It is very unsettling watching the US plunge off the cliff. A bit of dry humor, here. History is terribly clear about what happens to empires that get addicted to churning up one war after another. The US seems committed to being at war with a succession of Muslim states. Bomb, bomb, bomb Obama has unilaterally decided to bomb Pakistan with imperial impunity. This is insane. As the US economic situation seems to improve, the desire to do business as usual increases. It looks as if the US status quo has returned but that status quo is all about…going off a cliff.
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Already, Bombardier Obama’s tepid promise to retreat from Afghanistan somewhere around right before the next Presidential election has been blasted out of the water. The generals and neocons who run our foreign policy (AIPAC) have zero intention of doing this and are charmingly quite obvious that in is in forever. Of course, the leaders of the movement to lure the US into Afghanistan (bin Laden) are pleased that the Pentagon is determined to stay in that sand trap (they are like Tiger Woods thrashing away, trying to keep the press at bay) forever. This is, after all, Osama’s grand strategy in the first place. That is, bleed the US to death in Afghanistan and destroy the sovereignty of all the Muslim nations run by military dictators or royalty.
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AFP: ‘Few’ troops may leave Afghanistan in 2011: Mullen
There is no set date for US troops to finish withdrawing from Afghanistan, and the number of soldiers leaving in 2011 “could be very few,” the top uniformed US military officer said on Thursday.
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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told CBS News that the 2011 deadline cited by President Barack Obama this week in unveiling a plan to send 30,000 more US troops to the conflict was only a start date for withdrawal.
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“It’s very clear that the president has given us guidance that in July of 2011, we’ll start to transition security responsibility to the Afghan national security forces,” Mullen said on the “Early Show.”
. “There’s no determination of how long that will take… There’s no specific guidance with respect to how many. It could be very few, it could be a large number,” he added.
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So, did Obama fire Mullen after he dissed this dismal President? The wolves sense that they have Obama on the run and will now casually run him over at every turn. The very fact that Mullen could slap around the President in public is a sign that once again, a Democratic President underestimates the dangers of letting mere Generals pop them on the snout. That is, no one respects a loser.
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Presidents have to be dimly aware of this thing called ‘face’. That is, the dignity and power of any leader is based on respect. When the underlings go parading about in public, contradicting or even telling off the Leader, the Leader becomes a Loser. Everyone makes fun of the Leader. Everyone ignores whatever the Leader says and finally, foreign powers run roughshod over the Leader. Obama’s presidency died when Israel spat in his face and told him off and ignored everything he said in public and used Congress, which is owned by Israeli Jews who are Zionists, to slap Obama around.
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In turn, Obama went with the flow and did everything the Zionist neocons demanded. Mr. Change became Mr. Chump. Respect for Obama crashed around the world. Unlike Bush who provoked mass demonstrations around the planet when he took over and who was openly hated by most foreigners, Obama was greeted with cheers when he came into office. The Norwegians on the Nobel Prize committee were so happy with this faux change, they voted to give him the very tainted (Kissinger) peace prize just for merely being elected.
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But right off the bat, I knew this President would be a load of manure when he sat idle while AIPAC cheered on Israel’s one-sided ‘war’ with the Gaza Ghetto. Instead of cutting off funds to Israel and denouncing this in public, Obama was silent. At no point did he or our corrupt Congress try to stop this massive war crime. At no point did Obama even give a speech justifying US co-criminality in this latest episode of ethnic cleansing. The ethnic cleansing of the Holy Lands picked up speed since then and Obama’s star fell like a meteorite and crashed to earth. Now, no one on earth expects anything but the usual imperialist gaming from Obama.
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Pakistan Slams US Plans to Expand Drone Strikes — News from Antiwar.com
The foreign ministry cautioned that the attacks would only serve to inflame anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and that the government’s cooperation with the US had limits.
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Representative Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism, said that secret talks had been ongoing about the currently “limited” operations against Pakistani territory. He would confirm no details.
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But other sources say that the talks have centered around expanding the attacks further south into Pakistani territory, as well as into the Balochistan Province. The US has repeatedly threatened to attack Balochistan, despite Pakistani objections.
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This entire news story shows how insane Obama and his neocons are. The US isn’t being invited into Pakistan to kill Pakistani peasants. We are demanding that we be allowed to go into Pakistan and kill Pakistan’s citizens. We are not killing Afghani citizens who irritate us, we are killing obvious Pakistani citizens who irritate us, not Pakistan. To show exactly how demented the US is, Nixon’s cross-border bombings during the Vietnam war roused huge opposition in the US and in the world.
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Riots broke out in the US and US citizens who were students were shot and killed or gassed with vomit gas (in California, I was there). This nearly started WWIII. The US doesn’t fear either Russia or China so we bomb, bomb, bomb with impunity. But these useless bombing raids are not improving our situation, it is spreading mayhem and destroying US ‘soft power’. Obama is now using up the last dregs of US diplomatic capital to push everyone including a very reluctant Russia and China into allowing us to bomb the citizens of Iran, next.
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The Sunni overlords are happy with us killing Shiites. But this doesn’t mean we will make America stronger doing this madcap thing. And this is the key: our own sovereignty is in danger of vanishing as we rush from one Muslim country to the next, embroiling them all into chaos and war as we seek to weaken the influence of Islam. And what has been the result, so far, doing this? Islam is on the march across the planet. Every twist of our imperialist screw strengthens the Islamic radicals. And weakens secularism and modernism.
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The mad bomber Obama was always a warmonger, deep inside. He belongs, after all, to the CFR. And here is a very detailed Pew Poll done for the Council of Foreign Relations which shows us what is up with that organization that seems addicted to replaying ‘The Ugly American ‘ over and over again:
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In polling conducted before President Obama’s decision to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, both groups expressed pessimism about prospects for long-term stability in Afghanistan. Fewer than half of the public (46%) and CFR members (41%) say it is very or somewhat likely that Afghanistan will be able to withstand the threat posed by the Taliban. While half of the CFR members (50%) favor increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, just 32% of the public agrees.
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Any poll of CFR members will see at least half want any wars. The other half that might not want a particular war in a poll may oppose it only because they want a different war, not the one being polled. The ratio of warmongers to anti-imperialists in the CFR is about 1:0. That is, if you want to be a CFR member, you have to be an armchair warrior.
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The fact that only 32% of the US public wants troops to increase in Afghanistan is very significant. This is far worse than the poll numbers for the Vietnam War when Nixon felt compelled to pull out. The US went into a frenzy of lunacy after we lost the Vietnam War which is why we see those very stupid and childish black flags about bringing prisoners home, all over the place. I remember how that business began: the final excuse for fighting in Vietnam was to save the prisoners of war.
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I was immensely annoyed by this public relations game by the CFR because even a child should know that the way you get prisoners home is very simple: you stop the war and ask for them back. Generally speaking, the prisoners are then exchanged by the warring sides and they sign treaties ending the war! Duh! Instead, the US public was told, the prisoners would never come home unless we bombed, bombed, bombed all of Vietnam’s neighbors and killed a million more peasants inside Vietnam.
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In the midst of two wars abroad and a sour economy at home, there has been a sharp rise in isolationist sentiment among the public. For the first time in more than 40 years of polling, a plurality (49%) says the United States should “mind its own business internationally” and let other countries get along the best they can on their own….
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HAHAHA. Bad news for the CFR! They are part of the core of the imperialist expansionist gamesters who want to use the US citizens as their home base for international adventures and imperial projects. The US public’s credit is bankrolling international power plays. Losing this is the last thing the CFR people want. They have to get their claws into the US public via the media to whip us into pulling along these international schemes. Below are some of the poll’s results:
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…More than eight-in-ten (85%) CFR members say instability in Pakistan is a major threat to the U.S.; this is a much lower concern for the public – just 49% view this as a major threat. In addition, higher percentages of the CFR members view global climate change (by 15 percentage points) and international financial instability (by 13 points) as major threats to the United States….
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After all the media pushing, only half of the US public wants to expand the Afghan war into Pakistan while nearly all of the CFR desires this. When we consider that there is tremendous uniformity in the US media since it is mostly owned by either foreigners (Murdoch or the half owner of the NYT) or by Zionists (the media in the US is totally pro-Zionist 100% of the time)—the fact that only half of the US wants what the US media and the CFR wants is very amazing.
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….The CFR members’ concerns over Pakistan are seen in other ways as well. Nearly one-in-five (18%) says that Pakistan represents America’s most important international problem. However, Pakistan is mentioned by only 1% of the general public as America’s top international problem.
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The survey underscores the public’s anxiety over the nation’s economy. Fully 85% say protecting jobs should be a top foreign policy priority and economic issues are cited most frequently as the greatest international problem confronting the United States, followed closely by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq…..The CFR doesn’t consider the US economy to be any issue at all, at least, when it comes to protecting the US citizen’s ability to stay alive via having jobs. Just as the CFR lunatics don’t give a hoot, how many people they kill, they don’t care if we have no jobs at home. Indeed, this forces us to join the military and die in various foreign adventures. The armchair CFR warriors get to spin the globe and pick and choose who to invade and kill while the US citizens march off to do the dirty work.
.And nearly all Americans want to protect our jobs! Wow! The US media is 100% pro-Zionism and happens to also be 100% pro-free trade! And the last loudmouth that was against free trade was shoved unceremoniously out the door when Lou Dobbs was bought off. Now, the next part of this Pew Poll report is most interesting to me:
.…Despite these concerns, public support for free trade agreements like NAFTA and the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has increased somewhat over the past year. In April 2008, nearly half of Americans (48%) said that freetrade agreements were bad for the country, while 35% said such agreements were good for the country. In two polls this year, including the current survey, pluralities have said that free trade agreements and WTO policies are good for the country; currently, 43% say that free trade agreements are good for the country, while 32% express a negative opinion….
.One of the sad effects of 35 years of increasing ‘free trade’ business is, many Americans make their livings off of the free trade system. That is, they either now work for foreign corporations or they work for the military/industrial complex which depends on selling arms to foreign powers or are selling commodity goods to foreigners. The intertwining of the US economy with the world economy is now very intense.
.The second thing here is, only HALF of the US public is happy with free trade. This is despite 100% support for free trade in our media and about 85% support for free trade in our corrupt Congress. Even with Congress in the back pockets of all internationalist power players, there is enough exposure of the inner workings of the system if Congress holds hearings on free trade that the entire matter was removed by the politicians so it is no longer really debated in Congress.
.That is, Presidents now can unilaterally write trade treaties without permission from Congress. This greatly sped up the free tradebusiness. Opposition to free trade is falling due to people just giving up and going with the status quo being imposed on them. Also, seeing global trade collapse scared people. The fun stuff, buying cheap imported goods, is quite addictive. Who doesn’t love this? The missing jobs are invisible. The huge flat screen TVs pouring out of Asian factories are very real and fun to buy and use..
…In the current survey, by a 53%-13% margin, more Americans say trade agreements lead to job losses in the U.S. than say they create jobs; 19% say the agreements don’t make a difference. Similarly, 49% think wages of American workers are lower because of free trade; just 11% think they are higher, while 24% say wages are unaffected by trade agreements. In addition, more say free trade agreements slow the economy down (42%) than say they make the economy grow (25%)….
.So, more than half of the US public knows that free trade causes job losses! Half also think that free trade causes US wages to fall (which happens to be very true….ditto, a flood of illegal immigrants does the same). The vast gulf between the US public and the CFR is obvious. But the public usually gets to vote only for one or another CFR candidate when we have national presidential elections. This is why the CFR operatives prefer to write treaties with zero intake from the public. This is why debates have been tossed aside while all commentators in major media are carefully groomed and promoted only if they adhere to CFR agendas.
…There is far more consensus among Council on Foreign Relations members against the use of torture; 44% say it can never be justified, 38% say it can rarely be justified, while far fewer say it can sometimes (11%) or often (2%) be justified. The views of Council members are virtually unchanged from four years ago….
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And the same poll found that the US public loves torture. The majority of Americans, grown fat on fun TV and movie shows that praise torture and show it as being a useful way to get information, thinks torture is perfectly OK. Of course, the public assumes that only foreign devils who are mostly Muslim peasants will be tortured! At the same time, both the CFR and the US media yells like banshees about say, Chinese torture.
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Both Democrats and independents have become more accepting of the idea that torture can be justified. Currently, 47% of Democrats say torture can either often or sometimes be justified – more than in any previous Pew poll. Just over half of independents (53%) are of the same view; from 2004 through February 2009, fewer than half of independents expressed this view. Republicans remain more open to the use of torture – 67% say it can often or sometimes be justified – and the balance of opinion has not changed substantially in recent years….
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So, for the US public, Chinese torture is evil. US torture is good. All imperial powers behave the same way: while tormenting aliens, it is good and spreads civilization’s bounty. All opponents who use torture should be executed after public trials run by imperial powers who torture. The Hague still tries third rate dictators for torturing and killing people even as it turns a blind eye to NATO doing this.
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Now, here is a typical analysis from the so-called ‘liberal’ Huffington Post: Christian Parenti: For Obama the Road to Reelection Runs Through Kabul – Or So He Thinks
The real goals of the Afghanistan escalation are domestic and electoral. Like Lyndon Johnson who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans. .
To cover his flank and look tough in the next US elections, Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan. To look strong in front of swing voters he will sacrifice the lives of hundreds of US soldiers; allow many more to be horribly maimed; waste a minimum of $30 billion in public money; and in the process kill many thousands of Afghan civilians.
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It is political theater, nothing else. What are the other possible explanations for Obama’s escalation? And why has he pledged to start drawling down the new deployment after only a year of fighting?
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This is a typical example of infantile analysis. The writer doesn’t go about the web, seeking information. He doesn’t talk about the Council of Foreign Relations which has been the home base of much of our imperialist structures since WWII. He doesn’t examine the gulf between CFR beliefs and the public’s beliefs. Why does bomb, bomb, bomb Obama cleave to the CFR position rather than support the 52% of Americans who don’t want to expand these wars?
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Ms. Huffington just got an immense boost in her funding and she is the darling of many media outlets that support warmongering. Her base of readers, on the other hand, are almost all antiwar. So do her commentators explain how the CFR operates? How Obama’s wife is a member of the CFR? Of course not!
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The plan of the Huffingtons who work for the CFR is to openly lie to the readers, telling them that the warmongering by the Democrats is propelled entirely and totally by the Republicans! Not by Democrats who are CFR members! Obama’s pledge to pull out after raping both Afghanistan and Pakistan is the part that is pure theater. As we see from the top stories today, Obama has not punished his warlord for openly contradicting what this CFR tool said at West Point. Mullen told the truth. Obama was lying.
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He lied to the American people. The CFR wants war with Pakistan and so does Obama. His peace prize was a pig into poke. It was set up to fool Europe so the Europeans wouldn’t demonstrate against Obaman wars. Obama’s seeming hesitation during the fall was not due to indecisiveness. The CFR already had a powerful consensus within their own ranks to expand these wars. By the way, the CFR polls about China were also interesting. That is, the US public believes that China is a rising power. And that China is now the world’s economic engine. And that this is connected to ‘free trade’.
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Despite media attempts at misleading the public, there is some degree of knowledge but it is extremely diffuse. For example, the same Pew Poll also shows that the US public thinks Europe has little to do with the decline in US economic power when nearly all of Europe runs trade surpluses with the US, too. And ditto, Japan: it is nearly invisible to the US. This inability to see that free trade has caused US economic deterioration across the globe is due to successful US media attempts at NOT REPORTING NEWS.
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Hiding things is much better than lying about things. Lying introduces a written record that can be debated. But simply pretending something doesn’t exist is great. Bad things can run deep in the red forever this way, for example. Ditto with war crimes: if they are not reported at all, they never happened.
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China’s economy and its growing influence on Japan › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion
First, for Japanese companies, China will transform from a “large factory” into a “large market.” This means that the Chinese economy will become a more important market for Japanese exports and investment than it is at present, but what should especially be noted is the necessity of substantial change of exports and investment.
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Although Japanese exports to China have aimed at being manufactured in China and/or re-exported from China, in the future, Japanese companies need to export targeting the Chinese domestic market. In so doing, Japanese companies will meet severer competition with Chinese and other foreign companies in China, and also possible protectionism.
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This article from Japan shows similar delusional thinking. China has absolutely no intention of letting Japan turn China into a new US. That is, the Chinese plan is to export to Japan, not the reverse. Note also that the Japanese expect the Chinese to prevent Japanese incursions via ‘protectionism’. Duh! At least, in this regard, the protectionists of Japan who are infamous (though, hidden from the US public) are very aware that the Chinese know about this protectionist Japanese actions and are very willing to imitate Japan in all such matters. Unlike the easily fooled US public, the Chinese public keeps a very wary eye on their chief Asian rival.
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Nearly the entire CFR Pew Poll business about China is most interesting since it is obvious that the CFR thinks China is an ALLY. HAHAHA. This is beyond delusional. No nation running trade surpluses are ‘allies’….they are trade RIVALS. And this is the ultimate lesson for today: anyone who makes us lose money isn’t our buddy, they are a danger to our domestic welfare. This is true of ALL NATIONS ON EARTH.
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Any nation operating on the assumption that its trade should always run in the red with all trade partners is a dead nation walking. That is, it is doomed to die a terrible economic and political death. All empires that did this were dismembered totally. There is no escaping this. One can’t fight one’s way out of this sort of economic destruction. It only makes things worse.
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When Russia was falling into economic ruin, invading Afghanistan didn’t fix Russia. It broke Russia. And so we come back to bin Laden’s grand strategy for destroying the US. It is definitely working.
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Oil supplies rise, leaving a super spike in prices unlikely – Dec. 3, 2009
As for speculators, Armstrong said credit tightening is making it harder for them to make the big bets on energy that were seen before the crisis.
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This article about how we will never see any more oil spikes due to a drop in global oil consumption is funny as hell. I am happy the article notes that the spike in oil prices was due to EASY CREDIT which speculators used to boost their bonuses. Well, guess what? The ZIRP banks are trying desperately to create more easy credit! Even as everything else collapses. I noticed today that the latest solution to the collapse in housing asset values is to have Fannie Mae unilaterally reduce people’s mortgage payments!
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This means, the ability to pay debts isn’t improving, it is collapsing. So long as this collapses, banks can’t be capitalized….except Fannie Mae isn’t a bank, it is part of the US government/Treasury system and thus, all losses will be charged against the US public and sold to….China. And so who is the real engine of world credit creation?
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China. And the US public is correct to see that China is now the world’s economic power. And guess what? It is due to free trade and China’s success at destroying the US industrial base. All of which is happily supported by the CFR warmongers. End of story.
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Manufacturing consent
Culture of Life News 
Zionists, to slap Obama
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i watched a cfr video once it was pretty boaring… same guys you see in front of congress talking to each other
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really only can mean one thing, they dont got anything to prove…. the debate on china, russia, iran these guys know alot about the political dimensions of world politics and pretty much put it out there…. the US is pretty badass, things are getting better around the world so if things suck…. we dont want it to be our problem so more than likely its gunna end up somone elses regional bagage… the US has problems the US can manage if it comes down to it minus WWIII…
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figure that would be everyones problem
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-53565441845289277&q=nuclear+fision&total=185&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
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grassroot muslim extremeists close the curtain on US/asia diplomacy…. enjoy the ride
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/baucus-acknowledges-affair-wit.html?wprss=thefix
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Baucus acknowledges affair with former staffer
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if a dude was sleeping around on his wife… in my world youd find it hard to get no respect… imean you dont have the balls to represent yourelf and do the right thing whatever that is
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divorce sux cuz your marige failed… but all these guys on the top of our society just bail out of their problems
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they just bail out of our problems too???
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they have to keep the ego trip going on, so they cheat on whatever meaningless tease hits the spot
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it takes more than ego to form a society… really it takes work, commitment, investment, and creativity… and if that doesnt work get a fucking divorce like a man
Elaine,
I have been reading your blog for some time now and find that it offers a unique and refreshing perspective on many of the issues that confront our nation. While I do not agree with all of your view points, I find that there is more than a healthy dose of truth in much of what you say and certainly enough to offer pause for reflection.
One of the recurring themes in your blog is the issue of free trade and the negative impact that it has on our nation and economy. I have been wrestling with this concept for some time now, and I must admit, I have a hard time reaching the same conclusion. Admittedly, I can think of few who offer the same viewpoint, so perhaps my views are merely a by-product of the dogma that has been pounded into me since my first economics class (comparative advantage, etc.). So I thought I might propose a few questions to you that may help me to understand your viewpoint more clearly.
Let’s say that I invented a machine that could produce all sorts of products at a fraction of their current cost (autos, electronics, toys, textiles, etc.) The result of my machine would be significant job losses for the U.S. economy (bad?) and the production of a large quantity of goods as a much lower price (good?). Generally, this type of innovation is viewed as a positive thing in the long term as it is the ultimate driver of productivity. It seems to me that free trade with China, Japan or any other nation basically gets us to the same place. My question is, why would you view free trade as “bad” and innovation as “good” (perhaps there are other differences that I am not taking into account)?
To take the argument to a reductio in absurdum, let’s say that China actually had such low paid laborers and such an undervalued currency that they actually produced all those goods for free (the ultimate “free” trade) then shipped them to the U.S. Again we would experience job losses (bad?) and we would get a lot of stuff for free (good). If you take the case to its extreme, it’s hard to imagine how somebody (or a group of people) giving you something for free could be bad. So why is it bad if they merely sell the goods to us at a very low price?
The other question I have relates to the U.S. defaulting on its debt obligations. I cannot think of an example where a nation has ever defaulted on debt denominated in its own fiat currency (you can always print more paper as you so often point out). If this is true, then how could our nation ever default on its obligations?
Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.
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ELAINE; Never, ever mix up ‘free’ with ‘pay someone else while running up immense debts.’ Free trade has nothing free involved, all of this is paid for and if we run in the red, we run up debts. Debts must be paid in either blood or treasure or more likely, both.
What we are seeing is profits from cheap labor markets being moved to expensive labor markets. Once this process finishes with the death of the expensive labor markets, the cheap labor markets are the new powers while the expensive labor outfits get written about by historians writing books like ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ sort of books.
The mess in finance, leadership and war will go on.. till it cannot go on any longer.. its a question of time only. Manipulation of reality is the game of the CFR or AIPAC or Congress. What we see in the media or even googling does not represent how things are. We are in a big funhouse of mirrors… only by stepping outside that room can we see things as they are. If you are within a system, how does one do that? Its hard, as the people of N. Korea can attest. But this applies to the USA or any group. It just takes individuals who can separate out or at least recognize their is a heirarchy of illusion going on. By slowly moving up that ladder we get to see more of the funhouse mirror design at the minimum. How does a virus see its surroundings? Same with us, its all relative to scale.
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ELAINE: Ah, the Germ Empire! It sees us as vast farming estates, very fertile, a great place to raise the little Germ children. We humans can’t see ourselves in any mirrors due to the fact that we want illusions, not reality. Whenever I talk about various levels of reality (ahem, there is a lot more than one) people get very angry with me.
Weve been totally carved out by the CFR and other Elite interests. Everything playing out today was predicted in books written in the early 1970’s by Garry Allen. “None dare call it conspiracy” “The Rockefeller files”. Japan can pull the plug on it all if they just follow through with their plan to dump US Treasuries. Its all about US bonds. If creditor nations start dumping them to fund their domestic operations. It will become a STAMPEDE. The FED will be forced to monetize all the new fresh debt (as if they dont already) and the dollar will erode, sending prices through the roof. The stock market has rallied alot lately. Some suggest massive Govt. amipulation. Some suggest its the BIG $ buying up the co.’s before the prices surge and their profits surge as well. Gold ahs been on a tear and will continue. John Paulson, David Einhorn, John Tudor Jones etc… are all buying up Gold and starting hedge funds next year to profit from the coming parabolic move higher. As the US FED monetizes trillions in refinancings and new issuance of US Govt. debt at INTEREST! 2010 will see Gold up 100-200%, Silver up 200-300%. Oil up 50-60% and the US peso will dive to 62 against the basket of other fiat garbage floating around the Earth.
@EconCurious
1, because the trade can be cut off at any time, if we own the machine it cannot be cut off at any time.
2, such a machine would break the laws of the conservation of energy and therefor cannot exist
3, it would consume all the worlds resources to run
4, hypothetical solutions don’t solve real problems, any more than theoretical bread feeds hungry people (do you hear that economists of the world?!).
5, losing jobs is bad because when a skill labourer loses his job, he gradualy loses his skill, or at least he does not pass it on to another; so that skill has to be rebuilt by that society from scratch, this may take generations.
6, Losing industries is bad for the same reasons
7, goods need to be distributed, for that we need wages! so no to total unemployment, also prices tell us how much of a thing to make and if anyone really wants it.
8, trade means EXCHANGE, if they are giving us everything we need to sustain our existence, what are they getting in return? Do you imagine they will keep doing this for ever out of the goodness of their hearts? When they have taken all they need, they will cut us off.
9, as for currencies, all currencies are fiat: no coin in human history ever circulated at its commoditiy value, because people would have melted it down and used the commodity, creating rampant deflation.
10, you will be forced to defaut either when the world bank forces you to reprice you currency, or when forrieners refuse to buy any more bonds. Creditors simply will not let you infinitly devalue your currency, they will just call their debts and walk away.
11, the dollar debt is not denominated in dollars, though it may appear to be, in reality all debts are denominated in trust; you can wave whatever contracts you like, but if people dont trust you to pay the money back its curtains.
12, and finally, pointing out the bloody obvious: THE REMBI IS PEGGED TO THE DOLLAR, AS THE DOLLAR GOES DOWN SO DOES THE REMBI; YOU CAN NEVER INFLATE YOUR CHINESE DEBTS AWAY, BECAUSE AS YOU INFLATE THEY INFLATE, SO JUST PRINTING MORE IS USELESS!!!!
Is not the war in Afghanistan a mere brief stopover on the road to Islamabad in assuring the strategic goal of de-fanging the Muslim nuclear bomb? Are military bases in Afghanistan there not for the subduing the Taliban, but for destabilizing Pakistan?
Pakistan is a piece of the British Empire every bit as much as much of the Middle East and huge hunks of Europe are devolving pieces of the dead Ottoman Empire.
The Chinese empire is on a roll. It has resumed growing in power and influence. The Ottoman empire is dead and the British empire is on its final descent into hell as it loses even basic ‘sovereignty’ to the EU.
Germany, by the way, is ascending again.
Simple economics:
Big country can do 95-99% of manufactured goods itself. No need to import much from cheap labor countries. It can use “comparative advantage” inside country, to make different parts focus on different goods. Imports / exports should mainly focus on getting raw materials and exporting finished products to providers of those on equally beneficial deals (for example, Venezuela has lots of oil, but not enough population to produce all modern goods).
Smaller countries on the other hand need to focus, specialize and / or form trade unions with each other (lke EU). That way they too can reach comparative advantages.
Problem for countries that have lots of raw energy supplies is the need to build up real industries besides exporting oil. Once oil reserves are finished the economy needs something to fall back on or collapse.
Cheap labor is not the way to go for the long run. It will lead to ruination of middle class, destruction of wealth and loss of purchasing power. It is unnoticeable first, since prices can fall too, but China is still not selling those goods for *free*. And when scarcity of resources starts kicking in, every sovereign nation looks after only themselves (China already decided to stop exporting some rare raw minerals needed in some high-tech stuff, don’t remember exact date when that happens though).
At the end of the day, USA had a good run at the top. But whenever empire reaches a state where it thinks nothing ever can overcome it at all, things are probably already going downhill fast.
Naturally what I wrote above is simplified, any big country can do normal export / import trades with goods as well, as long as it is balanced.
@adammateyko – one way to see beyond the illusions and propaganda is to move to another country. That way you get to contrast your brainwashing with that of the people in the country you move to.
Elaine,
You reply said, “Never, ever mix up ‘free’ with ‘pay someone else while running up immense debts.’ Free trade has nothing free involved, all of this is paid for and if we run in the red, we run up debts. Debts must be paid in either blood or treasure or more likely, both.”
To me this implies that your concern is really centered around our nation’s excessive debt levels, which I agree can be a very bad thing. But it does not explain why the concept of free trade itself is harmful; by “free trade” I am referring to low tariffs and import barriers between trading partners. Conceivably, our nation and its citizens could support free trade and choose to be fiscally prudent. Unfortunately this is not the case, and I agree that it could ultimately lead to serious problems. But it seems to me that free trade still offers the benefits of comparative advantage so that trading partners should be able to consume more goods at a cheaper price.
Another recurring theme in many of your blogs is China’s “50 year plan”. You seem to indicate that China is trying to exploit the trade-imbalance to de-industrialize the U.S. What do you view as China’s objective in this regard? Do they intend to de-industrialize us to the point where we lose the capability to make cars/jeeps/tanks so that we lose the ability to defend ourselves in the event of an invasion? Will they raise the price of toys and plasma TVs by 500% to play games with us? Do they intend to stop buying our debt so that interest rates spikes and our recession deepens? In short, what you believe it is that China is trying to accomplish?
China’s plan is very simple: they learned years ago, via reading history books and looking at graphs and charts (at my house) that the true strength of a nation is its industrial base/labor pool/farms complexes.
Nations with deep industrial/labor/farm pools could sustain great force in all areas while ones with less of this couldn’t. The winners of great wars (not colonialist meatgrinders) could be predicted by simply looking at the industrial/labor/farm base.
So, if a nation wants to be a great empire, they must strengthen these parts. NOT the banking parts. The banking parts can UNDERMINE dynamic industrial/labor/farm systems by overburdening all of this with easy fatal credit creation.
The Chinese, LIKE THE JAPANESE, started out with making crafts, toys and gee gaws and then slowly expanded via investing in their industrial production systems, moving up the scale to higher and higher end goods and are now entering the very highest end goods. Already, Europe (Germany) and Japan have eaten away at our entire auto industrial base and soon, China will finish off the remains, for example.
And who is buying GM? CHINA. Our last auto industries will be owned by Asian powers. And will they increase production here? Of course not.
This is well-planned, well thought out, I told the Chinese to look to Japan and Germany and study their systems. Americans were fooled into thinking China was imitating us.
Oh, and what does China want to win?
The Cold War, as well as the Long War Against Imperial Aggression of the West. Which began around 1750.
Yes, the west has really been the aggressor for so long people living in here don’t even notice it anymore.
But while we may have forgotten this, our rivals and everyone we have wronged still remember…
“Conceivably, our nation and its citizens could support free trade and choose to be fiscally prudent.”
Whenever getting credit is easy and not controlled by someone, all hell breaks loose. Every deadbeat you can imagine will get as deep in debt as possible, and when they seem to do ok plenty of others will follow.
Finally nations themselves overburden the economy with too much credit! And they cry about “credit crunch”, which is absolutely the best, necessary thing to happen to lower the levels of credit to reasonable levels.
Or would be, unless the government would take it’s turn to blow one, final bubble.
I am thinking that if banks really cannot control their credit creation in any sensible way, and if they insist claiming that some things just cannot be regulated, solution is simple: Nationalize all banks and forbid all private banking / speculation. Then at least the government is in control… for whatever that is worth.
Elaine,
Thanks again for your thoughts on the de-industrialization of the U.S. and China’s long-term objectives. Nearly all economics texts and professors express everything in terms of graphs and formulas which are primarily focused on the price and quantity of goods. The unintended consequences of losing a nation’s manufacturing or industrial base is something that I have never seen factored into the calculations. So perhaps in weighing the benefits of “free trade” there are other big picture issues that must be considered. And yes, it would seem obvious that any nation that can maintain the upper hand in the production of food and industrial goods is going to be in a stronger relative position when going into some sort of conflict.
A few more questions on China. Would you view their intentions as primarily defensive in nature (i.e., protecting themselves from the ravages of colonialism and the atrocities of another war like WWII), or offensive? That is, would they be content just to protect their own borders, or do they have ambitions of their own in terms of establishing an empire? If you think they have offensive ambitions, which nations or regions would they be most interested in targeting for a military conflict? Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Korea? Oil producing countries in the middle east? Or the U.S.? Would they be happy to expand their area of influence to counties that they border to establish a protective buffer like the Soviet involvement in Eastern Europe? Would they actually go head-to-head against in the U.S. in one of these regions (Taiwan springs to mind as the most likely candidate)? And if you do think that they have offensive ambitions, what do view as the timing for their first invasion (within 5 years, 10 years or something longer)?
China has been doing different things in history. Sometimes they travelled around and traded more openly with other nations, sometimes they pretty much closed borders and focused on keeping foreigners outside.
Currently China is reinforcing it’s geopolitical position, but to what extent it is willing to go is hard to predict.
In any case, going into long and exhausting wars has always been the way to eventually destroy empire, not to make it stronger. So instead of wars I’d bet China will go around making deals, and trying to make most out of those deals. I don’t see chinese leaders making bad deals, ever, they have always focused on getting very good deals. Naturally this is what any sovereign nation should aim for.
Also probably countries near China will be under it’s umbrella, eventually. Japan and Taiwan will have to play along sooner or later, details are negotiable probably.
One possible positive scenario is that China will try to make it’s country as self-sufficient as possible, and mostly mind it’s own business then (as USA should have done when it had time, in my opinion).
But keep in mind, while China is not using it’s military, it is still strong-arming deals economically.
I have charted the convergence of China and Taiwan for a long time. As China gets stronger,Taiwan gets friendlier with China.
Korea has little to love with Japan and the Chinese still remember quite vividly, the Japanese invasions, too. So Japan, who has never apologized or paid any reparations for WWII (the US gave them permission to do this!) is in negative territory with all of Asia.
On top of this, Japan won’t let Asians immigrate to Japan which is losing population due to a huge collapse in child bearing. So Japan is in a terminal decline despite great export numbers while China is dynamic and growing, both economically and diplomatically.
And yes, the Chinese realize that winning wars in the economic arena beats winning violent military confrontations.
Colin:
5, losing jobs is bad because when a skill labourer loses his job, he gradualy loses his skill, or at least he does not pass it on to another; so that skill has to be rebuilt by that society from scratch, this may take generations.
A number of years ago, GE was recalling anyone with expertise inmaking jet engines. My company is currently starting a project with another outfit who used to do what they are asking us to do, before they were bought and gutted. The MBAs have no appreciation for workers, since they are basically drones themselves. They cannot see value in the skills which workers posses, and think all such art is immediately replaceable at a sub-human cost. But they are really stupid parasites, because they will kill their hosts.
The fat lady is singing loud and clear.
Good time to lay in survival gear.
That was a great post, Colin!
Especially that last point, which I never knew or thought about. Perhaps that is why the Chinese persist in keeping a peg to the dollar, among other reasons.
larry, dfh:
My experince was with nurses, my family worked in hospital managment in the UK. In the eighties Thatcher closed down the National-Health Nursing Colleges. (cost saving or some such crap) Since then we have been importing cheap-labour Filipino nurses. there sent over here by international agencies; in effect they’re being farmed out to us. I have no problem with them being Filipinos, they are very hard workers, and they do it for very little pay (the agencies, get most of the profit). Over the last thirty years it has always been cheaper to import third-world nurses rather than rebuild our old nusing colleges. Whenever the debate came up, the polticians always pointed out that even if they started rebuilding the colleges tomorrow it would take twenty years before we could start training our own nurses again: We would have to send our new trainee nurses abroad to learn, they would have to come back here to build up their skill over a decade or so, only then would they be sufficently experinced become teachers in our own colleges. Then at last we would have enough experinced teachers in this country to teach the first generation of home grown nurses in our own colleges. A long process, and expensive; better to just farm cheap labour from the third world. Now the recession has come, and the agiencies will move on to some other nation they can farm more profitibly, and take their bonded slaves with them. So what the f*ck are we going to do now? We don’t have our own skilled labourers, we dont have our own skill base, we cant buy other people’s labourers any more and you cant import a national skill base. It’s something i worry about.
DeVaul:
yea, they’ll not let that peg go for twenty years yet (who alowed them to do this?). It never failes to amaze me how well the chinese have stiched us up, its enough to make me wish i was on their side; they truely deserve their time in the sun (any way it’ll be good for us to learn another language). My uncle was a chess player, when he played against soviets (in the old days) they told him that top chess players got top jobs in the administration, hence the soviet chess craze. I never saw much evidence of it from the soviets, but the chinese! They really do look like they’re ten moves ahead. I can imagine Chairman Hu turing up in washington one day and saying “checkmate in two-hundred and forty-five moves commrades, wanna concede now or play to the end like real beginners?” Oh well, at least the world will be being run by people of high culture.
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ELAINE: Thanks for the perspective from the UK! Yes, all over the first world, nurses are being imported not just from the Philippines but Indonesia, etc. All the high birthrate nations that are poor are sending their daughters to all the richer nations to work as servants and slaves (yes, slaves!). This is happening in Japan as well as the UK. And the US, too. We also get them from the Caribbean nations, too.
ralph
December 5, 2009 at 6:49 pm
The FED will be forced to monetize all the new fresh debt (as if they dont already)
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the world is still using dollars to a certain level of exclusivity so we are somewhat fortunate
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the idea that in an environment of dollar pumping bonds and treasuries we have not exposed ourselves to weakness and exploit is desperately foolish
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to question why anyone would sack rome is only asking when
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there are no favors given in trade only jobs… and as
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Colin
December 7, 2009 at 1:40 am
We would have to send our new trainee nurses abroad to learn
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systems are not as easy to dupe as technology
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the dollar is a warrant on US trade and power… and we can view it from many angels… but the prowess should view it in weakness
China wants a prosperous world for all of us to live in. Not just for those living in the West. Finally the West ruled by their demon worshipping elite is going down.
Thanks Karma.
For the rest of the teeming billions to live a life style and have the assets and infrastructure of the USA, first five uninhabited planets with comparable resources to Earth’s would have to be found and mined and farmed and drilled. Or you invent a device that contradicts the laws ( they’re really only suggestions ) of thermodynamics.
The Take:
Argentinian workers retaking their factories that previous owners claimed were not “profitable” anymore…
Speaking of jobs …
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B60PV20091207
… and don’t let the door hit ya in the ass.
flash, Hahaha!
If you want prudent and good leaders, do not hire the greediest bastards in the first place! Let those go somewhere else to loot other systems, not your company!
Yes, Flash, the AIG gnomes are pissed that Tiger Woods got all the floozies.