As Britain will have to discover in the next 20 years.
At Iraqi Oil and Gas Auction, Bargaining Is Contentious – NYTimes.com
The long-awaited auction of licenses to develop Iraq’s huge oil reserves began Tuesday amid unusual contentiousness, as multinational companies demanded far more revenue from every barrel of increased production than the authorities were willing to allow….
But only one contract was agreed to on Tuesday. That went to a pairing of BP and the China National Petroleum Corporation for the largest field on offer: Rumaila, near the southern city of Basra, which has proven reserves of 17 billion barrels. Once the bid is accepted by the oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, Parliament must issue final approval.
China hopes to suck down all of British Petroleum. They tried buying out Unocal but Congress prevented this. Eventually, they will own the major oil giants if they form pre-bidding alliances with the Muslims. The Saudi Royals make deals with us because we give them lots of goodies and protection. But the loss of religious status is endangering them so they will eventually slide over into the embrace of the Chinese who are not trying to conquer Palestine. Even though China suppresses uprisings in Muslim provinces inside of China, of course.
Review: When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques | Books | The Guardian
Jacques claims that “In an important sense, China does not aspire to run the world because it already believes itself to be the centre of the world, this being its natural role and position”, and discusses sensitively and in depth what it means to be the “middle kingdom”. He also argues that China is essentially a “civilisation state” rather than a western-style nation state. “The term civilisation normally suggests a rather distant and indirect influence and an inert and passive presence,” he notes. “In China’s case, however, it is not only history that lives but civilisation itself: the notion of a living civilisation provides the primary identity and context by which the Chinese think of their country and define themselves.”
One of the fundamental features of Chinese politics is the overriding emphasis placed on the country’s unity, Jacques claims. This occasionally leads to contradictions which he does not entirely resolve, for he also stresses China’s diversity, going so far as to claim that “China’s provinces are far more differentiated than Europe’s nation-states, even when eastern Europe and the Balkans are included”. The question of unity and diversity leads to a stimulating comparison of China and India, a far more pluralistic – and democratic – nation, and Jacques notes how the enormous cultural differences between the world’s two most populous countries have resulted in “an underlying lack of understanding and empathy”.
The Chinese, understandably, want respect. During the Olympics, the US and Europe worked day and night to show as little respect as humanly possible. I was deeply embarrassed. It made us look silly and churlish. China has the population, the history, the work ethic and the culture to propel itself to the top of the world. Japan had many good things going for itself and blew it, trying to do this via military expansion. Ditto, Germany. Germany was once one of the most dynamic cultures on earth, its past greatness still overwhelms many fields in science, philosophy, art and music, just to name a very few.
I grew up, dining on this carcass and enjoying every bite. But Germany is no longer in the lead and Japan is fading fast. The US, after WWII, took over this function and rose very high. Now, we are in obvious decline. A certain sense of hysteria, childishness and Never-Never-Landish infantile ingrowth has nearly totally destroyed us as a world power. Instead of getting more and more adult, we are regressing just like that zombie, Michael Jackson. Look at our ‘reality TV’ to see how stupid we are these days! Game shows which once relied on intelligent questions now use nearly only pop culture quiz questions. Debates for President are no longer in any fashion, real. They use one liner quips and short answers to trivial or predicable questions put forwards by TV news personalities who are in hock to the political parties.
No, we are most definitely on the decline. Just like the UK. We should peer ahead in time to see how these declines work. Not a pleasant prospect.
Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs
The prospect that China can be a major economic power is feeding widespread paranoia in the United States. The fear is that developing nations, led by China and India, may out-compete the advanced nations for high-tech jobs while keeping the low-skill, labor-intensive manufacturing jobs they already own. China already is the world’s biggest producer and exporter of consumer electronics and it is a matter of time before it becomes a major player in auto exports.
Shipbuilding is now dominated by China and aircraft manufacturing will follow. The US Navy is now dependent on Asia, and eventually China, to build its new ships, and eventually the economics of trade will force the US Air Force to procure planes made in Asia and assembled in China.
The fear of China by the US dates back to almost two centuries of racial prejudice, ever since Western imperialism invaded Asia beginning in the early 19th century. Notwithstanding that it is natural, ceteris paribus, that the country with the world’s largest population, an ancient culture and long history would again be a big player in the world economy as it modernizes, the fear that China might soon gain advantages of labor, capital and even technology that would allow it to dominate the world economy and gain the strategic advantages that go along with such domination is enough to push the world’s only superpower openly to contemplate preemptive strikes against it. Furthermore, Chinese culture commands close affinity with the peoples of Asia, the main concentration of the world’s population and a revived focal point of global geopolitics. Suddenly, socio-economic Darwinism of survival of the fittest, celebrated in the United States since its founding, is no longer welcome by US policymakers when the US is no longer the fittest and the survival of US hegemony is at stake. To many in the US, particularly the militant neo-conservatives, international trends of socio-economic Darwinism now need to be stopped by war.
The Chinese are very much aware that we hope to terrorize them. And the hope is, to use nuclear bombs and other WMD to do this. The stupid and childish part is, we will need China for all our computer systems, planes, boats and probably, missiles! The entire business is beyond stupid.
The US paranoia is a waste of time if people feeling this terror can’t figure out how to stop this business. It is laughably simple. KILL FREE TRADE. And Obama is 100% for free trade. Ditto, Reagan, both Bushes and both Clintons. If we refuse to pick up the only weapon that can save us, this means we should study the British and see how we can get our own Prince Charles and have him traipse around the planet, shaking hands and saying, ‘Quite. Yes, grand idea. I say, tally-ho and all that rubbish!’
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78 Comments
July 1, 2009 at 2:21 am
they have shipbuiding in England?
July 1, 2009 at 2:23 am
They used to.
July 1, 2009 at 2:24 am
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.[1]
July 1, 2009 at 2:24 am
But now ships are sitting out in Chinese ports like sitting ducks.
They are full of fuel.
That is why Hyandia can offer gas at the price they do.
Simple.
Capitilism with a twist.
July 1, 2009 at 2:25 am
travelers come and they go.
If you are indiginous then you KNOW.
July 1, 2009 at 2:28 am
Dammit – I’m going to bed.
INDIGENOUS…
Pay attention.
With a capital P if you must know.
July 1, 2009 at 3:55 am
Good thought provoking article Elaine.
Shows how schizophrenic US governmental thinking is, and it is so obvious to me that it puzzles me that our supposedly intelligent leaders cannot see that lopsided free trade is destroying the US…and they encourage this destruction.
We cannot continue shorting creditors forever no matter what we think…that is all about numbers, an artificial language…and real goods and services are what a nation uses to sustain itself…and insure its independence from tyranny…even supposed rulers.
Perhaps our elites feel that they can do away with US soverignty and move us into a world union with one government, but I can assure them that, in the long run, it will mean slavery for all involved…and a shocking degradation of their status and automonomy in the world itself.
I’ve dealt with people my entire life….and people are not that trustworthy without strong checks and balances and rules and laws to keep them on track….and to depend upon weapons manufactured in another nation for our own protection from foreign tyranny is stupid beyond belief.
To just degrade the US and turn its assets over to China or anyone else is terribly foolish.
I believe all of this is very much intentional…and we in the us, even our elites, will eventually be losers in this matter.
I think the Chinese are very fine people, but I would not trust my own brother with providing all of the things that my family relies on for its livelihood unless I had no other choice….talk about putting all of one’s eggs in on basket….and then letting someone else carry it….beyond stupid…its super foolish.
Our leaders have something other than gray matter for brains…and what I’m thinking is not nice to say.
And they hope to keep us distracted with tittytainment and side issues while they sell us out…most stupid indeed.
How do others on this blog see this? Is it intentional or not…and…more important, a basic question arises. What is this in and of itself and why is this being imposed upon us? Why?
July 1, 2009 at 4:00 am
Intentional? No, they fall into their own traps! The Chinese, instead of resisting the superpowers, courted it, gave it goodies, fed it like a Strassbourg goose and then will, when it is fat and lazy, eat it.
July 1, 2009 at 4:07 am
Next up in the news
Britain receive free shipments of “medicine” from China
Britain forced to open ports
British women sold as slaves to Africa
Is it Karma?
July 1, 2009 at 4:14 am
It’s all about the Pekinese puppies.
July 1, 2009 at 4:15 am
There was this picture of a Pekinese on the net, titled “killing you with my death stare”
It’s hilarious, and the puppy looks like the British sort
July 1, 2009 at 4:55 am
Regarding industrial policy, this is not always the result of government plans and actions. A typical US university will graduate more students in criminal justice than in the hard sciences or engineering. Most of the money in the US is not earned by people going into sciences or engineering. The money and power is achieved by those going into law school. The decision to go into criminal justice or into law school is not made by governments. That decision is made by individual students.
Regarding the decline of the US versus the rise of China: The problem is that we do not really know what the goal of societal development should be. In the US, it was decided a long time ago, that the goal should be unlimited consumption. Of course, consumption in the long run leads to obesity and stupidity which in turn produces a wasteful educational and health care systems. These systems in the US are the most expensive in the world, yet the results are mediocre if not disastrous.
Another consequence of consumption is the depletion of resources. The US has burned more than 85% of all its oil resources. What’s left in the ground would not last even a decade if there would be no imports. It is the running out of resources which the fundamental reason for the decline of the US. The debt binge is only a cover up for the disappearing resources.
July 1, 2009 at 5:06 am
Well, now I may find the we will all find ourselves backed into a corner in 2012 and forced to support Obama’s reelection bid. Otherwise, the GOPers win, and the neoCONS get back in the catbird seat. (Despite Obama continuing Bush policies, they are definitely NOT there now.) One they’re back in, they’ll bomb Iran and attack China.
And that cannot end in any other way except extremely poorly.
How poorly?
“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy describes how badly this potential unpleasantness can end.
And the Straussburg Goose becomes Straussburg Goose Fricassee.
July 1, 2009 at 6:06 am
“We just spent nearly a trillion dollars to gain ‘control’ of Iraq and all we get…” Elaine, I guess you didn’t get the memo so let me fill you in: the surge is WORKING!!! Those images/reports of Iraqis celebrating in the streets over the Americans leaving Iraq are PURE Obama propaganda. That scene where the American commander gives the ceremonial key to the city back to his Iraqi counterpart was strictly PR. I’m surprised you were so easily taken in. Thank goodness we have Dick Cheney around to keep us all on the straight and narrow when it comes to warmongering. ATTN Haliburton shareholders: now might be the time to consider divesting of this stock. Oh well, we still have Central and South America. I hear the CIA is looking to hire former bankers. There’s always a silver lining.
July 1, 2009 at 6:48 am
Countertrade has always been a part of Airliner sales both Boeing and Airbus do it.
But here´s a funny story for you on what my country got for countertrade when we bought F-18 Hornets.
So we wanted countertrades for the same amount 18 billion and we payed a 3% premium to Boeing for the countertrade option.
Well one the companies in Boeings pool of counterpurchase companies was ITT offering financing. And of course it turned out to be a ponzi scheme
.
John Jeffers the Director responsible is now in jail for 14 years. He worked together with US embassy here in Finland.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/scons.oy/
or
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac/pressroom/pr2005/087.html
So maybe Airbus is pulling a fast one on the Chinese too.
Nowdays we here in the proud west handle the countertrade through Ponzi schemes. -sigh-
This old link was interesting too…
Russia Expects Boeing to Invest $2.5Bln
http://www.metal.com.ru/analytics/publication.php?id=241
Peace,
July 1, 2009 at 9:28 am
Robert Sczech:
“A typical US university will graduate more students in criminal justice than in the hard sciences or engineering. Most of the money in the US is not earned by people going into sciences or engineering.”
You have a point Robert. My first degree was in Biology and Chemistry. Upon graduation, I went to work in the engineering dept of a local textile plant. The pay was horrible, working conditions terrible, and they wanted no changes to procedures or improvements in methods. I found machinery that just needed maintenance to improve efficiency, but engineering was a red headed stepchild and executives wouldn’t listen to anything I told them. I soon quit this job and went back to being an automobile mechanic….and earned three times what I was making in textile engineering…with much better working conditions.
Daughter earned a science degree…lots of hard math and science and statistics….and the only job she could find upon graduation was retail…all that mind draining hard work for nothing…now working on her masters, but not in science, and plans to work on doctorate in something she can get a job teaching about.
I ended up teaching high school technology, and we were really taking off with it because, with outsourcing, the Clinton crowd at least wanted to move the US into a service and high tech economy…with high tech manufacturing etc….and then, Bush co. took over and decided war making, and dumbing down people with propaganda was more important.
To hell with keeping the nation’s people employed after their jobs were outsourced to China and elsewhere.
Now the official policy appears to be to just “let them eat [dirt]” Cake is too expensive to feed to the unneeded serfs and proles….and they will die off faster if we do this.
Elaine, if you are right about these guys continuing on their disastrous policies in spite of knowing that the nation is losing out, they are amazingly blind to keep such policies going that are undermining the sovereignty of our nation.
This makes me wonder how our intelligence agencies and those who know what is happening feel about keeping this crap going….and at what point they might begin working to salvage what is left of our nation-state.
After all, if the US falls to the Chinese because of stupidly giving away the store, our military and its supporting agencies will be funded less and less and will eventfully be downgraded also….just like the American workers who created the original wealth in America…and I certainly doubt that American governmental agencies can expect to depend upon some benevolent, distant foreign ruler to continue to fund them except maybe to oppress Americans into going along with their policies and agendas as colonial slaves of a worldwide economic empire.
Except the US will not be the ruler in this case….just a mere high tech enforcer arm maybe?
I read an article about how much new defense technologies cost…a huge amounts…and if we keep declining economically, funding for our own defense will dry up significantly while the Eastern nations ability to fund high tech space and maybe even defense projects is growing exponentially in comparison….so we will lose our ability to dominate the world if this economic decline continues for awhile longer.
Now, to what Elaine talks about, will our military/intelligence folks decide to create situations whereby the US stops China from dominating world economic affairs? Might we use force? Or possibly, are there other ways of stopping this decline?
I read that our intelligence agencies are recruiting our unemployed bankers. Could other concepts be in the works?
Current news gives a person a lot to think about.
But, interestingly, all of this would probably be quite unnecessary if the US just followed Elaine’s advice and stopped the f…ing free trade.
July 1, 2009 at 10:02 am
Cutting USA from free trade will probably have consequences
The other partners will retaliate and if US is isolated, it will become outdated even quicker than the current rate.
The point is that we cannot dictate to the world with an increasingly marginalized demographic
July 1, 2009 at 11:18 am
The thing is simon while the UK and US have been practising free trade the japs, Germans and Chinese have been taking a very nationalist approach to trade by putting up barriers manipulating currency and subsidising their industry.
We already are in a fucking trade war.
And the West is losing because it is not retaliating. It’s losing its industry which creates real wealth ie cars, house old items, boats etc. This means that our ability to service the debts we now owe to the japanese and chinese will diminish because we will soon have very little real wealth to repay them with.
July 1, 2009 at 11:21 am
US still has vast tracts of land, don’t know about the UK, it may own places in Africa that we don’t know about?
But land is meaningless without a productive population, that is true
July 1, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Land is our final patrimony and we are raiding it ruthlessly.
July 1, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Igneous and Simon:
The US, in my opinion, and its just my humble opinion, needs to create opportunities of its citizens to again become employed.
Germans, many years ago, were faced with similar situations…war devastation…fools had destroyed their nation and created hatred for them worldwide. They had a lack of natural resources also…and their prime population was destroyed by war. What did they do?
They first and foremost, pulled in their horns, and hung their guns and knives on the wall and became a good, dependable neighbor in the neighborhood. And this included censoring those super aggressive, simple minded idiots who are always around in governments everywhere…sure they had US overseers to help them do this…but they did much of it on their own.
Then, they did what they did best…German engineering…creating super quality devices and products that were desired worldwide, and these sold because the world was tired of cheap crap…and people were tired of driving Fords that broke down every 2000 miles and Chevys that rode like a horse drawn buckboard and were worn out at 75000 miles…and people wanted better products.
I am having trouble now with my commercial mower that I use for my rental property…I cannot buy a set of spark plugs that will last more than for a few days mowing in this hot weather…the heat gets them and they begin misfiring and need replacing…and the ones that I find are made in China…poor quality.
The US produces top quality heavy military equipment…tanks, planes etc…and junk for households when it produces at all, but the competition is increasing in all areas of manufacturing worldwide.
What we need here is the production and promotion and sale of super quality common household items…that last nearly forever…like during the early industrial revolution….and this would counter the mindless importation of cheap, throwaway consumer items that only work for a short while and then have to be replaced….Televisions with modules that can be repaired by replacing the modules….and with a lifespan of 20 years…more household solar powered products…but the Chinese already have a huge jump in this area….high tech energy production with mirror farms etc. There is just so much that could be done if US leaders would pull their heads out of their asses and wipe their faces off and get the right attitude about things…and we could become a viable nation again…and a good neighbor to the world without depending on being Murder Incorporated for our livlihoods.
And US leaders better get to supporting family life with health care and help for US families so US ladies can marry and start having some babies again. They foolishly think Catholic Hispanic immigrant ladies will do this thankless job on the cheap for them, but after these ladies families deteriorate here in the US from a lack of care from the top, they will soon quit producing children also as our other ladies are now doing.
These issues need to be addressed in a straightforward manner….and free trade needs to be cut back drastically in the name of equitable trade…carefully, to avoid conflict and war. But one seriously questions whether we have the mental cohesion at this point to do any of these things…and large numbers of our leaders have their head up their asses…or buried in the sand.
July 1, 2009 at 12:23 pm
lawyers are indispensible to the sophists. lawyers are the main tool the sophists manipulate and contort with.
don’t you see? from the parasitic lawyers educated in nothing actually productive or real, to their philosophical minders, the sophists, to their inevitable progeny, the amoral global corporations and banksters with their “sophisticated and innovative” financial products, NOTHING THEY DO IS ACTUALLY REAL! they are all godless, immoral egoistic parasitic outright deliberate frauds, deceivers and this is what you get when sophists rule.
July 1, 2009 at 12:28 pm
what we need david is to overthrow the intellectual sophistry that redefined “engineers” into people who figure out how to make things cheaper, not better.
john deere gets its hoses and bearings from china! what madness this is. actually it is treason, high treason. the elites who decided this are nothing more than wreckers.
July 1, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Teach your kids Chinese and Hindi. Lots of opportunities ahead if you expand your mind.
July 1, 2009 at 12:32 pm
and in the future, our highly skilled and trained special forces will be needed to go into the foreign places of safe haven to snatch up the billionaire wreckers and return them to america for their public trials.
July 1, 2009 at 12:41 pm
and ross perot turns out to have been right. and he was deliberately turned into an idiot, a marginalized joke by our sophist minders just like ron paul and dennis kuchinich. this actually is our generational legacy folks. it happened on our watch whether you like it or want to admit to it or not. deliberate sophist fucking with the boy scouts came down to this. congratulations.
July 1, 2009 at 12:43 pm
and i told you all so over 40 years ago when i walked out of so many sophist university courses and enlisted looking for something real. fuck me i will never smile again.
July 1, 2009 at 1:33 pm
so engineers no longer “engineer” anything better. and lawyers no longer have anything whatsoever to do with the concept of “justice”.
congratulations everyone!
July 1, 2009 at 1:59 pm
so brittan can still make boy banks with fancy speaking skills… probably more than any other country if it really took the sector seriously… luckily paul mcartney is still alive to consult on re-enginering a boy band renaissance…
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EZyFzkUC4c&feature=channel
.
Tiygah
July 1, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Here’s what I’m doing:
When it comes to “consumer durable goods” (i.e., things other than stuff like food and medications), I search the internet for US manufacturers, if there still are any, and find a source to buy them. This source usually isn’t a retail store, all they want to sell these days is cheap Chinese junk, even when US goods are still available.
If I can’t find new “made in USA” stuff, then I go to e-bay, and continue my search there for used “made in USA” stuff in good condition. In general, I have found that I can get better-quality and less-expensive stuff than the Chinese junk in the stores.
Does this make any difference? Well, it is a “dollar vote” cast AGAINST importing more cheap Chinese crap. What more could one do?
July 1, 2009 at 3:58 pm
The older I get the more I realize that the only
thing that remains constant is irony ! Or as the
late Jean Baudrillard would say, “reversability”.
Everything eventually turns into its opposite on
our big moebus strip of reality.
How deliciously ironic that a Communist country
like China benefits from the relentless Class Warfare of the Upper class capitalists of America against its own blue collar people !
Upper class America has willingly cut its own
throat just to show dem field hands who’s da big massa around heah.
What drooling idiots ! Aristocracies always end
up looking like some town in southern West Virginia. They strip mined our human capital
and then they “stripped” eachother.
Yeee haaa. Is that a Hatfield haawg rootin’ around in mah Oak woods ? ! ? !
July 1, 2009 at 4:12 pm
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 pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…”
July 1, 2009 at 4:14 pm
i think our founding fathers would be declared “terrorists” in todays america….
July 1, 2009 at 4:15 pm
absolutely nothing sophist about this….how stupid they must have been back then.
July 1, 2009 at 4:17 pm
so surely this is not real. surely it is a hoax….surely.
July 1, 2009 at 4:26 pm
it appears to be true. i have heard of the declaration of independence, but i don’t know that i have ever actually read it clearly. how subversive. from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
The next section, the famous preamble, includes the ideas and ideals that were principles of the Declaration. It is also an assertion of what is known as the “right of revolution”: that is, people have certain rights, and when a government violates these rights, the people have the right to “alter or abolish” that government.[71]
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 pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
July 1, 2009 at 4:48 pm
American kids do NOT go into engineering, science, and math because there is nothing for them to do once they graduate.
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Even engineering design jobs have now been outsourced to the Japanese.
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I myself have a BS in physics. Where do you find a job with that? I didn’t want a masters and I didn’t want a PhD.
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I work in a college which has a mandatory co-op. 8 years ago already, my friend in the co-op department said, “Noob! When are you guys going to close your computer science degree?! We cannot find any co-op jobs for programmers!”
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Fast forward 8 years–and now we cannot find jobs for our other engineering co-ops, either. The school had to allow “volunteer america” and “peace corps” and some other types of volunteer service to stand in place of co-op.
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There are LOTS and LOTS of very very smart American kids–don’t believe the propaganda that my immigrant dad puts out: “Well, Americans don’t go for those kinds of jobs.”
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Bullshit.
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American kids don’t go for those kinds of degree and those kinds of jobs because there AREN’T ANY. For the few jobs available–those go to the kids who are brilliant.
July 1, 2009 at 4:52 pm
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090701/NEWS/907010375
and this article from here in iowa. the stupidest …. or the deliberately cynical …. thing YOU PEOPLE have done in my lifetime is drive the normal working class formerly democrat voters away from you and by default, to support the republicans. i still am not at all certain this wasn’t by design….with an unholy alliance with the global banksters/corporate/totalitarian loving elites.
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“A woman is pulled from near the Center Street dam by construction worker Jason Oglesbee on Tuesday. A man who was with the unidentified woman died in the Des Moines River. A rescue team from the Des Moines Fire Department tried several times to rescue the woman but could not get close enough to her. (Andrea Melendez/The Register)
A construction worker dangled from a heavy-duty chain supported by a crane to rescue a woman from the swirling waters of the Des Moines River on Tuesday afternoon.
The dramatic rescue was met with cheers from spectators who had gathered on the banks of the river and nearby bridges after the boat the woman was in went over the Center Street dam.
Minutes before the woman was rescued, a Des Moines fire rescue team pulled the body of the woman’s boating companion, a man of about 60, from the river downstream. The man had drowned.
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the world is full of decent normal people who just want to do what is right and work and raise a family and have some fun and be proud and feel good about themselves. unfortunately they are never left the fuck alone to live a decent very little life really. instead they are used and thrown away as trash. thank you thank you thank you.
July 1, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Regarding Cormac’s book, The Road.
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My daughter has to read that for summer reading. And I PROTEST! What the hell are the schools thinking?!?
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“Oh, American teenagers are depressed! They are worried about the future! They cut! They are emo!
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No shit, sherlock! What are the schools making the kids read?! The Road! Oryx and Crake! The Bluest Eye! And other of the most numbing, horrifying, nihilistic crap ever to print on a page!
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Aren’t there any good comedies to read? Nothing that is hopeful and uplifting? How about books on the dangers of free trade? How about the great book 1929 Year of the Great Depression by a guy named Klingaman?
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Everytime my daughter sees a shopping cart, she starts to cry! Why is this good?!? How is this educational? How is it helpful? How does it empower? Educate? What is the point???
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Cormac can take his dead-eyed worldview and shove it up his ass!
July 1, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Noob and Oh:
My son just got a degree in audio engineering…and in filmmaking…and sent out 200 resume’s…got two no thank you notes back.
Son moped around in depresson for awhile… and then I had a talk with him. Then we began buying foreclosed audio equipment on E-bay for 10 cents on the dollar…Banks foreclosed and sent some kid in to clean the building and sell off the stuff…and kid was clueless about the value of this stuff.
Then we rented an old Drs office and son and I did the heavy labor of renovation…and studio is beautiful (finished in cedar and oak with a big fireplace and hardwood floor in the live room) with basic good studio equipment…
Son was still down in the mouth…how will I make any money?
So, we began talking to people…everywhere, and I had to show him how and how to approach them….and guess what, he learned quickly and now I’m not needed? People do want others to record their music and do film editing projects for them and to show them how to run their big half million dollar church sound systems…and within two months, son is overworked and is paying the bills…and now is contemplating eventually making a profit.
The point of this story is that now son is really coming alive with hope and positivity and excitement…working for himself…serving others…being appreciated rather than used by some stupid assed lackey supervisor for some mindless big greedy corporation.
Son is going today to meet with a college intern who he will employ to do some of the grunt work and who will begin to learn the ropes of studio recording…and studio work.
Young people need to be shown how instead of nihilistic, sad sack bullshit that passes for education and literature, and is cynically taught to give the student a sense of hopelessness as he or she goes out and faces the very difficult world…
Maybe these teachers think they are teaching reality, but they are not….they are teaching failure….
Reality is what we make it…and if kids are taught that they can make a good reality, they will go out and will make a good reality, somehow, somewhere.
May a deadly pox fall upon those who teach such failure shit to our youth.
July 1, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Congratulations, David! Yes, during downturns, we have to be more creative. And think harder. And laugh, too.
We can’t let ourselves go down the tubes just because a bunch of jerks are sliding to hell in a CC hand bag.
July 1, 2009 at 8:19 pm
@David,
Inspiring story. Thanks for sharing.
July 1, 2009 at 9:28 pm
pardon my complaint but my second DTV converter made in China and forced to sabota ge my communications system called upgrade has failed, making me wonder the 60 dollar value pkaced on this 20 dollar not subsidized cost/value and who exactly profited by this destruction and forced compliances…….crap
July 1, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Elaine:
BP was and is pure evil. The way they treats U.S. customers as if they are still colony masters; they way they treated Amoco employees as if they were cattle… the ruthless way they manipulate U.S. market!!! The ruthless way they manipulate the congress!!!
Average Americans have no way to know, or care!
BP’s butt was kicked badly in Russia by Putin… that is why that freak Lord Browne was kicked out of BP for… sex scandal!
China’s weakness in ship building is engine …
July 2, 2009 at 1:20 am
Isha:
With all of my complaining about Chinese product quality, I am not disparaging Chinese workers in any way. They, like all obedient workers everywhere, build what they are paid to build…and they do it for 57 cents per hour, hardly an inspiring wage when we consider what these jerk-led corporations charge for their products in the marketplace.
And the US corporations who went to China are building intentionally substandard quality products for export back into the US.
The spark plugs I complained about had an American brand name on them. There was once an American brand named Autolite….and, at one point, quality became so bad that the joke was that if you bought Autolite spark plugs, you ought to light out and go buy some more….Well, the plugs I recently bought are no longer Champions, they are dead last losers, made with semi-slave labor in China for 57 cents per hour.
I own a two cylinder compact Chinese made (by a Chinese owned company) Jinma tractor and I also own a 1949 Ford red belly tractor that is about retired. The quality is about equal. John Deere has green tractors made in China by Jinma, but mainly exports them to England and other European nations…buyer resistance is still too high in the US.
Four years ago, a huge hail storm came through here and damaged roofs on two of my houses with baseball sized hail balls…so I collected the insurance checks and did the roofing work myself…for 1/4 what I was paid….went looking for a compact tractor to use around the yards….Kobota was out of my price league as was John Deere…so I bought the little Chinese Jinma for 3000 bucks. I use it for bush hogging and gardening…just the right size, but a little crudely built…like the 1950s Ford red belly. I also use it to pull an industrial lumber planer….and I overheated it doing this….my fault for not checking the coolant…and the cylinder seals leaked coolant into the oil…so I took the engine apart to repair it.
I found some very good quality workmanship inside the little diesel engine except for one thing… it had a plastic oil pick up tube and screen which had already broken down and was collapsing… I simply went to a junk yard and took a steel pickup tube out of a Mazda car engine and brass brazed it in place of the plastic one, put new seals on the cylinders and new rings and gaskets, and the little engine does super good now.
Now, I understand that the Jinma brand tractor is very popular in China. I can just guess that some joker said, “we’ll put this cheap plastic pickup tube in the export tractors and save a yuan…and nobody will know the difference.
Otherwise, the only faults I found in this little tractor were final assembly items and some poor quality fuel hoses and switches. Otherwise, I’ve been very satisfied…and Jinma is building a reliable dealer network throughout the US now….so when quality improves a bit, they will rival other popular tractors.
This experience tells me that China is where Japan was in 1970 as far as exports are concerned…making money and keeping costs below the competition with less than great quality… competitors are Japanese Kabota and John Deere. Give them ten years, and the quality of their tractors will rival Japanese, Russian and German tractors…don’t know if any tractors are made in the US anymore…Massey Ferguson maybe, and that’s a great tractor also?
It just saddens me that I have to buy Chinese products when the US used to be a world leader in all of this stuff…quality as well as quantity until the f…ing business school graduates took over and totally ruined American manufacturing.
Someone mentioned tool shopping. I go to pawn shops and consignment stores where I buy high quality used American, German, Japanese and Swedish made products…and only buy cheap imports at Wally World when I have no choice.
Oh, by the way, K-Mart is now selling Craftsman hand tools…super great professional quality…hard chrome, hammer forged…and American made at a fair price…so give them your support please when you need hand tools. Sears stores also sell the craftsman brand name in hand tools….support them also.
As I stated earlier, building super quality home use items in the US is a viable way of saving US manufacturing…only if our markets are protected like other nations protect their markets….but, alas, our leaders still have their heads up their butts.
July 2, 2009 at 2:13 am
@David: you are a realist which means your eyes are open. The question is, how do you get the guys with their heads up their asses (“leaders”) to open their eyes? This is assuming that what the assheads have is a lazy eye problem and not a bakshish problem. Either way, Denninger’s “Starve The Beast” – July 4th, 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/m3rsux) makes doable sense to me. What are your thoughts on this.
July 2, 2009 at 2:27 am
Denninger’s plan of action makes more sense than the Tea Party factions expensive and I suspect politically manipulated and monitored machinery. Look how easy: http://www.teapartyday.com/Locations.aspx
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Civil disobedience at home looks to be a much more effective and immediate action to take. Minimal planning, organizing, and can be disseminated easily; Twitter, emails, blogs, and once it gets on Jon Stewart…
July 2, 2009 at 3:07 am
CC:
Makes a lot of sense. The site had the following:
” * Enough food to eat at home. No more eating out.
* Rent and utilities.
* Essential medical services.
* Enough fuel to get to and from work.”
I already pretty much do this since I’m not floating in cash, and I cut wood for my wood stove in winter, and I turn off lights I’m not using….and foolish me has one for the f…ing oil companies too.
When I’m driving my little S-10 pickup around home…with no long trips planned, I put 5 gallons of gas max in it at a time with a top limit of 10 dollars per purchase. I know this is stupid, and I pay with a bank card…and punch the credit key, just to cause a little more trouble for big oil.
Now, I know that this is just foolish me, but I want to make the oil companies use as much manpower and cause them as much trouble and expense as possible to sell me their overpriced gasoline…and if everyone did this, they would look at their analysis sheets and say, Hey! Were pushing the limit when people are dollaring their purchases of fuel….and if everyone did this, and limited their fillups, they might cause some drop in prices….just my foolish notion, but I reason that when you have a full tank of gasoline sitting in your car evaporating in the hot sun, the oil companies are using your fuel money interest free…if you look at things that way, which I do.
I shop for bargains in everything I buy..and I go by the local Goodwill store daily. It’s amazing the quality items you can pick up for almost nothing. I bought three top brand name baseball caps and a top quality back pack for $6.41 this morning.
One cap was a Polo and two had designer logos and sold for $15 each new…and the backpack probably sold for over $20 new since it was a Timberline…and all were in like new condition….no pride here when a bargain comes along.
I must confess, I have a weakness for a bargain. I recently bought a $300 mandolin for $50 in a pawn shop and learned to play it a bit. I just bought a black powder Thompson Center Hawkin Muzzle Loader rifle with a telescopic sight installed on it for $94 in my favorite pawn shop and then argued until the owner paid the tax for me. This US made replica muzzle loading firearm, which was in beautiful shape sold new for over $300, and add another $100 for the scope….so it cost me 1/4 of a new price.
Bargains abound on used quality items nowadays and prices are dropping like lead in thin air. If you have a consumer mentality, and a few bucks to spend, go to yard sales. Many folks are in dire straits, and will sell their unneeded stuff to buy food and pay their debts or to put gas in their car…so it’s a buyers market…so I just bypass the luxury stories altogether…the overpriced malls…but I will pay a little more at the locally owned hardware store…just to help keep it in business.
One other thing… I researched the banks in our area…and we have a locally owned Industrial Savings Bank owned by the local former owners of local industries that have now been raided and bought out and closed down…and this little bank has an A rating and a number 5 rating…the best there is…and little old lady stockholders show up at every one of their business meetings to make sure that no shenanigans are going on. Interest rates at this bank are higher than at the corporate owned banks too, but I’m thinking about gradually moving all of my accounts to this little bank…only drawback is that it does not have an ATM. All banking is done face to face with a teller.
Yes CC. We can all work in our own little ways to defeat these greed ridden corporations that don’t care about our workers or consumers, but still want what little money we have left…and we all need to consider who we are buying from with every purchase we make.
July 2, 2009 at 3:40 am
@David: in today’s economic climate resourcefulness is a virtue. Out-of-the-box thinking is a must, and when one gets adept at practicing it a lot of opportunities present themselves.
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For example: http://tinyurl.com/nflq8h
http://tinyurl.com/bvhdjy
http://tinyurl.com/nrretm
July 2, 2009 at 9:15 am
Speaking of major historic turning points, China’s central bank from today will encourage banks to offer yuan settlement services, allowing companies to undertake settlement of cross-border trade in the yuan and even offering them tax breaks, this to reduce the reliance of importers and exporters on the U.S. dollar. http://tinyurl.com/lqrjnq
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I think the politburo had a “now” moment when the students laughed at Timmy’s reassurances on US Treasury debt in Beijing, face no matter what is still a very big thing in China. It may have occurred to the Chinese leadership that the students were laughing at them too… Not a good thing for the Chinese military to take notice of…
July 2, 2009 at 10:52 am
To balance out the above post here is a very sober article written by highly respected independent commentator on culture, economics and politics, Henry C. K. Liu, titled Confidence in the Dollar. http://tinyurl.com/n6aj2z
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The issue is not whether Asian central banks will continue to have confidence in the dollar, but why Asian central banks should see their mandate as supporting the continuous expansion of the dollar economy through dollar hegemony at the expense of their own non-dollar economies.
:
If Chinese exports are paid in yuan, China will have no need to hold foreign reserves, which currently stand at more than $480 billion [2004 figure, $2 trillion in 2009]. And if the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the yuan instead of the dollar, Hong Kong’s $120 billion foreign-exchange reserves can also be freed for domestic restructuring and development. Chinese trade surplus would stay in the yuan economy.
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Asian economies will find in China a preferred alternative trading partner, possibly with more symbiotic trading terms, providing more room to structure trade to enhance domestic development along the path of converging regional interest and solidarity. The rise in living standards in all of Asia will change the path of history, restoring Asia as a center of advanced civilization, putting an end to two centuries of Western economic and cultural imperialism and dominance.
:
China is finally demanding that its export be paid in Chinese yuan. But this demand should not be interpreted as a push to make the RMB a reserved currency for international trade. China only wants to denominate its bilateral trade in yuan. It has no desire in making the yuan a reserve currency for international trade in which China is not directly involved. Because of the size of the US economy, the dollar will continue to serve as a preferred reserve currency, but only if the US puts its own financial house in order.
July 2, 2009 at 11:47 am
I found this gem today in radio:
“Soldiers are not in greater risk in Afghanistan despite carrying large amount of cash. It is understood that the cash will be used for on spot reparations [bribes] for the local people”
Try to read this with a straight face
July 2, 2009 at 11:49 am
http://www.theage.com.au/national/soldiers-to-carry-cash-to-compensate-for-casualties-20090701-d57t.html
Soldiers to carry cash to compensate for casualties
Cynthia Banham
July 2, 2009
SOLDIERS in Afghanistan will carry cash to pay off civilians whose family members are killed or injured as a result of Australian Defence Force operations.
The “tactical payments scheme” came into effect yesterday. It means Defence will no longer have to go through the Department of Finance in Canberra – which can take days – before making reparations to civilians who get caught up in ADF battles overseas.
Senior officers of the rank of lieutenant colonel or higher will carry the cash, which will be most likely in US dollars, and they will be able to make payments on the spot. Defence would not say how much money officers would carry because of “safety issues”. But individual payments can be for amounts up to $250,000.
Defence believes allowing tactical commanders the discretion to make on-the-spot payments will help it win the “hearts and minds battle”.
But human rights lawyers have raised questions about whether the tactical payments – which also cover property – will lead to less accountability and silence victims.
A Defence spokeswoman said the scheme “was developed in response to lessons learned in ADF operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor” and would “provide a means for making no-liability payments to people adversely affected in the course of (ADF) activities abroad”.
“The scheme is an acknowledgement that, in many areas in which the ADF operates the expectation of financial compensation for collateral damage to property, injury, or loss of life is often a common aspect of local cultures,” she said. “Respect for and recognition of such customs is vital for building relationships with these communities, which in turn enhances the safety and security of our deployed ADF personnel.”
Defence’s annual report will set out the amount of payments made in a year, the total dollar amount of all the payments, and whether the payments were for casualties or property damage. But it will not list dates or specific incidents because this would make it too easy to identify individuals, according to a spokesman for Greg Combet, Minister for Defence Personnel.
Dr Daniel Marston, a research fellow in the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said the new scheme was an important development in the Afghanistan campaign.
“The coalition has created enemies in the Pashtun belt since 2001 because tactical commanders have not had money to pay for civilian loss of life,” he said. “The US army and US Marine Corps and the British army have rectified this problem and it’s good to see that the Australian army has made progress in this area.”
But Professor Hilary Charlesworth, director of the ANU’s Centre for International Governance & Justice, said while it was important to be able to make immediate recompense to affected civilians, it was important the system was transparent.
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the plot thickens, we will pacify the region by throwing money at it
July 2, 2009 at 12:07 pm
CC:
The idea of barter cards, which is somewhat like buying and selling on e-bay with PayPal…is a good one…buyers and sellers have some security in their transactions. E-bay and PayPal are great with this… I occasionally have a scammer call and get a tracking number from a carrier, but then try to not ship an item I’ve bought, and all I do is inform PayPal and they go after the crook with a vengeance with no letup until obligations are fulfilled. (by the way, some reasonably good art and antiques are showing up in consignment shops etc. as old folks die off and art ignorant kids clean out their houses and sell off their stuff.) Recently bought a numbered print for $5 that went for $350 on ebay…big time art dealer me..ha. ha.
CC, on your observations about China and the yuan….and our discussions of bargain shopping and bartering for quality products, we are seeing the beginning of a common Eastern and Western resistance to the free trade, NWO scam that has been imposed on everyone by US central bankers and big boyz corporatists who intend to scam huge profits from the US decline and from cheap Chinese labor.
Resistance to this is building from everyone who has been affected negatively by this….and I think this will continue until these parasitic buzzards are, at some point, hauled up short and maybe even some will be thrown out of positions of power. People are waking up just a little.
As you said earlier, violent resistance is out…and the American public knows that it is totally outgunned in this area.
Talked to a local kid at the parts store who is in the National Guard Rapid Reaction Force….and they are quite prepared to use deadly military force against US citizens to suppress dissent and demonstrations.
Kid told me face to face that he would kill an American citizen if he had to in order to protect the country. So these kids are very well trained and deadly, and would kill their own neighbors on orders…so demonstrations and violent resistance would be very difficult to get moving unless public anger becomes overwhelming nationwide.
But low level economic resistance is coming into fashion here as people realize that if they stop (as you say) feeding the beast, it might weaken and be forced to change its evil ways a little.
I predict Soviet Union style stagnation unless justice is served about the torture and illegal killing, and the Federal Reserve is brought under the ownership and control of the US taxpayers and Congress again assumes power over the Executive….and if this does not eventually happen, we will, at some point, fail economically, and be in much worse shape than Russia is in today…Russia has plenty of oil, and we don’t. And those who have oil are becoming more and more cohesive and better able to fight to defend it….so, at some point the people in charge in the US might be forced to look around and say (as OH often does), “Well fuck me! I’ll never smile again.”
CC, a final story and I’ll shut up. A former student of my recently bought 11 acres of land and an almost new foreclosure double wide modular home for $20,000 dollars. Just saw him again and the property across the road is up for sale. 10 acres and a small house for $28,000.
Developer friend sold 4 lots during the boom for $40,000 each to a construction co. This Co went bankrupt and friend bought them back at courthouse for $20,000 at a tax auction.
What interesting times we live in!
I’ll shut up now.
July 2, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Those born in the ’90s will be an interesting generation to watch
While there will be the usual over-saturated emo / social networking idiots there will also be a bunch of super intelligent masterminds that exercises entrepreneurship from a very early age
Interesting indeed
July 2, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Nice Stories very much interested thanks for sharing it….
July 2, 2009 at 12:43 pm
david sez: “….who is in the National Guard Rapid Reaction Force….and they are quite prepared to use deadly military force against US citizens to suppress dissent and demonstrations.
Kid told me face to face that he would kill an American citizen if he had to in order to protect the country….”
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that sort of surprises me david. and not so much either i guess. its sad almost. i just saw a title to an article somewhere else that had nothing to do with elaines blog, but it had better be my anthem cause my time is getting short and there are things i want to finish while i still can. and that is “the outrage of a fading world”.
if young people believe they could and would kill to “protect the country”, presumably against people like us, so be it. maybe my time could be better spent doing what i can do to provide for the fetters i leave behind when i move on. our world is quickly fading now. simon is probably right. and its all just cycles anyway.
July 2, 2009 at 12:56 pm
@David: As I’ve told OH a few times one of the best investments one can make in the US right now is open land, specially if arable and with good water supply. The US is one of the best food bowls in the world.
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About good deals there are many to be had by a discerning eye. Having a good education and culture is to your advantage. I can imagine young rich Chinese in future looking for collectible Americana. Keep your eyes open you can make a bundle in future.
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Btw, I was very touched by your post about getting your son’s confidence back on track and focused, you ARE a good father and a hell of a teacher. Your father brought you up well. Patience is a virtue, and loyalty is something hard to come by these days. I salute you, brother.
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@Simon & David: what have we here, soldiers who are taught to bribe for war crimes on one hand and trained to kill their own people at home on the other, this is lunacy! When reading both your posts it occurred to me how completely opposite things are between East and West. In China, the real power is in the military, not the politburo. Hu is there at the pleasure of the military. In the US it is the opposite, the Pentagon is a lackey of the inbred ruling elite morons. Nothing more than overpaid mercenaries who cannot even mount a successful campaign on an impoverished enemy. I expect as the money runs out that a lot of ordnance and equipment will find its way into the black market. Right now the FBI is doing house to house searches in Texas, AZ etc., to weed out the firearm sales to Mexican drug cartels. Soon it will be military hardware…
July 2, 2009 at 12:57 pm
and for your information, this is the kindest thing i can say is i know we get to live again…..not “david”, not “elaine”, not “openly hidden”, these lives are done and soon gone, but who we really are continues on and experiences another life. i know this. when i was 2, i woke up and was mad as hell and afraid that i was in another body and ever since i have not been comfortable living here in “my” body. this is one of the two earliest memories i have. and in 1991, i saw what i can only describe as “my” personal soul wheel of life. so i know none of you will believe me about this because …. you can’t. but its true. life does have meaning, although its hard for us to see, and our life does have a purpose, that we don’t actually know….presumably the lord of our souls does, and life does go on and on and on until who we really are is “done”. so live it up everyone and don’t mourn too much or be too outraged about our fading world. and i do know the above, but i don’t actually know this for sure however. but perhaps some of us have a bond now and we will meet again sometime, when its time. good luck to everybody. you too ken. keep stoik every now and then.
July 2, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“The US, in my opinion, and its just my humble opinion, needs to create opportunities of its citizens to again become employed.”
Looks like David’s son (with a bit of help from David) created his own opportunity.
Most US citizens, unfortunately, have learned two unhelpful lessons.
First, passivity. People look to dubious sources for salvation, e.g., corporations and government, neither of which have The People’s best interests at heart. “Never fall in love with a company”, it’s said, “because the company can’t love you back”, and the same is true for government.
The second unhelpful lesson is an inflated sense of one’s own self-worth. When there are people in the world who will work twice as hard as you do for a third the pay, self-esteem just doesn’t cut it.
And I’ll submit that David and his son are worth of admiration and respect – not something I say lightly.
July 2, 2009 at 1:18 pm
see. just like i don’t think i could kill someone else, i also don’t think i could put a kid in the position that he thinks its his duty to kill me. not right all around. bye.
July 2, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Its been about a day hasn’t it?
There is nothing wrong with cycles.
and…
nothing is nothing but a concept.
Its imaginary.
I so agree that we are approaching a major inflection point – for the better, in my humble opinion. Dime a dozen.
Go Mulchers!
July 2, 2009 at 1:54 pm
The text below from:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidconclu.html
(Conclusion final paragraph)
” Each time, however, that an attempt to return to this old principle was made, its fundamental idea itself was widened. From the clan it was extended to the stem, to the federation of stems, to the nation, and finally — in ideal, at least — to the whole of mankind. It was also refined at the same time. In primitive Buddhism, in primitive Christianity, in the writings of some of the Mussulman teachers, in the early movements of the Reform, and especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of the last century and of our own times, the total abandonment of the idea of revenge, or of “due reward” — of good for good and evil for evil — is affirmed more and more vigorously. The higher conception of “no revenge for wrongs,” and of freely giving more than one expects to receive from his neighbours, is proclaimed as being the real principle of morality — a principle superior to mere equivalence, equity, or justice, and more conducive to happiness. And man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race. ”
gives me great hope for the future.
-ken
July 2, 2009 at 2:04 pm
and I’ll tell you something else (another opinion).
Pringles potatoe chips are better then the Frito Lay imitation. The Frito Lay ones have some sort of oil added to them that I find unsavory.
Potatoes came from the Western Hemisphere didn’t then. Along with tomatoes and many other things. Wasn’t there even some huge silver mountain (containing much metal) in Bolivia that some ole has-been country forced the “natives” to extract unwillingly? I think so. I know my history. Do you?
July 2, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Anyhow, thank goodness for potatoes. Russia knows that don’t you Russia?
You are connected with the rest of us.
We all are.
DUH
July 2, 2009 at 2:06 pm
ps – there is no such thing really as the “western hemishpere” – western in many ways is also nothing but a concept.
Still those Eastern girls are HOT, HOT, HOT.
I love them.
July 2, 2009 at 3:04 pm
@OH: I believe you. Remembering past lives is difficult (imagine remembering all your past children, wives, husbands, etc., it would be hell on Earth) which is why it is not meant to be, but sometimes depending on one’s destiny it happens.
—
Simon is right, it is all cycles of time and karma. Our pain is dependent on our degree attachment. More possessions, more possessed, less possessions, less possessed. And we, all of us, have killed many times over. The more evolved will avoid, the baser instincts gravitate to violence.
—
JSmith, I absolutely agree with you. What do we really have to be proud of? There will always be someone better, smarter, more hard working, patient, consistent — you can use up all the adjectives. If we instead worked shoulder to shoulder, for the brotherhood of Man, that would be something to be proud of!
—
BKen, whatever you do stay away from the GMO potatoes, fired or otherwise. Trust me. I love potatoes, and yes the Eastern girls are hot, Eurasians specially. LOL. Don’t get me wrong, i only window shop.
July 2, 2009 at 3:51 pm
thanks cc – we grew our own potato species once (Mary-something). Anyhow, at the end of the season we pulled it out of the ground and I cut it up for consumption. It was tasty.
But other things grow better where I live and we have not had one of those again.
Eastern girls – they drive me crazy! In a good sort of way!
Peace cc!
July 2, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Um – Culture of Life, the site created by “Elaine” is a great place to learn.
Don’t you think?
What bout U smith?
Smithy. Smarty smithy wasn’t as smart as smithy though smithy was….oh but smithy knew….learning is FUN!
July 2, 2009 at 5:36 pm
and buffaloes love the Plains!
July 2, 2009 at 5:38 pm
So anyhow, once I wrote a ditty about an itty-bitty smitty…but I decided to unpublish it.
My choice.
Still.
Copper is useful, but silver is better!
Don’t you think smitty?
July 2, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Hey Ken: Please back away from them fuckin’ potatoes! They are poisonous! (They are good to eat? So?) Everyting that is good to eat is bad for you. So don’t eat it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B81Srse-ayE
Who’s Fat!!!
July 2, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Peace blues.
I meant it when I said it directly to you not too long ago.
Peace blues.
-ken
July 2, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Hey can’t you make some good vodka from potatoes? I think so.
I respect Russia and China, but I’ll be honest I do not respect the government authorities in the country I live in, but I seem to recall that Jefferson had something to say about that.
Long live North Carolina!
July 3, 2009 at 4:15 am
@David “I put in 5 gallons of gas at a time.”
Make sure you get a receipt for your gas, so you can check pump, price, and delivery.
A friend of mine was over-billed for the actually gas pumped. This is a growing problem.
Seems a number of gas stations are recalibrating off the books.
July 4, 2009 at 3:38 pm
was this the thread we were talking about education – I can’t remember, but nonetheless, I told my wife today that i took the GRE once – blew the doornails off it in my humble estimation.
I did miss one or two in the math section – maybe next time.
Anyhow, I think standardized test SUCK it up the ying-yang. The test are only as good as the makers.
Anyhow, if I was president, I might change today’s celebratioin to the 2nd. Presidential edict and such.
Just like mother’s day…
ha, ha, ha!
loves ecology even though I wasn’t excepted due to my lack of so-called biology….no matter, everything ended out fine in my opinion – dime a dozen…
July 4, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Prognistication – affirming:
Inflection coming.
Within months…
A few of em!
July 4, 2009 at 3:39 pm
oops – prognOstication….
you know – a guess.
A bet.
An opinion.