Rajesh wrote:

Only $329 billion. Now the problem is manageable.

Only because they aren't counting the real problem banks.

general concensus seems to indicate the FDIC is interested in engaging in "takings".

However, based on my internals.

I would simply submit as a failed bank, and welcome the closure by mailing myself in.

Good thing we learn as we go, continually refining mastery of the problem, testing solutions, engaging robust feedback loops of data and candid analysis, towards full and secure resolution:

saving one bank at a time means either a rescue effort mounted by one nation, despite important spillovers to neighbouring countries, or last-minute improvised coordination and agreement about fiscal burden sharing. The national responses and ad-hoc cooperative efforts to date have been useful. Yet interdependence among ... banks is too deep and too wide-spread for national responses or case-by-case coordination to be enough. Each national policy intervention and each cooperative intervention by a small number of countries can have unpredictable implications for other ... nations. It is critical that national authorities sit together and coordinate their responses, developing ... solutions where appropriate.

Seems like sensible stuff.

Unless European leaders immediately unite to address this crisis before it spirals out of control, they may find themselves fighting over how best to salvage the aftermath.

Wouldn't want that. Best get on with it then.

Open Letter to European leaders on Europe’s banking crisis: A call to action | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

From an open letter to EU leaders, October 1, 2008.

C

C,

I liked this part:

"In Europe, saving one bank at a time means either a rescue effort mounted by one nation, despite important spillovers to neighbouring countries, or last-minute improvised coordination and agreement about fiscal burden sharing. The national responses and ad-hoc cooperative efforts to date have been useful. Yet interdependence among European banks is too deep and too wide-spread for national responses or case-by-case coordination to be enough"

What are the odds of that happening? That "Open Letter" was written in Oct 08

I posted The New Poor
 - Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs
 on previous thread and was promptly

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

**As I was reading it I continued to think of the $12 Trillion handed to Wall St and rater than putting it to more productive uses for jobs and the economy.

We may be seeing more of this for REAL !**

Apologies.

I kind of think that this may happen too slowly for people to piece together. They may be unemployed, but there will be a slow grind mitigated in spurts by ad hoc (word of the day) government programs to address the problem. They'll despair, think it is getting better, despair, think it is getting better... At least that is what TPTB are counting on... By the time people understand that we never actually recovered, we'll probably be in another crisis.

No Citi. No Wells Fargo. No credibility.

Anyone made a graph of the number of surferdude's problem banks over time?

Castor

Until they get to trillion it really doesn't mean a thing and yes to those that mention the big kids Right ON. My little bank still has a A- rating but then again I don't have any money.

F%$k the banks. F%$k the governments.

The currency crisis can only be solved by the people. Garage tinkerers like Craig of craigslist, broward, Paul Grignon....

Indeed. Part of what will make this interesting is that people are looking for something to believe in now...

If someone tries to buy craigslist (E-bay owns 25%) and leverage a profit, Craig can always start Joe's list and steal it back.

Fed ponzi is OVER.

Well crap I left a whole bunch of replies after the pig - but it was because of a delicious dinner of bbq'd lamb from New Zealand...

For those of you who are still looking at ads, please see Firefox and AdBlock Plus, and how to use a hosts file...
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File

Transportation commentary:

Halfway to Nowhere - Editorial Commentary - Thomas G. Donlan - Barrons.com

Selected quotes:

"Amtrak also offers a moderately rapid facsimile of high-speed rail service on a line it mostly owns, running between Washington and Boston with many intermediate stops. This Acela train is reckoned a technological success. It can do the Washington to New York run in a scheduled two hours and 45 minutes -- almost as fast as the Metroliner service inaugurated by the Penn Central Railroad in 1969."

"The law of political advantage also suggests strongly that many federal investments in transportation infrastructure won't be profitable at all. President Obama recently spread $8 billion in federal stimulus money over 13 passenger-rail projects in 31 states rather than investing in one that has a chance of economic success."

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

I wish he would socialize some of the profits.

There are no profits. Perhaps you meant socialize some of the accounting gimmicks.

well, mr sm_landlord.

the one Im watching is the Coos Bay rail line to Southern Oregon for liquified natural gas.

"I think he is too smart to be a muslim or a communist"

I've met some pretty smart muslims and communists. Geesh...

poic wrote:

I've met some pretty smart muslims and communists.

....but then you're "labeled"....

I dont know if he has any real beliefs - I think he is too smart to be a

"Smart" as in "smartass", right?

km4,

I replied to your link and comment, but, alas, it was well after the appeared.

I've now read it in full (and also grilled up a couple burgers) and it's pretty depressing, not so much for the human interest stories (they're always depressing), but rather for what appears to be the historical march of technology.

With no snark intended, The Unofficial Problem Bank List is actually a good example of something that would have taken more than a few people to organize and update and type back in the day when I first entered the workforce. With current technology, it can be "updated" rather easily.

I'm not dissing the list or its author. We just don't need as many bodies to do that kind of work these days.

There are no profits. Perhaps you meant socialize some of the accounting gimmicks.

Yep. JPM wrote a huge profit. Jamie Dimon took a huge bonus.
The NY Fed wrote a huge loss, via Maiden Lane/Bear Stearns/ JPM.

Jamie Dimon sits on the board of the NY Fed. Obama knows him, calls him a savvy businessman in the "free market".

The outrage fatigue is chronic, but eventually it causes crisis.

Taxpayers on the hook for $1 trillion in retiree benefits? - Feb. 18, 2010

Just as they are contending with massive gaps in their operating budgets, states and localities must also deal with a $1 trillion deficit in public employees' retirement benefits' funds, a new report found.

The shortfall amounts to more than $8,800 for every household in the nation

Payday is coming.

If they are so smart they will rise above their beliefs...

If they are idiots, they will sink below their beliefs...

crazyv wrote:

health care costs so much because we use so much of it

Insurance is part of the problem. If everyone had to write a check for all their healthcare, they would probably not use as much, and also they would get more value for their payments than they do through insurance. What if there was food insurance - pay one price, eat all you want... Everyone would be at the buffet until they burst... Why is plastic surgery so cheap compared to other surgery? Because you cant buy plastic surgery insurance...

Nevertheless, the medical science is progressing and the population will benefit from it by a longer and healthier life span - at a price...

The biggest problem I see is the lack of real stimulus to long term projects.

The root of that problem is quite frankly short term thinking. The Obama administration could afford a moonbase- it is not like it will crowd out employment in the US. We a have a ton of long term big ticket items that could be done if the willpower was put into design and execution. I would be negotiating the end of more than half of our foreign bases, and using the money to support finishing the war, and building infrastructure, real infrastructure, not just another redo of a freeway.

Someday this war's gonna end...

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

If they are idiots, they will sink below their beliefs...

Well I dont disagree with you - since we have been on here for a few years together I have come to appreciate your views - I just dont want to start any flame wars by calling anyone an idiot... Not only that, but I consider that I dont know everything and if you can convince by actual evidence then I will probably change my position... I'm still thinking about the global currency...

The best global currency will most likely be uranium and oil. Fungible, easy to transport, and usable for power. Everything else is harder to transport across the oceans.

I would gladly bank in grams of uranium, and barrels of oil. Everything else is just a proxy if you think about it. That would be true future wealth, usable at any date.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Rajesh wrote:

There is no shortage of work. There is only a shortage of vision and will.

I thought I'd carry this discussion forward. From my perspective this is a huge oversimplification with the intent of sweeping the problem under the rug.

The portion of human labor in the production process is becoming ever smaller. I'll again post the Wolff chart.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/ee947bb285.png

You can on the one hand interpret it politically, i.e. increased productivity without growing wages are the result of unions losing their power. I think that is a valid point but ignores the fact that human labor/human ability is losing its standing and importance in the overall production process.

To say that "We're a bunch of people sitting around a restaurant starving because no one want to order first and have to pick up the check" is ignoring the reality that average human intelligence is starting to lose its race against Moore's law. These developments are happening at the margins but just like everywhere else that's where the pricing action takes place. We are watching the commoditization of human labor, echelon by echelon.

km4 wrote:

my main point is what's despicable is the non stop lies and spin interleaved with Hopium from Wash DC and the MSM because many of these hardworking Americans like Ms. Booth and Eisen appear to be relatively honest hardworking people but they cannot discern fact or fiction from these assclowns.

Okay, I guess I'm as attuned to you with regard to the lies and spin. I don't pay attention to TV 'news' because it's pablum and even Yahoo, which I've used since I first got on the internet, has mindless nonsense complete with photos on the top of its 'news' section.

I certainly agree it's a tragedy that Ms. Booth and Ms. Eisen find themselves in their current predicament . . . and I certainly would not wish to join them there . . . but I put the problem squarely on the people who left Washington about a year ago, not the people who are there today.

Edit: Sorry, that line should have read: "Okay, I guess I'm not as attuned as you with regard to the lies and spin."

AllenM,

The changes you are proposing generally require Congressional action. I don't see any Congressional action.

RE wrote:

human intelligence is starting to lose its race against Moore's law

It's quite possible that we are in the transition phase to a time when there is no real work and everyone gets a 'monthly allowance' and the machines do all the work... I dont have a household robot yet but I would welcome that... So then everyone, even politicians, the rich and connected, everyone would have equal income and access to all assets, and the price of everything would be determined by the cost of production and relative scarcity... But I think in that scenario the standard of living would be much higher than today, and with no drudgery work by any human... it's achievable, but only if all humans give up the idea that they can live better than others... particularly politicians... we would need no politicians in the automated society...

That is because Congress has degenerated into a talking point debate of seven seconds.

Leadership would require buying enough R votes to get it done by locating factories and repair facilities. Look at how Sam Rayburn did it. Punish and reward. Jobs are votes. In this case, the ends will definitely justify the means.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Sardonic wrote:

bank list is getting too long

I appreciate the problem bank list - makes it easy for me to check to see if any bank stocks I own are on the list - or if I was interested in buying into any banks now - not.....

Shadow, the respect is mutual. Lawyers are trained to advocate for the devil. In a roomful of communists, I'd probably stand up for the market.

I never put much faith in Obama, partly BECAUSE he doesn't seem to have any beliefs. I respect flip-floppers who learn from new information. If you change parties just because it might increase your power, like Bloomberg, Specter, you must always overcome .

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Where did the taxes get cut?

It's own special box on the 1040.

sportsfan wrote:

I actually am beginning to resent the unemployment benefit extensions

Sporty we have argued intensely in the past, and I see that we are moving to consensus... Same thing with you Currency-Yogi...

mp wrote:

Obama is now just as culpable as Bush.

I can see where some believe that. I don't. I think he is trying to dig out of a mess of historic proportions.

Does that mean I agree with every decision or statement or appointment he has made? Of course not.

ShadowInventory wrote:

I dont have a household robot yet but I would welcome that...

We just put our roomba up for sale...

sportsfan wrote:

I think he is trying to dig out of a mess of historic proportions.

I'll believe that when he stops digging (and stops shoveling money into Wall Street). Actions speak louder than words, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt on his words when I voted for him.

I appreciate the list too. Just commenting that it actually takes a long time to actually scroll through.

sportsfan wrote:

dig out of a mess

I think that either the US has to default on the federal debt or pay it off.... I dont see how we can pay it off, even with the most disciplined congress and electorate - I can just see Bevis and Butthead - "Snork - he said pay off the federal debt - snork snork"... So we are looking at an eventual default - or a step change to a new system somehow... But I think Broward is correct that the amount of available work is going to be steadily decreasing and whenever the smart robots take over then there will have to be a system of regular payments to all citizens and pricing to be determined by auction, with controls to prevent some people from getting more than their fair share .....

Citizen AllenM wrote:

Leadership would require buying enough R votes to get it done by locating factories and repair facilities. Look at how Sam Rayburn did it. Punish and reward

We're way beyond anything from that era. Look at Boehner's portion of the "talking point debate of seven seconds" when it comes to Obama deciding to appoint a Deficit Reduction Commission after the statutory process failed in the Senate because it only had 53 aye votes and everyone knows the Constitution requires 60.

ShadowInventory wrote:

I think that either the US has to default on the federal debt or pay it off.

That's why hyperinflation is inevitable. It's the only politically palatable way to do it.

ShadowInventory wrote:

Oh - but a loaf of bread at $100 - uh - not sure I want THAT....

In hyperinflation, a $100 loaf of bread would be a genuine bargain.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

That's why hyperinflation is inevitable. It's the only politically palatable way to do it.

That's why I am allocating capital to inflation protection rather than productive purposes. You can't have it both ways when your government is completely irresponsible.

Shadow,

We're all different people, only a small portion of which gets expressed on this blog, and, while we may again argue intensely in the future, there have always been areas in which there is little difference in our respective opinions.

Respect +1 Sporty

sm_landlord wrote:

That's why I am allocating capital to inflation protection rather than productive purposes. You can't have it both ways when your government is completely irresponsible.

You and I have to disagree here, even though you may be correct.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

I'll believe that when he stops digging (and stops shoveling money into Wall Street).

TJ, seriously, what money is being shoveled into Wall Street by the Administraiton?

sportsfan,
The cozy foolish senate is being shook up, and will resemble the senate that kept the dems in power for the thirty years after 1936. The party of No has to have much lower unemployment to get away with no. Otherwise anger will overtake them from the lack of progress. Plus the hollowing from the tea party right end, which does not have a lot of comfortable thoughts for the business republican. I am watching here in Arizona, and the Republican party is fracturing. The primary will be a very telling moment with a conservative governor losing her primary to an even more conservative republican with definite tea party endorsement- the current Treasurer. That will be potentially fatal at the general election.

When the primary results in unelectable winners, well, you don't have much of party.

Someday this war's gonna end...

Inflation will only help if real wages go up. They won't this time and job loss will be overwhelming. Problem comes back to we make little and import to much. Green energy will never happen as long a oil produces $2.2T in reserve dollars every year.

mp wrote:

You and I have to disagree here, even though you may be correct.

I didn't say say I was allocating everything to inflation protection. I just don't want to end up surviving on cat food.

I guess I'm not sure where we disagree. Are you all in on allocating capital to production?

sm_landlord wrote:

I guess I'm not sure where we disagree. Are you all in on allocating capital to production?

We may not disagree. It could be a nuance.

Yogi,

The tax cut was sounding like one since O was calling the shots not Bush.

Make you feel better I will be paying more this season.

sportsfan wrote:

With 'serious inflation' rather than hyperinflation, I completely agree.

Either way, that kind of policy response would savage the elderly.

If they hyperinflated you'd end up living in Munger's "Sorrowland."

Same destination, different road.

What would be the point of it?

sportsfan wrote:

(I did it once - Summer of 1970. Haven't received an unemployment check since.)

I could have taken unemployment in 1991. When I found out it was taxable, I took 3 months off to think about it, then started my own new business in order to opt out of the madness. What I found, unfortunately, was a different kind of madness. But I'm pretty happy that I made the change. I guess I just reacted badly to the idea that "unemployment insurance" turned out to be a government scam.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Inflation will only help if real wages go up. They won't this time and job loss will be overwhelming . . .

Inflation will benefit the government dealing with its debt. It won't necessarily benefit anyone else other than those who see it coming and can do something about it. For the vast majority, living standards are coming way down.

sm_landlord wrote:
I guess I just reacted badly to the idea that "unemployment insurance" turned out to be a government scam.
Just another government scam, you mean

sportsfan wrote:

As for the rest, it sounds a little Utopian . . . and I was well through that period in the 1970s.

mp, the 70s were a long time ago. Technology has moved along quite a ways. In vitro fertilization and its derivatives, as an exmaple, are getting quite common. A friend of mine chose as many characteristics of his future child as could be reasonably determined and, in fact, even terminated a viable triplett because, based on his research, twins on average have a lower IQ. Just a sample of what is possible today.

sportsfan wrote:

Inflation will benefit the government dealing with its debt. It won't necessarily benefit anyone else other than those who see it coming and can do something about it. For the vast majority, living standards are coming way down.

Yes I agree on paper it works but the public is not prepared nor able to stomach it. The public doesn't have saving like the Volker years and more of a manufacturing economy, unlike the consumer one we have now. I have doubts it will work.

RE wrote:

mp, the 70s were a long time ago.

Not me, RE.

Don't know what you're referring to.

sportsfan wrote:

the average length of unemployment seems to be about one or two weeks less than the available weeks of unemployment benefits.

UE benifits are so low I don't see how anyone can live on that. How does one pay rent, food, car payment, insurance, utilities on what is usually 1/4 of what they were earning? I just don't see how that works.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Yes I agree on paper it works but the public is not prepared nor able to stomach it.

They won't have a chance to vote on that one. It will just be forced upon all of us. Some will deal with it better than others.

There is a difference between what is desirable, what is possible, and what is politically feasible...

What always amazes me is that after the candidates get elected and have a chance to make a historical difference that they exhibit the worst qualities of greed in humanity...

I still think that the only way out is through austerity, but no politician will be willing to sign on to that... and most of the electorate will not support it either...

josap wrote:

UE benifits are so low I don't see how anyone can live on that. How does one pay rent, food, car payment, insurance, utilities on what is usually 1/4 of what they were earning? I just don't see how that works.

This IMO is a red herring. How many stories like this have we read recently. People are desperate for jobs.

More than 500 people apply for jobs at new restaurant - News - Standard Speaker

ShadowInventory wrote:
I still think that the only way out is through austerity, but no politician will be willing to sign on to that... and most of the electorate will not support it either
Nope. We are still fully in an entitlement/free mythical mindset. Only pain and systemic failures can break the spell.

Unemployment keeps people from starving, and
a good number get some underthetable money or
help from relatives.

I begrudge none of them any of it.

What ever direction they take us the pill will be bitter and most will lead to unrest unless they change the path they are on. May be to late with all the current debt wasted tail chasing.

Citizen AllenM wrote:

Actually, large scale inflation would penalize the crap out of this current government. Higher inflation would yield much higher interest payments. We should be running our debt out the curve though.

But we aren't, so far. Running out the curve would be seen as acknowledging that we intend to screw the bondholders, no?

Our economy requires a minimum level of inflation to move the economy forward. Without that inflation, we start rapidly collapsing, like what we have now.

Agreed, as long as the economy is growing. Which it is not. Given growth, some amount of inflation is necessary and vital. We have no growth presently. (sorry to state the obvious).

The collapse is a very bad outcome. That is GD2, if left unchecked. The hard money folks around here think that would be a panacea, because they have a bunch of hard money. The rest of the country would not put up with that level of suffering without going totally tea bag and fascist the next week.

Us hard money folks would not be pleased to see hyperinflation, as there is no real protection from that. Speaking only for myself, I just want a diet that does not include cat food and maybe some mobility and security. The teabaggers would like a sane government, something that they will (IMHO) be waiting a long time for.

Jonathan wrote:

My wife is up to 100 resumes now, applying for the secretary job at her office.

That says it all. For a secretary job....

Aaaarrrghhh. A secretary's job is not anything to scorn RE.

Does count asfood?

And I might add that if we all blocked ads CR wouldn't get
necessary money.

Altho the coffin/Neptune society ad was weird.

Is someone ing me?

[Sorry, took a break to eat dinner...]

"High Inflation" is not an option given our circumstances; any attempt to foster such will result in hyperinflation.

It's not "The 70's Show"; we don't have the capacity to have one without engendering the other. Too much debt, too much dependence, too much slack. Think it through, folks, think it through... I have for years now and I always come to the same conclusion.

sportsfan wrote:

I thought broward's take, as expressed above by another commenter, was that, in effect, we will all be working less and receiving an allowance of some sort, all of which struck me as rather Utopian, which I identified as a phase I passed through in my life in the early to mid 1970s.

Sorry, I missed that and I also don't expect the allowance outcome. As expressed here a few times in the past, I expect "one man one vote" to die first. The rest is captured and eluded to in my "I don't think human nature will allow that. So my future vision is much darker" post.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

All the planning and thinking does nothing but string out the days.

Hoops, sounds like you have the makings of an alternative American Apocalypse.

Hoops you quit a job, right? I can relate to the feeling that "I have to get out of here, they are killing me!"...

So - how about getting your hands dirty?

Hoops, as your mind flies by

YouTube - Rare Bird - 04 - I'm Thinking

One of the brilliant, progressive and unknown songs from the early 70s.

sm_landlord wrote:

one of my companies offers is a special DNS service that blocks all known advertising servers

Cool!!! See - now that is MY AMERICA!!! Dont let the door hit you in the ass.....

Updated my hosts file from MVP.....

Hoopajoops, that's not you, though it may well be many.

You start a business and it fails...
You start another business and it fails...
You start a third business and it fails...
You realize what you are doing wrong...
Something that you thought was just a lark takes off and succeeds beyond your imagination...
Wikipedia creator had lots of earlier failures

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

This Rare Bird is pretty sweet.

Just about total unknowns but real gems. Listen to the next two tracks if you like it (Flight).

Love that organ in Rare Bird....

sportsfan wrote:

Good stoner music.

Yes, it stems from that time. But it is a musician's band.

Somebody posted charles hugh smith: writer/designer this AM and read for the first time.

Actually agree with a fair amount and some is akin to what I've been telling my own kids. Someday, they'll come home to visit and find their old man taking bong hits and cussin' at the president.

Hold on to your hats, we have maybe two weeks and the shit hits the fan. Did I say two weeks I ment two months, no wait two years. Oh shit, we are there!

Gonna watch the Women's SuperG. I like speed . . . even if it's not a little red Corvette.

Later

YouTube - Genesis - The Fountain of Salmacis

Hoops, sounds like you have the makings of an alternative American Apocalypse.

I'd like to write it, or something like it, and for that reason, I never really read nova's (sorry nova!), but I am having trouble composing anything longer than some good, quippy blog posts on hoocoodanode.

Bad Dawg Bobby wrote:

Hold on to your hats, we have maybe two weeks and the shit hits the fan. Did I say two weeks I ment two months, no wait two years. Oh shit, we are there!

Is that an example of "Meaning Nothing" in the modern context?

stand up might be interesting. That's a pretty good idea.

sportsfan wrote:

I'm not a musician, just a former stoner.

I'm both...

RE wrote:

I'm both...

And my Minimoog just came back from repair. I'm about to break out the sequencer. You'll all be sorry....

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

I am having trouble composing anything longer than some good, quippy blog posts on hoocoodanode.

The short ones are harder. No hiding behind the verbiage.

sportsfan wrote:

I completely agree with broward's take. That was my take on the NY Times article from km4 and Bond Girl.

As for the rest, it sounds a little Utopian . . . and I was well through that period in the 1970s.

Broward is wrong - there is an infinite amount of work - always was and always will be - just not always enough 'demand' for the 'products' that 'work' produces. But that requires considering 'performance art' and other non-traditional activities as 'work'... and then find a 'way' for them to be 'compensated'.

sm_landlord wrote:

And my Minimoog just came back from repair. I'm about to break out the sequencer. You'll all be sorry....

Oh the Minimoog memories! You still got a Mellotron?

FerFal's blog is interesting to dip into every so often.

SURVIVING IN ARGENTINA: Buying meat in Argentina.... only for the rich and powerful.

Might be a glimpse of the future. At some point, the natural US militancy present in the population is going to have to assert itself.

mp wrote:

Dryfly!

Hello mp - thought about you this week while walking canyons of huge horizontal machining centers [big Okuma's]... dozens of them with multiple tombstone pallet changers. Chips flying everywhere inside the 'box' of course... almost no people required. It wasn't quite lights out but very close.

It's semantic. There is a finite amount of work that can be produced, although the human imagination is unlimited.

"Work is finite" means that under usual circumstances, the amount of labor/time needed to produce a given amount of protein shrinks.

sm_landlord wrote:

I hate tape. But I'm considering buying an old Akai sampler someplace.

No love for tape but I loved the instrument though it was quite difficult to play because it uses tape. My primary instrument was the bass. Got lots of Akai samples, too. Just about everything I do today is on Cakewalk with lots of VSTs and DXIs and an old Korg DS-8 as a MIDI controller.

The short ones are harder. No hiding behind the verbiage.

You can always smoke out a liberal because his sentences are long, his ideas are "complex," and he uses big words and big arguments to give him enough rope to twist the truth. His "nuanced," confusing arguments allow him to fool the common man and to hide the fact that his political views are born of his closeted sexual deviancy, or from some other hidden physical, mental, or spiritual deformity or derrangement. Yet even in his twisted, diseased state, the liberal is intoxicated with his own intelligence, and holds the illusion that he is above the Common Man. He feels his twisted words hold truths that should be obscured from the Common Man, for his own good.

Conversely, real, strong Americans can express their every thought with simple words and simple sentences, because the truth doesn't need embellishment or qualifications. The truth should be clear on its face to anyone, even a child. The simplest people are the most honest, and the least likely to be confused by the pervert liberal's trickery. The common man says it like he sees it; the first impression is usually the right one. Gut reactions are the most honest. The only reason someone tells you to study an issue for longer than a few minutes is to wind out enough rope to set up a trick or a con.

So go with your gut. Remember, pithiness is for patriots, and paragraphs are for perverts.

Hoops - an Ayn Rand for socialists would be a block buster - but before you do make sure you 'visit' the concepts of 'small socialism' as opposed to big [gov't sponsored] socialism. I've know folks who founded & worked in co-ops in the 60s that held together for over 30 years - providing income & security for the worker-members. They loved it. They also distrusted gov't as much as any tea bagger right winger randroid I've even met and for all the same reasons.

I'm surprised more people don't do it today.

dryfly wrote:

I'm surprised more people don't do it today.

Aren't you basically describing the Amish and/or Mennonites?

TJ and The Bear wrote:

Earlier I'd asked whether Conjure had considered a Mad Max Clock for Europe.

I saw that. It's a very good idea, but Conjure is reluctant.

"Those shiftless Mennonites..."

---Marge Simpson

sm_landlord wrote:

Rob Dawg wrote:
"No, she doesn't come with the barn."
Sorry, you lost me.

See the 94 acre farm in Santa Paula on my blog. It's okay. Whether you got the inside joke or not it still proves my point about the necessity for shared context.

So go with your gut. Remember, pithiness is for patriots, and paragraphs are for perverts.

That was all sorts of awesome, hoops. Whatever your smoking right now, quit bogarting.

noob goldberg wrote:

Whatever your smoking right now, quit bogarting.

Existential Question: Is it possible to not bogart on a blog?

Inquiring minds want to ... whatever.

Went on a bit there, Hoops. Came right at the end. Memorable.

C

Existential Question: Is it possible to not bogart on a blog?

Physically, no, at least until teleporters are invented.

But I'm keenly interested in the source of hoop's artificial inspiration.

It's definitely not glue and gasoline. I can tell you those are dead end roads.

But the argument becomes circular. How do you measure something as subjective as "demand" (likewise, "value", "equilibrium", etc.)?

Everyone demands a mansion and a yacht. If we label the price for solid gold yachts in the trillions, demand, consumption, GDP could ear to be rising even as the majority suffers in "real" terms.

noob goldberg wrote:

It's definitely not glue and gasoline. I can tell you those are dead end roads.

No, I'm thinking Hoops has the good shit. What ever that is. Peeps in his sit tend to find it.

mp wrote:

Romi, from Brazil, made a hostile offer for the whole kit and kaboodle after Hardinge stopped taking orders for Bridgeports.

Wow. There really aren't any decent American machine tool makers left - Haas's are toys compared to Okuma's & Mazak's & Makino's & Toyoda's - etc.

RE wrote:

This plays out on the Internet everyday. Services that were very rewarding only a few years ago are completely commoditized today. To make a economically viable contribution is becoming ever more demanding.

I have a couple of proposals in front of me for service businesses. I'm trying to figure out if they are unique enough to work. I can't tell. I hate this.

Edit:

That's true liberal argument are part real and part imaginary,

Absolutely. Conservative argument is most assuredly the opposite.

Put another way, the aggregate sum of human work is finite, as is the number of specie dollars, without outright printing. So net wealth can not be grown by higher wages, only by shorter hours or more goods produced, all else equal.

Printing currency doesn't grow net wealth, only nominal prices, profits or wages.

Oh Dawgie your bloggie is going to get a rating from the MPAA.... Bwahhhhhhhh - that is one nice barn ornament.....

dryfly wrote:

Much of that requires a lot of savvy & creativity and was until recently still domestic. I fear that too is slipping - I know almost no one in their 20s-30s who is following that path. Most all the good toolmakers I know are gray hairs. It too will all be done in Asia in another generation unless something changes.

Yes. Well, we're trying to keep it--something--alive. Also, few realize that machine tools are fitted by hand and those guys are dying out as well. It won't be long before we'll have to go overseas to learn how to build machine tools.

mp wrote:

Yes. Well, we're trying to keep it--something--alive. Also, few realize that machine tools are fitted by hand and those guys are dying out as well. It won't be long before we'll have to go overseas to learn how to build machine tools.

They won't be as stupid as we were. They won't teach us.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

You're truly talking about America ceding it's independence.

Well, yeah.

But they might let us run the machines they build & 'tool up' here - if we work for them cheap enough.

With that pleasant thought...

Co-operative business still thrive:
Running a Business With 26 CEOs | Small Business Q&A | East Bay Express

mp wrote:

Well, yeah.

I'm not sure everyone grasps the context here, though. By ceding our independence in machining we're ceding it everywhere else, too.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

By ceding our independence in machining we're ceding it everywhere else, too.

Yes. Of course.

British Empire endgame except 5x as fast.

Maybe we need to subsidize machinists the way we've protected farmers-- for national security.

I'll be buying a bamboo bicycle, from a guy who shows Africans how to make cheap bamboo bicycles. More cheap bicycles in Africa makes me wealthier, via the trickle-down effect of shrinking work.

More than once I've talked with men in the machining business whose eyes begin to water over. These are not "emotional" people. Many are veterans, some have served in combat. Their reactions are the same.

They can't believe what's happening. To them, and to the country.

Sometimes it makes me ill and I feel like vomiting.

Sometimes I do.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

Whatever happened to the DoD requirements that not only do critical technologies & capabilities exist domestically but that they have at least two sources???

It just spawned procurement shell vendors which accelerated the trend toward single mfg suppliers.

The US industrial base, which so masterfully provided the US military with the tools required to win every conflict since World War I, is no longer prepared to meet the emergency requirements of US Army Aviation. Already short aircraft due to previous decisions, the army now has to wait, from contract award, 18 months for delivery of a UH-60, 28 months for an AH-64 and 34 months for delivery of a CH-47.

"Army Aviation Needs Him Now: Where's Billy Mitchell?" Lt. Col. Robert E. Grigsby, USA
Published by US Army War College, March 26, 2008

TJ and The Bear wrote:

I'm beginning to wonder about that now...

I don't know how to reply to you and it is probably better if I didn't.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

I'm sure it's even more difficult with son of mp.

Yes. Yes, it is. We talk about it endlessly.

TJ and The Bear wrote:

I'm going to fire up MW2

MW2? What's that?

maybe they gambled their future... and lost.

Where's Billy Mitchell?

[crickets]

In 1924 ...Mitchell predicted that the next war would be with Japan, that Japan would attack the American fleet at Pearl Harbor without warning and without a declaration of war while negotiating peace, and that the next war would be one between airplanes and submarines, with the surface fleet being subordinated to the role of transporting Army troops and supplies. All that he theorized came true just 15 years later.

William "Billy" Mitchell (1879 - 1936) - Find A Grave Memorial

[crickets]

More likely, as wages collapsed in the statue business, there were loud cries of, "Peak trees??!! Fell, baby, fell. You tree huggers are anti the Easter Island Way. "

Oh, for fucks sake all of a sudden we're weeping for the death of American manufacturing? It's been dead for over a decade. This POTUS was handed the biggest shit sandwich since FDR. Has he been perfect? Hell no. Has he been better than what are alternative was? Yes. Period. It is OUR fucking job to get off our asses and make him do what he has to do. Just like the people did with FDR. He can't do it alone. Sitting at home blogging ain't gonna get it. I deal with enough stupid at work...you guys are better than this.

Dude,,.

Ok, I'll bite. I just read this and it reminded me of a quite fundamental geopolitical development, if not conscious decision:

General Alexander Haig, Former Secretary of State, Dies at 85 - Bloomberg.com

Last line or so, Al Haig wrote a book in 92, Inner Circles: How America Changed the World. It was already getting a bit misty and nostalgic by then. The era of having massive manufacturing capacity securely inside the lower 48, for reasons of nat security, had gone by the 90s. The subordinate option of having at least the strategic capability stretched across a supply chain of allies was also breaking down. Post Cold War, there was no apparent reason for it to continue. It didn't. The policy drift has been apparent for at least ten years, masked, suppressed or ignored by the last couple of credit bubbles. Wondering what the effing hell happened to mfg is all a part of post-Crash shock. Some manic depression musing is hardly surprising.

What anyone actually does about it is another thing. Far more interesting, ultimately.

C

If we ever run out of skilled machinists, we can always annex cuba.

The process of consolidation is unnerving.

Nonetheless we move on. Lots happening here in materials science and genetics. Game changers in the making.

OT:

America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. - runs so perfectly counter to Alexis de Tocqueville's estimation of democracy in America that I am not surprised to learn he never wrote it. In point of fact, he was startlingly good at recognizing bedrock traits still operative today, and repays reading.

ShadowInventory wrote:

Insurance is part of the problem. If everyone had to write a check for all their healthcare, they would probably not use as much,

Shadow- I actually do agree with you that insurance is part of the problem. In fact many years ago a benefit manager at a major employer was telling me that in his opinion on of the big problems of HMO's was that they delinked cost from service. In the old days you had to pay for the doctor - saw the full amount of the bill - and then had to seek reimbursement. With an HMO people got to thinking that the cost of a doctor visit was the $10 or $20 payment made.

But my main point remains. We will not solve this problem until we recognize that health care costs so much because we consume so much of it.

here in Bangkok I checked the action at Siam Square yesterday. didn't see much action around the high end shops like Armani, Chanel, Cartier, Dolce, Bulgari, Bottega Vennetta, to name a few, on a nice Sat afternoon.
...
did finally see Avatar on an IMAX screen. for what it is it was well done, hats off to Cameron
but I do have some reservations. he made the same mistake that cost Steinbeck greatness with 'Grapes..',
made the bad guys way too one dimensional.
and my monkey -
you know the one that has appeared in innumerable Duke vid mash-ups on YouTube
and bares an uncanny resemblance to Bernanke?
he wonders why the tails on the Na'vi seem to have no apparent purpose except perhaps
as the Bard might jest to cover their bungholes.

bearly wrote:

I wonder if they had gambling on Easter Island. That would explain the mystery!

nope they did exactly what we are doing- as things got worse they worshiped the same things with even greater ferocity.

Let me submit that the root of of our problems is the cult of "American Exceptionalism". The vapid chanting of we are No 1. It is only because we believe that the average American is smarter and more capable than the average Joe in other countries that we can persist with the policies that we are following. Once you get past that point and acknowledge that the average American isn't smarter or more capable , that once the average Joe overseas has access to the same technology and capital that the American Joe has they will be able to out compete because of regulatory arbitrage and lower wages.

good morning everybody

crazyv wrote:
Let me submit that the root of of our problems is the cult of "American Exceptionalism"
By the time near the end of the empire, the Pax Romana was all Rome really had left - its primary export was culture, which is to say that its primary export became its glorying in its own (former) superiority. Extended in too many directions, weakened by too many wars, forced to hire mercenary soldiers to hold its fading but sprawling empire together, and its government corrupted by mercantilist interests, the lawmaking body made a fat, happy and docile privileged class.