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...according to some religions, being old wouldn't get nobody an out of jail card: unless we get all the way up to Enlightenment (and judging by how much our lot here is concerned about the earthy stuff, nobody got there yet :)), we would be back :). And that, my friends, is fucking scary!
 
Perfect comment!!

You just cut straight through five hours of bullshit to point out exactly what the core mission of this administration is: divide the collective attention of the people and bullshit them until they toe the party line. Meanwhile, while everyone is totally distracted, pass a few fucked up bills full of pork chops and beer for our constituencies so they'll vote us back in in '14.
 
ancona said:
Benjamen,
This is exactly why this is so completely fucked up. We are now looking actively to exclude people from exercising their constitutional rights. Targeting of conservative groups, targeting vets, targeting patriots, and targeting Christians.

This is so completely beyond disturbing as to be frightening.

I weep for my daughters future. :-(
Click to expand...

my computer won't allow me to forward this article, says I am "abusing" it. WTF?
Obama ‘Strongly Objects’ to Religious Liberty Amendment
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarne...y-objects-to-religious-liberty-amendment.html

snip:
The Obama Administration “strongly objects” to a proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday that would have protected the religious rights of soldiers – including evangelical Christian service members who are facing growing hostility towards their religion.
 
The trick about religion, which I know all too much about - I fell hard for the jesus freak thing at one point and even studied and got myself ordained - in the evangelical realm, of course - is just do it, don't talk about it.

If you paint Jesus on your finger and shove it down throats, you just get puked on, same as with a blank finger. That's not what even Jesus did - he just was, and people figured that out and followed him.

It's a good example to follow. If people then start to question why you are happier and better in balance than they - despite sometimes Job like situations - you can then answer their questions, and importantly, they are then listening with interest.

Else, STFU. If people aren't asking, you need to work on yourself more first - should be obvious but apparently it's not to all too many.

What galls me is when *any* religion tries (and often is a success) at getting their particular mores passed into law. If your message isn't compelling enough by itself, work on that - again, this should be obvious, don't, for crying out loud force it on others using the laws and guys with guns - Only one "religion" I'm aware of thinks that's OK, officially - and I find that religion lacking seriously, and self-inconsistent anyway. You know which one. The rest I have no trouble with, and in fact wound up as a more or less Zen myself.

The story of why I quit being a preacher is interesting (and long), but wouldn't fit in this thread well.
 
DCFusor said:
The trick about religion, which I know all too much about - I fell hard for the jesus freak thing at one point and even studied and got myself ordained - in the evangelical realm, of course - is just do it, don't talk about it.

If you paint Jesus on your finger and shove it down throats, you just get puked on, same as with a blank finger. That's not what even Jesus did - he just was, and people figured that out and followed him.

It's a good example to follow. If people then start to question why you are happier and better in balance than they - despite sometimes Job like situations - you can then answer their questions, and importantly, they are then listening with interest.

Else, STFU. If people aren't asking, you need to work on yourself more first - should be obvious but apparently it's not to all too many.

What galls me is when *any* religion tries (and often is a success) at getting their particular mores passed into law. If your message isn't compelling enough by itself, work on that - again, this should be obvious, don't, for crying out loud force it on others using the laws and guys with guns - Only one "religion" I'm aware of thinks that's OK, officially - and I find that religion lacking seriously, and self-inconsistent anyway. You know which one. The rest I have no trouble with, and in fact wound up as a more or less Zen myself.

The story of why I quit being a preacher is interesting (and long), but wouldn't fit in this thread well.
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worked for a doctor once in an audiology clinic who said he became a priest in order to avoid the draft in Vietnam. he said it backfired and he wound up on the front lines without a gun...
 
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-...Rwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3
:judge::clap::judge::clap:

"Economic theory has a clear and rigid answer. But it’s not one economists like to give ... it’s not one that politicians, whose attention most economists covet, like to hear."

"For the U.S. government as a whole, the infinite horizon fiscal gap is a whopping $222 trillion!"

"It’s elimination requires ... either a 64 percent immediate and permanent tax hike in all federal taxes or a 40 percent immediate and permanent cut in all expenditures apart from servicing official debt"
 
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/he...-may-compel-u-s-lawmakers-and-aides-to-resign

"Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant."

“The leadership has assured members that fixing this issue is a top priority,” said one Democratic leadership aide. “This issue must be fixed by administrative action in order that the flawed Grassley Amendment’s spirit is honored and all staff and members are treated the same.”

:noevil:
 
... John Williams, of Shadowstats, warned that unemployment just hit a shocking new high of 23.4%, even as the monetary base continues to go parabolic. Below is a key portion of this tremendous report and KWN wanted to pass it along to our global readers:

Banking-System Stress. With Fed monetization of U.S. Treasury debt at 90.5%, and with June monetary base annual growth soaring above 20%, the lack of meaningful movement in June M3 annual growth is suggestive of an intensifying liquidity crisis in the bank system, as discussed in the Hyperinflation Watch.

No Economic Recovery Here. The June 2013 report on labor conditions, published July 5th by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) included some harsh indications of economic deterioration in the broader unemployment detail (ShadowStats measure hit a record high for the series), along with heavy seasonal-factor distortions in the headline payroll data.
...
Click to expand...

More: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldn...e_Skyrocketing_As_Unemployment_Hits_23.4.html
 
Investigate NSA = suicide by car
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/cr...g-nsa-and-cia-abuses-dies-in-mysterious-crash
Just read the article.. all kinds of odd things in this story

Investigate Obama = accidental death
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ists-foul-coroner-dies-arsenic-poisoning.html
"The sources that disclosed the possible presence of arsenic said that finding the poison does not mean the death was a homicide, because it could have accidentally entered his system."

Investigate the CIA = suicide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
"Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide."
 
http://thenewamerican.com/tech/ener...-shut-200-coal-fired-plants-devastate-economy

"According to the federal Energy Information Agency (EIA), 45 percent of the country’s annual four trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity are generated from coal."

"On August 2, the Reuters news service provided a list of 207 coal-fired plants that are scheduled to close. A May 2 news release from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) puts the total of coal-fired plant closings even higher, at 285, in 32 states."

"Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed."

:flushed:
 
Suprising to find this type of article in the mainstream arena:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/brea...-collapsing-economy-davidowitz-142435260.html

"Walmart is the thermometer of the American economy. Disregard the government data. Jobs and GDP and all the rest are at best inaccurate measures of the economy and at worst flat out corrupt."
:judge:

"They have 150 million customers which collectively spent less in Walmart stores than in the same period last year."

"I don't think we're in a recession right now, but I think there's a 50 percent chance we'll be in one next year," Davidowitz shouts, and there's nothing the government is going to be able to do about it. "We've spent all the money, we've borrowed all the money, and we're in the tank."
 
New report from the Congressional Budget Office:
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44604-AverageTaxRates.pdf

2010 numbers by income quintiles:
Lowest Quintile
0, 0, 2.3%, 9.3%, -6.2%, 0.4%
2nd Quintile
23.2k, 46.5k, 7.4%, 11%, -2.9%, 3.8%
3rd Quintile
35.7k, 71.4k, 13%, 14.3%, 2.9%, 9.1%
4th Quintile
51.1k, 102.2, 21%, 19.8%, 13.3%, 17.6%
Highest Quintile
75.7k, 151k, 57.9%, 47.2%, 92.9%, 68.8%

Numbers for each quintile are:
Minimum yearly income for single person household to be in that quintile
Minimum yearly income for four person household to be in that quintile
% of all Regular Income
% of all Net Income (subtracting taxes and adding government transfers)
% of all Income taxes paid
% of All taxes paid

My take aways:
1) For anyone with a professional career or private business, it is easy to forget how little income many people make. A single person making fifty one thousand a year will put them ahead of sixty percent of the solo population!
2) The bottom three quintiles combined, a full sixty percent of the country, account for a negative percent of the total income taxes in the U.S.! The top two quintiles account for 106.2% of all income taxes!
3) For anyone that thinks the upper class needs to pay more taxes, while making roughly sixty percent of the income, the top quintile is already paying roughly 93% of income taxes! Also, the only reason the top quintile doesn't pay such a huge percentage of total taxes (68.8%) is because they "only" pay 45% of all social security taxes and 32% of all excise taxes.
 
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-job-growth-weakest-three-133319039.html

"Nonfarm payrolls rise 74,000 in December"

"Unemployment rate falls to 6.7 percent from 7.0 percent"

"The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one fell 0.2 percentage point to 62.8 percent."

"The length of the workweek fell to 34.4 hours from 34.5 hours."

:paperbag:
 
Thoughtful article on the progression of our society:
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/thin-strand-of-civilization/?singlepage=true

"Over 90 million Americans who could work are not working (the “non-institutionalized” over 16). What we take for granted — our electrical power, fuel, building materials, food, health care, and communications — all hinge on just 144 million getting up in the morning to produce what about 160-170 million others (the sick, the young, and the retired who need assistance along with the 90 million idle) consume."
 
Those are a few very scary sentences Benjamen, because that number is shrinking on a daily basis. The USA is bleeding out and the flow will not be stopped by this or any follow on administration. The Free Shit Army will make sure they have the loudest voice in any discussion about cutting back on freebie, and the top five percent or so will be doubly sure that their factories in Asia inherit the remainder of American jobs that have yet to be mechanized.
 
ancona said:
and the top five percent or so will be doubly sure that their factories in Asia inherit the remainder of American jobs that have yet to be mechanized.
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I just read today somewhere that Mexico's wages are now 20% lower than China's wages. Add in the difference in time and money for shipping and you might see the remainder head south instead of west. Even if the wages are comparable, Mexico stands a good chance of snagging what is left of American industry.
 
I am seeing ideas such as these crop up more and more...
http://m.rollingstone.com/politics/...s-millennials-should-be-fighting-for-20140103

All they want is the following items:
1) Everyone is guaranteed a job if they want it
2) Everyone should get "a sum sufficient for subsistence" for free
3) Get rid of that pesky land ownership
4) While your at it, get rid of owning anything
5) Some random idea about public banks

:flushed:
 
Communism can work for small groups, but fails spectacularly on a national scale. Has Rolling Stone always had such a blatant with the Communist viewpoint?
 
Haha... Free XBOX Ones, PS4s or a pair of Nike Jordans for everyone!
 
Just read five platforms of communist manifesto, check how many were implemented in the supposedly "capitalist" West societies, and have a bitter laugh...

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
 
PMBug said:
Haha... Free XBOX Ones, PS4s or a pair of Nike Jordans for everyone!
Click to expand...

where you can free xbox one? I have PS4 and I bought it. :flail:

w1.png
 
At a store after you get your free $500 savings account from Senator Wyden's proposed legislation (if it ever comes to pass). See link in post #187. My comment was pointing out how silly the idea was. That money is as good as spent the moment it's given away. Of course, this likely doesn't apply to you since you are in Indonesia.
 
...

Even Neo-Communism™ seems to be working out very poorly (Venezuela, Argentina and perhaps soon Brazil), hey not just in the USA!
 
DoChenRollingBearing said:
...

Even Neo-Communism™ seems to be working out very poorly (Venezuela, Argentina and perhaps soon Brazil), hey not just in the USA!
Click to expand...
PMBug said:
Communism can work for small groups, but fails spectacularly on a national scale
Click to expand...

There is one crucial thing missing from the above: ANY system that relies on voluntary participation, can and WILL work. There's why communism works on a "small" scale; because nobody forces anyone to be a part of their commune. Size& scale doesn't matter a squat here, only voluntary participation.

Logically follows, that any system that relies on violence as it's basic core (be it state-wide communism, or fascism, or any other -ism), WILL fail. That includes capitalism. Basically, that includes ANY form of state.

Now, the timeframe in which it happens, and the interim prosperity of the People within any of the particular -ism, depends directly on the amounts of freedom, that individuals have there.

Systems other than free market cannot progress, their theoretical best scenario (never achieved in practice, because of second law of thermodynamics -i.e., there ALWAYS are some imperfections in practice), is to metastasize into perpetual static "being". Reason for that is the price calculation, or rather the lack of thereof, and resulting lack of input for any economic calculation. Von Mises had formulated that paradox, it had never been rebutted, but just shrugged off as "well that's kinda interesting, we cannot really address your points, but so what, let's have more& more central planning and academic& rhetoric influence on free market actions"


Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk
 
regarding the US and Russian play for Ukraine -

By Staff Writer, Intellihub – March 7, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/py6tz85



WASHINGTON - Tuesday evening while speaking to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich dropped information on the situation that is rarely heard in the mainstream media.
In the interview, Kucinich revealed that the United States government was guilty of funding some of the violent rebel groups who have overrun the country.
When asked how he would handle the crisis if he were president, Kucinich replied by saying that:
“What I’d do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers’ money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn’t try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest.”
So, it’s the USA’s fault that Putin rolled in? We made them do it?” O’Reilly replied.
“Bill O’Reilly, if you don’t believe in cause and effect, I don’t know what I can do for you,” Kucinich said.
Kucinich is known to be staunchly anti-war, he has also been an outspoken critic of trade agreements like NAFTA and organizations like the EU.
Kucinich is the only congressional representative to vote against the “9/11 Commemoration” resolution. In a press statement he defended his vote by saying that the bill did not make reference to “the lies that took us into Iraq, the lies that keep us there, the lies that are being used to set the stage for war against Iran and the lies that have undermined our basic civil liberties here at home.”
Like all politicians, Kucinich certainly isn’t perfect, despite his views against war and drug prohibition, Kucinich is in favor of heavy taxation and regulation, including strict gun control regulations.
Kucinich drafted legislation that included a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.
Kucinich pushed for gun control, in the U.S. Congress as well as during his time as a city councilman. He kept a pistol in his house for a period in 1978 (under the recommendation of the police) when he was the target of a Mafia plot. He reportedly no longer keeps the pistol, but you can be certain that his body guards have heavy fire power.
 
Too big to fail...
http://etfdailynews.com/2014/03/10/too-big-to-fail-is-now-bigger-than-ever/

"...the six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley)have collectively gotten 37 percent larger since the last financial crisis"

"The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets."

"Goldman Sachs has total assets worth approximately 111 billion dollars (billion with a little “b”), but they have more than 47 trillion dollars of total exposure to derivatives.

That means that the total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 427 times greater than their total assets"
:flushed:
 
I read that yesterday and was blown away when I saw the ratio of derivatives to actual deposits. These guys are skating on very, very thin ice. I don't imagine it would take too much to start the derivatives default cascade at this point.

If those derivatives go boom, the fallout will take generations to clear. In fact, I further believe that if the financial centers blow themselves up, and world confidence in banks is erased, that will be when it goes all to hell and we revert back to a barter system and eating grass soup.
 
I dont reckon the derivative market will be allowed to fail

the bets either net out to zero, or it wasnt a 'credit event' so no payout necessary

If they do decide to allow an event that would trigger the derivatives cascade, we can be confident it will only effect those they choose to effect.
 
Rblong2us,
The problem is that the derivatives market is too big to rescue. Period. We're talking about a system of "financial instruments" that is estimated to be between 700 trillion and 1.25 quadrillion dollars in size. If that thing collapses, and we all know that it ultimately will, there can be no saving the current system. That my friend, is why gold and silver are being hoarded away in quantities never before seen in human history. The amount of gold secreted away by sovereign governments alone is staggering. When you look at the amount of gold and silver sold to the public, and I am talking about bullion coins, sovereign coins, junk silver and ingots, that number is mind boggling as well. Harvey organ did a write-up some time ago that showed worldwide private, individual purchases of precious metals for the last thirteen years exceeded total private demand for the prior fifty years if 1979-80 and 81 were removed from the equation.

That's crazy time!

If derivatives go up in flames, we are fucked. It will be Lord of the Flies time my friend, so govern yourself accordingly.
 
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Ok its big numbers Ancona but its all just paper contracts.
A quick rule change and poof, its all gone.

I think it needs to be something unforseen that will destabilise the mighty US$
And the $ is backed by real assets as well as the worlds largest army so it could yet remain king of the heap.
 
"A quick rule change and *poof* it's all gone".

With all due respect Rblong2us, while that sounds good on paper, the problem with that is those "assets" are backed with collateral, and when the value of those derivatives falls, collateral calls must and will be made, requiring the holders of said contracts to pony up more "real" collateral such as gold, silver, cash, fungible securities, etc. That is exactly what took the system down in the first place. Now, rather than putting a cold, hard stop to the insanity, banks have become even too bigger to fail, they have doubled down on derivatives and swaps to the point where the numbers are absolutely fantastical. While the derivatives are "just paper" the underlying promises and collateral backing them is real. When that collateral has been hypothecated, and then re-hypothecated so that there are multiple claims on the same collateral pool, you have a recipe for total financial obliteration.

I would personally love to see these abominations to be outlawed, but it will never, ever happen. remember, it only takes one domino to fall and the rest come down through sheer inertia. When the first derivative gets defaulted that is when the rubber meets the road my friend. That's why Warren Buffet called them instruments of financial massz destruction, because that is precisely what they are.

At the very least, we should outlaw any bank from making any new agreements [derivatives that is] and require all existing contracts to be phased out, terminated if possible or at the very most, allow them to expire but not permit them to renew. If we had no need for these things 25 years ago, then the system should do just fine now without them.

In addition, I want to see banking returned to its roots. A bank should be nothing more than a bank. Investing, insurance, Forex, speculation of any kind should operate as any other business and do so with zero government guarantees either explicit or implicit. The same goes for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae. We need to end government subsidization of private risk.

Period.
 
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