Monday, July 27, 2009

SAR #9207


The government cannot be sued; it can be overthrown.

The Sting: In gambling, peeking at your opponent's hand tips the odds in your favor. Same thing in the stock markets, where it is apparently legal as long as Goldman Sachs is doing it.

The System: Bernanke says some 25 financial giants are too big to fail, and it isn't his job to supervise them. He just gives 'em money.

Health Reformatory: The reformed US healthcare system will consist of insurance companies that profit even more from illness, for-profit hospitals that profit even more from illness, larger than ever profits for large drug dealers companies and increased federal debt incurred in delivering more sheep to the fleecing. Health is not a right in the US, it's a profit opportunity.

Fox, Henhouse: Former Monsanto lawyer Michael Taylor has been chosen for an position overseeing food safety. He knows what to look for.

Pithy: "What's Good for Goldman is Bad for the Nation." "If the four biggest banks earned a combined $11 billion in the last quarter...who did they take the money from? Who's got that kind of money?"

Check's Not in the Mail: At least 16 states are borrowing money to pay unemployment benefits. By year's end it'll be 30. Bankers, meanwhile, get ever larger bonuses. Christmas turkey.

Quicksand: Government Sacks and Sillybank may be reporting great profits but the companies that actually make things and contribute to society are not - Caterpillar, UPS, Microsoft, 3M, TI, GE. What, me worry?

Quoted: "You cannot reform the existing financial system while leaving the political system intact. They are one and the same."

The 'Ayes' Have It: Deflation is outpacing the spread of swine flu, with the World Bank, the IMF, the Bank of Japan and the Fed's Bernanke all warning of a global deflationary spiral. Britain leads the pack, with a 5.6% GDP decline. This doesn't mean that food, energy and healthcare costs won't continue to skyrocket, even while your income falls...

Abandon All Hope... Wells Fargo will refinance your car and let you take out the equity. What equity?

Inside Straight: Futures markets long since ceased to be primarily for producers and users of various commodities and have evolved into giant crap shoots where manipulation is expected, accepted and encouraged. The only supply and demand involved is the supply of suckers demanded by the manipulators.

Things We Knew: The Fed is a Ponzi scheme.

Ante Up: The Yellow Peril turns out to be the cash China has accumulated - they're not going to conquer the world, they're going to buy it. Maybe they could turn the Pentagon into low-cost housing...

Terminator's Terms: In an attempt to provide lawyers full employment, California plans to cut funding to schools and public health programs, collect income taxes before they're due, steal local property taxes from cities and use Hollywood accounting to conjure up another $8 billion. California - The Comedy.

Fine Print: Occidental Petroleum brags it has discovered about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent hydrocarbons. (A) Most of it - 66%- is natural gas which is a drug on the US market, (B) about 40% of the actual oil will be recoverable, thus (C) they've found a little more than two days of US petroleum imports.

Faint Praise: China is downplaying the threat to the dollar's dominance as a reserve currency, saying the yuan won't replace the dollar "for at least a decade."

Hmm, Pass It On: In Great Britain parents are responsible for their children's behavior at school - or face fines and having to take care of the little hoodlums at home. What a quaint idea, parents civilizing their own kids.

Porn O'Graph: Tell me again why I should believe your denials.

See comment 1 for a vacation report.

7 comments:

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

How I spent My Vacation:

Door County is neither unique nor original. Working in the tourism business does not mean you are flexible nor that you actually like tourists. It is possible to find great stretches of the US without a MacDonald's. Serendipity is the second best thing to take on a vacation, curiosity is third. Choice of traveling companion is the deal-maker. Robins use search algorithms.

Reading: Bedtime: The Book of Dead Philosophers (Critchly), In airports: What We Leave Behind (Jensen/McBay), Waiting for Spouse: The Long Thaw (Archer), Between drinks: Lecturing Birds on Flying (Triana), Carried around untouched: Europe Between the Oceans (Cunlife).

Overheard on Boston's Freedom Trail: "Daddy, are those the buildings where the thieves work?" Boston does not have enough public toilets. Not all Italians are childless. The mafia is alive and well in Germany, where the Germans still despise the Turks.

Unemployment is 12.4% in Rhode Island, where school districts still haven't paid teachers for June or July, 15 year olds can get work permits to perform as strippers, and overpasses are crumbling. The Northeast is not nearly as obese as the Mid-south and Deep South.

A day on the water is still unbeatable. It takes more than 10 days to lose one's cynicism. Seafood is even more expensive than last year. I know it's common, but scrod is still a favorite. The popularity of boiled lobster is still a mystery - why not just slurp the drawn butter? Polenta is under-represented in the American menu.

Grown men can cry. Late Blight is decimating tomato fields throughout the Northeast, along with the potato crops. Heirloom tomato and boutique potato farmers will be on welfare this winter. Hours spent on the Internet, zero. Photographs taken @500. Sorry for any errors in post-dated postings and thanks for the notes.

ckm.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, your back

"You cannot reform the existing financial system while leaving the political system intact. They are one and the same." too right

"The government cannot be sued; it can be overthrown." three right

Now lets get down to business...I’ll storm 85 Broad St. Whose going to take capital hill and declare a provisional government?

Also I think we should start compiling a list on nominees for the committee for public safety

Anonymous said...

And the award for most obscure doom-mongering website goes to:

FreshPlaza: Global Fresh Produce and Banana News

As anyone who deals in bananas knows - things can go rotten very quickly

Anonymous said...

Health Reformatory: ...it's a profit opportunity.

I have yet to see a good analysis of US "healthcare". How much is actually Health and how much just products which turn a profit and are sold to the public like all the other shoddy crap the US Economy produces or imports? Imagine all those crappy Fords, Chryslers, Chevies as individual health treatments.
Imagine the monstrous and unsustainable Interstate Highway System as our "health system".

So, even if you have limousine health insurance, you may still end up with some treatment, procedure, drug, etc. ( or combination thereof) designed to churn out $$$$ rather than actually provide Health. Then, of course, there are the lesser quants working on those computerized systems tweaking them to provide maximum profit rather then Health. Patients are fodder for algorithms.

Maybe read Dr. Nortin Hadler (professor of Medicine, UNC), THE LAST WELL PERSON, wherein he describes the medical profession as "ethically bankrupt".

Good luck navigating through the "health" minefield. To paraphrase that old Barnum saying:
"There's a sucker dead every minute."

Anonymous said...

Fine Print: Occidental Petroleum brags it has discovered about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent hydrocarbons. (A) Most of it - 66%- is natural gas which is a drug on the US market, (B) about 40% of the actual oil will be recoverable, thus (C) they've found a little more than two days of US petroleum imports.

US taxpayer pays for Occidental's success:
http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi?sfArticleId=839

Just more proof all the Rackets are intimately connected.

OSR said...

Health is not a right in the US, it's a profit opportunity.

That's the beauty of living in Corporatocracy: Everything is a profit opportunity. Sickness, health, war, poverty, scarcity, sprawl, terrorism, etc.etc.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Anony - Re: the Occidental Pipeline citation. Great memory - hobby?
ckm