Saturday, April 25, 2015

SAR #15115


15115
 
Just Asking: What did QE do if it didn't increase production and employment (and it didn't)? It increased the effective money supply (money is no longer the printed stuff, but computer blips) and that increase went into driving up asset prices, both equities and commodities, and driving bond prices down (which theoretically was going to cause an investment boom, but didn't). Now if we stop QE, push up interest rates and get the Fed out of the bad loan repository business, won't that – absent a “recovery”, which is really absent – cause even less production, less employment, a decrease in the money supply and thus higher interest rates and a dive in the prices of stocks and commodities along with a nasty bump in interest rates and – oh, yeah – another economic collapse? 
 
Silence Friction: China is building a series of giant floating battle stations in the South China Sea, to accompany its new international bank.

Classification: The US drone program, which has killed a few thousand innocents at various weddings and funerals and other social events, is in a lot of trouble because it killed a single American civilian. Fact is, at best the US simply thinks – thinks! - that there may be a bad guy or two among the casualties. The rest are collateral damage, much like what has happened to our reputation.

Big Boned: Repeated studies have shown that excess quantities of sugar and carbohydrates are the prime culprits in the global obesity epidemic – not physical inactivity and not sedentary lifestyles. Cheap carbs and high fructose corn syrup are the culprits, and the food manufacturers and purveyors know this and, like the tobacco companies before them, put profits above the health of their customers. 
 
First Do No Harm: The World Bank, in spreading prosperity among the world's bankers, dictators, tyrants and corporate giants, has displaced 3.4 million people in the last decade, nearly all of them poor and disenfranchised.
Bargain: In the first quarter of this year, US airlines have saved $3.4 billion on jet fuel and have passed 66 cents in savings on to the typical passenger. 
 
Coordination: Government scientists have confirmed that much of the surge in earthquake activity across the US has been caused by fracking – specifically by the disposal of the fracking waste water. Even Oklahoma has swallowed the bitter pill and acknowledged the obvious. But the same day they did, the state passed a law prohibiting cities and counties from doing anything to regulate the fracking industry. 
 
Noted: 61% of Americans support allowing gays to marry, just not in their churches nor to their daughters. 
 
Easy Crumb, Easy Go: In the petty cash department, the Pentagon can’t account for $1 billion in cash given to various military commanders as part of the Afghan victory. That's a very minor part of the cash distributed to Afghan leaders – Karzai and Klan – and hardly noticeable in the $1.6 trillion so far and $6 trillion overall that this Great Adventure will eventualy drain from the US taxpayer.

The Crime of Being Young: Sometime in the last 30 years or so, being a normal child has become a disorder requiring pharmaceuticals and restraints. How did this happen? How did childhood become a crime?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Silence Friction: Mussolini was right, Fascism did defeat Communism and Democracy. It just took the extended contact of WWII to insure the virus got a good grip on the already compromised immune systems. Mao's last gambits not only failed to prevent the infection of China, but insured the sturdiest, most virulent form of Facist gangster-ism took root.

Dick was closer to the truth in "Man in the High Castle" than he could have thought. Two victors of WWII are now at each other's throats in a battle of wills, via culture, black ops, dirty money for the ultimate control of neo-colonialism.

Anonymous said...

My original post may not be clear enough, I believe both sides are fascist, just like Dick's novel, are virulent fascist.

Gegner said...

I agree, not that it means anything. (I almost said you were correct but I can't authoritively say so, thus it remains my opinion.) The 'labels' of the great war have become meaningless, the 'war', such as it is now, is between the peasants and our self-appointed 'nobility' (although there isn't a nickle's worth of difference between today's 'Master of the Universe' and the Buccaneers of old. The robber Barons of old weren't properly punished and we are paying for it dearly today as their grandkids tear up that proverbial oyster their grandparents handed to them.

Jesse said...

Yes but the 'right people' have plenty of cheap money thanks to the Fed's QE. The better to buy up your productive assets on the cheap my dears.


"Now if we stop QE, push up interest rates and get the Fed out of the bad loan repository business, won't that – absent a “recovery”, which is really absent – cause even less production, less employment, a decrease in the money supply and thus higher interest rates and a dive in the prices of stocks and commodities along with a nasty bump in interest rates and – oh, yeah – another economic collapse? "

Blissex said...

«a lot of trouble because it killed a single American civilian»

More precisely, a white middle class one. And had it been female, even worse.

Drone attacks have killed quite a few USA citizens already, but they were brown skinned underclass ones, so either "enemy combatants" or at least irrelevant to the concerns of middle class voters.

Years ago I was suitably impressed by a point made in another blog that in the USA in particular the rights and protections of the law that someone enjoys in practice depend on their popularity, and to start with on the popularity of the group they belong to.

It is not so much racism, it is more like selfish tribalism.

Blissex said...

«How did this happen? How did childhood become a crime?»

Mothers have few children as conspicuous consumption instead of many as retirement investments and thus demand that they be "perfect" children that require little maintenance.

«asking boys to conform to a standard of behavior that in the past would have been more appropriate for girls.»

Indeed somehow ADHD almost only involves sons. Daughters get eating disorders instead.

Same source: controlling mothers who want their few children to be quiet little ladies (even their sons...).

Blissex said...

BTW as to "controlling mothers" the original article is snidely euphemistic in writing:

«Our society wants children to be restrained, orderly, and eager to please adults.»
«as a society we have decided (or at least acquiesced) to drug these annoying traits out of boys»
«parents seek medication for their kids primarily to drive them to raise their grades»

The language used here is gender neutral, but "society" and "parents" here are by and large politically correct euphemisms for "mothers" (mostly middle class).