Situation Normal All F-ed Up- We Are So "Screwn"

I Support OWS

2011-10-09T21:20:00.000-04:00

OWS is the acronym being given to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

These are people who are disgusted by the fact that our government has gone from being a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" to a government "of the banksters, for the banksters, and for the banksters". If you look closely at the financial statements released by candidates for political office, you will see that most of their contributions come from banks, financial institutions other than banks, or special interest groups.

The politicians are whores, and the 99% can't afford to buy them. Republican, or Democrat, it makes no difference, they are all bought and paid for before they even take office.

The millenials are out in force, the country is waking up and coming to see exactly how "screwn" we really are.

This has spread far beyond Wall Street, and will get more support when it comes out that Oblahma is giving 100 BILLION DOLLARS to the IMF to bail out Europe and their banks. Plus the banks are starting to charge "fees" to Americans whose accounts and debit card usage was previously free.

I have to say, that these groups are smart, and are not giving out a list of "demands" to the media to justify their existence. The second they start being union shills or become co-opted by idiots like Nancy Pelosi, I will stop believing in their cause.

Right now, I believe that what they are gathering for is our government being owned by the banksters.

We need for the banksters to stop looting the people, and for the government to start prosecuting the banksters.

Simply put: Stop the looting and start prosecuting!

Hurricane Irene (Sunday morning) (updated)

2011-08-28T09:36:00.001-04:00

Sunday, August 28, 9:30 am

Well, the tropical feel is over, and it is very windy (gusts up to 65mph) and it's very cool.

The eye is over NYC and heading my way. It seems to be falling apart, though, so I'm not too worried about it. I wasn't that worried about it in the first place. Cat. 1 is nothing special. Now it's just been downgraded as a tropical storm

The trees around our house have held. We still have electricity, and most importantly, I unplugged our landline so I don't have to listen to any more robocalls.

Life is good.

A funny thing:
The tree that is down on West Rocks Road...we just walked around down there and found a home made detour sign on each side. One was a piece of plywood propped against a stop sign. On the other end was a sawhorse with a Domino's Pizza box taped to it as a sign, and written on it with a Sharpie was "Tree down, detour to the street on the left". LOL We are one of the most affluent areas in the country, and our detour signs are homemade.

Hurricane Irene Updates

2011-08-27T18:48:00.001-04:00

Saturday, 1:31 pm, Connecticut coastal town.

In case anyone cares, here is your Hurricane Irene update:
Went for a walk at our town beach this morning, which is right on long Island sound. There was a brisk 10 to 15 mph wind (which was cool and felt great), it was just starting to mist, and the waters in the sound were just starting to get a little choppy.
At our home, which is 10 to 15 miles inland, the trees aren't moving, there is no breeze, and it is very sticky amd tropical.
So far, not much. but the storm is going to go right over us sometime tomorrow morning, if it holds its track.
Aha, it just started pouring rain. Thought I would add that to the update.
So far, its move along, nothing to see here!
More updates as I think about it.
Now back to your regularly scheduled lives.

Hurricane Irene Update (4:53 pm)
Just started raining again, after having most of the day be cloudy and tropical.

Very little wind at this point.
...
They started evacuating people from the low lying areas of town, especially those with homes near the sound.

Photo of our cars, not being rained on. The rain bands are starting to head in, so they say, but nothing of significance here yet.

Yes, I drive a KIA...so what???

Hurricane Irene Update: (6:29pm)
It's starting to rain pretty consistently instead of on and off. The wind is picking up a little, the leaves in the trees are just beginning to flutter.
The only thing we have received with any consistency are the robocalls. To this point we have received:
Two from our mayor, the first this morning telling us that a hurricane was coming and we should take his recommendations very seriously. I hung up.
One from our car insurance company, telling us how great it has been to provide us service, and that we can contact them with our every need regarding damage caused by the hurricane.
One from our power company telling us that we could be without power for a number of days, but that's fine, because there are many crews out thewre working hard to maintain our service
Another call from the mayor telling us that if we are in a coastal or low lying area we need to evacuate now. Since I am in neither...you guessed it...I hung up.
The last call we got was from cablevision, telling us that they can track if we are having problems with our service through our modems and cableboxes, and we don't have to call to tell them we don't have service, because we already know (in other words, don't call us...we'll call you...)
I'm starting to feel pretty popular and very loved. i haven't talked to the mayor so much since he asked for our vote in the last election.
i kinda liked not hearing from the mayor

Hurricane Irene Update: (8:17 pm)
It's strange. It gets completely calm, theen the rain starts to pour, and the wind starts to blow. The wind is about 15 - 20 mph, a little stronger than at the beach this morning. no new robocalls, thank goodness. Nothing worse than hearing from the mayor, or worse yet, your utility company telling you how wonderful they are during a hurricane...you know...We are doing our absolute best, but you may lose power (cable, etc.) and if you do, well, it isn't our fault, because we are doing everything we can, and we are wonderful.
Please!

The Mess that we are in: In a Nutshell

2011-08-07T12:26:00.000-04:00

I belong to "The Market Ticker" forum, and one of the posters there came up with a way to make our country's debt crisis easy to understand. The poster's nickname is janedeaux, and here is her analogy. It's so simple that I'm surprised that no one has thought of it before.

Plus, when you look at it like this, you see exactly how screwed we are. It's scary.

Politicians don't understand this, so you need to put it in simpler terms.
It's a shell game.
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Amount cut from the budget: $385

If this doesn't wake you up. nothing will.

Problems that Big Pharma has to Tackle to Remain Relevant

2011-07-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in my previous post that pharmaceutical companies have big problems besides the recent ruling by the SCOTUS. I will further expand on the topic here.

Most pharmaceutical companies are huge. I mean huge. By huge I mean bloated monoliths beyond all size and proportion huge. When corporations get this huge, most employees are seen as names on a sheet. There is less possible human interaction with the higher-ups, meaning more potential for the higher-ups to throw you under the bus during layoffs. And there is more of a chance of layoffs, as executives in response to data, falling stock prices, and profitability (instead of looking at how they can actually improve these numbers) choose to just look at groups of people to layoff to improve their bottom line.

Also, over 100 drugs will fall off patent within the next two years. With the recent SCOTUS ruling, they are not necessarily going to get a green light should they decide to try to extend the life of these patents. All of this combines for big money losses for Big Pharma. These companies have known for a long time that the edge of the cliff was approaching, and have done nothing to effectively deal with this. All they have done is attempt to merge with other equally desperate drug companies, or just lay off more employees. This does absolutely nothing to change the bottom line: They have wasted too much time on only living on their patents. They have seen this train wreck coming for some time, and have chosen to do nothing. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

As an appendage to that thought, money spent by Big Pharma on Research and Development has fallen steadily in the last few years, and it will, in all likelihood, continue to fall. Companies are, for the most part, relying on the same old strategies and smokescreens, rather than trying to be innovative. There will come a time, in the near future, where innovation will play a huge role in pharma. Those who innovate will make money, and those who don't will cease to exist. The generic companies have been kicking Big Pharma's ass in research and development. "They didn't see it coming" is not an excellent defensive strategy, and it's crap. They've seen it all along, they were just too complacent to act on it.

These are some of the major problems with the huge pharmaceutical companies today,as I see it.

Why a SCOTUS ruling on Gas Pedals Means Big Trouble for Big Pharma

2011-07-02T10:15:00.001-04:00

In a case that came before the US Supreme Court on April 30, 2011, a company named Teleflex claimed that KSR International infringed on its patent for the gas pedal. KSR argued that the patent was invalid. KSR had already won a lower court decision, but it was reversed on appeal. The Supreme Court agreed with the lower court and said existing patent-law guidelines were too strict.

This ruling on patent laws has big ramifications for the pharmaceutical industry.

Big Pharma is built on their "patent" drugs. There are several guidelines that have to be met to establish a patent on anything from drugs to gas pedals. the specific guideline that was in play in this Supreme Court ruling was the most difficult concept, is an invention obvious to a person of "ordinary skill" in a specific technology? KSR argued that the Teleflex patent was, which made the patent invalid. When a company seeks a patent, they have to attempt to show that their product is unique, and not something that is apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the industry, something worthy of protection via patent.

Although this law has already gone into effect, it is taking a while to sort out all the efffects it will have on Big Pharma. Pharmaceutical companies will have a tougher time defending patents, especially those related to incremental improvements on existing drugs, a practice known as patent life-cycle management. This ruling has lowered the standards, and it may make it easier for generic drug companies to invalidate patents.

This SCOTUS ruling has Big Pharma very concerned, as well they should be. But there are other issues that Big Pharma have to deal with also. Those will be dealt with in another article.

The potential ramifications of this ruling are huge. Only time will tell if generic companies like Teva will rise and challenge Big Pharma over its patents, or issues of life-cycle management. I feel that the first test of this new ruling will come in the area of patent life cycle management. For a long time, Big Pharma has mainly been given a green light to extend their patents with no discussion. This ruling opens the door to generic companies to put an end to this practice. You have to know that the generic companies have their legal staff looking at this ruling now, and are making plans to challenge patents held by the major pharmaceutical companies.

When the generic companies make their move, and they will, Big Pharma will have to be up to the challenge.

Quite frankly, I don't see it.

Libya Redux

2011-06-23T17:24:00.001-04:00

I expect the people of Greece will kick their government to the curb by the end of the summer.

Why?
Enjoy the bounce caused by the news of the Greek bailout, because i don't think it will ever be implemented. Many Greeks have woken up and have begun to see that eventually their assets will be taken away.

Our turn is coming. Especially since our bogus recovery is being led by Ben "Don't know much about economics" Bernanke. Or, equally apt, Ben "I learned everything about the Great Depression so I could create a worse one" Bernanke.

I could go on all day.

Considering how much of our Treasury debt China holds, I wonder how much of our assets will be rolling their way.

Maybe they'll take "The Alamo", as a remembrance of when Americans actually had balls.

This Is Not Your Father's Economic Recovery

2011-06-19T14:56:00.000-04:00

Unemployment in Connecticut is still hovering at about 9.1 percent, which is now more than the 7.9 unemployment rate for all of New England, according to the Bureau of labor Statistics. The quote below includes the insights of Edward Deak, an economist from Fairfield University.

"We're not getting a bounce in the housing industry," Deak said.
He also said two important industries in the state are under pressure: Finance is "looking weaker" in the anemic recovery and Congress and President Barack Obama are cutting defense programs.
"The Cold War was a huge public works program and that's gone now," said Dan Kennedy, senior economist at the state Department of Labor. "Now we can't do that and everyone is freaking out."

Connecticut lost 119,200 jobs between March 2008 and January 2010, according to the state Department of Labor. The state continued to lose jobs after the recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Since January 2010, the state added 29,200 jobs, or about 25 percent of those lost.

According to this article, which you can link to by clicking on the title of the article, unemployment in Connecticut can be attributed to companies downsizing or moving out of the state altogether, the burst of the housing bubble, the pressure on the financial and insurance industries caused by the credit crisis...

They also stated that in the past, people in CT have been able to move out of the state to greener pastures to find jobs, but due to the length of the recession, there are no longer any greener pastures to move on to. Everyone is suffering in this "slow economic recovery" equally.

I don't see this "slow economic recovery" in my area of the Gold Coast.

I live in a fairly affluent to upper-middle class community which to this point had been relatively untouched by the financial crisis. Now I am starting to see things here that I didn't expect to see.

I see houses in this area that have, quite frankly, been deserted. There are no real estate signs up, and these houses have been dumped. We didn't see that last year. There are also more short sales, which we also didn't see last year. The real estate market has started to decline. Properties that went on the market a few years ago for about a million are back on the market for about $575k. This was a real estate development, consisting of McMansions, that went on the market around 2008.

Other local properties are going on the market at about $50K less than what they would have gone for in 2008, and the owners are settling for less than that, according to my own research consisting of watching the real estate section of the newspaper, then following up by watching the real estate transactions finalized in the newspaper. Plus I watch the real estate fliers that the companies send to me, trying to sucker me into putting my house on the market, and showing comperable houses in the area on the market. Anyone can do this research, and it doesn't take too much time.

I have asked employees employed by local retailers (all who will remain nameless) if this "slow economic recovery" has had any effect on the businesses that they work for. All to a person have told me that their companies have not been able to keep up with their yearly comp (the sales by date day to day for a year), and more than a couple of these retailers are cutting their hours, and have been cutting hours since before Christmas of last year. They have been cutting the hours of both full and part-time employees.

So, show me this "slow economic recovery" that the mainstream media has been harping on. Things are getting worse, not recovering. There has never been a recovery, we are still dealing with the same hot mess that started in 2007.

At the end of the article in Business Week, Don Klepper-Smith, who was chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisers under former Gov. M. Jodi Rell, stated that "This is not your father's economic recovery."

I agree with him wholeheartedly. I think this is something different.

I believe that this is your grandfather's depression.

Best Smoothie Recipe Ever

2011-06-19T14:04:00.000-04:00

I can't remember where I found the original recipe, but I screwed with it until it was what I considered palatable.

It's simple too.

3/4 cup of whatever milk you like
3/4 cup berries (I use blueberries, raspberries, or a berry mix)
1/2 cup Dannon's lowfat vanilla yogurt
1T chunky peanut butter (I use a little more, I love peanut butter!)
1T whey protein powder.
3 ice cubes

Pulverize all ingredients in a blender until ice is all crushed to desired consistency.

I probably shouldn't say this, but if a doctor tells you that you need to take metamucil (like mine did), and you can't stand to drink it straight down in a glass (like me), you can just add it to this smoothie. I add 2t sugar free orange metamucil before I pulverize the whole thing, and I can't even tell it's there. Much better for me than drinking the stuff down on its own.

Making Some Changes

2011-06-19T13:07:00.000-04:00

My buddy Get Yourself Connected from the Economic Disconnect blog, has inspired me to freshen up my site...brighten it up. Make it look happier. Yes, now gloom and doom can be airy and bright.

Now if I could just be inspired to sit at my computer and blog a little more. Make a few of my cynically snippy comments and post about how the world as we know it will be ending someday.

The fact that I'm the only one (pretty much...sorry GYSC) that reads my crap is pretty liberating in itself. I can write pretty much whatever I want, knowing that no one else will even know or care.

Pretty heady stuff.

If I ever got a following, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Writing for mass consumption isn't really my thing.

I'm Still Here! Rapture Postponed indefinitely!

2011-05-22T14:26:00.000-04:00

This is the best comment that I've read so far regarding the "Rapture".

***Announcing the First Annual SOU Gloatfest Celebration!!***

The foregoing non-event shall henceforth be referred to as C(amping’s) R(apture) / A(pocalypse) P(rediction)…CR/AP. Nonbelievers are welcome to join us as we gloat, but get this much straight:This belongs to Harold Camping, NOT Christianity in general. Please keep that in mind. Now, let us proceed…

The CR/AP didn’t happen as promised, so now what? What do we normally do after a big mess of CR/AP like this? First, we wash our hands, then we go celebrate with friends! In keeping with our tradition of using any excuse to throw a party, the university has scheduled a real barn-burner tonight! (barn-burner is a slang term, don’t anybody dare try to actually set fire to the barn) The ‘Gloating Party” will be held tonight at the main campus of SmokinOkie University near Bugtussle, Okla (home of the Clampitts when they were still poor). The event is BYOBBQ. Both stills are working so liquid refreshments will be provided (thank you to the Brewers/Distillers Alumni of SOU). Entertainment will be provided by the University’s widely acclaimed Dept of Music and Related Noises (if we can get the banjo out of the pawn shop in time). Featured speakers and their topics include the following:

Nicky “The Enforcer” Donatto–’How to retrieve your ministry donations’

Esmerelda “The Mother of all Mother-In-Laws” Ringbottom–’Maximizing the spite and sarcasm in your correspondence to H Camping ministry’

The Most Honorabl Rev. Leroy Pockets–’Why you should have given the money to me’

Our recently-paroled Dean of SOU School of Ethics, Calvin McLyre–’Why Camping should have learned his lesson the first time’

Alice Crinkle, Professor of the Philosophy and Welding Depts–’Proper manners when gloating: How to say I Told You So politely’

At the close of the gloating festivities, some of the sorrority girls are hosting a kegger in the adjoining pasture(also known as the football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse field) Come join us as we celebrate the continuation of the world and the end(hopefully) of Harold Camping’s big mouth! Everyone is welcome at SOU but a word of caution for first time visitors: be very careful when crossing the pasture, you don’t want to step in any CR/AP.

Security will be provided by the university. Later in the evening security may be provided by the county sherrif and/or state police. At that point, consider the party to be over. SEE YOU THERE!

Thanks to Smokin'Okie from the SHTF blog for the chuckle of the day!

Note to Media: Forget about Charlie Sheen - There's Real News to Cover

2011-03-06T13:29:00.000-05:00

Every day in every way, the area between what is considered "news" and what is considered "entertainment" continues to be blurred. The ongoing "crisis" between Charlie Sheen and...well, almost everyone (the losers, CBS, Chuck Lorre, anyone who criticises his lifestyle, his parents and family) is being held up here as a case in point.

I guess I am probably considered a "loser" because I fail to see what Charlie Sheen's personal life has to do with the price of tea in China, or more importantly, the price per gallon of the gasoline that I have to use in my car to get to work, or the escalating price of food that I need to put out on my table in order that my family and I might live to see another day.

I really don't give a rat's ass how many "goddesses" he sleeps with, or the number of porn stars that float in and out of his sphere.

All of this has nothing to do with ME! I am a selfish person, I guess, only concerned about the declining value of the dollar, QE producing inflation in commodities that most of us need to survive, and thinking about the people rioting in the Middle East (who, like it or not, have a considerable amount to say about the lifestyles that most of us will be living in the near future).

I believe that the media is being pwned by Sheen anyway, he's manipulating them expertly to present "his side" in a salary dispute with CBS regarding his show "Two and a half Men". I believe he was getting tired of the media in general (remember what he said after trashing his NY hotel room - "There's two wars going on in the world...and you have nothing better to do than chase me". I'm paraphrasing, I don't remember the exact words, but that's the gist of the quote. I think that after that, he's just determined to use the media, and so far they have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

So, Charlie, have a lot of fun with your "goddesses", porn stars, and hookers. Keep on with that "winning" lifestyle that you love. Only time will tell if you are right, or the "losers" are.

The media needs to move on to other things. The things that they have been ignoring, like why the banks are in such good shape now if they still have most of the delinquent properties that blew them up in the first place hiding off their books.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the media to cover anything "real", except for the highly manufactured numbers that the government is cooking up monthly.

Yeah, everything is fine. More time to follow Charlie Sheen!

Clinton's back!! All is Well!!

2010-12-12T12:06:00.000-05:00

For about a half an hour, if you were watching an impromptu news conference from the White House on Friday, December 10, 2010, you could make believe that William Jefferson Clinton was in charge of this country again, and all was well.

I couldn't believe it. I turned the TV on, and there was Bill, espousing his beliefs about the deal brokered between Oblahma and the Repuglicans, and saying that the deal they hammered out was the best that was going to happen, so the dems had better support Oblahma.

And of course Oblahma couldn't keep the wife waiting, so he had to go. When you gotta go, you gotta go. This is the first time I have ever seem a President leave a press conference because he couldn't keep his wife waiting for a party. But then again, we all know that Oblahma isn't much of a president.

Better leave that to someone who knows how. Someone like the Big Dawg. William Jefferson Clinton.

Clinton had his faults, but he was better at being a President than GWB and Oblahma ever dreamed of being. On their best days, they don't come near to being as Presidential as Bill Clinton on his worst days. That will be Clinton's legacy, along with the blue dress.

This will be Oblahma's legacy:

Michelle is waiting. Obama must roll.

He's been sentenced to wife without parole.

Disclosure: I didn't make that up. I read it in the comments section of a blog somewhere and it cracked me up. It's absolutely hilarious.

Random musings regarding the financial crisis.

2010-12-06T16:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, we're still in a financial crisis.

There are some things that I have been thinking about lately regarding the financial crisis.

The first point that I’d like to make is that I’m feeling that all of this QE is another name for TARP 2. After all the shit they had to go through for the first TARP, they weren’t about to ask for another, and the banks are still in the midst of a liquidity crisis, but they can’t say that either. Can’t make the sheeple nervous…they think all of the crisis with the banks are over.

So, we just let Bennie loose with the presses, and give them the liquidity they need that way. You don’t have to worry Congress about it. You don’t have to worry the American people about it. You can tell them some random bullshit reason that you need to do it, other than the real reason, and voila’, TARP 2, the banks have the money they need to operate. (If there is any reason why that wouldn’t work, let me know. That’s just my theory, and I’m not adverse to being proven wrong, just let me know why I’m wrong).

Number Two: We are already in the collapse that people have been waiting for. Slow and steady has gone the pace, and TPTB have worked hard to maintain that pace. We’re talking “the boiled frog” theory. Every day, conditions get worse, little by little. You become acclimated to it. Before long, you are so cooked. That’s the way the government wants this thing handled, because there’s less chance of a revolt. If anything goes wrong with the way TPTB has been handling this crisis (and a LOT of things could go wrong), things could get very ugly very quickly. Again, just my thoughts on the matter.

Number Three: I am 100% certain that Bernanke is an asshat. We are so screwn.

Waiting for the Decline? Pssssssst....We're in it...

2010-12-06T15:01:00.000-05:00

People who are just sitting around waiting for the economy to collapse have got it all wrong. Yes, I know the Dow is over 11K and rising. Yes, I know the media is falling all over themselves reporting the economic recovery. They have it all wrong too.

We have a front row seat for the collapse of the biggest and best economy in the free world, and we have no one to blame for it but ourselves.

This collapse isn't big and spectacular. It's going slow, and by degreees. It gets a little worse each and every day. There will be no huge tipping point, or no huge cliff that we are going to fall off of, but each and every day our quality of life is changing for the worse. I called it in an earlier post also, but I called it "The Boiled Frog" Theory.

Everyone is waiting for some kind of "poverty limit" to spark a revolt. It isn't going to happen. The frog will just boil until it's dead. That's what I see coming. It's happened in other countries, and that's what is going to happen here. Everything just happens so slowly, and people become so acclimated to it, that nothing happens.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

This is the comment, in Jim Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, that inspired the above post:

I'm really starting to think that he and everybody else is getting the nature of the collapse all wrong. It's happening now but it's slow. There is no tipping point, no cliff. Just slow decent, notch by notch, day after day, forever.

I live in Africa and believe me, yeast folk, you have no idea how much things can deteriorate, how poor you become, how many services can fail while at the same time there are still rich politicians and their business pals driving in big limos (more like BMW X6s round here) down new freeways doing exactly what they want. Where I live half the population under 30 has no job and no hope of getting one. A third of country live in shacks. There are plagues, no-go zones, corrupt pigs demanding bribes everywhere, more taxes. But at the same time more golf estates, more BMW X6s and more silicone breast implants than ever before! It becomes normal very quickly, trust me.

If you're waiting for some kind of poverty limit to spark revolt you're going to wait forever.

Statue of liberty...

2010-11-21T22:14:00.000-05:00

I was looking at some editorial comics and this one hit home. My family and I had just driven to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, having parked in Jersey to take the ferry over because NYC is such a pain in the ass.

We have given away so many of our liberties without a shot. We have much to fear from our government. Beware of anyone who has the power to give you anything you could ever want, because you are also giving them the power to take it all away.

Firts, the real thing:

Next, the cartoon:

Ben Bernanke Is Full Of It

2010-08-28T16:06:00.000-04:00

I'm far too much of a cynic to be let loose on the internet to comment on the government and its douchbag ways anymore. I really am.

I hope Bernanke and his cronies had a great time holed up in Jackson Hole. His comments surely impressed someone. The Fed will do everything possible to keep this country out of a recession.

Well Glory Hallelujah! Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

The only problem with his declaration is that we have bypassed "recession" and are in a "depression". We've been in a depression all along, but no one has had the guts to call it except a few gutsy internet bloggers, which most of the people in the mainstream see as nuts. The sad thing is , Bernanke knows it. Little Timmy Geithner knows it. Larry Summers knows it. You won't hear a word about it out of them though, God forbid. Oblahma would have a can of Pledge in their hand and their stuff out of their office before the "D" word even finished leaving their lips. They know this. Self-preservation is a great motivator in politics -much more than the public service lines they keep spewing that people keep falling for that get them elected (or appointed, whatever the case may be).

I told you that I'm cynical. If a politician gets too close to me, I start watching my wallet. They inspire the same reaction as pickpockets. But I digress...

This depression will not begin to be over until we start seeing job creation in this country. Like it or not (or should I say, realize it or not) every day, more and more jobs are disappearing that will never come back. Many of these jobs are tied to the real estate meltdown. Ilargi at "The Automatic Earth" states it far more eloquently that I can, so I will let his words speak from here:

"Today, among the newly unemployed, there are scores of real estate agents, and even more construction workers, and their jobs simply are never ever coming back. America has a 12,5 month housing inventory glut, on top of millions of homes that are not even put on the market to begin with, and it will take decades to rectify the imbalance. There are now 18.9 million homes unoccupied in the US. There are also 3.5 million homeless. Many of whom are children. That, my friends, is America, today.

In the Great Depression, a lot of food was destroyed by American farmers while millions of citizens went without a decent meal. The sort of thing we see repeat itself right now.

Housing IS the US economy today. "

This and That

2010-08-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

I am back, after another hiatus of a sort. Nothing horrible...a combination of work and family obligations. The summer is ending, which means the children are starting their round of fall activities again. The charts, maps, and phone numbers are beginning to fill the front of the refrigerator. Their activities are starting to overlap with the work obligations in my planning calendar, and I am looking for a way to make all of this work for one more year. It always does. With all of the work that goes into this, you would think that I was planning to take over some small country instead of trying to make a life out of the kids obligations and mine.

It's pure unadulterated chaos. I do believe that after my run at my current job is up, I have some kind of future with the CIA in Intelligence Planning. All I have to do is send them a resume' and send them a video of me planning my family time.

Note to Economic Disconnect: You aren't the only one who gets to do sarcasm. ;

More Comments that I agree with

2010-08-10T17:01:00.001-04:00

As I stated in my last post, I have spent more time reading the comments section of blogs than the blogs themselves. This one is a gem, from Karl Denninger's Tickerforum:

I don't believe 20% of what is put out any more. In 1981 and 1982, they pounded and pounded how bad the recession was, day after day. Obama shows up on the scenes and a recovery is assumed. CNBS was reporting what the upper class thought and I believe 85% of those making over $100,000 thought we were in a recession and 80% of those over $250,000. These are the people counting the coins, only a few involved in spinning the news. The problem is that the under 40 crowd has so effectively been brainwashed to the point they think the government runs things.

The American and European banking systems are the biggest frauds ever launched on mankind. The only difference between them and the Chinese banking system is in China they don't have any kind of internationally tradable paper and I believe, for the most part, if they follow the government dictates and the management doesn't steal (I don't think they have white collar prisons in China, only white collar firing squads), the banks are bailed out on an ongoing basis. Central banks and deposit insurance have provided the best of cover for massive fraud and excessive debt. Bank charters are nothing more than "Titles of Nobility", granted by states to a few. Sure one could own stock in a bank, but they would be at the mercy of the thieves that control the banks.

Americans better get to know what the writers of the constitution meant when they put various things in it or we are going to have our lives and rights defined by a group that doesn't have our best interest at heart. What we get when power is centralized at the top is massive fraud and privilege for a few. We get very little action for the people and we have our rights and limitations defined by a group of 9 experts, generally educated in 2 schools, Yale and Harvard. Strange that we should be at the mercy of an executive that is a managerial idiot and most likely a totalitarian socialist and 9 judges who were not taught the law, but influenced by a handful of law professors, who for the most part believe in making up the law as they go on.

Our Constitution doesn't grant rights, it provides prohibitions on government. Read the 4th and 5th amendments and ask yourself how much of those are in force? Think of Martha Stewart, who went to jail because she didn't tell them something. It was probably none of their business. We have some kind of right to privacy so you can get an abortion if you are a woman and I would venture no one can force you to testify if it ever happened, yet they will try Barry Bonds on the question of whether he was doing steroids or not, not for doing steroids, but for not admitting to it. They seize property, require under threat of penalty the filing of all kinds of forms, including income tax and government takes property repeatly, not for legitimate government, but to pass on to the benefit of others, not only the poor, but the rich as well.

In the 100 years between the War of 1812 and World War I, the US went from a wilderness to the most powerful country in the world. The war of 1812 was in part a war to separate commerce in the US from enterprises endowed by HMS the queen or King. It took 25 years to get rid of the second Bank of the US. Andrew Jackson played a part in both events, in fact the leading part. Evidently history today is Jackson stole the money from the second bank and put it in pet banks and the US became a third rate power as a result. The truth was, despite a bank created depression and the Civil War and not much of a standing army most of the time, the US became the power of the world and the cradle of innovation. Enter the corporatists and the central bank and the next 100 years have seen us reduced to a society that is clueless and broke.

Now people are waking up. We have a Tea Party that is going to play a huge role in what goes on ahead. It is being painted as a bunch of dim witted religious fanatics and gun nuts, but I beg to differ. Groups like this are the only places I have seen even a smattering of people who understood the limitations of government and the rule of law. Their opponents make up law to suit them as they go along and have no center, thus we have a spinning, wobbling country as a result. 99% of the people that have a clue about this debt crisis belong in such groups, as the mainstream appears to be clueless and doesn't understand the problem. Their own brainwashing is passed down to as many of us as they can infect, that their ideas will prevail and government will fix it with our money, not theirs.

I was a casual participant in some of the early movements of what they call anti-government constitutionalists and other nut cases in the 1990's. There are a lot of rabbit holes and smoke issues out there, but this was the first place I was exposed to people who actually knew something about law and money. The smoke issues, the black helicopters, the concentration camps, the conspiracy theories and some of the scams, like common law courts basically blocked so many people from what one really needed to know. After reading 99 books that went through the same line of Templars, Illuminatis and others, I realized those books had little to add, but I did realize a couple of things.

One thing I realized was the more intelligent were talking about money and debt and I understood some of this stuff. I heard a guy talk on a tape that was done about 1997 and what he said was they know it is going to implode, there is "no mathematical solution", I understood. I had been trying to figure out how these Universal Life insurance programs in the early 1990's would make $2000 a year for 30 years into a massive amount of money one could draw on for the next 30 and I couldn't make financial or numerical sense out of that. I had also played with exponential financial factors, which I understood because I do have a degree in finance. It was clear to me that once we ran out of collateral, the gig was up.

The other thing I learned was there was a basis of and in law and the various laws and court cases and to actually read the cites. There is nothing more boring and at the same time more fascinating than a law library. I also found out there is a difference between the terms Lawful and Legal. Note, the old Federal Reserve currency used the term Lawful money, while the current notes use the term Legal Tender. We call it fiat, but fiat means by decree. Thus they could make it legal for frogs to fly, but they couldn't make a flying frog, which is what the Fed is trying to do now.

Lastly, conspiracy or not, I read enough background to realize Wilson pulled some crap that put the US on a slippery slope and FDR pulled some more crap. The whole matter was 180 degrees from the propaganda I had heard all my life. Between the 2, it was hard to beat Wilson. How could you beat the Fed, the income tax, prohibition and participation in a world war that probably preventing the solving of problems that caused the war in the first place, all in about 5 years? Through all of this, I realized we were watching a stage show in government. Though I had voted in every election since I was 18, once I realized they were setting Bush Jr up to be president by running him for governor of Texas, I quit participating. Not that I didn't like Bush, but because I realized I was watching a stage show. 8 years later my suspicions were proven correct.

The point of all of this is, one can't understand this crap unless they are willing to take time to cut through all the crap and be willing to throw out what they think they know. There is no such thing as a free lunch and no such thing as a model that will defeat compound math. All there is out there are fictions, like Greenscam and Bernanke will fix it, that we can spend enough money to get out of this or that if we can hide this off balance sheet, our other exponential growth models will make it go away. These are absolute laws, not rules.

The other thing is that unless one can find their way to see there are laws, they can't understand any of this crap. They are left with the situation of being thrown around in the breeze and to some extent cannot even hope to develop any character, because the only choice is to run to their side of the boat until the boat tips, rather than realize that despite the current trouble, it might not be a good idea to blow up the world to save it. Isn't that pretty much what Biden said when he claimed we needed to spend a lot of money to keep from going broke? Instead of a solution, we get another shot of dope.

2010-08-10 12:46 http://tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=144601

Comments?

Comment Sections of blogs tell it all

2010-08-08T15:33:00.000-04:00

I spend more time reading the comments section of blogs anymore than I do reading the blogs themselves these days. You get to see much more about what people are thinking. You just have to learn to filter out the rational thought from the loonies on some of these boards. Some of the comments can get pretty out there.

These comments came from a blog called "The Coming Depression" and the article was regarding the alleged Oblahma plan in August to bailout the government controlled mortgages under Fannie and Freddie via "forgiveness". The details have been done to death on other blogs, so I wont go into it here, but some of the comments are quite telling:

My home is owned free and clear.

My car is 17 years old
I have a $7K bank balance and a 401K worth $200.00
I have always had a job, even jobs that the POTUS says we Americans will not do, to justify the illegal Mexican invasion of the south west.
I have not had a job for 2 years! Where's my bailout?

__________________________________________________________

Rewarding stupidity. This is this hope & change.

The fact a home is worth less than the loan has no bearing on anything unless you plan to sell the home with expectation of reaping a finical gain.

Listen, these people that bought these homes and are underwater made a choice. They gambled they would have a jobs and their homes would appreciate forever. They knew what their cash flow was going to be moving in and felt this was a good trade. So pay up and shut up. Those in favor of another bailout are the same ass clowns that use credit cards and make minimum payments -$4.00 lattes with 28% APR. Real brain trusts - Obama supporters.

Forget it, there is no intelligent life here anymore, the meaningful jobs are not coming back. Nobody will hire these fiscal illiterates that can't manage money much less figure out the round peg goes in the round hole.

Step right up to Barry's taxpayer subsidized home flipping. Coming up next, taxpayer
subsidize lotto tickets!
__________________________________________________________________

The most interesting is this comment, obviously written by a millenial:

I'm in my early 20s and I have no motivating force to get a job. Fuck it, why bother!? I'm working on a manuscript, it will get published at some point. I'm not expecting much money from it. But I know I won't work again or even search for a job.

People in my generation all have this same mentality; even though most are too stupid to understand they do. What reward will you get from working? Your money will be given to others and you'll just have to work harder to make a living.

Hard work isn't worth it anymore. Instead why not try to do the wrong thing and look for quick escapes? Will I be bothered if I end up on the streets? Nope. Walking around with bums has more appeal to me than working 60-80 hours a week just to afford a home with food.
Read more: http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/2010/08/wallstreet-is-going-to-get-another.html#comments#ixzz0w2niqqL2

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

I think that last comment explains a lot about why the unemployment numbers for young people are so high. They get it, and they want nothing to do with the great Ponzi scheme our government is running anymore. They know that by the time they retire there will be no Social Security benefits, no Medicaid, no Medicare. They are paying into a system that will be giving them absolutely nothing.

I think that about says it all.

We are headed for a shitstorm in this country. Elections aren't going to fix it. Nothing is going to fix it. We are headed for the wall at high velocity, and no one is slamming on the brakes. Everything they do to try to reach the brake pedal makes it worse.

The only thing you can do for you and yours at this point is try and lessen the impact of hitting the wall on you. That's all you can do. There is nothing else.

Read more: http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/2010/08/wallstreet-is-going-to-get-another.html#comments#ixzz0w2n8RsBY

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Read more: http://thecomingdepression.blogspot.com/2010/08/wallstreet-is-going-to-get-another.html#comments#ixzz0w2mgMCz6

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

People are Slowly Waking Up

2010-08-07T13:31:00.000-04:00

I was reading the comments from a blog called "The Automatic Earth" and one of the comments, and a response to that comment, caught my eye. The comment asked other posters if they has seen people in their areas start to open their eyes, and be afraid of what they were seeing in regards to the economy. The response:

I think the previous poster who said that it depends on the age/literacy/awareness of those you are speaking with ...I have noticed the same...

I am one of the ones who pay attention,that's why I spooked.

The Herd"smells the blood of all those who have got their throats cut the last year or two.They all have family or friends who have been on the receiving end of the shaft that wall street has Impaled mainstream America on.[When you see those next to you hurt,it hurts you too.]

The growling I have heard in the past has been replaced with silence.I don't here folks talking now about wall streets rape,or jawboning about the stock prices nailing their 401k...

There is a quiet,bitter silence that tells me more than I want to know.There is more crazy teabagger shit,and the weirder it gets the more worried I get.Its weird.The ones who thought I was a nut for having 6 months of food,are now the ones who ask me the best way to store supplies.

The best way I can describe it in the circles I run in is that the storm warning is out for a tornado,and everyone is preping as they seem fit.

People are not dumb.

There has been enough warning that the mudpie is heading for the impeller,that anyone with 2 braincells working in tandem is aware that "Something"wicked this way comes.

Whether it is war with Iran,depression,financial collapse,our first ET.contact,I don't know for sure,but this fall will be a "interesting" time,as in the Chinese curse"May you live in interesting times"

I live in the Gold Coast, not far from the AIG Financial Services building, which in located in Wilton, CT. I don't live in Wilton, but close. Most of the people that live in my area make six and seven figure incomes. They commute to jobs outside of the state, most to NYC or New York state.

In the past six months, I have seen many more "For Sale" signs on homes. You usually don't see that many signs on houses around here. People buy houses and just stay. Now the signs are popping up like wildfire. There's a house just down the street that has sold twice this year. The people that moved in couldn't afford it, had to sell it, and now it's back on the market again.

There are many more people on food stamps in our area than there were last year. Businesses are downsizing at a pretty rapid clip, or going bankrupt. I went online to pay my car taxes this year, and took a look at the number of companies that went under quietly last year, under everyones radar, and it was a long list.

Our town has an interesting mix of citizens, and for the most part we all get along pretty well. The one thing that we have all had in common is that we have all been proud of our town. We have consistently been rated as one of the best places to live in the United States, mainly because we all work together for the common good. We don't have a lot of crime.

Another thing that we have in common all over our town now is a high number of houses for sale, with no one buying.

Truths from Chris Rock

2010-08-06T21:33:00.000-04:00

In a former post I posted truths from the mouth of George Carlin, now it's Chris Rock's turn:

•The number one reason people hate America: the number one reason is because of our religion. Americans worship money, we worship money. Separate God from school, separate God from work, separate God from government, but on your money it says in God we trust. All my life I’ve been looking for God, and He’s right in my pocket. Americans worship money, and we all go to the same church, the church of ATM. Everywhere you look there’s a new branch popping up … remind you about how much money you got and how much money you don’t got. And if you got less than twenty dollars, the machine won’t even talk to you. The machine is like, “You better go see a teller.” You ever go to a teller and try to take out eight dollars and fifty cents? Oh, it’s disgusting … oh man, you gotta wait on that long ass line, people doing real transactions in front of you, you get on to the fucking front, you fill out your form, eight fifty. The fucking teller looks at it, she look at you, she looks at the check, she don’t even take the money out of the drawer, she take it out of her pocket, “Here you go, get outta here.” And here’s something, man. Drugs are illegal, but ATM machines are open twenty-four hours a day. Twenty-four hours a day. For who? Who the fuck is it open for? Have you ever taken out three hundred dollars at four o’clock in the morning for something positive? Shit, when you press that machine at four o’clock in the morning, I think a psychiatrist should pop up on the screen and go, “Come on, man, save your money, man. Don’t buy drugs, buy some rims. They spinning, nigga, they spinning, they spinning, nigga, they spinning.” Americans worship money. Shit, you know why banks are closed on Sunday? ‘Cause if they wasn’t, church would be empty.

•Hey, man don’t let all this celebrity garbage fool you. It’s all just a trick to get your mind…off…the…war. I think Bush sent that girl to Kobe’s room. Bush sent that girl to Kobe’s room, Bush sent that little boy to Michael Jackson’s house. Bush killed Laci Peterson. Bush was fucking Paris Hilton in that video. All to get your mind off the war. Bush lied to me, they all lied to me: “We gotta go to Iraq because they’re the most dangerous country on Earth. They’re the most dangerous regime in the world.” If they’re so dangerous, how come it only took two weeks to take over the whole fucking country? Shit. Man, you couldn’t take over Baltimore in two weeks.

Food Crisis Coming?

2010-08-03T15:46:00.001-04:00

There is another blogger named Eric de Carbonnel, who has a blog titled "Market Skeptics", that I have been reading on and off for about a year. For the better part of the year he has been sharing bits and pieces of his research on a major article that he was working on concerning major food shortages that he predicted were going to be hitting the world in 2010, and he gave his reasons why. He does excellent research, so I am providing a link to his latest article - "The 2010 Food Crisis IS HERE!!!". Prepare to pay more for food products in the future. Much more.

http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/08/2010-food-crisis-is-here.html

The whole article, indeed the site, is worth a look, but I will provide a couple of his key ideas here so you can get the gist of his thoughts. This is what he feels will happen regarding soybeans.

… What is going to happen next is simple:

A) Prices will rise driven by growing shortages.
B) The fear of price collapse in soybeans will fade away and doubts about the USDA will grow (ie: “if the USDA’s numbers are right, why are prices still going up?”). As end-users try to get out of their underbought and oversold positions, the price rises will accelerate.
C) Panic explodes as faith in USDA numbers collapse. Everyone becomes a spot buyer.

Ahem...Ponzi, Ponzi, Ponzi? You betcha!

Watch for the USDA’s Madoff Moment

As his ponzi scheme collapsed due to withdrawal requests, Madoff had to face reality and shocked the world by admitting the truth. Investors who believed they owned billions found they had a little over 100 million to divide among themselves. The USDA, in the next [month] three to four months, will also have to face the reality and admit that the world is missing ten to twenty million metric tons of soybeans. The news should be as well received as Madoff’s announcement.

Also, according to de Carbonnel, adverse weather conditions around the world have affected the wheat crop, and prices are going to go up on everything from cereals to bread to pasta. Meat prices will be going up also. If farmers switch acreage from soybeans and corn to wheat, that could also drive an increase in the price of those commodities as supply shrinks, ultimately leading to higher meat prices for livestock producers and shoppers.

A lot of how this turns out depends on the competence of the USDA. A lot of how you believe this is going to turn out is going to depend on your view of government and how it functions. If you believe that the USDA is the one gleaming bastion of integrity in the entire US government; the one bright spot that never fudges its numbers, never engages in fraud and underhanded practices - you need to contact the Obamabots. I think they have a job for you in government somewhere.

There has to be an opening in propaganda somewhere.

For once, I agree with James Howard Kunstler

2010-08-02T16:22:00.000-04:00

I have to be losing it.

Usually James Howard Kunstler and I are worlds apart in how we think, and how we see the world. But lately, as the demise of our country has been hastened by our corporate rulers and cheezy politicians, our minds have started to merge onto the same thread.

It's a scary thought.

The true destination of the US economy is to get smaller and for two reasons mainly: 1.) Capital (”money”) is vanishing out of our system steadily and rapidly due to a massive collective failure to repay money owed on loans, mortgages, debts, and assorted obligations. 2.) Access to the primary resource we depend on for powering the economy (oil) is increasingly beyond our control — even worse, under the control of people who would like us to eat shit and die.

We really have a choice between two ways of dealing with this. We can downsize and re-scale consciously and coherently, or we can continue to chase after the phantom of growth and allow the nation to fall into a shambles of desperation. So far into this long emergency of an economic fiasco, we seem to have chosen the pursuit of a phantom. That’s what President Obama was doing last week in Detroit, shilling for a new electric automobile which, he said, will make us “energy independent.” If Mr. Obama believes this, then it isn’t a very good advertisement for an Ivy League education.

We also seem to both think the shit will hit the fan in the fall/early winter.

It's nice to have someone out there with me. Really.

I'm starting to think that this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

The Truth About Alan Greenspan

2010-08-01T16:54:00.000-04:00

Irrational Exuberance, my ass.

There is a debate going on between economists now about inflation and deflation. When will we see inflation? When will we see deflation? Will we see deflation, followed rapidly by inflation? Will we see stagflation?

My belief is that we saw inflation during the "irrational exuberance" period, the housing bubble that Greenspan made where the values on most housing assets inflated to as much as 300% over normal values. In other areas, the values didn't inflate to that extent, but inflate they did, and now they are reverting back to normal, as assets do in deflationary periods. Housing has a long way left to fall, and so does everything else.

That, in a nutshell, is the truth about Alan Greenspan. He allowed assets to inflate to unbelievable heights, now the air is coming out of the bubble. This is the mess that Greenspan has made.

This is Greenspan's legacy, and it is unravelling during Bernanke's watch. Any action that Bernanke has taken to try and "correct" the situation has only made it worse.

As I said before, this is only my opinion.