Thursday, January 7, 2016

SAR #16007


The right to bear arms should never trump the right to live. Anthea Butler
Pants On Fire: Despite Mr. Trump's claims and his inability to tell North Africa from South Texas, since 2009 more Mexican immigrants have snuck out of the US than have snuck in.
Test Case: “It occurs to me that the best move right now, for everyone else, is for (unarmed) groups of blacks, Muslims, and OWS-types to go occupy a federal building near them. Right now. Mirror the wingnuts, except without weapons, and peaceful but firm, and without secession threats but rather calls for justice and sanity.” [HT: McMike in 'Comments', SAR 16006]
Call Me In The Morning: Apple is scaling back its production of the latest versions of the iPhone by 30% for the first quarter. Sales apparently haven't matched projections. The last time this happened, back in 2013 with the 5C model, Apple shares fell over 50%. Watch and learn.
Good Hands: Cars now come equipped with sensors that record (and can transmit- but only if you agree, they say) nearly everything you do; how fast you accelerate, how sharply you brake, how fast you are going (and they can compare that to the posted speeds), where you go (and how often you park in front of a bar), how far you drive and when. And your insurance company wants you to send them that information. For your own good, they say.
All Ye Need Know: Politics is all about money. Even in the Middle East. Or, rather, especially in the Middle East.
War Chests: Why are the Republican wannabes backing Saudi Arabia in its confrontation with Iran? 1) They're in favor of war, anywhere, anytime. 2) They want to punish Iran for Obama's nuclear treaty. 3) Israel. 4) Money. And the answer is 'all of the above', but 'money from American Jews' gets full credit..
You Pays Your Money, Or Not: Bloomberg reports that new car sales in the US in December were “down, exceptionally weak.” Over at the WSJ, the same car sales for the same period were seen as “up and strong.”
Self-determination, Not self-delusion: The only way a sovereign people can control their destiny within a sovereign nation is for that nation to control its own money. That lets out every member of the eurozone. Ask a Greek. Or the people of Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.
A Parting Shot:

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

War = Money: Money, or anything fungible enough to be it's proxy, and which is just as easily moved from the 99% to the 0.01%

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/one-map-that-explains-the-dangerous-saudi-iranian-conflict/

McMike said...

re Saudis. Also, the Saudis remain our one stable, relatively secure, and dependable source of oil access and airbases.

Even though the Saudis sent kids over to bomb our planes and buildings, and despite periodic OPEC collusion meddling, when you survey the middle east - particularly through a Reaganite cold war "friendly dictator" proxy lens - the Saudis are still the best option among all the bad options. They may be, in fact, the last of the old school cold war model dictatorship client state relationships we have.

Besides, we tried cutting out the middle man with Iraq, and look how miserably that turned out.

So, the GOP clings to the Saudis. I can almost hear Kissinger croaking his approval.

McMike said...

Stumbled on this.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a18812/pogojet-non-lethal-gun/?click=taboola

Good to know our best enterprising minds are working on better ways to keep the rabble in line.

Gegner said...

If we use he fact that they can keep the economy from crashing indefinitely [due to all money being funny] which is to say 'by rights' the economy should have collapsed decades ago but it hasn't (mostly for reasons nobody can explain!)

So far they have miraculously avoided 'food riots' (despite every local food pantry in the nation being in 'crisis mode' since the collapse of the housing market...so something is keeping them supplied.)

Naturally, when you eviscerate your customer base by shipping all the work to the ficticious 'cheaper there', it is no surprise that conventionally trained pundits are whispering, sotto voce, stock market collapse.

Just as interesting is how you can no longer find 5% interest on a regular saving account anymore due to the advent of the 'billionaires'. I haven't done the math but the amount would be staggering, even on a daily basis (and we don't have the economic horsepower to generate that kind of, er, 'juice', considering there are thousands of them with multiple billions, albeit, most of it off-shore.

There is no need for this 'hand-waving' (mostly so a few can be rich.) I belabor the obvious when I opine that capitalism has crashed and burned but nobody knows how to replace it...well , I know but those in power would rather continue to fiddle while the world crumbles under it's own growing toxicity than embrace desperately needed change.

I'll exit the soapbox now, no doubt somebody needs the wood.

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Georgee is, I think, quite right in noting "that capitalism has crashed and burned but nobody knows how to replace it." I also am sure that most of us have no idea that our debt/extractive model no longer works.

I was just sitting down to write on that genral topic when Gail Tverberg's latest - Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle (see ref on the left) dropped onto my desk.

Gegner said...

Merci and thanks for the heads up, I'll give it a read!

Tulsatime said...

CKM- Glad to see to read Gail's work in addition to linking to it!

Over the years, she has convinced me that all this fuss and bother in the world at large is, indeed, linked to the Oil biddness. That may be my own weakness to want to see unifying trends in the background, but what they hey, they seem to be there to me!

I'm waiting to see if the big dust up kicks off between the Saudi's and the Persian's, or if the Turks manage to really tweak the Russians. There seems to be no end to the potential conflicts you can imagine with all the chaos kicking up anywhere we look.

Sometimes I think the race for POTUS is a calming refuge in comparison to the world situation. I can't even begin to contemplate a Trump campaign, much less a presidency. On the other side I can't imagine HRC surviving her supporters long enough to get elected. What fun!

once again, the curse of interesting times is upon us....

Anonymous said...

Sovereign money: Money isn't enough by far, that's one lesson Sec. Clinton and Pres. Obama have taught every little country, whether the new democracy of Haiti or the dictator in Korea. Expect a lot more sales for nuclear centrifuges. Anyone who thinks Iran is giving up it's program it nuts. Obama just decided it was more profitable for him and his friends to not pick a war that would end quickly and not in our favor, vs one that drags on and on at a slow bake.

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2016/01/north-koreas-h-bomb-no-ado-about.html