Opera Glasses and Popcorn
the heat has come in surges since yesterday early evening. We are collectively pooped from it. And I am not trapped in, as Eliot said, a perfectly fitting fur coat (or hey, close to those words)…
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An Opera Glasses and Popcorn view of Politics and the Assembled Multitude...
Marisacat -
- Real independent observations on current events with a particular fondness for the follies of the Big Box Blahgers.
Deflates bloated egos like a champion fencer in a balloon warehouse.
- Alan Smithee
Marisacat -
"...polish on a mud wallow"
- Meteor Blades [May 24 at Mcat]
Marisacat -
"... doyenne of donkle deconstruction"
- Who is IOZ [January 2 2007]
Marisacat -
"... hardened professionals and their primary strength lies in their being completely unconflicted."
"... the primary difference is that on the level of criticizing other blogs and bloggers, they can actually do some damage."
"... Not what I look for in a liberal blog product."
- peeder - MLW, Daily Rant [3.24.07]
Democracy NOW! / Amy Goodman Electronic Intifada / General Content Press TV / Middle East News Press TV McClatchy Headlines The Real News Reuters / Politics
on one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.
If you click on La Louche the picture or the words, it leads to the Amazon PayPage, a way to ... oh let's say help with the cat can deliveries.
Thanks to all who made the very kind suggestion.
Marisacat 
boy, I feel a little guilty posting this horror right under that lovely photo.
Torture school subjects children to lethal punishments
What, no Skinner box?
I think one just went into spam.
I know I shouldn’t think this, but damn, they missed:
That’s a whole lot of evil that could have gone away in flame and debris.
well I have read they “corkscrew” down into the airport… but I wonder the take off mode to evade fire.
I still say the insurgents, militias whomever wnat to take out an airplane. It would change the balance immediately.
A PLEA FROM ADAM KOKESH “PROTESTING IS NOT ENOUGH!” JOIN VFP IN WASHINGTON SEPTEMBER 15!
Boy, do I identify with this.
ooo Madman…
some lovely grafs there.
OK, Mcat, no one else has asked, so I will. How hot is it?
Only 80 here at 9:00 PM, an amazingly low temp for late August.
incredibly hot in Silicon Valley, and fires in Cupertino:
http://tinyurl.com/2ozut7
I love the way Mr. Clarke write Marisa. I often finish a piece there and feel a little jealous. I tend toward the hammer and tongs approach to expression … his is a light, poetic touch.
It’s in the upper 50’s here in Cheeseland (waves in cool comfort).
I freely admit to taking refuge in cynicism, much more so on the net than elsewhere, however.
Of course, at the same time I obey Schweitzer’s philosophy. Thus my obsessions with A) Music and B) Cats.
found the link at Left I:
ugh
moiv
it is not so much the temp, it is taht we are still six weeks or more from rain, that 80 here is a stifling dusty bright pressured 80.
I have always hated heat in San Francisco.
so we, me and the fur suits, are draped over the furniture, in collapse.
Someone sent me a link to this site last night. It presents information in support of the hypothesis that an axis shift is in progress, and it appears to have been authored by someone in the Dallas area.
I don’t know enough about either meteorology, physics or astronomy to have any valid opinion about this information. However, I can corroborate the writer’s observations about apparent changes in the sun’s position at sunrise and sunset as onserved from here.
If half of what the writer posits is accurate, that would go a long way toward explaining why the rush is on to own the ME as of “yesterday.”
maybe yall brought it up but Forbes has its list of 100 testicular challenged people up – http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/11/biz-07women_The-100-Most-Powerful-Women_Rank.html –
Some french cabinet secrataries rated above Hillary. An Oprah is more powerful than queen elizabeth. But I bet the queen would ut geaorge clooney up the weekend and not make hime stay in a hotel.
Four Words That Distinguish Liberals from Conservatives
now if only we could get people to realize that the current Donklephant party has NOTHING to do w/ “liberal” and is part of the problem described in the post, which he quotes from Joe Bageant’s new book:
Not just the South … the city of Milwaukee (and so many other places all over this nation) are held hostage to assholes owned by that fear.
That fear and hate will finish us.
I think I’m spam again.
If I could have a pool….you wouldn’t have to pay me to work.
Just a pool and some tomato garden.
Is that asking too much?
moiv.. i checked with my fringe guy and they have a rebuttel http://cyberspaceorbit.com/equinox2.htm .
Madman, I’ve enjoyed Clarke’s stuff for a long time too. He seemed to be one of the few men in this medium with his head nowhere near his ass during Kathy Sierra’s trials and tribulations.
Miss D, I think I’ve been overwhelmed by cynicism for several years now. I’m still not really sure how I feel about that.
Oops, that was Ms. Xeno who freely admitted to cynicism. Sorry.
Patty Smith pays tribute to Hilly
[fixed the link — Mcat]
Thanks, Rev. I’ll send that to my fringe guy. 😉
Apparently, I’m in need of a fringe guy. Applications are now being accepted.
Mitm, 22: the link is a dud.
Fess Parker and Clint Walker used to look pretty good in fringe, but I think they’re retired now.
I got to interview Patti Smith in 1996 for my college paper. It was like the 400th or so Q&A in a row for her that day, but she was still unfailingly polite and patient with my various ineptitudes. Very cool.
21-all cynics look alike to you, I guess.
at any rate, being confused with ms_xeno is a feather in anyone’s collage.
Looking at this video of the Kennebunkport I was thinking this: What’s the underlying assumption behind all of these permitted rallies?
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1048844ZRtMd7mR
Is it different from the assumption most Democrats have?
The Pendulum Swing.
If you keep staging permitted rallies, provide a framework and keep it going, eventually, when the pendulum swings, people are going to flow into the framework and the numbers of people who come into it will by necessity increase its militancy.
But will that work. The September 2005 rally in DC was huge and it attracted very little attention (aside from people who wanted to use the admittedly irritating Answer speakers list to mock the anti-war movement).
Don’t you have to crank up the militancy of these protests yourself with whatever numbers you have.
I was thinking during the rally in Newark last week, about how much different 1000 people blocking the NJ Turnpike in front of Newark Airport would be from a permitted march through the center of town.
The former would get a few heads busted and get a few inflated charges and maybe even get that new seize your assets law tried out on you, but it would have an impact the latter wouldn’t have.
oops … my browser is buggy tonight … looks like I pasted it twice.
take two
Fainting goat update:
So that’s it then? Back down because of the Nov ’08 elections? Just let thousands of more people die because it might interfere with domestic politics while Reid thinks recycling old shit is some sort of solution?
So that’s it then? Back down because of the Nov ‘08 elections? Just let thousands of more people die because it might interfere with domestic politics
1988-2016
28- well then you’re welcome. I would hope all cynics don’t look alike though, cause then you two would have to degenerate into looking like me.
Hey north texas
don’t leave merle out
Who is IOZ‘s take on the whole Craig thing:
I think I will jsut sputter out. Because that whole article on Reid/war/bullshit/fall/last spring is all lies.
US admits Iranian arrests mistake
sure…uh huh…
No, no, no…not that kind of fringe!
…at any rate, being confused with ms_xeno is a feather in anyone’s collage…
Likewise, I’m sure, MissD. Keir, ship us each a complimentary t-shirt from your next Coors-sponsored tour and I’m sure all can be forgiven. I’ll take an XXL, please. That should be one way to distinguish me from MissD, whom I always imagine as looking sort of like Patty Smith, but with glasses and the hair a bit more tamed. 😀
Naughty-boy waving to Miss D
from catnip’s # 31 “Reid acknowledged that his previous firm demand for a spring withdrawal deadline had become an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans…
Just WTF is a “previous firm demand”?? Priceless. The Democratic Majority Leader worried about an obstacle for a small but growing number of Republicans. Is Harry leading the GOP in the Senate??
Really, I AM an ass. I should have Left the DP YEARS AGO.
Coors-sponsord tour, hooboy. That would be the day, I guess. But of course, you would receive them with our compliments.
Fuck it. I’m insanely tired fucking up HTML moreso than I normally do. “He who dies by the blowjob , lives by the blowjob” I suppose is the Dem strategy now. Truly the “they suck more than we do” gambit.
lol to madman’s # 35
MitM – thanks for the Who is IOZ link. First time visit for me – sharp funny enough that I read everthing on the page. Do you know anything about who he is?
Tweety and Delay: Pt 1
Pt 2
Poor TOMMEH.
no idea. Love his stuff, though.
off to bed … was listening to Faith No More’s Angel Dust, after I finally got smart and turned off the glass teat.
This seemed to fit my present mood:
Loaded it into the MP3 player to offer some balance to all of the Lucy Kaplansky, Tori Amos, Allison Moorer I loaded on there the other day. Maybe to keep PJ Harvey and Johnette Napolitano company.
/music nerd name dropping
god, I’m quoting lyrics, and I’m not even drunk.
Tomorrow’s payday, so less than 24 hours from now I’ll fix THAT problem.
oooo, this fits even better:
And to think that Mike Patton has only gotten stronger and weirder and more interesting from there …
Marie
madman turned me on to IOZ… Just love him. His line tonight on the Dem slate is priceless[ly irreverent].
Itis in his ‘Tryptophan” riding at the top, largely about Thompson, but loaded with good lines.
He is in Pittsburgh PA (no shock, the picture) and if you keep reading him he does drop hints to details of his life and background.
He also does Foodie Fridays that are very wonderful at times. I think he takes the photos himself. His recipies are lovely to read.
A Vagina-American. lol
Along with the Arugula-American.
Apparently, kos has “evolved” since he wrote his homophobic screed.
And may I add that as a DEMOCRAT you still hold “stupid-ass beliefs.”
Frankly, stating that he felt that way just because he was a repub is a pretty lame excuse.
“evolved”
that’s rich.
Into what?
A dem thug gas bag… and word is out, wimmens is on board but gays have the big bucks and want big issues …
so be nice to the gays (but no really, after their bucks and their votes, it’s over).
And abortion is still “icky”. Officially. When ti is not “horrible, horrible”. In Kos’ own cracker jack no facts slag language.
“Some lame blogs” tee hee
Oh I am sure he just wants to be helpful.
IOZ is good enough that I might stop pining for the return of billmon. These are the only two bloggers that really make me lol when they’re being humorous.
Just have to post this snippet:
“Here is an article explaining that Democrats are committed to ending the Iraq War by continuing the American occupation. Good idea, messieurs et madame.
And here is an article detailing how the Democrat-controlled Congress gave–wait for it–the Bush Administration more authority to conduct domestic surveillance, searches, and seizures than the Executive sought. Consider that for a moment. More.”
Suppose he could just repeat the first paragraph for Reid’s latest.
Just rereading (skimming, actually) kos’ Liberatarion Democrat thing (or whatever you want to call it) where he clearly idolizes Webb and Tester, I reached the inescapable conclusion that kos is, indeed, a “Bush Dog”. He’s just in the closet.
What’s the Morse code for that BHHM?
Sabrina–what’s this? Gay marriage in Iowa? Holy cow…Field of Dreams, indeed.
I can always tell when a court has actually advanced human rights, because politicians go into full panic mode.
Quite frankly, if the Democrats think they can’t win the Presidency because a judge in Iowa granted gays the basic human right to marry the person they love, then they don’t deserve to occupy the White House. Actually, neither party deserves to occupy it, but that’s a discussion for another time.
#55. Aragula Man needs to stop lying.
You know what? I wrote a complaint e-mail to the ombudsman of one of THE major American so-called “liberal” newspapers earlier this year about the fact that one of its columnists had use that “wiped off the map” mistranslation. I even offered her links to the work of two people who actually knew what they were talking about. She/he refused to even investigate. Couldn’t care less. Said as far as she/he was concerned – without consulting any experts on the matter – she/he was right and that was that.
And now Obama is spreading the same damn neocon propaganda.
and continues to make progress on its nuclear program in defiance of the international community.
According to who? You? Bush? You might want to talk to ElBaradei there, grasshopper.
#6. I am sarcastic, therefore bite me.
Your typical “troll diary” at dkos. Note how the thugs descended quickly to protect poor John Edwards from his own words.
the fly?
Hi vipes! MitM, I doubt PJ needs any company, as she is sublime on her own. My favorite [if I can say I have a favorite] of hers is this:
…ever the silly romantic me…
Rev – this is something that has always worried me. The market was about to crash hard right before 9/11, and was likely only saved from that crash by the event. Given that it’s poised to crash again… does yet another ‘terrorist’ attack get trotted out in the city I love? Is it, this time, something chemical or nuclear – obviously related to Iran? I’m not one to be paranoid about terrorism [it’s probably the only thing I’m not paranoid about], but it does give me pause.
most.pathetic.diary.ever.
Marisa #55 – ..ratchet up the pressure the pressure on the Iranian regime. Wow, that’ll get them to the negotiation table. Or not.
Same ole policy – do what we say, or else (we’re gonna sick “Bomb, bomb, bomb McIran on you.”
Sad – and I’ve tried really hard to like the guy.
Just another lie from Kos.
Supposedly Kos was NOT a Republican at that time… Clinton was in office… hence the letter lambasting Clinton… iirc Kos said that he voted for Clinton.
Catnip, it’s like they were aiming for this but forgot that comedy, to work, has to be, well, comic. As opposed to merely pitiful. Pitable. Whatever.
Iirc, he voted for Elder Bush in ’92.
Listening to canuck news tonite – layoffs at a GM plant in Ontario, analysts using the “r”-word… I think it’s going to be a very bumpy ride the next few years.
#68. Geez it’s bizarre reading one of those scripts. lol
So when was the first time Kos voted Dem…. Kerry???
I would never refer to Kos and his flunkies as cartoon characters. I have a great deal of respect for cartoons.
I was looking for the answer to your question, D Throat and found this. Compare and contrast with kos’ comment in which he waved off his 1993 letter about gays by claiming he was a Republican then who held “stupid-ass beliefs” and what he wrote in this article in 2006:
He’s a liar.(And I feel like I’ve turned into FLH.)
Was that ever in doubt?
Shadowthief, yes, Dems have made no statement yet regarding the Iowa Ruling on Gay marriage. Mitt Romney has said it’s ‘against the will of the people’. The Republicans are going to try to get the ruling reversed and ask that the law not go into effect while they protest.
Mitm, that Ioz piece is hilarious. I agree with Marie, he is really great.
Lucid, lovely lyrics ….. and what’s wrong with being romantic?
********
Damn Democrats – it’s no fun predicting anymore. They make it too easy. And what does Reid mean by this:
Just everything about that statement is so wrong. Well, I’m assuming by ‘our way’ he means ‘end the war now’ since he supposedly represents us! And why isn’t he saying ‘Republicans, do what we want you to do’?
I will never forget Grover Norquist, after the Dems lost a few years ago, saying that they would ‘get used to their position, like dogs, and learn their place and after a while they be comfortable there’ or words to that effect. It looks like they plan to stay there, no matter how much of a majority they get.
Was that ever in doubt?
Well, no. But I had to use it for dramatic impact.
lucid- the market did crash hard after 9/11. It was due for a correction but w/o 9/11 would have been slower and probably not dipped as low.
The money guys think they can prop up the market and prove that 1929 can’t happen again. Maybe they’re right. Maybe if they can hold it so that it stays flat until the day the general economy mirrors the stockmarket economy, they’ll claim victory. In the long run that would be no different than letting it crash and then grow again, but in the short run nobody loses a lot and it will make everybody feel much better. (Personally I don’t care how much they pitch that it’s all about FED controls, there is a psychological compononet to recessions/depressions.)
D Throat,
Here’s what kos wrote in that piece as well:
Who knows though?
different Republicans.
Yeah right. There was a liberal strain of Republicans in the NE. Definitely. The Jeffords type. [Tho when they are in interview it was clear she was a Democrat and they kind of giggle that he inherited the Republican party, coming down thru 150 years.]
There were sort of mild Main St, Country Club Republicans. But Kos neatly forgets both Goldwater and REAGAN. The fucking Birchers.
Reagan, whom I would guess he loved in that slobbery ‘be my Daddy’ love he seems to ahve for the Webbs and Testers of the political dinner theatre.
Bullfuckingshit, “it was a different time”.
‘Socially liberal’ – ‘libertarian democrat’ – he just makes stuff up, Catnip! What I love is that no matter what is revealed about him, kossacks wave it away. I loved the comments following that letter in the thread:
All those former Republicans …
That last comment, I hate to tell him, but if Romney could have a statement out already, so could the Dems, if they knew where they stood. I think he’s going to be disappointed …
I am beginning to think that the “Money Guys” want another 1929 kinda crash… people won’t protest the warS when they are scrounging around for food… it will be the best military recruitment drive… no money… no jobs… enlist.
Marie, have you heard anything about huge bets on the failure of the market? I am horrible on this, but remember before 9/11 there were ‘put options’ (is that right?) counting on the a drop in Airline Stock? I read that the other day that this is happening again.
Marisa, I hope it cools off for you soon. Love that pool picture
I am sure that Kos still loves Reagan and in that silly diary, welcoming all Bill O’Reilly fans, Darksyde admitted to still loving Reagan and ridiculously said that Reagan was competent even when he was senile!
catnip 73.
Combat boots, wombat hoots. EVERYBODY wears combat boots in the Army. Now everybody gets berets. It’s like a piece the DHinMI bio saying he was the “first one in his family to go overseas with a rifle on his shoulder.” or some such nonsense. Markos combat boots would have been his jump boots. That is, if he was Airborne. Right up until the Jumpmaster threw his scrawny paranoid little homophobic ass out of the plane. I would shit a brick if he was Airborne. It would be nice if just said he started out as a grunt and did it for the college money like damn near everyone else. Aside from raising my daughter, one of the things I’m most proud of in my life is having dissuaded my nephew from enlisting in the Army after his High School graduation four years ago.
I’m out.
Marie – some analysts I read around the time [I believe Catherine Austin Fitts was one of them] suggested that the market was actually primed to really collapse – in a ’29 fashion – and quickly. Of course, they might have been alarmists. Yes, the market did go way south after 9-11, but the serious capital losses were prior with the tech collapse. I think their tack was that 9-11 saved a complete collapse for a couple of reasons: 1. it was completely closed down for 3 days, which quelled a panic and 2. in the aftermath economic behaviour changed in the US to sustain a mortally wounded economy through debt spending… Of course, the latter factor makes the present times that much scarier economically…
I dunno. I’m neither a market analyst, nor have I ever owned stock. Back in the heydey of my CT fever in 2001, I just found that take somewhat interesting FWIW.
SB – actually the put options extended far beyond the airlines to a number of firms whose corporate head offices were located in the WTC. It is one of the biggest things about 9/11 that bugs me to this day. Deutschebank [headed by ex-CIA chief Buzzy Krongard] made all of those trades. Why the hell have the people who made those trades not been made public? Why did the media drop the story within 48 hours? If one looks at the full extent of the trades, several hundreds of millions were made… I’m sorry, but this info should be public record.
Derivatives…. betting on the market taking a dive. There was an article in the NYT recently about a small hedge fund that made a shit load with derivatives on mortgage stocks.
I posted a link the other day on Money as Debt… opened my eyes completely… mandatory watching if you want to really know what is happening in the market…. basically we now have a system where if there was no debt there would be no money. So these “boom” debt periods are engineered to increase the flow of money (aka debt)…. it is that simple.
The majority of the people are always on the wrong side of this equation “the debtors” while the real money is made off of others people debt “the bankers”.
Of course their need to constant growth to feed this monster whether it be housing or iPhones…. the market has become excellent manipulators of getting people into debt and buy shit…. I am appalled at those nasty plastic shoes every one is now wearing…. Ugly cheap plastic shoes… someone is laughing all the way to the bank. Instead of getting into line to buy the iPhone it would have been smarted if people used the 600 bucks to buy Apple stock… and when they had made enough… then buy the phone for free.
Anyways… watch it I think it was in yesterdays thread… now I am certain there will be MORE wars… it is all a money thing… always was.
Ried is not even pretending to fight… Hilary is up in the polls … why should they get their hands dirty.
Oh now I also understand why there is a renewed call to dismantle the Fed Reserve… because it is basically a private bank that controls the US currency and the US gov has to borrow money from it WITH interest…
The clip is LONG… about 45 minutes but I would suggest watching it more than once or even twice.
Hillary was on Letterman tonight. gah. she discussed campaign strategy. Not any dark moldering secrets, but still, a strategy again to say nothing.
And Letterman basically was not present. Think he shined her shoes, maybe.
I wish more people realized that. War has always been about money. War is the weapon of aristocracy. There is no such thing as a ‘just war’… we are simply lead to believe that there is some higher purpose, be it moral or tribal.
While I became a pacifist at age 10, I didn’t realize until my late teens that my stance wasn’t really about violence itself, but the use of violence as a means.
There WERE different Republicans – Republicans who were socially liberal and had no problem with feminism, racial equality, gay rights etc. – and many of them weren’t even the Country Club type.
There are still a few left, but they keep a low profile. Most of that type have left the party.
There’s a good book I’m sure I’ve mentioned before here – The Republican War Against Women by Tanya Melich. She delineates how the religious right, under Reagan, took over the party and shoved the pro-choice, pro-feminist women out of the power structure.
Marie this is from yesterday. I included Carter on the list because he signed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act which gave the Federal Reserve greater control over non-member banks. Its main purpose was to force all banks to abide by the Fed’s rules. It also allowed banks to merge. Its secondary purpose was to allow credit unions and savings and loans to offer checkable deposits.
Funny how it has been Democrats NOT Republicans that harm the advances made by Democrats… if Carter and Bill Clinton are any indication of what Hilary will do…. we best be prepared for the absolute worse.
Here it is Money as Debt
For Kos personally there never was a different, liberal, social justice Republicanism.
Another facile line of patter from him.
he came here iwth an immigrant family that, like so many seeking America as the ultimate “strong man”, settle in, are reactionary, often racist to be blunt, often disdainful of some aspects of whatever America might have been, and then they vote Republican.
Support Henry Hyde, a terrible man. Support Reagan.
That was Kos’ Republican party. I would never say that there were not liberal social justice Reopublicans – because there were… But for Kos that is just blither.
Just found Sabrina in Spam.
Comment 80
lucid & D. Throat – as I pointed out in “Black Mondays” the other day, a) the crash in 1929 was caused by multiple factors 2) the country had been in a deep recession long before the market crashed. The drought was a significant factor in the recession. The markets were highly unregulated and there was massive speculation using borrowed money. The New Deal regulations hard wired many elements in the financial services institutions that would severely restrict the speculation and margin accounts and by extension another total collapse. Worked for a long time.
Allowing credit unions to offer checking account services was a good thing (use one myself and have been a member of it for over thirty years).
The rollback of the New Deal regulations really took off with Reagan. Would have to go back and study what was done under Carter, but it’s possible that it was appropriate. Nothing wrong with modernizing regulations as long as they preserve the key elements of what made them so robust. It took years for all the New Deal stuff to become fully integrated into our finacial system and for this country to benefit from them. Similarly unwinding them takes time for them to kick in. We weren’t there in 2001.
Personally, I don’t think there were significant and highly unusual puts before 9/11. There are too many really good market analysts out that would have studied and written about it by now if that had existed. This latest speculation is just that — everybody is jittery. Too many people are focusing on 9/11 IMHO because that was such a shocking day and our “leadership” told us to be afraid instead of calm. Granted 100plus story buildings tumbling down is a unique event, but it was not particularly catestrophic in an historical sense.
Deriviatives are not puts but they are gambling. They depend on the markets being stable because there are no tangible assets backing them up. It’s much too simple to say that money is debt, and not correct. It’s a medium of exchange. We tend to think of money as cash but cash is merely an asset (what you own) and debt is what you owe. The FED creates money by printing it, and in a growing and expanding economy it has to do that. Not sure why anybody thinks that’s evil. Commercial or retail banks don’t create money by lending. That’s just a banking transaction.
The reality is that the economists and finacial guys can’t predict where we go from here because we’ve never been here before and all the computer modeling in the world can’t capture all the variables and aren’t dynamic enough. We’re debtor nation with little manufacturering capacity, spending massive amounts on a military (inflationary), borrowing huge amounts to cover federal deficits (inflationary), massive comsumer borrowing (inflationary), oil prices more than doubled in three years and flat wages. Yet for years we were told that inflation was low. Somehow most of that inflationary pressure was absorbed in real estate which actually made people feel good, They grumbled about gas prices but sucked it up well enough and increased their consumption.
I noticed a few years ago that grocery prices increased selectively. One year herbs and spice prices doubled or more. The next year it was something else. Cheese up sometime in the past year. Two to three months ago, everything seemed to jump up by a dollar. Okay that an exaggeration, peanut butter, bread and eggs didn’t. But milk prices jumped a few weeks ago. Can consumers absorb this? I don’t know.
What we don’t know yet is how ugly the bank loan portfolios are and how much trading on margin is going on. And I have no idea where the commodity market are. But we’re getting closer to 1929 — it will be different. Instead of jumping out of windows, the brokers will take their private jets to Paraguay. And there may be enough of the New Deal regulation structure still in place that it prevents a total collapse and panic. Runs on banks make a bad situation worse.
Anyway there’s little that can be done to stop the train now. So, no need to worry about it.
I love that PJ song, lucid.
My favorite is You Said Something, which I actually used to listen to sitting on a rooftop of an unheated loft in Brooklyn, where some kind people let me crash after I lost my apt (and job, and pretty damned-near everything else):
Manhattan is achingly beautiful at night.
actually, basic foodstuffs are up substantially:
The games being played by the federal reserve and the markets, trying to mitigate THEIR losses and soften the landing (I think your description of what they’re trying to do is pretty right, Marie) camoflages how terribly hollow the base economy is.
Off to work vipes … have a great day.
A few years ago, I was trapped in the car on a Sunday listening to Garrison Keillor when he opined that Richard Nixon was the last President to feel a Christian obligation to the poor. I’m agnostic on Keillor, although I think he considers himself progressive or liberal, so his observation that Carter wasn’t driven by Christian faith to help the less fortunate surprised me. Maybe he only meant to include Republicans, maybe he did only include Republicans and my memory fails me.
Keillor may have been right, even if he wasn’t, there were no socially liberal Republicans in 1988 and damn few Democrats with conscience by that point.
You may be asking yourself why Keillor’s thoughts matter at all, but I can’t answer that. It just came to mind.
Grocery prices spiked the second week of August. It hit like a bolt of lightning, I assumed it was related to the store’s electric bill, it was amazing. Eventually even the basics will be a luxury for the middle class.
Yesterday at the local Big Box store there were no Ramen noodles left. I don’t eat them, but the fact that there was a gaping hole where they were stored, with a few runaway packages on the floor gave me a knot in my stomach.
Couple of things, my darlings, and then I’m off for my morning run (I set savage dogs loose and they chase me–everybody needs an external motivator from time to time):
First, the timing of the attack on Iran will be to “lock in” both the Republican and the Democratic candidates to a continuation of World War III. The voters in 2008 will be given a choice that is no choice at all: two pro-war, pro-empire candidates. The only question will be which one can convince the voters that he/she is more competent as the general manager of American Empire, Inc., Romney or Clinton. I’ve no doubt both of them will claw at each other with competing claims of which one will kill more Iranians. That’s why I think the attack will be in spring 2008: the nominees of both parties will be de facto decided, so absolutely no room that one of them can change his/her mind about killing a few hundred thousand Iranian children through malnutrition, starvation, and disease (and there are military and economic reasons besides–a winter attack on an oil-producing country in the Middle East is unwise for many reasons).
As for Marie’s earlier question (I think it was Marie) about what the Cheneyists have done to prepare for an attack on Iran: they have five major military bases (at least) in Iraq capable of launching air sorties against Iran, and not one, not two, but three aircraft carrier groups in the Persian Gulf. One aircraft carrier group has more first-class fighter planes than the entire nation of Iran; three aircraft carrier groups is a veritable Hammer of Thor.
Second, it will be a study in comedy to watch the Democratic presidential candidates do the Curly Shuffle, the two-step, the tango, the hustle, and any other dance moves that can get them away from gay marriage. The Democrats want the votes of gay people, but, as they do with blacks, they don’t want to actually EARN them and they don’t want to make any promises to “special interest” groups (even if the “special interest” is in being a first-class citizen).
The Democrats live in abject terror of Rush Limbaugh and his herd, you see (as do the Kossackatonianvites), and are afraid to confront their homophobia and gay-bashing jokes. But it seems that, piece by piece, gays are gaining ground here and there. However, due to the packing of the Supreme Court with Bush I and Bush II appointees, it seems unlikely that the SC will sweep away the prohibition against same-gender marriage for at least a generation. That is, unless we have a revolution and impeach at least four or five of the High Nine as traitors.
Ah, and a quick note on meta: Another bit of comedy as I watch MSOC and some MLW courtiers attempt to engage at Politicalfleshfeast. Doesn’t MSOC have a Scoop-powered blog? But I suppose it’s rather boring, being surrounded with sycophants 24/7. Still, the MLWers seem curiously out of place at PFF, wandering around a bit lost. I do find it laughable when one owns a blog and yet spends more time commenting at someone else’s site; not exactly complimentary to your own place, is it?
wow:
“President Bush’s apparent plans for a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran will only add to the civilian death toll as a result of US intervention that has placed the president “high on the list of mass murders of all time,” a former aide in President Ronald Reagan’s administration known for strident anti-Bush rhetoric said Friday.
“Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening ‘the security of nations everywhere’ and of the Iraqi resistance for ‘a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power,'” writes Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury. “Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration.”
http://tinyurl.com/28693z
“The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact,” Roberts writes. “
chavez has stepped into a hostage negotiation in columbia
Hugo Chavez takes on a more delicate role on Friday when he tries to broker a deal to free hostages held by Colombia’s Marxist guerrillas.
Chavez steps into a bitter deadlock between President Alvaro Uribe, a U.S. ally popular for his hard-line stance against rebels, and Latin America’s oldest guerrilla group resisting attempts to end a 40-year conflict.
Reuters
From a JJB post (#48) in the previous thread:
“It also seems to this decided non-expert that Craig is a very high-risk for suicide at this point. I hope that thought has occurred to those near and dear to him, and they are taking steps to see that this doesn’t end with him trying to kill himself.”
I was thinking the same thing. He is being thrown under the bus by his GOP “friends”. The cognitive dissonance must be unbearable. He’s got no where to go — he’s cornered himself.
Thanks Revisionist…
in that contest, no contest, for Chavez. America will go down fielding and funding paramilitaries.
What a nasty joke it all has been.
************
Raincat
yes it is a classic situation, isn’t it. The drumbeat against him rose instantly from the pundit and political class. The RNC has denounced him, essentially. Struck by Romney, previously only one of two senate R to come out for Romney, or so I read.
Although I read last night Buchanan blames the liberal media. They hounded him.
You just know we want show trials again in this country, like the Chicago 8.
#103 — very tellng: affecting consumers and companies that profited from the housing boom. Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday said slower home price gains were partly to blame for a 45 percent decline in its second-quarter profit.
The rate of housing appreciation should not have more than a negligible impact on mortage lenders – they’re supposed to be making their money on mortgage interest payments not loan origination fees. I knew that Freddie Mac was becoming another irrational operation a few years ago, but I have to say that I wasn’t aware of just how bad it had become. What happens to its profits when there is no housing price gains? Or deflation? And further increase in the foreclosure rate? Robert Kuttner explains what really went wrong and how it’s been developing for years. Ain’t virtually total privatization of residential development and the mortgage lending to support it great?
RE: inflation. The thing that I can’t figure out is this. My energy costs went up about 30% this year. My grocery bill went up by about 16%.
Anyhow, when I was computing the CPI adjustments for employees at one of the businesses I manage financially this August [something I do annually] I was completely baffled when every official report I tracked down for the region only showed an annual CPI increase of 2.5% from June 06 – June 07…
Liberalcatnip….remember Obama is now taking advise from Dennis Ross.
oh, and that axis website…scary!
well what I heard for years was that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the Democrats’ boondoggle, backwater, swamp, private reserve, whatever words convey it was theirs to siphon from and make use of, place patronage and nepotism proteges at… . It was assigned to them to mismanage and thieve from. Other agencies were for the Republicans to thieve and mismanage.
I think we are in deep trouble. Swimming in ponzi schemes and potemkin villages.
lucid #107 – it’s about how the CPI is calculated. Exclude volatile goods like energy and food, credit the high tech industry with giving us more for less and presto, it wipes out the inflation for housing. Although they tend to highlight the rate that includes energy and food in the months where there is a decline in gas prices and seasonal fresh produce at lower prices hits the market. It’s become as meaningless as the unemployment rate.
Dennis Ross and Colin Powell and his delcared buds are Lugar Warner and Lieberman.
Your wars are safe iwth me.
Some pundit a few months ago said, does Obama want to be a black bombing brown and black, or WTF?
basic foodstuffs at Safeway went up 50c to one dollar, as of three weeks ago.
I just put together another order alst night and it seems prices are slightly higher again, maybe 25c
i still claim kos voted for arnie in the recall and re-election.
let him deny it — but he won’t. for a reason.
A couple days ago I read that Daniel Pipes is on board with Guiliani, today I read that Ted Olson has signed up.
gah.
hmm sounds like Hsu is in the process of surrendering, out here in RedWood City, so of San Francisco.
Fugitive fundraiser turns himself in. LOL that is the title.
I have an update on Hsu at PFF.. LA Times did some digging.
it’s official (ABC local affiliate news break):
Warner of VA is retiring. Will not seek relection.
Good riddance. Levin can go as well, afaiac
Horrifying story on the CNN site about the victims of the Soviet Union’s above-ground nuclear testing in Kazakstan–I had no idea; I thought the article was going to be about Chernobyl.:
http://tinyurl.com/34shj7
FLH updated his diary:
I don’t know all of the ins and outs of the financial crunch in the US but here’s some news:
Bernanke: Fed ready to act if turmoil hits economy
Harry, you’re such a putz.
Ugh.
mr_xeno and another guy at the NW Constitutional Rights Center wrote a piece about the 2002 Protest settlement. Put it up on one of those “boxcar” blogs. I read about half a dozen of the comments and nausea promptly set in. Propaganda and self-congratulation everywhere from the little burgher wannabees who clot that place.
VOTE DEMOCRAT AND THEN THE COPS WILL BEHAVE !!
ACTIVISTS ARE STUPID AND BAD BECAUSE THEY BROKE THOSE WINDOWS IN SEATTLE !!
Hell. I’m going back to bed. For a month, maybe. >:
…groceries…I am pulling out my beans, rice and tortilla recipes.
new thread…
LINK
Marie:
That is why you should really watch the video… it is the exact opposite. The Fed reserve only prints 5% of the money that is in circulation… private banks “print” (ie creates) 95% of money in circulation by creating debt (offering loans) and using these debt notes to back more loans.